bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Prognostic Value of Baseline Plasma Amino-Terminal Pro-Brain Natriuretic Peptide and Its Interactions With Irbesartan Treatment Effects in Patients With Heart Failure and Preserved Ejection Fraction
Authors: Anand Inder S. , Rector Thomas S. , Cleland John G. , Kuskowski Michael , McKelvie Robert S. , Persson Hans , McMurray John J. , Zile Michael R. , Komajda Michel , Massie Barry M. , Carson Peter E.
Published: June 2011

Background—

Plasma concentrations of natriuretic peptides (NPs) are associated with morbidity and mortality in patients with systolic heart failure (HF). However, the role of NP as a prognostic marker in patients with HF and preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) has not been studied in a large cohort of well-characterized patients. Moreover, it is unclear whether treatments have a differential effect on morbidity and mortality across the spectrum of NP levels.

Methods and Results—

N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) was measured at baseline in 3480 patients in the I-PRESERVE (Irbesartan in Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction Trial). In a multivariable Cox regression model, NT-proBNP above the median of 339 pg/mL was independently associated with an increased risk of the primary end point of all-cause mortality and prespecified cardiovascular hospitalizations (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 1.79; 95% CI, 1.56 to 2.10;
P
<0.001); all-cause mortality (adjusted HR, 2.04; 95% CI, 1.68 to 2.47;
P
<0.001); and a composite of HF events, including death due to worsening HF or sudden death or hospitalization due to worsening HF (adjusted HR, 1.77; 95% CI, 1.43 to 2.20;
P
<0.001). There were significant interactions between the effect of irbesartan and median split of baseline NT-proBNP for the primary outcome (
P
=0.005), all-cause mortality (
P
=0.05), and the HF composite outcome (
P
<0.001). Use of irbesartan was associated with improved outcomes in patients with NT-proBNP below, but not above, the median. After adjusting for 20 baseline covariates, irbesartan still had a beneficial effect on the primary outcome (HR, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.60 to 90;
P
=0.003), all-cause mortality (HR, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.56 to 0.99;
P
=0.046), and HF composite outcome (HR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.41 to 0.80;
P
=0.001) in patients with NT-proBNP below the median.

Conclusions—

The unexpected benefit of irbesartan in lower-risk patients with HFpEF in this post hoc analysis may indicate effects on early, but not later, high-risk stages of the disease. These findings question the strategy of using elevated plasma concentrations of NP as a patient selection criterion in HFpEF trials. More studies are needed to support or contest this practice.

Clinical Trial Registration—

URL:
http://www.clinicaltrials.gov
. Unique identifier: NCT00095238.
Measures of Social and Emotional Skills for Children and Young People
Authors: Humphrey Neil , Kalambouka Afroditi , Wigelsworth Michael , Lendrum Ann , Deighton Jessica , Wolpert Miranda
Published: June 2011

This study presents the findings of a systematic review of measures of social and emotional skills for children and young people. The growing attention to this area in recent years has resulted in the development of a large number of measures to aid in the assessment of children and young people. These measures vary on a number of variables relating to implementation characteristics and psychometric properties. The methodology of the review followed the general principles of systematic reviewing, such as systematic search of databases, the adoption of predetermined set of inclusion and exclusion criteria, and a multistage filtering process. The review process resulted in the retention of 12 measures, which are presented and discussed in relation to key issues in this area, including difficulties with the underlying theory and frameworks for social and emotional skills, inconsistent terminology, the scope and distinctiveness of available measures, and more practical issues such as the type of respondent, location, and purpose of measurement.
The Disgrace of Commodification and Shameful Convenience
Authors: Griffin Rachel Alicia
Published: June 2011

This essay positions sport as a pedagogical social institution from which people learn about race, gender, power, and privilege. The National Basketball Association is examined closely with a critical race lens with regard to the commodification of Black masculinity. A critical race analysis reveals the sharp contradictions between the league’s progressive image as an “industry leader” of racial diversity (Lapchick, Bustamante, & Ruiz, 2007, p.1) and the actualization of league discourse, policy, and practice.
Black Women Talk About Workplace Stress and How They Cope
Authors: Hall J. Camille , Everett Joyce E. , Hamilton-Mason Johnnie
Published: June 2011

Black women face the same struggles as White women; however, they have to face issues of diversity on top of inequality. The purpose of this study was to explore work-related stressors that affect the lives of Black women and how they cope with them. Using an exploratory design with grounded-theory methods, five basic themes emerged that identify when racism and sexism are experienced as stressors for African American women in the workplace. The themes are: (1) being hired or promoted in the workplace, (2) defending one’s race and lack of mentorship, (3) shifting or code switching to overcome barriers to employment, (4) coping with racism and discrimination, and (5) being isolated and/or excluded. The results from this study indicate African American women use emotion- and problem-focused coping responses to manage stress (e.g., racism and sexism) in the workplace. The article concludes with a discussion of practice implications of these findings.
English Language Teaching in Brunei: A View Through a Critical Lens
Authors: Barry Clayton
Published: June 2011

