bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Vertical Structure of Annular Modes
Authors: Sheshadri Aditi , Plumb R. Alan , Lindgren Erik A. , Domeisen Daniela I. V.
Published: June 2018

Stratosphere–troposphere interactions are conventionally characterized using the first empirical orthogonal function (EOF) of fields such as zonal-mean zonal wind. Perpetual-winter integrations of an idealized model are used to contrast the vertical structures of EOFs with those of principal oscillation patterns (POPs; the modes of a linearized system governing the evolution of zonal flow anomalies). POP structures are shown to be insensitive to pressure weighting of the time series of interest, a factor that is particularly important for a deep system such as the stratosphere and troposphere. In contrast, EOFs change from being dominated by tropospheric variability with pressure weighting to being dominated by stratospheric variability without it. The analysis reveals separate tropospheric and stratospheric modes in model integrations that are set up to resemble midwinter variability of the troposphere and stratosphere in both hemispheres. Movies illustrating the time evolution of POP structures show the existence of a fast, propagating tropospheric mode in both integrations, and a pulsing stratospheric mode with a tropospheric extension in the Northern Hemisphere–like integration.
Characterizing the Synoptic Expression of the Angola Low
Authors: Howard Emma , Washington Richard
Published: June 2018

The Angola low is a key feature of the southern Africa wet season atmosphere that influences precipitation across the continent. This paper uses ERA-Interim to show that the synoptic expression of the Angola low is a combination of dry heat lows and moist tropical low pressure systems. The Angola heat low and Angola tropical low composites are contrasted against similar lows observed in other continental tropical regions and found to be broadly comparable. The implications that the distinction between dry and moist events has for the interannual relationship among the Angola low, precipitation, and ENSO are examined. The tropical lows exhibit unusual semistationary behavior by lingering in the Angola region rather than traveling offshore. This behavior is proposed to be caused by an integrated sea breeze–anabatic wind that enhances (inhibits) cyclonic vorticity stretching and convection inland (near the coast). The combined effect of the heat lows and the anchored tropical lows creates the Angola low in the climatological average. By elucidating the mechanisms of the Angola low, this research improves the foundation of process-based evaluation of southern Africa present and future climate in CMIP and AMIP models.
An Improved Estimation and Gap-Filling Technique for Sea Surface Wind Speeds Using NARX Neural Networks
Authors: Silva Murilo T. , Gill Eric W. , Huang Weimin
Published: June 2018

This work presents the use of a nonlinear autoregressive neural network to obtain an improved estimate of sea surface winds, taking Placentia Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, as a study case. The network inputs and delays were chosen through cross correlation with the target variable. The proposed method was compared with five other wind speed estimation techniques, outperforming them in correlation, precision, accuracy, and bias levels. As an extension, the temporal gap filling of missing wind speed data during a storm has been considered. Data containing a measurement gap from a 40-yr windstorm that hit the same location has been used. The proposed method filled the gaps in the dataset with a high degree of correlation with measurements obtained by surrounding stations. The method presented in this work showed promising results that could be extended to estimate wind speeds in other locations and filling gaps in other datasets.
Weather, Climate, and Narrative: A Relational Model for Democratizing Risk Communication
Authors: Lejano Raul P. , Casas Eulito V. , Montes Rosabella B. , Lengwa Lynie P.
Published: June 2018

There is growing evidence that the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events may be increasing in conjunction with climate change. This means that many communities will encounter phenomena, such as extreme storm surge events, never before experienced by local residents. The tragic effects of Typhoon Haiyan on the city of Tacloban, Philippines, in November 2013 were attributed, in part, to the inability of routine technical bulletins to communicate the unprecedented nature of the predicted storm surge. In response, the authors construct a relational model of risk communication that suggests that narrative messages that simulate direct face-to-face communication may be more effective in spurring action. Conducting a postevent target audience study in the city of Tacloban, the authors tested the relative effectiveness of narrative-based versus technical message designs on residents who chose not to evacuate during the typhoon. Results show increased effectiveness of the narrative design vis-à-vis intent to evacuate, self-relevance and vividness of the message, and perceived authority of the message source. The study also explored factors behind noncompliance with evacuation advisories. The research supports the relational model, which captures insights from recent research on evacuation and emergency preparedness for extreme hazard events. It supports a broader effort to democratize risk communication and, in so doing, increase people’s sense of agency in preparing for these events.
Improving Diaper Performance for Extremely Low-Birth-Weight Infants
Authors: Sanchez Veronica , Maladen-Percy Michelle , Gustin Jennifer , Tally Amy , Gibb Roger , Ogle Julie , Kenneally Dianna C. , Carr Andrew N.
Published: June 2018

