10,954 research outputs found
Nineteenth-Century Popular Science Magazines, Narrative, and the Problem of Historical Materiality
In his Some Reminiscences of a Lecturer, Andrew Wilson emphasizes the importance of narrative to popular science lecturing. Although Wilson promotes the teaching of science as useful knowledge in its own right, he also recognizes that the way science is taught can encourage audiences to take the subject up and read further on their own. Form, according to Wilson, should not be divorced from scientific content and lecturers should ensure that not only is their science accurate, but that it is presented in a way that will provoke curiosity and stimulate interest. This paper discusses the influence of narrative in structuring scientific objects and phenomena, and considers the consequences of such presentations for historical research. As scientific journalism necessarily weaves both its intended audience and the objects under discussion into its accounts, these texts demand that we recognize their nature as social relationships inscribed in historical objects
Renewing the link between cognitive archeology and cognitive science
In cognitive archeology, theories of cognition are used to guide interpretation of archeological evidence. This process provides useful feedback on the theories themselves. The attempt to accommodate archeological data helps shape ideas about how human cognition has evolved and thus—by extension—how the modern form functions. But the implications that archeology has for cognitive science particularly relate to traditional proposals from the field involving modular decomposition, symbolic thought and the mediating role of language. There is a need to make a connection with more recent approaches, which more strongly emphasize information, probabilistic reasoning and exploitation of embodiment. Proposals from cognitive archeology, in which evolution of cognition is seen to involve a transition to symbolic thought need to be realigned with theories from cognitive science that no longer give symbolic reasoning a central role. The present paper develops an informational approach, in which the transition is understood to involve cumulative development of information-rich generalizations
The family Plectopylidae (Gastropoda, Pulmonata) in Laos with the description of two new genera and a new species
Previously only a single plectopylid species, Helix laomontana L. Pfeiffer, 1862 was reported from Laos. Here we erect Naggsia Páll-Gergely & Muratov, gen. n. for H. laomontana based on the description of its reproductive anatomy and radula. Another species, Hunyadiscus saurini Páll-Gergely, gen. & sp. n. is described from Northern Laos based on conchological data. Helix (Plectopylis) andersoni Blanford, 1869, which is known from the Burmese-Chinese border region, is also classified within Hunyadiscus Páll-Gergely, gen. n. A third species, Gudeodiscus (Gudeodiscus) messageri raheemi Páll-Gergely & Hunyadi, 2015 is reported from Laos for the first time. The new localities represent the westernmost sites of the genus Gudeodiscus. The reproductive anatomy of the latter species is described.ArticleZooKeys.592:1-26(2016)journal articl
Review of the genus Endothyrella Zilch, 1960 with description of five new species (Gastropoda, Pulmonata, Plectopylidae)
All known taxa of the genus Endothyrella Zilch, 1960 (family Plectopylidae) are reviewed. Altogether 23 Endothyrella species are recognized. All species are illustrated and whenever possible, photographs of the available type specimens are provided. Five new species are described: E. angulata Budha & Páll-Gergely, sp. n., E. dolakhaensis Budha & Páll-Gergely, sp. n. and E. nepalica Budha & Páll-Gergely, sp. n. from Nepal, E. robustistriata Páll-Gergely, sp. n. from the Naga Hills, India, and E. inexpectata Páll-Gergely, sp. n. from Sichuan, China. Helix (Plectopylis) munipurensis Godwin-Austen, 1875 is synonymized with Helix (Plectopylis) serica Godwin-Austen, 1875, and Plectopylis (Endothyra) gregorsoni Gude, 1915 is synonymized with Helix (Plectopylis) macromphalus W. Blanford, 1870. Plectopylis plectostoma var. exerta Gude, 1901 is a synonym of Plectopylis plectostoma var. tricarinata Gude, 1896, which is a species in its own right. Five species of the genus Chersaecia viz. Plectopylis (Chersaecia) bedfordi Gude, 1915, Helix (Plectopylis) brahma Godwin-Austen, 1879, Helix (Plectopylis) Oglei Godwin-Austen, 1879, Helix (Plectopylis) serica Godwin-Austen, 1875, and Plectopylis (Endothyra) williamsoni Gude, 1915 are moved to Endothyrella. The holotype of Plectopylis hanleyi Godwin-Austen, 1879 seems to be lost; therefore, P. hanleyi is considered to be a nomen dubium.ArticleZOOKEYS. (529):1-70 (2015)journal articl
A Web Aggregation Approach for Distributed Randomized PageRank Algorithms
The PageRank algorithm employed at Google assigns a measure of importance to
each web page for rankings in search results. In our recent papers, we have
proposed a distributed randomized approach for this algorithm, where web pages
are treated as agents computing their own PageRank by communicating with linked
pages. This paper builds upon this approach to reduce the computation and
communication loads for the algorithms. In particular, we develop a method to
systematically aggregate the web pages into groups by exploiting the sparsity
inherent in the web. For each group, an aggregated PageRank value is computed,
which can then be distributed among the group members. We provide a distributed
update scheme for the aggregated PageRank along with an analysis on its
convergence properties. The method is especially motivated by results on
singular perturbation techniques for large-scale Markov chains and multi-agent
consensus.Comment: To appear in the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 201
Big Data\u27s Other Privacy Problem
Big Data has not one privacy problem, but two. We are accustomed to talking about surveillance of data subjects. But Big Data also enables disconcertingly close surveillance of its users. The questions we ask of Big Data can be intensely revealing, but, paradoxically, protecting subjects\u27 privacy can require spying on users. Big Data is an ideology of technology, used to justify the centralization of information and power in data barons, pushing both subjects and users into a kind of feudal subordination. This short and polemical essay uses the Bloomberg Terminal scandal as a window to illuminate Big Data\u27s other privacy problem
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