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Wear it like armor and it can never be used to hurt you : reappropriation, identity change, and collective action
Get PDFFunding: This study is supported by the Grant-in-Aid program of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI).Reappropriation has been discussed as an identity management strategy as a means to reevaluate oneself in a context that will not allow for large-scale social change. There are, however, numerous examples of reappropriation of stigmatizing labels as connected to political movements. This research examines whether reappropriation of stigmatizing labels can function as a precursor to collective action. In Study 1, we conducted semi-structured interviews on the reappropriation of çapulcu identity with 20 Gezi Park protesters in Turkey. Interviews focused on how they recall the reappropriation of the word to have started, how they gave subsequent meaning, and how çapulcu identity predicted their protest participation and their broader politicization during and after the protests. In Study 2, we conducted a cross-sectional survey on the reappropriation of fat identity by collecting data from fat liberation and body positivity activists in North America (n = 479). Reflexive thematic analysis (Study 1) and structural equation modeling (Study 2) showed that reappropriation of stigmatizing labels among activists is associated with a greater willingness to participate in collective action through increased agency, empowerment, and identity change. Findings provide important insights on identity management strategies and social change, and open new avenues to discuss reappropriation as a possible political strategy that might mobilize oppressed groupsPeer reviewe
Flux-rope-mediated turbulent magnetic reconnection
Get PDFFunding: AJBR gratefully acknowledges funding from STFC Consolidated Grant ST/W001195/1.We present a new model of magnetic reconnection in the presence of turbulence. The new model differs from the Lazarian–Vishniac turbulent reconnection theory by emphasizing the role of locally coherent magnetic structures, whose existence is shown to be permitted by the properties of magnetic field line separation in turbulent plasma. Local coherence allows storage of magnetic helicity inside the reconnection layer in the form of locally coherent twisted flux ropes. We then introduce the "Alfvén horizon" to explain why the global reconnection rate can be governed by locally coherent magnetic field structure instead of by field line wandering, formally extending to 3D the principle that reconnection can be made fast by fragmentation of the global current layer. Coherence is shown to dominate over field line dispersion if the anisotropy of the turbulence at the perpendicular scale matching the thickness of a marginally stable current layer exceeds the aspect ratio of the current layer. Finally, we conjecture that turbulence generated within the reconnection layer may produce a critically balanced state that maintains the system in the flux-rope-mediated regime. The new model successfully accounts for the major features of 3D numerical simulations of self-generated turbulent reconnection, including reconnection rates of 0.01 in resistive MHD and 0.1 with collisionless physics.Peer reviewe
Competitive behaviors in Serratia marcescens are coordinately regulated by a lifestyle switch frequently inactivated in the clinical environment
Get PDFFunding: This work was supported by Wellcome (104556/Z/14/Z, 220321/Z/20/Z, 109118/Z/15/Z, 218520/Z/19/Z, and 206194), NIHR (NIHR200639), and Chief Scientist Office (Scotland) Scottish Healthcare Associated Infection Prevention Institute (SIRN/10).Opportunistic bacterial pathogens must compete with other bacteria and switch between host- and environment-adapted states. Type VI secretion systems (T6SSs) occur widely in gram-negative bacteria and can efficiently kill neighboring competitors. We determined the distribution of T6SSs across the genus Serratia and observed that a highly conserved antibacterial T6SS is differentially active between closely related clinical isolates of Serratia marcescens. By combining genomic and experimental approaches, we identified a genus-core two-component system, BetR-Reg1-Reg2, that controls T6SS activity and exhibits frequent inactivating mutations, exclusively in S. marcescens isolates of clinical origin. This regulatory system controls a number of lifestyle-related traits at transcriptional and post-translational levels, including T6SS activity, antibiotic production, motility, and adhesion, with loss of BetR increasing virulence in an in vivo infection model. Our data support a model whereby this system represents a conserved, modular switch from sessile to pioneering and aggressive behavior, which is subject to selection pressure in clinical environments.Peer reviewe
Fine scale diversity in the lava : genetic and phenotypic diversity in small populations of Arctic charr Salvelinus alpinus
