Permanent Refuge Research Articles

Homeless migrants’ commoning practices. “Our House” solidarity project in Athens’ Omonia square

In recent years, Athens has been at the center of the so-called “migration crisis”, as thousands of newcomers have found temporary or permanent refuge in the city. However, because the state’s housing policies have reduced the available positions of those who have the right to settle in state accommodation structures, an ever-increasing number of newcomers facing homelessness and live in city’s streets, parks and squares. In this context, a solidarity collective kitchen named “Our House” was self-organized by a group of newcomers on the city’s central square, Omonoia Square, where it remained for two years. Our House project activities, based on mutual help and commoning practices, claimed the homeless migrants’ right to the center of the city. However, in 2019 the square was turned into a construction site and Our House activities were prohibited. This paper is based on ethnographic urban research and discusses the solidarity practices of homeless migrants through the theoretical approaches of the right to the city, as well as critical approaches to homelessness and urban commons. The main findings of the paper focus on highlighting the homeless migrants’ commoning practices, and the paper’s contribution lies in the enrichment of theoretical discussions on the right to the city and urban commoning practices through the case homeless migrants’s self-organization.

Marie-Louise von Motesiczky: Re-negotiating the self-portrait as a woman émigré artist in the Nazi era

AbstractBorn in Vienna in 1906 to a wealthy, assimilated Jewish family, the painter Marie-Louise von Motesiczky enjoyed a lively social life among the prominent figures of intellectual and cultural Vienna in the closing years of the Habsburg dynasty. She studied at art schools in Vienna, Paris, and the Netherlands, including with German painter Max Beckmann in Frankfurt. The Nazi rise to power cut short Marie-Louise Motesiczky’s career in Central Europe. She fled Vienna for permanent refuge in England. Like her mentor, Beckmann and her contemporary and fellow émigré artist, Oskar Kokoschka, Motesiczky considered the artistic practice of the self-portrait an occasion for self-questioning, self-affirmation, and self-discovery. Unlike her mentors, from early in her career, Motesiczky’s self-portraits had to negotiate the representation of a female subject. This article will investigate the ways in which Motesiczky’s emigration compelled her to reexamine the gendered parameters of the self-portrait and how that reassessment manifests itself specifically in regard to her engagement with the spectatorial gaze. Her position as an émigré artist will not be analyzed as a burden to be overcome but, rather, as the impetus for reexamining techniques and strategies of female self-portraiture.

Too little but not too late? Biology of a recently discovered and imperilled freshwater fish in a drying temperate region and comparison with sympatric fishes

Abstract Small‐bodied freshwater fishes are commonly overlooked in threatened species management despite being highly imperilled. Before this study, the newly described little pygmy perch (Nannoperca pygmaea) was known from only 0.06 km2 of habitat in a single catchment in south‐western Australia and a lack of knowledge prevented an understanding of its conservation status and priority actions. The present study determined the distribution, biology, and movement patterns of N. pygmaea and compared these with other small, sympatric percihthyids to assess its conservation status and likely resilience to threatening processes. The current ‘extent of occurrence' of N. pygmaea was determined to be 3,420 km2 and the ‘area of occupancy' was 10 km2. Nannoperca pygmaea inhabited permanent refuge pools in the main stem of an ephemeral, secondarily salinized catchment where salinities remained <6 ppt during summer. During winter N. pygmaea undertook a short upstream migration into a seasonally flowing freshwater tributary to serially spawn. The timing of reproduction was partitioned among three sympatric pygmy perches within the austral winter/spring period. The species qualifies as ‘Endangered' under the IUCN Red List assessment criteria. Its restriction to freshwater refugia within salinized rivers suggests that N. pygmaea may have a limited salinity tolerance similar to the sympatric, threatened Nannatherina balstoni, and that the species is susceptible to prolonged drought, drying of critical baseflow refuges, increasing salinization, and introductions of alien species. The study serves as an example that small‐bodied freshwater fishes need greater research attention to understand the biological and environmental mechanisms underpinning their decline.

