Towards an understanding of Australian genre cinema and entertainment : beyond the limitations of ‘Ozploitation’ discourse

While Australian cinema has produced popular movie genres since the 1970s, including action/adventure, road movies, crime, and horror movies, genre cinema has occupied a precarious position within a subsidised national cinema and has been largely written out of film history. In recent years the documentary Not Quite Hollywood (2008) has brought Australia’s genre movie heritage from the 1970s and 1980s back to the attention of cinephiles, critics and cult audiences worldwide. Since its release, the term ‘Ozploitation’ has become synonymous with Australian genre movies. In the absence of discussion about genre cinema within film studies, Ozploitation (and ‘paracinema’ as a theoretical lens) has emerged as a critical framework to fill this void as a de facto approach to genre and a conceptual framework for understanding Australian genres movies. However, although the Ozploitation brand has been extremely successful in raising the awareness of local genre flicks, Ozploitation discourse poses problems for film studies, and its utility is limited for the study of Australian genre movies. This paper argues that Ozploitation limits analysis of genre movies to the narrow confines of exploitation or trash cinema and obscures more important discussion of how Australian cinema engages with popular movies genres, the idea of Australian filmmaking as entertainment, and the dynamics of commercial filmmaking practises more generally.

Who's at risk: Answerability and the critical possibilities of classroom discourse

Our aim in this article is twofold. First, we challenge the essentialized notion of adolescents and young people as perpetually driven to resist the authority of adults. At the same time, we disrupt linguistic conceptions of adolescent discourse, along with the discourse of youth at risk, by analyzing a transcript of classroom discourse that reflects an exchange between a highly regarded and well liked preservice teacher and his students. This representative transcript highlights the preservice teacher's ability to query, without a concomitant ability to listen, respond, and build a classroom dialogue with his students; what we call here a Socratic monologue. Second, we link the notions of dialogue and responsiveness to Bakhtin's concept of answerability, emphasizing the joint construction of classroom discourse as an ethically answerable relation between teacher and students.

Towards an understanding of Australian genre cinema and entertainment : beyond the limitations of ‘Ozploitation’ discourse

While Australian cinema has produced popular movie genres since the 1970s, including action/adventure, road movies, crime, and horror movies, genre cinema has occupied a precarious position within a subsidised national cinema and has been largely written out of film history. In recent years the documentary Not Quite Hollywood (2008) has brought Australia’s genre movie heritage from the 1970s and 1980s back to the attention of cinephiles, critics and cult audiences worldwide. Since its release, the term ‘Ozploitation’ has become synonymous with Australian genre movies. In the absence of discussion about genre cinema within film studies, Ozploitation (and ‘paracinema’ as a theoretical lens) has emerged as a critical framework to fill this void as a de facto approach to genre and a conceptual framework for understanding Australian genres movies. However, although the Ozploitation brand has been extremely successful in raising the awareness of local genre flicks, Ozploitation discourse poses problems for film studies, and its utility is limited for the study of Australian genre movies. This paper argues that Ozploitation limits analysis of genre movies to the narrow confines of exploitation or trash cinema and obscures more important discussion of how Australian cinema engages with popular movies genres, the idea of Australian filmmaking as entertainment, and the dynamics of commercial filmmaking practises more generally.

Digital Literacy and the Spaces of Academic Discourse

Digital literacy poses a particular challenge to the research-led university. Although these universities are often at the forefront of introducing digital literacy initiatives—such as e-learning platforms, technological infrastructure, and digital repositories—these applications of digital literacy tend to be more instrumental or functional than critical or creative. Certainly, this clash of cultures between the instrumental/functional and the critical/analytical is at the heart of debates over the uses of digital literacy in higher education. However, this simple equation of political forces with instrumentality and the corresponding equation of the university with a tradition of reflective thought that brings criticism to bear on instrumentality elide the fact that this conflict is more deeply rooted within the academy. This essay argues that, in fact, much of the resistance to critical uses of digital literacy comes from within the institution of the university itself. That is, the university is bound up in a scriptural economy that prioritises the printed word and that reinforces its power by way of a normative, political, and spatialised academic discourse. It is this print-based scriptural economy—in which this essay must acknowledge its own complicity—that a critical approach to digital literacy threatens to disrupt or lay bare.

Circulating fragments of N-Terminal Pro-B-Type Natriuretic Peptides in plasma of heart failure patients

BACKGROUND: The use of nonstandardized N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) assays can contribute to the misdiagnosis of heart failure (HF). Moreover, there is yet to be established a common consensus regarding the circulating forms of NT-proBNP being used in current assays. We aimed to characterize and quantify the various forms of NT-proBNP in the circulation of HF patients. METHODS: Plasma samples were collected from HF patients (n = 20) at rest and stored at -80 degrees C. NT-proBNP was enriched from HF patient plasma by use of immunoprecipitation followed by mass spectrometric analysis. Customized homogeneous sandwich AlphaLISA (R) immunoassays were developed and validated to quantify 6 fragments of NT-proBNP. RESULTS: Mass spectrometry identified the presence of several N- and C-terminally processed forms of circulating NT-proBNP, with physiological proteolysis between Pro2-Leu3, Leu3-Gly4, Pro6-Gly7, and Pro75-Arg76. Consistent with this result, AlphaLISA immunoassays demonstrated that antibodies targeting the extreme N or C termini measured a low apparent concentration of circulating NT-proBNP. The apparent circulating NT-proBNP concentration was increased with antibodies targeting nonglycosylated and nonterminal epitopes (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: In plasma collected from HF patients, immunoreactive NT-proBNP was present as multiple N- and C-terminally truncated fragments of the full length NT-proBNP molecule. Immunodetection of NT-proBNP was significantly improved with the use of antibodies that did not target these terminal regions. These findings support the development of a next generation NT-proBNP assay targeting nonterminal epitopes as well as avoiding the central glycosylated region of this molecule. (c) 2013 American Association for Clinical Chemistry

Notes on the future of critical discourse studies

In How to Do Things with Words, Austin (1975) described marriages, sentencings and ship launchings as prototypes of performative utterance. What’s the appropriate speech act for launching an academic journal? First editions of journals tend to take a field as formed a priori, as having “come of age”, and state good intents to capture its best or most innovative work.

