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The CyberKnife Robotic RadioSurgery System is a robot controlled 6 MV linear accelerator based radiation delivery system with the linear accelerator attached to a six-axis robotic manipulator. Summation of all radiation beams creates a three-dimensional dose distribution within a patient. Each beam's direction, weight, and collimator size affect its contribution to the dose distribution. Hence, the CyberKnife treatment planning problem is to select a set of beams that produce a desired dose distribution. With a dose-based objective function and user-supplied weighted, dose-volume goals, a memetic algorithm is used to solve the CyberKnife treatment planning problem. Before optimization begins, two thousand radiation beams are generated, and for each beam, dose-deposition coefficients are calculated for all optimization points within the target(s) and critical structures. Then, the memetic algorithm optimizes beam weights using global and local operators and problem-specific knowledge within an evolutionary computation framework. Concurrently, beams are pared down to emphasize promising regions of the solution space and to generate clinically deliverable treatment plans. Algorithmic analysis is two-fold: parameter analysis and comparison to MultiPlan, the only commercially available CyberKnife treatment planning software. Parameter analysis optimizes and justifies parametric choices given hardware, optimization time, and treatment time constraints analogous to clinical limitations. Thereafter, MultiPlan and the memetic algorithm generate ten treatment plans and are evaluated based upon dose-volume histograms, target dose homogeneity, target dose conformality, dosimetric success rates, total beam-on time or MU, and total number of beams. Analysis shows the memetic algorithm is equivalent or superior for all metrics, and given that MultiPlan is the only available CyberKnife treatment planning software, the memetic algorithm is a state-of-the-art CyberKnife dosimetric optimization method.

Ce travail doctoral consiste en une observation mémique des phénomènes de résistance caractéristiques des pratiques de fans sur les médias sociaux. L'objectif est double : d'une part, resituer les fans et les producteurs de sens officiels dans la fonction qu'ils tiennent respectivement au sein de la structure de la production culturelle de manière à en exposer les rapports de force. Pour ce faire, nous ciblerons notre analyse sur un type de fans spécifique, ceux réunis autour de thématiques queer visibles ou non dans les séries télévisées américaines et qui utilisent la technologie numérique dans leurs démarches de réécriture et de contestation de l'état actuel de la représentation télévisuelle des diverses identités et expériences sociales.Un recours à la théorie mémique nous permettra, d'autre part, d'envisager les acteurs impliqués dans les dynamiques qui s'opèrent au sein de la structure de production et de réception des contenus culturels, non plus selon la fonction qu'ils occupent, mais en s'intéressant à la formation de ces fonctions en amont au gré d'idées qui voyagent et d'informations qui s'encodent. La mémétique en tant que théorie évolutionniste darwinienne représentera un outil nécessaire à la compréhension de la formation des groupes et des dynamiques qui régissent leurs interactions, et rendra ainsi possible une conception des groupes « fans » et « producteurs » en tant que super-organismes, soit en tant que complexes sociaux formés d'individus mus par un mème commun. Nous nous emploierons donc, à travers l'analyse de la transmission des récits LGBTQ sur le paradigme des séries TV américaines, à conceptualiser la résistance en tant que phénomène mémique résultant de l'ascendance d'un super-organisme sur un autre. / This dissertation aims at looking at the phenomena of fan resistance on social media through the memetic perspective. The objective is twofold: on one hand, to determine the function held by fans and official meaning-makers in the overall structure of cultural production as to reveal their power dynamics. For that purpose, we shall focus on a specific type of fans, namely television fans who connect around queer matters – whether those matters are broached in American TV contents or not – and who make digital technology part of their rewriting practices as well as their protests against the lack of diversity and authentic representation in current US television shows.On the other hand, adopting the meme's eye view will allow us to contemplate these power dynamics between fans and producers by questioning the mecanisms at play in the formation of each of their functions in the production/reception structure. Memetics understood as a Darwinian theory of cultural evolution shall prove to be an efficient tool for interpreting the creation of groups and group interactions, and thus allow us to conceptualize "fans" and "producers" as superorganisms, social complexes of individuals driven by a common meme. We will, through an analysis of the ways in which LGBTQ television narratives are transmitted, problematize fan resistance to cultural contents as a memetic instance: a battle between superorganisms.

