bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Antipyrine Metabolism in the Venda
Authors: Sommers De K. , Moncrieff J. , Avenant J.C.
Published: April 2009

1 The excretion of antipyrine metabolites over 48 h as percentage dose and the antipyrine kel and metabolite formation rate constants have been measured for 20 healthy Venda Africans.

2 To allow comparison with published data from inter-ethnic studies with antipyrine, subjects were selected who had assumed a western life and diet.

3 The values (mean ± SE) for excretion of the metabolites, 4-hydroxyantipyrine (4OHA), norantipyrine (NORA) and 3-hydroxymethylantipyrine (3HMA) as percentage dose were 26.17 ± 0.34, 7.44 ± 0.34 and 13.28 ± 0.31 respectively. The total of the three metabolites was 49.56 ± 0.33. These results differ significantly from the values found for groups of Canadian students of Oriental and Caucasian backgrounds.

4 The values (mean ± SE) found for the antipyrine elimination rate constant and the metabolite formation rate constants of 4OHA, NORA and 3OHA were 6.56 (± 0.56) × 10 -2, 2.05 (± 0.24) x 10-2, 0.60 (± 0.09) x 10-2 and 1.06 (± 0.16) x 10-2 respectively. Only the NORA formation rate constant showed any significant difference with the results obtained for Americans, although the Venda exhibited a wider distribution of the 3HMA data.

5 The linearity of the probit plots obtained suggest that the subjects selected are homozygous for the oxidations investigated. The marked difference found in comparison with Caucasian and Oriental data on the one hand and American data on the other, also implies a marked difference between the Caucasian and Oriental data and the American data. Thus the relative contributions of environmental induction and heredity to these types of oxidation are still unclear and much work remains to be carried out in this field.
Toiletry Time
Authors: Inglis David , Holmes Mary
Published: April 2009

The rhythms of human bodies are profoundly implicated with the time regimes that are dominant in different societies. This article seeks to explicate the relations between the temporal dispositions of one aspect of the body, its defecatory capacities, and the chronological and spatial categorizations of modernity. This latter configuration is understood variously as being characterized by: the social relations of the `civilizing process' (Elias); capitalist economic relations (Marx); instrumental rationality (Adorno and Horkheimer); and patriarchy (feminism). Focusing on each of these aspects of the modern allows us to chart historically the rise of a series of temporal regulations over acts of defecation. However, following the position of Sigmund Freud, we trace out one of the key dilemmas of modernity: while the times when defecation occurs have come under increasing levels of guidance and administration, the human body and its faecal capacities still continue to some degree to operate according to rhythms other than those imposed upon them, thus occasionally effecting a disorderly `return of the repressed' in the realm of systematized time.
AIDSTimes
Authors: Lynch John
Published: April 2009

A key aspect of the medical definition of AIDS was its temporal element. In dominant accounts of the condition the structures of understanding are predicated upon the development over time of symptoms, knowledge and discovery. Time plays a central part in the cultural representations of health and disease. This has an impact on questions of agency, self-activity and potential futures. At a particularly anxious moment for British state health education, different temporal structures were employed in HIV/AIDS health education to attempt to maintain the hegemonic views on sexual behaviour in the light of the condition.
www.timeandglobalization.com/narrative
Authors: Harris Paul Andre
Published: April 2009

Speculation about time and globalization at the millennium tends to announce either endings or beginnings. The difficulty in analyzing time and globalization lies in recognizing that we live in a period of overlapping, often conflicting times, processes, rates of change, and speeds of life. This article attempts to demonstrate how print and electronic media interpenetrate in a transitional period by analyzing them in terms of one another. The shortening and `speeding up' of print in the face of electronic media is juxtaposed to the print-based metaphors and formats that shape the interfaces of word-processing programs. Two different facets of electronic textuality are then examined. First, websites illustrate a shift in the meaning of `narrative': the shape of plot is lost, the rhythm of beginning, middle and end. Second, by contrast, a stunning array of creative experimentation has been unleashed by the unchecked usage of a new medium (e.g. email writing and digital storytelling). The article concludes with a call to mediate between worlds, the one that seems to be passing and the one yet to arrive.
`Harmony' as Efficiency
Authors: Ikuko Nishimoto
Published: April 2009

The management literature frequently characterizes Japanese industrial organization in terms such as collectivism, group-orientation, harmony and team spirit, and attributes these traits to Japan's cultural and traditional uniqueness. However, the author argues that a careful review of Japan's development reveals that its industrialists owe much to western - and primarily American - industrial techniques. The Just-In-Time system's stress on group work does not emerge from the national character or the Tokugawa heritage; it is industrial necessity, a means of achieving maximum efficiency. This idea is by no means alien to western economic theory. Just-In-Time pursues efficiency in the division of labor independent of cultural circumstances.
Justice De Proximité - The Growth of ‘Houses of Justice’ and Victim/Offender Mediation in France: A Very Unfrench Legal Response?
Authors: Crawford Adam
Published: April 2009

Initiatives in mediation and reparation have developed significantly across diverse European countries, none more so than in France over the last decade. This article seeks to situate and explain the recent growth in France of the ‘ Maisons de Justice’ (Houses of Justice) and victim/offender mediation they offer. This explanation is connected to an understanding of the increasingly dominant discourse of ‘ justice de proximité’, its dynamics and its place within French juridical politics. The article draws upon ESRC funded empirical - observational and interview-based - research conducted in the Lyon and Paris areas during 1997. The article goes on to interrogate the implications of these institutions and practices for the present state of French criminal justice. It is argued that through the analysis of these ‘very unFrench’ legal responses we can prise open fundamental ambiguities and debates at the heart of French legal and cultural life in a period of momentous socio-legal challenge and flux. It is suggested that these institutions and practices embody, at the same time as trying to resolve, significant contradictions within French legal culture.
Plural Policing and Democratic Governance
Authors: Loader Ian
Published: April 2009

This article asks how we might best come to terms with - and seek to govern - the multiplicity of institutional forms that are now involved in the delivery of policing and security services and technologies. I begin by documenting briefly the network of providers that constitute the policing field locally, nationally and transnationally, before specifying how the fragmentation and pluralization of policing has called radically into doubt a number of received (liberal) suppositions about the relationship between police and government. I then attempt - drawing constructively yet critically on recent theorizations of governance and ‘governmentality’ - to make sense of some contemporary reconfigurations of policing within and beyond the state, and tease out their implications for questions of democratic legitimacy. Finally, I outline the contours of an institutional politics for the regulation of policing that is both normatively adequate to the task of connecting policing to processes of public will-formation and sociologically plausible under the altered conditions of plural, networked policing.
Private Interest Representation or Civil Society Deliberation? A Contemporary Dilemma for European Union Governance
Authors: Curtin Deirdre
Published: April 2009

The European Commission’s White Paper on Governance in July 2001 focused attention, in a rather preliminary manner, on the role that ‘civil society’ could and should play in the process of further democratizing decision-making in the European Union. ‘Civil society’ has itself been trying to make this point for some years in the European context and now seems to have acquired some institutional allies in that regard. The European Economic and Social Committee has in particular been very focused and vocal in recent years, maintaining that the institutional ‘home’ for civil society should be within its putatively deliberative and inclusive structures. This rather corporatist view of fitting increasing civil society interest and activity into the existing interest representation model of the EU, which is shared by the Commission, risks ignoring the much more political role that certain strands of civil society are seeking: namely a space in which deliberation can publicly take place on values and policies.
Transgender Performance and the Discriminating Gaze: A Critique of Anti-Discrimination Regulatory Regimes
Authors: Sharpe Andrew N.
Published: April 2009

This article will examine the ways in which Australian anti-discrimination laws serve to regulate transgendered persons. It will emerge that the forms of regulation deployed vary significantly across jurisdictions. In order to appreciate the complex relation of transgendered persons to practices of discrimination and to forms of regulation, it is necessary not only to consider the category ‘transgender’ but to consider also the categories of ‘sex’ and ‘sexuality’. This is not a matter of law’s blindness to ‘intersectionality’, of the abstraction of legal subjects from embodied particularity, but rather a question of the interplay between these categories within specific regulatory regimes.

Moreover, the regulation of transgendered persons, and indeed other categories of person protected by anti-discrimination laws, will be seen to occur in ways which call for a re-examination of rights critiques which attempt an interrogative interpretation of rights. The article contends that Australian anti-discrimination laws are marked by a shift from an interrogative to a performative mode of regulation. That is to say, anti-discrimination laws are to be comprehended not by reference to the ‘immutability’ of some attribute or characteristic but rather in the interplay of performance and gaze. This regulatory shift is one which serves to problematize, rather than ossify, extant legal categories.

When you meet a human being, the first distinction you make is ‘male’ or ‘female?’ and you are accustomed to make the distinction with unhesitating certainty. (Freud, 1964)

But it seems we are as we appear. What a nonsense we make of our hatreds when we can only recognise them in the most obvious circumstances. (Winterson, 1996)
The Real and the Formal: Legal Realism Revisited
Authors: Polat Necati
Published: April 2009

The article aims to pursue a reassessment of one fundamental binary opposition legal realism invokes - the real and the formal. While some of the realist objections to the formal, mechanistic concept of adjudication have been insightful, the realist writers have been for the most part unaware of some of the formalistic and ultimately self-refuting presuppositions of their own rhetoric. This article argues that realism betrays its very rationale and mimics the mainstream formalism, as it effectively supplants the formalistic considerations of law as a system of rules with its own markedly formalistic preoccupations of law as the right method or theory. The article ventures to indicate some of the realist associations with the earlier European realism, with that of Françoise Gény in particular, which have consistently been neglected in the traditional assessments of the legal realist critical legacy. In so doing, the article relies not only on deconstructive strategies, but it also greatly presumes both the Wittgensteinean argument on ‘privacy’ and Stanley Fish’s critique of formalism in literary and legal studies.
Rational Law, Economic Development and the Case of China
Authors: Chen Albert H. Y.
Published: April 2009

Max Weber developed the thesis that the existence of a ‘logically formal and rational legal system’ is a condition for the successful operation of the market economy. However, although China has had the fastest growing economy in the world over the last 20 years and its growth is market-driven, its legal system (which has only begun to be rehabilitated since 1978) has been far from ‘rational’ in the Weberian sense. This confounds adherents to Weber’s thesis. Some scholars point out that guanxi (personal relationship) practices in Chinese culture may serve as the functional substitute for rational law for the purpose of reducing transaction costs and facilitating economic growth. This article examines this view, and develops a revised version of Weber’s thesis by drawing on economic sociology (particularly Mark Granovetter and Francis Fukuyama) and the new institutional economics (particularly Douglass North). It reflects on both the view that the establishment of a ‘rational’ legal system will be essential in assuring long-term economic development in China, and the ‘critical perspective’ that casts doubts on the validity of Weber’s thesis.
‘A Love Song to Our Mongrel Selves’: Hybridity, Sexuality and the Law
Authors: Kapur Ratna
Published: April 2009

This essay examines some of the cultural wars that are being fought out in India in the legal domain, cultural wars that all seem to involve sex. The battles taking place in the legal domain, comprising issues such as a legal challenge to the sodomy laws in the Indian Penal Code, a legal challenge to satellite broadcasting and the struggle to decriminalise prostitution, all involve a contest over the meaning of culture. In each of the controversies, the rallying cry is one of ‘Indian cultural values’ in which it seems that all sides of the debate stake their claim to being ‘true’ protector and promoter of Indian cultural traditions.

This essay addresses three concerns which underlie why participating in a conversation about gender, sexuality and law is important in a postcolonial context. First, it examines the importance of recuperating and theorizing desire and pleasure as an important political project within postcolonial India, particularly against the backdrop of the rise to power of the Hindu Right. Second, it examines the problematic role of cultural essentialism in both promoting and resisting this project in the legal arena. The final part of this essay re-evaluates the emancipatory potential of the victim subject in a postcolonial context and explores the possibility of rethinking the nature of the sexual subject to ensure that the political project remains both liberating and subversive.
A History of Ambivalence and Conflict in the Discursive Construction of the ‘Child Victim’ of Sexual Abuse
Authors: Smart Carol
Published: April 2009

This article was presented as one of the plenary addresses at the Keele Conference on Gender, Sexuality and Law in June 1998. Speakers were asked to focus on how their own work had developed and changed over time. In my address and in this article these issues are essentially absent because I cannot avoid the conclusion that, in my case at least, the substance of my research is of more interest than reflections upon my intellectual biography. However, this article is, I think, a good example of what I regard as an important strand of my work as a feminist socio-legal theorist and researcher. My work over the last 20 years has moved back and forth between the theoretical (viz. Feminism and the Power of Law [1989]), the empirical ( Family Fragments? [1999]) and the historical ( Regulating Womanhood [1992]). Sometimes it has even managed to combine all three elements ( The Ties That Bind [1982]). There have been moments when I felt that theoretical work was the most important, because of the limits of contemporary analysis or because I felt that my historical or empirical work had given rise to ways of thinking which called for expression in a transferable medium - and theory is always more widely read than empirical or historical work. But at other times I have found the focus on theory to be rather sterile and unrewarding and at such times I have found that empirical work poses new challenges and forces me to think in new ways. My current work on contemporary changes to childhood, for example, is certainly making me reconsider how we should theorise gender in family relationships. Empirical work, in my experience, always changes how one understands the social world. At other times, particularly when the rigours of fieldwork are too demanding, I return to the library and the archives. While fieldwork is exciting and challenging, I find that I am most intellectually contented when I am among original documents. This article emerges from such a period. Historical work challenges our modern complacencies and arrogance, and brings us back in touch with the prolonged difficulties of bringing about social and legal change. It also locates us, as researchers and as sometime agents of change, in an important tradition of endeavour and struggle. The issue of how law deals with sexuality, and indeed the extent to which it is part of the historical and cultural construction of sexual behaviour, has been of interest and concern to me throughout my academic career. I remain convinced that law, understood in its widest meaning, is still one of the most important sites of engagement and counter-discourse.
Research Methods Course Work for Students Specializing in Business and Technical Communication
Authors: Campbell Kim Sydow
Published: April 2009

