28,501 research outputs found
From analogue to digital scholarship: implications for science communication researchers
Digital media have transformed the social practices of science communication. They have extended the number of channels that scientists, media professionals, other stakeholders and citizens use to communicate scientific information. Social media provide opportunities to communicate in more immediate and informal ways, while digital technologies have the potential to make the various processes of research more visible in the public sphere. Some digital media also offer, on occasion, opportunities for interaction and engagement. Similarly, ideas about public engagement are shifting and extending social practices, partially influencing governance strategies, and science communication policies and practices. In this paper I explore this developing context via a personal journey from an analogue to a digital scholar. In so doing, I discuss some of the demands that a globalised digital landscape introduces for science communication researchers and document some of the skills and competencies required to be a digital scholar of science communication
Reusable e-learning development: Case studies, practices and issues of awareness for knowledge-based organisations
Reusable e-learning development (RED) is defined as the cloning, modification and customisation of existing files or source codes for developing another website or another web-based application. RED does not imply just copying and changing existing files or source codes but rather, it provides a practical technique for time-saving, improving efficiency and maximising utility of existing resources for creating another website or another web-based application. RED is particularly useful for a large-scale web development, where there is an extremely high degree of overlapping of information, resources and web designs. Therefore, RED has been widely adopted by many knowledge-based organisations (KBO). In order to investigate the impacts of RED on KBO, various case studies, practices and issues of awareness for KBO are presented and analysed. This paper particularly focuses on studies and recommended practices from the University of Cambridge. Results from these case studies reveal a number of outcomes
qBitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Quantum Cash System
A decentralized online quantum cash system, called qBitcoin, is given. We
design the system which has great benefits of quantization in the following
sense. Firstly, quantum teleportation technology is used for coin transaction,
which prevents from the owner of the coin keeping the original coin data even
after sending the coin to another. This was a main problem in a classical
circuit and a blockchain was introduced to solve this issue. In qBitcoin, the
double-spending problem never happens and its security is guaranteed
theoretically by virtue of quantum information theory. Making a block is time
consuming and the system of qBitcoin is based on a quantum chain, instead of
blocks. Therefore a payment can be completed much faster than Bitcoin. Moreover
we employ quantum digital signature so that it naturally inherits properties of
peer-to-peer (P2P) cash system as originally proposed in Bitcoin.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure
Appropriations and Stem Cell Research Arlen Specterâs Senate Legacy
Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter sat at the center of battles over stem cell research. Focusing on Specterâs efforts allows sustained exploration of policy entrepreneurship in the Senate. Building on Fennoâs seminal work on Arlen Specter, which focused mostly on Specterâs first term in office. Specterâs early work on criminal justice policy helped to prepare him for the weighty work involved in the stem cell debate. However, it was his ascendance on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and his position on the Labor, Health, and Human Services subcommittee in particular, that allowed him to become a leader on the stem cell issue. Specterâs work on the Judiciary Committee stereotyped Specter as a âshow horse,â his work on stem cell research highlights his âworkhorseâ qualities.
I begin with an overview of agenda setting and policy entrepreneurship in Congress. The purpose of the discussion is to place Senator Arlen Specterâs legislative activities in a theoretical context. I then turn to the politics and policy that shaped the debate surrounding stem cell research. In particular, I demonstrate how the development of stem cell policy necessarily tiptoed through the minefield of abortion politics. I then discuss Senator Specterâs involvement in shaping stem cell research policy by focusing on several vignettes where his involvement illustrates the important role of the political entrepreneur. Despite what sometimes appears as âfailure,â we gain insight into the role of Specter as a policy entrepreneur and this role in shaping public policy.
This work contributes to the literature on Congress and public policy in several ways. Making extensive use of newly available archival material I contribute to our historical understanding of stem cell policy and its relationship to abortion policy. Focusing on Senator Arlen Specter allows us to examine how policy leaders learn and adapt to political and institutional change to realize their policy goals. It also expands our understanding of policy entrepreneurs. Many students of legislative entrepreneurship focus on legislative accomplishmentâsuccess. Specter did not pass any landmark legislation into law related to stem cell research. This study addresses a blind spot in the study of legislative entrepreneurs; the skills policy leaders use to prevent legislation from becoming la
The Self 2.0: How AI-Enhanced Self-Clones Transform Self-Perception and Improve Presentation Skills
This study explores the impact of AI-generated digital self-clones on
improving online presentation skills. We carried out a mixed-design experiment
involving 44 international students, comparing self-recorded videos (control)
with self-clone videos (AI group) for English presentation practice. The AI
videos utilized voice cloning, face swapping, lip-sync, and body-language
simulation to refine participants' original presentations in terms of
repetition, filler words, and pronunciation. Machine-rated scores indicated
enhancements in speech performance for both groups. Though the groups didn't
significantly differ, the AI group exhibited a heightened depth of reflection,
self-compassion, and a meaningful transition from a corrective to an enhancive
approach to self-critique. Within the AI group, congruence between
self-perception and AI self-clones resulted in diminished speech anxiety and
increased enjoyment. Our findings recommend the ethical employment of digital
self-clones to enhance the emotional and cognitive facets of skill development.Comment: 25 page
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Pixelated flesh
The pixel and the technique of pixelating faces belong to a politics of fear and a digital aesthetics of truth which shapes public perceptions of criminality and the threat of otherness. This article will draw on Paul Virilio's account of the pixel in Lost Dimension in order to analyze its specific role and operation in relation to contemporary representations of incarceration. In particular, the article will consider the figure of the incarcerated informant. The incarcerated criminal or informant plays a complex role as both subversive other and purveyor of truth and as such constitutes an important example of the ways in which pixelation functions as a visible signifier of a dangerous truth whilst blurring, erasing and, ultimately, dehumanizing those "speaking" this truth. Our discussion forms part of a larger analysis of the production, framing and circulation of images of otherness, identifying Virilio as key to debates around the violence of the screen
Finding What You Need, and Knowing What You Can Find: Digital Tools for Palaeographers in Musicology and Beyond
This chapter examines three projects that provide musicologists with a range of
resources for managing and exploring their materials: DIAMM (Digital Image Archive
of Medieval Music), CMME (Computerized Mensural Music Editing) and the software
Gamera. Since 1998, DIAMM has been enhancing research of scholars worldwide
by providing them with the best possible quality of digital images. In some cases
these images are now the only access that scholars are permitted, since the original
documents are lost or considered too fragile for further handling. For many sources,
however, simply creating a very high-resolution image is not enough: sources are often
damaged by age, misuse (usually Medieval âvandalismâ), or poor conservation. To deal
with damaged materials the project has developed methods of digital restoration using
mainstream commercial software, which has revealed lost data in a wide variety of
sources. The project also uses light sources ranging from ultraviolet to infrared in
order to obtain better readings of erasures or material lost by heat or water damage.
The ethics of digital restoration are discussed, as well as the concerns of the document
holders. CMME and a database of musical sources and editions, provides scholars with
a tool for making fluid editions and diplomatic transcriptions: without the need for a
single fixed visual form on a printed page, a computerized edition system can utilize
one editorâs transcription to create any number of visual forms and variant versions.
Gamera, a toolkit for building document image recognition systems created by Ichiro
Fujinaga is a broad recognition engine that grew out of music recognition, which can
be adapted and developed to perform a number of tasks on both music and non-musical
materials. Its application to several projects is discussed
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