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Towards a Latin American feminist cinema: The case of Cine Mujer in Columbia
No full textThis article contextualises and characterises the history and film production of the Colombian feminist film collective Cine Mujer, and analyses how its collective and collaborative practices challenged auteurism. From 1978 to the late 1990s, Cine Mujer produced several short films, documentaries, series, and videos, and acted as a distribution company of Latin American women’s cinema. Its twenty years of activity possibly make it one of the world’s longest-lasting feminist film collectives. Yet, its history is largely unknown in Colombia and abroad. Thus, the question that motivates this article is related to how to inscribe Cine Mujer in film history without uncritically reproducing the methodologies that cast a shadow on women’s cinema. Throughout its trajectory, Cine Mujer transitioned from being an independent cinematic project interested in artistic experimentation to a media organization that produced educational videos commissioned by governmental and global institutions and often targeted at marginalised women. Based on interviews conducted with some of the Cine Mujer members, the Cine Mujer’s catalogues, and its films and videos, I organise Cine Mujer’s corpus of work in three main modes of production that disrupt the role of the auteur and the centrality of the director
Cinematic Islamic feminism and the female war gaze: Reflections on Waad Al-Kataeb’s For Sama
No full textOne of 2019’s most acclaimed documentaries, Waad Al-Kateab’s For Sama is an extraordinary feminist representation of the Syrian civil war (2011present). Al-Kateab impressively documents five years of the most traumatic contemporary conflict in the Middle East by focusing on personal confessions to Sama, her new-born daughter. Raw, dramatic, and sometimes unbearable to watch, it is a poetic tribute to a micro-level, “singularly unmanly”, and painfully intimate portrayal of war and hope (Montgomery). A mixture of love and horror unfold through a kaleidoscopic personal narrative that broaches macro-political and religious subjects without centralising them in the cinematic experience. This article discusses how Al-Kateab’s documentary is a novel and risky experiment that intermingles the female war gaze with a subtle, image-based Islamic feminism. Capitalising on Svetlana Alexievich’s “female war gaze”, which represents the invisible stories of women in war, I show how Al-Kateab’s cinematography expands the scope of the female war experience through carefully selected visual refences to Islamic ethical praxis, as interiorised by the camerawoman. For Sama is simultaneously an intimate motherly confession and act of both “listening” and “remembrance” (as the praxis of the Sufi Samāʿ suggests). In short, it mediates an ethical truth about the human condition in ruins
Applying machine learning towards automating resource management in cloud computing environments
No full textOver the last number of years there has been high acceleration and widespread adoption of cloud based services by many different industries to improve the scalability and reliability of their services while also reducing costs. The popularity of the cloud has invoked major concern for the high energy consumption and carbon emissions evident in the operation of data centers today. One of the key causes of high energy consumption is inefficient resource management. While much effort in recent years has been devoted to achieving improved energy efficient resource management strategies, performance uncertainty has also become a major hindrance for cloud resource management systems. Performance uncertainties present significant challenges for planning and provisioning Virtual Machine (VM) resource allocation and scheduling in the cloud while having negative impacts overall in achieving greater energy efficiencies and improved Quality of Service (QoS). Unlike traditional resource management strategies that rely on heuristics this work presents novel forecasting based approaches for scheduling and allocating the computational resources of public cloud infrastructure. Our goal is to extend and make advancements upon existing research by applying and comparing the performance of state of the art learning algorithms using real world data. We explore how these advanced approaches can be incorporated to give rise to intelligent resource management systems with the capacity to make improved decisions under uncertainty. In particular, we propose and analyse several interesting variations and extensions to problems such as workflow scheduling, dynamic VM consolidation and also VM migration. The results obtained from this research indicate the immense potential of adopting learning based methodologies to optimise resource usage, improve performance and overall attempt to reach new frontiers in energy efficiency
Ignition delay time measurements of diesel and gasoline blends
