Temporal Horizon Research Articles

Revitalizing Easternand Western Online Communication: A Micro-Meso-MacroLink of Temporal Digital Change

This paper explains in a de-westernized sense (Gunaratne 2010) how internet-mediated communication changes the way we deal with and plan time both individually and culturally in Germany and China. Therefore, it blends Western and Eastern culture and media theories. The paper focuses on two distinct phenomena: temporal change due to social media, and Online journalism, as the core of Internet-mediated communication (for Germany 39% communication, media use 24% Projektgruppe ARD/ZDF-Multimedia, 2016; for China 90.7% instant messaging, 82% Internet news China Internet Network Information Center 2017), with other temporal change via smart devices touched upon (Ash 2018). General research on time in post modern societies, recently more focused on media’s temporal change phenomena (e.g. Barker 2012; Barker 2018; Castells 2010; Eriksen 2001; Hartmann 2016; Hassan 2003; Innis 2004; Neverla 2010a, 2010b; Nowotny 1995; Rantanen 2005; Wajcman 2010; Wajcman and Dodd) has not yet linked the different societal and cultural levels of temporal change. Thus, we suggest the following to fill this research gap: For a micro perspective the notions of network theories (e.g. Granovetter 1973; Schönhut, 2013), media synchronicity (Dennis, Fuller, and Valacich 2008) and the idea of permanent connectivity (Sonnentag, Reinecke, Mata, and Vorderer 2018; van Dijck 2013; Vorderer, Krömer, and Schneider 2016) are linked. On a meso level, institutional change in Online journalism with a focus on acceleration is modeled (Ananny, 2016; Bødker and Sonnevend 2017; Dimmick, Feaster, and Hoplamazian 2011; Krüger 2014; Neuberger 2010). On a macro level, mediatization theory (Couldry and Hepp 2017; Krotz 2001, 2012) and recent acceleration theory (Rosa 2005, 2012, 2017) is discussed. The levels are systematically linked suggesting a micro-meso-macro-link (Quandt 2010) to then ask if and how many of the dimensions of the construct temporal understanding (Faust 2016) can be changed through Internet-mediated communication. Temporal understanding consists of nine dimensions: General past, general future, instrumental experience (monochronicity), fatalism, interacting experience (polychronicity), pace of life, future as planned expectation and result of proximal goals as well as future as trust based interacting expectation and result of present positive behavior. Temporal understanding integrates the anthropological construct of polychronicity (Bluedorn, Kalliath, Strube, and Martin 1999; Hall 1984; Lindquist and Kaufman-Scarborough, 2007), pace of life (Levine, 1998) and temporal horizon (Klapproth 2011) into a broader framework which goes beyond Western biased constructs through the theory driven incorporation of Confucian notions (Chinese Culture Connection 1987). Finally, meta trends are laid out.

Cost-effectiveness of new oral anticoagulants and warfarin in atrial fibrillation from adverse events perspective

Objectivenew oral anticoagulants (apixaban, dabigatran and rivaroxaban) are the newest advance for stroke's risk reduction in atrial fibrillation. These are as effective as warfarin in preventing stroke/systemic embolism, but exists heterogenic outcomes as gastrointestinal hemorrhage, mortality reduction, minor and major haemorrhage (adverse events). Despite of this, there is a lack of cost-effectiveness models focused on adverse events. Methodsa cost-effectiveness analysis with a third payer perspective, interventions included were apixaban, dabigatran, warfarin and rivaroxaban. Discount rate of 3%, and 10 years of temporal horizon. The Markov model is an international, validated, and modified to assess better adverse events. Major assumptions, patients with mild and moderate stroke returns to oral anticoagulation, patients with moderate and severe hemorrhage do not returns to oral anticoagulation. Probabilities and QALYs, taken from a cost-effectiveness analysis published. Costs, information from a cohort of stroke patients. Software, TreeAge pro™ and Excel™. Resultsoverall results, 1.48 QALYs, $17 916 USD for apixaban, 1.49 QALYs, $18 122 USD for dabigatran, 1.32 QALYs, $21 966 USD for warfarin and 1.24 QALYs, $24 547 USD for rivaroxaban. The ICER for apixaban compared to dabigatran was $12 988 USD. Negative ICER for warfarin and rivaroxaban, shows that are dominated alternatives (less benefits and more costs). Apixaban is cost-effective at 70% and dabigatran at 30% of iterations in the probabilistic sensitivity analysis. Conclusionsapixaban and dabigatran are cost-effective alternatives, apixaban is the most cost-effective alternative from adverse events perspective. Warfarin shows better results than rivaroxaban to prevent stroke in atrial fibrillation from adverse events perspective.

