bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Metformin Reverts the Secretion of CXCL8 Induced by TNF-α in Primary Cultures of Human Thyroid Cells: An Additional Indirect Anti-Tumor Effect of the Drug
Authors: Rotondi Mario , Coperchini Francesca , Pignatti Patrizia , Magri Flavia , Chiovato Luca
Published: January 2015

Context:

Metformin displays both direct and indirect anti-tumor effects. CXCL8 is a crucial downstream mediator of Nuclear-Factor-κB signaling related to the growth and progression of thyroid cancers. Targeting CXCL8 results in prolonged survival and reduced metastatic spread in in-vivo animal models of thyroid tumors.

Objective:

This study aimed to evaluate whether metformin inhibits the secretion of CXCL8 induced by Tumor-Necrosis-Factor-α (TNF-α) in primary cultures of normal and tumor human thyroid cells as well as in thyroid cancer cell lines.

Methods:

Normal human thyrocytes, papillary thyroid cancer cells, and thyroid cancer cell lines (TPC-1 and BCPAP) were stimulated with TNF-α (10 ng/mL) alone or in combination with metformin (0.01, 0.1, 1, 2.5, 5, and 10mM). CXCL8 levels were measured in the cell supernatants after 24 hours.

Results:

Metformin significantly and dose-dependently inhibited the TNF-α-induced CXCL8 secretion in both normal thyrocytes (ANOVA: F = 42.04; P < .0001) and papillary thyroid cancer cells (ANOVA: F = 21.691; P < .0001) but not in TPC-1 and BCPAP cell lines.

Conclusion:

Metformin inhibits the TNF-α-induced CXCL8 secretion in primary cultures of normal thyroid cells and differentiated thyroid cancer cells at least of the most frequent poorly aggressive phenotype. The recruitment of neutrophils within the thyroid gland is a crucial metastasis-promoting factor, and it depends on the amount of CXCL8 produced by both tumor cells and by the more abundant normal thyroid cells exposed to TNF-α. Thus, the here-reported inhibiting effect of metformin on TNF-α-induced CXCL8 secretion could be considered as a further indirect anticancer property of the drug.
IQGAP1 Controls Tight Junction Formation Through Differential Regulation of Claudin Recruitment
Authors: Tanos Barbara E. , Perez-Bay Andres , Salvarezza Susana , Vivanco Igor , Mellinghoff Ingo , Osman Mahasin , Sacks David B. , Rodriguez-Boulan Enrique
Published: January 2015

IQGAP1 is a scaffolding protein previously implicated in adherens junction formation. However, its role in the establishment or maintenance of tight junctions (TJ) has not been explored. We hypothesized that IQGAP1 could regulate TJ formation by modulating the expression and/or localization of junctional proteins and systematically tested this hypothesis in the model cell line MDCK. We find that IQGAP1 silencing enhances a transient increase in transepithelial electrical resistance (TER) observed during early stages of TJ formation (Cereijido et al. 1978). Quantitative microscopy and biochemical experiments suggest that this effect of IQGAP1 on TJ assembly is accounted for by reduced expression and TJ recruitment of claudin 2, and increased TJ recruitment of claudin 4. Furthermore, we show that IQGAP1 also regulates TJ formation via its interactor CDC42 since IQGAP1 knockdown increases the activity of the CDC42 effector JNK and dominant negative CDC42 prevents the increase in TER caused by IQGAP1 silencing. Hence, we provide evidence that IQGAP1 modulates TJ formation by a two-fold mechanism: 1) controlling expression and recruitment of claudin 2 and claudin 4 recruitment to the TJ, and 2) transient inhibition of the CDC42-JNK pathway.
Brca2/Pds5 complexes mobilize persistent meiotic recombination sites to the nuclear envelope
Authors: Kusch Thomas
Published: January 2015

Homologous recombination is required for reciprocal exchange between homologous chromosome arms during meiosis. Only select meiotic recombination events become chromosomal crossovers; the majority of recombination outcomes are noncrossovers. Growing evidence suggests that crossovers are repaired after noncrossovers. Here, I report that persisting recombination sites are mobilized to the nuclear envelope of Drosophila pro-oocytes during mid-pachytene. Their number correlates with the average crossover rate per meiosis. Proteomic and interaction studies reveal that the recombination mediator, Brca2, associates with lamin and the cohesion factor, Pds5, to secure persistent recombination sites at the nuclear envelope. In Rad51 females, all persistent DNA breaks are directed to the nuclear envelope. By contrast, a reduction of Pds5 or Brca2 levels abolishes the movement and causes a reduction of crossovers rates. The data suggest that persistent meiotic DNA double-strand breaks might correspond to crossovers, which are mobilized to the nuclear envelope for their repair. The identification of Brca2/Pds5 complexes as key mediators of this process provides a first mechanistic explanation for the contribution of lamins and cohesins to meiotic recombination.
Dimerization drives EGF receptor endocytosis through two sets of compatible endocytic codes
Authors: Wang Qian , Chen Xinmei , Wang Zhixiang
Published: January 2015

We have shown that epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor (EGFR) endocytosis is controlled by EGFR dimerization. However, it is not clear how the dimerization drives receptor internalization. We propose that EGFR endocytosis is driven by dimerization, bringing two sets of endocytic codes, one contained in each receptor monomer, in close proximity. Here, we tested this hypothesis by generating specific homo- or hetero-dimers of various receptors and their mutants. We show that ErbB2 and ErbB3 homodimers are endocytosis-deficient due to the lack of endocytic codes. Interestingly, EGFR-ErbB2 or EGFR-ErbB3 heterodimers are also endocytosis-deficient. Moreover, the heterodimer of EGFR and the endocytosis-deficient mutant EGFRΔ1005–1017 is also impaired in endocytosis. These results indicate that two sets of endocytic codes are required for receptor endocytosis. We found that an EGFR/PDGFR heterodimer is endocytosis-deficient, although both EGFR and PDGFR homodimers are endocytosis-competent, indicating that two compatible sets of endocytic codes are required. Finally, we found that to mediate the endocytosis of the receptor dimer, the two sets of compatible endocytic codes, one contained in each receptor molecule, have to be spatially coordinated.
Front Signal-Dependent Accumulation of RHOA Inhibitor FAM65B at Leading Edges Polarizes Neutrophils
Authors: Gao Kun , Tang Wenwen , Li Yuan , Zhang Pingzhao , Wang Dejie , Yu Long , Wang Chenji , Wu Dianqing
Published: January 2015

A hallmark of neutrophil polarization is the back localization of active RHOA and phosphorylated myosin light chain (pMLC). However, the mechanism for the polarization is not entirely clear. Here we show that FAM65B, a newly identified RHOA inhibitor, is important for the polarization. When FAM65B is phosphorylated, it binds to 14-3-3 and becomes more stable. In neutrophils, chemoattractants stimulate FAM65B phosphorylation largely depending on the front signals that include those mediated by PLCβ and PI3Kγ, leading to FAM65B accumulation at the leading edge. Concordantly, FAM65B-deficiency in neutrophils resulted in an increase in RHOA activity and front localization of pMLC as well as defects in chemotaxis directionality and adhesion to endothelial cells under flow. These data together elucidate a mechanism for RHOA and pMLC polarization in stimulated neutrophils through direct inhibition of RHOA by FAM65B at the leading edge.
Case Report: Persistent erectile dysfunction in a man with prolactinoma
Authors: Badal Justin , Ramasamy Ranjith , Hakky Tariq , Chandrashekar Aravind , Lipshultz Larry
Published: January 2015

Erectile dysfunction has been explored as a condition secondary to elevated prolactin; however, the mechanisms by which elevated prolactin levels cause erectile dysfunction have not yet been clearly established. We here present a patient with a history of prolactinoma who suffered from persistent erectile dysfunction despite testosterone supplementation and pharmacological and surgical treatment for the prolactinoma.  Patients who have had both prolactinemia and erectile dysfunction have been reported in the literature, but we find no report of a patient with persistent erectile dysfunction in the setting of testosterone supplementation and persistent hyperprolactinemia refractory to treatment. This case provides evidence supporting the idea that suppression of erectile function occurs in both the central and peripheral nervous systems independent of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis.
ISCB Ebola Award for Important Future Research on the Computational Biology of Ebola Virus
Authors: Karp Peter D. , Berger Bonnie , Kovats Diane E. , Lengauer Thomas , Linial Michal , Sabeti Pardis , Hide Winston , Rost Burkhard
Published: January 2015

Speed is of the essence in combating Ebola; thus, computational approaches should form a significant component of Ebola research. As for the development of any modern drug, computational biology is uniquely positioned to contribute through comparative analysis of the genome sequences of Ebola strains as well as 3-D protein modeling. Other computational approaches to Ebola may include large-scale docking studies of Ebola proteins with human proteins and with small-molecule libraries, computational modeling of the spread of the virus, computational mining of the Ebola literature, and creation of a curated Ebola database.

Taken together, such computational efforts could significantly accelerate traditional scientific approaches. In recognition of the need for important and immediate solutions from the field of computational biology against Ebola, the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) announces a prize for an important computational advance in fighting the Ebola virus. ISCB will confer the ISCB Fight against Ebola Award, along with a prize of US$2,000, at its July 2016 annual meeting (ISCB Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) 2016, Orlando, Florida).
Competing with Privacy
Authors: Casadesus-Masanell Ramon , Hervas-Drane Andres
Published: January 2015

We analyze the implications of consumer privacy for competition in the marketplace. Firms compete for consumer information and derive revenues both from consumer purchases as well as from disclosing consumer information in a secondary market. Consumers choose which firm to patronize and how much personal information to provide it with. We show that firms maximize profits by focusing on a single revenue source and competing at the extensive rather than the intensive margin, outperforming competitors by attracting a larger customer base. We also show that competition drives the provision of services with a low level of consumer information disclosure (high level of privacy), but higher competition intensity in the marketplace need not improve privacy when consumers exhibit low willingness to pay. Our findings are relevant to the business models of Internet firms and contribute to inform the regulatory debate on consumer privacy.

