International Law, National Tribunals and the Rights of Aliens: The West European Experience

The local remedies rule is usually considered a device to accommodate the legitimate desire of states to preserve their own sovereignty with the equally legitimate desire of states to protect their nationals who have suffered injury abroad. It is obvious that the adequacy of the rule in serving the second of these ends will depend on the nature and quality of the local remedies available. In turn, the effectiveness of local remedies in protecting the rights of aliens will depend on a variety of factors. Most importantly, there is the adequacy of the substantive legal rights in the fields of public and private law. Another consideration is the practice and custom of courts in areas in which there are no hard and fast rules of law. Thus, it is a well-known fact that even in situations in which damage awards are not limited by law, European courts are much less generous in granting awards for pain and suffering than courts in the United States. Finally, since rights which cannot be enforced are no rights at all, the nature of judicial and administrative remedies, the fairness and speed of procedures, and the general integrity of the judicial and administrative processes are of great importance. It is obvious, however, that such broad topics cannot be covered well as part of one research project, especially in the case of an area having as large a mass of legal materials as does Western Europe.For this reason, the present inquiry is limited to one topic only: the extent to which the fact of alien age creates procedural obstacles for the enforcement of rights-in particular, through the requirement of security for costs, denial of the right to sue in forma pauper is, non-recognition of foreign judgments, and denial of the right to sue the government. Furthermore, this study has been restricted to three countries, Austria, France, and Germany. In view of the numerous treaties which affect the rights of aliens in these countries, there is a final limitation upon the scope of this paper: generally speaking, the rights of United States nationals, rather than those of aliens in general, will be considered

The Procedure Before the Court of Justice of the European Communities

The Court of Justice of the European Communities has inspired much legal writing, including many books and articles in English. Particular attention has been paid to its jurisdiction and general organization, much less to its procedure. But Professor Sereni has pointed out that differences in the domestic procedural laws of states appearing before an international court may cause difficulties in the work of the international tribunal itself. It therefore may be of interest to review briefly some aspects of the procedure of a court which is perhaps not an international tribunal in the strict sense of the word, but in which sovereign states, supranational organizations and private individuals appear and plead far more frequently than in the International Court of Justice. The brief discussion of the Court\u27s organization and jurisdiction which will preface the discussion of procedure in the narrow sense is intended mainly as background

In Memorian for L.F.E. Goldie

Professor Louis Frederick Edward Goldie died suddenly of a heart attack on January 12, 1991 at the age of seventy-two. Professor Goldie\u27s death deprives the world\u27s legal community of one of its most outstanding scholars and is a grievous personal loss to his students and colleagues at the Syracuse University College of Law. Professor Goldie specialized in teaching the international law of the sea, international environmental and resources law, boundaries and zones, and treaties under the United States Constitution

Germline PTPRD mutations in Ewing sarcoma: biologic and clinical implications.

Ewing sarcoma occurs in children, adolescents and young adults. High STAT3 levels have been reported in approximately 50% of patients with Ewing sarcoma, and may be important in tumorigenesis. Protein tyrosine phosphatase delta (PTPRD) is a tumor suppressor that inhibits STAT3 activation. To date, while somatic mutations in PTPRD have been reported in diverse tumors, germline mutations of PTPRD have not been investigated in Ewing sarcoma or other cancers. We identified a novel germline mutation in the PTPRD gene in three of eight patients (37.5%) with metastatic Ewing sarcoma. Although the functional impact in two of the patients is unclear, in one of them the aberration was annotated as a W775stop germline mutation, and would be expected to lead to gene truncation and, hence, loss of the STAT3 dephosphorylation function of PTPRD. Since STAT3 is phosphorylated after being recruited to the insulin growth factor receptor (IGF-1R), suppression of IGF-1R could attenuate the enhanced STAT3 activation expected in the presence of PTPRD mutations. Of interest, two of three patients with germline PTPRD mutations achieved durable complete responses following treatment with IGF-1R monoclonal antibody-based therapies. Our pilot data suggest that PTPRD germline mutations may play a role in the development of Ewing sarcoma, a disease of young people, and their presence may have implications for therapy

