WorldWideScience

Sample records for special issue societal

  1. Ethical issues and societal expectations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Metlay, D.

    2010-01-01

    Daniel Metlay (NWTRB) declared that institutions had always recognised an ethical obligation to manage high- level radioactive waste in unprecedented ways. This obligation has not only endured, but has become more explicit and multidimensional and it now subsumed under a more general rubric of 'societal expectations'. D. Metlay directed attention toward the proceedings of previous RWMC-RF workshop ', which contains five essays, authored by Kjell Andersson, Andrew Blowers, Carl-Reinhold Braakenhielm, Francois Dermange, and Patricia Fleming, that are relevant to the question of ethical issues and societal expectations. D. Metlay observed that 'societal expectations' are hard to define and thus very hard to measure. They may vary considerably with time and from country to country. As an illustration he referred to an inquiry performed by a task group 30 years ago in a document entitled 'Proposed Goals for Radioactive Waste Management' (NUREG-0300) on behalf of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Conclusions from D. Metlay are that, for the most part, societal expectations in the United States appear to be quite stable over a period of more than 30 years. In two areas, however, there are clear differences in emphasis between expectations articulated in the last few years and those recorded in 1978. (1) While then there was emphasis on the operational reliability of organisations and institutions. In particular, much care was taken to discuss the inherent limitations on bureaucratic error-correction in the future. The focus is nowadays more on bureaucratic behaviours associated with carrying out decision-making processes in the present. (2) While there is current emphasis on the importance of trust, transparency, and accountability, the NRC document may cast some doubt on the reliability of a stepwise decision-making process. In the domain of radioactive waste management, error signals are notoriously unclear, and strong disagreements over objectives and value trade

  2. Physics of societal issues calculations on national security, environment, and energy

    CERN Document Server

    Hafemeister, David

    2007-01-01

    Why this book on the Physics of Societal Issues? The subdivisions of physics - nuclear physics, particle physics, condensed-matter physics, biophysics - have their textbooks, while the subdivision of physics and society lacks an equation-oriented text on the physics of arms, energy and the environment. Physics of Societal Issues is intended for undergraduate and doctoral students who may work on applied topics, or who simply want to know why things are the way they are. Decisions guiding policies on nuclear arms, energy and the environment often seem mysterious and contradictory. What is the science behind the deployment of MIRVed ICBMs, the quest for space-based beam weapons, the fear of powerline EM fields, the wholesale acceptance of SUVs, the issues of climactic change, and the failure of the pre-embargo market to produce buildings and appliances that now save over 50 power plants? Physics of Societal Issues is three "mini-texts" in one: National Security (5 chapters): Weapons, offense, defense, verificat...

  3. Regarding Societal Change

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Leda Blackwood

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available In this paper we introduce our special thematic section on societal change. We begin by providing an overview of the aims of the section, and how these aims grew out of a need to address conceptual and empirical challenges in the study of societal change. In response to these challenges, the section was intended to provide a forum for theoretical and empirical work from a range of disciplinary perspectives on how societies change, and how such change can be understood. Together, the contributions argue for (1 the need to contextualize the study of societal change, (2 the value of considering factors and processes other than collective action in transforming societies, (3 the importance of ideology and its operation through social institutions such as news media, and (4 an imperative to ensure that our research is fully engaged with society in terms of its grounding in social issues, its sensitivity to our own social context as researchers, and in its practices and outcomes.

  4. Awareness of Societal Issues among High School Biology Teachers Teaching Genetics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lazarowitz, Reuven; Bloch, Ilit

    2005-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate how aware high school biology teachers are of societal issues (values, moral, ethic, and legal issues) while teaching genetics, genetics engineering, molecular genetics, human heredity, and evolution. The study includes a short historical review of World War II atrocities during the Holocaust when…

  5. Broader Societal Issues of Nanotechnology

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Roco, M.C.

    2003-01-01

    Nanoscale science and engineering are providing unprecedented understanding and control over the basic building blocks of matter, leading to increased coherence in knowledge, technology, and education. The main reason for developing nanotechnology is to advance broad societal goals such as improved comprehension of nature, increased productivity, better healthcare, and extending the limits of sustainable development and of human potential. This paper outlines societal implication activities in nanotechnology R and D programs. The US National Nanotechnology Initiative annual investment in research with educational and societal implications is estimated at about $30 million (of which National Science Foundation (NSF) awards about $23 million including contributions to student fellowships), and in nanoscale research with relevance to environment at about $50 million (of which NSF awards about $30 million and EPA about $6 million). An appeal is made to researchers and funding organizations worldwide to take timely and responsible advantage of the new technology for economic and sustainable development, to initiate societal implications studies from the beginning of the nanotechnology programs, and to communicate effectively the goals and potential risks with research users and the public

  6. Broader Societal Issues of Nanotechnology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roco, M. C.

    2003-08-01

    Nanoscale science and engineering are providing unprecedented understanding and control over the basic building blocks of matter, leading to increased coherence in knowledge, technology, and education. The main reason for developing nanotechnology is to advance broad societal goals such as improved comprehension of nature, increased productivity, better healthcare, and extending the limits of sustainable development and of human potential. This paper outlines societal implication activities in nanotechnology R&D programs. The US National Nanotechnology Initiative annual investment in research with educational and societal implications is estimated at about 30 million (of which National Science Foundation (NSF) awards about 23 million including contributions to student fellowships), and in nanoscale research with relevance to environment at about 50 million (of which NSF awards about 30 million and EPA about 6 million). An appeal is made to researchers and funding organizations worldwide to take timely and responsible advantage of the new technology for economic and sustainable development, to initiate societal implications studies from the beginning of the nanotechnology programs, and to communicate effectively the goals and potential risks with research users and the public.

  7. Broader Societal Issues of Nanotechnology

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Roco, M.C. [National Science Foundation (NSF) (United States)], E-mail: mroco@nsf.gov

    2003-08-15

    Nanoscale science and engineering are providing unprecedented understanding and control over the basic building blocks of matter, leading to increased coherence in knowledge, technology, and education. The main reason for developing nanotechnology is to advance broad societal goals such as improved comprehension of nature, increased productivity, better healthcare, and extending the limits of sustainable development and of human potential. This paper outlines societal implication activities in nanotechnology R and D programs. The US National Nanotechnology Initiative annual investment in research with educational and societal implications is estimated at about $30 million (of which National Science Foundation (NSF) awards about $23 million including contributions to student fellowships), and in nanoscale research with relevance to environment at about $50 million (of which NSF awards about $30 million and EPA about $6 million). An appeal is made to researchers and funding organizations worldwide to take timely and responsible advantage of the new technology for economic and sustainable development, to initiate societal implications studies from the beginning of the nanotechnology programs, and to communicate effectively the goals and potential risks with research users and the public.

  8. In Defense of Societal Issues as Organizers for School Science.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yager, Robert E.

    1983-01-01

    Offers a defense of societal issues as organizers for school science programs in response to criticisms of this thesis discussed in SE 534 649. Indicates that there appears to be no evidence that using nontraditional topics as organizers will make science more subject to manipulation and perversion. (JN)

  9. Empowering Graduate Students to Lead on Interdisciplinary Societal Issues

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grubert, E.

    2015-12-01

    Challenging societal problems that cannot be solved by one method or one discipline alone, like epidemic preparedness, mental health, and climate change, demand leadership and the ability to work across disciplines from those with specialized expertise. Teaching leadership at the graduate school level is a challenge that many schools are striving to meet, through mechanisms like project-based courses, leadership skill development workshops, and others. We argue that some of the most valuable but most difficult leadership skills to learn are those that require cultural norms that are fundamentally different from those traditionally encountered in graduate school. These include the ability to make informed decisions based on limited knowledge and resources, the need to make choices in the face of uncertainty, and the recognition that one ultimately bears responsibility for the outcomes. These skills are also among the most important for students planning on nonacademic careers. Acquiring such skills requires a focus on learning-by-doing and a culture of graduate student empowerment. This submission focuses on the experience of students in a student-centered, interdisciplinary, cross-campus leadership program called Emerging Leaders in Science and Society (ELISS), hosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). ELISS establishes the expectation that students act as leaders, which in itself reframes leadership as an achievable goal. A major finding from two years of experience with ELISS is the critical importance of establishing cultures of trust and empowerment at the graduate level in order to foster development of transferable skills. ELISS graduate students specifically focus on interdisciplinary collaboration (the 13 2015 fellows come from 13 academic disciplines); stakeholder engagement, primarily focused on outreach to both traditional and nontraditional experts in our communities outside of academia; and solution-generating rather

  10. Special Issue to publish

    OpenAIRE

    Kllogjeri, Pellumb

    2015-01-01

    SciencePG has offered an email poster to help collect papers for our Special Issue and I have uploaded it for you. Please visit http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/specialissue/149002  to see our Special Issue announcement. Now, you can do the followings to personally contribute and promote our Special Issue:1. Submit your paper related to the topics of interest 2. Upload it to your personal websites.3. Upload it to the public websites of some universities and academic institutions...

  11. Character and Citizenship Education: Conversations between Personal and Societal Values

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sim, Jasmine B.-Y.; Low, Ee Ling

    2012-01-01

    The theme of this special issue is "Character and Citizenship Education: Conversations between Personal and Societal Values." Character education and citizenship education, taken separately or as a single entity are currently riding high on the political and educational policy agendas of several governments (Arthur, 2003; Berkowitz & Bier, 2007;…

  12. Societal and ethical issues in human biomonitoring – a view from science studies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bauer Susanne

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Human biomonitoring (HBM has rapidly gained importance. In some epidemiological studies, the measurement and use of biomarkers of exposure, susceptibility and disease have replaced traditional environmental indicators. While in HBM, ethical issues have mostly been addressed in terms of informed consent and confidentiality, this paper maps out a larger array of societal issues from an epistemological perspective, i.e. bringing into focus the conditions of how and what is known in environmental health science. Methods In order to analyse the effects of HBM and the shift towards biomarker research in the assessment of environmental pollution in a broader societal context, selected analytical frameworks of science studies are introduced. To develop the epistemological perspective, concepts from "biomedical platform sociology" and the notion of "epistemic cultures" and "thought styles" are applied to the research infrastructures of HBM. Further, concepts of "biocitizenship" and "civic epistemologies" are drawn upon as analytical tools to discuss the visions and promises of HBM as well as related ethical problematisations. Results In human biomonitoring, two different epistemological cultures meet; these are environmental science with for instance pollution surveys and toxicological assessments on the one hand, and analytical epidemiology investigating the association between exposure and disease in probabilistic risk estimation on the other hand. The surveillance of exposure and dose via biomarkers as envisioned in HBM is shifting the site of exposure monitoring to the human body. Establishing an HBM platform faces not only the need to consider individual decision autonomy as an ethics issue, but also larger epistemological and societal questions, such as the mode of evidence demanded in science, policy and regulation. Conclusion The shift of exposure monitoring towards the biosurveillance of human populations involves fundamental

  13. 19 (Special Issue)

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    mwakagugu

    19 (Special Issue). Tanzania Dental Journal 2017. 1. PRESIDENTS SPEECH AT THE OPENING CEREMONY OF THE TANZANIA DENTAL. ASSOCIATION 31ST SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE AND .... awareness on oral health issues, high tooth decay, gum diseases and predominant tooth extraction as consistently reported ...

  14. ICSSP 2015–Special Issue Introduction

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pfahl, Dietmar; Kuhrmann, Marco; Bendraou, Reda

    2016-01-01

    Introduction to the Special Issue of the International Conference on Software and System Process......Introduction to the Special Issue of the International Conference on Software and System Process...

  15. Are life-extending treatments for terminal illnesses a special case? Exploring choices and societal viewpoints.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McHugh, Neil; van Exel, Job; Mason, Helen; Godwin, Jon; Collins, Marissa; Donaldson, Cam; Baker, Rachel

    2018-02-01

    Criteria used by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to assess life-extending, end-of-life (EoL) treatments imply that health gains from such treatments are valued more than other health gains. Despite claims that the policy is supported by societal values, evidence from preference elicitation studies is mixed and in-depth research has shown there are different societal viewpoints. Few studies elicit preferences for policies directly or combine different approaches to understand preferences. Survey questions were designed to investigate support for NICE EoL guidance at national and regional levels. These 'Decision Rule' and 'Treatment Choice' questions were administered to an online sample of 1496 UK respondents in May 2014. The same respondents answered questions designed to elicit their agreement with three viewpoints (previously identified and described) in relation to provision of EoL treatments for terminally ill patients. We report the findings of these choice questions and examine how they relate to each other and respondents' viewpoints. The Decision Rule questions described three policies: DA - a standard 'value for money' test, applied to all health technologies; DB - giving special consideration to all treatments for terminal illnesses; and DC - giving special consideration to specific categories of treatments for terminal illnesses e.g. life extension (as in NICE EoL guidance) or those that improve quality-of-life (QoL). Three Treatment Choices were presented: TA - improving QoL for patients with a non-terminal illness; TB - extending life for EoL patients; and TC - improving QoL at the EoL. DC received most support (45%) with most respondents giving special consideration to EoL only when treatments improved QoL. The most commonly preferred treatment choices were TA (51%) and TC (43%). Overall, this study challenges claims about public support for NICE's EoL guidance and the focus on life extension at EoL and substantiates

  16. Preservation of Agricultural Land as an Issue of Societal Importance

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elin Slätmo

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Based on concerns about food security and food sovereignty, it is appropriate to scrutinise societal measures for protecting agricultural land from conversion to other uses. Changes from agricultural to urban land use are particularly problematic, as they are largely irreversible. By analysing relevant Swedish policy, the present study investigated how the protection of agricultural land is framed as an issue of societal importance. Protection of agricultural land is enshrined in Swedish law, but its use is still continually changing to housing and other constructions. In a structured policy analysis, two questions were examined: (1 what are the societal motives for protecting agricultural land in Sweden, and (2 how do these motives influence the governance of agricultural land? The meaning of ‘national importance’, ‘suitable for cultivation’ and ‘significant national interests’ in Swedish land-use law was also analysed. The results showed that formulations in the law reflect the ambivalent discourses on agricultural land preservation and that the Swedish authorities view other land uses as more important than agriculture. The Swedish governance system is currently built on trust that municipal institutions will make satisfactory decisions concerning land and water use. However, it has been shown that these decisions have not been satisfactory concerning the protection of agricultural land, and it is important to acknowledge that the sum of local decisions can be degrading for these life-supporting resources. The present analysis revealed a looming conflict between the preservation of soils for food production, on one hand, and local participation in decision making, on the other. This raises the question of whether it is more important to defend subsidiarity or to preserve certain resources which are important for food security, such as agricultural land.

  17. Editorial: Special issue on education

    OpenAIRE

    Masal Ercan; Önder İsmail; Çalışkan Hüseyin; Beşoluk Şenol; Demirhan Eda

    2017-01-01

    This special issue consists of selected proceedings presented in ERPA International Congresses on Education 2017 which was held in Budapest / Hungary, 18-21 May 2017. Studies are related to educational sciences, science and mathematics education, social sciences education, health and sports science education, music and fine arts education, computer education and instructional technology, language education and management of education. There are eighty valuable studies in this special issue. I...

  18. Utilizing Earth Observations for Societal Issues

    Science.gov (United States)

    Habib, Shahid

    2010-01-01

    Over the last four decades a tremendous progress has been made in the Earth science space-based remote sensing observations, technologies and algorithms. Such advancements have improved the predictability by providing lead-time and accuracy of forecast in weather, climate, natural hazards, and natural resources. It has further reduced or bounded the overall uncertainties by partially improving our understanding of planet Earth as an integrated system that is governed by non-linear and chaotic behavior. Many countries such as the US, European Community, Japan, China, Russia, India has and others have invested billions of dollars in developing and launching space-based assets in the low earth (LEO) and geostationary (GEO) orbits. However, the wealth of this scientific knowledge that has potential of extracting monumental socio-economic benefits from such large investments have been slow in reaching the public and decision makers. For instance, there are a number of areas such as water resources and availability, energy forecasting, aviation safety, agricultural competitiveness, disaster management, air quality and public health, which can directly take advantage. Nevertheless, we all live in a global economy that depends on access to the best available Earth Science information for all inhabitants of this planet. This presentation discusses a process to transition Earth science data and products for societal needs including NASA's experience in achieving such objectives. It is important to mention that there are many challenges and issues that pertain to a number of areas such as: (1) difficulties in making a speedy transition of data and information from observations and models to relevant Decision Support Systems (DSS) or tools, (2) data and models inter-operability issues, (3) limitations of spatial, spectral and temporal resolution, (4) communication limitations as dictated by the availability of image processing and data compression techniques. Additionally, the

  19. Physics of societal issues calculations on national security, environment, and energy

    CERN Document Server

    Hafemeister, David

    2014-01-01

    This book provides the reader with essential tools needed to analyze complex societal issues and demonstrates the transition from physics to modern-day laws and treaties. This second edition features new equation-oriented material and extensive data sets drawing upon current information from experts in their fields. Problems to challenge the reader and extend discussion are presented on three timely issues:   •        National Security: Weapons, Offense, Defense, Verification, Nuclear Proliferation, Terrorism •        Environment: Air/Water, Nuclear, Climate Change, EM Fields/Epidemiology •        Energy: Current Energy Situation, Buildings, Solar Buildings, Renewable  Energy, Enhanced End-Use Efficiency, Transportation, Economics   Praise for the first edition: "This insight is needed in Congress and the Executive Branch. Hafemeister, a former Congressional fellow with wide Washington experience, has written a book for physicists, chemists and engineers who want to learn science...

  20. Editorial: Special issue on education

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Masal Ercan

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available This special issue consists of selected proceedings presented in ERPA International Congresses on Education 2017 which was held in Budapest / Hungary, 18-21 May 2017. Studies are related to educational sciences, science and mathematics education, social sciences education, health and sports science education, music and fine arts education, computer education and instructional technology, language education and management of education. There are eighty valuable studies in this special issue. In sum the results of studies will contribute to the field.

  1. Special Issue Editorial

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    While this special issue focuses on work in the South African context, ... practice) with youth addresses the key imperatives of (un)employment, age, ... patterns of male control over sexual encounters and women's sexuality are emergent ... in the paper by Ngabaza, Bojarczuk, Masuku and Roelfse, titled, 'Empowering young.

  2. Editorial: Special Issue on Experimental Vibration Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Serra, Roger

    2018-04-01

    The vibratory analyses are particularly present today in the various fields of industry, from aeronautics to manufacturing, from machining and maintenance to civil engineering, to mention a few areas, which have made this special issue a true need. The International Journal of Mechanics & Industry compiles a Special Issue on Experimental Vibration Analysis. More than thirty manuscripts were received by the international scientific committee on the 6th congress AVE2016 and only eight papers have been selected after completing a careful and rigorous peer-review process for the Special Issue, which are briefly summarized below.

  3. YOUNG INVESTIGATOR SPECIAL ISSUE (Editorial

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eric Eils

    2004-11-01

    Full Text Available Welcome to the first Young Investigator Special Issue of the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine (JSSM. The JSSM family is proud to start this new service to the Sport Science community and to young researchers. The background in starting this issue was the observation that large amounts of high-quality research is conducted every year by students and young investigators, but often remains solely in local university libraries and never reaches the scientific community or databases. In addition, most international journals have a high threshold in accepting papers, and it is often hard to reach this level for junior scientists because of lack of experience, supervision or confidence. These are major reasons that delay or in some cases stop young researchers from publishing their valuable work. We all received help from senior colleagues in the beginning of our career. Now it is our turn to help youngsters. With this special issue, the JSSM is now serving young researchers as a channel for publishing their work. Our goal is to motivate young researchers to submit their work to JSSM, but we also aim to motivate supervisors and expert referees to be supportive and constructive towards these young scientists at the very beginning of their career. The Young Investigator Special Issue followed a normal peer-review process, except that there were no straight rejections in the first phase of review. We advised the reviewers of the Young Investigator Special Issue to proceed with constructive advice and remarks for all manuscripts. This offered a great opportunity for the Young Investigators to revise the manuscript, while at the same time contributing to the learning process. Thereafter, if the revisions were properly conducted according to the remarks from reviewers, the manuscripts were accepted for publication. We have received many manuscripts from young researchers with a lot of potential. There has been plenty of evidence of great talent

  4. Introduction to the special issue

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gorka Elordieta

    2007-06-01

    Full Text Available For the past few years there has been an intense and increasing collaboration effort between researchers working on the Iberian languages, and this is particularly true in the realm of phonetics and phonology. The 'Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 'has played a role in contributing to stimulate such a collaborative research focusing on the Iberian languages: first with a Special Issue on 'Variation and Change in the Iberian Languages: the Peninsula and Beyond', and now with a Special Issue on the 'Prosody of Ibero-Romance and Related Languages'. In fact, to broaden its scope of coverage to the Iberian languages has become an explicit goal of the journal. As guest-editors of this issue, we are very pleased to be able to contribute to this objective, which we find an extremely fruitful one.

  5. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2017-02-15

    Feb 15, 2017 ... Research Article. Special Issue ... In myriad studies implemented, the quality of life has been defined in different ways among which the .... service and trading users in living area. ... market, bakery, barber shop, restaurant, etc.

  6. Special issue on asteroids - Introduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Novaković, Bojan; Hsieh, Henry H.; Gronchi, Giovanni F.

    2018-04-01

    The articles in this special issue are devoted to asteroids, small solar system bodies that primarily populate a region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, known as the asteroid belt, but can also be found throughout the Solar System. Asteroids are considered to be a key to understanding the formation and evolution of our planetary system. Their properties allow us to test current theoretical models and develop new theoretical concepts pertaining to evolutionary processes in the Solar System. There have been major advances in asteroid science in the last decade, and that trend continues. Eighteen papers accepted for this special issue cover a wide range of asteroid-related subjects, pushing the boundaries of our understanding of these intriguing objects even further. Here we provide the reader with a brief overview of these thrilling papers, with an invitation for interested scientists to read each work in detail for a better understanding of these recent cutting edge results. As many topics in asteroid science remain open challenges, we hope that this special issue will be an important reference point for future research on this compelling topic.

  7. Special issue: Plasma Conversion

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nozaki, T.; Bogaerts, A.; Tu, X.; van de Sanden, M. C. M.

    2017-01-01

    With growing concern of energy and environmental issues, the combination of plasma and heterogeneous catalysts receives special attention in greenhouse gas conversion, nitrogen fixation and hydrocarbon chemistry. Plasma gas conversion driven by renewable electricity is particularly important for the

  8. Special issue on quantum physics with non-Hermitian operators Special issue on quantum physics with non-Hermitian operators

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bender, Carl M.; Fring, Andreas; Guenther, Uwe; Jones, Hugh F.

    2012-01-01

    This is a call for contributions to a special issue of Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical dedicated to quantum physics with non-Hermitian operators. The main motivation behind this special issue is to gather together recent results, developments and open problems in this rapidly evolving field of research in a single comprehensive volume. We expect that such a special issue will become a valuable reference for the broad scientific community working in mathematical and theoretical physics. The issue will be open to all contributions containing new results on non-Hermitian theories which are explicitly PT-symmetric and/or pseudo-Hermitian or quasi-Hermitian. The main novelties in the past years in this area have been many experimental observations, realizations, and applications of PT symmetric Hamiltonians in optics and microwave cavities. We especially invite contributions on the theoretical interpretations of these recent PT-symmetric experiments and on theoretical proposals for new experiments. Editorial policy The Guest Editors for this issue are Carl Bender, Andreas Fring, Uwe Guenther and Hugh Jones. The areas and topics for this issue include, but are not limited to: spectral problems novel properties of complex optical potentials PT-symmetry related threshold lasers and spectral singularities construction of metric operators scattering theory supersymmetric theories Lie algebraic and Krein-space methods random matrix models classical and semi-classical models exceptional points in model systems operator theoretic approaches microwave cavities aspects of integrability and exact solvability field theories with indefinite metric All contributions will be refereed and processed according to the usual procedure of the journal. Papers should report original and significant research that has not already been published. Guidelines for preparation of contributions The deadline for contributed papers will be 31 March 2012. This deadline will allow the

  9. Special Issue: War, violence and masculinities

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    2015-01-01

    This special double issue of NORMA explore the mutual influences between violence, war and masculinities, the forms these have taken in different social and cultural contexts and the implications for masculinity research. The issues cover a range of historical and current topics, cases and analyt......This special double issue of NORMA explore the mutual influences between violence, war and masculinities, the forms these have taken in different social and cultural contexts and the implications for masculinity research. The issues cover a range of historical and current topics, cases...... and analytical approaches. The contributions fall into the following four themes: violent masculine rituals and how contemporary societies cope with extreme violence against women; popular written and visual fiction about war and masculine rationalities; gender relations in social movements of rebellions...

  10. Special Issue: “Molecules against Alzheimer”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michael Decker

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available This Special Issue, entitled “Molecules against Alzheimer”, gathers a number of original articles, short communications, and review articles on recent research efforts toward the development of novel drug candidates, diagnostic agents and therapeutic approaches for Alzheimer’s disease (AD, the most prevalent neurodegenerative disorder and a leading cause of death worldwide. This Special Issue contains many interesting examples describing the design, synthesis, and pharmacological profiling of novel compounds that hit one or several key biological targets, such as cholinesterases, β-amyloid formation or aggregation, monoamine oxidase B, oxidative stress, biometal dyshomeostasis, mitochondrial dysfunction, serotonin and/or melatonin systems, the Wnt/β-catenin pathway, sigma receptors, nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase, or nuclear erythroid 2-related factor. The development of novel AD diagnostic agents based on tau protein imaging and the use of lithium or intranasal insulin for the prevention or the symptomatic treatment of AD is also covered in some articles of the Special Issue.

  11. Special issue on coherent states: mathematical and physical aspects Special issue on coherent states: mathematical and physical aspects

    Science.gov (United States)

    Twareque Ali, Syed; Antoine, Jean-Pierre; Bagarello, Fabio; Gazeau, Jean-Pierre

    2011-07-01

    This is a call for contributions to a special issue of Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical dedicated to coherent states. The motivation behind this special issue is to gather in a single comprehensive volume the main aspects (past and present), latest developments, different viewpoints and directions being followed in this multidisciplinary field. Given the impressive development of the field in the past two decades, the topicality of such a volume can hardly be overemphasized. We strongly believe that such a special issue could become a particularly valuable reference for the broad scientific community working in mathematical and theoretical physics, as well as in signal processing and mathematics. Editorial policy The Guest Editors for this issue will be Syed Twareque Ali, Jean-Pierre Antoine, Fabio Bagarello and Jean-Pierre Gazeau. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, developments in the theory and applications of coherent states in: quantum optics, optomechanics, Bose-Einstein condensates quantum information, quantum measurement signal processing quantum gravity pseudo-Hermitian quantum mechanics supersymmetric quantum mechanics non-commutative quantum mechanics quantization theory harmonic and functional analysis operator theory Berezin-Toeplitz operators, PT-symmetric operators holomorphic representation theory, reproducing kernel spaces generalization of coherent states All contributions will be refereed and processed according to the usual procedure of the journal. Papers should report original and significant research that has not already been published. Guidelines for preparation of contributions The deadline for contributed papers will be 31 October 2011. This deadline will allow the special issue to appear before the end of May 2012 There is a nominal page limit of 15 printed pages per contribution (invited review papers can be longer). For papers exceeding this limit, the Guest Editors reserve the right to request a

  12. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-02-01

    Feb 1, 2018 ... the Russian philosophical and sociological thought. The thoughts of the Russian scientist ... Research Article. Special Issue. Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0. International License. Libraries Resource Directory. We are ...

  13. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2017-10-05

    Oct 5, 2017 ... Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences. ISSN 1112-9867. Available online at http://www.jfas.info. Research Article. Special Issue .... of use. Three critical success factors of e-learning (instructor characteristics, student characteristics .... Total of 95 questionnaires were used for further data analysis.

  14. Special Issue: Candida and Candidiasis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jeniel E. Nett

    2018-06-01

    Full Text Available This special issue highlights emerging topics related to Candida, the most prevalent fungal pathogen in the hospital setting. The advantages and limitations of new, non-culture based diagnostic techniques are discussed. The issue reviews mammalian and non-mammalian infection models. The manuscripts present updates on several molecular mechanisms of pathogenicity, including filamentation, biofilm formation, and phospholipid production.

  15. Senior Seminar Focusing on Societal Issues Related to Chemistry and Biochemistry

    Science.gov (United States)

    White, Harold B., III; Johnston, Murray V.; Panar, Manuel

    2000-12-01

    The lack of a clearly defined content or structure provided the opportunity to transform a one-credit, pass-fail senior seminar course into a meaningful capstone experience for chemistry and biochemistry majors. In addition to individual and class exercises associated with employment, graduate school, communication skills, and professional ethics, small groups of students worked together to create informative Web sites that took positions on important societal issues related to chemistry. Each group presented a seminar and responded to questions from their peers and two or more unannounced visitors, "wild cards" who often had expertise in the seminar topic. Throughout the course, the instructors placed particular emphasis on developing students' ability to work cooperatively, locate and evaluate information, make informed judgments based on available information, and logically develop and defend their positions. Input from a retired industrial chemist helped define these skill elements.

  16. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2016-05-15

    May 15, 2016 ... Research Article. Special Issue. Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0. International License. ... innovation is defined as: accepting ideas or behaviors in the organization that are novel and unfamiliar. Innovation can be in form ...

  17. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2017-10-05

    Oct 5, 2017 ... We are listed under Research Associations. D THAT USES A ... Clinical Engineering, Toin University of Yokohama, Yokohama, Aoba ... Special Issue ..... advisable to run the prognosis results at least one hundred times with the Euclidean and ... They are some of the topics left for future research. 5.

  18. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2018-01-15

    Jan 15, 2018 ... Journal of Fundamental and Applied Scienc. ISSN 1112-9867 ... (0.9623, 0.3857) and (0.9975, ity, temperature, CO, UVB and. 10 concentration. In by using ANN or Fit model. Research Article. Special Issue .... The EM algorithm is a simple computational implementation to find the posterior mode. Fig.

  19. Overview of Special Issue

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hiemstra, Djoerd; Harman, Donna; Allan, James; Kelly, Diane; Belkin, Nicholas J.; Bennet, Paul; Callan, Jamie; Clarke, Charles; Diaz, Fernando; Dumais, Susan; Ferro, Nicola; Harman, Donna; Ruthven, Ian; Sakai, Tetsuya; Smucker, Mark D.; Zobel, Justin

    2017-01-01

    This special issue of SIGIR Forum marks the 40th anniversary of the ACM SIGIR Conference by showcasing papers selected for the ACM SIGIR Test of Time Award from the years 1978-2001. These papers document the history and evolution of IR research and practice, and illustrate the intellectual impact

  20. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2016-06-05

    Jun 5, 2016 ... because Amir al- Mu'minin's(peace be upon him) name is related to human perfection and. Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences. ISSN 1112-9867. Available online at http://www.jfas.info. Research Article. Special Issue. Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences is licensed under a Creative ...

  1. Call for another special issue / book

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bostenaru Dan, M.

    2009-04-01

    We would like to continue the series of special issue or maybe edit a book on this topic. To complete the formerly edited special issues we would like to link natural hazards research to cultural heritage research. We see a way of doing this connected to "integrated conservation", which sees the involvment of urban planning in conservation, as well as the (urban) sociology, the integration of the user, the participatism. We further call for investigation of GIS applications for the investigation of natural hazards' impact in this field. We are open for further ideas and wait for you at the Splinter meeting.

  2. Special Issue: Selected papers from ECS'97

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    1999-01-01

    This Special Issue of Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing presents extended versions of selected papers from the First Electronic Circuits and Systems Conference (ECS'97) which was held on September 4-5, 1997, in Bratislava, Slovakia.......This Special Issue of Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing presents extended versions of selected papers from the First Electronic Circuits and Systems Conference (ECS'97) which was held on September 4-5, 1997, in Bratislava, Slovakia....

  3. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2017-10-17

    Oct 17, 2017 ... Perak, Malaysia was observed under ral waste in powder and xtract generated optimum produce highest length of fectively improved shoot ed faster effect on C. ed positive result for the shed light on how the Z. C. nutans. This study ld application. pagation; Zea mays stem. Research Article. Special Issue ...

  4. Guest Editorial Special Issue on Human Computing

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Pantic, Maja; Santos, E.; Pentland, A.; Nijholt, Antinus

    2009-01-01

    The seven articles in this special issue focus on human computing. Most focus on two challenging issues in human computing, namely, machine analysis of human behavior in group interactions and context-sensitive modeling.

  5. Cybernetics and Education (Special Issue)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kopstein, Felix F., Ed.

    1977-01-01

    This is a special issue examining the potential of cybernetics in educational technology. Articles discuss: cybernetic methods, algorithms, feedback learning theory, a structural approach to behavioral objectives and criterion-referenced testing, task specifications and diagnosis, teacher-child interaction, educational development, teaching…

  6. Special Issue: Engineering Digital Transformation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Julio J. Garcia-Sabater

    2018-04-01

    We gratefully acknowledge the authors and particularly the reviewers, whose valuable comments have improved the quality of the selected papers, which were extended (and again reviewed by pairs after the conference in order to be published in this Special Issue.

  7. Special issue on cluster algebras in mathematical physics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Di Francesco, Philippe; Gekhtman, Michael; Kuniba, Atsuo; Yamazaki, Masahito

    2014-02-01

    This is a call for contributions to a special issue of Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical dedicated to cluster algebras in mathematical physics. Over the ten years since their introduction by Fomin and Zelevinsky, the theory of cluster algebras has witnessed a spectacular growth, first and foremost due to the many links that have been discovered with a wide range of subjects in mathematics and, increasingly, theoretical and mathematical physics. The main motivation of this special issue is to gather together reviews, recent developments and open problems, mainly from a mathematical physics viewpoint, into a single comprehensive issue. We expect that such a special issue will become a valuable reference for the broad scientific community working in mathematical and theoretical physics. The issue will consist of invited review articles and contributed papers containing new results on the interplays of cluster algebras with mathematical physics. Editorial policy The Guest Editors for this issue are Philippe Di Francesco, Michael Gekhtman, Atsuo Kuniba and Masahito Yamazaki. The areas and topics for this issue include, but are not limited to: discrete integrable systems arising from cluster mutations cluster structure on Poisson varieties cluster algebras and soliton interactions cluster positivity conjecture Y-systems in the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz and Zamolodchikov's periodicity conjecture T-system of transfer matrices of integrable lattice models dilogarithm identities in conformal field theory wall crossing in 4d N = 2 supersymmetric gauge theories 4d N = 1 quiver gauge theories described by networks scattering amplitudes of 4d N = 4 theories 3d N = 2 gauge theories described by flat connections on 3-manifolds integrability of dimer/Ising models on graphs. All contributions will be refereed and processed according to the usual procedure of the journal. Guidelines for preparation of contributions The deadline for contributed papers is 31 March

  8. Virtual Special Issue on Migration

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Jordan, Declan; Elhorst, Paul

    2016-01-01

    This editorial introduces a virtual special issue of Spatial Economic Analysis compiled to mark the keynote lecture at the 46th Annual Conference of the Regional Science Association InternationalBritish and Irish Section in Cornwall by Professor Jacques Poot of the National Institute of Demographic

  9. Special issue of photosynthetic research

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Okamura, M.; Wraight, C.A.; van Grondelle, R.

    2014-01-01

    This Special Issue of Photosynthesis Research honors Louis M. N. Duysens, Roderick K. Clayton, and George Feher, three pioneering researchers whose work on bacterial photosynthesis laid much of the groundwork for our understanding of the role of the reaction center in photosynthetic light energy

  10. Editorial: Special Issue on Financial Planning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mark Brimble

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available AbstractThe special edition presents current research in the area of financial planning. With the continual upheaval inglobal financial markets (including Australia, the general trend towards self-funded retirement and lessreliance on the state, financial crises and the continual regulatory changes in the financial markets, this issue istimely and topical. This is the third special edition on financial planning, providing an excellent outlet forquality research in financial planning.

  11. Web-Based Geospatial Tools to Address Hazard Mitigation, Natural Resource Management, and Other Societal Issues

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hearn,, Paul P.

    2009-01-01

    Federal, State, and local government agencies in the United States face a broad range of issues on a daily basis. Among these are natural hazard mitigation, homeland security, emergency response, economic and community development, water supply, and health and safety services. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) helps decision makers address these issues by providing natural hazard assessments, information on energy, mineral, water and biological resources, maps, and other geospatial information. Increasingly, decision makers at all levels are challenged not by the lack of information, but by the absence of effective tools to synthesize the large volume of data available, and to utilize the data to frame policy options in a straightforward and understandable manner. While geographic information system (GIS) technology has been widely applied to this end, systems with the necessary analytical power have been usable only by trained operators. The USGS is addressing the need for more accessible, manageable data tools by developing a suite of Web-based geospatial applications that will incorporate USGS and cooperating partner data into the decision making process for a variety of critical issues. Examples of Web-based geospatial tools being used to address societal issues follow.

  12. Societal development and the impact of information technology ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    There are several theories on societal development, especially concerning issues that are affecting globalization. Those issues include the impact of information technology on developing countries of Africa, the social and cultural schools of thought on globalization of information technology, the defining issues that are ...

  13. Regional and Special Issues in Social Policy & Administration

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Finer, Catherine Jones; Greve, Bent

    2016-01-01

    This article explores the emergence and elaboration of regional and special issues of Social Policy & Administration (SP&A) from the contrasting perspectives of the two editors principally involved in their production as a distinctive feature of the journal. Catherine Jones Finer, who retired from......-to-date range of documents to trace trends and developments over time, not merely in the content of the regional and special issues themselves, but in the increasingly international and supra-national social policy environment to which they relate....... editorial involvement in2007, writes from memory of her own experience (which featured the introduction of regional then special issues as an ongoing series) drawing on the run of printed copies of SP&A still in her possession. Bent Greve then draws on his own access to a much wider and more up...

  14. The societal impact value of risk

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Simpson, D.E.

    1995-04-01

    A key ill-defined issue in the management and regulation of potentially hazardous conditions is that of the value to be associated with a reduction (or existence) of human health risks, such as radiation exposure or hazardous substance ingestion. Empirical observations of societal behavior patterns lead to a relationship for the quantitative value of societal risk impact which is consistent with general societal risk acceptance, is not inconsistent with ''de facto'' risk regulation, and is suitable and appropriate as a specification or guide for risk management and risk regulation. This societal risk impact expression is: Impact ($/year) = (8 x 10 7 ) NR i 4/3 where Ri = individual annual mortality risk; N = number of persons in the population sharing the risk and benefits. The change in Impact which can be derived from a regulation or risk management activity is the value of annual benefit which society would expect to forego (or annual equivalent cost to incur) in consideration of the activity

  15. Who, How, and Where: Special Education's Issues in Perpetuity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bateman, Barbara D.

    1994-01-01

    Issues that are central to special education and appear destined to remain so are discussed, including professional divisions among special educators and between special and regular educators, the population to be served, individualization, and placement. (JDD)

  16. Introduction: Special issue on Global Lesbian Cinema.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farr, Daniel

    2012-01-01

    This article offers a brief introduction to this special issue on Global Lesbian Cinema. This issue particularly highlights the importance of recognizing lesbian discourse as a separate, related piece of the discourse of queer transnational and global cinema. Subsequently, brief summaries of the eight articles of this collection are provided.

  17. Special issue on the spectroscopy of transient plasmas

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bailey, James; Hoarty, David; Mancini, Roberto; Yoneda, Hitoki

    2015-01-01

    Experimental and theoretical papers are invited for a special issue of Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics on Spectroscopy of Transient Plasmas, covering plasma conditions produced by pulsed laboratory sources including for example, short and long pulse lasers; pulsed power devices; FELs; XFELs and ion beams. The full range of plasma spectroscopy from the optical range up to high energy bremsstrahlung radiation will be covered. The deadline for submitting to this special issue is 1 March 2015. (Expected web publication: autumn 2015). Late submissions will be considered for the journal, but may not be included in the special issue. All submitted articles will be fully refereed to the journal's usual high standards. Upon publication, the issue will be widely promoted to the atomic, molecular and optical physics community, ensuring that your work receives maximum visibility. Articles should be submitted at http://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/jphysb-iop. Should you have any questions regarding the preparation of manuscripts or the suitability of your work for this Issue, please do not hesitate to contact the J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Editorial team (jphysb@iop.org). We look forward to hearing from you and hope that we can welcome you as a contributing author.

  18. CALL FOR PAPERS: Special issue on Current Trends in Integrability and Nonlinear Phenomena Special issue on Current Trends in Integrability and Nonlinear Phenomena

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gómez-Ullate, D.; Lombardo, S.; Mañas, M.; Mazzocco, M.; Nijhoff, F.; Sommacal, M.

    2009-12-01

    This is a call for contributions to a special issue of Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical dedicated to integrability and nonlinear phenomena. The motivation behind this special issue is to summarize in a single comprehensive publication, the main aspects (past and present), latest developments, different viewpoints and the directions being followed in this multidisciplinary field. We hope that such a special issue could become a particularly valuable reference for the broad scientific community working in integrability and nonlinear phenomena. Editorial policy The Editorial Board has invited D Gómez-Ullate, S Lombardo, M Mañas, M Mazzocco, F Nijhoff and M Sommacal to serve as Guest Editors for the special issue. Their criteria for the acceptance of contributions are as follows. The subject of the paper should relate to the following list of subjects: Integrable systems (including quantum and discrete) and applications Dynamical systems: Hamiltonian systems and dynamics in the complex domain Nonlinear waves, soliton equations and applications Nonlinear ODEs including Painlevé equations and isomonodromic deformations Symmetries and perturbative methods in the classification of integrable PDEs Infinite dimensional Lie algebras and integrable systems Orthogonal polynomials, random matrix theory All contributions will be refereed and processed according to the usual procedure of the journal. Papers should report original and significant research that has not already been published. Guidelines for preparation of contributions The DEADLINE for contributed papers will be 28 February 2010. This deadline will allow the special issue to appear in October 2010. There is a nominal page limit of 15 printed pages per contribution (invited review papers can be longer). For papers exceeding this limit, the Guest Editors reserve the right to request a reduction in length. Further advice on publishing your work in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical

  19. Introduction to special issue: moving forward in pediatric neuropsychology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Daly, Brian P; Giovannetti, Tania; Zabel, T Andrew; Chute, Douglas L

    2011-08-01

    This special issue of The Clinical Neuropsychologist focuses on advances in the emerging subspecialty of pediatric neuropsychology. The national and international contributions in this issue cover a range of key clinical, research, training, and professional issues specific to pediatric neuropsychology. The genesis for this project developed out of a series of talks at the Philadelphia Pediatric Neuropsychology Symposium in 2010, hosted by the Stein Family Fellow, the Department of Psychology of the College of Arts and Sciences at Drexel University, and the Philadelphia Neuropsychology Society. Articles that explore clinical practice issue focus on the assessment of special medical populations with congenital and/or acquired central nervous system insults. Research articles investigate the core features of developmental conditions, the use of technology in neuropsychological research studies, and large sample size genomic, neuropsychological, and imaging studies of under-represented populations. The final series of articles examine new considerations in training, advocacy, and subspecialty board certification that have emerged in pediatric neuropsychology. This introductory article provides an overview of the articles in this special issue and concluding thoughts about the future of pediatric neuropsychology.

  20. Special Issue on Creativity at Work.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Donnelly, Brian; And Others

    1994-01-01

    Special issue includes "Creativity at the Workplace" (Donnelly); "Creativity Revisited" (Iandoli); interviews with 16 people who work in or teach industrial engineering, software, and graphic design; "On Creativity and Schooling" (Coppola, Iandoli); and "End Notes: What I Learned" (Iandoli). (SK)

  1. Placing the special trains issue in perspective

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rhoads, R.E.; DeSteese, J.G.; Loscutoff, W.V.; Chais, M.

    1978-01-01

    The Association of American Railroads has proposed changes in the way railroads handle shipments of radioactive materials. These changes are embodied in a set of recommended operating practices that would require shipments of spent fuel and radioactive waste to be moved only in special train service. The proposed operating practices include a 35 mph maximum speed restriction, a passing restriction and a no-other freight restriction. Shippers of radioactive materials oppose the imposition of these operating practices. The special train issue is currently being argued in hearings before the Interstate Commerce Commission. The history and current status of these hearings are reviewed. Pacific Northwest Laboratories has undertaken a study to provide perspective on the safety and economic factors related to the use of special trains for shipping spent fuel. The results of this study for the amount of spent fuel anticipated to be shipped in 1986 are reviewed. The safety analysis determines the frequencies and severities of accidents for conventional freight trains and compares these to extrapolated frequencies and severities of accidents for conventional freight trains subject to the special train operating restrictions. Results of the study show that the adoption of special trains and attendant operating restrictions has limited potential for improving safety during shipment. The economic analysis compares the cost of spent fuel shipments made by special train and by conventional freight train service.Results of the economics phase of the study show that the use of special trains will most likely increase the cost of shipments by about 50%, although under certain circumstances shipping costs for spent fuel by special trains may be up to 20% lower than by conventional train service. Possible methods to resolve the special train issue are explored

  2. Special Issue on Using Econometrics for Assessing Economic Models

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Juselius, Katarina

    2009-01-01

    Two methodological approaches to empirical economics which are labelled ‘theory first' versus ‘reality first' are introduced building the background for the discussion of the individual contributions to this special issue.......Two methodological approaches to empirical economics which are labelled ‘theory first' versus ‘reality first' are introduced building the background for the discussion of the individual contributions to this special issue....

  3. Editorial of the Special Issue Antimicrobial Polymers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Iolanda Francolini

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available The special issue “Antimicrobial Polymers” includes research and review papers concerning the recent advances on preparation of antimicrobial polymers and their relevance to industrial settings and biomedical field. Antimicrobial polymers have recently emerged as promising candidates to fight microbial contamination onto surfaces thanks to their interesting properties. In this special issue, the main strategies pursued for developing antimicrobial polymers, including polymer impregnation with antimicrobial agents or synthesis of polymers bearing antimicrobial moieties, were discussed. The future application of these polymers either in industrial or healthcare settings could result in an extremely positive impact not only at the economic level but also for the improvement of quality of life.

  4. Special issue on Computational Neuroscience - PREFACE

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ditlevsen, Susanne; Lansky, Petr

    2014-01-01

    This Special Issue of Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering contains ten selected papers presented at the Neural Coding 2012 workshop. Neuroscience is traditionally very close to mathematics which stems from the famous theoretical work of McCulloch--Pitts and Hodgkin--Huxley in the middle...

  5. A special issue on solar cells

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Yi-Bing CHENG

    2011-01-01

    @@ The increasing demand for renewable energy has made the solar cell technology as one of the most significantresearch and development areas of today.Silicon based solar cells are the dominant photovoltaic products at the present time, but the relatively high costs are barriers for their broad applications.Research has been active worldwide in developing other photovoltaic technologies that use cheap materials and can be easily manufactured.Organic solar cells have attracted a lot of interests recently due to their potential to be low cost photovoltaic technologies.This special issue of the Frontiers of Optoelectronics in China has collected research articles by a number of Chinese and international experts.It is aimed to broaden the readers' view about some of the recent developments and challenges in this important R&D field.Thirteen excellent papers are in this special issue including 4 review articles and 9 research articles.

  6. Introduction to the special issue

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gisela Boehm

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available (from the introduction Intuition and affect have been neglected topics in the literature on human judgment and decision making for a long time. Judgmental processes involved in risk perception and decision making have traditionally been conceptualized as cognitive in nature, being based upon a rational and deliberate evaluation of the alternatives at hand. This picture started to change in the early 1980s when decision researchers looked beyond rational, deliberate, and cognitive processes and began to investigate intuitive --- as opposed to deliberate --- and emotional --- as opposed to cognitive --- aspects of decision making. In sum, decision research has seen a proliferation of approaches that look beyond rational, deliberate, and purely cognitive processes in decision making and investigate intuitive and emotional judgments in this area. This seemed like a good point in time to reflect the state of this emerging field in a special issue that addresses the question of how intuition and affect are related to each other and how they shape risk perception and decision making. This special issue is the result of a workshop that was held at the University of Bergen in November, 2006.

  7. Summary of the Geocarto International Special Issue on "NASA Earth Science Satellite Data for Applications to Public Health" to be Published in Early 2014

    Science.gov (United States)

    Quattrochi, Dale A.

    2013-01-01

    At the 2011 Applied Science Public Health review held in Santa Fe, NM, it was announced that Dr. Dale Quattrochi from the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, John Haynes, Program Manager for the Applied Sciences Public Health program at NASA Headquarters, and Sue Estes, Deputy Program Manager for the NASA Applied Sciences Public Health Program located at the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) at the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) in Huntsville, AL, would edit a special issue of the journal Geocarto International on "NASA Earth Science Satellite Data for Applications to Public Health". This issue would be focused on compiling research papers that use NASA Earth Science satellite data for applications to public health. NASA's Public Health Program concentrates on advancing the realization of societal and economic benefits from NASA Earth Science in the areas of infectious disease, emergency preparedness and response, and environmental health (e.g., air quality). This application area as a focus of the NASA Applied Sciences program, has engaged public health institutions and officials with research scientists in exploring new applications of Earth Science satellite data as an integral part of public health decision- and policy-making at the local, state and federal levels. Of interest to this special issue are papers submitted on are topics such as epidemiologic surveillance in the areas of infectious disease, environmental health, and emergency response and preparedness, national and international activities to improve skills, share data and applications, and broaden the range of users who apply Earth Science satellite data in public health decisions, or related focus areas.. This special issue has now been completed and will be published n early 2014. This talk will present an overview of the papers that will be published in this special Geocarto International issue.

  8. Alternatives - talk about energy differently. Radioactive waste a societal issue

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2004-01-01

    ''Alternatives'' is an information magazine proposed by the Areva Group, a world nuclear energy leader. It is devoted to the public information on topics of the Group activities. This issue deals with the fusion technology, the strengths and weaknesses of interconnected networks, the undersea tidal power farms, the danish paradox which has the highest levels of CO 2 emissions despite the use of wind energy, the international community renewed commitment to renewable energy, the hydrogen, the low speed wind turbines and the future miniature fuel cells. A special interest is given to the radioactive wastes management. (A.L.B.)

  9. Foreword: Biomonitoring Equivalents special issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meek, M E; Sonawane, B; Becker, R A

    2008-08-01

    The challenge of interpreting results of biomonitoring for environmental chemicals in humans is highlighted in this Foreword to the Biomonitoring Equivalents (BEs) special issue of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. There is a pressing need to develop risk-based tools in order to empower scientists and health professionals to interpret and communicate the significance of human biomonitoring data. The BE approach, which integrates dosimetry and risk assessment methods, represents an important advancement on the path toward achieving this objective. The articles in this issue, developed as a result of an expert panel meeting, present guidelines for derivation of BEs, guidelines for communication using BEs and several case studies illustrating application of the BE approach for specific substances.

  10. Personal genome testing: Test characteristics to clarify the discourse on ethical, legal and societal issues

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Janssens A Cecile JW

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background As genetics technology proceeds, practices of genetic testing have become more heterogeneous: many different types of tests are finding their way to the public in different settings and for a variety of purposes. This diversification is relevant to the discourse on ethical, legal and societal issues (ELSI surrounding genetic testing, which must evolve to encompass these differences. One important development is the rise of personal genome testing on the basis of genetic profiling: the testing of multiple genetic variants simultaneously for the prediction of common multifactorial diseases. Currently, an increasing number of companies are offering personal genome tests directly to consumers and are spurring ELSI-discussions, which stand in need of clarification. This paper presents a systematic approach to the ELSI-evaluation of personal genome testing for multifactorial diseases along the lines of its test characteristics. Discussion This paper addresses four test characteristics of personal genome testing: its being a non-targeted type of testing, its high analytical validity, low clinical validity and problematic clinical utility. These characteristics raise their own specific ELSI, for example: non-targeted genetic profiling poses serious problems for information provision and informed consent. Questions about the quantity and quality of the necessary information, as well as about moral responsibilities with regard to the provision of information are therefore becoming central themes within ELSI-discussions of personal genome testing. Further, the current low level of clinical validity of genetic profiles raises questions concerning societal risks and regulatory requirements, whereas simultaneously it causes traditional ELSI-issues of clinical genetics, such as psychological and health risks, discrimination, and stigmatization, to lose part of their relevance. Also, classic notions of clinical utility are challenged by the

  11. Human influences on evolution, and the ecological and societal consequences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hendry, Andrew P; Gotanda, Kiyoko M; Svensson, Erik I

    2017-01-19

    Humans have dramatic, diverse and far-reaching influences on the evolution of other organisms. Numerous examples of this human-induced contemporary evolution have been reported in a number of 'contexts', including hunting, harvesting, fishing, agriculture, medicine, climate change, pollution, eutrophication, urbanization, habitat fragmentation, biological invasions and emerging/disappearing diseases. Although numerous papers, journal special issues and books have addressed each of these contexts individually, the time has come to consider them together and thereby seek important similarities and differences. The goal of this special issue, and this introductory paper, is to promote and expand this nascent integration. We first develop predictions as to which human contexts might cause the strongest and most consistent directional selection, the greatest changes in evolutionary potential, the greatest genetic (as opposed to plastic) changes and the greatest effects on evolutionary diversification We then develop predictions as to the contexts where human-induced evolutionary changes might have the strongest effects on the population dynamics of the focal evolving species, the structure of their communities, the functions of their ecosystems and the benefits and costs for human societies. These qualitative predictions are intended as a rallying point for broader and more detailed future discussions of how human influences shape evolution, and how that evolution then influences species traits, biodiversity, ecosystems and humans.This article is part of the themed issue 'Human influences on evolution, and the ecological and societal consequences'. © 2016 The Author(s).

  12. Special Issues for People with Aplastic Anemia

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Menu Donate Special Issues for People with Aplastic Anemia Because you have aplastic anemia , everyday events can ... bleeding, such as contact sports. Pregnancy and Aplastic Anemia Pregnancy is possible for women who have been ...

  13. Understanding Game-Based Learning Cultures: Introduction to Special Issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Engerman, Jason A.; Carr-Chellman, Alison

    2017-01-01

    This special issue expands our understanding of teaching and learning through video game play, with specific attention to culture. The issue gives insight into the ways educators, researchers, and developers should be discussing and designing for impactful learner-centered game-based learning experiences. The issue features forward-thinking…

  14. Integration and Implementation Sciences: Building a New Specialization

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gabriele Bammer

    2005-12-01

    Full Text Available Developing a new specialization - Integration and Implementation Sciences - may be an effective way to draw together and significantly strengthen the theory and methods necessary to tackle complex societal issues and problems. This paper presents an argument for such a specialization, beginning with a brief review of calls for new research approaches that combine disciplines and interact more closely with policy and practice. It posits that the core elements of Integration and Implementation Sciences already exist, but that the field is currently characterized by fragmentation and marginalization. The paper then outlines three sets of characteristics that will delineate Integration and Implementation Sciences. First is that the specialization will aim to find better ways to deal with the defining elements of many current societal issues and problems: namely complexity, uncertainty, change, and imperfection. Second is that there will be three theoretical and methodological pillars for doing this: 1 systems thinking and complexity science, 2 participatory methods, and 3 knowledge management, exchange, and implementation. Third, operationally, Integration and Implementation Sciences will be grounded in practical application, and generally involve large-scale collaboration. The paper concludes by examining where Integration and Implementation Sciences would sit in universities, and outlines a program for further development of the field. An appendix provides examples of Integration and Implementation Sciences in action.

  15. Crustal permeability: Introduction to the special issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ingebritsen, Steven E.; Gleeson, Tom

    2015-01-01

    The topic of crustal permeability is of broad interest in light of the controlling effect of permeability on diverse geologic processes and also timely in light of the practical challenges associated with emerging technologies such as hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas production (‘fracking’), enhanced geothermal systems, and geologic carbon sequestration. This special issue of Geofluids is also motivated by the historical dichotomy between the hydrogeologic concept of permeability as a static material property that exerts control on fluid flow and the perspective of economic geologists, geophysicists, and crustal petrologists who have long recognized permeability as a dynamic parameter that changes in response to tectonism, fluid production, and geochemical reactions. Issues associated with fracking, enhanced geothermal systems, and geologic carbon sequestration have already begun to promote a constructive dialog between the static and dynamic views of permeability, and here we have made a conscious effort to include both viewpoints. This special issue also focuses on the quantification of permeability, encompassing both direct measurement of permeability in the uppermost crust and inferential permeability estimates, mainly for the deeper crust.

  16. Western Mineral and Environmental Resources Science Center--providing comprehensive earth science for complex societal issues

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frank, David G.; Wallace, Alan R.; Schneider, Jill L.

    2010-01-01

    supports approximately 40 USGS research specialists who utilize cooperative agreements with universities, industry, and other governmental agencies to support their collaborative research and information exchange. Scientists of the WMERSC study how and where non-fuel mineral resources form and are concentrated in the earth's crust, where mineral resources might be found in the future, and how mineral materials interact with the environment to affect human and ecosystem health. Natural systems (ecosystems) are complex - our understanding of how ecosystems operate requires collecting and synthesizing large amounts of geologic, geochemical, biologic, hydrologic, and meteorological information. Scientists in the Center strive to understand the interplay of various processes and how they affect the structure, composition, and health of ecosystems. Such understanding, which is then summarized in publicly available reports, is used to address and solve a wide variety of issues that are important to society and the economy. WMERSC scientists have extensive national and international experience in these scientific specialties and capabilities - they have collaborated with many Federal, State, and local agencies; with various private sector organizations; as well as with foreign countries and organizations. Nearly every scientific and societal challenge requires a different combination of scientific skills and capabilities. With their breadth of scientific specialties and capabilities, the scientists of the WMERSC can provide scientifically sound approaches to a wide range of societal challenges and issues. The following sections describe examples of important issues that have been addressed by scientists in the Center, the methods employed, and the relevant conclusions. New directions are inevitable as societal needs change over time. Scientists of the WMERSC have a diverse set of skills and capabilities and are proficient in the collection and integration of

  17. Special Issue ;Sediment cascades in cold climate geosystems;

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morche, David; Krautblatter, Michael; Beylich, Achim A.

    2017-06-01

    This Editorial introduces the Special Issue on sediment cascades in cold climate geosystems that evolved from the eighth I.A.G./A.I.G. SEDIBUD (Sediment Budgets in Cold Environments; http://www.geomorph.org/sedibud-working-group/) workshop. The workshop was held from 1st to 4th September 2014 at the Environmental Research Station ;Schneefernerhaus; (http://www.schneefernerhaus.de/en/home.html) located at Mt. Zugspitze, the highest peak of Germany, (2962 m asl). Paper and poster presentations focused on observations, measurements and modeling of geomorphological processes in sediment cascades in cold climate geosystems. This resulting Special Issue brings together ten selected contributions from arctic and alpine environments.

  18. Special issue dedicated to Professor Johann M. Schepers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gideon P De Bruin

    2006-10-01

    Full Text Available It is a great pleasure for me to have been associated with this special issue of the SA Journal of Industrial Psychology dedicated to Professor Johann M. Schepers. The purpose of the special issue is to honour Professor Schepers for his contributions to the development of Psychology and Industrial Psychology as empirical fields of study in South Africa. The contributors have worked with Professor Schepers as students or colleagues and share his academic interests. The articles reflect his areas of interest and employ analytic techniques taught and championed by him. We are grateful to Professor Schepers for his cooperation throughout this project. Thanks are due to all the contributors and referees.

  19. Access. Challenge for Change/Societe Nouvelle Number Twelve.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prinn, Elizabeth, Ed.; Henaut, Dorothy Todd, Ed.

    This issue of Access, the journal issued periodically by Challenge for Change/Societe Nouvelle, contains two groups of articles. The first focuses upon the Skyriver Project, relating how a project was developed which used film and video tape as a means of helping Alaskan communities to assess their own needs and to advocate for themselves the…

  20. Special Issue: Competencies from the Individual's Viewpoint.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Career Planning and Adult Development Journal, 2003

    2003-01-01

    Ten articles in this special issue deal with competencies and how their use is revolutionizing human resource management and the work of career practitioners. Topics include competency technology, models, and mapping; behavioral interviewing; talent management; emotional intelligence; succession planning; and lifelong learning. (JOW)

  1. Special Issue: Productive Employment for the Poor.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gaude, Jacques, Ed.; Miller, Steven, Ed.

    1992-01-01

    This special issue contains nine articles on labor-intensive public works, social investment funds, rural infrastructure projects, grassroots socioeconomic rights, remuneration systems for self-help projects, road construction and rural transport, employment and environmental rehabilitation, and water as a source of employment. (SK)

  2. Low-literates’ support needs for societal participation learning : Empirical grounding of theory- and model-based design

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Schouten, D.G.M.; Paulissen, R.T.; Hanekamp, M.; Groot, A.; Neerincx, M.A.; Cremers, A.H.M.

    2017-01-01

    Specialized learning support software can address the low societal participation of low-literate Dutch citizens. We use the situated Cognitive Engineering method to iteratively create a design specification for the envisioned system VESSEL: a Virtual Environment to Support the Societal participation

  3. Introduction to 'The Unacceptable' Special Issue

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    John Scannell

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available This special issue of Portal contends with the 'unacceptable' as the intervention upon bodies, images or practices deemed excessive to the limits of functional community. Under the rubric of propriety, discussion of the 'unacceptable' can all too easily become marginalised through silence, erasure and/or condemnation. Yet challenging the boundaries of the 'unacceptable' is vital to the continuity of a civil society, and the articles contained in this issue attempt to probe the limits of acceptability, as they seek to comprehend, and perhaps, intervene upon some divisive contemporary issues. Torture, disability, sexuality, e-waste, bureaucracy, comedy, and the constitution of the strange are among the broad range of topics in which the definition, regulation and assessment of unacceptability are pursued. Through documentation of such suitably 'unacceptable' issues, the articles contained in this volume not only compel the reader to question convention, but furthermore, interrogate the point where social intervention upon desire might be necessary too. John Scannell, guest editor.

  4. Special issue on activity-travel decision processes

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Doherty, S.; Ettema, D.F.

    2006-01-01

    Before you lies the 2006 TRB (Transportation Research Board) Special Issue of Transportation comprising selected papers presented at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the TRB in sessions sponsored by the Travel Behavior and Values committee on activity-travel decision processes. We are pleased to serve

  5. Introduction to the special issue on college student mental health.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Castillo, Linda G; Schwartz, Seth J

    2013-04-01

    This article provides an introduction to the special issue on college student mental health. It gives an overview of the establishment of the Multi-Site University Study of Identity and Culture (MUSIC) collaborative by a group of national experts on culture and identity. Information about the procedures used to collect a nationally represented sample of college students are provided. Data were collected from 30 university sites across the United States. The sample comprised 10,573 undergraduate college students, of which 73% were women, 63% White, 9% African American/Black, 14% Latino/Hispanic, 13% Asian American, and 1% Other. The special issue comprises a compilation of 8 studies that used the dataset specifically created to examine the issues of emerging adults, culture, and identity. Student mental health problems are a growing concern on college campuses. Studies covered in this special issue have implications for policy development regarding college alcohol use and traumatic victimization, include attention to underrepresented minority and immigrant groups on college campuses, and focus on positive as well as pathological aspects of the college experience. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  6. "Special Issue": Regional Dimensions of the Triple Helix Model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Todeva, Emanuela; Danson, Mike

    2016-01-01

    This paper introduces the rationale for the special issue and its contributions, which bridge the literature on regional development and the Triple Helix model. The concept of the Triple Helix at the sub-national, and specifically regional, level is established and examined, with special regard to regional economic development founded on…

  7. EDITORIAL: Special issue on Graphene Special issue on Graphene

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morpurgo, Alberto F.; Trauzettel, Björn

    2010-03-01

    Since the revolutionary experimental discovery of graphene in the year 2004, research on this new two-dimensional carbon allotrope has progressed at a spectacular pace. The impact of graphene on different areas of research— including physics, chemistry, and applied sciences— is only now starting to be fully appreciated. There are different factors that make graphene a truly impressive system. Regarding nano-electronics and related fields, for instance, it is the exceptional electronic and mechanical properties that yield very high room-temperature mobility values, due to the particular band structure, the material `cleanliness' (very low-concentration of impurities), as well as its stiffness. Also interesting is the possibility to have a high electrical conductivity and optical transparency, a combination which cannot be easily found in other material systems. For other fields, other properties could be mentioned, many of which are currently being explored. In the first years following this discovery, research on graphene has mainly focused on the fundamental physics aspects, triggered by the fact that electrons in graphene behave as Dirac fermions due to their interaction with the ions of the honeycomb lattice. This direction has led to the discovery of new phenomena such as Klein tunneling in a solid state system and the so-called half-integer quantum Hall effect due to a special type of Berry phase that appears in graphene. It has also led to the appreciation of thicker layers of graphene, which also have outstanding new properties of great interest in their own right (e.g., bilayer graphene, which supports chiral quasiparticles that, contrary to Dirac electrons, are not massless). Now the time is coming to deepen our knowledge and improve our control of the material properties, which is a key aspect to take one step further towards applications. The articles in the Semiconductor Science and Technology Graphene special issue deal with a diversity of topics

  8. Introduction - AABFJ Financial Planning Special Issue 2009

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ciorstan J. Smark

    2009-03-01

    Full Text Available This special issue draws on recent work of financial planning specialists, finance specialists and economists todocument some of the trends, perception and challenges of financial planning in 2009. This diversity ofcontributors reflects the diversity and the multiplicity of influences that impact on financial planning.

  9. Finally Making Good on the Promise of Qualitative Research in Special Education? A Response to the Special Issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pugach, Marleen C.; Mukhopadhyay, Ananya; Gomez-Najarro, Joyce

    2014-01-01

    In this response to the special issue, we would like to offer two additional considerations to the discourse on qualitative research and special education this issue is meant to catalyze. First, we would like to further problematize the question of why qualitative research continues to be so sparsely represented in most prominent publications of…

  10. Scientific uncertainty in media content: Introduction to this special issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peters, Hans Peter; Dunwoody, Sharon

    2016-11-01

    This introduction sets the stage for the special issue on the public communication of scientific uncertainty that follows by sketching the wider landscape of issues related to the communication of uncertainty and showing how the individual contributions fit into that landscape. The first part of the introduction discusses the creation of media content as a process involving journalists, scientific sources, stakeholders, and the responsive audience. The second part then provides an overview of the perception of scientific uncertainty presented by the media and the consequences for the recipients' own assessments of uncertainty. Finally, we briefly describe the six research articles included in this special issue. © The Author(s) 2016.

  11. Two-Beam Linear Colliders - Special Issues

    CERN Document Server

    Corsini, Roberto

    2010-01-01

    The path towards a multi-TeV e+e- linear collider proposed by the CLIC study is based on the Two-Beam Acceleration (TBA) scheme. Such a scheme is promising in term of efficiency, reliability and cost. The rationale behind the two-beam scheme is discussed in the paper, together with the special issues related to this technology and the R&D needed to demonstrate its feasibility.

  12. FOREWORD: Special issue on density

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fujii, Kenichi

    2004-04-01

    This special issue on density was undertaken to provide readers with an overview of the present state of the density standards for solids, liquids and gases, as well as the technologies developed for measuring density. This issue also includes topics on the refractive index of gases and on techniques used for calibrating hydrometers so that almost all areas concerned with density standards are covered in four review articles and seven original articles, most of which describe current research being conducted at national metrology institutes (NMIs). A review article was invited from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum to highlight research on the magnetic suspension densimeters. In metrology, the determinations of the volume of a weight and the density of air are of primary importance in establishing a mass standard because the effect of the buoyancy force of air acting on the weight must be known accurately to determine the mass of the weight. A density standard has therefore been developed at many NMIs with a close relation to the mass standard. Hydrostatic weighing is widely used to measure the volume of a solid. The most conventional hydrostatic weighing method uses water as a primary density standard for measuring the volume of a solid. A brief history of the determination of the density of water is therefore given in a review article, as well as a recommended value for the density of water with a specified isotopic abundance. The most modern technique for hydrostatic weighing uses a solid density standard instead of water. For this purpose, optical interferometers for measuring the diameters of silicon spheres have been developed to convert the length standard into the volume standard with a small uncertainty. A review article is therefore dedicated to describing the state-of-the-art optical interferometers developed for silicon spheres. Relative combined standard uncertainties of several parts in 108 have been achieved today for measuring the volume and density of

  13. Special journal issue highlights IDRC-supported findings on ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    2018-03-08

    Mar 8, 2018 ... Special journal issue highlights IDRC-supported findings on women's paid work ... An important aspect of women's economic empowerment is their participation in the labour ... Maternal health research concerns men too.

  14. Energy, a crucial environmental subject. Special issue

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    In this issue of the magazine ArenA special attention is paid the use of energy in the Netherlands, the related problems and solutions, and the agenda for the Section Energy of the Dutch Association of Environmental Professionals (VVM) resulting from the technological, administrative and economical problems and solutions

  15. From the Editors of the Special Issue

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ruttkay, Z.M.; Kipp, Michael; Kipp, M.; Nijholt, Antinus; Vilhjálmsson, H.H.; Vilhjalmsson, Högni

    2010-01-01

    Welcome to the special issue on Intelligent Virtual Agents. Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs) are interactive characters that – in spite of being merely 2D or 3D computer graphics models – exhibit humanlike qualities and communicate with humans or with each other using natural human modalities such

  16. JGR special issue on Deep Earthquakes

    Science.gov (United States)

    The editor and associate editors of the Journal of Geophysical Research—Solid Earth and Planets invite the submission of manuscripts for a special issue on the topic “Deep- and Intermediate-Focus Earthquakes, Phase Transitions, and the Mechanics of Deep Subduction.”Manuscripts should be submitted to JGR Editor Gerald Schubert (Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90024) before July 1, 1986, in accordance with the usual rules for manuscript submission. Submitted papers will undergo the normal JGR review procedure. For more information, contact either Schubert or the special guest associate editor, Cliff Frohlich (Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas at Austin, 4920 North IH-35, Austin, TX 78751; telephone: 512-451-6223).

  17. Resonance Special Issue - World Year of Physics -RE ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Resonance Special Issue - World Year of Physics. Vol 10, No 12, ... Origin (?) of the Universe - The Expanding Universe. Jayant V Narlikar. 12 ... Einstein's Last Dream: The Space - Time Unification of Fundamental Forces. Abdus Salam.

  18. Special issue introduction: Ecological modernization

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Massa, Ilmo; Andersen, Mikael Skou

    2000-01-01

    The contributions to this special issue of the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning stem from an international conference on ecological modernization that took place at the Department of Social Policy of the University of Helsinki, Finland, in late 1998. They have been selected, among other...... reasons, for their possible contribution to conceptual understanding and clarification. While recent publications have explored the implications of ecological modernization in different settings (Mol & Sonnenfeld, 2000), here we try to put the concept under the microscope again, in the hope of clarifying...

  19. Attachment-related mental representations: introduction to the special issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thompson, Ross A

    2008-12-01

    Bowlby's concept of mental working models of self, attachment figures, and the social world has been theoretically generative as a bridge between early relational experience and the beliefs and expectations that color later relationships. Contemporary attachment researchers, following his example, are applying new knowledge of children's conceptual development to their study of attachment-related mental representations in children and adults. The contributors to this special issue highlight recent advances in how the mental representations arising from attachment security should be conceptualized and studied, and identify a number of important directions for future work. This paper introduces the special issue by summarizing the major ideas of Bowlby and his followers concerning the nature and development of mental working models, points of theoretical clarity and uncertainty, and challenges in assessing these representations, as well as profiling each of the contributions to this issue.

  20. Special issue: Logistics systems design in Latin America

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miguel Gaston Cedillo Campos

    2017-10-01

    Under this context, this Special Issue of the Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management (JIEM gathers nine significant contributions, which from a Latin American approach, enhance the logistics systems body of knowledge focused on emerging markets.

  1. Special issue on network coding

    Science.gov (United States)

    Monteiro, Francisco A.; Burr, Alister; Chatzigeorgiou, Ioannis; Hollanti, Camilla; Krikidis, Ioannis; Seferoglu, Hulya; Skachek, Vitaly

    2017-12-01

    Future networks are expected to depart from traditional routing schemes in order to embrace network coding (NC)-based schemes. These have created a lot of interest both in academia and industry in recent years. Under the NC paradigm, symbols are transported through the network by combining several information streams originating from the same or different sources. This special issue contains thirteen papers, some dealing with design aspects of NC and related concepts (e.g., fountain codes) and some showcasing the application of NC to new services and technologies, such as data multi-view streaming of video or underwater sensor networks. One can find papers that show how NC turns data transmission more robust to packet losses, faster to decode, and more resilient to network changes, such as dynamic topologies and different user options, and how NC can improve the overall throughput. This issue also includes papers showing that NC principles can be used at different layers of the networks (including the physical layer) and how the same fundamental principles can lead to new distributed storage systems. Some of the papers in this issue have a theoretical nature, including code design, while others describe hardware testbeds and prototypes.

  2. Introduction to the special issue: permafrost and periglacial research from coasts to mountains

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schrott, Lothar; Humlum, Ole

    2017-09-01

    This special issue of Geomorphology includes eleven papers dealing with permafrost and periglacial research from coasts to mountains. The compilation represents a selection from 47 presentations (oral and posters) given at the 4th European Conference on Permafrost - IPA Regional Conference (EUCOP4, June 2014) in the session ;Periglacial Geomorphology;. Geomorphology as a leading journal for our discipline is particularly suitable to publish advances in permafrost and periglacial research with a focus on geomorphic processes. Since 1989 Geomorphology has published 121 special issues and two special issues are explicitly dedicated to permafrost and periglacial research, however, only with a focus on research in Antarctica. In this special issue we present papers from the Canadian Beaufort Sea, Alaska, Spitzbergen, central western Poland, the European Alps, the eastern Sudetes, the southern Carpathians, Nepal, and Antarctica.

  3. A Helicopter View of the Special Issue on Wave Energy Converters

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Diego Vicinanza

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available This paper intends to provide the reader with an overview of the Special Issue on Wave Energy Converters. Through 16 contributions from authors of 10 different countries, a number of key topics have been tackled, including resource assessment, engineering design, and financial analysis. As a whole, the Special Issue forms an interesting and helpful compendium on the state of the art of wave energy extraction and exploitation.

  4. Editorial to the Special issue of the journal

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nikša Alfirević

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available This is the editorial to the Special issue of the Management journal, dedicated to the 11th International Conference on "Challenges of Europe", organized by the Faculty of Economics in Split, Croatia, in May 2015.

  5. Special issue “International Geomagnetic Reference Field—the twelfth generation”

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Thébault, E.; Finlay, C. C.; Toh, H.

    2015-01-01

    This special issue of Earth, Planets and Space, synthesizes the efforts made during the construction of the twelfth generation of the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF-12) that was released online in December 2014 (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/IAGA/vmod/ igrf.html). The IGRF-12 is a ser......This special issue of Earth, Planets and Space, synthesizes the efforts made during the construction of the twelfth generation of the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF-12) that was released online in December 2014 (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/IAGA/vmod/ igrf.html). The IGRF-12...

  6. Special Issue on Time Scale Algorithms

    Science.gov (United States)

    2008-01-01

    unclassified Standard Form 298 (Rev. 8-98) Prescribed by ANSI Std Z39-18 IOP PUBLISHING METROLOGIA Metrologia 45 (2008) doi:10.1088/0026-1394/45/6/E01...special issue of Metrologia presents selected papers from the Fifth International Time Scale Algorithm Symposium (VITSAS), including some of the...scientists, and hosted by the Real Instituto y Observatorio de la Armada (ROA) in San Fernando, Spain, whose staff further enhanced their nation’s high

  7. Special Issue “Biomaterials and Bioprinting”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chee Kai Chua

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available The emergence of bioprinting in recent years represents a marvellous advancement in 3D printing technology. It expands the range of 3D printable materials from the world of non-living materials into the world of living materials. Biomaterials play an important role in this paradigm shift. This Special Issue focuses on biomaterials and bioprinting and contains eight articles covering a number of recent topics in this emerging area.

  8. Special issue: the nuclear industry in Europe

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Anon.

    1982-01-01

    This special issue contains papers on the following topics: French nuclear policy; nuclear energy development in Europe; nuclear diversification; Alsthom-Atlantique in the nuclear field; 1981 nuclear electricity generation; EDF siting policy; the N4 model of the 1300 MW series; Creys-Malville; the nuclear industry in Europe; pumps in the nuclear industry [fr

  9. Special issue: Supply chain and logistics decisions under environmental aspect

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Neslihan Demirel

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available This editor’s note has a twofold objective: (1 to present a brief summary about the environmental issues in supply chain and logistics decisions (2 to present general information about the papers published in the special issue.

  10. Special issue : transport in a post-carbon society

    Science.gov (United States)

    2009-04-01

    This special issue of World Transport Policy & Practice is an outcome of the conference Planning for the Carbon Neutral World: Challenges for Cities and Regions, held 15-18 May 2008 in Salzburg, Austria. The conference, organised by SCUPAD Salzbu...

  11. Innovations in Play Therapy: Issues, Process, and Special Populations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Landreth, Garry L., Ed.

    This book is a compilation of discussions on current issues in play therapy. It is designed to help therapists fill in the gaps about working with special populations, which is often not directly addressed in other play therapy resources. The object of the book is to bring together information related to issues and dynamics of the process of this…

  12. Special Issue on Intelligent Robots

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Genci Capi

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available The research on intelligent robots will produce robots that are able to operate in everyday life environments, to adapt their program according to environment changes, and to cooperate with other team members and humans. Operating in human environments, robots need to process, in real time, a large amount of sensory data—such as vision, laser, microphone—in order to determine the best action. Intelligent algorithms have been successfully applied to link complex sensory data to robot action. This editorial briefly summarizes recent findings in the field of intelligent robots as described in the articles published in this special issue.

  13. Introduction to the Special Issue: Coastal GIS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Timothy Nyerges

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available This special issue of the ISPRS International Journal of Geographic Information about “Coastal GIS” is motivated by many circumstances. More than one-half of the world’s human population lives in coastal areas (within 200 kilometers of coast as of 2000 [1]. The trend toward coastal habitation is expected to continue in the US with the total being 75 percent by 2025, meaning that coastal human–environment interactions will likely increase and intensify [2]. Geographic information systems (GIS are being developed and used by technical specialists, stakeholder publics, and executive/policy decision makers for improving our understanding and management of coastal areas, separately and together as more organizations focus on improving the sustainability and resilience of coastal systems. Coastal systems—defined as the area of land closely connected to the sea, including barrier islands, wetlands, mudflats, beaches, estuaries, cities, towns, recreational areas, and maritime facilities, the continental seas and shelves, and the overlying atmosphere—are subject to complex and dynamic interactions among natural and human-driven processes. Coastal systems are crucial to regional and national economies, hosting valued human-built infrastructure and providing ecosystem services that sustain human well-being. This special issue of IJGI about coastal GIS presents a collection of nine papers that address many of the issues mentioned above. [...

  14. Special Issue: Design and Engineering of Microreactor and Smart-Scaled Flow Processes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Volker Hessel

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Reaction-oriented research in flow chemistry and microreactor has been extensively focused upon in special journal issues and books. On a process level, this resembled the “drop-in” (retrofit concept with the microreactor replacing a conventional (batch reactor. Meanwhile, with the introduction of the mobile, compact, modular container technology, the focus is more on the process side, including also providing an end-to-end vision of intensified process design. Exactly this is the focus of the current special issue “Design and Engineering of Microreactor and Smart-Scaled Flow Processes” of the journal “Processes”. This special issue comprises three review papers, five research articles and two communications. [...

  15. Societal response to nanotechnology: converging technologies–converging societal response research?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ronteltap, Amber; Fischer, Arnout R. H.; Tobi, Hilde

    2011-01-01

    Nanotechnology is an emerging technology particularly vulnerable to societal unrest, which may hinder its further development. With the increasing convergence of several technological domains in the field of nanotechnology, so too could convergence of social science methods help to anticipate societal response. This paper systematically reviews the current state of convergence in societal response research by first sketching the predominant approaches to previous new technologies, followed by an analysis of current research into societal response to nanotechnology. A set of 107 papers on previous new technologies shows that rational actor models have played an important role in the study of societal response to technology, in particular in the field of information technology and the geographic region of Asia. Biotechnology and nuclear power have, in contrast, more often been investigated through risk perception and other affective determinants, particularly in Europe and the USA. A set of 42 papers on societal response to nanotechnology shows similarities to research in biotechnology, as it also builds on affective variables such as risk perception. Although there is a tendency to extend the rational models with affective variables, convergence in social science approaches to response to new technologies still has a long way to go. The challenge for researchers of societal response to technologies is to converge to some shared principles by taking up the best parts from the rational actor models dominant in information technology, whilst integrating non-rational constructs from biotechnology research. The introduction of nanotechnology gives a unique opportunity to do so.

  16. Special Issue of Selected Papers from Visualization and Data Analysis 2011

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kao, David L.; Wong, Pak Chung

    2012-01-01

    This special issue features the best papers that were selected from the 18th SPIE Conference on Visualization and Data Analysis (VDA 2011). This annual conference is a major international forum for researchers and practitioners interested in data visualization and analytics research, development, and applications. VDA 2011 received 42 high-quality submissions from around the world. Twenty-four papers were selected for full conference papers. The top five papers have been expanded and reviewed for this special issue.

  17. Special issue: diagnostics of atmospheric pressure microplasmas

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bruggeman, Peter; Czarnetzki, Uwe; Tachibana, Kunihide

    2013-11-01

    In recent decades, a strong revival of non-equilibrium atmospheric pressure plasma studies has developed in the form of microplasmas. Microplasmas have typical scales of 1 mm or less and offer a very exciting research direction in the field of plasma science and technology as the discharge physics can be considerably different due to high collisionality and the importance of plasma-surface interaction. These high-pressure small-scale plasmas have a diverse range of physical and chemical properties. This diversity coincides with various applications including light/UV sources [1], material processing [2], chemical analysis [3], material synthesis [4], electromagnetics [5], combustion [6] and even medicine [7]. At atmospheric pressure, large scale plasmas have the tendency to become unstable due to the high collision rates leading to enhanced heating and ionization compared to their low-pressure counterparts. As low-pressure plasmas typically operate in reactors with sizes of tens of centimetres, scaling up the pressure to atmospheric pressure the size of the plasma reduces to typical sizes below 1 mm. A natural approach of stabilizing atmospheric pressure plasmas is thus the use of microelectrode geometries. Traditionally microplasmas have been produced in confined geometries which allow one to stabilize dc excited discharges. This stabilization is intrinsically connected to the large surface-to-volume ratio which enhances heat transfer and losses of charged and excited species to the walls. Currently challenging boundaries are pushed by producing microcavity geometries with dimensions of the order of 1 µm [8]. The subject of this special issue, diagnostics of microplasmas, is motivated by the many challenges in microplasma diagnostics in view of the complex chemistry and strong spatial (and even temporal) gradients of species densities and plasma properties. Atmospheric pressure plasmas have a very long history dating back more than 100 years, with early work of

  18. Special Issue: Selected Articles from the 1996 NORCHIP Seminar

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    1998-01-01

    This Special Issue of Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing presents extended versions of selected papers from the 14th NORCHIP Conference which was held November 4-5, in Helsinki, Finland...

  19. Lidar Remote Sensing for Characterizing Forest Vegetation - Special Issue. Foreword

    Science.gov (United States)

    Popescu, Sorin C.; Nelson, Ross F.

    2011-01-01

    The Silvilaser 2009 conference held in College Station, Texas, USA, was the ninth conference in the Silvilaser series, which started in 2002 with the international workshop on using lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) for analyzing forest structure, held in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Following the Canadian workshop, subsequent forestry-lidar conferences took place in Australia, Sweden, Germany, USA, Japan, Finland, and the United Kingdom (UK). By the time this Silvilaser 2009 special issue of PE&RS is published, the 10th international conference will have been held in Freiburg, Germany, and planning will be ongoing for the 11th meeting to take place in Tasmania, Australia, in October 2011. Papers presented at the 2005 conference held in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA, were assembled in a special issue of PE&RS published in December 2006. Other special issues resulting from previous conferences were published in journals such as the Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing (2003), the Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research (2004), and Japan s Journal of Forest Planning (2008). Given the conference history and the much longer record of publications on lidar applications for estimating forest biophysical parameters, which dates back to the early 1980s, we may consider lidar an established remote sensing technology for characterizing forest canopy structure and estimating forest biophysical parameters. Randy Wynne, a professor at Virginia Tech and the final keynote speaker at Silvilaser 2009, made the case that it was time to push 30 years of research into operations, along the lines of what has already been done to good effect in the Scandinavian countries. In Randy s words, it s time to "Just do it!" This special issue includes a selection of papers presented during the 2009 Silvilaser conference, which consisted of eight sections as follows: (1) biomass and carbon stock estimates, (2) tree species and forest type classification, (3) data fusion and integration, (4, 5

  20. DSH: Special Issue 'Digital Humanities 2014'

    OpenAIRE

    Terras Melissa; Clivaz Claire; Verhoeven Deb; Kaplan Frédéric

    2015-01-01

    The special issue presents selected proceedings from Digital Humanities 2014. Digital Humanities is the annual conference organized and sponsored by the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO) and between 7th and 12th July 2014 over 700 attendees gathered for DH2014 at the University of Lausanne and the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne Switzerland (http://dh2014.org/): to date this remains the largest ever meeting of Digital Humanities scholars worldwide. Traditionally the...

  1. [Preface for genome editing special issue].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gu, Feng; Gao, Caixia

    2017-10-25

    Genome editing technology, as an innovative biotechnology, has been widely used for editing the genome from model organisms, animals, plants and microbes. CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing technology shows its great value and potential in the dissection of functional genomics, improved breeding and genetic disease treatment. In the present special issue, the principle and application of genome editing techniques has been summarized. The advantages and disadvantages of the current genome editing technology and future prospects would also be highlighted.

  2. Special Issue: Selected Articles from the 1994 NORCHIP Seminar

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    1996-01-01

    This Special Issue of Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing presents extended versions of selected papers from the 12th NORCHIP Seminar which was held November 8-9, 1994, in Gothenburg, Sweden....

  3. Editorial safety science special issue road safety management.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wegman, F.C.M. & Hagezieker, M.P.

    2014-01-01

    The articles presented in this Special Issue on Road Safety Management represent an illustration of the growing interest in policy-related research in the area of road safety. The complex nature of this type of research combined with the observation that scientific journals pay limited attention to

  4. Editorial : Special Issue on Advances in Computer Entertainment

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Romão, Teresa; Nijholt, Anton; Cheok, Adrian David

    2015-01-01

    This special issue of the International Journal of Arts and Technology comprises a selection of papers from ACE 2012, the 9th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment (Nijholt et al., 2012). ACE is the leading scientific forum for the dissemination of cutting-edge research

  5. CALL FOR PAPERS: Special issue on the random search problem: trends and perspectives

    Science.gov (United States)

    da Luz, Marcos G. E.; Grosberg, Alexander Y.; Raposo, Ernesto P.; Viswanathan, Gandhi M.

    2008-11-01

    This is a call for contributions to a special issue of Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical dedicated to the subject of the random search problem. The motivation behind this special issue is to summarize in a single comprehensive publication, the main aspects (past and present), latest developments, different viewpoints and the directions being followed in this multidisciplinary field. We hope that such a special issue could become a particularly valuable reference for the broad scientific community working with the general random search problem. The Editorial Board has invited Marcos G E da Luz, Alexander Y Grosberg, Ernesto P Raposo and Gandhi M Viswanathan to serve as Guest Editors for the special issue. The general question of how to optimize the search for specific target objects in either continuous or discrete environments when the information available is limited is of significant importance in a broad range of fields. Representative examples include ecology (animal foraging, dispersion of populations), geology (oil recovery from mature reservoirs), information theory (automated researchers of registers in high-capacity database), molecular biology (proteins searching for their sites, e.g., on DNA ), etc. One reason underlying the richness of the random search problem relates to the `ignorance' of the locations of the randomly located `targets'. A statistical approach to the search problem can deal adequately with incomplete information and so stochastic strategies become advantageous. The general problem of how to search efficiently for randomly located target sites can thus be quantitatively described using the concepts and methods of statistical physics and stochastic processes. Scope Thus far, to the best of our knowledge, no recent textbook or review article in a physics journal has appeared on this topic. This makes a special issue with review and research articles attractive to those interested in acquiring a general introduction to the

  6. Power and environmental assessment: Introduction to the special issue

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cashmore, Matthew; Richardson, Tim

    2013-01-01

    The significance of politics and power dynamics has long been recognised in environmental assessment (EA) research, but there has not been sustained attention to power, either theoretically or empirically. The aim of this special issue is to encourage the EA community to engage more consistently with the issue of power. The introduction represents a ground-clearing exercise intended to clarify the terms of the debate about power in the EA field, and to contribute to the development of a research agenda. Research trends in the field are outlined, and potential analytic and normative lines of inquiry are identified. The contributions to this special issue represent contrasting conceptual and methodological approaches that navigate the analytical and normative terrain of power dynamics in EA. Together, they demonstrate that power cannot be removed from EA policy or practices, and is a necessary research focus for the development of the field. - Highlights: ► Introduces the themed section on power ► Provides an overview of the papers in the themed section ► Identifies research trends and directions for future research

  7. Special issue - Applying the accelerator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Anon.

    1995-01-01

    T'he CERN Courier is the international journal of high energy physics, covering current developments in and around this branch of basic science. A recurrent theme is applying the technology developed for particle accelerators, the machines which produce beams of high energy particles for physics experiments. Twentieth-century science is full of similar examples of applications derived from pure research. This special issue of the CERN Courier is given over to one theme - the applications of accelerators. Accelerator systems and facilities are normally associated with highenergy particle physics research, the search for fundamental particles and the quest to understand the physics of the Big Bang. To the layman, accelerator technology has become synonymous with large and expensive machines, exploiting the most modern technology for basic research. In reality, the range of accelerators and their applications is much broader. A vast number of accelerators, usually much smaller and operating for specific applications, create wealth and directly benefit the population, particularly in the important areas of healthcare, energy and the environment. There are well established applications in diagnostic and therapeutic medicine for research and routine clinical treatments. Accelerators and associated technologies are widely employed by industry for manufacturing and process control. In fundamental and applied research, accelerator systems are frequently used as tools. The biennial conference on the Applications of Accelerators in Industry and Research at Denton, Texas, attracts a thousand participants. This special issue of the CERN Courier includes articles on major applications, reflecting the diversity and value of accelerator technology. Under Guest Editor Dewi Lewis of Amersham International, contributions from leading international specialists with experience of the application end of the accelerator chain describe their fields of direct interest. The

  8. Special issue - Applying the accelerator

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Anon.

    1995-07-15

    T'he CERN Courier is the international journal of high energy physics, covering current developments in and around this branch of basic science. A recurrent theme is applying the technology developed for particle accelerators, the machines which produce beams of high energy particles for physics experiments. Twentieth-century science is full of similar examples of applications derived from pure research. This special issue of the CERN Courier is given over to one theme - the applications of accelerators. Accelerator systems and facilities are normally associated with highenergy particle physics research, the search for fundamental particles and the quest to understand the physics of the Big Bang. To the layman, accelerator technology has become synonymous with large and expensive machines, exploiting the most modern technology for basic research. In reality, the range of accelerators and their applications is much broader. A vast number of accelerators, usually much smaller and operating for specific applications, create wealth and directly benefit the population, particularly in the important areas of healthcare, energy and the environment. There are well established applications in diagnostic and therapeutic medicine for research and routine clinical treatments. Accelerators and associated technologies are widely employed by industry for manufacturing and process control. In fundamental and applied research, accelerator systems are frequently used as tools. The biennial conference on the Applications of Accelerators in Industry and Research at Denton, Texas, attracts a thousand participants. This special issue of the CERN Courier includes articles on major applications, reflecting the diversity and value of accelerator technology. Under Guest Editor Dewi Lewis of Amersham International, contributions from leading international specialists with experience of the application end of the accelerator chain describe their fields of direct interest. The contributions

  9. Preface JFDE Special Issue Glass

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ulrich Knaack

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Facade Design and Engineering is a multidisciplinary field that touches many other scientific disciplines. Glass is one of the key materials for building envelopes, and a strong scientific community has developed over the last decade. Designers love glass for its transparency. It is strong but brittle and very demanding in terms of engineering. We continuously see new innovative developments in terms of its climatic performance, structural possibilities, construction design and new applications. Reason enough to dedicate this special issue to the topic. The issue would not have been possible without the contribution of our special editors Jan Belis and Christian Louter, who contributed through their outstanding editorial work and network. Most of the papers in this issue were carefully selected from of a number of invited submissions and conference papers of the COST Action TU0905 Mid-Term Conference, April 17+18 2013, Porec, (CRC Press/Balkema, Leiden and subsequently subjected to the regular blind review process of the journal. Glass as a building material demonstrates the nature of the architectural discipline, where science and building practice are closely linked. Buildings are the live testing bed for scientific research and, at the same time, building practice formulates new research questions. We found that many articles sent to us deal with this relation. Therefore we decided to introduce the new category ’Applied Practice’ for certain journal paper contributions, which from now on can be found at the end of each issue. Although they do not need to be purely scientific, ’Applied Practice’ papers will always discuss new developments, will have a clear structure and are subjected to the strict JFDE review process. Façade Design and Engineering is a peer reviewed, open access journal, funded by The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research NWO (www.nwo.nl. We see ’open access’ as the future publishing model. But it

  10. Special Issue on advanced and emerging light sources

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Haverlag, M.; Kroesen, G.M.W.; Ferguson, I.

