Administration Of cAMP Research Articles

Šiauliai Labour Camp No. 294 of Prisoners of War of Germany and its Allies (1945–1948)

At the end of the Soviet-German war, in spring 1945, labour camps for prisoners of war of Germany and its allies were set up in Lithuania. One of them – was Šiauliai Labour Camp No. 294, which consisted of six divisions: Akmenė, Bačiūnai, Panevėžys, Pavenčiai, Radviliškis, and Šiauliai. In June 1945, 8,256 prisoners of war were imprisoned in Šiauliai Labour Camp and its divisions; on 1 January 1946, there were 5,714 prisoners remaining and on 1 June – 5,048 (4,363 worked outside the boundaries of the camp); and on 1 March 1947 – 2,583 prisoners. They were rebuilding the city of Šiauliai destroyed during the war: they rebuilt the drama theatre, 3 gymnasiums, a hospital, a railway station and other buildings. Prisoners also produced consumer goods and a variety of products at the camp workshop and did auxiliary works on the farm, so the camp was partially self-sufficient in terms of food. Prisoners, who worked in rural areas, received food from local residents. On average, there were around 3,000–4,000 prisoners in the camp each year.In terms of international humanitarian law, the repressive structures of the Soviet Union and the Lithuanian SSR basically observed the provisions of the 1929 Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, but in 1945–1946 due to extremely complicated natural and economic conditions, as well as the unpredictability of the camp administration prisoners had painful experiences. Many of them were ill; in winter 1945–1946 the camp suffered a typhus epidemic. Between 1945 and 1948 about 500 prisoners died, most of the prisoners were underfed and malnourished. The camp administration and managers of various economic entities abused the available cheap labour of prisoners, corruption thrived, there was large-scale embezzlement and there were minor thefts by the camp staff.The number of prisoners fluctuated each year: some of them were taken to the Soviet Union, others were repatriated; some prisoners escaped. According to some data, between 1945 and March 1947, 188 people escaped, but according to other data between 1946 and 1947, 99 prisoners escaped (50 were recaptured) and 2,321 were repatriated. When general repatriation started in the Soviet Union, Šiauliai Labour Camp was closed in autumn 1948. The remaining inmates were transferred to Vilnius Labour Camp No. 195 and subsequently in March 1949 repatriated back to their home countries.

CAMP enriched EVs mediates hypoxic pulmonary hypertension

Our lab reported the novel finding that stimulation of pulmonary endothelial cells with a beta-agonist and a phosphodiesterase inhibitor induced enrichment of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) in EVs. cAMP protects the pulmonary vasculature by regulation of permeability, vasoreactivity and proliferation. Extracellular vesicles provide a protected environment for circulating cAMP. Thus, we hypothesized that administration of cAMP, in the protected environment of an EV, could deliver cAMP to improve outcomes in pulmonary hypertension. Briefly, male Sprague Dawley rats, maintained in normoxic or hypoxic conditions for 3 weeks, received 50 ug of cAMP-enriched EVs (cAMP-EVs) per day over 3 days via tail vein injection. cAMP-EV injections improved the Fulton index (non-injected hypoxia rat 0.37 ± 0.039 versus injected hypoxia rat 0.32 ± 0.019, p value 0.032 n = 5) and echocardiography revealed PH rats that received cAMP-EVs had a significant increase in PAAT/PAET ratio compared to those that did not (non-injected hypoxia rat 0.27 ± 0.056 versus injected hypoxia rat 0.32 ± 0.04, p value 0.04, n = 6). Using IVIS analysis of isolated tissues to detect PKH-labeled EVs we found that cAMP-enriched EVs accumulated in the lung but were not detectable in the heart. To confirm this was not strictly a vasoreactivity effect, we also examined PCNA, a marker of proliferation, in histological sections and found it was decreased in the presence of cAMP-EVs. Pulmonary arterial thickness was also significantly improved in the presence of cAMP-EVs. To understand the underlying mechanism for cAMP-EV based signaling, we studied the phosphorylation status of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) in isolated paraffn fixed lung slices. We found increased phosphorylation of eNOS in PH rats which received cAMP EVs compared to non-injected PH or control rats. Combined these data suggest that cAMP-EVs may decrease right ventricular hypertrophy, improve pulmonary arterial function, and repair hypoxic vascular injury. Future investigations will determine whether the observed response is cAMP dependent and further evaluate the specificity of pulmonary vascular uptake of cAMP-EVs. 1R01HL133066-01A1 (Bauer). This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.

