Ethnography and experimental non-fiction storytelling: relating the experiences of Maltese Fishermen

In this practice-based exploration I look at the dynamics of long-term ethnographic research to address the tensions between lived experience and conventional narrative constructs of Mediterranean identities. This research also fills a void in the anthropology of fishermen in Malta which as an area of academic investigation has remained understudied. Speculating on relational meaning making processes and multidimensional and experimental qualities inherent to ethnographic research, I produced non-linear multimodal documentary works as environments with the capacity to engender tangible, immersive and tacit knowledge about situated identities. Using my seven-year engagement with a family of fishermen from Marsaxlokk, a small fishing port in the south eastern part of Malta, I reflect on how situated learning experiences can inform experimental non-fiction audio-visual storytelling. In my research I draw on theories of affect and notions of the archivalto reflect on the ways Mediterranean identities are constructed. Examining the ecology of relations that binds together the people and the environment that they inhabit I engage with current discourses on multisensory ethnography, documentary making and narrative power to explore my practice (including two photographic essays, a sound installation, two gallery video projections and a web-based documentary prototype) as a process of creative mediation between the fishermen’s world and the public. Using select examples from my fieldwork recordings I show how embodied audio-visual practices enable nonfiction storytellers to re-propose the conditions of the ethnographic encounter. I look at how, responding to the very particular environmental and socio-cultural conditions of my field of study, I took my practice beyond the canons of traditional documentary photography towards an expanded multimedia form of storytelling. More specifically, I refer to my experiences with people working on and around the Joan of Arc(the family boat), as well as my apprenticeship as a deckhand/fisherman, to examine notions of emplaced learning, collaborative meaning making processes and affective strategies for the development of creative sensory-rich immersive storytelling strategies that provide amore nuanced understanding of Mediterranean identities

Problematizing cultural appropriation

Cultural appropriation in games entails the taking of knowledge, artifacts or expression from a culture and recontextualizing it within game structures. While cultural appropriation is a pervasive practice in games, little attention has been given to the ethical issues that emerge from such practices with regards to how culture is portrayed. This paper problematizes cultural appropriation in the context of a serious game for children inspired by Día de los Muertos, a Mexican festival focused on remembrance of the dead. Taking a research through design approach, we demonstrate that recontextualised cultural elements can retain their basic, original meaning. However, we also find that cultural appropriation is inevitable and its ethical implications can be far reaching. In our context, ethical concerns arose as a result of children’s beliefs that death affects prominent others and their destructive ways of coping with death. We argue that revealing emergent ethical concerns is imperative before deciding how and in what way to encourage culturally authentic narratives

La violencia política en la España del siglo XX.

Sin resume

Estimation of meiosis and sporulation efficiencies in the fission yeast by ascus analysis.

SUMMARYPopulations of linear asci are classified according to the number of spores in an ascus. The resultant five numerical classes are further classified into ten spatial classes according to the arrangement of the spores in an ascus and, by inference, into ten historical classes according to the number and origins of failures during the developmental process. An analysis of the observed frequencies of numerical classes allows derivation of the efficiencies of the first meiotic division, the second meiotic division and sporulation in a fission yeast. The analytical method may be useful in locating the site of action of sporulation inhibitors and in identifying meiosis mutants from sporulation mutants

Path planning with stability uncertainty for articulated mobile vehicles in challenging environments

© 2014 IEEE. This article proposes a probabilistic approach to account for robot stability uncertainty when planing motions over uneven terrains. A novel probabilistic stability criterion derived from the cumulative distribution of a tip-over metric is introduced that allows a safety constraint to be dynamically updated by available sensor data as it becomes available. The proposed safety constraint authorizes the planner to generates more conservative motion plans for areas with higher levels of uncertainty, while avoids unnecessary caution in well-known areas. The proposed systematic approach is particularly applicable to reconfigurable robots that can assume safer postures when required, although is equally valid for fixed-configuration platforms to choose safer paths to follow. The advantages of planning with the proposed probabilistic stability metric are demonstrated with data collected from an indoor rescue arena, as well as an outdoor rover testing facility

Acute effects of long-distance races on heart rate variability and arterial stiffness: A systematic review and meta-analysis

This study systematically reviewed and quantified the effects of running a long-distance race (LDR) on heart rate variability (HRV) and arterial stiffness (AS). All types of races of a distance equal to or greater than a marathon (=42.2 km) were included. A total of 2, 220 articles were identified, 52 were included in the qualitative analysis, and 48 were meta-analysed. The standardised mean difference pre- and post-race of various time-domain and frequency-domain indices of HRV, mean arterial blood pressure (MAP), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV) was calculated. Regarding HRV, there was a significant decrease in most of the variables considered as markers of parasympathetic activity, indicating a shift of autonomic balance towards a reduced vagal tone. Regarding vascular variables, there was a significant drop in blood pressure and reduced AS. In conclusion, running an LDR seems to have a considerable acute effect on the autonomic nervous system, haemodynamics, and vascular properties. The observed effects could be categorised within the expected acute responses to long-lasting, strenuous exercise. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Carrier and Light Trapping in Graded Quantum Well Laser Structures

We investigated the carrier and light trapping in GaInAs/AlGaAs single quantum well laser structures by means of time resolved photoluminescence and Raman spectroscopy. The influence of the shape and depth of the confinement potential and of the cavity geometry was studied by using different AlGaAs/GaAs short-period superlattices as barriers. Our results show that grading the optical cavity improves considerably both carrier and light trapping in the quantum well, and that the trapping efficiency is enhanced by increasing the graded confining potential.Comment: PDF-format, 15 pages (including 4 figures), Applied Physics Letters (June 2000

Antecedents of Job Satisfaction and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors Among Agency-Hired Blue-Collar Contractual Workers in the Philippines

The employment of contractual workers in the country has been an ever growing reality as companies continue to achieve flexibilization and cost efficiency. Despite their increasing number, research that focuses on contractual workers’ attitudes and behaviors as well as the factors that elicit these remains little. This quantitative study examined job characteristics, rewards and recognition, and training and development as predictors of job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) among 159 agency-hired blue-collar contractual workers within Metro Manila. Although the identified antecedent variables were found to be correlated with both job satisfaction and OCBs, only job characteristics and training and development emerged as strong predictors of job satisfaction while job characteristics as well as job satisfaction predicted OCB