Human rights and armed conflicts: On the 500th anniversary of the birth of Las Casas (1474-1874-1974)

The author of the article printed below is Vice-President of the Institute of International Law and had attended the 1949 Diplomatic Conference in Geneva as a delegate. In October 1974 he organized at the Institut d'Etudes politiques d'Aix-en-Provence a colloquium on Las Casas and Human Rights. The article is reproduced, with the author's permission, from a paper presented at the colloquiu

AFM imaging and plasmonic detection of organic thin-films deposited on nanoantenna arrays

In this study, atomic force microscopy (AFM) imaging has been used to reveal the preferential deposition of organic thin-films on patterned nanoantenna array surfaces - identifying the localised formation of both monolayer and multilayer films of octadecanethiol (ODT) molecules, depending on the concentration of the solutions used. Reliable identification of this selective deposition process has been demonstrated for the first time, to our knowledge. Organic thin-films, in particular films of ODT molecules, were deposited on plasmonic resonator surfaces through a chemi-sorption process - using different solution concentrations and immersion times. The nanoantennas based on gold asymmetric-split ring resonator (A-SRR) geometries were fabricated on zinc selenide (ZnSe) substrates using electron-beam lithography and the lift-off technique. Use of the plasmonic resonant-coupling technique has enabled the detection of ODT molecules deposited from a dilute, micromolar (1 M) solution concentration - with attomole sensitivity of deposited material per A-SRR – a value that is three orders of magnitude lower in concentration than previously reported. Additionally, on resonance, the amplitude of the molecular vibrational resonance peaks is typically an order of magnitude larger than that for the non-resonant coupling. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy shows molecule specific spectral responses – with magnitudes corresponding to the different film thicknesses deposited on the resonator surfaces. The experimental results are supported by numerical simulation

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationPancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a devastating disease that is almost uniformly lethal within the first year of diagnosis and is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Activating mutations in the KRAS protooncogene are found in nearly all human PDAC cases as well as in early putative PDAC precursor lesions, pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasias (PanINs). Modeling of PDAC has been achieved through expression of an activated Kras allele in mouse pancreas that results in PanINs similar to those found in humans. PanINs develop focally, however, despite ubiquitous expression of mutant Kras suggesting that other factors must be involved in Kras-induced PanIN formation. Due to ubiquitous expression of mutant Kras in the pancreas, it is unknown which cell type, or types, can contribute to PanINs. This thesis aims to understand the cellular events that lead to Kras-induced PanIN formation, and to identify the cellular origin of PDAC. We find that mature acinar cells of the adult pancreas are competent to form PanIN lesions following Kras activation, and this process is dramatically accelerated by co-activation of the Notch signaling pathway, which antagonizes differentiation during pancreas development, but is largely inactive in the adult. Lineage tracing indicates that Kras/Notch co-activation drives rapid acinar-to-ductal metaplasia (ADM) during which acinar cells take on a duct-like phenotype, providing a mechanism by which acinar cells can serve as the origin of a "ductal" tumor. During ADM, acinar cells lose expression of Ptf1a, a transcription factor that is considered the master regulator of acinar cell identity. To test the requirement for Notch in PanIN initiation we deleted the key Notch mediator RbpJ. Surprisingly, we found that loss of RbpJ resulted in an increase in Kras-induced PanIN formation. In the pancreas, however, RbpJ is part of the Ptf1a complex and we suspect that loss of RbpJ could alter Ptf1a complex function and perturb acinar cell differentiation, which could allow for Kras to drive PanIN formation. We formally tested whether loss of Ptf1a would allow for increased Kras-driven PanIN formation and found that, in the presence of activated Kras, Ptf1a null acinar cells rapidly formed PanINs. Expression loss of key differentiation factors resulting in ADM may in fact be the initial step towards Kras induced tumorigenesis. ADM is similarly seen during acute pancreatitis, although, ultimately, acinar differentiation is restored during the regeneration process. We find that inducing pancreatitis in animals harboring active Kras mutations results in rapid and robust PanIN initiatio

Impacts of fuel consumption taxes on mobility patterns and CO2 emissions using a system dynamic approach

