Biomedia: life in smithereens

This article suggests that media theory could lend some vocabularies with which to map the technical infrastructures of life. Focusing on the digital production of life, we read Marshall McLuhan’s concept of media alongside ‘Smithereens’, the second episode of the fifth instalment of the Netflix digital television series Black Mirror

The literary unconscious: rereading authorship and copyright with Kant's ‘on the wrongfulness of reprinting’ (1785)

This thesis undertakes an extended rereading of Immanuel Kant’s 1785 periodical essay, Von der Unrechtmäßigkeit des Büchernachdrucks (‘On the Wrongfulness of Reprinting’), that attends closely to the transactions between its material form and rhetorical content. In so doing, this thesis supplements recent attempts in Kantian copyright scholarship to rethink the institution of copyright and its relationship with authors, works, and the public through recourse to the essay’s non-proprietary concept of the book and proposed regime of authors’ and publishers’ rights. Though the law of copyright qua intellectual property pertains to this thesis as a hegemonic institutional form that has enshrined the myth of the proprietary author, it is rather the question of authorship, namely, our cultural and legal understandings of who and what an author is; how the author relates to the book and the realities of literary production; and how such received notions interact with the materiality of the book; that most concerns this thesis. It contributes to accrued cross-disciplinary efforts to so reread the past(s) and present(s) of the author-function as to foreground not just its legal structures of implementation, but also its medial-material matrices. From this perspective, the materialities of authorship, particularly the visual-corporeality of the printed book and its surrounding practices in late-eighteenth-century Germany, hold the key to disclosing the limits of contemporary copyright law, which remains attached to the figure of the author as creator, and first owner, of the literary work even as it is seemingly threatened by such digital practices as the mass digitisation of books. To begin to grasp how our received understandings of authorship and copyright might, and perhaps should, change in digital culture, we revisit a late-eighteenth-century text that indexed its own share of complex interactions between literary actors and technologies no less affected by evolving conditions of literary (re)production. In so moving between these two times of authorship, that in the German Enlightenment and that in contemporary copyright regimes, we engage in a shared practice of so rereading Kant’s text and the historical event in which he participated as to better understand and negotiate our present uncertainties

A Structural and Genomic Investigation of Novel Bacteriophage Kromp

From the Washington University Office of Undergraduate Research Digest (WUURD), Vol. 13, 05-01-2018. Published by the Office of Undergraduate Research. Joy Zalis Kiefer, Director of Undergraduate Research and Associate Dean in the College of Arts & Sciences; Lindsey Paunovich, Editor; Helen Human, Programs Manager and Assistant Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences Mentor(s): Kathy Hafer and Chris Schaffe

AI, Robotics and Mobility as a Service: the Case of Singapore

Introduction With a land area of 719 square kilometers and a population of 5.61 million (as of June 2016), Singapore is known to be one of the most densely populated country in the world. Land use for roads accounts for approximately 12% of Singapore’s total land area. By 2030, Singapore’s population is projected to reach 6.9 million, hence the demand to set aside land for housing, infrastructure, and amenities is expected to rise. While tools such as the vehicle quota system and road pricing..

Constant pH molecular dynamics of proteins in explicit solvent with proton tautomerism

pH is a ubiquitous regulator of biological activity, including protein‐folding, protein‐protein interactions, and enzymatic activity. Existing constant pH molecular dynamics (CPHMD) models that were developed to address questions related to the pH‐dependent properties of proteins are largely based on implicit solvent models. However, implicit solvent models are known to underestimate the desolvation energy of buried charged residues, increasing the error associated with predictions that involve internal ionizable residue that are important in processes like hydrogen transport and electron transfer. Furthermore, discrete water and ions cannot be modeled in implicit solvent, which are important in systems like membrane proteins and ion channels. We report on an explicit solvent constant pH molecular dynamics framework based on multi‐site λ‐dynamics (CPHMD MSλD ). In the CPHMD MSλD framework, we performed seamless alchemical transitions between protonation and tautomeric states using multi‐site λ‐dynamics, and designed novel biasing potentials to ensure that the physical end‐states are predominantly sampled. We show that explicit solvent CPHMD MSλD simulations model realistic pH‐dependent properties of proteins such as the Hen‐Egg White Lysozyme (HEWL), binding domain of 2‐oxoglutarate dehydrogenase (BBL) and N‐terminal domain of ribosomal protein L9 (NTL9), and the p K a predictions are in excellent agreement with experimental values, with a RMSE ranging from 0.72 to 0.84 p K a units. With the recent development of the explicit solvent CPHMD MSλD framework for nucleic acids, accurate modeling of pH‐dependent properties of both major class of biomolecules—proteins and nucleic acids is now possible. Proteins 2014; 82:1319–1331. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107513/1/prot24499-sup-0002-suppinfo02.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107513/2/prot24499-sup-0001-suppinfo01.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107513/3/prot24499.pd