This paper was accepted by Bruno Cassiman, business strategy.
The Asset-Pricing Implications of Government Economic Policy Uncertainty
Authors: Brogaard Jonathan , Detzel Andrew
Published: January 2015

Using the news-based measure of Baker et al. [Baker SR, Bloom N, Davis SJ (2013) Measuring economic policy uncertainty. Working paper, Stanford University, Stanford, CA] to capture economic policy uncertainty (EPU) in the United States, we find that EPU positively forecasts log excess market returns. An increase of one standard deviation in EPU is associated with a 1.5% increase in forecasted three-month abnormal returns (6.1% annualized). Furthermore, innovations in EPU earn a significant negative risk premium in the Fama–French 25 size–momentum portfolios. Among the Fama–French 25 portfolios formed on size and momentum returns, the portfolio with the greatest EPU beta underperforms the portfolio with the lowest EPU beta by 5.53% per annum, controlling for exposure to the Carhart four factors as well as implied and realized volatility. These findings suggest that EPU is an economically important risk factor for equities.

This paper was accepted by Wei Jiang, finance.
Intertemporal Price Discrimination: Structure and Computation of Optimal Policies
Authors: Besbes Omar , Lobel Ilan
Published: January 2015

We study a firm’s optimal pricing policy under commitment. The firm’s objective is to maximize its long-term average revenue given a steady arrival of strategic customers. In particular, customers arrive over time, are strategic in timing their purchases, and are heterogeneous along two dimensions: their valuation for the firm’s product and their willingness to wait before purchasing or leaving. The customers' patience and valuation may be correlated in an arbitrary fashion. For this general formulation, we prove that the firm may restrict attention to cyclic pricing policies, which have length, at most, twice the maximum willingness to wait of the customer population. To efficiently compute optimal policies, we develop a dynamic programming approach that uses a novel state space that is general, capable of handling arbitrary problem primitives, and that generalizes to finite horizon problems with nonstationary parameters. We analyze the class of monotone pricing policies and establish their suboptimality in general. Optimal policies are, in a typical scenario, characterized by nested sales, where the firm offers partial discounts throughout each cycle, offers a significant discount halfway through the cycle, and holds its largest discount at the end of the cycle. We further establish a form of equivalence between the problem of pricing for a stream of heterogeneous strategic customers and pricing for a pool of heterogeneous customers who may stockpile units of the product.

This paper was accepted by Yossi Aviv, operations management.
Waiting Patiently: An Empirical Study of Queue Abandonment in an Emergency Department
Authors: Batt Robert J. , Terwiesch Christian
Published: January 2015

We study queue abandonment from a hospital emergency department. We show that abandonment is influenced by the queue length and the observable queue flows during the waiting exposure, even after controlling for wait time. For example, observing an additional person in the queue or an additional arrival to the queue leads to an increase in abandonment probability equivalent to a 25-minute or 5-minute increase in wait time, respectively. We also show that patients are sensitive to being “jumped” in the line and that patients respond differently to people more sick and less sick moving through the system. This customer response to visual queue elements is not currently accounted for in most queuing models. Additionally, to the extent the visual queue information is misleading or does not lead to the desired behavior, managers have an opportunity to intervene by altering what information is available to waiting customers.

This paper was accepted by Yossi Aviv, operations management.
Shopping for Information? Diversification and the Network of Industries
Authors: Anjos Fernando , Fracassi Cesare
Published: January 2015

We propose and test a view of corporate diversification as a strategy that exploits internal information markets, by bringing together information that is scattered across the economy. First, we construct an interindustry network using input-output data, to proxy for the economy’s information structure. Second, we introduce a new measure of conglomerate informational advantage, named “excess centrality,” which captures how much more central conglomerates are relative to specialized firms operating in the same industries. We find that high-excess-centrality conglomerates have greater value, and produce more and better patents. Consistent with the internal-information-markets view, we also show that excess centrality has a greater effect in industries covered by fewer analysts and in industries where soft information is important.

This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance.
Naiveté, Projection Bias, and Habit Formation in Gym Attendance
Authors: Acland Dan , Levy Matthew R.
Published: January 2015

We implement a gym-attendance incentive intervention and elicit subjects' predictions of their postintervention attendance. We find that subjects greatly overpredict future attendance, which we interpret as evidence of partial naiveté with respect to present bias. We find a significant postintervention attendance increase, which we interpret as habit formation, and which subjects appear not to predict ex ante. These results are consistent with a model of projection bias with respect to habit formation. Neither the intervention incentives, nor the small posttreatment incentives involved in our elicitation mechanism, appear to crowd out existing intrinsic motivation. The combination of naiveté and projection bias in gym attendance can help to explain limited take-up of commitment devices by dynamically inconsistent agents, and points to new forms of contracts. Alternative explanations of our results are discussed.

Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.2091 .

