Doing Justice to Justice? Entanglements with Hegemony and Transitional Justice

Transitional justice is affected by the moment it emerged in the international system, the post-Cold War era. Its form was distorted by the international context into which it was born: the dissolution of the bipolar Cold War political order, the triumph of the United States as the world’s sole hegemon, and the cascading wave of liberalization that crashed across the globe. Transitional justice was shaped by this political moment, as it absorbed important tenets of liberal internationalism. Transitional justice also helped shape this political moment, as it became a solution to the problem that illiberal non-democratic, conflicted states pose to the success of the liberal internationalist vision. The result is that considerations in transitional justice that should have intrinsic merit, including the ‘local,’ the ‘victim’ and indeed, ‘justice’, become instrumentalized in the service of this overarching liberal social project. Ultimately, transitional justice fails to realize its emancipatory potential

Multi-Objective Flexible Job Shop Scheduling Using Genetic Algorithms

Flexible Job Shop Scheduling is an important problem in the fields of combinatorial optimization and production management. This research addresses multi-objective flexible job shop scheduling problem with the objective of simultaneous minimization of: (1) makespan, (2) workload of the most loaded machine, and (3) total workload. A general-purpose, domain independent genetic algorithm implemented in a spreadsheet environment is proposed for the flexible job shop. Spreadsheet functions are used to develop the shop model. Performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with heuristic algorithms already reported in the literature. Simulation experiments demonstrated that the proposed methodology can achieve solutions that are comparable to previous approaches in terms of solution quality and computational time. Flexible job shop models presented herein are easily customizable to cater for different objective functions without changing the basic genetic algorithm routine or the spreadsheet model. Experimental analysis demonstrates the robustness, simplicity, and general-purpose nature of the proposed approach

Carnitine deficiency and oxidative stress provoke cardiotoxicity in an ifosfamide-induced Fanconi Syndrome rat model

In addition to hemorrhagic cystitis, Fanconi Syndrome is a serious clinical side effect during ifosfamide (IFO) therapy. Fanconi syndrome is a generalized dysfunction of the proximal tubule which is characterized by excessive urinary excretion of glucose, phosphate, bicarbonate, amino acids and other solutes excreted by this segment of the nephron including L-carnitine. Carnitine is essential cofactor for β-oxidation of long-chain fatty acids in the myocardium. IFO therapy is associated with increased urinary carnitine excretion with subsequent secondary deficiency of the molecule. Cardiac abnormalities in IFO-treated cancer patients were reported as isolated clinical cases. This study examined whether carnitine deficiency and oxidative stress, secondary to Fanconi Syndrome, provoke IFO-induced cardiomyopathy as well as exploring if carnitine supplementation using Propionyl-L-carnitine (PLC) could offer protection against this toxicity. In the current study, an animal model of carnitine deficiency was developed in rats by D-carnitine-mildronate treatment Adult male Wistar albino rats were assigned to one of six treatment groups: the first three groups were injected intraperitoneally with normal saline, D-carnitine (DC, 250 mg/kg/day) combined with mildronate (MD, 200 mg/kg/day) and PLC (250 mg/kg/day), respectively, for 10 successive days. The 4th, 5th and 6th groups were injected with the same doses of normal saline, DC-MD and PLC, respectively for 5 successive days before and 5 days concomitant with IFO (50 mg/kg/day). IFO significantly increased serum creatinine, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), urinary carnitine excretion and clearance, creatine phosphokinase isoenzyme (CK-MB), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), intramitochondrial acetyl-CoA/CoA-SH and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) in cardiac tissues and significantly decreased adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and total carnitine and reduced glutathione (GSH) content in cardiac tissues. In carnitine-depleted rats, IFO induced dramatic increase in serum creatinine, BUN, CK-MB, LDH, carnitine clearance and intramitochondrial acetyl-CoA/CoA-SH, as well as progressive reduction in total carnitine and ATP in cardiac tissues. Interestingly, PLC supplementation completely reversed the biochemical changes-induced by IFO to the control values. In conclusion, data from the present study suggest that: Carnitine deficiency and oxidative stress, secondary to Fanconi Syndrome, constitute risk factors and should be viewed as mechanisms during development of IFO-induced cardiotoxicity. Carnitine supplementation, using PLC, prevents the development of IFO-induced cardiotoxicity through antioxidant signalling and improving mitochondrial function

