A simple device for multiplex ELISA made from melt-extruded plastic microcapillary film

We present a simple device for multiplex quantitative enzyme-linked immunosorbant assays (ELISA) made from a novel melt-extruded microcapillary film (MCF) containing a parallel array of 200µm capillaries along its length. To make ELISA devices different protein antigens or antibodies were immobilised inside individual microcapillaries within long reels of MCF extruded from fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP). Short pieces of coated film were cut and interfaced with a pipette, allowing sequential uptake of samples and detection solutions into all capillaries from a reagent well. As well as being simple to produce, these FEP MCF devices have excellent light transmittance allowing direct optical interrogation of the capillaries for simple signal quantification. Proof of concept experiments demonstrate both quantitative and multiplex assays in FEP MCF devices using a standard direct ELISA procedure and read using a flatbed scanner. This new multiplex immunoassay platform should find applications ranging from lab detection to point-of-care and field diagnostics.

The cry of the owl: investigating decision-making in a contemporary feature film

This article extends the traditions of style-based criticism through an encounter with the insights that can be gained from engaging with filmmakers at work. By bringing into relationship two things normally thought of as separate: production history and disinterested critical analysis, the discussion aims to extend the subjects which criticism can appreciate as well as providing some insights on the creative process. Drawing on close analysis, on observations made during fieldwork and on access to earlier cuts of the film, this article looks at a range of interrelated decision-making anchored by the reading of a particular sequence. The article examines changes the film underwent in the different stages of production, and some of the inventions deployed to ensure key themes and ideas remained in play, as other elements changed. It draws conclusions which reveal perspectives on the filmmaking process, on collaboration, and on the creative response to material realities. The article reveals elements of the complexity of the process of the construction of image and soundtrack, and extends the range of filmmakers’ choices which are part of a critical dialogue. Has a relationship to ‘Sleeping with half open eyes: dreams and realities in The Cry of the Owl’, Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism, 1, (2010) which provides a broader interpretative context for the enquiry.

Children with Special Educational Needs as film makers: Using digital video to support Understandings of Narrative

The literature has identified issues around transitions among phases for all pupils (Cocklin, 1999) including pupils with special educational needs (SEN) (Morgan 1999, Maras and Aveling 2006). These issues include pupils’ uncertainties and worries about building size and spatial orientation, exposure to a range of teaching styles, relationships with peers and older pupils as well as parents’ difficulties in establishing effective communications with prospective secondary schools. Research has also identified that interventions to facilitate these educational transitions should consider managerial support, social and personal familiarisation with the new setting as well as personalised learning strategies (BECTA 2004). However, the role that digital technologies can play in supporting these strategies or facilitating the role of the professionals such as SENCos and heads of departments involved in supporting effective transitions for pupils with SEN has not been widely discussed. Uses of ICT include passing references of student-produced media presentations (Higgins 1993) and use of photographs of activities attached to a timetable to support familiarisation with the secondary curriculum for pupils with autism (Cumine et al. 1998).

Film as literature, or the Truffaldian Malaise

This chapter looks at L’Homme qui aimait les femmes (1977) as a privileged instance of the self-effacing, obliquely disruptive, reflexive aesthetics that characterizes Truffaut’s cinema, by means of an intermedial approach. Although an original story, written by Truffaut in collaboration with Suzanne Schiffman and Michel Fermaud, the film’s subject is the writing of a book containing the protagonist’s story. More importantly, its mode of address presents this story as literature, through a complex network of flashbacks and voiceover narrations that comment on and make sense of the fragmentary present-tense action scenes. As well as a film, this method resulted in an actual novel, or cinéroman, this time authored exclusively by the director under the same title of L’Homme qui aimait les femmes, thus giving material form to the literary aim of the cinematic enterprise: a book.

Going global: the Brazilian scripted film

This article departs from the assumption that a certain section of world cinema, usually defined as ‘independent’, has been evolving on the basis of good scripts. Between the late 1980s and early 90s, there has been a boom of new cinemas in the world, such as the new Iranian, Taiwanese, Japanese, Mexican, Argentine and Brazilian cinemas. A significant part of this production shows a renewed interest in local and national peculiarities of their respective countries, going against the grain of globalisation and its typical cultural dilution. Most of these films are also engaged in reassessing narrative cinema, as a kind of reaction against the deconstructive work carried out by postmodern cinema of the 1980s.Recent new cinemas are supported by a combination of local and international resources, derived from public and private sponsors at home, and funding agencies, festivals and TV channels abroad. In most cases funds are granted after the film script has been analysed and approved by commissions of experts. The New Brazilian Cinema, or cinema da retomada as it is locally called, has been enormously affected by this scheme, which has even caused a ‘script boom’ in Brazil in the past decade. The chapter examins the results of this process.