Chance would be a fine thing : digitally driven practice-based research at Huddersfield

Emerging software based processes are challenging the role of the maker as author as well as introducing new areas of practice. Recent developments in digital art and design at the School of Design Technology, University of Huddersfield have included two areas covering the application of digital techniques to the process of making in very different contexts: Product Design and manufacture; and Visual Arts. Much of this work represents a convergence of art and science, of aesthetics and technology, of process and production. These developments have emerged from two programmes of practice-based research at the University and at the Digital Research Unit at The Media Centre, Huddersfield. The first of these is the Designer in Residence programme based in the Design Department, which aims to employ professional designers in order to embed practice-based research activity into the department’s delivery of 3D design pathways. In the second of these, the Department of Architecture has been working with the Digital Research Unit to deliver a dynamic and challenging range of work from artists at the forefront of digital media practice, bringing new ideas and working practices to the fore. Together, these programmes bridge academia, commercial R&D and the cultural and creative industries. Though they utilise very different approaches, the projects are connected in the ways in which they explore the role of chance, of unforeseen elements in the production of the ‘finished’ work. In a research context, the accidental, the random and even the unaware as contributory constituents are considered as aspects which have considerable impact on the definitions, roles and expectations of the author, the mediating technology and the consumer within the creative process. Aspects of ‘control’ over the results of creative endeavour which are normally taken as a given are here questioned and ownership of the process debated. As high level pieces of original practice-based research such uncertainty is understandably problematic. Through the presentation of two case studies, this paper will explore the implications of these approaches to making. The first of these case studies is the ‘Future Factories’ project by the designer Lionel Theodore Dean, which explores the creation, selection and digital manufacture of randomly generated computer models to produce finished physical artefacts via rapid prototyping technologies. The second case study is the ‘QQQ’ commission by the artist and programmer Tom Betts, which is an interactive installation constructed from the code of the graphics engine for the computer game ‘Quake’, modified using generative programming techniques. The two case studies will then be analysed through the perspective of the writings of Alfred Jarry, with particular respect to his notion of ‘Pataphysics’ and the writings on chance and play of Paul Virilio, in order to highlight how both projects utilise real-time networked technologies in their final manifestation. The case studies also contextualise the shifting relationships between the maker, software techniques and the participation of the audience or consumer in playful and game-like processes in the production of the finished environment or artefact.</p

Tales from the Riverbank: place-marketing and maritime heritages

Although place-marketing and image-enhancement are increasingly common elements of Western urban policy, when applied to specific locales, these abstract theories have to negotiate local conditions and contexts. This paper discusses the ways attempts to place-market the city of Hull, England, prompted debates surrounding questions of place, memory and heritage. Despite being Britain\u27s leading fishing port in the 20th century, Hull\u27s place-marketing strategy elided this past in favour of a sanitised vision of a modern, post-industrial city. These debates crystallised around a 1999 planning inquiry over the proposed redevelopment of the erstwhile fishing dock. While the proposals contained some reference to the dock\u27s role as a site of place-memory, this was deemed insufficient by local protest groups and politicians who argued for a more appropriate memorial to Hull\u27s fishing community. Eventually, the redevelopment proposals were accepted, but not before attendant debates exposed both the depth of local sentiments over place-memories and fishing heritage, and also the difficulties of negotiating inclusive and plural heritage landscapes.<br /

Integrated ocean, earth, and atmospheric observations for resilience planning in Hampton roads, Virginia

Building flood resilience in coastal communities requires a precise understanding of the temporal and spatial scales of inundation and the ability to detect and predict changes in flooding. In Hampton Roads, the Intergovernmental Pilot Project\u27s Scientific Advisory Committee recommended an integrated network of ocean, earth, and atmospheric data collection from both private and public sector organizations that engage in active scientific monitoring and observing. Since its establishment, the network has grown to include monitoring of water levels, land subsidence, wave measurements, current measurements, and atmospheric conditions. High-resolution land elevation and land cover data sets have also been developed. These products have been incorporated into a number of portals and integrated tools to help support resilience planning. Significant challenges to building the network included establishing consistent data standards across organizations to allow for the integration of the data into multiple, unique products and funding the expansion of the network components. Recommendations to the network development in Hampton Roads include the need to continue to support and expand the publicly available network of sensors; enhance integration between ocean, earth, and atmospheric networks; and improve shallow water bathymetry data used in spatial flooding models

Immune and Viral Correlates of “Secondary Viral Control” after Treatment Interruption in Chronically HIV-1 Infected Patients