No full textBlends of diesel and gasoline can be used to achieve certain desired ignition characteristics in advanced compression ignition engine concepts. In this work, ignition delay times were measured for two blends of diesel and gasoline in two shock tubes and in a rapid compression machine. These blends comprised of 50/50 and 25/75 volumetric% of diesel and gasoline, respectively. To ensure complete vaporization of the blends, the prepared samples were analyzed with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and laser ab- sorption. The analyses revealed full evaporation, and negligible decomposition/oxidation occurred during mixture preparation. Ignition delay measurements covered wide ranges of temperatures (710 1349 K), pressures (10 and 20 bar), and equivalence ratios (0.5, 1.0 and 2.0). The measured ignition delay times of the two dieseline blends are compared with experimental data of low- to mid-octane gasoline and low- to high-cetane fuels. The measured data are also compared with the simulated ignition delay times of primary reference fuel (PRF) and toluene primary reference fuels (TPRF) surrogates. Multi-component surrogates are proposed for the dieseline blends, and the measured ignition delays of the multi-component surrogates and the dieseline blends are in very good agreement.The paper is based on work supported by Saudi Aramco Research and Development Center FUELCOM program under Master Research Agreement Number 6600024505/01 and the Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). FUELCOM (Fuel Combustion for Advanced Engines) is a collaborative research undertaking between Saudi Aramco and KAUST intended to address the fundamental aspects of hydrocarbon fuel combustion in engines, and develop fuel/engine design tools suitable for advanced combustion modes. The authors at NUI Galway recognize funding support from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) via their Principal Investigator Program through project number 15/IA/3177.2022-09-2
Noncoherent Joint Transmission Beamforming for Dense Small Cell Networks: Global Optimality, Efficient Solution and Distributed Implementation
No full textWe investigate the coordinated multi-point noncoherent joint transmission (JT) in dense small cell networks. The goal is to design beamforming vectors for macro cell and small cell base stations (BSs) such that the weighted sum rate of the system is maximized, subject to a total transmit power at individual BSs. The optimization problem is inherently nonconvex and intractable, making it difficult to explore the full potential performance of the scheme. To this end, we first propose an algorithm to find a globally optimal solution based on the generic monotonic branch reduce and bound optimization framework. Then, for a more computationally efficient method, we adopt the inner approximation (InAp) technique to efficiently derive a locally optimal solution, which is numerically shown to achieve near-optimal performance. In addition, for decentralized networks such as those comprising of multi-access edge computing servers, we develop an algorithm based on the alternating direction method of multipliers, which distributively implements the InAp-based solution. Our main conclusion is that the noncoherent JT is a promising transmission scheme for dense small cell networks, since it can exploit the densitification gain, outperforms the coordinated beamforming, and is amenable to distributed implementation.Science Foundation IrelandUniversity College DublinAcademy of Finlan
“Will you meet me on Clare Island?”: Music-making, islandness and ethnography in a small island community
No full textThis dissertation presents an ethnographic account of music and social life on Clare Island, a small community off the west coast of Ireland. Focusing on the structures and settings of music-making, the research details the interactions between island environment and performance in the expression of island life in the twenty-first century. This original research demonstrates music-making as a fundamental process in island community life and an important measure of island health or vitality. Along with examining music-making on Clare Island, the work also explores representations of island life within Irish cultural discourse and suggests dissimilarities between popular narrative and islander experience.
The ethnography centres on fieldwork conducted in 2017 but includes an historical perspective in the analysis. Grounded through ethnographic detail and living memory, this history examines the changing contexts of music-making and island life since the 1940s. Through this modern history, the ethnography describes music-making as an enduring social process in island life. The details of music-making on Clare Island in the twenty-first century suggest that against a changing social, economic and technological environment the universal themes of social bonding persist as core values in the island experience.
