BG Group and “Conditions” to Arbitral Jurisdiction

Although the Supreme Court has over the last decade generated a robust body of arbitration caselaw, its first decision in the area of investment arbitration under a Bilateral Investment Treaty was only handed down in 2014. BG Group v. Argentina was widely anticipated and has attracted much notice, and general approval, on the part of the arbitration community. In this paper we assess the Court’s decision from two different perspectives—the first attempts to situate it in the discourse of the American law of commercial arbitration; the second considers it in light of the expectations of the international community surrounding the proper construction of Conventions between states. Our initial goal had been to write jointly, with the hope that we could bridge our differences to find, if not common, at least neighboring, ground. On some points we did so, but ultimately our divergent appreciations of the proper way to interpret the condition precedent in the investment treaty in BG Group overcame the idealism with which we commenced the project. Nonetheless we have decided to present the two papers together to emphasize the dichotomous approaches to treaty interpretation that two moderately sensible people, who inhabit overlapping but non-congruent interpretive communities, can have.The Kay Bailey Hutchison Center for Energy, Law, and Busines

Three-level spin system under decoherence-minimizing driving fields: Application to nitrogen-vacancy spin dynamics

Within the framework of a general three-level problem, the dynamics of the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) spin is studied for the case of a special type of external driving consisting of a set of continuous fields with decreasing intensities. Such a set has been proposed for minimizing coherence losses. Each new driving field with smaller intensity is designed to protect against the fluctuations induced by the driving field at the preceding step with larger intensity. We show that indeed this particular type of external driving minimizes the loss of coherence, using purity and entropy as quantifiers for this purpose. As an illustration, we study the coherence loss of an NV spin due to a surrounding spin bath of $^{13}$C nuclei.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

The Status and Future of the Third Interplanetary Network

The 3rd interplanetary network (IPN), which has been in operation since 1990, presently consists of 9 spacecraft: AGILE, RHESSI, Suzaku, and Swift, in low Earth orbit; INTEGRAL, in eccentric Earth orbit with apogee 0.5 light‐seconds; Wind, up to ∼7 light‐seconds from Earth; MESSENGER, en route to Mercury; and Mars Odyssey, in orbit around Mars. Ulysses and HETE have ceased operations, and the Fermi GBM is being incorporated into the network. The IPN operates as a full‐time, all‐sky monitor for transients down to a threshold of about 6 × 10^(−7) erg cm^(−2) or 1 photon cm^(−2) s^(−1). It detects about 275 cosmic gamma‐ray bursts per year. These events are generally not the same ones detected by narrower field of view imaging instruments such as Swift, INTEGRAL IBIS, and SuperAGILE; the localization accuracy is in the several arcminute and above range

A Note on a Theorem of Mr. Hardy's

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Perioperative infection prophylaxis and risk factor impact in colon surgery

Background: A prospective observational study was undertaken in 2,481 patients undergoing elective colon resection in 114 German centers to identify optimal drug and dosing modalities and risk factors for postoperative infection. Methods: Patients were pair matched using six risk factors and divided into 672 pairs (ceftriaxone vs, other cephalosporins, group A) and 400 pairs (ceftriaxone vs. penicillins, group B). End points were local and systemic postoperative infection and cost effectiveness. Results: Local infection rates were 6.0 versus 6.5% (group A) and 4.0 versus 10.5% (group B); systemic infection rates in groups A and B were 4.9 versus 6.3% and 3.3 versus 10.5%, respectively. Ceftriaxone was more effective than penicillins overall (6.8 vs. 17.8%, p < 0.001). Length of postoperative hospital stay was 16.2 versus 16.9 days (group A) and 15.8 versus 17.6 days (group B). Of the six risk factors, age and concomitant disease were significant for systemic infection, and blood loss, rectum resection and immunosuppressive therapy were significant for local infection. Penicillin was a risk factor compared to ceftriaxone (p < 0.0001). Ceftriaxone saved Q160.7 versus other cephalosporins and O416.2 versus penicillins. Conclusion: Clinical and microbiological efficacy are responsible for the cost effectiveness of ceftriaxone for perioperative prophylaxis in colorectal surgery. Copyright (C) 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel

Narrating Trauma and Suffering: Towards Understanding Intersubjectively Constituted Memory

