Search

The quarantine hotel is one of several political instruments used to control the spread of Covid-19 in diverse countries, from Norway to China. I apply discourse analysis to map the discursive struggle to define the quarantine hotel in Norway. The government and other key political actors channel a biopolitical discourse constituting the quarantine hotel as necessary to protect the Norwegian population from imported contagion. This discourse's meaning is contested by a juridical counter-discourse articulated by lawyers and travellers, which constitutes the quarantine hotel as imprisonment/internment and a breach of rights. Travellers tend to combine this with a biopolitical counter-discourse, dismissing the quarantine hotel's biopolitical properties, strengthening the juridical critique. These discourses are important resources in a transnational, ongoing struggle, where the prize is the legitimacy of the politics of Covid-19, and the very ordering of the post-pandemic world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital platforms such as Uber, Rappi or Airbnb impose a labor model where workers are not recognized as such and do not have minimum rights. They are part of platform capitalism, a form of capital that uses digital technologies to impose a precarious employment relationship. However, faced with this model, application workers are beginning to organize and demand rights. In this article, I examine the ideology that platforms promote and the resistances of app distributors. I argue that, in the face of the imagined individualism of digital platforms, delivery workers are recreating forms of community. They have not been passive or totally subaltern but are displaying different forms of antagonism and autonomy. This paper is based on qualitative research with interviews of key informants and analysis of the documents of collectives and groups of Mexican delivery workers, both in Mexico City and in New York. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over recent years, it has been claimed that we live in a 'post-truth' age: a moment in history where the ideal of truth seems to have been abandoned. The prevailing attitude towards truth is not one of antagonism but of indifference. Should this bother us? If so, why? What might we mean by 'truth'? How is truth relevant to education? One thinker who can help us in addressing these questions is the Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard demonstrated a deep commitment to truth, not as an abstract idea but as a way of life. For Kierkegaard, a posture of indifference in facing the question of truth would have been abhorrent. One of the best known, but most frequently misunderstood, aspects of his work is his notion that truth is subjectivity. This stance needs to be carefully distinguished from a position, commonly expressed today, where truth is regarded as 'relative' or 'subjective'. Kierkegaard's concern is not so much with the notion of 'being subjective' as with becoming an existing subject. Some truths – notably, those connected with the question of existence – matter more than others, and education, it is argued in this paper, ought to have a stronger focus on such truths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complex relations between the Soviet Union and the Soviet states of the Caucasus that were formerly parts of the Ottoman and Persian empires offer examples of complex cultural and political relations of antagonism and appropriation that go beyond simple binaries of resistance or nationalist anti‐eurocentrism. Though their work is little known except to scholars in Slavic Studies, in the years following the Russian Revolution of 1917 Soviet Orientologists laid the foundations for the critique of Western Orientalism that would be introduced to the West many years later in 1978 by Edward W. Said. The Soviet critique of the imperialist foundations of Eurocentric culture and academic knowledge formed the basis for the huge World Literature publishing project pioneered by Maxim Gorky, an initiative which has been largely disregarded—both historically and theoretically—in the Western rediscovery of World Literature in the era of globalization. Similarly, Western postcolonial scholars have only recently begun to acknowledge the creative, cultural and political affiliations of Global South writers to internationalist organizations such as the Afro‐Asian Writers Association which was supported by the Soviet Union in the Cold War period and the importance of publications such as Lotus magazine. The books reviewed here demonstrate the degree to which histories of "postcolonialism" and the late Western critique of Orientalism have now been rewritten to acknowledge their sources in earlier critiques by Soviet scholars in the first half of the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently scholars have called for an Indigenous turn in medieval studies that challenges the historical assumptions of the field by actively engaging in a decolonial and anticolonial praxis. This essay argues that this turn must confront the problem of reciprocity that arises from distinct Indigenous and medieval articulations of sovereignty, which reveal the potential of this tenuous intersection despite the possibility of irreconcilable antagonisms. Tracing sovereignty--specifically through a "politics of recognition" as proposed by the Yellowknives Dene scholar Glen Coulthard--in Dante's Monarchia (and Paradiso) and Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony provides an analytic example of this comparative framework, since both authors challenge readers to question the imposition of authority and the logics that legitimate and justify dominant forms of governance. Yet Dante and Silko also draw on distinct articulations of sovereignty that suggest the limitations of decolonial and anticolonial praxis within a field bound to a Western episteme that underwrites colonial and imperial authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Mexican exterior relationships in the early twentieth century, two types of triangular relations existed: the balance between United States and Europe, and the antagonism between two powers in order to defend their economic and political interests. From the second kind, the French-German case is archetypal, because both were enemies, and they wanted to strengthen their trade and cultural relationships with Mexico. The triangle is interesting to know the presence of the Germans by the sight of the adversary: the French. The French observed the German activities in Mexico with attention, for the danger they represented for French cultural and commercial interests. Between 1925 and 1933, in spite of being a more peaceful time, the opposition between Germans and French remained. Therefore, it is important to consider the motives of competition in diplomatic, cultural and economic areas. It is also relevant to analyse how French perceived the Germans in Mexico, and what this illustrates about the links between Germany and Mexico, through trilateral relations [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sets out the contours of a Marxist hermeneutic approach to political economy. It begins by outlining how such a critique of political economy would function, with a particular emphasis on approaches which understand the discipline of economics as theory. It further claims that critique is over-reliant on the concept neoliberalism; that