In 2004 and 2005, Antonio Negri held ten workshops at the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris to formulate a new political grammar of the postmodern. Biopolitics, biopowers, control, the multitude, people, war, borders, dependency and interdependency, state, nation, the common, difference, resistance, subjective rights, revolution, freedom, democracy: these are just a few of the themes Negri addressed in these experimental laboratories. Postmodernity, Negri suggests, can be described as a "porcelain factory": a delicate and fragile construction that could be destroyed (...) through one clumsy act. Looking across twentieth century history, Negri warns that our inability to anticipate future developments has already placed coming generations in serious jeopardy. Describing the years 1917-1968 as the "short century," Negri suggests that by the end of it, all of the familiar markers of modernity had lost their relevance. Confronted with an intolerable reality, indignation and the revolutionary will to transform the world have both taken new forms and must be understood anew, free of modernist assumptions. In the impassioned debates recounted in this book, Antonio Negri attempts to describe the formation of an alternative political horizon and looks for a way to define the practices and modes of expression that democracy could take.Antonio Negri is a philosopher and essay writer. A political and social activist in the 1960s and 1970s in Italy, he taught political sciences for many years and has written numerous books on political philosophy including Marx beyond Marx, The Savage Anomaly, Insurgencies ; and in collaboration with Michael Hardt, Empire and Multitude. (shrink)

Impaired neurodevelopmental outcome, in particular cognitive impairment, after neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy is a major concern for parents, clinicians, and society. This study aims to investigate the potential benefits of using advanced quantitative electroencephalography analysis for early prediction of cognitive outcomes, assessed here at 2 years of age. EEG data were recorded within the first week after birth from a cohort of twenty infants with neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. A proposed regression framework was based on two different sets of features, namely graph-theoretical (...) features derived from the weighted phase-lag index and entropies metrics represented by sample entropy, permutation entropy, and spectral entropy. Both sets of features were calculated within the noise-assisted multivariate empirical mode decomposition domain. Correlation analysis showed a significant association in the delta band between the proposed features, graph attributes and entropy features from the neonatal EEG data and the cognitive development at age two years. These features were used to train and test the tree ensemble regression models. The highest prediction performance was reached to 14.27 root mean square error, 12.07 mean absolute error, and 0.45 R-squared using the entropy features with a boosted tree regression model. Thus, the results demonstrate that the proposed qEEG features show the state of brain function at an early stage; hence, they could serve as predictive biomarkers of later cognitive impairment, which could facilitate identifying those who might benefit from early targeted intervention. (shrink)

Betr. u.a. Erasmus und die Reformation in Basel.

Participants maneuvered a rat image through a circular region on the computer screen to find a hidden target platform, blending aspects of two well-known spatial tasks. Like the Morris water maze task, participants first experienced a series of learning trials before having to navigate to the hidden target platform from different locations and orientations. Like the dot-location task, they determined the location of a position within a two-dimensional circular region. This procedure provided a way to examine how the number of (...) surrounding cues (1, 2, or 3) affects the memory for spatial location in navigation. Memory performance was better when there were more cues and when targets were close to cues, consistent with the idea that cues bolster fine-grain memory, especially in proximal regions. Early and late measures of bias in memory reflected biases in a direction toward the nearest cue, implicating a cue-based category structure of the navigational space. Collectively, results suggest cue-based spatial memory representations that have been inferred from the dot-location task generalize to a navigation task within a simple, computer-based environment, as demonstrated by the good fits of the spatial model developed for the dot-location task (Fitting, Wedell, & Allen, 2005, 2007). (shrink)

Two experiments examined how affective values from visual and auditory modalities are integrated. Experiment 1 paired music and videos drawn from three levels of valence while holding arousal constant. Experiment 2 included a parallel combination of three levels of arousal while holding valence constant. In each experiment, participants rated their affective states after unimodal and multimodal presentations. Experiment 1 revealed a congruency effect in which stimulus combinations of the same extreme valence resulted in more extreme state ratings than component stimuli (...) presented in isolation. An interaction between music and video valence reflected the greater influence of negative affect. Video valence was found to have a significantly greater effect on combined ratings than music valence. The pattern of data was explained by a five parameter differential weight averaging model that attributed greater weight to the visual modality and increased weight with decreasing values of valence. Experiment 2 revealed a congruency effect only for high arousal combinations and no interaction effects. This pattern was explained by a three parameter constant weight averaging model with greater weight for the auditory modality and a very low arousal value for the initial state. These results demonstrate key differences in audiovisual integration between valence and arousal. (shrink)

The dominant theory of elite power, grounded in Weberian bureaucracy, has analyzed elites in terms of stable positions at the top of enduring institutions. Today, many conditions that spawned these stable ‘command posts’ no longer prevail, and elite power thus warrants rethinking. This article advances an argument about contemporary ‘influence elites’. The way they are organized and the modus operandi they employ to wield influence enable them to evade public accountability, a hallmark of a democratic society. Three cases are presented, (...) first to investigate changes in how elites operate and, second, to examine varying configurations in which the new elites are organized. The cases demonstrate that influence elites intermesh hierarchies and networks, serve as connectors, and coordinate influence from multiple, moving perches, inside and outside official structures. Their flexible and multi-positioned organizing modes call for reconsidering elite theory and grappling with the implications of these elites for democratic society. (shrink)

The field programmable gate array implementation of the nonlinear resistor-capacitor-inductor shunted Josephson junction model and its application to sEMG signal encryption through image encrypted technique are reported in this study. Thanks to the numerical simulations and FPGA implementation of the NRCISJJ model, different shapes of chaotic attractors are revealed by varying the parameters. The chaotic behaviour found in the NRCISJJ model is used to encrypt the sEMG signal through image encryption technique. The results obtained are interesting and open up many (...) perspectives. (shrink)

Der Artikel untersucht, ausgehend von der Bedeutung des Bildgebens und -nehmens für die Handlung des Romans, das Bild (bilde) als produktions- und rezeptionsästhetische Kategorie. Dafür werden die unterschiedlichen Modalitäten des Bild-Seins, der Bild-Erzeugung und der Bild-Übertragung, die Fleck nebeneinanderstellt, entlang der Handlung analysiert. Die Ergebnisse werden in einer Interpretation zusammengeführt, die die immanente Bildpoetik des Romans mit den Bilddiskursen in Verbindung bringt, die in den Text eingegangen sind. Abschließend wird die Frage formuliert, inwieweit das Wort bilde in seiner textsemantischen Konfiguration (...) bei Fleck als poetologischer Ausdruck aufgefasst werden kann. (shrink)

Ausgehend von der geplanten, letztlich nicht zustande gekommenen Teilnahme des Filmregisseurs Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau am zweiten Kongress der Gesellschaft für Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft verfolgt der Beitrag zwei Absichten: Zum einen skizziert er die Anfänge der Auseinandersetzung der Gesellschaft und ihrer Zeitschrift mit der Frage nach der Kunstfähigkeit des Films. Zum anderen nimmt er die geplante Mitwirkung Murnaus zum Anlass, dessen ästhetische Ansichten in einen Dialog mit Positionen zu versetzen, wie sie in dieser Frage auf dem 1924 nachgeholten Kongress und (...) in der Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft vertreten wurden. Die Übereinstimmungen, die sich zwischen den Auffassungen feststellen lassen, zeugen von der Ernsthaftigkeit, mit der die Gesellschaft, wenn auch nur für kurze Zeit, die Modernisierung ihrer Kunstreflexion und deren Öffnung auf die ästhetische Praxis und die technischen Medien hin betrieben hat. Mit Blick auf Murnau dokumentieren sie die wache Zeitgenossenschaft eines Regisseurs, der noch immer zu Unrecht als »Romantiker« und »Melancholiker« des Films gilt. (shrink)

English summary: The author proposes a new understanding of the numerical knowlegde in the middle ages. His argument is developed by means of the historical semantics of the word 'zahlen' and on the corresponding history of tally sticks. German description: Die Verwendung des Worts zeln ist dominant durch seine pragmatische Funktion gepragt: zeln, das ist zuallererst das emphatische und offentliche Zuschreiben von Rang und Amt, von Schonheit, Tapferkeit, Freiheit usw. Zeln ist zunachst immer ein Akt der Mitteilung in der Kommunikation (...) von Angesicht zu Angesicht. Die Kerbholzuberlieferung, das materiell-notationale Komplement des sprachlichen Zahlens, wird zum Zweck der Uberprufung und Perspektivierung der Ergebnisse erstmals vollstandig gesichtet und analysiert. Auch das Gelingen der kerbholzbasierten Kommunikation ist immer an soziale Situationen gebunden. Kein Kerbholz zahlt ohne die Gegenwart derer, deren Besitz es markiert. (shrink)

