Contesting the Dominance of Neoliberalism: The Ideograph as a Force for Social Change

Recent scholars have challenged the notion that neoliberalism is a coherent, dominant, and monolithic ideology on the basis of its diverse, transnational intellectual origins and the varied ways it has been applied in practice across the world. Further, they call into question the usefulness of conceiving neoliberalism as an utterly hegemonic power, because such a conception precludes the possibility for any resistance or social change in the future. I use McGee’s (1980) theory of the ideograph to understand neoliberalism’s dominance and rise to power, positing that neoliberalism has ascended in the United States because it has appropriated and redefined the ideographs that are the basis of the shared American rhetorical culture. I then explore the possibilities for resistance against neoliberalism, arguing that dominant ideologies must be contested in positive ways that go beyond mere denunciation or posturing against — that is, it is not enough to be an “anti-neoliberal.” Finally, I suggest, following (Touraine, 2001), that social actors may move “beyond neoliberalism” by contesting its dominance on the level of the ideograph, seeking to (re)-define and (re)-conceptualize the values and collective commitments that establish the American people as a “public.

Role of interactions in ferrofluid thermal ratchets

Orientational fluctuations of colloidal particles with magnetic moments may be rectified with the help of external magnetic fields with suitably chosen time dependence. As a result a noise-driven rotation of particles occurs giving rise to a macroscopic torque per volume of the carrier liquid. We investigate the influence of mutual interactions between the particles on this ratchet effect by studying a model system with mean-field interactions. The stochastic dynamics may be described by a nonlinear Fokker-Planck equation for the collective orientation of the particles which we solve approximately by using the effective field method. We determine an interval for the ratio between coupling strength and noise intensity for which a self-sustained rectification of fluctuations becomes possible. The ratchet effect then operates under conditions for which it were impossible in the absence of interactions.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figure

Islamic America

After the events of September 11, 2001, this population came more into the public eye than ever before. As a native American, I have noticed a certain stigma attached to the faith by several of my peers. Being shoved into the spotlight by a small group of believers has forced the Muslim culture to adapt in a country that associates the whole with the part. In this tense and almost fearful environment, one wonders if Muslims in America truly feel that they enjoy our nation’s promised freedom of religion. I visited the Darul Arqum Islamic Center in Ames and spoke to Sal Syed about the changes that the Muslim community has undergone in the past decade

Postreplicative repair is an integral component of lagging strand DNA replication and a suppressor of replication stress

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. April 2016. Major: Biochemistry, Molecular Bio, and Biophysics. Advisor: Anja Katrin Bielinsky. 1 computer file (PDF); 267 pages.Cell division is a basic requirement for the propagation of all organisms. This process begins with a parental cell which divides, leaving two daughter cells. Prior to division, it is necessary for the parental cell to generate a precise duplicate of its genetic material via the process of DNA replication, so that each resulting daughter segregates with a full genetic complement. Errors that occur during this process are thus inherited as mutations by the daughter cells and perpetuated in each subsequent generation along that lineage. Because an estimated 10,000 trillion cell divisions occur in the average lifetime of a human being, it is imperative that this process occurs with a minimum of errors [Quammen 2008]. In the event of difficulty or error, a network of repair and checkpoint pathways has arisen to facilitate the completion of replication with a minimum of inherited mutations [Myung et al. 2001]. The high level of conservation in these replication, repair and checkpoint pathways has allowed us to utilize relatively simple model organisms, such as S. cerevisiae (budding yeast), to better understand how these processes are carried out in more complex metazoan systems. My research has focused on one such group of pathways collectively referred to as postreplicative repair or “PRR” [Chen et al. 2011]. PRR is activated in response to a variety of stressors, which cause difficulty for the replication program and mitigates their impact on genome integrity. The findings included in this dissertation expand our knowledge of stressors, which impact the usage of PRR pathways and moreover describe PRR as an integral component of lagging strand DNA replication

VEPCO Surry Power Plant Study, river biota and phytoplankton entrainment sections : progress report July 1975

This report summarizes the biological data collected from January through June 1975 in the river and phytoplankton entrainment portions of the VEPCO Surry Power Plant Study. The sampling program conducted during this period in the Hog Island area of the James River consisted of an expanded version of a study initiated in May 1969 to monitor certain aquatic communities that could be affected by the operation of the power plant. The river phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthos and fouling organism communities have been included in the past and present study designs. The phytoplankton entrainment substudy was begun in April 1975 with the objective of providing a direct assessment of the impact of passage through the power plant condensers on the abundance and species composition of the entrained algal community

Warrior Bishops: The Development of the Fighting Clergy under the Ottonians in the Tenth Century

The Ottonian Empire in Germany experienced numerous wars, invasions, and rebellions over the course of the tenth century. Because the royal family practiced an itinerant form of rule, they established an infrastructure of ecclesiastical establishments that facilitated the royal household’s movements and defended the rest of the realm. It was here that the fighting clergy, or the bishops and abbots who actually took up military command, became a crucial component of the empire’s stability and protection