Challenging a sacrosanct tradition? Analysing the governing of gender through policies for trans healthcare

Concentrating on approaches to depathologisation in trans health, this thesis compares the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People, version 7 (the SOC-7) to the Best Practices Guide to Trans Health Care in the National Health Care System (the Guide), created by the Spanish Network for Depathologization of Trans Identities. The analysis demonstrates how the SOC-7 advances a logic of medicalisation for governing access and enacting depathologisation. The SOC-7 undermines attempts to rework a gatekeeping position by pressing people into status relations established and maintained by psy-professions, Western medicine, law, and citizenship. In contrast, the Guide problematises the entire illness-based paradigm arguing that the Western, medico-scientific model of sexuality, the body, and gender has colonially conditioned trans health. It offers an alternative policy for the Spanish health system and a proposal to formulate multiple responsive, place-based, non-pathologising protocols through an alternative yet liberal logic of rights. The analysis shows how the Guide’s approach could disrupt the state-securing colonial conditions governing gender highlighting limitations of a liberal reconfiguring of practices, relations, and structures of governing access. This thesis argues that without ongoing critical scrutiny of the colonial power that operates within the existing approaches, the possibility of total depathologisation of gender self-designation and the realisation of positive transformation in trans health policy is politically limited. This critical engagement with trans health policy in international and national contexts contributes to continuing scholarship, activism, and healthcare practice by showing how policy can generate productive uncertainty about strategies to depathologise and disturb the operations of colonial power

Community-led sexual violence and prevention work: Utilising a Transformative Justice framework.

This paper explores community-led groups working to bring about responses to sexual assault and intimate partner violence. Three case studies are presented here to highlight the valuable work undertaken by such groups and contribute to the literature on sexual violence education and prevention. The aim is to give prominence to points of connection between those who undertake this work on a grassroots, community-led level and those within the social work profession, operating in the community welfare sector. The case studies explore how a Transformative Justice framework is utilised within community-led groups, Philly Stands Up (PSU), Transformative Justice Camp and Undercurrent. They reveal how the concept of Transformative Justice can provide both a theoretical and practice framework for sexual assault and intimate partner violence responses and prevention. Through the exploration of a Transformative Justice framework, this paper uncovers work by these groups to implement an alternative model of justice to the current structural response to sexualised violence. It includes a particular focus on the interconnected nature of community-led, anti-violence and prison abolition work. Due to the disproportionate rates of incarceration and the impact of interpersonal violence on Indigenous peoples in settler-colonial states, notably North America and Australia, this paper also includes an exploration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community and peer-led groups engaged in this work. A Transformative Justice framework, as utilised by community-led groups whose work challenges interpersonal and state violence, endeavours to transform the conditions that create, or that allow violence to happen

Thermophile-specific proteins: the gene product of aq_1292 from Aquifex aeolicus is an NTPase

BACKGROUND: To identify thermophile-specific proteins, we performed phylogenetic patterns searches of 66 completely sequenced microbial genomes. This analysis revealed a cluster of orthologous groups (COG1618) which contains a protein from every thermophile and no sequence from 52 out of 53 mesophilic genomes. Thus, COG1618 proteins belong to the group of thermophile-specific proteins (THEPs) and therefore we here designate COG1618 proteins as THEP1s. Since no THEP1 had been analyzed biochemically thus far, we characterized the gene product of aq_1292 which is THEP1 from the hyperthermophilic bacterium Aquifex aeolicus (aaTHEP1). RESULTS: aaTHEP1 was cloned in E. coli, expressed and purified to homogeneity. At a temperature optimum between 70 and 80°C, aaTHEP1 shows enzymatic activity in hydrolyzing ATP to ADP + P(i )with k(cat )= 5 × 10(-3 )s(-1 )and K(m )= 5.5 × 10(-6 )M. In addition, the enzyme exhibits GTPase activity (k(cat )= 9 × 10(-3 )s(-1 )and K(m)= 45 × 10(-6 )M). aaTHEP1 is inhibited competitively by CTP, UTP, dATP, dGTP, dCTP, and dTTP. As shown by gel filtration, aaTHEP1 in its purified state appears as a monomer. The enzyme is resistant to limited proteolysis suggesting that it consists of a single domain. Although THEP1s are annotated as "predicted nucleotide kinases" we could not confirm such an activity experimentally. CONCLUSION: Since aaTHEP1 is the first member of COG1618 that is characterized biochemically and functional information about one member of a COG may be transferred to the entire COG, we conclude that COG1618 proteins are a family of thermophilic NTPases

Effects of Experimental Malaria Infection On Migration of Yellow-rumped Warblers (Setophaga coronata)

The potential of migratory animals to spread infectious diseases depends on how infection affects movement. If infection delays or slows the speed of travel, transmission to uninfected individuals may be reduced. Whether and how malaria (Plasmodium spp.) affects bird migration has received little experimental research. I captured 40 actively-migrating Yellow-rumped Warblers (Setophaga coronata) at a migration stopover site and held them in captivity. I inoculated 25 with P. cathemerium while 15 received sham inoculations. After 12 days the birds were released. Six P. cathemerium-inoculated birds (24%) developed P. cathemerium infections after inoculation. I radio-tagged all birds, and used radio signal strength variability as an index of activity before and after release. I radiotracked birds at the release site to measure stopover duration. Experimental groups (Infected, Exposed but uninfected, Sham) did not differ in activity levels before or after release, nor in stopover duration. This research suggests that birds do not alter the migratory stopover behavior in response to avian malaria

A5_3 Sliding in Space

This paper is based on a thought experiment in which the scenario 'How long would it take a person to go down a slide from the Moon to Earth?' is addressed. After making various assumptions to simplify this experiment, the time taken was calculated to be 74 hours

A5_4 Burning Giants

In this article we aim to investigate the plausibility of using a neutron star to raise the mass ofa gas giant to the point where fusion reactions will begin to take place, creating a star. We shallalso determine if this could be used to produce additional habitable planets in our Solar Systemby this method. We nd that while a neutron star can turn Jupiter into a small star it will notproduce any new planets in the habitable zone

A5_1 Super Sonic (the Hedgehog)

In the popular game franchise Sonic The Hedgehog Sonic has several powers. For example he can move at the speed of sound, and is able to transform into Super Sonic- a gold version of himself who can move close to the speed of light[1]. In this paper we use the equations of relativity to theorise what would happen if Super Sonic was running towards, and then past a stationary observer. We take into account length contraction and time dilation as well as the velocity Sonic would have to travel at to achieve his golden colour

A5_5 How big are the planets, really?

In this paper, we investigate the discrepancies in circumference of the planets in the Solar System that arise due to relativistic length contraction caused by their angular velocities. We then compare these discrepancies with the aim of creating a new method of comparison for different celestial bodie