bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Political geography I: Agency
Authors: Kuus Merje
Published: October 2017

This report focuses on human agency – the capacity to act in a given context – as it is studied and reflected upon in political geographic research. I first discuss the investigations of agency in the wide-ranging work on political subjectivity and identity formation. The report then turns to the efforts to trace ideas and things in political processes. I showcase the attention to transnational networks and fields as well as the work inspired by the concepts of assemblage and actor-network. The analysis finally turns to questions of method in the study of political agency as I foreground the growing interest in ethnography, emotions, and ethics in the sub-discipline. No amount of conceptual innovation, I conclude in the final section, can substitute for the careful study of inherently difficult political issues in specific social settings. In order to effectively problematize the boundaries between politics and culture, subject and object, state and non-state institutions, or public and private spheres, research must closely consider the contingent and situational character of these categories.
Return to Sport-Specific Performance After Primary Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction: A Systematic Review
Authors: Mohtadi Nicholas G. , Chan Denise S.
Published: October 2017

Background:

Physicians counseling athletes on the prognosis of sport-specific performance outcomes after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) depend on the published literature. However, critical appraisal of the validity and biases in these studies is required to understand how ACLR affects an athlete’s ability to return to sport, the athlete’s sport-specific performance, and his or her ability to achieve preinjury levels of performance.

Purpose:

This review identifies the published prognostic studies evaluating sport-specific performance outcomes after ACLR. A risk of bias assessment and summaries of return to sport and career longevity results are provided for each included study.

Study Design:

Systematic review.

Methods:

Electronic databases (Ovid MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and PUBMED) were searched via a defined search strategy with no limits, to identify relevant studies for inclusion in the review. A priori defined eligibility criteria included studies measuring sport-specific performance within an athlete’s sport, before and after primary ACLR. Reference lists of eligible studies were hand-searched for additional relevant studies. Data extraction was performed by use of a standardized spreadsheet. Each included study was assessed by use of 6 bias domains of the Quality in Prognosis Studies tool to critically appraise study participation, study attrition, prognostic factors, outcome measurement, confounders, and statistical analysis and reporting. Two authors independently performed each stage of the review and reached consensus through discussion.

Results:

Fifteen pertinent prognostic studies evaluated sport-specific performance outcomes and/or return to play after ACLR for athletes participating in competitive soccer, football, ice hockey, basketball, Alpine ski, X-Games ski and snowboarding, and baseball. Twelve of these studies were considered to have a high level of bias.

Conclusion:

This review demonstrated that most high-performance or professional athletes returned to their preinjury level of sport after ACLR. The bulk of evidence suggests there was a measurable decrease in performance statistics, although this is highly sport-specific. A paucity of literature is available that addresses sport-specific performance in athletes after ACLR. This review has determined that the available literature is highly biased and must be read with caution.

Clinical Relevance:

By better understanding the validity and biases in the published literature, physicians can provide more informed prognoses about return to sport-specific performance after ACLR while considering risk factors relevant to their patients.

Registration:

CRD42016046709 (International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews, https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/ )
The unintended consequences in new economic sociology: Why still not taken seriously?
Authors: Mica Adriana
Published: October 2017

The idea of unintended consequences of social action constitutes one of the core meta-assumptions of new economic sociology. Yet neither its US nor its European branch seem to make a direct statement about this. This state of affairs appears to be the result of various cumulative circumstances, such as the role played by the competition from other meta-assumptions which address similar or related issues and the rather general treatment of the unintended consequences within the field. This article takes a closer look and tries to establish whether the approach to the unintended in the US and European new economic sociologies is indeed so general. It concludes that the source of the low visibility of the unintended consequences as a fundamental problem for new economic sociology is not the fact that this is not granted proper systematization. The problem rather lies in the lack of awareness and cumulative knowledge about the unintended consequences as a main sociological problem that was already taken up in sociology.
Emotional roots of right-wing political populism
Authors: Salmela Mikko , von Scheve Christian
Published: October 2017

The rise of the radical populist right has been linked to fundamental socioeconomic changes fueled by globalization and economic deregulation. Yet, socioeconomic factors can hardly fully explain the rise of the new right. We suggest that emotional processes that affect people’s identities provide an additional explanation for the current popularity of the new radical right, not only among low- and medium-skilled workers, but also among the middle classes whose insecurities manifest as fears of not being able to live up to salient social identities and their constitutive values, and as shame about this actual or anticipated inability. This link between fear and shame is particularly salient in contemporary capitalist societies where responsibility for success and failure is increasingly individualized, and failure is stigmatized through unemployment, receiving welfare benefits, or labor migration. Under these conditions, we identify two psychological mechanisms behind the rise of the new populist right. The first mechanism of ressentiment explains how negative emotions – fear and insecurity, in particular – transform through repressed shame into anger, resentment and hatred towards perceived ‘enemies’ of the self and associated social groups, such as refugees, immigrants, the long-term unemployed, political and cultural elites, and the ‘mainstream’ media. The second mechanism relates to the emotional distancing from social identities that inflict shame and other negative emotions, and instead promotes seeking meaning and self-esteem from aspects of identity perceived to be stable and to some extent exclusive, such as nationality, ethnicity, religion, language and traditional gender roles.
Nintedanib for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis
Authors: Tepede Abisola , Yogaratnam Dinesh
Published: October 2017

Objective:

To review the pharmacology, safety, and efficacy of nintedanib for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).

