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The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) is a judicial body of the European Union (EU), created in 2017 to investigate and prosecute crimes against the EU financial interests. The aim of this thesis is to explain how and why national and supranational institutional actors, through the establishment of the EPPO, come to construct supranational criminal justice. By establishing the EPPO, the 22 participating member states of the EU transferred key sovereign powers – pertaining to criminal justice – to a supranational body. Criminal justice is closely linked to the monopoly on the legitimate use of force and the definition and protection of essential societal values. This is why states generally want to maintain their authority over this policy field. Accordingly, common EU action in this field has mostly relied on cooperation, coordination, and mutual recognition, essentially keeping national judicial systems intact and limiting their submission to supranational authority. The EPPO, with its binding and far-reaching enforcement powers, presents a clear departure from this pattern.To understand the drivers of this transfer of sovereign powers and how the various institutional actors in the EU arena are shaping supranational criminal justice in that respect, we must find out how key actors themselves understand (their) sovereignty in relation to European integration. I, therefore, adopt an ideational approach to this question to examine how ideas and discourse – rather than functionalist pressures, national interests, or international norms – have resulted in the creation of the EPPO and shaped its modalities. Concretely, I adopt a discursive institutionalist approach to show how discourse influences institution-building.Through this theoretical lens, I uncover the various ideas held on the protection of the EU financial interests and how they are articulated with ideas on national sovereignty and European integration in that context. I operationalise the coordina, Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Over the past decade, governing parties in Central and Eastern Europe have dismantled liberal democracy, violating the rule of law and limiting the power of judges. This article examines the opposition to these transformations, focusing on the role of judges in Poland, Hungary, and Romania. Drawing on an original survey, as well as a set of interviews with judges, the article shows that while in Poland judges have developed a unified opposition to the government in defending their independence, in Romania, in contrast, governmental measures have polarized judges into a divided opposition, while their mobilization has been rather non-existent in Hungary. Why do judges oppose governmental action limiting judicial independence in some contexts but not in others? The article shows that the nature and the sequencing of domestic transformations, coupled with ideational factors and interests-based calculations, explain judges’ opposition at the collective and individual levels., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

A couple of Soft Cu electrodes with the cathode irradiated by H− beam was tested at the cryo dc system inUppsala. The electrodes were provided by CERN group as a part of investigation into replacement optionsfor the Linac4 RFQ accelerator at CERN. The conditioning and field emission measurements were done atroom and at 4 K temperatures. Fields of around 105 MV/m were reached during conditioning at cold whichis similar to previous results with the copper electrodes at the cryo system. The post-mortem inspectionunder light microscope revealed that the breakdown features were predominantly located in the irradiatedareas. The field emission measurements done at cold resulted in much more stable and repeatable plots withthe emitted currents decreasing, for a given voltage, as the conditioning progresses.

Intended for teachers of adult literacy, these teaching ideas for the book, "What Jamie Saw," begin with a summary and introductory notes for this book on abuse and its effects on children. Teaching ideas include such suggestions as asking students to write down powerful sentences, to jot notes in their journals about specified units, and to place a sticky note on pages where they find something interesting and every chapter or two doing a Think-Pair-Share. A few chapter-specific suggestions are made for chapters 1, 5 (a sketch to stretch activity), 7 (an Agree? Disagree? Why? activity), and a culminating activity. The next section discusses the field testing of these teaching ideas in two widely diverse learning situations--an urban family literacy program and a tutoring program in a corrections facility--in which both teachers reported enthusiastic student response despite initial resistance. Teacher changes are then described. The final section presents some readers' responses. (YLB)

We propose a mechanism that couples matter fields to three-dimensional de Sitter quantum gravity. Our construction is based on the Chern-Simons formulation of three-dimensional Euclidean gravity, and it centers on a collection of Wilson loops winding around Euclidean de Sitter space. We coin this object a Wilson spool. To construct the spool, we build novel representations of $\mathfrak{su}(2)$. To evaluate the spool, we adapt and exploit several known exact results in Chern-Simons theory. Our proposal correctly reproduces the one-loop determinant of a free massive scalar field on $S^3$ as $G_N\to 0$. Moreover, allowing for quantum metric fluctuations, it can be systematically evaluated to any order in perturbation theory., Comment: 48 pages + appendices

