bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
“Rhymes with Blunt”: Pornification and U.S. Political Culture
Authors: Anderson Karrin Vasby
Published: February 2012

In this essay, I contend that political culture and campaign journalism during the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign was “pornified.” Examination of broadcast journalism, viral videos, online commentary, political pop culture, and get-out-the- vote campaigns reveals the ways in which pornographic metaphors, images, and narratives infiltrated U.S. political culture during the 2008 presidential primary and general election season. I assess the media framing of candidates Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, as well as that of female voters as a group, arguing that the emergence of the pornification frame signals a backlash against the gains women have made in the U.S. political system.
Representation and Rupture in the Age of Globalization: Narrative Strategies in Manlio Argueta's Cuzcatlán donde bate la mar del sur and the Debate on Subalternity
Authors: Oloff Kerstin
Published: February 2012

During the last third of the twentieth century, representation came to be perceived as in a state of crisis. This crisis was and continues to be felt with particular virulence in Latin American and postcolonial studies, fields that explicitly set out to decenter knowledge production by including voices from the periphery of global capitalism. Yet, legitimate concerns over representation and a necessary vigilance against asserting epistemic control over the "subaltern" have tended to ossify into a seemingly unbridgeable difference between the subaltern and "us," thus rendering it harder to recognize potential similarities that might link "our" lives at the economic center to those living in the underdeveloped periphery. This article proposes that in his 1986 novel Cuzcatlán donde bate la mar del sur the Salvadoran public intellectual Manlio Argueta manages to think through issues of representation and alterity in such a way that might help to begin thinking beyond this impasse. Despite its emphasis on opacity and difference, Argueta's text refuses to posit an absolute rupture between the "subaltern" and the "self." Read within the context of the debate on the representation of the subaltern, I argue that his novel functions as an implicit rebuttal of the thesis of incommensurability and, more importantly, that it offers alternatives to the construction of subaltern consciousness.
Jean Renoir, American Artist
Authors: Poague Leland
Published: February 2012

Briefly compares Renoir's La Règle du jeu and Hawks's Only Angels Have Wings under the heading of "modernity" as initiating a reconsideration of Renoir's "Americanness." A confluence of America, modernity, and race is implicit in La Règle du jeu via references to Charles Lindbergh and pre-Columbian art, and a similar invocation of aviation, race, and American culture is overtly in play in Sur un Air de Charleston . Ambivalence about modernity and technology is depicted in La Bête humaine and Le crime de Monsieur Lange . Questions of America, art, race, and sexual exploitation/slavery are raised in La Chienne and Les Bas-fonds. The Woman on the Beach is described as extending Renoir's ruminations on art and sex, while it also recalls the modernity of film noir and of Renoir's earliest impressionist experiments. Interprets The Southerner and Swamp Water as culminating Renoir's interest in American race relations, if indirectly or allegorically, while attending explicitly to questions of capitalist exploitation and injustice.
The Afterlife and The Spectator
Authors: Jost Jacob Sider
Published: February 2012

Joseph Addison and Richard Steele’s Spectator markets itself to readers as a diurnal regimen of moral and spiritual self-formation: by consuming the paper each day, readers can prepare themselves for the afterlife, which the Spectator argues will be an extrapolation or continuation of life lived on earth, rather than a radically different other world. The paper’s own publication history provides a literary double of this theological argument: first published in ephemeral daily installments, the paper ensures its afterlife through republication in enduring volume form. For the Spectator , both literary and personal immortality are constructed from day to day.
Evolution and Epilepsy in Bleak House
Authors: Neill Anna
Published: February 2012

In Charles Dickens's novels, nervous seizures trigger dreamy, clairvoyant episodes in which normally imperceptible connections and relations among events and characters come to light. During such episodes, which the neurologist John Hughlings Jackson would describe as "voluminous" states of consciousness, the boundaries of the self dissolve, and the mind becomes attuned to a range of possible identities or phantom selves. The specters unleashed in this state of nervous "dissolution" haunt Bleak House even as they illuminate relations among members of vastly different social worlds and the great institutional forces that affect the most curious events of the mind.
Feeling Intellect in Aurora Leigh and The Prelude
Authors: Epstein Kobayashi Emily V.
Published: February 2012

Close readings of Aurora Leigh (1856) and The Prelude (1850) reveal parallel passages that demonstrate Elizabeth Barrett Browning's clear revision of William Wordsworth's autobiographical work. These central passages allow a new understanding of the poets' respective poetic visions. Aurora's poetic development illuminates the intra subjective love central to Wordsworth's poetic vision and to Barrett Browning's own reading of Wordsworth. Through ironic dramatization, Barrett Browning engages Wordsworth's dialectic of vision by the "bodily eye" and the "intellectual eye" and rejuvenates and expands Wordsworth's revolutionary inter subjective poetic practice. Barrett Browning's alter-ego Aurora is able to intersubjectively embrace the urban "punctual presence," Wordsworth's blind Beggar.
The Woodlanders and the Cultivation of Realism
Authors: Ward Megan
Published: February 2012

