bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Hungarian Asylum Law and Policy in 2015–2016: Securitization Instead of Loyal Cooperation
Authors: Nagy Boldizsár
Published: March 2019

The study describes Hungary's policy towards asylum seekers and refugees in the tense period of 2015–2016 before and after the erection of fences at its southern borders of Hungary. It offers a theoretical explanation of the legal measures and practical actions. After briefly reviewing the factual basis, that is the magnitude of the movements and the number of decisions taken in the EU and in Hungary and the pertinent legal changes in 2015–2016 it elaborates the theoretical fundaments. Securitization majority identitarian populism and crimmigration are invoked as explanatory frames. The paper then reassembles the factual elements under six headings showing them in a new light. These are: denial, deterrence, obstruction, punishment, free riding constituting lack of solidarity and breaching the law (international, European, domestic). Finally the question is raised if all these moves are compatible with the duty of loyal cooperation of Member States with each-other and the EU as prescribed by article Article 4 (3) TEU.
Confusion Now Hath Made His Masterpiece: Brexit and the Bard
Authors: Goldmann Matthias
Published: March 2019

400 years after Shakespeare's death, a tragedy of Shakespearian dimensions has unfolded in the United Kingdom: Brexit. One Friday morning in June 2016, staring in disbelief at the incoming news, we were asking ourselves: “Are you sure/That we are awake? It seems to me/That yet we sleep, we dream.” A look at Shakespeare's work in the context of Brexit is no lofty, purpose-free exercise. For one, Shakespeare's work is instructive for explaining British national pride, its indulgence in splendid isolation that obviously provided one of the intellectual undercurrents of the Leave campaign (though the causes for voting Leave are, of course, a lot more multifaceted). The English nation formed itself in the Elizabethan age against the background of a century of quarrels with France in what was then the recent past. The pride that the British took from their victories is nowhere better reflected than in Henry V's Crispin's day speech. A small number of English soldiers heroically resisted the French forces. “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” Shakespeare infused the play with a feeling of togetherness based on England's victorious fight against continental powers. It was this idea of nationhood that carried England and the whole of the United Kingdom successfully through the turmoil of the 20th century. Small wonder that some demanded compelling (economic) reasons to continue bonding with the continent.
The Element of Trust in Financial Markets Law
Authors: Mülbert Peter O. , Sajnovits Alexander
Published: March 2019

Trust is an essential element for the functioning not only of ancient societies but also of modern societies. This article explores the different dimensions of trust in general and the different dimensions of the relationship between trust and the law, in particular. More specifically, we distinguish three different levels of interaction between trust and the law: (1) trust in the law; (2) trust through the operation of law, and (3) trust as defined by the law. Building on these categories, we finally turn to the “tsunami of regulation” (“Regulierungstsunami”)in the area of EU financial market law that has occurred in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008. As will be shown, trust can serve as a legal concept for making sense of this flood of legislative acts and of shaping these into a coherent framework. A different question yet to be answered is whether the flood of legislation already resulted in providing for an excess level of trust.
Speaking Law: Towards a Nuanced Analysis of “Cases”
Authors: Baer Susanne
Published: March 2019

“The headscarf case” is more than just a case. Talking law is often talking cases, but we need to understand law more specifically as a powerful practice of regulation. Law is also not only another discourse, or just text, or politics, with fundamental rights as “an issue,” or a promise, or just an idea. Instead, to protect fundamental rights, it is necessary to understand how in reacting to a conflict, we in fact speak rights today—Rechtsprechung—as a form of practice. The German Federal Constitutional Court's decision in the conflict about female teachers wearing headscarves in German public schools may be used to illustrate the pluralities of law—understood here as legal pluralism. This pluralism includes actors and legal arguments as frames to the speaking of law. In addition, it becomes clear that any analytical focus on gender, based on the current state of the art, further illuminates these issues. As such, interdisciplinary legal studies become inherently critical to the protection of fundamental rights.
Human Rights, Symbolic Form, and the Idea of the Global Constitution
Authors: Gibbs Nathan
Published: March 2019

This Article develops a methodological basis for elaborating an idea of global constitutionalism. It applies this broader understanding of the idea of global constitutionalism to an examination of the specific role played by human rights within the evolving framework of global legal governance. The methodological basis from which the idea of global constitutionalism is developed derives from work in historical sociology that emphasizes the role played by underlying symbolic forms in the structure of social reality. The approach adopted here lays particular emphasis, following Claude Lefort and Marcel Gauchet, on the role of political theology as the principal mode in which symbolic form is constituted. From this perspective, the notion of the global human rights model is scrutinized as central to the symbolic form of global constitutionalism. Developed in critical engagement with the work of Samuel Moyn, human rights can be seen as central to global constitutionalism viewed as the latest political constellation of a distinctively secular understanding of the symbolic form and limits of political authority.
Free Movement of Electricity and the Revival of System Stability Justifications
Authors: Jansson Max Salomon
Published: March 2019

