Towards the application of desorption electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (DESI-MS) to the analysis of ancient proteins from artefacts

The detection and identification of protein residues from archaeological artefacts has been the subject of considerable controversy over the past two decades, this controversy spurring the application of a range of different analytical methods. Part of the debate surrounds the ability of the methods to uniquely identify original proteins. Another is the apparent contradiction between the ease of extraction in the laboratory of residues that have managed to survive in sediment over millennia; some studies use simple solvents including water, whilst others claim that efficient extraction requires the destruction of the artefact.Desorption electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (DESI-MS) offers the potential to directly analyse proteins bound to the surface of artefacts. The method permits desorption of analytes under ambient conditions directly from a wide range of surfaces with little or no sample preparation. This has already led to its application in a range of areas, including forensic analysis of trace levels of narcotic drugs. It does not require destruction of the artefact (e.g. by drilling or dissolution) and can work in concert with other methods (for instance it could be used as a screening tool prior to lipid extraction).Here we report the construction of a DESI-MS interface and consider the potential of the method to contribute to the debate surrounding the preservation of proteins on artefacts. The DESI-MS interface was fitted to a conventional ion trap mass spectrometer and tested using peptides and proteins artificially applied to the surface of flint flakes and potsherd samples. A range of intact proteins was analysed; the DESI interface identified test proteins up to a maximum molecular weight of approximately 20 kDa. Peptides generated from these and larger proteins could be detected using DESI-MS following tryptic digestion in situ. The collected data allowed identification of the originating proteins. The potential applications to archaeological science of this new analytical tool are discussed.     

Exploring the Multiple Roles of Lund University in Strengthening Scania's Regional Innovation System: Towards Institutional Learning?

Universities are increasingly seen as potential contributors to regional innovative capacity by serving as local knowledge conduits, bringing global state-of-the-art science and technology into the region. In practice, however, more active university engagement with their regional innovation systems is not as straightforward as it may seem. The article uses examples from a successful case by which less successful regions could be inspired. Our analysis considers how various forms of technological learning intersecting within Lund University around three distinct sectoral engagement efforts have been built up and how this created new structural regional innovation capacity.     

The intimate politics of secularism and the headscarf: the mall,the neighborhood,and the public square in Istanbul

The headscarf continues to be a highly charged political issue in Turkey where it is often understood through the prism of the opposition between so-called Islamists versus secularists. My work brings together feminist scholarship on the politics of everyday space and recent rethinking of the categories of secularism and religion. I begin by situating this politicized debate in the everyday material contexts of the public square, the street, and the mall. By introducing popular culture (notably the film Bü?ra) and my own fieldwork on the veil, I argue that the headscarf represents the intersection of politics of place and individual agency in a way that renders ideological debates contingent on everyday practices. Reducing the headscarf to a sign of Islamism fails to take into account the ever-shifting meanings of this object across time and space. The differences within and between the everyday urban sites I examine reveal much more complex, often contradictory, and discontinuous geographies of secularism and Islam. This analysis reveals a multiplicity that belies attempts to delineate clearly bounded spaces, subjects, and ideologies, one that is intimate and political.     

Reporting oppression: mapping racial prejudice in Anti-Caste and Fraternity, 1888–1895

This paper presents a close reading of the reports of racial oppression that appeared in issues of two periodicals, Anti-Caste and its successor Fraternity, between 1888 and 1895. Edited in Street, Somerset, these periodicals created an extensive political geographical imagination by mapping international cases of racial prejudice. Although critical of the British empire, neither Anti-Caste nor Fraternity demanded the destruction of the British empire. In a tactic similar to that used by early Pan-Africanists, the papers’ narratives desired an end to the expansion of the British empire and an increase in the respect for and conditions of those who were ruled ‘under the British Flag’. However, Anti-Caste’s focus upon racial inequality across the United States as well as the British empire enabled it to create a distinctive critique of racial prejudice across the English-speaking world. Its criticism of the imperial project combined with support for human brotherhood allowed the paper to develop a framework for debates on racial prejudice that drew together criticisms of labour laws in India, the removal of people from their lands in Southern Africa, the racial segregation of public transport in the United States and the restriction of Chinese labour in Australia.     

Abortion law reforms in Colombia and Nicaragua: issue networks and opportunity contexts

This article analyses two instances of abortion law reform in Latin America. In 2006, after a decades-long impasse, the highly controversial issue of abortion came to dominate the political agenda when Colombia liberalized its abortion law and Nicaragua adopted a total ban on abortion. The article analyses the central actors in the reform processes, their strategies and the opportunity contexts. Drawing on Htun's (2003) framework, it examines why these processes concluded with opposing legislative outcomes. The authors argue for the need to understand the state as a non-unitary site of politics and policy, and for judicial processes to be seen as a key variable in facilitating gender policy reforms in Latin America. In addition, they argue that ‘windows of opportunity’ such as the timing of elections can be critically important in legislative change processes.     

A New Perspective about Moran's Coefficient: Spatial Autocorrelation as a Linear Regression Problem. Moran系数的新视角：空间自相关视为线性回归问题

The computation of Moran's index of spatial autocorrelation requires the definition of a spatial weighting matrix. The eigendecomposition of this doubly centered matrix (i.e., one that forces the sums of all rows and columns to equal zero) has interesting properties that have been exploited in various contexts: distribution properties of the Moran coefficient (MC), spatial filtering in linear models, generalized linear models, and multivariate analysis. In this article, this eigendecomposition is used to propose a new view of MC based on its interpretation in the simple context of linear regression. I use this interpretation to demonstrate the different properties of MC and also the inefficiency of this index in some situations involving simultaneous positive and negative spatial autocorrelation. I propose some new statistics and procedures for testing spatial autocorrelation, and conduct a simulation study to evaluate these new approaches.     

Feminist Perspectives on the Internationalization of The State

Abstract: The state is often described in transition: public spaces are rearranged by private companies, national social welfare is being privatized to some extent, and supranational institutions have more influence on national policies. “A view from the kitchen” (Diane Elson) is helpful for understanding the changing dynamics of states and societies because different women are affected by these policies in different and often ambiguous ways: women of the globalized South migrate to the North, creating global care chains, while women in Western industrialized countries are confronted with changing welfare regimes, leaving mainly highly educated women to profit from this situation. This article contributes to feminist debates on economic globalization and state internationalization. Our feminist materialist perspective allows a critical view on dominance and power in “governance”. Thus, the article adds to feminist debates on globalization from the perspective of state transformation and to debates on governance from the perspective of state transformation grounded in gendered social relations.     

Gender and Translation: Writing as Resistance in Primo Levi's Se questo è un uomo

This essay argues that translation in Se questo è un uomo (If This is a Man) (1947), as well as in related pieces, functions for Primo Levi as a key means for claiming and potentially repairing manhood. In its capacity to reposition meaning, translation functions as a powerful vehicle for affirming agency, particularly gendered agency. What emerges in Levi's writings, particularly in Se questo's “Canto of Ulysses” chapter, is the figure of the translator as resistance fighter: the man who uses his intellect, his love of languages and other men, and his desire to communicate in order to combat the assault on humanity perpetrated by Nazism and sustained by its legacy. In this Levi's writing exists on a continuum with the cultural work of the founding members of Giustizia e Libertà and, accordingly, complicates Italy's postwar understanding of partisan activity. Throughout Se questo è un uomo and related works, translation proves a vital if imperfect means for reclaiming manhood and for asserting the possibility of friendship across cultural, regional, ethnic, and gender boundaries.