The work of Media Arts in the age of digital production

This chapter uses as a beginning point Walter Benjamin’s famous essay ‘The work of art in the age of technological reproducibility’(1935/2008) to discuss Media Arts education. It locates ‘Media Arts’ at the intersection of three key ideas: 1) media arts products as objects for popular and everyday consumption and intervention by individuals and broader audiences; 2) materiality and how individuals use their bodies and technologies to produce, combine and share digital materials and; 3) the construction of aesthetic knowledge and how this relates to critical and conceptual thinking. These ideas are discussed in the context of the development of curriculum for students at all ages of schooling, with specific attention given to the knowledge and skills students might develop within Media Arts education in primary schools. Examples from a Media Arts project in a primary school in Australia – where a new Media Arts national curriculum has been developed –are provided to illustrate the key ideas discussed in the chapter.

John Andrews : Architecture a Performing Art

The distinguished Australian architect surveys his career and examines how his architectural theories are expressed in his designs.

Initial design and physical characterization of a polymeric device for osmosis-driven delayed burst delivery of vaccines

Achieving the combination of delayed and immediate release of a vaccine from a delivery device without applying external triggers remains elusive in implementing single administration vaccination strategies. Here a means of vaccine delivery is presented, which exploits osmosis to trigger delayed burst release of an active compound. Poly(-caprolactone) capsules of 2 mm diameter were prepared by dip-coating, and their burst pressure and release characteristics were evaluated. Burst pressures (in bar) increased with wall thickness (t in mm) following Pburst = 131.t + 3.4 (R2 = 0.93). Upon immersion in PBS, glucose solution-filled capsules burst after 8.7 ± 2.9 days. Copolymers of hydrophobic  -caprolactone and hydrophilic polyethylene glycol were synthesized and their physico-chemical properties were assessed. With increasing hydrophilic content, the copolymer capsules showed increased water uptake rates and maximum weight increase, while the burst release was earlier: 5.6 ± 2.0 days and 1.9 ± 0.2 days for 5 and 10 wt% polyethylene glycol, respectively. The presented approach enables the reproducible preparation of capsules with high versatility in materials and properties, while these vaccine delivery vehicles can be prepared separately from, and independently of the active compound.

Pesticide residues in food - acute dietary exposure

Consumer risk assessment is a crucial step in the regulatory approval of pesticide use on food crops. Recently, an additional hurdle has been added to the formal consumer risk assessment process with the introduction of short-term intake or exposure assessment and a comparable short-term toxicity reference, the acute reference dose. Exposure to residues during one meal or over one day is important for short-term or acute intake. Exposure in the short term can be substantially higher than average because the consumption of a food on a single occasion can be very large compared with typical long-term or mean consumption and the food may have a much larger residue than average. Furthermore, the residue level in a single unit of a fruit or vegetable may be higher by a factor (defined as the variability factor, which we have shown to be typically ×3 for the 97.5th percentile unit) than the average residue in the lot. Available marketplace data and supervised residue trial data are examined in an investigation of the variability of residues in units of fruit and vegetables. A method is described for estimating the 97.5th percentile value from sets of unit residue data. Variability appears to be generally independent of the pesticide, the crop, crop unit size and the residue level. The deposition of pesticide on the individual unit during application is probably the most significant factor. The diets used in the calculations ideally come from individual and household surveys with enough consumers of each specific food to determine large portion sizes. The diets should distinguish the different forms of a food consumed, eg canned, frozen or fresh, because the residue levels associated with the different forms may be quite different. Dietary intakes may be calculated by a deterministic method or a probabilistic method. In the deterministic method the intake is estimated with the assumptions of large portion consumption of a ‘high residue’ food (high residue in the sense that the pesticide was used at the highest recommended label rate, the crop was harvested at the smallest interval after treatment and the residue in the edible portion was the highest found in any of the supervised trials in line with these use conditions). The deterministic calculation also includes a variability factor for those foods consumed as units (eg apples, carrots) to allow for the elevated residue in some single units which may not be seen in composited samples. In the probabilistic method the distribution of dietary consumption and the distribution of possible residues are combined in repeated probabilistic calculations to yield a distribution of possible residue intakes. Additional information such as percentage commodity treated and combination of residues from multiple commodities may be incorporated into probabilistic calculations. The IUPAC Advisory Committee on Crop Protection Chemistry has made 11 recommendations relating to acute dietary exposure.

