Syriza in Power (2015-2019): A Review of Selected

What are the consequences of Syriza coming to power in Greece in 2015? Did it become a new Weimar Germany for the future Europe? In this article we test the hypothesis that winning two consecutive parliamentary elections in 2015 and forming a government contributed to a farther institutionalisation of this party within the rules of Greek democracy. This article is based on data from the Greek Ministry of Interior and the website of the Greek parliament. This text aims at presenting the process of transformation of Syriza - a radical, left-wing, anti-establishment and anti-austerity party into a governmental entity, pro systemic and accepting the principle of the democratic state of law. All this was due to the establishing of the governmental coalition with ANEL, a nationalist party; social-economic reforms; the reform of the electoral system for parliamentary elections; the proposal of a constitutional reform and the ending of the nearly 30-year dispute with Macedonia. The electoral failure during the parliamentary elections on the 7th of July 2019 finishes a 4-year governance of Syriza and enables us to try to evaluate this experiment for the first time. A key finding of our investigation is the need to highlight the respect for the democratic rules by Syriza during its government and its further institutionalisation as one of the main groupings of the contemporary party system in Greece

Zmiany w systemie politycznym w Grecji po wyborach powszechnych w 2015 r.

The article analyzes the political changes that have taken place in Greece following a double parliamentary election of 2015 (in January and September), focusing on three levels: 1) party system change, 2) electoral system change into parliament, 3) constitutional reform. The first part of the text sets out the basic changes in the structure of the party system, emphasizing the electoral victory of the radical forces – the far left populist SYRIZA or the rise of the far-right (Golden Dawn) in the double election of 2015. The paper also briefly reviews the nature and functioning of the Greek parliamentary electoral system with special regard to the newly adopted electoral law. In this respect, the paper highlights the main constitutional principles governing suffrage, as a necessary background to examining and understanding the framework upon which Greek electoral systems are based. It also presents the main features of the current electoral system, since it is the one to be applied in the following parliamentary election. The focus will be then on the recent reform of the electoral system in Greece after the adoption of Law 4406/2016. The paper analyses its most significant aspects and raises a number of relevant questions. Special reference is made to the voting procedure followed by the Greek Parliament for the adoption of Law 4406/2016, since it is a key factor for its enforcement. Since the outbreak of the crisis discussions about constitutional reform have been ongoing in Greece, although the initiation of a formal amendment process was blocked until 2013, due to the time-constraints imposed by the constitutional amending formula. The paragraph assesses the proposals made in July 2016 by the Tsipras government for a radical revision of the 1975 Constitution, taking into account the intense debate which engaged Greek constitutional law scholars. The Author highlights the particular features of the Greek constitutional revision model, characterized by political-elite-driven change which has led in the past to amending attempts lacking of a broad consensus. The broad scope of the proposed amendments requires political foresight and caution to prevent the constitutional revision from being reduced to a mere political diversion to ensure the permanence in power of certain political actors in the absence of consent and to deflect attention from continued controversial austerity policies. Artykuł analizuje zmiany polityczne, jakie zaszły w Grecji po podwójnych wyborach parlamentarnych z 2015 r. (w styczniu i wrześniu), koncentrując się na trzech płaszczyznach: 1) zmiany modelu systemu partyjnego, 2) zmiany systemu wyborczego do parlamentu, 3) reformy konstytucji. W pierwszej części tekstu określono podstawowe zmiany w strukturze systemu partyjnego, podkreślając zwycięstwo wyborcze radykalnych ugrupowań – lewicowej Syrizy czy skrajnej prawicy (Złoty Świt) w podwójnej elekcji z 2015 r. W drugiej części artykułu została omówiona charakterystyka i sposób funkcjonowania greckiego parlamentarnego systemu wyborczego, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem nowo przyjętej ordynacji wyborczej. Zwrócono uwagę na główne zasady konstytucyjne dotyczące prawa wyborczego, jako niezbędnego tła dla zbadania i zrozumienia ram, na których opierają się greckie systemy wyborcze. Przedstawiono główne cechy obecnego systemu wyborczego na podstawie ostatniej reformy systemu wyborczego w Grecji, ustawy no. 4406 z 2016 r. Artykuł analizuje jego najważniejsze aspekty i porusza szereg istotnych pytań. Odwołuje się szczególnie do procedury głosowania prowadzonej przez grecki parlament w celu przyjęcia ustawy 4406/2016, ponieważ jest to kluczowy czynnik jej egzekwowania. Ostatnia część artykuły została poświęcona planowej zmianie greckiej konstytucji. Od wybuchu kryzysu gospodarczego w Grecji trwają dyskusje na temat reformy konstytucyjnej, chociaż proces formalnej zmiany został wstrzymany do 2013 r., ze względu na ograniczenia czasowe narzucone w konstytucji. W artykule dokonano oceny propozycji złożonych przez rząd Tsiprasa w lipcu 2016 r. w celu radykalnej rewizji konstytucji z 1975 r. Autorka podkreśla szczególne cechy greckiego modelu rewizji konstytucyjnej, charakteryzującego się zmianami kierowanymi przez elitę polityczną, które doprowadziły w przeszłości do zmian bez większego konsensusu. Szeroki zakres proponowanych poprawek wymaga politycznego przewidywania i ostrożności, aby zapobiec przekształceniu rewizji konstytucji w zwykłą zmianę polityczną oraz aby zapewnić ciągłość władzy niektórych podmiotów politycznych przy braku zgody i odwrócić uwagę od wciąż kontrowersyjnych polityk oszczędnościowych

