bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Loudness adaptation and excitation patterns: Effects of frequency and level
Authors: Hellman Rhona , Miśkiewicz Andrzej , Scharf Bertram
Published: July 2002

Simple loudness adaptation for pure tones was measured at frequencies from 0.125 to 16 kHz and at sensation levels from 5 to 60 dB. Sixteen young listeners with normal hearing participated in four experiments. Most of the loudness measurements were obtained by the method of successive magnitude estimation; some were also obtained by loudness matching. The two indices of loudness adaptation gave similar results. At all frequencies, loudness adaptation increased as sensation level decreased. After 6 min, average loudness declined at most frequencies by about 20% at 40-dB sensation level (SL) and by between 70% and almost 100% at 5-dB SL. Adaptation also increased with increasing frequency, and was especially marked at 16 kHz, where loudness declined more than 60% at a sensation level as high as 40 dB. Most of the adaptation occurred usually within the first 3 min of exposure, but loudness continued to diminish at a slower rate up to around 6 min. The dependence of loudness adaptation on frequency and level can be largely accounted for by the restricted-excitation-pattern hypothesis. Adaptation is assumed to take place when excitation is restricted to a narrow region of the cochlea. This hypothesis is supported by a quantitative analysis based on excitation patterns derived from measurements of masking.
Auditory localization, detection of spatial separateness, and speech hearing in noise by hearing impaired listeners
Authors: Noble William , Byrne Denis , Ter-Horst Kim
Published: July 2002

In two groups, one with sensorineural and the other with conductive-mixed hearing loss, measures were made of single-source localization and speech intelligibility in both spatially separate and nonseparate noise. There was also a test for detecting when two sounds came from the same location or from separate ones. Localization test results confirmed earlier findings, namely, disruption of vertical plane ability generally, and a further, particular disturbance to horizontal plane localization in the conductive-mixed group. Compared with a normal control group, there were only slight signs of benefit from separation of speech and noise in the region lateral to the listener, and virtually none in the frontal region. The new test, spatial separateness, had elements in common with both of the other tests, and links were observed from localization to separateness detection, and from separateness to benefit from separation of speech and noise. Localization was also related to speech hearing in nonspatially separated noise.
Increment and decrement detection in sinusoids as a measure of temporal resolution
Authors: Oxenham Andrew J.
Published: July 2002

Measuring thresholds for the detection of brief decrements in the level of a sinusoid is an established method of estimating auditory temporal resolution. Generally, a background noise is added to the stimulus to avoid the detection of the “spectral splatter” introduced by the decrement. Results are often described in terms of a temporal-window model, comprising a band-pass filter, a compressive nonlinearity, a sliding temporal integrator, and a decision device. In this study, thresholds for increments, as well as decrements, in the level of a 55 dB SPL, 4-kHz sinusoidal pedestal were measured as function of increment and decrement duration in the presence of a broadband background noise ranging in spectrum level from −20 to +20 dB SPL. Thresholds were also measured using a 55-dB, 8-kHz pedestal in the absence of background noise. Thresholds for decrements, in terms of the dB change in level (ΔL), were found to be more dependent on duration than those for increments. Also, performance was found to be dependent on background-noise level over most levels tested. Neither finding is consistent with the predictions of the temporal-window model or other similar models of temporal resolution. The difference between increment and decrement detection was more successfully simulated by using a decision criterion based on the maximum slope of the temporal-window output.
Detection and discrimination of frequency glides as a function of direction, duration, frequency span, and center frequency
Authors: Madden John P. , Fire Kevin M.
Published: July 2002

The study investigated the ability to detect and discriminate frequency glides under a variety of experimental conditions. The subjects distinguished between a comparison signal that either was level in frequency or was swept across a fixed frequency span, and a target signal that changed more in frequency than the comparison signal. Tone durations were 50 and 400 ms. Nominal center frequencies were 0.5, 2, and 6 kHz; actual center frequencies were varied randomly, or roved, over a range equal to 0.1 times the nominal center frequency. Up- and down-glides were used. The transition span of the comparison signal was either 0, 0.5, 1, or 2 times the equivalent rectangular bandwidth of the auditory filter at the nominal center frequency. Discrimination thresholds were obtained for all combinations of center frequency, direction, and span. Overall, thresholds expressed as ΔHz/ERB varied little as a function of center frequency. Glide duration had no effect on discrimination. The 50-ms down-glides were more difficult to detect than the 50-ms up-glides; otherwise, the effect of direction was not significant. With the exception of the 50-ms down-glides, detection/discrimination thresholds were similar for the 0-, 0.5-, and 1-ERB transition spans, but increased significantly for the 2-ERB span. The absence of significant variation across frequency supports a place mechanism for the detection of frequency change in gliding tones, based on the detection of changes in the excitation pattern. An excitation pattern model cannot account for the asymmetry noted for glide detection, however.
Categorial discrimination of English and Japanese vowels and consonants by native Japanese and English subjects
Authors: Guion Susan G. , Flege James E. , Akahane-Yamada Reiko , Downs-Pruitt Jesica C.
Published: July 2002

