Global standards of Constitutional law : epistemology and methodology

Just as it led the philosophy of science to gravitate around scientific practice, the abandonment of all foundationalist aspirations has already begun making political philosophy into an attentive observer of the new ways in which constitutional law is practiced. Yet paradoxically, lawyers and legal scholars are not those who understand this the most clearly. Beyond analyzing the jurisprudence that has emerged from the expansion of constitutional justice, and taking into account the development of international and regional law, the ongoing globalization of constitutional law requires comparing the constitutional laws of individual nations. Following Waldron, the product of this new legal science can be considered as ius gentium. This legal science is not as well established as one might like to think. But it can be developed on the grounds of the practice that consists in ascertaining standards. As abstract types of best “practices” (and especially norms) of constitutional law from around the world, these are only a source of law in a substantive, not a formal, sense. They thus belong to what I should like to call a “second order legal positivity.” In this article I will undertake, both at a methodological and an epistemological level, the development of a model for ascertaining global standards of constitutional law

Conformational changes in alpha 7 acetylcholine receptors underlying allosteric modulation by divalent cations

Abstract Allosteric modulation of membrane receptors is a widespread mechanism by which endogenous and exogenous agents regulate receptor function. For example, several members of the nicotinic receptor family are modulated by physiological concentrations of extracellular calcium ions. In this paper, we examined conformational changes underlying this modulation and compare these with changes evoked by ACh. Two sets of residues in the α7 acetylcholine receptor extracellular domain were mutated to cysteine and analyzed by measuring the rates of modification by the thiol-specific reagent 2-aminoethylmethane thiosulfonate. Using Ba2+ as a surrogate for Ca2+, we found a divalent-dependent decrease the modification rates of cysteine substitutions at M37 and M40, residues at which rates were also slowed by ACh. In contrast, Ba2+ had no significant effect at N52C, a residue where ACh increased the rate of modification. Thus divalent modulators cause some but not all of the conformational effects elicited by agonist. Cysteine substitution of either of two glutamates (E44 or E172), thought to participate in the divalent cation binding site, caused a loss of allosteric modulation, yet Ba2+ still had a significant effect on modification rates of these residues. In addition, the effect of Ba2+ at these residues did not appear to be due to direct occlusion. Our data demonstrate that modulation by divalent cations involves substantial conformational changes in the receptor extracellular domain. Our evidence also suggests the modulation occurs via a binding site distinct from one which includes either (or both) of the conserved glutamates at E44 or E172

Climate Change Meets the Law of the Horse

The climate change policy debate has only recently turned its full attention to adaptation - how to address the impacts of climate change we have already begun to experience and that will likely increase over time. Legal scholars have in turn begun to explore how the many different fields of law will and should respond. During this nascent period, one overarching question has gone unexamined: how will the legal system as a whole organize around climate change adaptation? Will a new distinct field of climate change adaptation law and policy emerge, or will legal institutions simply work away at the problem through unrelated, duly self-contained fields, as in the famous Law of the Horse? This Article is the first to examine that question comprehensively, to move beyond thinking about the law and climate change adaptation to consider the law of climate change adaptation. Part I of the Article lays out our methodological premises and approach. Using a model we call Stationarity Assessment, Part I explores how legal fields are structured and sustained based on assumptions about the variability of natural, social, and economic conditions, and how disruptions to that regime of variability can lead to the emergence of new fields of law and policy. Case studies of environmental law and environmental justice demonstrate the model’s predictive power for the formation of new distinct legal regimes. Part II applies the Stationarity Assessment model to the topic of climate change adaptation, using a case study of a hypothetical coastal region and the potential for climate change impacts to disrupt relevant legal doctrines and institutions. We find that most fields of law appear capable of adapting effectively to climate change. In other words, without some active intervention, we expect the law and policy of climate change adaptation to follow the path of the Law of the Horse - a collection of fields independently adapting to climate change - rather than organically coalescing into a new distinct field. Part III explores why, notwithstanding this conclusion, it may still be desirable to seek a different trajectory. Focusing on the likelihood of systemic adaptation decisions with perverse, harmful results, we identify the potential benefits offered by intervening to shape a new and distinct field of climate change adaptation law and policy. Part IV then identifies the contours of such a field, exploring the distinct purposes of reducing vulnerability, ensuring resiliency, and safeguarding equity. These features provide the normative policy components for a law of climate change adaptation that would be more than just a Law of the Horse. This new field would not replace or supplant any existing field, however, as environmental law did with regard to nuisance law, and it would not be dominated by substantive doctrine. Rather, like the field of environmental justice, this new legal regime would serve as a holistic overlay across other fields to ensure more efficient, effective, and just climate change adaptation solutions

