Happy 170th Birthday Cajal!

Happy Birthday Cajal, you are my world, and your discoveries laid the foundation for many other research quests of the mind. 

Cajal within the pyramidal neuron cells, marker and pen on paper. This is a page from my sketchbook.

Since your contributions to the neuron doctrine the have been too many neuro/mind research questions and discoveries to list. But here are a few.

"Split-brain" surgery to control epileptic seizures was performed by Willian Van Wagenen in 1940, and during 1946 Robert Heath carried out deep brain stimulations. 

My recreation of Cajal's black and white self portrait photograph, marker and pen on paper. I observed the primary source while completing my Fulbright Fellowship at the Instituto Cajal, Madrid, Spain and I drew this work from direct observation. 

Eugene Aserinsky discovered "rapid eye movement" (REM) in 1953 and that those movements correspond to certain dream states. 

My recreation of Cajal's drawing of a retina, marker and pen on paper. I observed the primary source while it was on display at the John Porter Neuroscience Research Center at the NIH and drew this work from direct observation.

Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga discovered that the two hemispheres of the human brain are unique and functionally different.

A sketchbook drawing of "...Buds budding, roots rooting and taking root -- Ha, some studio humor within my new series." Cajal branching out, acrylic and ink on paper. This is a conceptual work in which I referenced self portraits created by Cajal and my own research drawings of this work.

Based on blood flow, Seiji Ogawa measured functional MRI brain activity. The plasticity of the adult human brain was proven by Vilayanur Ramachandran in 1994, and Jin Hyung Lee discovered that high and low frequency stimulations generate unique and varied states of consciousness in the brains of rats.

My world of Santiago Ramón y Cajal, this is a photo of a wall in my studio covered in my drawings of and about Cajal.

Your Cheatin' Heart

You can copyright your PowerPoint or professional presentations and probably should. How? What copyright registration format? This blog post examines the definition of plagiarism and the impact of internet access; plus lists the instructions on how to register your PowerPoint or professional presentation under the Motion Picture/Audio and Visual work through the Copyright Office of the United States Government.

What is plagiarism?

"Plagiarius" is the Latin root for plagiarism, and it means kidnapper or someone who steals children by capturing them in a net or a plaga. The word arose from ancient human behavior. Internet access has been identified as a leading "culprit" in the rise of plagiarism, so the metaphor for contemporary human behavior is not lost in its linguistic origins. ORI (Office of Research Integrity) has defined plagiarism as: "Appropriating someone else's idea (e.g., an explanation, a theory, a conclusion, a hypothesis, a metaphor) in whole or in part, or with superficial modifications without giving credit to its originator."

Strictly speaking, PowerPoints and professional presentations are automatically copyrighted when they are created; however, you can register your presentation with the Copyright Office of your nation. Presenting a PowerPoint at a professional meeting is considered a form of publication. Registering your PowerPoint presentation will ensure that you can take legal recourse if the content is plagiarized, i.e., original concepts, images, and scripted content appear, without proper citation, in someone else's work: presentations, published articles, books, blogs, websites, etc.

Comprised of Taylor & Francis, Routledge, CRC Press, F1000 Research, and Dovepress, top publishers Taylor & Francis has an entire web page devoted to various plagiarism topics, such as types of plagiarism, detecting and avoiding it. They have provided a precise definition for writers in their online content Author Services, defining the matter as the following: "For Taylor & Francis journals, this applies to data, images, words or ideas taken from any materials in electronic or print formats without sufficient attribution. This can include:

• abstracts,
• seminar presentations,
• laboratory reports,
• thesis or dissertation,
• research proposals,
• computer programs,
• online posts,
• grey literature,
• unpublished or published manuscripts.

The use of any such material either directly or indirectly should be properly acknowledged in all instances. You should always cite your source (please see 'How to avoid plagiarism' below)."

Plagiarism is common in all professions and occurs at all professional levels. Statistically, men tend to plagiarize more than women. Biological sciences in academia have the highest academic misconduct rate, which includes lifting content from others, falsely reporting data, and fabricating information or outcomes of experiments. 

