Litigating federalism:An empirical analysis of decisions of the Belgian Constitutional Court

Belgian Constitutional Court - Conflicts between regions, communities and the central government - Allocation of competences - Decisions with high political content - Degree of political alignment between the parties in litigation and judicial behaviour at the Court - Empirical testing - All decisions of the Belgian Constitutional Court, 1985-2012 - Alignment between the alleged political preferences of the judges and the political affiliation of the Petitioner increases the rate of success of the latter

Novel conopeptides of largely unexplored Indo Pacific <i>Conus</i> sp.

Cone snails are predatory creatures using venom as a weapon for prey capture and defense. Since this venom is neurotoxic, the venom gland is considered as an enormous collection of pharmacologically interesting compounds having a broad spectrum of targets. As such, cone snail peptides represent an interesting treasure for drug development. Here, we report five novel peptides isolated from the venom of Conus longurionis, Conus asiaticus and Conus australis. Lo6/7a and Lo6/7b were retrieved from C. longurionis and have a cysteine framework VI/VII. Lo6/7b has an exceptional amino acid sequence because no similar conopeptide has been described to date (similarity percentage C. asiaticus, has a typical framework III Cys arrangement, classifying the peptide in the M-superfamily. Asi14a, another peptide of C. asiaticus, belongs to framework XIV peptides and has a unique amino acid sequence. Finally, AusB is a novel conopeptide from C. australis. The peptide has only one disulfide bond, but is structurally very different as compared to other disulfide-poor peptides. The peptides were screened on nAChRs, NaV and KV channels depending on their cysteine framework and proposed classification. No targets could be attributed to the peptides, pointing to novel functionalities. Moreover, in the quest of identifying novel pharmacological targets, the peptides were tested for antagonistic activity against a broad panel of Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, as well as two yeast strains

The optical design of the Litebird middle and high frequency telescope

LiteBIRD is a JAXA strategic L-class mission devoted to the measurement of polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background, searching for the signature of primordial gravitational waves in the B-modes pattern of the polarization. The onboard instrumentation includes a Middle and High Frequency Telescope (MHFT), based on a pair of cryogenically cooled refractive telescopes covering, respectively, the 89-224 GHz and the 166-448 GHz bands. Given the high target sensitivity and the careful systematics control needed to achieve the scientific goals of the mission, optical modeling and characterization are performed with the aim to capture most of the physical effects potentially affecting the real performance of the two refractors. We describe the main features of the MHFT, its design drivers and the major challenges in system optimization and characterization. We provide the current status of the development of the optical system and we describe the current plan of activities related to optical performance simulation and validation

The geometry of the magnetic field in the central molecular zone measured by PILOT

We present the first far infrared (FIR) dust emission polarization map covering the full extent of Milky Way’s central molecular zone (CMZ). The data, obtained with the PILOT balloon-borne experiment, covers the Galactic center region − 2° < ℓ < 2°, − 4° < b < 3° at a wavelength of 240 μm and an angular resolution of 2.2′. From our measured dust polarization angles, we infer a magnetic field orientation projected onto the plane of the sky (POS) that is remarkably ordered over the full extent of the CMZ, with an average tilt angle of ≃22° clockwise with respect to the Galactic plane. Our results confirm previous claims that the field traced by dust polarized emission is oriented nearly orthogonally to the field traced by GHz radio synchrotron emission in the Galactic center region. The observed field structure is globally compatible with the latest Planck polarization data at 353 and 217 GHz. Upon subtraction of the extended emission in our data, the mean field orientation that we obtain shows good agreement with the mean field orientation measured at higher angular resolution by the JCMT within the 20 and 50 km s−1 molecular clouds. We find no evidence that the magnetic field orientation is related to the 100 pc twisted ring structure within the CMZ. The low polarization fraction in the Galactic center region measured with Planck at 353 GHz combined with a highly ordered projected field orientation is unusual. This feature actually extends to the whole inner Galactic plane. We propose that it could be caused by the increased number of turbulent cells for the long lines of sight towards the inner Galactic plane or to dust properties specific to the inner regions of the Galaxy. Assuming equipartition between magnetic pressure and ram pressure, we obtain magnetic field strength estimates of the order of 1 mG for several CMZ molecular clouds

Interrogating violence against women and state violence policy: Gendered intersectionalities and the quality of policy in The Netherlands, Sweden and the Uk

This article builds on feminist scholarship on intersectionality to address violence against women, and state policy thereon. It takes up the challenge of analysing the complex, situated and spatial relationship between theorizing on violence against women and state policy on such violence. Drawing on extensive comparative European data, it explores the relations of gender and intersectionality, conceptualized as gendered intersectionalities, by examining how multiple inequalities are made visible and invisible in state policy and debates in the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. Attention is paid to different forms of gendered intersectionalities in policy, for example, tendencies to degender violence against women. A key aim of the article is to investigate how comparative analysis can be a starting point for assessing if, how and to what extent the inclusion of multiple inequalities could increase the quality of policy, for both reducing and stopping violence, and assisting those subject to violence

