Conflicting Modernities: Militarization and Islands

This chapter mainly points out how militarization as a bureaucratic and discursive “apparatus” results in a colonial modernization. Furthermore, the chapter establishes a direct link between military settlements – by various occupations – and a narrative of modernization and modernity. Both military protocols and the scope of the military activities contribute to a form of colonization and dependence, economically as well as culturally. Militarization is a wider concept involving at least two dimensions: the economic and political factors sustaining the expansion of military spending; and the social, cultural, and ideological dimension. However, the master narrative of modernization clashes with rising claims to autonomy in the local population that assert an alternative modernity.

A new class of protein sensor links spirochete pleomorphism, persistence, and chemotaxis

Pathogenic spirochetes can alter their morphologies and behaviors to infect and survive within their hosts. Previous reports demonstrate that the formation of so-called round bodies and biofilms, and chemotaxis are involved in spirochete pathogenesis. Here, in the spirochete Treponema denticola, we report a direct link between these cellular states that involves a new class of protein sensor (CheWS) with hitherto unclear function. Using cryo-EM methods, protein modeling, bioinformatics, genetics methods, and behavioral assays we demonstrate that spirochetes regulate these behaviors in response to the small molecule s-adenosylmethionine (SAM) via a SAM sensor that is anchored to chemotaxis arrays. CheWS influences chemotaxis, biofilm and round body formation under non-stressed conditions by a novel sporulation-like mechanism. Taken together, we establish an improved model for round body formation, we discovered a direct link between this SAM sensor and changes in cellular states, as well as characterized a new sensor class involved in chemotaxis.

‘When most I wink, then’ – what? Assessing the comprehension of literary texts in university students of English as a second language

This article introduces a test for literary text comprehension in university students of English as a second language. Poetry is especially suited for our purpose since it frequently shows features that offer challenges to comprehension in a limited space. An example is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 43, on which our test is based: it is suited for assessing not only if a text has been understood but also the ability of respondents to reflect on their own comprehension skills. We show that the test’s psychometric properties are satisfactory, and we demonstrate its validity by analysing relevant external indicators. Thus, we can show a direct link between general reading experience and text comprehension as tested: the more students read, the better do they perform. The collaboration of literary studies with psychometrics moreover allows for a statistically valid identification of specific challenges to comprehension and thus advance our knowledge of what readers find difficult. This will be of interest not only in a hermeneutic and linguistic perspective but also with a view to addressing those difficulties in an educational context. For example, asking someone whether they have understood an utterance (in this case: a line of poetry) does not elicit reliable answers. Being able to say how one has established the meaning of a line seems to be a more reliable indicator of actually having understood it.

Robust Security Beamforming for SWIPT-Assisted Relay System with Channel Uncertainty

This paper considers the physical layer security (PLS) of a simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) relay communication system composed of a legitimate source–destination pair and some eavesdroppers. Supposing a disturbance of channel status information (CSI) between relay and eavesdroppers in a bounded ellipse, we intend to design a robust beamformer to maximum security rate in the worst case on the constraints of relay energy consumption. To handle this non-convex optimization problem, we introduce a slack variable to transform the original problem into two sub-problems firstly, then an algorithm employing a semidefinite relaxation (SDR) technique and S-procedure is proposed to tackle above two sub-problems. Although our study was conducted in the scene of a direct link among source, destination, and eavesdroppers that is non-existing, we demonstrate that our conclusions can be easily extended to the scene for which a direct link among source, destination and eavesdroppers exist. Numerical simulation results compared with the benchmark scheme are provided to prove the effectiveness and superior performance of our algorithm.

Quot-scheme limit of Fubini-Study metrics and Donaldson's functional for vector bundles

For a holomorphic vector bundle $E$ over a polarised K\"ahler manifold, we establish a direct link between the slope stability of $E$ and the asymptotic behaviour of Donaldson's functional, by defining the Quot-scheme limit of Fubini-Study metrics. In particular, we provide an explicit estimate which proves that Donaldson's functional is coercive on the set of Fubini-Study metrics if $E$ is slope stable, and give a new proof of Hermitian-Einstein metrics implying slope stability.

Analysis of Fallacies in Below-Average Chinese Debaters’ Speech From Judges’ Oral Feedback

This study aims to explore and analyze the common characteristics of fallacies made by below-average Chinese debaters and identify the criteria used by judges in evaluating those fallacies that determine the ranking of debaters. The 20 pieces of oral feedback from judges on the total fallacies made by five teams of below-average debaters from one tournament of the FLTRP CUP debate competition were selected. A direct link to the cause of faulty reasoning in the group of lower ranked teams was found between relevance-related and structural-related fallacies. Additional contributory fallacies which prevented debaters from winning if not necessarily losing were those related to acceptability and refutation, finally, the most prevalent fallacy was found to be that related to sufficiency which occurred in varying degrees and at different levels of the team.

Europejski Zielony Ład jako narzędzie modernizacji i legitymizacji projektu europejskiego

Covid-19 pandemic created a new environment to New Green Deal - flagship initiative of European Commission and crucial element of Ursula von der Leyen political manifesto. Author argues, that faced with the possibility of weakening or postponing ambitious environmental programme because of new challenges the commission, backed by important group pf member states decided to build a direct link between reconstruction after pandemics and greening of the economy. The result was a push forward with decarbonisation commitments - the stimuli for change should be bound together to strengthen their interdependence and build a momentum for modernization of EU in both economic and political dimensions. Conditionality of Next Generation Europe financial instrument is one of the links between these two dimensions.

Europejski Zielony Ład jako narzędzie modernizacji i legitymizacji projektu europejskiego

Covid-19 pandemic created a new environment to New Green Deal - flagship initiative of European Commission and crucial element of Ursula von der Leyen political manifesto. Author argues, that faced with the possibility of weakening or postponing ambitious environmental programme because of new challenges the commission, backed by important group pf member states decided to build a direct link between reconstruction after pandemics and greening of the economy. The result was a push forward with decarbonisation commitments - the stimuli for change should be bound together to strengthen their interdependence and build a momentum for modernization of EU in both economic and political dimensions. Conditionality of Next Generation Europe financial instrument is one of the links between these two dimensions.

The Mob Rule Continued

In 1967, during a mutiny known as the Wuhan Incident, Zhou Enlai flexed his political muscles and pacified the insurgent commanders. Mao felt threatened. Yuan-tsung’s friend Courtier Yu, her direct link to Zhou, warned her that she had been caught in the crossfire of a huge power struggle between Zhou and Mao. Zhou wanted to reach an understanding with the West that would lead to the lifting of its trade sanctions against China. Mao, however, wanted to resuscitate the Great Leap Forward. Yuan-tsung’s best bet was Zhou. If Zhou prevailed, he would use Jack’s knowledge of English and Western culture to explain his open-door policy to the West. In return Jack and Yuan-tsung would get their exit visas. Courtier Yu arranged a meeting at a place near Badaling where Yuan-tsung could take her plea directly to Zhou.