Polka Dots Research Articles

Peritoneal Dialysis in Patients with Crohn Disease: Absolute Contraindication or Grey Area with Pink and Purple Polka Dots?

Peritoneal Dialysis in Patients with Crohn Disease: Absolute Contraindication or Grey Area with Pink and Purple Polka Dots?

Transcending Boundaries: Yayoi Kusama’s Artistic Expression Through Accumulation, Soft Sculptures, and Polka Dots

Transcending Boundaries: Yayoi Kusama’s Artistic Expression Through Accumulation, Soft Sculptures, and Polka Dots

Cory Pesaturo: A Musician on a Mission

Cory Pesaturo: A Musician on a Mission

Sensory Ecology & Evolution

From a young age, children are fascinated by hide-and-seek games. These visual acuity games strengthen observational skills while increasing a competitive spirit to find a fellow playmate or a hidden object in an image. Unknowingly, children are using ecological and evolutionary principles of camouflage, mimicry, and adaptation when playing these classic games.The website Sensory Ecology & Evolution (https://www.sensoryecology.com/games), curated by the Centre for Ecology & Conservation at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, utilizes citizen science games to develop new tools to study visual observations in reference to organism coloration in a variety of realistic habitats. Human “predators” participate in computer experiments to contribute to an understanding of camouflage, disruptive coloration, and distractive markings. The center’s research also focuses on laboratory and field data with the aim of understanding animal vision, with applications to ecology, evolution, and animal behavior. Organisms, ranging from beetles to moths to crabs to frogs to hares to birds’ eggs to plants, are highlighted in the various citizen science games that will be sure to test your students’ visual acuity and be a perfect springboard for discussion around natural selection, adaptation, camouflage, and animal behavior, to name a few.When selecting a game for classroom or individual use, teachers should play the game first to test their own visual acuity. The habitats and various backgrounds are real images recorded and curated directly from the natural environments of the organisms. By clicking “start,” the participant agrees to have their data included in the larger research study. General instructions are included in the beginning of each game, with an example of the organism with size reference to be located. Silhouettes with various designs, ranging from solid colors to stripes to polka dots to more realistic-looking organisms such as frogs or herbs, are also featured in the games.Most of the games have a timer and bar count across the bottom of the screen where the observer is tasked with finding a particular number of organisms within a set time limit. Each game also asks whether the observer has played the game before. When one’s score and visual spotting percentage is revealed at the end of the game, it becomes a springboard for friendly competition with students. Most high school students would immediately jump at the chance to compete with me and with one another. The game provides a leaderboard at the end for quick identification, but an individual class leaderboard could also be easily generated as a class. Once the students recognize the organism’s shape and possible coloration and patterns, they will become invested in finding the organisms in the real images of habitats.The games can be utilized to introduce and reinforce observational skills or prior to evolution or ecology laboratories. For example, “Find the Camouflaged Moth” uses a simple triangular moth shape to see whether coloration or a particular pattern can evade predators more successfully. “Evolving Bugs” employs a beetle image to study whether a particular pattern optimizes camouflage. When introducing variation in a population, natural selection, and differential survival and reproduction, these games are perfect and contribute to a larger research endeavor.One of the highlights of these citizen science games is the ability to differentiate them for all grade levels. For example, “Spot the Hares” or “Frog Finder” can be utilized by lower elementary school students as they spot the hares or frogs among the field sites. Younger students can test their identification speed with a race against the clock and a chance to obtain a high score on the leaderboard, whereas an older student may connect the ability to spot the hare to climate change that could alter the snowy landscape over time. Furthermore, students can access the official publications and connect the games to the field studies, which enables the games to evolve into another educational opportunity for reading and evaluating scientific literature.When one thinks of camouflage, plants are not usually considered. However, one of the games, “Spot the Plant,” focuses on plant evolution of fritillaries used as medicinal plants in southwest China. This game is unique, in that one can play the game as a human or a yak. It is interesting to see how the selective pressure varies when the predators’ vision differs.As children explore the natural world, the classic hide-and-seek games can demonstrate the universal biological importance of observation, camouflage, and visual acuity. Biological principles and NGSS standards of natural selection, adaptation, environmental conditions, and biodiversity are evident in these citizen science games through Sensory Ecology & Evolution. A fun, competitive childhood game evolves into a research study worthy of further exploration.

