Ideology and the Red Button:How Ideology Shapes Nuclear Weapons’ Use Preferences in Europe

Does partisan ideology influence whether Europeans are willing to use nuclear weapons, and if so, how? The US nuclear weapons stationed in Europe have been at the core of European security since the Cold War, but we have still yet to learn what would make Europeans be willing to support their use. In this paper, we present the results of a survey, in which we asked citizens in Germany and the Netherlands about their views on the use of the US nuclear weapons stationed on their territory in four distinct scenarios. Our results indicate that voters of right-wing parties are more likely to approve of the use of nuclear weapons in both countries. There are, however, important differences between the two countries in terms of the degree to which the participants oppose the use of nuclear weapons. These results have implications for NATO’s nuclear deterrence posture.</p

Gender differences in myocardial apoptosis of the patients after heart tranplantation.

Pohlavní rozdíly v apoptóze v myokardu u pacientů po transplantaci srdce Úvod: Mnoho metabolických i strukturálních funkcí kardiovaskulárního systému je ovlivněno pohlavím jedince. Cílem naší práce bylo zjistit citlivost dárcovského ženského a mužského myokardu k perioperační ischémii, jak organizmus ovlivňuje dárcovský myokard druhého pohlaví (sledovaným faktorem byla apoptóza) po transplantaci srdce a zda sledované biomarkery mohou predikovat primární selhání srdečního štěpu (PGD). Materiál a metodika: Výzkum byl rozdělen do třech prospektivních studií. Studie 1 zahrnovala 81 pacientů, kteří podstoupili transplantaci srdce od září 2010 do ledna 2013 a byli rozděleni do dvou skupin podle pohlaví dárce. K průkazu myokardiální nekrózy jsme použili metodu "high sensitive cardiac TnT" (hs-cTnT). Apoptóza byla stanovována imunohistochemickou detekcí kaspázy-3, Bcl-2 a metodou TUNEL z bioptických vzorků. Studie 2 zahrnovala 58 pacientů rozdělených do čtyř skupin podle pohlaví příjemce a dárce. Během dvouletého sledování byla analyzována apoptóza (kaspáza-3, Bcl-2, TUNEL) v jednotlivých skupinách. Ve Studii 3 bylo 64 pacientů. Pomocí uvedených biomarkerů jsme zjišťovali souvislost s rozvojem PGD po transplantaci. Výsledky: U dárců ženského pohlaví byla hladina hs-cTnT významně vyšší již před...Gender differences in myocardial apoptosis of the patients after heart transplantation Background: Many functions of the cardiovascular apparatus are influenced by gender. The aim of our study was to find out the sensitivity to perioperative ischemia of the donor female and male myocardium; and determine how the organism affects the donor myocardium of the other sex after heart transplantation (detection of apoptosis), and whether the investigated biomarkers can predict primary graft dysfunction (PGD). Methods: The research was divided into three prospective studies. The Study 1 included 81 patients undergoing heart transplantation from September 2010 to January 2013. Patients were divided into two groups according to male allograft and female allograft. In order to prove myocardial necrosis the high-sensitive cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) method was used. Apoptosis was determined by immunohistochemical detection of caspase-3, Bcl-2, and by the TUNEL method. The Study 2 includeded 58 patients divided into four groups according to gender; both of the recipient and the donor. Apoptosis (caspase-3, Bcl-2, TUNEL) was analysed in these groups during the two-year follow-up. Into Study 3 64 patients were involved. We investigated the relationship in between these biomarkers and the development of PGD after...Institut klinické a experimentální medicínyInstitute for Clinical and Experimental MedicineFirst Faculty of Medicine1. lékařská fakult

NPT as an antifragile system: how contestation improves the nonproliferation regime

We introduce “antifragility” as a conceptual framework to understand the impact of occasional violations of regime norms on the health of respective regimes. Contrary to the prevailing understanding of norm violation as a strictly negative phenomenon that leaves regimes damaged, we show that normative deviance is, under certain conditions, a stressor that helps predominantly antifragile systems learn, improve, and adapt to changes in both internal and external environments. We apply this conceptual framework to the case of the NPT regime and the prominent violations of its nonproliferation norms by India in the 1970s (as a “contestation from outside”) and Iraq in the 1990s (as a “contestation from within”). Our findings question the prevailing catastrophizing narrative about the strictly negative impact of norm violations on regime stability and contribute to contemporary scholarly debates about norm dynamics within the NPT

Bringing the outsiders in: an interactionist perspective on deviance and normative change in international politics

In this article, we draw on insights from the interactionist perspective in sociology and international relations (IR) norm contestation literature to explore the relationship between deviance and normative change in international politics. In IR, this is still largely unexplored territory: we already know a great deal about how norms change, yet we know much less about the actual role norm violations play in this process. In order to address this gap, we conceptualize three types of normative contestation and affirmation that take place in connection with deviance (re)construction: (1) applicatory contestation and affirmation, reconstructing the meanings o

Effect of chemical composition and temperature on viscosity and structure of molten CaO-Al2O3-SiO2 system

The effects of the change of chemical composition and temperature on the viscosity of CaO-Al2O3-SiO2 oxide system with basicity from 0.78 to 1.63 were investigated in this paper. Experimental measurements of viscosity were performed with use of the high-temperature viscometer Anton Paar FRS 1600. Viscosity was measured in a rotational mode during heating at the rate of 2.2 K/min in the temperature interval from 1673 to 1873 K. Viscosity is often sensitive to the structural changes in molten oxide systems, which implies that the analysis of viscosity is an effective way to understand the structure of molten oxide systems. Exact clarification of the change of structure of the oxide system caused by increased content of CaO was performed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD).Web of Science6042878287

Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M&gt;70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0&lt;e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level