3,723 research outputs found

    Beyond Traditional Notions of Transitional Justice: How Trials, Truth Commissions, and Other Tools for Accountability Can and Should Work Together

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    Civil conflicts marked by human rights violations leave devastated communities in their wake. The international community has an interest in assuring that justice is done, an interest which the recent establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) confirms. The authors argue the ICC should be augmented by additional mechanisms to bear the burden of doing justice and reconstructing communities after such civil conflicts. This Article explores the potential tensions among such mechanisms, including national human rights trials, truth commissions, and community-based gacaca, and emphasizes the importance of consult-ing victims in resolving these tensions. The authors conclude that the ICC should take the lead in coordinating the different mechanisms discussed in the Article as part of post-conflict reconstruction

    Electric Field Gradients at 57Fe in ZnFe2O4 and CdFe2O4

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    The nuclear quadrupole coupling constants and isomer shifts of 57Fe in the spinels ZnFe2O4 and CdFe2O4 were measured using the Mössbauer effect. The signs of the quadrupole coupling constants were determined from spectra which were taken in an applied magnetic field. The sign is negative in both spinels. The isomer shifts and Fe☒O distances indicate that Fe3+ in ZnFe2O4 is somewhat more covalently bonded than in CdFe2O4. The external field gradients at the Fe3+ positions can be interpreted in terms of the ionic point‐multipole model modified by some charge transfer between oxygen and the cations. The point charge contribution to the field gradient is positive in case of ZnFe2O4 and nearly zero in case of CdFe2O4; the predominant contribution is due to the electric dipole moments of the oxygen ions and is negative. The dipole polarizability of the oxygen ion which gave the best fit is αD = 0.8 Å3αD=0.8Å3. The effect of charge transfer on the ionic field gradient is small.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/70992/2/JCPSA6-55-11-5282-1.pd

    Phase Separation in Charge-Stabilized Colloidal Suspensions: Influence of Nonlinear Screening

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    The phase behavior of charge-stabilized colloidal suspensions is modeled by a combination of response theory for electrostatic interparticle interactions and variational theory for free energies. Integrating out degrees of freedom of the microions (counterions, salt ions), the macroion-microion mixture is mapped onto a one-component system governed by effective macroion interactions. Linear response of microions to the electrostatic potential of the macroions results in a screened-Coulomb (Yukawa) effective pair potential and a one-body volume energy, while nonlinear response modifies the effective interactions [A. R. Denton, \PR E {\bf 70}, 031404 (2004)]. The volume energy and effective pair potential are taken as input to a variational free energy, based on thermodynamic perturbation theory. For both linear and first-order nonlinear effective interactions, a coexistence analysis applied to aqueous suspensions of highly charged macroions and monovalent microions yields bulk separation of macroion-rich and macroion-poor phases below a critical salt concentration, in qualitative agreement with predictions of related linearized theories [R. van Roij, M. Dijkstra, and J.-P. Hansen, \PR E {\bf 59}, 2010 (1999); P. B. Warren, \JCP {\bf 112}, 4683 (2000)]. It is concluded that nonlinear screening can modify phase behavior but does not necessarily suppress bulk phase separation of deionized suspensions.Comment: 14 pages of text + 9 figure

    Optical Control of Field-Emission Sites by Femtosecond Laser Pulses

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    We have investigated field emission patterns from a clean tungsten tip apex induced by femtosecond laser pulses. Strongly asymmetric modulations of the field emission intensity distributions are observed depending on the polarization of the light and the laser incidence direction relative to the azimuthal orientation of tip apex. In effect, we have realized an ultrafast pulsed field-emission source with site selectivity on the 10 nm scale. Simulations of local fields on the tip apex and of electron emission patterns based on photo-excited nonequilibrium electron distributions explain our observations quantitatively.Comment: 4 pages, submitted to Physical Review Letter

    Cocaine/Levamisole-Induced, Skin-Limited ANCA-Associated Vasculitis with Pyoderma Gangrenosum-like Presentation

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    The use of levamisole as the most frequent adulterant of cocaine has merged in previously unknown toxicities, notably a disease entity called cocaine/levamisole-associated autoimmune syndrome (CLAAS). Clinically, CLAAS can manifest with diverse cutaneous and extracutaneous features sharing common laboratory findings (neutropenia, autoantibody patterns). We report the case of a cocaine-abusing female patient with relapsing episodes of painful ulcers, worsening and expanding over a three-year period. The case exhibited all features of a drug-induced, skin-limited, ANCA-associated vasculitis, evolving over time to PG-like findings. In both disease stages, the patient responded well to the cessation of cocaine exposure and systemic glucocorticosteroids. This case demonstrates the continuous nature of cutaneous CLAAS manifestations in a single patient. CLAAS has become a major public health issue in the at-risk group of cocaine users, and clinicians should be alert of this condition when treating cocaine users presenting with single or multiple skin ulcerations

    Unifying Parsimonious Tree Reconciliation

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    Evolution is a process that is influenced by various environmental factors, e.g. the interactions between different species, genes, and biogeographical properties. Hence, it is interesting to study the combined evolutionary history of multiple species, their genes, and the environment they live in. A common approach to address this research problem is to describe each individual evolution as a phylogenetic tree and construct a tree reconciliation which is parsimonious with respect to a given event model. Unfortunately, most of the previous approaches are designed only either for host-parasite systems, for gene tree/species tree reconciliation, or biogeography. Hence, a method is desirable, which addresses the general problem of mapping phylogenetic trees and covering all varieties of coevolving systems, including e.g., predator-prey and symbiotic relationships. To overcome this gap, we introduce a generalized cophylogenetic event model considering the combinatorial complete set of local coevolutionary events. We give a dynamic programming based heuristic for solving the maximum parsimony reconciliation problem in time O(n^2), for two phylogenies each with at most n leaves. Furthermore, we present an exact branch-and-bound algorithm which uses the results from the dynamic programming heuristic for discarding partial reconciliations. The approach has been implemented as a Java application which is freely available from http://pacosy.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/coresym.Comment: Peer-reviewed and presented as part of the 13th Workshop on Algorithms in Bioinformatics (WABI2013

    Theoretical and computational study of high pressure structures in barium

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    Recent high pressure work has suggested that elemental barium forms a high pressure self-hosting structure (Ba IV) involving two `types' of barium atom. Uniquely among reported elemental structures it cannot be described by a single crystalline lattice, instead involving two interpenetrating incommensurate lattices. In this letter we report pseudopotential calculations demonstrating the stability and the potentially disordered nature of the `guest' structure. Using band structures and nearly-free electron theory we relate the appearance of Ba IV to an instability in the close-packed structure, demonstrate that it has a zero energy vibrational mode, and speculate about the structure's stability in other divalent elements.Comment: 4 pages and 5 figures. To appear in PR
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