The Big,Bad Wolf: Resisting Corporate Evil in “Damages” and State of Play

Popular culture requires readily identifiable villains. Subcultural groups often serve this role, creating controversies. Controversies based on religion are especially bitter. As a rule, religion in the movies is inoffensively sentimental, but The Da Vinci Code is both popular and provocative, treading on the dangerous ground of Jesus's mortality. An Inconvenient Truth, another unexpectedly popular recent movie, is not as amusing, but it concerns issues Jesus cared more about.     

Measurement of three-dimensional hand kinematics during swimming with a motion capture system: a feasibility study

Current trends in swimming biomechanics are focused on accurate measurements. Nowadays, reliable calibration methods have been proposed to reach an accuracy of about 1 mm on rigid structure. But the question remains about the final accuracy for three-dimensional hand kinematics measurement during the underwater phase of front crawl swimming. Furthermore, most research is based on manual tracking with two or more cameras. In this paper we propose a protocol to acquire three-dimensional hand kinematics when swimming in a specific pool with a motion analysis system behind windows. Results highlight the benefits of using such a system in terms of accuracy and feasibility: the time allowed for post-processing is ten times lower and the quantified improved accuracy is better than with manual tracking.     

Real time search on the web: Queries,topics, and economic value

Real time search is an increasingly important area of information seeking on the Web. In this research, we analyze 1,005,296 user interactions with a real time search engine over a 190 day period. Using query log analysis, we investigate searching behavior, categorize search topics, and measure the economic value of this real time search stream. We examine aggregate usage of the search engine, including number of users, queries, and terms. We then classify queries into subject categories using the Google Directory topical hierarchy. We next estimate the economic value of the real time search traffic using the Google AdWords keyword advertising platform. Results shows that 30% of the queries were unique (used only once in the entire dataset), which is low compared to traditional Web searching. Also, 60% of the search traffic comes from the search engine’s application program interface, indicating that real time search is heavily leveraged by other applications. There are many repeated queries over time via these application program interfaces, perhaps indicating both long term interest in a topic and the polling nature of real time queries. Concerning search topics, the most used terms dealt with technology, entertainment, and politics, reflecting both the temporal nature of the queries and, perhaps, an early adopter user-based. However, 36% of the queries indicate some geographical affinity, pointing to a location-based aspect to real time search. In terms of economic value, we calculate this real time search stream to be worth approximately US $33,000,000 (US $33 M) on the online advertising market at the time of the study. We discuss the implications for search engines and content providers as real time content increasingly enters the main stream as an information source.     

“国际科学书系”与达尔文主义的传播

在本文中我考察了“国际科学书系”作为出版界的一个独特的试验,在它存在的过程中是否传播了达尔文主义关于科学与宗教的关系的观念。赫胥黎、丁铎尔、斯宾塞和尤曼斯是国际科学书系创办之初的关键人物,他们都是进化论的自然主义者,对于科学与宗教的关系共同持有一种复杂的看法。虽然国际科学书系最初是一个致力于传播进化论自然主义的出版项目,但我将论证,到19世纪80年代初,当该系列最初的创办者们丧失对它的控制时,一条新的路线方针被建立起来。