Política de segurança dos EUA para a América Latina após o final da Guerra Fria

O ARTIGO analisa a política de segurança dos EUA para a América Latina a partir do final da Guerra Fria. São consideradas as principais transformações deste aspecto da política externa norte americana para a região. A tendência à incorporação de novos temas à agenda de segurança, em particular a manutenção de regimes democrático, o narcotráfego e as migrações é investigada, assim como a presença militar norte americana na região. A relevância que a região andina adquire nos anos 90 e a disposição das três primeiras administrações do pós Guerra Fria de incentivar mecanismos multilaterais para a área da segurança também são avaliados.THE ARTICLE analyses North American security policy regarding Latin America since the end of the Cold War. The main transformations of this aspect of the US's foreign policy toward the region are considered. The tendency to incorporate new themes to the security agenda, such as the preservation of democracy, drug traffic and production and illegal migration is investigated. The US military presence in the region is also looked into. The importance that the Andean sub region acquired during the 1990s and the desire of the three first post Cold War administrations to stimulate the creation and reconstruction of multilateral mechanisms in the security sphere are evaluated

The histone deacetylase complex MiDAC regulates a neurodevelopmental gene expression program to control neurite outgrowth

The mitotic deacetylase complex (MiDAC) is a recently identified histone deacetylase (HDAC) complex. While other HDAC complexes have been implicated in neurogenesis, the physiological role of MiDAC remains unknown. Here, we show that MiDAC constitutes an important regulator of neural differentiation. We demonstrate that MiDAC functions as a modulator of a neurodevelopmental gene expression program and binds to important regulators of neurite outgrowth. MiDAC upregulates gene expression of pro-neural genes such as those encoding the secreted ligands SLIT3 and NETRIN1 (NTN1) by a mechanism suggestive of H4K20ac removal on promoters and enhancers. Conversely, MiDAC inhibits gene expression by reducing H3K27ac on promoter-proximal and -distal elements of negative regulators of neurogenesis. Furthermore, loss of MiDAC results in neurite outgrowth defects that can be rescued by supplementation with SLIT3 and/or NTN1. These findings indicate a crucial role for MiDAC in regulating the ligands of the SLIT3 and NTN1 signaling axes to ensure the proper integrity of neurite development

Distinct Olfactory Cross-Modal Effects on the Human Motor System

BACKGROUND: Converging evidence indicates that action observation and action-related sounds activate cross-modally the human motor system. Since olfaction, the most ancestral sense, may have behavioural consequences on human activities, we causally investigated by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) whether food odour could additionally facilitate the human motor system during the observation of grasping objects with alimentary valence, and the degree of specificity of these effects. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In a repeated-measure block design, carried out on 24 healthy individuals participating to three different experiments, we show that sniffing alimentary odorants immediately increases the motor potentials evoked in hand muscles by TMS of the motor cortex. This effect was odorant-specific and was absent when subjects were presented with odorants including a potentially noxious trigeminal component. The smell-induced corticospinal facilitation of hand muscles during observation of grasping was an additive effect which superimposed to that induced by the mere observation of grasping actions for food or non-food objects. The odour-induced motor facilitation took place only in case of congruence between the sniffed odour and the observed grasped food, and specifically involved the muscle acting as prime mover for hand/fingers shaping in the observed action. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Complex olfactory cross-modal effects on the human corticospinal system are physiologically demonstrable. They are odorant-specific and, depending on the experimental context, muscle- and action-specific as well. This finding implies potential new diagnostic and rehabilitative applications

As Transformações das Regras Internacionais sobre Violência na Ordem Mundial Contemporânea

RESUMO Este artigo examina as transformações das regras internacionais sobre violência a partir de uma perspectiva construtivista de Relações Internacionais. Em particular, analisam-se as mudanças nas práticas sociais internacionais que têm ocorrido desde o fim do último século, discutindo-as em termos de regras internacionais que concomitantemente limitam e constituem as condições de possibilidade para o uso da violência. Na primeira parte, são mapeados e brevemente examinados cinco conjuntos de regras internacionais sobre violência: o direito internacional humanitário, o humanitarismo, o direito internacional dos direitos humanos, o direito internacional criminal e o regime de segurança coletiva. Na segunda parte, analisam-se as transformações político-normativa-sociais e conceituais que vêm ocorrendo na ordem mundial desde a década de 1990, dando particular ênfase à redefinição do conceito de segurança, à ressignificação do conceito de soberania e ao processo de expansão e confluência daqueles cinco conjuntos de regras internacionais. Argumenta-se que tais transformações das regras internacionais sobre violência, de um lado, expressam o deslocamento do dualismo doméstico/internacional e, de outro lado, ratificam o novo lugar do indivíduo nas relações internacionais. Com isso, sugere-se que é possível identificar mudanças significativas na arquitetura constitucional da ordem mundial contemporânea