Methods:

A literature search was conducted via PubMed using the MeSH term “idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis” combined with the key word “nintedanib.” Additional online searches using Google Scholar, Micromedex, and PubMed were performed to obtain prescribing and cost information.

Results:

One phase II and 2 replicate phase III clinical trials that examined the safety and efficacy of nintedanib for IPF were identified. In patients with IPF, nintedanib was more effective than placebo in slowing the annual rate of decline in forced vital capacity (FVC). Improvements in mortality, quality of life, and risk of acute exacerbations have not been consistently demonstrated in clinical trials. Diarrhea was the most common adverse effect associated with nintedanib use. Outside of these clinical trials, there are limited data evaluating nintedanib for the treatment of IPF.

Conclusions:

Nintedanib is a safe and effective treatment option for patients with IPF. Nintedanib slows IPF disease progression by reducing the rate of decline in FVC. Reductions in mortality and acute exacerbations may be present in certain subgroups of patients, but these outcomes require further research. Future studies on nintedanib are needed to explore its use in more advanced stages of IPF, its long-term safety and efficacy, its value in combination with pirfenidone or other therapies for IPF, and its cost-effectiveness in clinical practice.
Access to Medical Records’ Impact on Community Pharmacist–Delivered Medication Therapy Management: A Pilot From the Medication Safety Research Network of Indiana (Rx-SafeNet)
Authors: Gernant Stephanie A. , Zillich Alan J. , Snyder Margie E.
Published: October 2017

Background:

Medication therapy management (MTM) may be optimized if pharmacists engaged in health information exchange (HIE) by reviewing unedited medical records.

Methods:

In this nonblinded, randomized, controlled pilot, pharmacists delivered a part of MTM, comprehensive medication reviews (CMRs), to adult patients in a practice-based research network (PBRN). Intervention community pharmacists solicited the last 6 months of patients’ primary care provider-held, unedited medical records. The primary and secondary outcomes were the number of medication-related problems (MRPs) and preventive care omissions identified. The intervention was analyzed via Mann-Whitney U test and multivariate linear regression models. Pharmacists were surveyed regarding the available health history’s helpfulness in CMR delivery.

Results:

Thirty-seven patients received CMRs across the 2 groups. Intervention pharmacists (n = 4) identified significantly more MRPs (median = 11 vs 6; B = 6.98, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.005-13.96; P = .049) and omissions in preventive care (24% vs 17%; B = 2.78, 95% CI: 0.46-5.10; P = .009) than usual care pharmacists (n = 3). Intervention pharmacists were more likely to agree they were confident they identified all of the patient’s MRPs (47.1% vs 15.8%), but neither group was more likely than the other to believe they had resolved all MRPs (41.2% vs 42.1%). Finally, intervention pharmacists agreed 100% of the time that the available health history helped them complete a better CMR, compared with only 69% of usual care pharmacists.

Conclusion:

In this pilot, community pharmacists identified more MRPs and omissions in preventive care when they reviewed unedited medical records. Larger studies are warranted to determine whether HIE can improve outcomes.
Novel fluorinated hyperbranched polyimides with excellent thermal stability, UV-shielding property, organosolubility, and low dielectric constants
Authors: Li Qing , Zhang Shulai , Liao Guangfu , Yi Changfeng , Xu Zushun
Published: October 2017

A novel fluorinated aromatic triamine, named 1,3,5-tris (4-(2-trifluoromethyl-4-aminophenoxy)phenyl) benzene (TTFAPOPB), with several –CF3 groups, prolonged chain segments, and ether bonds was first successfully synthesized via a three-step reaction. Then a series of fluorinated hyperbranched polyimides (FHBPIs) with terminal amino or anhydride groups were prepared by condensation polymerization, which were derived from three commercial dianhydrides and the obtained triamine. The prepared FHBPIs showed excellent optical properties with the transmittance reaching 94.5% at 800 nm, favorable ultraviolet (UV)-shielding property with only 27% photodegradation of methylene blue solution after intense UV irradiation for 50 min, good thermal stability with glass transition temperature between 225°C and 264°C, and 10% weight loss temperature of 520–555°C and 509–541°C, respectively, in nitrogen and air atmosphere. They also exhibited relatively good mechanical properties with tensile strength, tensile modulus, and elongation at break values of 64.2–84.2 MPa, 1.2–1.5 GPa, and 6–10%, respectively. Moreover, the introduction of –CF3 and hyperbranched architecture reduced the dielectric constants of the FHBPIs to 2.69–2.92 and increased the surface contact angles to more than 98°. Thus, the FHBPIs are promising dielectric or UV-shielding materials.
Thermal compensation using the hybrid metrology approach compared to traditional scaling
Authors: Ross-Pinnock David , Mullineux Glen
Published: October 2017