A Novel Class F Fly Ash‐Based Geopolymer and Its Application in Coal Mine Grouting

The novel class F fly ash‐based geopolymer, largely made of fly ash from the coal solid waste, was used as a kind of grouting material in the coal and electricity‐integrated mine from which the solid waste comes, for the purpose of in situ utilization of fly ash. The ratio experiment of material, designed through the orthogonal method, was used to study material properties such as fluidity and strength which are important to the application of mine grouting, and the optimal material proportioning scheme for Green Fly Ash‐based grouting material is determined. It has been found out that there was serious rib spalling, roof deformation, obvious floor heave, crack development, and some water seepage in the permanent refuge chamber of the mine. Therefore, to solve these problems, a specific scheme of grouting reinforcement for the surrounding rocks of the permanent refuge chamber and roadway in this mine was designed. Through an analysis of the reinforcement effect of the cementation of surrounding rock after the grouting process, it can be concluded that the green fly ash‐based polymer as grouting material can well penetrate into the cracks of the broken surrounding rock and get fully cemented with the surrounding rock and that it can reduce the deformation of the surrounding rock effectively, increase the integrity, and improve the carrying capacity of the surrounding rock. Besides, the grouting reinforcement effect of surrounding rock was verified through numerical simulation, and the grouting process design of green fly ash‐based polymer mine was discussed. This study can provide a green and economical approach to the in situ utilization of fly ash which is a kind of coal solid waste.

Seeking Refuge: Grotius on Exile, Expulsion and Asylum

AbstractHugo Grotius is often identified as the founder of the modern concept of asylum. This article argues that Grotius’s most innovative contribution was not his theory of asylum, but his concept of expulsion, and more particularly, his notion that a permanent refuge should be offered to foreigners who had been collectively expelled on religious grounds. The article shows that Grotius’s notion was informed by his own experiences as a lawyer advocating the admission of Sephardi Jews, who had been expelled from Spain and Portugal, to the Dutch provinces. More particularly, it was based on a reinterpretation of Francisco de Vitoria’s concept of the ‘law of hospitality’ and the duty to admit foreigners irrespective of their religious beliefs. Reinterpreting Vitoria’s concept, Grotius was the first to formulate a theory regarding the state’s responsibility to offer a permanent refuge to victims of (religious) persecution.

Refuge and Security Panics

The discourse of humanitarianism presumes that the resettlement of refugees into a space of permanent refuge by humanitarian organizations and host country governments represents the end of their experience of loss, displacement, and forced mobility. But many Black Muslim refugees in the u.s. inhabit a prism in which they are targets of misinformation, scrutiny, surveillance, and suspicion that refract gender, race, and faith through security panics. The refuge of resettlement, for the Black Muslim refugees discussed in this paper, is not something given; it is something made, by them, in difficult and even dangerous circumstances. Through a series of vignettes that illustrate the felt and lived effects of racism and surveillance at the gender/race/faith-security nexus on Somali refugees in Maine, the paper explores one context in which refuge is made.

Extreme dissolved oxygen variability in urbanised tropical wetlands: The need for detailed monitoring to protect nursery ground values