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01 juni 2023, Item does not contain fulltext, PURPOSE: This study aimed to define the genotypic and phenotypic spectrum of reversible acute liver failure (ALF) of infancy resulting from biallelic pathogenic TRMU variants and determine the role of cysteine supplementation in its treatment. METHODS: Individuals with biallelic (likely) pathogenic variants in TRMU were studied within an international retrospective collection of de-identified patient data. RESULTS: In 62 individuals, including 30 previously unreported cases, we described 47 (likely) pathogenic TRMU variants, of which 17 were novel, and 1 intragenic deletion. Of these 62 individuals, 42 were alive at a median age of 6.8 (0.6-22) years after a median follow-up of 3.6 (0.1-22) years. The most frequent finding, occurring in all but 2 individuals, was liver involvement. ALF occurred only in the first year of life and was reported in 43 of 62 individuals; 11 of whom received liver transplantation. Loss-of-function TRMU variants were associated with poor survival. Supplementation with at least 1 cysteine source, typically N-acetylcysteine, improved survival significantly. Neurodevelopmental delay was observed in 11 individuals and persisted in 4 of the survivors, but we were unable to determine whether this was a primary or a secondary consequence of TRMU deficiency. CONCLUSION: In most patients, TRMU-associated ALF was a transient, reversible disease and cysteine supplementation improved survival.

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Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), the prototypic severe childhood speech disorder, is characterized by motor programming and planning deficits. Genetic factors make substantive contributions to CAS aetiology, with a monogenic pathogenic variant identified in a third of cases, implicating around 20 single genes to date. Here we aimed to identify molecular causation in 70 unrelated probands ascertained with CAS. We performed trio genome sequencing. Our bioinformatic analysis examined single nucleotide, indel, copy number, structural and short tandem repeat variants. We prioritised appropriate variants arising de novo or inherited that were expected to be damaging based on in silico predictions. We identified high confidence variants in 18/70 (26%) probands, almost doubling the current number of candidate genes for CAS. Three of the 18 variants affected SETBP1, SETD1A and DDX3X, thus confirming their roles in CAS, while the remaining 15 occurred in genes not previously associated with this disorder. Fifteen variants arose de novo and three were inherited. We provide further novel insights into the biology of child speech disorder, highlighting the roles of chromatin organization and gene regulation in CAS, and confirm that genes involved in CAS are co-expressed during brain development. Our findings confirm a diagnostic yield comparable to, or even higher, than other neurodevelopmental disorders with substantial de novo variant burden. Data also support the increasingly recognised overlaps between genes conferring risk for a range of neurodevelopmental disorders. Understanding the aetiological basis of CAS is critical to end the diagnostic odyssey and ensure affected individuals are poised for precision medicine trials.

Alexandr Ceasovschih,1,2,* Victorita Sorodoc,1,2 Annabelle Shor,1,* Raluca Ecaterina Haliga,1,2,* Lynn Roth,3 Catalina Lionte,1,2 Viviana Onofrei Aursulesei,4,* Oana Sirbu,1,2,* Nicolae Culis,5 Albina Shapieva,6 Mohammed AR Tahir Khokhar,1 Cristian Statescu,7 Radu A Sascau,7 Adorata Elena Coman,1 Alexandra Stoica,1,2 Elena-Daniela Grigorescu,1 Maciej Banach,8 Costas Thomopoulos,9 Laurentiu Sorodoc1,2 1Faculty of Medicine, “Grigore T. Popa” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Iasi, 700115, Romania; 2 2nd Internal Medicine Department, Sf. Spiridon Clinical Emergency Hospital, Iasi, 700111, Romania; 3Laboratory of Physiopharmacology, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, 2610, Belgium; 4Department of Cardiology, Clinical Emergency Hospital “Sfantul Spiridon”, Iasi, 700106, Romania; 5Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Queen’s Medical Center, Nottingham, NG72UH, UK; 6Cardiac Electrophysiology Department, Petrovsky National Research Center of Surgery, Moscow, 119991, Russia; 7Department of Cardiology, Cardiovascular Diseases Institute “Prof. Dr. George I.M. Georgescu”, Iasi, 700503, Romania; 8Department of Preventive Cardiology and Lipidology, Medical University of Lodz (MUL), Lodz, 93338, Poland; 9Department of Cardiology, Elena Venizelou General Hospital, Athens, GR-11522, Greece*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Victorita Sorodoc, 2nd Internal Medicine Department, Sf. Spiridon Clinical Emergency Hospital, Independentei 1 Street, Iasi, 700111, Romania, Tel +40232 240 822, Email vivisorodoc@yahoo.com Lynn Roth, Laboratory of Physiopharmacology, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, 2610, Belgium, Email lynn.roth@uantwerpen.beAbstract: The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic was declared in early 2020 after several unexplained pneumonia cases were first reported in Wuhan, China, and subsequently in ot

