The Impact of the Security Council on the Efficacy of the International Criminal Court and the Responsibility to Protect

This article argues that the manner in which the Security Council inhibits the consistent application of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and International Criminal Court (ICC) referrals reinforces their power in the international order without creating long term peace and stability. The Security Council’s discretionary powers allow it to subjectively determine which situations to address and which lawbreakers to prosecute; this consolidates, and indeed expands, the power of the Security Council in relation to other agents of international law. As a result, international cooperation to protect and promote human rights and punish human rights violators is currently impeded. This article argues that those concerned with the consistent enforcement of international human rights law, and the punishment of human rights violators, must accept the need for reforms to the current international order that would allow a better integration of R2P and the ICC into international law and practice. Our reforms – advanced in the form of general principles taken from legal theory – propose altering the Security Council’s powers and developing new judicial structures to enable the more consistent application of international lawPostprintPeer reviewe

Electron-phonon and electron-electron interactions in organic field effect transistors

Recent experiments have demonstrated that the performances of organic FETs strongly depend on the dielectric properties of the gate insulator. In particular, it has been shown that the temperature dependence of the mobility evolves from a metallic-like to an insulating behavior upon increasing the dielectric constant of the gate material. This phenomenon can be explained in terms of the formation of small polarons, due to the polar interaction of the charge carriers with the phonons at the organic/dielectric interface. Building on this model, the possible consequences of the Coulomb repulsion between the carriers at high concentrations are analyzed.Comment: proceedings of the SMEC'07 conference, submitted to the Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solid

Generation of entangled states of two atoms inside a leaky cavity

An in-depth theoretical study is carried out to examine the quasi-deterministic entanglement of two atoms inside a leaky cavity. Two $\Lambda$-type three-level atoms, initially in their ground states, may become maximally entangled through the interaction with a single photon. By working out an exact analytic solution, we show that the probability of success depends crucially on the spectral function of the injected photon. With a cavity photon, one can generate a maximally entangled state with a certain probability that is always less than 50%. However, for an injected photon with a narrower spectral width, this probability can be significantly increased. In particular, we discover situations in which entanglement can be achieved in a single trial with an almost unit probability

The closest elastic tensor of arbitrary symmetry to an elasticity tensor of lower symmetry

The closest tensors of higher symmetry classes are derived in explicit form for a given elasticity tensor of arbitrary symmetry. The mathematical problem is to minimize the elastic length or distance between the given tensor and the closest elasticity tensor of the specified symmetry. Solutions are presented for three distance functions, with particular attention to the Riemannian and log-Euclidean distances. These yield solutions that are invariant under inversion, i.e., the same whether elastic stiffness or compliance are considered. The Frobenius distance function, which corresponds to common notions of Euclidean length, is not invariant although it is simple to apply using projection operators. A complete description of the Euclidean projection method is presented. The three metrics are considered at a level of detail far greater than heretofore, as we develop the general framework to best fit a given set of moduli onto higher elastic symmetries. The procedures for finding the closest elasticity tensor are illustrated by application to a set of 21 moduli with no underlying symmetry.Comment: 48 pages, 1 figur

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Evidence for PTGER4, PSCA, and MBOAT7 as risk genes for gastric cancer on the genome and transcriptome level

Genetic associations between variants on chromosome 5p13 and 8q24 and gastric cancer (GC) have been previously reported in the Asian population. We aimed to replicate these findings and to characterize the associations at the genome and transcriptome level. We performed a fine-mapping association study in 1926 GC patients and 2012 controls of European descent using high dense SNP marker sets on both chromosomal regions. Next, we performed expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) analyses using gastric transcriptome data from 143 individuals focusing on the GC associated variants. On chromosome 5p13 the strongest association was observed at rs6872282 (P = 2.53 × 10-04) and on chromosome 8q24 at rs2585176 (P = 1.09 × 10-09). On chromosome 5p13 we found cis-eQTL effects with an upregulation of PTGER4 expression in GC risk allele carrier (P = 9.27 × 10-11). On chromosome 8q24 we observed cis-eQTL effects with an upregulation of PSCA expression in GC risk allele carrier (P = 2.17 × 10-47). In addition, we found trans-eQTL effects for the same variants on 8q24 with a downregulation of MBOAT7 expression in GC risk allele carrier (P = 3.11 × 10-09). In summary, we confirmed and refined the previously reported GC associations at both chromosomal regions. Our data point to shared etiological factors between Asians and Europeans. Furthermore, our data imply an upregulated expression of PTGER4 and PSCA as well as a downregulated expression of MBOAT7 in gastric tissue as risk-conferring GC pathomechanisms

The <i>Ectocarpus</i> genome and the independent evolution of multicellularity in brown algae

Brown algae (Phaeophyceae) are complex photosynthetic organisms with a very different evolutionary history to green plants, to which they are only distantly related1. These seaweeds are the dominant species in rocky coastal ecosystems and they exhibit many interesting adaptations to these, often harsh, environments. Brown algae are also one of only a small number of eukaryotic lineages that have evolved complex multicellularity (Fig. 1).We report the 214 million base pair (Mbp) genome sequence of the filamentous seaweed Ectocarpus siliculosus (Dillwyn) Lyngbye, a model organism for brown algae, closely related to the kelps (Fig. 1). Genome features such as the presence of an extended set of light-harvesting and pigment biosynthesis genes and new metabolic processes such as halide metabolism help explain the ability of this organism to cope with the highly variable tidal environment. The evolution of multicellularity in this lineage is correlated with the presence of a rich array of signal transduction genes. Of particular interest is the presence of a family of receptor kinases, as the independent evolution of related molecules has been linked with the emergence of multicellularity in both the animal and green plant lineages. The Ectocarpus genome sequence represents an important step towards developing this organism as a model species, providing the possibility to combine genomic and genetic2 approaches to explore these and other aspects of brown algal biology further

The upgrade of the ALICE TPC with GEMs and continuous readout

The upgrade of the ALICE TPC will allow the experiment to cope with the high interaction rates foreseen for the forthcoming Run 3 and Run 4 at the CERN LHC. In this article, we describe the design of new readout chambers and front-end electronics, which are driven by the goals of the experiment. Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) detectors arranged in stacks containing four GEMs each, and continuous readout electronics based on the SAMPA chip, an ALICE development, are replacing the previous elements. The construction of these new elements, together with their associated quality control procedures, is explained in detail. Finally, the readout chamber and front-end electronics cards replacement, together with the commissioning of the detector prior to installation in the experimental cavern, are presented. After a nine-year period of R&D, construction, and assembly, the upgrade of the TPC was completed in 2020.publishedVersio