Thomas Hardy is perhaps best known for his depictions of a nostalgic, rural past—and the interruption of that rural life by modern cultivation. This essay takes as its starting point Hardy's suspicion of cultivation, but it reverses any notion of nostalgia. Hardy's skeptical depiction of cultivation ultimately arises not from the novel's ambivalence about culture but from its ambivalence about nature. Modern cultivation in The Woodlanders (1887) is a circular, nonprogressive practice that undoes the narrative of linear individual development on which the midcentury realist novel was founded. Though Hardy is often seen as departing from midcentury realism, this article argues that, instead, we can see a new direction for realism in the discussion of cultivation. Hardy contends that nature is not, and probably has never been, more real than cultivation. By making a world of surfaces and then undoing it, The Woodlanders highlights the cultivated nature of subjecthood, a cultivation that end-of-century realism must attempt to capture.
Reading Embodied Consciousness in Emma
Authors: Harbus Antonina
Published: February 2012

The language of Emma (1815) reflects Jane Austen's developing view of embodied consciousness and her particular interest in this novel in the physical manifestations of emotions, such as blushes and nervous responses. The discursive exploration of the inner life in Emma is the product of a cultural context that features emerging brain science and Austen's own conceptualization of the psychophysical nature of emotions. This article analyzes the language of mind and emotion in Emma , to contend that Austen grapples with the implications of the idea of embodied consciousness in a narrative that contrasts mind reading with interpreting the body.
Bridges over Troubled Waters: Two Touring Tempest s, 2010-2011
Authors: Dobson Michael
Published: February 2012

Beginning with Sam Mendes' 2010 Tempest - part of the director's transatlantic "Bridge Project" - and expanding to include Declan Donnellan's 2011 Russian-language Tempest for Cheek by Jowl, this essay considers the place of run-of-the-mill, big-budget, Anglophone Shakespeare alongside more daring, offbeat or niche productions. Mendes' Tempest serves as a typical example of high-profile but mediocre classical theatre, being part of a global tour and helmed by an established director, yet strangely unspecific in its reading of the play. The Anglo-American production was an uncertain hybrid of familiar styles, alternately minimalist and elaborate, and relied on the crutches of overblown sentiment, tired interpretations and a clumsy multimedia component. Donnellan's Tempest is held up in contrast, indicating the richness to be found outside the sphere of ordinary Anglophone Shakespeare. Its confident aesthetic choices, nuanced interpretation of character, and clear post-Cold War geopolitical commentary gained the Russo-English Tempest a significantly more positive reception than its Anglo-American cousin. Donnellan's production articulated, with depth, material that mattered to a global audience. Contrast Mendes' reduction of Shakespeare to a safe, muddled kind of high-status boredom.
(Ship)wrecked Shakespeare in Romanian Tempest s
Authors: Cinpoeş Nicoleta
Published: February 2012

Increasingly popular on the Romanian stage post-1989, The Tempest has become fertile terrain for exploring the current function of Shakespeare and theatre in the country. Comparing two 2009 productions, directed by Cristi Juncu and Cătălina Buzoianu respectively, this essay discusses the rediscovered topicality of Shakespeare, the reworking of The Tempest into concept productions, and the negotiation of collaborative authorship. Juncu kept his Tempest sparse, using sound to construct the spectacle of the storm off-stage, and reducing the island to a sand-box infused with a specific blend of domesticity and dreamlike metamorphosis. Conversely, Buzoianu's production was criticised for being too busy. High-tech projection screens framed a high-concept journey through the history of human violence, heavy with unsubtle analogy and plagued with interpretive inconsistencies. As with Prospero and Ariel's magic, these productions explored collaborative theatrics, with authorial attribution being given wholly neither to Shakespeare nor to either director or translator. Unburdened with the ideological baggage of other plays The Tempest here represents a "new world" for Romanian theatre, in which to explore such matters - theatrical and political - previously missed.
"The meate was mine": Donne's Satyre II and the Prehistory of Proprietary Authorship
Authors: Cook Trevor
Published: February 2012

Unlike his contemporary Ben Jonson, who closely identified with the printed word, John Donne is often thought to have shown no interest in the idea of literary property. However, this assumption does not account for the visceral metaphors, such as authorial cannibalism, that Donne applied to the circulation of his poems in manuscript. Through a close reading of Donne's Satyre II , which situates his concerns for misappropriation in a legal context, this essay argues not only that Donne was in a better position than his contemporaries to appreciate the needs for authorial control, but that due to his training in the law he was also better able to articulate an inchoate conception of proprietary authorship.
Technology, Bodily Limits, and Ways of Knowing: Joy Parr Sensing Changes
Authors: Jackson Shannon
Published: February 2012

