Science and Technology Studies

Preorder: https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517918996/the-racial-cage/


The potential of biohumanities as a foundation for antiracist critique of the human

The Racial Cage delivers a spirited and polyvocal analysis of how race is materialized through both metaphorical and literal cages. It theorizes the cage, fence, dragnet, and tube as material–semiotic sites for racialization and for iteratively redefining the human–animal boundary. A collaborative conversation across continents, this work examines the racial cage as an important part of the practice of social division and bodily containment. The deeply considered result is an empirical and theoretical approach to biohumanities that productively interrogates its linkages to critical theories of race and racism.

Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui pengaruh komunikasi orang tua dan guru yang dilakukan dalam grup media sosial terhadap perhatian pada anak dan kemitraan yang terjalin diantara orang tua dan guru pada proses belajar anak di SD Muhammadiyah Sapen 1. Jenis penelitian yang digunakan adalah penelitian kuantitatif ekpos-fakto. Penelitian ini mengekpos interaksi orang tua dan guru dalam grup media sosial dan pengaruhnya terhadap perhatian pada anak dan kemitraan yang terjalin diantara orang tua dan guru. Penelitian dilakukan terhadap orang tua siswa kelas 1 sampai 5 di SD Muhammadiyah Sapen 1 Yogyakarta. Sebanyak 187 orang tua dari 260 orang tua menjadi sampel dalam penelitian ini. Teknik pengumpulan data yang digunakan adalah angket. Instrumen pengumpulan data menggunakan angket yang telah diuji validitas dan reliabilitasnya. Hasil uji validitas untuk variabel Komunikasi Dalam Grup Media Sosial (X) dari 24 butir pernyataan hanya 19 butir pernyataan yang valid dengan nil...

Previous studies on amputee gait were based on a few steps of walking. Long-distance walking is commonly performed by amputees, but its effect on gait was not known. This preliminary study investigated the effect of long-distance walking on amputee gait and the compensatory mechanism used by amputees to facilitate long-distance walking. Two below-knee amputees walked on a level treadmill for two 30- minute sessions. Ground reaction forces, kinematics of the hip, knee and ankle, and residual limb-socket interface pressure were measured before and after the two walking sessions. Results showed the interface pressure decreased and there was change in asymmetry between the amputated and sound limbs, with 9.0% increase in propulsive impulse ratio and 10.4% decrease in braking impulse ratio. Accumulated fatigue reduced the joint power at the knee and ankle of both sides. The sound side hip joint power in the late stance phase decreased, while the prosthetic side hip joint power in the ear...

Long-distance walking is a convenient way for prompting physical activity of elderly people. However, walking ability declines with aging. This study assessed if silicone insoles with heel lifts (named here the prescribed insoles) could facilitate long-distance walking of older adults. Fifteen adults aged over 65, who did not have obvious lower-limb problems, walked on a treadmill for totally 60 min in two separate walking sessions: 1) with the prescribed insoles, and 2) with original insoles of the standardized shoes. Gait tests using force plates and a motion analysis system, and subjective evaluation using visual analog and Borg's CR10 scales were conducted at different time points of the treadmill walking. Objective gait anaylsis showed that without using the prescribed insoles, there were significant reductions (p < 0.05) in stance time, vertical ground reaction force, ankle dorsiflexion angle and ankle power generation of the dominant leg after the 60-minute treadmill w...

In Disaster Nationalism, Vivian Y. Choi examines how the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami fostered new forms of governance and militarization during Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war that led to enduring forms of precarity and insecurity. Tracing the development of disaster management projects following the tsunami, Choi demonstrates how these projects rest on a logic that treats natural disasters and terrorism as inevitable risks in need of management. The tsunami’s destruction foreclosed the possibility of political resolution to the war, as the state leveraged these projects to justify its militarized aggression in the war against the Tamil Tigers and a new construction of the Sri Lankan nation. Choi reveals how, paradoxically, state-sponsored disaster management projects—from new buffer and border zones to early warning systems—created more insecurity. Choi amplifies the experiences of those affected by the tsunami, particularly Tamil and Muslim communities. In so doing, Choi shows how life perseveres against perpetual uncertainty and danger—caused by natural disasters and state-sanctioned violence alike.