Little is known about levels of dissolved oxygen fish are exposed to daily in typical urbanised tropical wetlands found along the Great Barrier Reef coastline. This study investigates diel dissolved oxygen (DO) dynamics in one of these typical urbanised wetlands, in tropical North Queensland, Australia. High frequency data loggers (DO, temperature, depth) were deployed for several days over the summer months in different tidal pools and channels that fish use as temporal or permanent refuges. DO was extremely variable over a 24 h cycle, and across the small-scale wetland. The high spatial and temporal DO variability measured was affected by time of day and tidal factors, namely water depth, tidal range and tidal direction (flood vs ebb). For the duration of the logging time, DO was mainly above the adopted threshold for hypoxia (50% saturation), however, for around 11% of the time, and on almost every logging day, DO values fell below the threshold, including a severe hypoxic event (<5% saturation) that continued for several hours. Fish still use this wetland intensively, so must be able to cope with low DO periods. Despite the ability of fish to tolerate extreme conditions, continuing urban expansion is likely to lead to further water quality degradation and so potential loss of nursery ground value. There is a substantial discontinuity between the recommended DO values in the Australian and New Zealand Guidelines for Fresh and Marine Water Quality and the values observed in this wetland, highlighting the limited value of these guidelines for management purposes. Local and regional high frequency data monitoring programs, in conjunction with local exposure risk studies are needed to underpin the development of the management that will ensure the sustainability of coastal wetlands.

Indigenous Passages to Cuba, 1515–1900

Cuba: music scene, cane field, floating slave barrack, tourist hangout . . . and gulag. In Indigenous Passages to Cuba, Jason Yaremko calls our attention to the fact that almost from the moment of contact the island of Cuba became a destination for autochthonous peoples from all over Spain's far-flung American empire. Yaremko's story will ring true to most students of history, since everyone from the ancient Assyrians to Joseph Stalin has moved around subject peoples: to break up ethnic solidarity, isolate troublemakers, or reroute labor to key regions of demand. At the same time, for complicated, multiethnic empires, the existence of geographical options has sometimes come to the aid of peoples who are politically weak and short on resources. The Cuban story presents examples of all these dynamics.The indigenous peoples who came this way answered to various descriptions and motives. Florida Indians traveled to Cuba in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, sometimes for negotiations and at other times for permanent refuge but almost always with an eye to seeking Spanish protection against the English. Creek visitors expected lavish gifts that island authorities, however reluctantly, always decided to give as a way of keeping geopolitical options open in the era's highly competitive imperial atmosphere. At about this same time Havana witnessed an influx of transported troublemakers from the north, people such as the Apache and Navajo. They could be every bit as difficult on this (really quite large) island as they had been in Sonora and Chihuahua. However outlandish it may now seem, many of these northern convicts were marched in chains from the far north down to Mexico City and then on to Veracruz, where they were finally shipped to the island.Approximately half the book concerns one of the shabbiest episodes of southeastern Mexican history—namely, the sale of Maya peasants to Cuba during the Caste War of Yucatán. The practice persisted from 1848 until the mid-1860s, and while it made only limited impact on island history, it convulsed Yucatecan politics as politicians, military officers, and entrepreneurs all jockeyed to take advantage of potential profits. Yaremko outdoes himself in synthesizing a broad field of scholarship, using archival sources from Cuba and Spain to round out a picture unavailable through peninsular collections alone. As he demonstrates, life for Yucatec Maya on the island resembled what they had left on the peninsula, with an emphasis on farming, intensely local family life, and legal disputes.I do need to underscore one critical point, just so we don't slip back into a historical misunderstanding. Most of the transported Yucatec Maya were only prisoners of war in the sense that a war was going on and someone took them prisoner. The relative scarcity of battles proper during the Caste War, plus the fact that actual rebel combatants were armed and dangerous and knew how to escape via backwoods trails, strongly suggests that most of those peoples sent to Cuba were probably refugees who were looking to avoid the bullets but happened to get rounded up. If anything, that makes the story more dastardly still. Whatever the ultimate truth in this matter, Cuban planters would have been overjoyed to receive more of these agriculturally gifted newcomers, whether by force or by the latter's own free will; by the late 1860s, those planters could see slavery's handwriting on the wall and needed a contingency plan. Their actions closely resembled those of the British two generations earlier, when Caribbean sugar growers had begun stocking their estates with East Indian and Chinese contract workers in order to buffer themselves against the abolition that finally came in 1838. But skyrocketing henequen profits in the century's final third made Maya peasants too valuable to let leave, and Cuba's great influx ended as abruptly as it had begun.If I do have a concern here, it is that the three chapters dealing with Yucatec Maya lack rigorous organization, and with disorganization comes repetition and backtracking. More attention to chronological development would have helped clear up a confusing rendition. Still, Yaremko positions the Caribbean more centrally in the Western Hemisphere's often-deplorable tradition of relocated populations and nudges us out of the old black-white Cuba story. The next time you dip back to island history, think black-white-Maya-Athapaskan-Creek, for starters.

