Life Isn\u27t Fare

Born too late for the space age, too poor for space tourism, and too early to explore the galaxy, I’ve turned my obsession with sci-fi pop culture into a design career. A steady diet of bad films and cheesy sci-fi left me feeling like the world lacked something. It lacked pageantry and fun. We all share pop culture, and it gives us a sense of a world that’s more fun than the one we live in now. The movies, toys, and games of my youth helped shape my sense of what the world could be, a world that could be something more. That sense of wanting to make the world more than just the day to day is what made me go back to school at 37 and pursue an art degree. Too often design is merely functional; despite being intended to tell a brand’s story those stories can be flat. Instead I like to use bright colors, simplified forms, and nods to other works to make even an annual report into something of an experience. Even a logo can become a character in and of itself, turning a brand into a story. I also use images and tropes of sci-fi and fantasy to bring a sense of fun to life. There’s something rewarding about creating an ad that makes the world seem more adventurous and full of possibility. This is what my show, Life Isn’t Fare, is about. I wanted to show off my layout skills and packaging design skills, as well as my logo designs, but in a realm that allowed me to build a sense of fun, too. The astronaut is something I’ve always sort of identified with, exploring spaces that are strange while isolated from his environment. The astronaut with his taxi image was a recurring piece from my past works, and so I decided to build a toy line about that sense of fun I wish reality had. A bit of adventure, a bit of silliness, and a world and show defined by logos and icons, similar to our own daily life. It’s a show about exploration into new spaces, a work a bit about myself, and a way to show that design can be fun. The comic and animation work of Vaughn Bodē and Ralph Bakshi are heavy influences on my work, especially their off-beat questioning of society. The wild colors and cartoonishness of Frank Koziks’s poster work was what first made me consider becoming a graphic designer. Discovering Lester Beall’s use of vivid color and master of using and breaking the grid was a pivotal moment in my development as well, and countered my fascination with Romek Marber’s near-scientific cover designs. Mieke Gerritzen’s typography has also been a big influence and helped me rethink my own use of typography and how to make it stand on its own. My show’s work was also very much in the footsteps of Larry Hama and Ron Rudat’s work in toy package design and illustration; their world building on GI Joe is one of the biggest reasons my show even came to be. Please enjoy the little slice of the toy aisle I’ve presented, and the figures and characters in it, and hopefully leave feeling a little happier, and a little more weird, than you came in.https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/art498/1093/thumbnail.jp