INFRANGERE IL SOFFITTO DI CRISTALLO
PARITA’ DI GENERE NEL MONDO DEL LAVORO
9 Aprile 2025
Aula Messieri
Dipartimento di Scienze Mediche Veterinarie
Via Tolara di Sopra 50, Ozzano dell’Emilia (BO)
Saluti istituzionali
Cristina Demaria, Delegata per l’Equità, l’Inclusione e la Diversità, Università di Bologna
Rita Monticelli, Delegata del Comune di Bologna per i Diritti Umani e il dialogo interreligioso e
interculturale
Luca Lelli, Sindaco del comune di Ozzano dell’Emilia, Bologna
Pier Paolo Gatta, Direttore del Dipartimento di Scienze Mediche Veterinarie, Università di Bologna
Introduzione ai Lavori
Chiara Bernardini, Referente del Dipartimento di Scienze Mediche Veterinarie per Equità, Inclusione e
Diversità, Università di Bologna
Arrabbiata Fiducia, Gruppo contro la Violenza di Genere, Dipartimento di Scienze Mediche Veterinarie,
Università di Bologna
Perché così poche?
Ragazze, donne e scienza da Laura Bassi al Bilancio di genere
Prof.ssa Paola Govoni, Dipartimento di Filosofia, Università di Bologna

The recent history of scientific excellence of a society could be used as an indicator of its economic, cultural and communal prosperity. In this work, two examples of countries that successfully arose from the remnants of comparative poverty and established themselves as scientifically thriving societies, South Korea and Slovenia, are compared with the case of Serbia, a country that is presumably on the doorsteps of a similarly explosive developmental path. Guidelines for social progress in the direction of greater scientific and social prominence are outlined in the course of the discourse. It is concluded that the ideal model of growth is to be based on parallel progress on the plane of R&D policies and on the level of excellence of scientific and basic education. The 'leapfrog' approach which dictates that the less developed countries should learn from the mistakes committed by the developed ones and thus accelerate their progress and catch up with the latter is invoked ...

We examine the problem of explainable AI (xAI) and explore what delivering xAI means in practice, particularly in contexts that involve formal or informal and ad-hoc collaboration where agency and accountability in decision-making are achieved and sustained interactionally. We use an example from an earlier study of collaborative decision-making in screening mammography and the difficulties users faced when trying to interpret the behavior of an AI tool to illustrate the challenges of delivering usable and effective xAI. We conclude by setting out a study programme for future research to help advance our understanding of xAI requirements for safe and ethical AI.

Polyvinylidene fluoride or simply PVDF is one of the most important semicrystalline polymers which generate piezoelectricity when a pressure or mechanical force applied on it. It has four crystalline phases α, β, ɣ and δ depending on the chain conformation structure. Among them α is non polar phase and β and ɣ are polar phase. Piezoelectricity in PVDF arises due to the β and ɣ phase formation. Several materials have been introduced for the preparation of nanogenerator. Among them PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) is most interesting material used in nanogenerator preparation due to its flexibility, bio-compatiable, nontoxic in nature. It is used in nanogenerator application due to its good ferroelectric, piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties. In this article we describe little bit concept about PVDF, its piezoelectricity and PVDF based nanogenerator. Application of piezoelectric nanogenerator is also briefly described here.