EU Member States have in recent years designed national schemes to support the development of renewable energy. For example, in systems of feed-in-tariffs the states guarantee for a given period of time plants generating electricity from renewable resources the market price plus a premium. These feed-in-tariffs have normally only been awarded to electricity generated in-state. The preference given to in-state industry has been challenged in court as contradicting the principle non-discrimination on the European internal market. The decision by national legislatures to limit the availability of feed-in-tariffs to electricity generated in-state, however, has—to the surprise of many—been found justifiable by the European Court of Justice. This Article illustrates how the objective to ensure system stability has emerged as the strongest ground of justification in the context of cross-border electricity trade and how similar arguments have actually been used previously in the context of the health care service sector. While the reasoning of the court is defendable, the court could have developed an even more nuanced and informative position if it had taken notice of additional aspects that have popped up in the U.S. debate on similar questions.
Peek-A-Boo, It's a Case Law System! Comparing the European Court of Justice and the United States Supreme Court from a Network Perspective
Authors: Derlén Mattias , Lindholm Johan
Published: March 2019

From the moment of its inception the European Union (EU) has included a court that was entrusted to give coherence and integrity to the interpretation and application of the Union's primary and secondary law. That the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) was to play an important role in settling disputes was clear. But few anticipated how instrumental the Court would become in the development of EU law.
Network Analysis and Legal Scholarship
Authors: Petersen Niels , Towfigh Emanuel V.
Published: March 2019

In their contribution in this issue Mattias Derlén and Johan Lindholm use social network analysis to show that the European Court of Justice is a precedent-driven constitutional court that is comparable to the US Supreme Court with regard to the citation of precedents. The article and its use of network analysis as a method provoked a lively debate on the editorial board of theGerman Law Journalabout comparative law theory and methods generally and the place of empirical (including network) analyses in the comparative law discipline. For this reason, the editorial board commissioned this “special section” of contributions dedicated broadly to approaches to comparative law. In his essay in this section, for example, Jens Frankenreiter offers a detailed assessment of Derlén's and Lindholm's analysis. In this piece, we take a broader perspective and look at the utility and the limits of network analysis for legal scholarship generally.
After the Dust Has Settled: How to Construct the New Accession Agreement After Opinion 2/13 of the CJEU
Authors: Tacik Przemyslaw
Published: March 2019

Since December 18, 2014, when the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its notorious Opinion 2/13, the conclusions of the Court have been a subject of numerous analyzes and debates—often sharp in their criticism. Now that the content of the Opinion seems fairly elucidated, the scholarly attention should turn towards searching for practical solutions to the CJEU's demands. This Article aims to provide a list of possible solutions to each requirement of the Opinion and assessing their pros and cons. Instead of concentrating on the obstacles posed by the Court, it is incumbent to address the problems with innovative legal thinking and save the project of the EU acceding to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Regulatory Convergence through the Back Door: TTIP's Regulatory Cooperation and the Future of Precaution in Europe
Authors: Bartl Marija
Published: March 2019

This paper analyzes the possible impact of TTIP's so-called regulatory cooperation on the implementation of the precautionary principle in the EU. The European Commission argues that regulatory cooperation will not impinge on the application of the precautionary principle because, first, it does not change the legislative framework of precautionary legislation and, second, the right to regulate will be safeguarded by the TTIPs horizontal chapters. On the contrary, I argue in this paper, that these guarantees are insufficient. Given the methodological and institutional constraints presented by the TTIP's institutional design, in the long run, regulatory cooperation will undermine the precautionary approach to regulation in the EU.
Traditions, Myths, and Utopias of Personhood: An Introduction
Authors: Selkälä Toni , Rajavuori Mikko
Published: March 2019

Legal personhood continues to serve an important role in the legal system. The millennial distinction of persons and things, while often unarticulated, is an essential building block of all legal relations. This introduction to persons and things outlines the past tradition, draws on present myths, and construes a utopia of which the articles in this special issue will comment, clarify, and criticize.
Making International Legal Persons in Investment Treaty Arbitration: State-owned Enterprises along the Person/Thing Distinction
Authors: Rajavuori Mikko
Published: March 2019

Investment treaty arbitration (ITA) has emerged as a space where the international legal personality of states and foreign investors is continuously created, maintained, and redefined. Focusing on treatment of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), this Article juxtaposes investment law's doctrinal foundations with Roberto Esposito's political philosophy to explore the dynamics, porosity, and ramifications of international legal personality in ITA. Skeptical of gradual conceptualizations of legal personality, this Article frames investment law in terms of Esposito's person/thing distinction and argues for SOEs to form a liminal category that exposes malleability of legal doctrines when ITA tribunals make or break international legal persons. Ultimately, the ITA cases seem to open a distinct dispositif of a SOE that both delineates the exact normative demarcation of the state as international legal person and creates pockets of indistinguishability and politics at its borders—often to the detriment of the Global South. This insight provides a new perspective on the creation of international legal persons in ITA and international law more generally but, at the same time, also adds a new dimension to Esposito's overarching framework resting on the asymmetric relationship between persons and things.
There Is No Europe—On Subjectivity and Community in the EU
Authors: Lindroos-Hovinheimo Susanna
Published: March 2019

