1,734 research outputs found
Introduction:Conceptualizing Hinterlands
This introduction first considers the history of the hinterland as not just any spatial distribution but one driven by and instrumental to the workings of the capitalist-colonialist-climatic assemblage. Subsequently, it contends that an interdisciplinary conceptual approach to hinterlands that straddles the humanities and social sciences allows for critical and engaged reflection on the haunting afterlives of colonialism, the logistical turn of global capitalism, the impending threat of environmental collapse, and persistent urban-suburban-rural-wilderness divides. The introduction closes by outlining how, together, the contributions to this volume make clear that while hinterlands are primarily realms of extraction and abandonment, they are places of possibility as well, where alternative ways of living together and new forms of care, including for the planet, may flourish
Farnesyl diphosphate synthase, the target for nitrogen-containing bisphosphonate drugs, is a peroxisomal enzyme in the model system Dictyostelium discoideum
NBP (nitrogen-containing bisphosphonate) drugs protect against
excessive osteoclast-mediated bone resorption. After binding to
bone mineral, they are taken up selectively by the osteoclasts
and inhibit the essential enzyme FDPS (farnesyl diphosphate
synthase). NBPs inhibit also growth of amoebae of Dictyostelium
discoideum in which their target is again FDPS. A fusion protein
between FDPS and GFP (green fluorescent protein) was found, in
D. discoideum, to localize to peroxisomes and to confer resistance
to the NBP alendronate. GFP was also directed to peroxisomes
by a fragment of FDPS comprising amino acids 1–22. This
contains a sequence of nine amino acids that closely resembles
the nonapeptide PTS2 (peroxisomal targeting signal type 2): there
is only a single amino acid mismatch between the two sequences.
Mutation analysis confirmed that the atypical PTS2 directs FDPS
into peroxisomes. Furthermore, expression of the D. discoideum
FDPS–GFP fusion protein in strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae
defective in peroxisomal protein import demonstrated that import
of FDPS into peroxisomes was blocked in a strain lacking the
PTS2-dependent import pathway. The peroxisomal location of
FDPS in D. discoideum indicates that NBPs have to cross the
peroxisomal membrane before they can bind to their target
Statistical Communication Theory
Contains research objectives and reports on three research projects
Humanitarian aid as an integral part of the European Union's external action: the challenge of reconciling coherence and independence
The article focuses on the European Union's (EU) humanitarian aid policy. It addresses the challenge for the EU to deliver independent humanitarian aid while simultaneously seeking to establish more coherence between its external policies. The article examines how the EU tries to reconcile these potentially conflicting policy goals, both de jure and in practice. Empirically, it explores the interaction between EU humanitarian aid and development cooperation, the Common Foreign and Security Policy, and trade policy. While the independence of the humanitarian aid delivery is, for the most part, not being undermined, it remains difficult to establish positive synergies with other external policies because of institutional hurdles and legal constraints, as well as political obstacles and operational incompatibilities
Cost-benefit analysis for commissioning decisions in GEO600
Gravitational wave interferometers are complex instruments, requiring years
of commissioning to achieve the required sensitivities for the detection of
gravitational waves, of order 10^-21 in dimensionless detector strain, in the
tens of Hz to several kHz frequency band. Investigations carried out by the
GEO600 detector characterisation group have shown that detector
characterisation techniques are useful when planning for commissioning work. At
the time of writing, GEO600 is the only large scale laser interferometer
currently in operation running with a high duty factor, 70%, limited chiefly by
the time spent commissioning the detector. The number of observable
gravitational wave sources scales as the product of the volume of space to
which the detector is sensitive and the observation time, so the goal of
commissioning is to improve the detector sensitivity with the least possible
detector down time. We demonstrate a method for increasing the number of
sources observable by such a detector, by assessing the severity of
non-astrophysical noise contaminations to efficiently guide commissioning. This
method will be particularly useful in the early stages and during the initial
science runs of the aLIGO and adVirgo detectors, as they are brought up to
design performance.Comment: 17 pages, 17 figures, 2 table