Control of temperature in large-scale manufacturing environments is not always practical or economical, introducing thermal effects including variation in ambient refractive index and thermal expansion. Thermal expansion is one of the largest contributors to measurement uncertainty; however, temperature distributions are not widely measured. Uncertainties can also be introduced in scaling to standard temperature. For more complex temperature distributions with non-linear temperature gradients, uniform scaling is unrealistic. Deformations have been measured photogrammetrically in two thermally challenging scenarios with localised heating. Extended temperature measurement has been tested with finite element analysis to assess a compensation methodology for coordinate measurement. This has been compared to commonly used uniform scaling and has outperformed this with a highly simplified finite element analysis simulation in scaling a number of coordinates at once. This work highlighted the need for focus on reproducible temperature measurement for dimensional measurement in non-standard environments.
Attitude manoeuvre control and asymptotic disturbance rejection of flexible spacecraft
Authors: Yu Zhen , Guo Yu , Zhong Chenxing , Wu Yifei , Guo Jian
Published: October 2017

This paper presents a novel approach to tackle the issues of attitude manoeuvre control and asymptotic disturbance rejection for a flexible spacecraft. The resulting attitude controller employs an internal model-based compensator to reject a class of persistent disturbances and a modal estimator for dynamic compensation of the rigid-flex coupling effect. The convergence of the modal variables can be guaranteed without the measures of them. The stability of the system is proved via the Lyapunov technique rigorously. Numerical results illustrate that improved attitude control performance and asymptotic disturbance rejection can both be achieved.
Final chapter, From India to the Planet Mars: A Study of a Case of Somnambulism with Glossolalia, by Théodore Flournoy (1900)
Authors: de Oliveira Maraldi Everton , Alvarado Carlos S
Published: October 2017

Among the many attempts to explain mediumship psychologically at the turn of the century were the efforts of Swiss psychologist Théodore Flournoy (1854–1920). In his well-known book Des Indes à la Planète Mars (1900), translated as From India to the Planet Mars (1900), Flournoy analysed the mediumistic productions of medium Hélène Smith (1861–1929), consisting of accounts of previous lives in France and in India, and material about planet Mars. Flournoy explained the phenomena as a function of cryptomnesia, suggestive influences, and subconscious creativity, analyses that influenced both psychology and psychical research. The purpose of this Classic Text is to reprint the conclusion of Flournoy’s study, whose ideas were developed in the context of psychological attention to mediumship and secondary personalities.
Benzo(a)pyrene induces lung toxicity and inflammation in mice: prevention by carvacrol
Authors: Barnwal P , Vafa A , Afzal SM , Shahid A , Hasan SK , Alpashree  , Sultana S
Published: October 2017

Benzo(a)pyrene (B(a)P) is an environmental pollutant which causes various lung toxicities. The present study was designed to evaluate the protective effects of carvacrol, a monoterpenic phenol against B(a)P-induced lung toxicity. In this study, Swiss albino mice were pretreated with carvacrol (25 mg/kg and 50 mg/kg) orally for 7 consecutive days before administering oral B(a)P (125 mg/kg). Preventive efficacy of carvacrol was assessed in terms of membrane oxidation, antioxidant enzyme activities, histopathological changes, and inflammatory (iNOS, NF-κB, and COX-2) markers. Carvacrol pretreatment in the two doses restored B(a)P-induced lipid peroxidation and increased the activities of antioxidant enzymes. Protein expressions of iNOS, NF-κB, and COX-2 in the lung tissue were found to be upregulated by B(a)P. Carvacrol treatment, however, downregulated their expressions by decreasing the marker of positive stained cells and restored the histopathological architecture of lung tissue. Our results suggest that carvacrol can be used as a protective agent against B(a)P-induced lung toxicity and inflammation.
Belief in God: A Cultural Adaptation With Important Side Effects
Authors: Laurin Kristin
Published: October 2017

This article integrates a recent spate of findings regarding beliefs in or thoughts about God and how they influence behavior. I first describe a fast-emerging cultural evolutionary perspective on why people believe in powerful, watchful, and morally invested Gods. I then apply this perspective to the recent spate of findings, arguing that those three culturally evolved features of Gods are responsible for certain additional effects beyond those thought to be their original adaptive function. These effects pertain to self-regulation, the reinforcement of social norms, risk taking, and more. I end by spelling out the theoretical leverage gained by applying a cultural fitness lens to these findings.
Like a thief in the night: Agamben, Hobbes and the messianic transvaluation of security
Authors: Prozorov Sergei
Published: October 2017

