An introductory perspective to horticulture: plants for people and places

Horticulture is “the first of all the arts and sciences”. This definition indicates both the breadth and depth of the discipline and its early inception as mankind changed from being hunter-gatherers to cultivators. Intensive crop production which is a form of horticulture preceded more extensive agricultural practices. From that time onwards the intricate involvement of horticulture in man’s life has become very apparent by its multitude of applications and the interests of those involved. These extend from the provision of foodstuffs and nutritional benefits through pharmaceuticals to aspects of rest and relaxation onto encouraging physical and mental well-being. Horticulture is therefore, a discipline with many components and as such that it can mean different things in the varying context of its use. This chapter introduces the meanings of horticulture as expressed by the authors who have contributed to this Trilogy of Books. They have analysed in considerable depth “Horticulture” as expressed in its facets of production, environment and society. Horticulture has impact and expression in each of these fields of human activity. This chapter also sets Horticulture into the wider context of the world of plants and their intensive cultivation both in their use by mankind and in the natural world. The aim is to demonstrate the depth and breadth of human activity associated with this discipline for it stretches from crop production, through landscape design and maintenance and into aspects of society and its expression in the arts and humanities. Horticulture touches almost every aspect of human activity. Increasingly Horticulture has significant importance in contributing towards the mitigation of the major problems which now face life on Earth such as:- climate change, food security, the loss of natural biodiversity, pollution, resource erosion and over-population. Indeed despite or perhaps because of its antiquity and therefore its strong connection between science, technology and practice horticulture can offer solutions that might allude other disciplines.

Geography, skills and careers patterns at the boundary of creativity & innovation: digital technology and creative arts graduates in the UK

In the last decades, research on knowledge economies has taken central stage. Within this broader research field, research on the role of digital technologies and the creative industries has become increasingly important for researchers, academics and policy makers with particular focus on their development, supply-chains and models of production. Furthermore, many have recognised that, despite the important role played by digital technologies and innovation in the development of the creative industries, these dynamics are hard to capture and quantify. Digital technologies are embedded in the production and market structures of the creative industries and are also partially distinct and discernible from it. They also seem to play a key role in innovation of access and delivery of creative content. This chapter tries to assess the role played by digital technologies focusing on a key element of their implementation and application: human capital. Using student micro-data collected by the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) in the United Kingdom, we explore the characteristics and location patterns of graduates who entered the creative industries, specifically comparing graduates in the creative arts and graduates from digital technology subjects. We highlight patterns of geographical specialisation but also how different context are able to better integrate creativity and innovation in their workforce. The chapter deals specifically with understanding whether these skills are uniformly embedded across the creative sector or are concentrated in specific sub-sectors of the creative industries. Furthermore, it explores the role that these graduates play in different sub-sector of the creative economy, their economic rewards and their geographical determinants.

Socio-cultural Degeneration and State Patronage of the Arts: Mapplethorpe, Cultural Crisis, and the NEA

The goal of this paper is to investigate how the Untied States federal government, specifically through the National Endowment for the Arts, or NEA, has acted in the position of an arts patron in the past few decades. Specifically, this paper will focus on the past decade and a half since the 'arts crisis' of the late 1980s and the social and political backlash against the art community in the 1990s, which was only against ‘offensive’ art that was seen as morally and culturally corruptive. I explore the political, social, and economic forms the backlash took, particularly rooted in a perceived fear of degenerative arts as a corruption of and a catalyst for the eventual collapse of American culture and values. Additionally, I analyse the role the federal government played in ‘ameliorating’ the situation. I investigate how state arts patronage has affected and continues to affect both the concepts behind and the manifestations of art, as well as who is encouraged, sanctioned, or neglected in the production of art. To accomplish this, I explore how and why the federal government employs the arts to define and redefine morality and culture, and how does it express/allow the expressions of these through art.

Gamearte e o caminho da espada

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

New readers, new reading skills and meaning: challenges for media and information literacy

Recognizing the importance of developing the information and media literacy in contemporary society, this article discusses the scenario of hybrid languages born on cyberspace, hypertext and the new types of readers who interact with information, now disseminated by digital media. As theoretical references authors such as Lucia Santaella, we develop arguments that present the headquarters of language and thought within a semiotic support. Matrices help to understand the phenomenon of hybrid language in hypertext. Therefore, we emphasize that the development of skills associated with the new reading environments propitiated by the virtual environment requires the understanding of language, which is one of the concepts used within the media and information literacy (MIL) proposal of Unesco, which combines the two concepts and skills of information and media literacy. It is hoped that this article motivate scholars and practitioners of education and information to take responsibility to educate for information environments that arise with new media and technologies, emphasizing the issue of reading and language.