Feeling for the deep past: archaeological analogy and historical empathy

Debates about how to narrate the ‘deep past’ have rarely drawn archaeologists and historians together despite their shared concerns. This article examines one such mutual concern, the interpretive role of what in archaeology is termed analogy, and in history, historical empathy: crudely put, the way that human-centred narratives may project present-day or universal behaviours and activities into the past. I explore debates about analogy in archaeology, and consider the role of ‘empathy’, especially within textual and visual devices deployed to create empathy with ancient peoples. I exemplify these strategies through reference to First Footprints, a 2013 archaeological synthesis intended as a long-term history for a general audience, accompanying a major documentary film series of the same name. Images may constrain the ‘ampliative’ flow of interpretation to instantiate aspects of reconstructions of the past and bridge temporal horizons. While these strategies may lack methodological surety, nonetheless they provide an important means of creating and dramatizing human history and engaging audiences. Strategies that emphasise temporal simultaneity intersect with Indigenous concepts of time as non-linear, and place as animated by Dreamings, or abiding ancestral beings. A more nuanced understanding of the methodological and theoretical implications of these empathetic strategies suggests their importance in telling deep time stories. Archaeological and historical accounts must acknowledge Indigenous world-views that fold time to join past and present. Through the combination of disciplinary expertise, methodological rigour but also techniques that prompt the historical imagination, First Footprints represents an innovative approach in which historical empathy and archaeological analogy might potentially unite to tell deep time history.

Time and the Environment: “Slow Violence” in Benito Pérez Galdós’s Doña Perfecta and Marianela

Time and the Environment: “Slow Violence” in Benito Pérez Galdós’s Doña Perfecta and Marianela Sarah Sierra In “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias” Foucault writes that the great obsession of the nineteenth century was history, or time. Evidence of this obsession abounds in Western literary representations that portray human behavior adjusting to both its historical consciousness as well as the daily measured and rhythmic time of the clock indicative of industrial societies. In spite of this fascination with mechanized rhythms, the nineteenth century marks the beginning phases of a perceptual crisis regarding other temporal horizons, a crisis that has only become more acute during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. One of the great conflicts confronting humanity--and indeed the entire planetary well-being--is the abstraction of human temporality from Earth’s rhythms. As Richard Irvine explains, in contemporary Western-minded societies the changes brought about by industrialization had profound effects on time-reckoning. This term, as Nancy Munn explains, identifies prevailing methods within a society used for temporal orientation: “Strictly construed, ‘time-reckoning’ refers to the use of selected cultural categories, or contingent events […] to “tell time”- to ask “when” something happened, will or should happen- and to “measure” duration- to ask “how long” something takes, or to “time” it (8). Measuring time forms an integral part of society that extends from larger socio-cultural structures to individual perceptions of time. Filip Vostal writes that “not only does transformation of the temporal structures of modern society reconfigure our relationship with each other and with ourselves, but it also affects how we relate to the physical and natural world” (236). Changes in time-reckoning occur in slight ways that can adjust how one organizes and segments activities in daily life; however, industrialization contributed to an extensive time revolution that profoundly altered human thought. While initially localized to industrialized nations in the late-eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century, globalization has implemented these temporal changes imposing what Halmut Rosa calls social acceleration. It transforms human perception of time and profoundly affects, as Vostal notes, how we relate to the external world. Contemporary technological societies have been experiencing an unprecedented acceleration of time that has had direct consequences on how these same ‘advanced’ [End Page 41] cultures perceive the extremely slow rhythms of nature. In fact, many theorists now identify that modern technology imposes a perceptual blindness to causal processes in the natural world.1 This blindness is particularly alarming as it hinders the ability to see the effects of human activity on the biosphere. In Rob Nixon’s provocative study Slow Violence, he sustains that in the modern technological age, human cognitive processes increasingly struggle to recognize a connection when prolonged periods separate an event from consequences. As social acceleration increases, perceptual blindness of slow causal events portends frightening consequences for the global ecosystem. In spite of growing alarm over the destabilized biosphere, detractors of climate change accuse scientists and cultural critics of politicizing the environment. The dismissal of an environmental crisis is often traced back to the increasing disconnect between the human and non-human worlds. In essence, modern societies rooted in an ideology of progress engender convictions of humanity’s domination of the natural world, which perforce ignores that humans are deeply reliant on natural affordances. In a counter effort to redress the increasing disengagement of human beings from the environment, literary and artistic expressions have sought to draw attention to the human factor in the environmental crisis such as Rachel Carson’s 1962 Silent Spring. Contemporary efforts in literary and cultural productions attempt to redirect attention to humanity’s integral role in the condition of the biosphere as Nixon has shown in his analyses of ecocritical texts. Earlier works, however, offer insight into the social conditions that altered humanity’s understanding of the Earth and its processes. As modernization and technology reconfigured human experiences of time with an ever-accelerating tempo, the Earth’s slower rhythms fell beyond the scope of cognitive processes. This essay seeks to explore earlier representations of the time revolution and social acceleration that altered perception of the environment in two of Galdós’s novels, Doña...

