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Across the globe, women are struggling to overcome social and cultural confines, while creating new opportunities for their gender, by becoming leaders in research and career fields from which they have been historically excluded. This afterword responds to and builds upon contributors' trenchant articles that highlight social, economic, and technological changes that women are making across cultures. Many women are still battling to gain basic human rights. Accordingly, researchers featured in this special issue bring attention to the inequalities that still exist for women worldwide while raising questions about how new shifts toward extreme conservatism and nationalism may impact women's rights in the near future. As puzzled over by post-development scholars such as Ong, Hoogvelt and Sassen, in this era of neoliberalism it is now often difficult to decipher programs and organizations that are truly working toward positive changes for women in the developing world from those that are focused on their own self-interests. Throughout history, governmental and social structures have been designed to favor men, but women are now finding ways to make their voices heard through innovatively taking advantage of new communication technologies in both the developing and developed world. We join with contributors in highlighting women's tremendous investment in change, discussing issues of gender and technology, as well as the work being done by women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. The contributors maintain that in order to create more opportunities for women, progressive researchers, policy-makers and activists must continue to collaborate connecting substantively to the struggles of women for a better life while working toward interdisciplinary solutions that address the ongoing inequalities that constrain their present and future circumstances.

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This article draws on ethnographic research that examines the contemporary articulation of class identity in the postcolonial elite school setting of Old College high school in Barbados. From the qualitative data derived from this study, we argue that social class is better conceived as a series of flows, mutations, performances and performatives. We complicate the common-sense notion that class is a stable structure that allows for the categorization of people by providing a nuanced look into the lived experiences of students and alumni at this elite school. We focus on the wearing of uniforms, the use of technological devices, the deployment of language, and student-lead articulations of social class in an increasingly globalized space. Class is defined and (re-)shaped by students' belongings and longings, all of which, too, are, mutable, and can readily mutate in accordance with local and global circumstances of supply and demand.

O-Linked attachment of β-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) on serine and threonine residues of nuclear, cytoplasmic, and mitochondrial proteins is a highly dynamic and ubiquitous post-translational modification that impacts the function, activity, subcellular localization, and stability of target proteins. Physiologically, acute O-GlcNAcylation serves primarily to modulate cellular signaling and transcription regulatory pathways in response to nutrients and stress. To date, thousands of proteins have been revealed to be O-GlcNAcylated and this number continues to grow as the technology for the detection of O-GlcNAc improves. The attachment of a single O-GlcNAc is catalyzed by the enzyme O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT), and their removal is catalyzed by O-GlcNAcase (OGA). O-GlcNAcylation is regulated by the metabolism of glucose via the hexosamine biosynthesis pathway, and the metabolic abnormalities associated with pathophysiological conditions are all associated with increased flux through this pathway and elevate O-GlcNAc levels. While chronic O-GlcNAcylation is well associated with cardiovascular dysfunction, only until recently, and with genetically modified animals, has O-GlcNAcylation as a contributing mechanism of cardiovascular disease emerged. This review will address and critically evaluate the current literature on the role of O-GlcNAcylation in vascular physiology, with a view that this pathway can offer novel targets for the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND The resolution of inflammation is an active phenomenon important for switching off inflammatory processes once the harmful stimuli are removed and facilitate the return to homeostasis. Specialized pro-resolving mediators (SPMs), such as lipoxin A4, resolvin D1, and resolvin E1, derived from ω-3 or ω-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, are crucial for the resolution of inflammation. We hypothesized that SPMs are decreased in hypertension which contributes to the acetylcholine-induced contraction in resistance arteries, which are well known to be mediated by leukotrienes and prostaglandins. Moreover, treatment with SPMs will decrease this contraction via formyl peptide receptor-2 (FPR-2) in resistance arteries from spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). METHODS AND RESULTS We performed a comprehensive eicosanoid lipid panel analysis, and our data showed for the first time that precursors of SPMs are decreased in SHR, limiting the production of SPMs and resolution of inflammation in vivo. This phenomenon was associated with an increase in lipid peroxidation in resistance arteries. Although SPMs did not abolish acetylcholine-induced contraction, these lipid mediators improved endothelial function in arteries from SHR via FPR-2 activation at nanomolar concentrations. SPMs also buffered TNF-α-induced reactive oxygen species generation in endothelial cells from C57Bl/6 mice. CONCLUSIONS We suggest that FPR-2 and SPMs could be revealed as a new target or therapeutic agent to improve vascular function in arteries from hypertensive rats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her book, "Neoliberalism as Exception," Aihwa Ong usefully observes that the North American university has been dirempted from it historical role of preparing young people for democratic citizenship. It has instead, according to Ong, become the great global marketplace and grand bazaar for international students' ambitions. In what follows, we draw on Ong's insights. Specifically, we report on a global ethnographic study that looks at the way in which six form students (whom we are calling the "Argonauts") in two Barbadian elite schools--Old Cloisters and Ardent Arbors--are orienting themselves to the future in a moment of aggressive recruiting by North American universities. These developments bring students' global imaginations into profound tension with historical narratives and traditions linking these schools to England. This new context is epitomised by the transactions between the students and international college representatives at an annual international college fair that brings North American recruiters to the island in search of academic talent. We document this encounter at some length, pointing to the collision between the students' roiling ambitions and the schools' deep sense of heritage and tradition linked to the metropolitan paradigm of British public school traditions.

