The Dancing Between Two Worlds Project: Background, Methodology and Learning to Approach Community in Place

This article recounts the history to date of the Dancing Between Two Worlds (DBTW) project, which was initiated by a team of artist-scholars at Deakin University in 2018. DBTW’s brief was to engage the Indian community living in the western fringes of Melbourne in a project on civic belonging, cross-cultural artistic identity, and the performance of outer-suburban Indian diaspora. Working with the creative and community energies that are activated at the intersection of the creative arts and demographically inflected place, the Deakin researchers collaborated with local artists with an Indian background on a major performance in late 2019: Dancing Between 2 Worlds. This performance came out of a series of creative exchanges in community venues and public spaces in the City of Wyndham Local Government Area (LGA), whereby the Deakin team offered contemporary ‘Western’ creative approaches and the Indian artists shared their traditional artistic practices—amidst discussions about place, belonging and identity. This process was supplemented by interviews with some of the participants. Our article contextualizes the DBTW project through a summary of two previous, similar Deakin enterprises; looks at the significant methodological issues linked to the project; describes the performance of late 2019; and uses project images and other figures to relate its story. We also take this opportunity to consider the nexus of a practice-led research project with community: that is, the relationships and liaison between institution (Deakin University), local government, participants, and place—over time. The article concludes by digging in to the discursive tension between the terms ‘project’ and ‘group’ and (provisionally) resolves this tension in favour of the ongoing use of the word ‘project’ for DBTW. In this way, we add to the ideas on the ‘rhetoric of projects’ originally expressed by Paul Carter in Material Thinking. The latter section of the article draws on interview material to give voice to the local Indian community members and artists around the developing thematic preoccupations of DBTW, comprising civic belonging, cross-cultural artistic identity, and the performance of Indian diaspora in outer suburban Melbourne. The focus of this article, however, concerns the learning curve at Deakin University that indexes the development of its approach to community in place

Avenanthramides Prevent Osteoblast and Osteocyte Apoptosis and Induce Osteoclast Apoptosis in Vitro in an Nrf2-Independent Manner

Oats contain unique bioactive compounds known as avenanthramides (AVAs) with antioxidant properties. AVAs might enhance the endogenous antioxidant cellular response by activation of the transcription factor Nrf2. Accumulation of reactive oxygen species plays a critical role in many chronic and degenerative diseases, including osteoporosis. In this disease, there is an imbalance between bone formation by osteoblasts and bone resorption by osteoclasts, which is accompanied by increased osteoblast/osteocyte apoptosis and decreased osteoclast apoptosis. We investigated the ability of the synthethic AVAs 2c, 2f and 2p, to 1-regulate gene expression in bone cells, 2-affect the viability of osteoblasts, osteocytes and osteoclasts, and the generation of osteoclasts from their precursors, and 3-examine the potential involvement of the transcription factor Nrf2 in these actions. All doses of AVA 2c and 1 and 5 µM dose of 2p up-regulated collagen 1A expression. Lower doses of AVAs up-regulated OPG (osteoprotegerin) in OB-6 osteoblastic cells, whereas 100 μM dose of 2f and all concentrations of 2c down-regulated RANKL gene expression in MLO-Y4 osteocytic cells. AVAs did not affect apoptosis of OB-6 osteoblastic cells or MLO-Y4 osteocytic cells; however, they prevented apoptosis induced by the DNA topoisomerase inhibitor etoposide, the glucocorticoid dexamethasone, and hydrogen peroxide. AVAs prevented apoptosis of both wild type (WT) and Nrf2 Knockout (KO) osteoblasts, demonstrating that AVAs-induced survival does not require Nrf2 expression. Further, KO osteoclast precursors produced more mature osteoclasts than WT; and KO cultures exhibited less apoptotic osteoclasts than WT cultures. Although AVAs did not affect WT osteoclasts, AVA 2p reversed the low apoptosis of KO osteoclasts. These in vitro results demonstrate that AVAs regulate, in part, the function of osteoblasts and osteocytes and prevent osteoblast/osteocyte apoptosis and increase osteoclast apoptosis; further, these regulatory actions are independent of Nrf2

