bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Al2O3 dielectric layers on H-terminated diamond: Controlling surface conductivity
Authors: Yang Yu , Koeck Franz A. , Dutta Maitreya , Wang Xingye , Chowdhury Srabanti , Nemanich Robert J.
Published: October 2017

This study investigates how the surface conductivity of H-terminated diamond can be preserved and stabilized by using a dielectric layer with an in situ post-deposition treatment. Thin layers of Al2O3 were grown by plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) on H-terminated undoped diamond (100) surfaces. The changes of the hole accumulation layer were monitored by correlating the binding energy of the diamond C 1s core level with electrical measurements. The initial PEALD of 1 nm Al2O3 resulted in an increase of the C 1s core level binding energy consistent with a reduction of the surface hole accumulation and a reduction of the surface conductivity. A hydrogen plasma step restored the C 1s binding energy to the value of the conductive surface, and the resistance of the diamond surface was found to be within the range for surface transfer doping. Further, the PEALD growth did not appear to degrade the surface conductive layer according to the position of the C 1s core level and electrical measurements. This work provides insight into the approaches to establish and control the two-dimensional hole-accumulation layer of the H-terminated diamond and improve the stability and performance of H-terminated diamond electronic devices.
Effects of hole self-trapping by polarons on transport and negative bias illumination stress in amorphous-IGZO
Authors: de Jamblinne de Meux A. , Pourtois G. , Genoe J. , Heremans P.
Published: October 2017

The effects of hole injection in amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (a-IGZO) are analyzed by means of first-principles calculations. The injection of holes in the valence band tail states leads to their capture as a polaron, with high self-trapping energies (from 0.44 to 1.15 eV). Once formed, they mediate the formation of peroxides and remain localized close to the hole injection source due to the presence of a large diffusion energy barrier (of at least 0.6 eV). Their diffusion mechanism can be mediated by the presence of hydrogen. The capture of these holes is correlated with the low off-current observed for a-IGZO transistors, as well as with the difficulty to obtain a p-type conductivity. The results further support the formation of peroxides as being the root cause of Negative Bias Illumination Stress (NBIS). The strong self-trapping substantially reduces the injection of holes from the contact and limits the creation of peroxides from a direct hole injection. In the presence of light, the concentration of holes substantially rises and mediates the creation of peroxides, responsible for NBIS.
Superatomic states in nickel clusters: Revising the prospects for transition metal based superatoms
Authors: Gilmour J. T. A. , Hammerschmidt L. , Schacht J. , Gaston N.
Published: October 2017

The geometries and electronic structures of small Ninz clusters (n = 8, 9, 10) (z = 0, ±1, 2) have been elucidated for a range of multiplicities for each cluster size and charge, using density functional theory methods. These clusters have been found to conform in part to the existing superatomic model, with each cluster having a filled superatomic S-orbital, filled or partially filled superatomic P-orbitals, and empty or partially filled superatomic D-orbitals. Despite local states of mixed symmetry being present in the immediate vicinity of the Fermi energy, the addition or removal of a single electron from these systems causes a significant shift in the relative energies of the superatomic orbitals. In addition, this study demonstrates the possibility for d-electrons to contribute into superatomic orbitals to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the local environment. In summary, these observations lead to the prospect of a predictive model for electronic shell closings in some transition metal cluster systems.
Bubble detachment assisted by electrowetting-driven interfacial wave
Authors: Xu Haolun , Yan Run , Wang Sheng , Chen Chung-Lung
Published: October 2017

This article investigates both theoretically and numerically a novel mechanism of bubble detachment by an electrowetting-driven interfacial wave, inspired by droplet control and manipulation via electrowetting. Electrowetting-on-dielectric can be used to modulate the contact point movement at the water-air interface in a thin liquid film. Rapid oscillation of the contact line is achieved by a swift change of voltage under an AC signal. When disturbed with such contact angle changes, the interfacial wave between two immiscible fluids disrupts bubble dynamics. Numerical modeling reveals that an air bubble on a hydrophobic surface can be detached by the trough of such a wave. The frequency of the interfacial wave is twice the voltage frequency. A higher voltage frequency leads to a smaller amplitude and higher celerity of the wave, while a lower voltage frequency leads to a larger wave amplitude and lower celerity. The bubble can easily detach when the voltage frequency is 10 Hz. However, the bubble fails to detach when the voltage frequency is 100 Hz. This approach can be useful to improve two-phase cooling performance.
A diffusion–reaction scheme for modeling ignition and self-propagating reactions in Al/CuO multilayered thin films
Authors: Lahiner Guillaume , Nicollet Andrea , Zapata James , Marín Lorena , Richard Nicolas , Rouhani Mehdi Djafari , Rossi Carole , Estève Alain
Published: October 2017