Environmental and genetic factors contribute to the etiology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but their interaction is less well understood. Mothers that are genetically more stress-susceptible have been found to be at increased risk of having a child with ASD after exposure to stress during pregnancy. Additionally, the presence of maternal antibodies for the fetal brain is associated with a diagnosis of ASD in children. However, the relationship between prenatal stress exposure and maternal antibodies in the mothers of children diagnosed with ASD has not yet been addressed. This exploratory study examined the association of maternal antibody response with prenatal stress and a diagnosis of ASD in children. Blood samples from 53 mothers with at least one child diagnosed with ASD were examined by ELISA. Maternal antibody presence, perceived stress levels during pregnancy (high or low), and maternal 5-HTTLPR polymorphisms were examined for their interrelationship in ASD. While high incidences of prenatal stress and maternal antibodies were found in the sample, they were not associated with each other (p = 0.709, Cramér's V = 0.051). Furthermore, the results revealed no significant association between maternal antibody presence and the interaction between 5-HTTLPR genotype and stress (p = 0.729, Cramér's V = 0.157). Prenatal stress was not found to be associated with the presence of maternal antibodies in the context of ASD, at least in this initial exploratory sample. Despite the known relationship between stress and changes in immune function, these results suggest that prenatal stress and immune dysregulation are independently associated with a diagnosis of ASD in this study population, rather than acting through a convergent mechanism. However, this would need to be confirmed in a larger sample.

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The former communist states experienced a period of turbulence in the transition to the market economy and then the accession to the EU, turbulences that also influenced the education sector. This article aims to analyze the impact of public spending on education on economic growth in 11 former communist Eastern European states, current EU members. The methodology used is ARDL with structural break. The results are consistent with those previously obtained The public education expenditure-economic growth relationship is mixed on long term; for five countries, there is no such thing; for six countries, there is one on a long term. On a short term, also, mixed results manifest for four countries are positive, and for two negative.

Prenant pour cas d’étude le processus décisionnel ayant abouti en 2019 à l’adoption de la directive européenne « Droit d’auteur dans le marché unique numérique », la thèse cherche à comprendre et expliquer la déviation d’une politique publique européenne d’une trajectoire libérale vers celle de la régulation. Analysé au prisme de la sociologie de l’action publique, le droit d’auteur y est défini comme un instrument d’action publique au sens de Lascoume et Le Galès (2005). Le cadre analytique repose ensuite sur l’articulation de trois concepts clés :le champ eurocratique, le travail politique et les espace-temps de l’action publique. La thèse répond alors à la question de recherche suivante :comment et pourquoi le travail politique des agent·es, déployé dans les différents espace-temps du champ eurocratique, a-t-il aboutit à l’adoption du droit d’auteur comme instrument de régulation du marché unique numérique ?Le dispositif méthodologique combine une enquête par entretiens auprès des agent·es ayant pris part au processus décisionnel étudié (n=79) et une fouille de documents divers relatifs au dossier du droit d’auteur européen, et datant majoritairement d’une période courant de 2004 à 2019, c’est-à-dire des premières réflexions sur une nouvelle réglementation du droit d’auteur à l’adoption de la directive finale (n=161).L’analyse des données ainsi collectées montre que la directive droit d’auteur dans le marché unique numérique a dévié de la trajectoire libérale qu’elle avait pourtant entamée dans les années 2000 parce qu’un ensemble d’agent·es défendant une position pro-régulation a d’abord émergé dans l’espace-temps de la Commission, puis s’est maintenu au fil des différents espace-temps de la prise de décision (Conseil de l’UE, Parlement, Trilogues). Deux grandes options existaient ainsi pour réglementer le droit d’auteur numérique :la libéralisation et la régulation. L’option de la libéralisation se traduit concrètement par l’expansion du champ des exceptions au, Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Cette thèse propose une analyse compréhensive afin de montrer comment l’approfondissement de la coopération institutionnelle, notamment par le projet d’intégration économique régionale, est configuré pour maintenir et renforcer l’ordre hiérarchique régional en Eurasie post soviétique. Dans le cadre d’un ordre hiérarchique régional en Eurasie postsoviétique dont au sommet se trouve la Russie, l'institutionnalisation de la coopération eurasienne représente un processus dynamique dans lequel l'hégémonie régionale russe se reconfigure conformément aux exigences du système international contemporain. La thèse traite le régionalisme eurasien postsoviétique guidé principalement par la Russie, en se concentrant sur les phases successives marquées par des enjeux et des événements décisifs. A l’aide d’une approche méthodologique diachronique, l'évolution de la perspective de coopération régionale de la Russie est étudiée en fonction des spécificités de chaque phase depuis la dislocation de l’Union soviétique. Sans privilégier une phase particulière du processus de coopération pour ne pas traiter le régionalisme eurasien postsoviétique comme un produit fini, cette thèse se concentre sur toute l'histoire du régionalisme postsoviétique comme un processus continu. L'évolution d’interaction entre les modalités de coopération régionale et la formation d'un ordre hiérarchique institutionnalisé en Eurasie postsoviétique est examinée dans la perspective d'un "mouvement double pendulaire" qui implique deux grands pendules interconnectés. Le premier pendule montre comment les stratégies politiques de la Russie oscillent entre hégémonie dure et soft/normative en termes d'interactions politiques et économiques avec le système international tandis que le deuxième pendule décrit comment ces stratégies déterminent les changements dans l'organisation de la gouvernance régionale.Le cadre théorique de l’étude se veut éclectique. Les hypothèses de la théorie néoréaliste sont utilisées pour compr, Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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We argue that Transformers are essentially graph-to-graph models, with sequences just being a special case. Attention weights are functionally equivalent to graph edges. Our Graph-to-Graph Transformer architecture makes this ability explicit, by inputting graph edges into the attention weight computations and predicting graph edges with attention-like functions, thereby integrating explicit graphs into the latent graphs learned by pretrained Transformers. Adding iterative graph refinement provides a joint embedding of input, output, and latent graphs, allowing non-autoregressive graph prediction to optimise the complete graph without any bespoke pipeline or decoding strategy. Empirical results show that this architecture achieves state-of-the-art accuracies for modelling a variety of linguistic structures, integrating very effectively with the latent linguistic representations learned by pretraining., Comment: Accepted to Big Picture workshop at EMNLP 2023

