bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Fostering Surprise and Productive Discomfort in Audience Studies through Multi‐Sited Ethnography
Authors: Trager‐Bohley Kim
Published: January 2013

Can an increased engagement with multi‐sited ethnography invigorate audience studies? Yes. Too often, media and audience studies scholars have tended to hamstring ethnographic methods by predetermining their audiences, their activities, their research sites, and the temporal sequence of their research. This chapter argues that multi‐sited ethnography has the potential to enlarge the boundaries that have circumscribed and enclosed media/audience studies if researchers can avail themselves of its central strengths – its unpredictability and flexibility. I urge audience studies scholars to embrace a flexible research imaginary that can be open to surprise, modification, and productive discomfort while tracking mobile social formations that crisscross multiple and unexpected sites and local–global dichotomies. Drawing on my fieldwork on global sponsors of literacy in the United States and Singapore, this chapter discusses several overlapping elements of multi‐sited ethnographies: (1) its tracking strategies; (2) its emphasis on complicitous relationships; (3) its greater exposure to multiple perspectives, including multi‐level power dynamics; and (4) its unbounded, open‐ended notions of the field, which are not limited or constrained by place.
Mythic Viewing
Authors: Juluri Vamsee
Published: January 2013

This chapter examines the different ways in which media audiences think about reality, particularly in postcolonial contexts. Using data and findings from three studies of Indian audiences, the reception of a popular Hindi movie (
Hum Aapke Hain Koun
), the reception of music television (mainly MTV and Channel V), and an ongoing study of the reception of the mythological genre (covering recent animation films as well as older Telugu black and white classics), the chapter shows how audience readings of important issues like family, nation, and religion may be underpinned by deeper assumptions about human nature and reality. Finally, it explores some of the ways in which audience investments in commonsense ideas about what is “real” may illuminate the politics and possibilities of media audiencehood in postcolonial modernity.
A Framework for Audience Study of Transnational Television
Authors: Chua Beng Huat
Published: January 2013

In the past two decades, television in East Asia has become progressively integrated to constitute a regional cultural economy juxtaposed against the programs imported from the globally dominant US. In terms of popular reception, audience formation, and attendant social and political process, East Asian television programs have far greater regional impact than their US counterpart. Consequently East Asia television audience reception research has emerged in the past decade as a field that engages a new community of Asian media scholars. Drawing on this expanding field of research, the present chapter will attempt to develop the beginning of a conceptual framework that focuses on the reception of imported programs in different regional locations. Such a conceptual framework holds transnationality as the central problematic in a whole range of issues – such as the content transforming practice of dubbing, the generation of audience identification with foreign content and artistes, the politics of transnational fandom, and the possibility of a pan‐East Asian identity. In addition to its heuristic value for other investigations of regional audience formations, this preliminary analysis, which has identified a small set of necessary components, invites further research to develop a more fully fleshed out framework for the analysis of transnational audience practices.
Using Ethnography to Understand Everyday Media Practices in Australian Family Life
Authors: Holloway Donell , Green Lelia
Published: January 2013

This chapter discusses the use of ethnography within a media and cultural studies framework to investigate media practices within Australian families. It begins by outlining the theory and practice informing audience ethnography research, and then it provides an overview of audience studies research in Australia over the past quarter‐century. The chapter then draws specifically upon the authors' audience ethnographies, to illuminate how complex behaviors such as those associated with media consumption are best investigated from a suite of different perspectives: participant observation, interview, field notes, and an engagement with a number of informants within each household. The production of cultural value through engagement with such media as the television and the Internet crosses the boundary between the household and the wider world and requires self‐reflection and analysis on the part of interviewees. In addition to this, media practices within the family are both an indication of and a constituent influence upon the family's social and cultural norms. Issues about “who lets whom use what and when” are major sites of negotiation for autonomy and independence as children mature within the family context. Thus, by studying media audiences via ethnography, researchers are offered a privileged insight into people's everyday lives.
Always at Crossroads
Authors: Gajjala Radhika
Published: January 2013

This chapter explores the transition from audience studies to cyberethnography on the basis of the author's own experience in doing research in computer‐mediated communication and in teaching in online environments. The chapter describes her experience in developing methodologies for studying Internet interactions through theoretical perspectives by drawing on postcolonial feminist theories and critical cultural studies. Doing ethnography at online/offline intersections requires a hands‐on approach, whereby the researcher works to build techno‐mediated contexts while simultaneously living in them and also staying connected to related contexts offline. Such an immersive methodology allows the researcher to understand computer‐mediated communication in global environments. In particular, the author refers to her experience of the “South Asian Women's network (SAWnet) refusal,” as she developed her cyberethnographic methodologies in the early 1990s. She describes her experience in developing appropriate research methods to study such Internet‐based global media.
Mapping the Psychology of Agenda Setting
Authors: McCombs Maxwell , Lee Jae Kook
Published: January 2013

In the decades since the seminal Chapel Hill study, agenda setting has evolved into a broad theory and set of hypotheses encompassing five theoretical areas. Characterized by two major trends, all five of these areas remain active research arenas. There is acentrifugal trend, the expansion into new domains and settings far beyond the original realm of public issues. Their counterpoint is acentripetal trendin which scholars have turned their attention inward to further explication of the theory's basic concepts. Much of this work concentrates on the psychology of the agenda‐setting process. This chapter examines the role of incidental learning and of moderator and mediating variables in the agenda‐setting process, and the impact of agenda‐setting effects at both the first and second level on the formation of attitudes and opinions and on subsequent behavior.
Examining Media Effects
Authors: Barlett Christopher P. , Anderson Craig A.
Published: January 2013

The study of screen media effects is becoming especially important because people spend increasing amounts of time on visually realistic entertainment media. This chapter applies two related theoretical frameworks to the study of media effects: the general aggression model (GAM) and the general learning model (GLM). Both theories posit relations between media exposure and internal processes, behavior, and the development of long‐term knowledge structures and attitudes. GAM focuses on the development of aggressive knowledge structures and attitudes derived from exposure to violent media depictions (amongst other aggression‐related stimuli), and their relation to aggressive behavior. GLM, a broad extension of GAM, posits how long‐term attitudes and knowledge structures are formed with continued exposure to any type of media (violent or nonviolent), and how “media‐trained behavior” can ensue. How these processes operate, the role of individual differences, and short‐ and long‐term consequences of media exposure are discussed.
Media Entertainment as a Result of Recreation and Psychological Growth
Authors: Hartmann Tilo
Published: January 2013

Media entertainment refers to users' enjoyment of media‐induced sensations. This chapter argues that users feel entertained to the extent that media supports their adaptive tendencies to recreate and grow psychologically. Within the boundaries of their physiological regulation, users are believed to engage actively in cognitive, affective, and behavioral challenges imposed by media, in order to grow psychologically. However, a lack of physiological resources may limit users' engagement in challenges and consequently strengthen their enjoyment of more recreational and supportive media content.
Selective Exposure to Violent Media
Authors: Krcmar Marina
Published: January 2013

This chapter reviews the research that has examined individuals' interest in media violence. It reviews definitions of media violence, as well as affect‐based approaches to attraction to media violence (i.e., mood management and mood adjustment) and reviews the research findings that use this approach. Next, it reviews disposition‐based theories that focus on how individuals evaluate media characters, form affiliations with them, and affectively respond to them. Disposition‐based theories offer one possible explanation for attraction to media violence. Functional approaches (e.g., threat mastery) and psychological correlates of interest in media violence are also explored. Lastly, it proposes that social cognitive theory, when viewed as a meta‐theory or meta‐approach to interest in media violence, may offer an over‐arching model to integrate the various perspectives reviewed in the chapter.
Gender‐Role Socialization in the Twenty‐First Century
Authors: Signorielli Nancy
Published: January 2013

Gender‐role socialization has been a critical element in the study of mass communication since the late 1960s. This chapter will review our knowledge of this topic looking specifically at gender‐role images on television, including broadcast programs and commercials, children's TV, and teen movies. The chapter focuses specifically on research conducted during the first decade of the twenty‐first century examining images related to age, race, and occupation. A critical and key finding is that women continue to be underrepresented in most venues. The chapter also discusses the influence of these gender‐role media images on people's conceptions about being men and women, particularly the continued relationship between viewing and expressing more stereotypical conceptions about gender roles.
The Influence of Media Exposure on the Formation, Activation, and Application of Racial/Ethnic Stereotypes
Authors: Mastro Dana , Tukachinsky Riva
Published: January 2013

Although exposure to mass media content represents only one of a number of factors associated with the construction and application of racial/ethnic stereotypes, its influence should not be trivialized. Both theory and empirical research on media and stereotyping indicate that stereotypes arise from and are maintained via interaction with the messages offered in mass media fare – including exposure to both thematic messages as well as more uncommon messages stemming from idiosyncratic media use. Accordingly, to understand the role of the media in issues pertaining to stereotyping it is essential to consider: (a) how diverse groups are represented across the media landscape; (b) the manner in which exposure to these characterizations influences stereotype‐based processes; and (c) the features of consumers and media messages themselves that may moderate stereotype‐related outcomes. The present chapter highlights the existing research in each of these areas and offers suggestions for further study.
Sex on Television
Authors: Farrar Kirstie M.
Published: January 2013

