Experimental Moments: R.U.R. and the Birth of British Television Science Fiction

Drawing on material from the BBC Written Archive Centre, this article examines the earliest sf dramas broadcast by the BBC Television Service: two adaptations of Karel Capek's "R.U.R." ("Rossum's Universal Robots") from 1938 and 1948. These productions are used as sites of formal experimentation with the possibilities of the new medium, representing one aspect of contemporary debates about the purpose of television and the style it would assume.

Weighing China’s export basket: The domestic content and technology intensity of Chinese exports

In this paper we use new, detailed, and comprehensive linked firm-transaction data to measure the domestic content and technology intensity of Chinese exports over the period 2000–2007. We evaluate the extent of value-added in China’s exports, using a modification of a method proposed by Hummels et al. (2001) which takes into account the prevalence of processing firms. In addition, we provide new estimates of the skill-and technology-intensity of China’s exports. Our estimates of value-added suggest that the domestic content of China’s exports increased from only 53% to about 60% over the period 2003–2006. Our cross-firm analysis reveals that processing exporters have value-added shares approximately 50% lower than non-processing exporters, even after accounting for ownership, location, and industry. We also show that Chinese exports have become increasingly sophisticated, largely driven by skill and technology improvement within industries.

High Percentage Inorganic Arsenic Content of Mining Impacted and Nonimpacted Chinese Rice

Two approaches were undertaken to characterize the arsenic (As) content of Chinese rice. First, a national market basket survey (n = 240) was conducted in provincial capitals, sourcing grain from China's premier rice production areas. Second, to reflect rural diets, paddy rice (n = 195) directly from farmers fields were collected from three regions in Hunan, a key rice producing province located in southern China. Two of the sites were within mining and smeltery districts, and the third was devoid of large-scale metal processing industries. Arsenic levels were determined in all the samples while a subset (n = 33) were characterized for As species, using a new simple and rapid extraction method suitable for use with Hamilton PRP-X100 anion exchange columns and HPLC-ICP-MS. The vast majority (85%) of the market rice grains possessed total As levels <150 ng g(-1). The rice collected from mine-impacted regions, however, were found to be highly enriched in As, reaching concentrations of up to 624 ng g(-1). Inorganic As (As(i)) was the predominant species detected in all of the speciated grain, with As(i) levels in some samples exceeding 300 ng g(-1). The As(i) concentration in polished and unpolished Chinese rice was successfully predicted from total As levels. The mean baseline concentrations for As(i) in Chinese market rice based on this survey were estimated to be 96 ng g(-1) while levels in mine-impacted areas were higher with ca. 50% of the rice in one region predicted to fail the national standard.

Vasorelaxin: A Novel Arterial Smooth Muscle-Relaxing Eicosapeptide from the Skin Secretion of the Chinese Piebald Odorous Frog (Odorrana schmackeri)

The defensive skin secretions of amphibians are a rich resource for the discovery of novel, bioactive peptides. Here we report the identification of a novel vascular smooth muscle-relaxing peptide, named vasorelaxin, from the skin secretion of the Chinese piebald odorous frog, Odorrana schmackeri. Vasorelaxin consists of 20 amino acid residues, SRVVKCSGFRPGSPDSREFC, with a disulfide-bridge between Cys-6 and Cys-20. The structure of its biosynthetic precursor was deduced from cloned skin cDNA and consists of 67 amino acid residues encoding a single copy of vasorelaxin (vasorelaxin, accession number: HE860494). Synthetic vasorelaxin caused a profound relaxation of rat arterial smooth muscle with an EC50 of 6.76 nM.

Le survivant de la Shoah face au texte de fiction: un écran protecteur ou un écran projecteur? L’exemple d’Anna Langfus

La terminologie ‘écriture écran’ est souvent utilisée dans un sens proche de celui que lui donne Annie Ernaux lorsqu’elle écrit que ‘la fiction protège’ en permettant à un auteur de dire tout en gardant le lecteur à distance. Pourtant, de Blanchot à Genette, de nombreux critiques ont souligné que le texte est par essence un espace qui n’existe que dans et par cet échange, le lecteur – surtout dans le cas des textes de fiction – devant s’investir, se projeter dans le texte lu. Le texte de fiction serait-il donc un écran protecteur pour celui qui tient la plume et un écran projecteur pour celui qui tient le livre ? En nous basant principalement sur des textes de la psychanalyste Rachel Rosenblum et de l’auteure et survivante de la Shoah Anna Langfus, nous suggèrerons que, pour l’auteur comme pour le lecteur, le texte de fiction est à la fois un écran protecteur et un écran projecteur, ces deux fonctions étant étroitement liées et nullement contradictoires. Nous montrerons en effet qu’aucun genre n’est a priori protecteur puisque c’est l’acte de lecture ou d’écriture qui peut se transformer en morbide compulsion de répétition quand la mémoire d’un lecteur ou d’un auteur est devenue pathologique.