bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Gridded Reconstruction of Warm Season Precipitation for Asia Spanning the Past Half Millennium
Authors: Feng Song , Hu Qi , Wu Qianru , Mann Michael E.
Published: October 2012

The authors reconstructed May–September precipitation over the Asian continent (5°–55°N, 60°–135°E) back to AD 1470 on the basis of tree-ring data, historical documentary records, ice core records, and the few long-term instrumental data series available in the region. They employed the method of Regularized Expectation Maximization (RegEM) and applied it to 44 subregions within the continent. Verification exercises demonstrate that the reconstruction is skillful over most of the study domain, with eastern China, India, and other regions of humid climate displaying the greatest skill. Lower reconstruction skill is observed in semiarid and arid regions, which was attributable at least in part to the scarcity of observations available for calibration/validation. The precipitation reconstructions agree well with previous reconstructions, where they are available. The explanatory value of the reconstruction is illustrated using five historically documented severe droughts in north-central China during the past half millennium. The reconstructions both validate and provide a larger-scale context for understanding these past climate events and their relationship with the Asian summer monsoons.
Sensitivity of Global Tropical Climate to Land Surface Processes: Mean State and Interannual Variability
Authors: Ma Hsi-Yen , Xiao Heng , Mechoso C. Roberto , Xue Yongkang
Published: October 2012

This study examines the sensitivity of the global climate to land surface processes (LSP) using an atmospheric general circulation model both uncoupled (with prescribed SSTs) and coupled to an oceanic general circulation model. The emphasis is on the interactive soil moisture and vegetation biophysical processes, which have first-order influence on the surface energy and water budgets. The sensitivity to those processes is represented by the differences between model simulations, in which two land surface schemes are considered: 1) a simple land scheme that specifies surface albedo and soil moisture availability and 2) the Simplified Simple Biosphere Model (SSiB), which allows for consideration of interactive soil moisture and vegetation biophysical process. Observational datasets are also employed to assess the extent to which results are realistic.

The mean state sensitivity to different LSP is stronger in the coupled mode, especially in the tropical Pacific. Furthermore, the seasonal cycle of SSTs in the equatorial Pacific, as well as the ENSO frequency, amplitude, and locking to the seasonal cycle of SSTs, is significantly modified and more realistic with SSiB. This outstanding sensitivity of the atmosphere–ocean system develops through changes in the intensity of equatorial Pacific trades modified by convection over land. The results further demonstrate that the direct impact of land–atmosphere interactions on the tropical climate is modified by feedbacks associated with perturbed oceanic conditions (“indirect effect” of LSP). The magnitude of such an indirect effect is strong enough to suggest that comprehensive studies on the importance of LSP on the global climate have to be made in a system that allows for atmosphere–ocean interactions.
Influence of Tropical Tropopause Layer Cooling on Atlantic Hurricane Activity
Authors: Emanuel Kerry , Solomon Susan , Folini Doris , Davis Sean , Cagnazzo Chiara
Published: October 2012

Virtually all metrics of Atlantic tropical cyclone activity show substantial increases over the past two decades. It is argued here that cooling near the tropical tropopause and the associated decrease in tropical cyclone outflow temperature contributed to the observed increase in tropical cyclone potential intensity over this period. Quantitative uncertainties in the magnitude of the cooling are important, but a broad range of observations supports some cooling. Downscalings of the output of atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) that are driven by observed sea surface temperatures and sea ice cover produce little if any increase in Atlantic tropical cyclone metrics over the past two decades, even though observed variability before roughly 1970 is well simulated by some of the models. Part of this shortcoming is traced to the failure of the AGCMs examined to reproduce the observed cooling of the lower stratosphere and tropical tropopause layer (TTL) over the past few decades. The authors caution against using sea surface temperature or proxies based on it to make projections of tropical cyclone activity as there can be significant contributions from other variables such as the outflow temperature. The proposed mechanisms of TTL cooling (e.g., ozone depletion and stratospheric circulation changes) are reviewed, and the need for improved representations of these processes in global models in order to improve projections of future tropical cyclone activity is emphasized.
A Strengthened Influence of ENSO on August High Temperature Extremes over the Southern Yangtze River Valley since the Late 1980s
Authors: Hu Kaiming , Huang Gang , Wu Renguang
Published: October 2012

