Crossing the borders: an eco-cinecritical analysis of "Plant Wars" and "Bird Without Borders"

Este artículo trata sobre dos películas orientadas a la naturaleza desde la perspectiva de la cinecrítica ecológica, una crítica cinematográfica con conciencia ecológica. "Plant Wars", producida por PTS Taiwan, cuestiona la barrera que existe entre plantas nativas y plantas exóticas, así como entre plantas y humanos, para poder reclasificar las especies que se encuentran entre estas demarcaciones. El método narrativo que utiliza consiste en presentar 14 plantas nativas como protagonistas, y pone de manifiesto su relación con los nativos, los granjeros, los colmeneros y con otras especies de insectos. "Bird Without Borders", también producido por PTS, cuenta la historia del viaje migratorio de un grupo de espátulas menores ("Platalea minor") ("black-faced spoonbills") que vuelan 16.000 kilómetros desde Tainan, Taiwán, pasando por Japón, a lo largo de la costa de Corea del Sur y Corea del Norte, hasta una remota isla de China para buscar alimento, y su vuelta a Taiwán para pasar el invierno. Bird muestra diferentes niveles de cruce de fronteras. Estas dos producciones PTS son similares en cuanto a la búsqueda de cruces de frontera para redefinir lo que significa frontera o límite: "Plant" cuestiona la categorización biológica de las plantas nativas y las exóticas, mientras que "Bird" utiliza el ejemplo de la tripulación que sigue físicamente la ruta del vuelo de los pájaros, que cruza fronteras nacionales, para dar una visión de reclasificación del territorio natural mediante el cuestionamiento de la idea de "lugar" fijo. Ambas películas buscan modos de cruzar las fronteras hechas por los hombres: "Plant" lo hace a través de la imaginación medioambiental y "Bird" por medio de movimientos físicos de diferentes tipos. "Plant Wars" parece expresar su posición de modo más fuerte, por medio de "guerras", mientras que "Bird Without Borders" trata de alcanzar una visión sin fronteras.This essay reads two Asian nature-oriented films from the perspective of eco-cinecriticism, an ecologically minded film criticism. “Plant Wars”, produced by PTS Taiwan, questions the demarcation between native plants and exotic plants as well as between plants and human beings so as to remap the in-between border area. The storytelling method it applies is to feature 14 currently native plants as the main characters, and illustrates their relationship to aboriginal people, farmers, beekeepers and to other insect species. “Bird Without Borders”, also produced by PTS, tells the story of the migration journey of a group of black-faced spoonbills flying 16,000 kilometers all the way from Tainan, Taiwan, to Japan, along the border of South and North Korea, to a remote island of China to look for feeding places and then back to Taiwan to spend the winter. Different layers of border-crossing are shown in “Bird”. One similarity of these two PTS productions is the search for border-crossing so as to redefine or revise what the border means. “Plant” questions the biological categorization of the native plants and the exotic plants; “Bird” illustrates how the crew physically follows the route of the birds’ flight which crosses the national borders to provide a vision of remapping the natural territory through challenging the idea of a fixed “place.” Both are seeking for ways to trespass the man-made borders: “Plant” via environmental imagination; “Bird” via some physical movement. While the title of “Plant Wars” seemingly expresses its position more strongly through “wars,” “Bird Without Borders” explicitly asserts a dream of no borders

Crossing the borders: an eco-cinecritical analysis of "Plant Wars" and "Bird Without Borders"

