The Politics of Extractivism: Mining, Institutional Responsiveness, and Social Resistance

Natural resource exploitation often generates negative externalities and fuels social conflict. Yet, patterns of social resistance against mining differ considerably within and across countries. What explains differences in the occurrence and duration of anti-mining protest? Distinguishing explicitly between protest onset and continuation, we theorize that communities affected by mining engage in social protest to signal their grievances to political decision-makers. Yet, once protests have erupted, their duration depends on the institutional setup that shapes these decision-makers’ likelihood of responding to grievances. Under conditions of high decentralized responsiveness, where regional governments have both the competences to enact policies and the electoral incentives to make use of them, regional governments are likely to rely on “policy side payments” in mining-unrelated domains to assuage mining-related grievances. Thus, decentralized responsiveness should reduce the duration of anti-mining protest. To test our argument, we introduce novel subnational data on mining activities and anti-mining protests in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador from 2000 to 2013. Using dynamic logit and Weibull regression models, we find that the determinants of protest onset and continuation differ systematically. While the volume of mining activities impacts protest onset, the duration of anti-mining protests decreases significantly under conditions of high decentralized responsiveness

Soft Resummation of Quark Anomalous Dimensions and Coefficient Functions in MS-bar Factorization

The asymptotic behaviour at large N of the MS-bar quark anomalous dimensions is derived to all orders assuming only MS-bar factorization and standard results for the exponentiation of soft logarithms in the quark initiated bare cross sections for deep inelastic scattering and Drell-Yan. The result is then used to write the MS-bar quark coefficient functions in a form in which all terms of $O(\ln^m N)$ are resummed.Comment: 12 page

A Framework for Preserving Privacy and Cybersecurity in Brain-Computer Interfacing Applications

Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) comprise a rapidly evolving field of technology with the potential of far-reaching impact in domains ranging from medical over industrial to artistic, gaming, and military. Today, these emerging BCI applications are typically still at early technology readiness levels, but because BCIs create novel, technical communication channels for the human brain, they have raised privacy and security concerns. To mitigate such risks, a large body of countermeasures has been proposed in the literature, but a general framework is lacking which would describe how privacy and security of BCI applications can be protected by design, i.e., already as an integral part of the early BCI design process, in a systematic manner, and allowing suitable depth of analysis for different contexts such as commercial BCI product development vs. academic research and lab prototypes. Here we propose the adoption of recent systems-engineering methodologies for privacy threat modeling, risk assessment, and privacy engineering to the BCI field. These methodologies address privacy and security concerns in a more systematic and holistic way than previous approaches, and provide reusable patterns on how to move from principles to actions. We apply these methodologies to BCI and data flows and derive a generic, extensible, and actionable framework for brain-privacy-preserving cybersecurity in BCI applications. This framework is designed for flexible application to the wide range of current and future BCI applications. We also propose a range of novel privacy-by-design features for BCIs, with an emphasis on features promoting BCI transparency as a prerequisite for informational self-determination of BCI users, as well as design features for ensuring BCI user autonomy. We anticipate that our framework will contribute to the development of privacy-respecting, trustworthy BCI technologies

Prefrontal involvement in imitation learning of hand actions : effects of practice and expertise.

In this event-related fMRI study, we demonstrate the effects of a single session of practising configural hand actions (guitar chords) on cortical activations during observation, motor preparation, and imitative execution. During the observation of non-practised actions, the mirror neuron system (MNS), consisting of inferior parietal and ventral premotor areas, was more strongly activated than for the practised actions. This finding indicates a strong role of the MNS in the early stages of imitation learning. In addition, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) was selectively involved during observation and motor preparation of the non-practised chords. This finding confirms Buccino et al.’s (2004a) model of imitation learning: for actions that are not yet part of the observer’s motor repertoire, DLPFC engages in operations of selection and combination of existing, elementary representations in the MNS. The pattern of prefrontal activations further supports Shallice’s (2004) proposal of a dominant role of the left DLPFC in modulating lower-level systems, and of a dominant role of the right DLPFC in monitoring operations

Tissue engineering: A new approach in cardiovascular surgery; Seeding of human fibroblasts followed by human endothelial cells on resorbable mesh