“PROVINCIALISM, PICKING SIDES AND BIAS: EFFECTS OF GEOGRAPHY ON MEDIA COVERAGE OF CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, 2005-10.”

The development of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton has prompted diverse coverage from print and online media. This investigation looked at trends in news stories and commentary from 2005-10 to show how the location of a medium affected coverage. Through the author’s own observations and interviews with journalists and other interested parties, several trends emerged. Media outlets outside Arkansas portrayed the museum as trying to plunder the cultural heritage of local communities and relied partly on the museum’s association with Wal-Mart and stereotypes of Arkansas to frame coverage. Arkansas media, faced with limited cooperation from the museum’s public relations apparatus, typically played a cheerleader role, at times overemphasizing the importance of the collection in the art world and showcasing few critical voices in stories about acquisitions and other areas of the museum’s development.

Integrating Visual and Verbal Literacies in the Early Childhood Classroom

Young children have the strong desire to use all of the communicative tools their cultures and families offer them. They want to be able to do all of the things that the powerful people they admire can do, including talking, writing, drawing, using the computer, and otherwise creating and sharing ideas, memories, solutions, even jokes and feelings. Today, we live in a time when the communicative tools are changing rapidly, practically exploding before our eyes in terms of the formats and media available to us in complex combinations not seen before. What do these technological changes mean for how we can support children's development toward literacy? An integrated arts curriculum has long been favored by many educators, but today there are more reasons than ever to implement such a philosophy. From communications theory comes a new understanding of how modern technologies demand that children learn to "read" and "write" messages involving complex combinations and integrations of visual and verbal formats. From psychology come insights about intelligence being multiple not unitary, as well as ecological perception theory offering a well-accepted framework for analyzing the affordances and expressive possibilities of different media. From education come fresh approaches to integrated curriculum, including a philosophy and pedagogy from Reggio Emilia, Italy, that combines well with current thinking by North Americans. Altogether, we have many rationales and exciting strategies at hand for launching young children toward an integrated visual and verbal literacy that involves substance, challenge, and discipline, as well as innovation, creativity, and freedom.

Building an Interdisciplinary Academic Center: Opportunities and Illusions

This presentation will discuss the personal opportunities available to people of color to build university-wide interdisciplinary centers and the obstacles inherent in doing so. I Professor Smith will discuss the opportunities and obstacles involved in working with faculty members, department chairs, and deans to accomplish an interdisciplinary mission.

Endophytic fungi from the Amazonian plant Paullinia cupana and from Olea europaea isolated using cassava as an alternative starch media source

Endophytic fungi live inside plants, apparently do not cause any harm to their hosts and may play important roles in defense and growth promotion. Fungal growth is a routine practice at microbiological laboratories, and the Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) is the most frequently used medium because it is a rich source of starch. However, the production of potatoes in some regions of the world can be costly. Aiming the development of a new medium source to tropical countries, in the present study, we used leaves from the guarana (a tropical plant from the Amazon region) and the olive (which grows in subtropical and temperate regions) to isolate endophytic fungi using PDA and Manihot Dextrose Agar (MDA). Cassava (Manihot esculenta) was evaluated as a substitute starch source. For guarana, the endophytic incidence (EI) was 90% and 98% on PDA and MDA media, respectively, and 65% and 70% for olive, respectively. The fungal isolates were sequenced using the ITS- rDNA region. The fungal identification demonstrated that the isolates varied according to the host plant and media source. In the guarana plant, 13 fungal genera were found using MDA and six were found using PDA. In the olive plant, six genera were obtained using PDA and 4 were obtained using MDA. The multivariate analysis results demonstrated the highest fungal diversity from guarana when using MDA medium. Interestingly, some genera were isolated from one specific host or in one specific media, suggesting the importance of these two factors in fungal isolation specificity. Thus, this study indicated that cassava is a feasible starch source that could serve as a potential alternative medium to potato medium.

