Don\u27t Tread on Me: Has the United States Government\u27s Quest for Customer Records from UBS Sounded the Death Knell for Swiss Bank Secrecy Laws

Privacy protection is a defining characteristic of Swiss culture and a pillar of the Swiss economy. For centuries, the Swiss people have coveted the principles of individual privacy, regularly reaffirming those principles in response to referendums designed to limit them. Swiss banking secrecy, one aspect of privacy, is protected by Swiss criminal and civil laws and professional duties. Swiss banks pride themselves on protecting customer identity and have leveraged their legal and cultural commitment to secrecy to gain a competitive advantage in the global banking market. This brief Article discusses the Swiss banking laws that prohibit a Swiss bank from disclosing client information even if those Swiss laws are at odds with United States law. The Article then provides an overview of the UBS matter. Finally, the Article briefly analyzes the UBS dispute over the account information under a conflicts of law framework to hypothesize on the outcome had the matter been decided by the court. Analyzing the UBS dispute may prove useful in predicting the outcome of inevitable future disputes between the United States government and global banks over confidential client information

The Covariant Approach to LRS Perfect Fluid Spacetime Geometries

The dynamics of perfect fluid spacetime geometries which exhibit {\em Local Rotational Symmetry} (LRS) are reformulated in the language of a $1+\,3$ "threading" decomposition of the spacetime manifold, where covariant fluid and curvature variables are used. This approach presents a neat alternative to the orthonormal frame formalism. The dynamical equations reduce to a set of differential relations between purely scalar quantities. The consistency conditions are worked out in a transparent way. We discuss their various subcases in detail and focus in particular on models with higher symmetries within the class of expanding spatially inhomogeneous LRS models, via a consideration of functional dependencies between the dynamical variables.Comment: 25 pages, uuencoded/compressed postscript fil

Distinct patterns of brain activity in young carriers of the APOE-ε4 allele

The APOE ε4 allele is a risk factor for late-life pathological changes that is also associated with anatomical and functional brain changes in middle-aged and elderly healthy subjects. We investigated structural and functional effects of the APOE polymorphism in 18 young healthy APOE ε4-carriers and 18 matched noncarriers (age range: 20–35 years). Brain activity was studied both at rest and during an encoding memory paradigm using blood oxygen level-dependent fMRI. Resting fMRI revealed increased “default mode network” (involving retrosplenial, medial temporal, and medial-prefrontal cortical areas) coactivation in ε4-carriers relative to noncarriers. The encoding task produced greater hippocampal activation in ε4-carriers relative to noncarriers. Neither result could be explained by differences in memory performance, brain morphology, or resting cerebral blood flow. The APOE ε4 allele modulates brain function decades before any clinical or neurophysiological expression of neurodegenerative processes

Conformational Studies of Poly(9,9-dialkylfluorene)s in Solution Using NMR Spectroscopy and Density Functional Theory Calculations

Relationships have been obtained between intermonomer torsional angle and NMR chemical shifts (1H and 13C) for isolated chains of two of the most important poly(9,9-dialkylfluorenes), poly[9,9-bis(2-ethylhexyl)fluorene-2,7-diyl] (PF2/6) and the copolymer poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene-co-[2,1,3]benzothiadiazole-4,7-diyl) (F8BT), using DFT calculations. The correlations provide a model for NMR spectral data interpretation and the basis for analysis of conformational changes in poly(9,9-dialkylfluorene-2,7-diyl)s. The correlations obtained for PF2/6 indicate that the 13C chemical shifts of the aromatic carbons close to the intermonomer connection (C1, C2, and C3) have minimum values at planar conformations (0° and 180°) and maximum values at 90° conformations. In contrast, the 1H chemical shifts of the corresponding aromatic ortho protons (Ha and Hb) are greatest for planar conformations, and the minimum values are seen for 90° conformations. For the F8BT copolymer, similar relationships are observed for the 1H (Ha, Hb, and Hc) aromatic shifts. Considering the aromatic carbons of F8BT, the behavior of C2, C4, C5, and C6 is similar to that found for the PF2/6 carbons. However, C1 and C3 of the fluorene moiety behave differently with varying torsion angle. These are in close proximity to the fluorene−benzothiadiazole linkage and are markedly affected by interactions with the thiadiazole unit such that δC1 is a maximum for 180° and a minimum for 0°, whereas δC3 is a maximum for 0° and minimum for 180°. We have studied the 1H and 13C spectra of the two polymers at temperatures between −50 °C and +65 °C. The observed changes to higher or lower frequency in the aromatic resonances were analyzed using these theoretical relationships. Fluorescence studies on PF2/6 in chloroform solution suggest there are no significant interchain interactions under these conditions. This is supported by variable-temperature NMR results. Polymer−solvent and polymer intramolecular interactions were found to be present and influence all of the alkylic and one of the aromatic 1H resonances (Hb). The detailed attribution of the 1H and 13C NMR spectra of the two polymers was made prior to the establishment of the relationships between torsion angle and NMR chemical shifts. This was carried out through DFT calculation of the 1H and 13C shielding constants of the monomers, coupled with distortionless enhancement by polarization transfer and heteronuclear correlation NMR spectra. Several DFT levels of calculation were tested for both optimization of structures and shielding constants calculation. The B3LYP/6-31G(d,p) method was found to perform well in both cases

Future scenarios and the impact of socio-technologies (a transnational perspective from the global ‘north’)

The article opens by briefly reviewing studies of sexuality in and around organizations from the 1970s. These studies showed considerable theoretical, empirical and conceptual development, as in the concept of organization sexuality. Building on this, the article’s first task is to analyse alternative future scenarios for organization sexualities, by way of changing intersections of gender, sexuality and organizational forms. Possible gendered future scenarios are outlined based on, first, gender equality/inequality and, second, gender similarity/difference between women, men and further genders: hyper-patriarchy scenario—men and women becoming more divergent; with greater inequality; late capitalist gender scenario—genders becoming more convergent, with greater inequality; bi-polar scenario—men and women becoming more divergent, with greater equality; postgender scenario—genders becoming more convergent, with greater equality. Somewhat similar scenarios for organization sexualities are elaborated in terms of gender/sexual equality and inequality and sexual/gender similarity and difference: heteropatriarchies scenario—greater sexual/gender difference and greater sexual or sexual/gender inequality; late capitalist sexual scenario—greater sexual/gender similarity and greater sexual or gender/sexual inequality; sexual differentiation scenario—greater sexual/gender difference and greater sexual or sexual/gender equality; sexual blurring scenario—greater sexual/gender similarity and greater sexual or sexual/gender equality. The article’s second task is to addresses the impact of globalizations and transnationalizations, specifically information and communication technologies and other socio-technologies, for future scenarios of organization sexualities. The characteristic affordances of ICTs—technological control, virtual reproducibility, conditional communality, unfinished undecidability—are mapped onto the four scenarios above and the implications outlined