The Search for an Internationalist Aesthetics: Soviet Images of China, 1920-1935.

This dissertation examines images of China produced in early Soviet culture, focusing in particular on the mid-to-late 1920s, a period of heightened Soviet involvement in Chinese politics. It argues that China became in this period the primary testing ground for the creation of an "internationalist aesthetics": a mode of representation that might express horizontal solidarity over vertical dominance, and inscribe China into the global map envisioned by Marist-Leninist theories of revolution. Seeking to produce a new China to replace the exotic Orient, Soviet artists and writers experimented with multiple genres and media--reportage, film, theatre, biography--in their search for the correct mode for internationalist aesthetics. The struggle over how to represent the world for a revolutionary society thus coalesces, in this period, around the question of how to represent China. Such an aesthetics is inevitably interconnected with politics, and internationalist aesthetics encountered and expressed the same ambiguities as the political project of Soviet internationalism: a liberatory, anti-imperial ideology that simultaneously sought to control political and historical narratives from the world revolution's proclaimed centre in Moscow. Consequently, these disparate images are united by an insistence on the privileged position and perspective of the Soviet observer, who looks at Chinese reality with a combination of advanced modern knowledge, sympathy with oppression, and revolutionary experience that is purportedly inaccessible to other Europeans, or indeed to the Chinese themselves. This privileged perspective on China undergirds the claims of internationalist aesthetics to present a true image of the world. The search for an authoritative mode for internationalist aesthetics is hampered, however, by recurrent issues of access, mediation and translatability, and by lingering parallels between this avowedly anti-imperialist discourse and the imperial systems of knowledge production it supposedly replaces

Family experience after paediatric acquired brain injury

This thesis explores family experiences after paediatric Acquired Brain Injury (ABI). ABI can result in physical, cognitive and psychological difficulties (Royal College of Physicians& British Society of Rehabilitation Medicine, 2003). Given its wide-ranging impact, ABI is likely to have an effect on the family. However, there is limited qualitative research exploring the lived experiences of siblings of children with ABI, and none that focuses specifically on sibling relationships. There is more research exploring parents’ experience of this same phenomenon but a lack of synthesis of this knowledge. My thesis seeks to address this gap by conducting a systematic review of parents’ experiences and qualitative research on sibling experience. In the literature review, I systematically searched three databases and identified fourteen qualitative papers that met the inclusion criteria. These were synthesised in line with Noblit and Hare’s (1988) guidelines. Three themes emerged, representing the challenges that parents experience with a child with ABI: (1) Disconnection: Cut off from internal emotions and isolated from society; (2) Seeking understanding and support to manage in an insecure world; (3) New parent to a different child. In the research project, I used semi-structured interviews with five siblings (aged between 9-12) and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to understand their experience of the sibling relationship after ABI. This resulted in four themes: (1)Coping with “a nightmare that you live”; (2)Disconnection from family relationships; (3)My sibling is different but “still the same underneath all this thing”; and (4)Changing togetherness. These themes showed high levels of distress alongside attempts to adjust to a changed sibling and sibling relationship. In the third section of this thesis, I critically appraise the above papers and consider strengths and weakness, challenges and recommendations for future research. I hope that this paper will inform future researchers interviewing children, particularly within ABI

Social cognition and executive functioning predictors of supervisors’ appraisal of interpersonal behaviour in the workplace following acquired brain injury

