Krapp's last tape in Great Britain : production history amid changing practice

This book chapter investigates the production history of the play, Krapp's last tape

Voting at 16 – lessons for the future from the Scottish Referendum

The 2014 Referendum on Scottish independence raised many issues about the future of Scotland. It also produced an innovation as regards the electoral process by making 16 years the minimum age of participation. This article examines issues surrounding the voting age and draws on a schools-based study, which shed light on teacher and pupil opinion about this lower than usual threshold for voting. It is also concerned with how schools cover the teaching of politics and prepared students for the Referendum debate within a context of expected neutrality on a highly divisive matter. Some implications of extending the lower voting age for future elections are discussed

Field Test of Electrokinetically-Delivered Thermally Activated Persulfate for Remediation of Chlorinated Solvents in Clay

Due to extensive industrial applications, chlorinated solvents are among the most prevalent groundwater contaminants found at hazardous sites. Given their recalcitrant nature and adverse health effects upon exposure, effective remediation technologies are needed to treat sites impacted by chlorinated solvents. In-situ chemical oxidation (ISCO) has shown success; however, its performance is often hindered in low-permeability media due to the transport of oxidants in such soils being limited. This field-scale study investigated the novel approach of applying electrokinetics (EK) to enhance the delivery of persulfate and electrical resistance heating (ERH) to activate the delivered persulfate for low-permeability soil remediation. Results demonstrated that EK has the potential to enhance delivery, where the overall mass of persulfate that was observed to be delivered into the chlorinated solvent-impacted clay formation of the field site being a factor of both EK and advection. The application of ERH to activate the delivered persulfate was found to be precluded by catalytic reactions involving naturally occurring iron. Significant chlorinated solvent reduction was observed in groundwater (\u3e80%) resulting from chemical oxidation and dilution from advective flux. To the authors’ knowledge, this was the first literature study to investigate EK and ERH for persulfate delivery and activation for low-permeability soil remediation at the field-scale

Acting Beckett : towards a poetics of performance

Samuel Beckett’s writing stalks the progress of twentieth century art and culture. Seen as both symptomatic of the practices of high Modernism, as well as influential within the fragmented tropes of postmodernity, his drama is often referred to as exploring the limits of an incrementally reductive approach to performance in which fine margins – through time and space; sound and image – are used in the determination of an authentic rendering of his work. This study argues that it is the figure of the actor, in all its rich signifying complexity, which provides us with a lens through which we can evaluate Beckett’s work for theatre and other media.In considering the Beckettian actor, the study grounds a poetics of performance in a principally phenomenological discourse in which theatre history and popular culture throughout the twentieth century is seen as a key factor both in Beckett’s writing and theatre directing, as well as in the often contested development of the actor’s craft. Throughout, it is the theme of music and musicality that provides the actor with a starting point, or modus vivendi, in which the individual self or personality of the actor is valorized alongside other practices based on acquired technique and its application.This study does not propose instruction or a range of techniques for the actor to pursue in furthering their understanding of Beckett’s canon. Instead, this work establishes an understanding of the Beckettian actor in which strategies of implication, born out of sometimes paradoxical representations of silence, absence and abstraction, subordinate acting pedagogies based on programmed curricula. This examination of an implied actor illustrates the various ways in which notable, as well as relatively unknown, actors have sought to reconcile some of these issues. In doing so, the study also interrogates my own creative practice as a director and performer of Beckett’s drama over a fifteen-year period

CALYPSO: LLMs as Dungeon Masters' Assistants

The role of a Dungeon Master, or DM, in the game Dungeons & Dragons is to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. The DM must digest information about the game setting and monsters, synthesize scenes to present to other players, and respond to the players' interactions with the scene. Doing all of these tasks while maintaining consistency within the narrative and story world is no small feat of human cognition, making the task tiring and unapproachable to new players. Large language models (LLMs) like GPT-3 and ChatGPT have shown remarkable abilities to generate coherent natural language text. In this paper, we conduct a formative evaluation with DMs to establish the use cases of LLMs in D&D and tabletop gaming generally. We introduce CALYPSO, a system of LLM-powered interfaces that support DMs with information and inspiration specific to their own scenario. CALYPSO distills game context into bite-sized prose and helps brainstorm ideas without distracting the DM from the game. When given access to CALYPSO, DMs reported that it generated high-fidelity text suitable for direct presentation to players, and low-fidelity ideas that the DM could develop further while maintaining their creative agency. We see CALYPSO as exemplifying a paradigm of AI-augmented tools that provide synchronous creative assistance within established game worlds, and tabletop gaming more broadly.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures. AIIDE 202