Research activity is an integral component in the formation of professions. Evidence shows that business and technical communication specialists conduct research in both academic and practitioner career fields. In other disciplines, course work has been recognized as the primary means for preparing students to conduct and consume research. Yet, no publications document the status of research methods course work for U.S. students specializing in business and technical communication. This study provides a descriptive basis for assessing three areas in those courses: research methods topics, required readings, and teaching or assessment methods. An analysis of the results leads to a proposed agenda for preparing students specializing in business and technical communication for their future work roles in both academe and industry.
Walking a Fine Line
Authors: Schryer Catherine F.
Published: April 2009

This limited case study examines the situated-language practices associated with the production of negative letters in an insurance company. Using genre and sociocultural theories, the study combines textual analyses of a set of negative letters together with writers’ accounts of producing these letters to identify effective (as defined by the company) strategies for composing this correspondence. These letters are examples of generic action, and they demonstrate that genres function as constellations of regulated, improvisational strategies triggered by the interaction between individual socialization and an organization. Moreover, these constellations of resources express a particular chronotopic relation to space and time, and this relation is always axiological or value oriented. In other words, genres express space/time relations that reflect current social beliefs regarding the placement and actions of human individuals in space and time. The article identifies some of the strategies that characterize effective negative messages in this organization. It also critiques this text type for enacting a set of practices and related chronotopic orientation that are against the interests of its readers and writers.
The Effect of Interpretive Schemes on Videoteleducation's Conception, Implementation, and Use
Authors: Suchan Jim
Published: April 2009

Often, new technologies are seen as artifacts whose use is obvious. This study, which builds on Weick's notion that all technologies are equivocal, challenges that assumption. Using a case approach, this research examines how various groups at Far West, a professional school, interpret the implementation of a two-way video and audio videoteleducation (VTE) distance learning system and analyzes why different groups interpreted the technology in fundamentally different ways. From this case data, a model is created that examines the effects that dominant organizational groups’ interpretation and thus conceptualization of VTE have on its system design, support, training, and rewards; measures of effectiveness; and rule generation.
Storytelling in a Central Bank
Authors: Smart Graham
Published: April 2009

Drawing on an extended ethnographic study of the textual practices of economists at the Bank of Canada, this article looks at narrative construction as a communal process of corporate knowledge making. Employing theories of narrative, genre, and distributed cognition as a conceptual frame, the article traces three stages in the development of a narrative known in the bank as the monetary-policy story. Evolving across a number of written genres, this symbolic representation functions as an important site of intersubjectivity among the institution's economists. In its final form, the narrative serves the bank's executives as a shared cognitive and rhetorical resource for making decisions about monetary policy and communicating these decisions to the Canadian public. This account of knowledge making at the Bank of Canada may be useful as a heuristic for researchers studying the dynamics of discourse in other professional settings.
“And Then She Said”
Authors: Herrick Jeanne Weiland
Published: April 2009

This article calls for a rhetorical perspective on the relationship of gender, communication, and power in the workplace. In doing so, the author uses narrative in two ways. First, narratives gathered in an ethnographic study of an actual workplace, a plastics manufacturer, are used as a primary source of data, and second, the findings of this study are presented by telling the story of two women in this workplace. Arguing that gender in the workplace, like all social identities, is locally constructed through the micro practices of everyday life, the author questions some of the prevailing assumptions about gender at work and cautions professional communication teachers, researchers, and practitioners against unintentionally perpetuating global, decontextualized assumptions about gender and language, and their relationship to the distribution and exercise of power at work.
Narrativity and Professional Communication
Authors: Kelly Christine , Zak Michele
Published: April 2009

Narrative has been neglected in the education of professionals. The persuasive power of narrative is essential to all the sense-making activities that govern the lives of professionals, for in sense making, they are regularly using narrative. The central example here is the O. J. Simpson legal defense that was organized within the narrative frame of Simpson's story. The authors compare his story with a famous Norwegian folktale to illustrate the role narratives play in amplifying the values of a community. Using Propp's structural analysis of the folktale, they deconstruct the Simpson trial, which reveals implications of the narrative paradigm for the professional.
On Scientific Narrative
Authors: Sheehan Richard Johnson , Rode Scott
Published: April 2009

