bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A WRF Ensemble for Improved Wind Speed Forecasts at Turbine Height
Authors: Deppe Adam J. , Gallus William A. , Takle Eugene S.
Published: June 2012

The Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) with 10-km horizontal grid spacing was used to explore improvements in wind speed forecasts at a typical wind turbine hub height (80 m). An ensemble consisting of WRF model simulations with different planetary boundary layer (PBL) schemes showed little spread among the individual ensemble members for forecasting wind speed. A second configuration using three random perturbations of the Global Forecast System model produced more spread in the wind speed forecasts, but the ensemble mean possessed a higher mean absolute error (MAE). A third ensemble of different initialization times showed larger model spread, but model MAE was not compromised. In addition, postprocessing techniques such as training of the model for the day 2 forecast based on day 1 results and bias correction based on observed wind direction are examined. Ramp event forecasting was also explored. An event was considered to be a ramp event if the change in wind power was 50% or more of total capacity in either 4 or 2 h or less. This was approximated using a typical wind turbine power curve such that any wind speed increase or decrease of more than 3 m s−1 within the 6–12 m s−1 window (where power production varies greatly) in 4 h or less would be considered a ramp. Model MAE, climatology of ramp events, and causes were examined. All PBL schemes examined predicted fewer ramp events compared to the observations, and model forecasts for ramps in general were poor.
Impact of Bias-Correction Type and Conditional Training on Bayesian Model Averaging over the Northeast United States
Authors: Erickson Michael J. , Colle Brian A. , Charney Joseph J.
Published: June 2012

The performance of a multimodel ensemble over the northeast United States is evaluated before and after applying bias correction and Bayesian model averaging (BMA). The 13-member Stony Brook University (SBU) ensemble at 0000 UTC is combined with the 21-member National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Short-Range Ensemble Forecast (SREF) system at 2100 UTC. The ensemble is verified using 2-m temperature and 10-m wind speed for the 2007–09 warm seasons, and for subsets of days with high ozone and high fire threat. The impacts of training period, bias-correction method, and BMA are explored for these potentially hazardous weather events using the most recent consecutive (sequential training) and most recent similar days (conditional training). BMA sensitivity to the selection of ensemble members is explored. A running mean difference between forecasts and observations using the last 14 days is better at removing temperature bias than is a cumulative distribution function (CDF) or linear regression approach. Wind speed bias is better removed by adjusting the modeled CDF to the observation. High fire threat and ozone days exhibit a larger cool bias and a greater negative wind speed bias than the warm-season average. Conditional bias correction is generally better at removing temperature and wind speed biases than sequential training. Greater probabilistic skill is found for temperature using both conditional bias correction and BMA compared to sequential bias correction with or without BMA. Conditional and sequential BMA results are similar for 10-m wind speed, although BMA typically improves probabilistic skill regardless of training.
Abductive Ethnography of Practice in Highly Uncertain Conditions
Authors: Bajc Vida
Published: June 2012

The highly contextual nature of ethnographic inquiry allows a researcher to develop and adjust data collection and analysis to specific social situations. This methodological flexibility also makes it possible to choose for analytic attention specific instances of human activity and experience that show potential to illuminate conceptual issues or alter our theoretical understandings. Theoretically interesting social activity can be identified using Peircean abduction. In the field, the researcher embraces serendipity and intuition. Data analysis begins neither with inductive nor deductive reasoning. By initially disassociating the data from their context, specific theoretical debates, and the experience of data collection in the field, the ethnographer is able to play with the data freely and let this process generate a surprising discovery. This discovery is then articulated through a dialog among insight, contextualized empirical evidence, and theoretical knowledge. Leaving open the possibilities of insight and discovery, abductive ethnography is a strategy of unforeclosed possibilities.
The Presentation of Self in Emigration
Authors: Cvajner Martina
Published: June 2012

This article, based on five years of ethnographic fieldwork, describes the strategies for the presentation of the Self employed by Eastern European immigrant women in the Italian northeast. These middle-aged women migrated alone, are employed as live-in care workers, and often lack legal status. For them, migration is a deeply felt trauma, which they narrate as being forced upon them by the collapse of the USSR and the failures of the transition to a market economy. They perceive their life in Italy as degrading, their work is stressful and undignified, they miss their children, and they are often seen as poor mothers with questionable morals. Consequently, they seek to dilute the social stigma, presenting positive images of their selves and claiming respect from a variety of audiences. The women continuously endeavor to define their current condition as accidental and temporary and to assert their right to a better future.
An Ethnographic Portrait of a Precarious Life
Authors: Duck Waverly O.
Published: June 2012

