Material politics Barry, Andrew; Barry, Andrew
2013., 2013, 2013-09-23
eBook
In Material Politics, author Andrew Barry reveals that as we are beginning to attend to the importance of materials in political life, materials has become increasingly bound up with the production ...of information about their performance, origins, and impact. * Presents an original theoretical approach to political geography by revealing the paradoxical relationship between materials and politics * Explores how political disputes have come to revolve not around objects in isolation, but objects that are entangled in ever growing quantities of information about their performance, origins, and impact * Studies the example of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline – a fascinating experiment in transparency and corporate social responsibility – and its wide-spread negative political impact * Capitalizes on the growing interdisciplinary interest, especially within geography and social theory, about the critical role of material artefacts in political life
This book presents an economic survey of international capital mobility from the late nineteenth century to the present. The authors examine the theory and empirical evidence surrounding the fall and ...rise of integration in the world market. A discussion of institutional developments focuses on capital controls and the pursuit of macroeconomic policy objectives in shifting monetary regimes. The Great Depression emerges as the key turning point in recent history of international capital markets, and offers important insights for contemporary policy debates. Its principal legacy is that the return to a world of global capital is marked by great unevenness in outcomes regarding both risks and rewards of capital market integration. More than in the past, foreign investment flows largely from rich countries to other rich countries. Yet most financial crises afflict developing countries, with costs for everyone.
Swietenia macrophylla King is a plant commonly known as Brazilian mahogany. The wood from its stem is highly prized for its exceptional quality, while its leaves are valued for their high content of ...phragmalin-type limonoids, a subclass of compounds known for their significant biological activities, including antimalarial, antitumor, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory properties. In this context, twelve isolated limonoids from S. macrophylla leaves were employed as standards in mass spectrometry-based molecular networking to unveil new potential mass spectrometry signatures for phragmalin-type limonoids. Consequently, ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry was utilized for data acquisition. Subsequently, the obtained data were analyzed using the Global Natural Products Social Molecular Networking platform based on spectral similarity. In summary, this study identified 24 new putative phragmalin-type limonoids for the first time in S. macrophylla. These compounds may prove valuable in guiding future drug development efforts, leveraging the already established biological activities associated with limonoids.
Against the backdrop of a 20-year revolt against free trade orthodoxy by
economists inside the UN and their impact on policy discussions since the 1960s, the
authors show how the UN both nurtured and ...inhibited creative and novel intellectual
contributions to the trade and development debate. Presenting a stirring account of
the main UN actors in this debate, The UN and Global Political Economy focuses on
the accomplishments and struggles of UN economists and the role played by such UN
agencies as the Department of Economic (and Social) Affairs, the United Nations
Commission on Trade and Development, and the Economic Commission for Latin America
(and the Caribbean). It also looks closely at the effects of the Latin American debt
crisis of the 1980s, the growing strength of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in
the 1990s, and the lessons to be drawn from these and other recent
developments.
This special issue of the 'Journal of Australian Political Economy' is the product of a research collaboration project between University of California Davis and University of Sydney on temporary ...migrant workers in agriculture. Workshops were held in Sydney in February and Davis in April 2019, and several of the papers published in this issue had their origin in presentations delivered at the Sydney workshop. The project was prompted by the evidence that the agricultural industry in most high-income countries had become increasingly reliant on the employment of temporary migrant workers and that, almost without exception, the industry’s reputation was sullied by a history of migrant workers being subjected to a raft of exploitative practices.
Aeromonas salmonicida subsp. salmonicida (A. salmonicida), a Gram-negative bacterium causing furunculosis in fish, produces the siderophores acinetobactin and amonabactins in order to extract iron ...from its hosts. While the synthesis and transport of both systems is well understood, the regulation pathways and conditions necessary for the production of each one of these siderophores are not clear. The acinetobactin gene cluster carries a gene (asbI) encoding a putative sigma factor belonging to group 4 σ factors, or, the ExtraCytoplasmic Function (ECF) group. By generating a null asbI mutant, we demonstrate that AsbI is a key regulator that controls acinetobactin acquisition in A. salmonicida, since it directly regulates the expression of the outer membrane transporter gene and other genes necessary for Fe-acinetobactin transport. Furthermore, AsbI regulatory functions are interconnected with other iron-dependent regulators, such as the Fur protein, as well as with other sigma factors in a complex regulatory network.
Abstract
The Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis (MEGA) software has matured to contain a large collection of methods and tools of computational molecular evolution. Here, we describe new ...additions that make MEGA a more comprehensive tool for building timetrees of species, pathogens, and gene families using rapid relaxed-clock methods. Methods for estimating divergence times and confidence intervals are implemented to use probability densities for calibration constraints for node-dating and sequence sampling dates for tip-dating analyses. They are supported by new options for tagging sequences with spatiotemporal sampling information, an expanded interactive Node Calibrations Editor, and an extended Tree Explorer to display timetrees. Also added is a Bayesian method for estimating neutral evolutionary probabilities of alleles in a species using multispecies sequence alignments and a machine learning method to test for the autocorrelation of evolutionary rates in phylogenies. The computer memory requirements for the maximum likelihood analysis are reduced significantly through reprogramming, and the graphical user interface has been made more responsive and interactive for very big data sets. These enhancements will improve the user experience, quality of results, and the pace of biological discovery. Natively compiled graphical user interface and command-line versions of MEGA11 are available for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS from www.megasoftware.net.
Over the centuries, processing and distribution of products from land and sea has stimulated the growth of a global economy. In the broad sweep of world history, it may be hard to imagine a place for ...the meager little herring baitfish. Yet, as Brian Payne adeptly recounts, the baitfish trade was hotly contested in the Anglo-American world throughout the nineteenth century. Politicians called for wars, navies were dispatched with guns at the ready, vessels were seized at sea, and violence erupted at sea.Yet, the battle over baitfish was not simply a diplomatic or political affair. Fishermen from hundreds of villages along the coastline of Atlantic Canada and New England played essential roles in the construction of legal authority that granted or denied access to these profitable bait fisheries.Fishing a Borderless Seaillustrates how everyday laborers created a complex system of environmental stewardship that enabled them to control the local resources while also allowing them access into the larger global economy.