Methods for producing stereoscopic imagery

This paper describes methodologies for creating computer graphics stereoscopic imagery. This thesis details the positive and negative aspects for producing and post-producing stereoscopic imagery using different stereoscopic tools provided by Autodesk Maya and The Foundry Nuke. Also, in order to increase efficiency and decrease production time, Python tools were developed both for Maya and Nuke. Finally, the methodology proposed in this paper is fully functional and can be adopted by any production

Interpersonal Forgiveness: An Approach to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Finding peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict has been a daunting and, thus far, impossible task for the past 75 years. Many countries have attempted to negotiate and mediate peace between the two conflict groups, including the United States, Norway, and most Arab nations. With each of these failed attempts, Israelis and Palestinians sank deeper into violence and destruction, believing that retributive justice was the only solution to this conflict. This paper addresses the possibility of a different, non-violent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict – forgiveness. Forgiveness offers Israelis and Palestinians a path to peace, co-existence, and reconciliation through personal relationships that the conflict has shaped; and allows those affected by the conflict the space to acknowledge their situation and move forward peacefully. By analyzing three personal relationships between Israelis and Palestinians, I will demonstrate that interpersonal forgiveness is the most productive solution to the conflict. I will also stress that forgiveness must be had authentically by all those touched by the conflict such that each Israeli and Palestinian has the opportunity to find peace, co-existence, and reconciliation. Further, this paper provides a means of achieving interpersonal forgiveness by embracing the conditions of forgiveness – understanding, compromise, and recognition

Feeding the imaginary

The imaginary that has dominated the fashion system since the mid-twentieth century seems, in recent years, to have been challenged by empirical phenomena. \u2018Imaginary\u2019 is a complex notion that can be addressed from many perspectives. Here, we refer to the stock of images, values, practices and rules that dominate the western fashion system and that its participants take for granted in their relationship with fashion. Of course, different participants base their understanding of fashion on different imaginaries, and different imaginaries may be shared by different communities, but a hegemonic imaginary has underpinned the western fashion discourse for some decades now. For example, pertaining to this imaginary is the ideal of the female body\u2019s thinness (Bordo 1993); the positive value attributed to the youthful body; and the aspiration to the beautiful-and-new as a source of distinction (Lipovetsky 1987), as well as the sur-representation of Caucasian ethnic groups in images of fashion (Entwistle and Wissinger 2006). Also pertaining to this imaginary of fashion are usually implicit assumptions about human life. For instance, assumptions about the temporal organization of the day and the week into work time (office), leisure time (in the countryside) and social time (evening), or the belief that the possession of certain consumer goods certifies social status. These are fragments of representations of the world consistent with the project of western modernity to achieve the ideal of a world in which technology and science enable humans to fulfil themselves as independent adults with the capacity to choose. This, in fact, was the promise of the Enlightenment, with industrial capitalism and the bourgeoisie embodying its. values and assuming the task of realizing it. Fashion as an institution of western modernity (Wilson 1985; Lehmann 2000) has contributed significantly to this project \u2013 and is an explicit manifestation of it. Recently, however, the western fashion system seems to have been able to include meanings that it had thus far marginalized. A number of factors are altering the ordinary metabolism of this system; new ways to do things and new representations (discourses, visual contents, values) appear that seem to provide the dominant fashion imaginary with new contents and avenues. The need to take stock of these new developments prompted the conference entitled Fashion Tales 2015: Feeding the Imaginary, organized in June 2015 by Centro Modacult of the Catholic University of Milan, in collaboration with this journal. The conference \u2013 of which this issue of the International Journal of Fashion Studies collects some contributions \u2013 identified three main directions along which innovative experiences occur. Two of them have to do with the impact of new technologies on the structure of the fashion system itself; in particular, the technologies arising from advances in chemical research, and digital technologies. While the former are transforming the fashion industry under the banner of sustainability, the latter are leading to the widespread mediatization of fashion (Rocamora 2016). The third direction concerns nonwestern fashio