Πεμπρολιζουμάμπη και καρκίνος ενδομητρίου

Εισαγωγή : Ο καρκίνος του ενδομητρίου αποτελεί ιδιαίτερα συχνό καρκίνο στις προεμμηνοπαυσιακές και μετεμμηνοπαυσιακές γυναίκες. Η ανοσοθεραπεία και ιδιαίτερα η πεμπρολιζουμάμπη έχει παρατείνει τη συνολική επιβίωση σε διάφορους τύπους καρκίνων. Η παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία αποτελεί μία συστηματική ανασκόπηση της βιβλιογραφίας, η οποία αξιολογεί την αποτελεσματικότητα και την ασφάλεια της χορήγησης της πεμπρολιζουμάμπης σε ασθενείς με προχωρημένο ή μεταστατικό καρκίνο ενδομητρίου. Υλικά – Μέθοδοι : Η παρούσα μελέτη πραγματοποιήθηκε με βάση τις κατευθυντήριες οδηγίες PRISMA. Τα άρθρα, τα οποία πληρούσαν τα κριτήρια ένταξης, ανευρεύθησαν στη βάση δεδομένων MEDLINE και ClinicalTrials.gov. Η αναζήτηση πραγματοποιήθηκε χρησιμοποιώντας συγκεκριμένες λέξεις- κλειδιά και συνδυασμούς των όρων " endometrial cancer" και "humanized monoclonal antibodies". Αποτελέσματα: Συνολικά, 5 κλινικές μελέτες(99 ασθενείς) πληρούσαν τα κριτήρια ένταξης στην παρούσα ερευνητική εργασία. Η πεμπρολιζουμάμπη φαίνεται να αποτελεί μια αποτελεσματική και ασφαλής θεραπευτική επιλογή για τον προχωρημένο-μεταστατικό καρκίνο του ενδομητρίου. Επιπλέον, διάφορες μελέτες, οι οποίες αξιολογούν την αποτελεσματικότητα της είτε ως μονοθεραπεία είτε σε συνδυασμό με άλλες θεραπευτικές επιλογές είναι σε εξελίξη. Συζήτηση- Συμπεράσματα : Η χορήγηση της στον καρκίνο του ενδομητρίου φαίνεται να προσφέρει σημαντικά κλινικά οφέλη. Ωστόσο,αποτελεί αναγκαιότητα η αναζήτηση προβλεπτικών βιοδεικτών μέσω της διεξαγωγής μεγάλων τυχαιοποιημένων, διπλά τυφλών κλινικών μελετών για την εύρεση των ασθενών , οι οποίοι θα λάβουν το μέγιστο θεραπευτικό όφελος.Purpose: Immunotherapy and specifically pembrolizumab have shown great results in a variety of cancer types. This is the first systematic review of the literature to synthesize all the available data and to evaluate the efficacy and safety of pembrolizumab in endometrial cancer. Methods: This study was performed in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines. Eligible articles were identified by a search of MEDLINE and ClinicalTrials.gov databases, using a predefined combination of the terms" endometrial cancer", "humanized monoclonal antibodies" Results: Overall, 5 articles (99patients) were eligible. Pembrolizumab seems to be an effective and safe therapeutic option for the management of advanced/ metastatic endometrial cancer. Results of ongoing trials either with pembrolizumab alone or in combination with other treatments are expected to update this statement. Conclusion: Pembrolizumab seems to show clinical activity in endometrial cancer. However, it is unquestionable the need for large Phase III clinical trials in order to verify these results and discover predictive biomarkers