Unlike the Open Domain Question Answering (ODQA) setting, the conversational (ODConvQA) domain has received limited attention when it comes to reevaluating baselines for both efficiency and effectiveness. In this paper, we study the State-of-the-Art (SotA) Dense Passage Retrieval (DPR) retriever and Fusion-in-Decoder (FiD) reader pipeline, and show that it significantly underperforms when applied to ODConvQA tasks due to various limitations. We then propose and evaluate strong yet simple and efficient baselines, by introducing a fast reranking component between the retriever and the reader, and by performing targeted finetuning steps. Experiments on two ODConvQA tasks, namely TopiOCQA and OR-QuAC, show that our method improves the SotA results, while reducing reader's latency by 60%. Finally, we provide new and valuable insights into the development of challenging baselines that serve as a reference for future, more intricate approaches, including those that leverage Large Language Models (LLMs)., Comment: Accepted to EMNLP 2023 Findings

Document-level relation extraction aims to identify relationships between entities within a document. Current methods rely on text-based encoders and employ various hand-coded pooling heuristics to aggregate information from entity mentions and associated contexts. In this paper, we replace these rigid pooling functions with explicit graph relations by leveraging the intrinsic graph processing capabilities of the Transformer model. We propose a joint text-graph Transformer model, and a graph-assisted declarative pooling (GADePo) specification of the input which provides explicit and high-level instructions for information aggregation. This allows the pooling process to be guided by domain-specific knowledge or desired outcomes but still learned by the Transformer, leading to more flexible and customizable pooling strategies. We extensively evaluate our method across diverse datasets and models, and show that our approach yields promising results that are comparable to those achieved by the hand-coded pooling functions.

Background: Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform our healthcare systems significantly. New AI technologies based on machine learning approaches should play a key role in clinical decision-making in the future. However, their implementation in health care settings remains limited, mostly due to a lack of robust validation procedures. There is a need to develop reliable assessment frameworks for the clinical validation of AI. We present here an approach for assessing AI for predicting treatment response in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), using real-world data and molecular -omics data from clinical data warehouses and biobanks. Methods: The European “ITFoC (Information Technology for the Future Of Cancer)” consortium designed a framework for the clinical validation of AI technologies for predicting treatment response in oncology. Results: This framework is based on seven key steps specifying: (1) the intended use of AI, (2) the target population, (3) the timing of AI evaluation, (4) the datasets used for evaluation, (5) the procedures used for ensuring data safety (including data quality, privacy and security), (6) the metrics used for measuring performance, and (7) the procedures used to ensure that the AI is explainable. This framework forms the basis of a validation platform that we are building for the “ITFoC Challenge”. This community-wide competition will make it possible to assess and compare AI algorithms for predicting the response to TNBC treatments with external real-world datasets. Conclusions: The predictive performance and safety of AI technologies must be assessed in a robust, unbiased and transparent manner before their implementation in healthcare settings. We believe that the consideration of the ITFoC consortium will contribute to the safe transfer and implementation of AI in clinical settings, in the context of precision oncology and personalized care.