This article presents an ethnographic study of life in an impoverished black urban neighborhood through the experiences and perspectives of a single mother of four. Her survival strategies shed light on the disproportionate effects of recent social policies on poor racial-ethnic minority groups. Having trouble paying bills is nothing new. As Carol Stack has shown, extended kinship networks offer crucial resources that can enable single-parent families to survive. Over the past decade and a half, however, welfare reform, increases in the rates of arrest and incarceration for poor black men, and a spate of evictions are putting serious pressure on networks that were already overextended and now have too few solvent members. Poor families are left in a precarious situation. The in-depth story of one woman illuminates the issues that many people in this precarious position face in everyday life.
“The Camera Rolls”
Authors: Jones Nikki , Raymond Geoffrey
Published: June 2012

This article draws on one citizen’s efforts to document daily life in his neighborhood. The authors describe the potential benefits of third-party video—videos that people who are not social scientists have recorded and preserved—to social science research. Excerpts from a collection of police-citizen interactions illustrate key points likely to confront researchers who use third-party video. The authors address two important questions: How might the presence of a video camera affect the unfolding of interactions that are recorded in third-party videos? and How might the perspective of the videographer influence the production and preservation of these records and, in turn, what influence might this standpoint have on our analysis of the data? The authors argue that, given the ubiquity of handheld video recording devices, social scientists should develop systematic approaches to using video created by others as both a cultural record and as data.
“Call Me Mama”
Authors: Kim Esther Chihye
Published: June 2012

Based on three years of participant observation, this article provides insight into the working relationship between a small business owner and undocumented immigrant workers at a Korean-Japanese restaurant. The case study focuses on a Korean American businesswoman who depends on the unpaid labor of family members and the cheap labor of undocumented immigrants. Using naturalistic ethnography, which consists of casual interactions and conversations with informants, the author relates the life history of the owner, Mrs. Kwon, who asks her employees to call her “Mama,” and analyzes her preference for undocumented immigrant workers. The article elucidates the ways she asserts power and control in the workplace.
The Making and Unmaking of Local Democracy in an Indian Village
Authors: Kulkarni Vani S.
Published: June 2012

This study is an ethnographic investigation of a gram sabha (village assembly), the cornerstone of local democracy, in Soonaghalli, in the Mandya district of Southern Karnataka, India. Observation of the meeting and informal, open-ended conversations with the key actors illuminated how democratic policies that are conceived at the global level are practiced and experienced by local community members. The article speaks to the significance of moving beyond the prevailing politico-institutional framework of democracy that is dominated by concerns about formal regime shifts and focusing on informal practices that contribute to the making and unmaking of democratic governance. The findings shed light on the varied forms that deliberative processes take and on multiple meanings of deliberative cultures, emphasizing the need for a comparative sociological inquiry into democratic practices for a richer formulation of democratic theory.
The Iconic Ghetto
Authors: Anderson Elijah
Published: June 2012

In the minds of many Americans, the ghetto is where “the black people live,” symbolizing an impoverished, crime-prone, drug-infested, and violent area of the city. Aided by the mass media and popular culture, this image of the ghetto has achieved an iconic status, and serves as a powerful source of stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination. The history of racism in America, along with the ascription of “ghetto” to anonymous blacks, has burdened blacks with a negative presumption they must disprove before they can establish mutually trusting relationships with others. The poorest blacks occupy a caste-like status, and for the black middle class, contradictions and dilemmas of status are common, underscoring the racial divide and exacerbating racial tensions.
Social Movements, Risk Perceptions, and Economic Outcomes
Authors: Vasi Ion Bogdan , King Brayden G.
Published: June 2012

Although risk assessments are critical inputs to economic and organizational decision-making, we lack a good understanding of the social and political causes of shifts in risk perceptions and the consequences of those changes. This article uses social movement theory to explain the effect of environmental activism on corporations’ perceived environmental risk and actual financial performance. We define environmental risk as audiences’ perceptions that a firm’s practices or policies will lead to greater potential for an environmental failure or crisis that would expose it to financial decline. Using data on environmental activism targeting U.S. firms between 2004 and 2008, we examine variation in the effectiveness of secondary and primary stakeholder activism in shaping perceptions about environmental risk. Our empirical analysis demonstrates that primary stakeholder activism against a firm affects its perceived environmental risk, which subsequently has a negative effect on the firm’s financial performance.
Ablation characteristics of an aromatic thermosetting copolyester/carbon fiber composite
Authors: Parkar Zeba , Mangun Chris , King Darren , Field Tyler , Sutton George , Economy James
Published: June 2012

High-temperature stable aromatic thermosetting copolyesters (ATSP) show great promise for use as a matrix in high-strength carbon fiber (C) composites. In this article, we characterize the ablation characteristics of ATSP/C composites using a high-power laser. ATSP/C shows very low recession rates of less than 0.14 mm/s at heat fluxes of approximately 4000 W/cm2. The backface temperatures for both 1 and 4 g/cm2 areal densities are well below 250°C. Scanning electron microscope and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses suggest formation of a stable char that holds the reinforcing carbon fibers. Density of the charred composite is the same along the thickness suggesting uniform charring. Thermogravimetric analysis measurements show that the char yield is around 40–43%.
On cyclical hygrothermal fields in laminated plates
Authors: Gigliotti Marco , Jacquemin Frédéric
Published: June 2012

