Foucault Hardly Came to Africa:: Some Notes on Colonial and Post-Colonial Governmentality

Michel Foucault widmete in seiner Analyse von Machtbeziehungen der kolonialen Situation keinerlei Aufmerksamkeit. Nichtsdestoweniger eröffnete sich für eine neue Generation von Afrikahistorikern in den 1980ern mit Foucaults Konzepten von Gouvernementalität und Disziplinarmacht neue Perspektiven auf koloniale Machtverhältnisse. Sie ermöglichten vor allem, den bis dahin vorherrschenden Fokus auf den kolonialen Staat als zentralen Akteur kolonialer Herrschaft zu hinterfragen. Darüber hinaus rückten kulturelle Aspekte kolonialer Herrschaft stärker in den Vordergrund. Doch Foucaults Konzepten waren an europäischer Geschichte geschult. Die Herausbildung der politischen Rationalität, die Foucault mit Gouvernementalität beschrieben sowie der Karriere von Disziplinartechniken im Reservoir der Mächtigen fußten auf historischen Prozessen, die wenig mit kolonialer Herrschaft gemein hatten. Der Artikel fragt nach den Konsequenzen dieser Differenzen für das Konzept einer kolonialen Gouvernementalität. Dabei geht es vor allem um die räumlichen und zeitlichen Dimensionen kolonialer Herrschaft

Titanium-Anthraquinone Material as a New Design Approach for Electrodes in Aqueous Rechargeable Batteries

The need for expanded energy storage motivates material development for scalable aqueous secondary batteries. The combination of transition metals with redox-active organics represents a new approach to functional material design. Here, we detail the synthesis of titanium(IV) 1,8-dihydroxyanthraquinone (Ti(1,8-DHAQ)2) as a novel redox-active material and demonstrate its use as a negative electrode in an aqueous battery. This one-pot synthesis results in amorphous micron-scale particles with titanium binding directly to the carbonyl feature as evidenced by scanning electron microscopy and infrared spectroscopy. When assembled in a coin cell with a lithium manganese oxide positive electrode, the active material can be electrochemically cycled with a charge density of 40 mAh/g at 1.1 V. This represents a new method of creating simple and scalable electrodes using metal-organic materials for versatile energy storage applications.</div

Realized potential as neutral pH flow batteries achieve high power densities

High power density operation of redox flow batteries (RFBs) is essential for lowering system costs, but until now, only acid-based chemistries have achieved such performance, primarily due to rapid membrane proton (H+) transport. Here, we report a neutral pH RFB using the highly reducing Cr-(1,3-propylenediaminetetraacetate) (CrPDTA) complex that achieves acid-like power performance while utilizing potassium ion (K+) transport. We investigate RFB resistance components and demonstrate the high and consistent K+ conductivity of the Fumasep E-620(K) membrane. When combined with a robust bismuth electrocatalyst, this membrane enables constant voltage efficiency operation of a CrPDTA|Fe(CN)6 RFB for 200 cycles. An optimized CrPDTA|Fe(CN)6 RFB, which combines a high cell potential with a low area-specific resistance (0.46 &Omega; cm2), demonstrates a maximum discharge power density of 1.63&nbsp;W cm&minus;2 and an average discharge power density over 500 mW cm&minus;2 while maintaining 80% round-trip energy efficiency cycling, which are records for non-acid-based RFBs. &nbsp;</p

Protocol for the PACE trial: A randomised controlled trial of adaptive pacing, cognitive behaviour therapy, and graded exercise as supplements to standardised specialist medical care versus standardised specialist medical care alone for patients with the chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis or encephalopathy

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS, also called myalgic encephalomyelitis/encephalopathy or ME) is a debilitating condition with no known cause or cure. Improvement may occur with medical care and additional therapies of pacing, cognitive behavioural therapy and graded exercise therapy. The latter two therapies have been found to be efficacious in small trials, but patient organisations' surveys have reported adverse effects. Although pacing has been advocated by patient organisations, it lacks empirical support. Specialist medical care is commonly provided but its efficacy when given alone is not established. This trial compares the efficacy of the additional therapies when added to specialist medical care against specialist medical care alone.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>600 patients, who meet operationalised diagnostic criteria for CFS, will be recruited from secondary care into a randomised trial of four treatments, stratified by current comorbid depressive episode and different CFS/ME criteria. The four treatments are standardised specialist medical care either given alone, or with adaptive pacing therapy or cognitive behaviour therapy or graded exercise therapy. Supplementary therapies will involve fourteen sessions over 23 weeks and a 'booster session' at 36 weeks. Outcome will be assessed at 12, 24, and 52 weeks after randomisation. Two primary outcomes of self-rated fatigue and physical function will assess differential effects of each treatment on these measures. Secondary outcomes include adverse events and reactions, subjective measures of symptoms, mood, sleep and function and objective measures of physical activity, fitness, cost-effectiveness and cost-utility. The primary analysis will be based on intention to treat and will use logistic regression models to compare treatments. Secondary outcomes will be analysed by repeated measures analysis of variance with a linear mixed model. All analyses will allow for stratification factors. Mediators and moderators will be explored using multiple linear and logistic regression techniques with interactive terms, with the sample split into two to allow validation of the initial models. Economic analyses will incorporate sensitivity measures.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The results of the trial will provide information about the benefits and adverse effects of these treatments, their cost-effectiveness and cost-utility, the process of clinical improvement and the predictors of efficacy.</p