Irish Folklore Commission 1935-1970 : history, ideology, methodology

Between 1935 and 1970 the state-funded Irish Folklore Commission (Coimisiún Béaloideasa Éireann) assembled one of the great folklore collections of the world under the direction of Séamus Ó Duilearga (James Hamilton Delargy). The aim of this study is to recount and assess the work and achievement of this commission. The cultural, linguistic, political and ideological factors that had a bearing on the establishment and making permanent of the Commission and that impinged on many aspects of its work are here elucidated. The genesis of the Commission is traced and the vision and mission of Séamus Ó Duilearga are outlined. The negotiations that preceded the setting up of the Commission in 1935 as well as protracted efforts from 1940 to 1970 to place it on a permanent foundation are recounted and examined at length. All the various collecting programmes and other activities of the Commission are described in detail and many aspects of its work are assessed. This study also deals with the working methods and conditions of employment of the Commission s field and Head Office staff as well as with Séamus Ó Duilearga s direction of the Commission. In executing this work extensive use has been made of primary sources in archives and libraries in Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, and North America. This is the first major study of this world-famous institute, which has been praised in passing in numerous publications, but here for the first time its work and achievement are detailed comprehensively and subjected to scholarly scrutiny. This study should be of interest not only to students of Irish oral tradition but to folklorists everywhere. The history of the Irish Folklore Commission is a part of a wider history, that of the history of folkloristics in Europe and North America in particular. Moreover, this work has relevance for many areas of the developing world today, where conditions are not dissimilar to those that pertained in Ireland in the 1930's when this great salvage operation was funded by the young, independent Irish state. It is also hoped that this work will be of practical assistance to scholars and the general public when utilising these collections, and that furthermore it will stimulate research into the assembling of other national collections of folklore as well as into the history of folkloristics in other countries, subjects which in recent years are beginning to attract more and more scholarly attention.

Liian huono kansalaiseksi? : Kansalaisihanne sterilisaatioasiakirjoissa v. 1935-1949

Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan moderniin kansalaisuuteen sisältyneitä normeja ja ihanteita, joita analysoidaan vuoden 1935 sterilisaatiolain toteuttamisessa syntyneiden asiakirjojen kautta. Pyrkimyksenä on löytää asiakirjoihin implisiittisesti kirjatut hyvän elämän ja kansalaisuuden kriteerit. Työn laajemman kehyksen muodostaa suomalaisen modernisaation ja ns. uuden keskiluokan analyysi erityisesti lääketieteen ja huoltotoimen asiantuntijaviranomaisten avulla. Rotuhygienian tarkastelu avaa uuden väylän tutkia moderniin kansalaisuuteen liittyneitä määreitä. Rotuhygienia ja erityisesti sen käytäntöön soveltaminen sterilisaatiolain muodossa tarjoaa kansalaisuuden näkökulmalle konkreettisen ja fokusoidun tutkimuskohteen. Sterilisaatioasiakirjoissa kristallisoituu lääketieteellisin perustein tehty huonon kansalaisen määrittely. Tutkimus rakentuu kolmesta pääluvusta. Ensin käydään läpi vuoden 1935 sterilisaatiolain toteuttamista yleisesti aikaisemman tutkimuksen perusteella, minkä jälkeen tarkennetaan kuvaa otoksista saatujen tulosten avulla. Seuraavassa luvussa tarkastellaan hyvän elämän kriteerejä oikeanlaisen elämänkulun hahmottamisen avulla. Viimeinen pääluku keskittyy modernin kansalaisen muotokuvan rakentamiseen normeiksi määrittyvien fysionomisten ja seksuaalisten sekä luonne- ja älykkyysominaisuuksien palasilla. Normaali, terve kansalainen oli lapsesta asti sekä fyysisiltä että psyykkisiltä ominaisuuksiltaan normien mukaan kehittynyt. Hänessä ei ilmennyt diagnosoitavia häiriötiloja vaan hänen yksilöllinen elämänsä noudatti sisäsyntyistä "luonnollista" elämänkulkua. Fyysiseltä olemukseltaan ihannekansalainen oli sopusuhtainen, säännönmukainen ja mahdollisimman symmetrinen. Normaali kansalainen oli alistanut viettinsä rationaalin alle. Hän hallitsi tunteitaan ja elämäänsä järkevästi niitä itse tietoisesti ohjaillen. Seksuaaliviettinsä ihannekansalainen oli rajannut porvarillisen avioliiton alueelle, ja sielläkin sukupuolielämän tehtävänä oli reproduktio uusien kansalaisten tuottajana. Viettielämän hallitsemattomuus ja ylivalta suhteessa yksilön järjen tahtoon osoitti sisäsyntyistä rappiota, degeneraatiota, jolloin vajaan, epänormaalin yksilön elämä oli jäänyt lapsen tai lähes eläimen tasolle. Normaali kansalainen kulki jatkuvan yksilöllisen kehityksen polkua, jonka tarkoituksena oli saattaa atavistiset piirteet ja vietit järjen ja sivistyksen tuoman hallinnan alle.Ihannekansalaisen evolutionääriseen kehitykseen kuului valintojen tekeminen yhteneväisinä kansallisvaltion päämäärien kanssa. Hän kykeni elättämään itsensä ja perheensä mahdollisimman itsenäisesti muiden apuun turvautumatta. Hän eli kristillisten moraaliarvojen mukaisesti rehellisyydessä, säästäväisyydessä ja anteeksiannossa. Modernin ihannekansalaisen kasvatus alkoi kotona, jossa häntä oli hoidettu ja kasvatettu normien mukaisesti sekä oikeanlaisessa tunnesuhteessa äitiinsä. Indoktrinoiva kasvatus ja ohjaus ihannekansalaisuuteen jatkui koulussa. Tutkimukseni osoittaa kristilliseen opetukseen sisältyneiden arvojen ja moraalikäsitysten jatkumon objektiiviksi kutsutuissa moderneissa (luonnon-)tieteissä. Tieteen avulla perustellut käsitykset työnteosta, sukupuolimoraalista sekä auktoriteetin ylivallasta ovat verrattavissa luterilaisen opin sisältöihin. Avainsanat: Kansalainen, sterilisaatio, rotuhygienia, moderni keskiluokka, älykkyys

