Twyla Tharp’s Classical Impulse

This chapter focuses on Twyla Tharp’s career-long engagement with classical ballet. In particular, it looks at Deuce Coupe (1973) and In the Upper Room (1986) and suggests these works, that featured classical and modern-trained dancers together on the same stage, constitute early experiments in contemporary ballet. Tharp did not hybridize the dance forms; rather, she allowed them to coexist in a discrete, stylistic duality. This chapter asks how this radical juxtaposition of genres might have contemporized the classical ballet form. Early negative critical reception to Tharp’s use of traditional ballet choreography and pointe shoes raises the question of possible gender biases against Tharp as a female choreographer in a male-dominated field. While Tharp considers herself a modern and ballet choreographer, this chapter proposes it is through the pastiche of dance postmodernism that Tharp was able to incorporate classical ballet as a ready-made and that her work of the period can be read as early prototypes of the contemporary ballet genre.

The use of modern bactericidal UV irradiators in poultry houses for broilers

Increased microbial load in the air of poultry houses for broilers is a serious and urgent problem since it leads to the decreased productivity in broilers and pollution of the open air in the farms and adjacent territories. The use of modern ultraviolet (UV) irradiators for populated poultry houses with floor housing of broilers is proposed as the solution of the problem. A regime for the use of upper-room UV irradiators with amalgam ozone-free bactericidal lamps was developed. The device “Recirculator of ventilated air” (RVA) was developed for the regime of air sanitation using closed UV irradiation. Disinfection of air within the poultry houses with the use of these techniques improved live bodyweight and decreased mortality level in broilers.

Upper-room ultraviolet air disinfection might help to reduce COVID-19 transmission in buildings: a feasibility study

As the world’s economies come out of the lockdown imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an urgent need for technologies to mitigate COVID-19 transmission in confined spaces such as buildings. This feasibility study looks at one such technology, upper-room ultraviolet (UV) air disinfection, that can be safely used while humans are present in the room space, and which has already proven its efficacy as an intervention to inhibit the transmission of airborne diseases such as measles and tuberculosis. Using published data from various sources, it is shown that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the causative agent of COVID-19, is highly likely to be susceptible to UV-C damage when suspended in air, with a UV susceptibility constant likely to be in the region 0.377–0.590 m2/J, similar to that for other aerosolised coronaviruses. As such, the UV-C flux required to disinfect the virus is expected to be acceptable and safe for upper-room applications. Through analysis of expected and worst-case scenarios, the efficacy of the upper-room UV-C approach for reducing COVID-19 transmission in confined spaces (with moderate but sufficient ceiling height) is demonstrated. Furthermore, it is shown that with SARS-CoV-2, it should be possible to achieve high equivalent air change rates using upper-room UV air disinfection, suggesting that the technology might be particularly applicable to poorly ventilated spaces.