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During COVID-19, many schools in the United States restrict parent visits and parent-teacher face-to-face meetings. Consequently, teachers and parents rely on digital technologies to communicate and build partnerships. Yet, little is known about their perceived experiences with digital communication. To contribute knowledge to this area, this study investigated the perceptions of the classroom teacher and parents of preschool children concerning their experiences of communicating with each other via digital technologies during COVID-19. The participants consisted of one teacher and three mothers of 3-year-olds in the same classroom of a private childcare center serving preschool children from mostly middle-class backgrounds in a northeastern state of the United States. The teacher and parents were interviewed individually and virtually via Zoom for 30–60 min (M = 45 min). A thematic analysis uncovered four salient themes: (1) modes of digital communication between the teacher and parents, (2) the nature of digital communication, (3) limitations of digital communication, and (4) digital communication via ClassDojo. The ClassDojo theme further revealed three subthemes: (1) ClassDojo for promoting proactive parent involvement, (2) ClassDojo for building teacher-parent partnerships, and (3) the use of limited functions of ClassDojo. The data were triangulated by analyzing teacher-parent communication artifacts on ClassDojo, which confirmed the findings related to the use of this digital platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a growing number of studies have examined political expression in the context of social media, fundamental questions remain about the communicative processes under study and the transformative role played by social media technologies. Accordingly, this paper undertakes a systematic review of quantitative studies that explicitly examine political expression on social media (N = 66) in order to clarify how past scholarship has conceptualized and measured political expression. In addition to identifying biases toward survey methodology (86.4% of studies) and the United States context (50% of studies), results indicate that political expression is often under-conceptualized and inconsistently measured. Yet the review highlights several ways in which this burgeoning literature provides opportunities to sharpen political expression as a distinctly useful concept for studying political communication in the digital age. To this end, we offer several recommendations for better theorization and measurement in this area of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Less than 50% of stroke patients in Norway reach hospital within 4 h of symptom onset. Early prehospital identification of stroke and triage to the right level of care may result in more patients receiving acute treatment. Quality of communication between paramedics and the stroke centre directly affects prehospital on-scene time, emphasising this as a key factor to reduce prehospital delay. Prehospital stroke scales are developed for quick and easy identification of stroke, but have poor sensitivity and specificity compared to an in-hospital assessment with the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS). The aim of the Paramedic Norwegian Acute Stroke Prehospital Project (ParaNASPP) is to assess whether a structured learning program, prehospital NIHSS and a mobile application facilitating communication with the stroke physician may improve triage of acute stroke patients.Methods: A stepped wedge cluster randomised controlled intervention design will be used in this trial in Oslo, Norway. Paramedics at five ambulance stations will enrol adult patients with suspected stroke within 24 h of symptom onset. All paramedics will begin in a control phase with standard procedures. Through an e-learning program and practical training, a random and sequential switch to the intervention phase takes place. A mobile application for NIHSS scoring, including vital patient information for treatment decisions, transferring data from paramedics to the on-call stroke physician at the Stroke Unit at Oslo University Hospital, will be provided for the intervention. The primary outcome measure is positive predictive value (PPV) for prehospital identification of patients with acute stroke defined as the proportion of patients accepted for stroke evaluation and discharged with a final stroke diagnosis. One thousand three hundred patients provide a 50% surplus to the 808 patients needed for 80% power to detect a 10% increase in PPV.Discussion: Structured and digital communication using a common scale like NIHSS may result in increased probability for better identification of stroke patients and less stroke mimics delivered to a stroke team for acute diagnostics and treatment in our population.Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04137874 . Registered on October 24, 2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies generally assume that barriers to internet access are largely passive. That is, exclusion from the Internet is a consequence of poorly resourced individuals, communities, and institutions. This study complicates that assumption by focusing on the active policing and gatekeeping of internet access. Specifically, we estimate the causal effect of free Wi-Fi at chain restaurants on quality-of-life crime reporting by leveraging a staggered difference-in-differences design which compares geo-located crime reports near chain restaurants in Chicago before and after those restaurants introduced free Wi-Fi. We find that free Wi-Fi led to a substantive and significant increase in quality-of-life policing when restaurants were located in wealthier and Whiter areas, but not in other areas. Our findings suggest that internet access itself may be actively policed by social institutions, in our case, national chain restaurants and the police, to protect access for some at the expense of others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on fieldwork with migrants and border populations in Central America and the story of a young Congolese woman in particular, this article discusses how research participants' use of mobile communication technology provokes a redefinition of the ethnographic field. Increasingly popular trajectory research often sets out to follow migrants, yet a focus on migrants keeping in touch with researchers at their own initiative and discretion, following them, reveals entanglements of selective on- and offline engagement and self-representation. Critical exploration of research participants' differentiated use of digital technology for navigating a social environment that includes the researcher herself not only transforms our understanding of the field in empirical, ethical, and methodological terms, but also counteracts potentially voyeuristic and life-threatening practices of following people on the move. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of how contextual factors influence teachers' approaches to teaching have chiefly focused on face-to-face teaching in physical campus contexts. This study advances understanding of how applicable this knowledge is in digital contexts. The study explores how university teachers perceive the differences between teaching in physical campus contexts and the digital teaching contexts found in online courses. Interview data were collected from 15 university teachers and analysed using thematic analysis. The results show that respondents perceived digital teaching contexts to be changeable. Changes were attributed to technology development and influences from students and teachers. The respondents varied in how close or anonymous they perceived their online students to be compared to their campus students. The variation was related to the type of teaching-learning activities prioritised by the respondents. However, no relationships were found between respondents' perceptions of their student-teacher relationship and class size, time invested, or type of communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media platforms and instant messaging applications have a widespread presence in today's secondary schools. However, the implications of these ubiquitous communication technologies for adolescent's social functioning with peers and academic competence in the classroom are not well understood. In fact, research on adolescents' digital lives has only rarely incorporated direct assessments of adjustment in school environments. The current study addressed these limitations with a school-based data collection. 376 adolescents (Mage = 14.4; 209 girls; including 29.2% Latino/Hispanic, 27.3% White, 28.2% mixed) were recruited from an urban high school and followed for one year. Social reputations were indexed via peer nominations and electronic communication tendencies were assessed using self-report questionnaires. Grade point averages, disciplinary events, and attendance data were obtained from school records. On a cross-sectional basis, frequent use of fashionable social networks (i.e., Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter) was associated with popular-aggressive social reputations, poor achievement, and rule-breaking behavior. E-mail use, in contrast, was associated with academic competence. Longitudinal analyses were less conclusive because the examined constructs were highly stable across the period of data collection. The full pattern of findings indicates that electronic communication patterns can be a powerful marker of academic and social functioning at school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines inflation dynamics in the United States since 2000. The basic aims of this paper are: firstly, to provide a relatively simple chaotic inflation rate growth model that is capable of generating stable equilibria, cycles, or chaos; and secondly, to analyze the inflation rate growth stability in the period 2000-2017 in the U.S. economy. This paper confirms the existence of the convergent fluctuations of the inflation rate in the U.S. economy in the observed period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As grassroots user/survivor movements gained traction across the Global North, mental health activists have provided mutual aid for those who consider themselves to be negatively affected by their psychiatrization experiences and for those in search of alternative (non-biopsychiatric) frameworks for understanding mental diversity. In addition to in-person support groups, digital communication has become an integral organizing mechanism for mutual aid actions to support those in mental distress. However, activists have often found both digital and face-to-face communication to be quite taxing to their own well-being-as they negotiate personal capacity to respond to collective needs and practice self-care through limiting their engagements in radical mental health communities. While engaging in an ethnography with a mutual aid community in the United States, I explored the use of "boundary formation" to set parameters for social engagement within digital support and face-to-face encounters. Semi-structured interviews with 14 participants, focus group discussions, participatory observation, and an analysis of digital communication revealed that group members often discussed