On the Difference between Anthropocene and Climate Change Temporalities

This article compares two dominating conceptual frameworks of the current global environmental crisis, the Anthropocene and climate change, with respect to how they can be deployed to think about the dynamics of political action. Whereas the Anthropocene has attracted the attention of audiences beyond specialists and has radically expanded the temporal horizon for politics, its temporal characteristics risk rendering it unhelpful for thinking critically about how the current environmental crisis can be addressed. Most importantly, by establishing a reference point in a distant future from which the present is evaluated, the Anthropocene framework gives the impression that the future is already determined and that the course of future environmental degradation is set. The Anthropocene thus fails to specify what is at stake for politics in the current crisis. As a contrast, the climate-change framework is structured as a range of scenarios. It establishes a temporal structure that opens the present to different potential futures and manifests the fact that the level of emissions in the coming decades is decisive for future climate change but not yet determined. Further, the presence of tipping points in the climate system can be understood in temporal terms as a risk in some scenarios of falling into a temporality of unfolding, a mode in which game-changing events that lead to even more emissions proceed beyond human influence. The risk of entering such a temporality that closes down the possibility to meaningfully deliberate on fundamental aspects of the future increases with the rate of emissions. The climate-change framework in this way helps us understand the environmental crisis in a new way, namely by conceptualizing the open future as a finite resource that has to be distributed globally and across generations. In sum, as a framework for engaging with environmental derangement, the climate-change framework offers a more specific and politically useful temporality than the Anthropocene.

Medeia - A serviço da justiça e da piedade

No pensamento mítico grego arcaico, a Justiça é um dos aspectos fundamentais do mundo, percebida e descrita como uma Deusa, filha de Zeus e Têmis, integrante da tríade das Horas (HES. T. 901-903). Sendo uma das Horas, a Justiça, como as duas outras irmãs da mesma tríade, se manifesta no horizonte temporal do curso dos acontecimentos como a atualização da ordem e dos desígnios de Zeus. No teatro de Eurípides, a meu ver, a questão da justiça, pensada e determinada nos termos do imaginário mítico, constitui o fio condutor da narrativa; -- e a narrativa mesma, sendo construída segundo a lógica própria do pensamento mítico, constitui, por sua vez, uma imagem verbal da noção mítica de justiça e, por conseguinte, uma demonstração da constância e inevitabilidade da Justiça de Zeus. Mediante a análise e interpretação da tragédia Medeia de Eurípides, verificaremos a seguir a demonstração dessa tese geral do teatro de Eurípides em uma de suas tragédias.

A Critical View of Microbial Fuel Cells: What Is the Next Stage?

