Baudrillard on Simulations: an Exegesis and a Critique

This paper is an attempt to explain, apply, and ultimately to point to certain limitations of, Baudrillard’s idea that ours is the age of simulations. As the concept has not always been clearly discussed in the literature, early sections of the paper are devoted to describing the notion and providing some specific examples. How Baudrillard can claim that the age of simulations represents a new, qualitatively distinct, stage of society is also examined. Having articulated the basic idea, the paper goes on to try to show its power by utilizing it to analyze a typical contemporary phenomenon, Starbucks. Thus far the paper’s main aim has been to argue that simulation is indeed an illuminating concept. However, we next point to a serious dilemma which is certainly not resolved by Baudrillard himself. This problem is the fact that he leaves us, apparently, with no ability to ever see through simulations. In response to this difficulty, the final sections of this article try to show how it is actually possible to accept Baudrillard’s basic insight as to the existence and spread of simulations but also possess resources to detect them, thus resisting Baudrillard’s pessimistic conclusion that there is no viable alternative to either living in or producing a world of simulated things. In this section of the paper, a major additional focus is Baudrillard’s analysis of the first Gulf War.Baudrillard; Disney; Gulf War; Signs; Simulation; Starbucks; The Real

Using Cystine Knot Proteins as a Novel Approach to Retarget Oncolytic Measles Virus.

Modified measles virus (MV) has effective oncolytic activity preclinically and is currently being investigated in clinical trials for various types of cancer. We investigated the use of cystine knot proteins (CKPs) to direct MV activity. CKPs are short polypeptides that bind their targets with high affinity. We used a CKP that binds αvβ3, αvβ5, and α5β1 integrins with single-digit nanomolar affinity to retarget MV to the integrins (MV-CKPint). MV-CKPint infected, replicated in, and killed human glioblastoma, medulloblastoma, diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), and melanoma cancer cells in vitro, all of which express the target integrins. MV-CKPint activity was competitively blocked by echistatin, an integrin binding peptide. When the CKP was cleaved from the viral H protein at an included protease site, virus activity was abrogated. When delivered intravenously (i.v.), the retargeted virus reached a subcutaneous glioblastoma tumor bed and produced cytopathic effects similar to that shown by intratumoral injection of the virus. Because these target integrins are overexpressed by tumor vascular endothelium, MV-CKPint may allow for effective therapy with i.v. injection. These results indicate for the first time that CKPs can be used to retarget MV for a receptor of choice. In addition, MV-CKPint provides proof of principle for the use of a CKP of interest to retarget any enveloped virus for both oncolytic and gene therapy purposes

Advances in the design and development of oncolytic measles viruses.

A successful oncolytic virus is one that selectively propagates and destroys cancerous tissue without causing excessive damage to the normal surrounding tissue. Oncolytic measles virus (MV) is one such virus that exhibits this characteristic and thus has rapidly emerged as a potentially useful anticancer modality. Derivatives of the Edmonston MV vaccine strain possess a remarkable safety record in humans. Promising results in preclinical animal models and evidence of biological activity in early phase trials contribute to the enthusiasm. Genetic modifications have enabled MV to evolve from a vaccine agent to a potential anticancer therapy. Specifically, alterations of the MV genome have led to improved tumor selectivity and delivery, therapeutic potency, and immune system modulation. In this article, we will review the advancements that have been made in the design and development of MV that have led to its use as a cancer therapy. In addition, we will discuss the evidence supporting its use, as well as the challenges associated with MV as a potential cancer therapeutic

The Manner of Boyan: Translating Oral Literature

The force of oral transmission--its accuracy and integrity--is perhaps best demonstrated by comparing texts which have been transmitted in written form and orally transmitted texts, both sorts of transmission covering some fairly extensive period of time. One might expect that oral transmission would be far less effective, and that texts transmitted orally would contain many more errors, changes, deletions, accretions, and all manner of other divergences from the original form. Judah Goldin, however, describes the "baskets full of books," the "living texts" represented by the living men who both orally transmitted and constituted, in their own persons, effective "oral publication" of Hebrew sacred material. He adds that "to us it no doubt seems that an oral text would be less trustworthy than a written one. This was not necessarily the case with the ancients" --and he cites the very plain passage in Plato's Phaedrus which argues that writing, as opposed to oral transmission, tends to decrease rather than to increase understanding (Goldin 1955:24, n.). It must be understood, of course, not only that the ancients were accustomed both to transmitting texts orally and to acquiring texts from others via oral transmission, but also that such transmission is a very different thing from what we think of, today, as memorization. Memorization, that is, is understood by us as an essentially word-forword affair. Oral transmission, on the other hand, plainly works with larger blocks of material, using thematic and a variety of traditionally derived patternings to aid retention. Goldin notes that in Jewish tradition "no written text, particularly if it is meant as a guide for conduct, can in and of itself be complete; it must have some form of oral commentary associated with it."--Page 11

