Search

Topological quantum field theories (TQFTs) provide a general, minimal‐assumption language for describing quantum‐state preparation and measurement. They therefore provide a general language in which to express multi‐agent communication protocols, e.g., local operations, classical communication (LOCC) protocols. In the accompanying Part I, we construct LOCC protocols using TQFT, and show that LOCC protocols induce quantum error‐correcting codes (QECCs) on the agent‐environment boundary. Such QECCs can be regarded as implementing or inducing the emergence of spacetimes on such boundaries. Here connection between inter‐agent communication and spacetime is investigated, by exploiting different realizations of TQFT. The authors delved into TQFTs that support on their boundaries spin‐networks as computational systems: these are known as topological quantum neural networks (TQNNs). TQNNs, which have a natural representation as tensor networks, implement QECC. The HaPPY code is recognized to be a paradigmatic example. How generic QECCs, as bulk‐boundary codes, induce effective spacetimes is then shown. The effective spatial and temporal separations that take place in QECC enables LOCC protocols between spatially separated observers. The implementation of QECCs in BF and Chern‐Simons theories are then considered, and QECC‐induced spacetimes are shown to provide the classical redundancy required for LOCC. Finally, the topological M‐theory is considered as an implementation of QECC in higher spacetime dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Topological quantum field theories (TQFTs) provide a general, minimal‐assumption language for describing quantum‐state preparation and measurement. They therefore provide a general language in which to express multi‐agent communication protocols, e.g., local operations, classical communication (LOCC) protocols. Here, LOCC protocols are constructed using TQFT and it is shown that LOCC protocols generically induce quantum error‐correcting codes (QECCs). Using multi‐observer scenarios described by quantum Darwinism and Bell/EPR experiments as examples, it is shown how these LOCC‐induced QECCs effectively convert entanglement into classical redundancy. In the accompanying Part II, it is shown that such QECCs can be regarded as implementing, or inducing the emergence of, spacetimes on the boundaries between interacting systems. The connection between inter‐agent communication and spacetime using BF and Chern‐Simons theories, and then using topological M‐theory is investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have demonstrated the importance of sociocultural context in the process of government communication, but few studies have elaborated on the underlying mechanisms. By comparing government communication strategies under diverse sociocultural factors, this study aims to explore the role of local culture as a contextual factor in the design of government communication. Drawing on evidence from China's government communication on nuclear power projects, we explore how the central government constructed communication strategies based on different local cultures to enhance public acceptance of nuclear power projects. A comparison of this case in two cities reveals that the government can design communication strategies based on their understanding of local citizens – using local culture as the basis of audience segmentation to create different communication strategies for different citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighbourhood reputation is an elusive but much discussed and studied concept that greatly influences people's perceptions of and attitudes towards the residential areas of a city. The temporality related to neighbourhood reputation is a less studied topic. The emergence of a place‐based reputation is a complex social, spatial, temporal, and cultural process that is affected by the neighbourhood's residents and visitors, local and social media, and non‐residents who are knowledgeable about the area. We based our study of reputation on interviews with focus groups, city officials, and politicians. According to the interview data, neighbourhood reputation is articulated through four temporal discourses: the past, presentation, representation, and the future. Ultimately, underlying these four temporal discourses we found causes for neighbourhood reputation and stigmatisation that we named as narrative cores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory research utilizes the lens of uses and gratifications theory (UGT) to examine cross‐cultural differences in consumers' motives for using social media to build peer‐to‐peer (P2P) community. Using a mixed‐method approach through two studies, we first conduct in‐depth interviews to better understand consumers' motivations for P2P community on social media. Then exploratory factor analysis using Belgian and U.S. survey data and confirmatory composite analysis reveal the factors of curiosity, self‐presentation, social interaction, relational connections (Belgium only), the importance of social verification, and communication. Results from partial least squares structural equation modeling explain the relationship between the emerging factors and consumers' need for P2P community. While individualized motivations were found to be significant in both samples, relational motivations were not, as Belgian consumers were less concerned about socially interacting with others. Additionally, consumers' curiosity was not found to be significantly related to the need for community in either sample. This study extends previous research using the UGT framework by generating knowledge on cross‐cultural differences of P2P community on social media; theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in the spring of 2020, a mouse and rat plague spread across the rural grain belt in New South Wales, Australia. Lasting for almost 10 months, the plague was described by the local media as a ‘horror’ which ‘terrorised’ farmers and ‘ravaged’ farms. Focusing predominantly on news media reporting of the plague, this article shows how the mice and rats were constructed as abject matter out of place. This construction reveals how the interspecies dynamics of managing pests render rural landscapes vulnerable and unsettle colonial imaginaries regarding the management of the Australian environment. The plague signals a disturbance of the ‘natural’ order of things where the landscape is ‘normally’ anthropocentrically managed for monocultural farming. Drawing on Chris Philo and Chris Wilbert’s identification of ‘beastly spaces’, this article explores the plague as facilitating a beastly landscape that radically de-centres human control and investment in the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing issues of political tribalism in Kuwait, the study reported here examined the political role of tribes in Kuwait, particularly to determine why badū tribespeople in Kuwait have shifted from being the regime's political ally to its political opponent. To that end, a survey questionnaire was created and distributed to 696 badū individuals living in Kuwait. The results suggest that most badū in Kuwait agree with the political opposition's agenda and feel excluded, marginalised, powerless, deprived of equal social justice, and deliberately targeted by certain local media networks. Furthermore, most badū sampled agreed that parliamentary elections are an effective way to exercise their political influence and that their tribes provide them with social protection as well as political power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Using evidence from one Australian university's participation in the Vampire Cup (an 8‐week national inter‐university blood donation competition), this study aimed to (1) understand important motivators and successful promotional strategies driving engagement in the competition, and (2) determine the impact of competition on the recruitment and retention of young adult plasma donors. Materials and Methods: We used a sequential explanatory mixed‐methods design involving a self‐administered survey (Study 1, n = 64) and four focus groups (Study 2, n = 20) with plasma donors aged 18–29 years who participated in the 2021 Vampire Cup. Also, we used a 12‐month prospective comparative cohort analysis (Study 3) of those who did (n = 224 'competition donors') and did not (n = 448 control group) present to donate for the Vampire Cup. Results: Competition was a strong motivator, with 76% of survey participants donating to help their university win the Vampire Cup. The survey and focus groups suggested that successful engagement in the competition was due to peer‐led recruitment, leveraging existing rivalries at both the inter‐ and intra‐university level, and using prize draws to create an active online social community promoting blood donation. Competition donors donated plasma significantly more often during the competition but donated at similar rates after the competition, compared to the control group. Conclusion: Rivalry‐based competition strategies, combined with enthusiastic team leaders and an active social media community, can help to recruit, and retain, young adult plasma donors, and motivate an intermittent boost to donation frequency over a short period each year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline in local newspapers is leading to a local news 'desert', where there is little or no coverage of important local issues like policing, court cases and council politics. At present, the BBC attempts to fill some of the gap by paying for 'local democracy reporters' who work for private local media companies, but this creates tensions and is not a sustainable solution. This article argues that granting small local media organisations charitable status, as in the United States, would also be problematic. Instead, it advocates an independent 'Local Press Council'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guinea‐Bissau, an important regional biodiversity hotspot in West Africa, faces the challenge of raising awareness among the general public about the significance of natural resources for rural communities' survival and the need for biodiversity conservation. This knowledge gap hinders conservation efforts as initiatives are deemed irrelevant or unnecessary. A climate of political vulnerability, financial uncertainty and threats to media freedom are further obstacles to conservation biology. Researchers lack established communication platforms for academic dissemination. In this paper, we introduce the initiative News for Nature/PRIMACTION (2020–2022), which aimed to establish a communication channel between researchers and media agents. The project had two primary objectives: firstly, to raise awareness among the Guinea‐Bissau society about the importance of national biodiversity and conservation challenges; and secondly, to enhance the capacity of specific communicators and opinion makers. The project had several important outputs, including: i) a bi‐monthly newspaper section focused on "biodiversity conservation in Guinea‐Bissau", ii) three radio‐theatre episodes performed by a well‐known group and broadcasted nationally, iii) one song composed and sung by famous musicians, with an introduction by Jane Goodall, and iv) a website providing technical resources for journalists covering biodiversity and conservation news. Collaborators mentioned the lack of logistical conditions for traveling in the country as a major impediment in reporting conservation‐related news. We emphasize the significance of establishing direct contact and articulation between researchers and local media to promote conservation research in West African countries. In countries where science communication and environmental education outreach are not well‐established, it is crucial to bridge the challenges faced by the communities in different regions of the same country. This is especially urgent in cases where such challenges are significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the role of polemics and controversies in environmental management as a source of local knowledge for researchers in the field of environmental science. It uses the recent controversy surrounding the opening of the Adige-Garda diversion tunnel in Italy as an illustrative case. The article emphasizes the importance of incorporating local knowledge into scientific research and suggests that scientists should use public controversies as an opportunity to improve science communication. The author also highlights the potential for collaboration between researchers and the local community to enhance understanding and protection of natural resources. [Extracted from the article]

A novel boundary element implementation that models multiple scattering of plasmonic nanowires is presented. The modeling is based on potentials and the materials constituting the wires can be local (described by the local response model) or nonlocal (described by the nonlocal hydrodynamic model). The nonlocal hydrodynamicmodel (HDM) provides an important approximation describing nonclassical effects associated with the collective motion of free electrons in metals. The modeling is challenging as different interface conditions are needed at a boundary which separates 1) a local medium from a local medium; 2) a local (nonlocal) medium from a nonlocal (local) medium; and 3) a nonlocal medium from a nonlocal medium. The algorithm can address constructs of arbitrary geometry and material composition within the HDM; thus, it becomes a complete numerical tool for exploration of nonlocal nanowires. Fictitious sources are imposed at the boundaries, linking the scattered fields to the imposed sources, and matching the interface conditions at the boundaries. This procedure yields a set of Boundary Integral Equations (BIEs). Then, the BIEs are numerically solved utilizing the Boundary Element Method (BEM). The results from the BEM solver are verified quantitatively and qualitatively showing good agreement in both the near‐ and the far‐field regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biological vesicles, containing genetic materials and proteins of the original cells, are usually used for local or systemic communications