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have garnered interest from the scientific community since the beginning of this century and this has caused a considerable increase in the scientific production of MFCs. However, the ability of MFCs to generate power has not increased considerably within this timeframe. In recent years, the power generated by MFCs has remained at an almost contact level owing to difficulties in the scale-up of the technology and thus the application of MFCs for powering systems with high energy demands will not be fully developed, at least within a short temporal horizon. Scale-up by increasing the size of the electrodes has failed, because of the wrong assumption that a linear function describes the relationship between the amount of power generated by a MFC and its size. However, more efficient energy generation upon working with small MFCs has been described. This has led to a new approach for scaling up on the basis of miniaturization and replication. Then, MFCs can be connected electrically in series to increase the overall potential and in parallel to increase the overall current. However, cell-voltage reversal and ionic short-circuit issues must be solved for this approach to be successful. Nowadays, the applicability of MFC technology in wastewater treatment does not make any sense in light of the power levels reached, despite the fact that MFCs were seen as a paramount opportunity less than a decade ago. However, MFCs can be used for wastewater treatment with coupled energy generation, as well as for other technologies such as biosensors and biologically inspired robots.

Koselleck’s Historik and the Horizons of Politics

Political theorists, especially in the subfield of ideology studies, continue to draw insights from Begriffsgeschichte (conceptual history) to help them better analyze the morphology of political concepts over time. However, other aspects of Reinhart Koselleck’s work remain underutilized. This is especially true of the connections between Begriffsgeschichte and his development of a theory of history (Historik), dealing with the broader intersection of language, structure, and the experience of time. This article focuses on just one aspect of this intersection: on the potential relevance of Koselleck’s use of the concept of horizon to theorize a particular “horizonal mode” of the politics of time. After discussing some relevant features of the horizon metaphor, the article moves to reappraise Koselleck’s use of the concept before elaborating and expanding on it to claim that Koselleck helps to showcase the contestation of different temporal horizons as a core feature of political thinking.

Biodiversity/ecosystem services scenario exercises from the Asia–Pacific: typology, archetypes and implications for sustainable development goals (SDGs)

This paper presents a systematic review of biodiversity/ecosystem services scenario exercises from the Asia–Pacific region. From the limited scholarly literature available, 61 scenario exercises were examined to explore their typology and multiple scenario attributes, including geographic distribution, consideration for influential drivers, choices of ecosystem services, number of alternative futures and temporal horizons for scenario deployment. To analyze the nature and tendency of 204 regional scenario narratives, collated from the 61 regional/sub-regional scenario studies, we used the Global Scenario Group (GSG) archetypes to synthesize diverse, contrasting scenario assumptions. A further attempt was made to identify regional focuses in relation to the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) through rigorous, qualitative screening of scenario narratives. Our observation suggests that, so far, spatially explicit, exploratory scenarios dominate regional ecosystem services/biodiversity scenario research, with emphasis on the assessment of likely trades-offs in food-provisioning ecosystem services. The archetype analysis further indicated that the regional/sub-regional scenarios mostly correspond to the market force, policy reform and eco-communalism pathways of the GSG archetypes, while population growth, climate change, agricultural expansion and urbanization remain the dominant regional drivers of change. With respect to integration of SDGs, environmental targets listed under SDGs 11 to 15, in addition to the first three SDGs (i.e. SDGs 1, 2 and 3), remain well-integrated within the regional/sub-regional scenario narratives, albeit with variations across the sub-regions. The review concludes with a number of recommendations for future biodiversity/scenario research in the Asia–Pacific, which should aim to put emphasis on development of short-term, normative, participatory scenarios and incorporation for cultural services, especially those with non-material benefits.

Disruption in time projection and non-adherence to long-term therapies.