This paper was accepted by Uri Gneezy, behavioral economics.
Remanufacturing, Third-Party Competition, and Consumers' Perceived Value of New Products
Authors: Agrawal Vishal V. , Atasu Atalay , van Ittersum Koert
Published: January 2015

In this paper, we investigate whether and how the presence of remanufactured products and the identity of the remanufacturer influence the perceived value of new products through a series of behavioral experiments. Our results demonstrate that the presence of products remanufactured and sold by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) can reduce the perceived value of new products by up to 8%. However, the presence of third-party-remanufactured products can increase the perceived value of new products by up to 7%. These results suggest that deterring third-party competition via preemptive remanufacturing may reduce profits, whereas the presence of third-party competition may actually be beneficial for an OEM.

This paper was accepted by Serguei Netessine, operations management.
Long-acting medications for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Authors: Cope Graham F
Published: January 2015

This article explores the role of anticholinergic medications for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It provides an overview of COPD and outlines the current long-activing anti-muscarinic bronchodilators available. It also looks at issues such as side-effects, adherence, and how these treatments compare with other long-acting drug therapies for COPD.
The corporate social responsibility reports of global pharmaceutical firms
Authors: Salton Ryan , Jones Simon
Published: January 2015

This article revolves around the assessment of corporate social responsibility in relation to pharmaceutical firms. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming an increasingly important dimension in the corporate landscape. The rise of ethical awareness of stakeholders has prompted many global corporations to adopt CSR policies. This study shines the light on pharmaceutical firms to gauge the level of CSR in this industry. Five of the largest pharmaceutical firms were evaluated using the global reporting initiative (GRI) guidelines as a benchmark. The results showed an unexpectedly large variety in the performance of the companies, with some areas of CSR being emphasised, while others were largely ignored. This is partly due to lack of relevance of certain GRI performance metrics to the pharmaceutical industry. We conclude that the pharmaceutical industry's CSR initiatives require much improvement to be deemed comprehensive. Current major CSR guidelines, including GRI, are largely not industry specific so there needs to be a move to construct relevant CSR guidelines that target issues pertaining to the pharmaceutical industry. There should also be a focus on impact-orientated CSR guidelines, as opposed to simple reportability, in order to promote more meaningful CSR initiatives.
Delivering the Future: An evaluation of a multidisciplinary clinical leadership programme
Authors: Erol Rosie , Upton Penney , Mackenzie Hazel , Donnelly Peter , Upton Dominic
Published: January 2015

The Delivering the Future (DtF) leadership programme was established in 2005 to strengthen senior clinical leadership capacity and capability across NHS Scotland. This article reports on an evaluation of the programme to determine the extent to which the programme outcomes had been achieved. Sixty-seven (57%) programme participants responded to a questionnaire survey about their experience, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants (n = 8) and senior leaders (n = 7) at NHS Board level. The programme was highly regarded by participants and strategic level leads. The majority of DtF participants had been promoted or taken on expanded roles since completing the programme, taking on greater leadership responsibility. The programme was seen to be a significant influence on accelerating the progression of individuals to these roles, and in developing skills to perform at a senior leadership level. The significant investment in the programme was thought to be worthwhile in terms of wider benefits, albeit with a need to make better collective use of the alumni at a national level.
Accuracy of ultrasound-guided intra-articular injections in guinea pig knees
Authors: Vázquez-Portalatín N. , Breur G. J. , Panitch A. , Goergen C. J.
Published: January 2015

Objective

Dunkin Hartley guinea pigs, a commonly used animal model of osteoarthritis, were used to determine if high frequency ultrasound can ensure intra-articular injections are accurately positioned in the knee joint.

Methods

A high-resolution small animal ultrasound system with a 40 MHz transducer was used for image-guided injections. A total of 36 guinea pigs were anaesthetised with isoflurane and placed on a heated stage. Sterile needles were inserted directly into the knee joint medially, while the transducer was placed on the lateral surface, allowing the femur, tibia and fat pad to be visualised in the images. B-mode cine loops were acquired during 100 µl. We assessed our ability to visualise 1) important anatomical landmarks, 2) the needle and 3) anatomical changes due to the injection.

Results

From the ultrasound images, we were able to visualise clearly the movement of anatomical landmarks in 75% of the injections. The majority of these showed separation of the fat pad (67.1%), suggesting the injections were correctly delivered in the joint space. We also observed dorsal joint expansion (23%) and patellar tendon movement (10%) in a smaller subset of injections.

Conclusion

The results demonstrate that this image-guided technique can be used to visualise the location of an intra-articular injection in the joints of guinea pigs. Future studies using an ultrasound-guided approach could help improve the injection accuracy in a variety of anatomical locations and animal models, in the hope of developing anti-arthritic therapies. Cite this article: Bone Joint Res 2015;4:1–5.
Toward an Inoperative Civilization
Authors: Li Victor
Published: January 2015