This Paper investigates legal subjectivity in the European Union. It takes seriously the principle according to which the individual is at the heart of the Union's activities and asks what kind of legal and political subjectivity the EU can render possible. The analysis draws on the work of Jean-Luc Nancy and his conception of singular plurality. What comes to the fore is the interrelatedness of subjects and community. This implies that the subject should not be understood simply as an individual, nor as part of a communitarian whole. Neither view is ontologically plausible nor ethically sound. By conceptualizing subjectivity as both singular and plural, it may become possible to rethink the relationship between subjectivity and community in the Union. This is important because potential solutions to fundamental problems of legitimacy, solidarity, and the lack thereof, hinge on how the relationship is understood.
The Right of Public Access to Legal Information: A Proposal for its Universal Recognition as a Human Right
Authors: Mitee Leesi Ebenezer
Published: March 2019

This Article examines the desirability of the universal recognition of the right of public access to legal information as a human right and therefore as part of a legal framework for improving national and global access to legal information. It discusses the right of public access to legal information as a legal right and the importance of its international human rights framework. The Article argues that every person has the right of public access to legal information, which casts a legal and moral duty on every government and every intergovernmental organization (IGO) with judicial and legislative functions to provide adequate and free access to its laws and law-related publications. It argues further that every government can afford the provision of adequate public access to its legal information and that the lack of political will to do so is the preeminent factor responsible for inadequate—and in some cases extremely poor—public access. Additionally, this Article advocates the universal recognition of the right of public access to legal information as a human right and makes a proposal for a UN Convention on the Right of Public Access to Legal Information. It provides the essential contents of the proposed UN Convention which incorporate The Hague Conference Guiding Principles to be Considered in Developing a Future Instrument. These contents provide valuable input for urgent interim national and regional laws and policies on public access to legal information, pending the Convention's entry into force. The proposed UN Convention will significantly enhance global access to official legal information that will promote widespread knowledge of the law. It will also facilitate national and transnational legal research and remedy the chronic injustice from liability under inaccessible laws under the doctrine of “ignorance of the law is no excuse”—which is similar to liability underex post factoand nonexistent laws—and promote the proposed doctrine of “ignorance of inaccessible law is an excuse.”
Norway's Imperiled Sovereignty Claim over Svalbard's Adjacent Waters
Authors: Rossi Christopher R.
Published: March 2019

The invasive but highly profitable snow crab has made its way into the waters of the High Arctic, precipitating a direct confrontation between the EU and Norway over the interpretation of the 1920 Svalbard Treaty. Norway claims the Treaty does not apply due to its strict interpretation of the Treaty's terms, which pertain only to the archipelago's terra firm and territorial sea. The EU claims the Treaty's equal access and non-discrimination provisions follow the evolution of the international law of the sea, and make the living (and mineral) resources of Svalbard's surrounding continental shelf and waters open to all states parties to the Treaty. The dispute has gone on for decades, but this Article maintains, through a review of Norway's increasingly isolated legal and political stance that time is out of joint for Norway and its long-term appropriative design and strategy to territorialize this area of the High North.
The Rise of an Ethnocultural Constitutional Identity in the Jurisprudence of the East Central European Courts
Authors: Kovács Kriszta
Published: March 2019

The recent trend in East Central European jurisprudence is that courts apply an ethnocultural understanding of identity, thereby putting European integration in peril. Although the EU is clearly committed to shared values and principles, Article 4(2) of the Treaty on European Union emphasizes that “the Union shall respect the national identities of the Member States.” Due to the recent migration flow in Europe, the Member States are currently attempting to (re)define themselves and offer a legal definition of identity. East Central European Member States, by labelling ethnocultural national identity as constitutional identity, apply Article 4(2) as a means of derogating from some of their obligations under EU law. Despite the vast literature available on national identity and its role in EU law, little attention has been paid to the recently emerging trend of judicial reinvention of identity in East Central Europe. This is what this Article offers. It focuses on the Visegrád Group, which consists of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. The Visegrád countries (V4) are united in their views on rejecting migrant relocation quotas in the EU and define their exclusionary constitutional identities accordingly. The main subject of the Article is the relevant case law of the V4 constitutional courts. These courts have the authoritative role in enforcing nation-state policies based upon ethnocultural considerations. The Article provides a comparative-analytical description of the judicial interpretations of constitutional identity in these countries based on which we can better understand the recent East Central European trend of disintegration.
Extraterritorial State Obligations Beyond the Concept of Jurisdiction
Authors: Kanalan Ibrahim
Published: March 2019

