34 research outputs found
A community outbreak of Legionnairesâ disease caused by outdoor hot tubs for private use in a hotel
During the period OctoberâNovember 2017, an outbreak of Legionnairesâ disease involving 27 cases occurred in the tourist area of Palmanova (Mallorca, Spain). The majority of cases were reported by the European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) as travel associated cases of Legionnairesâ disease (TALD). Most cases belonged to different hotel cluster alerts. No cases were reported among the local population residing in the area. All tourist establishments associated with one or more TALD cases were inspected and sampled by public health inspectors. All relevant sources of aerosol emission detected were investigated and sampled. The absence of active cooling towers in the affected area was verified, by documents and on-site. Samples from hot tubs for private use located on the terraces of the penthouse rooms of a hotel in the area were included in the study. Extremely high concentrations (> 106âCFU/l) of Legionella pneumophila, including the outbreak strain, were found in the hot tubs of vacant rooms of this hotel thus identifying the probable source of infection. Meteorological situation may have contributed to the geographical distribution pattern of this outbreak. In conclusion, hot tubs for private use located outdoors should be considered when investigating community outbreaks of Legionnairesâ disease of unclear origin
Circling the cute-kawaii: following a fugitive affect through planetary modernisms
Emerging out of three current critical trends in literary studies broadly and modernist studies specifically, this dissertation intervenes in the scholarly discourse surrounding the distinctly modern aesthetic-affect of the cute-kawaii. Firstly, drawing on Susan Stanford-Friedmanâs conception of modernisms as decentered and disjunctive âplanetaryâ phenomena, it situates the cute-kawaii neither entirely within the 20th century English and American, nor Japanese contexts but attempts to articulate cute-kawaii as affect obtaining in both. Secondly, its methodology participates in the âpost-criticalâ turn in literary studies. Rather than deploying a âsuspiciousâ hermeneutics it attempts what Anne Cheng calls a âhermeneutics of susceptibility,â in which analysis is not dispassionate, but intensely invested in its object. Lastly, the dissertation is theoretically grounded by the affective turn in literary studies, and in particular Brian Massumiâs conception of âaffectâ as fundamentally ethical in its orientation away from a subject and towards others. Its trajectory tracks iterations of common cute-kawaii tropes as they appear in Japanese, British, and American modernist novels which either explicitly invoke the cute-kawaii, as with James Joyceâs cute rats, or are implicated in the media ecosystems through which those tropes circulate as in the case of Junichiro Tanizakiâs Naomi. Ultimately, the aim of this dissertation is to demonstrate that the cute-kawaii, which has previously been understood as an insidious commodity aesthetic, is better understood as an affective experience with ethical import. In particular, the cute-kawaii is an experience of the ambiguity of the human and non-human, self and world, and significance and signification
Subaltern Cosmopolitanisms: Place-making and Translocal Space in Sikh Diaspora Across Hong Kong, Vancouver and Toronto
How does one see what one cannot see? With the objective to move past the orientalizing visual gaze of exotic temples, food and turbans this study instead draws attention to the itinerant and elusive place-making which are often overlooked in geographical and urban inquiries of othered religions. Multicultural frames of cosmopolitanism have centered on a visual and consumerist approach to order diverse places and peoples while reproducing binaries of public-private and secular-religious. Vinay Gidwani differently imagines a subaltern cosmopolitanism of dynamic practices of migrants that are transgressive of state and capitalist urban configurations. Similarly, AbdouMaliq Simone's notion of a worlding from below brings out the seemingly disparate activities of migrants in the Global South that characterize a lesser seen circuit of urbanity overlooked from top-down snapshots of urban infrastructure and financial capital. This study explores sensuous geographies of Sikhs to contribute to a conceptualization of worlding and cosmopolitanism. The theoretical framework considers the intertwining of religion and race at the source of the making of the problematic figure of Man and its secular-religious dichotomy. In this, the study aims to destabilize the world religion and liberal humanist paradigms which shape the modern episteme and the productions of worlds. The work of decolonial and transnational feminists further a poetic intervention to consider subaltern knowledge practices, particularly of women of colour, that go unrecognized in their embodied resistance. Following M. Jacqui Alexander's call for re-wiring the senses and a sacred feminist praxis, and Trinh T. Minh-has tuning to the musical storytelling, this study brings attention to sensuous poetics and topologies of Sikhs that escape representable cartographies. In that, Sikh spaces, epistemologies, and itineraries are conceptualized to give depth to a Sikh geographical imagination. Utilizing multi-sited ethnographies, qualitative interviews, and community mapping, the research followed diaspora Sikhs in Hong Kong, Greater Vancouver, and Greater Toronto. I argue that an everyday horizontal spatiality of relation emerges in Sikh processes of worlding and translocal space, which give insights to a subaltern cosmopolitanism, different from state and secular discourses of multiculturalism
