‘New World and Old Europe: American Screen Images of Britain and France‘

Contrary to the dearly held belief by Britons that among the nations of the world, they are the favourites of the Americans, Holliwood movies show that even today, judging by the accents of "baddies", the English incarnate the arch-enemy. French villains come a close second. Britain and France are the reactionary, corrupt "old Europe" from whom the Americans tried to cut away ever since 1775, and it is actually the Central-East European countries who as "new Europe" enjoy greater popularity as bearers of hope.

Measuring variation in potato roots in both field and glasshouse: the search for useful yield predictors and a simple screen for root traits

Aims Potatoes have an inadequate rooting system for efficient acquisition of water and minerals and use disproportionate amounts of irrigation and fertilizer. This research determines whether significant variation in rooting characteristics of potato exists, which characters correlate with final yield and whether a simple screen for rooting traits could be developed. Methods Twenty-eight genotypes of Solanum tuberosum groups Tuberosum and Phureja were grown in the field; eight replicate blocks to final harvest, while entire root systems were excavated from four blocks. Root classes were categorised and measured. The same measurements were made on these genotypes in the glasshouse, 2 weeks post emergence. Results In the field, total root length varied from 40 m to 112 m per plant. Final yield was correlated negatively with basal root specific root length and weakly but positively with total root weight. Solanum tuberosum group Phureja genotypes had more numerous roots and proportionally more basal than stolon roots compared with Solanum tuberosum, group Tuberosum genotypes. There were significant correlations between glasshouse and field measurements. Conclusions Our data demonstrate that variability in rooting traits amongst commercially available potato genotypes exists and a robust glasshouse screen has been developed. By measuring potato roots as described in this study, it is now possible to assess rooting traits of large populations of potato genotypes.

Cosmic effects on the intimate screen: J. B. Priestley, Ralph Richardson and 'Johnson over Jordan' (1965)

This article considers ideas about the suitability of experimental, non-naturalist, narrative forms in theatre and television, through the example of a 1965 BBC2 adaptation of J. B. Priestley's 1939 play Johnson over Jordan. Using both textual analysis of the programme and research into the BBC production documentation, this essay explains how the circumstances and conditions of 1960s television adaptation and the star casting of Sir Ralph Richardson transformed Priestley's stage play. The TV adaptation achieved cosmic effects on an intimate scale, through inference and the imaginative integration of the studio space with dubbed sound.

Authoriality in poetic translation. The case of Amelia Rosselli's practice

This article provides a historical and theoretical contextualization of Amelia Rosselli's practice of translation. Some hitherto neglected Rosselli translations from John Berryman will be examined to ascertain the role played by translation in her multilingual oeuvre. My analysis builds upon recent explorations of translingual authors' translating practice informed by Deleuze and Guattari's seminal Kafka: pour une littérature mineure. It aims to achieve an understanding of the aesthetic of Rosselli's trilingualism and the function of translation within the author's minorizing project.

Haptic interfaces: the live and the recorded body in Beckett's Eh Joe on stage and screen

Beckett’s sparse and minimalist pieces have continuously addressed the nature and characteristics of the media for which they were written. What does it mean when a work written specifically for television is transposed to the stage, as film director Atom Egoyan did in his 2006 version of Beckett’s Eh Joe? This article will focus on the implications of such a transposition and discuss how Egoyan’s version reveals the haptic interface present in the original piece, between body and technology, between the flesh and “spirit made light” of the electronic broadcast.

Dancing in translation: Irina Brook’s mise en scène of 'Danser à Lughnasa', Jean-Marie Besset’s translation of Brian Friel’s 'Dancing at Lughnasa'

This essay contributes to debates about theatre and cross-cultural encounter through an analysis of Irina Brook’s 1999 Swiss / French co-production of Irish playwright Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa, in a French translation by Jean-Marie Besset. While the translation and Brook’s mise en scène clearly identified the source text and culture as Irish, they avoided cultural stereotypes, and rendered the play accessible to francophone audiences without entirely assimilating it to a specific Swiss or French cultural context. Drawing on discourses of theatre translation, and concepts of cosmopolitanism and conviviality, the essay focuses on the potential of such textual and theatrical translation to acknowledge specific cultural traces but also to estrange the familiar perceptions and boundaries of both the source and target cultures, offering modes of interconnection across diverse cultural affiliations.

