Watsuji’s Ethics from the Perspective of Kata as a Technology of the Self

This paper investigates the history of systems of thought different from those of the West. A closer look at Japan’s long philosophical tradition draws attention to the presence of uniquely designed acculturation and training techniques designed as kata or shikata, shedding light on kata as a generic technique of self-perfection and self-transformation. By seeing kata as foundational to the Japanese mind and comparing it to Michel Foucault’s research on technologies of the self, the groundwork is laid for a comparative analysis in terms of the principle of ἐπιμελείσθαι σαυτού, an ethical and aesthetic paradigm dating back to European antiquity. Not only does this bring to light their similarities as techniques of individuation, it also reinforces the importance of Watsuji’s relational understanding of human being

The Panopticon Factor: Privacy and Surveillance in the Digital Age

This paper questions the use of new technologies as tools of modern surveillance in order to: (a) advance the research done by Michel Foucault on panoptic techniques of surveillance and dominance; and (b) give new insights on the way we use these new surveillance technologies in violation of democratic principles and legal norms. Furthermore, it questions Foucault’s statements on the expansion of Bentham’s Panopticon scheme as a universal model of modern-day democratic institutions. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to (c) shed new light on the various ways the deployment of new technologies reinforces the Panopticon model, and (d) conduct an analysis of the effects produced by the emerging modes of surveillance that empower various new mechanisms of domination and control of individuals. This research paper seeks to (e) examine to what extent technology influences the course of our social, political and behavioral changes; and to propose devices for (f) evaluation and transformation of democratic institutions and practices that rely on the use of modern communication tools and technologies. Our cities have become a new kind of technologically driven Panopticon and this model has achieved perfection as increasingly fragmented, disseminated and ubiquitous device of power and dominance

The Social Aspects of Fourteenth-Century Hesychasm

International audienceThe interest for hesychasm was often limited to the factual and theoretical aspects of the controversy. Although hesychasm is the object of many works in the corpus of studies of Byzantine theology, its social roots and societal ramifications have largely been neglected. From its purely monastic state in the fourth century, hesychasm came to shape a particular style of civilization at the end of the fourteenth century. The subjects of political and social order were inevitably included in the theological aspects of the hesychast quarrel. While the manner in which those subjects arose may have been accidental, they can in no case be treated as incidental. The new leaders of the Byzantine Church from then on had to tie their mysticism into immediate historical practice. Νο matter how much these hesychast leaders may have been influenced by Athonite traditions and anachorite practices, and however much they might have deplored 'worldliness', they were nevertheless obliged to exercise their influence in temporal matters. It is this translation of a piety into an often political, sometimes administrative and always social form, which is the aim of this paper

Judas a-t-il sa place dans la composition iconographique de la 'communion des apôtres'?

International audienceCette communication fondée sur des représentations iconographiques et des témoignages patristiques et liturgiques, montre, à partir de la présence ou non de Judas lors du repas de la Cène, l'importance des conditions, mais aussi des conséquences de la participation eucharistique (selon 1 Cor 11, 27-29)

