Power, perversion and panic : eunuchs, colonialism and modernity in North India

In north India in the 1870s, the 'eunuch' became a criminal type under British colonial law. Colonial officials in this region sought to cause eunuchs to 'die out' by preventing emasculation and aimed to transform the occupations, gendered practices and domestic arrangements of several diverse groups who were classed as 'eunuchs.' This study explains the criminalisation of the 'eunuch' through a history of the multiple indigenous groups that this English-language term described in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The English-language colonial category of the 'eunuch'-its various inclusions and exclusions, its historical shifts, and its contradictions and tensions-is the focus of this thesis. The term 'eunuch' was used to label diverse indigenous groups, and was not internally coherent or unified. Some eunuchs, such as khwajasarais, were slaves but were nevertheless socio-economic elites and powerful state officials. In contrast, the hijras were socially marginalised and were variously denoted as 'eunuchs from birth' or as biological males who were subsequently emasculated, and who identified as feminine or 'neither men nor women.' In addition, several groups that were not emasculated were also classified as 'eunuchs' due to their gendered and sexual practices. This dissertation examines the colonial regulation of eunuchs in two contexts: first, in the Indian-ruled state of Awadh from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, when the British sought to regulate the employment of khwajasarais in the Awadh administration; and second, under Part II of the Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) in the British-ruled territory of the North-Western Provinces (NWP) from the 1850s until the end of the nineteenth century. The CTA, which primarily targeted the hijra community, aimed to facilitate the surveillance and counting of hijras, discipline their gender and sexuality and prevent emasculation in order to ultimately bring about the passive extermination of this group. Due to the diversity of groups that the colonial category of the 'eunuch' labelled, this thesis adopts multiple analytical frameworks to understand the various colonial projects targeting 'eunuchs' and their effects. This study foregrounds three questions. First: how did the everyday lives of khwajasarais and hijras change over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; how did they resist, subvert and evade colonial projects; and how did colonial modernity impact upon the intimate, domestic domain of these communities? Second: what do projects to govern the disparate groups that were labelled as 'eunuchs' tell us about the modes of colonial power deployed against marginalised groups at the local level? Third: what does the criminalisation of the internally diverse category of the eunuch tell us about the multiple impacts of colonialism on gender and sexuality in India? This study concludes that colonial regulation, and colonial modernity more broadly, had significant long-term impacts upon all the various groups labelled as 'eunuchs.' However, colonial projects were uneven between different geographic and temporal contexts and were internally fissured

Book Reviews

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Click-PEGylation - a mobility shift approach to assess the redox state of cysteines in candidate proteins

The redox state of cysteine thiols is critical for protein function. Whereas cysteines play an important role in the maintenance of protein structure through the formation of internal disulfides, their nucleophilic thiol groups can become oxidatively modified in response to diverse redox challenges and thereby function in signalling and antioxidant defences. These oxidative modifications occur in response to a range of agents and stimuli, and can lead to the existence of multiple redox states for a given protein. To assess the role(s) of a protein in redox signalling and antioxidant defence, it is thus vital to be able to assess which of the multiple thiol redox states are present and to investigate how these alter under different conditions. While this can be done by a range of mass spectrometric-based methods, these are time-consuming, costly, and best suited to study abundant proteins or to perform an unbiased proteomic screen. One approach that can facilitate a targeted assessment of candidate proteins, as well as proteins that are low in abundance or proteomically challenging, is by electrophoretic mobility shift assays. Redox-modified cysteine residues are selectively tagged with a large group, such as a polyethylene glycol (PEG) polymer, and then the proteins are separated by electrophoresis followed by immunoblotting, which allows the inference of redox changes based on band shifts. However, the applicability of this method has been impaired by the difficulty of cleanly modifying protein thiols by large PEG reagents. To establish a more robust method for redox-selective PEGylation, we have utilised a Click chemistry approach, where free thiol groups are first labelled with a reagent modified to contain an alkyne moiety, which is subsequently Click-reacted with a PEG molecule containing a complementary azide function. This strategy can be adapted to study reversibly reduced or oxidised cysteines. Separation of the thiol labelling step from the PEG conjugation greatly facilitates the fidelity and flexibility of this approach. Here we show how the Click-PEGylation technique can be used to interrogate the redox state of proteins

A helminth-derived suppressor of ST2 blocks allergic responses.