Metabolic and endocrine profiles and reproductive parameters in dairy cows under grazing conditions: effect of polymorphisms in somatotropic axis genes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The present study hypothesized that GH-AluI and IGF-I-SnabI polymorphisms do change the metabolic/endocrine profiles in Holstein cows during the transition period, which in turn are associated with productive and reproductive parameters.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Holstein cows (Farm 1, primiparous cows, n = 110, and Farm 2, multiparous cows, n = 76) under grazing conditions were selected and GH and IGF-I genotypes were determined. Blood samples for metabolic/endocrine determinations were taken during the transition period and early lactation in both farms. Data was analyzed by farm using a repeated measures analyses including GH and IGF-I genotypes, days and interactions as fixed effects, sire and cow as random effects and calving date as covariate.</p> <p>Results and Discussion</p> <p>Frequencies of GH and IGF-I alleles were L:0.84, V:0.16 and A:0.60, B:0.40, respectively. The GH genotype was not associated with productive or reproductive variables, but interaction with days affected FCM yield in multiparous (farm 2) cows (LL yielded more than LV cows) in early lactation. The GH genotype affected NEFA and IGF-I concentrations in farm 1 (LV had higher NEFA and lower IGF-I than LL cows) suggesting a better energy status of LL cows.</p> <p>There was no effect of IGF-I genotype on productive variables, but a trend was found for FCM in farm 2 (AB cows yielded more than AA cows). IGF-I genotype affected calving first service interval in farm 1, and the interaction with days tended to affect FCM yield (AB cows had a shorter interval and yielded more FCM than BB cows). IGF-I genotype affected BHB, NEFA, and insulin concentrations in farm 1: primiparous BB cows had lower NEFA and BHB and higher insulin concentrations. In farm 2, there was no effect of IGF-I genotype, but there was an interaction with days on IGF-I concentration, suggesting a greater uncoupling somatropic axis in AB and BB than AA cows, being in accordance with greater FCM yield in AB cows.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The GH and IGF-I genotypes had no substantial effect on productive parameters, although IGF-I genotype affected calving-first service interval in primiparous cows. Besides, these genotypes may modify the endocrine/metabolic profiles of the transition dairy cow under grazing conditions.</p

Locating: Place and the Moving Body

This research project physically and theoretically investigates a relationship between body and place, via site-specific performance-making processes in diverse Australian sites. It encompasses the creation of two live performances and a video installation, the development of which are documented and elucidated in a written exegesis. The exegesis and associated performance processes explore the proposition that movement/ dance—as a spatial practice—can be a mode of locating, or an attempt to locate. ‘Locating’ implies an endless process that is always heading towards location, place, total presence—but may never arrive. Using practice-based, embodied research as its methodology, environmental information from the specific site is gathered via sensory perception tasks, some derived from Body Weather (a movement philosophy developed by Japanese dancer Min Tanaka), generating an improvisational exchange of perception and response. This ‘locating dance’ is the relationship between body and the place: it is simultaneously the seeking of relationship and the expression, enactment or illustration of it. In seeking location in relation to Australian sites from the perspective of a body that is white, the research also interrogates white Australian identity in relationship to this country, with the knowledge of the genocide and dispossession that its history entails. The work of theorists of place and space, as well as local historical and ecological sources, provide the framework for this series of excavations. Via traveling in Europe and to Aboriginal Land in the Northern Territory, insights develop into the cultural and corporeal residue of colonisation. Thus, the specific geographical site of each of the performance works acts also as a microcosm for, or reference point to, the broader site of contemporary Australia and the non-Aboriginal postcolonial experience of place. Representation of the body in performance is constructed in various ways to acknowledge the implications of its whiteness. The locating dances and performance works that comprise Locating: Place and the Moving Body engage in a multi-sensory listening to the country that aspires towards (white Australian) location—that elusive and longed-for ‘belonging’ or true ‘settlement’—yet they do not purport to have found, or even anticipate finding, an endpoint to this dance