Embodied Knowledge and Sensory Information: Theoretical Roots and Inspirations

This review paper examines some of the main theoretical influences prompting a reappreciation of the importance of the body and how it may be conceived as relevant to information studies (IS). It starts by placing this increased recognition of the body in its historical and social context. It then examines, in turn, how the body is viewed in the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty; practice theory; embodied cognition; and sensory studies. Existing and potential influences in information studies are discussed. Most work that reexamines the place of the body reflects the influence of Merleau-Ponty, but he has had relatively little direct impact on IS. Practice theory does deal with the body, and this has already been picked up quite strongly in IS. Work in the area of embodied cognition has the potential to fundamentally change our view of the relation of the mind and the body, and information as an aspect of that relation. Sensory studies offers a powerful framework for examining the cultural shaping of the senses as a source of information. The implications of the bodily turn for methodology are briefly discussed

Implementing a Human Resources Competency-Based Model: An Actor Network-Perspective

This paper draws on a qualitative study informed by Actor-Network Theory (ANT). A socio-technical perspective is presented to describe how humans and non-human actors are attempted to be enrolled during a Human Resources Competency-Based Model (HRCBM) Implementation in a multi-campus University System in Mexico. The Project Implementation (PI) is seen as continuous processes of negotiation with and enrollment of relevant actors during the project trajectory. It includes insights from 17 semi-structured interviews with actors involved in the project. The paper shows how an actor-network was created, expanded and maintained. To strengthen the network stability, different strategies were developed and implemented by the core implementation team. But other issues suggested by ANT contributed to slow down the implementation process: some omissions made by the core team during the problematization stage, the failure to fully enroll relevant actors and the existence of a competing network. This approach can help researchers to better understand how to apply ANT concepts to study socio-technical situations such as a Project Implementation

The Emergence of Libyan Networked Publics: Social Media Use during and after the Libyan Uprising

It is often claimed that social media sites such as Facebook played a key role during the so-called ‘Arab Spring’. Yet there have been few attempts to track what happened during and after the Libyan uprising, and how social media are – and are not - contributing to the development of revolutionary and post-revolutionary public sphere in the Libyan context. In Libya, there was an explosive growth in social media use during the post-uprising period. This rapid growth could be seen to potentially form the basis for the emergence of a new democratic, networked public sphere. By engaging with different conceptualizations and various critiques of Habermas’[1] public sphere concept, this study aims to explore the nature of emergent Libyan digital publics, and their possible role in transforming the Libyan public sphere

Introduction

Within library and information science (LIS), the study of information behavior has traditionally focused on documentary sources of information and to some degree information that is shared through interaction.1 Such an emphasis reflects the origins of the whole field in the study of the information behavior of users of libraries and other institutions that provide access to encoded forms of knowledge. Yet the centrality of embodied experience in all aspects of human life makes the relative neglect of the body in information behavior studies surprising and potentially problematic, as a number of authors have suggested (Cox, Griffin, and Hartel 2017; Lueg 2014, 2015; Lloyd 2009, 2010, 2014; Olsson, 2010, 2016). This special double issue of Library Trends on “Information and the Body” brings together researchers interested in embodied information, including in how we receive information through the senses, what the body “knows,” and the way the body is a sign that can be interpreted by others

Ideal wet two-dimensional foams and emulsions with finite contact angle

We present simulations that show that an ideal two-dimensional foam with a finite contact angle develops an inhomogeneity for high liquid fraction $\phi$. In liquid-liquid emulsions this inhomogeneity is known as flocculation. In the case of an ordered foam this requires a perturbation, but in a disordered foam inhomogeneity grows steadily and spontaneously with $\phi$, as demonstrated in our simulations performed with the Surface Evolver

Minnorm training: an algorithm for training over-parameterized deep neural networks

In this work, we propose a new training method for finding minimum weight norm solutions in over-parameterized neural networks (NNs). This method seeks to improve training speed and generalization performance by framing NN training as a constrained optimization problem wherein the sum of the norm of the weights in each layer of the network is minimized, under the constraint of exactly fitting training data. It draws inspiration from support vector machines (SVMs), which are able to generalize well, despite often having an infinite number of free parameters in their primal form, and from recent theoretical generalization bounds on NNs which suggest that lower norm solutions generalize better. To solve this constrained optimization problem, our method employs Lagrange multipliers that act as integrators of error over training and identify `support vector'-like examples. The method can be implemented as a wrapper around gradient based methods and uses standard back-propagation of gradients from the NN for both regression and classification versions of the algorithm. We provide theoretical justifications for the effectiveness of this algorithm in comparison to early stopping and $L_2$-regularization using simple, analytically tractable settings. In particular, we show faster convergence to the max-margin hyperplane in a shallow network (compared to vanilla gradient descent); faster convergence to the minimum-norm solution in a linear chain (compared to $L_2$-regularization); and initialization-independent generalization performance in a deep linear network. Finally, using the MNIST dataset, we demonstrate that this algorithm can boost test accuracy and identify difficult examples in real-world datasets

Petrogenesis of plagiogranites in the Muslim Bagh Ophiolite, Pakistan: implications for the generation of Archaean continental crust

High-SiO2 rocks referred to as oceanic plagiogranites are common within the crustal sequences of ophiolites; however, their mode of petrogenesis is controversial with both late-stage fractional crystallization and partial melting models being proposed. Here, we present new whole-rock data from plagiogranitic dyke-like bodies and lenses from the lower and middle sections of the sheeted dyke complex of the Cretaceous Muslim Bagh Ophiolite, northwestern Pakistan. The plagiogranites have similar geochemical signatures that are inconsistent with them being the fractionation products of the mafic units of the Muslim Bagh Ophiolite. However, the plagiogranites all display very low TiO2 contents (<0.4 wt%), implying that they formed by partial melting of mafic rocks. Melt modelling of a crustal gabbro from the Muslim Bagh Ophiolite shows that the trace-element signature of the plagiogranites can be replicated by 5–10% melting of a crustal hornblende gabbro with amphibole as a residual phase, resulting in a concave-up middle rare Earth element pattern. Compositional similarities between the Muslim Bagh Ophiolite plagiogranites and Archaean TTG (trondhjemite–tonalite–granodiorite) has implications for the generation of juvenile Archaean continental crust. As the Muslim Bagh Ophiolite was derived in a supra-subduction zone, it is suggested that some Archaean TTG may have been derived from melting of mafic upper crust in early subduction-like settings. However, due to the small volume of Muslim Bagh Ophiolite plagiogranites, it is inferred that they can be instructive on the petrogenesis of some, but not all, Archaean TTG