The Creative Act Revisited: New ways of working - New challenges

The Creative Act Revisited: New ways of working - New challenges * are creative practitioners 'above the law'? * can they do anything they like in the name of art? * how do you persuade legislators and bureaucrats to allow the extraordinary? * to what extent can an artist appropriate another person's image? * is it acceptable for an artist to rework social history? * how can you make a living out of non-conventional creative work? * can the conventional art market be changed/subverted? Professor Henry Lydiate has over 35 years experience of working with creative artists of all disciplines, helping them to address the business aspects of carrying out their work. He established the UK's only dedicated service to address the special legal needs of artists, Artlaw Services, and was instrumental in setting up the related operation in Australia, Arts Law Services. He lectures internationally and writes regularly about art and the law; his work can be viewed at www.artquest.org, where there is a free access archive of his regular articles for the UK publication, Art Monthly. As a result of his ongoing engagement with artists, Henry has become a passionate supporter of Marcel Duchamp's proposition that a work of art only achieves its final completion through the engagement of the viewer. His professorial platform lecture pays homage to Duchamp and reworks his original 1957 US lecture title, The Creative Act, in order to look at the working situation of creative practitioners today. Henry Lydiate observes that as art practice changes and diversifies, artists are engaging with an ever widening range of different media and working practices. This brings new challenges and requirements - for example, managing creative processes, organising working relationships, understanding ownership of rights, and even establishing what is and is not acceptable in terms of public display and censorship. Using examples drawn from his wide-ranging experience of helping creative practitioners, Henry Lydiate will explain why he believes that the working practice of a contemporary artist is now more diverse and challenging than in previous times and requires a broader skill base. Those attending the lecture will learn from an engaging range of case study examples and also have the opportunity to ask questions

Air Power’s Cyber Risk: How Operational Causes will have Strategic Consequences

This thesis argues that air power's cyber risk which has emerged from operational causes will create profound strategic consequences. Through a comprehensive examination of existing literature, it challenges prevailing perspectives by highlighting a critical gap in knowledge: a failure to map the link between operational causes and strategic consequences of air power’s cyber risk which, when realised, will threaten the roles and, in extremis, survival of states. While acknowledging the risks emergent nature and situational specificity with not all states reliant on air power and size inverse to severity, the thesis asserts that the realisation of these strategic consequences is a matter of 'when', not 'if'. Developed within a risk management framework, supported by literature reviews and case studies, and leading to observations and recommendations, the thesis responds by offering a pathway for further research which can mitigate air power’s cyber risk. If embraced, an opportunity exists for academia and practitioners to act in synergy, fill the identified gap in knowledge and address the risk proactively. Conversely, if ignored and the pathway is not followed, the implications will, the thesis predicts, result in the unmitigated strategic consequences of air power’s cyber risk reshaping the geopolitical landscape of the 21st century

Modeling and Simulation of the Intrinsic Function of a Photonic Switch

In this paper, I provide modeling and simulation results which show that a photonic switch can be realized by the application of two superluminescent light emitting diodes to a configuration of three 10 μm radius micro-ring resonators. The 130 nm silicon on insulator rib structure is adopted for the simulations. The three 10 μm radius rings have a resonant wavelength of 1.5487 μm. The on or off state, at a single output port, is realized by the application of a superluminescent diode at either, one or the other, of the two input ports. The output intensity, at the ring resonant wavelength, is shown as a single normalized peak representing a 1 or the “on” condition. The single peak is realized by the application of the “on” superluminescent diode. The “off” or the 0 condition, realized by the application of the “off” superluminescent diode, is exhibited at the output by the introduction of an optical transparency at the single peak resonant wavelength. The minimum of the optical transparency can be adjusted by changing the coupling gap distances of the design. The transparency minimum introduces an error detection feature whereby a failure of the “off” excitation superluminescent diode results in a zero or noise floor output. The transparency minimum can be increased to raise the off state minimum above the measurement apparatus noise floor. The output of the switch can be detected using a simple photodiode intensity detection method

Transcription of the sporulation gene ssgA is activated by the IcIR-type regulator SsgR in a whi-independent manner in Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2).

SsgA plays an important role in the control of sporulation-specific cell division and morphogenesis of streptomycetes, and ssgA null mutants have a rare conditionally non-sporulating phenotype. In this paper we show that transcription of ssgA and of the upstream-located ssgR, an iclR-type regulatory gene, is developmentally regulated in Streptomyces coelicolor and activated towards the onset of sporulation. A constructed ssgR null mutant was phenotypically very similar to the ssgA mutant. The absence of ssgA transcription in this mutant is probably the sole cause of its sporulation deficiency, as wild-type levels of sporulation could be restored by the SsgR-independent expression of ssgA from the ermE promoter. Binding of a truncated version of SsgR to the ssgA promoter region showed that ssgA transcription is directly activated by SsgR; such a dependence of ssgA on SsgR in S. coelicolor is in clear contrast to the situation in S. griseus, where ssgA transcription is activated by A-factor, and its control by the SsgR orthologue, SsfR, is far less important. Our failure to complement the ssgR mutant with S. griseus ssfR suggests functional differences between the genes. These observations may explain some of the major differences in developmental control between the phylogenetically divergent species S. coelicolor and S. griseus, highlighted in a recent microreview (Chater and Horinouchi (2003) Mol Microbiol 48: 9–15). Surprisingly, transcription of ssgA and ssgR is not dependent on the early whi genes (whiA, whiB, whiG, whiH, whiI and whiJ )