Moving with the Screen on Zoom: Reconnecting with Bodily and Environmental Awareness

Rather than seeing Zoom as a replacement for practicing movement and dance in a shared physical space, I propose to consider our relationship with the screen on Zoom as a movement in its own right. Using my experience of teaching movement on Zoom, I ask how we can connect with another via the screen without losing awareness of our bodies and the space which we're in. I argue that Zoom is a place of 'moving selfies' in dialogue where we can engage critically with the screen by practicing seeing with the whole body and moving with diffuse awareness and where we can critically reflect on our own habits of framing the world and its biases

'Buying moments of happiness' : luck, time and agency among Chinese casino players in London

This thesis explores how Chinese individuals experience social change as a result of migration and how this takes shape in the practice of casino gambling in the UK. In London, a high proportion of casino customers are of Chinese origin, especially in those casinos which are situated in the vicinity of Chinatown where I carried out fieldwork. In the thesis, the nature of this relationship is reconsidered as a mutual encounter against the political and economic background of the British gambling environment, a phenomenological description of gamblers’ actions when they are gambling and an examination of how migration is experienced by different individuals. The aim is to challenge the perception of gambling as an irrational activity which presupposes a restricted conception of time, economic rationality and success. As such, this thesis focuses on Chinese gamblers’ ideas of luck, fate and greed and reflects on the different ideas of success that emerge from risk taking of various kinds including in business, through migration and last, but not least, in the casino. It demonstrates that the relationship between time and money cannot be assumed but must be reconsidered in situ through the way individuals create and experience different temporalities and rationalities via the circulation of money. The casino is a particularly illuminating place since the articulation of time and money is constructed in contrast with the notion of time discipline that dominates most other life rhythms. This means that even though the circulation of money and the flow of time may be suspended or slowed down in the aftermath of the migration journey, the space of the casino, with its contained spatiotemporality, still offers the opportunity to experience movement in a repeated and systematic manner. To summarise, this thesis shows how Chinese people in London shape and re-shape their selves forming different temporalities and using various ways of exchanging money.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Qualitative Research in Gambling

Gambling is both a multi-billion-dollar international industry and a ubiquitous social and cultural phenomenon. It is also undergoing significant change, with new products and technologies, regulatory models, changing public attitudes and the sheer scale of the gambling enterprise necessitating innovative and mixed methodologies that are flexible, responsive and ‘agile’. This book seeks to demonstrate that researchers should look beyond the existing disciplinary territory and the dominant paradigm of ‘problem gambling’ in order to follow those changes across territorial, political, technical, regulatory and conceptual boundaries. The book draws on cutting-edge qualitative work in disciplines including geography, organisational studies, sociology, East Asian studies and anthropology to explore the production and consumption of risk, risky places, risk technologies, the gambling industry and connections between gambling and other kinds of speculation such as financial derivatives. In doing so it addresses some of the most important issues in contemporary social science, including: the challenges of studying deterritorialised social phenomena; globalising technologies and local markets; regulation as it operates across local, regional and international scales; and the rise of games, virtual worlds and social media

Fair Game: producing gambling research

In 2011 we began a four-year project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) to investigate new ways to study emerging gambling phenomena across territorial, conceptual and disciplinary boundaries. While we do not attribute any essential moral value to gambling we are interested in the inequalities it generates within and between communities. e work across a number of different scales, from the global and exceptional to the local and everyday. The relationship between financial services, gambling and capitalism is of interest to us, for example, as are apparently mundane encounters between blackjack players in a casino in Nova Gorica. We are equally interested in the production of gambling as its consumption: it is impossible to understand the impact of gambling products without considering the conditions which enable and constrain their production. In order to study these phenomena we have spent several years embedded within different gambling cultures. Claire Loussouarn has worked with Chinese casino customers in London and more recently with spread betting companies and the financial services industry in the City of London. Andrea Pisac is a trained croupier who has worked in Nova Gorica and London. Rebecca Cassidy has worked in the horse racing industries in the United Kingdom and the United States and in betting shops in London

'Buying Moments of Happiness': Luck, Time and Agency among Chinese Casino Players in London