    2011-01-01

    EDITORIAL The papers in this special issue of Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics (JPhysD) originate from the 12th International Symposium on the Science and Technology of Light Sources and the 3rd International Conference on White LEDs and Solid State Lighting, held 11–16 July 2010 at Eindhoven

  11. Special journal issue focuses on urban violence, poverty, and ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    2015-10-02

    Oct 2, 2015 ... In a special issue of the journal, Mouvements et enjeux sociaux [Social ... what works and what doesn't — to reduce violence in urban centres. ... to prevent crime, including mental health support, building community trust.

  12. An Introduction to the Special Issue. Politics of Precarity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schierup, Carl-Ulrik; Bak Jørgensen, Martin

    2016-01-01

    The current special issue examines the range and strength of analysing contemporary transformations and struggles through the lens of ‘precarity’. Rather than defining a single precariat, the interest is in exploring ‘varieties of precarity’. These take different forms in different parts of the w......The current special issue examines the range and strength of analysing contemporary transformations and struggles through the lens of ‘precarity’. Rather than defining a single precariat, the interest is in exploring ‘varieties of precarity’. These take different forms in different parts...... of the world, on different scales and in different socio-economic contexts, and yet they share certain characteristics in terms of conditions and capacity for agency. Contributions to this volume testify that precarity may be a political proposition as much as a sociological category that offers an analytical...

  13. Special issue of Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Danvy, Olivier; Sabry, Amr

    This issue of HOSC is dedicated to the general topic of continuations. It grew out of the third ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on Continuations (CW'01), which took place in London, UK on January 16, 2001 [3]. The notion of continuation is ubiquitous in many different areas of computer science, including...... and streamline Filinski's earlier work in the previous special issue of HOSC (then LISP and Symbolic Computation) that grew out of the first ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on Continuations [1, 2]. Hasegawa and Kakutani's article is the journal version of an article presented at FOSSACS 2001 and that received the EATCS...

  14. Model Based Reasoning by Introductory Students When Analyzing Earth Systems and Societal Challenges

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holder, L. N.; Herbert, B. E.

    2014-12-01

    Understanding how students use their conceptual models to reason about societal challenges involving societal issues such as natural hazard risk assessment, environmental policy and management, and energy resources can improve instructional activity design that directly impacts student motivation and literacy. To address this question, we created four laboratory exercises for an introductory physical geology course at Texas A&M University that engages students in authentic scientific practices by using real world problems and issues that affect societies based on the theory of situated cognition. Our case-study design allows us to investigate the various ways that students utilize model based reasoning to identify and propose solutions to societally relevant issues. In each of the four interventions, approximately 60 students in three sections of introductory physical geology were expected to represent and evaluate scientific data, make evidence-based claims about the data trends, use those claims to express conceptual models, and use their models to analyze societal challenges. Throughout each step of the laboratory exercise students were asked to justify their claims, models, and data representations using evidence and through the use of argumentation with peers. Cognitive apprenticeship was the foundation for instruction used to scaffold students so that in the first exercise they are given a partially completed model and in the last exercise students are asked to generate a conceptual model on their own. Student artifacts, including representation of earth systems, representation of scientific data, verbal and written explanations of models and scientific arguments, and written solutions to specific societal issues or environmental problems surrounding earth systems, were analyzed through the use of a rubric that modeled authentic expertise and students were sorted into three categories. Written artifacts were examined to identify student argumentation and

  15. Introduction to the Special Issue on Climate Ethics: Uncertainty, Values and Policy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roeser, Sabine

    2017-10-01

    Climate change is a pressing phenomenon with huge potential ethical, legal and social policy implications. Climate change gives rise to intricate moral and policy issues as it involves contested science, uncertainty and risk. In order to come to scientifically and morally justified, as well as feasible, policies, targeting climate change requires an interdisciplinary approach. This special issue will identify the main challenges that climate change poses from social, economic, methodological and ethical perspectives by focusing on the complex interrelations between uncertainty, values and policy in this context. This special issue brings together scholars from economics, social sciences and philosophy in order to address these challenges.

  16. CALL FOR PAPERS: Special issue on Symmetries and Integrability of Difference Equations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doliwa, Adam; Korhonen, Risto; Lafortune, Stephane

    2006-10-01

    This is a call for contributions to a special issue of Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General entitled `Special issue on Symmetries and Integrability of Difference Equations' as featured at the SIDE VII meeting held during July 2006 in Melbourne (http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/%7Eschief/side/side.html). Participants at that meeting, as well as other researchers working in the field of difference equations and discrete systems, are invited to submit a research paper to this issue. This meeting was the seventh of a series of biennial meetings devoted to the study of integrable difference equations and related topics. The notion of integrability was first introduced in the 19th century in the context of classical mechanics with the definition of Liouville integrability for Hamiltonian flows. Since then, several notions of integrability have been introduced for partial and ordinary differential equations. Closely related to integrability theory is the symmetry analysis of nonlinear evolution equations. Symmetry analysis takes advantage of the Lie group structure of a given equation to study its properties. Together, integrability theory and symmetry analysis provide the main method by which nonlinear evolution equations can be solved explicitly. Difference equations, just as differential equations, are important in numerous fields of science and have a wide variety of applications in such areas as: mathematical physics, computer visualization, numerical analysis, mathematical biology, economics, combinatorics, quantum field theory, etc. It is thus crucial to develop tools to study and solve difference equations. While the theory of symmetry and integrability for differential equations is now well-established, this is not yet the case for discrete equations. The situation has undergone impressive development in recent years and has affected a broad range of fields, including the theory of special functions, quantum integrable systems, numerical analysis, cellular

  17. Special nuclear materials cutoff exercise: Issues and lessons learned. Volume 3

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Libby, R.A.; Segal, J.E.; Stanbro, W.D.; Davis, C.

    1995-08-01

    This document is appendices D-J for the Special Nuclear Materials Cutoff Exercise: Issues and Lessons Learned. Included are discussions of the US IAEA Treaty, safeguard regulations for nuclear materials, issue sheets for the PUREX process, and the LANL follow up activity for reprocessing nuclear materials.

  18. Special nuclear materials cutoff exercise: Issues and lessons learned. Volume 3

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Libby, R.A.; Segal, J.E.; Stanbro, W.D.; Davis, C.

    1995-08-01

    This document is appendices D-J for the Special Nuclear Materials Cutoff Exercise: Issues and Lessons Learned. Included are discussions of the US IAEA Treaty, safeguard regulations for nuclear materials, issue sheets for the PUREX process, and the LANL follow up activity for reprocessing nuclear materials

  19. Advances in complex societal, environmental and engineered systems

    CERN Document Server

    Essaaidi, Mohammad

    2017-01-01

    This book addresses recent technological progress that has led to an increased complexity in many natural and artificial systems. The resulting complexity research due to the emergence of new properties and spatio-temporal interactions among a large number of system elements - and between the system and its environment - is the primary focus of this text. This volume is divided into three parts: Part one focuses on societal and ecological systems, Part two deals with approaches for understanding, modeling, predicting and mastering socio-technical systems, and Part three includes real-life examples. Each chapter has its own special features; it is a self-contained contribution of distinguished experts working on different fields of science and technology relevant to the study of complex systems. Advances in Complex Systems of Contemporary Reality: Societal, Environmental and Engineered Systems will provide postgraduate students, researchers and managers with qualitative and quantitative methods for handling th...

  20. Preface (of the second special issue

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Barna Iantovics

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available

    The primary aim of this special issue entitled Advances in Applied Sciences was to make some preparative steps by collecting state of the art research papers necessary in the beginning of the project entitled “Electronic Health Records for the Next Generation Medical Decision Support in Romanian and Bulgarian National Healthcare Systems” abbreviated as NextGenElectroMedSupport, a Bilateral Cooperation Research Project between Romania and Bulgaria having as directors from Bulgaria Prof. dr. Roumen Kountchev, Technical University of Sofia and from Romania Senior Lecturer dr. Barna Iantovics from Petru Maior University of Targu Mures. [...]

  1. Introduction to Special Issue on Transience

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lønsmann, Dorte; Haberland, Hartmut; Hazel, Spencer

    2017-01-01

    In this introduction to the special issue, the concept of transience is introduced as a theoretical perspective and as an object of research. The perspective of transience foregrounds the temporality of norm formation, located within the practices of people on the move. The introduction suggests......, as it is in the process of communities coming into being that norms emerge. Transience, in spite of being ubiquitous, is not always salient for members or analysts, but to identify, fixate and theorize it as an object of study in linguistic anthropology invites new ways of conceptualizing the interdependence of language...

  2. Editorial: Special Issue on Algorithms for Sequence Analysis and Storage

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Veli Mäkinen

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available This special issue of Algorithms is dedicated to approaches to biological sequence analysis that have algorithmic novelty and potential for fundamental impact in methods used for genome research.

  3. Technical Scientific Attaches and domotics. A special issue; Technisch Wetenschappelijk Attaches en domotica. Special

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kleinenberg, R.A. [Ministerie van Economische Zaken, The Hague (Netherlands); Uythof, B.H. [Invenit, Domotica Platform Nederland, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Benedetti, D [Ufficio Tecnico-Scientifico, Ambasciata del Regno dei Paesi Bassi, Rome (Italy); Van Wijngaarden, W.L. [Buero fuer Wissenschaft und Technologie, Kgl. Niederlaendische Botschaft, Bonn (Germany); Leniger, H.D.F. [Bureau du Conseiller Scientifique et Technique, Ambassade des Pays-Bas, Paris (France); Kieboom, J.P. [Office for Science and Technology, Royal Netherlands Embassy, Singapore (Singapore); Van Kooij, E.H. [Netherlands Office for Science and Technology, Royal Netherlands Embassy, Tokyo (Japan); Schuurmans, H.J.A. [Netherlands Office for Science and Technology, San Mateo, CA (United States)

    2000-04-01

    In this Dutch magazine Dutch businesses and institutes are informed about technological developments in industrialized countries (USA, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Germany, France and Italy). In this special issue attaches in the different countries present information on developments and trends with respect to domotics, building automation, home networks, etc.

  4. Special Issue: Book Reviews. Resources for Career Management, Counseling, Training and Development.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Horvath, Clara, Ed.; And Others

    1995-01-01

    This special issue includes reviews of 32 books on the following topics: management, human resources, and organizational development; career counseling, guidance, and assessment; job search; resumes; careers in specific fields; careers for special populations; career transitions; and finding balance. (SK)

  5. Guest Editorial: Special issue: Selected papers from NorCAS 2016, the 2nd Nordic

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    2017-01-01

    complex digital systems to advanced analog and mixed-mode circuits. For this Special Issue, the papers are selected among those dealing with analog and mixed-mode circuits and systems. More than 25 papers were presented in this field, and from these, 8 papers have been selected for the Special Issue...

  6. Editorial for special issue of AJIS on Green IT/IS (Sustainable computing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michael Steven Lane

    2011-03-01

    Full Text Available We are pleased to present this AJIS Special issue on Green IT/IS (Sustainable Computing. There are five papers published in this special issue of the AJIS which reflect the diversity of this emerging and important area of research in Information Systems. Environmental sustainability is one of if not the most important challenge facing organisations and society in the 21st century. Information systems and information technology have a major role to play in both reducing its environmental impact and providing the systems and technological innovation to reduce the environmental impact of organisations. Currently there is a lack of rigorous empirical studies which are theory and evidence based to provide a sound basis for understanding IT green best practices and how these can be best adopted in organisations. This special issue of the AJIS contributes this current gap in the knowledge concerning green IS and IT with five empirical research papers which examined five different aspects of green IS and IT.

  7. Some critical issues in special needs education as they relate to ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The study examines five critical issues in special education as they relate to visual impairment vis a vis mercy killing (euthanasia), gender, seclusion, castration and genetic engineering. Literature in the five stated issues was reviewed to provide an insight into these areas with particular reference to visual impairment.

  8. Special Issue: 3D Printing for Biomedical Engineering.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chua, Chee Kai; Yeong, Wai Yee; An, Jia

    2017-02-28

    Three-dimensional (3D) printing has a long history of applications in biomedical engineering. The development and expansion of traditional biomedical applications are being advanced and enriched by new printing technologies. New biomedical applications such as bioprinting are highly attractive and trendy. This Special Issue aims to provide readers with a glimpse of the recent profile of 3D printing in biomedical research.

  9. Special Issue Dedication to Stephen H. Schneider

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paul Baer

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available It is with both pleasure and sadness that we dedicate this special climate change issue of Portal to the late Dr. Stephen H. Schneider. Steve, as he was known to his friends and colleagues, was as rare a bird as any he sought out in his passion as a birdwatcher. A brilliant climate scientist, author of countless books and papers, path breaking inter-disciplinarian, eminent public communicator, mentor to dozens of young scholars; the list of roles and adulatory adjectives could fill an IPCC special report. Steve would have appreciated this special issue, with its multidisciplinary approach, and its quest for solutions based on analytical scholarship. He understood better than most the inseparability of normative and descriptive concerns, the need for academics and scientists of all kinds to be involved with public processes of communication, policy design and deliberation. While his last book was called “Science as a Contact Sport,” the unspoken title of his career might have been “Science as a Public Service.” He was endlessly testifying, consulting and giving interviews, and encouraged others to learn to do the same. Notwithstanding a battle with lymphoma in the last decade (chronicled in the wonderful book The Patient from Hell, Steve maintained a frenetic level of activity and was still going strong when he was felled by a pulmonary embolism in July of 2010 at age 65. He leaves behind a legacy embodied in his publications, institutions like the IPCC and the journal Climatic Change, and in the hearts and minds of the countless persons he interacted with, mentored, and loved. Exuberant, passionate, full of warmth and good humor, Steve was a mensch among mensches. He will be sorely missed. Paul Baer, with the assistance of Terry Root and Ian McGregor.

  10. Islamic Education, Possibilities, Opportunities and Tensions: Introduction to the Special Issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Waghid, Yusef; Davids, Nuraan

    2014-01-01

    If Islam continues to evoke skepticism, as it has done most intensely since 9/11, then it stands to reason that its tenets and education are viewed with equal mistrust, and as will be highlighted in this special issue, equal misunderstanding. The intention of this special edition is neither to counter the accusations Islam stands accused of, nor…

  11. Inferentialism in mathematics education : introduction to a special issue

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bakker, Arthur; Hußmann, Stephan

    2017-01-01

    Inferentialism, as developed by the philosopher Robert Brandom (1994, 2000), is a theory of meaning. The theory has wide-ranging implications in various fields but this special issue concentrates on the use and content of concepts. The key idea, relevant to mathematics education research, is that

  12. Preface : Special Issue on Physical Movements and Playful Interaction

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nijholt, Antinus; Nijholt, A.; Reidsma, D.; Reidsma, Dennis; Unknown, [Unknown

    2010-01-01

    This Special Issue of IJART is devoted to the 3rd International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (INTETAIN 09). This 3rd conference was held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in June 2009. It was organized by the Human Media Interaction (HMI) department of the

  13. Foreword: Special issue devoted to the ESSDERC'07 conference

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Thewes, Roland; Schmitz, Jurriaan; Schmitz, J.

    2008-01-01

    This special issue of Solid-State Electronics is dedicated to topics discussed during the 37th European Solid-State Device Research Conference (ESSDERC) held in Munich in September 2007. It comprises seven plenary and invited papers written by eminent experts as well as 23 full-length contributed

  14. Purchasing & supply management for a sustainable world: Introduction to the IPSERA 2013 conference special issue

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Johnsen, T. E.; Giannakis, M.; Miemczyk, J.

    2014-01-01

    Special issue of best papers of the 22nd annual IPSERA conference 2013: Purchasing & Supply Management for a Sustainable World......Special issue of best papers of the 22nd annual IPSERA conference 2013: Purchasing & Supply Management for a Sustainable World...

  15. Psychosocial Studies of Migration and Community: Introduction to the Special Issue

    OpenAIRE

    Douglas D. Perkins; Neal A. Palmer; Manuel García-Ramírez

    2011-01-01

    Introducing the special issue on psychosocial studies of migration and community, we briefly reflect on the global increase in, and issues related to, both international and domestic migration, particularly from rural areas of less developed countries, which has fueled rapid urbanization and intercultural tensions in both post-industrial and developing countries. Topics covered in the issue are summarized, including an Italian study of the emotional impact of discrimination against immigrant ...

  16. Special Issue on Gender and Writing | Gender and literacy issues and research: Placing the spotlight on writing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Judy M. Parr

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available In this introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Writing Research, we review four decades of research, bringing writing to the forefront in conversations devoted to gender and literacy. We identify the impetus for much of the research on gender and writing and situate the four articles in this special issue within three themes: gender patterns in what and how students write, cognitive and socio-cultural factors influencing gender differences in student writing, and attempts to provide alternatives to stereotypical gender patterns in student writing. These interdisciplinary themes, further developed within the four articles, underscore the need to consider gender as a complex social, cognitive and linguistic characteristic of both reading and writing.

  17. Introduction to This Special Issue on Transnational HCI

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Shklovski, Irina; Vertesi, Janet; Lindtner, Silvia

    2014-01-01

    It is not surprising that HCI researchers are attracted to the role of technology in global processes as many of us already live inherently transnational lives. While the notion of global connectedness is hardly new, the issues that confront us are more than specific concerns for remote migration......, distributed work, or developing nations. Rather, we argue that transnational HCI is a contemporary condition of the design and use of technological systems, both at home and abroad. This special issue of Human-Computer Interaction is dedicated to exploring how and why a transnational lens matters to the study......, design, and development of computational systems. We consider this theoretical perspective in terms of both present technology use to construct and manage transnational relations and processes, and the possibilities such a lens opens for future research and design. The papers in this issue contribute...

  18. Introduction to This Special Issue on Context-Aware Computing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moran, Thomas P.; Dourish, Paul

    2001-01-01

    Discusses pervasive, or ubiquitous, computing; explains the notion of context; and defines context-aware computing as the key to disperse and enmesh computation into our lives. Considers context awareness in human-computer interaction and describes the broad topic areas of the essays included in this special issue. (LRW)

  19. Introduction to the Special Issue “Sport for Social Inclusion: Critical Analyses and Future Challenges”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Reinhard Haudenhuyse

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available “Sport for Social Inclusion: Critical Analyses and Future Challenges” brings together a unique collection of papers on the subject of sport and social inclusion. The special issue can be divided into three major parts. The first part consists of three papers tacking on a broad perspective on sport and social exclusion, with specific attention to austerity policies, sport-for-change and exclusion in youth sports. The second part of the special issue tackles specific themes (e.g., group composition and dynamics, volunteering, physical education, youth work, equality, public health and groups (e.g., people with disabilities, disadvantaged girls, youth in society in relation to sport and social exclusion. The third part consists of three papers that are related to issues of multiculturalism, migration and social inclusion. The special issue is further augmented with a book review on Mike Collins and Tess Kay’s Sport and social exclusion (2nd edition and a short research communication. The editors dedicate the special issue to Mike Collins (deceased.

  20. Special Issue: 3D Printing for Biomedical Engineering

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chee Kai Chua

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available Three-dimensional (3D printing has a long history of applications in biomedical engineering. The development and expansion of traditional biomedical applications are being advanced and enriched by new printing technologies. New biomedical applications such as bioprinting are highly attractive and trendy. This Special Issue aims to provide readers with a glimpse of the recent profile of 3D printing in biomedical research.

  1. SSDL Newsletter, No. 58 (Special Issue), June 2010

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2010-06-01

    This is a Special Issue of the SSDL Newsletter. The original idea is to highlight the 40th anniversary of the IAEA/WHO TLD postal dose audit service. After forty years of operation, the service has verified the calibration of approximately 8000 radiotherapy beams in about 1700 hospitals worldwide. Several hundreds of dosimetry deviations have been identified and reconciled, thus avoiding potential dose misadministration to patients

  2. Extending life for people with a terminal illness: a moral right and an expensive death? Exploring societal perspectives.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McHugh, Neil; Baker, Rachel M; Mason, Helen; Williamson, Laura; van Exel, Job; Deogaonkar, Rohan; Collins, Marissa; Donaldson, Cam

    2015-03-07

    Many publicly-funded health systems apply cost-benefit frameworks in response to the moral dilemma of how best to allocate scarce healthcare resources. However, implementation of recommendations based on costs and benefit calculations and subsequent challenges have led to 'special cases' with certain types of health benefits considered more valuable than others. Recent debate and research has focused on the relative value of life extensions for people with terminal illnesses. This research investigates societal perspectives in relation to this issue, in the UK. Q methodology was used to elicit societal perspectives from a purposively selected sample of data-rich respondents. Participants ranked 49 statements of opinion (developed for this study), onto a grid, according to level of agreement. These 'Q sorts' were followed by brief interviews. Factor analysis was used to identify shared points of view (patterns of similarity between individuals' Q sorts). Analysis produced a three factor solution. These rich, shared accounts can be broadly summarised as: i) 'A population perspective - value for money, no special cases', ii) 'Life is precious - valuing life-extension and patient choice', iii) 'Valuing wider benefits and opportunity cost - the quality of life and death'. From the factor descriptions it is clear that the main philosophical positions that have long dominated debates on the just allocation of resources have a basis in public opinion. The existence of certain moral positions in the views of society does not ethically imply, and pragmatically cannot mean, that all are translated into policy. Our findings highlight normative tensions and the importance of critically engaging with these normative issues (in addition to the current focus on a procedural justice approach to health policy). Future research should focus on i) the extent to which these perspectives are supported in society, ii) how respondents' perspectives relate to specific resource allocation

  3. Special Issue: Outcome of Anorexia Nervosa with Teenage Onset.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Casper, Regina C., Ed.

    1996-01-01

    The articles of this special issue report on studies of the outcomes of treatment of adolescent anorexia nervosa. These studies leave no doubt about the mortality risk and debilitating nature of chronic anorexia nervosa, but they do suggest that the prognosis, given expert treatment, is favorable for the most part. (SLD)

  4. Special issue of Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    solicited from papers presented at ASIAPEPM 02, the 2002 SIGPLAN Symposium on Partial Evaluation and Semantics-Based Program Manipulation [1]. The four articles were subjected to the usual process of journal reviewing. "Cost-Augmented Partial Evaluation of Functional Logic Programs" extends previous......The present issue is dedicated to Partial Evaluation and Semantics-Based Program Manipulation. Its first two articles were solicited from papers presented at PEPM 02, the 2002 ACMSIGPLANWorkshop on Partial Evaluation and Semantics-Based Program Manipulation [2], and its last two articles were...... narrowing-driven techniques of partial evaluation for functional-logic programs by the inclusion of abstract computation costs into the partial-evaluation process. A preliminary version of this work was presented at PEPM 02. "Specialization Scenarios: A Pragmatic Approach to Declaring Program Specialization...

  5. Special issue call for papers from Business Systems Research Journal

    OpenAIRE

    Pejić Bach, Mirjana

    2011-01-01

    A special issue oft he Business Systems Research Journal with extended versions of selected papers from the 11th International Symposium on Operations Research in Slovenia (SOR’11) will be published under the journal ‘s publishing standards.

  6. Introduction to special issue on the ecology of clonal plants

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Gross, K. L.; Herben, T.; Klimešová, Jitka

    2017-01-01

    Roč. 52, 3-4 (2017), s. 265-267 ISSN 1211-9520 Institutional support: RVO:67985939 Keywords : Introduction to special issue * clonal plants * clonal meeting Subject RIV: EH - Ecology, Behaviour OBOR OECD: Ecology Impact factor: 1.017, year: 2016

  7. Special issues as criterion for journal quality evaluation: Letter to editor

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dadkhah Mehdi

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Predatory publishers are defined as publishers who have financial goals. This definition was introduced for the first time by Jeffrey Beall (2012. In some predatory publishers, we can find some papers that are not related to journal's aim and scope. These journals create special issues in order to publish papers that are not related to journal's aim and scope. Thus, we are faced with a question of how the editor of these journals could evaluate these papers. In some trusted journals, editor invites guest editors for special issues, which are related to journal's aim and scope. On the other hand predatory publishers, publish papers without any external reviewers or guest editors. In addition, some journals that publish irrelevant papers in regular issues are also found. This problem can be seen especially in some biological or life science journals. It seems that these problems pose new challenge for the academic world.

  8. 1. Introduction to the special issue on “Gastronomy and Revolution”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Manuela Albertone

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available This number of our Journal is again a special, thematic issue, that brings to our readers the results of the Call on “Gastronomy and Revolution”, that we announced in 2014, and of the 2015 Seminar that followed the Call. In these few pages, we would like to provide a brief introduction to the theme of the issue.

  9. Support of Publication Costs, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation Special Issue of Deep Sea Research II Journal

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Amy Honchar

    2012-11-12

    The contribution of funds from DOE supported publication costs of a special issue of Deep Sea Research arising from presentations at the First U.S. Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) Meeting held 4-6 May, 2009 to review the US implementation plan and its coordination with other monitoring activities. The special issue includes a total of 16 papers, including publications from three DOE-supported investigators (ie Sevellec, F., and A.V. Fedorov; Hu et. al., and Wan et. al.,). The special issue addresses DOE interests in understanding and simulation/modeling of abrupt climate change.

  10. INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE ON COMBAT SPORT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrew M. Lane

    2006-07-01

    Full Text Available Combat Sports Special Issue Editorial INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE ON COMBAT SPORT The World heavyweight professional boxing championship is arguable the biggest prize in sport. Why is this the case? It is not just the glamour that is appealing, but also the intriguing appeal of two combatants in a fixed environment. All combat sports share this similarity and in doing so, combat sports become appealing for spectators to watch, provide competitors with their ultimate challenge, and provide sport scientists and medics with a rich environment to apply their work. The role of research and theory driven interventions is key to the credibility of sport science and sports medicine. An intervention and/or treatment must be based on sound reason and the effects should be considered beforehand, both positive and negative. Equally, the nature of combat sport, where the aim is to strike, throw, or grapple with an opponent which can lead to injury, invariably raises questions on whether it is morally acceptable for these activities to be called a sport. Therefore, thorough investigation of the nature of medical issues is needed. The case for banning boxing in inextricably linked to the notion that the aim of the sport is to cause harm to the opponent; if harm was minimized and injury became less of an injury, the case for banning boxing would be weak. Quite clearly there are a plethora of arguments that point to a need for theory driven research in combat sport, and plugging this gap in the literature is an aim of this special issue of the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine. Possibly the most convincing argument for me to get involved in driving this issue stems from experiences in applied work with professional boxers (Hall and Lane, 2001; Lane and Hall, 2003, amateur boxers (Lane, 2002, kickboxers (Lane, et al., 1999 and tae-kwon-do athletes (Chapman et al., 1997 in which a raft of situations and issues were presented that required answers based

  11. Special issue on electron cyclotron wave physics, technology, and applications - Part 2

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Uckan, Nermin A.

    2008-01-01

    This issue of Fusion Science and Technology (FS and T) contains a compendium of full-length, peer-reviewed papers on electron cyclotron (EC) wave physics, technology, and applications on magnetically confined plasmas. The interest in this special issue started with a simple question from a single individual who asked if he could submit for publication in FS and T his paper ''ITER ECH Front Steering Upper Launcher,'' parts of which he was planning to present at the 14th Joint Workshop on Electron Cyclotron Emission and Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating, Santorini Island, Greece, May 2006. Such interest quickly grew, and the decision was made to offer the same opportunity to other workshop participants as well as to other interested researchers from around the world to contribute to a special FS and T issue on EC wave physics, technology, and applications. The person who started this ''wave'' of interest is no other than Dr. Mark Henderson, who was later drafted and kindly agreed to serve as the guest editor for this issue. The worldwide research program on EC wave physics, technology, and applications has shown impressive progress over the past couple of years, and much of this progress is reflected in the fifty or so papers that are included in this two-part special issue - part 1 in August 2007 and part 2 in January 2008. To complement the contributed papers, several informative reviews, which will be valuable for years to come, were also invited and are included. These review papers provide an objective summary of the current state of the art in EC emission research, theory of EC waves, EC heating and current drive experiments, gyrotron development, launcher development, and transmission systems. In preparation for ITER, this special issue is timely and should be of interest to those already working in the field and to the new generation of scientists and engineers who will be the ones to design, build, and carry out experiments on ITER. We extend our

  12. Recreational drugs. Societal and professional issues.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Solari-Twadell, P A

    1991-06-01

    Recreational drug use presents a challenge to society and, in particular, the profession of nursing. Recreational drug use must be appreciated for the implications it presents for the episodes of abuse and development of chronic health problems. The effects and recreational use of volatile substances, cannabis, opioids, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, amphetamines, cocaine, psychedelics, and designer drugs as well as alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine must be acknowledged and understood if options for change are to be considered. The resultant cost of recreational drug use as well as health care implications, public safety, and prevention are significant issues society is faced with today. These issues will continue to be significant unless the current posture toward recreational drug use and abuse is addressed. The profession of nursing continues to be faced with the problems associated with recreational drug use not only through caring for clients, but immediately by the effects of recreational drug use on individual professional nurses. To respond effectively, nursing education and nursing research must be challenged to create an emphasis on this focus. Only through this type of multifocal approach will long-term substantial change be affected for the betterment of future generations.

  13. Astrobiology, discovery, and societal impact

    CERN Document Server

    Dick, Steven J

    2018-01-01

    The search for life in the universe, once the stuff of science fiction, is now a robust worldwide research program with a well-defined roadmap probing both scientific and societal issues. This volume examines the humanistic aspects of astrobiology, systematically discussing the approaches, critical issues, and implications of discovering life beyond Earth. What do the concepts of life and intelligence, culture and civilization, technology and communication mean in a cosmic context? What are the theological and philosophical implications if we find life - and if we do not? Steven J. Dick argues that given recent scientific findings, the discovery of life in some form beyond Earth is likely and so we need to study the possible impacts of such a discovery and formulate policies to deal with them. The remarkable and often surprising results are presented here in a form accessible to disciplines across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities.

  14. Introduction to the Special Issue on “Optomechatronics”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexander W. Koch

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available The field of optomechatronics combines the synergistic effects of optics, mechanics and electronics for efficient sensor development. Optical sensors for the measurement of mechanical quantities, equipped with appropriate electronic signal (preprocessing have a wide range of applications, from surface testing, stress monitoring, and thin film analysis to biochemical sensing. The aim of this special issue is to provide an overview of current research and innovative applications of optomechatronics in sensors.

  15. BRAIN JOURNAL - PREFACE (OF THE FIRST SPECIAL ISSUE)

    OpenAIRE

    Bogdan Patrut

    2010-01-01

    BRAIN. Broad Research in Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience, ISSN 2067-3957, Volume 1, July 2010, Special Issue on Complexity in Sciences and Artificial Intelligence Editors • Barna Iantovics, Petru Maior University, Targu Mures, Romania • Dumitru Rădoiu, Petru Maior University, Targu Mures, Romania • Marius Măruşteri, Universiy of Medicine and Pharmacy, Targu Mures, Romania • Matthias Dehmer, Institute for Bioinformatics and Translational Research, The Health and Life Scien...

  16. Taking a Societal Sector Perspective on Youth Learning and Development

    Science.gov (United States)

    McLaughlin, Milbrey; London, Rebecca A.

    2013-01-01

    A societal sector perspective looks to a broad array of actors and agencies responsible for creating the community contexts that affect youth learning and development. We demonstrate the efficacy of this perspective by describing the Youth Data Archive, which allows community partners to define issues affecting youth that transcend specific…

  17. Alternatives - talk about energy differently. Radioactive waste a societal issue; Alternatives - parler autrement de l'energie. Dechets radioactifs un enjeu de societe

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    2004-07-01

    ''Alternatives'' is an information magazine proposed by the Areva Group, a world nuclear energy leader. It is devoted to the public information on topics of the Group activities. This issue deals with the fusion technology, the strengths and weaknesses of interconnected networks, the undersea tidal power farms, the danish paradox which has the highest levels of CO{sub 2} emissions despite the use of wind energy, the international community renewed commitment to renewable energy, the hydrogen, the low speed wind turbines and the future miniature fuel cells. A special interest is given to the radioactive wastes management. (A.L.B.)

  18. Taking Development Seriously: Critique of the 2008 "JME" Special Issue on Moral Functioning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gibbs, John C.; Moshman, David; Berkowitz, Marvin W.; Basinger, Karen S.; Grime, Rebecca L.

    2009-01-01

    This essay comments on articles comprising a "Journal of Moral Education" Special Issue (September, 2008, 37[3]). The issue was intended to honour the 50th anniversary of Lawrence Kohlberg's doctoral dissertation and his subsequent impact on the field of moral development and education. The articles were characterised by the Issue editor (Don…

  19. Guest editorial preface : Special Issue on Advances in Computer Entertainment

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nijholt, Anton; Romão, Teresa; Cheok, Adrian D.

    2013-01-01

    This special issue of the International Journal of Creative Interfaces and Computer Graphics contains a selection of papers from ACE 2012, the 9th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment (Nijholt et al., 2012). ACE is the leading scientific forum for dissemination of

  20. Conceptual Metaphor and Embodied Cognition in Science Learning: Introduction to Special Issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Amin, Tamer G.; Jeppsson, Fredrik; Haglund, Jesper

    2015-01-01

    This special issue of "International Journal of Science Education" is based on the theme "Conceptual Metaphor and Embodied Cognition in Science Learning." The idea for this issue grew out of a symposium organized on this topic at the conference of the European Science Education Research Association (ESERA) in September 2013.…

  1. EDITORIAL: Special Issue on advanced and emerging light sources Special Issue on advanced and emerging light sources

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haverlag, Marco; Kroesen, Gerrit; Ferguson, Ian

    2011-06-01

    The papers in this special issue of Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics (JPhysD) originate from the 12th International Symposium on the Science and Technology of Light Sources and the 3rd International Conference on White LEDs and Solid State Lighting, held 11-16 July 2010 at Eindhoven University. Abstracts of all papers presented at this combined conference were published in the Conference Proceedings LS-WLED 2010 by FAST-LS, edited by M Haverlag, G M W Kroesen and T Taguchi. Special issues of the previous three LS conferences have been well-cited and have proven to be an important source of information for the lighting community. The 2010 LS-Symposium was a combined conference with the White LED Conference in order to enhance the scope of this conference series towards new light source technologies such as LEDs and OLEDs, and this co-operation will be continued in the future. Given the faster technology development in these areas it was also decided to shorten the interval between conferences from three to two years. Well over 200 invited presentations, landmark presentations and poster contributions were presented at the 2010 LS-Symposium. The organizing committee have selected from these a number of outstanding contributions with a high technological content and invited the authors to submit a full paper in JPhysD. The criteria were that the work should not be a repetition of the work already published in the Proceedings, but should be new, complete, within the scope of JPhysD, and meeting the normal quality standards of this journal. After peer review a combined set of 18 papers is published in this JPhysD special issue. In addition, a number of lighting-application-orientated papers will be published in a special issue of Journal of Light & Visual Environment later in 2011. The papers in this special issue of JPhysD show that research in the science and technology of light sources still covers a broad set of subject areas which includes both 'classical

  2. Effects of the euro changeover on consumer behaviour: Introduction to the special issue

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gärling, Tommy; Thøgersen, John

    2007-01-01

    This paper introduces the special issue "Effects of the euro changeover on consumer behaviour" by briefly reviewing the contents of the included papers. The introduction follows the organization of the papers in three sections each focusing on a common set of issues. In the first section, research...... revealing the perceived and actual problems consumers face after the euro changeover is described. Research illuminating learning and adaptation to the euro changeover is the focus of the second section. A special problem is the misperception of inflation after the euro changeover. Research on this problem...

  3. Special issue on advances in computer entertainment: editorial

    OpenAIRE

    Romão, T.; Romão, Teresa; Nijholt, Antinus; Cheok, J.D.; Cheok, Adrian David

    2015-01-01

    This special issue of the International Journal of Arts and Technology comprises a selection of papers from ACE 2012, the 9th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment (Nijholt et al., 2012). ACE is the leading scientific forum for dissemination of cutting-edge research results in the area of entertainment computing. The main goal of ACE is to stimulate discussion in the development of new and compelling entertainment computing and interactive art concepts and application...

  4. Introduction to a special issue on genotype by environment interaction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Expression of a phenotype is a function of the genotype, the environment, and the differential sensitivity of certain genotypes to different environments, also known as genotype by environment (G × E) interaction. This special issue of Crop Science includes a collection of manuscripts that reviews t...

  5. Overview on the ‘Atmospheric Emissions from Volcanoes’ Special Issue

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shona Mackie

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available The session ‘Atmospheric Emissions from Volcanoes’ formed part of the 2014 General Assembly of the Europe-an Geosciences Union (EGU, held in Vienna from 27 April to 2 May. This special issue presents some of the work that was discussed during the session. [...

  6. Entrepreneurial activity and regional development: an introduction to this special issue

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maribel Guerrero

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available The main objective of this special issue is to analyze the relationship between entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial activity and its impact on regional development. The last convulsive decade, with expansionary and recessionary economic cycles, offers a good opportunity to study how economic cycles affect the propensity of becoming an entrepreneur and, in turn, to observe how entrepreneurial activity contributes to change (improvement in the economy.Previous studies have analyzed the complicated endogenous relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth, but these studies have examined the countries’ performance under a static view. This special issue focuses on analyzing complex entrepreneurial behavior from a sub-national perspective (examining several regions in the Spanish autonomous communities and a dynamic view (using data from several years, which adds rigor and valuable knowledge to this research field.

  7. Introduction to the special issue 'unintended effects of international cooperation'.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koch, Dirk-Jan; Schulpen, Lau

    2018-06-01

    The 'Evaluation and Program Planning' journal has contributed to the launch of an academic discussion of unintended effects of international cooperation, notably by publishing in 2016 articles by Bamberger, Tarsilla, & Hesse-Biber and by Jabeen. This special issue aims to take up the academic challenges as laid down by those authors, by providing among others a clear typology and applying it, by outlining various methodological options and testing them, and elaborating on suggestions on how to deal with the barriers that prevent unintended effects being taken into account. This special issue makes clear that it is possible to reduce the share of unforeseen effects of international cooperation. Turning the spotlight on unintended effects that can be anticipated, and aiming to make progress on uncovering those that are particularly difficult to detect and debunking those that are exaggerated is the task that lies ahead of us. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Introduction to the Special Issue on Clinical Neuropsychology of Movement Disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tröster, Alexander I

    2017-11-01

    The special issue on the clinical neuropsychology of movement disorders provides an overview for the non-subspecialist clinical neuropsychologist and other clinical neuroscientists of the neuropsychological features, assessment and treatment of Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementias, atypical parkinsonian disorders (corticobasal syndrome, progressive supranuclear palsy, and multiple system atrophy), Huntington's disease, dystonia, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Additionally, articles provide overviews of neuropsychological and ethical issues related to deep brain stimulation and a discussion of non-pharamcologic and non-invasive treatment of cognitive dysfunction in Parkinson's disease. A search of PubMed using neuropsycholog* and parkinson* as search terms indicates that the number of articles dealing with neuropsychology of parkinsonian disorders has more than doubled in each of the past three decades (1990-99:269 entries, 2000-09:575 entries, 2010-17:967 entries). This rapid growth of research makes a special issue on the topic very timely. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  9. Editorial Special Issue on Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Power (FMFP ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    This special issue of Sadhana contains selected papers from two conferences related to fluid mechanics held in India recently, Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Power conference at NIT, Hamirpur, and an International Union of Theoretical ... A simple, well thought out, flow visualization experiment or a computation can sometimes ...

  10. Special Issue: Honey Bee Viruses

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sebastian Gisder

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Pollination of flowering plants is an important ecosystem service provided by wild insect pollinators and managed honey bees. Hence, losses and declines of pollinating insect species threaten human food security and are of major concern not only for apiculture or agriculture but for human society in general. Honey bee colony losses and bumblebee declines have attracted intensive research interest over the last decade and although the problem is far from being solved we now know that viruses are among the key players of many of these bee losses and bumblebee declines. With this special issue on bee viruses we, therefore, aimed to collect high quality original papers reflecting the current state of bee virus research. To this end, we focused on newly discovered viruses (Lake Sinai viruses, bee macula-like virus, or a so far neglected virus species (Apis mellifera filamentous virus, and cutting edge technologies (mass spectrometry, RNAi approach applied in the field.

  11. Special Issue: Honey Bee Viruses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gisder, Sebastian; Genersch, Elke

    2015-01-01

    Pollination of flowering plants is an important ecosystem service provided by wild insect pollinators and managed honey bees. Hence, losses and declines of pollinating insect species threaten human food security and are of major concern not only for apiculture or agriculture but for human society in general. Honey bee colony losses and bumblebee declines have attracted intensive research interest over the last decade and although the problem is far from being solved we now know that viruses are among the key players of many of these bee losses and bumblebee declines. With this special issue on bee viruses we, therefore, aimed to collect high quality original papers reflecting the current state of bee virus research. To this end, we focused on newly discovered viruses (Lake Sinai viruses, bee macula-like virus), or a so far neglected virus species (Apis mellifera filamentous virus), and cutting edge technologies (mass spectrometry, RNAi approach) applied in the field. PMID:26702462

  12. 2008 Special NSREC Issue of the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science Comments by the Editors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schwank, Jim; Buchner, Steve; Marshall, Paul; Duzellier, Sophie; Brown, Dennis; Poivey, Christian; Pease, Ron

    2008-12-01

    The December 2008 special issue of the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science contains selected papers from the 45th annual IEEE International Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference (NSREC) held in Tucson, Arizona, July 14 - 18, 2008. Over 115 papers presented at the 2008 NSREC were submitted for consideration for this year's special issue. Those papers that appear in this special issue were able to successfully complete the review process before the deadline for the December issue. A few additional papers may appear in subsequent issues of the TRANSACTIONS. This publication is the premier archival journal for research on space and nuclear radiation effects in materials, devices, circuits, and systems. This distinction is the direct result of the conscientious efforts of both the authors, who present and document their work, and the reviewers, who selflessly volunteer their time and talent to help review the manuscripts. Each paper in this journal has been reviewed by experts selected by the editors for their expertise and knowledge of the particular subject areas.

  13. A New Urban Agenda: Introduction to the Special Issue on “Sustainable Urban Development”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Steffen Lehmann

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available Since the start of the 21st century, humanity has been a predominantly urban species. This Special Issue is about the future of cities and how urbanization will develop when based on principles of sustainability. It explores the underlying dimensions of the transformation of existing cities and the design of low carbon green precincts and their urban systems. The view of the papers presented in this Special Issue is holistic and takes questions of social sustainability into account. This editorial highlights the contents and methodologies of 13 selected papers, while presenting diverse issues in strategies, concepts and policies for sustainable urban development.

  14. Are life-extending treatments for terminal illnesses a special case? Exploring choices and societal viewpoints

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    N. McHugh (Neil); van Exel, J. (Job); H. Mason (Helen); Godwin, J. (Jon); M. Collins (Marissa); Donaldson, C. (Cam); R.M. Baker (Rachel)

    2018-01-01

    textabstractCriteria used by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to assess life-extending, end-of-life (EoL) treatments imply that health gains from such treatments are valued more than other health gains. Despite claims that the policy is supported by societal values,

  15. Special issue on Modern Trends in Inorganic Chemistry (MTIC-XV ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    This Special Issue is based on the contributions from the invited speakers of the. Fifteenth Symposium on Modern Trends in Inorganic Chemistry (MTIC-XV) held at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee during 13–16, December 2013. The MTIC series of biennial symposia has been an important forum for the inorganic ...

  16. Introduction to the special issue Hermann Weyl and the philosophy of the 'New Physics'

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Bianchi, Silvia; Catren, Gabriel

    2018-02-01

    This Special Issue Hermann Weyl and the Philosophy of the 'New Physics' has two main objectives: first, to shed fresh light on the relevance of Weyl's work for modern physics and, second, to evaluate the importance of Weyl's work and ideas for contemporary philosophy of physics. Regarding the first objective, this Special Issue emphasizes aspects of Weyl's work (e.g. his work on spinors in n dimensions) whose importance has recently been emerging in research fields across both mathematical and experimental physics, as well as in the history and philosophy of physics. Regarding the second objective, this Special Issue addresses the relevance of Weyl's ideas regarding important open problems in the philosophy of physics, such as the problem of characterizing scientific objectivity and the problem of providing a satisfactory interpretation of fundamental symmetries in gauge theories and quantum mechanics. In this Introduction, we sketch the state of the art in Weyl studies and we summarize the content of the contributions to the present volume.

  17. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-03-07

    Mar 7, 2018 ... characterized by historically developed specialization, a special geographical location ... We are listed under Research Associations category. ... product, service or technology providing economic and/or public benefit, additional in ...... the region's competitiveness // International Business Management.

  18. Perspectives on working memory: introduction to the special issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Logie, Robert H; Cowan, Nelson

    2015-04-01

    More than 40 years ago, Baddeley and Hitch (1974) published an article with a wealth of experimentation and theorization on working memory, the small amount of information held in mind and often used within cognitive processes such as language comprehension and production, reasoning, and problem solving. We honor this seminal accomplishment in the present special issue, and take this opportunity to provide an introduction to our perspectives on the origin of the theory of working memory, how it has affected our work, what may be coming in the near future, and how the research articles in the present issue contribute to several related themes within the clearly thriving field of working memory.

