A Cultural Criminology of ‘New’ Jihad: Insights from Propaganda Magazines

The backgrounds and modus operandi of more recent jihadi terrorists tend to share factors and characteristics more typically associated with non-political violence such as mass- killings and gang violence. Their attacks, moreover, seem to have been precipitated not by the direct instructions of a formal hierarchy but by the encouragement of propaganda produced and disseminated by networked, media-savvy terrorist groups. It is necessary to explain how these ‘recruitment’ efforts work. Cultural criminology with its understanding of the relationship between mediated meaning and individual experience, can provide such an analysis. The paper presents a qualitative document analysis of 32 propaganda magazines produced by the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda. It demonstrates that they contain significantly more than religious rhetoric and military strategy. Rather, they are part of a process that crystalizes a jihadi subculture that appeals to disaffected and/or marginalized, excitement- seeking youths. The magazines cultivate violence by constructing a militarized style that celebrates outlaw status, where violence is eroticized and aestheticized. They idealize the notion of a jihadi terrorist that is tough and willing to commit brutal violence. The lifestyle portrayed offers the possibility of heroism, excitement, belonging and imminent fame, themes often espoused by conventional, Western consumer culture. The magazines occasionally draw on street jargon, urban music, fashion, films and video games. The subcultural model of jihadi propaganda we explicate provides a novel way of understanding terrorist recruiting tactics and motivations that are not necessarily in opposition to contemporary conventional criminal and ‘mainstream’ cultures, but in resonance with them

Identification of the byproducts of the oxygen evolution reaction on rutile-type oxides under dynamic conditions

Peer reviewedPostprin

Geotechnical Problems and Performance Studies - Chilla Power Scheme, Hardwar

Thin plastic clay seams existing in the upper Shivalik formations caused hazardous geotechnical problems during the construction of 144 MW capacity Chilla Power House Scheme, Hardwar, India by initiating several land slides. In addition, serious seepage problems occurred with the commissioning of the scheme. The paper describes in detail, the events of slides & seepage problems faced and the remedial measures adopted to counteract them. The data observed on the instruments installed to keep a vigil on the performance of the structure has also been analysed and discussed

Access to side-chain carbon information in deuterated solids under fast MAS through non-rotor-synchronized mixing.

We demonstrate the accessibility of aliphatic 13C side chain chemical shift sets for solid-state NMR despite perdeuteration and fast MAS using isotropic, non-rotor-synchronized 13C-13C mixing. Combined with amide proton detection, we unambiguously and sensitively detect whole side chain to backbone correlations for two proteins using around 1 mg of sample

Amyloid fibril length distribution quantified by atomic force microscopy single-particle image analysis

Amyloid fibrils are proteinaceous nano-scale linear aggregates. They are of key interest not only because of their association with numerous disorders, such as type II diabetes mellitus, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, but also because of their potential to become engineered high-performance nano-materials. Methods to characterise the length distribution of nano-scale linear aggregates such as amyloid fibrils are of paramount importance both in understanding the biological impact of these aggregates and in controlling their mechanical properties as potential nano-materials. Here, we present a new quantitative approach to the determination of the length distribution of amyloid fibrils using tapping-mode atomic force microscopy. The method described employs single-particle image analysis corrected for the length-dependent bias that is a common problem associated with surface-based imaging techniques. Applying this method, we provide a detailed characterisation of the length distribution of samples containing long-straight fibrils formed in vitro from β2-microglobulin. The results suggest that the Weibull distribution is a suitable model in describing fibril length distributions, and reveal that fibril fragmentation is an important process even under unagitated conditions. These results demonstrate the significance of quantitative length distribution measurements in providing important new information regarding amyloid assembly