In the 2013 paper, Males Are Overrepresented among Life Science Researchers Committing Scientific Misconduct, Dr. Ferric C. Fang, Dr. Joan W. Bennett, and Dr. Arturo Casadevall examine retracted articles indexed by PubMed written by biomedical and life science authors. Their study explored plagiarism, fraud (10-fold increase since 1975), duplicate publication, research error, journal error, other reasons (e.g., unresolved authorship conflict), and unknown reasons. Their study found that most retracted articles were the result of misconduct.

This graph is from the 2013 article Males Are Overrepresented among Life Science Researchers Committing Scientific Misconduct The graph comprises information that reflects the ORI definition of research misconduct. It includes fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. The graph is reproduced here with permission from Dr. Ferric C. Fang and Dr. Arturo Casadevall.

In the paper Factors influencing plagiarism in higher education: A comparison of German and Slovene students, Eva Jerad et al. concluded that the field is level among both genders and nationalities. They determined through their study which included 485 participants that digital technology and access to content through the internet was the main driving force. In their paper, they cited three published definitions of plagiarism: "Perrin, Larkham, and Culwin define plagiarism as the use of an author's words, ideas, reflections and thoughts without proper acknowledgment of the author. Koul et al. define plagiarism as a form of cheating and theft since in cases of plagiarism, one person takes credit for another person's intellectual work. According to Fishman, 'Plagiarism occurs when someone: 1) uses words, ideas, or work products; 2) attributable to another identifiable person or source; 3) without attributing the work to the source from which it was obtained; 4) in a situation in which there is a legitimate expectation of original authorship; 5) in order to obtain some benefit, credit, or gain which need not be monetary.'"

We have examined several definitions of plagiarism from individuals and organizations within this post. Despite the form of original content format, e.g. PowerPoint, and the manifestation of the plagiarized content, e.g., book chapter, the consensus is if the content is an "intellectual work product" of another without proper attribution to the origin (whether written, spoken, performed or visual), it is plagiarism. While full of ideas, your PowerPoint is not simply "an idea." It manifests the development of ideas and is a completed work in the Audio and Visual format.

Contemporary audiences attending presentations are equipped with smartphone cameras, linked to the internet, and are sometimes actively engaged with social media platforms like Twitter. During or after a presentation, the content of professional PowerPoint presentations aren't confined to a conference or symposium audience. Novel and innovative ideas, images of original research, or unique conceptual content can be instantaneously shared, liked, and re-shared with thousands. This rapid-fire sharing can occur with or without the author's knowledge or consent and thus create research vulnerabilities. However, there are perks, too. Engagement in sharing content immediately with a broad and diverse audience can also be advantageous. Meaningful research connections can be made. Therefore, the potential for unexpected input through new collaborative relationships can foster a robust research outcome.

Above: Images from my presentation, Content and Form: Cajal's Unique Visual Language, September 29, 2017, at the National Congress of Spanish Neuroscience (SENC 2017.) Neuroscientist Dr. Carmen Agustin, Tweeted about my presentation during my talk. In her Tweets, she demonstrated professional etiquette: documented the event, showed the timeline of the ideas in the PowerPoint, and made clear that the ideas were developed from my research. Tweet thread translation, left Tweet: Dawn Hunter comparing the works of Golgi and Cajal: "Cajal draws what he sees, Golgi tries to fit what he sees into his idea." Top right Tweet: "Cajal drew with continuous lines; surely due to the influence of his maternal grandfather, a weaver." Middle right Tweet, where I present my theory "Dürer's influence on Cajal's photos." Bottom right Tweet: Dawn Hunter first recreated Cajal's drawings [through observing the primary source]; then, she has created her own works based on them. Photos and Tweets courtesy of Dr. Mari Carmen Agustin Pavon.

Above: My presentation at SENC 2017 Content and Form:  Cajal’s Unique and Inventive Visual Language, September 29, 2017, Alicante, Spain. Photo courtesy of Fernando De Castro Soubriet.

Not all passive observers possess integrity, and some can be opportunistic with the content of your work. Other times, because they viewed it on the internet, people will erroneously mistake your academic scholarship as belonging to the public domain. That is unfortunate, but it is their responsibility to clarify the origin of content before using it. Therefore, taking steps to register for your presentation is a must. It will protect your research and define the source of unique concepts and content if your research makes its way into someone else's work without a proper citation.