Thermite multilayered films have the potential to be used as local high intensity heat sources for a variety of applications. Improving the ability of researchers to more rapidly develop Micro Electro Mechanical Systems devices based on thermite multilayer films requires predictive modeling in which an understanding of the relationship between the properties (ignition and flame propagation), the multilayer structure and composition (bilayer thicknesses, ratio of reactants, and nature of interfaces), and aspects related to integration (substrate conductivity and ignition apparatus) is achieved. Assembling all these aspects, this work proposes an original 2D diffusion-reaction modeling framework to predict the ignition threshold and reaction dynamics of Al/CuO multilayered thin films. This model takes into consideration that CuO first decomposes into Cu2O, and then, released oxygen diffuses across the Cu2O and Al2O3 layers before reacting with pure Al to form Al2O3. This model is experimentally validated from ignition and flame velocity data acquired on Al/CuO multilayers deposited on a Kapton layer. This paper discusses, for the first time, the importance of determining the ceiling temperature above which the multilayers disintegrate, possibly before their complete combustion, thus severely impacting the reaction front velocity and energy release. This work provides a set of heating surface areas to obtain the best ignition conditions, i.e., with minimal ignition power, as a function of the substrate type.
Drop impact onto a thin film: Miscibility effect
Authors: Chen Ningli , Chen H. , Amirfazli A.
Published: October 2017

In this work a systematic experimental study was performed to understand the process of liquid drop impact onto a thin film made of a different liquid from drop. The drop and film liquids can be miscible or immiscible. Three general outcomes of deposition, crown formation without splashing, and splashing, were observed in the advancing phase of the drop impact onto a solid surface covered by either a miscible or an immiscible thin film. However, for a miscible film, a larger Weber number and film thickness are needed for the formation of a crown and splashing comparing with immiscible cases. The advancing phase of drop impact onto a thin immiscible film with a large viscosity is similar to that of drop impact onto a dry surface; for a miscible film viscous film, the behavior is far from that of a dry surface. The behavior of liquid lamella in the receding phase of drop impact onto a thin miscible film is reported for the first time. The results show that immiscibility is not a necessary condition for the existence of a receding phase. The existence of a receding phase is highly dependent on the interfacial tension between the drop and the film. The miscibility can significantly affect the receding morphology as it will cause mixing of the two liquids.
Chaotic bursting in semiconductor lasers
Authors: Ruschel Stefan , Yanchuk Serhiy
Published: October 2017

We investigate the dynamic mechanisms for low frequency fluctuations in semiconductor lasers subjected to delayed optical feedback, using the Lang–Kobayashi model. This system of delay differential equations displays pronounced envelope dynamics, ranging from erratic, so called low frequency fluctuations to regular pulse packages, if the time scales of fast oscillations and envelope dynamics are well separated. We investigate the parameter regions where low frequency fluctuations occur and compute their Lyapunov spectra. Using the geometric singular perturbation theory, we study this intermittent chaotic behavior and characterize these solutions as bursting slow-fast oscillations.
Probing phonon–surface interaction by wave-packet simulation: Effect of roughness and morphology
Authors: Shao Cheng , Rong Qingyuan , Hu Ming , Bao Hua
Published: October 2017

One way to reduce the lattice thermal conductivity of solids is to induce additional phonon–surface scattering through nanostructures. However, the way in which phonons interact with surfaces, especially at the atomic level, is not well understood at present. In this work, we perform two-dimensional atomistic wave-packet simulations to investigate angular-resolved phonon reflection at a surface. Different surface morphologies, including smooth surfaces, periodically rough surfaces, and surfaces with amorphous coatings, are considered. For a smooth surface, mode conversion can occur after reflection, with the resulting wave-packet energy distribution depending on the surface condition and the polarization of the incident phonon. At a periodically rough surface, the reflected wave-packet distribution does not follow the well-known Ziman model but shows a nonmonotonic dependence on the depth of the surface roughness. When an amorphous layer is attached to a smooth surface, the incident wave packet is absorbed by the amorphous region and is then reflected diffusively at the surface. Our results show that the commonly adopted specular-diffusive model is insufficient to describe phonon reflection at a periodically rough surface and that an amorphous layer can induce strong diffusive reflection. This work provides a comprehensive analysis of phonon reflection at different types of surfaces, which is important for better understanding of thermal transport in various nanostructures.
Embryological studies of Magonia pubescens (Dodonaeaeae, Sapindaceae): development of male and female gametophytes in both floral morphs and its phylogenetic implications
Authors: González Valeria Vanesa , Solís Stella Maris , Ferrucci María Silvia
Published: October 2017

