Diasporic Agents and Trans-Asian Flows in the Making of Asian Modernity: The Case of Thailand

How do our everyday actions shape and transform the world economy? This volume of original essays argues that current scholarship in international political economy (IPE) is too highly focused on powerful states and large international institutions. The contributors examine specific forms of â everyday' actions to demonstrate how small-scale actors and their decisions can shape the global economy. They analyse a range of seemingly ordinary or subordinate actors, including peasants, working classes and trade unions, lower-middle and middle classes, female migrant labourers and Eastern diasporas, and examine how they have agency in transforming their political and economic environments. This book offers a novel way of thinking about everyday forms of change across a range of topical issues including globalisation, international finance, trade, taxation, consumerism, labour rights and regimes. It will appeal to students and scholars of politics, international relations, political economy and sociology.

British Double Agents and Operation Fortitude: A New Perspective

On June 6th, 1944, Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy as a part of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of France. While they experienced pockets of stiff resistance, Allied troops sustained far fewer casualties than they had expected. The reason for this was due to Operation Fortitude, a deception mission that intended to fool Hitler about the time and location of the Allied invasion mission. The use of double agents by British Intelligence services was essential for the effective execution of Fortitude. The story of the double agents goes beyond their success during Fortitude. Double agents were initially recruited as German agents, but key agents immediately turned themselves in to British authorities upon reaching the nation. These agents decided to become involved with British Intelligence due to broader circumstances that were happening in Europe. The emergence of Fascist regimes disrupted the political landscape of Europe and led to widespread condemnation from political and social spheres. Their development as double agents became crucial to their effectiveness during Operation Fortitude. Their successful infiltration of German Intelligence allowed them to convince Hitler and German High Command that the main Allied invasion force would come at the Pas de Calais instead of Normandy. The result was that the Allies met an unprepared German defense force on D-Day and were able to advance past the beaches. The work of the double agents during Fortitude saved thousands of Allied lives and was vital to the success of Operation Overlord.

Anti-AIDS agents 81. Design, synthesis, and structure-activity relationship study of betulinic acid and moronic acid derivatives as potent HIV maturation inhibitors.

In our continuing study of triterpene derivatives as potent anti-HIV agents, different C-3 conformationally restricted betulinic acid (BA, 1) derivatives were designed and synthesized in order to explore the conformational space of the C-3 pharmacophore. 3-O-Monomethylsuccinyl-betulinic acid (MSB) analogues were also designed to better understand the contribution of the C-3' dimethyl group of bevirimat (2), the first-in-class HIV maturation inhibitor, which is currently in phase IIb clinical trials. In addition, another triterpene skeleton, moronic acid (MA, 3), was also employed to study the influence of the backbone and the C-3 modification toward the anti-HIV activity of this compound class. This study enabled us to better understand the structure-activity relationships (SAR) of triterpene-derived anti-HIV agents and led to the design and synthesis of compound 12 (EC(50): 0.0006 microM), which displayed slightly better activity than 2 as a HIV-1 maturation inhibitor.