Private power and new media: The case of the corporate suppression of WikiLeaks and its implications for the exercise of fundamental rights on the internet

Globalization, along with its digital and information communication technology counterparts, including the Internet and cyberspace, may signify a whole new era for human rights, characterized by new tensions, challenges, and risks for human rights, as well as new opportunities. Human Rights and Risks in the Digital Era: Globalization and the Effects of Information Technologies explores the emergence and evolution of ‘digital’ rights that challenge and transform more traditional legal, political, and historical understandings of human rights. Academic and legal scholars will explore individual, national, and international democratic dilemmas--sparked by economic and environmental crises, media culture, data collection, privatization, surveillance, and security--that alter the way individuals and societies think about, regulate, and protect rights when faced with new challenges and threats. The book not only uncovers emerging changes in discussions of human rights, it proposes legal remedies and public policies to mitigate the challenges posed by new technologies and globalization.

A hybrid agent architecture for modeling autonomous agents in SAGE

This paper highlights the Hybrid agent construction model being developed that allows the description and development of autonomous agents in SAGE (Scalable, fault Tolerant Agent Grooming Environment) - a second generation FIPA-Compliant Multi-Agent system. We aim to provide the programmer with a generic and well defined agent architecture enabling the development of sophisticated agents on SAGE, possessing the desired properties of autonomous agents - reactivity, pro-activity, social ability and knowledge based reasoning. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.

Dressing up Tinderella: Interrogating authenticity claims on the mobile dating app Tinder

Mobile dating applications (‘apps’) have increased in popularity over recent years, with Tinder among the first to break into the mainstream heterosexual market. Since mobile dating intensifies the need to confirm that potential dates are not misrepresenting themselves and are safe to meet in person, Tinder’s success indicates that it has allayed these concerns regarding the authenticity of its users. This article combines Giddens’ conceptualization of authenticity, as the ability to reference a coherent biographical narrative, with Callon’s sociology of translation to investigate Tinder’s framing of authenticity within mobile dating. Applying a walkthrough method that interrogates Tinder’s technological architecture, promotional materials, and related media, this hybrid theoretical framework is used to identify how Tinder configures an actor-network that establishes its app as the solution to users’ concerns, enrols individuals in using its features in authenticity claims, and popularizes Tinder’s framing across public discourse. This network of human and non-human actors frames authenticity as being established through one’s Facebook profile and adherence to normative standards relating to age, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. However, user discourses on other social media identify and challenge negative outcomes of this framing, with normativity fostering discrimination and Facebook verification failing to prevent abusive behavior. This case study of Tinder paves the way for future investigation into user responses to its framing. Further, it demonstrates the efficacy and broader applicability of this theoretical approach for identifying both human and technological influences on the construction of authenticity with digital media.

On hashtaggery and portmanteaugraphy: Memetic wordplay as social media practice

I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself a meme scholar outright; rather, the memes within my research have emerged from studying everyday practices and cultures of social media, within political and topical discussions, as well as popular culture and fandom contexts. This piece is an extension of ideas that have come out of my recent work around the “irreverent internet” (in the first and last of the blatant plugs, see this [sorry, paywall] and this). I’ve used this term as a descriptor for how play and silliness are popular strategies for the coverage and presentation of the topical and the mundane online. Here, I am especially focusing on playful and irreverent engagement with issues, events, and breaking news, where irony, sarcasm, parody, satire, snark, and more, are important framing devices on social media. While my work (and this post) generally falls on the side of “nice” irreverence, these approaches are also applicable for meaner, vindictive, hateful, offensive, and vitriolic comments. These include meme communities dealing in racist attitudes and content or various hashtags and related comments which promote racist, far-right views and/or denote contexts rife with abuse and harassment — and not just the Gamergate example. This is not positioning trolling as a single practice or intent, either— see Whitney Phillips’ work...

