Screening Europe in Australasia

This book challenges the historical myopia that treats Hollywood films as always having dominated global film culture through a detailed study of the circulation of European silent film in Australasia in the early twentieth century. Before World War I, European silent feature films were ubiquitous in Australia and New Zealand, teaching Antipodean audiences about Continental cultures and familiarizing them with glamorous European stars, from Asta Nielsen to Emil Jannings. After the rise of Hollywood and then the shift to sound film, this history—and its implications for cross-cultural exchange—was lost. Julie K. Allen recovers that history, with its flamboyant participants, transnational currents, innovative genres, and geopolitical complications, and brings it vividly to life. She reveals the complexity and competitiveness of the early cinema market, in a region with high consumer demand and low domestic production, and frames the dramatic shift to almost exclusively American cinema programming during World War I, contextualizing the rise of the art film in the 1920s in competition with mainstream Hollywood productions.

An Analysis of Gen Z's Electronic Gadgets Purchase Intention in Selected Cities in Metro Manila

Technology has revolutionized the world and our daily lives over the years. Technological advancements have had a wide-ranging impact on our lives, such as the dramatic shift in communication. This study is to determine what affects the purchase intention of Gen Z towards Electronic gadgets. Using the Descriptive Analysis and Cluster random sampling, data is collected through an online survey with the respondents of 150 in selected cities of Metro Manila. And findings suggest that brand identity plays a significant role in influencing the purchase intention of Generation Z. The people who will benefit from this paper are Businesses, Entrepreneurs, Future researchers, and retailers. It will give them enough information to be knowledgeable about the purchase intention of Gen Z consumers when it comes to electronic gadgets.

WhyD tailors surface polymers to prevent bacteriolysis and direct cell elongation in Streptococcus pneumoniae

Penicillin and related antibiotics disrupt cell wall synthesis in bacteria and induce lysis by misactivating cell wall hydrolases called autolysins. Despite the clinical importance of this phenomenon, little is known about the factors that control autolysins and how penicillins subvert this regulation to kill cells. In the pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae (Sp), LytA is the major autolysin responsible for penicillin-induced bacteriolysis. We recently discovered that penicillin treatment of Sp causes a dramatic shift in surface polymer biogenesis in which cell wall-anchored teichoic acids (WTAs) increase in abundance at the expense of lipid-linked lipoteichoic acids. Because LytA binds to these polymers, this change recruits the enzyme to its substrate where it cleaves the cell wall and elicits lysis. In this report, we identify WhyD (SPD_0880) as a new factor that controls the level of WTAs in Sp cells to prevent LytA misactivation and lysis. We show that WhyD is a WTA hydrolase that restricts the WTA content of the wall to areas adjacent to active PG synthesis. Our results support a model in which the WTA tailoring activity of WhyD directs PG remodeling activity required for proper cell elongation in addition to preventing autolysis by LytA.

Concentration-Dependent Association of Flavylium Chloride with Differential Hydroxy Moieties in Ethanol

Flavylium ions (6a–6e) were synthesized using Aldol condensation to compare the spectroscopic properties caused by the different numbers and locations of hydroxy groups on the flavylium cations (AH+). Without the addition of acid, increasing the concentration of flavylium ions to 10 mM in ethanol led to the following observation. The flavylium ions with the least number of OH groups (6a and 6b) showed a change in peak at higher concentrations, whereas 6c and 6d did not show the same degree of change in their 1H-NMR signals. This suggests an equilibrium that shifts the isomers B, CE, and Cz more towards the flavylium ion with more OH groups even at low concentrations. One possibility for the cause of this shift is that the flavylium ions become more stable through aggregation. In addition to the NMR results, the UV measurements confirmed that isomers with fewer OH groups showed a more dramatic shift towards the flavylium ion at higher concentrations. Using modeling data at DFT//B3LYP/6311**G(d) level, the self-association was investigated to show that the hydrogen bonding of OH groups is the main player but cannot stabilize entirely without the presence of the chloride ion in the complex.

The evolutionary impacts of synonymous mutations

During the 50 years since the genetic code was cracked, our understanding of the evolutionary consequences of synonymous mutations has undergone a dramatic shift. Synonymous codon changes were initially considered selectively neutral, and as such, exemplars of evolution via genetic drift. However, the pervasive and non-negligible fitness impacts of synonymous mutations are now clear across organisms. Despite the accumulated evidence, it remains challenging to incorporate the effects of synonymous changes in studies of selection, because the existing analytical framework was built with a focus on the fitness effects of nonsynonymous mutations. In this chapter, I trace the development of this topic and discuss the evidence that gradually transformed our thinking about the role of synonymous mutations in evolution. I suggest that our evolutionary framework should encompass the impacts of all mutations on various forms of information transmission. Folding synonymous mutations into a common distribution – rather than setting them apart as a distinct category – will allow a more complete and cohesive picture of the evolutionary consequences of new mutations.

