Queer Centres and Peripheries

Gradually queer theory, which emerged out of the particularities of academic and political situations in the USA in the 1990s, has begun to interrogate its relationship to the rest of the world. It is, of course, not surprising that analysis of (homo)sexuality from within the USA should be largely US-centric, remarkably uninterested in developments in other countries, even those as seemingly close in culture and politics as Canada and the United Kingdom. Yet there are signs of some interest in what might be termed ‘non-western’ societies, in particular the relevance of ‘queer’ to rapidly shifting notions of sexuality and gender regimes. There is now an extensive literature on the ways in which homosexuality is being shaped and changed by ‘modernisation’ and equally on how hostility to modernisation often expresses itself in the persecution of homosexuals. Very few of the discussions of ‘modern’ forms of homosexuality are posed in comparative terms; indeed, the vast majority are written without reference to similar developments in other parts of the world

Musical theatre and politics

 The musical is in some ways the most significant contribution of the United States to theatre. Musicals have long been a space for considerable political expression, which is often overlooked in the tendency to view them as no more than light popular entertainments

Ample filters and Frobenius amplitude

Let $X$ be a projective scheme over a field. We show that the vanishing cohomology of any sequence of coherent sheaves is closely related to vanishing under pullbacks by the Frobenius morphism. We also compare various definitions of ample locally free sheaf and show that the vanishing given by the Frobenius morphism is, in a certain sense, the strongest possible. Our work can be viewed as various generalizations of the Serre Vanishing Theorem.Comment: 15 pages, major improvement in results, typo fixed in Equation 2.5, warning footnote added to Lemma 2.

Correlation with basic differentiation processes of neurons

The development of the spinal cord involves the proliferation of neurons, their migration to well-defined areas, fiber outgrowth and synapse formation. The present study was designed to correlate the spatiotemporal pattern of expression of synaptophysin, an integral membrane protein of small synaptic vesicles, with these basic processes occurring during the embryonic development of the rat spinal cord. Thoracic segments of spinal cords from embryonic days 12, 14, 16, 18, 20 and of adult spinal cords were studied. S1 nuclease protection assays and immunoblots revealed minute amounts of specific mRNA and synaptophysin at embryonic day 12. There was a steep increase of mRNA between embryonic days 14 and 16, after which levels reached a plateau. A rise in the amount of synaptophysin in the spinal cord occurred between embryonic days 12 and 14, and the levels changed only slightly until the end of embryonic development. Even higher levels of synaptophysin, found in the adult spinal cord, may indicate that its biosynthesis continued after birth. In situ hybridization histochemistry revealed the localization of specific synaptophysin mRNA in the neuroepithelium. However, immunocytochemistry failed to detect synaptophysin in the neuroepithelial cells. Following migration of the neuroblasts, synaptophysin was found in neurons concomitantly with the onset of fiber outgrowth. Thus, already at embryonic day 12, outgrowing fibers of the dorsal root sensory neurons and of motoneurons were synaptophysin positive. From embryonic day 14 throughout the prenatal period, strong synaptophysin immunoreactivity was seen in the ventrolateral and dorsal parts of the marginal layer. Most likely this staining pattern indicates transient functional synaptic contacts because, in the adult spinal cord, the corresponding region, the white matter, exhibited only faint synaptophysin immunoreactivity. In the intermediate layer of the embryonic spinal cord, which corresponds to the gray matter of the adult spinal cord, synaptophysin-positive fibers were observed prior to the formation of functional synapses. The latter are most likely permanent, since synaptophysin in the adult spinal cord is mainly confined to the gray matter. Our data (i) show transcription and translation of synaptophysin within the neurons of the spinal cord and correlate these processes with proliferation, migration, fiber outgrowth and the formation of transient or permanent synapses, and (ii) prove that synaptophysin is a marker for fiber outgrowth in addition to synapse formation

Human hippocampal neurogenesis drops sharply in children to undetectable levels in adults.

New neurons continue to be generated in the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus of the adult mammalian hippocampus. This process has been linked to learning and memory, stress and exercise, and is thought to be altered in neurological disease. In humans, some studies have suggested that hundreds of new neurons are added to the adult dentate gyrus every day, whereas other studies find many fewer putative new neurons. Despite these discrepancies, it is generally believed that the adult human hippocampus continues to generate new neurons. Here we show that a defined population of progenitor cells does not coalesce in the subgranular zone during human fetal or postnatal development. We also find that the number of proliferating progenitors and young neurons in the dentate gyrus declines sharply during the first year of life and only a few isolated young neurons are observed by 7 and 13 years of age. In adult patients with epilepsy and healthy adults (18-77 years; n = 17 post-mortem samples from controls; n = 12 surgical resection samples from patients with epilepsy), young neurons were not detected in the dentate gyrus. In the monkey (Macaca mulatta) hippocampus, proliferation of neurons in the subgranular zone was found in early postnatal life, but this diminished during juvenile development as neurogenesis decreased. We conclude that recruitment of young neurons to the primate hippocampus decreases rapidly during the first years of life, and that neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus does not continue, or is extremely rare, in adult humans. The early decline in hippocampal neurogenesis raises questions about how the function of the dentate gyrus differs between humans and other species in which adult hippocampal neurogenesis is preserved

