bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Comparative corruption in China and India
Authors: K. Bardhan Pranab
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– This paper aims to explore the difference in the extent and nature of corruption in China and India.

Design/methodology/approach

– The paper takes a comparative political-economy approach.

Findings

– The paper shows the complexities in the different style and substance of governance in the two countries that are not captured in the usual democracy-authoritarianism comparisons.

Originality/value

– The interesting contrasts highlight differences in style and content of governance in China and India, which are not captured in the usual facile democracy-authoritarianism comparisons.
The role of artificial intelligence in robotics
Authors: Bogue Robert
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– This paper aims to provide an insight into the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in robotics.

Design/methodology/approach

– Following an introduction to AI, this paper provides an overview of the application of AI to robotics. Mobile robots are then discussed, together with the various AI techniques employed and under development. The application of the OpenCog artificial general intelligence architecture is then considered and the paper concludes with a brief discussion.

Findings

– This shows that many AI concepts are being applied to humanoid, mobile and other classes of robots. Significant progress has been made and many innovative AI strategies are being studied which often seek to emulate aspects of human intelligence. Much development activity is being driven by military interests but as yet, the level of intelligence exhibited by the most advanced robots is at best equivalent to that of a very young child. Several academics argue that more rapid progress will arise from a closer integration of AI and robotic research.

Originality/value

– This article discusses the role of AI in robotics and provides details of number of robotic developments involving a range of AI concepts.
Robust-PCA-based hierarchical plane extraction for application to geometric 3D indoor mapping
Authors: Yeon Suyong , Jun ChangHyun , Choi Hyunga , Kang Jaehyeon , Yun Youngmok , Lett Doh Nakju
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– The authors aim to propose a novel plane extraction algorithm for geometric 3D indoor mapping with range scan data.

Design/methodology/approach

– The proposed method utilizes a divide-and-conquer step to efficiently handle huge amounts of point clouds not in a whole group, but in forms of separate sub-groups with similar plane parameters. This method adopts robust principal component analysis to enhance estimation accuracy.

Findings

– Experimental results verify that the method not only shows enhanced performance in the plane extraction, but also broadens the domain of interest of the plane registration to an information-poor environment (such as simple indoor corridors), while the previous method only adequately works in an information-rich environment (such as a space with many features).

Originality/value

– The proposed algorithm has three advantages over the current state-of-the-art method in that it is fast, utilizes more inlier sensor data that does not become contaminated by severe sensor noise and extracts more accurate plane parameters.
Transformation design of a miniature throw-able robot
Authors: Liu Rong , Qu Yuan
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– This paper aims to present a transformation mechanism designed for a miniature throw-able robot, including the mechanical model, related analysis and experiments.

Design/methodology/approach

– The robot can be thrown into suspicious areas. It keeps in a ball-shaped configuration during throwing and uses the driving motors to implement transformation of the mobile form. A foldable tail is also released out as a third point to guarantee the stability of the robot.

Findings

– By transformation, the robot possesses the overall shock protection like a regular spherical robot and also has detection ability and agile mobility as a two-wheeled robot.

Originality/value

– An innovative transformation mechanism was designed, analyzed and tested. The mechanism is suitable for a throw-able robot which is simple in structure, small in volume and light in weight. Effectiveness of the transformation design has been validated through experiments.
Tracking performance improvements of an electrohydraulic Gough-Stewart platform using a fuzzy incremental controller
Authors: Liu Guojun , Qu Zhiyong , Liu Xiaochu , Han Junwei
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– Sinusoidal signals are often used as the inputs of the six degree of freedom (DOF) motion simulator platforms. The purpose of this paper is to propose a fuzzy incremental controller (FIC) to improve sinusoidal signal tracking performances of an electrohydraulic Gough-Stewart platform (GSP).

Design/methodology/approach

– An FIC is proposed to control an electrohydraulic GSP without any model parameters. The FIC output can be self-organized by only using the hydraulic actuator position information. The control rules are determined by a systematic deterministic method.

Findings

– Experimental results show that the proposed FIC is valid and can achieve better tracking performances compared with classical PID controller and a decoupling controller (a model-based controller).

Originality/value

– An FIC using a systematic deterministic rule-base determination method is proposed to improve sinusoidal signal tracking performances of electrohydraulic GSP.
Automated de-stacking using compact and low-cost robotized system
Authors: Qu Yufeng , Zong Guanghua
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– This paper aims to introduce a compact and low-cost robotized system and corresponding processing method for automatically identifying and de-stacking circulation boxes under natural stacking status.

