Anonymous: Polemics and Non-identity

The hacktivist collective Anonymous has been known to follow nonhierarchical, amorphous and sometimes contradictory strategies for online activism. This may weaken their potential to become a populist movement, as out-group members may find Anonymous’s politics obscure and out of reach. Anonymous’s communiqués compensate for this by enabling direct communication with the public. But as a critical discourse analysis finds, the communicative strategies employed deviate from logics of difference and non-identity. They express rigid beliefs, even at times under the banner of universal truth. However, these findings do not suggest Anonymous inevitably embraces identity. By adopting a Deleuzian concept of minor politics, this thesis proposes that Anonymous’s texts are strategic appropriations of molar identities, emphasizing how the minor never fully exists outside the molar. Rather, the minor is always a movement within or across immanent molar configurations. The tensions and contradictions within Anonymous are thus exemplary of a minor political struggle

The feasibility of manufacturing charcoal and charcoal briquettes by converting barks in Georgia

Issued as Project no. E-900-41

Functional assays for the diagnosis of primary defects in lymphocyte cytotoxicity

Cytotoxic lymphocytes encompass natural killer (NK) cells and cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL). These cells detect and kill virus-infected as well as malignant cells. Primary defects in lymphocyte cytotoxicity are associated with development of a hyperinflammatory syndrome termed hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH). This thesis investigates cytotoxic lymphocyte function in HLH cases as well as the creation of new assays to improve diagnostics. An NK cell degranulation assay has been developed to quantify NK cell responses as an alternative to the radioactive chromium release assay. CD107a is a transmembrane protein that in unstimulated cells is contained within the inner membrane of perforin-containing cytotoxic granules but is exposed on the cell surface upon cytotoxic granule exocytosis. In a pan-European effort, we established and validated a consensus protocol for the diagnosis of primary HLH patients with defective degranulation (Paper II). NK cell degranulation below 5% predicted a primary defect in exocytosis leading to defective lymphocyte cytotoxicity with 96% sensitivity and 88% specificity. We also provided further optimized protocols for NK cell phenotyping and degranulation (Paper I). Highlighting the importance of reliable functional assays in primary immunodeficiency discovery, we described novel non-coding aberrations in UNC13D as a cause of HLH and defective degranulation (Paper III, IV). Point mutations were found in a highly conserved intronic region, while a 253kb inversion was identified as the most frequent cause of HLH in Swedish infants. ORAI1 and STIM1 mediate store-operated Ca2+ entry in T cells, which is required for induction of cytokine expression. However, the role of store-operated Ca2+ entry was not clear. In Paper V, we studied NK cell cytotoxicity using ORAI1 and STIM1-deficient patients, confirming abrogated Ca2+ entry upon target cell stimulation. Importantly, ORAI1 and STIM1-deficient NK cells did not degranulate nor produced proinflammatory cytokines, demonstrating that storeoperated Ca2+ entry is required for overall cytotoxic lymphocyte effector functions. Primary HLH diagnostics have relied on NK cell functional assays but little had been done to evaluate T cell responses in these patients. In Paper VI, we described how the surface marker CD57 can be used to identify bone fide cytotoxic T lymphocytes, readily allowing identification of a T cell subset that expresses intracellular perforin and can efficiently kill target cells upon TCR engagement. The CD8+CD57+ T cell subset, similar to CD56dim NK cells, was found to display defective degranulation in FHL types 3-5, suggesting CTL and NK cell exocytosis has similar molecular requirements. In paper VII, we compared the established K562 cell-induced NK cell degranulation assay (Paper II) against the newly developed T cell degranulation assay (Paper VI) prospectively evaluating all primary immunodeficiency patients sent to our laboratory during a 3 year period. The T cell assay excelled with respect to sensitivity and specificity (97% and 95%, respectively) for predicting a primary defect in degranulation. Combining NK cell and T cell assays further increased assay specificity. This thesis demonstrates the power of functional assays in evaluating cytotoxic lymphocyte activity and how this expands our understanding of their biological role and the primary HLH syndrome. These simple, rapid and accurate assays give us the power to quickly diagnose a lifethreatening disease and initiate treatment, thus saving lives

Effects of serial passaging on west nile virus (sarafend) in a mouse model

Master'sMASTER OF SCIENC

Detection and prediction of clopidogrel treatment failures using longitudinal structured electronic health records