Saturated gain spectrum of VECSELs determined by transient measurement of lasing onset

We describe time-resolved measurements of the evolution of the spectrum of radiation emitted by an optically-pumped continuous-wave InGaAs-GaAs quantum well laser, recorded as lasing builds up from noise to steady state. We extract a fitting parameter corresponding to the gain dispersion of the parabolic spectrum equal to ?79 ± 30 fs2 and ?36 ± 6 fs2 for a resonant and anti-resonant structure, respectively. Furthermore the recorded evolution of the spectrum allows for the calculation of an effective FWHM gain bandwidth for each structure, of 11 nm and 18 nm, respectively

An investigation into the nature of perceptual style and body awareness in relation to perceptual-motor abilities

The thesis is an account of an investigative study into the nature of perceptual-motor abilities. Part one considers Witkin's construct of cognitive style, using it to predict the relationships between three tests of perceptual functioning from widely varying areas of psychology and sports science. To some extent the results were as predicted; that is, those people demonstrating high levels of perceptual acuity on one test also showed similar acuity on one or more of the other perceptual tests. These results, however, only applied to the male subjects and then only when the opposite poles of one test-dimension were partitioned out and compared. The female subjects demonstrated no significant relationships between the three tests. As a result, it was proposed that the tests were indeed linked but by an array of underlying perceptual abilities rather than by a single, overlying cognitive or perceptual style. In the ensuing search for these abilities, 76 measures of perceptual and perceptual-motor skills were factor analysed to reveal 8 oblique perceptual-motor factors of which one was interpreted as being perceptual style. The nature of perceptual-motor abilities is discussed both in relation to clumsiness and to sports training with the emphasis being on whether such abilities are amenable to alteration. The thesis puts forward the proposal that an upper limit to each ability is fixed for each individual in early childhood but that this potential may be maximised through relevant training. The Perceptual-Motor Ability Profile was devised as a tool with which to indicate the aptitude a person evidenced for a particular sport or physical activity and was used in demonstration to describe the group abilities of four dancers with respect to the requirements of their chosen activity. Finally, a model of perceptual-motor functioning, relating the eight factors extracted, is suggested

Human prostate sphere-forming cells represent a subset of basal epithelial cells capable of glandular regeneration in vivo.

BackgroundProstate stem/progenitor cells function in glandular development and maintenance. They may be targets for tumor initiation, so characterization of these cells may have therapeutic implications. Cells from dissociated tissues that form spheres in vitro often represent stem/progenitor cells. A subset of human prostate cells that form prostaspheres were evaluated for self-renewal and tissue regeneration capability in the present study.MethodsProstaspheres were generated from 59 prostatectomy specimens. Lineage marker expression and TMPRSS-ERG status was determined via immunohistochemistry and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). Subpopulations of prostate epithelial cells were isolated by cell sorting and interrogated for sphere-forming activity. Tissue regeneration potential was assessed by combining sphere-forming cells with rat urogenital sinus mesenchyme (rUGSM) subcutaneously in immunocompromised mice.ResultsProstate tissue specimens were heterogeneous, containing both benign and malignant (Gleason 3-5) glands. TMPRSS-ERG fusion was found in approximately 70% of cancers examined. Prostaspheres developed from single cells at a variable rate (0.5-4%) and could be serially passaged. A basal phenotype (CD44+CD49f+CK5+p63+CK8-AR-PSA-) was observed among sphere-forming cells. Subpopulations of prostate cells expressing tumor-associated calcium signal transducer 2 (Trop2), CD44, and CD49f preferentially formed spheres. In vivo implantation of sphere-forming cells and rUGSM regenerated tubular structures containing discreet basal and luminal layers. The TMPRSS-ERG fusion was absent in prostaspheres derived from fusion-positive tumor tissue, suggesting a survival/growth advantage of benign prostate epithelial cells.ConclusionHuman prostate sphere-forming cells self-renew, have tissue regeneration capability, and represent a subpopulation of basal cells