When US scholars speak of 'sovereignty', what do they mean?

The term 'sovereignty' figures prominently in international affairs and academic analysis. But does 'sovereignty' mean the same thing in different countries and political cultures? In this article, we examine conceptions of sovereignty as they appear in the writings of US scholars of international law and those international relations scholars who deal with international law, in order to obtain a clearer picture of what 'sovereignty' means in American academic discourse. At first glance, the US literature is dominated by two distinct conceptions of sovereignty: (1) a statist conception that privileges the territorial integrity and political independence of governments regardless of their democratic or undemocratic character; (2) a popular conception that privileges the rights of peoples rather than governments, especially when widespread human rights violations are committed by a totalitarian regime. On closer examination, what seem to be two conceptions are in fact different manifestations of a single, uniquely American conception of sovereignty which elevates the United States above other countries and protects it against outside influences while concurrently maximising its ability to intervene overseas

Cytometric and electron microscopic studies of the direct interaction of divalent nickel with intact and chemically modified HuT-78 lymphoblasts

Cytometric and ultrastructural studies on 24 hr cultures of intact, 1.0 mM H5IO6, and 0.1 mM SeO2-oxidized HuT-78 lymphoblasts were performed after their direct, 30 min interaction with 1.0 mM NiCl2. Except for moderately depressed cell viability, divalent nickel did not alter the progression of intact and oxidized target cells through the phases of the cell cycle. Although the plasma membrane remained structurally intact, marked distortion of mitochondria structure and increased osmiophilia were an invariable attribute of all nickel-pulsed cells. Moreover, numerous electron-opaque, intracellular depositions were detected in SeO2-oxidized, nickel-pulsed cells. It is concluded that the initial state of plasma membrane, and the interaction of nickel with other trace elements, have jointly determined the response of HuT-78 cells to brief and direct, divalent nickel pulses

Genome-wide Association Study points to novel locus for Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome.

Tourette Syndrome (TS) is a childhood-onset neurodevelopmental disorder of complex genetic architecture, characterized by multiple motor tics and at least one vocal tic persisting for more than one year. We performed a genome-wide meta-analysis integrating a novel TS cohort with previously published data, resulting in a sample size of 6,133 TS individuals and 13,565 ancestry-matched controls. We identified a genome-wide significant locus on chromosome 5q15. Integration of eQTL, Hi-C and GWAS data implicated the NR2F1 gene and associated lncRNAs within the 5q15 locus. Heritability partitioning identified statistically significant enrichment in brain tissue histone marks, while polygenic risk scoring on brain volume data identified statistically significant associations with right and left thalamus volumes and right putamen volume. Our work presents novel insights in the neurobiology of TS opening up new directions for future studies