Audience Participation and Neoliberal Value: Risk, agency and responsibility in immersive theatre

This article identifies a value set shared between the neoliberal ethos and modes of audience participation frequently promoted in immersive theatre: values such as risk-taking, individual freedoms and personal responsibility. The promotion of self-made opportunity, premised either on opportunistic risk-taking, or the savvy attitude that comes with experience and familiarity with immersive theatre participation, will be addressed as valorising another shared value: entrepreneurialism. A participatory mode will be introduced that I call ‘entrepreneurial participation’: a kind of audience participation privileged in much immersive theatre performance identifying the enactment of neoliberal value. While entrepreneurial participation may be deliberately deployed by audiences as a participatory tactic, it will be argued that this particular participatory mode is frequently expected of audiences, or at least privileged as a means of engaging with performance. Work by the British immersive theatre company Punchdrunk will be taken as a means of illustrating this suggestion, particularly The Masque of the Red Death (2007). The article begins with a definition of immersive theatre that focuses on the figuring of participating audiences, paying particular attention to the relativity of participatory freedoms and the centrality of experience production. Hedonistic and narcissistic experiences will pull focus and will be approached as a possible reason behind immersive theatre's susceptibility to absorption within the experience industry and co-optation by innovative marketers. The article then establishes a set of shared values between the neoliberal ethos and audience participation in The Masque of the Red Death. Risk perception research, especially that arising from the Oregon Group and Stephen Lyng, will be touched on as a means of introducing some political considerations arising from the notion of entrepreneurial participation. A more optimistic, but ultimately sobering set of responses will be offered in conclusion

The Two Variables in The Triple System HR 6469=V819 Her: One Eclipsing, One Spotted

A complete BV light curve, from 14 nights of good data obtained with the Vanderbilt University-Tennessee State University (VU-TSU) automatic telescope, are presented and solved with the Wilson-Devinney program. Third light is evaluated, with the companion star brighter by 0.58m in V and 0.11m in B. The eclipses are partial. Inferred color indices yield F2 V and F8 V for the eclipsing pair and G8 IV-III for the distant companion star. After removing the variability due to eclipses, we study the residual variability of the G8 IV-III star over the ten years 1982 to 1992. Each yearly light curve is fit with a two-spot model. Three relatively long-lived spots are identified, with rotation periods of 85.9d, 85.9d, and 86.1d. The weak and intermittent variability is understood because the G8 IV-III star has a Rossby number at the threshold for the onset of heavy spottedness

Capturing the Surface Texture and Shape of Pollen: A Comparison of Microscopy Techniques

Research on the comparative morphology of pollen grains depends crucially on the application of appropriate microscopy techniques. Information on the performance of microscopy techniques can be used to inform that choice. We compared the ability of several microscopy techniques to provide information on the shape and surface texture of three pollen types with differing morphologies. These techniques are: widefield, apotome, confocal and two-photon microscopy (reflected light techniques), and brightfield and differential interference contrast microscopy (DIC) (transmitted light techniques). We also provide a first view of pollen using super-resolution microscopy. The three pollen types used to contrast the performance of each technique are: Croton hirtus (Euphorbiaceae), Mabea occidentalis (Euphorbiaceae) and Agropyron repens (Poaceae). No single microscopy technique provided an adequate picture of both the shape and surface texture of any of the three pollen types investigated here. The wavelength of incident light, photon-collection ability of the optical technique, signal-to-noise ratio, and the thickness and light absorption characteristics of the exine profoundly affect the recovery of morphological information by a given optical microscopy technique. Reflected light techniques, particularly confocal and two-photon microscopy, best capture pollen shape but provide limited information on very fine surface texture. In contrast, transmitted light techniques, particularly differential interference contrast microscopy, can resolve very fine surface texture but provide limited information on shape. Texture comprising sculptural elements that are spaced near the diffraction limit of light (∼250 nm; NDL) presents an acute challenge to optical microscopy. Super-resolution structured illumination microscopy provides data on the NDL texture of A. repens that is more comparable to textural data from scanning electron microscopy than any other optical microscopy technique investigated here. Maximizing the recovery of morphological information from pollen grains should lead to more robust classifications, and an increase in the taxonomic precision with which ancient vegetation can be reconstructed

Audience Participation and Neoliberal Value: Risk, Agency and Responsibility in Immersive Theatre.

This article identifies a value set shared between the neoliberal ethos and modes of audience participation frequently promoted in immersive theatre: values such as risk-taking, individual freedoms and personal responsibility. The promotion of self-made opportunity, premised either on opportunistic risk-taking, or the savvy attitude that comes with experience and familiarity with immersive theatre participation, will be addressed as valorising another shared value: entrepreneurialism. A participatory mode will be introduced that I call ‘entrepreneurial participation’: a kind of audience participation privileged in much immersive theatre performance identifying the enactment of neoliberal value. While entrepreneurial participation may be deliberately deployed by audiences as a participatory tactic, it will be argued that this particular participatory mode is frequently expected of audiences, or at least privileged as a means of engaging with performance. Work by the British immersive theatre company Punchdrunk will be taken as a means of illustrating this suggestion, particularly The Masque of the Red Death (2007). The article begins with a definition of immersive theatre that focuses on the figuring of participating audiences, paying particular attention to the relativity of participatory freedoms and the centrality of experience production. Hedonistic and narcissistic experiences will pull focus and will be approached as a possible reason behind immersive theatre's susceptibility to absorption within the experience industry and co-optation by innovative marketers. The article then establishes a set of shared values between the neoliberal ethos and audience participation in The Masque of the Red Death. Risk perception research, especially that arising from the Oregon Group and Stephen Lyng, will be touched on as a means of introducing some political considerations arising from the notion of entrepreneurial participation. A more optimistic, but ultimately sobering set of responses will be offered in conclusion