The COVID-19 Pandemic has impacted the lives of everyone including astronomers and astrophysicists. For astronomers and astrophysicists-our modern day skywatchers, staying at home meant switching their lives, which were normally rich with travel to conferences, to observatories for data collection, and simply to work for departmental meetings, team meetings and teaching, to having all of these occur on the Internet. Automated telescopes such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) were impacted by the Pandemic (Abdurro'uf et al. 2022), the Apache Point Site was shut down for nearly 2 months in 2020, but to compensate, atypically ran during the Northern Hemisphere summer months. Focusing on the ASTROMOVES interviews, I explore the many ways that the COVID-19 Pandemic has impacted the lives of astrophysicists, these are compared to other studies of COVID and astrophysicists. Finally, I reflect upon if these are different from other scientists and academics.

Many empirical relationships for the earthquake ground motion duration were developed for interplate region, whereas only a very limited number of empirical relationships exist for intraplate region. Also, the existing relationships were developed based mostly on the scaled recorded interplate earthquakes to represent intraplate earthquakes. To the author's knowledge, none of the existing relationships for the intraplate regions were developed using only the data from intraplate regions. Therefore, an attempt is made in this study to develop empirical predictive relationships of earthquake ground motion duration (i.e., significant and bracketed) with earthquake magnitude, hypocentral distance, and site conditions (i.e., rock and soil sites) using the data compiled from intraplate regions of Canada, Australia, Peninsular India, and the central and southern parts of the USA. The compiled earthquake ground motion data consists of 600 records with moment magnitudes ranging from 3.0 to 6.5 and hypocentral distances ranging from 4 to 1000 km. The non-linear mixed-effect (NLMEs) and logistic regression techniques (to account for zero duration) were used to fit predictive models to the duration data. The bracketed duration was found to be decreased with an increase in the hypocentral distance and increased with an increase in the magnitude of the earthquake. The significant duration was found to be increased with the increase in the magnitude and hypocentral distance of the earthquake. Both significant and bracketed durations were predicted higher in rock sites than in soil sites. The predictive relationships developed herein are compared with the existing relationships for interplate and intraplate regions. The developed relationship for bracketed duration predicts lower durations for rock and soil sites. However, the developed relationship for a significant duration predicts lower durations up to a certain distance and thereafter predicts higher durations compared to the existing relationships.

In recent years, a new approach to scientific endeavour has emerged resulting from the breakdown of the traditional barriers between academic disciplines and the application of technologies across these disciplines. Parallel and interleaved developments in science and technology have provided the potential to transform the way science is done. This new approach has profound implications for the entire research process and presents challenges both in technological design, and in our understanding of this new form of science, for the provision of infrastructure and training, in the organisation of research groups, and in providing suitable research funding mechanisms and reward systems. These challenges need to be addressed if the promise of this new approach is to be fully realised. In this paper, we will draw on preliminary observations of the Integrative Biology project to discuss organisational and technological challenges of large-scale multi-disciplinary scientific research. 1.

Invited commentary on the republication of A Simplest Systematics as part of the Centennial celebrations of the journal Language. 

The publication of A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation by Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson in Language in 1974 marked the beginning of what was to be a major shift in the way social interaction was to be conceived of and how it was to be studied across the social sciences and linguistics. Widely regarded as the foundational paper of Conversation Analysis (CA), the paper remains the most cited article in Language.

 The opinions and views expressed in this journal do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Ministry of Defence. The Editorial Board reserves the right to edit and publish selected articles according to its editorial requirements. Copyright© 2016 by the Government of the Republic of Singapore. All rights reserved. The articles in this journal are not to be reproduced in part or in whole without the consent of the Ministry of Defence.

A short introduction to social epistemology. English version of Galinon "L"épistémologie sociale" published in P. Wagner, Logique et épistémologie" Vrin, 2025.
This translation is provided here for convenience, please refer in print to the original version only.

The question whether Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) can be based on the Decisional Diffie-Hellman (DDH) assumption is one of the most prominent questions in Cryptography related to DDH. We study limitations on the use of the DDH assumption in cryptographic constructions, and show that it is impossible to construct a secure Identity-Based Encryption system using, in a black box way, only the DDH (or similar) assumption about a group. Our impossibility result is set in the generic groups model, where we describe an attack on any IBE construction that relies on oracle access to the group operation of randomly labelled group elements -a model that formalizes naturally DDH hardness. The vast majority of existing separation results typically give separation from general primitives, whereas we separate a primitive from a class of number theoretic hardness assumptions. Accordingly, we face challenges in creating an attack algorithm that will work against constructions which leverage the underlying algebraic structure of the group. In fact, we know that this algebraic structure is powerful enough to provide generic constructions for several powerful primitives including oblivious transfer and chosen ciphertext secure public-key cryptosystems (note that an IBE generalizes such systems). Technically, we explore statistical properties of the group algebra associated with a DDH oracle, which can be of independent interest.

We explore the application of Extensible Markup Language (XML) technology for handling tables in legacy semi-structured documents. Specifically, we analyze annotating heterogeneous documents containing tables to obtain a formalized XML Master document that improves traceability (hence easing verification and update) and enables manipulation using XSLT stylesheets. This approach is usefol when table instances fer outnumber distinct table types because the effort required to annotate a table instance is relatively less compared to formalizing table processing that respects table's semantics. This work is also relevant for authoring new documents with tables that should be accessible to both humans and machines.

User generated content on Twitter (produced at an enormous rate of 340 million tweets per day) provides a rich source for gleaning people's emotions, which is necessary for deeper understanding of people's behaviors and actions. Extant studies on emotion identification lack comprehensive coverage of "emotional situations" because they use relatively small training datasets. To overcome this bottleneck, we have automatically created a large emotion-labeled dataset (of about 2.5 million tweets) by harnessing emotion-related hashtags available in the tweets. We have applied two different machine learning algorithms for emotion identification, to study the effectiveness of various feature combinations as well as the effect of the size of the training data on the emotion identification task. Our experiments demonstrate that a combination of unigrams, bigrams, sentiment/emotionbearing words, and parts-of-speech information is most effective for gleaning emotions. The highest accuracy (65.57%) is achieved with a training data containing about 2 million tweets.

Goossens defined a structural operational semantics for a subset of VHDL-87 and proved that the parallelism present in VHDL is benign. We extend this work to include VHDL-93 features such as shared variables and postponed processes that change the underlying semantic model. In the presence of shared variables, nondeterministic execution ofVHDL-93 processes destroys the unique meaning property. We identify and characterize a class of portable VHDL-93 descriptions for which unique meaning property can be salvaged. Our specification can serve as a correctness criteria for a VHDL-93 simulator.

Typically, paper-based semi-structured documents are used to communicate technical requirements in the industry. One approach to improving the efficiency and flexibility of searching and manipulating these documents is to obtain them in electronic form, and then make explicit the technical content in a form amenable to pattern matching and symbol manipulation. This paper explores the role of XML Technology for these purposes: the use of XML language to make explicit the content of a document in a standard fashion, and the use of XSLT to manipulate the content and mediate between applications that need this content. In order to recognize and appreciate the practical difficulties, a problem in the realm of Content Extraction from Materials and Processing Specification is studied and solved using the available tools supporting the XML Technology. The Case Study provides a realistic assessment of the benefits and the limitations of XML Technology for document handling from the perspective of a developer. It also illustrates non-trivial uses of XSLT constructs.

In this age of internet and electronic commerce it is becoming increasingly important to have and to manipulate information about the trustworthiness of the content or service providers in order to make informed decisions. This paper explores realistic models of trust and distrust based on partially ordered discrete values and proposes a framework, which is sensitive to local, relative ordering of values rather than their magnitudes. The framework distinguishes between direct and inferred trust, preferring direct information over possibly conflicting inferred information. It also represents ambiguity or inconsistency explicitly. The framework is capable of handling general trust and belief networks containing cycles.