Current transport behaviour leads to increasing congestion of the infrastructure, growing dependence on fossil fuels, increasing energy demand, and growing CO2 emissions. Policies based principally on increasing system speed and in particular car speeds will lead to greater urban sprawl with increases in average trip lengths. Time saved by speed increases are traded for more distance. This trend is not sustainable in the longer term. Transport policies based just on time savings for citizens may not be the basis for our city planning strategy. The same happens with transport cost. With underpriced transport, the market undervalues land use location, which again may lead city to sprawl and could induce greater trip lengths. In this study, the efficiency of a fuel consumption or CO2 tax policy is analysed as a policy to internalise externalities of transport in a fair travel cost. Based on system dynamics theory, an integrated land use and transport model is proposed in order to assess the effects and impacts of such policy in the short, medium and long term. Different scenarios related to clean vehicles are incorporated. This model is applied to three cities Madrid, Vienna and Leeds and compares their results

Deposition of Organic Molecules on Gold Nanoantennas for Sensing

The deposition of organic molecules on gold nanoantennas is reported through chemisorption for sensing in the midinfrared (mid-IR) spectral range. The specific nanostructures are gold asymmetric-split ring resonators (A-SRRs) based on circular-geometry with two different ‘arc’ lengths. The plasmonic resonant coupling technique was used to match the vibrational responses of the targeted molecules for their enhanced detection. Gold nanostructures are functionalised through chemisorption of octadecanethiol (ODT) in ethanol solution. The molecular vibrational responses were measured using a microscope coupled Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The experimental findings are closely supported using FDTD simulation. The modified nanoantennas surfaces are capable of supporting wide range of organic-sensing applications

Three-dimensional dynamic rupture simulation with a high-order discontinuous Galerkin method on unstructured tetrahedral meshes

Accurate and efficient numerical methods to simulate dynamic earthquake rupture and wave propagation in complex media and complex fault geometries are needed to address fundamental questions in earthquake dynamics, to integrate seismic and geodetic data into emerging approaches for dynamic source inversion, and to generate realistic physics-based earthquake scenarios for hazard assessment. Modeling of spontaneous earthquake rupture and seismic wave propagation by a high-order discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method combined with an arbitrarily high-order derivatives (ADER) time integration method was introduced in two dimensions by de la Puente et al. (2009). The ADER-DG method enables high accuracy in space and time and discretization by unstructured meshes. Here we extend this method to three-dimensional dynamic rupture problems. The high geometrical flexibility provided by the usage of tetrahedral elements and the lack of spurious mesh reflections in the ADER-DG method allows the refinement of the mesh close to the fault to model the rupture dynamics adequately while concentrating computational resources only where needed. Moreover, ADER-DG does not generate spurious high-frequency perturbations on the fault and hence does not require artificial Kelvin-Voigt damping. We verify our three-dimensional implementation by comparing results of the SCEC TPV3 test problem with two well-established numerical methods, finite differences, and spectral boundary integral. Furthermore, a convergence study is presented to demonstrate the systematic consistency of the method. To illustrate the capabilities of the high-order accurate ADER-DG scheme on unstructured meshes, we simulate an earthquake scenario, inspired by the 1992 Landers earthquake, that includes curved faults, fault branches, and surface topography

Equation of State of a Dense and Magnetized Fermion System

The equation of state of a system of fermions in a uniform magnetic field is obtained in terms of the thermodynamic quantities of the theory by using functional methods. It is shown that the breaking of the O(3) rotational symmetry by the magnetic field results in a pressure anisotropy, which leads to the distinction between longitudinal- and transverse-to-the-field pressures. A criterion to find the threshold field at which the asymmetric regime becomes significant is discussed. This threshold magnetic field is shown to be the same as the one required for the pure field contribution to the energy and pressures to be of the same order as the matter contribution. A graphical representation of the field-dependent anisotropic equation of state of the fermion system is given. Estimates of the upper limit for the inner magnetic field in self-bound stars, as well as in gravitationally bound stars with inhomogeneous distributions of mass and magnetic fields, are also found.Comment: Misprints in some equations and in the text were corrected. Some references were adde

Classification of Backward Filtrations and Factor Filtrations: Examples from Cellular Automata

We consider backward filtrations generated by processes coming from deterministic and probabilistic cellular automata. We prove that these filtrations are standard in the classical sense of Vershik's theory, but we also study them from another point of view that takes into account the measurepreserving action of the shift map, for which each sigma-algebra in the filtrations is invariant. This initiates what we call the dynamical classification of factor filtrations, and the examples we study show that this classification leads to different results