Failed or altered gliogenesis is a major characteristic of diffuse white matter injury in survivors of premature birth. The developmentally regulated long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) H19 inhibits S-adenosylhomocysteine hydrolase (SAHH) and contributes to methylation of diverse cellular components, such as DNA, RNA, proteins, lipids, and neurotransmitters. We showed that the pregnancy-derived synthetic PreImplantation Factor (sPIF) induces expression of the nuclear receptor corepressor 2 (NCOR2) via H19/SAHH-mediated DNA demethylation. In turn, NCOR2 affects oligodendrocyte differentiation markers. Accordingly, after hypoxic-ischemic brain injury in rodents, myelin protection and oligodendrocytes’ fate are in part modulated by sPIF and H19. Our results revealed an unexpected mechanism of the H19/SAHH axis underlying myelin preservation during brain recovery and its use in treating neurodegenerative diseases can be envisioned.

ObjectiveDetermining the genetic basis of speech disorders provides insight into the neurobiology of human communication. Despite intensive investigation over the past 2 decades, the etiology of most speech disorders in children remains unexplained. To test the hypothesis that speech disorders have a genetic etiology, we performed genetic analysis of children with severe speech disorder, specifically childhood apraxia of speech (CAS).MethodsPrecise phenotyping together with research genome or exome analysis were performed on children referred with a primary diagnosis of CAS. Gene coexpression and gene set enrichment analyses were conducted on high-confidence gene candidates.ResultsThirty-four probands ascertained for CAS were studied. In 11/34 (32%) probands, we identified highly plausible pathogenic single nucleotide (n = 10; CDK13, EBF3, GNAO1, GNB1, DDX3X, MEIS2, POGZ, SETBP1, UPF2, ZNF142) or copy number (n = 1; 5q14.3q21.1 locus) variants in novel genes or loci for CAS. Testing of parental DNA was available for 9 probands and confirmed that the variants had arisen de novo. Eight genes encode proteins critical for regulation of gene transcription, and analyses of transcriptomic data found CAS-implicated genes were highly coexpressed in the developing human brain.ConclusionWe identify the likely genetic etiology in 11 patients with CAS and implicate 9 genes for the first time. We find that CAS is often a sporadic monogenic disorder, and highly genetically heterogeneous. Highly penetrant variants implicate shared pathways in broad transcriptional regulation, highlighting the key role of transcriptional regulation in normal speech development. CAS is a distinctive, socially debilitating clinical disorder, and understanding its molecular basis is the first step towards identifying precision medicine approaches. Copyright © American Academy of Neurology.

Intensive Short-Term Psychodynamic Therapy (ISTDP) has demonstrated promising evidence for the treatment of several Functional Neurological Disorders (FND) including dissociative seizures. However, its implementation in secondary mental health and specialist services within the English National Health Service (NHS) is scarce. The aim of this pilot study was to explore the estimates of the therapeutic effects of a 3-session course of this treatment as well as establish safety and acceptability for a complex patient group. The study followed a mixed methods case series design and recruited 18 patients from secondary adult mental health care and specialist neurology services. Participants completed self-report outcome measures at the start, at the end and 1 month following the completion of therapy. Three open-ended questions examined their therapy experiences qualitatively and these were analysed through thematic analysis. All participants who started the treatment (N = 17) completed the intervention and attendance rates were very high (95%). No serious adverse effects were observed and the CORE-OM and BSI showed improvements both at the end of the treatment and at follow-up. Healthcare utilisation was also reduced, including acute medications, A&E attendances and crisis-line usage. The results provide preliminary support for the safe use of ISTDP in this complex group of participants, but further evidence from controlled and randomized studies is warranted.

High electrical fields are needed inside the accelerating cavities of particle accelerators in order to accelerate the particles to higher energies in shorter distances. But high electrical fields will lead to electrical breakdowns. The electrical breakdowns are events in which the insulating proprieties of a typically electrically insulating medium are weakened due to the presence of high electrical fields. One of the best insulating mediums is the ultra high vacuum because there are no molecules that will ionize and that will conduct the electricity. But even in vacuum, there will be electrical breakdowns. They are called vacuum arc breakdowns. The conducting medium in this case is given by the ions and the electrons emitted from the metal surface of the electrodes that create the high electrical fields. It has been observed that applying repeatedly high electrical fields on the surface of the electrodes reduces the number of breakdowns. This process is called conditioning. One explanation is that the large electric fields create dislocations near the surface of the metal that reduce the probability of having new vacuum arc breakdowns. These dislocations should also increase the electrical resistivity of the metal near its surface. To test if new dislocations are formed during conditioning, precise measurements of the surface resistivity are needed. These measurements will be made with radio pulses in the GHz range. In this range of frequencies, the electromagnetic fields penetrate only a few microns inside the surface of the metal and it will be possible to measure only the resistivity of the metal near its surface. The surface resistivity data is encoded in the quality factor (Q-factor) of a resonant cavity. This parameter describes how fast the energy is dissipated inside the cavity. A larger surface resistivity leads to a larger dissipation of energy in the walls of the cavity and to a lower Q-factor. It is advantageous to perform the measurements in cryogeni

