Nonlocal control of pulse propagation in excitable media

We study the effects of nonlocal control of pulse propagation in excitable media. As a generic example for an excitable medium the FitzHugh-Nagumo model with diffusion in the activator variable is considered. Nonlocal coupling in form of an integral term with a spatial kernel is added. We find that the nonlocal coupling modifies the propagating pulses of the reaction-diffusion system such that a variety of spatio-temporal patterns are generated including acceleration, deceleration, suppression, or generation of pulses, multiple pulses, and blinking pulse trains. It is shown that one can observe these effects for various choices of the integral kernel and the coupling scheme, provided that the control strength and spatial extension of the integral kernel is appropriate. In addition, an analytical procedure is developed to describe the stability borders of the spatially homogeneous steady state in control parameter space in dependence on the parameters of the nonlocal coupling

Appropriation of mobile cultural resources for learning

Copyright © 2010 IGI Global. This article proposes appropriation as the key for the recognition of mobile devices - as well as the artefacts accessed through, and produced with them - as cultural resources across different cultural practices of use, in everyday life and formal education. The article analyses the interrelationship of users of mobile devices with the structures, agency and practices of, and in relation to what the authors call the "mobile complex". Two examples are presented and some curricular options for the assimilation of mobile devices into settings of formal learning are discussed. Also, a typology of appropriation is presented that serves as an explanatory, analytical frame and starting point for a discussion about attendant issues

Efficient Pattern Matching in Python

Pattern matching is a powerful tool for symbolic computations. Applications include term rewriting systems, as well as the manipulation of symbolic expressions, abstract syntax trees, and XML and JSON data. It also allows for an intuitive description of algorithms in the form of rewrite rules. We present the open source Python module MatchPy, which offers functionality and expressiveness similar to the pattern matching in Mathematica. In particular, it includes syntactic pattern matching, as well as matching for commutative and/or associative functions, sequence variables, and matching with constraints. MatchPy uses new and improved algorithms to efficiently find matches for large pattern sets by exploiting similarities between patterns. The performance of MatchPy is investigated on several real-world problems

Communicative Modes after the Coherent Media – Orientation within as semiotic space

Mass communication as our familiar mode of a medial organised public is integrated into the current cultural change of society. The article takes a look at one aspect of this change, which comes along with a shift in the function of the recipient with regard to medial texts. Reception takes over essential functions of text production, which until then has been left to the authors and broadcasters. While the distinct, coherent medium is no longer shaping our mass communication as token for granted, new text types like intramedial links gain importance. They give the recipient the possibility to combine media offers into a kind of personalised units, which fit in the recipients' relevance structures.Mass communication as our familiar mode of a medial organised public is integrated into the current cultural change of society. The article takes a look at one aspect of this change, which comes along with a shift in the function of the recipient with regard to medial texts. Reception takes over essential functions of text production, which until then has been left to the authors and broadcasters. While the distinct, coherent medium is no longer shaping our mass communication as token for granted, new text types like intramedial links gain importance. They give the recipient the possibility to combine media offers into a kind of personalised units, which fit in the recipients' relevance structures

Mobility – innovative impulses for pedagogy and media education in a disparate culture

Mobilität ist sowohl die im Alltagsleben etablierte individualisierte, massenmediale Mobilität von Handy und Internet als auch die Mobilität von globaler Flucht und Migration, die Europa aktuell in einen Krisenmodus stürzt. Diese Formen von Mobilität sind dynamische Elemente einer Kultur, die sich unter anderem dadurch auszeichnet, dass die Menschen kulturelle Kohärenz in ihren Lebenszusammenhängen selber herstellen müssen. Nach einer Erläuterung, was mit dem Begriff der disparaten Kultur gemeint ist, folgt eine Diskussion, welche Aufgaben und Optionen für Pädagogik und Medienpädagogik in unserer disparaten Kultur entstanden sind. Dazu werden die beiden Formen von Mobilität mit dem Gedanken der Kontexte und dem der kulturellen Ressourcen verbunden. Als didaktische Schlussfolgerung ergeben sich daraus Szenarien für den Zweitspracherwerb in Schulen. Von zwei praktischen Beispiele wird berichtet. Der dritte Teil stellt die notwendige pädagogische Selbstreflexion in die Tradition der Hermeneutik und schlägt vor, sie als Reflexion in Kontexten zu bestimmen. Dabei steht die Frage nach muslimischer Pädagogik und ihre Reaktion auf die Migration von Muslimen im Vordergrund. Leitend ist dabei die Vorstellung von Citizenship als Ziel für Identitätsentwicklung, die in ein Pilotprojekt in einem muslimisch geprägten Londoner Stadtteil eingeht, um soziales Lernen mit aktuellen mobilen Kulturressourcen, konkret ist es das Handy, mit dem Zweitspracherwerb zu verbinden.Mobility comprises the individualized mobility of mass communication which is established in everyday life by mobile devices and Internet, furthermore the mobility of refugees and global migration which is currently pushing Europe among others into a mode of crisis. These forms of mobility are dynamic elements of a culture characterized by the fact that people have to produce cultural coherence for the structural conditions of their lives. After explaining what is meant by the concept of a disparate culture, a discussion follows about the tasks and options for pedagogy and media pedagogy which emerge in a disparate culture. To achieve this, the two forms of mobility are linked to the concepts of contexts and cultural resources. The draft of two scenarios for second language learning in schools tries to make concrete the theoretical consideration on mobility, contexts and cultural resources. The third part introduces the necessary pedagogical self-reflection in the tradition of hermeneutics and proposes to classify hermeneutics as reflection in contexts. This focuses to Muslim education and educational responses to the migration of Muslims. The concept of citizenship should give the guidelines for the development of the identity of children and young people. A pilot project in a neighbourhood of London with a Muslim cultural orientation tries to make concrete how citizenship as educational objective enhances as well social learning with current mobile cultural resources, specifically the mobile phone, as it supports the second language acquisition

