Academic literature on the topic 'Human-animal relationships – congresses'

The aim of the article is to continue the study of law as a cultural phenomenon, in this case as an introduction to the problems of the XXVIII World Congress on the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy “Peace Based on Human Rights”. It is offered as an opportunity for additional substantiation of the idea of eternal peace (I. Kant) from the position of a culturological approach as one of the methodological tools of the philosophy of law. The concept developed by the author makes it possible to appeal to the ideal structures of consciousness not only in a purely epistemological aspect and phenomenological context, but also based on the ontological foundations of moral and legal culture. Thus, it becomes obvious and necessary to distinguish between anthropological and culturological approaches to substantiate the removal of the very concept of war beyond the boundaries of culture into the sphere of the unacceptable, what qualifies as a crime. Such a process of human development as a cultural development is natural in the sense of acquiring proper human qualities – it is overcoming the animal component of man (Aristotle and others). The philosophical and ideological foundations of this direction of development are the concepts that have received legal formalization primarily in the concept of human rights. The cultural form of overcoming the animal (in the cultural sense – criminal) principle in a person is play, which has found embodiment in various forms of agonal interaction, primarily in sports, as well as in art. Law as a formulation of the rules of cultural interaction becomes a necessary condition for survival, and the extension of this (culturological) principle to humanity (as a common destiny) makes the anthropological approach, in the form in which it is interpreted in modern (domestic) jurisprudence, limited and partial not only in a logical, but also in a humanitarian sense. The necessity of understanding the logical correlation of the concepts of “privilege” and “social parasitism” with the concept of “war” is shown. The transfer of “war” (regardless of interpretations and definitions) beyond the boundaries of culture (or truly human relationships) becomes necessary, as well as understanding the role of law in ensuring such a state of humanity.

This article raises the actual problem of relationship between human and nature, human beings and all other creatures. We see the solution of the problem in initiating of broad educational and pedagogical influences on philosophical values of the individual, starting from early childhood; emphasis is placed on the current unsatisfactory situation in this area. It is noted that the origins of solving the problem of educating children in a humane attitude to all life can be found in the educational, pedagogical and practical activities of organizations and individual figures who lived and worked in the late 19 — early 20 century. Among other prominent historical figures of the time, the figure of Ivan Ivanovych Horbunov-Posadov (1864–1940) was chosen as the most notable, with a significant but largely unstudied journalistic, artistic, educational and pedagogical heritage. This article is devoted to analysis of his humanistic ideas. The Russian educator’s diverse personal heritage is completely described — essays, stories, poems, that reveal the author’s kind, protective, caring attitude to nature, especially to animals, as well as his work as magazine editor and compiler of reading books showing children diverse and at the same time vulnerable world of all living beings. The article presents a circle of friends, like-minded persons and employees of I. I. Gorbunov-Posadov (L. Tolstoy, V. Chertkov, I. Perper, O. Horbunova- Posadova, V. Lukianska), who carried out this humane mission. Educator’s position and activity as a popularizer of vegetarianism, an activist of the vegetarian movement, one of the organizers of the 1st All-Russian Vegetarian Congress and the inspirer of the Moscow Vegetarian Society are highlighted. Particular attention is paid to pedagogical aspects of teacher’s creative heritage. The article in particular highlights and describes his specific advice on ways to form in children of different ages through school and family love, care and concern for all animals, even those that do not cause sympathy in children. Attention is paid to activity-based aspects of the educational process consisting in making bird feeders, constructing animal houses, and so on. The general conclusion to the above was a thought that the ideas and pedagogical approaches of I. I. Gorbunov-Posadov have not lost their significance, and in environmental crises become urgently relevant and can be used in modern multifaceted pedagogical interaction between adults, children and animals.

Can the environment be ill? A mere glance at what happens around us is enough to provide an answer. The next question that naturally pops up in our minds is: how to cure it? Now the answer is not so immediate, but demands more thorough analysis. A first attempt at a solution might be to fight against everything we consider to be wrong. This is a typical human trend, however, the results are often not too efficient, because the impulse to “fight against” something triggers a kind of positive feedback or recursive effect - as the target always reacts - thus giving rise to a degenerative looping movement. As a consequence, the basic problem remains unsolved, eventually under a different shape. Another possible approach is to build a new template and let it grow, in such a way that it can naturally replace the older one. This path requires time and patience, but its results seem to be more durable. In this regard, a lecture given by Monica Souza, a young veterinary doctor, at the Brazilian Congress of Veterinary Homeopathy in 2011 is worthy of notice. In that lecture, Souza described her experience in reorganizing a farm that exhibited serious productivity problems. The initial scenario was discouraging: the soil was subjected to erosion, the cattle were severely sick, the employees were demoralized, and the farm owner had progressive cancer and serious depression. To plan a solution, Souza had recourse to all the knowledge she had about the environment, homeopathy and biodynamic agriculture. Thus, she found that the first step was to correct the soil erosion, and the pasture was reconstituted. The animals were treated with homeopathy and improved so much that the employees and the farm owner’s family felt encouraged looking for a homeopath doctor in the city. As a consequence, the farm owner overcame his depression and cancer, and agreed to perform a treatment consisting in the combination of homeopathy and conventional anti-neoplastic drugs. Two years later, the full system was completely reorganized and all its components were healthy. It goes without saying that Souza’s lecture was met with a standing ovation. That anecdote provides a good example of the efficiency of non-excluding systemic approaches to complex problems. Knowing them deeply can also be a tool to avoid the risks of pseudo-science. Shortly, the combination of a cross-sectional view with thorough understanding of the whole web often can help us to find appropriate methods to solve problems. Surely, experimentation, modeling, statistics and rigorous scientific methods are essential tools to formulate sound approaches in this new and frontier science. I believe that homeopathy and high dilutions have a significant role to play in this regard. The work performed in the past 30 years in the construction of homeopathy scientific basis allowed transforming a 19th-century doctrine into a new and promising 21st-century science. At a recent scientific event conducted in Rio de Janeiro, Professor Carolina Oliveira made a very interesting observation, to wit, that the path of study of homeopathic agents is the opposite of the one of conventional drugs. I think she was right. As it is known, the latter starts from in vitro studies to move on to the inexorable in vivo studies of efficacy and safety, before the four phases of human clinical trials can be started. Contrariwise, the study of homeopathic medicines started by the compilation of clinical evidences from Hahnemann´s time to this day, from the case-report to the complex clinical trials, involving human and animal cases. Then, in the past three decades, laboratory animal models originally fit to demonstrate the biological effects of those drugs using objective parameters – and thus, the plausibility of the similia principle – lead us to a deeper understanding about the non-linear systemic features of the homeopathic phenomenon, by the observation of coherent interactions among neuro-immune-endocrine parameters after performing a specific treatment, producing the reestablishment of the homeostasis at different levels, at the same time . Actually, the main contribution of these models was to give a first step toward the elucidation of the mechanism of action, going forward to its original purpose. Very recently, new in vitro and plant models have been formulated as an innovative way to demonstrate the cellular and molecular grounds of the similia principle. As those models are non-liable to placebo effects, they were widely accepted by researchers inasmuch as they represent a significant technical and bioethical refinement. These progressive advances in the methods applied to the study of homeopathic agents allow forecasting that the mechanism of action of these remedies will be elucidated in a not so far future, but more than that, they show that the notions formulated in and the challenges posed by homeopathy might contribute to the construction of a new scientific worldview. Traditional homeopathic doctors are concerned with the usefulness of science to homeopathy. Conversely, I prefer to focus on the usefulness of homeopathy to science. True knowledge is never exclusive, but systematically inclusive. A thorough understanding of the biological effects of the homeopathic agents requires a systemic approach. Recent epigenetic studies show changes in the combinatory codes of gene expression following the application of homeopathic stimuli, as well as changes in the phenotype pattern of the cell surface and refinement of the cell signaling modulation (see GIRI meeting annals 2012, 2013 and HRI Congress annals, 2013). The multiple shifts in the cell pathways found in those studies seem to result from a nonlinear biological action of the high dilutions, whose complexity and features seen in microscopic level are coherent with the properties previously reported in macroscopic, behavioral and clinical levels. In addition, those changes may exert impact on social relationships, as it is easily observed in groups of wild animals after certain homeopathic treatments. Those facts lend further support to the theoretical views formulated by Madeleine Bastide and Agnès Lagache in the 90´s, which represented the effects of the high dilutions and the similia principle as multilevel communication patterns. The extension of that complex process of cell – system communication to the environment is a natural step. This involves scientists from different areas, as well as society at large. On those grounds, the elucidation of the mechanism of action of homeopathy and its potential application to balanced productivity and life style might provide a starting point for new refined models of social organization, human relationships, animal care and management of nature.