Subaltern Cosmopolitanisms: Place-making and Translocal Space in Sikh Diaspora Across Hong Kong, Vancouver and Toronto
How does one see what one cannot see? With the objective to move past the orientalizing visual gaze â of exotic temples, food and turbans â this study instead draws attention to the itinerant and elusive place-making which are often overlooked in geographical and urban inquiries of othered religions. Multicultural frames of cosmopolitanism have centered on a visual and consumerist approach to order diverse places and peoples while reproducing binaries of public-private and secular-religious. Vinay Gidwani differently imagines a subaltern cosmopolitanism of dynamic practices of migrants that are transgressive of state and capitalist urban configurations. Similarly, AbdouMaliq Simone's notion of a worlding from below brings out the seemingly disparate activities of migrants in the Global South that characterize a lesser seen circuit of urbanity overlooked from top-down snapshots of urban infrastructure and financial capital. This study explores sensuous geographies of Sikhs to contribute to a conceptualization of worlding and cosmopolitanism. The theoretical framework considers the intertwining of religion and race at the source of the making of the problematic figure of Man and its secular-religious dichotomy. In this, the study aims to destabilize the world religion and liberal humanist paradigms which shape the modern episteme and the productions of worlds. The work of decolonial and transnational feminists further a poetic intervention to consider subaltern knowledge practices, particularly of women of colour, that go unrecognized in their embodied resistance. Following M. Jacqui Alexander's call for re-wiring the senses and a sacred feminist praxis, and Trinh T. Minh-haâs tuning to the musical storytelling, this study brings attention to sensuous poetics and topologies of Sikhs that escape representable cartographies. In that, Sikh spaces, epistemologies, and itineraries are conceptualized to give depth to a Sikh geographical imagination. Utilizing multi-sited ethnographies, qualitative interviews, and community mapping, the research followed diaspora Sikhs in Hong Kong, Greater Vancouver, and Greater Toronto. I argue that an everyday horizontal spatiality of relation emerges in Sikh processes of worlding and translocal space, which give insights to a subaltern cosmopolitanism, different from state and secular discourses of multiculturalism
A biomechanical analysis of ventral furrow formation in the Drosophila melanogaster embryo
The article provides a biomechanical analysis of ventral furrow formation in the Drosophila melanogaster embryo. Ventral furrow formation is the first large-scale morphogenetic movement in the fly embryo. It involves deformation of a uniform cellular monolayer formed following cellularisation, and has therefore long been used as a simple system in which to explore the role of mechanics in force generation. Here we use a quantitative framework to carry out a systematic perturbation analysis to determine the role of each of the active forces observed. The analysis confirms that ventral furrow invagination arises from a combination of apical constriction and apical–basal shortening forces in the mesoderm, together with a combination of ectodermal forces. We show that the mesodermal forces are crucial for invagination: the loss of apical constriction leads to a loss of the furrow, while the mesodermal radial shortening forces are the primary cause of the internalisation of the future mesoderm as the furrow rises. Ectodermal forces play a minor but significant role in furrow formation: without ectodermal forces the furrow is slower to form, does not close properly and has an aberrant morphology. Nevertheless, despite changes in the active mesodermal and ectodermal forces lead to changes in the timing and extent of furrow, invagination is eventually achieved in most cases, implying that the system is robust to perturbation and therefore over-determined
Language-integrated provenance
Provenance is metadata about the where, the why, and the how of data. It is
evidence which can answer questions such as: Where exactly did this piece of
data come from? Why is this row in my result? How was it produced? Answers
to these questions are useful for judging the trustworthiness of data, and for
finding and correcting mistakes.
