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When resilience becomes a burden : reflections from Gazan Palestinian scholars
Full text linkIn this essay, Palestinian scholars from Gaza reflect on how Gaza is brought into Western academic spaces since the beginning of the genocide. Over the last two years, academic engagement with Gaza has increased, often highlighting Palestinian resilience. While this attention is essential and needed, the authors argue that framing Palestinians as resilient obscures the toll of genocidal, settler-colonial violence. This narrative not only clouds grief, exhaustion, and fragmentation, but also reassures external observers and absolves them of the responsibility to act to stop the genocide. Drawing on their lived experiences, the authors show how resilience discourse romanticizes suffering, aestheticizes sumud, and dismisses Palestinian voices as too emotional for credibility. Instead, they call for an ethical approach in academic settings that situates survival within its violent conditions, resists reductive binaries of heroism or victimhood, and centers Gaza’s lived realities in order to confirm Palestinian humanity beyond the rhetoric of resilience.Peer reviewe
The tropical Abel–Prym map
Full text linkFunding: G.C. was supported by the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Y.L. was supported by the EPSRC New Investigator Award (grant number EP/X002004/1).We prove that, under mild assumptions, the tropical Abel–Prym map Ψ: Γ' → Prym(Γ'/Γ) associated with a free double cover π : Γ' → Γ is harmonic of degree 2 if and only if the source graph Γ' is hyperelliptic. This is in accordance with the already established algebraic result. In this case, the Abel–Prym graph Ψ(Γ') is hyperelliptic of genus gΓ - 1 and its Jacobian is isomorphic, as a pptav, to the Prym variety of the cover. We further show that the Abel–Prym graph coincides with a connected component of the tropical bigonal construction. En route, we count the number of distinct free double covers by hyperelliptic metric graphs.Peer reviewe
Facing the future at a time of crisis : Russian antiwar activism in London
No full textThe full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was met with a rise of antiwar activism carried out by Russians who oppose it across the globe. This thesis is based on a year of fieldwork with three such antiwar organisations that have emerged in London – the Russian Democratic Society, Yurt Community, and Feminist Antiwar Resistance – London. I argue that the full-scale invasion of Ukraine has dislodged the sense of identity and the visions of the future of Russian antiwar activists. The experience of rupture and the witnessing of violence that followed posed challenging questions about the duty they had in relation to the actions of the state with which they disagreed, but which nonetheless spoke and acted in their name. These questions were complicated by the activists’ inability to predict what would happen next. Hopes, plans, and expectations were disrupted by global actors that seemed to be beyond any control ‘from below.’ I examine how, for the members of the organisations I worked with, collective action exercised through organised activism provided an opportunity to express their sense of civic duty and re-establish their relationship with the future, responding to doubt with a commitment to ‘doing what you can’
Circumplanetary disk ices : I. Ice formation vs. viscous evolution and grain drift
Full text linkFunding: The research of N.O. and I.K. is supported by grants from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO, grant number 614.001.552) and the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA).Context . The large icy moons of Jupiter formed in a circumplanetary disk (CPD). CPDs are fed by vertically infalling circumstellar gas and dust which may be shock-heated upon accretion. Accreted material is then either incorporated into moons, falls into the planet, or is lost beyond the disk edge on relatively short timescales. If ices are sublimated during accretion onto the CPD we know there must be sufficient time for them to recondense or moons such as Ganymede or Callisto could not form. The chemical timescale to form sufficiently icy solids places a novel constraint on the dynamical behaviour and properties of CPDs. Aims . We aim to explore the process of ice formation in CPDs to constrain which disk properties (such as the mass, viscosity, and dust-to-gas ratio) are consistent with the formation of an icy moon system. Methods . We use the radiation thermochemical code ProDiMo (Protoplanetary Disk Model) to analyze how the radial ice abundance evolves in CPDs. We consider different initial chemical conditions of the disk to explore the consequences of infalling material being inherited from the circumstellar disk or being reset to atomic conditions by shock-heating. We contrast the timescales of ice formation with disk viscous timescales and radial dust drift. Results . We have derived the radial ice abundance and rate of ice formation in a small grid of model CPDs. Water ice can form very efficiently in the CPD from initially atomic conditions, as a significant fraction is efficiently re-deposited on dust grains within <1 yr. Radial grain drift timescales are in general longer than those of ice formation on grains. Icy grains of size a < 3 mm retain their icy mantles while crossing an optically thin circumstellar disk gap at 5 au for L* < 10 L⊙. Conclusions . Three-body reactions play an important role in water formation in the dense midplane condition of CPDs. The CPD midplane must be depleted in dust relative to the circumstellar disk by a factor 10-50 to produce solids with the ice to rock ratio of the icy Galilean satellites. The CPD snowline is not erased by radial grain drift, which is consistent with the compositional gradient of the Galilean satellites being primordial.Peer reviewe
