Struggles for Gender Equality Against the Fundamentalist Regime in the Handmaid’s Tale Novel (1985): A Feminist Perspective

This research emphasizes the struggles for gender equality against the fundamentalist regime in The Handmaid's Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood. The theory used in this study is the perspective of Feminism and Marxism. This study aims to find indicators in the struggles for gender equality, how the struggles for gender equality are depicted in the novel, and the reason for the author in determining the issues of gender equality needed in the novel. In completing her research, the author uses two data sources namely primary and secondary data sources. The primary data is Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale novel and the secondary data is journal articles, publication articles, and several internet sites that are needed as additional information in this study. There are three results of the study: 1) found six indicators that influenced the struggle for gender equality; breaking the hierarchy, opposing subjugation, obtaining freedom of speech and education, revoking the union rights, opposing individual rights violation, and opposing homosexual orientation. 2) in composing her novel, the author conveyed some issues through the descriptions of characters, events, place settings, and language styles. 3) the author addresses the topic of gender equality based on his reflection on women's rights and the history of women's rights violation in the United States in the 1980s

Synthesis and characterization of solid SiO2/P2O5/ZrO2-PVP membrane for fuel cell applications

A novel polymer network membrane composed by SiO2/P2O5­/ZrO2-PVP was prepared to improve the proton conductivity of PVP membrane. Its physico-chemical properties were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), and solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). XRD data shows that the crystallinity increases with increase in concentration of SiO2 andZrO2. Our results indicate the formation and interconnection of ion clusters. It is observed that this new membrane exhibits better proton conductivity as compared to the pristine membrane making them suitable for fuel cell applications

Constraints on the uncertainties of entangled symmetric qubits

We derive necessary and sufficient inseparability conditions imposed on the variance matrix of symmetric qubits. These constraints are identified by examining a structural parallelism between continuous variable states and two qubit states. Pairwise entangled symmetric multiqubit states are shown here to obey these constraints. We also bring out an elegant local invariant structure exhibited by our constraints.Comment: 5 pages, REVTEX, Improved presentation; Theorem on neccessary and sufficient condition included; To appear in Phys. Lett.

Expression of Angiopoietin 2 in ovarian follicles of crossbred Malabari goat

Angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2) is a local ovarian growth factor belonging to the angiopoietin/Tie (tyrosine kinase with Ig and EGF homology domains) signalling pathway, one of the main pathways involved in ovarian follicular angiogenesis. The main objective of this study is to assess the differential protein expression of Ang-2 in the developmental phases of ovarian follicles of crossbred Malabari goats employing an immunohistochemical technique. Ang-2 protein expression was found in all developmental phases of ovarian follicles, including primordial, primary, small, and large antral ovarian follicles. Ang-2 was found in the granulosa cells, theca interna cells, follicular fluid (granulosa cells in the FF), endothelial cells of capillaries and germinal epithelium of the goat ovaries. The Quantitative Method-Percentage Positivity of Ang-2 expression revealed that it was higher in the initial stages of ovarian follicular development and decreased with later stages of follicular development in cross-bred Malabari goats. Moreover, the protein expression of Ang2 was found to be higher in granulosa cells (GC) than in theca interna (TI) cells of antral follicles as evident from the higher staining intensity in GC cells compared to TI cells. It is therefore concluded that the Ang-2 protein expression in ovarian follicular cells decreased with an increase in follicle size and development and based on the combined scores for immunostaining (staining intensity and the number of positive staining cells), the Ang-2 was found to be expressed more in the granulosa cell layer compared to the theca interna cells of the antral follicle in crossbred Malabari goats

Association of C-reactive protein with bacterial and respiratory syncytial virus-associated pneumonia among children aged <5 years in the PERCH study

Background. Lack of a gold standard for identifying bacterial and viral etiologies of pneumonia has limited evaluation of C-reactive protein (CRP) for identifying bacterial pneumonia. We evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of CRP for identifying bacterial vs respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) pneumonia in the Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) multicenter case-control study. Methods. We measured serum CRP levels in cases with World Health Organization-defined severe or very severe pneumonia and a subset of community controls. We evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of elevated CRP for "confirmed" bacterial pneumonia (positive blood culture or positive lung aspirate or pleural fluid culture or polymerase chain reaction [PCR]) compared to "RSV pneumonia" (nasopharyngeal/oropharyngeal or induced sputum PCR-positive without confirmed/suspected bacterial pneumonia). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were constructed to assess the performance of elevated CRP in distinguishing these cases. Results. Among 601 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-negative tested controls, 3% had CRP ≥40 mg/L. Among 119 HIVnegative cases with confirmed bacterial pneumonia, 77% had CRP ≥40 mg/L compared with 17% of 556 RSV pneumonia cases. The ROC analysis produced an area under the curve of 0.87, indicating very good discrimination; a cut-point of 37.1 mg/L best discriminated confirmed bacterial pneumonia (sensitivity 77%) from RSV pneumonia (specificity 82%). CRP ≥100 mg/L substantially improved specificity over CRP ≥40 mg/L, though at a loss to sensitivity. Conclusions. Elevated CRP was positively associated with confirmed bacterial pneumonia and negatively associated with RSV pneumonia in PERCH. CRP may be useful for distinguishing bacterial from RSV-associated pneumonia, although its role in discriminating against other respiratory viral-associated pneumonia needs further study

Seed as an alternative source of DNA for molecular research of inaccessible wild Musa species.

Most wild species and wild relatives of banana (Musa spp.) are found in forests and are thus relatively inaccessible. Their inability to establish in places different from their natural habitats further complicates the use of such wild species for routine molecular research. The present study was therefore undertaken to evaluate seeds as an alternative source of DNA for conservation in comparison with the cigar leaf. Usefulness of seed as a major genetic tool for conservation of seeded wild banana germplasm, standardisation of the stage of seed maturity for DNA extraction and standardisation of the seed DNA extraction protocol were studied. The accessibility of seed DNA as an alternative strategy for leaf DNA was confirmed using molecular markers (RAPD and IRAP). Among different methods of DNA extraction, a modified protocol with cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) was found to be the best. Partially mature seeds with 70-80% maturity were found to be the best stage for DNA extraction compared to 40-50% and 100% maturity. Removal of the seed coat improved the quality of DNA extracted. Uniformity of seed and leaf DNA was confirmed by using 80 random primers and 10 IRAP primers. The paper tries to analyse the extent of deviation between seed and leaf DNA and possible reasons in view of the breeding behaviour of wild species

Local invariants and pairwise entanglement in symmetric multiqubit system

Pairwise entanglement properties of a symmetric multi-qubit system are analyzed through a complete set of two-qubit local invariants. Collective features of entanglement, such as spin squeezing, are expressed in terms of invariants and a classification scheme for pairwise entanglement is proposed. The invariant criteria given here are shown to be related to the recently proposed (Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 120502 (2005)) generalized spin squeezing inequalities for pairwise entanglement in symmetric multi-qubit states. © World Scientific Publishing Company

Non-local properties of a symmetric two-qubit system

Non-local properties of symmetric two-qubit states are quantified in terms of a complete set of entanglement invariants. We prove that negative values of some of the invariants are signatures of quantum entanglement. This leads us to identify sufficient conditions for non-separability in terms of entanglement invariants. Non-local properties of two-qubit states extracted from (i) the Dicke state, (ii) a state generated by a one-axis twisting Hamiltonian, and (iii) a one-dimensional Ising chain with nearest neighbour interaction are analysed in terms of the invariants characterizing them. © 2005 IOP Publishing Ltd