Asymmetrical Processes Research Articles

Dynamic and Asymmetrical Ion Concentration Polarization in Dual Nanopipettes.

Dual nanopipettes with two channels have been receiving great attention due to the convenient experimental setup and multiple measuring channels in sensing applications at nanoscale, while the involved dynamic and asymmetrical ion transport processes have not been fully elucidated. In this paper, both experimental and simulation methods are used to investigate the dynamic mass transport processes inside dual nanopipettes with two well-separated channels. The results present that the ion transport resistance through the two channels (R12) is always the add-up of the individual ones (R13 + R23) with respect to the bulk solutions, at various ionic strengths and scan rates. A constant zero-current potential is obtained when loading an asymmetrical electrolyte concentration in the two channels, and the zero-potential current displays a good linear relationship with the bulk concentration outside the pipet. Besides revealing the dynamic and asymmetrical concentration polarization in the dual nanopipettes, these results would also further promote the better usage of dual nanopipettes in electrochemical sensing and imaging applications.

Asymmetrical magnetization processes induced by compositional gradients in ferromagnetic nanowires

Electrodeposited nanowires are an excellent scenario to study and control magnetic domain wall motion in nanostructures. In particular, the introduction of local changes in composition during the growth procedure has been proven to be very efficient for controlling the magnetization dynamics. In this work, we show the possibility of introducing compositional gradients in FeNi electrodeposited nanowires by gradually changing the Fe/Ni ratio along their axis. These compositional gradients produce an asymmetrical landscape for domain wall motion which is reflected in asymmetrical magnetization processes under an applied magnetic field. By studying nanowires with different compositional gradients we were able to correlate composition and magnetic asymmetry. Our results pave the way towards full control of the movement of domain walls along the nanowires.

Colonising the narrative space: unliveable lives, unseeable struggles and the necropolitical governance of digital populations

ABSTRACT Social media platforms play a critical civic role during times of conflict, war, and crises as spaces for people to document and share content that publicises instances of human rights violations, graphic violence, and material destruction. Such content not only function as primary materials in the narration of social and political realities, but also operate as intense sites of control when platforms, state, and non-state actors seek to censor them for various political and opaque reasons. This article argues the gradually increasing intertwinement of corporate-government power, and the asymmetrical application of power to govern our lives in platform spaces, constitutes the necropolitical governance of digital populations. I delineate how the contours of platform necropolitics manifest through asymmetrical content moderation processes, platform policies, and alternative enforcement systems, and describe its operational registers: acts of commission (overenforcement), omission (underenforcement), and exceptionalism (extraordinary exceptions). The article’s theoretical resourcefulness and analytical significance is demonstrated through three qualitative case studies: 2021 Israeli–Palestinian conflict, ‘rest of the world’ counties, and 2022-ongoing Russian–Ukrainian War. The article problematises conventional understandings of necropolitics while providing nuanced conceptualisation into the narrative and curatorial power of corporate-government assemblages of control for digital subjects – especially those most at-risk.

Characterization of the role of TMEM175 in an in vitro lysosomal H+ fluxes model.

Lysosome acidification is a dynamic equilibrium of H+ influx and efflux across the membrane, which is crucial for cell physiology. The vacuolar H+ ATPase (V-ATPase) is responsible for the H+ influx or refilling of lysosomes. TMEM175 was identified as a novel H+ permeable channel on lysosomal membranes, and it plays a critical role in lysosome acidification. However, how TMEM175 participates in lysosomal acidification remains unknown. Here, we present evidence that TMEM175 regulates lysosomal H+ influx and efflux in enlarged lysosomes isolated from COS1 treated with vacuolin-1. By utilizing the whole-endolysosome patch-clamp recording technique, a series of integrated lysosomal H+ influx and efflux signals in a ten-of-second time scale under the physiological pH gradient (luminal pH 4.60, and cytosolic pH 7.20) was recorded from this in vitro system. Lysosomal H+ fluxes constitute both the lysosomal H+ refilling and releasing, and they are asymmetrical processes with distinct featured kinetics for each of the H+ fluxes. Lysosomal H+ fluxes are entirely abolished when TMEM175 losses of function in the F39V mutant and is blocked by the antagonist (2-GBI). Meanwhile, lysosomal H+ fluxes are modulated by the pH-buffering capacity of the lumen and the lysosomal glycosylated membrane proteins, lysosome-associated membrane protein 1 (LAMP1). We propose that the TMEM175-mediated lysosomal H+ fluxes model would provide novel thoughts for studying the pathology of Parkinson's disease and lysosome storage disorders.