Anthropogenic Climate Influences as Discrete ‘Polka Dots’

The conventional use of ‘globally averaged temperatures’ causes ambiguity in our perception of human climate effects. Satellite images show distinct clusters or 'nodes' of population, light, CO2, heat, and likely water vapour. These urban nodes juxtaposed with the intervening rural dark areas form a 'mosaic' perspective of the anthropogenic effects on climate. Over-averaging of these nodes to indicate a 'blanketing' effect and hiding the mosaic is likened to mis-diagnosing sharp appendicitis pain.

Picturing a World Without Prisons

Picturing a World Without Prisons Mariame Kaba The U.S. is a prison nation. There is no other society in the history of humanity that has imprisoned more people. Over 2.2 million people are incarcerated in this country; representing an over 500% increase since 1970. Yet research and anecdotal evidence show that incarceration makes people worse and does not improve public safety. Instead of spending money on drug treatment programs, meaningful employment initiatives, health care, affordable housing, and public education, our tax dollars funnel the most vulnerable populations into the prison system so that they may languish with little-to-no access to needed resources. This is not justice. Nor is it humane. We believe that this must change. We must dismantle the prison industrial complex. In order to do so, we have to envision what a world without prison can and should look like so that we can build that world together. Through this exhibit, which brings together the visions of incarcerated youth and people on the outside, we want to engage the public in imagining a world without prisons with us. ________ This exhibition was curated by Project NIA and Free Write Jail Arts & Literacy Program. It ran from November 11th through December 6th, 2013 at the HumanThread Center/Gallery for Nonviolence, Arts & Education, 1200 W. 35th Street (Bridgeport Art Center, 5th floor), Chicago, Illinois. https://aworldwithoutprisons.tumblr.com/archive [End Page 185] Click for larger view View full resolution Cabrini Coulda Been (2013) Photo & Statement by Veronica Stein Found Images: sustainable community design illustration superimposed upon former Cabrini Green site I experience a visceral reaction in my gut as I pass by the new Target store built upon the site of the former Cabrini Green housing project. I love Target. I get so much satisfaction browsing those spacious, neatly stocked aisles covered in red polka dots, filled with alluring items. I regularly convince myself they are my life's necessities. It's almost as though my conscious mind becomes brainwashed upon entering the store, and the problematic nature of "Made in Vietnam" tags do not influence my willingness to make a purchase. However this new Target is different. This Target I refuse to enter. This Target sparks my imagination of what this site coulda been. If residents were considered privileged community stakeholders, Cabrini Green might have offered affordable housing and included communal establishments such as the Cabrini Freedom School, The Cabrini Peoples Law Office, The Museum of the African Diaspora, The Center for Transformative and Restorative Justice, The Cabrini Center for Youth Advancement, The Cabrini Community Garden, The Cabrini Senior Center, The Cabrini Technology Education Center, The Cabrini Community Food Coop, The Cabrini Public Library, The Cabrini Center of Continuing Education, The Cabrini Center for Medicine and Wellness… This coulda been a site filled with public art, fountains, gardens, a movie theater, independent shopping establishments, sport and exercise facilities; all powered by solar and sustainable energy sources. In a world without prisons, this is what Cabrini Green coulda been. In a world consumed by a prison industrial complex contingent upon the restriction of fundamental human and community resources, this site is now a Target. This time, I refuse to enter. [End Page 186] Click for larger view View full resolution I Believe, Assata Photos & Statement by Silvia Inés Gonzalez Photo 1: Living and Birth Photo 2: Sweat of Love, Fire of Truth Photo 3: Seeds grow: Sprouts grow: Trees I experienced a sensitivity and awareness of light for a fraction of time, as light poetically embodied the concept of hope. The light will never be the exact same as it was that day. Its transformation allows a new narrative. We must continue to redevelop those narratives, believing what light, at a particular moment, can reveal of love, of our existence, of our truths. I believe in a world of vision and hope. Writing excerpts featured on the photographs are taken from Assata Shakur's poem, "I believe." [End Page 187] Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View full resolution "Picturing a World without Prisons" Photo and statement by Sarah Jane Rhee, Cadence, & Mariame Kaba [End Page 188] It was Victor...

