Knocking out barriers to engineered cell activity.

CRISPR-Cas9 gene-edited T cells show safety and long-term engraftment in human

A Field Guide for Weathering: Embodied Tactics for Collectives of Two or More Humans

In our inherited meteorological practices and frameworks, weather conditions are managed for us in a range of ways (for example, through architecture, technology, commodity culture, infrastructure, economic rationale). This field guide brings the weather back to the body. A traditional field guide provides tools for the individual sovereign human subject to observe and document nature “over there”. In contrast, through a range of different activities, our field guide not only invites investigation and cataloguing of the field that we also comprise, but also challenges what counts as a noteworthy observation regarding the weather and also climate

Direct EIT Reconstructions of Complex Admittivities on a Chest-Shaped Domain in 2-D

Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a medical imaging technique in which current is applied on electrodes on the surface of the body, the resulting voltage is measured, and an inverse problem is solved to recover the conductivity and/or permittivity in the interior. Images are then formed from the reconstructed conductivity and permittivity distributions. In the 2-D geometry, EIT is clinically useful for chest imaging. In this work, an implementation of a D-bar method for complex admittivities on a general 2-D domain is presented. In particular, reconstructions are computed on a chest-shaped domain for several realistic phantoms including a simulated pneumothorax, hyperinflation, and pleural effusion. The method demonstrates robustness in the presence of noise. Reconstructions from trigonometric and pairwise current injection patterns are included

Incorporating a Spatial Prior into Nonlinear D-Bar EIT imaging for Complex Admittivities

Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) aims to recover the internal conductivity and permittivity distributions of a body from electrical measurements taken on electrodes on the surface of the body. The reconstruction task is a severely ill-posed nonlinear inverse problem that is highly sensitive to measurement noise and modeling errors. Regularized D-bar methods have shown great promise in producing noise-robust algorithms by employing a low-pass filtering of nonlinear (nonphysical) Fourier transform data specific to the EIT problem. Including prior data with the approximate locations of major organ boundaries in the scattering transform provides a means of extending the radius of the low-pass filter to include higher frequency components in the reconstruction, in particular, features that are known with high confidence. This information is additionally included in the system of D-bar equations with an independent regularization parameter from that of the extended scattering transform. In this paper, this approach is used in the 2-D D-bar method for admittivity (conductivity as well as permittivity) EIT imaging. Noise-robust reconstructions are presented for simulated EIT data on chest-shaped phantoms with a simulated pneumothorax and pleural effusion. No assumption of the pathology is used in the construction of the prior, yet the method still produces significant enhancements of the underlying pathology (pneumothorax or pleural effusion) even in the presence of strong noise.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figure

A Planet Where the Muses Work Together : Opera Training as a Vehicle for Interdisciplinary Engagement in Higher Education

This study is positioned within the context of the current recommendations for increased interdisciplinary and collaborative engagement in curriculum development (Department of Education and Skills, 2011, p.35). Supported also by recommendations for professional arts practitioners to be multi-skilled, circulated in such publications as the European Association of Conservatoires reports (AEC, 2003), Trinity Guildhall\u27s The Reflective Conservatoire (Odam & Bannan, 2005) and Collaborative Learning in Higher Education (Gaunt & Westerlund, 2013), this study is proposing that there are significant educational benefits from the implementation of and participation in opera-based activities. These possible benefits are discussed along with an overview of the range of skills and requirements which a career in opera is likely to demand. The paper includes as case-history a recent example of this collaborative approach - The Paris Collection, a large-scale opera project which was performed in January 2014 at the National Concert Hall in Dublin by students from Dublin Institute of Technology Conservatory of Music and Drama and designed by students from Dublin College of Creative Arts. The production was named thus because the two operas featured, Lehar\u27s The Merry Widow and Puccini\u27s La Bohème are both set in Paris. The project was implemented through the undergraduate and postgraduate modular frameworks in each college and involved the engagement of over 160 students. The production, which was positively received and subsequently won the Institute for Designers in Ireland Highly Commended Award in the Education category, was deemed to be a success; an appraisal which was expressed not only in the positive response to the performance, but also through feed-back and evaluation from staff and students in various formal and informal de-briefing sessions. However, in the process of preparation and rehearsal, the enterprise also presented significant challenges and issues. Although the remit of the project included the implementation of a professional environment, compromises had to be made in several instances, in order to enable it to proceed. These compromises gave rise to several broader questions relating to collaborative enterprises and the implementation of authentic professional demands within an educational framework. The paper concludes with a discussion of opera-training as a productive vehicle for interdisciplinary study. With reference to The Paris Collection as case-history, the educational relevance of the project is evaluated with an identification and analysis of the benefits and challenges which arose during that process. Recommendations may assist the sustainable facilitation of other future enterprises which can be devised to truly reflect professional practice, demands and criteria. They make particular reference to establishing collaborative projects within academic programmes where they can form an intrinsic modular role in the curriculum