the categories proper to economic critique are value, time and space and that the innovation of a hermeneutic approach would be to reintroduce a sphere for antagonism through the analysis of the relationship of economic theory to value. To substantiate this argument, I offer an analysis of some important trends in recent scholarship on neoliberalism, notably the regulation school and the work of Wendy Brown. The article concludes by arguing that a reorientation towards value is timely and necessary, given the serious global recession precipitated by the Coronavirus and the economic reorganisation which will ensue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present study was to examine instructional influences of students' task value. A total of 382 undergraduate students participated in this survey study. The data supported a mediated model in which instructor misbehaviors (i.e., antagonism and lecturing) indirectly decrease students' task value through the psychological responses of perceived immediacy and burnout. Therefore, findings of this study indicate that instructors who do not control their antagonism and lecturing behaviors may reduce the value that students see in the course they teach, ultimately hindering students' learning experience. This study highlights the need for instructional communication training and resources for instructors which could improve psychoemotional experiences for students and improve learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Right after the Finnish Civil War of 1918, the first treatises discussing the insurgents (the Reds) in crowd psychological terms were published. Between 1918 and the early 1920s, several Finnish authors used Gustave Le Bon's and other crowd psychologists' ideas of suggestion, mental epidemics, and the dangers of socialism in their interpretations of the aborted revolution. The article argues that the use of crowd psychology in the years following the Finnish Civil War was an attempt to articulate in objective, scientific language an emotional and moral reaction to the shock of seeing a nation violently divided and tearing itself apart. Intrinsic to Finnish interpretations of crowd psychology were the increasing antagonism between socialists and anti-socialists, the influence of Bolshevism on the worker's movement, the importance attributed to the 'racial' qualities of the people, and the impact of the Civil War on the educated classes – all issues that are easy to relate to wider European and global contexts. This article lends support to the thesis that crowd psychology was an influential intellectual construction that had great heuristic value among contemporaries from the late nineteenth century to World War II. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korea's persistent enmity towards its erstwhile colonizer Japan has been a compelling topic of East Asian international relations scholarship for decades. This article argues that the historical evolution of South Korea's democracy offers a vital and overlooked piece of this puzzle. Given that it emerged from one of the most virulently anti-communist dictatorships of the Cold War period, in a society facing an ongoing threat from communist North Korea, any left-of-center opposition movement faced an uphill battle against severe anti-communism. In such circumstances, the only way for a leftist opposition party to survive was by pitting its stronger anti-Japan reputation against conservatives' anti-communism. After South Korea's democracy stabilized, liberals tried and failed to overturn the anti-leftist institutions left over from the Cold War and then sought equilibrium through parallel rhetoric targeting pro-Japanese elements. Today, neither left nor right can afford to allow a final amicable settlement with its respective target of antagonism. Through analyses of domestic political rhetoric targeting alleged pro-Japanese or pro-communist elements, this paper demonstrates how these competing antagonisms achieved an uneasy equilibrium that undergirds South Korean political dynamics to this day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article studies romanticism opens up new perspectives on the relationship between British Romanticism and the Industrial Revolution. Topics discussed including the dominance of a retrospective view entrenched in a notion of deep antagonism between industrialization and canonical Romanticism as a compensatory humanism, the Romantic component of nineteenth-century social criticism, and the rise of ecocriticism in the late 20th century.

The article analyzes three interconnected leitmotifs in Osip Mandelstam’s Tristia collection (1923): the antagonism of two anomalous suns; incest or other forms of sexual “crime”; and the dying city. I argue that the solar leitmotif derives from the theurgic concept of Vyacheslav Ivanov, which is concretized mythologically in the story of Phaedra’s love for her stepson Hippolytus; Mandelstam projects his fate onto his own position as a Russian poet and a Jew. An analysis of the biographical context surrounding the poem Eta noch' nepopravima (the death of the mother due to the father’s affair), and the subtexts of the poem Vernis' v smesitel'noe lono (from Gerhart Hauptmann’s work) lead to the conclusion that Mandelstam is drawing a distinction between two types of sexual aberration: a sexual drive originating from a senior and important figure, and a calculated affair originating from a junior, dependent figure. According to Mandelstam’s historiosophy, the first kind of aberration is ungodly, fraught with the reverse flow of time, which manifests itself in the destruction of cities (Sodom, Troy, etc.). Only the redemptory death of the theurgist, the object of the illicit passion, can prevent it. Aberrations of the second kind, however, are godly; they ensure the natural flow of historic time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the film "Parasite," highlighting its critical acclaim and commercial success. It explores the film's themes of parasitism from both biological and ethical perspectives, drawing on references from ancient Greek philosophy, Michel Serres, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky.

Pope Francis' recently imposed restrictions on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass need to be understood in relation to the emergence of a Traditional Latin Mass movement, that movement's antagonism toward the liturgical and ecclesial reforms of the Second Vatican Council, and important points of consistency in the efforts of various popes to safeguard the unity of the church. Those in the movement often offer valid points of critique, but in our present age of polarization they have become ever more an extremist group. They are encouraged to give up their devotion to a now antiquated form of worship, drop their oppositional attitudes, and function as an open-minded conservative movement of reform with the larger Catholic Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on analyzing the ideological underpinnings of extractivism in Canada through a Lacanian and Žižekian lens, highlighting the intersections of settler colonialism, fossil capitalism and environmental conflict. Topics include the symbolic function of pipelines in perpetuating ideological fantasies, the ontological nature of antagonism in society and the role of psychoanalysis in revealing and critiquing hidden power dynamics within the symbolic order.

