The obscure subject: working-class masculine identity under neoliberalism in three British novels (1985-2009)

This thesis examines the socio-political engagements with concepts of masculine working class identity in three British novels written between 1985 and 2009 by James Kelman, Magnus Mills and Monica Ali. It argues that the three primary texts each differently explore a similar conceptualization of masculine identity tied to forms of industrial work. With reference to Jacques Rancière’s writings, this thesis applies the interrelated concepts of ‘politics’, ‘police’ and ‘radical equality’ to the primary texts in an attempt to consider why and in what ways British novels produced during the neoliberal era represent and explore such an anachronistic masculine working-class identity. To aid that discussion, the thesis contemplates Rancière’s critique of the concept of the proletariat and considers the historical development in Britain of the masculine ‘worker’ persona in order to foreground my central argument that the protagonists in each text represent an obscure subject resisting the reach of the proletariat and worker identities, and whose very obscurity enables the different engagements played out within each text. This thesis aims to emphasize the importance for literature studies to reconsider the figure of the proletariat-styled ‘workingman’ in contemporary literature for rethinking politics within an era shaped by advanced neoliberal capitalism

Model Cards for Model Reporting

Trained machine learning models are increasingly used to perform high-impact tasks in areas such as law enforcement, medicine, education, and employment. In order to clarify the intended use cases of machine learning models and minimize their usage in contexts for which they are not well suited, we recommend that released models be accompanied by documentation detailing their performance characteristics. In this paper, we propose a framework that we call model cards, to encourage such transparent model reporting. Model cards are short documents accompanying trained machine learning models that provide benchmarked evaluation in a variety of conditions, such as across different cultural, demographic, or phenotypic groups (e.g., race, geographic location, sex, Fitzpatrick skin type) and intersectional groups (e.g., age and race, or sex and Fitzpatrick skin type) that are relevant to the intended application domains. Model cards also disclose the context in which models are intended to be used, details of the performance evaluation procedures, and other relevant information. While we focus primarily on human-centered machine learning models in the application fields of computer vision and natural language processing, this framework can be used to document any trained machine learning model. To solidify the concept, we provide cards for two supervised models: One trained to detect smiling faces in images, and one trained to detect toxic comments in text. We propose model cards as a step towards the responsible democratization of machine learning and related AI technology, increasing transparency into how well AI technology works. We hope this work encourages those releasing trained machine learning models to accompany model releases with similar detailed evaluation numbers and other relevant documentation

The impact of NFT profile pictures within social network communities

This paper presents an analysis of the role of social media, specifically Twitter, in the context of non-fungible tokens, better known as NFTs. Such emerging technology framing the creation and exchange of digital object, started years ago with early projects such as "CryptoPunks" and since early 2021, has received an increasing interest by a community of people creating, buying, selling NFT's and by the media reporting to the general public. In this work it is shown how the landscape of one class of projects, specifically those used as social media profile pictures, has become mainstream with leading projects such as "Bored Ape Yacht Club", "Cool Cats" and "Doodles". This work illustrates how heterogeneous data was collected from the Ethereum blockchain and Twitter and then analysed using algorithms and state-of-art metrics related to graphs. The initial results show that from a social network perspective, the collections of most popular NFTs can be considered as a single community around NFTs. Thus, while each project has its own value and volume of exchange, on a social level all of them are primarily influenced by the evolution of values and trades of "Bored Ape Yacht Club" collection.Comment: In Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Information Technology for Social Good (GoodIT'22), September 07--09, 2022, Cypru

The impact of NFT profile pictures within social network communities

This paper presents an analysis of the role of social media, specifically Twitter, in the context of non-fungible tokens, better known as NFTs. Such emerging technology framing the creation and exchange of digital object, started years ago with early projects such as ”CryptoPunks” and since early 2021, has received an increasing interest by a community of people creating, buying, selling NFTs and by the media reporting to the general public. In this work it is shown how the landscape of one class of projects, specifically those used as social media profile pictures, has become mainstream with leading projects such as ”Bored Ape Yacht Club”, ”Cool Cats” and ”Doodles”. This work illustrates how heterogeneous data was collected from the Ethereum blockchain and Twitter and then analysed using algorithms and state-of-art metrics related to graphs. The initial results show that from a social network perspective, the collections of most popular NFTs can be considered as a single community around NFTs. Thus, while each project has its own value and volume of exchange, on a social level all of them are primarily influenced by the evolution of values and trades of ”Bored Ape Yacht Club” collection

A multi-stage genome-wide association study of bladder cancer identifies multiple susceptibility loci.

