bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Satellite Observing System Changes on MERRA Water and Energy Fluxes
Authors: Robertson Franklin R. , Bosilovich Michael G. , Chen Junye , Miller Timothy L.
Published: April 2011

Like all reanalysis efforts, the Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) must contend with an inhomogeneous observing network. Here the effects of the two most obvious observing system epoch changes, the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A) series in late 1998 and, to a lesser extent, the earlier advent of the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) in late 1987 are examined. These sensor changes affect model moisture and enthalpy increments and thus water and energy fluxes, since the latter result from model physics processes that respond sensitively to state variable forcing. Inclusion of the analysis increments in the MERRA dataset is a unique feature among reanalyses that facilitates understanding the relationships between analysis forcing and flux response.

In stepwise fashion in time, the vertically integrated global-mean moisture increments change sign from drying to moistening and heating increments drop nearly 15 W m−2 over the 30 plus years of the assimilated products. Regression of flux quantities on an El Niño–Southern Oscillation sea surface temperature (SST) index analysis reveals that this mode of climate variability dominates interannual signals and its leading expression is minimally affected by satellite observing system changes. Conversely, precipitation patterns and other fluxes influenced by SST changes associated with Pacific decadal variability (PDV) are significantly distorted. Observing system changes also induce a nonstationary component to the annual cycle signals.

Principal component regression is found useful for identifying artifacts produced by changes of satellite sensors and defining appropriate adjustments. After the adjustments are applied, the spurious flux trend components are greatly diminished. Time series of the adjusted precipitation and the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) data compare favorably on a global basis. The adjustments also provide a much better depiction of precipitation spatial trends associated with PDV-like forcing. The utility as well as associated drawbacks of this statistical adjustment and the prospects for future improvements of the methodology are discussed.
Fast Wind-Induced Migration of Leddies in the South China Sea
Authors: Nof Doron , Jia Yinglai , Chassignet Eric , Bozec Alexandra
Published: April 2011

Eddies off the Strait of Luzon (termed here as “Leddies,” analogous to “Teddies” originating from the Indonesian Throughflow) are formed rapidly and migrate swiftly. Their migration rate (~10–20 cm s−1) is an order of magnitude faster than that of most eddies of the same scale (~1 cm s−1). On the basis of observations, it has been suggested earlier that the rapid generation process is due to the southeast monsoon.

Here, the authors place this earlier suggestion on a more solid ground by developing both analytical and process-oriented numerical models. Because the eddies are formed by the injection of foreign, lighter Kuroshio water into the South China Sea (SCS), the eddies are modeled as lenses: that is, “bullets” that completely encapsulate the mass anomaly associated with them. It turns out that the rings migrate at an angle α (between 0° and 90°) to the right of the wind direction {i.e., tan−1[(2 − γ)f2R/8g′CD, where in conventional notation γ is the vorticity, R the eddy radius, and CD the interfacial friction coefficient along the lower interface of the lens}. Their fast migration speed is given by 2(τS/ρW)(sinα)/fH, where τS is the wind stress on the surface, ρw the water density, and H is the maximum eddy depth. With high interfacial drag (i.e., large CD), the rings move relatively slowly (but still a lot faster than Rossby waves) in the wind direction, whereas with low drag they move fast at 90° to the right. These analytically predicted values are in good agreement with isopycnic numerical simulations.
A Review of Three Significant Wake Lows over Alabama and Georgia
Authors: Coleman Timothy A. , Knupp Kevin R.
Published: April 2011

The kinematics and thermodynamics of wake lows have been extensively examined in the literature. However, there has been relatively little focus on the widespread, sometimes very strong winds associated with wake lows. Some wake lows are, essentially, severe local storms, producing widespread and sometimes intense damage, similar to that of a derecho, but they occur in environments supporting elevated convection, a phenomenon not often perceived as a significant wind damage threat. Three significant wake lows that affected Alabama and/or Georgia, producing widespread (25 000–50 000 km2) wind damage, and local wind gusts near 25 m s−1, are reviewed in detail. The environments and morphology of the wake lows are addressed, using radar, surface, and upper-air data.
Coproduction, participation and satisfaction with rehabilitation services following the 2001 earthquake in Gujarat, India
Authors: Thomas Tomi , Ott J. Steven , Liese Hank
Published: April 2011

The most successful post-earthquake rehabilitation program is the one that involves the victims in their own relief, reconstruction, and rehabilitation efforts. The role of the government and NGOs is to facilitate people’s participation. This article explores the concept of coproduction in action in the 2001 post-earthquake rehabilitation in Gujarat, India.
Good News for Children?
Authors: Dillen Annemie
Published: April 2011