The article addresses the reinterpretation of the problematic of security in the messianic turn in contemporary continental political thought. I focus on Giorgio Agamben’s reinterpretation of Hobbes’s Leviathan in Stasis, which restores an eschatological dimension to this foundational text of modern security politics. Hobbes’s commonwealth has been traditionally read as a secularized version of the katechon, a force that restrains the state of nature while drawing on its resources. Instead, Agamben argues that for Hobbes, the state is neither the analogue of God’s kingdom on earth nor the katechon that delays its arrival, but the profane power that will disappear when the kingdom of God is established on earth. It is thus in principle incapable of attaining the peace and security that it claims to provide, perpetually producing insecurity and violence in the guise of protection. In Agamben’s reading, it is precisely this failure of the state’s security apparatuses that assists the advent of the messianic event in an oblique fashion. The exposure of this failure does not aspire to the improvement of the apparatuses of security or resign us to inescapable insecurity but only affirms the need to render the present apparatuses inoperative, bringing forth a future without them.
Shared decision making in mental health: the importance for current clinical practice
Authors: Alguera-Lara Victoria , Dowsey Michelle M , Ride Jemimah , Kinder Skye , Castle David
Published: October 2017

Objectives:

We reviewed the literature on shared decision making (regarding treatments in psychiatry), with a view to informing our understanding of the decision making process and the barriers that exist in clinical practice.

Methods:

Narrative review of published English-language articles.

Results:

After culling, 18 relevant articles were included. Themes identified included models of psychiatric care, benefits for patients, and barriers. There is a paucity of published studies specifically related to antipsychotic medications.

Conclusions:

Shared decision making is a central part of the recovery paradigm and is of increasing importance in mental health service delivery. The field needs to better understand the basis on which decisions are reached regarding psychiatric treatments. Discrete choice experiments might be useful to inform the development of tools to assist shared decision making in psychiatry.
Effects of thermal and electric boundary conditions on fracture of three-dimensional thermopiezoelectric media
Authors: Zhao MingHao , Li Yuan , Fan CuiYing
Published: October 2017

An arbitrarily shaped planar crack under different thermal and electric boundary conditions on the crack surfaces is studied in three-dimensional transversely isotropic thermopiezoelectric media subjected to thermal–mechanical–electric coupling fields. Using Hankel transformations, Green functions are derived for unit point extended displacement discontinuities in three-dimensional transversely isotropic thermopiezoelectric media, where the extended displacement discontinuities include the conventional displacement discontinuities, electric potential discontinuity, as well as the temperature discontinuity. On the basis of these Green functions, the extended displacement discontinuity boundary integral equations for arbitrarily shaped planar cracks in the isotropic plane of three-dimensional transversely isotropic thermopiezoelectric media are established under different thermal and electric boundary conditions on the crack surfaces, namely, the thermally and electrically impermeable, permeable, and semi-permeable boundary conditions. The singularities of near-crack border fields are analyzed and the extended stress intensity factors are expressed in terms of the extended displacement discontinuities. The effect of different thermal and electric boundary conditions on the extended stress intensity factors is studied via the extended displacement discontinuity boundary element method. Subsequent numerical results of elliptical cracks subjected to combined thermal–mechanical–electric loadings are obtained.
Leukocyte Cell-Derived Chemotaxin-2 Amyloidosis (ALECT2) in a Patient With Lung Adenocarcinoma: An Autopsy Report and Literature Review
Authors: Tariq Hamza , Sharkey Francis E.
Published: October 2017

Amyloidosis caused by deposition of leukocyte cell-derived chemotaxin-2 amyloidosis (ALECT2) is the most recently described form of systemic amyloidosis and has quickly emerged as a common and possibly underdiagnosed cause of slowly declining renal function, particularly in patients of Hispanic ancestry. We describe the autopsy findings in a 70-year-old Hispanic woman who died of metastatic lung adenocarcinoma and was incidentally found to have extensive amyloid deposition in the kidneys, liver, spleen, adrenal glands, small intestine, gallbladder, lungs, bilateral ovaries, and uterus. The type of amyloid was confirmed to be ALECT2 by mass spectrometry. The pattern of amyloid deposition in the kidneys and the liver was typical for what has been described for ALECT2. In addition, a unique pattern of amyloid deposition was observed in spleen, adrenal glands, small intestine, gallbladder, lungs, ovaries, and uterus. The pattern of amyloid deposition in ALECT2 is distinct from amyloid A and amyloid light-chain and needs to be recognized to avoid misdiagnosis as amyloid light-chain or amyloid A amyloidosis. After recognition, an accurate diagnosis by mass spectrometry and/or immunohistochemical staining is essential to guide treatment and avoid toxic therapies.
Liver Transplantation in Patients With Cardiac Disease
Authors: Wray Christopher L.
Published: October 2017