Evaluation of low-intensity laser radiation on stimulating the cholesterol degrading activity: Part I. Microorganisms isolated from cholesterol-rich materials

AbstractA survey was performed to isolate bacteria and fungi from cholesterol-rich sources including chicken liver, turkey giblets, salmon, lamb, egg yolk, beef brain and shrimps. A total of 34 bacterial and 22 fungal isolates were recovered from the tested sources. The highest count of isolates was recovered from the soil (12 isolates/g), followed by turkey giblets and egg yolk (8 isolates/g, for each). Out of 34 bacterial isolates, five induced the highest level in cholesterol degradation. The most potent bacterial isolate was recovered from turkey giblets and was identified as Streptomyces fradiae. In a trial to increase the cholesterol decomposing potentiality of S. fradiae, low intensity Nd-YAG laser irradiation was evaluated. The exposure of the chlorophyllin – photosensitized bacterium to 210mW Nd-YAG laser for 8min induced significant increase in cholesterol degrading activity reaching 73.8% as compared with 54.2% in the case of non-irradiated, non-photosensitized culture. Under the same conditions but using the reaction mixture containing cholesterol as a substrate and extracellular crude enzyme, the percent decomposition reached 53.7% for the irradiated culture as compared to 28.3% in the case of the control. Our data indicate the importance of the photosensitizer in enhancement of laser radiation to stimulate cholesterol decomposition of S. fradiae

Cordierite honeycomb supported Mo(VI)/ZrO2 for microwave assisted Pinacol-Pinacolone rearrangement

181-188ZrO2, Mo(VI)/ZrO2, SO42-/ZrO2 and Pt-SO42-/ZrO2 supported on honeycomb monoliths have been prepared and characterized for their physico-chemical properties such as surface acidity, crystalinity, functionality and morphology. These materials have been used as solid acid catalysts in the pinacol rearrangement of benzopinacol under microwave irradiation. A few diols have also been subjected to pinacol rearrangement to obtain a good conversion of rearrangement products with high selectivity. Optimization of reaction conditions has also studied to determine the most suitable reaction conditions for the effective synthesis of pinacolone derivatives. Up to 98% conversion of benzopinacol is observed under a set of optimized reaction conditions. A reactivation and reusability study of zirconia based solid acid catalysts has also performed

HIV-1 Latency and Viral Reservoirs: Existing Reversal Approaches and Potential Technologies, Targets, and Pathways Involved in HIV Latency Studies

Eradication of latent human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is a global health challenge. Reactivation of HIV latency and killing of virus-infected cells, the so-called “kick and kill” or “shock and kill” approaches, are a popular strategy for HIV cure. While antiretroviral therapy (ART) halts HIV replication by targeting multiple steps in the HIV life cycle, including viral entry, integration, replication, and production, it cannot get rid of the occult provirus incorporated into the host-cell genome. These latent proviruses are replication-competent and can rebound in cases of ART interruption or cessation. In general, a very small population of cells harbor provirus, serve as reservoirs in ART-controlled HIV subjects, and are capable of expressing little to no HIV RNA or proteins. Beyond the canonical resting memory CD4+ T cells, HIV reservoirs also exist within tissue macrophages, myeloid cells, brain microglial cells, gut epithelial cells, and hematopoi-etic stem cells (HSCs). Despite a lack of active viral production, latently HIV-infected subjects con-tinue to exhibit aberrant cellular signaling and metabolic dysfunction, leading to minor to major cellular and systemic complications or comorbidities. These include genomic DNA damage; telo-mere attrition; mitochondrial dysfunction; premature aging; and lymphocytic, cardiac, renal, he-patic, or pulmonary dysfunctions. Therefore, the arcane machineries involved in HIV latency and its reversal warrant further studies to identify the cryptic mechanisms of HIV reservoir formation and clearance. In this review, we discuss several molecules and signaling pathways, some of which have dual roles in maintaining or reversing HIV latency and reservoirs, and describe some evolving strategies and possible approaches to eliminate viral reservoirs and, ultimately, cure/eradicate HIV infection