Silence is white, not golden

Sight and hearing are arguably the two most powerful human senses with which we understand and navigate through our world – whether it is the simple relationship between a green flashing man, and an audio beeping at a pedestrian crossing or the more complex emotions we might feel when watching a movie – where the ‘tragic’ break-up is accompanied by a symphonic cascade of violin strings. Sound and image when harnessed by design becomes a powerful partnership which, either can impart life saving information, manipulate emotions or be empathetic to any given experience – concert lighting, movie soundtracks, audio navigation systems all draw upon long held traditions or relationships to how we see and how we hea

A tale of (at least) two cities

Modernism is built on a foundation of the double, the facsimile and similitude – the repetitions of the machine age. Model T-Fords, Motel chains and Fast Food restaurants are the most obvious – most digestible? – remnants of the modernist production line. At the beginning of the 20th Century, Walter Benjamin in his Arcades Project captures some of the cultural artefacts of reproduction. Neatly noted, transcribed and stored on index cards, this was published posthumously

Shooting images: photographs from the war in Iraq ...a review (of sorts)

Susan Sontag, like the Italian writer Umberto Eco, is among the few present day cultural critics whose influence resonates, in part through their novels, beyond the intellectual press and university libraries. In 1977 Sontag published On Photography, an extended essay looking at the role of photography in the West, which went on to become her most celebrated book. Its publication came at the close of the Vietnam war, which brought documentary photography, via the media, to the breakfast tables and television screens of America and Europe. The book’s importance lay in the way it developed its readers’ relationship with the photographic image by introducing an accessible language in which to discuss the increasing torrent of images around us. Sontag took discussion of photography out of the specialist realm into that of the everyday. Now, in Regarding the Pain of Others, the author returns to the nature of the photographic image in the West; to re-evaluate and reconsider some of her original findings in On Photography

Offshoring Production: A Simple Model of Wages, Productivity, and Growth

We examine the relationship between o¤shoring and the labour market in an occupational choice model of trade and endogenous growth where workers are employed on the basis of their individual skill levels. Trade liberalization leads to o¤shoring and reduces employment in the manufacturing sector. Displaced workers move into the traditional and innovation sectors ac- cording to their skill levels, shaping real wages and aggregate productivity in the manufacturing sector. The paper aims to show how inter-sectoral labour market adjustments, highlighted by skill heterogeneity, could be a possible explanation for the simultaneous rise in productivity and reduction in real wages that have coincided with the sharp escalation of o¤shoring activities in the US manufacturing sector since 2004.o¤shoring, trade liberalization, real wages, growth, productivity, inter-sectoral labour reallocation, skill heterogeneity.

The Improvement Program in Nonrelativistic Lattice QCD

Progress in the improvement program in nonrelativistic lattice QCD is outlined. The leading radiative corrections to the heavy-quark mass renormalization, energy shift, and two important kinetic coupling coefficients are presented. The reliability of tadpole-improved perturbation theory in determining the energy shift and mass renormalization is demonstrated.Comment: 3 pages in uuencoded-compressed-PostScript format, to appear in the Proceedings of LATTICE 93, Dallas, USA, October 1993; Edinburgh Preprint 93/53

Microvesicles as vehicles for tissue regeneration: Changing of the guards

Purpose of Review: Microvesicles (MVs) have been recognised as mediators of stem cell function, enabling and guiding their regenerative effects. Recent Findings: MVs constitute one unique size class of extracellular vesicles (EVs) directly shed from the cell plasma membrane. They facilitate cell-to-cell communication via intercellular transfer of proteins, mRNA and microRNA (miRNA). MVs derived from stem cells, or stem cell regulatory cell types, have proven roles in tissue regeneration and repair processes. Their role in the maintenance of healthy tissue function throughout the life course and thus in age related health span remains to be elucidated. Summary: Understanding the biogenesis and mechanisms of action of MVs may enable the development of cell-free therapeutics capable of assisting in tissue maintenance and repair for a variety of age-related degenerative diseases. This review critically evaluates recent work published in this area and highlights important new findings demonstrating the use of MVs in tissue regeneration

Estimating nutrient concentrations from catchment characteristics across the UK

Within a Geographical Information System (GIS) framework, the distributions of nitrate and orthophosphate concentrations at monitoring sites across the UK were examined and empirical relationships with catchment characteristics were established. The mean orthophosphate concentrations were linked strongly with the urban component, and less significantly with effective rainfall and agricultural coverage. This is of strategic importance in relation to phosphorus and the Water Framework Directive. Correspondingly, mean nitrate concentrations were linked to land-use types, base flow index and effective rainfall. Within-catchment residence times and effective-rainfall (runoff) were important in relation to nitrate. The issue of nitrate and the Water Framework Directive is more complex than that for orthophosphate and involves a strong agricultural as well as an urban component

A time delay ultrasonic imaging system

The design and construction of a time delay ultrasonic imaging system is described. After describing previous and existing methods of ultrasonic imaging, the probable advantages of relative simplicity in comparison with phased arrays, avoidance of side lobes, improved resolution and the disadvantages of ambiguity and distortion of the time delay system are discussed. Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVF2) is used as a transducer material because its high damping enables one to produce single cycle ultrasonic pulses in water and its flexibility enables it to be formed into a curved surface. The properties of PVF2 as a transducer are examined both by library search and by practical experiment. Schlieren images are shown of the ultrasonic wave front emanating from PVF2. A system for imaging under water is designed that comprises one transmitting and four receiving transducers. These are made from PVF2 film on a cylindrical nylon backing, and construction methods are given. The system is controlled by a Rockwell AIM 65 desk top computer and the image is shown on a television screen. The design of both hardware and software is discussed, and methods are suggested for later improvement. The imaging system is demonstrated using four receiving transducers, and the improvement that can be achieved using more transducers is shown by simulating eight receivers. It is shown that, while the time delay system suffers from spurious images caused by ambiguities, it is free from the effect of side lobes because of the short pulse used. The design of a sectioned transducer that should reduce the number of ambiguities is outlined. In the system demonstrated, the image repetition period is two minutes, but with improved computation, this could be reduced to ten seconds or less. The problems envisaged in imaging in metal are discussed and methods of overcoming them are suggested