Activated Lymphocyte-Derived DNA Drives Glucose Metabolic Adaptation for Inducing Macrophage Inflammatory Response in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.

Activated lymphocyte-derived DNA (ALD-DNA) has been reported to drive the polarization of macrophages toward M2b, producing inflammatory cytokines and inducing inflammation, correspondingly playing an essential role in the development of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Recently, accumulating evidence has pinpointed metabolic adaptation as the crucial cell-intrinsic determinant for inflammatory response, in which glucose metabolism is the key event. However, whether and how glucose metabolism was involved in ALD-DNA-induced macrophage inflammatory response and SLE development remains unclear. Herein, we performed glucose metabolomic analyses of ALD-DNA-stimulated macrophages and uncovered increased glycolysis and diminished pentose phosphate pathway (PPP), as well as enhanced glycogenesis. In ALD-DNA-stimulated macrophages, increased glycolysis resulted in higher lactate production, whereas diminished PPP efficiently led to lower levels of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) with higher levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS). While blockade of lactate generation exerted no significant effect on macrophage inflammation in response to ALD-DNA, scavenging ROS fundamentally inhibited the inflammatory response of ALD-DNA-stimulated macrophages. Further, cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), a master for regulating glycogen metabolism, was downregulated by ALD-DNA in macrophages, which subsequently imbalanced glycogen metabolism toward glycogenesis but not glycogenolysis. Administration of cAMP effectively restored glycogenolysis and enhanced PPP, which correspondingly reduced ROS levels and inhibited the inflammatory response of ALD-DNA-stimulated macrophages. Finally, blocking glucose metabolism using 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) efficiently restricted macrophage inflammatory response and alleviated ALD-DNA-induced lupus disease. Together, our findings demonstrate that ALD-DNA drives the adaptation of glucose metabolism for inducing macrophage inflammatory response in SLE, which might further our understanding of disease pathogenesis and provide clues for interventive explorations.

Роль коммуникации в процессе выживания узников нацистских концлагерей

The aim of the article is to analyze the communication of prisoners of Nazi concentration camps as one of the factors in the prisoners' struggle for life in extreme conditions. The sources of the research are materials from Russian and foreign archives: the State Archive of the Russian Federation (Russia), the Yad Vashem Archive (Israel), the Security Service Archive (Ukraine), the Holocaust Memorial Archive (USA), the Bundesarchive (Germany), as well as published memoirs and interviews of former prisoners. In particular, the authors analyzed the testimony of former prisoners, criminal cases against the concentration camps' administrative and security personnel convicted in the course of post-war trials. As a result of their research, the authors concluded that language ability and communication played a critical role in the rescue of prisoners. If prisoners spoke several languages, mastered the internal camp jargon, and also managed to build communication with representatives of the camp administration, functionary prisoners and ordinary prisoners, their chances of survival increased significantly. If adaptation to the camp's linguistic realities did not take place, prisoners had practically no opportunity to escape. The authors examine the characteristics that determined the framework of the camp community, among which the main were Nazi ideological attitudes, as well as prisoners' pre-camp experience. They thoroughly analyze German and camp jargon - the languages that, if mastered, determined prisoners' survival. The authors show how German changed due to lexical and semantic neologisms and the role it played in prisoners' subjugation, demonstrate that the camp jargon developed in several directions - the formation of a single lingua franca and the formation of jargon in national groups of prisoners, and also pay particular attention to the role that translators played in the camp life. The authors characterize the basic models of camp communication: “SS man - ordinary prisoner”, “SS man - camp functionary”, “representative of the camp ‘elite' - ordinary prisoner”, “prisoner - prisoner”, “prisoner - civilian worker”, and note the possibility (or impossibility) of prisoners within each of them to be saved. Finally, the authors describe the role of communication in organizing the underground Resistance, in order not only to survive, but also to actively resist the Nazi terror.

