Virtuelle Handlungen, reale Konsequenzen:Über Theatralität und die ästhetische Differenz des Digitalen

Welche Rolle spielen virtuelle Handlungen für die Subjektkonstitution? Was bedeutet es, dass wir in Computerspielen auf jemanden schießen, in Chaträumen andere (Geschlechts-)Identitäten leben oder im Flugsimulator trainieren? In Auseinandersetzung mit gegenwärtigen Positionen der Subjekttheorie und Ästhetik versucht der Beitrag eine philosophische Klärung des Begriffs digitalisierter Subjektivität. Seine These lautet: Virtuelle Handlungen müssen vom Paradigma ästhetischer Theatralität her verstanden werden. Sie sind mediale Zeichen, die als Handlungen erlebt werden. Als solche bieten sie uns einzigartige Möglichkeiten praktischer Selbstreflexion, stellen uns aber zugleich vor die Gefahr identifikatorischer Misslektüren, die bis zu prekären Selbstverlusten führen können

Traditional Healing in Uganda: A Statistical Analysis of Treatments by a Group of Traditional Healers

In a project of ethnomedical research the two authors – working as psychotherapists in Switzerland – were visiting a group of traditional healers in the Mpigi District of Uganda. One aim was to look for a cross-cultural understanding of psychological problems, another was to investigate the efficiency of traditional healing and its integration in the public health system. The data of 978 subjects (37.9% males, 47.7% females and 14.4% families) treated in 2007 were analyzed with special respect to the outcome. Three overlapping categories (spiritual, connecting, physical/medical) were used for the definition of the patients problems and their received treatments. No significant differences could be found between males and females, but between singles and families. Singles had more spiritual problems and treatments whereas families had more connecting problems and treatments. 38.7% of the sample had physical problems and 28.3% were sent to medical treatment. The positive outcome rate of the whole sample was very high: 53.4% had recovered, 34.8% improved and only 11.9% were unchanged

FISH: A 3D parallel MHD code for astrophysical applications

FISH is a fast and simple ideal magneto-hydrodynamics code that scales to ~10 000 processes for a Cartesian computational domain of ~1000^3 cells. The simplicity of FISH has been achieved by the rigorous application of the operator splitting technique, while second order accuracy is maintained by the symmetric ordering of the operators. Between directional sweeps, the three-dimensional data is rotated in memory so that the sweep is always performed in a cache-efficient way along the direction of contiguous memory. Hence, the code only requires a one-dimensional description of the conservation equations to be solved. This approach also enable an elegant novel parallelisation of the code that is based on persistent communications with MPI for cubic domain decomposition on machines with distributed memory. This scheme is then combined with an additional OpenMP parallelisation of different sweeps that can take advantage of clusters of shared memory. We document the detailed implementation of a second order TVD advection scheme based on flux reconstruction. The magnetic fields are evolved by a constrained transport scheme. We show that the subtraction of a simple estimate of the hydrostatic gradient from the total gradients can significantly reduce the dissipation of the advection scheme in simulations of gravitationally bound hydrostatic objects. Through its simplicity and efficiency, FISH is as well-suited for hydrodynamics classes as for large-scale astrophysical simulations on high-performance computer clusters. In preparation for the release of a public version, we demonstrate the performance of FISH in a suite of astrophysically orientated test cases.Comment: 27 pages, 11 figure

Corticospinal output and loss of force during motor fatigue

The objective of this study was to analyze central motor output changes in relation to contraction force during motor fatigue. The triple stimulation technique (TST, Magistris et al. in Brain 121(Pt 3):437-450, 1998) was used to quantify a central conduction index (CCI=amplitude ratio of central conduction response and peripheral nerve response, obtained simultaneously by the TST). The CCI removes effects of peripheral fatigue from the quantification. It allows a quantification of the percentage of the entire target muscle motor unit pool driven to discharge by a transcranial magnetic stimulus. Subjects (n=23) performed repetitive maximal voluntary contractions (MVC) of abductor digiti minimi (duration 1s, frequency 0.5Hz) during 2min. TST recordings were obtained every 15s, using stimulation intensities sufficient to stimulate all cortical motor neurons (MNs) leading to the target muscle, and during voluntary contractions of 20% of the MVC to facilitate the responses. TST was also repetitively recorded during recovery. This basic exercise protocol was modified in a number of experiments to further characterize influences on CCI of motor fatigue (4min exercise at 50% MVC; delayed fatigue recovery during local hemostasis, "stimulated exercise” by 20Hz trains of 1s duration at 0.5Hz during 2min). In addition, the cortical silent period was measured during the basic exercise protocol. Force fatigued to approximately 40% of MVC in all experiments and in all subjects. In all subjects, CCI decreased during exercise, but this decrease varied markedly between subjects. On average, CCI reductions preceded force reductions during exercise, and CCI recovery preceded force recovery. Exercising at 50% for 4min reduced muscle force more markedly than CCI. Hemostasis induced by a cuff delayed muscle force recovery, but not CCI recovery. Stimulated exercise reduced force markedly, but CCI decreased only marginally. Summarized, force reduction and reduction of the CCI related poorly quantitatively and in time, and voluntary drive was particularly critical to reduce the CCI. The fatigue induced reduction of CCI may result from a central inhibitory phenomenon. Voluntary muscle activation is critical for the CCI reduction, suggesting a primarily supraspinal mechanis

Notes on Amandinea Petermannii Comb.nov. (Physciaceae) from Antarctica

The new combination Amandinea petermannii (Hue) Matzer, Mayrh. & Scheidegger; is proposed. The taxonomy, morphology, anatomy, chemistry, ecology and distribution of this lichen are discussed. Rinodina convoluta D. C. Lindsay is synonym of A. petermanni

Time walkers and spatial dynamics of ageing information

The distribution of information is essential for living system's ability to coordinate and adapt. Random walkers are often used to model this distribution process and, in doing so, one effectively assumes that information maintains its relevance over time. But the value of information in social and biological systems often decay and must continuously be updated. To capture the spatial dynamics of ageing information, we introduce time walkers. A time walker moves like a random walker, but interacts with traces left by other walkers, some representing older information, some newer. The traces forms a navigable information landscape. We quantify the dynamical properties of time walkers moving on a two-dimensional lattice and the quality of the information landscape generated by their movements. We visualise the self-similar landscape as a river network, and show that searching in this landscape is superior to random searching and scales as the length of loop-erased random walks