Categorial discrimination tests (CDTs) with equal opportunities for ‘‘hits’’ and ‘‘false alarms’’ assessed native Japanese and English subjects’ perception of English and Japanese segmental contrasts. The stimuli consisted of vowels and consonants spoken at two rates by five native speakers each of English and Japanese. The listeners chose the odd item out in triads, if there was one, or responded ‘‘none’’ if they heard three physically different tokens of a single vowel or consonant. A’ scores were computed for each contrast. The subjects were ten native English (NE) controls, ten ‘‘experienced’’ bilinguals (Japanese speakers who had spent several years in the United States), and ten ‘‘inexperienced’’ bilinguals (Japanese speakers who had never lived outside Japan, but had studied English in school). Analysis of the CDT results will help determine (1) if the subjects differ in their ability to discriminate consonants and vowels, (2) if perceptual sensitivity to vowel and/or consonant contrasts is affected by the speech rate, and (3) if the experienced bilinguals more closely resemble the NE controls than the inexperienced bilinguals do. [Work supported by NIH.]
Modification of L2 vowel production by perception training as evaluated by acoustic analysis and native speakers
Authors: Akahane-Yamada Reiko , Strange Winifred , Downs-Pruitt Jesica C. , Masuda Yasushi
Published: July 2002

Recent cross-language studies have shown that there is a link between speech perception and speech production when learning second language (L2) consonants. This paper reports additional evidence for such a link from a study which examines whether identification training of L2 vowels improves the trainees’ production ability. Twenty native speakers of Japanese served as subjects. Half of the subjects received a pretest, identification training on English /ɑ, æ, ʌ/ and a post-test. For the other half of the subjects, only the pretest and post-test were administered. In addition to the perception test, productions of the English vowels were recorded in the pre- and post-test. These productions were later examined in two ways; acoustical analysis and evaluation by native English speakers. Identification ability significantly improved from pretest to post-test for the trained group, but not for the untrained group as reported by Strange and Akahane-Yamada [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 102, 3137 (1997)]. More importantly, production ability showed a significant improvement from pretest to post-test for the trained group, suggesting that there is a link between vowel perception and vowel production. The results are discussed in the context of the theories of L2 learning.
Measurements of the binaural temporal window using a detection task
Authors: Culling John F. , Summerfield Quentin
Published: July 2002

Two experiments investigated the shape of the binaural temporal window using a detection task. In experiment 1, a 10-ms tone burst was presented binaurally out-of-phase during a burst of white noise, which changed from being interaurally uncorrelated, to correlated, and back to uncorrelated. The tone occurred during the correlated portion of the noise in one interval of each 2I-FC trial. Detection thresholds were recorded using a 2-down/1-up adaptive procedure. Thresholds were measured for different durations of correlated noise (0–960 ms), frequencies of tone burst (125, 250, 500, and 1000 Hz) and levels of noise [20, 30, 40, and 50 dB(SPL)/Hz]. Window shapes based on nine candidate functions were fitted to the data using the assumption that the binaural masking release was related to the overall interaural correlation of noise admitted by the window. Fitted windows included both a forward and a backward lobe. Gaussian functions tended to give closer fits than exponential and rounded-exponential functions, and simple functions gave more parsimonious fits that those which included dynamic-range-limiting terms. Using simple Gaussian fits, the shape of the window was largely independent of frequency and level, and the windows for individual listeners had equivalent rectangular durations ranging from 55 to 188 ms. The asymmetry was variable, although forward lobes were generally shorter than backward lobes. Experiment 2 ruled out the possibility that the forward lobe might be an artefact caused by distraction of the listener, when the interaural phase change in the noise closely followed the signal. In this experiment, the out-of-phase tone was presented during a burst of partially correlated noise which changed, after a variable interval, to a fully correlated noise. Thresholds for detecting the tone rose (i.e., performance worsened) as the interval was increased. Distraction would have produced the opposite effect.
Acceptability for temporal modification of single vowel segments in isolated words
Authors: Kato Hiroaki , Tsuzaki Minoru , Sagisaka Yoshinori
Published: July 2002

Few perceptual studies of the temporal aspects of speech have investigated the influence of changes in segmental durations in terms of acceptability. Aiming to contribute to the assessment of rules for assigning segmental durations in speech synthesis, the current study measured the perceptual acceptability of changes in the segmental duration of vowels as a function of the segment attributes or context, such as base duration, temporal position in a word, vowel quality, and voicing of the following segment. Seven listeners estimated the acceptability of word stimuli in which one of the vowels was subjected to a temporal modification from −50 ms (for shortening) to +50 ms (for lengthening) in 5-ms steps. The temporal modification was applied to vowel segments in 70 word contexts; their durations ranged from 35–145 ms, the mora position in the word was first or third, the vowel quality was /ɑ/ or /i/, and the following segment was a voiced or an unvoiced consonant. The experimental results showed that the listeners’ acceptable range of durational modification was narrower for vowels in the first moraic position in the word than for those in the third moraic position. The acceptable range was also narrower for the vowel /ɑ/ than for the vowel /i/, and similarly narrower for vowels followed by unvoiced consonants than for those followed by voiced consonants. The vowel that fell into the least vulnerable class (the third /i/, followed by a voiced consonant) required 140% of the modification of that which fell into the most vulnerable class (the first /ɑ/, followed by an unvoiced consonant) to yield the same acceptability decrement. In contrast, the effect of the original vowel duration on the acceptability of temporal modifications was not significant despite its wide variation (35–145 ms).
Temporal gap detection measured with multiple sinusoidal markers: Effects of marker number, frequency, and temporal position
Authors: Formby C. , Sherlock L. P. , Li S.
Published: July 2002

Detection thresholds were measured for silent temporal gaps within combinations of two, three, or four sinusoidal markers (i.e., combinations of one or two pre-gap markers with one or two post-gap markers). The markers were selected from the frequency range 2000–3100 Hz. Sinusoidal frequencies F1 and F4 were used as pre-gap markers, while F2 and F3 served as post-gap markers. Temporal gap detection (TGD) thresholds were measured from sets of three normal-hearing adults who tracked 70.7% correct detection thresholds adaptively across blocks of 50 two-interval, two-alternative, forced-choice trials. For symmetric marker conditions, where pre- and post-gap markers were equivalent in frequency (e.g., F1=F2 or F1=F2 and F3=F4), TGD thresholds were <10 ms. However, for asymmetric marker frequency alignments across the silent gap, including stimulus configurations where only three markers were presented on a trial (e.g., F1=F2, F2≠F3, no F4), performance was highly variable and was dramatically disrupted by the presentation of a second post-gap marker. The multiple-marker results reveal that TGD depends greatly on the number of markers presented, both in terms of the marker temporal position before and after the silent gap signal and the marker frequency alignment (symmetry) across the gap. These results, which cannot be predicted from models of the auditory periphery, may reflect perceptual mechanisms that are important in grouping and organizing auditory images.
Effects of temporal fringes on fundamental-frequency discrimination
Authors: Micheyl Christophe , Carlyon Robert P.
Published: July 2002

It has recently been shown that the ability of listeners to encode the F0 of a “target” harmonic complex can be disrupted by another complex (the “fringe”) presented immediately before and after it [, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 99, 525–533 (1996)]. This finding has been attributed to listeners overintegrating information about the fringe’s F0 when estimating that of the target. Here difference limens for F0 (DLF0s) for a 100-ms harmonic complex target were measured using a two-interval two-alternative forced choice (2I-2AFC) adaptive procedure, in the presence and absence of 200-ms harmonic fringes. The target F0s in the signal and standard intervals were geometrically placed around a nominal F0 of 88 or 250 Hz; the fringe F0, constant throughout a block, was set at either of these two frequencies. The harmonics were bandpass filtered into one of three different frequency regions: low (125–625 Hz), mid (1375–1875 Hz), or high (3900–5400 Hz). In the low and mid regions, the fringes produced a large increase in DLF0s when they had a similar F0 to the target. This effect was absent or greatly reduced when the fringes and targets either had widely different F0s or occupied different frequency regions, and it was not reduced by providing additional spectral cues to the transition between fringes and targets. In the high region, the fringes produced large increases in DLF0s whether or not their F0 was similar to that of the targets. It is concluded that these results reflect a process of overintegration which, in the low and mid regions, is sensitive both to the F0 and to the spectral region of the stimuli. It is suggested that the different results in the high region may reflect the fact that, unlike in the low or mid regions, all the components of the targets and fringes were unresolved by the peripheral auditory system. Finally, the results of all the experiments are discussed in terms of auditory streaming.
Matched-beam processing: Application to a horizontal line array in shallow water
Authors: Yang T. C. , Yates T.
Published: July 2002

Matched-beam processing of a horizontal line array in a multipath shallow-water environment is presented. With conventional beamforming, the signal is split into several beams when the target is away from the broadside direction. This can result in signal gain degradation and severe bearing bias. Matched-beam processing is matched-field processing applied in the beam domain. It offers an efficient and robust approach for correcting bearing errors and signal gain degradation of horizontal line arrays in shallow water. It is based on conventional beams but extends conventional processing to incorporate full-field processing. It is applicable to existing systems where the conventional beam outputs are the only data readily available. Many of the signal processing algorithms for horizontal arrays, such as adaptive beamforming for nulling strong interferences, can be incorporated directly into matched-beam processing. Target bearing tracking and depth discrimination are illustrated using matched-beam processing for a horizontal line array.
Additivity of perceptual channel-crossing effects in auditory gap detection
Authors: Taylor T. L. , Hall S. E. , Boehnke S. E. , Phillips D. P.
Published: July 2002