This Article discusses the extraterritorial human rights obligations of states and proposes a new approach for conceptualizing them. While extraterritorial state obligations within the concept of state jurisdiction are indisputably recognized, a more comprehensive perspective beyond jurisdiction is generally lacking. This Article aims to fill that gap. First, it discusses the traditional notions of extraterritorial state obligations and demonstrates their weaknesses. Second, a new concept of extraterritorial state obligations borrowing elements from systems theory is then suggested. The Article argues that comprehensive and general extraterritorial state obligations mainly build upon the normative idea of human rights. Human rights have universal validity and prescribe obligations that are independent of the jurisdiction of a state. What matters is that states can violate human rights beyond their jurisdiction and can influence violations of human rights committed by other actors. Finally, this Article outlines the scope and content of extraterritorial human rights obligations of states.
Böckenförde Theorem and Burqa Ban
Authors: Michaels Ralf
Published: March 2019

When France and Belgium banned face veils in 2010 and 2011, they were the first European countries to do so in a comprehensive matter. Now Austria has its own ban, Denmark is on track to have one too, and several other countries are toying with the idea. Such bans are often considered incompatible with the rights of veil wearers (especially Muslim women). Less prominent is the question whether such bans are incompatible with the modern state.

Such a critique can be grounded on the work of the leading German constitutional law scholar Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde and his famous dictum, according to which “[t]he liberal, secularized state draws its life from preconditions it cannot itself guarantee.” For Böckenförde, this means that headscarves, a different type of veil, cannot be banned—not because this would violate a woman's rights, but because it would undermine the very character of the state itself.

The article transposes this argument from the German discourse over headscarves to the European discourse over face veils. It demonstrates the potential of Böckenförde's dictum for the face veil debate, but also its limitations.
Why Adolf Hitler Spared the Judges: Judicial Opposition Against the Nazi State
Authors: Graver Hans Petter
Published: March 2019

The Nazi regime had loyal judges who willingly transformed the liberal German law into an instrument of oppression, discrimination and genocide. This was achieved without substantially interfering with the operation of the courts and without applying disciplinary measures on the judges. But, not all judges were congenial servants of the regime—some resisted in their capacity as judges. Based on case-studies and existing literature, this Article distinguishes between two different lines of judicial opposition to those in power: Between opposition taking place in the open and opposition in secret, and between opposition within what is accepted by those in power as being within the law and opposition that is in breach of the law. The Article then seeks to explain the deference the regime gave to judicial by employing institutional theory and the concept of path dependence. Germany was deeply embedded in the Western legal tradition of emphasis on law as an autonomous institution with an independent judiciary.
“Force Disguised as Reason”: Law, Jurists, and Constituent Power in Boccaccio'sDecameron
Authors: Vespaziani Alberto
Published: March 2019

This Article presents theDecameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio, as a classic writing of universal literature that contains anticipations and fundamental innovations of the political categories of modernity: Contractualism, constituent power, constitutional deliberation, rhetoric, and the relation withFortuna.The argument is developed in three parts: Initially, the legal and European dimension of theDecameronare summarized; then the discussion focuses on legal issues and institutional characters narrated in the novels; finally, the introduction of the work is analyzed, in which both the political-constitutional theme of the new beginning of the community and the collective archetype of the plague are interpreted as metaphors for the state of exception.
Legal Harmonization Through Interfederal Cooperation: A Comparison of the Interfederal Harmonization of Law Through Uniform Law Conferences and Executive Intergovernmental Conferences
Authors: Klafki Anika
Published: March 2019

Modern federations are faced with the challenge of cross-state as well as cross-nation economic activities and with the ever-increasing mobility of society. This has not only promoted international law, but has also created the need for harmonized laws throughout federations within the competence areas of the states. Diverse laws within federal systems may increase transaction costs, cause delays, and lead to jurisdictional conflicts for nationwide or cross-state transactions. In order to preserve federalism, and therefore prevent an ever-advancing process of centralization, interfederal legal harmonization promoted by the states themselves is crucial. There are two distinct methods of legal harmonization of state laws: (1) harmonization by “Uniform Law Conferences,” which are in principle run by lawyers and thus independent, to a certain extent, from the influence of policy makers; and (2) harmonization by executive intergovernmental conferences. These two distinct models of interfederal legal harmonization will be analyzed and evaluated with regard to efficiency, compatibility with democratic principles, transparency, and accountability in a comparative legal study of the harmonization processes. This Article will scrutinize the federal systems of the United States and Canada, on the one hand, as well as those of Germany and Austria, on the other hand. The study will reveal that the efficiency of interfederal legal harmonization increases with the level of intergovernmental integration through the participation of government officials and their staff.
Blindness and Hindsight
Authors: Somek Alexander
Published: March 2019

