Facebook | Panopticon: an analysis of Facebook and its parallels to the Foucaultian Panopticon

A panopticon—the ideal mechanism for surveillance and control—has become embedded in our smartphones and our web browsers. It now pervades the fabric of approximately 890 million daily lives. It is called Facebook. This platform, on which users document their own lives in front of an audience while simultaneously surveilling the lives of their “friends,” shares startling similarities to a prison model, the Panopticon, designed in the late eighteenth-century by Jeremy Bentham, and analyzed by French philosopher, Michel Foucault. Through an analysis of Facebook’s structure and function, parallels will be suggested between the structure of Facebook and the structure of the Panopticon, as well as between strategies Facebook implements and disciplinary strategies implemented inside the Panopticon and described in Foucault’s larger discussion of the evolution of disciplines and punishments. Cultural implications of these similarities will also be addressed, especially those that arise in a Post-Snowden era in which internet-users in general, have reason to assume an overall lack of privacy and security online. Though an overall distrust may be appropriate, individuals still use social media sites and Facebook remains the dominant social media network worldwide. Thus, similarities between Facebook and the Panopticon within a larger cultural context begin to raise questions as to why individuals choose to stay in networks they may not trust and whether or not an exploitation of information given online by an individual might still elicit an adverse response

Molecular and cellular aspects of re-entrant arrhythmias

In recent years it has become evident that myocardial tissue undergoes remodeling in diseased states such as myocardial infarction and hypertrophy which affects membrane channels, cell-to-cell coupling as well as the connective tissue matrix. Although the detailed mechanisms of ventricular arrhythmias in ventricular hypertrophy are not known, studies carried, out by computer simulations or high resolution mapping of electrical activity have suggested a complex interaction between changing ionic currents at the level of the cell membranes, altered cell-to-cell coupling and altered macroscopic structure. The present report summarises these recent developments and their potential relevance for arrhythmogenesi

Sub-ppb measurement of a fundamental band rovibrational transition in HD

We report a direct measurement of the 0-1 R(0) vibrational transition frequency in ground-state hydrogen deuteride (HD) using infrared-ultraviolet double resonance spectroscopy in a molecular beam. Ground-state molecules are vibrationally excited using a frequency comb referenced continuous-wave infrared laser, and the excited molecules are detected via state-selective ionization with a pulsed ultraviolet laser. We determine an absolute transition frequency of 111 448 815 477(13) kHz. The 0.12 parts-per-billion (ppb) uncertainty is limited primarily by the residual first-order Doppler shift.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Synchronization Strings: Explicit Constructions, Local Decoding, and Applications

This paper gives new results for synchronization strings, a powerful combinatorial object that allows to efficiently deal with insertions and deletions in various communication settings: $\bullet$ We give a deterministic, linear time synchronization string construction, improving over an $O(n^5)$ time randomized construction. Independently of this work, a deterministic $O(n\log^2\log n)$ time construction was just put on arXiv by Cheng, Li, and Wu. We also give a deterministic linear time construction of an infinite synchronization string, which was not known to be computable before. Both constructions are highly explicit, i.e., the $i^{th}$ symbol can be computed in $O(\log i)$ time. $\bullet$ This paper also introduces a generalized notion we call long-distance synchronization strings that allow for local and very fast decoding. In particular, only $O(\log^3 n)$ time and access to logarithmically many symbols is required to decode any index. We give several applications for these results: $\bullet$ For any $\delta0$ we provide an insdel correcting code with rate $1-\delta-\epsilon$ which can correct any $O(\delta)$ fraction of insdel errors in $O(n\log^3n)$ time. This near linear computational efficiency is surprising given that we do not even know how to compute the (edit) distance between the decoding input and output in sub-quadratic time. We show that such codes can not only efficiently recover from $\delta$ fraction of insdel errors but, similar to [Schulman, Zuckerman; TransInf'99], also from any $O(\delta/\log n)$ fraction of block transpositions and replications. $\bullet$ We show that highly explicitness and local decoding allow for infinite channel simulations with exponentially smaller memory and decoding time requirements. These simulations can be used to give the first near linear time interactive coding scheme for insdel errors

Message Splitting: Using Attention-Grabbing Material to Increase Prosocial Behavior

This article examines whether drawing attention to specific parts of appeals for prosocial behavior (i.e., “message splitting”) can increase their effectiveness. Results of four experiments support this idea. Using attention-grabbing cues to guide attention toward the benefits of compliance and away from the costs increased message recipients’ willingness to donate cans of food to a community food drive (Experiment 1), volunteer time to help improve the environment (Experiments 2 and 3) and volunteer time to help further scientific inquiry (Experiment 4). Results of Experiment 4 underscore the proposed mechanism by showing that this message splitting technique reduces, rather than increases, compliance when used to direct attention toward the costs of compliance. Implications for research on information processing, helping behavior, and influence are discussed

Active cooling control of the CLEO detector using a hydrocarbon coolant farm

We describe a novel approach to particle-detector cooling in which a modular farm of active coolant-control platforms provides independent and regulated heat removal from four recently upgraded subsystems of the CLEO detector: the ring-imaging Cherenkov detector, the drift chamber, the silicon vertex detector, and the beryllium beam pipe. We report on several aspects of the system: the suitability of using the aliphatic-hydrocarbon solvent PF(TM)-200IG as a heat-transfer fluid, the sensor elements and the mechanical design of the farm platforms, a control system that is founded upon a commercial programmable logic controller employed in industrial process-control applications, and a diagnostic system based on virtual instrumentation. We summarize the system's performance and point out the potential application of the design to future high-energy physics apparatus.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX, 5 PostScript figures; version accepted for publication in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research