This article focuses on the calculation of transient and cyclical hygrothermal fields in laminated composite plates. Water diffusion is simulated by employing Fick’s law, while thermal fields are assumed to be uniform: temperature and water concentration are coupled through the coefficient of hygroscopic diffusivity, which follows a classical Arrhenius law. Relative humidity and temperature at the plate boundary vary in a transient/cyclic way, reproducing real complex environmental conditions. Analytical solutions of the cyclical hygrothermal fields in laminated plates can be employed as benchmark for numerical calculations and for evaluating the induced hygrothermal stress, therefore, for structural, design and optimisation purposes.
Damage characterization of quasi-statically indented composite sandwich structures
Authors: Singh Abhendra K , Davidson Barry D , Eisenberg David P , Czabaj Michael W , Zehnder Alan T
Published: June 2012

The nature of quasi-static indentation damage is studied in aluminum honeycomb core sandwich panels with eight ply, quasi-isotropic, graphite/epoxy face sheets. Parameters that are varied include the core thickness, core density, face sheet layup, and indentor diameter. The majority of induced damage is in the vicinity of the barely visible threshold. The permanent dent in the panel is found to be always larger than the contact area of the indentor, and specimens with denser cores exhibit smaller dent diameters for a given dent depth. Regardless of specimen layup, delaminations occur essentially only at the 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th interfaces. Stiffer cores, either in terms of a higher density or, for those cores considered, a smaller thickness, result in lower dent depths, smaller dent diameters, and more face sheet delamination for a given indentation event. The manner in which core orthotropy influences the size and pattern of the delaminations is shown to depend on face sheet layup. Regardless of the core, larger delaminations occur in face sheets that contain 90° angle changes between the adjacent plies in comparison to those that contain only 45° angle changes. Results are compared to those previously reported in the literature, and mechanisms that are related to plate boundary conditions are described that reconcile what would appear to be conflicting results obtained by different studies. Findings are then discussed in the context of choosing the most damage-resistant structural configuration and how this translates to damage tolerance.
An analytic homogenisation model for shear–torsion coupling problems of double corrugated core sandwich plates
Authors: Duong PTM , Abbès B , Li YM , Hammou AD , Makhlouf M , Guo YQ
Published: June 2012

The homogenisation of shear–torsion behaviours for orthotropic sandwich plates such as corrugated cardboards is a difficult task, even numerically. We decompose the plate torsion into two beam torsions in order to analytically calculate its torsion rigidity. A simple but fairly accurate model based on Bredt theory is proposed for the torsion rigidity of double corrugated core plates. The in-plane shear rigidity is also analytically determined using beam theory. For non-symmetric plate sections, an analytical formulation is developed for the shear–torsion coupling problem. Very good agreement is obtained between the three-dimensional shell simulations and our fast H-model for a non-linear buckling problem coupling the membrane-shear-bending-torsion effects.
Modeling geometry and progressive interfacial damage in textile composites
Authors: Hsu Su-Yuen , Cheng Ron-Bin
Published: June 2012

A procedure combining geometrically nonlinear, explicit dynamic contact analysis, computer-aided-design techniques, elasticity-based mesh deformation, and cohesive contact modeling is proposed to efficiently construct practical finite element models for meso-mechanical analysis of progressive damage in textile composites. In the procedure, the geometry of the fiber tows is computed by imposing a fictitious expansion on the tows. Meshes resulting from the procedure are incongruent at the computed tow-tow and tow-matrix interfaces. The interfaces are treated as cohesive contact surfaces not only to resolve the incongruence but also to simulate progressive interfacial damage. Example meshes are constructed for two plain weaves, a ceramic-matrix composite with matrix porosity and a polymeric-matrix composite without porosity. To verify the meshes and interfaces, the composite models are simplified to only have interfacial damage in numerical experiments of uniaxial cyclic loading. Although the computed progression of damage is rather complex, anticipated major qualitative characteristics are reproduced in the computations.
Fractographic analysis of delamination in glass/fibre epoxy composites
Authors: Marat-Mendes R , Freitas M de
Published: June 2012

Unidirectional laminates of reinforced glass/epoxy composites UE400/ET443 were tested by the use of fracture mechanics tests. Mode I, Mode II, Mode III and Mixed-Mode I-II were, respectively, obtained from specimens submitted to double cantilever beam, end notch flexure, Edge Crack Torsion and mixed-mode bending tests. Two different loadings were applied to the edge crack torsion specimens: the original and the modified edge crack torsion test. Scanning electron microscopy, analytical and numerical analysis were used to identify and separate fractographic features and to establish the differences between the various modes of fracture. Scanning electron micrographs of fractured surfaces showed that the most predominant fractographic features in Mode I and Mode II are the large amount of fibre pull-out and the cusps markings, respectively. Mode III characterisation shows that some limited Mixed-Mode II-III appear in both ends of the edge crack torsion specimen on delamination initiation and growth, but a predominant Mode III delamination exists in the middle of the specimens.
Low Self-Control and the Religiosity-Crime Relationship
Authors: Reisig Michael D. , Wolfe Scott E. , Pratt Travis C.
Published: June 2012

