Development of a simple information pump.

The Information Pump (IP) is a methodology that aims to counter the problems arising from traditional subjective product data collection. The IP is a game theory based process that aims to maximise information extracted from a panel of subjects, while maintaining their interest in the process through a continuous panelist scoring method. The challenge with implementing this arises from the difficulty in executing the 'game'. In its original format, there is an assumption that the game is played with each player using their own PC to interact with the process. While this in theory allows information and scores to flow in a controlled manner between the players, it actually provides a major barrier to the wider adoption of the IP method. This barrier is two-fold: it is costly and complex, and it is not a natural manner for exchanging information. The core objective is to develop a low cost version of the IP method. This will use the game theory approach to maintain interest among participants and maximise information extraction, but remove the need for each participant to have their own PC interface to the game. This will require replacing both the inter-player communication method and the score keeping/reporting

Gauge fixing and the Hamiltonian for cylindrical spacetimes

We introduce a complete gauge fixing for cylindrical spacetimes in vacuo that, in principle, do not contain the axis of symmetry. By cylindrically symmetric we understand spacetimes that possess two commuting spacelike Killing vectors, one of them rotational and the other one translational. The result of our gauge fixing is a constraint-free model whose phase space has four field-like degrees of freedom and that depends on three constant parameters. Two of these constants determine the global angular momentum and the linear momentum in the axis direction, while the third parameter is related with the behavior of the metric around the axis. We derive the explicit expression of the metric in terms of the physical degrees of freedom, calculate the reduced equations of motion and obtain the Hamiltonian that generates the reduced dynamics. We also find upper and lower bounds for this reduced Hamiltonian that provides the energy per unit length contained in the system. In addition, we show that the reduced formalism constructed is well defined and consistent at least when the linear momentum in the axis direction vanishes. Furthermore, in that case we prove that there exists an infinite number of solutions in which all physical fields are constant both in the surroundings of the axis and at sufficiently large distances from it. If the global angular momentum is different from zero, the isometry group of these solutions is generally not orthogonally transitive. Such solutions generalize the metric of a spinning cosmic string in the region where no closed timelike curves are present.Comment: 12 pages, accepted for publication in Physical Review

An oncogenic role for sphingosine kinase 2

While both human sphingosine kinases (SK1 and SK2) catalyze the generation of the pleiotropic signaling lipid sphingosine 1-phosphate, these enzymes appear to be functionally distinct. SK1 has well described roles in promoting cell survival, proliferation and neoplastic transformation. The roles of SK2, and its contribution to cancer, however, are much less clear. Some studies have suggested an antiproliferative/ pro-apoptotic function for SK2, while others indicate it has a prosurvival role and its inhibition can have anti-cancer effects. Our analysis of gene expression data revealed that SK2 is upregulated in many human cancers, but only to a small extent (up to 2.5-fold over normal tissue). Based on these findings, we examined the effect of different levels of cellular SK2 and showed that high-level overexpression reduced cell proliferation and survival, and increased cellular ceramide levels. In contrast, however, low-level SK2 overexpression promoted cell survival and proliferation, and induced neoplastic transformation in vivo. These findings coincided with decreased nuclear localization and increased plasma membrane localization of SK2, as well as increases in extracellular S1P formation. Hence, we have shown for the first time that SK2 can have a direct role in promoting oncogenesis, supporting the use of SK2-specific inhibitors as anti-cancer agents.Heidi A. Neubauer, Duyen H. Pham, Julia R. Zebol, Paul A.B. Moretti, Amanda L. Peterson, Tamara M. Leclercq, Huasheng Chan, Jason A. Powell, Melissa R. Pitman, Michael S. Samuel, Claudine S. Bonder, Darren J. Creek, Briony L. Gliddon and Stuart M. Pitso

Abelian and nonabelian vector field effective actions from string field theory

The leading terms in the tree-level effective action for the massless fields of the bosonic open string are calculated by integrating out all massive fields in Witten's cubic string field theory. In both the abelian and nonabelian theories, field redefinitions make it possible to express the effective action in terms of the conventional field strength. The resulting actions reproduce the leading terms in the abelian and nonabelian Born-Infeld theories, and include (covariant) derivative corrections.Comment: 49 pages, 1 eps figur

