The wave of labor unrest that accompanied Belarusian post-election protests had no precedents in the country's independent history or recent post-Soviet political protest mobilizations. These ...protests challenge the prevalent trend in the current literature on the post-Soviet working class to stress its weakness in terms of organization, as well as structural and material resources. This article relies on a database of workplace-related protest events (August 10–September 30) and a selection of statements, interviews, and social media discussions among participants of the protests, in order to explain this unexpected activation of the seemingly passive Belarusian working class. The author hypothesizes that it was the vagueness of the Belarusian opposition's ideology and workers’ participation in the broader protest movement that helped them overcome the challenges of suppressed voice, bureaucratic despotism, and atomization. These mobilizing factors, however, limit the further development of autonomous labor organizations and their democratizing impact.
Between loss and opportunity Dzenovska, Dace; Artiukh, Volodymyr; Martin, Dominic
Focaal,
06/2023, Letnik:
2023, Številka:
96
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Abstract
Many places in the post-socialist world undergo emptying: a loss of their constitutive elements—people, infrastructure, services, and futures past. Some people see this emptying as a loss, ...others as an opportunity. We argue that the shift from loss to opportunity—or vice versa—is a site of the political, that is, a moment of decision about the place of the present in a framework of meaning that gives form and direction to life. Drawing on contributions to the theme section, as well as on literature on hegemony, the political, and Anthropocene, we identify a potential tension between re-politicization on the scale of geopolitics and de- politicization on the scale of the planetary.
This paper analyzes the ideologies accompanying the political crisis that occurred in Belarus between August 2020 and late December 2020. In that year, Belarus saw the largest wave of mass protest ...mobilization that happened in this country since it proclaimed independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. This protest wave was in many ways exceptional in comparison with other countries in the post-Soviet area. Scholars are still struggling to explain the reasons for this exceptional mobilization, and this paper contributes to this effort by looking at the ideational factors behind the pre- and post-electoral protests in Belarus. According to the central hypothesis of this paper, the 2020 protests were triggered by the breakdown of the protesters’ identification with the image of ‘the people’ as projected by the dominant populist discourse, and the development of the protests was accompanied by a struggle over redefinition of who ‘the people’ are. More broadly, by turning to the discursive theory of populism, this paper assesses an ambiguous democratization potential of populist mobilizations in an authoritarian polity.
Ukraine, One Year On Artiukh, Volodymyr; Fedirko, Taras; Hrymych, Maryna ...
Conflict and society,
06/2023, Letnik:
9, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The following conversation took place as an online round table organized by the Anthropology of Peace, Conflict, and Security research network of the European Association of Social Anthropologists on ...14 March 2023. The aim of the round table was to create a space where Ukrainian anthropologists would reflect collectively on the anthropological approach to the invasion of Ukraine one year on. We asked them: What kinds of debates, narratives, imaginaries, and forms of activism have emerged under the invasion, and how have they shifted with time? How does an anthropological lens complicate some of the debates that have perhaps been posed in too simplistic terms? What is the view “from below” in Ukraine regarding life under the invasion, prospects for peace, solidarity, hope, and resistance? And last, but not least: how can we—anthropologists, non-Ukrainians—support them?
It has been a year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine started. It is clear that the impact of this war goes far beyond Ukraine. We already know that it will have long-lasting consequences for the ...regional and global economy, in particular for energy and food security. The war is reshuffling old geo-political arrangements and alliances. It is also shaping the political landscapes of European states: international relations, inflation and migration are increasingly becoming key topics in national elections.
The paper shows that the contour of a sheet blank at all stages of superplastic forming can be described by application of the universal equations known as a "superformula" and "superellipse". The ...work provides information on the ranges of values of the coefficients entering these equations and shows that their magnitudes make it possible to additionally determine the level of superplastic properties of the workpiece metal, the shape of the shell being manufactured, the stage of superplastic forming, and the presence of additional operations to regulate the flow of the deformable metal. The paper has the results of approximation by the proposed equations of shell contours that manufactured by superplastic forming by different methods.
