Foreign Threats Research Articles

Damocles's Switchboard: Information Externalities and the Autocratic Logic of Internet Control

Abstract This paper advances a theory for the autocratic logic of internet control. Politically motivated internet control generates a positive externality for domestic data-intensive firms and a negative externality for domestic knowledge-intensive research entities. Exploiting a major internet control shock in 2014, I find that Chinese data-intensive firms gained 26 percent in revenue over other Chinese firms as the result of internet control. The same shock incurred a 10 percent decline in research quality from Chinese researchers, conditional on the knowledge intensity of their discipline. It also reduced the research quality from Chinese researchers relative to their US counterparts by 22 percent in all disciplines. Due to the positive data externality, internet control enacted to prevent domestic threats challenges the state's competing need for data sovereignty against foreign threats. Meanwhile, the state shields certain foreign knowledge-intensive actors from the negative knowledge externality to avoid the immediate economic costs they might otherwise impose. Qualitative evidence supports both implications, highlighting the centrality of short-term interests and foreign actors in autocratic decision making.

Predictability of antigen binding based on short motifs in the antibody CDRH3.

Adaptive immune receptors, such as antibodies and T-cell receptors, recognize foreign threats with exquisite specificity. A major challenge in adaptive immunology is discovering the rules governing immune receptor-antigen binding in order to predict the antigen binding status of previously unseen immune receptors. Many studies assume that the antigen binding status of an immune receptor may be determined by the presence of a short motif in the complementarity determining region 3 (CDR3), disregarding other amino acids. To test this assumption, we present a method to discover short motifs which show high precision in predicting antigen binding and generalize well to unseen simulated and experimental data. Our analysis of a mutagenesis-based antibody dataset reveals 11 336 position-specific, mostly gapped motifs of 3-5 amino acids that retain high precision on independently generated experimental data. Using a subset of only 178 motifs, a simple classifier was made that on the independently generated dataset outperformed a deep learning model proposed specifically for such datasets. In conclusion, our findings support the notion that for some antibodies, antigen binding may be largely determined by a short CDR3 motif. As more experimental data emerge, our methodology could serve as a foundation for in-depth investigations into antigen binding signals.

Nothing but a Humbug: P.T. Barnum, Charles Dickens, and the Construction of National Identities in a Living Archive

Abstract: Even as the Victorians attempted to stabilize British national identity through institutional ownership of cultural property, Britishness remained a protean, imagined construct. This essay shows, through a new narrativization of the auction of Shakespeare's birthplace in 1847, that the purportedly kitschy and fake aspects of Barnumesque, new-money America were paradoxically also constitutive of Britain's own nationalism. In the spring of that year, newspapers advertised that Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon would soon go up for public auction. Rumours immediately began circulating that the American showman P.T. Barnum, who had recently barnstormed through England with the "Greatest Show on Earth," was intent on purchasing the birthplace for his menagerie of cultural oddities. In opposition to this foreign threat, a full-blown rescue campaign, driven by British media fearmongering, was launched in order to save Shakespeare's home "for the nation." Soon, these efforts drew in Britain's own premier showman of the 1840s, Charles Dickens. The nineteenth-century popular press's mythologization of these events, and the myth's subsequent recapitulation in the twenty-first century, is emblematic of the way national-infused archives wind and unwind in a double-spooled temporality. As I renarrativize archival materials associated with the auction of Shakespeare's birthplace, I proffer a different model of American and British nationalisms that points to their symbiotic development and perpetual reinvention. Ultimately, I suggest, we can learn from the Victorians' reinvention of their own history that the nineteenth-century archive is not a stable point of origin but rather a point of departure for questioning our national heritage and understanding the ways in which we inscribe the past with our present.

