No Man Is An Island In Defense Procurement: Developments In EU Defense Procurement Regulation And Its Implications For The U.S.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union have focused minds on the EU’s role as a defense actor. In the context of defense procurement, this includes whether the EU should itself co-fund cooperative programmes with Member States (through the European Defense Fund, for example, and Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) initiatives among Member States), what can be commonly procured (and what cannot, e.g., due to prohibitions against offsets), and how (for example, under the competing constraints of Article 346 of the Treaty on Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and the 2009 European Defense Directive). The United States faces the obvious dilemma of needing to be seen to encourage EU initiatives which, if successful, would reduce reliance on the United States within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) while also securing U.S. industry’s continued access to the European defence market(s), for example through Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and under the reciprocal defense procurement agreements which open transatlantic defense markets. In the hope of advancing transatlantic cooperation in the broader procurement law community, this piece explores the latest EU initiatives in defense and security, with a particular emphasis on implications for the United States

Tale of Three Regulatory Regimes -- Dynamic, Distracted and Dysfunctional: Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times -- a year marked by genuine progress in public procurement law in some nations, and partial paralysis in others. This article presents the experience of Sweden (as part of the European Union), the United Kingdom (which is slated soon to depart from the EU, via “Brexit”), and the United States (in the first year of the Trump administration). While Sweden and other members of the European Union continue to develop a vital and evolving body of public procurement law, the United Kingdom has been distracted by Brexit, and the United States made, in 2017, almost no regulatory progress at all -- though stasis itself yielded some interesting insights. This piece proceeds in three parts, prepared primarily by Andrea Sundstrand (Part II, on Sweden and the European Union), Michael Bowsher (Part III, on the United Kingdom) and Christopher Yukins (Introduction, Part IV on the United States, and Conclusion)

The fidelity of dynamic signaling by noisy biomolecular networks

This is the final version of the article. Available from Public Library of Science via the DOI in this record.Cells live in changing, dynamic environments. To understand cellular decision-making, we must therefore understand how fluctuating inputs are processed by noisy biomolecular networks. Here we present a general methodology for analyzing the fidelity with which different statistics of a fluctuating input are represented, or encoded, in the output of a signaling system over time. We identify two orthogonal sources of error that corrupt perfect representation of the signal: dynamical error, which occurs when the network responds on average to other features of the input trajectory as well as to the signal of interest, and mechanistic error, which occurs because biochemical reactions comprising the signaling mechanism are stochastic. Trade-offs between these two errors can determine the system's fidelity. By developing mathematical approaches to derive dynamics conditional on input trajectories we can show, for example, that increased biochemical noise (mechanistic error) can improve fidelity and that both negative and positive feedback degrade fidelity, for standard models of genetic autoregulation. For a group of cells, the fidelity of the collective output exceeds that of an individual cell and negative feedback then typically becomes beneficial. We can also predict the dynamic signal for which a given system has highest fidelity and, conversely, how to modify the network design to maximize fidelity for a given dynamic signal. Our approach is general, has applications to both systems and synthetic biology, and will help underpin studies of cellular behavior in natural, dynamic environments.We acknowledge support from a Medical Research Council and Engineering and Physical Sciences Council funded Fellowship in Biomedical Informatics (CGB) and a Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance chair in Systems Biology (PSS). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

A High-Resolution Study of the HI Content of Local Group Dwarf Irregular Galaxy WLM

Dwarf irregular galaxies are unique laboratories for studying the interaction between stars and the interstellar medium in low mass environments. We present the highest spatial resolution observations to date of the neutral hydrogen content of the Local Group dwarf irregular galaxy WLM. We find that WLM's neutral hydrogen distribution is typical for a galaxy of its type and size and derive an HI mass of 6.3e7 Msun for WLM. In addition, we derive an HI extent for WLM of 30 arcmin, which is much less than the 45 arcmin extent found by Huchtmeier, Seiradakis, and Materne (1981). We show that the broken ring of high column density neutral hydrogen surrounding the center of WLM is likely the result of star formation propagating out from the center of the galaxy. The young stars and Ha emission in this galaxy are mostly correlated with the high column density neutral hydrogen. The gap in the central ring is the result of star formation in that region using up, blowing out, or ionizing all of the neutral hydrogen. Like many late-type galaxies, WLM's velocity field is asymmetric with the approaching (northern) side appearing to be warped and a steeper velocity gradient for the approaching side than for the receding side in the inner region of the galaxy. We derive a dynamical mass for WLM of 2.16e9 Msun.Comment: 38 pages, 15 figures, 5 tables, accepted by AJ, high resolution version at http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~kepley/kepley_wlm.p