  19. Special Issue: NextGen Materials for 3D Printing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chee Kai Chua

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Only a handful of materials are well-established in three-dimensional (3D printing and well-accepted in industrial manufacturing applications. However, recent advances in 3D printable materials have shown potential for enabling numerous novel applications in the future. This special issue, consisting of 2 reviews and 10 research articles, intends to explore the possible materials that could define next-generation 3D printing.

  20. Editorial. Special issue on strategies and self-regulation in self-access learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Heath Rose

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Learner strategy and self-regulation theory have been in a state of flux in recent years, and this is an exciting time to share new ideas, conceptualizations and models of research in order to move the field forward. Therefore, the editor was eager to pursue a special issue where emerging voices in these fields could be heard, and these new ideas could be shared. The representation of strategic learning in recent conferences is indicative of a growing trend in the field to move towards a self-access and learner autonomy perspective. There is great potential to share knowledge between these fields. This special issue brings these fields, which have already been gravitating together, closer in a more concrete and published format.

  1. CALL FOR PAPERS: Special Issue on “The Gender Dimension in Technology”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alejandro Jimenez M.

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available This Special Issue aims to present to the scientific, business and policy-making communities a concentrated and multi-faceted body of recent research, that has the potential to raise awareness on the increasing importance of gender in technology, broaden the current understanding of the dynamics and implications of the phenomenon, inspire new research projects in this and related areas, and disseminate good practice. Note: The authors of the papers included in this Special Issue will have the opportunity to present them at the International Conference Triple Helix 8 (Madrid, October 2010, which will include a track on Gender and Technology. Further details on this track will be available shortly on the conference website http://www.triplehelix8.org/information.html

  2. Association of American Geographers, Remote Sensing Specialty Group Special Issue of Geocarto International

    Science.gov (United States)

    Allen, Thomas R. (Editor); Emerson, Charles W. (Editor); Quattrochi, Dale A. (Editor); Arnold, James E. (Technical Monitor)

    2001-01-01

    This special issue continues the precedence of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), Remote Sensing Specialty Group (RSSG) for publishing selected articles in Geocarto International as a by-product from the AAG annual meeting. As editors, we issued earlier this year, a solicitation for papers to be published in a special issue of Geocarto International that were presented in RSSG-sponsored sessions at the 2001 AAG annual meeting held in New York City on February 27-March 3. Although not an absolute requisite for publication, the vast majority of the papers in this special issue were presented at this year's AAG meeting in New York. Other articles in this issue that were not part of a paper or poster session at the 2001 AAG meeting are authored by RSSG members. Under the auspices of the RSSG, this special Geocarto International issue provides even more compelling evidence of the inextricable linkage between remote sensing and geography. The papers in this special issue fall into four general themes: 1) Urban Analysis and Techniques for Urban Analysis; 2) Land Use/Land Cover Analysis; 3) Fire Modeling Assessment; and 4) Techniques. The first four papers herein are concerned with the use of remote sensing for analysis of urban areas, and with use or development of techniques to better characterize urban areas using remote sensing data. As the lead paper in this grouping, Rashed et al., examine the usage of spectral mixture analysis (SMA) for analyzing satellite imagery of urban areas as opposed to more 'standard' methods of classification. Here SMA has been applied to IRS-1C satellite multispectral imagery to extract measures that better describe the 'anatomy' of the greater Cairo, Egypt region. Following this paper, Weng and Lo describe how Landsat TM data have been used to monitor land cover types and to estimate biomass parameters within an urban environment. The research reported in this paper applies an integrated GIS (Geographic Information System

  3. Contributions to the Content Analysis of Gender Roles: An Introduction to a Special Issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rudy, Rena M; Popova, Lucy; Linz, Daniel G

    2011-02-01

    This special issue on gender-related content analysis is the second of two parts (see Rudy et al. 2010b). The current special issue is more diverse than was the first in the number of countries that are represented and in the variety of media genres and content types that are included. The primary aim of this paper is to outline some of the contributions of the individual papers in this second special issue. Some of these advancements and innovations include (a) examining underresearched measures, countries, time spans, sexual orientations, and individual media programs; (b) addressing both international and intranational differences in gender-role portrayals; (c) comparing multiple content formats within the same media unit; (d) updating past findings to take into consideration the current media landscape; (e) employing established measures in novel ways and novel contexts; (f) uncovering limitations in established intercultural measures and media-effects theories; (g) suggesting variables that could predict additional differences in gender-role portrayals; (h) adopting virtually identical methods and measures across distinct content categories in order to facilitate comparisons; (i) conducting multiple tests of a given hypothesis; (j) examining, from multiple perspectives, the implications of racial differences in gender portrayals; and (k) examining the implications of underrepresentation of women and the perspectives that women hold. In addition to the original content-analytical research presented in this special issue, two reviews, one methodological and the other analytical, offer recommendations of procedures and perspectives to be implemented in future research.

  4. Introduction to special issue 'Gender, Culture and Alcohol Problems: a Multi-national Study'.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bloomfield, Kim; Gmel, Gerhard; Wilsnack, Sharon

    2006-01-01

    This paper provides an introduction to a series of articles reporting results from the EU concerted action "Gender, Culture and Alcohol Problems: A Multi-national Study" which examined differences in drinking among women and men in 13 European and two non-European countries. The gender gap in alcohol drinking is one of the few universal gender differences in human social behavior. However, the size of these differences varies greatly from one society to another. The papers in this issue examine, across countries, (1) men's and women's drinking patterns, (2) the prevalence of men's and women's experience of alcohol-related problems, (3) gender differences in social inequalities in alcohol use and abuse, (4) gender differences in the influence of combinations of social roles on heavy alcohol use, and (5) how societal-level factors predict women's and men's alcohol use and problems on a regional and global level. Country surveys were independently conducted and then centralized at one institution for further data standardization and processing. Several results indicated that the greater the societal gender equality in a country, the smaller the gender differences in drinking behavior. In most analyses the smallest gender differences in drinking behaviour were found in Nordic countries, followed by western and central European countries, with the largest gender differences in countries with developing economies.

  5. Introduction to the special issue on visual aesthetics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marković Slobodan

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Visual aesthetics encompasses the studies of the relationship between vision and various aesthetic phenomena - from the beauty ratings of simple visual patterns to the appreciation of visual art, from the preference for natural objects and scenes to the preference for products of human creativity, from the aesthetic effects of culture to the aesthetic effects of biology, from the universal aesthetic sensitivity to the individual differences in taste, and so on. In this special issue ten papers reported the most recent studies on very different subjects related to visual aesthetics.

  6. The role of adult education and learning policy in fostering societal sustainability

    Science.gov (United States)

    Milana, Marcella; Rasmussen, Palle; Holford, John

    2016-10-01

    The idea of "sustainability" as a core value has slowly permeated policy and practice at governmental and institutional levels, in public and private policy. However, at times when social and economic crises have revealed the fragility of existing institutions and policies, it is important to consider how sustainability is - and could be - integrated into educational policies. In this theoretical contribution to a special issue on "Societal sustainability", the authors draw on available literature and knowledge. They begin their paper by summarising the conditions under which the concept of "sustainability" entered political discourse in the early 1970s and outline how it has influenced educational research. They then introduce the longstanding debate about the relative role of tradition (in terms of traditional cultural and social order) and change (in terms of efforts to provide learning opportunities for everyone) in adult education. Finally, they argue for a rethinking of the ontology of sustainability: this, they suggest, can shed new light on its relationships with adult education and learning and social justice.

  7. The role of adult education and learning policy in fostering societal sustainability

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Milana, Marcella; Rasmussen, Palle Damkjær; Holford, John

    2016-01-01

    The idea of “sustainability” as a core value has slowly permeated policy and practice at governmental and institutional levels, in public and private policy. However, at times when social and economic crises have revealed the fragility of existing institutions and policies, it is important to con...... opportunities for everyone) in adult education. Finally, they argue for a rethinking of the ontology of sustainability: this, they suggest, can shed new light on its relationships with adult education and learning and social Justice....... to consider how sustainability is – and could be – integrated into educational policies. In this theoretical contribution to a special issue on “Societal sustainability”, the authors draw on available literature and knowledge. They begin their paper by summarising the conditions under which the concept...... of “sustainability” entered political discourse in the early 1970s and outline how it has influenced educational research. They then introduce the longstanding debate about the relative role of tradition (in terms of traditional cultural and social order) and change (in terms of efforts to provide learning...

  8. Editorial JAES AVCOR-Special Issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kervyn, François; d'Oreye, Nicolas

    2017-10-01

    In the last decades, the Kivu Rift Basin has attracted special attention from the international community. This region, one of the most densely populated areas in Africa, is experiencing enormous difficulties in managing tensions, often leading to armed conflicts, and is also the site of major natural hazards which may have catastrophic extent and affect the population heavily. The eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano in January 2002, which devastated part of the city of Goma, raised a significant mobilization of international aid and helped remind us of the threat posed by the Nyiragongo volcano known for its intriguing Lava lake. But this area of the western branch of the East African Rift is also affected by major earthquakes, such as the one that struck the city of Bukavu in February 2008 (M 6.2) and caused significant damage in the Cyangugu area to the south- Western Rwanda. This zone of continental rupture is characterized by a contrasting landscape of a graben with alluvial plains confined between the strong reliefs of the rift shoulders. The active volcanism of the Virunga has developed partly within the rift whereas the high topography and weathered lithology combined to land use and humid climate are often associated to important landslides. The societal challenges facing this region are therefore enormous and the concordance between the rift and the political boundaries makes the study and monitoring of hazards as well as the management and reduction of risks more complex. But the Rift Kivu Basin is also an area of opportunity that has given rise to new initiatives. Lake Kivu is known for the dissolved gases it contains and the extraction of methane now gives hope of a complementary energy resource to the whole region. The difficulty of carrying out long-term scientific research and answering the most pressing questions is probably responsible for the limited number of research teams involved. Between risks and opportunities, it is therefore essential to

  9. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-03-07

    Mar 7, 2018 ... Eurostat and the Ministry of Economic Development. 4. .... regard to the application of special national schemes for small enterprises. ... 2013) mentions a two-year exemption from the tax on joint stock companies and local taxes. ... specialized support programs are developed, such as the introduction of the ...

  10. Special Issue of The Lancet on Sexual and Reproductive Rights and ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    The Lancet is the world's leading general medical journal and also publishes four monthly ... The special issue will feature research, policy, and program information to ... This group will consist of emerging and renowned population scientists, ... and international processes and events shaping the sexual and reproductive ...

  11. Constrained Agency in Later Working Lives: Introduction to the Special Issue

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Damman, M.; Henkens, K.

    2017-01-01

    In the social sciences there is an ongoing debate about the primacy of structure or agency in shaping individual behaviors. This Special Issue presents a comprehensive set of papers on structure and agency in the area of later working lives and retirement, specifically focusing on situations where

  12. Science Shops: an initiative to combine technical and societal knowledge for risk governance

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Martell, Meritxell; Duro, L.; Bruno, J.

    2006-01-01

    Continuing societal concerns limit the application of deep geological disposal in many countries. Wider societal involvement at a variety of governance levels in an open, inclusive and transparent manner is a top-level concern in all European and national organisations involved in radioactive waste management. Nevertheless, current approaches to governance of spent fuel reveal two weaknesses. Firstly, local and regional communities lack access to an authoritative yet independent platform of experts to address their concerns and information needs in a systematic way and which could provide them with the sufficient knowledge base as to be able to take sound decisions concerning the long-term. Secondly, the difficulties to maintain sufficient level of knowledge and capabilities at educational institutions become a challenge to ensure long-term solutions for the management of radioactive waste. The EC 6th FP Integrated Project 'Fundamental Processes of Radionuclide Migration' (FUNMIG) places a special emphasis on knowledge transfer, dissemination of knowledge and training. Within the framework of FUNMIG, one of the instruments for knowledge production and use is the establishment of a Science Shop at the European level. This Science Shop provides independent, participatory research support in response to concerns expressed by civil society on nuclear issues. The FUNMIG Consortium involves 51 organisations from 15 European countries which are eager to develop formalised channels of communication with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and citizens' groups in need of expertise on the nuclear field. The Science Shop will further ease the transparency of knowledge production and raise public awareness of the problems associated with radioactive waste management

  13. Science Shops: an initiative to combine technical and societal knowledge for risk governance

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Martell, Meritxell; Duro, L.; Bruno, J. [Enviros Spain S.L., Barcelona (Spain)

    2006-09-15

    Continuing societal concerns limit the application of deep geological disposal in many countries. Wider societal involvement at a variety of governance levels in an open, inclusive and transparent manner is a top-level concern in all European and national organisations involved in radioactive waste management. Nevertheless, current approaches to governance of spent fuel reveal two weaknesses. Firstly, local and regional communities lack access to an authoritative yet independent platform of experts to address their concerns and information needs in a systematic way and which could provide them with the sufficient knowledge base as to be able to take sound decisions concerning the long-term. Secondly, the difficulties to maintain sufficient level of knowledge and capabilities at educational institutions become a challenge to ensure long-term solutions for the management of radioactive waste. The EC 6th FP Integrated Project 'Fundamental Processes of Radionuclide Migration' (FUNMIG) places a special emphasis on knowledge transfer, dissemination of knowledge and training. Within the framework of FUNMIG, one of the instruments for knowledge production and use is the establishment of a Science Shop at the European level. This Science Shop provides independent, participatory research support in response to concerns expressed by civil society on nuclear issues. The FUNMIG Consortium involves 51 organisations from 15 European countries which are eager to develop formalised channels of communication with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and citizens' groups in need of expertise on the nuclear field. The Science Shop will further ease the transparency of knowledge production and raise public awareness of the problems associated with radioactive waste management.

  14. Analysis of Water Conflicts across Natural and Societal Boundaries: Integration of Quantitative Modeling and Qualitative Reasoning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gao, Y.; Balaram, P.; Islam, S.

    2009-12-01

    Water issues and problems have bewildered humankind for a long time yet a systematic approach for understanding such issues remain elusive. This is partly because many water-related problems are framed from a contested terrain in which many actors (individuals, communities, businesses, NGOs, states, and countries) compete to protect their own and often conflicting interests. We argue that origin of many water problems may be understood as a dynamic consequence of competition, interconnections, and feedback among variables in the Natural and Societal Systems (NSSs). Within the natural system, we recognize that triple constraints on water- water quantity (Q), water quality (P), and ecosystem (E)- and their interdependencies and feedback may lead to conflicts. Such inherent and multifaceted constraints of the natural water system are exacerbated often at the societal boundaries. Within the societal system, interdependencies and feedback among values and norms (V), economy (C), and governance (G) interact in various ways to create intractable contextual differences. The observation that natural and societal systems are linked is not novel. Our argument here, however, is that rigid disciplinary boundaries between these two domains will not produce solutions to the water problems we are facing today. The knowledge needed to address water problems need to go beyond scientific assessment in which societal variables (C, G, and V) are treated as exogenous or largely ignored, and policy research that does not consider the impact of natural variables (E, P, and Q) and that coupling among them. Consequently, traditional quantitative methods alone are not appropriate to address the dynamics of water conflicts, because we cannot quantify the societal variables and the exact mathematical relationships among the variables are not fully known. On the other hand, conventional qualitative study in societal domain has mainly been in the form of individual case studies and therefore

  15. Introduction to the Special Issue on Climate Ethics: Uncertainty, Values and Policy

    OpenAIRE

    Roeser, S.

    2017-01-01

    Climate change is a pressing phenomenon with huge potential ethical, legal and social policy implications. Climate change gives rise to intricate moral and policy issues as it involves contested science, uncertainty and risk. In order to come to scientifically and morally justified, as well as feasible, policies, targeting climate change requires an interdisciplinary approach. This special issue will identify the main challenges that climate change poses from social, economic, methodological ...

  16. Special issue: engineering toxins for 21st-century therapies: introduction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Acharya, K Ravi

    2011-12-01

    This special issue on 'Engineering toxins for 21st century therapies' provides a critical review of the current state of multifaceted aspects of toxin research by some of the leading researchers in the field. It also highlights the clinical potential and challenges for development of novel biologics based on engineered toxin derived products. © 2011 The Author Journal compilation © 2011 FEBS.

  17. Introduction to the Special Issue: Precarious Solidarity-Preferential Access in Canadian Health Care.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reid, Lynette

    2017-06-01

    Systems of universal health coverage may aspire to provide care based on need and not ability to pay; the complexities of this aspiration (conceptual, practical, and ethical) call for normative analysis. This special issue arises in the wake of a judicial inquiry into preferential access in the Canadian province of Alberta, the Vertes Commission. I describe this inquiry and set out a taxonomy of forms of differential and preferential access. Papers in this special issue focus on the conceptual specification of health system boundaries (the concept of medical need) and on the normative questions raised by complex models of funding and delivery of care, where patients, providers, and services cross system boundaries.

  18. Introduction to the special issue on visual working memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolfe, Jeremy M

    2014-10-01

    Visual working memory is a volatile, limited-capacity memory that appears to play an important role in our impression of a visual world that is continuous in time. It also mediates between the contents of the mind and the contents of that visual world. Research on visual working memory has become increasingly prominent in recent years. The articles in this special issue of Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics describe new empirical findings and theoretical understandings of the topic.

  19. EDITORIAL: Special issue on optical micromanipulation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heckenberg, N.; Dholakia, K.

    2007-08-01

    Few would have predicted the impact the laser has had across all of the natural sciences. Laser technology in tandem with microscopy has fuelled a revolutionary advance in biology and chemistry. Microscopic methods permit imaging of cells, nanoparticles, atoms and single molecules. Without doubt, biophotonics has emerged in many guises as a major player on the international arena, and has spawned an industry with an explosive growth rate. Notably, the influence of light is not restricted to passive imaging—it may also move, trap and manoeuvre objects from single atoms right through to the size of a large cell with no damage whatsoever. Given the well-known uses of high power lasers in surgery and industrial cutting, this sounds like science fiction, but at the size scale of these objects it is science fact: it is the area of optical micromanipulation that is the subject of this special issue. The field of optical micromanipulation has continued to impact right across the sciences in an unprecedented fashion, since its inception in the late 1960s. Excitingly the field has made an exceptional impact in single molecule biophysics and the physics of non-equilibrium systems largely due to the fact that an optical trap is an elegant and powerful force transducer. The field is also branching out into new directions: cell biology is benefiting from this advance. Trapping and microfluidics is an exciting combination within the broader remit of the field of optofluidics: methods of multiple traps using diffractive optics are permitting cell sorting, traps are aiding local viscosity measurements and novel biological studies are being performed. Combining traps with other spectroscopic methods and imaging modes is an interesting theme that poses interesting challenges but promises exciting new knowledge. All these areas are represented in this special issue, along with a number of contributions to quantitative modelling of optical fields suitable for trapping and of the

  20. Societal and ethical implications of anti-spoofing technologies in biometrics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rebera, Andrew P; Bonfanti, Matteo E; Venier, Silvia

    2014-03-01

    Biometric identification is thought to be less vulnerable to fraud and forgery than are traditional forms of identification. However biometric identification is not without vulnerabilities. In a 'spoofing attack' an artificial replica of an individual's biometric trait is used to induce a system to falsely infer that individual's presence. Techniques such as liveness-detection and multi-modality, as well as the development of new and emerging modalities, are intended to secure biometric identification systems against such threats. Unlike biometrics in general, the societal and ethical issues raised by spoofing and anti-spoofing techniques have not received much attention. This paper examines these issues.

  1. Special Issue: Next Generation DNA Sequencing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paul Richardson

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available Next Generation Sequencing (NGS refers to technologies that do not rely on traditional dideoxy-nucleotide (Sanger sequencing where labeled DNA fragments are physically resolved by electrophoresis. These new technologies rely on different strategies, but essentially all of them make use of real-time data collection of a base level incorporation event across a massive number of reactions (on the order of millions versus 96 for capillary electrophoresis for instance. The major commercial NGS platforms available to researchers are the 454 Genome Sequencer (Roche, Illumina (formerly Solexa Genome analyzer, the SOLiD system (Applied Biosystems/Life Technologies and the Heliscope (Helicos Corporation. The techniques and different strategies utilized by these platforms are reviewed in a number of the papers in this special issue. These technologies are enabling new applications that take advantage of the massive data produced by this next generation of sequencing instruments. [...

  2. Personality and politics: introduction to the special issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duncan, Lauren E; Peterson, Bill E; Zurbriggen, Eileen L

    2010-12-01

    This special issue of Journal of Personality brings together 10 original articles addressing the intersection of personality and politics. Articles build on classic traditions in political psychology by presenting both idiographic and nomothetic work on the motivational, cognitive, ideological, attitudinal, and identity correlates of many different aspects of political behavior. This work is used to understand political activism and leadership as well as everyday political behavior. We hope this collection of articles will inspire our readers to explore new investigations in personality and political psychology. © 2010 The Authors. Journal of Personality © 2010, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  3. Articulation: how societal goals matter in nanotechnology

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bos, C.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/338018387

    2016-01-01

    Science policies try to steer scientists to conduct societally relevant research. This societal relevance is often expressed in large societal goals, such as addressing sustainability or helping with the problems that an ageing society might bring. Emerging technologies, like nanotechnology, are

  4. Participatory Design in an Era of Participation, Special Issue

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    This special issue on participatory design in an era of participation presents emerging topics and discussions from the thirteenth Participatory Design conference (PDC), held at Aarhus University in August 2016. The PDC 2016 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Participatory Design conference...... series, which began in 1990 with the first biannual conference in Seattle. Since then, the PDC conferences have continued to bring together a multidisciplinary, international community of researchers and practitioners around issues of cooperative design. The theme for the 2016 PDC conference...... was ‘Participatory Design in an Era of Participation.’ Critical and constructive discussions were invited on the values, characteristics, politics and future practices of participatory design in an era in which participation has now become pervasive (Bossen, Smith, Kanstrup, McDonnell, et al. 2016, Bossen, Smith...

  5. Interpretation of Issues and Voter Decision-Making Strategies: A New Perspective on "Issue-Oriented" Election Coverage.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Domke, David; Shah, Dhavan V.

    1995-01-01

    Finds that voters who ascribed an ethical interpretation to issues were more likely to use a noncompensatory decision-making strategy, which focuses on one or two key issues in the decision-making process, than voters who ascribed a societal interpretation to issues. (SR)

  6. EDITORIAL: Special Issue: CAMOP MOLEC XV

    Science.gov (United States)

    2006-01-01

    The advances in recent years in the field of molecular dynamics are numerous and impressive. In sophisticated experimental and theoretical studies it is nowadays possible to steer chemical reactions with quantum-number-prepared molecules, to study reaction products fully state-specifically, and to derive accurate potential energy surfaces with the goal of determining the pathways along which molecular interaction can take place. Both experimental and theoretical techniques have rapidly improved, and our understanding of the dynamical nature of chemical processes is continuously growing. In this special issue of CAMOP/Physica Scripta we have tried to present a snapshot of the state-of-the-art in the field of molecular dynamics. It contains a collection of papers submitted in association with the most recent MOLEC meeting (MOLEC XV) held in September 2004 in Nunspeet, The Netherlands. This biannual meeting started in 1976 in Trento and was subsequently organized in Brandbjerg Højskole (Denmark, 1978), Oxford (UK, 1980), Nijmegen (The Netherlands, 1982), Jerusalem (Israel, 1984), Aussois (France, 1986), Assissi (Italy, 1988), Bernkastel-Kues (Germany, 1990), Prague (Czech Republic, 1992), Salamanca (Spain, 1994), Nyborg Strand (Denmark, 1996), Bristol (UK, 1998), Jerusalem (Israel, 2000) and Istanbul (Turkey, 2002). Within the philosophy of CAMOP we have asked invited speakers to report on outstanding problems in their particular field. This comprises discussion of open questions, important applications, new theoretical and experimental approaches and also predictions of future developments. A good comment, in addition to being an authoritative contribution of an acknowledged expert, should also be readable by the non-expert and we have taken special care that the work presented here is introduced in an understandable way and has been placed within the context of accessible literature for the interested reader. The sequence of 16 papers that is presented in this

  7. Special Education for Children with Attention Deficit Disorder: Current Issues. CRS Report for Congress.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aleman, Steven R.

    This paper examines issues concerning the eligibility of children with attention deficit disorder (ADD) for special education and related services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). A policy memorandum was issued by the Department of Education in September 1991, identifying those circumstances under which such children…

  8. The century of the sun starts in the year 2000. Special issue

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Janse, F.; De Vries, E.; Brandsma, M.; Wiezer, F.

    1997-01-01

    In this special issue of the magazine a large number of brief articles on several aspects of solar energy is presented. In particular thermal solar energy has reached a phase from where a breakthrough is only a matter of some years

  9. Is "end of life" a special case? Connecting Q with survey methods to measure societal support for views on the value of life-extending treatments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mason, Helen; Collins, Marissa; McHugh, Neil; Godwin, Jon; Van Exel, Job; Donaldson, Cam; Baker, Rachel

    2018-05-01

    Preference elicitation studies reporting societal views on the relative value of end-of-life treatments have produced equivocal results. This paper presents an alternative method, combining Q methodology and survey techniques (Q2S) to determine the distribution of 3 viewpoints on the relative value of end-of-life treatments identified in a previous, published, phase of this work. These were Viewpoint 1, "A population perspective: value for money, no special cases"; Viewpoint 2, "Life is precious: valuing life-extension and patient choice"; and Viewpoint 3, "Valuing wider benefits and opportunity cost: the quality of life and death." A Q2S survey of 4,902 respondents across the United Kingdom measured agreement with these viewpoints; 37% most agreed with Viewpoint 1, 49% with Viewpoint 2, and 9% with Viewpoint 3. Regression analysis showed associations of viewpoints with gender, level of education, religion, voting preferences, and satisfaction with the NHS. The Q2S approach provides a promising means to investigate how in-depth views and opinions are represented in the wider population. As demonstrated in this study, there is often more than 1 viewpoint on a topic and methods that seek to estimate that averages may not provide the best guidance for societal decision-making. © 2018 The Authors. Health Economics Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  10. Special issue on new ideas and emerging results in understanding software

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vinju, J.J.

    2015-01-01

    Welcome to the special issue on new ideas and emerging results in understanding software. It is a present to Prof. Dr. Paul Klint on the occasion of his 65th birthday. His colleagues and friends who share similar research interests have written the papers, wanting to present Paul with a worthy gift.

  11. Introduction to the Special Issue on the Theory of Human Values

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eldad Davidov

    2012-04-01

    Full Text Available Research on human values in the social sciences took of after Schwartz introduced his theory of basic human values in 1992. This special issue includes articles dealing with methods of data analysis applied to measurements of some or all of the values postulated by the theory and of other variables.

  12. Editorial: AABFJ Volume 8, Issue 4 Special Issue in Financial Markets and Financial Instruments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ciorstan Smark

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Financial planning in Australia is in a time of change and challenge. Educational standards and regulation are in flux. There is a strong need to move financial planning into a more esteemed professional position as financial planners are not always considered the safest source of advice for people in Asia and the pacific rim when it comes to investing their much needed retirement funds. This Special Issue on Financial Planning and Financial Instruments brings together articles from financial planning, banking, financial markets and retirement policy.

  13. Comparison of societal risks

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bennett, C.A.

    1976-01-01

    The utility of the societal risk approach to the design and evaluation of safeguards systems is examined with particular reference to the comparison of the relative effectiveness of various safeguards mechanisms. Research on threat evaluation is reviewed, and the need for further research on consequences is discussed in terms of the extension of the definition of the safeguards objective from system capability to societal consequences and the establishment of public confidence. 14 references

  14. Introduction to the Social Media + Society Special Issue on Selfies: Me-diated Inter-faces

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Katie Warfield

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available This introduction to the special issue entitled Me-diated Inter-faces begins by bringing into question the concept of positioning: what is it that we are doing when we take a position within the study of social media? Reviewing the work of the inaugural manifestos of the journal Social Media + Society on one hand, and the introduction to the special issue on selfies for the International Journal of Communications on the other, this introduction provides both critical and creative in-roads for thinking and re-thinking digital self-images shared on social media. Given the constantly changing nature of social media, this paper is a call to researchers of social media to not fall prey to the ossification of our current positions since theorizing the “social” in social media means always at once theorizing the body. As such this intro offers numerous and diverse perspectives on the body that might inform emerging thoughts on the socially media body. The introduction then provides an overview of the papers in this special issue and concludes by offering openings and ruptures for further discussion, rather than closure of conclusions.

  15. EDITORIAL: Special issue on silicon photonics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reed, Graham; Paniccia, Mario; Wada, Kazumi; Mashanovich, Goran

    2008-06-01

    mechanisms for modulation in silicon that have yielded increasingly impressive results (see, for example, Liao L et al 2007 Electron. Lett. 43 issue 22). The convergence of computing and communications and the resultant demand for increased bandwidth has been one of the factors influencing the upsurge of interest in silicon, together with the requirement for photonic and electronic integration, all to be realized at low cost. Thus emerging applications such as short-reach communications links for optical interconnect and fibre to the home (FTTH) (as well as a multitude of other applications) are frequently offered as examples of where silicon photonics will have a significant, perhaps a revolutionary, impact. One of the major conclusions of the joint MIT-industry Communication Technology Roadmap (http://mph-roadmap.mit.edu/index.php), was that 'Photonics technology will be driven by electronic-photonic synergy and short (intelligence. Thus the limitations of silicon as an optical material can be offset against the very significant advantages, to both commercial as well as technological success. Of course, there is still much to do, hence the increasing global investment in silicon technology and the massive increase in research activity in silicon photonics since the early work in the 1980s. Only time will tell if silicon can realize its potential to satisfy the ever-increasing array of applications. However, the indications are positive, and the contributors to this cause employ increasingly impressive levels of intellectual and technological capability to realize the desired goals. It is an interesting time to be involved in slicon photonics, and it will be equally fascinating to watch the evolution of the technology in the future. Whatever happens, silicon will make the transition from being regarded as purely an electronic material to recognition as an optoelectronic material. The evidence for this is represented in the collection of papers that form this special issue

  16. The timing and societal synchronisation of energy demand

    OpenAIRE

    Mattioli, G; Shove, E; Torriti, J

    2014-01-01

    It is increasingly important to know about when energy is used in the home, at work and on the move. Issues of time and timing have not featured strongly in energy policy analysis and in modelling, much of which has focused on estimating and reducing total average annual demand per capita. If smarter ways of balancing supply and demand are to take hold, and if we are to make better use of decarbonised forms of supply, it is essential to understand and intervene in patterns of societal synchro...

  17. PREFACE: Celebrating 100 years of superconductivity: special issue on the iron-based superconductors Celebrating 100 years of superconductivity: special issue on the iron-based superconductors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crabtree, George; Greene, Laura; Johnson, Peter

    2011-12-01

    In honor of this year's 100th anniversary of the discovery of superconductivity, this special issue of Reports on Progress in Physics is a dedicated issue to the 'iron-based superconductors'—a new class of high-temperature superconductors that were discovered in 2008. This is the first time the journal has generated a 'theme issue', and we provide this to the community to provide a 'snapshot' of the present status, both for researchers working in this fast-paced field, and for the general physics community. Reports on Progress in Physics publishes three classes of articles—comprehensive full Review Articles, Key Issues Reviews and, most recently, Reports on Progress articles that recount the current status of a rapidly evolving field, befitting of the articles in this special issue. It has been an exciting year for superconductivity—there have been numerous celebrations for this centenary recounting the fascinating history of this field, from seven Nobel prizes to life-saving discoveries that brought us medically useful magnetic resonance imaging. The discovery of a completely new class of high-temperature superconductors, whose mechanism remains as elusive as the cuprates discovered in 1986, has injected a new vitality into this field, and this year those new to the field were provided with the opportunity of interacting with those who have enjoyed a long history in superconductivity. Furthermore, as high-density current carriers with little or no power loss, high-temperature superconductors offer unique solutions to fundamental grid challenges of the 21st century and hold great promise in addressing our global energy challenges. The complexity and promise of these materials has caused our community to more freely share our ideas and results than ever before, and it is gratifying to see how we have grown into an enthusiastic global network to advance the field. This invited collection is true to this agenda and we are delighted to have received contributions

  18. Editorial for special issue on Perception and Navigation for Autonomous Vehicles

    OpenAIRE

    Laugier , Christian; Philippe , Martinet; Urbano , Nunes

    2014-01-01

    International audience; This Special Issue of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine has been prepared in the scope of the activities of the Technical Committee on "Autonomous Ground Vehicle and Intelligent Transportation System" (AGV-ITS) (http://www.ieee-ras.org/autonomous-groundvehicles- and-intelligent-transportation-systems) of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (IEEE RAS).

  19. Religious, Secular, and Spiritual Identities Convergence: Introduction to the Special Issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Small, Jenny L.; Bowman, Nicholas A.

    2018-01-01

    The purpose of this special issue is to share the best research, theory, practice, and perspectives from presenters at the 2017 Religious, Secular, and Spiritual Identities Convergence conference, alongside the new writing of scholars and practitioners who were inspired by the themes of the conference. Readers will have access both to the best of…

  20. Foreword of Special Issue on “Nomadic Services and Applications”

    OpenAIRE

    Jason C. Hung

    2011-01-01

    Nomadic Service has emerged rapidly as an exciting new paradigm that offers a challenging model of cyber-physical services and poses fascinating problems regarding distributed resource management, ranging from information sharing to cooperative computing. This special issue is intended to foster state-of-the-art research in the area of nomadic services and related applications, cloud computing technologies and services, including the topics of collaboration environment, implementation and exe...

  1. 2012 Special NSREC Issue of the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science Comments by the Editors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schwank, Jim; Brown, Dennis; Girard, Sylvain; Gouker, Pascale; Gerardin, Simone; Quinn, Heather; Barnaby, Hugh

    2012-12-01

    The December 2012 special issue of the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science contains selected papers from the 49th annual IEEE International Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference (NSREC) held July 16-20, 2012, in Miami, Florida USA. 95 papers presented at the 2012 NSREC were submitted for consideration for this year’s special issue. Those papers that appear in this special issue were able to successfully complete the review process before the deadline for the December issue. A few additional papers may appear in subsequent issues of the TRANSACTIONS. This publication is the premier archival journal for research on space and nuclear radiation effects in materials, devices, circuits, and systems. This distinction is the direct result of the conscientious efforts of both the authors, who present and document their work, and the reviewers, who selflessly volunteer their time and talent to help review the manuscripts. Each paper in this journal has been reviewed by experts selected by the editors for their expertise and knowledge of the particular subject areas. The peer review process for a typical technical journal generally takes six months to one year to complete. To publish this special issue of the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science (in December), the review process, from initial submission to final form, must be completed in about 10 weeks. Because of the short schedule, both the authors and reviewers are required to respond very quickly. The reviewers listed on the following pages contributed vitally to this quick-turn review process.We would like to express our sincere appreciation to each of them for accepting this difficult, but critical role in the process. To provide consistent reviews of papers throughout the year, the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science relies on a year-round editorial board that manages reviews for submissions throughout the year to the TRANSACTIONS in the area of radiation effects. The review process is managed by a Senior

  2. Psychology of Game Playing: Introduction to a Special Issue

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrew M. Colman

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Game theory has focused attention on different problems at different times in its history. Currently, attention is devoted to investigating how human decision makers with bounded rationality choose strategies in interactive decisions. Behavioral economics, and more generally experimental games, have appeared in the literature with accelerating frequency since 1990, and this cannot continue indefinitely without a proportional expansion of journal space. This Special Issue includes contributions to behavioral economics, experimental games, and evolutionary game theory, using theoretical, experimental, and agent-based modeling techniques.

  3. Waste management in space: a NASA symposium. Special issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wydeven, T. (Principal Investigator)

    1991-01-01

    This special issue contains papers from the NASA Symposium on Waste Processing for Advanced Life Support, which was held at NASA Ames Research Center on September 11-13, 1990. Specialists in waste management from academia, government, and industry convened to exchange ideas and advise NASA in developing effective methods for waste management in a Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS). Innovative and well-established methods were presented to assist in developing and managing wastes in closed systems for future long-duration space missions, especially missions to Mars.

  4. Cultural diversity, economic development and societal instability

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nettle, D.; Grace, J.B.; Choisy, M.; Cornell, H.V.; Guegan, J.-F.; Hochberg, M.E.

    2007-01-01

    Background. Social scientists have suggested that cultural diversity in a nation leads to societal instability. However, societal instability may be affected not only by within-nation on ?? diversity, but also diversity between a nation and its neighbours or ?? diversity. It is also necessary to distinguish different domains of diversity, namely linguistic, ethnic and religious, and to distinguish between the direct effects of diversity on societal instability, and effects that are mediated by economic conditions. Methodology/Principal Findings. We assembled a large cross-national dataset with information on ?? and ?? cultural diversity, economic conditions, and indices of societal instability. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the direct and indirect effects of cultural diversity on economics and societal stability. Results show that different type and domains of diversity have interacting effects. As previously documented, linguistic ?? diversity has a negative effect on economic performance, and we show that it is largely through this economic mechanism that it affects societal instability. For ?? diversity, the higher the linguistic diversity among nations in a region, the less stable the nation. But, religious ?? diversity has the opposite effect, reducing instability, particularly in the presence of high linguistic diversity. Conclusions. Within-nation linguistic diversity is associated with reduced economic performance, which, in turn, increases societal instability. Nations which differ linguistically from their neighbors are also less stable. However, religious diversity between, neighboring nations has the opposite effect, decreasing societal instability.

  5. Cultural diversity, economic development and societal instability.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nettle, Daniel; Grace, James B; Choisy, Marc; Cornell, Howard V; Guégan, Jean-François; Hochberg, Michael E

    2007-09-26

    Social scientists have suggested that cultural diversity in a nation leads to societal instability. However, societal instability may be affected not only by within-nation or alpha diversity, but also diversity between a nation and its neighbours or beta diversity. It is also necessary to distinguish different domains of diversity, namely linguistic, ethnic and religious, and to distinguish between the direct effects of diversity on societal instability, and effects that are mediated by economic conditions. We assembled a large cross-national dataset with information on alpha and beta cultural diversity, economic conditions, and indices of societal instability. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the direct and indirect effects of cultural diversity on economics and societal stability. Results show that different types and domains of diversity have interacting effects. As previously documented, linguistic alpha diversity has a negative effect on economic performance, and we show that it is largely through this economic mechanism that it affects societal instability. For beta diversity, the higher the linguistic diversity among nations in a region, the less stable the nation. But, religious beta diversity has the opposite effect, reducing instability, particularly in the presence of high linguistic diversity. Within-nation linguistic diversity is associated with reduced economic performance, which, in turn, increases societal instability. Nations which differ linguistically from their neighbors are also less stable. However, religious diversity between neighboring nations has the opposite effect, decreasing societal instability.

  6. Preface paper to the Semi-Arid Land-Surface-Atmosphere (SALSA) Program special issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goodrich, D.C.; Chehbouni, A.; Goff, B.; MacNish, B.; Maddock, T.; Moran, S.; Shuttleworth, W.J.; Williams, D.G.; Watts, C.; Hipps, L.H.; Cooper, D.I.; Schieldge, J.; Kerr, Y.H.; Arias, H.; Kirkland, M.; Carlos, R.; Cayrol, P.; Kepner, W.; Jones, B.; Avissar, R.; Begue, A.; Bonnefond, J.-M.; Boulet, G.; Branan, B.; Brunel, J.P.; Chen, L.C.; Clarke, T.; Davis, M.R.; DeBruin, H.; Dedieu, G.; Elguero, E.; Eichinger, W.E.; Everitt, J.; Garatuza-Payan, J.; Gempko, V.L.; Gupta, H.; Harlow, C.; Hartogensis, O.; Helfert, M.; Holifield, C.; Hymer, D.; Kahle, A.; Keefer, T.; Krishnamoorthy, S.; Lhomme, J.-P.; Lagouarde, J.-P.; Lo, Seen D.; Luquet, D.; Marsett, R.; Monteny, B.; Ni, W.; Nouvellon, Y.; Pinker, R.; Peters, C.; Pool, D.; Qi, J.; Rambal, S.; Rodriguez, J.; Santiago, F.; Sano, E.; Schaeffer, S.M.; Schulte, M.; Scott, R.; Shao, X.; Snyder, K.A.; Sorooshian, S.; Unkrich, C.L.; Whitaker, M.; Yucel, I.

    2000-01-01

    The Semi-Arid Land-Surface-Atmosphere Program (SALSA) is a multi-agency, multi-national research effort that seeks to evaluate the consequences of natural and human-induced environmental change in semi-arid regions. The ultimate goal of SALSA is to advance scientific understanding of the semi-arid portion of the hydrosphere-biosphere interface in order to provide reliable information for environmental decision making. SALSA approaches this goal through a program of long-term, integrated observations, process research, modeling, assessment, and information management that is sustained by cooperation among scientists and information users. In this preface to the SALSA special issue, general program background information and the critical nature of semi-arid regions is presented. A brief description of the Upper San Pedro River Basin, the initial location for focused SALSA research follows. Several overarching research objectives under which much of the interdisciplinary research contained in the special issue was undertaken are discussed. Principal methods, primary research sites and data collection used by numerous investigators during 1997-1999 are then presented. Scientists from about 20 US, five European (four French and one Dutch), and three Mexican agencies and institutions have collaborated closely to make the research leading to this special issue a reality. The SALSA Program has served as a model of interagency cooperation by breaking new ground in the approach to large scale interdisciplinary science with relatively limited resources.

  7. Editorial: 2nd Special Issue on behavior change, health, and health disparities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Higgins, Stephen T

    2015-11-01

    This Special Issue of Preventive Medicine (PM) is the 2nd that we have organized on behavior change, health, and health disparities. This is a topic of fundamental importance to improving population health in the U.S. and other industrialized countries that are trying to more effectively manage chronic health conditions. There is broad scientific consensus that personal behavior patterns such as cigarette smoking, other substance abuse, and physical inactivity/obesity are among the most important modifiable causes of chronic disease and its adverse impacts on population health. As such behavior change needs to be a key component of improving population health. There is also broad agreement that while these problems extend across socioeconomic strata, they are overrepresented among more economically disadvantaged populations and contribute directly to the growing problem of health disparities. Hence, behavior change represents an essential step in curtailing that unsettling problem as well. In this 2nd Special Issue, we devote considerable space to the current U.S. prescription opioid addiction epidemic, a crisis that was not addressed in the prior Special Issue. We also continue to devote attention to the two largest contributors to preventable disease and premature death, cigarette smoking and physical inactivity/obesity as well as risks of co-occurrence of these unhealthy behavior patterns. Across each of these topics we included contributions from highly accomplished policy makers and scientists to acquaint readers with recent accomplishments as well as remaining knowledge gaps and challenges to effectively managing these important chronic health problems. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Introduction to the Special Issue on Gender and Geoethics in the Geosciences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thornbush, Mary

    2016-04-01

    In this introduction to the Special Issue on Gender and Geoethics in the Geosciences is a focus on the participation of women in traditionally male-dominated professions, with geography as an exemplary academic subject. The Special Issue stems from the Commission of Gender and Geoethics as part of the International Association of Geoethics, and endeavors to bring together efforts at various spatial scales that examine the position of women in science and engineering in particular, as conveyed in engineering geology, disaster management sciences, and climate change adaptation studies. It has been discovered, for instance, that men are more active and personally prepared at the community level (in Atlantic Canada coastal communities), and more action is still required in developing countries especially to promote gender equality and empower women. Studies contained in this Special Issue also reveal that tutoring and mentoring by other women can promote further involvement in non-traditional professions, such as professional engineering geology, where women are preferring more traditional (less applied) approaches that may circumscribe their ability to find suitable employment after graduation. Moreover, the hiring policy needs to change in many countries, such as Canada, where there are fewer women at entry-level and senior ranks within geography, especially in physical geography as the scientific part of the discipline. The exclusion of women in traditionally male-dominated spheres needs to be addressed and rectified for the ascent of women to occur in scientific geography and in other geosciences as well as science and engineering at large.

  9. Introduction to the Special Issue on Gender and Geoethics in the Geosciences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mary Thornbush

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available In this introduction to the Special Issue on Gender and Geoethics in the Geosciences is a focus on the participation of women in traditionally male-dominated professions, with geography as an exemplary academic subject. The Special Issue stems from the Commission of Gender and Geoethics as part of the International Association of Geoethics, and endeavors to bring together efforts at various spatial scales that examine the position of women in science and engineering in particular, as conveyed in engineering geology, disaster management sciences, and climate change adaptation studies. It has been discovered, for instance, that men are more active and personally prepared at the community level (in Atlantic Canada coastal communities, and more action is still required in developing countries especially to promote gender equality and empower women. Studies contained in this Special Issue also reveal that tutoring and mentoring by other women can promote further involvement in non-traditional professions, such as professional engineering geology, where women are preferring more traditional (less applied approaches that may circumscribe their ability to find suitable employment after graduation. Moreover, the hiring policy needs to change in many countries, such as Canada, where there are fewer women at entry-level and senior ranks within geography, especially in physical geography as the scientific part of the discipline. The exclusion of women in traditionally male-dominated spheres needs to be addressed and rectified for the ascent of women to occur in scientific geography and in other geosciences as well as science and engineering at large.

  10. Introduction to the Special Issue on Gender and Geoethics in the Geosciences

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thornbush, Mary

    2016-01-01

    In this introduction to the Special Issue on Gender and Geoethics in the Geosciences is a focus on the participation of women in traditionally male-dominated professions, with geography as an exemplary academic subject. The Special Issue stems from the Commission of Gender and Geoethics as part of the International Association of Geoethics, and endeavors to bring together efforts at various spatial scales that examine the position of women in science and engineering in particular, as conveyed in engineering geology, disaster management sciences, and climate change adaptation studies. It has been discovered, for instance, that men are more active and personally prepared at the community level (in Atlantic Canada coastal communities), and more action is still required in developing countries especially to promote gender equality and empower women. Studies contained in this Special Issue also reveal that tutoring and mentoring by other women can promote further involvement in non-traditional professions, such as professional engineering geology, where women are preferring more traditional (less applied) approaches that may circumscribe their ability to find suitable employment after graduation. Moreover, the hiring policy needs to change in many countries, such as Canada, where there are fewer women at entry-level and senior ranks within geography, especially in physical geography as the scientific part of the discipline. The exclusion of women in traditionally male-dominated spheres needs to be addressed and rectified for the ascent of women to occur in scientific geography and in other geosciences as well as science and engineering at large. PMID:27043609

  11. Societal embedding of climate-friendly innovations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Vaeyrynen, E.; Kivisaari, Sirkku; Lovio, R.