Das neue digitale ‚Shakespeare-Bildarchiv Oppel-Hammerschmidt‘ an der Universitätsbibliothek Mainz : Reden und Beiträge anlässlich seiner öffentlichen Vorstellung am 17. November 2008 an der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

On the basis of illustrations of Shakespeare's Hamlet, the new digital 'Oppel-Hammerschmidt Shakespeare Illustration Archive' at the Mainz University Library - together with a lavishly-constructed and multiply-linked Web interface version - was presented to the public on 17 November 2008. This e-book, edited by Andreas Anderhub and Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, contains the speeches and presentations given on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the electronic archive. The collection of the new archive, published here for the first time, holds about 3,500 images and is part of the only Shakespeare illustration archive in the world. The Shakespeare Illustration Archive was founded in 1946 by the internationally acclaimed Shakespeare and Goethe scholar, Prof. Horst Oppel. This part of the archive was donated to the Mainz University Library on condition that its holdings be digitalised and made available to the public. The collection has been named 'The Oppel-Hammerschmidt Shakespeare Illustration Archive' in accordance with the terms of the Agreement of Donation of 9, 15, and 16 September 2005, and honouring the 16 March 1988 Delegation of Authority and Declaration of Intent by Frau Ingeborg Oppel, Prof. Oppel's widow and legal assignee. Vice-President Prof. Jürgen Oldenstein opened the proceedings by noting that 2008 had been a good year for international Shakespeare scholarship. For, in London, the site of the 'Theatre' in Shoreditch, where Shakespeare's company performed, had been unearthed, and in Mainz the Shakespeare Archive had gone online with thousands of illustrations. The Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Philology, Prof. Mechthild Dreyer, who mentioned that she herself had long been successfully employing interdisciplinary research methods, took particular pleasure in the transdisciplinary approach to research resolutely pursued by Prof. Hammerschmidt-Hummel. Prof. Clemens Zintzen (Cologne), former President of the Mainz Academy of Literature and Sciences, recalled highlights from the more than sixty-year-long history of the Shakespeare Illustration Archive. Prof. Kurt Otten (Heidelberg and Cambridge) drew an impressive portrait of Horst Oppel's personality as an academic and praised his influential books on Goethe and Shakespeare. He pointed out that Oppel's Shakespeare Illustration Archive, the basis for many a dissertation, had enjoyed great popularity around the world. Prof. Otten also delineated the academic career of Prof. Hammerschmidt-Hummel and her new findings regarding Shakespeare's time, life and work. Prof. Rüdiger Ahrens OBE (Würzburg) drew attention to Prof. Hammerschmidt-Hummel's research results, directly or indirectly arising out of her work on the Shakespeare Illustration Archive. This research had centred on proving the authenticity of four visual representations of Shakespeare (the Chandos and Flower portraits, the Davenant bust and the Darmstadt Shakespeare death mask); solving the mystery around Shakespeare's 'Dark Lady'; and establishing the dramatist's Catholic religion. Prof. Hammerschmidt-Hummel reported on her 'Shakespeare Illustration' project, describing the nature, dimensions and significance of the Archive's pictorial material, which relates to all of Shakespeare's plays and stretches over five centuries. She explained that the digital 'Oppel-Hammerschmidt Illustration Archive' was an addition to the three-volume edition she had compiled, authored and edited for publication in 2003. Unlike the print version, however, the digital collection had only been partly editorially prepared. It represented source material and a basis for further work. Hammerschmidt-Hummel expressed her thanks to the Head of the Central University Library, Dr Andreas Anderhub, for his untiring commitment. After the initial donation had been made, he had entered enthusiastically into setting up the necessary contacts, getting all the work underway, and clearing the legal hurdles. Hammerschmidt-Hummel was especially grateful to University of Mainz librarian Heike Geisel, who had worked for nearly five years to carry out the large-scale digitalization of a total of 8,800 items. Frau Geisel was also extremely resourceful in devising ways of making the collection yield even more, e.g. by classifying and cross-linking the data, assembling clusters of individual topics that lend themselves to research, and (in collaboration with the art historian Dr Klaus Weber) making the archive's index of artists compatible with the data-bank of artists held by the University of Mainz Institute of Art History. In addition, she compiled an extremely helpful 'users' guide' to the new digital collection. Frau Geisel had enjoyed invaluable support from Dr Annette Holzapfel-Pschorn, the leading academic in the Central IT Department at the University, who set up an intelligent, most impressive Web interface using the latest application technologies. Frau Geisel and Dr Holzapfel-Pschorn were highly praised for their convincing demonstration, using illustrations to Hamlet, of how to access this well-devised and exceptionally user-friendly Web version. For legal reasons, Prof. Hammerschmidt-Hummel pointed out, the collection could not be released for open access on the internet. The media - as Dr Anderhub stressed in his foreword - had shown great interest in the new digital collection of thousands of Shakespearean illustrations (cf. Benjamin Cor's TV feature in "Tagesthemen", 17 November 2008, presented by Tom Buhrow). The ‘Oppel-Hammerschmidt Shakespeare Illustration Archive’ should also meet with particular interest not only among academic specialists, but also among the performers of the arts and persons active in the cultural realm in general, as well as theatre and film directors, literary managers, teachers, and countless Shakespeare enthusiasts.