setting personal boundaries as an act of self-care, a recognition of the pitfalls associated with engaging in group dynamics during times of mental distress, and as a practice to ensure communal longevity. The ways that participants discussed and enacted boundary formation are analyzed in this paper as a way of blocking, redirecting, and restructuring digital and in-person engagements within mutual aid assemblages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature of work is changing rapidly in the digital age, increasing the demand for skills in specific disciplines. Across the United States and beyond, this evolution has led to an increased emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education at every level. Meanwhile, at US institutions of higher education, the proportion of undergraduate students who earn a degree in the humanities is declining. However, while the public discussion often pits the disciplines against one another, the sciences, arts, and humanities are--as Albert Einstein once wrote--"branches of the same tree" [(2006) The Einstein Reader]. They are mutually reinforcing. Therefore, the best way to prepare the next generation for the future of work, life, and citizenship is to provide broad, holistic educational experiences that integrate the STEM disciplines with the arts and humanities. A new study from the Board on Higher Education and Workforce of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine bolsters the case for such an approach, finding considerable evidence that the mutual integration of disciplines leads to improved educational and career outcomes for undergraduate and graduate students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientists and health communication professionals expressed frustration over the relationship between misinformation circulating on the Internet and global public perceptions of and responses to the Ebola epidemic originating in West Africa. Using the big data platform Media Cloud, we analyzed all English-language stories about keyword “Ebola” published from 1 July 2014 to 17 November 2014 from the media sets U.S. Mainstream Media, U.S. Regional Media, U.S. Political Blogs, U.S. Popular Blogs, Europe Media Monitor, and Global Voices to understand how social network theory and models of the networked global public may have contributed to health communication efforts. 109,400 stories met our inclusion criteria. The CDC and WHO were the two media sources with the most inlinks (hyperlinks directed to their sites). Twitter was fourth Significantly more public engagement on social media globally was directed toward stories about risks of U.S. domestic Ebola infections than toward stories focused on Ebola infections in West Africa or on science-based information. Corresponding public sentiments about Ebola were reflected in the policy responses of the international community, including violations of the International Health Regulations and the treatment of potentially exposed individuals. The digitally networked global public may have influenced the discourse, sentiment, and response to the Ebola epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reviews the report `Protecting Intellectual Property Rights on the Information Superhighway,' by Joseph L. Ebersole. Explanation of how digital communications technology changes the environment for publishing; Categories of network environment problems; Requirements for copyright protection techniques; Cataloging of proposals for high-speed digital network environments.

Despite of its emotional benefits, communication with family members who live abroad can present a large financial burden for low-income foreign-born individuals. The aims of this study were (1) to explore the current technologies available for low-cost communication with family living abroad and (2) to assess the level of awareness and use of low-cost technologies for family communication as well as related information needs among low-income foreign-born individuals. This mixed-methods study included an environmental scan, survey, and focus groups with low-income foreign-born individuals living in East Harlem in New York City. Low-income individuals who have family members living abroad face financial stress with complicated technology choices for communication with family living abroad and they have many information needs. They would welcome interactive and convenient educational tools that (1) build skills for utilization of various technologies and (2) provide decision support to simplify choosing among the vast array of available communication options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Digital Public Library of America enables the discovery of digitized content held by the U.S. cultural heritage institutions by aggregating metadata contributed from participating organizations. Significant interoperability issues exist when gathering metadata at a national scale, which the Digital Public Library of America mitigates through use of its metadata application profile. In its latest release, the metadata application profile permits the storage of uniform resource identifiers, helping the Digital Public Library of America make the move to linked open data. This article examines these Digital Public Library of America developments through a case study of the Missouri Hub, which facilitates the aggregation of metadata from Missouri-based institutions into the Digital Public Library of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Extant literature contends that it can be difficult for White preservice teachers to develop culturally relevant curriculum for the diverse students whom they will encounter in classrooms. Though