Network analysis of Diagnostic Medical Device Development for Infectious Diseases Prevalent in South Africa

Infectious diseases are a major health concern in South Africa and many other developing countries. The local development of medical devices for infectious diseases in such settings, utilizing the local knowledge base, has the potential to improve the accuracy of and access to diagnoses and to lead to the devices being more context-appropriate and affordable. The aim of this project was to examine the landscape of diagnostic medical device development targeting infectious diseases prevalent in South Africa for the period 2000-2016, particularly with regard to collaboration between institutions in different sectors and the contributions of different collaborators. Such knowledge would be beneficial to future technological and policy developments aimed at improving access to diagnostic services and treatment in the South African context. Collaboration across four sectors was considered: university, hospital, industry and science councils and facilities. A bibliometric analysis was performed, and publications documenting medical device development for diagnosis of infectious diseases were extracted. Co-authorship of the journal and conference articles was used as a proxy for collaboration across organisations. Affiliation data extracted from the publications were used to generate a collaboration network. Netdraw, a network visualisation tool, was used to visualize the network, and network metrics such as degree centrality, betweenness centrality and closeness centrality, as well as group density measures, were produced using UCINET software. The collaboration network and the network metrics were used to determine which organisations have collaborated and which collaborators have played the most active and influential roles in diagnostic device development. The university sector was found to make the largest contribution to the development of diagnostic medical devices in South Africa, and also played a key role in transmitting information throughout the network due to its high frequency of connections to other organisations. The most prevalent type of inter-sectoral collaboration was between universities and science councils and facilities, while universities were found to collaborate most amongst themselves with regard to intrasectoral collaboration. Foreign organisations played a prominent role in diagnostic device development between 2012 and 2016. Tuberculosis was the most prevalent infectious disease in diagnostic device development research, and computer-aided detection was a common feature of research on diagnostic device development

The Implementation, Application and Effects of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Information Society. CEPS Special Report No. 120, 19 November 2015

This study provides an ex-post evaluation of the EU copyright framework as provided by EU Directive 29/2001 on Copyright in the Information Society (InfoSoc Directive) and related legislation, focusing on four key criteria: effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and relevance. The evaluation finds that the EU copyright framework scores poorly on all four accounts. Of the four main goals pursued by the InfoSoc, only the alignment with international legislation can be said to have been fully achieved. The wider framework on copyright still generates costs by inhibiting content production, distribution and creation and generating productive, allocative and dynamic inefficiencies. Several problems also remain in terms of both internal and external coherence. Finally, espite its overall importance and relevance as a domain of legislation in the fields of content and media, the EU copyright framework is outdated in light of technological developments. Policy options to reform the current framework are provided in the CEPS companion study on the functioning and efficiency of the Digital Single Market in the field of copyright (CEPS Special Report No. 121/November 2015)

DRAMATIC ARCHITECTURES. THEATRE AND PERFORMING ARTS IN MOTION

This work was funded by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., within the project UIDB/04041/2020 (Centro de Estudos Arnaldo Araújo).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Alegría rebelde and performance (c)art: A comparative (auto)ethnography of contemporary absurd performance practice amongst activists and socially committed artists in Buenos Aires and New York City

This is an interdisciplinary study of contemporary absurd performance practice amongst activists and socially committed artists in Buenos Aires and New York City primarily informed by sixteen months of comparative ethnographic fieldwork. It centrally seeks to identify the motivations that drive different absurd performance practices amongst activists and socially committed artists across different socio-political contexts. Following a brief, signposting introduction and outline of the key collectives worked with during fieldwork, this thesis begins with a consideration of how to define ‘the absurd’ and ‘absurd performance’. The new theoretical framework of pragmatic absurdo-anarchism is proposed via combined contemplation of absurdist metaphysical philosophy and anarchist political philosophy in continual conversation with both my personal autoethnographic performance experimentation and reflection upon my ethnographic observations of others in Buenos Aires and New York City. From here, a new definition of absurd performance is outlined centering upon exaggerated counter-normative transgression. Elaborating upon the insights of growing literature concerning direct ‘tactical performance’ (Bogad, 2016a; Shepard, 2011; Duncombe, 2016) in relation to my ethnographic data, the counterpoint of more oblique supra-tactical performance is conceptualized, as is a spectrum of (supra)tactical absurd performance possibilities between these two ideal types. An account of my comparative ethnographic methodology and how it contributes fresh insight to the study of this topic and to Performance Studies more broadly is followed by a distillation of the key cultural and political characteristics of Buenos Aires and New York City that were observed to be influential upon absurd performance practices. Reporting and analysis of ethnographic data is then split into two primary sections. The first substantiates earlier theoretical claims by exploring the ideological underpinnings of different (supra)tactical orientations of absurd performance between those defining as activists and those defining as artists in each fieldsite. The second illustrates how the particular socio-political histories and actualities of Buenos Aires and New York City differently restrict and enable different forms of absurd performance. Here the need is outlined for further cross-cultural research on this topic in order to continue to fill the gaps in knowledge left behind by the ethnocentric over-concentration on Western activist case studies within the currently dominant academic literature

