Probing the Communication World of Social Media Influencers and Their Avid Followers: A Two-Paper Panel

Paper presented to the Ohio Communication Association, October 202

Where the Harm Comes From: Ethics of Mediating Collectives

This article defines the intermediate level between personal agency and global issues of injustice as a complex system of mediating collectives, the agency of which must be addressed specifically in organizational and ontological but also in ethical and political terms. We target three domains of global injustice: economic, environmental, and gender-related, following the threads of briefly stated cases in these domains. Our conclusion suggests recommendations for dealing more realistically and more efficiently with global injustice that obstinately thrives from somewhere deep into the structures of the contemporary world. Our recommendations will bear on (a) individual responsibility in a collective, (b) virtuous direct and indirect action, (c) awareness of and communication with interdependent collectives, (d) optimal communication within every collective, (e) readiness for joint-action as an authentic group-agent

Immunophenotyping myelodysplastic neoplasms: the role of flow cytometry in the molecular classification era

The unique heterogenous landscape of myelodysplastic syndromes/neoplasms (MDS) has resulted in continuous redefinition of disease sub-entities, in view of the novel translational research data that have clarified several areas of the pathogenesis and the progression of the disease. The new international classifications (WHO 2022, ICC 2022) have incorporated genomic data defining phenotypical alterations, that guide clinical management of specific patient subgroups. On the other hand, for over a decade, multiparameter flow cytometry (MFC) has proven its value as a complementary diagnostic tool for these diseases and although it has never been established as a mandatory test for the baseline evaluation of MDS patients in international guidelines, it is almost universally adopted in everyday clinical practice for the assessment of suspected cytopenias through simplified scoring systems or elaborate analytical strategies for the detection of immunophenotypical dysplastic features in every hematopoietic cell lineage in the bone marrow (BM). In this review, we explore the clinically meaningful interplay of MFC data and genetic profiles of MDS patients, to reveal the currently existing and the potential future role of each methodology for routine clinical practice, and the benefit of the patients. We reviewed the existing knowledge and recent advances in the field and discuss how an integrated approach could lead to patient re-stratification and guide personalized management

IRISS (Increasing Resilience in Surveillance Societies) FP7 European Research Project, Deliverable 4.2: Doing privacy in everyday encounters with surveillance.

The main idea of IRISS WP 4 was to analyse surveillance as an element of everyday life of citizens. The starting point was a broad understanding of surveillance, reaching beyond the narrowly defined and targeted (nonetheless encompassing) surveillance practices of state authorities, justified with the need to combat and prevent crime and terrorism. We were interested in the mundane effects of surveillance practices emerging in the sectors of electronic commerce, telecommunication, social media and other areas. The basic assumption of WP 4 was that being a citizen in modern surveillance societies amounts to being transformed into a techno-social hybrid, i.e. a human being inexorably linked with data producing technologies, becoming a data-leaking container. While this “ontological shift” is not necessarily reflected in citizens’ understanding of who they are, it nonetheless affects their daily lives in many different ways. Citizens may entertain ideas of privacy, autonomy and selfhood rooted in pre-electronic times while at the same time acting under a regime of “mundane governance”. We started to enquire about the use of modern technologies and in the course of the interviews focussed on issues of surveillance in a more explicit manner. Over 200 qualitative interviews were conducted in a way that produced narratives (stories) of individual experiences with different kinds of technologies and/or surveillance practices. These stories then were analysed against the background of theoretical hypotheses of what it means in objective terms to live in a surveillance society. We assume that privacy no longer is the default state of mundane living, but has to be actively created. We captured this with the term privacy labour. Furthermore we construed a number of dilemmas or trade-off situations to guide our analysis. These dilemmas address the issue of privacy as a state or “good” which is traded in for convenience (in electronic commerce), security (in law enforcement surveillance contexts), sociality (when using social media), mutual trust (in social relations at the workplace as well as in the relationship between citizens and the state), and engagement (in horizontal, neighbourhood watch-type surveillance relations). For each of these dilemmas we identified a number of stories demonstrating how our respondents as “heroes” in the narrative solved the problems they encountered, strived for the goals they were pursuing or simply handled a dilemmatic situation. This created a comprehensive and multi-dimensional account of the effects of surveillance in everyday life. Each of the main chapters does focus on one of these different dilemmas

Volcanic Skies: coupling explosive eruptions with atmospheric simulation to create consistent skyscapes

Explosive volcanic eruptions rank among the most terrifying natural phenomena, and are thus frequently depicted in films, games, and other media, usually with a bespoke once-off solution. In this paper, we introduce the first general-purpose model for bi-directional interaction between the atmosphere and a volcano plume. In line with recent interactive volcano models, we approximate the plume dynamics with Lagrangian disks and spheres and the atmosphere with sparse layers of 2D Eulerian grids, enabling us to focus on the transfer of physical quantities such as temperature, ash, moisture, and wind velocity between these sub-models. We subsequently generate volumetric animations by noise-based procedural upsampling keyed to aspects of advection, convection, moisture, and ash content to generate a fully-realized volcanic skyscape. Our model captures most of the visually salient features emerging from volcano-sky interaction, such as windswept plumes, enmeshed cap, bell and skirt clouds, shockwave effects, ash rain, and sheathes of lightning visible in the dark

IRISS (Increasing Resilience in Surveillance Societies) FP7 European Research Project, Deliverable 3.2: Surveillance Impact Report

