Damaged Goods: Reconstructing the Perceived Perfect

The writing that follows is intended to provide a speculative framework based upon theories, literature, and narratives that seek to articulate several major themes that occur within my studio practice. My work incorporates the imagery of domestic objects that can substitute for the body to permeate realities through the deconstruction and reconstruction of structures while simultaneously integrating gendered materials under the principles of the uncanny and sense of danger. This production process provides how we as viewers question strength and stability in what we understand by staging the familiarity of the home that is then imbued with altered states of being

Motivated monitors: the importance of institutional investors’ portfolio weights

Studies of institutional monitoring focus on the fraction of the firm held by institutions. We focus on the fraction of the institution’s portfolio represented by the firm. In the context of acquisitions, we hypothesize that institutional monitoring will be greatest when the target firm represents a significant allocation of funds in the institution’s portfolio. We show that this measure is important in reconciling mixed findings for total institutional ownership in the prior literature. The results indicate that our measure of institutional holdings leads to greater bid completion rates, higher premiums and lower acquirer returns. This empirical evidence provides support for theories predicting a beneficial effect of blockholders in monitoring the firm in general and in enhancing the gains to takeover targets in particular

Star Formation in a Cosmological Simulation of Reionization

We study the luminosity functions of high-redshift galaxies in detailed hydrodynamic simulations of cosmic reionization, which are designed to reproduce the evolution of the Lyman-alpha forest between z=5 and z=6. We find that the luminosity functions and total stellar mass densities are in agreement with observations when plausible assumptions about reddenning at z=6 are made. Our simulations support the conclusion that stars alone reionized the universe.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap

Effects of phonological phrasing on syntactic structure

Bantu languages are renowned as tone languages that utilize this suprasegmental feature not only on the lexical level to distinguish lexical items, but also on the grammatical level to distinguish clause types. This article investigates one such use of grammatical tone in relative clauses in Bemba where a low tone can be used in place of a segmental relative marker. This low tone relative morpheme functions in conjunction with phrase boundary tone indicated on the head noun and which entails either restrictive or non-restrictive interpretations of relatives. Considering a mapping of XPs to major phonological phrases in the syntax-prosody interface, the resultant phonological phrasing in relatives influences the choice of syntactic structure. In the case at hand, a head-raising analysis provides an optimal mapping between syntax and prosody for restrictives. Further, a more direct influence of phonology on syntax can be seen in a perception-based model like Dynamic Syntax where the on-line building of syntactic trees can gain import from phonological information. © Walter de Gruyter 2007

Efficient two-step access to azafluorenones and related compounds

International audienceCrystals of a lithiocuprate prepared from copper(I) chloride and lithium 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidide (2 equiv) were isolated and analyzed by X-ray diffraction as (TMP)2Cu(Cl)Li2*THF. The observation of this species is consistent with its having a role in deprotocupration-aroylation. Phenyl pyridyl ketones, phenyl quinolyl ketones, and phenyl thienyl ketones were prepared in tetrahydrofuran using the lithiocuprate and aroyl chorides as electrophiles. Diaryl ketones bearing a chloro group at the 2 position (of a pyridyl or phenyl group) thus synthesized were next converted through palladium-catalyzed ring closure to polycycles of the 5H-indeno[1,2-b]pyridin-5-one, 11H-indeno[1,2-b]quinolin-11-one, 9H-indeno[2,1-c]pyridin-9-one, and 8H-indeno[2,1-b]thiophen-8-one families

Characterisation of Walker 256 breast carinoma cells from two tumour cell banks as assessed using two models of secondary brain tumours

Background: Metastatic brain tumours are a common end stage of breast cancer progression, with significant associated morbidity and high mortality. Walker 256 is a rat breast carcinoma cell line syngeneic to Wistar rats and commonly used to induce secondary brain tumours. Previously there has been the assumption that the same cancer cell line from different cell banks behave in a similar manner, although recent studies have suggested that cell lines may change their characteristics over time in vitro. Methods: In this study internal carotid artery injection and direct cerebral inoculation models of secondary brain tumours were used to determine the tumorigenicity of Walker 256 cells obtained from two cell banks, the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC), and the Cell Resource Centre for Medical Research at Tohoku University (CRCTU). Results: Tumour incidence and volume, plus immunoreactivity to albumin, IBA1 and GFAP, were used as indicators of tumorigenicity and tumour interaction with the host brain microenvironment. CRCTU Walker 256 cells showed greater incidence, larger tumour volume, pronounced blood–brain barrier disruption and prominent glial response when compared to ATCC cell line. Conclusions: These findings indicate that immortalised cancer cell lines obtained from different cell banks may have diverse characteristics and behaviour in vivo.Kate M Lewis, Elizabeth Harford-Wright, Robert Vink and Mounir N Ghabrie

Revisiting Ruddick: Feminism, pacifism and non-violence

This article explores feminist contentions over pacifism and non-violence in the contextof the Greenham Common Peace Camp in the 1980s and later developments offeminist Just War Theory. We argue that Sara Ruddick’s work puts feminist pacifism, its radical feminist critics and feminist just war theory equally into question. Although Ruddick does not resolve the contestations within feminism over peace, violence and the questions of war, she offers a productive way of holding the tension between them. In our judgment, her work is helpful not only for developing a feminist political response to the threats and temptations of violent strategies but also for thinking through the question of the relation between violence and politics as such

The General Equilibrium Incidence of Environmental Mandates

Pollution regulations affect factor demands, relative returns, production, and output prices. In our model, one sector includes pollution as an input that can be a complement or substitute for labor or capital. For each type of mandate, we find conditions where more burden is on labor or on capital. Stricter regulation does not always place less burden on the better substitute for pollution. Also, restrictions on pollution per unit output create an “output-subsidy effect” on factor prices that can reverse the usual output and substitution effects. We find analogous effects for a restriction on pollution per unit capital