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Apomediation is a new scholarly socio-technological term that characterizes the process of disintermediation (intermediaries are middlemen or "gatekeeper", e.g. health professionals giving "relevant" information to a patient, and disintermediation means to bypass them), whereby the former intermediaries are functionally replaced by apomediaries, i.e. network/group/collaborative filtering processes [Eysenbach, 2008 [WebCite] and 2007b]. The difference between an intermediary and an apomediary is that an intermediary stands "in between" (latin: inter- means "in between") the consumer and information/service, i.e. is absolutely necessary to get a specific information/service. In contrast, apomediation means that there are agents (people, tools) which "stand by" (latin: apo- means separate, detached, away from) to guide a consumer to high quality information/services/experiences, without being a prerequisite to obtain that information/service in the first place. The switch from an intermediation model to an apomediation model has broadimplications for example for the way people judge credibility, as hypothesized and elaborated in more detail elsewhere [

ScienceDaily (June 4, 2011) - Do the principles of quantum mechanics apply to biological systems? Until now, says Prof. Ron Naaman of the Institute's Chemical Physics Department (Faculty of Chemistry), both biologists and physicists have considered quantum systems and biological molecules to be like apples and oranges. But research he conducted together with scientists in Germany, which appeared recently in Science, shows that a biological molecule -- DNA -- can discern between quantum states known as spin.

A startup called Quid has developed algorithms that analyze Internet-based data from corporations to make fast-moving technology developments visible, navigable, and understandable. Quid has built a data set combining information about firms that succeeded and sank, patent documents, government grants, help wanted advertisements, and tweets. Its algorithms use the collection of information to analyze the prospects of around 35,000 firms and research groups working on new technologies. By extracting words and phrases from the collected documents, Quid constructs a "technology genome" that describes the primary focus of each of those 35,000 entities. A map of the connections between those genomes can be used by investors to find hints about interesting companies or ideas. Most companies cluster around established sectors, but a few will sit in the white spaces between the clusters and can represent the seeds of new technology sectors.

almost certainly under-stated conclusion that it has "found that since Obama took office three years ago, between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed including more than 60 children." And targeting rescuers and funeral attendees of your victims is quite the opposite of keeping the drone program on a "very tight leash." 

The technologies Logan refers to are microbial fuel cells (MFC)- which use wastewater and naturally occurring bacteria to produce electricity - and reverse electrodialysis (RED) - which produces electricity directly from the salinity gradient between salty and fresh water. The combined technology creates a microbial reverse-electrodialysis cell (MRC).

A new study suggests that cost-effective galactic radio transmissions would be at higher frequencies than SETI projects traditionally monitor, and ET's attempts to make contact would be only few and far between. "If ET was building cost-effective beacons, would our searches have detected them? The answer turns out to be no," says James Benford, president of the company Microwave Sciences in Lafayette, California.

A New Energy Program with Steve Chu speaking at the Climate Change and Global Politics Conference hosted by the World Affairs Council of Northern California.No one nation can effectively reverse the growing problems caused by our changing climate. Coordinated global efforts - between governments, corporations, and individuals - can help us conserve and develop energy resources, as well as ensure the continued growth of emerging and developed nations.What can political leaders do? What can businesses and investors do? nd what can you do? - World Affairs Council of Northern California

As computing power continues to move from the desktop to portable devices, the nature of communications networks will change radically. A network in which devices are regularly being added and removed, and where the strength of the connections between the devices fluctuates with their movement, requires much different protocols from those that govern relatively stable networks, like the Internet.

Students interested in the philosophy of science, the history of science, and/or logic may face the choice of whether to pursue a graduate degree in a traditional philosophy department, or in a separate department of history and philosophy of science (HPS), or logic and philosophy of science (LPS).

...Historians of science have always had a soft spot for the history of theoretical physics. The great theoretical advances of this century -- relativity and quantum mechanics -- have been documented in fascinating historical accounts that have captivated the mind of the cultivated public. There are no comparable studies of the relations between science and engineering. Breaking with the tradition of the Fachidiot, theoretical physicists have bestowed their romantic autobiographies on the world, portraying themselves as the high priests of the reigning cult.