A gathering of the three r’s: Resistance, refusal, and refuge

A gathering of the three r’s: Resistance, refusal, and refuge Leigh Patel1 I recall several times when my parents were headed out to have dinner or join a catered dinner party at one of father’s colleagues’ homes. I was most mesmerized and confused by my mother’s actions of ‘getting ready.’ She often wore a still-elegant silk ivory pant-suit with black polka dots. She would be ‘ready’ early and would paint her nails, always cut short because that would only get in the way of her sizeable labor in our home. She would blow on her freshly painted nails softly because there were just a few moments in which she was preparing to step across a door path, not just our home’s, but more significantly, across the threshold into of the all-white middle and upper middle class hosts and their guests. She would not speak to them of the work she might have done earlier in the day, including cooking for a family of five and keeping the household running to financially stable and navigating the bureaucracy to sponsor many relatives for resident visas in the United States. On the few occasions in which I had seen my mother at “company picnics,” I saw her veer towards the quiet side. The popular culture references abounded, but only a few made sense to her in such a way that she might recognize the tone. Those just-painted nails did the job just fine as she sat, for the most part, with her hands folded, and speaking almost exclusively at the welcome and thanking the hosts for the dinner party. Her painted nails were enough action for her to take; she did not seek to be part of the dinner party banter. I first encountered fugitivity, as so many others have, in my own home, in my own community. There was a dominant culture and language to be performed and articulated so that allegedly, our brown skin would through the myth of meritocracy upend the project of coloniality (Wynter, 2003). Who held these hopes and who would not be so attached to those hopes became the small moments in life where I witnessed, quite clearly, the subtle yet distinct ways of being with and at once agentively outside a dominant code and culture. The mythology of meritocracy conjoins with individualism to communicate that validation cannot be attempted without rendering other as lesser, good-trying, well-kept, but not of that culture. While so many migrants traverse this terrain in anything but a straight line, it remains territory to be traveling. Accent, phenotype, clothing some desiring a whiteness that will not include them and others desiring just enough whiteness so that they still know themselves and their children in their home codes of love and values. In the collection of articles in this volume of The High School Journal, we are offered three different yet connected articles of not just what it means but also how it feels to engage in learning and teaching that is engaged in fugitivity, in refusal, and in relation out of necessity. [End Page 137] In one of the articles, Player, Coles and Gonzalez Ybarra, connect to the long-standing practices of literacy as fugitive practice. In the United States, Black and Indigenous peoples’ languages were systematically destroyed, while migrants joined these populations in being told that how they pronounced words was an indication of lack of intelligence. As Player, Cole, and Gonzalez Ybarra point out, the Black feminist analysis in Combahee River Collective’s statement addressing intersectionality is named appropriately out of reverence for Harriet Tubman. In 1719, Tubman led a two-pronged attack via the Combahee River not to shed blood but to provide passage from bondage for over 800 enslaved Black peoples. Tubman, who had suffered traumatic brain injury as a young person, made a way, through sound and rhythm to convince justifiably reluctant enslaved people to board ships with Union soldiers. She would, throughout her life, share with people that her wound from an anvil being thrown at her head provided both difficulties and trances in which she saw herself come into being as a militant freedom...

