735 research outputs found
Furious Angels
No full textReunited by tragedy, Andrew and Will are unlikely pawns in a high-stakes game of A.I. and religious fanaticism. Answering a call from beyond the grave they are unwittingly thrown into a vast technological world both deadly and fascinating. This is the breathtaking first book in the series by Irish author Dr Damien Mac Namara
How Is Damien Hirst a Cultural Entrepreneur?
No full textabstract: An on-going academic debate occupying Entrepreneurship researchers for the past several decades is concerned with defining what an entrepreneur is and what an entrepreneur does. The debate also extends to exploring the influence different types of entrepreneurs have on their environment. In the new creative economy, entrepreneurship has become a central issue for the regeneration of urban space. This essay first differentiates between economic and cultural entrepreneurs and second explores what influence cultural entrepreneurs, especially, have on urban developments. By using Damien Hirst as exemplar for the discussion of the entrepreneurial character and spheres of action, the analysis of his career demonstrates how difficult it is in practice to draw a line between artistic, cultural and commercial activities in the creative economy. Hirst’s approach to contemporary conceptual art and his factory-like art production are both controversial and successful as defined by the author. Nevertheless, there seems to be agreement that his entrepreneurial artistic work has had a profound impact on the revitalization of East London and thus can be used as model for urban planners. The author posits that Hirst is a cultural entrepreneur based on this model for creating/regenerating viable economic urban spaces who embraces the blending of the artistic and market spheres
Transforming the Reading Experience of Scientific Documents with Polymorphism
No full textDespite the opportunities created by digital reading, documents remain mostly static and mimic paper. Any improvement in the shape or form of documents has to come from authors who contend with current digital formats, workflows, and software and who impose a presentation to readers. Instead, I propose the concept of polymorphic documents which are documents that can change in form to offer better representations of the information they contain. I believe that multiple representations of the same information can help readers, and that any document can be made polymorphic, with no intervention from the original author. This thesis presents four projects investigating what information can be obtained from existing documents, how this information can be better represented, and how these representations can be generated using only the source document. To do so, I draw upon theories showing the benefit of presenting information using multiple representations; the design of interactive systems to support morphing representations; and user studies to evaluate system usability and the benefits of the new representations on reader comprehension
L’« Incroyable » trésor de Damien Hirst présenté à Venise en 2017
No full textCet article se propose de revenir sur l’exposition Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable de l’artiste britannique Damien Hirst. Présentée à Venise en 2017, elle mettait en lumière le prétendu trésor de l’épave « l’Incroyable », découvert au large des côtes d’Afrique en 2008. Il s’agit d’une lecture personnelle de l’auteur à la suite de sa visite en septembre 2017.This paper aims to analyse the exhibition “Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable” by the British artist Damien Hirst. Presented at Venice in 2017, the exhibition showed the treasure of the so-called “Unbelievable”, discovered off the African West coast in 2008. This paper is a personal analyze of the author after her visit in September 2017
The 'auto cannibal'
No full textThe relentless triumph of technology is increasingly dismissive of the human desire for interaction; we are deprived of experiences with the ordinary and become less aware of the potential such objects contain. The author primarily considers art as a means of understanding the world and his practice is based on personal observations and autonomous processes. This can often lead to an over-analysis of the mundane, which is directly confronted in each of my projects through an enthusiasm for the objects we not only take for granted, but do so to the extent that we barely notice their existence. Drawing inspiration from literature, philosophy and ideas which surround permanence in a society which is frequently considered throwaway, the author is influenced by personal insecurities and have developed a creative style that not only explores construction - in the obsessive means by which a work is made; but also one that celebrates the process of destruction - in that the materials the author uses have the potential to instigate their own demise in a process I generally refer to as autocannibalism
Dress, law and naked truth : a cultural study of fashion and form
No full textWhy are civil authorities in so-called liberal democracies affronted by public nudity and the Islamic full-face 'veil'? Why is law and civil order so closely associated with robes, gowns, suits, wigs and uniforms? Why is law so concerned with the 'evident' and the need for justice to be 'seen' to be done? Why do we dress and obey dress codes at all? In this, the first ever study devoted to the many deep cultural connections between dress and law, the author addresses these questions and more. His responses flow from the radical thesis that 'law is dress and dress is law'. Engaging with sources from The Epic of Gilgamesh to Shakespeare, Carlyle, Dickens and Damien Hirst, Professor Watt draws a revealing history of dress and civil order and offers challenging conclusions about the nature of truth and the potential for individuals to fit within the forms of civil life
Law, Politics and the Limits of Prosecuting Mass Atrocity
No full textDamien Rogers is Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at Massey University, New Zealand. This book offers a unique and powerful critique of the quest for international criminal justice. It explores the efforts of three successive generations of international prosecutors, recognising the vital roles they play in the enforcement of international criminal law. By critically examining prosecutorial performance during the pre-trial and trial phases, the volume argues that these prosecutors are simultaneously political actors serving in the interests of economic liberalisation. It also posits that international prosecutors help wage a mostly silent and largely unacknowledged politico-cultural war fought for control over the institutions governing modernist international affairs. As the author contends, international prosecutors are thus best understood as agents not only of the law and politics, but also of a war fought by proponents of various utopian projects
