Networked masculinities and social networking sites : a call for the analysis of men and contemporary digital media

It is of course recognised that technology can be gendered and implicated in gender relations. However, it continues to be the case that men’s experiences with technology are underexplored and the situation is even more problematic where digital media is concerned. Over the past 30 years we have witnessed a dramatic rise in the pervasiveness of digital media across many parts of the world and as associated with wide ranging aspects of our lives. This rise has been fuelled over the last decade by the emergence of Web 2.0 and particularly Social Networking Sites (SNS). Given this context, I believe it is necessary for us to undertake more work to understand men’s engagements with digital media, the implications this might have for masculinities and the analysis of gender relations more generally. To begin to unpack this area, I engage theorizations of the properties of digital media networks and integrate this with the masculinity studies field. Using this framework, I suggest we need to consider the rise in what I call networked masculinities – those masculinities (co)produced and reproduced with digitally networked publics. Through this analysis I discuss themes related to digital mediators, relationships, play and leisure, work and commerce, and ethics. I conclude that as masculinities can be, and are being, complicated and given agency by advancing notions and practices of connectivity, mobility, classification and convergence, those engaged with masculinity studies and digital media have much to contribute.

Theatre-arts pedagogy for social justice : case study of the area youth foundation in Jamaica

In this paper I describe and analyse the socio-educational significance of a theatre arts approach to learning for young adults in Jamaica, implemented by the Area Youth Foundation (AYF). Briefly outlining the genesis and development of the AYF, I provide snapshots of the experiences and destinations of some of its young participants. The paper discusses AYF workshops to show how the pedagogy was shaped by the expressive arts and based on the critical praxis approach systematized by Paulo Freire in adult education and Augusto Boal in theatre. Based on interviews with AYF’s leader and some of the learners, I discuss how the foundation’s motto, “Youth Empowerment Through the Arts,” is played out in workshops and creative productions that are simultaneously learner-driven and teacher-guided, with the powerful impact of inspiring politically thoughtful creativity and skills in youths from less-privileged communities.

Large-scale analysis of formations in soccer

Due to the demand for better and deeper analysis in sports, organizations (both professional teams and broadcasters) are looking to use spatiotemporal data in the form of player tracking information to obtain an advantage over their competitors. However, due to the large volume of data, its unstructured nature, and lack of associated team activity labels (e.g. strategic/tactical), effective and efficient strategies to deal with such data have yet to be deployed. A bottleneck restricting such solutions is the lack of a suitable representation (i.e. ordering of players) which is immune to the potentially infinite number of possible permutations of player orderings, in addition to the high dimensionality of temporal signal (e.g. a game of soccer last for 90 mins). Leveraging a recent method which utilizes a "role-representation", as well as a feature reduction strategy that uses a spatiotemporal bilinear basis model to form a compact spatiotemporal representation. Using this representation, we find the most likely formation patterns of a team associated with match events across nearly 14 hours of continuous player and ball tracking data in soccer. Additionally, we show that we can accurately segment a match into distinct game phases and detect highlights. (i.e. shots, corners, free-kicks, etc) completely automatically using a decision-tree formulation.

Exploring schema-driven differences in situation awareness between road users : an on-road study of driver, cyclist and motorcyclist situation awareness

Collisions between different road users make a substantial contribution to road trauma. Although evidence suggests that different road users interpret the same road situations differently, it is not clear how road users' situation awareness differs, nor is it clear which differences might lead to conflicts. This article presents the findings from an on-road study conducted to examine driver, motorcyclist and cyclist situation awareness in different road environments. The findings suggest that, in addition to minor differences in the structure of different road users' situation awareness (i.e. amount of information and how it is integrated), the actual content of situation awareness in terms of road user schemata, the resulting interaction with the world and the information underpinning situation awareness is markedly different. Further examination indicates that the differences are likely to be compatible along arterial roads, shopping strips and at roundabouts, but that they may create conflicts between different road users at intersections. Interventions designed to support compatible situation awareness and behaviour between different road users are discussed. Practitioner Summary: Incompatible situation awareness plays a key role in collisions between different road users (e.g. drivers and motorcyclists). This on-road study examined situation awareness in drivers, motorcyclists and cyclists, identifying the key differences and potential conflicts that arise. The findings are used to propose interventions designed to enhance the compatibility of situation awareness between road users.