The small sultanate of Brunei, located on the island of Borneo in the South China Sea, introduced bilingual education shortly after independence. As a consequence, Brunei’s Ministry of Education outsourced much of its English language teaching requirements to qualified expatriate teachers. Despite over 25 years of systemic English language teaching in Brunei, there is a paucity of research and analysis on Brunei’s unique TESOL context. This article goes some way to redress this paucity by providing a critical analysis of Brunei’s English language teaching situation. The article links post-colonial theory, critical applied linguistics, critical TESOL and Bourdieuian notions of capital to account for the existence of a TESOL industry in Brunei and in the greater South East Asian region. The article then draws together these threads to provide educators with a rationale for learner motivation in Brunei. Finally, the article posits some research questions that may inspire future critical research in Brunei.
RETRACTED: Is Listening Comprehension Influenced by the Cultural Knowledge of the Learners? A Case Study of Iranian EFL Pre-intermediate Learners
Authors: Bakhtiarvand Morteza , Adinevand Somaye
Published: June 2011

At the request of the Editor the article ‘Is Listening Comprehension Influenced by the Cultural Knowledge of the Learners? A Case Study of Iranian EFL Pre-intermediate Learners’ by Morteza Bakhtiarvand and Somaye Adinevand RELC Journal August 2011 42: 111-124, doi:10.1177/0033688211401257 has been retracted because after publication in RELC Journal it has been found to be a republication of the following article:

‘The Impact of Cultural Knowledge on Listening Comprehension of EFL Learners’ by A. Majid Hayati, English Language Teaching September 2009, Volume 2, No.3 (http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/elt/article/view/3704/3305)

A similar article was also published in Undergraduate Research Journal for the Human Sciences:

‘Is Listening Comprehension Influenced by the Cultural Knowledge of the Learners? A Case Study of Iranian EFL pre-intermediate learners’ by Morteza Bakhtiarvand and Somaye Adinevand Undergraduate Research Journal for the Human Sciences, Volume 9, 2010 http://www.kon.org/urc/v9/bakhtiarvand.html.

It is the publisher, SAGE, and the Editor’s understanding the article published in English Language Teaching is a paper extracted from Bakhtiarvand’s thesis and that Bakhtiarvand was A Majid Hayati’s student.
Developing a Framework to Measure Process-oriented Writing Competence: A Case of Vietnamese EFL Students’ Formal Portfolio Assessment
Authors: Mai Thu Duong  , Nguyen Thi Kim Cuc  , Griffin Patrick
Published: June 2011

Portfolios have gained great popularity as a method of process-oriented writing assessment in the last 20 years. Despite the apparent advantages, as with other new methods of assessment, they still raise many controversies, particularly those regarding the validity of their contents and assessment. This article describes the first stages in the process of developing the framework for assessing the performance in writing portfolios of students who speak English as a foreign language at Vietnam National University (HULIS-VNU). One of the aims is to argue for the validity of the portfolio writing competence as a construct for use in formal assessment. In terms of methodology, developmental assessment theories are integrated in a five-stage process of instrument development, which integrates qualitative and quantitative research techniques. The completion of the first two stages of the study reveals that 36 indicators, which are specifiable into 138 quality criteria, are applicable in measuring portfolio writing competence. Further validation stages are being implemented to examine these results, but the initial findings have established the assessment framework for the construct. The results indicate the feasibility of designing assessment instruments which encompass both product-oriented and process-oriented features of the writing job for formal assessment purposes and achieving a higher efficiency for performance assessment in general.
Learning Japanese by Reading ‘manga’: The Rise of ‘Soft Power Pedagogy’
Authors: Armour William Spencer
Published: June 2011

Multimodal examples of Japanese language input (such as ‘manga’ and anime) have now become the default choice for curriculum designers, material developers, and classroom teachers to make learning ‘fun’. More traditional written only text-based materials are now in direct competition with such materials. While there has been a comfortable relationship in additional language (L2) teaching between using text and image, for example, pictures, fuzzy felt boards, and now much more sophisticated technology (e.g. Rosetta Stone™) to explicitly teach the lexico-grammar, the proliferation of ‘manga’ in Japanese language textbooks and as stand alone course materials, for example, has largely been left unproblematized.