External research report produced for the European Commission as part of the FP7 IRISS project: Increasing Resilience in Surveillance Socieities, containing European case studies on the varying formats of neighbourhood watch, including the cultural and historical factors which may influence the creation of neighbourhood watch groups in the first instance. Overview of neighbourhood watch in the United Kingdom and analysis of the changing role of the police in relation to community policing and the impact which this has had on the primary purpose of neighbourhood watch organisations.This deliverable was written as part of the IRISS project which received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under Grant Agreement No. 285593. Additional co-authors: Alessia Ceresa, Chiara Fonio, Walter Peissl, Robert Rothman, Jaro Sterbik Lamina, Ivan Szekely, Beatrix Vissy, Wolfgang Bonß, Daniel Fischer, Gemma Galdon Clavell, Reinhard Kreissl, Alexander Neumann, Nils Zurawsk

A rich locality in South Kensington: the fossil hominin collection of the Natural History Museum, London

The primacy of fossils in the Natural History Museum (NHM) goes back to the very origins of the Museum, but the first fossil hominins in the collections were probably the Upper Palaeolithic remains from Bruniquel, which were accessioned in 1864. This founded a collection which has continued to expand into this century. While there have been many compilations and descriptions of the fossil hominin collection at the NHM over its long history, to our knowledge no‐one has prepared a review of the collection itself. The intention of the current paper is to synthesize earlier sources with accounts of new finds, revised chronologies and rediscovered treasures in order to illustrate the breadth and continuing importance of the fossil hominins curated at the NHM. We list and discuss all the hominin material known or thought to pre‐date the Holocene. These form a collection of great importance, both in terms of their research

Simulation visuelle efficace de phénomènes volcaniques

L'un des principaux défis en informatique graphique est de permettre la création de mondes virtuels vastes et réalistes. Pour les enrichir, il faut pouvoir offrir des outils pour créer des phénomènes naturels cohérents divers et variés facilement et efficacement. Ainsi, des effets visuellement plausibles mais contrôlables donnent plus de liberté pour la création de films 3D, de simulations et de jeux vidéo.Le but de cette thèse est de proposer de nouveaux modèles d'animation pour les éruptions volcaniques. Ces modèles sont pensés pour être utilisés par des artistes, posant certains objectifs à atteindre : être plausibles, c'est-à-dire avoir une ressemblance avec la réalité et une dynamique correcte ; être rapides, pour pouvoir être utilisés de manière interactive et dans les jeux vidéo ; et être contrôlables, en étant légers et simples à comprendre, pour que les artistes puissent les adapter à leurs besoins.Pour animer des éruptions explosives, nous proposons un modèle prenant en compte leur dynamique, simulant des panaches montant à haute altitude et des coulées pyroclastiques dévalant les flancs du volcan, selon les conditions initiales. Notre modèle comporte deux couches : une simulation Lagrangienne minimaliste représentant des tranches horizontales de panache interagissant avec l'air environnant ; et un modèle procédural renforçant l'animation des flux turbulents avec des détails multi-résolution. Nous étendons ce modèle en le combinant à un modèle atmosphérique où plusieurs couches horizontales représentent l'atmosphère, où nous simulons les phénomènes physiques menant à la formation des nuages. Ainsi, différents nuages peuvent être animés et influencés par la présence d'un panache.Enfin, les coulées de lave font partie des phénomènes naturels les plus complexes, puisque la lave est un fluide aux comportements multiples, passant par des états liquide, plastique et solide. L'aspect visuel de la lave est souvent hybride, avec des parties liquides sur lesquelles flottent des éléments plus froids, et des croûtes déformables qui se plissent et se déforment. Aucune méthode n'a pu gérer l'interaction entre l'aspect visuel de la lave et la coulée, ni la formation et le plissement de surfaces déformables. Plutôt que de s'intéresser à de la simulation pure, nous proposons un modèle à couches combinant une simulation Eulérienne de lave et une simulation géométrique de la surface de la coulée, permettant l'apparition de plis en fonction de la vitesse et de la température. Nous habillons la surface de la coulée avec des textures procédurales basées sur l'épaisseur de la croûte en respectant une cohérence temporelle.Offering tools to easily and efficiently create consistent natural phenomena is one of the main challenges in Computer Graphics, where visually plausible but controllable virtual effects are mandatory for 3D films, simulators and games.The goal of this PhD is to propose novel multi-scale models for animating volcanic eruptions. These models are meant to be used by artists, giving several goals to achieve: being plausible, which means having a geometric resemblance to reality, as well as having the correct temporal dynamic; being fast in order to be able to be used interactively while permitting an usage in video games; and finally being controllable, with light and easy to understand model, so that users can easily adapt them to their needs.To animate explosive eruptions, we propose a model that takes their unique dynamics into account, resulting into ascending plumes propagating upward and finally spreading side-way as well as pyroclastic flows spreading down the slopes of the volcano, depending on initial conditions. Our model combines two consistently coupled, simple sub-models: a minimalist Lagrangian simulation, used to represent dynamic horizontal slices of material ejected by the volcano and interacting with the surrounding air; and a procedural model that enhances the visual animation of the turbulent flow with multi-resolution details. We extend this model by combining it with an atmospheric model, where several horizontal layers represent the atmosphere and we simulate the physical phenomena leading to the formation of clouds. Thus, several types of clouds can be animated and interact with a plume.Lastly, lava flows are among the most complex targeted phenomena, since they involve fluids evolving to a variety of behaviors while cooling down, from liquid to plastic, and then to rigid states. The visual aspect of lava is often hybrid, with liquid parts carrying cooler elements, and deformable crust that folds and deforms. None of these methods was able to handle the interaction between the visual state of the lava and the underlying flow, nor the formation and folding of deformable surface sheets. Therefore, rather than tackling pure simulation, we use as a base an existing Eulerian simulation of lava flows and build a geometrical simulation of the surface of the flow, letting folds appear knowing the velocity and temperature of the flow. We texture the flow using time-consistent textures generated according to the thickness of the crust