Re-animating Ghosts: Materiality and memory in hauntological appropriation

This research examines the spectrality of animation and other media based on the photographic trace. Using diverse examples from popular culture and the author’s own investigative practice in media art, this paper looks at how archival media is re-used and can be brought back to life in new moving image works, in a gesture we might call hauntological appropriation. While sampling and re-using old materials is nothing new, over the last 15 years we have seen an ongoing tendency to foreground the ghostly qualities of vintage recordings and found footage, and a recurrent fetishisation and simulation of obsolete technologies. Here we examine the philosophies and productions behind this hauntological turn and why the materiality of still and moving image media has become such a focus. We ask how that materiality effects the machines that remember for us, and how we re-use these analogue memories in digital cultures. Due to the multimodal nature of the author’s creative practice, photography, video art, documentary film and animation, are interrogated here theoretically. Re-animating the ghosts of old media can reveal ontological differences between these forms, and a ghostly synergy between the animated and the photographic

Bargaining Theory and Portfolio Payoffs in European Coalition Governments 1945-1983

The distribution of cabinet posts in multiparty coalition governments in twelve European countries in the period 1945-1983 is considered. The efficacy of three payoff theories, namely Gamson's proportional payoff, the kernel and the bargaining set, as predictors of portfolio distribution, are compared. It is found that the Gamson predictor is superior in five countries which tend to be characterized by a relatively unfragmented political system, while the bargaining set is more appropriate in the highly fragmented political systems. The kernel can be disregarded as a payoff predictor. The results provide some empirical justification for the restricted (B2) bargaining set as a payoff predictor in simple voting games with transferable value

Accessing Bioactive Natural Products from Cultured and Uncultured Microorganisms.

Microbial natural products are an important source of novel medicines in an ongoing war against drug-resistant infections. Their unique chemical structures are capable of affecting new molecular targets that can help slow the ability of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and cancers to develop resistance mechanisms. To maximize the discovery of new medicines, we need to simultaneously explore the natural products of both cultured and currently uncultured microbes. This dissertation explores methodologies to facilitate access to bioactive medicines from both of these microbial sources. To access the natural products of cultured microorganisms, we screened a library of extracts collected from microbial isolates for inhibitors of enzymatic targets involved in siderophore biosynthesis. Bioactivity-guided fractionation of the best hit led to the isolation of a novel class of antibiotics, the baulamycins. Analysis of the bioactivity of these natural products against the original enzymatic targets and several pathogenic microorganisms helped to elucidate their potency, broad-spectrum activity, and mode of inhibition. These new antibiotics from a cultured microbe serve as an important drug lead in the war against antibiotic resistance. To access the natural products of uncultured microorganisms, we selected the clinically approved chemotherapeutic ET-743 as a model system. Researchers have long suspected that the medicine is produced by an uncultured microbial symbiont of a mangrove tunicate. We first sought to understand the biology of the uncultured microbe. We used metagenomic techniques to uncover its complete genome. Detailed analysis of the genome, its primary, and secondary metabolism provided a thorough look at its endosymbiotic lifestyle and the biosynthesis of ET-743. In the last part of my dissertation, we utilized the newfound knowledge of the symbiont’s biology to take the first steps toward more efficient access of the drug. We biochemically analyzed a key enzyme involved in the production of the core of the anti-cancer medicine. This analysis supports our predicted role for the enzyme in ET-743 biosynthesis. It also supports the feasibility of reconstituting ET-743 and more potent or selective analogues in vitro. These collective methodologies can be applied to other systems, expanding our ability to harness the bioactive natural products of cultured and uncultured microorganisms.PHDMicrobiology and ImmunologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111340/1/schofiem_1.pd

Promiscuous mating in the endangered Australian lizard Tiliqua adelaidensis: a potential windfall for its conservation

Author version made available in accordance with the Publisher's policy. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10592-013-0529-0Studies have revealed an unsuspected complexity in social systems within a few lizard species, including group living, long-term monogamy and individual recognition of partners or offspring. Comparisons among these species and their relatives could provide valuable insights, allowing us to investigate traits that are shared across social systems and identify general principles relating to the evolution of sociality. The endangered pygmy bluetongue lizard, Tiliqua adelaidensis, is a member species in the Egernia group, but is thought to show a more solitary social structure than other members in this group. Within this study we used microsatellite markers to determine the mating system of T. adelaidensis. Unlike many other species in the Egernia group, we found a predominately promiscuous mating system in T. adelaidensis. We detected multiple paternity in 75% of litters. Of the 70 males identified as having fathered juveniles, only five were identified as mating with the same female in more than one year and only three were identified as the father of juveniles with the same female in consecutive years. The genetic evidence suggested that partners were chosen randomly with respect to the level of relatedness among neighbouring lizards. However, mated lizards were geographically closer to each other than expected by random chance. Multiple paternities rely on the opportunity for males to encounter multiple females during the period when they are receptive to mating, and this may depend on population densities. Drivers for the polygamous mating system may be the single occupancy burrow and the central place territorial defence of those burrows in T. adelaidensis. We propose a fourth mating system for the Egernia group: polygyny within stable non-social colonies

