Democratic Failure in Various Forms of Democracy

Democratic Failure is a problem which has plagued democratic states since their earliest instances, and increasingly is a problem in the world today. Accordingly, a question to ask is, “Are certain forms of democracy more likely to experience democratic failure than others?” The correlation between democratic failure and a state’s executive institutional structure has been researched extensively, while the correlation between a state’s legal tradition and democratic failure has been studied far less. This thesis attempts to confirm the conventional wisdom that certain democratic institutional structures are more likely to fail, and attempts to find out whether certain legal traditions are more highly correlated with democratic failure. This is done through examining states during the post World War II era to find whether Presidential, Parliamentary, or Semi-Presidential systems are more likely to experience democratic failure, and whether Common Law or Civil Law legal traditions are more likely to experience failure. Ultimately, this thesis does confirm the conventional wisdom concerning democratic failure and institutional structures, although not as obviously as is commonly assumed. Also, this thesis does provide data to answer the question of whether higher levels of democratic failure is associated with different legal traditions, confirming that Common Law traditions are less likely to experience democratic failure

Development of Photocatalytically Active Anodized Layers by a Modified Phosphoric Acid Anodizing Process for Air Purification

One of the key urban air quality issues is pollution by nitrogen oxides (NOx). To reduce NOx, facade cladding could be provided with photocatalytic properties by incorporating titanium dioxide nanoparticles. For this purpose, a modified phosphoric acid anodizing process (MPAA) was developed for the facade alloy EN AW-5005, in which highly ordered anodized structures with a low degree of arborization and tortuosity were produced. Pore widths between 70 nm and 150 nm and layer thicknesses of about 2–3 m were obtained. The subsequent impregnation was carried out by dip coating from water-based systems. Depending on the dip-coating parameters and the suspension used, the pores can be filled up to 60% with the TiO2 nanoparticles. Photocatalytic tests according to ISO 22197-1 certify a high photocatalytic activity was obtained with rPCE values > 8 and with rPCE > 2, achieving “photocatalytically active for air purification”. Tests on the corrosion resistance of the anodized coatings with a commercially available aluminum and facade cleaner confirm a protective effect of the anodized coatings when compared with nonanodized aluminum material, as well as with compacted anodized layers

Single-Domain Parvulins Constitute a Specific Marker for Recently Proposed Deep-Branching Archaeal Subgroups

Peptidyl-prolyl cis/trans isomerases (PPIases) are enzymes assisting protein folding and protein quality control in organisms of all kingdoms of life. In contrast to the other sub-classes of PPIases, the cyclophilins and the FK-506 binding proteins, little was formerly known about the parvulin type of PPIase in Archaea. Recently, the first solution structure of an archaeal parvulin, the PinA protein from Cenarchaeum symbiosum, was reported. Investigation of occurrence and frequency of PPIase sequences in numerous archaeal genomes now revealed a strong tendency for thermophilic microorganisms to reduce the number of PPIases. Single-domain parvulins were mostly found in the genomes of recently proposed deep-branching archaeal subgroups, the Thaumarchaeota and the ARMANs (archaeal Richmond Mine acidophilic nanoorganisms). Hence, we used the parvulin sequence to reclassify available archaeal metagenomic contigs, thereby, adding new members to these subgroups. A combination of genomic background analysis and phylogenetic approaches of parvulin sequences suggested that the assigned sequences belong to at least two distinct groups of Thaumarchaeota. Finally, machine learning approaches were applied to identify amino acid residues that separate archaeal and bacterial parvulin proteins from each other. When mapped onto the recent PinA solution structure, most of these positions form a cluster at one site of the protein possibly indicating a different functionality of the two groups of parvulin proteins