What is a Laboratory in the Human Sciences?

ARC Working Paper No.

Topologias de poder: a análise de Foucault sobre o governo político para além da “governamentalidade”

Resumo A publicação das conferências de Michel Foucault no Collége de France, no final da década de 1970, proporcionou uma nova compreensão sobre desenvolvimentos cruciais em sua obra tardia, inclusive o retorno a uma análise do Estado e a introdução da biopolítica como um tema central. Segundo uma interpretação dominante, essas mudanças não acarretaram uma ruptura metodológica fundamental; o enfoque desenvolvido por Foucault em seu trabalho sobre conhecimento/poder foi simplesmente aplicado a novos objetos. O presente artigo argumenta que essa leitura ”“ marcada pelo privilégio esmagador concedido a Vigiar e punir  na literatura secundária ”“ obscurece uma modificação importante no método e no estilo de diagnóstico de Foucault, ocorrida entre a introdução da biopolítica em 1976 (Em defesa da sociedade) e as conferências de 1978 (Segurança, território e população) e 1979 (Nascimento da biopolítica). A análise inicial de Foucault sobre a biopolítica foi formulada em afirmações supreendentemente baseadas nas épocas e totalizantes sobre as formas características de poder na modernidade. Em contraste, as últimas conferências sugerem o que proponho chamar de uma análise “topológica” que examina os “padrões de correlação” em que elementos heterogêneos ”“ técnicas, formas materiais, estruturas institucionais e tecnologias de poder ”“ são configurados, bem como os rearranjos através dos quais esses padrões são transformados. Também indico como a atenção à dimensão topológica da análise de Foucault poderia mudar nossa compreensão de temas-chave em seus últimos trabalhos: a biopolítica, a análise do pensamento, e o conceito de governamentalidade. Palavras-chave: biopolítica; Foucault; governamentalidade; neoliberalismo.   Abstract The publication of Michel Foucault’s lectures at the Collège de France in the late 1970s has provided new insight into crucial developments in his late work, including the return to an analysis of the state and the introduction of biopolitics as a central theme. According to one dominant interpretation, these shifts did not entail a fundamental methodological break; the approach Foucault developed in his work on knowledge/power was simply applied to new objects. The present article argues that this reading ”“ which is colored by the overwhelming privilege afforded to Discipline and punish in secondary literature ”“ obscures an important modification in Foucault’s method and diagnostic style that occurred between the introduction of biopolitics in 1976 (in Society must be defended) and the lectures of 1978 (Security, territory, population) and 1979 (Birth of biopolitics). Foucault’s initial analysis of biopolitics was couched in surprisingly epochal and totalizing claims about the characteristic forms of power in modernity. The later lectures, by contrast, suggest what I propose to call a ‘topological’ analysis that examines the ‘patterns of correlation’ in which heterogeneous elements ”“ techniques, material forms, institutional structures and technologies of power ”“ are configured, as well as the redeployments through which these patterns are transformed. I also indicate how attention to the topological dimension of Foucault’s analysis might change our understanding of key themes in his late work: biopolitics, the analysis of thinking, and the concept of governmentality. Key words: biopolitics; Foucault; governmentality; neoliberalism

Climate change and insurance

This special collection examines insurance as an increasingly central mechanism in shaping how the effects of climate change are transforming local economies and ways of life. The papers study a range of exemplary cases, ranging from agricultural micro-insurance in development policy and regional sovereign risk facilities in the Caribbean to public and private insurance in the United States. This framing essay situates these papers in a longer tradition of scholarship on the government of risk and security. It also describes three themes that run through the papers: the economization of climate change; the moral economy of risk and responsibility; and the plasticity of insurance as an abstract technology that may be taken up in various governmental assemblages, in the name of various political projects

The influence of passive wedge-wire screen aperture and flow velocity on juvenile European eel exclusion, impingement and passage

