'Don't box me in': Blurred lines in 'Waking Life' and 'A Scanner Darkly'

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below.This article seeks to evaluate the visual style of Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, predominantly through an analysis of the films’ aesthetics. The use of Rotoshop as an expressive means to illustrate character and theme, where identity becomes sketched and multi-faceted rather than fixed or stable is explored here. Yet this aesthetic play with borders has a greater resonance than simply a means by which to delineate thematic preoccupations with troubled identity. While such representations are indeed key to these two films, the darkly outlined contours of character borders, which move and slide incessantly, also comment on the blurred divide between live action and animation. Central to the argument is the use of the animated line in understanding these two films; the line provides impetus for exploring several issues raised by the films and the use of Rotoshop. This article explores the following key ideas: the animated line and aesthetic analysis; Rotoshop technology; the representation of fragmentary identity; and the relationship between photo-real cinema and animation, with a particular focus on narrative and spectacle. The author addresses Rotoshop within the context of technology and spectacle; taking industry practices into account allows for an appreciation of how a technological innovation such as Rotoshop can change the shape of live-action cinema

Strangers in their own native land: Joseph Smith, Mormons, and the orientalizating of an American people

Emerging stronger than ever in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, orientalism was more than just pictures of Turkish girls in a sultan\u27s harem; it was a process of information sharing through art, literature, military campaigns, and politics. Joseph Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, colloquially known as Mormonism, in the midst of this information exchange. A product of his era, he used orientalist rhetoric and imagery to connect the ideas he preached to ancient Judaism, thereby legitimizing the new religion within the context of a much older and more respected holy past. But he was not the only one incorporating perceptions of the Middle East into his writings. Non-Mormons used orientalism, specifically their perceptions of Islam, to understand a seemingly bizarre new religious movement. Through this process, both groups managed to transform otherwise ordinary Americans into strangers in their own land

Accountability: A Canadian municipal examination on the impact of vehicle and equipment training programs on preventable collisions with municipal fleet assets

Annually, close to 1,000 Canadian workers die due to work-related injuries, exposures and disease. A lack of training and skills can contribute to this loss of life for many. Employers of all kinds, including municipalities, have a responsibility to protect workers and reduce risk to the organization through training activities. Known hazards, like the operation of vehicles and equipment require training before a worker can be deemed competent. Inevitably, preventable and non-preventable collisions will occur involving fleet vehicles and equipment. Documenting and analyzing preventable collisions as part of a collision investigation program, can help organizations understand why preventable collisions are occurring and how they may prevent further accidents. Survey respondents for this research study revealed that as a municipal fleet grows in size (more than 1000 fleet assets) and as municipal populations grow, municipalities are more likely to use a centralized and consistent training program. Further, municipalities with centralized and consistent training programs are more likely than municipalities with other training types to have a collision investigation program. Lastly, municipalities who provided preventable collision data through the survey, six of seven use a centralized training approach. This research reveals that municipalities are not measuring the impact and effectiveness of vehicle and equipment training programs. Additionally, municipalities are not using collision related data to understand why preventable collisions are occurring, influence training programs and reduce risk in meaningful ways. The costs of collisions is not being documented across the silos that exist in the municipal organizational structure. Lastly, from a policy perspective, requirements for fleet operators to document and analyze collision data should be a baseline expectation to protect their drivers and others sharing the road. Ultimately more research and data is required to support municipalities across Canada and the vehicle and equipment training programs they offer

The besieged ego

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.'The Besieged Ego' critically appraises the representation, or mediation, of identity in contemporary film and television shows through a thorough analysis of split and fragmentary characters. As I show, the prevalence of nonautonomous characters in horror, fantasy and psychological based film and television products calls into question the very concept of a unified, 'knowable' identity that can be traced progressively through time with continuity. I use psychoanalysis as an interpretive tool and model in order to effectively understand representations of identity that are not 'whole'; psychoanalysis arguably allows for, and engages with, a splintered or fractured identity as its very premise lies in unknowable psychical forces such as the unconscious. The concept of 'ego' is particularly useful as a concept through which to analyse onscreen representations of identity; the differing definitions of Freud's ego (realist and narcissistic) alongside Lacan's delusional ego allow for an understanding of identity that shifts and is deeply enigmatic, unknowable and in essence confusing. However, representations of split identities can only be fully examined in light of social and cultural contexts; I therefore employ an eclectic range of approaches and methodologies throughout the thesis in order to ascertain what is at stake in the representation and meaning of the double. The form of the double, and cinematic modes and rhetorics used to denote fragmentary identity, is addressed in the thesis through a detailed analysis of texts drawn from a range of industrial and cultural contexts. The double carries significant cultural meanings about what it means to be 'human' and the experience of identity as a gendered individual; I argue that the double, or split identity, has become a 'new myth' that expresses in fictional form our problematic experience of the world as a social, and supposedly whole and autonomous, subject

