Discovering the Data-driven City Breakdown and Literacy in the Installation of the Elm Sensor Network

In this article, we examine the role of environmental big data in the installation of an environmental sensor in a UK city. Taking the installation of the Elm sensor as an empirical case study, we understand the installation as incurring an instance of natural breakdown which reveals the contingent work- ings of the device, and places it in the context of the practices of normalisation and stabilisation of the device. We use this to ask questions about the taken for granted smoothing of outputs and the continual elaboration of use and design, alongside the constructive potential for disruptive digital literacies as a site of intervention. By following, empirically, the installation of the technology, we are led to combine, and re-examine, theoretical lines of reasoning about data competences and relationships, and in turn advocate a form of ‘material politics’

Audience Responses and the Context of Political Speeches

Previous studies showed that cultural dimensions (individualism and collectivism) are related to audience behavior in responding to political speeches. However, this study suggests that speech context is an important issue to be considered in understanding speaker-audience interaction in political speeches. Forms of response, audience behavior, and response rates were analyzed in three speech contexts: acceptance speeches to nomination as political parties’ candidates for presidential election, presidential election campaign speeches, and presidential inauguration speeches in the Korean presidential election of 2012. We found that audience response forms and behavior were distinctive according to the three speech contexts: in-group partisan leadership, competitive, and formal contexts. However, there was no relationship between the affiliative response rate and electoral success in the election. The function of the audience response is popularity and support of a speaker in acceptance and election campaign speeches, while it is conformity to social norms in inauguration speeches

Understanding performance responses : Instructional transitions in musical masterclasses

This paper extends analysis of the ‘assessment receipt’ to include talk and embodied interaction during ‘performance responses’ in music masterclass interactions. By grounding the analysis in questions of performance completion and audience applause onset, it details the utility of variously position assessment tokens, during performance, before applause, during applause and after applause. These different verbal assessment positions afford, in different ways, instructional interaction by situating the instructor as next relevant speaker. They also help coordinate performance completions and audience applause onset. The paper also identifies the ‘receipt assessment’, which reverses the component ordering of the earlier phenomenon. The paper is relevant to those studying performance as interaction and extends and deepens the growing insights into musical instructional settings

Booster or treadmill? : Comment - Artificial intelligence

As AI tools enter research, it’s vital to question what we want from them

Speeding up to keep up : exploring the use of AI in the research process

Despite growing interest (UKRI 2021) the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in research as an enabler of new methods, processes, management and evaluation is still relatively under-explored (Cyranoki 2019; Royal Society 2018). This empirical paper explores (n=25) expert interviews on the potential impact of AI on research practice and culture. Our interviewees identify positive and negative consequences for research and researchers with respect to collective and individual use. AI is perceived as helpful with respect to information gathering and other narrow tasks, and in support of impact and interdisciplinarity. However, using AI as a way of ‘speeding up - to keep up’ with bureaucratic and metricised processes, may proliferate negative aspects of academic culture. The expansion of AI in research should assist and not replace human creativity. Research into the future role of AI needs to go further to address these challenges, and ask fundamental questions about how AI might assist in providing new tools able to question the values and principles driving institutions and research processes. We argue that to do this explicit research on the role of AI in research should be carried out considering the effects for research and researcher creativity. Anticipatory approaches and engagement of diverse and critical voices at policy level and across disciplines should also be considered

Walking with Gail : the local achievement of interactional rhythm and synchrony through footwork.

By analysing the movements through space of a famous conversation analyst delivering a well known lecture this paper reveals the creative construction of space within the social and physical constraints of the lecture hall, and in so doing contributes to the embodied analysis of humans in material environments. It uses terminology and insights from dance to help 'see' and analyse the movements as 'footwork' and 'figures'