Art399 Portfolio

My two dimensional art has a lot of sharply contrasting values and a sense of humor (and dark humor) to it. My three dimensional work follows the same lines but I also incorporate as much light and shadow as I possibly can. My influences are mostly based in my childhood and pop culture. Early cyberpunk works like William Gibson and Max Headroom; lowbrow and outsider art like Frank Kozick, the artists of Heavy Metal Magazine, and independent comics; and dark surreal art such as HR Giger, Masahiro Ito, and Heronimous Bosch. I try to first find art and references that both fit the style of the project and that excite me. Even if it doesn’t quite fit the project, I’ve found that exciting work in various media can fire my imagination. Then I start to sketch, often trying to recreate the parts of my references that got me interested, before getting a rough design for my final work. At that point I just gather my materials and dive in, often like a whirlwind, trying to adjust my final work to fit my changing concepts and the progress of the work. More and more I find that the concept I started with is not the one I end on, and the one I end on is far more complex and leads to a more satisfying work. I want viewers of my art to feel something beyond just thinking it is well done. I enjoy making a viewer feel a level of discomfort or feel unsettled. My own work springs from growing up with Tourette’s Syndrome and often feeling disconnected or uncomfortable in “normal” situations and I like to try to evoke those same feelings but without being explicit. I also enjoy making a viewer laugh at the absurd, or to be transformative of their space to create an entirely different environment than the one they were just in. I want my work to express how I feel, but in a way that is applicable to the point of view of others. Instead of making work so personal that it’s impossible to relate to, I want to express my struggles, my interests, and my angers through art and make others feel the same, or at least question how they feel. Even in pieces that are more conceptual, or figurative, I want the viewer to not just know the basic emotion that spurred the piece but to instead feel it themselves. When I look at another work it interests me if it’s well crafted, but not hyper realistic. I like work that is outside the norm, strange or off-putting. Work that shows the hand of the artist is fascinating because I like being able to see the artist’s process made life, and pieces that make me feel uncomfortable draws me in. In essence, I don’t want to look at work that is just like mine, but I enjoy work that is to the other artist what I want mine to be to myself. My work has a constant thread of my pop culture obsession. Max Headroom shows up, monster movies, etc. Even when making plaster casts of condoms I viewed the final forms as if they were vintage space ships. Masks also figure prominently in my works, due to growing up with severe facial tics. My favorite heroes and costumes always had face coverings, since they would have helped hide my own personal discomfort. I’m drawn to trying to illustrate just how bad things can be for others, and my frustration at it. I want to help elevate the person stepped on, but also make the stepper feel discomforted. I want to utilize horror and fetishistic elements more in my pieces both to make viewers feel uncomfortable but also because I feel that sexuality beyond either simple pinup art and LGBT is under-represented other than when it’s the Main Focus. I want to make people feel sad, feel angry, and also make them laugh at the absurd. All at once if possible. Having been born with Tourette’s Syndrome, and not having it fade away as most do, I’ve lived a life of constantly feeling uncomfortable with daily life. As a result I’ve found that I want my art expresses how I’ve felt my entire life. I want to make viewers feel uncomfortable and like something is very “off”, either as if regular life is somehow wrong or that they’re viewing something that is very much not right. Alternately I want to use the absurd to make them laugh, or to transport them from where they were before they saw my piece. The latter comes from a search for escape, usually through pop culture. My work has a constant thread of my pop culture obsession. Max Headroom shows up, monster movies, etc. Even when making plaster casts of condoms I viewed the final forms as if they were vintage space ships. When those pop culture references fit, I almost imagine my work to be an amalgam of my days watching old TV shows and reading video game magazines, with breaks only for Nintendo. Masks also figure prominently in my works, due to growing up with severe facial tics. My favorite heroes and costumes always had face coverings, since they would have helped hide my own personal discomfort. I’m drawn to trying to illustrate just how bad things can be for others, and my frustration at it. My most admired lowbrow artists are Frank Kozick and Vaugn Bode. Both were fearless in their experimentation of form and color and created images that stick with the viewer. Kozik’s work in poster design mixes the popular with the macabre and he could turn even a simple rabbit into a form that is less character and more icon. Bode’s work is more illustrative, but distinct and in a way that mixed comic art with painterly forms. His fearlessness with making jokes about society and sexuality, and explorations of the self are inspiring to me. “The Ascension of Ernie” was an intersection of all of my interests. I created the sculpture of Ernie and the knife out of EVA foam. I then reinacted an aboriginal rite of ascension to shamanism, using Ernie and cotton candy. “Mr Anxiety Head” was a performance piece where I was tasked with creating something out of cardboard, and so I chose to create a mask to hide myself. Using the interchangeable parts, I got into people’s spaces, studying them and swapping pieces to try to “fit”. I use black and white whenever possible, and try to rely on bright contrasting colors to draw attention to specifics, such as in my print “Musicians”. I feel that the more morose subjects I tend to work in are best represented in greyscale. I try to show as much of the artist’s hand as possible since the works I most enjoy show that as well, but am working to make sure that roughness has intentionality to it rather than just poor craft. When I work in three dimensions I keep to the same styles, but incorporate light and shadow as much as possible. The feeling of neon, dark streets with bright lights, and cities draw me and I like to recreate those in three dimensions where I can, such as in the signage and projections in “Walled City”. Though I’m struggling to really express it, I also like to layer discomfort with sexuality. Despite the ever-present threat of the Male Gaze, my social circles after high school were alternative sexuality groups in the fetish community and I want to add flavors of the good and the bad into my work. HR Giger’s work in taking male and female sexuality and creating surreal and horrifying mindscapes were an early influence, and while I don’t wish to copy his style I admire the end results. Masahiro Ito’s fetishized monsters and horror is a more recent influence. Though it can stray into more character design I want to create forms that while not explicitly seeming “fetishized” still carry those subconscious tones. I am eternally fascinated with the intersection of discomfort and sexuality, and of power and powerlessness, plus the undercurrent of the absurd and the sometimes horrific, tugs at something I haven’t quite been able to define in myself but want to, and to help others perhaps feel as well. My work has an eclectic mix of images, methods, and styles, but I think all of it is definable as “me” since it’s both a way to express my own flaws as well as try to discover a part of myself that I’ve never really been able to look at squarely and see.https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/art399/1124/thumbnail.jp

Safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of Plasmodium falciparum sporozoite vaccine administered by direct venous inoculation to infants and young children: Findings from an age de-escalation, dose-escalation, double-blind, randomized controlled study in western Kenya