Background. Extremely low-birth-weight (ELBW) infants face significant diapering challenges compared with their full-term peers, due to immature musculature, nervous system, and skin development. Advances in medical care have increased an ELBW infant’s rate of survival, which creates a growing need for diapers to better serve these infants. Aim of research. The objective of this study was to identify and confirm the requirements for optimal diaper performance from the neonatal intensive care unit nurses’ perspective, as well as to assess in-hospital performance to determine if new features improved key developmental care parameters. Method. Two surveys were shared among nurses to address study objectives. Study 1 (N = 151) was designed for neonatal intensive care unit nurses to identify key requirements for ELBW diapers and rate the performance of existing ELBW diapers. Study 2 (N = 99) assessed in-hospital performance of the test diaper compared with the usual diaper, under normal usage conditions. Findings/results. The majority of nurses agreed that ELBW diapers must fit appropriately between the legs so that hips and legs are not spread apart and that ELBW diapers need to be flexible between the legs for positioning. Of the nurses-infant pair responses, 93% ( P < .0001) preferred the test ELBW diaper over their usual diaper. Conclusion. Findings suggest that nurses should be included in the product design process to ensure both their needs and the needs of an infant are being met. Nurses are considering how diaper features may affect both acute and long-term medical outcomes and this information provides necessary guidance to diaper manufacturers and designers when developing better-performing diapers.
La parola rivoluzionaria abbassata al corporeo: Parodia carnevalesca e trauma in Abitare il vento di Sebastiano Vassalli
Authors: Della Gala Beniamino
Published: June 2018

Il romanzo di Sebastiano Vassalli Abitare il vento (1980) costituisce un’interessante testimonianza della tematica dei cosiddetti “anni di piombo” nella letteratura italiana a partire dagli anni Settanta. Il protagonista, Cris, è uno sbandato uscito di galera che ha intrattenuto e intrattiene rapporti non ben definiti con la lotta armata. Attraverso un soliloquio che impasta differenti codici e registri linguistici senza soluzione di continuità, egli trascina il lettore in un’odissea tragicomica: alla ricerca di vecchie e nuove amanti, finirà per essere coinvolto come carceriere in un rapimento operato da una cellula di brigatisti.

Una caratteristica peculiare dell’opera è il tono comico con cui questa tematica viene affrontata; l’articolo propone dunque un’analisi della comicità del romanzo a partire dalla categoria del “carnevalesco” teorizzata dallo studioso russo Michail Bachtin. In effetti nel testo ricorrono numerosi elementi tratti dal repertorio comico scandagliato dal critico nel suo studio dell’opera di Rabelais: tra questi risalta l’abbassamento declassante del lessico rivoluzionario alla sfera semantica del basso materiale e corporeo.

Individuati gli elementi carnevaleschi del romanzo, l’articolo si interroga sulle funzioni di questa comicità, che si dispiega come critica parodica dell’ideologia, ma anche come strategia di “derealizzazione” finalizzata ad allontanare un’esperienza storica vissuta come trauma.
Communicating Jesus’s Liberating Love Amidst Hostile Powers
Authors: Ekblad Bob
Published: June 2018

Ministering to inmates and training them as pastoral agents inside jails and prisons are highly challenging in today’s correctional institutions. Many forces are at work in these facilities that interrupt access to the rich life Jesus offers and its expansion among prisoners. This article addresses these obstacles, offering strategies for effective ministry among the incarcerated, with perspectives drawn from Acts 16.
Remember My Chains: New Testament Perspectives on Incarceration
Authors: Skinner Matthew L.
Published: June 2018

Understanding the physical realities and social attitudes concerning incarceration in the ancient world provides a fuller context to the New Testament’s unadorned and ambiguous references to people’s experience of being held in custody. The context is crucial for interpreting biblical passages that commend caring for prisoners, that reaffirm God’s strength and nullify the ignominy associated with incarceration, and that declare God’s power over the means and motives of imperial coercion. Such passages also compel the contemporary church to advocate on behalf of prisoners and to denounce the systems that regularly victimize them.
An experimental method for the investigation of rigid polyurethane foams in shear
Authors: Beverte Ilze
Published: June 2018

Widespread applications of rigid polyurethane and plastic foams lead to shear deformations. Therefore, methods for ensuring shear using experimental investigations are necessary, including the possibility of determining the shear modulus, strength and limit angle. Therefore, a device that allows investigating the shear properties of highly porous plastic foams was developed. The proposed device comprises a clip-on extensometer, commonly exploited in uni-axial compression/tension tests, for the determination of the shear displacement directly on the foams’ sample, on a measurement zone of certain dimensions and location. An innovative construction of the extensometer’s legs is elaborated, permitting to investigate the shear displacement field for different dimensions of the measurement zone. Precision of the device is examined by performing a penetration test on materials of different densities: (a) polyurethane foams and (b) wood. Technology for the production of isotropic polyurethane foams as a test material is described in detail. Experimental determination of shear modulus and strength of one and the same sample, in one and the same experiment is elaborated. Displacements in different zones of sample’s work beam are investigated. Experimental data are compared with the results of mathematical modelling and a good correlation is proved to exist.
Long-Distance Vowel-to-Vowel Coarticulation in Arabic: Influences of Intervening Consonant Pharyngealization and Length
Authors: Ahmed Sarah , Grosvald Michael
Published: June 2018