This article provides a comprehensive account of the transformation of Buddhist vegetarian discourse in the Republican era (1912-1949) through the lens of a set of Buddhist periodicals influenced by prominent figures, including Taixu (1890-1947), Yinguang (1862-1940), and Dixian (1858-1932). Having combed through relevant articles printed in these journals, I argue that Buddhist vegetarianism is infused with modern scientific language, particularly the Western biomedical concept of "hygiene," while it also retains the underlying reasoning of karmic retribution and Buddhist ethical arguments. Within a modern context, these authors proffered different yet not antagonistic reasoning to renew and legitimate the practice of vegetarianism. I further examine the case of Lü Bicheng (1883-1943) to demonstrate the potential fusion of diverse rationales regarding the vegetarian discourse under the broader international social and cultural order. Thus, the Republican Buddhists' endeavors resulted in a repertoire of rhetoric and arguments about vegetarianism, imbuing the practice with multilayered meanings ready for appropriation by later generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines three actions for the supervisor, student and examiner to introduce a level of anti-racist consciousness in the journey of the Fine Art Ph.D. The steps are intended as 'warm-ups' within and towards more comprehensive, longer term strategies for individuals, departments, faculties and universities, to nurture communities of anti-racist researchers and make UK HE anti-racist. Change takes time, negotiations are unfolding and my brushstrokes are broad. But if the heart of any Ph.D. endeavour is about the development of critical insight, not just by the student into a knowledge area or problem, but about their own position as autonomous researchers, not just within their fields but the wider HE sector and beyond, an actively anti-racist agenda must be integral. I wish to critique my own position as a non-White researcher who has signed up to the neo-liberal, 'post-race' university. I welcome feedback, and seek to lay the ground for further work by myself and others. This is my call for researchers in Fine Art and UK HE at large to step up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay analyzes Fred Moten's "antipolitical" romance with the "fugitive black sociality" that he radically opposes to "politics," defined as inescapably tied to antiblack modernity. By comparing Moten's argument to other voices in the black radical tradition, and by triangulating Moten with Hannah Arendt and Sheldon Wolin, this essay opens inherited conceptions of the political to risk and reworking but also complicates figurations of fugitivity and resists the antagonism Moten posits between black fugitivity and democratic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on metaphors of mechanical containment, antagonism, and capital exchange inadequate with understanding of the meaning and mentions from- to movement in semantics in meaning achieved in language. Topics discussed include diastemic relation as analogous to retentissement, phenomenon of palmar grasp.

A literary criticism of the book "Biographia Literaria" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is presented. Topics include examines that it attacks what takes to be the problematic temporal premises of associationist philosophy, namely the problem of absolute contemporaneity and considered that Samuel Rowe writes about the antagonism between meter and voice in Coleridge, arguing convincingly that meter plays a super-egoic role in Coleridge.

Plants and their specialized flower visitors provide valuable insights into the evolutionary consequences of species interactions. In particular, antagonistic interactions between insects and plants have often been invoked as a major driver of diversification. Here we use a tropical community of palms and their specialized insect flower visitors to test whether antagonisms lead to higher population divergence. Interactions between palms and the insects visiting their flowers range from brood pollination to florivory and commensalism, with the latter being species that feed on decaying–and presumably undefended–plant tissues. We test the role of insect-host interactions in the early stages of diversification of nine species of beetles sharing host plants and geographical ranges by first delimiting cryptic species and then using models of genetic isolation by environment. The degree to which insect populations are structured by the genetic divergence of plant populations varies. A hierarchical model reveals that this variation is largely uncorrelated with the kind of interaction, showing that antagonistic interactions are not associated with higher genetic differentiation. Other aspects of host use that affect plant-associated insects regardless of the outcomes of their interactions, such as sensory biases, are likely more general drivers of insect population divergence. de Medeiros and Farrell test how insect-host interactions influence species divergence in phytophagous insects. Using ddRAD-seq data and hierarchical modelling, they demonstrate, surprisingly, that antagonistic interactions between insect and host do not lead to greater species diversification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even before the rise of nationalism and its counterpart anti-Semitism sensu stricto, anti-Judaic prejudices and stereotypes were widespread in the Christian Orthodox communities of the Ottoman Empire. These attitudes arose mainly from the commercial antagonism between the Christian and Jewish communities during the crisis that beset the empire from the seventeenth century onward. To examine these attitudes more closely, this article first focuses on the extreme anti-Judaic discourse in the sermons of eighteenth-century Father Cosmas Aitolos (Cosmas of Aetolia; d. 1779), an itinerant monk, who was canonized in 1961. It then turns to Rhigas Velestinlis's enlightened vision of a tolerant multi-ethnic, multi-religious republic, which gradually replaced the Sultan's oriental despotism, in which Jews, Muslims, and Christians were to be equal citizens. But this vision sank into oblivion, as the aspiration to national independence and to ethnical homogeneity prevailed in Greece, as well as everywhere in the Balkans. Although the early advocates of enlightened Greek nationalism embraced the language of citizenship and emancipation, they excluded from it the proviso of multi-ethnicity. Accordingly, they perceived the "Jewish Question" as one of gradually integrating a "foreign" religious minority into the Greek nation by "re-educating them in the values of Hellenism," in the words of Adamandios Korais (1748–1833), and according them full citizenship only in the generations to come. All three distinctive attitudes towards the Jews are traceable in subsequent ideological trends and conflicts in Modern Greece. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the existing literature of citizenship studies, Hong Kong citizens are described as enterprising, depoliticized individuals. Such formulation, however, falls short in explaining the emergence and resilience of civil society activism from the mid-2000s, particularly the anti-extradition protests in 2019. This article re-examines Hong Kong's citizenship in the post-handover era from the perspective of developmental politics. We argue that Hong Kong's citizenship is the product of dynamic struggles between state and society over the city's development. After 2003, the state was driving Hong Kong towards national integration with Mainland China, and the civil society was responding to such integration with resistance and antagonism. As a result, Hong Kong's citizenship was politicized into highly contested forms of developmental citizenship. It remains uncertain as to whether and how Hong Kong's citizenship can be transformed to reconcile the state-society tensions over the city's future development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antagonism towards diversity, an attitude reflecting low egalitarian ethical values, has been a topic within policing that has received increasing attention in the last decade. Using two-wave data and applying self-determination theory, we investigated how autonomy support versus autonomy frustration, ways of being motivated either through encouraging one's sense of volition, or otherwise, coercing and imposing pressures, can improve diversity attitudes through its relation with ethical values. Study 1 (n= 398 police officers and staff) found that autonomy-supportive communications fostered ethical values, and hence was negatively related to diversity antagonism. Study 2 (n= 859 police officers and staff) indicated that motivation to overcome prejudice mediates the relationship between ethical values and diversity antagonism. Perceptions of workplace culture as lacking in autonomy support acted as a boundary condition for the ethical values and diversity antagonism relationship; no relationship was present when autonomy support was low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tension between demands for more and "better" queer media representation and queer theory's antagonism toward identitarian politics has plunged the queer community into a debate about who and what can claim queerness. At one epicenter of this debate is the film Call Me by Your Name. Following Michael Warner's suggestion that a public can be analyzed as discourse produced in response to a text, in this article I examine the contradictory existence of the queer public through a discourse analysis of one of its most recent canonical texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent postcolonial discourse, planetarity and planetary humanism have been offered as potentially effective, though often ignored, responses to intractable global antagonisms. This essay explores whether stylistically experimental postcolonial literary texts might provide a valuable narrative archive toward the cultivation of such unconsidered responses. As a test case, I track the techniques through which Mohsin Hamid's speculative novel Exit West reveals and produces common cause between familiar contemporary adversaries. Building on Leela Gandhi's notion of common cause in relation to ahimsaic, or non-violent, historiography, this essay concludes that experimental fiction produced within specific contexts – anticolonial, postcolonial, neocolonial, marginalized, totalitarian, diasporic – provides a legitimate narrative source to be used toward an ethical refiguration of future planetary life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the framework of Latin American post-war structuralism, the global economy was the grounds of antagonism between a central (industrialized) pole and the periphery (providers of primary goods). This paper argues that addressing the specific way this antagonism is reproduced in the historical conditions of new capitalism requires considering the emergence of a chain-shaped structural logic, which differentiates activities of knowledge creation from those of knowledge reproduction within distinct productive sectors. This chain logic does not challenge the concept of structure, in terms of a sectoral differentiation in post-war capitalist production, but rather imposes it as a dominant norm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effectiveness of biological control is generally associated with the tolerance of biological control agents to environmental stress. One of the enhanced tolerances of entomopathogenic bacteria to thermal factors and pesticides is a result of the chitinolytic biosynthesis of the filamentous bacteria. The filamentous bacteria Actinomycetes can be isolated from several specific areas: the Kelud volcano mountain, a tomato field contaminated with pesticides and protected forests. The aim of the study was to obtain and identify Actinomycetes candidates capable of producing chitinolytic compounds and controlling fruit flies and other insects (Bactrocera sp.) in vitro. Screening and identification were undertaken using descriptive methods while an antagonism test was designed using a completely randomized block design, with nine treatment combinations and each treatment being replicated three times. The results showed that Actinomycetes Tomatoes_Pare (Atp) and Actinomycetes Merubetiri 1 and 2 (Mbr1 and Mbr2) isolates produce chitinase and are able to control parasite fruit fly larvae and pupae by up to 100% in vitro. The identification of Actinomycetes spp. by DNA sequencing showed that 3 Actinomycetes isolates have are closely related: Streptomyces narbonesis, Streptomyces spectabilis SHH and Streptomyces deserti. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cell fate decision circuits must be variable enough for genetically identical cells to adopt a multitude of fates, yet ensure that these states are distinct, stably maintained, and coordinated with neighboring cells. A long-standing view is that this is achieved by regulatory networks involving self-stabilizing feedback loops that convert small differences into long-lived cell types. We combined regulatory mutants and in vivo reconstitution with theory for stochastic processes to show that the marquee features of a cell fate switch in Bacillus subtilis—discrete states, multigenerational inheritance, and timing of commitments—can instead be explained by simple stochastic competition between two constitutively produced proteins that form an inactive complex. Such antagonistic interactions are commonplace in cells and could provide powerful mechanisms for cell fate determination more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I suggest that the recent furore over Gilley's article on colonialism raises at least three distinct issues both within academia and