Adolescents and emerging adults watch a great deal of television and research shows that they are exposed to a steady stream of messages about sex and sexuality, the vast majority of which do not contain important messages about safe and healthy sexual behavior. Research finds that young people learn information about sex from watching television and that their attitudes about sexual topics, including sexual health, can be influenced. Evidence is mounting that watching sex on television is linked to both initiation of and advancement in sexual behaviors. This chapter will review the evidence on sexual socialization effects with an emphasis on the role of the context of a sexual portrayal in the effects process. The importance of gender and race in the effects process will also be highlighted and potential positive effects of sexual content in the media will also be discussed.
Exploring Relations Between Political Entertainment Media And Traditional Political Communication Information Outlets
Authors: Holbert R. Lance , Young Dannagal Goldthwaite
Published: January 2013

A wide range of entertainment media content has been shown to influence some of our most important democratic outcomes. In addition, political communication scholarship is beginning to look at how certain entertainment‐based media outlets function alongside more traditional political outlets (e.g., TV news, debates). In today's complex media environment, it is apparent that audience members do not experience entertainment media or news in complete isolation. There ishybridityacross individuals, across genres, and across texts. Studying how various forms of political information work together, and how people make sense of them in tandem, is essential to understanding the broader role of media in politics. This chapter offers a plan of action designed to allow political communication researchers to engage in a theoretically grounded, systematic study of how entertainment media relates to, informs, and interacts with more traditional public affairs media within the context of politics.
The Intended and Unintended Effects of Advertising on Children
Authors: Buijzen Moniek , Valkenburg Patti M.
Published: January 2013

The effects of advertising on children have often been divided into two general types: intended effects (e.g., children's brand awareness, preferences, and purchase requests) and unintended effects (e.g., materialistic orientations, parent–child conflicts, and unhealthy eating habits). The first part of this chapter discusses theories of advertising processing. The second part reviews the literature on intended and unintended advertising effects. The third part addresses the factors that may moderate advertising effects, focusing on the role of children's development and parental communication. Finally, we discuss the social significance of the conclusions that emerge from the literature.
The Educational Impact Of Television
Authors: Anderson Daniel R. , Lavigne Heather J. , Hanson Katherine G.
Published: January 2013

Watching and understanding television requires the development of attention, media decoding, and narrative comprehension skills. Children under the age of two years have difficulty using televised information to effectively guide their behavior, a phenomenon known as the video deficit. Beyond the infant and toddler years, however, television can become a powerful tool for education. Programs designed with specific educational objectives and research‐based curricula promote academic achievement and prosocial behavior. Educational television is an important asset for children's informal learning during the preschool years and beyond.
The Role Of Parental Mediation In the Development Of Media Literacy and the Prevention of Substance Use
Authors: Chen Yi‐Chun (Yvonnes) , Austin Erica Weintraub
Published: January 2013

To provide a more complete picture of the existing state of knowledge regarding parental communication and media literacy in relation to substance use, this chapter discusses (1) parental mediation and its effects on children and adolescents, (2) relationships between parental communication and media literacy, and (3) how each factor (i.e., parental mediation and media literacy) relates to substance use. The chapter includes highlights from a survey that integrates parental communication and media literacy into substance use research among emerging adults. Findings suggest that negative active mediation is effective in fostering competency in media literacy into adulthood, whereas the passive activity of coviewing, the avoidance strategy of rulemaking and the reinforcement of message receptivity in positive mediation are weak or counterproductive influences for media literacy development. Deficiencies in media literacy can lead to risk‐taking behaviors among adolescents and may exacerbate those behaviors when they reach emerging adulthood. It is suggested that future research should explore whether similar patterns emerge in other contexts, such as obesity, body image and Internet safety.
The End Of James Cameron's Quiet Years
Authors: Acland Charles R.
Published: January 2013

In the years between his blockbuster films
Titanic
(1997) and
Avatar
(2009), James Cameron was an active documentary producer and director. Where many saw these years as a retreat from the mainstream of the film industry, this chapter argues that this period helped solidify his relationship with scientific discovery and the development of cinema technology.
Expedition: Bismarck
(2002),
Ghosts of the Abyss
(2003), and
Aliens of the Deep
(2005) are large‐budget documentary films involving deep‐sea expeditions, and in which the technology of physical and visual access to the subject matter figures prominently. This chapter demonstrates the thematic and aesthetic links these films have with
Avatar
. Cameron's persona as a technological auteur shows us how the business of film is bound up with a range of media products, new technological forms, in particular 3D film, and types of intellectual property, revealing the technological imperative lodged in conceptions of the future of cinema.
Infrastructural Changeover
Authors: Parks Lisa
Published: January 2013

Media and communication studies scholars have been tracking the US digital terrestrial television (DTV) transition for over a decade, conducting research crucial for understanding the future of media systems. The existing research tends to focus on two areas. First, some scholars have used diffusion theory to consider issues of technological adoption, exploring the relative willingness of consumers to adapt to DTV. Second, others have examined how the transition has impacted the consumer electronics industry and the United States' precarious position in that global industry. Few, if any, have engaged critically with the ways that the federal government, trade organizations, and community groups have communicated with the public in an effort to prepare them for the digital TV transition. In this chapter, Lisa Parks adds a vital dimension to existing work in this area by exploring how technical information about DTV was communicated to the public in the months leading up to the transition. Examining a variety of materials, from press releases to news reports from public service announcements to video kinescopes that document the end of analog service, Parks considers how consumer‐citizens were addressed by public outreach initiatives and how they negotiated the digital TV transition. She highlights three issues crucial for understanding this major infrastructural transition: (1) the way fixed‐income and minority communities have been singled out in relation to television; (2) the uneven geographies of the transition; and (3) the way viewers and digital corporations have responded to the transition in its aftermath.
The 800‐Pound Gorillas in the Room
Authors: Dawson Max
Published: January 2013

Since the late 1990s media and telecommunications companies have invested billions of dollars in the development of methods for delivering television programming to mobile phones over wireless networks. In this chapter, Max Dawson explores the institutional conflicts that have shaped mobile television's development in the United States, paying special attention to the clashes that have taken place between mobile companies and broadcasters. For nearly a decade these adversaries have made mobile television a weapon within ongoing disputes over markets, resources, and policies. These conflicts have produced a succession of mobile television solutions that have emulated, reworked, and commented upon the technologies and protocols of the US model of over‐the‐air television broadcasting. Dawson argues that mobile television's remediation of broadcasting is neither incidental nor ironic, but rather is indicative of the institutional politics that surround emergent media. He situates mobile television's remediation of broadcasting within these political contexts, and in the process highlights the institutional factors that influence processes of media change.
Reconstructing Accountability
Authors: Eide Martin
Published: January 2013

An essential challenge for media studies, in a time when newspapers are in crisis and the practice of journalism is more contested than ever before, is to understand the problem of journalistic agency. In this chapter, Martin Eide provides a foundation for examining journalistic agency by charting major shifts in the political economy and professional framework of journalism. Eide argues for renewed attention to accountability journalism – a form of journalism that holds the powerful accountable and is itself accountable to an informed citizenry. For this endeavor, he suggests that we can gain useful insights from scholarly work on the problematic of structuring. It might then be possible to understand the limits of journalistic agency and develop workable versions of accountability journalism. Some have argued that journalism, in a time when “we're all journalists,” should simply be regarded as an activity, rather than as an institution. Eide disagrees, stressing the need to conceive of journalism as a vital social institution that needs to be reoriented toward a more viable future.
Future Directions for Political Communication Scholarship
Authors: Wahl‐Jorgensen Karin
Published: January 2013

In this chapter, Karin Wahl‐Jorgensen argues for the importance of considering the role of emotion in political communication. Throughout the history of liberal democratic thought, she explains, emotion has been treated as the polar opposite of reason and rationality, and therefore as the enemy of good citizenship. This presumption has carried over into dominant ways of analyzing mediated public participation, as exemplified in Habermas's theory of the public sphere. There is nonetheless growing empirical evidence that emotion is central in motivating and shaping political participation. Therefore, a careful consideration of the power of emotion to mobilize citizens has much to offer the field. Wahl‐Jorgensen emphasizes the need to better understand the complex consequences of affective engagements in politics. She suggests that some forms of political discourse designed to elicit emotional reaction may have integrative possibilities insofar as they can foster empathy and solidarity, while others – ones that foster hatred and intolerance – may contribute to the breakdown of debate. Either way, emotion is an indispensable and growing resource in political life that we ignore at our peril.
The Future of New Media
Authors: Golumbia David
Published: January 2013

In this chapter, David Golumbia argues that computationalist ideology – the view that everything in reality is ultimately made up of computation – can be seen with particular clarity in what he calls “the uploading story.” According to this story, we human beings are on the verge of losing our human embodiment and our contact with everyday reality, and moving into a world where our minds merge with computers and we inhabit virtual realities much like those seen in videogames. A prominent exemplar of this story is found in the work of inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, who claims that we are heading toward a profound transformation he and others call “The Singularity.” Golumbia argues that the premise of Kurzweil's “Singularity” reads very much like the fantastic versions of “uploading” that have been widespread in computational thought for decades.

To expose the conceptual flaws in the uploading story and its incarnation in Kurzweil's “Singularity,” Golumbia examines a selection of recent television series and films that use this story as their narrative foundation.Dollhouse,Battlestar Galactica, andGamerconstitute a kind of demonstrative interrogation of the uploading fantasy, Golumbia argues, revealing its central contradiction – namely, that it relies not on actual technological advances but on distortions beyond any recognizable limits of our conceptions of the human, the mind, and the body.
Mapping ICT Adoption among Latin American Youth
Authors: Winocur Rosalía , Aguerre Carolina
Published: January 2013

In this chapter, Rosalía Winocur and Carolina Aguerre show how virtual communities and online social networks have been legitimized as new forms of visibility, recognition, and social inclusion among young people in Latin America. “To be or not to be part of something” and to be accepted or rejected for “forming or not forming a part of it” are core themes in the process of identity construction among Latin American youth, both online and offline. Faced with the difficulties of inclusion in the traditional institutions – particularly those related to training, employment, and access to power – young people adopt information and communication technologies (ICTs) in order to create alternative avenues to inclusion. The authors suggest that, by developing flexible and mobile strategies of ICT use and generating their own informal circuits of inclusion at the margins, young people may find avenues to gain access to the formal channels and privileged spaces of ICTs. In short, this chapter argues that Internet and mobile platforms are compensatory symbolic substitutes for the lack of real power these young people have in everyday life.
The Dead‐End of Consumerism
Authors: Lewis Justin
Published: January 2013

In this chapter, Justin Lewis argues that twenty‐first‐century consumer capitalism is no longer an effective model for human progress. In developed countries, consumer capitalism can no longer deliver improvements in quality of life, is fraught with economic contradictions, and will make the planet considerably less habitable. How might we begin to address these issues and imagine a better world? Lewis focuses on three ways in which the contemporary cultural industries keep us conceptually bound to a consumerist credo. First, the media and communications industries have come to epitomize the notion of built‐in obsolescence based on a perpetual consumerism. Second, our most dominant cultural industry, advertising, provides a cultural environment that makes it hard to imagine a way of being outside consumerism. Third, the capacity of journalism to question current orthodoxy is constrained by a focus on “disposable news,” displacing the more democratic function of journalism.
Media Armageddons and the Death of Liberal Biopolitics
Authors: Nadesan Majia Holmer
Published: January 2013

Over the last several years, Western audiences have been treated to a steady stream of post‐apocalyptic disaster films. In this chapter, Majia Nadesan discusses
The Road
,
The Book of Eli
, and
9
, arguing that these films can be distinguished thematically from the more general disaster genre by their exclusive focus on post‐disaster survival and their invocations of cannibalism. Significantly, she connects the emphases on post‐apocalyptic survival and cannibalism to the profound social dislocations experienced by US citizens in the wake of the financial crisis. The chapter contends that thematic elements of the films are metaphors for the ascendancy of a form of financial capitalism that dispenses with labor‐based suppositions of value. Nadesan contends that financial capitalism has no interest in Western, liberal biopolitics, and that the current slate of post‐apocalyptic disaster films is a cultural barometer of the malaise experienced by newly expendable populaces, increasingly confronted with their excess in relation to post‐disaster capitalism.
Boom or Boomerang
Authors: Banerjee Smita C. , kubey Robert
Published: January 2013

This chapter advances research on media literacy by reviewing studies that utilize media literacy in either short‐term or long‐term interventions. Media literacy interventions on a wide array of topics including violence, smoking, alcohol, and advertising are reviewed. Effectiveness of media literacy is discussed using various criteria: duration of intervention, intervention design, target group, intervention modality, causal process, and different strategies for media literacy interventions. Key questions addressed in this chapter ask how media literacy efficacy is defined, and what issues surround media literacy efficacy.
Optimierung der Robustheit von selbstverdichtendem Beton gegenüber Temperatureinflüssen
Authors: Schmidt Wolfram , Brouwers Henricus Jozef Hubertus , Kühne Hans‐Carsten , Meng Birgit
Published: January 2013

Selbstverdichtender Beton verhält sich unter Temperatureinfluss anders als Normalbeton, da die Rheologie neben der fortschreitenden Hydratation zusätzlich durch die von der Zeit und dem Hydratationsfortschritt abhängige Adsorption von Fließmitteln beeinflusst wird. Anhand rheometrischer Betonversuche an SVB unterschiedlicher Entwurfskonzepte mit variierter anionischer Ladungsdichte im Fließmittel wird verdeutlicht, dass mehlkornreiche SVB bei niedrigen Temperaturen sehr robust sind, während bei hohen Temperaturen mehlkornärmere Entwürfe zu bevorzugen sind. Darüber hinaus wird gezeigt, wie sich unterschiedliche Fließmittelmodifikationen in bestimmten Temperaturbereichen verhalten. Anhand des Wasser‐Feststoff‐Verhältnisses und des Adsorptionsverhaltens von Fließmitteln werden die maßgeblichen Prozesse erläutert und Möglichkeiten für die Entwicklung robuster Mischungen für individuelle Temperaturbereiche aufgeführt.

Robustness optimisation of self‐compacting concrete regarding temperature effects

Regarding the temperature dependent performance, self‐compacting concrete (SCC) distinguishes from normal concrete, since its rheology does not only depend upon the hydration itself but supplementary upon the adsorption of superplasticizers, which is affected by the time and the hydration progress. Based on rheometric concrete investigations with different SCC mixture compositions and varied anionic charge densities of the superplasticizers, it is shown that SCC, which is rich in powder components, shows robust performance at low temperatures, while compositions with lower powder contents are favourable at high temperatures. Furthermore, the performance of different superplasticizer modifications at different temperature ranges is demonstrated. The relevant processes are explained by means of the water to powder ratio as well as the adsorption behaviour of superplasticizers, and options for the development of robust mixture compositions for individual temperature ranges are itemised.
Zuverlässigkeit hochbeanspruchter Druckglieder aus UHPC
Authors: Heimann Martin , Schmidt Holger , Tran Ngoc Linh , Graubner Carl‐Alexander
Published: January 2013

Der Einsatz ultrahochfester Betone erlaubt eine Erweiterung des Anwendungsbereichs bisher üblicher und bewährter Massivbaukonstruktionen. Da das Tragverhalten eines Bauteiles über seinen Lebenszyklus mit entsprechenden Unsicherheiten bzgl. der Einwirkungen sowie der Material‐ und Systemeigenschaften behaftet ist, stellte sich die Frage, bis zu welchen Anwendungsgrenzen schlanke UHPC‐Druckglieder die Anforderungen an die erforderliche Tragwerkszuverlässigkeit noch erfüllen. Vor dem Hintergrund dieses Sachverhaltes ermöglichte die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft die Förderung der Untersuchung der Zuverlässigkeit schlanker Stützen aus UHPC. Dieser Beitrag berichtet über die Forschungstätigkeit im Rahmen des Projektes und stellt wesentliche Ergebnisse der Zuverlässigkeitsanalysen vor.

Reliability of highly stressed UHPC‐columns

Meanwhile concrete‐technological developments allow the production of UHPC with a compressive strength of more than 150 N/mm2. Thus, the cross‐sectional dimensions required for highly stressed compression members can be reduced. However, in many cases this positive development increased the trend to even more slender and therefore likelier to buckle structural systems. Hence, it is to be expected that under certain conditions the safety level of such construction elements decreases. Because of this, the reliability of slender UHPC structural members is being investigated in a research project, supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft at the TU Darmstadt. This article reports about the research activities and the most important findings of this project.
Antimicrobial enzymes: An emerging strategy to fight microbes and microbial biofilms
Authors: Thallinger Barbara , Prasetyo Endry N. , Nyanhongo Gibson S. , Guebitz Georg M.
Published: January 2013

With the increasing prevalence of antibiotic resistance, antimicrobial enzymes aimed at the disruption of bacterial cellular machinery and biofilm formation are under intense investigation. Several enzyme‐based products have already been commercialized for application in the healthcare, food and biomedical industries. Successful removal of complex biofilms requires the use of multi‐enzyme formulations that contain enzymes capable of degrading microbial DNA, polysaccharides, proteins and quorum‐sensing molecules. The inclusion of anti‐quorum sensing enzymes prevents biofilm reformation. The development of effective complex enzyme formulations is urgently needed to deal with the problems associated with biofilm formation in manufacturing, environmental protection and healthcare settings. Nevertheless, advances in synthetic biology, enzyme engineering and whole DNA‐Sequencing technologies show great potential to facilitate the development of more effective antimicrobial and anti‐biofilm enzymes.
Stable overexpression of DJ‐1 protects H9c2 cells against oxidative stress under a hypoxia condition
Authors: Yu Hai‐Hong , Xu Qiang , Chen He‐Ping , Wang Song , Huang Xiao‐Shan , Huang Qi‐Ren , He Ming
Published: January 2013

It has been well accepted that increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the subsequent oxidative stress is one of the major causes of ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. DJ‐1 protein, as a multifunctional intracellular protein, plays an important role in regulating cell survival and antioxidant stress. Here, we wondered whether DJ‐1 overexpression attenuates simulated ischemia/reperfusion (sI/R)‐induced oxidative stress. A rat cDNA encoding DJ‐1 was inserted into a mammalian expression vector. After introduction of this construct into H9c2 myocytes, stable clones were obtained. Western blot analysis of the derived clones showed a 2.6‐fold increase in DJ‐1 protein expressing. Subsequently, the DJ‐1 gene‐transfected and control H9c2 cells were subjected to sI/R, and then cell viability, lactate dehydrogenase, malondialdehyde, intracellular ROS and antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione peroxidase) were measured appropriately. The results showed that stable overexpression of DJ‐1 efficiently attenuated sI/R‐induced viability loss and lactate dehydrogenase leakage. Additionally, stable overexpression of DJ‐1 inhibited sI/R‐induced the elevation of ROS and MDA contents followed by the increase of antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione peroxidase) activities and expression. Our data indicate that overexpression of DJ‐1 attenuates ROS generation, enhances the cellular antioxidant capacity and prevents sI/R‐induced oxidative stress, revealing a novel mechanism of cardioprotection. Importantly, DJ‐1 overexpression may be an important part of a protective strategy against ischemia/reperfusion injury. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Modeling lightness perception—another point of view
Authors: Kuehni Rolf G.
Published: January 2013

In a recent note, Brill and Carter propose to revisit the centuries‐old disagreement over the relationship between stimuli and perceived lightness or brightness and the mathematical model that best represents it. Here, the answer is offered that the only way to resolve this matter is empirically, with controlled experiments of different kinds that establish statistically meaningful and replicated data for a given set of test conditions and methodology. Given the fact that surround lightness has a very significant effect on the results, including the crispening effect, a model can only be valid for a limited set of conditions, and the likely outcome is multiple models or models with multiple variables. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 39, 102–104, 2014
Monochromatic gating method by flow cytometry for high purity monocyte analysis
Authors: Wong Linda , Davis Bruce H.
Published: January 2013

Background:

Assays of antigen expression on myeloid cells have an underlying premise that the assay integrates high purity gating of the leukocyte subpopulation in question. While CD45/side scatter (SSC) gating provides sufficient gating purity for qualitative assays of antigen expression; it is unsuitable for quantitative assays of antigen changes, especially monocytes. We have validated a monochromatic gating approach combining CD45 and CD64 labeled with the same fluorochrome that allows for high purity monocyte gating.

Methods:

Twenty‐five blood samples were stained using three different antibody combinations (CD45 FITC + CD163 PE; CD45 FITC + CD64 PE; CD45 FITC + CD64 FITC). Data analysis focused on the percentage of “monocytes” defined by the various antibody and SSC gating combinations.

Results:

Percent monocyte recovered by monochromatic CD64 gating was not statistically different from two‐color CD45 + CD64 or CD45 + CD163 gating. All three methods of immunologic monocyte identification yielded a 12.93%–15.15% reduction in the “monocyte” percentage compared to CD45/SSC gating.

Conclusions:

A monochromatic combination of CD45 and CD64 antibodies with scatter signals allows higher purity monocyte gating by flow cytometry (FC) compared to CD45/SSC gating. This approach allows for the development of a high resolution four‐color assay, such as for detection of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, whereby a single four‐color tube will allow simultaneous high purity monocyte (CD64+) and neutrophil (CD15+) analysis of both phosphatidylinositol (PI) linked protein expression and FLAER binding. © 2013 International Clinical Cytometry Society
Multiparameter flow cytometry reveals myelodysplasia‐related aberrant antigen expression in myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative neoplasms
Authors: Kern Wolfgang , Bacher Ulrike , Schnittger Susanne , Alpermann Tamara , Haferlach Claudia , Haferlach Torsten
Published: January 2013

Background:

Within the myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative neoplasm (MDS/MPN) category of the WHO (2008), only chronic myelomonocytic leukemia was so far evaluated by multiparameter flow cytometry (MFC).

Methods:

To investigate the potential of MFC for MDS/MPNs, unclassifiable (MDS/MPNu), and refractory anemia associated with ring sideroblasts and marked thrombocytosis (RARS‐T), we studied 91 patients with these entities (60 males/31 females; 35.3–87.4 years) for MDS‐related aberrant immunophenotypes (≥2 different cell lineages with ≥3 aberrantly expressed antigens). Data were correlated with cytomorphology and cytogenetics.

Results:

MFC identified MDS‐related immunophenotypes in 54/91 (59.3%) of patients. Patients with or without MDS‐related immunophenotype did not differ significantly by demographic characteristics, blood values, or median overall survival. MDS‐related immunophenotype cases showed a higher number of aberrantly expressed antigens (mean ± SD, 4.9 ± 2.4 vs. 2.0 ± 1.4; P < 0.001). Aberrant karyotypes showed a similar frequency in patients with and without MDS‐related immunophenotype (11/54; 20.4% vs. 7/37; 18.9%; P = n.s.).

Conclusions:

MDS‐related immunophenotype are present in more than half of patients with MDS/MPNu and RARS‐T. MFC therefore may be helpful to separate cases into more “MDS‐like” or “MPN‐like” subgroups. © 2012 International Clinical Cytometry Society
An ecohydrological review of dune slacks on the west coast of England and Wales
Authors: Stratford C. J. , Robins N. S. , Clarke D. , Jones L. , Weaver G.
Published: January 2013