In this article, the authors situate race within the context of a discussion of globalization, neoliberalism and the class conquest of the city, focusing attention particularly on how developments associated with these dynamic processes present us with new philosophical and practical challenges to addressing the topic of racial antagonism within the school and the university in the new century. Specifically, the article is formulated against the backdrop of important changes in social, economic and cultural dynamics taking place on a global scale--dynamics which have as profound implications for racial affiliation and "its" cultural and social uses in the new century as "they" have for the organization of knowledge in schooling and in the university.

The article "To err, KIR2 that is, on the side of vasodilation in aging" examines the impact of aging on the cardiovascular system, specifically focusing on cerebral blood flow and vascular function in the brain microcirculation. The study investigates the role of endothelial inwardly rectifying K+ channels (KIR2) and purinergic receptors (P2Y) in intracerebral parenchymal arterioles (PAs) in aged mice. The authors find that aging is associated with deficits in endothelial-dependent hyperpolarization and increased myogenic responses in PAs, potentially leading to decreased cerebral perfusion. The study suggests potential mechanisms and therapeutic targets for age-related pathologies. [Extracted from the article]

The article presents the discussion on notions of the human and less than human coming to be leveraged in the mobilisation of discourses and practices of conviviality in schools and society. Topics include conviviality taking up as a practice of modern governmentality and relating to race, ethnicity, gender, or religion in school and society; and curating a series of articles investigating the dynamic relations between educative practices instituted through schools.

This article addresses the turbulent relationship that British cultural studies scholars have with the concepts of "class" and "tradition" and the problematic status of these key terms within the cultural studies literature. The authors maintain, in part, that these concepts have been deployed within a center-periphery thesis and a field-bound ethnographic framework by cultural studies scholars pursuing a sub-cultural studies approach. Within this framework, "Britishness" has been the silent organizing principle defining metropolitan working-class traditions and forms of cultural resistance. British cultural studies proponents have therefore pursued the study of class and culture as a localized, nation-bound set of interests. This has placed cultural studies in tension with post-colonial subjectivities. The authors write against the grain of the textual production of the working class within cultural studies scholarship, insisting that recent films and literary works offer a more complex story of class identities in the age of globalization and transnationalism.