We conducted a multi-stage, genome-wide association study of bladder cancer with a primary scan of 591,637 SNPs in 3,532 affected individuals (cases) and 5,120 controls of European descent from five studies followed by a replication strategy, which included 8,382 cases and 48,275 controls from 16 studies. In a combined analysis, we identified three new regions associated with bladder cancer on chromosomes 22q13.1, 19q12 and 2q37.1: rs1014971, (P = 8 × 10⁻¹²) maps to a non-genic region of chromosome 22q13.1, rs8102137 (P = 2 × 10⁻¹¹) on 19q12 maps to CCNE1 and rs11892031 (P = 1 × 10⁻⁷) maps to the UGT1A cluster on 2q37.1. We confirmed four previously identified genome-wide associations on chromosomes 3q28, 4p16.3, 8q24.21 and 8q24.3, validated previous candidate associations for the GSTM1 deletion (P = 4 × 10⁻¹¹) and a tag SNP for NAT2 acetylation status (P = 4 × 10⁻¹¹), and found interactions with smoking in both regions. Our findings on common variants associated with bladder cancer risk should provide new insights into the mechanisms of carcinogenesis

A multi-stage genome-wide association study of bladder cancer identifies multiple susceptibility loci.

We conducted a multi-stage, genome-wide association study of bladder cancer with a primary scan of 591,637 SNPs in 3,532 affected individuals (cases) and 5,120 controls of European descent from five studies followed by a replication strategy, which included 8,382 cases and 48,275 controls from 16 studies. In a combined analysis, we identified three new regions associated with bladder cancer on chromosomes 22q13.1, 19q12 and 2q37.1: rs1014971, (P = 8 × 10⁻¹²) maps to a non-genic region of chromosome 22q13.1, rs8102137 (P = 2 × 10⁻¹¹) on 19q12 maps to CCNE1 and rs11892031 (P = 1 × 10⁻⁷) maps to the UGT1A cluster on 2q37.1. We confirmed four previously identified genome-wide associations on chromosomes 3q28, 4p16.3, 8q24.21 and 8q24.3, validated previous candidate associations for the GSTM1 deletion (P = 4 × 10⁻¹¹) and a tag SNP for NAT2 acetylation status (P = 4 × 10⁻¹¹), and found interactions with smoking in both regions. Our findings on common variants associated with bladder cancer risk should provide new insights into the mechanisms of carcinogenesis

Imagining the highway:Anticipating infrastructural and environmental change in Belize

This article examines the social and political, as well physical, construction of infrastructure, by attending to the implications of a highway yet to be built. In southern Belize, where the development of rural road networks figures strongly in historical narratives of political and environmental change, the recent paving of a major domestic highway has had distinctive implications for livelihoods and land rights among the predominantly Maya population of rural Toledo district. At the time of research, a plan for a new paved highway to the Guatemalan border animated longstanding debates over territoriality, environment and development, even as the details remained elusive. Bringing political ecology into conversation with attention to the perception of sensory environments, and the affective power of anticipation, I argue for extending anthropological conversations about infrastructure to encompass the meanings and consequences of imagined infrastructures for the ways people encounter, experience and enact social and environmental change

Neutrophils Reduce the Parasite Burden in Leishmania (Leishmania) amazonensis-Infected Macrophages

Background: Studies on the role of neutrophils in Leishmania infection were mainly performed with L. (L) major, whereas less information is available for L. (L) amazonensis. Previous results from our laboratory showed a large infiltrate of neutrophils in the site of infection in a mouse strain resistant to L. (L.) amazonensis (C3H/HePas). in contrast, the susceptible strain (BALB/c) displayed a predominance of macrophages harboring a high number of amastigotes and very few neutrophils. These findings led us to investigate the interaction of inflammatory neutrophils with L. (L.) amazonensis-infected macrophages in vitro.Methodology/Principal Findings: Mouse peritoneal macrophages infected with L. (L.) amazonensis were co-cultured with inflammatory neutrophils, and after four days, the infection was quantified microscopically. Data are representative of three experiments with similar results. the main findings were 1) intracellular parasites were efficiently destroyed in the co-cultures; 2) the leishmanicidal effect was similar when cells were obtained from mouse strains resistant (C3H/HePas) or susceptible (BALB/c) to L. (L.) amazonensis; 3) parasite destruction did not require contact between infected macrophages and neutrophils; 4) tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), neutrophil elastase and platelet activating factor (PAF) were involved with the leishmanicidal activity, and 5) destruction of the parasites did not depend on generation of oxygen or nitrogen radicals, indicating that parasite clearance did not involve the classical pathway of macrophage activation by TNF-alpha, as reported for other Leishmania species.Conclusions/Significance: the present results provide evidence that neutrophils in concert with macrophages play a previously unrecognized leishmanicidal effect on L. (L.) amazonensis. We believe these findings may help to understand the mechanisms involved in innate immunity in cutaneous infection by this Leishmania species.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Microbiol Imunol & Parasitol, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Microbiol Imunol & Parasitol, São Paulo, BrazilWeb of Scienc