Covid-19 case management in a Greek migrant camp: The Hellenic Red Cross Mobile Health Unit intervention in Nea Malakasa temporary accommodation center

IntroductionSince the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic the scientific community had expressed its concerns about increased transmission of the virus within asylum seeker accommodation centers due to substandard living conditions and poor sanitation. Studies regarding management of Covid-19 cases in such facilities are urgently needed in order to guide international strategies on future pandemics within the humanitarian setting. Our study's paradigm of Covid-19 case management in a Greek migrant camp aims to add on existing data. Data and MethodsA retrospective analysis of epidemiological and demographical data collected as part of a healthcare intervention in a Greek migrant camp during three Covid-19 epidemic waves is presented in this study. Descriptive statistics were generated using STATA 12. ResultsDuring the first wave, the camp's administration adopted a 2-month strict lockdown strategy and no positive cases were recorded. During the second wave, suspected coronavirus cases were referred for PCR testing and, in case of positivity were hospitalized. 3% (n = 28) of the camp's population were referred for PCR, with 1% of the population (n = 10) being tested positive for Covid-19 and admitted to hospital. Close contacts of positive cases were encouraged to comply with non-pharmaceutical interventions and were offered medical care if symptoms developed. During the third epidemic wave, in-camp management was decided by on-site operators, with rapid antigen testing of symptomatic individuals, daily monitoring of positive cases by the medical team and mass screening of their closed contacts. 4% (n = 33) of the camp's residents were tested positive, while none was hospitalized. 19% (n = 148) of the camp's population were considered close contacts, were advised to self-isolate and were offered mass screening with rapid antigen test, from which another 21 positive cases emerged. In total, 7% (n = 54) of the camp population, (n = 21) female adults, (n = 24) male adults and (n = 9) children, were infected with SARS-CoV-2 during the third epidemic wave, with no deaths being recorded. During the study period, only 50 residents had received one dose of Covid-19 vaccines. ConclusionWe recommend an in-camp Covid-19 response featuring regular follow up of positive cases and prompt referral to tertiary centers based on clinical criteria, while overemphasizing the need for equitable access to primary healthcare for asylum seekers in Greece, primarily during the current pandemic. Prolonged camp lockdowns should be avoided as they pose substantial health risks for their vulnerable population.

Everyday Life of the Staff in Koltuban Filtration Camp

The article examines the everyday life of the staff of Koltuban filtration camp. It operated from early 1942 to autumn 1943 in the west of the Chkalov (Orenburg) region. Its task was to filter Soviet soldiers who returned from captivity or who had been in the occupied territory. The article describes the identity of the camp commanders, the sources of recruitment of ordinary employees, their number, educational levels and gender composition. In many respects, the camp staff were close to inmates: forced mobilization for service, harsh material conditions, the desire to go to the front. Strict discipline was maintained among minor staff members, but large-scale theft and embezzlement was regularly carried out mainly by middle-ranking management. Everyday contacts between the guards and inmates primarily centred around trade and barter. Cases of aggression and cruelty are not reflected in the documents, neither are close contacts between the staff and the inmates. This article pays special attention to the tensions among the camp administration due to the uncertain status of the filtration camps. The special department not only maintained its independence in filtration but also claimed to play the main role in the management of the entire camp. The prosecutor sought to go beyond the boundaries of his functions. The commissar wanted to solve all issues on an equal footing with the head of the camp and make changes to the regime for inmates, which would turn the filtration camp into a kind of reserve military unit.

Problems of researching the history of exile of Ukrainians and of the Baltic peoples in the USSR

This study investigated the conditions of exile and interaction between Ukrainian and Baltic prisoners in Soviet camps in the post-war period. The scientific relevance of the subject lies in the investigation of the cooperation of political prisoners of diverse national groups, which led to the camp uprisings of 1953-1954. The purpose of this study was to determine the nature of the conditions of exile and the opportunities for contacts between Ukrainian and Baltic prisoners in the context of protest formation using evidence from the camp departments of Vorkuta, specifically Rechlag. To fulfil this purpose, the methods of comparative and retrospective analysis, historical and psychological reconstruction were used. The study identified common and distinctive features inherent in the Vorkuta camps. It was found that the basis for interaction between Ukrainian and Baltic prisoners was their common situation and attempts to improve living conditions in the camp. Therewith, it was stated that the same cultural and educational level and participation in the anti-Soviet resistance improved the establishment of interethnic contacts. The socio-psychological characteristics of Ukrainian and Baltic prisoners of the postwar era distinguished them from others. It was found that the unification into national groups was facilitated by the self-identification of prisoners as captives with a national worldview and experience that opposed Soviet ideology. The main goal was to improve the conditions and release prisoners from places of captivity, and active attempts to achieve this came after Stalin’s death. It was proved that political uncertainty and chaotic actions of the camp administration became a catalyst for uprisings that accelerated the transformation of places of captivity. A key role in organising the protests belonged to strike committees representing groups of prisoners on ethnic grounds. Specifically, Ukrainian, and Baltic prisoners took an active part in them. This shows the place and role of these nations in the camp uprisings. The practical significance of this study lies in highlighting the little-studied issue of the ways in which Ukrainian and Baltic political prisoners interacted and the impact of these contacts on the fight against the Soviet repressive apparatus in prison

