Flowers, queens, and goons: Unruly women in rural Pakistan

This article focuses on girls and women perceived as deviant, difficult, or different by their communities in rural Punjab, even as it pluralizes and historicizes performances of rebellious, unruly selves. Specifically, the paper uses fieldwork interactions with girls who enjoyed wanderings in out-of-bound spaces, women who claimed a position of authority as headmistresses in village schools, and women who troubled the social imaginary through their acts of intimidation and involvement in local politics in order to examine defiance of gendered norms within the context of material, structural, and discursive realities framing individual lives. The analysis illustrates how regional differences among various parts of Punjab, and hierarchies based on class, kinship, and religion within regions, demarcated the contours, scope, and consequences of women’s deviance and unruliness. While the research participants’ agency remained constrained by the violence in and around their lives as well as, in certain cases, their own complicity with hierarchical relations and masculinist discourses, the accounts and performances of deviance highlight the heterogeneity of rural Punjabi women’s experiences, debunking the myth of passive Muslim women, and asserting the imperative for nuanced, in-depth understandings of women’s negotiations of power relations

An evaluation of subjective experiences, effects and overall satisfaction with clozapine treatment in a UK forensic service

Objectives: Patients prescribed clozapine were surveyed to assess (a) the effects, both positive and adverse, and overall satisfaction with clozapine in comparison to previously prescribed antipsychotics and (b) the relative significance of effects experienced, both positive and adverse, in terms of impact on subjective well-being. Methods: A total of 56 male patients prescribed clozapine at a forensic psychiatric hospital were surveyed using a 27-item questionnaire. All patients had been prescribed clozapine for a minimum of 3 months. Respondents were asked to rate effects and satisfaction with clozapine treatment in comparison with previously prescribed antipsychotic medication on a five-point scale. Respondents were also asked to rate effects experienced with clozapine treatment in terms of impact on subjective well-being on a five-point scale. Results: A total of 89% of respondents reported greater satisfaction with clozapine than with previously prescribed antipsychotic medication. A majority of patients reported positive effects in terms of an improvement in their quality of life (68%) and social abilities (52%) with clozapine in comparison with previously prescribed antipsychotics. Nocturnal hypersalivation (84%) and weight gain (57%) were the most common adverse effects. Hedonic responses were assessed for each effect in order to determine the associated subjective experiences. The most positive hedonic responses were for quality of life, mood and alertness. In terms of adverse impact on subjective well-being, nocturnal hypersalivation ranked highest. Conclusions: Patients in a UK forensic sample are largely satisfied with clozapine treatment. The subjective effects of clozapine treatment should be taken into account by clinicians when assessing response. This may provide an opportunity to highlight the positive changes and prioritize management of the most undesirable adverse effects, which is likely to promote compliance and improve longer term treatment outcomes

Drivers of Microbial Risk for Direct Potable Reuse and de Facto Reuse Treatment Schemes: The Impacts of Source Water Quality and Blending.

Although reclaimed water for potable applications has many potential benefits, it poses concerns for chemical and microbial risks to consumers. We present a quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) Monte Carlo framework to compare a de facto water reuse scenario (treated wastewater-impacted surface water) with four hypothetical Direct Potable Reuse (DPR) scenarios for Norovirus, Cryptosporidium, and Salmonella. Consumer microbial risks of surface source water quality (impacted by 0-100% treated wastewater effluent) were assessed. Additionally, we assessed risks for different blending ratios (0-100% surface water blended into advanced-treated DPR water) when source surface water consisted of 50% wastewater effluent. De facto reuse risks exceeded the yearly 10-4 infections risk benchmark while all modeled DPR risks were significantly lower. Contamination with 1% or more wastewater effluent in the source water, and blending 1% or more wastewater-impacted surface water into the advanced-treated DPR water drove the risk closer to the 10-4 benchmark. We demonstrate that de facto reuse by itself, or as an input into DPR, drives microbial risks more so than the advanced-treated DPR water. When applied using location-specific inputs, this framework can contribute to project design and public awareness campaigns to build legitimacy for DPR