Design/methodology/approach

– The whole system is composed of an industrial robot, a laser scanner and a computer. Automated de-stacking requires comprehensive and accurate status information of each box. To achieve this goal, the robot carries the laser scanner to perform linear scanning to describe a full depth image for the whole working area. Gaussian filter is applied to the image histogram to suppress the undesired noise. Draining and flooding process derived from classic algorithm identifies each box region from an intensity image. After parameters calculation and calibration, the grasping strategy is estimated and transferred to the robot to finish the de-stacking task.

Findings

– Currently, without pre-defined stack status, there is still manual operated alignment in stacking process in order to enable automatic de-stacking using robot. Complicated multi-sensor system such as video cameras can recognize the stack status but also brings high-cost and poor adaptability. It is meaningful to research on the efficient and low-cost measurement system as well as corresponding common data processing method.

Research limitations/implications

– This research presents an efficient solution to automated de-stacking task and only tests for three columns stack depending on the actual working condition. It still needs to be developed and tested for more situations.

Originality/value

– Utilizing only single laser scanner to measure box status instead of multi-sensor is novel and identification method in research can be suitable for different box types and sizes.
A calibration method of kinematic parameters for serial industrial robots
Authors: Wang Wei , Wang Gang , Yun Chao
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– Calibrating kinematic parameters is one of the efficient ways to improve the robot's positioning accuracy. A method based on the product-of-exponential (POE) formula to calibrate the kinematic parameters of serial industrial robots is proposed. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

– The forward kinematics is established, and the general positioning error model is deduced in an explicit expression. A simplified model of robot's positioning error is established as both the error of reference configuration and the error of rigid displacement of the base coordinating system with respect to the measuring coordinating system are equivalently transferred to the zero position errors of the robot's joints. A practical calibration model is forwarded only requiring 3D measuring based on least-squares algorithm. The calibration system and strategy for calibrating kinematic parameters are designed.

Findings

– By the two geometrical constrains between the twist coordinates, each joint twist only has four independent coordinates. Due to the equivalent error model, the zero position error of each joint can cover the error of reference configuration and rigid displacement of the robot base coordinating system with respect to the measuring coordinating system. The appropriate number of independent kinematic parameters of each joint to be calibrated is five.

Originality/value

– It is proved by a group of calibration experiments that the calibration method is well conditioned and can be used to promote the level of absolute error of end effector of industrial robot to 2.2 mm.
Testing the interrelatedness of banking stability measures
Authors: Swamy Vighneswara
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– This study aims to investigate the inter-relatedness and the dynamics of banking stability measures and offers answers for some of the related issues such as does financial stability require the soundness of banking institutions, the stability of markets, the absence of turbulence and low volatility? and to what extent the soundness of banking sector in the case of emerging economies can help financial system stability.

Design/methodology/approach

– This study investigates banking stability by structuring a recursive micro panel vector auto regressive (VAR) model and corroborates the significance of the interrelatedness of the bank-specific variables such as liquidity, asset quality, capital adequacy and profitability by employing a robust panel data drawn from 56 leading banks for a period of 12 years.

Findings

– A significant contribution of this study is in establishing that liquidity in the banking-dominated financial system is reciprocally related with asset quality, capital adequacy, and profitability of the banking system and in effectively forecasting banking stability employing micro panel recursive VAR model.

Research limitations/implications

– The study could be further broadened by employing a macro and structural VAR modelling to forecast banking stability.

Practical implications

– This paper is one among the evolving body of literature that underscores the significant relationship between banking system resilience and financial stability in the context of emerging economies dominated with banking systems. Further, the forecast model is able to capture the dynamics of banking stability with greater and appreciable accuracy.

Originality/value

– The uniqueness of the study is in modelling banking stability measures in the context of banking-dominated emerging economy financial systems by employing micro panel recursive VAR model by deriving data from 58 leading banks for the period of 12 years from 1996 to 2009 and in offering insights in understanding financial stability with comprehensive literature review.
The search for an optimal RBC regulatory system
Authors: Parnes Dror
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– The author assembles three hypothetical regulatory regimes and deploys computer simulations to contrast different banking systems based on conventional strategies for appointing risk-based capital minimum thresholds. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

– The author instigates cascading failure models within numerous directed graphs and measures the inflicted costs, the accumulated bank failures, and the general robustness of the networks following various economic shocks.

Findings

– The author finds that a homogeneous regulatory regime is an inferior approach. However, a selected too-big-to-fail scheme portrays the best defensive banking model with the lowest number of total bank failures and the fewest banks' costs and social costs.

Research limitations/implications

– The author can only theoretically examine this topic.

