‘What Do I Get?’ Punk Objects as Meaningful and Valuable Souvenirs

Despite social scientists’ increasing interest on souvenirs in tourism, little has been written on the role and meanings of souvenirs within specific subcultures, such as punk subcultures. This chapter focuses on the exploration of punk objects as potential souvenirs in relation to “punk tourism” by investigating the meanings attached to subcultural artefacts as opposed to mass produced products. As part of an ethnographic fieldwork on punk tourism that the two authors have been conducting in Malaysia since 2016, in this chapter we focus on the role and meanings of punk souvenirs within the Malaysian punk scene. As the empirical material presented in this chapter shows, a DIY produced punk product has the advantage of channelling more than one value. While the value of souvenirs lies in their propensity to act as “mnemonic devices” related to a place visited, subcultural products like those produced by punks have the potential to fulfil additional values. In an age where authenticity and claims of appropriation of culture are placed under scrutiny, a punk object holds the potential of being a meaningful and valuable souvenir

Persistent Activist Communication in Occupy Gezi

We revisit the notion of activist persistence against the backdrop of protest communication on Twitter. We take an event-based approach and examine Occupy Gezi, a series of protests that occurred in Turkey in the early summer of 2013. By cross-referencing survey data with longitudinal Twitter data and in-depth interviews, we investigate the relationship between biographical availability, relational and organisational ties, social and personal costs to persistent activism online and on-location. Contrary to expectations, we find no clear-cut relationship between those factors and sustained commitment to participation in the occupation. We show that persistent activist communication did not feed into enduring organisational structures despite the continuous online activity observed during and beyond the peak of the Gezi occupation. The article concludes with reflections on the organisational ramifications of persistent communication and its significance in a political context posing high risks to participation in dissident politics

High-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry in the identification and determination of phase I and phase II drug metabolites

Applications of tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) techniques coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) in the identification and determination of phase I and phase II drug metabolites are reviewed with an emphasis on recent papers published predominantly within the last 6 years (2002–2007) reporting the employment of atmospheric pressure ionization techniques as the most promising approach for a sensitive detection, positive identification and quantitation of metabolites in complex biological matrices. This review is devoted to in vitro and in vivo drug biotransformation in humans and animals. The first step preceding an HPLC-MS bioanalysis consists in the choice of suitable sample preparation procedures (biomatrix sampling, homogenization, internal standard addition, deproteination, centrifugation, extraction). The subsequent step is the right optimization of chromatographic conditions providing the required separation selectivity, analysis time and also good compatibility with the MS detection. This is usually not accessible without the employment of the parent drug and synthesized or isolated chemical standards of expected phase I and sometimes also phase II metabolites. The incorporation of additional detectors (photodiode-array UV, fluorescence, polarimetric and others) between the HPLC and MS instruments can result in valuable analytical information supplementing MS results. The relation among the structural changes caused by metabolic reactions and corresponding shifts in the retention behavior in reversed-phase systems is discussed as supporting information for identification of the metabolite. The first and basic step in the interpretation of mass spectra is always the molecular weight (MW) determination based on the presence of protonated molecules [M+H]+ and sometimes adducts with ammonium or alkali-metal ions, observed in the positive-ion full-scan mass spectra. The MW determination can be confirmed by the [M-H]- ion for metabolites providing a signal in negative-ion mass spectra. MS/MS is a worthy tool for further structural characterization because of the occurrence of characteristic fragment ions, either MSn analysis for studying the fragmentation patterns using trap-based analyzers or high mass accuracy measurements for elemental composition determination using time of flight based or Fourier transform mass analyzers. The correlation between typical functional groups found in phase I and phase II drug metabolites and corresponding neutral losses is generalized and illustrated for selected examples. The choice of a suitable ionization technique and polarity mode in relation to the metabolite structure is discussed as well

Hope as Master Frame in Feminist Mobilization: Between Liberal NGO-ization and Radical-Intersectional Street Politics

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Think tanks in ‘hard times’ – the Global Financial Crisis and economic advice

The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and the Great Recession that ensued had reverberations that were not only social, political and economic. The crises also led to increased doubt in the value and usefulness of policy expertise and in its producers. This ‘epistemic crisis’ is the starting point of this thematic issue dedicated to think tanks in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis and Great Recession. The Introduction to the issue has four objectives. First, it gives a high-level overview of the challenges and opportunities think tanks have faced in the wake of these crises, given the paradox of growing demand for policy expertise precisely at the moment when such expertise and its makers became suspect for many. Second, the Introduction gives an overview of the research literature on think tanks and their role in the policy-making process and the public debate. Third, the articles comprising this thematic issue are introduced, and connections between them established. Fourth, the introduction gauges the effects of Global Financial Crisis and Great Recession, but also crises more generally, on think tanks and the environment they operate in, and speculates about the future of the think tank industry