Ruptured relations : guerrilla theatre, time & Pranksterish disability performance practice

Guerrilla theatre tends, by its very definition, to pop up unpredictably – it interrupts what people might see as the proper or typical flow of time, place and space. The subversive tenor of such work means that questions about ‘what has happened’ tend to the decidedly less polite form of ‘WTF’ as passersby struggle to make sense of, and move on from, moments in which accustomed narratives of action and interaction no longer apply. In this paper I examine examples of guerrilla theatre by performers with disabilities in terms of these ruptures in time, and the way they prompt reflection, reconfigure relations, or recede into traditional relations again - focusing particularly on comedian Laurence Clark. Many performers with disabilities – Bill Shannon, Katherine Araniello, Aaron Williamson, Ju Gosling, and others – find guerrilla-style interventions in public places apposite to their aesthetic and political agendas. They prompt passersby to reflect on their relationship to people with disabilities. They can be recorded for later dissection and display, teaching people something about the way social performers, social spectators and society as a whole deal with disability. In this paper, as I unpack Clark's work, I note that the embarrassment that characterises these encounters can be a flag of an ethical process taking place for passersby. Caught between two moments in which time, roles and relationships suddenly fail to flow along the smooth routes of socially determined habits, passersbys’ frowns, gasps and giggles flag difficulties dealing with questions about their attitude to disabled people they do not now know how to answer. I consider the productivity, politics and performerly ethics of drawing passersby into such a process – a chaotic, challenging interstitial time in which a passersbys choices become fodder for public consumption – in such a wholly public way.

Ozone-induced dissociation of conjugated lipids reveals significant reaction rate enhancements and characteristic odd-electron product ions

Ozone-induced dissociation (OzID) is an alternative ion activation method that relies on the gas phase ion-molecule reaction between a mass-selected target ion and ozone in an ion trap mass spectrometer. Herein, we evaluated the performance of OzID for both the structural elucidation and selective detection of conjugated carbon-carbon double bond motifs within lipids. The relative reactivity trends for \[M + X](+) ions (where X = Li, Na, K) formed via electrospray ionization (ESI) of conjugated versus nonconjugated fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) were examined using two different OzID-enabled linear ion-trap mass spectrometers. Compared with nonconjugated analogues, FAMEs derived from conjugated linoleic acids were found to react up to 200 times faster and to yield characteristic radical cations. The significantly enhanced reactivity of conjugated isomers means that OzID product ions can be observed without invoking a reaction delay in the experimental sequence (i.e., trapping of ions in the presence of ozone is not required). This possibility has been exploited to undertake neutral-loss scans on a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer targeting characteristic OzID transitions. Such analyses reveal the presence of conjugated double bonds in lipids extracted from selected foodstuffs. Finally, by benchmarking of the absolute ozone concentration inside the ion trap, second order rate constants for the gas phase reactions between unsaturated organic ions and ozone were obtained. These results demonstrate a significant influence of the adducting metal on reaction rate constants in the fashion Li > Na > K.

Active awareness : supporting the intentional disclosure of awareness information in collaborative systems