This work deals with determination of meaningful and terse cluster labels for News document clusters. We analyze a number of alternatives for selecting headlines and/or sentences of document in a document cluster (obtained as a result of an entity-event-duration query), and formalize an approach to extracting a short phrase from well-supported headlines/sentences of the cluster that can serve as the cluster label. Our technique maps a sentence into a set of significant stems to approximate its semantics, for comparison. Eventually a cluster label is extracted from a selected headline/sentence as a contiguous sequence of words, resuscitating word sequencing information lost in the formalization of semantic equivalence.

This paper describes the design and implementation of the VHDL-93 Hardware Description Browser, which is a tool for the intelligent retrieval of information from VHDL designs. The Browser consists of two UNIX processes: a TCL/TK Graphical User Interface and a Prolog search engine. The GUI elicits queries from the user and submits them to the Prolog search engine via a two-way communication pipe. The search engine satisfies queries by traversing a forest of parse trees corresponding to the associated VHDL designs. The results are then sent to the GUI for posting. Two public-domain tools were used to implement the Browser: SWI-Prolog, chosen for its pattern-matching capabilities and its use as an executable specification language, and TCL/TK for its high-level windowing operations and text-substitution capabilities to allow meta-programming.

Information Systems are coded in a variety of programming languages ranging from production object-oriented languages to scripting languages to declarative languages. It is crucial that the programmers have a good understanding of the fundamental concepts, notations and techniques that underlie these languages and issues related to evaluating and choosing from among these languages. There exist many good textbooks and Web-based resources for the study of comparative programming languages. In spite of these resources, however, students often fail to grasp the fundamentals and their application to both modern language implementation and their own problem solving skills. Modern languages are geared towards enhancing programmer productivity, sometimes at the expense of efficiency. For every language, paradigm, or style, there exists some application domain for which it is well-suited. We believe that a comprehensive set of programming exercises are needed that clearly bring out the role of each paradigm/language, especially the fact that they are complementary in nature rather than competitive.

We discuss the nature of Big Data and address the role of semantics in analyzing and processing Big Data that arises in the context of Physical-Cyber-Social Systems. We organize our research around the five V's of Big Data, where four of the Vs are harnessed to produce the fifth V -value. To handle the challenge of Volume, we advocate semantic perception that can convert low-level observational data to higher-level abstractions more suitable for decision-making. To handle the challenge of Variety, we resort to the use of semantic models and annotations of data so that much of the intelligent processing can be done at a level independent of heterogeneity of data formats and media. To handle the challenge of Velocity, we seek to use continuous semantics capability to dynamically create event or situation specific models and recognize new concepts, entities and facts. To handle Veracity, we explore the formalization of trust models and approaches to glean trustworthiness. The above four Vs of Big Data are harnessed by the semantics-empowered analytics to derive Value for supporting practical applications transcending physical-cyber-social continuum.

The paper presents and discusses results from the integration of various methods of geophysical prospection on the plateau between the Via Appia and the Via Ardeatina on the ancient suburb of Rome. The use of large-scale magnetometry, georadar and electromagnetic survey in an area of particularly dense archaeological remains is a highly effective methodology for revealing important information on previously unknown archaeological features. Of particular interest in this case is the comparison between geophysical data and the results of previous excavations, and newly-targeted test investigations that suggest the survival of the documented but previously undiscovered basilica of Pope Damasus as well as unknown catacomb tunnels at San Callisto and elsewhere on the plateau.

