bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Métis older adults and the negotiation of nativeness
Authors: Lewis John
Published: September 2021

This chapter refers to community planners and local government decision makers that are acutely aware of the changing demographic character of North American communities. It examines the retirement of the baby boomer generation, which is projected that 20 percent of the North American population will be 65 years or older. It also recounts how the Age-Friendly Communities (AFC) movement acquired considerable policy and research traction since its launch by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2007. The chapter discusses that the province of Ontario has made several incremental efforts to expand its AFC policy efforts based on three linked strategic policies and investments. It includes the launch of the Finding the Right Fit Age-Friendly Communities Planning Guide, the Ontario AFC Planning Grants Program, and funding for an AFC Outreach and Community Support Program.
Introduction: social investments and welfare reform in Europe and East Asia
Authors: Fleckenstein Timo , Lee Soohyun Christine , Choi Young Jun
Published: September 2021

This chapter brings together leading experts from across two world regions, Europe and East Asia, to discuss social investment strategies — currently one of the most influential policy approaches around the world. It tackles some of the key challenges faced by contemporary welfare states — namely greater social inequality and the decline in social mobility. By inviting a number of authors to address the same social issue using different country cases (rather than just examining cases side by side), the chapter not only deepens our understanding of varieties of social investment strategies, but also discusses how some of the drawbacks connected to social investment may be overcome. The chapter shows that, despite remarkable differences, at the level of the problems associated with social investment measures, the countries studied also show significant similarities. Ultimately, it presents the case studies of East Asian countries which provide important lessons for benchmarking or cautionary tales for more established Western welfare states as well as the emerging welfare geography in the Global South.
Employment outcomes of social investment in latecomer countries
Authors: Park Jaehyoung
Published: September 2021

This chapter tests the Matthew effect argument with regard to social inequality in employment. It analyses whether social investment policies favour low-quality jobs. For the testing of the two dimensions, employment and job quality, the chapter focuses on two particular policy areas: active labour market policies (ALMPs) and work–family policies (WFPs). The first section briefly introduces the conflicting evidence for the relationship between social investment and employment outcomes in the literature, and suggests reasons why we need to pay more attention to class differentials in employment and job quality, as well as why we need to differentiate between ALMPs and WFPs at the programme level. The second section describes the data and estimation strategy. The chapter then elaborates the results and how they meet the argument. It also suggests some political implications, then calls for a more careful policy design that allows low-income groups to benefit from social investment policy.
A brief transnational history of the Settlement House Movement
Authors: Köngeter Stefan
Published: September 2021

This chapter provides a brief transnational history of the Settlement House Movement. It develops the argument that the settlements houses contributed to the transnational advancement of the nation in form of the national welfare state by interpreting and tackling the social question as a crisis of a (national) community. Against the background of two major social developments (secularisation and scientisation), it shows how settlement knowledge was translated to different social contexts and proved to be flexibel enough to transcend various social boundaries (class, knowledge etc.) and transform society
Basic critical realist concepts
Authors: Alderson Priscilla
Published: September 2021

Chapter 2 sets out basic critical realism concepts to show how they help to resolve the problems examined in Chapter 1. The concepts or themes include: the need to separate ontology-being from epistemology-thinking; the transitive and intransitive; the semiotic triangle; open and closed systems and demi-regs; the possibility of naturalism; natural necessity or the three levels of reality, the empirical, actual and real; a detailed example of the three levels in Mexican neonatal research; retroduction; creative power1 and coercive power2; time sequencing; political economy; the search for generative mechanisms; dichotomies, and policy.
Participatory Ideology
Authors: Beresford Peter
Published: September 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter movement and renewed action against climate change all highlight the increasing gulf between narrowly based dominant political ideologies and popular demands for social justice, global health, environmentalism and human rights. This book examines for the first time the exclusionary nature of prevailing political ideologies. Bringing together theory, practice and the relationship between participation, political ideology and social welfare, the book offers a detailed critique of how the crucial move to more participatory approaches may be achieved. It is concerned with valuing people's knowledge and experience in relation to ideology, exploring its conventional social construction including counter ideology and the ideological underpinnings and relations of participation. It also offers a practical guide for change.
Introduction
Authors: Beresford Peter
Published: September 2021

This chapter focuses on ideology, different ideological perspectives, our relationship with them, and how we may change that for the better. It particularly discusses political ideologies. These are two words that for many people may be more likely to feel alien and difficult than comfortable and familiar. The chapter aims to make connections between two ideas that seem to have increasing significance for us all: participation and ideology. While they seem to be closely interrelated and to have major implications for each other, so far efforts to explore the relationship of the two seem to have been limited. The chapter starts from the premise that if the aim is to advance an ideological perspective which promotes an empowering society and reflects everyone's rights and needs, then this is more likely to be achieved if it is done in a participatory way. Ultimately, the chapter distinguishes right-wing populism and grassroots activism, which both challenge conventional politics and highlight their limitations and disconnect from the grassroots.
Participation: challenging the barriers
Authors: Beresford Peter
Published: September 2021

This chapter looks at overcoming the powerful barriers that can prevent us having any involvement in the ideologies that are the backdrop to our lives. It focuses on the political ideology and the exclusion of most people from its formation and development. The first of these issues to be addressed is power and inequalities of power, then the chapter examines a range of routine exclusions and inequalities that can operate and how these can be challenged. The chapter investigates a range of key requirements to ensure inclusive involvement, which include both support for the individual to be involved and improved access to previously excluding social institutions. In the first of two case studies, the chapter discusses how disabled people got together to develop their own ideology, its key components and the emphasis they have placed on their participation.
Key concepts for participatory ideology
Authors: Beresford Peter
Published: September 2021

This chapter focuses on three further ideas and issues that are key for advancing participatory ideology: empowerment, language, and knowledge. The chapter examines each in more detail, focusing first on the theoretical discussion of making social and political change, as this is at the heart of this book's project. It explores the concept of empowerment, a unique two-part idea for making change, which highlights the need for personal change as a prerequisite for participation in political change. It also traces the idea's origins, its conceptualisation, different meanings, and what works to make it possible. The chapter then looks at language and its importance for ideology; how it is used to reinforce inequalities, impose power and manipulate people, and how this has been and can be challenged. Ultimately, the chapter investigates knowledge; the role it has long been given to legitimate ruling ideologies, and how revolutionary and new social movements have highlighted and challenged this. It reviews the emergence of experiential knowledge as an important part of this challenge and the important role it serves in helping to democratise knowledge and political ideology.
New Labour, New Realism?
Authors: Cummins Ian
Published: September 2021

This chapter will explore four developments within the CJS system that occurred, from the 1990s onwards, under Conservative and New Labour administrations - Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP), Joint Enterprise and the whole life tariff. The chapter begins with a discussion of the influence of Left Realism on New Labour and how New Public Management led to significant changes across the CJS.It begins with a discussion the reform of the Mental Health Act (MHA) and the notion of Dangerous Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD). Left Realism emerged within criminology a decade before the election of New Labour. However, it is possible to see its impact on some key notions of New Labour policy. Left realist were ultimately critical of the way that the New Labour approached questions of community and crime.
Conclusions
Authors: Waldman Thomas
Published: September 2021

This chapter notes that vicarious warfare, in simple terms, refers to the prospect of war on the cheap, fought at a reduced price in blood, treasure or political capital relative to ambition. It determines the future shape of vicarious warfare, and the evolving social attitudes toward the state, war and the idea of sacrifice. The chapter argues that the future of vicarious warfare might be determined more by the extent to which it is judged to be an effective instrument for achieving security — in other words, the extent to which it is judged to offer strategically sound approaches for solving pressing problems and threats. Ultimately, the chapter points out the deeper self-harm being inflicted on the nation through its ongoing prosecution of vicarious warfare. It aims to catalyze further debate around modern US military practice.
How Work Experiences Drive Personality Change: The Impact of Work, Organisational, Societal and International Environment
Authors: Wang Ying , Wu Chia-Huei
Published: September 2021

This chapter focuses on occurring changes in individuals’ personality as a result of their work and employment experiences, and of the socialising pressure of norm demands during these experiences. This chapter starts from a brief review of traditions in organisational and social psychology on the study of work and personality change. Then, it presents a holistic framework to identify key drivers in work, organisational and societal environment and discuss how they could act as proximal and distal drivers for personality change. In developing this framework, existing literature is reviewed and new research directions are proposed, to advance the understanding of work and personality change.
From Normative to Social Approaches to Inclusion: Supporting Multi-scalar Peace Process Design
Authors: Santen Emma Van
Published: September 2021

This chapter sets out a sociology of inclusion strategies- liberal, pragmatic and social- deployed by different mediators to manage conflict. The analysis suggests that in addition to the traditional categories of liberal and pragmatic strategies, the peace mediation profession has developed a third, context-driven ‘social’ approach to inclusion based on the concept of inclusive peace process design. Encapsulated in the UN Guidance for Effective Mediation as a fundamental principle of peace mediation, inclusivity mandates engagement with a broad range of local actors and local socio-economic issues to increase the social legitimacy of the peace process without normative restrictions on inclusion of actors or the negotiating agenda. As such it helps to avoid the traditional distinction between ‘political’ and ‘criminal’ acts and methods which places restraints on inclusion in peace mediation.
Mediating Multilateral Proxy Conflicts
Authors: Ward Francis
Published: September 2021