ObjectivePatients’ non-adherence to medical prescriptions is a crucial issue in contemporary medicine because it can jeopardize care efficacy. Non-adherence is especially frequent in patients with chronic diseases. In this article, we propose that a particular condition, which we call disruption in time projection, is a cause of non-adherence to medication therapies in chronic diseases.MethodsA questionnaire was administered to 120 hospitalized people with type 2 diabetes addressing three psychological constructs defining time projection: patience/impatience in a fictive monetary scenario (preferring to receive €1,500 in 1 year or €500 today), magnitude of temporal horizon (greater or lesser ability to imagine future events) and perception of the degree of physical similarity of current self to self at 1 year, 5 years and 10 years from the present. In addition, the questionnaire evaluated adherence to medication, social deprivation and depression.ResultsIn the multivariate analyses, two factors were associated with adherence to medication: patience (P<0.001) and long temporal horizon (P=0.006). Two factors were associated with HbA1c ≥8% (64 mmol/mol): non-adherence to medication (P=0.003) and short temporal horizon (P=0.011). Three factors were associated with long temporal horizon: adherence to medication (P<0.001), patience (P<0.001) and the existence of grandchildren (P=0.002). Social deprivation (P<0.001), non-adherence (P<0.001), female gender (P=0.002) and short temporal horizon (P=0.050) were associated with impatience. Finally, an association of adherence to expected similarity in the future to current self, impatience, short temporal horizon, social deprivation and depression was also shown in a multiple correspondence analysis.ConclusionWhat we termed a disruption in time projection may be a unique determinant for non-adherence to long-term therapy and, therefore, may influence the outcome of chronic diseases. We hypothesize that this is involved in both intentional and unintentional non-adherence and that it represents the loss of a protective mechanism. If this novel concept is to be confirmed in other settings and generalized to other chronic diseases, the recognition of its role in disease prognosis may help orient the teaching and practice of medicine.

Adaptivity as a Property to Achieve Resilience of Load-Carrying Systems

Load-carrying systems often suffer from unexpected disruptions which can cause damages or system breakdowns if they were neglected during product development. In this context, unexpected disruptions summarize unpredictable load conditions, external disturbances or failures of system components and can be comprehended as uncertainties caused by nescience. While robust systems can cope with stochastic uncertainties, uncertainties caused by nescience can be controlled only by resilient load-carrying systems. This paper gives an overview of the characteristics of resilience as well as the time-dependent resilient behaviour of subsystems. Based on this, the adaptivity of subsystems is classified and can be distinguished between autonomous and externally induced adaption and the temporal horizon of adaption. The classification of adaptivity is explained using a simple example of a joint brake application.

Temporal Horizons in the Study of Turkish Politics: Prevalence of Non-Causal Description and seemingly “Global Warming” Type of Causality

In this article, I critically evaluate the causal and temporal dimension of social scientific studies focusing on Turkish politics. A very important and yet often neglected aspect of social scientific analysis involves the temporal dimension of causal processes. The temporal dimension of causal processes has direct consequences for operationalization and measurement, and hence it is an essential component of research design. Does the dependent variable (outcome) of interest unfold over the short term or the long term? Do the hypothesized independent variables (causes) unfold over the short term or the long term? Paul Pierson (2004) provided a classification of four types of causality based on the temporal dimension of causes and outcomes using metaphors of natural disasters: tornado, earthquake, meteorite, and global warming. Operationalization and measurement of long term causes and outcomes pose a major challenge, compounded by the challenges of periodization of causes and effects. Unfortunately, a large proportion of the studies of Turkish politics do not have a clearly discernible independent variable (cause) to begin with, and they are thus better characterized as works of “non-causal description.” Moreover, many of the studies of Turkish politics tend to imply, but rarely state explicitly, a global warming type of causality (long term cause and long term outcome), which necessitates focusing even more intensively on such challenges of measurement and periodization. Yet the operationalization of the key (dependent and independent) variables is often missing even in articles published in reputable academic journals of Turkish politics and society. In the spirit of constructive criticism, I suggest a number of guidelines for research design in order to address the problems of causality and temporality discussed in this article.

Some insights into nanotechnology innovation processes and patterns for advanced materials

&lt;p&gt;Nanotechnology innovation has peculiar characteristics. This paper reviews the methodology and results, drawn from cases analyzed on two EU projects: EULASUR and EULACERMAT. The cases covers both European and Latin American experiences, particularly from Mercosur countries. We analyze specifically nanotechnology innovation based on new and advanced materials. The main conclusion of this paper is that innovation in advanced materials, based on nanotechnology, relies crucially on networks of cooperative agents. It starts from the validated assumption that innovation is interactive in nature. Therefore, it is needed to co-create through the participation to obtain feasible results. The position of advanced materials within the related (new or existent) value chains explains to a great extend the border conditions for innovating in this nanotechnology field. It appeared clearly that innovation in this field is a complex problem, with the same degree as researching (nanoscience), and that the connections between them were not obvious nor simple. Concerning policy implications, it is useful to discriminate them in terms of the temporal horizon of what type of nanotechnology innovation should be promoted, particularly for developing countries’ trajectories, for ensuring that the impacts of advanced materials will be suitable for the society.&lt;/p&gt;

Plausible folk theories: throwing veils of plausibility over zones of ignorance in global governance.