Coastal dunes are valuable ecological reserves providing a range of ecosystem services from coastal flood defence to recreational amenity. An important feature of dune systems is the slack floors, areas of high ecological value that are closely linked to the prevailing hydrological system in the dunes. Dune slacks are sensitive environments that are impacted by external changes, such as rainfall patterns and foreshore erosion as well as conservation management. Understanding the effects of these influences upon the water balance in a dune system is fundamental to the management of the slacks. Occurrence of seasonal flood depths, area and timing and how far the water table recedes below ground in summer are critical to the flora and fauna that the slacks will support. Change in the hydrological regime directly impacts the ecosystem. Experience is drawn from four sites in Wales and west coast England: Ainsdale on the Sefton Coast, Newborough Warren in North Wales, Whiteford Burrows in South Wales and Braunton Burrows in North Devon. Similarities and differences between the hydroecology of the respective sites highlight common mechanisms and processes and those unique to each site. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Quantifying transpirable soil water and its relations to tree water use dynamics in a water‐limited pine forest
Authors: Klein Tamir , Rotenberg Eyal , Cohen‐Hilaleh Ella , Raz‐Yaseef Naama , Tatarinov Fyodor , Preisler Yakir , Ogée Jérôme , Cohen Shabtai , Yakir Dan
Published: January 2013

Knowledge of the relationship between soil water dynamics and tree water use is critical to understanding forest response to environmental change in water‐limited ecosystems. However, the dynamics in soil water availability for tree transpiration (Tt) cannot be easily deduced from conventional measurements of soil water content (SWC), notably because Tt is influenced by soil water potential (Ψs) that, in turn, depends on soil characteristics. Using tree sap flow and water potential and deriving depth‐dependent soil water retention curves, we quantified the ‘transpirable soil water content’ (tSWC) and its seasonal and inter‐annual variations in a semi‐arid Pinus halepensis forest. The results indicated that tSWC varied in time and with soil depth. Over one growing season Tt was 57% of rain and 72% of the infiltrated SWC. In early winter, Tt was exclusively supported by soil moisture at the top 10 cm (tSWC = 11 mm), whereas in spring (tSWC > 18 mm) and throughout the dry season, source water for Tt shifted to 20–40 cm, where the maximum fine root density occurs. Simulation with the soil–plant–atmosphere water and energy transport model MuSICA supported the idea that consistent tSWC at the 20–40 cm soil layer critically depended on limited water infiltration below 40 cm, because of high water retention below this depth. Quantifying tSWC is critical to the precise estimation of the onset and termination of the growing season (when tSWC > 0) in this semi‐arid ecosystem. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Templating Effect and Photochemistry of Viologens in Halometalate Hybrid Crystals
Authors: Mercier N.
Published: January 2013

Invited for this month's cover is the group of Nicolas Mercier at Moltech‐Anjou CNRS, Université Angers. The image shows the most recent developments in the chemistry of viologens in halometalate hybrid crystals.
Gold(I)‐Catalysed Alkene Cycloaddition Reactions of Propargyl Acetals
Authors: Iqbal Naseem , Sperger Christian A. , Fiksdahl Anne
Published: January 2013

Studies on gold(I)‐catalysed reactions of propargyl acetals are scarce, unlike those of the corresponding esters. We have investigated gold(I)‐catalysed cyclization reactions of both propargyl acetals and esters in order to identify the abilities of the two substrate groups to follow two different cyclization pathways with vinylic reactants, such as vinyl amides and vinyl ethers, in chemoselective manner. Corresponding reactions with indoles allowed the construction of biologically interesting polycyclic indole‐based compounds. The relative reactivities of propargyl acetals and esters were also studied. The gold(I)‐catalysed cyclization reactions of propargyl acetals were characterized by two important features: i) in contrast with the conventional olefin cyclopropanation that normally takes place with propargyl esters, the favoured general reaction pathway for the corresponding acetals is an atypical cyclopentenylation by [2+3] cycloaddition to afford trans‐cyclopentenyl products, and ii) the propargyl acetals showed significantly higher reactivities than the corresponding esters, in line with the assumption that the alkoxy substituent might activate the gold‐propargyl acetal complex intermediate. Different factors affecting the specific pathways are discussed, with the aim of achieving better mechanistic understanding of the reactions.
Lapita period modelled ceramic face from New Caledonia
Authors: NOURY ARNAUD
Published: January 2013

ABSTRACT I report here a new Lapita period clay modelled face from the Lapita (WKO013A) site. This is similar to the seven Lapita period faces already known. I discuss the role that such faces could have played in Lapita culture and suggest they could have been made by distinct groups.
A Matter of Balance: An overview of Pleistocene occupation history and the impact of the Last Glacial Phase in East Timor and the Aru Islands, eastern Indonesia
Authors: O'CONNOR SUE , APLIN KEN
Published: January 2013

This paper explores the subsistence records from cave sites with Pleistocene‐aged deposits in East Timor and the Aru Islands during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), and discusses these records within the context of the limited archaeological evidence for LGM occupation from elsewhere in the Indonesian Archipelago. Although Timor and the Aru Islands are at similar latitudes, the onset of aridity had markedly different impacts on the settlement and subsistence choices available to hunter‐gatherers in these two regions. We suggest that the different occupation trajectories seen in Timor and Aru during the LGM are related, at least in part, to biogeographic contrasts across the Indonesian Archipelago.