This thesis opens up the design space for awareness research in CSCW and HCI. By challenging the prevalent understanding of roles in awareness processes and exploring different mechanisms for actively engaging users in the awareness process, this thesis provides a better understanding of the complexity of these processes and suggests practical solutions for designing and implementing systems that support active awareness. Mutual awareness, a prominent research topic in the fields of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) refers to a fundamental aspect of a person’s work: their ability to gain a better understanding of a situation by perceiving and interpreting their co-workers actions. Technologically-mediated awareness, used to support co-workers across distributed settings, distinguishes between the roles of the actor, whose actions are often limited to being the target of an automated data gathering processes, and the receiver, who wants to be made aware of the actors’ actions. This receiver-centric view of awareness, focusing on helping receivers to deal with complex sets of awareness information, stands in stark contrast to our understanding of awareness as social process involving complex interactions between both actors and receivers. It fails to take into account an actors’ intimate understanding of their own activities and the contribution that this subjective understanding could make in providing richer awareness information. In this thesis I challenge the prevalent receiver-centric notion of awareness, and explore the conceptual foundations, design, implementation and evaluation of an alternative active awareness approach by making the following five contributions. Firstly, I identify the limitations of existing awareness research and solicit further evidence to support the notion of active awareness. I analyse ethnographic workplace studies that demonstrate how actors engage in an intricate interplay involving the monitoring of their co-workers progress and displaying aspects of their activities that may be of relevance to others. The examination of a large body of awareness research reveals that while disclosing information is a common practice in face-to-face collaborative settings it has been neglected in implementations of technically mediated awareness. Based on these considerations, I introduce the notion of intentional disclosure to describe the action of users actively and deliberately contributing awareness information. I consider challenges and potential solutions for the design of active awareness. I compare a range of systems, each allowing users to share information about their activities at various levels of detail. I discuss one of the main challenges to active awareness: that disclosing information about activities requires some degree of effort. I discuss various representations of effort in collaborative work. These considerations reveal that there is a trade-off between the richness of awareness information and the effort required to provide this information. I propose a framework for active awareness, aimed to help designers to understand the scope and limitations of different types of intentional disclosure. I draw on the identified richness/effort trade-off to develop two types of intentional disclosure, both of which aim to facilitate the disclosure of information while reducing the effort required to do so. For both of these approaches, direct and indirect disclosure, I delineate how they differ from related approaches and define a set of design criteria that is intended to guide their implementation. I demonstrate how the framework of active awareness can be practically applied by building two proof-of-concept prototypes that implement direct and indirect disclosure respectively. AnyBiff, implementing direct disclosure, allows users to create, share and use shared representations of activities in order to express their current actions and intentions. SphereX, implementing indirect disclosure, represents shared areas of interests or working context, and links sets of activities to these representations. Lastly, I present the results of the qualitative evaluation of the two prototypes and analyse the results with regard to the extent to which they implemented their respective disclosure mechanisms and supported active awareness. Both systems were deployed and tested in real world environments. The results for AnyBiff showed that users developed a wide range of activity representations, some unanticipated, and actively used the system to disclose information. The results further highlighted a number of design considerations relating to the relationship between awareness and communication, and the role of ambiguity. The evaluation of SphereX validated the feasibility of the indirect disclosure approach. However, the study highlighted the challenges of implementing cross-application awareness support and translating the concept to users. The study resulted in design recommendations aimed to improve the implementation of future systems.

Developmentally and transgene regulated nuclear processing of primary transcripts of chalcone synthase A in petunia

The introduction of chalcone synthase A transgenes into petunia plants can result in degradation of chalcone synthase A RNAs and loss of chalcone synthase, a process called cosuppression or post-transcriptional gene silencing. Here we show that the RNA degradation is associated with changes in premRNA processing, i.e. loss of tissue specificity in transcript cleavage patterns, accumulation of unspliced molecules, and use of template-specific secondary poly(A) sites. These changes can also be observed at a lower level in leaves but not flowers of nontransgenic petunias. Based on this, a model is presented of how transgenes may disturb the carefully evolved, developmentally controlled post-transcriptional regulation of chalcone synthase gene expression by influencing the survival rate of the endogenous and their own mRNA.

Formation of two isomeric C3HO radicals from charged precursors in the gas phase. Potential interstellar molecules

Theoretical calculations of the C3HO potential surface at the CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVDu/B3LYP/6-31G* level indicate that the three radicals HCCCO, CCCHO, and (cyclo-C3H)=O are stable, with HCCCO being the most stable of the three. A fourth isomer, CCHCO, is unstable with respect to cyclization to (cyclo-C3H)=O. Two isomers have been prepared by neutralization of charged precursors, formed as follows: (i) HCCCO, by HC drop C-C(O)-O+(H)(Me) --> HC3O+ + MeOH, and (ii) C2CHO, by (a) Me3SiC drop C-CHO + HO- --> C- drop C-CHO + Me3SiOH and (b) C- drop C-CH(OH)-C drop CH --> C- drop C-CHO + C2H2. A comparison of the CR and -NR+ spectra of -C2CHO indicate that C2CHO is (partially) rearranging to an isomer that shows significant formation of CO.(+) in the -NR+ spectrum of the anion. Ab initio calculations indicate that HCCCO is the product of the isomerism and that a proportion of these isomerized neutrals dissociate to CO and C2H. The neutral HCCCO may be formed by (i) synchronous rearrangement of C2CHO and/or (ii) stepwise rearrangement of C2CHO through (cyclo-C3H)=O. The second of these processes should have the higher rate, as it has the lower barrier in the rate-determining step and the higher Arrhenius pre-exponential A factor.

