The other on display: translation in the Ethnographic Museum

The ethnographic museum in the West has a long and troubling history. The display of 'exotic peoples' in travelling exhibitions began as early as the sixteenth century, but it was the mid and late nineteenth century that saw the great expansion of museums as sites to show artefacts collected - under anything but reputable circumstances - from what were considered the 'primitive', 'natural', or 'tribal' peoples of the world. Today the ethnographic museum is still a feature of large European cities, though faced with newly formulated dilemmas in the postcolonial world. For how can the material culture of a non-western people be collected and displayed in the West without its makers being translated into wordless and powerless objects of visual consumption? In national museums the processes of choosing, contextualizing and commentating exhibits help form national identity; in the ethnographic museum, similarly, they shape perceptions of the apparently distant Other. Like written ethnography, the museum is a 'translation of culture', with many of the associated problems traced by Talal Asad (1986). Like the written form, it has to represent the dialogic realities of cultural encounters in a fixed and intelligible form, to propose categories that define and order the material it has gathered. As the public face of academic ethnography, the museum interprets other cultures for the benefit of the general reader, and in that task museum practice, like all ethnography, operates within very specific historical and political parameters. How are museums in western Europe responding to the issues raised by critical ethnographers like James Clifford (1988), with their focus on the politics of representation? Is globalisation increasing the degree of accountability imposed on the ethnographic museum, or merely reinforcing older patterns? What opportunities and problems are raised by the use of more words - more 'translation' in the narrower sense - in ethnographic museums, and how do museums gain from introducing a reflexive and contextualizing concept of "thick translation" (Appiah 1993) into their work of interpretation?

Molecular investigations into vaginal immunization with HIV gp41 antigenic construct H4A in a quick release solid dosage form

A robust vaginal immune response is considered essential for an effective prophylactic vaccine that prevents transmission of HIV and other sexually acquired diseases. Considerable attention has recently focused on the potential of vaginally administered vaccines as a means to induce such local immunity. However, the potential for vaccination at this site remains in doubt as the vaginal mucosa is generally considered to have low immune inductive potential. In the current study, we explored for the first time the use of a quick release, freeze-dried, solid dosage system for practical vaginal administration of a protein antigen. These solid dosage forms overcome the common problem associated with leakage and poor retention of vaginally administered antigen solutions. Mice were immunized vaginally with H4A, an HIV gp41 envelope based recombinant protein, using quick release, freeze-dried solid rods, and the immune responses compared to a control group immunized via subcutaneous H4A injection. Vaginally immunized mice failed to elicit robust immune responses. Our detailed investigations, involving cytokine analysis, the stability of H4A in mouse cervicovaginal lavage, and elucidation of the state of H4A protein in the immediate-release dosage form, revealed that antigen instability in vaginal fluid, the state of the antigen in the dosage form, and the cytokine profile induced are all likely to have contributed to the observed lack of immunogenicity. These are important factors affecting vaginal immunization and provide a rational basis for explaining the typically poor and variable elicitation of immunity at this site, despite the presence of immune responsive cells within the vaginal mucosae. In future mucosal vaccine studies, a more explicit focus on antigen stability in the dosage form and the immune potential of available antigen-responsive cells is recommended.

The comparative impact of privatisation and regulation on productivity growth in the English and Welsh water and sewerage industry, 1985-99

After the 10 regional water authorities of England and Wales were privatized in November 1989, the successor WASCs (water and sewerage companies) faced a new regulatory regime that was designed to promote productivity growth while simultaneously improving drinking water and environmental quality. As legally mandated quality improvements necessitated a costly capital investment programme, the industry's economic regulator – the Office of Water Services – implemented a RPI + K pricing system, designed to compensate the WASCs for their capital investment programme while also encouraging faster rates of productivity growth. This paper considers the relative effects of privatization and regulation on productivity growth in the industry using both non-parametric and parametric methods to provide a crosscheck on the robustness of the results. While there is evidence that labour productivity improved after privatization, there is no evidence that privatization led to a growth in TFP (total factor productivity). However, there is some evidence of a small increase in the rate of TFP growth in the aftermath of a substantial tightening of the regulatory regime that took place in 1995. These results, therefore, are consistent with evidence from other research that privatization, in the absence of effective competition and/or regulation, is not necessarily associated with improved economic performance.

The impact of foreign direct investment on labour productivity in the Chinese electronics industry

Foreign direct investment (FDI) may have a positive impact on labour productivity in recipient industries through direct introduction of capital, technology and management skills and indirectly through spillover effects on domestic firms. This study uses a model intended to examine the overall effects of inward FDI in the Chinese electronics industry. Official data are used for 41 sub-sectors of the industry in 1996 and 1997 having differing levels of FDI. Labour productivity is modelled as dependent on the degree of foreign presence in the industry and other variables, namely capital intensity, human capital and firm size for scale factors. The econometric results suggest that foreign presence in the industry is associated with higher labour productivity. © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.