This article deals with the question of how we can deal with texts about children that raise moral questions in our contemporary context. I distinguish three ways of dealing with such problematic texts, namely, diabolization, banalization, and ethicization. Diabolization means considering scriptural texts as absolutely bad. Banalization means relativizing the meaning and the relevance of these scriptural passages, and ethicization refers to an attitude whereby the content of the scriptural texts is interpreted in a new way so that these texts take on a more positive meaning. Finally, I will provide the building blocks of a liberating biblical hermeneutic, referring to the method of ‘resistant reading.’
Donor Proliferation and Co-ordination: Experiences of Kenya and Indonesia
Authors: McCormick Dorothy , Schmitz Hubert
Published: April 2011

One of the main problems associated with aid is the proliferation of donors and projects, and one of the main solutions is thought to lie in greater coordination between donors. This paper examines whether progress has been made in recent years, comparing two countries (Kenya and Indonesia) and two sectors.The research process itself, in particular the difficulty of obtaining seemingly straightforward information, provides insights into the fragmented aid business. Nevertheless the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods provides a clear overall picture: proliferation worsened between 2000 and 2005—06 while progress in coordination was uneven. Other findings concern the interdependence of donor coordination and intra-government coordination and the similarity of the overall experience of the two countries despite their different levels of economic development.
Self-Enhancement or Self-Coherence? Why People Shift Visual Perspective in Mental Images of the Personal Past and Future
Authors: Libby Lisa K. , Eibach Richard P.
Published: April 2011

It is often assumed, by laypeople and researchers alike, that people shift visual perspective in mental images of life events to maintain a positive self-concept by claiming ownership of desirable events (first-person) and disowning undesirable events (third-person). The present research suggests that people shift perspective not according to the pictured event’s desirability but according to whether they focus on the experience of the event (first-person) or on the event’s coherence with the self-concept (third-person). This explains why self-change promotes third-person imagery of prechange selves (Studies 1 and 2). And, the same mechanism determines perspective apart from self-change, in both memory and imagination (Studies 3 and 4). By demonstrating that people shift perspective according to whether they focus on the experience of an event or its self-concept coherence, these results suggest how perspective may function more broadly in social cognition, and specifically in the construction and maintenance of the temporally extended self.
Religion and (Inter-)National Politics: On the Heuristics of Identities, Structures, and Agents
Authors: Kratochwil Friedrich
Published: April 2011

Starting from the puzzling effects of religion on conflict, both its escalation and deescalation, this article investigates the role of religion in maintaining boundaries (sacred/profane, clean/unclean, good/evil, etc.) that become constitutive of “self” and “society.” The conceptual tools developed in this context are then applied to the issue of “fundamentalism” in contemporary politics.
Recasting Neoliberal Dominance in the Global South? a Critique of the Monterrey Consensus
Authors: Soederberg Susanne
Published: April 2011

The UN Financing for Development conference (FfD) was held in Monterrey, Mexico, in March 2002 to gain international financial and political support for the Millennium Development Goals. Various multilevel consultations were held with “equal stakeholders” ranging from the IMF and WTO to civil society organizations in order to forge a consensus-based framework for substantially reducing world poverty. However, despite the FfD's seemingly novel attempts at inclusionary and multilateral forms of negotiation, this article suggests that the Monterrey consensus is, in the first instance, concerned with reproducing and thus legitimating the growing power of transnational capital. The consensus is not so much about reducing poverty as it is about managing the ever-increasing polarization of capitalist social relations in the South.
Art after 9/11
Authors: Bleiker Roland
Published: April 2011

This article examines ways in which art can help broaden understandings of contemporary security challenges, especially in view of the limits of conventional forms of strategic and policy analysis. The article focuses especially on responses to 9/11 in literature, the visual arts, architecture, and music, and considers some epistemological questions about the status of art as a way of knowing political events, like those of 9/11, that escape state-based forms of security analysis.
Space, Subjectivity, and Politics
Authors: Howarth David
Published: April 2011

This article questions the more exaggerated claims of a freestanding “spatial heuristic” in explaining, justifying and criticizing social practices, not least because the category of space remains undertheorized and conceptually indeterminate. Building upon the work of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Martin Heidegger, Ernesto Laclau, and others, the article clarifies the category of space, showing precisely how and why it is important for understanding politics, subjectivity, and ethics. It calls for the envisaging of “spaces of heterogeneity” that are compatible with radical democratic demands for equality and a “politics of becoming,” and that can form the basis of a post-structuralist conception of cosmopolitanism.
The Duty of the Benevolent Master: From Sovereignty to Suzerainty and the Biopolitics of Intervention
Authors: Cairo Heriberto
Published: April 2011

Recent claims about humanitarian intervention express forms of domination that are both geopolitical and increasingly constructed around a biopolitical duty to relieve the suffering of brutalized peoples. This paper examines this presumed duty in the context of tensions between juridical-institutional accounts of sovereignty and practices of suzerainty in which intervention “outside” is accompanied by intervention “inside.”
From War to War: Lord of the Flies as the Sociology of Spite
Authors: Diken Bülent , Laustsen Carsten Bagge
Published: April 2011

