Circles, columns and screenings: mapping the institutional, discursive, physical and gendered spaces of film criticism in 1940s London

This article revisits the period considered within ‘The Quality Film Adventure: British Critics and the Cinema 1942-1948’, mapping the professional cultures, working contexts and industry relationships that underpinned the aesthetic judgements and collective directions which John Ellis has observed within the critics published writings. Drawing on the records of the Critics’ Circle, Dilys Powell’s papers and Kinematograph Weekly, it explores the evolution of increasingly organised professional cultures of film criticism and film publicity, arguing that the material conditions imposed by war caused tensions between them to escalate. In the context of two major challenges to critical integrity and practice – the evidence given by British producer R.J. Minney in front of the 1948 Royal Commission on the Press and an ongoing libel case between a BBC critic and MGM – the different spaces of hospitality and film promotion became highly contested sites. This article focuses on the ways in which these spaces were characterised, used, and policed. It finds that the value and purpose of press screenings were hotly disputed and observes the way the advancement of women within one sector (film criticism) but not the other (film publicity) created particular difficulties, as key female critics avoided the more compromised masculine spaces of publicity, making them harder for publicists to reach and fuelling trade resentment. More broadly, the article asserts the need to consider film critics as geographically and culturally located audiences, who experience films as ‘professional’ viewers within extended and embodied cultures of habitual professional practice and physical space

The untapped potential of plant thin cell layers

Thin cell layers (TCLs), which contain a small number of cells or tissues, are explants excised from different organs (stems, leaves, roots, inflorescences, flowers, cotyledons, hypocotyls/epicotyls, and embryos). After almost 45 years of research, this culture system has been used for several monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous plants of commercial importance, and for model plants. The limited amount of cells in a TCL is of paramount importance because marker molecules/genes of differentiation can be easily localized in situ in the target/responsive cells. Thus, the use of TCLs has allowed, and continues to allow, for the expansion of knowledge in plant research in a practical and applied manner into the fields of tissue culture and micropropagation, cell and organ genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, and development. Starting from a brief historical background, the actual and potential uses of the TCL system are briefly reviewed

Avian cerebellar floccular fossa size is not a proxy for flying ability in birds

Extinct animal behavior has often been inferred from qualitative assessments of relative brain region size in fossil endocranial casts. For instance, flight capability in pterosaurs and early birds has been inferred from the relative size of the cerebellar flocculus, which in life protrudes from the lateral surface of the cerebellum. A primary role of the flocculus is to integrate sensory information about head rotation and translation to stabilize visual gaze via the vestibulo-occular reflex (VOR). Because gaze stabilization is a critical aspect of flight, some authors have suggested that the flocculus is enlarged in flying species. Whether this can be further extended to a floccular expansion in highly maneuverable flying species or floccular reduction in flightless species is unknown. Here, we used micro computed-tomography to reconstruct “virtual” endocranial casts of 60 extant bird species, to extract the same level of anatomical information offered by fossils. Volumes of the floccular fossa and entire brain cavity were measured and these values correlated with four indices of flying behavior. Although a weak positive relationship was found between floccular fossa size and brachial index, no significant relationship was found between floccular fossa size and any other flight mode classification. These findings could be the result of the bony endocranium inaccurately reflecting the size of the neural flocculus, but might also reflect the importance of the flocculus for all modes of locomotion in birds. We therefore conclude that the relative size of the flocculus of endocranial casts is an unreliable predictor of locomotor behavior in extinct birds, and probably also pterosaurs and non-avian dinosaurs

Computation of optical properties of chromophores in different environments using QM/MM methods