Vestir la política: la indumentaria como estrategia en comunicación electoral/Dress politics: clothing as strategy in electoral communication

Esta investigación de carácter cuantitativo-descriptivo, examina, mediante análisis de contenido, la vestimenta empleada durante la campaña electoral por los cuatro candidatos a presidir la Junta de Andalucía en los comicios del 2 de diciembre de 2018. La muestra está compuesta por 59 estilismos, en los que se estudian variables como: color y carácter formal o informal de la indumentaria, tipo de calzado o complementos. Se pretende responder al interrogante, tradicionalmente formulado en el imaginario colectivo de la sociedad, de si la forma de vestir en política expresa valores ideológicos, con el objeto de comprobar si existe una tendencia o patrón que vincule la ropa empleada por los representantes públicos con la ideología del partido al que pertenecen, ya sea de derechas o de izquierdas. Palabras clave: comunicación política, comunicación electoral, relaciones públicas, moda, color político. Abstract Fashion has been analyzed from different knowledge areas by a huge amount of academic works and approached as a philosophical, psychological, sociological and historic phenomenon. However, other disciplines such as marketing, education, communication, economy have also dedicated part of their efforts to their analysis. In the field of politics, which this research approaches, texts around the study of fashion have focused mainly on the perspective of nonverbal communication, which refers to many other aspects, not only the ones related to the way of dressing.Especially, during election time, politicians attempt to prepare their speeches, but they are fully aware of that not only what they say and how they say is important, but also the image they show and, consequently, the way of dressing is decisive; even more after the arrival of the TV, since it is focused on visual attention.Fashion has its own language that is useful to know what people want to tell us when they wear a thing or another. Although, traditionally, this has been a phenomenon associated with women, nowadays the distinction between genders is less pronounced and both, women and men, are interested in choosing their suits in the same way. Apart from this assessment, regarding the gender, the worry about fashion is not trivial because “the image is full of message” (Morejón, 2010) and all political parties are equally concerned.Traditionally, aspects such as clothing color or the use of more serious or informal styles have let us know the candidates and the ideological formation they have. The actual investigation wants to answer the question, in the construction of the collective thinking about society, of whether the way of dressing of different politicians, who are representing us, express ideological values, with the intention of being able to set whether there are a trend or an inclination that link up clothes worn by public representatives with the ideology of the party to which they belong, either left or right.Through a quantitative-descriptive research and applying the methodology of content analysis, we analyzed the dressing used during the fifteen days of the electoral campaign by the four candidates to preside over the Junta de Andalucía in the elections of December 2, 2018: Susana Díaz, for the Partido Socialista, Teresa Rodríguez, for Adelante Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, for Partido Popular and Juan Marín, for Ciudadanos.The sample is made of a total of 59 kind of styles, where we have studied variables such as color and formal or informal character of clothing, type of footwear, accessories, etc. We have selected the styles of public events with more media projection, focusing on the acts of party or central rallies of the day, rather than the rest of citizen meetings that could have in their agendas. The analysis period took the entire electoral campaign, including from Friday November 16, to Friday 30 of the same month.The results achieved reflect how, apart from small nuances that tip the balance in favor of one or another ideological line, the speech about clothing is quite homogeneous. So, fashion has stopped working as a tool that allows the ideological identification.The traditional color association and the way of dressing in the different political parties is (in the electoral campaign analyzed) vague and hide the andalusian accent, trying to approach the traditional culture through the use of flounced dresses and polka dots in blouses and scarves, hoop earrings and the use of chromatic symbology to remind us typical elements of the autonomous community of Andalucía, such as blue for the sea; green and white for the flag; the white isolated that remembers southern sunlight or the brown which recalls the land, being key elements for two of the most productive sectors in the region: agriculture and livestock. Keywords: political communication, electoral communication, public relations, fashion, political color

Retraction: The princess of polka dots: Using art as a medium to cope with hallucinations.

[This retracts the article on p. 156 in vol. 60, PMID: 29736088.].

Lunares prohibidos por extranjeros

The article has as main objective to discover where were Spanish dots before becoming for flamenco and find their traces in the commerce of Spain. To do this the research we will focus on the formation of the Spanish nation between 1750 and 1847. The main method of research has been the reading of images and graphic material related to gypsies, ballet and flamenco. We were immersed in the history, the etymology and semiotics of the word to find the source of the polka dots in the print of the typical flamenco dress in Spain. In the beginnings of flamenco, it was not uncommon to see a flamenco dressed with dots. The gypsy wore skirts plain or with other prints such as paintings vichy. To find the reason of this event we have focused on the evolution of the textile industry which has led us to the evolution of the rules of tariffs in the customs and this is how we were able to see that theyhad vetoed the entrance to the trade in Spain, considered as foreigners since 1792 intermittently until 1841. During that time, the noun acquired negative connotations in Spain, assimilating to sin or defect. The little time that flamenco out conforming, dots began to be seen between the fashion of the Spanish women.