Most programs that use a database at all, already use one crude form of
provenance: they manually propagate row identifiers together with database
values, just in case they need to be updated later. More sophisticated forms
of provenance are exceedingly rare, because they are more difficult to implement
manually. Tools to calculate data provenance systematically, only exist
as research prototypes. Even standard database systems are hard to set up, as
evidenced by the rise of hosted database services, so there is little suprise that
prototypes of provenance systems are not used much.
This dissertation shows how a programming language can provide support
for provenance. Based on language-integrated query technology, it can systematically
rewrite queries to produce various forms of provenance. We describe
such query transformations for where-provenance and lineage, and discuss
how to enable programmers to define their own forms of provenance. Thanks
to query normalization the resulting queries still execute efficiently on mainstream
database systems. A programming language can help further by giving
provenance metadata precise types to ensure that it is handled appropriately.
Language-integrated queries make it easy to write programs that deal with
data, no special query language needed. Language-integrated provenance
makes it as easy to deal with data provenance, no special database needed
Mekanistisen termohydraulisen mallinnustavan soveltaminen uudentyyppisten teollisten prosessien dynaamiseen simulointiin
The PDF file of the dissertation includes the summary part and also all five publications as full texts.The process and energy industries have a remarkable position in developing sustainable future. They play an important role in mitigating climate change. Whilst aiming at energy efficient, material recycling, and emission-free processes, the industrial systems are becoming more complex. Process automation is fundamental in confirming that also complex systems can be managed and operated in an easy and safe way. Dynamic system-wide process simulation is practically the only way to verify the interoperability of the process and control solutions before building up the system. For the systems in operation, it enables virtual realistic studies without disturbances or risks for the actual process or people.
The qualitative research approach in this work is case study. The modelling and dynamic simulation software Apros is used in five distinct cases, which extend the modelling from traditional nuclear and conventional power plant applications to a board machine, a carbon dioxide capturing power plant, ship energy systems, a seawater desalination plant, and a molten salt based energy storage system. The methodology relies on mechanistic thermal-hydraulic modelling and dynamic simulation. Method development was performed to model and simulate the application specific unit operations and working fluids. The functionality of the basic methodology and the extensions are demonstrated in the cases. The results of the work can be used in research and commercial simulation projects. New unit operation models and improvements for the fluid property calculation provide a variety of new potential applications. The model validation results help to estimate prediction capability in similar applications. The simulation applications guide modellers to use the methodology in both the presented and new areas. Regarding the case-specific results, the board machine simulator helped to understand complex interactions related to grade changes, to tune the related automation, and thus to shorten the grade change times. The simulation of the ship energy systems revealed design deficiencies and assisted in troubleshooting related problems during the commissioning. The study on the thermal energy storage facility uncovered systematic anomalous behaviour in the molten salt flow path.