Two arguments have been advanced regarding the effect of low self-control on the religiosity-crime relationship. The first holds that self-control explains both religiosity and criminal offending (the confounding hypothesis), whereas the second posits that religiosity promotes self-control and indirectly affects antisocial behavior (the mediation hypothesis). Both hypotheses predict that the observed effect of religiosity on criminal offending is a spurious result of individual variations in self-control. With cross-sectional survey data from a university-based sample of 769 adult participants, the regression models indicate that the effect of religiosity on self-reported criminal offending is no different from zero after controlling for low self-control. This finding is observed when different religiosity measures are used. Religiosity did, however, predict minor crimes characterized by personal indulgence (i.e., ascetic offenses) independent of low self-control.
Do Takeover Defenses Impair Equity Investors’ Perception of “Higher Quality” Earnings?
Authors: Hwang Lee-Seok , Lee Woo-Jong
Published: June 2012

Prior studies show that managerial entrenchment deteriorates the credibility of earnings, hence reducing the value relevance of earnings. However, prior literature documents that the likelihood of earnings management is lower in firms with more antitakeover provisions because entrenched managers pursue a “quiet life” instead of striving to maximize wealth of shareholders. Despite “higher quality” earnings of such firms, the authors find that takeover protection impairs the perception of equity investors on earnings quality. The authors attribute this contradictory result to the failure of management to take risky but value-enhancing projects owing to pursuits of a quiet life. The authors also expect and find that investments of more defensive firms are valued at a discount, suggesting that equity investors expect such firms to take less advantage of their growth potentials. The authors corroborate this result by showing lower variability in firm value of more defensive firms.
Managerial Stock Ownership, Analyst Coverage, and Audit Fee
Authors: Gotti Giorgio , Han Sam , Higgs Julia L. , Kang Tony
Published: June 2012

The authors study whether managerial ownership and analyst coverage relate to audit fees. To the extent that these corporate governance factors relate to auditor assessment of the firm’s agency costs and hence various risks the auditor must consider in the development of an audit program, they will affect audit effort and hence audit fees. The authors find that managerial equity holdings and analyst coverage are negatively associated with audit fees and that these associations are both statistically and economically significant. On average, a 1% increase in managerial ownership translates into a 0.2% reduction in audit fees. In the low managerial ownership sample (i.e., less than 5% managerial ownership), a 1% increase in the ownership reduces the fees by 1.4%. Similarly, one more analyst following a company reduces audit fees by 9.3%. These results add to the literature on the effects of corporate governance on audit fees.
Reciprocal longitudinal associations between depressive symptoms and romantic partners’ synchronized view of relationship quality
Authors: Gustavson Kristin , Røysamb Espen , Soest Tilmann von , Helland Maren Johansson , Karevold Evalill , Mathiesen Kristin Schjelderup
Published: June 2012

Depressive symptoms are negatively associated with relationship satisfaction. The degree to which depression is associated longitudinally with relationship quality as assessed by both partners, versus with the depressed person’s unique view of the relationship, may have implications for interventions. Longitudinal associations between depressive symptoms and relationship satisfaction were examined among 260 couples. Individual measures of relationship satisfaction were decomposed into dyadic relationship quality and each partner’s additional unique view of the relationship. Depressive symptoms and dyadic relationship quality predicted changes in each other, which suggested that the longitudinal associations between depressive symptoms and relationship quality are not due to reporter biases or confounded by other individual factors, but rather that relationship quality and depressive symptoms affect each other over time.
Victimhood in the carceral culture of women’s prisons
Authors: Mardorossian Carine M
Published: June 2012

This article is a cultural analysis of how sexualized violence in the United States penal system is mediated by neo-conservative configurations of victimization that work to obscure gendered and racialized dimensions of violence against women in prison. I argue that the meanings of the term ‘victim’ over the last decade have undergone significant rhetorical and ideological developments that affect imprisoned women along gendered and racialized lines. Special attention will be given to the position of victim and victimhood in US culture following the terrorist attacks of the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001. I argue that a renewed socio-cultural shift towards neo-conservatism initiated in the 1980s has retrenched the view that the US has been emasculated and its sovereignty rendered vulnerable to attack. In this discursive space, victimhood is no longer a political category aimed at the mobilization of policy and law reforms but rather provides the context through which sexual violence inside women’s prisons gets obfuscated despite national efforts to address the prevalence of (male) prisoner rape. I suggest that the rape of women in prison is eclipsed by an anti-feminist backlash.
Translating passive revolution in Brazil
Authors: Roio Marcos Del
Published: June 2012

