Offline digital – digital offline: The potential of offline digitised information for the production, distribution and appropriation of human knowledge

The lifeworlds of large parts of the human population have undergone profound transformations through the expansion of the internet. Yet great parts of the world are still totally or partially offline. Cheap smartphones, tablets and (off-grid) electricity reach ever more of these populations. Scientists’ fascination with the internet – where money, investments, business models, communication, political control, as well as their lifeworlds converge - has largely obscured the potential of offline digitised information for the storage and distribution of information and the appropriation of knowledge. The profound changes of the socialisation of human knowledge through the revolutions in the transmission media have influenced how societies produce, distribute, receive and appropriate information. The expansion of access to digitised information revolutionises horizontal and vertical transmission. The differences are manifold: physical requirements are reduced – a whole library fits into a pocket; digital information is much cheaper to acquire; logistic chains through which books or journals are produced, shipped, distributed and stored are as unnecessary as are libraries. The actual access to information is also vastly different – the electronic search function and the offline Wikipedia may serve as examples. This suggests a rethinking of the “digital divide” which is no longer synonymous with internet access. Is there rather a frontier zone where different forms of access overlap? What are the distribution and market mechanisms for offline digital information? To what uses can digitised information be put offline? How will the new availability of ever cheaper technology affect knowledge production and appropriation?info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Saudações em África - Além do aperto de mão: Um ensaio sobre os rituais de saudação e despedida como prática de comunicação em sociedades agrárias da África Subsaariana

In African Agrarian Societies greeting and leave-taking rituals are an essential part of the communication processes that constitute these societies as collective entities. Through elaborate forms of greeting and leave-taking people initiate and end communication and interaction processes within a framework of collective identities and cultures. Intricate greeting rituals allow to deal with all forms of encounters, with living people as well as with the spirits of the deceased. Greeting rituals are acquired through lengthy periods of learning. Their mastery is the sign of being an adult and competent member of society. External actors from different cultures often seem to be unaware of the subtleties of these greeting rituals. They ignore them at a cost. This essay provides some insights into the inner workings of African societies concerning the framing of most of their internal and external communication processes that are as vital for their lifeworlds as they are for their interaction with external actors from different spheres. Analysing the societies in a comprehensive manner as self-organising entities within an ethnic matrix clearly shows the limits of reducing greeting rituals to mere speech acts between individuals and proves that some of the fundamental assumptions of modern communication theories are not valid for African Agrarian Societies.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Performance of DB2 Enterprise-Extended Edition on NT with Virtual Interface Architecture

Abstract. DB2 Universal Database Enterprise-Extended Edition (DB2 UDB EEE) is a parallel relational database management system using a sharednothing architecture. DB2 UDB EEE uses multiple nodes connected by an interconnect and partitions data across these nodes. The communication protocol used between nodes of DB2 UDB EEE has historically been Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) / Internet Protocol (IP) but has now been extended to include the Virtual Interface (VI) Architecture. This paper discusses a new protocol termed Virtual Interface Protocol (VIP), built on top of the primitives provided by the VI Architecture. DB2 UDB EEE with VIP on a fast interconnect has shown significant improvement in reducing the elapsed time of queries when compared with TCP/IP over fast ethernet. This paper discusses the implementation and performance results on a Transaction Processing Council's Decision (TPC-D) support database

Influence of oxygen ordering kinetics on Raman and optical response in YBa_2Cu_3O_{6.4}

Kinetics of the optical and Raman response in YBa_2Cu_3O_{6.4} were studied during room temperature annealing following heat treatment. The superconducting T_c, dc resistivity, and low-energy optical conductivity recover slowly, implying a long relaxation time for the carrier density. Short relaxation times are observed for the B_{1g} Raman scattering -- magnetic, continuum, and phonon -- and the charge transfer band. Monte Carlo simulations suggest that these two relaxation rates are related to two length scales corresponding to local oxygen ordering (fast) and long chain and twin formation (slow).Comment: REVTeX, 3 pages + 4 PostScript (compressed) figure

A mathematical description of nerve fiber bundle trajectories and their variability in the human retina

AbstractWe developed a mathematical model wherein retinal nerve fiber trajectories can be described and the corresponding inter-subject variability analyzed. The model was based on traced nerve fiber bundle trajectories extracted from 55 fundus photographs of 55 human subjects. The model resembled the typical retinal nerve fiber layer course within 20° eccentricity. Depending on the location of the visual field test point, the standard deviation of the calculated corresponding angular location at the optic nerve head circumference ranged from less than 1° to 18°, with an average of 8.8°

