The European Union as a Mediator in Israel-Palestine: Operations Cast Lead and Protective Edge. EU Diplomacy Paper 01/2016

The European Union (EU) has played an important, yet inconsistent role in the Israel-Palestine conflict since the1980 Venice Declaration. This paper analyses how the EU’s role as a mediator has changed more recently in the Israel-Gaza conflict. Specifically, it examines how the ‘Concept on Strengthening EU Mediation and Dialogue Capacities’ adopted in 2009 and the creation of the European External Action Service and the High Representative by the Lisbon Treaty have changed the EU’s resources and strategies as a mediator as well as how these developments improved cooperation and coordination with other mediators. This analysis is done through a comparison of the EU’s role in the Israeli Operation Cast Lead in 2008/2009 and Operation Protective Edge in 2014. It is argued that the aforementioned changes made the EU a more capable mediator and facilitated internal coordination. However, these changes did not create more resources for the EU as a mediator, rather they changed how the EU used its resources.

Analysis of Lead-Acid batteries with a third-order dynamical model

Electrical energy storage is a really important issue nowadays. As electricity is not easy to be directly stored, it can be stored in other forms and converted back to electricity when needed. As a consequence, storage technologies for electricity can be classified by the form of storage, and in particular we focus on electrochemical energy storage systems, better known as electrochemical batteries. Largely the more widespread batteries are the Lead-Acid ones, in the two main types known as flooded and valve-regulated. Batteries need to be present in many important applications such as in renewable energy systems and in motor vehicles. Consequently, in order to simulate these complex electrical systems, reliable battery models are needed. Although there exist some models developed by experts of chemistry, they are too complex and not expressed in terms of electrical networks. Thus, they are not convenient for a practical use by electrical engineers, who need to interface these models with other electrical systems models, usually described by means of electrical circuits. There are many techniques available in literature by which a battery can be modeled. Starting from the Thevenin based electrical model, it can be adapted to be more reliable for Lead-Acid battery type, with the addition of a parasitic reaction branch and a parallel network. The third-order formulation of this model can be chosen, being a trustworthy general-purpose model, characterized by a good ratio between accuracy and complexity. Considering the equivalent circuit network, all the useful equations describing the battery model are discussed, and then implemented one by one in Matlab/Simulink. The model has been finally validated, and then used to simulate the battery behaviour in different typical conditions.

Screening of the Open Source Malaria Box Reveals an Early Lead Compound for the Treatment of Alveolar Echinococcosis.

The metacestode (larval) stage of the tapeworm Echinococcus multilocularis causes alveolar echinococcosis (AE), a very severe and in many cases incurable disease. To date, benzimidazoles such as albendazole and mebendazole are the only approved chemotherapeutical treatment options. Benzimidazoles inhibit metacestode proliferation, but do not act parasiticidal. Thus, benzimidazoles have to be taken a lifelong, can cause adverse side effects such as hepatotoxicity, and are ineffective in some patients. We here describe a newly developed screening cascade for the evaluation of the in vitro efficacy of new compounds that includes assessment of parasiticidal activity. The Malaria Box from Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), comprised of 400 commercially available chemicals that show in vitro activity against Plasmodium falciparum, was repurposed. Primary screening was carried out at 10 μM by employing the previously described PGI assay, and resulted in the identification of 24 compounds that caused physical damage in metacestodes. Seven out of these 24 drugs were also active at 1 μM. Dose-response assays revealed that only 2 compounds, namely MMV665807 and MMV665794, exhibited an EC50 value below 5 μM. Assessments using human foreskin fibroblasts and Reuber rat hepatoma cells showed that the salicylanilide MMV665807 was less toxic for these two mammalian cell lines than for metacestodes. The parasiticidal activity of MMV665807 was then confirmed using isolated germinal layer cell cultures as well as metacestode vesicles by employing viability assays, and its effect on metacestodes was morphologically evaluated by electron microscopy. However, both oral and intraperitoneal application of MMV665807 to mice experimentally infected with E. multilocularis metacestodes did not result in any reduction of the parasite load.

Genomic amplification of the caprine EDNRA locus might lead to a dose dependent loss of pigmentation

The South African Boer goat displays a characteristic white spotting phenotype, in which the pigment is limited to the head. Exploiting the existing phenotype variation within the breed, we mapped the locus causing this white spotting phenotype to chromosome 17 by genome wide association. Subsequent whole genome sequencing identified a 1 Mb copy number variant (CNV) harboring 5 genes including EDNRA. The analysis of 358 Boer goats revealed 3 alleles with one, two, and three copies of this CNV. The copy number is correlated with the degree of white spotting in goats. We propose a hypothesis that ectopic overexpression of a mutant EDNRA scavenges EDN3 required for EDNRB signaling and normal melanocyte development and thus likely lead to an absence of melanocytes in the non-pigmented body areas of Boer goats. Our findings demonstrate the value of domestic animals as reservoir of unique mutants and for identifying a precisely defined functional CNV.