Grayscale and colour image Codec based on matching pursuit in the spatio-frequency domain

This report presents and evaluates a novel idea for scalable lossy colour image coding with Matching Pursuit (MP) performed in a transform domain. The benefits of the idea of MP performed in the transform domain are analysed in detail. The main contribution of this work is extending MP with wavelets to colour coding and proposing a coding method. We exploit correlations between image subbands after wavelet transformation in RGB colour space. Then, a new and simple quantisation and coding scheme of colour MP decomposition based on Run Length Encoding (RLE), inspired by the idea of coding indexes in relational databases, is applied. As a final coding step arithmetic coding is used assuming uniform distributions of MP atom parameters. The target application is compression at low and medium bit-rates. Coding performance is compared to JPEG 2000 showing the potential to outperform the latter with more sophisticated than uniform data models for arithmetic coder. The results are presented for grayscale and colour coding of 12 standard test images.

The effects of new technology on employment structures in the service sector

This thesis explores the interrelationships between the labour process, the development of technology and patterns of gender differentiation. The introduction of front office terminals into building society branches forms the focus of the research. Case studies were carried out in nine branches, three each from three building societies. Statistical data for the whole movement and a survey of ten of the top thirty societies provided the context for the studies. In the process of the research it became clear that it was not technology itself but the way that it was used, that was the main factor in determining outcomes. The introduction of new technologies is occurring at a rapid pace, facilitated by continuing high growth rates, although front office technology could seldom be cost justified. There was great variety between societies in their operating philosophies and their reasons for and approach to computerisation, but all societies foresaw an ultimate saving in staff. Computerisation has resulted in the deskilling of the cashiering role and increased control over work at all stages. Some branch managers experienced a decrease in autonomy and an increase in control over their work. Subsequent to this deskilling there has been a greatly increased use of part time staff which has enabled costs to be reduced. There has also been a polarisation between career and non-career staff which, like the use of part time staff, has occurred along gender lines. There is considerable evidence that societies' policies, structures and managerial attitudes continue to directly and indirectly discriminate against women. It is these practices which confine women to lower grades and ensure their dependence on the family and which create the pool of cheap skilled labour that societies so willingly exploit by increasing part time work. Gender strategies enter management strategies throughout the operations of the organisation.

The effect of relative distance enlargement on visual acuity in the visually impaired

Background: Prescribing magnification is typically based on distance or near visual acuity. this presumes a constant minimum angle of visual resolution with working distance and therefore enlargement of an object moved to a shorter working distance (relative distance enlargement). this study examines this premise in a visually impaired population. methods: distance letter visual acuity was measured prospectively for 380 low vision patients (distance visual acuity between 0.3 and 2.1 logmar) over the age of 57 years, along with near word visual acuity at an appropriate distance for near lens additions from +4 d to +20 D. demographic information, the disease causing low vision, contrast sensitivity, visual field and psychological status were also recorded. results: distance letter acuity was significantly related to (r = 0.84) but on average 0.1 ± 0.2 logmar better (1 ± 2 lines on a logmar chart) than near word acuity at 25 cm with a +4 d lens addition. in 39. 8 per cent of patients, near word acuity was more than 0.1 logmar worse than distance letter acuity. in 11.0 per cent of subjects, near visual acuity was more than 0.1 logmar better than distance letter acuity. the group with near word acuity worse than distance letter acuity also had lower contrast sensitivity. the group with near word acuity better than distance letter acuity was less likely to have age-Related macular degeneration. smaller print size could be read by reducing working distance (achieved by using higher near lens additions) in 86. 1 per cent, although not by as much as predicted by geometric progression in 14. 5 per cent. discussion: although distance letter and near word acuity are highly related, they are on average 1 logmar line different and this varies significantly between individuals. near word acuity did not increase linearly with relative distance enlargement in approximately one in seven visually impaired, suggesting that the measurement of visual resolution over a range of working distances will assist appropriate prescribing of magnification aids.