Este artículo trata sobre dos películas orientadas a la naturaleza desde la perspectiva de la cinecrítica ecológica, una crítica cinematográfica con conciencia ecológica. "Plant Wars", producida por PTS Taiwan, cuestiona la barrera que existe entre plantas nativas y plantas exóticas, así como entre plantas y humanos, para poder reclasificar las especies que se encuentran entre estas demarcaciones. El método narrativo que utiliza consiste en presentar 14 plantas nativas como protagonistas, y pone de manifiesto su relación con los nativos, los granjeros, los colmeneros y con otras especies de insectos. "Bird Without Borders", también producido por PTS, cuenta la historia del viaje migratorio de un grupo de espátulas menores ("Platalea minor") ("black-faced spoonbills") que vuelan 16.000 kilómetros desde Tainan, Taiwán, pasando por Japón, a lo largo de la costa de Corea del Sur y Corea del Norte, hasta una remota isla de China para buscar alimento, y su vuelta a Taiwán para pasar el invierno. Bird muestra diferentes niveles de cruce de fronteras. Estas dos producciones PTS son similares en cuanto a la búsqueda de cruces de frontera para redefinir lo que significa frontera o límite: "Plant" cuestiona la categorización biológica de las plantas nativas y las exóticas, mientras que "Bird" utiliza el ejemplo de la tripulación que sigue físicamente la ruta del vuelo de los pájaros, que cruza fronteras nacionales, para dar una visión de reclasificación del territorio natural mediante el cuestionamiento de la idea de "lugar" fijo. Ambas películas buscan modos de cruzar las fronteras hechas por los hombres: "Plant" lo hace a través de la imaginación medioambiental y "Bird" por medio de movimientos físicos de diferentes tipos. "Plant Wars" parece expresar su posición de modo más fuerte, por medio de "guerras", mientras que "Bird Without Borders" trata de alcanzar una visión sin fronteras.This essay reads two Asian nature-oriented films from the perspective of eco-cinecriticism, an ecologically minded film criticism. “Plant Wars”, produced by PTS Taiwan, questions the demarcation between native plants and exotic plants as well as between plants and human beings so as to remap the in-between border area. The storytelling method it applies is to feature 14 currently native plants as the main characters, and illustrates their relationship to aboriginal people, farmers, beekeepers and to other insect species. “Bird Without Borders”, also produced by PTS, tells the story of the migration journey of a group of black-faced spoonbills flying 16,000 kilometers all the way from Tainan, Taiwan, to Japan, along the border of South and North Korea, to a remote island of China to look for feeding places and then back to Taiwan to spend the winter. Different layers of border-crossing are shown in “Bird”. One similarity of these two PTS productions is the search for border-crossing so as to redefine or revise what the border means. “Plant” questions the biological categorization of the native plants and the exotic plants; “Bird” illustrates how the crew physically follows the route of the birds’ flight which crosses the national borders to provide a vision of remapping the natural territory through challenging the idea of a fixed “place.” Both are seeking for ways to trespass the man-made borders: “Plant” via environmental imagination; “Bird” via some physical movement. While the title of “Plant Wars” seemingly expresses its position more strongly through “wars,” “Bird Without Borders” explicitly asserts a dream of no borders

Explore the Functional Connectivity between Brain Regions during a Chemistry Working Memory Task.

Previous studies have rarely examined how temporal dynamic patterns, event-related coherence, and phase-locking are related to each other. This study assessed reaction-time-sorted spectral perturbation and event-related spectral perturbation in order to examine the temporal dynamic patterns in the frontal midline (F), central parietal (CP), and occipital (O) regions during a chemistry working memory task at theta, alpha, and beta frequencies. Furthermore, the functional connectivity between F-CP, CP-O, and F-O were assessed by component event-related coherence (ERCoh) and component phase-locking (PL) at different frequency bands. In addition, this study examined whether the temporal dynamic patterns are consistent with the functional connectivity patterns across different frequencies and time courses. Component ERCoh/PL measured the interactions between different independent components decomposed from the scalp EEG, mixtures of time courses of activities arising from different brain, and artifactual sources. The results indicate that the O and CP regions' temporal dynamic patterns are similar to each other. Furthermore, pronounced component ERCoh/PL patterns were found to exist between the O and CP regions across each stimulus and probe presentation, in both theta and alpha frequencies. The consistent theta component ERCoh/PL between the F and O regions was found at the first stimulus and after probe presentation. These findings demonstrate that temporal dynamic patterns at different regions are in accordance with the functional connectivity patterns. Such coordinated and robust EEG temporal dynamics and component ERCoh/PL patterns suggest that these brain regions' neurons work together both to induce similar event-related spectral perturbation and to synchronize or desynchronize simultaneously in order to swiftly accomplish a particular goal. The possible mechanisms for such distinct component phase-locking and coherence patterns were also further discussed

A systematic approach to detecting transcription factors in response to environmental stresses

Abstract Background Eukaryotic cells have developed mechanisms to respond to external environmental or physiological changes (stresses). In order to increase the activities of stress-protection functions in response to an environmental change, the internal cell mechanisms need to induce certain specific gene expression patterns and pathways by changing the expression levels of specific transcription factors (TFs). The conventional methods to find these specific TFs and their interactivities are slow and laborious. In this study, a novel efficient method is proposed to detect the TFs and their interactivities that regulate yeast genes that respond to any specific environment change. Results For each gene expressed in a specific environmental condition, a dynamic regulatory model is constructed in which the coefficients of the model represent the transcriptional activities and interactivities of the corresponding TFs. The proposed method requires only microarray data and information of all TFs that bind to the gene but it has superior resolution than the current methods. Our method not only can find stress-specific TFs but also can predict their regulatory strengths and interactivities. Moreover, TFs can be ranked, so that we can identify the major TFs to a stress. Similarly, it can rank the interactions between TFs and identify the major cooperative TF pairs. In addition, the cross-talks and interactivities among different stress-induced pathways are specified by the proposed scheme to gain much insight into protective mechanisms of yeast under different environmental stresses. Conclusion In this study, we find significant stress-specific and cell cycle-controlled TFs via constructing a transcriptional dynamic model to regulate the expression profiles of genes under different environmental conditions through microarray data. We have applied this TF activity and interactivity detection method to many stress conditions, including hyper- and hypo- osmotic shock, heat shock, hydrogen peroxide and cell cycle, because the available expression time profiles for these conditions are long enough. Especially, we find significant TFs and cooperative TFs responding to environmental changes. Our method may also be applicable to other stresses if the gene expression profiles have been examined for a sufficiently long time.</p

