New Flesh Cinema: Japanese Cyberpunk-Body Horror and Cinema as Catharsis in the Age of Technology

This thesis provides a critical analysis of a specific group of films that combine the subgenres of cyberpunk and body horror which I call New Flesh Cinema. Films of this subgenre counter fears and anxieties of technological advancements by re-imagining the rise of technology and its societal effects as a transitional process through the illustration of literal and visceral depictions of the necessary alterations people will have to undergo in order to transition successfully into the new world. To contradict apocalyptic fears of advancing technology, these films offer a vision of a “New Flesh.” I argue the films share three important commonalities: they depict technology as a mediator of our actions, interactions, and perception of reality, they stress the importance and discomfort of adapting and transforming, and they address technophobia by revealing a fascination and fear of technology as well as the need and inevitability of a new flesh for a new world. The analysis develops over three case studies of five New Flesh Cinema films: Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira (1988), Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), Shigeru Izumiya’s Death Powder (1986), Shozin Fukui’s 964 Pinocchio (1991), and Fukui’s Rubber’s Lover (1996). Through these case studies, I shed light on the social significance of New Flesh Cinema as a cathartic medium for an anxious society facing social changes. This contributes to a larger conversation concerning media and society’s cyclical pattern of influence. NB: A note on Japanese titles, terms, and names. If the title of a film varies from its English translation, I provide a Romanized version of the original title in parentheses. Japanese terms are italicized with their English translation in parentheses. Names are given in the following order: given name first, family name second

An investigation into the role of Arabidopsis thaliana NAD metabolising enzymes in plant cellular stress responses

Adverse growing conditions resulting from abiotic stresses e.g. pathogen attack results in large losses in crop yields. Understanding and improving plants tolerance to an unfavourable environment remains one of the objectives in the study of plant biotechnology. One growing theory for reducing plant susceptibility to a broad range of stresses is modulation of cellular energy homeostasis. NAD+ (along with ATP) is the most important of cellular energy transducers in the form of a hydrogen ion donor and acceptor. However, a bigger picture is emerging as its role broadens to include a coenzyme, precursor for secondary messengers and a substrate for protein modifications. Three groups of proteins use NAD+ as a substrate, the NAD+ protein deacetylases, poly ADP polymerases and ADP ribose cyclases. Work on these groups of proteins in model organisms have identified their involvement in many biological roles including DNA repair, increasing longevity, initiating apoptosis and regulation of transcription. However, their role in plants is largely unknown. The aim of this study has been to identify the genes involved which use NAD+ and to further characterise their role in plant stress responses. A summary of the main results follows, a) AtPARG2 and sirtuin At5g55760 null lines were more sensitive to DNA damaging agents. b) AtPARG2 lines showed a disruption in circadian rhythm resulting in early flowering. c) Sirtuin At5g09230 null lines were more sensitive to UV-B exposure d) AtPARP3 was highly upregulated with exogenous Abscisic acid application

Teacher Retention In One Urban School District Why Do Teachers Stay: A Case Study

Teacher attrition can have a profound effect on the educational experiences of students. Five schools in one New England school district that experienced the least amount of teacher turnover over a three year time period were purposefully selected for this research study which served to provide a clear understanding of why some teachers stay in urban schools, while so many others leave. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (1943) was the theory that framed this study. The participants provided valuable insight into understanding their motivation to stay in the schools. The themes of altruism and generativity emerged in the survey and interview data, allowing the researcher to suggest hiring practices to the Board of Education be structured to include questions that focus on altruistic behaviors and generativity

Compound heat wave and PM2.5 pollution episodes in U.S. cities

This study analyzes heat waves (HWs), air pollution (AP) episodes, and compound HW and AP events (CE) in the urban environment and provides a comparison between events in urban areas (UAs) and rural areas (RAs). A 1-km gridded daily minimum temperature dataset and a 1-km gridded daily PM2.5 concentration dataset were used along with geospatial data to characterize events by their frequency, intensity in heat, intensity in pollution, and duration. The greatest differences between UAs and RAs in frequency, heat intensity, pollution intensity, and duration for all events were seen in the West and Southwest regions. For both UAs and RAs, it was found that HWs were the most frequent, intense, and longest lasting in the West and Southwest regions, AP episodes were the most frequent and longest lasting in the Northeast, Ohio Valley, and Southeast regions, and AP episodes were the most intense in the Northern Rockies and Plains and Upper Midwest regions. It was concluded that HWs (AP episodes) had a greater impact on CEs than AP episodes (HWs) in regions with more prominent HWs (AP episodes).Comment: National Weather Center Research Experience for Undergraduates Program (2023

Land Grant Application- Leland, Henry (Sangerville)

Land grant application submitted to the Maine Land Office on behalf of Henry Leland for service in the Revolutionary War, by their widow Sarah.https://digitalmaine.com/revolutionary_war_me_land_office/1557/thumbnail.jp

On the Forward-Backward Asymmetry of Leptonic Decays of ttˉt\bar{t} at the Fermilab Tevatron

We report on a study of the measurement techniques used to determine the leptonic forward-backward asymmetry of top anti-top quark pairs in Tevatron experiments with a proton anti-proton initial state. Recently it was shown that a fit of the differential asymmetry as a function of $q_{l}\eta_{l}$ (where $q_{l}$ is the charge of the lepton from the cascade decay of the top quarks and $\eta_{l}$ is the final pseudorapidity of the lepton in the detector frame) to a hyperbolic tangent function can be used to extrapolate to the full leptonic asymmetry. We find this empirical method to well reproduce the results from current experiments, and present arguments as to why this is the case. We also introduce two more models, based on Gaussian functions, that better model the $q_{l}\eta_{l}$ distribution. With our better understanding, we find that the asymmetry is mainly determined by the shift of the mean of the $q_{l}\eta_{l}$ distribution, the main contribution to the inclusive asymmetry comes from the region around $|q_{l}\eta_{l}| = 1$, and the extrapolation from the detector-covered region to the inclusive asymmetry is stable via a multiplicative scale factor, giving us confidence in the previously reported experimental results.Comment: 26 pages, 12 figure