THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUALITY OF STATES IN THE WAKE OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

International law can be viewed as a project of exclusion and inclusion of events and ideas into its  narrative. Some shake the pillars of international law, while others, influence its progressive  development. Widespread wars and revolutions and events and ideas behind them occupy special  place in this project: they expose irregularity in the system and at the same time may threaten its  existence. The immediate and long-term effects of such events on international law can only be  seen with a passage of time. The 1917 Russian Revolution marking its 100th anniversary this year  is an illustrative example to this statement. Though it did not end to be the event in international  law when the soviet law as predicted by some Soviet scholars replaced bourgeoisie law, it  significantly contributed to disseminate ideas that laid foundation of the general international law.  Though in post-revolutionary context Soviet Russia advanced different radical approach to  universal social and economic justice and criticized the pre-existing international law, international  law remained resistant to extremes and capable of encompassing constructive ideas. The most  spectacular example of this approach is Soviet attitude towards equality of states – one of the  main international law axioms and utopias and at the same time a cornerstone of Marxism- Leninism theory – and Russia’s early attempts to give it more precise legal meaning. This article  briefly describes the bumpy way that this principle undertook before the Russian Revolution, to  depict the background against which Soviet Russia started to advance its understanding of  equality, in some sense, picking up and developing the ideas of the 1789 French Revolution. It  further considers the meaning, that the early Soviet doctrine attached to equality and concrete  legal mechanisms through which the Soviet approach was translated into international law,  specifically focusing on the works of Vladimir Lenin. The article then studies the actual early soviet  international law practice, through the lens of predominant soviet theoretical approaches. Two conclusions are made: Marxism-Leninism had limited impact on the Soviet early practice of  international law (1) and inconsistent application of principle of equality in the postrevolutionary context should not lead to its complete disregard (2). To the contrary, it is here argued that the  Revolution has been influential in the democratization of international law by developing the  following legal dimensions of the equality principle. First, it restated equality in the terms of status,  meaning equality in acquisition and exercise of rights (1). Second, it helped to eliminate  “dual standards,” which meant the cases where a state could treat one state as dependent and the  other – as independent (2). Third, it projected the concept of states’ equal rights to nations and peoples (3). Finally, in the early Soviet Russia practice, the idea that states have equal rights  stopped to be confined to any group of states, as compared to international law at that time. To  the contrary, it implied equality between all states, even in relations between socialist and capitalist states, thus helping in long-term perspective to abandon “civilization test” (4)

In Vivo Targeted Metabolomic Profiling of Prostanit, a Novel Anti-PAD NO-Donating Alprostadil-Based Drug

Prostanit is a novel drug developed for the treatment of peripheral arterial diseases. It consists of a prostaglandin E1 (PGE1) moiety with two nitric oxide (NO) donor fragments, which provide a combined vasodilation effect on smooth muscles and vascular spastic reaction. Prostanit pharmacokinetics, however, remains poorly investigated. Thus, the object of this study was to investigate the pharmacokinetics of Prostanit-related and -affected metabolites in rabbit plasma using the liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) approach. Besides, NO generation from Prostanit in isolated rat aorta and human smooth muscle cells was studied using the Griess method. In plasma, Prostanit was rapidly metabolized to 1,3-dinitroglycerol (1,3-DNG), PGE1, and 13,14-dihydro-15-keto-PGE1. Simultaneously, the constant growth of amino acid (proline, 4-hydroxyproline, alanine, phenylalanine, etc.), steroid (androsterone and corticosterone), and purine (adenosine, adenosine-5 monophosphate, and guanosine) levels was observed. Glycine, aspartate, cortisol, and testosterone levels were decreased. Ex vivo Prostanit induced both NO synthase-dependent and -independent NO generation. The observed pharmacokinetic properties suggested some novel beneficial activities (i.e., effect prolongation and anti-inflammation). These properties may provide a basis for future research of the effectiveness and safety of Prostanit, as well as for its characterization from a clinical perspective