Can the environment be ill? A mere glance at what happens around us is enough to provide an answer. The next question that naturally pops up in our minds is: how to cure it? Now the answer is not so immediate, but demands more thorough analysis. A first attempt at a solution might be to fight against everything we consider to be wrong. This is a typical human trend, however, the results are often not too efficient, because the impulse to “fight against” something triggers a kind of positive feedback or recursive effect - as the target always reacts - thus giving rise to a degenerative looping movement. As a consequence, the basic problem remains unsolved, eventually under a different shape. Another possible approach is to build a new template and let it grow, in such a way that it can naturally replace the older one. This path requires time and patience, but its results seem to be more durable. In this regard, a lecture given by Monica Souza, a young veterinary doctor, at the Brazilian Congress of Veterinary Homeopathy in 2011 is worthy of notice. In that lecture, Souza described her experience in reorganizing a farm that exhibited serious productivity problems. The initial scenario was discouraging: the soil was subjected to erosion, the cattle were severely sick, the employees were demoralized, and the farm owner had progressive cancer and serious depression. To plan a solution, Souza had recourse to all the knowledge she had about the environment, homeopathy and biodynamic agriculture. Thus, she found that the first step was to correct the soil erosion, and the pasture was reconstituted. The animals were treated with homeopathy and improved so much that the employees and the farm owner’s family felt encouraged looking for a homeopath doctor in the city. As a consequence, the farm owner overcame his depression and cancer, and agreed to perform a treatment consisting in the combination of homeopathy and conventional anti-neoplastic drugs. Two years later, the full system was completely reorganized and all its components were healthy. It goes without saying that Souza’s lecture was met with a standing ovation. That anecdote provides a good example of the efficiency of non-excluding systemic approaches to complex problems. Knowing them deeply can also be a tool to avoid the risks of pseudo-science. Shortly, the combination of a cross-sectional view with thorough understanding of the whole web often can help us to find appropriate methods to solve problems. Surely, experimentation, modeling, statistics and rigorous scientific methods are essential tools to formulate sound approaches in this new and frontier science. I believe that homeopathy and high dilutions have a significant role to play in this regard. The work performed in the past 30 years in the construction of homeopathy scientific basis allowed transforming a 19th-century doctrine into a new and promising 21st-century science. At a recent scientific event conducted in Rio de Janeiro, Professor Carolina Oliveira made a very interesting observation, to wit, that the path of study of homeopathic agents is the opposite of the one of conventional drugs. I think she was right. As it is known, the latter starts from in vitro studies to move on to the inexorable in vivo studies of efficacy and safety, before the four phases of human clinical trials can be started. Contrariwise, the study of homeopathic medicines started by the compilation of clinical evidences from Hahnemann´s time to this day, from the case-report to the complex clinical trials, involving human and animal cases. Then, in the past three decades, laboratory animal models originally fit to demonstrate the biological effects of those drugs using objective parameters – and thus, the plausibility of the similia principle – lead us to a deeper understanding about the non-linear systemic features of the homeopathic phenomenon, by the observation of coherent interactions among neuro-immune-endocrine parameters after performing a specific treatment, producing the reestablishment of the homeostasis at different levels, at the same time. Actually, the main contribution of these models was to give a first step toward the elucidation of the mechanism of action, going forward to its original purpose. Very recently, new in vitro and plant models have been formulated as an innovative way to demonstrate the cellular and molecular grounds of the similia principle. As those models are non-liable to placebo effects, they were widely accepted by researchers inasmuch as they represent a significant technical and bioethical refinement. These progressive advances in the methods applied to the study of homeopathic agents allow forecasting that the mechanism of action of these remedies will be elucidated in a not so far future, but more than that, they show that the notions formulated in and the challenges posed by homeopathy might contribute to the construction of a new scientific worldview. Traditional homeopathic doctors are concerned with the usefulness of science to homeopathy. Conversely, I prefer to focus on the usefulness of homeopathy to science. True knowledge is never exclusive, but systematically inclusive. A thorough understanding of the biological effects of the homeopathic agents requires a systemic approach. Recent epigenetic studies show changes in the combinatory codes of gene expression following the application of homeopathic stimuli, as well as changes in the phenotype pattern of the cell surface and refinement of the cell signaling modulation (see GIRI meeting annals 2012, 2013 and HRI Congress annals, 2013). The multiple shifts in the cell pathways found in those studies seem to result from a nonlinear biological action of the high dilutions, whose complexity and features seen in microscopic level are coherent with the properties previously reported in macroscopic, behavioral and clinical levels. In addition, those changes may exert impact on social relationships, as it is easily observed in groups of wild animals after certain homeopathic treatments. Those facts lend further support to the theoretical views formulated by Madeleine Bastide and Agnès Lagache in the 90´s, which represented the effects of the high dilutions and the similia principle as multilevel communication patterns. The extension of that complex process of cell – system communication to the environment is a natural step. This involves scientists from different areas, as well as society at large. On those grounds, the elucidation of the mechanism of action of homeopathy and its potential application to balanced productivity and life style might provide a starting point for new refined models of social organization, human relationships, animal care and management of nature.

219Animal Biodiversity and Conservation 35.2 (2012)© 2012 Museu de Ciències Naturals de BarcelonaISSN: 1578–665XRosell, C. & Llimona, F., 2012. Human–wildlife interactions. Animal Biodiversity and Conservation, 35.2: 219–220. The nature of wildlife management throughout the world is changing. The increase in the world’s human population has been accompanied by a rapid expansion of agricultural and urban areas and infrastructures, especially road and railway networks. Worldwide, wildlife habitats are being transformed and fragmented by human activities, and the behavior of several species has changed as a result of human activities. Some species have adapted easily to urban or peri–urban habitats and take advantage of the new resources available. These data provide the context for why human–wildlife interactions are increasing. At the 30th International Union of Game Biologists Congress held in Barcelona in early September 2011, in addition to two plenary presentations, 52 authors from 12 different countries and three continents presented 15 papers in the Interactions of Humans and Wildlife Session, three of which are included in this volume. To some extent, all the papers reflected the inherent difficulty in solving the complex problems caused either by rapidly increasing species that begin to inhabit urban and agricultural areas in numbers not seen previously (e.g. coyo-tes, Canis latrans, inhabiting big cities; wild boar, Sus scrofa, across western Europe; wood pigeons, Columba palumbus, in France), or species whose populations are threatened by human activities (e.g., Eurasian Lynx, Lynx lynx, in the Czech Republic). Some papers addressed the contentious issue of predator control (e.g., gamebirds in Great Britain), while others presented data regarding how human activities influenced animal behavior (e.g., pink footed geese, Anser brachyrhynchus; and red deer, Cervus elaphus, in Germany). The papers presented at the congress show how human activities affect the distributions and dynamics of wildlife populations and also change the behavior of some species. Wildlife causes social and economic con-flicts by damaging agricultural and forest resources, bringing about traffic collisions, and creating problems for residents in urban areas; while many are increasingly distant from nature and may not accept the presence of wildlife others may actively encourage the presence of wild animals. The first paper in this volume, by Cahill et al. (2012), analyzes the management challenges of the increasing abundance of wild boar in the peri–urban area of Barcelona. This conflict has arisen in other large cities in Europe and elsewhere. The presence of the species causes problems for many residents, to such an extent that it is considered a pest in these areas. Wild boar habituation has not only been facilitated by population expansion, but also by the attitudes of some citizens who encourage their presence by direct feeding. This leads to wild boar behavior modification and also promotes an increase in the fertility rate of habituated females, which are significantly heavier than non–habituated females. Public attitudes regarding the species and harvesting methods (at present most specimens are removed by live capture and subsequently sacrificed) are highlighted as one of the key factors in the management of the conflict. The second paper provides an example of how the distribution of irrigated croplands influences wild boar roadkills in NW Spain (Colino–Rabanal et al., 2012). By modeling the spatial distribution of wild boar collisions with vehicles and using generalized additive models based on GIS, the authors show that the number of roadkills is higher in maize croplands than in forested areas. This factor is the main explanatory variable in the model. The paper provides an excellent example of how the synergies of diverse human elements in the landscape (maize croplands and roads in this case) affect the location and dimensions of these types of conflicts. The third and final paper, by Belotti et al. (2012), addresses the effects of tourism on Eurasian lynx movements and prey usage at Šumava National Park in the Czech Republic. The monitoring of 5 GPS–collared lynxes and analyses of data regarding habitat features suggests that human disturbance (proximity of roads and tourist trails) can modify the presence of lynxes during the day close to the site where they have hidden a prey item, such as an ungulate, that can provide them with food for several days. In such cases, adequate management of tourism development must involve a commitment to species conservation. The analyses and understanding of all these phenomena and the design of successful wildlife management strategies and techniques used to mitigate the conflicts require a good knowledge base that considers informa-tion both about wildlife and human attitudes. The papers presented stress the importance of spatial analyses of the interactions and their relationship with landscape features and the location of human activities. Species distribution and abundance are related to important habitat variables such as provision of shelter, food, comfor-table spaces, and an appropriate climate. Therefore, it is essential to analyze these data adequately to predict where conflicts are most likely to arise and to design successful mitigation strategies. The second key factor for adequate management of human–wildlife interactions is to monitor system change. An analysis of the variety of data on population dynamics, hunting, wildlife collisions, and wildlife presence in urban areas would provide a basis for adaptive management. In this respect, in the plenary session, Steve Redpath mentioned the importance of the wildlife biologist’s attitude when interpreting and drawing conclusions from recorded data and stressed the importance of conducting clear, relevant, and transparent science for participants involved in the management decision process, which often involves a high number of stakeholders. All of the papers addressing the problems associated with human wildlife interactions were characterized by a common theme. Regardless of the specific nature of the problem, the public was generally divided on how the problem should be addressed. A particularly sensitive theme was that of population control methods, especially when conflicts are located in peri–urban areas. Several presenters acknowledged that public participation was necessary if a solution was to be reached. Some suggested, as have other authors (Heydon et al., 2010), that a legislative framework may be needed to reconcile human and wildlife interests. However, each problem that was presented appeared to involve multiple stakeholders with different opinions. Solving these kinds of problems is not trivial. Social factors strongly influence perceptions of human–wildlife conflicts but the methods used to mitigate these conflicts often take into account technical aspects but not people’s attitudes. A new, more innovative and interdisciplinary approach to mitigation is needed to allow us 'to move from conflict towards coexistence' (Dickman, 2010). Other authors also mentioned the importance of planning interventions that optimize the participation of experts, policy makers, and affected communities and include the explicit, systematic, and participatory evaluation of the costs and benefits of alternative interventions (Treves et al., 2009). One technique that has been used to solve problems like these is termed Structured Decision Making (SDM). This technique was developed by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As described by Runge et al. (2009), the process is 'a formal application of common sense for situations too complex for the informal use of common sense', and provides a rational framework and techniques to aid in prescriptive decision making. Fundamentally, the process entails defining a problem, deciding upon the objectives, considering the alternative actions and the consequences for each, using the available science to develop a model (the plan), and then making the decision how to implement (Runge et al., 2009). Although complex, SDM uses a facilitator to guide stakeholders through the process to reach a mutually agreed–upon plan of action. It is clear that human–wildlife interactions are inherently complex because many stakeholders are usually involved. A rational approach that incorporates all interested parties would seem to be a productive way of solving these kinds of problems