Ilex paraguariensis extract as drugs alternative for pain

Pain is a common and distressing symptom of many diseases and its clinical treatment generally involves analgesics and anti-inflammatory drugs. This study evaluated the toxicity of Ilex paraguariensis A. St.-Hil. (Aquifoliaceae) aqueous extract (leaves, petioles and branches) and its performance in nociceptive response. Hepatotoxicity, psychostimulant test and evaluation of enzyme markers for liver damage were also tested. Chromatographic analysis by UPLC-MS demonstrated a series of isomeric monocaffeoylquinic acids, isomers of dicaffeoylquinic acids, flavonol glycosides, and saponins. Phase I and II of nociception were obtained for meloxicam, dexamethasone and aqueous Ilex paraguariensis extract. Ilex paraguariensis extract concentration was negatively correlated (R = –0.887) with alanine aminotransferase (p < 0.05) in acetaminophen-induced hepatotoxicity test, indicating an hepatoprotective activity of this extract. Ilex paraguariensis extract also presented analgesic properties equivalent to drugs that already have proven efficacy. Notably, administration of multiple doses of Ilex paraguariensis extract was considered safe from the therapeutic point of view

Catalytic activity imperative for nanoparticle dose enhancement in photon and proton therapy.

Nanoparticle-based radioenhancement is a promising strategy for extending the therapeutic ratio of radiotherapy. While (pre)clinical results are encouraging, sound mechanistic understanding of nanoparticle radioenhancement, especially the effects of nanomaterial selection and irradiation conditions, has yet to be achieved. Here, we investigate the radioenhancement mechanisms of selected metal oxide nanomaterials (including SiO2, TiO2, WO3 and HfO2), TiN and Au nanoparticles for radiotherapy utilizing photons (150 kVp and 6 MV) and 100 MeV protons. While Au nanoparticles show outstanding radioenhancement properties in kV irradiation settings, where the photoelectric effect is dominant, these properties are attenuated to baseline levels for clinically more relevant irradiation with MV photons and protons. In contrast, HfO2 nanoparticles retain some of their radioenhancement properties in MV photon and proton therapies. Interestingly, TiO2 nanoparticles, which have a comparatively low effective atomic number, show significant radioenhancement efficacies in all three irradiation settings, which can be attributed to the strong radiocatalytic activity of TiO2, leading to the formation of hydroxyl radicals, and nuclear interactions with protons. Taken together, our data enable the extraction of general design criteria for nanoparticle radioenhancers for different treatment modalities, paving the way to performance-optimized nanotherapeutics for precision radiotherapy

The neural basis of perceived intensity in natural and artificial touch

Electrical stimulation of sensory nerves is a powerful tool for studying neural coding because it can activate neural populations in ways that natural stimulation cannot. Electrical stimulation of the nerve has also been used to restore sensation to patients who have suffered the loss of a limb. We have used long-term implanted electrical interfaces to elucidate the neural basis of perceived intensity in the sense of touch. To this end, we assessed the sensory correlates of neural firing rate and neuronal population recruitment independently by varying two parameters of nerve stimulation: pulse frequency and pulse width. Specifically, two amputees, chronically implanted with peripheral nerve electrodes, performed each of three psychophysical tasks-intensity discrimination, magnitude scaling, and intensity matching-in response to electrical stimulation of their somatosensory nerves. We found that stimulation pulse width and pulse frequency had systematic, cooperative effects on perceived tactile intensity and that the artificial tactile sensations could be reliably matched to skin indentations on the intact limb. We identified a quantity we termed the activation charge rate (ACR), derived from stimulation parameters, that predicted the magnitude of artificial tactile percepts across all testing conditions. On the basis of principles of nerve fiber recruitment, the ACR represents the total population spike count in the activated neural population. Our findings support the hypothesis that population spike count drives the magnitude of tactile percepts and indicate that sensory magnitude can be manipulated systematically by varying a single stimulation quantity

Inventory of long and short term future needs of food chain users for future functions of internet

vokKVIKA

Evidence for alterations in fixational eye movements in glaucoma

BACKGROUND: Fixation changes in glaucoma are generally overlooked, as they are not strikingly evident as in macular diseases. Fundus perimetry might give additional insights into this aspect, along with traditional perimetric measures. In this work we propose a novel method to quantify glaucomatous changes in fixation features as detected by fundus perimetry and relate them to the extent of glaucomatous damage. METHODS: We retrospectively analysed fixation data from 320 people (200 normal subjects and 120 with glaucoma) from the Preferred Retinal Locus (PRL) detection of a Compass perimeter. Fixation stability was measured as Bivariate Contour Ellipse Area (BCEA), and using two novel metrics: (1) Mean Euclidean Distance (MED) from the Preferred Retinal Locus, and (2) Sequential Euclidean Distance (SED) of sequential fixation locations. These measures were designed to capture the spread of fixation points, and the frequency of position changes during fixation, respectively. RESULTS: In the age corrected analysis, SED was significantly greater in glaucomatous subjects than controls (P = 0.002), but there was no difference in BCEA (P = 0.15) or MED (P = 0.054). Similarly, SED showed a significant association with Mean Deviation (P  0.14 for both). CONCLUSION: Changes in the scanning pattern detected by SED are better than traditional measures of fixation spread (BCEA) for describing the changes in fixation stability observed in glaucoma