148 research outputs found
Media Review: Tron
No full textThis review analyzes the film Tron from the perspective of the gamer. In it, the author explores how the both video games and the film are important forms of technology that have influenced society. It argues, Tron is the ultimate video game movie; it contains all the essential elements that comprise an engaging video game, even though it was released before the development of video games as we know them today
Monte Carlo Tree Search for Simultaneous Move Games: A Case Study in the Game of Tron
No full textMCTS has been successfully applied to many sequential games. This paper investigates Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) for the simultaneous move game Tron. In this paper we describe two different ways to model the simultaneous move game, as a standard sequential game and as a stacked matrix game. Several variants are presented to adapt MCTS to simultaneous move games, such as Sequential UCT, Decoupled UCT, Exp3, and a novel stochastic method based on Regret Matching. Through the experiments in the game of Tron on four different boards, it is shown that Decoupled UCB1-Tuned perform best, winning 62.3% of games overall. We also show that Regret Matching wins 53.1% of games overall and search techniques that model the game sequentially win 51.4-54.3% of games overall
Pejzaż elekTRONiczny - o znaczeniu multimedialnych paratekstów na przykładzie filmu "TRON: Dziedzictwo"
No full textIn this article the author tries to deal with the common hypothesis about the growing role of multimedia
paratexts in the modern film industry. By analyzing Disney’s highly paratextualized production
TRON: Legacy this article attempts to reveal the very complex multimedia universe that surrounds
the initial text (a movie) and immerses viewers in the fictional world. The main object of
research is a specially designed website which is dedicated to the TRON: Legacy feature and represents
all possible ways of extending cinematic entertainment to social practices, thus creating completely
new ways of “using” a film production. Nonetheless, the question arises: are we dealing (in
such a multiplatform entertainment system) with a new kind of cyberculture which incorporates
our physical world into the imaginative dimension of popular culture? By referring to Derrick de
Kerckhove’s well-known statement about the evolution of the electronic layer that covers our culture
as we know it, the author intends to show TRON: Legacy not only as an entertaining space for
paratextual play, but also as a paratext of the non-elecTRONic space of our existence
ElecTRONic Landscape - the Role of Multimedia Paratexts Based on the Example of TRON: Legacy
No full textIn this article the author tries to deal with the common hypothesis about the growing role of multi-media paratexts in the modern film industry. By analyzing Disney’s highly paratextualized produc-tion TRON: Legacy this article attempts to reveal the very complex multimedia universe that sur-rounds the initial text (a movie) and immerses viewers in the fictional world. The main object of research is a specially designed website which is dedicated to the TRON: Legacy feature and repre-sents all possible ways of extending cinematic entertainment to social practices, thus creating com-pletely new ways of “using” a film production. Nonetheless, the question arises: are we dealing (in such a multiplatform entertainment system) with a new kind of cyberculture which incorporates our physical world into the imaginative dimension of popular culture? By referring to Derrick de Kerckhove’s well-known statement about the evolution of the electronic layer that covers our cul-ture as we know it, the author intends to show TRON: Legacy not only as an entertaining space for paratextual play, but also as a paratext of the non-elecTRONic space of our existence.Piotr Siud
How trophic cascades and photic zone nutrient content interact to generate basin-scale differences in the microbial food web
No full textIn linear food chains, resource and predator control produce positive and negative correlations, respectively, between biomass at adjacent trophic levels. These simple relationships become more complex in food webs that contain alternative food chains of unequal lengths. We have used a “minimum” model for the microbial part of the pelagic food web that has three such food chains connecting free mineral nutrients to copepods: via diatoms, autotrophic flagellates, and heterotrophic bacteria. Trophic cascades from copepods strongly modulates the balance between the three pathways and, therefore, the functionality of the microbial food web in services such as food production for higher trophic levels, DOM degradation, and ocean carbon sequestration. The result is a theoretical framework able to explain, not only apparent conflicts in Arctic mesocosm experiments, but also biogeochemical features of the Mediterranean. Here, the fundamental difference between Arctic and Mediterranean microbial food webs is the way they are predator driven by seasonal migration of large copepods in the Arctic, but resource driven due to the anti-estuarine circulation in the Mediterranean. In this framework, global change effects on microbial ecosystem functions are more like to come indirectly through changes in these drivers than through direct temperature effects on the microbes.publishedVersio
Host–virus–predator coexistence in a grey-box model with dynamic optimization of host fitness
No full textThe role of mixotrophic protists in the biological carbon pump
No full textThe traditional view of the planktonic food web describes consumption of inorganic nutrients by photoautotrophic phytoplankton, which in turn supports zooplankton and ultimately higher trophic levels. Pathways centred on bacteria provide mechanisms for nutrient recycling. This structure lies at the foundation of most models used to explore biogeochemical cycling, functioning of the biological pump, and the impact of climate change on these processes. We suggest an alternative new paradigm, which sees the bulk of the base of this food web supported by protist plankton communities that are mixotrophic – combining phototrophy and phagotrophy within a single cell. The photoautotrophic eukaryotic plankton and their heterotrophic microzooplankton grazers dominate only during the developmental phases of ecosystems (e.g. spring bloom in temperate systems). With their flexible nutrition, mixotrophic protists dominate in more-mature systems (e.g. temperate summer, established eutrophic systems and oligotrophic systems); the more-stable water columns suggested under climate change may also be expected to favour these mixotrophs. We explore how such a predominantly mixotrophic structure affects microbial trophic dynamics and the biological pump. The mixotroph-dominated structure differs fundamentally in its flow of energy and nutrients, with a shortened and potentially more efficient chain from nutrient regeneration to primary production. Furthermore, mixotrophy enables a direct conduit for the support of primary production from bacterial production. We show how the exclusion of an explicit mixotrophic component in studies of the pelagic microbial communities leads to a failure to capture the true dynamics of the carbon flow. In order to prevent a misinterpretation of the full implications of climate change upon biogeochemical cycling and the functioning of the biological pump, we recommend inclusion of multi-nutrient mixotroph models within ecosystem studies
Fractal Hypothesis of the Pelagic Microbial Ecosystem—Can Simple Ecological Principles Lead to Self-Similar Complexity in the Pelagic Microbial Food Web?