This study investigates anticipatory vowel-to-vowel coarticulation in Arabic, and seeks to determine the degree to which it is affected by the pharyngealization and length of intervening consonants. Speakers of Egyptian Arabic were recorded saying sentences containing nonsense sequences of the form /baɁabaCV:/, where C was chosen from {/t/, /tˤ/, /t:/, /tˤ:/} and V was a long vowel /i:/, /a:/ or /u:/. Analysis of the first and second formants of the recorded vowels revealed that (a) vowel-to-vowel coarticulatory effects could sometimes extend to a distance of three vowels before the context vowel; (b) the consonant-to-vowel effects associated with pharyngealization were consistently seen at similar distances, while also decreasing in magnitude at greater distances from the triggering consonant; and (c) effects related to intervening consonant length were idiosyncratic, and in particular did not lead to consistent blocking of vowel-to-vowel effects. In contrast, one speaker showed significant vowel-to-vowel effects at all three measured distances that were effectively blocked in the pharyngealized consonant condition.
Experimental Effects of Acute Exercise on Prospective Memory and False Memory
Authors: Green David , Loprinzi Paul D.
Published: June 2018

Research demonstrates that acute exercise can enhance retrospective episodic memory performance. However, limited research has examined the effects of acute exercise on prospective memory, and no studies have examined the effects of exercise on false memory performance. This study examined the potential effects of acute exercise on prospective memory and false memory performance. A between-group randomized controlled trial was employed, with participants (college students; Mage = 20 years) randomized into an exercise group (15-minute acute bout of treadmill walking; N = 25) or a control group (15 minutes of sitting; N = 26). Prospective memory was assessed from two laboratory and two naturalistic assessments outside the lab. False memory was assessed using a word-list trial. There were no statistically significant differences in prospective memory based on group allocation (FGroup×Time = 1.17; P = 0.32; η2 = 0.06). However, the control group recalled more false words and had a higher rate of false memory recognition (FGroup×Time = 3.15; P = 0.01; η2 = 0.26). These findings indicate that acute moderate-intensity aerobic exercise is not associated with prospective memory performance but provides some suggestive evidence that acute exercise may reduce the rate of false memories.
Repelling neoliberal world-making? How the ageing–dementia relation is reassembling the social
Authors: Latimer Joanna
Published: June 2018

Growing old ‘badly’ is stigmatizing, a truism that is enrolled into contemporary agendas for the biomedicalization of ageing. Among the many discourses that emphasize ageing as the root cause of later life illnesses, dementia is currently promoted as an epidemic and such hyperbole serves to legitimate its increasing biomedicalization. The new stigma however is no longer contained to simply having dementia, it is failing to prevent it. Anti-ageing cultures of consumption, alongside a proliferation of cultural depictions of the ageing–dementia relation, seem to be refiguring dementia as a future to be worked on to eliminate it from our everyday life. The article unpacks this complexity for how the ageing–dementia relation is being reassembled in biopolitics in ways that enact it as something that can be transformed and managed. Bringing together Bauman’s theories of how cultural communities cope with the otherness of the other with theories of the rationale for the making of monsters – such as the figure of the abject older person with dementia – the article suggests that those older body-persons that personify the ageing–dementia relation, depicted in film and television for example, threaten the modes of ordering underpinning contemporary lives. This is not just because they intimate loss of mind, or because they are disruptive, but because they do not perform what it is to be ‘response-able’ and postpone frailty through managing self and risk.
Stigma, housing and identity after prison
Authors: Keene Danya E. , Smoyer Amy B. , Blankenship Kim M.
Published: June 2018

Existing research suggests that individuals who are released from prison face considerable challenges in obtaining access to safe, stable, and affordable places to live and call home. This article draws on repeated qualitative interviews (conducted every 6 months over a period of 3 years) with 44 formerly incarcerated individuals, to understand how these individuals experience the search for a home after their prison release. The interviews show that the quest for a home is central to participants’ reintegration projects as they seek to establish themselves as ‘decent’ and economically self-sufficient citizens, and shed stigmatized identities associated with incarceration, poverty, homelessness, and place. Interviews also suggest that their quest for a home is an arduous one as they encounter numerous barriers to housing arising from both structural and interpersonal forms of incarceration stigma. Somewhat paradoxically, the challenges that they face in accessing housing seem to hinder their ability to shed the stigmatized identities associated with their incarceration. Ultimately, the narratives presented here show how stigma can restrict access to a valuable material and symbolic resource (housing), resulting in ongoing stigmatization, and contributing to the enduring and discrediting mark of incarceration. In this way, the study illustrates how stigma that is enacted by both individuals and the state, that is embodied in place, and that is internalized and managed by stigmatized individuals themselves, can work to reproduce power and serve as justification for inequality.
Haunted futures: The stigma of being a mother living apart from her child(ren) as a result of state-ordered court removal
Authors: Morriss Lisa
Published: June 2018