A reading of Golding's Lord of the Flies as an allegory of a biopolitical or postpolitical society that elevates “security” to the most sacred principle of organization as a permanent state of exception and attempts to combine it with consumerism. It is in this context that spite, an impotent and self-sacrificial violence, reemerges as a postpolitical strategy.
The “Amazonian Trial of the Century”: Indigenous Identities, Transnational Networks, and Petroleum in Ecuador
Authors: Valdivia Gabriela
Published: April 2011

This examination of the work of three organizations in the northeastern Ecuadoran Amazon, FEINCE, OISE, and FOISE, explores how they engage and produce representations of indigeneity in relation to an on-going lawsuit against Chevron Texaco. Each of these organizations has used distinct network associations and performances based on their particular histories in relation to petroleum in order to mediate cultural, political, and economic possibilities for their constituencies. As these organizations mobilize support for local causes through specific network connections, they produce and articulate distinct meanings of indigeneity, with distinct consequences for the future of their constituencies. I argue that an analysis of how collective indigenous identity, localities, and social networks shape and are shaped by representative organizations can help productively explore the social relations through which knowledge about Ecuadoran Amazon peoples and places is produced.
Claiming Indigenous Community: Political Discourse and Natural Resource Rights in Indonesia
Authors: Afiff Suraya , Lowe Celia
Published: April 2011

In late Suharto-era Indonesia, “indigeneity” became a solution to the problem of political representation in popular natural-resource struggles. Using examples from Sumatra and Sulawesi, we examine how the concept of indigeneity was used as a means to strengthen community rights over and against state and corporate claims. In Sulawesi, scientists studied Togean Island peoples' “indigenous knowledge” as a way to affirm residents' rights to inhabit a new national park. In Sumatra, Sosa people became “customary law” peoples (masyarakat adat) as a means to claim rights to oil-palm lands that had been taken over by state and private corporations. In each case, the formation of communities as customary or indigenous was a response to the possibilities and limitations of political discourse in Indonesia, rather than a natural outcome of a certain affiliation between communities and land, place, or tradition. The political nature of this solution becomes apparent in comparing this contemporary strategy with the way claims made during the early Sukarno years in newly independent Indonesia. In 1950s Indonesia, “class” was the rubric that united communities in land struggles.
“Seven Million Londoners, One London”: National and Urban Ideas of Community in the Aftermath of the 7 July 2005 Bombings in London
Authors: Stephens Angharad Closs
Published: April 2011

This article explores the different ideas of community circulating in the aftermath of the 7 July 2005 bombings in London. Specifically, it compares the idea of a community in unity with a more cosmopolitan, urban idea of community. While these two ideas seem to present sharply different responses, the article questions the extent to which the cosmopolitan model offers an alternative to the nationalist idea of community. Drawing on various discussions about how ideas of community are produced through different understandings of time and origins, the article argues that in this specific case both the national and the cosmopolitan accounts of community worked according to a very similar logic, and therefore risked reproducing similar problems and exclusions. Consequently, the article suggests that the task of exploring alternative conceptions of community must involve greater sensitivity to the politics of time and other approaches to the politics of origins. This challenge is pursued through the motif of the city as a site expressing a different temporality and thus a different idea of community from that expressed in traditions of national belonging.
Integrating Governmentality: Administrative Expectations for Immigrant Associations in Finland
Authors: Pyykkönen Miikka
Published: April 2011

From the first half of the 1990s, and especially after the accession to European Union in 1995, immigrant authorities and administration have emphasized the significance of immigrant associations in integration of immigrants in Finland. The purpose of the associations from the administrative perspective is to socialize and activate immigrant communities and individuals according to basic political rationalities, such as security of the society, happiness of the population and individuals, and cultural pluralism. On the one hand immigrant associations are technology through which integrative government of individuals and communities is implemented. On the other hand, associations themselves are governed through multiple techniques, mainly funding and registration. The author approaches this associational government of integration of immigrants with the “toolkit” applied from Foucauldian governmentality studies.
Liberalism and the Use of Force: Core Themes and Conceptual Tensions
Authors: Greener B. K
Published: April 2011

Since the mid-1980s, a number of authors have asserted that there is a special kind of relationship between democratic states; or that liberalism promotes peaceful relations between liberal states; or that there exists a hierarchy of states in international society with liberal states at the apex of that hierarchy. Many of these theories touch on issues of liberalism, liberal states, and the use of military force. Yet they still do not directly address the key question of: when, and for what ends, liberals believe that military force may be used. An implicit intimation is often made that there is a monolithic liberal approach to the use of force. In contrast, this article identifies a variety of contemporary liberal views on this topic and argues that these depend upon the priority given to values such as those of tolerance and consent versus progress and civility, or those of cosmopolitanism versus communitarianism. On this basis, the article examines the liberal options for the use of force that can be justified in different ways by these different values, from self-defense to the creation of liberal entities, depending upon which liberal values predominate.
Emerging Indigenous Governance: Ainu Rights at the Intersection of Global Norms and Domestic Institutions
Authors: Larson Erik , Johnson Zachary , Murphy Monique
Published: April 2011

While indigenous peoples have made great strides to institutionalize principles supporting indigenous rights in the global arena, many of these advances will require recognition and implementation by nation-states in domestic contexts to have their greatest effect. How do these emerging global norms shape the potential for indigenous peoples to influence domestic governance? To provide insight into this question, we use historical research and interview data to examine Japan's policy toward the Ainu. Globally, indigenous peoples are defined by a collective subjective process; that is, in international meetings in which indigenous peoples participate, indigenous peoples act together to recognize other peoples as indigenous. Such recognition by the global indigenous peoples' movement provided legitimacy and enhanced agency for the Ainu in the face of the Japanese government's continued nonrecognition of the Ainu as an indigenous people. Despite this international legitimacy, the institutional structures of the Japanese state mediate the effects of international influences and limit Ainu domestic self-determination and participation in governance. Domestic policies based on cultural promotion and Ainu welfare provide few points of direct contact between Ainu leaders and the Japanese bureaucracy; further, these points of contact tend to be isolated from the parts of the bureaucracy most subject to international influence. Although the pace of change has been slow and its extent limited, Japan's continued lack of recognition of the Ainu as an indigenous people creates policy tension that enables Ainu and others influenced by global norms to use these limited channels of domestic influence and global pressures to renew calls for further changes.
Toward the End of War? Peeking Through the Gap
Authors: Joenniemi Pertti
Published: April 2011

The concept of war is clearly not its old self. The recent debate indicates with considerable clarity that there no longer exists a superior position from which to authoritatively enforce a dominant and broadly accepted definition. The most profound challenges consist of the claims that the concept has had its days and should accordingly be abandoned. In addition to exploring the background of this critique, the article aims to evaluate what accounts for the openness in the first place. The effort is to probe the broader constellations underpinning war and in particular the nexus between war and the state in order to trace possible changes. The article argues that these broader constellations provide a firmer basis for arriving at conclusions about both the nature of the debate and the future of war as a fundamental political and social concept.
Tourists or Vagabonds? Space and Time in the War on Terror
Authors: Kristensen Kristian Søby
Published: April 2011

It is commonly argued that time is the defining element in modern warfare. Whether one looks to military strategy, or to critical academia, the analysis is often the same: time and speed, not mass and space, are the essentials of warfare. In the 'Global War on Terror' this is the case for both the Western high-tech militaries and their asymmetrical terrorist opponents. This article attempts to qualify the current relation between time and space in war. By heuristically applying Zygmunt Baumann's concepts of the tourist and the vagabond, this article claims that, although new technologies of time have changed the relationship between space and time, space has not lost its importance. Paradoxically, by employing new temporal means, the making of space becomes the central issue in current globalized warfare.
Forget Equality? Security and Liberty in the “War on Terror”
Authors: Aradau Claudia
Published: April 2011

The “war on terror” has triggered intense debates about the role of security and liberty, the trade-off between security and liberty, the meaning of security and the power of civil liberties. Nonetheless, while security has been closely dissected either as a governmental or exceptional practice, liberty has been largely shrouded in silence. Rather than contesting practices of security, liberty appeared degraded, a fetish, justifying restrictions and regulating conduct. This article unpacks the conditions of possibility for the degradation of freedom in the “war on terror,” and argues that freedom degenerates when its relation with equality is severed and it is instead tied up with security. Rather than the dichotomy liberty/security, I consider the triadic relationship with equality and the implications of the double demise of equality: On the one hand, the demise of equality from theories of security (starting with Hobbes); and on the other, the demise of equality in contemporary social and political thought.
The Politics of Activation: Technologies of Mobilizing “Multiethnic Suburbs” in Sweden
Authors: Dahlstedt Magnus
Published: April 2011

Since the 1990s, the idea of “mobilization from below” has become a salient feature in Swedish debates on “multiethnic suburbs.” In this article, the idea of “mobilization from below” is analyzed in three different policy areas—democracy, urban, and education policy. Following Michel Foucault and his theories of power and governmentality, the ambition of “mobilizing multiethnic suburbs” is analyzed as particular “technologies of government” creating citizens as “active” and “responsible” subjects. In the urge to “activate” citizens, it is argued, a neoliberal agenda has gained momentum in Swedish politics, further emphasizing the role of individual responsibilities and initiatives against public arrangements and interventions.
Global Governance, Therapeutic Intervention, and War-Affected Girls
Authors: Park Augustine S. J.
Published: April 2011

The victimization of girls in armed conflict has garnered increased attention, yet recent scholarship shows that postconflict measures fail to meet girls' unique needs. This article examines gendered discourses employed in programming designed to assist girls following Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war, drawing on fieldwork conducted as part of a continuing program of study on peacebuilding in Sierra Leone. Specifically, the article presents a case study examining discourse relating to war-affected girls in one Freetown-based NGO, Connecting for Peace, which delivered programming to boys and girls affected by the war.
Poverty Reduction and the New Global Governmentality
Authors: Joseph Jonathan
Published: April 2011

Are international organizations using the issue of poverty reduction as a new way to approach global governmentality? This article recognizes that serious problems are involved in so approaching the idea of global governmentality, given the lack of success these strategies have. It is suggested here that such strategies operate not to improve the condition of populations but as a means for regulating states and their governments. Once states, not populations, are recognized as the main targets, it can be seen that features of governmentality are working from a distance to responsibilize state conduct through ownership, partnership, and continuous monitoring. KEYWORDS: governmentality, Foucault, poverty, PRSP, World Bank
Rwanda Revisualized: Genocide, Photography, and the Era of the Witness
Authors: Möller Frank , Sontag Susan
Published: April 2011

Engaging with the literature on visual representations of human suffering, being a witness, and trauma, this article discusses visual representations of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and especially the art photography of Alfredo Jaar, Robert Lyons, and Jonathan Torgovnik of the aftermath of the genocide. It explores the conditions in which photography can succeed in disrupting stereotypical political interpretations of the killings. Art photography, it is argued, may help transform the viewers from being consuming spectators into being participant witnesses who self-critically reflect upon their own subject positions in relation to the conditions depicted in the image. By discussing photography of the aftermath of the genocide, the article acknowledges the unrepresentability of genocide; by focusing on visual representations, it reflects the extent to which political space is nowadays constituted by means of images; by concentrating on Rwanda, it contributes to the necessary process of examination and self-examination in connection with the killings.
Introduction: Indigenous Politics–-Migration, Citizenship, Cyberspace
Authors: Seo Jungmin , Flowers Petrice
Published: April 2011

The articles in this, the one of three special issues of Alternatives on the theme of indigenous politics in the globalizing world, deal with important questions: How are the flows of people and ideas as well as the institutions to manage them impeded or assisted by the state and other social, political, and economic institutions? What does improved knowledge and understanding of these flows contribute to how one defines an indigenous community? What role do global technologies play in linking migrant and diasporic communities to each other and to the homeland? Authors in this issue articulate the local, national, and global contexts in which indigenous identity, interests, and consciousness are constructed and reconstructed through the case studies of Australia, Taiwan, Latin America, and Hawaii and produce novel perspectives that replace conventional understanding of indigenous politics. Instead of depicting indigenous people as passive victims of neoliberalism, globalization, and technological development, these studies illuminate agency, strategies, and the subjectivity of indigenous resistance in the twenty-first century.
On Barry Hindess’s Discourses of Power
Authors: Dean Mitchell
Published: April 2011

Given the limitations of a short commentary, this article is restricted to an attempt to summarize the argument of a relatively small book, Discourses of Power. This book is adorned by a beautiful picture of Citizen Kane, no doubt chosen by its author, and characterized by an argument of dazzling coherence, which not only sums up and dispenses with most of the fundamental ideas about power in the canon of Western political theory but also provides a balanced appraisal of its radical alternative. Here, I attempt to resist the thesis that it is impossible to disagree with anything in this book. I ask whether, in addition to the view of power as capacity and power as right addressed in the book, Hindess should have considered the influential view of power as appropriation.
On Barry Hindess’ Philosophy and Methodology in the Social Sciences
Authors: Shearmur Jeremy
Published: April 2011

This article discusses Barry Hindess' strangely neglected Philosophy and Methodology in the Social Sciences and, in particular, his critical engagement there with Karl Popper. It argues that while there are some minor flaws in his interpretation, Hindess raises an issue of the greatest importance. This concerns how it can be coherent to test theories on the basis of reports on observations which are taken to have theoretical content. Shearmur suggests that a response can, indeed, be offered from a “Popperian” theory of knowledge which rejects the idea that knowledge claims can be justified, and he reports briefly on what such an approach might look like.
Optimal notch shapes for loaded plates
Authors: Burchill M , Heller M
Published: April 2011

This paper presents design data defining optimal freeform notch shapes for use in tensile loading conditions for a range of geometries, notably the notch aspect ratio and plate widths. Here, an iterative two-dimensional finite element gradientless shape optimization procedure was used to obtain the optimal shapes, which offer the lowest possible stress concentration, subject to the geometric constraints. Precise non-dimensional coordinates are given, for a range of notch aspect ratios and plate widths, and are presented in a tabular form that allows them to be easily used by designers. All cases have been solved with a minimum radius of curvature constraint, which results in a ‘robust’ optimal shape that has no sharp corners. The optimal shapes were found to provide up to a 26 per cent reduction in local peak stress over circular shapes of the same aspect ratio. Optimal geometries are also given for limiting notches that provide a net section stress equal to unity, at a finite notch aspect ratio. The results obtained are applicable to both the initial design of notched components and the shape reworking of existing components to remove damage.
Analytical and numerical development of the incremental core-drilling method of non-destructive determination of in-situ stresses in concrete structures
Authors: Trautner C , McGinnis M , Pessiki S
Published: April 2011