The present study investigates the decadal change in the relationship between China high temperature extremes (HTEs) and El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). It is found that the relationship between the August HTEs in the southern Yangtze River valley (SYRV) and ENSO has strengthened since the late 1980s. Before the late 1980s, the relationship is weak, whereas, after the late 1980s, the August hot-day numbers in the SYRV region tend to be more than normal during El Niño decaying years. During 1988–2008, El Niño–induced August warm SST anomalies are mainly located in the eastern tropical and north Indian Ocean. As a response to the north Indian Ocean warming, the South Asia high extends eastward, and the SYRV is overlain by upper-level easterly anomalies. The cold horizontal temperature advection induced by upper-level easterly anomalies leads to anomalous descent, which is conducive to the occurrence of HTEs through adiabatic warming. During 1966–86, El Niño–induced August warm SST anomalies are mainly distributed in the equatorial central and southwest tropical Indian Ocean. Corresponding to the equatorial Indian Ocean warming, the ascending motion over the Arabian Sea is enhanced, which leads to an anomalous anticyclone over the Middle East through a Rossby wave–type response and in turn an anomalous cyclone over China through a midlatitude wave pattern. The SYRV is controlled by upper-level westerly anomalies, which is not conducive to the occurrence of HTEs since the corresponding horizontal temperature advection and anomalous vertical motion are weak. As such, the impact of ENSO on August SYRV HTEs is weak before the late 1980s.
Observation-Based Estimates of Surface Cooling Inhibition by Heavy Rainfall under Tropical Cyclones
Authors: Jourdain Nicolas C. , Lengaigne Matthieu , Vialard Jérome , Madec Gurvan , Menkes Christophe E. , Vincent Emmanuel M. , Jullien Swen , Barnier Bernard
Published: October 2012

Tropical cyclones drive intense ocean vertical mixing that explains most of the surface cooling observed in their wake (the “cold wake”). In this paper, the authors investigate the influence of cyclonic rainfall on the cold wake at a global scale over the 2002–09 period. For each cyclone, the cold wake intensity and accumulated rainfall are obtained from satellite data and precyclone oceanic stratification from the Global Eddy-Permitting Ocean Reanalysis (GLORYS2). The impact of precipitation on the cold wake is estimated by assuming that cooling is entirely due to vertical mixing and that an extra amount of energy (corresponding to the energy used to mix the rain layer into the ocean) would be available for mixing the ocean column in the hypothetical case with no rain. The positive buoyancy flux of rainfall reduces the mixed layer depth after the cyclone passage, hence reducing cold water entrainment. The resulting reduction in cold wake amplitude is generally small (median of 0.07 K for a median 1 K cold wake) but not negligible (>19% for 10% of the cases). Despite similar cyclonic rainfall, the effect of rain on the cold wake is strongest in the Arabian Sea and weak in the Bay of Bengal. An analytical approach with a linearly stratified ocean allows attributing this difference to the presence of barrier layers in the Bay of Bengal. The authors also show that the cold wake is generally a “salty wake” because entrainment of subsurface saltier water overwhelms the dilution effect of rainfall. Finally, rainfall temperature has a negligible influence on the cold wake.
Radiation Dry Bias Correction of Vaisala RS92 Humidity Data and Its Impacts on Historical Radiosonde Data
Authors: Wang Junhong , Zhang Liangying , Dai Aiguo , Immler Franz , Sommer Michael , Vömel Holger
Published: October 2012

The Vaisala RS92 radiosonde is the most widely used type of sonde in the current global radiosonde network. One of the largest biases in the RS92 humidity data is its daytime solar radiation dry bias (SRDB). An algorithm [referred to as NCAR radiation bias correction (NRBC)] was developed to correct the SRDB based on a more complicated algorithm developed by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) Reference Upper-Air Network (GRUAN). The NRBC to relative humidity (RH) is a function of the measured RH and temperature, and the temperature solar radiation correction. The latter varies with pressure, season, and time of the day. The RH correction has a mean magnitude of about 2%–4% and 6%–8% in the lower–midtroposphere and upper troposphere, respectively. The NRBC is evaluated against the GRUAN-corrected RS92 data and the ground-based GPS-estimated precipitable water (PW). The corrected RH agrees with the GRUAN data within ±0.5% on average, with standard deviations of about 1%–2% and 2%–6% in the lower–midtroposphere and upper troposphere, respectively. The NRBC leads to reduced mean biases, and better agreement with the GPS PW and its diurnal cycle. The NRBC has been applied to historical radiosonde data at 65 stations. The radiosonde humidity data, both with and without the NRBC, are homogenized using the method of Dai et al. (2011). The NRBC results in consistently elevated RHs throughout the whole record in the homogenized data. This could have a significant impact on global reanalysis products when they are assimilated into the reanalysis models. However, the NRBC has insignificant effects on the long-term trends as the correction is primarily for mean biases.
An Adaptive Dealiasing Method Based on Variational Analysis for Radar Radial Velocities Scanned with Small Nyquist Velocities
Authors: Xu Qin , Nai Kang
Published: October 2012