Based on the cross-case analysis, it can be stated that the methodology can be successfully applied beyond its traditional application domain and that it provides meaningful and valuable benefits. Furthermore, the methodology supports versatile use of the simulation model during the life cycle of an industrial plant: in R&D, design, testing, operator training and further development of the operating plant. The challenges that the process and energy industries meet today, require consideration of the interactions and dynamics of the process and automation systems together. The methodology used and further extended provides a valuable tool for tackling these challenges.Prosessi- ja energiateollisuudella on suuri merkitys kestĂ€vĂ€ssĂ€ kehityksessĂ€. NiillĂ€ on merkittĂ€vĂ€ rooli ilmastonmuutoksen hillinnĂ€ssĂ€. PyrittĂ€essĂ€ energiatehokkuuteen, materiaalien kierrĂ€tykseen ja pÀÀstöttömiin prosesseihin tulee teollisista jĂ€rjestelmistĂ€ monimutkaisia. Prosessiautomaatiolla on keskeinen rooli siinĂ€, ettĂ€ monimutkaisiakin jĂ€rjestelmiĂ€ voidaan hallita ja kĂ€yttÀÀ helposti ja turvallisesti. Dynaaminen laitosmittakaavan prosessisimulointi on kĂ€ytĂ€nnössĂ€ ainoa tapa testata ja varmistaa prosessin ja automaation yhteistoiminta ennen kohdejĂ€rjestelmĂ€n rakentamista. KĂ€ytössĂ€ olevissa laitoksissa sen avulla voidaan tutkia jĂ€rjestelmiĂ€ todenmukaisesti aiheuttamatta hĂ€iriötĂ€ tai riskiĂ€ prosessille tai ihmisille.Â
TĂ€ssĂ€ tapaustutkimuksena toteutetussa työssĂ€ kĂ€ytetÀÀn Apros-ohjelmistoa mallinnus- ja simulointiympĂ€ristönĂ€. Mallinnusta ja simulointia laajennetaan perinteisiltĂ€ ydin- ja konventionaalisten voimalaitosten sovellusalueilta kartongin valmistukseen, hiilidioksidia talteen ottavaan voimalaitokseen, laivan energiajĂ€rjestelmiin, meriveden suolanpoistoon sekĂ€ sulasuolaa kĂ€yttĂ€vÀÀn lĂ€mpövarastoon. PerusmenetelmĂ€nĂ€ hyödynnetÀÀn mekanistisia malleja ja termohydraulista dynaamista simulointia. MenetelmĂ€kehitystĂ€ tehtiin sovelluskohtaisten laitteiden ja fluidien mallintamiseksi. KĂ€ytetyn menetelmĂ€n ja tehtyjen laajennusten toimivuus demonstroidaan simulointisovelluksissa. Työn tuloksia voidaan hyödyntÀÀ sekĂ€ tutkimuksessa ettĂ€ kaupallisissa simulointiprojekteissa. Uudet laitemallit ja fluidilaskennan ominaisuudet mahdollistavat uusia sovelluskohteita termisten jĂ€rjestelmien parissa. Laskennan ja mallien validointitulokset auttavat arvioimaan saman tyyppisten mallien ennustuskykyĂ€. MenetelmĂ€n hyödyntĂ€minen sekĂ€ esitellyillĂ€ ettĂ€ uusilla sovellusalueilla tehostuu esimerkkimallien avulla. Tapauskohtaisista tuloksista voidaan mainita, ettĂ€ simulaattori auttoi ymmĂ€rtĂ€mÀÀn kartonkikoneen lajinvaihtoihin liittyviĂ€ monimutkaisia vuorovaikutuksia. UudelleenvirittĂ€mĂ€llĂ€ lajinvaihtoautomaatio lyhennettiin lajinvaihtoihin kuluvaa aikaa. Laivan energiajĂ€rjestelmien simulointi paljasti suunnittelun puutteellisuuksia ja auttoi kĂ€yttöönoton ongelmien tutkimisessa. Sulasuolaa kĂ€yttĂ€vĂ€n, lĂ€mmönsiirron ja varastoinnin tutkimusta tukevan laitteiston toiminnasta analysoitiin systemaattinen poikkeama.Â
Tapausten analysoinnin perusteella voidaan todeta, ettÀ kÀytetty mallinnusmenetelmÀ soveltuu hyvin myös perinteisen sovellusalueensa ulkopuolella ja tuo merkittÀviÀ hyötyjÀ. MenetelmÀ tukee simulointimallien monipuolista hyödyntÀmistÀ teollisuuslaitoksen elinkaaren aikana: tutkimuksessa, suunnittelussa, testauksessa, kÀyttÀjien koulutuksessa sekÀ toimivan laitoksen kehittÀmisessÀ. Teollisuuden suunnittelun ja laitosten kasvavia haasteita on kyettÀvÀ ratkaisemaan eri elinkaaren vaiheissa prosessin ja automaation yhteistoiminta ja dynamiikka huomioiden. TyössÀ sovellettu ja laajennettu mallinnus- ja simulointimenetelmÀ tarjoaa tÀhÀn hyödyllisen työkalun
Perspectives on information structure in Austronesian languages
Information structure is a relatively new field to linguistics and has only recently been studied for smaller and less described languages. This book is the first of its kind that brings together contributions on information structure in Austronesian languages. Current approaches from formal semantics, discourse studies, and intonational phonology are brought together with language specific and cross-linguistic expertise of Austronesian languages. The 13 chapters in this volume cover all subgroups of the large Austronesian family, including Formosan, Central Malayo-Polynesian, South Halmahera-West New Guinea, and Oceanic. The major focus, though, lies on Western Malayo-Polynesian languages. Some chapters investigate two of the largest languages in the region (Tagalog and different varieties of Malay), others study information-structural phenomena in small, underdescribed languages. The three overarching topics that are covered in this book are NP marking and reference tracking devices, syntactic structures