2,809 research outputs found
Data and platform co-ops in smart city citizenship: interview with Igor Calzada
Igor Calzada is a senior researcher at universities like Oxford and Cardiff with a focus on urban, regional and technopolitical transformations, considering data issues and social innovation. In November 2020, he launched the book Smart City Citizenship, which proposes another framework at smart cities based on democratic governance and citizenship. Thus, he presents how it is possible to understand and intervene in technopolitical disputes involving algorithms, data, and artificial intelligence based on notions such as digital sovereignty. Among the possibilities, there is the creation of data and platform co-ops based on data and digital commons. For the author, data cooperatives are a subtype of platform cooperatives, in which they focus on business models, while data co-ops share and store data. The book analyzes, among other cases, the Barcelona ecosystem and proposes perspectives for public policies. Currently, Calzada is interested in exploring new models of data governance and artificial intelligence to propose alternative ways to data ecosystems in the European scenario. He defends experimental cities as a reaction to the mainstream idea of the city as a platform, as a reproduction of extractive and panoptic practices through hyperconnectivity. But it will be very difficult in a dangerous context. And he provokes: “how, in the current context, in which we are closed in our homes, can we propose cities with open systems? Other recommendations from the author are an article on platform and data co-ops published in Sustainability journal and a conversation in Spanish about social innovation in smart cities. Read the interview with Igor Calzada: https://digilabour.com.br/2021/01/06/data-and-platform-co-ops-in-smart-city-citizenship-interview-with-igor-calzada
Piano works by Igor Stravinsky
In my work I thought was right at first a brief outline development work of Igor Stravinsky. I also tried to "map out" the emergence of some major piano works by the author. finally, I added a few notes on the piano interpretive art of Igor Stravinsky
Introduzione a Igor Spanò (a cura di) Il Teatro e la festa. Il tempio, la piazza, la scena
Per tre giorni gli studiosi che sono intervenuti al Convegno hanno riflettuto sul senso e sulle funzioni, sulle pratiche cultuali e rituali, sui luoghi che hanno definito nel corso del tempo i momenti della festa e sulle forme di rappresentazione agonistica (danze, corse, gare, giochi di abilità) o drammatica - di cui erano parte essenziale la musica e il canto - che, spesso intrinsecamente, li accompagnano. L'autore nella sua introduzione esamina le sfumature di significato che racchiude il termine utsava, “festa”, “gioia” in sanscrito.For three days the scholars who spoke at the conference reflected on the meaning and functions, on the cult and ritual practices, on the places that have defined the moments of the celebration over time and on the forms of competitive representation (dances, races, competitions, skill games) or dramatic - of which music and singing were an essential part - which, often intrinsically, accompany them. In his introduction, the author examines the nuances of meaning contained in the term utsava, "feast", "joy" in Sanskrit
DigiTranScope: the governance of digitally-transformed society
This volume presents the key outcomes and research findings of the Digitranscope research project of the European Commission Joint Research Centre. The project set out to explore during the period 2017-2020 the challenges and opportunities that the digital transformation is posing to the governance of society. We focused our attention on the governance of data as a key aspect to understand and shape the governance of society. Data is a key resource in the digital economy, and control over the way it is generated, collected, aggregated, and value is extracted and distributed in society is crucial. We have explored the increasing awareness about the strategic importance of data and emerging governance models to distribute the value generated more equitably in society. These findings have contributed to the new policy orientation in Europe on technological and data sovereignty and the sharing of data for the public interest. The digital transformation, the rise of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things offer also new opportunities for new forms of policy design, implementation, and assessment providing more personalised support to those who need it and being more participative throughout the policy cycle. The use of digital twins, gaming, simulation, and synthetic data are just at their beginning but promise to change radically the relationships among all the stakeholders in governance of our society
Mechanistic Modeling of Dose and Dose Rate Dependences of Radiation-Induced DNA Double Strand Break Rejoining Kinetics in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
Mechanistic modeling of DNA double strand break (DSB) rejoining is important for quantifying and medically exploiting radiation-induced cytotoxicity (e.g. in cancer radiotherapy). Most radiation-induced DSBs are quickly-rejoinable and are rejoined within the first 1-2 hours after irradiation. Others are slowly-rejoinable (persist for several hours), and yet others are essentially unrejoinable (persist for >24 hours). The dependences of DSB rejoining kinetics on radiation dose and dose rate remain incompletely understood. We hypothesize that the fraction of slowly-rejoinable and/or unrejoinable DSBs increases with increasing dose/dose rate. This radiation-dependent (RD) model was implemented using differential equations for three DSB classes: quickly-rejoinable, slowly-rejoinable and unrejoinable. Radiation converts quickly-rejoinable to slowly-rejoinable, and slowly-rejoinable to unrejoinable DSBs. We used large published data sets on DSB rejoining in yeast exposed to sparsely-ionizing (electrons and γ-rays, single or split-doses, high or low dose rates) and densely-ionizing (α-particles) radiation to compare the performances of the proposed RD formalism and the established two-lesion kinetic (TLK) model. These yeast DSB rejoining data were measured within the radiation dose range relevant for clonogenic cell survival, whereas in mammalian cells DSB rejoining is usually measured only at supra-lethal doses for technical reasons. The RD model described both sparsely-ionizing and densely-ionizing radiation data much better than the TLK model: by 217 and 14 sample-size-adjusted Akaike information criterion units, respectively. This occurred because: the RD (but not the TLK) model reproduced the observed upwardly-curving dose responses for slowly-rejoinable/unrejoinable DSBs at long times after irradiation; the RD model adequately described DSB yields at both high and low dose rates using one parameter set, whereas the TLK model overestimated low dose rate data. These results support the hypothesis that DSB rejoining is progressively impeded at increasing radiation doses/dose rates
Advantages of Synthetic Noise and Machine Learning for Analyzing Radioecological Data Sets.
The ecological effects of accidental or malicious radioactive contamination are insufficiently understood because of the hazards and difficulties associated with conducting studies in radioactively-polluted areas. Data sets from severely contaminated locations can therefore be small. Moreover, many potentially important factors, such as soil concentrations of toxic chemicals, pH, and temperature, can be correlated with radiation levels and with each other. In such situations, commonly-used statistical techniques like generalized linear models (GLMs) may not be able to provide useful information about how radiation and/or these other variables affect the outcome (e.g. abundance of the studied organisms). Ensemble machine learning methods such as random forests offer powerful alternatives. We propose that analysis of small radioecological data sets by GLMs and/or machine learning can be made more informative by using the following techniques: (1) adding synthetic noise variables to provide benchmarks for distinguishing the performances of valuable predictors from irrelevant ones; (2) adding noise directly to the predictors and/or to the outcome to test the robustness of analysis results against random data fluctuations; (3) adding artificial effects to selected predictors to test the sensitivity of the analysis methods in detecting predictor effects; (4) running a selected machine learning method multiple times (with different random-number seeds) to test the robustness of the detected "signal"; (5) using several machine learning methods to test the "signal's" sensitivity to differences in analysis techniques. Here, we applied these approaches to simulated data, and to two published examples of small radioecological data sets: (I) counts of fungal taxa in samples of soil contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear power plan accident (Ukraine), and (II) bacterial abundance in soil samples under a ruptured nuclear waste storage tank (USA). We show that the proposed techniques were advantageous compared with the methodology used in the original publications where the data sets were presented. Specifically, our approach identified a negative effect of radioactive contamination in data set I, and suggested that in data set II stable chromium could have been a stronger limiting factor for bacterial abundance than the radionuclides 137Cs and 99Tc. This new information, which was extracted from these data sets using the proposed techniques, can potentially enhance the design of radioactive waste bioremediation
Tõrked Eesti venekeelse kirjanduse omaks tunnistamisel 1918–1940. Igor Severjanini juhtum
The article looks at the history of Estonian Russian-language literature in the young Republic of Estonia (1918–1940) and the life and work of the Russian-speaking poet Igor Severyanin (1887–1941) from the perspective of Estonian literature. In 1918, Severyanin, as a mature author, moved permanently from Russia to Estonia. Gradually, he developed a hybrid identity: he became fond of Estonia and wrote in Russian. However, his works have been omitted from the Estonian literary history.
