Sexy Danes, Tipsy Germans: The Use of Positive Cultural Stereotypes in Nation Branding Efforts

While nation-branding campaigns have become a popular means for governments to attempt to improve their country’s standing on international indexes, such as the Anholt-Gfk Roper Nation Brand Index (NBI), the generally static ranking on such indexes suggests that national brands cannot simply be shaped by clever marketing campaigns. Instead, national brands rest on deeply rooted perceptions of a country’s character and identity, which often have much in common with popular stereotypes about the country. This article analyzes how several advertising campaigns in Germany and Denmark, sponsored by both governmental entities and private corporations, explicitly engage with and manipulate positive national stereotypes in order to shape public narratives about what their countries have to offer the world

Screening Europe in Australasia

Through a detailed study of the circulation of European silent film in Australasia in the early twentieth century, this book challenges the historical myopia that treats Hollywood films as having always dominated global film culture. Before World War I, European silent feature films were ubiquitous in Australia and New Zealand, teaching Antipodean audiences about Continental cultures and familiarizing them with glamorous European stars, from Asta Nielsen to Emil Jannings. After the rise of Hollywood and then the shift to sound film, this history—and its implications for cross-cultural exchange—was lost. Julie K. Allen recovers that history, with its flamboyant participants, transnational currents, innovative genres, and geopolitical complications, bringing it all vividly to life. Making ground-breaking use of digitized Australian and New Zealand newspapers, the author reconstructs the distribution and exhibition of European silent films in the Antipodes, along the way incorporating compelling biographical sketches of the ambitious pioneers of the Australasian cinema industry. She reveals the complexity and competitiveness of the early cinema market, in a region with high consumer demand and low domestic production, and frames the dramatic shift to almost exclusively American cinema programming during World War I, contextualizing the rise of the art film in the 1920s in competition with mainstream Hollywood productions

Screening Europe in Australasia

Through a detailed study of the circulation of European silent film in Australasia in the early twentieth century, this book challenges the historical myopia that treats Hollywood films as having always dominated global film culture. Before World War I, European silent feature films were ubiquitous in Australia and New Zealand, teaching Antipodean audiences about Continental cultures and familiarizing them with glamorous European stars, from Asta Nielsen to Emil Jannings. After the rise of Hollywood and then the shift to sound film, this history—and its implications for cross-cultural exchange—was lost. Julie K. Allen recovers that history, with its flamboyant participants, transnational currents, innovative genres, and geopolitical complications, bringing it all vividly to life. Making ground-breaking use of digitized Australian and New Zealand newspapers, the author reconstructs the distribution and exhibition of European silent films in the Antipodes, along the way incorporating compelling biographical sketches of the ambitious pioneers of the Australasian cinema industry. She reveals the complexity and competitiveness of the early cinema market, in a region with high consumer demand and low domestic production, and frames the dramatic shift to almost exclusively American cinema programming during World War I, contextualizing the rise of the art film in the 1920s in competition with mainstream Hollywood productions

Migrant Churches as Integration Vectors in Danish Society

ABSTRACT: In highly secular, largely ethnically homogeneous modern Denmark, migrant churches—defined as independent Christian religious congregations with services conducted in a language other than Danish—facilitate social engagement, networking, and cultural fusion for newcomers to Denmark through the affirmation of multiculturalism and religious diversity, thereby challenging the equation of integration with sameness that is common in Scandinavia. Based on oral histories collected between 2015 and 2017 from a dozen African Christian women in Copenhagen and Aarhus who are active members of three different migrant churches, this article analyzes first-hand immigrant experiences with migrant churches as vectors of integration and identity formation for newcomers to Denmark

Chronic stress promotes tumor growth through increased BDNF production and neo-innervation

Background: Activation of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) in response to chronic biobehavioral stress results in high levels of catecholamines and persistent activation of adrenergic signaling, which promotes tumor growth and progression. However it is unknown how catecholamine levels within the tumor exceed systemic levels in circulation. I hypothesized that neo-innervation of tumors is required for stress-mediated effects on tumor growth. Results: First, I examined whether sympathetic nerves are present in human ovarian cancer samples as well as orthotopic ovarian cancer models. Immunohistochemical (IHC) staining for neurofilament revealed that catecholaminergic neurons are present within tumor tissue. In order to determine whether chronic stress affects the density of nerves in the tumor, I utilized an orthotopic mouse model of ovarian cancer that was exposed to daily restraint stress. IHC analysis revealed that nerve density in tumors increased by more than three-fold in stressed animals versus non-stressed controls. IHC analysis suggested that this results from both recruitment of existing neurons (axonogenesis) as well as new neuron formation (neurogenesis) within the tumor. To determine how tumors are recruiting nerve growth, I utilized a PCR array analysis of 84 nerve growth related genes and their receptors, which showed that stimulation of the SKOV3 ovarian cancer cell line with norepinephrine (NE) leads to increased expression of several neurotrophins, including brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Neurite extension assays showed that media conditioned by ovarian cancer cell lines is capable of inducing neurite outgrowth in differentiated neuron-like PC12 cells, and NE treatment of cancer cells potentiates this effect. Norepinephrine-induced neurite extension was abolished after BDNF silencing by siRNA, suggesting that BDNF is critical to tumor cell-induced nerve growth. in vivo BDNF inhibition resulted in complete abrogation of stress-induced increases in tumor weight and nerve density, as well as downstream markers of stress. Discussion: These studies indicate that adrenergic signalling induced by chronic stress promotes neo-innervation in the tumor microenvironment. This results in a mutually beneficial relationship between the tumor cells and neurons. This work is crucial for providing a link between chronic stress and its effects on the tumor and its microenvironment. The data shown here aims to open new venues that can be used in development of therapies designed to block the stress effects on tumor growth