Five normal listeners were tested in detail for their auditory gap-detection thresholds, using stimuli in which the narrow-band noise markers of the gap differed in one or both of two auditory dimensions (frequency composition and ear stimulated). Gap thresholds for stimuli in which the markers differed along either single dimension averaged about 18 ms, while thresholds for markers differing across both dimensions were closer to 28 ms. These data suggest that the perceptual relative-timing operation that mediates between-channel gap detection is shared across auditory dimensions.
Acoustic scattering and the spectrum of atmospheric turbulence
Authors: Wilson D. Keith , Brasseur James G. , Gilbert Kenneth E.
Published: July 2002

Some issues regarding atmospheric turbulence modeling and its role in acoustic scattering calculations are discussed. Discrepancies between turbulence spectral models appearing in the acoustical and in the atmospheric sciences literature are noted, and it is argued that these discrepancies can be understood by recognizing that the acoustic wavelength and scattering geometry combine to act as an “acoustic filter” which selects a specific part of the turbulence spectrum. A particular model spectrum can yield satisfactory acoustic scattering predictions if it fits the actual spectrum well at the acoustically filtered turbulence scales, even if the model is a poor overall representation of the turbulence spectrum. Proper interpretation of length scales determined by fitting two-point correlation functions, and the importance of averaging times in estimating variances, are also discussed in relation to the action of the acoustic filter.
Fractal dimensions of speech sounds: Computation and application to automatic speech recognition
Authors: Maragos Petros , Potamianos Alexandros
Published: July 2002

The dynamics of airflow during speech production may often result in some small or large degree of turbulence. In this paper, the geometry of speech turbulence as reflected in the fragmentation of the time signal is quantified by using fractal models. An efficient algorithm for estimating the short-time fractal dimension of speech signals based on multiscale morphological filtering is described, and its potential for speech segmentation and phonetic classification discussed. Also reported are experimental results on using the short-time fractal dimension of speech signals at multiple scales as additional features in an automatic speech-recognition system using hidden Markov models, which provide a modest improvement in speech-recognition performance.
Comments on “Elephant hearing” [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 104, 1122–1123 (1998)]
Authors: O’Connell Caitlin , Hart Lynette A. , Arnason Byron T.
Published: July 2002

Reuter and Nummela's recent letter hypothesized that elephants may sense ground vibrations by bone conduction and use of the massive ossicles of their middle ears. Their inner ears also are specialized for low frequencies, having reverted to a reptilian-like cochlear structure that may facilitate detection of seismic signals. Although bone conduction could be used for detection of seismic signals, mechanoreceptors with neural transmission are also a possibility. For localization of 20-Hz signals, the pinnae are limited given the large wavelengths involved, unless higher harmonics are reliably present.
A multiple-frequency method for potentially improving the accuracy and precision of in situ target strength measurements
Authors: Demer David A. , Soule Michael A. , Hewitt Roger P.
Published: July 2002

The effectiveness of a split-beam echosounder system to reject echoes from unresolvable scatterers, thereby improving the measurements of in situ target strengths (TS) of individuals, is dramatically enhanced by combining synchronized signals from two or more adjacent split-beam transducers of different frequencies. The accuracy and precision of the method was determined through simulations and controlled test tank experiments using multiple standard spheres and 38- and 120-kHz split-beam echosounders. By utilizing the angular positional information from one of the split-beam transducers, additional corresponding TS measurements were shown to be obtainable from a juxtaposed single-beam transducer. Both methods were utilized to extract in situ TS measurements of Antarctic scatterers simultaneously at 38, 120, and 200 kHz. The ultimate efficiency of the multiple-frequency method is shown to be limited by phase measurement precision, which in turn is limited by the scattering complexity of targets, the signal-to-noise ratio, and the receiver bandwidth. Imprecise phase measurements also result in significant beam-compensation uncertainty in split-beam measurements. Differences in multi-frequency TS measurements provided information about the identity of constituents in a mixed species assemblage. The taxa delineation method has potential, but is limited by compounding measurement uncertainties at the individual frequencies and sparse spectral sampling.
In-plane elastic property characterization in composite plates
Authors: Lobkis O. I. , Chimenti D. E. , Zhang Han
Published: July 2002