Erinnern ist ein komplexer und fehleranfälliger Prozess, dies teilweise auch, weil es sich nicht um einen ausschließlich individuellen Akt handelt. Nicht nur der Gegenstand des Erinnerns, sondern auch die Art und Weise, wie wir erinnern, sind eingebettet in spezifische soziale Kontexte und Teil ko-konstruierter Weltsichten einerseits und Ausdruck persönlicher Bedürfnisse und Perspektiven andererseits. In Forschungsinterviews ist zusätzlich die Beziehung zwischen der interviewten und der interviewenden Person wichtig für die Frage, wie Erlebtes erinnert und erzählt wird. All dies verdient Beachtung wenn wir als Sozialwissenschaftler/innen versuchen, den Sinn und die Motive "hinter den Erzählungen" zu entziffern. In diesem Beitrag zeigen wir, wie Interviewte, die über längere Zeiträume traumatischen Erfahrungen ausgesetzt waren, ihre Leidensgeschichte reflektieren und artikulieren. Um nachvollziehbar zu machen, wie persönliche Erinnerungen gelebter Erfahrung mit sozial und kontextuell vermittelten Werten und Beziehungen interagieren, greifen wir auf die Erzählungen früherer politischer Gefangener in Südafrika und in der ehemaligen Tschechoslowakei zurück; zusätzlich auf die Erzählungen südafrikanischer Straßenkinder und Frauen mit HIV/AIDS. Indem wir deren Erinnerung über ihr Leidenserleben interpretieren, versuchen wir zu zeigen, welche hermeneutische Herausforderung aus der besonderen Natur des Erinnerns erwächst. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0902144El recuerdo es un proceso complejo y notablemente falible. Esto es en parte porque la memoria no es un acto exclusivamente individual. No solo lo que recordamos sino la forma en la que recordamos es influenciada por circunstancias sociales y visiones del mundo co-construidas, así como por nuestras necesidades y perspectivas personales. En el contexto de la investigación con entrevista, la relación investigador-participante también interviene en como la experiencia es recordada y narrada. Todos estos factores necesitan ser tomados en cuenta cuando, como investigadores sociales, intentamos revelar los significados y motivos que subyacen en lo que los participantes dicen. Este artículo pretende mostrar cómo los entrevistados que han soportado experiencias traumáticas por períodos de tiempo prolongado recuerdan, reflexionan y articulan su sufrimiento. Para ilustrar cómo las memorias personales de las experiencias reales vividas se entrecruzan con valores y relaciones social y contextualmente incrustadas, recurrimos a las narrativas de ex prisioneros políticos en Sudáfrica y de la antigua Checoslovaquia. Presentamos también narrativas de niños de la calle sudafricanos y de mujeres que viven con VIH/SIDA. Cuando interpretamos los datos en profundidad, que muestran cómo los participantes recuerdan sus experiencias de sufrimiento, encontramos que la verdadera naturaleza de la memoria plantea un desafío hermenéutico. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0902144Remembering is a complex and notoriously fallible process. This is partly because memory is not an exclusively individual act. Not only what we remember, but the way we remember is influenced by social circumstances and co-constructed worldviews, as well as by our personal needs and perspectives. In the context of the research interview, the researcher-participant relationship also mediates how experience is re-membered and narrated. All these factors need to be taken into account when, as social researchers, we attempt to unpack the meanings and motives that underlie what research participants say. This paper aims to show how interviewees who have endured traumatic experiences for prolonged periods of time remember, reflect on and articulate their suffering. To illustrate how personal memories of lived, real experiences intertwine with socially and contextually embedded values and relationships we draw on the narratives of former political prisoners in South Africa and in erstwhile Czechoslovakia. We also present narratives of South African street children, and women living with HIV/AIDS. When interpreting the in-depth data that show how participants remember their experience of suffering, we find that the very nature of memory poses a hermeneutical challenge. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs090214

Recent advances in minimally invasive colorectal cancer surgery

Laparoscopy has improved surgical treatment of various diseases due to its limited surgical trauma and has developed as an interesting therapeutic alternative for the resection of colorectal cancer. Despite numerous clinical advantages (faster recovery, less pain, fewer wound and systemic complications, faster return to work) the laparoscopic approach to colorectal cancer therapy has also resulted in unusual complications, i.e. ureteral and bladder injury which are rarely observed with open laparotomy. Moreover, pneumothorax, cardiac arrhythmia, impaired venous return, venous thrombosis as well as peripheral nerve injury have been associated with the increased intraabdominal pressure as well as patient's positioning during surgery. Furthermore, undetected small bowel injury caused by the grasping or cauterizing instruments may occur with laparoscopic surgery. In contrast to procedures performed for nonmalignant conditions, the benefits of laparoscopic resection of colorectal cancer must be weighed against the potential for poorer long-term outcomes of cancer patients that still has not been completely ruled out. In laparoscopic colorectal cancer surgery, several important cancer control issues still are being evaluated, i.e. the extent of lymph node dissection, tumor implantation at port sites, adequacy of intraperitoneal staging as well as the distance between tumor site and resection margins. For the time being it can be assumed that there is no significant difference in lymph node harvest between laparoscopic and open colorectal cancer surgery if oncological principles of resection are followed. As far as the issue of port site recurrence is concerned, it appears to be less prevalent than first thought (range 0-2.5%), and the incidence apparently corresponds with wound recurrence rates observed after open procedures. Short-term (3-5 years) survival rates have been published by a number of investigators, and survival rates after laparoscopic surgery appears to compare well with data collected after conventional surgery for colorectal cancer. However, long-term results of prospective randomized trials are not available. The data published so far indicate that the oncological results of laparoscopic surgery compare well with the results of the conventional open approach. Nonetheless, the limited information available from prospective studies leads us to propose that minimally invasive surgery for colorectal cancer surgery should only be performed within prospective trials