Discharging performance of a forced-circulation ice thermal storage system for a permanent refuge chamber in an underground mine

This study aimed to develop a proper control strategy for a forced-circulation ice thermal storage system (ITSS) designed for a permanent refuge chamber with an accommodation capacity of 50 persons. The heat transfer characteristics of the ITSS were investigated through theoretical and experimental approaches. A quasi-steady one-dimensional mathematical model for predicting the transient discharging power was proposed. On this basis, a control strategy was proposed to fulfill the minimum cooling requirement in consideration of both effective discharging time and human comfort. The minimum required velocity of the ITSS was analyzed; from this, the effective working time of the ITSS was determined to be 64.57h. Additionally, the heat load inside the chamber was found to be the main factor that affected the effective temperature control duration and the utilization ratio of the ice. Thus, a reserve factor, which is defined as a function of rated heat load and determined by the discharging performance model, is suggested for consideration during optimization.

Numerical simulation and application study on a remote emergency rescue system during a belt fire in coal mines

Once initiated, coal mine belt fires can develop rapidly, and if improperly controlled, these fires could easily lead to the airflow disorders that undermine the function of the ventilation system, and the smoke plume could lead to heavy casualties. However, belt fires can be effectively prevented by establishing a fire smoke plume control system. According to the characteristics of fire smoke plume control in the ventilation network, models of ventilation systems are analyzed, and different methods of fire emergency rescue systems are designed. A mathematical model for fire smoke flow was developed based on the west-wing mining area in Long-Dong coal mine. The distributions of the smoke parameters and airflow temperature on the roadway before and after performing the smoke flow control measures were simulated by Fluent software. The results indicate that 37 min after the fire began, the smoke plume had invaded all of the roadways in the west-wing mining area. The average temperature of the roadway in the west mining area is 332 K, the O2 concentration is 14.8 %, the CO2 concentration is 5.1 % and the highest concentration of CO is 0.98 %. In this environment, miners in distress are unable to survive. A function to adjust the opening degree of the air-doors was designed, and the air volume control of the key branches was realized during a fire emergency rescue. A permanent refuge chamber was situated in the mining area to provide a safe shelter for miners when a disaster occurs. Many field exercises have verified the combined function of the emergency rescue system and refuge chamber to ensure the security of the miners in the underground coal mine.

Go with the flow: the movement behaviour of fish from isolated waterhole refugia during connecting flow events in an intermittent dryland river

Summary In many intermittent, dryland rivers, fish are confined to isolated waterholes for much of the year. It is only during brief flow events, which typify the hydrology of these systems, that fish are able to move between waterholes and explore surrounding habitat. Because most of the river channel will dry afterwards, there is a strong advantage for selection of persistent waterholes. Two hundred and fifteen individual fish of three common large‐bodied species were tagged in two isolated waterholes in the Moonie River (Queensland, Australia) over 3 years. Their movements were monitored to identify the flow events that trigger fish movement between waterholes, differences in response among species and size classes and refuge selection preferences. Some individuals of all species moved during flow events and others remained within the same waterhole. There was no clear upstream or downstream preference, and most individuals used a reach of up to 20 km, although some individuals ranged over more than 70 km in only several days. Above a threshold flow of 2 m above commence‐to‐flow level, timing of flow was more important than magnitude, with most movement occurring in response to the first post‐winter flow event, independent of its magnitude and duration. Many of the fish that moved displayed philopatry and subsequently returned to their starting waterhole either by the end of a flow event or on subsequent events, suggesting ability to navigate and a preference for more permanent refuge pools. Maximising survival in a highly variable environment provides a plausible mechanism for maintaining these behaviours. Modifications to both flow regime and hydrological connectivity may reduce movement opportunities for fish in intermittent rivers. Our findings show that fish in intermittent systems use networks of waterholes and that management and conservation strategies should aim to maintain movement opportunities at large spatial scales to preserve population resilience.

