Scientific Visualization System on a Chip with Tangible User Interface

This paper is devoted to the development of the ontology-driven standalone scientific visualization station based on a single-board microcomputer with custom tangible user interface. Such a station can be used as a powerful demonstration tool in various scenarios including interactive museum exhibitions. According to the approach proposed, the particular instance of a software scientific visualization system is generated automatically by a high-level platform SciVi that was been developed earlier. Previously, ontology-driven software generation mechanisms within SciVi were tested on the firmware generation for the microcontroller units. Currently we present a generalization of this technique to the case of systems on chips like Raspberry Pi or Orange Pi. Data preprocessing and rendering capabilities of SciVi are reused without modifications from the previous stages of development, while the new mechanisms of taking into account the specifics of systems on chips software and hardware organization are introduced via extending the appropriate SciVi ontologies. The generalized technique is tested in practice by creating a set of interactive museum items for the “Transmutations” exhibition within Kidsmuseum, branch of Perm Regional Museum.

Genetically inspired in vitro reconstitution of Saccharomyces cerevisiae actin cables from seven purified proteins

Yeast actin cables are reconstituted from seven purified proteins, providing a powerful demonstration of how a minimal set of components can self-organize into a micron-scale structure that has many of the same features of actin cables found in vivo.

The Social Life of Bitcoin

This paper challenges the notion that Bitcoin is ‘trust-free’ money by highlighting the social practices, organizational structures and utopian ambitions that sustain it. At the paper's heart is the paradox that if Bitcoin succeeds in its own terms as an ideology, it will fail in practical terms as a form of money. The main reason for this is that the new currency is premised on the idea of money as a ‘thing’ that must be abstracted from social life in order for it to be protected from manipulation by bank intermediaries and political authorities. The image is of a fully mechanized currency that operates over and above social life. In practice, however, the currency has generated a thriving community around its political ideals, relies on a high degree of social organization in order to be produced, has a discernible social structure, and is characterized by asymmetries of wealth and power that are not dissimilar from the mainstream financial system. Unwittingly, then, Bitcoin serves as a powerful demonstration of the relational character of money.

Actors and Sexual Intimacies

Chapter 8 considers critical debate about “double standards” over sex and violence in Intimacy and Nymph()maniac. Exploring discussion between Intimacy’s lead actor Kerry Fox and her partner, it argues that the agreement reached (for Fox to perform oral but not penetrative sex) was a “controlled experiment” in jealousy via personal emotional affect and public performance and thus a powerful demonstration in confluent love negotiation shared with audiences. The trust and openness with each other in private, and between Fox and director Chéreau in public, are also central to notions of trust and mistrust in risk sociology, though with some strong critiques from within its ranks for its tendency to follow a meta-history devoid of differences among age, gender, class, ethnicity, and other key social indicators. The chapter concludes by emphasizing the interdisciplinary blend of feminist film and risk sociological theory in approaching the two films, within key principles of feminist mapping theory.

ANTONIO VIVALDI AND THE SUBLIME SEASONS: SONORITY AND TEXTURE AS EXPRESSIVE DEVICES IN EARLY EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ITALIAN MUSIC

ABSTRACTAntonio Vivaldi's cycle of violin concertos dramatizing the four seasons marked a substantial shift in the way that the seasons were depicted in the arts. Moving away from religious and mythological allegory, they exemplify a growing interest in descriptive representation of nature's power and in humanity's complex physical and emotional relationship with elements beyond its control. Positing new connections to Arcadian reform ideals of verisimilitude, this article addresses important questions concerning Vivaldi's pairing of sonnets with concertos and the aesthetic factors behind his choice of narrative topics to depict in the music. The article also demonstrates how Vivaldi used diverse textures and sonorities to create powerful contrasts that heighten the emotional impact of the aural imagery while underlining recurring expressive and pictorial motifs throughout the cycle. These last aspects, in particular, provide a new understanding of the historical significance of Vivaldi'sFour Seasonsas a powerful demonstration of both the expressive potential of the concerto genre and the still underappreciated art of orchestration during the early eighteenth century.

Comprehensive study of serratia peptidase immobilization from Serratia sp. ZF03 onto chitosan nanogels

Objective:In the present work, we have extended the study and immobilized the metalloprotease enzyme in glutaraldehyde cross-linked chitosan nanogels to scrutinize the enzyme’s features including stability over its soluble free form.Method:The immobilized metalloprotease was characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), followed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The enzyme is optimally active at 50°C and pH range of 8.0–10.Results:Thermal stability of the enzyme enhanced when immobilized on the nanogel. After 5 min of incubation at 50°C, immobilized enzymes retained 60% of their original activity, while negligible activity (23%) was observed in the case of the free enzyme.Conclusion:The results obtained here provide a powerful demonstration of the benefits of taking the glutaraldehyde cross-linked chitosan matrices to enhance metalloprotease stability. The high stability of the immobilized enzyme serves to improve its performance for possible application on the industrial scale.

I meant to do that! Manipulating entrepreneurial intentions through the power of simple plans

Purpose – Intentions capture the motivational factors that influence a given behavior and indicate how hard a person is willing to try in order to perform the behavior. An individual's entrepreneurial intentions are a function of the perceived feasibility and desirability of engaging in a particular entrepreneurial behavior. Because they are perceptual factors, the processes of assessing feasibility and desirability of entrepreneurial behaviors tends to be limited to the cognitive abilities of the specific individual. The purpose of this paper is to use an experimental manipulation to illustrate to students how the simple act of planning can dramatically influence entrepreneurial intentions. Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws from two sections of undergraduate study-abroad students who developed a severe craving for American foods they missed. Both sections assessed the desirability and feasibility of a particular entrepreneurial behavior (organizing an event to get the missed food), but one section was provided with a half-hour of classroom time to plan for the event. Findings – The group of students who engaged in planning activities was significantly more likely to view the behavior as feasible and, in turn, had significantly higher intentions to engage in the behavior. This experiment provided a simple but powerful demonstration to students of how important a role planning plays in shaping entrepreneurial intentions. Originality/value – This study offers a pedagogy that uses students both as participants and the primary audience of a manipulation of perceived feasibility and entrepreneurial intentions. Conducting this simple experiment and sharing the results with students provides dramatic evidence of the power of simple planning.

Psychology is Not Just Common Sense: An Introductory Psychology Demonstration

This article describes a simple demonstration that helps introductory psychology students overcome the misconception that psychology is just common sense. Early in the course, I recount Festinger and Carlsmith's (1959) classic cognitive dissonance experiment and ask students to guess the outcome of the study. Because the vast majority of the class guesses an intuitive outcome, students are surprised by the actual, counterintuitive findings. This presentation provides a powerful demonstration that psychology is not just common sense. Evaluative data suggest that the demonstration achieves its aim. The technique is a good opening gambit for stimulating lively discussion and capturing students' interest.

On the cross‐cultural examination of acts and dispositions

The articles by Angleitner and Demtroder (1988) and Smid et al. (1988) raise several important issues about the study of acts, dispositions, and personality. While the results of Angleitner and Demtroder provide a powerful demonstration of the cross‐cultural generality of the act frequency approach, several conclusions appearing in both papers require clarification: (1) multiple category membership is a complexity that occurs in the natural object domain as well as in the act‐disposition domain, (2) the differences between the subjective conditional probability approach used by Smid et al., and the act frequency approach render the conclusions drawn by Smid et al. about the act frequency approach of Buss and Craik erroneous, and (3) distinctions among basic forms of personality data (beliefs about self, beliefs held by others about the self, and act trends in everyday life) require clear separation so that the multiple goals in personality psychology are not conflated.