The uses and abuses of constitutional pluralism: undermining the rule of law in the name of constitutional identity in Hungary and Poland

This article explains why autocrats love constitutional pluralism and constitutional identity. Though these concepts were developed by scholars and jurists with the best of intentions in mind, we explain why they are also attractive to and inherently prone to abuse by autocrats. We then describe how the regimes in Hungary and Poland have made use of these concepts in their drive to consolidate autocracy. We conclude that given the dangers inherent in constitutional pluralism and its susceptibility to abuse, it should be replaced with a more traditional understanding of the primacy of EU law

Effect of fertility control on a population's productivity

The effect of a sterilising agent upon the productivity of vertebrate pests, such as feral horses, feral dogs, wild rabbits or fruit-eating birds, depends upon the population's social structure and mating system. We investigated the theoretical effect on productivity of three forms of dominance, two effects of sterilisation on dominance, and four modes of transmission. Seventeen of the possible 24 combinations are feasible but lead to only four possible outcomes. Three of these result in lowered productivity. The fourth, where the breeding of a dominant female suppresses breeding in the sub-ordinate females of her group, leads to a perverse outcome. Productivity increases with sterilisation unless the proportion of females sterilised exceeds (n- 2)/(n- 1) where n (> 2) is the number of females in the group. A knowledge of social structure and mating system is therefore highly desirable before population control by suppressing female fertility is attempted or even contemplated

Differential response of communities of plants, snails, ants and spiders to long-term mowing in a small-scale experiment

We examined the response of communities of four groups of organisms (plants, snails, ants and spiders) in a small scale mosaic of 8-years mown and unmown plots in a wet meadow in Central Europe. The experimental setup consisted of 7 unmown and 8 regularly mown 4 m2 plots in checkerboard arrangement. Eight years after the start of the experiment, the plant community structure diverged in response to mowing/nonmowing, both in species composition and structure. Both bryophyte and vascular plant species numbers were significantly higher in the mown plots. In unmown plots, bryophytes nearly disappeared and plots were dominated by the tall tussock grass Molinia caerulea. Both diversity and abundance of snails were higher in unmown plots than in mown ones. Ant nests were more abundant in mown plots and species composition differed between mown and unmown plots. We captured significantly more individuals of spiders in mown plots but we did not find any difference in species composition. We conclude that the 8-years duration of different management of 4 m2 plots was sufficient to establish different communities in low movable organisms, whereas these plots are probably too small to host different assemblages of organisms with good active dispersal abilities

Fibre-reinforced polymer strengthening of substandard lap-spliced reinforced concrete members: A comprehensive survey

Externally bonded Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP) confinement is extensively used to improve the bond strength of substandard lap spliced steel bars embedded in reinforced concrete (RC) components. However, the test results from bond tests on such bond-deficient components are not fully conclusive, which is reflected in the few design guidelines available for FRP strengthening. For the first time, this article presents a comprehensive survey on FRP strengthening of substandard lap-spliced RC members, with emphasis on the adopted experimental methodologies and analytical approaches developed to assess the effectiveness of FRP in controlling bond-splitting failures. The main findings and shortcomings of previous investigations are critically discussed and further research needs are identified. This review contributes towards the harmonisation of testing procedures so as to facilitate the development of more accurate predictive models, thus leading to more cost-effective strengthening interventions

A Short Non-Saline Sprinkling Increases the Tuber Weights of Saline Sprinkler Irrigated Potatoes

© 2017 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Previous work has shown that a short non-saline sprinkling, following saline sprinkling, increased crop growth. We incorporated this finding into an investigation of two approaches to the conjunctive use of saline and non-saline water sources for sprinkler irrigation of potatoes viz., (i) mixing waters prior to application, and (ii) keeping waters temporally separate, that is commencing each irrigation with saline water and finishing it with non-saline sprinkling. The latter approach delayed canopy senescence and increased tuber weight by at least 150%. Under both approaches, soil salinities and leaf and tuber concentrations of Na+ and Cl− were similar. Thus, the advantages of a non-saline sprinkling cannot be explained in terms of its effect on either soil osmotic potential or bulk tissue concentrations of putatively toxic ions Na+ and Cl−. We propose that the positive effect of finishing irrigations with a non-saline sprinkling may be attributed to either dilution, and hence increase in osmotic potential, of the water film that remains on the leaf after each irrigation or its effect on the distribution of the putatively toxic ions Na+ and Cl− within tissue. View Full-Tex