This paper deals with the discourses related to race and anti-racism in a social sciences textbook for grade 12 Ontario students that was published in 2002. It is argued that the complexities of race and anti-racism are not dealt with systematically and cohesively. The textbook does not adequately address the topics of race and racism within the present Canadian social structure, leaving the discussion of complex and controversial ideas concerning race and racism virtually unexplored. In addition, the opportunity to make use of current scholarly work has been ignored or distorted. This is particularly important in light of recent developments regarding the impact of September 11, and the ensuing "war on terror" and the changing dynamic of race relations in North America. (Contains 7 notes.)

This article is written against the backdrop of deepening xenophobia and ethnic absolutism (forms of "racial cruelty") that have come to dominate human relations between individuals and groups worldwide in the new millennium. Cameron McCarthy argues that these tendencies towards ethnic absolutism and ethnic essentialism have their counterparts in schooling, where debates over identity and the curriculum in the educational field have been clouded by ethnic particularism and dogmatism with enormous consequences for contemporary school youth and their teachers. As an alternative frame of reference, McCarthy attempts to theorize his autobiographical journey from his inauguration in postcolonial education in the British Caribbean and his ultimate displacement to the academy in the United States. McCarthy writes about race relationships in education from the viewpoint of radical instabilities that inform our understanding of identity and subjectivity. He uses the term "radical instability" to underline the expiration of old forms of knowledge about race centered on unreflexive, quantitative, behavioral and fixed strands in social science and education. In doing so, he seeks to offer new understandings of race relationships, which are always contextualized and immersed in forms of experience that exceed the more orthodox academic canon and mainstream curriculum organization, experience and interpretation.

In this essay, the authors join with an emergent set of voices shifting intellectual focus to postcolonial carnivalesque practices. Here, they refer to writers such as Paget Henry (2000), Hommi Babha (1994), Michael Dash (1990), Sandra Drake (1989), and Russell McDougall (1989). The authors are particularly interested in the carnivalesque as manifested in the literary works of third world writers and the extent to which the carnivalesque discourse within third world fiction is an enabling system of representation that generates a new, subaltern subjectivity at the epicenter of the novel form. They use as an exemplar of these developments the work of the Guyanese novelist, Wilson Harris. They discuss his novels "Carnival," "Palace of the Peacock," and "Companions of the Day and Night"--three novels that herald the age of multiplicity that now defines the terms of existence for modern subjects attempting to negotiate contemporary social institutions such as schooling. Contemporary school practice seems paralyzed when confronted with the new developments in world cultures toward hybridity, falling back, instead, on a default curriculum that privileges monoculturalism or a diluted form of multiculturalism. These dominant curriculum models preserve the imperialist disciplinary core of the organization of school knowledge and pedagogy. The carnivalesque postcolonial writing of novelists such as Harris offers pedagogues new models of thoughtfulness that challenge the tendency toward intellectual isolationism and cultural insularity in the educational enterprise.

Draws on articles in this special issue to find implications for educators of developments in popular culture, cultural globalization, and electronic images. Addresses questions concerning the reproduction of culture, identity, and community within contemporary educational debates. (Contains 48 references.) (Author/SK)

Discusses Henry Giroux's, Alan Block's, and John Devine's differing viewpoints on how cultural incorporation and routinization of schooling undermine its capacity to address the needs of contemporary youth. They all maintain that schooling has become a site of symbolic and physical violence which students experience in multiple ways. The paper examines their writings on popular culture, violence, and schooling. (SM)

An editorial is presented on the key strand of this continuing contest over the sutured symbols of modern life in America, and the persistent radicalized conditions of Black and Brown people within it, that Floyd's death and the protest over it have provoked. Specifically, we focus on what the struggle over specialization that the declaration of the sanctuary space of the recently declared Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington D.C., right in front of the White House makes plain.

Examines three U.S. versions of multicultural education: (1) cultural understanding (teaching to promote appreciation of ethnic differences); (2) cultural competence (bilingual education); and (3) cultural emancipation (inclusion of minority culture in the curriculum). Argues that differences among the approaches have implications for race relations and the role of education in the United States. (SG)