Previous velocity–azimuth display (VAD)-based methods of dealiasing folded radial velocities have relied heavily on the VAD uniform-wind assumption and, thus, can fail when the uniform-wind assumption becomes poor around azimuthal circles in a vertical layer and the Nyquist velocity is small (≤12 m s−1). By using the two-step, alias-robust variational (AR-Var) analysis in place of the alias-robust VAD (AR-VAD) analysis for the reference check, the previous AR-VAD-based dealiasing method is improved to an AR-Var-based dealiasing method adaptively for radar radial velocities scanned with small Nyquist velocities. The method has been tested with severely aliased velocity data scanned by the Oklahoma KTLX radar. The robustness and satisfactory performance of the AR-Var-based dealiasing are exemplified by the results obtained for a severe winter ice storm scanned with the Nyquist velocity reduced to 11.51 m s−1.
Scoring with the computer: Alternative procedures for improving the reliability of holistic essay scoring
Authors: Attali Yigal , Lewis Will , Steier Michael
Published: October 2012

Automated essay scoring can produce reliable scores that are highly correlated with human scores, but is limited in its evaluation of content and other higher-order aspects of writing. The increased use of automated essay scoring in high-stakes testing underscores the need for human scoring that is focused on higher-order aspects of writing. This study experimentally evaluated several alternative procedures for eliciting distinct human scores and improving their reliability. Essays written in response to the argument and issue tasks of the Analytical Writing measure of the GRE General Test were scored by experienced raters under different conditions. Criteria for evaluation included inter-rater agreement, agreement with machine scores, and cross-task reliability. First, the use of a modified scoring rubric that focused on higher-order writing skills increased the reliability for one type of task but decreased it for another. Second, scoring in batches of similar length essays did not have any effect on scores. Third, scoring with available automated essay scores increased reliability of human scores, but also increased their similarity with automated scores. Finally, the use of a more refined 18-point scoring scale significantly increased reliability.
What makes speech sound fluent? The contributions of pauses, speed and repairs
Authors: Bosker Hans Rutger , Pinget Anne-France , Quené Hugo , Sanders Ted , de Jong Nivja H
Published: October 2012

The oral fluency level of an L2 speaker is often used as a measure in assessing language proficiency. The present study reports on four experiments investigating the contributions of three fluency aspects (pauses, speed and repairs) to perceived fluency. In Experiment 1 untrained raters evaluated the oral fluency of L2 Dutch speakers. Using specific acoustic measures of pause, speed and repair phenomena, linear regression analyses revealed that pause and speed measures best predicted the subjective fluency ratings, and that repair measures contributed only very little. A second research question sought to account for these results by investigating perceptual sensitivity to acoustic pause, speed and repair phenomena, possibly accounting for the results from Experiment 1. In Experiments 2–4 three new groups of untrained raters rated the same L2 speech materials from Experiment 1 on the use of pauses, speed and repairs. A comparison of the results from perceptual sensitivity (Experiments 2–4) with fluency perception (Experiment 1) showed that perceptual sensitivity alone could not account for the contributions of the three aspects to perceived fluency. We conclude that listeners weigh the importance of the perceived aspects of fluency to come to an overall judgment.
Make the Stones Shout: Contemporary museums and the challenge of culture
Authors: Marshall Christopher R.
Published: October 2012

Contemporary museums continue to play a vital role in articulating powerful statements of national and cultural identity for broad and diverse audiences. Focusing on a range of global case studies – from recently instituted displays at the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore to the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC and from the British Museum in London to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne – the author will consider some of the key challenges facing contemporary museums in their efforts to incorporate new insights and approaches to presenting art and culture in contemporary contexts. A particular focus will be provided on the problem of the repatriation/reunification of ancient sculptures and artworks, of which the Parthenon sculptures is a major case.
Western Desert Iconography: Rock art mythological narratives and graphic vocabularies
Authors: McDonald Jo , Veth Peter
Published: October 2012

The travels of the ancestral beings known as Wati Kutjarra (two lizard-men) are central to Western Desert cosmology. The results of their actions, markings and transmogrified forms are often seen in socially ‘open’ domains and cover and connect features over huge tracts of land. On the central Canning Stock Route of Western Australia there are detailed ethnographic records and ongoing observances of Wati Kutjarra by custodians at a number of ranges and water holes where pigment rock art occurs in shelters. At these same locales archaeological excavations have yielded ochres and occupational deposits which suggest these places have acted as aggregation locales through long periods of time. In this paper we explore the dynamics and genesis of socially constituted desert iconography through time.
Art History and Translation
Authors: Whyte Iain Boyd , Heide Claudia
Published: October 2012

This text reflects on the insights gained in the process of launching Art in Translation, the first journal dedicated to the best writing from around the world on the visual arts in English translation.