Originality/value

– The author overcomes some obstacles in prior studies including the use of a large and complex network and the proportional allocation of funds upon a bank failure.
Externalities among creditors and personal bankruptcy
Authors: E. Dawsey Amanda
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of creditors' undervaluing the total expected cost of a borrower's bankruptcy filing because a portion of the cost will be borne by other lenders. Creditors who bear a smaller portion of the total cost of a personal bankruptcy would be expected to take less care to avoid triggering one.

Design/methodology/approach

– This paper presents a theoretical model of a creditor's decision of how aggressively to pursue collection. The model shows that because each lender's collection actions increase the probability of bankruptcy, each lender will collect more aggressively when a borrower has many loans. The paper tests the predictions of the model using a large dataset of credit card accounts.

Findings

– The model highlights an important testable result: holding the level of debt constant, a borrower with many loans is more likely to choose formal bankruptcy and less likely to choose informal bankruptcy, i.e. chronic non-repayment absent a bankruptcy filing. This paper finds evidence that strongly supports the predictions of the model. Laws that limit creditor collection actions do not appear to mitigate the effects of increasing number of loans.

Originality/value

– While a few papers have tested whether strategic interactions may impact business bankruptcy, no paper of which the author is aware has provided clear empirical evidence of the existence of common pool effects in the personal credit market. These effects point to an important and potentially underappreciated source of risk for borrowers and creditors in this market.
Revisiting Weber's charismatic leadership: learning from the past and looking to the future
Authors: Milosevic Ivana , Erin Bass A.
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– Weber emphasized the informal structure, followers' power, and time in charismatic leadership; yet the extant literature either overlooks or underplays the significance of each of these facets. The aim of this paper is to revisit Weber's conceptualizations of charisma and illuminate these facets, thus creating new avenues for the contemporary charismatic leadership research.

Design/methodology/approach

– The focus of this research is on analysis of Weber's conceptualization of charisma. The analysis of selected quotes is grounded within contemporary discourse in order to illustrate how three overlooked facets may propel future research on charismatic leadership.

Findings

– By revisiting Weber's seminal work, the paper illustrates several historical findings and identifies research opportunities that are yet to be addressed by contemporary study in charismatic leadership. In doing so, the paper generates a set of propositions as an impetus for future exploration.

Research limitations/implications

– To address the three proposed questions, researchers should focus their attention on the exploration of charisma outside of the formal bureaucracy, the dynamic power relations between leaders and followers, and the temporally bound nature of charisma. Given the nature of these questions, researchers may also consider alternative research methods such as in-depth case studies and narratives in order to more fully capture the dynamic and unpredictable nature of charisma in complex contexts.

Originality/value

– Contemporary research largely overlooks or underplays the issues of time, the informal structure, and followers in the study of charisma. Through analysis of Weber's writings, this paper brings to the forefront these issues, and thus provide rich opportunities for future research on charismatic leadership.
Human resource management and organizational effectiveness: yesterday and today
Authors: Schuler Randall , E. Jackson Susan
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– The purpose of the paper is to describe how the understanding of the relationship between human resource management (HRM) and organizational effectiveness (OE) has evolved during the past three decades and to provide examples how firms are using HRM to improve their OE today by addressing several challenges that result from a broader stakeholder model.

Design/methodology/approach

– This paper reviews the past and current work on the relationship between HRM and OE.

Findings

– This findings indicate that the relationship between HRM and OE is very different when comparing the past with the current work on the relationship between HRM and OE. A major reason for this is the current work on OE uses the multiple stakeholder model that accounts for many more stakeholders than the past work.

Practical implications

– Human resource (HR) professionals have the opportunity to demonstrate many ways by which HRM can influence OE, and not just solely on the basis of firm profitability. Thus the use of the multiple stakeholder model today offers the HR professional and the HR profession many more opportunities to demonstrate their importance and impact.

Originality/value

– A systematic review and comparison of the past and current relationship between HRM and OE using the multiple stakeholder model have not been using both the viewpoints of both academics and practitioners.
Designing organizations for sustainable effectiveness
Authors: Albers Mohrman Susan , E. Lawler III Edward
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to examine design features that enable an organization to address today's complex and increasingly pressing global issues in ways that are sustainably effective. It identifies key social and environmental issues and reviews research examining how organizations can respond to them.

Design/methodology/approach

– Research and theory on the interface between organizations and their environments are reviewed and evaluated. Proposals are offered with respect to organizing and designing to be sustainably effective.

Findings

– There is a significant knowledge gap about how organizations can perform in sustainably effective ways. The globalization of business, increased stakeholder expectations, and environmental issues have created major challenges for corporations. Research that focusses on creating a sustainable future is needed.