Early Evolution of Conserved Regulatory Sequences Associated with Development in Vertebrates

Comparisons between diverse vertebrate genomes have uncovered thousands of highly conserved non-coding sequences, an increasing number of which have been shown to function as enhancers during early development. Despite their extreme conservation over 500 million years from humans to cartilaginous fish, these elements appear to be largely absent in invertebrates, and, to date, there has been little understanding of their mode of action or the evolutionary processes that have modelled them. We have now exploited emerging genomic sequence data for the sea lamprey, Petromyzon marinus, to explore the depth of conservation of this type of element in the earliest diverging extant vertebrate lineage, the jawless fish (agnathans). We searched for conserved non-coding elements (CNEs) at 13 human gene loci and identified lamprey elements associated with all but two of these gene regions. Although markedly shorter and less well conserved than within jawed vertebrates, identified lamprey CNEs are able to drive specific patterns of expression in zebrafish embryos, which are almost identical to those driven by the equivalent human elements. These CNEs are therefore a unique and defining characteristic of all vertebrates. Furthermore, alignment of lamprey and other vertebrate CNEs should permit the identification of persistent sequence signatures that are responsible for common patterns of expression and contribute to the elucidation of the regulatory language in CNEs. Identifying the core regulatory code for development, common to all vertebrates, provides a foundation upon which regulatory networks can be constructed and might also illuminate how large conserved regulatory sequence blocks evolve and become fixed in genomic DNA

Artemether-Lumefantrine to treat Malaria in pregnancy is associated with reduced placental Haemozoin deposition compared to Quinine in a randomized controlled trial

Data on efficacy of artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) to treat Plasmodium falciparum during pregnancy in sub-Saharan Africa is scarce. A recent open label, randomized controlled trial in Mbarara, Uganda demonstrated that artemether-lumefantrine (AL) is not inferior to quinine to treat uncomplicated malaria in pregnancy. Haemozoin can persist in the placenta following clearance of parasites, however there is no data whether ACT can influence the amount of haemozoin or the dynamics of haemozoin clearance

Intermittent preventive treatment for malaria in pregnancy in Africa: What's new, what's needed?

Falciparum malaria is an important cause of maternal, perinatal and neonatal morbidity in high transmission settings in Sub-Saharan Africa. Intermittent preventive treatment with sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP-IPT) has proven efficacious in reducing the burden of pregnancy-associated malaria but increasing levels of parasite resistance mean that the benefits of national SP-IPT programmes may soon be seriously undermined in much of the region. Hence, there is an urgent need to develop alternative drug regimens for IPT in pregnancy. This paper reviews published safety and efficacy data on various antimalarials and proposes several candidate combination regimens for assessment in phase II/III clinical trials

Human preferences for sexually dimorphic faces may be evolutionarily novel

A large literature proposes that preferences for exaggerated sex typicality in human faces (masculinity/femininity) reflect a long evolutionary history of sexual and social selection. This proposal implies that dimorphism was important to judgments of attractiveness and personality in ancestral environments. It is difficult to evaluate, however, because most available data come from large-scale, industrialized, urban populations. Here, we report the results for 12 populations with very diverse levels of economic development. Surprisingly, preferences for exaggerated sex-specific traits are only found in the novel, highly developed environments. Similarly, perceptions that masculine males look aggressive increase strongly with development and, specifically, urbanization. These data challenge the hypothesis that facial dimorphism was an important ancestral signal of heritable mate value. One possibility is that highly developed environments provide novel opportunities to discern relationships between facial traits and behavior by exposing individuals to large numbers of unfamiliar faces, revealing patterns too subtle to detect with smaller samples

Universal health coverage from multiple perspectives: a synthesis of conceptual literature and global debates

Background: There is an emerging global consensus on the importance of universal health coverage (UHC), but no unanimity on the conceptual definition and scope of UHC, whether UHC is achievable or not, how to move towards it, common indicators for measuring its progress, and its long-term sustainability. This has resulted in various interpretations of the concept, emanating from different disciplinary perspectives. This paper discusses the various dimensions of UHC emerging from these interpretations and argues for the need to pay attention to the complex interactions across the various components of a health system in the pursuit of UHC as a legal human rights issue. Discussion: The literature presents UHC as a multi-dimensional concept, operationalized in terms of universal population coverage, universal financial protection, and universal access to quality health care, anchored on the basis of health care as an international legal obligation grounded in international human rights laws. As a legal concept, UHC implies the existence of a legal framework that mandates national governments to provide health care to all residents while compelling the international community to support poor nations in implementing this right. As a humanitarian social concept, UHC aims at achieving universal population coverage by enrolling all residents into health-related social security systems and securing equitable entitlements to the benefits from the health system for all. As a health economics concept, UHC guarantees financial protection by providing a shield against the catastrophic and impoverishing consequences of out-of-pocket expenditure, through the implementation of pooled prepaid financing systems. As a public health concept, UHC has attracted several controversies regarding which services should be covered: comprehensive services vs. minimum basic package, and priority disease-specific interventions vs. primary health care. Summary: As a multi-dimensional concept, grounded in international human rights laws, the move towards UHC in LMICs requires all states to effectively recognize the right to health in their national constitutions. It also requires a human rights-focused integrated approach to health service delivery that recognizes the health system as a complex phenomenon with interlinked functional units whose effective interaction are essential to reach the equilibrium called UHC