Opposing the opposition? Binarity and complexity in political resistance

The point of departure for this article is the question of how to pursue and encourage political contestation from a position that acknowledges the significance of binary conceptualisations, but that is at the same time uncomfortable with a mode of politics that is exclusively geared towards them. The limitations of this traditionally modern conceptualisation of politics – and life more generally – calls for an ontological move away from the prioritisation of bounded entities and clear-cut (oppositional) identities in order to explore other dimensions of political action. While there has been a turn to such new ontologies – in critical geography and beyond – in the last decades, there has been less exploration of what this could mean concretely for a political activism that aims to go beyond mere ‘micropolitical’ transformation. To address this lack, this article examines the tensions between binarity and complexity through an engagement with political resistance against genetically modified organisms (GMOs). This brings to light that the ontology of complexity pursued by some anti-GMO activists is ultimately grounded in a binarisation of both politics (one is either ‘for’ or ‘against’ GMOs’) and life (which is either ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural’). Whilst problematic in its limitation and specification of what kind of politics and life is considered ‘right’ and ‘natural’, this binarisation also informs the success of anti-GMO activism. An engagement with the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, especially through the notion of the ‘encounter’, brings out this paradox and serves to radicalise the ontology of complexity argued for by anti-GMO activists in order to open up different avenues for thinking about and ‘doing’ political resistance.

Partition Functions of Non-Abelian Quantum Hall States

Partition functions of edge excitations are obtained for non-Abelian Hall states in the second Landau level, such as the anti-Read-Rezayi state, the Bonderson-Slingerland hierarchy and the Wen non-Abelian fluid, as well as for the non-Abelian spin-singlet state. The derivation is straightforward and unique starting from the non-Abelian conformal field theory data and solving the modular invariance conditions. The partition functions provide a complete account of the excitation spectrum and are used to describe experiments of Coulomb blockade and thermopower.Comment: 42 pages, 3 figures; published version; minor corrections to sect. 4.

Collective discussion: fracturing politics (or, how to avoid the tacit reproduction of modern/colonial ontologies in critical thought)

This article engages in an experiment that aims to push critical/post-structuralist thought beyond its comfort zone. Despite its commitment to critiquing modern, liberal ontologies, the article claims that these same ontologies are often tacitly reproduced, resulting in a failure to grasp contemporary structures and histories of violence and domination. The article brings into conversation five selected critical scholars from a range of theoretical approaches and disciplines who explore the potential of the notion of “fracture” for that purpose. The conversation revolves around political struggles at various sites—migrant struggles in Europe, decolonial struggles in Mexico, workers and peasant struggles in Colombia—in order to pinpoint how these struggles “fracture” or “crack” modern political frames in ways that neither reproduce them, nor lead to mere moments of disruption in otherwise smoothly functioning governmental regimes. Nor does such “fracturing” entail the constructing of a “complete” or “coherent” vision of a politics to come. Instead, we detail the incoherent, tentative, and multiple character of frames and practices of thought in struggle that nevertheless produce an (albeit open and contested) “whole.

Multiple-quasiparticle agglomerates at \nu=2/5

We investigate the dynamics of quasiparticle agglomerates in edge states of the Jain sequence for \nu=2/5. Comparison of the Fradkin-Lopez model with the Wen one is presented within a field theoretical construction, focusing on similarities and differences. We demonstrate that both models predict the same universal role for the multiple-quasiparticle agglomerates that dominate on single quasiparticles at low energy. This result is induced by the presence of neutral modes with finite velocity and is essential to explain the anomalous behavior of tunneling conductance and noise through a point contact.Comment: 6 pages, in press Physica E as proceedings of FQMT0

Stability conditions for fermionic Ising spin-glass models in the presence of a transverse field

The stability of spin-glass (SG) phase is analyzed in detail for a fermionic Ising SG (FISG) model in the presence of a magnetic transverse field $\Gamma$. The fermionic path integral formalism, replica method and static approach have been used to obtain the thermodynamic potential within one step replica symmetry breaking ansatz. The replica symmetry (RS) results show that the SG phase is always unstable against the replicon. Moreover, the two other eigenvalues $\lambda_{\pm}$ of the Hessian matrix (related to the diagonal elements of the replica matrix) can indicate an additional instability to the SG phase, which enhances when $\Gamma$ is increased. Therefore, this result suggests that the study of the replicon can not be enough to guarantee the RS stability in the present quantum FISG model, especially near the quantum critical point. In particular, the FISG model allows changing the occupation number of sites, so one can get a first order transition when the chemical potential exceeds a certain value. In this region, the replicon and the $\lambda_{\pm}$ indicate instability problems for the SG solution close to all range of first order boundary.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, accepted in Physica

