The “Apple of Discord”: The Btekhnay Rally and the (Ephemeral?) Subversion of Mount Lebanon’s Politics of Space (1965)

On the early autumn of 1965, the village of Btekhnayeh, in the caza of Aley, Mount Lebanon, became for a few days the center of Lebanese political life. After months of intense mobilizations, with the support of a coalition of leftist forces headed by the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) Kamal Jumblatt, on September 25 about 20.000 fruit growers from the whole region held an unprecedented demonstration to oppose and denounce the speculative policies of the agricultural monopolists, marking the first great public questioning of the Merchant Republic and its social costs. This unexpected showdown and the symbolic transgression of the very foundations of Lebanese post-colonial order that it conveyed provoked among Lebanese conservative political circles an incredible alarm. So to re-establish the symbolic boundaries that the growers had blatantly transgressed, a counter-rally in the neighboring village of Naba Safa was immediately organized for the following week. There, the re-appropriation and the re-signification of the political spatiality of Mount Lebanon performed by the Btekhnayeh attendants were reverted and re-semantized, in a veritable mirror game in whose nooks historical, ideological and even dynastic rivalries found their terrain of confrontation. The Btekhnayeh rally represented the inaugural act of the transition of rural Lebanon from a locus of preservation to a locus of conflict and contestation of Lebanese post-colonial order. To lead and trace the boundaries of this transition, the political contention of Lebanese peasantry, whose organic relation with the Leftist and progressive forces deeply modified the political geographies and balances of power of the country. Nevertheless, despite upon this process sedimented a substantial part of the domestic tensions, fractures and alliances ultimately expressed in the Lebanese Civil War, exception made for the South of Lebanon, the radicalization of Lebanese rural spatialities has found little space in the research agendas on the country. The purposed contribution wants to put a first landmark on the investigation of the subject, through the genealogical retrieval of the Btekhnayeh rally and its spatial-political implications. In particular, after tracing a brief historical overview of the political representations of Mount Lebanon and their political-ideological function, the contribution will investigate the role played by the use and the signification of space in the events exposed, to then re-collocate them in the broader set of political, socio-economic and ideological tensions which were crossing the country and their aftermaths. The paper contends that the under-investigation of the contention-driven radicalization of rural Lebanon has severely limited the knowledge and the understanding of the contentious dynamics which crossed and shaped the national political landscape during the Civil conflict, as it was also from the prior rural strives that the actors and the agendas which opposed each other from region to region during the War stemmed from

“Workers do not liberate themselves other than with their own hands”—The Political Experience of Workers' Committees in the Industrial District of Beirut (1970–1975)

From the end of the 1960s until the outbreak of the Civil War (1975), Lebanon experienced a phase of relatively sustained industrial expansion. Albeit the “boom” did not modify significantly Lebanon's tertiarized economic structure, it was anyway sufficient to create the structural conditions for the emergence of a new militant working-class able to become one of the most relevant contentious actors of its time. This new working class was made primarily of very young and recently urbanized unemployed of rural origin, brutally injected in a crude and hyper-exploitative productive cycle where formal labor unions were, for the most part, absent or scarcely effective. The input for their grassroots, transgressive organization into factory-based Workers’ Committees came from the Organization for Communist Action in Lebanon (OACL), i.e. the most important force of the so-called Lebanese New Left, within the framework of a broader process of militant penetration of the “revolutionary classes” produced by the contradictions of Lebanese capitalism. This created the precondition for the Committees to affirm themselves not only as the radical avant-garde of the Lebanese labor movement but also as an integral part of a broader process of contestation of the existing status quo by the subaltern groups emerged from - or activated by - the structural and cultural changes that the country was experiencing. By retrieving the forgotten history of the Workers’ Committees, the article wants to examine the forms and the trajectories whereby such a new working class became an integral part of this process. In particular, by adopting a Gramscian methodology, the article will first expose the structural changes in the Lebanese industrial sector in the examined period and their labor implications. Then, it will focus on the dynamics which superseded the Committees' birth and affirmation, reserving particular attention to the role played by the OACL. Finally, it will conclude by examining the impact of their agency on the political developments that the country was experiencing. The paper contends that the emergence and the affirmation of counter-hegemonical and transformative working-class activism on the eve of the Civil War, along with representing a direct by-product of structural stresses and constraints, was significantly debtor also of the new ideological and militant infrastructures that the emergence of an Arab New Left had contributed to popularize and deploy. The paper wants also to intervene in the historiographical debate on the Lebanese Civil War, stressing the importance of both subaltern actors and class phenomena in its outbreak, which have generally been widely disregarded by the dominant understandings of the conflict