In many optics applications we need lenses with dynamically tunable focal lengths. One design of such a lensis developed in and it relies on the magneto-optical eect. In this design, a graphene layer is placed ina magnetic eld that varies quadratically in space. During this project I have built an experimental set-upthat can be used to make magneto-optical measurements. The graphene sample is placed in an evacuatedcryostat and it needs to be cooled to low temperatures using liquid nitrogen. The magnetic eld neededfor the measurements is generated by a permanent magnet system placed outside the cryostat. This reportpresents the theory behind the optical magnetic lens, a description of the cryostat and of the steps I tookto design and build the cooling system and the magnet system. Finally, temperature and magnetic eldmeasurements are presented and compared with the values obtained from COMSOL simulations.

Virtual Reality (VR) can mediate remote collaborative learning and can support pedagogical processes like paragogy. Within education, methods such as spaced repetition and memory palaces exist to support the cognitive process of remembering. We identify an opportunity to enhance learner-led collaborative paragogy involving these methods through immersive VR experiences. We present CleVR, a VR-mediated collaboration-based system that supports the memory palace and spaced repetition techniques. As an exploratory study, we aim to identify the applicability, viability and user perception for such a system combining these two techniques in VR. CleVR is a novel implementation which provides a location-driven metaphor to populate and present multiple resources related to a topic for peer-led exploration. We discuss the design and provide a prototype implementation of CleVR. We conducted two studies, a targeted expert user review and a broader proof of concept survey. The results of the studies show interesting outcomes, with the system described as ‘engaging’, ‘useful’ and ‘fun’. Our findings provide insights to the potential of using Virtual Reality Learning Environments (VRLE) geared towards collaborative learner-led activities.

BACKGROUND: There is a lack of formal, published videofluoroscopic swallow study (VFSS) training targeting radiologists, yet radiology senior medical officers and resident medical officers (i.e., radiologists-in-training, known in Australia as "registrars") are expected to be involved in VFSS interpretation of anatomical anomalies and reporting. This study investigated whether VFSS training is delivered to registrars during their specialist radiology training, whether it is a perceived need and, if so, to determine the desired content for inclusion in a targeted training package. METHODS: A cross-sectional, mixed methods study design was used. An internet-based survey was circulated via convenience and snowball sampling to radiologists (both senior medical officers and registrars) and speech-language pathologists across Australia in October-November 2017. Surveys also were distributed to practitioners based in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, as they practised within similar health systems, and it was anticipated they may have similar VFSS training practices. The radiology survey contained 36 questions and the speech-language pathology survey contained 44 questions. Participants were asked the following: (1) Report their current VFSS radiology registrar training environment; (2) Advise whether radiology registrars need VFSS training; (3) Recommend the content, format, training intensity, and evaluation methods for an effective radiology registrar training package. Demographic data were analysed descriptively, and open-ended responses were analysed using qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: 21 radiology senior medical officers and registrars and 150 speech-language pathologists predominantly based at Australian tertiary hospital settings completed the survey. Most respondents (90.6%) identified that VFSS training is needed for radiology registrars. Only one speech-language pathologist respondent reported that they deliver VFSS training for radiology registrars.

Virtual Reality (VR) can mediate remote collaborative learning and can support pedagogical processes like paragogy. Within education, methods such as spaced repetition and memory palaces exist to support the cognitive process of remembering. We identify an opportunity to enhance learner-led collaborative paragogy involving these methods through immersive VR experiences. We present CleVR, a VR-mediated collaboration-based system that supports the memory palace and spaced repetition techniques. As an exploratory study, we aim to identify the applicability, viability and user perception for such a system combining these two techniques in VR. CleVR is a novel implementation which provides a location-driven metaphor to populate and present multiple resources related to a topic for peer-led exploration. We discuss the design and provide a prototype implementation of CleVR. We conducted two studies, a targeted expert user review and a broader proof of concept survey. The results of the studies show interesting outcomes, with the system described as ‘engaging’, ‘useful’ and ‘fun’. Our findings provide insights to the potential of using Virtual Reality Learning Environments (VRLE) geared towards collaborative learner-led activities.

Intensive Short-Term Psychodynamic Therapy (ISTDP) has demonstrated promising evidence for the treatment of several Functional Neurological Disorders (FND) including dissociative seizures. However, its implementation in secondary mental health and specialist services within the English National Health Service (NHS) is scarce. The aim of this pilot study was to explore the estimates of the therapeutic effects of a 3-session course of this treatment as well as establish safety and acceptability for a complex patient group. The study followed a mixed methods case series design and recruited 18 patients from secondary adult mental health care and specialist neurology services. Participants completed self-report outcome measures at the start, at the end and 1 month following the completion of therapy. Three open-ended questions examined their therapy experiences qualitatively and these were analysed through thematic analysis. All participants who started the treatment (N = 17) completed the intervention and attendance rates were very high (95%). No serious adverse effects were observed and the CORE-OM and BSI showed improvements both at the end of the treatment and at follow-up. Healthcare utilisation was also reduced, including acute medications, A&E attendances and crisis-line usage. The results provide preliminary support for the safe use of ISTDP in this complex group of participants, but further evidence from controlled and randomized studies is warranted.