System And Method For Authenticating A Speaker Across The Surfaces Of A Security System

A system and method are disclosed of authenticating a user to a security system based on voice recognition. The method could be implemented in a system including a user with a smartphone device at a security access system connected to a Cloud-based authentication server. The method matches a spoken voice picked up locally by the access system to a registered account on the server. The server could have another registered hardware device such as a smartphone or tablet locally connected to the security system using a mechanism such as Bluetooth, WiFi, etc. that is used to identify the user. The system determines that the user is a privileged account holder on the alarm with the permission being verbally requested. The authentication server then matches this command to a trained voice in an appropriate server record. The system then allows the user to arm or disarm the alarm

Records as phenomena: the nature and uses of medical records

In Chapter I, the approach taken to the study of records is introduced. Sociologists and historians treat records as only contingently true. However, they do not explicate the source of the contingency. They do not address the basic idea of records which makes the contingency possible. The notion that records are only contingently true stems from a conception of fact as a relation between record and event which parallels a conception of language as a relation of words to things. The event is supposed to produce the record but the record (and recorder) are not supposed to produce the event. Various practical problems with records stem from the need to produce this asymmetric record-event relationship. In Chapter II, an investigation is begun of how the record-event relationship is achieved. It is achieved by the action of "observation". Observation requires an observer's presence but it also requires that the observer's presence not make a difference to the event. If the observer's presence does not make a difference, his record can be analytically identical with the event and therefore the event can be known through the record. The observer's presence is supposed to rid speech of its opinionated character. By being present, the observer need not speak in an opinionated way. He can be a "witness" to the world which speaks for itself. .ua present witness, what the observer can know is time-bound and place-bound. He can know only the "present" time and the "present" place. Records are the kind of Speech observers produce about the present, speech which does not affect things but merely "notes" things. Given that observers can know only the present, records become necessary in order to grant permanence to an observer's kind of knowledge. In Chapter III, the observer-recorder's concept of the present is further investigated. The present in the sense that it can be known is not a moment in time; it is an appearing, self-disclosing thing. Recording, then, presupposes a particular definition of things: things are appearances. Because the event is thought to present itself, the observer need not contribute to it. To say that the observer can see only the present is not to limit the observer to the "physical". It is to limit the observer to anything which can present itself. Finally, it is suggested that the notion that observers can see only one thing at a time can be accounted for in terms of the grounds of observation. The observer sees just one thing at a time since his notion of a thing is analytically identical to his notion of a time. In Chapters IV and V, an attempt is made to apply the analysis of the grounds of records to problems involved in the use of records by hospital bureaucrats. Bureaucrats seeking to use records face a problem in that they were not present when the records were made (and the event happened) and therefore would seemingly have nothing that is not opinionated speech to say about the record. The bureaucrat's solutions to the problem involve putting his own speech at the service of the record just as the observer puts his speech at the service of the event. The first specific solution is discussed in Chapter IV: bureaucrats can subjugate their speech and know events indirectly by "relying" on observers, thereby achieving analytic identity with observers. Concern with reliability on the part of bureaucrats (and sociological methodologists) is explained in terms of the basic grounds of observation. It is shown in some detail that bureaucrats do in fact attempt to ensure that "reliable" records are produced. In Chapter V, the topic is shifted from reliability to completeness. Hospital administrators are concerned with the completeness of records rather than their accuracy. However, the concern with completeness i: not an example of goal displacement since, through the concern with com.leteness, bureaucrats manage to control their own speech, thus attaining the self-same lack of participation that observers attain. By evaluating records in terms of completeness, bureaucrats turn the record into an appearing thing, thus attaining a kind of presence with it. In the conclusion, two implications of our study for further work are developed. 1. Empirical analysis must be seen not simply as a method for finding'; out whether theories are correct since the very idea of beint empirical precludes even asking some ii portant theoretical questions. 2. Just as record-writing can be thought of as an idea which requires grounds, the speech of social theorists can be thought of as requiring a method. A brief attempt is made to "produce" the speech of Goffman and Garfinkel