This article sets out to examine Antonio Gramsci’s use of the concept of passive revolution and thereby ‘translate’ it to an alternative historical and contemporary context. If we can observe Gramsci as a ‘translator’ of Lenin, from Russia to Italy, we can also try to ‘translate’ Gramsci beyond his original circumstances to alternative conditions, hence the aim of translating Gramsci and his category of passive revolution in order to apprehend some aspects of the particularity of bourgeois revolution in Brazil. The thesis is that the theory and condition of passive revolution in Brazil has unfolded as a hybridism of liberal corporatism, which reveals the slow assumption of bourgeois rule as a form of supremacy. Importantly, the role of the military in this long process is also highlighted.
‘Standing the gaff’: Immiseration and its consequences in the de-industrialised mining communities of Cape Breton Island
Authors: Wray David , Stephenson Carol
Published: June 2012

This paper applies Marx’s concept of immiseration to the mining communities of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, in an attempt to conceptualise the consequences of de-industrialisation. We identify and explore a series of specific social, economic, historical, political and geographic circumstances that have militated against the radicalisation predicted by Marx, but nonetheless conclude that the concept of immiseration continues to have contemporary relevance. Economic hardship, out-migration on an unprecedented scale and a collapse of confidence at both an individual and collective level are the consequences of de-industrialisation and reveal the contemporary experience and purpose of immiseration. First, it is a process through which a geographically isolated population of workers have become conditioned either to accept poor work in terms of lower wages and conditions, or to become economic migrants. Second, it is a process through which new opportunities for profitability and investment are established for new investors.
Aggressiveness in different presentations of cluster headache: Results from a controlled multicentric study
Authors: Luerding Ralf , Henkel Karsten , Gaul Charly , Dresler Thomas , Lindwurm Andrea , Paelecke-Habermann Yvonne , Leinisch Elke , Jürgens Tim P
Published: June 2012

Background: The hypothalamus has been discussed as a pivotal structure for both cluster headache (CH) and aggressiveness, but little is known about the extent of self-reported aggressiveness in patients with CH.

Patients and methods: Twenty-six patients with chronic, 25 with active episodic and 22 with episodic CH outside the active period were examined interictally with a validated questionnaire quantifying factors of aggression and compared with 24 migraine patients and 31 headache-free volunteers.

Results: The ANOVA was significant for the subscale ‘self-aggression/depression’ ( F4, 123 = 5.771, p < 0.001) with significant differences between chronic and episodic CH and healthy volunteers. No significant changes were found for other subscales and the sum scale ( F4, 123 < 1.421, p > 0.230). Especially in the clinically most affected group of patients (chronic CH and active episodic CH), high levels of “self-aggression/depression” correlate with higher prevalence of depressive symptoms and higher impairment measured on an emotional and functional level.

Discussion: Self-aggressive and depressive cognitions with highest scores in chronic CH seem to be reactive as they correlate with depressive symptoms and impairment. They should be considered as an important therapeutic target since they impair the patient’s life significantly.
Post-Romantic irony in Bakhtin and Lefebvre
Authors: Gardiner Michael E.
Published: June 2012

Although several writers have noted significant complementary features in the respective projects of Russian philosopher and cultural theorist Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975) and the French social thinker Henri Lefebvre (1901–91), to date there has not been a systematic comparison of them. This article seeks to redress this oversight, by exploring some of the more intriguing of these conceptual dovetailings: first, their relationship to the intellectual and cultural legacy of Romanticism; and second, their respective assessments of irony (including Romantic irony), and, more specifically, of the ironic register as a potential vehicle for socio-cultural criticism. Although the positions Bakhtin and Lefebvre stake out vis-à-vis these issues reveal many similarities – such as extensive use of Socrates in the writings of each – there are also significant differences, not least because Lefebvre’s understanding of Romanticism is more fully developed than Bakhtin’s. Accordingly, the central argument advanced here is that Bakhtin’s fairly disparaging account of Romanticism, together with his scattered and often contradictory remarks on irony, can be subjected to re-envisioning and potential enrichment by reference to Lefebvre’s more considered thoughts, especially the latter’s notions of ‘Revolutionary romanticism’ and ‘Marxist irony’.
The evolution of atheism
Authors: LeDrew Stephen
Published: June 2012