This article presents a method to deduce the in-plane elastic properties of multilayered composite plates. Drawing on a synthetic-aperture technique developed for the elucidation of materials properties in air-coupled ultrasonics, this new method exploits the high elastic anisotropy of composite materials to permit an accurate measurement of directional in-plane stiffness. It is found that comparisons of experimental measurements with plate stiffnesses calculated on the basis of lamination theory agree to within several percent for uniaxial and biaxial laminates and to within 10 percent for quasi-isotropic laminates. It is further shown that the method is largely insensitive to transducer deployment angle within a range related to the transducer beamwidth.
Transformation of seismic velocity data to extract porosity and saturation values for rocks
Authors: Berryman James G. , Berge Patricia A. , Bonner Brian P.
Published: July 2002

For wave propagation at low frequencies in a porous medium, the Gassmann–Domenico relations are well-established for homogeneous partial saturation by a liquid. They provide the correct relations for seismic velocities in terms of constituent bulk and shear moduli, solid and fluid densities, porosity and saturation. It has not been possible, however, to invert these relations easily to determine porosity and saturation when the seismic velocities are known. Also, the state (or distribution) of saturation, i.e., whether or not liquid and gas are homogeneously mixed in the pore space, is another important variable for reservoir evaluation. A reliable ability to determine the state of saturation from velocity data continues to be problematic. It is shown how transforming compressional and shear wave velocity data to the (ρ/λ,μ/λ)-plane (where λ and μ are the Lamé parameters and ρ is the total density) results in a set of quasi-orthogonal coordinates for porosity and liquid saturation that greatly aids in the interpretation of seismic data for the physical parameters of most interest. A second transformation of the same data then permits isolation of the liquid saturation value, and also provides some direct information about the state of saturation. By thus replotting the data in the (λ/μ, ρ/μ)-plane, inferences can be made concerning the degree of patchy (inhomogeneous) versus homogeneous saturation that is present in the region of the medium sampled by the data. Our examples include igneous and sedimentary rocks, as well as man-made porous materials. These results have potential applications in various areas of interest, including petroleum exploration and reservoir characterization, geothermal resource evaluation, environmental restoration monitoring, and geotechnical site characterization.
A new method for the absolute measurement of piezoelectric coefficients on thin polymer films
Authors: Guillot François M. , Jarzynski Jacek
Published: July 2002

A new quasistatic method to measure piezoelectric coefficients on thin polymer films is presented. This method is based on a combined experimental/analytical approach, where small polymer samples (6 mm×3 mm×110 μm) are encapsulated in a soft silicone rubber and an electric field is applied across their thickness (3-direction). Strains are measured optically along three perpendicular directions using a laser Doppler vibrometer, and the experimental measurements are used in a Rayleigh–Ritz energy minimization procedure implemented symbolically in MATHCAD, which yields the absolute piezoelectric coefficients d3ii. These measured coefficients are material properties of the polymer and do not depend on the specific boundary conditions of the problem. The validity of the method is established using the ATILA finite element code. Experimental values of d311, d322, and d333 obtained for polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) at room temperature, in the frequency range 500–2000 Hz, are presented and compared with existing data; excellent agreement is found. The extension of the method to the determination of electrostrictive coefficients on soft polyurethane materials is introduced.
A Rouse-like model of liquid crystalline polymer melts: Director dynamics and linear viscoelasticity
Authors: Long Didier , Morse David C.
Published: July 2002

We describe the linear viscoelastic response and dynamics of director orientation in monodomains of unentangled nematic liquid-crystalline polymers (LCPs), using a Rouse-like model appropriate to polymers with a significant degree of backbone flexibility, such as segmented main-chain thermotropic LCPs and side-chain LCPs. We consider the limits of: (i) main-chain directed polymers, for which the polymer backbone is extended along the director, with no hairpins, but executes a random walk in the plane perpendicular to the director, and (ii) anisotropic Gaussian polymers, for which the backbone executes an anisotropic three-dimensional random walk, as for main-chain LCPs with many hairpins and many side-chain LCPs. The analysis is based upon the assumption that, in fluids of such polymers, the distribution of nematogen orientations relaxes rapidly to a state of local equilibrium, via relatively rapid local rearrangements, which follows the slower evolution of the backbone conformation. We describe the linear response in terms of five independent dynamic moduli, which are time- or frequency-dependent generalizations of the Leslie viscosities. We find that directed chains generally tumble in steady shear flow, and that anistropic Gaussian chains flow align. In transient experiments, the coupling between director rotation and the relaxation of backbone conformations is found to lead to an overshoot of the director orientation following a step shear, and a phenomenon of “director recoil” in response to the temporary application of a magnetic aligning field.
The Effective Viscosity of Polar Fluids
Authors: Pennington C. J. , Cowin S. C.
Published: July 2002

The effective viscosity of a polar fluid is a measure of the amount of traditional shear viscosity the polar fluid will appear to possess in a particular flow situation. Four classical flow configurations are considered here; Couette flow, plane Poiseuille flow, pipe flow, and flow between concentric rotating cylinders. The principal non-Newtonian characteristic of polar fluids in these flow configurations is an increased effective viscosity which is dependent upon the relative size and configuration of the flow situation. It is shown that the non-Newtonian characteristics of polar fluids are more pronounced, and thus probably more easily measured, in pipe flow than in any of the other flow configurations considered here.
The Settlement of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Antitrust Litigation
Authors: Brennan Troyen
Published: December 2022

Importance

The recent settlement of the class action antitrust lawsuit against the Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) Association and 34 plans will bring substantial change to insurance markets in the US; however, not enough is known about the implications for insurance markets and health policy.

