196 research outputs found

    Sensing Collectives: Aesthetic and Political Practices Intertwined

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    Are aesthetics and politics really two different things? The book takes a new look at how they intertwine, by turning from theory to practice. Case studies trace how sensory experiences are created and how collective interests are shaped. They investigate how aesthetics and politics are entangled, both in building and disrupting collective orders, in governance and innovation. This ranges from populist rallies and artistic activism over alternative lifestyles and consumer culture to corporate PR and governmental policies. Authors are academics and artists. The result is a new mapping of the intermingling and co-constitution of aesthetics and politics in engagements with collective orders

    Modern meat: the next generation of meat from cells

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    Modern Meat is the first textbook on cultivated meat, with contributions from over 100 experts within the cultivated meat community. The Sections of Modern Meat comprise 5 broad categories of cultivated meat: Context, Impact, Science, Society, and World. The 19 chapters of Modern Meat, spread across these 5 sections, provide detailed entries on cultivated meat. They extensively tour a range of topics including the impact of cultivated meat on humans and animals, the bioprocess of cultivated meat production, how cultivated meat may become a food option in Space and on Mars, and how cultivated meat may impact the economy, culture, and tradition of Asia

    A Changing Landscape:On Safety & Open Source in Automated and Connected Driving

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    Quantum-Inspired Machine Learning: a Survey

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    Quantum-inspired Machine Learning (QiML) is a burgeoning field, receiving global attention from researchers for its potential to leverage principles of quantum mechanics within classical computational frameworks. However, current review literature often presents a superficial exploration of QiML, focusing instead on the broader Quantum Machine Learning (QML) field. In response to this gap, this survey provides an integrated and comprehensive examination of QiML, exploring QiML's diverse research domains including tensor network simulations, dequantized algorithms, and others, showcasing recent advancements, practical applications, and illuminating potential future research avenues. Further, a concrete definition of QiML is established by analyzing various prior interpretations of the term and their inherent ambiguities. As QiML continues to evolve, we anticipate a wealth of future developments drawing from quantum mechanics, quantum computing, and classical machine learning, enriching the field further. This survey serves as a guide for researchers and practitioners alike, providing a holistic understanding of QiML's current landscape and future directions.Comment: 56 pages, 13 figures, 8 table

    Transposon mutagenesis in RT 078 Clostridioides difficile

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    Clostridioides difficile is a Gram-positive, spore-forming, anaerobic bacterium and a major cause of healthcare associated diarrhoea. Significant increases in the incidence of hypervirulent strains, such as those belonging to PCR ribotype (RT) 027, and increased antibiotic resistance have formed the focus of current C. difficile clinical research. Hypervirulent strains belonging to RT 078, in contrast, have received comparative less attention, despite the fact that they are widely recognized as being zoonotic, with a particular association with pigs. A greater understanding of RT 078 strains would benefit from the implementation of forward genetic approaches. Here we sought to implement Transposon directed insertion-site sequencing (TraDIS), a high throughput method able to define gene essentiality under niche-specific conditions, to elucidate physiological changes such as sporulation and germination in RT 078 strains. As effective DNA transfer is a prerequisite for TraDIS implementation, the most efficient strains as both donor and recipient in conjugation were identified. Applying next generation sequencing technologies on 10 clinical isolates and subsequent methylome analysis demonstrated that although the tested strains of RT 078 were genetically similar (up to 99.99%), they possess a variety of potential Restriction-Modification (R-M) barriers. One of these R-M systems was circumvented using the novel Escherichia coli donor strain, sExpress. Improved DNA transformability in C. difficile RT 078 strain CD9301 made it an optimal target for further genetic manipulations and subsequent TraDIS analysis. Subsequently, several transposon delivery systems were evaluated, based on their potential to mediate random transposon insertion and reliable plasmid loss, to prevent interference of the transposase during downstream experiments in C. difficile. The Tet-inducible transposon vector pRF215, performed best in CD9301. Based on this plasmid system, the novel vector pMTL-MtV10 was created, which was additionally equipped with I-SceI digestion sites, to achieve increased plasmid clearance during library preparation. Using both plasmids, genes essential for growth in rich media were determined. In total, 448 essential genes were predicted. The incorporation of I-SceI sites into pMtV-10 did not, however, improves plasmid loss during the TraDIS library preparation. A further 398 genes were predicted to be essential for sporulation. The number of genes identified is most likely an underestimate as the manual cut-off used to predict essentiality lacks sensitivity. The described findings lay the ground work necessary for determining essentiality in RT 078 and improving our understanding of this important ribotype

    Failure analysis and mechanical behaviors of metamaterials

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    In recent years, mechanical metamaterials have been explored for their tunable nature with the continual development of Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies. As a result, the failure mechanisms of the metamaterials and their mechanical behaviours under different boundary and environmental conditions have been investigated. Firstly, failure mechanisms of AM originated imperfections in the metamaterials have been investigated. In this, three types of imperfection have been considered in the numerical modelling of the metamaterials: distorted struts, missing struts, and strut diameter variation. Then a novel numerical framework was developed to overcome computational difficulties within the existing numerical approaches beyond the elastic region. Three modes of microscopic localisation were observed in metamaterials before failure: crushing band, shear band and void coalescence. The results showed that a clear separation exists between the three modes of localisation depending upon the type and level of defects and loading condition. Under compressive loading, all metamaterials failed due to the crushing band; the distorted lattices are prone to shear band localisation with increased distortion, whereas missing lattices majorly fail due to void coalescence at high missing struts defect. The study on imperfect metamaterials has suggested that it can exhibit either ductile, damage-tolerant behaviours or sudden, catastrophic failure mode, depending on the distribution of the introduced disorderliness. Thus, a data-driven approach has been developed, combining deep-learning and global optimisation algorithms, to tune the distribution of the disorderliness/imperfections to achieve damage-tolerant metamaterial designs. A case study on the metamaterial created from a periodic Face Centred Cubic (FCC) lattice has demonstrated that the optimised metamaterials can generate high-quality designs with improved ductility, enabling them to sustain larger deformations without failure at a lower cost to strength and stiffness. This has been validated by an experimental study on an optimised metamaterial design. The results showed that the optimized designs can achieve up to 100% increase in ductility at the expense of less than 5% stiffness and 8-15% tensile strength. Finally, the creep behaviour of Inconel 718 metamaterial has been investigated at an elevated temperature to understand the effects of the microstructural defects. A Kachanov's damage modelling has been used to predict the creep performance of the metamaterials. The analysis and experimental results indicated that the creep resistance of the metamaterials is dependent on the microstructure and loading conditions. The creep behaviour of the metamaterials is significantly different from that of the bulk material due to their complex microstructure. Overall, this study contributes to the development of mechanical metamaterials with improved mechanical properties using AM technologies. The neural network-based data-driven methodology offers a promising avenue for designing high-quality metamaterials that are cost-effective and have desirable mechanical properties. The results of this study have significant implications for various applications, including structural engineering, biomechanics, and aerospace engineering, including in understanding, and designing for the creep behavior of Inconel 718 metamaterials

    Measuring knowledge sharing processes through social network analysis within construction organisations

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    The construction industry is a knowledge intensive and information dependent industry. Organisations risk losing valuable knowledge, when the employees leave them. Therefore, construction organisations need to nurture opportunities to disseminate knowledge through strengthening knowledge-sharing networks. This study aimed at evaluating the formal and informal knowledge sharing methods in social networks within Australian construction organisations and identifying how knowledge sharing could be improved. Data were collected from two estimating teams in two case studies. The collected data through semi-structured interviews were analysed using UCINET, a Social Network Analysis (SNA) tool, and SNA measures. The findings revealed that one case study consisted of influencers, while the other demonstrated an optimal knowledge sharing structure in both formal and informal knowledge sharing methods. Social networks could vary based on the organisation as well as the individuals’ behaviour. Identifying networks with specific issues and taking steps to strengthen networks will enable to achieve optimum knowledge sharing processes. This research offers knowledge sharing good practices for construction organisations to optimise their knowledge sharing processes

    Villages et quartiers à risque d’abandon

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    The issue of villages and neighborhoods at risk of abandonment is a common topic in many Mediterranean regions and is considered as a strategic point of the new European policies. The progressive abandonment of inland areas, with phenomena of emigration and fragmentation of cultural heritage, is a common trend in countries characterized by economic underdevelopment. This leads to the decay of architectural artifacts and buildings and problems with land management. Some aspects of this issue are also found in several urban areas. The goal of this research work is collecting international debates, discussions, opinions and comparisons concerning the analysis, study, surveys, diagnoses and graphical rendering of architectural heritage and landscape as well as demo-ethno-anthropological witnesses, typological-constructive stratifications, materials and technologies of traditional and vernacular constructions of historic buildings

    Assuming Data Integrity and Empirical Evidence to The Contrary

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    Background: Not all respondents to surveys apply their minds or understand the posed questions, and as such provide answers which lack coherence, and this threatens the integrity of the research. Casual inspection and limited research of the 10-item Big Five Inventory (BFI-10), included in the dataset of the World Values Survey (WVS), suggested that random responses may be common. Objective: To specify the percentage of cases in the BRI-10 which include incoherent or contradictory responses and to test the extent to which the removal of these cases will improve the quality of the dataset. Method: The WVS data on the BFI-10, measuring the Big Five Personality (B5P), in South Africa (N=3 531), was used. Incoherent or contradictory responses were removed. Then the cases from the cleaned-up dataset were analysed for their theoretical validity. Results: Only 1 612 (45.7%) cases were identified as not including incoherent or contradictory responses. The cleaned-up data did not mirror the B5P- structure, as was envisaged. The test for common method bias was negative. Conclusion: In most cases the responses were incoherent. Cleaning up the data did not improve the psychometric properties of the BFI-10. This raises concerns about the quality of the WVS data, the BFI-10, and the universality of B5P-theory. Given these results, it would be unwise to use the BFI-10 in South Africa. Researchers are alerted to do a proper assessment of the psychometric properties of instruments before they use it, particularly in a cross-cultural setting

    Towards understanding of climbing, tip-over prevention and self-righting behaviors in Hexapoda

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    Die vorliegende Dissertation mit dem Titel “Towards understanding of climbing, tip-over prevention and self-righting behaviors in Hexapoda” untersucht in drei Studien exemplarisch, wie (i) Wüstenameisen ihre Beine einsetzen um An- und Abstiege zu überwinden, wie (ii) Wüsten- und Waldameisen ein Umkippen an steilen Anstiegen vermeiden, und wie sich (iii) Madagaskar-Fauchschaben, Amerikanische Großschaben und Blaberus discoidalis Audinet-Servill, 1839 aus Rückenlagen drehen und aufrichten. Neuartige biomechanischen Beschreibungen umfassen unter anderem: Impuls- und Kraftwirkungen einzelner Ameisenbeine auf den Untergrund beim Bergauf- und Bergabklettern, Kippmomente bei kletternden Ameisen, Energiegebirge-Modelle (energy landscapes) zur Quantifizierung der Körperform für die funktionelle Beschreibung des Umdrehens aus der Rückenlage
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