Representations of Identity In Three Modern Arabic Novels

Through examining the formations of identity- religious, political, secular, social, and sexual in contemporary Arabic literature in translation, one can come to better understand how certain core assumptions about identity are countered and represented through the process of identification with the self and the community. Using postcolonial and feminist sources in Anthropology, History, and Comparative Literature, This paper shows how the formation of identity (and its discourse) is constructed through the interplay of political and social factors closely related to the discursive power of colonial practices. The first novel examined is Tayeb Salih’s Seasons of Migration to the North, which deals in depth with the process of colonization and how this affects the protagonists understanding of the self. It is argued that this is due to the modernizing power of the state through attempting to create a certain type of ‘modern subject’. The second novel that examined is Sahar Khalifeh’s Wild Thorns. This novel addresses the external manifestations of colonial policies in the creation of the Israeli State. While both of the novel’s protagonists experience displacement, the analysis will elaborate how each character interacts with the issue of displacement in light of their social position generally and their community specifically. The final novel, Hanan al-Shaykh’s The Story of Zahra, illuminates how internal dispositions and external manifestations come together to complicate our understandings of the process of identification, and how war, sex, and modernity restructure aspects of the self and its relation to the community. These three novels provide an illuminating point of analysis and critique narratives attempting to simplify the complicated problem-space of (post-)colonialism, its policies, and the interactions that create subjective experiences

Internal invention, external development

The success of GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK’s) business relies on the continual identification of differentiated and innovative drugs that can be protected under patent for twenty years. Advances that can increase the number of new drugs successfully introduced to the marketplace or that can reduce the amount of time spent in the product pipeline (between identifying a potential new drug and releasing it in the marketplace) will be of great value to GSK. One way to increase the throughput of successful drugs is to increase the number of potential target compounds that enter the product pipeline. GSK has achieved this by developing a ‘high-throughput chemistry facility’, which uses advanced automation systems to perform tasks that would previously have been performed manually by chemists; this facility now plays a key role in the drug discovery process. During a three-year research project, and with a primary focus on this new facility, University College London has investigated GSK’s relationship with its suppliers of automation instrumentation. We have discovered that GSK often provides the ideas for new systems to its suppliers, who then develop the products commercially and sell them in the marketplace. Interestingly, so as to encourage continuity of the supply chain, GSK generally allows its suppliers to sell instrumentation produced from GSK ideas to GSK’s competitors. This paper is a case study investigating how GSK works with suppliers of equipment essential for its Research and Development process, and why this structure proves mutually beneficial

Sclerites and possible mouthparts of Wiwaxia from the temperate palaeolatitudes of Colombia, South America

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/let.12154The problematic mollusc Wiwaxia is perhaps the most widely distributed non-mineralized Cambrian metazoan, but has only been reported from palaeotropical latitudes. Here we describe mid Cambrian (Drumian, c. 504 Ma) sclerites and possible tooth arrays from the northern Llanos Basin, Colombia, recovered from drilled ditch cuttings by palynological processing – demonstrating that pristine material and low manipulation processing are not essential to the recovery of Small Carbonaceous Fossils. This, the first report of Wiwaxia from South America, substantially expands Wiwaxia’s geographic range into the high palaeolatitudes.We thank the two referees for their constructive comments, and Ecopetrol SA for permission to publish the wellbore material. Jean Bernard Caron, Peter Fenton, Doug Erwin and Mark Florence provided access to Burgess Shale material, which was funded in part by a Geological Society of America research grant to M.R.S. M.R.S. is supported by Clare College, Cambridge

Early detection and environmental drivers of sewage fungus outbreaks in rivers

1. Sewage effluent is a major ongoing threat to water quality and biodiversity in freshwater environments. It can cause outbreaks of sewage fungus (fungus-like bacteria which form macroscopic masses) but, until now, these were only qualitatively recorded from visual inspection, ignoring microscopic forms. 2. Here, we used an innovative method that combines machine learning, microscopy and flow cytometry, to rapidly and efficiently quantify the presence and abundance of sewage fungus in rivers. Our study involved 11 rivers with (n = 6) and without (n = 5) sewage input in England over four sampling occasions. 3. We were able to detect and enumerate the filaments before masses became visible to the naked eye and, as expected, we found a higher number of filaments downstream of sites where treated sewage was offloaded into the river. Therefore, our detection method could be used as a ‘canary in the coal mine’ for future outbreaks allowing early intervention. 4. Combining our quantitative data on filaments with data on the physical and chemical parameters of the rivers, we found that high conductivity, sulphate, nitrates and TDS were associated with the presence and proliferation of sewage fungus. This information can be extremely useful for regulatory bodies and water companies to develop mitigating strategies and action to prevent future outbreaks

Symmetries of Holographic Super-Minimal Models

We compute the asymptotic symmetry of the higher-spin supergravity theory in AdS_3 and obtain an infinite-dimensional non-linear superalgebra, which we call the super-W_infinity[lambda] algebra. According to the recently proposed supersymmetric duality between higher-spin supergravity in an AdS_3 background and the 't Hooft limit of the N=2 CP^n Kazama-Suzuki model on the boundary, this symmetry algebra should agree with the 't Hooft limit of the chiral algebra of the CFT, SW_n. We provide two nontrivial checks of the duality. By comparing the algebras, we explicitly match the lowest-spin commutation relations in the super-W_infinity[lambda] with the corresponding commutation relations in the 't Hooft limit on the CFT side. We also consider the degenerate representations of the two algebras and find that the spectra of the chiral primary fields are identical.Comment: 33 pages, references added, some errors corrected, discussions about the truncation of the shs[lambda] algebra and reobtaining the original shs[lambda] algebra from the super-W_infinity[lambda] algebra adde