The terrifying conversation. : A thematical and narratolocial study og Damien Echols' autobiography Life After Death and Stephen King's novel Salem's Lot
No full textThis paper investigates narrative and thematic structures in Damien Echols’ autobiography Life After Death (2012) and Stephen King’s horror novel ’Salem’s Lot (1975). In Life After Death Echols tells the tale of his eighteen-year incarceration on Death Row in Arkansas/USA. He also uses his childhood memories to overcome hardships in the prison system. ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King deals with the invasion of vampires in a small town in rural Maine in the North East corner of the United States. The author of this study discusses if and how Damien Echols was inspired in his writing by the writings of Stephen King. Considering the length of this study the author has chosen to limit the comparison of Echols’ autobiography with Stephen King to only one of King’s novels, ‘Salem’s Lot. One issue of discussion in this study is as to wether it is legitimate to compare two different genres and to what length they correspond with each other on a literary level. Thus the choice of certain narrative tools for the analysis. The author of this study uses theories based on the works of literary theorist Gérard Genette and also discusses autobiography as genre. Themes that are explored in the analysis are memories, horror, evil places and children at risk, the latter especially in the modern American horror genre. The study highlights that Damien Echols frequently read works by Stephen King, both during his adolescence and in prison, and was inspired by a certain “beat” in King’s novels. Furthermore, both authors use themes as the above mentioned memories, horror, evil places and children at risk in their works. This paper concludes with showing that Echols is influenced in his writing by King’s horror novels, both on a narrative level and a thematic level
The terrifying conversation. : A thematical and narratolocial study og Damien Echols' autobiography Life After Death and Stephen King's novel Salem's Lot
No full textThis paper investigates narrative and thematic structures in Damien Echols’ autobiography Life After Death (2012) and Stephen King’s horror novel ’Salem’s Lot (1975). In Life After Death Echols tells the tale of his eighteen-year incarceration on Death Row in Arkansas/USA. He also uses his childhood memories to overcome hardships in the prison system. ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King deals with the invasion of vampires in a small town in rural Maine in the North East corner of the United States. The author of this study discusses if and how Damien Echols was inspired in his writing by the writings of Stephen King. Considering the length of this study the author has chosen to limit the comparison of Echols’ autobiography with Stephen King to only one of King’s novels, ‘Salem’s Lot. One issue of discussion in this study is as to wether it is legitimate to compare two different genres and to what length they correspond with each other on a literary level. Thus the choice of certain narrative tools for the analysis. The author of this study uses theories based on the works of literary theorist Gérard Genette and also discusses autobiography as genre. Themes that are explored in the analysis are memories, horror, evil places and children at risk, the latter especially in the modern American horror genre. The study highlights that Damien Echols frequently read works by Stephen King, both during his adolescence and in prison, and was inspired by a certain “beat” in King’s novels. Furthermore, both authors use themes as the above mentioned memories, horror, evil places and children at risk in their works. This paper concludes with showing that Echols is influenced in his writing by King’s horror novels, both on a narrative level and a thematic level
Pilot sequences for Faster-than-Nyquist synchronization
No full textLa transmission Faster-than-Nyquist (FTN) monoporteuse consiste à transmettre avec un rythme symbole supérieur à la bande occupée par le signal émis. Cette stratégie s’est révélée pertinente pour accroître l’efficacité spectrale atteignable sur des canaux contraints en puissance et pour rendre le signal de communication difficile à identifier pour un éventuel noeud espion. Alors que de très nombreuses contributions se sont focalisées sur la détection symbole (ou séquence) en présence d’interférence entre impulsions de mise en forme, nous nous intéressons à la synchronisation, peu étudiée pour ce mode de transmission mais essentielle pour pouvoir envisager des récepteurs pratiques. L’objet principal de ces travaux de thèse est la conception de séquences pilotes adaptées à la synchronisation du délai et de la phase en FTN, au sens de la minimisation de la borne de Cramér–Rao (CRB) des paramètres, en fonction de la densité de transmission. À travers une étude analytique de la CRB du délai, nous révélons qu’une séquence optimale pour l’estimation de ce paramètre pour un système de Nyquist est non-informative pour les systèmes FTN, dans le cas d’un filtre de mise en forme réel de type root-raised cosine. Les courbes de CRB des paramètres obtenues sont comparées à des estimateurs basés sur le maximum de vraisemblance, asymptotiquement efficaces. Des études complémentaires à ces travaux pourraient inclure une évaluation de la robustesse des estimateurs basés sur le maximum de vraisemblance à une contamination des symboles pilotes par des symboles de données. Aussi, il serait pertinent de prévoir une étape préliminaire de synchronisation du décalage en fréquence.Faster-than-Nyquist (FTN) signalling for single-carrier modulations consists in transmitting data with a symbol rate greater than the occupied bandwidth. It is a promising strategy to increase the spectral efficiency at fixed constellation size, especially in powerconstrained channels. FTN signals are also more difficult to intercept by a possible eavesdropper. While many contributions focus on symbol (or sequence) detection in presence of interpulse interference, we address the synchronization issue. It is poorly studied for FTN transmissions whereas it is essential to envision practical FTN receivers. The main problem of this PhD work is the conception of CRB-minimizing pilot sequences for timing and phase synchronization in FTN scenarios. We perform an analytical study of the CRB for timing synchronization and we show that an optimal sequence for a Nyquist system becomes non-informative at higher densities, considering a real-valued root-raised cosine shaping filter. The obtained CRBs of the synchronization parameters are benchmarked by asymptotically efficient maximumlikelihood (ML)-based estimators. Perspectives may include an evaluation of the robustness of the ML-based estimators to a pilot contamination with data symbols. Also, a coarse frequency synchronization step can be relevant before considering timing and phase estimation
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