The Study on Antecedents of Consumer Buying Impulsiveness in an Online Context

The global recession caused by the financial tsunami has seriously impacted numerous industries. Although the market scale of global e-commerce market has declined, global online shopping continues to grow. Many previous researches focused on the effect of website design characteristics on online impulsive buying behavior, and few have explored such behavior from consumer individual internal factor perspectives. This paper aims to explore and integrate individual internal factors influencing consumer online buying impulsiveness, and further to recognize the relationships among these factors. The results showed as follows: (1) hedonic consumption needs, impulsive buying tendency, positive affect and normative evaluations positively influence buying impulsiveness, respectively; (2) hedonic consumption needs positively influence positive affect; (3) impulsive buying tendency positively influences normative evaluations; (4) normative evaluations positively influence positive affect

Temperature Field Analysis for PZT Pyroelectric Cells for Thermal Energy Harvesting

This paper proposes the idea of etching PZT to improve the temperature variation rate of a thicker PZT sheet in order to enhance the energy conversion efficiency when used as pyroelectric cells. A partially covered electrode was proven to display a higher output response than a fully covered electrode did. A mesh top electrode monitored the temperature variation rate and the electrode area. The mesh electrode width affected the distribution of the temperature variation rate in a thinner pyroelectric material. However, a pyroelectric cell with a thicker pyroelectric material was beneficial in generating electricity pyroelectrically. The PZT sheet was further etched to produce deeper cavities and a smaller electrode width to induce lateral temperature gradients on the sidewalls of cavities under homogeneous heat irradiation, enhancing the temperature variation rate

Whole-body vibration training effect on physical performance and obesity in mice

The purpose of this study was to verify the beneficial effects of whole-body vibration (WBV) training on exercise performance, physical fatigue and obesity in mice with obesity induced by a high-fat diet (HFD). Male C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into two groups: normal group (n=6), fed standard diet (control), and experimental group (n=18), fed a HFD. After 4-week induction, followed by 6-week WBV of 5 days per week, the 18 obese mice were divided into 3 groups (n=6 per group): HFD with sedentary control (HFD), HFD with WBV at relatively low-intensity (5.6 Hz, 0.13 g) (HFD+VL) or high-intensity (13 Hz, 0.68 g) (HFD+VH). A trend analysis revealed that WBV increased the grip strength in mice. WBV also dose-dependently decreased serum lactate, ammonia and CK levels and increased glucose level after the swimming test. WBV slightly decreased final body weight and dose-dependently decreased weights of epididymal, retroperitoneal and perirenal fat pads and fasting serum levels of alanine aminotransferase, CK, glucose, total cholesterol and triacylglycerol. Therefore, WBV could improve exercise performance and fatigue and prevent fat accumulation and obesity-associated biochemical alterations in obese mice. It may be an effective intervention for health promotion and prevention of HFD-induced obesity

Ultrasound sonication with microbubbles disrupts blood vessels and enhances tumor treatments of anticancer nanodrug

Ultrasound (US) sonication with microbubbles (MBs) has the potential to disrupt blood vessels and enhance the delivery of drugs into the sonicated tissues. In this study, mouse ear tumors were employed to investigate the therapeutic effects of US, MBs, and pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (PLD) on tumors. Tumors started to receive treatments when they grew up to about 15 mm3 (early stage) with injection of PLD 10 mg/kg, or up to 50 mm3 (medium stage) with PLD 6 (or 4) mg/kg. Experiments included the control, PLD alone, PLD + MBs + US, US alone, and MBs + US groups. The procedure for the PLD + MBs + US group was that PLD was injected first, MB (SonoVue) injection followed, and then US was immediately sonicated on the tumor. The results showed that: (1) US sonication with MBs was always able to produce a further hindrance to tumor growth for both early and medium-stage tumors; (2) for the medium-stage tumors, 6 mg/kg PLD alone was able to inhibit their growth, while it did not work for 4 mg/kg PLD alone; (3) with the application of MBs + US, 4 mg/kg PLD was able to inhibit the growth of medium-stage tumors; (4) for early stage tumors after the first treatment with a high dose of PLD alone (10 mg/kg), the tumor size still increased for several days and then decreased (a biphasic pattern); (5) MBs + US alone was able to hinder the growth of early stage tumors, but unable to hinder that of medium stage tumors. The results of histological examinations and blood perfusion measurements indicated that the application of MBs + US disrupts the tumor blood vessels and enhances the delivery of PLD into tumors to significantly inhibit tumor growth