Mobility, white bodies and desire: Euro-American women in Jakarta

This paper illustrates how cultural logics of desire are being transformed in the context of the global economy refashioning intimate lives. Exploring the experiences of Euro-American female professionals in Jakarta, it suggests that they become uncomfortably visible as ‘white bodies’; their desirability appears compromised, especially given Orientalist discourses which valorise Asian women's bodies. At the same time, women's position as well-paid employees generates a contradictory logic of desire: the ‘ego-boost’ they experience at work may intensify their demands on the masculinity and enlightened views of potential partners, thus rendering Indonesian men, with their perceived bodily effeminacy and ‘traditional values’ unattractive. As one response to the lack of desirability, some women engage in a moral discourse that casts Indonesian women whom they consider ‘bargirls’, as well as the Euro-American men they attract, as morally deficient. The paper thus provides an alternative perspective on reconfigurations of desire in the context of global gendered mobility

Development of seal ring carbon-graphite materials, Tasks 1 and 2

Seal ring carbon-graphite materials for aircraft gas turbine

Aid work as moral labour

This paper argues that some of the engagements and practices of international aid workers can be productively understood as forms of moral labour. Taking Hardt’s concept of ‘immaterial labour’ (1999) as a point of reference, the paper examines the moral practices that aid workers engage in the course of their work and personal lives. Much of the relevant literature focuses on the humanitarian imperative – that is, the implied moral responsibility of better-off nations and individuals to assist others in need. Less extensively, some development literature has adopted the understanding of aid and development assistance in moral frameworks of the gift, or ‘doing good’. What happens, though, in terms of experienced and practiced moralities in the concrete situations and scenarios generated by such helping imperatives? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among aid workers in Cambodia, the paper examines some of the perhaps inevitable moral entanglements which these workers find themselves in, and have to negotiate. The analytical benefits of framing these efforts as ‘moral labour’ include a broadened understanding of how morality matters in aid beyond the helping imperative, as well as a recognition that the significance of this labour does not rest on products that may result from it, but lies in the performance of the labour itself

Development of seal ring carbon-graphite materials (tasks 3 and 4)

Thermal, chemical, and wear properties of carbon-graphite seal ring materials at air temperature to 1300

Sequence-specific fluorescence detection of DNA by polyamide-thiazole orange conjugates

Fluorescent methods to detect specific double-stranded DNA sequences without the need for denaturation may be useful in the field of genetics. Three hairpin pyrrole-imidazole polyamides 2-4 that target their respective sequences 5'-WGGGWW-3', 5'-WGGCCW-3', and 5'-WGWWCW-3' (W = A or T) were conjugated to thiazole orange dye at the C-termini to examine their fluorescence properties in the presence and absence of match duplex DNA. The conjugates fluoresce weakly in the absence of DNA but showed significant enhancement (>1000-fold) upon the addition of 1 equiv of match DNA and only slight enhancement with the addition of mismatch DNA. The polyamide-dye conjugates bound specific DNA sequences with high affinity (Ka > 10(8) M(-1)) and unwound the DNA duplex through intercalation (unwinding angle, phi, approximately 8 degrees). This new class of polyamides provides a method to specifically detect DNA sequences without denaturation

Design of a sequence-specific DNA bisintercalator

Programmable bisintercalators: Symmetric synthetic DNA bisintercalators (see picture) based on the H-pin polyamide motif afford high affinity and programmable sequence specificity

A Novel Method of Extending Glaucoma Drainage Tube: "Tube-in-Tube" Technique

PURPOSE: To describe a new and simple technique of glaucoma tube extension that carries several advantages over previously described techniques. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A retrospective noncomparative case series of 3 patients (1 adult and 2 pediatric cases) with glaucoma tube retraction managed by the "tube-in-tube" technique. The follow-up duration ranges from 1 month to 3 years. RESULTS: Adequate tube position and length were seen in all cases throughout the follow-up period. No tube migration was seen. The intraocular pressures were significantly reduced and maintained in all cases. There was no visual loss as a result of the procedure. CONCLUSIONS: This new "tube-in-tube" glaucoma drainage device tube extension technique is safe and simple to perform, and has many advantages over previously reported techniques. It can be used in both the adult and pediatric glaucoma population, and is not limited to the type of drainage implants