Upon interruption of antiretroviral therapy, HIV-infected patients usually show viral load rebound to pre-treatment levels. Four patients, hereafter referred to as secondary controllers (SC), were identified who initiated therapy during chronic infection and, after stopping treatment, could control virus replication at undetectable levels for more than six months. In the present study we set out to unravel possible viral and immune parameters or mechanisms of this phenomenon by comparing secondary controllers with elite controllers and non-controllers, including patients under HAART. As candidate correlates of protection, virus growth kinetics, levels of intracellular viral markers, several aspects of HIV-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cell function and HIV neutralizing antibodies were investigated. As expected all intracellular viral markers were lower in aviremic as compared to viremic subjects, but in addition both elite and secondary controllers had lower levels of viral unspliced RNA in PBMC as compared to patients on HAART. Ex vivo cultivation of the virus from CD4+ T cells of SC consistently failed in one patient and showed delayed kinetics in the three others. Formal in vitro replication studies of these three viruses showed low to absent growth in two cases and a virus with normal fitness in the third case. T cell responses toward HIV peptides, evaluated in IFN-γ ELISPOT, revealed no significant differences in breadth, magnitude or avidity between SC and all other patient groups. Neither was there a difference in polyfunctionality of CD4+ or CD8+ T cells, as evaluated with intracellular cytokine staining. However, secondary and elite controllers showed higher proliferative responses to Gag and Pol peptides. SC also showed the highest level of autologous neutralizing antibodies. These data suggest that higher T cell proliferative responses and lower replication kinetics might be instrumental in secondary viral control in the absence of treatment

Integrated Ocean, Earth, and Atmospheric Observations for Resilience Planning in Hampton Roads, Virginia

Building flood resilience in coastal communities requires a precise understanding of the temporal and spatial scales of inundation and the ability to detect and predict changes in flooding. In Hampton Roads, the Intergovernmental Pilot Project’s Scientific Advisory Committee recommended an integrated network of ocean, earth, and atmospheric data collection from both private and public sector organizations that engage in active scientific monitoring and observing. Since its establishment, the network has grown to include monitoring of water levels, land subsidence, wave measurements, current measurements, and atmospheric conditions. High-resolution land elevation and land cover data sets have also been developed. These products have been incorporated into a number of portals and integrated tools to help support resilience planning. Significant challenges to building the network included establishing consistent data standards across organizations to allow for the integration of the data into multiple, unique products and funding the expansion of the network components. Recommendations to the network development in Hampton Roads include the need to continue to support and expand the publicly available network of sensors; enhance integration between ocean, earth, and atmospheric networks; and improve shallow water bathymetry data used in spatial flooding models

Nonperturbative structure of the quark-gluon vertex

The complete tensor structure of the quark--gluon vertex in Landau gauge is determined at two kinematical points (`asymmetric' and `symmetric') from lattice QCD in the quenched approximation. The simulations are carried out at beta=6.0, using a mean-field improved Sheikholeslami-Wohlert fermion action, with two quark masses ~ 60 and 115 MeV. We find substantial deviations from the abelian form at the asymmetric point. The mass dependence is found to be negligible. At the symmetric point, the form factor related to the chromomagnetic moment is determined and found to contribute significantly to the infrared interaction strength.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, JHEP3.cl

Gluon Propagator in the Infrared Region

The gluon propagator is calculated in quenched QCD for two different lattice sizes (16^3x48 and 32^3x64) at beta=6.0. The volume dependence of the propagator in Landau gauge is studied. The smaller lattice is instrumental in revealing finite volume and anisotropic lattice artefacts. Methods for minimising these artefacts are developed and applied to the larger lattice data. New structure seen in the infrared region survives these conservative cuts to the lattice data. This structure serves to rule out a number of models that have appeared in the literature. A fit to a simple analytical form capturing the momentum dependence of the nonperturbative gluon propagator is also reported.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, using RevTeX. Submitted to Phys. Rev. D. This and related papers can also be obtained from http://www.physics.adelaide.edu.au/~jskuller/papers

Conserving the birds of Uganda's Banana-Coffee Arc: Land Sparing and Land Sharing Compared

Reconciling the aims of feeding an ever more demanding human population and conserving biodiversity is a difficult challenge. Here, we explore potential solutions by assessing whether land sparing (farming for high yield, potentially enabling the protection of non-farmland habitat), land sharing (lower yielding farming with more biodiversity within farmland) or a mixed strategy would result in better bird conservation outcomes for a specified level of agricultural production. We surveyed forest and farmland study areas in southern Uganda, measuring the population density of 256 bird species and agricultural yield: food energy and gross income. Parametric non-linear functions relating density to yield were fitted. Species were identified as "winners" (total population size always at least as great with agriculture present as without it) or "losers" (total population sometimes or always reduced with agriculture present) for a range of targets for total agricultural production. For each target we determined whether each species would be predicted to have a higher total population with land sparing, land sharing or with any intermediate level of sparing at an intermediate yield. We found that most species were expected to have their highest total populations with land sparing, particularly loser species and species with small global range sizes. Hence, more species would benefit from high-yield farming if used as part of a strategy to reduce forest loss than from low-yield farming and land sharing, as has been found in Ghana and India in a previous study. We caution against advocacy for high-yield farming alone as a means to deliver land sparing if it is done without strong protection for natural habitats, other ecosystem services and social welfare. Instead, we suggest that conservationists explore how conservation and agricultural policies can be better integrated to deliver land sparing by, for example, combining land-use planning and agronomic support for small farmers