and information-structural categories, and the interaction of information structure and prosody. Various data types build the basis for the different studies compiled in this book. Some chapters investigate written texts, such as modern novels (cf. Djenarâs chapter on modern, standard Indonesian), or compare different text genres, such as, for example, oral narratives and translations of biblical narratives (cf. De Busserâs chapter on Bunun). Most contributions, however, study natural spoken speech and make use of spoken corpora which have been compiled by the authors themselves. The volume comprises a number of different methods and theoretical frameworks. Two chapters make use of the Question Under Discussion approach, developed in formal semantics (cf. the chapters by Latrouite & Riester; Shiohara & Riester). Riesberg et al. apply the recently developed method of Rapid Prosody Transcription (RPT) to investigate native speakersâ perception of prosodic prominences and boundaries in Papuan Malay. Other papers discuss theoretical consequences of their findings. Thus, for example, Himmelmann takes apart the most widespread framework for intonational phonology (ToBI) and argues that the analysis of Indonesian languages requires much simpler assumptions than the ones underlying the standard model. Arka & Sedeng ask the question how fine-grained information structure space should be conceptualized and modelled, e.g. in LFG. Schnell argues that elements that could be analysed as âtopicâ and âfocusâ categories, should better be described in terms of âpackagingâ and do not necessarily reflect any pragmatic roles in the first place
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Codes of Modernity: Infrastructures of Language and Chinese Scripts in an Age of Global Information Revolution
This dissertation explores the global history of Chinese script reformsâthe effort to phoneticize Chinese language and/or simplify the writing systemâfrom its inception in the 1890s to its demise in the 1980s. These reforms took place at the intersection of industrialization, colonialism, and new information technologies, such as alphabet-based telegraphy and breakthroughs in printing technologies. As these social and technological transformations put unprecedented pressure on knowledge management and the use of mental and clerical labor, many Chinese intellectuals claimed that learning Chinese characters consumed too much time and mental energy. Chinese script reforms, this dissertation argues, were an effort to increase speed in producing, transmitting, and accessing information, and thus meet the demands of the industrializing knowledge economy.
The industrializing knowledge economy that this dissertation explores was built on and sustained by a psychological understanding of the human subject as a knowledge machine, and it was part of a global moment in which the optimization of labor in knowledge production was a key concern for all modernizing economies. While Chinese intellectuals were inventing new signs of inscription, American behavioral psychologists, Soviet psycho-economists, and Central Asian and Ottoman technicians were all experimenting with new scripts in order to increase mental efficiency and productivity. This dissertation reveals the intimate connections between the Chinese and non-Chinese script engineering projects that were taking place synchronically across the world. The chapters of this work demonstrate for the first time, for instance, that the simplification of Chinese characters in the 1920s and 1930s was intimately connected to the discipline of behavioral psychology in the US. The first generation of Chinese psychologists employed the American psychologistsâ methods to track eye movements, count word-frequencies, and statistically analyze the speed of reading, writing, and memorizing in order to simplify and ârationalizeâ the Chinese writing system in an effort to discipline and optimize mental labor. Other chapters explore the issue of mental and clerical optimization by finding the origins of the Chinese Latin Alphabet (CLA), the mother of pinyin, in hitherto unknown Eurasian connections. The CLA, the pages of this work shows, was the product of a transnational exchange that involved Ottoman and Transcaucasian typographers as well as Russian engineers and Chinese communists who sought efficiency in knowledge production through inventing new scripts. Situating the Chinese script reforms at this global intersection of psychology, economy, and linguistics, this dissertation examines the global connections and forces that turned the human subject into a knowledge worker who was cognitively managed through education, literacy, propaganda, and other measures of organizing information, all of which had the script at the center.