Fish population persistence in hydrologically variable landscapes.

Forecasting population persistence in environments subjected to periodic disturbances represents a general challenge for ecologists. In arid and semiarid regions, climate change and human water use pose significant threats to the future persistence of aquatic biota whose populations typically depend on permanent refuge waterholes for their viability. As such, habitats are increasingly being lost as a result of decreasing runoff and increasing water extraction. We constructed a spatially explicit population model for golden perch Macquaria ambigua (Richardson), a native freshwater fish in the Murray-Darling Basin in eastern Australia. We then used the model to examine the effects of increased aridity, increased drought frequency, and localized human water extraction on population viability. Consistent with current observations, the model predicted golden perch population persistence under the current climate and levels of water use. Modeled increases in local water extraction greatly increased the risk of population decline, while scenarios of increasing aridity and drought frequency were associated with only minor increases in this risk. We conclude that natural variability in abundances and high turnover rates (extinction/recolonization) of local populations dictate the importance of spatial connectivity and periodic cycles of population growth. Our study also demonstrates an effective way to examine population persistence in intermittent and ephemeral river systems by integrating spatial and temporal dynamics of waterhole persistence with demographic processes (survival, recruitment, and dispersal) within a stochastic modeling framework. The approach can be used to help understand the impacts of natural and anthropogenic drivers, including water resource development, on the viability of biota inhabiting highly dynamic environments.

Chrześcijańska rodzina szkołą człowieczeństwa

Rodzina jest pierwszym i niepodważalnym środowiskiem życia, rozwoju oraz samorealizacji człowieka, tak w perspektywie cielesnej, jak i duchowej. Słowa w tytule wzięte są z Gaudium et Spes (nr 52) Soboru Watykańskiego II. Na początku przypomniano podstawowe prawdy o małżeństwie i rodzinie, zgodnie z nauczaniem Kościoła. Następnie wskazano, że rodzina jest nazywana małym Kościołem, albo Kościołem domowym, gdzie wiara jest przekazywana z pokolenia na pokolenie. Autor przypomniał również, że na rodzinie spoczywa obowiązek przekazywania prawdy o człowieku, o jego niezbywalnej godności i powołaniu. W rodzinie młody człowiek uczy się szacunku do każdego człowieka i ludzkiego życia we wszystkich jego etapach. W rodzinie człowiek uczy się przekazywania wartości kulturowych, etycznych, społecznych, duchowych i religijnych, które są podstawą do rozwoju i dobrego samopoczucia zarówno członków rodziny, jak i całego społeczeństwa. Chrześcijańska rodzina stoi przed poważnym wyzwaniem wychowania swojego potomstwa w prawdzie i ukształtowania prawego sumienia swoich dzieci. Wobec zamętu etycznego, który jest wywoływany przez potężne ruchy postmodernistyczne, rodzina jawi się, jako trwała ostoja, która może dać solidne fundamenty przyszłym obywatelom i członkom Kościoła.

Study on System Design of Coal Mine Underground Permanent Refuge Chamber

This paper introduces the function and meaning of permanent refuge cavern construction of coal mine. According to the composition of the permanent refuge cavern system, functions of other subsystems, construction site, daily maintenance and harmonious and unified of each system operation, design and study of the system have been introduced in this paper. Focus on the analysis of the specific characteristics of each subsystem and the contents of each subsystem required quantization, provide the basis for the design and construction of coal mine permanent refuge chamber.

