Crystal and Magnetic Structures in Layered, Transition Metal Dihalides and Trihalides

Materials composed of two dimensional layers bonded to one another through weak van der Waals interactions often exhibit strongly anisotropic behaviors and can be cleaved into very thin specimens and sometimes into monolayer crystals. Interest in such materials is driven by the study of low dimensional physics and the design of functional heterostructures. Binary compounds with the compositions MX2 and MX3 where M is a metal cation and X is a halogen anion often form such structures. Magnetism can be incorporated by choosing a transition metal with a partially filled d-shell for M, enabling ferroic responses for enhanced functionality. Here a brief overview of binary transition metal dihalides and trihalides is given, summarizing their crystallographic properties and long-range-ordered magnetic structures, focusing on those materials with layered crystal structures and partially filled d-shells required for combining low dimensionality and cleavability with magnetism.Comment: Accepted for publication Crystal

Understanding Leadership in Public Collaborative Context

The paper aims to contribute to theory on collaboration through problematizing and exploring the complexity that characterizes leadership in collaborative contexts and to provide some generative conceptualizations to inform future empirical and conceptual development. It draws on a substantial review of leadership theory relevant to the context of public sector collaboration and provides examples from empirical research on collaboration over the last two decades in the UK and US respectively. It does so by identifying and developing key characteristics of the context, the nature of leadership in relation to context, and leadership agency pertaining to actors who actually make a difference in the process and outcomes of collaboration

EU SUGGESTED BEST PRACTICE DOCUMENT: CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR EU-WIDE HATE CRIME LAWS

This document subjects the various EU hate crime provisions to critical policy analysis, weighing up their pros and cons, and defending aspects of them from inappropriate forms of critique, and then draws some policy conclusions based on a sense of best practice. The aim of identifying best practice is to generate reform suggestions in the form of detailed model legislation. This is contained in the final section of this document. A key point considered is the narrow definition of protected groups under current EU measures. The restrictions to racist forms of hate crime and genocide denial contained in the Framework Decision is not central to the political and constitutional cultures of all member states. Indeed, it has not prevented the criminal law implementation measures of some EU Member States from including a number of other grounds, such as disability, anti-Semitism, or sexual orientation. Certain EU bodies have even encouraged this expansive approach to national implementation, with the FRA stating: ‘In the spirit of non-discrimination, it is certainly preferable to widen criminal law provisions to include equally all grounds of discrimination covered by Article 14 of the ECHR or Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.’ This criticism would, in practice, suggest a need for Members State supplementing these categories with one of more the following: gender, social origin, genetic features, language, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, birth, property or other status, disability, age or sexual orientation. Whilst supporting an expansion of the range of groups covered, the following paragraphs issue a cautionary warning against a massive extension to cover all these groups on grounds of both principle and practical consequences

'The Accidental Birth of Hate Crime in Transnational Criminal Law: 'Discrepancies' in the Prosecution for "Incitement to Genocide" during the Nuremberg Process involving the cases of Julius Streicher, Hans Fritzsche and Carl Schmitt.'

This volume of three interrelated studies aims to explore the various contingencies through which individuals responsible, to various degrees, for promoting expressions of racist hate were subjected to markedly different types of legal responses within the landmark Nuremberg trials programme. These contingencies, together with loose judicial reasoning, complicate scholarly efforts to identify the historical emergence of this type of transnational hate crime, and to illustrate the complications that arise when seeking to ascertain its implications as a precedent. It needs to be emphasised at the outset that what follows is not a comprehensive study of the origins of the criminalisation of hate speech in general as this would have to include a full comparative survey of all domestic laws and their judicial interpretation, application and institutional enforcement. In addition, the interaction between domestic, regional and international criminalisations would also have to be addressed in what would amount to a massive multi-volume study, beyond the scope of this study. It is acknowledged that a strong case can be made for a more comprehensive approach, placing the contents of what follows within this wider context of transnational regulation. For example, there has clearly been a measure of interaction, albeit of an inconsistent type, between US immigration and naturalisation law and practice, and international criminal law relating to hate speech, with the Streicher case expressly referred to as a precedent for the idea that "persecution," as a subset of crimes against humanity, can include racist and anti-Semitic propaganda

INVESTIGATING THE IMPACT OF INTRAGENIC DNA METHYLATION ON GENE EXPRESSION, AND THE CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS ON TUMOR CELLS AND ASSOCIATED STROMA

Investigations into the function of non-promoter DNA methylation have yielded new insights into epigenetic regulation of gene expression. Previous studies have highlighted the importance of distinguishing between DNA methylation in discrete functional regions; however, integrated non-promoter DNA methylation and gene expression analyses across a wide number of tumor types and corresponding normal tissues have not been performed. Through integrated analysis of gene expression and DNA methylation profiles, we uncovered an enrichment of DNA methylation sites within the gene body and 3’UTR in which DNA methylation is strongly positively correlated with gene expression. We examined 32 tumor types and identified 57 tumor suppressors and oncogenes out of 224 genes containing a correlation of \u3e 0.5 between gene body methylation and gene expression in at least 1 tumor type. The lymphocyte-specific gene CARD11 exhibits robust association between gene body methylation and expression across 19 of 32 tumor types examined. It is significantly overexpressed in KIRC and LUAD, and has a z-score of 4 in KIRC, meaning that high expression of CARD11 in this tumor type was associated with lower patient overall survival. Contrary to its canonical function in lymphocyte NF-kB activation, CARD11 activates the mTOR pathway in KIRC and LUAD, resulting in suppressed autophagy, and demethylation of a CpG island within the gene body of CARD11 decreases gene expression. In addition to methylation of the open reading frame portion of a gene, other regions of site-specific DNA methylation along the gene body remain to be explored. Upon segregating the gene body into discrete functional units (5’UTR, 1st exon, 3’UTR), it was noted that the 3’UTR contained an enrichment of probes positively correlated between DNA methylation and gene expression. In 5 of 10 tumor types examined, DNA methylation of the 3’UTR is associated with patient survival in a significant number of genes. Filtering for genes in which 3’UTR DNA methylation, relative to gene body DNA methylation, is more strongly correlated with gene expression yields a list of 156 genes, enriched for functions involving T cell activation. Activating T cells ex vivo caused the immune checkpoint gene HAVCR2, but not other genes examined, to show a substantial increase in 3’UTR DNA methylation, but not adjacent exonic/intronic, or promoter DNA methylation, upon upregulation of gene expression. Furthermore, this increase in HAVCR2 gene expression can be abrogated by treatment with demethylating agents. These findings implicate the 3’UTR as a functionally relevant DNA methylation site, particularly regarding T cell activity. Additionally, they reveal a novel mechanism by which HAVCR2 is upregulated in T cells, providing a new molecular target for immune checkpoint blockade