Information and Steps to Copyright your presentation:

What does the copyright of your PowerPoint cover?  Your content: your expression of ideas (organization, sequence, and context), scripted text that you have written that appears visually on the slide, scripted text you wrote but spoke during the presentation as it appears in your PowerPoint slide notes, and any original figures (jpegs., graphs, tables, etc.) you created for the presentation.

What your PowerPoint or presentation copyright will not cover? Photographs that are copyrighted by someone else or an organization, images that are in the public domain, or scripted text written by or copyrighted by another person, quotes or scripted text from the public domain, and figures where others hold the copyright or are from the public domain (jpegs., graphs, tables, etc.) 

How much does it cost? $65.00

Above: Slide from from my presentation, Content and Form: Cajal's Unique Visual Language, September 29, 2017 at the National Congress of Spanish Neuroscience (SENC 2017.) Red arrows indicate what will not be covered and the green arrows indicate what will be covered.

Steps to follow:

Below are the steps to follow in order to copyright register a single author PowerPoint or professional presentation in the United States. There are a few extra steps that need to be taken for multiple authors, but that is not covered in this post:

• Visit https://copyright.gov/registration/. Select the type of work that you wish to register: literary works, visual arts, other digital content, motion pictures, or photographs. If you are registering a PowerPoint, select Motion Pictures. You will be prompted to login in or create an ECO ID account.

• Check standard application and start registration for one work. (You can register unpublished works in groups or batches, but that is not going to be covered in this post.)

• You will then be taken to the online form. From the drop down menu select the Type of Work, choose Motion Picture/Audio and Visual work and confirm that it best describes what you are trying to register.

• You will proceed to the title sections. From the drop down menu select Title of Work Being Registered and Title of this Work box below, list the title of the work.

• For Publication Completion, check yes for the question if it has been publish before. For example, if you have presented it at a professional meeting or distributed it electronically or publicly on the web. If it is unpublished, check or no. If it has been published, there will be prompts to complete indicating which country and the date. It also has a section to fill in if there is a pre-existing registration number in the event your work was registered outside in a foreign country prior to the United States. If it was presented outside of the United States, but not registered outside of the United States, leave that section blank.

• Check "Add me" for the following categories: List Authors, Claimant, Limitation of Claim, Rights & Permissions, Correspondent, and Mail Certificate.  Please note, under Limitation of Claim in addition to adding yourself, you will need to indicate what content is excluded from the registration, e.g., figures or text you have not authored.

• Special Handling can be left blank. However if you are pursuing legal litigation and have a pending court case or other dispute, customs matters, or a contract or publishing deadline, check the appropriate category and explain the reason in the space provided. Keep in mind that Special Handing will increase the cost of your claim by $760.00, thus the total application fee could be as much as $825.00.

• Once the form is filled out you will certify that everything you have submitted is true. You will have the opportunity to review and correct your application. When you complete your review and corrections as needed, add your application to the cart and proceed to check out. You will be taken off site to submit your $65.00 non-refundable payment. 

• Once your payment is completed, you will then be able to submit the work that you want to register for review. Select the Submit Work tab and follow the instructions. You can submit your PowerPoint or professional presentation electronically (recommended) or print it and mail in a hard copy of it. If you submit your work electronically, take time to review the specifications for file size restrictions and recommended files. For any type of professional presentation, I recommend a PDF. If you select that you wish to mail in a hard copy of the for review, you will need to select "generate a label." A label will be generated that you must attach to the work you mail directly to the United States Copyright Office.

Best of luck registering your work. Stay tuned - please visit this blog again in the future. I will be posting about how to copyright individual artworks, batches of artworks, photographs, blogs, websites, literary works and more!

Bibliography:

Singer: Hank Williams, Song Writer: Hank Williams, Your, Cheatin' Heart, A-side Kaw-liga, MGM K 11416-B, 1952. Producer: Fred Rose.

Fang FC, Bennett JW, Casadevall A. Males are overrepresented among life science researchers committing scientific misconduct. mBio. 2013 Jan 22;4(1):e00640-12. doi: 10.1128/mBio.00640-12. PMID: 23341553; PMCID: PMC3551552.

Jereb, E., Perc, M., Lämmlein, B., Jerebic, J., Urh, M., Podbregar, I., & Šprajc, P. (2018). Factors influencing plagiarism in higher education: A comparison of German and Slovene students. PloS one, 13(8), e0202252. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.020225

Dawn Hunter Art® - Say my name, but don't credit other people with the art that I have made!

