Metamorphoric fashion: a transformative practice

Transformation is embedded in the growth of an organism, while fashion, highly responsive to changing social and physical environments, rides the current of flux like a dreamer wandering through darkness. Through my fashion practice, attempts are made to reflect upon, expand and make possible inroads into the translation of this creative movement, from inspiration to mixed garment and textile outcomes. This involves engaging the imagination of possible futures, new approaches, and unknown outcomes, through mixed material expressions. Translating the life cycle of an organism, which is highly adaptive, evolutionary and responsive, this work forms part of my PhD study, “Metamorphoric Fashion”, being undertaken at RMIT University, Melbourne. Using a practice-led research methodology, which draws upon mixed creative methods, my research attempts to engage with the uncovering of imaginative potentials of fashion and textile processes. The concept of transformation leads this investigation, and initially a study of butterfly metamorphosis was undertaken. This involved “fashion-designer-becoming-lepidopterist”, and engaged a movement between the ordinarily disparate worlds of ecology and creative practice. Using mediums of photography and drawing, a series of transitions were recorded in which the organism underwent both transitional and metamorphic change. Through these methods, meditations on relationships between nature-culture become possible, as thinking about ecology enters the creative process. Through drawing, a series of stylizations developed which recorded the imaginative thinking time, line by line. My particular fashion practice is in the process of transformation and diversification, reflecting the nature of the metamorphic phenomenon, and the particular interpretations of the butterfly study that an individual approach enables. Aiming to uncover the ways in which the practice is able to accommodate these transformations, forms part of this study. Why this might be important for fashion practice more generally perhaps, is because it identifies a type of practice that attempts to evolve itself, to become something it does not yet know. The research aims to capture this state of becoming, and the perpetual sense of movement

Multiscale modeling of oscillations and spiral waves in Dictyostelium populations

Unicellular organisms exhibit elaborate collective behaviors in response to environmental cues. These behaviors are controlled by complex biochemical networks within individual cells and coordinated through cell-to-cell communication. Describing these behaviors requires new mathematical models that can bridge scales -- from biochemical networks within individual cells to spatially structured cellular populations. Here, we present a family of multiscale models for the emergence of spiral waves in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. Our models exploit new experimental advances that allow for the direct measurement and manipulation of the small signaling molecule cAMP used by Dictyostelium cells to coordinate behavior in cellular populations. Inspired by recent experiments, we model the Dictyostelium signaling network as an excitable system coupled to various pre-processing modules. We use this family of models to study spatially unstructured populations by constructing phase diagrams that relate the properties of population-level oscillations to parameters in the underlying biochemical network. We then extend our models to include spatial structure and show how they naturally give rise to spiral waves. Our models exhibit a wide range of novel phenomena including a density dependent frequency change, bistability, and dynamic death due to slow cAMP dynamics. Our modeling approach provides a powerful tool for bridging scales in modeling of Dictyostelium populations

Fiscal Policy and US-Canadian Trade

A factor-augmented vector autoregressive (FAVAR) model is applied to determine the effects of a rise in US government expenditure on the United States and Canadian economies. The results obtained reasonably characterize the effect of a rise in US government spending to the United States and Canadian economies emphasizing the role of the traded goods sector.Factor Model, Principal Component, Government expenditure, VAR.

We want a mom and a dad! political and religious articulations in the opposition to same-sex marriage in Córdoba (Argentina, 2010)

En Argentina en julio de 2010, se aprobó una ley que modificó el Código Civil extendiendo el reconocimiento de la institución matrimonial a parejas conformadas por personas del mismo sexo. El contexto sociopolítico de discusión de la ley estuvo signado por una intensa movilización social. En este escenario se pusieron en escena sentidos compartidos socialmente en una disputa que, por un lado, pone en tensión diferentes interpretaciones que se traducen en prácticas directas buscando influir el posicionamiento de los legisladores respecto al rechazo o aprobación de la ley y, por otro, visibiliza los complejos entramados que lo religioso y lo político adquieren en el campo de la sexualidad. En esta presentación abordamos las movilizaciones en oposición a la ley que centraron su posicionamiento en la ?defensa de la familia?. Para ello, hacemos hincapié en la primera movilización realizada en la ciudad de Córdoba (Argentina) en el mes de mayo de 2010. Indizaciones: LATINDEX- Catálogo / EBSCO / PUBLINDEX / COPERNICUSOn July 2010, in Argentina, a law that modified the Civil Code extending the recognition of the institution of marriage to same-sex couples was passed. The social-political context of discussion of the law was marked by an intense social mobilization. In this context, socially shared meanings, were brought to the forefront in a dispute that, on one hand, generates stress between different interpretations that are translated into direct practices which try to influence the legislators’ positions about the rejection or approval of the law and, on the other hand, makes visible the complex interweave the religious and the political acquire on the field of sexuality. In this presentation, we approach the mobilization in opposition to the law which focused its position in the “defence of the family”. To do this, we emphasize on the first mobilization that took place in the city of Cordoba, Argentina in May 2010.Fil: Sgro Ruata, María Candelaria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad; Argentin