    2002-01-01

    This project assesses the possibilities of constructing a market for climate-friendly energy technologies by applying the process of 'societal embedding of innovations'. The term refers to an interactive learning process amongst three groups of key actors: producers, users and societal actors. Their co-operation shapes the innovation to fit the needs of the market and contributes to creation of conditions in which the innovation can be adopted. The project consists of two case studies: (1) Shaping of the ESCO energy service concept in Finnish municipalities and (2) Increasing the use of wood pellets in single-family houses. The case studies have illustrated the possibilities and limitations concerning the application of societal embedding in the energy sector. The project indicates that societal embedding may promote the implementation of climate-friendly energy technologies in at least three ways. Firstly, the process mobilises key actors to cooperation. This generates interactive learning on the problem and its solving. Market construction is forged ahead by mutual adaptation of the innovation and its environment. Secondly, this approach offers a tool to examine the societal quality of the innovation, a question related vitally to climate change. Thirdly, by producing new knowledge of the needs on the market this approach supports the societal actors in choosing different instruments to induce the intended transition to sustainability. (orig.)

  12. Introduction to the Special Issue: New and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Linguistic Relativity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Athanasopoulos, Panos; Bylund, Emanuel; Casasanto, Daniel

    2016-01-01

    This Special Issue of "Language Learning" presents an interdisciplinary state-of-the-art overview of current approaches to linguistic relativity. It contains empirical and theoretical studies and reflections on linguistic relativity from a variety of perspectives, such as associative learning, conceptual transfer, multilingual awareness,…

  13. Current Issues in the Neurology and Genetics of Learning-Related Traits and Disorders: Introduction to the Special Issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gilger, Jeffrey W.

    2001-01-01

    This introductory article briefly describes each of the following eight articles in this special issue on the neurology and genetics of learning related disorders. It notes the greater appreciation of learning disability as a set of complex disorders with broad and intricate neurological bases and of the large individual differences in how these…

  14. Editorial: 3rd Special Issue on behavior change, health, and health disparities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Higgins, Stephen T

    2016-11-01

    This Special Issue of Preventive Medicine (PM) is the 3rd that we have organized on behavior change, health, and health disparities. This is a topic of critical importance to improving U.S. population health. There is broad scientific consensus that personal behaviors such as cigarette smoking, other substance abuse, and physical inactivity/obesity are among the most important modifiable causes of chronic disease and its adverse impacts on population health. Hence, effectively promoting health-related behavior change needs to be a key component of health care research and policy. There is also broad recognition that while these problems extend throughout the population, they disproportionately impact economically disadvantaged populations and other vulnerable populations and represent a major contributor to health disparities. Thus, behavior change represents an essential step in curtailing health disparities, which receives special attention in this 3rd Special Issue. We also devote considerable space to the longstanding challenges of reducing cigarette smoking and use of other tobacco and nicotine delivery products in vulnerable populations, obesity, and for the first time food insecurity. Across each of these topics we include contributions from highly accomplished policymakers and scientists to acquaint readers with recent accomplishments as well as remaining knowledge gaps and challenges. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Workplace learning: panacea or challenge? : Epilogue of a special issue on boundaries of workplace learning

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dr. J. Onstenk

    2012-01-01

    This article reflects on the previous articles in this special issue by discussing some common themes and raising some proposals for future research on the topic of workplace learning and its boundaries. The article subsequently discusses objects and results of workplace learning, the issue of

  16. Special issue review of pollution prevention management within the Department of Energy, final report

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1994-08-01

    The Department of Energy's (DOE) national role and overall mission has been undergoing significant change. In the post-Cold War era, a new emphasis on cleaning up the wastes from the past has emerged. These changes provide both significant challenges as well as new opportunities for DOE. While the challenges may seem overwhelming as DOE realizes the magnitude of its environmental problems, its network of national laboratories and sites provide the resources to become a leader in environmental management through the development of new technologies and management practices. Because of the growing importance of pollution prevention in the United States and more specifically to DOE's environmental management strategy, the Office of Environmental Audit (EH-24) identified this as an area worthy of a Special Issue Review. A Special Issue Review is not an audit but rather an in-depth review of key environmental programs or activities which cut across organizational boundaries. The purpose of a Special Issue Review is to identify strengths and weaknesses of a program as well as significant crosscutting issues or challenges that are important to the future success of that program. The scope of the review included an assessment of pollution prevention program activities at Headquarters, selected operations offices, and selected sites offices and contractor organizations. All aspects of a pollution prevention program were considered including program strategy, infrastructure, management systems, and implementation practices. Also summarized are future pollution prevention challenges and recommendations

  17. SPECIAL ISSUE VETERINARY IMMUNOLOGY IMMUNOPATHOLOGY: PROCEEDINGS 8TH INTERNATIONAL VETERINARY IMMUNOLOGY SYMPOSIUM

    Science.gov (United States)

    This is the Special Issue of Vet. Immunol. Immunopathol. that summarizes the 8th International Veterinary Immunology Symposium (8 th IVIS) held August 15th-19th, 2007, in Ouro Preto, Brazil. The 8 th IVIS highlighted the importance of veterinary immunology for animal health, vaccinology, reproducti...

  18. Archives and societal provenance Australian essays

    CERN Document Server

    Piggott, Michael

    2012-01-01

    Records and archival arrangements in Australia are globally relevant because Australia's indigenous people represent the oldest living culture in the world, and because modern Australia is an ex-colonial society now heavily multicultural in outlook. Archives and Societal Provenance explores this distinctiveness using the theoretical concept of societal provenance as propounded by Canadian archival scholars led by Dr Tom Nesmith. The book's seventeen essays blend new writing and re-workings of earlier work, comprising the fi rst text to apply a societal provenance perspective to a national sett

  19. Personal Values and Attitudes towards Societal and Environmental Accountability: A Study of MBA Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bhattacharyya, Asit

    2016-01-01

    Efforts to promote corporate societal and environmental accountability (SEA) should be informed by an understanding of stakeholders' attitudes toward enhanced accountability standards. However, little is known regarding current attitudes on this subject or the determinants of these attitudes. To address this issue, this study examines the…

  20. Editorial: Special issue on smart optical instruments and systems for space applications

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    XING; Fei

    2015-01-01

    Optical systems are playing more and more important roles for space applications,such as high accurate attitude determination and remote sensing systems etc.Innovations in optical systems have brought great advantages,some even revolutionary for the space applications.Accordingly,in this special issue of Smart Optical systems and instruments

  1. Popper and Dingle on special relativity and the issue of symmetry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dotson, Allen Clark

    2012-02-01

    Karl Popper and Herbert Dingle engaged in a fascinating debate concerning the kind of theory the special theory of relativity is. One of the issues was whether applications of the theory could be made consistent with the principle of relativity, a cornerstone of the theory itself. The principle of relativity seems to imply some sort of symmetry in results obtained for similar experiments as observed in two different inertial reference frames. Peter Hayes has recently dealt with the Dingle-Popper debate on this matter, as well as other issues. The present paper seeks to clarify what kind of symmetry is appropriate in a situation discussed by Popper, Dingle, and Hayes.

  2. Introduction to the Special Issue on Marketing and Operations Management Interfaces and Coordination

    OpenAIRE

    Teck H. Ho; Christopher S. Tang

    2004-01-01

    This special issue, by addressing problems surrounding marketing and operations management, depicts state-of-the-art approaches, methodologies, and insights to improve a firm's or supply chain's overall performance. Top scholars in the field address many of the ways in which companies can synchronize their marketing and operations departments or their supply chain partners to improve competitiveness and profit. The information in this issue should be of interest both to academics and managers...

  3. Research, Learning Theory, and the Ideas of Robert G. Sidnell. Special Issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alexander, David, Ed.; And Others

    1987-01-01

    Intended as a memorial to Robert G. Sidnell, this special issue contains articles about areas of music education which he promoted. In "The Dimensions of Research in Music Education," Sidnell concluded that music education research encompasses all humanistic disciplines as well as the behavioral and social sciences. James Carlsen, in…

  4. Societal and ethical aspects of the Fukushima accident.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oughton, Deborah

    2016-10-01

    The Fukushima Nuclear Power Station accident in Japan in 2011 was a poignant reminder that radioactive contamination of the environment has consequences that encompass far more than health risks from exposure to radiation. Both the accident and remediation measures have resulted in serious societal impacts and raise questions about the ethical aspects of risk management. This article presents a brief review of some of these issues and compares similarities and differences with the lessons learned from the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident in Ukraine. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2016;12:651-653. © 2016 SETAC. © 2016 SETAC.

  5. Out of sight, out of mind - societal considerations in offshore development

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rothermund, H.C.

    1996-01-01

    This paper deals with societal considerations in connection with the UK offshore development. The offshore oil and gas industry seems remote from most people's lives, but its responsibilities has been recognised towards people and the environment. The author discusses the industry's changing response to these issues in three areas such as the creation of wealth, the health and safety of those involved in its operations, and the protection of the environment

  6. The Societal Nature of Subjectivity: An Interdisciplinary Methodological Challenge

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Henning Salling Olesen

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available The thematic issue presents a psycho-societal approach to qualitative empirical research in several areas of everyday social life. It is an approach which integrates a theory of subjectivity and an interpretation methodology which integrates hermeneutic experiences from text analysis and psychoanalysis. Its particular focus is on subjectivity—as an aspect of the research object and as an aspect of the research process. By the term "approach" is indicated the intrinsic connection between the theorizing of an empirical object and the reflection of the research process and the epistemic subject. In terms of methodology it revives the themes originally launched in FQS exactly ten years ago: "Subjectivity and Reflectivity in Qualitative Research" (BREUER, MRUCK & ROTH, 2002; MRUCK & BREUER, 2003. This editorial introduction presents the intellectual background of the psycho-societal methodology, reflects on its relevance and critical perspectives in a contemporary landscape of social science, and comments the way in which an international and interdisciplinary research group has developed this approach to profane empirical research. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs120345

  7. Growth, financial development, societal norms and legal institutions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Garretsen, Harry; Lensink, Robert; Sterken, Elmer

    2002-01-01

    This paper analyses whether societal norms help to explain cross-country differences in financial development. We analyze whether societal norms in addition to legal institutions have an impact on financial development. We address the implications of the inclusion of societal norms for the analysis

  8. Legislation for the countermeasures on special issues of nuclear safety regulations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cho, Byung Sun; Lee, Mo Sung; Chung, Gum Chun; Kim, Heon Jin; Oh, Ho Chul

    2004-02-01

    Since the present nuclear safety regulation has some legal problems that refer to special issues and contents of regulatory provisions, this report has preformed research on the legal basic theory of nuclear safety regulation to solve the problems. In addition, this report analyzed the problems of each provisions and suggested the revision drafts on the basis of analyzing problems and the undergoing theory of nuclear safety regulation

  9. Legislation for the countermeasures on special issues of nuclear safety regulations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Cho, Byung Sun; Lee, Mo Sung; Chung, Gum Chun; Kim, Heon Jin; Oh, Ho Chul [Chongju Univ., Cheongju (Korea, Republic of)

    2004-02-15

    Since the present nuclear safety regulation has some legal problems that refer to special issues and contents of regulatory provisions, this report has preformed research on the legal basic theory of nuclear safety regulation to solve the problems. In addition, this report analyzed the problems of each provisions and suggested the revision drafts on the basis of analyzing problems and the undergoing theory of nuclear safety regulation.

  10. Special Issue on Automatic Application Tuning for HPC Architectures

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Siegfried Benkner

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available High Performance Computing architectures have become incredibly complex and exploiting their full potential is becoming more and more challenging. As a consequence, automatic performance tuning (autotuning of HPC applications is of growing interest and many research groups around the world are currently involved. Autotuning is still a rapidly evolving research field with many different approaches being taken. This special issue features selected papers presented at the Dagstuhl seminar on “Automatic Application Tuning for HPC Architectures” in October 2013, which brought together researchers from the areas of autotuning and performance analysis in order to exchange ideas and steer future collaborations.

  11. Editorial: Introduction to the Special Issue ;Slope Tectonics: Inherited Structures, Morphology of Deformation and Catastrophic Failure;

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hermanns, R. L.; Oppikofer, T.; Jaboyedoff, M.; Clague, J. J.; Scarascia-Mugnozza, G.

    2017-07-01

    The "Conference on Slope Tectonics" has become an international scientific meeting point to present and discuss a variety of topics related to slope deformation and the deposits of related failures. The first conference took place on February 15-16, 2008 at University of Lausanne (Switzerland). It was followed by a second conference on September 6-10, 2011, in Austria (organized by the Geological Survey of Austria) and a third on September 8-12, 2014, in Norway (organized by the Geological Survey of Norway). The two later events included field trips. It has become a tradition that selected papers from these conference are published - papers from the first conference were published by the Geological Society as Special Publication 351 (Jaboyedoff, 2011), and those from the second conference were published in a special issue of Tectonophysics (Baron and Jaboyedoff, 2013). This special issue of Geomorphology is a collection of papers presented at the Norwegian Conference on Slope Tectonics. This collection of papers focuses on the role of tectonics in gravitationally induced rock-slope instabilities. The slopes either deform over long periods as deep-seated gravitational slope deformation (DSGSD) or more rapidly as rockslides or rock avalanches. The reconstruction of slope deformation is an integral part of the studies captured in this special issue.

  12. Towards Equitable and Sustainable Urban Space: Introduction to Special Issue on “Urban Land and Sustainable Development”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yehua Dennis Wei

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available The unprecedented wave of global urbanization has exerted increased pressure on urban land and made land-use sustainability an urgent concern. This Special Issue examines patterns, structures, and dynamics of urban land use from the economic, social, and, to a lesser extent, environmental standpoints, in light of the goal of equitable and sustainable development. This introduction discusses the background and design of the Special Issue and highlights the contribution of the selected papers.

  13. Special issue on compact x-ray sources

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hooker, Simon; Midorikawa, Katsumi; Rosenzweig, James

    2014-04-01

    Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics is delighted to announce a forthcoming special issue on compact x-ray sources, to appear in the winter of 2014, and invites you to submit a paper. The potential for high-brilliance x- and gamma-ray sources driven by advanced, compact accelerators has gained increasing attention in recent years. These novel sources—sometimes dubbed 'fifth generation sources'—will build on the revolutionary advance of the x-ray free-electron laser (FEL). New radiation sources of this type have widespread applications, including in ultra-fast imaging, diagnostic and therapeutic medicine, and studies of matter under extreme conditions. Rapid advances in compact accelerators and in FEL techniques make this an opportune moment to consider the opportunities which could be realized by bringing these two fields together. Further, the successful development of compact radiation sources driven by compact accelerators will be a significant milestone on the road to the development of high-gradient colliders able to operate at the frontiers of particle physics. Thus the time is right to publish a peer-reviewed collection of contributions concerning the state-of-the-art in: advanced and novel acceleration techniques; sophisticated physics at the frontier of FELs; and the underlying and enabling techniques of high brightness electron beam physics. Interdisciplinary research connecting two or more of these fields is also increasingly represented, as exemplified by entirely new concepts such as plasma based electron beam sources, and coherent imaging with fs-class electron beams. We hope that in producing this special edition of Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (iopscience.iop.org/0953-4075/) we may help further a challenging mission and ongoing intellectual adventure: the harnessing of newly emergent, compact advanced accelerators to the creation of new, agile light sources with unprecedented capabilities

  14. Toward a Sustainable Low-Carbon China: A Review of the Special Issue of “Energy Economics and Management”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ning Zhang

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Severe environmental quality deterioration, along with predatory exploitation of energy resources, are generally associated with economic growth, especially in China. Against this background, the 6th Annual Conference of Energy Economics and Management provides a platform for examining outperforming governance factors and mechanisms of energy economics and policy. Thanks to Sustainability for providing this special issue. This editorial highlights the contents and methodologies of the special issue for this conference, presenting diverse issues in energy economics and management. We also suggest guidelines for future study in energy economics and management.

  15. The impacts and acceptance of agricultural biotechnology: an introduction to the special issue

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zilberman, D.; Wesseler, J.H.H.

    2014-01-01

    Attitudes towards and acceptance of agricultural biotechnology, which involves inserting genes that carry new traits into existing varieties, has been subject to much debate. This special issue aims to address several gaps in the literature on genetically modified (GM) technology in agriculture.

  16. Societal response to nanotechnology: converging technologies–converging societal response research?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ronteltap, A.; Fischer, A.R.H.; Tobi, H.

    2011-01-01

    Nanotechnology is an emerging technology particularly vulnerable to societal unrest, which may hinder its further development. With the increasing convergence of several technological domains in the field of nanotechnology, so too could convergence of social science methods help to anticipate

  17. Cross-cultural issues in forensic psychiatry training.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Layde, Joseph B

    2004-01-01

    Forensic psychiatry was officially recognized as a subspecialty by the American Board of Medical Specialties in the 1990's. In 1994, the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN) gave its first written examination to certify forensic psychiatrists. In 1996, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) began to officially accredit one-year residency experiences in forensic psychiatry, which follow a 4-year residency in general psychiatry. The extra year of training, colloquially known as a fellowship, is required for candidates who wish to receive certification in the subspecialty of forensic psychiatry; since 2001, completion of a year of training in a program accredited by ACGME has been required for candidates wishing to take the ABPN forensic psychiatry subspecialty examination. With the formal recognition of the subspecialty of forensic psychiatry comes the need to examine special issues of cultural importance which apply specifically to forensic psychiatry training. This paper examines the current literature on cross-cultural issues in forensic psychiatry, sets out several of the societal reasons for the importance of emphasizing those issues in forensic psychiatric training, and discusses how those issues are addressed in the curriculum of one forensic psychiatry fellowship at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). While much has been written about cross-cultural issues in general psychiatry, very little has appeared in the literature on the topic of cross-cultural issues in forensic psychiatry.

  18. Putting Emotion into the Self: A Response to the 2008 "Journal of Moral Education" Special Issue on Moral Functioning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kristjansson, Kristjan

    2009-01-01

    This paper takes as its starting point the Journal of Moral Education Special Issue (September, 2008, 37[3]) "Towards an integrated model of moral reasoning". Although explicitly post-Kohlbergian, the authors in this Special Issue do not, I argue, depart far enough from Kohlberg's impoverished notion of the role of the affective in moral life--or…

  19. Special issue photovoltaic

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2004-01-01

    In this letter of the INES (french National Institute of the Solar Energy), a special interest is given to photovoltaic realizations in Europe. Many information are provided on different topics: the China future fifth world producer of cells in 2005, batteries and hydrogen to storage the solar energy and a technical sheet on a photovoltaic autonomous site installation for electric power production. (A.L.B.)

  20. Psychosocial Studies of Migration and Community: Introduction to the Special Issue

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Douglas D. Perkins

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available Introducing the special issue on psychosocial studies of migration and community, we briefly reflect on the global increase in, and issues related to, both international and domestic migration, particularly from rural areas of less developed countries, which has fueled rapid urbanization and intercultural tensions in both post-industrial and developing countries. Topics covered in the issue are summarized, including an Italian study of the emotional impact of discrimination against immigrant adolescents; acculturation, integration and adaptation of Muslim immigrant youth in New Zealand; perceptions of human trafficking in Moldova; Chinese migrant workers´ social networks, life satisfaction and political participation; physician brain drain from sub-Saharan Africa; and a critical analysis of the oppressive and liberating impact of organizations on immigrants, multiculturalism, and social justice. The issue concludes with commentary articles by four leading international scholars of migration and community. The breadth of topics helps to address wide-ranging gaps in the literature, but more psychological and social research must connect ecologically across multiple levels and to cultural, political, economic, and environmental studies of migration and community.

  1. Applications and societal benefits of plastics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Andrady, Anthony L; Neal, Mike A

    2009-07-27

    This article explains the history, from 1600 BC to 2008, of materials that are today termed 'plastics'. It includes production volumes and current consumption patterns of five main commodity plastics: polypropylene, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene and polyethylene terephthalate. The use of additives to modify the properties of these plastics and any associated safety, in use, issues for the resulting polymeric materials are described. A comparison is made with the thermal and barrier properties of other materials to demonstrate the versatility of plastics. Societal benefits for health, safety, energy saving and material conservation are described, and the particular advantages of plastics in society are outlined. Concerns relating to littering and trends in recycling of plastics are also described. Finally, we give predictions for some of the potential applications of plastic over the next 20 years.

  2. Special Issue: 14th International Symposium on Novel and Nano Materials

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Woo-Byoung; Choa, Yong-Ho; Ahn, Hyo-Jin; Park, Il-Kyu

    2017-09-01

    This Special Issue of Applied Surface Science is intended to provide a collection of peer-reviewed contributions presented at the 14th International Symposium on Novel Nano Materials (ISNNM) held in Budapest, Hungary as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe from July 3 to July 8, 2016. All selected papers underwent the regular peer review process as set by the journal of Applied Surface Science and its publisher (Elsevier).

  3. Special cluster issue on tribocorrosion of dental materials

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mathew, Mathew T.; Stack, Margaret M.

    2013-10-01

    Tribocorrosion affects all walks of life from oil and gas conversion to biomedical materials. Wear can interact with corrosion to enhance it or impede it; conversely, corrosion can enhance or impede wear. The understanding of the interactions between physical and chemical phenomena has been greatly assisted by electrochemical and microscopic techniques. In dentistry, it is well recognized that erosion due to dissolution (a term physicists use to denote wear) of enamel can result in tooth decay; however, the effects of the oral environment, i.e. pH levels, electrochemical potential and any interactions due to the forces involved in chewing are not well understood. This special cluster issue includes investigations on the fundamentals of wear-corrosion interactions involved in simulated oral environments, including candidate dental implant and veneer materials. The issue commences with a fundamental study of titanium implants and this is followed by an analysis of the behaviour of commonly used temporomandibular devices in a synovial fluid-like environment. The analysis of tribocorrosion mechanisms of Ti6Al4V biomedical alloys in artificial saliva with different pHs is addressed and is followed by a paper on fretting wear, on hydroxyapatite-titanium composites in simulated body fluid, supplemented with protein (bovine serum albumin). The effects of acid treatments on tooth enamel, and as a surface engineering technique for dental implants, are investigated in two further contributions. An analysis of the physiological parameters of intraoral wear is addressed; this is followed by a study of candidate dental materials in common beverages such as tea and coffee with varying acidity and viscosity and the use of wear maps to identify the safety zones for prediction of material degradation in such conditions. Hence, the special cluster issue consists of a range of tribocorrosion contributions involving many aspects of dental tribocorrosion, from analysis of physiological

  4. Preface to special issue of selected papers from Theoretical, Experimental, and Computational Mechanics (TECM)

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jabbari, Masoud; Sarlak Chivaee, Hamid; Hattel, Jesper Henri

    2017-01-01

    We are pleased to introduce this special issue of the Applied Mathematical Modelling journal with highlights from theTheoretical, Experimental, and Computational Mechanics Symposium (TECM-2015). This special issue consists of four rigorouslyselected papers originally presented at TECM-2015...... as a part of the 13th International Conference of Numerical Analysisand Applied Mathematics 2015 (ICNAAM 2015), which was held on 23-29 September 2015 in Rhodes, Greece.The symposium attracted a broad range of international and local leaders in theoretical, experimental, and computational mechanics across...... various fields and application. The symposium did an excellent job of outlining the current landscape of computational mechanics and its capabilities in solving complex industrial problems in the process industries, and we agree with the editor-in-chief of the journal that it is certainly worthwhile...

  5. Introduction to the special issue: Observed and projected changes in weather and climate extremes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    John E. Hay

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available This Special Issue documents not only the more recent progress made in detecting and attributing changes in temperature and precipitation extremes in the observational record, but also in projecting changes in such extremes at regional and local scales. It also deals with the impacts and other consequences and implications of both the historic and anticipated changes in extreme weather and climate events. Impact assessments using both dynamical downscaling and statistical modelling for two tropical cyclones are reported, as well as for storm surge and extreme wave changes. The Special Issue concludes with a consideration of some policy implications and practical applications arising from our relatively robust understanding of how the build up of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere affects weather and climate extremes.

  6. Virtual Reality and Its Potential Use in Special Education. Identifying Emerging Issues and Trends in Technology for Special Education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Woodward, John

    As part of a 3-year study to identify emerging issues and trends in technology for special education, this paper addresses the possible contributions of virtual reality technology to educational services for students with disabilities. An example of the use of virtual reality in medical imaging introduces the paper and leads to a brief review of…

  7. Ethical and scientific issues of nanotechnology in the workplace.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schulte, Paul A; Salamanca-Buentello, Fabio

    2007-01-01

    In the absence of scientific clarity about the potential health effects of occupational exposure to nanoparticles, a need exists for guidance in decision making about hazards, risks, and controls. An identification of the ethical issues involved may be useful to decision makers, particularly employers, workers, investors, and health authorities. Because the goal of occupational safety and health is the prevention of disease in workers, the situations that have ethical implications that most affect workers have been identified. These situations include the a) identification and communication of hazards and risks by scientists, authorities, and employers; b) workers' acceptance of risk; c) selection and implementation of controls; d) establishment of medical screening programs; and e) investment in toxicologic and control research. The ethical issues involve the unbiased determination of hazards and risks, nonmaleficence (doing no harm), autonomy, justice, privacy, and promoting respect for persons. As the ethical issues are identified and explored, options for decision makers can be developed. Additionally, societal deliberations about workplace risks of nanotechnologies may be enhanced by special emphasis on small businesses and adoption of a global perspective.

  8. Special issue “International Geomagnetic Reference Field—the twelfth generation”

    OpenAIRE

    Thébault, E.; Finlay, C. C.; Toh, H.

    2015-01-01

    This special issue of Earth, Planets and Space, synthesizes the efforts made during the construction of the twelfth generation of the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF-12) that was released online in December 2014 (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/IAGA/vmod/ igrf.html). The IGRF-12 is a series of standard mathematical models describing the large scale internal part of the Earth’s magnetic field between epochs 1900.0 and 2015.0 with a forecast to epoch 2020.0. This activity has been main...

  9. Special Issue: Software-engineering, Properites of Language and Aspect Technologies

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bergmans, Lodewijk; Gybels, Kris; Ernst, Erik

    2008-01-01

    , comprehensibility and evolvability. As (aspect) languages are being pushed to meet their boundaries and limitations, the trade-offs in language design become increasingly difficult to make. In particular, a trade-off may be perfectly sensible in one application context, but much less so in another. In this special...... issue you will find three full papers, originating from the SPLAT workshop series, that address this last issue. Each of these papers resolves a fundamental language design trade-off by offering a language mechanism that lifts the design decisions to the application programmers: The first paper, "User......-Defined Join Point Selectors-An Extension Mechanism for Pointcut Languages" by Breuel and Reverbel, addresses the fact that aspect programmers are pushing the boundaries of pointcut languages. As a result, aspect language designers have to make a trade-off between limited expressiveness of traditional types...

  10. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2016-05-15

    May 15, 2016 ... Near-fault earthquake issue is almost a new issue in earthquake engineering. ... although those countries had advanced regulations for seismic design of ... allocating the plastic joints according to development guideline and ...

  11. “Introduction to Coolabah special issue on placescape, placemaking, placemarking, placedness … geography and cultural production”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bill Boyd

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available This special issue of the journal Coolabah comprises contributed papers that examine the relationships between place, placescape and landscape – Australian places and imaginings. Australian perspectives of place and cultural production unavoidably confront issues of identity simultaneously from antipodean and elsewhere vantage points.

  12. Disaster Mental Health and Positive Psychology-Considering the Context of Natural and Technological Disasters: An Introduction to the Special Issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schulenberg, Stefan E

    2016-12-01

    This article serves as an introduction to the Journal of Clinical Psychology's special issue on disaster mental health and positive psychology. The special issue comprises two sections. The first section presents a series of data-driven articles and research-informed reviews examining meaning and resilience in the context of natural and technological disasters. The second section presents key topics in the area of disaster mental health, with particular relevance for positive psychology and related frameworks. The special issue is intended to bridge the gap between these two areas of applied science, with the audience being experienced clinicians or clinicians in training. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  13. Special Issue “Actuarial and Financial Risks in Life Insurance, Pensions and Household Finance”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luca Regis

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The aim of the Special Issue is to address some of the main challenges individuals and companies face in managing financial and actuarial risks, when dealing with their investment/retirement or business-related decisions [...

  14. Anticipating the Future, Influencing the Present: Assessing the Societal Implications of Emerging Technologies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Michelson, Evan S.

    A growing challenge for the American policymaking system is to respond effectively to a wide range of interconnected, complex, long-term science and technology issues. Simultaneously, current approaches and institutions of governance are ill suited to address these multidimensional challenges. As the next generation of innovations in science and technology is arriving at an accelerating rate, the governance system is lagging behind. This realization leads to a vital overarching consideration that steers this study: What approaches are well suited to anticipate the longer-term societal implications of emerging technologies in the 21st Century? This study identifies and examines strategies for anticipating the longer-term societal implications of emerging technologies by way of a qualitative case study. It explores one area of technology (nanotechnology), in one particular governance system (the United States), and with a focus on one high profile non-governmental organization (NGO) involved in addressing a range of nanotechnology's societal and policy implications: the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN). Based at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, PEN's goal was to ensure "that as nanotechnologies advance, possible risks are minimized, public and consumer engagement remains strong, and the potential benefits of these new technologies are realized." The conceptual framework of anticipatory governance guides the research, which offers a real-world example about how anticipatory governance applies in the nongovernmental sector and shows how this idea links to broader theoretical debates about the policymaking process. The study's main conclusion is that PEN utilized a set of interconnected strategies related to advancing foresight, operating in a boundary-spanning role, and promoting communications and public engagement in its attempt to influence, anticipate, and shape the societal implications of emerging technologies. The findings are

  15. Special Issue: New trends and applications on hybrid artificial intelligence systems

    OpenAIRE

    Corchado Rodríguez, Emilio; Graña Romay, Manuel; Woźniak, MichaŁ

    2017-01-01

    This Special Issue is an outgrowth of the HAIS'10, the 5th International Conference on Hybrid Artificial Intelligence Systems, which was held in San Sebastián, Spain, 23–25 June 2010. The HAIS conference series is devoted to the presentation of innovative techniques involving the hybridization of emerging and active topics in data mining and decision support systems, information fusion, evolutionary computation, visualization techniques, ensemble models, intelligent agent-based systems (compl...

  16. Introduction to the Special Issue on Specification Analysis and Verification of Reactive Systems

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Delzanno, Giorgio; Etalle, Sandro; Gabbrielli, Maurizio

    2006-01-01

    This special issue is inspired by the homonymous ICLP workshops that took place during ICLP 2001 and ICLP 2002. Extending and shifting slightly from the scope of their predecessors (on verification and logic languages) held in the context of previous editions of ICLP, the aim of the SAVE workshops

  17. Preface [Special issue on dataTEL – Data Supported Research in Technology-Enhanced Learning

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Drachsler, Hendrik; Verbert, Katrien; Manouselis, Nikos; Vuorikari, Riina; Wolpers, Martin; Lindstaedt, Stefanie

    2012-01-01

    Drachsler, H., Verbert, K., Manouselis, N., Vuorikari, R., Wolpers, M., & Lindstaedt, S. (2012). Preface [Special issue on dataTEL – Data Supported Research in Technology-Enhanced Learning]. International Journal Technology Enhanced Learning, Vol. 4, Nos. 1/2, 2012.

  18. Astrophysical implications of extraterrestrial materials: A special issue for Ernst K. Zinner

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nittler, Larry R.

    2018-01-01

    This special issue is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Ernst K. Zinner (Fig. 1). Dr. Zinner (1937-2015) was a pioneer in the use of Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) in geo- and cosmochemistry. His contributions to science were vast, but in addition to his foundational SIMS development work, he is best known for the discovery and detailed characterization of presolar stardust grains in meteorites. This discovery opened up important new connections between astrophysics and meteoritical research and this is the overarching theme of this issue. Throughout his career, Ernst was a teacher, mentor, friend, and generous collaborator to legions of scientists. This issue presents research by many who were taught by, inspired by, and/or collaborated with this innovative cosmochemist and astrophysicist. In addition to the author, Ernst's former students and collaborators Drs. Christine Floss (Washington University) Peter Hoppe (MPI for chemistry, Mainz, Germany), and Kevin McKeegan (University of California, Los Angeles) served as Guest Editors for this issue.

  19. The Influence Factors and Mechanism of Societal Risk Perception

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zheng, Rui; Shi, Kan; Li, Shu

    Risk perception is one of important subjects in management psychology and cognitive psychology. It is of great value in the theory and practice to investigate the societal hazards that the public cares a lot especially in Socio-economic transition period. A survey including 30 hazards and 6 risk attributes was designed and distributed to about 2, 485 residents of 8 districts, Beijing. The major findings are listed as following: Firstly, a scale of societal risk perception was designed and 2 factors were identified (Dread Risk & Unknown Risk). Secondly, structural equation model was used to analyze the influence factors and mechanism of societal risk perception. Risk preference, government support and social justice could influence societal risk perception directly. Government support fully moderated the relationship between government trust and societal risk perception. Societal risk perception influenced life satisfaction, public policy preferences and social development belief.

  20. Preface of the Special Issue: “Recent CMV Research”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kayla Dufrene

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This Viruses Special Issue on Recent Cytomegalovirus (CMV Research is dedicated to the patients who have suffered CMV infection and to their parents, families and caregivers. We are including as a Preface to this issue the insights of a young college student, Kayla Dufrene, who suffered congenital CMV infection and contacted me and Dr. Roberta DeBiasi, to interview us to learn more about CMV. As I was just returning to the DC area from the 4th Congenital CMV Conference in San Francisco, I was particularly receptive to her request. When we met Kayla, we were both impressed with her personal strength and ability to cope with her disabilities and needed medical treatments. Despite it all, Kayla has an exceptionally positive outlook on life, feeling even lucky. She has not only coped, but has transcended her difficulties. I am proud to say that she was on the Dean’s List (Figure 1 at Gallaudet University. Ultimately, her hope lies in our fields’ efforts to develop a vaccine to prevent CMV disease in other children.

  1. Societal acceptance of carbon capture and storage technologies

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Alphen, Klaas van; Voorst tot Voorst, Quirine van; Hekkert, Marko P.; Smits, Ruud E.H.M.

    2007-01-01

    For the actual implementation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies, societal support is a crucial precondition. This paper describes an extensive study on the acceptance of CCS by stakeholders in the Netherlands and explores one of the determining factors in the acceptance of CCS by the lay public, i.e. the way the Dutch press perceives and portrays CCS. The stakeholder analysis shows that there is a positive attitude towards CCS by industry, government, and environmental NGOs, provided that the conditions they pose on the deployment of CCS are met. The content analysis of Dutch news articles conveys that the media portrayal of CCS is-to a certain extent-a balanced reflection of the way CCS is perceived by the stakeholders. Both analyses show that the concerns about CCS have not overshadowed the main promise that CCS is part of the solution to climate change. However, the current negative aspects of CCS as raised by different stakeholders and the media will remain if no action is taken. Therefore, the conditions posed on the use of CCS, as well as the actions required to meet these conditions, could function as a proxy for the 'societal voice', articulating the most important issues concerning the future acceptance of CCS technology

  2. EDITORIAL: Special issue featuring articles arising from the 11th High-Tech Plasma Processes Conference Special issue featuring articles arising from the 11th High-Tech Plasma Processes Conference

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bruggeman, Peter; Degrez, Gérard; Delplancke, Marie-Paule; Gleizes, Alain

    2011-05-01

    The 11th High-Tech Plasma Processes Conference (HTPP) was held in Brussels, Belgium, 27 June-2 July, 2010. HTPP started as a thermal plasma conference and gradually expanded to include low-temperature plasmas. The conference was founded by Jacques Amouroux and Pierre Fauchais, and aims to bring together different scientific communities to facilitate contacts between science, technology and industry, providing a platform for the exploration of elementary processes and applications in and by plasmas. The first HTPP was held in Odeillo, France, in 1990. Since then it has been held every other year in different European cities: Paris, Aachen, Athens, Strasbourg, Saint-Petersburg, Patras and Brussels. The 11th HTPP conference was attended by 125 participants from 19 countries. The program involved 14 invited talks, 34 contributed talks, 72 posters and a software demonstration and hands-on session for plasma modelling. The 12th HTPP conference will be held 24-28 June 2012, in Bologna, Italy. A larger part of the contributions to the 11th HTPP has been published in the Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCS) volume 275, 2011. All invited speakers and other contributors, as selected by the Steering, Scientific and Organizing Committee, were invited to submit a paper based on their contributions for this special issue which is peer reviewed by the journal. Both this special issue and the JPCS volume aim to bring the 11th HTPP to a wider audience. The publications are a nice example of the broad topic range of the conference. The JPCS volume contains papers covering fundamental aspects on radiative processes of thermal plasmas, modelling of thermal arcs and non-thermal RF plasma jets, plasma diagnostics including flow and heat flux measurements of thermal plasmas, radical density measurements and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. The applications-oriented contributions of the JPCS volume include plasma spraying, synthesis of (nano-sized) materials, surface

  3. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2017-10-17

    Oct 17, 2017 ... delivery system which are primary care, secondary care, tertiary care, ..... services are usually delivered by nurse practitioners, medical assistants, ... The quaternary care is a highly specialized care with a target to cure.

  4. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2016-07-16

    Jul 16, 2016 ... In this research, two questionnaires of knowledge management and employees' ... development, human resources are the most important tool and capital of ... foster talent, to improve public and specialized awareness, and to ...

  5. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-05-01

    May 1, 2018 ... quantitative method used, data analysis and findings of Telehealth ... The users' acceptance of wireless sensor devise (Motes) for ..... access to specialized health care: the Telehealth Network of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Bulletin ...

  6. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2017-09-07

    Sep 7, 2017 ... special experience of urban environments in the development process. ... Internet and social networking, and eventually poor performance of the police .... was shown that different regions have different levels of fear of crime.

  7. Overview of the Health and Retirement Study and Introduction to the Special Issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fisher, Gwenith G; Ryan, Lindsay H

    2018-01-01

    Twenty five years ago, the largest academic behavioral and social science project ever undertaken in the U.S. began: the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The HRS is an invaluable publicly available dataset for investigating work, aging, and retirement and informing public policy on these issues. This biennial longitudinal study began in 1992 and has studied more than 43,000 individuals and produced almost 4000 journal articles, dissertations, books, book chapters, and reports to date. The purpose of this special issue of Work, Aging and Retirement is to describe the HRS and highlight relevant research that utilizes this rich and complex dataset. First, we briefly describe the background that led to the development of the HRS. Then we summarize key aspects of the study, including its development, sampling, and methodology. Our review of the content of the survey focuses on the aspects of the study most relevant to research on worker aging and retirement. Next, we identify key strengths and important limitations of the study and provide advice to current and future HRS data users. Finally, we summarize the articles in this Special Issue (all of which use data from the HRS) and how they advance our knowledge and understanding of worker aging and retirement.

  8. Preface to the Special Issue on "Geophysical and Climate Change Studies in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Siberia (TibXS from Satellite Geodesy"

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cheinway Hwang

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available This special issue publishes papers on recent results in geophysical and climate change studies over Tibet, Xinjiang and Siberia (TibXS based upon some of the key sensors used in satellite geodesy, including satellite gravimetric sensors (GRACE and GOCE, satellite altimeters (TOPEX, Jason-1 and -2, and ENVISAT, and Global Positioning System satellites. Results from ground- and airborne-based geodetic observations, notably those based on airborne gravimeter, superconducting gravimeter (SG and seismometers are also included in the special issue. In all, 22 papers were submitted for this special issue; 17 papers were accepted.

  9. The Context of Current Content Analysis of Gender Roles: An Introduction to a Special Issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Popova, Lucy; Linz, Daniel G.

    2010-01-01

    The aim of this paper is to provide context for the quantitative content analyses of gender roles that are to be included in both parts of this special issue. First, a timeline of historical uses of the content analysis methodology is presented. Second, research objectives that frequently drive content analysis of gender roles are described; these include: to support feminist claims, to compare media with real life, to predict effects on audiences, and to detect effects of media producers on content. Third, previous content analyses published in Sex Roles and other gender-focused journals are reviewed and categorized in terms of medium, genre, time span, gender, and nationality. Finally, contributions of each of the articles in this special issue are outlined. PMID:20694031

  10. Special Issue: Recent Progress in the Vertical Coupling in the Atmosphere-Ionosphere System\

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Pancheva, D.; Shiokawa, K.; Knížová, Petra; Wan, W.

    90-91, Special Issue (2012), s. 5-6 ISSN 1364-6826 Institutional support: RVO:68378289 Keywords : ionosphere * neutral atmosphere * atmospheric waves Subject RIV: DG - Athmosphere Sciences, Meteorology OBOR OECD: Meteorology and atmospheric sciences Impact factor: 1.417, year: 2012 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682612002581?via%3Dihub

  11. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2017-09-10

    . Special ... is 4000 pps, in 1 ms there are 4 sampling intervals. Fig. .... Although this type of radar is simple, generally it is not very sensitive because of increased ... processing) to determine the true sign of Doppler frequency.

  12. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2016-07-18

    Jul 18, 2016 ... and 1340s, centralization and organizational unity in the early 1350s, ... appropriate productivity in specialized costs of welfare and social ..... and finally the lack of compliance with commitments by the government to the social.

  13. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    Published online: 1 May 2018. ABSTRACT ... CMOS technology with many special features that can overcome all the limitations in CMOS. QCA is of high speed, small size ... is done depending on position of single electrons. This shows that ...

  14. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-05-01

    May 1, 2018 ... such as the athletes. This is done through gene doping, ... reduced risk of injury and drug abuse, talent selection through DNA and special training ..... GJB2 gene among Malays with non-syndromic hearing loss. International ...

  15. Introduction to the Special Issue on Autism Spectrum Disorders Approaches to Training, Teaching, and Treatment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kamil ÖZERK

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The strength of an educational system rests in its design and implementation. Part of what informs the design process is knowledge of student needs and valued goals and outcomes. As systems are designed, research evidence informs the implementation process. We are pleased to present a series of articles in this special issue that will aide special educators and administrators design and implement effective educational systems for children with autism spectrum disorders.

  16. Societal health and urban sustainability indicators

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Petrich, C.H.; Tonn, B.E.

    1996-08-27

    Without the social will, no city can successfully Undertake the planning and programs necessary for meaningful progress toward sustainability. Social will derives from wellsprings of vital societal health. This paper presents an approach to helping cities in APEC member economies initiate a program for developing indicators of sustainability. Representative indicators of social capital and other aspects of civic engagement, as proxies for societal health, are presented.

  17. Introduction to the Special Issue on Inequality in the Digital Environment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roderick Graham

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of this special issue is to explore social inequalities in the digital environment. The motivation for this issue is derived from the disproportionate focus on technological and economic aspects of the Information Society to the detriment of sociological and cultural aspects. The research presented here falls along three dimensions of inequality. Two papers explore the ways that race orders interaction online. A second pair of papers explores the experiences of technology users with physical and mental disabilities. A final paper looks at gender, and the higher rates of intimate partner violence experienced by women online. Taken as a whole, these five papers highlight some of the ways that the digital environment can reproduce or mitigate inequalities that have been molded and routinized in the physical environment.

  18. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2016-05-15

    May 15, 2016 ... of specific musical terms; attention to the Quran and Ahl al-Bayt and special devotion to ... Another factor that plays a role in making the poetry of Shahriar .... world, they start reading the masterpieces of world literature and ...

  19. EDITORIAL: Special issue: overview reports from the Fusion Energy Conference (FEC) (Daejeon, South Korea, 2010) Special issue: overview reports from the Fusion Energy Conference (FEC) (Daejeon, South Korea, 2010)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thomas, Paul

    2011-09-01

    The group of 27 papers published in this special issue of Nuclear Fusion aims to monitor the worldwide progress made in the period 2008-2010 in the field of thermonuclear fusion. Of these papers, 22 are based on overview reports presented at the 23rd Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2010) and five are summary reports. The conference was hosted by the Republic of Korea and organized by the IAEA in cooperation with the National Fusion Research Institute and the Daejeon Metropolitan City. It took place in Daejeon on 11-16 October 2010. The overviews presented at the conference have been rewritten and extended for the purpose of this special issue and submitted to the standard double-referee peer-review of Nuclear Fusion. The articles are placed in the following sequence: Conference summaries of the sessions devoted to: Tokamak and stellarator experiments, experimental divertor physics and plasma wall interaction experiments, stability experiments and waves and fast particles; ITER activities, fusion technology, safety and economics; Magnetic confinement theory and modelling; Inertial confinement fusion; Innovative confinement concepts, operational scenarios and confinement. Overview articles, presented in programme order, are as follows: Tokamaks Overview of KSTAR initial experiments; Recent progress in RF heating and long-pulse experiments on EAST; Overview of JET results; DIII-D contributions toward the scientific basis for sustained burning plasmas; Overview of JT-60U results toward the resolution of key physics and engineering issues in ITER and JT-60SA; Overview of physics results from NSTX; Overview of ASDEX Upgrade results; Overview of physics results from MAST; Contribution of Tore Supra in preparation of ITER; Overview of FTU results; Overview of experimental results on the HL-2A tokamak; Progress and scientific results in the TCV tokamak; Overview of the JT-60SA project; Recent results of the T-10 tokamak; The reconstruction and research progress of the TEXT

  20. Implicit Assumptions in Special Education Policy: Promoting Full Inclusion for Students with Learning Disabilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kirby, Moira

    2017-01-01

    Introduction: Everyday millions of students in the United States receive special education services. Special education is an institution shaped by societal norms. Inherent in these norms are implicit assumptions regarding disability and the nature of special education services. The two dominant implicit assumptions evident in the American…

  1. Public Leadership and processes of societal innovations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Termeer, C.J.A.M.

    2007-01-01

    Societal actors can come against problems that cross the traditional boundaries of sectors, organisations and routines. Processes of societal innovation are started on the way to an unknown future, creating new solutions and new corporations. In this paper I focus on the question how public leaders

  2. Introduction to the special issue - Labor Market Outcomes : A Transatlantic Perspective

    OpenAIRE

    Arnaud CHERON; François LANGOT

    2009-01-01

    The ADRES conference "Labor market outcomes: a transatlantic perspective" took place in Paris, in January 2008. It was jointly organized by the University of Le Mans and the EDHEC Business School. Approximately 40 papers were presented in plenary and parallel sessions. The plenary speakers were G. Berola, P. Cahuc, F. Kramarz, L. Ljungqvist, E. Prescott, R. Rogerson, R. Shimer, V. Rios-Rull, E. Wasmer and C. Zimmerman. A selection of the papers are published in this special issue of the "Anna...