Magonia pubescens A.St.-Hil. (Dodonaeaeae, Sapindaceae) is a monoecious species exhibiting two floral morphs, namely staminate flowers, with gynoecium reduced to a pistillode, and morphologically hermaphrodite but functionally pistillate flowers. It presents the basic type of antheral wall development. Microsporogenesis is normal, forming tetrahedral and decussate tetrads. Anatomical differences in anthers between floral morphs become visible at the stage of callose wall degradation and release of tetrads. In staminate flowers, the endothecium develops fibrous thickening, and the two middle layers, the tapetum and the parenchymal septum that separates both locule, are degraded. At dehiscence, permanent calymmate tetrads are released. Magonia is the only genus of the family with this type of pollen unit. In pistillate flowers, the endothecium exhibits fibrous thickening only in three to five cells on the dorsal loculus, and only the inner middle layer collapses. The septum that separates both locules remains unaltered, the stomium is non-functional, mature anthers are indehiscent and show collapsed tetrads. In staminate flowers, the gynoecium is reduced to a tricarpellar pistillode, trilocular, with ovules that degenerate after megasporogenesis. In pistillate flowers, the gynoecium has a tricarpellary ovary, with six to eight ovules per carpel; they are campylotropous, bitegmic, mixed crassinucellate, and exhibit a well-developed obturator. The phylogenetic implications of these embryological characters are discussed in the context of the family.
CRISPR/Cas9 knockouts reveal genetic interaction between strain-transcendent erythrocyte determinants of
Plasmodium falciparum
invasion
Authors: Kanjee Usheer , Grüring Christof , Chaand Mudit , Lin Kai-Min , Egan Elizabeth , Manzo Jale , Jones Patrick L. , Yu Tiffany , Barker Robert , Weekes Michael P. , Duraisingh Manoj T.
Published: October 2017

Significance

During malaria infections,
Plasmodium falciparum
parasites invade RBCs. Identification of host factors for parasite invasion guides the development of vaccines and host-targeted therapeutics. Here we describe the development of an in vitro culture system for the functional analysis of RBC determinants using the immortal erythroleukemia cell line JK-1. JK-1 cells can be induced to differentiate synchronously, support parasite invasion, and are amenable to genetic manipulation. Using this system, we validated two host factors, basigin and CD44, as strain-transcendent host factors for parasite invasion, and we demonstrated a functional interaction between these two proteins. The ability to perform gene editing to produce RBC mutants will augment our ability to study malaria infection.
Regulation of NOTCH signaling by RAB7 and RAB8 requires carboxyl methylation by ICMT
Authors: Court Helen , Ahearn Ian M. , Amoyel Marc , Bach Erika A. , Philips Mark R.
Published: October 2017

Isoprenylcysteine carboxyl methyltransferase (ICMT) methylesterifies C-terminal prenylcysteine residues of CaaX proteins and some RAB GTPases. Deficiency of either ICMT or NOTCH1 accelerates pancreatic neoplasia in Pdx1-Cre;LSL-KrasG12D mice, suggesting that ICMT is required for NOTCH signaling. We used Drosophila melanogaster wing vein and scutellar bristle development to screen Rab proteins predicted to be substrates for ICMT (ste14 in flies). We identified Rab7 and Rab8 as ICMT substrates that when silenced phenocopy ste14 deficiency. ICMT, RAB7, and RAB8 were all required for efficient NOTCH1 signaling in mammalian cells. Overexpression of RAB8 rescued NOTCH activation after ICMT knockdown both in U2OS cells expressing NOTCH1 and in fly wing vein development. ICMT deficiency induced mislocalization of GFP-RAB7 and GFP-RAB8 from endomembrane to cytosol, enhanced binding to RABGDI, and decreased GTP loading of RAB7 and RAB8. Deficiency of ICMT, RAB7, or RAB8 led to mislocalization and diminished processing of NOTCH1-GFP. Thus, NOTCH signaling requires ICMT in part because it requires methylated RAB7 and RAB8.
Protein sequestration at the nuclear periphery as a potential regulatory mechanism in premature aging
Authors: Serebryannyy Leonid , Misteli Tom
Published: October 2017

Despite the extensive description of numerous molecular changes associated with aging, insights into the driver mechanisms of this fundamental biological process are limited. Based on observations in the premature aging syndrome Hutchinson–Gilford progeria, we explore the possibility that protein regulation at the inner nuclear membrane and the nuclear lamina contributes to the aging process. In support, sequestration of nucleoplasmic proteins to the periphery impacts cell stemness, the response to cytotoxicity, proliferation, changes in chromatin state, and telomere stability. These observations point to the nuclear periphery as a central regulator of the aging phenotype.
Intertemporal Choice Under Certainty
Authors: Jappelli Tullio , Pistaferri Luigi
Published: October 2017

This chapter introduces the basic intertemporal problem faced by a consumer who has to choose between consumption and saving when future incomes and interest rates are known with certainty. First we consider a model with only two periods and a fixed demographic structure; next we extend the analysis to a more realistic multi-period, finite-horizon model in which family composition changes over the life cycle; and finally we present the continuous-time version of the model and introduce the limiting case in which individuals have an infinite horizon. With appropriate assumptions about the individual income profile and productivity growth, we can derive the life-cycle model of Modigliani and Brumberg (1954) as a special case, and study how demographic variables and productivity growth affect national saving.
Complete Markets
Authors: Jappelli Tullio , Pistaferri Luigi
Published: October 2017