Get PDFFunding: This work was supported by a research project grant from the Icelandic Research fund RANNÍS (# 120227021) awarded to SS.Background : A major goal in evolutionary biology is to understand the processes underlying phenotypic variation in nature. Commonly, studies have focused on large interconnected populations or populations found along strong environmental gradients. However, studies on small fragmented populations can give strong insight into evolutionary processes in relation to discrete ecological factors. Evolution in small populations is believed to be dominated by stochastic processes, but recent work shows that small populations can also display adaptive phenotypic variation, through for example plasticity and rapid adaptive evolution. Such evolution takes place even though there are strong signs of historical bottlenecks and genetic drift. Here we studied 24 small populations of the freshwater fish Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) found in groundwater filled lava caves. Those populations were found within a few km2-area with no apparent water connections between them. We studied the relative contribution of neutral versus non-neutral evolutionary processes in shaping phenotypic divergence, by contrasting patterns of phenotypic and neutral genetic divergence across populations in relation to environmental measurements. This allowed us to model the proportion of phenotypic variance explained by the environment, taking in to account the observed neutral genetic structure. Results: These populations originated from the nearby Lake Mývatn, and showed small population sizes with low genetic diversity. Phenotypic variation was mostly correlated with neutral genetic diversity with only a small environmental effect. Conclusions: Phenotypic diversity in these cave populations appears to be largely the product of neutral processes, fitting the classical evolutionary expectations. However, the fact that neutral processes did not explain fully the phenotypic patterns suggests that further studies can increase our understanding on how neutral evolutionary processes can interact with other forces of selection at early stages of divergence. The accessibility of these populations has provided the opportunity for long-term monitoring of individual fish, allowing tracking how the environment can influence phenotypic and genetic divergence for shaping and maintaining diversity in small populations. Such studies are important, especially in freshwater, as habitat alteration is commonly breaking populations into smaller units, which may or may not be viable.Peer reviewe
Impact of stress regime change on the permeability of a naturally fractured carbonate buildup (Latemar, the Dolomites, northern Italy)
Get PDFFunding: This research has been sponsored by the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (grant no. OSS/PHD/IOA/843/16), and the fieldwork component was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (grant no. DFG FOR 1644 to Adrian Immenhauser).Changing stress regimes control fracture network geometry and influence porosity and permeability in carbonate reservoirs. Using outcrop data analysis and a displacement-based linear elastic finite-element method, we investigate the impact of stress regime change on fracture network permeability. The model is based on fracture networks, specifically fracture substructures. The Latemar, predominantly affected by subsidence deformation and Alpine compression, is taken as an outcrop analogue for an isolated (Mesozoic) carbonate buildup with fracture-dominated permeability. We apply a novel strategy involving two compressive boundary loading conditions constrained by the study area's NW–SE and N–S stress directions. Stress-dependent heterogeneous apertures and effective permeability were computed in the 2D domain by (i) using the local stress state within the fracture substructure and (ii) running a single-phase flow analysis considering the fracture apertures in each fracture substructure. Our results show that the impact of the modelled far-field stresses at (i) subsidence deformation from the NW–SE and (ii) Alpine deformation from N–S increased the overall fracture aperture and permeability. In each case, increasing permeability is associated with open fractures parallel to the orientation of the loading stages and with fracture densities. The anisotropy of permeability is increased by the density and connectedness of the fracture network and affected by shear dilation. The two far-field stresses simultaneously acting within the selected fracture substructure at a different magnitude and orientation do not necessarily cancel each other out in the mechanical deformation modelling. These stresses affect the overall aperture and permeability distributions and the flow patterns. These effects – potentially ignored in simpler stress-dependent permeability – can result in significant inaccuracies in permeability estimation.Peer reviewe
ISG15-dependent stabilisation of USP18 is necessary but not sufficient to regulate type I interferon signalling in humans
