Back to Back Theatre’s ‘Ganesh versus the Third Reich’: Politics, representation and response

This panel considers the work of the Australian contemporary performance company Back to Back Theatre within the context of the conference theme of ‘cultural articulations’. We will address the ways in which religious objections to Ganesh versus the Third Reich were entwined with questions about the economic impact of these objections in attempts to censor and control the work. Helena Grehan’s paper will analyse the production Ganesh versus the Third Reich in terms of the ethical, political and social questions the work engenders. Peter Eckersall’s 'Theatre Love' The paper considers some of the possible ways that reading Back to Back’s theatre might respond to the current wave of a politics where opposition is an end in itself, whereas the idea of ‘taking sides’ requires a radical appreciation of the other. The third element is a roundtable discussion/interview with Bruce Gladwin (Director of Back to Back Theatre) and Alice Nash (Executive Producer Back to Back Theatre

Ecosystem engineering creates a direct nutritional link between 600-m deep cold-water coral mounds and surface productivity

Cold-water corals (CWCs) form large mounds on the seafloor that are hotspots of biodiversity in the deep sea, but it remains enigmatic how CWCs can thrive in this food-limited environment. Here, we infer from model simulations that the interaction between tidal currents and CWC-formed mounds induces downwelling events of surface water that brings organic matter to 600-m deep CWCs. This positive feedback between CWC growth on carbonate mounds and enhanced food supply is essential for their sustenance in the deep sea and represents an example of ecosystem engineering of unparalleled magnitude. This ’topographically-enhanced carbon pump’ leaks organic matter that settles at greater depths. The ubiquitous presence of biogenic and geological topographies along ocean margins suggests that carbon sequestration through this pump is of global importance. These results indicate that enhanced stratification and lower surface productivity, both expected consequences of climate change, may negatively impact the energy balance of CWCs

The impact of deep-sea fisheries and implementation of the UNGA Resolutions 61/105 and 64/72. Report of an international scientific workshop

The scientific workshop to review fisheries management, held in Lisbon in May 2011, brought together 22 scientists and fisheries experts from around the world to consider the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions on high seas bottom fisheries: what progress has been made and what the outstanding issues are. This report summarises the workshop conclusions, identifying examples of good practice and making recommendations in areas where it was agreed that the current management measures fall short of their target

Report of the ICES\NAFO Joint Working Group on Deep-water Ecology (WGDEC), 11–15 March 2013, Floedevigen, Norway.

On 11 February 2013, the joint ICES/NAFO WGDEC, chaired by Francis Neat (UK) and attended by ten members met at the Institute for Marine Research in Floedevi-gen, Norway to consider the terms of reference (ToR) listed in Section 2. WGDEC was requested to update all records of deep-water vulnerable marine eco-systems (VMEs) in the North Atlantic. New data from a range of sources including multibeam echosounder surveys, fisheries surveys, habitat modelling and seabed imagery surveys was provided. For several areas across the North Atlantic, WGDEC makes recommendations for areas to be closed to bottom fisheries for the purposes of conservation of VMEs

The Irish Coral Task Force and Atlantic Coral Ecosystem Study: Report on Two Deep-Water Coral Conservation Stakeholder Workshops Held in Galway in 2000 and 2002

Increasing public and media awareness of the unique nature of European deep-water corals has put the focus firmly on the need for sustainable management of European offshore living resources. The well documented destruction of deep-water corals off Norway and potentially along the entire European margin combined with extremely slow coral habitat recovery rates, has created a sense of urgency to move towards implementation of the appropriate management measures to ensure the long-term survival of this spectacular and important habitat. In the process, deep-water coral conservation has become in many ways a paradigm for a shift away from traditional sectoral driven resource management approaches, towards an inclusive integrated ecosystem approach to the management of European offshore resources. The EU Fifth Framework Programme, in an effort to increase the socio-economic impact of its R&D projects strongly encouraged the formation of scientist-stakeholder partnerships and development of a suitable research-product delivery mechanism. The major (€2.1 million) European Union funded research project: the Atlantic Coral Ecosystem Study successfully responded to these new challenges in a number of innovative ways. In particular, the establishment of an ACES project-stakeholder partnership through consultative workshops, provided a means for stakeholders to prioritise the scientific research and created a forum for rapid dissemination of scientific results. Complementary initiatives arising from these meetings, such as the formation of the ad hoc Irish Coral Task Force, provided a mechanism whereby scientific findings could be translated into policy advice for the appropriate national authorities. This report serves as a record of the consultative process undertaken during two stakeholder workshops held in Galway on 23rd June 2000 and 24th June 2002. Section A contains conclusions and summary records of the two meetings. Section B contains a series of papers presented at the workshops to provide detailed information on: cold-water coral research and conservation initiatives; fishing related issues; oil and gas related issues and conservation legislation and legal issues. The 2000 meeting was sponsored by the Atlantic Coral Ecosystem Study, while the 2002 meeting was sponsored by the Marine Institute (Ireland), as part of its support for the Irish Coral Task Force and ACES. Between the first and the second meeting, the need for scientific advice to support the designation of Special Areas of Conservation to protect corals under the EU Habitats Directive became a clear priority. Finally, it is obvious that much work remains to be done to achieve effective protection of deep-water corals and similarly threatened 'hot spots' of marine biodiversity along the European shelf and slope. It is also clear, however, that successful implementation of conservation measures will require on-going dialogue with stakeholders, and their participation in the decision making process.Funder: Marine Institut

The transcriptional landscape of endogenous retroelements delineates esophageal adenocarcinoma subtypes

Most cancer types exhibit aberrant transcriptional activity, including derepression of retrotransposable elements (RTEs). However, the degree, specificity and potential consequences of RTE transcriptional activation may differ substantially among cancer types and subtypes. Representing one extreme of the spectrum, we characterize the transcriptional activity of RTEs in cohorts of esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) and its precursor Barrett's esophagus (BE) from the OCCAMS (Oesophageal Cancer Clinical and Molecular Stratification) consortium, and from TCGA (The Cancer Genome Atlas). We found exceptionally high RTE inclusion in the EAC transcriptome, driven primarily by transcription of genes incorporating intronic or adjacent RTEs, rather than by autonomous RTE transcription. Nevertheless, numerous chimeric transcripts straddling RTEs and genes, and transcripts from stand-alone RTEs, particularly KLF5- and SOX9-controlled HERVH proviruses, were overexpressed specifically in EAC. Notably, incomplete mRNA splicing and EAC-characteristic intronic RTE inclusion was mirrored by relative loss of the respective fully-spliced, functional mRNA isoforms, consistent with compromised cellular fitness. Defective RNA splicing was linked with strong transcriptional activation of a HERVH provirus on Chr Xp22.32 and defined EAC subtypes with distinct molecular features and prognosis. Our study defines distinguishable RTE transcriptional profiles of EAC, reflecting distinct underlying processes and prognosis, thus providing a framework for targeted studies