Notion Of Immunity Research Articles

Introduction: Autoimmunities in the Wake of COVID-19

Our introduction and the essays collected in this Special Section address themselves to the ruins, creations, and legacies of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. More precisely, we ask how our notions of immunity and especially autoimmunity have changed over the last three years. We theorize autoimmunity in the wake of COVID-19 through approaches that consider the material and experiential phenomenology proliferated by the longue durée of both the experience of COVID-19 infection and the pandemic itself. In this way, we connect our inquiries both to the history of recent epidemics—most notably HIV/AIDS—and to broader philosophical and cultural investigations of what immunity means and does. The writings grouped here focus their attentions in different and complementary ways. Some train their analysis on issues of temporality, others on ontology (Does the virus live?). Still others focus on geopolitics and other fields of specialization such as feminist and queer theory, science and technology studies, disability studies, critical race theory, and health humanities. Taken together, we imagine strategies of care and collective survival through notions of autoimmunity that model different, more queerly entangled and cripped understandings of bodies and environments that reach beyond myths of autonomy and sovereignty, eradication, and cure.

Refoulement as Biopolitical Praxis: Subalternity, Ethnography, and Ethics at the Mexico-Guatemala Border

This article analyzes the Mexico-Guatemala border through the lens of the author's sensory ethnographic engagement there. It also uses oral history interviews and collaboration undertaken with refugees, migrants, and deportees. It argues for the contravention of human rights and refugee rights under the Trump Administration as an aspect of a longer history of biopolitics enacted in border regions and beyond them. It draws on border studies and notions of immunity in biopolitics to develop this argument, and its uses collaborative visual ethnographic practices as a way to consider the border.

Canonical immunity and genericity

Whereas the usual notions of immunity -- e.g., immunity, hyperimmunity, etc. -- are associated with Cohen genericity, canonical immunity, as introduced by Beros, Khan and Kjos-Hanssen, is associated instead with Mathias genericity. Specifically, every Mathias generic is canonically immune and no Cohen 2-generic computes a canonically immune set.

ESD Behavior of MWCNT Interconnects—Part I: Observations and Insights

Multiwall carbon nanotube (MWCNT)-based interconnects have been shown to outperform conventional metal interconnects. For reliable operation of such interconnects, it is imperative to evaluate their reliability at possible fatal events. Here, we report the ESD reliability of MWCNT-based interconnects. High failure current of ~10 mA and unique failure behavior involving discrete and gradual breakdown of individual shells is reported. It was found that MWCNT interconnects change resistance in steps of fundamental quantum resistance ( ${h/2e^{2}}$ ) after individual shell burning. The role of individual shells, diameter, and resistance of the tube in deciding the ESD behavior is investigated, while monitoring the response on a shell-by-shell basis. Contrary to widespread notion of immunity of MWCNT interconnects to electromigration, the ESD-induced melting of contacts is also observed.

The notion of immunity for pre-birth harms: maternal and beyond

ABSTRACTThis paper is based on the new understanding of children’s health relating to recent science regarding the work of Philip Landrigan and Ruth Etzel on children’s environmental health. The main concern is the presence of chemical exposures that result in grave harms from birth to early childhood. I argue that these discoveries cast a different light on the question of immunity for prenatal harms, and the right to healthy development from before birth.

Perception, nonconceptual content, and immunity to error through misidentification

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we clarify the notion of immunity to error through misidentification with respect to the first-person pronoun (IEM). In particular, we set out to dispel the view that for a judgment to be IEM it must contain a token of a certain class of predicates. Rather, the importance of the IEM status of certain judgments is that it teaches us about privileged ways of coming to know about ourselves. We then turn to examine how perception, as a state with nonconceptual content, can give rise to judgments that are IEM. On one view, the ‘inheritance model’ of immunity, perception gives rise to such judgments because perception itself is IEM. We argue that this model is misguided, and, instead, suggest and elucidate an alternative view: perception gives rise to judgments that are IEM by virtue of containing implicitly self-related or self-concerning information.

Les origines du monastère Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul de Caunes-Minervois

Up to now, the history of the formation of the village of Caunes didn’t arouse any particular comment. As a consequence, this approach is only a preliminary study susceptible to be completed and amended. As of very numerous Benedictine abbeys, that of Caunes generated an important grouped habitat in its immediate vicinity. Through the attraction it exercised on a certain number of grouped or scattered habitats, it participated in the reshaping of the medieval village. The connection of the main roads leading to the abbey and the local land division allows to differentiate hypothetical phases in the growth of the agglomeration. The crossing of textual and planimetric data tries to replace its genesis in its historic context, especially through the notions of immunity/ protection particular to sacred spaces including abbey churches.

Genèse du village abbatial de Caunes-Minervois

Up to now, the history of the formation of the village of Caunes didn’t arouse any particular comment. As a consequence, this approach is only a preliminary study susceptible to be completed and amended. As of very numerous Benedictine abbeys, that of Caunes generated an important grouped habitat in its immediate vicinity. Through the attraction it exercised on a certain number of grouped or scattered habitats, it participated in the reshaping of the medieval village. The connection of the main roads leading to the abbey and the local land division allows to differentiate hypothetical phases in the growth of the agglomeration. The crossing of textual and planimetric data tries to replace its genesis in its historic context, especially through the notions of immunity/ protection particular to sacred spaces including abbey churches.

Potential Relevance of α1-Adrenergic Receptor Autoantibodies in Refractory Hypertension

BackgroundAgonistic autoantibodies directed at the α1-adrenergic receptor (α1-AAB) have been described in patients with hypertension. We implied earlier that α1-AAB might have a mechanistic role and could represent a therapeutic target.Methodology/Principal FindingsTo pursue the issue, we performed clinical and basic studies. We observed that 41 of 81 patients with refractory hypertension had α1-AAB; after immunoadsorption blood pressure was significantly reduced in these patients. Rabbits were immunized to generate α1-adrenergic receptor antibodies (α1-AB). Patient α1-AAB and rabbit α1-AB were purified using affinity chromatography and characterized both by epitope mapping and surface plasmon resonance measurements. Neonatal rat cardiomyocytes, rat vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC), and Chinese hamster ovary cells transfected with the human α1A-adrenergic receptor were incubated with patient α1-AAB and rabbit α1-AB and the activation of signal transduction pathways was investigated by Western blot, confocal laser scanning microscopy, and gene expression. We found that phospholipase A2 group IIA (PLA2-IIA) and L-type calcium channel (Cacna1c) genes were upregulated in cardiomyocytes and VSMC after stimulation with both purified antibodies. We showed that patient α1-AAB and rabbit α1-AB result in protein kinase C alpha activation and transient extracellular-related kinase (EKR1/2) phosphorylation. Finally, we showed that the antibodies exert acute effects on intracellular Ca2+ in cardiomyocytes and induce mesentery artery segment contraction.Conclusions/SignificancePatient α1-AAB and rabbit α1-AB can induce signaling pathways important for hypertension and cardiac remodeling. Our data provide evidence for a potential clinical relevance for α1-AAB in hypertensive patients, and the notion of immunity as a possible cause of hypertension.

'I'-Thoughts and Explanation: Reply to Garrett

Brian Garrett has criticized my diagnosis of the paradox of self‐consciousness. In reply, I focus on the classification of ‘I’‐thoughts, and show how the notion of immunity to error through misidentification can be used to characterize ‘I’‐thoughts, even though an important class of ‘I’‐thoughts (those whose expression involves what Wittgenstein called the use of ‘I’ as object) are not themselves immune to error through misidentification. ‘I’thoughts which are susceptible to error through misidentification are dependent upon those which are not. The dependence here has to do with how a thinker understands what would defeat such thoughts.