Practical implications

– Leaders need to help their organization envision new strategies and purposes, and companies will have to develop new capabilities and fundamentally alter their designs.

Originality/value

– Important new points about the types of outcomes organizations need to produce and how they can be structured and managed in order to produce them.
Assessing work motivation for academic librarians in Oman
Authors: Al-Aufi Ali , Ahmed Al-Kalbani Khulood
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– This study aims to identify and assess the status and level of motivation of employees working in the Omani academic libraries at Muscat Governorate according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Design/methodology/approach

– A quantitative approach containing a questionnaire survey was used for collecting data from 111 librarians and library employees in 29 identified academic libraries.

Findings

– Findings pointed out that the motivation level was modest with varied attitudes for individual motivational needs. The need for security was indicated as the least motivating with an average mean score below agreement. Their lower-order motivational needs are apparently satisfied except for security needs which indicated a level below satisfaction. On the other hand, the upper-level needs of self-esteem were not adequately satisfied.

Research limitations/implications

– Motivation has the potential to satisfy the five essential needs that Maslow built up in hierarchy. However, library managers are also responsible to determine every individual behavior of employees and accordingly adopt the proper motivational strategy. The study recommends developing and implementing local standards for a motivational system appropriate for all academic libraries in Oman, taking into consideration the respondents' needs for security. The study also recommends conducting further studies on work motivation in other library settings such as learning resource centers and public libraries.

Originality/value

– The study helps assess the status of motivation in the academic libraries of a developing country. It also helps describe and explain motivation from the perspectives of librarians and other employees. The literature in the region does not indicate similar studies that addressed the issue of motivation in the academic libraries or other library settings. This study, however, is the first to deal with motivation in academic libraries in Oman.
A qualitative study on evolution of relationships between third-party logistics providers and customers into strategic alliances
Authors: Sharma Sanjay , Ghosh Choudhury Aniket
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– The purpose of this exploratory study is to highlight the stages in the relationship which eventually lead to an integrated logistics alliance.

Design/methodology/approach

– The stages involved in the evolutionary process have been explained with the help of concepts of mental models and knowledge-related asymmetries. The study has been justified by applying multiple case research design which involves examples of successful logistics alliances.

Findings

– The analysis using case study approach provides a detailed overview how third-party logistics providers develop successful relationships with different industry firms over a period of time which eventually lead to innovations benefiting both the partners.

Research limitations/implications

– In the paper, a qualitative case study methodology has been adopted which is limited in nature when compared to quantitative approach. Nevertheless, the multiple cases discussed in the paper involve organizations from diverse sectors thus providing a holistic perspective and adding value to the current strategic alliance literature.

Practical implications

– The complete understanding of the concepts discussed in this paper will help companies revisit their business strategies and identify areas of improvements in their current engagement practices with third-party logistics providers.

Originality/value

– Many a time, relationships fail to develop into an alliance and research related to the attributes causing these failures might be limited. In the past, though many papers have talked about strategic alliances between third-party logistics providers and customers, little has been discussed about how such relationships evolve into successful strategic alliances.
Business process outsourcing and dynamic innovation
Authors: Lacity Mary , Willcocks Leslie
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– This paper aims to answer the question: how do clients and BPO service providers work together to foster dynamic innovation? Dynamic innovation is a process by which clients incent providers to deliver many innovations each year that improve the client's performance in terms of operational efficiency, process effectiveness and/or strategic impact.

Design/methodology/approach

– The paper is based on research conducted in 2011 and 2012 and includes 202 survey responses and 48 in-depth interviews in 24 client organizations.

Findings

– The most effective innovation incentives are mandatory productivity targets, innovation days, and gain-sharing at the project level. Threat of competition and special governance arrangements for innovation also positively influence innovation. The least successful incentives for innovations were found to be innovation funds, gainsharing at the relationship level, what has been called “pain-sharing”, and benchmarking.

Research limitations/implications

– The 24 BPO relationships do not represent a random sample, but rather a convenience sample. The authors aimed to understand emerging best practices from high-performing BPO relationships, thus the paired interview samples are purposefully biased towards higher-performing relationships.

Practical implications

– Delivering innovations requires a process the authors call AIFI – acculturating, inspiring, funding, and injecting. The research finds that leadership pairs are key drivers of the dynamic innovation process. Leadership pairs jumpstart the dynamic innovation process by starting with innovation incentives. Even so, just having one right leader makes a positive difference. The positive difference is stronger if that leader is on the client side rather than the provider side. With no right leaders, the practices that the authors describe are less efficacious but still have positive impacts on the levels of innovation experienced.