Menurunnya Tradisi Mapalus Di Desa Kamangta Kecamatan Tombulu Kabupaten Minahasa

Tujuan dari penelitian ini yaitu Untuk mengetahui dampak menurunnya tradisi mapalus di Desa Kamangta Kecamatan Tombulu Kabupaten Minahasa. budaya mapalus di manado, Atau Tradisi Mapalus ini seringkali menjadi objek kesejahteraan hingga kerukunan di manado, banyak dari masyarakat manado yang berada di luar daerah manado seringkali membahas tentang budaya tersebut. Dikarenakan budaya ini sudah jarang di temui bahkan sampai ke pelosok desa yang ada di manado lebih jelasnya di desa desa yang ada di minahasa. Dengan hal ini kita harus mengenallebih lanjut TradisiMapalus serta apa yang di unggulkan di dalam tradisi itu tersebut sehingga kita harus menlestarikan Kembali tradis mapalus ini. Namun seiring perkembangan zaman tradisi tersebut mengalami gradasi dan penurunan baik intensitas maupun maknanya. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode penelitian kualitatif. Hasil penelitian disimpulkan bahwa enurunnya tradisi mapalus adalah di nilai sangat merugikan dan mempunyai dampak negatif di setiap individu karena pada masa lampau kehidupan hanya bergantung pada tradisi mapalus ini, menurunnya tradisi mapalus ini di karenakan masyarakat beraktivitas dan bekerja di kota Manado.     Kata Kunci : Tradisi, Mapalus, Penuruna

'Social Labor' and the Marxist Critique of Work

This paper argues that when it comes to thinking about work and labor, Marxism experiences a continued difficulty in holding theory and politics together without reliance on the concept of "social labor": a humanist ideological concept which mystifies the role of social relations in explaining work under capitalism. The evidence for this is collected through a reading of a number of important contributions within the Marxist sociology of work. At its conclusion, the paper turns back to Althusser and his critique of work and ideology in order to point towards the framework for an alternative critique of work that makes a conceptual move away from humanist ideas of alienation and social labor, towards materialist notions of interpellation and social relations

Towards a sociological anthropology: On Theodor Adorno's Contribution to the Theory of Ideology

Adorno's argument in this recently translated essay is that sociology is necessary in order to unlock the ‘epistemological power’ of the concept of ideology. This paper reads Adorno's argument with an Althusserian guilt in order to isolate the theoretically anti-humanist character of this epistemological power. The paper demonstrates how sociology, for Adorno, unlocks this epistemological power by shifting the field of inquiry away from the psychology of the individual subject, towards the “objectively prescribed contexts of delusion” located at the meeting point of specific material social relations. In order to make sense of Adorno's theoretical work here, the paper employs the concept of ‘anthropology’ as developed by Étienne Balibar, in order to demonstrate how Adorno mobilises the concept of ideology in order to think about subjective interpellation in an anti-humanist way, breaking with the vulgar psychology of traditional theories of ideology

The Ideology of Work and the Pandemic in Britain

The celebration of “key workers” in Britain during the pandemic forms the basis of what Althusser described as an “ideology of work,” a largely humanistic ideological machinery deployed in the service of maintaining and reproducing capitalist relations of production in the face of the present crisis. As opposed to a benign expression of national unity in response to a threat, this essay argues that the ideological celebration of key workers in Britain has been crucial to the protection of key accumulation strategies threatened by the crisis and to the neutralization of any potential resistance by those workers endangered by these strategies. This ideology of work has underpinned the implementation of numerous social policies in the service of protecting these relations of production: a fact which this essay argues must be adequately confronted prior to the imagination of alternative social policies and social futures after the pandemic

Loop Quantum Gravity: An Inside View

This is a (relatively) non -- technical summary of the status of the quantum dynamics in Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG). We explain in detail the historical evolution of the subject and why the results obtained so far are non -- trivial. The present text can be viewed in part as a response to an article by Nicolai, Peeters and Zamaklar [hep-th/0501114]. We also explain why certain no go conclusions drawn from a mathematically correct calculation in a recent paper by Helling et al [hep-th/0409182] are physically incorrect.Comment: 58 pages, no figure

The SuperCam Remote Sensing Instrument Suite for Mars 2020

International audienceThe Mars 2020 rover, essentially a structural twin of MSL, is being built to a) characterize the geology and history of a new landing site on Mars, b) find and characterize ancient habitable environments, c) cache samples for eventual return to Earth, and d) demonstrate in-situ production of oxygen needed for human exploration. Remote-sensing instrumentation is needed to support the first three of these goals [1]. The SuperCam instrument meets these needs with a range of instrumentation including the highest-resolution remote imaging on the rover, two different techniques for determining mineralogy , and one technique to provide elemental compositions. All of these techniques are co-boresighted, providing rapid comprehensive characterization. In addition, for targets within 7 meters of the rover the laser shock waves brush away the dust, providing cleaner surfaces for analysis. SuperCam will use an advanced version of the AEGIS robotic target selection software