Fertile negotiators : the Venetian family-embassies at the court of Louis XIV
Full text linkEarly modern ambassadors bore eyewitness to the most intimate moments of royal family life, reporting back to their princes on hangovers, quarrels, illness, birth and death. Yet, largely unremarked by scholars, diplomats also sustained family lives within the embassy and at court. Ambassadors’ children were conceived and born, raised and trained in an itinerant household; ambassadors’ wives were hostesses but also mothers, far from their own family networks. This article shifts the current focus on gender and the diplomatic power couple in the New Diplomatic History to demonstrate the importance of studying the entire diplomatic family’s experience of life abroad, particularly the role of mothers and children. Focusing on two case-studies of Venetian ambassadors to the court of Louis XIV in the late seventeenth century, the article demonstrates that families created opportunities for diplomacy. That ambassadors took advantage of these is shown in both their premeditated and opportunistic actions. Moreover, investigation into potentially unique baptisms of ambassadorial children at Versailles demonstrates that ambassadresses were also alive to the opportunity presented by a lack of precedent to enhance their status at court, manipulate ceremony and assert the rights of the Venetian Republic, all in the name of their child.Peer reviewe
Building indigenous defence industries in technologically third-tier countries : the cases of South Korea, Israel and Poland
Full text linkThis thesis examines the evolution of indigenous defence industries in South Korea, Israel, and Poland, analysing how differing strategic contexts and technological capacities shaped their approaches to military production. While existing literature often focuses on single-country or region-specific case studies, there remains a limited comparative analysis that integrates multiple theoretical perspectives to explain divergent defence-industrial trajectories over several decades. Using three major theoretical frameworks in the defence sector: strategic adaptation, security of supply, and dual-use technology rationales, the study traces each country’s defence-industrial trajectory from the 1960s to the present.
South Korea’s development is characterised by a ladder-of-production approach, leveraging US alliance support and the advantages of a large domestic market to develop indigenous weapon systems. Strategic adaptation best explains the development of major weapon systems, whereas dual-use technology remains a minor factor, playing a limited role outside of select subsystems. Israel, similarly, demonstrates how strategic adaptation—driven by persistent conflict conditions and US support—has underpinned breakthroughs in missile defence, unmanned systems, and other high-priority capabilities, while dual-use innovation has been more prominent than in South Korea. Poland’s trajectory, shaped by Warsaw Pact-era cooperative production, evolved through post-Cold War restructuring toward integration with NATO supply chains while selectively preserving domestic production in areas of national priority. Across all these phases—during the Cold War, in the run-up to NATO accession, and in the years after joining—strategic adaptation remained the main driving force behind Poland’s defence-industrial direction.
The analysis reveals that in all three cases, albeit through differing paths, strategic adaptation is the dominant framework for explaining the evolution of major defence-industrial capabilities, while the role of dual-use technology varies significantly across contexts
Should I stay or should I go – does protein localisation to plasmodesmata depend on targeting signals?
Full text linkFunding: ZB was supported by a scholarship from the Eastbio Doctoral Training Partnership from the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC); grant no. BB/T00875X/1.Plasmodesmata (PDs), the cell junctions of plants, are specialized plasma membrane (PM)–endoplasmic reticulum (ER) contact sites structured as nanochannels providing intercellular cytoplasmic and membrane continuity. Given their importance, the identification of structural and functional PD proteins has long been a research aim. Discovering conserved PD localization signals would allow prediction of PD proteins and artificial PD targeting. Proteomic studies have now identified many bona fide PD proteins, and various sequence motifs responsible for PD localization have been characterized. However, no conserved targeting signals have emerged. Here, we ask if a focus on protein PD targeting might be a misleading concept.Peer reviewe
The combined effects of multiple stressors in an endangered, long-lived species : lessons learnt and ways forward