My book claims that constitutionalism is about constraining the exercise of public power in a legal manner. What it studies are different renderings of this idea and how one can arrive move from one to the next. What is essential to the success of the enterprise is, first, elaborating the relevant ideal types; second, analyzing how the transitions are made from one to the other; and third, taking public law as a way of conceiving of human practice, namely as activity that is essentially amenable to normative guidance and constraint. The people working and thinking in the world of public law use language that betrays ontological commitments to conspicuous entities such as “powers,” “values,” or “conventions.”
Judicial Self-Government as Experimental Constitutional Politics: The Case of Turkey
Authors: Çalı Başak , Durmuş Betül
Published: March 2019

This article traces the evolution of judicial self-government practices (JSG) in Turkey and argues that the frequent changes in JSG are part of a broader trajectory of experimental constitutional politics. The Council for Judges and Prosecutors has experienced sharp turns since its establishment in 1961, respectively in 1971, 1982, 2010, 2014 and 2017. During this period, Turkey experienced different forms of judicial councils ranging from co-option, hierarchical and executive controlled judicial council models to a more pluralistic model. The Justice Academy of Turkey has also not been immune from this experimentalism. The article discusses the endogenous relationship between these often short-lived experiments of JSG and their impacts on the independence, accountability, and legitimacy of the judiciary and public confidence in the judiciary. The article then turns to the repercussions of JSG on separation of powers and democratic principle. It focuses on the implications of the ambiguous position of the Council in the state structure for the separation of powers, and the revived debate on democratic legitimacy of JSG after the 2017 constitutional amendments.
The Rise and Fall of Judicial Self-Government in Poland: On Judicial Reform Reversing Democratic Transition
Authors: Śledzińska-Simon Anna
Published: March 2019

This article argues that the establishment of the National Council of the Judiciary in 1989 and the empowerment of the general assemblies of court judges gave rise to the idea of judicial self-government in Poland. This very idea of self-government, implying that judges hold important decision-making or veto powers on matters concerning the judiciary, was regarded as a precondition of the separation of powers and judicial independence, neither of which existed under Communist rule. However, the package of laws introduced in 2017 marks the end of judicial self-government as we know it. Not only did it undermine the independence of the National Council of the Judiciary by altering the mode of electing its judicial members, but it also concentrated the power over the judiciary in the hands of the executive branch, allowing for, inter alia, the exchange of key positions in court administration and the reconfiguration of the Supreme Court. This article examines the impact of this “reform” on such values as independence, accountability, and transparency. Investigating the role of judicial self-government in ensuring the principle of separation of powers and democracy, the article concludes with an assessment of the early consequences of the introduced changes for the Polish judiciary.
The Judicial Self-Government at the International Level — A New Research Agenda
Authors: Tsereteli Nino , Smekal Hubert
Published: March 2019

The phenomenon of judicial self-government at international courts has thus far been vastly understudied. Our article fills this gap and systematically explores its personal dimension, both from formal and informal perspectives. Specifically, we focus on the selection, promotion, and removal of international judges. We build our analysis on studying legal instruments, such as constitutive treaties, statutes, and rules of procedure, which we subsequently supplement by anecdotal evidence of how they work in practice. We show that each international court is unique in terms of the forms and extent of participation of its judges in deciding on international judicial careers. There is a variation as regards the forms and degree of judicial self-government across international courts and across the relevant areas of decision-making for each court. However, some broader patterns and trends emerge from our examination of relevant provisions and practices. First, some courts display consistently low degrees of judicial self-government across all these areas of decision-making, while other courts display relatively higher degrees. Second, judicial self-government does not manifest itself at the international level in entirely the same way as it does at the national level. We found that while judicial self-government manifests itself relatively strongly in the areas ofpromotionsandremovalsof international judges, it is limited in the area ofselectionof international judges. International courts are not, strictly speaking, self-governing in the latter area, because the sitting judges of these courts are rarely members of the bodies that decide or advise on selecting new judges. However, sitting judges of some international courts have become involved in the formation of the bodies screening candidates and/or in selecting the members of such bodies. Hence, judicial self-government has started manifesting itself in selection processes internationally, albeit in a limited fashion, with only indirect involvement of sitting international judges.
Exploring the Effects of Personal Information in Television	News
Authors: Barreda-Ángeles Miguel , Virgós Julia , Fedele Maddalena , Pereda-Baños Alexandre
Published: March 2019

Abstract. We report the results of an experiment in which participants ( N = 41) watched a number of television news clips containing either personal or professional stories about celebrities, while measures of information encoding, storage, and retrieval were collected together with psychophysiological measures of autonomous nervous system activity. The results show that the presence of personal information elicits attentional resources allocation and improves memory for contents, suggesting that personal information benefits from a deeper cognitive processing compared with professional information. These findings provide preliminary evidence on the cognitive effects of personal information that encourages further research on several dimensions of media use such as fandom or gossip media from a cognitive point of view.
Stories and the Self
Authors: Krause Stefan , Appel Markus
Published: March 2019

