Listening and remembering: networked off-line improvisation for four commuters

This paper analyses the experience of the networked off-line improvisation 'Listening and Remembering', a performance for four commuters using voices and sounds from the Mexico City and Paris metros. It addresses the question: how can an act of collective remembering, inspired by listening to metro soundscapes, lead to the creation of networked voice- and sound-based narratives about the urban commuting experience? The networked experience is seen here from the structural perspective (telematic setting), the sonic underground context, the ethnographic process that led to the performance, the narratives that are created in the electro-acoustic setting, the shared acoustic environments that those creations suggest, and the technical features and participants' responses that prevent or facilitate interaction. Emphasis is placed on the participants' status as non-performers, and on their familiarity with the sonic environment, as a context that allows the participation of non-musicians in the making of music through telematically shared interfaces, using soundscape and real-time voice. Participants re-enact their routine experience through a dialogical relation- ship with the sounds, the other participants, themselves, and the experience of sharing: a collective memory

Networked Migrations: Listening to and performing the in-between space (Paper)

Two internet-based sonic performances, Letters and Bridges (between Leicester and Mexico City), and Migratory Dreams (between London and Bogotá), were developed by the artist with the leading question of what the 'in-between' space (Bhaba 1994; Ortega 2008) sounds like in the context of migration. Drawing on a Deep Listening (Oliveros 2005) practice, the artist undertook pre-performance workshops as a way to engage participants in the possibilities of travelling in time and space, and expressing through voice and other sounds feelings that arise when they migrate. The sharing of these sounds through the Internet in real time opened the idea of territory and allowed participants to express feelings towards place, identity and belonging, and to create mixed-reality narratives, within a supportive sound space free from geographical and cultural constraints. High quality bi-directional streaming audio software such as SoundJack and Tube Plug were used, adapted to the performance needs. This paper describes the process of the creation of each performance, considering its sonic, narrative, mediatised and performative aspects, offering a reflection on new auditoriums created for migrants' expression of their experiences in the 'in-between'. It argues that this specific approach helps migrants to expand their sense of space and develop an awareness of their multidimensional condition through sound

On the Calabi-Yau problem for maximal surfaces in L^3

In this paper we construct an example of a weakly complete maximal surface in the Lorentz-Minkowski space L^3, which is bounded by a hyperboloid. Moreover, all the singularities of our example are of lightlike type.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures. Revised version. To appear in Differ. Geom. App

Characterisation of porcine circovirus type 2 in porcine circovirus disease cases in England and Wales

Confirmed cases of porcine circovirus disease (PCVD) in Great Britain have shown a steady decline since the availability of porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) vaccines. However, PCVD is still occasionally diagnosed. The authors carried out a genotyping study to characterise PCV2 associated with confirmed PCVD cases in England and Wales from 2011 to January 2016 (n=65). A partial fragment of PCV2 genome encompassing ORF2 was amplified and sequenced from 45 cases of PCVD. The majority of sequences were genotype PCV2b but four sequences were PCV2d. The significance of the emergence of PCV2d in England and elsewhere in the world is not yet known, although it does appear to represent an ongoing global genotype shift

Debt Financing and Efficiency in Agricultural Firms

In this work the effects of large- and short-term debts on efficiency are tested on a set of agricultural firms. Accounting data of crop, livestock, mixed and service firms are used. First, the efficiencies of the farms are obtained by using nonparametric methods (input-oriented DEA). Then, in a second stage, censored regressions are run with different kinds of explicative variables, including financial ratios. The results show a significative and positive relationship between short-term indebtedness and efficiency, which would be agree with some theories positing that firms with higher short-run obligations make additional efforts to satisfy their payments, and this leads to an improvement of efficiency.Debt financing, Efficiency, Agricultural sector, Nonparametric methods, Agricultural Finance,