Despite the prevailing assumption that narrative and scientific discourse are incompatible genres, in this article the authors show that scientific texts typically follow a narrative pattern. This simple observation that narrative and scientific texts are similar is not all that surprising when we recognize that scientific discourse, like all narratives, describes what happened and what it meant. Indeed, scientific texts are almost always accounts of scientists' experiences in reality. After developing a vocabulary of narrative, the authors analyze the works of Newton and Einstein, using narrative analysis to illuminate scientific texts as stories.
Validity and Reliability of a Practice-Based Infant Pain Assessment Instrument
Authors: Fuller Barbara F. , Neu Madalynn
Published: April 2009

The purpose of this study was to determine the validity and reliability of an infant pain assessment instrument. This instrument is an algorithm derived from a model of infant pain assessment that emerged from interviews with pediatric nurses and includes methods for evaluating clinical data that suggest the likelihood of pain. Unlike other instruments, this instrument is not restricted to use in clinical situations where the likelihood of pain is evident. This instrument determines the three levels of pain that guide subsequent nursing interventions: no pain, mild pain (discomfort), and severe pain. Content validity was determined by obtaining and incorporating feedback from a focus group of practicing pediatric nurses on various developmental stages of the instrument. Criterion-like validity was excellent: Mean Pearson correlations between the pain ratings of 18 videotaped infants by 24 nursing students using the instrument with ratings performed by a panel of 5 expert nurses not using any instrument was 0.96. Test-retest reliability, as measured by Pearson correlations between pain ratings 3 months apart, was also excellent (r = 0.91).
The Impact of Information on Health Behaviors of Older Adults with Urinary Incontinence
Authors: Milne Jill
Published: April 2009

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of education about urinary incontinence on the subsequent help-seeking behaviors of older adults. Fortyfive community-dwelling seniors were randomized to two groups. One group received individualized instruction supported by written information; the other received written information alone. All participants received a list of local health care professionals specializing in the assessment and treatment of urinary incontinence. Seventeen participants sought professional help following the intervention; however, there was no significant difference in help-seeking behaviors between intervention groups,c2 = 1.42,a= 0.05. The most common reason for lack of help-seeking postintervention was a preference for self-care. Eighty-eight percent of those who initiated self-help behaviors reported a subjective improvement in the frequency or volume of their incontinence. Results emphasize the important role registered nurses should play in the dissemination of complete and accurate information about urinary incontinence.
Risk for Acute Confusion on Hospital Admission
Authors: Wakefield Bonnie J.
Published: April 2009

Elderly individuals are at risk for acute confusion (AC) during hospitalization. Using a prospective design, this study assessed the relationship between admission risk factors and subsequent development of AC in 117 elderly hospitalized patients. AC was ascertained using the NEECHAM Confusion Scale. Other measures included demographic data, cognitive status, physical function, laboratory data, medications, infections, activity, pain, and nursing acuity. The cumulative incidence estimate was 14%. Patients who developed AC were more likely to be admitted to the hospital from somewhere other than home, to have lower admission NEECHAM and MMSE scores, and to have restricted activity levels, an infection, and abnormal lab values. These patients were more cognitively and physically frail and may have been chronically undernourished and dehydrated on admission to the hospital. Nurses can be trained to routinely assess for acute confusion using easily implemented instruments incorporated into a research-based protocol.
Children's Daily Activities in a Mayan Village: A Culturally Grounded Description
Authors: Gaskins Suzanne
Published: April 2009

Building on recent efforts to reconceptualize development and socialization as contextually grounded processes, several aspects of Yucatec Mayan children's daily lives are observed, including maintenance activities, social orientation, work, and play. For each category of activity, the behavior of children ranging in age from 0 to 17 is described. Three principles of engagement generated to explain the Mayan cultural context (primacy of adult work, parental beliefs, and independence of child motivation) are used to interpret the descriptive data, illustrating how cultural understanding enables a meaningful interpretation of Mayan children's behavior and how lack of knowledge of these principles could lead to a misinterpretation through a Western cultural lens.
Why the Paraphilias? Domesticating Strange Sex
Authors: Munroe Robert L. , Gauvain Mary
Published: April 2009