In this paper I explore three issues to using material examples of Japanese popular culture in the Japanese language classroom and beyond. First, I focus on ‘manga’ as a case study and relate it to a course that I have been teaching for the last five years using ‘manga’ as artefact. Second, I explore how using ‘manga’ and other J-pop artefacts can impact on how the notions of legitimacy and appropriateness are linked to constructions of learner and teacher identities. Third, I will introduce the concept of what I’ll call ‘soft power pedagogy’ as a way of theorizing the use and potential abuse of ‘manga’, anime and other examples of Japanese popular culture in and out of the classroom.
Lexical Bundles in the Academic Writing of Advanced Chinese EFL Learners
Authors: Yaoyu Wei  , Lei Lei
Published: June 2011

The present study investigated the use of lexical bundles in the academic writing of advanced Chinese EFL learners. A corpus of doctoral dissertations by the learners and a corpus of published journal articles by professional writers were collected for the study. Four-word lexical bundles in the two corpora were identified and analysed. Results showed that the advanced learner writers used much more lexical bundles and much more different lexical bundles in their academic writing than professional authors. Structural analysis of the bundles indicated that the learners and the professional writers used similar amount of prepositional phrases, noun phrases, be + noun/ adjectival phrases and other structures of bundles. However, the learners used more passive structures and less anticipatory it structures of bundles than the professional writers. As for the functions of the bundles, the two groups of writers used a similar amount of research-oriented and text-oriented bundles. Nevertheless, the learners used less participant-oriented bundles than the professional writers. It was argued that the overuse of passive structures and the underuse of anticipatory it structures and participant-oriented bundles may be due to the learners’ preference for the impersonality in their academic prose.
A study on curing processes and environmental effects for rapid composite repair
Authors: Elaldi Faruk , Elaldi Pelin
Published: June 2011

This article focuses on scarf joint comprised of vacuum-precured, vacuum-cocured, autoclave-procured, and autoclave-cocured composite patches bonded to autoclave- and vacuum-precured parent laminates. Autoclave- and vacuum-cured parent laminates and scarf joints were prepared and exposed to the same temperature and moisture environment for comparison. All specimens were loaded in tension at three temperatures. Interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) tests were also carried out for the parent materials. As noted, the tensile strength and ILSS decrease when the material has been exposed to moisture and tested at elevated temperature. But, no significant difference was reported for either tensile strength or ILSS between autoclave- and vacuum-cured materials. The room temperature repair efficiencies are reported for single-scarf repairs comprised of vacuum-cocured and vacuum-precured patches. These vacuum-cured repair efficiencies were found to be similar to the efficiency of the autoclave-precured patch repair. This result supports the feasibility of scarf joint repairs with precured or cocured patches under vacuum curing conditions in field-level facilities. Therefore, repairs with vacuum-precured or vacuum-cocured patches requiring less equipments seem to be a serious potential alternative to the composite patch repair requiring autoclave conditions which might be only available at depot-level maintenance centers.
Design and off-design performance of a supersonic axial flow turbine with different stator–rotor axial gaps
Authors: Grönman A , Turunen-Saaresti T
Published: June 2011

The effects of changing the stator–rotor axial gap on the performance and flow field of a low-reaction supersonic axial turbine are studied at design and off-design conditions. The objectives are gaining a better understanding of the effects and giving information and recommendations that a designer can use in his work. Three different axial gaps are modelled numerically with computational fluid dynamics at design and low off-design conditions. The geometry with the smallest axial gap is also measured at intermediate off-design conditions. The efficiency of the turbine decreases when the axial gap increases. The efficiency decrement is steeper at the off-design than the design conditions. It is concluded that the efficiency drop is mainly caused by the increased total pressure losses at the axial gap. It is recommended that the axial gap should be as small as possible. The smaller axial gap makes the rotor inlet flow angle distribution less curved, which is recommended to be taken in account when designing the turbine rotor for the studied turbine type. At the rotor outlet, the changing axial gap changes the absolute flow angle.
Compressor performance recovery system: which solution and when
Authors: Fabbri A , Traverso A , Cafaro S
Published: June 2011

During normal operation, compressor is mainly affected by fouling due to air pollution, which causes its performance to degrade over time. The main solutions to reduce compressor fouling are off-line compressor washing, on-line compressor washing, and advanced air filtration systems. Overall, the choice of the best recovery system for each gas turbine in the specific power plant is not trivial. The aim of this study is to provide a guide to identify the best washing or filter devices for a gas turbine (GT) in a specific power plant site, using literature information and GT users data.

Two procedures were conceived in order to have an user-friendly tool. ‘Best cleaning device’ was developed to help a GT user in the choice of the best devices for recovering compressor performance. Gathering information about GT performance and environmental conditions from real applicatios and literatures, a value of recommendation for each technology is provided.

‘Best cleaning time’ is based on the thermoeconomics theory of ‘best maintenance time’ and it provides the user an estimation about the best time to perform a compressor off-line or on-line washing.

