Situating documentary film in a speculative future: an exploration in multi species entanglements

This practice-based research is a formal experiment in situating documentary film in an immanent future and, by doing so, puts forward propositions on what it means to be human in an entangled multispecies world. The research consists of A Terrible Beauty, a feature length documentary, and this dissertation. The film was largely shot in Yiwu, home to one of the largest wholesale markets in the world and an important node in the New Silk Road. Set in the world of anthropomorphic goods and objects, including dolls, mannequins and androids, the film follows two timetravellers as they confront questions of time, mortality and what it means to be human in the Anthropocene. The dissertation describes the practice methodology that I developed in the course of the research and reflects on the propositions that the film offers for the future. The research poses the question of how documentary film practice may be situated in a quotidian future and what the value of such a future orientation may be. At the methodological level, I suggest that there are extremely productive overlaps between science fiction and documentary film, and the dissertation reflects on the conceptual journey and experimental routes that I took to arrive at the idea of “speculative fictioning” as a method for documentary practice. The research is in conversation with – and also contributes to – critical concepts from science and technology studies. In particular, I draw on the work of Donna Haraway and extend her insights on human-animal relationalities (“companion species”) to the world of anthropomorphic objects and develop the idea of “companion copies” as a way of rethinking human-nonhuman interactions. If to be human has always entailed being human with other species, I ask what would it mean to discover our humanity with our companion copies such as robots and androids? The research serves as an invitation to think about how an ontological regard for things may allow us to cultivate a better regard for fellow humans as well

Public vs. private sector : an examination of neo-liberal ideology

The paper reviews the theoretical underpinnings of the debate on the superiority of the public or private sector, and supports theoretical perspectives with help from empirical literature on the subject. The theoretical part covers issues relating to public choice, property rights and principal-agents relationship, while the empirical evidence includes review of literature on macroeconomic, microeconomic and welfare impacts of privatization. The paper finds that despite numerous studies and unending discussions, the debate on the superiority of the public or private sector has remained inconclusive and is likely to remain so in the future. Notwithstanding the practical difficulties of making this assessment, the paper concludes that this debate is more ideological rather than empirical, since it is not possible to determine the superiority of one over the other through case studies, which can only be selective in nature.New Public Management

Conceptualising progression in the pedagogy of play and sustained shared thinking in early childhood education : a Vygotskian perspective

This paper is concerned specifically with the pedagogies applied in supporting learning through children‟s play, and it is framed outside mainstream discourses on the nature of play. The development of the paper also represents one stage in a continuing effort to develop a better understanding of sustained shared thinking in early childhood education. The paper also focuses on the educational potential of shared playful activities. However, given the overwhelming consensus regarding the importance of play in early childhood development, even a diehard educational pragmatist must begin by addressing subjects that are most commonly considered by psychologists. The paper begins with an account of „sustained shared thinking‟, a pedagogical concept that was first identified in a mixed method, but essentially educational effectiveness study. Then a consideration of the nature and processes of „learning‟ and „development‟ is offered. It is argued that popular accounts of a fundamental difference in the perspectives of Piaget and Vygotsky have distracted educational attention from the most important legacy that they have left to early childhood education; the notion of „emergent development‟. Pedagogic progression in the early years is then identified as an educational response to, and an engagement with, the most commonly observed, evidence based developmental trajectories of young children as they learn through play