Studies in ambient intelligent lighting

The revolution in lighting we are arguably experiencing is led by technical developments in the area of solid state lighting technology. The improved lifetime, efficiency and environmentally friendly raw materials make LEDs the main contender for the light source of the future. The core of the change is, however, not in the basic technology, but in the way users interact with it and the way the quality of the produced effect on the environment is judged. With the new found freedom the users can switch their focus from the confines of the technology to the expression of their needs, regardless of the details of the lighting system. Identifying the user needs, creating an effective language to communicate them to the system, and translating them to control signals that fulfill them, as well as defining the means to measure the quality of the produced result are the topic of study of a new multidisciplinary area of study, Ambient Intelligent Lighting. This thesis describes a series of studies in the field of Ambient Intelligent Lighting, divided in two parts. The first part of the thesis demonstrates how, by adopting a user centric design philosophy, the traditional control paradigms can be superseded by novel, so-called effect driven controls. Chapter 3 describes an algorithm that, using statistical methods and image processing, generates a set of colors based on a term or set of terms. The algorithm uses Internet image search engines (Google Images, Flickr) to acquire a set of images that represent a term and subsequently extracts representative colors from the set. Additionally, an estimate of the quality of the extracted set of colors is computed. Based on the algorithm, a system that automatically enriches music with lyrics based images and lighting was built and is described. Chapter 4 proposes a novel effect driven control algorithm, enabling users easy, natural and system agnostic means to create a spatial light distribution. By using an emerging technology, visible light communication, and an intuitive effect definition, a real time interactive light design system was developed. Usability studies on a virtual prototype of the system demonstrated the perceived ease of use and increased efficiency of an effect driven approach. In chapter 5, using stochastic models, natural temporal light transitions are modeled and reproduced. Based on an example video of a natural light effect, a Markov model of the transitions between colors of a single light source representing the effect is learned. The model is a compact, easy to reproduce, and as the user studies show, recognizable representation of the original light effect. The second part of the thesis studies the perceived quality of one of the unique capabilities of LEDs, chromatic temporal transitions. Using psychophysical methods, existing spatial models of human color vision were found to be unsuitable for predicting the visibility of temporal artifacts caused by the digital controls. The chapters in this part demonstrate new perceptual effects and make the first steps towards building a temporal model of human color vision. In chapter 6 the perception of smoothness of digital light transitions is studied. The studies presented demonstrate the dependence of the visibility of digital steps in a temporal transition on the frequency of change, chromaticity, intensity and direction of change of the transition. Furthermore, a clear link between the visibility of digital steps and flicker visibility is demonstrated. Finally, a new, exponential law for the dependence of the threshold speed of smooth transitions on the changing frequency is hypothesized and proven in subsequent experiments. Chapter 7 studies the discrimination and preference of different color transitions between two colors. Due to memory effects, the discrimination threshold for complete transitions was shown to be larger than the discrimination threshold for two single colors. Two linear transitions in different color spaces were shown to be significantly preferred over a set of other, curved, transitions. Chapter 8 studies chromatic and achromatic flicker visibility in the periphery. A complex change of both the absolute visibility thresholds for different frequencies, as well as the critical flicker frequency is observed. Finally, an increase in the absolute visibility thresholds caused by an addition of a mental task in central vision is demonstrated

Microbiological properties and chemical composition of macedonian traditional white brined cheese

The purpose of this study was to asses the chemical and microbial characteristics of 10 artisanal cheeses made from raw ewe’s milk without addition of starters, during maturation. Microbial populations were numerous and diverse with Lactic acid bacteria and Enterobaceriaceae as a predominant groups of microorganisms. Pathogenic bacteria were not detected. The pH of the cheeses was within the range of 4.04 – 5.05, the moisture content within 46.97 – 51.58%, total protein from 18 – 21.37%, fat content from 26 - 30% and NaCl from 4.38 – 5.43%

Evaluation of commercial slides for detection of immunoglobulin G against Bartonella henselae by indirect immunofluorescence

Four commercial slides were compared with in-house slides for the detection of immunoglobulin G (IgG) againstBartonella henselae in 58 healthy persons from a rural region by an indirect immunofluorescence assay. MRL-BA slides (MRL Diagnostics, USA) and Virion slides (Virion, Switzerland) with agar-derivedBartonella henselae showed IgG titers of ≥ 1∶256 in 44.8% and 51.7%, respectively, whereas Bion slides (Bios, Germany), MRL-Vero slides (MRL Diagnostics), and in-house slides with cell-associatedBartonella henselae showed such titers in 3.4%, 5.1% and 3.4%, respectively. The MRL-Vero slides (Bartonella IgG substrate slides, MRL Diagnostics) were further evaluated with 26 patients with cat scratch disease, 20 patients with lymphadenopathy not due to cat scratch disease, 100 blood donors from an urban area, and 120 blood donors from a mixed urban/rural area. In our mixed urban/rural population the IgG titer of 1∶256 had a sensitivity of 84.6% and a specificity of 93.4% for the serodiagnosis of cat scratch disease. Seroprevalence was higher in blood donors from the mixed area (50.8%) than from the urban area (37%). MRL-Vero slides were considered useful for the serodiagnosis of cat scratch disease by indirect immunofluorescence and have replaced our in-house system. However, patients with low IgG titers should be retested three to four weeks after initial sampling to demonstrate a possible rise of IgG titers in paired ser

Assessment of the microbial parameters along the production phases at a dairy plant