Hidden sylvatic foci of the main vector of Chagas disease Triatoma infestans: threats to the vector elimination campaign?

BackgroundEstablishing the sources of reinfestation after residual insecticide spraying is crucial for vector elimination programs. Triatoma infestans, traditionally considered to be limited to domestic or peridomestic (abbreviated as D/PD) habitats throughout most of its range, is the target of an elimination program that has achieved limited success in the Gran Chaco region in South America.Methodology/Principal FindingsDuring a two-year period we conducted semi-annual searches for triatomine bugs in every D/PD site and surrounding sylvatic habitats after full-coverage spraying of pyrethroid insecticides of all houses in a well-defined rural area in northwestern Argentina. We found six low-density sylvatic foci with 24 T. infestans in fallen or standing trees located 110–2,300 m from the nearest house or infested D/PD site detected after insecticide spraying, when house infestations were rare. Analysis of two mitochondrial gene fragments of 20 sylvatic specimens confirmed their species identity as T. infestans and showed that their composite haplotypes were the same as or closely related to D/PD haplotypes. Population studies with 10 polymorphic microsatellite loci and wing geometric morphometry consistently indicated the occurrence of unrestricted gene flow between local D/PD and sylvatic populations. Mitochondrial DNA and microsatellite sibship analyses in the most abundant sylvatic colony revealed descendents from five different females. Spatial analysis showed a significant association between two sylvatic foci and the nearest D/PD bug population found before insecticide spraying.ConclusionsOur study shows that, despite of its high degree of domesticity, T. infestans has sylvatic colonies with normal chromatic characters (not melanic morphs) highly connected to D/PD conspecifics in the Argentinean Chaco. Sylvatic habitats may provide a transient or permanent refuge after control interventions, and function as sources for D/PD reinfestation. The occurrence of sylvatic foci of T. infestans in the Gran Chaco may pose additional threats to ongoing vector elimination efforts.

Performance of permanent refuge traps for the assessment of slug populations in pastureland

Surface traps are recommended to monitor slugs in arable crops, but pastureland differs from arable land in many respects and these may affect the performance of sampling methods. Here, we report on the performance of non-baited mat refuge traps, permanently placed at the same position over more than 2 years in four established pastures, for the assessment of slug numbers and biomass, in comparison with soil sampling and flooding over 3 days. Despite the high availability of alternative shelters provided by the vegetation, a great many slugs were captured in the traps over the study period and over a wide range of temperatures recorded under the traps. The catches of slugs in traps and soil samples showed significant positive relationships in terms of numbers and biomass per sample unit and also for the mean weight of the slugs registered in each type of sample, but traps showed a bias towards the larger individuals and underestimated the numbers of smallest slugs of each species (Deroceras reticulatum, Deroceras panormitanum, Deroceras laeve and Arion intermedius). The relationships between the temperature under the traps at the time of collecting and the numbers of trapped slugs were found to be species-dependent. Besides the slugs, abundant slug eggs were regularly found beneath the traps at the four study sites, suggesting that permanent mat traps could be used to provide useful information about oviposition activity of slugs in the field. © 2011 The Authors. Annals of Applied Biology © 2011 Association of Applied Biologists.

Probing Into Design Of Refuge Chamber System In Coal Mine

Put forward the refuge chamber system composed by permanent refuge chamber, temporary refuge chamber and rescue capsule, which are mutually independent and tightly-coupled, to cost-effectively radiate all the areas with mining activities and protect personnel in mine. In addition, in order to promote the development of refuge chamber system in Chinese coal mine, propose some basically design principles of refuge chamber system and describe the arrangement principles and structure characteristics of three kinds of refuge space in the process of underground refuge chamber system design and construction. It is a significant reference for coal mine refuge chamber system construction in China.

