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The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has a chance to be an outlier in a region otherwise inhospitable to religious diversity. Less than two years after gaining autonomy in the Orthodox community, signs are promising that church elites are neither frightened by religious choice or inclined toward state sponsorship. Such a posture would contrast glaringly with the ethos of its once overseer, the Russian Orthodox Church. I argue that, although the church’s development is still embryonic, several factors suggest a more tolerant attitude toward the operations of other nontraditional may prove durable. Hopefully, the approach is not simply a matter of the church conforming to pro-democracy sentiments in Kyiv, but rather is rooted in experience and deep-seeded beliefs. If this proves to be the case, religious pluralism and constructive church-state relations has the chance to be irrevocably engrained in the country. Such a development would dispel the notion that Eastern Orthodoxy and authoritarianism are somehow inextricably connected. Even more importantly for Ukraine’s future, a modern and transparent national church may help anchor Kyiv to its current democratizing orientation, preventing a cyclical return to autocracy.

ABSTRACT: Freshwater is a valuable resource worldwide given the growing demand of the global population. This study aimed to develop and validate an integrated assessment model by means of environmental footprint indices (water, ecological, and carbon), which measure the environmental sustainability of heterogeneous communities, people, and countries. An environmental footprint was firstly defined as a set of indicators to track human pressure on planet Earth under different angles, being a multidimensional index of environmental sustainability. A Delphi survey was used to bring together opinions from a diverse set of experts. The participants of this study consisted of 120 experts from several fields of knowledge belonging to the best-known research and education institutions in Brazil. Through this technique, an integrated environmental footprint index (IEFI) could be developed, being then validated with information from eight different communities located in the Paraíba State (Brazil). Afterwards, this index was applied to several representative countries from all continents. Our results indicated the sensitiveness of IEFI model to variations in natural ecosystems, in addition to its ability to identify the environmental balance of a person, community, or nation level.

Following the renewal of economic and social relations between Taiwan and Mainland China, economic and social integration between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait has led to an advanced state of interdependence. Scholars of integration have argued that economic integration has the potential to spill over into politics, catalyzing political unification. However, as unification has failed to appear, scholars have sought alternative frameworks for understanding the conditions necessary to facilitate unification. Drawing on the “linkage community” integration framework, which outlines a group of people with ties to both sides of the Taiwan Strait and the ability to influence policymakers as a primary variable for understanding the potential for unification, this paper examines the political activity of organizations for Taiwanese students at Mainland Chinese universities (taisheng). Based on data collected through informal interviews with Taiwanese students and officials conducted between October 2012 and August 2013, this paper presents information on the situation of Taiwanese students in Mainland China and argues that they have little potential to drive unification. It concludes that better understanding of the intersection of identity and interests in the cross-Strait context is essential to understanding the relationship between Taiwan and Mainland China and the unification of divided nations more generally.

Bacteria in biofilms have higher antibiotic tolerance than their planktonic counterparts. A major outstanding question is the degree to which the biofilm-specific cellular state and its constituent genetic determinants contribute to this hyper-tolerant phenotype. Here, we used genome-wide functional profiling of a complex, heterogeneous mutant population of Pseudomonas aeruginosa MPAO1 in biofilm and planktonic growth conditions with and without tobramycin to systematically quantify the contribution of each locus to antibiotic tolerance under these two states. We identified large sets of mutations that contribute to antibiotic tolerance predominantly in the biofilm or planktonic setting only, offering global insights into the differences and similarities between biofilm and planktonic antibiotic tolerance. Our mixed population-based experimental design recapitulated the complexity of natural biofilms and, unlike previous studies, revealed clinically observed behaviors including the emergence of quorum sensing-deficient mutants. Our study revealed a substantial contribution of the cellular state to the antibiotic tolerance of biofilms, providing a rational foundation for the development of novel therapeutics against P. aeruginosa biofilm-associated infections.

Postnatal decreases in vascular reactivity involve decreases in the thick filament component of myofilament calcium sensitivity, which is measured as the relationship between cytosolic calcium concentration and myosin light chain ([MLC.sub.20]) phosphorylation. The present study tests the hypothesis that downregulation of thick filament reactivity is due to downregulation of myosin light chain kinase (MLCK) activity in adult compared with fetal arteries. Total MLCK activity, calculated as %[MLC.sub.20] phosphorylated per second in intact arteries during optimal inhibition of myosin light chain phosphatase activity, was significantly less in adult (6.56 [+ or -] 0.29%) than in fetal preparations (7.39 [+ or -] 0.53%). In situ [MLC.sub.20] concentrations ([micro]M) in adult (198 [+ or -] 28) and fetal arteries (236 [+ or -] 44) did not differ significantly. In situ MLCK concentrations ([micro]M), however, were significantly greater in adult (8.21 [+ or -] 0.59) than in fetal arteries (1.83 [+ or -] 0.13). In situ MLCK activities (ng [MLC.sub.20] phosphorylated * [s.sup.-1] * ng [MLCK.sup.-1]) were significantly less in adult (0.26 [+ or -] 0.01) than in fetal arteries (1.52 [+ or -] 0.11). In contrast, MLCK activities in adult (15.8 [+ or -] 1.5) and fetal artery homogenates (17.3 [+ or -] 1.3) were not significantly different. When in situ fractional activation was calculated, adult values (1.72 [+ or -] 0.17%) were significantly less than fetal values (9.08 [+ or -] 0.83%). Together, these results indicate that decreased thick filament reactivity in adult compared with fetal ovine carotid arteries is due at least in part to greater MLCK activity in fetal arteries, which in turn cannot be explained by differences in MLCK, [MLC.sub.20], or calmodulin concentrations. Instead, this difference appears to involve age-related differences in fractional activation of the MLCK enzyme. myofilament calcium sensitivity; postnatal maturation; regulatory myosin light chain; thick filament reactivity

Abstract: It has been reported that sensitization of animals to allergens increases both early shortening velocity and myosin light-chain kinase of their airway smooth muscle without increasing force generated by [...]