COLONIZING THE NARRATIVE SPACE: UNLIVABLE LIVES, UNSEEABLE STRUGGLES AND THE NECROPOLITICAL GOVERNANCE OF DIGITAL POPULATIONS

Social media provides a critical space for people at the margins to document, publish, and share content that publicizes instances of human rights violations, conflict, and dispossession. This presentation explores how asymmetrical content moderation processes, opaque platform policies, and alternative enforcement systems that are brokered through backdoor corporate-government agreements lead to the removal of this content and re-obscure life and death struggles. It introduces the notion of _platform necropolitics_ (Lewis, 2023, forthcoming) and demonstrates its theoretical resourcefulness through an examination of platform censorship of pro-Palestinian content during the May 2021 Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Platform necropolitics manifests through the sovereign logics of platforms that violently police the boundaries of speech and space–determining who has the right to speak and who has the right to appear as a legitimate digital citizen, and who does not–and that take as their object the articulations of digital subjects and enact their ‘right to kill or let live’. This framework draws together scholarship from platform studies, political theorizing, and decolonial critique to reorientate critical theorizing of platforms as technologies of necropolitical power to rethink and imagine the implications of their discursive, material, and geospatial interventions. Exploring the tensions of digital media technologies as spaces that we live _with_, _in_, and _through_, considering platforms as _political_ and _material_ actors that determine and condition the social, political, and material (in)existence of digital subjects, I examine how platforms enact forms of necropolitical governance though corporate and machinic logics that simultaneously extend and reproduce the necropolitical power of the Israeli state.

Multivariate Garch Models Comparison in Terms of the Symmetric and Asymmetric Models

Modelling the Multivariate Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model included both symmetric and asymmetric processes. The information includes monthly data for the Consumer Price Index, Crude Oil Price, Exchange Rate, and Inflation Rate from January 2005 to December 2021. For the analysis, E-view Statistical software was employed. The aforementioned four macroeconomic variables show a tendency for volatility to cluster across time. Both symmetrical and asymmetrical processes had the volatility condition. The residual recursive plot was used to analyse the structural fluctuation in the series. The plot showed continual movement in the inflation rate as well as a downward and upward movement in the consumer price index, exchange rate, and crude oil price. The Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), Hannan-Quinn Information Criterion (HQIC), and Schwarz Information Criterion were chosen as the best models based on information criteria (SIC). Symmetric and asymmetric modelling techniques were used to create the Economic Variables Multivariate GARCH (M-GARCH) models. To calculate the covariance and correlation between the four variables, M-GARCH models were utilised. The main finding of the estimation of all M-GARCH models is that the symmetric models (Diagonal BEKK and Constant Conditional Correlation, or "CCC") have the lowest values of the model information criteria compared to the asymmetric models (Diagonal BEKK and CCC), while the asymmetric models (Diagonal VECH) have the lowest values of the model information criteria compared to the symmetric models (Diagonal VECH). Based on the findings, it was discovered that while analysing the interaction between the four economic variables returns series, the Symmetric Diagonal BEKK and CCC model outperformed the Asymmetric Diagonal VECH model.

Aversive control versus stimulus control by punishment.

Estes (1944) reported that adding electric shock punishment to extinction hastened response suppression but that responding increased when shock was removed. This result contributed to a view that reinforcement and punishment are asymmetrical processes because punishment has only indirect and temporary suppressive effects. Azrin and Holz (1966) suggested the result might be interpreted instead as shock serving as a discriminative stimulus for the absence of reinforcement. Here, to further examine potential stimulus control by punishment in a similar preparation, two groups of rats initially responded for food plus punishment and a third group for food alone. Reinforcement was then removed for all groups for the remaining three phases. With P and N denoting punishment and no punishment, the four phases for the three groups were: P-P-N-N, P-N-P-N, and N-P-N-N. We found some evidence for stimulus control by shock deliveries for group N-P-N-N (as suggested by Azrin and Holz), but all other changes in responding appeared due to introduction or removal of the aversive properties of shock. Although punishment may indeed have temporary effects under many circumstances, we argue that the view that this implies asymmetrical reinforcement and punishment processes was based on the flawed assumption that reinforcement has direct strengthening effects.