Both procedures have been proved on a few real cases, showing good results and indications to more in-depth development.
A natural gas oxy-fuel semiclosed combined cycle for zero CO2 emissions: a thermodynamic optimization
Authors: Corchero G , Timón V P , Montañés J L
Published: June 2011

This article presents an optimization study of a semiclosed combined cycle for CO2 capture, based on the combined cycle (CC) gas turbine side, and where the produced water is extracted by condensation; its results are compared with those from the classic open CC. In this study, besides the overall pressure ratio (OPR) influence on the global efficiency, the influence of gas composition is also presented showing that it can change significantly the optimum OPR. Additionally, the sensitivity of the global efficiency to the maximum gas turbine temperature T4 t, gas turbine components efficiency, and cooling bleeds, the representative parameters of components technology level, is included. The optimum OPR shows that this type of cycles is not out of the current technology. Influence of gas composition on components performance maps is not considered, only some considerations on maps scaling. Also, starting from a baseline concept, some alternatives have been studied looking for a global efficiency improvement; the cooling down of the gas turbine entry conditions and the use of N2 from the air separation unit as high-pressure turbine cooling, by means of the efficiency sensitivity to the blade cooling, are considered. Finally, it also provides efficiency close to the classic open CC and inside the efficiency of related cycles.
Performance study of supercritical CO2-based solar Rankine cycle system with a novel-concept thermally driven pump
Authors: Kuwahara T , Niu X-D , Yamaguchi H , Iwamoto Y , Zhang X-R
Published: June 2011

In this article, a supercritical CO2-based solar Rankine cycle system (SRCS) with a novel-concept thermally driven pump is studied. The thermally driven pump is a refrigerant-circulating pump composed of two expansion tanks and having merits of low power consumption and high reliability in comparison with conventional mechanical pump. The application of the present thermally driven pump in the supercritical CO2-based SRCS shows that an oscillatory flow is realized in the system and the system thermal efficiency is enhanced compared to the SRCS using the mechanical feed pump.
Correlation of flow path length to total pressure loss in diffuser flows
Authors: Vad J
Published: June 2011

This article studies the effect of changing the flow path length on development of total pressure loss in diffuser flows. The studies incorporate quasi-one-dimensional (conical diffuser), two-dimensional (linear blade cascade), and three-dimensional (annular blade cascade) flows. This article concludes that the consequence of decreasing the flow path length is to decrease total pressure loss, provided that the adverse streamwise pressure gradient remains subcritical. The loss calculation technique and measurement data published by Lieblein were post-processed in this article. On this basis, this article elaborates a method for estimating the total pressure loss as well as its modification due to change of flow path length in blade cascade flows. This method can contribute to preliminary axial flow rotor blade design. It was pointed out that, in comparison to free vortex design, controlled vortex design that is applied to straight axial flow rotor blades tends to represent an additional source of total pressure loss farther from the endwalls. This is due to elongation of the length of flow paths on the blade suction side, due to intensified radial outward flow. This adverse effect can be counterbalanced by incorporation of forward sweep in controlled vortex design, via shortening the flow paths on the suction side, without the beneficial features of the controlled vortex design being lost. This article presents a literature-based comparative case study to illustrate such loss-reducing effect of incorporating forward sweep in controlled vortex design, away from the endwalls.
Computational study of hole shape effect on film cooling performance
Authors: Yao J , Yao Y F
Published: June 2011

Film cooling effectiveness has been studied by using a computational approach based on solving the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations. A wind tunnel test configuration is considered with a total of four cooling hole geometries as a cylindrical hole, a cylindrical hole with an upstream wedge (called ‘ramp’ thereafter), a shaped diffuser, and a double console slot. In all cases, the hole centreline has an inclination angle of 35° against the mainstream airflow and the blowing ratio is unity. Choosing the cylindrical model as a baseline, simulations have been carried out for grid convergence and turbulence model influence studies. Results are compared with available experimental data and other numerical predictions and good agreement has been achieved. Further computations continue with three remaining geometries, using the baseline flow conditions and configuration. Comparing to the results from the baseline model, it was found that the centreline adiabatic cooling effectiveness has shown incremental increases for the ‘ramp’ model, while results from the console slot model and the shape diffuser model have exhibited significant improvements by a factor of 1.5 and 2, respectively. The reason for such a step change in cooling effectiveness is mainly due to the weakening of the vortex structures in the vicinity of the hole exit, thus significantly reducing the entrainment of surrounding ‘hot’ fluids.
Efficiency enhancement mechanisms of a new type of full reversible axial-flow fan
Authors: Li J-Y , Guo P-H , Xi G , Chen W-W
Published: June 2011