Interaction of caveolin-1 with Ku70 inhibits Bax-mediated apoptosis

Caveolin-1, the structural protein component of caveolae, acts as a scaffolding protein that functionally regulates signaling molecules. We show that knockdown of caveolin-1 protein expression enhances chemotherapeutic drug-induced apoptosis and inhibits long-term survival of colon cancer cells. In vitro studies demonstrate that caveolin-1 is a novel Ku70-binding protein, as shown by the binding of the scaffolding domain of caveolin-1 (amino acids 82-101) to the caveolin-binding domain (CBD) of Ku70 (amino acids 471-478). Cell culture data show that caveolin-1 binds Ku70 after treatment with chemotherapeutic drugs. Mechanistically, we found that binding of caveolin-1 to Ku70 inhibits the chemotherapeutic drug-induced release of Bax from Ku70, activation of Bax, translocation of Bax to mitochondria and apoptosis. Potentiation of apoptosis by knockdown of caveolin-1 protein expression is greatly reduced in the absence of Bax expression. Finally, we found that overexpression of wild type Ku70, but not a mutant form of Ku70 that cannot bind to caveolin-1 (Ku70 Φ→A), limits the chemotherapeutic drug-induced Ku70/Bax dissociation and apoptosis. Thus, caveolin-1 acts as an anti-apoptotic protein in colon cancer cells by binding to Ku70 and inhibiting Bax-dependent cell death. © 2012 Zou et al

Experiment Payloads for Manned Encounter Missions to Mars and Venus

Trajectory opportunities have been identified for free return manned flyby, or encounter, missions to Mars and Venus. Using Saturn V launch vehicle technology and assuming the development of a manned planetary spacecraft with two year capability, missions to these planets with experiment payloads of 50,000 Ibs are possible. Selecting as a design reference mission a triple planet (Venus-Mars-Venus) flyby with a 1977 Earth launch date, a possible experiment program is outlined which employs unmanned probes to explore Mars and Venus during the planetary encounter phase. To complement this a program of space science and astronomy experiments is carried out during the remaining portion of the mission. A precursory unmanned program of orbital reconnaissance missions with small atmospheric and survivable surface impacter probes is assumed for both planets. Based on this the prime objective of the manned encounter mission at Mars is surface sample return for life detection experiments. Samples from three different selected areas could be recovered during the Mars encounter phase of the mission. Pour types of probes are considered for Venus. A meteorological balloon probe deploys a distribution of weather balloons to record atmospheric data. A companion orbiter serves as a balloon tracking and data relay station. Also considered are slow descent, non-survivable impacter probes which might take TV pictures of the surface from below the cloud layer and survivable impacting lander probes to investigate surface properties. Several en route experiments have been identified which take particular advantage of the trajectory of the design reference mission. These include optical observations of Zodiacal light, several known asteroids, Mercury, and the moons of Mars. Radio observations of Jupiter and the sun made in conjunction with an earth-based station would also be of interest

Manned Venus Flyby

This study is one of several being conducted at Bellcomm and in Manned Space Flight whose purpose is to give guidance to the Apollo Applications Program's technical objectives by focusing on a longer range goal. The assumed mission in this case is a three-man flyby of Venus launched in November, 1973 on a single standard Saturn V. The selected flight configuration includes a Command and Service Module similar in some respects to Apollo, an Environmental Support Module which occupies the adapter area and a spent S-IVB stage which is utilized for habitable volume and structural support of a solar cell electrical power system. The total injected weight, 106,775 lbs., is within the capability of a single Saturn V of the early 1970's. The study is focused on the selection of subsystem technologies appropriate to long duration flight. The conclusions are reported in terms of the technical characteristics to be achieved as part of the Apollo Applications Program's long duration objectives

BASICS OF A DESIGN RESEARCH EPISTEMOLOGY

To assure the reliability of results, design research has often adopted the methods of other disciplines, reproducing the exterior shape of scientific research rather than its deeper grounds. Design academics often imitate what scientific disciplines do when they do research (i.e. applying codified methods), yet the discussion about why such disciplines behave that way is still limited. Basing on science studies, we argue that what determines research findings' validity may not just be the application of research methods but the consensus of a community, which lets new knowledge claims enter what we refer to as the Great Archive of Science (GAS). By analysing the dynamics of the GAS, we show that the rules, methods, and models typical of the research environment have as their main purpose to make the reliability of researchers’ knowledge claims as durable as possible. Regarding design research, we thus argue that what turns designers’ work into research is not just the application of scientific methods but primarily the participation in the grand game of the GAS, whose dynamics enable a relatively circumscribed corpus of knowledge to be held reliable and durable by a community. Relying on this argument, we seek to explore how design, while remaining a planning endeavour, may at the same time become an activity of knowledge production, which is the essential feature of research itself