Journal articles on the topic 'Sherry industry'

The flor yeasts (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) form a biofilm, known as flor velum, on the surface of fino-type sherry wine at the end of the alcoholic fermentation. These film-forming yeasts are responsible for the oxidative transformation of alcohol to acetaldehyde, together with other reactions, which produce the characteristic flavours and aromas of these wines. In this study, we examine the enological behaviour of eight flor yeast strains biofilms in biological aging experiments carried out in the laboratory. Strains with identical chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA patterns and the same origin showed a more closely-related enological behaviour. But the kinetics of growth and acetaldehyde accumulation in the wine were found to be strain-dependent. Moreover, some strains were marked by high acetaldehyde accumulation in their pure cultures during the various phases of the biofilm development. These results provide valuable knowledge for planning technical strategies to improve the biological aging process in the sherry wine industry.

The purpose of this study is the introduction of the Holonic framework for the conceptual design of an "intelligent packaging" in the Sherry Wine´s Industry. This purpose is based on the search for an effective design, that is, a design that produces the desired effect on the user, thus fulfilling their expectations and leaving aside the existing problems in the traditional wine packaging. Due to the lack of specific methodologies, the holonic model has been chosen as an integrating framework for the design and development of conventional products. In addition, this model allows to support the combined use of other classical methodologies such as: AHP, QFD, FAST, TRIZ among other, allowing to use in the model, the advantages provided by each of them separately. The result is the methodological application to the design of an intelligent package that achieves the desired goals while improving the consumer experience. The proposed packaging design allows its direct reuse, being advantageous for obtaining certifications and audit approval. In addition, the use of intelligent technologies allows effective control and correct use of the product. Keywords: Sherry wines; holonic engineering; bottle; smart packaging; sustainable design; industrial design.

This paper emerged from discussions during and after the spring 2005 SfAA session on anthropology and nanotechnology. The three authors have worked for many years in substantially different institutional settings. Wolfe has worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), owned by the U.S. Department of Energy and currently managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for a generation. David has resided at Michigan State University's anthropology department for even longer. Sherry is the relative newcomer, having worked at Intel for 9 years (after 2 years at Microsoft). When talking about the nanotechnology-related work we are, are endeavoring to, or are interested in pursuing, it became clear that our institutionally grounded perspectives varied substantially. Moreover, despite some commonalities, the ways in which we do or would engage in nanotechnology research also diverge. This article is a formalized expression of those commonalities and differences, and is indicative of the range of ways in which anthropologists may participate in research surrounding this potentially revolutionary set of technologies.

AbstractThis article examines the evolution of the Autonomous Union of the Vine (Sindicato Autónomo de la Vid [SAVID]), a radical wine industry union that operated in the Jerez area (Spain) between 1979 and 1987. The SAVID was born as a result of a series of internal conflicts and splits in the trade union Unión Sindical Obrera (USO), which was founded by Christian groups that were influenced by self-management ideas in the province of Cádiz during the 1970s. Drawing on the life stories of two union members, this article analyzes the creation, evolution, and decline of the SAVID labor union of the sherry wine industry in the Jerez area, which can be categorized as a paradigmatic case of “militant particularism.” The biographical narratives of the union members make the identification and analysis of factors involved in both the rise and the decline of this trade union possible. These narratives will also help in contesting the dominant narratives on the role of the trade union movement and the radical Left during the Spanish Transition by providing empirical evidence of labor militancy on a local scale.

In this work we analyze climatic data of temperatures, rainfall, winds and bioclimatic indexes for the last 20 years obtained from 8 agroclimatic stations distributed in the cultivation areas of the Sherry. The effects of climate change have been confirmed and maximum temperatures show a clear tendency to increase, which could lead to a considerable increase in maximum temperatures in the coming years. It has been observed that the average maximum temperatures during the summer in Jerez exceed 32 ºC, while in El Puerto and Sanlúcar they are appreciably cooler and are in the order of 30.5 ºC. It has also been verified a reduction of rainfall by almost 100 L/m2 in recent years, and verifying that rainfall has a certain cyclical character. It has been tested that predominant winds in Jerez are from the east, in Sanlúcar they are from the west and El Puerto has an intermediate wind regime. Significant differences have been observed between climatic stations located at short distances, showing the convenience of having agroclimatic stations in the most important vineyard areas and in the most suitable areas of the winery districts of the cities to adequately characterize their microclimate in relation to the wine industry.

English tends to be regarded as sufficient for communication in numerous fields. This includes industrieswhose progress has been reliant on communication in languages other than English, in which English has been useful in matters of trade. A notable example is the microfield of fortified wines, where primary languages include Portuguese (madeira and port) and Spanish (sherry). Withthe English corpus showing unassimilated borrowings from the Iberian-Romance languages, and with wine schoolsoffering their students little opportunity to learn these languages, it seemed reasonable to provide numerical evidence of the presence of these borrowings in professional communication in English to see if potential comprehensionproblems among students, resulting from professional discourse being filled with foreign words,may be significant. The (corpus-driven)study of concept systems in the areas of madeira, port and sherry has led to the creation of English-language models containing loanwords from Portuguese and Spanish in varying proportions. The models have been explored to demonstrate to what extent English may be considered sufficient for (effective) communication in each of the areas of the fortified wine industry, while dependent on borrowings from the industry’sprimary languages. The numbers of loanwords in the descriptions of madeira, port and sherryhave indicated the degree to which wine students can rely on their knowledge of English for communication in their target professions while revealing their potential needs for Portuguese and Spanish. These findings inform applied language sciences on the scale of borrowings in professional discourse of an important sector of the wine industry, with Spanish identified as a relatively more productive source of unassimilated borrowings than Portuguese. The results offeran insight for educational programme developers to consider the inclusion of Portuguese and Spanish classes in curricula prepared for students pursuing degrees in winemaking and related fields who have chosen the specialization of fortified wines. El inglés tiende a considerarse suficiente para la comunicación en numerosos campos. Esto incluye industrias cuyo progreso ha dependido de la comunicación en lenguas distintas del inglés, en las que este idioma ha sido útil en cuestiones comerciales. Un ejemplo notable es el microcampo de los vinos generosos, en el que las lenguas principales son el portugués (madeira y oporto) y el español (jerez), siendo el inglés históricamente importante, como demuestran los documentos ingleses. Dado que el corpus inglés muestra préstamos no asimilados de las lenguas ibero-románicas, y que prestigiosas escuelas de vino, como AWRI, Napa Valley Wine Academy, WSET, por nombrar algunas, ofrecen a sus estudiantes pocas oportunidades de aprender estas lenguas, parecía razonable proporcionar pruebas numéricas de la presencia de estos préstamos en la comunicación profesional en inglés para ver si los posibles problemas de comprensión entre los estudiantes, resultantes de un discurso profesional lleno de palabras y expresiones extranjeras, pueden ser significativos. El estudio (motivado por el corpus) de sistemas conceptuales en los ámbitos del madeira, el oporto y el jerez ha llevado a la creación de modelos detallados en inglés que contienen préstamos del portugués y el español en proporciones variables. Los modelos se han explorado para demostrar hasta qué punto el inglés puede considerarse suficiente para una comunicación (eficaz) en cada una de las áreas de la industria de los vinos fortificados y, por la misma razón, dependiente de préstamos de las lenguas primarias de la industria. Las cifras establecidas de palabras de préstamo en las descripciones de madeira, oporto y jerez han indicado el grado en que los estudiantes de enología pueden confiar en sus conocimientos de inglés para comunicarse en sus profesiones de destino, al tiempo que revelan sus necesidades potenciales de portugués y español. Estos resultados informan a las ciencias lingüísticas aplicadas sobre la escala de préstamos que cabría esperar en el discurso profesional de un importante sector de la industria vitivinícola a partir de las lenguas primarias del campo, con el español identificado como una fuente relativamente más productiva de préstamos no asimilados que el portugués. Los resultados ofrecen una perspectiva para que los responsables de la elaboración de programas educativos consideren la inclusión de clases de portugués y español en los planes de estudios profesionales preparados para estudiantes que cursan estudios de enología y campos afines y que han elegido la especialización de vinos generosos.

Sherly Busana fashion outlet is a clothing store that sells wide variations of clothing from various brands, such as T-shirts, shirts, long pants, and short pants. Of course, with these wide variations of product, the considerably huge amount of customer is inevitable.The owners of Sherly Busana store, the husband and wife, are both in their fifties and sixties, while the fashion world is a fast-paced industry, leaving no room for the old-fashioned. And that’s exactly the problem which the owners of Sherly Busana store face. This paper offers a solution to the problem that the owners face by designing a web-based applications using the programming language PHP and android-based applications by using waterfall model as the mdel. The making of these applications strive for the success for people who still want to do business in the fashion industry, despite the age.

Saat ini, banyak industri yang belum memperhatikan kenyamanan dan keteraturan dalam lingkungan kerja yang dapat berakibat pada terganggunya proses industri yang dijalankannya. Hal ini juga terjadi pada sebuah industri kecil dan menengah di bidang konveksi yaitu Sherly Bordir yang beroperasi di kawasan Malioboro. Sherly Bordir perlu menerapkan aspek 5R (Ringkas, Rapi, Resik, Rawat, Rajin) di lokasi tempat industri konveksi yang dijalankan beroperasi. Penilaian terhadap aspek 5R di perusahaan tersebut dilakukan dengan menggunakan checksheet dengan menilai 20 aspek 5R menggunakan skala penilaian 1-5. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa departemen produksi memperoleh skor 36 sedangkan departemen penyimpanan mendapat skor 34. Keduanya masih termasuk dalam kondisi yang kurang baik sehingga diperlukan perbaikan. Di masa depan, perusahaan perlu melakukan manajemen alat dan bahan, produk serta tempat perusahaan beroperasi.

Currently, the Strategy for the development of the fi shery sector of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2030 has been approved. To implement this strategy, the construction of new and reconstruction of existing enterprises is planned. Wastewater from fi sh processing contains a large amount of scales, remnants of entrails (liver, intestines, ovaries), proteins and lipids. Therefore, when developing a treatment technology, it is necessary to pay increased att ention to mechanical and physicochemical pre-treatment of effl uents. This article summarizes the experience of foreign and domestic research on mechanical and physical-chemical wastewater treatment. Also presented are the results of studies on wastewater treatment of two fi sh processing enterprises. The use of Al2(SO4)3 at a dose of 50 mg/l for Al2O3 gave the best results in a laboratory experiment.

Although there has been a proliferation of “how-to “ planning guides in recent years, there has been very little documentation of the variation in and determinants of business-disaster preparedness. The few studies that have been conducted have focused on specific firms or industrial sectors, such as the chemical or tourist industry, or have been plagued by too few cases. These problems clearly limit the generalizability of the research findings. This paper attempts to fill a void in the literature by exploring the determinants and variations of planning within the private sector utilizing two stratified, random samples of businesses from Memphis/Shelby County, Tennessee (N=737), and Des Moines/Polk County, Iowa (N=1,079). Findings show that business size, whether the business property is owned or leased, and prior disaster experience are all related to business-disaster preparedness in both study areas. Type of business was related to preparedness among businesses in Memphis/Shelby County. Policy implications of the findings are discussed.

Root-knot caused by Meloidogyne spp. is the primary disease of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) in North Carolina, causing an annual yield loss of approximately 12 %. All cucumber cultivars we have tested are resistant to M. hapla, but none are resistant to any of the four important nematodes found on cucumber in North Carolina: M. incognita, M. arenaria races 1 and 2, and M. javanica. However, we are preparing to release three cucumber inbreds with resistance to four out of five of those nematodes. `Marion' (NC-44), `Shelby' (NC-45), and `Lucia' (NC-46) are high yielding, monoecious pickling cucumber inbreds that have resistance to M. arenaria races 1 and 2, M. javanica, and M. hapla. Length: diameter ratio was 3.4, 3.0, 3.9 for `Marion', `Shelby', `Lucia' (`Calypso' was 2.9 in the same trial), respectively. Thus, different length requirements for the pickling industry can be met with the three cultivars. Based on the 1995 North Carolina stage 1 pickle trial, performance (as % of `Calypso') for `Marion', `Shelby', and `Lucia' respectively was 79%, 94%, and 115% for total fruit number/ha; 71%, 96%, and 113% for marketable fruit number/ha; and 102%, 84%, and 97% for fruit quality rating. Therefore, nematode resistant cultivars are available that match the performance of the gynoecious hybrid check cultivar for the region.

IKM Sherly Collection merupakan Industri Kecil Menengah dengan hasil produksi utama pakaian gamis. Pada saat ini stasiun menjahit masih menggunakan fasilitas kerja yang dirasa kurang baik seperti pada kursi kerja operator menjahit karena tidak sesuai dengan antropometri penggunanya menyebabkan keluhan seperti nyeri punggung, nyeri pinggang dan nyeri pada bokong pekerjanya hal ini yang menjadi dasar adanya penelitian ini maka diusulkan suatu rancangan tempat duduk agar memberi kenyamanan serta keamanan saat melakukan aktivitas kerja bagi pekerja itu sendiri. Metode yang digunakan dalam perbaikan kursi kerja ini menggunakan pendekatan antropometri. Pengukuran dimensi tubuh menggunakan antropometri statis yaitu pengukuran dimensi tubuh dalam keadaan diam untuk posisi yang telah ditentukan. 45 orang pekerja dengan rentang usia 20-40 tahun menjadi sampel dalam penelitian ini Pengolahan data dilakukan dengan uji keseragaman data, uji kecukupan data serta konsep persentil dengan cara memilih antara persentil 5th dan 95th. Dimensi antropometri yang digunakan adalah tinggi bahu duduk (TBD), lebar bahu (LB), pantat popliteal (PPo), lebar pinggul (LP) dan tinggi popliteal (TPo). Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa dimensi PPo, TPo menggunakan persentil 5th sedangkan dimensi TBD, LB dan LP menggunakan persentil 95th. Desain kursi yang dihasilkan memiliki ukuran tinggi sandaran kursi 50 cm, lebar sandaran kursi 40 cm, panjang alas duduk kursi 42 cm, lebar alas duduk kursi 40 cm dan tinggi kursi 45 cm. Usulan perbaikan kursi kerja berdasarkan pengamatan kursi kerja sebelumnya adalah adanya sandaran kursi dan bantalan alas duduk berbahan busa.

The flow properties were determined for two groups of food powders used in industry: cereal powders and non-starch powders. Materials were different in mean sizes of particles d* ranging from 0.033 mm for potato flour to 4.449 mm for oatmeal. Experiments were performed in 60 mm in diameter direct shear tester (Jenike shear tester) for four values of consolidating stress _r: 30, 60, 80 and 100 kPa. The highest values of flow function (FF) and the widest range of its variability (ranging from 0.5 kPa to 35 kPa) were found in the case of pearl barley groats. For the non-starch powders values of FF were more stable and did not exceed a limit characteristic for easy flowing materials. The highest values of FF in the group of the non-starch materials were obtained for icing sugar (from 19 kPa to 24 kPa) while the lowest found were values of FF for salt (from 3 kPa to 7 kPa). Powdered milk and potato flour showed the widest variability of FF values within the non-starch materials.

Hot-stamped steel is currently the most widely used lightweight material in automobiles, and accurately predicting its failure risk during the simulation is a bottleneck problem in the automobile industry. In this study, the fracture failure behavior of the hot-stamped PHS2000 steel manufactured by Ben Gang Group (Benxi, China) is investigated by experiments and simulation. Static tension and high-speed tension tests are conducted to obtain the elastic-plastic stress-strain relations, and a Swift + Hockett–Sherby model is proposed to describe the hardening behavior under static and high-speed loads. Tests under five kinds of stress states, namely static shear, static tensile shear, notched static tension, center-hole static tension, and static punching, are conducted to obtain the ultimate fracture strains under different stress states for establishing a failure model. The finite element method (FEM) is used to inversely achieve the fracture parameters of the material, and the GISSMO model in LS-Dyna is adopted to describe the fracture characteristics of the material. A fracture card is further established for simulation analysis by combining fracture characteristics with high-speed tension curves and simultaneously loading size effect curves of meshes. Finally, the card is applied in the simulation of the three-point bending test. High-precision results of fracture simulation matching the experimental results are obtained. This research proves that the proposed fracture card is accurate and can be widely used in the simulation of fracture behaviors of the hot-stamped PHS2000 steel.

In the year of 2021, the Chinese government allocated 19 billion RMB for agricultural machinery subsidy. The data that accurately describes the scale of China’s agricultural machinery market could be calculated by analyzing the national agricultural machinery purchase investment, the total value of the parts market and the replacement market could be inferred. Since the implementation of agricultural machinery purchase subsidies, China’s comprehensive mechanization rate of crop cultivation, planting and harvesting has increased rapidly. In 2019, the national comprehensive mechanization rate of crop cultivation, planting and harvesting exceeded 70 percent, and the production of the three major food crops of wheat, rice and corn was basically mechanized. This paper analyzes the scale of the complete machinery market, the market scale of key products in the Chinese agricultural machinery market, the basic situation of Chinese agricultural machinery distribution companies, the basic situation of the Chinese agricultural machinery purchasing groups, and the main gathering platforms of the Chinese agricultural machinery distribution market, explaining the current status of China’s agricultural machinery distribution, putting forward suggestions for the development of China’s agricultural machinery distribution market. There are major contradictions in the agricultural machinery market in China. The most important one is between supply and demand. In terms of crops, the level of comprehensive mechanization of wheat, rice and maize is relatively high, while the level of comprehensive mechanization of cash crops such as cotton oil, sugar and vegetable tea is relatively low; from a regional perspective, the level of mechanization in the northern plains is relatively high, and the level of mechanization in the hilly and mountainous areas of the south is relatively low; from an industrial point of view, the level of mechanization of planting industry is relatively high, while the level of mechanization of animal husbandry, fi shery and processing is low. Meanwhile, the contradiction between manufacturers and distributors, as well as the end-users is further intensifying. This article attempts to explain the effi ciency and benefi t of agriculture and the return on investment of agricultural machinery purchase. Only when agriculture is competitive, has good effi ciency and benefi ts, and the purchase of agricultural machinery has a good rate of return on investment, can the industry develop healthily.

Doppler wind LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) makes use of the principle of optical Doppler shift between the reference and backscattered radiations to measure radial velocities at distances up to several kilometers above the ground. Such instruments promise some advantages, including its large scan volume, movability and provision of 3-dimensional wind measurements, as well as its relatively higher temporal and spatial resolution comparing with other measurement devices. In recent decades, Doppler LiDARs developed by scientific institutes and commercial companies have been well adopted in several real-life applications. Doppler LiDARs are installed in about a dozen airports to study aircraft-induced vortices and detect wind shears. In the wind energy industry, the Doppler LiDAR technique provides a promising alternative to in-situ techniques in wind energy assessment, turbine wake analysis and turbine control. Doppler LiDARs have also been applied in meteorological studies, such as observing boundary layers and tracking tropical cyclones. These applications demonstrate the capability of Doppler LiDARs for measuring backscatter coefficients and wind profiles. In addition, Doppler LiDAR measurements show considerable potential for validating and improving numerical models. It is expected that future development of the Doppler LiDAR technique and data processing algorithms will provide accurate measurements with high spatial and temporal resolutions under different environmental conditions.

Abstract This study concerns the use of polymer blends to produce advanced high performance adhesive systems based on material economics as well as to gain knowledge about the thermodynamics of multi-component adhesive systems. In the adhesive industry, blends of natural rubber (polyisoprene) and polychloroprene are used not only to lower cost, but also to provide certain properties, which are not obtainable with either elastomer alone. This paper investigates the contribution of each elastomer in the blend to the cohesive and adhesive strength and durability of the system. Composites of synthetic cis-1,4-polyisoprene with different types of polychloroprene with modified structures have been prepared by mill compounding. Infrared spectra obtained for these composites when coated on metallic surface have been extremely useful in the elucidation of the molecular orientation and conformational changes associated with these polymers. Each sample has been laminated between metallic substrates and for each lamination; the lap shear has been measured. The measured lap shears have been correlated with the structural changes associated with polymer—polymer interactions, detected by reflection infrared spectroscopy. These results could have a significant bearing on the mechanism of the strength development in rubber blends for use in adhesive and sealant systems.

Hydraulic fracturing is a potential cause of leakage of earth dams or loss of fluid in drilling and field permeability testing. The effect of hydraulic fracturing on soil grouting is also a major concern. Although hydraulic fracturing has been adopted for decades by the petroleum industry for oil recovery in rock formations, studies on fracturing in soils are relatively few and inconclusive. The aim of this study is to provide further insight into the mechanism of hydrofracturing in soils through a field grouting trial and numerical simulation. We observe hydraulic fracturing in soils during this field trial as predicted by generally accepted groutability requirements. The hydraulic fractures are found vertically developed up to the ground surface. Numerical simulations show the hydraulic fracturing is easier to be initiated in anisotropic stress conditions, where the minor principal stress is the key factor. Numerical simulations also demonstrate significant compressions and shears during injection, suggesting the mechanism of fracturing in soils would be a shearing type. Based on this study, we propose a punching and splitting mode for the hydrofracturing in soils. The equation associated with estimating fracturing pressure is verified, and the results are found to be in good agreement with the cases examined.

Surveys have examined the relationship between louse and flystrike treatments on farms and the resulting residues of insect growth regulators on greasy wool. These results have been summarised using a model of the on-farm survey data. The model estimated the amount of chemical taken up by the wool at application. This was based on experimental breakdown rates of these insecticides on wool determined in controlled trials. The data indicated that the backliner, triflumuron, when used off-shears within 24 h of shearing, was normally applied at slightly higher than the recommended rate on-farm and left an average residue of 30 mg/kg greasy wool at the following shearing 12 months later. Diflubenzuron, applied by dipping or jetting, was usually applied at lower than the recommended rates, and left an average residue of 40 mg/kg on the wool at shearing 12 months later. When treatment was applied to very short wool (<3 weeks after shearing) the residue was only about 20 mg/kg, but when applied at later times after shearing the residue at the following shearing was not closely related to the time of treatment. The model can be used to estimate the expected residue level and likely range of results from most standard insect growth regulator treatments. This will improve advice to producers so most can meet specified industry standards.

Purpose With the development and innovation of IoT technologies, both domestic and international people in the industry believe the development of IoT are the new points of technological innovation and economic growth. But it is becoming more and more prominent that the industries are difficult to connect and the IoT technologies are not standardized. The purpose of this paper is to promote the further development of IoT technology and industry, technology standardization of IoT has become the focus of all concerned parties. Technology standardization, as a technological innovation and development process of the “pruning shears,” has been embedded into the various aspects of innovation activities. Design/methodology/approach Based on many previous theories, the authors establish a matrix of the patterns of technology standardization. The authors use the relative state of the highest level of technology of the enterprise and The degree of independent technological innovation as the two dimensions of the model. At the same time, the authors divide the competitive behaviors into two categories and match them with the technology standardization model. Findings The authors explain the short-term competitive behaviors in the same enterprise and among different enterprises by using the theories of mutualism and competition among species in biology, and make an analogy between the phenomenon of base pairing in DNA double helix structure and the corresponding relationship of two kinds of innovation abilities and two kinds of competitive behaviors in the process of technology standardization. Originality/value Combined with previous theories, explain that innovation capability plays a mediating role in the process in which the combinations of the patterns of technology standardization and competitive behaviors are transformed into the enterprise innovation performance, and the uncertainty of external environment play a regulatory role in the process. Finally, the authors established the final conceptual model for providing theoretical basis for the later research, and put forward the conclusions and prospect at the end of the paper.

The standard portland cement (OPC) was traditionally used as the binding agent in concrete. However it is also important to find alternative emissions-free concrete binding agents to reduce environmental damage caused by cement manufacturing. Geopolymers, also known as inorganic polymers, use byproducts like fly ash rather than cement. Recent studies have shown that geopolymer concrete based on fly ash has enough properties for use. As the geopolymer strength mechanism is different from the OPC binder, an appropriate constituent model for geopolymer concrete must be obtained in order to predict the load-deflection behavior and strength of geopolymer concrete structural components. A number of problems faced with today's cement industry are addressed by geopolymer binders. These binders have similar or better engineering qualities in comparison with cement and can use many types of waste materials. This project describes the seismic analysis of buildings with high-rise structures, the model of residential G+10 buildings with traditional concrete and geopolymer concrete properties is modelled and analysis is carried out using the response spectra method considering the position of the building in zone III, this analysis would generate the effect of higher vibration modes and real force distribution in elastic range. Test results include maximum story shifts, maximum story drifts, story shears and story stiffness, and an efficient lateral load resistance system, helping to establish whether geo-polymer concrete can be used in high-rise building construction as dynamic loads are included in the high-rise structures

The microslip shear model of belt mechanics is extended to fully incorporate belt inertia effects and used to analyse the steady state of a two-pulley drive. The belt is modelled as an axially moving string consisting of a tension-bearing member and a pliable elastomer envelope. Relative displacement between the tension-bearing member and the pulley surfaces shears the elastomer envelope, transferring the friction from the pulley surface to the tension-bearing member. The belt-pulley contact arcs consist of adhesion and sliding zones. Static friction exists in the adhesion zones, whereas kinetic friction exists in the sliding zones. An iteration method involving one outer and two inner loops is proposed to find the steady mechanics, including the sliding and adhesion zones, belt-pulley friction, and belt tension distribution. The outer loop iterates on the tight span tension similar to that used in published creep models. Two inner loops iterate on the tight span and driven pulley speeds respectively, necessitated by the speed differences between the tension-bearing member and the pulley at the entry points in the shear theory. Comparisons between the shear and creep models are conducted. Dramatic differences in belt-pulley mechanics between these two models are highlighted. Nevertheless, the key system performance measures such as the belt tight/slack span tensions, the maximum transmissible moment, and efficiency differ only modestly for the most normal operating conditions. Correspondingly, the adoption of the creep model for flat belts in industry is well justified because it is well developed and simple, although the shear model seems more relevant for modern belts with grid layers.

