Redesigning the European Court of Human Rights: Embeddedness as a Deep Structural Principle of the European Human Rights Regime

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is the crown jewel of the world’s most advanced international system for protecting civil and political liberties. In recent years, however, the ECHR has become a victim of its own success. The Court now faces a docket crisis of massive proportions, the consequence of the growing number of states subject to its jurisdiction, its favourable public reputation, its expansive interpretations of individual liberties, a distrust of domestic judiciaries in some countries, and entrenched human rights problems in others. In response to this growing backlog of individual complaints, the Council of Europe has, over the last five years, considered numerous proposals to restructure the European human rights regime and redesign the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This article argues that these proposals should be understood not as ministerial changes in supranational judicial procedure, nor as resolving a debate over whether the ECHR should strive for individual or constitutional justice, but rather as raising more fundamental questions concerning the Court’s future identity. In particular, the article argues for recognition of ‘ embeddedness ’ in national legal systems as a deep structural principle of the ECHR, a principle that functions as a necessary counterpoint to the subsidiary doctrine that has animated the Convention since its founding. Embeddedness does not substitute ECHR rulings for the decisions of national parliaments or domestic courts. Rather, it requires the Council of Europe and the Court to bolster the mechanisms for governments to remedy human rights violations at home, obviating the need for individuals to seek supranational relief and restoring countries to a position in which the ECHR’s deference to national decision-makers is appropriate

Dark Matter In Minimal Trinification

We study an example of Grand Unified Theory (GUT), known as trinification, which was first introduced in 1984 by S.Glashow. This model has the GUT gauge group as $[SU(3)]^3$ with a discrete $\mathbb{Z}_3$ to ensure the couplings are unified at the GUT scale. In this letter we consider this trinification model in its minimal formulation and investigate its robustness in the context of cosmology. In particular we show that for a large set of the parameter space the model doesn't seem to provide a Dark Matter candidate compatible with cosmological data.Comment: To appear in the LXXXVI session of the "Les Houches" summer school. 9 pages, 2 graph

Matrix Structure Exploitation in Generalized Eigenproblems Arising in Density Functional Theory

In this short paper, the authors report a new computational approach in the context of Density Functional Theory (DFT). It is shown how it is possible to speed up the self-consistent cycle (iteration) characterizing one of the most well-known DFT implementations: FLAPW. Generating the Hamiltonian and overlap matrices and solving the associated generalized eigenproblems $Ax = \lambda Bx$ constitute the two most time-consuming fractions of each iteration. Two promising directions, implementing the new methodology, are presented that will ultimately improve the performance of the generalized eigensolver and save computational time.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of 8th International Conference on Numerical Analysis and Applied Mathematics (ICNAAM 2010

Alien Registration- Di Mauro, George (Portland, Cumberland County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/21720/thumbnail.jp

Alien Registration- Di Mauro, George (Portland, Cumberland County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/21720/thumbnail.jp

Tactile Thresholds are Preserved yet Cortical Sensory Function is Impaired in Chronic Non-Specific Low Back Pain Patients

Introduction: A substantial amount of evidence points to an alteration in brain structure and function patients with chronic non-specific low back pain (CNSLBP) [1-6]. One interpretation of these findings is that the observed brain changes may represent a disruption of the brain’s representations of the body part and the resultant body perception disturbance may underpin this clinical problem. The current study aimed to investigate sensory dysfunction in CNSLBP. Specifically we aimed to distinguish cortically mediated sensory dysfunction from peripheral dysfunction by comparing simple tactile thresholds with more complex cortically mediated sensory tests Methods: We investigated tactile thresholds (TTH), two point discrimination (TPD) and graphaesthesia over the lumbar spine of 19 CLBP patients and 19 age and sex matched healthy controls as a way of investigating whether CLBP patients present with a perceptual disturbance of their lumbar spine. Differences in performance of the sensory tests was explored using the Mann Whitney U Test and one-way between groups multivariate analysis of variance. Results: We found no difference in tactile threshold between the two groups (P=.0.751). There was a statistically significant difference between controls and LBP for TPD: F(1,36)=10.15, p=.003 and letter error rate: F(1, 36)=6.54 p=0.015. The data indicate that LBP patients had a larger lumbar TPD distance and a greater letter recognition error rate. Discussion: Both TPD and graphaesthesia are dependant on the integrity of the primary sensory cortex [7]. These data support existing findings of perceptual abnormality in chronic back pain [8] and the preservation of tactile thresholds is suggestive of cortical rather than peripheral sensory dysfunction. Amelioration of these abnormalities may present a target for therapeutic intervention

On the head: the true impact of routine head strikes in sport

Published research suggests a potential link between repetitive subconcussive head impacts and alterations in brain function. The results, however, are ambiguous due to the lack of direct evidence for this relationship. A non-invasive brain stimulation technique (transcranial magnetic stimulation, TMS) can detect changes to brain function following mild, moderate and severe brain trauma; yet, no data exist on its effectiveness in detecting subconcussion-related alterations. As such, the overall aim of this thesis is to determine whether TMS is able to detect acute changes in brain function as a result of repetitive subconcussive head impacts (RSHIs). Chapter 1 highlights techniques with potential to detect brain alterations following subconcussive, and concussive head impacts. TMS was identified as a possible tool for detecting such changes. Chapter 2 demonstrated primary and secondary outcome measures corticomotor inhibition and corticospinal excitability, respectively, to have good overall day-to-day reliability. Subsequently, corticomotor inhibition was transiently increased following two separate RSHI models (soccer heading in chapter 3, and sparring in chapter 4). Further, motor unit recruitment was also altered following sparring. Corticospinal excitability and postural control were unchanged in both studies, whilst parameters of cognitive function appeared altered in the immediate follow-ups. These data indicate that RSHIs are associated with measurable, albeit transient alterations to brain function. Chapter 5 further corroborates the notion that brain alterations in chapters 3 and 4 were due to RSHIs, by showing that corticomotor inhibition and corticospinal excitability are largely unaffected by the sole act of performing exercise. No alterations were also observed in the last experimental chapter; the pilot study explored the feasibility of using TMS in detecting alterations following cumulative exposure to RSHIs. This thesis is the first to provide direct evidence for a relationship between RSHIs and brain alterations. The data suggest that subconcussive head impacts, routine in a number of sports, may impair the brain’s ability to control the body (in turn increasing the risk of injury) as well as affecting overall brain health