among cells. Currently, studies on biological vesicles as therapeutic strategies or drug delivery carriers mainly focus on exogenously generated biological vesicles. However, the limitations of yield and purity caused by the complex purification process still hinder their clinical transformation. Recently, it has been reported that living organisms, including cells and bacteria, can produce functional/therapeutic biological vesicles within body automatically. Therefore, using organisms to produce endogenous biological vesicles in body as drug/bio‐information delivery carriers has become a potential therapeutic strategy. In this review, the current development status and application prospects of in situ organism‐produced biological vesicles are introduced. The advantages and effects of this endogenous biological vesicles‐based strategy in drug delivery and disease treatments are analyzed. According to the type of endogenous biological vesicles, they are divided into four categories: exosomes, platelet‐derived microparticles, apoptotic bodies, and bacteria‐released outer membrane vesicles. And finally, the shortcomings of current research and future development are analyzed. This review is believed to open up the application of endogenous biological vesicles in the field of biomedicine and shed light on current research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article entails the emergence of diverse crystal polymorphs following thermal quenching into various coexistence regions of binary azobenzene chromophore (ACh)/diacrylate (DA) solution and of azobenzene/nematic liquid crystal (E7) mixture. Development of various crystal topologies encompassing rhomboidal and hexagonal shapes can be witnessed in a manner dependent on thermal quenched depths into the crystal + liquid coexistence region of ACh/DA system. Upon spraying with compressed carbon dioxide (CO2) fluid, the local temperature gradient is generated resulting in spherulitic morphology showing discrete lamellae undergoing twisting locally in some regions and branched dendrites or seaweeds in another. When ACh/E7 blend is sprayed using compressed CO2 fluid, hierarchical organization of various discrete faceted single crystals including needle, rectangular, rhombus, and truncated hexagonal crystals radiating from the spherulite core can be discerned in a brighter region (off cross‐polarization) polarized optical microscopy (POM) and nematic disclination in a darker cross‐polarized region. Of particular interest is that the observed faceted single‐crystal polymorphs in ACh/E7 may be contrasted to the lamellar twisting and branching observed in the ACh/DA system and plausible mechanisms of polymer spherulitic growth are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Communication and video transmission delays negatively affect telerobotic surgery. Since latency varies by communication environment and robot, to realize remote surgery, both must perform well. This study aims to examine the feasibility of telerobotic surgery by validating the communication environment and local/remote robot operation, using secure commercial lines and newly developed robots. Methods: Hirosaki University and Mutsu General Hospital, 150 km apart, were connected via a Medicaroid surgical robot. Ten surgeons performed a simple task remotely using information encoding and decoding. The required bandwidth, delay time, task completion time, number of errors, and image quality were evaluated. Next, 11 surgeons performed a complex task using gallbladder and intestinal models in local/remote environments; round trip time (RTT), packet loss, time to completion, operator fatigue, operability, and image were observed locally and remotely. Results: Image quality was not so degraded as to affect remote robot operation. Median RTT was 4 msec (2‐12), and added delay was 29 msec. There was no significant difference in accuracy or number of errors for cholecystectomy, intestinal suturing, completion time, surgeon fatigue, or image evaluation. Conclusion: The fact that remote surgery succeeded equally to local surgery showed that this system has the necessary elemental technology for widespread social implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study reports observations of 13 giant freshwater whipray (Urogymnus polylepis) from commercial fish landings along the north‐east coast of India and updates existing records based on field observations and local social media reports. The disc width of the landed specimens ranged from 120 to 223 cm and they weighed 95–300 kg. All 13 specimens observed were mature (nine females and four males) and three females were pregnant, with embryo numbers ranging between 4 and 15. Globally, U. polylepis is listed as 'Endangered', and greater protection measures are needed in India to assist in reversing current population declines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media impact not only our communication and social interactions but also our relationships to the natural environment. Social media can increase understanding of our environment by offering information and sharing calls to action, while at the same time, they might present a glamourised, standardised picture of nature and distract from actual outdoor interactions.The COVID‐19 pandemic presents a unique opportunity to study the spaces created for interactions between the online and offline natural world, especially in countries where movement and thus outdoor activities were restricted during lockdowns. To understand these interactions, we investigated the social media communication of nature conservation and outdoor organisations by analysing Twitter posts of four prominent NGOs in Scotland.We found that during the first COVID‐19‐induced UK lockdown in spring 2020, Scottish nature conservation and outdoor organisations made distinctive efforts in supporting followers to connect with nature in the face of restrictions. Organisations showed signs of moving towards community‐building through sharing experiences often related to nearby nature, while calls for environmental action, more prominent in the previous year, receded in relative importance.Emphasis was put on sensory engagement with, and finding solace in the rhythm of, nature. References to taking action to protect nature now became linked to a green recovery from the pandemic.We conclude that NGOs used social media not as a space separate from the outdoors, but as an augmented space where online and offline interactions were interwoven and a space in which during the COVID‐19 pandemic, new avenues for engagement were being explored. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with a special case of stochastic distributed optimal control, where the objective is to design a structurally constrained controller for a system subject to state and input power constraints. The structural constraints are induced by the directed communication between local controllers over a strongly connected graph. Based on the information structure present, that is, who knows what and when, we provide a control synthesis with the optimal control law consisting of two parts: one that is based on the common information between the subsystems and one that uses more localized information. The developed method is applicable to an arbitrary number of physically interconnected subsystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous youth living in Alice Springs are subject to routine forms of surveillance, facilitated by a range of stakeholders, including police, security guards, government agents, business owners and members of their own communities. 