Display, disclosure and concealment: the organization of raw materials in the chambered tombs of Bohuslän

The Neolithic chambered tombs of Bohuslan on the west coast of Sweden were built out of locally occurring raw materials. These exhibit a wide variety of colours, textures and mineral inclusions, and all were used to contrive a series of striking visual effects. Certain of these would have been apparent to the casual observer but others would only have been apparent to someone inside the passage or the burial chamber. There is no evidence that the materials were organized according to a single scheme. Rather, they permitted a series of improvisations, so that no two monuments were exactly alike. The effects that they created are compared with those found in megalithic art where the design elements were painted or carved, but in Bohuslan all the designs were created using the natural properties of the rock.

Risk management and the corporate real estate portfolio

In a global business economy, firms have a broad range of corporate real estate needs. During the past decade, multiple strategies and tactics have emerged in the corporate real estate community for meeting those needs. We propose here a framework for analysing and prioritising the various types of risk inherent in corporate real estate decisions. From a business strategy perspective, corporate real estate must serve needs beyond the simple one of shelter for the workforce and production process. Certain uses are strategic in that they allow access to externalities, embody the business strategy, or provide entrée to new markets. Other uses may be tactical, in that they arise from business activities of relatively short duration or provide an opportunity to pre-empt competitors. Still other corporate real estate uses can be considered “core” to the existence of the business enterprise. These might be special use properties or may be generic buildings that have become embodiments of the organisation’s culture. We argue that a multi-dimensional matrix approach organised around three broad themes and nine sub-categories allow the decision-maker to organise and evaluate choices with an acceptable degree of rigor and thoroughness. The three broad themes are Use (divided into Core, Cyclical or Casual) – Asset Type (which can be Strategic, Specialty or Generic) and Market Environment (which ranges from Mature Domestic to Emerging Economy). Proper understanding of each of these groupings brings critical variables to the fore and allows for efficient resource allocation and enhanced risk management.

Accommodative instability: relationship to progression of early onset myopia

Background: In a previous study, we demonstrated that children with early onset myopia had greater instability of accommodation than a group of emmetropic children. Since that study was correlational, we were unable to determine the causal relationship between this and myopic progression. To address this, we examined the children two years later. We predicted that if accommodative instability was causing the myopic progression, instability at Visit 1 should predict the refractive error at Visit 2. Additionally, instability at Visit 1 should predict myopic progression. Methods: Thirteen myopic and 16 emmetropic children were included in the analysis. Dynamic measures of accommodation were made using eccentric photorefraction (PowerRefractor) while children viewed targets set at three distances (accommodative demands), namely, 0.25 metres (4.00 D demand), 0.5 metres (2.00 D demand) and 4.00 metres (0.25 D demand). Results: Both refractive error and accommodative instability at Visit 1 were highly correlated with the same measures at Visit 2. Children with myopia showed greater instability of accommodation (0.38 D) than children with emmetropia (0.26 D) at the 4.00 D target on Visit 1 and this instability of accommodation weakly predicted myopic progression. Conclusions: The results presented in the present study suggest that instability of accommodation accompanies myopic progression, although a casual relationship cannot be established.

Variation among Attic fine wares: the case of the Pan Painter's pelikai

This paper is a case study of the continuum between standardization and variation in the production of red-figure Athenian fine wares in the first half of the 5th century BC. An investigation of the Pan Painter's pelikai reveals that they fall into 3 distinct groups, according to size. While the pelikai in each group are also distinguishable from each other by shape, pattern, and iconography, the next clearest distinction between the groups (after size) is in their style of decoration. The pelikai in the largest group, which is comprised of small pelikai, are particularly distinct from the Pan Painter's broader oeuvre of ca. 220 vases insofar as they exemplify a lackadaisical painting style, which I have termed banausic, on account of its frequent use for images of craftsmen, women at work, and other such genre images. While this casual style is antithetical to the Pain Painter's refined style, for which he is better known, and which he employs for his large pelikai, affinities between the 2 styles—as judged by his confident line, anatomical details, and other technical features—permit the conclusion that this group of pelikai were executed by one and the same craftsman as the others. As with all of the vases attributed to this talented painter, however, the pelikai—whether large or small—are decorated with a great bariety of images. While most painted Athenian vases are understood to have been individually created, not mass-produced, the Pan Painter's coherent group of small pelikai seem to have been created en masse, in a uniform size and shape and with a distinct decorative style. This group of standardized vases represents a body of work executed under the influence or at the behest of a specific vase workshop. The form of the small pelikai in fact allows us to associate them with the Geras Painter. With his work on these small pelikai, perhaps in the latter part of his career, the Pan Painter may have intentionally minimized variability in favour of standardization, to meet market demands.