Ravenna e i piu' significativi centri dell'Impero. Il mosaico parietale tra V e VI secolo: Revisione critica

Tra il V ed il VI secolo, la città di Ravenna, per tre volte capitale, emerge fra i più significativi centri dell’impero, fungendo da cerniera tra Oriente e Occidente, soprattutto grazie ai mosaici parietali degli edifici di culto, perfettamente inseriti in una koinè culturale e artistica che ha come comune denominatore il Mar Mediterraneo, nel contesto di parallele vicende storiche e politiche. Rispetto ai ben noti e splendidi mosaici ravennati, che insieme costituiscono senza dubbio un unicum nel panorama artistico dell’età tardoantica e altomedievale, nelle decorazioni musive parietali dei coevi edifici di culto dei diversi centri dell’impero d’Occidente e d’Oriente, e in particolare in quelli localizzati nelle aree costiere, si possono cogliere divergenze, ma anche simmetrie dal punto di vista iconografico, iconologico e stilistico. Sulla base della letteratura scientifica e attraverso un poliedrico esame delle superfici musive parietali, basato su una metodologia interdisciplinare, si è cercato di chiarire l’articolato quadro di relazioni culturali, ideologiche ed artistiche che hanno interessato e interessano tuttora Ravenna e i vari centri della tarda antichità, insistendo sulla pluralità, sulla complessità e sulla confluenza di diverse esperienze artistiche sui mosaici di Ravenna. A tale scopo, i dati archeologici e artistici sono stati integrati con quelli storici, agiografici ed epigrafici, con opportuni collegamenti all’architettura, alla scultura, alle arti decorative e alle miniature, a testimonianza dell’unità di intenti di differenti media artistici, orientati, pur nella diversità, verso le medesime finalità dogmatiche, politiche e celebrative. Si tratta dunque di uno studio di revisione e di sintesi sui mosaici parietali mediterranei di V e VI secolo, allo scopo di aggiungere un nuovo tassello alla già pur vasta letteratura dedicata all’argomento.

Essays in Media and Finance

This Ph.D. thesis consists in three research papers focused on the relationship between media industry and the financial sector. The importance of a correct understanding what is the effect of media on financial markets is becoming increasingly important as long as fully informed markets hypothesis has been challenged. Therefore, if financial markets do not have access to complete information, the importance of information professionals, the media, follows. On the other side, another challenge for economic and finance scholar is to understand how financial features are able to influence media and to condition information disclosure. The main aim of this Ph.D. dissertation is to contribute to a better comprehension for both the phenomena. The first paper analyzes the effects of owning equity shares in a newspaper- publishing firm. The main findings show how for a firm being part of the ownership structure of a media firm ends to receive more and better coverage. This confirms the view in which owning a media outlet is a source of conflicts of interest. The second paper focuses on the effect of media-delivered information on financial markets. In the framework of IPO in the U.S. market, we found empirical evidence of a significant effect of the media role in the IPO pricing. Specifically, increasing the quantity and the quality of the coverage increases the first-day returns (i.e. the underpricing). Finally the third paper tries to summarize what has been done in studying the relationship between media and financial industries, putting together contributes from economic, business, and financial scholars. The main finding of this dissertation is therefore to have underlined the importance and the effectiveness of the relationship between media industry and the financial sector, contributing to the stream of research that investigates about the media role and media effectiveness in the financial and business sectors.

