Instrumental trouble: a queer organology of Hugh Davies’s found instruments

Organology, the study of musical instruments, has traditionally concentrated on the documentation of instruments: their history, roles in culture, and classification. However, as post-modern, feminist, and post-colonial perspectives have questioned some of the assumptions inherent in historiographical, ethnographic, and positivist endeavours because of their part in reproducing hegemonic ideologies, re-thinking organology and thus developing a richer account of musical instruments has become an urgent task. With this regard a queer perspective in organology, in particular informed by Judith Butler’s theories of “gender trouble,” is crucial in agitating normative beliefs, values, and attitudes that underpin notions of instrumental identity, interaction, and meaning. A queer organology becomes especially significant in the critical engagement with musical instruments like those invented by the British composer, performer, and inventor Hugh Davies (1943-2005), and in particular his entirely found, amplified, new musical instruments. This is because the challenges to traditional instrumental ontologies, the “instrumental trouble” that these instruments pose, reveal the boundaries of conventional organological approaches and methodologies, which are unsuitable in capturing their full significance. Deploying Butler’s concepts of recognition, performativity, and subversion in their study can thus represent an effective strategy in the development of a coherent critique of Davies’s instruments, but also in offering an opportunity to further the understanding of the fundamental importance that musical instruments play in the articulations of music, as part of what may be called an “instrumental turn.

Decay of geodesic acoustic modes due to the combined action of phase mixing and Landau damping

Geodesic acoustic modes (GAMs) are oscillations of the electric field whose importance in tokamak plasmas is due to their role in the regulation of turbulence. The linear collisionless damping of GAMs is investigated here by means of analytical theory and numerical simulations with the global gyrokinetic particle-in-cell code ORB5. The combined effect of the phase mixing and Landau damping is found to quickly redistribute the GAM energy in phase-space, due to the synergy of the finite orbit width of the passing ions and the cascade in wave number given by the phase mixing. When plasma parameters characteristic of realistic tokamak profiles are considered, the GAM decay time is found to be an order of magnitude lower than the decay due to the Landau damping alone, and in some cases of the same order of magnitude of the characteristic GAM drive time due to the nonlinear interaction with an ITG mode. In particular, the radial mode structure evolution in time is investigated here and reproduced quantitatively by means of a dedicated initial value code and diagnostics.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Plasma

Perspectives on Comparative Federalism

Comparative analysis of why territorial second chambers are not fit to represet territories in the central decision-making process and what alternative forms are being create

Increased levels of RNA oxidation enhance the reversion frequency in aging pro-apoptotic yeast mutants

Despite recent advances in understanding the complexity of RNA processes, regulation of the metabolism of oxidized cellular RNAs and the mechanisms through which oxidized ribonucleotides affect mRNA translation, and consequently cell viability, are not well characterized. We show here that the level of oxidized RNAs is markedly increased in a yeast decapping Kllsm4Δ1 mutant, which accumulates mRNAs, ages much faster that the wild type strain and undergoes regulated-cell-death. We also found that in Kllsm4Δ1 cells the mutation rate increases during chronological life span indicating that the capacity to han- dle oxidized RNAs in yeast declines with aging. Lowering intracellular ROS levels by antioxidants recovers the wild- type phenotype of mutant cells, including reduced amount of oxidized RNAs and lower mutation rate. Since mRNA oxidation was reported to occur in different neurodegen- erative diseases, decapping-deficient cells may represent a useful tool for deciphering molecular mechanisms of cell response to such conditions, providing new insights into RNA modification-based pathogenesis

Studi storici dedicati a Orazio Cancila

Non accade sempre, e non è neppure necessario, che le raccolte di studi in onore di personalità del mondo degli studi trattino temi relativi o affini a quelli coltivati dalla personalità celebrata. Se, però, accade, si può certamente parlare di una felice circostanza o coincidenza, ma può accadere anche che tale circostanza o coincidenza sia significativa di qualcosa d’altro. E, ad esempio, può essere significativa del fatto che la personalità destinataria della raccolta si è posta o si è trovata al centro di sviluppi della storiografia contemporanea importanti anche perché rispondono a interessi diffusi negli studi e nella cultura del suo tempo. Della raccolta di studi per Orazio Cancila si può dire – credo – che ci si trova senz’altro in quest’ultimo caso, e, ciò, anche quando la formulazione letterale dei temi dei singoli contributi alla raccolta non sembra autorizzare una tale constatazione. ... È un bel panorama, ed è singolarmente conforme alla serie degli ampii e varii interessi storici di Cancila. (Dall'introduzione di Giuseppe Galasso

Spin-thermal shear coupling in a relativistic fluid

We show that spin polarization of a fermion in a relativistic fluid at local thermodynamic equilibrium can be generated by the symmetric derivative of the four-temperature vector, defined as thermal shear. As a consequence, besides vorticity, acceleration and temperature gradient, also the shear tensor contributes to the polarization of particles in a fluid. This contribution to the spin polarization vector, which is entirely non-dissipative, adds to the well known term proportional to thermal vorticity and may thus have important consequences for the solution of the local polarization puzzles observed in relativistic heavy ion collisions.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure; version accepted for publication in Physics Letters

Unexpected Enhancement of Antimicrobial Polymer Activity against Staphylococcus aureus in the Presence of Fetal Bovine Serum

Cationic and amphiphilic polymers are known to exert broad-spectrum antibacterial activity by a putative mechanism of membrane disruption. Typically, nonspecific binding to hydrophobic components of the complex biological milieu, such as globular proteins, is considered a deterrent to the successful application of such polymers. To evaluate the extent to which serum deactivates antibacterial polymethacrylates, we compared their minimum inhibitory concentrations in the presence and absence of fetal bovine serum. Surprisingly, we discovered that the addition of fetal bovine serum (FBS) to the assay media in fact enhances the antimicrobial activity of polymers against Gram-positive bacteria S. aureus, whereas the opposite is the case for Gram-negative E. coli. Here, we present these unexpected trends and develop a hypothesis to potentially explain this unusual phenomenon