Beyond simultaneity: temporal interdependence of behaviour is key to affiliative effects of interpersonal synchrony in children

Interpersonal synchrony (IS) is the temporal co-ordination of behavior during social interactions. IS acts as a social cue signifying affiliation, both when children witness IS between others and when they experience it themselves. However, it is unclear which temporal qualities of IS produce these effects, and why. We hypothesized that the simultaneity and temporal regularity of partners’ actions would each influence affiliation judgements, and that subjective perceptions of IS (‘togetherness’) would play a role in mediating these relations. In two online studies, children aged 4-11 years listened to a pair of children tapping together (witnessed IS; N=68) or themselves tapped with another child (experienced IS; N=63). Tapping partners were presented as real but were virtual. The simultaneity and regularity of their tapping was systematically manipulated across trials. For witnessed IS, both the simultaneity and regularity of partners’ tapping significantly positively affected the perceived degree of affiliation between them. These effects were mediated by the perceived togetherness of the tapping. No affiliative effects of IS were found in the experienced IS condition. Our findings suggest that both the simultaneity and regularity of partners’ actions influence children’s affiliation judgements when witnessing IS, via elicited perceptions of togetherness. We conclude that temporal interdependence – which includes but is not limited to simultaneity of action – is responsible for inducing perceptions of affiliation during witnessed IS

PRIVATE SAVINGS IN TRANSITION ECONOMIES: ARE THERE TERMS OF TRADE SHOCKS?

The paper examines the impact of terms of trade shocks on private savings in the transition economies after accounting for the effect of other determinants. Economic agents in the transition economies are subject to tight credit constraints which are more pronounced during bad state of nature. Thus, adverse shocks to commodity prices in the world market can force them to reduce savings by a larger amount than they would otherwise have. Empirical analysis using a dynamic panel model and data from twenty one transition economies confirm that most of the determinants of savings identified in the literature also apply to the transition economies. Favorable movements in both the permanent and transitory components of the terms of trade have a significant positive impact on private savings with transitory movements having a larger impact than the permanent component. This reflects the lack of access to foreign borrowing that many of the transition economies have faced during the last decade. Although the impact of terms of trade shocks are found to be asymmetric, the magnitude of the impact appears to be small. The results are robust for alternative estimators, determinants, and country groupings.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39958/3/wp572.pd

Information Transfer in Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone (GnRH) Signaling:Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinase (ERK)-Mediated Feedback Loops Control Hormone Sensing

Cell signaling pathways are noisy communication channels, and statistical measures derived from information theory can be used to quantify the information they transfer. Here we use single cell signaling measures to calculate mutual information as a measure of information transfer via gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) receptors (GnRHR) to extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) or nuclear factor of activated T-cells (NFAT). This revealed mutual information values <1 bit, implying that individual GnRH-responsive cells cannot unambiguously differentiate even two equally probable input concentrations. Addressing possible mechanisms for mitigation of information loss, we focused on the ERK pathway and developed a stochastic activation model incorporating negative feedback and constitutive activity. Model simulations revealed interplay between fast (min) and slow (min-h) negative feedback loops with maximal information transfer at intermediate feedback levels. Consistent with this, experiments revealed that reducing negative feedback (by expressing catalytically inactive ERK2) and increasing negative feedback (by Egr1-driven expression of dual-specificity phosphatase 5 (DUSP5)) both reduced information transfer from GnRHR to ERK. It was also reduced by blocking protein synthesis (to prevent GnRH from increasing DUSP expression) but did not differ for different GnRHRs that do or do not undergo rapid homologous desensitization. Thus, the first statistical measures of information transfer via these receptors reveals that individual cells are unreliable sensors of GnRH concentration and that this reliability is maximal at intermediate levels of ERK-mediated negative feedback but is not influenced by receptor desensitization