The sound system of a language must be able to support a perceptual contrast between different words in order to signal communicatively relevant meaning distinctions. In this paper, we use a simple agent-based exemplar model in which the evolution of sound-category systems is understood as a co-evolutionary process, where the range of variation within sound categories is constrained by functional pressure to keep different words perceptually distinct. We show that this model can reproduce several observed effects on the range of (...) sound variation. We argue that phonological systems can be seen as finding a relative optimum of variation: Efficient communication is sustained while at the same time, hidden category variation provides pathways for future evolution. (shrink)

In this paper, we study a stochastic epidemic model with double epidemics which includes white noise and telegraph noise modeled by Markovian switching. Sufficient conditions for the extinction and persistence of the diseases are established. In the end, some numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate our analytical results.

In this paper, we propose two HIV infection models with specific nonlinear incidence rate by including a class of infected cells in the eclipse phase. The first model is described by ordinary differential equations and generalizes a set of previously existing models and their results. The second model extends our ODE model by taking into account the diffusion of virus. Furthermore, the global stability of both models is investigated by constructing suitable Lyapunov functionals. Finally, we check our theoretical results with (...) numerical simulations. (shrink)

The behaviour of autonomous agents may deviate from that deemed to be for the good of the societal systems of which they are a part. Norms have therefore been proposed as a means to regulate agent behaviours in open and dynamic systems, where these norms specify the obliged, permitted and prohibited behaviours of agents. Regulation can effectively be achieved through use of enforcement mechanisms that result in a net loss of utility for an agent in cases where the agent’s behaviour (...) fails to comply with the norms. Recognition of compliance is thus crucial for achieving regulation. In this paper, we propose a general framework for observation of agents’ behaviour, and recognition of this behaviour as constituting, or counting as, compliance or violation. The framework deploys monitors that receive inputs from trusted observers, and processes these inputs together with transition network representations of individual norms. In this way, monitors determine the fulfillment or violation status of norms. The paper also describes a proof of concept implementation of the framework, and its deployment in electronic contracting environments. (shrink)

The Council for Education in World Citizenship has been working with Kingston University and the UK National Commission for UNESCO, taking advantage of global information technology developments in order to build new programmes for global citizenship education. The paper reports on practical experience, inviting new network partners. The IST-Africa 2007 conference provided an opportunity to build on these foundations, with initiatives in primary, secondary, further, adult and higher education, and continuing professional development for teachers.

This paper explores how the virtuous aesthetic cosmopolitan—one actively engaged in cultivating an authoritative appreciation for culturally unfamiliar works or traditions of art, in a manner informed by moral cosmopolitan principles—engages with the ‘exotic’ artwork in a manner that is both morally responsible and aesthetically discerning. After providing an overview of philosophical cosmopolitanism and the aesthetic cosmopolitan’s project, I consider in depth a particular example: the music of Mauritanian singer Noura Mint Seymali as encountered by an unaccustomed listener. I (...) explore potential problematic responses to the work, including both chauvinistic and exoticizing responses. I then consider possible strategies for alternative responses, informed by the aesthetic and hermeneutic theories of Hume, Gadamer, and Charles Taylor. Having revealed deficiencies with these alternatives, I go on to argue that the cosmopolitan’s best strategy is a mode of appreciation that is ‘conversational’ in nature, an open-ended approach modeled on an exchange between the appreciator and an other-cultural interlocutor. In proposing such a model, I draw on the work of Kwame Appiah and Maria Lugones, as well as Anthony Laden’s recent work on conversational norms. (shrink)

Title: The Private Poland Publisher: Facts on File ISBN: 0816011974 Author: Janine R. Wedel Title: The Unplanned Society: Poland During and After Communism Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN: 0231073720 Author: Janine R. Wedel.