Efficacy of Carraguard®-Based Microbicides In Vivo Despite Variable In Vitro Activity

Anti-HIV microbicides are being investigated in clinical trials and understanding how promising strategies work, coincident with demonstrating efficacy in vivo, is central to advancing new generation microbicides. We evaluated Carraguard® and a new generation Carraguard-based formulation containing the non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) MIV-150 (PC-817). Since dendritic cells (DCs) are believed to be important in HIV transmission, the formulations were tested for the ability to limit DC-driven infection in vitro versus vaginal infection of macaques with RT-SHIV (SIVmac239 bearing HIV reverse transcriptase). Carraguard showed limited activity against cell-free and mature DC-driven RT-SHIV infections and, surprisingly, low doses of Carraguard enhanced infection. However, nanomolar amounts of MIV-150 overcame enhancement and blocked DC-transmitted infection. In contrast, Carraguard impeded infection of immature DCs coincident with DC maturation. Despite this variable activity in vitro, Carraguard and PC-817 prevented vaginal transmission of RT-SHIV when applied 30 min prior to challenge. PC-817 appeared no more effective than Carraguard in vivo, due to the limited activity of a single dose of MIV-150 and the dominant barrier effect of Carraguard. However, 3 doses of MIV-150 in placebo gel at and around challenge limited vaginal infection, demonstrating the potential activity of a topically applied NNRTI. These data demonstrate discordant observations when comparing in vitro and in vivo efficacy of Carraguard-based microbicides, highlighting the difficulties in testing putative anti-viral strategies in vitro to predict in vivo activity. This work also underscores the potential of Carraguard-based formulations for the delivery of anti-viral drugs to prevent vaginal HIV infection

A Macaque Model to Study Vaginal HSV-2/Immunodeficiency Virus Co-Infection and the Impact of HSV-2 on Microbicide Efficacy

Herpes simplex virus type-2 (HSV-2) infection enhances the transmission and acquisition of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This occurs in symptomatic and asymptomatic stages of HSV-2 infection, suggesting that obvious herpetic lesions are not required to increase HIV spread. An animal model to investigate the underlying causes of the synergistic action of the two viruses and where preventative strategies can be tested under such complex physiological conditions is currently unavailable.We set out to establish a rhesus macaque model in which HSV-2 infection increases the susceptibility to vaginal infection with a model immunodeficiency virus (simian-human immunodeficiency virus, SHIV-RT), and to more stringently test promising microbicides. HSV-2 exposure significantly increased the frequency of vaginal SHIV-RT infection (n = 6). Although cervical lesions were detected in only approximately 10% of the animals, long term HSV-2 DNA shedding was detected (in 50% of animals followed for 2 years). Vaginal HSV-2 exposure elicited local cytokine/chemokine (n = 12) and systemic low-level HSV-2-specific adaptive responses in all animals (n = 8), involving CD4(+) and CD8(+) HSV-specific T cells (n = 5). Local cytokine/chemokine responses were lower in co-infected animals, while simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV)-specific adaptive responses were comparable in naïve and HSV-2-infected animals (n = 6). Despite the increased frequency of SHIV-RT infection, a new generation microbicide gel, comprised of Carraguard(R) and a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor MIV-150 (PC-817), blocked vaginal SHIV-RT infection in HSV-2-exposed animals (n = 8), just as in naïve animals.We established a unique HSV-2 macaque model that will likely facilitate research to define how HSV-2 increases HIV transmission, and enable more rigorous evaluation of candidate anti-viral approaches in vivo

Sociolinguistic Features for Author Gender Identification: From Qualitative Evidence to Quantitative Analysis

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Quantitative Linguistics on 7 October 2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09296174.2016.1226430. The Accepted Manuscript is under embargo. Embargo end date: 7 April 2018.Theoretical and empirical studies prove the strong relationship between social factors and the individual linguistic attitudes. Different social categories, such as gender, age, education, profession and social status, are strongly related with the linguistic diversity of people’s everyday spoken and written interaction. In this paper, sociolinguistic studies addressed to gender differentiation are overviewed in order to identify how various linguistic characteristics differ between women and men. Thereafter, it is examined if and how these qualitative features can become quantitative metrics for the task of gender identification from texts on web blogs. The evaluation results showed that the “syntactic complexity”, the “tag questions”, the “period length”, the “adjectives” and the “vocabulary richness” characteristics seem to be significantly distinctive with respect to the author’s gender.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Mixed microalgae culture for ammonium removal in the absence of phosphorus: Effect of phosphorus supplementation and process modeling