The Political Economy of Refugee Migration

Summary This article examines the driving forces of the magnitude, composition and duration of refugee movements caused by conflict and persecution. The decision to seek temporary or permanent refuge in the region of origin or in a more distant asylum destination is based on inter-temporal optimization. We find that asylum seeking in Western countries is rather a phenomenon of comparatively less persecuted people. In an attempt to reduce their respective asylum burdens, Western countries and host countries in the region of origin are likely to end up in a race to the bottom of restrictive asylum policies. Alternatively, this study shows that, under certain circumstances, proactive refugee-related aid transfers are an effective instrument to relieve Western countries from asylum pressure.

Using Museum Collections to Detect Pathogens

To the Editor: Natural history museum collections have evolved in recent years to meet the challenges of current and future interdisciplinary scientific studies. Many natural history museums have built tissue collections and made digital information (e.g., photographs, publications, geographic coordinates) freely available on the Internet. These collections provide endless opportunities to conduct studies, including temporal and spatial surveys of emerging and reemerging pathogens (1). We report an example of a museum collection being useful in detecting Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiologic agent of Chagas disease, in the southern plains woodrat (Neotoma micropus) in southern Texas. This finding is of interest in the epidemiology of Chagas disease because the climatic characteristics and demographics of the region are similar to areas in Latin America where Chagas disease is an important zoonotic agent that infects ≈20 million persons (2). Tissue samples from N. micropus woodrats archived in the Natural Science Research Laboratory at the Museum of Texas Tech University were evaluated for T. cruzi DNA by PCR methods. All samples were originally collected during March 2001–June 2003 from the Chaparral Wildlife Management Area in southern Texas (28o18′N, 99o24′W), 86 km west of the Mexico–US border; some samples had been used previously in other research projects (3). Individual rodents were captured with live traps (n = 13) or by excavating middens in which all the nest occupants were collected by hand (n = 146). Animals were later euthanized and tissue samples (heart, kidney, liver, lung, muscle, spleen) were obtained. Tissues were immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen and permanently stored in ultralow-temperature freezers. We extracted 1 DNA sample from each animal’s liver for use in this survey. DNA amplification was performed by using primers specific to T. cruzi (TCZ1 and TCZ2) (4) under previously standardized conditions and positive controls (5). T. cruzi DNA was detected in 42 (26.4%) of 159 woodrat samples tested. Males were infected significantly more often (31/82) than females (11/73); sex was not determined for 4 individuals (Score test for a binomial proportion, z = –4.0, p<0.01). Adults had a nonsignificant higher prevalence (24/92) than all other individuals in the remaining age categories combined (14/54) (age was not determined for 13 individuals) (Score test for a binomial proportion, z = –0.02, p = 0.98). Middens that harbored infected individuals (n = 28, mean = 1.8) were not significantly (t = 0.79, df = 84, p = 0.43) more populated than middens that harbored uninfected individuals (n = 58, mean = 1.6). Woodrats had been shown by using microscopy to be infected by T. cruzi and T. cruzi–like organisms (6); however, no definitive DNA-based confirmation had been performed (6,7). The results of this research confirm the infection of N. micropus woodrats with T. cruzi and show a higher prevalence than that reported in previous studies that used other diagnostic methods. These results also point to woodrats as a potentially important reservoir of T. cruzi in North America. We hypothesize that the high prevalence is a consequence of the nest-building habits of these rodents. These nests are complexes of dry branches, grasses, and leaves, with a mean diameter of 84 cm, and offer easy access and permanent refuge to triatomine bugs. Woodrats have been found in association with at least 5 triatomine species: Triatoma gerstaeckeri, T. lecticularia, T. neotomae, T. protracta, and T. sanguisuga (8). Another factor for consideration is woodrats’ multigenerational midden use, which may enable the permanent occurrence of triatomine colonies and therefore maintain long-term circulation of T. cruzi. Whereas recent characterizations of North American strains have included isolates from other mammalian reservoir hosts (9), the genotyping of parasites from N. micropus woodrats and other woodrats is still to be done. Despite successful results from tracking pathogens by using material deposited in natural history museum collections (10), this practice is not common. We suggest that natural history museum collections be used more frequently, especially for surveying and genotyping T. cruzi in mammals, because of the importance of such information in clarifying the epidemiology and the evolutionary history of this pathogen.

Breaking Ranks (review)

Breaking Ranks D.B. Jones Breaking Ranks (2006) Written and directed by Michelle Mason. Screen Siren Pictures and The National Film Board of Canada. (www.nfb.ca) 55 minutes. Breaking Ranks is an advocacy documentary, promoting the cause of American military deserters seeking permanent refuge in Canada. The film weaves together portraits of four deserters, in each case using talking-head interviews as the anchor for brief forays into the backgrounds of each soldier. The film also includes brief b-roll sequences from the combat zone, intended to illustrate points made by the soldiers as they explain why they deserted. For all four––three privates and a private first class––their reasons lie in a belief that the United States was wrong to invade Iraq and is doing great harm there. The film includes an extended portrait of a Canadian lawyer, an American expatriate who had fled to Canada during the Vietnam War and is now [End Page 81] working on behalf of current deserters. There are a few briefer scenes showing the deserters interacting with Canadian host families, being interviewed on a radio show, appearing at anti-war rallies, and interacting among themselves. Peppered throughout the film are shots of posters and banners announcing "War Resisters Welcome Here," and the final end-credit invites viewers to find "more information on the war resisters" on a dedicated resisters' website. The film does not argue that the Iraq war is immoral; it takes that as a given. Its central goal is to persuade Canadians that their government should welcome deserters from this war. The film has two interesting arguments available to it. One is that in its recent past—during the Vietnam War––Canada publicly welcomed American draft-dodgers, tens of thousands of whom fled to Canada. The film includes a news clip of Premiere Pierre Trudeau, in the late 1960s, declaring, "Canada should be a refuge from militarism," and the quote appears on a t-shirt for sale at a rally. The second argument, although not so clearly stated, is that Canada should not be afraid to dissent from what it considers to be wrongheaded or immoral American policies, and that providing a refuge for deserters (another term the film prefers to avoid) is a meaningful and even morally obligatory way to demonstrate independence. On this latter point, the film has an interesting lineage. It was co-produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), which in the late 1960s began to issue the occasional film dissenting from and, later, denouncing United States' policies. One of the first to do so, and one most pertinent to Breaking Ranks, was a documentary about Vietnam, Sad Song of Yellow Skin (1970), directed by Michael Rubbo. Until this film was made, NFB documentary projects had to include "Canadian content," and although Rubbo and his crew initially went to Vietnam with the intention to film some Canadian project there, the resulting film had no Canadian content at all. It examined the brutal and debasing effects of the war on the culture and people of Saigon, through intermediary portraits of three young American journalist/volunteers working to ameliorate conditions where they could and sending news stories back to the United States. The film's release was briefly in question because of its anti-war (and therefore arguably anti-American) stance and its lack of Canadian content, but the notion that Canada had a right and duty to comment on world issues regardless of Canadian content arose and prevailed. A further link exists between the Vietnam-based commentary in Sad Song of Yellow Skin and Breaking Ranks. The latter's director, Michelle Mason, has made one previous film, The Friendship Village (2002), which is about an American war veteran's efforts to help establish a facility in Vietnam dedicated to treating children suffering from maladies believed to result from exposure to Agent Orange. Mason's two films, however, compare unfavorably to Sad Song of Yellow Skin. Sad Song of Yellow Skin is as cinematic as a documentary can be, rich in emotionally powerful and challenging, surprising, unexpected material. While The Friendship Village and Breaking Ranks include heart-rending shots of suffering children, the children are...