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Productive Limitation: Painting Emergent Abstract Languages Through Serial Form explores how following systems of limitation and constraint can highlight the emergent qualities within a serial, practice-led and abstract artistic project. To repeatedly limit a practice (its contents and guiding rules over time), is to engage in a process that paradoxically maximises the opportunities to reveal and attend to the productivity, diversity and subtle nuances of its outcomes. Frames of productive limitation thus lead us to ask: how can limitation function as productive? and what thematic connections or discontinuities can be revealed in using this process? This PhD focuses on the works from the Unstable Object series which consists of thirty-eight abstract paintings exploring serial iterations of depicted form, limited to rectilinear and diagonal trajectories of a coloured, painted 4cm beam mark. The paintings are both worked on and displayed in a variety of different configurations and rotations. This exegesis argues that the intervening open-endedness regarding the positioning and orientation of the paintings connect these specific modular processes to ways of enacting thought, which in turn make visible thinking processes and actions akin to undertaking a game. Within the exegesis, themes of spatiality and language are explored through philosophical interrogation using the work of theorists Jacques Derrida, Elizabeth Grosz and Ludwig Wittgenstein, whom I situate in propositional dialogue with the works from the Unstable Object series. The research focuses on Grosz's theories of space and the liminal space of the 'in-between', Derrida's concepts of trace and erasure and Wittgenstein's text Philosophical Investigations, through which his pedagogical questioning of meaning through the concept of 'language games' is explored. As the Unstable Object series progresses, the forms that emerge become situated as an abstract language with linguistic potential. This is perhaps not a language that we need to understand explicitly, but a language that contains its own abstract specificity which moves us toward our own ways of reading. In this way, the project draws new relations between the abstract, the blurry and the ambiguous, which become useful tools within processes of making, reading and thinking. The Unstable Object series uses the repeated beam mark to slowly explore processes of building within painting, where the aim is to build forms which are not recognisable as objects from the external world. The exegesis, however, goes on to view the works through a filter of things that are of this world‚ÄövÑvÆarchitectural structures (facades or internal structures); maps and the topographical marks they contain (borders, boundaries, gaps and intervals); and finally, through a filter of expanded language (diagram, symbol and syntax). The reader is continuously asked to read the works through both temporal and visual frameworks. Through this process of imagining the paintings 'this way, now this way' (a method borrowed from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations), the project gathers associations from outside the abstract that enrich and connect the research. Emergent anomalies and imperfections (the qualities that are made visible by implementing the productive constraints of the series), are pursued theoretically as research markers throughout the project. These elements, such as the wobbly or degraded edge, the mistake, and the estimate are also in direct counter to the predominant history of hard-edge geometric abstraction. This project allows the emergence of more uncontrollable forms like indecision, mistakes and intuitive thought to be mutually productive elements within a structure of systems and rules.

As practitioner-researchers, how do we discuss and analyse our work without losing the creative drive that inspired us in the first place? Built around a diverse selection of writings from leading researcher-practitioners and emerging artists in a range of fields, The Creative Critic: Writing as/about Practice celebrates the extraordinary range of possibilities available when writing about one’s own work and the work one is inspired by. It re-thinks the conventions of the scholarly output to propose that critical writing be understood as an integral part of the artistic process, and even as artwork in its own right. Finding ways to make the intangible nature of much of our work ‘count’ under assessment has become increasingly important in the Academy and beyond. The Creative Critic offers an inspiring and useful sourcebook for students and practitioner-researchers navigating this area.

Drawing on a scene in J.M.G. Le Clezio's novel Terra Amata , which tells the story of the instincts of a small boy, the minute sensoria of some bugs and a cosmic catastrophe, this essay demonstrates the ambivalence around insects in animal studies, their contingent location in psychoanalysis and the conundrums they place in ethical philosophy. By reading Le Clezio's tale through Uexkull, Freud, Dodds and Stengers we argue for more nuanced, imbricated and critical connections between ethology, psychoanalysis and ethics. These connections become imperatives in the face of the current environmental crisis, where we urgently need to attend to co-affecting relations that are too distant or proximate, tiny or vast to register as familiar sentient states or ethical feelings. In the process we demonstrate the performative dimensions of what we call the entomological imagination – present in the strange proximity of child and bugs, the powerful unthinking god, the indifference of the insects to human commands, and the infinitesimal catastrophe in Le Clezio's story – that facilitates an epistemic fluidity required for a contemporary understanding of ecologies.

