Discovery From Non-Parties (Third-Party Discovery) in International Arbitration

International arbitration rules and many arbitration laws usually provide procedures that permit tribunals to order parties to disclose documents and other materials to the other parties.1 More complex are the rules that determine opportunities to obtain discovery from persons that are not party to the arbitration (third-party discovery). This article will review third-party discovery under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and the provisions of the US Code s.1782 that authorise US courts to act in aid of actions before foreign tribunals. Section 1782 has unique interest at this time because it figured prominently in the EU antitrust investigation of Intel that was initiated on request from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Early in that investigation, AMD filed a s.1782 request in the US District Court to obtain evidence from US sources for submission to the DG-Competition of the European Commission (EC). This request ultimately led to the Supreme Court’s decision in Intel Corp v Advanced Micro Devices Inc2 which appeared to significantly expand the scope of s.1782. Ironically, after AMD won on key legal issues in the Supreme Court, the District Court on remand exercised its discretion and denied the request for judicial assistance. This paper first describes the FAA non-party discovery rules and the split among the federal appellate courts concerning the authority of arbitrators to order prehearing discovery from non-parties. Next, it provides an analysis of the meaning of the terms “interested party” and “tribunal”—terms that were controversially interpreted by the Supreme Court in Intel and are essential to the application of s.1782. Finally, it discusses the “discretionary” factors used by the federal courts in deciding whether to grant a s.1782 request even when the statutory criteria are met. The opportunity to exercise this discretion seems to rebut the argument that the Supreme Court’s interpretation of s.1782 gives participants before foreign tribunals more discovery rights in the United States than are available to the parties in arbitrations covered by the FAA

Chondrosarcoma: With Updates on Molecular Genetics

Chondrosarcoma (CHS) is a malignant cartilage-forming tumor and usually occurs within the medullary canal of long bones and pelvic bones. Based on the morphologic feature alone, a correct diangosis of CHS may be difficult, Therefore, correlation of radiological and clinicopathological features is mandatory in the diagnosis of CHS. The prognosis of CHS is closely related to histologic grading, however, histologic grading may be subjective with high inter-observer variability. In this paper, we present histologic grading system and clinicopathological and radiological findings of conventional CHS. Subtypes of CHSs, such as dedifferentiated, mesenchymal, and clear cell CHSs are also presented. In addition, we introduce updated cytogenetic and molecular genetic findings to expand our understanding of CHS biology. New markers of cell differentiation, proliferation, and cell signaling might offer important therapeutic and prognostic information in near future

Global Ultrasound Elastography Using Convolutional Neural Network

Displacement estimation is very important in ultrasound elastography and failing to estimate displacement correctly results in failure in generating strain images. As conventional ultrasound elastography techniques suffer from decorrelation noise, they are prone to fail in estimating displacement between echo signals obtained during tissue distortions. This study proposes a novel elastography technique which addresses the decorrelation in estimating displacement field. We call our method GLUENet (GLobal Ultrasound Elastography Network) which uses deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to get a coarse time-delay estimation between two ultrasound images. This displacement is later used for formulating a nonlinear cost function which incorporates similarity of RF data intensity and prior information of estimated displacement. By optimizing this cost function, we calculate the finer displacement by exploiting all the information of all the samples of RF data simultaneously. The Contrast to Noise Ratio (CNR) and Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of the strain images from our technique is very much close to that of strain images from GLUE. While most elastography algorithms are sensitive to parameter tuning, our robust algorithm is substantially less sensitive to parameter tuning.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; added acknowledgment section, submission type late

Induction of Apoptosis by Methyl Alcohol Extract of Enteromorpha linza (Linnaeus) J Agardh in U937 Human Leukemia Cells

Purpose: To investigate the anti-cancer effect of methyl alcohol extract of Enteromorpha linza (Linnaeus) J. Agardh (MEEL) in U937 human leukemia cells.Methods: Cytotoxicity was evaluated by 3-(4,5-dimethyl-2-thiazolyl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. Apoptosis was detected using 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) staining, agarose gel electrophoresis, and flow cytometry. Protein levels were determined by Western blot analysis. Caspase activity was measured spectrophotometrically at 405 nm.Results: MEEL inhibited U937 cell proliferation and induced apoptosis through up-regulation of death receptor-related gene expression, caspase-8 activation and truncation of Bid, which was associated with the loss of mitochondrial membrane potential. Subsequently, the levels of anti-apoptotic proteins such as Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL, and IAP family proteins decreased but those of pro-apoptotic proteins including Bax and Bad increased in MEEL-treated U937 cells. MEEL treatment also resulted in activation of caspase-9 and -3 as well as concomitant cleavage of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase and phopholipase Cγ-1. However, pretreatment of U937 cells with z-VAD-fmk, a pan caspase inhibitor, abrogated chromatin condensation and DNA fragmentation and prevented cell death induced by the MEEL.Conclusion: The findings suggest that MEEL induced apoptosis in U937 cells through a signaling cascade of death-receptor-mediated extrinsic as well as mitochondria-mediated intrinsic pathways, thus raising the possibility that MEEL may be of value in the development of novel therapeutic approaches for treating leukemia.Keywords: Enteromorpha linza, Apoptosis, Caspase, U937 cell