ПОЗИТИВНЫЙ ПОДХОД К ПРОТИВОДЕЙСТВИЮ ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНОМУ ВЫГОРАНИЮ

The aim of this research was to identify the positive determinants of preventing professional burnout. Based on the literature review and analysis of previous studies was found that positive working conditions can be considered as factors of burnout. It is revealed that such indicators of work engagement as vigor and enthusiasm interfere with burnout, and the preoccupation activity, on the contrary, promotes its emergence. Also with the help of regression analysis the contribution of indicators of enthusiasm by work in each subscale of professional burnout that will allow to analyse mechanisms of its prevention in more detail is revealed. The results of this research can be applied to a psychological assistance to representatives of an actor's profession, and also to counteraction to burnout in other professional groups. In particular, development of subjectivity of experts could be a basis for programs of burnout prevention: development of cognitive and existential activity of the subject of a vital and professional way, expansion of sensibleness of personal resources and skills of a constructive coping with professional and existential stresses.Целью данного исследования было выявление позитивных детерминант, препятствующих профессиональному выгоранию. На основании литературного обзора и анализа проведенных ранее исследований обнаружено, что позитивные рабочие состояния могут рассматриваться в качестве факторов выгорания. Выявлено, что такие показатели увлеченности работой, как энергичность и энтузиазм препятствуют выгоранию, а поглощенность деятельностью, напротив, способствует его возникновению. Также с помощью регрессионного анализа выявлен вклад показателей увлеченности работой в каждую субшкалу профессионального выгорания, что позволит более детально проанализировать механизмы его превенции. Результаты данного исследования могут быть применены для психологической помощи представителям актерской профессии, а также для противодействия выгоранию в других профессиональных группах. В частности, основой для программ анти-выгорания может быть развитие субъектности специалистов: развитие когнитивно-экзистенциальной активности субъекта  жизненного и профессионального пути, расширение осознанности личных ресурсов и навыков конструктивного совладания с профессиональными и экзистенциальными стрессам

Neural Processing of Narratives : From Individual Processing to Viral Propagation

Narratives, in the form of, e.g., written stories, mouth-to-mouth accounts, audiobooks, fiction movies, and media-feeds, powerfully shape the perception of reality and widely influence human decision-making. In this review, we describe findings from recent neuroimaging studies unraveling how narratives influence the human brain, thus shaping perception, cognition, emotions, and decision-making. It appears that narrative sense-making relies on default-mode network (DMN) structures of the brain, especially precuneus. Activity in precuneus further seems to differ for fictitious vs. real narratives. Notably, high inter-subject correlation (ISC) of brain activity during narrative processing seems to predict the efficacy of a narrative. Factors that enhance the ISC of brain activity during narratives include higher levels of attention, emotional arousal, and negative emotional valence. Higher levels of attentional suspense seem to co-vary with activity in the temporoparietal junction, emotional arousal with activity in dorsal attention network, and negative emotional valence with activity in DMN. Lingering after-effects of emotional narratives have been further described in DMN, amygdala, and sensory cortical areas. Finally, inter-individual differences in personality, and cultural-background related analytical and holistic thinking styles, shape ISC of brain activity during narrative perception. Together, these findings offer promising leads for future studies elucidating the effects of narratives on the human brain, and how such effects might predict the efficacy of narratives in modulating decision-making.Peer reviewe

Legal and Political Conditions on the Accession of the Russian Federation into the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

Boyashov A, Kuteynikov A, Shestakova K, Udenko E, Karandashov I. Legal and Political Conditions on the Accession of the Russian Federation into the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Gosudarstvennyi Audit, Pravo, Ekonomika = State Audit. Law. Economics. 2013:121-130

A simple and robust method for broad range screening of hair samples for drugs of abuse using a high-throughput {UHPLC}-Ion Trap {MS} instrument

