Entanglement and the modern Australian rhythm method: Lantana's lessons in policing sexuality and gender

Film in Australia, as with many other nations, is often seen as an important cultural medium where national stories about belonging and identity can be (re)produced in pleasurable and, at times, complicated ways. One such film is Ray Lawrence’s Lantana. Although striking a chord in Australia as a good film about ‘ basically good people’, people that rang ‘brilliantly’ true (Lantana DVD 2002), this paper argues that, at the same time as it produces a fantasy of a ‘good’ Australia, the film also conducts a regulation of what constitutes Australianness. In many ways the imaginary of Australia offered in this film, to its contemporary, urban, professional and intellectual elite audience, still draws on and (re)produces a vision of an Australian community that uses the same narrative frameworks of protection and control as the cruder discourses of ‘white Australia’ offered to an earlier generation of cinema-goers. This film’s central motif of the lantana bush, the out of control weed, that is known as both foreign and local is here emblematic of tensions about belonging, place and otherness. Yet while, within the film’s knowingly reflexive purview any remaining potential for racism is understood and itself under control – we know how to be good mutliculturalists –it is the trope of sexuality in Lantana that provides the real sense of edginess and anxiety about belonging. It is in this arena that the film sets up an idea of danger and –less self-consciously, and in the end more aggressively – marks out who is and who is not part of the community. In this context the motif of lantana signals an ambivalence about difference and the exotic. Lantana is both desirable because of the difference in its attractive Latin looks and repulsive or feared because of other qualities inherent within its difference: a refusal to behave and a propensity to get out-of control, spread and potentially take over. The film here explores desire for a taste of the other (a gay man, a newly separated woman, a Latin dance teacher). However, these fantasies are in the end emphatically shut down as the film ends by producing a vision of subtly normalised hetero, mono, familial (though not necessarily happy) forms of desiring, loving and reproducing in contemporary Australia

Characterizing Fire-Induced Forest Structure and Aboveground Biomass Changes in Boreal Forests Using Multi-Temporal Lidar and Landsat

Wildfire is the dominant stand-replacing disturbance regime in Canadian boreal forests. An accurate quantification of post-fire changes in forest structure and aboveground biomass density (AGBD) provides a means to understand the magnitudes of ecosystem changes through wildfires and related linkages with global climate. While multispectral remote sensing has been extensively utilized for burn severity assessment, its capacity for post-fire forest structure and AGBD change monitoring has been more limited to date. This study evaluates the interactions among burn severity, forest structure, and fire-return intervals for two representative sites in the western Canadian boreal forest. We adopted burn severity measurements from Landsat to characterize the heterogeneity of wildfire effects, while vertical forest structure information from lidar was utilized to inform on realized forest changes and carbon fluxes associated with fire. Dominant trees in biomass-rich stands showed higher tolerance to low- and moderate-severity wildfires, while understory vegetation in these same stands showed a severity-invariant response to wildfires indicated by high vegetation mortality regardless of burn severity levels. Compared to a site without previous burn, canopy height and AGBD experienced lower magnitudes of change after subsequent wildfires, explained by a negative feedback between high frequency wildfires and biomass loss ( ΔCanopyCanopy Height single wildfire = 3.03 m; ΔCanopyCanopy Height successive wildfire = 2.47 m; ΔAGBDAGBD single wildfire = 8.40 Mg/ha; ΔAGBDAGBD successive wildfire = 6.69 Mg/ha). This study provides new insights into forest recovery dynamics following fire disturbance, which is particularly relevant given increased fire frequency and intensity in boreal ecosystems resulting from climate change

Globalisation masculinities, empire building and forced prostitution: a critical analysis of the gendered impact of the neoliberal economic agenda in post-invasion/occupation Iraq

