Casino Capers: Exploring the Aesthetics of Superfluidity

Casinos are fast becoming sites for display of new Native American (NA) Arts. In such a context, casinos re-represent themselves and their communities through various visual forms and thus change their meanings. In her study of Wisconsin casinos, Stuhr (2004) challenged art educators to consider these visual culture displays as they accommodate new markets. Art in the casino phenomenon is worth investigating and how art educators can explore and/or make sense of this phenomenon is important. Casinos are using artworks as spectacles of pleasure. According to a casino gambling survey conducted by Harrah’s Entertainment, approximately 40 million Americans played slot machines in 2003 (Rivlin, 2004). People are attracted to the glitz and the chance of winning money. Such things are phenomenal— highly sensual and impressive, and there lies the attraction. The gambling experience dates back at least to the casting of lots in the Bible. Experience always has an aesthetic component. An aesthetic experience resides not so much in a thing’s appearance, as in its life-like substitutes. “In an age in which desire is inculcated even in those who have nothing to buy, the metropolis [casino] becomes the place where the superfluity of objects is converted into a value in and of itself” (Mbembe, 2004, p. 405). So what aesthetic qualities draw people to the casino

Illusions of Depth (Elementary Art Lessons, Arts Wire)

A 3rd grade lesson plan on "Seeing Near and Far": students learn how overlapping and size differences show perspective, and that on a level surface, the lowest part of a near subject is lower in a picture than the lowest part of a farther subject, recognizing which objects in a picture are near and which are far. This is an introduction of the concept of the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface

Empowering Elementary Students’ Ecological Thinking Through Discussing the Animé Nausicaa and Constructing Super Bugs

Ecological teaching models and evidence of success in public schools may be lacking. We created a constructivist ecological model using the animé Nausiscaa with fourth graders in a Scottsdale, Arizona school. The animé involves the epic adventure, good and evil battle to affect the future of the human race. We documented results using questionnaires, photographs, and students’ written final statements. An art teacher introduced the animé, followed with students’ analysis of action sequences, demonstrated how to make three-dimensional super bugs, and questioned students about ecological concerns. Our major research question was how did discussing the animé Nausicaa and making super bugs empower children to reinterpret bug powers and learn about ecology. We offer explanations of surface and deeper influences. While most responses regarding bug powers were bad--offensive and defensive, two emerging good categories related to ecology were recycling and pollinating. Students showed some empathetic understanding and constructed a few ecological connections between their inner and outer worlds

Empowering Elementary Students’ Ecological Thinking Through Discussing the Animé Nausicaa and Constructing Super Bugs

Ecological teaching models and evidence of success in public schools may be lacking. We created a constructivist ecological model using the animé Nausiscaa with fourth graders in a Scottsdale, Arizona school. The animé involves the epic adventure, good and evil battle to affect the future of the human race. We documented results using questionnaires, photographs, and students’ written final statements. An art teacher introduced the animé, followed with students’ analysis of action sequences, demonstrated how to make three-dimensional super bugs, and questioned students about ecological concerns. Our major research question was how did discussing the animé Nausicaa and making super bugs empower children to reinterpret bug powers and learn about ecology. We offer explanations of surface and deeper influences. While most responses regarding bug powers were bad--offensive and defensive, two emerging good categories related to ecology were recycling and pollinating. Students showed some empathetic understanding and constructed a few ecological connections between their inner and outer worlds

Value of uroplakin III in distinguishing variants of primary bladder urothelial carcinoma from malignancy metastatic to the urinary bladder

Background: Urothelial carcinoma (UC) variants can be difficult to differentiate from carcinoma metastatic to the bladder. Materials and Methods: We examined immunostaining for uroplakin III in 43 cases of primary bladder CC variants including micropapillary UC (n=19), nested variant of CC (n=2), pleomorphic giant-cell carcinoma (n=8), plasmacytoid CC (n=4), lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma (n=2), large cell undifferentiated carcinoma (n=2), CC with abundant myxoid stroma (n=3) and lipid cell variant (n=3) and in 11 tumors from other organs metastatic to the bladder. These tumors included invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast (n=2), colorectal adenocarcinoma (n=4), endometrioid adenocarcinoma (n=1) and serous papillary carcinoma of the uterus (n=1) melanoma (n=1), embryonal carcinoma of the testis (n=1), and renal clear cell carcinoma (n=1). Results: Out of the 43 CC variants, 35 (81%) were positive for uroplakin III, including micropapillary, lipid cell variant and CC with abundant myxoid stroma. Pleomorphic giant cell carcinoma, plasmacytoid CC and nested variant of CC were less commonly positive. Of the 11 metastatic tumors, six were found to be positive for uroplakin metastatic colorectal adenocarcinoma, clear cell carcinoma of the kidney and embryonal carcinoma of testis. Conclusion: UP III Positivity for uroplakin III is not found only in primary bladder CC variants, but in some tumors that have metastatized to the bladder. Staining for uroplakin III alone should not be taken as evidence of UC