Analisis Kompetensi Profesional Guru Mata Pelajaran Pengantar Administrasi Jurusan Administrasi Perkantoran SMK YPLP PGRI 1 Makassar

ABSTRAK Fadly F Renhoran. 2018. Analisis Kompetensi Profesional Guru Mata Pelajaran Pengantar Administrasi Jurusan Administrasi Perkantoran SMK YPLP PGRI 1 Makassar. Program Studi Pendidikan Administrasi Perkantoran Fakultas Ilmu Sosial Universitas Negeri Makassar. Dibimbing oleh Sirajuddin Saleh, S.Pd., M.Pd dan Muhammad Darwis, S.Pd., M.Pd Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui kompetensi profesional guru Pelajaran Pengantar Administrasi Jurusan Administrasi Perkantoran SMK YPLP PGRI 1 Makassar. Penelitian ini menggunakan jenis penelitian kualitatif dengan pendekatan deskriptif kualitatif. Informan dalam penelitian ini sebanyak 5 (lima) orang. Pengumpulan data dilakukan melalui teknik wawancara, observasi, dan dokumentasi. Data yang telah dikumpulkan diolah dengan menggunakan teknik analisis yaitu reduksi data, penyajian data dan kesimpulan atau verifikasi. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa kompetensi profesional guru mata pelajaran pengantar administrasi jurusan Administrasi Perkantoran SMK YPLP PGRI 1 Makassar pada umunya sudah terlaksana dengan baik. Hal ini dinilai dari kelima indikator kompetensi profesional guru seperti, menguasai landasan pendidikan, mengusai bahan pengajaran, penyusunan program pengajaran, kemudian melaksanakan program pengajaran, dan menilai hasil dan proses belajar mengajar yang telah dilaksanakan. Jadi kompetensi profesional guru mata pelajaran pengantar administrasi jurusan adminsitrasi perkantoran SMK YPLP PGRI 1 Makassar telah terimplementasi dengan baik

Policy Feedback and the Politics of the Affordable Care Act

There is a large body of literature devoted to how “policies create politics” and how feedback effects from existing policy legacies shape potential reforms in a particular area. Although much of this literature focuses on self‐reinforcing feedback effects that increase support for existing policies over time, Kent Weaver and his colleagues have recently drawn our attention to self‐undermining effects that can gradually weaken support for such policies. The following contribution explores both self‐reinforcing and self‐undermining policy feedback in relationship to the Affordable Care Act, the most important health‐care reform enacted in the United States since the mid‐1960s. More specifically, the paper draws on the concept of policy feedback to reflect on the political fate of the ACA since its adoption in 2010. We argue that, due in part to its sheer complexity and fragmentation, the ACA generates both self‐reinforcing and self‐undermining feedback effects that, depending of the aspect of the legislation at hand, can either facilitate or impede conservative retrenchment and restructuring. Simultaneously, through a discussion of partisan effects that shape Republican behavior in Congress, we acknowledge the limits of policy feedback in the explanation of policy stability and change

The effects of corporate and country sustainability characteristics on the cost of debt: an international investigation

We investigate the relationship between corporate and country sustainability on the cost of bank loans. We look into 470 loan agreements signed between 2005 and 2012 with borrowers based in 28 different countries across the world and operating in all major industries. Our principal findings reveal that country sustainability, relating to both social and environmental frameworks, has a statistically and economically impactful effect on direct financing of economic activity. An increase of one unit in a country's sustainability score is associated with an average decrease in the cost of debt by 64 basis points. Our international analysis shows that the environmental dimension of a country's institutional framework is approximately twice as impactful as the social dimension, when it comes to determining the cost of corporate loans. On the other hand, we find no conclusive evidence that firm-level sustainability influences the interest rates charged to borrowing firms by banks. Our main findings survive a battery of robustness tests and additional analyses concerning subsamples, alternative sustainability metrics and the effects of financial crisis

DFSeer: A visual analytics approach to facilitate model selection for demand forecasting

Selecting an appropriate model to forecast product demand is critical to the manufacturing industry. However, due to the data complexity, market uncertainty and users' demanding requirements for the model, it is challenging for demand analysts to select a proper model. Although existing model selection methods can reduce the manual burden to some extent, they often fail to present model performance details on individual products and reveal the potential risk of the selected model. This paper presents DFSeer, an interactive visualization system to conduct reliable model selection for demand forecasting based on the products with similar historical demand. It supports model comparison and selection with different levels of details. Besides, it shows the difference in model performance on similar products to reveal the risk of model selection and increase users' confidence in choosing a forecasting model. Two case studies and interviews with domain experts demonstrate the effectiveness and usability of DFSeer.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, ACM CHI 202