Using Digital Art to make the Tension beetween Capital and Commons Transparent. Innovation in shaping knowledge of Internet business practices as a form of cultural knowledge\ud

This paper examines a digital art performance by Ubermorgen.com called Google Will Eat Itself (GWEI.org) as an example of the tensions between Capital and the public commons. Using notions of transparency and knowledge as a form of innovation rooted in Nonaka’s Knowledge Management theory, it examines the ways in which knowledge about how Google uses the Internet is made explicit through the art performance. Finally, it discusses the implications for transparency in Internet business through both the act of GWEI expanding audiences for understanding Internet based revenue generation models and using artifacts rooted cultural contexts in order to challenge the assumptions inherent in the current configuration of Capital and the public commons. It ends with calling into question the role of Google as a form of “Cultureware,” dependent on the\ud public commons, yet profiting from it in the realm of the Capital

Portrait of a Contender: Salome Abungy

I first met Salome in 1998, when she and I both were grad students at the Department of Rhetoric at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities..

Intermingling AI and IoT Affordances: The expansion of social opportunities for service users and providers

This commentary looks at prediction as a technical affordance of AI, reflecting on how it can impact our framing of cybernized services. This reframing enables researchers to consider effects of intermingling the social and technology in processes of co-creation of value and co-destruction for cybernized services

Do computer games enhance learning about conflicts? A cross-national inquiry into proximate and distant scenarios in Global Conflicts

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Interactive conflict resolution and peace education have developed as two major lines of practice to tackle intractable inter-group conflicts. Recently, new media technologies such as social media, computer games, and online dialogue are added to the existing set of tools used for peace education. However, a debate is emerging as to how effective they are in motivating learning and teaching skills required for peace building. We take issue with this question and have conducted a study investigating the effect of different conflict contexts on student learning. We have designed a cross-national experimental study with Israeli-Jewish, Palestinian, and Guatemalan undergraduate students using the Israeli–Palestinian and Guatemalan scenarios in the computer game called ‘‘Global Conflicts.’’ The learning effects of these scenarios were systematically analyzed using pre- and post-test questionnaires. The study indicated that Israeli-Jews and Palestinians acquired more knowledge from the Guatemalan game than Guatemalans acquired from the Israeli–Palestinian game. All participants acquired knowledge about proximate conflicts after playing games about these scenarios, and there were insignificant differences between the three national groups. Israeli-Jews and Palestinians playing the Israeli–Palestinian game changed their attitudes about this conflict, while Guatemalans playing the Guatemalan game did not change their attitudes about this case. All participants changed their attitudes about distant conflicts after playing games about these scenarios

Learning about Conflict and Negotiations through Computer Simulations: The Case of PeaceMaker

Cataloged from PDF version of article.This paper is based on a cross-national experimental study conducted among American, Turkish, Israeli-Jewish, and Israeli-Palestinian students using a computer game called "PeaceMaker." The game is a highly realistic and complex simulation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. PeaceMaker was used for educational and experimental purposes in a classroom setting and each student played the game in both Israeli and Palestinian decision maker roles. Our purpose was to evaluate the game's effectiveness as a pedagogical tool in teaching about conflict and its resolution, especially with regard to generating knowledge acquisition, perspective taking as a crucial skill in conflict resolution, and attitude change. We were also interested in understanding whether these effects changed depending on whether the participants were direct parties to the conflict or not. In order to gauge the effect of the game in these areas, we used a pre- and post-intervention experimental design and utilized questionnaires. We found that the game increased the level of knowledge about the conflict for the Israeli-Jewish, Israeli-Palestinian, American, and Turkish students. We also found that the game successfully contributed to perspective taking among Turkish and American students only on a contemporary issue related to the conflict. © 2014 International Studies Association

The Effect of Disorder in an Orbitally Ordered Jahn-Teller Insulator

We study a two dimensional, two-band double-exchange model for $e_g$ electrons coupled to Jahn-Teller distortions in the presence of quenched disorder using a recently developed Monte-Carlo technique. In the absence of disorder the half-filled system at low temperatures is an orbitally ordered ferromagnetic insulator with a staggered pattern of Jahn-Teller distortions. We examine the finite temperature transition to the orbitally disordered phase and uncover a qualitative difference between the intermediate and strongly coupled systems, including a thermally driven insulator to metal crossover in the former case. Long range orbital order is suppressed in the presence of disorder and the system displays a tendency towards metastable states consisting of orbitally disordered stripe-like structures enclosing orbitally ordered domains.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure

Suitability of vaccinia virus and bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) for determining activities of three commonly-used alcohol-based hand rubs against enveloped viruses

BACKGROUND: A procedure for including activity against enveloped viruses in the post-contamination treatment of hands has been recommended, but so far no European standard is available to implement it. In 2004, the German Robert Koch-Institute (RKI) and the German Association for the Control of Virus Disease (DVV) suggested that vaccinia virus and bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) should be used as test viruses in a quantitative suspension test to determine the activity of a disinfectant against all enveloped viruses. METHODS: We have studied the activities of three commonly-used alcohol-based hand rubs (hand rub A, based on 45% propan-2-ol, 30% propan-1-ol and 0.2% mecetronium etilsulfate; hand rub B, based on 80% ethanol; hand rub C, based on 95% ethanol) against vaccinia virus and BVDV, and in addition against four other clinically relevant enveloped viruses: herpes simplex virus (HSV) types 1 and 2, and human and avian influenza A virus. The hand rubs were challenged with different organic loads at exposure time of 15, 30 and 60 s. According to the guidelines of both BGA/RKI and DVV, and EN 14476:2005, the reduction of infectivity of each test virus was measured on appropriate cell lines using a quantitative suspension test. RESULTS: All three alcohol-based hand rubs reduced the infectivity of vaccinia virus and BVDV by ≥ 4 log(10)-steps within 15 s, irrespective of the type of organic load. Similar reductions of infectivity were seen against the other four enveloped viruses within 15 s in the presence of different types of organic load. CONCLUSION: Commonly used alcohol-based hand rubs with a total alcohol concentration ≥ 75% can be assumed to be active against clinically relevant enveloped viruses if they effectively reduce the infectivities of vaccinia virus and BVDV in a quantitative suspension test

Pairing Correlations in the Two-Dimensional Hubbard Model

We present the results of a quantum Monte Carlo study of the extended $s$ and the $d_{x^2-y^2}$ pairing correlation functions for the two-dimensional Hubbard model, computed with the constrained-path method. For small lattice sizes and weak interactions, we find that the $d_{x^2-y^2}$ pairing correlations are stronger than the extended $s$ pairing correlations and are positive when the pair separation exceeds several lattice constants. As the system size or the interaction strength increases, the magnitude of the long-range part of both correlation functions vanishes.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, 4 figures included; submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Photoemission Spectra in t-J Ladders with Two Legs

Photoemission spectra for the isotropic two-leg t-J ladder are calculated at various hole-doping levels using exact diagonalization techniques. Low-energy sharp features caused by short-range antiferromagnetic correlations are observed at finite doping levels close to half-filling, above the naive Fermi momentum. These features should be observable in angle-resolved photoemission experiments. In addition, the formation of a d-wave pairing condensate as the ratio J/t is increased leads to dynamically generated spectral weight for momenta close to $k_F$ where the $d_{x^2-y^2 }$-order parameter is large.Comment: 9 pages, RevTex, to be published in Phys. Rev. B (RC