Liver transplantation (LT) is a unique surgical procedure that has major hemodynamic and cardiovascular implications. Recently, there has been significant interest focused on cardiovascular issues that affect LT patients in all phases of the perioperative period. The preoperative cardiac evaluation is a major step in the selection of LT candidates. LT candidates are aging in concordance with the general population; cardiovascular disease and their risk factors are highly associated with older age. Underlying cardiovascular disease has the potential to affect outcomes in LT patients and has a major impact on candidate selection. The prolonged hemodynamic and metabolic instability during LT may contribute to adverse outcomes, especially in patients with underlying cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular events are not unusual during LT; transplant anesthesiologists must be prepared for these events. Advanced cardiovascular monitoring techniques and treatment modalities are now routinely used during LT. Postoperative cardiovascular complications are common in both the early and late posttransplant periods. The impact of cardiac complications on posttransplant mortality is well recognized. Emerging knowledge regarding cardiovascular disease in LT patients and its impact on posttransplant outcomes will have an important role in guiding the future perioperative management of LT patients.
The Cosmetic Ingredient Review Program—Expert Safety Assessments of Cosmetic Ingredients in an Open Forum
Authors: Boyer Ivan J. , Bergfeld Wilma F. , Heldreth Bart , Fiume Monice M. , Gill Lillian J.
Published: October 2017

The Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR) is a nonprofit program to assess the safety of ingredients in personal care products in an open, unbiased, and expert manner. Cosmetic Ingredient Review was established in 1976 by the Personal Care Products Council (PCPC), with the support of the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) and the Consumer Federation of America (CFA). Cosmetic Ingredient Review remains the only scientific program in the world committed to the systematic, independent review of cosmetic ingredient safety in a public forum. Cosmetic Ingredient Review operates in accordance with procedures modeled after the USFDA process for reviewing over-the-counter drugs. Nine voting panel members are distinguished, such as medical professionals, scientists, and professors. Three nonvoting liaisons are designated by the USFDA, CFA, and PCPC to represent government, consumer, and industry, respectively. The annual rate of completing safety assessments accelerated from about 100 to more than 400 ingredients by implementing grouping and read-across strategies and other approaches. As of March 2017, CIR had reviewed 4,740 individual cosmetic ingredients, including 4,611 determined to be safe as used or safe with qualifications, 12 determined to be unsafe, and 117 ingredients for which the information is insufficient to determine safety. Examples of especially challenging safety assessments and issues are presented here, including botanicals. Cosmetic Ingredient Review continues to strengthen its program with the ongoing cooperation of the USFDA, CFA, the cosmetics industry, and everyone else interested in contributing to the process.
Inclusionary control? Theorizing the effects of penal voluntary organizations’ work
Authors: Tomczak Philippa , Thompson David
Published: October 2017

Recent penal policy developments in many jurisdictions suggest an increasing role for voluntary organizations. Voluntary organizations have long worked alongside penal institutions, but the multifaceted ways their programmes affect (ex-)offenders remain insufficiently understood. This article addresses the implications of voluntary organizations’ work with (ex-)offenders, using original empirical data. It adds nuance to netwidening theory, reframing the effects of voluntary organizations’ work as inclusionary and exclusionary. Exclusionary effects sometimes have inclusionary aspects, and inclusionary effects are constrained by a controlling carceral net. We propose the novel concept of inclusionary control. This is not an alibi for punishment but enables rich analysis of the effects of voluntary organizations’ work, and raises possibilities for change in penal practice.
Constraints on the growth of private policing: A comparative international analysis
Authors: Singh Anne-Marie , Light Matthew
Published: October 2017

While much has been written on private security expansion in a few English-speaking industrialized democracies, less is known about why the industry does not develop uniformly around the world. We propose some hypotheses about constraints on private security growth in other settings, based on three comparative case studies in authoritarian states (Russia and Georgia), developing countries (Guyana and Trinidad) and non-‘Anglosphere’ industrialized democracies (continental Europe). In authoritarian states, private policing is more politically sensitive than in democratic states, sometimes resulting in more draconian restrictions on it. In developing societies, despite widespread fear of crime, potential consumers sometimes favour in-house measures over private security firms and electronic devices. In developed democracies, variation in private security growth reflects regulatory, institutional and ideological differences between the Anglosphere and continental Europe. We conclude that constraints on the private security industry’s growth potential are more significant than many scholars have acknowledged.
The acquisition of Greek gender by bilingual children: The effects of lexical knowledge, oral input, literacy and bi/monolingual schooling
Authors: Prentza Alexandra , Kaltsa Maria , Tsimpli Ianthi Maria , Papadopoulou Despina
Published: October 2017

Aim:

The objectives of this study are to examine (a) the development of gender assignment and agreement in real and pseudo nouns by bilingual Greek-Albanian children and (b) how different input-related factors impact on these different processes.