Full-text view-only version: https://rdcu.be/efgH9 
At the crossroads between food studies and science and technology studies, this paper analyzes the role of laboratories located within traditional cheese territories in the ecologization of cheese microbiology in France at the turn of the twentieth century. The paper argues that their connectedness with Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) raw-milk cheese organizations advocating for a strong understanding of terroir played a key role in challenging the modern strain-by-strain approach and fostering a shift towards a new research object: microbial communities in their ecologies. Modernization and standardization in cheese production from the 1950s onwards laid indeed on the improvement of hygiene to get “cleaner” milks, and on lab research on microbial strains to develop selected starter cultures. This led to a dramatic loss of microbial abundance within raw milks, which progressively provoked milk processing issues, as well as a loss of cheese typicality, an issue for place-based cheeses. To face it, the modernist approach promoted more laboratorial research on microbial strains to develop new starter cultures and the diversification of microbial collections, within an ex-situ conservation framework. In contrast, microbiologists conducting applied research for raw-milk terroir cheeses investigated environmental microbial reservoirs, microbial fluxes, as well as farming practices that favor “natural seeding” and enrich milk native microflora. A new approach emerged, namely “practice-driven microbial ecology” (écologie microbienne dirigée), which enacts the dynamic and ubiquitous properties of microbial life. The paper offers a situated account on the “microbial (ecology) turn” described by other authors, highlighting the ecological approach developed in the 1990s-2000s by French microbiologists in search of “the microbial path to terroir”. 

The article analyses the special understanding of agency in framework of social topology by contemporary English sociologist John Law. Author interprets social topology as an original version of actor-network theory (ANT), where theoretical focus shifts toward the sociology of space. Agency, thereby, appears here as a capacity of the object to take a part in construction of multiple forms of spatiality.

A blind ring signature scheme is a combination of a ring signature and a blind signature, which allows not only any member of a group of signers to sign on a message on behalf of the group without revealing its identity but also the user who possesses the message to blind it before sending to the group to be signed. Blind ring signature schemes are essential components in e-commercial, e-voting etc. In this paper, we propose the first blind ring signature scheme based on lattices. More precisely, our proposed scheme is proven to be secure in random oracle model under the hardness of the short integer solution (SIS) problem.

Since the early 2000s, the material culture of DIY in socialist societies has attracted increasing scholarly attention. It has often been examined through the lens of consumption – as a response to scarcity in planned economies, as a form of resistance to state power, or as a means of subject formation. While acknowledging and building on the role of DIY material culture in the formation of subjectivities, I argue against the consumption framework. Drawing on anthropological theories of time, I contend that the analytical language of consumption studies is often misleading because it denies DIY material practices coevalness—a place in the shared present – and traps our thinking within the moral and analytical binaries of the Cold War. As an alternative, I adopt Warnier’s concept of mise en objet to reconceptualise the relationship between subjects, material environments, and dominant socio-economic and political structures outside existing temporal hierarchies. This framework shifts the focus from consumption to the culturally specific ways in which individuals engage with materialities, thereby reframing DIY practices as sites of alternative modernity rather than an anachronistic practice. This perspective challenges teleological narratives of progress and calls for new economic imaginaries.

The media philosopher Yves Citton interviews the artist theorist Warren Neidich about some of his fundamental ideas such as the superordinate precariot, the brain without organs, the technological singularity, and cognitive capitalism. Scroll down for English version.

With the prevalence of information technology (IT), the value of IT awareness increasingly grows, and IT control becomes a key part of firms' strategies and objectives. Although leadership plays an important role in IT control governance, limited research has studied whether IT awareness is associated with IT control weaknesses (ITCWs) and firm performance simultaneously. Drawing on the agency and resource dependence theory, this paper proposes an integrative model to examine the impact of IT awareness on ITCWs and firm performance. We empirically validate the model using a data set of 310 firms collected from multiple sources including Audit Analytics, Compustat, 10-K filings, and proxy statement. The findings indicate that firms with higher IT awareness are less likely to have ITCWs, and lead to improved firm performance. This paper contributes to information systems (IS) literature by investigating the IT experience and knowledge of the board of directors on both ITCWs and firm performance. This study also provides important practical implications for IT management practices.

Drawn upon upper echelon theory and organizational theory, this research proposes to examine the impact of CEO turnover in IT firms on firm performance in terms of both sustainable accounting performance and market performance. We find that CEO turnover is a significant determinant of firm performance, especially in IT firms. This paper contributes to the IS literature by investigating the CEO turnover impact in IT firms compared to other industries. This study also has practical implications by providing the guideline for IT firms on the CEO turnover policy. Such firms should place additional emphasis on their succession planning efforts.