This analysis of Joy Parr’s Sensing Changes (2010) connects the central themes of her historical and ethnographic accounts of megaprojects in Canada to broader arguments about the relationship between historically situated bodies and technologies. Much of what is being traced in her case studies is a very local reckoning of how bodies create, employ, and transmit expertise about landscape, be it natural or cultural or both. Her emphasis on the local and her use of ethnography draws the theoretical field of vision downward, challenging both the academic view from nowhere. Agents “on the ground” engaging in everyday activity provide vital clues to the way our bodies function as instruments of knowledge; how the points of contact between sentience and material limit yield social boundaries that are flexible and morally responsive offers an instructive contrast to systems that challenge or transcend such points of contact and threaten sustainability.
The Crossroads of Technology and Tradition: Vernacular Bicycles in Rural Finland, 1880–1910
Authors: Männistö-Funk Tiina
Published: February 2012

This article analyzes the phenomenon of vernacular bicycles in the Finnish countryside and argues for the importance of geography in studies of the social construction of technology. As a predominantly agrarian country, Finland of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provides a viewpoint into bicycle history different from most existing historiography. By analyzing the geographical division of vernacular bicycles, comparing folklore sources, newspaper articles, museum bicycle collections, and scrutinizing two case histories, the article moves progressively closer to the actual constructors of vernacular bicycles. They prove to be innovative combinations of traditional and modern technological components that provided their producers rewards in the specific practices of their social and economic environment. The article calls for a better understanding of peripheral regions and marginal technologies, as these can deepen our understanding of the history of technology in general.
When Women Were Computers: LeAnn Erickson, Top Secret Rosies
Authors: November Joseph
Published: February 2012

The documentary film Top Secret Rosies, directed by LeAnn Erickson, provides a long overdue and fascinating look into the experiences of the young American women who worked as human “computers” during World War II. The hour-long film makes the case that the top-secret activities of the women of the Philadelphia Computing Section of the U.S. Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory (housed in the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Engineering) were crucial not only to the war effort but also the development of ENIAC, arguably the first electronic digital computer. The film mixes archival footage with recent interviews of the “Rosies” and professional historians. This film will be of interest to historians of technology, computing, and gender, as well as U.S. and military historians.
Whiteness, Freedom, and Technology: The Racial Struggle over Philadelphia’s Streetcars, 1859–1867
Authors: Zylstra Geoff D.
Published: February 2012

Between 1859 and 1867 black residents of Philadelphia engaged in a struggle to end racial segregation of the city’s streetcars. This paper examines this conflict to explore the connections between technology and the construction of racial categories. This struggle occurred in response to racial changes such as abolition and Irish immigration. Whites who felt threatened by these racial changes sought to reconstruct the earlier racial hierarchy by claiming industrial developments. They identified streetcar space as white space in order to maintain authority. Blacks associated rail technology with freedom and their fight for access to the cars was also a fight for freedom and equality. Through organized protest and legal action they put an end to the segregation of Philadelphia’s streetcars. Ultimately, the question of who was allowed to ride in the streetcar was a critical question for its successful operation and a greater priority than efficient transportation.
Two fronts of anti-apartheid struggle: South Africa and Canada
Authors: Saul John S.
Published: February 2012

Having been, for most of my adult life, a student of southern African, including South African, affairs, I was pleased but also intrigued to receive an invitation from Ingrid Fiske and the South African Association of Canadian Studies to come to South Africa to give several talks and seminars in this country. This included a public lecture on the topic presented in this essay - an essay which explores both the collaboration between Canada and South Africa in support of apartheid, as well as the much more savoury links established between (many) Canadians and (most) South Africans in resistance to that system. Let us first explore the former of these two possible emphases.
"A Terrible Genius": Robinson Jeffers's Art of Narrative
Authors: Zaller Robert
Published: February 2012

Wallace Stevens remarks in The Necessary Angel that modern verse narrative would require "a terrible genius." Robinson Jeffers, whose narratives and verse dramas form the bulk of his verse output, may be said to have fulfilled this injunction. Taken as a whole, Jeffers's narratives engage the Modernist predicament, responding to the crisis of depicting individual subjectivity and personality, and therefore of the authority of narrative itself. His strategies were various, from an attempt to recuperate classical tragedy and its even deeper sources in Western mythology to the deployment of a panoply of Modernist devices: fragmentation, temporal displacement, doppelgangers and other personae, authorial interventions. Together with his remarkable evocation of the natural sublime, his narratives are, as a whole, a body of work distinctive in modern literature.
Dynamics of Normalization Underlying Masking in Human Visual Cortex
Authors: Tsai Jeffrey J. , Wade Alex R. , Norcia Anthony M.
Published: February 2012