Atheism has achieved renewed vigor in the West in recent years with a spate of bestselling books and growing membership in secularist and rationalist organizations, but what exactly is the nature of this peculiar form of non-belief? This article sets the context for the emergence of the ‘New Atheism’ with a review of the dominant theory of atheism’s dialectical and theological origins, and an examination of major historical episodes in atheistic thought. The author argues that a significant development has received insufficient attention: the 19th-century split in atheism that produced two distinct streams of criticism. The first is scientific atheism, closely associated with Darwinism and Enlightenment rationalism. The second is humanistic atheism, aligned with the rise of the social sciences and pioneered by Marx and Feuerbach. The contemporary atheist movement is primarily rooted in the scientific tradition, excluding the humanistic approach on epistemological and political grounds, though emerging tensions within the movement suggest that the humanistic tradition still plays a role. The relationship between these two approaches within the movement should be a focus of future research.
Nonhuman Actors, Hybrid Networks, and Conflicts Over Municipal Waste Incinerators
Authors: Magnani Natalia
Published: June 2012

This article seeks to make an original contribution to the study of environmental conflicts on waste management infrastructures by applying concepts derived from actor-network theory in an empirical case study. The article is organized into three main parts. The first highlights how the bulk of the literature on the subject has systematically ignored the role of natural/material factors. The second part analyzes the theoretical and methodological contribution of actor-network theory to the analysis of environmental conflicts. Finally, the third part focuses on a case study from northern Italy concerning a conflict over a project for a large-scale municipal waste-to-energy incinerator. The author shows how the outcome of the conflict, namely the failure of the project notwithstanding a convergence of powerful interests, can only be fully understood by adopting a relational definition of agency that sees it as the effect of the process of building associations between humans and nonhumans.
The Dilemma of Disabled Masculinity
Authors: Shuttleworth Russell , Wedgwood Nikki , Wilson Nathan J.
Published: June 2012

A much-cited point by those who study the intersection of gender and disability is that masculinity and disability are in conflict with each other because disability is associated with being dependent and helpless whereas masculinity is associated with being powerful and autonomous, thus creating a lived and embodied dilemma for disabled men. This article maps and critically evaluates the conceptual development of this dilemma of disabled masculinity, tracing how several developments in the fields of disability studies and the critical study of men and masculinities have shaped sociological understandings of disabled masculinity. We suggest that, while social science scholarship has increasingly moved beyond a static understanding and toward a dynamic view of the articulation and interaction between masculinity and disability, there are nevertheless several problems that require attention. The most critical issue conceptually is that the focus of study has been more on masculinity and how it intersects with ‘disability’ as an almost generic category, rather than on how masculinity (or masculinities) intersect(s) differently with various types of impairment. Thus, though there is quite a bit of research on the dilemma of disabled masculinity for men who acquire a physical impairment post-childhood and for groups of men with diverse impairments studied as if they were a homogenous group, less research has been conducted with men who have specific impairments, particularly early-onset, intellectual or degenerative impairments. In this paper we urge researchers to open up the concept of intersectionality to accommodate a range of differences in bodily, cognitive, intellectual and behavioral types (impairments) in their interaction with various masculinities and to show more explicitly how context and life phase contribute to this dynamism.
Simulation of macro and micro journal bearings: Using the Lattice Boltzmann Method
Authors: Nickaeen Mehrdad , Jafari Saeed , Rahnama Mohammad
Published: June 2012

Numerical simulation of macro and micro journal bearings is investigated using Lattice Boltzmann Method. Bounce-back boundary condition is applied in macro flow simulation and a combination of diffuse scattering and bounce-back techniques is used in micro calculations. An approximation method which is called ghost boundary is employed to simulate the wall curvature of macro and micro bearings. The Lattice Boltzmann Method solutions of two classic configurations are compared with the numerical solution of the Reynolds equations. Bearing cavitation is approached in a simplified way for a macro journal bearing and the results are compared with a finite element solution. The Lattice Boltzmann Method results are satisfactory for the investigated problem. A computational analysis is also used to simulate the complicated behavior of the micro journal bearings in the slip flow regime with Knudsen number varying between 0.01 and 0.05. The working fluid in micro simulations is gas. In order to model the interaction between gas and solid walls, a local boundary condition which is derived from the kinetic theory of gases using multiple relaxation time method is employed and the static performance of the micro bearing is analyzed. Applying the second-order velocity boundary condition, the pressure distributions obtained from the Lattice Boltzmann Method are successfully compared with the results of spectral collocation method. Results indicate that by increasing Knudsen number the maximum of pressure decreases.
The Indian Family on UK Reality Television
Authors: Malik Sarita
Published: June 2012

This article demonstrates how The Family (2009), a fly-on-the wall UK reality series about a British Indian family, facilitates both current public service broadcasting requirements and mass audience appeal. From a critical cultural studies perspective, the author examines the journalistic and viewer responses to the series where authenticity, universality, and comedy emerge as major themes. Textual analysis of the racialized screen representations also helps locate the series within the contexts of contested multiculturalism, genre developments in reality television and public service broadcasting. Paul Gilroy’s concept of convivial culture is used as a frame in understanding how meanings of the series are produced within a South Asian popular representational space. The author suggests that the social comedy taxonomy is a prerequisite for the making of this particular observational documentary. Further, the popular (comedic) mode of conviviality on which the series depends is both expedient and necessary within the various sociopolitical contexts outlined.
“iReporting” an Uprising
Authors: Palmer Lindsay
Published: June 2012