Adopting a transnational feminist lens and using a political economy approach, this article addresses both the direct and indirect consequences of the 2003 war in Iraq, specifically the impact on civilian women. Pre-war security and gender relations in Iraq will be compared with the situation post-invasion/occupation. The article examines the globalised processes of capitalism, neoliberalism and neo-colonialism and their impact on the political, social and economic infrastructure in Iraq. Particular attention will be paid to illicit and informal economies: coping, combat and criminal. The 2003 Iraq war was fought using masculinities of empire, post-colonialism and neoliberalism. Using the example of forced prostitution, the article will argue that these globalisation masculinities – specifically the privatisation agenda of the West and its illegal economic occupation – have resulted in women either being forced into the illicit (coping) economy as a means of survival, or trafficked for sexual slavery by profit-seeking criminal networks who exploit the informal economy in a post-invasion/occupation Iraq

Microencapsulated islet allografts in diabetic NOD mice and nonhuman primates

OBJECTIVE: Our goal was to assess the efficacy of encapsulated allogeneic islets transplanted in diabetic NOD mice and streptozotocin (STZ)-diabetic nonhuman primates (NHPs).MATERIALS AND METHODS: Murine or NHP islets were microencapsulated and transplanted in non-immunosuppressed mice or NHPs given clinically-acceptable immunosuppressive regimens, respectively. Two NHPs were treated with autologous mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and peri-transplant oxygen therapy. Different transplant sites (intraperitoneal [i.p.], omental pouch, omental surface, and bursa omentalis) were tested in separate NHPs. Graft function was monitored by exogenous insulin requirements, fasting blood glucose levels, glucose tolerance tests, percent hemoglobin A1c (% HbA1c), and C-peptide levels. In vitro assessment of grafts included histology, immunohistochemistry, and viability staining; host immune responses were characterized by flow cytometry and cytokine/chemokine multiplex ELISAS.RESULTS: Microencapsulated islet allografts functioned long-term i.p. in diabetic NOD mice without immunosuppression, but for a relatively short time in immunosuppressed NHPs. In the NHPs, encapsulated allo-islets initially reduced hyperglycemia, decreased exogenous insulin requirements, elevated C-peptide levels, and lowered % HbA1c in plasma, but graft function diminished with time, regardless of transplant site. At necropsy, microcapsules were intact and non-fibrotic, but many islets exhibited volume loss, central necrosis and endogenous markers of hypoxia. Animals receiving supplemental oxygen and autologous MSCs showed improved graft function for a longer post-transplant period. In diabetic NHPs and mice, cell-free microcapsules did not elicit a fibrotic response.CONCLUSIONS: The evidence suggested that hypoxia was a major factor for damage to encapsulated islets in vivo. To achieve long-term function, new approaches must be developed to increase the oxygen supply to microencapsulated islets and/or identify donor insulin-secreting cells which can tolerate hypoxia.</p

The correlation between reading and mathematics ability at age twelve has a substantial genetic component

Dissecting how genetic and environmental influences impact on learning is helpful for maximizing numeracy and literacy. Here we show, using twin and genome-wide analysis, that there is a substantial genetic component to children’s ability in reading and mathematics, and estimate that around one half of the observed correlation in these traits is due to shared genetic effects (so-called Generalist Genes). Thus, our results highlight the potential role of the learning environment in contributing to differences in a child’s cognitive abilities at age twelve

Thermal stratification and meromixis in four dilute temperate zone lakes

Four adjacent lakes (Arco, Budd, Deming, and Josephine) within Itasca State Park in Minnesota, USA, are reported to be meromictic in the scientific literature. However, seasonally persistent chemoclines have never been documented. We collected seasonal profiles of temperature and specific conductance and placed temperature sensor chains in two lakes for ∼1 year to explore whether these lakes remain stratified through seasonal mixing events and what factors contribute to their stability. The results indicate that all lakes are predominantly thermally stratified and are prone to mixing in isothermal periods during spring and fall. Despite brief, semi-annual erosion of thermal stratification, Deming Lake showed no signs of complete mixing from 2006–2009 and 2019–2022 and is likely meromictic. However, the other lakes are not convincingly meromictic. Geochemical data indicate that water in Budd Lake, which contains the most water, is predominantly sourced from precipitation. The water in the other three lakes is of the calcium–magnesium–bicarbonate type, reflecting a source of water that has interacted with the deglaciated landscape. δ18OH2O and δ2HH2O measurements indicate the lakes are supplied by precipitation modified by evaporation. Josephine, Arco, and Deming lakes sit in a valley with likely permeable sediments and may be hydrologically connected through wetlands and recharged with shallow groundwater, as no streams are present. The water residence time in meromictic Deming Lake is short (100 d), yet it maintains a large reservoir of dissolved iron, indicating that shallow groundwater may be an additional source of water and dissolved ions. All four lakes develop subsurface chlorophyll maxima layers during the summer. All lakes also develop subsurface oxygen maxima that may result from oxygen trapping in the spring by rapidly developed summer thermoclines. Documenting the mixing status and general chemistry of these lakes enhances their utility and accessibility for future biogeochemical studies, which is important as lake stratification and anoxia are becoming more prevalent due to changes in climate and land use.</p

