Bleeding Edge Research Articles

The Sound of Capitalism: Thomas Pynchon’s Critique of Future Economic Realities through Don Giovanni in Bleeding Edge

ABSTRACT The topic of fraud in Bleeding Edge extends beyond financial deceit to alternative realities, which are fabricated by alleged time travelers. One such traveler aligns with Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Captive to ominous forces, he liberates himself in death but returns posthumously in a digital future, joining, this article argues, a sacred conspiracy, and the laughter of the Acéphale, which echoes Georges Bataille’s concept inspired by Mozart’s Don Juan. Thomas Pynchon discusses the themes of sin, deception, and fraudulent channels as he intertwines a TV production of Don Giovanni with allusions to Dante’s “Circles of Hell.” Pynchon’s portrayal of sound engages in a theological critique of future economic realities that draws from Bataille’s vision of expenditure value in a future economy while also observing Kierkegaard’s praise for Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The sinner’s odyssey unfolds in a technological future unfettered by repentance for excess and pleasure, but enchained in sound, which offers an eschatological discourse on digital transitions and economic futures. Pynchon’s narrative proposes a cultural exchange that aims to trade over-accumulation and compromised communication for an inner experience of sensuality, which prompts reflections on the impact of data centers, virtual gamescapes, money as medium, and information that shapes and accelerates our trajectory into the future.

The New Clarity: Awakening in the Post-Truth Era

In the wake of Trump and Brexit, the late 2010s gave rise to an ambient sense of a post-truth crisis. It signals the social media fuelled breakdown of liberal democracy and its 'fourth estate' into fragmented and mutually antagonising epistemic media bubbles. Yet at the same time, the new online political movements driving this crisis became enthralled with the radical sense of waking up from a false reality to absolute Truth, ranging from new (con)spiritual fascinations with mystical clarity to far-right ideas about a Great Awakening and red-pilling. This article tries to make sense of this strange resurgence of 'awakening' and the experience of radical epistemic clarity from within post-truth culture. We argue that what we refer to as the New Clarity represents the bleeding edge of our current post-truth predicament, which at once intensifies 'postmodern' sentiments of cynicism, irony and play and breaks with them in the form of new political-epistemic radicalisms. To draw out this paradoxical relationship between post-truth and the New Clarity, we survey three historical dimensions of postmodernism as theorised by Lyotard and others at the closing of the 20th century, namely: cynicism and the crisis of critique, new spiritualities and authoritarian conspiracism, and the spiralling dialectic between neoliberalism and populism. Breaking down these dimensions to understand the New Clarity, we take the QAnon conspiracy movement as embodying its paradoxical logic. Doing so we offer a critical heuristic for charting the rise of new conspiratorial and spiritual Awakenings today.

Monstrous Technology in Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge: The Internet as Terror and Transformation

ABSTRACT This article argues that Pynchon’s portrayal of technology and the Internet in Bleeding Edge (2013) should be read as an example of the monstrous since it embodies its two key features: the ability to terrorize and transform. The paper shows that the Internet in Bleeding Edge is not only monstrous, as it can devour the life essence of its users, but also transformative, as it shocks them to such an extent that they can reassess their beliefs and can thus address new looming realities in productive ways. The paper shows this finding to be at odds with most research on the role of technology in Pynchon’s work and identifies a key benefit of Pynchon’s complex portrayal of the Internet in Bleeding Edge, which can enable better handling of the increasing presence of technology in the 21st century and making its presence and the accompanying transformations less terrifying.

Improved Galactic diffuse emission model strengthens the case for a Millisecond Pulsar explanation of the Fermi GeV excess

After more than a decade since its discovery, the Galactic center gamma-ray excess - discovered with the Fermi Large Area Telescope - remains puzzling. While the spectrum of the signal can be explained by either dark matter or an unresolved population of millisecond pulsars, the spatial morphology of this excess seems to hold the key to separate the two theories. In this contribution, we present the results of a recent study in which we use bleeding edge models for interstellar gas, inverse Compton emission, and stellar mass models to reanalyze the Galactic center excess. We find that the spatial morphology of the excess is highly correlated with stellar matter in the Galactic bulge, providing strong support for the millisecond pulsar hypothesis.

Finding the bleeding edge: 24-hour mortality by unit of blood product transfused in combat casualties from 2002-2020.