Dorion Sagan observes that pioneering ethologist Jakob von Uexkull tends to be read in contrasting ways, as a “humble naturalist” pre-empting current research in biosemiotics, animal perception and agency; and as a “biologist-shaman,” gesturing to a transcendental realm where the life-worlds of animals interconnect in a vast symphony of nature. In both cases the tools of the laboratory are thought to generate complete pictures of the invertebrates that Uexkull studies, in unity with their environments. As Giorgio Agamben points out, these experiments form part of an abstract mechanism that produces the human, by isolating instinctual life as an object for study and management from social and ethical modes of existence. What these readings neglect to consider is that Uexkull imagines his experiments through a Picture Book frame. We argue that for Uexkull there is always something fabulous and child-like about the enterprise of reconstructing the subjective environments of the small animals he works with. D...

Objectives: We aim to clarify the pathogenic role of intermediate size repeat expansions of SCA2, SCA3, SCA6, and SCA17 as risk factors for idiopathic Parkinson disease (PD). Methods: We invited researchers from the Genetic Epidemiology of Parkinson9s Disease Consortium to participate in the study. There were 12,346 cases and 8,164 controls genotyped, for a total of 4 repeats within the SCA2, SCA3, SCA6, and SCA17 genes. Fixed- and random-effects models were used to estimate the summary risk estimates for the genes. We investigated between-study heterogeneity and heterogeneity between different ethnic populations. Results: We did not observe any definite pathogenic repeat expansions for SCA2, SCA3, SCA6, and SCA17 genes in patients with idiopathic PD from Caucasian and Asian populations. Furthermore, overall analysis did not reveal any significant association between intermediate repeats and PD. The effect estimates (odds ratio) ranged from 0.93 to 1.01 in the overall cohort for the SCA2, SCA3, SCA6, and SCA17 loci. Conclusions: Our study did not support a major role for definite pathogenic repeat expansions in SCA2, SCA3, SCA6, and SCA17 genes for idiopathic PD. Thus, results of this large study do not support diagnostic screening of SCA2, SCA3, SCA6, and SCA17 gene repeats in the common idiopathic form of PD. Likewise, this largest multicentered study performed to date excludes the role of intermediate repeats of these genes as a risk factor for PD.

Parkinson’s disease has a wide variety of motor and non-motor symptoms. Treatment aims to control the patient’s symptoms by replenishing the dopaminergic system with levodopa or dopamine agonists. Monoamine oxidase B inhibitors are also effective first-line drugs. Keeping symptoms under continual control early in the course of the disease may have beneficial effects as Parkinson’s disease progresses. Therapy is tailored to each patient’s response to the drugs and their ability to tolerate them. Limited responses of motor and many non-motor symptoms may require the addition of other treatments. The adverse effects of drugs used in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease are usually reversible. Symptom fluctuations in response to regular medication are an indication for specialist referral.

Aim: To examine the psychometric properties of a novel anxiety rating scale, the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI) in Parkinson's disease (PD). Method: The predictive validity of the GAI was tested against the presence of any DSM-IV anxiety disorders in 58 PD patients using receiver operating curve analysis. The concurrent validity of this scale was also studied against the state half of the Spielberger State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). The internal consistency and test–retest reliability of the GAI were also examined. Results: The GAI displayed good concurrent validity against the STAI and the DSM-IV. It also showed good internal consistency and test–retest reliability. Conclusions: This study suggested that the GAI is an appropriate scale to use in non-demented PD patients.

