Bistable Expression of a Toxin-Antitoxin System Located in a Cryptic Prophage of Escherichia coli O157:H7

Transcriptional regulation of bacterial toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems allows compensation of toxin and antitoxin proteins to maintain a neutral state and avoid cell intoxication unless TA genes are lost. Such models have been primarily studied in plasmids, but TAs are equally present in other mobile genetic elements, such as transposons and prophages.

Positive Emotion and Honesty

We report an experiment that considers the impact of emotional state on honesty. Using the die-rolling task created by Fischbacher and Föllmi-Heusi to detect the level of dishonesty in a sample of individuals, we study the effects of induced happiness on the incidence of self-interested lying. The experiment uses 360-degree videos to induce emotional state. We find that people behave more honestly in a state of happiness than they do in a neutral state.

Arrests, Internments, and Deportations of Swiss Jews in France, and the Reactions of Swiss Authorities, 1941–1944

Hundreds of Swiss Jews were living in France when Germany attacked and conquered it in mid-1940. Antisemitic laws came into force soon thereafter. One question was whether these measures would apply to citizens of a neutral state. German and French authorities applied such laws, for instance, interning approximately sixty Swiss Jews in the Northern Zone. The present study focuses on the arrests, internments, and occasional deportations of Swiss Jews living in France, and the often feeble efforts of Swiss diplomats and other authorities to extricate them. The haunting question remains how much more could have been done.

SWITZERLAND'S INTERNATIONAL LEGAL STATUS AS A PERMANENT NEUTRAL STATE

This article presents a system-wide analysis of the Switzerland's legal status as a permanently neutral state. It is especially emphasized that this specific legal personality of the Central European state is considered in international legal science and practice to be more regulated and, therefore, well-established. In determining the relevance of the issue under consideration, an important conclusion can also be drawn that, from the 1990s to the present, Switzerland has been engaged in a certain "evolutionary process" in the political and legal understanding of permanent neutrality as a means of ensuring national and international security. The main objective of the authors is to study the main aspects of the legal nature of this phenomenon through doctrinal views, the current constitution and international legal instruments that recognize and guarantee the permanent neutrality of Switzerland. At the same time, the article notes that the normative content of this special international legal status, observed by the state both in peacetime and during the war, not only arouses great interest among scientists, experts, practitioners, but also requires further comprehensive constructive analysis in the light of the ongoing processes of globalization, integration, and, sometimes, nationalization of the state's approaches to the essence of its obligations. During the development of the topic, authors used such general scientific and special methods of scientific cognition as synthesis, structural and formal-logical methods, as well as modeling and system analysis methods. In the conclusions, the authors emphasize the need for real respect and observance by third States of Switzerland's continuous neutrality, as a significant component in the modern functioning system of pan-European security.

Ethics

The final chapter of the book investigates Razi’s two surviving works on ethics, The Philosophical Way of Life and The Spiritual Medicine. It is shown, against readings of him as a hedonist, that he actually rejects pleasure as a central value of life and encourages readers to turn away from the concerns of the body. Indeed he is so far from being a hedonist that he upholds the Platonist account of pleasure as a mere return to a neutral state. In the end he defends a life of moderation, rejecting both asceticism and hedonism, but even this is only to pave the way for what really matters: philosophical understanding and liberation from the body.

18 The Law of Neutrality

This chapter focuses on rules of the law of neutrality concerning the protection of the victims of armed conflicts, which must be considered as part of international humanitarian law. ‘Neutrality’ describes the particular status, as defined by international law, of a state not party to an armed conflict. This status entails specific rights and duties in the relationship between the neutral and the belligerent states. On one hand, there is the right of the neutral state to remain apart from, and not to be adversely affected by, the conflict. On the other hand, there is the duty of non-participation and impartiality. The right not to be adversely affected means that the relationship between the neutral and belligerent States is governed by the law of peace, which is modified only in certain respects by the law of neutrality. In particular, the neutral State must tolerate certain controls in the area of maritime commerce. The duty of non-participation means, above all, that the state must abstain from supporting a party to the conflict. This duty not to support also means that the neutral state is under a duty not to allow one party to the conflict to use the resources of the neutral state against the will of the opponent.

The Moral Tug

In this article I argue that if conscience, working properly, involves some form of ‘moral tug’, then this is incompatible with the state of ‘quiescence’ put forward as a central element of Eleonore Stump’s account of repentance. Quiescence is also a key notion for Stump’s theodicy in Wandering in the Darkness and Stump’s thesis in her book, Atonement. Quiescence is about an inactive, or neutral, or stationary, state of the will prior to turning to the good, or God, through receiving God’s saving grace. But if God exerts a non–coercive pressure on people through their conscience to turn to him, and turn from evil, then this drawing towards the good, or tugging away from evil, can only be yielded to, or resisted. There is no neutral state. I give examples of language such as being ‘bound’ to obey one’s conscience, which seem to reflect such non–coercive pressure. I conclude by commenting on free will.