Team change climate : a group-level analysis of the relationships among change information and change participation, role stressors, and well-being

We explored whether teams develop shared perceptions regarding the quantity and quality of information and the extent of participation in decision making provided in an environment of continuous change. In addition, we examined whether change climate strength moderated relationships between change climate level and team outcomes. We examined relationships among aggregated change information and change participation and aggregated team outcomes, including two role stressors (i.e., role ambiguity and role overload) and two indicators of well-being (i.e., quality of worklife and distress). Questionnaires were distributed in an Australian law enforcement agency and data were used from 178 teams. Structural equation modelling analyses, controlling for a marker variable, were conducted to examine the main effects of aggregated change information and aggregated change participation on aggregated team outcomes. Results provided support for a model that included method effects due to a marker variable. In this model, change information climate was significantly negatively associated with role ambiguity, role overload, and distress, and significantly positively associated with quality of worklife. Change participation climate was significantly positively associated with quality of worklife. Change climate strength did not moderate relationships among change climate level and team outcomes.

Competitive charge-remote and anion-induced fragmentations of the non-8-enoate anion. A charge-remote reaction which co-occurs with hydrogen scrambling

The non-8-enoate anion undergoes losses of the elements of C3H6, C4H8 and C6H12 on collisional activation, The mechanisms of these processes have been elucidated by a combination of product ion and labelling (H-2 and C-13) studies, together with a neutralisation reionisation mass spectrometric study. These studies allow the following conclusions to be made. (i) The loss of C3H6 involves cyclisation of the enolate anion of non-8-enoic acid to yield the cyclopentyl carboxylate anion and propene. (ii) The loss of 'C4H8' is a charge-remote process (one which proceeds remote from the charged centre) which yields the pent-4-enoate anion, butadiene and dihydrogen. This process co-occurs and competes with complex H scrambling. (iii) The major loss of 'C6H12' occurs primarily by a charge-remote process yielding the acrylate anion, hexa-1,5-diene and dihydrogen, but in this case no H scrambling accompanies the process. (iv) It is argued that the major reason why the two charge-remote processes occur in preference to anion-induced losses of but-l-ene and hex-l-ene from the respective 4- and 2-anions is that although these anions are formed, they have alternative and lower energy fragmentation pathways than those involving the losses of but-l-ene and hex-l-ene; viz. the transient 4-anion undergoes facile proton transfer to yield a more stable anion, whereas the 2-(enolate) anion undergoes preferential cyclisation followed by elimination of propene [see (i) above].

Direct observation of the gas phase reaction of the cyclohexyl radical with dioxygen using a distonic radical ion approach

Alkylperoxyl radicals are intermediates in the oxidation Of hydrocarbons. The reactive nature of these intermediates, however, has made therin elusive to direct observation and isolation. We have employed ion trap mass spectrometry to synthesize and characterize 4-carboxylatocyclohexyl radical anions ((center dot)C(6)H(10)-CO(2)(-)) and observe their reactivity in the presence of dioxygen. The resulting reaction is facile (k = 1.8 x 10(-10) cm(3) molecule(-1) s(-1) or 30% of calculated collision rate) and results in (i) the addition Of O(2) to form stabilized 4-carboxylatocyclohexylperoxyl radical anions ((center dot)OO-C(6)H(10)-CO(2)(-)), providing the first direct observation of a cyclohexylperoxyl radical, and (ii) elimination of HO(2)(center dot) and HO(center dot) radicals consistent with recent laser-induced fluorescence studies of the reaction of neutral cyclohexyl radicals with O(2). Electronic structure calculations at the B3LYP/6-31+G(d) level of theory reveal viable pathways for the observed reactions showing that formation of the peroxyl radical is exothermic by 37 kcal mol(-1) with subsequent transition states its low as -6.6 kcal mol(-1) (formation of HO(2)(center dot)) and -9.1 kcal mol(-1) (formation of HO(center dot)) with respect to the entrance channel. The combined computational and experimental data Suggest that the structures of the reaction products correspond to cyclohexenes and epoxides from HO(2)(center dot) and HO(center dot) loss, respectively, while alternative pathways leading to cyclohexanone or ring-opened isomers ate not observed, Activation of the charged peroxyl radical (center dot)OO-C(6)H(10)-CO(2)(-) by collision induced disassociation also results in the loss Of HO(2)(center dot) and HO(center dot) radicals confirming that these products are directly connected to the peroxyl radical intermediate.

Effects of inhibitors of plasminogen activator, serine proteinases, and collagenase IV on the invasion of basement membranes by metastatic cells

Using both human and murine cell lines, we show that malignant cells are able to invade through basement membrane and also secrete elevated amounts of collagenase IV, an enzyme implicated in the degradation of basement membranes. Using serine proteinase inhibitors and antibodies to plasminogen activators as well as a newly described collagenase inhibitor we demonstrate that a protease cascade leads to the activation of an enzyme(s) that cleaves collagen IV. Inhibition at each step reduces the invasion of the tumor cells through reconstituted basement membrane in vitro. Treatment with a collagenase inhibitor reduced the incidence of lung lesions in mice given i.v. injections of malignant melanoma cells.

Narratives of possession : reading for saga authorship

The aim of this thesis is to show how character analysis can be used to approach conceptions of saga authorship in medieval Iceland. The idea of possession is a metaphor that is adopted early in the thesis, and is used to describe Icelandic sagas as works in which traditional material is subtly interpreted by medieval authors. For example, we can say that if authors claim greater possession of the sagas, they interpret, and not merely record, the sagas' historical information. On the other hand, tradition holds onto its possession of the narrative whenever it is not possible for an author to develop his own creative and historical interests. The metaphor of possession also underpins the character analysis in the thesis, which is based on the idea that saga authors used characters as a vehicle by which to possess saga narratives and so develop their own historical interests. The idea of possession signals the kinds of problems of authorship study which are addressed here, in particular, the question of the authors' sense of saga writing as an act either of preservation or of creation. While, in that sense, the thesis represents an additional voice in a long-standing debate about the saga writers' relation to their source materials, I argue against a clear-cut distinction between creative and non-creative authors, and focus instead on the wide variation in authorial control over saga materials. This variation suggests that saga authorship is a multi-functional activity, or one which co-exists with tradition. Further, by emphasising characterisation as a method, I am adding to the weight of scholarship that seeks to understand the sagas in terms of their literary effects. The Introduction and chapter one lay out the theoretical scope of this thesis. My aim in these first two sections is to inform the reader of the type of critical questions that arise when authorship is approached in relation to characterisation, and to suggest an interpretive framework with which to approach these questions. In the Introduction this aim manifests as a brief discussion of the application of the term "authorship" to the medieval Icelandic corpus, a definition of the scope of this study, and an introduction to the connections, made throughout this thesis, between saga authors, the sagas' narrative style, and the style of characterisation in the sagas. Chapter one is a far more detailed discussion of our ability to make these connections. In particular, the chapter develops the definition of the analytical term "secondary authorship" that I introduce in order to delineate the type of characterisation that is of most interest in this thesis. "Secondary authorship" is a literary term that aims to sharpen our approach to saga authors' relationship to their characters by focusing on characters who make representations about the events of the saga. The term refers to any instance in which characters behave in a manner that resembles the creativity, interpretation, and understanding associated with authorship more generally. Character analysis cannot, however, be divorced from socio-historical approaches to the saga corpus. Most importantly, the sagas themselves are socio-historical representations that claim some degree of truth value. This claim that the sagas make by implication about their historicity is the starting point of a discussion of authorship in medieval Iceland. Therefore, at the beginning of chapter one I discuss some of the approaches to the social context of saga writing. This discussion serves as an introduction to both the culture of saga writing in medieval Iceland and to the nature of the sagas' historical perspective, and reflects my sense that literary interpretations of the sagas cannot be isolated from the historical discourses that frame them. The chapter also discusses possession, which, as I note above, is used alongside the concept of secondary authorship to describe the saga authors' relationship with the stories and characters of the past. At the close of chapter one, I offer a preliminary list the various functions of saga authorship, and give some examples of secondary