Disassembling the Square Kilometre Array: astronomy and development in South Africa

The article poses questions about astronomy and its local, national and global developmental impacts, drawing on ongoing research around the internationally networked Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope in South Africa. The relationship between progress in global science and technology and societal change has traditionally been framed through western-centric notions of progress imbued with universalism; the field of astronomy exemplifies this approach, with its assumptions of an inherently positive correlation between its science and loosely defined notions of ‘development’. We problematise this assumption through an analysis of the multiple notions of development at different scales of analysis in the SKA. We argue that large astronomy projects such as the SKA are best understood as dense assemblages of science, infrastructure, human agency and politics, in which historically rooted local concerns are marginalised in the name of the national or global public interest.     

Low blood alcohol levels. Experimental study on attention and body sway control functions

Objective

Attempting to prevent alcohol-related road accidents requires sensitive, reliable and easy-to-use methods and instruments for ascertaining drivers’ state of intoxication. This paper examines the scientific validity of a method for assessing psychomotor performance combining measurement of neurosensory functions with the effect of low blood alcohol levels: body sway control and attention functions.

Methods

A double-blind, placebo-controlled study, with cross-over and random distribution on the effects of low blood alcohol levels. Psychomotor performance and body sway control were studied in 16 healthy volunteers after they had drunk a small dose of ethyl alcohol (0.5 g/kg) or placebo. Neurosensory and psychomotor functions were assessed by a Divided Attention Test (DAT), composed of the association between one test exploring short-term memory (Memory Test) and one exploring attention (Response Competition Test). Alterations in body sway were recorded by stabilometry. Tests were administered at 30, 60, 120 and 180 min after intake of alcohol. After a wash-out period of at least one week, subjects repeated the test after taking a second dose of alcohol or placebo. Blood alcohol concentrations were monitored by analysis of concentrations in expired air.

Results

A BAC under 50 mg/dL did not reveal statistically significant impaired memory capacities or motor coordination. Instead, statistically significant oscillations of body sway were measured (p-values = 0.0001), especially when stabilometry was associated with deviant stimuli like those of the DAT (p-values = 0.0001).

Conclusions

This study showed: (1) impaired performance, at the limits of statistical significance, on a complex psychometric test like the DAT; (2) some cognitive, attentive and visual perceptive functions are not compromised or at least not in a statistically significant manner; (3) a considerable alteration in the capacity for control of body sway after intake of alcohol becomes further and massively impaired when deviant stimuli are given; (4) this impairment appeared early and was more marked 1 and 2 h after intake of alcohol.     

The Image of the Hyper City

Since the nineteenth and twentieth century, information has been pivotal both in the cultural tradition and then in the economic tradition. While the Fordism economic model and its specialisation requirements originated a simplistic zoning and single-use development approach to the design of a city. It, however, determined a fragmented growth of cities. Inevitably, the zoning as an urban strategy affected the architectural scale. Nevertheless, the idea of information, commercial goods and thereby people freely able to flow through the city allowed architects and urban designer to conceive new types of urban infrastructures. For example, trains, which were designed on the model of urban “arteries and veins.” Over time, the persistence of urban and architectural segmentation has strengthened social and economic inequalities among urban society. In addition, information has played a more vital role in this strengthening process. The technological achievements of the twenty-first century such as information technologies have significantly affected cities. The new informational patterns have provided new ways of designing, and in turn how societies experience cities. These “quantified cities” consist of digital data that dynamically interacts with “quantified human beings.” Consequently, a renewed urban semiotics is established, which is built around an alternate sociological comprehension. Is this new urban semiotics able to heal an ill and divided urban body? The paper will investigate a new concept of “quantified city” based on the notion of “Hyper-Reality,” and its inhabitants who are entering in a “post-human” condition while living in a dynamic urban environment. In particular, the critical analysis will be used as a “tool” for redefining the perception of the city (i.e., the image of the Hyper City) through inhabitants’ (post-humans’) relational patterns which are technologically mediated (i.e., Google Maps, Uber, Instagram, etc.). The more traditional notion of urbanisation is questioned with a focus on how the an urban society is embedded within the digital condition and the notion of a city.

     

The Impact of Social Media Use for Elected Parliamentarians: Evidence from Politicians' Use of Twitter During the Last Two Swiss Legislatures

Notwithstanding growing research on how using social media for political campaigning impacts politicians' chances of winning votes, we still have limited knowledge about whether and how the use of social media and online styles of communication affect political success over successive legislatures. We address this deficit by analyzing a panel dataset about the Twitter activity of politicians who have had a parliamentary mandate at least once. We first demonstrate that politicians' interaction with specific online audiences (e.g. in terms of replies and mentions) is still evolving, thus pointing to possible strategic adaptations of politicians' communication as social media are mastered. Then, we show that Twitter-based activity moderately impacts politicians' political success, both in terms of political ranking and media coverage. This success, however, strongly depends on the style of political communication and on the legislature under scrutiny.     

The Innovation Paradox in Southern Europe. Unexpected Performance During the Economic Crisis

The international crisis has exerted a strong impact on the National Innovation Systems (NIS) of three Southern European economies: Italy, Portugal and Spain. These countries represent interesting cases for analysing responses to the crisis because they show a sort of innovation paradox: despite the weakness of their institutional systems and the defensive policies developed by governments, some of their companies have nevertheless been able to innovate even during the hardest years of the recession. In order to shed light on this paradox, three matters are taken into account: the distinctive features of the South European National Innovation Systems; the behaviour of governments and companies; the ‘generative dynamics’ and the ‘creative processes’ that have taken place during the crisis.     

Use of Accounting Information by Mayors in Local Governments

ABSTRACT

The use of accounting information in the public sector is gaining more attention in recent years, both in literature and among politicians. In particular, it is still necessary to shed light looking at those that have responsibility to make the final decision: politicians. This article attempts to help understand the role of accounting information in decisions made by mayors by analyzing the results of a national survey to which Italian mayors responded. The survey questioned mayors about their use of accounting information during the policy cycle. The use of accounting information by mayors is quite varied, especially if we consider the different phases of the political cycle. The clustering of the results led to the identification of three different groups of mayors with respect to different ways of using accounting information.     

Rough Sets and Three Valued Connectives Extended Abstract

1 Introduction
In [5] we investigated the significance of some truth-functional three valued logics of ill-known sets described by pairs of disjoint （or pairs of nested） subsets. In particular, we referred to the case of rough sets showing that if from a mathematical standpoint we obtain sound results, the interpretation with respect to reasoning about data tables is questionable. The operators taken into account in that work were the usual intersection and union （min/max） on three values and three different implications： Lukasiewicz, Gedel and Kleene     

Dynamics of collaborative research medicine: the case of glaucoma

This paper inquires into the organizational and spatial dynamics of scientific research by focussing on the evolution of epistemic networks in a specific area of medical practice, glaucoma. As researchers and practitioners struggle to come to grips with this elusive disease, the medical scientific community exhibits a great degree of variety in the ecology of organisations and the associated scientific pathways. Data on scientific publications over a thirty-year period affords a clearer understanding of the changing configurations of a clinical-scientific community, and speaks to the adaptive nature of problem-solving in medicine.