The chapter presents a model with complete markets, a situation in which consumers can access a full set of insurance contracts and are protected against any possible risk. Although in this model consumers are exposed to risks, the complete-market assumption in fact neutralizes their effect on consumption. The assumption of complete markets has two consequences for the analysis of intertemporal choice. First, it neutralizes the effect of uncertainty on the distribution of individual consumption over time. Individuals behave as if there were no uncertainty. Second, it makes individual behavior coincide with aggregate behavior, so that we can study either one indifferently. The chapter also surveys some of the tests of the complete-market hypothesis and the implication of the complete-market hypothesis for consumption inequality and consumption mobility.
The Certainty Equivalence Model
Authors: Jappelli Tullio , Pistaferri Luigi
Published: October 2017

The model known as “certainty equivalence” is obtained when the marginal utility of consumption is linear. This approach allows a closed-form solution for consumption even with uncertainty, but the model also has a number of unrealistic features, notably the postulates that consumers do not respond to increases in risk and that preferences are characterized by increasing risk aversion and the existence of a “bliss point” in consumption. In the first part of the chapter we derive the Euler equation for consumption under uncertainty. We then study optimal consumption decisions with linear marginal utility and discuss the model’s implications for saving and for consumption inequality.
Liquidity Constraints
Authors: Jappelli Tullio , Pistaferri Luigi
Published: October 2017

The theory of intertemporal choice that we have developed so far assumes that there are no imperfections in the credit market. The ability to borrow and save as much as needed—imposing only the intertemporal budget constraint—allows the transfer of resources over time and thus maintenance of a stable consumption profile through the life cycle. The chapter studies how the consumer’s problem changes in the presence of credit market frictions. The latter may explain why consumption growth is sensitive to expected changes in income (excess sensitivity of consumption) and why it is greater than predicted by the certainty equivalence model (excess growth of consumption).
Time, Habits, and Consumer Durables
Authors: Jappelli Tullio , Pistaferri Luigi
Published: October 2017

This chapter reviews the most important sources of non-separability. In models with habit formation the marginal utility provided by today’s consumption depends on past consumption (internal habits) or on the level of aggregate consumption (external habits). The analysis of durable goods is similar in most respects to models with habits. Durable goods put a wedge between expenditure (which takes places in one period) and consumption (over multiple subsequent periods). Non-separability between consumption and leisure posits that the utility from consuming a good might depend on the amount of leisure time one has available. Another important deviation from the model with separable preferences is home production. Models incorporating home production assume that consumers allocate their time among three activities: work, leisure, and home production. Finally, collective models of behavior assume that household members have different preferences with regard to individual consumption, individual leisure time, and public (shared) goods.
Conclusions
Authors: Jappelli Tullio , Pistaferri Luigi
Published: October 2017

The final chapter summarizes the material covered by the book, offering our perspectives on areas of consent, disagreement, and future research. The book analyzes how consumers respond to changes in their economic environment and react to risks they face during the life cycle. In addressing these issues, the basic life-cycle permanent-income model is augmented with other significant features of consumers’ preferences and environment: precautionary motives for saving, borrowing constraints, life span uncertainty, intergenerational transfers, non-separability between consumption and leisure, habits, and financial sophistication. By and large, one can reconcile some puzzling facts present in the empirical data by means of relatively modest modifications of the basic version of the model, such as provision for home production and non-separable preferences between consumption and leisure. However, in order to explain other “anomalies” and “puzzles” observed in individuals’ actual saving and financial behaviors, more important modifications to the standard framework are required.
Constructing prediction models from expression profiles for large scale lncRNA–miRNA interaction profiling
Authors: Huang Yu-An , Chan Keith C C , You Zhu-Hong
Published: October 2017

Motivation

The interaction of miRNA and lncRNA is known to be important for gene regulations. However, not many computational approaches have been developed to analyze known interactions and predict the unknown ones. Given that there are now more evidences that suggest that lncRNA–miRNA interactions are closely related to their relative expression levels in the form of a titration mechanism, we analyzed the patterns in large-scale expression profiles of known lncRNA–miRNA interactions. From these uncovered patterns, we noticed that lncRNAs tend to interact collaboratively with miRNAs of similar expression profiles, and vice versa.

Results

By representing known interaction between lncRNA and miRNA as a bipartite graph, we propose here a technique, called EPLMI, to construct a prediction model from such a graph. EPLMI performs its tasks based on the assumption that lncRNAs that are highly similar to each other tend to have similar interaction or non-interaction patterns with miRNAs and vice versa. The effectiveness of the prediction model so constructed has been evaluated using the latest dataset of lncRNA–miRNA interactions. The results show that the prediction model can achieve AUCs of 0.8522 and 0.8447 ± 0.0017 based on leave-one-out cross validation and 5-fold cross validation. Using this model, we show that lncRNA–miRNA interactions can be reliably predicted. We also show that we can use it to select the most likely lncRNA targets that specific miRNAs would interact with. We believe that the prediction models discovered by EPLMI can yield great insights for further research on ceRNA regulation network. To the best of our knowledge, EPLMI is the first technique that is developed for large-scale lncRNA–miRNA interaction profiling.