The description of stencilling by Gilles Filleau des Billettes: transcription and translation

This article presents the description of stencilling by Gilles Filleau des Billettes. The description sets out a method for stencilling letters, words, and texts, and specifies equipment for doing the work; it forms the basis for a reconstruction of the equipment and method, which is presented in a parallel article in this volume of Typography papers (see E. Kindel, 'A reconstruction of stencilling based on the description by Gilles Filleau des Billettes', Typography papers, 9, pp. 28–65). The original French text, approximately 10,000 words in length, is here transcribed and accompanied by a parallel English translation. Introductory notes on the preparation of both texts are provided; images of stencil letters found among the papers of Sébastien Truchet, Des Billettes’s colleague, are shown in an appendix.

A decade of plant proteomics and mass spectrometry: translation of technical advancements to food security and safety issues

Tremendous progress in plant proteomics driven by mass spectrometry (MS) techniques has been made since 2000 when few proteomics reports were published and plant proteomics was in its infancy. These achievements include the refinement of existing techniques and the search for new techniques to address food security, safety, and health issues. It is projected that in 2050, the world’s population will reach 9–12 billion people demanding a food production increase of 34–70% (FAO, 2009) from today’s food production. Provision of food in a sustainable and environmentally committed manner for such a demand without threatening natural resources, requires that agricultural production increases significantly and that postharvest handling and food manufacturing systems become more efficient requiring lower energy expenditure, a decrease in postharvest losses, less waste generation and food with longer shelf life. There is also a need to look for alternative protein sources to animal based (i.e., plant based) to be able to fulfill the increase in protein demands by 2050. Thus, plant biology has a critical role to play as a science capable of addressing such challenges. In this review, we discuss proteomics especially MS, as a platform, being utilized in plant biology research for the past 10 years having the potential to expedite the process of understanding plant biology for human benefits. The increasing application of proteomics technologies in food security, analysis, and safety is emphasized in this review. But, we are aware that no unique approach/technology is capable to address the global food issues. Proteomics-generated information/resources must be integrated and correlated with other omics-based approaches, information, and conventional programs to ensure sufficient food and resources for human development now and in the future.

Foreign credit: travel writing and authenticity in the dutch translation of The memoirs and travels of Mauritius Augustus, Count de Benyowsky (1790)

This article explores the translation and reception of the Memoirs and Travels (1790) of Count Mauritius Augustus Benyowsky (1746-86) in the Netherlands, and examines the complications, tensions and problems that transfer between a major and a more minor European language involves. I analyse how the Dutch translator Petrus Loosjes Adriaanszoon positioned himself as a mediator between these very different source and target cultures and ask how he dealt with the problems of plausibility and ‘credit’ which had beleaguered the reception of the Memoirs and Travels from the outset. In this article I am concerned to restore minority languages to the discussion of how travel literature circulated in Western Europe at the close of the eighteenth century and to demonstrate how major/minor language translation was central to the construction of Dutch-language culture in the Low Countries in this period.

Translation and usability of autism screening and diagnostic tools for autism spectrum conditions in India

There is a critical need for screening and diagnostic tools (SDT) for autism spectrum conditions (ASC) in regional languages in South Asia. To address this, we translated four widely used SDT (Social Communication Disorder Checklist, Autism Spectrum Quotient, Social Communication Questionnaire, and Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule) into Bengali and Hindi, two main regional languages (∼ 360 million speakers), and tested their usability in children with and without ASC. We found a significant difference in scores between children with ASC (n = 45 in Bengali, n = 40 in Hindi) and typically developing children (n = 43 in Bengali, n = 42 in Hindi) on all SDTs. These results demonstrate that these SDTs are usable in South Asia, and constitute an important resource for epidemiology research and clinical diagnosis in the region.