When art history gained academic currency in the later nineteenth century, it was doubly inflected by language. The subject matter was articulated along linguistic divisions, often reflecting national boundaries. At the same time, schools of art writing developed in the major European languages. According to the standard historiography, German was the dominant language of the discipline in the early years, superseded in the second half of the twentieth century by English. This account insists both on an agreed canon of art writing and on a hierarchical relationship between linguistic areas. From a post-colonial perspective both these positions must be challenged. A more differentiated reading suggests that in spite of the hegemonic power of these principle languages, art history has always been more fragmented, diverse, and written in many more languages. While the hegemony of the English language works against diversity, it offers as a global language the opportunity to communicate across linguistic boundaries. This text addresses the politics of translation in art history: the benefits and dangers of English-language domination. How does translation and its avoidance affect the flow of knowledge and the exchange of ideas? Is it possible, via the act of translation, to encourage a more pluralist and polyglot art history? Beyond these ideological dimensions, this article also investigates the ways in which translation theory enables a rigorous critical methodology that can advance thinking about visual culture.
Visual Culture of the Indian Ocean: India in a polycentric world
Authors: Asher Frederick M.
Published: October 2012

What India produced others wanted. Others therefore wanted India. Although this by no means entirely explains India’s role in a polycentric world, it explains a great deal. It also helps us understand India as a fulcrum, at least within Indian Ocean trade. That is, the means by which India’s visual products became known and then coveted as well as the means by which India absorbed visual products from other centers of the world long before the age of call centers and other forms of outsourcing by which India engages in the present-day polycentric world.

My article for Diogenes examines four periods in India’s history that present opportunities to explore India’s role in a polycentric world as documented by visual examples. The first is the third-century BCE Maurya empire, which emerged in response to Alexander’s march toward the east. While we have some written documentation for India’s engagement with the Mediterranean, shared motifs and even the export of luxury goods beautifully fashioned from ivory document the engagement of two of the most important civilizations of the time. The second is the powerful seafaring and sea-trading Chola empire, which left its mark across Southeast Asia with the expansion of Buddhism and Hinduism, with scripts based on those of India, and with a Hindu temple of the thirteenth century, one very possibly designed and carved by Indian artists, whose remains are still to be seen in Quanzhou, China, the Zayton of Marco Polo’s writing. The third is India’s role in producing export textiles designed specifically for markets outside of India, for example, those of Southeast Asia but extending to the so-called Paisley prints and the plethora of words for textiles derived from Indian languages, e.g. Calico and Seersucker. Finally, the article examines Mughal paintings that incorporate European works and European artists, including Rembrandt, who copied Mughal paintings.
The image of the megalopolis – understanding the complex visual construction of Mexico City
Authors: Krieger Peter
Published: October 2012

The image of the city has always been an important source and tool for defining cultural communities that dwell within. Distinctive street patterns as well as the building scenographies in different cultures and periods document the technological, economic, and cultural capacities of the cities’ inhabitants. From Aristotle’s practical philosophy up to the current tourist view of the city, where the relics of the past – cathedrals, castles, or town halls – serve as symbolic attractors, the heterogeneous image of the city reveals interesting insights into the history of civilization. Beyond the abstract data used in economic or social sciences research – numbers of inhabitants, income, productivity, and other statistical information – the image (and also the imaginaries) of the city with its high cultural complexity is a topic of research for critical art history which offers unexpected and refreshing material for a transdisciplinary dialogue on the city as the most essential form of human culture. Since the beginning of the 21 st century, the city form and image have changed considerably, in quantitative and qualitative terms. The increasing number and size of the world’s megalopolises (cities with more than 10 millions inhabitants), mainly in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, marks a new epoch of city culture with different structural and aesthetic parameters than those of traditional Old European cities.

This article reviews, first, the new visual constructions of the megalopolis, second, its transformation into artistic and documentary images (photograph, film, digital art, etc.), and third, how they are catalysed into collective mental imaginaries. As an example, I examine Mexico City, a megalopolis of about 20 million inhabitants where cultural fragments of the prehispanic past, the colonial period, and the modern epoch have left their visual traces, to constitute a vital collage; one that has many contrasts as well as the occasional clash in cross-cultural processes. Supported by the recent tendencies of Bildwissenschaft (visual studies), this article tries to develop new perspectives of research on the critical phenomena at the beginning 21 st century from within the current polycentric and hyperurbanized world.
The Presence of Cross-Cultural Pasts in the Art History of Central Europe
Authors: Lővei Pál
Published: October 2012

Central Europe is a mixture of multi-ethnical regions, with a stormy past and many cross-cultural connections. The 19th and 20th centuries saw the birth of several nation-states that used cultural heritage constructs to legitimize their existence, demonstrating their long history and supposed cultural superiority. Characteristics of the minds of the different nations were searched for in the field of art history, too. The old and new states published series of “national” art histories in the second half of the 20th century.

Simultaneous with these “national” art histories was the contradictory notion of using art to promote a unified Europe. Instigated by the political changes of 1989/90, collective actions were brought to the region in the form of several international exhibitions, presenting topics such as Baroque art in Central Europe or “Central Europe around 1000”. Organized through international cooperation is the preparation of a nine-volume hand book on the history of art in Eastern-Central Europe, discussed in a European context.