Transfusion studies in civilian trauma patients have tried to identify a general futility threshold. We hypothesized that in combat settings there is no general threshold where blood product transfusion becomes unbeneficial to survival in hemorrhaging patients. We sought to assess the relationship between the number of units of blood products transfused and 24-hour mortality in combat casualties. A retrospective analysis of the Department of Defense Trauma Registry supplemented with data from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner. Combat casualties who received at least one unit of blood product at US military medical treatment facilities (MTFs) in combat settings (2002-2020) were included. The main intervention was the total units of any blood product transfused, which was measured from the point of injury until 24 hours after admission from the first deployed MTF. The primary outcome was discharge status (alive, dead) at 24 hours from time of injury. Of 11,746 patients included, the median age was 24 years, and most patients were male (94.2%) with penetrating injury (84.7%). The median injury severity score was 17 and 783 (6.7%) patients died by 24 hours. Median units of blood products transfused was 8. Most blood products transfused were red blood cells (50.2%), followed by plasma (41.1%), platelets (5.5%), and whole blood (3.2%). Among the 10 patients who received the most units of blood product (164 units to 290 units), 7 survived to 24 hours. The maximum amount of total blood products transfused to a patient who survived was 276 units. Of the 58 patients who received over 100 units of blood product, 20.7% died by 24 hours. While civilian trauma studies suggest the possibility of futility with ultra-massive transfusion, we report that the majority (79.3%) of combat casualties who received transfusions greater than 100 units survived to 24 hours. These results do not support a threshold for futility of blood product transfusion. Further analysis as to predictors for mortality will help in situations of blood product and resource constraints. Prognostic and Epidemiological; Level IV.

A computer-vision based hand rehabilitation assessment suite

Post-stroke patients very commonly present upper limb deficits, while their rehabilitation comprises regular monitoring and kinematic assessments to evaluate motor recovery. The Box and Block Test (BBT), as well as the Sollerman Hand function Test (SHT), are two of the most used and recommended tools to objectively measure upper limb dexterity, in addition to evaluating the rehabilitation of fine motor skills in patients. However, the tests themselves require the use of very specific equipment, along with the physical attendance of a therapist, making the whole procedure time consuming and clinic dependent. This paper proposes a computer vision hand rehabilitation assessment suite, which stands as a virtual alternative to the real-world scenarios. Our application integrates all the original tests’ guidelines and procedures into an interactive computer vision experience that utilizes bleeding edge technologies such as MediaPipe Hands for hand and finger tracking. This innovative tool requires neither any additional computer peripherals (smart gloves, VR headsets) nor any kind of extra physical equipment (wooden box, blocks), but works instead with just a mid-range PC and a camera. Our system can be deployed in residential spaces via modern 5G/6G or FTTx networks, and the test results can be sent remotely to any physician or rehabilitation expert. Finally, we shortly discuss some technical issues of our approach, as well as present some future directions regarding our tool’s score normalization and feature expansion.

The relevance of acid sphingomyelinase as a potential target for therapeutic intervention in hepatic disorders: current scenario and anticipated trends.

Acid sphingomyelinase (ASMase) serves as one of the most remarkable enzymes in sphingolipid biology. ASMase facilitates the hydrolysisof sphingomyelin, yielding ceramide and phosphorylcholinevia the phospholipase C signal transduction pathway. Owing to its prominent intervention in apoptosis, ASMase, and its product ceramide is now at the bleeding edge of lipid research due to the coalesced efforts of several research institutions over the past 40 years. ASMase-catalyzed ceramide synthesis profoundly alters the physiological properties of membrane structure in response to a broad range of stimulations, orchestrating signalingcascades forendoplasmic reticulum stress, autophagy, and lysosomal membrane permeabilization, which influences the development of hepatic disorders, such as steatohepatitis, hepatic fibrosis, drug-induced liver injury, and hepatocellular carcinoma. As a result, the potential to modulate the ASMase action with appropriate pharmaceutical antagonists has sparked a lot of curiosity. This article emphasizes the fundamental mechanismsof the systems that govern ASMaseaberrationsin various hepatic pathologies. Furthermore, we present an insight into the potential therapeutic agents used to mitigate ASMase irregularities and the paramountcy of such inhibitors in drug repurposing.

Leading Edge or Bleeding Edge: Designing a Framework for the Adoption of AI Technology in an Educational Organization

Adopting Artificial Intelligent Technology in an Educational Organization is often problematic due to many internal and external environmental reasons, and often fails to attain the desired goals. This study aims to design a framework for adopting AI technology in the education sector. Most of the research focuses on the acceptance of a particular technology and ignores the study of what else is needed for a technology acceptance. The framework in this study provides a step-by-step process of the Technological Transformation of an organization never designed before. We recommend that before making any technological changes in an organization, generally and in the educational organization particularly, the processes must be followed for the successful and meaningful adoption of AI technology.

The Hypersonic Missile Gap

Abstract Though hypersonic cruise missiles represent the most bleeding edge of weapons development and promise to be the most versatile, they face the biggest technological challenges. The U.S. military is funding various research efforts.

Lessons from research in color science on the bleeding edge (Invited)

The end of life is a good time to look back to what I have learned in the past 50 years and share my lessons. Except for stints in engineering and marketing, I have worked mostly in research labs. Although I was mostly in an imaging lab, de facto my research has been primarily in color science. I have worked in industry, but on the side I have volunteered for national science foundations, learned societies, and patent offices. The main take-away is that life in research is not smooth, you have to be resilient to set-backs, and be well connected.

A Comprehensive Evaluation of the Association between Food Quality and Musculoskeletal Pain in Night Shift Worker

Information and communication technology, an overall arrangement of data trade, has been developing for overa time of hundred years and enormously speeding up in development and improvement. Now days, informationtechnology gives the correspondence and insightful force in each field like food and agribusiness, wellbeing,army and defense, business, education and learning, climate forecast, research and advancement and some more.India has been in the bleeding edge in digital world with IT industry forming into a significant specialist cooperation.There are many consequences resulting from computer usage. For example, excessive computer use may resultin lack of sleep, reduces sleep quality. It may also lead to musculoskeletal problem a condition and overtimeworkers affect their diet quality as well. In an IT professional’s job, present advancement is empowered byadaptable working hours. This might actually produce hazards for wellbeing and recuperation from work (forexample over dedication to job and sleep deficiency). Extended work duration and decreased sleep have bothbeen observed to be related with a higher danger of medical issues .Shift workers deals with the changing hours of the day (morning, evening and night shift) or work at consistenthours of the day outside the regular all day (eg, lasting nightshift). Night shift work particularly bringssleeplessness and may lead to circadian interruption with injurious metabolic and cardiovascular effects. Nightworkers have a changed diet consumption, comparatively with day workers manifest by a strong snacking habitthrough the nighttime duration of work.Night shift workers consumed more junk food compared with day workers. Night shift workers ate more softdrinks/beverages than day workers. Variations in nutrient intake between day and shift workers in saturatedand polyunsaturated fatty acids, dietary fibre, vitamin B1, vitamin A, potassium and carbohydrates have beensuggested in some works.The aim and purpose of this study was to find out the comprehensive literature showing the presence of associationbetween the alteration in sleep timing, eating hours, which are responsible for many musculoskeletal disordersand the associated risk factors.

A Review on Digital Twin Technology in Smart Grid, Transportation System and Smart City: Challenges and Future

With recent advances in information and communication technology (ICT), the bleeding edge concept of digital twin (DT) has enticed the attention of many researchers to revolutionize the entire modern industries. DT concept refers to a digital representation of a physical entity that is able to reflect its physical behavior by applying platforms and bidirectional interaction of data in real-time. The remarkable deployment of the internet of things in the power grid has led to reliable access to information that improves its performance and equips it with a powerful tool for real-time data management and analysis. This paper aims to trace the continuous investigation and propose practical ideas in originating and developing DT technology, according to various application domains of power systems, and also describes the proposed solutions to deal with the challenges associated with DT. Indeed, with the development of modern cities, different energy layers such as transportation systems, smart grids, and microgrids have emerged facing various issues that challenge the multi-dimensional energy management system. For example, in transportation systems, traffic is a major problem that requires real-time management, planning, and analysis. In power grids, remote data transfer within the grid and also various analyzes needing real data are just some of the current challenges in the field. These problems can be cracked by providing and analyzing a real twin framework in each section. All in all, this paper aims to survey different applications of DT in the development of the various aspects of energy management within a city including transportation systems, power grids, and microgrids. Besides, the security of DT technology based on ML is discussed. It also provides a complete view for the readers to be able to develop and deploy a DT technology for various power system applications.

The MetaPharmacy: What Happens When Big Pharma Goes Virtual?

The MetaPharmacy: What Happens When Big Pharma Goes Virtual?

Notes on fiber length measurements: A case study in the underbelly of open source neuroscience

Being on the bleeding edge of research requires the use of new and regularly updated software. The result is the occasional and inevitable occurrence of bugs. In the following work we present a case study where a feature request introduced a bug in a neuroimaging software package, which had consequences for the quality of results in a published article. We discuss the process of diagnosis, rectification and analysis replication.

VaclavSmilHow the World Really Works: A Scientist's Guide to Our Past, Present and FuturePenguin, 2022, 325 p., $28.00.

VaclavSmilHow the World Really Works: A Scientist's Guide to Our Past, Present and FuturePenguin, 2022, 325 p., $28.00.

Choosing Threat, Embodying the Viral

Choosing Threat, Embodying the Viral

PERCEPTION OF PROMOTION OPPORTUNITIES IN INSURANCE AND BANKING SECTORS; IMPACT OF GENDER AND WORK EXPERIENCE

The purpose of this research is to notice worker fulfilment regarding their situation in different business banks or insurance agency, including private, public banks in India, and to analyse what different variable elements mean for representative fulfilment. This study portrays the variables that lead to more significant level of occupation fulfilment. These variables connect with the discernment in administration position, compensation, redesign, advancement, work security and connections in the workplace. The exploration shows that there is a positive connection and association among work fulfilment and the honour, compensation, employer stability, advancement potential open doors and great relations with representatives. The review results likewise show that most of bank representatives in the financial area are fulfilled to the extent that work culture is concern yet compensations and different open doors are yet stayed principal worry for them. The banking and protection industry requires capable directors, and this examination analysed the hindrances and inspirations that influence the aims of workers to seek after administration positions. Places that offered future open doors was distinguished as a significant obstruction and ladies recognizes balance between fun and serious activities more than men or not. The principal motivation to go after a higher job was for development and experience and ladies demonstrated the capacity to acquire control/strengthening more than men. Bleeding edge representatives demonstrated that additional pressure was a boundary for them to apply for an advancement and a significant motivation to apply was to work with others/pioneers.

Review of The Geometry of Uncertainty by Fabio Cuzzolin

The Geometry of Uncertainty is unlike any book on mathematics and computer science I've ever read. It's certainly not a textbook in the traditional sense - there are no exercises, and very little is presented as the "right way" to do something. In many ways, The Geometry of Uncertainty is like a survey paper: it critically analyzes decades of research and while some of the author's preferences are reflected, many perspectives are presented with little direct guidance about which approach ought to be favored. People have long used the phrase "The Bible of X" to describe the most well-known or well-respected text in a field. However, calling The Geometry of Uncertainty "The Bible of Evidence Theory" is truly apt in the sense that you come into the book with questions, and you leave the book with parables, historical insight, and a whole host of new, better informed questions. Truly, the book is not merely an introduction to belief function theory, it is instead a truly comprehensive view of an entire field of study from its conception up to the most bleeding edge research.

Escape from Zanzibar: The Epistemic Value of Precision in Measurement

AbstractA “Zanzibar” is an island of measurement values that internally cohere, but are detached from independent contact with reality. One manifestation of Zanzibars is through “bandwagon effects,” the tendency of contemporaneous measurements to agree. Bandwagons illustrate how the otherwise virtuous drive towards coherence can have negative epistemic consequences. I argue that precision is an epistemic virtue that mitigates against bandwagon effects and illustrate this claim with a case study from the history of measurements of c. This precision-first reasoning motivates the practice of blind data analysis in bleeding edge precision measurement, where outcomes can point the way to new physics.

Why tandem mass spectrometry for trace analysis: Concepts of tandem analytical techniques.

The triple quadrupole mass spectrometer, typically in combination with a gas or liquid chromatograph (GC/MS/MS and LC/MS/MS), is perhaps the most iconic example today of a tandem analytical instrument. Here I present the concepts of tandem or hyphenated techniques for trace analysis (that is, the detection and/or quantitation of one or more analytes present in a mixture at low levels). This tutorial presents the principles of tandem trace analytical techniques such as GC/MS/MS and LC/MS/MS, including the capabilities and requirements for such tandem techniques, the role of sensitivity and selectivity in tandem techniques, ways to assess the "informing power" of these techniques, and a comparison of tandem techniques with individual techniques at high resolution. These points are illustrated with several examples of trace analysis using tandem analytical techniques. Several characteristics of the triple quadrupole have made it the "laboratory workhorse" for trace analysis, including the remarkable efficiency of the low-energy collision-induced dissociation (CID) process in a radiofrequency (RF)-only multipole collision cell, the ease of computer control, and the capability for rapid scanning, rapid switching from mass to mass, and high transmission efficiency, enabling a wide variety of MS/MS scans. The efficiency of selected reaction monitoring means that triple quadrupoles dominate MS/MS for detection and quantitation of targeted compounds. This special issue addresses the intriguing question of how the triple quadrupole mass spectrometer progressed from "bleeding edge" to "the laboratory workhorse" over the last 40 years. This tutorial on the principles of tandem trace analytical techniques provides perspectives and insights into answering that question and should help educate the novice and stimulate the sophisticate.