With the prevalence of information technology (IT), the value of IT awareness increasingly grows, and IT control becomes a key part of firms' strategies and objectives. Although leadership plays an important role in IT control governance, limited research has studied whether IT awareness is associated with IT control weaknesses (ITCWs) and firm performance simultaneously. Drawing on the agency and resource dependence theory, this paper proposes an integrative model to examine the impact of IT awareness on ITCWs and firm performance. We empirically validate the model using a data set of 310 firms collected from multiple sources including Audit Analytics, Compustat, 10-K filings, and proxy statement. The findings indicate that firms with higher IT awareness are less likely to have ITCWs, and lead to improved firm performance. This paper contributes to information systems (IS) literature by investigating the IT experience and knowledge of the board of directors on both ITCWs and firm performance. This study also provides important practical implications for IT management practices.

Spatial structures have shown a great development, mainly since the post-war years from the middle of the twentieth century. They have become a constructive solution which provides lightness and stiffness, while achieving longer spans and reducing energy and used material. In Mexico City, the Sports Palace was completed in 1968 to become a landmark of Mexican architecture and an example of a low-cost, lightweight, dome. This essay shows the geometric influences and foundation behind its design, as well as the development and typological transformation of its structural elements and materials in the finally adopted constructive solution ─the crossed arch. Such solution transformed material and its geometry into a structural typological solution of its own. Here, Félix Candela used constructive and structural elements, previously experienced in other typologies, into solutions to form new types. This way, Candela developed the hyperbolic paraboloid, employing new materials and applying geometry for the structural typological development of the shape of the Sports Palace, achieving a dome which would become a typological model of international architecture.

Resumen En Argentina la explotación de salmueras con contenido económico de litio genera hidróxido de magnesio como residuo de las operaciones de purificación por precipitación química. Este trabajo aborda la recuperación del magnesio de muestras de salmueras, concentradas mediante evaporación, provenientes del salar de Pozuelos (Salta). Los ensayos de precipitación se realizaron a temperatura ambiente (20 ºC) y usando como agente precipitante el óxido de calcio en cantidades estequiométricas y con distintos excesos a 2 000 mL. El avance de reacción se determinó en un reactor tipo tanque agitado discontinuo de 2,5 L de capacidad; la velocidad de agitación fue constante e igual a 200 rpm. Se tomaron muestras de 100 mL luego de transcurridos 5, 15, 30 y 60 min; inmediatamente se separaron los sólidos mediante filtración al vacío y se determinó el contenido de magnesio en los líquidos por espectrofotometría de absorción atómica. Se encontró que el grado de avance de la reacción es inde...

This paper presents the development and validation of an optimal design methodology for vertical U-tube ground heat exchangers (GHEs) used in HVAC systems. The dimensionless entropy generation number obtained by scaling the entropy generation due to heat transfer and pressure drop, on the ratio of the heat transfer rate to the average fluid temperature of vertical GHEs is employed as the objective function. Five design variables are first selected based on the global sensitivity analysis and then optimized by a genetic algorithm optimization technique. The entropy generation process combines the heat transfer and fluid mechanics with thermodynamic analysis. A case study shows that this optimal design approach can decrease the total system cost (i.e. the upfront cost and 10-year operation cost) by 5.5%, compared with the original design. The entropy generation number (EGN) of the optimal design case is 12.2% less than that of the base design case. From the thermo-economic aspect, decreasing the upfront cost is more important than decreasing the operational cost for the case studied. The results also demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of using the entropy generation minimization method for optimal design of vertical GHEs.

and extending the analysis and referring to relevant literature would have addressed this. Overall, Oudshoorn paints a rich picture of technology in practice. For example, Oudshoorn provides a colorful and vivid account of the use of sound to alert the patient that the device (designed specifically for outdoor use) is working properly, yet the ease of accidental activation and the subsequent emission of loud unexpected beeps leaves patients embarrassed and reluctant to use it in public. This story is memorable, poignant and illustrative of Oudshoorn's attention to detail in the examination of technology and its challenges. It is these instances that are the strength of this book, and make it worthy of note.