The search for efficiency and productivityâthe core values of industrialismâlay at the heart of script reforms in China, but this search was inseparable from linguistic orders and political ambitions. Even if writing, transmitting, and learning a phonetic script could theoretically be easier and more efficient than the Chinese characters, the alphabet opened a veritable Pandoraâs Box around the issue of selection: given the complex linguistic landscape in China, which speech was a phonetic script supposed to represent? There were myriad languages spoken throughout the empire and the subsequent nation-state, most of which were mutually incomprehensible. Mandarin as spoken in Beijing was different from that spoken in the south, and âtopolectsâ or regional languages such as Min or Cantonese were to Mandarin what Romanian is to English. As a linguistic life-or-death issue, phonetic scripts stood for the infrastructural possibilities and limitations in the representation of speeches. Some scripts, such as Lao Naixuanâs phonetic script composed of more than a hundred signs, were capable of representing multiple Mandarin and non-Mandarin speeches; whereas others, such as Phonetic Symbols that only has thirty-seven syllabic signs, represented only one speech, i.e., Mandarin. Using Mandarin-oriented scripts to transcribe non-Mandarin speeches was like writing English with fifteen letters, hence the acrimonious disputes that fill the pages of this dissertation. Succinctly put, it was at the level of script invention that Chinese and non-Chinese actors engineered different infrastructures not only for laboring minds but also for the social world of Chinese languages. The history of information technologies and knowledge economy in China was thus inseparable from the world of speech and language, as each script offered a new potential to reassemble the written matter and the speaking mind in a different way.
âCodes of Modernityâ thus conceptualizes the script itself as an infrastructural medium. A script was not merely a passive carrier of information, but an existential artifact. Building on an expanding literature on infrastructures, it endorses the observation that infrastructures, technologies, and the social world around them work in a recursive loop. An infrastructure is not just the physical object that permits the flow of information, goods, ideas, and people, but a sociotechnical product that enables the experience of culture, while imposing constrains on it at the same time. Like electricity grids, transportation systems, and sewage canals, the experience of scripts as infrastructures is the experience of thought worlds. After a long tradition of structuralism and poststructuralism that sought to understand the world through the semiotic prism of language, âCodes of Modernityâ argues that it is time for an infrastructuralism that excavates the indispensable media that enable the production of language and thought
Regulating online games in China: policy, practice, innovation, and change
The policy and practice of media regulation in China is quickly evolving to cope with the
regulatory challenges presented by the rapid development and convergence of new media
technology. These challenges include the increasing economic power of international and
private stakeholders within this space, as well as the constantly evolving uses of highly
converged media. Online games are a central part of this evolving dynamic, which is
characterized by strong tensions between producers and operators, government regulators,
and users of online games. This research explores the changing dynamic of online games
regulation in China as it responds to the forces of internationalization and privatization. It also
seeks to identify critical issues for policy development in China that are raised by the new and
innovative ways that this media is being used. It draws from and contributes to scholarship
from a number of disciplines, but primarily approaches the research from a media studies and
area studies perspective.
The thesis is presented in five chapters. Chapter I begins with a discussion of emerging
practice in online games and its wider policy implications. This is followed by a literature review
and an explanation of the methodological approach, which included: case study methodology,
participant observation, and key informant Interviews with policy, legal, and game industry
experts in China. The core research is then presented in three chapters. Chapter II is a detailed
contextual narrative that describes Chinaâs online games policy and places it in historical
perspective. Chapter III is an exploratory analysis of key institutions, stakeholder interests,
and interactions that shape practical regulation of online games in China. Chapter IV presents
a focused analysis and discussion of the gold farming case. The thesis concludes with a
summary and discussion of research contributions in Chapter V. The final discussion highlights
how the thesis contributes to knowledge in three key areas: new media in China, policy studies
of China, and media convergence