Lesbi in the metropolis: fatal attraction in an Indonesian movie from the early 1990s

Indonesian cinema of the early 1990s has often been noted for its lowbrow and erotic content. One film from this era, Gadis metropolis, which earned something of a reputation for its exploitation of the female body, is also notable for its lesbi, and to a lesser extent, gay storylines. This representation of alternative sexualities constitutes the particular concern of this article. The film’s producer argued that in making Gadis metropolis he sought to ‘explain the lives of lesbi’ in Indonesia. Its dominant message, however, was actually a depressing reaffirmation of popular media notions of homosexuality and of societal concerns regarding women’s sexuality generally. Analysis of contemporary press reports and reviews show that while reactions to the film initially focused on its lesbi content, by the following year it had become more of a reference for concerns about the deterioration of the quality of domestic film production. Engaging with academic studies on Western representations of female homosexuality, this article draws on the trope of the murderous, deviant lesbian while at the same time contextualising the emergence of this image in Indonesia as a continuation of popular images of the sexually licentious woman as a threat to the moral (heterosexual) order. By comparing the film’s representations of male and female homosexuality, it is shown that there was far greater concern with the policing of female sexuality than with the gay subject position. Despite the fact that female homosexuality in Gadis metropolis is principally situated within the ideological framework of the heterosexual viewer, however, this article contends that the film may simultaneously offer, at least for some lesbi and gay viewers, momentary spaces for communal identification

Enhancing preparation for higher education

Evidence from national and international studies points to the lack of preparation for Higher Education (HE) as a major factor for student non-completion of courses. This paper reports the findings of a study designed to enhance potential students’ understandings of the expectations of independent learning and assessment. It seeks to provide evidence of the ways in which students and their families can be supported in their understanding of the values and practices of a HE institution. Data are drawn from questionnaires distributed to potential pre-entry students and their parents/carers/friends. The findings illustrate that in allowing for opportunities for pre-entry students to develop a transparent understanding of the expectations of HE study, that they can be supported in the transition to HE by parents/carers/friends. It is hoped that the outcomes of this research will contribute to a more informed transition to HE

Between the Information Economy and Student Recruitment: Present Conjuncture and Future Prospects

In university programs and curricula, in general we react to the need to meet market needs. We respond to market stimulus, or at least try to do so. Consider now an inverted view. Consider our data and perspectives in university programs as reflecting and indeed presaging economic trends. In this article I pursue this line of thinking. I show how various past events fit very well into this new view. I provide explanation for why some technology trends happened as they did, and why some current developments are important now.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure

Ultrametric embedding: application to data fingerprinting and to fast data clustering

We begin with pervasive ultrametricity due to high dimensionality and/or spatial sparsity. How extent or degree of ultrametricity can be quantified leads us to the discussion of varied practical cases when ultrametricity can be partially or locally present in data. We show how the ultrametricity can be assessed in text or document collections, and in time series signals. An aspect of importance here is that to draw benefit from this perspective the data may need to be recoded. Such data recoding can also be powerful in proximity searching, as we will show, where the data is embedded globally and not locally in an ultrametric space.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure. New content and modified title compared to the 19 May 2006 versio

Origins of Modern Data Analysis Linked to the Beginnings and Early Development of Computer Science and Information Engineering

The history of data analysis that is addressed here is underpinned by two themes, -- those of tabular data analysis, and the analysis of collected heterogeneous data. "Exploratory data analysis" is taken as the heuristic approach that begins with data and information and seeks underlying explanation for what is observed or measured. I also cover some of the evolving context of research and applications, including scholarly publishing, technology transfer and the economic relationship of the university to society.Comment: 26 page

Brunel University Research Archive – a year in the life of an institutional repository

Institutional repositories,open access, scholarly communication, research dissemination, citation factors, deposits, selfarchiving,mediated deposit, downloads, post-prints, pre-prints, mandates.If I were asked to compile a list of the most overused words in my lexicon of 2007 this would be it

The Haar Wavelet Transform of a Dendrogram: Additional Notes

We consider the wavelet transform of a finite, rooted, node-ranked, $p$-way tree, focusing on the case of binary ($p = 2$) trees. We study a Haar wavelet transform on this tree. Wavelet transforms allow for multiresolution analysis through translation and dilation of a wavelet function. We explore how this works in our tree context.Comment: 37 pp, 1 fig. Supplementary material to "The Haar Wavelet Transform of a Dendrogram", http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.IR/060810