The aim of the article is to describe psycholinguistic meanings of the word-stimulus “playfulness” in the linguistic world-image of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. The main method of the conducted research was the psycholinguistic experiment. The sample according to the criteria “gender” (males and females – included both age groups) and “age” (18-35 and 36-60) included 1,600 respondents with 400 people in each sub-group of respondents. The overall number of reactions to stimulus “playfulness” comprised 1,600 associative reactions with 475 unique associations including word combinations and sentences, where 159 reactions have frequency over 1,316 individual associations, and 0 refusals. The semantic interpretation of the results of the free association test made it possible to single out 19 psycholinguistic meanings, 12 out of them accounted for more than 1%: 1) “cheerful and joyful state”, 2) “intention to attract the attention of the opposite or one’s own sex”, 3) “child-like spontaneity”, 4) “agility, physical activity of an animal”, 5) “daring and provocative behavior”, 6) “agility, physical behavior of a human being”, 7) “ease”, 8) “changeability”, 9) “behavior during a sexual intercourse”, 10) “carelessness”, 11) “mental activity”, 12) “deliberate deceit”. Taking into account the respondents’ verbal behavior, the following components of playfulness were identified: flirting, impishness, humor, fugue (eccentricity), ease, imagination. The formulated psycholinguistic meanings of playfulness can be fully considered as such that give the most adequate and reliable model of the systemic significance of the studied word and which reflects the reality of linguistic consciousness. References Barnett, L. A. (2007). The nature of playfulness in young adults. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 949-958. Bowman, J. R. (1987). Making work play. In: Meaningful play, playful meanings. (pp. 61-71). G.A. Fine (Ed.), Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Bundy, A. C. (1996). Play and playfulness: what to look for. In: Play in Occupational Therapy for Children, (pp. 52-66). D. L. Parham & L. S. Fazio (Eds.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby. Chandler, B. E. (1997). The essence of play: a child’s occupation. Bethesda, MD: American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc. Glynn, M. A., Webster, J. (1992). The adult playfulness scale: An initial assessment. Psycho­logical Reports, 71(1), 83-103. Gordiienko-Mytrofanova, I. V. (2014a). Leksikograficheskoie znacheniie slova “igrivost” (podgo­to­­­vitelnyi etap psikholingvisticheskogo eksperimenta) [The lexicographic meaning of the word “playfulness” (the preparatory stage of the psycholinguistic experiment)]. Psychological Prospects Journal, 24, 65-77. Gordiienko-Mytrofanova, I. V. (2014b). Psikhologicheskoie soderzhaniie leksikograficheskikh znachenii slova “igrivyi” (podgotovitelnyi etap psikholingvisticheskogo eksperimenta) [The psychological content of the lexicographic meanings of the word “playful” (the preparatory stage of the psycholinguistic experiment)]. Problemy suchasnoi pedahohichnoi osvity – Problems of Modern Pedagogical Education, 45(2), 419-430. Gordiienko-Mytrofanova, I. V. (2014c). Psikhologicheskaia interpretatsiia leksikograficheskogo opisaniia slova “igrivyi” [Psychological interpretation of the lexicographic description of the word “playful”]. Problemy Suchasnoi Psykholohii – Problems of Modern Psychology, 25, 83-98. Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., Sypko, A. (2015). Playfulness as a relevant lexeme in the bilingual linguistic consciousness of Ukrainian people. East European Journal of Psycholinguistics, 2(1), 43-51. Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., Sauta, S. (2016). Playfulness as a peculiar expression of sexual relationships (semantic interpretation of the results of the psycholinguistic experi­ment). European Humanities Studies: State and Society, 1, 46-62. Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., Kobzieva, I. (2017). Humor as a component of ludic competence. Visnyk [Journal] of the Hryhorii Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, 57, 40-56. Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., Kobzieva, I. (2018). Concept «Holy Fool» in the Linguistic World-Image of the Russian-Speaking Population of Ukraine. Psycholinguistics, 24(1), 118-133. Gordiienko-Mytrofanova, I., Pidchasov, Y., Sauta, S. Kobzieva, I. (2018). The problem of sample representativeness for conducting experimental and broad psychological research. Psycholinguistics, 23(1), 11-46. Guitard, P., Ferland, F., & Dutil, É. (2005). Toward a better understanding of playfulness in adults. OTJR: Occupation, Participation and Health, 25(1), 9-22. Kondakov, N. I. (1975). The Logical Dictionary-Reference. Moscow: Nauka. Proyer, R. T. (2012). A Psycho-linguistic Study on Adult Playfulness: Its Hierarchical Structure and Theoretical Considerations. Journal of Adult Development, 19(3), 141-149. Proyer, R.T. (2014). A Psycho-Linguistic Approach For Studying Adult Playfulness: A Replication and Extension Toward Relations With Humor, The Journal of Psychology, 148(6), 717-735. Proyer, R.T. (2017). A new structural model for the study of adult playfulness: Assessment and exploration of an understudied individual differences variable. Personality and Individual Differences, 108, 113-122. Rudakova, A. V. (2015). On the concept of an integrated lexicographic meaning of a word and the methodology of its description. Culture of Communication and Its Formation: Interuniversity Collection of Scientific Works, 31, 109-115. Schaefer, C. & Greenberg, R. (1997). Measurement of Playfulness: A Neglected Therapist Variable. International Journal of Play Therapy, 6(2), 21-31. Shen, X. (2010). Adult playfulness as a personality trait: Its conceptualization, measurement, and relationship to psychological well-being. Doctoral dissertation. Retrieved from Pennsylva­nia State University Library Catalog (OCLC No. 859524715). Sternin, I.A., & Rudakova, A.V. (2011). Psikholingvisticheskoie znacheniie slova i yego opisaniie [Psycholinguistic meaning of the word and its description]. Voronezh: Lambert. Tsuji, Hit., Tsuji, Hei., Yamada, S., Natsuno, Y., Morita, Y., Mukoyama, Y., Hata, K., Fujishima, Y. (1996). Standardization of the Five Factor Personality Questionnaire: Factor structure. International Journal of Psychology, 31. Proceedings from the XXVI International Congress of Psychology. August 16–21, 1996, Montreal, Canada. (103-217). Ufimtseva, N. V. (2009). Obraz mira russkikh: sistemnost i soderzhaniie [Image of the world of Russians: the systemic characteristics and the content]. Yazyk i kultura – Language and Culture, 98-111. Yarnal, C., & Qian, X. (2011). Older-adult Playfulness: An innovative construct and measure­ment for healthy aging research. American Journal of Play, 4(1), 52-79. Yue, X. D., Leung, C. L., Hiranandani, N. A. (2016). Adult Playfulness, Humor Styles, and Subjective Happiness. Psychological Reports, 119(3), 630-640.

Atualmente observamos no Brasil as ações dos chamados defensores dos direitos dos animais, que lutam para que humanos e animais sejam igualmente considerados sujeitos de direitos. A partir da ação política dos defensores dos animais, podemos problematizar outras formas de expressão de mundo, inserindo essa discussão nos temas de pesquisa da antropologia sobre a relação entre humanos e animais. O objetivo desse artigo é levar a sério os defensores dos animais e refletir sobre como constroem os fundamentos para a emergência desse novo animal, detentor de direitos e não objeto passível das ações humanos. Para a realização dessa discussão, foi utilizada consulta bibliográfica, entrevista, trabalho de campo em congressos realizados por esses agentes, bem como no grupo de estudo levado a frente pelos defensores na Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Foi possível observar que os defensores identificam nos animais competências que são compartilhadas com os humanos. E por meio delas reafirmam outro entendimento ontológico dos animais, que não repousa na separação radical da natureza humana.Palavras chave: Política multiespécie. Virada ontológica. Antropologia. Sociologia da moral."Who" or "what" are the animals? A study on how animal defenders (re)define its natureAbstractCurrently we observed in Brazil the actions of so-called defenders of animal rights, claiming that humans and animals are also considered as subjects of rights. From the political action of animal defenders, we can discuss other forms of expression world, entering the discussion on research topics of Anthropology on the relationship between humans and animals. The aim of this article is to take seriously the animal advocates and reflect on how to build the foundations for the emergence of this new animal, subject of rights and not amoral object. For the purposes of discussion, I used bibliographical research, interview, field work in congresses held by these agents, as well as in the study group directed by advocates at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. It was observed that defenders identify animals competencies that are shared with humans. And reaffirm through them another ontological understanding of animals, which does not rest on the radical separation of human nature.Keywords: Multispecies politics. Ontological turn. Anthropology. Sociology of moral.

To sin by silence, when we should protest,Makes cowards out of men.— Ella Wheeler WilcoxProtest is culturally entwined in historical and juro-political realities and is a fundamental element of the exercise of individual and collective rights. As our title notes, while there are currently many ‘protests in progress’ around the world, there is also a great deal of ‘progress in protest’ in terms of what protests look like, their scale and number, how they are formed and conducted, their goals, how they can be studied, as well as the varying responses formed in relation to protest. The etymology of protest associates two important dynamics pertaining to the topic. Firstly, a protest is something that is put forward, forth, or toward the front (from the Latin pro); essentially, it is in one manner or another, made publically. Secondly, it suggests that a person or persons have beared witness (testis) and instead of remaining silent, have made a declaration or assertion (testari). In other words, someone has made public their disapproval or objection. The nine articles that comprise this issue of M/C Journal on ‘protest’ reminds us of these salient elements of protest. Each, in their own way, highlight the importance of not remaining silent when faced with an injustice or in order to promote social change. As Bill McKibben (7) outlines in his foreword to an excellent collection of protest documents, ‘voices of protest ... are often precisely what propels human civilisation forward and allows it to become unstuck’. However, not all forms of contemporary protest shares ideological or progressive aims. Here, we might consider the emergence of contentious formations such as the alt-right and antifa, what is considered ‘fake’ or ‘real’, and ongoing conflicts between notions of individual and collective rights and state sovereignty.This modest but insightful collection demonstrates the broad scope of this field of inquiry. This issue explores the intersections among social justice, identity and communications technology, as well as the convergences and divergences in the form, function and substance of protest. Through an analysis of protest’s relationship to media, the author’s highlight the possibilities of protest to effect social change. The issue begins with Lakota screenwriter and activist Floris White Bull’s (Floris Ptesáŋ Huŋká) discussion of the documentary AWAKE, a Dream from Standing Rock (2017) and the #NODAPL protest. The film, split into three parts, takes a poignant and quite personal look at the native-led peaceful resistance at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota in 2016. This protest involved tens of thousands of activists from all over the world who opposed the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) which was to transport fracked oil directly underneath the Missouri River and through sovereign Lakota land (see Image 1). However, the events at Standing Rock were not a single-issue protest and brought activists together over a range of interrelated issues including environmental protection, human rights, water security, community health and Native American sovereignty. The Water Protectors were also forced to contest racist and disparaging media representations. As such, Standing Rock remains a site of cultural exchange and learning. These protests are not historical, but instead, are an ongoing struggle. The film AWAKE is important as testimony to the injustices at Standing Rock. A short description of the film is first provided in order to provide some additional context to perspectives addressed in the film. From there, White Bull has been invited to respond to questions posed by the editors regarding the Standing Rock Protests and documentary films such as AWAKE. As an Indigenous person fighting for justice, White Bull reminds readers that ‘[t]he path forward is the same as it has always been – holding on to our goals, values and dignity with resilience’.Image 1: Dakota Access Pipeline Protesters, 2016. Photo credit: Indigenous Environmental Network.Cat Pausé and Sandra Grey use an