Disability is viewed as part of the human condition. Measures aimed at promoting accessibility ensure that individuals with a disability can participate fully in society and on an equal footing with those who do not have a disability. Accessibility has been prioritized through regulations both nationally and globally. The Accessible Culture and Training project was funded by the ERASMUS + Programme of the European Union;[i]it promoted equal opportunities and access to cultural events across countries and languages. One of the main objectives of the project was to design a new job role entitled Accessibility Manager and to provide training associated with the position. This article reports on some of the intellectual outputs from the project, explains the process of defining the new job profile and discusses the skill set that has been identified. It concludes that the Accessible Culture and Training project responds appropriately to the formation of the new discipline, Accessibility Studies.
In: Wang , D & Zhang , X 2017 , ' Fansubbing in China : Technology-facilitated activism in translation ' , Target. International Journal for Translation Studies , vol. 29 , no. 2 , pp. 301-318 . https://doi.org/10.1075/target.29.2.06wan
This paper seeks to explore the socio-political tensions between freedom and constraints in the Chinese fansubbing networks. It approaches the development of fansubbing in China as a process of technology democratisation with the potential to liberate ordinary citizens from authoritarian and commercial imperatives, enabling them to contest official state domination. The paper draws on the strategies adopted by fansubbing groups to organise their working practices and interactive social activities with a view to engaging target audiences. Both facets complement each other and bring to the fore the 'gamified' system of fansubbing networks. Gamification enables ordinary citizens to translate, distribute and consume foreign audiovisual products in a strategic move that pits collective activism against government dominance.
In: Wang , D & Zhang , X 2016 , ' Ideological Manipulation of Controversial Information : The Unusual Case of the Chinese-subtitled Version of House of Cards ' , Altre Modernità - Other Modernities , vol. 2016: Numero Speciale , pp. 1-20 . https://doi.org/10.13130/2035-7680/6845
In recent years, owing to the spread of cultural and economic globalisation, Western values and ideologies have become increasingly accessible via media products to the general public in the People's Republic of China (Mainland China, or China). Although translation enables the exchange of socio-cultural values and ideas across different languages and cultures, it is susceptible to manipulation in terms of political and ideological control. This paper examines interventions by Chinese authorities in the online distribution of foreign audio-visual products. Such interventions are undertaken to secure broadcasting and distribution rights of the government which also encompass more conventional media from other countries, such as television, in promoting mainstream ideological values and political agendas. Censorship institutions supervise the selection of specific media products to be imported and translated for the Chinese market not only to ensure ease of comprehension but also for political correctness, with a view to avoid any clashes of cultures and ideologies. In the last decade, Chinese audiences have the rise of new media facilitating the wide-spread online viewing of foreign TV and thereby changing the dynamic of access and dissemination of foreign entertainment media in China. We argue that censorship institutions in China opt to adopt alternative strategies, or in many cases more relaxed criteria, in appraising foreign audiovisual products, in order to cater the demands of the new generation of Chinese audiences in those officially supervised media rather than suppressing their needs outright. We will dwell into the Chinese-subtitled version of the second season of the American political drama House of Cards (Netflix 2014), as released by Sohu, the largest online franchise in China. We consider the outcome of subtitling "honest" in terms of the exposure of sensitive information and controversial cultural and political allusions to the reality in contemporary China. By analysing possible reasons behind such "honest" exposure, we argue that an attempt at ideological manipulation has been made in this subtitled version, serving rather than subverting the political objectives of the Chinese government.
In recent years, trafficking and abuse of hallucinogenic mushrooms have become a serious social problem. It is therefore imperative to identify hallucinogenic mushrooms of the genus Psilocybe for national drug control legislation. An internal transcribed spacer (ITS) is a DNA barcoding tool utilized for species identification. Many methods have been used to discriminate the ITS region, but they are often limited by having a low resolution. In this study, we sought to analyze the ITS and its fragments, ITS1 and ITS2, by using high-resolution melting (HRM) analysis, which is a rapid and sensitive method for evaluating sequence variation within PCR amplicons. The ITS HRM assay was tested for specificity, reproducibility, sensitivity, and the capacity to analyze mixture samples. It was shown that the melting temperatures of the ITS, ITS1, and ITS2 of Psilocybe cubensis were 83.72 ± 0.01, 80.98 ± 0.06, and 83.46 ± 0.08 °C, and for other species, we also obtained species-specific results. Finally, we performed ITS sequencing to validate the presumptive taxonomic identity of our samples, and the sequencing output significantly supported our HRM data. Taken together, these results indicate that the HRM method can quickly distinguish the DNA barcoding of Psilocybe cubensis and other fungi, which can be utilized for drug trafficking cases and forensic science.