Impossible cartographies: approaching Raúl Ruiz’s cinema

Raúl Ruiz (1931-2011), while considered one of the world’s most significant filmmakers by several film critics, is yet to be the subject of any thorough academic engagement with his work in English. My book Impossible Cartographies sets out on this task by mapping, as fully as possible, Ruiz’s cinematic trajectory across more than five decades of prolific work ranging from his earliest work in Chile to high budget ‘European’ costume dramas culminating in the recent Mysteries of Lisbon (2010). It does this by treating Ruiz’s work, with its surrealist, magic realist, popular cultural and neo-Baroque sources, as a type of ‘impossible’ cinematic cartography, mapping real, imaginary and virtual spaces, and crossing between different cultural contexts, aesthetic strategies, and technical media. In argues that across the different phases of Ruiz’s work identified, there are key continuities such as the invention of singular cinematic images and the interrogation of their possible and impossible combinations. This article will present some of the key themes of Ruiz’s cinema and use ideas of virtual cartography, tableaux vivants and the neo-baroque to illuminate a range of Ruiz’s films from the Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (1978) to Mysteries of Lisbon, his last major project

David Bowie, brinquedos adultos e outras dimensões estranhas do universo de Twin Peaks

The article is based fundamentally on the authors' participation in the International Conference “I’ll See You Again in 25 Years: The return of Twin Peaks and generations of cult TV”, held on 21 and 22 May 2015, at the School of Arts and Media, at the University of Salford in England. Starting from there, it makes an irregular discussion of issues and working angles around the television series launched in 1990, a work by David Lynch and Mark Frost. Some issues gain particular attention: 1) the relations of the series to the album Outside (1995) by David Bowie; 2) the population of adult toys related to the series, as derivative products, driven by fans in their most playful exercises of affection and remembrance. Despite the article’s intentionally adopted tone of an “academic report”, it can evoke rich theoretical questions in a field of objects that are in a complex upgrade process and have to be subsequently treated according to more regular methodological procedures, seeking further theoretical and epistemological clarifications

Signature Characters for A_2 and B_2

The signatures of the inner product matrices on a Lie algebra's highest weight representation are encoded in the representation's signature character. We show that the signature characters of a finite-dimensional Lie algebra's highest weight representations obey simple difference equations that have a unique solution once appropriate boundary conditions are imposed. We use these results to derive the signature characters of all $A_2$ and $B_2$ highest weight representations. Our results extend, and explain, signature patterns analogous to those observed by Friedan, Qiu and Shenker in the Virasoro algebra's representation theory.Comment: 22 p

Domestic heating behaviour and room temperatures: Empirical evidence from Scottish homes

In this paper, we describe patterns of residential heating based on data from 255 homes in and around Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, spanning August 2016 to June 2018. We describe: (i) the room temperatures achieved, (ii) the diurnal durations of heating use, and (iii) common diurnal patterns of heating behaviour. We investigate how these factors vary between weekdays and weekends, over the course of the year, by external temperature, and by room type. We compare these empirical findings with the simplifying assumptions about heating patterns found in the UK’s Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP), a widely-used building energy performance model. There are areas of concurrence and others of substantial difference with these model assumptions. Indoor achieved temperatures are substantially lower than SAP assumptions. The duration and timings of heating use vary substantially between homes and along lines of season and outdoor temperature, whereas the SAP model assumes no such variation. Little variation is found along the lines of weekday vs. weekend, whereas the SAP model assumes differences, or between living space and other rooms, consistent with the SAP. The results are relevant for those interested in how SAP assumptions regarding household heating behaviours and achieved indoor temperatures concur with empirical data

What is good design in the eyes of older users?

With the population of older consumers increasing and with the recent changes in legislation and attitudes towards this group, there have been corresponding changes in product design practice and a growing attempt to adopt an inclusive design approach. This recognises that people can become excluded from using products, services or environments if the needs and capabilities of all potential users are not taken into account. The inclusive design approach has developed from collaborations between industry, designers and researchers. One major influence in this area is the i~design project, whose definition is simply that “inclusive design is better design” (EDC, 2011). The Inclusive Design Toolkit website, a key output from the i~design project, states that a successful product must be “functional, usable, desirable and ultimately profitable” and that a key to good design is to reduce the demand on the user when capabilities decline with age or disability (EDC, 2011). It is also important to consider more emotional aspects, such as social acceptability and whether the potential user would actually want to use or be seen using the product (Keates and Clarkson, 2003). Other authors also emphasise that whilst inclusive design research and practice to date have focused primarily on the physical accessibility and usability of products, a better understanding is required of people’s emotional needs, such as social acceptability and desirability of products (Coleman et al, 2007; Lee, 2010). Similar views regarding the required shift in design focus are reflected in a number of other sources: the need to consider the less tangible human factors such as identity, emotion, delight and selfexpression (Cassim et al, 2007); simplicity, aesthetics, pleasure, personality, conspicuousness and fashion (Pullin, 2009); the product’s visual appearance (Crilly et al, 2004); creating pleasurable experiences (Demirbilek and Sener, 2003; Jordan, 2000); and the importance of the emotional aspects of design for a successful product (Norman, 2004), as well as needs related to specific cognitive conditions (e.g. Baumers and Heylighen, 2010)

Landau quantization effects in the charge-density-wave system (Per)2M_2M(mnt)2_2 (where M=M=Au and Pt)

A finite transfer integral $t_a$ orthogonal to the conducting chains of a highly one-dimensional metal gives rise to empty and filled bands that simulate an indirect-gap semiconductor upon formation of a commensurate charge-density-wave (CDW). In contrast to semiconductors such as Ge and Si with bandgaps $\sim 1$ eV, the CDW system possesses an indirect gap with a greatly reduced energy scale, enabling moderate laboratory magnetic fields to have a major effect. The consequent variation of the thermodynamic gap with magnetic field due to Zeeman splitting and Landau quantization enables the electronic bandstructure parameters (transfer integrals, Fermi velocity) to be determined accurately. These parameters reveal the orbital quantization limit to be reached at $\sim 20$ T in (Per)$_2M$(mnt)$_2$ salts, making them highly unlikely candidates for a recently-proposed cascade of field-induced charge-density wave states