Methyl and Tert-Butyl Reorientation and Distributions of Activation Energies in Molecular Solids: A Nuclear Spin-Relaxation Study in 2,4- and 2,5-Di-Tert-Butylhydroxybenzene

We have measured proton Zeeman relaxation rates R in the 2,4- and 2,5-isomers of di tert-butylhydroxybenzene (DTHB) in the solid state. R was measured as a function of temperature T at proton Larmor frequencies of (j)/21T = 8.50,22.5, and 53.0 MHz. The Tranges were from 78 K to just below the melting points of 2,4- and 2,5-DTHB, 385 and 323 K, respectively. The 2,5- DTHB R vs T and (j) can be interpreted qualitatively in terms of three Bloembergen-PurcellPound (BPP) spectral densities, one for each of the three types of rotors in the molecule. The quantitative agreement is poor but a good fit is obtained using either a Davidson-Cole (DC) or Frolich spectral density, still preserving the three rotor types. The implications of this are discussed. The BPP and DC spectral densities fail completely in interpreting R vs T and (j) for 2,4- DTHBwhereas good quantitative fits are obtained using a Frolich spectral density. The distributions of activation energies characterizing the three rotor types are so wide for the Frolich spectral density fit of the 2,4-DTHB data that the individual rotor types lose their identity

Thermally activated Peierls dimerization in ferromagnetic spin chains

We demonstrate that a Peierls dimerization can occur in ferromagnetic spin chains activated by thermal fluctuations. The dimer order parameter and entanglement measures are studied as functions of the modulation of the magnetic exchange interaction and temperature, using a spin-wave theory and the density-matrix renormalization group. We discuss the case where a periodic modulation is caused by spin-phonon coupling and the case where electronic states effectively induce such a modulation. The importance of the latter for a number of transition metal oxides is highlighted.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Top-Down Lipidomics Reveals Ether Lipid Deficiency in Blood Plasma of Hypertensive Patients

BACKGROUND: Dyslipoproteinemia, obesity and insulin resistance are integrative constituents of the metabolic syndrome and are major risk factors for hypertension. The objective of this study was to determine whether hypertension specifically affects the plasma lipidome independently and differently from the effects induced by obesity and insulin resistance. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We screened the plasma lipidome of 19 men with hypertension and 51 normotensive male controls by top-down shotgun profiling on a LTQ Orbitrap hybrid mass spectrometer. The analysis encompassed 95 lipid species of 10 major lipid classes. Obesity resulted in generally higher lipid load in blood plasma, while the content of tri- and diacylglycerols increased dramatically. Insulin resistance, defined by HOMA-IR >3.5 and controlled for BMI, had little effect on the plasma lipidome. Importantly, we observed that in blood plasma of hypertensive individuals the overall content of ether lipids decreased. Ether phosphatidylcholines and ether phosphatidylethanolamines, that comprise arachidonic (20:4) and docosapentaenoic (22:5) fatty acid moieties, were specifically diminished. The content of free cholesterol also decreased, although conventional clinical lipid homeostasis indices remained unaffected. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Top-down shotgun lipidomics demonstrated that hypertension is accompanied by specific reduction of the content of ether lipids and free cholesterol that occurred independently of lipidomic alterations induced by obesity and insulin resistance. These results may form the basis for novel preventive and dietary strategies alleviating the severity of hypertension

Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of traditional and new partner notification technologies for curable sexually transmitted infections: observational study, systematic reviews and mathematical modelling.

