A new conflict rule for securitization and other cross-border assignments : a potential threat from Europe

One of the dangers of harmonisation and unification processes taking place within the framework of the EU is that they may result in the codification of the lowest common denominator. This is precisely what is threatening to happen in respect of assignment. Referring the transfer of receivables by way of assignment to the law of the assignor’s residence, as article 13 of the Proposal does, would be opting for the most conservative solution and would for many Member States be a step backward rather than forward. A conflict rule referring assignment to the law of the assignor's residence is too rigid to do justice to the dynamic nature of assignments in cross-border transactions and it is unjustly one-sided. It offers no real advantages when compared to other conflict rules; it even has serious disadvantages which make the conflict rule unsuitable for efficient assignment-based cross-border transactions. It is not unconceivable that this conflict rule would even be contrary to the fundamental freedoms of the ECTreaty. The Community legislators in particular should be careful not to needlessly adopt rules which create insurmountable obstacles for cross-border business where choice-of-law by the parties would perfectly do. Community legislation has a special responsibility to create a smooth legal environment for single market transactions

Localisation Of The Subthalamic Nucleus In Parkinson’s Disease with Neural Beta and Gamma Activity of Local Field Potentials

Introduction: To refine the MRI-based target during DBS surgery, microelectrode recordings (MER) are often performed to detect target-specific single unit activity. This requires additional recording time and increases the risk for haemorrhage. In the future it may therefore be relevant to be able to determine the implantable lead's position based on local field potential (LFP) recordings from the lead itself which reflect activity of a larger neural population. This study aims to evaluate the nature of oscillatory activity in the subthalamic nucleus (STN) by means of intraoperative LFP-recordings, its relationship with microelectrode recordings and its potential use to locate the STN and its sensorimotor sub-area in patients with Parkinson’s disease during deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery.Methods: 25 patients with Parkinson’s disease are included in this study. MER and LFPs are recorded every 0.5 mm from multiple microelectrodes during DBS surgery in 48 STNs. A novel optimization approach to map the measurement points on an atlas STN based on the MER properties is used to enable a detailed spatial representation of these points. Power and coherence in different LFP frequencies at all points are assessed in reference to the point's location inside or outside the STN and its sensorimotor sub-area.Results: Coherence between LFPs and the envelope of spiking activity significantly increases when entering the STN. There is also a pronounced increase in the LFP power in the gamma band, which persists throughout the entire STN in 100% of the cases. In 70% of the cases LFPs have a significantly higher power in the high beta frequency band in the sensorimotor STN, defined by the mapping algorithm, compared to the non-sensorimotor STN.Conclusions: LFP gamma oscillations provide a useful tool for locating the STN intraoperatively and LFP beta oscillations can become useful to discriminate the sensorimotor area within the STN

Integrated nano-opto-electro-mechanical sensor for spectrometry and nanometrology

Spectrometry is widely used for the characterization of materials, tissues, and gases, and the need for size and cost scaling is driving the development of mini and microspectrometers. While nanophotonic devices provide narrowband filtering that can be used for spectrometry, their practical application has been hampered by the difficulty of integrating tuning and read-out structures. Here, a nano-opto-electro-mechanical system is presented where the three functionalities of transduction, actuation, and detection are integrated, resulting in a high-resolution spectrometer with a micrometer-scale footprint. The system consists of an electromechanically tunable double-membrane photonic crystal cavity with an integrated quantum dot photodiode. Using this structure, we demonstrate a resonance modulation spectroscopy technique that provides subpicometer wavelength resolution. We show its application in the measurement of narrow gas absorption lines and in the interrogation of fiber Bragg gratings. We also explore its operation as displacement-to-photocurrent transducer, demonstrating optomechanical displacement sensing with integrated photocurrent read-out

Prevention of Birch Pollen-Related Food Allergy by Mucosal Treatment with Multi-Allergen-Chimers in Mice