Ukrainian dissidents in the Soviet criminal-executive system

While struggling with captivity, and partial or complete blocking of individual rights and freedoms, the main task for Ukrainian political prisoners was to develop a behavioural strategy to cope with the demands of camp life. In places of detention, there was an inconspicuous consolidation of prisoners along ethnic lines and the type of crime committed. Communities organized based on affinity and similarity of political views often built their own networks of survival and a peculiar ethic of care within the framework of an informal group. The prisoners’ adaptation to the appropriate environment greatly depended on their ability to get accustomed to the prison norms, which contradicted existing norms and regulations, and their attempts to master everyday life through the reproduction of the basic elements of “normal life”. Representatives of the scientific and creative intelligentsia perceived the corrective labour camp as a place to work in extreme conditions. One of the Ukrainian dissidents’ most common creative practices in captivity was literary translations of the world’s classic works of art. The publishing and distribution of camp samizdat were among the most common methods for political prisoners to struggle with the regime. An exhausting daily uncompromising struggle for the status of a political prisoner took an important place in the resistance movement in the camps.Isolated in strict and particularly strict regime camps, psychiatric hospitals, and prisons, members of the Resistance movement developed effective ways of adapting and counteracting the destructive influence of the Soviet penitentiary system. The prisoners managed to preserve the stability of the spirit, the system of values established in freedom, and their own national identity, creating an environment focused on resisting the camp administration through self-education, drafting petitions, statements, protests, hunger strikes, group boycotts, etc.

Impact of demand flexibility and tiered resilience on solar photovoltaic adoption in humanitarian settlements

Globally, about 80 million people are forcibly displaced. Many of them live in dark camps without electricity. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees-managed camp administration commonly provides water to camp residents using polluting diesel generators. Moreover, inadequate cooking energy forces refugees to use unsustainable firewood or skip meals. Solar photovoltaic is increasingly surfacing as an alternative for water pumping. Additionally, it could support all camp-essentials. However, initial high investment impedes the solar photovoltaic proliferation in camps and hinders the United Nations’ plan to adopt clean energy in operations. Embracing power purchase agreements may shift the upfront investment to an energy service company though energy remains expensive with supply-focused agreement-crafting. Incorporating demand flexibility and tiered resilience in energy system design may lessen investment and improve utilisation. This study investigates the impact of consumer-integrated power purchase agreement-crafting to economically power camps with solar photovoltaic. Results show solar photovoltaics can power humanitarian settlements while leveraging collaborative consumption to power higher-tier requiring devices with lower-tier photovoltaic supply. Moreover, Solar photovoltaic generation can inexpensively power e-cooking, water pumping, illumination, community essentials, and critical resilience in a refugee camp with a substantial reduction in annual energy charge for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Fighting Criminal Groups in Corrective Labour Camps and Penal Colonies in the Post-War USSR

It is impossible to understand the peculiarities of the domestic penitentiary system during later Stalinism and its influence on Soviet society without considering the processes that took place in the Gulag at the time, clarifying the interests and interaction of the actors of these processes. Between the second half of the 1940s and the first half of the 1950s, the USSR’s penitentiary system witnessed a confrontation between criminal groups unprecedented in terms of its scale and the number of victims: these have gone down in history as the Bitch Wars. Based on a systemic interdisciplinary approach, the authors try to recreate an objective picture of this confrontation. For this purpose, they analyse the causes and dynamics of the conflict, the composition of the participants, the activity of the penitentiary personnel supposed to resolve it, and the legal framework regulating this activity. The article emphasises that all Gulag society was involved in the confrontation, which rapidly divided into numerous criminal groups. The authors substantiate the thesis that the main cause of the conflict was the truggle for camp resources and the right to parasitise in the camp population. It is concluded that the attempts of the camp administration to restore order in the institutions, using some criminals against others, led to an increase in violence and destabilised the entire penal system. Additionally, the authors analyse the dynamics of crimes committed by gangsters, paying close attention to the characteristics of the activities carried out to combat banditry and the normative support of this activity. It is concluded that the administration of the Gulags did not find an effective solution to put an end to criminal terror. The conflict, along with other events that took place in the camp system, forced the country’s leadership to start looking for a new concept of the corrective labor system. The confrontation between thieves under the code (Rus. vory v zakone literally, “thieves in law”) and those who had abandoned the criminal cause (Rus. otoshedshie, literally, “the departed”) has no clearly established chronological boundaries. Individual excesses took place during the war years and until the early 1960s. The authors limit the time frame of the work to the period between 1947 and 1954, when the most massive, active, and fierce confrontation between criminal communities took place. The work is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity. In preparing the article, the authors used specific historical, logical, legal, statistical, sociological, and other methods of scholarly research.

