Rights in Conflict: Examining Investment Treaty Arbitration and Intellectual Property Rights in the Wake of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

This article examines how the armed Ukraine-Russia conflict opened a doorway for a wave of international arbitration via corporate actions against Russia for violating BIT obligations. To provide context for the suggested BIT arbitration against Russia, this article begins with a brief discussion of the historical background of this conflict and investor-state treaty arbitration. This article next pivots to analyze the applicability of investor-state treaty arbitration to compensate lost IP investments in three parts. Part I considers how investor-state treaty arbitration function with ongoing armed conflict and which investors may initiate investor-state treaty claims. Next, Part II reports on the status of Russia\u27s existing BIT obligations and the effect of Russia\u27s decision to suspend IP rights of “unfriendly states.” In articulating how the suggested BIT claims would lead to successful results, Part III details the enforcement routes of arbitration awards if Russia declines to pay. This article concludes with remarks on the role of investor-state arbitration as a diplomatic tool extending beyond other legal remedies to disincentive illegal international conduct

Information and preference reversals in lotteries

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Several approaches have been proposed for evaluating information in expected utility theory. Among the most popular approaches are the expected utility increase, the selling price and the buying price. While the expected utility increase and the selling price always agree in ranking information alternatives, Hazen and Sounderpandian [11] have demonstrated that the buying price may not always agree with the other two. That is, in some cases, where the expected utility increase would value information A more highly than information B, the buying price may reverse these preferences. In this paper, we discuss the conditions under which all these approaches agree in a generic decision environment where the decision maker may choose to acquire arbitrary information bundles. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

INTRODUCTION OF CENTRAL USER MANAGEMENT IN A LARGE UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL - A CASE STUDY

The department “organization and information technology” (OIT) of the Faculty of Medicine of the “Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München” introduced a system to centrally manage user accounts and security during the last two years. The initial state was that we had several user directories for different services, resulting in high operating expense. We describe the aims, the concepts, the techniques, the realization and the difficulties we had introducing a central user directory. The new central user directory covers not only authentication, but also authorization in the connected subsystems. The following subsystems are connected: Windows logon, Email and Calendaring, various intranet services like medical documentation system, diagnostic findings of clinical chemistry or radiology, remote access to Email and Calendaring via a firewall, RADIUS and last but not least logging on to SAP, which is our ERP (enterprise resource planning system)

Predictors of Voiding Dysfunction after Mid-urethral Sling Surgery for Stress Urinary Incontinence

Purpose Postoperative voiding dysfunction is a bothersome complication after mid-urethral sling surgery. The current study presents multiple repeated postoperative voiding trials against a urine load of preoperative functional bladder capacity, as estimated by a preoperative frequency volume chart, to identify the relevance of preoperative and immediate factors to the outcome. Methods A total of 180 patients were enrolled from August 2008 to August 2011. Patients received mid-urethral sling surgery with a transobturator tape, with or without concomitant cystocele repair. Patients reported relevant medical histories and a 3-day frequency volume chart and underwent urodynamic studies. After surgery, patients were filled to their maximum bladder capacity as dictated by their frequency volume chart and performed the first voiding trial. Two subsequent voiding trials were performed after natural filling. Failure of any single voiding trial was considered failure. Patients who failed the final voiding trial received intermittent catheterization to follow-up. After screening for relevant factors with the use of univariate analyses, preoperative, surgical, and postoperative factors predicting outcome were estimated by logistic regression analysis. Results The urine load at the voiding trial and the peak flow rate immediately preceding the voiding trial predicted voiding trial success in the multivariate analysis. Urine load and previous trial peak flow rate were relevant when tested against each individual voiding trial. Preoperative and surgical factors, such as age, parity, and concomitant cystocele repair, showed significance in the univariate analysis. Overall, 16.1% of patients who passed the first voiding trial failed on subsequent trials, whereas 36.8% of patients who failed the first voiding trial succeeded. Conclusions Postoperative voiding dysfunction is transient and is associated with the immediate voiding conditions following surgery. Close observation against urine overload in the bladder is important when weaning patients back to normal voiding conditions

The use of low-toxic heavy suspensions in mineral sands evaluation and zircon fractionation

This paper outlines a simple methodology for mineral characterization, developed as part of the Australian Mineral Industry Research Association (AMIRA) managed research project P777 'The Development of Heavy Suspension Techniques for High Density Separations (Replacement of Clerici's Solution)'. The project was sponsored by De Beers, Rio Tinto and Iluka Resources. Heavy mineral characterization of samples arising from exploration, mining or metallurgical processes is frequently conducted using laboratory heavy liquid analysis. Unfortunately, there are only a limited number of high density ('heavy') liquids and these tend to be more toxic as their density increases. Low-toxicity inorganic solutions, based on tungsten compounds, have been developed that can be utilized at relative densities (RD) up to 3.0. Beyond this value organic liquids can be used; however, this presents significant health and safety hazards. Diiodomethane (methylene iodide) having a relative density of 3.31 is commonly used. Mixtures of thallium formate and thallium malonate were found in the early 1900s by Clerici to provide liquids having specific gravities between 4.0 and 5.0. For the characterization of the heavy components of mineral sand deposits (e.g. anatase RD 3.9, rutile RD 4.2, ilmenite RD 4.4-4.7 and zircon RD 4.6-4.8) there is currently no heavy liquid alternative to Clerici's solution. Clerici's solution is highly toxic and testing is now conducted by few laboratories worldwide, with costs reflecting the chemical costs, infrastructure costs and health and safety regimes (e.g. blood testing of exposed staff). A simple laboratory technique of density fractionation has been developed, employing suspensions of fine tungsten carbide particles in lithium heteropolytungstates solutions, that can replace Clerici's solution in the evaluation of fine mineral sands samples (e.g. -250 +150 microns). The developing methodology that can achieve low-cost, low-toxic separations at relative densities above 4.0 is outlined and the comparison of results with Clerici's solution presented. In addition, preliminary work on density fractionation of zircon samples is presented. Zircon fractionation relates to their inclusion, radionuclide content and metamictization. © The Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, 2008.C

Three-year Outcomes of the Innovative Replacement of Incontinence Surgery Procedure for Treatment of Female Stress Urinary Incontinence: Comparison with Tension-free Vaginal Tape Procedure

Innovative replacement of incontinence surgery (IRIS) is a polypropylene tape that is placed beneath the midurethra to restore urinary continence. We evaluated the long-term efficacy and safety of the IRIS procedure and compared it with tension-free vaginal tape (TVT) for the treatment of female stress urinary incontinence. We included all 66 consecutive women who underwent IRIS (n=34) or TVT (n=32) between February 2002 and April 2003 and followed them up for at least 3 yr postoperatively. The 3-yr success rate was 94.1% for the IRIS and 93.8% for the TVT, and the satisfaction rates were 91.2% and 90.6%, respectively. Intraoperative complications for the IRIS group included 3 cases of bladder perforation, and there were 3 cases of bladder perforation in the TVT group. The postoperative complications for the IRIS group included 2 patients with de novo urgency and one patient with mesh erosion. Three patients with TVT developed de novo urgency. One case of each group showed temporary voiding difficulty. On the basis of our results, the IRIS may be an effective and safe procedure as compared to TVT, with a high success rate and a low complication rate