A Responsible Parrhesia? A Review of The Price of Secrecy

The Price of Secrecy immerses the listener in stories of individual trauma, of child abuse and rape, yet also draws lessons from them of wider social significance. It includes moments of narrative catharsis, interspersed with repeated reminders that the stories are unfinished and open-ended—that the solutions lie out there, in social action, rather than in the stories themselves. The series also gestures towards structural critique, especially of ‘the legal constraints’ it identifies, yet it places greater importance on changing the wider culture through challenging the culture of secrecy and shame around victims’ stories of rape and abuse. This centrally means engaging with ‘family constraints’ in the shape of ‘family honour’. Yet it is also families who are presented as being able to ‘find the best resolution or action plan’, ideally with the aid of ‘someone like a therapist in a position of authority’. ‘Responsible listening’ in this context, does not invite the kind of frank and fearless truth-telling, or parrhesia that aims at tearing down hierarchical power relations. On the one hand, the podcast series deliberately invokes the authority of psychiatrists and therapists as sources of prestigious ‘modern’ medical and therapeutic knowledge—inevitably associated with the West—as a way of countering the defensiveness engendered by patriarchal honour codes. On the other hand, the series also shows how the key protagonists in its stories—mainly women—can both challenge and draw on the intimate resources of knowledge and support that family structures can afford, and that neither secrecy, nor a ‘will-to-truth’ that ignores social and cultural context, is productive for the victims

Remifentanil versus Fentanyl/Midazolam in Painless Reduction of Anterior Shoulder Dislocation; a Randomized Clinical Trial

Introduction: Performance of painful diagnostic and therapeutic procedures is common in emergency department(ED), and procedural sedation and analgesia (PSA) is a fundamental skill for every emergency physician.This studywas aim to compare the efficacy of remifentanil with fentanyl/midazolam in painless reduction of anteriorshoulder dislocation. Methods: In this randomized, double blind, clinical trial the procedural characteristics,patients satisfaction as well as adverse events were compared between fentanyl/midazolamand remifentanilfor PSA of 18–64 years old patients, which were presented to ED following anterior shoulder dislocation.Results: 96 cases were randomly allocated to two groups (86.5% male). There were no significant difference betweengroups regarding baseline characteristics. Remifentanil group had lower duration of procedure (2.5§1.6versus 4.6§1.8 minutes, p Ç 0.001), higher pain reduction (53.7§13.3 versus 33.5§19.6, p Ç 0.001), lower failurerate (1 (2.1%) versus 15 (31.3%), p Ç 0.001), higher satisfaction (p Æ 0.005). Adverse events were seen in 12 (25%)patients in midazolam/fentanyl and 8 (16.7%) cases in remifentanil group (p Æ 0.122). Conclusion: It seemsthat use of remifentanil resulted in lower procedural time, lower failure rate, and lower pain during procedureas well as higher patient satisfaction in comparison with midazolam/fentanyl combination in anterior shoulderdislocation

Fractional moments of solutions to stochastic recurrence equations

In this paper we study the fractional moments of the stationary solution to a stochastic recursion. We derive recursive formulas for the fractional moments of the solution. Special attention is given to the case when the additive term has an Erlang distribution. We provide various approximations to the moments and show their performance in a small numerical studyGennady Samorodnitsky's research was partially supported by the ARO grant W911NF-07-1-0078, NSF grant DMS-1005903 and NSA grant H98230-11-1-0154 at Cornell Universit

Caloric Restriction and the TORC1-Sch9 Nutrient-Signaling Branch Link Chronological Aging to Cellular Quiescence in Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Based on the recent findings of the Titorenko laboratory, I hypothesized that caloric restriction slows the chronological aging of budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae because this geroprotective dietary intervention is integrated into the four processes of a cellular quiescence program. Limitation of calories prolongs yeast longevity by altering the properties of quiescent cells through an intricate network of nutrient-signaling pathways. In addition, I propose that genetic interventions inferring mutations in the Target of Rapamycin Complex 1 (TORC1)-Serine/threonine-protein kinase (Sch9) nutrient signaling branch (such as the tor1Δ and sch9Δ mutations) display longevity-extending phenotypes as a caloric restriction by targeting the processes of the quiescence program. In this study, caloric restriction and the mutant phenotypes of sch9 (in some cells) demonstrated a deceleration of yeast chronological aging by arresting the cell cycle in early G1 and stimulating the development of high-density quiescent cells (process 1), whereas the phenotypes of the tor1 and the sch9 mutants (in some cells) displayed cell cycle arrest in late G1, developing high-density quiescent cells. Caloric restriction promoted an aging-associated conversion of high-density quiescent cells into low-density quiescent cells (process 2), while the phenotypes of the tor1 and the sch9 mutants (in some cells) postponed the conversion of high-density quiescent cells into low-density quiescent cells. Therefore, yeast longevity can be extended by either promoting or decelerating process 2 of the quiescence program. The three interventions displayed a common effect in which they slowed down a fast aging-associated deterioration in clonogenicity of low-density quiescent cells (process 3) and postponed a slow aging-associated decline in clonogenicity of high-density quiescent cells (process 4)