Stimulus visibility can be reduced by other stimuli that overlap the same region of visual space, a process known as masking. Here we studied the neural mechanisms of masking in humans using source-imaged steady state visual evoked potentials and frequency-domain analysis over a wide range of relative stimulus strengths of test and mask stimuli. Test and mask stimuli were tagged with distinct temporal frequencies and we quantified spectral response components associated with the individual stimuli (self terms) and responses due to interaction between stimuli (intermodulation terms). In early visual cortex, masking alters the self terms in a manner consistent with a reduction of input contrast. We also identify a novel signature of masking: a robust intermodulation term that peaks when the test and mask stimuli have equal contrast and disappears when they are widely different. We fit all of our data simultaneously with family of a divisive gain control models that differed only in their dynamics. Models with either very short or very long temporal integration constants for the gain pool performed worse than a model with an integration time of ∼30 ms. Finally, the absolute magnitudes of the response were controlled by the ratio of the stimulus contrasts, not their absolute values. This contrast–contrast invariance suggests that many neurons in early visual cortex code relative rather than absolute contrast. Together, these results provide a more complete description of masking within the normalization framework of contrast gain control and suggest that contrast normalization accomplishes multiple functional goals.
MFG-E8 Mediates Primary Phagocytosis of Viable Neurons during Neuroinflammation
Authors: Fricker Michael , Neher Jonas J. , Zhao Jing-Wei , Théry Clotilde , Tolkovsky Aviva M. , Brown Guy C.
Published: February 2012

Milk-fat globule EGF factor-8 (MFG-E8, SED1, lactadherin) is known to mediate the phagocytic removal of apoptotic cells by bridging phosphatidylserine (PS)-exposing cells and the vitronectin receptor (VR) on phagocytes. However, we show here that MFG-E8 can mediate phagocytosis of viable neurons during neuroinflammation induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS), thereby causing neuronal death.In vitro, inflammatory neuronal loss is independent of apoptotic pathways, and is inhibited by blocking the PS/MFG-E8/VR pathway (by adding PS blocking antibodies, annexin V, mutant MFG-E8 unable to bind VR, or VR antagonist). Neuronal loss is absent inMfge8knock-out cultures, but restored by adding recombinant MFG-E8, without affecting inflammation.In vivo, LPS-induced neuronal loss is reduced in the striatum ofMfge8knock-out mice or by coinjection of an MFG-E8 receptor (VR) inhibitor into the rat striatum. Our data show that blocking MFG-E8-dependent phagocytosis preserves live neurons, implying that phagocytosis actively contributes to neuronal death during brain inflammation.
Modulation of sodium iodide symporter expression and function by LY294002, Akti-1/2 and Rapamycin in thyroid cells
Authors: Liu Yu-Yu , Zhang Xiaoli , Ringel Matthew D , Jhiang Sissy M
Published: February 2012

The selective increase of Na+/I−symporter (NIS)-mediated active iodide uptake in thyroid cells allows the use of radioiodine I131for diagnosis and targeted treatment of thyroid cancers. However, NIS-mediated radioiodine accumulation is often reduced in thyroid cancers due to decreased NIS expression/function. As PI3K signaling is overactivated in many thyroid tumors, we investigated the effects of inhibitors for PI3K, Akt, or mTORC1 as well as their interplay on NIS modulation in thyroid cells under chronic TSH stimulation. PI3K inhibition by LY294002 increased NIS-mediated radioiodide uptake (RAIU) mainly through upregulation of NIS expression, however, mTORC1 inhibition by Rapamycin did not increase NIS-mediated RAIU despite increased NIS protein levels. In comparison, Akt inhibition by Akti-1/2 did not increase NIS protein levels, yet markedly increased NIS-mediated RAIU by decreasing iodide efflux rate and increasing iodide transport rate and iodide affinity of NIS. The effects of Akti-1/2 on NIS-mediated RAIU are not detected in nonthyroid cells, implying that Akti-1/2 or its derivatives may represent potential pharmacological reagents to selectively increase thyroidal radioiodine accumulation and therapeutic efficacy.
Biocorrosion of AISI 4340 Steel
Authors: Rovetta Sabrina M. , Abdalla Antonio J. , Khouri Sonia , Otani Choyu , Miyakawa Walter
Published: February 2012

The objective of the present work is to evaluate the Penicillium candidum filamentous fungi biocorrosion effects on AISI 4340 steel. Small AISI 4340 steel blocks are exposed to a biocorrosion process inside glass tubes containing culture media (Sabouraud Dextrose HIMEDIA broth) inoculated with Penicillium candidum spores for 14 days, at 25ºC constant temperature. The surface microstructures are evaluated by scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and the chemical composition by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Comparison of micrographies before and after biocorrosion shows that surface structures present morphological alterations, suggesting corrosion wear. Grain contours can no longer be visualized and oxygen content on the steel surface increases to 32% after biocorrosion. Besides, topographic parameters like root mean square roughness (Rms), arithmetic mean roughness (Ra) and mean roughness (Rz) increase 57%, 132%, and 71%, respectively, from their initial values. It is concluded that AISI 4340 steel is reasonably susceptible to corrosion.
Render-induced cracking of earth masonry
Authors: Heath Andrew , Walker Pete , Jaquin Paul , Lawrence Mike
Published: February 2012