In an age of expertise, where knowledge ostensibly reigns, global governance not infrequently settles for ignorance. To understand this puzzle, this article draws upon extensive empirical research on two sites within the global governance of finance. One is directed to the suppression of money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism by the Financial Action Task Force and International Monetary Fund. Another intends to stimulate the supply of otherwise scarce money to financial markets through global lawmaking by the UN Commission on International Trade Law. In both cases vast enterprises of global regulation and lawmaking proceed on weakly founded justificatory rhetorics designated here as 'plausible folk theories.' Six properties make a folk theory plausible: parsimony, face validity, rhetorical compactness, ambiguity, affinity with extant beliefs, and unexamined premises and logics. Plausible folk theories offer organizational benefits to IOs. They also allow a politics of temporality that may shorten temporal horizons, or weaken and eliminate IO accountability. Finally, three variants of ignorance contribute to choices by international organizations not to get beyond plausible folk theories to justify their regulatory and lawmaking initiatives: inadvertent ignorance, willful ignorance, and strategic or rational ignorance.

Recognition Dynamics in the Brain under the Free Energy Principle.

We formulate the computational processes of perception in the framework of the principle of least action by postulating the theoretical action as a time integral of the variational free energy in the neurosciences. The free energy principle is accordingly rephrased, on autopoetic grounds, as follows: all viable organisms attempt to minimize their sensory uncertainty about an unpredictable environment over a temporal horizon. By taking the variation of informational action, we derive neural recognition dynamics (RD), which by construction reduces to the Bayesian filtering of external states from noisy sensory inputs. Consequently, we effectively cast the gradient-descent scheme of minimizing the free energy into Hamiltonian mechanics by addressing only the positions and momenta of the organisms' representations of the causal environment. To demonstrate the utility of our theory, we show how the RD may be implemented in a neuronally based biophysical model at a single-cell level and subsequently in a coarse-grained, hierarchical architecture of the brain. We also present numerical solutions to the RD for a model brain and analyze the perceptual trajectories around attractors in neural state space.

PMD89 - COST-EFFECTIVENESS OF OXIGEN THERAPY WITH C-PAP FOR THE TREATMENT OF OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNOEA SYNDROME (OSA) VERSUS THE STANDARD OF CARE IN THE MEXICAN PUBLIC HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

The Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is characterised by repeated episodes of apnoea and hypopnea during sleep, loud snoring and excessive daytime sleepiness; its main cause is the collapse of the upper airway during sleep. OSA is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events and reduction of life expectancy. The most common treatment for OSA is the continuous positive airway pressure (C-PAP); the positive pressure prevents upper airway collapse, applied through a face mask during sleep. To predict clinical endpoints and costs over a 5-year time horizon, a decision analytic model (Markov) was developed. The model has two main health states disease progression: death and alive; and all the patients alive in each cycle face the probability of non-fatal cardiovascular events. A non-treatment strategy was identified as the comparator in the Mexican Public Health System. Progression to death and the probability of non-fatal cardiovascular events were identified from a literature review. Costs were taken from public available sources considering direct medical costs only. Results were presented as incremental cost per life years gained in national currency. With an incremental savings per patient of 39,593 MXN and an incremental effectiveness of 0.496 life-years gained, C-PAP showed to be a dominant treatment versus the no intervention strategy in the 5-year temporal horizon scenario being able to generate savings and incremental life years gained in comparison with the non-treatment strategy. C-PAP represents a cost-effective strategy for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome when compared with the current available treatment options in the Mexican public healthcare system. The results signals an opportunity for the public healthcare institutions in Mexico to offer a better perspective for OSA patients while reducing its expenditure in managing these patients.

