Finding Ways

In 2008 I was commissioned to write a poem which was subsequently set into a 700m ribbon of steel that meanders throughout the interior and exterior spaces of the development. The project was designated the title ‘Finding Ways’, which I used loosely to explore the notion of discovery and getting back on track with one’s life. I began this challenging project with a view to achieving three key aims: to produce a poem, or series of poems, that would enliven the new medical facility of Roseberry Park by commenting on the area’s heritage and the journeys that form a part of the medical facility’s purpose; to promote positive interaction and reflection within the residents and users of the facility through the poem; to produce a poem that adhered to the severe restrictions imposed by the building plans, at the same time as it appeared seamless and unforced

Production of: Foghorn Requiem

Richard Hollinshead was invited by the National Trust to develop a high-profile temporary artwork for Souter Lighthouse, South Shields. In response to this opportunity he developed an Artists’ Brief and curated a proposal by artists Lise Autogena and Joshua Portway. Their proposal Foghorn Requiem became a major site-specific project, and on June 22nd 2013 more than 50 ships gathered on the North Sea to perform an ambitious musical score by composer Orlando Gough, marking the disappearance of the sound of the foghorn from the UK’s coastal landscape. Specially tuned shipshorns and air supply systems installed on those vessels were accompanied by the Foghorn at Souter and three Championship-level brass bands, and Foghorn Requiem was performed to an audience of 8000

Magnificent Distance: Five Site-Specific Installations Washington DC 2012

5x5, Washington DC’s inaugural public art festival, was conceived as a flagship biennial in which five curators would each be invited to curate new site-specific artworks by five artists – leading to the simultaneous installation of twenty-five artworks across Washington DC. The primary research question explored in the curation of the five Magnificent Distance artworks was the slippage between the symbolic DC of the worldwide public imagination and the ‘domestic’, human DC with its complex histories and communities. Many of the exhibition sites, selected as part of my curatorial role, were at the interstices of these two DC realities – at the meeting point between federal and community environments, in locations undergoing transformation from one use to another, and at points where differing scales of architecture meet

Intramolecular epoxide ring opening cyclisation reactions involving guanidines

The cyclisation of N-allyl- and N-homoallylguanidines using DMDO leading to the formation of novel 5- and 6-membered guanidine heterocycles is reported. Several of the products formed displayed weak inhibition of glycosidase enzymes

Cross-sectional and longitudinal construct validity of two rotator cuff disease-specific outcome measures

BACKGROUND: Disease-specific Quality Of Life (QOL) measures are devised to assess the impact of a specific disease across a spectrum of important domains of life. The purpose of this study was to examine the cross-sectional and longitudinal construct validity (sensitivity to change) of two rotator cuff disease-specific measures, the Rotator Cuff-Quality Of Life (RC-QOL) and the Western Ontario Rotator Cuff (WORC) index, in relation to one another and to other joint and limb specific measures in the same population of the patients suffering from rotator cuff pathology. METHODS: Participants enrolled were consecutive patients who received physical therapy for management of impingement syndrome or received treatment following rotator cuff repair, acromioplasty or decompression surgeries. All subjects received physical therapy treatment and completed four outcome measures at 3 single points (initial, interim, and final). Cross-sectional convergent validity was assessed at each of the 3 time-points by correlating the WORC and RC-QOL's scores to each other and to two alternative scales; a joint-specific scale, the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES) standardized shoulder assessment form and a limb-specific measure, the Upper Extremity Functional Index (UEFI). Non-parametric statistics (Spearman's rho and Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney tests) examined the construct validity. The standardized response mean (SRM) was used to examine sensitivity to change. RESULTS: Forty-one participants entered the study and their scores were compared at 3 cross sectional single points. The correlation coefficients among the 4 measures varied from 0.60 to 0.91. Correlation between corresponding domains of the WORC and RC-QOL varied from 0.45 to 0.85. The known group validity was not significantly different among individual sub-scores and total scores. The final SRMs were (1.42), (1.43), (1.44), and (1.54) for the ASES, RCQOL, WORC, and UEFI respectively. CONCLUSION: The WORC and RC-QOL exhibit similar cross-sectional convergent validity in patients suffering from rotator cuff pathology. The sensitivity to change was very close among all scores, with the UEFI having the highest sensitivity. Further research is needed to examine the extent to which each physical or emotional domain contributes to prognostic or therapeutic decision-making

Trophoblast organoids as a model for maternal-fetal interactions during human placentation.

The placenta is the extraembryonic organ that supports the fetus during intrauterine life. Although placental dysfunction results in major disorders of pregnancy with immediate and lifelong consequences for the mother and child, our knowledge of the human placenta is limited owing to a lack of functional experimental models1. After implantation, the trophectoderm of the blastocyst rapidly proliferates and generates the trophoblast, the unique cell type of the placenta. In vivo, proliferative villous cytotrophoblast cells differentiate into two main sub-populations: syncytiotrophoblast, the multinucleated epithelium of the villi responsible for nutrient exchange and hormone production, and extravillous trophoblast cells, which anchor the placenta to the maternal decidua and transform the maternal spiral arteries2. Here we describe the generation of long-term, genetically stable organoid cultures of trophoblast that can differentiate into both syncytiotrophoblast and extravillous trophoblast. We used human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing to confirm that the organoids were derived from the fetus, and verified their identities against four trophoblast-specific criteria3. The cultures organize into villous-like structures, and we detected the secretion of placental-specific peptides and hormones, including human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15) and pregnancy-specific glycoprotein (PSG) by mass spectrometry. The organoids also differentiate into HLA-G+ extravillous trophoblast cells, which vigorously invade in three-dimensional cultures. Analysis of the methylome reveals that the organoids closely resemble normal first trimester placentas. This organoid model will be transformative for studying human placental development and for investigating trophoblast interactions with the local and systemic maternal environment.Centre for Trophoblast Reearch Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowshi

Unpopular Culture: Ecological Dissonance and Sustainable Futures in Media-Induced Tourism

The article deconstructs media-induced tourist development’s relationship with “sustainability,” “ecology” and the “popular”. I highlight the interconnected, but often competing interpretations of “ecology” as interactions among technics (representational regimes), technological regimes and institutions (media, tourism), social agents (media/tourism experts, fan tourists and their hosts), and the natural and built environment in which these take place. Constitutive of contemporary economic and sociocultural complexities in which media-induced “popular cultures” are produced and consumed, these ecological landscapes are increasingly in conflict between and within themselves. Such conflicts destabilize “popular culture” as ritualized behavior or experiential domain, enmeshing it into populist reactions against tourists/guests/strangers