The main objective of this paper was to detect the prevalence of pathogenic bacteria (Listeria monocytogenes, Campylobacter spp., Salmonella spp., Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli) in raw milk, to assess the hygiene parameters during the milk processing and to evaluate the safety of the fi nal dairy products using standard ISO methods. Staphylococcus aureus showed highest prevalence of the pathogen microorganisms (85%), followed by Escherichia coli (46%) and Listeria monocytogenes (9.8) in bulk tank milk samples. Campylobacter spp. and Salmonella spp. were not detected in any of the tested samples.The swab samples taken from employees and working surfaces, water samples and pasteurized milk samples detected inadequate sanitary procedures during the phase of milk processing. Analysis of the swabs from employees hands revealed 1 positive sample for enumeration for Enterobacteriaceae and 7 samples with higher total viable count that did not comply withthe legislative, while the analysis of the swabs from working surfaces detected 5 samples positive for Enterobacteriaceae and 4 samples with higher total viable count that did not comply with the same legislative. The analysis of the water samples detected 2 samples with higher total viable count on 22°C, 2 samples for total viable count on 37°C and 1 sample for coliform bacteria that did not comply with the national legislative. None of the samples showed presence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, sulphite reducing clostridia and intestinal enterococci. The analysis ofthe pasteurized milk confi rmed 3 samples with presence of Enterobacteriacae, 1 sample for coagulase-positive staphylococci and 2 samples with high total viable count at 30°C that did not comply with the national legislative. The analysis of fermented milk products and cheese samples confirmed the need for immediate corective measures and subsequently, improved sanitation procedures. The testing detected 9 samples of fermented milk products for the Enterobacteriacae criteria and 1 sample for coagulase-positive staphylococci criteria that did not comply with the national legislative. The analysis of cheese identifi ed 4 samples for Escherichia coli and 2 samples for coagulase-positive staphylococci that did not meet the criteria given in the national legislative. The goal of the food safety system in the food production is to assure a safe and reliable product which will lead to consumer safety, satisfaction and future greater confi dence in the company products

Detection of antimicrobial sensitiveness of isolates of Listeria monocytogenes from food chain using Vitek 2 Compact Biomerieux

Sensitivity of 26 Listeria monocytogenes isolates toward 18 antimicrobial substances used in veterinary and human medicine was examined using the automated VITEK 2 Compact system bioMerieux. The obtained results indicate that L. monocytogenes strains isolated from food and food processing environment had resistance to several or more antimicrobial substances that are commonly used in the treatment in animals and humans. Results showed resistance of all 26 (100%) isolates toward Benzylpenicilin, Ampicilin/Sublactam, Oxacillin, Imipenem and Fosfomycine. Also 7 of the isolates (26.9%) were resistant to Clindamiycin, 3 (11.5%) to Quinupristion/Dalfopristin and 1 strain to Teicoplanin, Vancomycin, Tetracycline and Fusic acid, respectively

Occurrence of aflatoxins in peanuts and peanut products determined by liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection

Liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection using immunoaffinity column clean-up was a method described for determination of aflatoxins (AFB1, AFB2, AFG1 and AFG2) in peanuts and peanut based products. The validation of the procedure was performed. Good coefficient of correlation was found for all aflatoxins in the range of 0.9993-0.9999. Limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) ranged from 0.003-0.005 mg/kg and 0.009-0.023 mg/kg, respectively, which was acceptable. The mean recovery for total aflatoxins was 88.21%. The method also showed acceptable precision values in the range of 0.171-2.626% at proposed concentration levels for all four aflatoxins. RSDR values (within laboratory reproducibility) calculated from the results showed good correlation between two analysts for all aflatoxins and they ranged from 4.93-11.87%. The developed method was applied for the determination of aflatoxins in 27 samples of peanuts and peanut based products. The results showed that 21 peanut samples (77.7%) were below LOD of the method. Three samples had positive results over the MRL. There was one extreme value recorded for the total aflatoxins in peanut (289.2 mg/kg) and two peanut based products, peanut snack and peanut, with total content of aflatoxins being 16.3 mg/kg and 8.0 mg/kg, respectively. The obtained results demonstrated that the procedure was suitable for the de­termination of aflatoxins in peanuts and peanut based products and it could be implemented for the routine analysis