A novelty of the convention of the Council of Europe (Faro 2005) is the definition of “heritage community”. According to it groups and/or individuals have the right to express their affinity to any part of European heritage, independently of ownership and localization, and anybody, alone or within a community, may belong to several heritage communities. Interpretations can and will be different, but the right to have access to material and sources of the common heritage has already started to be accepted.
Art History in China
Authors: (Zhu Qingsheng) LaoZhu
Published: October 2012

This paper presents the concept of “active art” as it was shaped throughout the history of Chinese art. It insists on the seminal role of calligraphy to that effect and to the birth of an artistic consciousness in China.
Portraying The Ptujska Gora Pilgrims
Authors: Ciglenečki Marjeta
Published: October 2012

The pilgrimage church at Ptujska Gora, built around 1400 and devoted to the Virgin of Mercy, is recognized as one of the most highly regarded and valued examples of cultural heritage in Slovenia. Pilgrims, of course, began to determine the nature of the site from the beginning of the 15 th century on and a significant number of images depicting the pilgrims to Ptujska Gora have been produced over the centuries. These images provide valuable insight into the demographic shifts in the quintessential Ptujska Gora pilgrim over time. In the 15 th century, noblemen and clergymen were portrayed as donators, closely connected to the Virgin (for example, the relief in the main altar with 82 figures under the cloak of the Virgin, and the predella of the altar of Our Lady of the Rosary and the frescoes in the Cross Chapel). In the 17 th and 18 th century it is appar-ent that the most devoted pilgrims came from the middle classes (see the copper engraving by Wolfgang Kilian, depicting eight miracles). From the 19 th century on, peasants and pilgrims from the lower classes attracted the attention of artists (such as Alois Kasimir and France Mihelič). Up until the 1970s, the pilgrims to Ptujska Gora typically reflected the structure of socialist society in which religion was unwelcome; their images were systematically recorded by the photographer Stojan Kerbler.
Paradigms of the Beholder. The Perception of Art in a Global Age: Over Here – Over There
Authors: Schneemann Peter J.
Published: October 2012

This article demonstrates how art history investigates the perception of art at a moment when a main axiom of effect and understanding of an object turns out to be variable; the question of the “where?”

Today the old hermeneutical problem of historical distance is replaced with a geographical challenge, namely that of geographical distance. Not only does the beholder travel more extensively than ever, but also the artwork itself, the object of interpretation, shifts from one context to another. Thus, the beholder often does not fit within the original context in which the work was produced and is therefore constantly looking at “the other”.

The author discusses contemporary art and new frameworks of understanding that have become more complex in evoking expectations about the art work as a reference system, as they relate to the beholder’s own position to places far away. Concepts which again imply a universal language of art again (e.g. neuroscience) have to be contrasted with both the artist and the audience’s desire for the specific, the different.
Art History in the Cinema Age
Authors: Dufrêne Thierry
Published: October 2012

In the art biennales of today, video has become, like it or not, a universal tool, a sort of “green card” for today’s art. It forms a convenient platform, especially when used with subtitles and especially for the artists of emerging countries, as long as they have access to this technique.

Could the art history film equally become a language shared by the community of art historians? This type of film is characterised by the collaboration of a filmmaker and an art historian, such as occurred when Roberto Longhi and Umberto Barbaro together produced their film Carpaccio in 1948. Erwin Panofsky, Rudolf Arnheim and Carlo Argan have analysed cinema in this regard. Others have practised it in undertaking art history: Kenneth Clark is one example. Another is Carlo Ragghianti, who made 20 critofilms between 1948 and 1964 which he defined as “a reading and a critical analysis of artistic language realised through the visual language of cinema”.

Is our contemporary era, marked as it is by the globalisation of art and the proliferation of films on art (documentaries, “art films”, experimental films, biopics), beginning thus to create its own art history? If so, of which sort?

This art history through film has a comparative intention, marked by a re-reading of the art of the past, in the way that Bill Viola, for example, is enlivening painting. It has the potential to transform connoisseurship by enabling a new relationship to emerge between the eye and the artwork, but it is also a post-colonial history which bursts the boundaries between ethnographic films like those of Flaherty or Les Maîtres fous of Jean Rouch (1954) or Les Statues meurent aussi of Chris Marker and Alain Resnais, and films of today’s highly ritualised “performance art” manifestations. As well it brings consideration to new approaches, such as those of the neuro-sciences and questions the force of images (David Freedberg) and their “agency” (Gell). Henri Storck has written: “The eye of the camera is much more powerful than our own”.

In his book L’Intemporel (1973), Malraux wrote that “the museum of the audio-visual” had replaced the “museum of the imaginary”. With video and digital art, the art history film has entered a new era, while still remaining an important element of the teaching of art history, as had been wished for from very early on since the 1950s by the art historian Pierre Francastel.

