Siu Wang-ngai, with Peter Lovrick. Chinese opera : images and stories

This article reviews the book Chinese Opera: Images and Stories , written by Siu Wang-ngai, with Peter Lovrick

Anais do V Encontro Brasileiro de Educomunicação: Educação midiática e políticas públicas

A presente coletânea, que chega ao público através de um suporte digital, tem como objetivo disponibilizar os papers, bem como os relatos de experiências educomunicativas apresentados durante o V ENCONTRO BRASILEIRO DE EDUCOMUNICAÇÃO, que teve como tema central: “Educação Midiática e Políticas Públicas”. O evento foi realizado em São Paulo, entre 19 e 21 de setembro de 2013, a partir de uma parceria entre o NCE/USP - Núcleo de Comunicação e Educação da USP, a Licenciatura em Educomunicação da ECA/USP, a ABPEducom – Associação Brasileira de Pesquisadores e Profissionais da Educomunicação e a FAPCOM – Faculdade Paulus de Tecnologia e Comunicação, que ofereceu seu campus, na Vila Mariana, para os atos do evento. Os presentes anais disponibilizam o texto de abertura, de autoria do coordenador geral do evento, denominado “Educação midiática e políticas públicas: vertentes históricas da emergência da Educomunicação na América Latina”. Na sequência, apresentam 61 papers sobre aspectos específicos da temática geral, resultantes de pesquisas na área, seguidos de 27 relatos de práticas educomunicativas, em nível nacional

Big and Small Nation(alisms): A view from Aotearoa-New Zealand

And so it was. All as expected; all that is indeed the stereotypical China: the long civilization, the characters, the Confucian traditions, the big inventions, the huge number of people, and of course the fireworks. Zhang Yimou copied and pasted it all together so that the audience—both “them” and “us”—could safely enjoy familiar images, saturated with spectacular effects. And there I was watching it all on TV like billions of others, an Italian “sinologist” turned into a Chinese film and media researcher in the USA, who ultimately landed in New Zealand five years ago to teach about China in Dunedin, at the very bottom of Aotearoa’s South Island. China and the Olympics have not been particularly big in the Kiwi news—only theNew Zealand Herald and the Dominion Press have put it on the front page as the main event today. But of course, yesterday night TVONE had to cover it all and from 9:30 pm until 4:30 am New Zealand turned its attention to China as “she was taking over the world stage” (as one of the commentators, the Chinese-born Sophie Zhang, mentioned)

China on Video: Smaller Screen Realities

China On Video is the first in-depth study that examines smaller-screen realities and the important role they play not only in the fast-changing Chinese mediascape, but also more broadly in the practice of experimental and non-mainstream cinema. At the crossroads of several disciplines—film, media, new media, media anthropology, visual arts, contemporary China area studies, and cultural studies--this book reveals the existence of a creative, humorous, but also socially and politically critical "China on video", which locates itself outside of the intellectual discourse surrounding both auteur cinema and digital art.Peer Reviewe

China on Video: Smaller Screen Realities

China On Video is the first in-depth study that examines smaller-screen realities and the important role they play not only in the fast-changing Chinese mediascape, but also more broadly in the practice of experimental and non-mainstream cinema. At the crossroads of several disciplines—film, media, new media, media anthropology, visual arts, contemporary China area studies, and cultural studies--this book reveals the existence of a creative, humorous, but also socially and politically critical "China on video", which locates itself outside of the intellectual discourse surrounding both auteur cinema and digital art.Peer Reviewe

Quasi-documentary, cellflix and web spoofs: Chinese movies' other visual pleasures

In China, as elsewhere, new locations and new media have redefined the experience of watching a moving image, beyond the cinematic experience. (1) The visual works that one can view outside movie theatres greatly differ in scope and style. Some explore alternatives to classic Hollywood narratives; others engage with the documentary idea, but they reposition themselves away from realism and, in fact, might offer surreal and even distorted representations of the real. Often crossing the fiction and non-fiction divide, these movies simply fall under the broad category of non-feature films. (2) The producers often embrace the cheaper, more manageable and far-reaching Digital Video (DV) technology and rely on distribution channels as different as television, the internet and galleries. (3) Among non-feature films, Chinese video art and experimental videos have attracted most of the scholarly attention, while much less academic interest has been given to other movies. In this article, I begin to look at these other movies and explore some recent developments of Chinese movie-making beyond the silver screen and outside art galleries, such as the quasi-documentary, the e gao or spoofs, and the cell/DV flicks. I argue that their lightness contributes to establishing a new relationship between movies and pleasure. (4) In my analysis, lightness refers to a self-reflective and often humorous mode of representation, but also relates to issues of production and distribution. Superfluous and often volatile cultural products, these movies are unlikely to be seen as either generating commercial or intellectual capital and thus effectively locate themselves beyond the duality of popular and lite culture

Cardiac involvement in Behçet's disease.

To assess the prevalence and the extent of cardiac involvement in patients with Behcet's disease and to investigate the possible causes that may predispose to this involvement, 30 patients affected by Behcet's disease and 30 normal control subjects were submitted to M-mode, two-dimensional, and Doppler echocardiographic evaluation. Moreover, antinuclear and anticardiolipin autoantibodies were determined in the sera of both patients and control subjects. Finally, HLA-B51 positivity was assessed in the patients and in a historical control group. Mitral valve prolapse was observed in 50% and proximal aorta dilatation in 30% of the patients. There was a significant difference in the rate of these abnormalities in comparison with the control group. Left ventricular function parameters were similar between the two groups. The positivity rate of antinuclear and anticardiolipin autoantibodies was very low (7%), without differences between the groups. HLA-B51 was detected in 82.7% of the patients versus 21.7% in the control group (p < 0.00001). In conclusion, this study demonstrates a high rate of cardiac abnormalities in patients with Behcet's disease

Metals, metallothioneins and oxidative stress in blood of autistic children

Many factors have been implicated in autism onset, including excess or deficiency in toxic or essential metals and impaired antioxidant systems. Protection towards the damaging effects of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is afforded by antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase, SOD, catalase, CAT, glutathione peroxidase, GPx), and non-enzymatic antioxidants such as metallothionein (MT). In blood samples from autistic children and healthy controls, three aspects were investigated: (i) the plasma concentration of 13 metals (Al, As, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, Si, Zn) was measured by ICP-AES; (ii) the transcription of three MT isoforms (MT-1A, MT-1E and MT-2A) was assessed by real-time RT-PCR in peripheral blood leucocytes (PBMCs); (iii) the activity of SOD, CAT and GPx was assessed by spectrophotometric assays in red blood cells (RBCs). Autistic children showed significantly higher plasma levels of Zn, Ca, Fe, As, Ni, Cd and Si, higher mRNA expression of the MT isoforms in PBMCs, higher SOD activity and lower CAT activity in RBCs with respect to controls. These findings demonstrate a significant increase in both metal content and metallothionein expression together with an unbalance in the oxidative status in the blood of autistic childre