The Ethics of Exile

Using the tools of normative political theory, this book explores the political relationship between exiles and the communities from which they have fled. It makes two central claims. First, exiles have rights and responsibilities in their homelands and are morally required and permitted to play particular roles in the homeland. Second, in playing these roles, exile politics can perform two corrective functions: it can repair defective political institutions at home and it can compensate for institutional shortcomings in the global domain. In short, exiles engage in a ‘politics from below’ and ‘away’ that produces alternative sites of power and can mitigate the several failings of an international system of states in an unequal world. This normative exploration of exile politics has a few implications. It counters an overwhelming focus, in both political philosophy and public discourse, on the consequences of forced migration for receiving societies—a focus that often treats exiles as passive actors. Recognizing the political agency of exiles reveals another side of the migration story, and allows for a more fulsome exploration of what political obligation and membership mean in an increasingly transnational world. Identifying exiles as important domestic and transnational actors also points to the ways third parties ought to enable the different roles exiles play in their communities of origin and in the international domain. And recognizing exile agency highlights the shortcomings of an international system of refugee protection that focuses on exiles’ humanitarian needs but denies them their political rights and agency.

Analytical Hierarchy Process Tool in Google Earth Engine platform : A case study of a tropical landfill site suitability

Kolkata being a metropolitan city in India, has its main Municipal Solid Waste dumpsite situated at Dhapa just adjacent to the East Kolkata Wetlands Ramsar site. The current prevalent situation at Dhapa is open dumping leading to various contaminations and hazards putting forth the need to look for alternative sites where the landfiilling operation can be shifted to using scientific methods. A User Interface (UI) based Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) tool has been developed within the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud platform to find out the alternative dumping sites using geospatial layers. AHP function is not available as a native algorithm or developed by any researcher in GEE. The tool has three major functionalities, of which the first one handles the UI elements. The AHP procedure is within another function, and the last function integrates the AHP coefficients to the layers generating the final suitability layer. Users can also upload comparison matrix as GEE asset in the form CSV file which gets automatically integrated into the AHP to calculate the coefficients and consistency ratio to generate the spatial suitability layers. This approach showcases a generalized AHP function within the GEE environment, which has been done for the first time. The tool is designed in the cloud platform which is dynamic, robust and suitable for use in various AHP-based suitability analysis in environmental monitoring and assessment.

What exactly is Takeuchi Yoshimi's logic of Asian resistance?

Literary Critic and Sinologist, Takeuchi Yoshimi, provides post-colonial and decolonial studies a logic of resistance that seeks to destabilize the colonialist projects of Western modernity without repeating its structural logic. In this regard, Takeuchi's logic of resistance functions as a dialectical lens into the “emancipatory traps” of Western modernity that frame the victim–victimizer paradox by turning negativity into a method of generating heuristic possibilities. But in this pursuit to look for alternative sites for mining theoretical possibilities, Takeuchi returns to the origins of Chinese modernity for imagining a proper logic of Asian resistance, that which could be deployed as a resource for negating the imperial gestures of modernist thought while affirming the positive kernel of the Enlightenment with the hope of bringing forth a global world that is continuously transformed by the cultural particulars themselves. The goal of this article is to further elucidate Takeuchi's logic of Asian resistance and to discuss how this logic can be read as having the potential to correct Nishida Kitarō's and the Kyoto School's failed attempt to overcome modernity.

Structural basis for potassium transport in prokaryotes by KdpFABC

KdpFABC is an oligomeric K+ transport complex in prokaryotes that maintains ionic homeostasis under stress conditions. The complex comprises a channel-like subunit (KdpA) from the superfamily of K+ transporters and a pump-like subunit (KdpB) from the superfamily of P-type ATPases. Recent structural work has defined the architecture and generated contradictory hypotheses for the transport mechanism. Here, we use substrate analogs to stabilize four key intermediates in the reaction cycle and determine the corresponding structures by cryogenic electron microscopy. We find that KdpB undergoes conformational changes consistent with other representatives from the P-type superfamily, whereas KdpA, KdpC, and KdpF remain static. We observe a series of spherical densities that we assign as K+ or water and which define a pathway for K+ transport. This pathway runs through an intramembrane tunnel in KdpA and delivers ions to sites in the membrane domain of KdpB. Our structures suggest a mechanism where ATP hydrolysis is coupled to K+ transfer between alternative sites in KdpB, ultimately reaching a low-affinity site where a water-filled pathway allows release of K+ to the cytoplasm.

