Language as a means of social control and resistance: discourse analysis in a prison setting

This study is concerned with the linguistic analysis of a cognitive training programme for offenders which was run at Prison X in 1996. Several Cognitive Skills classes run by prison officers and attended by groups of five to eight prisoners were videotaped and analysed to investigate the discourse practices used in these sessions. I also explored the written discourse of the Cognitive Skills Handbook used by the offenders as a reference-text for running the classes. In my research, I have borrowed insights from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), particularly Fairclough's three-dimensional model of discourse, as it forms a framework for studying language in its relation to power and ideology. I have attempted to show through this case study that the discursive practices investigated are ideological in that they produce and reproduce unequal power relations in the way they represent and classify offenders. Following the Hallidayan tradition, I have taken a systemic functional approach as my point of departure for the analysis and interpretation of texts

‘Abaixando a Máquina 2’/ ‘Lowering the Camera 2’: The Power of Professional Photojournalism in Changing the Course of the 2013 Mass Protests in Rio De Janeiro

This chapter focuses on the impact of a set of defining photojournalistic images taken during the mass protests that gripped Brazil’s cities in 2013. These images of the death of a TV cameraman during a demonstration marked a decisive turn in the protest dynamics, resulting in conflicting readings of the protests. These were captured in the documentary film Abaixando a Máquina 2 (‘Lowering the Camera 2’), which we argue offers views of these images and of the wider events that amount to a ‘countervisuality’ that interrogates dominant visual strategies used to marginalise the protest movement. To explore this further, a semiotic analysis of one image from the series was conducted that suggests that although its compositional choices satisfy mainstream news values that served hegemonic media discourses about the protests, it at the same time displays a potential for a countervisuality that condemns the precarious working conditions of photojournalists in Brazil

Scientometrics and Information Retrieval - weak-links revitalized

This special issue brings together eight papers from experts of communities which often have been perceived as different once: bibliometrics, scientometrics and informetrics on the one side and information retrieval on the other. The idea of this special issue started at the workshop "Combining Bibliometrics and Information Retrieval" held at the 14th International Conference of Scientometrics and Informetrics, Vienna, July 14-19, 2013. Our motivation as guest editors started from the observation that main discourses in both fields are different, that communities are only partly overlapping and from the belief that a knowledge transfer would be profitable for both sides.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, editorial for a special issue to appear in Scientometric

Free Mo Robinson: citizen engagement in response to a crime event on social media

The growth of digital culture has opened up new spaces of engagement where interactive users discuss social issues, including crime. Given crime’s ubiquity in popular culture, cultural criminologists argue that diverse emotional involvement with crime in popular cultural texts, such as social media, provides important insights into how citizens comprehend issues related to crime. Here, an analysis of emotion should be placed into the foreground (Hayward, K., and J. Young. 2004. “Cultural Criminology: Some Notes on the Script.” Theoretical Criminology 8 (3): 259–273). Taking this as a cue to explore these often neglected popular moral and emotional aspects of crime, this article focuses on constructions of popular crime discourses, using citizens’ responses to the Mo Robinson people smuggling case on Facebook as a case study. Applying multimodal critical discourse analysis and a framework for analysing evaluation, we reveal ideological themes through which participants judge crime, perpetrator and victims. Our analysis of the Free Mo Robinson Facebook page demonstrates that although social media has the potential to challenge and shift traditional narratives about crime, it can also perpetuate and amplify ideological narratives of crime control that fail to address the wider socio-political and structural contexts in which crime occurs

Bibliometric-enhanced Information Retrieval: 2nd International BIR Workshop

This workshop brings together experts of communities which often have been perceived as different once: bibliometrics / scientometrics / informetrics on the one side and information retrieval on the other. Our motivation as organizers of the workshop started from the observation that main discourses in both fields are different, that communities are only partly overlapping and from the belief that a knowledge transfer would be profitable for both sides. Bibliometric techniques are not yet widely used to enhance retrieval processes in digital libraries, although they offer value-added effects for users. On the other side, more and more information professionals, working in libraries and archives are confronted with applying bibliometric techniques in their services. This way knowledge exchange becomes more urgent. The first workshop set the research agenda, by introducing in each other methods, reporting about current research problems and brainstorming about common interests. This follow-up workshop continues the overall communication, but also puts one problem into the focus. In particular, we will explore how statistical modelling of scholarship can improve retrieval services for specific communities, as well as for large, cross-domain collections like Mendeley or ResearchGate. This second BIR workshop continues to raise awareness of the missing link between Information Retrieval (IR) and bibliometrics and contributes to create a common ground for the incorporation of bibliometric-enhanced services into retrieval at the scholarly search engine interface.Comment: 4 pages, 37th European Conference on Information Retrieval, BIR worksho

Editorial for the Bibliometric-enhanced Information Retrieval Workshop at ECIR 2014

This first "Bibliometric-enhanced Information Retrieval" (BIR 2014) workshop aims to engage with the IR community about possible links to bibliometrics and scholarly communication. Bibliometric techniques are not yet widely used to enhance retrieval processes in digital libraries, although they offer value-added effects for users. In this workshop we will explore how statistical modelling of scholarship, such as Bradfordizing or network analysis of co-authorship network, can improve retrieval services for specific communities, as well as for large, cross-domain collections. This workshop aims to raise awareness of the missing link between information retrieval (IR) and bibliometrics / scientometrics and to create a common ground for the incorporation of bibliometric-enhanced services into retrieval at the digital library interface. Our interests include information retrieval, information seeking, science modelling, network analysis, and digital libraries. The goal is to apply insights from bibliometrics, scientometrics, and informetrics to concrete practical problems of information retrieval and browsing.Comment: 4 pages, Bibliometric-enhanced Information Retrieval Workshop at ECIR 2014, Amsterdam, N

String-String triality for d=4, Z_2 orbifolds

We investigate the perturbative and non-perturbative correspondence of a class of four dimensional dual string constructions with N=4 and N=2 supersymmetry, obtained as Z_2 or Z_2 x Z_2 orbifolds of the type II, heterotic and type I string. In particular, we discuss the heterotic and type I dual of all the symmetric Z_2 x Z_2 orbifolds of the type II string, classified in hep-th/9901123. .Comment: latex, 50 pages, figures, final published versio

A geographically distributed bio-hybrid neural network with memristive plasticity

Throughout evolution the brain has mastered the art of processing real-world inputs through networks of interlinked spiking neurons. Synapses have emerged as key elements that, owing to their plasticity, are merging neuron-to-neuron signalling with memory storage and computation. Electronics has made important steps in emulating neurons through neuromorphic circuits and synapses with nanoscale memristors, yet novel applications that interlink them in heterogeneous bio-inspired and bio-hybrid architectures are just beginning to materialise. The use of memristive technologies in brain-inspired architectures for computing or for sensing spiking activity of biological neurons8 are only recent examples, however interlinking brain and electronic neurons through plasticity-driven synaptic elements has remained so far in the realm of the imagination. Here, we demonstrate a bio-hybrid neural network (bNN) where memristors work as "synaptors" between rat neural circuits and VLSI neurons. The two fundamental synaptors, from artificial-to-biological (ABsyn) and from biological-to- artificial (BAsyn), are interconnected over the Internet. The bNN extends across Europe, collapsing spatial boundaries existing in natural brain networks and laying the foundations of a new geographically distributed and evolving architecture: the Internet of Neuro-electronics (IoN).Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure