“The Double Feature Evil”: Efforts to Eliminate the American Dual Bill

The essay discusses the actions and motivations of various groups that tried to end the practice of double feature film exhibition in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. Used as a price-cutting strategy, double features were embraced by marginal exhibitors and low-budget producers, but attacked by most major studios and established theatre chains. Methods employed to control the double feature included voluntary bans, governmental legislation, and legal action. During the depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal opposed the double feature as a strategy likely to undermine established admission price levels. But the double feature proved resilient and survived all these efforts, as well as an additional series of assaults, based on conservation of energy and materiel, mounted during the Second World War.

British Film in the 1970s: Capital, Culture and Creativity

Throughout the 1970s the British film industry struggled to produce films which performed well at the box office and appealed to audiences. As a result the decade has often been considered as one of the low points of British cinema. But was this really the case? Conventional film histories of the decade have emphasised key texts and specific genres, such as the Bond films, the Carry On series or low budget horror. Yet British cinema in this period offered a great deal more to audiences and careful study of original documents demonstrates the diversity and variety of an industry, and a decade, typically perceived as limited and unimaginative. An examination of important material – much of it newly discovered or previously underused – offers an insight into the industry in this decade while key case studies present a detailed picture of the eclectic, diverse and often challenging film culture of the period.

Balancing the (carbon) budget: Using linear inverse models to estimate carbon flows and mass-balance 13C:15N labelling experiments in low oxygen sediments.

Over 1 million km² of seafloor experience permanent low-oxygen conditions within oxygen minimum zones (OMZs). OMZs are predicted to grow as a consequence of climate change, potentially affecting oceanic biogeochemical cycles. The Arabian Sea OMZ impinges upon the western Indian continental margin at bathyal depths (150 - 1500 m) producing a strong depth dependent oxygen gradient at the sea floor. The influence of the OMZ upon the short term processing of organic matter by sediment ecosystems was investigated using in situ stable isotope pulse chase experiments. These deployed doses of ¹³C:¹⁵N labeled organic matter onto the sediment surface at four stations from across the OMZ (water depth 540 - 1100 m; [O₂] = 0.35 - 15 μM). In order to prevent experimentally anoxia, the mesocosms were not sealed. ¹³C and ¹⁵N labels were traced into sediment, bacteria, fauna and ¹³C into sediment porewater DIC and DOC. However, the DIC and DOC flux to the water column could not be measured, limiting our capacity to obtain mass-balance for C in each experimental mesocosm. Linear Inverse Modeling (LIM) provides a method to obtain a mass-balanced model of carbon flow that integrates stable-isotope tracer data with community biomass and biogeochemical flux data from a range of sources. Here we present an adaptation of the LIM methodology used to investigate how ecosystem structure influenced carbon flow across the Indian margin OMZ. We demonstrate how oxygen conditions affect food-web complexity, affecting the linkages between the bacteria, foraminifera and metazoan fauna, and their contributions to benthic respiration. The food-web models demonstrate how changes in ecosystem complexity are associated with oxygen availability across the OMZ and allow us to obtain a complete carbon budget for the stationa where stable-isotope labelling experiments were conducted.

Low flow water quality in rivers; septic tank systems and high-resolution phosphorus signals

Rural point sources of phosphorus (P), including septic tank systems, provide a small part of the overall phosphorus budget to surface waters in agricultural catchments but can have a disproportionate impact on the low flow P concentration of receiving rivers. This has particular importance as the discharges are approximately constant into receiving waters and these have restricted dilution capacity during ecologically sensitive summer periods. In this study, a number of identified high impact septic systems were replaced with modern sequential batch reactors in three rural catchments during a monitoring period of 4 years. Sub-hourly P monitoring was conducted using bankside-analysers. Results show that strategic replacement of defective septic tank systems with modern systems and polishing filters decreased the low flow P concentration of one catchment stream by 0.032 mg TP L- 1 (0.018 mg TRP L- 1) over the 4 years. However two of the catchment mitigation efforts were offset by continued new-builds that increased the density of septic systems from 3.4 km- 2 to 4.6 km- 2 and 13.8 km- 2 to 17.2 km- 2 and subsequently increased low flow P concentrations. Future considerations for septic system mitigation should include catchment carrying capacity as well as technology changes.