Already in the 1960s UNESCO played an important part in searching out and compiling an inventory of resources relating to film on art. Such investigation needs to be resumed today. But above all, it is the history of the “art history film” which still remains to undertaken at a time when the challenges of a now polycentred world are sketching out a different future.
Eating out: Reconstituting the Philippines’ public kitchens
Authors: Salazar Joseph T
Published: October 2012

The article examines the erasure of any concept of the ‘public kitchen’ in the Philippines as demonstrative of statewide suppression of marginal identities that continues to facilitate the simplistic and uncomplicated entry of neocolonial modernity. As a yardstick of growth and progress under the US colonial government, the battle to modernize the Philippines extends far beyond the political and administrative terrains and into the reconfiguration of domestic space. In particular, the kitchen was to become an important site that demonstrated the efficiency and power of American science. Accorded with new functions emanating from a colonial ideology, the induction of cooking and eating as expressions of collective identity have considerable implications for the manner in which public and private spaces are imagined.
City blindness: Visuality and modernity in the works of Iza Caparas, Farley del Rosario and Daniel Aligaen
Authors: Devilles Gary C
Published: October 2012

For Georg Simmel, humans confront their basic contradiction in the city, and such contradiction warrants critical assessment to help in the long tradition of articulating the problematic development of cities or metropolises, and hopefully advocate for the kind of life we want. This contradiction is a corollary to the modern visual aesthetics of young, contemporary artists such as Iza Caparas, Farley del Rosario and Daniel Aligaen. Their works not only depict the city or urban living; also their styles or sense of aesthetics are informed on a larger scale by the geopolitics of the ’70s up to the present, the influence of the early modernist artists, and their own estimation as well of what is happening in the country. This paper uses visual impairment or blindness as a trope for modernist aesthetics. The contradiction of city life produces this particular problematic vision that is then appropriated by these young painters. In this paper I am guided by three important questions: How do I understand the city and its contradictions? How is the city depicted in the paintings of young contemporary artists? How do I talk about modernist paintings and aesthetics in terms of the dynamics of city or urban life?
Manila’s urbanism and Philippine visual cultures
Authors: Hogan Trevor
Published: October 2012

Cities are sites and crucibles of creativity and destruction. How we order and imagine ourselves is revealed by the visible forms of our built environments. Cities are the ultimate material expression of human desire and design. They are also forces of energy and fields of tension that structure our everyday imaginings and activities. How we move, think, act, interact, create and maintain our lives is bounded by what cities provide us. How we make common-wealth and differentiate ourselves from others also determines what cities are and might be for us. This issue explores the urbanism that is Manila in all its vital contradictions. A mega-urban region of over 20 million souls, it is both dynamic and discordant, creative and destructive. Like most global mega-cities, Manila is dangerous to its own citizens – polluted, dense, violent, and poor, with inadequate and badly maintained infrastructure and public utilities, but it is also a fecund incubator of cultural ideas, projects and networks. This issue explore both sides of this Janus-faced city – its urbanism and its visual cultures. Two common threads run through the articles in this issue: first is the dialectic of private and public, and second is the cultural traffic that informs place-making across time through the constant movement of peoples around the world-system and in the ever-pragmatic syncretic and local appropriations of cultural ideas, traditions and artefacts into new configurations, stories and views. As these contributions take issue with visual culture, we have given pride of place to photos, images and artworks themselves. For, as our colleague, Eduardo de la Fuente, has observed in this journal’s pages (2010), the sociology of art is more than a socio-aesthetics. It is also a chronicle of the experience, performance and movement of aesthetic objects lodged in and across institutions, traditions and collective consciousness.
Fuzzy promises
Authors: Anker Thomas Boysen , Kappel Klemens , Eadie Douglas , Sandøe Peter
Published: October 2012

This article clarifies the commonplace assumption that brands make promises by developing definitions of brand promise delivery. Distinguishing between clear and fuzzy brand promises, we develop definitions of what it is for a brand to deliver on fuzzy functional, symbolic, and experiential promises. We argue (a) that brands deliver fuzzy functional promises through encouraging and facilitating courses of actions that are conducive to the promised functionality; whereas (b) brands deliver fuzzy symbolic promises through encouraging and facilitating ways in which consumers can use brands as narrative material to communicate self-identity. Finally, (c) we propose that brands deliver fuzzy experiential promises through effectively motivating consumers to adopt and play a social role implicitly suggested and facilitated by the brand. A promise is an inherently ethical concept and the article concludes with an in-depth discussion of fuzzy brand promises as two-way ethical commitments that put requirements on both brands and consumers.
Design orientation
Authors: Venkatesh Alladi , Digerfeldt-Månsson Theresa , Brunel Frédéric F. , Chen Steven
Published: October 2012