Studies investigating the assessment of depression in Parkinson's disease (PD) are limited. We examined the concurrent validity and the internal consistency of the Hamilton Depression Inventory (HDI) and compared it to the Hamilton and Geriatric Depression Scales. PD patients (n = 79) were recruited from neurology clinics. Diagnosis of depressive disorder was made according to DSM-IV criteria. Receiver operating characteristic curves were used to calculate sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values. The HDI exhibited an optimal cutoff for discriminating between depressed and nondepressed PD patients of 13.5/14.0 and is a valid instrument to use in the setting of PD.

To examine the psychometric properties of a novel anxiety rating scale, the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI) in Parkinson's disease (PD).The predictive validity of the GAI was tested against the presence of any DSM-IV anxiety disorders in 58 PD patients using receiver operating curve analysis. The concurrent validity of this scale was also studied against the state half of the Spielberger State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). The internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the GAI were also examined.The GAI displayed good concurrent validity against the STAI and the DSM-IV. It also showed good internal consistency and test-retest reliability.This study suggested that the GAI is an appropriate scale to use in non-demented PD patients.

Depression is common in Parkinson's disease (PD) and contributes significantly to a reduced quality of life in PD patients. The determinants of depression in PD are complex and poorly understood. We investigated the factors associated with depression in PD.PD patients were recruited from Neurology clinics. A validated method was used to screen for a lifetime history of depression. 'Depressed' patients were identified by a score of6 in the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) or by having had prescribed treatment for depression. 'Never depressed' patients were recognised by a score of5 in the GDS-15 with no signs of a history of depression. A newly developed and validated questionnaire was used to collect other information.Depression was identified in 66% of the 639 PD patients who met the inclusion criteria. Depression was associated with an increased severity of illness as evidenced by higher Unified PD Rating Scale scores and a higher Hoehn and Yahr stage. Other clinical factors associated with disease severity were also more frequently observed in depressed patients. Similar to findings in non-PD samples, depressed PD patients were more likely to have a lower education level, a history of smoking and to regularly use non-aspirin based NSAIDs or analgesics. Comorbidities such as anxiety, memory problems, hallucinations, sleep disturbances and postural hypotension were more common in depressed PD patients.To avoid patient exhaustion of over-surveying, some factors within the psychological domain were not examined.Our results provide a focus for future intervention strategies.

Anxiety disorders are common in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, yet are poorly studied. We examined the prevalence of anxiety disorders in PD, investigated the association between anxiety, and presentation and progression of PD, and studied for the first time the contribution of putative risk factors for anxiety in PD. A case-series of 79 PD patients recruited from neurology out-patient clinics was examined for anxiety disorders using the DSM-IV criteria. The Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale and the Hoehn and Yahr Staging of PD were employed to understand the relationship between anxiety disorders, and the clinical presentation and severity of PD. A validated survey assessed putative risk factors for anxiety in PD. Twenty-five percent of PD patients were diagnosed with anxiety. Panic disorder, generalised anxiety disorder and social phobia were prevalent anxiety disorders. Comorbid depression with anxiety was observed (14%). The severity but not the duration of PD was positively related to anxiety. PD patients with postural instability and gait dysfunction symptom clustering were more likely to experience anxiety than tremor-dominant patients. While levodopa dosage had no relationship to anxiety, experience of dyskinesias or on/off fluctuations increased the risk. Lateralisation of PD had no association with anxiety. Anxiety disorders decreased with age and young onset PD patients were more likely to experience anxiety than the late onset subjects. Anxiety adds to the complexity of PD, lowering patients' quality of life. Future research can be directed to identify reactive and organic nature of anxiety in PD.

The study of family history in Parkinson's disease (PD) has resulted in considerable debate over the role of genetic factors in the development of PD. Despite this, family history is consistently identified as an independent risk factor for PD. A multifactorial disease process in which genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors culminate in overall risk seems most likely. This article reviews existing studies of familial aggregation in PD. Recent insights into rare genetic causes of PD have affirmed the importance of ongoing family history research. Future efforts should emphasise well-designed family studies with extensive, non-exclusive phenotyping and ideally long-term follow-up.