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Research on cultural industries suggests that the constant and rapid change to digital technologies used by creative practitioners requires that they continually upgrade their skills in order to remain relevant in their occupations. In this article, we present the results of an investigation into the mediation of Photoshop, focusing on how this digital imaging application software and its content are used to mediate access to cultural work. Teaching and learning Photoshop is presented as a key set of practices for digitally mediated cultural work, raising interesting paradoxes concerning Photoshop's status as a digital imaging standard and how it is used by practitioners to negotiate access to occupations. The findings are drawn from two phases of an ongoing research project that includes interviews with practitioners in Canada and the United Kingdom and participant observation in a Greater Vancouver higher education institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human asexuality is defined as a lack of sexual attraction, and research suggests that it may be best conceptualized as a sexual orientation. Sexual fantasies are thought to be universally experienced and are often understood to represent true sexual desire more accurately than sexual behaviour. We investigated the relationship between asexuality, masturbation and sexual fantasy as part of a larger online study. Self-identified asexual individuals were compared to sexual individuals with and without low sexual desire. A total of 924 individuals (153 men, 533 women, and 238 individuals who did not respond to the query about sex) completed online questions asking about masturbation and sexual fantasy. Five hundred thirty four were classified in the asexual group, 87 met diagnostic criteria for hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD), 78 met criteria for subthreshold HSDD without distress, and 187 were a sexual comparison group (i.e., identified as sexual, and had no reported difficulties in sexual desire or distress). Asexual individuals were significantly less likely to have masturbated in the past month and significantly more likely to report never having had a sexual fantasy. Specifically, 40% of asexual participants reported never having had a sexual fantasy compared to between 1% and 8% of participants in the sexual groups. Eleven percent of asexual individuals reported that their sexual fantasies did not involve other people, compared to 1.5% of all sexual individuals. Taken together, these findings suggest that there are notable differences in patterns of sexual fantasy between asexual individuals and sexual individuals with and without low sexual desire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers brief information on the Francofone app version 1.0.1 for French as a Second/Foreign Language (FSL/FFL) learners developed by Mobilesce Inc.