Objective

To detail the nature of the antitrust claims against the BCBS plans and their Association, and the required changes in their business practices that are a critical part of the settlement.

Evidence Review

This analysis relies on the court documents that will set the new parameters under which BCBS plans must operate.

Findings

For many of the past 70 years, BCBS plans have enjoyed substantial market power in the state in which each operates. Other BCBS plans were not allowed to compete against other “Blues” plans, and any corporation resident in a plan’s territory was allowed to deal solely with the local plan if the corporation sought BCBS insurance for its employees. The settlement recognizes that these restrictions reduced competition; therefore, they are not allowed under federal antitrust laws going forward. The BCBS Association also will have less control over mergers and acquisitions by individual BCBS plans. Finally, the BCBS plans and the Association must pay $2.67 billion in damages to clients.

Conclusions and Relevance

These findings suggest that BCBS plans will face competition from their fellow plans for business, and they will be allowed to diversify the services they provide. These changes will be likely to threaten the smaller BCBS plans and could bring consolidation to the health insurance industry. These changes should also promote sharper efforts toward health care cost management, with broad implications for other parts of the health insurance industry, and for hospitals and other health care services.
Public Sphere
Authors: Eder Klaus
Published: December 2022

The public sphere is hard to define in terms of boundaries – it has, in principle, no limits. We can try to separate it from the private sphere; yet even here claims abound that the private is political, thus undermining a clear separation of the sites where public communication takes place from sites where private communication takes place. We can try to separate it from the economic sphere or from other spheres; yet the porosity of the boundaries is obvious. Some sites succeed better than others in keeping the public sphere outside for a time. Often such attempts collapse. Boundaries move in and out of other spheres of social life, and no definition can be given that clearly delineates either a spatial boundary (as the concept of public space insinuates), or a functional boundary (private versus public), or a thematic one (things you do not talk about, i.e. tabooed topics, and things you talk about). This difficulty has preoccupied one of the most sensitive functionalist thinkers, Luhmann, who struggled with the problem of how to make sense of what he finally called the “reality of the mass media.” The public sphere is constituted in acts or practices which seek to make public what others may try to keep from becoming public. There is also the counter‐process of keeping private what others want to make public (using e.g. talk shows, Facebook, etc.). This particular character of the public space prevents us from treating it as a clear entity with boundaries. Rather, it emerges from moving boundaries. This also explains the variety of theories of the public sphere.
Rational Choice Theory and Social Movements
Authors: Opp Karl‐Dieter
Published: December 2022

When social movement scholars criticize rational choice theory (RCT) they refer to a narrow neoclassical version of RCT. In recent work by rational choice proponents (e.g. in behavioral economics) a wide version of the theory is advanced. It includes all kinds of goals and beliefs. For example, people may want to benefit others (they are altruistic) and they want to follow norms. Beliefs may be wrong. People do not objectively (from the viewpoint of an observer) maximize utility but do what they think is best for them in the given situation. The following incentives are relevant for social movement participation: grievances, weighted by perceived influence, integration in protest–encouraging groups, and internalized protest norms. RCT is used as a micro foundation for macro propositions. The idea is that macro factors influence the incentives of individual behavior that aggregates to collective action. For example, the problems of climate change (a macro factor) strengthen incentives that instigate individuals to protest (both are micro variables), which aggregates to collective protest. This is the procedure of micro–macro modeling. The final part of the entry demonstrates how the framing, identity, resource mobilization, and political opportunity approaches can be unified and integrated into a structural–cognitive model.
Repertoires of Contention
Authors: Porta Donatella della
Published: December 2022

A repertoire of contention comprises what people know they can do when they want to oppose a public decision they consider unjust or threatening. In the definition developed by Charles Tilly, it includes the entire set of means that individuals and groups have at their disposal when they want to put forward their claims. While his first conceptualization of repertoires of action has been criticized for focusing only on public display of disruptive action, in a more recent work Tilly has talked of broader contentious performances, stressing the constant innovation in the various forms of contentious politics.
Social Capital and Social Movements
Authors: Edwards Bob
Published: December 2022