The incremental core-drilling method (ICDM) is a technique to assess in-situ stresses in concrete structures. These stresses may be either constant or vary through the thickness of the member under investigation. In this method, a core is drilled into a concrete structure incrementally. The displacements which occur locally around the perimeter of the core at each increment are related to the in-situ stresses by an elastic calculation process known as the influence function method. This paper presents the analytical and numerical techniques necessary for practical use of the ICDM. In particular, influence function coefficients for the specific geometry of a core hole are calculated using finite element techniques.
Towards uncertainty evaluation in photoelastic measurements
Authors: Solaguren-Beascoa Fernández M
Published: April 2011

The absence of traceability has hindered the acceptance by certification authorities of stress/strain measurements made by optical methods. Standards to guarantee traceability and to enable the calibration of equipment are under development. They will make it possible to express the measurements made using these techniques alongside their corresponding uncertainties. The present article reviews the errors that arise in reflection photoelasticity and decribes the procedure to evaluate the uncertainty in photoelastic stress measurements. Two internationally accepted uncertainty evaluation methods are applied to the case of stress measurement at a point on the edge of a piece. It is shown that both methods give reliable results. Their application to the evaluation of uncertainties in photoelastic measurements will enable compliance with metrological requirements.
An assessment of the effect of cutting welded samples on residual stress measurements by chill modelling
Authors: Law M , Kirstein O , Luzin V
Published: April 2011

In making residual stress measurements in welds, a common problem is that the samples are often cut before measurement, which may alter the stresses. To estimate the effects of cutting, a simplified method of modelling residual stresses in welds was developed, known as chill modelling, which requires limited material data and no welding process data. The method can be performed with elastic finite element analysis. The method does not predict the value of the stresses, just the relative reduction that occurs after cutting. The method was validated against published synchrotron measurements of welded plates, which were cut and remeasured a number of times. For welded plates only, an empirical equation was developed that predicts the change in stress after cutting.
An experimental and numerical investigation of the static and dynamic constitutive behaviour of aluminium alloys
Authors: Abotula S , Chalivendra V B
Published: April 2011

A split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) set-up was used to investigate the dynamic constitutive behaviour of commercial aluminium alloys both experimentally and numerically. The study was conducted in a 500–10 000 s×1 strain rate regime. Both regular solid and modified hollow transmission bars were employed in realizing this strain rate regime. Four different aluminium alloys, namely 7075-T4, 2024-T3, 6061-T6, and 5182-O, were considered for investigation. A copper-110 alloy pulse shaper was used to obtain better force equilibrium conditions at the bar–specimen interfaces. A plastic kinematic model was used to model the rate-dependent behaviour of aluminium alloys using commercially available ANSYS LS-DYNA software. Compared with the quasi-static condition, all four alloys showed a slight rate dependency with an increased flow stress ranging from 50 to 100 MPa at much higher strain rates. It was established from the final results that the experimentally determined dynamic constitutive behaviour matches very well with the numerical value in a 2000–5000 s×1 strain rate regime.
Pathogenic Role of the X-Linked Cyclin-Dependent Kinase-Like 5 and Aristaless-Related Homeobox Genes in Epileptic Encephalopathy of Unknown Etiology With Onset in the First Year of Life
Authors: Sartori Stefano , Polli Roberta , Bettella Elisa , Rossato Sara , Andreoli Wainer , Vecchi Marilena , Giordano Lucio , Accorsi Patrizia , Di Rosa Gabriella , Toldo Irene , Zamponi Nelia , Darra Francesca , Dalla Bernardina Bernardo , Perilongo Giorgio , Boniver Clementina , Murgia Alessandra
Published: April 2011

Two genes causally involved in refractory epilepsy with mental retardation, cyclin-dependent kinase-like 5 and aristaless-related homeobox, could account for at least some forms of early onset epileptic encephalopathy that still lack etiological explanation. With the aim of investigating the specific pathogenic involvement of the 2 genes, we have conducted a clinical and molecular study in 80 patients with epileptic encephalopathy of unknown etiology and onset within the first year of life, regardless of the presence of other clinical features or the definition of a precise epileptologic syndrome. A total of 8 different disease-causing mutations were detected in our population, confirming the pivotal role of these genes in the pathogenesis of the epileptic encephalopathies in infancy. Early key clinical and electroencephalographic phenotypical features identified in these patients can contribute to more precise and early diagnoses. This work provides a better phenotypic characterization and more stringent clinical indications for the molecular test.
Critical Care of Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury
Authors: Jia Xiaofeng , Kowalski Robert G. , Sciubba Daniel M. , Geocadin Romergryko G.
Published: April 2011