This chapter assesses the increase in proxy conflict and asks how mediators can most effectively engage in conflicts which have proxy elements. To achieve a mediated settlement, the challenge for any mediator is to ensure a minimal level of consent between the warring factions. To build this consent, the mediator needs to understand the aims and drivers of the parties, and how those drivers can be appealed to all sides. This exercise is difficult enough; a conflict in which the primary actors are influenced by an external party makes gaining the necessary consent even more challenging. Given the increasing relevance of proxy sponsors in civil conflicts, this chapter it considers how proxies and the de-facto proliferation of actors impacts process design, and assesses options for multi-track mediation efforts to effectively confront the challenges created.
Everyday Comic Resistance in Global Context
Authors: Brassett James
Published: September 2021

This chapter situates the framework of ‘everyday global resistance’ within the disciplinary contours of IR/IPE and the recent turn to focus on ‘everyday politics’. By moving beyond ‘systemic’ accounts of global resistance in terms of ‘protests against government’, ‘anti-globalisation; etc., everyday approaches can foreground the important role of (apparently) small or marginal actors, and mundane practices of resistance.
Conclusion
Authors: Molavi Michael
Published: September 2021

This chapter affirms that the current landscape of collective claims-making leaves a major access-to-justice gap that demands reform. It talks about a basic lesson that the globalization of class actions has taught reformers, which emphasizes that legal transplants cannot be wholly adapted into new jurisdictions without accounting for differences in legal culture, history, and politics. It also refers to the role of litigation in democracy, in which the use of private enforcement aligns with a state's regulatory governance framework and the desirability of economically enabling private actors to pursue litigation for public goals. The chapter discusses the proliferation of class actions that reflect a recognition by policymakers of the need for new procedures to adequately protect groups of vulnerable people against powerful private and public entities. It elaborates the need for procedural mechanisms in order to give effect to existing substantive laws.
Youth in the New Economy: The Post-Fordist Self
Authors: Farrugia David
Published: September 2021

This chapter theorises youth within the dynamics of labour, value and selfhood characteristic of post-Fordism. This is youth in the ‘new economy’ in which precarious employment co-exists with a ‘post-Fordist work ethic’ that positions work as a realm of self-realisation for contemporary workers. The call for self-realisation through labour has also changed young people’s relationship to the labour force. It is no longer enough to work – one must become a worker, and youth is the time at which young people are under most pressure to respond to this social injunction. For the purposes of this book, this means that the relationship between youth and work must be approached in terms of the cultivation of the self as a subject of value to the labour force, rather than merely in terms of the accumulation of resources, skills and qualifications.
Temporality in Mobile Lives
Authors: Robertson Shanthi
Published: September 2021

This book provides fresh perspectives on 21st-century migratory experiences in this innovative study of young Asian migrants' lives in Australia. Exploring the aspirations and realities of transnational mobility, the book shows how migration has reshaped lived experiences of time for middle-class young people moving between Asia and the West for work, study and lifestyle opportunities. Through a new conceptual framework of 'chronomobilities', which looks at 'time-regimes' and 'time-logics', the book demonstrates how migratory pathways have become far more complex than leaving one country for another, and can profoundly affect the temporalities of everyday life, from career pathways to intimate relationships. Drawing on extensive ethnographic material, the book deepens our understanding of the multifaceted relationship between migration and time.
Introduction
Authors: Robertson Shanthi
Published: September 2021

The chapter introduces how middling migrants now comprise the majority of regular migration flows to post-industrial countries where migrants with skills and educational capital are increasingly prioritized over unskilled migrant workers. While this middle space is one of relative privilege compared to low-skilled and undocumented labour migrants globally, it is also a space, particularly for those who are young and navigating early career and life transitions, of decidedly uneven experiences. Exploring these lived experiences of mobile temporality is highly significant to migration studies, largely because these experiences reflect the broader spatio-temporal changes migration has undergone in our current era of globalized modernity. The chapter explains that the book seeks to highlight the multifarious ways that temporality operates within the lives of young and middle-class migrants from Asia to Australia whose open-ended mobilities criss-cross multiple spaces, statuses and identities. It draws on the concept of chronomobilities, which it uses to describe the temporalities that structure mobile lives as well as emerge from them. It positions chronomobilities — which encompass the disjunctures, velocities, synchronizations and rhythms of everyday mobile lives and the meanings they entail — as fundamentally shaped by specific global and national 'time-regimes' of the early 21st century. It also argues that three 'time-logics' emerge as the primary ways in which time is 'lived' and understood within migrants' own meaning making and narrations of their lives under these broader temporal conditions. The focus on the three logics — sequence, tempo and synchronicity — allows time to be understood as multiply and simultaneously sequential, rhythmic and relational.
Chronomobilities: 21st-Century Migration and Lived Time
Authors: Robertson Shanthi
Published: September 2021

