Forms of the Gift in the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italy; The Art of Salvation and Socio-political persuasion.

This paper discusses themes of the Gift in relation to The Arena Chapel, Padua, Italy, circa 1306, in particular the narrative form of the frescoes and the function of Giotto’s visual language, with reference to the work of Marcel Mauss, Annette B Weiner, Andrew Ladis Laura Jacobus and Janetta Rebold Benton. Enrico Scrovegni’s expenditure in the commissioning of the Arena Chapel initiated a complex series of acts around the diverse forms of the gift and the transactional ambition in the gifting of the chapel. The paper examines the narrative of Joachim and Anna in the first register within the context of Giotto’s general use of illusional space and composition, which offers the gift of visual realisation that accommodates, ensnares and manipulates the gaze of its audience

Camphill’s approach : relevant and effective for today’s vulnerable learners

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Experimental rig to improve the geophysical and geomechanical understanding of CO2 reservoirs

We intend to perform experiments that simulate real Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) conditions in the laboratory, and hence provide the necessary knowledge to interpret field seismic surveys. Primarily, our research is focused on determining seismic rock properties (i.e., wave velocities and attenuation) of real and artificial 50 mm diameter brine-CO2-bearing sandstone and sand samples that are representative host rocks of real CCS scenarios. Accordingly, we have integrated into a new triaxial cell system both an ultrasonic pulse-echo method for accurate velocity (± 0.3%) and attenuation (± 0.1 dB cm-1) measurements, and an electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) method to monitor homogeneity of pore fluid distribution within the samples. The use of ERT provides calibration data for field scale techniques (such as marine controlled source electromagnetic surveying) but also allows measurements of bulk resistivity, fluid diffusion monitoring, flow pathway characterization, and determination of the relative permeability for different brine/brine-CO2 ratios. By simultaneously measuring ultrasonic P- and S-wave velocities and electrical resistivity, we also provide data for joint inversion of seismic and electric field data. Furthermore, the stress-strain behaviour of the sample is continuously monitored with the aid of electrical gauges, so that we deal consistently and simultaneously with the geophysical and geomechanical response of the reservoir when submitted to CO2 injections

Memory is a strange place, what does it look like?

Memory is a strange place, what does it look like? In order to question the visual nature of memory and the experience of remembering I produced a series of memory paintings to test how I might evoke, experience and picture distant memory. This proposed paper will discuss six of those paintings. The paintings were informed by a relationship between photography and memory as evidenced by the conceptual art of Boltanski, Sebald’s illustrated novel Austerlitz and Barthes book Camera Lucida. The paintings explore the nature of photography as a signifier of memory. The paintings evolved through three generations and depict in various ways small plastic toys that match those found in my childhood memories. At various stages the paintings evoke the characteristics of pinhole photography and the mapping of shadows which is in itself a form of photography. The paintings also make use of observational studies and images drawn from memory, both of which seem to strive to be photographic. Barthes argues in Camera Lucida that certain photographs involve a punctum, that is a particular tigger of pure memory linking the viewer to their past experience. The process of making the memory paintings evoked in me a cascade of memory that resonated with Barthes encounter with a photograph of his late mother, however my paintings are not photographs. Consequently, I would argue that Barthes’ punctum is not limited to the photograph but may be found in images where the abstracted essential nature of the photograph may be located

Art and the Alternative Space/Time of the London Underground

The Object of Urban Visual Culture AAH Conference 2017, Loughborough University Art and the Alternative Space/Time of London Underground. Laurence North (Falmouth University) Lynch describes the subway as a “disconnected nether world”, a description with which those involved in London’s early 20th century underground would have probably agreed. Throughout his career with London’s early Underground, Frank Pick developed the integration of art and design to promote its progressive advantages and dispel any sense of dread threatened by the disorienting dimly lit passages and absence of social segregation. Transport For London’s use of art and design has continued to develop and refine Pick’s legacy. This paper argues that TFL’s use of art supplements the functional space with a cultural dimension, facilitating the passenger’s willingness to enter an alternative internalised and reflective space/time, in compensation for dislocation from their personal and established image of the city. The paper goes on to consider, with reference to Laura Jacobus and Janetta Rebold Benton, Giotto’s Arena Chapel (1306) as a catalyst in understanding and developing the potential of art on the Underground. The blending of alternative states of being through the use of threshold images, references to the urban socio-political dynamic, and pictorial representations of space and time are argued as being common to both Giotto’s frescos and TFL’s use of art