Approximately 11 000 people suffer traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI) in the United States, each year. TSCI incidences vary from 13.1 to 52.2 per million people and the mortality rates ranged from 3.1 to 17.5 per million people. This review examines the critical care of TSCI. The discussion will focus on primary and secondary mechanisms of injury, spine stabilization and immobilization, surgery, intensive care management, airway and respiratory management, cardiovascular complication management, venous thromboembolism, nutrition and glucose control, infection management, pressure ulcers and early rehabilitation, pharmacologic cord protection, and evolving treatment options including the use of pluripotent stem cells and hypothermia.
Childhood as a resource and laboratory for the self-project
Authors: Bühler-Niederberger Doris , König Alexandra
Published: April 2011

The biographies of individuals in today’s societies are characterized by the need to exert effort and make decisions in planning one’s life course. A ‘self-project’ has to be worked out both retrospectively and prospectively; childhood becomes important as a resource and a laboratory for the self-project. This empirical study analyses how the occupational choices of young people are connected with their occupational aspirations as a child. Children’s aspirations prove to be class-sensitive. Studying the importance of childhood in the self-project thus makes it possible to consider children’s agency in the interconnection of class and generational categories.
Friction torque characteristics of an internal gear pump
Authors: Inaguma Y
Published: April 2011

This paper describes the influence of pump operating conditions, such as operating pressures, pump speeds, and oil temperatures, on the friction torque characteristics of internal gear pumps for automobiles. Additionally, it presents a new mathematical model reflecting the influence of the oil temperature on the friction torque. In an internal gear pump, the friction torque was affected by oil temperature as well as operating pressure and pump speed. When the operating pressure was high, the influence of oil temperature on friction torque at a pump speed of less than 1000 r/min was contrary to that at a pump speed of greater than 1000 r/min. It was considered that the friction torque is fundamentally composed of three components: the component dependent on the operating pressure, dependent on the pump speed, and independent of both the operating pressure and the pump speed. However, the component dependent on the operating pressure was affected significantly by not only the pump speed but also the oil temperature. In addition, another factor besides the viscosity of the oil existed in the component dependent on the pump speed. A mathematical model for the friction torque characteristic of the internal gear pump was newly established by adding factors including the oil temperature to the Wilson’s model. The new model was able to represent with accuracy the experimental friction torque characteristic in the internal gear pump under various pump operating conditions.
Calibrating the Response to Health Warnings
Authors: Griffin Dale W. , Harris Peter R.
Published: April 2011

Self-affirmation, reflecting on one’s defining personal values, increases acceptance of threatening information, but does it do so at the cost of inducing undue alarm in people at low risk of harm? We contrast an alarm model, wherein self-affirmation simply increases response to threat, with a calibration model, wherein self-affirmation increases sensitivity to the self-relevance of health-risk information. Female seafood consumers ( N = 165) completed a values self-affirmation or control task before reading a U.S. Food and Drug Administration brochure on mercury in seafood. Findings support the calibration model: Among frequent seafood consumers, self-affirmation generally increased concern (reports of depth of thought, personal message relevance, perceived risk, and negative affect) for those high in defensiveness and reduced it for those low in defensiveness. Among infrequent consumers of seafood, self-affirmation typically reduced concern. Thus, self-affirmation increased the sensitivity with which women at different levels of risk, and at different levels of defensiveness, responded cognitively and affectively to the materials.
Provenance of basaltic tephra from Vatnajökull subglacial volcanoes, Iceland, as determined by major- and trace-element analyses
Authors: Óladóttir Bergrún Arna , Sigmarsson Olgeir , Larsen Gudrún , Devidal Jean-Luc
Published: April 2011

The Holocene eruption history of subglacial volcanoes in Iceland is largely recorded by their tephra deposits. The numerous basaltic tephra offer the possibility to make the tephrochronology in the North Atlantic area more detailed and, therefore, more useful as a tool not only in volcanology but also in environmental and archaeological studies. The source of a tephra is established by mapping its distribution or inferred via compositional fingerprinting, mainly based on major-element analyses. In order to improve the provenance determinations for basaltic tephra produced at Grímsvötn, Bárdarbunga and Kverkfjöll volcanic systems in Iceland, 921 samples from soil profiles around the Vatnajökull ice-cap were analysed for major-element concentrations by electron probe microanalysis. These samples are shown to represent 747 primary tephra units. The tephra erupted within each of these volcanic system has similar chemical characteristics. The major-element results fall into three distinctive compositional groups, all of which show regular decrease of MgO with increasing K2O concentrations. The new analyses presented here considerably improve the compositional distinction between products of the three volcanic systems. Nevertheless, slight overlap of the compositional groups for each system still remains. In situ trace-element analyses by laser-ablation-inductively-coupled-plasma-mass-spectrometry were applied for better provenance identification for those tephra having similar major-element composition. Three trace-element ratios, Rb/Y, La/Yb and Sr/Th, proved particularly useful. Significantly higher La/Yb distinguishes the Grímsvötn basalts from those of Bárdarbunga and Rb/Y values differentiate the basalts of Grímsvötn and Kverkfjöll. Additionally, the products of Bárdarbunga, Grímsvötn and Kverkfjöll form distinct compositional fields on a Sr/Th versus Th plot. Taken together, the combined use of major- and trace-element analyses in delineating the provenance of basaltic tephra having similar major-element composition significantly improves the Holocene tephra record as well as the potential for correlations with tephra from outside Iceland.
Isotopic evidence for climate change during the Vandal Minimum from Ariopsis felis otoliths and Mercenaria campechiensis shells, southwest Florida, USA
Authors: Wang Ting , Surge Donna , Walker Karen Jo
Published: April 2011