This chapter sets up the book's central concepts and arguments, drawing on existing literature on the turn towards temporal analysis in migration studies over the last decade. It sketches out in detail how chronomobilities are structured through specific time-regimes and time-logics. The chapter seeks to work through the complexities of the relationship between migrant temporalities and migrant mobilities, and to build the framework that guides understandings of this relationship and the experiences it produces in migrants' lives. The concept of chronomobilities underpins the analysis in the remainder of the book. This portmanteau achieves two fairly prosaic aims. It simply and concisely suggests and reiterates the indivisible and mutually constitutive nature of temporality and mobility, and it names a framework made up of time-regimes and time-logics that provides the scaffolding for making our way through the complexity and multiplicity of migrant experiences of time.
Times in Place: Moving, Dwelling, Belonging
Authors: Robertson Shanthi
Published: September 2021

This chapter connects migrant experiences of temporality to their dwelling within, mobilities across, and attachments to place including nation states, towns, cities and homes. The ethnographic analysis in this chapter is concerned with how time is lived within and across different places, and how rhythms of local, lived time are shaped by the time-regimes that structure migrants' lives. It shows how, for middling migrants, different local places across mobility trajectories have different temporal rhythms and paces of life and influence differently ordered biographies. Migrants' sense of time in place is relational, that is, it is made meaningful through how places enable time to be synchronous with others, either via daily routines of encounter with friends and family, or via the larger scale and collective social valuing of time. Migrants understand present, localized times in relation to the other places that are linked in sequence across the dual trajectories of their geographic mobility and their mobility across the different stages and transitions of their lives. Their positioning as middling migrant shapes the imaginaries and realities of these trajectories across, places, times and indeed, times within places.
Conclusion
Authors: Robertson Shanthi
Published: September 2021

This concluding chapter returns to and reflects on the fundamental questions posed by the book as a whole. Why does time matter to the study of migration? How are spatio-temporal formations, and subsequently scholarly understandings, of migrant mobilities changing in the contemporary world? What new insights does a temporal perspective add to the sociology of migration? How can we understand the middle as a range of migration experiences that sit between the liminal mobilities of those disenfranchised by globalization and the fluid mobilities of those privileged by the same forces? Migration governance creates both friction and possibility as it comes up against migrants' own desires to use mobility strategically to create new pathways, new lives and new ways of being. Such desires are linked, culturally, to the life-stage in-between youth and adulthood in Asian middle-class imaginaries. The negotiation of mobility thus takes place in intertwinement with the negotiation of both normative and emergent social and cultural imaginaries of 'becoming adult' and the timings and milestones that this entails. The temporalities of settling and staying, of sedentariness and belonging, still very much matter, particularly to ideas of 'achieving' the imagined stability of adult life. Exploring middling mobilities reveals how migration can simultaneously and paradoxically embody freedom and constraint, closure and openness, anxiety and opportunity.
Data Lives
Authors: Kitchin Rob
Published: September 2021

How can we begin to grasp the scope and scale of our new data-rich world, and can we truly comprehend what is at stake? This book explores the intricacies of data creation and charts how data-driven technologies have become essential to how society, government and the economy work. Creatively blending scholarly analysis, biography and fiction, the book demonstrates how data are shaped by social and political forces, and the extent to which they influence our daily lives. The book begins with an overview of the sociality of data. Data-driven endeavours are as much a result of human values, desires, and social relations as they are scientific principles and technologies. The data revolution has been transforming work and the economy, the nature of consumption, the management and governance of society, how we communicate and interact with media and each other, and forms of play and leisure. Indeed, our lives are saturated with digital devices and services that generate, process, and share vast quantities of data. The book reveals the many, complex, contested ways in which data are produced and circulated, as well as the consequences of living in a data-driven world. The book concludes with an exploration as to what kind of data future we want to create and strategies for realizing our visions. It highlights the need to enact 'a digital ethics of care', and to claim and assert 'data sovereignty'. Ultimately, the book reveals our data world to be one of potential danger, but also of hope.
The End of the Data Lifecycle
Authors: Kitchin Rob
Published: September 2021

This chapter assesses the transitory nature of data and its deletion, by either design or accident. In the data-driven world we live in, while it sometimes seems that data lasts forever, they all pass through a lifecycle. For the majority of data points, this cycle passes very quickly as the data are transitory — created, processed, and deleted in micro-seconds. Value is extracted, or they are never examined or processed, and then they are discarded because they have little further utility and there is no point wasting resources storing them. In some cases, useful data might be deleted accidentally, or without forethought. Given the massive amounts of data presently being produced, often only a sample are retained and stored rather than a full set. Indeed, the data we store in archives and repositories is often derived data. In the case of data brokers, producing derived data is also a means to bypass the fair-information-practice principle of data minimization which states that data should only be used for the purpose for which it was intended. Similarly, metadata — factual information about data — is often retained rather than the data themselves.
The Quantified Self
Authors: Kitchin Rob
Published: September 2021