'The problem' of youth is the subject of much attention in media and community forums as well as Northern Territory specific legislation, resulting in increased levels of policing in town. Drawing on recently collected fieldwork data, this paper explores some of the nuances in the relationships through which these processes of surveillance are enacted. Encounters observed and described by young people themselves are often at once both intimate and oppressive. This paper will first explore recent policy approaches and then focus on some examples of youth experiences with policing to outline some of the ways in which young people navigate and resist surveillance in Alice Springs. Understanding youth experiences of surveillance and policing enables a distinctive perspective on a shifting social world, and offers insight into contemporary forms of disadvantage faced by Indigenous youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our concern in this contribution is to ask what the special features of populism in Hungary are, where government and the largest opposition party can be considered populist. The study aims at analyzing motivations, interests, benefits, and profits of populism in fragile Hungarian regions. The main part examines three peculiar features of state populism: the rural support for stabile political and social structures; early‐born conservative social policy, which freezes and preserves social inequalities and pacificates social conflicts; and selective social policy that has made a strong difference between "worthy" and "unworthy" poor, thus, contributing to ethnic‐based conflicts and emerging prejudice. The Hungarian case shows that poverty and social inequalities, disintegration, hierarchical local power structure with dominance of economic–political oligarchy, weak participation, monopolization of local and non‐local media, and racialization of poverty are enabling factors of populism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modular robots hold promise of adaptability, robustness, and versatility. Synchronization of modules is critical; if a module is asynchronous, not only will the robot fail to perform tasks properly, but its behavior may be self‐destructive through self‐collision. To avoid this, modern modular robots tend to have several separate communication systems. Wireless communication is used for interfacing with an external controller and synchronizing all modules, but is power‐hungry and prone to congestion with a large number of modules. Neighbor‐to‐neighbor (local) communication is necessary for configuration discovery and for synchronizing orientations, but cannot connect to wireless. As it stands, local communication is underutilized and wireless communication struggles with scalability due to number. A novel hybrid protocol is presented, where only a fraction of the modules connect to wireless and act as hubs which propagate messages through the local system. This method reduces both energy consumption and global network traffic while maintaining functionality and adding redundancy in communication. Through careful selection of hubs, it is shown that the operational time of a modular robot can be extended by 20%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Policy & Internet is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

GPUs only support simple coherence operations. For data integrity, heavyweight synchronization operations must be explicitly used. Scoped synchronization Hower et al. (2014) and Gaster et al. (2015) has been introduced to facilitate low overhead communication, when the communication is local across a subset of threads. Scoped synchronization can be used if the sharing is static. However, it is not possible to avoid using heavyweight global‐scoped synchronization when the sharing is dynamic. Asymmetric sharing is one of the dynamic sharing patterns where a shared data is frequently accessed by a single agent while being rarely accessed by remote agents. It requires using global‐scoped synchronization to encompass all possible synchronization agents on a GPU device without any special support. Remote scope promotion (RSP) Orr et al. (2015) allows use of lightweight local‐scoped synchronization for frequent accesses and defers the most synchronization overhead to the rare remote accesses. We propose sRSP which is an efficient and scalable implementation of RSP semantics. sRSP tracks local‐scoped synchronizations on local caches. When performing remote‐scoped synchronization, it applies the costly cache operations selectively. We thoroughly evaluate our work and show that it reduces remote synchronization overhead significantly and scales better. On the average, it improves the performance around 25% for a GPU device with 64 compute units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes how recent fishing disputes involving China and Latin American countries have been reported by local and global media. We conducted content and sentiment analysis of media articles, coding articles according to the sentiment ("positive," "negative," or "neutral") they express toward China and the actions of its fishing fleet, based on the words used to describe the same. We also examined what topics are discussed in different media – issues that are more specific and "local" in nature or broader issues that go beyond specific incidents. According to our findings, Latin American media can be as negative in their reporting on China and Chinese actions as Anglo‐Saxon Western media but tend to focus more on local issues and specific incidents, whereas Anglo‐Saxon Western media are more likely to connect incidents to broader geopolitical issues. Deepening of China‐LAC economic relations have not reduced Latin American media's critical approach toward China. At the same time, the local media remain independent; they do not necessarily reproduce the same frames as global news platforms in their coverage of China. These findings reinforce the idea that LAC broadly does not want to choose sides in the China‐US rivalry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work considers the problem of distributed event-triggered consensus tracking control of multiple high-order uncertain nonlinear systems on a connected graph where the leader's reference information is sent to only a portion of the followers. The communication among the agents and the local control update are performed based on different event-triggering mechanisms which possess different triggering conditions and work independently. To facilitate consensus tracking control design, in each follower agent of the network, a group of distributed and cascaded estimators