Distance covariance for random fields

We study an independence test based on distance correlation for random fields $(X,Y)$. We consider the situations when $(X,Y)$ is observed on a lattice with equidistant grid sizes and when $(X,Y)$ is observed at random locations. We provide asymptotic theory for the sample distance correlation in both situations and show bootstrap consistency. The latter fact allows one to build a test for independence of $X$ and $Y$ based on the considered discretizations of these fields. We illustrate the performance of the bootstrap test in a simulation study involving fractional Brownian and infinite variance stable fields. The independence test is applied to Japanese meteorological data, which are observed over the entire area of Japan.Comment: 34 pages, 6 figure

Molecular dynamics simulation and experimental study of the surface-display of SPA protein via Lpp-OmpA system for screening of IgG

Staphylococcal protein A (SpA) is a major virulence factor of Staphylococcus aureus. S. aureus is able to escape detection by the immune system by the surface display of protein A. The SpA protein is broadly used to purify immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies. This study investigates the fusion ability of Lpp�-OmpA (46�159) to anchor and display five replicate domains of protein A with 295 residues length (SpA295) of S. aureus on the surface of Escherichia coli to develop a novel bioadsorbent. First, the binding between Lpp�-OmpA-SPA295 and IgGFc and the three-dimensional structure was investigated using molecular dynamics simulation. Then high IgG recovery from human serum by the surface-displayed system of Lpp�-OmpA-SPA295 performed experimentally. In silico analysis was demonstrated the binding potential of SPA295 to IgG after expression on LPP-OmpA surface. Surface-engineered E. coli displaying SpA protein and IgG-binding assay with SDS-PAGE analysis exhibited high potential of the expressed complex on the E. coli surface for IgG capture from human serum which is applicable to conventional immune precipitation. © 2020, The Author(s)

A Responsible Parrhesia? A Review of The Price of Secrecy

The Price of Secrecy immerses the listener in stories of individual trauma, of child abuse and rape, yet also draws lessons from them of wider social significance. It includes moments of narrative catharsis, interspersed with repeated reminders that the stories are unfinished and open-ended—that the solutions lie out there, in social action, rather than in the stories themselves. The series also gestures towards structural critique, especially of ‘the legal constraints’ it identifies, yet it places greater importance on changing the wider culture through challenging the culture of secrecy and shame around victims’ stories of rape and abuse. This centrally means engaging with ‘family constraints’ in the shape of ‘family honour’. Yet it is also families who are presented as being able to ‘find the best resolution or action plan’, ideally with the aid of ‘someone like a therapist in a position of authority’. ‘Responsible listening’ in this context, does not invite the kind of frank and fearless truth-telling, or parrhesia that aims at tearing down hierarchical power relations. On the one hand, the podcast series deliberately invokes the authority of psychiatrists and therapists as sources of prestigious ‘modern’ medical and therapeutic knowledge—inevitably associated with the West—as a way of countering the defensiveness engendered by patriarchal honour codes. On the other hand, the series also shows how the key protagonists in its stories—mainly women—can both challenge and draw on the intimate resources of knowledge and support that family structures can afford, and that neither secrecy, nor a ‘will-to-truth’ that ignores social and cultural context, is productive for the victims

Haunting juxtapositions: gender, Covid-19, and the conservative modern

Feminist scholarship on the Middle East has often critiqued binaristic framings of gender rights which draw on Western-centric tropes of cosmopolitan modernity versus local backwardness. What I argue, through examining visual mediations of Covid-19 on Iranian social media, is that gender is reconfigured in this context as part of a nationalism that is both modernising and conservative. I particularly focus on how montage—a modernist visual genre—is utilised in the production of an Iranian national security imaginary which combines a rhetoric of modern, mixed-gender medical care with haunting resonances of male martyrdom and sacrifice during the Iran–Iraq war. While much has been written recently about Covid and national security, what is less discussed is how particularistic narratives of crisis can produce innovative reconfigurations of gender and modernity. Yet while Benjamin envisaged montage as a weapon in the destruction of aura, here, I argue, the deployment of aura supports the state’s “capture” of haunting affects as it seeks to re-shape national memory. What this suggests is that crisis permits a conditional shifting of gender roles, but this move is legitimated through the invocation of a redemptive history, wherein the nation re-emerges triumphant out of disaster