The Two Media Literacies: A Cultural Studies Perspective

This analysis identifies the problem of the media saturation of people’s lives as a reason for developing programs teaching media literacy. It argues that the basic or foundational disciplines found in cultural studies, such as applied semiotics, psychoanalytic theory, sociological theory, and Marxist analysis, are the proper way to teach media criticism and media literacy (See Berger, A.A., Media Analysis Techniques, 6th edition, 2019). The methods by themselves are not adequate, which means that teaching media literacy also involves providing exercises and learning games that show students how to apply the theories they learn to their analyses of media texts (See Berger, A.A., Games and Activities for Media, Communication, and Cultural Studies Students,2004). Finally, it is suggested that media literacy should be taught at all educational levels

Managing Vulnerabilities of Tactical Wireless RF Network Systems: A Case Study

Organisations and individuals benefit when wireless networks are protected. After assessing the risks associated with wireless technologies, organisations can reduce the risks by applying countermeasures to address specific threats and vulnerabilities. These countermeasures include management, operational and technical controls. While these countermeasures will not prevent all penetrations and adverse events, they can be effective in reducing many of the common risks associated with wireless RF networks. Among engineers dealing with different scaled and interconnected engineering systems, such as tactical wireless RF communication systems, there is a growing need for a means of analysing complex adaptive systems. We propose a methodology based on the systematic resolution of complex issues to manage the vulnerabilities of tactical wireless RF systems. There are is a need to assemble and balance the results of any successful measure, showing how well each solution meets the system’s objectives. The uncertain arguments used and other test results are combined using a form of mathematical theory for their analysis. Systems engineering thinking supports design decisions and enables decision‐makers to manage and assess the support for each solution. In these circumstances, complexity management arises from the many interacting and conflicting requirements of an increasing range of possible parameters. There may not be a single ‘right’ solution, only a satisfactory set of resolutions which this system helps to facilitate. Smart and innovative performance matrixes are introduced using a mathematical Bayesian network to manage, model, calculate and analyse all the potential vulnerability paths in wireless RF networks

Reliability-based assessment procedures for existing concrete structures

A feasibility study of reliability theory as a tool for the assessment of present safety and residual service life of damaged concrete structures has been performed in order to find a transparent methodology for the assessment procedure. It is concluded that the current guidelines are open to interpretation and that the variation in the results obtained regarding the structural safety is too great to be acceptable. Interpretations by the engineer are also included when deterministic methods are used, but probabilistic methods are more sensitive to the assumptions made and the differences in the results will therefore be greater. In a literature survey it is concluded that residual service life predictions should not be expected to be valid for more than 10 to 15 years, due to the large variability of the variables involved in the analysis. Based on these conclusions predictive models that are suitable for the inclusion of new data, and methods for the incorporation of new data are proposed. Information from the field of medical statistics and robotics suggests that linear regression models are well suited for this type of updated monitoring. Two test cases were studied, a concrete dam and a railway bridge. From the dam case, it was concluded that the safety philosophy in the deterministic dam specific assessment guidelines further development. Probabilistic descriptions of important variables, such as ice loads and friction coefficients, are needed if reliability theory is to be used for assessment purposes. During the study of the railway bridge it became clear that model uncertainties for different failure mechanisms used in concrete design are lacking. If Bayesian updating is to be used as a tool for incorporation of test data regarding concrete strength info the reliability analysis, a priori information must be established. A need for a probabilistic description of the hardening process of concrete was identified for the purpose of establishing a priori information. This description can also be used as qualitative assessment of the concrete. If there is a large discrepancy between the predicted value and the measured value, the concrete should be investigated regarding deterioration due to, for example internal frost or alkali silica reactions. Reliability theory is well suited for the assessment process since features of the reliability theory such as sensitivity analysis give good decision support for matters concerning both safety and service life predictions

Iranian Celebrities on the Internet

Celebrities have gained considerable influence in the last one hundred years or so, but the advent of so-called Web 2.0 technologies has given celebrity culture a new momentum. We are living in a world in which celebrities are striving to curve their place in every niche and hence we have to become more media literate in order to avoid being exploited by celebrity media and culture. We have to be aware that celebrities promote commodities that they will never use, that they are carefully working on their image to become pleasant to us, and that if they do humanitarian work, they are mainly doing it for their reputation, and not for a real and authentic cause

Reliability-based design optimization of shells with uncertain geometry using adaptive Kriging metamodels

Optimal design under uncertainty has gained much attention in the past ten years due to the ever increasing need for manufacturers to build robust systems at the lowest cost. Reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) allows the analyst to minimize some cost function while ensuring some minimal performances cast as admissible failure probabilities for a set of performance functions. In order to address real-world engineering problems in which the performance is assessed through computational models (e.g., finite element models in structural mechanics) metamodeling techniques have been developed in the past decade. This paper introduces adaptive Kriging surrogate models to solve the RBDO problem. The latter is cast in an augmented space that "sums up" the range of the design space and the aleatory uncertainty in the design parameters and the environmental conditions. The surrogate model is used (i) for evaluating robust estimates of the failure probabilities (and for enhancing the computational experimental design by adaptive sampling) in order to achieve the requested accuracy and (ii) for applying a gradient-based optimization algorithm to get optimal values of the design parameters. The approach is applied to the optimal design of ring-stiffened cylindrical shells used in submarine engineering under uncertain geometric imperfections. For this application the performance of the structure is related to buckling which is addressed here by means of a finite element solution based on the asymptotic numerical method