example of fat shaming to investigate how media impacts body politics and determines who is enfranchised to voice public dissent. Media becomes a mechanism for policing and governing bodily norms and gendered identities. As well as outlining a brief history of feminist body activism, the authors draw on personal experience and interview material with activists to reflect on fat embodiment and politics. Also informed by intersectional approaches, their work alerts us to the diverse vectors by which injustice and oppression fall on some bodies differently as well as the diverse bodies assembled in any crowd.Greg Watson suggests that “[c]ontemporary societies are increasingly becoming sites in which it is more difficult for people to respectfully negotiate disagreements about human diversity”. Drawing on his experiences organising Human Libraries throughout Australia, Watson argues these spaces create opportunities for engaging with difference. In this sense Human Libraries can be considered sites which protest the micropublics’ “codes of civility” which produce everyday marginalisations of difference.Micropolitics and creative forms of protest are also central to Ella Cutler, Jacqueline Gothe, and Alexandra Crosby’s article. The author’s consider three design projects which seek to facilitate ethical communication with diverse communities. Drawing on Guy Julier’s tactics for activist design, each project demonstrates the value of slowing down in order to pay attention to experience. In this way, research through design offers a reflexive means for engaging social change.Research practices are also central to making visible community resistance. Anthony McCosker and Timothy Graham consider the role of social networking in urban protests through the campaign to save the iconic Melbourne music venue The Palace (see Image 2). Their article considers the value of social media data and analytics in relation to the court proceedings and trial processes. Given the centrality of social media to activist campaigns their reflections provide a timely evaluation of how data publics are constituted and their ongoing legacy.Image 2: Melbourne’s Palace Theatre before demolition. Photo Credit: Melbourne Heritage Action.For Marcelina Piotrowski pleasure is central to understanding data production and protest. She draws on a Deleuze and Guattarian framework in order to consider protests against oil pipelines in British Columbia. Importantly, through this theoretical framework of ‘data desires’, pleasure is not something owned by the individual subject but rather holds the potential to construct generative social collectivities. This is traced through three different practices: deliberation in online forums; citizen science and social media campaigns. This has important implications for understanding environmental issues and our own enfolding within them. Nadine Kozak takes a look at how Online Service Providers (OSPs) have historically used internet ‘blackouts’ in order to protest United States government regulations. Kozak points to protests against the Communications Decency Act (1996) which sought to regulate online pornographic material and the Stop Online Piracy Act (2011) which proposed increased federal government power to take action against online copyright infringement. Recently, the United States Congress recently passed the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), which hold OSPs liable for third-party content including advertising for prostitution. However, despite condemnation from the Department of Justice and trafficking victims, OSPs did not utilise blackouts as a means to protest these new measures. Kozak concludes that the decision to whether or not to utilise blackout protests is dependent on the interests of technology companies and large OSPs. It is evident that most especially since Donald Trump popularised the term, ‘fake news’ has taken a centre stage in discussions concerning media. In fact, the lines between what is fake and what is official have become blurred. Most recently, QAnon proponents have been attending Trump rallies and speeches giving further visibility to various conspiracy narratives stemming from online message boards (see Image 3). Marc Tuters, Emilija Jokubauskaitė, and Daniel Bach establishe a clear timeline of events in order to trace the origins of ‘#Pizzagate’; a 2016 conspiracy theory that falsely claimed that several U.S. restaurants and high-ranking officials of the Democratic Party were connected with human trafficking and an alleged child-sex ring. The authors investigate the affordances of 4chan to unpack how the site’s anonymity, rapid temporality and user collectivisation were instrumental in creating ‘bullshit’; a usage which the authors suggest is a “technical term for persuasive speech unconcerned with veracity”. This provides an understanding of how alt-right communities are assembled and motivated in a post-truth society. Image 3: QAnon proponents at Trump rally in Tampa, 31 July 2018. Photo credit: Kirby Wilson, Tampa Bay Times.Finally, Colin Salter analyses protests for animal rights as a lens to critique notions of national identity and belonging. Protests on whaling in the Southern Ocean (see Image 4) and live export trade from Australia continue to be highly contested political issues. Salter reflects on the ABC’s 2011 exposé into Australian live animal exports to Indonesia and the 2014 hearings at the International Court of Justice into Japanese whaling. Salter then traces the common elements between animal rights campaigns in order to demonstrate the manner in which the physical bodies of animals, their treatment, and the debate surrounding that treatment become sites for mapping cultural identity, nationhood, and sovereignty. Here, Salter suggests that such inquiry is useful for promoting broader consideration of efficacious approaches to animal advocacy and social change.Image 4: The ship Bob Barker, rammed by the Japanese whaling vessel Nishin Maru. Photo credit: Sea Shepherd Facebook Page. As indicated in the opening paragraphs, it is crucial for people committed to social justice to publically raise their voices in protest. As such, we would like to thank each of the authors for their important contributions to this issue on ‘protest’. In its own way, each contribution serves doubly as a form of protest and a means to understand the topic more clearly. There is solidarity evidenced in this issue. Taken as a whole, these articles attest to the importance of understanding protest and social change.ReferencesMcKibben, B. "Foreword." Voices of Protest: Documents of Courage and Dissent. Eds. Frank Lowenstein, Sheryl Lechner, and Erik Bruun. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2007. 7-8.Wilcox, E.W. "Protest." Poems of Problems. Chicago: W.B. Conkey Company, 1914.

Introduction Lillian Ng was born in Singapore and lived in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom before migrating to Australia with her daughter and Ah Mah Yin Jie (“Ah Mahs are a special group of people who took a vow to remain unmarried … [so they] could stick together as a group and make a living together” (Yu 118)). Ng studied classical Chinese at home, then went to an English school and later on studied Medicine. Her first book, Silver Sister (1994), was short-listed for the inaugural Angus & Robertson/Bookworld Prize in 1993 and won the Human Rights Award in 1995. Ng defines herself as a “Chinese living in Australia” (Yu 115). Food, flesh and meat are recurrent topics in Lillian Ng´s second novel Swallowing Clouds, published in 1997. These topics are related to desire and can be used as a synecdoche (a metaphor that describes part/whole relations) of the human body: food is needed to survive and pleasure can be obtained from other people´s bodies. This paper focuses on one type of meat and animal, pork and the pig, and on the relation between the two main characters, Syn and Zhu Zhiyee. Syn, the main character in the novel, is a Shanghainese student studying English in Sydney who becomes stranded after the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989. As she stops receiving money from her mother and fears repression if she goes back to China, she begins to work in a Chinese butcher shop, owned by Zhu Zhiyee, which brings her English lessons to a standstill. Syn and Zhu Zhiyee soon begin a two-year love affair, despite the fact that Zhu Zhiyee is married to KarLeng and has three daughters. The novel is structured as a prologue and four days, each of which has a different setting and temporal location. The prologue introduces the story of an adulterous woman who was punished to be drowned in a pig´s basket in the HuanPu River in the summer of 1918. As learnt later on, Syn is the reincarnation of this woman, whose purpose in life is to take revenge on men by taking their money. The four days, from the 4th to the 7th of June 1994, mark the duration of a trip to Beijing and Shanghai that Syn takes as member of an Australian expedition in order to visit her mother with the security of an Australian passport. During these four days, the reader learns about different Chinese landmarks, such as the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the Ming Tomb and the Summer Palace, as well as some cultural events, such as a Chinese opera and eating typical foods like Peking duck. However, the bulk of the plot of the book deals with the sexual relationship, erotic games and fantasies of Syn and Zhu Zhiyee in the period between 1989 and 1992, as well as Syn´s final revenge in January 1993. Pigs The fact that Zhu Zhiyee is a butcher allows Lillian Ng to include references to pigs and pork throughout the novel. Some of them refer to the everyday work of a butcher shop, as the following examples illustrate: “Come in and help me with the carcass,” he [Zhu Zhiyee] pointed to a small suckling pig hung on a peg. Syn hesitated, not knowing how to handle the situation. “Take the whole pig with the peg,” he commanded (11).Under dazzling fluorescent tubes and bright spotlights, trays of red meat, pork chops and lamb cutlets sparkled like jewels … The trays edged with red cellophane frills and green underlay breathed vitality and colour into the slabs of pork ribs and fillets (15).Buckets of pig´s blood with a skim of froth took their place on the floor; gelled ones, like sliced cubes of large agate, sat in tin trays labelled in Chinese. More discreetly hidden were the gonads and penises of goats, bulls and pigs. (16)These examples are representative of Syn and Zhu Zhiyee´s relationship. The first quotation deals with their interaction: most of the time Zhu Zhiyee orders Syn how to act, either in the shop or in bed. The second extract describes the meat’s “vitality” and this is the quality of Syn's skin that mesmerised Zhu when he met her: “he was excited, electrified by the sight of her unblemished, translucent skin, unlined, smooth as silk. The glow of the warmth of human skin” (13). Moreover, the lights seem to completely illuminate the pieces of meat and this is the way Zhu Zhiyee leers at Syn´s body, as it can be read in the following extract: “he turned again to fix his gaze on Syn, which pierced and penetrated her head, her brain, eyes, permeated her whole body, seeped into her secret places and crevices” (14). The third excerpt introduces the sexual organs of some of the animals, which are sold to some customers for a high price. Meat is also sexualised by Zhu Zhiyee´s actions, such as his pinching the bottoms of chickens and comparing them with “sacrificial virgins”: “chickens, shamelessly stripped and trussed, hung by their necks, naked in their pimply white skin, seemed like sacrificial virgins. Syn often caught Zhu pinching their fleshy bottoms, while wrapping and serving them to the housewives” (15-16). Zhu also makes comments relating food with sex while he is having lunch next to Syn, which could be considered sexual harassment. All these extracts exemplify the relationship between Syn and Zhu Zhiyee: the orders, the looks and the implicit sexuality in the quotidian activities in the butcher´s shop. There are also a range of other expressions that include similes with the word `pig´ in Ng´s novel. One of the most recurrent is comparing the left arm and hand of Zhu Zhiyee´s mother with a “pig´s trotter”. Zhu Zhiyee´s mother is known as ZhuMa and Syn is very fond of her, as ZhuMa accepts her and likes her more than her own daughter-in-law. The comparison of ZhuMa´s arm and hand with a trotter may be explained by the fact that ZhuMa´s arm is swollen but also by the loving representation of pigs in Chinese culture. As Seung-Og Kim explains in his article “Burials, Pigs, and Political Prestige in Neolithic China”: In both Melanesia and Asia, pigs are viewed as a symbolic representation of human beings (Allen 1976: 42; Healey 1985; Rappaport 1967: 58; Roscoe 1989: 223-26). Piglets are treated as pets and receive a great deal of loving attention, and they in turn express affection for their human “parents.” They also share some physiological features with human beings, being omnivorous and highly reproductive (though humans do not usually have multiple litters) and similar internal anatomy (Roscoe 1989: 225). In short, pigs not only have a symbiotic relationship with humans biologically but also are of great importance symbolically (121). Consequently, pigs are held in high esteem, taken care of and loved. Therefore, comparing a part of a human´s body, such as an arm or a hand, for example, to a part of a pig´s body such as a pig´s trotter is not negative, but has positive connotations. Some descriptions of ZhuMa´s arm and hand can be read in the following excerpts: “As ZhuMa handed her the plate of cookies Syn saw her left arm, swollen like a pig´s trotter” (97); “Syn was horrified, and yet somewhat intrigued by this woman without a breast, with a pig´s trotter arm and a tummy like a chessboard” (99), “mimicking the act of writing with her pig-trotter hand” (99), and ZhuMa was praising the excellence of the opera, the singing, acting, the costumes, and the elaborate props, waving excitedly with her pig trotter arm and pointing with her stubby fingers while she talked. (170) Moreover, the expression “pig´s trotters” is also used as an example of the erotic fetishism with bound feet, as it can be seen in the following passage, which will be discussed