(Inter)Facing Death
Title | (Inter)Facing Death PDF eBook |
Author | Sam Han |
Publisher | Routledge |
Total Pages | 198 |
Release | 2019-10-16 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 131544674X |
In modern times, death is understood to have undergone a transformation not unlike religion. Whereas in the past it was out in the open, it now resides mostly in specialized spaces of sequestration—funeral homes, hospitals and other medical facilities. A mainstay in so-called traditional societies in the form of ritual practices, death was usually messy but meaningful, with the questions of what happens to the dead or where they go lying at the heart of traditional culture and religion. In modernity, however, we are said to have effectively sanitized it, embalmed it and packaged it—but it seems that death is back. In the current era marked by economic, political and social uncertainty, we see it on television, on the Internet; we see it almost everywhere. (Inter)Facing Death analyzes the nexus of death and digital culture in the contemporary moment in the context of recent developments in social, cultural and political theory. It argues that death today can be thought of as "interfaced," that is mediated and expressed, in various aspects of contemporary life rather than put to the side or overcome, as many narratives of modernity have suggested. Employing concepts from anthropology, sociology, media studies and communications, (Inter)Facing Death examines diverse phenomena where death and digital culture meet, including art, online suicide pacts, the mourning of celebrity deaths, terrorist beheadings and selfies. Providing new lines of thinking about one of the oldest questions facing the human and social sciences, this book will appeal to scholars and students of social and political theory, anthropology, sociology and cultural and media studies with interests in death.
The Interface Envelope
Title | The Interface Envelope PDF eBook |
Author | James Ash |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing USA |
Total Pages | 179 |
Release | 2016-08-25 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 1501320009 |
In The Interface Envelope, James Ash develops a series of concepts to understand how digital interfaces work to shape the spatial and temporal perception of players. Drawing upon examples from videogame design and work from post-phenomenology, speculative realism, new materialism and media theory, Ash argues that interfaces create envelopes, or localised foldings of space time, around which bodily and perceptual capacities are organised for the explicit production of economic profit. Modifying and developing Bernard Stiegler's account of psychopower and Warren Neidich's account of neuropower, Ash argues the aim of interface designers and publishers is the production of envelope power. Envelope power refers to the ways that interfaces in games are designed to increase users perceptual and habitual capacities to sense difference. Examining a range of examples from specific videogames, Ash identities a series of logics that are key to producing envelope power and shows how these logics have intensified over the last thirty years. In turn, Ash suggests that the logics of interface envelopes in videogames are spreading to other types of interface. In doing so life becomes enveloped as the environments people inhabit becoming increasingly loaded with digital interfaces. Rather than simply negative, Ash develops a series of responses to the potential problematics of interface envelopes and envelope power and emphasizes their pharmacological nature.
Glycans: Molecules at the Interface of Immunity and Disease
Title | Glycans: Molecules at the Interface of Immunity and Disease PDF eBook |
Author | Shoib Sarwar Siddiqui |
Publisher | Frontiers Media SA |
Total Pages | 154 |
Release | 2024-01-17 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 2832542980 |
Glycans are complex, multi-unit carbohydrate structures that cover the surfaces of cells and guide cellular interactions. Glycobiology studies the synthesis, structure, function, regulation, and evolution of glycans and glycan-binding molecules. Glycans are synthesized and added as modifications to proteins, lipids, and RNA. Though they are often associated with functions outside of cells (glycoproteins and glycolipids are most often extracellular or secreted), glycans are also active within cells. Glycans are known to have diverse physiological roles ranging from cell adhesion (maintaining tissue structure and integrity) to molecular recognition (marking position during development, or self-identity in immunity and reproduction). Glycans also regulate cellular activity and physiological state. The families of proteins that bind glycans are called lectins. Glycans and lectins are vital in many diseases such as cancer, neurodegeneration, inflammation, allergies, asthma, and autoimmune disorders.
Human Interface and the Management of Information
Title | Human Interface and the Management of Information PDF eBook |
Author | Hirohiko Mori |
Publisher | Springer Nature |
Total Pages | 351 |
Release | |
Genre | |
ISBN | 3031601149 |
Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator Therapy: The Engineering-Clinical Interface
Title | Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator Therapy: The Engineering-Clinical Interface PDF eBook |
Author | Mark W. Kroll |
Publisher | Springer Science & Business Media |
Total Pages | 475 |
Release | 2012-12-06 |
Genre | Medical |
ISBN | 1461563453 |
HE IMPLANTABLE CARDIOVERTER DEFIBRILLATOR, or T"lCD," is arguably the most technologically challenging type of therapy that physicians utilize today. At the same time, engineers who design ICDs are being called upon by clinicians to extend even further the technological envelope in quest of building the "ideal" device. To the extent, however, that physicians who utilize ICDs are not sufficiently comfortable with or familiar with the engineering principles that guide ICD function, the full clinical potential of even an ideal device will not be realized. In comple mentary fashion, engineers require as full an appreciation as possi ble of the real world "boundary conditions" and clinical impact of various ICD features, if the latter are truly to be perfected. This book is intended to serve as an educational tool to foster mutual understanding and communication among physicians, engineers, and other professionals involved in ICD therapy, with the ultimate purpose of enhancing patient care. The highly varied backgrounds of such a diverse audience posed obvious challenges in the preparation of this volume. Given the overwhelmingly greater involvement of clinicians in the day-to day management and follow-up of ICD recipients, we gave high priority to the presentation of oftentimes complex yet relevant engi neering concepts in a manner that could be understandable to most clinicians.
At the Interface
Title | At the Interface PDF eBook |
Author | Joss Hands |
Publisher | Rodopi |
Total Pages | 208 |
Release | 2004 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 9789042017320 |
Preliminary Material --Introduction /Eugenia Siapera and Joss Hands --Cultural Politics --The Edge of Reason: the Myth of Bridget Jones /Stephen Maddison and Merl Storr --Representing Gender Benders: Consumerism and the Muting of Subversion /Sofie Van Bauwel --Politics, the Papacy and the Media /Maria Way --Political Cultures --The Nigerian Press and the Politics of Difference: An Analysis of the Newspaper Reports of the Yoruba/Hausa Ethnic clash of 1st - 3rd February 2002 /Kale Azuka Omenugha --The Role of the Alternative Afrikaans Media in the Political Transformation Process in South Africa /Abraham G. van der Vyver --Internet Regulation A La Turque : Historical and Contemporary Problem Analyses of the Internet Environment in Turkey /Asli Tunç --Asylum Politics in Cyberspace /Eugenia Siapera --Living With E-Utopia: Camus, Habermas and the Politics of Virtual Dissent /Joss Hands --At the Interface --The Conflicted Significance of Racial Controversies in Major League Baseball and American History /Shane Aaron Lachtman --Transformation of Trauma Without Rehabilitating Failure: The Dual Attempt at Reshaping America's Memory of the War in Viet Nam in Mel Gibson's We Were Soldiers (2002) /R. C. Lutz --Popular History and Re-membering the Nation /Emine Onculer --Notes on Contributors.
Pathologies of the Mind/body Interface
Title | Pathologies of the Mind/body Interface PDF eBook |
Author | Richard L. Kradin |
Publisher | Routledge |
Total Pages | 189 |
Release | 2013 |
Genre | Medical |
ISBN | 0415877504 |
Unlike other texts on the subject, this book aims to provide a well-integrated approach to the diagnosis and treatment of the pervasive effects of the mind/body splitting that lead to somatoform disorders.