The article sets out the following hypotheses:
1) Estonian Russian-language literature from 1918 to 1940 has not become part of Estonian literature of that period, as its acceptance is hindered by various cultural-historical barriers for literary researchers. The main barriers have been highlighted by means of source criticism.
2) Igor Severyanin’s life and work serve to situate him as a representative of Estonian literature. Terms such as integration and identity were not used in his day, but Severyanin’s personal and creative choices help to understand, retrospectively, that it was important for him to live in Estonia, write poetry inspired by local material, interact with Estonian-speaking colleagues, remain connected with Estonian public and cultural institutions. I have approached Severyanin’s case through the identity theory (the work of John Charles Turner and Homi Bhabha), as well as Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the literary field.
Both hypotheses were confirmed in the article. However, the values of modern multicultural society dictate that the discussion of Estonian literary history should include the Russian-speaking authors of the interwar period. Currently, there are gaps in Estonian literary history regarding these authors. Filling these gaps would mean overcoming the cultural-historical barriers
Compositions of Igor Stravinsky for Violin
The topic of my thesis is life and work of Igor Stravinsky with norrow focus on compositions for violin. I give greater emphasis to compositions Concerto in D for Violin and Orchestra and the Italian suite with which I have personal experience. Igor Stravinsky composed most of the compositions in the 1930th in cooperation with the violinist Samuel Duskin. Only a few of them are completely original works. The author often used musical themes from his own previously composed ballets, such as the The Firebird, Petrushka, The Soldier's Tale, Pulcinella, or Fairy's Kiss.
Composer Igor Stravinsky is certainly a controversial figure. Though essentially a pragmatist, he was always directed more by instinct while creating music. I would like to present to not only violinists interesting circumstances of compositions, even though is still little available informations
Quantitative modeling of responses to chronic ionizing radiation exposure using targeted and non-targeted effects.
The biological effects of chronic ionizing radiation exposure can be difficult to study, but important to understand in order to protect the health of occupationally-exposed persons and victims of radiological accidents or malicious events. They include targeted effects (TE) caused by ionizations within/close to nuclear DNA, and non-targeted effects (NTE) caused by damage to other cell structures and/or activation of stress-signaling pathways in distant cells. Data on radiation damage in animal populations exposed over multiple generations to wide ranges of dose rates after the Chernobyl nuclear-power-plant accident are very useful for enhancing our understanding of these processes. We used a mechanistically-motivated mathematical model which includes TE and NTE to analyze a large published data set on chromosomal aberrations in pond snail (Lymnaea stagnalis) embryos collected over 16 years from water bodies contaminated by Chernobyl fallout, and from control locations. The fraction of embryo cells with aberrations increased dramatically (>10-fold) and non-linearly over a dose rate range of 0.03-420 μGy/h (0.00026-3.7 Gy/year). NTE were very important for describing the non-linearity of this radiation response: the TE-only model (without NTE) performed dramatically worse than the TE+NTE model. NTE were predicted to reach ½ of maximal intensity at 2.5 μGy/h (0.022 Gy/year) and to contribute >90% to the radiation response slope at dose rates <11 μGy/h (0.1 Gy/year). Internally-incorporated 90Sr was possibly more effective per unit dose than other radionuclides. The radiation response shape for chromosomal aberrations in snail embryos was consistent with data for a different endpoint: the fraction of young amoebocytes in adult snail haemolymph. Therefore, radiation may affect different snail life stages by similar mechanisms. The importance of NTE in our model-based analysis suggests that the search for modulators of NTE-related signaling pathways could be a promising strategy for mitigating the deleterious effects of chronic irradiation
- …