Mixed Moving Average-Cumulative Sum Control Chart for Monitoring Parameter Change

In this research, we propose the new mixed control chart called the mixed Moving Average-Cumulative Sum (MA-CUSUM) control chart used for monitoring parameter changes in asymmetrical and symmetrical processes. Its efficiency was compared with that of the Shewhart, Cumulative Sum (CUSUM), Moving Average (MA), mixed Cumulative Sum-Moving Average (CUSUM-MA) and mixed Moving Average-Cumulative Sum (MA-CUSUM) control charts by using their average run lengths (ARLs), the standard deviation of the run length (SDRL), and median run length (MRL) via the Monte Carlo simulation (MC). The simulation results show that the MA-CUSUM control chart was more efficient than the other control charts for small-to-moderate parameter changes for all distributions tested. To compare their applicability to real-world situations, the control charts were applied to data for the River Nile flow from 1871–1930 and mine explosions in the UK from 1875–1951. It was found that the MA-CUSUM control chart could more quickly detect parameter changes than the other control charts.

Response: Intimacies as Method

This response essay reflects upon “intimacies as method,” which conceives connections between asymmetrical histories and processes that are more often examined separately in the received historiography. Intimacies as method emphasizes relation, convergence, and interdependency, and attends to residual and emergent knowledges that may be elided by the dominant disciplines in which we work. Identifying such connections often means breaking with customary modes for organizing history and reading across disparate archives, canons, genres, scales, and locations.

Light‐dependent development of the tectorotundal projection in pigeons

Left-right differences in the structural and functional organization of the brain are widespread in the animal kingdom and develop in close gene-environment interactions. The visual system of birds like chicks and pigeons exemplifies how sensory experience shapes lateralized visual processing. Owing to an asymmetrical posture of the embryo in the egg, the right eye/ left brain side is more strongly light-stimulated what triggers asymmetrical differentiation processes leading to a left-hemispheric dominance for visuomotor control. In pigeons (Columba livia), a critical neuroanatomical element is the asymmetrically organized tectofugal pathway. Here, more fibres cross from the right tectum to the left rotundus than vice versa. In the current study, we tested whether the emergence of this projection asymmetry depends on embryonic light stimulation by tracing tectorotundal neurons in pigeons with and without lateralized embryonic light experience. The quantitative tracing pattern confirmed higher bilateral innervation of the left rotundus in light-exposed and thus, asymmetrically light-stimulated pigeons. This was the same in light-deprived pigeons. Here, however, also the right rotundus received an equally strong bilateral input. This suggests that embryonic light stimulation does not increase bilateral tectal innervation of the stronger stimulated left but rather decreases such an input pattern to the right brain side. Combined with a morphometric analysis, our data indicate that embryonic photic stimulation specifically affects differentiation of the contralateral cell population. Differential modification of ipsi- and contralateral tectorotundal connections could have important impact on the regulation of intra- and interhemispheric information transfer and ultimately on hemispheric dominance pattern during visual processing.

Symmetrical and asymmetrical mixture autoregressive processes

In this paper, we study the finite mixtures of autoregressive processes assuming that the distribution of innovations (errors) belongs to the class of scale mixture of skew-normal (SMSN) distributions. The SMSN distributions allow a simultaneous modeling of the existence of outliers, heavy tails and asymmetries in the distribution of innovations. Therefore, a statistical methodology based on the SMSN family allows us to use a robust modeling on some non-linear time series with great flexibility, to accommodate skewness, heavy tails and heterogeneity simultaneously. The existence of convenient hierarchical representations of the SMSN distributions facilitates also the implementation of an ECME-type of algorithm to perform the likelihood inference in the considered model. Simulation studies and the application to a real data set are finally presented to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed model.

Contribution to the taxonomy and phylogeny of the genus Polia Ochsenheimer, 1816 (Noctuidae, Noctuinae, Hadenini): species groups and pairs in the Holarctic subgenus Polia s. str.

