Experimental confirmation of transformation pathways between inverse double diamond and gyroid cubic phases

A macroscopically oriented double diamond inverse bicontinuous cubic phase (QIID) of the lipid glycerol monooleate is reversibly converted into a gyroid phase (QIIG). The initial QIID phase is prepared in the form of a film coating the inside of a capillary, deposited under flow, which produces a sample uniaxially oriented with a ⟨110⟩ axis parallel to the symmetry axis of the sample. A transformation is induced by replacing the water within the capillary tube with a solution of poly(ethylene glycol), which draws water out of the QIID sample by osmotic stress. This converts the QIID phase into a QIIG phase with two coexisting orientations, with the ⟨100⟩ and ⟨111⟩ axes parallel to the symmetry axis, as demonstrated by small-angle X-ray scattering. The process can then be reversed, to recover the initial orientation of QIID phase. The epitaxial relation between the two oriented mesophases is consistent with topologypreserving geometric pathways that have previously been hypothesized for the transformation. Furthermore, this has implications for the production of macroscopically oriented QIIG phases, in particular with applications as nanomaterial templates.

Proceedings of the 10th international conference on disability, virtual reality and associated technologies (ICDVRAT 2014)

The proceedings of the conference

Are we there yet? Exploring empowerment at the microscale in the South African wine industry

Empowerment is a standard but ambiguous element of development rhetoric and so, through the socially complex and contested terrain of South Africa, this paper explores its potential to contribute to inclusive development. Investigating micro-level engagements with the national strategy of Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) in the South African wine industry highlights the limitations, but also potential, of this single domain approach. However, latent paternalism, entrenched interests and a ‘dislocated blackness’ maintain a complex racial politics that shapes both power relations and the opportunities for transformation within the industry. Nonetheless, while B-BBEE may not, in reality, be broad-based its manifestations are contributing to challenging racist structures and normalising changing attitudes. This paper concludes that, to be transformative, empowerment needs to be re-embedded within South Africa as a multi-scalar, multi-dimensional dialogue and, despite the continuation of structural constraints, positions the local as a critical scale at which to initiate broader social change.

Cognitive and environmental factors influencing the process of spatial knowledge acquisition within virtual reality environments

As the fidelity of virtual environments (VE) continues to increase, the possibility of using them as training platforms is becoming increasingly realistic for a variety of application domains, including military and emergency personnel training. In the past, there was much debate on whether the acquisition and subsequent transfer of spatial knowledge from VEs to the real world is possible, or whether the differences in medium during training would essentially be an obstacle to truly learning geometric space. In this paper, the authors present various cognitive and environmental factors that not only contribute to this process, but also interact with each other to a certain degree, leading to a variable exposure time requirement in order for the process of spatial knowledge acquisition (SKA) to occur. The cognitive factors that the authors discuss include a variety of individual user differences such as: knowledge and experience; cognitive gender differences; aptitude and spatial orientation skill; and finally, cognitive styles. Environmental factors discussed include: Size, Spatial layout complexity and landmark distribution. It may seem obvious that since every individual's brain is unique - not only through experience, but also through genetic predisposition that a one size fits all approach to training would be illogical. Furthermore, considering that various cognitive differences may further emerge when a certain stimulus is present (e.g. complex environmental space), it would make even more sense to understand how these factors can impact spatial memory, and to try to adapt the training session by providing visual/auditory cues as well as by changing the exposure time requirements for each individual. The impact of this research domain is important to VE training in general, however within service and military domains, guaranteeing appropriate spatial training is critical in order to ensure that disorientation does not occur in a life or death scenario.

Societal transformation in response to global environmental change: a review of emerging concepts

The study of societal transformation in response to environmental change has become established, yet little consensus exists regarding the conceptual basis of transformation. This paper aims to provide structure to the dialog on transformation, and to reflect on the challenges of social research in this area. Concepts of transformation are identified through a literature review, and examined using four analytical criteria. It is found that the term ‘transformation’ is frequently used merely as a metaphor. When transformation is not used as a metaphor, eight concepts are most frequently employed. They differ with respect to (i) system conceptualization, (ii) notions of social consciousness (deliberate/emergent), and (iii) outcome (prescriptive/descriptive). Problem-based research tends to adopt concepts of deliberate transformation with prescriptive outcome, while concepts of emergent transformation with no prescriptive outcome tend to inform descriptive-analytical research. Dialog around the complementarities of different concepts and their empirical testing are priorities for future research.

