The Jus Ad Bellum and the 1998 Initiation of the Eritrean-Ethopian War

From May 1998 to December 2000, Eritrea and Ethiopia engaged in an armed conflict that cost the lives of thousands of individuals, injured thousands more, and displaced tens of thousands of men, women, and children from their homes. In December 2000, the two sides concluded a comprehensive agreement that ended the war. Among other things, the agreement established the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission. Consisting of five arbitrators, the Commission’s mandate was to “decide through binding arbitration all claims for loss, damage or injury by one Government against the other” that were “related to the conflict” and that “resulted from violations of international humanitarian law, including the 1949 Geneva Conventions, or other violations of international law.” The two countries filed claims with the Commission in December 2001 and from that time until August 2009, the Commission issued seventeen arbitral awards and eight decisions, covering a broad array of claims, including inhumane treatment of prisoners of war and civilian internees, abuse of enemy aliens in a belligerent’s territory or in occupied territory, wrongful seizure of the enemy’s public or private property, indiscriminate battlefield conduct or aerial bombing, harassment of diplomats and seizure of diplomatic property, and many other matters. The book LITIGATING WAR: ARBITRATION OF CIVIL INJURY BY THE ERITREA-ETHIOPIA CLAIMS COMMISSION seeks to integrate in discrete chapters the Commission’s findings on key topics, with each chapter organized into sub-sections that deal with the principal elements of that topic. The guiding emphasis is not on who-filed-what claim but is instead on what kinds of violations were addressed by the Commission, what kinds of evidence were relevant in establishing or defending against such violations, what legal conclusions emerged in addressing those violations, and what levels of compensation were deemed appropriate when a violation was found.The dominant area of international law upon which claims before the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission were based was the jus in bello, or the law operating as between two belligerents after an armed conflict has arisen. One type of claim filed before the Commission, however, was quite different, in that it concerned an alleged violation of the jus ad bellum, or the law on when a state may resort to a use of military force against another state. As one of the most important norms for the international legal system, the Commission’s treatment of the jus ad bellum claim is of particular interest, and is addressed in the book’s Chapter IV on “Initiation of War.

Prioritizing MCDC test cases by spectral analysis of Boolean functions

Test case prioritization aims at scheduling test cases in an order that improves some performance goal. One performance goal is a measure of how quickly faults are detected. Such prioritization can be performed by exploiting the Fault Exposing Potential (FEP) parameters associated to the test cases. FEP is usually approximated by mutation analysis under certain fault assumptions. Although this technique is effective, it could be relatively expensive compared to the other prioritization techniques. This study proposes a cost-effective FEP approximation for prioritizing Modified Condition Decision Coverage (MCDC) test cases. A strict negative correlation between the FEP of a MCDC test case and the influence value of the associated input condition allows to order the test cases easily without the need of an extensive mutation analysis. The method is entirely based on mathematics and it provides useful insight into how spectral analysis of Boolean functions can benefit software testing

CyberKnife with Tumor Tracking: An Effective Treatment for High-Risk Surgical Patients with Single Peripheral Lung Metastases

Standard treatment for operable patients with single peripheral lung metastases is metastasectomy. We report mature CyberKnife outcomes for high-risk surgical patients with biopsy proven single peripheral lung metastases. Twenty-four patients (median age 73 years) with a mean maximum tumor diameter of 2.5 cm (range, 0.8–4.5 cm) were treated over a 6-year period extending from September 2004 to September 2010 and followed for a minimum of 1 year or until death. A mean dose of 52 Gy (range, 45–60 Gy) was delivered to the prescription isodose line in three fractions over a 3–11 day period (mean, 7 days). At a median follow-up of 20 months, the 2-year Kaplan–Meier local control and overall survival rates were 87 and 50%, respectively. CyberKnife with fiducial tracking is an effective treatment for high-risk surgical patients with single small peripheral lung metastases. Trials comparing CyberKnife with metastasectomy for operable patients are necessary to confirm equivalence

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Genome remodelling in a basal-like breast cancer metastasis and xenograft

Massively parallel DNA sequencing technologies provide an unprecedented ability to screen entire genomes for genetic changes associated with tumour progression. Here we describe the genomic analyses of four DNA samples from an African-American patient with basal-like breast cancer: peripheral blood, the primary tumour, a brain metastasis and a xenograft derived from the primary tumour. The metastasis contained two de novo mutations and a large deletion not present in the primary tumour, and was significantly enriched for 20 shared mutations. The xenograft retained all primary tumour mutations and displayed a mutation enrichment pattern that resembled the metastasis. Two overlapping large deletions, encompassing CTNNA1, were present in all three tumour samples. The differential mutation frequencies and structural variation patterns in metastasis and xenograft compared with the primary tumour indicate that secondary tumours may arise from a minority of cells within the primary tumour

Simvastatin Sodium Salt and Fluvastatin Interact with Human Gap Junction Gamma-3 Protein

Finding pleiomorphic targets for drugs allows new indications or warnings for treatment to be identified. As test of concept, we applied a new chemical genomics approach to uncover additional targets for the widely prescribed lipid-lowering pro-drug simvastatin. We used mRNA extracted from internal mammary artery from patients undergoing coronary artery surgery to prepare a viral cardiovascular protein library, using T7 bacteriophage. We then studied interactions of clones of the bacteriophage, each expressing a different cardiovascular polypeptide, with surface-bound simvastatin in 96-well plates. To maximise likelihood of identifying meaningful interactions between simvastatin and vascular peptides, we used a validated photo-immobilisation method to apply a series of different chemical linkers to bind simvastatin so as to present multiple orientations of its constituent components to potential targets. Three rounds of biopanning identified consistent interaction with the clone expressing part of the gene GJC3, which maps to Homo sapiens chromosome 7, and codes for gap junction gamma-3 protein, also known as connexin 30.2/31.3 (mouse connexin Cx29). Further analysis indicated the binding site to be for the N-terminal domain putatively ‘regulating’ connexin hemichannel and gap junction pores. Using immunohistochemistry we found connexin 30.2/31.3 to be present in samples of artery similar to those used to prepare the bacteriophage library. Surface plasmon resonance revealed that a 25 amino acid synthetic peptide representing the discovered N-terminus did not interact with simvastatin lactone, but did bind to the hydrolysed HMG CoA inhibitor, simvastatin acid. This interaction was also seen for fluvastatin. The gap junction blockers carbenoxolone and flufenamic acid also interacted with the same peptide providing insight into potential site of binding. These findings raise key questions about the functional significance of GJC3 transcripts in the vasculature and other tissues, and this connexin’s role in therapeutic and adverse effects of statins in a range of disease states

Distance Education at the College of Applied Science

"Submitted to the Faculty of the Information Engineering Technology Program in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science in Information Engineering Technology