Integrated geophysical and hydromechanical assessment for CO2 storage: shallow low permeable reservoir sandstones

Geological reservoirs can be structurally complex and can respond to CO2 injection both geochemically and geomechanically. Hence, predicting reservoir formation behaviour in response to CO2 injection and assessing the resulting hazards are important prerequisites for safe geological CO2 storage. This requires a detailed study of thermal-hydro-mechanical-chemical coupled phenomena that can be triggered in the reservoir formation, most readily achieved through laboratory simulations of CO2 injection into typical reservoir formations. Here, we present the first results from a new experimental apparatus of a steady-state drainage flooding test conducted through a synthetic sandstone sample, simulating real CO2 storage reservoir conditions in a shallow (?1 km), low permeability ?1mD, 26% porosity sandstone formation. The injected pore fluid comprised brine with CO2 saturation increasing in steps of 20% brine/CO2 partial flow rates up to 100% CO2 flow. At each pore fluid stage, an unload/loading cycle of effective pressure was imposed to study the response of the rock under different geomechanical scenarios. The monitoring included axial strains and relative permeability in a continuous mode (hydromechanical assessment), and related geophysical signatures (ultrasonic P-wave and S-wave velocities Vp and Vs, and attenuations Qp?1 and Qs?1, respectively, and electrical resistivity). On average, the results showed Vp and Vs dropped ?7% and ?4% respectively during the test, whereas Qp?1 increased ?55% and Qs?1 decreased by ?25%. From the electrical resistivity data, we estimated a maximum CO2 saturation of ?0.5, whereas relative permeability curves were adjusted for both fluids. Comparing the experimental results to theoretical predictions, we found that Gassmann's equations explain Vp at high and very low CO2 saturations, whereas bulk modulus yields results consistent with White and Dutta–Odé model predictions. This is interpreted as a heterogeneous distribution of the two pore fluid phases, corroborated by electrical resistivity tomography images. The integration of laboratory geophysical and hydromechanical observations on representative shallow low-permeable sandstone reservoir allowed us to distinguish between pure geomechanical responses and those associated with the pore fluid distribution. This is a key aspect in understanding CO2 injection effects in deep geological reservoirs associated with carbon capture and storage practices

A competitive NMDA receptor antagonist potentiates the effects of morphine on spatial and discrimination learning

NMDA antagonists have been shown to attenuate the development of tolerance to the antinociceptive effects of morphine, but paradoxically, to potentiate the acute effects of morphine in assays of antinociception. In an effort to characterize the effects of these types of drugs on learning, morphine and the competitive NMDA antagonist, LY235959, were studied alone and in combination in two experiments. The first experiment utilized the Morris Swim Task, a procedure widely used to study spatial learning in rats. The second experiment used an olfactory discrimination procedure for rats. Both experiments involved the use of a within-subject, repeated acquisition and performance procedure (RAP). The RAP procedure allows the researcher to distinguish between a drug’s effects on learning versus more general performance effects. In both procedures, morphine produced selective impairments on acquisition, but LY235959 generally affected acquisition only at doses that also produced performance effects. Combinations of selected doses of the two drugs produced effects that suggest a potentiation of the effects that each drug produced alone

Nutritional modulation of growth and maturation and the development of specific age-related diseases : secondary analysis of NHANES II