The neural basis of authenticity recognition in laughter and crying
Deciding whether others’ emotions are genuine is essential for successful communication and social relationships. While previous fMRI studies suggested that differentiation between authentic and acted emotional expressions involves higher-order brain areas, the time course of authenticity discrimination is still unknown. To address this gap, we tested the impact of authenticity discrimination on event-related potentials (ERPs) related to emotion, motivational salience, and higher-order cognitive processing (N100, P200 and late positive complex, the LPC), using vocalised non-verbal expressions of sadness (crying) and happiness (laughter) in a 32-participant, within-subject study. Using a repeated measures 2-factor (authenticity, emotion) ANOVA, we show that N100’s amplitude was larger in response to authentic than acted vocalisations, particularly in cries, while P200’s was larger in response to acted vocalisations, particularly in laughs. We suggest these results point to two different mechanisms: (1) a larger N100 in response to authentic vocalisations is consistent with its link to emotional content and arousal (putatively larger amplitude for genuine emotional expressions); (2) a larger P200 in response to acted ones is in line with evidence relating it to motivational salience (putatively larger for ambiguous emotional expressions). Complementarily, a significant main effect of emotion was found on P200 and LPC amplitudes, in that the two were larger for laughs than cries, regardless of authenticity. Overall, we provide the first electroencephalographic examination of authenticity discrimination and propose that authenticity processing of others’ vocalisations is initiated early, along that of their emotional content or category, attesting for its evolutionary relevance for trust and bond formation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
GEO 600 and the GEO-HF upgrade program: successes and challenges
The German-British laser-interferometric gravitational wave detector GEO 600
is in its 14th year of operation since its first lock in 2001. After GEO 600
participated in science runs with other first-generation detectors, a program
known as GEO-HF began in 2009. The goal was to improve the detector sensitivity
at high frequencies, around 1 kHz and above, with technologically advanced yet
minimally invasive upgrades. Simultaneously, the detector would record science
quality data in between commissioning activities. As of early 2014, all of the
planned upgrades have been carried out and sensitivity improvements of up to a
factor of four at the high-frequency end of the observation band have been
achieved. Besides science data collection, an experimental program is ongoing
with the goal to further improve the sensitivity and evaluate future detector
technologies. We summarize the results of the GEO-HF program to date and
discuss its successes and challenges
Pade approximants for functions with branch points - strong asymptotics of Nuttall-Stahl polynomials
Let f be a germ of an analytic function at infinity that can be analytically
continued along any path in the complex plane deprived of a finite set of
points, f \in\mathcal{A}(\bar{\C} \setminus A), \sharp A <\infty. J. Nuttall
has put forward the important relation between the maximal domain of f where
the function has a single-valued branch and the domain of convergence of the
diagonal Pade approximants for f. The Pade approximants, which are rational
functions and thus single-valued, approximate a holomorphic branch of f in the
domain of their convergence. At the same time most of their poles tend to the
boundary of the domain of convergence and the support of their limiting
distribution models the system of cuts that makes the function f single-valued.
Nuttall has conjectured (and proved for many important special cases) that this
system of cuts has minimal logarithmic capacity among all other systems
converting the function f to a single-valued branch. Thus the domain of
convergence corresponds to the maximal (in the sense of minimal boundary)
domain of single-valued holomorphy for the analytic function f
\in\mathcal{A}(\bar{\C} \setminus A). The complete proof of Nuttall's
conjecture (even in a more general setting where the set A has logarithmic
capacity zero) was obtained by H. Stahl. In this work, we derive strong
asymptotics for the denominators of the diagonal Pade approximants for this
problem in a rather general setting. We assume that A is a finite set of branch
points of f which have the algebraic character and which are placed in a
generic position. The last restriction means that we exclude from our
consideration some degenerated "constellations" of the branch points.Comment: 47 pages, 8 figure
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