This essay examines the increasing interdependence of television news organizations and citizen journalism, specifically focusing on CNN’s citizen journalist website called iReport. Using Tiziana Terranova’s notion of “network culture,” I show how CNN simultaneously denigrates and depends on the unpaid labor of its iReporters, especially when covering a political uprising. I draw on a series of interviews conducted with iReporters who covered the Iranian elections and protests of 2009, in an effort to address the complex political imperatives that inspired their unpaid labor for CNN. In this sense, my case study ultimately reveals that citizen journalism is less a story of exploitation and more a story of negotiation, as hegemonic journalistic representations of world events ultimately unfold within the increasingly disruptive informational milieu that is the product of network culture.
Dermal Substitute Template Use in Diabetic Foot Ulcers
Authors: Alagaratnam Swethan , Choong Andrew , Loh Alexander
Published: June 2012

Diabetic foot ulcers are a source of significant morbidity. Maximizing limb salvage is an important long-term objective. The use of dermal substitutes to aid limb salvage and reduce amputation rates has been described recently in the literature. Dermal substitutes were initially described in burns and have been demonstrated to be useful adjuncts in the management of these wounds. In diabetic foot ulcer management, the outcomes of the use of the dermal substitutes are limited. The authors describe their experience of the use of INTEGRA®, a collagen–glycosaminoglycan dermal substitute, in 2 patients who presented with diabetic foot ulcers with exposed tendons.
Pharmacotherapy in Lifestyle Medicine and the Role of the Pharmacist
Authors: Murphy Catherine , DeBellis Ronald J
Published: June 2012

Pharmacotherapy can have a significant impact on a patient’s quality of life and health status, potentially affecting multiple lifestyle areas, including weight, smoking status, sleep, and mood. Although pharmacotherapy can have a positive effect on such areas, its effects can also be detrimental. Pharmacists may be the most accessible health care providers to the general public, and their role in advising patients and other health care providers in making appropriate pharmacotherapy choices to positively affect one’s health and lifestyle areas is essential. This review will examine the effects of pharmacotherapy on different areas of lifestyle medicine and the role of the pharmacist as the medication expert in advising and informing patients and providers.
Fluid Balance and Dehydration in the Young Athlete
Authors: Meyer Flavia , Volterman Kimberly A. , Timmons Brian W. , Wilk Boguslaw
Published: June 2012

Many young athletes train and compete under conditions that put their body fluid balance at risk, and hypohydration is usually the major concern. Another less frequent condition is hyperhydration that—if accompanied by other risk factors—may cause hyponatremia. Water and electrolyte losses during physical activities occur primarily from sweat. Such losses have been identified mostly in active (but nonathletic) young populations under laboratory settings. Studies have been trying to estimate fluid losses in the athletic population under field conditions, taking into account the sport modality and environmental conditions. Besides these external conditions, young athletes adopt different drinking attitudes, which may depend on knowledge, education, and the opportunities to drink during the break periods as well as fluid availability. Focusing on the young athlete, this review will discuss water and sodium losses from sweat, the effects of hypohydration on performance, and fluid intake attitudes within and during practices and competitions. Some considerations related to the methods of identifying hydration status and guidelines are also given, with the understanding that they should be individually adapted for the athlete and activity. The young athlete, parents, coaches, and athletic/health professionals should be aware of such information to prevent fluid imbalances and the consequent hazardous effects on performance and health.
A Multicultural Approach to Health Psychology
Authors: Gurung Regan A. R.
Published: June 2012

The North American continent comprises a diverse array of individuals. Although the majority of them prescribe to the beliefs and treatments of Western biomedicine, a substantial number also practice diverse approaches to health. This article summarizes the basic tenets of major non-Western approaches to health, including the main beliefs and treatments. It bases this discussion in the context of health disparities, the existence of which presents a major problem for health care in America, and with an eye toward aiding the development of cultural competence for clinicians and health care providers nationwide.
Calpain inhibition stabilizes the platelet proteome and reactivity in diabetes
Authors: Randriamboavonjy Voahanginirina , Isaak Johann , Elgheznawy Amro , Pistrosch Frank , Frömel Timo , Yin Xiaoke , Badenhoop Klaus , Heide Heinrich , Mayr Manuel , Fleming Ingrid
Published: June 2012