The notion of design thinking or ‘design as a state-of-mind’ and its articulation through design orientation implies that true innovation is a company-wide phenomenon and cannot be left to single individuals as a marginalized function within a company. Many innovative companies try to integrate technical performance with an aesthetic vision – which is not to be confused with style – as the driving force of the organization. Based on our findings and analysis, we put forward theoretical propositions that cover various aspects of design orientation.
Relationship marketing and the order of simulation
Authors: Østergaard Per , Fitchett James
Published: October 2012

This paper applies Jean Baudrillard’s order of simulacra to further investigate the paradigm of relationship marketing (RM). A brief overview of RM is given, followed by a summary of the main critical perspectives taken towards the approach. We argue that Baudrillard’s theories of simulation and post-industrial culture provide a useful analytical approach through which to resolve some of these critiques. Relationships are simultaneously ‘real’ and ‘imagined’. In the culture of simulation all cultural forms, including relationships, are open to critical analysis and interrogation. They are a construct that results from the complex interplay between signs, code and programme, which for our purposes are manifest as the market, marketing institutions and marketing technologies.
Brand relationship and personality theory
Authors: Avis Mark , Aitken Robert , Ferguson Shelagh
Published: October 2012

Brand personality and brand relationship theory are important concepts within branding theory, with a body of research and theory having been developed in support of the concepts. However, the argument of this paper is that there are mutually incompatible foundations that underpin brand personality and brand relationship theory. One foundation is that consumers actually perceive brands as animate humanlike entities, and the other foundations are rooted in metaphor. The authors identify three key points which they believe are problematic in this regard: there is an absence of scholarly debate on the merits of each foundation; some authors combine the two foundations despite their fundamental incompatibility; and overall, there is a lack of clarity in much of the literature as to which foundation might be used as a basis for theory. The paper uses examples from literature to highlight confusion in the brand personality and brand relationship theory, before offering a framework for resolving the mutually incompatible foundations.
Maffesoli and consumer tribes
Authors: O’Reilly Daragh
Published: October 2012

This research commentary argues that, despite the frequent citing of Michel Maffesoli’s book The Time of the Tribes (1996 [1988]) in the consumer literature, the theoretical link between his work on neo-tribes and the literature on consumer tribes is rather weak. Maffesoli’s central neo-tribal ideas of the affectual nebula, undirected being-together, the religious model, elective sociality and the law of secrecy are not taken up in consumer tribal discourse. Accounts of Maffesoli’s ideas within this discourse are either mainly descriptive or primarily concerned with the notion of ‘ephemeral gatherings’. Maffesoli’s own (2007) chapter in the edited collection Consumer Tribes (Cova et al., 2007) makes no reference to consumer tribes, nor does he take that opportunity to develop his earlier ideas on neo-tribes. The author, therefore, calls for attention to be paid to the neglected aspects of Maffesoli’s seminal book in the context of work on brand communities and consumer tribes, and for further development of the consumer tribal metaphor.
Political Climate and Smoke-Free Laws in Rural Kentucky Communities
Authors: Rayens Mary Kay , York Nancy L. , Adkins Sarah M. , Kaufman Erin L. , Hahn Ellen J.
Published: October 2012

The purpose was to determine factors associated with rural communities’ political readiness to enact smoke-free laws. Data from baseline assessment of a longitudinal intervention study to promote smoke-free policy in rural Kentucky communities; key informants ( n = 144) and elected officials ( n = 83) from 29 counties participated in cross-sectional telephone interviews. Controlling for population size and county-level smoking rate, the following factors predicted elected officials’ perception of the likelihood of a local smoke-free law passing in the next 12 months: (1) support from the local board of health; (2) support from local leaders; and (3) smoke-free hospitals. Communities with lower adult smoking prevalence were more ready for smoke-free laws. Rural health advocates can increase political readiness for smoke-free laws by educating and engaging Board of Health members and local leaders, promoting the voluntary adoption of smoke-free policies in rural hospitals, and investing in effective population-based approaches to evidence-based tobacco treatment in rural communities.
A Documentation Policy Development Proposal for Clinicians Caring for People Living with HIV/AIDS
Authors: Bryan Alyssa , O’Byrne Patrick
Published: October 2012

In Canada, nondisclosure prosecutions against people living with HIV/AIDS (PHAs) have increased. Nurses who provide services to PHAs could become involved in such criminal cases because they (a) elicit sensitive information about their clients’ sexual practices, and (b) adhere to documentation standards. Currently, HIV documentation policies do not exist for clinicians working with PHAs in Canada or abroad. Sexual assault nursing, which includes documentation guidelines, may offer guidance in the creation of a PHA care policy because sexual assault nursing and PHA care both intersect with the justice system. A PHA care policy may have several benefits: It can increase clinician confidence in patient interactions and documentation by clarifying roles and scope of responsibilities, reduce inconsistencies in practice, diminish conflict among professionals, and reduce the stress involved in clinical practice. The outcome of these improvements could be an increase in PHAs’ level of comfort with nurses knowing that policies exist.
Altered regional blood flow distribution in Mas-deficient mice
Authors: Botelho-Santos Giancarla Aparecida , Bader Michael , Alenina Nathalia , Santos Robson Augusto Souza
Published: October 2012

Background:

We have recently shown that the acute infusion of angiotensin-(1–7) [Ang-(1-7)] or chronic increase in plasma Ang-(1-7) produces important changes in regional blood flow in rats.