Nonuniversal behavior of scattering between fractional quantum Hall edges

Among the predicted properties of fractional quantum Hall states are fractionally charged quasiparticles and conducting edge-states described as chiral Luttinger liquids. In a system with a narrow constriction, tunneling of quasi-particles between states at different edges can lead to resistance and to shot noise. The ratio of the shot noise to the backscattered current, in the weak scattering regime, measures the fractional charge of the quasi-particle, which has been confirmed in several experiments. However, the non-linearity of the resistance predicted by the chiral Luttinger liquid theory was apparently not observed in some of these cases. As a possible explanation for these discrepancies, we consider a model where a smooth edge profile leads to formation of additional edge states. Coupling between the current carrying edge mode and the additional phonon like mode can lead to {\it nonuniversal} exponents in the current-voltage characteristic, while preserving the ratio between shot noise and the back-scattered current, for weak backscattering. For special values of the coupling, one may obtain a linear I-V behavior.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

The effect of CFTR modulators on structural lung disease in cystic fibrosis

Background: Newly developed quantitative chest computed tomography (CT) outcomes designed specifically to assess structural abnormalities related to cystic fibrosis (CF) lung disease are now available. CFTR modulators potentially can reduce some structural lung abnormalities. We aimed to investigate the effect of CFTR modulators on structural lung disease progression using different quantitative CT analysis methods specific for people with CF (PwCF). Methods: PwCF with a gating mutation (Ivacaftor) or two Phe508del alleles (lumacaftor-ivacaftor) provided clinical data and underwent chest CT scans. Chest CTs were performed before and after initiation of CFTR modulator treatment. Structural lung abnormalities on CT were assessed using the Perth Rotterdam Annotated Grid Morphometric Analysis for CF (PRAGMA-CF), airway-artery dimensions (AA), and CF-CT methods. Lung disease progression (0–3 years) in exposed and matched unexposed subjects was compared using analysis of covariance. To investigate the effect of treatment in early lung disease, subgroup analyses were performed on data of children and adolescents aged &lt;18 years. Results: We included 16 modulator exposed PwCF and 25 unexposed PwCF. Median (range) age at the baseline visit was 12.55 (4.25–36.49) years and 8.34 (3.47–38.29) years, respectively. The change in PRAGMA-CF %Airway disease (-2.88 (−4.46, −1.30), p = 0.001) and %Bronchiectasis extent (-2.07 (−3.13, −1.02), p &lt; 0.001) improved in exposed PwCF compared to unexposed. Subgroup analysis of paediatric data showed that only PRAGMA-CF %Bronchiectasis (-0.88 (−1.70, −0.07), p = 0.035) improved in exposed PwCF compared to unexposed. Conclusion: In this preliminary real-life retrospective study CFTR modulators improve several quantitative CT outcomes. A follow-up study with a large cohort and standardization of CT scanning is needed to confirm our findings.</p

Gapless excitations in strongly fluctuating superconducting wires

We study the low temperature tunneling density of states of thin wires where superconductivity is destroyed through quantum phase-slip proliferation. Although this regime is believed to behave as an insulator, we show that for a large temperature range this phase is characterized by a conductivity falling off at most linearly with temperature, and has a gapless excitation spectrum. This novel conducting phase results from electron-electron interaction induced pair breaking. Also, it may help clarify the low temperature metallic features found in films and wires whose bulk realization is superconducting.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Dementia in a patient with Thymoma and hypogammaglobulinaemia (Good's syndrome)

Good's syndrome is extremely rare and refers to an acquired B and T cell immunodeficiency in thymoma patients. The authors of this article present a case report of a 75-year-old, caucasian male patient previously subjected to examinations for secondary dementia and recurrent infections, which revealed paraneoplastic syndrome arose from thymoma. He underwent thymectomy, while his immunodeficiency syndrome sustained with frequent opportunistic infections, constantly requiring intravenous immunoglobulin treatment