the wider space of public debate. The first concerns the category of 'offence', who can be offended and by what. The second concerns the nature of colonialism, its contemporary understanding and why that remains politically controversial. The third concerns possible continuities between certain aspects of colonial rule and current forms of Western intervention in Africa. In each case I make some very tentative suggestions as to why one journal article attracted so much attention and antagonism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metabolic theory of ecology (MTE) provides a general framework of allometric and thermal dependence that may be useful for predicting how climate change will affect disease spread. Using Daphnia magna and a microsporidian gut parasite, we conducted two experiments across a wide thermal range and fitted transmission models that utilize MTE submodels for transmission parameters. We decomposed transmission into contact rate and probability of infection and further decomposed probability of infection into a product of gut residence time (GRT) and per-parasite infection rate of gut cells. Contact rate generally increased with temperature and scaled positively with body size, whereas infection rate had a narrow hump-shaped thermal response and scaled negatively with body size. GRT increased with host size and was longest at extreme temperatures. GRT and infection rate inside the gut combined to create a 3.5 times higher probability of infection for the smallest relative to the largest individuals. Small temperature changes caused large differences in transmission. We also fit several alternative transmission models to data at individual temperatures. The more complex models—parasite antagonism or synergism and host heterogeneity—did not substantially improve the fit to the data. Our results show that transmission rate is the product of several distinct thermal and allometric functions that can be predicted continuously across temperature and host size using the MTE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northeast India is amongst the 34 Biodiversity Hot Spots of the world with large number of unexplored flora and fauna. A total of 74 potential isolates with probiotic properties were isolated from Oecophylla smaragdina, an edible insect used by local tribes as a nutritious medicinal food source out of which, the most potential probiotic candidate was identified as Bacillus sp. PD6 by 16S rRNA sequencing. Cell surface trait analysis shows hydrophobicity and auto-aggregation percentage of 46.2 ± 0.32% and 61.41 ± 0.28% respectively. The cell free extract (CFE) of the isolate shows the presence of essential amino acids viz, lysine, valine, leucine, isoleucine, and threonine indicating its nutritional value. It survives significantly at pH range from 1 to 10 and capable of hydrolyzing bile salt. The CFE shows antagonistic effect against B. cereus ATCC 11778, E. coli ATCC 25922 and L. monocytogenes ATCC BAA751. FTIR spectra of bacterial exo-polysaccharide shows the presence of νC=C-H stretch, νN-H stretch, νC-H stretch, νC-H bending and νC=O stretch bonds. It was found to be non-cytotoxic against primary mouse liver cell line and sheep erythrocytes and also, sensitive against wide range of broad and narrow spectrum antibiotics making it recommendable for human consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Flower-dwelling predators may play several ecological roles depending on their effects on the reproductive success of the plants that they use to forage. However, tri-trophic interactions often are context-dependent highlighting the importance of assessing both the overall top-down effect on plant fitness and predator behavioral and physiological attributes that shape that outcome. We studied the effect of the flower-dwelling crab spider Misumenops pallidus on the perennial herb Anemone multifida in a low-thicket in Northwestern Patagonia. We measured pollinator visitation frequency, florivory rate, plant fitness, spider abundance, and spider's physiological (e.g. camouflage) and behavioral attributes (e.g. host selection, fidelity) that aid to define its possible ecological role. Misumenops pallidus showed a generalist diet (mostly pollinators), camouflage strategies, and intraspecific selection for plants bearing higher number and longer trichomes. Additionally, it displayed host-fidelity with long periods of permanence in the selected host plant, occupying ∼25% of plant population. However, the presence of these spiders did not affect pollinator visitation rate, florivory or plant fitness, indicating a commensalism role. Our findings suggested that the asymmetric benefit in this plant-spider association may be attributed to a combination of factors. In particular, the low-to-moderate spider abundance, generalist diet and cryptic camouflage; all of which weaken the top-down effect on pollinators and plant fitness, especially whenever ecological redundant pollinators are present. However, temporal and/or spatial variation on spider population might enhance this asymmetric benefit for the spider, potentially changing its role from commensalism to antagonism. Graphical abstract Image 1 Highlights • Crab spiders displayed a neutral ecological role upon Anemone multifida plants. • Crab spiders select host-plants based on the abundance and length of trichomes. • Crab spiders show both short and long-term fidelity on Anemone multifida plants. • Crab spiders go unseen by pollinators given its body cryptic coloration. • Crab spiders don't modify pollinator visit frequency neither plant fitness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropogenic salinization of freshwater is a global problem with largely unknown consequences for stream functions. We compared the effects of salt addition (6 g l-1 NaCl) in microcosms on leaf mass loss and microbial parameters in single- and multispecies assemblages of fungal strains (Heliscus lugdunensis, HELU; Tetracladium marchalianum, TEMA; Flagellospora curta, FLCU) isolated from a reference (R) or salinized (S) stream. Fungal growth and interactions were also assessed. Salinization inhibited leaf decomposition and fungal biomass, but no differences were observed between species, strains or species combinations. Sporulation rates in monocultures were not affected by added salt, but differed among species (FLCU . HELU . TEMA), with S strains releasing more conidia. Fungal assemblages did not differ significantly in total conidia production (either between strains or medium salt concentration). HELU was the dominant species, which also had highest growth and most pronounced antagonistic behaviour. Fungal species, irrespective of origin, largely maintained their function in salinized streams. Strains from salt-contaminated streams did not trade-off conidial production for vegetative growth at high salt levels. The expected reduction of fungal diversity and potential changes