Benchmark performance of low-cost Sb2Se3 photocathodes for unassisted solar overall water splitting

Determining cost-effective semiconductors exhibiting desirable properties for commercial photoelectrochemical water splitting remains a challenge. Herein, we report a Sb2Se3 semiconductor that satisfies most requirements for an ideal high-performance photoelectrode, including a small band gap and favourable cost, optoelectronic properties, processability, and photocorrosion stability. Strong anisotropy, a major issue for Sb2Se3, is resolved by suppressing growth kinetics via close space sublimation to obtain high-quality compact thin films with favourable crystallographic orientation. The Sb2Se3 photocathode exhibits a high photocurrent density of almost 30mAcm(-2) at 0V against the reversible hydrogen electrode, the highest value so far. We demonstrate unassisted solar overall water splitting by combining the optimised Sb2Se3 photocathode with a BiVO4 photoanode, achieving a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 1.5% with stability over 10h under simulated 1 sun conditions employing a broad range of solar fluxes. Low-cost Sb2Se3 can thus be an attractive breakthrough material for commercial solar fuel production. While photoelectrochemical water splitting offers an integrated means to convert sunlight to a renewable fuel, cost-effective light-absorbers are rare. Here, authors report Sb2Se3 photocathodes for high-performance photoelectrochemical water splitting devices

Determination of Elastic Constants by Line-Focus V(Z) Measurements of Multiple Saw Modes

Line focus acoustic microscopy (LFAM) provides a method to determine the elastic constants of homogeneous materials and thin-film/substrate configurations, see Refs. [1–5]. The elastic constants are determined from the velocities of surface acoustic waves, which are obtained from measurement of the V(z) curve. Generally more than one elastic constant has to be determined. It is interesting to note that the procurement of sufficient data is sometimes more complicated for isotropic materials. For anisotropic solids the velocity can be measured as a function of the angle defining the propagation direction in the surface to yield a sufficiently large data set. For thin-film/substrate configurations measurements at various frequencies or for different film thickness may be carried out to obtain sufficient data. There are, however, obvious advantages to work with a single specimen and at a single frequency. This can be done by considering the contributions of more than one leaky SAW mode to the V(z) curve

Superconductivity in Cu_xTiSe_2

Charge density waves (CDWs) are periodic modulations of the conduction electron density in solids. They are collective states that arise from intrinsic instabilities often present in low dimensional electronic systems. The layered dichalcogenides are the most well-studied examples, with TiSe_2 one of the first CDW-bearing materials known. The competition between CDW and superconducting collective electronic states at low temperatures has long been held and explored, and yet no chemical system has been previously reported where finely controlled chemical tuning allows this competition to be studied in detail. Here we report how, upon controlled intercalation of TiSe_2 with Cu to yield Cu_xTiSe_2, the CDW transition is continuously suppressed, and a new superconducting state emerges near x = 0.04, with a maximum T_c of 4.15 K found at x = 0.08. Cu_xTiSe_2 thus provides the first opportunity to study the CDW to Superconductivity transition in detail through an easily-controllable chemical parameter, and will provide new insights into the behavior of correlated electron systems.Comment: Accepted to Nature Physic

Counterflow dielectrophoresis for trypanosome enrichment and detection in blood

Human African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness is a deadly disease endemic in sub-Saharan Africa, caused by single-celled protozoan parasites. Although it has been targeted for elimination by 2020, this will only be realized if diagnosis can be improved to enable identification and treatment of afflicted patients. Existing techniques of detection are restricted by their limited field-applicability, sensitivity and capacity for automation. Microfluidic-based technologies offer the potential for highly sensitive automated devices that could achieve detection at the lowest levels of parasitemia and consequently help in the elimination programme. In this work we implement an electrokinetic technique for the separation of trypanosomes from both mouse and human blood. This technique utilises differences in polarisability between the blood cells and trypanosomes to achieve separation through opposed bi-directional movement (cell counterflow). We combine this enrichment technique with an automated image analysis detection algorithm, negating the need for a human operator