This chapter presents an account of sousveillance and how we produce, monitor, and react to data relating to ourselves, thus creating a quantified self. The term sousveillance refers to the personal monitoring and management of one's life through self-generated data. Continuously tracking personal data via sensors and cameras, and recording and analyzing them, would allow a person to manage and memorialize everyday life. The key technological idea that research teams, companies and artists were exploring at the time was lifelogs. The ultimate aim is the simultaneous digitization of all cognitive inputs experienced by the brain via all five human senses to create a digital parallel memory of the lived experiences of a person. However, lifelogs raise a series of ethical and legal questions that were largely being bypassed. Lifelogs would make an authoritarian, Big Brother society easier to put in place and more difficult to overthrow. At the same time as people became interested in sousveillance and lifelogs, so-called 'intimate technologies' — that is, digital tech that are in service to the individual, such as smartphones and wearable computing — started to grow enormously in popularity. These were complemented, and supported, by what might be termed 'scopophilic technologies', that is, digital tech that enable pleasure in looking and being looked at.
Misinformation and Ideology
Authors: Timcke Scott
Published: September 2021

This chapter applies theoretical insights around misrecognition to better understand the intersection of misinformation and ideology in the United States. It argues that misinformation practices are products of modernity. American modernity is characterized by contradictions between its basic social forms such as the money form, the commodity form, and so on. The contradictions create a bind for rulers. On the one hand, these contradictions mean that their rule is never stable. On the other hand, acknowledging the contradictions risks courting redress that also threatens their minority rule. Due to the imperative to mystify these contradictions, social problems are subsequently treated as anomalies or otherwise externalized; they can never be features of the capitalist political economy itself. Misinformation is a common by-product of this externalization as the capitalist ruling class uses it to weld together pacts and alliances that preserve the social hierarchy. The chapter outlines the broad argumentation offered by securocrats, reactionaries and technologists on Russia-gate. It takes a look at the proof put forward, the ethical reasoning invoked and the emotive appeals employed. It also looks at why these explanations fall short.
Markets, Technology and Finance: Turning Resources into Power
Authors: Breslin Shaun
Published: September 2021

The chapter outlines different dimensions of Chinese global economic power. It shows how China has developed forms of market and production power, and how these interacts with the desire to establish technological leadership in some areas. The main focus, though, is on the flow of money from China to others considering both Chinese aid, and Chinese outward foreign direct investment. It suggests that the growth of outward investment has been a key source of change in the way that China’s global economic role and power have been perceived; not always to China’s benefit. It concludes by considering the potential consequences of the economic impact of the covid-19 pandemic on China’s ability to exert global economic power in the future.
Moving Stuff Around
Authors: Reades Jonathan , Crookston Martin
Published: September 2021

Starting with the basics of infrastructure, Chapter 2 shows how it un-levels the playing field, making distant places ‘close’ and near places ‘far away’. Digital networks are obviously a focus, but so too are transportation and other less glamorous systems. Networks which ‘equalise’ space exert a centrifugal force on activity and growth, spinning it outward, deconcentrating the urban form. The nodal networks tend to reinforce concentration, pulling growth in a ‘centripetal’ way towards the best-connected central places. So infrastructure networks create a ‘surface’ across which locational choices are made, reflecting the interactions between cost, speed, bandwidth, connectivity and convenience. Firms’ and households’ locational choices emerge from the degree of flexibility they have in terms of the connectivity they rely on. But which connectivity? Not every business needs every network. That leads on to subsequent chapters’ analysis of the specific mix of types of mobility and access that firms need, for the markets they serve and the deals they do.
Intraoperative colon perfusion assessment using multispectral imaging
Authors: Clancy Neil T. , Soares António S. , Bano Sophia , Lovat Laurence B. , Chand Manish , Stoyanov Danail
Published: September 2021

