Reading of audiovisual productions of contemporary art in art education

This article focuses on the reading of audiovisual productions of contemporary art as a creative process, seeking to analyse which effects of meaning the articulations between the visual and sound systems produce, and the meaning that children give to then. It describes a video art, identifying the languages that compose it and the relationships that link them. Such reading exercise had as corpus of analysis the Chair video art, by Masaru Ozaki, and counted with the theoretical and methodological support of the discourse semiotics, especially with studies on assembly procedures that articulate visual and auditory languages. Also, it presents a focal study with the meanings that a group of children gave to the video art. The findings indicate the importance of including the reading of audiovisual productions of contemporary art at school through the problematization of effects of meaning produced by the interrelation between different languages. And they suggest some subsidies that allow teachers from different areas of knowledge to reflect about the visuality in their pedagogical practice; the choice of the audiovisual materials taken to the classroom and other ways of seeing these texts edited.

Implementing a resuscitation policy for patients at the end of life in an acute hospital setting: qualitative study

Objective : To explore attitudes and experiences of doctors and nurses regarding cardiopulmonary resuscitation for patients with end stage illness in an acute hospital. Design : Qualitative study; thematic analysis of two audio-taped focus groups and four semi-structured interviews. Setting : Acute district hospital, Northern Ireland. Participants : Seven nurses and nine doctors; varying nationality, gender and years of professional experience; involved in cardiopulmonary resuscitation decision-making. Results : Participants reported different interpretations of resuscitation policy and of what do not attempt to resuscitate (DNAR) decisions meant in relation to practical care for patients. This confusion in translating policy into practice contributed to communication difficulties in initiating, documenting and implementing cardiopulmonary resuscitation decisions. Participants were aware of how clinical conditions could change and reported uncertainty in determining end stage illness; they expressed fears of potential consequences of DNAR decisions for patients' care. The more disease-centred approach of doctors to patients' management, compared to nurses' more patient-centred approach, contributed to inter-professional conflict within teams. Doctors identified training needs in applying resuscitation policy and ethical principles in `real life' and nurses identified a need for ongoing professional support, which was perceived as being less available to junior doctors. Personal relationships between staff and patients, cultural reluctance to address sensitive issues and local community expectations of relatives being involved in decisions added to policy implementation difficulties. Conclusions : The findings indicate a need for ongoing staff support and training in applying resuscitation policy to decisions for patients with end stage illness in an acute hospital. They support suggestions that reviews of local resuscitation policy and of national guidelines should be undertaken with openness and honesty regarding the goals, opportunities and difficulties involved in trying to deliver good end of life care in local settings. Palliative Medicine 2007; 21 : 305—312 Key Words: do not attempt resuscitation (DNAR) • end stage illness • inter-professional • policy • resuscitation decisions

Limits of life in hostile environments: no barriers to biosphere function?

Environments that are hostile to life are characterized by reduced microbial activity which results in poor soil- and plant-health, low biomass and biodiversity, and feeble ecosystem development. Whereas the functional biosphere may primarily be constrained by water activity (a w) the mechanism(s) by which this occurs have not been fully elucidated. Remarkably we found that, for diverse species of xerophilic fungi at a w values of = 0.72, water activity per se did not limit cellular function. We provide evidence that chaotropic activity determined their biotic window, and obtained mycelial growth at water activities as low as 0.647 (below that recorded for any microbial species) by addition of compounds that reduced the net chaotropicity. Unexpectedly we found that some fungi grew optimally under chaotropic conditions, providing evidence for a previously uncharacterized class of extremophilic microbes. Further studies to elucidate the way in which solute activities interact to determine the limits of life may lead to enhanced biotechnological processes, and increased productivity of agricultural and natural ecosystems in arid and semiarid regions.

Informalilty in the Social and Culture Life in the City Centre of Nairobi

We live in a world of advanced technology, stiff global competition and rapid transformation of all facets of life and as a result architecture has not been spared. These transformations affect the social relations, cultural consumption and political economy that have influenced the manner in which people perform in and out of space in the city centres. The residents have adopted strategies for negotiating through the spaces sanitized by authorities and other agents. The public spaces provide the background materials for informal urban practices that are sometimes deemed illegal yet are necessary for animating the city spaces. Cities market themselves ecstatically beyond the baroque with a more visible presence of the contending parties through trademarks, public relations invasively advertised in streets, monuments (signature buildings or projects), and language. This paper comes out of a research carried out in Nairobi in February and March 2007. It examined how the notions of globalisation are reflected in the life in the city centre; the impacts on the quality of life of users of the city centre and how informal urbanism has developed as copying strategy to deal with the transformations due to liberalization and globalization.