On the run? Growing up in modern mobile societies. John Urry interviewt von Claus J. Tully

Das hier veröffentlichte Interview wurde am Rande des 32. Kongresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie am 7. Oktober 2004 in München geführt. Thema des Gesprächs ist die Ausformung sozialer Bezüge unter dem Eindruck einer modernen, netzwerkmäßig organisierten mobilen und kommunikativen Gesellschaft. Im Interview wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie sich das Aufwachsen von Kindern und Jugendlichen im Kontext von Familie und lokalen Bezügen unter diesen Bedingungen verändert. In seinen Büchern "The Tourist Gaze" von 1990 und "Consuming Places" (1995) thematisiert er die gewandelte Bedeutung von Orten. 1994 expliziert er gemeinsam mit Lash in "Economies of Signs and Space" die These der generellen Mobilisierung von Symbolen und der Menschen, die der mobilen Ökonomie dienen. In "Sociology beyond Society" (1999) argumentiert John Urry im Sinne der Castells\u27schen Netzgesellschaften, dass wir soziales Leben nicht länger mit den vertrauten und letztlich statischen Kategorien beschreiben können. Auch in seinem jüngsten Buch "Global Complexity" (2004) plädiert er für eine neue Sichtweise auf Nationen, Orte, Regionen im Dienste sozialwissenschaftlicher Begriffsbildung vor dem Hintergrund globaler Verschränkung. (DIPF/Orig.

Using simulations and artificial life algorithms to grow elements of construction

'In nature, shape is cheaper than material', that is a common truth for most of the plants and other living organisms, even though they may not recognize that. In all living forms, shape is more or less directly linked to the influence of force, that was acting upon the organism during its growth. Trees and bones concentrate their material where thy need strength and stiffness, locating the tissue in desired places through the process of self-organization. We can study nature to find solutions to design problems. That’s where inspiration comes from, so we pick a solution already spotted somewhere in the organic world, that closely resembles our design problem, and use it in constructive way. First, examining it, disassembling, sorting out conclusions and ideas discovered, then performing an act of 'reverse engineering' and putting it all together again, in a way that suits our design needs. Very simple ideas copied from nature, produce complexity and exhibit self-organization capabilities, when applied in bigger scale and number. Computer algorithms of simulated artificial life help us to capture them, understand well and use where needed. This investigation is going to follow the question : How can we use methods seen in nature to simulate growth of construction elements? Different ways of extracting ideas from world of biology will be presented, then several techniques of simulated emergence will be demonstrated. Specific focus will be put on topics of computational modelling of natural phenomena, and differences in developmental and non-developmental techniques. Resulting 3D models will be shown and explained

The Future of the Internet III

Presents survey results on technology experts' predictions on the Internet's social, political, and economic impact as of 2020, including its effects on integrity and tolerance, intellectual property law, and the division between personal and work lives

Emergence of Self-Organized Symbol-Based Communication \ud in Artificial Creatures

In this paper, we describe a digital scenario where we simulated the emergence of self-organized symbol-based communication among artificial creatures inhabiting a \ud virtual world of unpredictable predatory events. In our experiment, creatures are autonomous agents that learn symbolic relations in an unsupervised manner, with no explicit feedback, and are able to engage in dynamical and autonomous communicative interactions with other creatures, even simultaneously. In order to synthesize a behavioral ecology and infer the minimum organizational constraints for the design of our creatures, \ud we examined the well-studied case of communication in vervet monkeys. Our results show that the creatures, assuming the role of sign users and learners, behave collectively as a complex adaptive system, where self-organized communicative interactions play a \ud major role in the emergence of symbol-based communication. We also strive in this paper for a careful use of the theoretical concepts involved, including the concepts of symbol and emergence, and we make use of a multi-level model for explaining the emergence of symbols in semiotic systems as a basis for the interpretation of inter-level relationships in the semiotic processes we are studying

Influence of social networks on communication and culture

Má bakalářská práce je zaměřena na problematiku sociálních sítí a jejich vliv na dnešní společnost. Zabývá se jejich historií od prvotních pokusů až po nejnovější globální sociání sítě. Poté práce vysvětluje základní myšlenku vedoucí k vytvoření sociálních sítí i jejich charakteristické znaky. Dále nastiňuje problémy související se snadnou dostupností a nadměrným využíváním sociálních sítí, které následně ovlivňuje lidskou společnost. Práce se věnuje vlivu sociálních sítí na jazyk, mezilidskou komunikaci a kulturní adaptaci.My bachelor thesis is focused on issues with social networking services and their influence on modern society. It addresses their history from the very first attempts to create a social networking service to the modern global ones. Later the thesis provides an explanation of the creation of a social networking service and its characteristic traits. Furthermore it outlines problems connected with the availability and overuse of social networking services that are subsequently influencing the human society. The thesis also analyzes the influence of social networks on language, interpersonal communication and cultural adaptation.