The increasing awareness of the environmental impacts of construction materials has resulted in an increasing interest in earth masonry in the UK in recent years. The use of traditional vernacular techniques has raised the profile of earthen architecture but wider impact is likely to come from commercially produced, thin-walled, earth masonry as a replacement for blockwork, brickwork or timber-framed non-structural internal walls. Earth masonry is susceptible to changes in moisture, and this paper investigates the potential for early-age cracking from changes in moisture content during the most critical period for these materials, namely during construction. It is shown that internal stresses generated by moisture-driven expansion after rendering may exceed masonry flexural (flexure-induced tensile) capacity leading to premature wall failure. This failure mechanism was observed in a test panel and has potential to occur in real walls. Recommendations on how to minimise the risk of early-age cracking are presented.
Urbanized landscapes favored by fig‐eating birds increase invasive but not native juvenile strangler fig abundance
Authors: Caughlin Trevor , Wheeler Jessica H. , Jankowski Jill , Lichstein Jeremy W.
Published: February 2012

Propagule pressure can determine the success or failure of invasive plant range expansion. Range expansion takes place at large spatial scales, often encompassing many types of land cover, yet the effect of landscape context on propagule pressure remains largely unknown. Many studies have reported a positive correlation between invasive plant abundance and human land use; increased propagule pressure in these landscapes may be responsible for this correlation. We tested the hypothesis that increased rates of seed dispersal by fig‐eating birds, which are more common in urban habitats, result in an increase in invasive strangler fig abundance in landscapes dominated by human land use. We quantified abundance of an invasive species (Ficus microcarpa) and a native species (F. aurea) of strangler fig in plots spanning the entire range of human land use in South Florida, USA, from urban parking lots to native forest. We then compared models that predicted juvenile fig abundance based on distance to adult fig seed sources and fig‐eating bird habitat quality with models that lacked one or both of these terms. The best model for juvenile invasive fig abundance included both distance to adult and fig‐eating bird habitat terms, suggesting that landscape effects on invasive fig abundance are mediated by seed‐dispersing birds. In contrast, the best model for juvenile native fig abundance included only presence/absence of adults, suggesting that distance from individual adult trees may have less effect on seed limitation for a native species compared to an invasive species undergoing range expansion. However, models for both species included significant effects of adult seed sources, implying that juvenile abundance is limited by seed arrival. This result was corroborated by a seed addition experiment that indicated that both native and invasive strangler figs were strongly seed limited. Understanding how landscape context affects the mechanisms of plant invasion may lead to better management techniques. Our results suggest that prioritizing removal of adult trees in sites with high fig‐eating bird habitat may be the most effective method to control F. microcarpa abundance.
The Interaction Between Dietary Valine and Tryptophan Content and Their Effect on the Performance of Piglets
Authors: Millet Sam
Published: February 2012

Four experimental diets for newly weaned pigs were formulated: (1) low valine and low tryptophan; (2) low valine and high tryptophan; (3) high valine and low tryptophan and (4) high valine and high tryptophan. Dietary standardized ileal digestible (SID) lysine content was 1.06 g/kg. The SID valine to SID lysine ratio was 0.58 and 0.67 for the low and high valine diets, respectively, and SID tryptophan to SID lysine ratios were 0.19 and 0.22 for the low and high tryptophan diets, respectively. In total, 64 pens of 6 pigs (3 barrows and 3 gilts) were divided over the four experimental treatments. No interaction between dietary supply of valine and tryptophan was observed (P > 0.1 for all parameters). Increasing the dietary valine content increased the daily feed intake, daily gain and gain:feed (P < 0.001 for all three parameters). Increasing the dietary tryptophan content improved gain:feed during the first 2 weeks (P < 0.05) and overall (P < 0.05). Valine supply had a greater effect on performance results than tryptophan supply. It may thus be beneficial to provide a diet with an optimal dietary concentration of valine even if other amino acids are at suboptimal dietary levels.
Conformational Ensembles of an Intrinsically Disordered Protein pKID with and without a KIX Domain in Explicit Solvent Investigated by All-Atom Multicanonical Molecular Dynamics
Authors: Umezawa Koji , Ikebe Jinzen , Takano Mitsunori , Nakamura Haruki , Higo Junichi
Published: February 2012