The State of Nationalism (SoN): Nationalism and International Conflict

Does nationalism increase the probability of international conflict? An affirmative answer has intuitive appeal: Nationalists promote force to protect their land and people from foreign threats. Research on nationalism in international conflict implicates elites, masses, and political interactions between these actors when asserting its status as a powerful force that raises the risk for interstate wars. Yet both micro- and macro-level evidence cautions against drawing broad conclusions about how nationalism affects conflict. Nationalism sometimes prompts aggression. In other contexts, nationalism produces restraint. Systematic knowledge about how nationalism relates to international conflict therefore requires answers to questions about which nationalisms promote conflict and whose nationalism matters. This article first reviews theory and evidence about nationalism’s conflict-causing potential. We discuss the microfoundations that link nationalism to foreign policy attitudes before describing research that implicates nationalism as a cause of militarized conflict. Next, we argue that understanding the complex relationships between nationalism and conflict requires theorizing the causal processes that connect various stakeholders’ nationalism to foreign policy outcomes. Moreover, research on identity content suggests that nationalism is compatible with a variety of foreign policy preferences. Throughout, we centre research that features nationalism as a principal independent variable or causal mechanism precipitating conflict. Any review about nationalism must contend with the delicate matter of conceptualization — the field contains nearly as many definitions for nationalism as articles about nationalism and war. The research we discuss variously describes nationalism as an identity, ideology, or belief, for example. For our purposes, nationalism captures a set of sentiments related to a national group and its superiority. This broad perspective centers the phenomenon implicated in international conflict research.

The rise of Housing Nationalism in Canada and transnational property ownership patterns

ABSTRACT We consider how housing acts as a potential realm where perception of crisis can activate reactionary nationalism, investigating how it differs from and interacts with other realms (e.g. jobs and wages, crime, and social welfare). We argue that housing produces distinct triggers for reactionary responses, and potentially results in different media framing, politics, and policy trajectories. We detail the rise of Housing Nationalism in Canada, following its spread from British Columbia, where we find that flexible framing of foreign threat often borrowed from other realms. By contrast, pinning Housing Nationalism to policy generally required more tractable definitions of foreignness, tied to surveillance and the application of penalties. We examine the roll out of policy responses associated with Housing Nationalism and lay out potential harms in terms of challenges to liberal ideals, including Canadian multinationalism, immigrant incorporation, and transnational ties. Finally we provide a baseline of Canadian transnational property ownership patterns, demonstrating that within the provinces where Housing Nationalism became most dominant, Canadian residents generally own far more properties abroad than the number of properties owned in Canada by residents elsewhere. Overall, the Canadian case demonstrates the utility of considering housing as a distinct realm motivating the rise of reactionary nationalism.

Us and Them: Foreign Threat and Domestic Polarization

Can foreign threats reduce domestic polarization, and if so, under what conditions? This is an important question for the United States given the severity of internal division and the emergence of China as a potentially unifying external peril. We offer a novel theoretical argument about when external danger will rally Americans based on the nexus between the vividness of foreign danger and bipartisan elite agreement about the threat. We test our theory through a series of pre-registered survey experiments. We find that vivid foreign threats, in isolation, do not reduce domestic polarization and therefore the danger from China alone may not be sufficient to spur domestic unity. However, vivid foreign threats in combination with policymaker agreement about the threat does significantly reduce domestic polarization. This reduction in polarization comes at a cost: increased public willingness to violate use of force norms against China. Overall, our study establishes that foreign peril can reduce domestic polarization under certain circumstances, and demonstrates that elite reactions to foreign threats are highly important in shaping wider domestic effects.

THE SPECIFICS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FUNDAMENTAL SOCIAL INSTITUTION OF THE STATE IN THE 21ST CENTURY (ON THE EXAMPLE OF RUSSIA AND BELARUS)

The article deals with topical issues of sovereignty, integration and security of such a fundamental social institution as the state. This issue is considered on a specific material, namely, such states as Russia and Belarus are analyzed. The article shows the aspects of integration of the above-mentioned countries based on the principle of social justice. The author postulates the need to strengthen national security in the light of foreign policy threats. As the author emphasizes, cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus plays an important role in ensuring security. In the light of this interaction, 28 union programs are being implemented, examples of which are discussed in the article. The author concludes about the specifics of the state development of the two friendly countries, this specificity is predetermined by the strategy of union integration

TripHLApan: predicting HLA molecules binding peptides based on triple coding matrix and transfer learning.

Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) recognizes foreign threats and triggers immune responses by presenting peptides to T cells. Computationally modeling the binding patterns between peptide and HLA is very important for the development of tumor vaccines. However, it is still a big challenge to accurately predict HLA molecules binding peptides. In this paper, we develop a new model TripHLApan for predicting HLA molecules binding peptides by integrating triple coding matrix, BiGRU + Attention models, and transfer learning strategy. We have found the main interaction site regions between HLA molecules and peptides, as well as the correlation between HLA encoding and binding motifs. Based on the discovery, we make the preprocessing and coding closer to the natural biological process. Besides, due to the input being based on multiple types of features and the attention module focused on the BiGRU hidden layer, TripHLApan has learned more sequence level binding information. The application of transfer learning strategies ensures the accuracy of prediction results under special lengths (peptides in length 8) and model scalability with the data explosion. Compared with the current optimal models, TripHLApan exhibits strong predictive performance in various prediction environments with different positive and negative sample ratios. In addition, we validate the superiority and scalability of TripHLApan's predictive performance using additional latest data sets, ablation experiments and binding reconstitution ability in the samples of a melanoma patient. The results show that TripHLApan is a powerful tool for predicting the binding of HLA-I and HLA-II molecular peptides for the synthesis of tumor vaccines. TripHLApan is publicly available at https://github.com/CSUBioGroup/TripHLApan.git.

Information security in the Union State: the universal legal dimension

The subject of the study forms a set of legal norms of normative legal acts of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Belarus and the interstate association of the Union State of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus, international treaties(agreements) regulating public relations in the field of information security, law enforcement practice, foreign experience of legal regulation, as well as provisions theoretical interdisciplinary research in this field. The object of the study is public relations related to the legal provision of information security in the Union State. The Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus in the context of new challenges and threats, as well as digital transformation and geopolitical changes. The analysis indicates a certain experience of scientific research in this field. At the same time, in the context of significant changes in socio-economic and foreign policy conditions, new challenges and threats, multi-vector scientific research in the information and legal sphere is necessary. The methodological basis of this study is a system of modern general scientific and private law methods. The study of the formation, development, place and role of the legal provision of information security of the Union State of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus was conducted using the following general scientific methods: analysis and synthesis, abstraction and modeling, generalization, description, etc. The main conclusions of this study were the following proposals, it is necessary to develop and approve the conceptual framework for the legal provision of information security for the development of regional interstate cooperation within the framework of the Union State of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation. This is important for solving the tasks of ensuring national and international information security, implementing agreements within the framework of regional interstate associations and further forming a system of universal public law mechanisms for ensuring information security. At the same time, the strategic legal acts of the Union State in the field of information security are dynamic in nature due to changes in social and political relations, including at the international level. There is a growing tendency to perceive the information space not only as an area requiring the use of exclusively protective measures of influence, but also involving active offensive measures to the extent necessary to protect national interests.

Актуальные внешнеполитические угрозы: тревоги и опасения студенческой молодежи

Актуальные внешнеполитические угрозы: тревоги и опасения студенческой молодежи

Effect of Rhesus factor incompatibility on maternal outcome (fertility): A comprehensive review