below: I [Zhu Zhiyee] adore feet which are slender… they seem so soft, like pig´s trotters, so cute and loving, they play tricks on your mind. Imagine feeling them in bed under your blankets—soft cottonwool lumps, plump and cuddly, makes you want to stroke them like your lover´s hands … this was how the bound feet appealed to men, the erotic sensation when balanced on shoulders, clutched in palms, strung to the seat of a garden swing … no matter how ugly a woman is, her tiny elegant feet would win her many admirers (224).Besides writing about pigs and pork as part of the daily work of the butcher shop and using the expression “pig´s trotter”, “pig” is also linked to money in two sentences in the book. On the one hand, it is used to calculate a price and draw attention to the large amount it represents: “The blouse was very expensive—three hundred dollars, the total takings from selling a pig. Two pigs if he purchased two blouses” (197). On the other, it works as an adjective in the expression “piggy-bank”, the money box in the form of a pig, an animal that represents abundance and happiness in the Chinese culture: “She borrowed money from her neighbours, who emptied pieces of silver from their piggy-banks, their life savings”(54). Finally, the most frequent porcine expression in Ng´s Swallowing Clouds makes reference to being drowned in a pig´s basket, which represents 19 of the 33 references to pigs or pork that appear in the novel. The first three references appear in the prologue (ix, x, xii), where the reader learns the story of the last woman who was killed by drowning in a pig´s basket as a punishment for her adultery. After this, two references recount a soothsayer´s explanation to Syn about her nightmares and the fact that she is the reincarnation of that lady (67, 155); three references are made by Syn when she explains this story to Zhu Zhiyee and to her companion on the trip to Beijing and Shanghai (28, 154, 248); one refers to a feeling Syn has during sexual intercourse with Zhu Zhiyee (94); and one when the pig basket is compared to a cricket box, a wicker or wooden box used to carry or keep crickets in a house and listen to them singing (73). Furthermore, Syn reflects on the fact of drowning (65, 114, 115, 171, 172, 173, 197, 296) and compares her previous death with that of Concubine Pearl, the favourite of Emperor Guanxu, who was killed by order of his aunt, the Empress Dowager Cixi (76-77). The punishment of drowning in a pig´s basket can thus be understood as retribution for a transgression: a woman having an extra-marital relationship, going against the establishment and the boundaries of the authorised. Both the woman who is drowned in a pig´s basket in 1918 and Syn have extra-marital affairs and break society’s rules. However, the consequences are different: the concubine dies and Syn, her reincarnation, takes revenge. Desire, Transgression and Eroticism Xavier Pons writes about desire, repression, freedom and transgression in his book Messengers of Eros: Representations of Sex in Australian Writing (2009). In this text, he explains that desire can be understood as a positive or as a negative feeling. On the one hand, by experiencing desire, a person feels alive and has joy de vivre, and if that person is desired in return, then, the feelings of being accepted and happiness are also involved (13). On the other hand, desire is often repressed, as it may be considered evil, anarchic, an enemy of reason and an alienation from consciousness (14). According to Pons: Sometimes repression, in the form of censorship, comes from the outside—from society at large, or from particular social groups—because of desire´s subversive nature, because it is a force which, given a free rein, would threaten the higher purpose which a given society assigns to other (and usually ideological) forces … Repression may also come from the inside, via the internalization of censorship … desire is sometimes feared by the individual as a force alien to his/her true self which would leave him/her vulnerable to rejection or domination, and would result in loss of freedom (14).Consequently, when talking about sexual desire, the two main concepts to be dealt with are freedom and transgression. As Pons makes clear, “the desiring subject can be taken advantage of, manipulated like a puppet [as h]is or her freedom is in this sense limited by the experience of desire” (15). While some practices may be considered abusive, such as bondage or sado-masochism, they may be deliberately and freely chosen by the partners involved. In this case, these practices represent “an encounter between equals: dominance is no more than make-believe, and a certain amount of freedom (as much as is compatible with giving oneself up to one´s fantasies) is maintained throughout” (24). Consequently, the perception of freedom changes with each person and situation. What is transgressive depends on the norms in every culture and, as these evolve, so do the forms of transgression (Pons 43). Examples of transgressions can be: firstly, the separation of sex from love, adultery or female and male homosexuality, which happen with the free will of the partners; or, secondly, paedophilia, incest or bestiality, which imply abuse. Going against society’s norms involves taking risks, such as being discovered and exiled from society or feeling isolated as a result of a feeling of difference. As the norms change according to culture, time and person, an individual may transgress the rules and feel liberated, but later on do the same thing and feel alienated. As Pons declares, “transgressing the rules does not always lead to liberation or happiness—transgression can turn into a trap and turn out to be simply another kind of alienation” (46). In Swallowing Clouds, Zhu Zhiyee transgresses the social norms of his time by having an affair with Syn: firstly, because it is extra-marital, he and his wife, KarLeng, are Catholic and fidelity is one of the promises made when getting married; and, secondly, because he is Syn´s boss and his comments and ways of flirting with her could be considered sexual harassment. For two years, the affair is an escape from Zhu Zhiyee´s daily worries and stress and a liberation and fulfillment of his sexual desires. However, he introduces Syn to his mother and his sisters, who accept her and like her more than his wife. He feels trapped, though, when KarLeng guesses and threatens him with divorce. He cannot accept this as it would mean loss of face in their neighbourhood and society, and so he decides to abandon Syn. Syn´s transgression becomes a trap for her as Zhu, his mother and his sisters have become her only connection with the outside world in Australia and this alienates her from both the country she lives in and the people she knows. However, Syn´s transgression also turns into a trap for Zhu Zhiyee because she will not sign the documents to give him the house back and every month she sends proof of their affair to KarLeng in order to cause disruption in their household. This exposure could be compared with the humiliation suffered by the concubine when she was paraded in a pig´s basket before she was drowned in the HuangPu River. Furthermore, the reader does not know whether KarLeng finally divorces Zhu Zhiyee, which would be his drowning and loss of face and dishonour in front of society, but can imagine the humiliation, shame and disgrace KarLeng makes him feel every month. Pons also depicts eroticism as a form of transgression. In fact, erotic relations are a power game, and seduction can be a very effective weapon. As such, women can use seduction to obtain power and threaten the patriarchal order, which imposes on them patterns of behaviour, language and codes to follow. However, men also use seduction to get their own benefits, especially in political and social contexts. “Power has often been described as the ultimate aphrodisiac” (Pons 32) and this can be seen in many of the sexual games between Syn and Zhu Zhiyee in Swallowing Clouds, where Zhu Zhiyee is the active partner and Syn becomes little more than an object that gives pleasure. A clear reference to erotic fetishism is embedded in the above-mentioned quote on bound feet, which are compared to pig´s trotters. In fact, bound feet were so important in China in the millennia between the Song Dynasty (960-1276) and the early 20th century that “it was impossible to find a husband” (Holman) without them: “As women’s bound feet and shoes became the essence of feminine beauty, a fanatical aesthetic and sexual mystique developed around them. The bound foot was understood to be the most intimate and erotic part of the female anatomy, and wives, consorts and prostitutes were chosen solely on the size and shape of their feet” (Holman). Bound feet are associated in Ng’s novel with pig´s trotters and are described as “cute and loving … soft cottonwool lumps, plump and cuddly, [that] makes you want to stroke them like your lover´s hands” (224). This approach towards bound feet and, by extension, towards pig´s trotters, can be related to the fond feelings Melanesian and Asian cultures have towards piglets, which “are treated as pets and receive a great deal of loving attention” (Kim 121). Consequently, the bound feet can be considered a synecdoche for the fond feelings piglets inspire. Food and Sex The fact that Zhu Zhiyee is a butcher and works with different types of meat, including pork, that he chops it, sells it and gives cooking advice, is not gratuitous in the novel. He is used to being in close proximity to meat and death and seeing Syn’s pale skin through which he can trace her veins excites him. Her flesh is alive and represents, therefore, the opposite of meat. He wants to seduce her, which is human hunting, and he wants to study her, to enjoy her body, which can be compared to animals looking at their prey and deciding where to start eating from. Zhu´s desire for Syn seems destructive and dangerous. In the novel, bodies have a price: dead animals are paid for and eaten and their role is the satiation of human hunger. But humans, who are also animals, have a price as well: flesh is paid for, in the form of prostitution or being a mistress, and its aim is satiation of human sex. Generally speaking, sex in the novel is compared to food either in a direct or an indirect way, and making love is constantly compared to cooking, the preparation of food and eating (as in Pons 303). Many passages in Swallowing Clouds have cannibalistic connotations, all of these being used as metaphors for Zhu Zhiyee’s desire for Syn. As mentioned before, desire can be positive (as it makes a person feel alive) or negative (as a form of internal or social censorship). For Zhu Zhiyee, desire is positive and similar to a drug he is addicted to. For example, when Zhu and Syn make delivery rounds in an old Mazda van, he plays the recordings he made the previous night when they were having sex and tries to guess when each moan happened. Sex and Literature Pons explains that “to write about sex … is to address a host of issues—social, psychological and literary—which together pretty much define a culture” (6). Lillian Ng´s Swallowing Clouds addresses a series of issues. The first of these could be termed ‘the social’: Syn´s situation after the Tiananmen Massacre; her adulterous relationship with her boss and being treated and considered his mistress; the rapes in Inner Mongolia; different reasons for having an abortion; various forms of abuse, even by a mother of her mentally handicapped daughter; the loss of face; betrayal; and revenge. The second issue is the ‘psychological’, with the power relations and strategies used between different characters, psychological abuse, physical abuse, humiliation, and dependency. The third is the ‘literary’, as when the constant use of metaphors with Chinese cultural references becomes farcical, as Tseen Khoo notes in her article “Selling Sexotica” (2000: 164). Khoo explains that, “in the push for Swallowing Clouds to be many types of novels at once: [that is, erotica, touristic narrative and popular], it fails to be any one particularly successfully” (171). Swallowing Clouds is disturbing, full of stereotypes, and with repeated metaphors, and does not have a clear readership and, as Khoo states: “The explicit and implicit strategies behind the novel embody the enduring perceptions of what exotic, multicultural writing involves—sensationalism, voyeuristic pleasures, and a seemingly deliberate lack of rooted-ness in the Australian socioscape (172). Furthermore, Swallowing Clouds has also been defined as “oriental grunge, mostly because of the progression throughout the narrative from one gritty, exoticised sexual encounter to another” (Khoo 169-70).Other novels which have been described as “grunge” are Edward Berridge´s Lives of the Saints (1995), Justine Ettler´s The River Ophelia (1995), Linda Jaivin´s Eat Me (1995), Andrew McGahan´s Praise (1992) and 1988 (1995), Claire Mendes´ Drift Street (1995) or Christos Tsiolkas´ Loaded (1995) (Michael C). The word “grunge” has clear connotations with “dirtiness”—a further use of pig, but one that is not common in the novel. The vocabulary used during the sexual intercourse and games between Syn and Zhu Zhiyee is, however, coarse, and “the association of sex with coarseness is extremely common” (Pons 344). Pons states that “writing about sex is an attempt to overcome [the barriers of being ashamed of some human bodily functions], regarded as unnecessarily constrictive, and this is what makes it by nature transgressive, controversial” (344-45). Ng´s use of vocabulary in this novel is definitely controversial, indeed, so much so that it has been defined as banal or even farcical (Khoo 169-70).ConclusionThis paper has analysed the use of the words and expressions: “pig”, “pork” and “drowning in a pig’s basket” in Lillian Ng´s Swallowing Clouds. Moreover, the punishment of drowning in a pig’s basket has served as a means to study the topics of desire, transgression and eroticism, in relation to an analysis of the characters of Syn and Zhu Zhiyee, and their relationship. This discussion of various terminology relating to “pig” has also led to the study of the relationship between food and sex, and sex and literature, in this novel. Consequently, this paper has analysed the use of the term “pig” and has used it as a springboard for the analysis of some aspects of the novel together with different theoretical definitions and concepts. Acknowledgements A version of this paper was given at the International Congress Food for Thought, hosted by the Australian Studies Centre at the University of Barcelona in February 2010. References Allen, Bryan J. Information Flow and Innovation Diffusion in the East Sepic District, Papua New Guinea. PhD diss. Australian National University, Australia. 