The phosphorylated kinase-inducible activation domain (pKID) adopts a helix–loop–helix structure upon binding to its partner KIX, although it is unstructured in the unbound state. The N-terminal and C-terminal regions of pKID, which adopt helices in the complex, are called, respectively, αA and αB. We performed all-atom multicanonical molecular dynamics simulations of pKID with and without KIX in explicit solvents to generate conformational ensembles. Although the unbound pKID was disordered overall, αA and αB exhibited a nascent helix propensity; the propensity of αA was stronger than that of αB, which agrees with experimental results. In the bound state, the free-energy landscape of αB involved two low free-energy fractions: native-like and non-native fractions. This result suggests that αB folds according to the induced-fit mechanism. The αB-helix direction was well aligned as in the NMR complex structure, although the αA helix exhibited high flexibility. These results also agree quantitatively with experimental observations. We have detected that the αB helix can bind to another site of KIX, to which another protein MLL also binds with the adopting helix. Consequently, MLL can facilitate pKID binding to the pKID-binding site by blocking the MLL-binding site. This also supports experimentally obtained results.
STRICTLY CONVERGENT ALGORITHM FOR AN ELLIPTIC EQUATION WITH NONLOCAL AND NONLINEAR BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
Authors: Birgelis Karlis , Raitums Uldis
Published: February 2012

The paper describes a formally strictly convergent algorithm for solving a class of elliptic problems with nonlinear and nonlocal boundary conditions, which arise in modeling of the steady-state conductive-radiative heat transfer processes. The proposed algorithm has two levels of iterations, where inner iterations by means of the damped Newton method solve an appropriate elliptic problem with nonlinear, but local boundary conditions, and outer iterations deal with nonlocal terms in boundary conditions.
Validity of the Health Enhancement Lifestyle Profile—Screener (HELP-Screener)
Authors: Hwang Jengliang Eric
Published: February 2012

The Health Enhancement Lifestyle Profile—Screener (HELP-Screener) is a 15-item self-report questionnaire designed as a brief, easy-to-score screening tool for detecting health-risk behaviors in older adults. This study examined concurrent validity and construct-related validity of the HELP-Screener with a sample of 310 community-dwelling older adults. Concurrent validity was supported through a high correlation ( rs = .65; p < .0001) between the scores of the HELP-Screener and the original 56-item HELP. The construct-related validity was confirmed using the hypothesis-testing procedure. The first hypothesis was substantiated by a moderate negative correlation ( rs = −.47; p < .0001) between the test scores and the numbers of chronic illness reported by participants. The second hypothesis was validated by a moderate correlation ( rs = .58; p < .0001) between the test scores and self-ratings of health by participants. The HELP-Screener holds promise as a psychometrically sound tool for expediting detection of potential health-compromising lifestyles in older adults.
Gender Aspects in the Use of ICT in Information Centres
Authors: Mutaza Shahida , Sami Lalitha K.
Published: February 2012

Technologies have entered libraries. Scientists in research institutions, for their research work, have to use technology–based information services, irrespective of their gender. With earlier studies reporting gender bias in the usage of technology, this chapter makes an attempt to study if gender has a role in the use of Information and Communication Technology. The chapter further analyses if cultural, family, or educational background can change this generalized notion.
Western Work Worlds and Altering Approaches to Marriage
Authors: Tara Shelly , Ilavarasan P. Vigneswara
Published: February 2012

Based on a qualitative empirical study of women call center employees in India, this chapter argues that approaches towards marriage are being altered due to the impact of Western work worlds. In-depth interviews were conducted with eighteen respondent located in Delhi, a metropolitan area, and Jaipur, a second tier city Though, in terms of size, culture, and outlook of people there are great differences between Delhi and Jaipur, the work culture introduced by the call centers is similar in both cities. Consequently, the findings reveal certain similar as well as certain different opinions in the approaches towards marriage at both the cities. Women are negotiating with these approaches to continue with either employment in call center or marriage, or both. By doing a comparative analysis between the respondents of two cities about the decision of marriage, the study provides a range of approaches adopted by the women employees of call centers, while balancing work and the decision of marriage. The chapter also highlights the varying forms of women agency being exercised while dealing with the issue of marriage along with the unprecedented work culture of call centers in India.
Performance Analysis of Optimum Interleaver based on Prime Numbers for Multiuser Iterative IDMA Systems
Authors: Shukla M. , Gupta Ruchir
Published: February 2012

In recently proposed multiple access techniques like IDMA and OFDM-IDMA, the user separation is done by user specific interleavers in contrast to the conventional CDMA scheme, where user separation is assured with user-specific signature sequences. The user specific interleavers must demonstrate minimum probability of collision amongst each other in addition to other merits, including minimal consumption of bandwidth, least hardware for their generation, and least memory requirement. In this paper, the authors propose an interleaver based on prime numbers for the generation of user specific interleavers to remove the problem of high consumption of bandwidth. The simulation results demonstrate the optimal performance of prime interleaver (PI), which is based on prime numbers, apart from other merits in comparison to random and other interleavers.
An Analysis of the Latin American Wireless Telecommunications Market Portfolios of Telefonica and America Movil
Authors: Powell Steven R.
Published: February 2012