Among birch pollen allergic patients up to 70% develop allergic reactions to Bet v 1-homologue food allergens such as Api g 1 (celery) or Dau c 1 (carrot), termed as birch pollen-related food allergy. In most cases, specific immunotherapy with birch pollen extracts does not reduce allergic symptoms to the homologue food allergens. We therefore genetically engineered a multi-allergen chimer and tested if mucosal treatment with this construct could represent a novel approach for prevention of birch pollen-related food allergy.BALB/c mice were poly-sensitized with a mixture of Bet v 1, Api g 1 and Dau c 1 followed by a sublingual challenge with carrot, celery and birch pollen extracts. For prevention of allergy sensitization an allergen chimer composed of immunodominant T cell epitopes of Api g 1 and Dau c 1 linked to the whole Bet v 1 allergen, was intranasally applied prior to sensitization.Intranasal pretreatment with the allergen chimer led to significantly decreased antigen-specific IgE-dependent β-hexosaminidase release, but enhanced allergen-specific IgG2a and IgA antibodies. Accordingly, IL-4 levels in spleen cell cultures and IL-5 levels in restimulated spleen and cervical lymph node cell cultures were markedly reduced, while IFN-γ levels were increased. Immunomodulation was associated with increased IL-10, TGF-β and Foxp3 mRNA levels in NALT and Foxp3 in oral mucosal tissues. Treatment with anti-TGF-β, anti-IL10R or anti-CD25 antibodies abrogated the suppression of allergic responses induced by the chimer.Our results indicate that mucosal application of the allergen chimer led to decreased Th2 immune responses against Bet v 1 and its homologue food allergens Api g 1 and Dau c 1 by regulatory and Th1-biased immune responses. These data suggest that mucosal treatment with a multi-allergen vaccine could be a promising treatment strategy to prevent birch pollen-related food allergy

State Preparation and Tomography of a Nanomechanical Resonator with Fast Light Pulses

Pulsed optomechanical measurements enable squeezing, nonclassical state creation, and backaction-free sensing. We demonstrate pulsed measurement of a cryogenic nanomechanical resonator with record precision close to the quantum regime. We use these to prepare thermally squeezed and purified conditional mechanical states, and to perform full state tomography. These demonstrations exploit large vacuum optomechanical coupling in a nanophotonic cavity to reach a single-pulse imprecision of 9 times the mechanical zero-point amplitude xzpf. We study the effect of other mechanical modes that limit the conditional state width to 58xzpf, and show how decoherence causes the state to grow in time.peerReviewe

Exploring self-esteem during expressive writing about trauma predicts decreased depression in people with HIV

Self-esteem is often negatively impacted by trauma. Low self-esteem has been related to significantly worse depression in people with HIV (PWH). This study explores whether the expression of words related to self-esteem during a 4-session augmented trauma writing intervention predicted post-traumatic stress, depressive symptoms, and health outcomes 6-months later. Ninety-five PWH completed four 30-minute augmented trauma writing sessions in the intervention arm of a randomized controlled trial. One augmented session was devoted to self-esteem. Two individuals coded trauma essays for number of self-esteem words. CD4+ and viral load data were collected, and the Davidson PTSD Scale and the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale were administered at baseline, one-, and six-month follow-up. Greater total self-esteem words were related to lower depressive symptoms at 6-months, controlling for depressive symptoms at study entry, age, race, and education (t(80) = −2.235, ß = −0.239, SE = 0.283, p < 0.05, 95% CI [−1.195, −.069). Total self-esteem words were not predictive of PTSD, viral load, or CD4+ at 6-months. Exploring self-esteem when writing about and processing a traumatic event could be an important mechanism for decreasing depressive symptoms among PWH. Research is needed to test augmented expressive writing interventions that support efforts to bolster self-esteem in PWH

Quadrature-Averaged Homodyne Detection for Estimating Cavity Parameters

Balanced homodyne interferometry is a well-known detection technique that allows for sensitive characterization of light fields. Conventionally a homodyne interferometer is operated by locking the relative phase of a reference beam to the signal beam by means of an active feedback loop. A less often used method is to perform a slow continuous modulation of the reference beam arm length that corresponds to averaging all relative phases during the measurement. Here we show theoretically and experimentally that this quadrature averaging can be advantageous in estimating the parameters of a resonant optical cavity. We demonstrate that the averaging turns the transduction function, from cavity frequency fluctuations into the interferometer signal, into a simple function of the laser detuning that, notably, does not depend on the parameters of possible nonresonant channels present in the system. The method needs no active feedback and gives results that are easy to interpret. Moreover, the phase-averaged measurement allows characterization of the absolute magnitude of a cavity frequency modulation.peerReviewe