Abstract. Two experiments examined the influence of stories on recipients’ self-perceptions. Extending prior theory and research, our focus was on assimilation effects (i.e., changes in self-perception in line with a protagonist’s traits) as well as on contrast effects (i.e., changes in self-perception in contrast to a protagonist’s traits). In Experiment 1 ( N = 113), implicit and explicit conscientiousness were assessed after participants read a story about either a diligent or a negligent student. Moderation analyses showed that highly transported participants and participants with lower counterarguing scores assimilate the depicted traits of a story protagonist, as indicated by explicit, self-reported conscientiousness ratings. Participants, who were more critical toward a story (i.e., higher counterarguing) and with a lower degree of transportation, showed contrast effects. In Experiment 2 ( N = 103), we manipulated transportation and counterarguing, but we could not identify an effect on participants’ self-ascribed level of conscientiousness. A mini meta-analysis across both experiments revealed significant positive overall associations between transportation and counterarguing on the one hand and story-consistent self-reported conscientiousness on the other hand.
The Impact of Noise in a GRACE/GOCE Global Gravity Model on a Local Quasi‐Geoid
Authors: Slobbe Cornelis , Klees Roland , Farahani Hassan H. , Huisman Lennard , Alberts Bas , Voet Pierre , Doncker Filip De
Published: March 2019

We present a local quasi‐geoid (QG) model which combines a satellite‐only global gravity model with local data sets using weighted least squares. The QG is computed for an area comprising the Netherlands, Belgium, and the southern North Sea. It uses a two‐scale spherical radial basis function model complemented by bias parameters to account for systematic errors in the local gravity data sets. Variance factors are estimated for the noise covariance matrices of all involved data sets using variance component estimation. The standard deviation (SD) of the differences between the computed QG and GPS/leveling data is 0.95 and 1.52 cm for the Netherlands and Belgium, respectively. The fact that the SD of the control data is about 0.60 and 1.20 cm for the Netherlands and Belgium, respectively, points to a lower mean SD of the computed QG model of about 0.7 cm for the Netherlands and 1.0 cm for Belgium. The differences to a QG model computed with the remove‐compute‐restore technique range from −5.2 to 2.6 cm over the whole model domain and from −1.5 to 1.5 cm over the Netherlands and Belgium. A variogram analysis of the differences with respect to GPS/leveling data reveals a better performance of the computed QG model compared to a remove‐compute‐restore‐based QG model for wavelengths >100 km for Belgium but not for the Netherlands. The latter is due to the fact that at the spatial scales resolved by the global gravity model, variance component estimation assigns significantly lower weights to the local data set in favor of the global gravity model.
Vb Cyclones Synchronized With the Arctic‐/North Atlantic Oscillation
Authors: Hofstätter M. , Blöschl G.
Published: March 2019

Vb cyclones typically emerge in the Western Mediterranean and propagate to the Northeast into Central Europe. This paper explores the temporal characteristics of Vb cyclone occurrence based on cyclone tracks identified at the atmospheric levels of Z700 and sea level pressure, using JRA‐55 reanalysis data for the period 1959–2015. The risk of Vb occurrence was significantly high in the 1960s and has remained at a lower level since then. Vb cyclones do not occur fully randomly according to a Poisson point process. Eleven well‐separated and distinct clusters as well as 11 hiatus periods are identified, with average occurrence rates of 21.5 and 5.2 yrea−1, respectively. During the event of Vb, the large‐scale atmospheric circulation is changed into a state favoring the development of successive Vb cyclones. Clustering is very prominent in the case of Genoan Vb cyclones in summer as well as those Vb cyclones developing over the Iberian Peninsula or the North African Coast in winter. Superposition of the polar and the subtropical jet stream over the Western Mediterranean is identified as a main feature at the onset of Vb cyclones. Vb cyclone occurrence appears to be synchronized with the Northern Atlantic Oscillation (NAO; at Z500) and Arctic Oscillation (AO; at Z1000). Clusters have occurred when both NAO and AO were negative. This relation applies to Western Mediterranean cyclones not following a Vb track as well, however to a much weaker extent. In contrast, Vb cyclone frequency was particularly low from 1988 to 1997 during a sustained positive phase of both NAO and AO.
Distributions and Sources of Glycerol Dialkyl Glycerol Tetraethers in Sediment Cores From the Mariana Subduction Zone
Authors: Ta Kaiwen , Peng Xiaotong , Xu Hengchao , Du Mengran , Chen Shun , Li Jiwei , Zhang Chuanlun
Published: March 2019

Glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) are ubiquitously found in marine sediments. However, their presence, distributions, and sources in the subduction zone are not fully understood. We investigated isoprenoidal GDGTs (isoGDGTs) and branched GDGTs (brGDGTs) in two sediment cores from the southern and northern subduction plates of Mariana Trench, respectively. IsoGDGTs and brGDGTs exhibited covariation in most sediment samples, and total GDGT concentrations reached a maximum at the subsurface sediment depth ~10 cm. Concentrations of isoGDGTs and brGDGTs were clearly elevated at depths of ~10 and ~45 cm. These indicated that microbial activities potentially influenced the production of the specific membrane lipids of archaea and bacteria. We found that the branched and isoprenoid tetraether index and Rb/i values increased with depth profiles of the Mariana subduction zone, suggesting that deeper sediments likely hosted more brGDGT‐producing bacteria than crenarchaeol‐producing archaea. The extremely high abundance of cyclopentyl rings in brGDGTs was determined in subsurface sediments. We further proposed that most of the brGDGTs in sediments were produced in situ in the Mariana subduction zone. This study highlights that the extremophilic microbial communities of the Mariana subduction zone may represent a significant component of the global carbon cycle.
Comment on “Exploring the Influence of Smallholders' Perceptions Regarding Water Availability on Crop Choice and Water Allocation Through Socio‐Hydrological Modeling” by Kuil et al. [Water Resource Research, 54, 2580–2604]
Authors: Zhang Ling
Published: March 2019

A paper has recently been published in Water Resources Research, which explored the influence of smallholder's perceptions regarding water availability on crop choice and water allocation through social‐hydrological modeling. The present paper attempts to discuss and comment on that paper. The authors have developed a social‐hydrological model, behind which some assumptions of the hydrological aspects (including the omission of deep percolation and the complete separation of transpiration and evaporation for the growing season and the off season) are not well justified. Further, a few parameter values seem to be mistakenly presented by the authors. Most importantly, the equation used for calculating the irrigation depth for crop 1 was incorrectly derived, which could lead to apparent biases in the simulated soil moisture, drought memories, and crop fractions. Hence, the key findings of Kuil et al. (2018, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017WR021420) might be associated with large uncertainties and should be interpreted with much caution.
Deciphering the complex role of thrombospondin-1 in glioblastoma development
Authors: Daubon Thomas , Léon Céline , Clarke Kim , Andrique Laetitia , Salabert Laura , Darbo Elodie , Pineau Raphael , Guérit Sylvaine , Maitre Marlène , Dedieu Stéphane , Jeanne Albin , Bailly Sabine , Feige Jean-Jacques , Miletic Hrvoje , Rossi Marco , Bello Lorenzo , Falciani Francesco , Bjerkvig Rolf , Bikfalvi Andréas
Published: March 2019

We undertook a systematic study focused on the matricellular protein Thrombospondin-1 (THBS1) to uncover molecular mechanisms underlying the role of THBS1 in glioblastoma (GBM) development. THBS1 was found to be increased with glioma grades. Mechanistically, we show that the TGFβ canonical pathway transcriptionally regulates THBS1, through SMAD3 binding to the THBS1 gene promoter. THBS1 silencing inhibits tumour cell invasion and growth, alone and in combination with anti-angiogenic therapy. Specific inhibition of the THBS1/CD47 interaction using an antagonist peptide decreases cell invasion. This is confirmed by CD47 knock-down experiments. RNA sequencing of patient-derived xenograft tissue from laser capture micro-dissected peripheral and central tumour areas demonstrates that THBS1 is one of the gene with the highest connectivity at the tumour borders. All in all, these data show that TGFβ1 induces THBS1 expression via Smad3 which contributes to the invasive behaviour during GBM expansion. Furthermore, tumour cell-bound CD47 is implicated in this process.
Control of capillary behavior through target-responsive hydrogel permeability alteration for sensitive visual quantitative detection
Authors: Li Yansheng , Ma Yanli , Jiao Xiangyu , Li Tingyu , Lv Zhehao , Yang Chaoyong James , Zhang Xueji , Wen Yongqiang
Published: March 2019

DNA hydrogels have received considerable attention in analytical science, however, some limitations still exist in the applications of intelligent hydrogels. In this paper, we describe a way to prepare gel film in a capillary tube based on the thermal reversible principle of DNA hydrogel and the principle of capillary action. Because of the slight change in the internal structure of gel, its permeability can be increased by the addition of some specific targets. The capillary behavior is thus changed due to the different permeability of the hydrogel film. The duration time of the target solution flowing through the capillary tube with a specified length is used to quantify this change. With this proposed method, ultra-trace DNA hydrogel (0.01 μL) is sufficient to realize the sensitive detection of cocaine without the aid of other instruments, which has a low detection limit (1.17 nM) and good selectivity.
Apoptotic tumor cell-derived microRNA-375 uses CD36 to alter the tumor-associated macrophage phenotype
Authors: Frank Ann-Christin , Ebersberger Stefanie , Fink Annika F. , Lampe Sebastian , Weigert Andreas , Schmid Tobias , Ebersberger Ingo , Syed Shahzad Nawaz , Brüne Bernhard
Published: March 2019