Microalgal growth and ammonium removal in a P-free medium have been studied in two batch photobioreactors seeded with a mixed microalgal culture and operated for 46 days. A significant amount of ammonium (106 mg NH4-Nl(-1)) was removed in a P-free medium, showing that microalgal growth and phosphorus uptake are independent processes. The ammonium removal rate decreased during the experiment, partly due to a decrease in the cellular phosphorus content. After a single phosphate addition in the medium of one of the reactors, intracellular phosphorus content of the corresponding microalgal culture rapidly increased, and so did the ammonium removal rate. These results show how the amount of phosphorus internally stored affects the ammonium removal rate. A mathematical model was proposed to reproduce these observations. The kinetic expression for microalgae growth includes a Monad term and a Hill's function to represent the effect of ammonium and stored polyphosphate concentrations, respectively. The proposed model accurately reproduced the experimental data (r=0.952, P-value <0.01).This research work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO, Projects CTM2011-28595-C02-01/02 jointly with the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). They are both gratefully acknowledged.Ruiz Martinez, A.; Serralta Sevilla, J.; Paches Giner, MAV.; Seco Torrecillas, A.; Ferrer, J. (2014). Mixed microalgae culture for ammonium removal in the absence of phosphorus: Effect of phosphorus supplementation and process modeling. Process Biochemistry. 49(12):2249-2257. doi:10.1016/j.procbio.2014.09.002S22492257491

An Antiretroviral/Zinc Combination Gel Provides 24 Hours of Complete Protection against Vaginal SHIV Infection in Macaques

Repeated use, coitus-independent microbicide gels that do not contain antiretroviral agents also used as first line HIV therapy are urgently needed to curb HIV spread. Current formulations require high doses (millimolar range) of antiretroviral drugs and typically only provide short-term protection in macaques. We used the macaque model to test the efficacy of a novel combination microbicide gel containing zinc acetate and micromolar doses of the novel non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor MIV-150 for up to 24 h after repeated gel application.Rhesus macaques were vaginally challenged with SHIV-RT up to 24 h after repeated administration of microbicide versus placebo gels. Infection status was determined by measuring virologic and immunologic parameters. Combination microbicide gels containing 14 mM zinc acetate dihydrate and 50 µM MIV-150 afforded full protection (21 of 21 animals) for up to 24 h after 2 weeks of daily application. Partial protection was achieved with the MIV-150 gel (56% of control at 8 h after last application, 11% at 24 h), while the zinc acetate gel afforded more pronounced protection (67% at 8-24 h). Marked protection persisted when the zinc acetate or MIV-150/zinc acetate gels were applied every other day for 4 weeks prior to challenge 24 h after the last gel was administered (11 of 14 protected). More MIV-150 was associated with cervical tissue 8 h after daily dosing of MIV-150/zinc acetate versus MIV-150, while comparable MIV-150 levels were associated with vaginal tissues and at 24 h.A combination MIV-150/zinc acetate gel and a zinc acetate gel provide significant protection against SHIV-RT infection for up to 24 h. This represents a novel advancement, identifying microbicides that do not contain anti-viral agents used to treat HIV infection and which can be used repeatedly and independently of coitus, and underscores the need for future clinical testing of their safety and ability to prevent HIV transmission in humans

CD4-Specific Designed Ankyrin Repeat Proteins Are Novel Potent HIV Entry Inhibitors with Unique Characteristics

Here, we describe the generation of a novel type of HIV entry inhibitor using the recently developed Designed Ankyrin Repeat Protein (DARPin) technology. DARPin proteins specific for human CD4 were selected from a DARPin DNA library using ribosome display. Selected pool members interacted specifically with CD4 and competed with gp120 for binding to CD4. DARPin proteins derived in the initial selection series inhibited HIV in a dose-dependent manner, but showed a relatively high variability in their capacity to block replication of patient isolates on primary CD4 T cells. In consequence, a second series of CD4-specific DARPins with improved affinity for CD4 was generated. These 2nd series DARPins potently inhibit infection of genetically divergent (subtype B and C) HIV isolates in the low nanomolar range, independent of coreceptor usage. Importantly, the actions of the CD4 binding DARPins were highly specific: no effect on cell viability or activation, CD4 memory cell function, or interference with CD4-independent virus entry was observed. These novel CD4 targeting molecules described here combine the unique characteristics of DARPins—high physical stability, specificity and low production costs—with the capacity to potently block HIV entry, rendering them promising candidates for microbicide development