Acting for Opera Singers

As the majority of professional classical singers earn a significant part of their living in opera, it is vital that conservatoires and studios are able to provide fit-for-purpose education for these trainee artists. As opera productions today are increasingly influenced by the trends in cinema and live-streamed media, this study sought to identify and clarify the range and detail of acting and performance skills required of opera singers in this evolving professional environment. A significant part of the data collected relates to the participants’ perceptions about the relevance of technical stagecraft skills. These techniques mainly relate to how performers negotiate and occupy space when on stage, in terms of angle, direction and distance. The main component of the investigation has been conducted through a series of online and live interviews with a wide profile of practitioners including stage directors, performers, conductors, designers, teachers and intendants (company managers - usually artistic directors). The questions have been devised in order to evaluate the skills, resources and attributes which singers need to acquire in order to be able to succeed in this competitive industry. The data revealed the fact that opera singers today are required to possess a high standard of acting skills. The investigation also confirmed that there is an increasing demand for these performers to be instigative and creative in the rehearsal process while working collaboratively. The findings also revealed that all the performers in the study consciously employ technical performance skills. The conclusions from the investigation proposed that conservatoire programming therefore needs to incorporate technical performance training along with classes which will engender and develop creative and imaginative resources. It is advisable that these skills are contextualised regularly through participation in performance projects

Individual preferences for profile attractiveness comparing two diagnostic techniques

Two analyses using soft tissue landmarks (Arnett\u27s Soft Tissue Cephalometric Analysis, STCA and Andrews\u27 Six Elements Diagnostic System, 6E) were compared for their ability to generate esthetic profiles in lateral repose and smiling. Photographs of 23 subjects were digitally altered to represent the STCA and 6E surgical predictions and presented to panels of professionals and lay people for rating on a visual analog scale (0-50). Professionals and lay people agreed that the 6E simulated profiles were significantly preferred to the Arnett simulated profiles in both smiling and repose. Overall the 6E profiles were rated higher (more esthetic) on the VAS compared to the Arnett profiles for both professionals (mean Delta 3.75 +/- 0.96) and laypeople (mean Delta 2.33 +/- 0.37). These results suggest that surgical predictions using the Six Elements Diagnostic System can generate profiles that are more acceptable in smiling and repose to both professionals and lay people

Twenty Years Later: Perceptions and Understandings of Democracy in Durban, Kwazulu-Natal

This study seeks to explore perceptions and understandings of democracy in South Africa twenty years post-apartheid. Information from interviews with fifty South African citizens in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal was supplemented with interviews with five experts from institutions relevant to democratic development. Participants agreed that South Africa was a democracy, but disagreed on the meanings of democracy, South Africa’s democratic performance to date, and future prospects for democracy. The learner concludes that, in order to improve the quality of democratic governance in the country, South Africans must engage in a national dialogue about what democracy is and where it is meant to take them. Building a common understanding will enable South Africans to exploit significant opportunities to strengthen their democracy in the next five to ten years

Ingratitude in Gratitude to Deborah Bird Rose

This is a story of how Debbie Rose grounded my research in unlikely ways and how I repaid her by writing something critically provocative about the field she helped found: the environmental humanities. I don’t feel bad about this, which is odd given my learned tendency towards feelings of guilt. But as a strange kind of free verse elegy I want to explore the ambivalent state I find myself in here: on one hand grieving a lost mentor and friend, and on the other feeling committed to my critical position

The Trouble with Babies

A review of Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Duke University Press, Durham, 2016