BACKGROUND: Partner notification is essential to the comprehensive case management of sexually transmitted infections. Systematic reviews and mathematical modelling can be used to synthesise information about the effects of new interventions to enhance the outcomes of partner notification. OBJECTIVE: To study the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of traditional and new partner notification technologies for curable sexually transmitted infections (STIs). DESIGN: Secondary data analysis of clinical audit data; systematic reviews of randomised controlled trials (MEDLINE, EMBASE and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials) published from 1 January 1966 to 31 August 2012 and of studies of health-related quality of life (HRQL) [MEDLINE, EMBASE, ISI Web of Knowledge, NHS Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED), Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE) and Health Technology Assessment (HTA)] published from 1 January 1980 to 31 December 2011; static models of clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness; and dynamic modelling studies to improve parameter estimation and examine effectiveness. SETTING: General population and genitourinary medicine clinic attenders. PARTICIPANTS: Heterosexual women and men. INTERVENTIONS: Traditional partner notification by patient or provider referral, and new partner notification by expedited partner therapy (EPT) or its UK equivalent, accelerated partner therapy (APT). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Population prevalence; index case reinfection; and partners treated per index case. RESULTS: Enhanced partner therapy reduced reinfection in index cases with curable STIs more than simple patient referral [risk ratio (RR) 0.71; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.56 to 0.89]. There are no randomised trials of APT. The median number of partners treated for chlamydia per index case in UK clinics was 0.60. The number of partners needed to treat to interrupt transmission of chlamydia was lower for casual than for regular partners. In dynamic model simulations, >10% of partners are chlamydia positive with look-back periods of up to 18 months. In the presence of a chlamydia screening programme that reduces population prevalence, treatment of current partners achieves most of the additional reduction in prevalence attributable to partner notification. Dynamic model simulations show that cotesting and treatment for chlamydia and gonorrhoea reduce the prevalence of both STIs. APT has a limited additional effect on prevalence but reduces the rate of index case reinfection. Published quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) weights were of insufficient quality to be used in a cost-effectiveness study of partner notification in this project. Using an intermediate outcome of cost per infection diagnosed, doubling the efficacy of partner notification from 0.4 to 0.8 partners treated per index case was more cost-effective than increasing chlamydia screening coverage. CONCLUSIONS: There is evidence to support the improved clinical effectiveness of EPT in reducing index case reinfection. In a general heterosexual population, partner notification identifies new infected cases but the impact on chlamydia prevalence is limited. Partner notification to notify casual partners might have a greater impact than for regular partners in genitourinary clinic populations. Recommendations for future research are (1) to conduct randomised controlled trials using biological outcomes of the effectiveness of APT and of methods to increase testing for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and STIs after APT; (2) collection of HRQL data should be a priority to determine QALYs associated with the sequelae of curable STIs; and (3) standardised parameter sets for curable STIs should be developed for mathematical models of STI transmission that are used for policy-making. FUNDING: The National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment programme

Strongly Correlated Quantum Fluids: Ultracold Quantum Gases, Quantum Chromodynamic Plasmas, and Holographic Duality

Strongly correlated quantum fluids are phases of matter that are intrinsically quantum mechanical, and that do not have a simple description in terms of weakly interacting quasi-particles. Two systems that have recently attracted a great deal of interest are the quark-gluon plasma, a plasma of strongly interacting quarks and gluons produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions, and ultracold atomic Fermi gases, very dilute clouds of atomic gases confined in optical or magnetic traps. These systems differ by more than 20 orders of magnitude in temperature, but they were shown to exhibit very similar hydrodynamic flow. In particular, both fluids exhibit a robustly low shear viscosity to entropy density ratio which is characteristic of quantum fluids described by holographic duality, a mapping from strongly correlated quantum field theories to weakly curved higher dimensional classical gravity. This review explores the connection between these fields, and it also serves as an introduction to the Focus Issue of New Journal of Physics on Strongly Correlated Quantum Fluids: from Ultracold Quantum Gases to QCD Plasmas. The presentation is made accessible to the general physics reader and includes discussions of the latest research developments in all three areas.Comment: 138 pages, 25 figures, review associated with New Journal of Physics special issue "Focus on Strongly Correlated Quantum Fluids: from Ultracold Quantum Gases to QCD Plasmas" (http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/focus/Focus%20on%20Strongly%20Correlated%20Quantum%20Fluids%20-%20from%20Ultracold%20Quantum%20Gases%20to%20QCD%20Plasmas