The role of chronotype in the participation and performance of South African and Dutch marathon runners

Includes bibliographical references.Introduction: Our circadian rhythms are internal biological rhythms of approximately (circa) 24 - hours (dies) allowing us to synchronize our internal biological “clock” with external time cues. Many innate biological functions are dependent on time-of-day, such as secreting adrenaline and cortisol in the mornings and melatonin in the evenings. The time-of-day at which these and other physiological functions are active, change or reach a certain level may influence a person’s diurnal preference, i.e. preference for mornings (morning-types) or evenings (evening-types), and is referred to as ‘chronotype’. Many different factors may affect a person’s chronotype, including age, sex, physical activity, ethnicity and geographical location. Certain clock-related genotypes have also been shown to be associated with chronotype. For example, some studies have found that the 5-repeat allele of the PER3 variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) polymorphism (PER35) is associated with a preference for mornings. Recent research has shown a high prevalence of morning-types and PER35VNTR allele carriers in trained South African runners, cyclists and triathletes. It was proposed that the early morning start-times of these endurance events might select people with a preference for mornings, since morning-types may cope better with rising early and being physically active in the early morning. Alternatively, the habitual early waking for training or endurance events may have conditioned the athletes to adapt to become morning-types. However, the geographical location of South Africa (i.e. climate and day length) and the fact that each group was physically active may also have contributed to this finding. Comparison of South African and Dutch runners would allow us to explore the effects of race start time and geography on this observation, since marathons in The Netherlands on average start at 11:41, and since the two countries differ significantly in latitude and as such have noticeable differences in daylight exposure. Aims: The aims of this study were 1) to compare the PER3VNTR genotype and chronotype distribution of South African and Dutch recreational marathon runners and active but non-competitive controls; 2) to investigate the relationship between the PER3VNTR genotype and chronotype in both the Dutch and South African samples; and 3) to determine whether marathon race time is associated with chronotype and PER3VNTR genotype in Dutch and South African marathon Methods: Ninety-five trained South African male marathon runners, 97 South African male active but non-competitive controls, 90 trained Dutch male marathon runners and 98 Dutch male active but non-competitive controls completed a questionnaire capturing demographics, training and race history, including personal best and most recent full and half-marathon race time (if applicable) and the Horne-Östberg morningness-eveningness personality questionnaire (HÖ-MEQ, a tool to assess a person’s chronotype). Each participant provided a buccal cell swab from with total genomic DNA was extracted to determine his PER3VNTR polymorphism genotype. The official race time from each runner who completed the designated marathons in South Africa or the Netherlands was collected from the event websites. Results: The South African and Dutch runners were more morning-orientated than their respective control groups and the South African runners were more morning-orientated than the Dutch runners. The PER3 VNTR polymorphism distribution was similar between the four groups and was not associated with chronotype. The marathon performance of the morning-type South African runners was better than the evening-types, and a higher HÖ-MEQ score (morningness) correlated with better personal best and most recent half-marathon race time. Similar observations were not found in the Dutch runners. Discussion: Since a higher prevalence of morning-types in South African marathon runners compared to Dutch marathon runners was found, it is proposed that the early marathon start-times in South Africa may favour morning-types, who are able to cope with those early morning start times. Alternatively, one could argue that through repetitive early-morning racing (i.e. participating in competitive running events), the chronotype of South African runners may be conditioned to that of a morning-type over time. It is proposed that this ability to cope with early morning marathon start times may lead to better marathon performances for morning-types than neither-types and evening-types in the South African running group. This effect does not occur in the Netherlands, where marathons start later in the morning and do thus not favour a certain chronotype. The difference in daylight exposure between the two countries as a function of latitude does not seem to affect chronotype, since the active but non-competitive control groups did not differ significantly between South Africa and the Netherlands. Unlike the findings from a previous study, the PER35allele was not more prevalent among the South African runners, but rather the distribution wasi n line with what has been described in most, but not all, other populations. No association between the PER35VNTR xpolymorphism and chronotype was found in any of the four groups. Since the four groups investigated in this study comprised physically active individuals, it is proposed that this lack of association may be due to the habituation effects of physical activity and early morning start times of marathon events(for only the South African runners). Conceivably,this habituation may even shift the diurnal preference of those with the PER34/5 and PER34/4VNTR genotypes towards morningness, disassociating any relationship between chronotype and the PER3VNTR genotype. Conclusion: The early morning start time of South African marathon events may favour morning-types, due to their ability to cope with being physically active in the early morning. We propose that the PER3VNTR genotype cannot solely explain the higher prevalence of morning-types in the South African runners in this study, however, it is very likely that the PER3VNTR genotype does play an important role in the chronotype distributions found in the study of Kunorozva et al.(2012). Since the PER3VNTR genotype was not associated with chronotype in any of the four groups, it is proposed that habituation to early-morning marathon racing may be the causal effect of the high number of morning-types in the South African runners group, and the apparent disassociation between chronotype and the PER3VNTR genotype. We also propose that the habituation effect of physical activity and training time-of-day on chronotype in the other groups may dissociate the PER3VNTR genotype with chronotype in a similar manner to which the early-morning start times of South African endurance events dissociates the two. No effect of geographical location on chronotype was found when comparing the Dutch and the South African groups. The morning-orientated South African runners seem to perform better in marathon running than the more evening-orientated runners do, which may be caused by their ability to cope with these early-morning marathon events. Further studies may explore whether marathon performance in later chronotypes can be improved by training-based habituation