6G Vision: Towards Future Collaborative Cognitive Communication (3C) Systems

6G networks are expected to have a breakthrough by enabling the emergence of collaborative cognitive communication services over heterogeneous environments for industry 5.0 applications. These applications are required to adapt human-centric approach to make the most of human intuition and intelligence in Industry 4.0 automation.It calls for a transdisciplinarity research domain to investigate innovative systems with overlapping realms of Psychology, Sociology, Communication networks, Artificial Intelligence , Natural Language Processing and Collaborative Computing. The author at the Cognitive Systems Research Centre, London South Bank University has coined the expression “3C Systems" to refer to such artifacts which stands for "Collaborative Cognitive Communication Systems”. In this paper, an innovative framework for 3C Systems is proposed that is able to analyze and predict both the human as well as machine behaviors. It proactively diagnoses issues and recommends solutions without requiring any human intervention. The proposed concept of 3C Systems would potentially contribute towards 6G standardization. The automation and orchestration aspects of this research have variety of applications stretched across city infrastructures, retail, business, tourism, health, law, education and travel. A thorough insight to a broad view of 6G vision has been presented towards envisioned 3C Systems, while covering its enabling technologies. The experimental results for the proof of concept implementation has been presented. Results affirm the technical capabilities of the concept, to contribute to several industry 5.0 applications including, but not limited to holographic communication, self-driving vehicles, context-aware infrastructure and personalized interfaces

Harnessing autophagy to overcome mitogen‐activated protein kinase kinase inhibitor‐induced resistance in metastatic melanoma

Background Patients with malignant melanoma often relapse after treatment with BRAF and/or mitogen‐activated protein kinase kinase (MEK) inhibitors (MEKi) owing to development of drug resistance. Objectives To establish the temporal pattern of CD271 regulation during development of resistance by melanoma to trametinib, and determine the association between development of resistance to trametinib and induction of prosurvival autophagy. Methods Immunohistochemistry for CD271 and p62 was performed on human naevi and primary malignant melanoma tumours. Western blotting was used to analyse expression of CD271, p62 and LC3 in melanoma subpopulations. Flow cytometry and immunofluorescence microscopy was used to evaluate trametinib‐induced cell death and CD271 expression. MTS viability assays and zebrafish xenografts were used to evaluate the effect of CD271 and autophagy modulation on trametinib‐resistant melanoma cell survival and invasion, respectively. Results CD271 and autophagic signalling are increased in stage III primary melanomas vs. benign naevi. In vitro studies demonstrate MEKi of BRAF‐mutant melanoma induced cytotoxic autophagy, followed by the emergence of CD271‐expressing subpopulations. Trametinib‐induced CD271 reduced autophagic flux, leading to activation of prosurvival autophagy and development of MEKi resistance. Treatment of CD271‐expressing melanoma subpopulations with RNA interference and small‐molecule inhibitors to CD271 reduced the development of MEKi resistance, while clinically applicable autophagy modulatory agents – including Δ9‐tetrahydrocannabinol and Vps34 – reduced survival of MEKi‐resistant melanoma cells. Combined MEK/autophagy inhibition also reduced the invasive and metastatic potential of MEKi‐resistant cells in an in vivo zebrafish xenograft. Conclusions These results highlight a novel mechanism of MEKi‐induced drug resistance and suggest that targeting autophagy may be a translatable approach to resensitize drug‐resistant melanoma cells to the cytotoxic effects of MEKi

Balancing the Regulation and Taxing of Banking

This study gives an overview of bank taxation as an alternative to prudential regulations or non-revenue taxation. We review existing bank taxation with a view to eliminating distortions in the tax system, which have incentivized banks to engage in risky activities in the past. We furthermore analyze taxation of financial instruments trading and taxation of banking products and services and their ability to finance resolution mechanisms for banks and to ensure their stability. In this respect, we put forward the following arguments: (1) that a financial transaction tax is economically inefficient and potentially costly for the economy and may not protect taxpayers; (2) that a bank levy used to finance deposit guarantee and bank resolution mechanisms is potentially useful for financial stability, but that it poses the threat of double taxation, together with the proposed Basel III liquidity ratios; and (3) that we support the elimination of exemption from value added tax (VAT) for financial services in order to provide banks with a level playing field, whilst retaining exemption for basic payments services. This is expected to improve efficiency by reducing the wasteful use of financial services