The Double Flip: Applying a Flipped Learning Approach to Teach the Teacher and Improve Student Satisfaction

This paper describes a professional development (PD) program for academics at an Australian university designed to model good blended curriculum design and effective use of contemporary learning technologies. It evaluates a case study from the pilot of this program involving a postgraduate psychology course to illustrate one of the most challenging examples and in turn the potential impact of the approach developed. Academic developers face known barriers, including time constraints, interdisciplinary miscommunication, and change resistance, when introducing academics to new approaches to learning and teaching. This PD sought to promote change by modelling a shift from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side,” through use of flipped and blended learning approaches by the academic developer. The case study found the teacher gained confidence in these methods and student satisfaction ratings increased

Aura and Trace: The Hauntology of the Rephotographic Image

This research utilises and deconstructs the contemporary practice of rephotography, investigating what it can tell us about the changing ontology of the photographic artefact, in a purportedly post-medium and post-digital culture. The work uses scanned archival images, some of which have been badly damaged over time, alongside bespoke photography of the lost urban landscapes they depict, to create new digital media artworks which explore the representation of absence and the passage of time itself. These processes and their outcomes raise important questions about mediation in our digital representations of the past, about demolition and loss of cultural memory, and, most crucially for this research, they interrogate theory regarding the ontology of photography in the archive - specifically the Derridean notion that the photograph is intrinsically spectral, and that the archive is always under some form of erasure. For Derrida all media was best understood as a form of technological ghost, continually re-haunting itself as media and practices change, but traces of the past return in new forms. This spectrality was always present but was seemingly accelerated by the digital turn, even as older analogue images 'felt' more auratic and haunting. In order to understand the photographic object in these shifting contexts, a 'hauntology', rather than an ontology, will be employed, to recognise what underlies these spectral media fragments – their absence/presence, their materiality/immateriality, how they are used in modern visual culture, their potential social meaning and political significance, as a form of haunting. The practice research used two photographic archives of the same city, from the same time period (c.1900), and compared them through various deconstructions of the rephotographic form, examining closely the role played by their artefactual materiality, content and context (within both analogue and digital realms), looking for various signifiers of hauntological quality. The focus of these observations became the aura of the decaying medium, and the role this unique materiality plays in revealing the authenticity, age, absence and ultimately the spectrality of the trace. This then shifted to a wider consideration of how these 'analogue' surface features can become fetishized and simulated within various hauntological practices based on the digital archive, at a time of ongoing analogue revival and returning notions of medium in the arts. Alongside this written thesis the practice produced two other major research outputs: a photo book entitled A Window on Time, and a site-specific installation piece called The Remote Viewer

Dynamics of a temperate grassland reptile community in the mid-north of South Australia

Published version of the paper reproduced here with permission from the Royal Society of South Australia.Temperate native grasslands are listed as a critically endangered ecological community in South Australia, yet very little is known about the associated faunal communities. This study aims to provide information on the temporal dynamics of a native grassland reptile community in the mid-north of South Australia. During the study we made 335 reptile captures in pitfall traps, of 248 different individuals, from 13 species, representing five families. These data were used to investigate seasonal trends in trapping rate, age demographics and movement of individuals from marked recaptures. The results of the study provide baseline information on species assemblages that might be used in the recovery and management of the remaining fragments of temperate native grasslands and the endangered pygmy bluetongue lizard that relies on those fragments for its persistence.This research was supported by funds from the Australian Research Council

Leading In Crisis: College & University Presidents’ Reflections On Their Response To Covid-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous influence on higher education in America. While college presidents have led through multiple crises in the past several decades, this challenge is unique for both the depth of its influence (e.g., revolutionizing course and service delivery methods, financial upheaval and institutional closures, political implications of institutional decisions) and the fact that every college and university in the world was influenced nearly simultaneously, providing the inability to benchmark decisions. As college presidents were faced with series of unprecedented choices during the period from March 2020 through November 2021, this study sought to prompt reflection on the choices made, as well as influences on those choices and implications to inform crisis leadership in the future. This hermeneutic phenomenological study utilized interview data and a thorough web content analysis to engage college presidents in reflections on their experiences, specifically evaluating the impact that COVID-19 had on their leadership style and their perceptions of the effectiveness of their choices from a retrospective stance. This research surfaced four key findings: 1) that reflections and past experiences informed presidential crisis response decisions throughout the evolving crisis; 2) that central to the success in managing a pervasive and unprecedented crisis is engaging as many people as possible in the crisis response; 3) that communication is essential and that communication strategy must be intentional and evolving with respect to the most salient needs of the community, and; 4) that presidents must employ a holistic approach to viewing, assessing, and solving institutional problems that can be supported by utilizing a four frame approach to leadership decision-making and execution