Modelling the potential for local management practices to offset climate change impacts on freshwater macroinvertebrate communities

A robust understanding of the interactions between global and local anthropogenic stressors is crucial for ecosystem management in the Anthropocene. Manipulative experiments in the laboratory or in the field can be used to build knowledge about the physiological and ecological effects of stressors, but predicting the combined landscape-scale effects of global stressors such as climate change, and local stressors such as land-use change requires a different approach. Here we used water quality and hydrology process-based models of entire river catchments in combination with a large biomonitoring dataset to predict the responses of macroinvertebrate communities under different climate change and land-use change scenarios. Using the River Thames in the U.K. as a model system, we predicted changes in water quality (temperature, flow, phosphorus [P], nitrogen, dissolved oxygen [DO]) and subsequent changes in macroinvertebrate communities for two climate change scenarios, individually and in combination with intensified agriculture and reduced P pollution (representing improved wastewater treatment). Our models predicted that water-quality changes associated with climate change may not influence total species richness, but that community composition will shift towards more pollution-tolerant and common taxa based on responses of community indices and taxon-specific responses. We also found that the negative impacts of climate change on water quality (e.g., increased P concentration, decreased DO concentration) accumulate through the catchment, but that local land-use practices influencing P dynamics can modify this trend. Furthermore, although the intensified agriculture scenario was predicted to have minimal impacts on macroinvertebrate communities (a result potentially related to shifting baselines as the Thames is already heavily polluted), we found that reduced P pollution resulting from improved wastewater treatment was able to mostly offset the negative impacts of climate change on macroinvertebrate communities. Our results demonstrate that using process-based models to study networks of interacting stressors at a landscape scale can provide useful insights into the ecological impacts of anthropogenic global change, and adds support to the idea that management of local stressors has the potential to mitigate some of the impacts of climate change on ecosystems

Vertical zonation of testate amoebae in the Elatia Mires, northern Greece : palaeoecological evidence for a wetland response to recent climate change or autogenic processes?

The Elatia Mires of northern Greece are unique ecosystems of high conservation value. The mires are climatically marginal and may be sensitive to changing hydroclimate, while northern Greece has experienced a significant increase in aridity since the late twentieth century. To investigate the impact of recent climatic change on the hydrology of the mires, the palaeoecological record was investigated from three near-surface monoliths extracted from two sites. Testate amoebae were analysed as sensitive indicators of hydrology. Results were interpreted using transfer function models to provide quantitative reconstructions of changing water table depth and pH. AMS radiocarbon dates and 210Pb suggest the peats were deposited within the last c. 50 years, but do not allow a secure chronology to be established. Results from all three profiles show a distinct shift towards a more xerophilic community particularly noted by increases in Euglypha species. Transfer function results infer a distinct lowering of water tables in this period. A hydrological response to recent climate change is a tenable hypothesis to explain this change; however other possible explanations include selective test decay, vertical zonation of living amoebae, ombrotrophication and local hydrological change. It is suggested that a peatland response to climatic change is the most probable hypothesis, showing the sensitivity of marginal peatlands to recent climatic change

Hepatic artery aneurysm repair: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Hepatic artery aneurysms remain a clinically significant entity. Their incidence continues to rise slowly and mortality from spontaneous rupture is high. Repair is recommended in those aneurysms greater than 2 cm in diameter. It is not surprising that vascular comorbidities, such as ischaemic heart disease, are common in surgical patients, particularly those with arterial aneurysms such as these. The decision of when to operate on patients who require urgent surgery despite having recently suffered an acute coronary syndrome remains somewhat of a grey and controversial area. We discuss the role of delayed surgery and postoperative followup of this vascular problem.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 58-year-old man was admitted with a 5.5 cm hepatic artery aneurysm. The aneurysm was asymptomatic and was an incidental finding as a result of an abdominal computed tomography scan to investigate an episode of haemoptysis (Figure <figr fid="F1">1</figr>). Three weeks prior to admission, the patient had suffered a large inferior myocardial infarction and was treated by thrombolysis and primary coronary angioplasty. Angiographic assessment revealed a large aneurysm of the common hepatic artery involving the origins of the hepatic, gastroduodenal, left and right gastric arteries and the splenic artery (Figures <figr fid="F2">2</figr> and <figr fid="F3">3</figr>). Endovascular treatment was not considered feasible and immediate surgery was too high-risk in the early post-infarction period. Therefore, surgery was delayed for 3 months when aneurysm repair with reconstruction of the hepatic artery was successfully performed. Graft patency was confirmed with the aid of an abdominal arterial duplex. Plasma levels of conventional liver function enzymes and of alpha-glutathione-<it>S</it>-transferase were within normal limits. This was used to assess the extent of any hepatocellular damage perioperatively. The patient made a good recovery and was well at his routine outpatient check-ups.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>There is no significant difference in cardiac risk in patients who have undergone vascular surgery within 6 months of a myocardial infarction compared with those who have had the operation in the 6 to12 month time frame. Use of alpha-glutathione-<it>S</it>-transferase gives an indication of the immediate state of hepatic function and should be used in addition to traditional liver function tests to monitor hepatic function postoperatively.</p