Switching Gear: Law Approximation in Ukraine After the Application for EU Membership

In the wake of a full-scale Russian invasion, Ukraine applied for EU membership on 28 February 2022. In a matter of months, it was formally confirmed by the European Council as a candidate country. This has had a plethora of consequences; one of them is the obligation to approximate its national law with the EU acquis in its entirety. Unless there is a change of paradigm in EU pre-accession policy, transitional arrangements are strictly the exception to the rule, and therefore the law approximation effort has to go way beyond existing commitments under the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, the Energy Community Treaty, and the Civil Aviation Agreement. Such switching of gear in the law approximation process comes with additional layers of complexity. For instance, compliance with the horizontal provisions of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union governing freedoms of the internal market requires comprehensive screening of national law before any legislative changes are made. Furthermore, law approximation with EU legal acts which can only apply when a country becomes a Member State must be carefully planned and timed. The legal system must be ready to accommodate EU law, with all the principles governing enforcement, including the direct application of EU regulations. While this is all doable, it must be handled with care, especially in a country whose economy and society at large have been shattered by war

Novel steady state of a microtubule assembly in a confined geometry

We study the steady state of an assembly of microtubules in a confined volume, analogous to the situation inside a cell where the cell boundary forms a natural barrier to growth. We show that the dynamical equations for growing and shrinking microtubules predict the existence of two steady states, with either exponentially decaying or exponentially increasing distribution of microtubule lengths. We identify the regimes in parameter space corresponding to these steady states. In the latter case, the apparent catastrophe frequency near the boundary was found to be significantly larger than that in the interior. Both the exponential distribution of lengths and the increase in the catastrophe frequency near the cell margin is in excellent agreement with recent experimental observations.Comment: 8 pages, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Modeling the emergence of universality in color naming patterns

The empirical evidence that human color categorization exhibits some universal patterns beyond superficial discrepancies across different cultures is a major breakthrough in cognitive science. As observed in the World Color Survey (WCS), indeed, any two groups of individuals develop quite different categorization patterns, but some universal properties can be identified by a statistical analysis over a large number of populations. Here, we reproduce the WCS in a numerical model in which different populations develop independently their own categorization systems by playing elementary language games. We find that a simple perceptual constraint shared by all humans, namely the human Just Noticeable Difference (JND), is sufficient to trigger the emergence of universal patterns that unconstrained cultural interaction fails to produce. We test the results of our experiment against real data by performing the same statistical analysis proposed to quantify the universal tendencies shown in the WCS [Kay P and Regier T. (2003) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100: 9085-9089], and obtain an excellent quantitative agreement. This work confirms that synthetic modeling has nowadays reached the maturity to contribute significantly to the ongoing debate in cognitive science.Comment: Supplementery Information available here http://www.pnas.org/content/107/6/2403/suppl/DCSupplementa

Joint Analysis of the Discount Factor and Payoff Parameters in Dynamic Discrete Choice Games

Most empirical models of dynamic games assume the discount factor to be known and focus on the estimation of the payoff parameters. However, the discount factor can be identifed when the payoffs satisfy parametric or other nonparametric restrictions. We show when the payoffs take the popular linear-in-parameter specification, the joint identification of the discount factor and payoff parameters can be simplified to a one-dimensional model that is easy to analyze. We also show that switching costs (e.g. entry costs) that often feature in empirical work can be identifed in closed-form, independently of the discount factor and other specification of the payoff function. Our identification strategies are constructive. They lead to easy to compute estimands that are global solutions. Estimating the discount factor permits direct inference on borrowing rate. Our estimates of the switching costs can be used for specification testing. We illustrate with a Monte Carlo study and the dataset from Ryan (2012)

