201 research outputs found
Animators of Atlanta: Layering Authenticity in the Creative Industries
This dissertation explores post-authentic neoliberal animation production culture, tracing the ways authenticity is used as a resource to garner professional autonomy and security during precarious times. Animators engage in two modes of production, the first in creating animated content, and the other in constructing a professional identity. Analyzing animator discourse allows for a nuanced exploration of how these processes interact and congeal into common sense. The use of digital software impacts the animator’s capacity to legitimize themselves as creatives and experts, traditional tools become vital for signifying creative authenticity in a professional environment. The practice of decorating one’s desk functions as a tactic to layer creative authenticity, but the meaning of this ritual is changing now that studios shift to open spaces while many animators work from home. Layering authenticity on-screen often requires blending techniques from classical Hollywood cinema into animated performance, concomitant with a bid to legitimate the role of the authentic interlocutor for the character. Increasingly animators feel pressure to layer authenticity online, establishing an audience as a means to hedge against precarity. The recombined self must balance the many methods for layering creative and professional authenticity with the constraints and affordances of their tools, along with the demands of the studio, to yield cultural capital vital for an animator’s survival in an industry defined at once by its limitless expressive potential and economic uncertainty
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Attempted re-establishment of a sooty tern Onychoprion fuscatus breeding colony on Denis Island, Seychelles
Seychelles supports around three million nesting pairs of sooty terns. However, there have been recent declines and the colonies continue to face ongoing threats from habitat change and excessive commercial harvesting of their eggs, as well as potential threats by commercial fishing and climate change. A possible method to counter these threats is to re-establish breeding colonies on islands from which they have disappeared. An attempt was made to attract birds to a previously occupied island through habitat management, decoy birds and playback of recorded sooty tern calls. Habitat preparation involved predator eradication and tree removal to provide open ground with bare sandy areas and low herb vegetation. Overflying birds were attracted by broadcast calls, with some circling over and landing among the decoys. Large three-dimensional plastic models were superior to other models presented. This study demonstrated that large numbers of birds can be attracted by these means and that the birds then undertook behaviour associated with breeding, including egg laying by a few birds. However, after five seasons a breeding colony has not yet been established; one possible cause is the emergence of unexpected egg predators, common moorhen Gallinula chloropus and common myna Acridotheres tristis
UK export performance research - review and implications
Previous research on export performance has been criticized for being a mosaic of autonomous endeavours and for a lack of theoretical development. Building upon extant models of export performance, and a review and analysis of research on export performance in the UK for the period 1990-2005, an integrated model of export performance is developed and theoretical explanations of export performance are put forward. It is suggested that a multi-theory approach to explaining export performance is viable. Management and policy implications for the UK emerging from the review and synthesis of the literature and the integrated model are discussed
High-frequency ultrasonic speckle velocimetry in sheared complex fluids
High-frequency ultrasonic pulses at 36 MHz are used to measure velocity
profiles in a complex fluid sheared in the Couette geometry. Our technique is
based on time-domain cross-correlation of ultrasonic speckle signals
backscattered by the moving medium. Post-processing of acoustic data allows us
to record a velocity profile in 0.02--2 s with a spatial resolution of 40
m over 1 mm. After a careful calibration using a Newtonian suspension, the
technique is applied to a sheared lyotropic lamellar phase seeded with
polystyrene spheres of diameter 3--10 m. Time-averaged velocity profiles
reveal the existence of inhomogeneous flows, with both wall slip and shear
bands, in the vicinity of a shear-induced ``layering'' transition. Slow
transient regimes and/or temporal fluctuations can also be resolved and exhibit
complex spatio-temporal flow behaviors with sometimes more than two shear
bands.Comment: 15 pages, 18 figures, submitted to Eur. Phys. J. A
Characterisation and expression of SPLUNC2, the human orthologue of rodent parotid secretory protein
We recently described the Palate Lung Nasal Clone (PLUNC) family of proteins as an extended group of proteins expressed in the upper airways, nose and mouth. Little is known about these proteins, but they are secreted into the airway and nasal lining fluids and saliva where, due to their structural similarity with lipopolysaccharide-binding protein and bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein, they may play a role in the innate immune defence. We now describe the generation and characterisation of novel affinity-purified antibodies to SPLUNC2, and use them to determine the expression of this, the major salivary gland PLUNC. Western blotting showed that the antibodies identified a number of distinct protein bands in saliva, whilst immunohistochemical analysis demonstrated protein expression in serous cells of the major salivary glands and in the ductal lumens as well as in cells of minor mucosal glands. Antibodies directed against distinct epitopes of the protein yielded different staining patterns in both minor and major salivary glands. Using RT-PCR of tissues from the oral cavity, coupled with EST analysis, we showed that the gene undergoes alternative splicing using two 5' non-coding exons, suggesting that the gene is regulated by alternative promoters. Comprehensive RACE analysis using salivary gland RNA as template failed to identify any additional exons. Analysis of saliva showed that SPLUNC2 is subject to N-glycosylation. Thus, our study shows that multiple SPLUNC2 isoforms are found in the oral cavity and suggest that these proteins may be differentially regulated in distinct tissues where they may function in the innate immune response
The GRA Beam-Splitter Experiments and Particle-Wave Duality of Light
Grangier, Roger and Aspect (GRA) performed a beam-splitter experiment to
demonstrate the particle behaviour of light and a Mach-Zehnder interferometer
experiment to demonstrate the wave behaviour of light. The distinguishing
feature of these experiments is the use of a gating system to produce near
ideal single photon states. With the demonstration of both wave and particle
behaviour (in two mutually exclusive experiments) they claim to have
demonstrated the dual particle-wave behaviour of light and hence to have
confirmed Bohr's principle of complementarity. The demonstration of the wave
behaviour of light is not in dispute. But we want to demonstrate, contrary to
the claims of GRA, that their beam-splitter experiment does not conclusively
confirm the particle behaviour of light, and hence does not confirm
particle-wave duality, nor, more generally, does it confirm complementarity.
Our demonstration consists of providing a detailed model based on the Causal
Interpretation of Quantum Fields (CIEM), which does not involve the particle
concept, of GRA's which-path experiment. We will also give a brief outline of a
CIEM model for the second, interference, GRA experiment.Comment: 24 pages, 4 figure
Shear-banding in a lyotropic lamellar phase, Part 2: Temporal fluctuations
We analyze the temporal fluctuations of the flow field associated to a
shear-induced transition in a lyotropic lamellar phase: the layering transition
of the onion texture. In the first part of this work [Salmon et al., submitted
to Phys. Rev. E], we have evidenced banded flows at the onset of this
shear-induced transition which are well accounted for by the classical picture
of shear-banding. In the present paper, we focus on the temporal fluctuations
of the flow field recorded in the coexistence domain. These striking dynamics
are very slow (100--1000s) and cannot be due to external mechanical noise.
Using velocimetry coupled to structural measurements, we show that these
fluctuations are due to a motion of the interface separating the two
differently sheared bands. Such a motion seems to be governed by the
fluctuations of , the local stress at the interface between the
two bands. Our results thus provide more evidence for the relevance of the
classical mechanical approach of shear-banding even if the mechanism leading to
the fluctuations of remains unclear
Stage-Specific Effects of Population Density on the Development and Fertility of the Western Tarnished Plant Bug, Lygus hesperus
The western tarnished plant bug Lygus hesperus Knight (Heteroptera: Miridae), a major pest of cotton and other key economic crops, was tested for its sensitivity to population density during nymph and adult stages. Nymphs reared to adulthood under increasing densities in laboratory conditions exhibited incremental delays in maturation, heightened mortality rates, and reductions in body mass and various size parameters. In contrast, gonadal activity in both males and females rose with initial density increases. Supplemental nutrients provided to the nymphs failed to offset the negative effects of high density, suggesting that contact frequency, rather than resource partitioning, may be the primary stress. Unlike nymphs, newly eclosed adults exposed to increasing population densities did not suffer negative physiological effects; body mass, mortality rates and patterns of ovipositional activity were unchanged. Collectively, these results indicate that population density can dramatically influence Lygus development, but the specific effects are stage-dependent
Pathogenic huntingtin inhibits fast axonal transport by activating JNK3 and phosphorylating kinesin
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2009. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Nature America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Nature Neuroscience 12 (2009): 864-871, doi:10.1038/nn.2346.Selected vulnerability of neurons in Huntington’s disease (HD) suggests alterations in a cellular
process particularly critical for neuronal function. Supporting this idea, pathogenic Htt (polyQ-Htt)
inhibits fast axonal transport (FAT) in various cellular and animal HD models (mouse and squid),
but the molecular basis of this effect remains unknown. Here we show that polyQ-Htt inhibits FAT
through a mechanism involving activation of axonal JNK. Accordingly, increased activation of JNK
was observed in vivo in cellular and animal HD models. Additional experiments indicate that
polyQ-Htt effects on FAT are mediated by the neuron-specific JNK3, and not ubiquitously
expressed JNK1, providing a molecular basis for neuron-specific pathology in HD. Mass
spectrometry identified a residue in the kinesin-1 motor domain phosphorylated by JNK3, and this
modification reduces kinesin-1 binding to microtubules. These data identify JNK3 as a critical
mediator of polyQ-Htt toxicity and provides a molecular basis for polyQ-Htt-induced inhibition of
FAT.This work was supported by 2007/2008 MBL summer fellowship to GM; an HDSA
grant to GM; NIH grants MH066179 to GB; and ALSA, Muscular Dystrophy Association, and NIH
(NS23868, NS23320, NS41170) grants to STB
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