A comprehensive political and design theory of planetary-scale computation proposing that The Stack—an accidental megastructure—is both a technological apparatus and a model for a new geopolitical ...architecture.
What has planetary-scale computation done to our geopolitical realities? It takes different forms at different scales—from energy and mineral sourcing and subterranean cloud infrastructure to urban software and massive universal addressing systems; from interfaces drawn by the augmentation of the hand and eye to users identified by self—quantification and the arrival of legions of sensors, algorithms, and robots. Together, how do these distort and deform modern political geographies and produce new territories in their own image?
In The Stack, Benjamin Bratton proposes that these different genres of computation—smart grids, cloud platforms, mobile apps, smart cities, the Internet of Things, automation—can be seen not as so many species evolving on their own, but as forming a coherent whole: an accidental megastructure called The Stack that is both a computational apparatus and a new governing architecture. We are inside The Stack and it is inside of us.
In an account that is both theoretical and technical, drawing on political philosophy, architectural theory, and software studies, Bratton explores six layers of The Stack: Earth, Cloud, City, Address, Interface, User. Each is mapped on its own terms and understood as a component within the larger whole built from hard and soft systems intermingling—not only computational forms but also social, human, and physical forces. This model, informed by the logic of the multilayered structure of protocol “stacks,” in which network technologies operate within a modular and vertical order, offers a comprehensive image of our emerging infrastructure and a platform for its ongoing reinvention.
The Stack is an interdisciplinary design brief for a new geopolitics that works with and for planetary-scale computation. Interweaving the continental, urban, and perceptual scales, it shows how we can better build, dwell within, communicate with, and govern our worlds.
thestack.org
Today, when computing is pervasive and deployed over a range of devices by a multiplicity of users, we need to develop computer software to interact with both the ever-increasing complexity of the ...technical world and the growing fluidity of social organizations. The Art of Agent-Oriented Modeling presents a new conceptual model for developing software systems that are open, intelligent, and adaptive. It describes an approach for modeling complex systems that consist of people, devices, and software agents in a changing environment (sometimes known as distributed sociotechnical systems). The authors take an agent-oriented view, as opposed to the more common object-oriented approach. Thinking in terms of agents (which they define as the human and man-made components of a system), they argue, can change the way people think of software and the tasks it can perform. The book offers an integrated and coherent set of concepts and models, presenting the models at three levels of abstraction corresponding to a motivation layer (where the purpose, goals, and requirements of the system are described), a design layer, and an implementation layer. It compares platforms by implementing the same models in four different languages; compares methodologies by using a common example; includes extensive case studies; and offers exercises suitable for either class use or independent study.
Herein we report the design and the synthesis of a library of new and more hydrophilic bisindole analogues based on our previously identified antileishmanial compound URB1483 that failed the ...preliminary in vivo test. The novel bisindoles were phenotypically screened for efficacy against Leishmania infantum promastigotes and simultaneously for toxicity on human macrophage-like THP-1 cells. Among the less toxic compounds, eight bisindoles showed IC.sub.50 below 10 muM. The most selective compound 1h (selectivity index = 10.1, comparable to miltefosine) and the most potent compound 2c (IC.sub.50 = 2.7 muM) were tested for their efficacy on L. infantum intracellular amastigotes. The compounds also demonstrated their efficacy in the in vitro infection model, showing IC.sub.50 of 11.1 and 6.8 muM for 1h and 2c, respectively. Moreover, 1h showed a better toxicity profile than the commercial drug miltefosine. For all these reasons, 1h could be a possible new starting point for hydrophilic antileishmanial agents with low cytotoxicity on human macrophage-like cells.
Herein we report the design and the synthesis of a library of new and more hydrophilic bisindole analogues based on our previously identified antileishmanial compound URB1483 that failed the ...preliminary in vivo test. The novel bisindoles were phenotypically screened for efficacy against Leishmania infantum promastigotes and simultaneously for toxicity on human macrophage-like THP-1 cells. Among the less toxic compounds, eight bisindoles showed IC.sub.50 below 10 muM. The most selective compound 1h (selectivity index = 10.1, comparable to miltefosine) and the most potent compound 2c (IC.sub.50 = 2.7 muM) were tested for their efficacy on L. infantum intracellular amastigotes. The compounds also demonstrated their efficacy in the in vitro infection model, showing IC.sub.50 of 11.1 and 6.8 muM for 1h and 2c, respectively. Moreover, 1h showed a better toxicity profile than the commercial drug miltefosine. For all these reasons, 1h could be a possible new starting point for hydrophilic antileishmanial agents with low cytotoxicity on human macrophage-like cells.
Some product firms increasingly rely on service revenues as part of their business models. One possible explanation is that they turn to services to generate additional profits when their product ...industries mature and product revenues and profits decline. We explore this assumption by examining the role of services in the financial performance of firms in the prepackaged software products industry (Standard Industrial Classification code 7372) from 1990 to 2006. We find a convex, nonlinear relationship between a product firm's fraction of total sales coming from services and its overall operating margins. As expected, firms with a very high level of product sales are most profitable, and rising services are associated with declining profitability. We find, however, that additional services start to have a positive marginal effect on the firm's overall profits when services reach a majority of a product firm's sales. We show that traditional industry maturity arguments cannot fully explain our data. It is likely that changes in both strategy and the business environment lead product firms to place more emphasis on services.
This paper was accepted by Christoph Loch, R&D and product development.
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