By Our Selves

By Our Selves documents a four-day walk made by the English Poet John Clare from an asylum in the Epping Forest up into Northamptonshire. Toby Jones, Iain Sinclair and a Straw Bear follow in his footsteps exactly 150 years after his death. En route they bump into Highland musician and poet MacGillivray, and graphic novelist Alan Moore. Captured in black & white photography, they discover the only truth of the road: whatever our hopes and delusions, we are always By Our Selves

Andrew Kötting

This interview with Andrew Kötting is featured in the book 'Last words: considering contemporary cinema' by Jason Wood. This book includes interviews with filmmakers such as Christopher Nolan, Harmony Korine, Charlie Kaufmann, Nicolas Winding Refn, Wim Wenders, Michael Winterbottom, Christian Petzhold, and many others. Each interview is preceded by an overview of the director's work, and the volume's introductory essay explores the value of these directors and why they are rarely given an appropriate platform to discuss their craft

Edith Walks

Edith Walks is a 60 minute 66 second feature film inspired by a walk from Waltham Abbey in Essex via Battle Abbey to St Leonards-on-Sea in East Sussex. The film documents a pilgrimage in memory of Edith Swan Neck. Bits of King Harold's body were brought to Waltham for burial near the High Altar after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and his hand fast wife Edith Swan Neck is seen cradling him in a remarkable sculpture at Grosvenor Gardens on the sea front in St Leonards. The film re-connects the lovers after 950 years of separation. The 108 mile journey, as the crow flies, allows the audience to reflect upon all things Edith. A conversation in Northampton between Alan Moore, Iain Sinclair and Edith Swan Neck is also a key element to the unfolding 'story'. With images shot using digital super 8 iphones and sound recorded using a specially constructed music box with a boom microphone, the film unfolds chronologically but in a completely unpredictable way. The numerous encounters and impromptu performances en route are proof, as if needed, that the angels of happenstance were looking down on us, with Edith as their hallucination. A book work and CD of the journey were also produced which include thoughts, recollections, snapshots and sounds from the journey

Lek and the Dogs

Lek and the Dogs was conceived as a crossover project between narrative film, contemporary art piece, performance and documentary. The narrative was inspired by the award-winning play Ivan And The Dogs by Hattie Naylor, based on the true story of Ivan Mishukov, who walked out of his apartment at the age of four and spent two years living on the city streets where he was adopted by a pack of wild dogs. The film draws on a range of techniques, including home movies and archive, interviews and voiceover to produce a montage essay on the state of the world. Lek, is played by the French performance artist and actor Xavier Tchili and who starred in two of Kötting’s earlier feature films, This Filthy Earth and IVUL. He returns here as a man with a voice, somewhat close to the edge and buried under the weight of his own existential terrors. With trace elements of Tarkovsky’s Stalker and Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape the film sends the protagonist, Lek into a zone deep underground only to see him surface in the Atacama desert in Chile. The film is the final part of Köttings Earthworks Trilogy which includes his two other feature films This Filthy Earth & IVUL and a chapter is given over to Lek and the Dogs in the Earthworks Bookwork published by Badbloodandsibyl and distributed through the BFI. The film grew out of a project which was initially instigated by the BFI Film Fund & SALON Pictures and a collaboration with the writer Hattie Naylor to adapt her prize winning play Ivan and the Dogs for cinema. Like much of Kötting’s work the project inhabits a foggy no-man’s land between documentary and fiction, between essay and narrative whilst at the same time probing for answers to Köttings ongoing questions of; Where now? Who now? When now? How now? Adding to an existing body of work which is underpinned by the notions of the ‘psyche and its geography’ Lek And The Dogs is a further example of Kötting pushing at the frontiers of what might yet be possible within the context of the ‘cinematic experience’. The film was presented at numerous festivals around the world including a Masterclass at the Sydney Film Festival in Australia. It also had a theatrical release throughout the UK and Ireland

Justgone

This is a chapter of prose-poetry describing the council blocks of flats of Deptford and the Pepys estate. The estate has been raised to the ground to make way for new houses. The chapter Justgone is part of a larger chapter called South of the River

A generalized stoichiometric model of C3, C2, C2+C4, and C4 photosynthetic metabolism.