This thesis explores how Chinese individuals experience social change as a result of migration and how this takes shape in the practice of casino gambling in the UK. In London, a high proportion of casino customers are of Chinese origin, especially in those casinos which are situated in the vicinity of Chinatown where I carried out fieldwork. In the thesis, the nature of this relationship is reconsidered as a mutual encounter against the political and economic background of the British gambling environment, a phenomenological description of gamblers’ actions when they are gambling and an examination of how migration is experienced by different individuals. The aim is to challenge the perception of gambling as an irrational activity which presupposes a restricted conception of time, economic rationality and success. As such, this thesis focuses on Chinese gamblers’ ideas of luck, fate and greed and reflects on the different ideas of success that emerge from risk taking of various kinds including in business, through migration and last, but not least, in the casino. It demonstrates that the relationship between time and money cannot be assumed but must be reconsidered in situ through the way individuals create and experience different temporalities and rationalities via the circulation of money. The casino is a particularly illuminating place since the articulation of time and money is constructed in contrast with the notion of time discipline that dominates most other life rhythms. This means that even though the circulation of money and the flow of time may be suspended or slowed down in the aftermath of the migration journey, the space of the casino, with its contained spatiotemporality, still offers the opportunity to experience movement in a repeated and systematic manner. To summarise, this thesis shows how Chinese people in London shape and re-shape their selves forming different temporalities and using various ways of exchanging money

Selection and characterization of DNA aptamers regulating STAT5B, a protein involved in leukemias

Les cancers, qu’il s’agisse de leucémies ou de tumeurs solides, sont le résultat de proliférations cellulaires anormales et non contrôlées au sein des tissus. Ces proliférations anarchiques sont le reflet d’une surexpression et/ou sur-activation de protéines intracellulaires engendrées par un événement oncogénique. Aujourd’hui encore il est donc nécessaire de trouver de nouvelles molécules à usage thérapeutique ciblant spécifiquement ces protéines. C’est dans ce contexte que les facteurs de transcription STAT5 constituent de véritables cibles de choix puisque ces protéines participent activement à la leucogénèse. L’implication directe des protéines STAT5 dans la génèse des leucémies a été démontrée par l’utilisation de formes mutées constitutivement active de STAT5. Les facteurs de transcription STAT5 jouent un rôle essentiel dans la voie de signalisation JAK/STAT. Cette voie aboutit à la régulation de grandes fonctions biologiques telles que la prolifération cellulaire, la différenciation cellulaire ou encore l’apoptose. L’objectif de ce projet consiste donc à cibler spécifiquement les protéines STAT5 dans le but de rétablir le processus de mort cellulaire et empêcher la prolifération des cellules cancéreuses. Les inhibiteurs spécifiques des protéines STAT5 sont sélectionnés selon la méthode SELEX qui permet d’isoler des ligands structurés de forte affinité pour la protéine. L’affinité et la spécificité de ces inhibiteurs, appelés aptamères, sont caractérisées à partir de modèles cellulaires de leucémies dépendant de l’activité des facteurs de transcription STAT5. Les aptamères sont aujourd’hui de véritables outils thérapeutiques en pleine évolution.Leukemias are due to abnormal cell proliferation, which is the result of intracellular over-expression or excessive activation of protein due to oncogenic event. Still today, it is necessary to find new therapeutic molecules, which specifically target these proteins. STAT5, via the JAK/STAT signaling pathway, controls fundamental cellular processes, including .cell survival, proliferation and differentiation. To struggle against tumorigenesis, JAK/STAT signaling pathway has to be inhibited. The aim of this project is to target specifically STAT5 factors to restore healthy signal transduction. We generated aptamers by an iterative in vitro selection. Aptamers are short-structured single strand DNAs or RNAs that bind with high affinity and specificity to their target. Once STAT5B recombinant proteins are produced, they are subjected to SELEX process. The number of rounds depends on various parameters. After seven rounds, two sequences are retrieved. The specificity and affinity of these aptamers are assessed by fluorescent immunoassays. Binding affinity and kinetics of interaction are characterized by SPR. Aptamer anti proliferative effects are determined by evaluation of the growth of cells depending on STAT5. Finally, we developed several .assays aiming at understanding the mechanism of an aptamer action on STAT5B such as phosphorylation measurement and EMSA. Aptamers are now emerging therapeutic tools; they exhibit significant advantages relative to protein therapeutics

Selection and characterization of DNA aptamers regulating STAT5B, a protein involved in leukemias