The helical conformations of 14- and 16-residue fragments of suzukacillin, a membrane channel-forming polypeptide

The suzukacillin fragments, Boc-Ala-Aib-Aib-Gln-Aib-Leu-Aib-Gly-Leu-Aib-Pro-Val-Aib-Aib-OMe (14), Boc-Ala-Aib-Ala-Aib-Aib-Gln-Aib-Leu-Aib-Gly-Leu-Aib-Pro-Val-Aib-Aib-OMe (16G) and the completely apolar 16-residue peptide in which the glutamine residue has been replaced by alanine (16A) have been studied by 270 MHz 1H-HMR, in C2HCl3 and (C2H3)2SO solution. Intramolecularly hydrogen-bonded NH groups have been identified by temperature and solvent dependence of chemical shifts. Peptides 14 and 16A adopt folded 310 helical conformations stabilized by 11 and 13 hydrogen bonds, respectively. In peptide 16G there are 12 intramolecular hydrogen bonds, with the glycine NH being solvent-exposed, in contrast to 14 and 16A.

Helical conformations of three crystalline pentapeptide fragments of suzukacillin, a membrane channel forming polypeptide

The crystal structures of three pentapeptide fragments of suzukacillin-A have been determined. Boc-Aib-Pro-Val-Aib-Val-OMe (peptide 1–5) adopts a distorted helical conformation, stabilized by three intramolecular hydrogen bonds (two 5→1, one 4→1). Boc-Ala-Aib-Ala-Aib-Aib-OMe (peptide 6–10) and Boc-Leu-Aib-Pro-Val-Aib-OMe (peptide 16–20) adopt 310 helical structures stabilized by three and two 4→1 intramolecular hydrogen bonds, respectively. These structures provide substantial support for a largely helical conformation for the suzukacillin membrane channel.

Ab initio studies on the tri- and diphosphate fragments of adenosine triphosphate

Pyrophosphate prototypes such as methyl triphosphate and methyl diphosphate molecules in their different protonation states have been investigated at high levels of quantum chemical calculations. The optimized geometries, the thermochemistry of the hydrolysis and the molecular orbitals contributing to the high energy of these compounds have been analyzed. These investigations provide insights into the "high energy" character of ATP molecule. Further, the dependence of vibrational frequencies on the number of phosphate groups and the charged states has also been presented. These results can aid the interpretation of spectra obtained by experiments on complexes containing pyrophosphate prototypes.

Designing Creativity Through Clusters - A periodisation of cluster discourse

The thesis focuses on one of the most dominant articulations of the relation between geographical place and development, clusters - internationally competing place-bound economic system of production in related industries. The dominant articulation of cluster discourse represents the subnational region as a system of production, and as a means for competitiveness for Western countries. Its reproduction in theories has become one of the most prolific exports of economic geography to other disciplines and for policymaking. By analysing cluster discourse the thesis traces how the languages and processes of globalization have over time altered the understandings of the relation between geographical place and the economy. It shows how in its latest incarnation of the cluster discourse, the language of mainstream economics is combined with ‘softer’ elements (e.g. community, learning, creativity) in the economic geographic discourse. This is typical for the idea of soft capitalism, wherein it is assumed that economic success emanates from soft characteristics, such as knowledge, learning and creativity, rather than straightforward technological or cost advantages. A reoccurring critique against the dominant understanding of the relationship between competitiveness and regions, as articulated in cluster discourse, has pinpointed the perspective’s inability to reconcile the respective and reciprocal roles of local standard of living with firm competitiveness. The thesis traces how such critique is increasingly appropriated through the fusion of the economic, social and cultural landscape into the language of capitalism. It shows how cluster discourse has appropriated its critique, by focusing on creativity, with its strong associations to arts, individual artists and the cultural sphere in general, while predominantly creating its meaning in relation to competitiveness. The thesis consists of six essays that each outlines the development of the cluster discourse. The essays show how meaning systems and strategies are created, accepted and naturalized in cluster discourse, how this affects individuals, the economic landscape and society at large, as well as showing which understandings are marginalized in the process. The thesis argues that clusters are a) inseparable from ideology and politics and b) they are the result of purposeful social practice. It calls for increased reflexivity within corporate and economic geographic research on clusters, and underlines the importance of placing issues of power at the centre of analysis.

Ab initio studies on the tri- and diphosphate fragments of adenosine triphosphate

Pyrophosphate prototypes such as methyl triphosphate and methyl diphosphate molecules in their different protonation states have been investigated at high levels of quantum chemical calculations. The optimized geometries, the thermochemistry of the hydrolysis and the molecular orbitals contributing to the high energy of these compounds have been analyzed. These investigations provide insights into the ``high energy'' character of ATP molecule. Further, the dependence of vibrational frequencies on the number of phosphate groups and the charged states has also been presented. These results can aid the interpretation of spectra obtained by experiments on complexes containing pyrophosphate prototypes. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.