The IL-33-ST2 pathway is an important initiator of type 2 immune responses. We previously characterised the HpARI protein secreted by the model intestinal nematode Heligmosomoides polygyrus, which binds and blocks IL-33. Here, we identify H. polygyrus Binds Alarmin Receptor and Inhibits (HpBARI) and HpBARI_Hom2, both of which consist of complement control protein (CCP) domains, similarly to the immunomodulatory HpARI and Hp-TGM proteins. HpBARI binds murine ST2, inhibiting cell surface detection of ST2, preventing IL-33-ST2 interactions, and inhibiting IL-33 responses in vitro and in an in vivo mouse model of asthma. In H. polygyrus infection, ST2 detection is abrogated in the peritoneal cavity and lung, consistent with systemic effects of HpBARI. HpBARI_Hom2 also binds human ST2 with high affinity, and effectively blocks human PBMC responses to IL-33. Thus, we show that H. polygyrus blocks the IL-33 pathway via both HpARI which blocks the cytokine, and also HpBARI which blocks the receptor

A vision-based hole quality assessment technique for robotic drilling of composite materials using a hybrid classification model

peer reviewedRobotic drilling has advantages over traditional computer numerical control machines due to its flexibility, dexterity and the potential for rapid production and process automation. The dexterity and reach of the robotic drill end effector enables the efficient drilling of large composite components, such as aircraft wing structures. Due to the anisotropy and inhomogeneity of fibre reinforced polymer composite materials, drilling remains a challenging task. Inspection of the drilled hole is required at the end of the process to ensure the final product is free from defects. Typically, such inspections require the parts to be transferred to a dedicated inspection station, which is a time-consuming non-value-added task and impractical for large components. In the interest of an efficient and sustainable manufacturing process, this work proposes a hybrid classification model implemented with a robotic drilling system to investigate the quality of drilled holes in-situ. The classifier is trained and tested with a random selection of drilled holes and the most accurate classifier is implemented. The selected classifier returns 90% overall prediction accuracy on unseen drilled holes. This machine learning based approach, using a convolutional neural network and support vector machine classifier, can significantly improve inspection reliability while reducing production time for drilled composite components. This is the first study that demonstrates a hole quality assessment technique for robotic drilling of composite material in-situ at scale

Selective mitochondrial superoxide generation in vivo is cardioprotective through hormesis

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have an equivocal role in myocardial ischaemia reperfusion injury. Within the cardiomyocyte, mitochondria are both a major source and target of ROS. We evaluate the effects of a selective, dose-dependent increase in mitochondrial ROS levels on cardiac physiology using the mitochondria-targeted redox cycler MitoParaquat (MitoPQ). Low levels of ROS decrease the susceptibility of neonatal rat ventricular myocytes (NRVMs) to anoxia/reoxygenation injury and also cause profound protection in an in vivo mouse model of ischaemia/reperfusion. However higher doses of MitoPQ resulted in a progressive alteration of intracellular [Ca2+] homeostasis and mitochondrial function in vitro, leading to dysfunction and death at high doses. Our data show that a primary increase in mitochondrial ROS can alter cellular function, and support a hormetic model in which low levels of ROS are cardioprotective while higher levels of ROS are cardiotoxic.The work is supported by an MRC Studentship to JFM and a Wellcome Trust Investigator award to RCH (110158/Z/15/Z), the Leducq Transatlantic Network of Excellence, and the University of Padova Strategico grant (FDL). Part of the study was funded by an MRC Project Grant to TK (MR/P000320/1). Michele Cariello is thanked for help with cyclic voltammetry

Ventriculo-arterial coupling detects occult RV dysfunction in chronic thromboembolic pulmonary vascular disease.

Chronic thromboembolic disease (CTED) is suboptimally defined by a mean pulmonary artery pressure (mPAP)  0.68 and Ees/Ea < 0.68 subgroups demonstrated constant RV stroke work but lower stroke volume (87.7 ± 22.1 vs. 60.1 ± 16.3 mL respectively, P = 0.006) and higher end-systolic pressure (36.7 ± 11.6 vs. 68.1 ± 16.7 mmHg respectively, P < 0.001). Lower Ees/Ea in CTED also correlated with reduced exercise ventilatory efficiency. Low Ees/Ea aligns with features of RV maladaptation in CTED both at rest and on exercise. Characterization of Ees/Ea in CTED may allow for better identification of occult RV dysfunction