STUDY ON PREVALENCE OF RESPIRATORY DISEASE IN URBAN POPULATION OF BHOPAL CITY

Chronic respiratory disease occurrence in urban population is creating burden on economic growth and challenges to public health management. This descriptive, prevalence study was designed to gather data on risk factor related association of respiratory diseases occurrence with information on sign, symptoms and treatment modalities. Questionnaire based personal interview was conducted on selected patients with well documented respiratory problem on demographic, biosocial, educational, occupational and economic background. Body weight, height, blood pressure, details of treatment modalities, sign and symptoms were recorded from hospital data. The prevalence rates were presented as percentage and 95% confidence interval estimated and analyzed by person’s chi-square test. Age, number of children more than three (p<0.0001), family members more than three (p<0.01), overcrowding (p<0.0001), low socioeconomic class (p<0.0001), unhygienic surrounding (p<0.001), education below secondary level (p<0.01), low to normal BMI (p<0.002) and chronic smoking habit (p<0.001) showed significant risk factor related association with occurrence of respiratory disease. Most frequently found sign and symptom are apnea, tiredness, nausea, coughing and nose tickling. Marital status, source of drinking water, cooking fuel, occupation, employment status, income, respiratory rate, sleep pattern and regular use of other medication does not show any co-relation with respiratory disease occurrence. The significant risk factor for respiratory disease occurrence is aging, unhygienic environment, low level education, overcrowding and smoking

Schools’ Leadership and Employees’ Work-engagement: Evidences from Secondary Schools

heads as perceived by secondary school teachers with teachers’ work engagement. Leadership styles of school heads had been explored using The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, The MLQ (FORM5X) in terms of transformational, transactional and avoidant leadership whereas teachers’ work engagement had been explored by administering UWES-17. The universe of the study were school teachers comprising sample of 272 using convenience sampling technique. Data had been collected from 30 schools, 19 from urban and 11 from rural places where number of respondents from each school did not exceed than 10. Results of descriptive statistics reveal that out of 30 heads being rated by teachers, approximately 10% were found as transformational, within transactional leaders, 87% utilize Contingent Reward Management, 80% use Management by Exception- Active and 34% leaders exploit Management by Exception- Passive whereas 55 % of them were avoidant leaders. Results of statistical correlations using PPMC declared that leadership is related to work engagement (r=.233) where transformational leadership positively relates (r= .280) and within transactional leadership, contingent reward management (r= .288) and management by exception-Active (r= .150) positively relates to teachers’ work engagement. However, management by exception-Passive (of transactional leadership) (r= -.126) and avoidant leadership (r= -.210) negatively relates to teachers’ work engagement. The study confirms that leadership styles are correlated to teachers’ work engagement indicating that transformational leadership as the most effective form of leadership and also the active side of transactional leadership which is characterized by rewarding the right work, being proactive in accounting for mistakes is linked to increasing work engaged behaviours in teachers. Whereas punitive culture, dealing with mistakes after happenings and avoidant leadership is seen to decrease work engaged behaviours in teachers. Work engagement being positive work behaviour and having lasting positive impact on employees’ general well being, must be promoted

Pharmacological Evaluation of an Advanced Formulation of Curcumin to Prevent Breast Cancer Bone Metastases

Curcumin has low plasma concentration due to low water solubility and instability. We have formulated alendronate-conjugated curcumin nanoparticles (Aln-Cur-NPs) for the targeted delivery of the drug to the bone. This project aims to investigate the in vitro biological effects of Aln-Cur-NPs that are developed to prevent breast cancer bone metastasis. The loading capacity was found to be 4% and 5.7% for Aln-Cur-NP and Cur-NP, respectively. A significantly higher antitumor activity was observed for Aln-Cur-NP compared to Cur-NP with IC50 values of 13.9, 22.2 and 7.7 µg/mL for MCF-7, MDA-MB-231 and SK-BR-3, respectively. This study showed the enhanced anticancer activity of curcumin nanoparticles conjugated with alendronate compared to Cur-NPs, which strongly supports the synergistic effect of curcumin/bisphosphonates combination considering the similar amount of uptaken curcumin by the cancer cells for both nanoparticle formulations. The impact of nanoparticles on the viability of MDA-MB-231 cells was also investigated using recording time lapse image technology by IncuCyte® over two days. It was demonstrated that the uptake of raw curcumin was much less, and it precipitated outside the cells while, curcumin encapsulated in nanoparticles was effectively uptaken by the cancer cells. The qualitative analysis of confocal images showed higher uptake for Aln-Cur-NPs compared to raw curcumin (p ˂0.0001) and no uptake for the untreated (PBS) control. The effect of our Nanoparticles on the release of PTHrP was determined by PTHrP ELISA assay for quantitative measurement of human PTHrP concentration released by MDA-MB-231 cells. The results suggested the possibility of reducing osteolytic activity of the cancer cells in bone metastasis. These preliminary data suggest Aln-Cur-NPs can offer promises in preventing and treating breast cancer bone metastases

