Remembering Nawal El Saadawi Niu, Zimu
Journal of Middle East women's studies,
03/2022, Letnik:
18, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
At exactly 21:15 Beijing time on March 21, 2021, my PhD adviser, Professor Xue of Beijing Foreign Studies University, sent me a text message that Nawal El Saadawi had died. Several other scholars ...sent their condolences. Why me? I thought. It was because I had written the first PhD dissertation in China on Nawal’s works; I was the first Chinese reader to knock on the door of her Cairo apartment; and I had planned her 2014 tour of Beijing. In the early 2010s, my choice of Nawal El Saadawi as a dissertation topic raised eyebrows. Some senior scholars deplored my choice, because they saw in Nawal an attention seeker playing to the gallery. Others were genuinely concerned, sensing that this inexperienced student might suffer consequences if she dived into such controversy. I had my own reasons. I had always been skeptical of what was canonical, and my skepticism often turned...
Sunset Oasis (2007), the winner of the inaugural International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) in 2008, remains one of the most important and intricate works by Egyptian writer Bahaa Taher. Based on ...true historical events, the novel introduces female characters from varied nations and social classes. In spite of their differences, we find these women confined in the “margins” of patriarchal societies portrayed in the novel. This paper intends to shed new light on the circumstances of women imprisoned in the “margins” and on how they struggle against such marginalization. Indeed, women as individuals are unable to confront structural oppression and systematic inequality, as they question and reject the “discipline and punishment” of Patriarchy, and thus display an awareness the readers would applaud as ahead of their time. Hence, their seemingly fruitless endeavor is a glorious defeat.
The Saadawian Androgyny Niu, Zimu
Journal of Middle East women's studies,
03/2017, Letnik:
13, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This article discusses a model of male-female relation promoted by the Egyptian writer and activist Nawal El Saadawi. El Saadawi argued that man and woman are born exactly the same: not only do they ...resemble each other, but they constitute together a single entity that is humanity, like “identical twins” who develop from a single fertilized egg. It is culture/patriarchy that differentiated and hierarchized them, through an everlasting process of assigning and molding identities. This model of parallel and interdependent male-female relation, or what I call “the Saadawian androgyny,” is both an innovation and a restoration. Many ancient religious and mystic texts from across the world held very similar views, before patriarchy prevailed and history became dominated by the voice of the few, turning sex/gender into a privilege or a limitation. The Saadawian androgyny is a powerful way to deconstruct patriarchy, because it breaks the hierarchized binary thought on which patriarchy is based.
Hypogastrura harveyi (snow fleas) produce a glycine‐rich antifreeze protein which enables it to survive in environments that would otherwise freeze its body fluid. Snow flea antifreeze protein ...(sfAFP) is a 6.5 kDa monomeric protein made of six alpha helices linked by hydrogen bonds and disulfide bridges. The protein's amino acid sequence has a frequent glycine‐x‐y amino acid pattern, where the x amino acid is also glycine 50% of the time and the y amino acid is either hydrophobic or hydrophilic. The hydrophobic side of sfAFP binds to the surface of seed ice crystals, breaking up the ice surface into smaller areas and preventing the further binding of water molecules due to the Kelvin effect. Other AFP's have been shown to be efficacious in improving the preservation of rat hearts, leading to the yet‐untested hypothesis that sfAFP's are also able to prolong the cryopreservation of organs. The Ashbury MSOE Center for BioMolecular Modeling SMART Team used 3‐D modeling and printing technology to examine structure‐function relationships of sfAFP when bonding to an ice lattice.
Support or Funding Information
MSOE ‐ Center for Biomolecular Modelling ‐ co‐sponsor Diane Munzenmaier
This is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this published in The FASEB Journal.
•Reductive leaching of a zinc-leached residue was investigated using galena.•Iron existed mainly in a Fe2+ from solution after leaching.•Indium leaching was controlled by surface chemical reaction.
...Large quantities of indium-bearing zinc-leached residue (ZLR) are produced constantly in the hydrometallurgical production of zinc, including zinc, indium, iron and other valuable metals. In order to recover valuable metals from the residue, a new reductive leaching process using galena as reductant has been developed, in which the extensive leaching of zinc and indium is achieved. A shrinking core model under the control of surface chemical reaction best fitted the leaching of indium from the residue. The apparent activation energy of indium leaching was calculated to be 64 kJ/mol, and the reaction orders were determined as −0.34 and 1.47 with respect to particle size and initial H2SO4 concentration, respectively. The extent of leaching was 87% for zinc, 91% for iron and 88% for indium after 90 min at 85 °C, using an initial H2SO4 concentration of 140 g/L and a molar ratio of lead sulfide to zinc ferrite of 1:1. The reductive leaching process of the residue achieved high dissolution of zinc and indium, and iron existed as Fe2+ in solution would prove beneficial for the subsequent iron removal stage.