The Impact of the No Child Left Behind Act and School Choice on Student Achievement

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act, signed into law in January 2002, established a decade of test-driven school reform in an attempt to increase student achievement and reduce the student achievement gap. The state of Georgia created the Criterion Reference Competency Test (CRCT) to align with the guidelines of NCLB. This study examined longitudinal student achievement data on eighth grade math CRCT in 25 middle schools from 2002–2007 and 2008–2011 in a large suburban school district in Georgia. The study found that all subgroups increased in student achievement from the onset of NCLB in 2002–2011. Furthermore, the study found a statistically significant difference between White and Black and White and Hispanic student achievement as measured by eighth grade math CRCT using mean scale score, and exceeds proficiency standard. This study indicates that even though Blacks and Hispanics have made greater gains overall than Whites from 2002–2011, the minority student gains were not great enough to compensate for the large preexisting achievement gap as measured by mean scale score and exceeds proficiency standard. Interestingly, the meets proficient category indicates a reverse achievement gap between Black and White students for 2002–2007 and no statistical difference between White and Hispanic students. Moreover, no achievement gap was demonstrated for any subgroup for meets proficiency for 2008–2011. The achievement gap has closed for minorities in the meets category, while the achievement gap is still large in the exceeds category between Whites and Blacks and Whites and Hispanics. Minorities must make greater gains than demonstrated in the exceeds proficient category for the achievement gap to close in a statistically signficant manner. It also demonstrates that minorities are overrepresented in the below basic category and underrepresented in the exceeds or advanced proficient category. A statistically significant difference was found between choice receiving schools and choice sending schools and between non-school choice participating schools and choice sending schools. There was no statistical difference between non-choice participating schools and choice receiving schools. The study indicates that MCSD has reduced the number of failing schools, which is the opposite of national trends

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationToday's college students face a number of new and demanding situations that deplete personal resources, leaving them mentally fatigued, tense, irritable, distractible, and physiologically stressed. One approach to replenishing these personal resources is to interact with settings that minimize the demands on those resources. A natural scene that a person perceives as fascinating could evoke a form of attention that is undemanding and virtually effortless. Exposure to pleasing natural scenes, such as harmless and attractive wildlife, may offer a means by which to capture a person's attention and begin a restorative process mediated by a relaxation response. Using a 1 x 2 between-subjects experimental design, 86 participants drawn from the University of Utah Psychology Department's Human Subjects Pool took part in an experiment that examined the effect that scene type (images of wildlife theoretically deemed to represent either hard or soft fascination) had on a student's capacity to recover their mood (following a social evaluation mood stressor) and experience physiological recovery from induced stress. Also, between-subjects design was used to examine participant's executive, orienting, and alerting attention following exposure to hard or soft fascination images. Investigation into the role of relaxation in mood, stress, and directed attention recovery was also performed. Data garnered from the Attention Networking Task revealed no significant effect for executive attention. Stress reduction, as measured by salivary cortisol, and mood repair were both significant, and partial mediation by relaxation was displayed for the mood measures. The results indicated that relaxation was an effective mood mediator, contributing about 67% of the explained variance for scores on positive mood and 60% mediation for a negative mood. Relaxation was positively correlated with positive mood and negatively correlated with negative mood. The findings from this study affirm the importance of relaxation as a mediating variable, but also demonstrate that perceptions of hard and soft fascination do differ in terms of mood repair. For directed attention restoration, fascination alone may be insufficient, with other attention restoration constructs (being away, extent, compatibility) being essential to replenishment of executive attention. Implications for both Attention Restoration Theory and Psycho-Evolutionary Theory are discussed