259 research outputs found
A Beating Worse Than Death: Imagining and Contesting Violence in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
Between 1995 and 2005, it is conservatively estimated that over 3,600
migrants died while trying to cross clandestinely into the United States
from Mexico. Unsanctioned crossings of the U.S.-Mexico boundary have long been dangerous. But the number of deaths has increased significantly over the last several years. Despite the large and rapidly growing death toll, these fatalities have received little critical public scrutiny--especially
when compared with other acts of violence involving unauthorized immigrants and state authorities. In trying to ascertain why, this paper compares and contrasts the reaction to two incidents in southern California in early April 1996: the beating of two migrants by police officers, and the deaths of several migrants killed while fleeing the U.S. Border Patrol. This paper argues that the reasons for the unevenness in terms of response relate to hegemonic and interrelated notions regarding national territory, the "illegal" immigrant, and violence. These assumptions reflect and reproduce particular notions of security and rights that conflict with those of
migrant, and thus make it difficult to perceive and challenge the factors
ultimately responsible for the deaths
A Time to Die: The « American Way of Life » in the Anthropocene
Nous vivons Ă une Ă©poque de multiples crises Ă©cologiques qui se chevauchent et menacent les fondements mĂȘmes sur lesquels repose le monde contemporain. Cet article affirme que la source de ces crises est ce que nous pourrions appeler le « mode de vie amĂ©ricain ». Ce mode de vie est Ă©troitement liĂ© Ă des niveaux Ă©levĂ©s de consommation et au consumĂ©risme, ainsi quâĂ une forme particuliĂšre de lâĂ©conomie politique Ă©troitement associĂ©e aux Ătats-Unis. Or, ce mode de vie et le pouvoir politico- Ă©conomique et militaire qui le permet et le soutient sâĂ©tend bien au-delĂ des limites territoriales des ĂtatsâUnis. Câest parce quâils sont insĂ©rĂ©s dans une constellation globale de relations socioâgĂ©ographique, câest aussi parce que des populations en dehors des Ătats-Unis, membres de ce que nous pourrions envisager comme une classe Ă©cologiquement privilĂ©giĂ©e de la planĂšte, a adoptĂ© et mis en pratique les niveaux Ă©levĂ©s de consommation et le consumĂ©risme qui reflĂštent et reproduisent le style de vie "amĂ©ricain" . Il sâagit dâun mode de vie fondĂ© sur le dysâĂ©cologisme : lâappropriation dâune part insoutenable et socialement injuste des ressources de la biosphĂšre et, en corollaire, dâune distribution trĂšs inĂ©gale des conditions de vie et de mort Ă travers la planĂšte. Ainsi, tandis que le « mode de vie amĂ©ricain » bĂ©nĂ©ficie certainement Ă beaucoup, il contribue Ă la mort prĂ©maturĂ©e de beaucoup plus dâhabitants de la Terre. Il est donc insoutenable Ă la fois dâun point de vue Ă©cologique et en termes de justice socio-spatiale. Pour cette raison, et dâautres, selon le propos de cet article, le « mode de vie amĂ©ricain » doit ĂȘtre mis Ă mort.We live in a time of multiple, overlapping ecological crises, ones that threaten the very foundations upon which the contemporary world sits. This article asserts that the source of these crises is what we might call the âAmerican way of life.â This way of life is tightly linked to high levels of consumption and consumerism, as well as to a particular form of political economy closely associated with the United States. Yet the way of life and the political-economic and military power that enables and upholds it go far beyond U.S. territorial boundaries. This is because they are embedded in a global constellation of socio-geographical relations; it is also because populations beyond the United States, members of what we might consider the planetâs ecologically privileged class, embrace and practice the high levels of consumption and consumerism that reflect and reproduce the âAmericanâ lifestyle. It is a lifestyle predicated on dysâecologism: the appropriation of an unsustainable and socially unjust share of the biosphereâs resources and, relatedly, the grossly unequal allocation of life and death circumstances across the planet. Thus, while the âAmerican way of lifeâ certainly benefits many, it contributes to the premature death of many more of the Earthâs denizens. It is, therefore, unsustainable in both an ecological sense and a socio-spatial justice one as well. For this reason and more, the article argues, the âAmerican way of lifeâ must be made to die
Phylogenetic simulation of promoter evolution: estimation and modeling of binding site turnover events and assessment of their impact on alignment tools
Phylogenetic simulation of promoter evolution were used to analyze functional site turnover in regulatory sequences
Smart Borders or a Humane World?