We review the phylogenetic and biogeographical connections of the Holarctic subgenus Polia, re-considering the diagnoses of the species groups based on the external morphology and the characterisation of the male and female genitalia, as well. We produced trees based on genital morphological characters. A preliminary CO1 consensus tree was also constructed which generally supports the morphologically outlined species groups. The plesiomorphic abdominal brush organ was observed to become lost in different species groups independently. The asymmetrisation of the tufts of bristles on the saccular extensions represents one of the most important traits of the genus. These are weakly differentiated, and the shape is nearly symmetrical in supposedly plesiomorphic character states. The most differentiated asymmetrical saccular processes were found in P. serratilinea and, parallel, also in the species of the Holarctic P. nebulosa group. Holarctic connections are present in most Arctic-Boreal species and certain sister species and/or species groups in temperate taxa (i.e. in the P. bombycina and the P. nebulosa species groups), with subsequent speciation in the Nearctic. It means that Trans-Beringian migrations should have occurred at least three times in the geographical history of Polia, from which the trans-migration of the basally split P. nebulosa group was the most ancient.

City Branding and the Link to Urban Planning: Theories, Practices, and Challenges

Through a critical reading of city branding theories and practices, this article identifies a nexus between city branding and urban planning related to master planning and placemaking. It brings attention to the challenges facing city branding including asymmetrical political processes, social inequity, tokenism, and gentrification. While city branding’s recent turn to participatory approaches unveils a rampant adoption of planning processes repackaged as master planning the place brand strategy, this stream of research and practice remains isolated and disconnected from urban planning theory and ethics. Recognizing this link, the article suggests, could help city branding address its challenges and develop its theoretical basis with more socially responsible and normative underpinnings.

Mathematical modelling of the voltage transfer functions of an unloaded overhead line during its energisation under faulty conditions

Transient overvoltage represents a high magnitude voltage surge of a short duration which has to be considered when performing proper insulation coordination. Overhead line energisation is found to be a fundamental cause of transients. Both normal and faulty conditions are possible during line energisation. The latter implies the existence of an asymmetrical phase-to-ground fault and facing with two asymmetrical processes which take place concurrently. This type of energisation results in severe overvoltage, as well as in a voltage rise at the line receiving end. However, in practice, measuring devices are usually placed at the line sending end, which points to difficulties in determination of phase-voltages at the opposite end of the line. This study offers a solution for the aforementioned issue by proposing the frequency-dependent voltage transfer functions (TFs). By using the functions any voltage value at the sending line end will obtain the corresponding value at the receiving end. The functions are derived through complex mathematical modelling and by signal processing based on the empirical mode decomposition method. The TFs validity is confirmed through performed simulation in MATLAB Simulink and real-site measurements.

Of Pious Missions and Challenging the Elders: A Genealogy of Radical Egalitarianism in the Pashtun Borderscape

ABSTRACTAt the core of this article lies the attempt to consider “radical egalitarianism” a defining feature of “borderscapes”, that is the space in which distinct socio-spatial identities between territorial claims and counter-claims at the margins of larger political entities are negotiated. These more general considerations are exemplified by a genealogical excursion into the dominantly Pashtun-inhabited regions around the Hindukush and its foothills. In a first step, the emergence of distinct ethnicities and religiosities as result of such asymmetrical negotiation processes, which are also strongly informed by the urban-rural divide, is highlighted by a historical recourse into the later seventeenth century. In the two successive steps, then, the further modifications of those ethnicities and religiosities since the late nineteenth century are indicated, painting an image of the “Pashtun borderscape” in which even militant movements like those of the present time can be understood as just a manifestation of such kind of negotiation processes that limit the scope of “us” and “them” ever further. It will be illustrated how an ever changing semantics of “egality”, which nonetheless is construed as entirely static, is established as a core benchmark of belonging.