Methodology:

Real and pseudo nouns were investigated to assess the effect of lexical knowledge (real nouns) and of morphological cues (pseudo nouns). Four tasks eliciting gender production in determiner phrases (assignment) and adjective predicates (agreement) for real and pseudo items were administered.

Data:

150 bilingual children and 57 Greek monolingual children, aged 8–12 years old, were tested. Bilingual performance is investigated in relation to the role of the bilinguals’ Greek vocabulary knowledge, as well as in relation to early/current language exposure, oral input, literacy, monolingual/bilingual schooling and parental education as a proxy for socioeconomic status.

Findings:

The results show a strong relationship between the bilinguals’ performance and their Greek vocabulary development, the amount of oral Greek input and the type of school they are attending. For real nouns, oral Greek input is a positive predictor for accuracy, while literacy in Albanian is associated with lower scores. In pseudo nouns, bilinguals attending bilingual schools are shown to perform significantly better than those attending monolingual schools.

Originality:

The contribution of this study is related to (a) the examination of pseudo nouns along with real ones showing that gender marking in the former involves a distinct process, (b) the finding regarding the pervasive role of vocabulary knowledge and (c) the consideration of schooling type in relation to the development of a specific grammatical feature.

Implications:

Bilingual education was shown to positively affect the development of gender, which suggests that schooling type has a significant impact not only on literacy development but also on grammatical development.
Picture-based vocabulary assessment versus parental questionnaires: A cross-linguistic study of bilingual assessment methods
Authors: Hansen Pernille , Łuniewska Magdalena , Simonsen Hanne Gram , Haman Ewa , Mieszkowska Karolina , Kołak Joanna , Wodniecka Zofia
Published: October 2017

Purpose:

As a contribution to the endeavour of developing appropriate tools for bilingual language assessment, this paper investigates the concurrence between two new tools from the recent COST Action IS0804 (Bi-SLI), and the differences between children across two different migrant communities.

Approach:

Two new tools from the battery Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) were used: the direct assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (CLT) and the reporting instrument Parents of Bilingual Children Questionnaire (PaBiQ), which offers an indirect measure of overall language skills.

Data:

The participants were 36 children (4;2–6;6) of Polish immigrants to Norway or the UK. Correlations were investigated with Kendall’s rank correlation, and comparisons carried out with Wilcoxon rank sum tests.

Findings:

The results from the two tools correlated. The CLT results were higher in the minority language (Polish) than in the majority language, with no difference between the groups. Still, the parents in the UK judged their children as less proficient in Polish than those in Norway did. Two different accounts for this incongruity are discussed. Firstly, parents in the UK may set higher benchmarks for their children’s minority language skills than the parents in Norway. Alternative accounts of this interpretation related to differences in the parents’ socio-economic background, minority language proficiency or language attitudes are discussed. Secondly, parental report may indicate early stages of attrition of the minority language among the children in the UK that the direct lexical assessment tool may not be sensitive enough to uncover.

Originality:

The study used two new tools designed for multilingual children to compare two groups of children of a recent and growing immigration group, whose language development is currently underinvestigated.

Implications:

The findings underscore the complexity of assessing bilingual children’s full language competence. The cross-cultural differences documented call for further longitudinal research comparing immigrant children from different language backgrounds.
Seismic behavior of concrete bridge columns confined with fiber-reinforced polymer stay-in-place formwork
Authors: Elnabelsy Gamal , Saatcioglu Murat
Published: October 2017

One of the applications of fiber-reinforced polymers in bridge construction is stay-in-place formwork. Fiber-reinforced polymer stay-in-place formwork, in the form of preformed tubes, provides easy form assembly, protection of steel reinforcement and concrete against corrosion and chemical attacks while also improving the strength and ductility of structural elements in earthquake resistant construction. Experimental research was conducted to investigate the seismic performance of fiber-reinforced polymer stay-in-place formwork for bridge columns. Tests of large-scale specimens were conducted under simulated seismic loading. The experimental program included circular and square columns confined with carbon fiber–reinforced polymer tubes. The results indicate that the use of carbon fiber–reinforced polymer tubes increases column inelastic deformability significantly. Bridge columns under low levels of axial compression exhibit inelastic drift capacities in excess of 4% before failing in flexural tension due to the rupturing of longitudinal reinforcement. These observations and experimental results were used to develop a displacement-based design procedure for concrete confinement for fiber-reinforced polymer–encased concrete columns. This article presents an overview of the experimental program and the design approach developed.
Memes as games: The evolution of a digital discourse online
Authors: Seiffert-Brockmann Jens , Diehl Trevor , Dobusch Leonhard
Published: October 2017