Konstruktiivisen linjakkuuden perusteita etsimässä : Systemaattinen analyysi John Biggsin esittämistä yliopisto-opetuksen lähtökohdista

The aim of this study is to explore by systematic textual analysis the crucial conceptions of constructive alignment and to reconstruct the concept of constructive alignment and examine the relation between conceptual relationships in John Biggs’s texts. In this study, I have also analyzed the presuppositions of the concept of constructive alignment and its possible implications. The research material includes Biggs’s (1996b; 2003) article entitled Enhancing Teaching through Constructive Alignment and book entitled Teaching for Quality Learning at University. The primary purpose of the systematic textual analysis is to reconstruct concepts and gain access to a new or more profound understanding of the concepts. The main purpose of the constructive alignment is to design a teaching system that supports and encourages students to adopt a deep approach learning. At the center of the constructive alignment are two concepts: constructivism in learning and alignment in teaching. A tension was detected between these concepts. Biggs assumes that students’ learning activities are primed by the teaching. Because of this it is not important what the teacher does. At the same time he emphasizes that teaching interacts with learning. The teacher’s task is to support student’s appropriate learning activities. On the basis of the analysis, I conclude these conceptions are not mutually exclusive. Interaction between teaching and learning has an effect on student’s learning activities. The most essential benefit of the model of constructive alignment is that Biggs brings together and considers teaching at the same level with learning. A weakness of Biggs’s model relates to the theoretical basis and positions of the concept of constructive alignment. There are some conflicts between conceptions of epistemology in Biggs’s texts. In addition, Biggs writes about constructivism also as conceptions of epistemology, but doesn’t consider implications of that position or what follows or doesn’t follow from that commitment. On the basis of the analysis, I suggest that constructivism refers in Biggs’s texts rather to constructivism in learning than philosophical constructivism. In light of this study, constructive alignment doesn´t lead to philosophical constructivism. That’s why constructive alignment stays out of idealism. Biggs’s way of thinking about teachers possibility to confronting students’ misconceptions and evaluate and assess students’ constructions support a realist purpose in terms of philosophical stance. Realism does not drift toward general problems of relativism, like lack of criteria for assessing or evaluate these constructions.

John and Ursula Schlosstein nee Gottschalk with their infant son Ralph. portraits family

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Tombstone for Fritz Gottschalk who died in an avalanche in 1935; Bothfeld Cemetery; Hannover.

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Tombstone for Fritz Gottschalk who died in an avalanche in 1935; Bothfeld Cemetery; Hannover.

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John Ettinger Collection 1941-1946

John Ettinger, 1987.

Juedischer Kulturbund concert conducted by Leo Kopf with volunteer choir and orchestra : Oranienburg Strasse Synagogue, Berlin.

Verso: "Oranienburg Strasse Synagogue, Berlin, c 1934-1935 (Winter). Concert w/ volunteer chorus and orchestral: Kulturbund conductor Leo Kopf. 1st man, front row (soloist) to right of podium is Julis Peissachowisch (changed name) John Hardt (went to Great Neck reform temple as cantor - had been cantor at Prinz Regenteastrasse, Berlin) ; Woman next to man (soloist) to right of podium is alto Paula Lindberg."