Production Circumstances Research Articles

Foreign Bodies in the Nuremberg Chronicle

Hartmann Schedel’s Liber Chronicarum (1493), better known as the Nuremberg Chronicle, pictures and describes world civilisations and illustrious individuals from Creation to 1493. Although its sources and circumstances of production have been extensively explored, the cultural significance of its many woodcut images has received far less attention. This preliminary study highlights relationships between images, audience and the humanist agenda of Schedel and his milieu by examining selected representations of cultural outsiders with reference to external illustrated genres that demonstrated the centrality of Others in German Christian culture. I argue that the Chronicle’s images of ‘foreign bodies’ harnessed their audience’s established fascination with monsters, wonders, witchcraft, Jews and the Ottoman Turks to advance the German humanist goal of elevating the position of Germania on the world historical stage and in so doing, contributed to the emerging idea of a German national identity.

A Survey on the survival of Lactobacillus paracasei in fermented and non-fermented frozen soy dessert

Abstract Recent developments in functional food have heightened the need for a further investigation about manufacture newest functional products for various consumers. The circumstances of production and preservation of these products need to be surveyed as well. The purpose of this study was to determine the survival rate of Lactobacillus paracasei in fermented and non-fermented frozen soy dessert, as well as evaluation of the physicochemical, rheological and sensory properties of the products. Fermented and non-fermented probiotic frozen soy dessert containing Lactobacillus paracasei ssp. paracasei was manufactured. Physicochemical, rheological and sensory properties of the products were assessed. The viable cell counts of L. paracasei was monitored during 180 days storage at −24 °C. A significant increase (p

“Pagan Babies”: Orphan Imagery in the Passionist China Collection and the Emergence of American Sympathy for the Chinese in the Early Twentieth Century

Images of Chinese children generated by Christian missionaries played an important role in shaping American perceptions of China in the first half of the twentieth century. This article draws upon the recently-digitized Passionist China Collection of missionary photographs in order to discuss the importance of orphan imagery to mission fundraising, missionary approaches to children, and the establishment of sentimental bonds between missionaries, the Chinese, and American mission supporters. By examining “pagan baby” campaigns in the 1920s and 1930s which urged American Catholics to contribute to the care of a faraway Chinese orphan, this article attempts to frame the historical meaning of Chinese orphan imagery, the circumstances of missionary cultural production, and the various cultural, social, and economic functions served by these images. Through the circulation of their images in missionary magazines and beyond, Chinese orphans emerged as familiar figures that came to exemplify ideas of American benevolence and cross-cultural sympathy.

Viaje al corazón de las tinieblas: Crónicas, ficciones y ambigüedades sobre la Alemania nazi en Manuel Mujica Lainez

Manuel Mujica Lainez was a prolific writer whose work spanned for more than fifty years. Even though he is better known for his novels and short stories, he has also dedicated his efforts to other genres, for example travel chronicles. This research, which is inserted in a line of work already begun in previous studies, proposes to study the travel chronicles written by the author in 1935 and 1945 when visiting Germany. The chronicles put into tension aspects related to the circumstances of production of each series, its context of publication, the writer’s ideology, and his aesthetic interests. In addition to this, it is interesting to consider the reasons that could have taken the author to exclude most of these texts from the anthology he published before passing and the way in which some of these anecdotes are introduced in Cecil (1972).

Design considerations for virtual laboratories: A comparative study of two virtual laboratories for learning about gas solubility and colour appearance

Building a virtual laboratory for teaching and learning is a highly complex process, incorporating diverse areas such as interaction design, visualisation, and pedagogy. This article focuses on the production and implementation issues that were found in the comparison of two different virtual laboratory projects, and discuss which design considerations can be drawn from these observations. Two web-based virtual laboratories - the Gas Laboratory and the Virtual Colour Laboratory - were developed independently of each other within two different content areas. The laboratories share considerable overlaps in goals and production circumstances. Through a comparison of production and outcome, similar problems related to design, development and implementation were observed. The research uses a mixed method approach combining quantitative pre- and post-tests for assessments, qualitative surveys, and qualitative, ethnographic observations and interviews. By comparing the background material, five design challenges for developing virtual laboratories are identified: 1) how to balance ambitions with available resources; 2) how to balance intended levels of user interaction with exploratory freedom; 3) how to find appropriate levels of realism depending on target group; 4) how to choose between mimicking real world appearance and enhanced features; and 5) how to find the best learning situation for the virtual laboratory. To meet these challenges, the following design considerations are proposed: Guide the design work with a clear understanding of purpose and context; select appropriate technology to ensure efficient design and media usage; select level of realism considering purpose and end users; and provide learning guides before and after the virtual lab session.