Film Dialogue Translation And The Intonation Unit : Towards Equivalent Effect In English And Chinese

This thesis proposes a new approach to film dialogue translation (FDT) with special reference to the translation process and quality of English-to-Chinese dubbing. In response to the persistent translation failures that led to widespread criticism of dubbed films and TV plays in China for their artificial \u27translation talk\u27, this study provides a pragmatic methodology derived from the integration of the theories and analytical systems of information flow in the tradition of the functionalist approach to speech and writing with the relevant theoretical and empirical findings from TS and other related branches of linguistics. It has developed and validated a translation model (FITNIATS) which makes the intonation unit (IU) the central unit of film dialogue translation. Arguing that any translation which treats dubbing as a simple script-to-script process, without transferring the prosodic properties of the spoken words into the commensurate functions of TL, is incomplete, the thesis demonstrates that, in order to reduce confusion and loss of meaning/rhythm, the SL dialogue should be rendered in the IUs with the stressed syllables well-timed in TL to keep the corresponding information foci in sync with the visual message. It shows that adhering to the sentence-to-sentence formula as the translation metastrategy with the information structure of the original film dialogue permuted can result in serious stylistic as well as communicative problems. Five key theoretical issues in TS are addressed in the context of FDT, viz., the relations between micro-structure and macro-structure translation perspectives, foreignizing vs. domesticating translation, the unit of translation, the levels of translation equivalence and the criteria for evaluating translation quality. lf equivalent effect is to be achieved in all relevant dimensions, it is argued that \u27FITness criteria\u27 need to be met in film translation assessment, and four such criteria arc proposed. This study demonstrates that prosody and word order, as sensitive indices of the information flow which occurs in film dialogue through the creation and perception of meaning, can provide a basis for minimizing cross-linguistic discrepancies and compensating for loss of the FIT functions, especially where conflicts arise between the syntactic and/or medium constraints and the adequate transfer of cultural-specific content and style. The implications of the model for subtitling arc also made explicit

Towards sustainable logistics and supply chain management

The 27th annual NOFOMA Conference in Molde, Norway, 3-5 June 2015, was hosted by Molde University College in Cooperation With NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The Post Conference Proceedings consists of papers from the conference proceedings for which the author(s) have granted the copyright to NOFOMA 2015 as a part of the Nordic Logistics Research Network

'Dancing With Handcuffs and Shackles': How Product Placement Is Adopted By the Chinese Film Industry.

Abstract This PhD researches the role of product placement in modern Chinese cinema, exploring the shifting discourses and textually-specific practices that are unique to the practice of product placement within the Chinese film industry. Existing studies have focused almost exclusively on the Hollywood film industry, and have analysed product placement in terms of its effectiveness with audiences, and as a potential influence on consumer behaviour, often from a psychological or marketing viewpoint. This study approaches product placement from industrial and textual perspectives, more interested in the process of product placement in film production: how trade press reports, state and industry discourse, and practitioner commentary, frames product placement within the Chinese film experience. Therefore, this is a shift from work on the consequences of product placement, or simplistic notions of good/bad product placement, to an investigation of the discursive and textual strategies used by the Chinese film industry when using product placement in modern film production. This allows the thesis to focus on how the Chinese industry offers an illusion of serving the public, able to use its expertise to position product placement as what an assumed audience wants. Examining different players in product placement deals such as film producers, product placement agencies, brand companies, and the Chinese government, also allows the study to consider the shifting hierarchies of expertise and power. Within this, the study identifies and analyses two specific power relationships: state vs film industry, and creativity vs commercialisation. Alongside industrial commentary, the study examines the textual status of product placement through close mise-en-scène analysis of a range of contemporary Chinese film examples. It identifies three elements – 2 narrative, character, and genre – as key areas where product placement is most overtly displayed, visualised and embodied, and considers the impact this has on narrative coherence. Through this combination of discourse analysis and film analysis, the study is able to critically investigate the role product placement plays within the modern Chinese film industry