Die theoretische Beschreibung der Wechselwirkung zwischen Molekülen und Licht kann herausfordernd sein, insbesondere dann, wenn es sich um flexible Farbstoffe in einer komplexen und dynamischen Umgebung handelt. Obgleich quantenmechanische (QM) Methoden den angeregten Zustand eines Moleküls beschreiben können, sind sie zu rechenaufwändig, um strukturelle Fluktuationen simulieren zu können. Darüber hinaus ist die mögliche Systemgröße, die beschrieben werden kann, durch die Rechenkosten begrenzt. Aus diesem Grund kommen für die Untersuchung von Farbstoffen in Proteinumgebung semiempirische und Multiskalenansätze ins Spiel. Die semiempirische Time-Dependent Long-range Corrected Density Functional Tight Binding (TD-LC-DFTB2) Methode wurde als effiziente Alternative zu ab initio Methoden oder der Dichtefunktionaltheorie in Bezug auf Geometrien im angeregten Zustand und Anregungsenergien getestet. Sie wurde in QM/MM Simulationen angewandt, in denen sie einen angeregten Fluorophor beschrieb, dessen Umgebung von einem klassischen Kraftfeld beschrieben wurde. Diese neue Strategie für die Untersuchung von Fluoreszenz wurde sorgfältig anhand von Literaturergebnissen bewertet, indem die Ergebnisse sowohl mit experimentellen als auch mit theoretischen Studien, die auf anderen Ansätzen basieren, verglichen wurden. Es wurde herausgefunden, dass TD-LC-DFTB2 im Allgemeinen Geometrien und Anregungsenergien von ausreichender Qualität liefert, aber es wurden auch einige Schwächen entdeckt. Außerdem wurde ein optischer Glukosesensor untersucht, der aus dem Glukosebindeprotein und einem angefügten Fluorophor besteht. Mit Hilfe von klassischen Molekulardynamiksimulationen (MD Simulationen) konnten Zusammenhänge zwischen der Anwesenheit von Glukose, den Proteinkonformationen und dem Aufenthaltsort des Farbstoffs gefunden werden. Daraus ergab sich ein starker Hinweis auf die Funktionsweise des Sensors. Schließlich wurde der Energietransfer in einem Pigment-Protein-Komplex untersucht. Der Fenna-Matthews-Olson-Komplex von Photosynthese betreibenden grünen Schwefelbakterien beinhaltet mehrere Bakteriochlorophyll a -- Pigmente in seinem Proteingerüst. Diese leiten die im Chlorosome gesammelte Anregungsenergie mit erstaunlicher Effizienz zum Reaktionszentrum weiter. Es wird Vorarbeit für eine Simulation der Exzitonenpropagation durch den Komplex gezeigt. Anregungsenergien und die Kopplungen zwischen den Pigmenten, das heißt die Elemente des exzitonischen Hamiltonoperators, wurden mit TD-LC-DFTB2 für Strukturen aus klassischen MD Simulationen berechnet. Dadurch wurde ein Eindruck zu deren Entwicklung über die Zeit und den Einfluss der Proteinumgebung gewonnen. Weiterhin wurden diese Daten genutzt, um neuronale Netze zu trainieren, die Anregungsenergien und Kopplungen noch schneller als TD-LC-DFTB2 vorhersagen können

India’s Strategies on its Periphery: A Case Study in the India–Bhutan Relationship

This paper explores India’s foreign policy strategies in its relationship with its neighbor Bhutan — probably one of the most asymmetric regional relationships in the world, and one that has come center stage in the context of the tensions between India and China over disputed territory in Doklam in 2017. Against this backdrop this paper takes a look back at the India–Bhutan relationship during the years 2007 to 2016, following Bhutan’s transition to democracy. It focuses on two specific policy fields: Bhutan’s diplomacy, and particularly its efforts to establish relations with China, India’s rival in the region; and Indo–Bhutanese development cooperation in the field of hydropower projects. The paper uses an analytical framework focused on three ideal-typical strategies that regional powers like India can pursue: empire, hegemony, and leadership. The findings show that while India tends to pursue a “leadership” strategy on hydropower projects, it has a contrasting approach when it comes to Bhutan’s diplomacy, indicating several incidences of “hard hegemony” These divergent strategies are related to the different interests connected to the two policy fields: while India is willing to establish an equal partnership in the economic-driven policy field of bilateral hydropower projects, it tends to pursue a very unequal and hard hegemonic strategy in the one of Bhutan's diplomacy because closer Bhutan–China ties are considered India’s own security interests

Investigating the V(II)/V(III) electrode reaction in a vanadium redox flow battery – A distribution of relaxation times analysis

Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries (VRFBs) are already commercially available and promise to provide excellent prerequisites to face the challenge of large-scale energy storage. Nevertheless, the VRFB itself has to overcome challenges regarding lifetime and efficiency. Polarization and pumping losses due to a high electrolyte flow-through resistance in the electrode contribute to much of the efficiency losses. We investigated the reaction and processes in the negative VRFB half-cell using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy combined with the distribution of relaxation times analysis. We identify the individual processes in the negative half-cell by varying several parameters. One peak is observed in the low-frequency range below 2 mHz, attributed to the ion transport. In the range from 2 mHz to 1 Hz, several peaks are identified and assigned to the redox-active species\u27 transport processes through the electrode\u27s porous structure. In the high-frequency range above 1 Hz, the single peak was assigned to the electrochemical reaction in the negative half-cell. The processes in this half-cell are slower than in the positive half-cell. The technique is beneficial to gain a fundamental understanding of the catalytic process of the V(II)/V(III) reaction to optimize novel electrode materials or monitor electrode degradation processes