Methods:

To further assess whether these changes are related to Mas, in this study hemodynamic measurements were performed in Ang-(1-7) receptor Mas knockout C57BL/6 (Mas-KO) mice and age-matched wild type (WT) control mice, using fluorescent microspheres.

Results:

Mean arterial pressure in urethane-anesthetized Mas-KO mice (12–16 weeks old) did not differ from that in WT mice (79 ± 2 and 80 ± 2 mmHg respectively). However, pronounced differences were observed in other hemodynamic measurements. Mas-KO mice exhibited a significant decrease in stroke volume (0.03 ± 0.01 versus 0.05 ± 0.01 ml/beat in WT) and decreased cardiac index (0.81 ± 0.08 versus 1.24 ± 0.24 ml/min/g in WT). Strikingly, Mas-KO mice exhibited a marked increase in vascular resistance and a decrease in blood flow in the kidney, lung, adrenal gland, mesentery, spleen and brown fat tissue. The decrease in blood flow ranged from 34% (spleen) to 55% (brown fat tissue).

Conclusion:

These results suggest that the Ang-(1-7)/Mas axis plays an important role in regional and systemic hemodynamic adjustments in mice.
Structure-function analysis indicates that sumoylation modulates DNA-binding activity of STAT1
Authors: Grönholm Juha , Vanhatupa Sari , Ungureanu Daniela , Väliaho Jouni , Laitinen Tuomo , Valjakka Jarkko , Silvennoinen Olli
Published: October 2012

Background

STAT1 is an essential transcription factor for interferon-γ-mediated gene responses. A distinct sumoylation consensus site (ψKxE) 702IKTE705 is localized in the C-terminal region of STAT1, where Lys703 is a target for PIAS-induced SUMO modification. Several studies indicate that sumoylation has an inhibitory role on STAT1-mediated gene expression but the molecular mechanisms are not fully understood.

Results

Here, we have performed a structural and functional analysis of sumoylation in STAT1. We show that deconjugation of SUMO by SENP1 enhances the transcriptional activity of STAT1, confirming a negative regulatory effect of sumoylation on STAT1 activity. Inspection of molecular model indicated that consensus site is well exposed to SUMO-conjugation in STAT1 homodimer and that the conjugated SUMO moiety is directed towards DNA, thus able to form a sterical hindrance affecting promoter binding of dimeric STAT1. In addition, oligoprecipitation experiments indicated that sumoylation deficient STAT1 E705Q mutant has higher DNA-binding activity on STAT1 responsive gene promoters than wild-type STAT1. Furthermore, sumoylation deficient STAT1 E705Q mutant displayed enhanced histone H4 acetylation on interferon-γ-responsive promoter compared to wild-type STAT1.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that sumoylation participates in regulation of STAT1 responses by modulating DNA-binding properties of STAT1.
Secreted frizzled-related protein 4 expression is positively associated with responsiveness to Cisplatin of ovarian cancer cell lines in vitro and with lower tumour grade in mucinous ovarian cancers
Authors: Saran Uttara , Arfuso Frank , Zeps Nikolajs , Dharmarajan Arunasalam
Published: October 2012

Background

Ovarian cancer is one of the most lethal malignancies in women, as it is frequently detected at an advanced stage, and cancers often become refractory to chemotherapy. Evidence suggests that dysregulation of pro-apoptotic genes plays a key role in the onset of chemoresistance. The secreted Frizzled-Related Protein (sFRP) family is pro-apoptotic and also a negative modulator of the Wnt signalling cascade. Studies have demonstrated that the re-expression of sFRPs, in particular sFRP4, is associated with a better prognosis, and that experimentally induced expression results in cell death.

Results

In vitroexperimental models determined that sFRP4 was differentially expressed in chemosensitive (A2780) and chemoresistant (A2780 ADR and A2780 Cis) ovarian cell lines, with chemosensitive cells expressing significantly higher levels of sFRP4. Transfection of the chemoresistant cell lines with sFRP4 significantly increased their sensitivity to chemotherapy. Conversely, silencing of sFRP4 expression in the chemosensitive cell line resulted in a corresponding increase in chemoresistance. Comparison of sFRP4 expression in tumour biopsies revealed a positive trend between sFRP4 expression and tumour grade, with mucinous cyst adenocarcinomas exhibiting significantly decreased sFRP4 levels compared to mucinous borderline tumours.

Conclusions

This study indicates a role for sFRP4 as a predictive marker of chemosensitivity in ovarian cancer and suggests that this pathway may be worth exploiting for novel therapies.