Get PDFFunding: This work was supported by grants from the Academy of Medical Sciences (SBF003/1028 to DJH), Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund (to DJH), Wellcome Trust (101788/Z/13/Z to RER), the UK Medical Research Council (MC_UU_12014/1 to JM and CGGB) and by the Wellcome Trust via a Senior Clinical Research Fellowship (108070/Z/15/Z to MPW). The UK Medical Research Council (MC_UU_00038/8 to KNS). KNS is a Lister Institute Prize Fellow.Type I interferon (IFN) signalling induces the expression of several hundred IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs) that provide an unfavourable environment for viral replication. To prevent an overexuberant response and autoinflammatory disease, IFN signalling requires tight control. One critical regulator is the ubiquitin-like protein IFN-stimulated gene 15 (ISG15), evidenced by autoinflammatory disease in patients with inherited ISG15 deficiencies. Current models suggest that ISG15 stabilises ubiquitin-specific peptidase 18 (USP18), a well-established negative regulator of IFN signalling. USP18 also functions as an ISG15-specific peptidase that cleaves ISG15 from ISGylated proteins; however, USP18's catalytic activity is dispensable for controlling IFN signalling. Here, we show that the ISG15-dependent stabilisation of USP18 involves hydrophobic interactions reliant on tryptophan 123 (W123) in ISG15. Nonetheless, while USP18 stabilisation is necessary, it is not sufficient for the regulation of IFN signalling; ISG15 C-terminal mutants with significantly reduced affinity still stabilised USP18, yet the magnitude of signalling resembled ISG15-deficient cells. Hence, USP18 requires non-covalent interactions with the ISG15 C-terminal diGlycine motif to promote its regulatory function. It shows ISG15 is a repressor of type I IFN signalling beyond its role as a USP18 stabiliser.Peer reviewe
Net primary productivity and litter decomposition rates in two distinct Amazonian peatlands
Get PDFFunding: This work was funded by the NERC standard grant ‘Carbon Storage in Amazonian Peatlands: Distribution and Dynamics’ (NE/R000751/1). GCD, ITL and SLL also receive financial support from the NERC large grant CongoPeat (NE/ R016860/1). ENHC. acknowledges support from her NERC Knowledge Exchange Fellowship (NE/V018760/1). AH acknowledges support from Charles University-PRIMUS/23/SCI/013, and Charles University Research Centre program- UNCE/24/SCI/006.Measurements of net primary productivity (NPP) and litter decomposition from tropical peatlands are severely lacking, limiting our ability to parameterise and validate models of tropical peatland development and thereby make robust predictions of how these systems will respond to future environmental and climatic change. Here, we present total NPP (i.e., above- and below-ground) and decomposition data from two floristically and structurally distinct forested peatland sites within the Pastaza Marañón Foreland Basin, northern Peru, the largest tropical peatland area in Amazonia: (1) a palm (largely Mauritia flexuosa) dominated swamp forest and (2) a hardwood dominated swamp forest (known as ‘pole forest’, due to the abundance of thin-stemmed trees). Total NPP in the palm forest and hardwood-dominated forest (9.83 ± 1.43 and 7.34 ± 0.84 Mg C ha−1 year−1, respectively) was low compared with values reported for terra firme forest in the region (14.21–15.01 Mg C ha−1 year−1) and for tropical peatlands elsewhere (11.06 and 13.20 Mg C ha−1 year−1). Despite the similar total NPP of the two forest types, there were considerable differences in the distribution of NPP. Fine root NPP was seven times higher in the palm forest (4.56 ± 1.05 Mg C ha−1 year−1) than in the hardwood forest (0.61 ± 0.22 Mg C ha−1 year−1). Above-ground palm NPP, a frequently overlooked component, made large contributions to total NPP in the palm-dominated forest, accounting for 41% (14% in the hardwood-dominated forest). Conversely, Mauritia flexuosa litter decomposition rates were the same in both plots: highest for leaf material, followed by root and then stem material (21%, 77% and 86% of mass remaining after 1 year respectively for both plots). Our results suggest potential differences in these two peatland types' responses to climate and other environmental changes and will assist in future modelling studies of these systems.Peer reviewe
Narrativising information in twenty-first-century fiction
No full textThis thesis examines how certain digital principles of organising information have come to organise analog aspects of lived experience in the twenty-first century, and how contemporary Anglophone fiction engages with these transformations both thematically and formally. I argue that writers, through their creative and critical responses to information technologies, develop an (anti-)informatic aesthetics to illuminate the pervasive influence of the informational milieu – now a naturalised habitus – and to denaturalise the digital visions of reality. The introduction outlines how information in the twenty-first century has been reconfigured and become pre-semiotic, and argues that novels re-semioticise digital information by revisiting historical informational genres such as grids and lists recontextualised in digital environments. Chapter one traces the historical trajectory of grids as geometric tools for translating continuous space into