Availability and implementation

Matlab codes and dataset are available at https://github.com/yahuang1991polyu/EPLMI/.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Motion capture systems for jump analysis
Authors: Rojas-Lertxundi Sendoa , Fernández-López J Ramón , Huerta Sergio , García Bringas Pablo
Published: October 2017

This article presents several methods used in motion capture to measure jumps. The traditional systems to acquire jump information are force plates, but they are very expensive to most people. Amateur sports enthusiasts who want to improve their performance, do not have enough money to spend in professional systems ($+/-20.000$EUR). The price reduction of electronic devices, specifically the inertial measurement units (IMU), are generating new methods of motion capture. In this article we present the state-of the-art motion capture systems for this purpose, from the classical force plates to latest released IMUs. Experiments show that the IMU is equally valid for measuring vertical jump.
The discovery of a five-image lensed quasar at z = 3.34 using PanSTARRS1 and Gaia
Authors: Ostrovski Fernanda , Lemon Cameron A , Auger Matthew W , McMahon Richard G , Fassnacht Christopher D , Chen Geoff C-F , Connolly Andrew J , Koposov Sergey E , Pons Estelle , Reed Sophie L , Rusu Cristian E
Published: October 2017

We report the discovery, spectroscopic confirmation and mass modelling of the gravitationally lensed quasar system PS J0630−1201. The lens was discovered by matching a photometric quasar catalogue compiled from Pan-STARRS1 and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer photometry to the Gaia data release 1 catalogue, exploiting the high spatial resolution of the latter (full width at half-maximum ∼0.1 arcsec) to identify the three brightest components of the lensed quasar system. Follow-up spectroscopic observations with the William Herschel Telescope confirm the multiple objects are quasars at redshift zq = 3.34. Further follow-up with Keck adaptive optics high-resolution imaging reveals that the system is composed of two lensing galaxies and the quasar is lensed into an ∼2.8 arcsec separation four-image cusp configuration with a fifth image clearly visible, and a 1.0 arcsec arc due to the lensed quasar host galaxy. The system is well modelled with two singular isothermal ellipsoids, reproducing the position of the fifth image. We discuss future prospects for measuring time delays between the images and constraining any offset between mass and light using the faintly detected Einstein arcs associated with the quasar host galaxy.
Just Cause in Humanitarian Intervention
Authors: Tesón Fernando R.
Published: October 2017

The chapter defines just cause as saving persons from rights violations by their rulers or other groups in their territory. It examines the requirement that only genocide or similar massacres justify intervention. And it concludes that this high threshold is usually required because military interventions commonly cause excessive damage. But, by the same token, rights violations short of genocide may justify proportionate (but only proportionate) intervention. The chapter examines in detail the concept of conditional cause. A conditional cause is a redress of rights that the intervener may pursue but is different from the just cause for intervention. The intervener may pursue these other goals provided he had a just cause to intervene in the first place. Particular attention is devoted to the conditions that make regime change permissible. A regime change is permissible when necessary to realize the just cause.
Justice Ex Post or Ex Ante?
Authors: Tesón Fernando R.
Published: October 2017

The success condition for intervention can be interpreted in several ways. Some interpret it as requiring that interventions actually be successful; such a condition can only be judged to be satisfied ex post. Others interpret it as requiring that interventions have a good enough chance of succeeding ex ante. Yet others accept a mix of the two. This chapter argues that the purely ex ante view is the only acceptable position. As a result, interventions are, quite simply, justifiable only when they have a good enough chance of success ex ante.
Three Structural Problems
Authors: Tesón Fernando R.
Published: October 2017

This chapter explains in greater detail why accepting the success condition means accepting the presumption against intervention. It identifies three structural problems that interventions must in general deal with: the problem of conflicting aims of intervention, the problem of severe lack of information, and the problem of perverse (democratic) incentives. These problems help explain the empirical finding that success rates for interventions have historically been extremely low.
Discerning the History Inscribed Within
Authors: Freeman Mark
Published: October 2017

How do the various phenomena that we encounter in the world—from concrete historical events to mediated representations, as may be found in books and films and other “second-hand” sources—permeate us and become inscribed in memory? Where does all of this information “go” after we have encountered it, and how is it metabolized? Some dimensions of such experiences no doubt dissipate or disappear, whereas others seep into our psyches often in ways unbeknownst to us, thus becoming part of what is called the narrative unconscious. The narrative unconscious thus refers to those culturally rooted aspects of our histories that have yet to become an explicit part of our life stories, and it includes not only those events and encounters that occur in our lifetime but also those that precede us. By exploring some significant sites of the narrative unconscious, we may more readily discern the deep historical roots of our own psychological formation.
The Landscape of Family Memory
Authors: Shore Bradd , Kauko Sara
Published: October 2017