Spatial factor analysis: a new tool for estimating joint species distributions and correlations in species range

1. Predicting and explaining the distribution and density of species is one of the oldest concerns in ecology. Species distributions can be estimated using geostatistical methods, which estimate a latent spatial variable explaining observed variation in densities, but geostatistical methods may be imprecise for species with low densities or few observations. Additionally, simple geostatistical methods fail to account for correlations in distribution among species and generally estimate such cross-correlations as a post hoc exercise. 2. We therefore present spatial factor analysis (SFA), a spatial model for estimating a low-rank approximation to multivariate data, and use it to jointly estimate the distribution of multiple species simultaneously. We also derive an analytic estimate of cross-correlations among species from SFA parameters. 3. As a first example, we show that distributions for 10 bird species in the breeding bird survey in 2012 can be parsimoniously represented using only five spatial factors. As a second case study, we show that forward prediction of catches for 20 rockfishes (Sebastes spp.) off the U.S. West Coast is more accurate using SFA than analysing each species individually. Finally, we show that single-species models give a different picture of cross-correlations than joint estimation using SFA. 4. Spatial factor analysis complements a growing list of tools for jointly modelling the distribution of multiple species and provides a parsimonious summary of cross-correlation without requiring explicit declaration of habitat variables. We conclude by proposing future research that would model species cross-correlations using dissimilarity of species' traits, and the development of spatial dynamic factor analysis for a low-rank approximation to spatial time-series data

Quantum Physics and Human Language

Human languages employ constructions that tacitly assume specific properties of the limited range of phenomena they evolved to describe. These assumed properties are true features of that limited context, but may not be general or precise properties of all the physical situations allowed by fundamental physics. In brief, human languages contain `excess baggage' that must be qualified, discarded, or otherwise reformed to give a clear account in the context of fundamental physics of even the everyday phenomena that the languages evolved to describe. The surest route to clarity is to express the constructions of human languages in the language of fundamental physical theory, not the other way around. These ideas are illustrated by an analysis of the verb `to happen' and the word `reality' in special relativity and the modern quantum mechanics of closed systems.Comment: Contribution to the festschrift for G.C. Ghirardi on his 70th Birthday, minor correction

MHCII-mediated dialog between group 2 innate lymphoid cells and CD4+ T cells potentiates type 2 immunity and promotes parasitic helminth expulsion

Group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) release interleukin-13 (IL-13) during protective immunity to helminth infection and detrimentally during allergy and asthma. Using two mouse models to deplete ILC2s in vivo, we demonstrate that T helper 2 (Th2) cell responses are impaired in the absence of ILC2s. We show that MHCII-expressing ILC2s interact with antigen-specific T cells to instigate a dialog in which IL-2 production from T cells promotes ILC2 proliferation and IL-13 production. Deletion of MHCII renders IL-13-expressing ILC2s incapable of efficiently inducing Nippostrongylus brasiliensis expulsion. Thus, during transition to adaptive T cell-mediated immunity, the ILC2 and T cell crosstalk contributes to their mutual maintenance, expansion and cytokine production. This interaction appears to augment dendritic-cell-induced T cell activation and identifies a previously unappreciated pathway in the regulation of type-2 immunity