Abstract Deep moist convection generates turbulence in the clear air above and around developing clouds, penetrating convective updrafts and mature thunderstorms. This turbulence can be due to shearing instabilities caused by strong flow deformations near the cloud top, and also to breaking gravity waves generated by cloud–environment interactions. Turbulence above and around deep convection is an important safety issue for aviation, and improved understanding of the conditions that lead to out-of-cloud turbulence formation may result in better turbulence avoidance guidelines or forecasting capabilities. In this study, a series of high-resolution two- and three-dimensional model simulations of a severe thunderstorm are conducted to examine the sensitivity of above-cloud turbulence to a variety of background flow conditions—in particular, the above-cloud wind shear and static stability. Shortly after the initial convective overshoot, the above-cloud turbulence and mixing are caused by local instabilities in the vicinity of the cloud interfacial boundary. At later times, when the convection is more mature, gravity wave breaking farther aloft dominates the turbulence generation. This wave breaking is caused by critical-level interactions, where the height of the critical level is controlled by the above-cloud wind shear. The strength of the above-cloud wind shear has a strong influence on the occurrence and intensity of above-cloud turbulence, with intermediate shears generating more extensive regions of turbulence, and strong shear conditions producing the most intense turbulence. Also, more stable above-cloud environments are less prone to turbulence than less stable situations. Among other things, these results highlight deficiencies in current turbulence avoidance guidelines in use by the aviation industry.

Abstract Knowledge of equine populations and demographics is of vital importance to educational, economic, and health aspects within Tennessee. While the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) census assesses equids on operations making a set amount of income per year, this method alone may not effectively capture the recreational-use equine population. This study aimed to develop a novel approach of characterizing the population, demographics, and location of equids in Tennessee through annual Coggins test reports and to determine how Coggins test data compared to the USDA census population data. Information was collected from the 2018 Coggins tests (n = 31195), provided by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, including sex, age, breed, owner location, equid location, and reason for testing. The equine population and location of equids per county (n = 86928) were collected from USDA census data. Statistical analysis was performed using the frequency procedure and means procedure in SAS 9.4. The middle region of Tennessee represented the highest proportion of equids in both the Coggins (60.32%, n = 18816) and USDA (52.05%, n = 45244) data. The counties with the highest proportion of equids from the Coggins data were Putnam (10.21%, n = 3186), Bedford (5.33%, n = 1664), and Shelby (4.18%, n = 1304) whereas the USDA data showed Bedford (4.41%, n = 3832), Williamson (3.38%, n = 2941), and Wilson (3.04%, n = 2643) as the most populated. Per the Coggins data where sex was reported (n = 31073), 48.46% (n = 15059) of the equids were geldings and 51.44% (n = 15983) were mares. Reported breeds within Coggins data (n = 31043) indicated the highest proportion of non-mixed breeds were Quarter Horses (28.20%, n = 8755), Tennessee Walking Horses (22.20%, n = 6892), and Spotted Saddle Horses (7.46%, n = 2316). While neither method fully captures the entire population of the equine industry, assessing both data sets may be helpful in developing targeted strategies for educational programming, population or disease models, and marketing campaigns.

Introduction. During the reconstruction and technical re-equipment of various mining facilities, there is a need for the processing of concrete and reinforced concrete products that require environmental protection. The article analyzes innovative methods of destruction of hard rocks based on the use of electrohydraulic effect. The possibility of their use as an alternative environmentally friendly method of recycling reinforced concrete products is evaluated. A schematic diagram of an electrohydraulic installation for use for these purposes is presented. Based on the analysis of the mechanism of destruction of concrete and reinforced concrete products, the main electrical parameters that ensure the effectiveness of its application are substantiated. An assessment of the effectiveness of the implementation of the proposed technology in the process of recycling reinforced concrete structures was carried out. Materials and methods. After the main dismantling activities, the issue of removal and utilization of construction waste is solved, which requires its shredding. When using electrohydraulic technology for demolition of reinforced concrete, this production process includes: prior to processing – segmentation of structures by means of excavator hydraulic shears into fragments up to 1 m3 in size; placing them on the support grid of the EGU bath filled with water; grounding of the fittings; installation of working arresters in the bath and energizing of the EGU; after treatment – removal of the reinforcement cleaned from concrete from the bathtub; removal of the basket with concrete rubble from the EGU; storage of treatment products; installation of the released basket in place. Results and discussion. As a result of the research the organization of the production process of recycling of reinforced concrete fragments of building structure during their disposal using the technology of electrohydraulic crushing of concrete blocks at the site of their dismantling is proposed. Rational values of parameters of the organization of the destruction process in the EGU have been established: the distance from the arrester axis to the point of reinforced concrete blocks in the liquid volume; capacitance of the capacitor block; voltage at the moment of breakdown; inductance of the discharge circuit; cyclic frequency of oscillations. When using water as a working fluid, it is reasonable to vary the frequency of discharge pulses within 0.5...2.0 Hz. It has been established that the productivity of the single-electrode unit at the destruction of reinforced concrete to the final coarseness of 20 mm reaches 100 kg/h at a specific energy consumption of 120 kW/t. The use of 4-electrode EGU can ensure the crushing of one ton of reinforced concrete to a fraction of 20 mm in 2.5 hours. Increasing the overall environmental friendliness of the whole process of utilization of reinforced concrete products can be ensured by replacing the mechanical destruction of products by hydraulic shears with dust-free destruction by means of generation of a high-voltage current pulse by an electrode in a borehole filled with water. Сonclusion. According to the results of the conducted research, it is clearly seen that the proposed technology of electrohydraulic crushing of concrete blocks is a promising solution for effective utilization of reinforced concrete structures in the mining industry. Organization of the production process of recycling at the site of dismantling using this technology not only reduces the cost of transportation of materials, but also contributes to reducing the negative impact on the environment. The established rational parameters of the destruction process in the electrohydraulic unit provide the basis for optimization of the technology, which, in turn, provides precise regulation of the recycling process and increases its efficiency. Thus, the research results indicate that the proposed electrohydraulic shredding technology is a promising direction for the development of effective and environmentally friendly methods of construction waste utilization.

IRISH GEOGRAPHY: THE GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF IRELAND GOLDEN JUBILEE 1934-1984, edited by G. L. Herries Davies. Dublin: The Geographical Society of Ireland, 1984. 294pp. IR£12.00. No ISBN. Reviewed by KEVIN WHELANIRELAND: TOWARDS A SENSE OF PLACE, edited by Joseph Lee. Cork: Cork University Press, 1985. 107pp. IR£4.00. ISBN 0 902561 35 9. Reviewed by T. JONES HUGHESTHE PLANTATION OF ULSTER, by Philip Robinson. Dublin: Gill & MacMillan, 1984,254pp. IR£25.00. ISBN 7171 1106 7. Reviewed by P. J. DUFFYRURAL HOUSES OF THE NORTH OF IRELAND, by Alan Gailey, Edinburgh: John Donald, 1984. 289pp. IR£32.00 (£25.00 stg.). ISBN 0 85976 098 7. Reviewed by F. H. A. AALENTHE STATE OF THE ENVIRONMENT, edited by David Cabot. Dublin: An Foras Forbartha, 1985. 206pp. IR£10.00. ISBN 0 85053 007 6. Reviewed by J. G. TYRRELLTHE FORESTS OF IRELAND: HISTORY, DISTRIBUTION AND SILVICULTURE, edited by Niall O'Carroll for the Society of Irish Foresters. Dublin: Turoe Press, 1984. 128pp. IR£14.95 (hardback). ISBN 0 905223 49 7. Reviewed by M. B. THORPTHE FLORA OF INNER DUBLIN, by Peter Wyse Jackson and Micheline Sheehy Skeffington. Dublin: Roval Dublin Society, 1984. 174pp. IR£5.00. ISBN 086027 016 5. Reviewed by R. W. ALEXANDERTHE DEVELOPMENT OF SMALL SCALE HYDRO-SCHEMES. PART 2. GUIDE TO DEVELOPMENT. Dublin: Department of Industry and Energy, no date. 52pp. IR£5.00. No ISBN. Reviewed by STU DAULTREYTHE QUIET REVOLUTION: THE ELECTRIFICATION OF RURAL IRELAND 1946–1976, by Michael J. Shiel. Dublin: The O'Brien Press, 1984. 304 pp. IR£15.00. ISBN 0 86278 056 X. Reviewed by PATRICK J. O'CONNORAN ANALYSIS OF NEW INDUSTRY LINKAGES IN IRELAND, by P. N. O'Farrell and B. O'Loughlin. Dublin: Industrial Development Authority Publication Series Paper No. 6, 1980. 64pp. IR£3.60. ISBN 0 902647 21 0. Reviewed by B. M. BRUNTSPATIAL ASPECTS OF POST-PRIMARY SCHOOL CHOICE IN GALWAY CITY AND ENVIRONS, by Seamus Grimes. Galway: Social Sciences Research Centre, 1984. 96pp. IR£5.00 No ISBN. Reviewed by JAMES A. WALSHNEUERE FORSCHUNGEN ZUR SOZIALGEOGRAPHIE VON IRLAND (NEW RESEARCH ON THE SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY OF IRELAND), edited by R. J. Bender. Mannheimer Geographische Arbeiten 17. Mannheim: Geographisches Institut der Universitat. 1984. 295pp. DM29.00. ISBN 3 923750 16 1. Reviewed by A. SIMMSTO GO OR TO NOT TO — THE MIGRATION INTENTIONS OF LEAVING CERTIFICATE STUDENTS by James A. Walsh. Dublin: Department of Geography, Our Lady of Mercy College of Education, Discussion Paper No. 2, 1984, 69pp. IR£2.50. ISBN 0 906602 02 5. Reviewed by KEVIN HOURIHANTOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING, filmstrip and booklet. Dublin: The Royal Town Planning Institute (Irish Branch), 1983. Reviewed by A. J. PARKERPLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT IN RURAL AREAS, edited by P. M. Jess, J. V. Greer, R. H. Buchanan and W. J. Armstrong. Belfast: The Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University Belfast, 1984. 249pp. £5.00stg. ISBN 0 85389 2415. Reviewed by M. S. Ó. CINNEIDEEASTERN REGION SETTLEMENT STRATEGY 2011, summary and main report by a study team (Leader: L. O'Reilly). Dublin: Eastern Regional Development Organisation, 1985 2 vols, 21 pp. and 267 pp. IR£7.00. No ISBN. Reviewed by MICHAEL J. BANNON

Abstract 8 Background: Worldwide, 14.1 million new cancer cases and 8.2 million cancer-related deaths occur annually. Of global cancer deaths, 65% occur in low- and middle-income countries, where there are not enough medical specialists to provide prevention, screening, and treatment services. For example, there are 245 physicians per 100,000 people in the United States and four physicians per 100,000 people in Mozambique. We undertook this work to investigate how to increase clinical capacity and improve cancer prevention and treatment services to ultimately reduce cancer mortality in Mozambique. Methods: Our education program has three complementary components: Strong partnerships with four academic institutions in Brazil, the Ministry of Health of Mozambique, Maputo Central Hospital, and Mavalane Hospital (Maputo) to develop educational programs and collaborative research; use of technology to implement resource-specific and culturally appropriate telementoring programs; and in-country, hands-on training. Collaboration with Brazilian institutions facilitates communication and provides clinical expertise and program expansion opportunities. The telementoring component uses the Project ECHO model, a program that was developed at the University of New Mexico to engage providers in a horizontal manner through regular case-based discussions. Hands-on training complements the telementoring program and increases the level of expertise. Results: Since January 2015, 120 training hours have been provided through ECHO videoconferences to an average of 11 participants on breast, cervical, and head and neck cancers. Two in-country workshops have provided an average of 1,200 training hours to approximately 100 providers in diagnosis, secondary prevention, and surgical management of breast, cervical, and head and neck cancers, as well as training for medical oncology, oncology nursing, palliative care, and radiation physics. Conclusion: Collaborations with Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon, US academic institutions, and industry partners are being developed to strengthen these programs. Funding: The Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas Grant No. PP150012; The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center R. Lee Clark Fellowship award, generously supported by the Jeanne F. Shelby Scholarship Fund; The University of Texas MD Anderson Sister Institution Network Fund (SINF) award; The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center HPV-related cancers Moon Shot program; and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Cancer Prevention and Control Platform. AUTHORS' DISCLOSURES OF POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST Melissa S. Lopez No relationship to disclose Ellen S. Baker Stock or Other Ownership: Merck Cesaltina Lorenzoni No relationship to disclose Elvira Xavier Luis No relationship to disclose Flora Mabota No relationship to disclose Pedro Rafael Machava No relationship to disclose Jose Humberto Tavares No relationship to disclose Donato Callegaro Filho No relationship to disclose Thiago Chulam Travel, Accommodations, Expenses: AC Camargo Cancer Center Kathleen M. Schmeler Research Funding: Becton Dickinson Patents, Royalties, Other Intellectual Property: UpToDate

Summary. Several surveys have examined the relationship between organophosphate and synthetic pyrethroid residues in wool and associated treatments. These have been combined and summarised using a model of on-farm survey data. The model estimated the amount of chemical taken up by the wool at application. This was based on experimental breakdown rates of these pesticides on wool determined in controlled trials. For about 10% of survey results the chemical measured on the wool did not match the chemical the producer said was applied. A further 5% of results were excluded because the amount of chemical detected on the wool was inconsistent with the stated time of treatment and shearing. With the remaining results there was a very high variation in residues resulting from the same (stated) treatment. It is clear that many producers do not know what chemicals they have used or how much they applied. The wide variation in results suggests that some producers may apply excessive amounts of pesticides while others use too little to have a useful effect. The model estimated the amount of pesticide taken up by the fleece using the residue left at shearing and the known breakdown rate for a given method and chemical group. When organophosphates were applied by dipping, the amount of chemical taken up by the fleece appeared to increase as the length of the wool increased. This was generally higher than would be anticipated from label dose rates but was consistent with the stripping characteristics of these chemicals. Therefore dipping as soon as possible after shearing left much lower residues (<10 mg/kg wool) than delayed treatment (often 10–30 mg/kg wool). In contrast the survey results suggest that the amount retained by sheep as a result of jetting decreased in longer wool. Jetting treatment rates appear to be lower than recommended, particularly for sheep with more than 6 months wool. Therefore jetting (as used by producers) left much lower residues in wool than dipping (with similar length wool) and was usually only above 10 mg/kg wool if carried out in the last 5 months before shearing, or if the same sheep received repeated treatments. The residue of synthetic pyrethroid retained in the fleece after dipping or long wool backliner application increased as the length of the wool increased at treatment, and appeared generally consistent with label recommendations. Current long wool backline products usually left residues of synthetic pyrethroid above 10 mg/kg on the wool. Short wool dipping left less than 10 mg/kg wool while off-shears backliners usually left average residue concentrations of about 2 mg/kg wool. Although the actual on-farm results vary 4-fold above and below the average, the model can be used to estimate the expected residue concentration and likely range of results from most standard on-farm organophosphate and synthetic pyrethroid treatments. This will allow improved provision of advice so that most producers can meet specified industry standards. It will allow wool buyers to estimate the risk of purchasing high residue wool based on producers’ statements about treatments applied.

AbstractA low-cost biosorbent obtained from the Palomino Fino grape seed, a Sherry wine industry by-product, has been proposed as a way of valorising this material. The biomass was characterised obtaining values of 0.68 ± 0.05 g mL−1 for bulk density, 1.02 ± 0.09 g mL−1 for apparent density and 33.3% for porosity. The pHpzc was 5.2 and the surface negative charge value was 2.4 ± 0.2 mmol g−1. The analysis of surface morphology showed differences due to the sorption. The results showed a promising potential for chromium(VI) removal from aqueous solutions. The studies were carried out in batch scale and a 23 factorial design was applied for the optimisation of the process. A percentage of 91.7 ± 0.6% was achieved for the biosorption of Cr(VI) under optimal conditions using pH 5.5, 15 g/L of biosorbent and 8 h of contact time. The biosorption capacity showed a remarkable linearity from 0 to 2 mmol L−1 Cr(VI) and a precision of 0.64% for the removal of 1 mmol L−1 of metal. Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin isotherm equations and the parameters of six kinetic models were used in the equilibrium modelling and identifying the mechanism of the biosorption. The combination of physical and chemical sorption mechanisms was proposed for the chromium removal with a high maximum sorption capacity (qmax = 208.3 mg g−1). Thermodynamic parameters indicated the spontaneous and endothermic nature of the chromium removal. The successful biosorption was based on the special grape seed components with a relevant content in antioxidant and lignocellulosic compounds.

The wine industry is now successfully solved the problem for the implementation of automation receiving points of grapes, crushing and pressing departments installation continuous fermentation work, blend tanks, production lines ordinary Madeira continuously working plants for ethyl alcohol installations champagne wine in continuous flow, etc. With the development of automation of technological progress productivity winemaking process develops in the following areas: organization of complex avtomatization sites grape processing with bulk transportation of the latter; improving the quality and durability of wines by the processing of a wide applying wine cold and heat, as well as technical and microbiological control most powerful automation equipment; the introduction of automated production processes of continuous technical champagne, sherry wine and cognac alcohol madery; the use of complex automation auxiliary production sites (boilers, air conditioners, refrigeration unitsand other.); complex avtomatization creation of enterprises, and sites manufactory bottling wines. In the wine industry developed more sophisticated schemes of automation and devices that enable the transition to integrated production automation, will create, are indicative automated enterprise serving for laboratories to study of the main problems of automation of production processes of winemaking.

Employees are said to be the backbone of any organization. The aquatic industry is one of the largest employers in the sport and recreation sector and is rapidly growing, with career opportunities available to a diverse workforce for individuals of all ages and backgrounds (Sherry et al., 2021). The aquatics industry is experiencing increased voluntary and dysfunctional swim instructor turnover. Employee turnover is the rate at which individuals leave an organization, and high employee turnover can be disruptive and costly for management, employees, and customers. High swim instructor turnover undermines the effectiveness of swim instruction and exacerbates the risk of swimming-related injuries and drowning. Therefore, a critical first step is to better understand the reasons for turnover to address concerns with recruitment and swim instructor retention. High employee turnover should not be excused as an inherent characteristic of the aquatics industry, but rather the result of individual and systemic factors. As swim instructor turnover is an under-researched issue, we adopted an exploratory approach to this research. We utilized a qualitative research approach, collecting data through a series of semi-structured interviews, to explore the reasons for swim instructor turnover with nineteen (58% male, 42% female) former swim instructors. Most respondents reported a combination of reasons that ultimately led to separation from their position. A deductive analysis of the interview data revealed the reasons for turnover among former swim instructors: swim instructing as a temporary role, limited career progression, failing to understand and underestimating the swim instructor working environment, and a negative view of management. This research extends human resource management literature across the aquatics industry by identifying reasons for turnover from the perspective of former swim instructors. When swim instructors depart, it can disrupt existing relationships and workflows, and makes it so that fewer individuals get the benefits associated with learning to swim. These results suggest managers would benefit from implementing appropriate retention strategies to retain swim instructors, realistic job preview, swim instructor training and personal development, and exit interviews.

What does the rise of algorithms and data analytics mean for European screen production? This paper examines the experiences of screenwriters, producers, and directors who have collaborated with data-driven streamers like Netflix and Amazon. The findings arise from on an exploration of the following research questions: (1) How do screen workers engage with broader debates about the impact of data-driven streamers (e.g. Netflix and Amazon) on the European screen industry? (2) How do screen workers make sense of their labour conditions and creativity in a streaming era? (3) How do screen workers evaluate the look, feel, and quality of the resulting streaming output? To answer these questions, I mix concepts and methods from media industry studies, production studies, critical data studies, and critical algorithm studies. The project takes the form of a production study that examines how screen workers negotiate the production dynamics in a streaming era. More specifically, I have interviewed 33 screen workers and carried out what Sherry Ortner (2010) calls an ‘interface ethnography.’ My findings especially focus on the multiple barriers to access – for me as a researcher as well as for the interviewed screen workers. It is well established that streamers like Netflix and Amazon hold audience figures and insights close to their chest. This paper demonstrates some of the ways screen workers interpret and interact with data despite this secrecy. Drilling down into these experiences will illuminate how screen workers make sense of their labour conditions and content output in a streaming era.

Sustainable tourism development is an indispensable trend of the world tourism industry, aiming to bring socio-economic and environmental harmony but not affect the future of the local community. In particular, the participation of the people in tourism activities plays an important role, they must be empowered in planning activities, managing tourist destinations and providing advice to management agencies. The State develops policies, manages and implements destination tourism planning. With the objective to assess the participation and factors affecting the participation of the community in tourism development, the study compares the theoretical model of Pretty (1995), Sherry Arnstein (1971) and Cevat Tosun (1999) From there choose the model of Pretty (1995) as a research base with the scale of participation is 7 steps and scales to evaluate the influencing factors according to groups: The people's awareness group on tourism has 6 criteria; group of motivating factors has 15 criteria; The barrier factor group has 11 criteria. Based on that, the study conducts the participation assessment and the factors affecting people's participation in tourism activities in Phong Nha – Ke Bang National Park where is a famous tourist destination in Vietnam, twice honored by UNESCO as a world natural heritage site with outstanding geological - geomorphological criteria and biodiversity criteria with a top-valued cave system world.

Economy vs. ecology. That’s one way to frame the debate that once raged in Youngstown, Ohio, between those who focused on the health of the Mahoning River and those who gave priority to the health of the local economy and the jobs it provided. The latter point of view was often stated in terms of ‘Jobs, not fish!’ and its proponents asked: Compared to jobs in steel mills, which make it possible for workers to have homes and a decent way of life, what does it matter that fish can’t live in the river? Initially, the steel industry benefitted a surprisingly small number of people, mostly owners and investors who treated workers as a resource to be exploited, much like the air and water. But later, thanks to union struggles, workers lived well in the Mahoning Valley, and environmental problems, such as a dirty river, were viewed as a necessary evil. In fact, the foulness of the river assured residents that the mills were going strong and were a source of prosperity. In Youngstown today, deindustrialization has made economic insecurity a fact of life, and the Mahoning, once known as the dirtiest river in the United States, is home to many species of fish. The story of the changes that have taken place in the river landscape centers around the supposed incompatibility of having both jobs along the river’s banks and fish in its waters. Ideas from cultural geography can teach us how to view a landscape where so much conflict has played out. When geographer James S. Duncan presented the idea of a landscape as texts which communicate and transmit information, he also argued that reading the landscape can reveal how power relations have played out in a given region. Sherry Lee Linkon and John Russo built on similar notions in Steeltown USA: Work and Memory in Youngstown as they showed how people's memories, experiences, and struggles are represented in the landscape. Linkon & Russo also noted that conflict and landscape have a reciprocal relationship. ‘Landscapes not only are constructed by economic and social conflict,’ they stated, ‘but also reinforce such divisions of power.’ ( Linkon & Russo, 2002, pp. 15-16). Such a reading of the Mahoning River landscape yields a complex story about the ways people transformed the natural world in order to benefit from it and then lived with the environmental consequences of that transformation. Though this story is very much about how power and class relations have played out there, in the twentieth century such conflict was often overshadowed by tensions between advocates for steel workers and advocates for the river. Recently, however, the growing understanding of the concept of environmental justice, which has been applied to working-class issues by, among others, Christina Robertson & Jennifer Westerman in their call for a working-class ecology (Robertson & Westerman, 2015) and Karen Bell in her agenda for a just transition to sustainability (Bell, 2020), lays the groundwork for alliances between environmentalists and working-class people that were not present when the Mahoning River was an ‘industrial stream.’ Cultural geographers have also shown us that depictions of a landscape contribute to its meaning(s). Building on such ideas, Linkon & Russo examined the landscape of Youngstown through the lens of images and stories, and this essay will view the more specific landscape of the Mahoning River by examining a dozen images created in or near Youngstown since the early twentieth century. Not all of these images depict the river itself, yet all help to clarify the way the conflict between economy and ecology has played out in the Mahoning Valley.

This technical paper investigates the influence of sample size and geologic characteristics on the geotechnical design of levee embankments. Sample quality plays a vital role in quantifying engineering properties for levee embankment projects, and numerous studies have highlighted the impact of sample disturbance on such engineering properties. Despite this evidence, conventional tube and piston samplers of different diameters continue to be widely used, potentially leading to underestimation of shear strength. The paper focuses on comparing 7.6 cm and 12.7 cm diameter undisturbed Shelby tube samples and CPT data collected from three levee sites in the Greater New Orleans Area, Louisiana, USA, which encompass diverse geologic histories. The study aims to assess the effect of industry used samples size and geology on levee construction costs. The findings provide valuable insights into optimizing sample collection methods and improving geotechnical design for earthen embankments.

Deepwater risers are susceptible to vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) when subjected to currents. When responding at high modes, fatigue damage in the inline (IL) direction may become equally important as the crossflow (CF) components. Accurate calculation of both IL and CF responses is therefore needed. Empirical VIV prediction programs, such as VIVANA “Passano et al. (2016, “VIVANA—Theory Manual Version 4.8,” Trondheim, Norway),” SHEAR7 “(Vandiver, J. K., and Li, L., 2007, “Shear7 v4.5 Program Theoretical Manual,” Department of Ocean Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA),” and VIVA “Triantafyllou et al. (1999, “Pragmatic Riser VIV Analysis,” Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, TX, May 3–6, Paper No. OTC-10931-MS.)” are the most common tools used by the offshore industry. Progress has been seen in the prediction of CF responses. Efforts have also been made to include an IL load model in VIVANA. A set of excitation coefficient parameters were obtained from rigid cylinder test and adjusted using measured responses of one of the flexible cylinder VIV tests. This set of excitation coefficient parameters is still considered preliminary and further validation is required. Without an accurate IL response prediction, a conservative approach in VIV analysis has to be followed, i.e., all current profiles have to be assumed to be unidirectional or acting in the same direction. The purpose of this paper is to provide a reliable combined IL and CF load model for the empirical VIV prediction programs. VIV prediction using the existing combined IL and CF load model in VIVANA is validated against selected flexible cylinder test data. A case study of a deepwater top tension riser (TTR) has been carried out. The results indicate that VIV fatigue damage using two-dimensional directional current profiles is less conservative compared to the traditional way of using unidirectional current profiles.

Морехозяйственный комплекс Дальнего Востока выполняет важную роль в экономике страны, обеспечивая основную долю в уловах рыбы и морепродуктов, производстве пищевой рыбопродукции. Важнейшей составляющей морехозяйственного комплекса Дальневосточного региона России выступает рыбопромышленная деятельность. Выделяются благоприятные факторы развития вида экономической деятельности в регионе, а также основные проблемы (в первую очередь производство и экс порт преимущественно сырья и полуфабрикатов, т.е. продукции с низкой добавленной стоимостью). Кроме этого, в регионе слабо развита база судостроения и судоремонта рыбодобывающего флота, практически отсутствуют современные рынки сбыта продукции рыбного промысла. Изучение процессов формирования территориальной и функциональной структуры морехозяйственных комплексов акватерриториальных производственных систем является актуальной теоретической проблемой современной экономической географии, решение которой имеет также большое практической значение для целей территориального управления. The sea economic complex of the Far East plays an important role in the economy of the country, providing the main share in the catches of fi sh and seafood, and in production of food fi sh products. The fi shing activity is the most important component of the marine industry of the Far Eastern region of Russia. The favorable factors of development of the type of economic activity in the region, and also the main problems (fi rst of all, production and export mainly of raw materials and semifi nished products, i.e. production with low added value) are allocated. In addition, the region has a poorly developed base of shipbuilding and ship repair of the fi shing fl eet practically there are no modern markets for fi shery products. The studies of the processes of formation of the territorial and functional structure of marine complexes an aquaterritorial production systems is an actual theoretical problem of modern economic geography, the solution of which is also of great practical importance for the purposes of territorial administration.

Abstract Almonds can be classified based on their shell characteristics from soft to hard shell varieties. The majority of Australian and Californian varieties have soft shell properties. Most Spanish almond varieties have hard shells. Although having a hard sealed shell protects the kernel from insect damage it affects their processability. Common commercial almond processing equipment simultaneously compresses and shears the almonds and this creates a high percentage of damaged kernels from the broken shell being forced into the kernel, particularly for hard shell varieties. This paper shows that for the soft shell variety ‘Nonpareil’ and the three hard shell varieties of ‘Marcona’, ‘Tarraco’ and ‘Vyro’ that conditioning by soaking in water and resting before processing improves the recovery of undamaged kernel when shelling using impact. The impacts were applied by feeding the almonds into a rotating impellor and throwing them onto a stationary outer wall. An effective conditioning process resulted in the kernel moisture content increasing from 6% to 14% for hard shell and to 11% for ‘Nonpareil’ varieties. The conditioning process was measured to reduce the amount of scratched, chipped and broken kernel, and hence increased the recovery of undamaged kernel. After shelling, the conditioned kernel needed to be dried back to a 6% moisture content to be suitable for storage. Hence, the industry would be able to increase its recovery of undamaged kernel by changing to an impact shelling process using suitably conditioned almonds.

IntroductionIn Nancy Meyers’s 2015 film The Intern a particular kind of masculinity is celebrated through the material accoutrements of Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro). A retired 70-year-old manager, Ben takes up a position as a “senior” Intern in an online clothing distribution company run by Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway). Jules’s company, All About Fit, is the embodiment of the Gen Y creative workplace operating in an old Brooklyn warehouse. Ben’s presence in this environment is anachronistic and yet also stylishly retro in an industry where “vintage” is a mode of dress but also offers alternative ethical values (Veenstra and Kuipers). The alternative that Ben offers is figured through his sartorial style, which mobilises a specific kind of retro masculinity made available through his senior white male body. This paper investigates how and why retro masculinity is materialised and embodied as both a set of values and a set of objects in The Intern.Three particular objects are emblematic of this retro masculinity and come to stand in for a body of desirable masculine values: the business suit, the briefcase, and the handkerchief. In the midst of an indie e-commerce garment business, Ben’s old-fashioned wardrobe registers a regular middle class managerial masculinity from the past that is codified as solidly reliable and dependable. Sherry Turkle reminds us that “material culture carries emotions and ideas of startling intensity” (6), and these impact our thinking, our emotional life, and our memories. The suit, briefcase, and handkerchief are material reminders of this reliable masculine past. The values they evoke, as presented in this film, seem to offer sensible solutions to the fast pace of twenty-first century life and its reconfigurations of family and work prompted by feminism and technology.The film’s fetishisation of these objects of retro masculinity could be mistaken for nostalgia, in the way that vintage collections elide their political context, and yet it also registers social anxiety around gender and generation amid twenty-first century social change. Turner reminds us of the importance of film as a social practice through which “our culture makes sense of itself” (3), and which participates in the ongoing negotiation of the meanings of gender. While masculinity is often understood to have been in crisis since the advent of second-wave feminism and women’s mass entry into the labour force, theoretical scrutiny now understands masculinity to be socially constructed and changing, rather than elemental and stable; performative rather than innate; fundamentally political, and multiple through the intersection of class, race, sexuality, and age amongst other factors (Connell; Butler). While Connell coined the term “hegemonic masculinity,” to indicate “masculinity which occupies the hegemonic position in a given pattern of gender relations” (76), it is always intersectional and contestable. Ben’s hegemonic position in The Intern might be understood in relation to what Buchbinder identifies as “inadequate” or “incompetent” masculinities, which offer a “foil for another principal character” (232), but this movement between margin and hegemony is always in process and accords with the needs that structure the story, and its attendant social anxieties. This film’s fetishising of Ben’s sartorial style suggests a yearning for a stable and recognisable masculine identity, but in order to reinstall these meanings the film must ignore the political times from which they emerge.The construction of retro masculinity in this case is mapped onto Ben’s body as a “senior.” As Gilleard notes, ageing bodies are usually marked by a narrative of corporeal decline, and yet for men of hegemonic privilege, non-material values like seniority, integrity, wisdom, and longevity coalesce to embody “the accumulation of cultural or symbolic capital in the form of wisdom, maturity or experience” (1). Like masculinity, then, corporeality is understood to be a set of unstable signifiers produced through particular cultural discourses.The Business SuitThe business suit is Ben Whittaker’s habitual work attire, so when he comes out of retirement to be an intern at the e-commerce company he re-adopts this professional garb. The solid outline of a tailored and dark-coloured suit signals a professional body that is separate, autonomous and impervious to the outside world, according to Longhurst (99). It is a body that is “proper,” ready for business, and suit-ed to the professional corporate world, whose values it also embodies (Edwards 42). In contrast, the costuming code of the Google generation of online marketers in the film is defined as “super cas[ual].” This is a workplace where the boss rides her bicycle through the open-space office and in which the other 219 workers define their individuality through informal dress and decoration. In this environment Ben stands out, as Jules comments on his first day:Jules: Don’t feel like you have to dress up.Ben: I’m comfortable in a suit if it’s okay.Jules: No, it’s fine. [grins] Old school.Ben: At least I’ll stand out.Jules: I don’t think you’ll need a suit to do that.The anachronism of a 70-year-old being an intern is materialised through Ben’s dress code. The business suit comes to represent Ben not only as old school, however, but as a “proper” manager.As the embodiment of a successful working woman, entrepreneur Jules Ostin appears to be the antithesis of the business-suit model of a manager. Consciously not playing by the book, her company is both highly successful, meeting its five-year objectives in only nine months, and highly vulnerable to disasters like bedbugs, delivery crises, and even badly wrapped tissue. Shaped in her image, the company is often directly associated with Jules herself, as Ben continually notes, and this comes to include the mix of success, vulnerability, and disaster. In fact, the success of her company is the reason that she is urged to find a “seasoned” CEO to run the company, indicating the ambiguous, simultaneous guise of success and disaster.This relationship between individual corporeality and the corporate workforce is reinforced when it is revealed that Ben worked as a manager for 40 years in the very same warehouse, reinforcing his qualities of longevity, reliability, and dependability. He oversaw the printing of the physical telephone book, another quaint material artefact of the past akin to Ben, which is shown to have literally shaped the building where the floor dips over in the corner due to the heavy printers. The differences between Ben and Jules as successive generations of managers in this building operate as registers of social change inflected with just a little nostalgia. Indeed, the name of Jules’s company, All About Fit, seems to refer more to the beautifully tailored “fit” of Ben’s business suit than to any of the other clothed bodies in the company.Not only is the business suit fitted to business, but it comes to represent a properly managed body as well. This is particularly evident when contrasted with Jules’s management style. Over the course of the film, as she endures a humiliating series of meetings, sends a disastrous email to the wrong recipient, and juggles her strained marriage and her daughter’s school schedule, Jules is continuously shown to teeter on the brink of losing control. Her bodily needs are exaggerated in the movie: she does not sleep and apparently risks “getting fat” according to her mother’s research; then when she does sleep it is in inappropriate places and she snores loudly; she forgets to eat, she cries, gets drunk and vomits, gets nervous, and gets emotional. All of these outpourings are in situations that Ben remedies, in his solid reliable suited self. As Longhurst reminds us,The suit helps to create an illusion of a hard, or at least a firm and “proper,” body that is autonomous, in control, rational and masculine. It gives the impression that bodily boundaries continually remain intact and reduce potential embarrassment caused by any kind of leakage. (99)Ben is thus suited to manage situations in ways that contrast to Jules, whose bodily emissions and emotional dramas reinforce her as feminine, chaotic, and emotionally vulnerable. As Gatens notes of our epistemological inheritance, “women are most often understood to be less able to control the passions of the body and this failure is often located in the a priori disorder or anarchy of the female body itself” (50). Transitioning these philosophical principles to the 21st-century workplace, however, manifests some angst around gender and generation in this film.Despite the film’s apparent advocacy of successful working women, Jules too comes to prefer Ben’s model of corporeal control and masculinity. Ben is someone who makes Jules “feel calm, more centred or something. I could use that, obviously,” she quips. After he leads the almost undifferentiated younger employees Jason, Davis, and Lewis on a physical email rescue, Jules presents her theory of men amidst shots at a bar to celebrate their heist:Jules: So, we were always told that we could be anything, do anything, and I think guys got, maybe not left behind but not quite as nurtured, you know? I mean, like, we were the generation of You go, Girl. We had Oprah. And I wonder sometimes how guys fit in, you know they still seem to be trying to figure it out. They’re still dressing like little boys, they’re still playing video games …Lewis: Well they’ve gotten great.Davis: I love video games.Ben: Oh boy.Jules: How, in one generation, have men gone from guys like Jack Nicholson and Harrison Ford to … [Lewis, Davis, and Jason look down at themselves]Jules: Take Ben, here. A dying breed. Look and learn boys, because if you ask me, this is what cool is.Jules’s excessive drinking in this scene, which is followed by her vomiting into a rubbish bin, appears to reinforce Ben’s stable sobriety, alongside the culture of excess and rapid change associated with Jules through her gender and generation.Jules’s adoption of Ben as the model of masculinity is timely, given that she consistently encounters “sexism in business.” After every meeting with a potential CEO Jules complains of their patronising approach—calling her company a “chick site,” for example. And yet Ben echoes the sartorial style of the 1960s Mad Men era, which is suffused with sexism. The tension between Ben’s modelling of old-fashioned chivalry and those outdated sexist businessmen who never appear on-screen remains linked, however, through the iconography of the suit. In his book Mediated Nostalgia, Lizardi notes a similar tendency in contemporary media for what he calls “presentist versions of the past […] that represent a simpler time” (6) where viewers are constructed as ”uncritical citizens of our own culture” (1). By heroising Ben as a model of white middle-class managerial masculinity that is nostalgically enduring and endearing, this film betrays a yearning for such a “simpler time,” despite the complexities that hover just off-screen.Indeed, most of the other male characters in the film are found wanting in comparison to the retro masculinity of Ben. Jules’s husband Matt appears to be a perfect modern “stay-at-home-dad” who gives up his career for Jules’s business start-up. Yet he is found to be having an affair with one of the school mums. Lewis’s clothes are also condemned by Ben: “Why doesn’t anyone tuck anything in anymore?” he complains. Jason does not know how to speak to his love-interest Becky, expecting that texting and emailing sad emoticons will suffice, and Davis is unable to find a place to live. Luckily Ben can offer advice and tutelage to these men, going so far as to house Davis and give him one of his “vintage” ties to wear. Jules endorses this, saying she loves men in ties.The BriefcaseIf a feature of Ben’s experienced managerial style is longevity and stability, then these values are also attached to his briefcase. The association between Ben and his briefcase is established when the briefcase is personified during preparations for Ben’s first day: “Back in action,” Ben tells it. According to Atkinson, the briefcase is a “signifier of executive status […] entwined with a ‘macho mystique’ of concealed technology” (192). He ties this to the emergence of Cold War spy films like James Bond and traces it to the development of the laptop computer. This mix of mobility, concealment, glamour, and a touch of playboy adventurousness in a mass-produced material product manifested the values of the corporate world in latter 20th-century work culture and rendered the briefcase an important part of executive masculinity. Ben’s briefcase is initially indicative of his anachronistic position in All About Fit. While Davis opens his canvas messenger bag to reveal a smartphone, charger, USB drive, multi-cable connector, and book, Ben mirrors this by taking out his glasses case, set of pens, calculator, fliptop phone, and travel clock. Later in the film he places a print newspaper and leather bound book back into the case. Despite the association with a pre-digital age, the briefcase quickly becomes a product associated with Ben’s retro style. Lewis, at the next computer console, asks about its brand:Ben: It’s a 1973 Executive Ashburn Attaché. They don’t make it anymore.Lewis: I’m a little in love with it.Ben: It’s a classic Lewis. It’s unbeatable.The attaché case is left over from Ben’s past in executive management as VP for sales and advertising. This was a position he held for twenty years, during his past working life, which was spent with the same company for over 40 years. Ben’s long-serving employment record has the same values as his equally long-serving attaché case: it is dependable, reliable, ages well, and outlasts changes in fashion.The kind of nostalgia invested in Ben and his briefcase is reinforced extradiagetically through the musical soundtracks associated with him. Compared to the undifferentiated upbeat tracks at the workplace, Ben’s scenes feature a slower-paced sound from another era, including Ray Charles, Astrud Gilberto, Billie Holiday, and Benny Goodman. These classics are a point of connection with Jules, who declares that she loves Billie Holiday. Yet Jules is otherwise characterised by upbeat, even frantic, timing. She hates slow talkers, is always on the move, and is renowned for being late for meetings and operating on what is known as “Jules Standard Time.” In contrast, like his music, Ben is always on time: setting two alarm clocks each night, driving shorter and more efficient routes, seeing things at just the right time, and even staying at work until the boss leaves. He is reliable, steady, and orderly. He restores order both to the office junk desk and to the desk of Jules’s personal assistant Becky. These characteristics of order and timeliness are offered as an alternative to the chaos of 21st-century global flows of fashion marketing. Like his longevity, time is measured and managed around Ben. Even his name echoes that veritable keeper of time, Big Ben.The HandkerchiefThe handkerchief is another anachronistic object that Ben routinely carries, concealed inside his suit rather than flamboyantly worn on the outside pocket. A neatly ironed square of white hanky, it forms a notable part of Ben’s closet, as Davis notices and enquires about:Davis: Okay what’s the deal with the handkerchief? I don’t get that at all.Ben: It’s essential. That your generation doesn’t know that is criminal. The reason for carrying a handkerchief is to lend it. Ask Jason about this. Women cry Davis. We carry it for them. One of the last vestiges of the chivalrous gent.Indeed, when Jules’s personal assistant Becky bursts into tears because her skills and overtime go unrecognised, Ben is able to offer the hanky to Jason to give her as a kind of white flag, officially signaling a ceasefire between Becky and Jason. This scene is didactic: Ben is teaching Jason how to talk to a woman with the handkerchief as a material prop to prompt the occasion. He also offers advice to Becky to keep more regular hours, and go out and have fun (with Jason, obviously). Despite Becky declaring she “hates girls who cry at work,” this reaction to the pressures of a contemporary work culture that is irregular, chaotic, and never-ending is clearly marking gender, as the handkerchief also marks a gendered transaction of comfort.The handkerchief functions as a material marker of the “chivalrous gent” partly due to the number of times women are seen to cry in this film. In one of Ben’s first encounters with Jules she is crying in a boardroom, when it is suggested that she find a CEO to manage the company. Ben is clearly embarrassed, as is Jules, indicating the inappropriateness of such bodily emissions at work and reinforcing the emotional currency of women in the workplace. Jules again cries while discussing her marriage crisis with Ben, a scene in which Ben comments it is “the one time when he doesn’t have a hanky.” By the end of the film, when Jules and Matt are reconciling, she suggests: “It would be great if you were to carry a handkerchief.” The remaking of modern men into the retro style of Ben is more fully manifested in Davis who is depicted going to work on the last day in the film in a suit and tie. No doubt a handkerchief lurks hidden within.ConclusionThe yearning that emerges for a masculinity of yesteryear means that the intern in this film, Ben Whittaker, becomes an internal moral compass who reminds us of rapid social changes in gender and work, and of their discomfits. That this should be mapped onto an older, white, heterosexual, male body is unsurprising, given the authority traditionally invested in such bodies. Ben’s retro masculinity, however, is a fantasy from a fictional yesteryear, without the social or political forces that render those times problematic; instead, his material culture is fetishised and stripped of political analysis. Ben even becomes the voice of feminism, correcting Jules for taking the blame for Matt’s affair. Buchbinder argues that the more recent manifestations in film and television of “inadequate or incomplete” masculinity can be understood as “enacting a resistance to or even a refusal of the coercive pressure of the gender system” (235, italics in original), and yet The Intern’s yearning for a slow, orderly, mature, and knowing male hero refuses much space for alternative younger models. Despite this apparently unerring adulation of retro masculinity, however, we are reminded of the sexist social culture that suits, briefcases, and handkerchiefs materialise every time Jules encounters one of the seasoned CEOs jostling to replace her. The yearning for a stable masculinity in this film comes at the cost of politicising the past, and imagining alternative models for the future.ReferencesAtkinson, Paul. “Man in a Briefcase: The Social Construction of the Laptop Computer and the Emergence of a Type Form.” Journal of Design History 18.2 (2005): 191-205. Buchbinder, David. “Enter the Schlemiel: The Emergence of Inadequate of Incompetent Masculinities in Recent Film and Television.” Canadian Review of American Studies 38.2 (2008): 227-245.Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1990.Connell, R.W. Masculinities. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005.Edwards, Tim. Fashion in Focus: Concepts, Practices and Politics. London: Routledge, 2010.Gatens, Moira. Imaginary Bodies: Ethics, Power and Corporeality. New York: Routledge, 1996.Gilleard, Chris, and Paul Higgs. Ageing, Corporeality and Embodiment. London: Anthem, 2014.Lizardi, Ryan. Mediated Nostalgia: Individual Memory and Contemporary Mass Media. London: Lexington Books, 2015.Longhurst, Robyn. Bodies: Exploring Fluid Boundaries. London: Routledge, 2001.Meyers, Nancy, dir. The Intern. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2015.Turkle, Sherry. “The Things That Matter.” Evocative Objects: Things We Think With. Ed. Sherry Turkle. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2007.Turner, Graeme. Film as Social Practice. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 2002.Veenstra, Aleit, and Giselinde Kuipers. “It Is Not Old-Fashioned, It Is Vintage: Vintage Fashion and the Complexities of 21st Century Consumption Practices.” Sociology Compass 7.5 (2013): 355-365.

Introduction Automated or semi-automated software agents, better known as bots, have become an integral part of social media platforms. Reportedly, bots now generate twenty-four per cent of all posts on Twitter (Orlean “Man”), yet we know very little about who these bots are, what they do, or how to attend to these bots. This article examines one particular prominent exemplar: @Horse_ebooks, a much beloved Twitter bot that turned out not to be a “proper” bot after all. By examining how people responded to the revelations that the @Horse_ebooks account was in fact a human and not an automated software program, the intention here is not only to nuance some of the more common discourses around Twitter bots as spam, but more directly and significantly, to use the concept of persona as a useful analytical framework for understanding the relationships people forge with bots. Twitter bots tend to be portrayed as annoying parasites that generate “fake traffic” and “steal identities” (Hill; Love; Perlroth; Slotkin). According to such news media presentations, bots are part of an “ethically-questionable industry,” where they operate to provide an (false) impression of popularity (Hill). In a similar vein, much of the existing academic research on bots, especially from a computer science standpoint, tends to focus on the destructive nature of bots in an attempt to design better spam detection systems (Laboreiro et.al; Weiss and Tscheligi; Zangerle and Specht). While some notable exceptions exist (Gehl; Hwang et al; Mowbray), there is still an obvious lack of research on Twitter bots within Media Studies. By examining a case of “bot fakeness”—albeit in a somewhat different manner—this article contributes an understanding of Twitter bots as medium-specific personas. The case of @Horse_ebooks does show how people treat it as having a distinct personality. More importantly, this case study shows how the relationship people forge with an alleged bot differs from how they would relate to a human. To understand the ambiguity of the concept of persona as it applies to bots, this article relies on para-social interaction theory as developed by Horton and Wohl. In their seminal article first published in 1956, Horton and Wohl understood para-social interaction as a “simulacrum of conversational give and take” that takes place particularly between mass media users and performers (215). The relationship was termed para-social because, despite of the nonreciprocal exposure situation, the viewer would feel as if the relationship was real and intimate. Like theater, an illusory relationship would be created between what they called the persona—an “indigenous figure” presented and created by the mass media—and the viewer (Horton and Wohl 216). Like the “new types of performers” created by the mass media—”the quizmasters, announcers or ‘interviewers’” —bots too, seem to represent a “special category of ‘personalities’ whose existence is a function of the media themselves” (Horton and Wohl 216). In what follows, I revisit the concept of para-social interaction using the case of @Horse_ebooks, to show that there is potential to expand an understanding of persona to include non-human actors as well. Everything Happens So Much: The Case of @Horse_ebooks The case of the now debunked Twitter account @Horse_ebooks is interesting for a number of reasons, not least because it highlights the presence of what we might call botness, the belief that bots possess distinct personalities or personas that are specific to algorithms. In the context of Twitter, bots are pieces of software or scripts that are designed to automatically or semi-automatically publish tweets or make and accept friend requests (Mowbray). Typically, bots are programmed and designed to be as humanlike as possible, a goal that has been pursued ever since Alan Turing proposed what has now become known as the Turing test (Gehl; Weiss and Tschengeli). The Turing test provides the classic challenge for artificial intelligence, namely, whether a machine can impersonate a human so convincingly that it becomes indistinguishable from an actual human. This challenge is particularly pertinent to spambots as they need to dodge the radar of increasingly complex spam filters and detection algorithms. To avoid detection, bots masquerade as “real” accounts, trying to seem as human as possible (Orlean “Man”). Not all bots, however, pretend to be humans. Bots are created for all kinds of purposes. As Mowbray points out, “many bots are designed to be informative or otherwise useful” (184). For example, bots are designed to tweet news headlines, stock market quotes, traffic information, weather forecasts, or even the hourly bell chimes from Big Ben. Others are made for more artistic purposes or simply for fun by hackers and other Internet pundits. These bots tell jokes, automatically respond to certain keywords typed by other users, or write poems (i.e. @pentametron, @ProfJocular). Amidst the growing bot population on Twitter, @Horse_ebooks is perhaps one of the best known and most prominent. The account was originally created by Russian web developer Alexey Kouznetsov and launched on 5 August 2010. In the beginning, @Horse_ebooks periodically tweeted links to an online store selling e-books, some of which were themed around horses. What most people did not know, until it was revealed to the public on 24 September 2013 (Orlean “Horse”), was that the @Horse_ebooks account had been taken over by artist and Buzzfeed employee Jacob Bakkila in September 2011. Only a year after its inception, @Horse_ebooks went from being a bot to being a human impersonating a bot impersonating a human. After making a deal with Kouznetsov, Bakkila disabled the spambot and started generating tweets on behalf of @Horse_ebooks, using found material and text strings from various obscure Internet sites. The first tweet in Bakkila’s disguise was published on 14 September 2011, saying: “You will undoubtedly look on this moment with shock and”. For the next two years, streams of similar, “strangely poetic” (Chen) tweets were published, slowly giving rise to a devoted and growing fan base. Over the years, @Horse_ebooks became somewhat of a cultural phenomenon—an Internet celebrity of sorts. By 2012, @Horse_ebooks had risen to Internet fame; becoming one of the most mentioned “spambots” in news reports and blogs (Chen). Responses to the @Horse_ebooks “Revelation” On 24 September 2013, journalist Susan Orlean published a piece in The New Yorker revealing that @Horse_ebooks was in fact “human after all” (Orlean “@Horse_ebooks”). The revelation rapidly spurred a plethora of different reactions by its followers and fans, ranging from indifference, admiration and disappointment. Some of the sadness and disappointment felt can be seen clearly in the many of media reports, blog posts and tweets that emerged after the New Yorker story was published. Meyer of The Atlantic expressed his disbelief as follows: @Horse_ebooks, reporters told us, was powered by an algorithm. [...] We loved the horse because it was the network talking to itself about us, while trying to speak to us. Our inventions, speaking—somehow sublimely—of ourselves. Our joy was even a little voyeuristic. An algorithm does not need an audience. To me, though, that disappointment is only a mark of the horse’s success. We loved @Horse_ebooks because it was seerlike, childlike. But no: There were people behind it all along. We thought we were obliging a program, a thing which needs no obliging, whereas in fact we were falling for a plan. (Original italics) People felt betrayed, indeed fooled by @Horse_ebooks. As Watson sees it, “The internet got up in arms about the revelation, mostly because it disrupted our desire to believe that there was beauty in algorithms and randomness.” Several prominent Internet pundits, developers and otherwise computationally skilled people, quickly shared their disappointment and even anger on Twitter. As Jacob Harris, a self-proclaimed @Horse_ebooks fan and news hacker at the New York Times expressed it: Harris’ comparisons to the winning chess-playing computer Deep Blue speaks to the kind of disappointment felt. It speaks to the deep fascination that people feel towards the mysteries of the machine. It speaks to the fundamental belief in the potentials of machine intelligence and to the kind of techno-optimism felt amongst many hackers and “webbies.” As technologist and academic Dan Sinker said, “If I can’t rely on a Twitter bot to actually be a bot, what can I rely on?” (Sinker “If”). Perhaps most poignantly, Sinker noted his obvious disbelief in a blog post tellingly titled “Eulogy for a horse”: It’s been said that, given enough time, a million monkeys at typewriters would eventually, randomly, type the works of Shakespeare. It’s just a way of saying that mathematically, given infinite possibilities, eventually everything will happen. But I’ve always wanted it literally to be true. I’ve wanted those little monkeys to produce something beautiful, something meaningful, and yet something wholly unexpected.@Horse_ebooks was my monkey Shakespeare. I think it was a lot of people’s…[I]t really feels hard, like a punch through everything I thought I knew. (Sinker “Eulogy”) It is one thing is to be fooled by a human and quite another to be fooled by a “Buzzfeed employee.” More than anything perhaps, the question of authenticity and trustworthiness seems to be at stake. In this sense, “It wasn’t the identities of the feed’s writers that shocked everyone (though one of the two writers works for BuzzFeed, which really pissed people off). Rather, it was the fact that they were human in the first place” (Farago). As Sinker put it at the end of the “Eulogy”: I want to believe this wasn’t just yet another internet buzz-marketing prank.I want to believe that @Horse was as beautiful and wonderful today as it was yesterday.I want to believe that beauty can be assembled from the randomness of life all around us.I want to believe that a million monkeys can make something amazingGod.I really, really do want to believe.But I don’t think I do.And that feels even worse. Bots as Personae: Revisiting Horton and Wohl’s Concept of Para-Social Relations How then are we to understand and interpret @Horse_ebooks and peoples’ responses to the revelations? Existing research on human-robot relations suggest that machines are routinely treated as having personalities (Turkle “Life”). There is even evidence to suggest that people often imagine relationships with (sufficiently responsive) robots as being better than relationships with humans. As Turkle explains, this is because relationships with machines, unlike humans, do not demand any ethical commitments (Turkle “Alone”). In other words, bots are oftentimes read and perceived as personas, with which people forge affective relationships. The term “persona” can be understood as a performance of personhood. In a Goffmanian sense, this performance describes how human beings enact roles and present themselves in public (Goffman). As Moore puts it, “the persona is a projection, a puppet show, usually constructed by an author and enlivened by the performance, interpretation, or adaptation”. From Marcel Mauss’ classic analysis of gifts as objects thoroughly personified (Scott), through to the study of drag queens (Stru¨bel-Scheiner), the concept of persona signifies a masquerade, a performance. As a useful concept to theorise the performance and doing of personhood, persona has been used to study everything from celebrity culture (Marshall), fiction, and social networking sites (Zhao et al.). The concept also figures prominently in Human Computer Interaction and Usability Studies where the creation of personas constitutes an important design methodology (Dong et al.). Furthermore, as Marshall points out, persona figures prominently in Jungian psychoanalysis where it exemplifies the idea of “what a man should appear to be” (166). While all of these perspectives allow for interesting analysis of personas, here I want to draw on an understanding of persona as a medium specific condition. Specifically, I want to revisit Horton and Wohl’s classic text about para-social interaction. Despite the fact that it was written almost 60 years ago and in the context of the then emerging mass media – radio, television and movies – their observations are still relevant and useful to theorise the kinds of relations people forge with bots today. According to Horton and Wohl, the “persona offers, above all, a continuing relationship. His appearance is a regular and dependable event, to be counted on, planned for, and integrated into the routines of daily life” (216). The para-social relations between audiences and TV personas are developed over time and become more meaningful to the audience as it acquires a history. Not only are devoted TV audiences characterized by a strong belief in the character of the persona, they are also expected to “assume a sense of personal obligation to the performer” (Horton and Wohl 220). As Horton and Wohl note, “the “fan” - comes to believe that he “knows” the persona more intimately and profoundly than others do; that he “understands” his character and appreciates his values and motives (216). In a similar vein, fans of @Horse_ebooks expressed their emotional attachments in blog posts and tweets. For Sinker, @Horse_ebooks seemed to represent the kind of dependable and regular event that Horton and Wohl described: “Even today, I love @Horse_ebooks. A lot. Every day it was a gift. There were some days—thankfully not all that many—where it was the only thing I looked forward to. I know that that was true for others as well” (Sinker “Eulogy”). Judging from searching Twitter retroactively for @Horse_ebooks, the bot meant something, if not much, to other people as well. Still, almost a year after the revelations, people regularly tweet that they miss @Horse_ebooks. For example, Harris tweets messages saying things like: “I’m still bitter about @Horse_ebooks” (12 November 2013) or “Many of us are still angry and hurt about @Horse_ebooks” (27 December 2013). Twitter user @third_dystopia says he feels something is missing from his life, realizing “horse eBooks hasn’t tweeted since September.” Another of the many messages posted in retrospect similarly says: “I want @Horse_ebooks back. Ever since he went silent, Twitter hasn’t been the same for me” (Lockwood). Indeed, Marshall suggests that affect is at “the heart of a wider persona culture” (162). In a Deleuzian understanding of the term, affect refers to the “capacity to affect and be affected” (Steward 2). Borrowing from Marshall, what the @Horse_ebooks case shows is “that there are connections in our culture that are not necessarily coordinated with purposive and rational alignments. They are organised around clusters of sentiment that help situate people on various spectra of activity and engagement” (162). The concept of persona helps to understand how the performance of @Horse_ebooks depends on the audience to “contribute to the illusion by believing in it” (Horton and Wohl 220). “@Horse_ebooks was my monkey” as Sinker says, suggests a fundamental loss. In this case the para-social relation could no longer be sustained, as the illusion of being engaged in a relation with a machine was taken away. The concept of para-social relations helps not only to illuminate the similarities between how people reacted to @Horse_ebooks and the way in which Horton and Wohl described peoples’ reactions to TV personas. It also allows us to see some crucial differences between the ways in which people relate to bots compared to how they relate to a human. For example, rather than an expression of grief at the loss of a social relationship, it could be argued that the responses triggered by the @Horse_ebooks revelations was of a more general loss of belief in the promises of artificial intelligence. To a certain extent, the appeal of @Horse_ebooks was precisely the fact that it was widely believed not to be a person. Whereas TV personas demand an ethical and social commitment on the part of the audience to keep the masquerade of the performer alive, a bot “needs no obliging” (Meyer). Unlike TV personas that depend on an illusory sense of intimacy, bots do “not need an audience” (Meyer). Whether or not people treat bots in the same way as they treat TV personas, Horton and Wohl’s concept of para-social relations ultimately points towards an understanding of the bot persona as “a function of the media themselves” (Horton and Wohl 216). If quizmasters were seen as the “typical and indigenous figures” of mass media in 1956 (Horton and Wohl 216), the bot, I would suggest, constitutes such an “indigenous figure” today. The bot, if not exactly a “new type of performer” (Horton and Wohl 216), is certainly a pervasive “performer”—indeed a persona—on Twitter today. While @Horse_ebooks was somewhat paradoxically revealed as a “performance art” piece (Orlean “Man”), the concept of persona allows us to see the “real” performance of @Horse_ebooks as constituted in the doing of botness. As the responses to @Horse_ebooks show, the concept of persona is not merely tied to beliefs about “what man should appear to be” (Jung 158), but also to ideas about what a bot should appear to be. Moreover, what the curious case of @Horse_ebooks shows, is how bots are not necessarily interpreted and judged by the standards of the original Turing test, that is, how humanlike they are, but according to how well they perform as bots. Indeed, we might ultimately understand the present case as a successful reverse Turing test, highlighting how humans can impersonate a bot so convincingly that it becomes indistinguishable from an actual bot. References Chen, Adrian. “How I Found the Human Being Behind @Horse_ebooks, The Internet's Favorite Spambot.” Gawker 23 Feb. 2012. 20 Apr. 2014 ‹http://gawker.com/5887697/how-i-found-the-human-being-behind-horseebooks-the-internets-favorite-spambot›. Dong, Jianming, Kuldeep Kelkar, and Kelly Braun. “Getting the Most Out of Personas for Product Usability Enhancements.” Usability and Internationalization. HCI and Culture Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4559 (2007): 291-96. Farago, Jason. “Give Me a Break. @Horse_ebooks Isn’t Art.” New Republic 24 Sep. 2013. 2 Apr. 2014 ‹http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114843/horse-ebooks-twitter-hoax-isnt-art›. Gehl, Robert. Reverse Engineering Social Media: Software, Culture, and Political Economy in New Media Capitalism. 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In the 2019 documentary Chasing Happiness, recording artist/musician Joe Jonas tells audiences that the band was “living the dream”. Similarly, in the 2012 documentary Artifact, lead singer Jared Leto remarks that at the height of Thirty Seconds to Mars’s success, they “were living the dream”. However, for both the Jonas Brothers and Thirty Seconds to Mars, their experiences of the music industry (much like other commercially successful recording artists) soon transformed into nightmares. Similar to other commercially successful recording artists, the Jonas Brothers and Thirty Seconds to Mars, came up against the constraints of the industry which inevitably led to a forfeiting of authenticity, a loss of creative control, increased exploitation, and unequal remuneration. This work will consider how working in the music industry is not always a dream come true and can instead be viewed as a proverbial nightmare. Living the DreamIn his book Dreams, Carl Gustav Jung discusses how that which is experienced in sleep, speaks of a person’s wishes: that which might be desired in reality but may not actually happen. In his earlier work, The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud argued that the dream is representative of fulfilling a repressed wish. However, the creative industries suggest that a dream need not be a repressed wish; it can become a reality. Jon Bon Jovi believes that his success in the music industry has surpassed his wildest dreams (Atkinson). Jennifer Lopez considers the fact that she held big dreams, had a focussed passion, and strong aspirations the reason why she pursued a creative career that took her out of the Bronx (Thomas). In a Twitter post from 23 April 2018, Bruno Mars declared that he “use [sic] to dream of this shit,” in referring to a picture of him performing for a sold out arena, while in 2019 Shawn Mendes informed his 24.4 million Twitter followers that his “life is a dream”. These are but a few examples of successful music industry artists who are seeing their ‘wishes’ come true and living the American Dream.Endemic to the American culture (and a characteristic of the identity of the country) is the “American Dream”. It centres on “a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability and achievement” (Adams, 404). Although initially used to describe having a nice house, money, stability and a reasonable standard of living, the American Dream has since evolved to what the scholar Florida believes is the new ‘aspiration of people’: doing work that is enjoyable and relies on human creativity. At its core, the original American Dream required striving to meet individual goals, and was promoted as possible for anyone regardless of their cultural, socio-economic and political background (Samuel), because it encourages the celebrating of the self and personal uniqueness (Gamson). Florida’s conceptualisation of the New American dream, however, tends to emphasise obtaining success, fame and fortune in what Neff, Wissinger, and Zukin (310) consider “hot”, “creative” industries where “the jobs are cool”.Whether old or new, the American Dream has perpetuated and reinforced celebrity culture, with many of the young generation reporting that fame and fortune were their priorities, as they sought to emulate the success of their famous role models (Florida). The rag to riches stories of iconic recording artists can inevitably glorify and make appealing the struggle that permits achieving one’s dream, with celebrities offering young, aspiring creative people a means of identification for helping them to aspire to meet their dreams (Florida; Samuel). For example, a young Demi Lovato spoke of how she idolised and looked up to singer Beyonce Knowles, describing Knowles as a role model because of the way she carries herself (Tishgart). Similarly, American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson cited Aretha Franklin as her musical inspiration and the reason that she sings from a place deep within (Nilles). It is unsurprising then, that popular media has tended to portray artists working in the creative industries and being paid to follow their passions as “a much-vaunted career dream” (Duffy and Wissinger, 4656). Movies such as A Star Is Born (2018), The Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980), Dreamgirls (2006), Begin Again (2013) and La La Land (2016) exalt the perception that creativity, talent, sacrifice and determination will mean dreams come true (Nicolaou). In concert with the American dream is the drive among creative people pursuing creative success to achieve their dreams because of the perceived autonomy they will gain, the chance of self-actualisation and social rewards, and the opportunity to fulfil intrinsic motivations (Amabile; Auger and Woodman; Cohen). For these workers, the love of creation and the happiness that accompanies new discoveries (Csikszentmihalyi) can offset the tight budgets and timelines, precarious labour (Blair, Grey, and Randle; Hesmondhalgh and Baker), uncertain demand (Caves; Shultz), sacrifice of personal relationships (Eikhof and Haunschild), the demand for high quality products (Gil & Spiller), and the tense relationships with administrators (Bilton) which are known to plague these industries. In some cases, young, up and coming creative people overlook these pitfalls, instead romanticising creative careers as ideal and worthwhile. They willingly take on roles and cede control to big corporations to “realize their passions [and] uncover their personal talent” (Bill, 50). Of course, as Ursell argues in discussing television employees, such idealisation can mean creatives, especially those who are young and unfamiliar with the constraints of the industry, end up immersed in and victims of the “vampiric” industry that exploits workers (816). They are socialised towards believing, in this case, that the record label is a necessary component to obtain fame and fortune and whether willing or unwilling, creative workers become complicit in their own exploitation (Cohen). Loss of Control and No CompensationThe music industry itself has been considered by some to typify the cultural industries (Chambers). Popular music has potency in that it is perceived as speaking a universal language (Burnett), engaging the emotions and thoughts of listeners, and assisting in their identity construction (Burnett; Gardikiotis and Baltzis). Given the place of music within society, it is not surprising that in 2018, the global music industry was worth US$19.1billion (IFPI). The music industry is necessarily underpinned by a commercial agenda. At present, six major recording companies exist and between them, they own between 70-80 per cent of the recordings produced globally (Konsor). They also act as gatekeepers, setting trends by defining what and who is worth following and listening to (Csikszentmihalyi; Jones, Anand, and Alvarez). In essence, to be successful in the music industry is to be affiliated with a record label. This is because the highly competitive nature and cluttered environment makes it harder to gain traction in the market without worthwhile representation (Moiso and Rockman). In the 2012 documentary about Thirty Seconds to Mars, Artifact, front man Jared Leto even questions whether it is possible to have “success without a label”. The recording company, he determines, “deal with the crappy jobs”. In a financially uncertain industry that makes money from subjective or experience-based goods (Caves), having a label affords an artist access to “economic capital for production and promotion” that enables “wider recognition” of creative work (Scott, 239). With the support of a record label, creative entrepreneurs are given the chance to be promoted and distributed in the creative marketplace (Scott; Shultz). To have a record label, then, is to be perceived as legitimate and credible (Shultz).However, the commercial music industry is just that, commercial. Accordingly, the desire to make money can see the intrinsic desires of musicians forfeited in favour of standardised products and a lack of remuneration for artists (Negus). To see this standardisation in practice, one need not look further than those contestants appearing on shows such as American Idol or The Voice. Nowhere is the standardisation of the music industry more evident than in Holmes’s 2004 article on Pop Idol. Pop Idol first aired in Britain from 2001-2003 and paved the way for a slew of similar shows around the world such as Australia’s Popstars Live in 2004 and the global Idol phenomena. According to Holmes, audiences are divested of the illusion of talent and stardom when they witness the obvious manufacturing of musical talent. The contestants receive training, are dressed according to a prescribed image, and the show emphasises those melodramatic moments that are commercially enticing to audiences. Her sentiments suggest these shows emphasise the artifice of the music industry by undermining artistic authenticity in favour of generating celebrities. The standardisation is typified in the post Idol careers of Kelly Clarkson and Adam Lambert. Kelly Clarkson parted with the recording company RCA when her manager and producer Clive Davis told her that her album My December (2007) was “not commercial enough” and that Clarkson, who had written most of the songs, was a “shitty writer… who should just shut up and sing” (Nied). Adam Lambert left RCA because they wanted him to make a full length 80s album comprised of covers. Lambert commented that, “while there are lots of great songs from that decade, my heart is simply not in doing a covers album” (Lee). In these instances, winning the show and signing contracts led to both Clarkson and Lambert forfeiting a degree of creative control over their work in favour of formulaic songs that ultimately left both artists unsatisfied. The standardisation and lack of remuneration is notable when signing recording artists to 360° contracts. These 360° contracts have become commonplace in the music industry (Gulchardaz, Bach, and Penin) and see both the material and immaterial labour (such as personal identities) of recording artists become controlled by record labels (Stahl and Meier). These labels determine the aesthetics of the musicians as well as where and how frequently they tour. Furthermore, the labels become owners of any intellectual property generated by an artist during the tenure of the contract (Sanders; Stahl and Meier). For example, in their documentary Show Em What You’re Made Of (2015), the Backstreet Boys lament their affiliation with manager Lou Pearlman. Not only did Pearlman manufacture the group in a way that prevented creative exploration by the members (Sanders), but he withheld profits to the point that the Backstreet Boys had to sue Pearlman in order to gain access to money they deserved. In 2002 the members of the Backstreet Boys had stated that “it wasn’t our destinies that we had to worry about in the past, it was our souls” (Sanders, 541). They were not writing their own music, which came across in the documentary Show Em What You’re Made Of when singer Howie Dorough demanded that if they were to collaborate as a group again in 2013, that everything was to be produced, managed and created by the five group members. Such a demand speaks to creative individuals being tied to their work both personally and emotionally (Bain). The angst encountered by music artists also signals the identity dissonance and conflict felt when they are betraying their true or authentic creative selves (Ashforth and Mael; Ashforth and Humphrey). Performing and abiding by the rules and regulations of others led to frustration because the members felt they were “being passed off as something we aren’t” (Sanders 539). The Backstreet Boys were not the only musicians who were intensely controlled and not adequately compensated by Pearlman. In the documentary The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story 2019, Lance Bass of N*Sync and recording artist Aaron Carter admitted that the experience of working with Pearlman became a nightmare when they too, were receiving cheques that were so small that Bass describes them as making his heart sink. For these groups, the dream of making music was undone by contracts that stifled creativity and paid a pittance.In a similar vein, Thirty Seconds to Mars sought to cut ties with their record label when they felt that they were not being adequately compensated for their work. In retaliation EMI issued Mars with a US$30 million lawsuit for breach of contract. The tense renegotiations that followed took a toll on the creative drive of the group. At one point in the documentary Artifact (2012), Leto claims “I can’t sing it right now… You couldn’t pay me all the money in the world to sing this song the way it needs to be sung right now. I’m not ready”. The contract subordination (Phillips; Stahl and Meier) that had led to the need to renegotiate financial terms came at not only a financial cost to the band, but also a physical and emotional one. The negativity impacted the development of the songs for the new album. To make music requires evoking necessary and appropriate emotions in the recording studio (Wood, Duffy, and Smith), so Leto being unable to deliver the song proved problematic. Essentially, the stress of the lawsuit and negotiations damaged the motivation of the band (Amabile; Elsbach and Hargadon; Hallowell) and interfered with their creative approach, which could have produced standardised and poor quality work (Farr and Ford). The dream of making music was almost lost because of the EMI lawsuit. Young creatives often lack bargaining power when entering into contracts with corporations, which can prove disadvantaging when it comes to retaining control over their lives (Phillips; Stahl and Meier). Singer Demi Lovato’s big break came in the 2008 Disney film Camp Rock. As her then manager Phil McIntyre states in the documentary Simply Complicated (2017), Camp Rock was “perceived as the vehicle to becoming a superstar … overnight she became a household name”. However, as “authentic and believable” as Lovato’s edginess appeared, the speed with which her success came took a toll on Lovato. The pressure she experienced having to tour, write songs that were approved by others, star in Disney channel shows and movies, and look a certain way, became too much and to compensate, Lovato engaged in regular drug use to feel free. Accordingly, she developed a hybrid identity to ensure that the squeaky clean image required by the moral clauses of her contract, was not tarnished by her out-of-control lifestyle. The nightmare came from becoming famous at a young age and not being able to handle the expectations that accompanied it, coupled with a stringent contract that exploited her creative talent. Lovato’s is not a unique story. Research has found that musicians are more inclined than those in other workforces to use psychotherapy and psychotropic drugs (Vaag, Bjørngaard, and Bjerkeset) and that fame and money can provide musicians more opportunities to take risks, including drug-use that leads to mortality (Bellis, Hughes, Sharples, Hennell, and Hardcastle). For Lovato, living the dream at a young age ultimately became overwhelming with drugs her only means of escape. AuthenticityThe challenges then for music artists is that the dream of pursuing music can come at the cost of a musician’s authentic self. According to Hughes, “to be authentic is to be in some sense real and true to something ... It is not simply an imitation, but it is sincere, real, true, and original expression of its creator, and is believable or credible representations or example of what it appears to be” (190). For Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers, being in the spotlight and abiding by the demands of Disney was “non-stop” and prevented his personal and musical growth (Chasing Happiness). As Kevin Jonas put it, Nick “wanted the Jonas Brothers to be no more”. The extensive promotion that accompanies success and fame, which is designed to drive celebrity culture and financial motivations (Currid-Halkett and Scott; King), can lead to cynical performances and dissatisfaction (Hughes) if the identity work of the creative creates a disjoin between their perceived self and aspirational self (Beech, Gilmore, Cochrane, and Greig). Promoting the band (and having to film a television show and movies he was not invested in all because of contractual obligations) impacted on Nick’s authentic self to the point that the Jonas Brothers made him feel deeply upset and anxious. For Nick, being stifled creatively led to feeling inauthentic, thereby resulting in the demise of the band as his only recourse.In her documentary Gaga: Five Foot Two (2017), Lady Gaga discusses the extent she had to go to maintain a sense of authenticity in response to producer control. As she puts it, “when producers wanted me to be sexy, I always put some absurd spin on it, that made me feel like I was still in control”. Her words reaffirm the perception amongst scholars (Currid-Halkett and Scott; King; Meyers) that in playing the information game, industry leaders will construct an artist’s persona in ways that are most beneficial for, in this case, the record label. That will mean, for example, establishing a coherent life story for musicians that endears them to audiences and engaging recording artists in co-branding opportunities to raise their profile and to legitimise them in the marketplace. Such behaviour can potentially influence the preferences and purchases of audiences and fans, can create favourability, originality and clarity around artists (Loroz and Braig), and can establish competitive advantage that leads to producers being able to charge higher prices for the artists’ work (Hernando and Campo). But what impact does that have on the musician? Lady Gaga could not continue living someone else’s dream. She found herself needing to make changes in order to avoid quitting music altogether. As Gaga told a class of university students at the Emotion Revolution Summit hosted by Yale University:I don’t like being used to make people money. It feels sad when I am overworked and that I have just become a money-making machine and that my passion and creativity take a backseat. That makes me unhappy.According to Eikof and Haunschild, economic necessity can threaten creative motivation. Gaga’s reaction to the commercial demands of the music industry signal an identity conflict because her desire to create, clashed with the need to be commercial, with the outcome imposing “inconsistent demands upon” her (Ashforth and Mael, 29). Therefore, to reduce what could be considered feelings of dissonance and inconsistency (Ashforth and Mael; Ashforth and Humphrey) Gaga started saying “no” to prevent further loss of her identity and sense of authentic self. Taking back control could be seen as a means of reorienting her dream and overcoming what had become dissatisfaction with the commercial processes of the music industry. ConclusionsFor many creatives working in the creative industries – and specifically the music industry – is constructed as a dream come true; the working conditions and expectations experienced by recording artists are far from liberating and instead can become nightmares to which they want to escape. The case studies above, although likely ‘constructed’ retellings of the unfortunate circumstances encountered working in the music industry, nevertheless offer an inside account that contradicts the prevailing ideology that pursuing creative passions leads to a dream career (Florida; Samuel). If anything, the case studies explored above involving 30 Seconds to Mars, the Jonas Brothers, Lady Gaga, Kelly Clarkson, Adam Lambert and the Backstreet Boys, acknowledge what many scholars writing in the creative industries have already identified; that exploitation, subordination, identity conflict and loss of control are the unspoken or lesser known consequences of pursuing the creative dream. That said, the conundrum for creatives is that for success in the industry big “creative” businesses, such as recording labels, are still considered necessary in order to break into the market and to have prolonged success. This is simply because their resources far exceed those at the disposal of independent and up-and-coming creative entrepreneurs. Therefore, it can be argued that this friction of need between creative industry business versus artists will be on-going leading to more of these ‘dream to nightmare’ stories. The struggle will continue manifesting in the relationship between business and artist for long as the recording artists fight for greater equality, independence of creativity and respect for their work, image and identities. 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Introduction This article is a study in anxiety with regard to social online spaces (SOS) conceived of as dark. There are two possible ways to define ‘dark’ in this context. The first is that communication is dark because it either has limited distribution, is not open to all users (closed groups are a case example) or hidden. The second definition, linked as a result of the first, is the way that communication via these means is interpreted and understood. Dark social spaces disrupt the accepted top-down flow by the ‘gazing elite’ (data aggregators including social media), but anxious users might need to strain to notice what is out there, and this in turn destabilises one’s reception of the scene. In an environment where surveillance technologies are proliferating, this article examines contemporary, dark, interconnected, and interactive communications for the entangled affordances that might be brought to bear. A provocation is that resistance through counterveillance or “sousveillance” is one possibility. An alternative (or addition) is retreating to or building ‘dark’ spaces that are less surveilled and (perhaps counterintuitively) less fearful. This article considers critically the notion of dark social online spaces via four broad socio-technical concerns connected to the big social media services that have helped increase a tendency for fearful anxiety produced by surveillance and the perceived implications for personal privacy. It also shines light on the aspect of darkness where some users are spurred to actively seek alternative, dark social online spaces. Since the 1970s, public-key cryptosystems typically preserved security for websites, emails, and sensitive health, government, and military data, but this is now reduced (Williams). We have seen such systems exploited via cyberattacks and misappropriated data acquired by affiliations such as Facebook-Cambridge Analytica for targeted political advertising during the 2016 US elections. Via the notion of “parasitic strategies”, such events can be described as news/information hacks “whose attack vectors target a system’s weak points with the help of specific strategies” (von Nordheim and Kleinen-von Königslöw, 88). In accord with Wilson and Serisier’s arguments (178), emerging technologies facilitate rapid data sharing, collection, storage, and processing wherein subsequent “outcomes are unpredictable”. This would also include the effect of acquiescence. In regard to our digital devices, for some, being watched overtly—through cameras encased in toys, computers, and closed-circuit television (CCTV) to digital street ads that determine the resonance of human emotions in public places including bus stops, malls, and train stations—is becoming normalised (McStay, Emotional AI). It might appear that consumers immersed within this Internet of Things (IoT) are themselves comfortable interacting with devices that record sound and capture images for easy analysis and distribution across the communications networks. A counter-claim is that mainstream social media corporations have cultivated a sense of digital resignation “produced when people desire to control the information digital entities have about them but feel unable to do so” (Draper and Turow, 1824). Careful consumers’ trust in mainstream media is waning, with readers observing a strong presence of big media players in the industry and are carefully picking their publications and public intellectuals to follow (Mahmood, 6). A number now also avoid the mainstream internet in favour of alternate dark sites. This is done by users with “varying backgrounds, motivations and participation behaviours that may be idiosyncratic (as they are rooted in the respective person’s biography and circumstance)” (Quandt, 42). By way of connection with dark internet studies via Biddle et al. (1; see also Lasica), the “darknet” is a collection of networks and technologies used to share digital content … not a separate physical network but an application and protocol layer riding on existing networks. Examples of darknets are peer-to-peer file sharing, CD and DVD copying, and key or password sharing on email and newsgroups. As we note from the quote above, the “dark web” uses existing public and private networks that facilitate communication via the Internet. Gehl (1220; see also Gehl and McKelvey) has detailed that this includes “hidden sites that end in ‘.onion’ or ‘.i2p’ or other Top-Level Domain names only available through modified browsers or special software. Accessing I2P sites requires a special routing program ... . Accessing .onion sites requires Tor [The Onion Router]”. For some, this gives rise to social anxiety, read here as stemming from that which is not known, and an exaggerated sense of danger, which makes fight or flight seem the only options. This is often justified or exacerbated by the changing media and communication landscape and depicted in popular documentaries such as The Social Dilemma or The Great Hack, which affect public opinion on the unknown aspects of internet spaces and the uses of personal data. The question for this article remains whether the fear of the dark is justified. Consider that most often one will choose to make one’s intimate bedroom space dark in order to have a good night’s rest. We might pleasurably escape into a cinema’s darkness for the stories told therein, or walk along a beach at night enjoying unseen breezes. Most do not avoid these experiences, choosing to actively seek them out. Drawing this thread, then, is the case made here that agency can also be found in the dark by resisting socio-political structural harms. 1. Digital Futures and Anxiety of the Dark Fear of the darkI have a constant fear that something's always nearFear of the darkFear of the darkI have a phobia that someone's always there In the lyrics to the song “Fear of the Dark” (1992) by British heavy metal group Iron Maiden is a sense that that which is unknown and unseen causes fear and anxiety. Holding a fear of the dark is not unusual and varies in degree for adults as it does for children (Fellous and Arbib). Such anxiety connected to the dark does not always concern darkness itself. It can also be a concern for the possible or imagined dangers that are concealed by the darkness itself as a result of cognitive-emotional interactions (McDonald, 16). Extending this claim is this article’s non-binary assertion that while for some technology and what it can do is frequently misunderstood and shunned as a result, for others who embrace the possibilities and actively take it on it is learning by attentively partaking. Mistakes, solecism, and frustrations are part of the process. Such conceptual theorising falls along a continuum of thinking. Global interconnectivity of communications networks has certainly led to consequent concerns (Turkle Alone Together). Much focus for anxiety has been on the impact upon social and individual inner lives, levels of media concentration, and power over and commercialisation of the internet. Of specific note is that increasing commercial media influence—such as Facebook and its acquisition of WhatsApp, Oculus VR, Instagram, CRTL-labs (translating movements and neural impulses into digital signals), LiveRail (video advertising technology), Chainspace (Blockchain)—regularly changes the overall dynamics of the online environment (Turow and Kavanaugh). This provocation was born out recently when Facebook disrupted the delivery of news to Australian audiences via its service. Mainstream social online spaces (SOS) are platforms which provide more than the delivery of media alone and have been conceptualised predominantly in a binary light. On the one hand, they can be depicted as tools for the common good of society through notional widespread access and as places for civic participation and discussion, identity expression, education, and community formation (Turkle; Bruns; Cinque and Brown; Jenkins). This end of the continuum of thinking about SOS seems set hard against the view that SOS are operating as businesses with strategies that manipulate consumers to generate revenue through advertising, data, venture capital for advanced research and development, and company profit, on the other hand. In between the two polar ends of this continuum are the range of other possibilities, the shades of grey, that add contemporary nuance to understanding SOS in regard to what they facilitate, what the various implications might be, and for whom. By way of a brief summary, anxiety of the dark is steeped in the practices of privacy-invasive social media giants such as Facebook and its ancillary companies. Second are the advertising technology companies, surveillance contractors, and intelligence agencies that collect and monitor our actions and related data; as well as the increased ease of use and interoperability brought about by Web 2.0 that has seen a disconnection between technological infrastructure and social connection that acts to limit user permissions and online affordances. Third are concerns for the negative effects associated with depressed mental health and wellbeing caused by “psychologically damaging social networks”, through sleep loss, anxiety, poor body image, real world relationships, and the fear of missing out (FOMO; Royal Society for Public Health (UK) and the Young Health Movement). Here the harms are both individual and societal. Fourth is the intended acceleration toward post-quantum IoT (Fernández-Caramés), as quantum computing’s digital components are continually being miniaturised. This is coupled with advances in electrical battery capacity and interconnected telecommunications infrastructures. The result of such is that the ontogenetic capacity of the powerfully advanced network/s affords supralevel surveillance. What this means is that through devices and the services that they provide, individuals’ data is commodified (Neff and Nafus; Nissenbaum and Patterson). Personal data is enmeshed in ‘things’ requiring that the decisions that are both overt, subtle, and/or hidden (dark) are scrutinised for the various ways they shape social norms and create consequences for public discourse, cultural production, and the fabric of society (Gillespie). Data and personal information are retrievable from devices, sharable in SOS, and potentially exposed across networks. For these reasons, some have chosen to go dark by being “off the grid”, judiciously selecting their means of communications and their ‘friends’ carefully. 2. Is There Room for Privacy Any More When Everyone in SOS Is Watching? An interesting turn comes through counterarguments against overarching institutional surveillance that underscore the uses of technologies to watch the watchers. This involves a practice of counter-surveillance whereby technologies are tools of resistance to go ‘dark’ and are used by political activists in protest situations for both communication and avoiding surveillance. This is not new and has long existed in an increasingly dispersed media landscape (Cinque, Changing Media Landscapes). For example, counter-surveillance video footage has been accessed and made available via live-streaming channels, with commentary in SOS augmenting networking possibilities for niche interest groups or micropublics (Wilson and Serisier, 178). A further example is the Wordpress site Fitwatch, appealing for an end to what the site claims are issues associated with police surveillance (fitwatch.org.uk and endpolicesurveillance.wordpress.com). Users of these sites are called to post police officers’ identity numbers and photographs in an attempt to identify “cops” that might act to “misuse” UK Anti-terrorism legislation against activists during legitimate protests. Others that might be interested in doing their own “monitoring” are invited to reach out to identified personal email addresses or other private (dark) messaging software and application services such as Telegram (freeware and cross-platform). In their work on surveillance, Mann and Ferenbok (18) propose that there is an increase in “complex constructs between power and the practices of seeing, looking, and watching/sensing in a networked culture mediated by mobile/portable/wearable computing devices and technologies”. By way of critical definition, Mann and Ferenbok (25) clarify that “where the viewer is in a position of power over the subject, this is considered surveillance, but where the viewer is in a lower position of power, this is considered sousveillance”. It is the aspect of sousveillance that is empowering to those using dark SOS. One might consider that not all surveillance is “bad” nor institutionalised. It is neither overtly nor formally regulated—as yet. Like most technologies, many of the surveillant technologies are value-neutral until applied towards specific uses, according to Mann and Ferenbok (18). But this is part of the ‘grey area’ for understanding the impact of dark SOS in regard to which actors or what nations are developing tools for surveillance, where access and control lies, and with what effects into the future. 3. Big Brother Watches, So What Are the Alternatives: Whither the Gazing Elite in Dark SOS? By way of conceptual genealogy, consideration of contemporary perceptions of surveillance in a visually networked society (Cinque, Changing Media Landscapes) might be usefully explored through a revisitation of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon, applied here as a metaphor for contemporary surveillance. Arguably, this is a foundational theoretical model for integrated methods of social control (Foucault, Surveiller et Punir, 192-211), realised in the “panopticon” (prison) in 1787 by Jeremy Bentham (Bentham and Božovič, 29-95) during a period of social reformation aimed at the improvement of the individual. Like the power for social control over the incarcerated in a panopticon, police power, in order that it be effectively exercised, “had to be given the instrument of permanent, exhaustive, omnipresent surveillance, capable of making all visible … like a faceless gaze that transformed the whole social body into a field of perception” (Foucault, Surveiller et Punir, 213–4). In grappling with the impact of SOS for the individual and the collective in post-digital times, we can trace out these early ruminations on the complex documentary organisation through state-controlled apparatuses (such as inspectors and paid observers including “secret agents”) via Foucault (Surveiller et Punir, 214; Subject and Power, 326-7) for comparison to commercial operators like Facebook. Today, artificial intelligence (AI), facial recognition technology (FRT), and closed-circuit television (CCTV) for video surveillance are used for social control of appropriate behaviours. Exemplified by governments and the private sector is the use of combined technologies to maintain social order, from ensuring citizens cross the street only on green lights, to putting rubbish in the correct recycling bin or be publicly shamed, to making cashless payments in stores. The actions see advantages for individual and collective safety, sustainability, and convenience, but also register forms of behaviour and attitudes with predictive capacities. This gives rise to suspicions about a permanent account of individuals’ behaviour over time. Returning to Foucault (Surveiller et Punir, 135), the impact of this finds a dissociation of power from the individual, whereby they become unwittingly impelled into pre-existing social structures, leading to a ‘normalisation’ and acceptance of such systems. If we are talking about the dark, anxiety is key for a Ministry of SOS. Following Foucault again (Subject and Power, 326-7), there is the potential for a crawling, creeping governance that was once distinct but is itself increasingly hidden and growing. A blanket call for some form of ongoing scrutiny of such proliferating powers might be warranted, but with it comes regulation that, while offering certain rights and protections, is not without consequences. For their part, a number of SOS platforms had little to no moderation for explicit content prior to December 2018, and in terms of power, notwithstanding important anxiety connected to arguments that children and the vulnerable need protections from those that would seek to take advantage, this was a crucial aspect of community building and self-expression that resulted in this freedom of expression. In unearthing the extent that individuals are empowered arising from the capacity to post sexual self-images, Tiidenberg ("Bringing Sexy Back") considered that through dark SOS (read here as unregulated) some users could work in opposition to the mainstream consumer culture that provides select and limited representations of bodies and their sexualities. This links directly to Mondin’s exploration of the abundance of queer and feminist pornography on dark SOS as a “counterpolitics of visibility” (288). This work resulted in a reasoned claim that the technological structure of dark SOS created a highly political and affective social space that users valued. What also needs to be underscored is that many users also believed that such a space could not be replicated on other mainstream SOS because of the differences in architecture and social norms. Cho (47) worked with this theory to claim that dark SOS are modern-day examples in a history of queer individuals having to rely on “underground economies of expression and relation”. Discussions such as these complicate what dark SOS might now become in the face of ‘adult’ content moderation and emerging tracking technologies to close sites or locate individuals that transgress social norms. Further, broader questions are raised about how content moderation fits in with the public space conceptualisations of SOS more generally. Increasingly, “there is an app for that” where being able to identify the poster of an image or an author of an unknown text is seen as crucial. While there is presently no standard approach, models for combining instance-based and profile-based features such as SVM for determining authorship attribution are in development, with the result that potentially far less content will remain hidden in the future (Bacciu et al.). 4. There’s Nothing New under the Sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9) For some, “[the] high hopes regarding the positive impact of the Internet and digital participation in civic society have faded” (Schwarzenegger, 99). My participant observation over some years in various SOS, however, finds that critical concern has always existed. Views move along the spectrum of thinking from deep scepticisms (Stoll, Silicon Snake Oil) to wondrous techo-utopian promises (Negroponte, Being Digital). Indeed, concerns about the (then) new technologies of wireless broadcasting can be compared with today’s anxiety over the possible effects of the internet and SOS. Inglis (7) recalls, here, too, were fears that humanity was tampering with some dangerous force; might wireless wave be causing thunderstorms, droughts, floods? Sterility or strokes? Such anxieties soon evaporated; but a sense of mystery might stay longer with evangelists for broadcasting than with a laity who soon took wireless for granted and settled down to enjoy the products of a process they need not understand. As the analogy above makes clear, just as audiences came to use ‘the wireless’ and later the internet regularly, it is reasonable to argue that dark SOS will also gain widespread understanding and find greater acceptance. Dark social spaces are simply the recent development of internet connectivity and communication more broadly. The dark SOS afford choice to be connected beyond mainstream offerings, which some users avoid for their perceived manipulation of content and user both. As part of the wider array of dark web services, the resilience of dark social spaces is reinforced by the proliferation of users as opposed to decentralised replication. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) can be used for anonymity in parallel to TOR access, but they guarantee only anonymity to the client. A VPN cannot guarantee anonymity to the server or the internet service provider (ISP). While users may use pseudonyms rather than actual names as seen on Facebook and other SOS, users continue to take to the virtual spaces they inhabit their off-line, ‘real’ foibles, problems, and idiosyncrasies (Chenault). To varying degrees, however, people also take their best intentions to their interactions in the dark. The hyper-efficient tools now deployed can intensify this, which is the great advantage attracting some users. In balance, however, in regard to online information access and dissemination, critical examination of what is in the public’s interest, and whether content should be regulated or controlled versus allowing a free flow of information where users self-regulate their online behaviour, is fraught. O’Loughlin (604) was one of the first to claim that there will be voluntary loss through negative liberty or freedom from (freedom from unwanted information or influence) and an increase in positive liberty or freedom to (freedom to read or say anything); hence, freedom from surveillance and interference is a kind of negative liberty, consistent with both libertarianism and liberalism. Conclusion The early adopters of initial iterations of SOS were hopeful and liberal (utopian) in their beliefs about universality and ‘free’ spaces of open communication between like-minded others. 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The contemporary video game market is as recognisable for its brands as it is for the characters that populate their game worlds, from franchise-leading characters like Garrus Vakarian (Mass Effect original trilogy), Princess Zelda (The Legend of Zelda franchise) and Cortana (HALO franchise) to more recent game icons like Miles Morales (Marvel's Spiderman game franchise) and Judy Alvarez (Cyberpunk 2077). Interactions with these casts of characters enhance the richness of games and their playable worlds, giving a sense of weight and meaning to player actions, emphasising thematic interests, and in some cases acting as buffers to (or indeed hindering) different aspects of gameplay itself. As Jordan Erica Webber writes in her essay The Road to Journey, “videogames are often examined through the lens of what you do and what you feel” (14). For many games, the design of interactions between the player and other beings in the world—whether they be intrinsic to the world (non-playable characters or NPCs) or other live players—is a bridging aspect between what you do and how you feel and is thus central to the communication of more cohesive and focussed work. This essay will discuss two examples of game design techniques present in Transistor by Supergiant Games and Journey by thatgamecompany. It will consider how the design of “playful” interactions between the player and other characters in the game world (both non-player characters and other player characters) can be used as a tool to align a player’s experience of “intent” with the thematic objectives of the designer. These games have been selected as both utilise design techniques that allow for this “playful” interaction (observed in this essay as interactions that do not contribute to “progression” in the traditional sense). By looking closely at specific aspects of game design, it aims to develop an accessible examination by “focusing on the dimensions of involvement the specific game or genre of games affords” (Calleja, 222). The discussion defines “intent”, in the context of game design, through a synthesis of definitions from two works by game designers. The first being Greg Costikyan’s definition of game structure from his 2002 presentation I Have No Words and I Must Design, a paper subsequently referenced by numerous prominent game scholars including Ian Bogost and Jesper Juul. The second is Steven Swink’s definition of intent in relation to video games, from his 2009 book Game Feel: A Game Designer’s Guide to Virtual Sensation—an extensive reference text of game design concepts, with a particular focus on the concept of “game feel” (the meta-sensation of involvement with a game). This exploratory essay suggests that examining these small but impactful design techniques, through the lens of their contribution to overall intent, is a useful tool for undertaking more holistic studies of how games are affective. I align with the argument that understanding “playfulness” in game design is useful in understanding user engagement with other digital communication platforms. In particular, platforms where the presentation of user identity is relational or performative to others—a case explored in Playful Identities: The Ludification of Digital Media Cultures (Frissen et al.). Intent in Game Design Intent, in game design, is generated by a complex, interacting economy, ecosystem, or “game structure” (Costikyan 21) of thematic ideas and gameplay functions that do not dictate outcomes, but rather guide behaviour and progression forward through the need to achieve a goal (Costikyan 21). Intent brings player goals in line with the intrinsic goals of the player character, and the thematic or experiential goals the game designer wants to convey through the act of play. Intent makes it easier to invest in the game’s narrative and spatial context—its role is to “motivate action in game worlds” (Swink 67). Steven Swink writes that it is the role of game design to create compelling intent from “a seemingly arbitrary collection of abstracted variables” (Swink 67). He continues that whether it is good or bad is a broader question, but that “most games do have in-born intentionality, and it is the game designer who creates it” (67). This echoes Costikyan’s point: game designers “must consciously set out to decide what kind of experiences [they] want to impart to players and create systems that enable those experiences” (20). Swink uses Mario 64 as one simple example of intent creation through design—if collecting 100 coins did not restore Mario’s health, players would simply not collect them. Not having health restricts the ability for players to fulfil the overarching intent of progression by defeating the game’s main villain (what he calls the “explicit” intent), and collecting coins also provides a degree of interactivity that makes the exploration itself feel more fulfilling (the “implicit” intent). This motivation for action may be functional, or it may be more experiential—how a designer shapes variables into particular forms to encourage the particular kinds of experience that they want a player to have during the act of play (such as in Journey, explored in the latter part of this essay). This essay is interested in the design of this compelling thematic intent—and the role “playful” interactions have as a variable that contributes to aligning player behaviours and experience to the thematic or experiential goals of game design. “Playful” Communication and Storytelling in Transistor Transistor is the second release from independent studio Supergiant Games and has received over 100 industry accolades (Kasavin) since its publication in 2014. Transistor incorporates the suspense of turn-based gameplay into an action role-playing game—neatly mirroring a style of gameplay to the suspense of its cyber noir narrative. The game is also distinctly “artful”. The city of Cloudbank, where the game takes place, is a cyberpunk landscape richly inspired by art nouveau and art deco style. There is some indication that Cloudbank may not be a real city at all—but rather a virtual city, with an abundance of computer-related motifs and player combat abilities named as if they were programming functions. At release, Transistor was broadly recognised in the industry press for its strength in “combining its visuals and music to powerfully convey narrative information and tone” (Petit). If intent in games in part stems from a unification of goals between the player and design, the interactivity between player input and the actions of the player character furthers this sense of “togetherness”. This articulation and unity of hand movement and visual response in games are what Kirkpatrick identified in his 2011 work Aesthetic Theory and the Video Game as the point in which videogames “broke from the visual entertainment culture of the last two centuries” (Kirkpatrick 88). The player character mediates access to the space by which all other game information is given context and allows the player a degree of self-expression that is unique to games. Swink describes it as an amplified impression of virtual proprioception, that is “an impression of space created by illusory means but is experienced as real by the senses … the effects of motion, sound, visuals, and responsive effects combine” (Swink 28). If we extend Swink’s point about creating an “impression of space” to also include an “impression of purpose”, we can utilise this observation to further understand how the design of the playful interactions in Transistor work to develop and align the player’s experience of intent with the overarching narrative goal (or, “explicit” intent) of the game—to tell a compelling “science-fiction love story in a cyberpunk setting, without the gritty backdrop” (Wallace) through the medium of gameplay. At the centre of any “love story” is the dynamic of a relationship, and in Transistor playful interaction is a means for conveying the significance and complexity of those dynamics in relation to the central characters. Transistor’s exposition asks players to figure out what happened to Red and her partner, The Boxer (a name he is identified by in the game files), while progressing through various battles with an entity called The Process to uncover more information. Transistor commences with player-character, Red, standing next to the body of The Boxer, whose consciousness and voice have been uploaded into the same device that impaled him: the story’s eponymous Transistor. The event that resulted in this strange circumstance has also caused Red to lose her ability to speak, though she is still able to hum. The first action that the player must complete to progress the game is to pull the Transistor from The Boxer’s body. From this point The Boxer, speaking through the Transistor, becomes the sole narrator of the game. The Boxer’s first lines of dialogue are responsive to player action, and position Red’s character in the world: ‘Together again. Heh, sort of …’ [Upon walking towards an exit a unit of The Process will appear] ‘Yikes … found us already. They want you back I bet. Well so do I.’ [Upon defeating The Process] ‘Unmarked alley, east of the bay. I think I know where we are.’ (Supergiant Games) This brief exchange and feedback to player movement, in medias res, limits the player’s possible points of attention and establishes The Boxer’s voice and “character” as the reference point for interacting with the game world. Actions, the surrounding world, and gameplay objectives are given meaning and context by being part of a system of intent derived from the significance of his character to the player character (Red) as both a companion and information-giver. The player may not necessarily feel what an individual in Red’s position would feel, but their expository position is aligned with Red’s narrative, and their scope of interaction with the world is intrinsically tied to the “explicit” intent of finding out what happened to The Boxer. Transistor continues to establish a loop between Red’s exploration of the world and the dialogue and narration of The Boxer. In the context of gameplay, player movement functions as the other half of a conversation and brings the player’s control of Red closer to how Red herself (who cannot communicate vocally) might converse with The Boxer gesturally. The Boxer’s conversational narration is scripted to occur as Red moves through specific parts of the world and achieves certain objectives. Significantly, The Boxer will also speak to Red in response to specific behaviours that only occur should the player choose to do them and that don’t necessarily contribute to “progressing” the game in the mechanical sense. There are multiple points where this is possible, but I will draw on two examples to demonstrate. Firstly, The Boxer will have specific reactions to a player who stands idle for too long, or who performs a repetitive action. Jumping repeatedly from platform to platform will trigger several variations of playful and exasperated dialogue from The Boxer (who has, at this point, no choice but to be carried around by Red): [Upon repeatedly jumping between the same platform] ‘Round and round.’ ‘Okay that’s enough.’ ‘I hate you.’ (Supergiant Games) The second is when Red “hums” (an activity initiated by the player by holding down R1 on a PlayStation console). At certain points of play, when making Red hum, The Boxer will chime in and sing the lyrics to the song she is humming. This musical harmonisation helps to articulate a particular kind of intimacy and flow between Red and The Boxer —accentuated by Red’s animation when humming: she is bathed in golden light and holds the Transistor close, swaying side to side, as if embracing or dancing with a lover. This is a playful, exploratory interaction. It technically doesn’t serve any “purpose” in terms of finishing the game—but is an action a player might perform while exploring controls and possibilities of interactivity, in turn exploring what it is to “be” Red in relation to the game world, the story being conveyed, and The Boxer. It delivers a more emotional and affective thematic idea about a relationship that nonetheless relies just as much on mechanical input and output as engaging in movement, exploration, and combat in the game world. It’s a mechanic that provides texture to the experience of inhabiting Red’s identity during play, showcasing a more individual complexity to her story, driven by interactivity. In techniques like this, Transistor directly unifies its method for information-giving, interactivity, progression, and theme into a single design language. To once again nod to Swink and Costikyan, it is a complex, interacting economy or ecosystem of thematic ideas and gameplay structures that guide behaviour and progression forward through the need to achieve a single goal (Costikyan 21), guiding the player towards the game’s “explicit” intent of investment in its “science fiction love story”. Companionship and Collaboration in Journey Journey is regularly praised in many circles of game review and discussion for its powerful, pared-back story conveyed through its exceptional game design. It has won a wide array of awards, including multiple British Academy Games Awards and Game Developer’s Choice Awards, and has been featured in highly regarded international galleries such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Its director, Jenova Chen, articulated that the goal of the game (and thus, in the context of this essay, the intent) was “to create a game where people who interact with each other in an online community can connect at an emotional level, regardless of their gender, age, ethnicity, and social status” (Webber 14). In Journey, the player controls a small robed figure moving through a vast desert—the only choices for movement are to slide gracefully through the sand or to jump into the air by pressing the X button (on a PlayStation console), and gracefully float down to the ground. You cannot attack anything or defend yourself from the elements or hostile beings. Each player will “periodically find another individual in the landscape” (Isbister 121) of similar design to the player and can only communicate with them by experimenting with simple movements, and via short chirping noises. As the landscape itself is vast and unknown, it is what one player referred to as a sense of “reliance on one another” that makes the game so captivating (Isbister 12). Much like The Boxer in Transistor, the other figure in Journey stands out as a reference point and imbues a sense of collaboration and connection that makes the goal to reach the pinprick of light in the distance more meaningful. It is only after the player has finished the game that the screen reveals the other individual is a real person, another player, by displaying their gamer tag. One player, playing the game in 2017 (several years after its original release in 2012), wrote: I went through most of the game by myself, and when I first met my companion, it was right as I walked into the gate transitioning to the snow area. And I was SO happy that there was someone else in this desolate place. I felt like it added so much warmth to the game, so much added value. The companion and I stuck together 100% of the way. When one of us would fall the slightest bit behind, the other would wait for them. I remember saying out loud how I thought that my companion was the best programmed AI that I had ever seen. In the way that he waited for me to catch up, it almost seemed like he thanked me for waiting for him … We were always side-by-side which I was doing to the "AI" for "cinematic-effect". From when I first met him up to the very very end, we were side-by-side. (Peace_maybenot) Other players indicate a similar bond even when their companion is perhaps less competent: I thought my traveller was a crap AI. He kept getting launched by the flying things and was crap at staying behind cover … But I stuck with him because I was like, this is my buddy in the game. Same thing, we were communicating the whole time and I stuck with him. I finish and I see a gamer tag and my mind was blown. That was awesome. (kerode4791) Although there is a definite object of difference in that Transistor is narrated and single-player while Journey is not, there are some defined correlations between the way Supergiant Games and thatgamecompany encourage players to feel a sense of investment and intent aligned with another individual within the game to further thematic intent. Interactive mechanics are designed to allow players a means of playful and gestural communication as an extension of their kinetic interaction with the game; travellers in Journey can chirp and call out to other players—not always for an intrinsic goal but often to express joy, or just to experience and sense of connectivity or emotional warmth. In Transistor, the ability to hum and hear The Boxer’s harmony, and the animation of Red holding the Transistor close as she does so, implying a sense of protectiveness and affection, says more in the context of “play” than a literal declaration of love between the two characters. Graeme Kirkpatrick uses dance as a suitable metaphor for this kind of experience in games, in that both are characterised by a certainty that communication has occurred despite the “eschewal of overt linguistic elements and discursive meanings” (120). There is also a sense of finite temporality in these moments. Unlike scripted actions, or words on a page, they occur within a moment of being that largely belongs to the player and their actions alone. Kirkpatrick describes it as “an inherent ephemerality about this vanishing and that this very transience is somehow essential” (120). This imbuing of a sense of time is important because it implies that even if one were to play the game again, repeating the interaction is impossible. The communication of narrative within these games is not a static form, but an experience that hangs unique at that moment and space of play. Thatgamecompany discussed in their 2017 interviews with Webber, published as part of her essay for the Victoria & Albert’s Video Games: Design/Play/Disrupt exhibition, how by creating and restricting the kind of playful interaction available to players within the world, they could encourage the kind of emotional, collaborative, and thoughtful intent they desired to portray (Webber 14). They articulate how in the development process they prioritised giving the player a variety of responses for even the smallest of actions and how that positive feedback, in turn, encourages play and prevented players from being “bored” (Webber 22). Meanwhile, the team reduced responsiveness for interactions they didn’t want to encourage. Chen describes the approach as “maximising feedback for things you want and minimising it for things you don’t want” (Webber 27). In her essay, Webber writes that Chen describes “a person who enters a virtual world, leaving behind the value system they’ve learned from real life, as like a baby banging their spoon to get attention” (27): initially players could push each other, and when one baby [player] pushed the other baby [player] off the cliff that person died. So, when we tested the gameplay, even our own developers preferred killing each other because of the amount of feedback they would get, whether it’s visual feedback, audio feedback, or social feedback from the players in the room. For quite a while I was disappointed at our own developers’ ethics, but I was able to talk to a child psychologist and she was able to clarify why these people are doing what they are doing. She said, ‘If you want to train a baby not to knock the spoon, you should minimise the feedback. Either just leave them alone, and after a while they’re bored and stop knocking, or give them a spoon that does not make a sound. (27) The developers then made it impossible for players to kill, steal resources from, or even speak to each other. Players were encouraged to stay close to each other using high-feedback action and responsiveness for doing so (Webber 27). By using feedback design techniques to encourage players to behave a certain way to other beings in the world—both by providing and restricting playful interactivity—thatgamecompany encourage a resonance between players and the overarching design intent of the project. Chen’s observations about the behaviour of his team while playing different iterations of the game also support the argument (acknowledged in different perspectives by various scholarship, including Costikyan and Bogost) that in the act of gameplay, real-life personal ethics are to a degree re-prioritised by the interactivity and context of that interactivity in the game world. Intent and the “Actualities of (Game) Existence” Continuing and evolving explorations of “intent” (and other parallel terms) in games through interaction design is of interest for scholars of game studies; it also is an important endeavour when considering influential relationships between games and other digital mediums where user identity is performative or relational to others. This influence was examined from several perspectives in the aforementioned collection Playful Identities: The Ludification of Digital Media Cultures, which also examined “the process of ludification that seems to penetrate every cultural domain” of modern life, including leisure time, work, education, politics, and even warfare (Frissen et al. 9). Such studies affirm the “complex relationship between play, media, and identity in contemporary culture” and are motivated “not only by the dominant role that digital media plays in our present culture but also by the intuition that ‘“play is central … to media experience” (Frissen et al. 10). Undertaking close examinations of specific “playful” design techniques in video games, and how they may factor into the development of intent, can help to develop nuanced lines of questioning about how we engage with “playfulness” in other digital communication platforms in an accessible, comparative way. We continue to exist in a world where “ludification is penetrating the cultural domain”. In the first few months of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Nintendo released Animal Crossing: New Horizons. With an almost global population in lockdown, Animal Crossing became host to professional meetings (Espiritu), weddings (Garst), and significantly, a media channel for brands to promote content and products (Deighton). TikTok, panoramically, is a platform where “playful” user trends— dances, responding to videos, the “Tell Me … Without Telling Me” challenge—occur in the context of an extremely complex algorithm, that while automated, is created by people—and is thus unavoidably embedded with bias (Dias et al.; Noble). This is not to say that game design techniques and broader “playful” design techniques in other digital communication platforms are interchangeable by any measure, or that intent in a game design sense and intent or bias in a commercial sense should be examined through the same lens. Rather that there is a useful, interdisciplinary resource of knowledge that can further illuminate questions we might ask about this state of “ludification” in both the academic and public spheres. We might ask, for example, what would the implications be of introducing an intent design methodology similar to Journey, but using it for commercial gain? Or social activism? Has it already happened? There is a quotation from Nathan Jurgensen’s 2016 essay Fear of Screens (published in The New Inquiry) that often comes to my mind when thinking about interaction design in video games in this way. In his response to Sherry Turkle’s book, Reclaiming Conversation, Jurgensen writes: each time we say “IRL,” “face-to-face,” or “in person” to mean connection without screens, we frame what is “real” or who is a person in terms of their geographic proximity rather than other aspects of closeness — variables like attention, empathy, affect, erotics, all of which can be experienced at a distance. We should not conceptually preclude or discount all the ways intimacy, passion, love, joy, pleasure, closeness, pain, suffering, evil and all the visceral actualities of existence pass through the screen. “Face to face” should mean more than breathing the same air. (Jurgensen) While Jurgensen is not talking about communication in games specifically, there are comparisons to be drawn between his “variables” and “visceral actualities of existence” as the drivers of social meaning-making, and the methodology of games communicating intent and purpose through Swink’s “seemingly arbitrary collection of abstracted variables” (67). When players interact with other characters in a game world (whether they be NPCs or other players), they are inhabiting a shared virtual space, and how designers articulate and present the variables of “closeness”, as Jurgensen defines it, can shape player alignment with the overarching design intent. These design techniques take the place of Jurgensen’s “visceral actualities of existence”. While they may not intrinsically share an overarching purpose, their experiential qualities have the ability to align ethics, priorities, and values between individuals. Interactivity means game design has the potential to facilitate a particular kind of engagement for the player (as demonstrated in Journey) or give opportunities for players to explore a sense of what an emotion might feel like by aligning it with progression or playful activity (as discussed in relation to Transistor). Players may not “feel” exactly what their player-characters do, or care for other characters in the world in the same way a game might encourage them to, but through thoughtful intent design, something of recognition or unity of belief might pass through the screen. References Bogost, Ian. Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Video Games. MIT P, 2007. Calleja, Gordon. “Ludic Identities and the Magic Circle.” Playful Identities: The Ludification of Digital Media Cultures. Eds. Valerie Frissen et al. Amsterdam UP, 2015. 211–224. Costikyan, Greg. “I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games.” Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings 2002. Ed. Frans Mäyrä. Tampere UP. 9-33. Dias, Avani, et al. “The TikTok Spiral.” ABC News, 26 July 2021. <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-26/tiktok-algorithm-dangerous-eating-disorder-content-censorship/100277134>. Deighton, Katie. “Animal Crossing Is Emerging as a Media Channel for Brands in Lockdown.” The Drum, 21 Apr. 2020. <https://www.thedrum.com/news/2020/04/21/animal-crossing-emerging-media-channel-brands-lockdown>. Espiritu, Abby. “Japanese Company Attempts to Work Remotely in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.” The Gamer, 29 Mar. 2020. <https://www.thegamer.com/animal-crossing-new-horizons-work-remotely/>. Frissen, Valerie, et al., eds. Playful Identities: The Ludification of Digital Media Cultures. Amsterdam UP, 2015. Garst, Aron. “The Pandemic Canceled Their Wedding. So They Held It in Animal Crossing.” The Washington Post, 2 Apr. 2020. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/04/02/animal-crossing-wedding-coronavirus/>. Isbister, Katherine. How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design. MIT P, 2016. Journey. thatgamecompany. 2012. Jurgensen, Nathan. “Fear of Screens.” The New Inquiry, 25 Jan. 2016. <https://thenewinquiry.com/fear-of-screens/>. Kasavin, Greg. “Transistor Earns More than 100+ Industry Accolades, Sells More than 600k Copies.” Supergiant Games, 8 Jan. 2015. <https://www.supergiantgames.com/blog/transistor-earns60-industry-accolades-sells-more-than-600k-copies/>. kerode4791. "Wanted to Share My First Experience with the Game, It Was That Awesome.”Reddit, 22 Mar. 2017. <https://www.reddit.com/r/JourneyPS3/comments/60u0am/wanted_to_share_my_f rst_experience_with_the_game/>. Kirkpatrick, Graeme. Aesthetic Theory and the Video Game. Manchester UP, 2011. Noble, Safiya Umoja. Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York UP, 2018. peace_maybenot. "Wanted to Share My First Experience with the Game, It Was that Awesome” Reddit, 22 Mar. 2017. <https://www.reddit.com/r/JourneyPS3/comments/60u0am/wanted_to_share_my_f rst_experience_with_the_game/>. Petit, Carolyn. “Ghosts in the Machine." Gamespot, 20 May 2014. <https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/transistor-review/1900-6415763/>. Swink, Steve. Game Feel: A Game Designer’s Guide to Virtual Sensation. Amsterdam: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers/Elsevier, 2009. Transistor. Supergiant Games. 2014. Wallace, Kimberley. “The Story behind Supergiant Games’ Transistor.” Gameinformer, 20 May 2021. <https://www.gameinformer.com/2021/05/20/the-story-behind-supergiant-games-transistor>. Webber, Jordan Erica. “The Road to Journey.” Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt. Eds. Marie Foulston and Kristian Volsing. V&A Publishing, 2018. 14–31.

From elephants to ABBA fans, silicon to hormone, the following discussion uses a new research method to look at printed text, motion pictures and a teenage rebel icon. If by ‘print’ we mean a mechanically reproduced impression of a cultural symbol in a medium, then printing has been with us since before microdot security prints were painted onto cars, before voice prints, laser prints, network servers, record pressings, motion picture prints, photo prints, colour woodblock prints, before books, textile prints, and footprints. If we accept that higher mammals such as elephants have a learnt culture, then it is possible to extend a definition of printing beyond Homo sapiens. Poole reports that elephants mechanically trumpet reproductions of human car horns into the air surrounding their society. If nothing else, this cross-species, cross-cultural reproduction, this ‘ability to mimic’ is ‘another sign of their intelligence’. Observation of child development suggests that the first significant meaningful ‘impression’ made on the human mind is that of the face of the child’s nurturer – usually its mother. The baby’s mind forms an ‘impression’, a mental print, a reproducible memory data set, of the nurturer’s face, voice, smell, touch, etc. That face is itself a cultural construct: hair style, makeup, piercings, tattoos, ornaments, nutrition-influenced skin and smell, perfume, temperature and voice. A mentally reproducible pattern of a unique face is formed in the mind, and we use that pattern to distinguish ‘familiar and strange’ in our expanding social orbit. The social relations of patterned memory – of imprinting – determine the extent to which we explore our world (armed with research aids such as text print) or whether we turn to violence or self-harm (Bretherton). While our cultural artifacts (such as vellum maps or networked voice message servers) bravely extend our significant patterns into the social world and the traversed environment, it is useful to remember that such artifacts, including print, are themselves understood by our original pattern-reproduction and impression system – the human mind, developed in childhood. The ‘print’ is brought to mind differently in different discourses. For a reader, a ‘print’ is a book, a memo or a broadsheet, whether it is the Indian Buddhist Sanskrit texts ordered to be printed in 593 AD by the Chinese emperor Sui Wen-ti (Silk Road) or the US Defense Department memo authorizing lower ranks to torture the prisoners taken by the Bush administration (Sanchez, cited in ABC). Other fields see prints differently. For a musician, a ‘print’ may be the sheet music which spread classical and popular music around the world; it may be a ‘record’ (as in a ‘recording’ session), where sound is impressed to wax, vinyl, charged silicon particles, or the alloys (Smith, “Elpida”) of an mp3 file. For the fine artist, a ‘print’ may be any mechanically reproduced two-dimensional (or embossed) impression of a significant image in media from paper to metal, textile to ceramics. ‘Print’ embraces the Japanese Ukiyo-e colour prints of Utamaro, the company logos that wink from credit card holographs, the early photographs of Talbot, and the textured patterns printed into neolithic ceramics. Computer hardware engineers print computational circuits. Homicide detectives investigate both sweaty finger prints and the repeated, mechanical gaits of suspects, which are imprinted into the earthy medium of a crime scene. For film makers, the ‘print’ may refer to a photochemical polyester reproduction of a motion picture artifact (the reel of ‘celluloid’), or a DVD laser disc impression of the same film. Textualist discourse has borrowed the word ‘print’ to mean ‘text’, so ‘print’ may also refer to the text elements within the vision track of a motion picture: the film’s opening titles, or texts photographed inside the motion picture story such as the sword-cut ‘Z’ in Zorro (Niblo). Before the invention of writing, the main mechanically reproduced impression of a cultural symbol in a medium was the humble footprint in the sand. The footprints of tribes – and neighbouring animals – cut tracks in the vegetation and the soil. Printed tracks led towards food, water, shelter, enemies and friends. Having learnt to pattern certain faces into their mental world, children grew older and were educated in the footprints of family and clan, enemies and food. The continuous impression of significant foot traffic in the medium of the earth produced the lines between significant nodes of prewriting and pre-wheeled cultures. These tracks were married to audio tracks, such as the song lines of the Australian Aborigines, or the ballads of tramping culture everywhere. A typical tramping song has the line, ‘There’s a track winding back to an old-fashion shack along the road to Gundagai,’ (O’Hagan), although this colonial-style song was actually written for radio and became an international hit on the airwaves, rather than the tramping trails. The printed tracks impressed by these cultural flows are highly contested and diverse, and their foot prints are woven into our very language. The names for printed tracks have entered our shared memory from the intersection of many cultures: ‘Track’ is a Germanic word entering English usage comparatively late (1470) and now used mainly in audio visual cultural reproduction, as in ‘soundtrack’. ‘Trek’ is a Dutch word for ‘track’ now used mainly by ecotourists and science fiction fans. ‘Learn’ is a Proto-Indo-European word: the verb ‘learn’ originally meant ‘to find a track’ back in the days when ‘learn’ had a noun form which meant ‘the sole of the foot’. ‘Tract’ and ‘trace’ are Latin words entering English print usage before 1374 and now used mainly in religious, and electronic surveillance, cultural reproduction. ‘Trench’ in 1386 was a French path cut through a forest. ‘Sagacity’ in English print in 1548 was originally the ability to track or hunt, in Proto-Indo-European cultures. ‘Career’ (in English before 1534) was the print made by chariots in ancient Rome. ‘Sleuth’ (1200) was a Norse noun for a track. ‘Investigation’ (1436) was Latin for studying a footprint (Harper). The arrival of symbolic writing scratched on caves, hearth stones, and trees (the original meaning of ‘book’ is tree), brought extremely limited text education close to home. Then, with baked clay tablets, incised boards, slate, bamboo, tortoise shell, cast metal, bark cloth, textiles, vellum, and – later – paper, a portability came to text that allowed any culture to venture away from known ‘foot’ paths with a reduction in the risk of becoming lost and perishing. So began the world of maps, memos, bills of sale, philosophic treatises and epic mythologies. Some of this was printed, such as the mechanical reproduction of coins, but the fine handwriting required of long, extended, portable texts could not be printed until the invention of paper in China about 2000 years ago. Compared to lithic architecture and genes, portable text is a fragile medium, and little survives from the millennia of its innovators. The printing of large non-text designs onto bark-paper and textiles began in neolithic times, but Sui Wen-ti’s imperial memo of 593 AD gives us the earliest written date for printed books, although we can assume they had been published for many years previously. The printed book was a combination of Indian philosophic thought, wood carving, ink chemistry and Chinese paper. The earliest surviving fragment of paper-print technology is ‘Mantras of the Dharani Sutra’, a Buddhist scripture written in the Sanskrit language of the Indian subcontinent, unearthed at an early Tang Dynasty site in Xian, China – making the fragment a veteran piece of printing, in the sense that Sanskrit books had been in print for at least a century by the early Tang Dynasty (Chinese Graphic Arts Net). At first, paper books were printed with page-size carved wooden boards. Five hundred years later, Pi Sheng (c.1041) baked individual reusable ceramic characters in a fire and invented the durable moveable type of modern printing (Silk Road 2000). Abandoning carved wooden tablets, the ‘digitizing’ of Chinese moveable type sped up the production of printed texts. In turn, Pi Sheng’s flexible, rapid, sustainable printing process expanded the political-cultural impact of the literati in Asian society. Digitized block text on paper produced a bureaucratic, literate elite so powerful in Asia that Louis XVI of France copied China’s print-based Confucian system of political authority for his own empire, and so began the rise of the examined public university systems, and the civil service systems, of most European states (Watson, Visions). By reason of its durability, its rapid mechanical reproduction, its culturally agreed signs, literate readership, revered authorship, shared ideology, and distributed portability, a ‘print’ can be a powerful cultural network which builds and expands empires. But print also attacks and destroys empires. A case in point is the Spanish conquest of Aztec America: The Aztecs had immense libraries of American literature on bark-cloth scrolls, a technology which predated paper. These libraries were wiped out by the invading Spanish, who carried a different book before them (Ewins). In the industrial age, the printing press and the gun were seen as the weapons of rebellions everywhere. In 1776, American rebels staffed their ‘Homeland Security’ units with paper makers, knowing that defeating the English would be based on printed and written documents (Hahn). Mao Zedong was a book librarian; Mao said political power came out of the barrel of a gun, but Mao himself came out of a library. With the spread of wireless networked servers, political ferment comes out of the barrel of the cell phone and the internet chat room these days. Witness the cell phone displays of a plane hitting a tower that appear immediately after 9/11 in the Middle East, or witness the show trials of a few US and UK lower ranks who published prints of their torturing activities onto the internet: only lower ranks who published prints were arrested or tried. The control of secure servers and satellites is the new press. These days, we live in a global library of burning books – ‘burning’ in the sense that ‘print’ is now a charged silicon medium (Smith, “Intel”) which is usually made readable by connecting the chip to nuclear reactors and petrochemically-fired power stations. World resources burn as we read our screens. Men, women, children burn too, as we watch our infotainment news in comfort while ‘their’ flickering dead faces are printed in our broadcast hearths. The print we watch is not the living; it is the voodoo of the living in the blackout behind the camera, engaging the blood sacrifice of the tormented and the unfortunate. Internet texts are also ‘on fire’ in the third sense of their fragility and instability as a medium: data bases regularly ‘print’ fail-safe copies in an attempt to postpone the inevitable mechanical, chemical and electrical failure that awaits all electronic media in time. Print defines a moral position for everyone. In reporting conflict, in deciding to go to press or censor, any ‘print’ cannot avoid an ethical context, starting with the fact that there is a difference in power between print maker, armed perpetrators, the weak, the peaceful, the publisher, and the viewer. So many human factors attend a text, video or voice ‘print’: its very existence as an aesthetic object, even before publication and reception, speaks of unbalanced, and therefore dynamic, power relationships. For example, Graham Greene departed unscathed from all the highly dangerous battlefields he entered as a novelist: Riot-torn Germany, London Blitz, Belgian Congo, Voodoo Haiti, Vietnam, Panama, Reagan’s Washington, and mafia Europe. His texts are peopled with the injustices of the less fortunate of the twentieth century, while he himself was a member of the fortunate (if not happy) elite, as is anyone today who has the luxury of time to read Greene’s works for pleasure. Ethically a member of London and Paris’ colonizers, Greene’s best writing still electrifies, perhaps partly because he was in the same line of fire as the victims he shared bread with. In fact, Greene hoped daily that he would escape from the dreadful conflicts he fictionalized via a body bag or an urn of ashes (see Sherry). In reading an author’s biography we have one window on the ethical dimensions of authority and print. If a print’s aesthetics are sometimes enduring, its ethical relationships are always mutable. Take the stylized logo of a running athlete: four limbs bent in a rotation of action. This dynamic icon has symbolized ‘good health’ in Hindu and Buddhist culture, from Madras to Tokyo, for thousands of years. The cross of bent limbs was borrowed for the militarized health programs of 1930s Germany, and, because of what was only a brief, recent, isolated yet monstrously horrific segment of its history in print, the bent-limbed swastika is now a vilified symbol in the West. The sign remains ‘impressed’ differently on traditional Eastern culture, and without the taint of Nazism. Dramatic prints are emotionally charged because, in depicting Homo sapiens in danger, or passionately in love, they elicit a hormonal reaction from the reader, the viewer, or the audience. The type of emotions triggered by a print vary across the whole gamut of human chemistry. A recent study of three genres of motion picture prints shows a marked differences in the hormonal responses of men compared to women when viewing a romance, an actioner, and a documentary (see Schultheiss, Wirth, and Stanton). Society is biochemically diverse in its engagement with printed culture, which raises questions about equality in the arts. Motion picture prints probably comprise around one third of internet traffic, in the form of stolen digitized movie files pirated across the globe via peer-to-peer file transfer networks (p2p), and burnt as DVD laser prints (BBC). There is also a US 40 billion dollar per annum legitimate commerce in DVD laser pressings (Grassl), which would suggest an US 80 billion per annum world total in legitimate laser disc print culture. The actively screen literate, or the ‘sliterati’ as I prefer to call them, research this world of motion picture prints via their peers, their internet information channels, their television programming, and their web forums. Most of this activity occurs outside the ambit of universities and schools. One large site of sliterate (screen literate) practice outside most schooling and official research is the net of online forums at imdb.com (International Movie Data Base). Imdb.com ‘prints’ about 25,000,000 top pages per month to client browsers. Hundreds of sliterati forums are located at imdb, including a forum for the Australian movie, Muriel’s Wedding (Hogan). Ten years after the release of Muriel’s Wedding, young people who are concerned with victimization and bullying still log on to http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0110598/board/> and put their thoughts into print: I still feel so bad for Muriel in the beginning of the movie, when the girls ‘dump’ her, and how much the poor girl cried and cried! Those girls were such biartches…I love how they got their comeuppance! bunniesormaybemidgets’s comment is typical of the current discussion. Muriel’s Wedding was a very popular film in its first cinema edition in Australia and elsewhere. About 30% of the entire over-14 Australian population went to see this photochemical polyester print in the cinemas on its first release. A decade on, the distributors printed a DVD laser disc edition. The story concerns Muriel (played by Toni Collette), the unemployed daughter of a corrupt, ‘police state’ politician. Muriel is bullied by her peers and she withdraws into a fantasy world, deluding herself that a white wedding will rescue her from the torments of her blighted life. Through theft and deceit (the modus operandi of her father) Muriel escapes to the entertainment industry and finds a ‘wicked’ girlfriend mentor. From a rebellious position of stubborn independence, Muriel plays out her fantasy. She gets her white wedding, before seeing both her father and her new married life as hollow shams which have goaded her abandoned mother to suicide. Redefining her life as a ‘game’ and assuming responsibility for her independence, Muriel turns her back on the mainstream, image-conscious, female gang of her oppressed youth. Muriel leaves the story, having rekindled her friendship with her rebel mentor. My methodological approach to viewing the laser disc print was to first make a more accessible, coded record of the entire movie. I was able to code and record the print in real time, using a new metalanguage (Watson, “Eyes”). The advantage of Coding is that ‘thinks’ the same way as film making, it does not sidetrack the analyst into prose. The Code splits the movie print into Vision Action [vision graphic elements, including text] (sound) The Coding splits the vision track into normal action and graphic elements, such as text, so this Coding is an ideal method for extracting all the text elements of a film in real time. After playing the film once, I had four and a half tightly packed pages of the coded story, including all its text elements in square brackets. Being a unique, indexed hard copy, the Coded copy allowed me immediate access to any point of the Muriel’s Wedding saga without having to search the DVD laser print. How are ‘print’ elements used in Muriel’s Wedding? Firstly, a rose-coloured monoprint of Muriel Heslop’s smiling face stares enigmatically from the plastic surface of the DVD picture disc. The print is a still photo captured from her smile as she walked down the aisle of her white wedding. In this print, Toni Collette is the Mona Lisa of Australian culture, except that fans of Muriel’s Wedding know the meaning of that smile is a magical combination of the actor’s art: the smile is both the flush of dreams come true and the frightening self deception that will kill her mother. Inserting and playing the disc, the text-dominant menu appears, and the film commences with the text-dominant opening titles. Text and titles confer a legitimacy on a work, whether it is a trade mark of the laser print owners, or the household names of stars. Text titles confer status relationships on both the presenters of the cultural artifact and the viewer who has entered into a legal license agreement with the owners of the movie. A title makes us comfortable, because the mind always seeks to name the unfamiliar, and a set of text titles does that job for us so that we can navigate the ‘tracks’ and settle into our engagement with the unfamiliar. The apparent ‘truth’ and ‘stability’ of printed text calms our fears and beguiles our uncertainties. Muriel attends the white wedding of a school bully bride, wearing a leopard print dress she has stolen. Muriel’s spotted wild animal print contrasts with the pure white handmade dress of the bride. In Muriel’s leopard textile print, we have the wild, rebellious, impoverished, inappropriate intrusion into the social ritual and fantasy of her high-status tormentor. An off-duty store detective recognizes the printed dress and calls the police. The police are themselves distinguished by their blue-and-white checked prints and other mechanically reproduced impressions of cultural symbols: in steel, brass, embroidery, leather and plastics. Muriel is driven in the police car past the stenciled town sign (‘Welcome To Porpoise Spit’ heads a paragraph of small print). She is delivered to her father, a politician who presides over the policing of his town. In a state where the judiciary, police and executive are hijacked by the same tyrant, Muriel’s father, Bill, pays off the police constables with a carton of legal drugs (beer) and Muriel must face her father’s wrath, which he proceeds to transfer to his detested wife. Like his daughter, the father also wears a spotted brown print costume, but his is a batik print from neighbouring Indonesia (incidentally, in a nation that takes the political status of its batik prints very seriously). Bill demands that Muriel find the receipt for the leopard print dress she claims she has purchased. The legitimate ownership of the object is enmeshed with a printed receipt, the printed evidence of trade. The law (and the paramilitary power behind the law) are legitimized, or contested, by the presence or absence of printed text. Muriel hides in her bedroom, surround by poster prints of the pop group ABBA. Torn-out prints of other people’s weddings adorn her mirror. Her face is embossed with the clown-like primary colours of the marionette as she lifts a bouquet to her chin and stares into the real time ‘print’ of her mirror image. Bill takes the opportunity of a business meeting with Japanese investors to feed his entire family at ‘Charlie Chan’’s restaurant. Muriel’s middle sister sloppily wears her father’s state election tee shirt, printed with the text: ‘Vote 1, Bill Heslop. You can’t stop progress.’ The text sets up two ironic gags that are paid off on the dialogue track: “He lost,’ we are told. ‘Progress’ turns out to be funding the concreting of a beach. Bill berates his daughter Muriel: she has no chance of becoming a printer’s apprentice and she has failed a typing course. Her dysfunction in printed text has been covered up by Bill: he has bribed the typing teacher to issue a printed diploma to his daughter. In the gambling saloon of the club, under the arrays of mechanically repeated cultural symbols lit above the poker machines (‘A’ for ace, ‘Q’ for queen, etc.), Bill’s secret girlfriend Diedre risks giving Muriel a cosmetics job. Another text icon in lights announces the surf nightclub ‘Breakers’. Tania, the newly married queen bitch who has made Muriel’s teenage years a living hell, breaks up with her husband, deciding to cash in his negotiable text documents – his Bali honeymoon tickets – and go on an island holiday with her girlfriends instead. Text documents are the enduring site of agreements between people and also the site of mutations to those agreements. Tania dumps Muriel, who sobs and sobs. Sobs are a mechanical, percussive reproduction impressed on the sound track. Returning home, we discover that Muriel’s older brother has failed a printed test and been rejected for police recruitment. There is a high incidence of print illiteracy in the Heslop family. Mrs Heslop (Jeannie Drynan), for instance, regularly has trouble at the post office. Muriel sees a chance to escape the oppression of her family by tricking her mother into giving her a blank cheque. Here is the confluence of the legitimacy of a bank’s printed negotiable document with the risk and freedom of a blank space for rebel Muriel’s handwriting. Unable to type, her handwriting has the power to steal every cent of her father’s savings. She leaves home and spends the family’s savings at an island resort. On the island, the text print-challenged Muriel dances to a recording (sound print) of ABBA, her hand gestures emphasizing her bewigged face, which is made up in an impression of her pop idol. Her imitation of her goddesses – the ABBA women, her only hope in a real world of people who hate or avoid her – is accompanied by her goddesses’ voices singing: ‘the mystery book on the shelf is always repeating itself.’ Before jpeg and gif image downloads, we had postcard prints and snail mail. Muriel sends a postcard to her family, lying about her ‘success’ in the cosmetics business. The printed missal is clutched by her father Bill (Bill Hunter), who proclaims about his daughter, ‘you can’t type but you really impress me’. Meanwhile, on Hibiscus Island, Muriel lies under a moonlit palm tree with her newly found mentor, ‘bad girl’ Ronda (Rachel Griffiths). In this critical scene, where foolish Muriel opens her heart’s yearnings to a confidante she can finally trust, the director and DP have chosen to shoot a flat, high contrast blue filtered image. The visual result is very much like the semiabstract Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints by Utamaro. This Japanese printing style informed the rise of European modern painting (Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, etc., were all important collectors and students of Ukiyo-e prints). The above print and text elements in Muriel’s Wedding take us 27 minutes into her story, as recorded on a single page of real-time handwritten Coding. Although not discussed here, the Coding recorded the complete film – a total of 106 minutes of text elements and main graphic elements – as four pages of Code. Referring to this Coding some weeks after it was made, I looked up the final code on page four: taxi [food of the sea] bq. Translation: a shop sign whizzes past in the film’s background, as Muriel and Ronda leave Porpoise Spit in a taxi. Over their heads the text ‘Food Of The Sea’ flashes. We are reminded that Muriel and Ronda are mermaids, fantastic creatures sprung from the brow of author PJ Hogan, and illuminated even today in the pantheon of women’s coming-of-age art works. That the movie is relevant ten years on is evidenced by the current usage of the Muriel’s Wedding online forum, an intersection of wider discussions by sliterate women on imdb.com who, like Muriel, are observers (and in some cases victims) of horrific pressure from ambitious female gangs and bullies. Text is always a minor element in a motion picture (unless it is a subtitled foreign film) and text usually whizzes by subliminally while viewing a film. By Coding the work for [text], all the text nuances made by the film makers come to light. While I have viewed Muriel’s Wedding on many occasions, it has only been in Coding it specifically for text that I have noticed that Muriel is a representative of that vast class of talented youth who are discriminated against by print (as in text) educators who cannot offer her a life-affirming identity in the English classroom. Severely depressed at school, and failing to type or get a printer’s apprenticeship, Muriel finds paid work (and hence, freedom, life, identity, independence) working in her audio visual printed medium of choice: a video store in a new city. Muriel found a sliterate admirer at the video store but she later dumped him for her fantasy man, before leaving him too. One of the points of conjecture on the imdb Muriel’s Wedding site is, did Muriel (in the unwritten future) get back together with admirer Brice Nobes? That we will never know. While a print forms a track that tells us where culture has been, a print cannot be the future, a print is never animate reality. At the end of any trail of prints, one must lift one’s head from the last impression, and negotiate satisfaction in the happening world. References Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “Memo Shows US General Approved Interrogations.” 30 Mar. 2005 http://www.abc.net.au>. British Broadcasting Commission. “Films ‘Fuel Online File-Sharing’.’’ 22 Feb. 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3890527.stm>. Bretherton, I. “The Origins of Attachment Theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.” 1994. 23 Jan. 2005 http://www.psy.med.br/livros/autores/bowlby/bowlby.pdf>. Bunniesormaybemidgets. Chat Room Comment. “What Did Those Girls Do to Rhonda?” 28 Mar. 2005 http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0110598/board/>. Chinese Graphic Arts Net. Mantras of the Dharani Sutra. 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.cgan.com/english/english/cpg/engcp10.htm>. Ewins, R. Barkcloth and the Origins of Paper. 1991. 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.justpacific.com/pacific/papers/barkcloth~paper.html>. Grassl K.R. The DVD Statistical Report. 14 Mar. 2005 http://www.corbell.com>. Hahn, C. M. The Topic Is Paper. 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.nystamp.org/Topic_is_paper.html>. Harper, D. Online Etymology Dictionary. 14 Mar. 2005 http://www.etymonline.com/>. Mask of Zorro, The. Screenplay by J McCulley. UA, 1920. Muriel’s Wedding. Dir. PJ Hogan. Perf. Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths, Bill Hunter, and Jeannie Drynan. Village Roadshow, 1994. O’Hagan, Jack. On The Road to Gundagai. 1922. 2 Apr. 2005 http://ingeb.org/songs/roadtogu.html>. Poole, J.H., P.L. Tyack, A.S. Stoeger-Horwath, and S. Watwood. “Animal Behaviour: Elephants Are Capable of Vocal Learning.” Nature 24 Mar. 2005. Sanchez, R. “Interrogation and Counter-Resistance Policy.” 14 Sept. 2003. 30 Mar. 2005 http://www.abc.net.au>. Schultheiss, O.C., M.M. Wirth, and S.J. Stanton. “Effects of Affiliation and Power Motivation Arousal on Salivary Progesterone and Testosterone.” Hormones and Behavior 46 (2005). Sherry, N. The Life of Graham Greene. 3 vols. London: Jonathan Cape 2004, 1994, 1989. Silk Road. Printing. 2000. 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.silk-road.com/artl/printing.shtml>. Smith, T. “Elpida Licenses ‘DVD on a Chip’ Memory Tech.” The Register 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02>. —. “Intel Boffins Build First Continuous Beam Silicon Laser.” The Register 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02>. Watson, R. S. “Eyes And Ears: Dramatic Memory Slicing and Salable Media Content.” Innovation and Speculation, ed. Brad Haseman. Brisbane: QUT. [in press] Watson, R. S. Visions. Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation, 1994. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Watson, Robert. "E-Press and Oppress: Audio Visual Print Drama, Identity, Text and Motion Picture Rebellion." M/C Journal 8.2 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0506/08-watson.php>. APA Style Watson, R. (Jun. 2005) "E-Press and Oppress: Audio Visual Print Drama, Identity, Text and Motion Picture Rebellion," M/C Journal, 8(2). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0506/08-watson.php>.