Genome-wide association study identifies a variant in HDAC9 associated with large vessel ischemic stroke

Genetic factors have been implicated in stroke risk but few replicated associations have been reported. We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in ischemic stroke and its subtypes in 3,548 cases and 5,972 controls, all of European ancestry. Replication of potential signals was performed in 5,859 cases and 6,281 controls. We replicated reported associations between variants close to PITX2 and ZFHX3 with cardioembolic stroke, and a 9p21 locus with large vessel stroke. We identified a novel association for a SNP within the histone deacetylase 9(HDAC9) gene on chromosome 7p21.1 which was associated with large vessel stroke including additional replication in a further 735 cases and 28583 controls (rs11984041, combined P = 1.87×10−11, OR=1.42 (95% CI) 1.28-1.57). All four loci exhibit evidence for heterogeneity of effect across the stroke subtypes, with some, and possibly all, affecting risk for only one subtype. This suggests differing genetic architectures for different stroke subtypes

Security (studies) and the limits of critique: why we should think through struggle

This paper addresses the political and epistemological stakes of knowledge production in post-structuralist Critical Security Studies. It opens a research agenda in which struggles against dominant regimes of power/knowledge are entry-points for analysis. Despite attempts to gain distance from the word ‘security’, through interrogation of wider practices and schemes of knowledge in which security practices are embedded, post-structuralist CSS too quickly reads security logics as determinative of modern/liberal forms of power and rule. At play is an unacknowledged ontological investment in ‘security’, structured by disciplinary commitments and policy discourse putatively critiqued. Through previous ethnographic research, we highlight how struggles over dispossession and oppression call the very frame of security into question, exposing violences inadmissible within that frame. Through the lens of security, the violence of wider strategies of containing and normalizing politics are rendered invisible, or a neutral backdrop against which security practices take place. Building on recent debates on critical security methods, we set out an agenda where struggle provokes an alternative mode of onto political investment in critical examination of power and order

One-pot RAFT and fast polymersomes assembly: a ‘beeline’ from monomers to drug-loaded nanovectors

Rapid and simple routes to functional polymersomes are increasingly needed to expand their clinical or industrial applications. Here we describe a novel strategy where polymersomes are prepared through an in-line process in just a few hours, starting from simple acrylate or acrylamide monomers. Using Perrier's protocol, well-defined amphiphilic diblock copolymers formed from PEG acrylate (mPEGA480), 2-(acryloyloxy)ethyl-3-chloro-4-hydroxybenzoate (ACH) or 2-(3-chloro-4-hydroxybenzamido)ethyl acrylate (CHB), have been synthesised by RAFT polymerisation in one-pot, pushing the monomer conversion for each block close to completion (≥94%). The reaction mixture, consisting of green biocompatible solvents (ethanol/water) have then been directly utilised to generate well-defined polymersomes, by simple cannulation into water or in a more automated process, by using a bespoke microfluidic device. Terbinafine and cyanocobalamine were used to demonstrate the suitability of the process to incorporate model hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs, respectively. Vesicles size and morphology were characterised by DLS, TEM, and AFM. In this work we show that materials and experimental conditions can be chosen to allow facile and rapid generation drug-loaded polymersomes, through a suitable in-line process, directly from acrylate or acrylamide monomer building blocks