European Constitution and National Constitution

Preface "The history of the question of alliance, integration, and unification of European states along different lines reaches far back. We only have to mention I. Kant and J. C. Bluntschli, who saw the future of Europe in establishing a union of its states based on the rule of law. It was on the grounds of freedom and republican democracy that J. Lorimer of Edinburgh envisaged the possibility of uniting European states. Much like him, Polish thinkers too, including A. Mickiewicz, B. Limanowski, and K. Kelles-Krauz, believed that Europe would unite as soon as its constituent states were driven by shared ideals of freedom and republican democracy."(...

Cyclic Alkyl Amino Ruthenium Complexes—Efficient Catalysts for Macrocyclization and Acrylonitrile Cross Metathesis

ABSTRACT: The active species generated from ruthenium complexes bearing N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligands exhibit limited stability under certain conditions (high dilution, high temperature) and in the presence of nitrile functionality. As a consequence, industrial implementation of metathesis for the production of important materials such as macrocyclic musks and polyamide 11 is uneconomical. Over the past decade, hundreds of ruthenium complexes bearing NHC ligands have been obtained. However, to this date, they have brought rather limited improvements in efficiency. In this paper, we report on cyclic alkyl amino carbene (CAAC) ruthenium complexes that promote highly challenging macrocyclization and cross metathesis (CM) with acrylonitrile reactions at loadings as low as 10−20 ppm

Portable Surface Plasmon Resonance Detector for COVID-19 Infection

Methods based on nucleic acid detection are currently the most commonly used technique in COVID-19 diagnostics. Although generally considered adequate, these methods are characterised by quite a long time-to-result and the necessity to prepare the material taken from the examined person—RNA isolation. For this reason, new detection methods are being sought, especially those characterised by the high speed of the analysis process from the moment of sampling to the result. Currently, serological methods of detecting antibodies against the virus in the patient’s blood plasma have attracted much attention. Although they are less precise in determining the current infection, such methods shorten the analysis time to several minutes, making it possible to consider them a promising method for screening tests in people with suspected infection. The described study investigated the feasibility of a surface plasmon resonance (SPR)-based detection system for on-site COVID-19 diagnostics. A simple-to-use portable device was proposed for the fast detection of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in human plasma. SARS-CoV-2-positive and -negative patient blood plasma samples were investigated and compared with the ELISA test. The receptor-binding domain (RBD) of spike protein from SARS-CoV-2 was selected as a binding molecule for the study. Then, the process of antibody detection using this peptide was examined under laboratory conditions on a commercially available SPR device. The portable device was prepared and tested on plasma samples from humans. The results were compared with those obtained in the same patients using the reference diagnostic method. The detection system is effective in the detection of anti-SARS-CoV-2 with the detection limit of 40 ng/mL. It was shown that it is a portable device that can correctly examine human plasma samples within a 10 min timeframe