What is in a name? A lot.  

We live in a time of digital technology, and with the increasing use of artificial intelligence or bots by websites, confusion can be created, erroneous attributions can occur, and significant mistakes made.

My name is Dawn Hunter, and I have been a professional artist for over two decades and I have operated my website, www.dawnhunterart.com™, since the early aughts. This past year I have become aware of a website called “Wall of Celebrities” because they have posted eighteen of my original artworks and associated those artworks with an actress by the same name. In fact, there are more images of my artwork or me with my artwork than there are of the actress or her performances. This misattribution is significant, it compromises the authority of my work while simultaneously creating market and brand identity confusion for prospective exhibitors and collectors of my art. 

Like anyone finding themselves in this predicament, I have notified the company of the erroneous attributions of artwork created by me but credited to another person. They promised to remove my artwork, and they have not. That was eight months ago, so I find the lack of action appalling. Additionally, they are offering free downloads of my artwork, Gasp! - without asking or receiving my permission.

My advice to my students and any young artist starting a professional practice is to copyright your artwork. If you find yourself in the same predicament, you will be able to pursue appropriate legal action. Which, of course, will be my next step.

In the meantime, to help eliminate confusion as to who created what, I am featuring my artworks (below) that are currently erroneously attributed to and associated with another person on the "Wall of Celebrities." I am also including a summary of their creation, links that verify the timeline history of the works and the professional exhibition history of those works. I have been very diligent over the years and recorded my creative and exhibition output on this blog and other social media outlets like Facebook and Flickr.  All of this information can be seen publicly and the history of the creation and exhibition of my artwork can be traced.  I have numbered (1-18) each image featured without my permission.

8/10/2022 Update:

Wall of Celebrities continues a copyright infringement of my artwork. They have taken down the artworks numbered 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 18 featured in this post. However they continue to display my artwork without my consent on the following links below.

Artworks numbered  4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 and 17 are featured on this link:

https://www.wallofcelebrities.com/celebrities/dawn-hunter/landscape-photos-1.html

Artworks numbered 4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14 and 16 are featured on this link:

https://www.wallofcelebrities.com/celebrities/dawn-hunter/landscape-photos-2.html

1) Dawn Hunter, Portrait of Cajal from observation of Jorge Zockoll's oversized photograph at the Instituto Cajal, Madrid, marker and pen on paper, 

11" x 14," 2017.

The work (#1 above) was also featured in an article about me by Aggie Mika in "The Scientist" magazine.

2) Dawn Hunter, Diana the Huntress, marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14," 2017.

3) Dawn Hunter, study of Cajal's Diencephalic Nuclei, marker and pen on paper, 

11" x 14," 2017.

4) Dawn Hunter, drawing of NIH researcher Kenton Swartz's talk,  marker and pen on paper, 11" x 14," 2017.

5) Artist Dawn Hunter with installation of the Cajal Inventory. 

Here I am with my work while it was on display at the Instituto Cajal, 2017. For more information on the Cajal Inventory work, click here: 

 Cumulative Effect:  Cajal Inventory drawings.

  

All of these images were originally featured on this blog after my participation in a collaborative symposium facilitated by the National Institutes of Health and the Instituto of Cajal, Madrid, Spain.  Original post can be accessed here:

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/600178827940883609/1115373249925306054

The works have gone on to be featured in national and international exhibitions, most recently at the college of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas, 2021. Images from exhibition featured below.

6) Dawn Hunter, Man as Sunflower, acrylic and graphite on paper, 14" x 17," 2014.

This work is currently on exhibition at the John Porter Neuroscience Research Center of the National Institutes of Health, alongside seven original scientific drawings created by Cajal. You can learn more about the show by clicking on the photos below.

Artist, Dawn Hunter and her daughter with the NIH exhibition, 2019.  

Here I am with my daughter when we visited the show. The artwork Man as Sunflower is the closest work to the Cajal exhibition case.  Man as Sunflower was also featured in a Jasper magazine article, see below.

Jasper Magazine Article featuring my artwork inspired by the life of 

Santiago Ramón y Cajal.

