Chaser: A Modern Film Noir

Chaser is a story about Devin, a city detective who has been investigating the kidnapping of the police captain???s wife, Melissa Florek. Devin???s search takes him to a seedy bar that is suspected to be a front for other illicit activities by the city???s biggest crime lord, Vincent. Although Devin???s job requires him to be a symbol of justice and good his struggles with his own demons are revealed through the subtext of his dialogue and his actions. Chaser is an homage to the independent style of neo-noir. Noir???s dramatic style of shadows, moral ambiguity, and cynicism is often seen as its own genre, when truly it is a style that can be applied to various other genres. This project paper will explore the various stylistic techniques of neo-noir as well as other movie making aesthetics. More specifically, it will elaborate on the significance of their presence within this short film and how they will make it similar to that of a modern noi

Section-level relationships of North American Agalinis (Orobanchaceae) based on DNA sequence analysis of three chloroplast gene regions

BACKGROUND: The North American Agalinis are representatives of a taxonomically difficult group that has been subject to extensive taxonomic revision from species level through higher sub-generic designations (e.g., subsections and sections). Previous presentations of relationships have been ambiguous and have not conformed to modern phylogenetic standards (e.g., were not presented as phylogenetic trees). Agalinis contains a large number of putatively rare taxa that have some degree of taxonomic uncertainty. We used DNA sequence data from three chloroplast genes to examine phylogenetic relationships among sections within the genus Agalinis Raf. (=Gerardia), and between Agalinis and closely related genera within Orobanchaceae. RESULTS: Maximum likelihood analysis of sequences data from rbcL, ndhF, and matK gene regions (total aligned length 7323 bp) yielded a phylogenetic tree with high bootstrap values for most branches. Likelihood ratio tests showed that all but a few branch lengths were significantly greater than zero, and an additional likelihood ratio test rejected the molecular clock hypothesis. Comparisons of substitution rates between gene regions based on linear models of pairwise distance estimates between taxa show both ndhF and matK evolve more rapidly than rbcL, although the there is substantial rate heterogeneity within gene regions due in part to rate differences among codon positions. CONCLUSIONS: Phylogenetic analysis supports the monophyly of Agalinis, including species formerly in Tomanthera, and this group is sister to a group formed by the genera Aureolaria, Brachystigma, Dasistoma, and Seymeria. Many of the previously described sections within Agalinis are polyphyletic, although many of the subsections appear to form natural groups. The analysis reveals a single evolutionary event leading to a reduction in chromosome number from n = 14 to n = 13 based on the sister group relationship of section Erectae and section Purpureae subsection Pedunculares. Our results establish the evolutionary distinctiveness of A. tenella from the more widespread and common A. obtusifolia. However, further data are required to clearly resolve the relationship between A. acuta and A. tenella

The Wisdom of Practice Meets the Pursuit of Scientific Inquiry. A Response to Scientifically Based Research and Teacher Agency: Combating \u27Conspiracies of Certainty\u27

Stemhagen and Nomi argued that the influence of many contemporary forms of education research, especially scientifically based research, inevitably position teachers as problems rather than as active agents whose judgement is indivisible from the activity of teaching and learning. We share the authors’ intuitions and concerns about the divide between research and teaching but also wonder if there remains another way into some of the concerns they raise. We start with a different question but one we think is fundamental to Stemhagen and Nomi’s critique: How do the findings of empirical research make their way into the work of teaching? By answering this question, we hope to reframe the authors’ concerns and reconsider their recommendation that teachers become participatory action researchers. It is distressing that practitioners and researchers have not yet found ways (despite the insights of John Dewey and other theorist and practitioners over more than a century) to substantively account for each others’ growing understanding because both the wisdom of practice and the pursuit of scientific insight are central to the effective and generative practice of educating children and adults

The Linear Complexity of a Graph

The linear complexity of a matrix is a measure of the number of additions, subtractions, and scalar multiplications required to multiply that matrix and an arbitrary vector. In this paper, we define the linear complexity of a graph to be the linear complexity of any one of its associated adjacency matrices. We then compute or give upper bounds for the linear complexity of several classes of graphs

Using Focus Groups and Correspondence Analysis to Explore the Relationship Between Millennials\u27 Online Behavior and Their Opinions of Online Reviews

Consumer decision-making regarding a purchase is usually influenced by feedback received from other people in addition to prior experiences/beliefs/attitudes and marketer dominated information. Such diverse sources of influence are collectively referred to as the influence mix (Simonson and Rosen 2014). Of the different sources in the influence mix, word-of-mouth (i.e., feedback received from other people) is one of the most impactful sources of information (Duan, Gu, and Whinston 2008). With the advent of e-tailers on the Internet, the influence of word-of-mouth communication has grown significantly in the form of online consumer reviews (Schindler ad Bickart 2012). Research has shown that online reviews significantly influence consumer purchase decisions (see, for example, Chevalier and Mayzlin 2006; Senecal and Nantel 2004). Further, according to Zhu and Zhan (2010), 24% of Internet consumers avail themselves of online reviews before buying an offering offline; additionally, the authors note that an increasing number of firms persuade consumers to spread word of their offerings online