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Un manuel qui met l'accent sur les méthodes et méthodologies propres à la science politique, avec des conseils pratiques pour mener à bien un travail de recherche.Une initiation à la recherche en science politique à travers :une présentation pédagogique des méthodes de collecte et d’analyse des donnéesdes conseils pratiques pour mener à bien un travail de recherchedes exemples concrets extraits de la littérature récentedes tableaux de synthèse, des mises en situation et des définitions des termes clésPour apprendre à :réaliser un travail scientifiqueélaborer une stratégie de recherchechoisir et collecter les données pertinentesanalyser et interpréter les résultatsidentifier les forces et les faiblesses de chaque méthodeAvec exercices interactifs en fin de chapitres pour intégrer et réviser la matière, info:eu-repo/semantics/published, 2

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From Bucharest to Skopje, anti-government protests have been sweeping Southeast Europe(SEE) since 2011. Considering that the region had been regarded to have a weak civil societybefore the protests, the mobilisations came as a surprise to academics and practitioners alike.Yet, these protests were not only noteworthy for happening in a region, seemingly endowedwith a weak civil society, but also for the fact that they remained largely peaceful. Even untilthe mid-1990s, in contrast, the Romanian government had violently dispersed protests usingmilitant miners, and protests in Albania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia had a similar outcome.Tracking the frequency with which governments have used lethal or non-lethal violence duringprotests, it can be shown that governments in SEE appear to have become more tolerant of thistype of extra-parliamentary political participation. Data collected from protest events showsthat at least since the early 2000s there has been a period of government restraint. This came atthe same time as the EU opened accession pathways for most countries in the region. Thus, thethesis discusses the reasons for the decline in repression. It explores whether the temporalcorrelation between increased EU engagement and the decline of physical repression in theregion was coincidental or can be linked. In this context, the thesis focuses on the role of EUaccession conditionality, since it has been assumed that EU conditionality could have ademocratizing and, therefore, potentially constraining effect on governments. Even though thethesis concludes that EU-accession conditionality impacted repression, the nature of thatimpact is complex. It shows that to understand how EU-accession conditionality impactedrepression, we cannot treat repression as a monolithic concept. Although EU conditionalityreduced visible forms of repression, such as lethal and non-lethal violence, it had little effecton opaque, institutional forms of repression. Studying how media outlets thr, Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Since the 2015 parliamentary elections in Poland, the government led by the Law and Justice party (PiS) has sought to win two interwoven battles: the restoration of ‘a strong state’ internally and ‘regaining sovereignty’ in the country’s relationship with the EU. By examining the 2015 constitutional crisis in Poland, this article seeks to understand how and why a domestic dispute over the nomination of constitutional judges has transformed into a conflict of sovereignty in the EU polity. The paper shows that the claims to sovereignty of political, social, and legal actors reflect opposing conceptions of this principle as well as of democracy and the rule of law. PiS’ understanding of State sovereignty is rooted in the past, echoes its Hobbesian conception, and is reminiscent of Carl Schmitt’s notion of the political and of democracy. In 2015, this conception was pitted against the supremacy of the Constitution (legal sovereignty) and the ideal of shared sovereignty. Drawing on 20 parliamentary debates, this paper shows that the 2015 Polish constitutional crisis encapsulates a conflict of sovereignty over who holds the most legitimate representation of the people and who should have the last word in key political conflicts and constitutional settlements., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Contemporary conflicts of sovereignty in Europe have gone beyond the clash between national and supranational sovereignty. Sovereignty conflicts are increasingly occurring within member states. This paper develops a conceptual framework that distinguishes between foundational, institutional and territorial conflicts of sovereignty, elaborating on this taxonomy with reference to the historical evolution of the concept of sovereignty in Europe. It provides an account of why we have seen a proliferation in conflicts of sovereignty within European states. This is due in part to the notion of “shared” sovereignty. Central to European integration, this notion has introduced considerable institutional indeterminacy into the political systems of member states, leading to many of the institutional conflicts of sovereignty we see in Europe today. The struggle of national party systems to institutionalize societal conflict via partisan competition is another contributory factor. This has displaced conflict onto the terrain of how popular rule is institutionalized within the national state. In developing this framework, the paper provides a method for distinguishing between political conflicts tout court and those touching specifically upon sovereignty. Moreover, the framework helps us distinguish between those conflicts of sovereignty most destabilizing for a polity and those which are less so., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

