La ciencia 2.0 : ¿ciencia del capital o contra el capital?

Todas las tecnologías, más allá de cuál sea la naturaleza de sus componentes y la complejidad de su funcionamiento, se encuentra inmersas en relaciones de poder, tanto en las etapas de diseño (que abarcan la mayor parte de los aspectos técnicos y funcionales), como en los procesos posteriores de fabricación, comercialización, difusión, aplicación y reutilización. Nos referimos aquí a las tecnologías (en plural) como aquellos usos y aplicaciones de conocimientos que especifican modos de hacer cosas de un modo reproducible (Castells, 2009: 12). Las tecnologías presentes y utilizadas en una sociedad en un momento dado, enraizadas en las relaciones sociales existentes (sean éstas de carácter económico, político, artístico, científico, doméstico o de cualquier otra clase) conforman de manera integral lo que puede denominarse como un orden técnico, en tanto correlato tecnológico del orden social. (Párrafo extraído del texto a modo de resumen)Mesa 44/ La era de la información. Sociología de las tecnologías digitales e InternetFacultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

The Indefinite Conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is State-Action

Article published in the Michigan State Journal of Business and Securities Law

The Switch In Time That Saved Nine: A Study of Justice Owen Roberts\u27s Vote in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish

During President Roosevelt\u27s first term in office (1932-1936) the Supreme Court ruled several landmark New Deal measures unconstitutional; a handful of these decisions were by 5-4 margins. It all changed in 1937, when swing Justice Owen Roberts voted to affirm a minimum wage statute in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish; a year earlier he had voted against minimum wage legislation in a similar case. This switch in time that saved nine has no established consensus that explains its occurrence. Some have posited that President Roosevelt\u27s court packing legislation forced Roberts\u27s hand, while other have argued that public opinion caused Roberts\u27s swing in jurisprudence. This paper approaches the question in two realms. First, the specific jurisprudence of Justice Roberts on economic and labor rights issues is examined, producing an original dataset that provides a clear indication of where Roberts stood on these matters from 1931-1937. Using this dataset, which denotes an undeniable conservtive shift pre-Parrish (1934-1936), and a marked liberal shift post the 1936 election, this paper constructs a compelling argument that Justice Roberts\u27s varying jurisprudence was not guided as much by public opinion, or differing legal arguments, but rather by a desire to run against President Roosevelt in the 1936 election. It is an explanation, supported by a plethora of original evidence, that most comprehensively explains Justice Roberts\u27s confounding jurisprudence from 1933-1937

FSH Treated Cells and the Effects on Cell Signaling

The endocrine system is essential to the management of homeostasis (source 1). The endocrine system is such an integral part of human survival and homeostasis because it involves almost every cell, tissue, and organ within the body. The endocrine system functions by the secretion of chemical signals, referred to as hormones, by a collection of cells called glands. These hormones are passed through the blood stream to reach their target, which possesses a receptor specific to a given hormone. These endocrine glands are not to be confused with exocrine glands, which secretes chemical signals through a gland’s duct opening to an epidermal surface instead of the bloodstream. Hormones of the endocrine system can be broken down into two general classes. First, there are the peptide hormones, which are chains of various amino acids and they interact with their target cell through a receptor on the outer membrane of responsive cells. Following the binding to an extracellular receptor, a cascade is initiated to generate a second messenger, inducing a response in the target cell. The other class of hormones is the steroid hormones, which are synthesized from cholesterol precursors. Unlike peptide hormones, steroid hormones are lipid soluble and pass through the extracellular membrane and bind to a specific receptor protein in the cytoplasm or the nucleus. This receptor–hormone complex then binds to the cell’s DNA. This binding of the receptor protein to the DNA can either increase or decrease the transcription of specific mRNA

Robust evolutionary algorithms

Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) have shown great potential to solve complex real world problems, but their dependence on problem specific configuration in order to obtain high quality performance prevents EAs from achieving widespread use. While it is widely accepted that statically configuring an EA is already a complex problem, dynamic configuration of an EA is a combinatorially harder problem. Evidence provided here supports the claim that EAs achieve the best results when using dynamic configurations. By designing methods that automatically configure parts of an EA or by changing how EAs work to avoid configurable aspects, EAs can be made more robust, allowing them better performance on a wider variety of problems with less requirements on the user. Two methods are presented in this thesis to increase the robustness of EAs. The first is a novel algorithm designed to automatically configure and dynamically update the recombination method which is used by the EA to exploit known information to create new solutions. The techniques used by this algorithm can likely be applied to other aspects of an EA in the future, leading to even more robust EAs. The second is an existing set of algorithms which only require a single configurable parameter. The analysis of the existing set led to the creation of a new variation, as well as a better understanding of how these algorithms work. Both methods are able to outperform more traditional EAs while also making both easier to apply to new problems. By building upon these methods, and perhaps combining them, EAs can become even more robust and become more widely used --Abstract, page iv