Works from Untitled 1985-86 ; Bill Henson

Works from Untitled 1985-86 ; Bill Henson Catalogue of exhibition held at Plimsoll Gallery, Centre for the Arts 7- 28 April, 1993. Notes on Bill Henson by Terence Maloon

Aquatic Insects as Inhalant Allergens : A Review of American Literature

Author Institution: University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermonthis article reviews American literature concerning the matter of certain aquatic insects as causes of allergic distress. The effects of bites and stings are not included. Mayflies (Ephemeroptera) were cited as a cause of hay fever as early as 1913. Inhalation of body fragments of mayflies is believed to be the causative agent. Similar medical histories are associated with the caddisflies (Trichoptera). The incidence of sensitivity to these insects is sufficiently large to consider this problem to be of general medical interest. Some evidence indicates that persons continually exposed to these insects could develop sensitivities to them. Allergists are now studying the biochemical and immunological aspects of insect allergy. A selected list of references is included with the articl

Identifying and transforming normalcy : challenges to compulsory able-bodied oppression in the deaf community [abstract]

This presentation was made during the session "Violence and Kinship."Abstract of a presentation given at the 2008 Body Project conference at the University of Missouri-Columbia.This paper integrates excerpts taken from a fieldwork-based, thesis-length project that examines the personal experience narratives of Deaf and Hearing mothers of Deaf children. Driven by the goal of joining folkloric interpretations of narrative with theoretical concepts that have emerged out of Disability Studies, this paper provides a point of intersection between the two disciplines that takes story structure, and the nature of memory, into account. Responding primarily to Alison Kafer's "compulsory ablebodiedness" and Tobin Sieber's notion of "disability as masquerade", this paper uses (rather than challenges) ethnographic practices to illustrate the transformative properties of narrative that can be seen and compared among specific Deaf and Hearing groups. Disability Studies has largely ignored folkloric approaches to personal experience narratives which have long been engaged understanding the nature of stories, memory, and the expression of social relationships within the matrix of the ordinary. This paper uses transcripts of interviews with mothers who define their own roles by contextualizing both deafness, and "normalcy", in order to cultivate structures of feeling; the presentation of the instability of the present combined with the stability of the past allows for roledefining to be transformative

Enso and PDO climate variability impacts on regional Missouri crop yields

An analysis of crop yields for the state of Missouri was completed to determine if an interannual or multidecadal variability existed as a result of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Corn and soybean yields were recorded in bushels per acre for each of the six climate regions of Missouri. An analysis using the Mokhov "method of cycles" demonstrated interannual, interdecadal, and multidecadal variations in crop yields. Cross-spectral analysis was then used to determine which region was impacted the greatest by ENSO and PDO influenced seasonal (April -- September) and monthly temperature and precipitation. Interannual (multidecadal) variations found in the spectral analysis represent a relationship to ENSO (PDO) phase, while interdecadal variations represent a possible interaction harmonic between ENSO and PDO. A cross-spectral analysis was also completed using annual Southern Oscillation Index data and annual mean values for the PDO index in order to verify that an interdecadal variation exists between ENSO and PDO. Average crop yields were then calculated for each combination of ENSO and PDO phase, displaying a pronounced increase in corn and soybean yields when ENSO is warm and PDO is positive. Climate regions 1, 2, 4, and 6 displayed statistically significant (90% confidence level) differences in yields between El Nino and La Nina years, representing 55-70% of Missouri soybean and corn productivity, respectively. Final results give the opportunity to produce seasonal predictions of corn and soybean yields, specific to each climate region in Missouri, based on ENSO and PDO phase

Designing algorithms to aid discovery by chemical robots

Recently, automated robotic systems have become very efficient, thanks to improved coupling between sensor systems and algorithms, of which the latter have been gaining significance thanks to the increase in computing power over the past few decades. However, intelligent automated chemistry platforms for discovery orientated tasks need to be able to cope with the unknown, which is a profoundly hard problem. In this Outlook, we describe how recent advances in the design and application of algorithms, coupled with the increased amount of chemical data available, and automation and control systems may allow more productive chemical research and the development of chemical robots able to target discovery. This is shown through examples of workflow and data processing with automation and control, and through the use of both well-used and cutting-edge algorithms illustrated using recent studies in chemistry. Finally, several algorithms are presented in relation to chemical robots and chemical intelligence for knowledge discovery

Exploring relationships between touch perception and surface physical properties

This paper reports a study of materials for confectionery packaging. The aim was to explore the touch perceptions of textures and identify their relationships with the surfaces' physical properties. Thirty-seven tactile textures were tested including 22 cardboards, nine flexible materials and six laminate boards. Semantic differential questionnaires were administered to assess responses to touching the textures against six word pairs: warm-cold, slippery-sticky, smooth,-rough, hard-soft, bumpy-flat, and wet-dry. Four physical measurements were conducted to characterize the surfaces' roughness, compliance, friction, and the rate of cooling of an artificial finger when touching the surface. Correlation and regression analyses were carried out to identify the relationships between the people's responses and the physical measurements. Results show that touch perception is often associated with more than one physical property, and the strength and form of the combined contribution can be represented by a regression model. © 2009 Chen, Shao, Barnes, Childs, & Henson

The effect of indentation force and displacement on visual perception of compliance

This paper investigates the effect of maximum indentation force and depth on people's ability to accurately discriminate compliance using indirect visual information only. Participants took part in two psychophysical experiments in which they were asked to choose the 'softest' sample out of a series of presented sample pairs. In the experiments, participants observed a computer-actuated tip indent the sample pairs to one of two conditions; maximum depth (10mm) or maximum force (4N). This indentation process simulates tool operated palpation in laparoscopic surgery. Results were used to plot psychometric functions as a measure of accuracy of compliance discriminability. A comparison indicated that participants performed best in the task where they judged samples being indented to a pre-set maximum force relying solely on visual cues, which demonstrates the effect of visual information on compliance discrimination. Results also show that indentation cues such as force and deformation depth have different effects on our ability to visually discriminate compliance. These findings will inform future work on designing a haptic feedback system capable of augmenting visual and haptic information independently for optimal compliance discrimination performance

Spectral geometry as a probe of quantum spacetime

Employing standard results from spectral geometry, we provide strong evidence that in the classical limit the ground state of three-dimensional causal dynamical triangulations is de Sitter spacetime. This result is obtained by measuring the expectation value of the spectral dimension on the ensemble of geometries defined by these models, and comparing its large scale behaviour to that of a sphere (Euclidean de Sitter). From the same measurement we are also able to confirm the phenomenon of dynamical dimensional reduction observed in this and other approaches to quantum gravity -- the first time this has been done for three-dimensional causal dynamical triangulations. In this case, the value for the short-scale limit of the spectral dimension that we find is approximately 2. We comment on the relevance of these results for the comparison to asymptotic safety and Horava-Lifshitz gravity, among other approaches to quantum gravity.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figures. Version 2: references to figures added, acknowledgment added