there is a significant body of research about culturally responsive pedagogy, teacher education programs have struggled with how to best reconcile the needs of students of color with the experiences and misconceptions of White teachers. Purpose/Focus of Study: Using a figured world framework, we explore how social interaction made possible through digital tools shaped the actions and identities of 16 preservice teachers. Research Design: This qualitative case study focuses on three preservice teachers from Illinois to illustrate the cumulative and different process of change that each went through during his or her interactions with 10th-grade students from Los Angeles. Beginning with a holistic coding of the corpus of data, we looked at chat room transcripts, preservice teacher reflections, and writing samples from approximately 3 months of interaction between the two groups for this study. Coding the data in multiple cycles, we explored how preservice teachers' digital interactions with urban high school students contributed to preservice teachers' figured worlds. Findings: Providing preservice teachers with virtual access to urban youth's figured worlds allowed these future teachers to better understand the cultural artifacts of these students' worlds. In doing so, they were forced to acknowledge the importance of maintaining the belief that all students, including those from urban backgrounds, can and want to engage in rigorous learning. The project also provided the preservice teachers with an opportunity to learn more about the discourse of these students, giving preservice teachers insights about how to navigate the language of their students' cultures, to evaluate their students' academic language needs, and to instruct their students about shifting their language use to communicate across settings and purposes. Finally, opportunities to interact with urban youth allow preservice teachers to begin to develop identities that are more culturally responsive in nature. Conclusions: The results we explore in this article highlight the potential that virtual spaces offer far developing constructive dialogue between urban youth and preservice teachers, which can lead to reflective, culturally relevant teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the definition, development and significance of big data as a result of advances in digital communications, computation, and data storage. It informs that the significant rise in use of big data has raised concerns of privacy and security of personal information for data collectors and privacy advocates in the U.S. It mentions that above concerns had led to violation of the consumer privacy and the Fourth Amendment's search and seizure law.

A state-dependent degraded broadcast diamond channel is studied where the source-to-relays cut is modeled with two noiseless, finite-capacity digital links with a degraded broadcasting structure, while the relays-to-destination cut is a general multiple access channel controlled by a random state. It is assumed that the source has noncausal channel state information and the relays have no state information. Under this model, first, the capacity is characterized for the case where the destination has state information, i.e., has access to the state sequence. It is demonstrated that in this case, a joint message and state transmission scheme via binning is optimal. Next, the case where the destination does not have state information, i.e., the case with state information at the source only, is considered. For this scenario, lower and upper bounds on the capacity are derived for the general discrete memoryless model. Achievable rates are then computed for the case in which the relays-to-destination cut is affected by an additive Gaussian state. Numerical results are provided that illuminate the performance advantages that can be accrued by leveraging noncausal state information at the source. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Social media sites have become immensely popular. In 2010 it was estimated that Americans spent a quarter of their online time using social networking sites (SNSs) and blogs. Prior studies have shown how people spend more time socializing through digital communication services such as SNSs reducing face-to-face interaction. Individuals limited offline interactions cause a sense of self-perception of being less socially involved. In this paper we explore how the use of an ubiquitous system we developed, Tlatoque, is able to adapt and move the SNS's social capital outside the desktop into a domestic setting to support older adults' offline interactions with their family. The findings of a 21 week deployment study uncovered the offline practices surrounding the use of Tlatoque and its social implications toward the existing family ties (n=30). Results qualitatively indicate that the content shared in SNSs strengthens older adults' social network by enriching and complementing traditional social engagements such as those conducted over the phone or in-person. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Over the last several decades, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Center (GRC), formerly Lewis Research Center (LeRC) has performed research and technology development of aeronautic- and space-based communications in support of NASA and the nation. In the 1970s, GRC partnered with the Canadian Department of Communications through the Communications Technology Satellite (CTS) Project, in which GRC researchers were responsible for the development of critical technology components, such as the high-power, traveling-wave tube amplifier (TWTA), thereby pioneering the surge of television channels via satellite. For its efforts, LeRC was awarded an Emmy by the television industry. The decade of the 1980s served as a period for technology development that culminated in the launch of the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) in 1993. The ACTS demonstration of spot beam antenna technology resulted in an overall increase of efficiency in satellite communications. In the latter part of the 1990s and until today, GRC research engineers have continued to conduct research and technology development in multiple domains. The primary focus of this article is to introduce the reader to the long heritage at GRC in communications research and development through the CTS and ACTS projects and delve into specific technology areas following the ACTS Project to today in support of high-data rate communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we have investigated Microstrip line fed semi circular printed monopole antenna, which is basically printed microstrip antenna with etched ground plane for UWB applications. In particular we have simulated circular patch monopole antenna and then after etched some part of the radiating patch in order to make semi circular antenna with good performance for UWB communication. While doing simulation study, a simple rectangular microstrip line is used for feeding the printed monopole antenna. Finally the simulated antenna is having frequency bandwidth under -10dB return loss is ranging from 2.8 GHz to 15 GHz. This semi circular printed monopole antenna works well for the whole UWB frequency band 3.1-10.6GHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus on electronic media as placed resources in this Introduction to this special issue draws attention to the varied and specific ways that media resources are taken hold of in divergent social settings. We argue that communicative resources of all kinds, in their uses and functions, are shaped by context and place, and we examine what that means for people engaging with new media resources, particularly people who are not part of the global mainstream. The case is made that research needs to take account of the specificity, affordances and limits of place, conceived both in geographic terms and as social sites that are shaped by politics, history, economics and cultural practices. At the same time, research has to pay attention to ways that electronic media offer translocal resources and practices for engagement. Digital media exist in the local and offer agency to users in the papers presented here, but not without the constraints that mark their status as persons located on the globalised periphery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports on new media adopters’ perceptions of and reactions to the shift from push broadcasting and headlines to the pull dynamics of online search. From a series of focus groups with adults from around the United States we find three dominant themes: (1) Most feel empowered and enthusiastic, not overloaded; (2) evolving forms of social networking represent a new manifestation of the two-step flow of communication; and (3) although critical of partisan “yellers” in the media, individuals do not report cocooning with the like-minded or avoiding the voices of those with whom they disagree. We also find that skills in using digital media matter when it comes to people's attitudes and uses of the new opportunities afforded by them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a sampling of lexical formations related to the digital age drawn the nominees for the 2010 Word of the Year as presented by the American Dialect Society (ADS) during its annual meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, January 6-9, 2011. The article also discusses the cultural influence of the ADS Word of the Year, citing the selection of the word "truthiness" in 2005 that, according to the authors, played a vital role in enmeshing the word in the public consciousness, as well as ADS appearing in a Microsoft press release regarding the legal use of the 2010 award winning word "app." A word list of winners and nominees for Word of the Year is provided that includes the definitions of words and phrases such as "culturnomics," "fat finger," and "kinetic event."

Digital production is a means through which African American adolescents communicate and express their experiences with peers. This study examined the content and the form of the digital productions of 24 urban, low-income African American adolescents who attended a summer academic program. The content of student digital productions focused on academic experiences and friendships. Their production styles revealed that youth used perceptually salient production features, such as rapid scene changes and loud rap music. The results suggest that when placed in a supportive, academic environment and provided with digital production resources, students who traditionally face barriers due to cultural and economic inequalities digitally express to their peers an interest in academics and positive peer relationships, and that these youth communicate their experiences through a shared production style that reflects their broader cultural experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the use of technology to manage high school choral director's tasks and become more connected with their students in the U.S. Choral directors can use the advances in digital communication in reminding their students of past success, current issues and future programs. They can also use digital communications such as the Internet to be better informed on the latest developments in pedagogy, literature and other issues in music education.