Media socialisation and the culturally dominant mode of representation - On the way from the coherent media to semiotic spaces, the example of Popstars

The cultural relation between media and its users is undergoing transition. One influence comes from the changing quality of the interrelation of media, commodities and events. This essay is an attempt to reveal the quality of this development by using two strands of argumentation. Firstly the cultural form (Raymond Williams 1975) of the relation between media, commodities, and situation for which Popstars is an example. The second strand of the essay will deal with the socialization process resultant from of this transitional cultural form. Differently expressed with a more actual wording of the available theories, a specific socialization process emerges with the complex of multimedia, intertextual cultural products, landscapes and mediated spaces of childhood.The cultural relation between media and its users is undergoing transition. One influence comes from the changing quality of the interrelation of media, commodities and events. This essay is an attempt to reveal the quality of this development by using two strands of argumentation. Firstly the cultural form (Raymond Williams 1975) of the relation between media, commodities, and situation for which Popstars is an example. The second strand of the essay will deal with the socialization process resultant from of this transitional cultural form. Differently expressed with a more actual wording of the available theories, a specific socialization process emerges with the complex of multimedia, intertextual cultural products, landscapes and mediated spaces of childhood

Thematic Fields Of Media Education

Schnell ist das Ziel der Medienpädagogik mit "Medienkompetenz" benannt. Wenn man die Geschichte der Medienpädagogik und Mediendidaktik durchgeht, dann ist mit dieser Zieldefinition schon eine Menge erreicht. Es ist ein Erfolg der Medienpädagogik als Disziplin, dass sich eine von Politik, Wirtschaft und Schule akzeptierte Zielvorstellung heraus kristallisiert hat. Reicht diese allgemeine Akzeptanz jedoch aus, um Medien als Bildungsaufgabe zu bestimmen? Will man sich der Bildungsaufgabe theoretisch wie praktisch stellen, dann geht es um nicht weniger als die Frage, wie Medien in das Verhältnis der Menschen zu sich, zu anderen, zur Kultur, zu den Dingen und Ereignissen vermittelnd eingreifen, vielleicht sogar Prägekraft entwickeln. Das Verhältnis der Menschen zu sich, zur sozialen, dinglichen und kulturellen Umwelt war und ist immer in Bewegung. In diesem Verhältnis entstanden und entstehen typische Formen von Subjektivität, verläuft Sozialisation. Subjektivität konstituiert sich immer in einem unstetigen Feld von subjektivem Innen und objektivem Außen, von individueller Erfahrung und institutioneller Festlegung, von vorgegebener Kultur und einmaliger Aneignung. Im Moment erleben wir dieses Feld als besonders unstetig. Deshalb die Frage, was sich aktuell verändert, um die für die Konstitution von Subjektivität, anders formuliert, um die für Bildung und Sozialisation maßgebliche Konstellation im Medienbereich zu entdecken. Vielleicht lassen sich so Themenfelder der Medienpädagogik neu akzentuieren. Deshalb einführend einige Stichworte zur kulturellen und gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung.The goal of media education is quickly named "media competence". If one goes through the history of media education and media didactics, then a lot has already been achieved with this definition of the goal. It is a success of media education as a discipline that a goal accepted by politics, business and schools has crystallised. But is this general acceptance sufficient to define media as an educational task? If one wants to face the educational task theoretically as well as practically, then it is about nothing less than the question of how media intervene in the relationship of people to themselves, to others, to culture, to things and events, perhaps even developing formative power. The relationship of people to themselves, to the social, material and cultural environment was and is always in motion. In this relationship, typical forms of subjectivity emerged and continue to emerge, and socialisation takes place. Subjectivity is always constituted in an unsteady field of subjective inside and objective outside, of individual experience and institutional determination, of given culture and unique appropriation. At the moment, we experience this field as particularly discontinuous. Hence the question of what is currently changing in order to discover the constellation in the media field that is decisive for the constitution of subjectivity, in other words, for education and socialisation. Perhaps this will allow us to accentuate the topics of media education in a new way. Therefore, by way of introduction, a few key words on cultural and social development

Study Profile: Media Studies For Schools

Ein anderes Ausbildungskonzept im Rahmen einer notwendigen Reform erziehungswissenschaftlicher Studiengänge stellt dieser Autor vor: das "European Programm in Media, Communication and Cultural Studies", das als ein einjähriges Studium im Rahmen eines internationalen Universitätsnetzwerks konzipiert ist und das Basis eines Ausbildungsprofil "Medienpädagogik/Medienwissenschaften" im Rahmen der Lehramtausbildung an der Universität Kassel werden soll. (DIPF/Orig.).This author presents another training concept within the framework of a necessary reform of educational science courses: the "European Programme in Media, Communication and Cultural Studies", which is conceived as a one-year course of study within the framework of an international university network and which is to become the basis of a training profile "Media Education/Media Studies" within the framework of teacher training at the University of Kassel. (DIPF/Orig.)