Media convergence

"The book brings together experts from Media and Communication Studies with Postcolonial Studies scholars to illustrate how the two fields may challenge and enrich each other. Its essays introduce readers to selected topics including »Media Convergence«, »Transcultural Subjectivity«, »Hegemony«, »Piracy« and »Media History and Colonialism«. Drawing on examples from film, literature, music, TV and the internet, the contributors investigate the transnational dimensions in today's media, engage with local and global media politics and discuss media outlets as economic agents, thus illustrating mechanisms of power in postcolonial and neo-colonial mediascapes."--Publisher website

Social media governance

This short article proposes an institutional framework for understanding questions of social media governance, based around the four axes of formal and informal institutions, national and supranational governance, public and private, and large-scale and smaller scale governance.

A multi-centre open-label randomised non-inferiority trial comparing watchful waiting to antibiotic treatment for acute otitis media without perforation in low-risk urban Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children (the WATCH trial): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Background Treatment guidelines recommend watchful waiting for children older than 2 years with acute otitis media (AOM) without perforation, unless they are at high risk of complications. The high prevalence of chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM) in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities leads these children to be classified as high risk. Urban Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are at lower risk of complications, but evidence to support the subsequent recommendation for watchful waiting in this population is lacking. Methods/Design This non-inferiority multi-centre randomised controlled trial will determine whether watchful waiting is non-inferior to immediate antibiotics for urban Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children with AOM without perforation. Children aged 2 − 16 years with AOM who are considered at low risk for complications will be recruited from six participating urban primary health care services across Australia. We will obtain informed consent from each participant or their guardian. The primary outcome is clinical resolution on day 7 (no pain, no fever of at least 38 °C, no bulging eardrum and no complications of AOM such as perforation or mastoiditis) as assessed by general practitioners or nurse practitioners. Participants and outcome assessors will not be blinded to treatment. With a sample size of 198 children in each arm, we have 80 % power to detect a non-inferiority margin of up to 10 % at a significance level of 5 %, assuming clinical improvement of at least 80 % in both groups. Allowing for a 20 % dropout rate, we aim to recruit 495 children. We will analyse both by intention-to-treat and per protocol. We will assess the cost- effectiveness of watchful waiting compared to immediate antibiotic prescription. We will also report on the implementation of the trial from the perspectives of parents/carers, health professionals and researchers. Discussion The trial will provide evidence for the safety and effectiveness of watchful waiting for the management of AOM in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children living in urban settings who are considered to be at low risk of complications.

The Art of Studio Teaching

This project began in 2013, with the award of an internal QUT Teaching and Learning grant. The task we wished to undertake was to document and better understand the role of studio teaching practice in the Creative Industries Faculty. While it was well understood that the Faculty had long used studio pedagogies as a key part of its teaching approach, organizational and other changes made it productive and timely to consider how the various study areas within the Faculty were approaching studio teaching. Chief among these changes were innovations in the use of technology in teaching, and at an organizational level the merging of what were once two schools within different faculties into a newly-structured Creative Industries Faculty. The new faculty consists of two schools, Media, Entertainment and Creative Art (MECA) and Design. We hoped to discover more about how studio techniques were developing alongside an ever-increasing number of options for content delivery, assessment, and interaction with students. And naturally we wanted to understand such developments across the broad range of nineteen study areas now part of the Creative Industries Faculty. This e-book represents the first part of our project, which in the main consisted in observing the teaching practices used in eight units across the Faculty, and then interviews with the unit coordinators involved. In choosing units, we opted for a broad opening definition of ‘studio’ to include not only traditional studios but also workshops and tutorials in which we could identify a component of studio teaching as enumerated by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council’s Studio Teaching Project: • A culture, a creative community created by a group of students and studio teachers working together for periods of time • A mode of teaching and learning where students and studio teachers interact in a creative and reflective process • A program of projects and activities where content is structured to enable ‘learning in action’ • A physical space or constructed environment in which the teaching and learning can take place (Source: http://www.studioteaching.org/?page=what_is_studio) The units we chose to observe, and which we hoped would represent something of the diversity of our study areas, were: • Dance Project 1 • Furniture Studies • Wearable Architecture • Fashion Design 4 • Industrial Design 6 • Advanced Writing Practice 3 • Introduction to Creative Writing • Studio Art Practice 2 Over the course of two semesters in 2013, we attended classes, presentations, and studio time in these units, and then conducted interviews that we felt would give further insight into both individual and discipline-specific approaches to studio pedagogies. We asked the same questions in each of the interviews: • Could you describe the main focus and aims of your unit? • How do you use studio time to achieve those aims? • Can you give us an example of the kind of activities you use in your studio teaching? • What does/do these example(s) achieve in terms of learning outcomes? • What, if any, is the role of technology in your studio teaching practice? • What do you consider distinctive about your approach to studio teaching, or the approach taken in your discipline area? The unit coordinators’ responses to these questions form some of the most interesting and valuable material in this book, and point to both consistencies in approach and teaching philosophies, as well as areas of difference. We believe that both can help to raise our critical awareness of studio teaching, and provide points of comparison for the future development of studio pedagogy in the Creative Industries. In each of the following pages, the interviews are placed alongside written descriptions of the units, their aims and outcomes, assessment models, and where possible photographs and video footage, as well as additional resources that may be useful to others engaged in studio teaching.

Architecture designed ZnO hollow microspheres with wide-range visible-light photoresponses

It is a challenge to increase the visible-light photoresponses of wide-gap metal oxides. In this study, we proposed a new strategy to enhance the visible-light photoresponses of wide-gap semiconductors by deliberately designing a multi-scale nanostructure with controlled architecture. Hollow ZnO microspheres with constituent units in the shape of one-dimensional (1D) nanowire networks, 2D nanosheet stacks, and 3D mesoporous nanoball blocks are synthesized via an approach of two-step assembly, where the oligomers or the constituent nanostructures with specially designed structures are first formed, and then further assembled into complex morphologies. Through deliberate designing of constituent architectures allowing multiple visible-light scattering, reflections, and dispersion inside the multiscale nanostructures, enhanced wide range visible-light photoresponses of the ZnO hollow microspheres were successfully achieved. Compared to the one-step synthesized ZnO hollow microspheres, where no nanostructured constituents were produced, the ZnO hollow microspheres with 2D nanosheet stacks presented a 50 times higher photocurrent in the visible-light range (λ > 420 nm). The nanostructure induced visible-light photoresponse enhancement gives a direction to the development of novel photosensitive materials.

Inside out: Why do so many great buildings have drab interiors?

An extravaganza of shapes now forms our city skylines. CAD and BIM with their inbuilt links to manufacturing and construction processes has made possible this kind of effusive architectural expression, at least externally. Building developers clearly understand the enormous marketing potential for impact expression. The skilled manipulation of 3D CAD software enables architects to achieve usable gross floor space within an enticingly sinuous, but build-able, envelope. This critical factor is resulting in a fundamental change to the appearance of our cities. It has become plausible, at least, to design and build complex and non-repetitive buildings without incurring prohibitive additional labor costs.However The ground level lobby spaces often do manage to retain some of the external. However, the interior working spaces, particularly in commercial office buildings tend to loose this grand gesture. However - the internal activity - the very reason for the existence of the building – often takes place in monotonous spaces that seem driven predominately by the need to accommodate workstation furniture and functions in dire need of reconsideration.

Conceptualising social media support for tacit knowledge sharing: physicians’ perspectives and experiences

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the potential contributions of social media in supporting tacit knowledge sharing, according to the physicians’ perspectives and experiences. Design/methodology/approach – Adopting a qualitative survey design, 24 physicians were interviewed. Purposive and snowball sampling were used to select the participants. Thematic analysis approach was used for data analysis. Findings – The study revealed five major themes and over 20 sub-themes as potential contributions of social media to tacit knowledge flow among physicians. The themes included socialising, practising, networking, storytelling and encountering. In addition, with the help of the literature and the supporting data, the study proposed a conceptual model that explains the potential contribution of social media to tacit knowledge sharing. Research limitations/implications – The study had both theoretical (the difficulty of distinguishing tacit and explicit knowledge in practice) and practical limitations (small sample size). The study findings have implications for the healthcare industry whose clinical teams are not always physically co-located but must exchange their critical experiential and tacit knowledge. Originality/value – The study has opened up a new discussion of this area by demonstrating and conceptualising how social media tools may facilitate tacit knowledge sharing.

Scopophobia/Scopophilia: electric light and the anxiety of the gaze in postwar American architecture

In the years of reconstruction and economic boom that followed the Second World War, the domestic sphere encountered new expectations regarding social behaviour, modes of living, and forms of dwelling. This book brings together an international group of scholars from architecture, design, urban planning, and interior design to reappraise mid-twentieth century modern life, offering a timely reassessment of culture and the economic and political effects on civilian life. This collection contains essays that examine the material of art, objects, and spaces in the context of practices of dwelling over the long span of the postwar period. It asks what role material objects, interior spaces, and architecture played in quelling or fanning the anxieties of modernism’s ordinary denizens, and how this role informs their legacy today. Table of Contents [Book] Introduction Robin Schuldenfrei Part 1: Psychological Constructions: Anxiety of Isolation and Exposure 1. Taking Comfort in the Age of Anxiety: Eero Saarinen’s Womb Chair Cammie McAtee 2. The Future is Possibly Past: The Anxious Spaces of Gaetano Pesce Jane Pavitt 3. Scopophobia/Scopophilia: Electric Light and the Anxiety of the Gaze in American Postwar Domestic Architecture Margaret Petty Part 2: Ideological Objects: Design and Representation 4. The Allegory of the Socialist Lifestyle: The Czechoslovak Pavilion at the Brussels Expo, its Gold Medal and the Politburo Ana Miljacki 5. Assimilating Unease: Moholy-Nagy and the Wartime-Postwar Bauhaus in Chicago Robin Schuldenfrei 6. The Anxieties of Autonomy: Peter Eisenman from Cambridge to House VI Sean Keller Part 3: Societies of Consumers: Materialist Ideologies and Postwar Goods 7. "But a home is not a laboratory": The Anxieties of Designing for the Socialist Home in the German Democratic Republic 1950—1965 Katharina Pfützner 8. Architect-designed Interiors for a Culturally Progressive Upper-Middle Class: The Implicit Political Presence of Knoll International in Belgium Fredie Floré 9. Domestic Environment: Italian Neo-Avant-Garde Design and the Politics of Post-Materialism Mary Louise Lobsinger Part 4: Class Concerns and Conflict: Dwelling and Politics 10. Dirt and Disorder: Taste and Anxiety in the Working Class Home Christine Atha 11. Upper West Side Stories: Race, Liberalism, and Narratives of Urban Renewal in Postwar New York Jennifer Hock 12. Pawns or Prophets? Postwar Architects and Utopian Designs for Southern Italy Anne Parmly Toxey. Coda: From Homelessness to Homelessness David Crowley

Heritability of the network architecture of intrinsic brain functional connectivity

The brain's functional network exhibits many features facilitating functional specialization, integration, and robustness to attack. Using graph theory to characterize brain networks, studies demonstrate their small-world, modular, and "rich-club" properties, with deviations reported in many common neuropathological conditions. Here we estimate the heritability of five widely used graph theoretical metrics (mean clustering coefficient (γ), modularity (Q), rich-club coefficient (ϕnorm), global efficiency (λ), small-worldness (σ)) over a range of connection densities (k=5-25%) in a large cohort of twins (N=592, 84 MZ and 89 DZ twin pairs, 246 single twins, age 23±2.5). We also considered the effects of global signal regression (GSR). We found that the graph metrics were moderately influenced by genetic factors h2 (γ=47-59%, Q=38-59%, ϕnorm=0-29%, λ=52-64%, σ=51-59%) at lower connection densities (≤15%), and when global signal regression was implemented, heritability estimates decreased substantially h2 (γ=0-26%, Q=0-28%, ϕnorm=0%, λ=23-30%, σ=0-27%). Distinct network features were phenotypically correlated (|r|=0.15-0.81), and γ, Q, and λ were found to be influenced by overlapping genetic factors. Our findings suggest that these metrics may be potential endophenotypes for psychiatric disease and suitable for genetic association studies, but that genetic effects must be interpreted with respect to methodological choices.