Mobilizing the past in revolutionary times: memory, counter‐memory, and nostalgia during the Lebanese uprising

Social movement studies have addressed the issue of nostalgia within two perspectives, focusing, respectively, on emotions and on memory. Our contribution looks at nostalgia in social movements by building upon the combination of these two streams in social movement studies. Going beyond a stereotypical vision of reactionary movements as backward looking and progressive ones as forward looking, we will suggest that while both types of movements look at some aspects of the past with nostalgia, they do it in a very different combination of emotions and memory. To compare how different movements perform their emotional and memory work, we focused on the recent uprising in Lebanon as a critical case in which mobilizations and counter-mobilizations have been carried out by different actors at the same time. In both cases, nostalgia was strategically developed for different moments of Lebanon's history through the movements' choices of the very spaces for the performance of contentious acts, but also the symbolic meaning attributed to them and the emotional work performed around the protest events. By developing a “tick description” of some main contentious moments where nostalgia emerged in the Lebanon uprisings, we aim to understand the ways in which nostalgia intervenes in the social construction of memories and counter-memories, in an emotionally dense environment

Einfluss von oxidiertem Lipoprotein geringer Dichte (oxLDL) auf die intrazelluläre Cholesterolkonzentration und die Auswirkung auf die Proteinexpression von SR-BI und HIF-1 alpha in THP-1 Makrophagen

Diese Arbeit beschreibt den Einfluss von oxLDL auf die Schaumzellbildung in THP-1 Zellen und vergleicht die intrazelluläre Cholesterolkonzentration von mit nLDL, Cu2+- oxLDL und HOCl-oxLDL inkubierten Makrophagen mittels HPLC-Methode. Zusätzlich wird der Effekt von oxLDL auf die Proteinexpression von HIF-1a und SR-BI untersucht, wobei auch dieWirkung des Antioxidans NAC in THP-1 Makrophagen beschrieben wird.This work describes the influence of oxLDL on foam cell formation in THP-1 macrophages. Furthermore we compare the intracellular cholesterol concentrations of nLDL-, Cu2+-oxLDL- and HOCl-oxLDL- incubated macrophages by HPLC. Additionally the effect of oxLDL on the protein expression of HIF-1a and SR-BI is analysed and also the effect of the antioxidant NAC in THP-1 macrophages is described

Thermal Cycles and Residual Stresses in FSW of Aluminum Alloys: Experimental Measurements and Numerical Models

In the present work longitudinal residual stresses obtained by different methods, numerical and experimental, in Friction Stir Welding (FSW) process for AA7075 were analyzed. The experimental method employed for residual stresses measurements was sectioning, whereas the numerical is a finite element (FEM) thermomechanical coupled model which does not consider the stir in the material. The effect of travel speed during FSW was also analyzed, measuring with strain gages positioned in several points at different distances from weld centerline. From the obtained residual strains, the stress values, stress variation against weld centerline distance and null stress point were calculated. Numerical and experimental stress values agree in order of magnitude, being greater in numerical method inside stir zone's edge and even outside, and smaller at some point towards the end of plate. Stress variation against weld centerline distance and null stress position vary in different ways for each method. This phenomenon agrees with another works, and it could be related with no consideration of the stir process in the numerical method. Thus, it has been developed a simplified finite element model which averages in magnitude experimental residual stress in FSW.Fil: Buglioni, Luciano. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Industrial;Fil: Tufaro, Leonardo Nicolás. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Industrial;Fil: Svoboda, Hernán Gabriel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Tecnologías y Ciencias de la Ingeniería "Hilario Fernández Long". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Tecnologías y Ciencias de la Ingeniería "Hilario Fernández Long"

Effect of welding parameters on heat generation mechanisms in friction stir welding of AA5083 aluminium alloy

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a solid-state welding process which has revolutionized several industries in the last thirty years. The heat needed to produce the joint is generated by friction at the tool-workpiece interface and plastic deformation of the material, being affected by parameters like tool rotational speed, travel speed, axial load and tool geometry, among others. The objective of this work was to analyse the energy transformations during FSW of AA5083 aluminium alloy in order to achieve a better comprehension of the whole process, and particularly the heat generation mechanisms and material flow, which will define the quality of the joint. Experimental measurements of process parameters and conceptual analytical and numerical models were implemented. Consumed electric current, axial load and thermal cycles were acquired during FSW of AA5083 plates, for different rotational and travel speeds. From these measurements, different magnitudes (heat and torque) associated to the energy transformations were calculated. The relationships between welding parameters, generated heat and torque, sticking and sliding components and contact condition were analysed and related with material flow. The sticking heat was always higher than the sliding one, even when contact condition was closer to pure sliding. For a giving heat input, a higher sticking component produced an increase in the material flow.Fil: Tufaro, Leonardo Nicolás. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Industrial; ArgentinaFil: Buglioni, Luciano. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Industrial; ArgentinaFil: Svoboda, Hernán Gabriel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Tecnologías y Ciencias de la Ingeniería "Hilario Fernández Long". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Tecnologías y Ciencias de la Ingeniería "Hilario Fernández Long"; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Ingeniería Mecánica; Argentin

Long-term efficacy of OROS® hydromorphone combined with pregabalin for chronic non-cancer neuropathic pain.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Treatment for chronic non-cancer neuropathic pain can be complicated by side effects and drug interactions. Combining opioid analgesics and calcium channel modulators may overcome these and improve efficacy. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of OROS® hydromorphone combined with pregabalin in patients with chronic non-cancer neuropathic pain. METHODS: This retrospective observational study was conducted on clinical records from patients aged ≥18 years with chronic non-cancer neuropathic [>4 on the Douleur Neuropathique en 4 questions (DN4) scale] pain of ≥6 months duration, with severe intensity [>4 on the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS); range 0-10], who attended all visits and had ≥12 months of follow-up at the Tor Vergata University Polyclinic Hospital, from November 2008 to February 2011. Patients received an oral combination of OROS® hydromorphone and pregabalin. Pain was evaluated at each visit (months 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12) using the NRS and DN4 scale; Patients' Global Impression of Change (PGIC) was administered at months 1, 6, and 12. Dosage and side effects were recorded at each visit. RESULTS: Of 1,292 patients (32 % men, mean ± SD age 67.6 ± 11.9 years), 1,126 attended all visits. Seventeen percent (n = 224) had purely neuropathic pain. Initial mean dosage was 6.06 ± 2.00 mg/day for OROS® hydromorphone, 113.02 ± 21.94 mg/day for pregabalin. Dosages increased up to month 6, and returned to near initial dosages at month 12 (range 4-120 mg/day for OROS® hydromorphone; 75-600 mg/day for pregabalin). NRS pain scores (mean ± standard deviation) were 7.25 ± 1.34 at baseline and 1.85 ± 1.36 at 12 months (p < 0.0001); DN4 scores were 6.19 ± 1.65 at baseline, reduced to 1.84 ± 1.25 at 12 months (p < 0.0001), reductions of 74.4 and 70.2 %, respectively. More than 90 % of patients had a ≥50 % score reduction on both scales after 12 months. The PGIC scale showed that >75 % of patients felt improvement at 1 month, increasing to 91 % and 93 % at 6 and 12 months. The incidence of side effects was similar between elderly (aged >65 years) and younger subjects; there were no cases of addiction. CONCLUSIONS: The OROS® hydromorphone and pregabalin combination was efficacious for chronic non-cancer neuropathic pain and well tolerated, providing significant pain reduction without the risk of addiction and with a good tolerability profile, regardless of age