Originality/value

– In the ITO and BPO literatures, researchers have under-examined the more strategic drivers of outsourcing, including innovation. This research examines the process and practices that deliver dynamic innovation in client organizations.
Social media marketing in the wellness industry
Authors: Olof Lagrosen Stefan , Grundén Kerstin
Published: March 2014

Purpose

– The advent of social media is dramatically changing the way marketing communication is conducted. This paper reports a study regarding the use of social media in the wellness industry. This industry is competitive and utterly dependent on creating mutually beneficial relationships with customers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of social media marketing in the wellness industry.

Design/methodology/approach

– Qualitative methods have been used. In-depth interviews have been carried out with marketing communication professionals in seven leading Swedish spa-hotels. The data from the interviews were analysed utilising the constant comparative method from the grounded theory approach.

Findings

– Dimensions describing the activities, challenges and results of social media in the hotels have been defined. The findings are related to service quality theory, in particular the service dominant logic of marketing (SDL), and a comprehensive framework is proposed.

Research limitations/implications

– The findings should be useful for the scientific understanding of the effects of social media in marketing. The study is based entirely on qualitative data.

Practical implications

– The results of the study should be useful for managers trying to market their offers effectively through social media.

Originality/value

– The connections between social media and the SDL has not previously been studied in the wellness industry and such studies in other industries are rare.
Heterologous expression of a gene of Magnaporthe oryzae chrysovirus 1 strain A disrupts growth of the human pathogenic fungus Cryptococcusneoformans
Authors: Urayama Syun‐Ichi , Fukuhara Toshiyuki , Moriyama Hiromitsu , Toh‐E Akio , Kawamoto Susumu
Published: March 2014

Magnaporthe oryzae chrysovirus 1 strain A (MoCV1‐A) is the causal agent of growth repression and attenuated virulence (hypovirulence) of the rice blast fungus, M. oryzae. We have previously reported that heterologous expression of MoCV1‐A ORF4 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae results in growth defects, a large central vacuole and other cytological changes. In this study, the effects of open reading frame (ORF) 4 expression in Cryptococcus neoformans, a human pathogenic fungus responsible for severe opportunistic infection, were investigated. Cells expressing the ORF4 gene in C. neoformans showed remarkably enlarged vacuoles, nuclear diffusion and a reduced growth rate. In addition, expression of ORF4 apparently suppressed formation of the capsule that surrounds the entire cell wall, which is one of the most important components of expression of virulence. After 5‐fluoroorotic acid treatment of ORF4‐expressing cells to remove the plasmid carrying the ORF4 gene, the resultant plasmid‐free cells recovered normal morphology and growth, indicating that heterologous expression of the MoCV1‐A ORF4 gene induces negative effects in C. neoformans. These data suggest that the ORF4 product is a candidate for a pharmaceutical protein to control disease caused by C. neoformans.
Why do placentas evolve? A test of the life‐history facilitation hypothesis in two clades in the genus Poeciliopsis representing two independent origins of placentas
Authors: Bassar Ronald D. , Auer Sonya K. , Reznick David N.
Published: March 2014

Most of what we know about placentas comes from mammals, yet little can be learned from them about the adaptive significance of the placental mode of reproduction because they all derived their placenta from a single common ancestor that lived over 100 million years ago. We can make inferences about the adaptive significance of placentation from fish in the family Poeciliidae because there have been multiple, recent origins of placentation, affording an opportunity to compare close relatives with and without placentas and to seek properties that are common to each origin of placentation.

Here, we used field collections and a common garden study to quantify the degree of placentation and related it to aspects of the life history in two clades of live‐bearing fish from the genus Poeciliopsis that each contains an independent origin of placentation. Doing so enables us to test the ‘life history facilitation hypothesis’, or the proposal that the placenta evolved to facilitate the evolution of some other feature of the life history.

We found that the evolution of placentation in each clade is tightly correlated with the evolution of other components of the life history, but that the nature of the association is radically different across the two clades. In the Northern Clade the magnitude of post‐fertilization maternal provisioning is negatively correlated with age at maturity, mass at maturity, offspring dry mass and interlitter interval. In contrast, degree of matrotrophy in the Southern Clade is positively correlated with age at maturity, mass at maturity, offspring dry mass and inter‐litter interval.