How do families remember? How are families remembered? How are family memories structured, and what functions do they serve? “Family memory” as a focus of historical, sociological, and anthropological research often finds itself situated in the amorphous space that lies between autobiographical memory and collective memory. Reviewing memory literature that investigates family memory, this chapter proposes that family memory can be distinguished as its own realm for specific memory production, modes of remembering, and mnemonic transmission. Primordial in shaping families’ identities, family memory engages constant dialogue between the family understood as a collective unit and the family understood as a collection of remembering individuals. This chapter examines how family memory shapes individual identities; how it is organized around specific narratives, places and objects, and routines and rituals; and how it persists and evolves over time through intrafamilial and intergenerational transmission.
Materiality of Memory
Authors: Murakami Kyoko
Published: October 2017

This chapter highlights the importance of materiality in memory studies with a focus on the remembrance poppy, an artifact canonical to the practice of commemoration of war and conflict in Britain. A traditional psychological approach to studying the artifact as a decontextualized subject seems to resort to a simplistic representational model of the object. When used in an art installation in a heritage site, it creates a perceptual field of experiencing the past in an extraordinary manner. This chapter argues that when studying phenomena of collective remembering, it is important to consider the interplay between discourse, materials, body, and environment as the integrated whole. The argument is underpinned by the material view of remembering along with the concept of semiotic mediation. The analysis illustrates the significance of the artifact to the ritual performance and addresses how the artifact can create a semiotic field for meaning construction.
Memory in Life Transitions
Authors: Laurent Constance de Saint , Zittoun Tania
Published: October 2017

This chapter explores the transformation of autobiographical memory in life transitions. To do so, it proposes a model of autobiographical memory as an oriented sociocultural act, whereby the person imaginatively distances herself from past experiences to produce a meaningful discourse on her past. This model is applied to the development of autobiographical memory during adolescence, a crucial period in this regard, and is used to analyze a series of longitudinal documentaries on teenagers in Switzerland. Based on two case studies, it is argued that adolescents learn to make sense of their past by building on previous recalls of their experiences, successively reworking their interpretation of what happened. As they discover new concepts, interlocutors, and cultural tools, they learn to distance themselves from their experiences to produce stories that are meaningful for their present selves, which they can share with others, and that can be turned into lessons to be learned.
Memory in Old Age
Authors: Ferring Dieter
Published: October 2017

This chapter focuses on memory within the context of human aging. It starts with a conception of aging that highlights the interplay of genetics, lifestyles, and culture as fundamental dynamics underlying the aging process as well as its impact on memory functioning. The chapter then focuses on the context of ontogenesis and describes central concepts of memory structure and functioning in a lifespan perspective highlighting the adaptive function of memory use. Building on this, the chapter elaborates the dynamic interplay and the role of memory in the self-regulation of the aging self. Finally, the chapter places memory in the context of two aspects of culture, differing between assistive culture providing knowledge and technology resources and culture as representing symbolic resources that help in the collective and individual construction of meaning.
National Memory and Where to Find It
Authors: Wertsch James V.
Published: October 2017

National memory is a special form of memory in general and of collective memory in particular. Even in an age of globalization, modern states devote massive resources to promulgating official accounts of their past that support national identities, including illusions of destiny, which can be a starting point for conflict. This chapter asks, “What is national memory?” and “Where can we find it?” It may seem natural to pose these questions in this order, but it is argued in this chapter that their sequence should be reversed. Different starting points and methods in studying national memory have been employed with different implicit or explicit ideas of what constitutes national memory. The study of history textbooks yields one picture, surveys of historical knowledge provide another, and the study of commemoration yields a third.
Sonic Blackness and the Illegibility of Trap Irony
Authors: Burton Justin Adams
Published: October 2017

In contrast to Kendrick, trap music seems to exist in an entirely apolitical realm. Trap, a subgenre of rap originating in Atlanta and circulating especially through the US South, glorifies drug trafficking and sounds black in a post-race society that values diversity, not black solidarity. Building on the idea of sonic blackness as theorized by Nina Sun Eidsheim and Loren Kajikawa, I listen closely to the aesthetics of trap and its evolution from TI’s Trap Muzik (2003) to Desiigner’s “Panda” (2015) to consider how trap sounds black and how this sonic blackness produces an ironic politics that exists out of earshot of the mainstream.
Party Politics
Authors: Burton Justin Adams
Published: October 2017

Rae Sremmurd employ trap aesthetics alongside sonic signifiers of crunk in order to construct a club scene that involves partying in the midst of violence. Building on the theory of trap irony I present in Chapter 3, I consider how Rae Sremmurd do queer work as a way of existing outside of neoliberal humanism. By refusing to create capital that feeds systems of violence and by refusing to reproduce within a system of violence, Rae Sremmurd party under duress, building a club that exists just outside of neoliberal humanism, pointing to a future we can only imagine, a future that exists “outside our present conception of what it is to be human.”
Epilogue
Authors: Burton Justin Adams
Published: October 2017