BACKGROUND: The whole Plasmodium falciparum sporozoite (PfSPZ) vaccine is being evaluated for malaria prevention. The vaccine is administered intravenously for maximal efficacy. Direct venous inoculation (DVI) with PfSPZ vaccine has been safe, tolerable, and feasible in adults, but safety data for children and infants are limited. METHODS: We conducted an age de-escalation, dose-escalation randomized controlled trial in Siaya County, western Kenya. Children and infants (aged 5-9 years, 13-59 months, and 5-12 months) were enrolled into 13 age-dose cohorts of 12 participants and randomized 2:1 to vaccine or normal saline placebo in escalating doses: 1.35 × 105, 2.7 × 105, 4.5 × 105, 9.0 × 105, and 1.8 × 106 PfSPZ, with the 2 highest doses given twice, 8 weeks apart. Solicited adverse events (AEs) were monitored for 8 days after vaccination, unsolicited AEs for 29 days, and serious AEs throughout the study. Blood taken prevaccination and 1 week postvaccination was tested for immunoglobulin G antibodies to P. falciparum circumsporozoite protein (PfCSP) using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. RESULTS: Rates of AEs were similar in vaccinees and controls for solicited (35.7% vs 41.5%) and unsolicited (83.9% vs 92.5%) AEs, respectively. No related grade 3 AEs, serious AEs, or grade 3 laboratory abnormalities occurred. Most (79.0%) vaccinations were administered by a single DVI. Among those in the 9.0 × 105 and 1.8 × 106 PfSPZ groups, 36 of 45 (80.0%) vaccinees and 4 of 21 (19.0%) placebo controls developed antibodies to PfCSP (P \u3c .001). CONCLUSIONS: PfSPZ vaccine in doses as high as 1.8 × 106 can be administered to infants and children by DVI, and was safe, well tolerated, and immunogenic. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION: NCT02687373

Do analysts' earnings forecasts incorporate information in prior stock price changes?

This research examines whether analysts' earnings forecasts incorporate information in price changes. Even if the forecasts do not explicitly depend upon price changes,there should nevertheless be a positive association between analysts' forecast revisions and prior price changes. Moreover, if analysts incorporate only their private information in formulating a forecast and ignore price changes, then the likelihood that their estimate is less than (greater than) the realization increases following price increases (decreases). Empirical results are consistent with these conjectures and indicate that analysts' forecasts do not fully reflect the information in prior price changes.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/29294/1/0000355.pd

Bank Privatization in Post-Communist Russia: The Case of Zhilsotsbank

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39397/3/wp5.pd

Style migration in Europe

This paper complements the literature on style migration by examining value and size premiums throughout Europe. Information from more than 25 European markets indicates an average value premium of 9.58% per year. The primary determinants of the persistent value outperformance are: 1) value firms migrating to a neutral or growth portfolio, and 2) growth stocks migrating to neutral or value portfolios. The financial health metric F_SCORE helps uncover outperforming stocks ex ante, and provides preliminary evidence on the probability of migration, but only for small stocks

Early Surgical Morbidity and Mortality in Adults with Congenital Heart Disease: The University of Michigan Experience

Objectives.  To review early surgical outcomes in a contemporary series of adults with congenital heart disease (CHD) undergoing cardiac operations at the University of Michigan, and to investigate possible preoperative and intraoperative risk factors for morbidity and mortality. Methods.  A retrospective medical record review was performed for all patients ≥18 years of age who underwent open heart operations by a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon at the University of Michigan Congenital Heart Center between January 1, 1998 and December 31, 2004. Records from a cohort of pediatric patients ages 1–17 years were matched to a subset of the adult patients by surgical procedure and date of operation. Results.  In total, 243 cardiac surgical operations were performed in 234 adult patients with CHD. Overall mortality was 4.7% (11/234). The incidence of major postoperative complications was 10% (23/234) with a 19% (45/23) minor complication rate. The most common postoperative complication was atrial arrhythmias in 10.8% (25/234). The presence of preoperative lung or liver disease, prolonged cardiopulmonary bypass and aortic cross clamp times, and postoperative elevated inotropic score and serum lactates were significant predictors of mortality in adults. There was no difference between the adult and pediatric cohorts in terms of mortality and morbidity. Conclusions.  The postoperative course in adults following surgery for CHD is generally uncomplicated and early survival should be expected. Certain risk factors for increased mortality in this patient population may include preoperative presence of chronic lung or liver dysfunction, prolonged cardiopulmonary bypass and aortic cross-clamp times, and postoperative elevated inotropic score and serum lactate levels.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75596/1/j.1747-0803.2008.00170.x.pd

Foreign-language effects in cross-cultural behavioral research: Evidence from the Tanzanian Hadza

Behavioral research in traditional subsistence populations is often conducted in a non-native language. Recent studies show that non-native language-use systematically influences behavior, including in widely used methodologies. However, such studies are largely conducted in rich, industrialized societies, using at least one European language. This study expands sample diversity. We presented four standard tasks—a “dictator” game, two sacrificial dilemmas, a wager task, and five Likert-risk tolerance measures—to 129 Hadza participants. We randomly varied study languages—Hadzane and Kiswahili—between participants. We report a moderate impact of study language on wager decisions, alongside a substantial effect on dilemma decisions and responses to Likert-assessments of risk. As expected, non-native languages fostered utilitarian choices in sacrificial dilemmas. Unlike previous studies, non-native-language-use decreased risk preference in wager and Likert-tasks. We consider alternative explanatory mechanisms to account for this reversal, including linguistic relativity and cultural context. Given the strength of the effects reported here, we recommend, where possible, that future cross-cultural research should be conducted in participants’ first language