A visual sensor network for object recognition: Testbed realization

This work describes the implementation of an object recognition service on top of energy and resource-constrained hardware. A complete pipeline for object recognition based on the BRISK visual features is implemented on Intel Imote2 sensor devices. The reference implementation is used to assess the performance of the object recognition pipeline in terms of processing time and recognition accuracy

On handling urban informality in southern Africa

In this article I reconsider the handling of urban informality by urban planning and management systems in southern Africa. I argue that authorities have a fetish about formality and that this is fuelled by an obsession with urban modernity. I stress that the desired city, largely inspired by Western notions of modernity, has not been and cannot be realized. Using illustrative cases of top–down interventions, I highlight and interrogate three strategies that authorities have deployed to handle informality in an effort to create or defend the modern city. I suggest that the fetish is built upon a desire for an urban modernity based on a concept of formal order that the authorities believe cannot coexist with the “disorder” and spatial “unruliness” of informality. I question the authorities' conviction that informality is an abomination that needs to be “converted”, dislocated or annihilated. I conclude that the very configuration of urban governance and socio-economic systems in the region, like the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, renders informality inevitable and its eradication impossible

Contrappunto al Parc de La Villette

This article is about the relation between architect Peter Eisenman and philosopher Jacques Derrida in the occasion of the Parc de la Villette (Paris) design, within the Bernard Tschumi project

Contrappunto al Parc de La Villette

This article is about the relation between architect Peter Eisenman and philosopher Jacques Derrida in the occasion of the Parc de la Villette (Paris) design, within the Bernard Tschumi project

"We live from mother nature":neoliberal globalization, commodification, the 'war on drugs', and biodiversity in Colombia since the 1990s

This article explores how macroeconomic and environmental policies instituted since the 1990s have altered meanings, imaginaries, and the human relationship to nature in Colombia. The Colombian nation-state is pluri-ethnic, multilingual, and megabiodiverse. In this context, indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombians, and some peasant communities survive hybridization of their cultures. They have developed their own ways of seeing, understanding, and empowering the world over centuries of European rule. However, threats to relatively discrete cultural meanings have increased since major changes in the 1990s, when Colombia experienced the emergence of new and modern interpretations of nature, such as “biodiversity,” and a deepening of globalized neoliberal economic and political management. These policies involve a modern logic of being in the world, the establishment of particular regulatory functions for economies, societies, and the environment, and their spread has been facilitated by webs of political and economic power. We trace their local effects with reference to three indigenous groups

Ins and outs of the cultural polis: informality, culture and governance in the global South

This paper provides an epistemological critique of informality by focusing on cultural governance in two cities of the global South, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Dakar, Senegal. Aiming to enrich debates about urban creativity and urban cultural policy, which are still mainly focused on and articulated from the global North, we consider the broad field of ‘informality’ research as an entry point for such a discussion. Using case studies from African and Latin American contexts, we focus on the interstices of cultural policy and the borderlands of (in)formality, examining how governmental institutions are entangled in informal processes, and how grassroots cultural interventions become part of mainstream cultural circuits. The analysis sheds light on how these creative spaces of cultural production, located in Southern contexts of urban extremes, contribute to the vitality of informal urbanisms and unsettle predominant views that see them merely as sites ofinfrastructural poverty and social exclusion. The paper suggests that a creative remapping of informality, through an inquiry of the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ of the cultural polis, could improve our translating capacity of academic discourse into institutional/policy-related operations

Progress and prospects of biological approaches targeting PCSK9 for cholesterol-lowering, from molecular mechanism to clinical efficacy

Introduction: Cardiovascular disorders are one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Recent advances showed a promising role of proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) as a critical player in regulating plasma LDL levels and lipid metabolism. Areas covered: This review addresses the molecular functions of PCSK9 with a vision on the clinical progress of utilizing monoclonal antibodies and other biological approaches to block PCSK9 activity. The successful clinical trials with monoclonal antibodies are reviewed. Recent advances in (pre)clinical trials of other biological approaches, such as small interfering RNAs, are also discussed. Expert opinion: Discovery of PCSK9 and clinical use of its inhibitors to manage lipid metabolism is a step forward in hypolipidaemic therapy. A better understanding of the molecular activity of PCSK9 can help to identify new approaches in the inhibition of PCSK9 expression/activity. Whether if PCSK9 plays a role in other cardiometabolic conditions may provide grounds for further development of therapies

Why does cultural policy change? Policy discourse and policy subsystem : a case study of the evolution of cultural policy in Catalonia

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in International journal of cultural policy, Vol. 18, N. 1 (2012), p. 13-30 [copyright Taylor & Francis]Culture has come to play a fundamental strategic role in the territorial development that seeks to integrate knowledge economy with social cohesion, governance and sustainability. However, cultural policies have been unable to respond to the dilemmas and expectations that this new order presents. In order to appreciate the consequences of this process, it is essential to gain a better understanding of cultural policy change dynamics. This paper develops a framework for analysing cultural policy stability and change and applies it to the evolution of cultural policy in Catalonia. Both policy continuity and change are conditioned by the evolution of policy discourse on culture and the characteristics of the cultural policy subsystem. Within this framework, we also take into account the role of factors that are exogenous to the cultural domain. Lastly this paper addresses particular characteristics of cultural policy change in regions or stateless nations