Platelets from patients with diabetes are hyperreactive and demonstrate increased adhesiveness, aggregation, degranulation, and thrombus formation, processes that contribute to the accelerated development of vascular disease. Part of the problem seems to be dysregulated platelet Ca2+ signaling and the activation of calpains, which are Ca2+-activated proteases that result in the limited proteolysis of substrate proteins and subsequent alterations in signaling. In the present study, we report that the activation of μ- and m-calpain in patients with type 2 diabetes has profound effects on the platelet proteome and have identified septin-5 and the integrin-linked kinase (ILK) as novel calpain substrates. The calpain-dependent cleavage of septin-5 disturbed its association with syntaxin-4 and promoted the secretion of α-granule contents, including TGF-β and CCL5. Calpain was also released by platelets and cleaved CCL5 to generate a variant with enhanced activity. Calpain activation also disrupted the ILK-PINCH-Parvin complex and altered platelet adhesion and spreading. In diabetic mice, calpain inhibition reversed the effects of diabetes on platelet protein cleavage, decreased circulating CCL5 levels, reduced platelet-leukocyte aggregate formation, and improved platelet function. The results of the present study indicate that diabetes-induced platelet dysfunction is mediated largely by calpain activation and suggest that calpain inhibition may be an effective way of preserving platelet function and eventually decelerating atherothrombosis development.
MAVS ubiquitination by the E3 ligase TRIM25 and degradation by the proteasome is involved in type I interferon production after activation of the antiviral RIG-I-like receptors
Authors: Castanier Céline , Zemirli Naima , Portier Alain , Garcin Dominique , Bidère Nicolas , Vazquez Aimé , Arnoult Damien
Published: June 2012

Background

During a viral infection, the intracellular RIG-I-like receptors (RLRs) sense viral RNA and signal through the mitochondrial antiviral signaling adaptor MAVS (also known as IPS-1, Cardif and VISA) whose activation triggers a rapid production of type I interferons (IFN) and of pro-inflammatory cytokines through the transcription factors IRF3/IRF7 and NF-κB, respectively. While MAVS is essential for this signaling and known to operate through the scaffold protein NEMO and the protein kinase TBK1 that phosphorylates IRF3, its mechanism of action and regulation remain unclear.

Results

We report here that RLR activation triggers MAVS ubiquitination on lysine 7 and 10 by the E3 ubiquitin ligase TRIM25 and marks it for proteasomal degradation concomitantly with downstream signaling. Inhibition of this MAVS degradation with a proteasome inhibitor does not affect NF-κB signaling but it hampers IRF3 activation, and NEMO and TBK1, two essential mediators in type I IFN production, are retained at the mitochondria.

Conclusions

These results suggest that MAVS functions as a recruitment platform that assembles a signaling complex involving NEMO and TBK1, and that the proteasome-mediated MAVS degradation is required to release the signaling complex into the cytosol, allowing IRF3 phosphorylation by TBK1.
Temporal changes in innate immune signals in a rat model of alcohol withdrawal in emotional and cardiorespiratory homeostatic nuclei
Authors: Freeman Kate , Brureau Anthony , Vadigepalli Rajanikanth , Staehle Mary M , Brureau Melanie M , Gonye Gregory E , Hoek Jan B , Hooper D Craig , Schwaber James S
Published: June 2012

Background

Chronic alcohol use changes the brain’s inflammatory state. However, there is little work examining the progression of the cytokine response during alcohol withdrawal, a period of profound autonomic and emotional upset. This study examines the inflammatory response in the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) and dorsal vagal complex (DVC), brain regions neuroanatomically associated with affective and cardiorespiratory regulation in anin vivorat model of withdrawal following a single chronic exposure.

Methods

For qRT-PCR studies, we measured the expression ofTNF-α,NOS-2,Ccl2 (MCP-1), MHC II invariant chainCD74, and the TNF receptorTnfrsf1ain CeA and DVC samples from adult male rats exposed to a liquid alcohol diet for thirty-five days and in similarly treated animals at four hours and forty-eight hours following alcohol withdrawal. ANOVA was used to identify statistically significant treatment effects. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) and confocal microscopy were performed in a second set of animals during chronic alcohol exposure and subsequent 48-hour withdrawal.

Results

Following a chronic alcohol exposure, withdrawal resulted in a statistically significant increase in the expression of mRNAs specific for innate immune markersCcl2,TNF-α,NOS-2,Tnfrsf1a, andCD74. This response was present in both the CeA and DVC and most prominent at 48 hours. Confocal IHC of samples taken 48 hours into withdrawal demonstrate the presence of TNF-α staining surrounding cells expressing the neural marker NeuN and endothelial cells colabeled with ICAM-1 (CD54) and RECA-1, markers associated with an inflammatory response. Again, findings were consistent in both brain regions.

Conclusions

This study demonstrates the rapid induction ofCcl2,TNF-α,NOS-2,Tnfrsf1aandCD74expression during alcohol withdrawal in both the CeA and DVC. IHC dual labeling showed an increase in TNF-α surrounding neurons and ICAM-1 on vascular endothelial cells 48 hours into withdrawal, confirming the inflammatory response at the protein level. These findings suggest that an abrupt cessation of alcohol intake leads to an acute central nervous system (CNS) inflammatory response in these regions that regulate autonomic and emotional state.