SCOPUS: le.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Offers a summary of the EU’s rule of law debate over the last decade.Analyses a variety of challenges that the EU faces, including the migration crisis and Eurozone management.Examines the motivations and preferences of actors within various EU polities, as well as their division lines.ABOUT THIS BOOKIts rule of law crisis, the European Union could solve it on its own. In her thought-provoking book, Ramona Coman shows why the EU is largely failing in this enterprise. Analysing the politics of the rule of law of the political EU institutions and of civil society, but leaving out the Court, Coman traces the roots of the current age of dissensus. Whether the reliance on conditionality rather helps or harms for the future, one wonders. Highly recommended reading!, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Vlad Horia Schitcu,1– 3,* Lajos Raduly,1,* Andreea Nutu,1,* Oana Zanoaga,1 Cristina Ciocan,1 Vlad Cristian Munteanu,2,3 Roxana Cojocneanu,1 Bogdan Petrut,2,3 Ioan Coman,2 Cornelia Braicu,1 Ioana Berindan-Neagoe1 1Research Center for Functional Genomics, Biomedicine, and Translational Medicine, “Iuliu Hațieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, 400337, Romania; 2Department of Urology, “Iuliu Hatieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, 400012, Romania; 3Department of Urology, “Prof. Dr. Ion Chiricuta” Oncology Institute, Cluj-Napoca, Romania*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Cornelia Braicu, Research Center for Functional Genomics, Biomedicine, and Translational Medicine, “Iuliu Hațieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 23 Gh. Marinescu Street, Cluj-Napoca, 400337, Romania, Tel +40-264-597-256, Fax +40-264-597-257, Email cornelia.braicu@umfcluj.ro; braicucornelia@yahoo.comAbstract: Prostate cancer biology is complex, and needs to be deciphered. The latest evidence reveals the significant role of non-coding RNAs, particularly microRNAs (miRNAs), as key regulatory factors in cancer. Therefore, the identification of altered miRNA patterns involved in prostate cancer will allow them to be used for development of novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers. Patients and Methods: We performed a miRNAs transcriptomic analysis, using microarray (10 matched pairs tumor tissue versus normal adjacent tissue, selected based on inclusion criteria), followed by overlapping with TCGA data. A total of 292 miRNAs were differentially expressed, with 125 upregulated and 167 downregulated in TCGA patients’ cohort with PRAD (prostate adenocarcinoma), respectively for the microarray experiments; 16 upregulated and 44 downregulated miRNAs were found in our cohort. To confirm our results obtained for tumor tissue, we performed validation with qRT-PCR at the tissue and plas

The green macroalga Ulva rigida represents a promising feedstock for biorefinary due to its fast growth and cosmopolitan distribution. The main component of the cell walls of U. rigida is a sulfated glucuronorhamnan polysaccharide known as ulvan. Herein it was found that due to the high (hydrogen)sulfate group content of ulvan, hydrothermal autohydrolysis at 130 °C renders a high percentage of rhamnose (78–79 % recovery from the initial content in the raw material), a rare sugar of high added value. In addition, acid catalysis by a triflate-based graphene oxide under oxygen-free conditions at 180 °C affords moderate amounts of tartaric acid (24–26 %). The same triflate-based graphene oxide catalyst under oxygen pressure yields remarkably high percentages of succinic acid (65 %). The catalyst preserves its activity for at least five consecutive reuses.

This paper starts from the premise that argumentation in EU (Commission) soft law instruments is essential for their effectiveness, mainly due to its function to persuade addressees as a means to enhance compliance. Notwithstanding their importance in the EU legal-political landscape, the problem is how to ensure that these instruments devoid of formal legally binding force can function as effective governance tools by convincing addressees to comply, particularly during crisis periods such as the Covid-19 crisis, when fast and effective action is urgently needed. By pointing at a number of significant legal problems and concerns deriving from the Commission’s ‘hardened’ soft law instruments, we suggest a normative approach focusing on the potential of EU soft law instruments to act as highly persuasive tools. By making the instruments’ argumentation a core concern, we examine its role as a means to improve the intrinsic quality of EU (Commission) soft law and to foster effective compliance. To this end, we propose a theoretical-analytical framework combining insights from law and argumentation theory, that puts forward an argumentative toolbox for the analysis and assessment of EU (Commission) soft law instruments. This toolbox comprises four argumentative parameters that need to be taken into account in the drafting and evaluation of EU (Commission) soft law instruments: (1) the content of the argumentation, (2) the design of the arguments pointing at persuasive suggestions for cooperation, (3) the factors influencing argumentative effectiveness, and (4) the soundness of argumentation.