The princess of polka dots: Using art as a medium to cope with hallucinations.

The princess of polka dots: Using art as a medium to cope with hallucinations.

Bandage zaps biofilm infections

More than half of human infections are caused by bacteria that glom on to one another or to a surface to form a protective biofilm that can be difficult to treat with antibiotics. Researchers led by Chandan K. Sen at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center have developed a textile-based electric bandage that fights infections physically instead of chemically, thwarting the bacteria’s ability to develop resistance. They now report the first test of the bandage’s effectiveness for treating biofilm infections in pigs (Ann. Surg. 2017, DOI: 10.1097/sla.0000000000002504). The dressing is patterned with silver and zinc polka dots that create a weak electric field when they come into contact with body fluids at the wound site, which disrupts the electrical signals that bacteria send to one another to form biofilms. In the test, the researchers studied pigs with burn wounds infected with human bacterial strains. They bandaged the wounds either within

A new <em>Felimare</em> (Mollusca: Heterobranchia: Nudibranchia) of the Atlantic blue chromodorid chromatic group from Cape Verde

A new species of the chromodorid genus Felimare (Gastropoda: Heterobranchia) of the Atlantic blue chromatic group is described using material from Cape Verde (eastern Atlantic). Felimare aurantimaculata n. sp. was described based on morphological characters, as well as a molecular phylogeny using two mitochondrial (cytochrome c oxidase subunit I and 16S rRNA) and one nuclear (histone-3) markers. Felimare aurantimaculata n. sp. is characterized by having a ground of dark blue colour with many orange polka dots over the body, dark blue rhinophores and branchial leaves, and very large and not clustered mantle dermal formations (MDFs) at the edge of the mantle, totally absent in the anterior area facing the rhinophores.

Artist Describes How Art Saved Her Life

Artist Describes How Art Saved Her Life

Authenticity, Captioned: Hashtags, Emojis, and Visibility Politics in Alok Vaid-Menon’s Selfie Captions

Authenticity, Captioned: Hashtags, Emojis, and Visibility Politics in Alok Vaid-Menon’s Selfie Captions

Theme based designing: A world of new opportunity for home furnishings by using CAD

Home furnishings are one of the most demanding and emerging fields, full of scope of innovation and creativity. Consumer choices in home decoration keeps on changing from time to time, due to changing fashion trends as well as need for comfortable home environment. So there is a great demand for theme based designing. An attempt was made through this study. Ten theme based design line were created for home furnishings by using different designing software’s in 2D and 3D rendering in virtual design drawing cum lounge area. Themes include Black and white (accented neutral colour scheme), contemporary with polka dots, Floral, Natural botanical, Ocean, Silhouette, Sunrise, Traditional, Tribal and Zodiac.

A new experimental paradigm to study children's processing of their parent's unscripted language input.

This paper introduces a new experimental paradigm for studying children's real-time language processing of their parents' unscripted speech. Focusing on children's processing of referential expressions, or the phrases that parents used to label particular objects, we engaged dyads in a game in which parents labeled one of several objects displayed on a screen, and the child was to quickly identify it as their eye gaze was tracked. There were two conditions; one included a competitor object (e.g., the target was a striped umbrella and the display also included an umbrella with polka dots), while the other one did not (e.g., only one umbrella was present). The results revealed evidence of children's incremental processing of their parents' referential expressions. They also showed faster processing of postnominally-modified as compared to prenominally-modified referential expressions. Parents tended to produce postnominally-modified referential expressions in the more difficult experimental condition in which there was a competitor object, suggesting either that these expressions are also easier for them to produce, or that they accommodate their children by producing more easily processed expressions. We discuss the potential of this paradigm for advancing theories of the relationship between child-directed language input and children's language processing.