Occasional mentions of “social capital” or similar terms date back about 100 years, yet the concept did not gain currency and widespread use until popularized by Robert Putnam's book
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
in 2001. Criticisms had already emerged regarding the scope of social, economic, and political processes social capital was said to affect, the lack of clarity in its conceptualization, and about both the validity and reliability of how it was being measured. In the years since, the scholarly literature using some conceptualization of social capital has exploded, with the term appearing in the titles of over 30,000 peer‐reviewed social science journal articles. The diversity of definition and elasticity of measurement evidenced in much of the recent literature confirms concerns expressed over the last two decades that too often social capital had become a problematic catch‐all concept thought to be capable of solving any problem.
Social Control
Authors: Earl Jennifer
Published: December 2022

Social control is a widely recognized concept despite debate over its definition and boundaries. While in some research areas this would prove problematic, in the study of social movements, social control has a far more well‐defined set of meanings and can play an important conceptual role in uniting work on control processes. This entry discusses the various ways in which social control has been used in social movement research and related fields and how its conceptual utility in social movement scholarship might be much higher than in other areas. Its ability to incorporate broader forms of control than are presently examined in traditional research on repression is a chief conceptual advantage.
Agrarian Movements (United States)
Authors: Barnes Donna A.
Published: December 2022

No comprehensive treatment of social movements would be complete without attention to the rich tradition of agrarian movements throughout American history. Organized protest by farmers goes back to the late 1600s and extends to the present. This entry aims to provide a general overview of the major movements initiated by farmers in the United States, with attention to the commonalities and differences among those movements.
Anti‐colonial Movements
Authors: Schock Kurt
Published: December 2022

In this entry “colonization” refers to the imposition of European sovereignty over people, land, and resources in the Americas, Africa, and Asia from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, and “anti‐colonial movements” refer to organized struggles to promote self‐determination. Economic exploitation was the raison d'être of colonization and racist ideologies were used in attempts to justify it. Colonization involved the violent expropriation of land and resources, slavery and the exploitation of labor, environmental degradation, and genocide. Indigenous cultures were destroyed and indigenous political and economic relations were supplanted by Western forms of political administration and extractive export‐oriented economies.
Anti‐globalization Movements
Authors: Goodman James
Published: December 2022

A wide range of social movements have mobilized against the recent waves of globalization. These challenges have come from two main directions. First, “alterglobal” movements have called for “alternative” globalizations, led by people's aspirations rather than by dominant corporate interests. Second, a range of “ethnocentric” movements have asserted ethnic, national, and communal identifications, rejecting globalizing forces. This entry outlines research into how social movements have contested globalization, across these positions. It outlines how anti‐globalization movements have been conceptualized, whether as mobilizing cultural, institutional, or material sources of power. It reflects on dynamics in the conflict between alterglobal and ethnocentric tendencies.
Anti‐war and Peace Movements
Authors: Meyer David S.
Published: December 2022

War built the modern nation‐state, and the modern nation‐state made the modern social movement possible. To maintain (or extend) borders and wealth, the modern state developed a bureaucratic structure to extract its citizenry's sons and dollars, and that bureaucratic structure provides both a target and an interlocutor for challenging movements. Often, those movements challenge war and preparations for war. Peace and anti‐war movements mobilize for a variety of goals, ranging from stopping the prosecution of particular military campaigns to stopping the preparations for war to creating a more just and pacific world through social services and citizen diplomacy. Anti‐war and peace movements seek to constrain their own states and often reach outside national borders to cooperate with those who share their beliefs. Although some people are so committed to peace politics that they are virtually constantly mobilized, larger and more social movements emerge only when the costs and threats of war and war preparations become particularly visible.
Anti‐World Bank and IMF Riots
Authors: Wood Lesley J.
Published: December 2022

Anti‐World Bank and IMF riots are sometimes called “anti‐austerity protests.” These are large collective actions that include political demonstrations general strikes triggered by grievances over state policies of economic liberalization urged by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as conditions on obtaining loans. These “structural adjustment” conditions may involve the reduction of government subsidies and/or the increasing price of basic staples like food, water, and domestic gas. Most of the time the participants demand lower prices, restored government subsidies, wage increases that will compensate for higher prices, or jobs. Sometimes they challenge the imposition of foreign debt, and its constraints on national autonomy and democracy.
Global Justice Movement
Authors: Rootes Christopher , Sotirakopoulos Nikos
Published: December 2022

The “Global Justice Movement” (GJM) has been employed as an umbrella term to denote a diverse constellation of organizations, groups, and networks, working with varying degrees of cooperation on a broad range of issues – from the indebtedness of the world's poorest countries, the inequities of the global trade in goods and services, international peace, and environmental degradation, to the human rights of workers and immigrants, especially in less economically developed countries. These issues are linked by an emerging consensus amongst activists that their root cause is the neoliberal agenda, or “Washington consensus,” that dominates global economic arrangements.
Bayesian Analysis of
MAP
2
and Related Processes
Authors: Wiper Michael P.
Published: December 2022

