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Abstract: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) makes use of the interactions between atomic nuclei and an external, strong, magnetic field to image the distribution of these nuclei through a substance. In this study, proton MRI has been used to indicate the presence of oil in sediment. Using a multiecho spin-echo acquisition sequence, images of relative oil density, and hence concentration, and of the magnetic resonance relaxation rate, T 2, were produced. T 2, which is greatly influenced by molecular motion, was equated to binding between the oil and the sediment, thus, providing an almost real-time “description” of all aspects of the oil–sediment interaction including motion of the oil. The interactions among three sediments from the Tay Estuary (East Coast of Scotland) and three crude oils (Fulmar, Forties and Venezuelan) are discussed. Observation of changes in images of oil density and changes in T 2, using spread sheets, allow both rates of diffusion of the oil into the sediment and changes in the binding of the oil to the sediment to be calculated. Both the Forties and Fulmar oils move more rapidly than the Venezuelan oil in all of the sediments examined, while the strength of binding is sediment dependent. Thus, the ability of MRI to distinguish between the rates of flow of the oils into the sediment and the strengths of interaction between the various sediments and oils is demonstrated. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article focuses on the role of non-State actors at the nexus of international and national law. It illustrates the pivotal role non-State actors can play in the implementation of international obligations and highlights the fact that the traditional dichotomy of national and international law can not fully portray the reality of implementation. It also illustrates the effects of path dependency on implementation. That is the effect whereby once the implementation process has begun, information entering the process automatically shapes the outcome by increasing the costs associated with considering alternative, and as yet undisclosed, information. Thus the option considered first in the implementation process is likely to be the one adopted merely because it entered the arena first. The article uses a Realist lens to examine a case study of the activities of particular non-State actors as the framework for the analysis of the relationship between the two systems of law. It is based on an empirical study that focused on the actions of a particular group of non-State actors – the Sustainable Urban Drainage Scottish Working Party and its members – and their activities in relation to the development of measures to control diffuse pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the application of the sociological imagination during the analysis of data collected during an ethnographic study of an environmental regulator, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). SEPA is tasked with implementing the European Water Framework Directive in Scotland, which will radically alter the regulation of water use. Applying a sociological imagination allowed the researcher to advocate for a more interdisciplinary and equitable understanding of sustainable water use when feeding back initial research results at the end of the data collection period. The researchers introduced socialized definitions of the environment, which linked social justice and ecological concerns. These insights provided a challenge to the traditional bio-physical science focus of the organizational participants, for whom sustainability is a relatively new addition to their duties. Social science perspectives, such as sociology, are central to facilitating this shift in environmental regulation, particularly as the collaborative approach described above requires increasing attention to the social, political and economic contexts in which environmental regulation takes place.