A row of airfoil-shaped support struts has been proposed to be installed on both sides of the rotor, so as to remedy the configuration asymmetry of a conventional fully reversible fan in its forward and reverse flow modes. In the forward mode, the upstream support struts act as inlet guide vanes (GVs), and the downstream ones as outlet GVs; whereas in the reverse mode, the roles played by the two support-strut rows switch over. Among the five representative airfoils, symmetric airfoil NACA0012-64 is found to be the most suitable airfoil used as the section of the two rows of the airfoil-shaped support struts. Detailed numerical investigations on four such new fans, whose design points cover a wide range, reveal that the installation of the two rows of blades improves the performance of the new type fan, when compared with the one-rotor fully reversible axial-flow fan without such support-struts. The upstream blade row has little influence on the direction of incoming flow and causes little aerodynamic losses. By contrast, the downstream blade row plays an important role in efficiency improvements: (1) the downstream blade row, which acts as outlet GVs, significantly reduces the rotor-exit tangential velocity and recovers part of the swirl energy in the flow downstream of the rotor, although sometimes the aerodynamic losses caused by such support-strut-like outlet GVs may be high at a large incidence; (2) due to the obviously reduced tangential components of the flow velocities downstream of the outlet GV, the air travels a much shorter distance toward the exit of the annular diffuser, compared with that in the fan without outlet GVs. This leads to a markedly reduced friction loss. In addition, the larger the equivalent divergence angle of the annular diffuser is, the more effectively does the installation of the two rows of the support-strut-like blade improve the performance of the new type fans.
Effect of vaneless diffuser width on the overall performance of a centrifugal compressor
Authors: Jaatinen A , Grönman A , Turunen-Saaresti T , Röyttä P
Published: June 2011

Seven different vaneless diffuser designs varying in diffuser width are studied experimentally. One design is the basic design with the diffuser width and impeller exit and tip clearance width ratio of 1.0. The other six diffusers have width ratios of 0.903, 0.854, and 0.806. Three of the narrower diffusers have the width reduced from the shroud, and three from the hub and the shroud, divided evenly. The total-to-total efficiency and pressure ratio over the whole compressor are studied. It is possible to increase the efficiency of the compressor stage by reducing the diffuser width. The efficiency is increased over a wide operating range area at three different rotational speeds. The pressure ratios are increased at the design and low rotational speeds, but decreased at the high rotational speed. The shroud pinch seems to be more beneficial to the performance, while the hub pinch seems to have only a minor effect. The best design is the one with the width ratio of 0.854, with width reduction only at the shroud. A major finding is the experimental confirmation that the pinch influences the performance of the impeller, reducing the work input at the higher rotational speed.
The possibility of running homogeneous charge compression ignition in spark ignition and compression ignition small-scale engines
Authors: Wu Y-Y , Chen B-C , Tsai H-C , Liu T-C
Published: June 2011

Homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) is known as an advanced combustion system. Due to cost limitations, small-scale engines are not equipped with features and devices, such as variable valve timing, intake heater, etc. which facilitate HCCI combustion. This study implemented HCCI on two small-scale engines, 150 cc spark ignition (SI) and 224 cc compression ignition (CI) engines. Only minor modifications were made for keeping costs low. The compression ratio of the SI target engine was increased from 10.5 to 12.4 to enhance the compression temperature. A low-pressure injector was installed near the intake port for supplying fuel for HCCI operation both on the SI and CI target engines. From initial tests, kerosene and butanol were chosen as the major fuel for HCCI operation on SI and CI target engines, respectively. Then, a serial experiment was performed to identify methods for controlling HCCI combustion on small-scale engines. Results show that exhaust gas recirculation and blended fuel were suitable methods for controlling HCCI combustion phasing on small-scale engines and could successfully extend the torque range of HCCI combustion.
Analysis of binary cycle efficiency using Redlich–Kwong equation of state
Authors: Saunderson D J , Budiman R A
Published: June 2011

Coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants operate using various forms of Rankine cycle. A variant of Rankine cycle known as binary cycle has been implemented in power plants; yet, the optimization of binary cycles remains relatively unexplored. This article is concerned with efficiency maximization of binary cycle by investigating various working fluid materials for different operating conditions. We introduce a novel analysis approach by employing Redlich–Kwong equation of state to derive a simple, effective way to express the efficiency of binary cycles suitable for most working fluids. Five alkali metals and mercury are investigated for the topping cycle and two fluids for the bottoming cycle. The results show that for operating conditions of 1.25 MPa, 811 K, and 458 kPa, 589 K for the topping cycle and 10.6 MPa, 589 K, and 1.71 kPa, 289 K for the bottoming cycle, the mercury/ammonia combination provides the highest efficiency. For operating conditions of 1.25 MPa, 1123 K, and 458 kPa, 823 K for the topping cycle and 29 MPa, 823 K, and 4 kPa, 295 K for the bottoming cycle the mercury/ammonia combination also provides the highest efficiency. These binary cycle efficiencies are significantly higher than comparative Rankine cycle efficiencies.
Design optimization of shell and tube heat exchangers using swarm optimization algorithms
Authors: Rao R V , Patel V
Published: June 2011

This study explores the use of particle swarm optimization (PSO) and civilized swarm optimization (CSO) algorithms for design optimization of shell and tube heat exchangers from economic view point. Reliability and maintenance due to fouling are also taken into account. Two case studies are also presented and the results of optimization using PSO and CSO algorithms are compared with those obtained by using genetic algorithm (GA). The effect of variation of PSO and CSO algorithm parameters on convergence and optimum value of the objective function has also been presented.
Assessing the ‘Kerala Model’
Authors: Simister John
Published: June 2011