Development and validation of a MEDLINE search filter/hedge for degenerative cervical myelopathy

Abstract Background Degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) is a common condition with many unmet clinical needs. Pooled analysis of studies is an important tool for advancing medical understanding. This process starts with a systematic search of the literature. Identification of studies in DCM is challenged by a number of factors, including non-specific terminology and index terms. Search filters or HEDGEs, are search strings developed and validated to optimise medical literature searches. We aimed to develop a search filter for DCM for the MEDLINE database. Methods The diagnostic test assessment framework of a “development dataset” and seperate “validation dataset” was used. The development dataset was formed by hand searching four leading spinal journals (Spine, Journal of Neurosurgery Spine, Spinal Cord and Journal of Spinal Disorders and Techniques) in 2005 and 2010. The search filter was initially developed focusing on sensitivity and subsequently refined using NOT functions to improve specificity. One validation dataset was formed from DCM narrative and systematic review articles and the second, articles published in April of 1989, 1993, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013 and 2017 retrieved via the search MeSH term ‘Spine’. Metrics of sensitivity, specificity, precision and accuracy were used to test performance. Results Hand searching identified 77/1094 relevant articles for 2005 and 55/1199 for 2010. We developed a search hedge with 100% sensitivity and a precision of 30 and 29% for the 2005 and 2010 development datasets respectively. For the selected time periods, EXP Spine returned 2113 publications and 30 were considered relevant. The search filter identified all 30 relevant articles, with a specificity of 94% and precision of 20%. Of the 255 references listed in the narrative index reviews, 225 were indexed in MEDLINE and 165 (73%) were relevant articles. All relevant articles were identified and accuracy ranged from 67 to 97% over the three reviews. Of the 42 articles returned from 3 recent systematic reviews, all were identified by the filter. Conclusions We have developed a highly sensitive hedge for the research of DCM. Whilst precision is similarly low as other hedges, this search filter can be used as an adjunct for DCM search strategies

Research Inefficiency in Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy: Findings of a Systematic Review on Research Activity Over the Past 20 Years.

STUDY DESIGN: Scoping review. OBJECTIVE: To describe activity, themes and trends in degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) research over the past 20 years with a view to considering DCM research inefficiency. METHODS: A systematic review of MEDLINE and Embase for "Cervical" AND "Myelopathy" was conducted following PRISMA guidelines. Full-text papers in English, exclusively studying DCM, published between January 1, 1995 and December 31, 2015 were considered eligible. Country of origin, number of papers published, number of patients studied, research theme, and year of publication were assessed. Comparison was made between developed and developing countries. RESULTS: A total of 1485 papers and 4 117 051 patients were included. Japan published more papers (450) than any other country while the United States studied the greatest number of patients (3 674 737). Over 99.4% of papers and 78.6% of patients were from developed countries. The number of papers (r = 0.96, P < .001) and patients (r = 0.83 P < .001) studied each year increased significantly overall and for both developed (r = 0.93, P < .001; r = 0.81, P < .001) and developing countries (r = 0.90, P < .001; r = 0.87, P < .001). Surgery was the most prevalent theme (58.3% papers; 55.7% patients) for developed and developing countries. Research from developing countries showed greater thematic variability. CONCLUSIONS: DCM research activity is increasing internationally, with surgery remaining the focus. Research output has predominantly been from developed countries; however, the rate of growth for developed and developing countries is comparable

Price to win through value modelling for service offering

a contract to deliver product service systems, and make a profit. Design/methodology/approach: Industrial case studies are used as the test bed. Combinations of subjective probability and value modelling have been used in this research. Findings: Current approaches to determine the price to win for a product oriented service contract have mainly focussed on the cost of the physical asset and its’ specification. There is little research, where the ‘value’ of the tangible and intangible aspects of a product service system to the customer is considered. The proposed approach provides the decision-maker with information on the value of their/and their competitors offering, assisting in selecting the price to bid for the service contract. Practical implications: Our approach can be used by industry to model the key value drivers for their customers and provide information on the probability of winning and probability of making a profit. This research provides a step-by-step approach for identifying uncertainties eliciting the value of the service being offered to the customer and modelling these to estimate the probability of winning. Social implications: This research provides practical guidance to decision makers and bid teams. Originality/value: Highlights how the tangible and intangible aspects of a Product Service System can be quantified in monetary terms to assist in decision-making