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The article shows that two constitutional principles govern the election of justices and the composition of the 16 German state constitutional courts: democracy and the separation of powers. The recruitment of candidates, the vote on nominees in state parliaments, and the composition of benches of the courts in question support this assumption. There is no evidence indicating that a partisan takeover of German state constitutional courts has taken place. In addition, the majorities required for an appointment of justices of state constitutional courts seem less crucial than is often assumed. Keywords: constitutional adjudication, constitutional courts, democracy, federalism, German states, judges, rule of law, Why should we be interested in how justices of German state constitutional courts are selected and elected? For three reasons: first, perceptions can be deceiving. Many believe that in Germany [...]

Abstract: Many biological processes from infection to tumor immune evasion are controlled by cell surface sialylation. To gather further insight into these processes, methods to alter cell surface sialylation are [...]

Constitutional politics seemingly corroborate the assumption that Germany is a Grand Coalition state. In this perspective German cooperative federalism and the supermajority required for any amendment to the constitution privilege bargaining and intertwined policy-making as modes of conflict resolution and thus support grand coalitions. In this paper I will explore whether this theory can explain constitutional politics in the German Länder. Firstly, I examine how far sub-national constitutional politics match the functioning of cooperative federalism that is a defining feature of the Grand Coalition state. Secondly, I examine sub-national constitutional politics in the five new Länder and bring the role parties played in this policy field to the fore. Overall, I conclude that cooperative federalism did not impact on constitutional politics in East Germany and that the features of consensus democracy are only partly able to explain law-making in this sector.

This special issue of Perspectives on Federalism collects papers mostly presented at the General Conference of the European Consortium of Political Research in September 2014. The issue contains five papers dealing with the role, the status, the dynamics, and the functions of sub-national constitutional politics and sub-national constitutionalism in a number of member states of the EU as well as in a comparative, non-EU perspective. Even though the papers take different perspectives on the topic at hand, they all engage with the contribution sub-national constitutions can make to democracy and the nationstate within as well as outside of Europe.

Sialic acids usually represent the terminal monosaccharide of glycoconjugates and are directly involved in many biological processes. The cellular concentration of their nucleotide-activated form is one pacemaker for the highly variable sialylation of glycoconjugates. Hence, the determination of CMP-sialic acid levels is an important factor to understand the complex glycosylation machinery of cells and to standardize the production of glycotherapeutics. We have established a highly sensitive strategy to quantify the concentration of nucleotide-activated sialic acid by a combination of reduction and fluorescent labeling using the fluorophore 1,2-diamino-4,5-methylenedioxybenzene (DMB). The labeling with DMB requires free keto as well as carboxyl groups of the sialic acid molecule. Reduction of the keto group prior to the labeling process precludes the labeling of nonactivated sialic acids. Since the keto group is protected against reduction by the CMP-substitution, labeling of nucleotide-activated sialic acids is still feasible after reduction. Subsequent combination of the DMB-high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) application with mass spectrometric approaches, such as matrix-assisted laser desorption/ ionization time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOFMS) and electrospray-ionization (ESI)-MS, allows the unambiguous identification of both natural and modified CMP-sialic acids and localization of potential substituents. Thus, the described strategy offers a sensitive detection, identification, and quantification of nucleotide-activated sialic acid derivatives in the femtomole range without the need for nucleotide-activated standards. 10.1021/ac100627e

The bifunctional enzyme, UDP-N-acetylglucosamine 2-epimerase/ManNAc kinase, catalyzes the first two steps in the biosynthesis of the sialic acid mammals. The epimerase domain converts UDP-GicNAc into ManNAc and UDP.