There is thus no consistent relationship between the evolution of placentas and other features of the life history, which negates those proposals that the placenta evolved to facilitate the evolution of other features of the life history. However, there is a negative correlation between degree of placentation and ovary dry mass and reproductive allocation common to both clades, suggesting that placentation may be an adaptation that facilitates a reduction in reproductive allocation.
Decreased root heterogeneity and increased root length following grassland invasion
Authors: Vaness Brenda M. , Wilson Scott D. , MacDougall Andrew S.
Published: March 2014

Plant invasions can be promoted by environmental heterogeneity, but the opposite effect, the impact of plant invasion on heterogeneity, has received little attention. Grassland invasions might contribute to decreased spatial heterogeneity because invaders tend to be larger than native vegetation. Lowered heterogeneity may contribute to the low diversity of invaded communities, as well as to the persistence of invasive populations.

We compared the spatial heterogeneity of roots and resources in uninvaded native grassland and in stands invaded by a relatively large exotic grass (Agropyron cristatum), in four combinations of mowing and nitrogen (N) addition. We focused on roots because they account for the majority of primary production in grasslands.

The spatial heterogeneity of root length (m root m−2 rhizotron image) and root production was significantly lower beneath A. cristatum than uninvaded grassland. This result was consistent in all combinations of mowing and N addition.

Beneath the invader, root length was significantly greater, and the proportion of samples that contained roots was significantly higher. This suggests that the invader decreased spatial heterogeneity by more completely filling the soil volume with roots.

Resource heterogeneity varied significantly between vegetation types in just one of four cases examined, suggesting that invader effects on resource heterogeneity were small relative to its effects on root heterogeneity.

These results suggest a novel mechanism promoting invader success and persistence: high root heterogeneity, lower root length and empty soil volumes in native grassland may make it relatively vulnerable to invasion, while reduced heterogeneity and greater root length in invaded grasslands may sustain stable, low‐diversity communities dominated by the invader. Lowered heterogeneity accompanying invasion may partly account for the wide‐spread occurrence of low‐diversity, invader‐dominated grasslands in North America.
MicroRNA‐130a regulates autophagy of endothelial progenitor cells through Runx3
Authors: Xu Quanfu , Meng Shu , Liu Bo , Li Mao‐Quan , Li Yeting , Fang Lu , Li Yi‐Gang
Published: March 2014

Dysfunction of endothelial progenitor cells (EPC) contribute to diabetic vascular disease. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are key regulators of diverse cellular processes, including angiogenesis. We recently reported that downregulated miR‐130a in patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) results in EPC dysfunction, including increased apoptosis, likely via its target runt‐related transcription factor 3 (Runx3). However, whether miR‐130a affects the autophagy of EPC is unknown. The aim of the present study was to explore the effects of miR‐130a on the autophagy and cell death of EPC, as well as their expression of Beclin 1 (BECN1; an initiator of autophagosome formation) and the anti‐apoptotic protein Bcl2 (which binds to and inactivates BECN1), and the role of Runx3 in mediating these effects. The EPC were cultured from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of diabetic patients and non‐diabetic controls. Cells were transfected with an miR‐130a inhibitor, or mimic‐miR‐130a or mimic‐miR‐130a plus lentiviral vector expressing Runx3 to manipulate miR‐130a and/or Runx3 levels. The number of autophagosomes was counted under transmission electron microscopy and cell death was examined by flow cytometry. The mRNA expression of Beclin1 was measured by real‐time polymerase chain reaction and the protein expression of Beclin1 and Bcl2 was determined by western blotting. Both the number of autophagosomes and Beclin1 expression were increased in EPC from patients with DM. Inhibition of miR‐130a increased the number of autophagosomes and Beclin1 expression, but attenuated Bcl2 expression. Overexpression of miR‐130a decreased the number of autophagosomes, cell death and Beclin1 expression, but promoted Bcl2 expression; these effects were mediated by Runx3. In conclusion, miR‐130a is important for maintaining normal autophagy levels and promoting the survival of EPC via regulation of Bcl‐2 and Beclin1 expression, via Runx3. MiR‐130a may be a regulator linking apoptosis and the autophagy of EPC.
Technologies of Recovery: Plans, Practices and Entangled Politics in Disaster
Authors: Easthope Lucy , Mort Maggie
Published: March 2014