Массовые неповиновения заключенных в исправительно-трудовых лагерях послевоенного СССР

This paper studies mass disobedience among the prisoners of Soviet corrective labour camps (CLCs) during the post-war years (1945–1956) in the context of Soviet corrective labour policy of that time. Noteworthy, there have been conflicting assessments of this aspect of the history of the aforementioned institutions. This research is based on the systematic approach as well as on the principles of historicism and objectivity. The main trends of Soviet corrective labour policy in the wake of the Great Patriotic War are identified; the contradictory nature of this policy is pointed out. On the one hand, documents were adopted to strengthen the rule of law in CLCs, including ensuring the rights of prisoners (e.g., the 1947 Instruction on Regimes in Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies), while on the other hand, the conditions in these camps for certain categories of prisoners were getting more strict (e.g., special camps were established by the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR in 1948). Further, the authors focus on revealing the main reasons behind mass disobedience of prisoners in the camps. In particular, during the post-war years more people were sent to CLCs convicted of aiding the Nazis in the temporarily occupied territories of the USSR, treason, espionage, sabotage, nationalist banditry, etc. According to the authors, in the overwhelming majority of cases it was these prisoners who organized large-scale mass disturbances, including protests. Disobedience on the part of prisoners was facilitated by the discrepancy between the imposed requirements and the actual conditions in the CLCs, as well as by the rudeness of the camp administration and some prisoners being strong ideological opponents of Soviet rule, etc. The fact that a significant number of prisoners were exempt from Beria’s amnesty (March 1953) acted as yet another catalyst. The authors come to the conclusion that, in spite of the large scale of prisoner disobedience in certain camps, it was generally not characteristic of the corrective labour system of the period under study.

The Features of the Formation of the Camp Justice of the USSR (1944–1959)

In modern historiography, much less attention has been paid to problems of the development of bodies of the camp (penitentiary) justice, than to activities of places of detention. Meanwhile, camp courts belonged to bodies of special justice along with military tribunals and were an important element of the state mechanism. This research identifies the main stages of the formation of the camp justice bodies and determines the features of their functioning. The article defines the structure and number of camp ships, as well as elements of mechanism of their organization. For the first time, the main stages in the development of bodies of camp justice are highlighted: 1944–1948 (the formation of this system), 1949–1952 (relatively stable existence), and 1953– 1959 (period of sharp reduction and elimination). Plans to reform the system of camp courts are discussed. The initiator of the creation of the system of camp courts was the leadership of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. Among the organizational features of the functioning of these bodies, the asymmetric nature of the system of the bodies of the camp justice is named for the first time. Along with the camp (penitentiary) courts, military tribunals of the NKVD/MVD troops continued to operate, and special camp courts with wider jurisdiction operated in the structure of special buildings, which considered not only criminal, but also civil cases. The peculiarities of the functioning of these bodies include: a weak material and technical base, the struggle of clans in the leadership of justice, a high level of conflict in the system of camp justice, and the minor role of lawyers in the process and their dependence on the camp administration and the court.

Strategic Boredom: The Experience and Dynamics of Boredom in Refugee Camp. A Mediterranean Case

This article examines the boredom of asylum seekers living in a refugee camp in southern Europe. It concerns the understudied yet widespread phenomenon of boredom in the detention centers and other places where people wait several months/years to obtain permits to stay in a given state (EU) and cannot work. Boredom is defined as a socially constructed feeling that is an effect of the interaction between people and institutional/organizational ambiance that lacks qualities necessary to arouse engagement. We distinguished three modalities of the phenomenon: “doing nothing,” “life in limbo,” and “strategic boredom.” We claim that the last is the most powerful phenomenon. Strategic boredom is the specific tool of strict control exercised on the asylum seekers by the administration of the camp to force them to be idle and passive. On the other hand, the dominated group uses the expected mood of boredom as a strategy to obtain the favors of camp administration; this strategy—they hope—will conclude in the obtention of a permit of stay and/or the legal status of a refugee.

