Spot the Difference! Visual plagiarism in the visual arts.

Over recent years there has been considerable investment in the use of technology to identify sources of text-based plagiarism in universities. However, students of the visual arts are also required to complete numerous pieces of visual submissions for assessment, and yet very little similar work has been undertaken in the area of non-text based plagiarism detection. The Spot the Difference! project (2011-2012), funded by JISC and led by the University for the Creative Arts, seeks to address this gap by piloting the use of visual search tools developed by the University of Surrey and testing their application to support learning and teaching in the arts and specifically to the identification of visual plagiarism. Given that most commonly used search technologies rely on text, the identification and evidencing of visual plagiarism is often left to the knowledge and experience of academic staff, which can potentially result in inconsistency of detection, approach, policies and practices. This paper outlines the work of the project team, who sought to investigate the nature, scope and extent of visual plagiarism in the arts education sector

Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection

This article details the Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection, which was created through a collaborative project between researchers and students at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) and the team at Zandra Rhodes Studio, with funding from JISC. The collection provides unique online access to 500 garments from the private archive of British fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, as well as fashion drawings, video interviews, and video tutorials that uncover the processes involved in creating a Zandra Rhodes piece

Look-here!: digitisation and collaboration in the visual arts

The Look-Here! project was a collaborative venture that sought to develop skills and strategies for digitisation within libraries, museums and archives in the arts education sector. Led by the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS), with funding from the JISC eContent Programme (2009-11), the project worked with partners in nine specialist arts universities and colleges and art departments in multidisciplinary institutions. Through a series of workshops, case studies and cross-sector activities, the project aimed to share and embed knowledge and expertise in the creation and management of digitised collections in the visual and creative arts. This case study on the project's outputs, outcomes and lessons learnt was published as a chapter within an e-book on the JISC website. The e-book presents case studies from 11 digital projects managing digital resources for higher education

From princess to punk: digitisation in the fashion studio

The Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection project was a unique collaborative venture between staff and students at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) and their Chancellor, the British fashion and textile designer Zandra Rhodes. Working within the designer’s private studio space, this initiative has developed the first digital record of her personal collection of garments and drawings, supported and enriched with behind-the-scenes video interviews and tutorials, for worldwide educational use. This paper examines the benefits and strategies for undertaking the project in situ within the designer’s private studio environment. It outlines the need for a bespoke, flexible approach to digitisation in the visual arts that respects the individuality and creativity of the artist, whilst drawing on established documentation standards and expertise from the library, archive and museum sector

Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection project

This paper presented a case study of the Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection project (2011-13), which has provided unique online access to a selection of 500 of the designer's dresses and garments from her private archive, and an accompanying Open Educational Resource (OER). The project was led by the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), a specialist art and design university in the south of England, working in collaboration with the Zandra Rhodes Studio in London, with funding from JISC. The designer studied at the Medway College of Design in the 1950s, now the Rochester campus of UCA, and she became UCA's first Chancellor in 2010. Zandra Rhodes is among the most famous names in British fashion with a career spanning five decades and her work includes the design of haute couture dresses worn by icons such as Diana, Princess of Wales, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and Diana Ross. The project combines the digital curation expertise of the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS), a Research Centre of the University Library at UCA, working with students from the University's undergraduate fashion and textile design courses, alongside the internationally renowned fashion and textile designer and her studio team. This paper will and share the lessons learnt, including: lessons around the digitisation of private archives and public/private partnerships; the importance of the personal touch and the opportunities for filming studio techniques and oral history; as well as the range of work experience opportunities for students from across a variety of creative arts disciplines

Heraclio Bernal: Bandit Citizen

Shortly after Heraclio Bernal’s much awaited defeat to federal forces in 1888, the Governor of Sinaloa, Francisco Cañedo, referred to the state’s famous outlaw as “el bandido ciudadano” (El Nacional, 10 Jan. 1888).1 The Mexico City newspaper El Nacional promptly registered their disapproval