This study proposes a theoretical framework for understanding how and why certain memes prevail as a form of political discourse online. Since memes are constantly changing as they spread, drawing inferences from a population of memes as concrete digital artifacts is a pressing challenge for researchers. This article argues that meme selection and mutation are driven by a cooperative combination of three types of communication logic: wasteful play online, social media political expression, and cultural evolution. To illustrate this concept, we map Shepard Fairey’s Obama Hope Poster as it spreads online. Employing structural rhetorical analysis, the study categorizes Internet memes on branching diagrams as they evolve. We argue that mapping these variations is a useful tool for organizing memes as an expression of the values and preferences embedded in online communities. The study adds to the growing literature around the subversive nature of memetic diffusion in popular and political culture.
Optimum dimensional synthesis for the working mechanism of a hydraulic excavator to improve the digging performance
Authors: Zou Zhihong , Chen Jin , Pang Xiaoping
Published: October 2017

The direction and magnitude of the digging resistance encountered by an excavator during digging process are usually uncertain. To identify the excavator’s capability to generate digging force to overcome the digging resistance in any direction, a hexahedral actuator force space is mapped to a polygon in bucket force space with the consideration of the whole machine stability constraints of an excavator. Then this polygon is called digging capability polygon. Based on the digging capability polygon, the maximum digging force, isotropy measure of the digging force, and the full exertion proportion measures of the driving capability of the working hydraulic cylinders are defined to quantify the digging performance of any configuration of the working mechanism. Further the average values of each of these indices in the customary digging workspace are used to comprehensively assess the digging performance of an excavator. A multi-objective evaluation function is constructed using the so-called ideal point method to increase all average values of the given indices simultaneously. Optimum dimensional synthesis of the working mechanism is finished by using the genetic algorithm to solve the established optimization problem. The optimization results indicate that the average values of the maximum digging force, isotropy measure of the digging force, and full exertion proportion measures of the bucket cylinder and stick cylinder in the customary digging workspace respectively increase by 1.81%, 1.51%, 9.64%, and 15.15% relative to the initial excavator, and obvious increases in the key workspace parameters of the optimized excavator are obtained. The performance indices proposed in this research can be used to assess the digging performance of an existing excavator and further guide the new excavator design and development. The optimization method provided in this research can be used to design new excavators or improve the existing excavators.
Working in unison: Political parties and policy issue transfer in the multilevel space
Authors: Senninger Roman , Bischof Daniel
Published: October 2017

In this study, we examine whether and how policy issues addressed by political parties travel across the national and European legislative arena. We define ‘party policy issue transfer’ as the articulation of similar issues in the work of political parties at different parliamentary venues in short distance of time and argue that issues particularly transfer within the same party. This is mainly so for three reasons: exchange of information between parties across levels, national parties’ attempts to influence European Union policies, and career incentives of representatives at the supranational level. We test our theoretical framework using unique data on parliamentary questions asked by Danish representatives (the Folketing and the European Parliament, 1999–2009) and a dyadic data structure. Our results show that parties’ policy issues—in particular those over which the European Union holds legislative power—transfer across the national and European levels on a regular basis and that issues are more likely to travel within parties.
Feasibility of using digital image correlation for unmanned aerial vehicle structural health monitoring of bridges
Authors: Reagan Daniel , Sabato Alessandro , Niezrecki Christopher
Published: October 2017

Quantifying the condition of aging structures is important to verify structural integrity and long-term reliability. Structural health monitoring plays a key role in the prevention of catastrophic failure, in improving the safety of infrastructure, and in reducing the downtime and costs associated with their maintenance. Bridges are typically designed to have a lifespan on order of 50 years; therefore, bridge monitoring is important since many of them are near to or have already exceeded their design life. Conventional sensors and examination techniques such as accelerometers and strain gages produce results at only a discrete number of points. Visual inspection only provides qualitative information and is subject to human variability and inconsistencies between inspectors. Moreover, both approaches are labor intensive and time-consuming. In recent years, three-dimensional digital image correlation systems have proven their efficiency in being able to provide accurate quantitative information of structural deformations, full-field strain, and geometry profiles of large-scale structures. At the same time, unmanned aerial vehicles have emerged as valuable tools for remotely performing measurements in places, which are either difficult or dangerous to access. With regard to bridge inspection, unmanned aerial vehicles have the capability to expedite the measurement process, offer increased accessibility, and reduce interference with the structures’ functionality. In this study, a novel approach that combines the use of an unmanned aerial vehicle and three-dimensional digital image correlation is developed to perform non-contact, optically based measurements to monitor the health of bridges. Extensive laboratory tests and a long-term monitoring campaign on two in-service concrete bridges demonstrated the accuracy of this system in detecting structural changes. Results show that this system is able to detect changes to the bridge geometry with an uncertainty on the order of 10−5 m while improving accessibility. The feasibility of the approach, best practices, and lessons learned is presented.
Revisiting Parquet Deformations from a computational perspective: A novel method for design and analysis
Authors: Yazar Tuğrul
Published: October 2017

