Nation, Migration, Identity: Learning from the Cross-Strait Context

It has been argued that globalisation, with its flexible landscapes of production, consumption and mobility, has favoured the emergence of new forms of belonging and identity that are not necessarily built on such principles of the nation state. In this paper, we argue that this process is more likely to happen when movements occur between states that are not in conflictual relations with each other. When the relations between two nations are shaped by conflicts, for instance due to disputes about sovereignty over a territory, nationalism may remain a crucial factor shaping identification and belonging of those who move between the two territories. In this paper, by taking the case of migrants moving between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, we will shed light on how the issue of “unresolved sovereignty” may eventually lead these actors to reinforce nationalist ideals and identities in their daily narratives and practices, instead of favouring the generation of hybrid identities

Memory deficits in a juvenile rat model of type 1 diabetes are due to excess 11β-HSD1 activity, which is upregulated by high glucose concentrations rather than insulin deficiency

Aims/hypothesis: Children with diabetes may display cognitive alterations although vascular disorders have not yet appeared. Variations in glucose levels together with relative insulin deficiency in treated type 1 diabetes have been reported to impact brain function indirectly through dysregulation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis. We have recently shown that enhancement of glucocorticoid levels in children with type 1 diabetes is dependent not only on glucocorticoid secretion but also on glucocorticoid tissue concentrations, which is linked to 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11β-HSD1) activity. Hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis dysfunction and memory alteration were further dissected in a juvenile rat model of diabetes showing that excess 11β-HSD1 activity within the hippocampus is associated with hippocampal-dependent memory deficits. Here, to investigate the causal relationships between diabetes, 11β-HSD1 activity and hippocampus-dependent memory deficits, we evaluated the beneficial effect of 11β-HSD1 inhibition on hippocampal-related memory in juvenile diabetic rats. We also examined whether diabetes-associated enhancement of hippocampal 11β-HSD1 activity is due to an increase in brain glucose concentrations and/or a decrease in insulin signalling. Methods: Diabetes was induced in juvenile rats by daily i.p. injection of streptozotocin for 2 consecutive days. Inhibition of 11β-HSD1 was obtained by administrating the compound UE2316 twice daily by gavage for 3 weeks, after which hippocampal-dependent object location memory was assessed. Hippocampal 11β-HSD1 activity was estimated by the ratio of corticosterone/dehydrocorticosterone measured by LC/MS. Regulation of 11β-HSD1 activity in response to changes in glucose or insulin levels was determined ex vivo on acute brain hippocampal slices. The insulin regulation of 11β-HSD1 was further examined in vivo using virally mediated knockdown of insulin receptor expression specifically in the hippocampus. Results: Our data show that inhibiting 11β-HSD1 activity prevents hippocampal-related memory deficits in diabetic juvenile rats. A significant increase (53.0±9.9%) in hippocampal 11β-HSD1 activity was found in hippocampal slices incubated in high glucose conditions (13.9 mmol/l) vs normal glucose conditions (2.8 mmol/l) without insulin. However, 11β-HSD1 activity was not affected by variations in insulin concentration either in the hippocampal slices or after a decrease in hippocampal insulin receptor expression. Conclusions/interpretation: Together, these data demonstrate that an increase in 11β-HSD1 activity contributes to memory deficits observed in juvenile diabetic rats and that an excess of hippocampal 11β-HSD1 activity stems from high glucose levels rather than insulin deficiency. 11β-HSD1 might be a therapeutic target for treating cognitive impairments associated with diabetes

Validar a guerra: a construção do regime de Expertise estratégica

This article is intended to contribute to the interpretative analysis of war. For that purpose, it investigates how some apparatuses located in strategic thinking help to make modern war a social practice considered both technically feasible and, at the same time, legitimate for soldiers. In so doing, it makes use of two different but closely related theoretical fields, pragmatic sociology (finding inspiration in the work of scholars such as Luc Boltanski, Nicolas Dodier and Francis Chateauraynaud), and the sociology of scientific knowledge (based mostly on the work of Bruno Latour). On the one hand, the sociology of scientific knowledge has developed a productive questioning of the construction of scientific facts that is particularly relevant to the present research. On the other hand, pragmatic sociology generates a compatible framework able to describe collective actions. The combination of both approaches allows the description of the formation of a strategic expertise regime that supports the technical legitimacy of the use of military force. Together, the sociology of scientific knowledge and pragmatic sociology bring a particularly relevant perspective to research pertaining to war.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

A Reply to My Critics: The Critical Spirit of Bourdieusian Language

Drawing on my article “Bourdieusian reflections on language: Unavoidable conditions of the real speech situation”, this paper provides a detailed response to the above commentaries by Lisa Adkins, Bridget Fowler, Michael Grenfell, David Inglis, Hans-Herbert Kögler, Steph Lawler, William Outhwaite, Derek Robbins and Bryan S. Turner. The main purpose of this “Reply to my critics” is to reflect upon the most important issues raised by these commentators and thereby contribute to a more nuanced understanding of key questions arising from Bourdieu’s analysis of language

Short‐Fractional Hop Whistler Rate Observed by the Low‐Altitude Satellite DEMETER at the End of the Solar Cycle 23

International audienceFor the first time an evaluation of the whistler rate around the Earth is performed using results from the neural network aboard the microsatellite DEMETER. It is shown that the rate of whistlers with low dispersion calculated all around the Earth as a function of longitude vary between 1 and 6 s−1 during nighttime (22.30 LT) and between 0.5 and 0.7 s−1 during daytime (10.30 LT). The whistler rate is anticorrelated with the F10.7‐cm solar flux. A decrease by 25% of the solar flux corresponds to an increase of 62% (26%) of the averaged whistler rate calculated for the entire Earth during nighttime (daytime). Using this averaged whistler rate, the global lightning rate is estimated to be of the order of 123 s−1 (27 s−1) during nighttime (daytime). The main conclusion concerns the precipitation of the electrons in the radiation belt by interaction with the whistlers. It is shown that the decrease of the lightning activity at solar minimum (shown with the help of the Schumann resonances) is largely counterbalanced by the increase of the whistler rates in the upper part of the ionosphere due to the decrease of the ionospheric absorption