Each month, Facebook‘s half billion active users disseminate over 30 billion pieces of content. In this complex digital ecosystem, they live a parallel life that, for many, involves more frequent, fulfilling, and compelling communication than any other offline or online forum. But even though Facebook users have privacy options to control who sees what content, this Article concludes that every single one of Facebook‘s 133 million active users in the United States lack a reasonable expectation of privacy from government surveillance of virtually all of their online activity. Based on Facebook‘s own interpretations of federal privacy laws, a warrant is only necessary to compel disclosure of inbox and outbox messages less than 181 days old. Everything else can be obtained with subpoenas that do not even require reasonable suspicion. Accordingly, over the last six years, government agents have ―worked the beat‖ by mining the treasure trove of personal and confidential information on Facebook. But while Facebook has been justifiably criticized for its weak and shifting privacy rules, this Article demonstrates that even if it adopted the strongest and clearest policies possible, its users would still lack reasonable expectations of privacy under federal law. First, federal courts have failed to properly adapt Fourth Amendment law to the realities of Internet architecture. Since all Facebook content has been knowingly exposed to at least one third party, the Supreme Court‘s current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence does not clearly stop investigators from being allowed carte blanche to fish through the entire site for incriminating evidence. Second, Congress has failed to meaningfully revise the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) for over a quarter century. Even if the ECPA were amended to cover all Facebook content, its lack of a suppression remedy would be one of several things that would keep Facebook a permanent open book. Thus, even when thegovernment lacks reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and the user opts for the strictest privacy controls, Facebook users still cannot expect federal law to stop their ―private‖ content and communications from being used against them. This Article seeks to bring attention to this problem andrectify it. It examines Facebook‘s architecture, reveals the ways in which government agencies have investigated crimes on social networking sites, and analyzes how courts have interpreted the Fourth Amendment and the ECPA. The Article concludes with an urgent proposal to revise the ECPA andreinterpret Katz before the Facebook generation accepts the Hobson‘s choice it currently faces: either live life off the grid or accept that using modern communications technologies means the possibility of unwarranted government surveillance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of media policy usually, and understandably, focuses on visible instances of policy action: of government intervention, regulatory activity, civil society engagement, and corporate initiatives. Less frequently considered is the process by which certain issues, frames, and proposals are neglected inside decision-making structures. This article reflects on the relationship between "industrial activism" and policy silences in relation to government desire to secure a digital communications infrastructure for the twenty-first century. It argues that policy analysts need to look beyond immediate and visible instances of decision making in the media field and examine the ideological processes of exclusion and marginalization that distort media policy making and undermine the emergence of alternative paradigms and policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - Development of library digital initiatives increasingly requires integration of new technologies and collaboration between staff to accomplish specialized responsibilities. Yet, as responsibilities have evolved, the software tools used to fulfill them have largely failed to keep pace. This paper aims to show how UNLV Libraries overcame these challenges by developing a collaborative workflow model in a team with mixed technical skills. Design/methodology/approach - The paper offers a case study of one library's effort to transform inefficient web development processes in the digital library unit into an agile, collaborative team workflow through the development of a tool (dmBridge) that helps to reduce redundancies and encourage cooperation in the digital library design process. Findings - dmBridge came about in response to the growing necessity to create a sustainable digital library workflow within a framework capable of accommodating advanced customizability and relatively simple web development for CONTENTdm digital collections. Practical implications - As libraries seek to extend technology and digitization partnerships and cultivate successful grant funding, the authors demonstrate how development of tools like dmBridge can deliver an improved user experience, boost project efficiency, and support the strategic goals of the institution. Originality/value - dmBridge fills a need for a more modern, feature-rich, customizable digital collections framework. In doing so, it has brought about a considerable transformation in digitization projects workflow and resource provisioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the best way to measure and track the digital divide, in a comparative manner, over time? What impact have differing policy interventions had on the digital divide in Canada and the United States? We offer a way of benchmarking equality in Internet access using Gini coefficients and demonstrate that overall the digital divide has been closing in both countries. We find that in terms of income, the digital divide in Canada has closed most dramatically, and that in terms of education, the digital divide remains most pronounced in the United States. We suggest that Canada has been more successful in reducing the concentration of Internet access among wealthy educated populations, in part due to the active role of the state in supporting the production of culturally relevant digital content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the significance of Mobile Web to bridge the gaps of daily experiences of people in the U.S. It states that World Wide Web has become an all-encompassing symbol for connecting people and for allowing remote voices to be heard. It also a tool and translocator for accessing the hidden world of information, a digital magician's assistant that lets the user to interact with the world on a deeper and much more personal level. In addition, it can give a hyper-specific tools with which can control and affect the world and provide the right tool when user need it.