In response to slowing growth, intensifying competition in their traditional wireless voice, text markets with an eye toward increasing revenues from offering a bundle of mobile and fixed-line voice, data, text, and video services to subscribers, management at Telefonica and America Movil have restructured their companies and reconsidered their internationalization strategies. This paper focuses on the two companies’ Latin American wireless market portfolios, providing background on why these reorganizational and strategic actions were taken. In particular, the paper compares the portfolios with respect to their market attractiveness and competitive positions in 2008 relative to 2002 on both an overall average and degree of variance basis across the markets in the portfolios. The portfolio analysis technique employed in the paper may have wider applicability for formulating corporate strategy.
Serious Educational Games (SEGs) and Student Learning and Engagement with Scientific Concepts
Authors: Holmes Shawn , Thurmond Brandi , Annetta Leonard A. , Sears Matthew
Published: February 2012

Situated in the video game design literature to foster problem-based learning, this chapter illustrates the application of educational theories to create Serious Educational Games (SEGs). SEGs present a learning condition where students can be engaged in standard-based STEM concepts and incorporate these concepts into a fun, interactive challenge where the goal is to solve a problem. This chapter explores a theoretical research investigation of such a learning environment. Students researched standard-based STEM concepts then used design techniques (i.e., story creation, flow chart, decision trees, and storyboarding techniques) and proprietary software to develop their own SEGs. This work sheds light on the process and encourages others to partake in creating similar learning environments, while providing insight into how to design for sustainability.
Introduction to Femtocell
Authors: Mokhtar Rania A. , Saeed Rashid , Chaudhari Bharat S.
Published: February 2012

Femtocell is a licensed indoor coverage solution served by a residential licensed access point known as FAP or Home node B. Femtocell promises to address the cost and coverage issues of mobile networks and increase cellular network capacity by rising above the impact of wall attenuation on macrocell deployment. The Femto Forum defines femtocell as a low cost access point leveraged on mature mobile technology that operates on a licensed spectrum and utilizes broadband (IP) as backhaul. This chapter gives an overview of the femtocell technology and architecture, standard and business models.
The Comparison between WLAN and Femtocell
Authors: Saeed Rashid A. , Hasan Mohammad , Mokhtar Rania A.
Published: February 2012

The communication link of femtocell may be one of Wide Area Network (WAN) technologies, such as, Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL). Femtocell used a public network to establish connectivity between femtocell and core network elements where there are a set of challenges to the operators. However, femtocells use IP Network as a backhaul architecture instead of conventional cellular network infrastructure, so that Femtocells and WiFi infrastructure networks can come to a compromise as they have a lot of common iterative and inter-related technologies and activities. This raises the question as to whether femtocell technology will substitute the existing WiFi technology. By carefully analyzing the similarities and differences between the two technologies one can find this answer. This chapter provides a technical comparison between Femtocells and WiFi in terms of architecture, operation, and standards.
LTE Femtocells
Authors: Di Zenobio Dario , Celidonio Massimo , Pulcini Lorenzo , Rufini Arianna
Published: February 2012

The growing interest in the possible deployment of mobile cellular networks in the 790-862 MHz frequency band, resulting from the transition process from analogue to digital TV, will pave the way for cutting-edge technology (LTE) and a new interesting market.
Extended Mobile IPv6 Route Optimization for Mobile Networks in Local and Global Mobility Domain
Authors: Prakash Arun , Verma Rajesh , Tripathi Rajeev , Naik Kshirasagar
Published: February 2012

Network mobility (NEMO) route optimization support is strongly demanded in next generation networks; without route optimization the mobile network (e.g., a vehicle) tunnels all traffic to its Home Agent (HA). The mobility may cause the HA to be geographically distant from the mobile network, and the tunneling causes increased delay and overhead in the network. It becomes peculiar in the event of nesting of mobile networks due to pinball routing, for example, a Personal Area Network (PAN) inside a vehicle. The authors propose an Extended Mobile IPv6 route optimization (EMIP) scheme to enhance the performance of nested mobile networks in local and global mobility domain. The EMIP scheme is based on MIPv6 route optimization and the root Mobile Router (MR) performs all the route optimization tasks on behalf of all active Mobile Network Nodes (MNNs). Thus, the network movement remains transparent to sub MRs and MNNs and modifies only MRs and MNNs leaving other entities untouched and is more efficient than the Network Mobility Basic Support protocol (NEMO BS). The authors carried out an extensive simulation study to evaluate the performance of EMIP.
Memorizing Algorithm
Authors: Truong Quynh Chi , Truong Anh Tuan , Dang Tran Khanh
Published: February 2012