An Innovative Approach to Determine the Alignment of the Star Camera System for the Clementine Spacecraft

The Clementine spacecraft has the requirement to provide accurate inertial pointing of the mission sensors toward celestial objects, perform precisely-oriented propulsion maneuvers, and steer the body-fixed high-gain downlink antenna. The baseline for the spacecraft\u27s inertial knowledge is derived from the on-board star camera system. This paper describes the methods employed to derive the critical alignment of the two star cameras with respect to the spacecraft. The primary alignment combined conventional optical metrology to orient the star cameras relative to the spacecraft axes with outdoor alignment of the star cameras using the night sky. The end-to-end verification of the fully-integrated spacecraft was done entirely using the night sky. These techniques were unique in that they were designed to provide a fast, accurate, and complete end-to-end alignment without costly and time-consuming hardware and test fixture setups

Long-term renormalization of chromatic mechanisms following cataract surgery.

The optical density of the human crystalline lens progressively increases with age, the greatest increase in the visible spectrum being at short wavelengths. This produces a gradual shift in the spectral distribution of the light reaching the retina, yet color appearance remains relatively stable across the life span, implying that the visual system adapts to compensate for changes in spectral sensitivity. We explored properties of this adaptive renormalization by measuring changes in color appearance following cataract surgery. When the lens is removed, cataract patients often report a large perceptual shift in color appearance that can last for months. This change in color appearance was quantified for four cataract patients (63-84 years) by determining the chromaticity of stimuli that appeared achromatic before surgery, and at various intervals after surgery for up to 1 year. Stimuli were presented on a calibrated CRT as 9.5-deg spots, with 3-s duration and 3-s interstimulus intervals (ISIs). Chromaticity was adjusted by the subjects in CIE L*a*b* color space with luminance fixed at 32 cd/m2, on a dark background. We also estimated the optical density of the cataractous lens by comparing absolute scotopic thresholds from 410 nm to 600 nm before and after surgery. The results demonstrated that immediately following surgery there is a large increase in the short-wave light reaching the retina, mainly below 500 nm. The achromatic settings generally showed an initial large shift in the "yellow" direction after surgery that gradually (but never fully) returned to the original achromatic point before surgery. The shifts in the achromatic point occur over a number of months and appear to occur independently of the fellow eye

Long-term renormalization of chromatic mechanisms following cataract surgery.

The optical density of the human crystalline lens progressively increases with age, the greatest increase in the visible spectrum being at short wavelengths. This produces a gradual shift in the spectral distribution of the light reaching the retina, yet color appearance remains relatively stable across the life span, implying that the visual system adapts to compensate for changes in spectral sensitivity. We explored properties of this adaptive renormalization by measuring changes in color appearance following cataract surgery. When the lens is removed, cataract patients often report a large perceptual shift in color appearance that can last for months. This change in color appearance was quantified for four cataract patients (63-84 years) by determining the chromaticity of stimuli that appeared achromatic before surgery, and at various intervals after surgery for up to 1 year. Stimuli were presented on a calibrated CRT as 9.5-deg spots, with 3-s duration and 3-s interstimulus intervals (ISIs). Chromaticity was adjusted by the subjects in CIE L*a*b* color space with luminance fixed at 32 cd/m2, on a dark background. We also estimated the optical density of the cataractous lens by comparing absolute scotopic thresholds from 410 nm to 600 nm before and after surgery. The results demonstrated that immediately following surgery there is a large increase in the short-wave light reaching the retina, mainly below 500 nm. The achromatic settings generally showed an initial large shift in the "yellow" direction after surgery that gradually (but never fully) returned to the original achromatic point before surgery. The shifts in the achromatic point occur over a number of months and appear to occur independently of the fellow eye

Topography of the chromatic pattern-onset VEP.

The chromatic pattern-onset VEP has been used successfully as a sensitive and objective technique to determine congenital and acquired color vision deficiency. It also has been applied to characterize development, maturation and aging of the chromatic visual pathways. Here we determine the topographic components of the full-field VEP using the multifocal technique. Recordings were made with the VERIS system that extracts topographic VEPs using a pseudorandom stimulus sequence. Chromatic pattern stimuli were presented in an onset-offset temporal sequence, with colors modulated along different axes in the MBDKL color space. Additional experiments were conducted to verify the S-cone axis for each observer and that our chromatic stimuli were close to isoluminant at different field locations. Our data show reliable and robust chromatic onset VEP responses for multiple retinal areas that conform to pattern-onset full-field VEP waveform characteristics. For stimuli with chromatic contributions, pattern-onsets produced reliable and consistent waveforms whereas for stimuli with large luminance contributions pattern-reversal stimuli were superior. Our method for recording chromatic multifocal pattern-onset VEPs holds promise for clinical application to detect and monitor early retinal and optic nerve changes related to aging and disease