Recovery practices following the loss of home, sense of security, space and possessions, have recently become a focus of UK government attention. How people recover from disasters is seen to have a direct bearing on individual, community and economic well-being, so that the recovery itself becomes a form of social change. A plethora of instruments: templates, checklists and guidance documents have been produced to effect this recovery. We term these ‘technologies of recovery’, which work within a wider context of disaster planning aimed at bringing order where much is uncertain, reactive and dependent on emerging relations between people, things and spaces. While such protocols are not necessarily unwelcome, they carry many assumptions. We show how these technologies are built from official, distal narratives, versions of recovery remote from situated practices or recovery-in-place. Official emergency planning builds on ‘lessons’ from previous emergencies, to be then applied to future crises. Knowledge that is situated, complex and partial is potentially useless because emergency planners seek accounts that don't depend on highly localized circumstances. From a five-year ethnography of both a flooded community and the development of government recovery guidance, it became clear that technologies or recovery became transformed and remade in localized practice when enacted by newly formed and precarious collaborations of residents and local responders. Operating alongside, and sometimes underneath, the official response, residents and local responders demonstrated a remaking of the politics of recovery.
Creating a Secure Network: The 2001 Anthrax Attacks and the Transformation of Postal Security
Authors: Ellis Ryan
Published: March 2014

The 2001 anthrax attacks transformed the US postal network into a site of uncertainty and danger. Five individuals died as a result of anthrax exposure, while 22 individuals were infected; estimates place the cost of the attacks, including sanitation and lost revenue, at $6 billion. The attacks highlighted the limitations and particularities of pre-existing biological-defence efforts and led to the adoption of new practices of postal security. In this article I examine the failure of pre-attack planning and critically analyse the creation and implementation of new security standards within the postal network in the wake of the 2001 attacks. Through archival research conducted at the Smithsonian Institution and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the article traces the politics inscribed within the architecture of new security technologies. The creation of new forms of security was a contentious and fraught process that brought together a cross-section of interest groups, including postal labour, large-volume mailers, and postal management. Ultimately, however, these new forms of security serve to reinforce, rather than disrupt, pre-existing structures of power. New security practices serve the interests of large-volume commercial mailers - long-entrenched and central players in postal politics -at the expense of postal workers and the general public. The article emphasizes the possibilities and limitations of disasters to create moments of disruption and under-gird new political interventions.
Anticipating Oil: The Temporal Politics of a Disaster Yet to Come
Authors: Weszkalnys Gisa
Published: March 2014

Here, I analyse the temporal politics of economic disaster associated with prospective oil exploration in the African Atlantic island state of São Tomé and Príncipe (STP). I call this politics the ‘not yet’ of disaster - a temporality in which future disaster has effects in the present. The theories and practices of social scientists, global policy institutions, and advocacy groups have contributed to an ontology of oil as a disastrous matter that may cause a ‘resource curse’. Focusing on STP's anticipated oil resources, I ask what political forms, objects and effects are generated by what some consider a disaster in the making. I trace the role of anticipation as a specific temporal disposition, particularly among Santomean state officials and members of civil society, which substitutes fresh certainties and uncertainties about what oil might bring. These include suspicions and uncertainties regarding the operations of anticipation itself. Suspicion, I suggest, is not the target of anticipation but implicated in its practice and may even call it into doubt, thus redirecting anticipation against itself.
Gay men and intimate partner violence: a gender analysis
Authors: Oliffe John L. , Han Christina , Maria Estephanie Sta. , Lohan Maria , Howard Terry , Stewart Donna E. , MacMillan Harriet
Published: March 2014

Though intimate partner violence (IPV) is predominately understood as a women's health issue most often emerging within heterosexual relationships, there is increasing recognition of the existence of male victims of IPV. In this qualitative study we explored connections between masculinities and IPV among gay men. The findings show how recognising IPV was based on an array of participant experiences, including the emotional, physical and sexual abuse inflicted by their partner, which in turn led to three processes. Normalising and concealing violence referred to the participants’ complicity in accepting violence as part of their relationship and their reluctance to disclose that they were victims of IPV. Realising a way out included the participants’ understandings that the triggers for, and patterns of, IPV would best be quelled by leaving the relationship. Nurturing recovery detailed the strategies employed by participants to mend and sustain their wellbeing in the aftermath of leaving an abusive relationship. In terms of masculinities and men's health research, the findings reveal the limits of idealising hegemonic masculinities and gender relations as heterosexual, while highlighting a plurality of gay masculinities and the need for IPV support services that bridge the divide between male and female as well as between homosexual and heterosexual.
Long‐term ill health and the social embeddedness of work: a study in a post‐industrial, multi‐ethnic locality in the UK
Authors: Qureshi Kaveri , Salway Sarah , Chowbey Punita , Platt Lucinda
Published: March 2014