Solar irradiation prediction with machine learning: Forecasting models selection method depending on weather variability

Eleven statistical and machine learning tools are analyzed and applied to hourly solar irradiation forecasting for time horizon from 1 to 6 h. A methodology is presented to select the best and most reliable forecasting model according to the meteorological variability of the site. To make the conclusions more universal, solar data collected in three sites with low, medium and high meteorological variabilities are used: Ajaccio, Tilos and Odeillo. The datasets variability is evaluated using the mean absolute log return value. The models were compared in term of normalized root mean square error, mean absolute error and skill score. The most efficient models are selected for each variability and temporal horizon: for the weak variability, auto-regressive moving average and multi-layer perceptron are the most efficient, for a medium variability, auto-regressive moving average and bagged regression tree are the best predictors and for a high one, only more complex methods can be used efficiently, bagged regression tree and the random forest approach.

Forecast of Chaotic Series in a Horizon Superior to the Inverse of the Maximum Lyapunov Exponent

In this article, two models of the forecast of time series obtained from the chaotic dynamic systems are presented: the Lorenz system, the manufacture system, and the volume of the Great Salt Lake of Utah. The theory of the nonlinear dynamic systems indicates the capacity of making good-quality predictions of series coming from dynamic systems with chaotic behavior up to a temporal horizon determined by the inverse of the major Lyapunov exponent. The analysis of the Fourier power spectrum and the calculation of the maximum Lyapunov exponent allow confirming the origin of the series from a chaotic dynamic system. The delay time and the global dimension are employed as parameters in the models of forecast of artificial neuronal networks (ANN) and support vector machine (SVM). This research demonstrates how forecast models built with ANN and SVM have the capacity of making forecasts of good quality, in a superior temporal horizon at the determined interval by the inverse of the maximum Lyapunov exponent or theoretical forecast frontier before deteriorating exponentially.

Automatic generation of models for energy demand estimation using Grammatical Evolution

The estimation of total energy demand in a country from macro-economic variables is an important problem useful to evaluate the robustness of the country's economy. Since the first years of this century, meta-heuristics approaches have been successfully applied to this problem, for different countries and problem's parameterizations. Many of these works optimize prediction models which are based on classical polynomial or simple exponential relationships, which may not be the best option for an accurate energy demand estimation prediction. In this paper the use of Grammatical Evolution is proposed to generate new models for total energy demand estimation at country level. Grammatical Evolution is a class of Genetic Programming algorithm, which is able to automatically generate new models from input variables. In this case, Grammatical Evolution considers macro-economic variables from which it is able to generate new models for total energy demand estimation of a country, with a temporal prediction horizon of one year. The models generated by the Grammatical Evolution are further optimized in order to adjust their parameters to the energy demand estimation. This process is carried out by means of a Differential Evolution approach, which is run for every model generated by the Grammatical Evolution. Thus, the algorithmic proposal consists of a hybrid method, involving Grammatical Evolution for model generation and a Differential Evolution meta-heuristic for the models' parameter tuning. The performance of the proposed approach has been evaluated in two different problems of total energy demand estimation in Spain and France, with excellent results in terms of prediction accuracy.

The temporary as the future: Ready‐to‐use therapeutic food and nutraceuticals in South Africa

The reconfiguration of food as a pharmaceutical in biomedical regimes has been considered by scholars along two axes: (1) food supplementation as humanitarian intervention, based on a specific value of life and delivered in ‘crisis’ situations with a short temporal horizon; (2) food supplementation as commodity, marketed as enhancing ‘wellness’ or potential, based on notions of risk in broad temporal frames. We consider nutraceuticals and ready‐to‐use‐therapeutic foods as they are deployed by state and commercial actors in South Africa in relation to two key figures: the pregnant woman and the HIV‐positive population. These biopolitical expressions of post‐apartheid regimes of knowledge, care and governance reveal how state distribution and the corporate marketing of supplements employ a future‐oriented logic that appeals to notions of power, energy and potential. Therapeutic foods in this context are thus not merely humanitarian technologies that reconfigure crisis as a chronic condition – the temporary becoming permanent – but are premised on new potentialities, in which the temporary may (re)shape the future.