Today Is a Miracle

Today Is a Miracle Rachel Graham Cody (bio) The day of the accident, we woke late. We ate breakfast outside, sitting in grass already warm from the sun. The air smelled of lavender, eucalyptus, and the pale pink roses blooming beside us. We changed directly from pajamas into swimsuits: rainbow stripes for Charlotte, multi-colored polka dots for Eve, a navy one-piece for me, and a waterproof diaper for Daisy. We were at the tail end of a week’s visit to my mother-in-law’s. My husband, Tom, had gone to a meeting, his mother to work. The girls and I had no obligations but to enjoy each other and the day. Jane had turned on the pool heater, and when we slipped in, the water seemed to mirror the sky: turquoise, flawless, embracing. Charlotte and Eve sat on the pool’s wide steps while I bounced Daisy up and down nearby. They sang a song they were learning in preschool—“el pescadito lo más chiquito”—and practiced swimming: propping themselves up on their forearms and churning the water with their legs. They called each other Donald and James, hosted a tea party, and invited their imaginary friends to join. I sat Daisy on the top step and swooshed each of the three-year-olds in wide arcs around the pool’s shallow end. They rode on my back to the middle of the pool, until I was on my tiptoes and the water reached [End Page 107] our chins. Daisy tried to pull off her blue and red sunhat, smacked the water, and laughed. When I put them down, the girls giggled, lowered their faces into the water to blow bubbles, and crab-walked around the edge of the pool, their hands, still chubby with baby fat, gripping, sliding, gripping, sliding against the rough cement. I did back flips and handstands, waving my toes at the girls above the water. I swam a few laps, watched my children from the far end of the pool, and thought, Today is a miracle. The girls had been taking swim classes since they were babies, but they viewed them as duty, not pleasure, and tugged on their swimsuits with grim resignation. And then Daisy was born, and I stopped even getting into the pool with them, yet one more separation in a year full of them. But this morning was different. It was easy and joyful. There was enough of me to go around. I dove under again and again, chasing the underwater sunlight refracted into diamonds. We came to L.A. for sunshine, a visit with my mother-in-law, and to take Charlotte and Eve to Disneyland. Disney was not part of our original parenting plan. But our girls made clear early on that the poles of their lives were fairies, princesses, and ponies with rainbow tails and sparkly manes. They wore tutus, fairy wings, and rubber rain boots to school. Charlotte, who described all clothes that weren’t dress-up ball gowns as “rags,” announced she was going to be either a fairy or a mermaid when she grew up, and sang for us under the stage name Princess Love Brontosaurus. Together the girls performed extended renditions of Sleeping Beauty on our front porch and were disappointed when we couldn’t find fairies on the walk home from school. They had already announced that their fourth birthday, still two months away, would have a princess bouncy castle, “real magic wands, not dress-up ones,” and a cake with purple and green princesses on it. At some point, not going to Disneyland started to seem obstinately rational and adult, like refusing to clap when Tinker Bell asks the audience if they believe. A week before we went, though, Eve had doubts about the trip. She was worried about forcing the magic into a corner; that by corralling it, [End Page 108] touching it, and talking to it, we’d somehow make it disappear. After all, she said, “Fairies don’t want to be seen.” I wanted to hate Disneyland. The Royal Banquet Hall was an outdoor stage with plastic columns and fake greenery. The princesses wore...

Plain or decorated? Object visual features matter in infant spatial categorization

The current study investigated infant spatial categorization of a support relation across differences in the perceptual features of the objects. Infants of 8 and 14months (N=67) were habituated to dynamic support events with objects that were plain and monochromatic or those that were embellished with decorations (e.g., polka dots, feathers). Infants were then tested with events that presented a novel pair of objects, a novel spatial relation (i.e., containment), or both. Infants, particularly those of 8months, formed an abstract categorical representation of a support relation when habituated with the decorated objects but not the plain objects. The results suggest that the perceptual features of objects can facilitate infants’ categorization of spatial relations, at least in some learning settings and especially with younger infants.

Talking science with journalists

The media attention bestowed on scientists is like a hundred-year flood—rare but potentially overwhelming for the unprepared.