The unapologetic re-emergence in recent years of the term “civilization” in American foreign policy circles and best-selling books merits closer scrutiny. This essay examines two different views of civilization that have attracted recent critical attention. The first is a rather militant defense of civilization. In this view, civilized nations see themselves as exempt from the very laws and principles on which they are founded, thereby enabling them, in the name of the civilizing (or pro-democracy) mission, to exert force or violence on those others who threaten civilization (also known as “barbarians,” “savages,” “terrorists,” or “enemies of democracy”) and who also happen to be, conveniently, in a state of exception from civilization and can therefore be subjected to violence. The second model of civilization reflects a certain liberal optimism. Rather than precipitating “clashes,” civilization, in this view, does not confer exceptionality on a nation or allow for the exploitation of vulnerable others; instead, a civilization should concern itself with the expansion and fusion of horizons and the need to engage in a dialogue with other cultures and societies without exception or exclusion. In describing these two views, I note the violence inherent in the model of civilization as an exception and the difficulties that confront the dialogical model. Drawing on the work of Jean-Luc Nancy and Giorgio Agamben, as well as J. M. Coetzee’s novel Waiting for the Barbarians , I conclude with some reflections on the need to revise our current views of civilization by sketching an alternative possibility of an inoperative civilization.
Importancia de los protocolos notariales en la investigación histórica: Caso del período de la unificación política de la isla de Santo Domingo, 1822-1844
Authors: Canalda María Filomena González
Published: January 2015

Cet article répertoire 35 livres d’actes notariés émanant de l’étude notariale de José Troncoso et d’Antonio Abad Solano à Santo-Domingo, de 1822 à 1840. Les 3000 documents classés ont mis en lumière la vie quotidienne d’une des périodes la plus controversée de l’histoire Dominicaine. Les informations de ces documents contredisent l’histoire official comme par exmples, la domination et l’imposition culturelle, l’intention d’unifier deux groupes nationaux, l’obligation d’utiliser la langue française dans les documents officiels, et l’assujettissement du peuple Dominicain aux coutumes du peuple Haïtien.
The People vs. Laura Kipnis
Authors: Schwartz Madeleine
Published: January 2015

Midway through Men: Notes from an Ongoing Investigation, Laura Kipnis distinguishes between two different kinds of humor. She’s been reading a novel by the comic writer Patricia Marx, a parody of a former lover who happens to be Kipnis’s ex too. The ex in question is a sleazy romantic type, a graduate student turned shrink who likes to call his lovers “my peach” and cheats on them with his patients. He specializes in “ego studies.” But the female protagonist is no less pathetic.
China’s Dream Parks
Authors: Cavell Nic
Published: January 2015

On a crisp afternoon in January 1992, Deng Xiaoping stepped out of a golf cart and beheld a miniature replica of his country. It had been nearly three years since Tiananmen had forced his resignation, and the ex-Premier was busy reclaiming his legacy on his now-storied “southern tour.” Visiting coastal cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou, Deng stopped in a government guesthouse here, a high-tech research facility there, giving his blessing to the laboratories of development he’d begun to open up in 1978.
How Immigrant Activists Changed L.A.
Authors: Pastor Manuel
Published: January 2015

Once known as the “wicked city” for its vicious anti-labor politics, Los Angeles has, particularly over the last decade, gained a reputation as a bastion of progressivism. In L.A., one of the few places in the United States where private-sector unionization saw steady gains before the 2008 recession, activists have organized across racial lines for community benefits agreements, job training programs, and transit justice. They have also elected progressive mayors like former community organizer Antonio Villaraigosa in 2005—eight years before Bill de Blasio’s victory in our (friendly) rival city, New York—and Eric Garcetti, the city’s youngest mayor in more than a century, in 2013.
De Blasio’s New York
Authors: Freeman Joshua
Published: January 2015

Since Bill de Blasio swept into City Hall at the start of 2014, progressives in New York have been in an ebullient mood. The one-time student radical and community organizer ran on a program attacking economic inequality—a “tale of two cities,” he called it—and took power after twelve years of billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg and eight years of law-and-order Republican Rudy Giuliani. Even before taking office, de Blasio helped the City Council Progressive Caucus elect one of its own, Melissa Mark-Viverito, a former union organizer, as its Speaker. With self-described progressives controlling the two most powerful branches of the city government, a sense of possibility opened up. Ideas and programs once restricted to speeches and wish lists have the opportunity to be realized.
Celebrating the Suppression of the North-West Resistance of 1885: The Toronto Press and the Militia Volunteers
Authors: Radforth Ian
Published: January 2015

Le présent article examine la couverture que les journaux et la presse illustrée de Toronto ont faite du soutien accordé par la ville à la mobilisation de soldats citoyens canadiens pour réprimer la résistance au Nord-Ouest en 1885. L’auteur postule que la presse torontoise a construit de façon rhétorique et a même directement favorisé la vaste occupation publique des rues de la ville au départ des jeunes hommes pour le Nord-Ouest et au retour des volontaires. La presse a diffusé le récit de la vigoureuse suppression des rebelles et du rétablissement de la loi et de l’ordre, en plus de vanter l’admiration publique du patriotisme, de l’ordre, de la discipline et du devoir exhibés par les soldats canadiens à temps partiel. Or, en même temps, elle en a fait l’histoire du mythe milicien en action, du pouvoir de la population à l’appui de l’État et de l’armée, ainsi que de la force et de la détermination des citoyens ordinaires prompts à porter l’uniforme des volontaires de la milice et à risquer leur vie pour défendre le pays.
Staging listening ecologies
Authors: PETERSEN KJELL YNGVE
Published: January 2015