Kerala is often praised as being more developed, in some respects, than the rest of India: several development indicators, such as literacy rates and health, suggest that Kerala is much more successful than the rest of India. However, a growing minority of observers have expressed disappointment with Kerala. Some writers suggest Kerala is poorer than we might expect given its high literacy rate; other writers argue that women in Kerala are not as empowered as previous researchers implied. This article tests the hypothesis that successes which have been achieved by the ‘Kerala model’ are mainly a result of education. This ‘education hypothesis’ is contrasted with various other possible explanations of Kerala’s success, which suggest Kerala is unique in some way—for reason(s) which are disputed and which often seem impossible to test by scientific analysis. However, Kerala is not successful in every respect; this article examines some remaining problems in Kerala.
Is the Path to Higher Exports in India Paved with Export Zones?
Authors: Seshadri Triyakshana
Published: June 2011

Enclave based policies to promote exports, and consequently economic growth, are not new to India. India’s first export zone started in 1964 and six more central government zones were operational by the mid 1990s. However, these zones explain only a fraction of export growth rates in India. Statistics show that during the pre-reform years, these zones contributed to less than five per cent of total exports and even now contribute to less than fifteen per cent of total exports from India. There seems to be no obvious correlation between export growth and export zones that warrants the spate of new zones in the country. Partial trade liberalisation since the mid 1980s and general reforms since 1991 seems to better explain export growth.
The Politics of Starvation Deaths in West Bengal
Authors: Rubin Olivier
Published: June 2011

This article examines the local socio-political causes behind a sudden wave of starvation deaths that swept across the West Bengali village of Amlashol during the summer of 2004. Following the new paradigm of famine analysis where focus is placed on political failures, the article addresses three groups of political dynamics that together contributed to the starvation deaths: (i) political triggering mechanisms; (ii) underlying political dynamics; and (iii) village specific political dynamics. The article finds that the government’s escalating conflict with the Maoists turned a situation of chronic food insecurity into an acute hunger crisis, which was not mitigated by effective public policies at the local level due to extensive political patronage and a politicisation of the bureaucracy. Amlashol suffered disproportionally from this due to the village’s affiliation with a weak and politically marginalised panchayat. Within Amlashol, the casualties of starvation came primarily from one particular Scheduled tribe, the Sabars, due to issues of social stigmatisation, political exclusion and eroding livelihoods. The article provides a testament to the importance of addressing disaggregated political dynamics in contemporary starvation analysis.
Women’s Leadership Building as a Poverty Reduction Strategy
Authors: Higgitt Ryan
Published: June 2011

Expansion of women’s political space is a means toward empowering women typically identified in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers of less developed countries. Calls for the cultivation of women leaders in turn correspond with attempts to facilitate this expansion. Focusing on Bangladesh in particular, this article deconstructs normative notions of leadership in the context of current gender and development discourse in order to help understand the value of leadership as a women’s empowerment variable. Though leadership is a necessary adjunct to collective action, itself oft-considered crucial to social change, insight offered by third wave feminist theorists as to the fallacy of the ‘oneness of women’ raises questions as to the exact process by which a woman leader is to develop between herself and other impoverished Bangladeshi women a sense of power with—that is, to ‘collectively self-objectify’ (Drury et al. 2005). Here I offer an analysis of Bangladeshi nongovernmental organisation Nagorik Uddyog’s Grassroots Women’s Leadership Network, a programme whose methodology appears to align markedly well with Spivak’s (1987) notion of ‘strategic essentialism’, and which may serve as a useful model for how to reconcile post-modern feminism with the need for power with as a mechanism for social change.
Membership and Boundary Maintenance on an Online Self-Harm Forum
Authors: Smithson Janet , Sharkey Siobhan , Hewis Elaine , Jones Ray B. , Emmens Tobit , Ford Tamsin , Owens Christabel
Published: June 2011

In this article we explore how young adults became members and sustained membership in an online self-harm support forum, SharpTalk. We take a discursive approach to consider resources young people used to establish themselves, how others responded to their attempts, and how membership categories were developed and applied. Participants displayed expectations about appropriate ways of discussing self-harm, and about responses and advice. New posters made reference to other self-harm sites, provided biomedicalized narratives of their “story,” and asked for help in particular ways. Participants were active in shaping interactions on the forum, requesting input from site moderators, and challenging each other both on perceived infringements of posting content, and on style of posting pertinent to membership. On the SharpTalk site, perceived deviance in posting behavior, and also the giving of health care advice, were most commonly addressed by other young people who self-harmed, rather than by the site moderators. We consider implications for creating sites that enable young people who self-harm to become members and sustain membership, and therefore access support.
Developing the Institutional Capacity to Implement Large-Scale Infrastructure Projects
Authors: Pisano Mark
Published: June 2011