External beam radiation therapy leads to cellular activation of the DNA damage response (DDR). DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) activate the ATM/CHEK2/p53 pathway, inducing the transcription of stress ...genes. The dynamic nature of this transcriptional response has not been directly observed in vivo in humans. In this study we monitored the messenger RNA transcript abundances of nine DNA damage-responsive genes (
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
, and
), eight of them regulated by p53 in circulating blood leukocytes at different time points (2, 6-8, 16-18, and 24 h) in cancer patients (lung, neck, brain, and pelvis) undergoing radiotherapy. We discovered that, although the calculated mean physical dose to the blood was very low (0.038-0.169 Gy), an upregulation of Ferredoxin reductase (
) gene transcription was detectable 2 h after exposure and was dose dependent from the lowest irradiated percentage of the body (3.5% whole brain) to the highest, (up to 19.4%, pelvic zone) reaching a peak at 6-8 h. The radiation response of the other genes was not strong enough after such low doses to provide meaningful information. Following multiple fractions, the expression level increased further and was still significantly up-regulated by the end of the treatment. Moreover, we compared
transcriptional responses to ionizing radiation (IR) in vivo with healthy donors' blood cells exposed ex vivo and found a good correlation in the kinetics of expression from the 8-hours time-point onward, suggesting that a molecular transcriptional regulation mechanism yet to be identified is involved. To conclude, we provided the first in vivo human report of IR-induced gene transcription temporal response of a panel of p53-dependant genes. FDXR was demonstrated to be the most responsive gene, able to reliably inform on the low doses following partial body irradiation of the patients, and providing an expression pattern corresponding to the % of body exposed. An extended study would provide individual biological dosimetry information and may reveal inter-individual variability to predict radiotherapy-associated adverse health outcomes.
Previous investigations in gene expression changes in blood after radiation exposure have highlighted its potential to provide biomarkers of exposure. Here, FDXR transcriptional changes in blood were ...investigated in humans undergoing a range of external radiation exposure procedures covering several orders of magnitude (cardiac fluoroscopy, diagnostic computed tomography (CT)) and treatments (total body and local radiotherapy). Moreover, a method was developed to assess the dose to the blood using physical exposure parameters. FDXR expression was significantly up-regulated 24 hr after radiotherapy in most patients and continuously during the fractionated treatment. Significance was reached even after diagnostic CT 2 hours post-exposure. We further showed that no significant differences in expression were found between ex vivo and in vivo samples from the same patients. Moreover, potential confounding factors such as gender, infection status and anti-oxidants only affect moderately FDXR transcription. Finally, we provided a first in vivo dose-response showing dose-dependency even for very low doses or partial body exposure showing good correlation between physically and biologically assessed doses. In conclusion, we report the remarkable responsiveness of FDXR to ionising radiation at the transcriptional level which, when measured in the right time window, provides accurate in vivo dose estimates.
The article is devoted to superplastic forming of non-uniformly heated sheet blanks from aluminum alloy
AMg6M
. To create an uneven temperature field over the surface of the blank, coatings made of ...sublimated substances were used from at temperatures 50…150°C below the superplastic forming temperature (450°C for
AMg6M
alloy). An aqueous solute of chloride and ammonium iodide having a sublimation temperature at normal pressure and a latent heat of conversion equal to 338 and 404°C, 330 and 355kJ/kg, respectively, was sprayed onto the central zones of the blanks. Superplastic forming of shells was carried out in two modes: 1) with simultaneous sublimation of the coating; 2) with the beginning of the sublimation of the coating upon reaching the height, which is formed by the workpiece, equal to 20-30% of the final shell height. The experiments showed a decrease in the thickness of the shells to be formed up to 4-10% on the working surface of the shells (without taking into account their flange zones) and the savings of sublimate during superplastic forming in the second mode. The optimal subliming coating for
AMg6M
alloy was ammonium chloride.
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