Posthuman Rap leads to a posthuman vestibule, connected to and aware of neoliberal humanism but situated just outside of it, in a place where we might imagine other ways of being human. Big K.R.I.T.’s car, quaking with sub-bass blasting from his woofer, is exactly this kind of vestibule. K.R.I.T., working with AfroFuturist materials, uses it to create big bangs and new worlds beyond our own. But before he can call entire planets into being, he must first tune his vestibule to receive and transmit vibrations from beyond the edge of human perception. It’s from this vantage point, staring through the vibrating glass of his car, that he can imagine other ways of being human.
The Transformation of Intimacy
Authors: Tulloch John , Middleweek Belinda
Published: October 2017

In chapter 2 different voices and theories are in dialogue. First, by exploring and critiquing risk sociology through Beck’s notion of “reflexive modernization,” Strydom’s extension of Beck’s thesis, Giddens’s observation of the contradictions between experts, Beck and Beck-Gernsheim’s “normal chaos of love,” and Giddens’s understanding of the transformation of intimacy within risk modernity, the chapter draws attention to the critical assumptions underlying this “new risk” position and how it can be strengthened and extended within media/cultural studies. Second, the chapter explores film reviewing and current film theory through scholar Linda Williams’s work on “cinema and the sex act,” emphasizing bodily performance and aesthetic form, and via literary scholar Raymond Williams’s understanding of naturalism, emotional realism, and the secularization of intimacy, especially in his notion of “structures of feeling.” The arrival of the underclass stranger in the real sex film Romance is considered in this context.
Intimacy and Romance in Film Theory
Authors: Tulloch John , Middleweek Belinda
Published: October 2017

Chapter 3 explores the critical frame of feminist Lacanian postmodernism, underpinning an understanding of real sex films like Romance as art-house cinema in mutual dialogue with pornography. It argues that this fusion and tension between genres misses significant disparities within art house, and neither offers a robust history nor acknowledges that the Romance narrative focuses on Marie’s negotiation of her own sexuality and embodiment via a picaresque series of female/male encounters in a changed modernity. In its detailed analysis of Romance, the chapter draws on Giddens’s concepts of plastic sexuality and confluent love, Raymond Williams’s notion of emotional realism, and Trevor Griffiths’s historical understanding of the (raced and classed) wandering vagrant in an interdisciplinary “extension” of Tanya Krzywinska’s analysis of real sex cinema. This textual analysis combines “mutual understanding” of feminist mapping theory with risk sociology’s recognition of history as the growth of dialogue with the ars erotica.
“Intimacy is what hurts when it’s gone”
Authors: Tulloch John , Middleweek Belinda
Published: October 2017

This chapter considers the contestation within film studies between the “spectator” and the “social audience,” focusing on the real sex film Blue Is the Warmest Colour. It explores Horeck and Kendall’s edited book The New Extremism in Cinema, which puts in apposition chapters predominantly employing a textual analysis with Martin Barker’s stand-alone social audience study. Barker rejects spectator analysis as purely speculative and “particularly disappointing and disturbing” aspects of film studies and culture generally. Instead of this mutual apposition, the chapter explores, in a pilot social audience study of Blue Is the Warmest Colour, Jennifer Hyndman’s feminist call for a blending of interdisciplinary dialogical “understanding” with “galvanizing extension.” The study deploys qualitative methodology seldom used in cinema studies and generates new findings, both at the substantive experiential level and in terms of methodological differences in interviewing style.
“A man didn’t make this film alone”
Authors: Tulloch John , Middleweek Belinda
Published: October 2017

Part 2 of chapter 4 contributes to the dialogue of part 1 by combining an industry-based textual analysis with the findings of the authors’ social audience study of Blue Is the Warmest Colour. This part puts into interdisciplinary dialogue the mutually constructed meanings of “risk,” “desire,” and “intimacy” presented by this real sex film, as read by the macro discourses of film reviewing, risk sociology, and feminist-psychoanalytical film studies outlined in the first three chapters. In doing this it also introduces analytical themes that are explored extensively in later chapters of the book: real sex versus simulated sex, multiple and performed authorship, and the pleasures of the gazes of scopophilia and ego-identity in one disciplinary paradigm, and of voluntary risk-taking and addiction in another.
Brutal Intimacy
Authors: Tulloch John , Middleweek Belinda
Published: October 2017