Parquet Deformation is an architectural studio exercise introduced by William Huff in 1960s. It aims to improve students’ reasoning of spatiotemporal variation by utilizing sequential shapeshifting of patterns. This article examines the outcomes of this educational research from a perspective of design computing with a purpose to remark its pedagogical significance. A multilayered reading about the exercise will reveal its historical, theoretical, and artistic backgrounds. Then the common structural elements and different construction approaches are explained along with a novel design and analysis method. The proposed method embeds variations of two-dimensional pattern deformations on a third dimension. It enables various analyses such as the measurement of regularity and locating the attractor points. This study is expected to exemplify how computational thinking and new digital tools change the way designers would approach to such systematic compositions.
Computer utterances: Sequence and event in digital architecture
Authors: Miranda Pablo
Published: October 2017

Barely a month before the end of World War II, a technical report begun circulating among allied scientists: the ‘First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC’, attributed to John von Neumann, described for the first time the design and implementation of the earliest stored-program computer. The ‘First Draft’ became the template followed by subsequent British and American computers, establishing the standard characteristics of most computing machines to date. This article looks at how the material and design choices described in this report influenced architecture, as it set up the technological matrix onto which a discipline relying on a tradition of drawn geometry would be eventually completely remediated. It consists of two parts: first, a theoretical section, analysing the repercussions for architecture of the type of computer laid out in the ‘First Draft’. Second, a description of a design experiment, a sort of information furniture, that tests and exemplifies some of the observations from the first section. This experiment examines the possibilities of an architecture that, moving beyond geometric representations, uses instead the programming of events as its rationale. The structure of this article reflects a methodology in which theoretical formulation and design experiments proceed in parallel. The theoretical investigation proposes concepts that can be tested and refined through design and conversely design work determines and encourages technical, critical and historical research. This relation is dialogical: theoretical investigation is not simply a rationalisation and explanation of earlier design work; inversely, the role of design is not just to illustrate previously formulated concepts. Both design and theorisation are interdependent but autonomous in their parallel development.
Reconnoitring computational potentials of the vault-like forms: Thinking aloud on muqarnas tectonics
Authors: Alaçam Sema , Güzelci Orkan Zeynel , Gürer Ethem , Bacınoğlu Saadet Zeynep
Published: October 2017

This study sheds light on a holistic understanding of muqarnas with its historical, philosophical and conceptual backgrounds on one hand and formal, structural and algorithmic principles on the other hand. The vault-like Islamic architectural element, muqarnas, is generally considered to be a non-structural decorative element. Various compositional approaches have been proposed to reveal the inner logic of these complex geometric elements. Each of these approaches uses different techniques such as measuring, unit-based decoding or three-dimensional interpretation of two-dimensional patterns. However, the reflections of the inner logic onto different contexts, such as the usage of different initial geometries, materials or performative concerns, were neglected. In this study, we offer a new schema to approach the performative aspects of muqarnas tectonics. This schema contains new sets of elements, properties and relations deriving partly from previous approaches and partly from the technique of folding. Thus, this study first reviews the previous approaches to analyse the geometric and constructional principles of muqarnas. Second, it explains the proposed scheme through a series of algorithmic form-finding experiments. In these experiments, we question whether ‘fold’, as one of the performative techniques of making three-dimensional forms, contributes to the analysis of muqarnas in both a conceptual and computational sense. We argue that encoding vault-like systems via geometric and algorithmic relations based on the logic of the ‘fold’ provides informative and intuitive feedback for form-finding, specifically in the earlier phases of design. While focusing on the performative potential of a specific fold operation, we introduced the concept of bifurcation to describe the generative characteristics of folding technique and the way of subdividing the form with respect to redistribution of the forces. Thus, in this decoding process, the bifurcated fold explains not only to demystify the formal logic of muqarnas but also to generate new forms without losing contextual conditions.
Classroom Instruments and Carpool Karaoke: Ritual and Collaboration in Late Night’s YouTube Era
Authors: McNutt Myles
Published: October 2017

This article uses two recurring late-night talk show segments, “Classroom Instruments” (NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon) and “Carpool Karaoke” (CBS’s The Late Late Show with James Corden), to explore how programming strategies are changing in response to late night’s adoption of YouTube as a distribution platform. Through close analysis of these segments, the series’ YouTube presences, and industry perspective, the article explores how late night’s digital turn has embraced historical qualities of late-night programming that have proven compatible with YouTube as a platform, with these segments prioritizing collaboration common in the YouTube community at large. It goes on to analyze how this content is being “re-ritualized” for online audiences, disconnecting the segments from their linear broadcast context and reframing them for nonlinear audiences in light of this once secondary space of distribution increasingly becoming the primary space of consumption in late-night talk’s “YouTube era.”