Paraphilias (e.g., pedophilia, fetishism) are said to be virtually ineradicable once established. The authors propose that the motivational state known as the Zeigarnik effect, according to which interrupted tasks are better recalled than completed tasks, may provide understanding of this process, especially its later addictive-compulsive quality. Reasoning from Zeigarnik-type research, the authors predict a relation between early sexual arousal, its frustration, and subsequent events associated with such arousal. The paraphilias are thus seen as an unusual by-product of a normal adaptive process, that is, a tendency to privilege the recollection of unfinished over finished activities. The authors discuss why paraphilias are associated nearly exclusively with males, and why paraphilic tendencies are apparently quite rare in traditional societies. They also propose new research on the processes and outcomes entailed by the Zeigarnik effect, such research including, but not being limited to, sexuality.
Modernization as Changes in Cultural Complexity: New Cross-Cultural Measurements
Authors: Divale William , Seda Albert
Published: April 2009

A cross-cultural modernization scale is constructed using a worldwide sample of 136 societies in the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample. The operational definition of modernization is a change from traditional customs to ones that are forced or voluntarily borrowed from a dominant society that results in changes in behavior or customs. As a result of analysis using principal component analysis, we interpret the modernization process as a series of four separate stages that societies go through. Five separate hypotheses concerning modernization are tested and receive moderate support. It appears that the first stage (changes in government, trade, and education) and last stage (changes in behavior) of the modernization process are related to the five hypotheses. The second stage (changes in health, technology, and transportation) and the third stage (changes in family structure, religion, and personal toilet) are not.
Intra- and Intercultural Variation in the Definition of Five Illnesses: AIDS, Diabetes, the Common Cold, Empacho, and Mal de Ojo
Authors: Weller Susan C. , Baer Roberta D.
Published: April 2009

This article assesses the amount of sharing in cultural beliefs. Interviews were conducted with more than 800 informants about the causes, symptoms, and treatments for AIDS, diabetes, the common cold, empacho, and mal de ojo. Interviews were conducted with Puerto Ricans in Connecticut; Mexican Americans in South Texas; Mexicans in Guadalarjara, Mexico; and Guatemalans in rural Guatemala. A strong majority response (> 66%) in each sample for each illness was used to estimate group beliefs about the presence/absence of features that best described each illness. Those high concordance features were then compared across samples to see if illness descriptions tend to be shared across samples or if they tend to be distinctive or unique across geographical regions and ethnic groups. Results indicate a high degree of sharing across the populations with little unique variation due to regional or ethnic variation.
Language and Region Codes for the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample
Authors: Burton Michael L.
Published: April 2009

New language and region codes are developed for the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample. The region codes were developed previously with a different sample and tested against social structure data. The language codes incorporate information from recent publications on language history and are presented at multiple levels, providing information about the taxonomic relationships among languages.
Cultural Variations in Hopelessness, Optimism, and Suicidal Ideation: A Study of Ghana and U.S. College Samples
Authors: Eshun Sussie
Published: April 2009

As a follow-up study on previous findings of cultural differences in responses to depressive mood, college students from Ghana and the United States completed measures of hopelessness, optimism, and suicidal ideation. Statistical analyses were performed to compare differences in means between the two countries. Compared to the U.S. sample, Ghanaian college students reported less feelings of hopelessness,t(179) = -3.365,p < .001, and were significantly more optimistic,t (208) = 6.609,p < .0001. Furthermore, the U.S. sample endorsed significantly more items on the suicidal ideation scale, t (207) = 2.121,p < .035, than their Ghanaian counterparts. The role of factors such as cultural variations in an individual’s sense of belonging, social support, and expectancies is discussed in light of the present findings. Implications and directions for future research are also considered.
Emerging Issues in Legal and Procedural Aspects of Buffer Zone Management with Case Studies from Nepal
Authors: Heinen Joel T. , Mehta Jai N.
Published: April 2009

Buffer zones have been used as part of larger integrated conservation development programs to provide the benefits of ecological buffering of protected areas and socioeconomic buffering of neighboring communities. The authors explore the legal and managerial development of buffer zones internationally and with the passage of a conservation amendment in Nepal. A review of Nepal's buffer zone policies and several ongoing projects shows that there are several potential inherent problems. As written, regulations tend to expand the authority of the state by imposing restrictions in populated areas formerly not under control of park officials. Some participatory rights are provided to citizens, but management authority largely remains top down from the standpoint of local users. The authors question whether the managerial and research capacities exist to monitor buffer zones for their effectiveness for both conservation and development purposes and make several recommendations to improve implementation.
Reconciling Anthropocentrism and Biocentrism Through Adaptive Management: The Case of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and Public Risk Perception
Authors: Thrower Alex W. , Martinez J. Michael
Published: April 2009