Four age-related subsamples were selected from the Second National Health and Examination Survey (NHANES II) in order to test hypotheses involving relationships between dietary intake, method of infant feeding, rate of growth and maturation, and incidence of later life disease. Relationships between variables of interest were first placed within a comprehensive conceptual framework linking overnutrition during infancy and childhood to accelerated growth, accelerated sexual maturation, and increased incidence of later life disease. Six hypotheses were tested in order to explore key implications of this conceptual framework. Hypotheses were grouped within three areas of analysis: (a) nutrition and growth, (b) nutrition, growth, and sexual maturation, and (c) growth, maturation, and age-related disease

Experimental assessment of the stress-sensitivity of combined elastic and electrical anisotropy in shallow reservoir sandstones

Seismic and electromagnetic properties are generally anisotropic, depending on the microscale rock fabric and the macroscale stress field. We have assessed the stress-dependent anisotropy of poorly consolidated (porosity of approximately 0.35) sandstones (broadly representative of shallow reservoirs) experimentally, combining ultrasonic (0.6 MHz P-wave velocity, VP, and attenuation 1/QP) and electrical resistivity measurements. We used three cores from an outcrop sandstone sample extracted at 0°, 45°, and 90° angles with respect to the visible geologic bedding plane and subjected them to unloading/loading cycles with variations of the confining (20–35 MPa) and pore (2–17 MPa) pressures. Our results indicate that stress field orientation, loading history, rock fabric, and the measurement scale, all affect the elastic and electrical anisotropies. Strong linear correlations (R2 > 0.9) between VP, 1/QP, and resistivity in the three considered directions suggest that the stress orientation similarly affects the elastic and electrical properties of poorly consolidated, high-porosity (shallow) sandstone reservoirs. However, resistivity is more sensitive to pore pressure changes (effective stress coefficients n > 1), whereas P-wave properties provide simultaneous information about the confining (from VP, with n slightly less than 1) and pore pressure (from 1/QP, with n slightly greater than 1) variations. We found n is also anisotropic for the three measured properties because a more intense and rapid grain rearrangement occurs when the stress field changes result from oblique stress orientations with respect to rock layering. Altogether, our results highlighted the potential of joint elastic-electrical stress-dependent anisotropy assessments to enhance the geomechanical interpretation of reservoirs during production or injection activities

Elastic and electrical properties and permeability of serpentinites from Atlantis Massif, Mid-Atlantic Ridge

Serpentinized peridotites co-exist with mafic rocks in a variety of marine environments including subduction zones, continental rifts and mid-ocean ridges. Remote geophysical methods are crucial to distinguish between them and improve the understanding of the tectonic, magmatic and metamorphic history of the oceanic crust. But, serpentinite peridotites exhibit a wide range of physical properties that complicate such a distinction. We analyzed the ultrasonic P- and S-wave velocities (Vp, Vs) and their respective attenuation (Qp−1, Qs−1), electrical resistivity and permeability of four serpentinized peridotite samples from the southern wall of the Atlantis Massif, Mid-Atlantic Ridge, collected during International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 357. The measurements were taken over a range of loading-unloading stress paths (5 - 45 MPa), using ∼1.7 cm length, 5 cm diameter samples horizontally extracted from the original cores drilled on the seafloor. The measured parameters showed variable degrees of stress dependence, but followed similar trends. Vp, Vs, resistivity and permeability show good inter-correlations, while relationships that included Qp−1 and Qs−1 are less clear. Resistivity showed high contrast between highly serpentinized ultramafic matrix (> 50 Ω m) and mechanically/geochemically altered (magmatic/hydrothermal-driven alteration) domains (< 20 Ω m). This information together with the elastic constants (Vp/Vs ratio and bulk moduli) of the samples allowed us to infer useful information about the degree of serpentinization and the alteration state of the rock, contrasted by petrographic analysis. This study shows the potential of combining seismic techniques and controlled source electromagnetic surveys for understanding tectono-magmatic processes and fluid pathways in hydrothermal systems