Genetic and pharmacological evidence for kinetic competition between alternative poly(A) sites in yeast

Most eukaryotic mRNAs accommodate alternative sites of poly(A) addition in the 3’ untranslated region in order to regulate mRNA function. Here, we present a systematic analysis of 3’ end formation factors, which revealed 3’UTR lengthening in response to a loss of the core machinery, whereas a loss of the Sen1 helicase resulted in shorter 3’UTRs. We show that the anti-cancer drug cordycepin, 3’ deoxyadenosine, caused nucleotide accumulation and the usage of distal poly(A) sites. Mycophenolic acid, a drug which reduces GTP levels and impairs RNA polymerase II (RNAP II) transcription elongation, promoted the usage of proximal sites and reversed the effects of cordycepin on alternative polyadenylation. Moreover, cordycepin-mediated usage of distal sites was associated with a permissive chromatin template and was suppressed in the presence of an rpb1 mutation, which slows RNAP II elongation rate. We propose that alternative polyadenylation is governed by temporal coordination of RNAP II transcription and 3’ end processing and controlled by the availability of 3’ end factors, nucleotide levels and chromatin landscape.

Let's talk sex: expertise in women's online sex communities

As a result of failures in the healthcare profession, and perhaps also in sexual health education, women are facing barriers when attempting to express, control, and explore their own sexuality. In response to the constraints of medical and educational discourses of sexuality and the disregard of female perspectives in traditional forms of health communication, some women are seeking out alternative sites for communicating about sexuality. This major research paper focuses on the expression of knowledge and experience regarding women’s sexuality, sexual practices, and sexual health in online spaces. To evaluate the potentially beneficial and damaging effects of exchanging knowledge online, the construction, negotiation, and legitimization of expertise will be considered through a theoretical lens focused on sexual storytelling and dominant feminist and health discourses. This study provides an inductive qualitative discourse analysis of three publicly available websites: girlonthenet.com, carasutra.co.uk, and sluttygirlproblems.com. The discourses of both authors and readers are analyzed through a coding scheme derived from a number of sources from the relevant literature. The broader categories of coding allow for an understanding of how expertise is constructed, while the subcategories within these headings enable analysis of the ways in which expertise is legitimized, enforced, and policed between experts and non-experts. This particular categorization of expertise is considered through a perspective that prioritizes the personal sexual narrative as a valid form of sexual knowledge exchange, while assessing the validity, value, and influence of this knowledge on women and their individual sexuality, sexual practices, and sexual health.

Let's talk sex: expertise in women's online sex communities

As a result of failures in the healthcare profession, and perhaps also in sexual health education, women are facing barriers when attempting to express, control, and explore their own sexuality. In response to the constraints of medical and educational discourses of sexuality and the disregard of female perspectives in traditional forms of health communication, some women are seeking out alternative sites for communicating about sexuality. This major research paper focuses on the expression of knowledge and experience regarding women’s sexuality, sexual practices, and sexual health in online spaces. To evaluate the potentially beneficial and damaging effects of exchanging knowledge online, the construction, negotiation, and legitimization of expertise will be considered through a theoretical lens focused on sexual storytelling and dominant feminist and health discourses. This study provides an inductive qualitative discourse analysis of three publicly available websites: girlonthenet.com, carasutra.co.uk, and sluttygirlproblems.com. The discourses of both authors and readers are analyzed through a coding scheme derived from a number of sources from the relevant literature. The broader categories of coding allow for an understanding of how expertise is constructed, while the subcategories within these headings enable analysis of the ways in which expertise is legitimized, enforced, and policed between experts and non-experts. This particular categorization of expertise is considered through a perspective that prioritizes the personal sexual narrative as a valid form of sexual knowledge exchange, while assessing the validity, value, and influence of this knowledge on women and their individual sexuality, sexual practices, and sexual health.

Site-Specific Ventricular Tachycardia Inducibility

Introduction Programmed electrical stimulation is an essential part of VT ablation procedures but VT is not always inducible, usually for reasons that are not clear. We sought to review pacing site-specific failure of programmed electrical stimulation (PES) to induce scar-related ventricular tachycardia (VT). Methods A series of patients in whom aggressive programmed stimulation from traditional RV pacing sites failed to induce VT, but VT was easily inducible from a non-traditional site are reviewed. Computer simulations in a simple 2-dimensional model of reentry were performed. Results Six patients who had no inducible sustained VT from the RV apex/outflow tract with at least 3 extrastimuli, but relatively easily induced VT from the LV, basal RV, epicardium, or atrium are described. In 5 of these patients, the site that induced VT was closer to the likely reentry circuit region based on mapping and ablation. Computer simulations illustrated that the spatial relation between the pacing site and the entrance and exits of a reentry isthmus can determine the ease of initiation of reentry by determining the time available for recovery of excitability at the initial region of block. Conclusions The site of PES has a marked effect on inducibility of VT in some patients such that PES from the RV apex and outflow regions will fail to expose clinically relevant VTs. The frequency with which this occurs is not certain. Stimulation from alternative sites is a reasonable consideration in selected patients.