PM Viktor Orbán's government in Hungary is often seen as one of the paradigmatic cases of illiberalism and an intense contestation of immigration. This paper argues that the Hungarian government's ...strong focus on immigration and its hardline positions on the issue proved to be a political jackpot for the governing party. Besides presenting the claims and frames Fidesz has used regarding migration since 2015, three analytical aspects are covered in this article, based on Eurobarometer, European Social Survey and Hungarian domestic polling data. First, the trends in the perception of the importance of migration for the Hungarian voters are compared to the European public opinion. Second, the changes in the attitudes of Hungarians to immigration are also analysed in European comparison. Third, I also present what role the fears related to immigration played at the 2018 parliamentary elections. On the whole, the Hungarian centre-right successfully politicised the issue of migration, and acted as an agenda-setter rather than a follower. It was able to sustain a sense of crisis between 2015 and 2018; it exacerbated the rejection of immigration in society; and it was successful in entrenching migration as one of the top fears among its potential voters.
In this paper, an outlook about the present of electrical aviation is given. The relatively small energy density of current battery technologies is adequate to build usable electric car, but not ...suitable for electric aircraft. Because of the very limited amount of energy available on-board, a couple of percent in efficiency can give significant increase in range and flight time, hence the development of more efficient propulsion system and E-motor is as important as the development of battery technologies. Current research results at the University of Dunaujvaros show, that building E-motors from amorphous materials is possible, and can easily increase the efficiency of high speed E-motors.
Viruses are intracellular pathogens that hijack host cell machinery and resources to replicate. Rather than being constant, host physiology is rhythmic, undergoing circadian (∼24 h) oscillations in ...many virus-relevant pathways, but whether daily rhythms impact on viral replication is unknown. We find that the time of day of host infection regulates virus progression in live mice and individual cells. Furthermore, we demonstrate that herpes and influenza A virus infections are enhancedwhen host circadian rhythms are abolished by disrupting the key clock gene transcription factor Bmal1. Intracellular trafficking, biosynthetic processes, protein synthesis, and chromatin assembly all contribute to circadian regulation of virus infection. Moreover, herpesviruses differentially target components of the molecular circadian clockwork. Our work demonstrates that viruses exploit the clockwork for their own gain and that the clock represents a novel target for modulating viral replication that extends beyond any single family of these ubiquitous pathogens.
In September 1998 the workshop for "Conditional Genome Alterations" in Cold Spring Harbor had a simple but important take-home message: "Cre works" (Rossant and McMahon, 1999). After several years of ...careful investigations, geneticists are now certain that the Cre recombinase of the P1 bacteriophage efficiently catalyzes recombination between two of its consensus 34 base pair DNA recognition sites (loxP sites) in any cellular environment and on any kind of DNA. Obviously mouse geneticists, including myself, are among those who are most excited about this finding. The reason is obvious: When we acquired the Cre/loxP recombinase system as a tool, we reached the level of sophistication of "no more practical limitation" in tailoring the mouse genome. The well-established practice of transgenesis allows the addition of functional DNA pieces into the mouse genome. Furthermore, with the advent of mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells and homologous recombination-based gene targeting, we are capable of removing any existing gene from the genome. By adding the Cre recombinase system, we can excise or invert loxP-flanked DNA segments or create intermolecular recombination between different DNA molecules. By combining all of these tools, we are capable of creating any desired modification of the mouse genome, from introducing specific point mutations to large site-specific chromosomal aberrations. Furthermore, using the recombinase activity as a genetic activation or inactivation switch, conditional transgenesis or conditional knock-outs became available. The strategies are designed; the proof of principles are given. Many of these strategies utilize a common set of reagents, namely transgenic mouse lines that express the Cre recombinase in a tissue-specific manner and with high fidelity with respect to the recombinase activity. The bottleneck for taking full advantage of these powerful technologies seems to be the realization of this universal set of reagents, the Cre transgenic lines. The purpose of this introductory review in this special issue of Genesis is to summarize the recent status of mouse genetic strategies that apply the Cre recombinase system.
While studies of the formal adaptation of parliaments to the European Union (EU) have dominated legislative scholarship in the last two decades, there is a growing interest in the substantive impact ...of the EU on legislative production and parliamentary behaviour. We contribute to this research agenda by exploring the effects of Europeanisation on the national parliament of one democratically backsliding EU member state, Hungary. Comparing periods marked by Europhile and Eurosceptic parliamentary majorities between 2004 and 2018 shows that governmental attitudes towards the EU are not reflected in parliamentary law-making and that parliamentary attention is mainly influenced by the level of Europeanisation of the policy field. This shows that backsliding governments do not generally oppose greater integration and underscores the necessity to distinguish between rhetorical Euroscepticism and Eurosceptic legislative action.
Extraordinary advances in pluripotent stem cell research have initiated an era of hope for regenerative strategies to treat human disease. Besides embryonic stem cells, the discovery of induced ...pluripotent stem cells widened the possibility of patient-specific cell therapy, drug discovery, and disease modeling. Although similar, it has become clear that these two pluripotent cell types display significant differences. In this review, we explore current knowledge of the molecular and functional similarities and differences between these two cell types to emphasize the necessity for thorough characterization of their properties as well as their differentiation capabilities in the pluripotent state. Such comparative studies will be crucial for determining the more suitable cell type for future stem cell-based therapies for human degenerative diseases.
Intermittent fasting （IF）, a periodic energy restriction, has been shown to provide health benefits equivalent to prolonged fasting or caloric restriction. However, our understanding of the ...underlying mechanisms of IF-mediated metabolic benefits is limited. Here we show that isocaloric IF improves metabolic homeostasis against diet-induced obesity and metabolic dysfunction primarily through adipose thermogenesis in mice. IF-induced metabolic benefits require fasting-mediated increases of vascular endothelial growth factor （VEGF） expression in white adipose tissue （WAT）. Furthermore, periodic adipose-VEGF overexpression could recapitulate the metabolic improvement of IF in non-fasted animals. Importantly, fasting and adipose-VEGF induce alternative activation of adipose macrophage, which is critical for thermogenesis. Human adipose gene analysis further revealed a positive correlation of adipose VEGF-M2 macrophage-WAT browning axis. The present study uncovers the molecular mechanism of IF-mediated metabolic benefit and suggests that isocaloric IF can be a preventive and therapeutic approach against obesity and metabolic disorders.
This research explores the determinants of vaccine hesitancy during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Hungary. This article utilizes data from in-person public opinion research conducted in ...Hungary (March 2021,
N
= 1000). Government supporters, older people (60 +) and COVID-19 survivors were more likely to accept vaccination, but these variables lose significance, once controlling for personal fears and pandemic-related attitudes. COVID-19 related fears and precautious behavior reduce, while general level of fears increase the probability of vaccine hesitancy. Fear from partner’s aggression and higher levels of financial security negatively correlate with vaccine hesitancy. Our study separately analyzes the effect of various pandemic-related conspiratorial beliefs on vaccine hesitancy. All analyzed false beliefs have a significant positive effect on vaccine hesitancy, but the strongest predictors are vaccine-related conspiracy theories (“microchip” and “population control” theories) and virus denial.
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