Good Faith in International Law

As a ‘general principle’, good faith forms part of the sources of international law. Still not widely examined in relation to rights and obligations, the aim here is to demonstrate the specific characteristics of the principle. In general, international law rules such as pacta sunt servanda, abuse of rights, estoppel and acquiescence and the negotiation of disputes are grounded, to some extent, in good faith. In treaty law, good faith has various manifestations from the time prior to signature through to interpretation. These are outlined here. The article argues that good faith acts to mediate the effects of States’ rights in international law, in order to achieve acceptable results when competing interests exist. Fundamentally, good faith is a limitation of State sovereignty, albeit one that is necessary, as it protects other States and their trust and reliance in international law

Transition from spot to faculae domination -- An alternate explanation for the dearth of intermediate \textit{Kepler} rotation periods

The study of stellar activity cycles is crucial to understand the underlying dynamo and how it causes activity signatures such as dark spots and bright faculae. We study the appearance of activity signatures in contemporaneous photometric and chromospheric time series. Lomb-Scargle periodograms are used to search for cycle periods present in both time series. To emphasize the signature of the activity cycle we account for rotation-induced scatter in both data sets by fitting a quasi-periodic Gaussian process model to each observing season. After subtracting the rotational variability, cycle amplitudes and the phase difference between the two time series are obtained by fitting both time series simultaneously using the same cycle period. We find cycle periods in 27 of the 30 stars in our sample. The phase difference between the two time series reveals that the variability in fast rotating active stars is usually in anti-phase, while the variability of slowly rotating inactive stars is in phase. The photometric cycle amplitudes are on average six times larger for the active stars. The phase and amplitude information demonstrates that active stars are dominated by dark spots, whereas less active stars are dominated by bright faculae. We find the transition from spot to faculae domination at the Vaughan-Preston gap, and around a Rossby number equal to one. We conclude that faculae are the dominant ingredient of stellar activity cycles at ages >2.55 Gyr. The data further suggest that the Vaughan-Preston gap can not explain the previously detected dearth of Kepler rotation periods between 15-25 days. Nevertheless, our results led us to propose an explanation for the rotation period dearth to be due to the non-detection of periodicity caused by the cancellation of dark spots and bright faculae at 800 Myr.Comment: 12+15 pages, 10+2 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Risk of basal cell carcinoma after Hodgkin's disease

Background: Basal cell cancer is a common skin cancer, yet studies of second tumors after Hodgkin's disease tend to exclude basal cell cancers as second malignant tumors from analysis. Basal cell carcinomas (BCC) are possibly more common in immunosuppressed patients and were recently implicated as indicators of subsequent malignancies. Materials and Methods: Our database of 1,120 patients with Hodgkin's disease (derived from the tumor registry) was investigated for the occurrence of later BCCs. Kaplan-Meier curves were calculated. Results: A total of 9 cases of BCC were observed 0-20 years after the diagnosis of Hodgkin's disease, One case relapsed after excision. The probability of second BCC was 2.1% after 15 years of follow-up and 7.1% after 20 years. Statistically, the risk for second BCC was increased only in younger patients and with prolonged follow-up, but not in the total group of patients with Hodgkin's disease. Conclusion: BCC is not a major threat: for the survivors of Hodgkin's disease, but continued follow-up is necessary

PMT Test Facility at MPIK Heidelberg and Double Chooz Super Vertical Slice

Proceedings supplement for conference poster at Neutrino 2010, Athens, Greece

Strong Limit on a Variable Proton-to-Electron Mass Ratio from Molecules in the Distant Universe

The Standard Model of particle physics assumes that the so-called fundamental constants are universal and unchanging. Absorption lines arising in molecular clouds along quasar sightlines offer a precise test for variations in the proton-to-electron mass ratio, mu, over cosmological time and distance scales. The inversion transitions of ammonia are particularly sensitive to mu compared to molecular rotational transitions. Comparing the available ammonia spectra observed towards the quasar B0218+357 with new, high-quality rotational spectra, we present the first detailed measurement of mu with this technique, limiting relative deviations from the laboratory value to |dmu/mu| < 1.8x10^{-6} (95% confidence level) at approximately half the Universe's current age - the strongest astrophysical constraint to date. Higher-quality ammonia observations will reduce both the statistical and systematic uncertainties in these measurements.Comment: Science, 20th June 2008. 22 pages, 5 figures (12 EPS files), 2 tables, including Supporting Online Material; v2: Corrected reference for laboratory mu-variation bound

Voltage-biased quantum wire with impurities

The bosonization technique to describe correlated electrons in a one-dimensional quantum wire containing impurities is extended to include an applied voltage source. The external reservoirs are shown to lead to a boundary condition for the boson phase fields. We use the formalism to investigate the channel conductance, electroneutrality, and charging effects.Comment: 4 pages REVTeX, incl one figure, to appear in Phys.Rev.Let

A Tableaux Calculus for Reducing Proof Size

A tableau calculus is proposed, based on a compressed representation of clauses, where literals sharing a similar shape may be merged. The inferences applied on these literals are fused when possible, which reduces the size of the proof. It is shown that the obtained proof procedure is sound, refutationally complete and allows to reduce the size of the tableau by an exponential factor. The approach is compatible with all usual refinements of tableaux.Comment: Technical Repor

Cyberbullying in Germany – an exploration of prevalence, overlapping with real life bullying and coping strategies

A new phenomenon of violence among pupils has been spreading over Europe in the last few years: Cyberbullying, the repeated and intended hurting of weaker schoolmates via modern communication technologies. This study shows (based on a sample of 1987 pupils), that cyberbullying exists in Germany, although the number of incidents is still rather small. It could also be shown, that the pupils who act as cyberbullies are the same as those who bully others in real life. The same overlap was found to be true for the victims. Cyberbullying can therefore be considered a subcategory of ordinary bullying instead of being considered a whole new phenomenon. The exploration of coping strategies showed, that a common factor structure underlies physical, verbal and cyberbullying. Considering the fact that the findings of the study are based on an online questionnaire with restricted representativeness, the results should however be interpreted carefully

Geregelter Meßplatz für Sensoren zur invasiven Blutdruckmessung

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Der im vorliegenden Artikel vorgestellte neuartige Simulator ist ein kompletter Meßplatz für die Prüfung der gesamten Blutdruckmeßkette entsprechend den AAMI-Spezifikationen für alle gängigen medizinischen Drucksensoren. Mit Hilfe einer mikrocontrollergesteuerten Einheit werden gespeicherte technische Solldruckkurven einstellbarer Amplitude und Frequenz sowie physiologische Druckverläufe erzeugt und die Erfassung der Meßdaten vorgenommen. Über eine serielle Schnittstelle können darüber hinaus beliebige Solldruckkurven von und Meßdaten zu einem Personalcomputer übertragen und dort ausgewertet werden. Für möglichst realitätsnahe Messungen wurden zusätzlich ein Spülsystem sowie eine Flußsimulation implementiert