is constructed for estimating the reference trajectory and its high-order derivatives by event-triggered information exchange among the local neighbors on the communication graph. Theoretical analysis shows that the estimation errors of the reference states decay within a very short time to the neighborhood of the origin and that the Zeno behavior is excluded. Then by utilizing the estimated reference states, in each agent, a local event-triggered robust controller including a nonlinear robustifying term with a state signal dependent gain is proposed. The triggering condition is derived by taking the time-varying control gain into account, and the tracking performance of the local controller is rigorously analyzed. Furthermore, it is shown that the Zeno behavior is also excluded. Finally, simulation examples are provided to demonstrate the performance of the reference estimators and that of the consensus tracking controllers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Legalization of recreational cannabis is occurring across the United States, with some controversy. To understand the range of issues that can arise when such a policy change is enacted, we examined portrayal of legalization at the local level by studying newspaper articles in Calgary, Alberta, shortly before and after cannabis legalization in Canada. Method: We searched the largest‐circulation newspaper for cannabis‐related items and analyzed for content and slant toward cannabis legalization. Results: Among 165 items, business/economics (70.9% of items) and legalization (69.7%) were most frequent, with health only 29.7%. Across all items, the slant was more approval (44.2%) than disapproval (23.0%). Discussion and Conclusions: When cannabis was legalized, the local newspaper focused more on economic aspects of legalization rather than about health issues. Further research can determine the generalizability of the findings to other locales and provide comparison as other similar policy changes roll out. Scientific Significance: The study provides new information on what happens when drug policies are enacted. Documenting the media portrayal of substance use policies is a promising tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decentralized stochastic gradient methods play significant roles in large‐scale optimization that finds many practical applications in machine learning and coordinated control. This paper studies optimization problems over unbalanced directed networks, where the mutual goal of agents in the network is to optimize a global objective function expressed as a sum of local objective functions. Each agent using only local computation and communication in the networks is assumed to get access to a stochastic first‐order oracle. In order to devise a noise‐tolerant decentralized algorithm with accelerated linear convergence, a decentralized Nesterov gradient algorithm with the constant step‐size and parameter using stochastic gradients is proposed in this paper. The proposed algorithm employing a gradient‐tracking technique is proved to converge linearly to an error ball around the optimal solution via the analysis on a linear system when the positive constant step‐size and parameter are sufficiently small. We further recover the exact linear convergence for the proposed algorithm with exact gradients under the same selection conditions of the constant step‐size and parameter. Some real‐world data sets are used in simulations to validate the correctness of the theoretical findings and practicability of the proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I show in this article how changes in the information environment have contributed to the nationalization of legislative behavior. Access to technologies like broadband have eroded local news media resources and led to a more partisan electorate. As such, increased connectivity causes legislators to prioritize national interests over the interests of their constituencies, behavior that is traditionally seen as an electoral liability. I use data on the rollout of broadband to relate changes in the information environment faced by legislators due to the 2002 redistricting to their behavior. I find that legislators who faced more informationally connected environments post‐redistricting voted more in line with their parties, the president, and aligned interest groups. The results are robust to a specification examining within‐member changes in the 108th–111th Congresses. Taken together, these results provide strong evidence that a major contributor to the increasing nationalization of politics is the expansion of access to information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Julian Ochorowicz (1850–1917) belonged to the first generation of psychologists who regarded this discipline as a scientific, positive endeavor. At the same time, he was a representative of psychic sciences, following a strictly positivist attitude to researching psychic phenomena. This article discusses the key event of his career, experiments with the famous medium Eusapia Palladino, in Warsaw, between late 1893 and early 1894. Ochorowicz's séances with Palladino attracted wide local and international attention and improved his standing as an internationally leading psychic researcher. In Warsaw, however, these experiments were fiercely controversial and, as a result, Ochorowicz was discredited and left the city. As I argue, this dissociation of credibilities was the outcome of a changing media landscape in the late nineteenth century. While Ochorowicz's strategy of boundary‐work and asserting his credibility aimed at scholarly media, it proved fatal when facing intensive, daily coverage in the popular press. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biological monitoring in protected areas is essential for making management decisions, especially in small (<1000 km2), fenced reserves which require intensive intervention to maintain core habitat characteristics. Estimates of species richness and community structure provide important information for planning and evaluating conservation strategies. Majete Wildlife Reserve (MWR) is a small (691 km2), isolated reserve in southern Malawi in the Miombo Woodland Ecoregion. We investigated species richness and community structure of the terrestrial medium and large mammals at MWR through a standardised camera trap survey. During the 2018 dry season, 140 camera locations were sampled for 40 days each. Thirty‐five mammal species were detected and Chao 2, ICE and Jackknife 1 and 2 richness estimators indicated between 36–41 species present which aligns closely with historic accounts. Non‐detection of some species is attributed to species specialised habitat requirements not catered for in the systematic camera trap survey design. Mammal community structure, calculated from the camera detected species' relative abundance indices (RAI), was atypical for Miombo woodland, with an underrepresentation of elephants. Camera trap‐derived RAI was positively related with 2018 aerial census species encounter data. These results can assist management in refining survey techniques and act as a baseline to monitor conservation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civic engagement involves active participation in political and nonpolitical contexts in one's community. Research consistently demonstrates that sociodemographic factors, neighborhood context, community size, and media use are all important antecedents of robust civic engagement. This paper focuses on the intersection between these latter two factors. My paper draws on multiple streams of research in the rural sociology and communication literature to develop a theoretical framework where rural individuals' use of local media promotes greater civic engagement. Using data from the 2018 Local News Survey, results show that the use of local newspapers and online news websites for local news and information leads to a higher probability of participation in local activities and local groups in one's community. However, results also show that getting local news and information from traditional formats such as local TV stations may no longer be associated with an increased probability of being an active citizen in rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a new domain decomposition method for the 2‐D diffusion equation. The scheme is positivity‐preserving with essential parallelism. First, we decompose the domain into many sub‐domains, and then some new schemes are used on the sub‐domains according to dimension. Moreover, only local communication is needed at each time level in the parallel programs. The method of discrete functional analysis is used to prove that the scheme is unconditionally stable with second‐order accuracy. At last, some numerical tests are given to verify the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recent years, consumers are increasingly engaging in dynamic interactions with their preferred brands through online brand communities. Although Facebook has been commonly used as the social media platform for online brand communities, less is known with respect to the success factors for these brand communities. This study examines the nature of peer‐initiated brand communities by proposing and testing a conceptual framework that encompasses brand community identity, brand community engagement, brand love, and brand loyalty. The study investigates the dimensions of brand community identity and engagement, namely the affective and cognitive dimensions, and the moderating effect of brand community involvement. A total of 205 respondents were recruited via the Facebook social media platform of a peer‐initiated brand community. The results show that brand community identity affects brand community engagement for both affective and cognitive dimensions, with cognitive engagement predicting brand love. The moderating role of brand community involvement and the positive relationship between brand love and loyalty are confirmed. The findings contribute to knowledge and practice by highlighting the factors that can strengthen a brand's social media presence and consumer‐brand relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, Johnston argues that the Great River Tug Festival embodies elements of both party and sports tourism, which allows for a wider audience. Throughout Chapter 3, Johnston outlines the impact of various forms of tourism and tourists on local economies and in transforming local culture. I Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest i by Michael O. Johnston provides a historical overview of the myriad ways people have used the Mississippi River for industry and tourism. [Extracted from the article]

After a traumatic lockdown in 2020, India's migrant factory workers have headed back to work and on worse terms than before. Struggling with new levels of denial of entitlements, workers respond by withdrawing from their fragile hold on formality, moving instead further into the informal sector. Based on voice notes recorded on Saajha Manch, a phone‐based community media platform, the paper examines workers' experience that their efforts to claim their rights lure them into a quagmire in a bureaucracy which sucks their energy while assuring no clear outcome. Seeing evidence of failed enforcement and structural inequality all around them, workers conclude that the law is not meant for them and hence show little interest in the new labour codes hastily enacted at the height of the pandemic. The paper highlights the dysfunction of the formal sector in delivering to its low‐waged workers who remain unserved in spite of registration and documentation in place. As they join the ranks of informality, however, migrant factory workers do not lose interest in associative and contentious activity. On the contrary, freedom from the bureaucracy of rights may be a boost to new forms of struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate whether investors respond differently to news coverage from local media and overseas media relying on the special setting of A‐ and H‐cross‐listing in China. By employing the abnormal stock return variance and the abnormal trading volume as investor reaction proxies, we document that both A‐share and H‐share investors tend to have stronger reactions to their own local media than to overseas media (referred to as local media preference). To provide further support, we utilize three natural experiments, that is, the introduction of colocation by the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, the launch of Shanghai‐Hong Kong Stock Connect, and the inclusion of A‐shares in MSCI indices as well as alternative ways to construct our main variables. In addition, we also confirm that this local media preference strengthens the market segmentation between these two share classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, social media has been widely used as a tool for feminist social movements, addressing social problems such as sexual assault traumatization. This research aims at understanding how social media users utilized Twitter to describe traumatic sexual assault experiences and reasons victims chose not to disclose their experiences (Study 1), and how users became a part of the digital activism (i.e., social media movement against sexual assault) to increase social actions (Study 2). Tweets using the hashtag #WhyIDidntReport and #MeToo were extracted. Thematic analyses were used to analyze tweets across the two studies. Results from Study 1 revealed that social media victims who self‐disclosed their victimization stories often reported having serious psychological impacts, a sense of helplessness, and issues with the police. Study 2 further uncovered that social media users engaged in hashtag activism through discussing views on relevant political and social issues, sharing resources to help sexual assault victims, and promoting social actions (e.g., protests, voting). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to understand the dynamical collective performances is of particular significance in both theories and applications. In this paper, we are interested in investigating the combined influences of local interaction and processing delay on the asymptotic behavior in a particle model with local communication weights. With new observations, we show that the desired particle system undergoes both periodic flocking and periodic clustering behaviors when the processing delay crosses a threshold value and the eigenvalue 1 of average matrix is semi‐simple. In this case, the connectedness of the particle system may be absent. Also, the number of clusters is discussed by using subspace analysis. In results, some criteria on flocking and clustering emergence with exponential convergent rate are established by the standard functional differential equations analysis when the processing delay is small. When the processing delay reaches the threshold value, the system undergoes periodic flocking and periodic clustering emergence. It also shows that the processing time lags qualitatively change the emergent performances in a nonlinear way. Finally, we conclude this study with several numerical simulations that intuitively illustrate the validity of the theoretical results and address some discussions for both variable communication weight and distributed processing delay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A human rights group in Burkina Faso has criticized the government's "requisition of citizens" in its anti-jihadist fight. The ruling junta, led by Captain Ibrahim Traore, declared a year-long "general mobilization" in April, granting authorities the power to conscript citizens if necessary. The Burkinabe Movement for the Rights of Man and the People (MBDHP) claims that these requisitions are being imposed on trade union members, civil society groups, journalists, and opposition politicians critical of the government. Additionally, a massacre in the town of Zaongo resulted in the deaths of over 70 people, with conflicting reports on who was responsible. Al-Qaeda's Sahel branch, Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), accused the Burkinabe army of carrying out the attack, while some local media outlets also implicated the army. Transitional President Traore has urged against drawing hasty conclusions. Amnesty International has also reported that armed jihadist groups have been holding several locations in Burkina Faso under siege, causing severe humanitarian consequences. [Extracted from the article]

Issue addressed: Published evaluations of population‐level social marketing campaigns predominantly focus on impact and outcome evaluation. Evaluation of complementary locally implemented activities and programs, despite being common and important components of social marketing campaigns are rarely published. This study sought to examine the drivers of engagement of local implementers in the Make Healthy Normal campaign, implemented in New South Wales (NSW), Australia from 2015 to 2018, and to describe their engagement with the campaign as well as the scope and extent of complementary activities. Methods: We conducted 13 in‐depth semi‐structured qualitative interviews with health and nonhealth stakeholders from a range of urban, regional and rural settings across NSW. We analysed the interviews thematically, using an inductive and iterative approach. Results: We found stakeholder engagement (ie decision to buy into and commit resources) to the campaign was underpinned by two main drivers: "understanding", or how well they understood the campaign and their role in it, and "perceived fit", or how appropriate it was to their context. A third factor, "communication" functioned to enhance both understanding and perceived fit. Conclusion: Our results suggest that stakeholders would engage with the campaign more where they had a sound understanding of the campaign objectives and content, and an appreciation of how the campaign fits their strategic and procedural context. So What?: Campaign managers should incorporate clear, regular and efficient communication with local implementers and work with these groups early in the campaign development process. Organisers should also support and promote a "community of practice" approach to capitalise on the innovations of those promoting campaign messages at the community level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: In the United States, there was an increase in calls to helplines following media reporting of Robin Williams' suicide. We aimed to determine whether this was the case in Australia. Method: The helpline services Lifeline and Beyond Blue provided us with weekly data on calls received for 2013–2015. We conducted interrupted time series regression analyses to determine whether there was an increase in the average weekly number of calls received by each helpline in two periods after the story about Williams' suicide broke (1 week and 4 weeks). Results: We found strong evidence of an increase in calls to Lifeline (incidence rate ratio [IRR] =1.13; 95% confidence interval [CI] =1.02–1.25; p = 0.016) and Beyond Blue (IRR = 1.32; 95% CI = 1.09–1.59; p = 0.004) in the week after Williams' suicide was first reported. We found no evidence of higher than normal call volumes for Lifeline (IRR = 1.04; 95% CI = 0.99–1.10; p = 0.104) or Beyond Blue (IRR = 1.10; 95% CI = 1.00–1.22; p = 0.058) over the four weeks following Williams' death, however, suggesting that calls leveled out over this period. Conclusion: Suicide prevention experts and media professionals must work together to minimize the negative impacts of reports on suicide and maximize their positive ones. In cases where the story is likely to receive extensive international coverage, it may be important for local media to encourage help‐seeking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, application of multiple robot system for a large scale system, such as a smart factory, is expected. A system consisting of heterogeneous robots can select the function by switching a combination of the robots according to a purpose. Therefore, the system is more versatile than a single robot on which multiple functions are installed. When the system is controlled by distributed management, it is an essential technique that the robots communicate with each other for mutual understanding to achieve complex task. We have developed spatially seamless local communication system in order to exchange information between the robots without convergences. This system ensures spatially seamless communicable area towards robot's surroundings by rotating a transmitter and a receiver. However, a bit rate of communication using the system is insufficient. Although the system has redundant frame structure to detect interference between signals from different transmitters, it causes decrease of the bit rate. In this paper, we aim to improve the bit rate by reducing frame length of transmission pulse while retaining the interference detection function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines Chinese consumer's demand for yogurt and evaluates the effect of advertising on yogurt demand in four first‐tier cities in China. An almost ideal demand system augmented with advertising is estimated, and advertising on local media channels is distinguished from that on national media channels. The main findings are that Chinese demand for yogurt is generally elastic, yet local brands tend to have smallest own‐price elasticities. More importantly, while local advertising has generally a positive effect on yogurt demand, national advertising is found to decrease demand in Beijing and Guangzhou. This may be due to households' distinct media preference across cities, as well as advertising cannibalisation within brand. Lastly, advertising one yogurt brand may function similarly as generic advertising in promoting demand for yogurt with other brands. Corresponding marketing implications are drawn for yogurt manufacturers and marketers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory study aimed to identify the dominant cultural narratives on homelessness in Hawai'i—an area of the United States that has seen a precipitous increase in homelessness amid overall national decline. Because media is a primary way in which these narratives are created, solidified, and perpetuated, this study sought to understand the role the local media played in constructing homelessness narratives during this homelessness "crisis." This study used thematic content analysis of a random sample of 648 articles of Hawai'i media coverage between 2012 and 2017. The analysis found that media coverage of homelessness in Hawai'i emphasized structural‐level causes and solutions, while simultaneously relying on stereotypes and stigmatizing characteristics. However, coverage became more complex over time and was open to revision based on new information. This study suggests that media could be a viable target of interventions seeking to produce healthy and accurate narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Field courses, while generally considered as beneficial for students, are challenging to implement and can lead to strained relationships between local residents and visiting scientists. Thus, it is critical to both maximize the educational value of field courses and help students develop contextualized science communication skills. We report on the development of a science communication module, integrated into an existing field‐based ecology course, which aims to add value to an international field course enrolling students from multiple countries. Specifically, students surveyed local residents about their knowledge and perceptions of climate change, and then discussed their findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper investigates finite‐time formation tracking control problem for multiple quadrotors with external disturbance. The states of the virtual leader are not available to all the followers and the network topology is described by a directed graph. The model of each quadrotor is divided into position subsystem and attitude subsystem. Firstly, novel distributed finite‐time state observers are designed to estimate the relative state errors between followers and the virtual leader. Secondly, the values of these observers are used to design controllers that achieve finite‐time robust coordinated tracking in the position subsystem. Thirdly, the terminal sliding mode disturbance observers and finite‐time attitude tracking controllers are proposed, respectively, in the attitude subsystem to estimate the external disturbance and achieve attitude tracking control. The finite‐time stability analysis of the control algorithms is carried out using the Lyapunov theory and the homogeneous technique. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed algorithm is illustrated by numerical simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schiller masterfully tracks, at the level of everyday narratives and practices, the ways in which Catia TVe employees sought state support (including financial support) while also negotiating autonomy from the state. Community media producers envision I barrio i -based television not as a mouthpiece for the government, but rather an instrument with which to engage in statecraft, alongside with, or in "radical interdependency" (p. 17) with, state authorities. [Extracted from the article]

Summary: This paper studies the event‐triggered containment control problem for dynamical multiagent networks of general MIMO linear agents. An event‐triggered containment control strategy is provided, which consists of a control law based on a relative‐state feedback and a distributed triggering rule based on both the relative‐state information and a time‐dependent threshold function. Compared to the previous related works, our main contribution is that the triggering rule depends only on local information of communication networks. It is proved that under the proposed event‐based controller, the containment errors are uniformly ultimately bounded and the Zeno behavior can be excluded. Moreover, when the derivation constant in the threshold function is equal to zero, the containment control problem can be solved. Then, the results are extended to the event‐triggered observer‐based containment controller design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a new control method dedicated to modular multilevel converters (MMCs) is proposed. The approach is based on local communication between the individual controls of each submodule (SM). The local values of the capacitor voltages and the carrier-phase angles are shared between immediate neighbours achieving balancing of their capacitor voltages, and an automatic interleaving of the pulse-width modulation (PWM) signals. Using an inter-cell communication strategy, the number of required data exchanges with a centralised controller is greatly reduced. This method works for any number of SMs present in the converter and provides an integrated dynamic reconfiguration capability to enable or disable SMs during operation, without any additional consideration for the control-algorithm's implementation. Such a capability is not offered by classical MMC control methods using either PWM or nearest-level control strategies. Higher stability, robustness and larger bandwidth of the proposed method are first demonstrated through real-time simulation. The auto-interleaving of the PWM carriers and the capacitor-voltage balancing, provide fast responses and adequate accuracy. Experimental results are provided using a 600 V/3 kW/18 cells single-phase MMC demonstrator confirming the simulation results, and the advantages of this SM control strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presidential campaigns that understand the behaviors and interests of media organizations are rewarded with increased exposure in the news. Campaigns attract attention from local media by appealing to the news values of proximity and conflict. I compare campaign coverage in areas with and without a local campaign presence using an original, nationwide data set from three recent U.S. presidential elections and find that candidates receive more stories in the local press in areas where they establish a presence. By subsidizing locally framed content, campaigns can increase their local earned media, with larger effects in competitive states and areas without investments in previous elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]