The Fantasy of Spotting Human Trafficking: Training Spectacles in Racist Surveillance

In January 2019, in honor of National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month in the US, the Marriott International hotel group announced that it had successfully trained 600,000 hotel workers to spot the signs of human trafficking in its hotel properties around the world. This training, planned and executed in partnership with anti-trafficking organizations and law enforcement, reflects the recent proliferation of training schemes to identify victims of trafficking. This paper explores how such trainings script racist optics into the surveillance and policing of potential victims. Using proxy markers of poverty, sexuality, race, and nation, victim identification trainings expand policing--by civilians and law enforcement alike--and foreclose liberation for migrant and sex workers of color to survive under the constraints of global capitalism. The paper concludes with alternative mobilization possibilities that propose defunding anti-trafficking, and learning from lessons offered by sex worker right and racial justice organizations

The New Virtual Crackdown on Sex Workers’ Rights: Perspectives from the United States

On 11 April 2018, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) was signed into law in the United States. FOSTA introduced new provisions to amend the Communications Act of 1934 so that websites can be prosecuted if they engage ‘in the promotion or facilitation of prostitution’ or ‘facilitate traffickers in advertising the sale of unlawful sex acts with sex trafficking victims.’ While supporters of the law claim that its aim is to target human traffickers, its text makes no effort to differentiate between trafficking and consensual sex work and it functionally includes websites where workers advertise services or share information, including safety tips.[3] Following the law’s passage—and even before its full implementation—sex workers felt its impact as websites began to eliminate platforms previously used to advertise services. Backpage, an adult advertising website, was pre-emptively seized by the FBI. Other platforms began to censor or remove content related to sex work, including Google, Craigslist, and many online advertising networks. Sex workers in the United States have denounced the passage of FOSTA for reducing workers’ ability to screen clients and ensure safety practices. This paper provides an overview of the findings of a recent survey with sex workers in the United States, details the advent of similar initiatives in other countries, and explores how the legislation conflates trafficking with consensual sex work

Health and Rights at the Margins: Human trafficking and HIV/AIDS amongst Jingpo ethnic communities in Ruili City, China

In 2007, China and Myanmar signed their first Bilateral Memorandum of Understanding on human trafficking. The two countries cemented this agreement with the unveiling of the first Border Liaison Office in Ruili City, located in China’s southwestern Yunnan Province — one of the primary border crossing points between China and Myanmar. The government focus on human trafficking on this border intersects with decades of struggles to curb the border’s porousness to drugs and HIV/AIDS. This paper is based on qualitative ethnographic participant observation and interviews with young Jingpo women living in Ruili City and investigates the risk of human trafficking as a by-product of cultural stigma associated with ethnic marginality, drugs, and HIV/AIDS. The case of Ruili warns us that the global shift towards regarding human trafficking as the single most perilous phenomenon of the current age obscures ongoing issues of vulnerability and cultural stigma for ethnic minority peoples globally. In lieu of state sponsored patrol and monitoring of the border, more attention must be paid to overlapping concerns of people living in border communities, including drug prevalence, disease, and ethnic marginalisation

Examination of the Relationship between In-Store Environmental Factors and Fruit and Vegetable Purchasing among Hispanics.

Retail food environments have received attention for their influence on dietary behaviors and for their nutrition intervention potential. To improve diet-related behaviors, such as fruit and vegetable (FV) purchasing, it is important to examine its relationship with in-store environmental characteristics. This study used baseline data from the "El Valor de Nuestra Salud" study to examine how in-store environmental characteristics, such as product availability, placement and promotion, were associated with FV purchasing among Hispanic customers in San Diego County. Mixed linear regression models indicated that greater availability of fresh FVs was associated with a $0.36 increase in FV purchasing (p = 0.01). Placement variables, specifically each additional square foot of display space dedicated to FVs (p = 0.01) and each additional fresh FV display (p = 0.01), were associated with a$0.02 increase and $0.29 decrease, respectively, in FV purchasing. Introducing FV promotions in the final model was not related to FV purchasing. Exploratory analyses indicated that men reported spending$3.69 fewer dollars on FVs compared to women, controlling for covariates (p = 0.02). These results can help inform interventions targeting in-store environmental characteristics to encourage FV purchasing among Hispanics

