Critical Junctions

The 'cultural turn' has been a multifarious and pervasive phenomenon in Western universities and modes of social knowledge since the early 1980s. This work focuses on the conjunction of two disciplines where the analytic promises of humanist and social science approaches soon become obvious.

"A book about theory and method in the humanities and social sciences. It reacts to what has become known as the "cultural turn," a shift toward semiotics, discourse, and representations and away from other sorts of determinations that started in the early 1980s and that has dominated social thinking for a long string of years. The book is based in a reconsideration of the meeting of two disciplines that helped to launch the cultural turn: anthropology and history. Specifically, it criticizes the ideas of hermeneutics and "thick description" (Clifford Geertz) that have come to play a key role in the encounter of anthropology and history and then in the cultural turn. It led to the renewed cherishing of what Gupta and Ferguson have called paradigms of "peoples and places," saturated pictures of universes, both small and large, of meaning ina more of less frozen standstill-an intellectual precursor to the cultural xenophobia of our times. Against this, the present book embraces praxis and "critical junctions": the connections in space (in and out of a relations of power and dependency, and what Eric Wolf has called the "interstitial relations" between apparently separate institutional domains. In this way the book adds to the current revival of institutionally based "global ethnography," which studies "up and outward" (the journal of Ethnography is a good example)."--Preface

This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date description of the Josephson effect, a topic of never-ending interest in both fundamental and applied physics. In this volume, world-renowned experts present the unique aspects of the physics of the Josephson effect, resulting from the use of new materials, of hybrid architectures and from the possibility of realizing nanoscale junctions. These new experimental capabilities lead to systems where novel coherent phenomena and transport processes emerge. All this is of great relevance and impact, especially when combined with the didactic approach of the book. The reader will benefit from a general and modern view of coherent phenomena in weakly-coupled superconductors on a macroscopic scale. Topics that have been only recently discussed in specialized papers and in short reviews are described here for the first time and organized in a general framework. An important section of the book is also devoted to applications, with focus on long-term, future applications. In addition to a significant number of illustrations, the book includes numerous tables for comparative studies on technical aspects.

This book, featuring the most comprehensive treatment of Josephson junctions ever published, describes superconductor/two-dimensional-electron-gas (2DEG) structures, providing a better understanding of their transport properties. It also discusses the control of junctions using gate electrodes or injection currents, and the physical effects observed in these junctions.

This book summarizes the history and present status and applications of Josephson junctions. These devices are leading elements in superconducting electronics and provide state-of-the-art performance in detection of small magnetic fields and currents, in several digital computing methods, and in medical diagnostic devices and now provide voltage standards used worldwide. Astronomical infrared (IR) telescopes, including the South Pole Telescope, use these junctions in combinations called superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs).

There has been a dramatic increase in knowledge of tight junctions in the past decade. The molecular structure of tight junctions, cellular functions and the pathophysiological roles of tight junctions are becoming clear. Of the most important functions, the role of the cellular structure in cancer spread and drug delivery are increasingly realised. It is now clear that there are fundamental changes to tight junctions during the process of cancer development. Tight junctions are also critical to the metastatic process of cancer cells. The cellular structure is also crucial in drug therapies, namely, the permeability and bioavailability of the drugs, penetration of barriers such as the blood brain barrier. This current volume aims to summarise the current knowledge of tight junctions, their role in cancer and cancer metastasis and is of interest to scientists and clinicians.

This monograph offers a detailed description of the statistics, dynamics and statics of Josephson junctions. Particular emphasis is placed on the dynamics of new circuits and analog and digital devices using single quanta of magnetic flux.

This e-book will review special features of the cerebral circulation and how they contribute to the physiology of the brain. It describes structural and functional properties of the cerebral circulation that are unique to the brain, an organ with high metabolic demands and the need for tight water and ion homeostasis. Autoregulation is pronounced in the brain, with myogenic, metabolic and neurogenic mechanisms contributing to maintain relatively constant blood flow during both increases and decreases in pressure. In addition, unlike peripheral organs where the majority of vascular resistance resides in small arteries and arterioles, large extracranial and intracranial arteries contribute significantly to vascular resistance in the brain. The prominent role of large arteries in cerebrovascular resistance helps maintain blood flow and protect downstream vessels during changes in perfusion pressure. The cerebral endothelium is also unique in that its barrier properties are in some way more like epithelium than endothelium in the periphery. The cerebral endothelium, known as the blood-brain barrier, has specialized tight junctions that do not allow ions to pass freely and has very low hydraulic conductivity and transcellular transport. This special configuration modifies Starling's forces in the brain microcirculation such that ions retained in the vascular lumen oppose water movement due to hydrostatic pressure. Tight water regulation is necessary in the brain because it has limited capacity for expansion within the skull. Increased intracranial pressure due to vasogenic edema can cause severe neurologic complications and death.

The field of high-temperature superconductivity has encouraged an inter disciplinary approach to research. It has required significant cooperation and collaboration among researchers, each of whom has brought to it a rich variety of experience from many other fields. Recently, great improvements have been made in the quality of research. The subject has matured and been launched into the next stage through the resonance between science and technology. The current progress of materials processing and engineering in this field is analogous to that previously seen in the development of semiconductors. These include the appearance of materials taking the place of YBa2Cu307 owing to their improved properties (higher critical temperatures and stronger flux pin ning) in which rare earth ions with large radii (La, Nd, Sm) substitute for Y; the development of technology enabling growth control on the nanometer scale; and precise and reproducible measurements that can be used as rigorous tests of theoretical models, which in turn are expected to lead to the develop ment of new devices. For further progress in high-T research, academics and c technologists must pool their knowledge and experience. I hope that this volume will promote that goal by providing the reader with the latest results of high-temperature superconductor research and will stimulate further discussion and collaboration.