Environmental policy issues often cannot be resolved owing to differences between anthropocentrists who adhere to neoclassical economic principles and biocentrists who argue in favor of a broad conception of sustainable development. This article examines the two perspectives in the context of radioactive waste management by presenting a case study involving public risk perception of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). WIPP is a mining program under-taken by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management to demonstrate the safe transportation and disposal of transuranic waste, a by-product of nuclear weapons production. The authors conclude that U.S. waste management programs such as WIPP can garner support only if a means for genuine, meaningful public participation is provided through adaptive management principles that “bridge the gap,” to the extent possible, between anthropocentric and biocentric perspectives.
Developing Nations, Energy R&D, and the Provision of a Planetary Public Good: A Long-Term Strategy for Addressing Climate Change
Authors: Dooley James J. , Runci Paul J.
Published: April 2009

This article presents findings indicative of important, ongoing changes in the energy research and development (R&D) investments of major nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The authors seek to explain drivers of these changes and their implications for the world's ability to deal with future R&D-intensive energy challenges. They also consider implications of changes in individual countries' energy R&D portfolios for international R&D collaboration among OECD countries and between OECD and developing countries. They conclude that the level of investment in energy R&D in the OECD is insufficient to meet the challenges of climate change. A long-term, strategic approach would aim to broaden both the amount of resources devoted to energy R&D and the geographical scope of the global energy R&D infrastructure. A successful strategy will account for major changes in demographics and energy use over the coming decades and will drive the development of indigenous energy R&D capabilities in today's developing countries.
Flexible Mechanisms of Climate Technology Transfer
Authors: Forsyth Timothy
Published: April 2009

Despite the recent adoption of “flexible” mechanisms for climate change mitigation, such as emissions trading and joint implementation, there has been little attention to the use of flexibility specifically for international climate technology transfer. This article proposes new flexible mechanisms of technology transfer that allow Annex I countries (or those with quantified targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions) to achieve greenhouse gas abatement targets, and supply industrial environmental technology to developing countries. The article also discusses how such mechanisms may be used in conjunction with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which was created under the Kyoto Protocol to promote climate-related investment in non–Annex I countries. It is argued that current approaches to technology transfer repel private investors by focusing too closely on long-term technology sharing rather than the potential benefits of the globalization of technology investment and ownership. However, simply subsidizing technology exports from Annex I countries may result only in damaging non–Annex I industries. It is, therefore, necessary to balance flexible mechanisms with strong national technological policies or governance by the CDM executive body.
A Brief Analysis of Farm Forestry Policy in Australia
Authors: Race Digby
Published: April 2009

Forestry is being redefined to meet a broad range of economic, environmental, and social expectations in many countries, including Australia. Anotable feature of this process is the increasing importance of farm forestry development in government policy and programs. However, farm forestry is still in its infancy in Australia, and there has been little analysis to date of the implications of the federal and state governments' current policy. The principal farm forestry policy also appears to be focused on plantation expansion at a national level rather than the delivery of broad socioeconomic outcomes for regional communities. In this article, the author provides an overview of the policy context in which farm forestry development occurs, raises what appear to be important issues for prospective small-scale growers, and suggests an alternate basis for developing a national farm forestry policy in Australia.
The Panama Canal: Danger Ahead
Authors: Mencher Marissa
Published: April 2009

The Panama Canal is a vital resource for international trade, providing an important connection between the world's two largest oceans. However, its future is in doubt due to massive deforestation. Despite environmental laws enacted to protect the watershed areas, Panama lacks the resources to ensure their security. The U.S. Agency for International Development has various programs in Panama to assist their protection needs once control of the canal is in Panamanian hands. Additional international assistance will also greatly assist the Panamanian efforts.
Robust Vibration/Force Control of a 2 D.O.F. Arm Having One Flexible Link with Artificial Pneumatic Actuators
Authors: Park No-Cheol , Park Hyung-Wug , Yang Hyun Seok , Park Young-Pil
Published: April 2009

A flexible link of a manipulator has an advantage over a rigid link in the sense that, not only is it light-weighted and thus can move fast using a small-sized actuator, but also that it is safer when it comes into contact with its environment, in particular with humans. However, the vibration due to the flexibility of the link makes it difficult to control the position of the end-point with precision, and when the link is in contact with its environment the problem becomes further complicated. On the other hand, if an actuator can deliver enough force while maintaining proper compliance, it would be advantageous for the sake of safety. An artificial pneumatic muscle-type actuator is an adequate choice in this case. However, the dynamic characteristics of this particular actuator possess strong nonlinearity and load-dependency, and thus a number of problems need to be resolved for its successful application as an actuator.