We propose machine learning algorithms to automatically detect and predict clopidogrel treatment failure using longitudinal structured electronic health records (EHR). By drawing analogies between natural language and structured EHR, we introduce various machine learning algorithms used in natural language processing (NLP) applications to build models for treatment failure detection and prediction. In this regard, we generated a cohort of patients with clopidogrel prescriptions from UK Biobank and annotated if the patients had treatment failure events within one year of the first clopidogrel prescription; out of 502,527 patients, 1,824 patients were identified as treatment failure cases, and 6,859 patients were considered as control cases. From the dataset, we gathered diagnoses, prescriptions, and procedure records together per patient and organized them into visits with the same date to build models. The models were built for two different tasks, i.e., detection and prediction, and the experimental results showed that time series models outperform bag-of-words approaches in both tasks. In particular, a Transformer-based model, namely BERT, could reach 0.928 AUC in detection tasks and 0.729 AUC in prediction tasks. BERT also showed competence over other time series models when there is not enough training data, because it leverages the pre-training procedure using large unlabeled data

Critical Assessment of the Use of Excess Lead Iodide in Lead Halide Perovskite Solar Cells.

It is common practice in the lead halide perovskite solar cell field to add a small molar excess of lead iodide (PbI2) to the precursor solution to increase the device performance. However, recent reports have shown that an excess of PbI2 can accelerate performance loss. In addition, PbI2 is photoactive (band gap ∼2.3 eV), which may lead to parasitic absorption losses in a solar cell. Here we show that devices using small quantities of excess PbI2 exhibit better device performance as compared with stoichiometric devices, both initially and for the duration of a stability test under operating conditions, primarily by enhancing the charge extraction. However, the photolysis of PbI2 negates the beneficial effect on charge extraction by leaving voids in the perovskite film and introduces trap states that are detrimental for device performance. We propose that although excess PbI2 provides a good template for enhanced performance, the community must continue to seek other additives or synthesis routes that fulfill the same beneficial role as excess PbI2, but without the photolysis that negates these beneficial effects under long-term device operation

A multi-scale, multivariate habitat selection model demonstrates high potential for the reintroduction of the clouded leopard (neofelis nebulosa) to Taiwan

Hunting, habitat loss and fragmentation have driven a rapid decline in the distribution and abundance of the clouded leopard, Neofelis nebulosa, across its range, and in several areas the species is now extirpated, including Taiwan. Taiwan, an historical stronghold of the species, is a candidate for expanding its current range by reintroduction, based on increasing prey abundance and high forest coverage. Such future reintroduction efforts, however, are hampered by the lack of an empirical analysis of clouded leopard habitat potential in the island. To address this knowledge gap, this study explores the species’ habitat suitability in Taiwan. We employed a multi-scale multivariate habitat selection model based on clouded leopard presence-absence data from extensive camera trap surveys across its current range, and extrapolated the result to predict suitable habitats in Taiwan. Our results reveal that 40% of Taiwanese territory represents suitable habitats for clouded leopards and of which 90% is under protection. This demonstrates the robust potential of Taiwan’s habitat for clouded leopard reintroduction

Investigation of the Protective Effects of Taurine against Alloxan-Induced Diabetic Retinal Changes via Electroretinogram and Retinal Histology with New Zealand White Rabbits

The purpose of this study was to investigate the protective role of orally administered taurine against diabetic retinal changes via electroretinogram (ERG) and retinal histology on rabbits. Rabbits were randomly assigned into groups: Group I (vehicle administration only); Group II (diabetes: induced by 100 mg/kg alloxan injection); Group III (diabetes and fed with 200 mg/kg taurine); and Group IV (diabetes and fed with 400 mg/kg taurine). The body weight and blood glucose levels of the rabbits were monitored weekly. The ERG was measured on weeks 5 and 15. Retinal histology was analyzed in the end of the experiment. Results revealed that a taurine supplement significantly ameliorates the alloxan-induced hyperglycemia and protects the retina from electrophysiological changes. Group II showed a significant (P<0.05) change in the mean scotopic b-wave amplitude when compared to that of Group I, whereas the diabetic rabbits treated with taurine (Group III and IV) were analogous to Group I. Histologically, the amount of Bipolar and Müller cells showed no difference (P>0.05) between all groups and when compared with those of Group I. Our study provides solid evidences that taurine possesses an antidiabetic activity, reduced loss of body weight, and less electrophysiological changes of the diabetic retina