discrete, manageable information, and examines how today’s network culture updates this technique through reading Tom McCarthy’s "Remainder". Chapter two compares Zadie Smith’s "NW" and Virginia Woolf’s writings to contrast twenty-first-century pixel-based satellite vision with twentieth-century aerial perspectives. Introducing the concept of ‘informational imaging’, the chapter explores how informationalisation reconfigures spatiality and human desires. Chapter three shifts focus to the temporal dimension of informationalisation by reading Ben Lerner’s "10:04". It juxtaposes scenario planning with Lerner’s poetics of virtuality, critiquing the reduction of the future to quantifiable data and emphasising the radical potential of indeterminacy. Finally, chapter four maps a relationship between information and literature through Ali Smith’s two novels, "The Accidental" and "There but for the". I suggest that literature affords a more expansive communicative channel, embracing elements and voices excluded by systematic, positivist, and reductive information regimes. I conclude that these novels collectively navigate a new mechanised reality, and create an ‘analog effect’ to signify the impossibility of total informationalisation and to envision alternative ways of relating to the world
Exact results, transient generalized Gibbs ensembles, and analytic approximations for spacetime propagators of massive, real scalar fields in one spatial dimension
Get PDFFunding: T. B. acknowledges the support from the EPSRC under Grant No. EP/T518062/1.The massive, real scalar field described by the Klein-Gordon equation in one spatial dimension is the most elementary example of a bosonic quantum field theory. It has been investigated for many decades either as a simple academic theory or as a realistic emergent many-body theory in low-dimensional systems. Despite this, the space and time behavior of its propagators have rarely been in the foreground, and although exact results are known, there remain gaps in the description and a lack of an in-depth physical analysis. The aim of this paper is to address the deficits by providing a comprehensive discussion of the results, and to show that this old theory still allows for several new results and insights. To start, we review the known results by providing a rederivation in full detail, to which we add a discussion on how exactly space and time variables need to be extended to complex values to ensure analyticity throughout spacetime. This procedure shows also how singularities on the lightcone need to be regularized to remain compatible with the analyticity and the physical limit of a vanishing mass. An extension to nonzero temperatures is provided by considering the contact of the field to a nonrelativistic thermal reservoir, such as is necessary for emerging field theories in condensed matter systems. Subsequently, it is shown that the transient, short spacetime propagation can be understood in the context of the modern development of a generalized Gibbs ensemble, which describes a massless theory with an effective temperature that is set by the Klein-Gordon mass and the physical temperature. Finally, an approximation scheme is presented that captures the non-trivial mass dependence of the propagators throughout all spacetime but involves only elementary functions.Peer reviewe
Reflecting on research : researcher identity in conflict studies from the perspectives of participants
Get PDFWhile researchers have long discussed the impact that ingroup–outgroup identities may have on participant–researcher dynamics, no previous study that we know of has investigated how these identities impact participants’ decisions to participate in research in conflict contexts. In this study, we aimed to examine participants’ perspectives on their decisions to participate in research and how those decisions may be related to both their and the researchers’ identities as well as other important dynamics, such as political ideology. We used the Turkish–Kurdish conflict as a case and examined participants’ perspectives on Turkish researchers in this conflict context. More specifically, we investigated (1) opinions and feelings about Turkish researchers; (2) reasons for (not) participating in research by Turkish researchers; (3) the ways Turkish researchers affect participants’ decisions; and (4) attitudes toward Kurdish researchers. We used a survey with open-ended questions to explore participants’ perspectives and analysed the data from 137 participants who identify as Kurdish using qualitative content analysis. Results highlighted the important opinions and feelings about Turkish researchers such as researchers’ ideological positions, objectivity, and sincerity, as well as how researchers’ other identities may affect participants’ evaluations of their research and how Kurdish researchers are perceived by Kurdish participants. We discuss the ingroup–outgroup dynamics together with other identities in relation to existing identity literature, as well as practical implications of our research for participant recruitment.Peer reviewe
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