Archaeological evidence from coastal southwest Florida suggests this region and its local inhabitants (the Calusa) were affected by drought and cooling during the Vandal Minimum climate episode (ad 500–800). To test this hypothesis, we reconstructed seasonal-scale climate conditions using stable oxygen and carbon isotope ratios (δ18O and δ13C) preserved in Ariopsis felis otoliths and Mercenaria campechiensis shells. Comparing δ18O records from both species distinguishes between cool versus warm and wet versus dry conditions. δ18O values from four otoliths indicate cooling of winter temperatures occurred in the early Vandal Minimum (ad 500–600) and late half of the middle Vandal Minimum (ad 650–700). Persistent dry summers punctuated by occasional years with wet summers throughout the Vandal Minimum were detected from δ18O values of eight archaeological shells. Our climate reconstructions are in good agreement with archaeological observations and with the cool and dry conditions documented in Europe.
A New Language for Pilot Interfaces
Authors: Riley Victor
Published: April 2011

Human factors applied early in design results in a dramatically simplified way to interact with a complex cockpit system.
Software: SPSS for Windows SPSS Inc. 233 S. Wacker Dr., 11th Floor Chicago, IL 60606 (312) 651-3000 www.spss.com
Authors: Hall Steve , Vincenzi Dennis A.
Published: April 2011

SPSS for Windows SPSS Inc. 233 S. Wacker Dr., IIth Floor Chicago, IL 60606 (312) 651–3000 www.spss.com
Laws & Rules: Gas Happens
Authors: Peaoock Brian
Published: April 2011

Boyle's law: The volume of a given mass of gas, at constant temperature, is inversely proportional to its pressure.

Dalton's law: The pressure of a mixture of gases is equal to the sum of the partial pressures of its constituents.

Charles's law (Gay-Lussac's law): The volume of a given mass of gas, at constant pressure, increases by 1/273 of its value at 0°C, for every degree Centigrade rise in temperature.

Henry's law: The amount of gas dissolved in a solution is directly proportional to the pressure of that gas over the solution.

Law of gas diffusion: Gas molecules will diffuse from an area of higher concentration to an area of lower concentration until equilibrium is reached.

Graham's law: The rate of diffusion of a gas is inversely proportional to the square of its density.

Convection and forced convection: The transfer of heat in a gas or liquid is proportional to temperature difference and can be increased by increasing airflow.

—Nelkon and Parker, 1962
Human performance in space
Authors: Morphew M. Ephimia , Balmer Danielle V. , Khoury George J.
Published: April 2011

Cognitive task analysis of the complex skills involved in robotic arm maneuvering will help to ensure safer and more effective spaceflight operations.
It's a Zoo Out there: Teaching Human Factors in a Real—World Context
Authors: Sierra Edmundo A. , Benne Marcie , Fisk Arthur D.
Published: April 2011

Students in this unique learning environment help to make the job of reptile-keepers — and maybe someday other workers — a lot more risk-free.
Making Photocopying Accessible to All
Authors: Eghtesadi K. , Kaye S. , O'Hare M. , Pierce J. , Uslan M. , Dusling Y. K.
Published: April 2011

A multidisciplinary team assesses the needs of users with limitations and develops the Universal Access Copier System.
Human-Centered Design of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Authors: Mouloua Mustapha , Gilson Richard , Hancock Peter
Published: April 2011

Technology advances and increased application of UAVs will demand greater attention to human factors concerns in design, deployment, and training.
Designing for Use and Misuse
Authors: Cozens Paul , Hills Judith
Published: April 2011

Product and building designers can “design out crime” by modifying goods and environments to make it tougher for people to break the law.
When Was the Beginning of Ergonomics and Human Factors?
Authors: Strom Georg
Published: April 2011

Answer: perhaps a lot earlier than anyone assumed.
Novel Solutions to a Difficult Materials Handling Problem
Authors: Dempsey Patrick G. , McGorry Raymond W. , Holihan Richard
Published: April 2011

Passenger vehicle trunks are not ergonomically designed, so this team devised two methods to help prevent injury from loading and unloading.
Safety Trade-Offs in MMH Tool Selection
Authors: Chang Chien-Chi , McGorry Raymond W. , Robertson Michelle M.
Published: April 2011

What is the best tool for a lifting task when all environmental and physical factors are considered?