Net Neutrality: Fight for the Survival of the Free Internet

The Internet is often thought of as a tool that allows for the free flow of information. Today, as a vessel of free speech, the Internet threatens to become a vestige of its original self. Increasingly, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) claim the power to regulate content and arbitrarily increase the price for customers to access certain information and have the ability to make customers financially support content that they disagree with. In these ways, ISPs have gained increased control over the flow of Internet information, while the citizen of cyberspace has increasingly lost his freedom to control his choices online. This poses an even more important problem for American democracy, which demands educated citizens, who are threatened by censorship. Only a libertarian approach to this problem, which sustains the original ideals of the Internet as a tool of unfiltered communication, will continue freedom of information. The best implementations of the libertarian approach are net neutrality laws, which ensure that all users are treated equally. This paper argues to support both the need for net neutrality laws to protect against economically driven encroachment upon the freedom of the Internet and the importance of libertarian ideas to the maintenance and strengthening of democracy

Net Neutrality: Fight for the Survival of the Free Internet

The Internet is often thought of as a tool that allows for the free flow of information. Today, as a vessel of free speech, the Internet threatens to become a vestige of its original self. Increasingly, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) claim the power to regulate content and arbitrarily increase the price for customers to access certain information and have the ability to make customers financially support content that they disagree with. In these ways, ISPs have gained increased control over the flow of Internet information, while the citizen of cyberspace has increasingly lost his freedom to control his choices online. This poses an even more important problem for American democracy, which demands educated citizens, who are threatened by censorship. Only a libertarian approach to this problem, which sustains the original ideals of the Internet as a tool of unfiltered communication, will continue freedom of information. The best implementations of the libertarian approach are net neutrality laws, which ensure that all users are treated equally. This paper argues to support both the need for net neutrality laws to protect against economically driven encroachment upon the freedom of the Internet and the importance of libertarian ideas to the maintenance and strengthening of democracy

Teaching Computers to Think: Analysis of Artificial Intelligence and Connect Four

Connect Four is a classic two person, zero-sum game in which players utilize their wits and gravity to connect four of their own pieces in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row while blocking their opponent’s attempt to do the same. We have constructed a simulation of this game which we have used as a base for the implementation and testing of varying Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. Early strategies worked according to simple strategic methods, while more advanced heuristics employed a Min-Max Tree in tandem with methods to determine how advantageous a certain board would be. This Min-Max Tree goes beyond a simple strategy, as it allows for the computer to look many moves ahead, thus picking the move that optimizes its chances of winning. The collection of statistics for the various strategies has allowed for the analysis and improvement of the AI structures

An experimentally validated network of nine haematopoietic transcription factors reveals mechanisms of cell state stability.

Transcription factor (TF) networks determine cell-type identity by establishing and maintaining lineage-specific expression profiles, yet reconstruction of mammalian regulatory network models has been hampered by a lack of comprehensive functional validation of regulatory interactions. Here, we report comprehensive ChIP-Seq, transgenic and reporter gene experimental data that have allowed us to construct an experimentally validated regulatory network model for haematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs). Model simulation coupled with subsequent experimental validation using single cell expression profiling revealed potential mechanisms for cell state stabilisation, and also how a leukaemogenic TF fusion protein perturbs key HSPC regulators. The approach presented here should help to improve our understanding of both normal physiological and disease processes.Research in the authors’ laboratories was supported by Bloodwise, The Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the National Institute of Health Research, the Medical Research Council, the MRC Molecular Haematology Unit (Oxford) core award, a Weizmann-UK “Making Connections” grant (Oxford) and core support grants by the Wellcome Trust to the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research (100140) and Wellcome Trust–MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute (097922).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from eLife via http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.1146

Locus-wide studies into the transcriptional regulation of Runx1 in developmental hematopoiesis