Implementation of new large-scale infrastructure projects and systems continues to be elusive. Using a case study approach, this article suggests that leaders who acted strategically, mobilized resources and assets that provided outcomes that were then linked to payment by users in a business plan, and satisfied multiple objectives were successful. To realize this success, new institutional designs or “rules of the game” are developed for the organizations involved in implementing the project. Implementation is possible when leaders are willing to change how they approached solving problems.
Metrics for heterogeneous scientific workflows: A case study of an earthquake science application
Authors: Callaghan Scott , Maechling Philip , Small Patrick , Milner Kevin , Juve Gideon , Jordan Thomas H , Deelman Ewa , Mehta Gaurang , Vahi Karan , Gunter Dan , Beattie Keith , Brooks Christopher
Published: June 2011

Scientific workflows are a common computational model for performing scientific simulations. They may include many jobs, many scientific codes, and many file dependencies. Since scientific workflow applications may include both high-performance computing (HPC) and high-throughput computing (HTC) jobs, meaningful performance metrics are difficult to define, as neither traditional HPC metrics nor HTC metrics fully capture the extent of the application. We describe and propose the use of alternative metrics to accurately capture the scale of scientific workflows and quantify their efficiency. In this paper, we present several specific practical scientific workflow performance metrics and discuss these metrics in the context of a large-scale scientific workflow application, the Southern California Earthquake Center CyberShake 1.0 Map calculation. Our metrics reflect both computational performance, such as floating-point operations and file access, and workflow performance, such as job and task scheduling and execution. We break down performance into three levels of granularity: the task, the workflow, and the application levels, presenting a complete view of application performance. We show how our proposed metrics can be used to compare multiple invocations of the same application, as well as executions of heterogeneous applications, quantifying the amount of work performed and the efficiency of the work. Finally, we analyze CyberShake using our proposed metrics to determine potential application optimizations.
The TheLMA project: Multi-GPU implementation of the lattice Boltzmann method
Authors: Obrecht Christian , Kuznik Frédéric , Tourancheau Bernard , Roux Jean-Jacques
Published: June 2011

In this paper, we describe the implementation of a multi-graphical processing unit (GPU) fluid flow solver based on the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). The LBM is a novel approach in computational fluid dynamics, with numerous interesting features from a computational, numerical, and physical standpoint. Our program is based on CUDA and uses POSIX threads to manage multiple computation devices. Using recently released hardware, our solver may therefore run eight GPUs in parallel, which allows us to perform simulations at a rather large scale. Performance and scalability are excellent, the speedup over sequential implementations being at least of two orders of magnitude. In addition, we discuss tiling and communication issues for present and forthcoming implementations.
When does valence matter? Heightened valence effects for governing parties during election campaigns
Authors: Abney Ronni , Adams James , Clark Michael , Easton Malcolm , Ezrow Lawrence , Kosmidis Spyros , Neundorf Anja
Published: June 2011

Empirical election studies conclude that party elites' images with respect to competence, integrity and party unity – attributes that we label character-based valence – affect their electoral support (Stone and Simas, 2010). We compile observations of media reports pertaining to governing party elites' character-based valence attributes, and we relate the content of these reports to mass support for the governing parties. We present pooled, time-series, analyses of party support and valence-related media reports in six European polities which suggest that these reports exert powerful electoral effects during election campaigns but little effect during off-election periods. This finding, which we label the Election Period Valence Effect, is consistent with previous work concluding that citizens are also more attentive to policy-based considerations and to national economic conditions around the time of elections. These findings have implications for political representation and for understanding election outcomes.
Party competition in regional elections
Authors: Libbrecht Liselotte , Maddens Bart , Swenden Wilfried
Published: June 2011

This article focuses on the electoral strategies of state-wide parties (SWPs) with regard to centre–periphery issues in regional elections. It applies Meguid’s Position–Salience–Ownership (PSO) theory to regional electoral competition in Spain and the United Kingdom. We anticipate that SWPs will seek to vary their strategies, especially in regional elections where they face fierce competition from regionalist parties. We also expect their strategies to be influenced by the SWPs' strategy in state-wide elections. The analysis reveals that the key assumptions of the PSO stack up quite well when applied to regional elections. It also reveals the influence of the multi-layered institutional context in which SWPs compete: at the regional level, said parties do not necessarily adopt the most logical strategy according to the PSO theory if this runs counter to the prevailing SWP strategy at the state-wide level.
Psychometric properties of the Caregiver Strain Questionnaire (CGSQ) among caregivers of children with autism
Authors: Khanna Rahul , Madhavan S. Suresh , Smith Michael J. , Tworek Cindy , Patrick Julie H. , Becker-Cottrill Barbara
Published: June 2011