On January 20, 2021, his first day in office, President Biden issued an executive order pausing the remaining construction of the southern border wall initiated during the Trump administration. Soon after, the White House sent a bill to Congress, the US Citizenship Act of 2021, calling for the deployment of "smart technology" to "manage and secure the southern border."This report delves into the rhetoric of "smart borders" to explore their ties to a broad regime of border policing and exclusion that greatly harms migrants and refugees who either seek or already make their home in the United States. Investment in an approach centered on border and immigrant policing, it argues, is incompatible with the realization of a just and humane world.The report concludes by arguing that we must move beyond a narrow debate limited to "hard" versus "smart" borders toward a discussion of how we can move toward a world where all people have the support needed to lead healthy, secure, and vibrant lives. A just border policy would ask questions such as: How do we help create conditions that allow people to stay in the places they call home, and to thrive wherever they reside? When people do have to move, how can we ensure they are able to do so safely? When we take these questions as our starting point, we realize that it is not enough to fix a "broken" system. Rather, we need to reimagine the system entirely
Utilization of Genomic Signatures to Identify Phenotype-Specific Drugs
Genetic and genomic studies highlight the substantial complexity and heterogeneity of human cancers and emphasize the general lack of therapeutics that can match this complexity. With the goal of expanding opportunities for drug discovery, we describe an approach that makes use of a phenotype-based screen combined with the use of multiple cancer cell lines. In particular, we have used the NCI-60 cancer cell line panel that includes drug sensitivity measures for over 40,000 compounds assayed on 59 independent cells lines. Targets are cancer-relevant phenotypes represented as gene expression signatures that are used to identify cells within the NCI-60 panel reflecting the signature phenotype and then connect to compounds that are selectively active against those cells. As a proof-of-concept, we show that this strategy effectively identifies compounds with selectivity to the RAS or PI3K pathways. We have then extended this strategy to identify compounds that have activity towards cells exhibiting the basal phenotype of breast cancer, a clinically-important breast cancer characterized as ER-, PR-, and Her2- that lacks viable therapeutic options. One of these compounds, Simvastatin, has previously been shown to inhibit breast cancer cell growth in vitro and importantly, has been associated with a reduction in ER-, PR- breast cancer in a clinical study. We suggest that this approach provides a novel strategy towards identification of therapeutic agents based on clinically relevant phenotypes that can augment the conventional strategies of target-based screens
Origin of bistability underlying mammalian cell cycle entry
Mammalian cell cycle entry is controlled at the restriction point by a bistable and resettable switch, which is shown to emerge from a minimal gene circuit containing a mutual-inhibition feedback loop between Rb and E2F modules, coupled with a feed-forward loop between Myc and E2F modules
Migration and Mortality: Social Death, Dispossession, and Survival in the Americas
This panel presents research from the new edited volume Migration and Mortality (edited by Longazel and Hallett, Temple University Press, 2021). Death threatens migrants physically during perilous border crossings between Central and North America, but many also experience legal, social, and economic mortality. Rooted in histories of colonialism and conquest, exclusionary policies and practices deliberately take aim at racialized, dispossessed people in transit. Once in the new land, migrants endure a web of systems across every facet of their worldâwork, home, healthcare, culture, justiceâthat strips them of their personhood, denies them resources, and creates additional obstacles that deprive them of their ability to live fully. As laws and policies create ripe conditions for the further extraction of money, resources, and labor power from the dispossessed, the contributors to Migration and Mortality examine immigration policies as not only restrictive, but extractive. The work presented denounces the violence of such policies and critiques the inadequacy of current human rights protections, while nonetheless highlighting the power of migrantsâ collective resistance and resilience. The case studies and theoretical interventions presented in this panel explore the complicity of mainstream human rights discourses with global apartheid and examine the limitations of liberalism and minimal humanitarianism, as well as describe the oppressive system itself from points all along the migrant trail from Central America north. Ultimately, these examples of oppression and survival contribute to understanding contemporary movements for life and justice in the Americas
An integrative approach to characterize disease-specific pathways and their coordination: a case study in cancer
BACKGROUND: The most common application of microarray technology in disease research is to identify genes differentially expressed in disease versus normal tissues. However, it is known that, in complex diseases, phenotypes are determined not only by genes, but also by the underlying structure of genetic networks. Often, it is the interaction of many genes that causes phenotypic variations. RESULTS: In this work, using cancer as an example, we develop graph-based methods to integrate multiple microarray datasets to discover disease-related co-expression network modules. We propose an unsupervised method that take into account both co-expression dynamics and network topological information to simultaneously infer network modules and phenotype conditions in which they are activated or de-activated. Using our method, we have discovered network modules specific to cancer or subtypes of cancers. Many of these modules are consistent with or supported by their functional annotations or their previously known involvement in cancer. In particular, we identified a module that is predominately activated in breast cancer and is involved in tumor suppression. While individual components of this module have been suggested to be associated with tumor suppression, their coordinated function has never been elucidated. Here by adopting a network perspective, we have identified their interrelationships and, particularly, a hub gene PDGFRL that may play an important role in this tumor suppressor network. CONCLUSION: Using a network-based approach, our method provides new insights into the complex cellular mechanisms that characterize cancer and cancer subtypes. By incorporating co-expression dynamics information, our approach can not only extract more functionally homogeneous modules than those based solely on network topology, but also reveal pathway coordination beyond co-expression
The Grizzly, April 19, 1985
Ursinus Greek Week \u2785 is Here âą Discussion Prompts Student Response âą Meistersingers to Give Two Concerts âą Students in Politics âą Letters: Kane Compliments Students; Rape Joke Offends âą A Classic Professor of the Classics âą Final Exam Schedule âą Bears Hit Some Hard Times âą Lacrosse Team Has Mediocre Week âą Trackmen Continue Streak âą Legacy of the Jam Lives On âą Evening School to Offer Four Workshops âą Shorts: Fantasy Weekend; Library auction; Friends\u27 Book Salehttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1140/thumbnail.jp
The Grizzly, September 28, 1984
Limerick: Nuclear Power Comes to Montgomery County âą Communication Arts\u27 Newest Member âą News of Yesteryear: Is There a Ghost in UC\u27s Haunted Hall? âą Shorts: PA German Studies; Political Ad Forum; Appointment âą Soccer Rebounds From Loss to Drexel âą X-Country Competes in Invitational âą Hockey Player Named to US Squad âą Pro Football Wrap-Up âą Grizzlies Lose to W. Marylandhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1122/thumbnail.jp
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