The goal of suppressing photorespiration in crops to maximize assimilation and yield is stimulating considerable interest among researchers looking to bioengineer carbon-concentrating mechanisms into C3 plants. However, detailed quantification of the biochemical activities in the bundle sheath is lacking. This work presents a general stoichiometric model for C3, C2, C2+C4, and C4 assimilation (SMA) in which energetics, metabolite traffic, and the different decarboxylating enzymes (NAD-dependent malic enzyme, NADP-dependent malic enzyme, or phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase) are explicitly included. The SMA can be used to refine experimental data analysis or formulate hypothetical scenarios, and is coded in a freely available Microsoft Excel workbook. The theoretical underpinnings and general model behaviour are analysed with a range of simulations, including (i) an analysis of C3, C2, C2+C4, and C4 in operational conditions; (ii) manipulating photorespiration in a C3 plant; (iii) progressively upregulating a C2 shuttle in C3 photosynthesis; (iv) progressively upregulating a C4 cycle in C2 photosynthesis; and (v) manipulating processes that are hypothesized to respond to transient environmental inputs. Results quantify the functional trade-offs, such as the electron transport needed to meet ATP/NADPH demand, as well as metabolite traffic, inherent to different subtypes. The SMA refines our understanding of the stoichiometry of photosynthesis, which is of paramount importance for basic and applied research

Slippage: The Unstable Nature of Difference

The exhibition brings together documentation of the artists exhibiting in SLIPPAGE: The Unstable Nature of Difference and places them in the context by way of a curatorial essay by Lesley Halliwell and Jo Thorne and a commissioned essay by Alexa Wright. Ar The group exhibition, SLIPPAGE: The Unstable Nature of Difference, explored the experience of difference and how it might engender new ways of seeing and thinking about each other. It recognised the uncertain boundaries of physical and psychological identity and how the notion of 'difference' is in itself problematic. It questioned how we define and decide what difference is. The exhibition actively sought to provide a diverse and fuller range of human embodiments which invited the viewer to move outside of any preconceptions about what life, characterised by 'difference', might be like

Early Implementation and Evaluation of StepUp for Dementia Research: An Australia-Wide Dementia Research Participation and Public Engagement Platform

Recruiting participants for dementia research takes time. For those who are interested, opportunities to participate can be ad hoc. Delays in finding the right participants can result in studies taking longer to deliver, often requiring funding extensions, and ultimately increasing the cost and limiting the effectiveness of research and evaluation. To address these issues, a digital platform, StepUp for Dementia Research, was developed in 2019 and evaluated through ongoing data analytics, researcher feedback and annual volunteer surveys in 2019 and 2021. Using innovative matching technology, StepUp provides volunteers with an opt-in, secure way of registering interest in dementia studies and allows researchers to access matched volunteers in Australia. As of June 2021, 1070 volunteers registered (78% female), and 25 organizations became ‘champions’ for StepUp promotion. Of 122 registered researchers, 90 completed training. Forty studies from 17 research/health institutions recruited participants using StepUp. The evaluation demonstrated program feasibility and recruitment efficiency with a high level of satisfaction from users. Evaluation outcomes highlighted disparities in public participation in dementia research (e.g., gender, education and race/ethnicity) and provided valuable insights for further enhancements of StepUp. A concerted and strategic effort is needed by leading registries such as StepUp to ensure narrowing volunteer participation gaps in dementia research

A national open-access research registry to improve recruitment to clinical studies.

IntroductionBarriers to recruitment for dementia studies are well documented. As part of the UK government's Dementia 2020 strategy, a nationally consistent system to increase public engagement and participation in research was launched in February 2015.MethodsWe describe the development of the "Join Dementia Research" registry, including evolution of policy, involvement of people with dementia in co-production, data requirements, governance, technology, and the impact on study recruitment and what factors may have contributed to the services success.ResultsThe UK-wide online, telephone, and postal service has registered 47,071 volunteers, with 33,139 people (67.9% of all volunteers) taking part in 378 studies, with 49,954 total study enrolments. This has taken place across 295 research sites, involved 1522 researchers, and resulted in 134 peer-reviewed publications.DiscussionPublic registries of individuals interested in research, with user-provided data enabling basic phenotyping, are effective at increasing public engagement with research and removing barriers to study recruitment. Deeper pheno/genotyping could be undertaken to improve matching, but how and when that information is collected will be a key factor