Cooking rice in a high water to rice ratio reduces inorganic arsenic content

Total arsenic and arsenic speciation was performed on different rice types (basmati, long-grain, polished ([white] and wholegrain [brown]) that had undergone various forms of cooking. The effect of rinse washing, low volume (2.5 : 1 water : rice) and high volume (6 : 1 water : rice) cooking, as well as steaming, were investigated. Rinse washing was effective at removing circa. 10% of the total and inorganic arsenic from basmati rice, but was less effective for other rice types. While steaming reduced total and inorganic arsenic rice content, it did not do so consistently across all rice types investigated. Low volume water cooking did not remove arsenic. High volume water : rice cooking did effectively remove both total and inorganic arsenic for the long-grain and basmati rice (parboiled was not investigated in high volume cooking water experiment), by 35% and 45% for total and inorganic arsenic content, respectively, compared to uncooked (raw) rice. To reduce arsenic content of cooked rice, specifically the inorganic component, rinse washing and high volume of cooking water are effective.

Determination of the persistence of dimetridazole, metronidazole and ronidazole residues in black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) tissue and stability during cooking

The depletion of three banned nitroimidazole drugs (dimetridazole (DMZ), metronidazole (MNZ) and ronidazole (RNZ)) was investigated in black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) following in-water medication. The highest concentrations of residues were measured immediately after the 24 h immersion (day 0). At this time, MNZ and MNZ-OH residues were measured in shrimp tissue samples at concentrations ranging from 361–4189 and 0.28–6.6 μg kg−1, respectively. DMZ and its metabolites HMMNI ranged in concentration between 31509–37780 and 15.0–31.9 μg kg−1, respectively. RNZ and HMMNI concentrations ranged 14530–24206 and 25.0–55 μg kg−1, respectively. MNZ, DMZ and RNZ were the more persistent marker residues and can be detected for at least eight days post-treatment. MNZ-OH was only detectable on day 0 following treatment with MNZ. HMMNI residues were only detectable up to day 1 (0.97–3.2 μg kg−1) or 2 (1.2–4.5 μg kg−1) following DMZ and RNZ treatment, respectively. The parent drugs, MNZ, DMZ and RNZ were still measureable on day 8 at 0.12–1.00, 40.5–55 and 8.8–18.7 μg kg−1, respectively. The study also investigated the stability of nitroimidazole residues under various cooking procedures (frying, grilling, boiling and boiling followed by microwaving). The experiments were carried out in shrimp muscle tissue containing both high and low concentrations of these residues. Different cooking procedures showed the impact on nitroimidazole residue concentration in shrimp tissuetheir concentration depleted significantly, but partially, by boiling and/or microwaving but the compounds were largely resistant to conventional grilling or frying. Cooking cannot therefore be considered as a safeguard against harmful nitroimidazole residues in shrimp.

Rethinking Rice Preparation for Highly Efficient Removal of Inorganic Arsenic Using Percolating Cooking Water

A novel way of cooking rice to maximize the removal of the carcinogen inorganic arsenic (Asi) is presented here. In conventional rice cooking water and grain are in continuous contact, and it is known that the larger the water:rice cooking ratio, the more Asi removed by cooking, suggesting that the Asi in the grain is mobile in water. Experiments were designed where rice is cooked in a continual stream of percolating near boiling water, either low in Asi, or Asi free. This has the advantage of not only exposing grain to large volumes of cooking water, but also physically removes any Asi leached from the grain into the water receiving vessel. The relationship between cooking water volume and Asi removal in conventional rice cooking was demonstrated for the rice types under study. At a water-to-rice cooking ratio of 12:1, 57±5% of Asi could be removed, average of 6 wholegrain and 6 polished rice samples. Two types of percolating technology were tested, one where the cooking water was recycled through condensing boiling water steam and passing the freshly distilled hot water through the grain in a laboratory setting, and one where tap water was used to cook the rice held in an off-the-shelf coffee percolator in a domestic setting. Both approaches proved highly effective in removing Asi from the cooking rice, with up to 85% of Asi removed from individual rice types. For the recycled water experiment 59±8% and 69±10% of Asi was removed, on average, compared to uncooked rice for polished (n=27) and wholegrain (n=13) rice, respectively. For coffee percolation there was no difference between wholegrain and polished rice, and the effectiveness of Asi removal was 49±7% across 6 wholegrain and 6 polished rice samples. The manuscript explores the potential applications and further optimization of this percolating cooking water, high Asi removal, discovery.