The Architectural Production of India’s Everyday Modernism: Middle-class Housing in Pune, (1960-1980)

The large-scale appropriation of modernist architectural features in everyday housing projects in postcolonial India is remarkable. This article examines how regional architects adapted their engagement with architectural modernism to the evolving circumstances of architectural production within the context of the developing world. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s “field theory”, it presents a detailed case study of two decades of residential work by Architects United, a medium-scale architectural practice founded in the Indian city of Pune in 1961. While the architects’ earliest projects demonstrated an opportunity and desire for architectural innovation, this approach became increasingly restricted as new patterns for housing provision emerged, resulting in a more subdued and hybrid form of modernist architecture. The paper makes use of the architects’ previously undisclosed archive and oral history to demonstrate that these architectural adaptations were the indirect result of governance practices and societal change, particularly the government’s stimulation of co-operative housing initiatives and the emergence of a postcolonial middle class with distinct housing expectations. As such, this “peripheral” case exposes some of the processes that have been overlooked in the rhetoric of Architectural Modernism as a Western import in India, which is primarily centered around the discussion of exceptional public building commissions by “global experts” or their Indian disciples. The paper further highlights the need to investigate the processes of architectural production, in addition to the built product itself, so that a pluralistic rather than romanticized understanding of architectural practice may emerge.

고려시대 당초문겹보관의 제작 배경과 특징

고려시대 당초문겹보관의 제작 배경과 특징

Performance study of a microfluidic reactor for cogeneration of chemicals and electricity

The chemical and electrochemical performance of a microfluidic reactor for the cogeneration of nitrobenzene derivatives and electricity has been analysed. Reactor operation has been tested using loads of 100Ω and 1000Ω, allowing an in-depth characterisation replicating the circumstances of actual chemical production. Conversion rates of up to 64% and power densities of up to 0.299mWcm−2 have been attained. The main products obtained using this cogeneration co-laminar flow cell (CLFC) are aniline and nitrosobenzene. Nitrosobenzene is identified as a product generated by cogeneration while aniline is established to be an unwanted side-product at the anode due to oxidant crossover, which reduces the cogeneration efficiency. Reactor stability has been determined by monitoring of the anode, cathode and cell potentials. Self-poisoning of the anode reaction leads to loss in electrical performance. Due to its ability to self-regenerate, the power density shows an oscillating behaviour over time. Results in this paper reveal that the concept of a cogeneration microreactor is promising, although the anode reaction and the mass transfer in the reactor can still be optimised further for actual applications.

Variation in the actual preferences for AI bull traits among Finnish dairy herds.

Changing production circumstances, a wide range of traits and the international bull market enable dairy farmers to make increasingly specific choices concerning artificial insemination (AI) bulls. Finland is part of the joint Nordic dairy cattle breeding programme where in addition to yield, high emphasis is given to health, fertility, conformation and longevity. The aims of our study were (a) to investigate whether Finnish dairy farmers differ in their selection preferences for AI bull traits and can be clustered into herd groups, (b) to determine whether AI bull selection in different herd groups is in line with the Nordic Total Merit index (NTM) and (c) to analyse how the herd groups are related to herd characteristics. We used a statistical cluster analysis to analyse AI bull usage and to group herds according to each herd's bull selection profile determined by the traits' estimated breeding value (EBV) mean weighted by the number of inseminations for the various traits. We identified four herd groups in both Ayrshire (AY) and Holstein (HOL) breeds: Production, Fertility, All-rounders, and Conformation. The herds' bull selection profiles were mostly close to the NTM except in the Conformation herd groups where traits other than conformation were nearly neglected. This led to poorer expected genetic and economic outcomes than with the NTM selection. Conformation herds were a minority, but they were larger in herd size and investments had recently been made. The data suggest that either fine-tuning the weights in the NTM, forming alternative indices or developing a herd-specific total merit index (TMI) could fulfil the needs of very diverse herds.