In this work, the position and force control problem of a two-d.o.f. arm system having a flexible second link with artificial pneumatic muscle-type actuators is addressed. A composite controller design method is proposed in the framework of the singular perturbation method. Various robust control schemes are designed in order to meet with payload variation, parameter uncertainty, unmodelled vibration mode and actuator dynamics, both in the slow and the fast subsystems. Simulations and experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the suggested composite control scheme.
Control of Structural Vibrations by Confinement in the Presence of Parameter Uncertainties and Disturbances
Authors: Choura Slim , Yigit Ahmet S.
Published: April 2009

A strategy for the simultaneous confinement and suppression of vibrations in flexible structures is proposed. The strategy accounts for parameter uncertainties and persistent disturbances. Certain design considerations are discussed and lead to the development of norm bounds for the control effort, displacement and velocity. These bounds if minimized with respect to the feedback parameters yield a better handle for controller design. Conditions for robustness are also developed using the control law. Furthermore, a special design of feedback for constant and periodic disturbance signals is introduced. An illustrative example of a beam finite element model is presented to show the efficacy of the proposed strategy.
Vibrostability of the Milling Process Described by the Time-Variable Parameter Model
Authors: Marchelek K. , Pajor M. , Powałka B.
Published: April 2009

This paper presents a method for vibrostability prognosis using a non-stationary model of the machine tool-cutting process system. The method employs Liapunov-Floquet theory. The method is illustrated by the example of the determination of limit cutting parameters using appropriate model reduction methods.
State Space Modeling and Stable Dynamic Inversion for Trajectory Tracking on an Industrial Seat Test Rig
Authors: De Cuyper J. , Verhaegen M.
Published: April 2009

This paper introduces a novel approach for trajectory tracking on seat test rigs. Seat test rigs are used in the automotive industry to test prototypes of new seats with respect to their comfort and vibration characteristics. Classically, a digital Fourier transform (DFT) approach, based on a Frequency Response Function (FRF) model, is used in this domain and different software packages exist that are based on this approach. The novel approach proposes state space models to identify the test rig and uses the recently developed Stable Dynamic Inversion (SDI) to invert the obtained state space models. The approach is validated on an industrial seat test rig and it is shown that the new approach is a competitive alternative to the existing DFT based methods. A closed loop experiment is also performed; this shows that the feedback controller allows one to reduce the state space model order without loss of accuracy.
Experimental Studies on Adaptive Fuzzy Control of a Smart Structure
Authors: Cohen Kelly , Yaffe Ronith , Weller Tanchum , Ben-Asher Joseph Z.
Published: April 2009

The present investigation deals with the application of an Adaptive Fuzzy Control Algorithm for active vibration control of an experimental flexible beam. The two-dimensional model of the experimental cantilever beam, given by an orthogonal tetrahedral space truss, represents a slender cantilever aluminum (7075-T6) beam of rectangular cross-section (1145 × 60 × 1.95 mm3). A variety of transient disturbances are introduced to excite the first four modes of the beam. The resulting transverse displacements are observed by a single sheet (50 × 50 mm2) of piezoceramic material placed at the clamped end of the beam. Active control of the beam is provided by one, two or three identical sheets of piezoceramic material collocated with the sensor. The control moments applied by the piezoceramic actuator are made to emulate the behavior of a discrete dynamic vibration absorber. The virtual absorber is tuned to the fundamental frequency using classical methods and the tuning ratios are time-invariant. However, the uniqueness of this approach is that the damping parameters of the emulated absorber are continuously varied by means of a fuzzy logic control algorithm to provide near minimum-time suppression of vibration. It is demonstrated that application of this methodology allows for its real-time implementation and provides relatively quick settling times in the closed-loop.
A Novel Fuzzy Sliding Mode Control Scheme for Nonlinear Systems with Bounded Inputs
Authors: Su Juhng-Perng , Liang Chi-Ying
Published: April 2009

In this paper, we investigated the design of robust controllers for a class of nonlinear uncertain systems with bounded inputs, which have not yet been thoroughly discussed. Based on the variable structure system theory, we developed a novel stable sliding mode control scheme for this class of systems. A key feature of this control scheme is the introduction of a new generalized error as a complement to the conventional generalized error to form a meaningful error measure so that a new sliding mode controller incorporated with a two-input one-output fuzzy controller can be constructed to improve the reaching behavior of the system during the reaching phase as well as the tracking precision while in the boundary layer. The nonlinear bench mark problem, TORA, was used as an example to demonstrate the effectiveness of the design. Simulation results showed that, as compared with various available controllers in literature, much better responses to any initial conditions and to single-frequency sinusoidal disturbances can be obtained.