Full text linkFunding: Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (GrantNumber(s): RC21-3091, RC20-1097, RC20-7188); Office of Naval Research (Grant Number(s): N000142112096, N000142012697).Exploring solutions to expanding industrial activities and climate change requires assessments of the combined effects of multiple stressors on wildlife populations. We present a spatially explicit state-space model for the health, survival, reproduction, and somatic growth of individuals in a long-lived, wide-ranging species. The model is applied to critically endangered North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) to investigate the combined effects of three primary stressors affecting the species' viability: entanglements in fishing gear, vessel strikes, and prey availability. We estimate exposure to these stressors in space and time and assess how their effects may combine in the pathway from exposure to vital rates. Results suggest that changes in whale distribution after 2010 led to increased entanglement risk. Poorer prey conditions were associated with an increased effect of carrying fishing gear, but, overall, results on combined effects were not conclusive and depended on model formulation. We also incorporated the estimated effects of stressors into a population viability analysis to explore alternative scenarios of stressor reduction. This integrated analysis highlighted the importance of the declining trend in maximum body length and its effect on reproduction, in addition to the documented impact of entanglements on survival. Model development and application elucidated critical data needs and the influence of underlying mechanistic assumptions. Specifically, models for the combined effects of stressors hinge on the availability of extended longitudinal measurements of individual health and life history outcomes, extensive datasets on the spatiotemporal distribution of stressors, and information on individual space use affecting rates of exposure to stressors. Lessons from this data-rich case study will support the generalization of the modeling approach to other long-lived species where measuring the population-level consequences of multiple stressors directly is unfeasible.Peer reviewe
God's communicative relationality in the theology of Petrus van Mastricht
No full textThis thesis is a constructive theological retrieval of seventeenth-century Reformed theologian Petrus van Mastricht’s concepts of divine glory and covenant as the structuring principles of a systematic pattern of communicative relationality that runs through his account of divine being and action. Against the prevailing tendency to pit Reformed orthodoxy and contemporary relational theologies against one another, it demonstrates that fruitful cross-fertilization can emerge when they are interpreted in dialogical exchange. By approaching Mastricht’s theology through the lens of Christoph Schwöbel’s trinitarian theology of conversation, I reconstruct a coherent theology of divine communicative relationality in Mastricht that, in turn, offers resources for developing Schwöbel’s account of the Trinity as conversation. After locating the roots of Mastricht’s theology in his practical conception of theology as the doctrina vivendi Deo per Christum and the implicit notion of revelation lying within the twin concepts of faith and glory, I trace Mastricht’s doctrine of God from divine being in se to divine works ad extra. Mastricht’s triadic conception of glory provides the key for understanding his account of divine relationality grounded in the relationship of God and faith. Glory describes the divine essence in terms of the communicative movement of source, radiance, and recognition, and culminates in Mastricht’s account of the Trinity as a “household” communion of mutual glorification, the grammar of which helps expand the Spirit’s active role in Schwöbel’s model of trinitarian conversation. While Mastricht’s account of the divine decree shows a relative lapse in relationality, his reframing of self-determination in terms of the pactum salutis provides a trinitarian corrective. In particular, the pactum re-envisions self-determination in terms of mutual, covenantal promise, extending Schwöbel’s reformulation of divine self-determination as promise. Finally, the trinitarian and communicative emphases of Mastricht’s are discovered in his account of the act of creation as command and call
The energy landscape of N-ribosidic bond cleavage catalysed by 2′-deoxynucleoside 5′-phosphate N-hydrolase 1
No full textFunding: This work was supported by NuCana via 50% funding of a PhD studentship to A. E. C.The human enzyme 2′-deoxynucleoside 5′-phosphate N-hydrolase 1 (HsDNPH1) catalyses the N-ribosidic bond hydrolysis of the non-canonical nucleotide 5-hydroxymethyl-2′-deoxyuridine 5′-monophosphate (5hmdUMP), producing 5-hydroxymethyluracil and 2-deoxyribose 5-phosphate, preventing 5hmdUMP incorporation into DNA. This reaction is unusual for a nucleoside/nucleotide N-hydrolase as it proceeds by a double-displacement mechanism whereby Glu104 nucleophilically attacks 5hmdUMP to form a covalent 5-phospho-2-deoxyribosylated enzyme intermediate, which is subsequently hydrolysed. Here, we used site-directed mutagenesis and UV-VIS differential spectroscopy to show a shift in the 5hmdUMP absorbance spectrum upon binding to HsDNPH1 before N-ribosidic bond cleavage. This spectral shift can be monitored independently in different wavelengths to characterise the kinetics of HsDNPH1-5hmdUMP binary complex formation. The one-step binding mechanism produces a calculated equilibrium dissociation constant in agreement with that obtained by isothermal titration calorimetry. Pre-steady-state kinetics under multipleturnover conditions revealed absence of a burst of substrate consumption at a wavelength where binding does not lead to change in absorbance. This indicates steps after N-ribosidic bond cleavage are fast. Single-turnover kinetics, where the signal comes solely from the first half-reaction, indicate N-ribosidic bond cleavage in the first half-reaction is rate-determining for kcat. Linear free energy relationships between leaving groups with increased pKa and kcat/KM suggest a late transition state with significant negative charge accumulation in the leaving group during N-ribosidic bond cleavage. These results were complemented by on-enzyme QM/MM calculations of the first half-reaction to reveal an anionic leaving group in an SN2-like transition state with C1′–N1 bond cleavage more advanced than C1–O bond formation with Glu104.Peer reviewe
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