Manuscritos caligráficos en fondos antiguos: análisis del ms. Göttingen Schönschriften (ca. 1560)

Se analizan las principales características del manuscrito caligráfico titulado Schönschriften (=Bellas escrituras) hallado en la biblioteca histórica de la Universidad de Göttingen (Alemania). Se aplica un método basado en los principios de la descripción material para desentrañar aspectos formales, virtuosismo técnico y estético, y circunstancias históricas de producción y uso de las “Artes de escribir” de los siglos XVI y XVII. Estos ejemplos muestran la necesaria integración entre investigación y práctica caligráfica. Sus resultados se pueden aplicar a la mejora de la formación bibliotecológica y paleográfica de personal responsable de la gestión de fondo antiguo.

Behold … All Things New: Uppsala 1968 and Its Mediatization as Film

AbstractThe 4th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 1968 occurred during a period of increasing influence of the media in shaping society and culture. The documentary film Behold … All Things New, produced by Radio Sweden for the WCC's 1968 assembly in Uppsala, reflected this development. It was, however, both a promotional tool for the church and a sort of documentary. This article analyzes the film from the context of church media relations, examining the strengthened mediatization of the religious arena in the 20th century and giving close attention to the circumstances of the film's production, its narrative techniques, and visual realization. In this way, the film is made accessible as a historical source for the WCC and thus also for the history of the globalization of churches. The film places into perspective the connection between mediatization and secularization, as it represents the churches' integration into modern media society with all of its visual symbols of globality, ecumenism, and willingness to enter into dialogue.

Memory, Community and Textuality in Nonconformist Life‐Writings, 1760‐1810

AbstractThis article asks why memorial writing was so important for religious Dissenters in the eighteenth century, and what the role of women was in the production of nonconformist culture, by investigating the material circumstances of production, preservation and dissemination of life‐writings. It introduces the editorial and commemorative activities of Mercy Doddridge and Jane Attwater, asks how a writer's confessional identity might find its way into the structure and content of her writing and compares processes of composition for printed texts with the compilation and preservation of manuscript records.

The Brutal Geographies of Yar Khan

This article attempts an experimental mode to ply the depths of a text’s relationship with its circumstances of production. Deploying an immersive praxis, the analysis aims to activate the autonomy of the short story ‘The Quest of Yar Khan’ through a rich engagement with its materiality, particularly its named geography. Revealing the text’s context in this way offers an opportunity to refresh the view of South Asia in peri-Federation Australia, a circumstance of which this short story is part.

“I Heard That Voice at Troy”: Resonance at The Other Place in Derek Walcott’s The Odyssey: A Stage Version

I examine the international structures of collaboration behind the first theatrical production of Derek Walcott’s The Odyssey: A Stage Version with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, July 1992. Reconsidering this play’s production in the context of colonial history, I argue, reveals ways in which The Odyssey foregrounds the constraints of its initial production circumstances in moments of meta-theatrical dissonance. In an effort to account for the temporality of production, diachronic literary object, and the trans-historical preoccupations of the work itself, I adopt Wai Chee Dimock’s “theory of resonance” to the context of postcolonial theatrical production. Through this lens, theatrical spaces like The Other Place become resonance chambers where resonances of all sorts—be they literary, as with allusions to Joyce’s Ulysses, historical, colonial, spatial, or even physical—reverberate not only with the institutions that structure them, but the affective dimensions of performance through which they are staged and embodied.

Maize lethal necrosis disease: Evaluating agronomic and genetic control strategies for Ethiopia and Kenya

Maize lethal necrosis disease (MLN) was first diagnosed in eastern Africa in the 2010's and is a big threat to their maize-based agri-food systems with estimated losses amounting to US$261 million in Ethiopia and US$198 million in Kenya. This paper reviews the agronomic and policy options to contain MLN and comparatively analyzes the feasibility of using maize-bean rotations and MLN-tolerant germplasm as key alternative strategies for managing MLN. Results from crop simulation and economic surplus models are used to make assessments on what strategy offers the most realistic MLN control approach given the circumstances of smallholder production in Kenya and Ethiopia. The paper finds that although maize-legume rotations are sound agronomic recommendations and are crucial for long term maize production system viability, their widespread application over large geographic areas for MLN control is economically challenging given that maize is a preferred staple. We conclude that scaling MLN-tolerant germplasm proves highly viable with estimated multiplier benefits of US$245-756 million in Ethiopia and US$195-678 million in Kenya, and benefiting up to 2.1 million people in Ethiopia and 1.2 million in Kenya. Given that the threat of MLN is present and ongoing, the food and economic security of maize-based agrarian economies in eastern Africa will critically depend on the successful mainstreaming of MLN tolerance in their maize seed systems.