To know what the most important virtue of our age is we need to have at least a basic understanding of our age. Our era is becoming increasingly characterized by uncertainty. Fortunately or unfortunately, more than a cursory elucidation of our situation is beyond the scope of this essay. There are geopolitical, economic, technological and environmental trends worth mentioning. When the more philosophical portion of this  discourse arrives I will argue that the virtue of wisdom underlies the meaningfulness and efficacy of all other virtues, and this in broad strokes is primarily due to (1) the aforementioned instability in our surroundings ; (2) the relationship between the deontological and virtue; and (3) the nature of agency itself.  Whether uncertainty itself can provide an ethical foundation for us to elaborate on will be a separate question, and finally I speculate on where wisdom leads us in the context of a philosophy that is politically active and not doomed to irrelevance to and by the larger population.

There are differences between the group's demonstrations. For crystals, Tittel's group used thulium-doped lithium niobate, whereas Gisin's group opted for neodymium-doped yttrium silicate. In addition, a different type of laser set-up has favoured Gisin's group, which reports a maximum storage time of some 200 ns at an efficiency of more than 20%; Tittel's group reports a storage time of 7 ns at an efficiency of 2%. On the other hand, the quantum memory of Tittel's group functions at a bandwidth of 5 GHz - some 40 times greater than Gisin's group - which means, potentially, far more information could be sent in the same time.

It's hard not to get lost in a data projection like the NYT's Mapping America: Every City, Every Block, which allows you to parse through 20 or so different projections of the American Community Survey data over the last five years from the Census Bureau.  When you can see the geographic correlations of education levels and income (check out the dividing line at 16th street in both cases), it's a stark reminder of the different Washingtons that exist. Be sure also to check out DCist's initial take (focused on demography and increase/decrease) and GGW's initial take (focused on population shift between wards) This is a data goldmine, and the sort of thing that yours truly is absolutely in love with. Parse through this with us over the next couple weeks.

The new device developed by the research team achieved impressive practical results, capable of symmetrical bit writing with a resistance ratio between the two resistance states of over 500% and reproducible nonvolatile switching over 100,000 cycles.

Avoiding a World War Between Haves and Have Nots Via Focus on Transnational Infrastructure, Technocratic Management, and Post-scarcity (via Expanded Bill of Rights)

Researchers in EPFL's Computer Vision Laboratory developed a computer-based modeling service that generates a 3D image from up to thousands of 2D shots, with all the processing done in the cloud. Since April, the EPFL startup Pix4D has been offering the modeling service with a fourth dimension: time. Now, individuals and small businesses looking for fast, cheap, large-scale 3D models can get them without investing in heavy processing, the company states. With Pix4D, users upload a series of photos of an object, and within 30 minutes they have a 3D image. The software defines "points of interest" from among the photos, or common points of high-contrast pixels. Next, the program pastes the images together seamlessly by matching up the points of interest. Much in the same way our two eyes work together to calculate depth, the software computes the distance and angle between two or more photos and lays the image over the model appropriately, creating a highly accurate 3D model that avoids the time intensive, "point by point" wireframe method. With Pix4D's 3D models, you can navigate in all directions as well as change the date on a timeline to see what a place looked like at different times of the year. The company is collaborating with several drone makers (including another EPFL startup,senseFly) to market their software as a package with senseFly's micro aerial vehicles, or autonomous drones. Pix4D's time element avoids waiting for Google to update its satellite data or for an expensive plane to fly by and take high-resolution photos. Farmers, for example, can now send relatively inexpensive flying drones into the air to take pictures as often as they like, allowing them to survey the evolution of their crops over large distances and long periods of time. And since the calculations are done on a cloud server, the client doesn't need a powerful computer of his or her own.

Nissan collaborates with Swiss scientists to develop interface between man and machine, saying it will help road safety

This traditional fall from grace narrative about science argues for the need to return to a (fictional) point in the past where science was better understood and appreciated by the public... Yet you would be hard pressed to find this type of rhetoric in the peer-reviewed literature examining public opinion about science, the role of scientific expertise in policymaking, or the relationship between science and other social institutions.

A University of Zurich study 'proves' that a small group of companies - mainly banks - wields huge power over the global economy. The study is the first to look at all 43,060 transnational corporations and the web of ownership between them - and created a 'map' of 1,318 companies at the heart of the global economy. The study found that 147 companies formed a 'super entity' within this, controlling 40 per cent of its  wealth. All own part or all of one another. Most are banks - the top 20 includes Barclays and Goldman Sachs. But the close connections mean that the network could be vulnerable to collapse