Intersomatic awareness in game design

The aim of this qualitative research study was to develop an understanding of the lived experiences of game designers from the particular vantage point of intersomatic awareness. Intersomatic awareness is an interbodily awareness based on the premise that the body of another is always understood through the body of the self. While the term intersomatics is related to intersubjectivity, intercoordination, and intercorporeality it has a specific focus on somatic relationships between lived bodies. This research examined game designers’ body-oriented design practices, finding that within design work the body is a ground of experiential knowledge which is largely untapped. To access this knowledge a hermeneutic methodology was employed. The thesis presents a functional model of intersomatic awareness comprised of four dimensions: sensory ordering, sensory intensification, somatic imprinting, and somatic marking

Responding to human full-body gestures embedded in motion data streams.

 This research created a neural-network enabled artificially intelligent performing agent that was able to learn to dance and recognise movement through a rehearsal and performance process with a human dancer. The agent exhibited emergent dance behaviour and successfully engaged in a live, semi-improvised dance performance with the human dancer

Computational micromodel for epigenetic mechanisms

Definition and characterization of the role of Epigenetic mechanisms have gained immense momentum since the completion of the Human Genome Project. The human epigenetic layer, made up of DNA methylation and multiple histone protein modifications, (the key elements of epigenetic mechanisms), is known to act as a switchboard that regulates the occurrence of most cellular events. In multicellular organisms such as humans, all cells have identical genomic contents but vary in DNA Methylation (DM) profile with the result that different types of cells perform a spectrum of functions. DM within the genome is associated with tight control of gene expression, parental imprinting, X-chromosome inactivation, long-term silencing of repetitive elements and chromatin condensation. Recently, considerable evidence has been put forward to demonstrate that environmental stress implicitly alters normal interactions among key epigenetic elements inside the genome. Aberrations in the spread of DM especially hypo/hyper methylation supported by an abnormal landscape of histone modifications have been strongly associated with Cancer initiation and development. While new findings on the impact of these key elements are reported regularly, precise information on how DM is controlled and its relation to networks of histone modifications is lacking. This has motivated modelling of DNA methylation and histone modifications and their interdependence. We describe initial computational methods used to investigate these key elements of epigenetic change, and to assess related information contained in DNA sequence patterns. We then describe attempts to develop a phenomenological epigenetic "micromodel", based on Markov-Chain Monte Carlo principles. This theoretical micromodel ("EpiGMP") aims to explore the effect of histome modifications and gene expression for defined levels of DNA methylation. We apply this micromodel to (i) test networks of genes in colon cancer (extracted from an in-house database, StatEpigen), and (ii) to help define an agent-based modelling framework to explore chromatin remodelling (or the dynamics of physical rearrangements), inside the human genome. Parallelization techniques to address issues of scale during the application of this micromodel have been adopted as well. A generic tool of this kind can potentially be applied to predict molecular events that affect the state of expression of any gene during the onset or progress of cancer. Ultimately, the goal is to provide additional information on ways in which these low level molecular changes determine physical traits for mormal and disease conditions in an organism

Underwater Vehicles

For the latest twenty to thirty years, a significant number of AUVs has been created for the solving of wide spectrum of scientific and applied tasks of ocean development and research. For the short time period the AUVs have shown the efficiency at performance of complex search and inspection works and opened a number of new important applications. Initially the information about AUVs had mainly review-advertising character but now more attention is paid to practical achievements, problems and systems technologies. AUVs are losing their prototype status and have become a fully operational, reliable and effective tool and modern multi-purpose AUVs represent the new class of underwater robotic objects with inherent tasks and practical applications, particular features of technology, systems structure and functional properties

The Efficacy of Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Autism.

Autism is a disorder that impairs the development of a person\u27s ability to interact with other people and to relate productively with the outside world. There are many types of interventions being used to treat autism, but there are no cures or definitive treatments for this disorder. A biological theoretical foundation was the basis of this study, as recent neuroimaging techniques have demonstrated that autism is a neurological disorder that reveals distinct abnormalities in the brain. The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of neurofeedback (NFB) in the treatment of autism. NFB has shown promise of improving the negative symptoms associated with autism, such as repetitive behaviors, aggression, problems with communication, and social ineptness. This study reviewed the results of children diagnosed with autism who were exposed to NFB. Archived data were obtained from a neurofeedback clinic in California. Thirty-eight pre and posttreatment brain maps, collected from individuals treated with NFB, demonstrated that NFB helped brainwaves to settle into a more normalized pattern. Treatment effectiveness was analyzed using binomial expansion (BE), and 9 parents completed the Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC). Clinician notes were also used to provide qualitative information. The findings of this study may impact social change by providing support for NFB as an effective treatment for autism. NFB may be a potential non-medical, noninvasive, and long-lasting approach for those afflicted with autism

Borderlines: Essays on Mapping and The Logic of Place

Borderlines innovatively explores the ways artistic interventions construct social, cultural, and mental spaces. The fifteen essays bring a broad multidisciplinary approach to the concept of borderlines and its markings through artistic manifestations. Rejecting older "normative"! understandings of the word border lines as signifying semantic irreversibility, this work gives prominence to the plasticity of the combined single word "borderlines." Borderlines is a collection of essays that address the cultural, artistic, conceptual, and performative mapping of places. The essays in this collection "write" borderlines from a wide variety of perspectives, representing diverse disciplines, cultural backgrounds, countries, and generations. It presents the pervasiveness of borderlines as an intellectual, artistic and political concept, across media, theories, and places. Borderlines is intended for academic specialists and students in cultural studies, theatre and performance, media and sound studies

In the spirit of engagement: memories and the sensorium in Algonquin canoe building

This project develops cross-cultural ontologies of memory that are explored dynamically through multimodal sensory pathways. Considering the vast and varying theories on memory, the near universal adoption of storage-and-retrieval metaphors, such as the memory trace, which posits that memories are embodied ‘inside’ in our central nervous system or embedded ‘out there’ in our material environment, remains problematic. Using Material Engagement Theory (MET) as an experimental research model in cognitive archaeology, I conduct collaborative ethnographic fieldwork building birch bark canoes with the Algonquin First Nations. Together we investigate the mnemonic flow that occurs between sensing bodies and living geographies. I propose the possibility that the human mind may possess underdeveloped sensory pathways involved in the transmission of transgenerational memories and the recovery of long-lost wisdoms. I excavate the sensorium through the archaeoacoustics of forest listening to uncover the ways in which memories are deeply sedimented in the sonic worlds of nature. With the helpful concept of mimesis, this ethnography encourages multiple forms of listening, where natural sounds are fully canvased for what they are capable of teaching us about how to live. An examination of the haptic dimensions of the mocataugan (crooked knife) presents a compelling case for how material inheritances provide sensuous similarities that cohabite past and present moments of our cognitive becoming. These sensory attunements challenge the popular belief that memories are imprinted and stored. The ethnographic findings suggest ancestral memories are imminent, temporally persistent, actively participating and ready-at-hand to be enacted through our material engagements and our skillful dealings with the world. Understanding the ways traditional territory and natural resources sustain cultural memory over vast periods of time is of vital importance to the Algonquin. This research encourages us to think about how to sensibly take our place in the larger ecology of mind that sustains us and is increasingly under considerable strain

The Neganthropocene

In the essays and lectures here titled Neganthropocene, Stiegler opens an entirely new front moving beyond the dead-end “banality” of the Anthropocene. Stiegler stakes out a battleplan to proceed beyond, indeed shrugging off, the fulfillment of nihilism that the era of climate chaos ushers in