Peter Carey's Laptop

In 2001, the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne built on its holdings of Australian literary manuscripts by acquiring all the papers, drafts and other items associated with Peter Carey’s Booker Prize-winning novel, True History of the Kelly Gang. The centrepiece of this acquisition, and the focus of this article, is Carey’s Apple Mac Classic laptop computer. The argument that is developed in this article is that Carey’s laptop is a technological artefact that operates, especially at the time of its acquisition, as an important talisman in three interrelated senses. First, it was viewed by library staff as a key means of gaining access to the ‘true history’ of Carey’s own creative drive or creative unconscious. Second, its public display alongside other textual objects (mostly books) served to reinforce a reconstructed corporate image that endeavoured to reposition the library as a vital contemporary cultural site and key player in Melbourne’s institutional gallery scene. Third, it was a crucial symbolic acquisition insofar as it spoke to certain desires within library management at that time, and which responded to similar moves at major libraries elsewhere around the world, to embrace collection digitisation as the path forward

Social shaping of mobile geomedia services: An analysis of Yelp and Foursquare

In their book, Location-Based Social Media: Space, Time and Identity, Leighton Evans and Michael Saker remark on the apparent ‘death’ of location-based social networks, suggesting that location-based social networks can now be understood as ‘a form of “zombie-media” that animates and haunts other media platforms’. In this article, we use this perspective as a point of departure for a social shaping of technology-informed analysis of two key geomedia platforms: Yelp and Foursquare. With Yelp approaching its 15th year of service and Foursquare approaching its 10th anniversary, this article provides a timely opportunity to (re-)examine the significance of Yelp and Foursquare and the many reconfigurations both firms have made to their services since their launch. These include, most recently, Yelp’s integration of artificial intelligence/machine learning techniques to parse, sift and order users’ posts and Foursquare’s development of its Pilgrim SDK (software design kit) to power the location services of other platforms, like Tinder and Snap. A social shaping-inflected approach is productive in this context in that it stresses how many of these developments and strategic reorientations are not just in response to shareholder and investor pressures, they are also fundamentally shaped by and made in response to the fluctuating demands of end-users within a complicated, competitive and continuously evolving geomedia ecosystem. Consequently, we draw from the work of Leah A Lievrouw to examine how dual tensions of contingency/determination shape how these applications are designed and used, and how both design and use continue to evolve in response to various external pressures

Users and non-users of next generation broadband

This paper explores the contexts and motivations that underpin the uptake of Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN). The findings are drawn from a mixed-methods research study of households using surveys and interviews conducted in 2011 and 2012 in an early release site of the NBN rollout. Whilst use and non-use have traditionally been treated as questions of digital access, inequality and exclusion, there is evidence for emerging forms of non-use characterized by more critical and discriminating approaches. We contribute to this evidence, but our findings suggest that use and non-use of high speed broadband do not occur in isolation or as an expression of individual choice, but as part of increasingly dense household media ecologies of digital infrastructures, devices, services and knowledge

Metabolic Agents that Enhance ATP can Improve Cognitive Functioning: A Review of the Evidence for Glucose, Oxygen, Pyruvate, Creatine, and L-Carnitine

Over the past four or five decades, there has been increasing interest in the neurochemical regulation of cognition. This field received considerable attention in the 1980s, with the identification of possible cognition enhancing agents or “smart drugs”. Even though many of the optimistic claims for some agents have proven premature, evidence suggests that several metabolic agents may prove to be effective in improving and preserving cognitive performance and may lead to better cognitive aging through the lifespan. Aging is characterized by a progressive deterioration in physiological functions and metabolic processes. There are a number of agents with the potential to improve metabolic activity. Research is now beginning to identify these various agents and delineate their potential usefulness for improving cognition in health and disease. This review provides a brief overview of the metabolic agents glucose, oxygen, pyruvate, creatine, and L-carnitine and their beneficial effects on cognitive function. These agents are directly responsible for generating ATP (adenosine triphosphate) the main cellular currency of energy. The brain is the most metabolically active organ in the body and as such is particularly vulnerable to disruption of energy resources. Therefore interventions that sustain adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels may have importance for improving neuronal dysfunction and loss. Moreover, recently, it has been observed that environmental conditions and diet can affect transgenerational gene expression via epigenetic mechanisms. Metabolic agents might play a role in regulation of nutritional epigenetic effects. In summary, the reviewed metabolic agents represent a promising strategy for improving cognitive function and possibly slowing or preventing cognitive decline