Rh incompatibility, also known as Rh disease, is defined as a condition that occurs when a woman with Rh-negative blood type is exposed to Rh-positive blood cells, leading to the development of Rh antibodies. The incidence of occurrence is more frequently among those of Caucasian (North American and European) descent (15% to 17%) compared to those of African (4% to 8%) or Asian descent (0.1% to 0.3%). Worldwide, the prevalence of Rh disease is estimated to be 276 per 100,000 live births, which is significant considering that an estimated 50% of untreated cases of haemolytic disease of the neonate (HDN). HDN will either die or develop brain damage due to the disease. The condition is due to: If a Rhesus negative (Rh-) woman is impregnated by a man with Rhesus negative (Rh-) there wouldn’t be any problem. If a Rhesus negative woman (Rh-) is impregnated by a man with Rhesus positive (Rh+) and the baby inherited the rhesus positive (Rh+) from the father there will be a problem or when an Rh-negative mother is exposed to the Rh D antigen, the D antigen is perceived as a foreign threat leading to the haemolysis of the fetal erythrocytes, common signs and symptom include; Jaundice, a yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes, lethargy, heart failure, enlarged organs. It can be prevented and treated by administering an injection of RhoGAM during the second trimester, and 28th week of pregnancy respectively, exchange transfusions either before birth or after delivery. Phototherapy is also another treatment modality which break down excess bilirubin into less toxic substance that the new borns liver can remove.

Оцінювання ефективності диверсифікування географічної структури зовнішньоекономічної діяльності в умовах євроінтеграції

An analysis and assessment of factors influencing the effectiveness of diversification of the geographical structure of foreign economic activity of "NOVA POSHTA" LLC was carried out. The essence of the concept of diversification is determined, its types and features of this strategy of de-veloping new markets are given. The prerequisites for the implementation of the strategy of geo-graphical diversification of foreign economic activity, the opportunities and threats that may arise during the expansion of activities in the EU markets are outlined. Diversification of foreign economic activity is caused by increasing the dynamism of enter-prise development, changes in demand and the emergence of new industries on the market. In such cases, the diversification makes it possible to compensate for the drop in sales in one market by in-creasing it in other markets. It also contributes to attracting foreign investments and increasing the competitiveness of the enterprise. All types of geographic diversification open up new business op-portunities for enterprises - business entities can make maximum use of resource potential and pro-duction capacity, distribute commercial risks of dependence on one market and minimize them. Nowadays, logistics as an industry has great potential and prospects. According to the fore-cast, until 2024, the world market of logistics services will grow annually by 7.5% in monetary terms. The main players on the market in Ukraine are "NOVA POSHTA" and "Ukrposhta". This is due to the fact that more and more people are switching to online shopping. As a result of the conducted research, it was determined that in modern business conditions, the strategy of diversifying the geographical structure of foreign economic activity is becoming more and more relevant, but it must be supported by empirical data coming from the marketing monitoring system. Assessing the necessity of diversifying the geographical structure of foreign economic activity in case of "NOVA POSHTA" LLC requires consideration of many factors, especially resources, fi-nancial capacity and taxation. Taking them into account the recommended directions for the imple-mentation of the GoToMarket-strategy for "NOVA POSHTA" LLC are given in the article. The stages of marketing strategy implementation considering national and international market fea-tures and service consumption models of "NOVA POSHTA" LLC in conditions of diversification of the geographical structure of foreign economic activity are outlined. Recommended business indica-tors for evaluating the effectiveness of diversifying the geographical structure of foreign economic activity of "NOVA POSHTA" LLC are identified.

Emerging Role of the Mast Cell-Microbiota Crosstalk in Cutaneous Homeostasis and Immunity.

The skin presents a multifaceted microbiome, a balanced coexistence of bacteria, fungi, and viruses. These resident microorganisms are fundamental in upholding skin health by both countering detrimental pathogens and working in tandem with the skin's immunity. Disruptions in this balance, known as dysbiosis, can lead to disorders like psoriasis and atopic dermatitis. Central to the skin's defense system are mast cells. These are strategically positioned within the skin layers, primed for rapid response to any potential foreign threats. Recent investigations have started to unravel the complex interplay between these mast cells and the diverse entities within the skin's microbiome. This relationship, especially during times of both balance and imbalance, is proving to be more integral to skin health than previously recognized. In this review, we illuminate the latest findings on the ties between mast cells and commensal skin microorganisms, shedding light on their combined effects on skin health and maladies.