in nutritional litter quality owing to salinization may impact leaf incorporation into secondary production in streams. This article is part of the theme issue 'Salt in freshwaters: causes, ecological consequences and future prospects'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a postcolonial ecocritical perspective on modern American novels by relating and examining aspects of ecological and human violence in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian: The Evening Redness in the West (1985) and Anne Pancake's Strange as This Weather Has Been (2007). While McCarthy represents examples of ethnic and racial violence and Pancake focuses on class violence, the two novelists articulate a particular awareness of the interconnections between economic and political hierarchies and different forms of ecological and human violence in different American contexts. The two novels, then, denounce the deterministic, colonial constructions of economy, power, and knowledge in modern societies on the one hand and the validation of antagonism and violence against otherness and difference on the other. Specifically examining daily experiences, psychological-mental challenges, and changes of the fifteen-years-old female teenager. Bant, in Strange as This Weather Has Been and the male teenager, the kid, in Blood Meridian, I will show how specific individuals and groups deconstruct deterministic, colonial constructions of patriarchy and violence through their ecological awareness. My analysis exposes that colonizing and colonized countries still suffer from discrepancies and contradictions of colonial culture and modern politics and ultimately reveals the limitations of white Americans' freedom and equality within colonial and national frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Constant urbanization growth has seriously increased the influence of urbanization development on atmospheric environment security (AES). Thus, understanding the relationship between urbanization and the atmospheric environment security is necessary for Chinese policymakers to achieve sustainable urbanization development. In this study, we estimated the relationship between urbanization and atmospheric environment security in Jinan City from 1996 to 2004 on the basis of the theory of Environmental Kuznets Curves (EKC). A comprehensive index system for urbanization and atmospheric environment security was used along with statistical data and a coupling coordination degree model (CCDM). The coupling coordination results showed that the urbanization and atmospheric environment security system experienced serious imbalance between low coupling period (1996–1997), moderate disorders of coupling period (1998–2000), imbalance of antagonism period (2001–2002), basic coordinated period (2003–2008), and good coordination of highly coupled period (2008–2014). The spatial urbanization and efficiency subsystems are essential determinants of urbanization in the coupling relationship between urbanization and atmospheric environment security. We determined the main factors that influence the system to provide a basis for creating scientific urban development strategies and atmospheric environment protection measures. The findings of this study held a profound significance for further work on urbanization and provided essential data for planning in the future. Highlights • Comprehensive index evaluation system of urbanization and AES was constructed. • The Entropy Method was employed to determine the index weight of the system. • Coupling coordination degree model between urbanization and AES system was established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author analyses strong and weak points of the Church media in Slovakia. Her conclusions are based on more than ten previous researches in the field of Church and media, realized on the Catholic University in Ruzomberok, Slovakia. She states, that Slovak church media are exclusively pastoral, wilfully resigning to the evangelization function. Marginal evangelization attempts (such as in Radio Lumen in the late 1990s) have failed. This means, inter alia, that they do not do journalism in its original sense. They act as public relations bodies of the bishop's conferences and as an extension of spiritual service of the church to the believers. The competent decision-makers (i.e. church hierarchy) are not willing to subsidize evangelization medium, because the currently accepted doctrine is to use 'their own' media space to spread 'their own' messages. Thus, opening complex topics, covering opinion plurality and encouraging discussion, is regarded as harmful. This function is, in the last years, substituted by the commercial project of the Conservative daily Postoj, but this is neither a church nor religious medium. As the researches show, also the request of believing audience for independent critical Church medium is disputable. The audience is - disregarding age - divided between the audience of the official church media and decent secular media. Between these two groups exists a relatively strong antagonism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite decades of research, the factors that maintain genetic variation for fitness are poorly understood. It is unclear what fraction of the variance in a typical fitness component can be explained by mutation-selection balance (MSB) and whether fitness components differ in this respect. In theory, the level of standing variance in fitness due to MSB can be predicted using the rate of fitness decline under mutation accumulation, and this prediction can be directly compared to the standing variance observed. This approach allows for controlled statistical tests of the sufficiency of the MSB model, and could be used to identify traits or populations where genetic variance is maintained by other factors. For example, some traits may be influenced by sexually antagonistic balancing selection, resulting in an excess of standing variance beyond that generated by deleterious mutations. We describe the underlying theory and use it to test the MSB model for three traits in Drosophila melanogaster. We find evidence for differences among traits, with MSB being sufficient to explain genetic variance in larval viability but not male mating success or female fecundity. Our results are consistent with balancing selection on sexual fitness components, and demonstrate the feasibility of rigorous statistical tests of the MSB model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A salient feature of the insect olfactory system is its ability to detect and interpret simultaneously the identity and concentration of an odorant signal along with the temporal stimulus cues that are essential for accurate odorant tracking. The olfactory system of the cockroach utilizes two parallel pathways for encoding of odorant identity and the moment-to-moment succession of odorant concentrations as well as the rate