Current first aid and CPR credentials of selected head high school athletic coaches in West Virginia

Coaches are typically the immediate caregivers to high school athletes. To date the state of West Virginia has no mandatory laws that coaches be first-aid and CPR certified before they are hired as a coach. The general purpose of this study is to assess current status of first-aid and CPR certifications held by high school head athletic coaches in the state of West Virginia. A packet will be sent to the 160 high schools in West Virginia. The principal will randomly choose five head coaches, at least two females and two males, to fill out the survey which are to be sent back to Marshall University. The principals are being asked to send the surveys back within two weeks. The survey will include the following questions: size of their school, their sex, their age, the sport they coach, the status of their position, total years of coaching experience, date of most recent first-aid certification and where they obtained it, date of their most recent CPR card and how it was obtained. The survey will also include one open ended question at the end asking if they have attended any sports medicine seminars and the date they did. The data will be computed to analyze the current status of the certification holding of head athletic coaches in West Virginia. The data will then be used to help assess the status of first-aid and CPR certifications in West Virginia and to provide some recommendations to the state to improve the emergency care of the athletes

Assisted Switched Reluctance Machines

Switched reluctance machine (SRM) modifications in both control schemes and physical design have been steadily increasing in academia to improve machine performance. Assisted switched reluctance machines (ASRMs) are a type of design modification for SRMs. Permanent magnets (PMs) and electromagnetic DC coils (DCC) are being added to the SRM to improve its torque output and overall efficiency. The choice for the design modification has been evolving throughout the decades. The focus has shifted from adding DCC to ASRM to adding PMs to ASRMs. This paper reviews the research trends of ASRMs and includes an analysis of the modified stator yoke design. Although adding PMs limit the application of machines away from extreme environmental conditions due to risk of demagnetization and increase material costs, the torque density and torque ripple reductions can out-perform DCC. PM ASRM are a good choice for energy efficiency-sensitive applications, but DCC, with proper control circuitry, can have a wider application and smaller initial build cost

Quantification of brain-derived neurotrophic factor expression in the aging monkey brain

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston UniversityWhile early studies of normal aging largely focused on the loss of neurons as a basis of cognitive aging, current studies of both aging humans and the rhesus monkey model of normal aging demonstrate that forebrain neurons are largely preserved. Instead, MRI and electron microscopic analyses show that age-related changes in the white matter are good predictors of cognitive impairment. White matter changes include an increase in damaged myelin sheaths as well as a loss of myelinated fibers. To explore potential causes of the white matter alterations, the expression of genes related to myelination and axonal survival were examined revealing age-related alterations in the expression of 9 genes in grey matter and 7 in subcortical white matter of the inferior parietal lobule (IPL). Four were selected for further analysis. Of these, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) had a statistically significant decrease in expression in the cortical grey matter of the IPL at both the level of gene expression and of protein expression. In 27 male and female rhesus monkeys ranging from young to old, the precursor form of BDNF (proBDNF) was significantly decreased while the mature form was preserved. In order to understand the localization of the age-related decline in proBDNF, immunohistochemical reactivity was quantified in the IPL and in the hippocampus. In the IPL there was a significant decrease in total immunohistochemical reactivity. Further analysis showed that there was an increase in the number of proBDNF positive somata while there was no change in the smaller extrasomal puncta. This increase in cell bodies expressing proBDNF despite the age-related decrease in total proBDNF immunohistochemical density suggests disruption of post-translational processing and/or transport out into the processes. In contrast to the IPL, there was no change in proBDNF density in the hippocampus with age. However, in the hippocampus but not the IPL, proBDNF immunohistochemical reactivity was sexually dimorphic with higher levels in the female monkeys compared to males. While the significance of the change in proBDNF levels for myelin damage is unclear, alteration in this neurotrophin may play a role in the axon loss that accompanies myelin degradation