What we gained that time we lost so much: demographic trends and territorial control in Mexico after the war with the United States

This paper underscores demographic dynamics as a silent force shaping Mexico's 19th-century narrative, enhancing our comprehension of the nation's historical evolution. By examining the aftermath of American expansion (1846-1848) and the subsequent French intervention, this study shifts the focus from traditional state capacity discussions to demographic trends. It reevaluates Mexico's state formation during the 19th century and reveals the intrinsic role of demographic dynamics. Analyzing population trends at critical junctures, this research illuminates Mexico's vulnerability during its formative years. The transformation of Mexico's demographic landscape post-Mexican-American War becomes pivotal, laying the foundation for a more robust state in the face of foreign threats. The shift from a sparsely populated frontier to a strategically controlled border forms the core of this exploration, demonstrating how demographic shifts influenced territorial dominance and state resilience. This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of Mexico's historical evolution through the lens of demographic dynamics.

The international spill over effect of American economy on China's macro-economy based on MCMC-Gibbs sampling algorithm.

China's export benefits from the significant fiscal stimulus in the United States. This paper analyzes the global spillover effect of the American economy on China's macro-economy using the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)-Gibbs sampling approach, with the goal of improving the ability of China's financial system to protect against foreign threats. This paper examines the theories of the consequences of uncertainty on macroeconomics first. Then, using medium-sized economic and financial data, the uncertainty index of the American and Chinese economies is built. In order to complete the test and analysis of the dynamic relationship between American economic uncertainty and China's macro-economy, a Time Varying Parameter-Stochastic Volatility-Vector Autoregression (TVP- VAR) model with random volatility is constructed. The model is estimated using the Gibbs sampling method based on MCMC. For the empirical analysis, samples of China's and the United States' economic data from January 2001 to January 2022 were taken from the WIND database and the FRED database, respectively. The data reveal that there are typically fewer than 5 erroneous components in the most estimated parameters of the MCMC model, which suggests that the model's sampling results are good. China's pricing level reacted to the consequences of the unpredictability of the American economy by steadily declining, reaching its lowest point during the financial crisis in 2009, and then gradually diminishing. After 2012, the greatest probability density range of 68% is extremely wide and contains 0, indicating that the impact of economic uncertainty in the United States on China's pricing level is no longer significant. China should therefore focus on creating a community of destiny by working with nations that have economic cooperation to lower systemic financial risks and guarantee the stability of the capital market.

THE SOCIAL SITUATION OF THE MAGHREB COUNTRIES IN MODERN TIMES DURING THE 18TH-19TH CENTURIES. ALGERIA AS A MODEL

During modern times, the Maghreb countries from Tripoli to the atlantic front witnessed patterns of government and close economic, social and cultural conditions, while Europe experienced a period of decisive economic and social transformations in the age of enlightenment, then the industrial revolution, and the colonial movement to dominate underdeveloped countries. At the beginning of modern times, the Maghreb countries knew the imminent danger from the european naval powers that controlled the maritime outposts on the coast of the western basin of the Mediterranean. Taking advantage of the political and military weakness of the Maghreb countries. The european foreign threat, especially the Spanish one, has been perched on the Maghreb coastal cities for more than three centuries, but with the emergence of the ottoman power in the western basin of the mediterranean, which began to intensify efforts to mobilize local energies in order to remove the imminent danger, it was able to ward off the spanish advance and eliminate some of its sites one after another, the last of which was the liberated cities of Oran in 1792 AD. Research Objectives : This research paper aims to shed light on the social situation of the Maghreb countries during modern times and the interaction of the local population with new arrivals from different countries of the world, and then highlight the extent to which the local population suffered from the pandemics that the mediterranean region was experiencing at that time, as well as the foreign invasion, all of which were factors that converged against the local population

Discursive analysis of intersectional moral exclusions in online discussions on women to be repatriated to Finland from the Al-Hol camp