Emerging Issues: FIFA World Cup 2022: Enjoying the Game at the Suffering of Migrant Workers

On December 2, 2010, the Federation Internationale de Football Association (“FIFA”), granted Qatar the honor of hosting the 2022 World Cup. FIFA’s president, Sepp Blatter, stated that hosting the World Cup in Qatar, an “unstable region of the world,” is intended to unify millions of people that may not otherwise come together, such as Israelis and Palestinians. FIFA has put great efforts towards hosting this event in Qatar, so much so that it changed the tournament to be held in the winter rather than the summer for the first time in history. The logic behind this timing change was to prevent workers from suffering in the scorching heat and harsh conditions of Qatar’s summer while building and operating the infrastructure. Although the change is intended to be for the greater good of uniting people, the fact is that there are still numerous human rights concerns that surround the hosting of this event in a country reported to have high records of human rights violations even before this hosting was granted

Radiomics analyses for outcome prediction in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer and glioblastoma multiforme using multimodal imaging data

Personalized treatment strategies for oncological patient management can improve outcomes of patient populations with heterogeneous treatment response. The implementation of such a concept requires the identification of biomarkers that can precisely predict treatment outcome. In the context of this thesis, we develop and validate biomarkers from multimodal imaging data for the outcome prediction after treatment in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC) and in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), using conventional feature-based radiomics and deep-learning (DL) based radiomics. For LARC patients, we identify promising radiomics signatures combining computed tomography (CT) and T2-weighted (T2-w) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with clinical parameters to predict tumour response to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT). Further, the analyses of externally available radiomics models for LARC reveal a lack of reproducibility and the need for standardization of the radiomics process. For patients with GBM, we use postoperative [11C] methionine positron emission tomography (MET-PET) and gadolinium-enhanced T1-w MRI for the detection of the residual tumour status and to prognosticate time-to-recurrence (TTR) and overall survival (OS). We show that DL models built on MET-PET have an improved diagnostic and prognostic value as compared to MRI