Time-dependent gel to gel transformation of a peptide based supramolecular gelator

A dipeptide with a long fatty acid chain at its N-terminus gives hydrogels in phosphate buffer in the pH range 7.0–8.5. The hydrogel with a gelator concentration of 0.45% (w/v) at pH 7.46 (physiological pH) provides a very good platform to study dynamic changes within a supramolecular framework as it exhibits remarkable change in its appearance with time. Interestingly, the first formed transparent hydrogel gradually transforms into a turbid gel within 2 days. These two forms of the hydrogel have been thoroughly investigated by using small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), field emission scanning electron microscopic (FE-SEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopic (HR-TEM) imaging, FT-IR and rheometric analyses. The SAXS and low angle PXRD studies substantiate different packing arrangements for the gelator molecules for these two different gel states (the freshly prepared and the aged hydrogel). Moreover, rheological studies of these two gels reveal that the aged gel is stiffer than the freshly prepared gel.

Using high-fidelity virtual reality to study perception in freely moving observers

Technological innovations have had a profound influence on how we study the sensory perception in humans and other animals. One example was the introduction of affordable computers, which radically changed the nature of visual experiments. It is clear that vision research is now at cusp of a similar shift, this time driven by the use of commercially available, low-cost, high- fidelity virtual reality (VR). In this review we will focus on: (a) the research questions VR allows experimenters to address and why these research questions are important, (b) the things that need to be considered when using VR to study human perception, (c) the drawbacks of current VR systems, and (d) the future direction vision research may take, now that VR has become a viable research tool.

Transformation through translation: translation policies at Amnesty International

International non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are powerful political players who aim to influence global society. In order to be effective on a global scale, they must communicate their goals and achievements in different languages. Translation and translation policy play an essential role here. Despite NGOs’ important position in politics and society, not much is known about how these organisations, who often have limited funds available, organise their translation work. This study aims to contribute to Translation Studies, and more specifically to investigating institutional translation, by exploring translation policies at Amnesty International, one of the most successful and powerful human rights NGOs around the world. Translation policy is understood as comprising three components: translation management, translation practices, and translation beliefs, based on Spolsky’s study of language policy (2004). The thesis investigates how translation is organised and what kind of policies different Amnesty offices have in place, and how this is reflected in their translation products. The thesis thus also pursues how translation and translation policy impact on the organisation’s message and voice as it is spread around the world. An ethnographic approach is used for the analysis of various data sets that were collected during fieldwork. These include policy documents, guidelines on writing and translation, recorded interviews, e-mail correspondence, and fieldnotes. The thesis at first explores Amnesty’s global translation policy, and then presents the results of a comparative analysis of local translation policies at two concrete institutions: Amnesty International Language Resource Centre in Paris (AILRC-FR) and Amnesty International Vlaanderen (AIVL). A corpus of English source texts and Dutch (AIVL) and French (AILRC-FR) target texts are analysed. The findings of the analysis of translation policies and of the translation products are then combined to illustrate how translation impacts on Amnesty’s message and voice. The research results show that there are large differences in how translation is organised depending on the local office and the language(s), and that this also influences the way in which Amnesty’s message and voice are represented. For Dutch and French specifically, translation policies and translation products differ considerably. The thesis describes how these differences are often the result of different beliefs and assumptions relating to translation, and that staff members within Amnesty are not aware of the different conceptions of translation that exist within Amnesty International as a formal institution. Organising opportunities where translation can be discussed (meetings, workshops, online platforms) can help in reducing such differences. The thesis concludes by suggesting that an increased awareness of these issues will enable Amnesty to make more effective use of translation in its fight against human rights violations.

Experimental evidence for proposed transformation pathway from the inverse hexagonal to inverse diamond cubic phase from oriented lipid samples

A macroscopically oriented inverse hexagonal phase (HII) of the lipid phytantriol in water is converted to an oriented inverse double diamond bicontinuous cubic phase (QIID). The initial HII phase is uniaxially oriented about the long axis of a capillary with the cylinders parallel to the capillary axis. The HII phase is converted by cooling to a QII D phase which is also highly oriented, where the cylindrical axis of the former phase has been converted to a ⟨110⟩ axis in the latter, as demonstrated by small-angle X-ray scattering. This epitaxial relationship allows us to discriminate between two competing proposed geometric pathways to convert HII to QIID. Our findings also suggest a new route to highly oriented cubic phase coatings, with applications as nanomaterial templates.