La musica e il potenziamento dei prerequisiti di apprendimento

La música se utiliza como materia optativa en la prevención de los trastornos del aprendizaje. El DSA es una discapacidad específica de aprendizaje, de origen neurobiológico, que afecta a un dominio específico de habilidades (lectura, escritura, cálculo). El curso de introducción en la música fue dirigido a niños de 4 a 6 años de edad, grupo en el que el diagnóstico de DSA no se puede todavía realizar, pero sí podemos identificar aquellos niños en situación de riesgo a través de la evaluación de los requisitos previos de aprendizaje. Objetivo: intervenir de manera preventiva sobre las dificultades de aprendizaje, a través del fortalecimiento de los requisitos previos necesarios, con actividad musical preparatoria en el jardín de infantes. Método: la muestra analizada se compone de 50 niños que pertenecen a una población con edades comprendidas entre los 4 y 6 años. Como muestra se administró la prueba para la evaluación de los requisitos previos de aprendizaje, la PRCR-2 de Cornoldi (2009), antes y después del tratamiento, que abarca un método de introducción de música específico con la pre-escritura y pre-lectura de 7 notas (en el personal) se prolongó durante 4 meses. Conclusión: Los datos obtenidos muestran que la actividad musical se correlaciona positivamente con la mejora de los requisitos previos de aprendizaje.The music is used as an elective channel in the prevention of learning disorder.SLD (Specific Learning Disorder) is a specific learning disability of neurobiological origin, characterized by a lack in a specific learning ability (reading , writing, computing). The preparatory music course was intended for children aged 4 to 6 years, that is the age in which the diagnosis of DSA cannot yet be done but we can still identify children at risk through the evaluation of the prerequisites for learning. Objective: preventative intervention on learning difficulties through the enhancement of prerequisites for reading and writing using preparatory music, during preschool years. Method: The examined sample consists of 50 preschooler aged 4 to 6. The Prcr2 Cornoldi test (2010) had been administered to the sample, before and after the treatment, which consisted in a 4 months Project of preparatory musical activities based on pre-writing and pre-reading the 7 notes (on the staff). Conclusions: The data obtained show that the musical activities correlates positively with the positive evolution of the pre-requisites of learning.La musica viene utilizzata come canale elettivo nella prevenzione dei disturbi di apprendimento. Il DSA è una disabilità specifica dell’apprendimento, di origine neurobiologica, che interessa uno specifico dominio di abilità (lettura, scrittura, calcolo). Il corso di propedeutica musicale è stato rivolto a bambini dai 4 ai 6 anni, fascia di età in cui la diagnosi di DSA non può ancora essere effettuata ma si possono individuare i bambini a rischio attraverso la valutazione dei prerequisiti di apprendimento. Obiettivo: intervenire in maniera preventiva sulle difficoltà di apprendimento, attraverso il potenziamento dei prerequisiti necessari, con attività propedeutica musicale nella scuola d’infanzia. Metodo: il campione esaminato è composto da 50 bambini appartenenti ad una popolazione d’età compresa dai 4 ai 6 anni. Al campione è stato somministrato il test per la valutazione dei prerequisiti di apprendimento, il Prcr-2 di Cornoldi (2009), prima e dopo il trattamento, riguardante uno specifico metodo di propedeutica musicale con attività di pre-scrittura e pre-lettura delle 7 note (nel pentagramma) durato per 4 mesi. Conclusioni: i dati ottenuti evidenziano come l’ attività musicale correli positivamente col miglioramento dei prerequisiti di apprendimento.peerReviewe

Clean technology, willingness to pay and market size

This paper extends Salop&rsquo;s model of localized competition by introducing the consumers&rsquo; willingness to pay (WTP) for clean products and allows an individual firm to choose between a clean or a dirty technology. We assume that a clean technology is relatively costly to adopt. The consumer is willing to pay more for a product produced with clean technology and the model can also be interpreted as a world economy model where each firm represents a country. There exists a critical value of m (proportion of firms adopting the clean technology), m*, such that if m &lt; m* then no country adopts the clean technology, all countries adopt the clean technology only if m &gt; m* while some countries will adopt the clean technology and some will not adopt the clean technology if m = m*. Our results also identify an example of coordination failure. Since symmetric technology adoption delivers the same level of profits as non-adoption, global coordination will be necessary to achieve the clean technology adoption outcome. Finally, we demonstrate that theprivate and public (social planner) incentives to adopt clean technology differ.<br /

Tourism, Trade and Domestic Welfare

Tourism has been regarded as a major source of economic growth and a good source of foreign exchange earnings. Tourism has also been considered as an activity that imposes costs on the host country. Such costs include increased pollution, congestion and despoliation of fragile environments and intra-generational inequity aggravation. One aspect that has been ignored is the general equilibrium effects of tourism on the other sectors in the economy. These effects can be quite substantial and should be taken into account when assessing the net benefits of a tourism boom on an economy. This paper presents a model which captures the interdependence between tourism and the rest of the economy, in particular agriculture and manufacturing. We examine the effect of a tourist boom on structural adjustment, commodity and factor prices and more importantly resident welfare. An important result obtained is that the tourist boom may “immiserize” the residents. This occurs because of two effects. The first, a favourable effect due to an increase in the relative price of the non-traded good which is termed the secondary terms of trade effect. The second, a negative effect due to an efficiency loss that occurs in the presence of increasing returns to scale in manufacturing. If this second effect outweighs the first effect, resident immiserization occurs.Tourism, Trade welfare