The European eel (Anguilla anguilla) is a critically endangered catadromous fish. The decline has partly been attributed to water management infrastructure that abstract water from rivers for potable and industrial water supply, irrigation, hydroelectric power generation and flood defence; eels can be impinged on weedscreens and trashracks and entrained in pumps and turbines. The Eel Regulations (England and Wales) 2009 stipulates measures are required to provide safe (upstream and downstream) passage of eels past such hazardous intakes. Preventing impingement and entrainment of upstream migrating (glass eel and elver) and river-resident (yellow) juvenile eels at hazardous intakes may require fine-mesh aperture screens and low approach velocities due to eels' small size and relatively poor swimming capacity but quantitative evidence is lacking. Here, passive wedge-wire screen aperture (1, 2, 3 and 5 mm) and depth-averaged flow velocities (0, 0.1, 0.15 and 0.2 m∙s−1) both influenced the fate (i.e., impingement or passage) and behaviour (i.e., migratory separation or behavioural avoidance) of two size classes of juvenile eels (60–80 mm glass eels and 100–160 mm elvers) in an experimental flume. One and 2 mm aperture screens were required to physically exclude 60–80 mm and 100–160 mm. Up to 90% and 100% of the 60–80 mm and 100–160-mm size class eels were impinged at 0.2 m∙s−1 depth-averaged flow velocity, which also positively influence number of screen contacts per eel and time to eel fate (from first contact). A small proportion of 60–80 mm eels (9.2%) did not approach the screen due to migratory separation (i.e., positive rheotaxis) and eels narrower than the screen aperture did not always pass through the screen, and thus other biological or hydraulic processes may also influence screen passage. It is hoped that these findings help improve screening guidance for regulators, key stakeholders and water abstraction managers to further improve protective measures required for critically endangered eels

TGF-β isoforms fail to modulate inositol phosphates and cAMP in normal and tumour-derived human oral keratinocytes

AbstractThis study examined inositol phosphate and cAMP regulation by TGF-β1, -β2 and -β3 in normal and tumour-derived human oral keratinocytes. Previous findings indicated that the cell lines expressed TGF-β cell surface receptors and had a range of response to exogenous TGF-β1, -β2 and -β3 from being refractory to the ligand to marked inhibition. Basal levels of inositol phosphates broadly reflected the differentiation status of the cells as demonstrated by involucrin expression, but did not correlate with responsiveness to TGF-β1, as measured previously by thymidine incorporation. Treatment of cells with bradykinin or serum caused up-regulation of inositol phosphate levels; by contrast, TGF-β1, -β2 and -β3 failed to modulate inositol phosphates. In two tumour-derived cell lines, the TGF-β isoforms had no effect on cAMP levels, despite a significant increase in cAMP using a potent agonist of adenylate cyclase (forskolin). Furthermore, the cAMP analogue, dibutyryl cAMP, failed to mimic the inhibitory or refractory responses of TGF-β in these cell lines. The results demonstrate that in normal and tumour-derived human oral keratinocytes, TGF-β signal transduction is not mediated by inositol phosphates or cAMP

Current Status of Nutrition Training in Graduate Medical Education From a Survey of Residency Program Directors

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142009/1/jpen0095.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142009/2/jpen0095-sup-0001.pd

Some Like it Hot: The X-Ray Emission of The Giant Star YY Mensae

(Abridged abstract) We present an analysis of the X-ray emission of the rapidly rotating giant star YY Mensae observed by Chandra HETGS and XMM-Newton. Although no obvious flare was detected, the X-ray luminosity changed by a factor of two between the XMM-Newton and Chandra observations taken 4 months apart. The coronal abundances and the emission measure distribution have been derived from three different methods using optically thin collisional ionization equilibrium models. The abundances show an inverse first ionization potential (FIP) effect. We further find a high N abundance which we interpret as a signature of material processed in the CNO cycle. The corona is dominated by a very high temperature (20-40 MK) plasma, which places YY Men among the magnetically active stars with the hottest coronae. Lower temperature plasma also coexists, albeit with much lower emission measure. Line broadening is reported, which we interpret as Doppler thermal broadening, although rotational broadening due to X-ray emitting material high above the surface could be present as well. We use two different formalisms to discuss the shape of the emission measure distribution. The first one infers the properties of coronal loops, whereas the second formalism uses flares as a statistical ensemble. We find that most of the loops in the corona of YY Men have their maximum temperature equal to or slightly larger than about 30 MK. We also find that small flares could contribute significantly to the coronal heating in YY Men. Although there is no evidence of flare variability in the X-ray light curves, we argue that YY Men's distance and X-ray brightness does not allow us to detect flares with peak luminosities Lx <= 10^{31} erg/s with current detectors.Comment: Accepted paper to appear in Astrophysical Journal, issue Nov 10, 2004 (v615). This a revised version. Small typos are corrected. Figure 7 and its caption and some related text in Sct 7.2 are changed, without incidence for the conclusion

The thermal emission of the exoplanets WASP-1b and WASP-2b

We present a comparative study of the thermal emission of the transiting exoplanets WASP-1b and WASP-2b using the Spitzer Space Telescope. The two planets have very similar masses but suffer different levels of irradiation and are predicted to fall either side of a sharp transition between planets with and without hot stratospheres. WASP-1b is one of the most highly irradiated planets studied to date. We measure planet/star contrast ratios in all four of the IRAC bands for both planets (3.6-8.0um), and our results indicate the presence of a strong temperature inversion in the atmosphere of WASP-1b, particularly apparent at 8um, and no inversion in WASP-2b. In both cases the measured eclipse depths favor models in which incident energy is not redistributed efficiently from the day side to the night side of the planet. We fit the Spitzer light curves simultaneously with the best available radial velocity curves and transit photometry in order to provide updated measurements of system parameters. We do not find significant eccentricity in the orbit of either planet, suggesting that the inflated radius of WASP-1b is unlikely to be the result of tidal heating. Finally, by plotting ratios of secondary eclipse depths at 8um and 4.5um against irradiation for all available planets, we find evidence for a sharp transition in the emission spectra of hot Jupiters at an irradiation level of 2 x 10^9 erg/s/cm^2. We suggest this transition may be due to the presence of TiO in the upper atmospheres of the most strongly irradiated hot Jupiters.Comment: 10 pages, submitted to Ap

A dearth of planetary transits in the direction of NGC 6940

We present results of our survey for planetary transits in the field of NGC 6940. We think nearly all of our observed stars are field stars. We have obtained high precision (∼3–10 mmag at the bright end) photometric observations of ∼50 000 stars spanning 18 nights in an attempt to identify low-amplitude and short-period transit events. We have used a matched filter analysis to identify 14 stars that show multiple events and four stars that show single transits. Of these 18 candidates, we have identified two that should be further researched. However, none of the candidates is a convincing hot Jupiter

Evidence for a Proton–Protein Symport Mechanism in the Anthrax Toxin Channel

The toxin produced by Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax, is composed of three proteins: a translocase heptameric channel, (PA63)7, formed from protective antigen (PA), which allows the other two proteins, lethal and edema factors (LF and EF), to translocate across a host cell's endosomal membrane, disrupting cellular homeostasis. It has been shown that (PA63)7 incorporated into planar phospholipid bilayer membranes forms a channel capable of transporting LF and EF. Protein translocation through the channel is driven by a proton electrochemical potential gradient on a time scale of seconds. A paradoxical aspect of this is that although LFN (the N-terminal 263 residues of LF), on which most of our experiments were performed, has a net negative charge, it is driven through the channel by a cis-positive voltage. We have explained this by claiming that the (PA63)7 channel strongly disfavors the entry of negatively charged residues on proteins to be translocated, and hence the aspartates and glutamates on LFN enter protonated (i.e., neutralized). Therefore, the translocated species is positively charged. Upon exiting the channel, the protons that were picked up from the cis solution are released into the trans solution, thereby making this a proton–protein symporter. Here, we provide further evidence of such a mechanism by showing that if only one SO3−, which is essentially not titratable, is introduced at most positions in LFN, through the reaction of an introduced cysteine residue at those positions with 2-sulfonato-ethyl-methanethiosulfonate, voltage-driven LFN translocation is drastically inhibited. We also find that a site that disfavors the entry of negatively charged residues into the (PA63)7 channel resides at or near its Φ-clamp, the ring of seven phenylalanines near the channel's entrance