1976. Berridge, Edward. Lives of the Saints. St Lucia: U of Queensland P, 1995. C., Michael. “Toward a sound theory of Australian Grunge fiction.” [Weblog entry] Eurhythmania. 5 Mar. 2008. 4 Oct. 2010 http://eurhythmania.blogspot.com/2008/03/toward-sound-theory-of-australian.html. Ettler, Justine. The River Ophelia. Sydney: Picador, 1995. Healey, Christopher J. “Pigs, Cassowaries, and the Gift of the Flesh: A Symbolic Triad in Maring Cosmology.” Ethnology 24 (1985): 153-65. Holman, Jeanine. “Bound Feet.” Bound Feet: The History of a Curious, Erotic Custom. Ed. Joseph Rupp 2010. 11 Aug. 2010. http://www.josephrupp.com/history.html. Jaivin, Linda. Eat Me. Melbourne: The Text Publishing Company, 1995. Khoo, Tseen. “Selling Sexotica: Oriental Grunge and Suburbia in Lillian Ngs’ Swallowing Clouds.” Diaspora: Negotiating Asian-Australian. Ed. Helen Gilbert, Tseen Khoo, and Jaqueline Lo. St Lucia: U of Queensland P, 2000. 164-72. Khoo, Tseen; Danau Tanu, and Tien. "Re: Of pigs and porks” 5-9 Aug. 1997. Asian- Australian Discussion List Digest numbers 1447-1450. Apr. 2010 . Kim, Seung-Og. “Burials, Pigs, and Political Prestige in Neolithic China.” Current Anthopology 35.2 (Apr. 1994): 119-141. McGahan, Andrew. Praise. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992. McGahan, Andrew. 1988. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1995. Mendes, Clare. Drift Street. Pymble: HarperCollins, 1995. Ng, Lillian. Swallowing Clouds. Ringwood: Penguin Books Australia,1997. Pons, Xavier. Messengers of Eros. Representations of Sex in Australian Writing. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. Rappaport, Roy. Pigs for the Ancestors. New Have: Yale UP, 1967. Roscoe, Paul B. “The Pig and the Long Yam: The Expansion of the Sepik Cultural Complex”. Ethnology 28 (1989): 219-31. Tsiolkas, Christos. Loaded. Sydney: Vintage, 1995. Yu, Ouyang. “An Interview with Lillian Ng.” Otherland Literary Journal 7, Bastard Moon. Essays on Chinese-Australian Writing (July 2001): 111-24.

Unlike some current discourse on automediality, this essay eschews most of the analysis concerning the adoption or modification of avatars to deliberately enhance, extend or distort the self. Rather than the automedial enabling of alternative, virtual selves modified by playful, confronting or disarming avatars we concentrate instead on emerging efforts to present the self in hyper-realist, interactive modes. In doing so we ask, what is the relationship between traumatic forms of automediation and the affective impact on and response of the audience? We argue that, while on the one hand there are promising avenues for valuable individual and social engagements with traumatic forms of automediation, there is an overwhelming predominance of suffering as a theme in such virtual depictions, comingled with uncritically asserted promises of empathy, which are problematic as the technology assumes greater mainstream uptake.As Smith and Watson note, embodiment is always a “translation” where the body is “dematerialized” in virtual representation (“Virtually” 78). Past scholarship has analysed the capacity of immersive realms, such as Second Life or online games, to highlight how users can modify their avatars in often spectacular, non-human forms. Critics of this mode of automediality note that users can adopt virtually any persona they like (racial, religious, gendered and sexual, human, animal or hybrid, and of any age), behaving as “identity tourists” while occupying virtual space or inhabiting online communities (Nakamura). Furthermore, recent work by Jaron Lanier, a key figure from the 1980s period of early Virtual Reality (VR) technology, has also explored so-called “homuncular flexibility” which describes the capacity for humans to seemingly adapt automatically to the control mechanisms of an avatar with multiple legs, other non-human appendages, or for two users to work in tandem to control a single avatar (Won et. al.). But this article is concerned less with these single or multi-player online environments and the associated concerns over modifying interactive identities. We are principally interested in other automedial modes where the “auto” of autobiography is automated via Artificial Intelligences (AIs) to convincingly mimic human discourse as narrated life-histories.We draw from case studies promoted by the 2017 season of ABC television’s flagship science program, Catalyst, which opened with semi-regular host and biological engineer Dr Jordan Nguyen, proclaiming in earnest, almost religious fervour: “I want to do something that has long been a dream. I want to create a copy of a human. An avatar. And it will have a life of its own in virtual reality.” As the camera followed Nguyen’s rapid pacing across real space he extolled: “Virtual reality, virtual human, they push the limits of the imagination and help us explore the impossible […] I want to create a virtual copy of a person. A digital addition to the family, using technology we have now.”The troubling implications of such rhetoric were stark and the next third of the program did little to allay such techno-scientific misgivings. Directed and produced by David Symonds, with Nguyen credited as co-developer and presenter, the episode “Meet the Avatars” immediately introduced scenarios where “volunteers” entered a pop-up inner city virtual lab, to experience VR for the first time. The volunteers were shown on screen subjected to a range of experimental VR environments designed to elicit fear and/or adverse and disorienting responses such as vertigo, while the presenter and researchers from Sydney University constantly smirked and laughed at their participants’ discomfort. We can only wonder what the ethics process was for both the ABC and university researchers involved in these broadcast experiments. There is little doubt that the participant/s experienced discomfort, if not distress, and that was televised to a national audience. Presenter Nguyen was also shown misleading volunteers on their way to the VR lab, when one asked “You’re not going to chuck us out of a virtual plane are you?” to which Nguyen replied “I don't know what we’re going to do yet,” when it was next shown that they immediately underwent pre-programmed VR exposure scenarios, including a fear of falling exercise from atop a city skyscraper.The sweat-inducing and heart rate-racing exposures to virtual plank walks high above a cityscape, or seeing subjects haptically viewing spiders crawl across their outstretched virtual hands, all elicited predictable responses, showcased as carnivalesque entertainment for the viewing audience. As we will see, this kind of trivialising of a virtual environment’s capacity for immersion belies the serious use of the technology in a range of treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (see Rizzo and Koenig; Rothbaum, Rizzo and Difede).Figure 1: Nguyen and researchers enjoying themselves as their volunteers undergo VR exposure Defining AutomedialityIn their pioneering 2008 work, Automedialität: Subjektkonstitution in Schrift, Bild und neuen Medien, Jörg Dünne and Christian Moser coined the term “automediality” to problematise the production, application and distribution of autobiographic modes across various media and genres—from literary texts to audiovisual media and from traditional expression to inter/transmedia and remediated formats. The concept of automediality was deployed to counter the conventional critical exclusion of analysis of the materiality/technology used for an autobiographical purpose (Gernalzick). Dünne and Moser proffered a concept of automediality that rejects the binary division of (a) self-expression determining the mediated form or (b) (self)subjectivity being solely produced through the mediating technology. Hence, automediality has been traditionally applied to literary constructs such as autobiography and life-writing, but is now expanding into the digital domain and other “paratextual sites” (Maguire).As Nadja Gernalzick suggests, automediality should “encourage and demand not only a systematics and taxonomy of the constitution of the self in respectively genre-specific ways, but particularly also in medium-specific ways” (227). Emma Maguire has offered a succinct working definition that builds on this requirement to signal the automedial universally, noting it operates asa way of studying auto/biographical texts (of a variety of forms) that take into account how the effects of media shape the kinds of selves that can be represented, and which understands the self not as a preexisting subject that might be distilled into story form but as an entity that is brought into being through the processes of mediation.Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson point to automediality as a methodology, and in doing so emphasize how the telling or mediation of a life actually shapes the kind of story that can be told autobiographically. They state “media cannot simply be conceptualized as ‘tools’ for presenting a preexisting, essential self […] Media technologies do not just transparently present the self. They constitute and expand it” (Smith and Watson “Virtually Me” 77).This distinction is vital for understanding how automediality might be applied to self-expression in virtual domains, including the holographic avatar dreams of Nguyen throughout Catalyst. Although addressing this distinction in relation to online websites, following P. David Marshall’s description of “the proliferation of the public self”, Maguire notes:The same integration of digital spaces and platforms into daily life that is prompting the development of new tools in autobiography studies […] has also given rise to the field of persona studies, which addresses the ways in which individuals engage in practices of self-presentation in order to form commoditised identities that circulate in affective communities.For Maguire, these automedial works operate textually “to construct the authorial self or persona”.An extension to this digital, authorial construction is apparent in the exponential uptake of screen mediated prosumer generated content, whether online or theatrical (Miller). According to Gernalzick, unlike fictional drama films, screen autobiographies more directly enable “experiential temporalities”. Based on Mary Anne Doane’s promotion of the “indexicality” of film/screen representations to connote the real, Gernalzick suggests that despite semiotic theories of the index problematising realism as an index as representation, the film medium is still commonly comprehended as the “imprint of time itself”:Film and the spectator of film are said to be in a continuous present. Because the viewer is aware, however, that the images experienced in or even as presence have been made in the past, the temporality of the so-called filmic present is always ambiguous” (230).When expressed as indexical, automedial works, the intrinsic audio-visual capacities of film and video (as media) far surpass the temporal limitations of print and writing (Gernalzick, 228). One extreme example can be found in an emergent trend of “performance crime” murder and torture videos live-streamed or broadcast after the fact using mobile phone cameras and FaceBook (Bender). In essence, the political economy of the automedial ecology is important to understand in the overall context of self expression and the governance of content exhibition, access, distribution and—where relevant—interaction.So what are the implications for automedial works that employ virtual interfaces and how does this evolving medium inform both the expressive autobiographical mode and audiences subjectivities?Case StudyThe Catalyst program described above strove to shed new light on the potential for emerging technology to capture and create virtual avatars from living participants who (self-)generate autobiographical narratives interactively. Once past the initial gee-wiz journalistic evangelism of VR, the episode turned towards host Nguyen’s stated goal—using contemporary technology to create an autonomous virtual human clone. Nguyen laments that if he could create only one such avatar, his primary choice would be that of his grandfather who died when Nguyen was two years old—a desire rendered impossible. The awkward humour of the plank walk scenario sequence soon gives way as the enthusiastic Nguyen is surprised by his family’s discomfort with the idea of digitally recreating his grandfather.Nguyen next visits a Southern California digital media lab to experience the process by which 3D virtual human avatars are created. Inside a domed array of lights and cameras, in less than one second a life-size 3D avatar is recorded via 6,000 LEDs illuminating his face in 20 different combinations, with eight cameras capturing the exposures from multiple angles, all in ultra high definition. Called the Light Stage (Debevec), it is the same technology used to create a life size, virtual holocaust survivor, Pinchas Gutter (Ziv).We see Nguyen encountering a life-size, high-resolution 2D screen version of Gutter’s avatar. Standing before a microphone, Nguyen asks a series of questions about Gutter’s wartime experiences and life in the concentration camps. The responses are naturalistic and authentic, as are the pauses between questions. The high definition 4K screen is photo-realist but much more convincing in-situ (as an artifact of the Catalyst video camera recording, in some close-ups horizontal lines of transmission appear). According to the project’s curator, David Traum, the real Pinchas Gutter was recorded in 3D as a virtual holograph. He spent 25 hours providing 1,600 responses to a broad range of questions that the curator maintained covered “a lot of what people want to say” (Catalyst).Figure 2: The Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan presented an installation of New Dimensions in Testimony, featuring Pinchas Gutter and Eva SchlossIt is here