No full textTrophic interactions are highly complex and modern sequencing techniques reveal enormous biodiversity across multiple scales in marine microbial communities. Within the chemically and physically relatively homogeneous pelagic environment, this calls for an explanation beyond spatial and temporal heterogeneity. Based on observations of simple parasite-host and predator-prey interactions occurring at different trophic levels and levels of phylogenetic resolution, we present a theoretical perspective on this enormous biodiversity, discussing in particular self-similar aspects of pelagic microbial food web organization. Fractal methods have been used to describe a variety of natural phenomena, with studies of habitat structures being an application in ecology. In contrast to mathematical fractals where pattern generating rules are readily known, however, identifying mechanisms that lead to natural fractals is not straight-forward. Here we put forward the hypothesis that trophic interactions between pelagic microbes may be organized in a fractal-like manner, with the emergent network resembling the structure of the Sierpinski triangle. We discuss a mechanism that could be underlying the formation of repeated patterns at different trophic levels and discuss how this may help understand characteristic biomass size-spectra that hint at scale-invariant properties of the pelagic environment. If the idea of simple underlying principles leading to a fractal-like organization of the pelagic food web could be formalized, this would extend an ecologists mindset on how biological complexity could be accounted for. It may furthermore benefit ecosystem modeling by facilitating adequate model resolution across multiple scales
The Attack of the ‘half-formed persons’:the 1811–2 Tron Riot in Edinburgh Revisited
No full textThe existing historiography of crowds and mob behaviour tends to emphasise systemic conflict, or class struggle. As a result, historians have entrenched the ‘protesting crowd’ as the dominant image of past encounters between authority and people. However, what if the riot lay outside the existing nomenclature of social relations? What if, at least on the surface, there was no community to defend, no established grievance, and no negotiation with the authorities to resolve the grievances behind the protests? This article addresses these issues through a forensic examination of the seemingly anarchic Tron riot of 1811–12, using the precognitions of victims and perpetrators – a source untapped by previous historians. Far from being historically unintelligible, the author argues that the actions of the rioters when placed within the context of deteriorating class relations and increased tensions in Edinburgh society in the early nineteenth century are comprehensible. The Tron Riot marked a symbolic turning point in the traditional relationship between the mob and the authorities: negotiation became less dependent on the psychological balance of power but more on open displays of overwhelming coercive power
Nutrient pathways through the microbial food web: principles and predictability discussed, based on five different experiments
No full textAlthough explanatory and predictive powers are 2 closely interconnected aspects of conceptual and mathematical models of complex systems, the two are not equivalent. The 2 aspects are discussed here for the microbial part of photic zone food webs of the marine pelagic. We focus on the specific question of how limiting nutrients are transferred from the dissolved form, through the microbial food web, to mesozooplankton. For this purpose, 5 different nutrient addition experiments are reviewed and compared to a ‘simplest possible’ conceptual food web model. The experiments range in scale from artificial food webs constructed in laboratory chemostats, via mesocosm experiments, to a Lagrangian open-ocean addition experiment and cover time scales from days to weeks. We conclude that main system responses in all cases can be explained within the framework of the simple model, and that each experiment therefore also adds credibility to the basic concepts of this model. However, different system attributes profoundly affect the pathway and speed of nutrient transfer in each experiment. A re-occurring theme seems to be how the interactions between flexible stoichiometry and predatory processes modify experimental outcomes. Understanding the flexibility in the behavior of the system has thus increased with each experiment, but the requirement for new ad hoc assumptions to be added to the basic model structure in each case makes reliable predictions of the experimental outcome appear only possible with further model elaboration
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