Intellectual Life and Literature at Solovki 1923–1930: The Paris of the Northern Concentration Camps by Gullotta Andrea (review)

REVIEWS 563 Gullotta, Andrea. Intellectual Life and Literature at Solovki 1923–1930: The Paris of the Northern Concentration Camps. Legenda, Cambridge, 2018. x + 359 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography. Index. £75.00; $99.00; €85.00: £12.49; $14.99; €14.99 (e-book). Since the opening of the archives at the end of the Soviet period, research on the history and workings of the Gulag has proliferated, with significant recent studies from scholars including Golfo Alexopoulos, Alan Barenberg, Steven Barnes, Wilson Bell and others. The literary output of Gulag prisoners has comparatively suffered from scholarly neglect, and the research that has been conducted thus far has focused largely on works written by survivors — notably by the most famous ex-prisoners, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Varlam Shalamov — following their release. The considerable body of writing produced within the hard labour camp system, much of it officially sanctioned for publication in the Gulag’s own presses, has received very little attention from researchers. Andrea Gullotta’s study of the literature of the Solovki labour camps — effectively the ‘first Gulag’, where the structures and strategies of the system were developed before their deployment on a mass scale across the USSR — brings to light the vicissitudes of culture within Soviet penal policy generally, as well as the flourishing Solovki literary scene more specifically. As becomes clear, the SLON (the Solovki Special Purpose Camp), in its variety, resembles a microcosm of the Gulag itself. Although not as extreme as the Soviet camp system later became, the same features are apparent: hard labour, brutal punishments, poor living conditions and the establishment of differential rations for achievement (or otherwise) of work targets, existed alongside thriving cultural and educational activities, and the conduct of academic research in the Krimkab and elsewhere by scholars among the prisoners including Father Pavel Florenskii, future academician Dmitrii Likhachev, and historian and theoretician of kraevedenie Nikolai Antsiferov. As Gullotta attests in his chapter on the history of the Solovki camp, finding definitive corroboration of the facts in many cases proves impossible. The study for this reason employs a measured approach to uncovering the history of the camp that examines the evidence provided in memoirs as well as in official documents, but retains a clear awareness of the limitations of both types of source. This leads, for example, to a very balanced examination of the evidence surrounding Maksim Gor´kii’s notorious visit to the islands in 1929. Turning more specifically to the literature of Solovki for the bulk of the study (the islands’ thriving theatrical groups are also addressed), Gullotta assesses the fortunes of the main publications, notably the journal SLON/ Solovetskie ostrova, and the weekly newspaper Novye Solovki, the effect of changing personnel within the camp administration, and of external political SEER, 98, 3, JULY 2020 564 factors, on the possibilities of independence within the islands’ publishing system. Although the appearance of these publications ostensibly paralleled prison publishing initiatives elsewhere within the early years of the Soviet carceral system, the Solovki titles were overall more sophisticated than the average camp publication, with greater artistic achievements, partly due to the large number of intellectuals incarcerated there, although the quality of the content remained uneven. Moreover, this was not solely a press aimed at other prisoners, as the publications were available for subscription beyond the camp system and even abroad. This is perhaps less surprising than it appears, when considered in the context of the early focus (in theory at least) of the Soviet penal system on re-education, and the propaganda campaigns that emphasized the Gulag as an institution that privileged reform over punishment. The longest chapter, on SLON literature, addresses both the authors and texts that appeared in the islands’ various publications. The literary careers of key figures such as Boris Glubokovskii, Boris Evreinov and Vladimir Kemetskii (Sveshnikov) are intertwined with analysis of their works. Some prose works and theatrical pieces of interest are discussed, including Sof´ia Okerman’s remarkable, bleak short story, Siluety zhenbaraka, and Boris Shiraev’s fascinating Opyt Professora Kal´, which Gullotta describes as a ‘non-identical twin’ to Mikhail Bulgakov’s Sobach´e serdtse, written in the same year (p. 215). However, it is poetry that dominates...

The space of unfreedom: GULAG and its society

This paper analyzes the GULAG as a social phenomenon of the Soviet society and as a specific type of the Soviet unfree space. In particular, it considers social constructs and the relation between the camp administration, prisoners, hired workers and the local population. Paying close attention to the analysis of the social groups which a camp population was comprised of, their gender and social structure, this paper explores the living conditions, mode of life, customs and mores of the social environment in a camp. Based on the large database of various historical sources, such as governmental acts, statistical evidence, archival documents, publications in the camp press and memoirs, this paper also relies on the video interviews of former prisoners collected by the GULAG History Museum. Without denying the authoritarian nature of the corrective-labor camp system, the author came to the conclusion that the established organizational model of camp complexes determined the lack of distinct borders between the camp social space and the public space of the free world. Such blurred structure of corrective-labor camps leads to the fact that the camp culture with its archaic social principles dominated by the thieves culture extended its considerable influence over the whole society of the Soviet Union.

Transcription Factor HMG Box-Containing Protein 1 (HBP1) Regulates Glycemic Homeostasis Through Modulation of Gluconeogenesis

Abstract Objectives Glycemic dysregulation is one of the major metabolic disorders, which has long been a significant public health issue. The liver plays a pivotal role in the maintenance of blood glucose homeostasis. Previous studies indicate that upon refeeding a high carbohydrate diet, the expression of transcription factor HMG box-containing protein 1 (HBP1) was elevated in mice livers, suggesting a role of HBP1 in carbohydrate metabolism. Therefore, the objective of the current study was to understand the molecular mechanisms through which HBP1 regulates glucose generation in the liver. Methods Both in vivo HBP1 knockdown mice and in vitro HepG2 cell line were employed as the experimental models. Results First, we observed that overnight fasting led to increased PEPCK but decreased HBP1 expression in mice livers, and subsequent addition of insulin reversed the expression pattern. More importantly, HBP1 knockout (KO) mice displayed a significantly higher blood glucose level (173 mg/dL) than that of the controls (98 mg/dL). Also, HBP1 KO led to impaired OGTT (oral glucose tolerance test) and ITT (insulin tolerance test). These data suggest that HBP1 might have a role in the regulation of gluconeogenesis in the liver. To unveil the molecular mechanism by which HBP1 regulates glucose homeostasis, we examined its role in gluconeogenesis. Administration of gluconeogenic stimulators glucagon (100 nM) and cAMP (0.5 ng/mL) resulted in increased expression of Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK; encoded by the PCK1 gene), a key enzyme in gluconeogenesis, but decreased HBP1 expression in HepG2 cells. Last, HBP1 siRNA-mediated mRNA disruption led to elevated PEPCK expression, whereas ectopic expression of HBP1 (pcDNA3-HBP1-Flag) significantly suppressed it. Conclusions In conclusion, our data indicate that HBP1 might negatively regulate glucose production and support HBP1 as a novel biological regulator of blood glucose homeostasis. Funding Sources This work was supported by the grant to MOST 108–2320-B-039–051-MY3 C-Y Huang.

‘The honoured guests’ of the Ottoman Empire: reconsidering the prisoners of war in the Great War

ABSTRACT This study examines the captivity experiences of approximately 30,000 prisoners of war (POW) captured by the Ottoman army during the Great War. They went through a process of disempowerment and incapacitation while suffering from ill-treatment, malnutrition, poor sanitation, and appalling conditions of the camps located across the Ottoman Empire. In fact, their captivity experience was somewhat like that of the other POWs in Europe in terms of housing, labour, and leisure pursuits. Like other captors, the Ottoman government was not ready to shelter, feed, clothe, and provide medical services to large masses and sought to resolve this issue in an improvised way. While delving into the captivity experience, this study focuses on the dialectical power relationship between the POWs and the Ottoman camp administration. The Ottomans did not manage to establish an absolute power on every single detail of the lives of the captives. Thus, like the POWs detained in Russia and Germany, their fellow prisoners in the Ottoman Empire got the opportunity to cope with the constraints and hardships of the captivity partially and resist the rule of the camp prisons. The Ottoman government sought to treat the prisoners in accord with the international agreements based on liberal values even though the actual situation on the ground did not live up to the expectations of POWs and their governments. Both archival documents and memoirs of the prisoners are elucidative to contextualize their captivity experience. Such sources help us interpret the experience of captivity from history from below.