that the intersection between VR and auto/biography hybridise in complex and potentially difficult ways. It is where the concept of automediality may offer insight into this rapidly emerging phenomenon of creating interactive, hyperreal versions of our selves using VR. These hyperreal VR personae can be questioned and respond in real-time, where interrogators interact either as casual conversers or determined interrogators.The impact on visitors is sobering and palpable. As Nguyen relates at the end of his session, “I just want to give him a hug”. The demonstrable capacity for this avatar to engender a high degree of empathy from its automedial testimony is clear, although as we indicate below, it could simply indicate increased levels of emotion.Regardless, an ongoing concern amongst witnesses, scholars and cultural curators of memorials and museums dedicated to preserving the history of mass violence, and its associated trauma, is that once the lived experience and testimony of survivors passes with that generation the impact of the testimony diminishes (Broderick). New media modes of preserving and promulgating such knowledge in perpetuity are certainly worthy of embracing. As Stephen Smith, the executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation suggests, the technology could extendto people who have survived cancer or catastrophic hurricanes […] from the experiences of soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder or survivors of sexual abuse, to those of presidents or great teachers. Imagine if a slave could have told her story to her grandchildren? (Ziv)Yet questions remain as to the veracity of these recorded personae. The avatars are created according to a specific agenda and the autobiographical content controlled for explicit editorial purposes. It is unclear what and why material has been excluded. If, for example, during the recorded questioning, the virtual holocaust survivor became mute at recollecting a traumatic memory, cried or sobbed uncontrollably—all natural, understandable and authentic responses given the nature of the testimony—should these genuine and spontaneous emotions be included along with various behavioural ticks such as scratching, shifting about in the seat and other naturalistic movements, to engender a more profound realism?The generation of the photorealist, mimetic avatar—remaining as an interactive persona long after the corporeal, authorial being is gone—reinforces Baudrillard’s concept of simulacra, where a clone exists devoid of its original entity and unable to challenge its automedial discourse. And what if some unscrupulous hacker managed to corrupt and subvert Gutter’s AI so that it responded antithetically to its purpose, by denying the holocaust ever happened? The ethical dilemmas of such a paradigm were explored in the dystopian 2013 film, The Congress, where Robyn Wright plays herself (and her avatar), as an out of work actor who sells off the rights to her digital self. A movie studio exploits her screen persona in perpetuity, enabling audiences to “become” and inhabit her avatar in virtual space while she is limited in the real world from undertaking certain actions due to copyright infringement. The inability of Wright to control her mimetic avatar’s discourse or action means the assumed automedial agency of her virtual self as an immortal, interactive being remains ontologically perplexing.Figure 3: Robyn Wright undergoing a full body photogrammetry to create her VR avatar in The Congress (2013)The various virtual exposures/experiences paraded throughout Catalyst’s “Meet the Avatars” paradoxically recorded and broadcast a range of troubling emotional responses to such immersion. Many participant responses suggest great caution and sensitivity be undertaken before plunging headlong into the new gold rush mentality of virtual reality, augmented reality, and AI affordances. Catalyst depicted their program subjects often responding in discomfort and distress, with some visibly overwhelmed by their encounters and left crying. There is some irony that presenter Ngyuen was himself relying on the conventions of 2D linear television journalism throughout, adopting face-to-camera address in (unconscious) automedial style to excitedly promote the assumed socio-cultural boon such automedial VR avatars will generate.Challenging AuthenticityThere are numerous ethical considerations surrounding the potential for AIs to expand beyond automedial (self-)expression towards photorealist avatars interacting outside of their pre-recorded content. When such systems evolve it may be neigh impossible to discern on screen whether the person you are conversing with is authentic or an indistinguishable, virtual doppelganger. In the future, a variant on the Turning Test may be needed to challenge and identify such hyperreal simulacra. We may be witnessing the precursor to such a dilemma playing out in the arena of audio-only podcasts, with some public intellectuals such as Sam Harris already discussing the legal and ethical problems from technology that can create audio from typed text that convincingly replicate the actual voice of a person by sampling approximately 30 minutes of their original speech (Harris). Such audio manipulation technology will soon be available to anybody with the motivation and relatively minor level of technological ability in order to assume an identity and masquerade as automediated dialogue. However, for the moment, the ability to convincingly alter a real-time computer generated video image of a person remains at the level of scientific innovation.Also of significance is the extent to which the audience reactions to such automediated expressions are indeed empathetic or simply part of the broader range of affective responses that also include direct sympathy as well as emotions such as admiration, surprise, pity, disgust and contempt (see Plantinga). There remains much rhetorical hype surrounding VR as the “ultimate empathy machine” (Milk). Yet the current use of the term “empathy” in VR, AI and automedial forms of communication seems to be principally focused on the capacity for the user-viewer to ameliorate negatively perceived emotions and experiences, whether traumatic or phobic.When considering comments about authenticity here, it is important to be aware of the occasional slippage of technological terminology into the mainstream. For example, the psychological literature does emphasise that patients respond strongly to virtual scenarios, events, and details that appear to be “authentic” (Pertaub, Slater, and Barker). Authentic in this instance implies a resemblance to a corresponding scenario/activity in the real world. This is not simply another word for photorealism, but rather it describes for instance the experimental design of one study in which virtual (AI) audience members in a virtual seminar room designed to treat public speaking anxiety were designed to exhibit “random autonomous behaviours in real-time, such as twitches, blinks, and nods, designed to encourage the illusion of life” (Kwon, Powell and Chalmers 980). The virtual humans in this study are regarded as having greater authenticity than an earlier project on social anxiety (North, North, and Coble) which did not have much visual complexity but did incorporate researcher-triggered audio clips of audience members “laughing, making comments, encouraging the speaker to speak louder or more clearly” (Kwon, Powell, and Chalmers 980). The small movements, randomly cued rather than according to a recognisable pattern, are described by the researchers as creating a sense of authenticity in the VR environment as they seem to correspond to the sorts of random minor movements that actual human audiences in a seminar can be expected to make.Nonetheless, nobody should regard an interaction with these AIs, or the avatar of Gutter, as in any way an encounter with a real person. Rather, the characteristics above function to create a disarming effect and enable the real person-viewer to willingly suspend their disbelief and enter into a pseudo-relationship with the AI; not as if it is an actual relationship, but as if it is a simulation of an actual relationship (USC). Lucy Suchman and colleagues invoke these ideas in an analysis of a YouTube video of some apparently humiliating human interactions with the MIT created AI-robot Mertz. Their analysis contends that, while it may appear on first glance that the humans’ mocking exchange with Mertz are mean-spirited, there is clearly a playfulness and willingness to engage with a form of AI that is essentially continuous with “long-standing assumptions about communication as information processing, and in the robot’s performance evidence for the limits to the mechanical reproduction of interaction as we know it through computational processes” (Suchman, Roberts, and Hird).Thus, it will be important for future work in the area of automediated testimony to consider the extent to which audiences are willing to suspend disbelief and treat the recounted traumatic experience with appropriate gravitas. These questions deserve attention, and not the kind of hype displayed by the current iteration of techno-evangelism. Indeed, some of this resurgent hype has come under scrutiny. From the perspective of VR-based tourism, Janna Thompson has recently argued that “it will never be a substitute for encounters with the real thing” (Thompson). Alyssa K. Loh, for instance, also argues that many of the negatively themed virtual experiences—such as those that drop the viewer into a scene of domestic violence or the location of a terrorist bomb attack—function not to put you in the position of the actual victim but in the position of the general category of domestic violence victim, or bomb attack victim, thus “deindividuating trauma” (Loh).Future work in this area should consider actual audience responses and rely upon mixed-methods research approaches to audience analysis. In an era of alt.truth and Cambridge Analytics personality profiling from social media interaction, automediated communication in the virtual guise of AIs demands further study.ReferencesAnon. “New Dimensions in Testimony.” Museum of Jewish Heritage. 15 Dec. 2017. 19 Apr. 2018 <http://mjhnyc.org/exhibitions/new-dimensions-in-testimony/>.Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “Meet The Avatars.” Catalyst, 15 Aug. 2017.Baudrillard, Jean. “Simulacra and Simulations.” Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings. Ed. Mark Poster. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1988. 166-184.Bender, Stuart Marshall. Legacies of the Degraded Image in Violent Digital Media. 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München: Wilhelm Fink, 2008. 7-16.Harris, Sam. “Waking Up with Sam Harris #64 – Ask Me Anything.” YouTube, 16 Feb. 2017. 16 Mar. 2018 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMTuquaAC4w>.Kwon, Joung Huem, John Powell, and Alan Chalmers. “How Level of Realism Influences Anxiety in Virtual Reality Environments for a Job Interview.” International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 71.10 (2013): 978-87.Loh, Alyssa K. "I Feel You." Artforum, Nov. 2017. 10 Apr. 2018 <https://www.artforum.com/print/201709/alyssa-k-loh-on-virtual-reality-and-empathy-71781>.Marshall, P. David. “Persona Studies: Mapping the Proliferation of the Public Self.” Journalism 15.2 (2014): 153-170.Mathews, Karen. “Exhibit Allows Virtual ‘Interviews’ with Holocaust Survivors.” Phys.org Science X Network, 15 Dec. 2017. 18 Apr. 2018 <https://phys.org/news/2017-09-virtual-holocaust-survivors.html>.Maguire, Emma. “Home, About, Shop, Contact: Constructing an Authorial Persona via the Author Website” M/C Journal 17.9 (2014).Miller, Ken. More than Fifteen Minutes of Fame: The Evolution of Screen Performance. Unpublished PhD Thesis. Murdoch University. 2009.Milk, Chris. “Ted: How Virtual Reality Can Create the Ultimate Empathy Machine.” TED Conferences, LLC. 16 Mar. 2015. <https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_milk_how_virtual_reality_can_create_the_ultimate_empathy_machine>.Nakamura, Lisa. “Cyberrace.” Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online. Eds. Anna Poletti and Julie Rak. Madison, Wisconsin: U of Wisconsin P, 2014. 42-54.North, Max M., Sarah M. North, and Joseph R Coble. "Effectiveness of Virtual Environment Desensitization in the Treatment of Agoraphobia." International Journal of Virtual Reality 1.2 (1995): 25-34.Pertaub, David-Paul, Mel Slater, and Chris Barker. “An Experiment on Public Speaking Anxiety in Response to Three Different Types of Virtual Audience.” Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 11.1 (2002): 68-78.Plantinga, Carl. "Emotion and Affect." The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film. Eds. Paisley Livingstone and Carl Plantinga. New York: Routledge, 2009. 86-96.Rizzo, A.A., and Sebastian Koenig. “Is Clinical Virtual Reality Ready for Primetime?” Neuropsychology 31.8 (2017): 877-99.Rothbaum, Barbara O., Albert “Skip” Rizzo, and JoAnne Difede. "Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1208.1 (2010): 126-32.Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide to Interpreting Life Narratives. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2010.———. “Virtually Me: A Toolbox about Online Self-Presentation.” Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online. Eds. Anna Poletti and Julie Rak. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2014. 70-95.Suchman, Lucy, Celia Roberts, and Myra J. Hird. "Subject Objects." Feminist Theory 12.2 (2011): 119-45.Thompson, Janna. "Why Virtual Reality Cannot Match the Real Thing." The Conversation, 14 Mar. 2018. 10 Apr. 2018 <http://theconversation.com/why-virtual-reality-cannot-match-the-real-thing-92035>.USC. "Skip Rizzo on Medical Virtual Reality: USC Global Conference 2014." YouTube, 28 Oct. 2014. 2 Apr. 2018 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFge2XgDa8>.Won, Andrea Stevenson, Jeremy Bailenson, Jimmy Lee, and Jaron Lanier. "Homuncular Flexibility in Virtual Reality." Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 20.3 (2015): 241-59.Ziv, Stan. “How Technology Is Keeping Holocaust Survivor Stories Alive Forever”. Newsweek, 18 Oct. 2017. 19 Apr. 2018 <http://www.newsweek.com/2017/10/27/how-technology-keeping-holocaust-survivor-stories-alive-forever-687946.html>.