Quo Vadis? by Enrico Guazzoni and Quo Vadis? by Gabriellino D’Annunzio: Production – Dramaturgy – Reception

The paper concentrates on two feature films based upon Henryk Sienkiewicz’s novel about ancient Rome – Quo Vadis? (dir. Enrico Guazzoni [1913]) and Quo Vadis? (dir. Gabriellino D’Annunzio, Georg Jacoby [1925]). Both films belong to the peplum genre, popular during the era of silent cinema. The paper reconstructs production circumstances of both films as well as their historical reception. It is argued that both films can be seen through the prism of socio-political contexts, including the colonial ambitions of the Italian state.

Underperformative economies: Discrimination and gendered ideas of workplace culture in San Francisco’s digital media sector

Drawing on recent research in feminist and cultural economic geography, as well as queer and affect theory, in this paper I examine the construction of ideas of workplace culture in the context of digital media work in San Francisco. I argue that in this context, workplace culture is produced as an idea that functions to describe certain individuals and behaviors as in or out of alignment with the firm’s established and gendered norms. I frame these observations around a discussion of affect and emotion in the workplace through a critical examination of interviews with workers in this setting. Drawing on Ngai’s framing of confidence as the tone of capitalism, and Berlant’s notion of underperformativity, I emphasize the gendered and affective dimensions of accumulation in the digital media sector, and how ideas of culture are discursively and materially constructed rather than natural or existing prior to their circumstances of production. In a practical sense, reproductions of a culture–economy dualism implicate gendered and other forms of discrimination in the workplace in terms of hiring practices, uneven distributions of (often emotional and unremunerated) work, and how difference in the workplace is valued or undermined.

Carbon-dioxide management network in Hungary

The detrimental environmental effect of the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere is a well-known problem. To answer the challenges of environmental protection, University of Miskolc, Hungary, established a network called “Environmental carbon-dioxide partnership” (eco2p.eu) so that this organization contributes to The solution of the global warming problem, Storage of renewable energy, Production of materials on renewable basis. To complete these goals the CO2 can be the key molecule, the called platform molecule that is used for the solution of these challenges. The CO2 can be transformed to either formic acid, methanol or natural gas, methane. These molecules can be used for the storage and production of energy or other chemicals. Beside the technological aims there are significant management activities on macroeconomic level, too. The efficient use of the technological solutions at the fluctuating circumstances of the renewable energy production should be determined. The split ratio between energy storage and/or renewable material production is also a key issue for the macroeconomic studies.

Prolegomenes a l’Edition critique de la version Grecque du manuscrit d’Iviron de Barlaam et Joasaph (cod. Athon. Iviron 463)

The 11th-century Byzantine manuscript Iviron 463 (Mount Athos) contains the abridged Ancient Greek version of the hagiographic romance Barlaam and Joasaph. Apart from the beautiful miniatures in the codex, it is also special because of a complete, heretofore not transcribed Old French translation running through the margin of the manuscript. Since the Old French text, which follows the Greek main text precisely, is severely fragmented especially on the side margins, its reconstruction can only be based upon the Greek original. This paper presents the unique readings of the Greek text in the Iviron codex not included in previous editions and summarizes the conclusions that can be drawn from these, illuminating significant aspects regarding the date and production circumstances of the Old French translation.

Framework for modeling operational uncertainty to optimize offsite production scheduling of precast components

Abstract Current precast production scheduling methodologies have limited applicability in practice due to the neglect of real-world production circumstances. To improve, a two-hierarchy simulation-GA hybrid model for precast production (TSGH_PP) is developed to (1) specialize the operations of precast production according to their characteristics, (2) incorporate the uncertainty in processing time in practice, and (3) model the process-waiting time on the flow of work based on the genetic algorithm and discrete event simulation. In the proposed model, the trade-off can be achieved between the conflicting goals of the on-time delivery of precast components and minimum production cost, and the production resources configuration is optimized to cut down resource waste. Finally, a real case study is conducted to test the validity of TSGH_PP approach. The developed model fills the gap in simulation system design and methodology for precast production, and increases the applicability of precast production scheduling methods in real construction projects.