at which concentration changes. This separation originates at the peripheral level of the ORNs (olfactory receptor neurons) which are localized in basiconic and trichoid sensilla. The graded activity of ORNs in the basiconic sensilla provides the variable for the combinatorial representation of odorant identity. The antagonistically responding ON and OFF ORNs in the trichoid sensilla transmit information about concentration increments and decrements with excitatory signals. Each ON and OFF ORN adjusts its gain for odorant concentration and its rate of change to the temporal dynamics of the odorant signal: as the rate of change diminishes, both ORNs improve their sensitivity for the rate of change at the expense of the sensitivity for the instantaneous concentration. This suggests that the ON and OFF ORNs are optimized to detect minute fluctuations or even creeping changes in odorant concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The center-surround receptive field structure, ubiquitous in the visual system, is hypothesized to be evolutionarily advantageous in image processing tasks. We address the potential functional benefits and shortcomings of spatial localization and center-surround antagonism in the context of an integrate-and-fire neuronal network model with image-based forcing. Utilizing the sparsity of natural scenes, we derive a compressive-sensing framework for input image reconstruction utilizing evoked neuronal firing rates. We investigate how the accuracy of input encoding depends on the receptive field architecture, and demonstrate that spatial localization in visual stimulus sampling facilitates marked improvements in natural scene processing beyond uniformly-random excitatory connectivity. However, for specific classes of images, we show that spatial localization inherent in physiological receptive fields combined with information loss through nonlinear neuronal network dynamics may underlie common optical illusions, giving a novel explanation for their manifestation. In the context of signal processing, we expect this work may suggest new sampling protocols useful for extending conventional compressive sensing theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions: (a) How do the facilitative effects of benefactors on understorey species change along a successional gradient; (b) what are the feedback effects of the beneficiary species on the benefactor; and (c) how do these bidirectional interactions drive community dynamics of a shrub‐dominated ecosystem. Location: A sand‐fixing community, Mu Us Desert, China. Methods: We quantified the effects of the shrub Artemisia ordosica on understorey herb abundance, biomass and richness using an observational procedure at four positions along a successional gradient, i.e., semi‐fixed dunes (D1 stage), fixed dunes (D2 stage), fixed dunes covered with biological crusts (D3 stage) and fixed dunes with herbs (D4 stage). The relative interaction index (RII) was used to calculate the effect of the shrub on the herbs. Additionally, we conducted a removal experiment at the latest successional stage to assess the beneficiary feedback effects on the growth of the shrub's vegetative and reproductive twigs. Results: The response of herbs to the effect of the benefactor shrub showed a humped‐back curve for abundance and biomass along the successional gradient, supporting the collapse of the interaction model, but a linear curve for richness, thus supporting the stress‐gradient hypothesis. This difference could likely be explained by a turnover of life‐history groups of understorey species from annuals to perennials along the successional gradient, with the growth of the latter group being more susceptible to shrub facilitation than the former. The herbs had a negative feedback effect on the growth of the shrub's reproductive twigs. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the relationship between the shrub A. ordosica and the associated herbs was antagonistic, and the absence of shrub seedling recruitment at the end of succession suggests that this antagonistic relationship was a crucial driver of a successional shift from a shrub‐dominated to a herb‐dominated community. Our study firstly demonstrated that the relationship between the shrub A. ordosica and the associated herbs was antagonistic, and the absence of shrub seedling recruitment at the end of succession suggests that this antagonistic relationship was a crucial driver of a successional shift from a shrub‐dominated to a herb‐dominated community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Fluxametamide is a novel wide-spectrum insecticide that was discovered and synthesized by Nissan Chemical Industries, Ltd. To identify the mode of action of fluxametamide, we first performed [3H]4′-ethynyl-4- n -propylbicycloorthobenzoate (EBOB) binding assays. Fluxametamide potently inhibited the specific binding of [3H]EBOB to housefly-head membranes, suggesting that fluxametamide affects insect γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA)-gated chloride channels (GABACls). Next, the antagonism of housefly GABACls and glutamate-gated chloride channels (GluCls) was examined using the two-electrode voltage clamp (TEVC) method. Fluxametamide inhibited agonist responses in both ion channels expressed in Xenopus oocytes in the nanomolar range, indicating that this insecticide is a ligand-gated chloride channel (LGCC) antagonist. The insecticidal and LGCC antagonist potencies of fluxametamide against fipronil-susceptible and fipronil-resistant strains of small brown planthoppers and two-spotted spider mites, which are insensitive to fipronil, were evaluated. Fluxametamide exhibited similar levels of both activities in these fipronil-susceptible and fipronil-resistant arthropod pests. These data indicate that fluxametamide exerts distinctive antagonism of arthropod GABACls by binding to a site different from those for existing antagonists. In contrast to its profound actions on the arthropod LGCCs, the antagonistic activity of fluxametamide against rat GABACls and human glycine-gated chloride channels was nearly insignificant, suggesting that fluxametamide has high target-site selectivity for arthropods over mammals. Overall, fluxametamide is a new type of LGCC antagonist insecticide with excellent safety for mammals at the target-site level. Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image Highlights • Fluxametamide (Flx) is a novel isoxazoline insecticide with a wide spectrum. • Flx is an antagonist of GABA- and Glu-gated chloride channels (GABACls and GluCls). • Flx circumvents the fipronil resistance of pests by distinct GABACl antagonism. • Flx is highly selective for the channels of arthropod pests over those of mammals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because sex chromosomes, by definition, carry genes that determine sex, mutations that alter their structural and functional stability can have immediate consequences for the individual by reducing fertility, but also for a species by altering the sex ratio. Moreover, the sex‐specific segregation patterns of heteromorphic sex chromosomes make them havens for selfish genetic elements that not only create suboptimal sex ratios but can also foster sexual antagonism. Compensatory mutations to mitigate antagonism or return sex ratios to a Fisherian optimum can create hybrid incompatibility and establish reproductive barriers leading to species divergence. The destabilizing influence of these selfish elements is often manifest within populations as copy number variants (CNVs) in satellite repeats and transposable elements (TE) or as CNVs involving sex‐determining genes, or genes essential to fertility and sex chromosome dosage compensation. This review catalogs several examples of well‐studied sex chromosome CNVs in Drosophilids and mammals that underlie instances of meiotic drive, hybrid incompatibility and disruptions to sex differentiation and sex chromosome dosage compensation. While it is difficult to pinpoint a direct cause/effect relationship between these sex chromosome CNVs and speciation, it is easy to see how their effects in creating imbalances between the sexes, and the compensatory mutations to restore balance, can lead to lineage splitting and species formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theory and empirical patterns suggest a disproportionate role for sex chromosomes in evolution and speciation. Focusing on ZW sex determination (females ZW, males ZZ; the system in birds, many snakes, and lepidopterans), I review how evolutionary dynamics are expected to differ between the Z, W and the autosomes, discuss how these differences may lead to a greater role of the sex chromosomes in speciation and use data from birds to compare relative evolutionary rates of sex chromosomes and autosomes. Neutral mutations, partially or completely recessive beneficial mutations, and deleterious mutations under many conditions are expected to accumulate faster on the Z than on autosomes. Sexually antagonistic polymorphisms are expected to arise on the Z, raising the possibility of the spread of preference alleles. The faster accumulation of many types of mutations and the potential for complex evolutionary dynamics of sexually antagonistic traits and preferences contribute to a role for the Z chromosome in speciation. A quantitative comparison among a wide variety of bird species shows that the Z tends to have less within‐population diversity and greater between‐species differentiation than the autosomes, likely due to both adaptive evolution and a greater rate of fixation of deleterious alleles. The W chromosome also shows strong potential to be involved in speciation, in part because of its co‐inheritance with the mitochondrial genome. While theory and empirical evidence suggest a disproportionate role for sex chromosomes in speciation, the importance of sex chromosomes is moderated by their small size compared to the whole genome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pleiotropic effects of mutations underlie diverse biological phenomena such as ageing and specialization. In particular, antagonistic pleiotropy ("AP": when a mutation has opposite fitness effects in different environments) generates tradeoffs, which may constrain adaptation. Models of adaptation typically assume that AP is common ‐ especially among large‐effect mutations ‐ and that pleiotropic effect sizes are positively correlated. Empirical tests of these assumptions have focused on de novo beneficial mutations arising under strong selection. However, most mutations are actually deleterious or neutral, and may contribute to standing genetic variation that can subsequently drive adaptation. We quantified the incidence, nature, and effect size of pleiotropy for carbon utilization across 80 single mutations in Escherichia coli that arose under mutation accumulation (i.e., weak selection). Although ∼46% of the mutations were pleiotropic, only 11% showed AP; among beneficial mutations, only ∼4% showed AP. In some environments, AP was more common in large‐effect mutations; and AP effect sizes across environments were often negatively correlated. Thus, AP for carbon use is generally rare (especially among beneficial mutations); is not consistently enriched in large‐effect mutations; and often involves weakly deleterious antagonistic effects. Our unbiased quantification of mutational effects therefore suggests that antagonistic pleiotropy may be unlikely to cause maladaptive tradeoffs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Seed dispersal and predation play important roles in plant life history by contributing to recruitment patterns in the landscape. Mast-seeding – extensive synchronized inter-annual variability in seed production – is known to influence the activity of acorn consumers at source trees, but little is known about its effect on post-dispersal predation. We conducted a planting experiment over three years to investigate the relationship between habitat-level post-dispersal predation and landscape-wide acorn production of three sympatric oak species (Quercus spp.). We measured post-dispersal predation in three oak-dominated habitats – savanna (under Q. lobata), forest edge (under Q. agrifolia), and woodland (under Q. douglasii) – as well as in chaparral and open fields. Overall, landscape-level predation was similarly high among study years, averaging 61.4%. Neither species nor mass of planted acorns affected predation. Habitat had a significant effect on post-dispersal predation risk with acorns disappearing most rapidly in chaparral and least rapidly in woodlands. However, a significant interaction between year and habitat (Z = −4.5, P < 0.001) showed that the hierarchy of predation risk among habitats was inconsistent among years. Using annual acorn census data from local populations of each oak species, we found that predation risk in oak-dominated habitats was significantly and positively related to acorn production of the overstory species (Z = −9.53, P = 0.009). Our findings add to growing evidence that seed dispersal, predation, and regeneration are context-dependent on annual variation in community-level seed production, and we discuss the potential consequences of these dynamics on oak recruitment and animal behavior. Highlights • Post-dispersal acorn predation [PDP] in mimicked bird caches averaged 61.4% across three study years. • PDP risk was not affected by acorn species or mass. • PDP varied significantly among habitat types: acorns disappeared most rapidly in chaparral and least rapidly in woodlands. • A significant interaction effect showed that the hierarchy of PDP risk among habitats was inconsistent among years. • PDP in oak-dominated habitats was context-dependent and positively related to acorn production of the canopy species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]