Typographic meaning: readers’ impressions of patterns of typographic differentiation

This research explores whether patterns of typographic differentiation influence readers’ impressions of documents. It develops a systematic approach to typographic investigation that considers relationships between different kinds of typographic attributes, rather than testing the influence of isolated variables. An exploratory study using multiple sort tasks and semantic differential scales identifies that readers form a variety of impressions in relation to how typographic elements are differentiated in document design. Building on the findings of the exploratory study and analysis of a sample of magazines, the research describes three patterns of typographic differentiation: high, moderate, and low. Each pattern comprises clusters of typographic attributes and organisational principles that are articulated in relation to a specified level of typographic differentiation (amplified, medium, or subtle). The patterns are applied to two sets of controlled test material. Using this purposely-designed material, the influence of patterns of typographic differentiation on readers’ impressions of documents is explored in a repertory grid analysis and a paired comparison procedure. The results of these studies indicate that patterns of typographic differentiation consistently shape readers’ impressions of documents, influencing judgments of credibility, document address, and intended readership; and suggesting particular kinds of engagement and genre associations. For example, high differentiation documents are likely to be considered casual, sensationalist, and young; moderate differentiation documents are most likely to be seen as formal and serious; and low differentiation examples are considered calm. Typographic meaning is shown to be created through complex, yet systematic, interrelationships rather than reduced to a linear model of increasing or decreasing variation. The research provides a way of describing typographic articulation that has application across a variety of disciplines and design practice. In particular, it illuminates the ways in which typographic presentation is meaningful to readers, providing knowledge that document producers can use to communicate more effectively.

My generation(s): cycles, branding and renewal in E4’s 'Skins'

In an era of fragmenting audience and diversified viewing platforms, youth television needs to move fast and make a lot of noise in order to capture and maintain the attention of the teenage viewer. British ensemble youth drama Skins (E4, 2007-2013) calls attention to itself with its high doses of drugs, chaotic parties and casual attitudes towards sexuality. It also moves quickly, shedding its cast every two seasons as they graduate from school, then renewing itself with a fresh generation of 16 year old characters - three cycles in total. This essay will explore the challenges of maintaining audience connections whilst resetting the narrative clock with each cycle. I suggest that the development of the Skins brand was key to the programme’s success. Branding is particularly important for an audience demographic who increasingly consume their television outside of broadcast flow and essential for a programme which renews its cast every two years. The Skins brand operate as a framework, as the central audience draw, have the strength to maintain audience connections when it ‘graduates’ those characters they identify with at the close of each cycle and starts again from scratch. This essay will explore how the Skins brand constructs a cohesive identity across its multiple generations, yet also consider how the cyclic form poses challenges for the programme’s representations and narratives. This cyclic form allows Skins to repeatedly reach out to a new audience who comes of age alongside each new generation and to reflect shifts in British youth culture. Thus Skins remains ever-youthful, seeking to maintain an at times painfully hip identity. Yet the programme has a somewhat schizophrenic identity, torn between its roots in British realist drama and surrealist comedy and an escapist aspirational glamour that shows the influence of US Teen TV. This combination results in a tendency towards a heightened melodrama at odds with Skins claims for authenticity - its much vaunted teenage advisors and young writers - with the cyclic structure serving to amplify the programme’s excessive tendencies. Each cycle wrestles with a need for continuity and familiarity - partly maintained through brand, aesthetic and setting - yet a desire for freshness and originality, to assert difference from what has gone before. I suggest that the inevitable need for each cycle to ‘top’ what has gone before results in a move away from character-based intimacy and the everyday to high-stakes drama and violence which sits uncomfortably within British youth television.

Amor intellectualis diaboli

An essay on love and liberty in the writings of Gillian Rose, Marquis de Sade, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, written in response to the following provocation: "Encore un effort. A banderole publicitaire carries the breathless descriptions of the new fashions for 1968, when anything goes and details place the accent on this or that part of the body and its adornment: a pair of shoes that come off in a struggle, for example, the heel of one snapped off; a striking checked shirt, with two buttons undone; a light-coloured trench coat (perfect for a May day); a blouson-style jacket that allows easy freedom of movement; place casual slacks worn with an ankle boot. Beauty is in the streets as fashion becomes democratic (or so say the houses of haute couture), while the philosopher of the boudoir extorts us once again to make an effort if we wish to be republicans. Here, to an assembled crowd of sensitive men and women, which petit-maitre or dangerous man of principles would suggest that the only moral system to reinforce political revolution is that of libertinage, the revenge of nature's course against the aberrations of society?"