The notion of ‘haunted futures’ can provoke new understandings of the experiences of birth mothers living apart from their children as a result of state-ordered court removal. As ‘abject figures’, the mothers are silenced through the stigma and shame of being judged to be a deeply flawed mother, the justifiable fear of future children being removed, and court-ordered reporting restrictions. In this article, the author depicts how these mothers exist in a state of haunted motherhood: they are paralysed in anticipation of an imagined future of reunification with their children. The mothers are painfully aware that any future pregnancy will also be subject to child protection procedures; thus even their future motherhood continues to be stigmatised by the past. However, while the ghosts of removed children signify a traumatic loss, they also simultaneously represent hope and future possibilities of transformation through re-narrativisation. The creation of spaces for the mothers to speak about their experiences can foster a ‘maternal commons’. This ending of enforced silencing can be a political act, countering the stigma caused by pathologising individual mothers and making visible how structural inequalities and governmental policies impact on the lives of the most vulnerable families in the UK.
Beyond legacy: Backstage stigmatisation and ‘trickle-up’ politics of urban regeneration
Authors: Paton Kirsteen
Published: June 2018

This article explores how stigmatisation is intimately linked with neoliberal governance and capital accumulation in specific ways through processes around the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. It advances the author’s previous research exploring the effects of stigma on the East End community hosting the Games, by looking at some of the processes of power and profit which motivate stigmatising processes by ‘gazing up’, rather than ‘gazing down’. That is, looking at the role of the stigmatisers in this project and not the stigmatised. It draws loosely on Goffman’s concept of ‘backstage’ to shed light on those who produce and profit from these stigmatisation processes, including government bodies and actors and private business interests. Looking at some of the processes through which stigmatisation is profited from reveals not only forms of power vital to this process but that it is a key form of exploitation integral to capital accumulation. Under austerity, the political economy of the Games constitutes state support of private finance and a simultaneous withdrawal of social welfare support, which transfers the burden of debt from the state to the individual and wealth from public funds to private funds.
Resituating Erving Goffman: From Stigma Power to Black Power
Authors: Tyler Imogen
Published: June 2018

This article offers a critical re-reading of the understanding of stigma forged by the North American sociologist Erving Goffman in his influential Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (1963). One of the most widely read and cited sociologists in history, Goffman was already famous when Stigma was published in 1963. His previous books were best-sellers and Stigma alone has sold an astonishing 800,000 copies in the 50 years since its publication. Given its considerable influence, it is surprising how little sustained engagement there has been with the historicity of Goffman’s account. This article resituates Goffman’s conceptualisation of stigma within the historical context of Jim Crow and the Black freedom struggles that were shaking ‘the social interaction order’ to its foundations at the very moment he crafted his account. It is the contention of this article that these explosive political movements against the ‘humiliations of racial discrimination’ invite revision of Goffman’s decidedly apolitical account of stigma. This historical revision of Goffman’s stigma concept builds on an existing body of critical work on the relationship between race, segregation and the epistemology of sociology within the USA. Throughout, it reads Goffman’s Stigma through the lens of ‘Black Sociology’, a field of knowledge that here designates not only formal sociological scholarship, but political manifestos, journalism, creative writing, oral histories and memoirs. It is the argument of this article that placing Goffman’s concept of stigma into critical dialogue with Black epistemologies of stigma allows for a timely reconceptualisation of stigma as governmental technologies of dehumanisation that have long been collectively resisted from below.
The invention of the ‘sink estate’: Consequential categorisation and the UK housing crisis
Authors: Slater Tom
Published: June 2018

This article explores the history and traces the realisation of a category that was invented by journalists, amplified by free market think tanks and converted into policy doxa (common sense) by politicians in the United Kingdom: the ‘sink estate’. This derogatory designator, signifying social housing estates that supposedly create poverty, family breakdown, worklessness, welfare dependency, antisocial behaviour and personal irresponsibility, has become the symbolic frame justifying current policies towards social housing that have resulted in considerable social suffering and intensified dislocation. The article deploys a conceptual articulation of agnotology (the intentional production of ignorance) with Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic power to understand the institutional arrangements and cognitive systems structuring deeply unequal social relations. Specifically, the highly influential publications on housing by a free market think tank, Policy Exchange, are dissected in order to demonstrate how the activation of territorial stigma has become an instrument of urban politics. The ‘sink estate’, it is argued, is the semantic battering ram in the ideological assault on social housing, deflecting attention away from social housing not only as urgent necessity during a serious crisis of affordability, but as incubator of community, solidarity, shelter and home.
Where do Black lives matter? Race, stigma, and place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Authors: Loyd Jenna M. , Bonds Anne
Published: June 2018