Effect of nitric oxide on apoptotic activity in the rat gastrointestinal tract

The effect of nitric oxide (NO) on apoptosis in the gastrointestinal mucosa was investigated. Experiments involved long-term exposure of rat gastric mucosal cells in vitro to exogenous NO delivered from the NO, donor S-nitroso-N-acetyl-penicillamine, and the effect of intravenous administration of lipopolysaccharide in vivo, in the presence and absence of the selective inhibitor of inducible NO synthase N-(3-(aminomethyl)benzyl) acetamidine (1400 W). S-nitroso-N-acetyl-penicillamine produced a dose-related inhibition of caspase 3-like activity and DNA fragmentation in isolated gastric mucosal cells. Caspase 3-like activity and DNA fragmentation in gastric, ileal and colonic mucosa were increased both 5 and 24 h after injection of lipopolysaccharide (3 mg/kg, i.v.) to rats in vivo. Administration of 1400 W (5 mg/kg, i.v.) immediately after lipopolysaccharide enhanced caspase 3-like activity and DNA fragmentation above that found with lipopolysaccharide alone. In conclusion, data obtained both in vitro and in vivo suggest that NO exerts an anti-apoptotic effect on rat gastrointestinal mucosal cells. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V.

Estimating direct and indirect effects of foreign direct investment on firm productivity in the presence of interactions between firms

We implement a method to estimate the direct effects of foreign-ownership on foreign firms' productivity and the indirect effects (or spillovers) from the presence of foreign-owned firms on other foreign and domestic firms' productivity in a unifying framework, taking interactions between firms into account. To do so, we relax a fundamental assumption made in empirical studies examining a direct causal effect of foreign ownership on firm productivity, namely that of no interactions between firms. Based on our approach, we are able to combine direct and indirect effects of foreign ownership and calculate the total effect of foreign firms on local productivity. Our results show that all these effects vary with the level of foreign presence within a cluster, an important finding for the academic literature and policy debate on the benefits of attracting foreign owned firms.

Dialect variation

Relatively little research on dialect variation has been based on corpora of naturally occurring language. Instead, dialect variation has been studied based primarily on language elicited through questionnaires and interviews. Eliciting dialect data has several advantages, including allowing for dialectologists to select individual informants, control the communicative situation in which language is collected, elicit rare forms directly, and make high-quality audio recordings. Although far less common, a corpus-based approach to data collection also has several advantages, including allowing for dialectologists to collect large amounts of data from a large number of informants, observe dialect variation across a range of communicative situations, and analyze quantitative linguistic variation in large samples of natural language. Although both approaches allow for dialect variation to be observed, they provide different perspectives on language variation and change. The corpus- based approach to dialectology has therefore produced a number of new findings, many of which challenge traditional assumptions about the nature of dialect variation. Most important, this research has shown that dialect variation involves a wider range of linguistic variables and exists across a wider range of language varieties than has previously been assumed. The goal of this chapter is to introduce this emerging approach to dialectology. The first part of this chapter reviews the growing body of research that analyzes dialect variation in corpora, including research on variation across nations, regions, genders, ages, and classes, in both speech and writing, and from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective, with a focus on dialect variation in the English language. Although collections of language data elicited through interviews and questionnaires are now commonly referred to as corpora in sociolinguistics and dialectology (e.g. see Bauer 2002; Tagliamonte 2006; Kretzschmar et al. 2006; D'Arcy 2011), this review focuses on corpora of naturally occurring texts and discourse. The second part of this chapter presents the results of an analysis of variation in not contraction across region, gender, and time in a corpus of American English letters to the editor in order to exemplify a corpus-based approach to dialectology.

The impact of regulation and ownership structure on market orientation in the tourism industry in China

The nature of market orientation and its impact on business performance and other related outcomes have been extensively researched in a range of service contexts including tourism. In contrast, our understanding of the factors that influence market orientation is still limited. This paper reports on a study that contributes to our understanding of the determinants of market orientation within the tourism sector by focusing specifically on the role played by two strategically important variables, namely government regulation and ownership structure. The study analyses two national samples of hotels and travel services in the rapidly growing tourism industry in China. The hotel sector has been open to foreign investment for two decades and has a diversified ownership structure, whereas the travel services sector has been dominated by government owned firms and relatively closed to foreign investment. The results of the survey suggest that of the two new antecedents, only government regulation has a significant role to play in driving market orientation. Internally, access to appropriate managerial and marketing capabilities was identified as a significant predictor of the development of market orientation.

The return of the Prince of Denmark: a survey on recent developments in the economics of innovation

It is well known that innovation is the engine that drives the growth machine of modern capitalist economies. Therefore, not surprisingly, substantial attention has been devoted by economists to the process behind the production of innovations. Three areas have recently emerged as relevant in the field. These are: the impact of spillovers on productivity; the different forms of R&D cooperation and the role of patents in fostering innovations when these are cumulative. In this paper I summarise the relevant literature in these three areas by discussing where the current literature stands and what are its future developments.