The essays in the book compare the Czech Republic and Slovakia since the breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1993. The papers deal with the causes of the divorce and discuss the political, economic and ...social developments in the new countries. This is the only English-language volume that presents the synoptic findings of leading Czech, Slovak, and North American scholars in the field.The authors include two former Prime Ministers of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, eight leading scholars (four Czechs and four Slovaks), and eight knowledgeable commentators from North America. The most significant new insight is that in spite of predictions by various pundits in the Western World that Czechia would flourish after the breakup and Slovakia would languish, the opposite has happened. While the Czech Republic did well in its early years, it is now languishing while Slovakia, which had a rough start, is now doing very well. Anyone interested in the history of the Czech and Slovak Republics over the last twenty years will find gratification in reading this book.
After the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948, Slovaks in the USA and Canada came to the aid of the Roman and Greek Catholic churches in Czechoslovakia, which the communist regime was trying ...to destroy. They raised funds for the support of Slovak émigré priests in Canada and in Rome, helped fund Vatican Radio broadcasts to Slovakia, helped to publish and smuggle religious publications to Slovakia, and helped to establish the monthly Slovenské hlasy z Rima, the scholarly annual Slovak Studies and the Slovak Institute in Rome. They also agitated for religious freedom in their homeland, for the creation of a Slovak Church Province, and they organized the first anti-government demonstration since 1969 on Good Friday 1988 in Bratislava.
Religious diversity in North America was often a painful experience for Slovak immigrants. Finding no churches to serve them in their own language, they established their own as Slovak Protestants ...had done. Roman Catholics were confronted by a largely Irish-dominated Church that rejected lay trusteeism and thus fueled many disagreements between the lay founders of the parishes and their clergy. The second, U.S.-educated generation largely gave up the struggle. In constrast, Slovak Greek Catholics, who had insufficient numbers to establish their own churches in the United States, were largely subsumed into Rusyn-dominated parishes, although many reverted to Orthodoxy because of the unwillingness of U.S. bishops to recongnize the Union of Užhorod. In Canada, where Rusyns were few, Slovak Greek Catholics established their own parished and bishopric. Today the struggle has turned into one for survival, as U.S. and Canadian bishops seek to close or consolidate parishes with declining attendance.
Curative interferon and ribavirin sparing treatments for hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected patients require a combination of mechanistically orthogonal direct acting antivirals. A shared component of ...these treatments is usually an HCV NS5A inhibitor. First generation FDA approved treatments, including the component NS5A inhibitors, do not exhibit equivalent efficacy against HCV virus genotypes 1–6. In particular, these first generation NS5A inhibitors tend to select for viral drug resistance. Ombitasvir is a first generation HCV NS5A inhibitor included as a key component of Viekira Pak for the treatment of patients with HCV genotype 1 infection. Since the launch of next generation HCV treatments, functional cure for genotype 1–6 HCV infections has been achieved, as well as shortened treatment duration across a wider spectrum of genotypes. In this paper, we show how we have modified the anchor, linker, and end-cap architecture of our NS5A inhibitor design template to discover a next generation NS5A inhibitor pibrentasvir (ABT-530), which exhibits potent inhibition of the replication of wild-type genotype 1–6 HCV replicons, as well as improved activity against replicon variants demonstrating resistance against first generation NS5A inhibitors.
The Canadian federal government's multiculturalism policies have been controversial since their implementation. I propose to show their impact on one of Canada's smaller ethnic groups, the Slovaks, ...principally in Ontario, where more than 50% reside. Slovak individuals & communities in Canada have been avid supporters of the federal government's multiculturalism policies from their inception to the present, although funding for Slovak projects seems to have dried up after the year 2000. Adapted from the source document.
Starting from a rapidly metabolized adamantane 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11β-HSD1) inhibitor 22a, a series of E-5-hydroxy-2-adamantamine inhibitors, exemplified by 22d and (±)-22f, was ...discovered. Many of these compounds are potent inhibitors of 11β-HSD1 and are selective over 11β-HSD2 for multiple species (human, mouse, and rat), unlike other reported species-selective series. These compounds have good cellular potency and improved microsomal stability. Pharmacokinetic profiling in rodents indicated moderate to large volumes of distribution, short half-lives, and a pharmacokinetic species difference with the greatest exposure measured in rat with 22d. One hour postdose liver, adipose, and brain tissue 11β-HSD1 inhibition was confirmed with (±)-22f in a murine ex vivo assay. Although 5,7-disubstitued-2-adamantamines provided greater stability, a single, E-5-position, polar functional group afforded inhibitors with the best combination of stability, potency, and selectivity. These results indicate that adamantane metabolic stabilization sufficient to obtain short-acting, potent, and selective 11β-HSD1 inhibitors has been discovered.
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