This article analyzes how the spatial metaphor of 53206, a zip code within the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, connects with crises in the legitimacy of policing and politicians’ claims to care about Black lives. It examines how, in the context of deepening racialized poverty, ongoing mobilizations against police violence, and increasing rates of violent crime, liberal and conservative rhetoric about 53206 largely obscures the roles that decades of deindustrialization and labor assaults, metropolitan racial and wealth segregation, and public school and welfare restructuring play in producing racial and class inequality to instead emphasize racializing tropes about ‘Black-on-Black crime,’ broken homes, and uncaring Black communities. Situating the examination within critical analysis of urban poverty, geographic scholarship on the racialization of space, and critical criminology, the authors consider the salience of the term territorial stigmatization as a means to understand how historical and contemporary processes of racialized capitalism shape Milwaukee’s urban and social divides. They argue that discursive constructions of 53206 and the rhetorical posture of saving Black lives deployed by elected officials have had the effect of entrenching policing power while further rendering neighborhoods like Milwaukee’s Northside as already dead and dying.
Determination of leg cross-sectional curvatures and application in pressure prediction for lower body compression garments
Authors: Liu Rong , Liu Jundong , Lao Terence T , Ying Michael , Wu Xinbo
Published: June 2018

It has been recognized that the cross-sectional curvatures of lower extremities directly influence pressure magnitudes and distributions exerted by compression garments. In the practice of compression therapy, higher peak pressures produced by compression shells occurred at anatomic sites with smaller radius of curvatures and led to side effects and discomfort perception. An effective and operational method to determine leg curvature properties in order to predict pressure performances is desirable to improve comfort and mechanical function of compression garment. By employing three-dimensional (3D) digital anthropometry and two-dimensional (2D) digital image simulation, the curvatures and radius of curvatures of a total of 300 cross-sectional slices involving 1200 anatomic sites along the lower limbs were determined onto the ten healthy female subjects when they were and were not wearing compression stockings. Based on the determined cross-sectional characteristics, the skin pressures were calculated using the circumference-based and the radius of curvature-based Laplace’s equations, respectively, which were further validated against the experimental skin pressures measured by a PicoPress transducer. This study provided quantitative evidence in the exploration of the working mechanisms of uneven pressures produced by compression garments, and established a standardized method to determine cross-section-related curvature characteristics for pressure assessment and prediction, which will contribute to improving user compliance of compression garments in long-term wear.
Understanding thermomechanical failure of athletic textiles via the pendulum skid method
Authors: Gregory Shawn Alan , Swarup Keshav , Lo Christopher , Dwyer Ryan , Davidson Michael , Monroe Timothy , Spivey Colten , Realff Mary Lynn
Published: June 2018

Fiber textiles worn by some athletes and basketball and volleyball players experience higher than usual thermomechanical stresses compared to everyday garments because these athletes slide and dive on hardwood courts. Common textile testing procedures, such as the Martindale abrasion tester, effectively test textiles under modest loads and thousands of cycles, but this methodology does not suffice for athletic textiles. In addition, there is not a robust model nor a repeatable test that mimics high thermomechanical stress on fabrics and provides insights on fabric abrasion resistance. We present a model to calculate the temperatures and strain rates that are seen by fabrics undergoing thermomechanical deformation. To enable validation of the model, a fabric pendulum abrasion tester, an adaptation of the Cooper pendulum skid tester, was developed. The tester characterizes high-strain fabric abrasion deformation. This adaptation is statistically reliable and induces repeatable and realistic fabric failure within tens to hundreds of cycles, proving to be analogous to the loads athletes place on their textiles. Analog electronics on the pendulum abrasion tester generate real-time temperature and velocity profiles. A series of 11 unique athletic fabrics were abrasion tested, and it was found that fabrics with macroporosity experience the largest abrasion degradation. Significant degradation sites were further explored using scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction analysis, and it was shown that thermomechanical loading’s effect on fiber microstructure is a function of the fabric construction. This novel abrasion tester and quantitative relationships between fabric structure and degradation mechanisms will enable more data-driven decisions when designing textiles for thermomechanical loads.
The Impact of Noncompliance and Internal Control Deficiencies on Going Concern Audit Opinions and Viability of Nonprofit Charitable Organizations
Authors: Feng Nancy Chun
Published: June 2018

This study investigates whether material noncompliance ( MNC) with laws and regulations and internal control deficiencies ( ICDs) in a nonprofit charitable organization (NPO) affect the likelihood that the NPO receives a going concern audit opinion ( GCO) and the viability of the NPO. I find that noncompliance and ICDs are positively associated with the likelihood that an NPO receives a GCO. The results also suggest that the entity-level ICDs increase auditors’ propensity to issue a GCO but ICDs that occur at the federal program level do not. The evidence from the survival analysis shows that only ICDs have significant influence on the viability of NPOs. The results of the survival analysis also show that GCO-receiving NPOs are more likely to discontinue operations than their financially distressed peers, indicating that either auditors are correct in issuing the GCOs or GCOs become self-fulfilling prophecies. Analyses of Type I/Type II misclassifications suggest that auditors make more Type I errors than Type II ones, and the accuracy of going concern decisions seems to vary by auditor type, sector, and time period. The overall findings of this study provide evidence of hidden costs of noncompliance and ICDs in NPOs, which can motivate regulators and the managers of NPOs to enhance NPOs’ governance to lower the probability of getting a GCO and improve the NPO’s sustainability.
The Structure of Municipal Political Ideology
Authors: Cann Damon M.
Published: June 2018