The amaNdzundza are a South African abaNtu people. This thesis sets forth to determine the role of their world (in the Heideggerian sense) as it impacts on their Architecture. First the evolutionary process of the amaNdzundza architecture is established. An infinite series of memes (much like genes) that function both on an intra- and inter-cultural level govern this process. Next, the cultural interaction of the amaNdzundza over a period of half a millenium are mapped (and a space-time matrix drawn up: ch.3), as to find the sources of introduction on an intercultural level. Finally, the architecture of the amaNdzundza milieu, both of their settlements and of the cultures with which they shared their environment, is analyzed and a sample of memes identified, which best illustrate the meme-exchange and evolution. This is done in a structure comprising the analysis of selected religious spatial incentives, and some aspects and elements of the settlement, the dwelling and the mural. A summary is given of the memes involved in the amaNdzundza architecture, and their evolutionary dynamics and origins. The researcher thus concludes that, rather than a singular factor such as the patronage of apartheid, the cultural 'memes' in the amaNdebele ya amaNdzundza milieu played the predominant role in the shaping of their existential, spatial and structural dwelling, through a process of 'loci meme' evolution.

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Thesis (Master)--İzmir Institute of Technology, İzmir, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves. 111-115).

No description available.

In this thesis I develop a contemporary history of memetics, or the field dedicated to the study of memes. Those working in the realm of meme theory have been generally concerned with developing either evolutionary or epidemiological approaches to the study of human culture, with memes viewed as discrete units of cultural transmission. At the center of my account is the argument that memetics has been characterized by an atypical pattern of growth, with the meme concept only moving toward greater academic legitimacy after significant development and diffusion in the popular realm. As revealed by my analysis, the history of memetics upends conventional understandings of discipline formation and the popularization of scientific ideas, making it a novel and informative case study in the realm of science and technology studies. Furthermore, this project underscores how the development of fields and disciplines is thoroughly intertwined with a larger social, cultural, and historical milieu. / Master of Science

This research project is an analysis of the use of digital propaganda by the three major parties in the UK 2010 General Election. In addition to this empirical aim, the study also employs the discipline of memetics to generate a theoretical and methodological approach with which to study digital propaganda. Memetics is an evolutionary theory of culture based around the concept of the ‘meme’ or cultural replicator. This study contends that propaganda can be understood as an evolutionary phenomenon, with the ethical implications of its use specifically addressed in each instance, rather than assumed as part of its definition. The memetic ‘methodological toolkit’ which is used to analyse the data on the 2010 election is a means by which key concepts from within the literature on memetics can be practically deployed. As part of the study this ‘toolkit’ is presented and the testing of it is continually evaluated in order to improve upon the initial design, something which also has implications for the use of memetic concepts within thematic textual analysis. The election itself was not an ‘Internet election’ in the way that the 2008 Presidential Election in the USA might be characterised. Such an election can be identified by a convergence of factors from within the party campaign structures and the wider political environment on a specific subject or individual – commonly a candidate for office – resulting in a high degree of spontaneous online participation and organisation amongst citizen supporters. This study argues that the UK 2010 election did not produce such a convergence due to low levels of voter enthusiasm, uneven social and financial resources and an inability by the major parties to capitalise on the potential opportunities for digital campaigning which arose.

A dissertação pretende permitir ao leitor simular a forma de pensar de Daniel Dennett, e perpassa toda sua filosofia, com ênfase em seu tratamento de o que são padrões, o algoritmo evolutivo, intuition pumps, consciência, e seu uso dos conceitos de illata, abstracta, semântica e sintaxe para compreender a natureza, a biologia e a mente humana. O trabalho reapresenta, sob nova luz, grande parte das ideias mais importantes de Dennett, e procura fazer a engenharia reversa de o que o levou a pensar de determinadas maneiras, guiando o leitor através de caminhos similares, procurando fomentar um aprendizado ativo de uma forma de pensar, acima e além de uma exposição dos resultados obtidos ao longo de décadas desse pensamento no próprio Dennett / This dissertation intends to provide the reader with an inner simulation of Daniel Dennetts form of reasoning, spreading over his whole philosophy, emphasizing his treatment of patterns, the evolutionary algorithm, consciousness, and his use of illata, abstracta, semantic, and synthax, to carve nature at its joints, especially biology and the human mind. It recasts, in a new light, great part of his most important ideas, and reverse engineers what made him think in particular ways, walking the reader through similar pathways, fostering an active learning of a thinking style, above and beyond a mere exposition of the results obtained by this thinking style over the years