From Judgment to Justice: Implementing International and Regional Human Rights Decisions

Examines the European, Inter-American, and African human rights systems and United Nations treaty bodies; how well court decisions are implemented; and what monitoring mechanisms exist. Suggests ways to strengthen implementation and, in turn, legitimacy

Successful Primary Treatment of a Hydatidiform Mole with Methotrexate and EMA/CO

Background. The preferred treatment method of most hydatidiform moles is suction aspiration. In rare circumstances uterine abnormalities may preclude surgical treatment. Case. We report a case of complete molar pregnancy successfully treated with methotrexate followed by EMA/CO. A 38-year-old woman with a complete hydatidiform mole and multiple uterine fibroids underwent a failed attempt at suction aspiration. Following treatment with methotrexate, a nonmetastatic persistent trophoblastic tumour developed. Six cycles of EMA/CO led to complete remission. Conclusion. We propose that primary treatment of molar pregnancies with chemotherapy is a useful treatment option in cases where uterine abnormalities interfere with suction aspiration

The Kazhdan-Lusztig conjecture for W-algebras

The main result in this paper is the character formula for arbitrary irreducible highest weight modules of W algebras. The key ingredient is the functor provided by quantum Hamiltonian reduction, that constructs the W algebras from affine Kac-Moody algebras and in a similar fashion W modules from KM modules. Assuming certain properties of this functor, the W characters are subsequently derived from the Kazhdan-Lusztig conjecture for KM algebras. The result can be formulated in terms of a double coset of the Weyl group of the KM algebra: the Hasse diagrams give the embedding diagrams of the Verma modules and the Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials give the multiplicities in the characters.Comment: uuencoded file, 29 pages latex, 5 figure

The perception of stroke-to-stroke turn boundaries in signed conversation

Speaker transitions in conversation are often brief, with minimal vocal overlap. Signed languages appear to defy this pattern with frequent, long spans of simultaneous signing. But recent evidence suggests that turn boundaries in signed language may only include the content-bearing parts of the turn (from the first stroke to the last), and not all turn-related movement (from first preparation to final retraction). We tested whether signers were able to anticipate “stroke-to-stroke” turn boundaries with only minimal conversational context. We found that, indeed, signers anticipated turn boundaries at the ends of turn-final strokes. Signers often responded early, especially when the turn was long or contained multiple possible end points. Early responses for long turns were especially apparent for interrogatives—long interrogative turns showed much greater anticipation compared to short ones

Cosmic rays studied with a hybrid high school detector array

The LORUN/NAHSA system is a pathfinder for hybrid cosmic ray research combined with education and outreach in the field of astro-particle physics. Particle detectors and radio antennae were mainly setup by students and placed on public buildings. After fully digital data acquisition, coincidence detections were selected. Three candidate events confirmed a working prototype, which can be multiplied to extend further particle detector arrays on high schools.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures. Nigl, A., Timmermans, C., Schellart, P., Kuijpers, J., Falcke, H., Horneffer, A., de Vos, C. M., Koopman, Y., Pepping, H. J., Schoonderbeek, G., Cosmic rays studied with a hybrid high school detector array, Europhysics News (EPN), Vol. 38, No. 5, accepted on 22/08/200

Childhood BMI in relation to microbiota in infancy and lifetime antibiotic use

Background: Children with high body mass index (BMI) at preschool age are at risk of developing obesity. Early identification of factors that increase the risk of excessive weight gain could help direct preventive actions. The intestinal microbiota and antibiotic use have been identified as potential modulators of early metabolic programming and weight development. To test if the early microbiota composition is associated with later BMI, and if antibiotic use modifies this association, we analysed the faecal microbiota composition at 3 months and the BMI at 5-6 years in two cohorts of healthy children born vaginally at term in the Netherlands (N = 87) and Finland (N = 75). We obtained lifetime antibiotic use records and measured weight and height of all children. Results: The relative abundance of streptococci was positively and the relative abundance of bifidobacteria negatively associated with the BMI outcome. The association was especially strong among children with a history of antibiotic use. Bacteroides relative abundance was associated with BMI only in the children with minimal lifetime antibiotic exposure. Conclusions: The intestinal microbiota of infants are predictive of later BMI and may serve as an early indicator of obesity risk. Bifidobacteria and streptococci, which are indicators of microbiota maturation in infants, are likely candidates for metabolic programming of infants, and their influence on BMI appears to depend on later a\ntibiotic use.Peer reviewe