A dental revolution: The association between occlusion and chewing behaviour

Dentistry is confronted with the functional and aesthetic consequences that result from an increased prevalence of misaligned and discrepant dental occlusal relations in modern industrialised societies. Previous studies have indicated that a reduction in jaw size in response to softer and more heavily processed foods during and following the Industrial Revolution (1,700 CE to present) was an important factor in increased levels of poor dental occlusion. The functional demands placed on the masticatory system play a crucial role in jaw ontogenetic development; however, the way in which chewing behaviours changed in response to the consumption of softer foods during this period remains poorly understood. Here we show that eating more heavily processed food has radically transformed occlusal power stroke kinematics. Results of virtual 3D analysis of the dental macrowear patterns of molars in 104 individuals dating to the Industrial Revolution (1,700–1,900 CE), and 130 of their medieval and early post-medieval antecedents (1,100–1,700 CE) revealed changes in masticatory behaviour that occurred during the early stages of the transition towards eating more heavily processed foods. The industrial-era groups examined chewed with a reduced transverse component of jaw movement. These results show a diminished sequence of occlusal contacts indicating that a dental revolution has taken place in modern times, involving a dramatic shift in the way in which teeth occlude and wear during mastication. Molar macrowear suggests a close connection between progressive changes in chewing since the industrialization of food production and an increase in the prevalence of poor dental occlusion in modern societies.

The 9th Lawrence R. Schehr Memorial Award Winning Essay

In the nineteenth century, France was no nation of modern language learners. This was not by any means because France was isolated from other nations: on the contrary, its increasing desire to expand its colonies, its international links through diplomacy, trade, and culture, and significant levels of immigration into France, all positioned it at the heart of a multicultural, multilingual global network. However, for much of the century, modern languages were widely considered to be a rather decorative accomplishment; it was only with France’s devastating defeat by Prussia in 1871 that the dearth of language skills among the French population began to cause widespread concern and to be seen as a worrying national weakness. Although lengthy texts and speeches mediated and scrutinized this dramatic shift for the upper classes, for the popular audiences of workers, artisans, and lower-middle class clerks and shopkeepers it was often café-concert song that confronted its novelty and its strangeness. Dozens of songs were written between 1870 and 1914 about teachers, pupils, dubious accents, and mediocre exam results. This article explores these songs - about Spanish, German, and English - to question how they reflect upon attitudes to language learning, upon popular perceptions of France’s neighboring nations, and upon the audience’s own sense of identity as Parisians and as French citizens.

Providers’ Perceptions of Telehealth Barriers Among Homebound Adults in in a Home-Based Primary Care Practice

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a dramatic shift to video-based telehealth use in home-based primary care. We conducted an online 11-item survey exploring provider perceptions of patients’ experience with and barriers to telehealth in a large HBPC program in New York City. More than one-third (35%) of patients (mean age of 82.7; 46.6% with dementia; mean of 4 comorbidities/patient) engaged in first-time video-based telehealth encounters between April and June 2020. The majority (82%) required assistance from a family member and/or paid caregiver. Among patients who had not used telehealth, providers deemed 27% (n=153) “unable to interact over video” for reasons including cognitive or sensory ability. Fourteen percent lacked caregivers. Physicians were not knowledgeable about patients’ internet connectivity, ability to pay for cellular plans, and video-capable device access. These findings highlight the need for novel approaches to facilitating telehealth and systematic data collection before targeted interventions to increase video-based telehealth use.

The impact of extraction protocol on the chemical profile of cannabis extracts from a single cultivar

The last two decades have seen a dramatic shift in cannabis legislation around the world. Cannabis products are now widely available and commercial production and use of phytocannabinoid products is rapidly growing. However, this growth is outpacing the research needed to elucidate the therapeutic efficacy of the myriad of chemical compounds found primarily in the flower of the female cannabis plant. This lack of research and corresponding regulation has resulted in processing methods, products, and terminology that are variable and confusing for consumers. Importantly, the impact of processing methods on the resulting chemical profile of full spectrum cannabis extracts is not well understood. As a first step in addressing this knowledge gap we have utilized a combination of analytical approaches to characterize the broad chemical composition of a single cannabis cultivar that was processed using previously optimized and commonly used commercial extraction protocols including alcoholic solvents and super critical carbon dioxide. Significant variation in the bioactive chemical profile was observed in the extracts resulting from the different protocols demonstrating the need for further research regarding the influence of processing on therapeutic efficacy as well as the importance of labeling in the marketing of multi-component cannabis products.