Les cancers, qu’il s’agisse de leucémies ou de tumeurs solides, sont le résultat de proliférations cellulaires anormales et non contrôlées au sein des tissus. Ces proliférations anarchiques sont le reflet d’une surexpression et/ou sur-activation de protéines intracellulaires engendrées par un événement oncogénique. Aujourd’hui encore il est donc nécessaire de trouver de nouvelles molécules à usage thérapeutique ciblant spécifiquement ces protéines. C’est dans ce contexte que les facteurs de transcription STAT5 constituent de véritables cibles de choix puisque ces protéines participent activement à la leucogénèse. L’implication directe des protéines STAT5 dans la génèse des leucémies a été démontrée par l’utilisation de formes mutées constitutivement active de STAT5. Les facteurs de transcription STAT5 jouent un rôle essentiel dans la voie de signalisation JAK/STAT. Cette voie aboutit à la régulation de grandes fonctions biologiques telles que la prolifération cellulaire, la différenciation cellulaire ou encore l’apoptose. L’objectif de ce projet consiste donc à cibler spécifiquement les protéines STAT5 dans le but de rétablir le processus de mort cellulaire et empêcher la prolifération des cellules cancéreuses. Les inhibiteurs spécifiques des protéines STAT5 sont sélectionnés selon la méthode SELEX qui permet d’isoler des ligands structurés de forte affinité pour la protéine. L’affinité et la spécificité de ces inhibiteurs, appelés aptamères, sont caractérisées à partir de modèles cellulaires de leucémies dépendant de l’activité des facteurs de transcription STAT5. Les aptamères sont aujourd’hui de véritables outils thérapeutiques en pleine évolution.Leukemias are due to abnormal cell proliferation, which is the result of intracellular over-expression or excessive activation of protein due to oncogenic event. Still today, it is necessary to find new therapeutic molecules, which specifically target these proteins. STAT5, via the JAK/STAT signaling pathway, controls fundamental cellular processes, including .cell survival, proliferation and differentiation. To struggle against tumorigenesis, JAK/STAT signaling pathway has to be inhibited. The aim of this project is to target specifically STAT5 factors to restore healthy signal transduction. We generated aptamers by an iterative in vitro selection. Aptamers are short-structured single strand DNAs or RNAs that bind with high affinity and specificity to their target. Once STAT5B recombinant proteins are produced, they are subjected to SELEX process. The number of rounds depends on various parameters. After seven rounds, two sequences are retrieved. The specificity and affinity of these aptamers are assessed by fluorescent immunoassays. Binding affinity and kinetics of interaction are characterized by SPR. Aptamer anti proliferative effects are determined by evaluation of the growth of cells depending on STAT5. Finally, we developed several .assays aiming at understanding the mechanism of an aptamer action on STAT5B such as phosphorylation measurement and EMSA. Aptamers are now emerging therapeutic tools; they exhibit significant advantages relative to protein therapeutics

The Goldsmiths Report

Permission to include this report in the Institute research repository granted by Rebecca Cassidy on October 8, 2014.This report focuses on the production and consumption of gambling research. Its purpose is to disrupt existing relationships between users and producers and to provide a set of recommendations around which discussions about the future of gambling research can take place. The report is based on qualitative data gathered using semi-structured interviews with 109 gambling research stakeholders including researchers, policy makers and members of the industry in the UK, Europe, Australia, North America and Hong Kong / Macau. It also makes use of quantitative data gathered from the field of gambling studies, including content analysis of journals and conferences. It focuses on five themes: problems with gambling, evidence, the field of gambling studies, money, and access.YesThe research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n.263443

Qualitative Research in Gambling

Gambling is both a multi-billion-dollar international industry and a ubiquitous social and cultural phenomenon. It is also undergoing significant change, with new products and technologies, regulatory models, changing public attitudes and the sheer scale of the gambling enterprise necessitating innovative and mixed methodologies that are flexible, responsive and ‘agile’. This book seeks to demonstrate that researchers should look beyond the existing disciplinary territory and the dominant paradigm of ‘problem gambling’ in order to follow those changes across territorial, political, technical, regulatory and conceptual boundaries. The book draws on cutting-edge qualitative work in disciplines including geography, organisational studies, sociology, East Asian studies and anthropology to explore the production and consumption of risk, risky places, risk technologies, the gambling industry and connections between gambling and other kinds of speculation such as financial derivatives. In doing so it addresses some of the most important issues in contemporary social science, including: the challenges of studying deterritorialised social phenomena; globalising technologies and local markets; regulation as it operates across local, regional and international scales; and the rise of games, virtual worlds and social media

Mesenchymal Stromal Cell-Derived Extracellular Vesicles Regulate the Mitochondrial Metabolism via Transfer of miRNAs

International audienceMesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) are the most commonly tested adult progenitor cells in regenerative medicine. They stimulate tissue repair primarily through the secretion of immune-regulatory and pro-regenerative factors. There is increasing evidence that most of these factors are carried on extracellular vesicles (EVs) that are released by MSCs, either spontaneously or after activation. Exosomes and microvesicles are the most investigated types of EVs that act through uptake by target cells and cargo release inside the cytoplasm or through interactions with receptors expressed on target cells to stimulate downstream intracellular pathways. They convey different types of molecules, including proteins, lipids and acid nucleics among which, miRNAs are the most widely studied. The cargo of EVs can be impacted by the culture or environmental conditions that MSCs encounter and by changes in the energy metabolism that regulate the functional properties of MSCs. On the other hand, MSC-derived EVs are also reported to impact the metabolism of target cells. In the present review, we discuss the role of MSC-EVs in the regulation of the energy metabolism and oxidative stress of target cells and tissues with a focus on the role of miRNAs