On the use of prepositional verbs by Pakistani ESL learners: A corpus study

Engelsk som andrespråk (ESL) er mye brukt i Pakistan, men pakistanske ESL-studenter har fortsatt problemer med å skrive og snakke engelsk. Feil er en naturlig del av andrespråkstilegnelse, så lærere må være klar over årsakene, virkningene og konsekvensene av feil. En vanlig utfordring for ESL-studenter er korrekt bruk av preposisjoner. Det er utført flere studier på ESL-studenters bruk av engelske preposisjoner, men få studier på pakistanske ESL-studenters feil ved bruk av preposisjonsverb. Derfor er det viktig å undersøke hypotesen om at pakistanske ESL-studenter kan gjøre relativt flere feil i preposisjonsverb enn andre asiatiske ESL-studenter. Hovedmålene med denne studien er å vurdere pakistanske ESL-studenters ferdigheter i bruk av preposisjonsverb, undersøke tilbakevendende feil, og undersøke en mulig årsak relatert til L1-påvirkning. Den nåværende studien bruker en korpuslingvistisk tilnærming med en blandet metode som kombinerer kvantitativ og kvalitativ dataanalyse. Kvalitative metoder identifiserer og beskriver individuelle elementer som korrekte eller feil, mens kvantitative metoder grupperer de riktige og ukorrekte preposisjonsverbene for å skille mellom pakistanske studenter sammenlignet med andre asiatiske ESL-studenter. Denne studien fokuserer på å identifisere vanlige preposisjonsverb og analysere feil og utfordringer som møter pakistanske studenter. Dataene kommer fra ICNALE (International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English), som har samlet inn data fra ESL-studenter i ti asiatiske regioner. Preposisjonsverb tilhørende 28 lemma i spesifiserte grammatiske sammenhenger ble selektert fra modulen med skriftlige stiler, som omfatter 5600 oppføringer av 2800 deltakere. Totalt 19027 observasjoner ble manuelt annotert som korrekte, ukorrekte eller irrelevante. Av disse ble 5106 relevante observasjoner gjenstand for en kvantitativ analyse, noe som tyder på at pakistanske studenter har en relativt høy feilrate (kun 74,62% riktig) enn de andre gruppene. Spesifikke lemma med en høy feilrate blant pakistanske studenter blir diskutert, inkludert en analyse av transfer og L1-interferens som mulige faktorer. Det har ikke vært tilstrekkelig mye forskning på preposisjonsverb hos pakistanske ESL-studenter, og derfor vil denne studien hjelpe engelsklærere til å identifisere disse problemene og revurdere undervisningsmetodene. Forhåpentlig bidrar dette til en pedagogisk forståelse av utfordringene ved andrespråkstilegnelse. Denne studien konkluderer ved å understreke viktigheten av å ta opp utfordringer knyttet til preposisjonsverb i ESL-klasser og skaffer innsikt til lærere, studenter og oversettere.English as a second language is widely used in Pakistan, but Pakistani students of ESL (English as a second language) still face difficulties in writing and speaking English. Errors are a natural part of second language learning, so teachers need to be aware of the causes, effects, and consequences of errors. A common challenge for ESL students is using prepositions correctly. Several studies have been conducted on ESL learners’ use of English prepositions, but few on Pakistani ESL learners’ errors using prepositional verbs. Therefore, it is important to investigate the hypothesis that Pakistani ESL learners may make relatively more errors in prepositional verbs than other Asian ESL learners. The main objectives of this study are to assess Pakistani ESL students’ proficiency in the use of prepositional verbs, to investigate recurring errors, and to determine the role of transfer and L1 intervention in these errors. The current study employs a corpus linguistics approach with a mixed method that combines quantitative and qualitative data analysis. Qualitative methods identify and describe individual items as correct or incorrect, whereas quantitative methods group the correct and incorrect prepositional verbs to differentiate among Pakistani students compared to other Asian ESL students. This study focuses on identifying common prepositional verbs and an exploration of errors and challenges faced by Pakistani learners. The data comes from ICNALE (International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English), which has collected data from ESL learners in ten Asian regions. Samples of prepositional verbs belonging to 28 lemmas in specified grammatical contexts were selected from the written essays module that has 5,600 entries by 2,800 participants. A total of 19027 observations were manually annotated as correct, incorrect, or irrelevant. Of these, 5106 relevant observations were subjected to a quantitative analysis, which suggests that Pakistani learners make relatively more errors (only 74.62% correct) than the other groups. Lemmas with high error rates among Pakistani learners are discussed, including an analysis of transfer and L1 interference as possible factors. There has been insufficient research on prepositional verbs used by Pakistani ESL learners, hence, this study will help English language teachers to identify these issues and rethink their teaching methods. It contributes to a pedagogical understanding of the challenges of second language acquisition. This study concludes by emphasizing the importance of addressing the challenges of prepositional verbs in ESL classes and provides insights for teachers, students, and translators.Lingvistikk mastergradsoppgaveLING350MAHF-LIN

not all asymptomatic carotid plaques are equal: some require intervention

Ischemic stroke represents a major health hazard around the world, which has a severe impact on society and the health-care systems. Roughly, 15% of all strokes can be attributed to significant atherosclerotic disease of the carotid arteries. Some patients presenting with disabling strokes for the first time cannot benefit from carotid revascularization having lost the opportunity of prevention. We know that all symptomatic patients were once asymptomatic. Hence, after identifying high risk carotid plaques and patient’s characteristics suitable for interventions, they should be offered carotid revascularization at specialized centers (with low perioperative stroke and death rates) to prevent stroke and cognitive function decline in long term