Conventional wisdom holds that municipal politics is nonideological. Recent scholarship challenges this perspective, finding representation on a liberal–conservative dimension in municipal politics. This article re-evaluates these findings using a set of questions that includes questions on land use. Evidence is shown for a multidimensional municipal ideological space with a liberal–conservative dimension and another dimension that corresponds to citizens’ preferences for balancing community needs with individual rights on land use. The results support a characterization of municipal politics as being ideological but also show that a single liberal–conservative dimension is inadequate for characterizing the municipal ideological space.
Violence and Organization Studies
Authors: Costas Jana , Grey Chris
Published: June 2018

In this paper we argue that violence is curiously both absent and present within organization studies. By violence we mean actual or potential physical harm and, building on an insight from Norbert Elias, we suggest that such violence is both ‘totally familiar yet hardly perceived’ in organizations. We examine how in two major traditions of organization studies, one deriving from Weber and the other from Foucault, violence figures as, respectively, an ‘absent-presence’ and a ‘present-absence’. We then propose that a sensibility towards violence enables the recognition of ‘the blood and bruises’ of organizational life: something present close to home as well as faraway; here and now rather than long ago; and featuring in ‘normal’ organizations as well as in abnormal or exceptional circumstances.
Bullying Intervention in Schools: A Multilevel Analysis of Teachers’ Success in Handling Bullying From the Students’ Perspective
Authors: Wachs Sebastian , Bilz Ludwig , Niproschke Saskia , Schubarth Wilfried
Published: June 2018

To date, little has been known about teachers’ success in bullying interventions. Thus, the present study analyzes how successfully teachers intervene in real bullying situations, based on an analysis of 1,996 reports by German students aged between 12 and 15 (49.2% female) from 24 schools. Predictors of success included intervention strategy (authoritarian-punitive, supportive-individual, supportive-cooperative intervention), bullying form (physical, verbal, relational, cyber), and the student’s bullying role (bully, victim, bystander) in the particular situation. Multilevel analyses showed that supportive-cooperative intervention strategies were the most successful in dealing with bullying in both the short and long term. In the long term, students evaluated teachers as being more successful in dealing with cyberbullying compared with physical bullying. Compared with students who observed bullying, students who perpetrated it were less likely to report that teachers’ interventions were successful in the short term. Implications for bullying intervention, preservice teacher-training, and future research are discussed.
Monitoring of tumor burden in vivo by optical imaging in a xenograft SCID mouse model: evaluation of two fluorescent proteins of the GFP-superfamily
Authors: Böhm Ingrid , Gehrke Stephan , Kleb Beate , Hungerbühler Martin , Müller Rolf , Klose Klaus J , Alfke Heiko
Published: June 2018

Background

Mouse models of human-malignant-melanoma (MM) are important tools to study tumor dynamics. The enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) is widely used in molecular imaging approaches, together with optical scanners, and fluorescence imaging.

Purpose

Currently, there are no data available as to whether other fluorescent proteins are more suitable. The goal of this preclinical study was to analyze two fluorescent proteins of the GFP superfamily under real-time in vivo conditions using fluorescence reflectance imaging (FRI).

Material and Methods

The human melanoma cell line MeWo was stable transfected with one plasmid: pEGFP-C1 or pDsRed1-N1. We investigated two severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID)-mice groups: A (solid xenografts) and B (xenografts as metastases). After three weeks, the animals were weekly imaged by FRI. Afterwards the mice were euthanized and metastases were imaged in situ: to quantify the cutis-dependent reduction of emitted light, we compared signal intensities obtained by metastases in vivo with signal intensities obtained by in situ liver parenchyma preparations.

Results

More than 90% of cells were stable transfected. EGFP-/DsRed-xenograft tumors had identical growth kinetics. In vivo the emitted light by DsRed tumors/metastases was much brighter than by EGFP. DsRed metastases were earlier (3 vs. 5 weeks) and much more sensitive detectable than EGFP metastases. Cutis-dependent reduction of emitted light was greater in EGFP than in DsRed mice (tenfold). Autofluorescence of DsRed was lower than of EGFP.

Conclusion

We established an in vivo xenograft mouse model (DsRed-MeWo) that is reliable, reproducible, and superior to the EGFP model as a preclinical tool to study innovative therapies by FRI under real-time in vivo conditions.
Role of elastography for downgrading BI-RADS category 4a breast lesions according to risk factors
Authors: Koh Jieun , Kim Eun-Kyung , Kim Min Jung , Yoon Jung Hyun , Park Vivian Youngjean , Moon Hee Jung
Published: June 2018

Background

Elastography has been introduced as an additional diagnostic tool to ultrasonography (US) which helps clinicians decide whether or not to perform biopsy on US-detected lesions.