Against the background of an increasingly individualising welfare‐to‐work regime, sociological studies of incapacity and health‐related worklessness have called for an appreciation of the role of history and context in patterning individual experience. This article responds to that call by exploring the work experiences of long‐term sick people in East London, a post‐industrial, multi‐ethnic locality. It demonstrates how the individual experiences of long‐term sickness and work are embedded in social relations of class, generation, ethnicity and gender, which shape people's formal and informal routes to work protection, work‐seeking practices and responses to worklessness. We argue that this social embeddedness requires greater attention in welfare‐to‐work policy.
‘Mafia Baroque’: post‐socialist architecture and urban planning inBulgaria
Authors: Holleran Max
Published: March 2014

This paper traces the reception of the architectural style known as ‘Mafia Baroque’ within the professions of architecture and urban planning inBulgaria. The debate within these professions was strongly linked to the general decline of power among former intellectual elites and the specific decline of architects and planners, who were sidelined as arbiters of ‘good taste’ and disempowered as regulators of urban growth. The reaction to this style also highlights the rise in public concern over corruption and organized crime and dissatisfaction with post‐socialist urbanization. This paper chronicles the extent of changes in construction and regulation inBulgaria during the 1990s and argues that planners and architects were challenged not only by their professional marginalization but also by a deeper embarrassment over cultural change. It then relates this debate to broader post‐socialist anxieties over insufficient regulation of urbanization and fear of failing to meetWesternEuropean goals for economic and political change.
Challenging a culture of racial equivalence
Authors: Song Miri
Published: March 2014

We live at a time when our understandings and conceptualizations of ‘racism’ are often highly imprecise, broad, and used to describe a wide range of racialized phenomena. In this article, I raise some important questions about how the term racism is used and understood in contemporary British society by drawing on some recent cases of alleged racism in football and politics, many of which have been played out via new media technologies. A broader understanding of racism, through the use of the term ‘racialization’, has been helpful in articulating a more nuanced and complex understanding of racial incidents, especially of people's (often ambivalent) beliefs and behaviours. However, the growing emphasis upon ‘racialization’ has led to a conceptualization of racism which increasingly involves multiple perpetrators, victims, and practices without enough consideration of how and why particular interactions and practices constitute racism as such. The trend toward a growing culture of racial equivalence is worrying, as it denudes the idea of racism of its historical basis, severity and power. These frequent and commonplace assertions of racism in the public sphere paradoxically end up trivializing and homogenizing quite different forms of racialized interactions. I conclude that we need to retain the term ‘racism’, but we need to differentiate more clearly between ‘racism’ (as an historical and structured system of domination) from the broader notion of ‘racialization’.
The intersection of youth masculinities, decreasing homophobia and class: an ethnography
Authors: McCormack Mark
Published: March 2014

This article examines the emergence of progressive attitudes toward homosexuality among working‐class boys in a sixth form in the south of England to develop an intersectional analysis of class, youth masculinities and decreasing homophobia. Drawing on three months of ethnographic data collection, I find that working‐class male youth intellectualize pro‐gay attitudes and that homophobic language is almost entirely absent from the setting. I document the presence of homosocial tactility, as well as the valuing of friendship and emotional closeness. However, these behaviours are less pronounced than documented among middle‐class boys, and I use these findings to advance understanding of how class influences the development of inclusive attitudes and behaviours. Inclusive masculinity theory is used to understand these findings, refining the theory and extending it to a new demographic.
Differentiating selves: middle‐aged gay men in Manchester's less visible ‘homospaces’
Authors: Simpson Paul
Published: March 2014

Scholarship on gay bars/‘villages’ has overshadowed study of ‘homospaces’ (gay fields of existence) less available/inaccessible to a wider public – websites, saunas and social/support groups. Based on interviews with 27 men aged 39–61 living in Manchester, this article addresses what middle‐aged gay men's accounts of these particular homospaces say about their experiences of age/ageing and how relations of ageism work within them. Specifically, I focus on how study participants use ‘ageing capital’ in these fields to differentiate themselves from their younger counterparts in three ways. First, ageing capital is implicated in capitulation to gay ageism and a reverse ageism – visible in accounts of differentiation from the ‘superficial,’ reckless ways of sexualized space that participants associated with younger gay men. Second, it was visible in accounts of resistance to/questioning of gay ageism – strategies that could make sexualized homospaces more habitable. Third, ageing capital was implicated in negotiation with ageing/gay ageism – visible in ambivalent stances hovering between compliance and resistance – towards ageing and ageism, which could reinforce constraints on uses/display of the body. The first and third accounts indicate the multidirectional character of gay ageism, limits on the deployment on ageing capital and show how middle‐aged men can undermine their generational claims to represent a more authentic form of gay male embodiment. En route, I also complicate stereotypical thinking that gay social/support groups represent more inclusive, empowering space whilst overtly sexualized spaces of the ‘gay scene’ represent the opposite.