The rapid development of location-based services, which make use of the location information of the user, presents both opportunities and challenges. Users can benefit from these services; however, they must often disclose their location information, which may lead to privacy problems. In this regard, the authors propose a solution with a memorizing algorithm, using trusted middleware that organizes space in an adaptive grid where it cloaks the user’s location information in an anonymization area before sending it to the service providers. This newly introduced memorizing algorithm calculates on the spatial grid to decrease the overlapped areas as much as possible, which helps conceal users’ locations. This solution protects the user’s privacy while using the service, but also against data mining techniques with respect to their history location data. Experimental results with a user activities map establishes this theoretical analyses as well as the practical value of the proposed solution.
Building an Intelligent Mobile Advertising System
Authors: Gao Jerry Zeyu , Ji Angela
Published: February 2012

The fast deployment of wireless networks and mobile technologies and the significant increase in the number of mobile device users have created a very strong demand for new innovative mobile commerce applications and services. Since mobile advertising is one of the important subjects in mobile commerce, studying and developing mobile advertising solutions becomes a hot research and business topic. This paper first discusses the basic concepts of mobile advertising. Then, it reports a mobile advertising system (known as SmartMobile-AD), including its supporting business process, functions, system architecture, and built-in technical solutions. The system supports the wireless advertising workflow for wireless service companies and publishers (or portals) to manage and deliver multimedia mobile ads to mobile users over the wireless Internet. The paper provides insights and design solutions on mobile advertisement targeting, delivery, tracking, and performance measurement. Furthermore, the paper presents application examples of the system.
Faculty Teaching Beliefs, Eportfolios, and Web 2.0 at the Crossroads
Authors: Brown Gary , Cho YoonJung , Ater-Kranov Ashley
Published: February 2012

The advent of open knowledge and open source and the ubiquity of the phenomenon identified as Web 2.0, as evidenced by the phenomenal growth of Facebook, Google, and hundreds of other open and social Internet applications, have ramifications for education. At the same time, educators have been slow to understand that it is how a technology is implemented, not the technology itself, that most influences learning. This article examines how ePortfolios are being and will be used, depending in large measure on the teaching beliefs that guide their implementation and the quality of learning that follows.
Ontologies for Guaranteeing the Interoperability in e-Business
Authors: Zelewski Stephan , Bruns Adina Silvia , Kowalski Martin
Published: February 2012

For e-business, the computer-based processing of value-creation, especially for knowledge-intensive business processes, plays a prominent role with the help of modern information and communication techniques. At least since the further development of the classical Internet for the Semantic Web, the content-based knowledge processing and knowledge transfer have gained more importance. In this chapter it is shown that ontologies represent an auspicious instrument to ensure the interoperability of information and communication systems that have to work together on the work-sharing development of knowledge-intensive business processes. Ontologies become important when agents with heterogeneous knowledge backgrounds co-operate on such business processes. Firstly, the complex and often ill-considered use of the definition of ontology will be discussed critically and its meaning specified. Thereupon it will be shown (with the help of two application areas) how ontologies can be used effectively to support knowledge-intensive business processes in e-business. On the one hand, the chapter is concerned with the management of knowledge of competences, which agents have to have a command of for successful process execution. On the other hand, it is about the management of know-how, which has already been collected from completed projects and should be reused in new projects.
Standards for Achieving Interoperability of eGovernment in Europe
Authors: Küster Marc Wilhelm
Published: February 2012

E-government interoperability frameworks in Europe and the standards they reference are diverse, often reflecting different legal and policy priorities across the continent. Selected examples from a number of member states illustrate how legal interoperability impacts the choice or creation of e-Government standards. It looks at the situation of technical interactions, especially the use of web service standards, then at two data exchange standards, two metadata standards, and the current work on linked open data. The examples discussed represent different use cases (Government to Government / G2G, Government to Business / G2B, Government to Citizen / G2C), allowing an overview over the current situation in Europe.
Fundamental Building Blocks for Security Interoperability in e-Business
Authors: Asim Muhammad , Petkovic Milan
Published: February 2012

The e-business concept goes beyond traditional electronic enterprise systems that are typically owned and controlled by one company. In e-business systems the data is exchanged in a distributed environment where different components and systems are owned and controlled by different companies. This introduces two main challenges: (1) there is a need for adequate security mechanisms that can protect the data in an end-to-end manner (2) the security mechanisms deployed in e-Business systems must be interoperable to ensure that they work with the security mechanism of others’ systems. This chapter makes an overview of security mechanisms applicable to e-Business, as well as relevant security standards. The chapter also gives an outlook on novel approaches to e-Business security.
Measuring Quality of Electronic Services
Authors: Amer Mahmoud , Gómez Jorge Marx
Published: February 2012

This study tries to answer questions regarding the factors that affect electronic service quality perception in the Business-to-Business (B2B) domain using quantitative and qualitative measures through surveys and interviews targeted at the German companies that are enrolled in providing service activities in the B2B marketplace. The study reviews past research in the field and the efforts that were conducted in the Business to Consumer (B2C) model, and moves toward explaining the service quality measure in the B2B domain. The study found that there are clear differences in the determinants of service quality perception between the B2C and B2B domains.