  3. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2017-08-08

    Aug 8, 2017 ... Special attention is paid to human capital agglomeration, which is regarded as a .... the innovation sector, on the periphery of the ... Agglomeration is an effective form of concentration of human capital, intellectual ... participants of social relations (public, entrepreneurs) or the formation of clusters, emerging.

  4. A special issue devoted to gold deposits in northern Nevada: Part 2. Carlin-type Deposits

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hofstra, Albert H.; John, David A.; Theodore, Ted G.

    2003-01-01

    This is the second of two special issues of Economic Geology devoted to gold deposits in northern Nevada. Readers interested in a general overview of these deposits, their economic significance, their context within the tectonic evolution of the region, and synoptic references on each gold deposit type are directed to the preface of the first special issue (John et al., 2003). Volume 98, issue 2, contains five papers that address regional aspects important to the genesis of gold deposits in northern Nevada and five papers that present detailed studies of epithermal deposits and districts. All of the regional papers are pertinent to Carlin-type gold deposits, because they address the age of mineralization (Arehart et al., 2003), origin and evolutionary history of the northwest-striking mineral belts that localize many deposits (Grauch et al., 2003), nature of the middle and lower crust below these mineral belts (Howard, 2003), district- to deposit-scale stream sediment and lithogeochemical anomalies (Theodore et al., 2003), and stratigraphy and structure of a district located along a northeast-striking lineament (Peters et al., 2003).

  5. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-04-18

    Apr 18, 2018 ... WORLD THROUGH THE PRISM OF THE INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL ... It has been explored by many a Russian and foreign researcher. ... attempt to focus, instead of going back to the analysis of past experience, on the subject from ... intercultural interaction between various nations, was given special ...

  6. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2017-02-15

    Feb 15, 2017 ... they have no special development plan and their authorities actually do not know about the ... Keywords: Converted villages to city centers, urban network, SWOT analysis, ... rural areas and can decrease regional differences in developing ... Small scale cities are necessary for integration of rural and urban.

  7. Societal rationality; towards an understanding of decision making processes in society

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wahlstroem, Bjoern

    2001-01-01

    In a search for new ways to structure decision making on complex and controversial issues it is necessary to build an understanding of why traditional decision making processes break down. One reason is connected to the issues themselves. They represent steps into the unknown and decisions should therefore be made with prudence. A second reason is connected to a track record according to which new technologies are seen as generating more problems than solutions. A third and more fundamental reason is connected to the decision making processes themselves and a need to find better ways to approach difficult questions in the society. One way to approach societal decision making processes is to investigate their hidden rationality in an attempt to understand causes of observed difficulties. The paper is based mainly on observations from the nuclear industry, but it builds also on controversies experienced in attempts to agree on global efforts towards sustainable approaches to development. It builds on an earlier paper, which discussed the basis of rationality both on an individual and a societal level. Research in societal decision making has to rely on a true multi-disciplinary approach. It is nor enough to understand the technical and scientific models by which outcomes are predicted, but it is also necessary to understand how people make sense of their environment and how they co-operate. Rationality is in this connection one of the key concepts, with an understanding that people always are rational in their own frame of action. The challenge in this connection is to understand how this subjective rationality is formed. Societal rationality has to do with the allocation of resources. There are decisions in which several conflicting views have to be considered. Spending time and resources ex ante may support a consensus ex post, but unfortunately there is no panacea for approaching difficult decisions. Decisions with an uncertain future have to be more robust than

  8. Societal rationality; towards an understanding of decision making processes in society

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wahlstroem, Bjoern [Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo (Finland)

    2001-07-01

    In a search for new ways to structure decision making on complex and controversial issues it is necessary to build an understanding of why traditional decision making processes break down. One reason is connected to the issues themselves. They represent steps into the unknown and decisions should therefore be made with prudence. A second reason is connected to a track record according to which new technologies are seen as generating more problems than solutions. A third and more fundamental reason is connected to the decision making processes themselves and a need to find better ways to approach difficult questions in the society. One way to approach societal decision making processes is to investigate their hidden rationality in an attempt to understand causes of observed difficulties. The paper is based mainly on observations from the nuclear industry, but it builds also on controversies experienced in attempts to agree on global efforts towards sustainable approaches to development. It builds on an earlier paper, which discussed the basis of rationality both on an individual and a societal level. Research in societal decision making has to rely on a true multi-disciplinary approach. It is nor enough to understand the technical and scientific models by which outcomes are predicted, but it is also necessary to understand how people make sense of their environment and how they co-operate. Rationality is in this connection one of the key concepts, with an understanding that people always are rational in their own frame of action. The challenge in this connection is to understand how this subjective rationality is formed. Societal rationality has to do with the allocation of resources. There are decisions in which several conflicting views have to be considered. Spending time and resources ex ante may support a consensus ex post, but unfortunately there is no panacea for approaching difficult decisions. Decisions with an uncertain future have to be more robust than

  9. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2016-06-15

    Jun 15, 2016 ... International License. ... confirmatory factor analysis which is a technique to study the structure of a ... School as a social institution is part of a special community that has ... specifies the amount of support that teacher thinks that students ..... social adjustment and academic performance in third grade female ...

  10. Special Issue “50th Anniversary of the Kohn–Sham Theory—Advances in Density Functional Theory”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ágnes Nagy

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available The properties of many materials at the atomic scale depend on the electronic structure, which requires a quantum mechanical treatment. The most widely used approach to make such a treatment feasible is density functional theory (DFT, the advances in which were presented and discussed during the DFT conference in Debrecen. Some of these issues are presented in this Special Issue.

  11. Special Issue: Aviation Alternative Fuels

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yang Zhang

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available The investigation of aviation alternative fuels has increased significantly in recent years in an effort to reduce the environment and climate impact by aviation industry. Special requirements have to be met for qualifying as a suitable aviation fuel. The fuel has to be high in energy content per unit of mass and volume, thermally stable and avoiding freezing at low temperatures. There are also many other special requirements on viscosity, ignition properties and compatibility with the typical aviation materials. There are quite a few contending alternative fuels which can be derived from coal, natural gas and biomass.[...

  12. A Cross-Cultural Study of Gifted Students' Scientific, Societal, and Moral Questions Concerning Science

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kirsi Tirri

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available This study investigated the number and nature of gifted female and male students' scientific, societal, and moral questions concerning science. The participants (=658 of this study were 16–19-year-old international students from 55 countries and two continents, Asia and Europe. They applied to participate in the Millennium Youth Camp held in 2011 in Finland. The students came from scientifically and mathematically oriented schools, and they had shown an interest towards science through competitions, school success, and their own research. The students were asked to formulate questions they would like to get answers to during the camp. The nature and number of the students' questions were analyzed with qualitative and quantitative content analysis. The results showed that the boys asked more scientific questions than the girls, and the girls asked more societal questions than the boys. The students asked less questions about morality than scientific or societal questions. The most common questions about morality were related to pollution and fresh air, environmental problems, and water protection. The results point to the need for teachers to teach socioscientific issues and discuss moral questions related to science.

  13. Impacts of National Decarbonization Targets for Subnational Societal Priorities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peng, W.; Iyer, G.

    2017-12-01

    Carbon mitigation has well-recognized linkages with other environmental and socioeconomic priorities, such as air pollution, economic development, employment, etc. While climate change is a global issue, many other societal priorities are local concerns. Since local efforts form the pillars of achieving co-benefits and avoiding dis-benefits at the national level, it is critical to go beyond national-level analyses and focus on the synergies and tradeoffs at the subnational level. Here we use the United States as an example to evaluate the impacts of mid-century national-level deep decarbonization target for state-level societal priorities. Based on the Global Change Assessment Model with state-level details for the US (GCAM-USA), we design two mid-century scenarios: A Reference scenario that assumes the U.S. undertakes no additional climate mitigation policy, and a Deep Decarbonization Scenario that assumes the U.S. achieves the NDC goal through 2025 (26-28% reduction relative to 2005 levels) and then follows a straight-line trajectory to 80% reductions in economy-wide GHG emissions by 2050 relative to 2005. We then compare these two scenarios for a variety of metrics of carbon mitigation and other societal priorities in 2050. We highlight two findings. First, the synergies and tradeoffs of carbon mitigation with other societal goals at the subnational level can be quite different from the national level. For example, while deep decarbonization could improve national energy security by reducing the overall dependence on energy imports, it may exacerbate energy independence goals for some states by increasing inter-state electricity imports. Second, achieving national-level decarbonization target could result in unequal regional impacts across states. We find uneven geographic impacts for air pollution (more co-reductions occur in the eastern states), economic costs (energy prices increase more in the northeastern states) and employment (jobs increase in the western

  14. Special issue on graphene nanophotonics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nikitin, A. Yu; Maier, S. A.; Martin-Moreno, L.

    2013-11-01

    Graphene nanophotonics has recently appeared as a new research area, which combines the topics of nanophotonics (devoted to studying the behavior of electromagnetic fields on the deep subwavelength scale) and the several extraordinary material properties of graphene. Apart from being the thinnest existing material, graphene is very attractive for photonics due to its extreme flexibility, high mobility and the possibility of controlling its carrier concentration (and hence its electromagnetic response) via external gate voltages. From its very birth, graphene nanophotonics has the potential for innovative technological applications, aiming to complement (or in some cases even replace) the existing semiconductor/metallic photonic platforms. It has already shown exceptional capabilities in many directions, such as for instance in photodetection, photovoltaics, lasing, etc [1]. A special place in graphene photonics belongs to graphene plasmonics, which studies both intrinsic plasmons in graphene and the combination of graphene with plasmons supported by metallic structures [2]. Here, apart from the dynamic control via external voltages previously mentioned, the use of graphene brings with it the remarkable property that graphene plasmons have a wavelength λp that can be even one hundred times smaller than that in free space λ (for instance λp ~ 100 nm at λ ~ 10 μm). This provides both extreme confinement and extreme enhancement of the electromagnetic field at the graphene sheet which, together with its high sensitivity to the doping level, opens many interesting perspectives for new optical devices. The collection of papers presented in this special issue highlights different aspects of nanophotonics in graphene and related systems. The timely appearance of this publication was apparent during the monographic workshop 'Graphene Nanophotonics', sponsored by the European Science Foundation and held during 3-8 March 2013, in Benasque (Spain). This special issue

  15. A Psycho-Societal Approach

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mellon, Karsten

    This is a project about Danish vocational bachelor students admitted on the basis of an Individual Competency Assessment (VPL/IKV) in light of a Psycho-Societal Approach. The core idea of this paper is to present a PhD project which aims to contribute findings regarding students enrolled in a Dan...... in a Danish vocational Bachelor’s education program (teachers program under the frame of University College) through Validation of Prior Learning by the use of an Individual Competencies Assessment (VPL/IKV).......This is a project about Danish vocational bachelor students admitted on the basis of an Individual Competency Assessment (VPL/IKV) in light of a Psycho-Societal Approach. The core idea of this paper is to present a PhD project which aims to contribute findings regarding students enrolled...

  16. PROSPECTIVE LEADERS' VIEW ON ROMANIAN SOCIETAL CULTURE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    CATANA GHEORGHE ALEXANDRU

    2010-07-01

    Full Text Available This study deals with Romanian prospective leaders’ perceptions and expectations concerning the societal culture. It is a part of a European research project, GLOBE Students, dealing with the interrelations between societal culture and leadership. The basic theoretical constructs and methodological framework of investigation are those developed by GLOBE international research project. In adapting our research to student population peculiarities, GLOBE Beta questionnaire was altered through adding new items (scales. The sample consists in 429 students in business/economics and engineering, belonging to three Romanian universities. The findings show that in student’s opinion there are significant differences between societal culture practices and values (expectations on all nine cultural dimensions in GLOBE model.

  17. Postmodernism in Belgrade architecture: Between cultural modernity and societal modernization

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Blagojević Ljiljana

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available The paper explores the introduction and articulation of ideas and aesthetic practice of postmodernism in architecture of late socialism in Yugoslavia, with the focus on Belgrade architecture scene. Theoretical and methodological point of departure of this analysis is Jürgen Habermas's thesis of modernity as an incomplete, i.e., unfinished project, from his influential essay “Die Moderne: Ein unvollendetes Projekt” (1980. The thematic framework of the paper is shifted towards issues raised by Habermas which concern relations of cultural modernity and societal modernization, or rather towards consideration of architectural postmodernity in relation to the split between culture and society. The paper investigates architectural discourse which was profiled in Belgrade in 1980s, in a historical context of cultural modernity simultaneous with Habermas's text, but in different conditions of societal modernization of Yugoslav late socialism. In that, the principle methodological question concerns the interpretation of postmodern architecture as part of the new cultural production within the social restructuration of late and/or end of socialism as a system, that being analogous to Fredric Jameson's thesis of “Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism” (1984.

  18. Repeating Marx: Introduction to the Special Issue “Karl Marx @ 200: Debating Capitalism & Perspectives for the Future of Radical Theory”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christian Fuchs

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available This introduction sets out the context of the special issue “Karl Marx @ 200: Debating Capitalism & Perspectives for the Future of Radical Theory”, which was published on the occasion of Marx’s bicentenary on 5 May 2018. First, we give a brief overview of contemporary capitalism’s development and its crises. Second, we argue that it is important to repeat Marx today. Third, we reflect on lessons learned from 200 years of struggles for alternatives to capitalism. Fourth, we give an overview of the contributions in this special issue. Taken together, the contributions in this special issue show that Marx’s theory and politics remain key inspirations for understanding exploitation and domination in 21st-century society and for struggles that aim to overcome these phenomena and establishing a just and fair society. We need to repeat Marx today.

  19. Renewable energy systems: A societal and technological platform

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Polatidis, Heracles; Haralambopoulos, Dias A. [University of the Aegean, Mytilene (Greece). Department of Environment

    2007-02-15

    Today, the analysis of renewable energy places the emphasis on the technological and economic attributes with social and environmental impact assessment providing for a rather static, narrow frame of analysis. The participation and response of social actors and other stakeholders is usually of a traditional type, with consultation documents and public meetings, collection of complaints and suggestion schemes. This often encourages parochialism and an over-concentration on relatively trivial issues. It is, therefore, imperative to establish a new participatory planning platform to incorporate the wider socio-economic aspects of renewable energy systems and to provide for an operational analytical decomposition of them. In this work the issue of decomposition analysis is clarified, and a new agenda for the societal and technological decomposition analysis of renewable energy systems is developed. A case study is disclosed to present the relevance of the established platform for integrated (renewable) energy systems planning. Innovative aspects comprise of the simultaneous inclusion of decision analysis and social acceptance methods and tools in concert with the related public participation techniques. (author)

  20. CALL FOR PAPERS: Special cluster issue on `Experimental studies of zonal flow and turbulence'

    Science.gov (United States)

    Itoh, S.-I.

    2005-07-01

    Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion (PPCF) invites submissions on the topic of `Experimental studies of zonal flow and turbulence', for consideration for a special topical cluster of articles to be published early in 2006. The topical cluster will be published in an issue of PPCF, combined with regular articles. The Guest Editor for the special cluster will be S-I Itoh, Kyushu University, Japan. There has been remarkable progress in the area of structure formation by turbulence. One of the highlights has been the physics of zonal flow and drift wave turbulence in toroidal plasmas. Extensive theoretical as well as computational studies have revealed the various mechanisms in turbulence and zonal flows. At the same time, experimental research on the zonal flow, geodesic acoustic modes and generation of global electric field by turbulence has evolved rapidly. Fast growth in reports of experimental results has stimulated further efforts to develop increased knowledge and systematic understanding. Each paper considered for the special cluster should describe the present research status and new scientific knowledge/results from the authors on experimental studies of zonal flow, geodesic acoustic modes and generation of electric field by turbulence (including studies of Reynolds-Maxwell stresses, etc). Manuscripts submitted to this special cluster in Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion will be refereed according to the normal criteria and procedures of the journal. The Guest Editor guides the progress of the cluster from the initial open call, through the standard refereeing process, to publication. To be considered for inclusion in the special cluster, articles must be submitted by 2 September 2005 and must clearly state `for inclusion in the Turbulent Plasma Cluster'. Articles submitted after this deadline may not be included in the cluster issue but may be published in a later issue of the journal. Please submit your manuscript electronically via our web site at www

  1. Special Issue: Plant Genetics and Biotechnology in Biodiversity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Giandomenico Corrado

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available The rapid progress and increasing affordability of novel investigation tools in plant genetics and biotechnology offer previously inaccessible opportunities for the exploitation of plant genetic diversity in agriculture. The Special Issue was lunched to highlight how new technologies are improving both genotyping and phenotyping methods, thus allowing us to uncover crop diversity and use genetic variability for plant breeding with remarkable precision and speed. Three thematic reviews report on scientific, technological, and legal advances in plant diversity and agriculture. Three contributions provide specific examples of the exploitation of different kinds of genetic resources, ranging from landraces to mutant populations. Six research articles are illustrative examples of the study of molecular and/or phenotypic diversity to address basic or applied questions in different plant species. Finally, this SI was also launched to honor the memory of Prof. Gian Tommaso Scarascia Mugnozza and a dedicated Editorial acknowledges his work in plant breeding and biodiversity protection.

  2. Modern physics letters A special issue on hadrontherapy

    CERN Document Server

    2015-01-01

    CERN Courier Review (Jul 8, 2016) : The applications of nuclear and particle physics to medicine have seen extraordinary development since the discovery of X-rays by Röntgen at the end of the 19th century. Medical imaging and oncologic therapy with photons and charged particles (specifically hadrons) are currently hot research topics. This special issue of Modern Physics Letters is dedicated to hadron therapy, which is the frontier of cancer radiation therapy, and aims at filling a gap in the current literature on medical physics. Through 10 invited review papers, the volume presents the basics of hadron therapy, along with the most recent scientific and technological developments in the field. The first part covers topics such as the history of hadron therapy, radiation biophysics, particle accelerators, dose-delivery systems and treatment planning. In the second part, more specific topics are treated, including dose and beam monitoring, proton computer tomography, innoacustics and microdosimetry. This vo...

  3. Embodied Making and Design Learning - Special Issue from the Learn X Design-conference DRS/CUMULUS, Chicago 2015

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marte Sørebø Gulliksen

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available This issue of FORMakademisk features selected articles developed from papers presented at the symposium Embodied Making and Design Learning at the DRS/CUMULUS-conference LearnXDesign in Chicago, Illinois, June 28–30, 2015. This special issue was developed as an initiative by the symposium conveners. The symposium was developed by researchers from research groups in Norway, Finland and Canada to explore various aspects of embodied making in relation to design learning. The symposium was a full-day event with four sessions, seven paper presentations, a roundtable discussion, a plenary discussion and a workshop. The symposium received positive feedback, attracting many participants and stimulating engaged discussions throughout the conference. This indicates a growing awareness of the topic of embodied making and design learning. This special issue features five articles that together highlight a variety of approaches and examples of current research endeavours in relation to the theme. 

  4. Geospatial decision support systems for societal decision making

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bernknopf, R.L.

    2005-01-01

    While science provides reliable information to describe and understand the earth and its natural processes, it can contribute more. There are many important societal issues in which scientific information can play a critical role. Science can add greatly to policy and management decisions to minimize loss of life and property from natural and man-made disasters, to manage water, biological, energy, and mineral resources, and in general, to enhance and protect our quality of life. However, the link between science and decision-making is often complicated and imperfect. Technical language and methods surround scientific research and the dissemination of its results. Scientific investigations often are conducted under different conditions, with different spatial boundaries, and in different timeframes than those needed to support specific policy and societal decisions. Uncertainty is not uniformly reported in scientific investigations. If society does not know that data exist, what the data mean, where to use the data, or how to include uncertainty when a decision has to be made, then science gets left out -or misused- in a decision making process. This paper is about using Geospatial Decision Support Systems (GDSS) for quantitative policy analysis. Integrated natural -social science methods and tools in a Geographic Information System that respond to decision-making needs can be used to close the gap between science and society. The GDSS has been developed so that nonscientists can pose "what if" scenarios to evaluate hypothetical outcomes of policy and management choices. In this approach decision makers can evaluate the financial and geographic distribution of potential policy options and their societal implications. Actions, based on scientific information, can be taken to mitigate hazards, protect our air and water quality, preserve the planet's biodiversity, promote balanced land use planning, and judiciously exploit natural resources. Applications using the

  5. Introduction to the special issue of Radiation Protection Dosimetry

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Anon.

    2016-01-01

    This special issue is a collection of peer-reviewed articles derived from presentations at the fourth EPR BioDose Meeting, held in Hanover, NH, USA in 4-8 October 2015. Organised by The International Association of Biological and EPR Radiation Dosimetry (IABERD), this meeting was held in combination with two international conferences (The International Symposium on EPR Dosimetry and Dating and The International Conference on Biodosimetry) and a symposium (The International EPR Society). The primary focus of this conference was on medical response to events in which large numbers of individuals may be exposed to significant levels of ionising radiation; topics included biodosimetry techniques, radiation mitigators, model systems to develop countermeasures, new data from different exposure events and the implication of these methods in a radiological emergency or in terrorist attack scenarios. (authors)

  6. Call for papers: SAJHE special issue 'Re-imagining writing retreats for academic staff in higher education'

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Guest Editors

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Call for papers for an upcoming special issue of the South African Journal of Higher Education (SAJHE in 2016: ‘Re-imagining writing retreats for academic staff in higher education’.

  7. Progress toward developing a practical societal response to severe convection (2005 EGU Sergei Soloviev Medal Lecture

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    C. A. Doswell III

    2005-01-01

    Full Text Available A review of severe convection in the context of geophysical hazards is given. Societal responses to geophysical hazards depend, in part, on the ability to forecast the events and the degree of certainty with which forecasts can be made. In particular, the spatio-temporal specificity and lead time of those forecasts are critical issues. However, societal responses to geophysical hazards are not only dependent on forecasting. Even perfect forecasts might not be sufficient for a meaningful societal response without the development of considerable infrastructure to allow a society to respond properly and in time to mitigate the hazard. Geophysical hazards of extreme magnitude are rare events, a fact that tends to make funding support for appropriate preparations difficult to obtain. Focusing on tornadoes as a prototypical hazard from severe convective storms, the infrastructure for dealing with them in the USA is reviewed. Worldwide implications of the experience with severe convective storms in the USA are discussed, with an emphasis on its relevance to the situation in Europe.

  8. Managing and developing key supplier relationships : An introduction to the special issue, discussion and implications

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ivens, B.; van de Vijver, M.A.R.; Vos, G.C.J.M.

    2013-01-01

    This article provides an introduction to this special issue on managing and developing key supplier relationships. Key suppliers are increasingly seen as strategic assets of buying companies which need careful nurturing to fully utilize their potential for value creation. The six articles of this

  9. "Children, Youth and Environments" (CYE) Announces a Special Issue on Greening Early Childhood Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bailie, Patti; Rosenow, Nancy

    2014-01-01

    The collection of papers contained in this special issue was elicited by a worldwide call for papers to explore settings that provided nature experiences for young children, with attention given to the effects that these initiatives have on the holistic development and environmental awareness of the children, as well as impacts on the teachers and…

  10. Biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services in environmental risk assessment: introduction to the special issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schäfer, Ralf B

    2012-01-15

    This Special Issue focuses on the questions if and how biodiversity, ecosystem functions and resulting services could be incorporated into the Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA). Therefore, three articles provide a framework for the integration of ecosystem services into ERA of soils, sediments and pesticides. Further articles demonstrate ways how stakeholders can be integrated into an ecosystem service-based ERA for soils and describe how the current monitoring could be adapted to new assessment endpoints that are directly linked to ecosystem services. Case studies show that the current ERA may not be protective for biodiversity, ecosystem functions and resulting services and that both pesticides and salinity currently adversely affect ecosystem functions in the field. Moreover, ecological models can be used for prediction of new protection goals and could finally support their implementation into the ERA. Overall, the Special Issue stresses the urgent need to enhance current procedures of ERA if biodiversity, ecosystem functions and resulting services are to be protected. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  11. The Societal Nature of Subjectivity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Olesen, Henning Salling

    2013-01-01

    The HSR Focus presents a psycho-societal approach to qualitative empirical research in several areas of everyday social life. It is an approach which integrates a theory of subjectivity and an interpretation methodology which integrates hermeneutic experiences from text analysis and psychoanalysis....... In terms of methodology it revives the themes originally launched in FOS exactly ten years ago: "Subjectivity and Reflectivity in Qualitative Research" (Breuer, Mruck and Roth 2002; Mruck and Breuer 2003). This editorial introduction presents the intellectual background of the psycho-societal methodology......, reflects on its relevance and critical perspectives in a contemporary landscape of social science, and comments the way in which an international and interdisciplinary research group has developed this approach to profane empirical research....

  12. Children's Literature: An Issues Approach. Second Edition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rudman, Masha Kabakow

    As a reference guide to selection of children's books, this book considers the appropriateness of such books for bibliotherapy as well as issues of a societal and developmental nature. Each of the book's chapters contains an introduction to an issue, a section relating particular books to the topic, suggestions for activities that teachers or…

  13. Twenty years of functional near-infrared spectroscopy: introduction for the special issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boas, David A; Elwell, Clare E; Ferrari, Marco; Taga, Gentaro

    2014-01-15

    Papers from four different groups were published in 1993 demonstrating the ability of functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to non-invasively measure hemoglobin concentration responses to brain function in humans. This special issue commemorates the first 20years of fNIRS research. The 9 reviews and 49 contributed papers provide a comprehensive survey of the exciting advances driving the field forward and of the myriad of applications that will benefit from fNIRS. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  14. Special Issue: Current Trends in Research in Accounting Finance and Management Control

    OpenAIRE

    Lassala, Carlos; Ripoll Feliu, Vicente

    2017-01-01

    On January 27, 2016, an agreement was signed with OmniaScience to select articles to be published in the journal Intangible Capital, in a special issue titled "Current Trends in Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Control." The agreement was reached within the framework of three events at the University of Valencia, from June 27 to 30, 2016: XXI Workshop on Accounting and Management Control. “Memorial Raymond Konopka”, X Iberoamerican Congress of Management Accounting, III  Int...

  15. Special Issue on ActorNetwork Theory, Value CoCreation and Design in Open Innovation Environments

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Tanev, Stoyan; Storni, Cristiano; Stuedahl, Dagny

    2015-01-01

    The present special issue focuses on the application of ANT to the articulation of a cocreative perspective on design in open innovation environments. The Editors invited submissions by authors using ANT to explore and discuss the link between value co-creation, design and innovation and especially...

  16. Discrete Mathematics - Special Issue: Graph Theory - dedicated to Carsten Thomassen on his 60th birthday

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    2011-01-01

    Carsten Thomassen belongs to the worlds's absolute top graph theorists, and to the world's top mathematicians in general. The special issue is a rather somewhat random collection of good papers in graph theory, by many different authors, dedicated to Carsten Thomassen on his 60th birthday. Guest ...

  17. Children's proximal societal conditions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Stanek, Anja Hvidtfeldt

    2018-01-01

    that is above or outside the institutional setting or the children’s everyday life, but something that is represented through societal structures and actual persons participating (in political ways) within the institutional settings, in ways that has meaning to children’s possibilities to participate, learn...... and develop. Understanding school or kindergarten as (part of) the children’s proximal societal conditions for development and learning, means for instance that considerations about an inclusive agenda are no longer simply thoughts about the school – for economic reasons – having space for as many pupils...... as possible (schools for all). Such thoughts can be supplemented by reflections about which version of ‘the societal’ we wish to present our children with, and which version of ‘the societal’ we wish to set up as the condition for children’s participation and development. The point is to clarify or sharpen...

  18. Introduction: Special issue on advances in topobathymetric mapping, models, and applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gesch, Dean B.; Brock, John C.; Parrish, Christopher E.; Rogers, Jeffrey N.; Wright, C. Wayne

    2016-01-01

    Detailed knowledge of near-shore topography and bathymetry is required for many geospatial data applications in the coastal environment. New data sources and processing methods are facilitating development of seamless, regional-scale topobathymetric digital elevation models. These elevation models integrate disparate multi-sensor, multi-temporal topographic and bathymetric datasets to provide a coherent base layer for coastal science applications such as wetlands mapping and monitoring, sea-level rise assessment, benthic habitat mapping, erosion monitoring, and storm impact assessment. The focus of this special issue is on recent advances in the source data, data processing and integration methods, and applications of topobathymetric datasets.

  19. Guest editorial for the special issue ‘‘Tectonics of Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea with special emphasis on coastal and marine geohazards’’

    Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

    Murthy, K.S.R.; Chaubey, A.K.; Radhakrishna, M.

    selected for this special issue. These include five papers dealing with various aspects of seismogenesis, structural heterogeneity and tsunami-related studies in the Andaman-Sumatra region, one paper on 3D seismic structure in Kachchh region affected...

  20. Differences Between Individual and Societal Health State Valuations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chapman, Benjamin P.; Franks, Peter; Duberstein, Paul R.; Jerant, Anthony

    2009-01-01

    Objective The concept of “adaptation” has been proposed to account for differences between individual and societal valuations of specific health states in patients with chronic diseases. Little is known about psychological indices of adaptational capacity, which may predict differences in individual and societal valuations of health states. We investigated whether such differences were partially explained by personality traits in chronic disease patients. Research Design Analysis of baseline data of randomized controlled trial. Subjects Three hundred seventy patients with chronic disease. Measures The NEO-five factor inventory measure of personality, EuroQoL-5D (EQ-5D) societal-based, and the EQ visual analogue scale individually-based measures of health valuation. Results Regression analyses modeled Dev, a measure of difference between the EQ-Visual Analogue Scale and EQ-5D, as a function of personality traits, sociodemographic factors, and chronic diseases. Individual valuations were significantly and clinically higher than societal valuations among patients in the second and third quartile of conscientiousness (Dev = 0.08, P = 0.01); among covariates, only depression (Dev = -0.04, P = 0.046) was also associated with Dev. Conclusion Compared with societal valuations of a given health state, persons at higher quartiles of conscientiousness report less disutility associated with poor health. The effect is roughly twice that of some estimates of minimally important clinical differences on the EQ-5D and of depression. Although useful at the aggregate level, societal preference measures may systematically undervalue the health states of more conscientious individuals. Future work should examine the impact this has on individual patient outcome evaluation in clinical studies. PMID:19543121

  1. Perovskite Catalysts—A Special Issue on Versatile Oxide Catalysts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yu-Chuan Lin

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Perovskite-type catalysts have been prominent oxide catalysts for many years due to attributes such as flexibility in choosing cations, significant thermal stability, and the unique nature of lattice oxygen. Nearly 90% metallic elements of the Periodic Table can be stabilized in perovskite’s crystalline framework [1]. Moreover, by following the Goldschmidt rule [2], the A- and/or B-site elements can be partially substituted, making perovskites extremely flexible in catalyst design. One successful example is the commercialization of noble metal-incorporated perovskites (e.g., LaFe0.57Co0.38Pd0.05O3 for automotive emission control used by Daihatsu Motor Co. Ltd. [3]. Thus, growing interest in, and application of perovskites in the fields of material sciences, heterogeneous catalysis, and energy storage have prompted this Special Issue on perovskite catalysts. [...

  2. Can value-based insurance impose societal costs?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koenig, Lane; Dall, Timothy M; Ruiz, David; Saavoss, Josh; Tongue, John

    2014-09-01

    Among policy alternatives considered to reduce health care costs and improve outcomes, value-based insurance design (VBID) has emerged as a promising option. Most applications of VBID, however, have not used higher cost sharing to discourage specific services. In April 2011, the state of Oregon introduced a policy for public employees that required additional cost sharing for high-cost procedures such as total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Our objectives were to estimate the societal impact of higher co-pays for TKA using Oregon as a case study and building on recent work demonstrating the effects of knee osteoarthritis and surgical treatment on employment and disability outcomes. We used a Markov model to estimate the societal impact in terms of quality of life, direct costs, and indirect costs of higher co-pays for TKA using Oregon as a case study. We found that TKA for a working population can generate societal benefits that offset the direct medical costs of the procedure. Delay in receiving surgical care, because of higher co-payment or other reasons, reduced the societal savings from TKA. We conclude that payers moving toward value-based cost sharing should consider consequences beyond direct medical expenses. Copyright © 2014 International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. A psycho-societal approach to life histories

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Olesen, Henning Salling

    2016-01-01

    Life histories represent lived lives past, present and anticipated future. As such they are interpretations of individuals’ experiences of the way in which societal dynamics take place in the individual body and mind, either by the individual him/herself or by another biographer. I have been...... particularly interested in the relations between the culturally mediated and the sensory/bodily aspects of experience processes because this is the boundary zones of knowledge and seat of the dynamics of learning. My psycho-societal approach was developing from interpreting autobiographical and later certain...... other forms of language interactive material as moments of life history, i.e. it is basically a hermeneutic approach. Talking about a psycho-societal approach indicates the ambition of attacking the dichotomy of the social and the psychic, both in the interpretation procedure and in some main...

  4. Capitalist Crisis, Communication, & Culture – Introduction to the Special Issue of tripleC

    OpenAIRE

    Christian Fuchs; Matthias Schafranek; David Hakken; Marcus Breen

    2010-01-01

    The worldwide economic downturn is indicative for a new large crisis of capitalism. The future of capitalism is in this situation not determined, but depends on collective human agency. This introduction to the special issue of tripleC on “Capitalist Crisis, Communication & Culture” presents general arguments about the crisis, a general model of the political economy of capitalist communication, and a systematic typology of literature about capitalist crisis & communication. The introduced mo...

  5. The intersection of behavioral genetics and political science: introduction to the special issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hatemi, Peter K

    2012-02-01

    The collection of papers in this special edition of Twin Research and Human Genetics represents a major land-mark at the intersection of behavioral genetics and political science. This issue is the fruit of 20 political scientists attending the Behavioral Genetics Association Methods Workshop in Boulder and a hands-on training practicum at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, and includes results from the first wave of political science twin surveys.

  6. Call for Papers – Special issue: Project Management in the Non-Profit Sector

    OpenAIRE

    Sankaran, Shankar

    2015-01-01

    This journal special issue will explore diverse stakeholder perspectives and share examples of project management practices in the non-profit sector. Key objectives are to develop understandings of project management practice in the sector, to examine how cross-sectoral collaboration and learning can help non-profit organisations achieve their project and programme objectives, and to explore ways in which the wider project management community can learn from experiences in the non-profit sector.

  7. Advancements in Research on Creativity and Giftedness in Mathematics Education: Introduction to the Special Issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Singer, Florence Mihaela; Sheffield, Linda Jensen; Leikin, Roza

    2017-01-01

    Creativity and giftedness in mathematics education research are topics of an increased interest in the education community during recent years. This introductory paper to the special issue on Mathematical Creativity and Giftedness in Mathematics Education has a twofold purpose: to offer a brief historical perspective on the study of creativity and…

  8. Big data in psychology: Introduction to the special issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harlow, Lisa L; Oswald, Frederick L

    2016-12-01

    The introduction to this special issue on psychological research involving big data summarizes the highlights of 10 articles that address a number of important and inspiring perspectives, issues, and applications. Four common themes that emerge in the articles with respect to psychological research conducted in the area of big data are mentioned, including: (a) The benefits of collaboration across disciplines, such as those in the social sciences, applied statistics, and computer science. Doing so assists in grounding big data research in sound theory and practice, as well as in affording effective data retrieval and analysis. (b) Availability of large data sets on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites that provide a psychological window into the attitudes and behaviors of a broad spectrum of the population. (c) Identifying, addressing, and being sensitive to ethical considerations when analyzing large data sets gained from public or private sources. (d) The unavoidable necessity of validating predictive models in big data by applying a model developed on 1 dataset to a separate set of data or hold-out sample. Translational abstracts that summarize the articles in very clear and understandable terms are included in Appendix A, and a glossary of terms relevant to big data research discussed in the articles is presented in Appendix B. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

  9. On the history of the quantum. Introduction to the HQ4 special issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Navarro, Jaume; Blum, Alexander; Lehner, Christoph

    2017-11-01

    Eight years ago, a special issue in this journal published a dozen papers with new studies on the history of quantum physics. That issue was an output of a conference in Utrecht one year earlier, the second in a series organized by the then existing large-scale project coordinated by the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and the Fritz Haber Institute. Since then, that project has produced a number of publications, workshops and other academic outcomes, but more importantly, it triggered the consolidation of an international community of historians and philosophers of science producing novel work on the history of quantum physics. Five years after the third meeting, which took place in Berlin in 2010, many of the scholars from that group and some new ones met for four days in Donostia/San Sebastian for the HQ4 meeting. The time was ripe for new results to be shared and discussed, and this issue collects some of the papers presented at that gathering.

  10. Ventilation in school buildings. Special issue; Ventilatie in schoolgebouwen. Themanummer

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zeiler, W.; Boxem, G.; Van Bruchem, M.; Smits, E.H.J.; Van Dijken, F. [Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, Eindhoven (Netherlands); Joosten, L.; Clocquet, R. [DHV Bouw en Industrie, Amersfoort (Netherlands); Pernot, C. [TNO Bouw, Delft (Netherlands); Haans, L.; Boerstra, A.C. [BBA Boerstra Binnenmilieu Advies, Rotterdam (Netherlands); Leenaerts, C.L.M.; Donze, G.J. [W/E adviseurs duurzaam bouwen, Gouda (Netherlands); Leysen, L.M. [Astma Fonds, Leusden (Netherlands); Blezer, I.H.W. [Hollman Adviseurs, Venlo (Netherlands); Meester, A.W.J. [Alusta, Natuurlijke Ventilatietechniek, Etten Leur (Netherlands); Bronsema, B. [Faculteit der Bouwkunde, Bronsema Consult, Technische Universiteit Delft, Delft (Netherlands)

    2005-10-01

    In this special issue one editorial and 9 articles are dedicated to several aspects with regard to ventilation in school buildings: (1) healthy and draught-free ventilation in schools; (2) air quality and comfort in primary schools; (3) preparatory study on the indoor environment in primary schools; (4) options to improve ventilation in school buildings; (5) the relation between the indoor environment in classrooms and the health of students; (6) the activities of the Asthma Fund to create healthy school buildings for children suffering asthma; (7) the necessity of mechanical ventilation in school buildings; (8) demand-controlled ventilation in schools; (9) first experiences with a newly built primary school. [Dutch] In deze speciale aflevering zijn 1 redactioneel artikel en 9 artikelen gewijd aan verschillende aspecten m.b.t. ventilatie in schoolgebouwen: (1) onderzoek naar gezond en tochtvrij ventileren; (2) luchtkwaliteit en comfort op basisscholen: (3) voorstudie binnenmilieu basisscholen; (4) opties om de ventilatie in scholen te verbeteren; (5) de relatie tussen het binnenmilieu in klaslokalen en de gezondheid van studenten; (6) activiteiten van het Astma Fonds voor gezonde schoolgebouwen voor kinderen met astma; (7) de noodzaak voor mechanische ventilatie in schoolgebouwen; (8) vraaggestuurde ventilatie in scholen; (9) de eerste ervaringen in een nieuwe basisschool in Voorschoten.

  11. Republication of "A Propensity Score Matching Analysis of the Effects of Special Education Services"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morgan, Paul L.; Frisco, Michelle L.; Farkas, George; Hibel, Jacob

    2017-01-01

    Since the landmark enactment of Education of the Handicapped Act in 1975, special education supports and services have been provided to children with disabilities. Although costly, the intentionality of these specialized services has been to advance the educational and societal opportunities of children with disabilities as they progress to…

  12. A great pioneer of clinical science remembered: introduction to the special issue in honor of Paul E. Meehl.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lilienfeld, Scott O; Waller, Niels G

    2005-10-01

    In this special issue, the seminal contributions to clinical psychology of Paul E. Meehl, who passed away in 2003, are commemorated. The nine articles comprising this special issue chronicle Meehl's remarkable intellectual biography and examine his influence on diverse domains of psychology, including the clinical versus actuarial prediction debate, the cognitive activity of the clinician, personality assessment and trait theory, the etiology of schizophrenia, the shortcomings of statistical significance testing, and the use of metascientific methods to evaluate competing models of human nature. These articles illustrate not only Meehl's legendary brilliance but also his pivotal role in forcing clinical psychologists to think more clearly and incisively about their subject matter. 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  13. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-04-16

    Apr 16, 2018 ... The dimensions to business process strategy factors are .... Investigation pains directed at further exploring these issues are very ... relationship management, material flow management, corporate culture in SMEs' Customer.

  14. Getting patent policy right: an introduction to a special issue on the European Patent System

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Elsmore, Matthew J.

    2009-01-01

    An editorial on the Special Issue: Dealing with the major questions confronting the basics of the European patent system; plus a look at the possible solutions; includes an overview of the article contributions....

  15. [Preface for special issue on bio-based materials (2016)].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weng, Yunxuan

    2016-06-25

    Bio-based materials are new materials or chemicals with renewable biomass as raw materials such as grain, legume, straw, bamboo and wood powder. This class of materials includes bio-based polymer, biobased fiber, glycotechnology products, biobased rubber and plastics produced by biomass thermoplastic processing and basic biobased chemicals, for instance, bio-alcohols, organic acids, alkanes, and alkenes, obtained by bio-synthesis, bio-processing and bio-refinery. Owing to its environmental friendly and resource conservation, bio-based materials are becoming a new dominant industry taking the lead in the world scientific and technological innovation and economic development. An overview of bio-based materials development is reported in this special issue, and the industrial status and research progress of the following aspects, including biobased fiber, polyhydroxyalkanoates, biodegradable mulching film, bio-based polyamide, protein based biomedical materials, bio-based polyurethane, and modification and processing of poly(lactic acid), are introduced.

  16. The societal costs of insomnia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alan G Wade

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available Alan G WadeCPS Research, Glasgow, ScotlandObjective: Insomnia can be broadly defined as difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep, or sleep that is not refreshing or of poor quality with negative effect on daytime function. Insomnia can be a primary condition or comorbid to an underlying disorder. Subjective measures of insomnia used in population studies, usually based on complaints of unsatisfactory sleep, put the prevalence at about 10%. Insomnia is more common in the elderly and in women, and is often associated with medical and psychiatric disorders. This review examines the measures used to assess quality of sleep (QOS and daytime functioning and the impact of insomnia on society using these measures.Methods: Literature searches were performed to identify all studies of insomnia (primary and comorbid in adults (aged 18–64 years and the elderly (aged ≥ 65 years with baseline and/or outcomes relating to QOS or daytime functioning. The impact of poor QOS on quality of life (QOL, psychomotor and cognitive skills, health care resource utilization, and other societal effects was examined.Results: Although definitions and measurement scales used to assess sleep quality vary widely, it is clear that the societal consequences of insomnia are substantial and include impaired QOL and increased health care utilization. The impact of poor QOS and impaired daytime functioning common in insomnia can lead to indirect effects such as lower work productivity, increased sick leave, and a higher rate of motor vehicle crashes.Conclusions: Insomnia is associated with substantial direct and indirect costs to society. It is almost impossible to separate the costs associated with primary and comorbid insomnia. More studies are required which control for the severity of any primary disorder to accurately evaluate the costs of comorbid insomnia. Development of standardized diagnostic and assessment scales will enable more accurate quantification of the true

  17. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2016-07-16

    Jul 16, 2016 ... investigated and analyzed from various library and documentary ... It is therefore evident that applied research on issues related to ...... [29] Cutter-SL., Burton-CG., Emrich-CT., Disaster resilience indicators for benchmarking.

  18. New Trends and Directions in Ethnic Identity among Internationally Transracially Adopted Persons: Summary of Special Issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rosnati, Rosa; Pinderhughes, Ellen E.; Baden, Amanda L.; Grotevant, Harold D.; Lee, Richard M.; Mohanty, Jayashree

    2015-01-01

    The collective findings of the six articles in this special issue highlight the importance of ethnic-racial socialization and ethnic identity among international transracial adoptees (ITRAs). A multidimensional developmental phenomenon, ethnic identity intersects with other identities, notably adoptive identity. Family, peers, community, and host…

  19. Journal of Transdisciplinary Environmental Studies : Special Issue on The Importance of Local Knowledge and Interdisciplinary Research

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    For this special issue of TES we have selected four articles on constraints and options for managing trees in Africa. The articles have been produced within a larger multidisciplinary research programme on People, Trees and Agriculture in Africa (Petrea) funded by the Danish Development Research ...

  20. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2017-11-10

    Nov 10, 2017 ... 1Faculty of Sports Science and Coaching, Universiti Pendidikan ... face obesity issues because of several factors such as changes in diet intake, lifestyle, physical ...... and its implications for policy and intervention strategies.

  1. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-02-24

    Feb 24, 2018 ... ABSTRACT. Electronic Records and Information Management (e-RIM) framework is paramount for ..... RIM issues and problems that led to information crisis. On the other .... Malaysia: A case study in one government agency”.

  2. Societal output and use of research performed by health research groups

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    van Ark Gerrit

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract The last decade has seen the evaluation of health research pay more and more attention to societal use and benefits of research in addition to scientific quality, both in qualitative and quantitative ways. This paper elaborates primarily on a quantitative approach to assess societal output and use of research performed by health research groups (societal quality of research. For this reason, one of the Dutch university medical centres (i.e. the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC was chosen as the subject of a pilot study, because of its mission to integrate top patient care with medical, biomedical and healthcare research and education. All research departments were used as units of evaluation within this university medical centre. The method consisted of a four-step process to reach a societal quality score per department, based on its (research outreach to relevant societal stakeholders (the general public, healthcare professionals and the private sector. For each of these three types of stakeholders, indicators within four modes of communication were defined (knowledge production, knowledge exchange, knowledge use and earning capacity. These indicators were measured by a bottom-up approach in a qualitative way (i.e. all departments of the LUMC were asked to list all activities they would consider to be of societal relevance, after which they were converted into quantitative scores. These quantitative scores could then be compared to standardised scientific quality scores that are based on scientific publications and citations of peer-reviewed articles. Based on the LUMC pilot study, only a weak correlation was found between societal and scientific quality. This suggests that societal quality needs additional activities to be performed by health research groups and is not simply the consequence of high scientific quality. Therefore we conclude that scientific and societal evaluation should be considered to be synergistic in terms

  3. Building Management Systems and Domotics. Special issue; Gebouwautomatisering en Domotica. Special

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rigter, L.; Dekker, P.; Knipscheer, R.; Veenema, R.; Vlietstra, E. [Siemens Building Technologies, Zuerich (Switzerland); Symanczik, H.; Van Houwelingen, P. [Kieback en Peter Nederland, Nunspeet (Netherlands); Van Grieken, K. [Priva Building Intelligence, Delft (Netherlands); De Koning, G. [Regel Partners, Hoevelaken (Netherlands); Hitzert, L.A. [Honeywell, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Uythof, B.H. [Domotica Platform Nederland, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Wortel, W. [Kropman, Rijswijk (Netherlands); Zeiler, W. [Faculteit Bouwkunde - FAGO, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, Eindhoven (Netherlands); Kamphuis, I.G. [Energieonderzoek Centrum Nederland ECN, Petten (Netherlands); Akkermans, J.M. [Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (Netherlands)

    2002-05-01

    In 12 articles an overview is given of developments in the use of automation and domotics in different types of buildings. Previous specials on the same subject in this magazine were published in november 1989, november 1995 and december 1999. [Dutch] In 12 artikelen wordt uitgebreid aandacht besteed aan ontwikkelingen in gebouwautomatisering en domotica. Eerdere specials over dit onderwerp werden uitgebracht in november 1989, november 1995 en december 1999.