BACKGROUND: Social cognition and executive functioning difficulties following acquired brain injury have been linked to negative employment outcomes, such as demotion and loss of vocational roles. These are very counter-intuitive and challenging difficulties for other employees and work supervisors who have little or no brain injury knowledge, whose perceptions of play a key role in their responses to these difficulties and the final outcome of such problems for vocational status. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to study the relationship between social cognition and executive functioning difficulties and the perceptions of work supervisors’ appraisal of survivor interpersonal behaviour and social skills in the workplace. METHOD: The performance of 73 survivors of acquired brain injury (47% TBI, 38% CVA, 15% other ABI type; 73% male; mean age 45.44 years, range 19-64 years; mean time since injury 6.36 years, range 10.5-31.33 years), currently in a vocational rehabilitation placement) on neuropsychological tests of executive functioning and social cognition was measured. Informant ratings on the Social Skills Factor subscale from the Work Personality Profile (WPP, Bolton&Roessler, 1986) were used as the primary outcome measure, a vocational functioning questionnaire assessing social and presentational aspects of workplace behaviour. The raters were non-clinical workplace informants acting in a supervisory role (supervisory placement providers and job coaches). RESULTS: Correlational analysis identified significant associations between the WPP and survivor goal-orientated planning and implementation, mentalising ability, recognition of positive and negative emotions, and recognition of simple sarcasm (all significant at p < 0.05). These correlates were entered into a stepwise multiple regression. The combination final of survivor mentalising ability and executive functioning explained 32%of the variance in the WPP ratings (F (2, 52) = 12.15, p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Certain limitations of the study withstanding, the current findings add to previous literature in highlighting the relevance of survivor executive functioning and social cognition difficulties for the perceptions and appraisal of work colleagues, consistent with other studies that have identified negative vocational outcomes associated with such neuropsychological difficulties. The implications for vocational rehabilitation are discussed

Linking metabolism to membrane signaling: the GABA–malate connection

γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) concentration increases rapidly in tissues when plants encounter abiotic or biotic stress, and GABA manipulation affects growth. This, coupled to GABA's well-described role as a neurotransmitter in mammals, led to over a decade of speculation that GABA is a signal in plants. The discovery of GABA-regulated anion channels in plants provides compelling mechanistic proof that GABA is a legitimate plant-signaling molecule. Here we examine research avenues unlocked by this finding and propose that these plant 'GABA receptors' possess novel properties ideally suited to translating changes in metabolic status into physiological responses. Specifically, we suggest they have a role in signaling altered cycling of tricarboxylic acid (TCA) intermediates during stress via eliciting changes in electrical potential differences across membranes.Matthew Gilliham and Stephen D. Tyerma

Hypoxia in grape berries : the role of seed respiration and lenticels on the berry pedicel and the possible link to cell death

Mesocarp cell death (CD) during ripening is common in berries of seeded Vitis vinifera L. wine cultivars. We examined if hypoxia within berries is linked to CD. The internal oxygen concentration ([O 2 ]) across the mesocarp was measured in berries from Chardonnay and Shiraz, both seeded, and Ruby Seedless, using an oxygen micro-sensor. Steep [O 2 ] gradients were observed across the skin and [O 2 ] decreased toward the middle of the mesocarp. As ripening progressed, the minimum [O 2 ] approached zero in the seeded cultivars and correlated to the profile of CD across the mesocarp. Seed respiration declined during ripening, from a large proportion of total berry respiration early to negligible at later stages. [O 2 ] increased towards the central axis corresponding to the presence of air spaces visualized using X-ray micro-computed tomography (CT). These air spaces connect to the pedicel where lenticels are located that are critical for berry O 2 uptake as a function of temperature, and when blocked caused hypoxia in Chardonnay berries, ethanol accumulation, and CD. The implications of hypoxia in grape berries are discussed in terms of its role in CD, ripening, and berry water relations. © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology

Spin-lattice NMR relaxation by anomalous translational diffusion

A model-free theoretical framework for a phenomenological description of spin-lattice relaxation by anomalous translational diffusion in inhomogeneous systems based on the fractional diffusion equation is developed. The dependence of the spin-lattice relaxation time on the size of the pores in porous glass Vycor is experimentally obtained and found to agree well with our theoretical predictions. We obtain nonmonotonic behavior of the translational spin-lattice relaxation rate constant (it passes through a maximum) with the variation of the parameter referring to the extent of inhomogeneity of the system.Comment: 21 LaTex pages, 4 eps figures, revised versio