Nonlinear theory of soliton-induced waveguides

We develop a nonlinear theory of soliton-induced waveguides that describes a finite-amplitude probe beam guided by a spatial dark soliton in a saturable nonlinear medium. We suggest an effective way to control the interaction of these soliton-induced waveguides and also show that, in sharp contrast with scalar dark solitons, the dark-soliton waveguides can attract each other and even form stationary bound states.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figure

World Englishes: Practical Implications for Teaching and Research

With the emergence of World Englishes (WE) and the continuous flow of international students into universities in the United States, issues surrounding the tolerance and acceptance of varieties of English, the notion of standards, and the concept of nativeness all come to the forefront of research and pedagogy. Since English is the dominant language of international academic publication and since it has been adapted and adopted by a number of countries for various instrumental, institutional, innovative/imaginative, and interpersonal functions (Kachru, 1984), it is essential for teachers and administrators to be aware of the pluricentricity of English and their students’ different sociolinguistic backgrounds as outlined in the WE paradigm (Kachru, Kachru, & Nelson, 2006). A key characteristic of the WE paradigm is the Concentric Circles model in which the world is divided into three circles that describe the spread of English in the world according to users, “patterns of acquisition, and the functional domains in which English is used across cultures and languages” (Kachru, 1985, p. 12). The three circles are the Inner Circle where English is the native language (e.g., the U.S. and the U.K.); the Outer Circle where English became an official/second language as a result of colonialization (e.g., India and South Africa); and the Expanding Circle where English is taught as a foreign language (e.g., France, Russia, and China). Another element of WE research includes the issues of nativeness and standards. “Who is a native speaker?” and “which standard should we teach?” are two questions that have been debated for the past 60 years. This paper addresses these issues in the classroom and beyond. It contextualizes and identifies the problem with English as a Second Language (ESL) composition classes in the Inner Circle context, specifically the U.S., and examines several methods for incorporating a WE perspective into an ESL composition program. It also challenges English language teacher requirements and an international publication culture that follows Inner Circle standards

The natural history of multiple osteochondromas in a large Italian cohort of pediatric patients.

Abstract Importance Multiple osteochondromas is a rare hereditary skeletal disorder, characterized by bony protrusions arising from growth plates on long bones during skeletal development. The disorder frequently leads to diminished stature, deformities and functional limitations. Understanding of the natural history of multiple osteochondromas and its evolution in children and adolescents is limited. Objective To provide valuable information on the natural history of multiple osteochondromas, to inform recommendations for treatment and prevent impairments caused by osteochondromas. Design This retrospective cohort study in children with multiple osteochondromas includes longitudinal data collected from first to last follow-up visit for patient demographics, and over 36 months for disease evolution. Setting Data were collected from the Registry of Multiple Osteochondromas, which includes data from circa 1200 patients with multiple osteochondromas treated from 2003 to 2017 at IRCCS Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli in Bologna. Participants Patients ≤18 years with multiple osteochondromas, who provided written informed consent and had data for ≥1 12-month follow-up visit. Main outcome(s) and measurement(s) Demographics, clinical features, incidence of surgeries, and disease evolution (progression or regression) were assessed. Results were summarized using descriptive statistics, annual rates of new clinical features and surgeries, and Kaplan-Meier estimates. Patient height was evaluated following Italian growth charts. Results 158 patients were included in these analyses. Throughout follow-up, 80.4% of patients developed new osteochondromas, 57.6% developed new deformities, 23.4% developed new functional limitation(s). New osteochondroma(s) were developed by 28.5% patients by Month 12, 39.9% at Month 24, 50% at Month 36. Most new osteochondromas were detected in the younger population; patients aged 0–4 years underwent a significantly higher number of lesions within 12, 24 and 36 months of follow-up. The overall incidence of patients with ≥1 new deformity within 12 months was 17.7%, with incidences decreasing with increasing age (p = .023). In addition, the analyses on height highlight that 13 years is a cut off age for slow growth of the stature (p  Conclusions and relevance This natural history study reports the main set of clinically relevant data for patients with multiple osteochondromas during skeletal development, providing insight for patient management and development of therapeutic interventions