Sustained unresponsiveness to peanut in subjects who have completed peanut oral immunotherapy

Although peanut oral immunotherapy (OIT) has been conclusively shown to cause desensitization, it is currently unknown whether clinical protection persists after stopping therapy

Without the blanket of the land: agrarian change and biopolitics in post–Apartheid South Africa

This paper connects Marxist approaches to the agrarian political economy of South Africa with post-Marshallian and Foucauldian analyses of distributional regimes and late capitalist governmentality. Looking at South Africa’s stalled agrarian transition through the lens of biopolitics as well as class analysis can make visible otherwise disregarded connections between processes of agrarian change and broader contests about the terms of social and economic incorporation into the South African social and political order before, during and after Apartheid. This can bring a fresh sense of the broader political implications of the course of agrarian change in South Africa, and helps contextualise the enduring salience of land as a flashpoint within South Africa’s unresolved democratic transition

Low temperature polarized target for spin structure studies of nucleons at COMPASS

In presented thesis we describe concept of Deep Inelastic Scattering of leptons on nucleons in context of nucleon spin structure studies. Both polarized and unpolarized cases are discussed and concept of Transverse Momentum Dependent Parton Distribution Functions (TMD PDF) is introduced. The possibility of TMDs measurement using Semi-inclusive DIS (SIDIS) is described along with related results from COMPASS experiment. The future Drell-Yan programme at COMPASS is briefly mentioned and its importance is presented on the universality test i.e. change of sign of T-odd TMDs when measured in Drell-Yan and SIDIS. The importance of Polarized Target (PT) for spin structure studies is highlighted and principles of Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP) are given using both Solid effect and spin temperature concept. COMPASS experiment is described in many details with accent given to PT. Finally the thermal equilibrium (TE) calibration procedure is described and carried out for 2010 and 2011 physics runs at COMPASS. The average polarization measurement results from 2010 and 2011 are presented along with relaxation times. Various uncertainties of the polarization measurement are also discussed

The boma and the peripatetic ruler. Mapping colonial rule in German East Africa, 1889-1903

Historians of European colonialism in Africa sometimes tend to erase large areas of the colonial state’s territory. What they describe is much often a history of colonial rule’s main places, it is a history of towns and administrative centres, of plantations and mines, of mission stations and governmental schools. This focus comes from a notion of the colonial territory as a coherent entity, in which like in Europe the state had a continuous presence. Although the colonial state was modelled along patterns of modern nation-states in Europe, the African version differed in some important ways from its European model. Not only the colonial territory was in most cases an arbitrary construction drawn on the negotiation tables by European diplomats. The colonial state was in most cases born out of military conquest. Brought to Africa with military force, the colonial state was not a product of a local history, but an invention without roots in the culture and social world of the region. Modern states are products of a shared history of the state and its subjects. The modern state mirrors its society, and the society produces its state. For modern states their presence in everyday life is rarely a problem, they are not only present in their institutions, but, as Foucault notes, in their subjects. The dispositions of the state are socialised into the habitus of its subjects. It is thi

O-O bond formation and the transition metal chemistry of [beta]-diketiminate, siloxide, and triamide ligands

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Chemistry, 2012.In title on title-page, "[beta]" appears as the lower-case Greek letter. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references.The electrochemical splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen has been proposed as an alternative means to store electrical energy. The limiting aspect of this reaction is the oxygen forming reaction, which can be catalyzed by transition metal species with varying degrees of efficiency. This thesis examines the characteristics of oxygen bonding that complicate the 0-0 bond formation reaction, and examines ligand platforms that can stabilize high valent metal oxo intermediates. Siloxide ligands were used to generate a series of 4-coordinate Cr, Mn, Fe, and Co complexes, but these could not support the corresponding high valent oxo species. Instead, a remarkably stable 4-coordinate Crv tetrasiloxide complex was isolated. Chelating triamide ligands were explored, which might generate pseudotetrahedral metal oxo species, but complexes of various metal ions could not be reliably isolated. Planar bis-pdiketiminate (NacNac) complexes were synthesized by reaction of acetonitrile with Fe and Co mesityl species. The Co complex undergoes a ligand centered oxidation event to yield the first structurally characterized NacNac radical cation. In contrast to known redox noninnocent ligand platforms, no significant changes in C-C or C-N bond lengths are observed by X-ray crystallography. DFT calculations and the electronic and structural characterization of the oxidized and reduced Co complex confirm these conclusions.by Michael Pesek Marshak.Ph.D

Reducing Bird Strike Risks Through Insect Management at a Military Base

USDA-APHIS-Wildlife Services (WS) and the U.S. Air Force (USAF) work collaboratively to minimize bird strike risks at Air Force Bases (AFB) nationwide. At Laughlin AFB near Del Rio, Texas migratory, insectivorous birds in the aircraft operations area pose a bird strike risk to pilots and crews. The peak of bird strikes at Laughlin AFB is associated with the peaks of bird migration in the spring and fall. Noting this, WS recommended the application of carbaryl insecticide in the Laughlin AFB operational area to reduce insects and foraging opportunities for birds to reduce bird strike risks. Two trial treatments were conducted in 2006 which showed promising results. Before operational carbaryl treatments could be carried out, several procedural requirements needed to be completed. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documents were prepared by WS and completed by the USAF. To meet U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requirements for pesticide registration, a 2(ee) amendment to the label was prepared and accepted by the EPA. A carbaryl application then was conducted in April 2008. Insectivorous bird strikes were reduced by 80% compared with previous years when no treatment was applied