First measurement of the Hubble Constant from a Dark Standard Siren using the Dark Energy Survey Galaxies and the LIGO/Virgo Binary–Black-hole Merger GW170814

International audienceWe present a multi-messenger measurement of the Hubble constant H 0 using the binary–black-hole merger GW170814 as a standard siren, combined with a photometric redshift catalog from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). The luminosity distance is obtained from the gravitational wave signal detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)/Virgo Collaboration (LVC) on 2017 August 14, and the redshift information is provided by the DES Year 3 data. Black hole mergers such as GW170814 are expected to lack bright electromagnetic emission to uniquely identify their host galaxies and build an object-by-object Hubble diagram. However, they are suitable for a statistical measurement, provided that a galaxy catalog of adequate depth and redshift completion is available. Here we present the first Hubble parameter measurement using a black hole merger. Our analysis results in , which is consistent with both SN Ia and cosmic microwave background measurements of the Hubble constant. The quoted 68% credible region comprises 60% of the uniform prior range [20, 140] km s−1 Mpc−1, and it depends on the assumed prior range. If we take a broader prior of [10, 220] km s−1 Mpc−1, we find (57% of the prior range). Although a weak constraint on the Hubble constant from a single event is expected using the dark siren method, a multifold increase in the LVC event rate is anticipated in the coming years and combinations of many sirens will lead to improved constraints on H 0

Multi-messenger observations of a binary neutron star merger

On 2017 August 17 a binary neutron star coalescence candidate (later designated GW170817) with merger time 12:41:04 UTC was observed through gravitational waves by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor independently detected a gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) with a time delay of ~1.7 s with respect to the merger time. From the gravitational-wave signal, the source was initially localized to a sky region of 31 deg2 at a luminosity distance of 40+8-8 Mpc and with component masses consistent with neutron stars. The component masses were later measured to be in the range 0.86 to 2.26 Mo. An extensive observing campaign was launched across the electromagnetic spectrum leading to the discovery of a bright optical transient (SSS17a, now with the IAU identification of AT 2017gfo) in NGC 4993 (at ~40 Mpc) less than 11 hours after the merger by the One- Meter, Two Hemisphere (1M2H) team using the 1 m Swope Telescope. The optical transient was independently detected by multiple teams within an hour. Subsequent observations targeted the object and its environment. Early ultraviolet observations revealed a blue transient that faded within 48 hours. Optical and infrared observations showed a redward evolution over ~10 days. Following early non-detections, X-ray and radio emission were discovered at the transient’s position ~9 and ~16 days, respectively, after the merger. Both the X-ray and radio emission likely arise from a physical process that is distinct from the one that generates the UV/optical/near-infrared emission. No ultra-high-energy gamma-rays and no neutrino candidates consistent with the source were found in follow-up searches. These observations support the hypothesis that GW170817 was produced by the merger of two neutron stars in NGC4993 followed by a short gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) and a kilonova/macronova powered by the radioactive decay of r-process nuclei synthesized in the ejecta

Search for gravitational waves from Scorpius X-1 in the second Advanced LIGO observing run with an improved hidden Markov model

We present results from a semicoherent search for continuous gravitational waves from the low-mass x-ray binary Scorpius X-1, using a hidden Markov model (HMM) to track spin wandering. This search improves on previous HMM-based searches of LIGO data by using an improved frequency domain matched filter, the J-statistic, and by analyzing data from Advanced LIGO's second observing run. In the frequency range searched, from 60 to 650 Hz, we find no evidence of gravitational radiation. At 194.6 Hz, the most sensitive search frequency, we report an upper limit on gravitational wave strain (at 95% confidence) of h095%=3.47×10-25 when marginalizing over source inclination angle. This is the most sensitive search for Scorpius X-1, to date, that is specifically designed to be robust in the presence of spin wandering. © 2019 American Physical Society