Chapter 5 begins with risk sociology’s understanding of intimacy as “a dogmatism for two” to explore an interdisciplinary mix of theory, including Tim Palmer’s analysis of the cinema of “brutal intimacy”; Tanya Modleski’s recognition of a current horror genre inflection of new desires for unleashing sexuality, violence, and control; Kelley Conway’s recognition of an authorship of considerable diversity in the context of films made by women about female sexuality in French culture; Raymond Williams’s concept of historical “structures of feeling”; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim’s “normal chaos of love”; and Giddens’s “transformation of intimacy.” Within these contexts, the films Twentynine Palms, Trouble Every Day, and Irréversible are analyzed textually, exploring genre, narrative, visual shot style, diegetic/non-diegetic sound, and spatial mapping (and the disruption of all these categories), with a particular focus on the road film Twentynine Palms.
Actors and Sexual Intimacies
Authors: Tulloch John , Middleweek Belinda
Published: October 2017

Chapter 8 considers critical debate about “double standards” over sex and violence in Intimacy and Nymph()maniac. Exploring discussion between Intimacy’s lead actor Kerry Fox and her partner, it argues that the agreement reached (for Fox to perform oral but not penetrative sex) was a “controlled experiment” in jealousy via personal emotional affect and public performance and thus a powerful demonstration in confluent love negotiation shared with audiences. The trust and openness with each other in private, and between Fox and director Chéreau in public, are also central to notions of trust and mistrust in risk sociology, though with some strong critiques from within its ranks for its tendency to follow a meta-history devoid of differences among age, gender, class, ethnicity, and other key social indicators. The chapter concludes by emphasizing the interdisciplinary blend of feminist film and risk sociological theory in approaching the two films, within key principles of feminist mapping theory.
Introduction
Authors: Brinkmann Svend
Published: October 2017

The term philosophy has become extremely broad, and there can be a philosophy of almost anything. It is not unusual for the word philosophy to be used in connection with everything from large corporations to personal statements. The word can easily be misused, but it is commonly used to signal a serious reflection on fundamental principles. It literally means love (philo) of knowledge (sophia). This chapter provides some definitions of philosophy and qualitative research and gives an introduction to a number of philosophical themes that are relevant for qualitative researchers, covering the basics of epistemology and ontology and the various arguments in favor of realism and anti-realism.
The Historical Background
Authors: Brinkmann Svend
Published: October 2017

This chapter presents a selected history of Western philosophy from the Greeks to modern times, arguing that the very idea of qualitative research is a child of modernity’s split between the objective and subjective, quanta and qualia. This split became significant with the birth of modern natural science (Galilei, Newton, and Descartes), giving rise to the question of how to study those aspects of the world that do not seem to fit the perspective of the physical sciences. This question was answered in different ways by the British empiricists from John Locke onwards and also by Immanuel Kant in Germany.
British Philosophies of Qualitative Research
Authors: Brinkmann Svend
Published: October 2017

In this chapter, the British traditions of positivism and realism, which have been important for different strands of qualitative research, are discussed. Positivism is often misunderstood by qualitative researchers and presented as a form of realism, but it is actually an anti-realism that reduces knowledge claims to what we may positively verify in experience. Causality consequently becomes constant conjunction in experience. In contrast to this, realist positions argue that science should go beyond immediate experience to study working mechanisms that generate the phenomena that we in fact experience. Philosophers today disagree about the existence of such mechanisms when it comes to human psychological and social life. Some constructionists argue that there are no causally effective mechanisms in our social life, whereas others, especially critical realists, argue that social science should be all about identifying such mechanisms.
German Philosophies of Qualitative Research
Authors: Brinkmann Svend
Published: October 2017

This chapter presents the phenomenological and hermeneutic philosophies that have been immensely relevant for qualitative research. Phenomenology began with Husserl and was continued by Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, and it was developed into tools for qualitative inquiry by scholars such as Giorgi. Hermeneutics dates back to Scheiermacher and Dilthey, and it was in a sense merged with phenomenology by Heidegger and brought up to date by Gadamer in particular. Many qualitative methodologies employ strategies from phenomenology and hermeneutics, which can be condensed to the essential idea of making the obvious obvious. The difference between phenomenology and hermeneutics in their purer forms concerns the extent to which they view interpretation (rather than description) as a necessary component in making that which is implicit in an “obvious” way explicit.
Global Influences on Qualitative Research
Authors: Brinkmann Svend
Published: October 2017

This chapter adds a global perspective to the European and American traditions and includes feminist, indigenous, and “new philosophies” from throughout the world. These philosophies are born in a globalized world and yet often stress the significance of local knowledges, and they typically cut across the philosophical traditions introduced previously in this book. First, this chapter discusses feminist philosophy, which has challenged the dominance of male-centered perspectives and has also led to many fruitful qualitative studies. Second, this chapter discusses some of the variety of indigenous philosophies and how these represent qualitative forms of inquiry that may also be inspiring for other (Western) qualitative researchers, not least because of the non-acceptance of the nature/culture divide in most indigenous cosmologies. Finally, the chapter discusses the post-qualitative movement, which also does not accept the nature/culture and matter/meaning divides but tries to approach practices of inquiry from other theoretical perspectives.