Pilot optical alignment

PILOT (Polarized Instrument for Long wavelength Observations of the Tenuous interstellar medium) is a balloonborne astronomy experiment designed to study the polarization of dust emission in the diffuse interstellar medium in our Galaxy. The PILOT instrument allows observations at wavelengths 240 μm and 550 μm with an angular resolution of about two arcminutes. The observations performed during the two first flights performed from Timmins, Ontario Canada, and from Alice-springs, Australia, respectively in September 2015 and in April 2017 have demonstrated the good performances of the instrument. Pilot optics is composed of an off axis Gregorian type telescope combined with a refractive re-imager system. All optical elements, except the primary mirror, which is at ambient temperature, are inside a cryostat and cooled down to 3K. The whole optical system is aligned on ground at room temperature using dedicated means and procedures in order to keep the tight requirements on the focus position and ensure the instrument optical performances during the various phases of a flight. We’ll present the optical performances and the firsts results obtained during the two first flight campaigns. The talk describes the system analysis, the alignment methods, and finally the inflight performances

Inhibition of 26S Protease Regulatory Subunit 7 (MSS1) Suppresses Neuroinflammation

Recently, researchers have focused on immunosuppression induced by rifampicin. Our previous investigation found that rifampicin was neuroprotective by inhibiting the production of pro-inflammatory mediators, thereby suppressing microglial activation. In this study, using 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) and mass spectrometry (MS), we discovered that 26S protease regulatory subunit 7 (MSS1) was decreased in rifampicin-treated microglia. Western blot analysis verified the downregulation of MSS1 expression by rifampicin. As it is indicated that the modulation of the ubiquitin-26S proteasome system (UPS) with proteasome inhibitors is efficacious for the treatment of neuro-inflammatory disorders, we next hypothesized that silencing MSS1 gene expression might inhibit microglial inflammation. Using RNA interference (RNAi), we showed significant reduction of IkBα degradation and NF-kB activation. The production of lipopolysaccharides-induced pro-inflammatory mediators such as inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), nitric oxide, cyclooxygenase-2, and prostaglandin E2 were also reduced by MSS1 gene knockdown. Taken together, our findings suggested that rifampicin inhibited microglial inflammation by suppressing MSS1 protein production. Silencing MSS1 gene expression decreased neuroinflammation. We concluded that MSS1 inhibition, in addition to anti-inflammatory rifampicin, might represent a novel mechanism for the treatment of neuroinflammatory disorders

LiteBIRD Science Goals and Forecasts. A Case Study of the Origin of Primordial Gravitational Waves using Large-Scale CMB Polarization

We study the possibility of using the $LiteBIRD$ satellite $B$-mode survey to constrain models of inflation producing specific features in CMB angular power spectra. We explore a particular model example, i.e. spectator axion-SU(2) gauge field inflation. This model can source parity-violating gravitational waves from the amplification of gauge field fluctuations driven by a pseudoscalar "axionlike" field, rolling for a few e-folds during inflation. The sourced gravitational waves can exceed the vacuum contribution at reionization bump scales by about an order of magnitude and can be comparable to the vacuum contribution at recombination bump scales. We argue that a satellite mission with full sky coverage and access to the reionization bump scales is necessary to understand the origin of the primordial gravitational wave signal and distinguish among two production mechanisms: quantum vacuum fluctuations of spacetime and matter sources during inflation. We present the expected constraints on model parameters from $LiteBIRD$ satellite simulations, which complement and expand previous studies in the literature. We find that $LiteBIRD$ will be able to exclude with high significance standard single-field slow-roll models, such as the Starobinsky model, if the true model is the axion-SU(2) model with a feature at CMB scales. We further investigate the possibility of using the parity-violating signature of the model, such as the $TB$ and $EB$ angular power spectra, to disentangle it from the standard single-field slow-roll scenario. We find that most of the discriminating power of $LiteBIRD$ will reside in $BB$ angular power spectra rather than in $TB$ and $EB$ correlations.Comment: 22 pages, 13 figures. Submitted to JCA

Disruption of a mitochondrial protease machinery in Plasmodium falciparum is an intrinsic signal for parasite cell death

The ATP-dependent ClpQY protease system in Plasmodium falciparum is a prokaryotic machinery in the parasite. In the present study, we have identified the complete ClpQY system in P. falciparum and elucidated its functional importance in survival and growth of asexual stage parasites. We characterized the interaction of P. falciparum ClpQ protease (PfClpQ) and PfClpY ATPase components, and showed that a short stretch of residues at the C terminus of PfClpY has an important role in this interaction; a synthetic peptide corresponding to this region antagonizes this interaction and interferes with the functioning of this machinery in the parasite. Disruption of ClpQY function by this peptide caused hindrance in the parasite growth and maturation of asexual stages of parasites. Detailed analyses of cellular effects in these parasites showed features of apoptosis-like cell death. The peptide-treated parasites showed mitochondrial dysfunction and loss of mitochondrial membrane potential. Dysfunctioning of mitochondria initiated a cascade of reactions in parasites, including activation of VAD–FMK-binding proteases and nucleases, which resulted in apoptosis-like cell death. These results show functional importance of mitochondrial proteases in the parasite and involvement of mitochondria in programmed cell death in the malaria parasites