8 research outputs found
P Systems with Minimal Left and Right Insertion and Deletion
In this article we investigate the operations of insertion and deletion performed
at the ends of a string. We show that using these operations in a P systems
framework (which corresponds to using specific variants of graph control), computational
completeness can even be achieved with the operations of left and right insertion and
deletion of only one symbol
P Systems with Minimal Left and Right Insertion and Deletion
Summary. In this article we investigate the operations of insertion and deletion performed at the ends of a string. We show that using these operations in a P systems framework (which corresponds to using specific variants of graph control), computational completeness can even be achieved with the operations of left and right insertion and deletion of only one symbol.
Zoonoses Surveillance in Italy (2000-2009): Investigation on Animals with Neurological Symptoms
Zoonoses are defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as \u201cThose diseases
and infections naturally transmitted between vertebrae animals and man\u201d (WHO 1959)
(Palmer et al., 1998). They may be caused by viruses, bacteria, including chlamidiae and
rickettsiae, fungi, protozoa, helminths and arthropods (Krauss et al., 2003), and transmitted
directly (through contact with skin, hair, eggs, blood or secretions) or indirectly (by
insect vectors and ingestion of contaminated food). Currently, 1415 pathogens for humans
have been identified and of these approximately 61% (868) are agents of zoonoses, some of
which manifest with neurological signs; 132 agents are also associated with emerging
zoonoses (Asjo et al., 2007; Matassa, 2007; Taylor et al. , 2001). Neurological zoonoses are
widespread, especially in the developing countries where they are not even diagnosed in
most cases.
Emerging zoonoses of recently identified pathogens are Lyme disease, cryptosporidiosis,
West Nile disease, transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, and possible variants of the
avian influenza virus, which have found new favourable conditions for spreading. In
contrast, re-emerging zoonoses are well-known diseases considered as eradicated in a given
country but recur with an exponentially increasing incidence, such as tuberculosis,
leptospirosis, rabies (Matassa, 2007)
Digital découpage: reading and prototyping the material poetics and queer ephemera of the Edwin Morgan scrapbooks, 1931-1966
My thesis takes as its object of study sixteen scrapbooks compiled between 1931 and 1966 by Scots Makar Edwin Morgan (1920-2010), which are currently housed in the University of Glasgow Library Special Collections. I focus on reading the Morgan scrapbooks through two paradigms. Firstly, I approach the scrapbooks as materiallyspecific texts that demand close readings not only of their content, but of their forms and format. Specifically, I read the material practices and poetics of Morganâs scrapbooking through queer theories of ephemera and temporalities, even in cases where the contents of the scrapbooks are not themselves overtly queer, and argue that these queer poetics extend as an influence throughout Morganâs broader literary corpus. I also argue that the scrapbooks speak through âlanguage[s] of juxtapositionâ (Garvey, Writing with Scissors 131) that can be productively unfolded through close readings informed by Bruno Latourâs sociological theories. Secondly, I approach the Morgan scrapbooks as a test case to demonstrate the value of using digital humanities and visualization methods to engage ephemeral archival items in âresearch through designâ processes. My thesis interprets the Morgan scrapbooks through the creation of custom-built databases and prototypical interfaces that make discoverable the scrapbooksâ rich metadata, while also arguing that Morganâs scrapbooks are particularly open to such digital interventions due to their reliance on intermediation and their documentation of technological innovations. The three visual prototypes resulting from my project are not intended to reproduce faithfully or replace the scrapbooks, but rather to experiment with how the media specificities of the digital can be put into conversation with Morganâs materially-complex and technologically-aware scrapbooks. The prototypes also enable explorations of the productive points of contact that exist between scrapbooks, databases, and prototypes as forms of information management and tools of interpretation. Collectively, these two approaches demonstrate the value of, and need for, close readings and innovative digital remediations for scrapbooked (hi)stories like Morganâs, as well as for many other ephemeral and marginalized material archives
Rise of the curator: archiving the self in contemporary American fiction
Concurrent with a bloom of interest in the archive within academic discourse, an
intense cultural fascination with museums, archives, and memorials to the past has
flourished within the United States. The ascendency of digital technologies has
contributed to and magnified this âturnâ by popularising and habituating the archive as a
personal memory tool, a key mechanism through which the self is negotiated and
fashioned. This dissertation identifies a sustained exploration of the personal archive and
its place in contemporary life by American novelists in the twenty-first century. Drawing
on theories of the archive and the collection, this dissertation analyses the parameters of
the curated self through close-readings of recent novels by five US authors. The first two
chapters read Paul Austerâs Sunset Park through trauma theory and Siri Hustvedtâs What
I Loved through psychoanalysis, noting that in each the system of archiving generates
moments of catharsis. The two chapters argue that, for the subject shattered by trauma,
archiving activates and fulfils psychoanalytic processes that facilitate the selfâs
reintegration and prompts a discursive revelation about the painful past. The texts, thus,
discover in the archive strategies for achieving, however provisionally, a kind of
stability amongst unexpected change. The next two chapters reveal the complicity of
archival formations with threats posed in the digital age and articulate alternative forms
of self-curation that counteract these pernicious forces. To ward off information
overload, E.L. Doctorowâs Homer and Langley advocates the ethical flexibility of
âblindâ narration that, wending through time, accommodates a broad range of
perspectives by refusing to fantasise about its own ultimate and total claim to accuracy.
Jennifer Eganâs A Visit from the Goon Squad, meanwhile, diagnoses the cultural anxiety
over increasingly invasive surveillance measures. While the novel situates the digital
archive, or database, at the heart of this new dataveillance, it recommends investing the
self in material collections, where personal meaning is rendered in the inscrutable patois
of objects that disintegrate over time. For Egan, the material archive thereby skirts the
assumed readability and fixity of data on which this surveillance thrives. The conclusion
analyses Dana Spiottaâs Stone Arabia, observing within it and the other novels a
consistent concern with archival destruction, erosion, and stagnation. Together, the texts
suggest that the personal archive is persistently stalked by disintegration and failure.
Yet, within this contemporary moment in which curation has become a widespread
means of self-fashioning, they also show how these hazards can be creatively
circumvented or actively courted, can threaten the subject or be harnessed by it