In colorectal surgery an anastomosis performed using poorly-perfused, ischaemic bowel segments may result in a leak and consequent morbidity. Traditional measures of perfusion assessment rely on clinical judgement and are mainly subjective, based on tissue appearance, leading to variability between clinicians. This paper describes a multispectral imaging (MSI) laparoscope that can derive quantitative measures of tissue oxygen saturation (SO2). The system uses a xenon surgical light source and fast filter wheel camera to capture eight narrow waveband images across the visible range in approximately 0.3 s. Spectral validation measurements were performed by imaging standardised colour tiles and comparing reflectance with ground truth spectrometer data. Tissue spectra were decomposed into individual contributions from haemoglobin, adipose tissue and scattering, using a previously-developed regression approach. Initial clinical results from seven patients undergoing colorectal surgery are presented and used to characterise measurement stability and reproducibility in vivo. Strategies to improve signal-to-noise ratio and correct for motion are described. Images of healthy bowel tissue (in vivo) indicate that baseline SO2 is approximately 75 ± 6%. The SO2 profile along a bowel segment following ligation of the inferior mesenteric artery (IMA) shows a decrease from the proximal to distal end. In the clinical cases shown, imaging results concurred with clinical judgements of the location of well-perfused tissue. Adipose tissue, visibly yellow in the RGB images, is shown to surround the mesentery and cover some of the serosa. SO2 in this tissue is consistently high, with mean value of 90%. These results show that MSI is a potential intraoperative guidance tool for assessment of perfusion. Mapping of SO2 in the colon could be used by surgeons to guide choice of transection points and ensure that well-perfused tissue is used to form an anastomosis. The observation of high mesenteric SO2 agrees with work in the literature and warrants further exploration. Larger studies incorporating with a wider cohort of clinicians will help to provide retrospective evidence of how this imaging technique may be able to reduce inter-operator variability.
Simplified digital coherent-based beyond-100G optical access systems for B5G/6G [Invited]
Authors: Suzuki Naoki , Miura Hiroshi , Mochizuki Keita , Matsuda Keisuke
Published: September 2021

In this paper, we review the latest progress in the simplified digital coherent technologies suitable for future beyond-100G optical access systems, which will be a key optical transport platform for meeting the very wide range of extreme requirements of beyond-5G (B5G) and 6G users. As the centerpiece of beyond-100G optical access systems, the technical challenges and recent demonstrations of ultimate-capacity passive optical network systems carrying more than 100 Gb/s per wavelength by using simplified digital coherent technologies incorporating low-complexity digital signal processing (DSP) are presented. In addition, to facilitate the implementation of these relatively large-scale digital coherent technologies in the optical access area, which has strict cost, power consumption, and size restraints, the rapid progress in compact optical transceiver form factors and optical devices heading toward 400 Gb/s-based Ethernet transceivers for the 80 km range (400G-ZR) and over 800 Gb/s short-reach applications based on the digital coherent technologies are also discussed. Furthermore, the recent expansion of simplified digital coherent-based optical access systems such as optical space communications and their latest experimental demonstrations are introduced as an alternative evolution of beyond-100G optical access systems, going hand in hand with the reduction of complexity of the real-life digital coherent platforms such as the DSP large-scale integration and the large-scale field programmable gate arrays.
Sensitivity enhancement of a fiber plasmonic sensor based on rolled-up Ag/TiO2 hyperbolic metamaterials
Authors: Li Jun , Li Hao , Zhao Yujia , Jiang Peizhen , Liu Jiaxin , Xu Mingjing , Zhou Ai
Published: September 2021

A novel, to the best of our knowledge, optical fiber plasmonic sensor based on a tapered coreless fiber (TCF) coating with rolled-up hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) is proposed and theoretically studied. The HMMs are composed mainly of

A
g

/

T
i
O

2

multi-layer composite materials. We can effectively control the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) wavelengths by adjusting the ratio of metal in two-layer (

R

), the number (

N

), and thickness (

T

) of two-layer on the HMMs. Spectral quality can be improved by changing the core diameter of TCF. According to the effective medium theory and finite element method, HMMs of

R
=

0.3

,

T
=

30

n
m

,

N
=

3

, and

D
=

20

µ

m

can provide an average sensitivity of 9127.86 nm/RIU (refractive index unit) in an external refractive index (ERI) of 1.33–1.40 and have a depth of SPR dip figure of merit of

65.32

R
I
U

−
1

, which is an order of magnitude higher than 50 nm silver, for an ERI of 1.34–1.35. Also, the optical fiber plasmonic sensor integrated with roll-up HMMs shows performance superior to normal HMMs, thus providing certain guidance for future research.
Design of high extinction ratio, low loss, and compact optical modulators and switches based on GST phase change material
Authors: Mahmoodi Ali , Miri Mehdi , Sheikhi Mohammad Hossein , Pouyan Sohrab Mohammadi
Published: September 2021

In this paper, an electrically driven optical modulator and switch based on micro-ring resonators using the phase change material (PCM) of

G
e

2

S
b

2

T
e

5

(GST) is designed and their optical properties are investigated. The change in refractive index between two states in PCMs is orders of magnitude larger than conventional electro-optic and free-carrier dispersion effects. These extraordinary variations make PCMs excellent candidates for optical active devices such as modulators and switches. In our design, GST is used as the active material because it is far more stable and results in lower insertion loss compared to other PCMs such as vanadium dioxide (