Discussions of the economic theory of planned obsolescence—the purposeful embedding of redundancy into the functionality or other aspect of a product—in the 1980s and 1990s often focused on the impact of such a design strategy on manufacturers, consumers, the market, and, ultimately, profits (see, for example, Bulow; Lee and Lee; Waldman). More recently, assessments of such shortened product life cycles have included calculations of the environmental and other costs of such waste (Claudio; Kondoh; Unruh). Commonly utilised examples are consumer products such as cars, whitegoods and small appliances, fashion clothing and accessories, and, more recently, new technologies and their constituent components. This discourse has been adopted by those who configure workers as human resources, and who speak both of skills (Janßen and Backes-Gellner) and human capital itself (Chauhan and Chauhan) being made obsolete by market forces in both predictable and unplanned ways. This includes debate over whether formal education can assist in developing the skills that make their possessors less liable to become obsolete in the workforce (Dubin; Holtmann; Borghans and de Grip; Gould, Moav and Weinberg). However, aside from periodic expressions of disciplinary angst (as in questions such as whether the Liberal Arts and other disciplines are becoming obsolete) are rarely found in discussions regarding higher education. Yet, higher education has been subsumed into a culture of commercial service provision as driven by markets and profit as the industries that design and deliver consumer goods. McKelvey and Holmén characterise this as a shift “from social institution to knowledge business” in the subtitle of their 2009 volume on European universities, and the recent decade has seen many higher educational institutions openly striving to be entrepreneurial. Despite some debate over the functioning of market or market-like mechanisms in higher education (see, for instance, Texeira et al), the corporatisation of higher education has led inevitably to market segmentation in the products the sector delivers. Such market segmentation results in what are called over-differentiated products, seemingly endless variations in the same product to attempt to increase consumption and attendant sales. Milk is a commonly cited example, with supermarkets today stocking full cream, semi-skimmed, skimmed, lactose-free, soy, rice, goat, GM-free and ‘smart’ (enriched with various vitamins, minerals and proteins) varieties; and many of these available in fresh, UHT, dehydrated and/or organic versions. In the education market, this practice has resulted in a large number of often minutely differentiated, but differently named, degrees and other programs. Where there were once a small number of undergraduate degrees with discipline variety within them (including the Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science awards), students can now graduate with a named qualification in a myriad of discipline and professional areas. The attempt to secure a larger percentage of the potential client pool (who are themselves often seeking to update their own skills and knowledges to avoid workforce obsolescence) has also resulted in a significant increase in the number of postgraduate coursework certificates, diplomas and other qualifications across the sector. The Masters degree has fractured from a research program into a range of coursework, coursework plus research, and research only programs. Such proliferation has also affected one of the foundations of the quality and integrity of the higher education system, and one of the last bastions of conventional practice, the doctoral degree. The PhD as ‘Gold-Standard’ Market Leader? The Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) is usually understood as a largely independent discipline-based research project that results in a substantial piece of reporting, the thesis, that makes a “substantial original contribution to knowledge in the form of new knowledge or significant and original adaptation, application and interpretation of existing knowledge” (AQF). As the highest level of degree conferred by most universities, the PhD is commonly understood as indicating the height of formal educational attainment, and has, until relatively recently, been above reproach and alteration. Yet, whereas universities internationally once offered a single doctorate named the PhD, many now offer a number of doctoral level degrees. In Australia, for example, candidates can also complete PhDs by Publication and by Project, as well as practice-led doctorates in, and named Doctorates of/in, Creative Arts, Creative Industries, Laws, Performance and other ‘new’ discipline areas. The Professional Doctorate, introduced into Australia in the early 1990s, has achieved such longevity that it now has it’s own “first generation” incarnations in (and about) disciplines such as Education, Business, Psychology and Journalism, as well as a contemporary “second generation” version which features professionally-practice-led Mode 2 knowledge production (Maxwell; also discussed in Lee, Brennan and Green 281). The uniquely Australian PhD by Project in the disciplines of architecture, design, business, engineering and education also includes coursework, and is practice and particularly workplace (or community) focused, but unlike the above, does not have to include a research element—although this is not precluded (Usher). A significant number of Australian universities also currently offer a PhD by Publication, known also as the PhD by Published Papers and PhD by Published Works. Introduced in the 1960s in the UK, the PhD by Publication there is today almost exclusively undertaken by academic staff at their own institutions, and usually consists of published work(s), a critical appraisal of that work within the research context, and an oral examination. The named degree is rare in the USA, although the practice of granting PhDs on the basis of prior publications is not unknown. In Australia, an examination of a number of universities that offer the degree reveals no consistency in terms of the framing policies except for the generic Australian Qualifications Framework accreditation statement (AQF), entry requirements and conditions of candidature, or resulting form and examination guidelines. Some Australian universities, for instance, require all externally peer-refereed publications, while others will count works that are self-published. Some require actual publications or works in press, but others count works that are still at submission stage. The UK PhD by Publication shows similar variation, with no consensus on purpose, length or format of this degree (Draper). Across Australia and the UK, some institutions accept previously published work and require little or no campus participation, while others have a significant minimum enrolment period and count only work generated during candidature (see Brien for more detail). Despite the plethora of named degrees at doctoral level, many academics continue to support the PhD’s claim to rigor and intellectual attainment. Most often, however, these arguments cite tradition rather than any real assessment of quality. The archaic trappings of conferral—the caps, gowns and various other instruments of distinction—emphasise a narrative in which it is often noted that doctorates were first conferred by the University of Paris in the 12th century and then elsewhere in medieval Europe. However, challenges to this account note that today’s largely independently researched thesis is a relatively recent arrival to educational history, being only introduced into Germany in the early nineteenth century (Bourner, Bowden and Laing; Park 4), the USA in a modified form in the mid-nineteenth century and the UK in 1917 (Jolley 227). The Australian PhD is even more recent, with the first only awarded in 1948 and still relatively rare until the 1970s (Nelson 3; Valadkhani and Ville). Additionally, PhDs in the USA, Canada and Denmark today almost always incorporate a significant taught coursework element (Noble). This is unlike the ‘traditional’ PhD in the UK and Australia, although the UK also currently offers a number of what are known there as ‘taught doctorates’. Somewhat confusingly, while these do incorporate coursework, they still include a significant research component (UKCGE). However, the UK is also adopting what has been identified as an American-inflected model which consists mostly, or largely, of coursework, and which is becoming known as the ‘New Route British PhD’ (Jolley 228). It could be posited that, within such a competitive market environment, which appears to be driven by both a drive for novelty and a desire to meet consumer demand, obsolescence therefore, and necessarily, threatens the very existence of the ‘traditional’ PhD. This obsolescence could be seen as especially likely as, alongside the existence of the above mentioned ‘new’ degrees, the ‘traditional’ research-based PhD at some universities in Australia and the UK in particular is, itself, also in the process of becoming ‘professionalised’, with some (still traditionally-framed) programs nevertheless incorporating workplace-oriented frameworks and/or experiences (Jolley 229; Kroll and Brien) to meet professionally-focused objectives that it is acknowledged cannot be met by producing a research thesis alone. While this emphasis can be seen as operating at the expense of specific disciplinary knowledge (Pole 107; Ball; Laing and Brabazon 265), and criticised for that, this workplace focus has arisen, internationally, as an institutional response to requests from both governments and industry for training in generic skills in university programs at all levels (Manathunga and Wissler). At the same time, the acknowledged unpredictability of the future workplace is driving a cognate move from discipline specific knowledge to what have been described as “problem solving and knowledge management approaches” across all disciplines (Gilbert; Valadkhani and Ville 2). While few query a link between university-level learning and the needs of the workplace, or the motivating belief that the overarching role of higher education is the provision of professional training for its client-students (see Laing and Brabazon for an exception), it also should be noted that a lack of relevance is one of the contributors to dysfunction, and thence to obsolescence. The PhD as Dysfunctional Degree? Perhaps, however, it is not competition that threatens the traditional PhD but, rather, its own design flaws. A report in The New York Times in 2007 alerted readers to what many supervisors, candidates, and researchers internationally have recognised for some time: that the PhD may be dysfunctional (Berger). In Australia and elsewhere, attention has focused on the uneven quality of doctoral-level degrees across institutions, especially in relation to their content, rigor, entry and assessment standards, and this has not precluded questions regarding the PhD (AVCC; Carey, Webb, Brien; Neumann; Jolley; McWilliam et al., "Silly"). It should be noted that this important examination of standards has, however, been accompanied by an increase in the awarding of Honorary Doctorates. This practice ranges from the most reputable universities’ recognising individuals’ significant contributions to knowledge, culture and/or society, to wholly disreputable institutions offering such qualifications in return for payment (Starrs). While generally contested in terms of their status, Honorary Doctorates granted to sports, show business and political figures are the most controversial and include an award conferred on puppet Kermit the Frog in 1996 (Jeffries), and some leading institutions including MIT, Cornell University and the London School of Economics and Political Science are distinctive in not awarding Honorary Doctorates. However, while distracting, the Honorary Doctorate itself does not answer all the questions regarding the quality of doctoral programs in general, or the Doctor of Philosophy in particular. The PhD also has high attrition rates: 50 per cent or more across Australia, the USA and Canada (Halse 322; Lovitts and Nelson). For those who remain in the programs, lengthy completion times (known internationally as ‘time-to-degree’) are common in many countries, with averages of 10.5 years to completion in Canada, and from 8.2 to more than 13 years (depending on discipline) in the USA (Berger). The current government performance-based funding model for Australian research higher degrees focuses attention on timely completion, and there is no doubt that, under this system—where universities only receive funding for a minimum period of candidature when those candidates have completed their degrees—more candidates are completing within the required time periods (Cuthbert). Yet, such a focus has distracted from assessment of the quality and outcomes of such programs of study. A detailed survey, based on the theses lodged in Australian libraries, has estimated that at least 51,000 PhD theses were completed in Australia to 2003 (Evans et al. 7). However, little attention has been paid to the consequences of this work, that is, the effects that the generation of these theses has had on either candidates or the nation. There has been no assessment, for instance, of the impact on candidates of undertaking and completing a doctorate on such facets of their lives as their employment opportunities, professional choices and salary levels, nor any effect on their personal happiness or levels of creativity. Nor has there been any real evaluation of the effect of these degrees on GDP, rates of the commercialisation of research, the generation of intellectual property, meeting national agendas in areas such as innovation, productivity or creativity, and/or the quality of the Australian creative and performing arts. Government-funded and other Australian studies have, however, noted for at least a decade both that the high numbers of graduates are mismatched to a lack of market demand for doctoral qualifications outside of academia (Kemp), and that an oversupply of doctorally qualified job seekers is driving wages down in some sectors (Jones 26). Even academia is demanding more than a PhD. Within the USA, doctoral graduates of some disciplines (English is an often-cited example) are undertaking second PhDs in their quest to secure an academic position. In Australia, entry-level academic positions increasingly require a scholarly publishing history alongside a doctoral-level qualification and, in common with other quantitative exercises in the UK and in New Zealand, the current Excellence in Research for Australia research evaluation exercise values scholarly publications more than higher degree qualifications. Concluding Remarks: The PhD as Obsolete or Retro-Chic? Disciplines and fields are reacting to this situation in various ways, but the trend appears to be towards increased market segmentation. Despite these charges of PhD dysfunction, there are also dangers in the over-differentiation of higher degrees as a practice. If universities do not adequately resource the professional development and other support for supervisors and all those involved in the delivery of all these degrees, those institutions may find that they have spread the existing skills, knowledge and other institutional assets too thinly to sustain some or even any of these degrees. This could lead to the diminishing quality (and an attendant diminishing perception of the value) of all the higher degrees available in those institutions as well as the reputation of the hosting country’s entire higher education system. As works in progress, the various ‘new’ doctoral degrees can also promote a sense of working on unstable ground for both candidates and supervisors (McWilliam et al., Research Training), and higher degree examiners will necessarily be unfamiliar with expected standards. Candidates are attempting to discern the advantages and disadvantages of each form in order to choose the degree that they believe is right for them (see, for example, Robins and Kanowski), but such assessment is difficult without the benefit of hindsight. Furthermore, not every form may fit the unpredictable future aspirations of candidates or the volatile future needs of the workplace. The rate with which everything once new descends from stylish popularity through stages of unfashionableness to become outdated and, eventually, discarded is increasing. This escalation may result in the discipline-based research PhD becoming seen as archaic and, eventually, obsolete. Perhaps, alternatively, it will lead to newer and more fashionable forms of doctoral study being discarded instead. Laing and Brabazon go further to find that all doctoral level study’s inability to “contribute in a measurable and quantifiable way to social, economic or political change” problematises the very existence of all these degrees (265). Yet, we all know that some objects, styles, practices and technologies that become obsolete are later recovered and reassessed as once again interesting. They rise once again to be judged as fashionable and valuable. Perhaps even if made obsolete, this will be the fate of the PhD or other doctoral degrees?References Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF). “Doctoral Degree”. AQF Qualifications. 4 May 2009 ‹http://www.aqf.edu.au/doctor.htm›. Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee (AVCC). Universities and Their Students: Principles for the Provision of Education by Australian Universities. Canberra: AVCC, 2002. 4 May 2009 ‹http://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/documents/publications/Principles_final_Dec02.pdf›. 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Scientific Program Oral Presentations Authors Title Abstract CONSTANTIN MUNTEANU, Mihail HOTETEU, Diana MUNTEANU, Gabriela DOGARU - 12 minutes PERSPECTIVES OF BALNEOLOGY - INTERNATIONAL DATA INPUTS, NATIONAL OUTPUTS Link L1 UMBERTO SOLIMENE - 14 minutes CLIMATE AND HEALTH: A NEW CHALLENGE FOR AN OLD SCIENCE Link L2 Zeki KARAGÜLLE - 14 minutes BALNEOLOGICAL TREATMENTS WITH NATURAL HYDROGEN SULFIDE (H2S) Waters Link L3 Constantin Florin Dragan, Liliana Padure, Gelu Onose - 12 minutes SPECIFIC ADVANCED QUANTIFICATIONS ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE ANGULATION OF THE MAIN SCOLIOTIC CURVE AND LEG SWING IN THE GAIT PHASES, IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS WITH AND WITHOUT POSTURAL TREATMENT Link L4 Irina ALBADI, Camelia CIOBOTARU, Andreea-Alexandra LUPU, Ionela BALASA, Claudiu FATU, Enghin SACHIR, Gelu ONOSE - 12 minutes A MULTIMODAL APPROACHES TO MANAGE REHABILITATION THERAPY OF DISFUNCTIONALS ASPECTS TO A PACIENT WITH GOUT, MIELLITUS DIABETES, ATRIAL FIBRILATION AND MIDDLE CEREBRAL ARTERY STROKE Link L5 ELENA RAEVSCHI - 12 minutes PREVENTION CONSIDERATIONS IN Cardiovascular Diseases regarding the premature mortality reduction Link L6 ANIȘOARA CIMIL - 12 minutes THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE REHABILITATION PROGRAMME ACCORDING TO THE ETIOPATHOGENESIS OF PROSTHETIC JOINT PATHOLOGY Link L7 TRAIAN -VIRGILIU SURDU, Monica SURDU, Olga SURDU - 10 minutes FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (INDUSTRY 4.0) AND MODERN THERMAL MEDICINE (THERME 4.0) IN XXIST CENTURY Link L8 Gabriela DOGARU, Akos MOLNAR, Marieta MOTRICALA - 10 minutes EFFECTS OF CARBONATED MINERAL WATER AND MOFETTE IN BĂILE TUŞNAD IN EXPERIMENTALLY INDUCED ISCHEMIC HEART DISEASE Link L9 Q & A – 12 minutes Authors Title Abstract Aurelian Anghelescu, Valentin Deaconu, Catalina Axente,Elena Constantin, Gelu Onose - 12 minutes THERAPEUTIC DIFFICULTIES IN A YOUNG PATIENT WITH MULTIDRUG RESISTANT EPILEPSY (NEEDING VAGAL NERVE ELECTROSTIMULATION), SEQUELAE AFTER CONGENITAL VASCULAR CEREBRAL MALFORMATION, WITH CHRONIC GAIT IMPAIRMENTS AND RECENT TRAUMATIC BRAIN COMPLICATION Link L10 Luminița NIRLU, Alexandru G. 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Link L39 Alexandra SPORICI, Irina ANGHEL, Lapadat MAGDALENA, Gelu ONOSE - 12 minutes RECOVERABLE RESULTS AT A PATIENT WITH AIS/FRANKEL D INCOMPLETE TETRAPLEGIA / POST SPINAL CORD INJURY BY FALLING FROM A HEIGHT, ON AN ANKYLOSING SPONDYLITIS BACKGROUND Link L40 Ioana ANDONE, Carmen CHIPĂRUȘ, Andreea FRUNZA, Aura SPÎNU, Simona STOICA, Liliana ONOSE, George PATRASCU, Gelu ONOSE -12 minutes CLINICAL, PARACLINICAL ASPECTS AND COMPLEX THERAPEUTICAL APPROACHES IN A PATIENT WITH INCOMPLETE PARAPLEGIA, POST THORACIC MENIGIOMA SURGICALLY TREATED, IN NEUROFIBROMATOSIS CONTEXT Link L41 Cristina Octaviana DAIA, Alina-Elena Gherghiceanu, Helene Ivan, Gelu ONOSE - 12 minutes RESEARCH ON NEUROREHABILITATION RESULTS IN VERTEBRO-MEDULLARY POST-TRAUMATIC CONDITIONS ASSOCIATING FRACTURES, IN A POLITRAMATIC CONTEXT Link L42 Ali-Osman Saglam, Alexandru G. Stavrica, Ana Carmen Albeşteanu, Laura Georgiana Popescu, Luminita Nirlu, Gelu Onose - 12 minutes MEDICAL-REHABILITATION ENDEAVORS, CARE INTERVENTIONS AND CONNOTATIONS OF A MEDICO-SOCIAL TYPE, IN A COMPLEX POLYPATHOLOGICAL CASE: PARAPLEGIA, SPONDYLODISCITIS, KIDNEY FAILURE IN THE HAEMODIALYSIS STAGE AND BILATERAL NEPHROSTOMIES AFTER SURGICALY TREATTED BLADDER NEOPLASM. Link L43 Sorina Petrușan-Dunca, Liviu Lazăr, Tiberiu-Dorin Corha - 12 minutes INDICATIONS AND LIMITIS OF REHABILITATION TREATMENT FOR LUMBAR DISCOPATHY IN PREGNACY Link L44 Q & A – 8 minutes Authors Title Abstract Elena Silvia SHELBY, Mihaela AXENTE, Liliana PĂDURE - 12 minutes CHARCOT MARIE TOOTH DISEASE. CASE PRESENTATION. GENETIC DISEASES WHICH REQUIRE physical rehabilitation Link L45 Link L46 Simona Carniciu - 12 minutes Influence of nutrition and exercise on the use of different energy substrates in the prevention of metabolic diseases Link L81 Simona-Isabelle STOICA, Carmen Elena CHIPĂRUȘ, Magdalena Vasilica LAPADAT, George PĂTRAȘCU, Gelu ONOSE - 12 minutes CLINICAL-THERAPEUTIC AND RECUPERATORY FEATURES IN A PATIENT WITH PLURIPATOLOGY: ISCHEMIC STROKE, ISCHEMIC HEART DISEASE (SECHELAR MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION), CHRONIC KIDNEY DISEASE AND MONSTROUS GOUT- CASE PRESENTATION Link L47 Eugen BITERE, Mihaiela CHICU - 12 minutes PATHOPHYSIOLOGY OF ATHEROGENESIS AND CARDIOVASCULAR RISK IN CHRONIC INFLAMMATORY DISEASES Link L48 Victoria CHIHAI, Alisa TĂBÎRȚĂ, Anastasia ROTĂREANU, Vladlena MIHAILOV, Mihail CÎRÎM - 12 minutes THE IMPACT OF ACTIVE KINETIC PROGRAMS ON CLINICAL AND FUNCTIONAL STATUS ADRESSED TO PEOPLE WITH DIABETIC ANGIOPATHY Link L49 Ana-Maria Fătu, Ana Maria Pâslaru, Valerica Creangă-Zărnescu, Alexandru Nechifor, Mădălina Verenca, Mihaela Lungu, Anamaria Ciubară - 12 minutes THE IMPACT OF COGNITIVE DECLINE ON STROKE REHABILITATION Link L50 Alisa TĂBÎRŢĂ, Victoria CHIHAI - 12 minutes THE USE OF TRINITY AMPUTATION AND PROSTHESIS EXPERIENCE SCALES IN THE COMPLEX REHABILITATION OF PERSONS WITH LOWER LIBM AMPUTATION Link L51 Ilie ONU, Mariana ROTARIU, Elvina MIHALAȘ, Călin CORCIOVĂ - 12 minutes STUDY ON EFFICIENCY OF ELECTROTHERAPY AND PHYSIOTHERAPY MANAGEMENT ON HERNIATED LUMBAR DISC Link L52 María G. Souto Figueroa, Antonio Freire Magariños RESEARCH - SURVEY TO 142 THERMALIST WHO HAVE PERFORMED A THERMAL CURE AT THE BATHS OF BAÑOS DE MOLGAS (OURENSE) AND AUGAS SANTAS (LUGO) - GALICIA – SPAIN Link L53 Q & A – 12 minutes Authors Title Abstract Irina Ionica - 12 minutes ACUPUNCTURE IN REHABILITATION - A GENERAL VIEW Link L54 Denisa COAJĂ, Gabriela DOGARU - 12 minutes THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF FINNISH SAUNA BATHING Link L55 Otilia ROGOVEANU, Florin GHERGHINA , Rodica TRAISTARU - 12 minutes SPINA BIFIDA – FUNCTIONAL REHABILITATION METHODS IN CHILDREN Link L56 Mihaela DUTESCU, Raluca OLTEAN, Petru NENADICI - 12 minutes GEOAGIU BAI RESORT - OUR EXPERIENCE OF MEDICAL REHABILITATION TREATMENT Link L57 Dumitru MIHĂILĂ, SILISTEANU Sinziana Calina, ȚICULEANU Mihaela (Ciurlică) - 12 minutes THE METEOROLOGICAL COMPLEX AND THE HUMAN PATHOLOGY. CASE STUDY – SUCEAVA COUNTY Link L58 Mariana VARODI, Gabriela DOGARU - 12 minutes EFFICACY OF NATURAL THERAPEUTIC FACTORS FROM OCNA SIBIULUI SPA RESORT IN GONARTHROSIS Link L59 Boróka-Panna GÁSPÁR, Gabriela DOGARU - 12 minutes BONE HYDRATION AND MINERAL WATERS Link L60 CALIN BOCHIS, LIVIU LAZAR, HORAȚIU URECHESCU, CARMEN NISTOR-CSEPPENTO, FELICIA CIOARA, NICOLETA PASCALAU, ALIN BOCHIS , DIANA IOVANOVICI - 12 minutes CORRELATION OF VAS PAIN SCORE WITH FUNCTION AT THE PACIENTS WITH TEMPOROMANDIBULAR OSTEOARTHRITIS Link L61 Marian Romeo CALIN, Ileana RADULESCU, Mihaela Antonina CALIN, Elena Roxana ALMASAN - 12 minutes RADIOMETRIC ASSESSMENT OF PELOID AND SALT WATER USED FOR THERAPY AND BALNEARY TRATAMENT FROM TECHIRGHIOL LAKE, ROMANIA Link L62 Q & A – 12 minutes Authors Title Abstract Cristina PETRESCU - 12 minutes EFFICACY NATURAL THERAPEUTIC FACTORS FROM BAILE GOVORA IN BRONCHIAL ASTHMA Link L63 PARASCHIVA POSTOLACHE - 12 minutes PULMONARY REHABILITATION SAVES LIVES AND IMPROVES LIFE Link L64 DOINA-CLEMENTINA COJOCARU, PARASCHIVA POSTOLACHE - 12 minutes ASSESSMENT OF DYSPNEA IN PULMONARY REHABILITATION PRACTICE Link L65 PARASCHIVA POSTOLACHE, CRISTINA LACATUSI - 12 minutes HELIOTHERAPY, CLIMATOTHERAPY AND PATIENTS WITH RESPIRATORY DISEASES Link L66 CONSTANTIN MUNTEANU, DIANA MUNTEANU, MIHAIL HOTETEU - 12 minutes BIOLOGICAL INSIGHTS OF SPELEOTHERAPY Link L67 PARASCHIVA POSTOLACHE, CRISTINA LACATUSI, DOINA-CLEMENTINA COJOCARU - 12 minutes AEROSOLS AND BREATHING Link L68 PARASCHIVA POSTOLACHE, MADALINA ZEBEGA - 12 minutes RESPIRATORY MUSCLE TRAINING AND RESPIRATORY REHABILITATION Link L69 CRISTI FRENȚ, GEORGETA MAIORESCU - 12 minutes DEVELOPMENTS AND INVOLUTIONS OF TOURISM IN THE SPA RESORTS IN ROMANIA AND THE CASE STUDY FOR LACUL SĂRAT RESORT Link L70 Dragos Arotaritei, Andrei Gheorghita, Mariana Rotariu, Marius Turnea - 12 minutes MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF SULPHUR ABSORPTION PROCESS, A POSSIBLE APPLICATION IN CURE WITH SULPHUROUS MINERAL WATER Link L71 Q & A – 12 minutes Authors Title Abstract Mihai Ciocanu, Anișoara Cimil - 12 minutes THE EFFICIENCY OF THE REHABILITATION SERVICE IN HOSPITAL CONDITIONS Link L72 Sinziana Calina SILIȘTEANU, Andrei Emanuel SILIȘTEANU - 12 minutes TRIAL ON THE WATER CONSUMPTION BY THE PERSONS IN THE GROUP AGED 19-30 YEARS Link L73 Liviu Lazăr, Florin Marcu, Felicia Cioară, Carmen Nistor Csepentö - 12 minutes MANAGEMENT OF SPECIAL ARTERIAL DISEASES Link L74 Mihaela-Carmen SUCEVEANU, Paul-Nicolae SUCEVEANU - 12 minutes EVOLUTION OF CARDIOVASCULAR RISK FACTORS AFTER MORE THAN 2 PERIODIC HOSPITALIZATIONS IN THE COVASNA HOSPITAL FOR CARDIOVASCULAR REHABILITATION Link L75 Mihaela DUTESCU, Adina TRAILA, Margit SERBAN, Emilia URSU, Dorina MIU, Ioana MALITA, Bianca CIRESAN - 12 minutes THE EFFICIENCY OF MEDICAL REHABILITATION TREATMENT IN PATIENTS WITH HEMOPHILIA AFTER SURGICAL ORTHOPEDIC INTERVENTIONS - THE EXPERIENCE OF "CRISTIAN SERBAN" BUZIAS CENTER Link L76 Dorin-Gheorghe TRIFF, Simona POP - 12 minutes PRECURSORS OF BALENOLOGY EDUCATION IN ROMANIA Link L77 Dr. Eugenia Dumitrescu, Dr. Carmen Enescu - 12 minutes ANTIALLERGIC PROCEDURES MOST COMMONLY USED IN PHYSICAL RECOVERY MEDICINE AND BALNEOLOGY Link L78 Mihail HOTETEU, Constantin MUNTEANU, Diana MUNTEANU, Gabriela DOGARU - 12 minutes PELOIDS - PERSPECTIVES ON RESEARCH AND FUTURE PLANS Link L79 Liliana Stanciu, Daniela Profir, Viorica Marin, Doinița Oprea, Elena Ionescu, Elena Almășan, Carmen Oprea - 12 minutes THE SCIENCE OF AGING WELL Link L80 Q & A – 12 minutes POSTER SESSION Authors Title Abstract Andra Pintilie, Liliana Pădure, Andrada Mirea, Corina Sporea Proprioceptive Functional Vibration Stimulation as therapeutic tool in spasticity management of jump gait pattern of spastic diplegic children with cerebral palsy Poster 1 Andra Pintilie, Liliana Pădure, Andrada Mirea, Corina Sporea Modern computerized techniques for gait’s functional evaluation through a specialized wireless inertial sensor – premise for orthopedic corrective shoes wear in children with gait disorders secondary to Cerebral Palsy Poster 2 Ana Maria PÂSLARU, Ana Maria FĂTU, Anamaria CIUBARĂ The role of medical recovery in oncology Poster 3 Maria Veronica MORCOV, Liliana PADURE, Cristian Gabriel MORCOV, Gelu ONOSE Exercises availed by sensor-based computer advanced devices: part of the interactive cognitive recovery – adjuvant of the therapy applied in the Centrul National Clinic de Recuperare Neuropsihomotorie Copii “Dr. N. Robanescu” Poster 4 Avram Mihai, Liliana Padure, Gelu Onose Theoretical fundamentals and conceptual premise for advanced proprioceptive and sensory stimulus apparatus, with sequential evaluation for the treatment of the recuperator in the equilibrium disorder, from Cerebral Palsy (PC) casuistry. Poster 5 Andrada MIREA, Gelu ONOSE, Madalina LEANCA, Florin-Petru GRIGORAS, Mihaela AXENTE, Liliana PADURE, Corina SPOREA Respiratory management in patients with rare progressive neuromuscular diseases Poster 6 Mihaela MANDU, Elena CONSTANTIN, Cristinel Dumitru BADIU, Cosmin Daniel OPREA, Cristina DAIA, Gelu ONOSE Presentation od the Fugl Meyer Assesment scale and related suggesttion in order to enhance its level of implementation in inner neurorehabilitation units Poster 7 ALEXANDRU BOGDAN-CĂTĂLIN, ALINA SIMONA ȘOVREA, ANNE-MARIE CONSTANTIN, ADINA BIANCA BOȘCA, CARMEN GEORGIU, MONICA POPA Complex oral rehabilitation in an elderly patient with periodontal disease who exercises regularly Poster 8 Dorin-Gheorghe TRIFF, Simona POP MORBIDITY BY OSTEO-MUSCULO-ARTICULAR DISEASES IN THE OCCUPATIONAL ENVIRONMENT IN MARAMURES COUNTY. THE IMPORTANCE OF MEDICAL RECOVERY AND RECORDS THROUGH ELECTRONIC DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Poster 9 Authors Title Abstract Mihaela Antonina CALIN, Marian Romeo CALIN, Constantin Munteanu New evidence on the effects of pelotherapy on local microcirculation Poster 10 Izabela Lazar, Gabriela Dogaru The effectiveness of balnear treatment in the management of psoriasis Poster 11 Dorin-Gheorghe TRIFF, Mușata Dacia BOCOȘ CORRELATIONS OF OSTEOMUSCULO-ARTICULAR DISEASES WITH WORK ABILITY, PERCEIVED SELF EFFICACY AND OCCUPATIONAL STRESSORS AT A REGULAR MEDICAL CHECK-UP IN PRE-UNIVERSITY EDUCATION UNITS Poster 12 Doroteea Teoibas-Serban, Valentin Stan, Dan Blendea PREVENTION OF LUMBAR DISC HERNIATION IN YOUNG ADULT POPULATION: A PRACTICAL APPROACH Poster 13 Călin Corciovă, Cătălina Luca, Robert Fuior, Flavia Corciovă Development a Monitoring Device for Arm Rehabilitation Poster 14 Simona Daniela Zavalichi, Marius Andrei Zavalichi, Sorin Stratulat, Florin Mitu Cardiovascular rehabilitation: challenges in a case of acute myocardial infarction and familial hypercholesterolemia Poster 15 Simona-Isabelle STOICA, Ioana TANASE, Gelu ONOSE Influences and consequences resulting in addictions in general and to chronic alcoholism, especially for patients with spinal cord injury Poster 16 Roxana Dumitrascu, Ana Maria Bumbea, Carmen Albu, Otilia Rogoveanu, Catalin Bostina, Rodica Traistaru, Borcan Madalina BIOMECHANICAL DYSFUNCTIONS OF THE FOOT – MAJOR IMPACT ON THE KINETIC CHAIN Poster 17 Otilia Rogoveanu, Gherghina Florin, Caimac Dan, Trifu Ramona, Cruceru Andra, Beldie C Medical rehabilitation in post-stroke spastic hemiparesis in young patients Poster 18 Ana Maria Bumbea, Otilia Rogoveanu, Roxana Dumitrascu, Bogdan Stefan Bumbea, Catalin Bostina, Albu Carmen, Borcan Madalina PERIPHERAL MAGNETIC STIMULATION - A CHALLENGE IN VERTEBRAL POSTTRAUMATIC RECOVERY Poster 19 Authors Title Abstract Dănuţ PĂCURAR, Mihaela Ramona PĂCURAR KNEE ARTHROPLASTY RECOVERY OF AN CANCER PATIENT Poster 20 Dănuţ PĂCURAR, Mihaela Ramona PĂCURAR THE IMPACT OF OSTEOARTICULAR PATHOLOGY IN POSTSTROKE RECOVERY Poster 21 Borcan Madalina, Bumbea Ana Maria, Bostina Catalin, Radoi Georgeta, Bumbea Bogdan EFFICIENT REHABILITATION TREATMENT IN A CASE WITH MAV-RUPTA MALFORMATION Poster 22 Demirgian Sibel, Nan Simona, Lulea Adela, Lascu Ioana, Marin Viorica Is possible the management of synovial chondromatosis of the hip by arthroscopy or complex balneal treament? Poster 23 Mădălina Codruța Verenca, Sorina Mierlan, Claudiu Elisei Tanase The Efficiency of Medical Treatment of Scoliosis – Paediatrics Poster 24 Florentina NASTASE¹, Alin Laurentiu TATU², Madalina Codruta VERENCA¹ Orthopaedic manifestations of Neurofibromatosis type 1 – case report Poster 25 Simona CARNICIU, Anatolie BACIU, Vasile FEDAS The attenuation of energy metabolic misbalance by means of aerobic, hypoxic, hypothermal adaptation and environment optimization at recreation resort center Poster 26 Irina Anghel, Alexandra Sporici, Magdalena Lapadat, Gelu Onose Complex clinical and therapeutic rehabilitation approach of a patient with Complete AIS/Frankel A quadriplegia post cervical spinal cord injury after accidental fall off a trailer and multiple complications occurring during disease progression - case study Poster 27 Ana-Maria Pelin , Monica Georgescu , Cristina Stefanescu , Costinela Georgescu Molecular treatment strategies in osteoporosis Poster 28