CAMP DAILY ROUTINE OF UKRAINIAN PROFESSORS-HUMANITARIANS: BAMLAG

The Ukrainian humanitarian intellectuals became the object of the totalitarian regime repressions at the end of 1920–1930s. Ordinary social conditions of cultural life centers changed drastically. Even harsher conditions waited for the repressed humanitarian intellectuals — the conditions of Stalin’s GULAG prisons, concentration camps, and an exile. The survival strategies at GULAG’s extreme conditions had many differences and yet had common features. The subject matter of this article is an daily routine of the Ukrainian humanitarian intellectuals in 1930s. The objective of this research is to reflect upon the everyday life of well-known Ukrainian scientists, professorshumanitarians Stephan Taranushenko, Vasyl Dubriovskyi, Dmytro Gordieiev, and Vsevolod Zummer, who at different times were connected to Kyiv and its scientific environment. They met at BAMLAG (Urulha, Svobodniy) — where they were constructing the Baukal-Amur highway and two ways of Transsyb. Social transformations in the concentration camp had a sweeping character. But the Ukrainian humanitarians worked hard, under the psychological and ideological pressure, to the extent possible were doing art as well. The humanitarians of those days were forced to show their loyalty to the totalitarian regime. The sources for this paper are not only Vasyl Dubrovskyi’s memorials of concentration camp but also the documents and memoirs of Ivan Chystyakov, who at that time was a commander of BAMLAG security division. It was reflected how the prisoners were forced to a more productive work. The camp administration used food and the early release conditions to achieve that. The conclusion was the next — the Ukrainian professors managed to survive and left BAMLAG before the date due.

The War Relocation Authority and the Wounding of Japanese American Loyalty

The War Relocation Authority and the Wounding of Japanese American Loyalty Eric L. Muller (bio) arriving at the gila river relocation center in november 1942, Jim Terry was a latecomer to the government's Japanese American project. Back in the spring and early summer, when lawyers in Washington were improvising arrangements to confine the West Coast's ethnically Japanese population, Terry had been snug in his partner's chair at the law firm of Burlingame, Nourse, and Petit in the Singer Building just above Wall Street. All the 43-year-old graduate of Williams College and Columbia Law School knew about the removal of the Japanese from the coast was the little he had read in the New York Times. But then yet another bout of pneumonia knocked him down and his doctor told him that if he didn't get out of New York to warmer climes, the cold and wet might kill him. That summer, a lifeboat appeared in the form of a job in the Arizona desert, just the sort of place his doctor meant, so he jumped at it.1 It was a position with the federal War Relocation Authority (WRA), the agency setting up the Japanese American camps. They were looking for lawyers to head out into the field to run what they called the "Project Attorney's Offices." The project attorney was to be an odd hybrid—part legal adviser to the camp administration and part legal aid lawyer for the prisoners (Muller 2017). One day the project attorney might be deciding whether the camp could censor a [End Page 821] prisoner's mail and the next he might be helping that same prisoner avoid foreclosure on the house he'd had to abandon back in California. The job at the Gila River camp was open. When the WRA offered it to Jim Terry, he took it. Terry was more enthusiastic about the weather than the work. He didn't particularly like the task the WRA had been assigned, and neither, he sensed, did most others in the upper levels of the agency. It was the politicians who'd really wanted the Japanese out of California, Washington, and Oregon after Pearl Harbor, and they'd gotten their way. Now the task fell to the WRA to figure out what to do with them. Two-thirds of these people were US citizens, and Jim Terry would be damned if he could figure out a legal theory for uprooting and locking up tens of thousands of people, including innocent women and children, just because of their ancestry. But it was wartime, this was the task at hand, and he was a patriot. This would be his contribution to the war effort. Maybe he could do some good for these poor people, protect them from the worst of what the bigots would throw at them, help the staff run the camp in a lawful and orderly way. Maybe he could lend a hand to the WRA's project of schooling the Japanese in the ways of American life and preparing them for life after the war. ________ there were not many us citizens at gila river whose parents were also US citizens, but Satoshi Kira was one of the few. Fully a third of the prisoners in the camp were immigrants—the Issei, or first, generation—who had migrated to the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and who were barred by law from becoming citizens. Almost all the rest were their children, the Nisei, or second, generation—citizens by virtue of their birth in the United States. They were a young generation, almost 60 percent under the age of 20, so there wasn't much room yet for a new generation beneath them, a third, or Sansei, generation. Kira was a Sansei. Born prematurely in Seattle in February 1922, Kira was a small, reserved young man, five foot four and just 105 pounds.2 His very few [End Page 822] friends called him "Elmer" rather than "Satoshi." He was sensitive, of an artistic bent that may have run in the family; his father was the prominent Los Angeles photographer Hiromu Kira. He...

Improving Health and Safety at Camp.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has created recommendations for health appraisal and preparation of young people before participation in day, resident, or family camps and to guide health and safety practices at camp. These recommendations are intended for parents and families, primary health care providers, and camp administration and health center staff. Although camps have diverse environments, there are general guidelines that apply to all situations and specific recommendations that are appropriate under special conditions. This policy statement has been reviewed and is supported by the American Camp Association and Association of Camp Nursing.