Antimicrobials have revolutionized health by reducing mortality from infectious diseases worldwide. However, the inappropriate use of antibiotics contributes to the antimicrobial resistance process occurring in a shorter time and on a larger scale. This process can correlate human and veterinary medicine. Animals and humans can be affected by several microorganisms, and the spread of resistant pathogens can occur between species. When antimicrobial resistance occurs within the veterinary sector, it becomes a unique health concern because human and animal antibiotics are the same, making human treatments difficult and expensive. The World Health Organization (WHO), through the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Surveillance System (GLASS) Report, points out that antimicrobial resistanceto agents responsible for nosocomial sepsis such as Klebsiella pneumoniae is greater than 50%. Agents such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp. show growth in resistance rates and about 15% between 2017 and 2022. Antimicrobial resistance is responsible for about 700 thousand deaths annually and there is concern about an increase in this value due to the Covid-19 pandemic, due to the higher consumption of antibiotics. In veterinary medicine, the occurrence of antimicrobial resistanceis closely related to access to antibiotics without a professional prescription in farms and pet stores. Growth promoters for farm animals were used as preventives, however in 2020 this practice was banned in the national territory. Currently, the use of antibiotics without a previous antibiogram, misinformation from owners and metaphylactic uses are warning points within veterinary medicine. It is concluded that the occurrence of antimicrobial resistance within veterinary medicine is closely related to One Health.

Abstract Human pushing capability affects performance in the areas of crowd and animal control, the security of locked doors and railings, the removal of tree stumps and entrenched vehicles, the maneuvering of furniture, and in athletic pursuits such as football or wrestling. Pushing capability is a function of both individual characteristics (e.g., muscular strength, body weight, and the distribution of that weight) and attributes of the pushing task itself (e.g., footwear/floor and torso/object friction). Mathematical relationships among these factors are developed. Using these relationships, the maximum push that can be generated without slip were calculated for the following two conditions: (1) LEAN only, with the torso about to slip down the pushed object and feet about to slip along the floor and (2) PUSH along the body contact line with the torso about to slip up the pushed object and the feet about to slip along the floor.

Japan is geopolitically blessed with natural grace such as beautiful four seasons, abundant forest, fruitful earth and fresh water. And it seems that it has induced the deep trust between nature and human and has cultivated the Japanese unique culture which harmonizes nature with human sensibility. The origin of handmade technology in Japan dates back to the Jomon period more than 10,000 years ago. The Jomon potteries excavated were made by utilizing the technologies of kneading clay with water and sintering by fire, and some of them were discovered to have the lacquer coatings on their surfaces extracted from plants. The conventional technology would be created by our predecessors who had the sophisticated sensitivity and the excellent imagination cultivated with the careful observation of nature behavior. The technology was handed down to today through various historical changes in response to the diverse values of the individual era. It can be considered that the Japanese conventional technology is the nature friendly cultural asset co-created by nature and human through the long-term environmental changes more than 10000 years. Future-applied conventional technology is the most reliable technology study to develop the future and to hand over the advanced value to the next generation.In this study, we scrutinized the related theme studied by Future-Applied Conventional Technology Center in Kyoto Institute of Technology, in order to extract the engineering element inherent in the conventional technologies and classify into common elements and specific elements for each technology. From the view point of nature and human relation, engineering elements were extracted comprehensively about the main materials, the auxiliary materials, the human sensibility, the hand tools and the human skills. The main materials and the auxiliary materials were classified into “wood, fire, earth, metal, water” according to the old Eastern thought “the five elements theory” which constitute nature, and animal-derived materials in addition. The human sensibility elements were extracted about the material evaluation, the dynamic process observation and the finished degree evaluation and classified into five senses “visual, auditory, tactile, taste, smell”, and the other sense such as fitness feeling with clothes or accessories. The hand tools were listed such as brush, trowel, spatula, scissors and hammer with the features of usage. The human skills were extracted about each material manipulating process comprehensively and classified into common elements and specific elements, by considering the features respectively. With applying this study as a guideline for the innovation of the future technology harmonized with nature and human, it would be expected to promote variety of researches of the conventional technology and to develop the future technology for the modern cutting-edge field, by feeling the importance of the engineering elements and their relationship study inherent in the conventional technology.

We have reviewed our own experience (400 patients with documented thromboembolic disease) as well as that recorded in the literature. Impaired fibrinolysis after venous occlusion (VO) was the most common finding in patients with history of thrombosis (35% in our series). In contrast, very few families with such an alteration and thrombosis have been reported, suggesting that this disorder is most frequently acquired. In a series of 59 patients with history of thromboembolism, 25 patients with an abnormal responseto an 10 min. V0 on 2 different occasions (group A) were compared with 34 patients who had a normal response toV0 (group B). A positive family history was present in 50% of cases of both groups. A congenital deficiency in AT III, protein C or plasminogen was ruled out in all patients. In group A, as compared to group B, t-PA antigen (Elisa method) and activity (fibrinplates) were significantly lower after V0, basal PAI activity (Verheijen method) was higher (increased in 84 and 11% of patients in groups A and B respectively) and PAI after V0 was also higher in group A (p < 0.01). In this group an associated abnormal t-PA release cannot be reliably ruled out. In patients with abnormal V0 but normal basal PAI (n = 4), a decreased plasminogen activator release may besuspected.According to animal and in vitro studies, bovine and, to a less degree,human activated protein C (APC) may stimulate fibrinoly-* sis. In a groupof 46 patients with congenital proteinC deficiency, we could not demonstrate a significant alteration of the fibri-lytic response to V0 by common lysis tests on diluted whole blood, euglobulins or plasma ; in addition basalPAI activity levels were not significantly different from normal values,even in one homozygous patient. However, an alteration of fibrinolysis localized at the vascular surface and/or irrelevance of the tests used in thesepatients cannot be excluded.In principle, a contact factor deficiency could predispose to thrombosis since intrinsic activation of fibrinolysis requires factor XII, prekallikrein (PK) and high molecular weight kininogen (HMWK). However,there is no strong evidence for this relationship. A small number of plasminogen deficiencies associated with thrombosis have been reported, with decreased activity and normal or concommitantly reduced antigen.We have observed onlyone case of familialplasminogen deficiency (both antigen and activity) out of the 400 patients studied. The relationship between the deficiencyandthe occurence of thrombosis has been questioned since,although thrombosis occuredin our propositus as well as in some of the patients reported in the literature, accidents were infre quent in other affected family members.Although predisposition to thrombosis in patients with hypo- or dysfibrinogenemia (D) seems paradoxical, several reasons can account for this apparent coincidence. Fibrin possesses antithrombin properties and enhances plasminogen activation induced by t-PA. Moreover, fibrinogen binding to platelets is an essential step in the mechanism of platelet aggregation. Alteration of these different functions could enhance thrombosis. In fact, thrombotic episodes were observed in about 10% of probands with D and in 4 patients with hypofibrinogenemia. The siblings with D are frequently asymptomatic. In few cases it has been shown that the abnormal fibrinogen could predispose tothrombosis such as in Dusard syndrome. Several family members suffered from a severe thrombotic disorder. A defective fibrinolysis due to an impaired fibrin enhanced plasminogen activation by t-PA was demonstrated. In Fibrinogen Oslo an increase of fibrinogen platelet aggregation cofactor activity was postulated to predispose to venous thrombosis.A defective thrombin bindingto fibrin was found in at least 3 cases ofD(fibrinogen New York I, Malmoe, Milano).Infibrinogen New York an associated defective binding of t-PA was shown. The findings concerning a defective thrombin, plasminogen, or t-PA binding to fibrin in some patients with fibrinogen alteration suggesttheimportant role of clot structure in the pathogenesis of some thrombotic disorders.In conclusion, the best tests to detecthypofibrinolysis have still to be determined : whole blood or plasma, lysis tests ormore specific assays such as t-PA or PAI, venous occlusion of 10 min. or more. In addition, a defective fibrinolysis can be associated with a well-defined congenital deficiency in coagulation inhibitors.