Place for video games : a theoretical and pedagogical framework for multiliteracies learning in English studies

Students are now involved in a vastly different textual landscape than many English scholars, one that relies on the “reading” and interpretation of multiple channels of simultaneous information. As a response to these new kinds of literate practices, my dissertation adds to the growing body of research on multimodal literacies, narratology in new media, and rhetoric through an examination of the place of video games in English teaching and research. I describe in this dissertation a hybridized theoretical basis for incorporating video games in English classrooms. This framework for textual analysis includes elements from narrative theory in literary study, rhetorical theory, and literacy theory, and when combined to account for the multiple modalities and complexities of gaming, can provide new insights about those theories and practices across all kinds of media, whether in written texts, films, or video games. In creating this framework, I hope to encourage students to view texts from a meta-level perspective, encompassing textual construction, use, and interpretation. In order to foster meta-level learning in an English course, I use specific theoretical frameworks from the fields of literary studies, narratology, film theory, aural theory, reader-response criticism, game studies, and multiliteracies theory to analyze a particular video game: World of Goo. These theoretical frameworks inform pedagogical practices used in the classroom for textual analysis of multiple media. Examining a video game from these perspectives, I use analytical methods from each, including close reading, explication, textual analysis, and individual elements of multiliteracies theory and pedagogy. In undertaking an in-depth analysis of World of Goo, I demonstrate the possibilities for classroom instruction with a complex blend of theories and pedagogies in English courses. This blend of theories and practices is meant to foster literacy learning across media, helping students develop metaknowledge of their own literate practices in multiple modes. Finally, I outline a design for a multiliteracies course that would allow English scholars to use video games along with other texts to interrogate texts as systems of information. In doing so, students can hopefully view and transform systems in their own lives as audiences, citizens, and workers.

New media reading strategy

This dissertation addresses the need for a strategy that will help readers new to new media texts interpret such texts. While scholars in multimodal and new media theory posit rubrics that offer ways to understand how designers use the materialities and media found in overtly designed, new media texts (see, e.g,, Wysocki, 2004a), these strategies do not account for how readers have to make meaning from those texts. In this dissertation, I discuss how these theories, such as Lev Manovich’s (2001) five principles for determining the new media potential of texts and Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen’s (2001) four strata of designing multimodal texts, are inadequate to the job of helping readers understand new media from a rhetorical perspective. I also explore how literary theory, specifically Wolfgang Iser’s (1978) description of acts of interpretation, can help audiences understand why readers are often unable to interpret the multiple, unexpected modes of communication used in new media texts. Rhetorical theory, explored in a discussion of Sonja Foss’s (2004) units of analysis, is helpful in bringing the reader into a situated context with a new media text, although these units of analysis, like Iser’s process, suggests that a reader has some prior experience interpreting a text-as-artifact. Because of this assumption of knowledge put forth by all of the theories explored within, I argue that none alone is useful to help readers engage with and interpret new media texts. However, I argue that a heuristic which combines elements from each of these theories, as well as additional ones, is more useful for readers who are new to interpreting the multiple modes of communication that are often used in unconventional ways in new media texts. I describe that heuristic in the final chapter and discuss how it can be useful to a range of texts besides those labelled new media.

Reactions of African immigrants living in Houston, Texas, to the American media and legislation regarding female circumcision

Female circumcision was almost unheard of in the United States a few years ago. The recent influx of African immigrants has increased media attention to the subject, leading to laws criminalizing female circumcision. This study examines the reactions of African immigrants living in Houston, Texas, to media portrayal and legislation regarding female circumcision in an attempt to understand the effectiveness of U.S. laws, and media messages in deterring the practice. ^ Through literature reviews the study looks at how female circumcision is portrayed in the Houston Chronicle, and gives detailed discussion of laws regarding it. Attitudes, beliefs, experiences and reactions of African immigrants towards the practice and American's perceptions of female circumcision is examined via a series of case studies. ^ Data show that media and laws portray female circumcision negatively and make little attempt to understand the cultural practice, generating outrage among Africans who would like to see changes in the practice. ^