  4. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2016-05-15

    May 15, 2016 ... Assistant professor, Khorasgan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran ... Discussing the issue of knowledge leads inevitably to the problem of beliefs because .... the level of definition from truth at the level of examples.

  5. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-04-18

    Apr 18, 2018 ... selectivity of possible lead compounds prior to clinical trials and ... These computational algorithms had resolved previous issues and .... In similarity with the spatial space degree of the universe, these descriptors are running ...

  6. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-02-01

    Feb 1, 2018 ... The main goal of this article is to analyze methodological issues in .... methodology and theory and historiology (theory of historic process) whose goal is to .... internal branches of sociology and interdisciplinary links of ...

  7. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-03-22

    Mar 22, 2018 ... rameter of computation time and convergence rate. The two scheme have shown ... matrix and its inversion repeatedly for every iteration. This issue causes long ..... Some New Findings on Gauss-Seidel. Technique for Load ...

  8. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2017-02-15

    Feb 15, 2017 ... One of the important issues in the field of human education is the method of ... Encouragement and punishment method in Islamic management has been ... Concept of education refers to the cultivating human talent, this.

  9. HOW FUTURE MANAGERS VIEW SOCIETAL CULTURE: A CROSS-COUNTRY COMPARISON

    OpenAIRE

    CATANA DOINA; CATANA GHEORGHE ALEXANDRU

    2011-01-01

    Our study aims at enriching the existing literature about the prospective managers view of an ideal societal value system and the existing cultural practices in their society. The findings about the students' perception on cultural practices and their expectations about societal culture are helpful in imagining the societal culture in its dynamics. The research sample consists of 727 students in business and engineering on undergraduate and graduate levels from Romania and Slovenia. The reaso...

  10. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-05-16

    May 16, 2018 ... This paper discusses the issues and challenges faced during .... provision of this AELF's office is costly and need permission from the university's management. .... This is to deduct weeks for the assignment and tests because ...

  11. 14 CFR 21.190 - Issue of a special airworthiness certificate for a light-sport category aircraft.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 14 Aeronautics and Space 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Issue of a special airworthiness... consensus standard used; (2) State that the aircraft meets the provisions of the identified consensus... quality assurance system that meets the identified consensus standard; (4) State that the manufacturer...

  12. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2017-10-05

    Oct 5, 2017 ... ources and Food Industry, Universiti Sultan ZainalAbidin, 22200 Besut, ... ty problem has become a major issue in Malaysia for the past two decade ... pollution can be defined as contamination of the indoor or outdoor ...

  13. Special Issue “Recent Synthetic Aspects on the Chemistry of Nitro, Nitroso and Amino Compounds”

    OpenAIRE

    Alessandro Palmieri

    2016-01-01

    Nitrogen-containing molecules are key scaffolds that are widely applied in organic synthesis as precursors of highly functionalized materials, and are also investigated for their biological activities. This Special Issue collects seven innovative contributions which expand our knowledge of the chemistry of nitro compounds, amines, diazonium salts, and peptides, and that provide a good overview about their main reactivities.

  14. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-05-01

    May 1, 2018 ... stability is a very good issue of the power systems resilience to the high disturbances. In this paper, a mirror-fuzzy controller scaled by PSO has been proposed ... In many system analysis, the researchers have configured the ...

  15. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-03-07

    Mar 7, 2018 ... ethical issues behind the retrieval of organs (commitment to ... The article reviews the practices of European countries and attitude of the EU citizens to the .... knowledge that the purchase and sale of donor organs is prohibited ...

  16. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2017-11-24

    Nov 24, 2017 ... FEDERAL UNIVERSITY (FROM EMOTIONAL EDUCATION TO GLOBAL. THINKING ... ANNOTATION. The article highlights the topical issues of human education of the future humanistic- ... conditions (continuous self-education, updating and integration of educational resources on the basis of the ...

  17. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-03-22

    Mar 22, 2018 ... Voltage decay is an important issue in the power system community. ... of voltage profile, the total real power loss in the system is also determined to ..... Kumar A. Optimal placement of DG in radial distribution systems based.

  18. The Dynamics of Hope and Motivations in Groups Working on Complex Societal Issues

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pia Andersson

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper reports results from a study of how participants’ sense of personal hope and motivation was affected by a facilitated process in which four groups of people worked on different complex social issues. The group interventions were designed to scaffold increased understanding of the complexity of the chosen issue. A method called The Integral Process for Working on Complex Issues was used in all of the groups. Issues addressed in the four groups were: neighborhood deterioration, lack of community engagement, the need for better strategies for communication between rescue service actors in critical life-and-death situations, and transition to a more environmentally sustainable city. The study investigated the participants’ self-reported changes in their levels of hope regarding the possibility of achieving positive results on the selected issue, and changes in their motivation to engage in work to that end. The data were gathered through interviews with individual group participants before and after the group process. The sessions supported group members to develop more awareness of the complexity of the issues, and to develop strategies for action. The study indicates that the discovery of new potential pathways to manage an issue, through a more comprehensive understanding of the complexity involved, was a key factor influencing levels of hope and motivation. Reports from participants showed that when the participants formulated concrete actions that made sense to them, then “particularized hope” emerged, as well as motivation to continue to engage. Thus, increased levels of hope about a delimited part of the issue were reported, while in some cases, participants reported having less hope about the issue complex as a whole.

  19. Model-Based Exploration of Societal Aging in the Netherlands

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Pruyt, E.; Logtens, T.W.A.

    2015-01-01

    Mismanagement of societal aging is an important threat to health care, social security, and the economy of many nations. A System Dynamics simulation model related to societal aging in the Netherlands and its implications for the Dutch welfare system is used here to generate exploratory scenarios

  20. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-03-07

    Mar 7, 2018 ... in the development of more up-to-date urban space. ... The goal of this paper is to analyze the issues of the organization of urban environment in ... The model of transport less micro-district Nebo (ACADEMIA gallery), the ...

  1. CSR communication: Quo vadis? A systematic review of the literature and introduction to the special issue

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Golob, U.; Elving, W.; Thomsen, C.; Podnar, K.; Nielsen, A.; Schultz, F.

    2013-01-01

    This paper aims to introduce the special issue on CSR communication attached to the First International CSR Communication Conference held in Amsterdam in October 2011. The aim of the introduction is also to review CSR communication papers published in scholarly journals in order to make a summary of

  2. A process of change and a changing process : introduction to the special issue on contemporary gentrification

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Doucet, B.

    2014-01-01

    Gentrification is a process of social and spatial change, but it is also a changing process. This special issue aims to better understand new forms of gentrification, policies and experiences which have emerged since the year 2000. Specific emphasis has been given to the Netherlands, a country where

  3. The Needs of the Highly Able and the Needs of Society: A Multidisciplinary Analysis of Talent Differentiation and Its Significance to Gifted Education and Issues of Societal Inequality

    Science.gov (United States)

    Persson, Roland S.

    2014-01-01

    Does gifted education affect societal inequality, and does societal inequality suppress and/or distort the development of high ability? Drawing from several academic disciplines and current political discourse, a differentiated use of terms used to describe the highly able is explored in this article. A social evolutionary framework is proposed as…

  4. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2016-05-15

    May 15, 2016 ... Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences is licensed under a Creative ... 1. Faculty of Engineering, Civil Engineering Department, Urmia Branch, ..... Table 4. Sections of the main components of 16 stories building ..... International Journal of Engineering Science and Innovative ... Issue 1, January 2013.

  5. Screaming at a Wall. Societal accountability from below in Bulgaria and Hungary

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrea L.P. Pirro

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available The article investigates engagement in anti-corruption activism in Bulgaria and Hungary. Since the late 2000s, protest events occurred in greater numbers in the two post-communist countries, addressing questions either directly or indirectly related to high-level or political corruption. Bulgarian and Hungarian collective anti-corruption actors share a common framing of the issue ('state corruption' or 'state capture', though their struggles vary in their modes and strategies ('civic self-organisation' versus the dominant role of 'transactional activism'. The article crucially reconstructs the context within which anticorruption activism took place, the different forms of mobilisation, and the specific framing of the issue by means of original interviews with prominent Bulgarian and Hungarian activists. Finally, attention is devoted to the subaltern fortunes of these struggles in attaining the aspired goal of societal accountability.

  6. Ventilation systems in houses. Special issue; Woonhuisventilatie. Special

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Op ' t Veld, P.; Van der Aa, A. [Cauberg-Huygen Raadgevend Ingenieurs, Rotterdam (Netherlands); Verschoor, M.J.E. [Afdeling Koudetechniek en Warmtepompen, TNO Milieu, Energie en Procesinnovatie TNO-MEP, Apeldoorn (Netherlands); Van Gulik, L.H. [Itho, Scheidam (Netherlands); Van der Mark, K.; Overman, P. [AGPO, Breda (Netherlands); Roemer, J.C.; Schuitema, R. [ECN Duurzame Energie in de Gebouwde Omgeving DEGO, Petten (Netherlands); Weterings, M. [GGD voor Rotterdam e.o., Rotterdam (Netherlands); Rosenmai, T.; Rasmussen, S. [Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen (Denmark); Vollebregt, R. [Bureau Kent, Utrecht (Netherlands); Smeets, L.J.M. [Nederlandse onderneming voor energie en milieu Novem, Utrecht (Netherlands)

    2001-06-01

    In 10 articles attention is paid to several aspects with respect to ventilation of houses. This issue includes an overview of suppliers of high-efficiency heat recovering balanced ventilation systems.

  7. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-03-07

    Mar 7, 2018 ... nology Management and Technopreneurship, Universiti Teknikal Mal .... development of SMEs which are recession, global sourcing, lack of ..... issues act as barriers to export which are product quality, logistics and shipping, ... may influenced on the supply chain of payment and the operation cost itself.

  8. A special issue of the Journal of Forestry---proceedings of the 2013 National Silviculture Workshop

    Science.gov (United States)

    James M. Guldin; Marilyn A. Buford

    2014-01-01

    This special issue of the Journal of Forestry presents the Proceedings of the 2013 National Silviculture Workshop (NSW), which was held as one of the concurrent sessions of the 2013 national convention of the Society of American Foresters (SAF) and sponsored by the D-2 Silviculture Working Group. This marks the first time the NSW has been held in conjunction with the...

  9. Special Issue “Recent Synthetic Aspects on the Chemistry of Nitro, Nitroso and Amino Compounds”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alessandro Palmieri

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Nitrogen-containing molecules are key scaffolds that are widely applied in organic synthesis as precursors of highly functionalized materials, and are also investigated for their biological activities. This Special Issue collects seven innovative contributions which expand our knowledge of the chemistry of nitro compounds, amines, diazonium salts, and peptides, and that provide a good overview about their main reactivities.

  10. Societal costs of multiple sclerosis in Ireland.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carney, Peter; O'Boyle, Derek; Larkin, Aidan; McGuigan, Christopher; O'Rourke, Killian

    2018-05-01

    This paper evaluates the impact of multiple sclerosis (MS) in Ireland, and estimates the associated direct, indirect, and intangible costs to society based on a large nationally representative sample. A questionnaire was developed to capture the demographics, disease characteristics, healthcare use, informal care, employment, and wellbeing. Referencing international studies, standardized survey instruments were included (e.g. CSRI, MFIS-5, EQ-5D) or adapted (EDSS) for inclusion in an online survey platform. Recruitment was directed at people with MS via the MS Society mailing list and social media platforms, as well as in traditional media. The economic costing was primarily conducted using a 'bottom-up' methodology, and national estimates were achieved using 'prevalence-based' extrapolation. A total of 594 people completed the survey in full. The sample had geographic, disease, and demographic characteristics indicating good representativeness. At an individual level, average societal cost was estimated at €47,683; the average annual costs for those with mild, moderate, and severe MS were calculated as €34,942, €57,857, and €100,554, respectively. For a total Irish MS population of 9,000, the total societal costs of MS amounted to €429m. Direct costs accounted for just 30% of the total societal costs, indirect costs amounted to 50% of the total, and intangible or QoL costs represented 20%. The societal cost associated with a relapse in the sample is estimated as €2,438. The findings highlight that up to 70% of the total costs associated with MS are not routinely counted. These "hidden" costs are higher in Ireland than the rest of Europe, due in part to significantly lower levels of workforce participation, a higher likelihood of permanent workforce withdrawal, and higher levels of informal care needs. The relationship between disease progression and costs emphasize the societal importance of managing and slowing the progression of the illness.

  11. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-03-07

    Mar 7, 2018 ... technological innovations and the spread of knowledge. ... In this paper, we propose a conceptual model to search relevant scientific ... The digital libraries are becoming a source for discovering new research trends ... Text mining techniques are used to solve some particular business issues, so it is called.

  12. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2016-05-15

    May 15, 2016 ... ABSTRACT. In megacities, exposure to high concentrations of air pollution, as a major concern on public health, is being felt worldwide problem. The issue of particulate matter especially the PM2.5 has become extremely crucial in Tehran, due to industrialization and population growth. Therefore, it.

  13. Conclusion to the special issue: Observed and projected changes in weather and climate extremes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    John E. Hay

    2016-03-01

    The papers in this Special Issue have shown the nature of the scientific and related challenges, the progress made to date, and the challenges, opportunities and constraints yet to be addressed. They have contributed to increased understanding of where, how and why such events manifest themselves, now and into the future. Such insights increase the capacity to manage the risks associated with these events, and thereby reduce the consequences that society might otherwise have suffered.

  14. Neuroscience and Brain Science Special Issue begins in the Malaysian Journal of Medical Sciences

    Science.gov (United States)

    ABDULLAH, Jafri Malin

    2014-01-01

    The Malaysian Journal of Medical Sciences and the Orient Neuron Nexus have amalgated to publish a yearly special issue based on neuro- and brain sciences. This will hopefully improve the quality of peer-reviewed manuscripts in the field of fundamental, applied, and clinical neuroscience and brain science from Asian countries. One focus of the Universiti Sains Malaysia is to strengthen neuroscience and brain science, especially in the field of neuroinformatics. PMID:25941457

  15. Taxonomic bias in biodiversity data and societal preferences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Troudet, Julien; Grandcolas, Philippe; Blin, Amandine; Vignes-Lebbe, Régine; Legendre, Frédéric

    2017-08-22

    Studying and protecting each and every living species on Earth is a major challenge of the 21 st century. Yet, most species remain unknown or unstudied, while others attract most of the public, scientific and government attention. Although known to be detrimental, this taxonomic bias continues to be pervasive in the scientific literature, but is still poorly studied and understood. Here, we used 626 million occurrences from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), the biggest biodiversity data portal, to characterize the taxonomic bias in biodiversity data. We also investigated how societal preferences and taxonomic research relate to biodiversity data gathering. For each species belonging to 24 taxonomic classes, we used the number of publications from Web of Science and the number of web pages from Bing searches to approximate research activity and societal preferences. Our results show that societal preferences, rather than research activity, strongly correlate with taxonomic bias, which lead us to assert that scientists should advertise less charismatic species and develop societal initiatives (e.g. citizen science) that specifically target neglected organisms. Ensuring that biodiversity is representatively sampled while this is still possible is an urgent prerequisite for achieving efficient conservation plans and a global understanding of our surrounding environment.

  16. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2017-10-05

    Oct 5, 2017 ... culture of Mamak frequenting restaurants in Malaysia, several issue has risen in relation to the .... employment of one group quasi experimental design was noted to be lacked in internal ... Food safety and quality division: ... self-reported practices of food service staff regarding food hygiene in Edirne, Turkey ...

  17. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-05-01

    May 1, 2018 ... The issues of information placement are considered on the website of the educational ... At present, a considerable attention is paid to the automation of educational ... schedule from any device quickly, since the system is the WEB service, which allows ... the system adaptation for its use on mobile devices.

  18. Children’s proximal societal conditions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Stanek, Anja Hvidtfeldt

    or the children’s everyday life, but something that is represented through societal structures and actual persons participating (in political ways) within the institutional settings, in ways that has meaning to children’s possibilities to participate, learn and develop. Understanding school or daycare as (part of......) the children’s proximal societal conditions for development and learning, means for instance that considerations about an inclusive agenda in a (Danish) welfare state with well-developed school- and daycare system, are no longer simply thoughts about the school having space for as many pupils as possible...... (schools for all). Such thoughts can or should be supplemented by reflections about which version of ‘the societal’ we wish to present our children with, and which version of ‘the societal’ we wish to set up as the condition for children’s participation and development. These questions require an ethical...

  19. Societal Dynamics Understanding Social Knowledge and Wisdom

    CERN Document Server

    Betz, Frederick

    2012-01-01

    At both a micro-information level and a macro-societal level, the concepts of “knowledge” and “wisdom” are complementary – in both decisions and in social structures and institutions.  At the decision level, knowledge is concerned with how to make a proper choice of means, where “best” is measured as the efficiency toward achieving an end.  Wisdom is concerned with how to make a proper choice of ends  that attain “best” values. At a societal level, knowledge is managed through science/technology and innovation.  And while science/technology is society's way to create new means with high efficiencies, they reveal nothing about values.  Technology can be used for good or for evil, to make the world into a garden or to destroy all life.  It is societal wisdom which should influence the choice of proper ends -- ends to make the world a garden. How can society make progress in wisdom as well as knowledge?  Historically, the disciplines of the physical sciences and biology have provided sci...

  20. EDITORIAL: Fluctuations and noise in photonics and quantum optics: a special issue in memory of Hermann Haus

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abbott, Derek; Shapiro, Jeffrey H.; Yamamoto, Yoshihisa

    2004-08-01

    This Special Issue of Journal of Optics B: Quantum and Semiclassical Optics brings together the contributions of various researchers working on theoretical and experimental aspects of fluctuational phenomena in photonics and quantum optics. The topics discussed in this issue extend from fundamental physics to applications of noise and fluctuational methods from quantum to classical systems, and include: bullet Quantum measurement bullet Quantum squeezing bullet Solitons and fibres bullet Gravitational wave inferometers bullet Fluorescence phenomena bullet Cavity QED bullet Photon statistics bullet Noise in lasers and laser systems bullet Quantum computing and information bullet Quantum lithography bullet Teleportation. This Special Issue is published in connection with the SPIE International Symposium on Fluctuations and Noise, held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on 1-4 June 2003. The symposium contained six parallel conferences, and the papers in this Special Issue are connected to the conference entitled `Fluctuations and Noise in Photonics and Quantum Optics'. This was the first in a series of symposia organized with the support of the SPIE that have greatly contributed to progress in this area. The co-founders of the symposium series were Laszlo B Kish (Texas A&M University) and Derek Abbott (The University of Adelaide). The Chairs of the `Fluctuations and Noise in Photonics and Quantum Optics' conference were Derek Abbott, Jeffrey H Shapiro and Yoshihisa Yamamoto. The practical aspects of the organization were ably handled by Kristi Kelso and Marilyn Gorsuch of the SPIE, USA. Sadly, less than two weeks before the conference, Hermann A Haus passed away. Hermann Haus was a founding father of the field of noise in optics and quantum optics. He submitted three papers to the conference and was very excited to attend; as can be seen in the collection of papers, he was certainly present in spirit. In honour of his creativity and pioneering work in this field, we have

  1. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2016-05-15

    May 15, 2016 ... twice in Iran (Department of Housing and Urban Development,2008,4). Thus, in recent years, ..... For example study of 1200 schoolchildren from four education regions in Tehran Showed that after ... In this case It is expected that be ... In a communication network issue Hierarchy, access and. Sidewalks are ...

  2. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2017-08-08

    Aug 8, 2017 ... presented in the form of a matrix in which processing of vectors is conducted by a conveyor way. ... The modularity of structure of the product systemand standardization of basic operations allow to create ... Thus, the actual issue of modern CT is the organization and hardware support of parallel production.

  3. Theory and Theorizing in Nursing Science: Commentary from the Nursing Research Special Issue Editorial Team.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jairath, Nalini N; Peden-McAlpine, Cynthia J; Sullivan, Mary C; Vessey, Judith A; Henly, Susan J

    Articles from three landmark symposia on theory for nursing-published in Nursing Research in 1968-1969-served as a key underpinning for the development of nursing as an academic discipline. The current special issue on Theory and Theorizing in Nursing Science celebrates the 50th anniversary of publication of these seminal works in nursing theory. The purpose of this commentary is to consider the future of nursing theory development in light of articles published in the anniversary issue. The Editorial Team for the special issue identified core questions about continued nursing theory development, as related to the nursing metaparadigm, practice theory, big data, and doctoral education. Using a dialogue format, the editors discussed these core questions. The classic nursing metaparadigm (health, person, environment, nursing) was viewed as a continuing unifying element for the discipline but is in need of revision in today's scientific and practice climates. Practice theory and precision healthcare jointly arise from an emphasis on individualization. Big data and the methods of e-science are challenging the assumptions on which nursing theory development was originally based. Doctoral education for nursing scholarship requires changes to ensure that tomorrow's scholars are prepared to steward the discipline by advancing (not reifying) past approaches to nursing theory. Ongoing reexamination of theory is needed to clarify the domain of nursing, guide nursing science and practice, and direct and communicate the unique and essential contributions of nursing science to the broader health research effort and of nursing to healthcare.

  4. La Società Umanitaria e la diffusione del Metodo Montessori (1908-1923

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Irene Pozzi

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available The Società Umanitaria ofMilan, between 1918 and 1923, played an essential role in spreading and developing the Montessori Method. Studying in the Historical Archive of Società Umanitaria the numerous documents there collected, the author reconstructed the crucial moments of the extremely significant collaboration between Maria Montessori and Augusto Osimo, General Secretary of the Società Umanitaria.This complex and in-depth investigation was guided by the analysis, in specific, of the training courses for Montessori teachers organised by Società Umanitaria, essentially unexamined before this study, that allowed the researcher to have a deep insight into the action of Società Umanitaria aimed to promote and implement the Montessori Method in Italy and all around the world.

  5. High-level methodologies for grammar engineering, introduction to the special issue

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Denys Duchier

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Grammar Engineering is the task of designing and implementing linguistically motivated electronic descriptions of natural language (so-called grammars. These grammars are expressed within well-defined theoretical frameworks, and offer a fine-grained description of natural language. While grammars were first used to describe syntax, that is to say, the relations between constituents in a sentence, they often go beyond syntax and include semantic information. Grammar engineering provides precise descriptions which can be used for natural language understanding and generation, making these valuable resources for various natural language applications, including textual entailment, dialogue systems, or machine translation. The first attempts at designing large-scale resource grammars were costly because of the complexity of the task (Erbach et al. 1990 and of the number of persons that were needed (see e.g. Doran et al. 1997. Advances in the field have led to the development of environments for semi-automatic grammar engineering, borrowing ideas from compilation (grammar engineering is compared with software development and machine learning. This special issue reports on new trends in the field, where grammar engineering benefits from elaborate high-level methodologies and techniques, dealing with various issues (both theoretical and practical.

  6. On Instructional Utility, Statistical Methodology, and the Added Value of ECD: Lessons Learned from the Special Issue

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nelson, Brian; Nugent, Rebecca; Rupp, Andre A.

    2012-01-01

    This special issue of "JEDM" was dedicated to bridging work done in the disciplines of "educational and psychological assessment" and "educational data mining" (EDM) via the assessment design and implementation framework of "evidence-centered design" (ECD). It consisted of a series of five papers: one…

  7. Technology Education and Societal Change.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gilberti, Anthony F.

    1994-01-01

    Citizens in a democracy should understand the relationship of technological development to societal change. The rationale for universal technological education stems from the ideals of cultural education, the responsibilities of democratic life, and the need for economic security. Technology education furthers understanding of our technological…

  8. Qualitative and mixed methods research in dissemination and implementation science: introduction to the special issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Southam-Gerow, Michael A; Dorsey, Shannon

    2014-01-01

    This special issue provides examples of how qualitative and mixed methods research approaches can be used in dissemination and implementation science. In this introductory article, we provide a brief rationale for why and how qualitative and mixed methods approaches can be useful in moving the field forward. Specifically, we provide a brief primer on common qualitative methods, including a review of guidelines provided by the National Institutes of Health. Next, we introduce the six articles in the issue. The first of the articles by Palinkas represents a more thorough and authoritative discussion related to qualitative methods, using the other five articles in the issue (and other published works) as examples. The remaining five articles are empirical and/or descriptive articles of recently completed or ongoing qualitative or mixed methods studies related to dissemination and implementation of evidence-based practices for children and adolescents.

  9. 125th anniversary of the American Psychological Association-Accomplishments and challenges: Introduction to the special issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    VandenBos, Gary R; Hogan, John D; Kazak, Anne E

    2017-11-01

    In 2017, the American Psychological Association (APA) celebrates the 125th anniversary of its founding. This special issue commemorates this milestone by providing long- and short-term views on the history of APA and its role in psychology in America. The opening paper presents an overview of initiatives and challenges facing the field of psychology and APA in five periods, each roughly 25 years in length. The remaining eight articles review specific issues and areas of activity over varying lengths of time in more recent years. Issues of policy involvement, relations with the media, and involvement with the courts are described, as well as developments related to social justice, education, science, practice, and publications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  10. Blog Citations as Indicators of the Societal Impact of Research : Content Analysis of Social Sciences Blogs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hamid R. Jamali

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available This article analyzes motivations behind social sciences blog posts citing journal articles in order to find out whether blog citations are good indicators for the societal impact or benefits of research. A random sample of 300 social sciences blog posts (out of 1,233 blog posts from ResearchBlogging.org published between 01/01/2012 to 18/06/2014 were subjected to content analysis. The 300 blog posts had 472 references including 424 journal articles from 269 different journals. Sixty‐one (22.68% of all cited journals were from the social sciences and most of the journals with high frequency were highly cited general science journals such as PNAS and Science. Seventy‐five percent of all journals were referenced only once. The average age of articles cited at the time of citation was 5.8 years. Discussion and criticism were the two main categories of motivations. Overall, the study shows the potential of blog citations as an altmetric measure and as a proxy for assessing the research impact. A considerable number of citation motivations in blogs such as disputing a belief, suggesting policies, providing a solution to a problem, reacting to media, criticism and the like seemed to support gaining societal benefits. Societal benefits are considered as helping stimulate new approaches to social issues, or informing public debate and policymaking. Lower self‐citation (compared to some other altmetric measures such as tweets and the fact that blogging involves generating content (i.e. an intellectual process give them an advantage for altmetrics. However, limitations and contextual issues such as disciplinary differences and low uptake of altmetrics, in general, in scholarly communication should not be ignored when using blogs as a data source for altmetrics.

  11. Development of an Updated Societal-Risk Goal for Nuclear Power Safety

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Vicki Bier; Michael Corradini; Robert Youngblood; Caleb Roh; Shuji Liu

    2014-07-01

    This report briefly summarizes work done in FY 2013 on the subject LDRD. The working hypothesis is that societal disruption should be addressed in a safety goal. This is motivated by the point that the Fukushima disaster resulted in very little public dose, but enormous societal disruption; a goal that addressed societal disruption would fill a perceived gap in the US NRC safety goal structure. This year's work entailed analyzing the consequences of postulated accidents at various reactor sites in the US, specifically with a view to quantifying the number of people relocated and the duration of their relocation, to see whether this makes sense as a measure of societal disruption.

  12. Passive air sampling for persistent organic pollutants: Introductory remarks to the special issue

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Harner, Tom; Bartkow, Michael; Holoubek, Ivan; Klanova, Jana; Wania, Frank; Gioia, Rosalinda; Moeckel, Claudia; Sweetman, Andrew J.; Jones, Kevin C.

    2006-01-01

    There have been a number of developments in the need, design and use of passive air samplers (PAS) for persistent organic pollutants (POPs). This article is the first in a Special Issue of the journal to review these developments and some of the data arising from them. We explain the need and benefit of developing PAS for POPs, the different approaches that can be used, and highlight future developments and needs. - The context, needs and state-of-the-art of passive air sampling techniques for atmospheric persistent organic pollutants are discussed

  13. The phonetics of talk in interaction--introduction to the special issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ogden, Richard

    2012-03-01

    This overview paper provides an introduction to work on naturally-occurring speech data, combining techniques of conversation analysis with techniques and methods from phonetics. The paper describes the development of the field, highlighting current challenges and progress in interdisciplinary work. It considers the role of quantification and its relationship to a qualitative methodology. It presents the conversation analytic notion of sequence as a version of context, and argues that sequences of talk constrain relevant phonetic design, and so provide one account for variability in naturally occurring speech. The paper also describes the manipulation of speech and language on many levels simultaneously. All of these themes occur and are explored in more detail in the papers contained in this special issue.

  14. Introduction to the Special Issue: Beyond traits: integrating behaviour into plant ecology and biology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cahill, James F

    2015-10-26

    The way that plants are conceptualized in the context of ecological understanding is changing. In one direction, a reductionist school is pulling plants apart into a list of measured 'traits', from which ecological function and outcomes of species interactions may be inferred. This special issue offers an alternative, and more holistic, view: that the ecological functions performed by a plant will be a consequence not only of their complement of traits but also of the ways in which their component parts are used in response to environmental and social conditions. This is the realm of behavioural ecology, a field that has greatly advanced our understanding of animal biology, ecology and evolution. Included in this special issue are 10 articles focussing not on the tried and true metaphor that plant growth is similar to animal movement, but instead on how application of principles from animal behaviour can improve our ability to understand plant biology and ecology. The goals are not to draw false parallels, nor to anthropomorphize plant biology, but instead to demonstrate how existing and robust theory based on fundamental principles can provide novel understanding for plants. Key to this approach is the recognition that behaviour and intelligence are not the same. Many organisms display complex behaviours despite a lack of cognition (as it is traditionally understood) or any hint of a nervous system. The applicability of behavioural concepts to plants is further enhanced with the realization that all organisms face the same harsh forces of natural selection in the context of finding resources, mates and coping with neighbours. As these ecological realities are often highly variable in space and time, it is not surprising that all organisms-even plants-exhibit complex behaviours to handle this variability. The articles included here address diverse topics in behavioural ecology, as applied to plants: general conceptual understanding, plant nutrient foraging, root

  15. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2018-03-07

    Mar 7, 2018 ... Labor deployment issues play an important role in analyzing their use at the country or regional level .... The growth of employment in the service sector since the 50s, as a result of the rapid ... Hotels and restaurants. 23,0 ..... for the better, its number decreases and the quality of labor resources deteriorates.

  16. Children's Exposure to Environmental Contaminants: An Editorial Reflection of Articles in the IJERPH Special Issue Entitled, "Children's Exposure to Environmental Contaminants".

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferguson, Alesia; Solo-Gabriele, Helena

    2016-11-09

    Children are at increased vulnerability to many environmental contaminants compared to adults due to their unique behavior patterns, increased contaminant intake per body weight, and developing biological systems. Depending upon their age, young children may crawl on the floor and may practice increased hand to mouth activity that may increase their dose-intake of specific contaminants that accumulate in dust and other matrices. Children are also smaller in size than adults, resulting in a greater body burden for a given contaminant dose. Because children undergo rapid transitions through particular developmental stages they are also especially vulnerable during certain growth-related time windows. A Special Issue was organized focused on the latest findings in the field of children's environmental exposure for these reasons. This editorial introduces articles in this Special Issue and emphasizes their main findings in advancing the field. From the many articles submitted to this Special Issue from around the world, 23 were accepted and published. They focus on a variety of research areas such as children's activity patterns, improved risk assessment methods to estimate exposures, and exposures in various contexts and to various contaminants. The future health of a nation relies on protecting the children from adverse exposures and understanding the etiology of childhood diseases. The field of children's environmental exposures must consider improved and comprehensive research methods aimed at introducing mitigation strategies locally, nationally, and globally. We are happy to introduce a Special Issue focused on children's environmental exposure and children's health and hope that it contributes towards improved health of children.

  17. Introduction to the Special Issue on the Emergence and Impact of User-Generated Content

    OpenAIRE

    Peter S. Fader; Russell S. Winer

    2012-01-01

    The growth of the "social" Web has resulted in the enormous growth of what is referred to as user-generated content, or UGC. UGC takes the form of product reviews, descriptions of product usage, "homemade advertising," blogs, and other consumer-initiated contributions. Following a research competition cosponsored by the Marketing Science Institute and the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative (now known as the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative), a call for papers for a special issue of Mar...

  18. Ethical issues in radiation protection

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shrader-Frechette, K.; Persson, L.

    1997-01-01

    In this note the authors survey existing international radiation-protection recommendations of the ICRP, the IAEA, and the ILO. After outlining previous work on the ethics of radiation protection and risk assessment/management, the authors review ethical thinking on five key issues related to radiation protection and ethics. They formulate each of these five issues in terms of alternative ethical stances: (1) Equity vs. Efficiency, (2) Health vs. Economics, (3) Individual Rights vs. Societal Benefits, (4) Due Process vs. Necessary Sacrifice, and (5) Stakeholder Consent vs. Management Decisions (authors)

  19. Research Article Special Issue

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    pc

    2017-11-24

    Nov 24, 2017 ... you …? and passive form of a verb. In the Tatar language the verb kuru with gerund is used. In English for strengthening the auxiliary verb do, a modal verb must, a modal construction to be to are used. 6. DISCUSSIONS. The issue touched in this research is object of steady and long interest from domestic ...

  20. A special issue of the Journal of Forestry - Wilderness science and its role in wilderness stewardship

    Science.gov (United States)

    Susan F. Fox

    2016-01-01

    This special issue of the Journal of Forestry provides an overview of America’s National Wilderness Preservation System and highlights the important role that science serves in informing wilderness stewardship. The lead authors of the articles in this volume selected the Journal because it is highly respected and widely circulated among foresters and federal...

  1. Knowledge as Public Property : The Societal Relevance of Scientific Research

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bouter, Lex M

    2008-01-01

    Universities are funded by public means to a large extend. It’s reasonable to expect that society benefits from the results. For scientific research this means that it should at least have a potential societal impact. Universities and individual investigators must explicitly consider the societal

  2. Editorial (special issue on CALL, e-learning and m-learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jo Mynard

    2011-09-01

    Full Text Available Technology has, in one form of another, been a part of self-access learning since the very first self-access centres (SACs of the 1980s. Some of the better-funded centres featured elaborate listening and recording machinery and (occasionally early personal computers. Early software programmes and language-learning websites available for self-access use tended to be aimed at individual study, initially following the language lab model, and were often designed to teach or test discrete language points. Of course, in 2011 programmes aimed at individual study do still exist and certainly have a place in self-access learning, particularly if a learner has identified a target language area that the software or website covers. However, in this special issue we go beyond language learning software and look at tools and technologies currently available to the learner as self-access resources.

  3. Risk management: Role of societal factors in major industrial accidents

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hovden, J.; Rausand, M.; Sergeev, G.

    1995-01-01

    The paper discusses factors influencing the occurrence of major accidents in complex technological systems. Societal factors are identified as most significant in this context. Important types of societal factors are pin-pointed and discussed. The safety situation in the former Soviet Union and in today's Russian is described. The calamities at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and partly also Bhopal are discussed, and the role of societal factors identified. A main point of view is that it is not surprising that these catastrophes happened in the then existing conditions. What is surprising is that they did not happen earlier exclamation point

  4. Introduction to the special issue on the technical status of materials for a fusion reactor

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stork, D.; Zinkle, S. J.

    2017-09-01

    Materials determine in a fundamental way the performance and environmental attractiveness of a fusion reactor: through the size (power fluxes to the divertor, neutron fluxes to the first wall); economics (replacement lifetime of critical in-vessel components, thermodynamic efficiency through operating temperature etc); plasma performance (erosion by plasma fluxes to the divertor surfaces); robustness against off-normal accidents (safety); and the effects of post-operation radioactivity on waste disposal and maintenance. The major philosophies and methodologies used to formulate programmes for the development of fusion materials are outlined, as the basis for other articles in this special issue, which deal with the fundamental understanding of the issues regarding these materials and their technical status and prospects for development.

  5. Societal costs and burden of otitis media in Portugal

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Speets AM

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available Anouk Speets1, Judith Wolleswinkel1, Cristina Cardoso21Pallas health research and consultancy, Rotterdam, the Netherlands; 2GlaxoSmithKline, Algés, PortugalAbstract: This study aimed to estimate the resource consumption and societal impact of otitis media (OM in children younger than five years of age in Portugal. An Internet survey on generic childhood symptoms and diseases was administered to a sample of parents. This self-report survey had been previously implemented in other European countries. Medically confirmed OM was defined as symptoms of earache or “running ear” and/or a diagnosis of OM provided by a medical doctor. Direct medical, nonmedical, and indirect nonmedical costs were calculated for individual cases. Mean total costs per OM episode were estimated at €334. This corresponds to an estimated societal impact of 72 million €/year, of which 39% were indirect nonmedical costs. An epidemiological study should help to confirm the results of this study, and evaluate whether an intervention to reduce the occurrence and/or duration of OM may have an impact on societal costs and quality of life for affected families.Keywords: otitis media, costs, societal burden, Portugal

  6. Factors influencing societal response of nanotechnology: an expert stakeholder analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gupta, Nidhi; Fischer, Arnout R. H.; Lans, Ivo A. van der; Frewer, Lynn J.

    2012-01-01

    Nanotechnology can be described as an emerging technology and, as has been the case with other emerging technologies such as genetic modification, different socio-psychological factors will potentially influence societal responses to its development and application. These factors will play an important role in how nanotechnology is developed and commercialised. This article aims to identify expert opinion on factors influencing societal response to applications of nanotechnology. Structured interviews with experts on nanotechnology from North West Europe were conducted using repertory grid methodology in conjunction with generalized Procrustes analysis to examine the psychological constructs underlying societal uptake of 15 key applications of nanotechnology drawn from different areas (e.g. medicine, agriculture and environment, chemical, food, military, sports, and cosmetics). Based on expert judgement, the main factors influencing societal response to different applications of nanotechnology will be the extent to which applications are perceived to be beneficial, useful, and necessary, and how 'real' and physically close to the end-user these applications are perceived to be by the public.

  7. Factors influencing societal response of nanotechnology: an expert stakeholder analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gupta, Nidhi; Fischer, Arnout R. H.; van der Lans, Ivo A.; Frewer, Lynn J.

    2012-05-01

    Nanotechnology can be described as an emerging technology and, as has been the case with other emerging technologies such as genetic modification, different socio-psychological factors will potentially influence societal responses to its development and application. These factors will play an important role in how nanotechnology is developed and commercialised. This article aims to identify expert opinion on factors influencing societal response to applications of nanotechnology. Structured interviews with experts on nanotechnology from North West Europe were conducted using repertory grid methodology in conjunction with generalized Procrustes analysis to examine the psychological constructs underlying societal uptake of 15 key applications of nanotechnology drawn from different areas (e.g. medicine, agriculture and environment, chemical, food, military, sports, and cosmetics). Based on expert judgement, the main factors influencing societal response to different applications of nanotechnology will be the extent to which applications are perceived to be beneficial, useful, and necessary, and how 'real' and physically close to the end-user these applications are perceived to be by the public.

  8. Introduction to the special issue: toward implementing physiological measures in clinical child and adolescent assessments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Los Reyes, Andres; Aldao, Amelia

    2015-01-01

    The National Institute of Mental Health recently launched the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC). The RDoC is an initiative to improve classification of mental health concerns by promoting research on the brain mechanisms underlying these concerns, with the ultimate goal of developing interventions that target these brain mechanisms. A key focus of RDoC involves opening new lines of research examining patients' responses on biological measures. The RDoC presents unique challenges to mental health professionals who work with children and adolescents. Indeed, mental health professionals rarely integrate biological measures into clinical assessments. Thus, RDoC's ability to improve patient care rests, in part, on the development of strategies for implementing biological measures within mental health assessments. Further, mental health professionals already carry out comprehensive assessments that frequently yield inconsistent findings. These inconsistencies have historically posed challenges to interpreting research findings as well as assessment outcomes in practice settings. In this introductory article, we review key issues that informed the development of a special issue of articles demonstrating methods for implementing low-cost measures of physiological functioning in clinical child and adolescent assessments. We also outline a conceptual framework, informed by theoretical work on using and interpreting multiple informants' clinical reports (De Los Reyes, Thomas, Goodman, & Kundey, 2013 ), to guide hypothesis testing when using physiological measures within clinical child and adolescent assessments. This special issue and the conceptual model described in this article may open up new lines of research testing paradigms for implementing clinically feasible physiological measures in clinical child and adolescent assessments.

  9. Introduction to the special issue from the 2014 meeting of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Young, Jared W; Hall, F Scott; Pletnikov, Mikhail; Kent, Stephen

    2015-11-01

    In 2013, President Obama launched what has been optimistically described as the "decade of the brain". The launch of this effort comes on the back of widespread acknowledgement that more is required to aid those suffering from mental health disorders. Specifically, a greater understanding of the neural circuitry related to behaviors specific to mental health disorders is needed. The field of research that relates the circuitry of the brain to specific aspects of behavior is referred to as behavioral neuroscience. The International Behavioral Neuroscience Society (IBNS) was founded in 1992 specifically to meet on an annual basis and present the latest research findings in this field, and to gather together the international research community to discuss issues important for the development and progress of this scientific discipline. This special issue includes reviews of topics of emerging interest and advancing knowledge in behavioral neuroscience, based on symposia presented at the 2014 IBNS meeting. Topics discussed at the annual IBNS meeting ranged from investigations of the neural mechanisms underlying bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, traumatic brain injury, and risk-taking behavior, to behavioral consequences of obesity and immune dysfunction. Novel treatment areas are covered such as the use of deep brain stimulation, as well as investigation of the behavioral impacts of nicotine withdrawal and how this research will influence the development of nicotine cessation treatments. Hence, this special issue covers a wide-range of topics in behavioral neuroscience offering an insight into the challenges faced by researchers in this decade of the brain. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. Introduction to the special issue: 50th anniversary of APA Division 28: The past, present, and future of psychopharmacology and substance abuse.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stoops, William W; Sigmon, Stacey C; Evans, Suzette M

    2016-08-01

    This is an introduction to the special issue "50th Anniversary of APA Division 28: The Past, Present, and Future of Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse." Taken together, the scholarly contributions included in this special issue serve as a testament to the important work conducted by our colleagues over the past five decades. Division 28 and its members have advanced and disseminated knowledge on the behavioral effects of drugs, informed efforts to prevent and treat substance abuse, and influenced education and policy issues more generally. As past and current leaders of the division, we are excited to celebrate 50 years of Division 28 and look forward to many more successful decades for our division and its members. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

  11. Special Issue. 5th Meeting on Technology and Safety

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kusakabe, Masashi; Kumagaya, Tadafusa; Minohara, Shinichi

    2010-01-01

    The documents in this Special Issue are the representative reports of achievements presented in the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS) 5th Meeting on Technology and Safety held on March 17, 2010. Personnel and investigators of NIRS and related companies gave their achievements by 19 oral and 31 poster presentations in fields of [IAR] irradiation (2 topics), accelerator/radiometry (9 topics), [EA] experimental animals (25 topics), [SM] safety management of facilities (5 topics), computer network system (4 topics), experimental instrument (1 topic), molecular imaging (2 topics) and others (2 topics). The Issue contains, as well as introductory and ending remarks, following 12 topics: [IAR] Working report of patient positioning system for radiotherapy with use of X-ray flat panel detector; Status of maintenance and management of facilities and equipments in Research center for Radiation Emergency Medicine; [EA] Past, present and future of mouse breeding in NIRS; Breeding of marmoset in NIRS/How can we have a bouncing marmoset baby?; Establishment of a genotyping method of transformed genes in transgenic mouse/genome walking method; Genetic monitoring system of mice by micro-satellite marker and its application in NIRS; Verification of sorting precision of FACSAria (Becton Dickinson and Co.), a highly sensitive, rapid sorting apparatus of cells/for precise sorting; Proposal of a task-solution workflow to determine the animal features for molecular imaging studies; [SM] Toward the introduction of Occupational Safety and Health Management System in NIRS; Use of unsealed radioisotopes less than the lower limit outside the legal control area; Arrangement of managing and supporting system for clinical studies; and Rearrangement of working system of personnel affairs. (T.T.)

  12. Children's Literature: An Issues Approach. Third Edition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rudman, Masha Kabakow

    Introducing children from kindergarten through junior high school to the joy and benefits of reading, this book examines children's literature and its treatment of important, sometimes controversial issues. Focusing on the personal and societal concerns of today's youth--including sexuality, divorce, heritage, abuse, and death--the book offers…

  13. Program specialization

    CERN Document Server

    Marlet, Renaud

    2013-01-01

    This book presents the principles and techniques of program specialization - a general method to make programs faster (and possibly smaller) when some inputs can be known in advance. As an illustration, it describes the architecture of Tempo, an offline program specializer for C that can also specialize code at runtime, and provides figures for concrete applications in various domains. Technical details address issues related to program analysis precision, value reification, incomplete program specialization, strategies to exploit specialized program, incremental specialization, and data speci

  14. Preface to the special issue of Solid State Electronics EUROSOI/ULIS 2017

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nassiopoulou, Androula G.