The use of chromatography hyphenated with mass spectrometry is a well-established approach in clinical and forensic toxicology, particularly for the analysis of the so-called alternative matrices (hair, nails, oral fluid, sweat). This procedure for the quantitative determination of targeted analytes has been reported since the early 1980s and today is the golden standard in analytical toxicology. However this technology has not found wide application the broad spectrum preliminarily screening of samples which is still mostly based on immunoassays.The aim of the present work was to test a recent instrumental approach based on UHPLC-Ion Trap-MS (Toxtyper (R), Bruker Daltonics) intended to be used in routine contexts for the analysis of drug of abuse applied to hair toxicological analysis. The reported analytical method is based on a simple hair pre-treatment consisting of an overnight acid incubation in 0.1 mol/L HCl, followed by direct injection, after neutralization with equimolar amount of NaOH. The separation was then performed using a reverse phase column with a rapid gradient elution of 11 min (from 1% acetonitrile in 0.1% ammonium formate to 95% acetonitrile in 0.1% ammonium formate). Detection was by a fast ion trap analyzer (32,500 m/z sec(-1)) operating in the mass range 70-800 m/z. The chromatographic retention time and MS2/MS3 data were used for compound identification using a proprietary database which allowed to screen for up to 987 compounds.The tested analytical method showed limits of detection in the range between 0.01 and 0.09 ng/mg of hair matrix for a panel of 16 drugs of abuse (except for MDA, morphine, 6-MAM and norketamine, which showed limits of detection of 0.25, 0.15, 0.15 and 0.25 ng/mg, respectively). The method was validated according to international guidelines on a selected panel of drugs of abuse. The analytical performance of the instrument was assessed by analyzing 968 hair samples from forensic cases. A good concordance with a reference confirmatory method based on GC-MS was found in terms of classification of both negative and positive samples. Finally, the method was also successfully tested by analyzing 12 proficiency test samples containing not only common drugs of abuse but also new psychoactive substances, including fentanyls and cathinones

Thanatochemistry at the crime scene: a microfluidic paper-based device for ammonium analysis in the vitreous humor

Most of the on-site approaches for inferring of the post-mortem interval are still based on observative data from the direct body inspection, whereas, objective and quantitative analyses, such as potassium in the vitreous humor, are require laboratory instrumentation and skilled personnel. The present paper presents a simple and low cost analytical method suitable for use at the crime scene for inferring the time since death. The method uses a microfluidic paper-based device (\u3bcPAD) for the determination of ammonium in the vitreous humor (VH) based on the selective interaction between the ammonium and the Nessler's reagent. The color change was measured in terms of "RGB distance" by using a simple and free smartphone application. The optimized device showed a limit of detection of 0.4\u202fmmol\u202fL-1, with between days precision less than 9.3% expressed as relative standard deviation, and accuracy between days from 94.5% to 104.5%. The selectivity of the Nessler's reaction was tested towards the main vitreous humor compounds, and no significant interferences were found. This paper-based analytical device was successfully used for the determination of ammonium ion in VH samples from forensic autopsies. The results obtained with the proposed method, although for a limited number of cases (n\u202f=\u202f25), showed a close correlation with the data obtained with an instrumental analysis based on capillary electrophoresis. Moreover, in order to make the evaluation of results as simple as possible, a direct correlation between the color intensity, expressed as RGB distance, and the post-mortem interval was studied and a significant correlation was found (R2\u202f>\u202f0.78). In conclusion, the present preliminary study showes that the proposed device could be an additional tool to the traditional methods for a more accurate, although still presumptive, estimation of the time of death directly at the crime scene

A novel low-cost approach for the semi-quantitative analysis of carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) based on fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)

The increase of the carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) as results of an heavy intake of alcohol for at least two weeks, is a well-known biochemical modification since the middle '70s. Notwithstanding the first commercial kit for the diagnosis of chronic alcohol abuse based on this biomarker was commercially accessible already thirty years ago, only expensive analytical methods are currently available for its determination. The present paper shows a new approach intrinsically sensitive and specific, based on a specific derivatization of transferrin, and not requiring sophisticated instrumentation.BACKGROUND AND AIM: The increase of the carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) as results of an heavy intake of alcohol for at least two weeks, is a well-known biochemical modification since the middle '70s. Notwithstanding the first commercial kit for the diagnosis of chronic alcohol abuse based on this biomarker was commercially accessible already thirty years ago, only expensive analytical methods are currently available for its determination. The present paper shows a new approach intrinsically sensitive and specific, based on a specific derivatization of transferrin, and not requiring sophisticated instrumentation. METHODS: The proposed procedure is based on a selective chelation of terbium (III) by transferrin followed by detection using an characteristic Fluorescence Resonance Transfer Energy (FRET) phenomenon (ex 298\u202fnm - em 550\u202fnm). RESULTS: The proposed procedure showed a limit of detection of 2.5\u202fpmol/mL and a reproducibility intra-day and inter-days <15% and 20%, respectively. The results obtained analyzing 40 serum samples using the developed method, were compared with those obtained with HPLC-Vis and an R2\u202f=\u202f0.8854 was found. CONCLUSIONS: Considering its main features (low-cost, ease of operation, minimum need of instrumentation) the present method is suitable for application in screening contexts and in non-strictly regulated environments (e.g. clinical diagnosis) as well as in developing countries or remote areas