ABSTRACT In spring 2019, there was a heated debate in the media concerning the Al-Hol camp in Syria, where a number of women and children were detained. This article explores intersectional dynamics of exclusion in online comments on news items regarding the repatriation of women and children from Al-Hol to Finland. The analytical framework is based on critical discursive psychology combined with an intersectional lens. The analysis distinguished three interpretative repertoires: the repertoire of a foreign threat, the repertoire of neglected maternal obligations, and the repertoire of irrationality. Within these repertoires, three subject positions were also applied to women—the deceitful villain, the bad mother, and brainwashed fools—with two subject positions applied to children—innocent children and future threats. The analysis shows the dialectical nature of positionings through which the Otherness of these women is constructed via the interplay with evaluations of their motherhood and positions applied to other actors, such as Muslim men and Finns. Moreover, the analysis shows how positionings mobilise intersectional categorisations based on gender, age, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and race.

Chinese Volley Fire and Metanarratives of World History

Abstract: Volley fire with gunpowder weapons is often seen by modern scholars as one of the important innovations which allowed Europe to politically dominate other cultures and societies. Many historiographical theories, of the kind Lyotard termed metarécits , “metanarratives,” have attempted to explain this phenomenon. Recently, compelling evidence has emerged that other civilizations also practiced the technique, most notably China. This article brings together existing and new evidence that volley fire with firearms was developed and practiced in China long before it appeared in Europe and challenges several of the grand narratives of European exceptionalism. This new evidence shows that the volley fire technique arose in China primarily as a reaction to domestic and foreign (semi-)nomadic cavalry threats, belying geographically deterministic accounts, which suggest that sophisticated infantry tactics with firearms would not arise in states bordering the steppe. This article will also challenge the claim that volley fire in Europe benefitted from its emergence in a competitive system of states undergoing a tradition-challenging Renaissance. I call for a reconsideration of the innovative potential of Eurasian land empires bordering the steppe, and stress the importance of studying political contingencies and cultures of innovation in shaping world history.

Viral bodies: racialised and gendered logics in the securitisation of migration during COVID-19 in Italy

ABSTRACT Since the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, migrants’ mobility has been increasingly securitised as governments have been adopting extraordinary measures to close both external and internal borders. Similarly, the presence of migrants within countries has often been met with lower levels of acceptance, leading to the implementation of discriminatory and xenophobic measures. Although debates on the securitisation of migration are well established in the literature, this article demonstrates how the securitisation of migration during the COVID-19 pandemic has relied on gendered and racialised notions deeply entrenched in the legacy of colonial modernity. Examining newspaper articles and declarations by Italian prominent politicians, this contribution shows how this process has happened through 4 main discursive frames imbued with racial and gendered assumptions: 1) the virus as a foreign threat; 2) migrants as diseased bodies; 3) migrants as a burden; 4) migrants as racialised hypermasculine bodies.

“Speak English”: A Comment on English Language Instruction in an Era of Neo‐Nationalism

AbstractPrevious research on neo‐nationalism has largely focused on the political arena, analyzing voters, parties, and policies. The scholarship featured in this special issue moves beyond the analysis of neo‐nationalism in contemporary politics to show how the ideology is enacted at the micro level. The stage for these dynamic interactions is educational settings related to the teaching of English. In this article, we comment on this new research that illustrates the variety of ways English language instruction can either advance or combat neo‐nationalism. Despite the diversity of roles that English plays across different geographic and national‐level contexts, this corpus of work makes evident the importance of language in maintaining national group boundaries. Inspired by this knowledge, we use data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) to explore how attitudes about speaking the national language are related to neo‐nationalist stances cross‐nationally. Our findings, which echo the micro‐level evidence presented in the special issue, show that national languages are inextricably linked to the maintenance of national group boundaries and associated with neo‐nationalist concerns about the erosion of national culture, economy, and political institutions due to perceived foreign threats.