Below is the link to the online copy of the Jasper Magazine article "The Artist and the Scientist," pp. 50-52, 2015.  Use you right arrow on your keyboard to view the pages in the online publication.  

http://issuu.com/jaspermagazine/docs/110163_cropped_lower?e=3523036/11854158

7) Above is the detail from my painting Art Department.  This is my most famous work from my Spectacle Spectacular series.  It has toured in exhibitions internationally in the U.K. and Germany, and was a center piece work of the Kansas City Art Institute, Foundation 50th exhibition at the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, 2015.  The painting was also prominently featured in my solo exhibition at the Delaware Contemporary Art Center and appeared on the cover of the 86th issue of the College of Charleston's literary journal, Crazyhorse.  The painting made its debut in the critically acclaimed, Day Job, 2010, exhibition, held at the Drawing Center, New York, NY.  The artwork was also reviewed and featured in Artnet.

8) The creation of this painting, Blue Cerberus, has been well documented on this blog.  I recorded the entire process through many posts. This work was featured in my solo exhibition at the Delaware Contemporary Art Center, 2014.  

Learn about the show, click here.

Learn about the creation of the painting, click here.

9) Dawn Hunter, detail of Blue Cerberus.

Below are two more works from my exhibition at the Delaware Contemporary Art Center:

10) Dawn Hunter, A Dream in August, graphite and ink on paper, 2014.

Exhibition image from the Delaware Contemporary Art Center.

11) Dawn Hunter, Dusk and Dawn with Horses, graphite and ink on paper, 18" x 24," 2014.

During my first sabbatical after I was awarded tenure at the University of South Carolina, I created a series titled:  Personified Doubles and Complementary Opposites.  The entire process of the series was well documented diaristtcally through a series of Facebook and Flickr posts.

To view the process on Facebook, click here.

To view the process on Flickr, click here.

To view the entire series on my personal website, click here.

12) Dawn Hunter, Vegas Garden, graphite, ink and acrylic on paper, 36" x 58,"2012.

13) Dawn Hunter, Secluded Play, graphite and ink on paper, 26" x 40," 2012.

Secluded Play continues fo garner critical attention, and the drawing was selected to be included in the juried exhibition, Simulacra, at the Sulfur Studios, Savannah, Georgia in 2021.

Read the entire article here: 

https://www.savannahnow.com/story/lifestyle/2021/08/29/where-to-see-art-galleries-savannah-georgia-to-do-galleries-museums/5591926001/

14) Dawn Hunter, Magician's Garden, graphite and ink on paper, 30" x 40," 2012.

Both of the works #14 and #15 below were featured and the annual What's Love Fest.

Photos from the exhibition and link to the Facebook album about the event are below the images of the works.

15) Dawn Hunter, The Magician, graphite and ink on paper, 26" x 40," 2010.

16) Dawn Hunter, Birthday Cake, graphite and ink on paper, 26" x 40," 2010.

The Magician and Birthday Cake on exhibit at the What's Love Fest, 2010.

Artist, Dawn Hunter is featured in the center of this group photo.  

Here I am with two UofSC Magellan Scholars that I mentored.

Dawn Hunter's artwork on exhibit at the What's Love Fest, The Magician and Birthday Cake were among five works that she exhibited.  To learn more about the exhibition, click here.

Below is a work from my Spectacle Spectacular series, and it is from the portfolio series titled Spectacle Spectacular, Etcetera.  This work was prominently featured in a SECAC members exhibition.  To learn more about this work and the SECAC exhibition, click here.

17) Dawn Hunter, Bling Bling, Boobatopia, graphite and ink on paper, 72" x 80," 2007.

18) Dawn Hunter, Gold Rush, acrylic and gold leaf on canvas, 18" x 24," 2008.

The painting Gold Rush is from my Spectacle Spectacular series and is part of the Sitting Pretty installation which was exhibited at Rogue Community College, the UofSC Arts Institute, Mesquite Art Center and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

I have also exhibited works from that series separately on under the individual titles of the work, like featured below.  In that photo I am giving an artist's talk about the works at the Upstairs Artspace in Tryon, North Carolina.

Artist Dawn Hunter discusses her work with artist and, Line and Lies of the Face, exhibition curator, Margaret Curtis.

I had so much fun talking about my work at this show!

Exhibition announcement for the Lines and Lies of the Face.

Dawn Hunter, the evolving Sitting Pretty installation, viewers examining the work at an exhibition, eighteen works completed by 2008.

Dawn Hunter, detail of Sitting Pretty.