High Dose Rate vaginal brachytherapy for endometrial cancer has evolved from simple single-channel (i.e. cylindrical applicator) deliveries to treatments involving several channels (i.e. multichannel applicator) for the radiotherapy source to dwell, increasing the complexity of the dose distribution, and allowing more space for potential errors. For this reason real-time treatment verification has gained a greater importance than ever before, and more methods need to be developed in order to provide assurance that the dose delivery has been carried out as intended by the hospital staff. P-type silicon epi diodes have been designed at the Centre for Medical Radiation Physics (CMRP) in Australia to suit the specific needs of HDR BT, and characterized in the clinical BT facility of the Fondazione IRCCS (INT) in Italy. They have shown great potential for BT treatment verification in real time due to their radiation hardness, dose rate independence, flexibility in physical design, and ability to monitor the treatment at a 1-kHz readout frequency. Their dynamic range has been determined as ±17 to ±20 mm and dwell time calculation accuracy of > 0.1 s has been shown. If placed on the same longitudinal plane of a treatment accessory, these detectors would enable coverage of about 40 mm for source position and dwell time tracking. Respective detector positioning at (0, +3, -3 mm) would extend this range to 45-50 mm, depending on the catheter location, proving to be sufficient for the majority of treatment cases. Further studies are encouraged to develop diodes with a wider dynamic range.

The multichannel vaginal cylinder (MVC) applicator employed for gynecological high dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy increases dose delivery complexity, and thus makes the treatment more prone to errors. A quality assurance (QA) procedure tracking the source throughout dose delivery can detect dwell position and time errors in the multiple channels of the applicator. A new MVC system with integrated real time in vivo treatment delivery QA has been developed based on diodes embedded on the outer surface of the MVC. It has been pre-calibrated and verified using a nonclinical treatment plan with consecutive test positions and dwell times within each catheter, followed by the delivery of ten clinical plans of adjuvant vaginal cuff brachytherapy following hysterectomy for endometrial cancer. The non-clinical verification showed overall mean dwell position and time discrepancies between the nominal and measured treatment of -0.2 ± 0.5 mm and -0.1 ± 0.1 s (k = 1), respectively. The clinical plans showed mean positional discrepancies of 0.2 ± 0.4 and 0.0 ± 0.8 mm, for the central and peripheral catheters, respectively, and mean dwell time discrepancies of -0.1 ± 0.2 and -0.0 ± 0.1 s for central and peripheral catheters, respectively. The innovative prototype of the MVC system has shown the ability to track the source with sub-mm and sub-second accuracy, and demonstrated potential for its incorporation into the clinical routine.

HDR prostate brachytherapy with transrectal US (TRUS) imaging was studied. MOSkins included on the TRUS probe were used for rectal wall in vivo dosimetry. Dose discrepancies between measured and planned doses were quantified. Needle displacements occurring within the treatment planning time were quantified. Correlations between needle displacements and dose discrepancies were studied.

This is the first investigation to study the activities, classification, and distributions of forensic medical-related insect species in the field in southern Taiwan. Forensic dipterans were simultaneously collected every two months in Kaohsiung City and Pingtung County using hen carcass. The decay capability of hens differed; however, procedures in decayed hens were similar and went through the following five stages: fresh, bloated, decaying, post decay, and dry. It was found that the environmental conditions of the urban, Kaohsiung City, and rural area, Pintung County, were crucial factors for the occurrence of insects. However, these two experimental areas shared the same three dominant families of the dipterans, i.e. Calliphoridae, Sarcophagidae, and Muscidae. Calliphorids were the dominant family througout the year and occurred in both areas. In the urban and rural areas, the second dominant species were flesh flies and house flies, respectively. In the urban area, the populati...