Faint dwarfs as a test of DM models: WDM vs. CDM

We use high resolution Hydro$+$N-Body cosmological simulations to compare the assembly and evolution of a small field dwarf (stellar mass ~ 10$^{6-7}$ M$\odot$, total mass 10$^{10}$ M$\odot$ in $\Lambda$ dominated CDM and 2keV WDM cosmologies. We find that star formation (SF) in the WDM model is reduced and delayed by 1-2 Gyr relative to the CDM model, independently of the details of SF and feedback. Independent of the DM model, but proportionally to the SF efficiency, gas outflows lower the central mass density through `dynamical heating', such that all realizations have circular velocities $<$ 20kms at 500$~$pc, in agreement with local kinematic constraints. As a result of dynamical heating, older stars are less centrally concentrated than younger stars, similar to stellar population gradients observed in nearby dwarf galaxies. Introducing an important diagnostic of SF and feedback models, we translate our simulations into artificial color-magnitude diagrams and star formation histories in order to directly compare to available observations. The simulated galaxies formed most of their stars in many $\sim$10 Myr long bursts. The CDM galaxy has a global SFH, HI abundance and Fe/H and alpha-elements distribution well matched to current observations of dwarf galaxies. These results highlight the importance of directly including `baryon physics' in simulations when 1) comparing predictions of galaxy formation models with the kinematics and number density of local dwarf galaxies and 2) differentiating between CDM and non-standard models with different DM or power spectra.Comment: 13 pages including Appendix on Color Magnitude Diagrams. Accepted by MNRAS. Added one plot and details on ChaNGa implementation. Reduced number of citations after editorial reques

Protein Phosphatase-1α Interacts with and Dephosphorylates Polycystin-1

Polycystin signaling is likely to be regulated by phosphorylation. While a number of potential protein kinases and their target phosphorylation sites on polycystin-1 have been identified, the corresponding phosphatases have not been extensively studied. We have now determined that polycystin-1 is a regulatory subunit for protein phosphatase-1α (PP1α). Sequence analysis has revealed the presence of a highly conserved PP1-interaction motif in the cytosolic, C-terminal tail of polycystin-1; and we have shown that transfected PP1α specifically co-immunoprecipitates with a polycystin-1 C-tail construct. To determine whether PP1α dephosphorylates polycystin-1, a PKA-phosphorylated GST-polycystin-1 fusion protein was shown to be dephosphorylated by PP1α but not by PP2B (calcineurin). Mutations within the PP1-binding motif of polycystin-1, including an autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD)-associated mutation, significantly reduced PP1α-mediated dephosphorylation of polycystin-1. The results suggest that polycystin-1 forms a holoenzyme complex with PP1α via a conserved PP1-binding motif within the polycystin-1 C-tail, and that PKA-phosphorylated polycystin-1 serves as a substrate for the holoenzyme

Hypofibrinolysis in diabetes: a therapeutic target for the reduction of cardiovascular risk

An enhanced thrombotic environment and premature atherosclerosis are key factors for the increased cardiovascular risk in diabetes. The occlusive vascular thrombus, formed secondary to interactions between platelets and coagulation proteins, is composed of a skeleton of fibrin fibres with cellular elements embedded in this network. Diabetes is characterised by quantitative and qualitative changes in coagulation proteins, which collectively increase resistance to fibrinolysis, consequently augmenting thrombosis risk. Current long-term therapies to prevent arterial occlusion in diabetes are focussed on anti-platelet agents, a strategy that fails to address the contribution of coagulation proteins to the enhanced thrombotic milieu. Moreover, antiplatelet treatment is associated with bleeding complications, particularly with newer agents and more aggressive combination therapies, questioning the safety of this approach. Therefore, to safely control thrombosis risk in diabetes, an alternative approach is required with the fibrin network representing a credible therapeutic target. In the current review, we address diabetes-specific mechanistic pathways responsible for hypofibrinolysis including the role of clot structure, defects in the fibrinolytic system and increased incorporation of anti-fibrinolytic proteins into the clot. Future anti-thrombotic therapeutic options are discussed with special emphasis on the potential advantages of modulating incorporation of the anti-fibrinolytic proteins into fibrin networks. This latter approach carries theoretical advantages, including specificity for diabetes, ability to target a particular protein with a possible favourable risk of bleeding. The development of alternative treatment strategies to better control residual thrombosis risk in diabetes will help to reduce vascular events, which remain the main cause of mortality in this condition