The staging of listening ecologies involves particular compositional strategies that inform the listening from the position of the audience. The following article discusses a compositional consideration from the performance director’s point of view on how to stage listening ecologies
informed by telemedial operations. The system of influence persists as a feature of the architectural site, as a kind of spatial notation embedded as mediating operations, which promotes particular kinds of acoustic appearance. The direction of attention, the sensing of sound and the experiential
interpretation are considered essential elements in the act of listening, and the audience are considered part co-author of the listening activities. The audience perform their participation in the emergent sound experience as an essential quality of the listening. Concepts of hesitation,
extended moments and delay are developed to facilitate an approach to asymmetric telemedia composition. The compositional concept of intermediality is introduced to enable a strategic overview on the compositional practice in complex telemedia settings. The experiential listening position
in-between-media evolves intermediality occurrences through a complex of acoustic relations and interferences.
Subtle empires: On craft and being crafty
Authors: SINGLETON BENEDICT
Published: January 2015

As architects attempt to situate their practice in relation to ecology, there are questions to be asked about what kinds of ecologies they are approaching, how and why. That these questions are being taken seriously – as witnessed by the appearance of a journal with a title like
Design Ecologies (DES) – is to be commended, but we are still very much in the business of suggestive opening moves, precisely because what, broadly speaking, we can call an ecological sensibility’ raises so many questions about so many aspects of architectural practice. As Felix
Robbins suggested in his contribution to the previous issue of DES, this extends even to the very idea of what engaging in an ‘architectural project’ involves. And like Robbins, I offer here a perspective on how what we might think of as ‘architecture’ could be invigorated
through its contact with ecological thinking, but – and implicitly demonstrating the huge scope of the disciplinary reappraisal we are embarking on – take a very different route. This article suggests that an ‘ecological’ approach to architecture might reactivate some
very old (and long-ignored) links between ‘design’ as craft and ‘design’ as implied in being crafty, and offers some thoughts about cunning as the way ecology and design meet.
Myths of complexity
Authors: WESTERMANN CLAUDIA
Published: January 2015

The following article takes up a dialogue that was initiated in the first issue of Design Ecologies, evolving in relation to questions of design within a context of concepts of complexity. As the first part of the article shows, this process of taking up a dialogue – through reading
and writing – can be considered a question of design. This is elaborated alongside de Certeau’s concepts of ‘tactics’ and ‘strategies’. Further, in relation to questions emerging from the previous issue of the Design Ecologies journal, the article addresses
the notion of complexity through the conceptual lens of poiesis. It leads complexity to the borders of language.
Bunker auscultation: A classification system for a proto-method of sensory space composition
Authors: EMMETT MATHEW
Published: January 2015

A subterranean WWII bunker, hidden under the City of Plymouth, is used as the context for the investigation. The enquiry considers the bunker as psychoactive in nature, that is, stimulating a range of psychological, emotional and behavioural responses in relationship to the percipient’s
spatial register. The project focuses on developing a classification system, and examines space as a conveying medium. The project acts as a scheme for establishing a critical methodology of sensory space and develops an interdisciplinary architectural language for thinking about architecture
as phenomenological constructions, whilst implying a greater understanding of the roles of mnemonic structures.
Cultural harmonization in East Asia: Adaptation of Hana yori dango / Boys Over Flowers
Authors: Yasumoto Seiko
Published: January 2015

In the domain of popular culture since the 1990s, Japanese media has increasingly crossed regional and international borders. There has been appropriation, adaptation and remaking of many of these media products into different formats, such as manga, anime, TV drama, films and games. Products, when traded and remade across geographical boundaries, have a multidimensional aspect and potentially contribute to an evolving cultural re-engagement between Japan and Asia. This article analyses, within a sociocultural context, the significant textual and cultural elements of the iconic Japanese manga, Hana yori dango / Boys Over Flowers. Firstly, it explores how the originating manga has been adapted into TV drama formats through the process of remaking, in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Secondly, it examines the differentiation of textual and cultural content in the three countries; and, finally, it measures audience reception within a distinct fan group. Survey questionnaires and focus group interviews are used to collate the audience reception of the texts. The article argues that the media trade, through products like Hana yori dango, is contributing to the enhancement of regional intercultural understanding beyond regional historical antipathy. The article further argues that the influence of media trade and Japanese popular culture is contributing in a positive manner to the idea of regional ‘harmony’, rather than hybridism, with the retention in Japan, Korea and Taiwan of inherent cultural values.
The Taiwan Yueqin Folk Music Festival
Authors: Hlavaty Benjamin
Published: January 2015

The yueqin is a traditional stringed instrument found in East Asian and South East Asian countries. Taiwan yueqins come in various shapes with different timbres and numbers of strings. The Taiwan yueqin minyao xiehui / Taiwan Yueqin Folk Music Association, a group run by Taiwan pop-folk music icon Chen Ming-chang, annually holds Taiwan yueqin minyao ji / Taiwan Yueqin Folk Music Festival, a music festival promoting yueqin songs sung in Taiyu, the language that while is not the official language of what is still known as the Republic of China, is the native language of the Hoklo ethnic majority. Since 2012, the festival has been held held indoors in the Beitou Hot Springs Museum, a building that was constructed during the Japanese colonial period (1895–1945). Also since 2012, the festival is not purely performed by Hoklo Taiwanese. Having been introduced to an aspiring student of shamisen master Kazuo Shibutani by his own student in 2009, Chen Ming-chang now invites Shibutani and his troupe to Taiwan to perform alongside him.
Reviews
Authors: Promkhuntong Wikanda , Baehrisch Eunju
Published: January 2015

Popular Culture Co-Productions and Collaborations in East and Southeast Asia, Nissim Otmazgin And Eyal Ben-Ari (eds) (2013) Singapore and Kyoto: NUS Press in association with Kyoto University Press, 276 pp., ISBN 9784876983568 (paperback), £26.95

Korean Horror Cinema, Alison Peirse And Daniel Martin (eds) (2013) Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 256 pp. ISBN 9780748643097 (paperback), £19.99
Qianwei (‘avant-garde’) art in reform-era China: Divergence, reversal and the persistence of (subjective) realism
Authors: Gladston Paul
Published: January 2015

In this article attention will be drawn to ways in which so-called ‘qianwei’ (literally, ‘avant-garde’) Chinese art of the 1980s and early 1990s can be understood to diverge from and/or reverse positions, trajectories and intentions conventionally associated with the work of the European and North American politicized avant-gardes. It shall also be argued that those divergences and reversals are informed in part by the persistence of subjective realist approaches to artistic representation within the People’s Republic of China that not only differ in intent from the western avant-garde’s signature anti-aesthetic and anti-realist use of collage-montage, but also related postmodernist framings of contemporary art as a focus for the critical deconstruction of supposedly authoritative meanings.
Ringing One Missed Call: Franchising, transnational flows and genre production
Authors: Rawle Steven
Published: January 2015

Eric Valette’s 2008 remake of Miike Takashi’s 2004 J-horror film Chakushin ari / One Missed Call calls into question a simple East/West economic and contextual binary often assumed in cases of transnational remakes, regarding the purity of an original ‘exotic’ Other and the debased, impure ‘corporate’ American remake. One Missed Call cannot be so easily placed into national cinema categories when we explore the production and financial origins of the film however, given the transnational nature of the remake’s content and production. This article explores how transnational remakes engage with transnational flows of production and influence, thinking about how transnational modernity works with what Koichi Iwabuchi terms ‘cultural odor’. The article challenges the presence of an ‘original’ in the transnational franchising of the One Missed Call films, contending that Ring (Nakata Hideo, 1998) and The Ring (Gore Verbinski, 2002) have functioned as metatexts in both Miike’s and Valette’s versions of One Missed Call. In so doing, the article examines the characteristics of transnational media production on an economic and political basis.
Birds of paradise: Feathers, fetishism and costume in classical Hollywood
Authors: Dirix Emmanuelle
Published: January 2015

This article aims to investigate the reasons for the prolific use of feathers in 1930s Hollywood costume. Instead of positioning them merely as a spectacular tool of glamour in the Golden Age, it will focus on feathers as a form of material culture and specifically on their fetishistic nature in order to pose an alternative explanation for their sartorial popularity in a decade marked by the introduction of the Production/Hays Code. I wish to demonstrate that by shifting the methodological emphasis on feathers from object to subject, we open up an autonomous narrative for the material that would be missed when focussing only on its contextual reading. This in turn potentially offers a new dimension as to their use, in particular as a metaphor for female sexuality and therefore as a vehicle for reading 1930s cinematic sexuality.
Femininity and costume in 1930s horror
Authors: Slee Ellie
Published: January 2015

This article addresses the repeated use of imagined sartorial archaisms in female costuming in 1930s Hollywood horror films, by both analysing the physical make-up of the dress in question and bringing contemporary and historical outside influences into account. It examines female costuming as both a plot facilitator and one of the true visual symbols of the Gothicism that proliferated in films of the era. The article also focuses on the limited roles for women, particularly in 1930s horror, and the way in which costume reinforces and compounds this. The influx of German Expressionist film-makers to America prior to World War II brought Romanticism into the mainstream. It was accountable for the Gothic subject matter and aesthetic of Hollywood’s ensuing horror films over a period of decades, beginning with Dracula (Browning, 1931). It also marked a new dawn in female costuming for Hollywood, when women were not wearing historical dress, or contemporarily fashionable dress, but an imagined, evocative dress that never existed in history, but simultaneously looked as if it had.
Dressing for the future: Speculative fashion in 1930s Hollywood
Authors: Curtis Barry
Published: January 2015

