Species- and nestmate brood discrimination in the sibling wood ant species Formica paralugubris and Formica lugubris

Formica lugubris and E paralugubris are sympatric sibling species of wood ants, both of which are widely distributed in Switzerland. Until 1996 they were considered the same species, E lugubris. To investigate whether the two species can be distinguished based on discrimination cues used by the workers we used the pupa-carrying test first introduced by Rainer Rosengren. In this test workers of discriminator colonies are faced with two kinds of pupae and their preferences for one of the types are recorded based on differential retrieval. Interspecific comparisons showed that ants preferred conspecific worker pupae to those of the sibling species regardless whether the pupae were con-colonial or hetero-colonial. Hence, this test can be used as a taxonomic tool to identify wood ants hardly distinguishable by morphological characters. In intraspecific comparisons the highly polygynous (many queens per colony) E paralugubris, the polygynous form of E lugubris and the monogynous (single queen per nest) to weakly polygynous form of E lugubris expressed different trends in their preference behaviour (with nestmate recognition in 14%, 20% and 31% of replicates, respectively). Only F paralugubris presented no significant nestmate recognition.

De l'invalide à l'adunatos: réflexions sur l'invalidité et le trouble somatoforme douloureux [From disability to the adunatos: some thoughts on disability and somatoform pain disorder].

Disability, especially if related to a psychiatric disorder, such as somatoform pain disorder, is characterized by medical, psychological, relational, social and societal, as well as financial and political aspects. This manuscript, part of a PhD thesis which reflects on a possible dialogue between an ancient text and the modern conceptualization of disability, tries to address the phenomenological, historical and political dimensions of disability.

Electrical neuroimaging of memory discrimination based on single-trial multisensory learning.

Multisensory experiences influence subsequent memory performance and brain responses. Studies have thus far concentrated on semantically congruent pairings, leaving unresolved the influence of stimulus pairing and memory sub-types. Here, we paired images with unique, meaningless sounds during a continuous recognition task to determine if purely episodic, single-trial multisensory experiences can incidentally impact subsequent visual object discrimination. Psychophysics and electrical neuroimaging analyses of visual evoked potentials (VEPs) compared responses to repeated images either paired or not with a meaningless sound during initial encounters. Recognition accuracy was significantly impaired for images initially presented as multisensory pairs and could not be explained in terms of differential attention or transfer of effects from encoding to retrieval. VEP modulations occurred at 100-130ms and 270-310ms and stemmed from topographic differences indicative of network configuration changes within the brain. Distributed source estimations localized the earlier effect to regions of the right posterior temporal gyrus (STG) and the later effect to regions of the middle temporal gyrus (MTG). Responses in these regions were stronger for images previously encountered as multisensory pairs. Only the later effect correlated with performance such that greater MTG activity in response to repeated visual stimuli was linked with greater performance decrements. The present findings suggest that brain networks involved in this discrimination may critically depend on whether multisensory events facilitate or impair later visual memory performance. More generally, the data support models whereby effects of multisensory interactions persist to incidentally affect subsequent behavior as well as visual processing during its initial stages.

Lost in translation : euro-compatibility, legal security, and the autonomous implementation of EU law in Switzerland

This article presents the legislative and judicial practice relating to the "autonomous implementation" of EU law in Switzerland. Given that "euro-compatibility" is the central consideration behind this legislative policy, one would expect Swiss authorities to have devised legislative and hermeneutical techniques guaranteeing high fidelity to EU "mother law". That is not the case, however, and as this article shows much is lost in the translation from EU to Swiss Law

Life expectancy with and without disability

Average life expectancy reached 78.8 years in Europe in 2002 (WHO 2003); most Europeans can, therefore, now anticipate living well past 75 years of age. Projections in industrialized nations suggest a continuing mortality decline in the next decades 1 while birth rates will probably continue to decline, resulting in further ageing of these nations. As those aged 80 years and over are the fastest expanding segment of the older population, concerns are growing about a potential dramatic increase in the number of disabled persons. The ageing of the population and the related increase in chronic disease burden have already had major impacts on most Western health-care systems, and will probably further affect these systems in the future as the baby-boom generation becomes older. For instance, in Switzerland, it is estimated that costs due to long-term care could more than double by 2030, from 6.5 to 15.3 billion SFr.2 Similar trends are expected in most European countries. As a consequence, postponement of the onset of disability, with a compression of functional dependency into a shorter period towards the end of life, is becoming a major goal. To successfully achieve this goal and improve the control of growing health and social care expenditures, various strategies of health promotion and disease prevention are developed and tested. Although several of these experiences had some effects on functional decline and institutional placement, they have not been shown to be cost-effective. Additional strategies are, therefore, needed to prevent or delay the onset of disability in older persons, reduce functional impairment, and face the challenge of an increasing disabled elderly population.

Compensation for environmental damages under international law

ABSTRACT The purpose of this research is to clarify the contribution of international dispute adjudication mechanisms in regard to environmental protection. Most specifically, the study aims to identify and develop the criterion adopted by the international judge in relation to the compensation for environmental damages. In this perspective, the study identifies some gaps between international responsibility and environmental protection interests. The premise sustained all along the study is that compensation is determinant to conciliate environmental prerogatives with mechanisms of international adjudication, in particular the system of international responsibility. Supported by the analysis of treaties, international decisions and secondary sources, the thesis defends the idea that some elements of international law allow the adjudicator to adapt the compensation to attend certain environmental interests, creating a new approach which was entitled 'fair compensation'. The antithesis of this approach is the idea that compensation in international law is limited exclusively to the strict reparation of the material losses incurred by the victim. As a synthesis, the study defends the specificity of environmental damages in relation to other kind of damages that are subject to compensation under international law. The measure upon which compensation for environmental damages could be classified as a specific type of damage under international law remains to be determined. The main conclusion of the study is that the existing standard of compensation defined by the theory and practice of international law is impossible to be strictly respected in cases involving environmental damages. This limitation is mainly due to the complexity of the notion of environment, which is constantly conflicting with the anthropologic view of legal theory. The study supports the idea that the establishment of a 'fair compensation' which takes into account the political, legal and technical context of the environmental damage, is the best possible approach to conciliate internationally responsibility and environmental interests. This could be implemented by the observance of certain elements by the international judge/arbitrator through a case-by-case analysis.

Towards equivalent health care of prisoners: European soft law and public health policy in Geneva.

Prisoners have a right to health care and to be protected against inhumane and degrading treatment. Health care personnel and public policy makers play a central role in the protection of these rights and in the pursuit of public health goals. This article examines the legal framework for prison medicine in the canton of Geneva, Switzerland and provides examples of this framework that has shaped prisoners' medical care, including preventive measures. Geneva constitutes an intriguing example of how the Council of Europe standards concerning prison medicine have acquired a legal role in a Swiss canton. Learning how these factors have influenced implementation of prison medicine standards in Geneva may be helpful to public health managers elsewhere and encourage the use of similar strategies.

Le juge en droit européen et international = The Judge in European and International Law

Le juge et son rôle ont été thématisés abondamment en théorie du droit, mais toujours sous l'angle du droit et du juge internes. On pensera ainsi aux questions des rapports entre justice et politique ou démocratie, ou encore au rôle créateur de droit du juge en cas de lacune juridique et à la légitimité du droit dit prétorien. Pour autant que l'on considère qu'il s'agisse bien d'un juge, le juge international ou européen et sa fonction judiciaire posent des problèmes de même type certes bien que plus aigus, mais aussi des difficultés nouvelles auxquelles la théorie du droit n'a pas encore donné de réponses. Le présent ouvrage tente d'identifier ces difficultés théoriques propres au juge international ou européen et d'apporter des débuts de réponse. Fruit du sixième colloque doctoral de l'Ecole doctorale Fondements du droit européen et international et quatrième volume de la collection du même nom, il réunit des contributions en anglais et en français rédigées par des doctorants des universités suisses romandes et alémaniques et d'universités européennes partenaires, mais aussi d'intervenants externes invités aux différentes sessions du colloque.

Noise in Brain Activity Engenders Perception and Influences Discrimination Sensitivity.

Behavioral and brain responses to identical stimuli can vary with experimental and task parameters, including the context of stimulus presentation or attention. More surprisingly, computational models suggest that noise-related random fluctuations in brain responses to stimuli would alone be sufficient to engender perceptual differences between physically identical stimuli. In two experiments combining psychophysics and EEG in healthy humans, we investigated brain mechanisms whereby identical stimuli are (erroneously) perceived as different (higher vs lower in pitch or longer vs shorter in duration) in the absence of any change in the experimental context. Even though, as expected, participants' percepts to identical stimuli varied randomly, a classification algorithm based on a mixture of Gaussians model (GMM) showed that there was sufficient information in single-trial EEG to reliably predict participants' judgments of the stimulus dimension. By contrasting electrical neuroimaging analyses of auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) to the identical stimuli as a function of participants' percepts, we identified the precise timing and neural correlates (strength vs topographic modulations) as well as intracranial sources of these erroneous perceptions. In both experiments, AEP differences first occurred ∼100 ms after stimulus onset and were the result of topographic modulations following from changes in the configuration of active brain networks. Source estimations localized the origin of variations in perceived pitch of identical stimuli within right temporal and left frontal areas and of variations in perceived duration within right temporoparietal areas. We discuss our results in terms of providing neurophysiologic evidence for the contribution of random fluctuations in brain activity to conscious perception.