The purpose of this study was to test the psychometric properties of the Caregiver Strain Questionnaire (CGSQ) among caregivers of children with autism. The CGSQ was originally developed to assess burden experienced by parents of children and adolescents with serious emotional and behavioral disorders. Study data was collected from 304 primary caregivers ofchildren with autism using a cross-sectional survey design. We tested the one-, two-, and three-factor CGSQ model. Though the three-factor CGSQ model fit better than the one- and two-factor model, it was still short of an acceptable fit. Minor modifications were made to the three-factor model by correlating error terms. The modified three-factor CGSQ model with correlated error indicated reasonable fit with the data. The 21-item CGSQ had good convergent validity, as indicated by the correlation of its three subscales with constructs including mental health-related quality of life, maladaptive coping, social support, family functioning, and care recipient level of functional impairment and extent of behavioral problems, respectively. The internal consistency reliability of the instrument was also good, and there were no floor and ceiling effects. The CGSQ was found to be a reliable and valid instrument to assess burden among caregivers of children with autism.
Something begotten in the state of Denmark? Immigrants, territorialized culture, and the Danes as an indigenous people
Authors: Kvaale Katja
Published: June 2011

This article is mainly of a methodological nature. It hails, unconditionally, the anthropological virtue of conducting full-fledged fieldwork among the people we study, even among those with disquieting discourses — or maybe especially them — and never to settle with discursive data alone. Seen from the angle of a scholar of indigeneity, this point is illustrated by analysing different roles of culture in political rhetoric in a comparison of immigrants in Denmark with indigenous peoples. It is argued that culture plays inverted roles in immigrants’ and indigenous peoples’ respective relationships with states, i.e. immigrants are requested to tone down their culture for the benefit of integration into the state, while, conversely, indigenous peoples are expected to demonstrate at least some cultural authenticity in order to gain special rights within the state. It is then argued that political culture in these settings is often characterized by a marked conflation of nation with state and, consequently, by a conflation of the corresponding concepts of people: ethnos with demos. The political implications of this conflation are discussed, leading to the argument that some Danes (13.8 % judging from votes) seemingly conceive of themselves as an indigenous people whose unique and territorialized natural culture is threatened from the outside by a foreign, aggressive culture. Finally, the paper criticizes the general deconstructive attitude with which academics commonly meet such vernacular essentialisms. Instead, a challenge is outlined for anthropologists to move beyond constructivism and take a real scholarly interest in the vitality of the culture concept among vernaculars in order to accumulate anthropological knowledge of these people’s lives. This requires thorough fieldwork in the alleged backwaters of any rigid cultural rhetoric, and, finally, a clarification of the politico-societal scaling of anthropological insights.
Catching the local
Authors: Lambek Michael
Published: June 2011

This paper attempts to conceptualize the local neither in exclusive relation to the global nor as a specifically spatial phenomenon but in terms of ethical life, as a conjunction of activities and their consequences. In this sense the local is singular rather than merely a specific site on a homogeneous grid and as much temporal as spatial. The argument is developed with respect to changing meanings of the local in my own ethnographic practice as well as the changes in my main field site in Mayotte, Western Indian Ocean. The depiction of activities draws from and develops the conceptual scheme of Hannah Arendt.
We have never been only human: Foucault and Latour on the question of the anthropos
Authors: Pyyhtinen Olli , Tamminen Sakari
Published: June 2011

Today, the impact of the work of both Michel Foucault and Bruno Latour is increasingly evident in anthropology, most notably in the subfields of medical anthropology and the anthropology of science and technology. However, so far the oeuvres of these two thinkers have not been compared in a systematic fashion in the secondary literature. The present consideration intends a sustained comparison of their work to the end of problematizing the notion of the human or the anthropos. We suggest that both Foucault and Latour provide us with vital means to question human exceptionalism. Instead of calling upon the essence of human subjectivity by drawing on the notion of intentionality, for instance, they break open the interiority and autonomous hidden essence of the human. While Foucault does this mainly with his notion of the death of Man, Latour’s work calls human essence into question by asserting the respective birth of non-humanity. We argue that it is especially the two thinkers’ mutual concern with relationality that makes their work central to recent discussions of ‘posthumanism’ by proposing a form of ‘ahumanism’. However, at the same time Foucault and Latour tend to neglect the ‘outside’ of relations, although both see it as providing the resources for every assemblage.
Contesting the social impact of marketing: A re-characterization of women’s fashion advertising
Authors: Phillips Barbara J. , McQuarrie Edward F.
Published: June 2011

The prevailing view is that imagery in fashion advertising is idealized, and that repeated exposure to the gap between ideal and real is toxic to women’s self-esteem, providing prima facie evidence for the negative impact of the marketing system on vulnerable consumers. We challenge this view of fashion ad imagery by means of content analyses and a survey supplemented by interviews. The prevailing view is shown to be ideologically rather than empirically based, and to confuse fashion with other quite different product categories. We conclude by discussing how fashion advertising, once cleared of this ideological debris, provides an opportunity to extend marketing theory to account for a broader range of consumer response across product categories. We also develop the concept of taste goods, such as fashion clothing, as a site where novel routes to persuasion can be studied.