Modest fashion? Dress, body, and space: an ethnographic account of Muslim female stakeholders’ experiences in the modest fashion industry

This PhD is an interdisciplinary study that provides an in-depth ethnographic account of modest fashion’s promotional spaces where Muslim female stakeholders expand their career choices towards the corporate fields. The female stakeholders in this research promote modest fashion in systematic fashion events and exhibitions and on the virtual marketing platform Instagram. More specifically, this research focuses on how these Muslim women construct a multitude of cultural and political scenes in the spaces they weave within these branding platforms for their agency display. Significantly, this research offers fresh insights by drawing a holistic understanding of the developing branding techniques in multiples spaces where modest fashion is rapidly growing in the physical world and online leading to newness and a creative staging of fashion items. This study applies a qualitative approach through ethnography to study the modest fashion culture of more than 150 research participants who have multiple roles within the fashion industry: including businesswomen, designers, bloggers, models, fashion students, and consumers. This multisite research is located in Britain: London, Leicester, and Birmingham, in Istanbul: Zorlu art Centre, and on the online: Instagram. Data is derived through the use of ‘ethnographic mosaic’ strategy (Blackman, 2010) by applying the multiple qualitative methods: observations, conversational interviews, and visual ethnography, in different locations where diverse voices are accessed from the fieldwork. The ethnographic data are analysed through a grounded theory approach while a semiotic analysis approach was adopted for interpreting Instagrammic visuals. The analysis generates a thick description of the contemporary shifts that created a space for agency and representation, and also brought new perspectives to theoretical concepts. In terms of findings, this thesis explores how modest fashion produced multiple promotional spaces where the Muslim female stakeholders develop their careers towards global brands while weaving spaces for their agency. Through cultural events, modest fashion is creatively growing a global consumer culture resulting in traces of a global culture industry where physical shopping experiences are key (Lash and Lury, 2007). Amidst these changes, key findings show that Muslim female stakeholders are challenged by stereotypes, modesty shaming online, and by the intrusion of corporates in the modest fashion retail. Yet, Muslim stakeholders had the fashion capital to balance between struggles and representations through their creativity. The thesis concludes that modest fashion carries its stability and value as a vehicle for Muslim women’s spatial expressions, creativity, and career suggestive of a feminist ipractice in which they perform an empowering act in a branding space offering new insights to agency and being a femal

Antibiotic R2, a new angucyclinone compound from Streptosporangium sp. Sg3

Antibiotic R2, a new angucyclinone compound from Streptosporangium sp. Sg

Saccharothrix sp. PAL54, a new chloramphenicol-producing strain isolated from a Saharan soil

An actinomycete strain designated PAL54, producing an antibacterial substance, was isolated from a Saharan soil in Ghardaïa, Algeria. Morphological and chemical studies indicated that this strain belonged to the genus Saccharothrix. Analysis of the 16S rDNA sequence showed a similarity level ranging between 96.9 and 99.2% within Saccharothrix species, with S. longispora DSM 43749T, the most closely related. DNA–DNA hybridization confirmed that strain PAL54 belonged to Saccharothrix longispora. It showed very strong activity against pathogenic Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria responsible for nosocomial infections and resistant to multiple antibiotics. Strain PAL54 secreted the antibiotic optimally during mid-stationary and decline phases of growth. One antibacterial compound was isolated from the culture broth and purified by HPLC. The active compound was elucidated by uv-visible and NMR spectroscopy and by mass spectrometry. The results showed that this compound was a D(-)-threo chloramphenicol. This is the first report of chloramphenicol production by a Saccharothrix species

The Interaction of Solar Radiation with Earth’s Atmosphere: Modeling the Total Atmospheric Transmittance by a Regression Function

Springer Proceedings in EnergyInternational audienceIn this investigation, a numerical simulation has been performed based on the SMARTS2 model to study the influence of the zenith angle on the variation of the total atmospheric transmittances. This calculation has been made for ultraviolet and visible light in the range of [0.2, 0.39 µm] and [0.4, 0.75 µm], respectively by taking into account the absorption and the scattering of radiation by the atmospheric gas molecules as well as aerosols. In order to determine the direct dependence of the total atmospheric transmittance on the light wavelength, a regression approach has been used for four values of zenith angles [0°, 25°, 35°, 57°]. The result shows that total atmospheric transmittance can be modeled by a polynomial function of sixth order which describes fairly the atmospheric transmittance as a function of wave length and zenith angle. More importantly, the comparison between our present results and Modtran’s results shows a good agreement with relative reduction ratio of transmission equals approximately to 1