Purpose

To evaluate the role of strain elastography in downgrading Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) category 4a breast lesions according to personal risk factors for breast cancer in asymptomatic women.

Material and Methods

Strain elastography features of a total of 255 asymptomatic category 4a lesions were classified as soft and not soft (intermediate and hard). Malignancy was confirmed by surgery or biopsy, and benignity was confirmed by surgery or biopsy with no change on US for at least six months. Malignancy rates of lesions with soft and not soft elastography were calculated according to the presence of risk factors.

Results

Of 255 lesions, 25 (9.8%) were malignant and 230 (90.2%) were benign. Of 195 lesions in average-risk women, the malignancy rate of lesions with soft elastography was 1.5% (1/68), which was significantly lower than the 14.2% (18/127) of lesions with not soft elastography ( P = 0.004). Of 60 lesions in increased-risk women, the malignancy rate of lesions with soft elastography was 15.0% (3/20), which was not significantly different from the 7.5% (3/40) of lesions with not soft elastography ( P = 0.390).

Conclusion

In average-risk women, category 4a lesions with soft elastography could be followed up with US because of a low malignancy rate of 1.5%.
Early thrombolytic failure in a patient with massive pulmonary embolism combined with multiple organ dysfunction syndrome: what next?
Authors: Liu Furong , Yang Song , Liu Weishuo , Tang Baiyun , Zhang Wenbo , Zhang Cheng , Liao Wenwei , Hu Anbin
Published: June 2018

Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning, the most frequent type of poisoning, alters hemodynamics and creates tissue hypoxia that ultimately leads to thromboembolism. We herein describe a previously healthy 17-year-old male patient who developed acute CO poisoning while bathing in the same room as a gas heater. He was first treated with urokinase thrombolytic therapy at a local hospital, which proved ineffective. The patient was admitted to our hospital with unstable circulation and was diagnosed with massive pulmonary embolism combined with multiple organ dysfunction syndrome. His Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score was 22, and his Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score was 15. We faced a difficult decision regarding whether to perform surgical embolectomy or to repeat the thrombolysis. We opted to repeat the thrombolysis with successful results. Our experience may help clinicians manage similar cases in the future.
Impact of metabolic syndrome on quality of life of liver transplant recipients
Authors: Wang Zhenshun , Li Ning , Lin Dongdong
Published: June 2018

Objective

The incidence of metabolic syndrome (MS) increases after liver transplantation. This study was performed to evaluate the impact of MS on patients’ quality of life after liver transplantation.

Methods

We collected the medical records of 152 patients during their post-liver transplantation outpatient follow-up. Quality of life was assessed using the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short Form Health Survey. Data on the patients’ general condition as well as MS-related indicators were assessed in all patients. Based on the MS diagnostic criteria proposed by the International Diabetes Federation in 2005, the patients were divided into two groups: those with and without MS. We then analyzed the factors influencing MS and their impact on the patients’ quality of life.

Results

After liver transplantation, age and underlying liver disease were significantly associated with MS and diabetes, and sex and body mass index were associated with central obesity. Central obesity affected the patients’ general health (GH) score and health transition (HT) score, and hypertension affected their GH score and physical component score (PCS).

Conclusions

After liver transplantation, central obesity had a negative impact on patients’ GH score and HT score, and hypertension affected their GH score and PCS.
Letter to the Editor
Authors: Belluco Sara
Published: June 2018

The article “CD204-Expressing Tumor-Associated Macrophages Are Associated With Malignant, High-Grade, and Hormone Receptor–Negative Canine Mammary Gland Tumors” does not provide evidence that CD204 is a marker for M2 macrophages.
Analysis of Performance Data Collected from Two Wrong-Way Driving Advanced Technology Countermeasures and Results of Countermeasures Stakeholder Surveys
Authors: Kayes Md Imrul , Al-Deek Haitham , Sandt Adrian , Rogers John H. , Carrick Grady
Published: June 2018

Wrong-way driving (WWD) often leads to severe collisions that cause serious injuries and deaths. Conventional “Wrong Way” signs can reduce WWD events, but can be insufficient in some cases. In areas with many WWD events, transportation agencies can be proactive by considering the use of countermeasures with advanced technologies to actively warn motorists of WWD violations. This paper analyzes recent performance data collected from two types of advanced technology WWD countermeasures implemented in Florida: light-emitting diode (LED) signs in South Florida and rectangular flashing beacon (RFB) signs in Central Florida. The 17 LED sites experienced a 38% reduction in WWD citations and 911 calls after the signs were installed. Images taken by the on-site cameras were examined to see how many vehicles turned around for both the RFB and LED treatment sites. Over 77% of the 170-detected wrong-way vehicles self-corrected their wrong-way movement at the RFB sites (each with two sets of signs and multiple cameras) and 14% self-corrected at the LED sites (each with one set of signs and one camera). Surveys were also conducted regarding these two WWD countermeasures. More than 73% of the 2,052 respondents preferred RFBs over LEDs, mainly due to the double set of RFB signs and their flashing pattern. The performance and survey results show that both the LEDs and RFBs have effectively reduced WWD movements. However, modifications could be made to both countermeasures to improve their detection ability and make wrong-way drivers more likely to turn around.
A Comparative Analysis of Tree-Based Ensemble Methods for Detecting Imminent Lane Change Maneuvers in Connected Vehicle Environments
Authors: Mousa Saleh R. , Bakhit Peter R. , Osman Osama A. , Ishak Sherif
Published: June 2018