The interwar years saw extensive speculation on the future in all fields of design. Hollywood was remarkably reticent on the subject and ‘science fiction’ was a subordinate genre. This article explores significant films that were set in the future with particular regard to dress and architectural mise-en-scène. It suggests how certain tropes of future dress, partly indebted to avant-garde design and partly adapted from historical fictions, were deployed and considers in some detail the futuristic Just Imagine of 1930, popular serials of the era and finally the utopian Lost Horizon of 1937. It concludes with some reflections on how dress appeared as part of the future proposed by the New York World’s Fair of 1939.
Necropolitical violence and post-independence Guinean literature
Authors: Baker Charlotte
Published: January 2015

The first President of the Republic of Guinea, Ahmed Sékou Touré, ruled from independence in 1958 to his death in 1984. Initially admired for his socialist revolutionary policies in the wake of colonial domination, he later emerged as a dictator who ruthlessly crushed opposition. As violence became synonymous with the state and its regime of terror, Guineans lived in an unpredictable world in which any gesture might be interpreted as offensive to the regime and result in their incarceration or death. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s understanding of the relationship between violence and power and Achille Mbembe’s notion of necropolitics to explore the relationship between violence and authority that characterized Touré’s regime, this article examines the significance of the various narrative strategies adopted by Camara Laye, Alioum Fantouré, Tierno Monénembo and Williams Sassine. These and other Guinean writers have responded to the violence of Touré’s regime by challenging genres, disrupting the linear progression of narratives, playing with language and representing a series of broken and merging characters in their literary work. More than merely documenting the trauma of Touré’s dictatorial rule, this analysis proposes that the novels discussed here are shaped by the violence of the regime at which they level a critique.

Ahmed Sékou Touré, premier président de la République de Guinée, a dirigé le pays depuis l’année de son indépendance en 1958 jusqu’à sa mort en 1984. Initialement admiré pour sa politique révolutionnaire socialiste au lendemain de la domination coloniale, il est devenu dictateur, écrasant impitoyablement son opposition. La violence est devenue synonyme de l’état et de son régime de terreur. Le peuple guinéen vivait alors dans un monde imprévisible dans lequel tout geste pouvait être interprété comme une offense au régime et pouvait mener à leur incarcération ou entraîner leur mort. Partant de l’analyse de Hannah Arendt du rapport entre le pouvoir et la violence et de la notion du pouvoir nécropolitique d’Achille Mbembe pour considérer la relation entre violence et autorité qui a caractérisé le régime de Touré, cet article examine l’importance des diverses stratégies narratives de Camara Laye, Alioum Fantouré, Tierno Monénembo et Williams Sassine. Ces auteurs guinéens, et bien d’autres encore, ont répondu à la violence du régime de Touré en perturbant le genre, en rompant la linéarité des narrations, en jouant avec la langue, et en représentant une série de personnages brisés et fusionnés dans leurs romans. Plus qu’une simple retranscription du traumatisme occasionné par le gouvernement dictatorial de Touré, les romans analysés ici ont été façonnés par la violence du régime sur lequel ils portent un jugement critique.
Death and the creole maiden: Do Chita and Youma haunt today’s creolization?
Authors: Wiedorn Michael
Published: January 2015

This critical reading of Lafcadio Hearn’s novels Chita (1889) and Youma (1890b) argues that Hearn’s conception of the creole, while it inspired the rather optimistic late twentieth-century proponents of the term, was nonetheless haunted by suffering and death. In Chita (1889), which casts the creole as representing a harmonious world of multiplicity (be it ethnic, linguistic, racial, etc.), a cataclysmic storm wipes that world away in the form of a fragile Gulf Coast community. In Youma (1890b), a young woman torn between two worlds tragically ends her own life. Both texts show that for Hearn the Creole is precisely what is disappearing, moribund. The conclusion connects Hearn to the créolistes (who claimed him as an influence) and to that prophet of creolization, Edouard Glissant (who rejects Hearn). It argues that while the créolistes’ conceptions of the Creole are more optimistic, concerned more with the future and less so with death, the term ‘creole’ remains fraught and undecided in their work as in Hearn’s. In doing so, this article challenges the créolistes and Glissant, suggesting that ‘creoleness’ and ‘creolization’ risk becoming unmoored from the Creole, and that Hearn’s agony-ridden legacy lingers on today.

Cette lecture critique des romans Chita: A Memory of Last Island (1889) et Youma: The Story of a West-Indian Slave (1890b) propose que la conception du créole chez Lafcadio Hearn, bien qu’elle soit une inspiration pour les théoriciens du créole plutôt optimistes de la fin du vingtième siècle, était néanmoins hantée par la souffrance et la mort. La conclusion de cette étude relie le travail de Hearn à ceux des créolistes (qui le voyaient comme une source d’inspiration) et du prophète de la créolisation, Edouard Glissant (qui a pourtant rejeté Hearn). Ce faisant, elle montre que malgré le fait que la conception du créole chez les créolistes soit plutôt utopique, le terme « créole » reste tendu et indécis chez eux comme chez Hearn. En conséquence, cet essai entreprend une critique, postulant que la ‘créolité’ et la ‘créolisation’ risquent de perdre leurs amarres avec le ‘créole’, et que le legs de Hearn, marqué par l’agonie, persiste aujourd’hui.