Les auras numériques : pour une poétique de la base de données

Database are ubiquitous in our lives and play an important rôle in many aspects of our daily activities. Conceived as a technical support to facilitate the efficient management of information and as the preferred means of storage, the database has gained a level of importance with aesthetic and political implications that go far beyond purely technical questions.Both theorical and practical in its approach, our research investigates the database as a means of expressive and poetic creation and reveals its specific character, in particular the discretization of data and the establishment of flexible relationships between them. In order to develop a poetics of the database we will reconsider the term « aura », which was utilized by walter Benjamin to analyse the transformations of the nature of aesthetic experience brought about by industrial rationalisation and technology at the end of the nineteenth century. The practical part of our research consists of two interactive projects based on the poetic principles elaborated in context of this dissertation.La base de données est un outil omniprésent dans nos vies, qui est impliquée dans un grand nombre de nos activités quotidiennes. Conçue comme système technique destiné à rendre la gastion des informations plus efficace, et comme support de stockage privilégié, la base de données, avec son utilisation dans de multiples contextes, a acquis une importance dont les implications esthétiques et politiques vont au-delà des questions techniques.La recherche à la fois théorique et pratique étudie la base de données comme un moyen expressif et poétique de création, et met en évidence ses caractères spécifiques, notamment la discrédisation des données et leur mise en relation flexible. Le terme d'aura utilisé par Walter Benjamin pour analyser les transformations de l'expérience esthétique engendrées par la rationalité industrielle et la technique à la fin du dix-neuvième siècle, est reconsidérée afin de formuler une poétique de la base de données. La partie pratique de notre recherche comporte deux projets interactifs fondés sur les principes poétiques élaborés au cours de cette thèse

Panel: The Architectural Touch: Gestural Approaches to Library Search

This panel centers on the LibViz project—a touch and gesture-based interface that allows users to navigate through library collections using visual queries—and the issues surrounding such efforts. The LibViz project, for which we have done initial research and constructed a prototype, aims to increase the discoverability of library materials, particularly those of non-textual objects, which are difficult to access via traditional search and which do not circulate. Many collections are currently preparing large scale digitizing of threedimensional objects and it is imperative to develop appropriate methods to work with this new kind of data. The established methods only do a poor job at providing access to 3D-object data. Based in theories of “grounded cognition,” the LibViz interface will be optimized for use on personal mobile devices, but it can also be used on large format touch screens equipped with depth cameras that track user gestures. In other words, the interactive flow of LibViz allows both gestural interaction and touch commands, effectively extending the sensory modalities involved in the cognitive processing of the search results. By engaging a fuller range of human cognitive capabilities, the LibViz interface also hopes to help transform search. The amount of data generated in the digital era is growing exponentially, and so we must find novel ways of analyzing and interpreting these vast data archives. Moreover, the ways in which information is categorized and databases are created are value laden. As such, the processes by which these structures are established should be more transparent than conventional systems currently allow. The project turns library search into a powerful and pleasurable experience, stimulating engagement with the collections and the library itself

Healing Spaces: Feasibility of a Multisensory Experience for Older Adults with Advanced Dementia and their Caregivers

Healing Spaces proposes a new approach to multisensory interventions that show potential in ameliorating the behavioral and psychological symptoms of advanced dementia in older adults. Using smart technology, the project combines both digital and physical components to transform spaces and create unified, curated sensory experiences that provide meaningful context for interaction, and are easy for caregivers to deliver. A usability study was conducted for the Healing Spaces app followed by a feasibility evaluation of the full experience in a memory care facility recruiting caregivers, and residents in advanced stages of dementia. The feasibility evaluation successfully illuminated strengths as well as areas for improvement for the Healing Spaces experience in a memory care setting with older adults with advanced dementia. Caregivers and facility managers expressed interest in continuing to use Healing Spaces with the residents of the facility. Lessons learned about the technical and logistical implementation of Healing Spaces are discussed, as well as future directions for study design and potential therapeutic value of the experience.Comment: PETRA 20: Proceedings of the 13th ACM International Conference on PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments. June 2020. Article No 24. Pages 1 to

Novel role of a triglyceride-synthesizing enzyme:DGAT1 at the crossroad between triglyceride and cholesterol metabolism

AbstractAcyl-CoA:diacylglycerol acyltransferase 1 (DGAT1) is a key enzyme in triacylglycerol (TG) biosynthesis. Here we show that genetic deficiency and pharmacological inhibition of DGAT1 in mice alters cholesterol metabolism. Cholesterol absorption, as assessed by acute cholesterol uptake, was significantly decreased in the small intestine and liver upon DGAT1 deficiency/inhibition. Ablation of DGAT1 in the intestine (I-DGAT1−/−) alone is sufficient to cause these effects. Consequences of I-DGAT1 deficiency phenocopy findings in whole-body DGAT1−/− and DGAT1 inhibitor-treated mice. We show that deficiency/inhibition of DGAT1 affects cholesterol metabolism via reduced chylomicron size and increased trans-intestinal cholesterol excretion. These effects are independent of cholesterol uptake at the apical surface of enterocytes but mediated through altered dietary fatty acid metabolism. Our findings provide insight into a novel role of DGAT1 and identify a pathway by which intestinal DGAT1 deficiency affects whole-body cholesterol homeostasis in mice. Targeting intestinal DGAT1 may represent a novel approach for treating hypercholesterolemia

Filamentous Biopolymers on Surfaces: Atomic Force Microscopy Images Compared with Brownian Dynamics Simulation of Filament Deposition

Nanomechanical properties of filamentous biopolymers, such as the persistence length, may be determined from two-dimensional images of molecules immobilized on surfaces. For a single filament in solution, two principal adsorption scenarios are possible. Both scenarios depend primarly on the interaction strength between the filament and the support: i) For interactions in the range of the thermal energy, the filament can freely equilibrate on the surface during adsorption; ii) For interactions much stronger than the thermal energy, the filament will be captured by the surface without having equilibrated. Such a ‘trapping’ mechanism leads to more condensed filament images and hence to a smaller value for the apparent persistence length. To understand the capture mechanism in more detail we have performed Brownian dynamics simulations of relatively short filaments by taking the two extreme scenarios into account. We then compared these ‘ideal’ adsorption scenarios with observed images of immobilized vimentin intermediate filaments on different surfaces. We found a good agreement between the contours of the deposited vimentin filaments on mica (‘ideal’ trapping) and on glass (‘ideal’ equilibrated) with our simulations. Based on these data, we have developed a strategy to reliably extract the persistence length of short worm-like chain fragments or network forming filaments with unknown polymer-surface interactions

Digital auras : towards a poetic of the database

La base de données est un outil omniprésent dans nos vies, qui est impliquée dans un grand nombre de nos activités quotidiennes. Conçue comme système technique destiné à rendre la gastion des informations plus efficace, et comme support de stockage privilégié, la base de données, avec son utilisation dans de multiples contextes, a acquis une importance dont les implications esthétiques et politiques vont au-delà des questions techniques.La recherche à la fois théorique et pratique étudie la base de données comme un moyen expressif et poétique de création, et met en évidence ses caractères spécifiques, notamment la discrédisation des données et leur mise en relation flexible. Le terme d'aura utilisé par Walter Benjamin pour analyser les transformations de l'expérience esthétique engendrées par la rationalité industrielle et la technique à la fin du dix-neuvième siècle, est reconsidérée afin de formuler une poétique de la base de données. La partie pratique de notre recherche comporte deux projets interactifs fondés sur les principes poétiques élaborés au cours de cette thèse.Database are ubiquitous in our lives and play an important rôle in many aspects of our daily activities. Conceived as a technical support to facilitate the efficient management of information and as the preferred means of storage, the database has gained a level of importance with aesthetic and political implications that go far beyond purely technical questions.Both theorical and practical in its approach, our research investigates the database as a means of expressive and poetic creation and reveals its specific character, in particular the discretization of data and the establishment of flexible relationships between them. In order to develop a poetics of the database we will reconsider the term « aura », which was utilized by walter Benjamin to analyse the transformations of the nature of aesthetic experience brought about by industrial rationalisation and technology at the end of the nineteenth century. The practical part of our research consists of two interactive projects based on the poetic principles elaborated in context of this dissertation

Coping with the big data dump: Towards a framework for enhanced information representation

Easy and efficient access to large amounts of data has become an essential aspect of our everyday life. In this paper we investigate possibilities of supporting information representation through the combined use of multiple modalities of perceptions such as sight, touch and kinesthetics. We present a theoretical framework to analyze these approaches and exemplify our findings with case studies of three emergent projects. The results are a contribution to a larger discussion of multimodal information representation at the intersection of theory and practice