Developmental hematopoiesis sees the generation of the first blood cells and definitive blood during embryonic development. The founding cell of definitive hematopoiesis, the hematopoietic stem cell (HSC), gives rise to all adult blood lineages throughout the life span of an organism. It is expected that future ex-vivo manipulation of HSCs for therapeutic uses will benefit from a thorough understanding of the mechanisms, both cellular and genetic, that give rise to HSCs. One of the most critical regulators of HSC emergence in the embryo is the transcription factor (TF) Runx1. One aim of our lab is to decipher what controls the cis-regulation of Runx1 to understand better how it exerts its function in the emergence of HSCs. In this thesis, chromatin assays were used to identify putative enhancers within the 1.3 Mb Runx1 syntenic region. Seven novel enhancers were identified that mediate reporter gene expression in discrete patterns of Runx1-specific hematopoietic expression in transient transgenic embryos. Characterization of the cells marked by one of these enhancers, the +110 enhancer in a transgenic mouse line, showed that it is active in clonogenic progenitors at E11.5, but, interestingly, not HSCs. Finally, chromosome conformation capture (3C) assays showed physical interactions between the Runx1 P1 and P2 promoters and between the Runx1 P1 and P2 promoters and putative regulatory elements in the 1.3 Mb syntenic region. Together, these data increase our understanding of the complexity of Runx1 cis-regulation during development and provide a starting point for characterizing what upstream trans-acting factors converge on Runx1 to specify blood. </p

Locus-wide studies into the transcriptional regulation of Runx1 in developmental hematopoiesis

Developmental hematopoiesis sees the generation of the first blood cells and definitive blood during embryonic development. The founding cell of definitive hematopoiesis, the hematopoietic stem cell (HSC), gives rise to all adult blood lineages throughout the life span of an organism. It is expected that future ex-vivo manipulation of HSCs for therapeutic uses will benefit from a thorough understanding of the mechanisms, both cellular and genetic, that give rise to HSCs. One of the most critical regulators of HSC emergence in the embryo is the transcription factor (TF) Runx1. One aim of our lab is to decipher what controls the cis-regulation of Runx1 to understand better how it exerts its function in the emergence of HSCs. In this thesis, chromatin assays were used to identify putative enhancers within the 1.3 Mb Runx1 syntenic region. Seven novel enhancers were identified that mediate reporter gene expression in discrete patterns of Runx1-specific hematopoietic expression in transient transgenic embryos. Characterization of the cells marked by one of these enhancers, the +110 enhancer in a transgenic mouse line, showed that it is active in clonogenic progenitors at E11.5, but, interestingly, not HSCs. Finally, chromosome conformation capture (3C) assays showed physical interactions between the Runx1 P1 and P2 promoters and between the Runx1 P1 and P2 promoters and putative regulatory elements in the 1.3 Mb syntenic region. Together, these data increase our understanding of the complexity of Runx1 cis-regulation during development and provide a starting point for characterizing what upstream trans-acting factors converge on Runx1 to specify blood. </p

Creative industries, global restructuring, and new forms of subcultural capitalism: the experience of Australia\u27s surf industry

Since the 1990s, creative industries have been promoted as sources of economic growth and investment, and as remedies for urban and regional decline. We focus on creative industries through a global restructuring lens, revisiting Fagan and Webber\u27s 1994 Global Restructuring: The Australian Experience (Melbourne: Oxford University Press) thesis to critically reflect on subsequent developments. Two analytical themes are extended from Fagan and Webber: (1) demystifying \u27creative industries\u27 as a \u27new\u27 sector somehow distinct from material manufacture, state policy or the travails of global restructuring and (2) tracing creative industries and financialised global capital, linked to mergers and acquisitions. To these, we add a third theme, theorising subcultural capitalism, including cultures of work within and beyond the capitalist enterprise. We explore each theme via Australia\u27s iconic surf brands Rip Curl, Billabong, and Quiksilver. These firms transitioned from local equipment and apparel brands with subcultural origins to global, financialised companies. They offshored and subcontracted physical manufacture, while retaining design and intellectual property control. Meanwhile, debt enabled massive, and ultimately risky, retail expansion. Subsequent financial collapses point to the contemporary relevance of Fagan and Webber\u27s global restructuring thesis, while evisceration of credibility among surfing consumers highlights the contradictions of subcultural forms of capitalism