Methods for inference for the Markov arrival process (MAP) are examined, concentrating particularly on Bayesian inference for the . Given that the is overparameterized in its original form, a canonical form of the is applied. This allows inference to be carried out via Gibbs sampling, treating the process as a hidden Markov model, and simulating the unobserved states using a forward–backward algorithm.
Fraser, Donald A. S.
Authors: Genest Christian
Published: December 2022

Don Fraser, OC, PhD, FRSC was the founding father of Canadian statistics. This encyclopedia entry gives an overview of his life, career, and intellectual legacy.
Body Modification
Authors: Rolle Valérie , Galliot Sébastien
Published: December 2022

Since the early twentieth century, anthropology has considered body modifications as the expression of cultural systems specific to Indigenous communities. Whether manifest as beautification techniques, ritualized stages of the life cycle, or markers of belonging to a group, skin and body modifications are universal and essential to the socialization of their subjects. While body modifications are sometimes analyzed as the end result of a technical process, they are generally interpreted through a more or less semiotic (as a form of communication) or political (as a governing of the body) lens. Contemporary approaches to body modifications, which focus primarily on tattoos, ultimately re‐create this dichotomy. They consider body modifications as either subjective narration (an expression of the self) or resistance to the power structures that govern Western societies. Nevertheless, some alternative approaches also examine the professional aspect of tattooing as a service industry.
Eliade, Mircea (1907–86)
Authors: Rennie Bryan S.
Published: December 2022

Mircea Eliade (pronounced Meercha Eliadeh) was born in Bucharest, Romania, and was primarily a philosopher who focused on the analysis of religious behavior. He was also a successful author of fiction in his native language. His right‐wing sympathies ensured that he was exiled from Romania when the country came under Russian communist rule at the end of the World War II. First in Paris and later in Chicago his publications on religious phenomena such as shamanism, yoga, and initiation ensured his place in the Western academy. Since his death his books continue to be valuable reference works for anthropologists.
Human Rights Archives
Authors: Bernasconi Oriana
Published: December 2022

Human rights archives are collections of records documenting systematic, state‐led abuses of power through violence. They serve to assist those affected and to denounce state violence by recognizing the damage caused, recording the truth, and helping victims' reparation claims. In addition to serving as evidence in criminal prosecutions, these archives preserve victims' memories and assist pedagogy relating to past atrocities. For anthropology, human rights archives constitute cognitive, political, and affective assemblages; the process, the product, and the place of vital, sensible, and fragmentary inscriptions revealing dehumanization and resistance to it. The uses and effects of human rights archives pose central anthropological questions: Through which languages, knowledge, artifacts, procedures, and processes do we record violence? How do life, kinship, and community appear in human rights archives? What is the place society grants to the memories of its wrongdoings? How can human rights archival imprints interrogate the present to become a long‐lasting space of belonging?
Decolonizing the Anthropocene
Authors: Taddei Renzo , Shiratori Karen , Bulamah Rodrigo C.
Published: December 2022

The Anthropocene debate is here situated in the context of the environmental crisis. The polysemic nature and political implications of the concept are examined. The prefix
Anthropos
is discussed, especially in its historical connections to environmental injustice, racism, and specism. The concept of
domestication
is adopted as a heuristic tool to explore some of the colonial legacies that inspire contemporary ecological thinking and point to alternative ways of inhabiting the world, particularly those associated with multispecies ethnographies and Indigenous and Black diasporic ontologies. The core argument of this entry is that a productive decolonial perspective on the Anthropocene can operate as a reverse or counteranthropology of the contemporary condition, in which the present and the scientific attempts at making sense of it, through concepts such as the Anthropocene, are seen and evaluated from the fringes of the hierarchies of knowledge that structure modern science.
Dodona
Authors: Dieterle Martina
Published: December 2022

As is clear from Homer, the shrine of Zeus at Dodona in Epirus was uniquely significant in the Hellenic world with an importance equal to that of Delphi and Delos. Among things particular to this sanctuary were that Zeus was associated with his wife Dione; there was a holy oak with prophetic doves; priests slept on the ground. Excavation shows that Dodona already existed in the Bronze Age, but whether it was initially a tree sanctuary, an oracle, a settlement or a mixture of the three is still unclear. A surge in building activities including the impressive theater, took place during the third century
bce
; the Naia games also began during this period. The site continued in existence until the sixth century
ce
when it was apparently abandoned.
Cato, Marcus Porcius (Cato the Elder),
Origines
Authors: Walter Uwe
Published: December 2022

Cato was the first “to expound the deeds of the Roman people” in Latin prose around 170
bce
.
Aratos of Soloi (Aratus of Soli)
Authors: Lewis Anne‐Marie
Published: December 2022

Aratos (ca. 310–240
bce
), a Greek poet and scholar, is the author of the
Phaenomena
, a didactic poem that was the most widely read work of Greek literature in antiquity after Homer's
Iliad
and
Odyssey
.