    2018-05-01

    This special issue is devoted to selected papers presented at the EuroSOI-ULIS2017 international conference, held in Athens on 3-5 April 2017. EuroSOI-ULIS2017 Conference was mainly devoted to Si devices, which constitute the basic building blocks of any microelectronic circuit. It included papers on advanced Si technologies, novel nanoscale devices, advanced electronic materials and device architectures, mechanisms involved, test structures, substrate materials and technologies, modeling/simulation and characterization. Both CMOS and beyond CMOS devices were presented, covering the More Moore domain, as well as new functionalities in silicon-compatible nanostructures and innovative devices, representing the More than Moore domain (on-chip sensors, biosensors, energy harvesting devices, RF passives, etc.).

  15. A flexible object-based software framework for modeling complex systems with interacting natural and societal processes.

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Christiansen, J. H.

    2000-06-15

    The Dynamic Information Architecture System (DIAS) is a flexible, extensible, object-based framework for developing and maintaining complex multidisciplinary simulations. The DIAS infrastructure makes it feasible to build and manipulate complex simulation scenarios in which many thousands of objects can interact via dozens to hundreds of concurrent dynamic processes. The flexibility and extensibility of the DIAS software infrastructure stem mainly from (1) the abstraction of object behaviors, (2) the encapsulation and formalization of model functionality, and (3) the mutability of domain object contents. DIAS simulation objects are inherently capable of highly flexible and heterogeneous spatial realizations. Geospatial graphical representation of DIAS simulation objects is addressed via the GeoViewer, an object-based GIS toolkit application developed at ANL. DIAS simulation capabilities have been extended by inclusion of societal process models generated by the Framework for Addressing Cooperative Extended Transactions (FACET), another object-based framework developed at Argonne National Laboratory. By using FACET models to implement societal behaviors of individuals and organizations within larger DIAS-based natural systems simulations, it has become possible to conveniently address a broad range of issues involving interaction and feedback among natural and societal processes. Example DIAS application areas discussed in this paper include a dynamic virtual oceanic environment, detailed simulation of clinical, physiological, and logistical aspects of health care delivery, and studies of agricultural sustainability of urban centers under environmental stress in ancient Mesopotamia.

  16. Doubly-Special Relativity: Facts, Myths and Some Key Open Issues

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Giovanni Amelino-Camelia

    2010-03-01

    Full Text Available I report, emphasizing some key open issues and some aspects that are particularly relevant for phenomenology, on the status of the development of “doubly-special” relativistic (“DSR” theories with both an observer-independent high-velocity scale and an observer-independent small-length/large-momentum scale, possibly relevant for the Planck-scale/quantum-gravity realm. I also give a true/false characterization of the structure of these theories. In particular, I discuss a DSR scenario without modification of the energy-momentum dispersion relation and without the қ-Poincaré Hopf algebra, a scenario with deformed Poincaré symmetries which is not a DSR scenario, some scenarios with both an invariant length scale and an invariant velocity scale which are not DSR scenarios, and a DSR scenario in which it is easy to verify that some observable relativistic (but non-special-relativistic features are insensitive to possible nonlinear redefinitions of symmetry generators.

  17. Introduction to the special issue on "critical reflections on management and organizations: A postcolonial perspective"

    OpenAIRE

    Banerjee, S. B.; Prasad, A.

    2008-01-01

    Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present a short note on postcolonialism as a field of critical inquiry in the business management field, and enable the guest editors to introduce the contents of a special issue entitled "Critical reflections on management and organization: a postcolonial perspective". \\ud \\ud Design/methodology/approach - The paper states that postcolonial theory seeks to critique and analyze the complex and multifaceted dynamics of modern Western colonialism and to...

  18. Responses to Environmental & Societal Challenges for our Unstable Earth (RESCUE) foresight initiative - towards a European response to grand challenges in sustainability research and learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Avril, B.; et al.

    2012-04-01

    The "Responses to Environmental and Societal Challenges for our Unstable Earth" (RESCUE; www.esf.org/rescue) foresight initiative - a joint COST-ESF "Frontiers of Science" initiative - aimed to help Europe address the societal and scientific challenges related to global environmental change and the related resilience issues. In RESCUE, the focus of attention was on people and the goal was to stimulate an integrated, innovative response from natural, social and human sciences. The RESCUE foresight initiative began in September 2009 and has recently been completed. RESCUE had the following key objectives: 1. To propose a strategic process for natural, social and human sciences to improve their ability and capacity to work together to address global environmental change through interdisciplinary synergy and to respond effectively to societal and policy-relevant needs; 2. To articulate new scientific issues related to global environmental change and the related resilience issues, especially those of transdisciplinary nature and of major relevance to society; 3. To explore new approaches towards truly integrated, interdisciplinary science, and to facilitate the 'revolution' in education and capacity building it requires. The work of RESCUE focused on the following themes: · Contributions from social sciences and humanities in developing responses to challenges of the Anthropocene; · Collaboration between the natural, social and human sciences in global environmental change and resilience studies; · Requirements for research methodologies and data; · Education and capacity building - towards a 'revolution'; · The interface between science and policy, communication and outreach. The RESCUE recommendations include the following issues to be addressed by science-funders, science policy-makers, researchers, practitioners, educators and a range of other societal actors: · develop an institutional framework for an open knowledge society, · re-organise research so

  19. Societal risk approach to safeguards design and evaluation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Murphey, W.M.; Sherr, T.S.; Bennett, C.A.

    1975-01-01

    A comprehensive rationale for safeguards design and evaluation, and a framework for continuing systematic assessment of the system's effectiveness and efficient allocation of available safeguards resources for balanced protection, were developed. The societal risk approach employed considers the likelihood of successful destructive acts involving nuclear materials or facilities and the magnitude of the effects on society. The safeguards problem is described in terms of events affecting societal risk and adversary actions. Structure of the safeguards system and the evaluation of its adequacy are discussed. Adversary characteristics are also discussed

  20. Societal Forces That ERODE Creativity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sternberg, Robert; Kaufman, James C.

    2018-01-01

    Background/Context: Creativity is an indispensable force in intellectual, social, cultural, and economic development. Yet societal forces conspire to erode it. Educators have despaired for many years over how schools often fail to encourage creativity, but society as a whole is just as guilty. But how do schools and society fail to encourage, or…

  1. Linking soil systems to societal value systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Helming, Katharina; Daedlow, Katrin; Techen, Anja; Kaiser, David Brian

    2017-04-01

    Sustainable management of soils is needed to avoid soil degradation and to maintain soil functions. This requires the assessment of how human activities drive soil management, how soil management affect soil functions and soil degradation, which trade-offs occur and how they compromise sustainable development targets. In the frame of the German research programme "Soils as a sustainable resource for the bio-economy - BonaRes", we developed an enhanced approach of the DPSIR (driver-pressure-state-impact-response) cycle which helps to assess these interrelations. Because not all soil functions can be maximized simultaneously in space and time and trade-offs are inevitable, it depends on the societal value system to decide which management practices and respective soil functional performances are valued sustainably. We analysed the applicability of three valuation concepts being prominent in research about social-ecological systems, namely resource efficiency, ecosystem services, and ethics and equity. The concept of resource efficiency is based in the life-cycle thinking and is often applied at the level of the farming systems and in the context of bio-economy strategies. It covers the use of natural (water, energy, nutrients, land) and economic resources. At the landscape level, the concept of ecosystem services is prominent. Here, the contribution of soils to the provisioning, regulating and cultural services of the natural ecosystems is considered. Ethical considerations include the intrinsic values of nature as well as issues of local and global equity between different societal groups, generations, and localities. The three concepts cover different problem dimensions and complexity levels of soil management and decision making. Alone, none of them are capable to discover complex questions of sustainable soil management and development. Rather, the exact spatial and temporal framing of the sustainability problem at stake determines which combination of the value

  2. Societal views on NICE, cancer drugs fund and value-based pricing criteria for prioritising medicines: a cross-sectional survey of 4118 adults in Great Britain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Linley, Warren G; Hughes, Dyfrig A

    2013-08-01

    The criteria used by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) for accepting higher incremental cost-effectiveness ratios for some medicines over others, and the recent introduction of the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) in England, are assumed to reflect societal preferences for National Health Service resource allocation. Robust empirical evidence to this effect is lacking. To explore societal preferences for these and other criteria, including those proposed for rewarding new medicines under the future value-based pricing (VBP) system, we conducted a choice-based experiment in 4118 UK adults via web-based surveys. Preferences were determined by asking respondents to allocate fixed funds between different patient and disease types reflecting nine specific prioritisation criteria. Respondents supported the criteria proposed under the VBP system (for severe diseases, address unmet needs, are innovative--provided they offered substantial health benefits, and have wider societal benefits) but did not support the end-of-life premium or the prioritisation of children or disadvantaged populations as specified by NICE, nor the special funding status for treatments of rare diseases, nor the CDF. Policies introduced on the basis of perceived--and not actual--societal values may lead to inappropriate resource allocation decisions with the potential for significant population health and economic consequences. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  3. The societal cost of Taenia solium cysticercosis in Tanzania

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Trevisan, Chiara; Devleesschauwer, Brecht; Schmidt, Veronika

    2017-01-01

    was to estimate the societal cost of T. solium cysticercosis in Tanzania, by assessing both the health and economic burden. The societal cost of T. solium cysticercosis was assessed in humans and pigs based on data obtained by a systematic review. Experts' opinion was sought in cases where data were...... losses due to porcine cysticercosis. Based on data retrieved from the systematic review and burden assessments, T. solium cysticercosis contributed to a significant societal cost for the population. The annual number of NCC-associated epilepsy incident cases and deaths were 17,853 (95% Uncertainty......Taenia solium is a zoonotic parasite prevalent in many low income countries throughout Latin America, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, including Tanzania. The parasite is recognized as a public health threat; however the burden it poses on populations of Tanzania is unknown. The aim of this study...

  4. Factors influencing societal response of nanotechnology: an expert stakeholder analysis

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gupta, Nidhi, E-mail: nidhi.gupta@wur.nl; Fischer, Arnout R. H., E-mail: arnout.fischer@wur.nl; Lans, Ivo A. van der, E-mail: Ivo.vanderLans@wur.nl [Wageningen University, Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Group (Netherlands); Frewer, Lynn J., E-mail: lynn.frewer@newcastle.ac.uk [Newcastle University, School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development (United Kingdom)

    2012-05-15

    Nanotechnology can be described as an emerging technology and, as has been the case with other emerging technologies such as genetic modification, different socio-psychological factors will potentially influence societal responses to its development and application. These factors will play an important role in how nanotechnology is developed and commercialised. This article aims to identify expert opinion on factors influencing societal response to applications of nanotechnology. Structured interviews with experts on nanotechnology from North West Europe were conducted using repertory grid methodology in conjunction with generalized Procrustes analysis to examine the psychological constructs underlying societal uptake of 15 key applications of nanotechnology drawn from different areas (e.g. medicine, agriculture and environment, chemical, food, military, sports, and cosmetics). Based on expert judgement, the main factors influencing societal response to different applications of nanotechnology will be the extent to which applications are perceived to be beneficial, useful, and necessary, and how 'real' and physically close to the end-user these applications are perceived to be by the public.

  5. A cross-national exploration of societal-level factors associated with child physical abuse and neglect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klevens, Joanne; Ports, Katie A; Austin, Chelsea; Ludlow, Ivan J; Hurd, Jacqueline

    2017-11-28

    Children around the world experience violence at the hands of their caregivers at alarming rates. A recent review estimates that a minimum of 50% of children in Asia, Africa, and North America experienced severe physical violence by caregivers in the past year, with large variations between countries. Identifying modifiable country-level factors driving these geographic variations has great potential for achieving population-level reductions in rates of child maltreatment. This study builds on previous research by focusing on caregiver-reported physical abuse and neglect victimisation, examining 22 societal factors representing 11 different constructs among 42 countries from 5 continents at different stages of development. Our findings suggest that gender inequity may be important for both child physical abuse and neglect. Indicators of literacy and development may also be important for child neglect. Given the limitations of the correlational findings and measurement issues, it is critical to continue to investigate societal-level factors of child maltreatment so that interventions and prevention efforts can incorporate strategies that have the greatest potential for population-level impact.

  6. Special issue of International journal of human resource management: Conceptual and empirical discoveries in successful HRM implementation

    OpenAIRE

    Mireia Valverde; Tanya Bondarouk; Jordi Trullen

    2016-01-01

    Special issue of International journal of human resource management: Conceptual and empirical discoveries in successful HRM implementation DOI: 10.1080/09585192.2016.1154378 URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09585192.2016.1154378 Filiació URV: SI Inclòs a la memòria: SI Paraules clau en blanc [No abstract available

  7. EDITORIAL: Special issue on medical bionics Special issue on medical bionics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shepherd, Robert K.; D, Ph

    2009-12-01

    This special section of the Journal of Neural Engineering contains eight invited papers presented as part of the inaugural conference `Medical Bionics: A New Paradigm for Human Health' held in the beautiful seaside village of Lorne, Victoria, Australia from 16-19 November 2008. This meeting formed part of the Sir Mark Oliphant International Conference Series (www.oliphant.org.au) and was generously supported by the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research of the Australian Government, the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. This meeting was designed to bring experts from a variety of scientific, engineering and clinical disciplines together in a unique environment to discuss current progress in the field of medical bionics and to develop the concepts and techniques required to build the next generation of devices. The field is rapidly expanding, with new engineering solutions for neurological disorders being developed at an astonishing rate. Successful application of emerging engineering technologies into medical bionics devices requires a multidisciplinary research environment in order to deliver clinical solutions that are both safe and effective. Clinical success stories to date include spinal cord stimulators for the management of chronic neurological pain; auditory prostheses that allow the profoundly deaf to hear; and deep brain stimulation to negate movement disorders in Parkinson's disease. Other research programs currently undergoing clinical trials include devices that allow paraplegics to stand and even walk; brain-machine interfaces that provide quadriplegic patients with rudimentary control of a computer but may ultimately provide control of wheel chairs and artificial limbs; devices that detect and suppress epileptic seizures using brief trains of electrical stimulation; and retinal prostheses that will provide vision to the blind. The future for medical bionics is indeed

  8. Preface to the Special Issue: Chiral Symmetry in Hadrons and Nuclei

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Geng, Lisheng; Meng, Jie; Zhao, Qiang; Zou, Bingsong

    2014-01-01

    The recent past years have seen a remarkable progress towards a unified description of nonperturbative strong interaction phenomena based on the fundamental theory of the strong interaction, quantum chromodynamics, and effective field theories. The papers collected in this special issue focus on the recent progress in hadron and nuclear physics related to the chiral symmetry. They are written based on presentations at the Seventh International Symposium on Chiral Symmetry in Hadron and Nuclei which took place at Beihang University, Beijing, 27-30 October 2013. The sub-topics discussed in these papers include chiral and heavy-quark spin symmetry; chiral dynamics of few-body hadron systems; chiral symmetry and hadrons in a nuclear medium; chiral dynamics in nucleon-nucleon interaction and atomic nuclei; chiral symmetry in rotating nuclei; hadron structure and interactions; exotic hadrons, heavy flavor hadrons and nuclei; mesonic atoms and nuclei

  9. Geological disposal of nuclear waste: II. From laboratory data to the safety analysis – Addressing societal concerns

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Grambow, Bernd; Bretesché, Sophie

    2014-01-01

    Highlights: • Models for repository safety can only partly be validated. • Long term risks need to be translated in the context of societal temporalities. • Social sciences need to be more strongly involved into safety assessment. - Abstract: After more than 30 years of international research and development, there is a broad technical consensus that geologic disposal of highly-radioactive waste will provide for the safety of humankind and the environment, now, and far into the future. Safety analyses have demonstrated that the risk, as measured by exposure to radiation, will be of little consequence. Still, there is not yet an operating geologic repository for highly-radioactive waste, and there remains substantial public concern about the long-term safety of geologic disposal. In these two linked papers, we argue for a stronger connection between the scientific data (paper I, Grambow et al., 2014) and the safety analysis, particularly in the context of societal expectations (paper II). In this paper (II), we assess the meaning of the technical results and derived models (paper I) for the determination of the long-term safety of a repository. We consider issues of model validity and their credibility in the context of a much broader historical, epistemological and societal context. Safety analysis is treated in its social and temporal dimensions. This perspective provides new insights into the societal dimension of scenarios and risk analysis. Surprisingly, there is certainly no direct link between increased scientific understanding and a public position for or against different strategies of nuclear waste disposal. This is not due to the public being poorly informed, but rather due to cultural cognition of expertise and historical and cultural perception of hazards to regions selected to host a geologic repository. The societal and cultural dimension does not diminish the role of science, as scientific results become even more important in distinguishing

  10. SOCIETAL CULTURE: A COMPARISON OF ROMANIAN, AUSTRIAN AND GERMAN STUDENTS PERSPECTIVE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    CATANA DOINA

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available Our study compares the students’ view on the existing cultural practices with their ideal societal value system in compared societies. For the purpose of this investigation, Austria and Germany were selected to represent Central European values since they are seen as a ‘bridge’ between Eastern and Western European societal values. The research findings are helpful in identifying signs of cultural convergence of Romanian societal culture with Central European values. In doing so, our study will hopefully broaden the body of knowledge about the cultural harmonization between newer and older members of European Union. As seen in the literature review section, such studies started only a few years ago. Comparison of Romanian, Austrian and German students’ perspective on societal culture is performed for the first time by the authors of this study. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\r\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

  11. A special issue on reviews in biomedical applications of nanomaterials, tissue engineering, stem cells, bioimaging, and toxicity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nalwa, Hari Singh

    2014-10-01

    This second special issue of the Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology in a series contains another 30 state-of-the-art reviews focused on the biomedical applications of nanomaterials, biosensors, bone tissue engineering, MRI and bioimaging, single-cell detection, stem cells, endothelial progenitor cells, toxicity and biosafety of nanodrugs, nanoparticle-based new therapeutic approaches for cancer, hepatic and cardiovascular disease.

  12. The Societal and Economic Value of Rotator Cuff Repair

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mather, Richard C.; Koenig, Lane; Acevedo, Daniel; Dall, Timothy M.; Gallo, Paul; Romeo, Anthony; Tongue, John; Williams, Gerald

    2013-01-01

    Background: Although rotator cuff disease is a common musculoskeletal problem in the United States, the impact of this condition on earnings, missed workdays, and disability payments is largely unknown. This study examines the value of surgical treatment for full-thickness rotator cuff tears from a societal perspective. Methods: A Markov decision model was constructed to estimate lifetime direct and indirect costs associated with surgical and continued nonoperative treatment for symptomatic full-thickness rotator cuff tears. All patients were assumed to have been unresponsive to one six-week trial of nonoperative treatment prior to entering the model. Model assumptions were obtained from the literature and data analysis. We obtained estimates of indirect costs using national survey data and patient-reported outcomes. Four indirect costs were modeled: probability of employment, household income, missed workdays, and disability payments. Direct cost estimates were based on average Medicare reimbursements with adjustments to an all-payer population. Effectiveness was expressed in quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). Results: The age-weighted mean total societal savings from rotator cuff repair compared with nonoperative treatment was $13,771 over a patient’s lifetime. Savings ranged from $77,662 for patients who are thirty to thirty-nine years old to a net cost to society of $11,997 for those who are seventy to seventy-nine years old. In addition, surgical treatment results in an average improvement of 0.62 QALY. Societal savings were highly sensitive to age, with savings being positive at the age of sixty-one years and younger. The estimated lifetime societal savings of the approximately 250,000 rotator cuff repairs performed in the U.S. each year was $3.44 billion. Conclusions: Rotator cuff repair for full-thickness tears produces net societal cost savings for patients under the age of sixty-one years and greater QALYs for all patients. Rotator cuff repair is cost

  13. Understanding Societal Impact in Research and Technology Organisations using Productive Interactions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Dorp, Aad; Löwik, Sandor; de Weerd-Nederhof, Petra

    2017-01-01

    Research organisations receiving at least partly public funding are increasingly required to show their societal impact. Assessing societal impact is a complex task, because it involves very different aspects, is prone to bias from the assessor and even may be contradictory. Using the process and

  14. Tax wedge on labour income in Croatia and the European Union : Preface to the special issue of Financial Theory and Practice

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ivica Urban

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available This article is a preface to a special issue of Financial Theory and Practice, which is devoted to the comparison of tax wedge on labour income in Croatia and other EU countries. The articles in this issue have arisen from the students’ research project, undertaken in 2015. This Preface outlines the motivation behind the research project, explains the most important methodological issues, and reviews the literature on the measurement of tax wedge in Croatia.

  15. Special issue on the "Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors Research and Development Progress"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Turinsky, Paul J.; Martin, William R.

    2017-04-01

    In this special issue of the Journal of Computational Physics, the research and development completed at the time of manuscript submission by the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) is presented. CASL is the first of several Energy Innovation Hubs that have been created by the Department of Energy. The Hubs are modeled after the strong scientific management characteristics of the Manhattan Project and AT&T Bell Laboratories, and function as integrated research centers that combine basic and applied research with engineering to accelerate scientific discovery that addresses critical energy issues. Lifetime of a Hub is expected to be five or ten years depending upon performance, with CASL being granted a ten year lifetime.

  16. Preface to the Special Issue on Satellite Altimetry over Land and Coastal Zones: Applications and Challenges

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cheinway Hwang

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available This special issue publishes peer reviewed papers stemming from the International Workshop on Coast and Land applications of satellite altimetry, held 21 -22 July 2006, Beijing, China. This workshop is financially supported by the Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping, National Chiao Tung University, Asia GIS and GPS Co., Chung-Hsing Surv. Co., Huanyu Surv. Eng. Cons. Inc., and Real-World Eng. Cons. Inc. Twenty-two papers were submitted to this issue for review, and 16 papers were accepted following an iterative peer-review process. The accepted papers cover subjects on: ICESat coastal altimetry (1, satellite altimetry applications in solid earth sciences (2, hydrology (4, land/coast gravity field modeling (4, and coastal oceanography (5.

  17. Areva - Environmental, social and societal report 2014, Zirconium sites: Jarrie, Ugine, Rugles, Montreuil-Juigne, Paimboeuf

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2015-05-01

    This report first gives an overview of Areva's zirconium-related activities: those integrated into the nuclear fuel cycle, industrial activities distributed among five production sites (Jarrie, Ugine, Rugles, Montreuil-Juigne, Paimboeuf) with an indication of the various products produced on each site (from zirconia to tubes and sheets). The history and activities of these five plants are briefly described. The next part addresses issues related to health, safety, and the environment: health and safety at work, risk prevention and management, improvement of environmental performance (consumption management, waste control and management), material flows and their management modes in the different plants (indication of input products, activities, output products, and destination). The last part addresses social and societal issues: recruiting, training, ability management, actions for local economic development

  18. Introduction to a Special Issue Dialectical Behavior Therapy: Evolution and Adaptations in the 21(st) Century.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miller, Alec L

    2015-01-01

    Born from the randomized controlled trial by Linehan and colleagues in 1991, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) has become the gold standard for treatment of individuals who are suicidal and have borderline personality disorder. In this special issue, we begin with a historical review of DBT provided by the treatment developer herself. We then introduce readers to new, 21(st) century adaptations developed of this treatment modality. In this issue we explore the use of DBT for suicidal adolescents with one paper focusing on Latina teens and their parents, and one focused on the more recently developed walking the middle path skills module. Other papers in this issue include unique adaptations of DBT for eating disorders, and disorders of over-control, as well as trauma in incarcerated male adolescents. We also look at transdiagnostic applications of DBT and finally a comparison of DBT with mentalization-based treatment.

  19. Societal Aging in the Netherlands : Exploratory System Dynamics Modeling and Analysis

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Logtens, T.; Pruyt, E.; Gijsbers, G.W.

    2012-01-01

    Mismanagement of societal aging is an important threat to health care systems, social security systems, and the economy of many nations. a System Dynamics simulation model related to societal aging in the Netherlands and its implications for the Dutch welfare system is used here as a scenario

  20. EDITORIAL: Special issue on time scale algorithms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matsakis, Demetrios; Tavella, Patrizia

    2008-12-01

    This special issue of Metrologia presents selected papers from the Fifth International Time Scale Algorithm Symposium (VITSAS), including some of the tutorials presented on the first day. The symposium was attended by 76 persons, from every continent except Antarctica, by students as well as senior scientists, and hosted by the Real Instituto y Observatorio de la Armada (ROA) in San Fernando, Spain, whose staff further enhanced their nation's high reputation for hospitality. Although a timescale can be simply defined as a weighted average of clocks, whose purpose is to measure time better than any individual clock, timescale theory has long been and continues to be a vibrant field of research that has both followed and helped to create advances in the art of timekeeping. There is no perfect timescale algorithm, because every one embodies a compromise involving user needs. Some users wish to generate a constant frequency, perhaps not necessarily one that is well-defined with respect to the definition of a second. Other users might want a clock which is as close to UTC or a particular reference clock as possible, or perhaps wish to minimize the maximum variation from that standard. In contrast to the steered timescales that would be required by those users, other users may need free-running timescales, which are independent of external information. While no algorithm can meet all these needs, every algorithm can benefit from some form of tuning. The optimal tuning, and even the optimal algorithm, can depend on the noise characteristics of the frequency standards, or of their comparison systems, the most precise and accurate of which are currently Two Way Satellite Time and Frequency Transfer (TWSTFT) and GPS carrier phase time transfer. The interest in time scale algorithms and its associated statistical methodology began around 40 years ago when the Allan variance appeared and when the metrological institutions started realizing ensemble atomic time using more than

  1. Effective surveillance for homeland security balancing technology and social issues

    CERN Document Server

    Flammini, Francesco; Franceschetti, Giorgio

    2013-01-01

    Effective Surveillance for Homeland Security: Balancing Technology and Social Issues provides a comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art methods and tools for the surveillance and protection of citizens and critical infrastructures against natural and deliberate threats. Focusing on current technological challenges involving multi-disciplinary problem analysis and systems engineering approaches, it provides an overview of the most relevant aspects of surveillance systems in the framework of homeland security. Addressing both advanced surveillance technologies and the related socio-ethical issues, the book consists of 21 chapters written by international experts from the various sectors of homeland security. Part I, Surveillance and Society, focuses on the societal dimension of surveillance-stressing the importance of societal acceptability as a precondition to any surveillance system. Part II, Physical and Cyber Surveillance, presents advanced technologies for surveillance. It considers developing technologie...

  2. Insights into the concept of vitality: associations with participation and societal costs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Steenbergen, E; van Dongen, J M; Wendel-Vos, G C W; Hildebrandt, V H; Strijk, J E

    2016-04-01

    In healthcare, the focus is currently shifting from someone's disabilities to someone's abilities, which is also evident from the increasing focus on vitality. Vitality (here defined as energy, motivation and resilience) is an often used concept, which also aims at someone's capabilities. However, little is known about vitality yet; in particular about its association with participation and societal costs. Within a cross-sectional design, information regarding vitality, participation and societal costs was collected among 8015 Dutch adults aged 20 years and over. Vitality was measured using the validated Dutch Vitality Questionnaire (Vita-16). Information on economic (i.e. want/able to work, work absenteeism, work performance), societal (i.e. voluntary work, informal care giving) and social participation (i.e. quantity and quality of social contacts) and societal costs (i.e. healthcare and work-related costs) was collected using an internet survey. Significant associations were found between vitality and various economic (i.e.sustainable employability:want to work: β = 1.21, 95% CI: 0.99-1.43,able to work:β = 2.09, 95% CI: 1.79-2.38;work absenteeism: OR = 0.75, 95% CI: 0.71-0.79;work performance:β = 0.49, 95% CI: 0.46-0.52), societal (i.e.voluntary work, informal care) and social (i.e.quantity and quality of social contacts) participation measures, as well as between vitality and societal costs (i.e.healthcare costs:β = -213.73, 95% CI: €-311.13 to €-107.08),absenteeism costs: β = -338.57, 95% CI: €-465.36 to €-214.14 and presenteeism costs:β = -1293.31, 95% CI: €-1492.69 to €-1088.95). This study showed significant positive associations between vitality and economic, societal and social participation and negative associations between vitality and societal costs. This may stimulate research on interventions enhancing and maintaining vitality and thereby contributing to improved participation and reduced costs. © The Author 2015. Published by

  3. 76 FR 28237 - Center for Scientific Review; Notice of Closed Meetings

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-05-16

    ... commercial property such as patentable material, and personal information concerning individuals associated... Committee: Center for Scientific Review Special Emphasis Panel, Societal and Ethical Issues in Research...

  4. Catalyzing Cross-Disciplinary Research and Education Within and Beyond the Environmental and Geosciences to Address Emerging, Societally-Relevant Issues

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cak, A. D.; Vigdor, L. J.; Vorosmarty, C. J.; Giebel, B. M.; Santistevan, C.; Chasteau, C.

    2017-12-01

    Tackling emergent, societally-relevant problems in the environmental sciences is hardly confined to a single research discipline, but rather requires collaborations that bridge diverse domains and perspectives. While new technologies (e.g., Skype) can in theory unite otherwise geographically distributed participation in collaborative research, physical distance nevertheless raises the bar on intellectual dialogue. Such barriers may reveal perceptions of or real differences across disciplines, reflecting particular traditions in their histories and academic cultures. Individual disciplines are self-defined by their scientific, epistemologic, methodologic, or philosophical traditions (e.g., difficulties in understanding processes occurring at different scales, insufficient research funding for interdisciplinary work), or cultural and discursive hurdles (e.g., navigating a new field's jargon). Coupled with these challenges is a considerable deficiency in educating the next generation of scientists to help them develop a sufficient comfort level with thinking critically across multiple disciplinary domains and conceptual frameworks. To address these issues, the City University of New York (CUNY), the largest public urban university in the U.S., made a significant investment in advancing cross-disciplinary research and education, culminating in the opening of the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) in New York City (NYC) in late 2014. We report here on our experiences incubating new collaborative efforts to address environmental science-related research as it is interwoven with the ASRC's five research initiatives (Environmental Sciences, Neuroscience, Structural Biology, Photonics, and Nanoscience). We describe the ASRC's overall structure and function as both a stand-alone interdisciplinary center and one that collaborates more broadly with CUNY's network of twenty-four campuses distributed across NYC's five boroughs. We identify challenges we have faced so

  5. Satellite Power System (SPS) societal assessment

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    1980-12-01

    Construction and operation of a 60-unit (300 GW) domestic SPS over the period 2000 to 2030 would stress many segments of US society. A significant commitment of resources (land, energy, materials) would be required, and a substantial proportion of them would have to be committed prior to the production of any SPS electricity. Estimated resource demands, however, seem to be within US capabilities. Modifications will be required of institutions called upon to deal with SPS. These include financial, managerial and regulatory entities and, most particularly, the utility industry. Again, the required changes, while certainly profound, seem to be well within the realm of possibility. Enhanced cooperation in international affairs will be necessary to accommodate development and operation of the SPS. To remove its potential as a military threat and to reduce its vulnerability, either the SPS itself must become an international enterprise, or it must be subject to unrestricted international inspection. How either of these objectives could, in fact, be achieved, or which is preferable, remains unclear. Forty-four concerns about the SPS were identified via a public outreach experiment involving 9000 individuals from three special interest organizations. The concerns focused on environmental impacts (particularly the effects of microwave radiation) and the centralizing tendency of the SPS on society. The interim results of the public outreach experiment influenced the scope and direction of the CDEP; the final results will be instrumental in defining further societal assessment efforts.

  6. SPECIAL ISSUE - “COMMUNICATION, DESIGN AND LEARNING”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Per Hetland

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available This special issue of seminar.net is the result of a collaboration between teachers at the two master programmes, “Communication, Design and Learning” at the University of Oslo and “ICT Supported Learning” at the Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences. For 2013-2015, we received a grant from Norgesuniversitetet to develop partnership, flexible teaching and study methods, and to increase learning outcomes among students. The four papers represent the first research results from our project. We are grateful to Norgesuniversitetet for its support.Per HetlandGeneral editorThe first paper, by Per Hetland and Anders I. Mørch, both from the University of Oslo has a title called “Ethnography for Investigating the Internet”. They describe the field by giving an overview of the competing concepts, and argue for their chosen path. They point at important crossing roads and selections that needs to be taken for future research.Jan Erik Dahl, also of The University of Oslo, presents the paper “Supporting learning through epistemic scaffolds embedded in a highlighter tool”. It explores how the use of the tool was used to support students’ readings and discussions of research articles. He argues that the use of annotation technologies in education is increasing, and that annotations can play a wide variety of epistemic roles; e.g., they can facilitate a deeper level of engagement, support critical thinking, develop cognitive and metacognitive skills and introduce practices that can support knowledge building and independent learning. Dahl criticises some of the underlying assumption of present research in the field and suggest that one needs to look for the active co-construction that students do in collaboration with others.Monica Johannesen and Leikny Øgrim, of the Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, has collaborated with Ole Smørdal of the University of Oslo on the paper “Facebook as an actor

  7. Introduction to the JPA special issue: Can the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual put the complex person back at the center-stage of personality assessment?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huprich, Steven K; Meyer, Gregory J

    2011-03-01

    We briefly introduce this special issue, which focuses both on the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM) and the practice of idiographic, depth-oriented personality assessment. The 7 articles in this issue are diverse in scope but all address these 2 important topics. To set the stage, the special issue opens with a description of the history behind, the purposes of, and the steps taken to develop the PDM, and the next article provides a compelling illustration of depth-oriented personality assessment in the context of a long-term course of psychodynamic treatment. The third and fourth articles describe how the PDM model fosters attention to dynamic processes, not just overt symptoms, and they articulate the challenges and benefits of integrating this model into both the revitalized practice of assessment and diagnosis and the research avenues that will evaluate its validity and utility. The fifth article provides a broad overview of interesting experimental research on implicit processes from personality, social, and cognitive psychology, with implications for understanding and assessing dynamic processes. The sixth article illustrates how a PDM-based assessment of an adolescent boy helpfully contributed to his psychodynamic therapy. Finally, the issue closes with an illuminating article describing a PDM-based training model for the graduated development of assessment and diagnosis skills in a doctoral program. Overall, this special issue helps show how the PDM can invigorate multimethod personality assessment by placing the complex idiographic understanding of a person at the center-stage in the assessment process.

  8. Construct Validity of the Societal Outreach Scale (SOS).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fike, David S; Denton, Jason; Walk, Matt; Kish, Jennifer; Gorman, Ira

    2018-04-01

    The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) has been working toward a vision of increasing professional focus on societal-level health. However, performance of social responsibility and related behaviors by physical therapists remain relatively poorly integrated into practice. Promoting a focus on societal outreach is necessary for all health care professionals to impact the health of their communities. The objective was to document the validity of the 14-item Societal Outreach Scale (SOS) for use with practicing physical therapists. This study used a cross-sectional survey. The SOS was transmitted via email to all therapists who were licensed and practicing in 10 states in the United States that were purposefully selected to assure a broad representation. A sample of 2612 usable responses was received. Factor analysis was applied to assess construct validity of the instrument. Of alternate models, a 3-factor model best demonstrated goodness of fit with the sample data according to conventional indices (standardized root mean squared residual = .03, comparative fit index .96, root mean square error of approximation = .06). The 3 factors measured by the SOS were labeled Societal-Level Health Advocacy, Community Engagement/Social Integration, and Political Engagement. Internal consistency reliability was 0.7 for all factors. The 3-factor SOS demonstrated acceptable validity and reliability. Though the sample included a broad representation of physical therapists, this was a single cross-sectional study. Additional confirmatory factor analysis, reliability testing, and word refinement of the tool are warranted. Given the construct validity and reliability of the 3-factor SOS, it is recommended for use as a validated instrument to measure physical therapists' performance of social responsibility and related behaviors.

  9. Introduction to the special issue on the personality assessment inventory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kurtz, John E; Blais, Mark A

    2007-02-01

    This special issue of the Journal of Personality Assessment brings together 13 new research studies on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991) that should inform users and stimulate future empirical activity with this measure. In 4 articles, authors evaluate the validity scales and indexes of the PAI using both analog and criterion designs and samples from a variety of clinical and forensic settings. In a 5th article, the authors describe a novel approach to profile interpretation using two PAI negative distortion measures. The authors present applications of the PAI to new populations and problems including a German translation of the PAI and profile information for male batterers and victims of head injury. The authors of 2 studies extend research on the validity of the PAI for the assessment of borderline personality disorder. In the final 3 studies, the authors evaluate the validity of PAI measures of violence and aggression to predict subsequent aggressive behavior and institutional misconduct. Finally, the authors offer several suggestions for future research with the PAI.

  10. International Conference on Informatics and Communication Technologies for Societal Developmen

    CERN Document Server

    Bhojan, Anand; Peter, J

    2015-01-01

    This volume comprises research papers presented at the International Conference on Informatics and Communication Technologies for Societal Development (ICICTS 2014) held at Karunya University, India. The content focuses on the recent advancements in image or signal processing, computer vision, communication technologies, soft computing, advanced computing, data mining, and knowledge discovery. The primary objective of this volume is to facilitate advancement and application of the knowledge and to promote ideas that solve problems faced by society through cutting-edge technologies. The chapters contain selected articles from academicians, researchers, and industry experts in the form of frameworks, models, and architectures. Practical approaches, observations, and results of research that promotes societal development are also incorporated. This volume will serve as a useful compendium for interested readers and researchers working towards societal development from the technological perspective.

  11. Understanding the Societal Impact of Humanities Scholarship

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pedersen, David Budtz; Johansson, Lasse Gøhler

    2016-01-01

    in society. An important assumption in this paper is that impact should be studied both from conceptual, qualitative and quantitative perspectives. Any approach that focuses merely on scientific outputs (such as publications or citations) or that relies on purely bibliometric indicators will result...... both quantitative and qualitative tools, the paper argues that we need a better and more comprehensive understanding of the role the humanities as part of a wider web of societal institutions, networks, and agents. Granted that the impact of humanities breakthroughs cannot be located at clearly......The critical problem for understanding the societal impact of humanities scholarship is that we currently have no satisfactory tools for understanding how wider social impacts occur and, by implication, very few guidelines for stimulating a reflexive dialogue about the influence of the humanities...

  12. Special Issues Regarding The Family’s Residence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ioana NICOLAE

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available In the light of the current Civil Code, the family’s residence has a special legal regime, being properly protected. In this context, our article regarding of the main rules which ensure the protection of this residence is justified. As a result, out object of study is mainly directed at the special regulations regarding the hypothesis in which the residence is involved, as well as examining the legal rights of each spouse, even if only one of them is the holder of the lease contract or this contract is concluded before marriage. Such an endeavor is based on examining the provisions in this area and in specialty literature, as jurisprudence is now being clarified on this matter.

  13. Getting patent policy right: a conclusion to a special issue on the European patent system

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Elsmore, Matthew J.

    2009-01-01

    will hamper innovation regardless of whether the system stays as it is or morphs to Community-level. What precisely the policy rearguard should be right now is problematic and the source of continuing debate. To shed light on a perennial question, the final part of this Special Issue reflects...... in the contributions made and continues the perennial quest for getting patent policy right in Europe; and in so doing, proposes specific sets of solutions....

  14. Special Issue on Efimov Physics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jensen, A.S.

    2011-01-01

    Efimov Physics is a cross disciplinary subfield of physics connected by common concepts and techniques. The basic concept originated from an observation by V. Efimov that three identical bosons in quantum mechanics have infinitely many bound states provided each pair has a bound state at zero energy. If the strength of the pair attraction is increased or decreased the number of trimer states decreases in both cases. This anomaly for three-body systems in three dimensions has now been realized and measured in a number of laboratories. The effect is real, and in its basic form allowed in a relatively small window of potential strengths. During many years after Efimov published his theoretical deduction, the searches were confined to systems where nature by chance could have made a two-body potential with a bound state close to zero energy. The window is rather small and all the searches were negative in the end. The invention of the method using magnetic Feshbach resonances opened an avenue of possibilities. This new technique allows changes of the effective two-body potential by coupling and tuning of two excited states of the particles by use of magnetic fields. It is then possible to control the binding energy of the pairs.With this tool the Efimov effect was finally observed in cold atoms as variations of decay properties at specific predictable relative energies. The initial Efimov effect leads to bound three-body states of a special structure. They now are naturally called Efimov states. The keyword in the description is 'universality' or 'model independence', which loosely speaking means independence of detailed model properties. In the decade prior to the observation of the Efimov effect, similar model-independent structures were used in descriptions of the weakly bound nuclear halo states. They were also related to few-body bound states close to zero energy. Recognition of universal behavior or model independence directly suggests that it would be beneficial

  15. Editorial HPJ Special Issue Introduction

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Farfan, E.

    2011-01-01

    testing of effective cleanup technologies to reduce environmental and health risks. Based on this work, a large amount of data are now available for publication, some of which are presented in this Special Issue of the Health Physics Journal.

  16. Exploring Societal Preferences for Energy Sufficiency Measures in Switzerland

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Moser, Corinne; Rösch, Andreas; Stauffacher, Michael

    2015-01-01

    Many countries are facing a challenging transition toward more sustainable energy systems, which produce more renewables and consume less energy. The latter goal can only be achieved through a combination of efficiency measures and changes in people’s lifestyles and routine behaviors (i.e., sufficiency). While research has shown that acceptance of technical efficiency is relatively high, there is a lack of research on societal preferences for sufficiency measures. However, this is an important prerequisite for designing successful interventions to change behavior. This paper analyses societal preferences for different energy-related behaviors in Switzerland. We use an online choice-based conjoint analysis (N = 150) to examine preferences for behaviors with high technical potentials for energy demand reduction in the following domains: mobility, heating, and food. Each domain comprises different attributes across three levels of sufficiency. Respondents were confronted with trade-off situations evoked through different fictional lifestyles that comprised different combinations of attribute levels. Through a series of trade-off decisions, participants were asked to choose their preferred lifestyle. The results revealed that a vegetarian diet was considered the most critical issue that respondents were unwilling to trade off, followed by distance to workplace and means of transportation. The highest willingness to trade off was found for adjustments in room temperature, holiday travel behaviors, and living space. Participants’ preferences for the most energy-sufficient lifestyles were rather low. However, the study showed that there were lifestyles with substantive energy-saving potentials that were well accepted among respondents. Our study results suggest that the success of energy-sufficiency interventions might depend strongly on the targeted behavior. We speculate that they may face strong resistance (e.g., vegetarian diet). Thus, it seems promising to

  17. Exploring Societal Preferences for Energy Sufficiency Measures in Switzerland

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Moser, Corinne, E-mail: corinne.moser@zhaw.ch [Institute of Sustainable Development, School of Engineering, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur (Switzerland); Natural and Social Science Interface, Institute for Environmental Decisions, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Zürich (Switzerland); Rösch, Andreas [Natural and Social Science Interface, Institute for Environmental Decisions, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Zürich (Switzerland); Stauffacher, Michael [Natural and Social Science Interface, Institute for Environmental Decisions, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Zürich (Switzerland); Transdisciplinarity Laboratory, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Zürich (Switzerland)

    2015-09-16

    Many countries are facing a challenging transition toward more sustainable energy systems, which produce more renewables and consume less energy. The latter goal can only be achieved through a combination of efficiency measures and changes in people’s lifestyles and routine behaviors (i.e., sufficiency). While research has shown that acceptance of technical efficiency is relatively high, there is a lack of research on societal preferences for sufficiency measures. However, this is an important prerequisite for designing successful interventions to change behavior. This paper analyses societal preferences for different energy-related behaviors in Switzerland. We use an online choice-based conjoint analysis (N = 150) to examine preferences for behaviors with high technical potentials for energy demand reduction in the following domains: mobility, heating, and food. Each domain comprises different attributes across three levels of sufficiency. Respondents were confronted with trade-off situations evoked through different fictional lifestyles that comprised different combinations of attribute levels. Through a series of trade-off decisions, participants were asked to choose their preferred lifestyle. The results revealed that a vegetarian diet was considered the most critical issue that respondents were unwilling to trade off, followed by distance to workplace and means of transportation. The highest willingness to trade off was found for adjustments in room temperature, holiday travel behaviors, and living space. Participants’ preferences for the most energy-sufficient lifestyles were rather low. However, the study showed that there were lifestyles with substantive energy-saving potentials that were well accepted among respondents. Our study results suggest that the success of energy-sufficiency interventions might depend strongly on the targeted behavior. We speculate that they may face strong resistance (e.g., vegetarian diet). Thus, it seems promising to

  18. Factors influencing societal response of nanotechnology : an expert stakeholder analysis

    OpenAIRE

    Gupta, N.; Fischer, A.R.H.; Lans, van der, I.A.; Frewer, L.J.

    2012-01-01

    Nanotechnology can be described as an emerging technology and, as has been the case with other emerging technologies such as genetic modification, different socio-psychological factors will potentially influence societal responses to its development and application. These factors will play an important role in how nanotechnology is developed and commercialised. This article aims to identify expert opinion on factors influencing societal response to applications of nanotechnology. Structured i...

  19. Factors influencing societal response of nanotechnology: an expert stakeholder analysis

    OpenAIRE

    Gupta, Nidhi; Fischer, Arnout R. H.; van der Lans, Ivo A.; Frewer, Lynn J.

    2012-01-01

    Nanotechnology can be described as an emerging technology and, as has been the case with other emerging technologies such as genetic modification, different socio-psychological factors will potentially influence societal responses to its development and application. These factors will play an important role in how nanotechnology is developed and commercialised. This article aims to identify expert opinion on factors influencing societal response to applications of nanotechnology. Structured i...

  20. Special issue on "Frontiers in Materials Science: Condensed matters"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoang, Nam-Nhat; Yamamoto, Tomoyuki; Pham, Duc-Thang

    2018-03-01

    This special issue includes the editor-invited and selected papers from 3rd International Symposium on Frontiers in Materials Science (FMS2016), held in Hanoi, Vietnam, from the 28th to 30th of September 2016, which coincided with the 65th anniversary of the Faculty of Physics, Hanoi University of Education. The FMS2016 is a continuation of a series of meetings starting from 2010. A first event was a bilateral Vietnamese-German meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2010, and the second one was held in Frankfurt, Germany, in 2011. The idea at that time was to initiate interactions between scientists from both countries and to further develop the field of materials science in Southeast Asia. After these successful bilateral meetings, a next step was taken by advancing the format of the symposium into an international event. In 2013, the 1st International Symposium on Frontiers in Materials Science (FMS2013) was successfully organized in Hanoi, which followed 2nd symposium, FMS2015, in Tokyo, in 2015. The FMS2016 continues this idea of providing an international forum for physicists, material scientists and chemists for discussing their latest results and the recent developments in the important field of materials science.