Factoring-in agglomeration of carbon nanotubes and nanofibers for better prediction of their toxicity versus asbestos

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Carbon nanotubes (CNT) and carbon nanofibers (CNF) are allotropes of carbon featuring fibrous morphology. The dimensions and high aspect ratio of CNT and CNF have prompted the comparison with naturally occurring asbestos fibers which are known to be extremely pathogenic. While the toxicity and hazardous outcomes elicited by airborne exposure to single-walled CNT or asbestos have been widely reported, very limited data are currently available describing adverse effects of respirable CNF.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here, we assessed pulmonary inflammation, fibrosis, oxidative stress markers and systemic immune responses to respirable CNF in comparison to single-walled CNT (SWCNT) and asbestos. Pulmonary inflammatory and fibrogenic responses to CNF, SWCNT and asbestos varied depending upon the agglomeration state of the particles/fibers. Foci of granulomatous lesions and collagen deposition were associated with dense particle-like SWCNT agglomerates, while no granuloma formation was found following exposure to fiber-like CNF or asbestos. The average thickness of the alveolar connective tissue - a marker of interstitial fibrosis - was increased 28 days post SWCNT, CNF or asbestos exposure. Exposure to SWCNT, CNF or asbestos resulted in oxidative stress evidenced by accumulations of 4-HNE and carbonylated proteins in the lung tissues. Additionally, local inflammatory and fibrogenic responses were accompanied by modified systemic immunity, as documented by decreased proliferation of splenic T cells <it>ex vivo </it>on day 28 post exposure. The accuracies of assessments of effective surface area for asbestos, SWCNT and CNF (based on geometrical analysis of their agglomeration) versus estimates of mass dose and number of particles were compared as predictors of toxicological outcomes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We provide evidence that effective surface area along with mass dose rather than specific surface area or particle number are significantly correlated with toxicological responses to carbonaceous fibrous nanoparticles. Therefore, they could be useful dose metrics for risk assessment and management.</p

Observation of dipole-mode vector solitons

We report on the first experimental observation of a novel type of optical vector soliton, a {\em dipole-mode soliton}, recently predicted theoretically. We show that these vector solitons can be generated in a photorefractive medium employing two different processes: a phase imprinting, and a symmetry-breaking instability of a vortex-mode vector soliton. The experimental results display remarkable agreement with the theory, and confirm the robust nature of these radially asymmetric two-component solitary waves.Comment: 4 pages, 8 figures; pictures in the PRL version are better qualit

Monoubiquitination of syntaxin 3 leads to retrieval from the basolateral plasma membrane and facilitates cargo recruitment to exosomes

Syntaxin 3 (Stx3), a SNARE protein located and functioning at the apical plasma membrane of epithelial cells, is required for epithelial polarity. A fraction of Stx3 is localized to late endosomes/lysosomes, although how it traffics there and its function in these organelles is unknown. Here we report that Stx3 undergoes monoubiquitination in a conserved polybasic domain. Stx3 present at the basolateral—but not the apical—plasma membrane is rapidly endocytosed, targeted to endosomes, internalized into intraluminal vesicles (ILVs), and excreted in exosomes. A nonubiquitinatable mutant of Stx3 (Stx3-5R) fails to enter this pathway and leads to the inability of the apical exosomal cargo protein GPRC5B to enter the ILV/exosomal pathway. This suggests that ubiquitination of Stx3 leads to removal from the basolateral membrane to achieve apical polarity, that Stx3 plays a role in the recruitment of cargo to exosomes, and that the Stx3-5R mutant acts as a dominant-negative inhibitor. Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) acquires its membrane in an intracellular compartment and we show that Stx3-5R strongly reduces the number of excreted infectious viral particles. Altogether these results suggest that Stx3 functions in the transport of specific proteins to apical exosomes and that HCMV exploits this pathway for virion excretion