authorship. From this point I am able to tie my argument about secondary authorship to specific examples from the sagas. Chapter two examines the effect of family obligations and domestic points of view in the depiction of characters' choices and conception of themselves. The examples that are given in that chapter - from Gisla saga Súrssonar and Íslendinga saga - are the first of a number of textual analyses that demonstrate the application of the concepts of secondary authorship and possession of saga narratives. The relationship between narratives about national and domestic matters shows how authorial creativity in the area of kinship obligation provides the basis for the saga's development of historical themes. Thus, the two major case studies given in chapter two tie authorial engagement with characters to the most influential social institution in early and medieval Iceland, the family. The remaining chapters represent similar attempts to relate authorial possession of saga characters to central socio-historical themes in the sagas, such as the settlement process in early Iceland and its influence on the development of regional political life (chapter three). Likewise, the strong authorial interest in an Icelander's journey to Norway in Heimskringla is presented as evidence of the author's use of a saga character to express an Icelandic interpretation of Norwegian history and to promote a sense that Iceland shared the ownership of regal history with Norway (chapter four). In that authorial engagement with the Icelander abroad, we witness saga characterisation being used as a basis for historical interpretation and the means by which foreign traditions and influence, not least the narratives of royal lives and of the Christianisation, are claimed as part of medieval Icelanders' self-conception. While saga authors observe the conventions of saga narration, characters are often subtly positioned as the authors' interpretive mirrors, especially clear than when they act as secondary authors. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Brennu- Njáls saga, which contains many characters who voice the author's claim to interpret the past. Even Hrútr Herjólfsson, through his remarkable perception of events and his conspicuous comments about them, acts as a secondary author by enabling the author to emphasise the importance of the disposition of characters. In Laxdœla saga and Þorgils saga ok Hafliða, authorial interest in characters' perception is matched by the thematising of learning, from the inception of knowledge as prophecy or advice to complete understanding by saga characters (chapter six). In Þorgils saga skarða, a character's inner development from an excessively ambitious and politically ruthless youth to a Christian leader killed by his kinsman allows the author to shape a political life into a lesson about leadership and the community's ability to moderate and contain the behaviour of extraordinary individuals. The portrayal draws on methods of characterisation that we can identify in Grettis saga Ásmundarson, Fóstbrœðra saga, and Orkneyinga saga. A comparison of the characterisation of figures with intense political or military ambitions suggests that saga authors were interested in the community's ability to balance their strength and ability with a degree of social moderation. The discussion of these sagas shows that character study can be used to analyse how the saga authors added their own voice to the voices passed down to medieval Icelanders in traditional narratives. Authorial engagement with characters allowed inherited traditions about early Norway and Iceland and records of thirteenth century events to be transformed into sophisticated historical works with highly creative elements. Through secondary authorship, saga authors took joint-possession of narratives and contested the power of tradition in setting the interpretive framework of a saga.

Formation of neutral molecules of potential stellar interest by neutralisation of negative ions in a mass spectrometer - The application of experiment and molecular modelling in concert

This paper is a modified version of a lecture which describes the synthesis, structure and reactivity of some neutral molecules of stellar significance. The neutrals are formed in the collision cell of a mass spectrometer following vertical Franck-Condon one electron oxidation of anions of known bond connectivity. Neutrals are characterised by conversion to positive ions and by extensive theoretical studies at the CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVDZ//B3LYP/6-31G(d) level of theory. Four systems are considered in detail, viz (i) the formation of linear C-4 and its conversion to the rhombus C-4, (ii) linear C-5 and the atom scrambling of this system when energised, (iii) the stable cumulene oxide CCCCCO, and (iv) the elusive species O2C-CO. This paper is not intended to be a review of interstellar chemistry: examples are selected from our own work in this area. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.