Country watch: Peru.

PIP: Estudio para la Defensa de Los Derechos de la Mujeri (DEMUA), a legal aid nongovernmental organization in Peru, organized a workshop to sensitize and train judges on sexual violence from a gender perspective and assess judges' perceptions of the problem. A total of 42 judges and seven staff members from the Judicial Control Office participated. Some participating judges maintained a formalistic approach to the law, which states sexual abuse is aggravated only if weapons were used and more than one perpetrator was involved and requires evidence of bodily harm for a rape charge, while others were less stringent about their interpretations. The latter group of judges tended to view sexual abuse as a crime that deprives victims of their liberty and harms their physical, sexual, and psychological health. 57% of participating judges indicated, at the end of the workshop, that the laws should be changed in terms of preventing and punishing sexual offenses and making marital rape a crime and wanted reassessment of the criteria for aggravated assault.^ieng

ICP monitoring with a re-usable transducer: experimental and clinical evaluation of the Gaeltec ICT/b pressure probe.

Intracranial pressure monitoring requires reliable transducers at a justifiable price. At present, transducers for single or repeated use are available. We examined the Gaeltec model ITC/b solid state miniature transducer experimentally and clinically. Measurement accuracy was assessed in vitro at increasing steps of 5 mmHg from 0 to 80 mmHg. While new and recently serviced probes revealed minimal deviations from the preset values, frequently used transducers differed up to 7 mmHg. This occurred especially in the high pressure range above 50 mmHg. Additionally the drift was investigated at different pressure levels. After 24 hours we already found drifts of 2 mmHg with new and serviced probes and up to 4 mmHg with used ones. In clinical practice we implanted 150 transducers in 121 patients from 1983 until 1995. The probes were re-used up to twelve times, the average time being 7 times. 32.7% of all measurements were regarded as not reliable. Dislocation (16.7%), inability to calibrate (3.3%) and defect pressure probes (3.3%) were the most common complications. Repeated use of the Gaeltec ICT/b probe also seemed to result in an additional decay of measurement quality. The strain of frequent cleaning and sterilizing may have caused changes of the physical properties of the probes with time. Whether these results also apply to other types of ICP probes for repeated use needs further evaluation.