From religious freedom to social justice: the human rights engagement of the ecumenical movement from the 1940s to the 1970s

This article contributes to the historiography on human rights and (religious) internationalism by tracing how the ecumenical movement in the post-war decades sought to protect the religious freedom of its co-religionists in Catholic and Muslim countries, specifically Italy, Nigeria, and Indonesia. In co-operation with local actors, the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs sought to anchor international human rights in the domestic sphere through constitutional provisions. These activities constituted a significant strand of Christian human rights engagement from the 1940s to the 1960s, which intersected with the Cold War and decolonisation. The article then contrasts this with the turn to a more pluralistic and communitarian conception of human rights in the 1970s, animated by liberation theologies. As the World Council of Churches embraced a ‘revolutionary’ tradition and worked to resist military dictatorships, racism, and global inequality, it gravitated towards Marxism-inflected and anticolonial strands of human rights discourse

The complexity of mesoporous silica nanomaterials unravelled by single molecule microscopy

Mesoporous silica nanomaterials are a novel class of materials that offer a highly complex porous network with nanometre-sized channels into which a wide amount of differently sized guests can be incorporated. This makes them an ideal host for various applications for example in catalysis, chromatography and nanomedicine. For these applications, analyzing the host properties and understanding the complicated host–guest interactions is of pivotal importance. In this perspective we review some of our recent work that demonstrates that single molecule microscopy techniques can be utilized to characterize the porous silica host with unprecedented detail. Furthermore, the single molecule studies reveal sample heterogeneities and are a highly efficient tool to gain direct mechanistic insights into the host–guest interactions. Single molecule microscopy thus contributes to a thorough understanding of these nanomaterials enabling the development of novel tailor-made materials and hence optimizing their applicability significantly

Macromolecular Scaffolding: The Relationship Between Nanoscale Architecture and Function in Multichromophoric Arrays for Organic Electronics

Contains fulltext : 83567.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)8 p

The mir-51 Family of microRNAs Functions in Diverse Regulatory Pathways in Caenorhabditis elegans

The mir-51 family of microRNAs (miRNAs) in C. elegans are part of the deeply conserved miR-99/100 family. While loss of all six family members (mir-51-56) in C. elegans results in embryonic lethality, loss of individual mir-51 family members results in a suppression of retarded developmental timing defects associated with the loss of alg-1. The mechanism of this suppression of developmental timing defects is unknown. To address this, we characterized the function of the mir-51 family in the developmental timing pathway. We performed genetic analysis and determined that mir-51 family members regulate the developmental timing pathway in the L2 stage upstream of hbl-1. Loss of the mir-51 family member, mir-52, suppressed retarded developmental timing defects associated with the loss of let-7 family members and lin-46. Enhancement of precocious defects was observed for mutations in lin-14, hbl-1, and mir-48(ve33), but not later acting developmental timing genes. Interestingly, mir-51 family members showed genetic interactions with additional miRNA-regulated pathways, which are regulated by the let-7 and mir-35 family miRNAs, lsy-6, miR-240/786, and miR-1. Loss of mir-52 likely does not suppress miRNA-regulated pathways through an increase in miRNA biogenesis or miRNA activity. We found no increase in the levels of four mature miRNAs, let-7, miR-58, miR-62 or miR-244, in mir-52 or mir-52/53/54/55/56 mutant worms. In addition, we observed no increase in the activity of ectopic lsy-6 in the repression of a downstream target in uterine cells in worms that lack mir-52. We propose that the mir-51 family functions broadly through the regulation of multiple targets, which have not yet been identified, in diverse regulatory pathways in C. elegans

Virtual testing of advanced composites, cellular materials and biomaterials: A review

This paper documents the emergence of virtual testing frameworks for prediction of the constitutive responses of engineering materials. A detailed study is presented, of the philosophy underpinning virtual testing schemes: highlighting the structure, challenges and opportunities posed by a virtual testing strategy compared with traditional laboratory experiments. The virtual testing process has been discussed from atomistic to macrostructural length scales of analyses. Several implementations of virtual testing frameworks for diverse categories of materials are also presented, with particular emphasis on composites, cellular materials and biomaterials (collectively described as heterogeneous systems, in this context). The robustness of virtual frameworks for prediction of the constitutive behaviour of these materials is discussed. The paper also considers the current thinking on developing virtual laboratories in relation to availability of computational resources as well as the development of multi-scale material model algorithms. In conclusion, the paper highlights the challenges facing developments of future virtual testing frameworks. This review represents a comprehensive documentation of the state of knowledge on virtual testing from microscale to macroscale length scales for heterogeneous materials across constitutive responses from elastic to damage regimes

Anterior Medial Prefrontal Cortex Exhibits Activation during Task Preparation but Deactivation during Task Execution

BACKGROUND: The anterior prefrontal cortex (PFC) exhibits activation during some cognitive tasks, including episodic memory, reasoning, attention, multitasking, task sets, decision making, mentalizing, and processing of self-referenced information. However, the medial part of anterior PFC is part of the default mode network (DMN), which shows deactivation during various goal-directed cognitive tasks compared to a resting baseline. One possible factor for this pattern is that activity in the anterior medial PFC (MPFC) is affected by dynamic allocation of attentional resources depending on task demands. We investigated this possibility using an event related fMRI with a face working memory task. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Sixteen students participated in a single fMRI session. They were asked to form a task set to remember the faces (Face memory condition) or to ignore them (No face memory condition), then they were given 6 seconds of preparation period before the onset of the face stimuli. During this 6-second period, four single digits were presented one at a time at the center of the display, and participants were asked to add them and to remember the final answer. When participants formed a task set to remember faces, the anterior MPFC exhibited activation during a task preparation period but deactivation during a task execution period within a single trial. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The results suggest that the anterior MPFC plays a role in task set formation but is not involved in execution of the face working memory task. Therefore, when attentional resources are allocated to other brain regions during task execution, the anterior MPFC shows deactivation. The results suggest that activation and deactivation in the anterior MPFC are affected by dynamic allocation of processing resources across different phases of processing

Compensation or inhibitory failure? Testing hypotheses of age-related right frontal lobe involvement in verbal memory ability using structural and diffusion MRI

AbstractFunctional neuroimaging studies report increased right prefrontal cortex (PFC) involvement during verbal memory tasks amongst low-scoring older individuals, compared to younger controls and their higher-scoring contemporaries. Some propose that this reflects inefficient use of neural resources through failure of the left PFC to inhibit non-task-related right PFC activity, via the anterior corpus callosum (CC). For others, it indicates partial compensation – that is, the right PFC cannot completely supplement the failing neural network, but contributes positively to performance. We propose that combining structural and diffusion brain MRI can be used to test predictions from these theories which have arisen from fMRI studies. We test these hypotheses in immediate and delayed verbal memory ability amongst 90 healthy older adults of mean age 73 years. Right hippocampus and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) volumes, and fractional anisotropy (FA) in the splenium made unique contributions to verbal memory ability in the whole group. There was no significant effect of anterior callosal white matter integrity on performance. Rather, segmented linear regression indicated that right DLPFC volume was a significantly stronger positive predictor of verbal memory for lower-scorers than higher-scorers, supporting a compensatory explanation for the differential involvement of the right frontal lobe in verbal memory tasks in older age

Riociguat treatment in patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension: Final safety data from the EXPERT registry

Objective: The soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator riociguat is approved for the treatment of adult patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and inoperable or persistent/recurrent chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) following Phase