Lane changing is one of the main contributors to car crashes in the U.S. The complexity of the decision-making process associated with lane changing makes such maneuvers prone to driving errors, and hence, increases the possibility of car crashes. Thus, researchers have been investigating ways to model and predict lane changing maneuvers for optimally designed crash avoidance systems. Such systems rely on the accuracy of detecting the onset of lane-change maneuvers, which requires comprehensive vehicle trajectory data. Connected Vehicles (CV) data provide opportunities for accurate modeling of lane changing maneuvers, especially with the variety of advanced tools available nowadays. The review of the literature indicates that most of the implemented modeling tools do not achieve reliable accuracy for such critical safety application of lane-change prediction. Recently, eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGB) became a well-recognized algorithm among the computer science community in solving classification problems due to its accuracy, scalability, and speed. This study implements the XGB in predicting the onset of lane changing maneuvers using CV trajectory data. The performance of XGB is compared to three other tree-based algorithms namely, decision trees, gradient boosting, and random forests. The Next Generation SIMulation trajectory data are used to represent the high-resolution CV data. The results indicate that XGB is superior to the other algorithms with a high accuracy value of 99.7%. This outstanding accuracy is achieved when considering vehicle trajectory data two seconds prior to a potential lane change maneuver. The findings of this study are promising for detection of lane change maneuvers in CV environments.
A Cross-Sectional Study of the Awareness and Implementation of the National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace in Canadian Employers
Authors: Sheikh Manal S. , Smail-Crevier Rachel , Wang JianLi
Published: June 2018

Objectives:

The National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace (the Standard) was released in 2013. The objectives of this study were to 1) estimate the proportion of Canadian employers who were aware of the Standard, 2) examine the extent to which the Standard has been implemented, and 3) describe perceived barriers to implementing the Standard in Canadian organizations.

Methods:

A cross-sectional survey in Canadian employers was conducted between February 2015 and January 2017. A random sample of Canadian employers was selected, and the individuals who were knowledgeable about the occupational health policies of the organizations were interviewed by telephone. The participants answered questions about the awareness, implementation, perceived effects, and barriers to implementation. Descriptive statistics and chi-square tests were used to characterize the results.

Results:

A total of 1010 companies participated in the study. Overall, 17.0% reported that they were aware of the Standard; 1.7% and 20.3% reported that their organizations had implemented the entirety or elements of the Standard, respectively; and 71.4% of participants believed that elements of the Standard would be implemented within the next year. The perceived effects associated with implementation of the Standard included increased job satisfaction and employee retention while the greatest barrier to implementing the Standard was the belief that psychological health and safety are irrelevant in the workplace.

Conclusions:

Many Canadian employers are still unaware of the Standard’s existence; however, most Canadian employers are positively inclined toward the Standard in its potential to help employee productivity and job satisfaction.
Piezoresistivity of conductive polymer nanocomposites: Experiment and modeling
Authors: Georgousis G , Kontou E , Kyritsis A , Pissis P , Mičušík M , Omastová M
Published: June 2018

The piezoresistivity, expressed as the relative resistance variation with imposed strain for conductive polymer nanocomposites, was analyzed by employing two models, developed elsewhere, and a new one proposed in the present work. The corresponding experimental results of three different types of polymer nanocomposites, namely styrene-butadiene rubber reinforced with carbon black and multi walled carbon nanotubes, poly-vinylidene-fluoride and polypropylene reinforced with multi-walled carbon nanotubes, were comparatively studied, on the basis of the employed models. An effort was made to explore the working mechanisms which control the relative resistance change with strain. The effect of polymer type, the strain range and the nano-filler type and weight fraction were investigated.
Saint Peter as ‘Sympresbyteros’
Authors: Lamb Gregory E.
Published: June 2018

Aristotle considered μίμησις/ mimēsis (“imitation”) to be innate in humanity from childhood, pedagogical in nature, and that humans are the most mimetic species ( Poet. 4.5–8). This essay investigates the relationship between Christian discipleship and education through the lens of René Girard’s “mimetic desire,” and how 1 Pet 5:1–5 (especially the hapax legomenon συμπρεσβύτερος/ sympresbyteros) can be informed by this pedagogical concept. Going beyond mere mimēsis and the imitation of surface-level actions, “mimetic desire” explores how modeled behaviors and desires – whether positive or negative – affect the desires and motivations of others. This is important for ministry as pastors/Christian educators should faithfully model the gospel externally and internally, so their congregants/students may learn to live as good citizens worthy of the gospel of Christ (Phil 1:27).