ЗАХИСТ УКРАЇНСЬКОГО БІЗНЕСУ В КОНКУРЕНТНОМУ ПРАВІ ЄВРОПЕЙСЬКОГО СОЮЗУ

The article is devoted to the analysis of the procedural rights of private persons in EU competition law, including Ukrainian ones who carry on business in the EU. In order to be successful in doing business in the EU, private persons (individuals and legal entities) need to be aware of their rights and be able to effectively protect them. In the field of EU competition law procedural rights of individuals are of particular importance, since very often their violations during the investigation of competitive cases become the grounds for challenging decisions of such institution as the European Commission, which is one of the main regulators of EU competition law. The article explores the scope of procedural rights of private persons, such as the right to defense, which includes the so-called privilege against self-discrimination, the right to be heard, the right to have a representative and the right to defend communication with a representative, the right to good governance, the principle of innocence, etc. Importantly, this study is based on an analysis of the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice the EU, which has jurisdiction to protect private persons against EU institutions’ infringements and has the monopoly to interpret EU law.Аналіз процесуальних прав суб’єктів конкурентного права ЄС, які стосуються в тому числі й українських приватних осіб, що здійснюють свою підприємницьку діяльність на території ЄС. Зважаючи на те, що між Україною та ЄС діє Угода про асоціацію, що набула чинності 2017 року та яка запустила функціонування зони вільної торгівлі, відкривається багато можливостей для українського бізнесу на території ЄС. Так, 10 822 українські компанії працюють в ЄС, український експорт в ЄС 2018 року становив 42,6 %, а в першій половині того самого року Україна експортувала товарів та послуг в ЄС на 11,2 мільярда дол., що майже на 2 млрд дол. більше за аналогічний період попереднього року. Найбільшими торгівельними партнерами для України в ЄС є шість країн — Іспанія, Нідерланди, Італія, Польща, Німеччина і Франція. У цьому контексті для українського бізнесу є вкрай актуальним і важливим обізнаність у своїх матеріальних та процедурних правах для того, щоб ефективно їх реалізовувати і вдало захищати свої власні інтереси. У сфері конкурентного права ЄС особливого значення набувають саме процесуальні права приватних осіб, оскільки дуже часто підставою оскарження рішень такого інституту, як Європейська Комісія, яка є одним з головних регуляторів конкурентного  права ЄС, стають порушення процесуальних прав під час проведення розслідування у конкурентних справах. Досліджено зміст таких процесуальних прав приватних осіб, як права на захист, яке включає так званий привілей проти самодискримінації, право бути заслуханим, право мати представника і право на захист спілкування з представником, право на належне управління, принцип невинуватості тощо. Важливим є те, що це дослідження засновано на аналізі судової практики Суду справедливості ЄС, який наділений юрисдикцією щодо захисту прав приватних осіб від порушень з боку інститутів ЄС, а також має монопольне право на тлумачення права ЄС, тож саме він виступає тією інстанцією, котра розвиває право у цій сфері

Targeting of mesenchymal stem cells to ovarian tumors via an artificial receptor

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Mesenchymal Progenitor/Stem Cells (MSC) respond to homing cues providing an important mechanism to deliver therapeutics to sites of injury and tumors. This property has been confirmed by many investigators, however, the efficiency of tumor homing needs to be improved for effective therapeutic delivery. We investigated the feasibility of enhancing MSC tumor targeting by expressing an artificial tumor-binding receptor on the MSC surface.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Human MSC expressing an artificial receptor that binds to erbB2, a tumor cell marker, were obtained by transduction with genetically modified adenoviral vectors encoding an artificial receptor (MSC-AR). MSC-AR properties were tested <it>in vitro </it>in cell binding assays and <it>in vivo </it>using two model systems: transient transgenic mice that express human erbB2 in the lungs and ovarian xenograft tumor model. The levels of luciferase-labeled MSCs in erbB2-expressing targeted sites were evaluated by measuring luciferase activity using luciferase assay and imaging.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The expression of AR enhanced binding of MSC-AR to erbB2-expressing cells <it>in vitro</it>, compared to unmodified MSCs. Furthermore, we have tested the properties of erbB2-targeted MSCs <it>in vivo </it>and demonstrated an increased retention of MSC-AR in lungs expressing erbB2. We have also confirmed increased numbers of erbB2-targeted MSCs in ovarian tumors, compared to unmodified MSC. The kinetic of tumor targeting by ip injected MSC was also investigated.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These data demonstrate that targeting abilities of MSCs can be enhanced via introduction of artificial receptors. The application of this strategy for tumor cell-based delivery could increase a number of cell carriers in tumors and enhance efficacy of cell-based therapy.</p