The vanadate conversion coating (VCC) was formed on the surface of magnesium (Mg) alloy in vanadium phosphate solution, as well as the cathode electrophoresis and bake-curing treatments of the ...conversion coating proceeded. According to the addition of vanadate in the solution, the conversion coating is refined crystalline and possesses low weight loss during electrophoresis and bake-curing treatment processes. Besides, when the content of NaVO3 is 4g/L in vanadate solution, not only the microstructure of conversion coating is the most refined, but also the adhesion and corrosion resistance of electrophoretic paint coating (EPC) is the best. On the other hand, the “rare earth phosphating VS low-temperature electrophoresis” technique is suitable for Mg alloy coatings. As seen in scanning electron microscope (SEM), the VCC reveals three-dimensional net structure, which provides a well underlayer for the adhesion between electrophoretic paint and the samples.
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike (S) protein continues to evolve antigenically, impacting antibody immunity. D1F6, an affinity-matured non-stereotypic VH1-2 ...antibody isolated from a patient infected with the SARS-CoV-2 ancestral strain, effectively neutralizes most Omicron variants tested, including XBB.1.5. We identify that D1F6 in the immunoglobulin G (IgG) form is able to overcome the effect of most Omicron mutations through its avidity-enhanced multivalent S-trimer binding. Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and biochemical analyses show that three simultaneous epitope mutations are generally needed to substantially disrupt the multivalent S-trimer binding by D1F6 IgG. Antigenic mutations at spike positions 346, 444, and 445, which appeared in the latest variants, have little effect on D1F6 binding individually. However, these mutations are able to act synergistically with earlier Omicron mutations to impair neutralization by affecting the interaction between D1F6 IgG and the S-trimer. These results provide insight into the mechanism by which accumulated antigenic mutations facilitate evasion of affinity-matured antibodies.
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•SARS-CoV-2 ancestral strain infections induce Omicron neutralizing antibodies•An isolated antibody, D1F6, has antiviral effect against Omicron variants in vivo•D1F6 is a non-stereotypic VH1-2 antibody with broadly neutralizing activity•The D1F6 escape mutation pattern informs antigenic evolution of SARS-CoV-2
Liu et al. study the mechanisms through which D1F6, a non-stereotypic VH1-2 antibody, tolerates escape mutations to achieve broad neutralization. D1F6 is affinity matured, and multiple simultaneous epitope mutations are required to impact its activity. The results suggest that accumulated antigenic changes in SARS-CoV-2 facilitate the evasion of affinity-matured antibodies.
Peer-assisted on-demand video streaming services are extremely large-scale distributed systems on the Internet. Automated demand forecast and performance prediction, if implemented, can help with ...capacity planning and quality control so that sufficient server bandwidth can always be supplied to each video channel without incurring wastage. In this paper, we use time-series analysis techniques to automatically predict the online population, the peer upload and the server bandwidth demand in each video channel, based on the learning of both human factors and system dynamics from online measurements. The proposed mechanisms are evaluated on a large dataset collected from a commercial Internet video-on-demand system.
Suppression of bromodomain and extra terminal (BET) proteins has a bright prospect to treat MYC-driven tumors. Bromodomain containing 4 (BRD4) is one of the BET proteins. ARV-825, consisting of a ...BRD4 inhibitor conjugated with a cereblon ligand using proteolysis-targeting chimera (PROTAC) technology, was proven to decrease the tumor growth effectively and continuously. Nevertheless, the efficacy and mechanisms of ARV-825 in gastric cancer are still poorly understood.
Cell counting kit 8 assay, lentivirus infection, Western blotting analysis, Annexin V/propidium iodide (PI) staining, RNA sequencing, a xenograft model, and immunohistochemistry were used to assess the efficacy of ARV-825 in cell level and animal model.
The messenger RNA (mRNA) expression of
4 in gastric cancer raised significantly than those in normal tissues, which suggested poor outcome of patients with gastric cancer. ARV-825 displayed higher anticancer efficiency in gastric cancer cells than OTX015 and JQ1. ARV-825 could inhibit cell growth, inducing cell cycle block and apoptosis
. ARV-825 induced degradation of BRD4, BRD2, BRD3, c-MYC, and polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) proteins in four gastric cancer cell lines. In addition, cleavage of caspase 3 and poly-ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) was elevated. Knockdown or overexpression
could increase or decrease, respectively, the ARV-825 IC50 of gastric cancer cells. ARV-825 reduced
and
expression in gastric cancer cells. ARV-825 treatment significantly reduced tumor growth without toxic side effects and downregulated the expression of BRD4
.
High mRNA expression of
in gastric cancer indicated poor prognosis. ARV-825, a BRD4 inhibitor, could effectively suppress the growth and elevate the apoptosis of gastric cancer cells
transcription downregulation of c-MYC and PLK1. These results implied that ARV-825 could be a good therapeutic strategy to treat gastric cancer.
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