The asymmetry of landscape: Aesthetics, agency, and material reuse in the Reserva Ecológica de Buenos Aires

Situated on the edge of Buenos Aires, perched on the mudflats between downtown and the river, the Reserva Ecológica is 864 acres (350 ha) of public landscape. In the 1980s, at the end of the military dictatorship, cultural and hydrogeological forces combined to produce an excess of construction debris, dredged material, political action, and alluvium that aggregated here to form the Reserva. This piece identifies the appropriation and reuse of waste products in an estuarine megacity as the raw material for this civic landscape and argues for the importance of an aesthetics of asymmetry in the formation of democratic public life. Human and non-human actors are situated in a landscape where radically different means and forms of entanglement and novelty are the norm. In the Reserva, asymmetrical processes have resulted in an aesthetics beyond meaning, a new landscape, and new publics.

Some Further Results on the Tempered Multistable Approach

This article provides new results on the tempered multistable approach. After a preliminary section recalling the main definitions, we show the correspondence between a series representation and a characteristic function representation for asymmetrical field-based tempered multistable processes and for asymmetrical independent increments tempered multistable processes. We also show that both processes are semimartingales, which is a convenient property in finance. Next, we study the structure of autocorrelations that is conveyed by this approach. Finally, we provide an illustration showing the term structures of Value-at-Risk that can be obtained with this model.

Agua subterránea y soberanía interdependiente: el caso de los Sistemas Acuíferos Transfronterizos en la región binacional de Paso del Norte

Mexico and the United States have a historic relationship in the political distribution of their transborder water. Nevertheless, with the deepening and importance of the North American Free Trade Agreement (nafta), transborder aquifer systems emerge as strategic reservoirs in the process of building water security on the border shared by the two nations. This article examines the case of Paso del Norte and the details of the competition for access and appropriation of transborder groundwater in recent decades based on asymmetrical institutional processes and mechanisms that have led to local political tensions. It also analyzes the implications and challenges Mexico must take on regarding the legal and institutional vacuums regulating these systems and reflects on the importance of designing a sovereign, interdependent water policy to foster cooperation for equitable distribution of transborder groundwater.

Asymmetry between Activation and Deactivation during a Transcriptional Pulse.

SummaryTranscription in eukaryotic cells occurs in gene-specific bursts or pulses of activity. Recent studies identified a spectrum of transcriptionally active “on-states,” interspersed with periods of inactivity, but these “off-states” and the process of transcriptional deactivation are poorly understood. To examine what occurs during deactivation, we investigate the dynamics of switching between variable rates. We measured live single-cell expression of luciferase reporters from human growth hormone or human prolactin promoters in a pituitary cell line. Subsequently, we applied a statistical variable-rate model of transcription, validated by single-molecule FISH, to estimate switching between transcriptional rates. Under the assumption that transcription can switch to any rate at any time, we found that transcriptional activation occurs predominantly as a single switch, whereas deactivation occurs with graded, stepwise decreases in transcription rate. Experimentally altering cAMP signalling with forskolin or chromatin remodelling with histone deacetylase inhibitor modifies the duration of defined transcriptional states. Our findings reveal transcriptional activation and deactivation as mechanistically independent, asymmetrical processes.

Molecular evolution of Coq1 gene family in eukaryotes

AbstractCoq1 genes encode polyprenyl diphosphate synthases, which determine the isoprenoid side chain of ubiquinone and plastoquinone in organisms. The biological roles of Coq1 genes have been widely investigated in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. In our study, we analyzed the phylogenetic relationships, structural evolution, selection pressure, and functional divergence of Coq1 genes to comprehensively elucidate the evolutionary fates of these genes after duplication and to understand the evolutionary pattern of the Coq1 family. We surveyed 32 representative sequenced genomes and found 59 Coq1 genes widely distributed in prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the Coq1 genes have diverged into two clades among eukaryotic lineages. Further evolutionary analysis in intron numbers, evolutionary rates, and degrees of positive selection indicated that the paired clades of Coq1 genes in each eukaryotic lineage were not synchronized, which hinted that their evolutionary processes probably have diverged. Furthermore, functional divergence analysis suggested that different types of subfunctionalization in the Coq1 gene family have occurred. In plants, the paired clades of Coq1 genes only diverged in their localization and expression, whereas the functions of these genes in animals and fungi were partially divided. Therefore, asymmetrical evolutionary processes achieved similar evolutionary fates with different types in the Coq1 gene family among eukaryotes, which might be related to the divergence and conservation of eukaryotic lineages during evolution.