Browsing by Subject "Digital"

This paper examines how individuals’ social interactions are influenced by the media environments they inhabit (Media Ecology) and the consequent impact on the practice of developing community in the local church (Ecclesiology). Too often, leaders in the church are uninformed about the ways media use, not simply content, is affecting the social structures of community. Consequently, technology in the church is uncritically embraced and little attention is given to what adaptations need to be made for the church to remain authentic to its Christ-given identity and mission. More specifically, this paper focuses on the obstacle and opportunity of building community in the local church, designed to be densely-knit, in a time of “Networked Individualism,” characterized by sparsely-knit, technologically-meditated interaction.

This paper argues that leaders in the church should strive to establish and preserve close-knit church community, however countercultural, because such community is the best reflection of the community within God’s self. Also vital to maintaining densely-knit community in the church is that human beings are biologically wired to be in close communion with others and thrive in such environments. After providing a biological and theological defense for dense community in the church, practical suggestions are provided for maintaining close communion in the church in light of technologically-mediated engagement. Specifically, an argument is made for prioritizing and encouraging face-to-face conversation amongst parishioners in the local church. Additionally, the paper takes a look at the ways media is currently used in local congregations and determines the merits of such use based upon their virtue or vice relative to maintaining close, embodied community. Finally, utilizing the Biblical narratives of the Tower of Babel and Pentecost, the paper concludes by viewing technology use and close-knit community from the perspective of soteriology and argues that the remedy for humanity’s insecurity and path to true greatness is found in Spirit-filled, densely-knit community.

Brain-inspired computing architectures such as neural networks and neuromorphic chips have demonstrated promise in performing complex pattern recognition tasks by coarsely mimicking synaptic activity in software and hardware. In this dissertation, we take a departure from these more traditional methods which are confined by what we know about the dynamics of synaptic computation and introduce a brain-inspired hybrid analog-digital computing paradigm involving magnetic fields. We first review biomagnetic fields - a wide array of topics is covered to spark the interest of the reader in the field of neuro-biomagnetism and to provide a general overview of the field that explains (1) various techniques to measure, quantify, and model the magnetic signals generated by neurons; (2) how magnetic stimulation can affect neurons; and (3) the clinical relevance of these findings. These highlight the importance of magnetism in biology and neural signal processing and provide motivation for engineering magnetically-based computational devices. We then introduce a new hybrid analog-digital computing device inspired by the interplay between neural activity and its induced magnetic fields. We show that magnetic fields can interact nonlinearly in analog in a ferromagnetic medium. Specifically, the magnetic flux induced by two alternating magnetic fields can be employed to perform an absolute difference, or smooth XOR, operation. The physical structure of the analog device is based on a white matter tractography analysis; hence, we call it the neuromagnetic reactor. We also describe our design of a scalable implementation of a perceptron in hardware, which provides a digital 0-1 output. We demonstrate in a synthetic environment that these two systems together allow an organism to learn from and react appropriately to its environment. Although the design presented here is a proof-of-concept, it can be improved to yield not only new ways to study brain function but also new brain-inspired computing architectures based on magnetic fields.

Life in Cuba is largely defined by el Partido Comunista de Cuba’s (PCC) tradition of governance. Since the ratification of Decree 349 in 2018 – a law that punitively curtails freedom of expression – Cuba has witnessed an upsurge in publicly staged resistance. The emergence of several artist-led, non-partisan civic groups, united by their fight for human rights, exemplifies this. Two prominent examples are el Movimiento San Isidro (MSI) and 27N. This thesis investigates how the artistic interventions of MSI, 27N, and their members can be understood as decolonial praxis. To navigate and convey this argument and its associated logics, this thesis employs a two-part methodological approach: exploratory mapping in digital and analog forms, as well as critical feminist and queer phenomenological analysis that is woven with Doreen Massey’s relational spatial theory.