V
O

2

) (at

λ
=

1.55

µ

m

, the imaginary part of the refractive index is 1.49 for GST and 2.53 for

V
O

2

is their metallic phases). By optimizing the GST dimensions, the device figure of merit is maximized. Three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain simulations show a very high extinction ratio of 37.3 dB with a low insertion loss of 0.427 dB for the proposed modulator and high extinction ratios of 19 dB and 10 dB in off and on states and insertion losses of 1.52 dB and 2.02 dB in off and on states, respectively, of the proposed

1

×

2

switch.
Rigorous coupled-wave analysis of a multi-layered plasmonic integrated refractive index sensor
Authors: Schlipf Jon , Fischer Inga A.
Published: September 2021

We apply the rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) to the design of a multi-layer plasmonic refractive index sensor based on metallic nanohole arrays integrated with a Ge-on-Si photodetector. RCWA simulations benefit from modularity, frequency-domain computation, and a relatively simple computational setup. These features make the application of RCWA particularly interesting in the case of the simulation and optimization of multi-layered devices in conjunction with plasmonic nanostructures, where other methods can be computationally too expensive for multi-parameter optimization. Our application example serves as a demonstration that RCWA can be utilized as a low-cost, efficient method for device engineering.
Accurate calibration of beam trajectories in scanning optical imaging systems
Authors: Meina Michał , Stremplewski Patrycjusz , López-Mariscal Carlos , Tamborski Szymon , Bartuzel Maciej M. , Szkulmowski Maciej
Published: September 2021

We present a calibration method for finding the coordinates of points in the trajectory of the scanning beam in flying-spot imaging devices. Our method is based on laterally translating the field of view on the imaging object plane by introducing additional beam deflections. We show that laterally translating the field of view provides a series of images whose relative translations are equal to the distances between the points in the scanning pattern to be calibrated. We show how these distances are mapped to the coordinates of the trajectory points. As an example, we demonstrate the calibration of the scanning patterns in an optical system with two independent microelectromechanical system based scanners. Our method profits from a large collection of distance measurements to find the trajectory coordinates, thereby minimizing the effect of random sources of uncertainty in the positions of points in the scanning pattern. We have found that we are capable of finding the coordinates of points in the scanning patterns with accuracy greater than the optical resolution of the imaging system.
Beyond GHz optical frequency up-converted modulation of LEDs with integrated acousto-optic transducer
Authors: Lai Li-Chan , Lin Dai-Jie , Chiang Wen-Hao , Huang Cheng-Ting , Lin Gong-Ru , Huang Jian-Jang
Published: September 2021

Traditional visible light communication (VLC) via light-emitting diodes (LEDs) employs the on-off keying (OOK) modulation scheme. Even though optical frequency modulation has many advantages, it is hardly used for LED VLC because a high carrier frequency cannot be applied to the LED cavity due to the resistance-capacitance limit. Here, by monolithically integrating an LED with an integrated digital transducer, we experimentally demonstrate the intermixing of gigahertz surface acoustic waves and electrical data signals in the LED cavity at room temperature. An optical transmitter was realized by in situ frequency up-conversion of the data signals from an LED, which has the advantages of improving transmission performance by up-shifting the data spectrum away from low-frequency noise. Our proposed integrated acousto-optic transducer opens a new developing scheme on the frequency up-mixed data encoding of an LED beyond its inherent modulation bandwidth for future VLC.
Extended infrared responses in Er/O-hyperdoped Si at room temperature
Authors: Zhang Kun , He Jiajing , He Ting , Li Qing , Peng Meng , Guo Jiaxiang , Zhang Tao , Wang Xiaoming , Wen Huimin , Zhu He , Li Ning , Wang Peng , Dan Yaping , Hu Weida
Published: September 2021

Silicon photonics has become the preferred candidate for technologies applicable to multifarious fields. However, the applications are strictly limited by the intrinsic in-band photo effect of silicon. Herein, near-infrared photodetectors that break through the silicon bandgap by Er/O hyperdoping are fabricated, potentially extending their applications into telecommunications, low-light-level night vision, medical treatment, and others. Er/O-hyperdoped silicon was achieved as an infrared light absorption layer through ion implantation. The lattice damage caused by ion implantation was repaired by a deep cooling process in which high-temperature samples were cooled by helium flushing cooled by liquid nitrogen. Traditional junction and metallization processes were performed to form a photodiode. We demonstrate that the device has a spectral range up to the wavelength of 1568 nm, a maximum responsivity of 165 µA/W at 1310 nm, and 3 dB cutoff bandwidth up to 3 kHz. Finally, temperature-dependent optical-electrical characteristics were measured to demonstrate the activation mechanism of Er/O in silicon. This Letter proves silicon’s potential in realizing extended infrared detection at room temperature, and it provides a possible way to fabricate infrared optoelectronics and signal processing integrated chips on a CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) platform.
Free and Open Source Software organizations: A large-scale analysis of code, comments, and commits frequency
Authors: Chełkowski Tadeusz , Jemielniak Dariusz , Macikowski Kacper
Published: September 2021

As Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) increases in importance and use by global corporations, understanding the dynamics of its communities becomes critical. This paper measures up to 21 years of activities in 1314 individual projects and 1.4 billion lines of code managed. After analyzing the FOSS activities on the projects and organizations level, such as commits frequency, source code lines, and code comments, we find that there is less activity now than there was a decade ago. Moreover, our results suggest a greater decrease in the activities in large and well-established FOSS organizations. Our findings indicate that as technologies and business strategies related to FOSS mature, the role of large formal FOSS organizations serving as intermediary between developers diminishes.
Opioid-free anesthesia compared to opioid anesthesia for lung cancer patients undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery: A randomized controlled study
Authors: An Guangquan , Zhang Yiwen , Chen Nuoya , Fu Jianfeng , Zhao Bingsha , Zhao Xuelian
Published: September 2021

Background

Reducing intra-operative opioid consumption benefits patients by decreasing postoperative opioid-related adverse events. We assessed whether opioid-free anesthesia would provide effective analgesia-antinociception monitored by analgesia index in video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery.

Methods

Patients (ASA Ⅰ-Ⅱ, 18–65 years old, BMI <30 kg m−2) scheduled to undergo video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery under general anesthesia were randomly allocated into two groups to receive opioid-free anesthesia (group OFA) with dexmedetomidine, sevoflurane plus thoracic paravertebral blockade or opioid-based anesthesia (group OA) with remifentanil, sevoflurane, and thoracic paravertebral blockade. The primary outcome variable was pain intensity during the operation, assessed by the depth of analgesia using the pain threshold index with the multifunction combination monitor HXD‑I. Secondary outcomes included depth of sedation monitoring by wavelet index and blood glucose concentration achieved from blood gas.

Results

One hundred patients were randomized; 3 patients were excluded due to discontinued intervention and 97 included in the final analysis. Intraoperative pain threshold index readings were not significantly different between group OFA and group OA from arriving operation room to extubation (P= 0.86), while the brain wavelet index readings in group OFA were notably lower than those in group OA from before general anesthesia induction to recovery of double lungs ventilation (P<0.001). After beginning of operation, the blood glucose levels in group OFA increased compared with baseline blood glucose values (P< 0.001). The recovery time and extubation time in group OFA were significantly longer than those in group OA (P<0.007).

Conclusions

This study suggested that our OFA regimen achieved equally effective intraoperative pain threshold index compared to OA in video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery. Depth of sedation was significantly deeper and blood glucose levels were higher with OFA. Study’s limitations and strict inclusion criteria may limit the external validity of the study, suggesting the need of further randomized trials on the topic.

Trial registration:ChiCTR1800019479, Title: "Opioid-free anesthesia in video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery lobectomy".
Conceptions of university students on microplastics in Germany
Authors: Raab Patricia , Bogner Franz X.
Published: September 2021

Microplastics are a global challenge and a frequently studied environmental issue. Hence, the knowledge body about microplastics within the scientific community is growing fast and challenges an elaborated knowledge transfer from science to the general public. Just as well-informed people are the basis for reducing microplastics’ impact on the environment, knowledge of the audience’s conceptions is the basis for an accurate and successful dissemination of scientific findings. However, insights into the publics’ perceptions of microplastics are still rare. The present study aimed to capture students’ conceptions about microplastics based on their individual experiences following qualitative inductive, exploratory research. Therefore, 267 students of a state university in Germany responded to a paper-and-pencil questionnaire containing open and closed questions on microplastic-related conceptual understanding, risk perception, information behavior, sources, and sinks. The inductive classifying of all responses by a qualitative content analysis revealed six basic concepts: 1) Microplastics are mainly understood as small plastic particles. 2) Microplastics are closely associated with its negative consequences. 3) The most labeled source in households is plastic packaging. 4) Compared to other water bodies, microplastics are rarely suspected in groundwater. 5) A high threat awareness exists in classifying microplastics as very dangerous and dangerous. 6) Media such as TV or the Internet are the most crucial information sources while the school has less importance in acquiring information. It is precisely this pattern that indicates the need for profound science communication to establish a joint and scientifically sound knowledge base in society. Knowledge about conceptions of potential “customers” allows tailor-made scientific knowledge transfers to shape public awareness, initiate changes in thoughts and prepare the field for collaborative behavior.