Objective: In tissue engineering the material properties of synthetic compounds are chosen to enable delivery of dissociated cells onto a scaffold in a manner that will result in in vitro formation of a new functional tissue. The seeding of human fibroblasts followed by human endothelial cells on resorbable mesh is a precondition of a successful creation of human tissues such as vessels or cardiac valves. Methods: Polymeric scaffolds (n=18) composed of polyglycolic acid (PGA) with a fiber diameter of 12-15 μm and a polymer density of 70 mg/ml were used as square sheets of 1×1×0.3 cm. Fibroblasts (passage 7) harvested from human foreskin were seeded (3.4×106) and cultured over a 3 week period on a PGA-mesh, followed by seeding of endothelial cells (passage 5, 2.8×106) harvested from human ascending aorta. Thereafter the new tissue was stained for HE, van Gieson, Trichrom-Masson, Factor VIII and CD 34 and proved by scanning electron microscopy. Results: Microscopic examination of the seeded mesh demonstrated that the human fibroblasts were attached to the polymeric fibers and had begun to spread out and divide. The scanning electron microscopic examination demonstrated a homogeneous scaffold resembling a solid sheet of tissue. The seeded endothelial cells formed a monolayer on the fibroblasts and no endothelial cell invasion or new formation of capillaris could be detected. Conclusions: These results are a first step to demonstrate that seeding of human fibroblasts and endothelial cells on PGA-mesh might be a feasible model to construct human tissues such as vessels or cardiac valve

Tissue engineering in cardiovascular surgery: MTT, a rapid and reliable quantitative method to assess the optimal human cell seeding on polymeric meshes

Objective: Currently used valve substitutes for valve replacement have certain disadvantages that limit their long-term benefits such as poor durability, risks of infection, thromboebolism or rejection. A tissue engineered autologous valve composed of living tissue is expected to overcome these shortcomings with natural existing biological mechanisms for growth, repair, remodeling and development. The aim of the study was to improve cell seeding methods for developing tissue-engineered valve tissue. Methods: Human aortic myofibroblasts were seeded on polyglycolic acid (PGA) meshes. Cell attachment and growth of myofibroblasts on the PGA scaffolds with different seeding intervals were compared to determine an optimal seeding interval. In addition, scanning electron microscopy study of the seeded meshes was also performed to document tissue development. Results: There was a direct correlation between cell numbers assessed by direct counting and MTT(3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5-diphenyltertra-zolium bromide) assay. Both attach rate and cell growth seeded on meshes with long intervals (24 and 36 h) were significantly higher than those seeded with short intervals (2 and 12 h) (P≪0.01), there was no significant difference between 24- and 36-h seeding interval. Scanning electron microscopy also documented more cell attachment with long seeding intervals resulting in a more solid tissue like structure. Conclusion: It is feasible to use human aortic myofibroblasts to develop a new functional tissue in vitro. Twenty-four hours is an optimal seeding interval for seeding human aortic myofibroblasts on PGA scaffolds and MTT test is a rapid and reliable quantitative method to assess the optimal human cell seeding on polymeric meshe

Influence of Bottom Quark Jet Quenching on Single Electron Tomography of Au+Au

High transverse momentum single (non-photonic) electrons are shown to be sensitive to the stopping power of both bottom, b, and charm, c, quarks in AA collisions. We apply the DGLV theory of radiative energy loss to predict c and b quark jet quenching and compare the FONLL and PYTHIA heavy flavor fragmentation and decay schemes. We show that single electrons in the p_T=5-10 GeV range are dominated by the decay of b quarks rather than the more strongly quenched c quarks in Au+Au collisions at sqrt{s}=200 AGeV. The {smaller} b quark energy loss, even for extreme opacities with gluon rapidity densities up to 3500, is predicted to limit the nuclear modification factor, R_{AA}, of single electrons to the range R_{AA} ~ 0.5-0.6, in contrast to previous predictions of R_{AA} ~ 0.2-0.3 based on taking only c quark jet fragmentation into account.Comment: 6 pages, 6 eps figure

X-ray full field microscopy at 30 KeV

In our X-ray full field microscopy experiments, we demonstrated a resolution better than 260 nm over the entire field of view of 80 μm x 80 μm at 30 keV. Our experimental setup at PETRA III, P05, had a length of about 5 m consisting of an illumination optics, an imaging lens and a detector. For imaging, we used a compound refractive lens (CLR) consisting of mr-L negative photo resist, which was fabricated by deep X-ray lithography. As illumination optics, we choose a refractive rolled X-ray prism lens, which was adapted to the numerical aperture of the imaging lens