Designing Auteurs: Video Games, Authorship, and MoMA

This article uses The Museum of Modern Art’s 2012 foray into video game collection as an occasion to consider several key issues related to video game authorship and critical comprehension. By relating video games to film, it demonstrates the importance of avoiding medium-specific generalizations regarding how to critically apprehend video games

Accountability and legitimacy in transboundary networked forest governance: a case study of the Roundtable on the Crown of the Continent

2015 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.Using a social constructivist ontology to examine key debates and areas of inquiry vis-à-vis the democratic nature of transboundary forest governance, this research examines the case of the Roundtable on the Crown of the Continent, an instance of networked governance. Part I builds up to an examination of the movement toward conceptualizing transboundary networked governance, exploring the claim that government has given way to governance, blurring the lines between public and private, and moving beyond its antecedent models--systems theory and complexity, corporatism, state-in-society, new public management and privatization, inter alia--to reflect a more complicated and inherently collaborative relationship between state, society, and market-based actors. The dissertation project, then, investigates several key questions. At a basic level, it asks, what does networked governance look like, and in the case of the Crown Roundtable, how might these arrangements be adaptive given the absence of an overarching forests treaty? Looking deeper into the implications of networked governance, the project then moves to an investigation of the ways that these processes become legitimate modes of governing and how they allow actors to hold each other accountable. Evidence in the Crown Roundtable suggests that the state is simply one actor among many. In this sea of various players, without the traditional forms of accountability, how do we ensure that governance retains its democratic qualities? The second part (chapters 4, 5, 6, 7) builds from the initial observations in the first part (chapters 1, 2, and 3) that state boundaries in the Crown of the Continent are transected by landscape identities and norms. It examines the implications for maintaining democracy in governance. Given the lack of institutions (such as the juridical, legal, and electoral channels) available at the domestic level, how can actors be held accountable? What do shifts toward a flattened and fragmented forest governance landscape represent in terms of both the ability of diverse actors to relate to one another and also for the participants to see NG as a worthwhile process to engage? In answering these questions, Part II examines whether NG architectures are able to incorporate channels for accountability while simultaneously drawing upon a broad base of participation and maintaining social legitimacy. Finally, the dissertation concludes with thoughts on institutional design. In so doing, it hopefully contributes to an understanding of how to build collaborative networked arrangements that are better able to address transboundary environmental problems

40 YEARS ON THE INTERNATIONAL FLATHEAD: AN ASSESSMENT OF TRANSBOUNDARY RIVER GOVERNANCE

Global population growth, climate change, and industrialization, are putting extreme pressures on worldwide freshwater supplies (Cosens 2010). Of the global freshwater supplies, transboundary water sources play a crucial role in sustaining populations. Over 40% of humans on Earth rely on a transboundary river or lake for access to water, and 90% of the world’s population lives in countries that share bodies of water with at least one other country (UN 2008). Taken together, the motivations for improving governance of transboundary water systems have never been stronger. To meet the challenges associated with transboundary water governance, researchers working at multiple scales and across international, state and sub-state levels, have been applying the concepts of adaptive governance to analyze complex water contexts (Cosens 2010, Akamani and Wilson 2011, and Chaffin et al. 2016). To contribute to this body of work and extend transboundary water governance literature, this study applies the lens of adaptive governance (AG) to an historic analysis of the environmental governance of the pristine and wild international Flathead River that cuts across the border between Canada and the United States. Proposed coal mines in the upper basin located in the western Canadian province of British Columbia (BC) threatened this diverse river environment from 1974 to 2014. Fortunately, dual mining bans passed by BC and the US in 2011 and 2014, respectively, removed this industrial threat from the entire basin. To better understand how these bans emerged this study identifies and examines four key historic events that were crucial to collaboration across borders and communities and to preventing coal mining. This study uses a conceptual framework for AG, which describes the criteria necessary for AG to emerge and the governance conditions that functional AG enables. This analytical framework helps to shed light on the extent to which AG emerged during the 40 year timespan and the ways in which the key events constituted adaptations. Results showed that an adaptive outcome was reached but that the complexities of transboundary environmental governance prevented adaptations in most instances. Examining the recent history of the international Flathead River advances our understanding of the unique sequence of events that resulted in preserving, at least for the present, a unique transboundary ecosystem. This understanding also contributes to the need for creative strategies to improve transboundary water governance outcomes globally

An improved plasmid for transformation of Neurospora crassa using the pan-2 gene as a selectable marker

The pOKE103 plasmid can be used to transform Neurospora crassa using the pan-2 gene (NCU10048.3) as a selective marker. We mapped the pan-2 fragment to the right arm of LG VI, contig 4, and found that it carries a pan-2 linked gene, atg-12 (NCU10049.3). We report the removal of atg-12 to produce an improved plasmid, pOKE104

Drought‑Stricken U.S. States Have More Comprehensive Water‑Related Hazard Planning

Despite the devastating impacts of droughts, the United States lacks a national drought plan. This leaves states to address droughts in water, hazard, and stand-alone plans which are designed to reduce drought vulnerability and to prepare government, industry, and society to cope with the impacts. Yet, there is limited empirical research that evaluates the comprehensiveness of these plans, specifically in terms of whether they include preparedness and mitigation measures or triggers for action and response. To fill this gap, this study’s first aim was to establish an evaluation framework based on principles from the drought mitigation literature. The study then evaluated 171 state-level plans with the framework, and simultaneously collected interview data to contextualize the results. In a final step, the scores were employed in a statistical analysis of whether states with higher physical exposure to drought have more comprehensive planning. The study finds states that have experienced more frequent and severe drought plan more comprehensively, suggesting that the occurrence of drought may be an intrinsic driver for planning. The study concludes that planning and preparing for droughts is a necessary but complex undertaking requiring interdisciplinary, interagency efforts that the U.S.’ decentralized, federalist political system is suited to address. If generalization is warranted, the results suggest that the physical occurrence of drought can act as a policy catalyst

Tumor antigens for cancer immunotherapy: therapeutic potential of xenogeneic DNA vaccines

Preclinical animal studies have convincingly demonstrated that tumor immunity to self antigens can be actively induced and can translate into an effective anti-tumor response. Several of these observations are being tested in clinical trials. Immunization with xenogeneic DNA is an attractive approach to treat cancer since it generates T cell and antibody responses. When working in concert, these mechanisms may improve the efficacy of vaccines. The use of xenogeneic DNA in overcoming immune tolerance has been promising not only in inbred mice with transplanted tumors but also in outbred canines, which present with spontaneous tumors, as in the case of human. Use of this strategy also overcomes limitations seen in other types of cancer vaccines. Immunization against defined tumor antigens using a xenogeneic DNA vaccine is currently being tested in early phase clinical trials for the treatment of melanoma and prostate cancers, with proposed trials for breast cancer and Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma