2,509 research outputs found

    Reduced emergent character of neural dynamics in patients with a disrupted connectome

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    High-level brain functions are widely believed to emerge from the orchestrated activity of multiple neural systems. However, lacking a formal definition and practical quantification of emergence for experimental data, neuroscientists have been unable to empirically test this long-standing conjecture. Here we investigate this fundamental question by leveraging a recently proposed framework known as “Integrated Information Decomposition,” which establishes a principled information-theoretic approach to operationalise and quantify emergence in dynamical systems — including the human brain. By analysing functional MRI data, our results show that the emergent and hierarchical character of neural dynamics is significantly diminished in chronically unresponsive patients suffering from severe brain injury. At a functional level, we demonstrate that emergence capacity is positively correlated with the extent of hierarchical organisation in brain activity. Furthermore, by combining computational approaches from network control theory and whole-brain biophysical modelling, we show that the reduced capacity for emergent and hierarchical dynamics in severely brain-injured patients can be mechanistically explained by disruptions in the patients’ structural connectome. Overall, our results suggest that chronic unresponsiveness resulting from severe brain injury may be related to structural impairment of the fundamental neural infrastructures required for brain dynamics to support emergence

    A portrait of trade in cultural goods : in respect of the WTO and the UNESCO instruments in the contexts of hard-law and soft-law

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    Cultural Goods have the dual nature of being related to both culture and economy. The WTO considers the trade aspects and UNESCO gives value to the cultural aspects of cultural goods. Therefore, there are interactions between the provisions, institutions and practices of the WTO Agreement and UNESCO CDCE on trade in cultural goods. This book examines potential conflicts between the two agreements. In doing so we are proposing three routes to enhance legal coherence between them: propose an improved interpretation of the instruments; harmonise through hard law; and foster mutual supportiveness through soft law

    Microcredentials to support PBL

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    Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion. Collected Works, Volume 5

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    This fifth volume on Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion collects theoretical and applied contributions of researchers working in different fields of applications and in mathematics, and is available in open-access. The collected contributions of this volume have either been published or presented after disseminating the fourth volume in 2015 in international conferences, seminars, workshops and journals, or they are new. The contributions of each part of this volume are chronologically ordered. First Part of this book presents some theoretical advances on DSmT, dealing mainly with modified Proportional Conflict Redistribution Rules (PCR) of combination with degree of intersection, coarsening techniques, interval calculus for PCR thanks to set inversion via interval analysis (SIVIA), rough set classifiers, canonical decomposition of dichotomous belief functions, fast PCR fusion, fast inter-criteria analysis with PCR, and improved PCR5 and PCR6 rules preserving the (quasi-)neutrality of (quasi-)vacuous belief assignment in the fusion of sources of evidence with their Matlab codes. Because more applications of DSmT have emerged in the past years since the apparition of the fourth book of DSmT in 2015, the second part of this volume is about selected applications of DSmT mainly in building change detection, object recognition, quality of data association in tracking, perception in robotics, risk assessment for torrent protection and multi-criteria decision-making, multi-modal image fusion, coarsening techniques, recommender system, levee characterization and assessment, human heading perception, trust assessment, robotics, biometrics, failure detection, GPS systems, inter-criteria analysis, group decision, human activity recognition, storm prediction, data association for autonomous vehicles, identification of maritime vessels, fusion of support vector machines (SVM), Silx-Furtif RUST code library for information fusion including PCR rules, and network for ship classification. Finally, the third part presents interesting contributions related to belief functions in general published or presented along the years since 2015. These contributions are related with decision-making under uncertainty, belief approximations, probability transformations, new distances between belief functions, non-classical multi-criteria decision-making problems with belief functions, generalization of Bayes theorem, image processing, data association, entropy and cross-entropy measures, fuzzy evidence numbers, negator of belief mass, human activity recognition, information fusion for breast cancer therapy, imbalanced data classification, and hybrid techniques mixing deep learning with belief functions as well

    ‘Let's build houses': the order of housing development shaping childhood topography in Mafuyana, Maphisa

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    This thesis describes the physical, social and economic ordering of Mafuyana (Garikai), an urban township in Maphisa, a rural growth point in Matobo District in Matabeleland South province, Zimbabwe. It explores the ways in which this ordering informs the social construction of childhood. The township was constructed as part of Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle, a housing program that served to rehouse victims of Operation Murambatsvina both of which occurred through Zimbabwe's tradition of restoring order from informal settlements for modernist planning strategies. The configuration of Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle compares to the colonial framework of low-cost African housing that has historically been neglected by its municipal authorities. This neglect leads to infrastructure that is hazardous to infants. The evolutions of rural dwellings in southern Africa since the 19th Century and labour migration under colonialism – which characterised the scattering of peoples and the formation of new communities – were determined according to available resources, the physical nature of regions, the models of kinship and daily activities of rural life. Children in these contexts formed the basis of family construction, and also in Maphisa where parents or caregivers value them as a social investment during their ageing years. However, the introduction of urban infrastructure in rural Maphisa produces a framework that residents find challenging when performing their traditions of rural life in the process of raising children. The debilitating infrastructure in Mafuyana resulting from poor planning has caused residing families to face physical hardship in their dwelling. In order to habituate children into a harsh world, infant rituals associated to rural life ways in Matabeleland are performed by residents – some of which challenge modernist health discourses of cleanliness and orderliness. When makeshift endeavours on fragmented housing fail to meet their satisfaction, some residents resort to migrating – either within the township or beyond its boundaries in search for better dwelling. This scenario reflects that settling in such an ordered space lacks permanence, because locals struggle to ‘fit' into its makes, despite their efforts. The dissertation argues that the modernist developmental ordering of the growth point's township influences the developmental ordering concerned with the children that reside in it. Furthermore, examining this developmental ordering of children gives an indication on whether the housing in which they live enhances life for the growing human being

    A Cultural History of Representational Shifts Toward Occidentalism

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    In 1978, Edward Said redefined Orientalism as a Western interpretation of the Middle East best characterized by an inherent cultural hostility. It’s essence, he declared, was the invariable distinction between Western superiority and Eastern inferiority. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, cultural critics Darrell Y. Hamamoto (2000), Vijay Prashad (2000), Jane Chi Hyun Park (2010), Jane Naomi Iwamura (2011), and David Weir (2011) have shed light on America’s long fascination with the Far East and more affirmative forms of Orientalism. Building on their work, I map developments of Far Orientalism on American screens at the turn of the century from an evolutionary perspective. In three case studies, I read audiovisual texts in their sociohistorical and media ecological contexts to trace representational shifts from the 1980s to the 2010s. Since the intersection of race and sex is significant for any discussion of Orientalism, I am mostly concerned with narratives featuring interracial romance. The first case study focuses on Michael Cimino’s crime thriller film Year of the Dragon (1985). My analysis is embedded in an examination of contemporary films related to the Vietnam War as well as the emergence of both the Model Minority myth and the redemption narrative. The next chapter is concerned largely with contextualizing Edward Zwick’s epic historical drama film The Last Samurai (2003) within the genre histories of both the American Western and the Japanese Eastern. These efforts culminate in investigations of the ways of how the film relates to the popularization of Buddhism and reworks the White Savior trope. The final case study offers an analysis of Ronald D. Moore’s science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica (2004-09) on the background of the rise of neoliberal economic policy and transhumanist philosophy as well as in relation to assimilation narratives and the genre history of cyberpunk. My research results demonstrate a trend from classic Orientalism to Techno-Orientalism, Spirito-Occidentalism, and outright Occidentalism. In the American imagination, I argue, East Asia has come to represent both the worst expression of modernity and the solution to its dehumanizing side. Neither have stereotypes been shattered nor has the geographical dualism been shed. Older fantasies merely have been complemented by more recent variations. I consider this study to be an extension of Said’s studies of Orientalism as well as a contribution to the fields of American cultural history, Asian American studies and, to a lesser extent, postcolonial studies, gender studies, and media studies

    Ethnographies of Collaborative Economies across Europe: Understanding Sharing and Caring

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    "Sharing economy" and "collaborative economy" refer to a proliferation of initiatives, business models, digital platforms and forms of work that characterise contemporary life: from community-led initiatives and activist campaigns, to the impact of global sharing platforms in contexts such as network hospitality, transportation, etc. Sharing the common lens of ethnographic methods, this book presents in-depth examinations of collaborative economy phenomena. The book combines qualitative research and ethnographic methodology with a range of different collaborative economy case studies and topics across Europe. It uniquely offers a truly interdisciplinary approach. It emerges from a unique, long-term, multinational, cross-European collaboration between researchers from various disciplines (e.g., sociology, anthropology, geography, business studies, law, computing, information systems), career stages, and epistemological backgrounds, brought together by a shared research interest in the collaborative economy. This book is a further contribution to the in-depth qualitative understanding of the complexities of the collaborative economy phenomenon. These rich accounts contribute to the painting of a complex landscape that spans several countries and regions, and diverse political, cultural, and organisational backdrops. This book also offers important reflections on the role of ethnographic researchers, and on their stance and outlook, that are of paramount interest across the disciplines involved in collaborative economy research

    Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Meets Deep Learning

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    This reprint focuses on the application of the combination of synthetic aperture radars and depth learning technology. It aims to further promote the development of SAR image intelligent interpretation technology. A synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is an important active microwave imaging sensor, whose all-day and all-weather working capacity give it an important place in the remote sensing community. Since the United States launched the first SAR satellite, SAR has received much attention in the remote sensing community, e.g., in geological exploration, topographic mapping, disaster forecast, and traffic monitoring. It is valuable and meaningful, therefore, to study SAR-based remote sensing applications. In recent years, deep learning represented by convolution neural networks has promoted significant progress in the computer vision community, e.g., in face recognition, the driverless field and Internet of things (IoT). Deep learning can enable computational models with multiple processing layers to learn data representations with multiple-level abstractions. This can greatly improve the performance of various applications. This reprint provides a platform for researchers to handle the above significant challenges and present their innovative and cutting-edge research results when applying deep learning to SAR in various manuscript types, e.g., articles, letters, reviews and technical reports
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