Sadism, Alienation, Disintegration: Lowbrow Horror Films and Existential Thought in Postwar America, 1955-1968

Postwar American horror films were frequently preoccupied with existential questions about the Outsider, anxiety, intersubjectivity, and meaning. This thesis demonstrates, through textual analysis of a selection of case studies from the films of producers William Castle and Roger Corman, that lowbrow horror mediated on the existential themes and debates that saturated postwar American culture, particularly youth culture, often through means ridiculed and celebrated as “bad” by later critics and scholars. Textual analysis is supported by a cultural studies approach, drawing on Barbara Klinger’s work, arguing meaning is negotiated by contextual factors and historical reception. The present research concludes that these films drew potential existential meanings, especially for young audiences who made up the bulk of regular cinemagoers by 1960, through participation within contemporary existential debates around identity and meaning. Postwar industry trends (the package-unit system; audience diversification; independent producers) meant greater emphasis was placed on distinguishing film features for target markets. Many lowbrow horror films were aligned with the existential debates that registered with youth culture, even as the genre was upscaled in the 1960s and targeted more legitimate, middle-class attitudes through mediation on psychological problems which were often read at the time as existential concerns (drawing associations with prestigious 1940s psychological melodramas). These strategies contributed to the rise of a “New” Hollywood of commercial art-films and blockbuster in the late-1960s, wherein play association with existentialism is often taken for granted. This research offers a fresh approach to the period that links alignment with existential ideas to broader developments within American film, and two periods (1940s psychological melodrama and New Hollywood) in which existentialism is taken for granted that provides a model for future research into the cultural-historiographical relationships between popular film and philosophical ideas

Investigating changes in motor activation after tDCS

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a stimulation modality commonly used in motor rehabilitation research, however there is still debate surrounding the neural effects, even in healthy participants. This study thus looked to assess whether tDCS over the primary motor cortex (M1) had any significant effects on the brain motor areas in healthy right-handed participants. Within a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, a motor task, comprised move and rest blocks, was performed baseline and post stimulation. Anodal, cathodal or sham tDCS (1mA - 20 minutes) were performed on the left M1 in a within subject design (3 separate sessions per participant). Region of Interest (ROI) group baseline analysis for the contrast move>rest found the task activated all motor ROIs [p value <0.05, Family wise error (FWE) corrected]. The contrast baseline<post revealed a significant increase in brain activity in the stimulated M1 [p value <0.001, uncorrected] for cathodal stimulation, and a significant increase in brain activity in the stimulated M1 [p value <0.001, uncorrected] and ipsilateral SMA [p value <0.05, FWE corrected]. No significant changes in activity were found for sham stimulation or the contrast baseline<post. Interactional analysis of all tDCS polarities across the baseline<post contrast found significant brain activity changes in the Cerebellum Areas 4, 5 and 6 [p value <0.05, FWE corrected]. This study therefore indicates that tDCS has widespread effects on the motor network, with anodal tDCS increasing brain activity in certain motor areas as predicted

Towards a model of talent development in physical education

Traditional conceptions of talent generally emphasise the construction of threshold values and the development of relatively unitary abilities, and this approach still dominates talent development programmes for elite sport. Most researchers on high ability, however, now favour domain-specific, multidimensional conceptions of ability that stress the development of behavioural potential and its interaction with personal and environmental characteristics. This paper presents a model of talent in physical education, drawing together findings from a wide range of literature on the realisation and inhibition of abilities, international studies of effective school-based identification and provision strategies, and a conception of the subject as an integration and realisation of different forms of ability. In presenting this model, the authors aim to redress the imbalance within the current debate from an almost total concern with out-of-school clubs and the preparation for adult elite sport, in favour of a more equitable and inclusive approach, premised upon the unique importance of mainstream, curricular physical education within any talent development scheme

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

An Introduction To Marine Invasive Species

Countless marine species are invading new environments with devastating effects on the ecosystem, the local and global economy, and on human health. The frequency of marine invasions has been increasing in recent decades with a respective raised interest of invasive species in the scientific community, and the general public. The Aquatic Invasive Species class (MAR442) at the University of New England offers an informative overview of invasive species, targeting educated readers with a general interest in invasive species biology. Students in the MAR 442 class have worked on identifying the most important topics on marine invasive species, have reviewed the respective literature and written chapters that provide both a broad overview of the general aspects on marine invasions, as well as a set of individual case studies that illustrate different specific aspects of marine invasions. The class, comprised of fifteen junior and senior marine biology students, selected the different topics, presented the material, wrote the drafts, edited the drafts and assembled the final versions into this book. With a wealth of information on invasive species assembled in peer-reviewed articles, books, other literature, websites, data-bases and more, this book cannot claim to be all inclusive. However, we think that this book will provide an excellent broad overview of the most important aspects of marine invasion biology, and will furthermore provide very specific information on selected topics.https://dune.une.edu/marinesci_studproj/1000/thumbnail.jp

Low-impact rearing of a commercially valuable shellfish: sea-based container culture of European lobster Homarus gammarus in the United Kingdom

This is the final version. Available on open access from Inter Research via the DOI in this recordThere is increasing interest in the aquaculture of high-value shellfish species such as European lobster Homarus gammarus. Recent years have seen the development of extractive rearing equipment requiring no additional feed input, including novel sea-based container culture (SBCC) systems designed specifically for lobster mariculture. Here, we report the results of a study which assessed the impact of SBCC systems on the local ecology surrounding a pilot-scale lobster farm (Lobster Grower) integrated into an existing mussel farm in St Austell Bay, Cornwall, UK, across 2 monitoring surveys. We assessed the impact of SBCC systems on the macrobenthic, epifaunal, and mobile species ecology across the study area through benthic grab sampling, drop-down camera, and baited-remote underwater video (BRUV) monitoring. We detected no changes to local sediment composition around SBCC systems, nor changes in macrobenthic diversity or community structure. Increased detritus and biodeposition originating from SBCC systems may be attracting increased epifaunal scavengers, while the presence of the containers and associated infrastructure may act as fish-aggregating devices and provide additional foraging opportunities for mobile fish. These extractive systems may provide low-impact and low-carbon opportunities for coastal mariculture in the face of increased global demand for shellfish.Innovate UKBiotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)Worshipful Company of Fishmonger

The meaningful art of 'one of the worst movies of all time': Phil Tucker's Robot Monster as an existential critique of American modernity

This article analyses one of the ‘worst movies ever made’, Robot Monster (Tucker 1953), demonstrating how the text, through weirdness, pulpy absurdity and cinematic ineptitude, examines and mediates on the existential anxieties of modern America during the Cold War. Through the strange language of gorilla-robots and alien invasion, the text articulates those existential anxieties that arise from our awareness of freedom vs. the need to be contingent under increasingly interconnected societal conditions. As such, Robot Monster is also posited as a contribution to contemporary intellectual currents of the 1950s. This article will investigate the sense in which the key aspects of the film: Ro-Man society as mass society; Ro-Man as conflicted between ‘must’ and ‘cannot’; Ro-Man as a gorilla-robot; the perspective of Johnny’s dream, articulate and mediate on those anxieties. An examination of Robot Monster allows us to appreciate the ways in which ‘bad’ cinema creates alternative ways of seeing the problems and existential anxieties of contemporary American modernity