The article presents information on the reexamination of the case for a statutory digital first sale doctrine to facilitate second-hand digital media markets in the U.S. It offers a brief history of the first sale doctrine, including the early copyright jurisprudence. It discusses the historical role of used markets in promoting wide access to works of arts. It explains the statutory and contractual steps toward a digital first sale doctrine.

This paper describes results from a channel measurement campaign performed at several small airports in the U.S. in the 5-GHz band. This paper is a companion to another paper, which describes channel models for large airports. We classify the small airport surface channel into three propagation regions based upon different delay dispersion conditions. The channel characteristics of these regions in the delay and frequency domains are discussed with examples. We provide empirical stochastic channel models (of different bandwidths) to accurately represent the channel on the airport surface area for all propagation regions. The models are provided in the form of tapped delay lines, and complete statistical tap descriptions are given. Several key observations, including the presence of severe amplitude fading, some correlated scattering, and statistically nonstationary behavior, are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the differences between defamation in traditional and digital media frameworks, and offers suggestions for the regulation of online defamation. It is stated that victims of online defamation are far better situated than their traditional counterparts. The libel laws in the U.S., which focused on compensating harm to private persons, were suited to court cases arising from traditional media, but not for the Internet. According to section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, web site owners will not be liable for information provided by another content provider.

After 9/11 and the accidental failure of the power grid in North America in 2003, storage area network (SAN) extension has emerged as critical to ensuring business continuity. However, SAN extension encounters challenges in the access network, including scalability problems, cost challenges, bandwidth bottlenecks and low throughput. In this article, we propose a new solution to address these problems: SAN extension over passive optical networks (S-PONs). To tackle the scalability problems and cost challenges, we designed the S-PON architecture based on the existing point-to-multiple-point (P2MP) PON infrastructure. To address the bandwidth bottlenecks in SAN extension, we propose three solutions for carrying storage signals with gigabit-level transmission. We also introduce a new device, XtenOLT, for implementing buffer pools by a new buffer-management scheme to improve SAN extension throughput and utility. Our experimental results show that, in the physical layer, the proposed S-PON transmission technologies successfully deliver SAN traffic to the long-haul at the rate of 2.5 Gb/s; in the network layer, S-PON with XtenOLT dramatically enhances deliverable throughput and utility over long-distance transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is Latin America finally ready to embrace digital television? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of real time and continuous sensing systems for soil properties provides a valuable tool to obtain inexpensive and rapid information about the soil current status and future management of soil in the context of precision agriculture. This study aimed to design a simple transducer for soil tilth detection by determining dynamic strain behaviour of commercially available spring tines. The dynamic characteristics of the tines were determined using simple strain gauge circuits from which the response from coarse, intermediate and fine tilths was investigated. The acquired signals were analysed using digital signal-processing techniques. The results of the signal analyses were correlated with the results of standard sieving. The results showed that the amplitude of the signals was a valuable parameter to determine clod size. The mean weight diameter of the tilth grading curve could be determined to within±6.3mm of that determined by mechanical sieving. It was found to be independent of the soil textures for the clay loam and sandy loam studied. The technique requires the depth of operation to be held constant. The direction of operation when operating both across and along the direction of mouldboard plough was found to have a very minor effect. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article examines three major policy issues surrounding the transition to broadcast digital television (B-DTV): digital transmission and programming, interoperability and compatibility, and copyright protection. By examining these issues in the B-DTV transition, this article aims to show the discontinuity between the current B-DTV changeover and the most commonly referred to changeovers in TV history, color television. The comparison points to the transformation of television as an important component in the national and global information infrastructures. The article suggests that the long, complicated tourney to B-DTV demonstrates the limitations of broadcast policy in its attempts to reconfigure the technological, political, economic, and cultural features of analog media to reach the digital promise land. With the features of traditional television in flux and the contradictions of global capital quite apparent, the changeover to B-DTV is going to be more drawn out and costly than the transition to color TV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internet-2 is an advanced high-speed computer network, which has been widely used for medical imaging applications such as teleradiology and teleconsultation. Internet-2 can fulfill the requirements for high-speed data transmission and short turn-around time with low operation cost once installed. However, high performance may not necessarily be retained for global access from international network peers as well as commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP) solutions. This paper describes the methodology of establishing international Internet-2 connections between three different internationally linked sites: the Imaging Processing and Informatics (IPI) Laboratory, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California; the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), Hong Kong, and the Heart Institute (InCor) of the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Two major factors will be discussed including network looping in the US and bottleneck of the connection, raising the round-trip time and limiting the available bandwidth respectively. In addition to the three site International Internet2 Connectivity, a consistent and repeatable tuning protocol for international Internet2 applications in the clinical environment will be presented. The experimental results of the FTP and DICOM transmission using the automatic tuning protocol at both sending and receiving sites will be presented and compared with results for the combinations where this protocol is used at either one site only or no site at all in order to demonstrate the improvement in overall network throughput by this proposed tuning method. These performance numbers will also be compared to commercially available ISP connections to further show the differences between International Internet-2 and its ability to support medical imaging applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the interpretation of electronic sketch using multiscale models of temporal patterns in the U.S. Sketching is a natural input modality that has received increased interest in the computer graphics and human-computer interaction communities. The emergence of tablet personal computers and handheld personal digital assistants provides easy means for capturing pen input. These devices combine a display, pen, tracker, and computing device, making it possible to capture and process sketches online as they are drawn. The formulation and representation of sketches are also emphasized in the article.

The article discusses information about mathematical sketching in the U.S. Mathematical sketching is a pen-based, gestural interaction paradigm for mathematical problem solving and concept visualization. It derives from the pencil-and-paper process of drawing supporting diagrams to facilitate the formulation of mathematical expressions. A tablet personal computer-based application was created to let users create and explore mathematical sketches as well as graph functions, evaluate expressions, and solve equations. Several tables are also emphasized in the article.

In the late 1990s, ‘Identity Theft’ became a crime in the United States. At that time ‘Identity Theft’ was determined to be the fastest rising crime in the country. It is a crime that depends on digital culture and networked computing. I ask how this crime works to redefine the nature of identity, how it exteriorizes identity, separating it from the interiority of consciousness and moving it into the realm of information machines. The implications of identity theft for privacy and security are also examined. I ask as well about the implications of such theft for an emerging Western and Global culture that relies increasingly on digital media, the interaction of humans and information machines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the transition to digital terrestrial television (DTV) in the U.S. scheduled to be complete by 2009, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued a notice of proposed rule making (NPRM) that, if adopted, would allow transmission by unlicensed devices on frequencies of vacated television channels. The FCC is required by statute to avoid harmful interference to licensed TV channels. This paper addresses two of the core questions related to the proposed introduction of unlicensed transmissions in the vacated TV channels: Do the proposed rules provide DTV stations adequate protection from interference from these devices? If not, what rules must be adopted to avoid harmful interference to terrestrial DTV service from these devices? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]