Scenography in the staging / on the Stage / in the Mind of the Audience

In contemporary theatre the division between the different components within the production of a performance or play is often blurry. What then is the role and function of scenography? And who is the scenographer? In this article we explore how scenography relates to the performance as a whole and how it is now more explicitly considered to be a ‘producer of meaning’, resulting in a particular focus on the visual and sensuous aspects of the production process. Three pairs of theatre and performance creators within the Norwegian contemporary scene have been interviewed for this article, and their projects constitute the material for discussion: 1)The art and theatre company Verdensteatret, 2) Heine Avdal and Yukiko Shinozaki, contemporary dance developers, and 3) Director Eirik Stubø and scenographer Kari Gravklev. Through an analysis of their performances in relation to the interview material, it has become clear that the role of the scenographer as a distinct function is far from distinct - only one of the interviewed artists calls herself scenographer, for the others it is more a matter of opposing to the term or of not really relating to it. Here, the theatre institutions as well as the art institutional contexts seem to be significant. Scenography however, as a field of investigation, becomes all the more relevant both inside and outside institutions, representing a sensuous landscaping that involves both context and matter

Perceived personal safety in relation to urban woodland vegetation – A review

Urban woodland vegetation provides people with many aesthetic, ecological and psychological benefits, but can also generate problems concerning people’s perception of safety. This paper reviews existing knowledge about perceived personal safety in relation to vegetation, particularly woodland vegetation, in urban green spaces such as parks and residential areas. Individual and social factors, but also vegetation character, maintenance and design, proved to be important for perceived personal safety. Vegetation-related aspects identified as being of particular importance include landscape design, possibilities for overview and control, vegetation density, and vegetation character and maintenance. Vegetation of an open character with low density undergrowth might have positive effects on perceived personal safety without reducing other benefits. Issues for future research include context-based studies to consider several aspects of vegetation and their interactions

Anthropogenic Geology and the Role of Public Sector Organisations

Anthropogenic geology (AG) is the study of geological materials and morphologies created, reshaped, or otherwise modified by humans and human activity. Geologists and geological surveys need to include anthropogenically created geology into their science discipline to sustainably resource classify human-made deposits driven by socioeconomic models rather than natural forces. Concepts coupled to anthropogenic geology like circular economy, geosystem services, secondary resources, etc., are important features for the implementation of AG into sustainable economics and resource handling. Thus, it is important for geological surveys and other public agents to gain deep knowledge into these concepts and how the public agents can support sustainable use of anthropogenic geological features

Perceived personal safety in relation to urban woodland vegetation – A review

Urban woodland vegetation provides people with many aesthetic, ecological and psychological benefits, but can also generate problems concerning people’s perception of safety. This paper reviews existing knowledge about perceived personal safety in relation to vegetation, particularly woodland vegetation, in urban green spaces such as parks and residential areas. Individual and social factors, but also vegetation character, maintenance and design, proved to be important for perceived personal safety. Vegetation-related aspects identified as being of particular importance include landscape design, possibilities for overview and control, vegetation density, and vegetation character and maintenance. Vegetation of an open character with low density undergrowth might have positive effects on perceived personal safety without reducing other benefits. Issues for future research include context-based studies to consider several aspects of vegetation and their interactions

Cephalopod genomics: a plan of strategies and organization

The Cephalopod Sequencing Consortium (CephSeq Consortium) was established at a NESCent Catalysis Group Meeting, "Paths to Cephalopod Genomics-Strategies, Choices, Organization," held in Durham, North Carolina, USA on May 24-27, 2012. Twenty-eight participants representing nine countries (Austria, Australia, China, Denmark, France, Italy, Japan, Spain and the USA) met to address the pressing need for genome sequencing of cephalopod mollusks. This group, drawn from cephalopod biologists, neuroscientists, developmental and evolutionary biologists, materials scientists, bioinformaticians and researchers active in sequencing, assembling and annotating genomes, agreed on a set of cephalopod species of particular importance for initial sequencing and developed strategies and an organization (CephSeq Consortium) to promote this sequencing. The conclusions and recommendations of this meeting are described in this white paper