Tumor-immune cell interactions shape the immune cell phenotype, with microRNAs (miRs) being crucial components of this crosstalk. How they are transferred and how they affect their target landscape, especially in tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs), is largely unknown. Here we report that breast cancer cells have a high constitutive expression of miR-375, which is released as a non-exosome entity during apoptosis. Deep sequencing of the miRome pointed to enhanced accumulation of miR-375 in TAMs, facilitated by the uptake of tumor-derived miR-375 via CD36. In macrophages, miR-375 directly targets TNS3 and PXN to enhance macrophage migration and infiltration into tumor spheroids and in tumors of a xenograft mouse model. In tumor cells, miR-375 regulates CCL2 expression to increase recruitment of macrophages. Our study provides evidence for miR transfer from tumor cells to TAMs and identifies miR-375 as a crucial regulator of phagocyte infiltration and the subsequent development of a tumor-promoting microenvironment.
Inter-annual variation in seasonal dengue epidemics driven by multiple interacting factors in Guangzhou, China
Authors: Oidtman Rachel J. , Lai Shengjie , Huang Zhoujie , Yang Juan , Siraj Amir S. , Reiner Robert C. , Tatem Andrew J. , Perkins T. Alex , Yu Hongjie
Published: March 2019

Vector-borne diseases display wide inter-annual variation in seasonal epidemic size due to their complex dependence on temporally variable environmental conditions and other factors. In 2014, Guangzhou, China experienced its worst dengue epidemic on record, with incidence exceeding the historical average by two orders of magnitude. To disentangle contributions from multiple factors to inter-annual variation in epidemic size, we fitted a semi-mechanistic model to time series data from 2005–2015 and performed a series of factorial simulation experiments in which seasonal epidemics were simulated under all combinations of year-specific patterns of four time-varying factors: imported cases, mosquito density, temperature, and residual variation in local conditions not explicitly represented in the model. Our results indicate that while epidemics in most years were limited by unfavorable conditions with respect to one or more factors, the epidemic in 2014 was made possible by the combination of favorable conditions for all factors considered in our analysis.
LMO7 deficiency reveals the significance of the cuticular plate for hearing function
Authors: Du Ting-Ting , Dewey James B. , Wagner Elizabeth L. , Cui Runjia , Heo Jinho , Park Jeong-Jin , Francis Shimon P. , Perez-Reyes Edward , Guillot Stacey J. , Sherman Nicholas E. , Xu Wenhao , Oghalai John S , Kachar Bechara , Shin Jung-Bum
Published: March 2019

Sensory hair cells, the mechanoreceptors of the auditory and vestibular systems, harbor two specialized elaborations of the apical surface, the hair bundle and the cuticular plate. In contrast to the extensively studied mechanosensory hair bundle, the cuticular plate is not as well understood. It is believed to provide a rigid foundation for stereocilia motion, but specifics about its function, especially the significance of its integrity for long-term maintenance of hair cell mechanotransduction, are not known. We discovered that a hair cell protein called LIM only protein 7 (LMO7) is specifically localized in the cuticular plate and the cell junction. Lmo7 KO mice suffer multiple cuticular plate deficiencies, including reduced filamentous actin density and abnormal stereociliar rootlets. In addition to the cuticular plate defects, older Lmo7 KO mice develop abnormalities in inner hair cell stereocilia. Together, these defects affect cochlear tuning and sensitivity and give rise to late-onset progressive hearing loss.
Effects of chloride ions in acid-catalyzed biomass dehydration reactions in polar aprotic solvents
Authors: Mellmer Max A. , Sanpitakseree Chotitath , Demir Benginur , Ma Kaiwen , Elliott William A. , Bai Peng , Johnson Robert L. , Walker Theodore W. , Shanks Brent H. , Rioux Robert M. , Neurock Matthew , Dumesic James A.
Published: March 2019

The use of polar aprotic solvents in acid-catalyzed biomass conversion reactions can lead to improved reaction rates and selectivities. We show that further increases in catalyst performance in polar aprotic solvents can be achieved through the addition of inorganic salts, specifically chlorides. Reaction kinetics studies of the Brønsted acid-catalyzed dehydration of fructose to hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) show that the use of catalytic concentrations of chloride salts leads to a 10-fold increase in reactivity. Furthermore, increased HMF yields can be achieved using polar aprotic solvents mixed with chlorides. Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations (AIMD) show that highly localized negative charge on Cl− allows the chloride anion to more readily approach and stabilize the oxocarbenium ion that forms and the deprotonation transition state. High concentrations of polar aprotic solvents form local hydrophilic environments near the reactive hydroxyl group which stabilize both the proton and chloride anions and promote the dehydration of fructose.