The research greatly expands the scope of Irish Studies and also makes important contributions to the fields of ethnomusicology, anthropology, cultural history and Island Studies. This ethnography also complements the Royal Irish Academy’s multidisciplinary research in the New Survey of Clare Island, rounding out the analysis of Clare Island with a comprehensive account of community life in the twenty-first century. Through its analysis of music and island life in the twenty-first century, this dissertation makes an original contribution to knowledge.2021-09-2
Policymaking through a knowledge lens: Using the embodied-enacted-inscribed knowledge framework to illuminate the transfer of knowledge in a mental health policy consultation process – A South African case study
No full textMarrying principles of evidence-based policymaking, with its focus on what works, with
principles of consultative policymaking, with its focus on what works for whom, means
finding ways to integrate multiple knowledge inputs into policy decisions. Viewed through
the lens of the embodied-enacted-inscribed knowledge framework, policy consultation is a
site of knowledge enactment, where the embodied knowledge enacted by individuals engages with the inscribed knowledge contained in policy documents, creating new forms of embodied and inscribed knowledge that move beyond these spaces. Aim: Using this knowledge framework, this study aimed to trace the movement of knowledge inputs through South Africa’s mental health policy consultation summit. Methods: Breakaway group session transcripts from the national consultation summit were thematically analysed to identify the types of knowledge that participants explicitly drew on (experiential or evidence-based) during discussions and how these knowledge inputs were used, responded to, and captured. Findings: Findings suggest that there was little explicit reference to either evidence-based or experiential knowledge in most of the talk. While slightly more evidence-based than experiential knowledge claims were made, this did not render these claims any more likely to be responded to or engaged with in group discussions, or to be inscribed in group recommendations. Discussion: The importance of designing participatory processes that enable optimal use of knowledge inputs in these enacted spaces is discussed. Conclusion: Attending to the specific ways in which knowledge is transformed and moved through a policy consultation process has the potential to enhance the value that consultation offers policymaker
Urology during COVID-19 pandemic crisis: A systematic review
No full textBackground Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has evolved as a pandemic of
unimaginable magnitude. The health care system is facing a tremendous challenge to
provide ethical and quality care. The transformation of the patient-based care to
population-based care during the COVID-19 pandemic has raised ethical dilemma
among urologists. Our objective is to explore the consensus in modified standard
urology care, that can be adopted and applied during COVID-19 and similar pandemic.
Methods We adopted an exploratory study design using secondary data. The data
were extracted from a web-based medical library using keywords “COVID-19,” “severe
acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),” and “urology.” We identify
and extrapolate (screening, eligibility, and inclusion) the data using PRISMA protocol,
and summarize pandemic standard urology care under four main themes: (1) general
urology care, (2) choice of surgical modality, (3) triage, and (4) urology training.
Result We identified 63 academic papers related to our research question. The
majority are expert opinions and perspectives on urology care. The common consensus
is triage-based urology care and surgeries. Life or organ threatening conditions need
immediate attention. Universal protective measures (personal protective equipment,
safe operative environment) and protocol-based patient care are necessary to prevent
and control SARS-CoV-2 infection. Conservation of the resources and its rational
distribution provide an ethical basis for population-based health care during a
pandemic. Informed decision making serves best to patients, families, and society
during the public health crisis. Conclusion COVID-19 pandemic tends to transform standard urology practice into crisis standard population-based care. The consensus in crisis is drawn from evolving pieces of medical evidence and public health ethics. The provision of urology care during a pandemic is based on the availability of resources; severity of the disease, consequences of deferment of service, and dynamics of the pandemic
Attitudes to and awareness of Safety and Risk among Professional and Semi-Professional Footballers in Ireland: A Cross-Sectional Study
No full textThis paper examines the attitudes towards safety and risk among professional and semi-professional footballers during the 2014 League of Ireland season. As part of a broader nationally-representative study examining occupational safety and health and concussion injury awareness among professional footballers, this study is the first and largest investigation of its kind in Ireland. A census survey using an anonymous questionnaire was provided to all clubs that were available in the League of Ireland clubs between March and May 2015. Permission to access players was provided by the Professional Footballers Association of Ireland. Participation was voluntary. At the time, there were 250 professional and semi-professional players within the League available to participate of which 149 footballers participated voluntarily and anonymously. Sixty per cent of the participants were employed on a semi-professional basis, and the majority of all participants were aged between 18 and 30. Analysis indicated that there were few significant associations betweenplayers’ professional status and attitudes towards issues relating to safety management and risk taking. Players in general have an unacceptable level (<20%) of awareness concerning their clubs safety programs. The results have implications for stakeholders responsible for management of safety and risk in professional football clubs
Zoom Out Camera! The Reflexive Character of an Enactive Account
No full textThe reflexive character of enactive theory is spelled out, in an effort to make explicit that which is usually implicit in debate: that we are responsible for the distinctions we draw, and that ultimately, the world that we collectively characterize is a joint production. Enaction, as treated here, is not a positivist scientific field, but an epistemologically self-conscious way to ground our understanding of the value-saturated lives of embodied beings. This stance is seen as entirely congruent with the scientific field of ecological psychology, which is itself then cast as a specific example of the kind of science that can be done in an enactive mode