Cephalopod genomics : a plan of strategies and organization

© The Author(s), 2012. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Standards in Genomic Sciences 7 (2012): 175-188, doi:10.4056/sigs.3136559.The Cephalopod Sequencing Consortium (CephSeq Consortium) was established at a NESCent Catalysis Group Meeting, “Paths to Cephalopod Genomics- Strategies, Choices, Organization,” held in Durham, North Carolina, USA on May 24-27, 2012. Twenty-eight participants representing nine countries (Austria, Australia, China, Denmark, France, Italy, Japan, Spain and the USA) met to address the pressing need for genome sequencing of cephalopod molluscs. This group, drawn from cephalopod biologists, neuroscientists, developmental and evolutionary biologists, materials scientists, bioinformaticians and researchers active in sequencing, assembling and annotating genomes, agreed on a set of cephalopod species of particular importance for initial sequencing and developed strategies and an organization (CephSeq Consortium) to promote this sequencing. The conclusions and recommendations of this meeting are described in this White Paper.The Catalysis Group Meeting was supported by the National Science Foundation through the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) under grant number NSF #EF-0905606

Rapid expansion and long-term persistence of elevated NK cell numbers in humans infected with hantavirus

Acute hantavirus infection in humans triggers a rapid expansion and long-term persistence of NK cells

Common coding variant in SERPINA1 increases the risk for large artery stroke

Large artery atherosclerotic stroke (LAS) shows substantial heritability not explained by previous genome-wide association studies. Here, we explore the role of coding variation in LAS by analyzing variants on the HumanExome BeadChip in a total of 3,127 cases and 9,778 controls from Europe, Australia, and South Asia. We report on a nonsynonymous single-nucleotide variant in serpin family A member 1 (SERPINA1) encoding alpha-1 antitrypsin [AAT; p.V213A; P = 5.99E-9, odds ratio (OR) = 1.22] and confirm histone deacetylase 9 (HDAC9) as a major risk gene for LAS with an association in the 3?-UTR (rs2023938; P = 7.76E-7, OR = 1.28). Using quantitative microscale thermophoresis, we show that M1 (A213) exhibits an almost twofold lower dissociation constant with its primary target human neutrophil elastase (NE) in lipoprotein-containing plasma, but not in lipid-free plasma. Hydrogen/deuterium exchange combined with mass spectrometry further revealed a significant difference in the global flexibility of the two variants. The observed stronger interaction with lipoproteins in plasma and reduced global flexibility of the Val-213 variant most likely improve its local availability and reduce the extent of proteolytic inactivation by other proteases in atherosclerotic plaques. Our results indicate that the interplay between AAT, NE, and lipoprotein particles is modulated by the gate region around position 213 in AAT, far away from the unaltered reactive center loop (357-360). Collectively, our findings point to a functionally relevant balance between lipoproteins, proteases, and AAT in atherosclerosis

Trans-ancestry meta-analyses identify rare and common variants associated with blood pressure and hypertension

High blood pressure is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and premature death. However, there is limited knowledge on specific causal genes and pathways. To better understand the genetics of blood pressure, we genotyped 242,296 rare, low-frequency and common genetic variants in up to ~192,000 individuals, and used ~155,063 samples for independent replication. We identified 31 novel blood pressure or hypertension associated genetic regions in the general population, including three rare missense variants in RBM47, COL21A1 and RRAS with larger effects (>1.5mmHg/allele) than common variants. Multiple rare, nonsense and missense variant associations were found in A2ML1 and a low-frequency nonsense variant in ENPEP was identified. Our data extend the spectrum of allelic variation underlying blood pressure traits and hypertension, provide new insights into the pathophysiology of hypertension and indicate new targets for clinical intervention

Green space management & residents’ benefits

Management of green spaces in rental multi-family housing areas is discussed in a Swedish context and the benefits of maintenance for residents examined in this thesis. In Sweden, these green spaces are an important part of the urban green structure and the housing companies who manage these spaces are important green space providers. However, the management and maintenance of such green spaces and its benefits for residents seldom receive attention in research. The residents’ perspective is the main interest here, since they are to benefit from maintenance. The perspective of the providers (housing staff) is also included, because of their influence through provision on residents’ experiences. Taking an ex-plorative and mainly qualitative approach, two empirical studies were conducted using interviews as the main method of collecting data. In a case study of three rental and multi-family housing areas, 27 residents and 13 housing staff were interviewed regarding their experience of the maintenance of green space and their views on maintenance provision respectively. In a telephone survey of 30 municipal housing companies, housing staff were asked how they organised maintenance of green spaces and what motivated that choice. The case study identified several benefits of green space maintenance for residents and three were further explored: (1) green space being ‘well-kept’ (2) the housing area being safe and (3) a just distribution of maintenance. The results showed that several elements of maintenance and the social context, such as views of maintenance staff and of other residents, contribute to residents’ experience of these bene-fits. Views of well-kept green space were for example not simply about technical quality but e.g. the image of maintenance staff and their efforts was also considered. There is consequently a need to widen the technical discussion about how to manage and maintain green spaces