Prediction of peptide and protein propensity for amyloid formation

Understanding which peptides and proteins have the potential to undergo amyloid formation and what driving forces are responsible for amyloid-like fiber formation and stabilization remains limited. This is mainly because proteins that can undergo structural changes, which lead to amyloid formation, are quite diverse and share no obvious sequence or structural homology, despite the structural similarity found in the fibrils. To address these issues, a novel approach based on recursive feature selection and feed-forward neural networks was undertaken to identify key features highly correlated with the self-assembly problem. This approach allowed the identification of seven physicochemical and biochemical properties of the amino acids highly associated with the self-assembly of peptides and proteins into amyloid-like fibrils (normalized frequency of β-sheet, normalized frequency of β-sheet from LG, weights for β-sheet at the window position of 1, isoelectric point, atom-based hydrophobic moment, helix termination parameter at position j+1 and ΔGº values for peptides extrapolated in 0 M urea). Moreover, these features enabled the development of a new predictor (available at http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/appnn/index.html) capable of accurately and reliably predicting the amyloidogenic propensity from the polypeptide sequence alone with a prediction accuracy of 84.9 % against an external validation dataset of sequences with experimental in vitro, evidence of amyloid formation

Discrete molecular dynamics simulations of peptide aggregation

We study the aggregation of peptides using the discrete molecular dynamics simulations. At temperatures above the alpha-helix melting temperature of a single peptide, the model peptides aggregate into a multi-layer parallel beta-sheet structure. This structure has an inter-strand distance of 0.48 nm and an inter-sheet distance of 1.0 nm, which agree with experimental observations. In this model, the hydrogen bond interactions give rise to the inter-strand spacing in beta-sheets, while the Go interactions among side chains make beta-strands parallel to each other and allow beta-sheets to pack into layers. The aggregates also contain free edges which may allow for further aggregation of model peptides to form elongated fibrils.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Selenium toxicity but not deficient or super-nutritional selenium status vastly alters the transcriptome in rodents

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Protein and mRNA levels for several selenoproteins, such as glutathione peroxidase-1 (Gpx1), are down-regulated dramatically by selenium (Se) deficiency. These levels in rats increase sigmoidally with increasing dietary Se and reach defined plateaus at the Se requirement, making them sensitive biomarkers for Se deficiency. These levels, however, do not further increase with super-nutritional or toxic Se status, making them ineffective for detection of high Se status. Biomarkers for high Se status are needed as super-nutritional Se intakes are associated with beneficial as well as adverse health outcomes. To characterize Se regulation of the transcriptome, we conducted 3 microarray experiments in weanling mice and rats fed Se-deficient diets supplemented with up to 5 μg Se/g diet.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There was no effect of Se status on growth of mice fed 0 to 0.2 μg Se/g diet or rats fed 0 to 2 μg Se/g diet, but rats fed 5 μg Se/g diet showed a 23% decrease in growth and elevated plasma alanine aminotransferase activity, indicating Se toxicity. Rats fed 5 μg Se/g diet had significantly altered expression of 1193 liver transcripts, whereas mice or rats fed ≤ 2 μg Se/g diet had < 10 transcripts significantly altered relative to Se-adequate animals within an experiment. Functional analysis of genes altered by Se toxicity showed enrichment in cell movement/morphogenesis, extracellular matrix, and development/angiogenesis processes. Genes up-regulated by Se deficiency were targets of the stress response transcription factor, Nrf2. Multiple regression analysis of transcripts significantly altered by 2 μg Se/g and Se-deficient diets identified an 11-transcript biomarker panel that accounted for 99% of the variation in liver Se concentration over the full range from 0 to 5 μg Se/g diet.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study shows that Se toxicity (5 μg Se/g diet) in rats vastly alters the liver transcriptome whereas Se-deficiency or high but non-toxic Se intake elicits relatively few changes. This is the first evidence that a vastly expanded number of transcriptional changes itself can be a biomarker of Se toxicity, and that identified transcripts can be used to develop molecular biomarker panels that accurately predict super-nutritional and toxic Se status.</p

Kraft's number and ideal word packing

N. M. Dragomir, S. S. Dragomir, C. E. M. Pearce and J. Sund