Students perceive Team-Based Learning facilitates development of graduate learning outcomes and professional skills

In tertiary education, generic professional skills should be developed along with discipline-specific knowledge and skills. Team-Based Learning (TBL), an active learning strategy, creates deep learning and enhanced student engagement; however, its effects on the development of generic learning outcomes are unknown. The aim of this study was to evaluate postgraduate specialty nursing students’ perspectives of how TBL impacts the acquisition of skills defined by the university’s eight Graduate Learning Outcomes (GLOs). A descriptive exploratory design was used in this study. Postgraduate nursing students in 2016-2017 at one university were invited to participate. Data were collected via demographic survey, a ranking tool, and written reflections. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and content analysis. The response rate was 97.2 per cent (172/177). Participants were mostly females (n=152, 88.4%) aged 25–34 years (n=115, 66.9%). Student (n=156) rankings showed TBL contributed to the acquisition of critical thinking (n=90, 57.7%) and problem solving skills (n=56, 35.9%) the most. Students (n=144) made 2719 comments regarding how TBL led to the acquisition of GLOs in written reflections. Almost 98 per cent (n=2657) of all reflective comments were positive. All students mentioned at least one GLO positively due to TBL. Most positive reflections related to self-management (n=520, 19.6%) and communication (n=434, 16.3%).Postgraduate specialty nursing students perceived TBL classes contributed to the acquisition of their university’s GLOs, particularly critical thinking, problem solving, and self-management skills. The active learning strategy of TBL facilitates learning and engagement, and the attainment of essential professional attributes which are highly valued by employers

Chemostat culture systems support diverse bacteriophage communities from human feces

BACKGROUND: Most human microbiota studies focus on bacteria inhabiting body surfaces, but these surfaces also are home to large populations of viruses. Many are bacteriophages, and their role in driving bacterial diversity is difficult to decipher without the use of in vitro ecosystems that can reproduce human microbial communities. RESULTS: We used chemostat culture systems known to harbor diverse fecal bacteria to decipher whether these cultures also are home to phage communities. We found that there are vast viral communities inhabiting these ecosystems, with estimated concentrations similar to those found in human feces. The viral communities are composed entirely of bacteriophages and likely contain both temperate and lytic phages based on their similarities to other known phages. We examined the cultured phage communities at five separate time points over 24 days and found that they were highly individual-specific, suggesting that much of the subject-specificity found in human viromes also is captured by this culture-based system. A high proportion of the community membership is conserved over time, but the cultured communities maintain more similarity with other intra-subject cultures than they do to human feces. In four of the five subjects, estimated viral diversity between fecal and cultured communities was highly similar. CONCLUSIONS: Because the diversity of phages in these cultured fecal communities have similarities to those found in humans, we believe these communities can serve as valuable ecosystems to help uncover the role of phages in human microbial communities

CONSTITUTIONAL AND INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURAL DETERMINANTS OF POLICY RESPONSIVENESS TO PROTECT CITIZENS FROM EXISTENTIAL THREATS: COVID-19 AND BEYOND

A multitude of government forms and institutional variations have the same aims of serving their countries and citizens but vary in outcomes. What it means to best serve the citizens is, however, a matter of broad interpretation and so the disagreements persist. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic creates new metrics for comparing government performance – the metrics of human deaths, or, alternatively and as we pursue it here, the metrics of the speed of government response in preventing human deaths through policy adoption. We argue in this essay that institutional and government systems with more authority redundancies are more likely to rapidly generate policy in response to crisis and find better policy solutions compared to centralized systems with minimal authority redundancies. This is due to a multiplicity of access points to policy making, which increase the chances of a policymaker crafting the “correct” response to crisis, which can be replicated elsewhere. Furthermore, citizens in centralized and unitary governments must rely on national policymakers to get the correct response as subnational policymakers are highly constrained compared to their counterparts in decentralized systems. As policy authority is institutionally defined, these policy authority redundancies correspond to specific institutional and constitutional forms. In this paper, we provide a mathematical/formal model where we specifically analyze the contrast in the speed of policy response between more centralized and autocratic states versus democratic federations