Communication Theoretical Perspective Research Articles

Epistemic Specificity from a Communication-Theoretic Perspective

Epistemic Specificity from a Communication-Theoretic Perspective

A Technological Perspective on Information Cascades via Social Learning

Collective behavior in human society is attracting a lot of attention, particularly as the result of novel emergent phenomena associated with online social media and networks. In effect, although crowd wisdom and herding behavior have been well studied in social science, the rapid development of Internet computing and e-commerce brings further needs of in-depth comprehension of their consequences and impact from a technological perspective. Based on social learning , an analytical knowledge originated in social science, we re-examine the well-known phenomenon of information cascade , whereby rational agents can ignore personal knowledge to follow a predominant social behavior triggered by earlier decisions made by peers. Moreover, we look into the cascade behavior from a communication theoretic perspective, interpreting social learning as a distributed data processing scheme. This perspective enables the development of a novel framework, which allows a characterization of the conditions that trigger information cascades and trace their impact on the accuracy of the collective inference. Finally, potential applications and examples of information cascade have been presented under various cyber technological scenarios, illustrating the prolific interplay between communication technology and computational social science.

On the Physical Design of Molecular Communication Receiver Based on Nanoscale Biosensors

Molecular communications (MC), where molecules are used to encode, transmit, and receive information, is a promising means of enabling the coordination of nanoscale devices. The paradigm has been extensively studied from various aspects, including channel modeling and noise analysis. Comparatively little attention has been given to the physical design of molecular receiver and transmitter, envisioning biological synthetic cells with intrinsic molecular reception and transmission capabilities as the future nanomachines. However, this assumption leads to a discrepancy between the envisaged applications requiring complex communication interfaces and protocols, and the very limited computational capacities of the envisioned biological nanomachines. In this paper, we examine the feasibility of designing a molecular receiver, in a physical domain other than synthetic biology, meeting the basic requirements of nanonetwork applications. We first review the state-of-the-art biosensing approaches to determine whether they can inspire a receiver design. We reveal that nanoscale field effect transistor based electrical biosensor technology (bioFET) is a particularly useful starting point for designing a molecular receiver. Focusing on bioFET-based molecular receivers with a conceptual approach, we provide a guideline elaborating on their operation principles, performance metrics and design parameters. We then provide a simple model for signal flow in silicon nanowire (SiNW) FET-based molecular receiver. Lastly, we discuss the practical challenges of implementing the receiver and present the future research avenues from a communication theoretical perspective.

A Communication Theoretic Analysis of Synaptic Channels Under Axonal Noise

Molecular communication is an emerging communication technology for applications requiring nanoscale networks. Transferring vital information about external and internal conditions of the body through the nervous system is an important type of intra-body molecular nanonetworks. Thus, investigating the performance of such systems from the communication theoretic perspective gives us insight on the limitation of neuro-spike communication and ways to design artificial neural systems. In this letter, we study the performance of the neuro-spike communication under different stochastic impairments such as axonal shot noise, synaptic noise, and random vesicle release. The objective is to optimally detect the spikes at the receiving neuron. Since several uncertainties occur under each hypothesis, composite hypothesis is employed to find the optimum detection policy. Furthermore, we obtain closed-form solutions for the optimal detector and derive the binary decision error at the postsynaptic terminal.

Four-dimensional Rotations in Coherent Optical Communications

To model electromagnetic wave propagation for coherent communications without polarization dependent losses, the unitary 2 ×2 Jones transfer matrix formalism is typically used. In this study, we propose an alternative formalism to describe such transformations based on rotations in four-dimensional (4d) Euclidean space. This formalism is usually more attractive from a communication theoretical perspective, since decisions and symbol errors can be related to geometric concepts such as Euclidean distances between points and decision boundaries. Since 4d rotations is a richer description than the conventional Jones calculus, having six rather than four degrees of freedom (DOF), we propose an extension of the Jones calculus to handle all six DOF. In addition, we show that the two extra DOF in the 4d description represents transformations that are nonphysical for propagating photons, since they does not obey the fundamental quantum mechanical boson commutation relations. Finally, we exemplify on how the nonphysical rotations can change the polarization-phase degeneracy of well-known constellations such as single-polarization QPSK, polarization-multiplexed (PM-)QPSK and polarization-switched (PS-) QPSK. For example, we show how PM-QPSK, which is well known to consist of four polarization states each having four-fold phase degeneracy, can be represented as eight states of polarizations, each with binary phase degeneracy.

‘It definitely made a difference to me’ - Practical Relevance of Management Development Programs

In this paper I explore how different communication processes around two management development programs contribute to establish different forms of relevance for management practice. Understanding the MDP and the organization through a communication-based perspective enables us to elucidate the social complexity between the MDP and the organization and understand more about the relevance of management development programs for managerial practice. Drawing upon two ethnographically informed empirical cases of top-management development programs in decentralized organizations their interpretation from a communication-theoretical perspective enables a new understanding of the controversial discussion on MDP´s relevance, their relation for organizational development and the enabling and limiting elements for the ‘transfer’ into organizational practice.

Complex Communication and the Self at the Edge

This paper uses an interdisciplinary communication-theoretical perspective to evaluate the impact on the self of acute communicative complexity. Here, complexity is seen as a factor of the contingency (or risk) which is embedded in constructions which social actors make in a multifaceted social environment. Without recourse to transcendental models, the aim here is to examine the references of the self and its relationship with cognitive autonomy (as distinct from social freedom). Such referentiality and autonomy are contingent in the sense that they differ in each actor and in each environment. This cognitive autonomy must also be located in an environment with reference to other actors. Meaning is conceptualized as a temporarily stabilized social semantic which is ‘constructed’ by means of communications between cognitively autonomous actors in an environment known as society but without contact with an objective world ‘beyond’ it. Such contingent communications cannot establish direct ‘contact’ with a putatively stable reality or horizon common to all, but operate by means of complex fictions which are in turn temporarily constructed and require constant revalidation. The guiding question is: how does society reconcile stability with autonomy?

Risk communication, the West Nile virus epidemic, and bioterrorism: responding to the communication challenges posed by the intentional or unintentional release of a pathogen in an urban setting.

The intentional or unintentional introduction of a pathogen in an urban setting presents severe communication challenges. Risk communication--a science-based approach for communicating effectively in high-concern situations--provides a set of principles and tools for meeting those challenges. A brief overview of the risk communication theoretical perspective and basic risk communication models is presented here, and the risk communication perspective is applied to the West Nile virus epidemic in New York City in 1999 and 2000 and to a possible bioterrorist event. The purpose is to provide practical information on how perceptions of the risks associated with a disease outbreak might be perceived and how communications would be best managed.

Treatment of patients with benign chronic pain from a systems and communication theoretical perspective

Treatment of patients with benign chronic pain from a systems and communication theoretical perspective

On seduction (and flirting) in the twenty-first century: A communication-theoretical perspective

An attempt is made here to provide an analysis, in communicational terms, of the phenomena of seduction and (related to it) flirting as it comes across in the present era. This entails answering the question, whether these two related activities are still the same, historically speaking, as they were in earlier epochs – for example in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Are there indications that they display an inalienable, characteristic structure, which still undergirds them today, regardless of the extent to which the postmodern era may differ from preceding ones? And what might such a structure look like in each case? Focusing on Kierkegaard's anatomy of seduction in Either/or, a reconstruction of its salient features is attempted before turning to Zupancic's pertinent distinction between two types of seduction, and before examining Baudrillard's provocative description of seduction in relation to the feminine principle in contemporary culture. What are the implications of these for flirting as a related activity? And are there indications that the present era modulates these communicational practices in a new or distinctive manner?