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Ethnographic and qualitative research were utilized to examine how the effects of geographic place can be related to heroin abuse and collective identity in non-metropolitan areas (NMAs) in the mid-Hudson region of New York State, U.S. The socio-geographic consequences of this interrelationship are explored. In-depth interviews were conducted with 237 recent admissions to drug treatment at 28 facilities in the seven mid-Hudson region counties. The effects of geographic place and collective identity emerged in interviews through narratives relating to heroin experimentation, subsequent dependence, and the lure of New York City. Heroin experimentation and the New York City lifestyle are collectively constructed by many respondents as 'cool.' They are both oriented toward city life and in conflict with what respondents believe to be a lack of community and caring among city dwellers and the dehumanizing effects of the city. The idea that heroin use is cool serves as tacit permission to experiment with heroin . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the results of two qualitative case studies that assessed the perceptions of Location Based Services (LBS) with two UK user groups: a family with a behaviour-disordered teenager, and a group of older adults. The family (n=2) and older adults (n=13) were interviewed individually after experiencing LBS. The data from the interviews were thematically analysed with the aid of Nvivo software, and organised into themes to better understand attitudes towards LBS technology. Whilst both groups had the opportunity to use, adapt to and experience LBS, perceptions of 'cool' and 'trendiness' affected judgments of it, and their subsequent usage intentions. The family adopted the LBS system fully, with the device aiding navigation, and ultimately developing trust. Their teenage son also embraced the technology, aided in part by the unobtrusive and 'trendy' nature of the mobile phone the LBS was deployed on. In contrast, the older adults felt that LBS could not assist them in any way, and were concerned about the potential for invasions of privacy. This work highlights clear generational differences in the acceptance of LBS, and suggests consideration is needed for the future design of LBS to ensure suitability for the user. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the way that young people view the notion of cool, and how designers can leverage that notion in their design activities. To complement the many user studies about cool, this paper presents an analytic evaluation of categories of cool, leveraging information from multiple expert review sessions with a total of 38 participants. All of the participants, who were in their late teens or twenties, were asked to reflect on aspects of cool for young teens and tweens. The participants took part in our analysis because of their knowledge of technology and their understanding of people in our target teen demographic. Results of a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of data from the sessions suggest that innovation is a driving factor attributed to coolness for our target population, older males view monetary wealth and authenticity as important for coolness among our target population, and younger males view rebellious and anti-social technology as not cool for our target population. These findings suggest the need for different user models focused on demographics to capture the aspects of cool that are important in technology design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cool can be thought about on three levels; the having of cool things, the doing of cool stuff and the being of cool. Whilst there is some understanding of cool products, the concept, of being cool is much more elusive to designers and developers of systems. This study examines this space by using a set of pre-prepared teenage personas as probes with a set of teenagers with the aim of better understanding what is, and isn't cool about teenage behaviours. The study confirmed that teenagers are able to rank personas in order of cool and that the process of using personas can provide valuable insights around the phenomenon of cool. The findings confirm that cool is indeed about having cool things but in terms of behaviours cool can be a little bit, but not too, naughty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a simple method to measure people's perceptions of the coolness of other people in localized social networks. Folk concepts of cool suggest that cool is real and yet elusive. Approaches to measuring cool that are indebted to traditional personality theory are shown to be insufficient because cool is a constantly changing construct. Instead, the tension between the real and elusive sides of cool may be best characterized as a distributed property of a network. This is measured with an extension of the social relations model in order to give an estimate of the actual stability of cool, instead of just vague folk concepts. 47 undergraduates completed a round-robin rating of the personal and group level coolness of others. Preliminary results suggest that about a third of ratings in cool are due to the actual coolness of the targets, showing both the reality and elusiveness of cool itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development and exploration of a tool designed to assist in investigating 'cool' as it applies to the design of interactive products for teenagers. The method involved the derivation of theoretical understandings of cool from literature that resulted in identification of seven core categories for cool, which were mapped to a hierarchy. The hierarchy includes having of cool things, the doing of cool activities and the being of cool. This paper focuses on a tool, the Cool Wall, developed to explore one specific facet of the hierarchy; exploring shared understanding of having cool things. The paper describes the development and construction of the tool, using a heavily participatory approach, and the results and analysis of three studies. The first study was carried out over 2 days in a school in the UK. The results of the study both provide clear insights into cool things and enable a refined understanding of cool in this context. Two additional studies are then used to identify potential shortcomings in the Cool Wall methodology. In the second study participants were able to populate a paper cool wall with anything they chose, this revealed two potential new categories of images and that the current set of images covered the majority of key themes. In the third study teenagers interpretations of the meaning of the images included in the Cool Wall were explored, this showed that the majority of meanings were as expected and a small number of unexpected interpretations provided some valuable insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept "cool", as it applies to technological products, is discussed in this paper. We offer a model showing how different factors in situated use of techno-cools affect the perception of coolness. The model is discussed using a case of the iPad in educational use. The case is grounded in our experience from four case studies related to introduction of the iPad as a cool educational tool in two elementary schools, a high school, and a university. The space between iPad's coolness as a device and factors influencing that coolness in education, such as mastery, usefulness, added value, self-presentation and identity, novelty and fun, was studied. The age of participants was a determining factor for what subset of these was making the iPads cool at school. Tween students considered self-presentation, fun and novelty as the most important factors. For older students the important ones were usefulness, added value and mastery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the reconciliation of cultural analysis with political economy in Marxist-inspired research on communications. It traces how these two traditions became separated with the development of a one-dimensional and consumerist cultural studies, on the one-hand, and a more classically Marxist political economy of communications, on the other hand, that was accused of holding a simplistic and erroneous concept of ideology. The paper defends a conception of ideology as distorted communication motivated by unequal power relations and sketches a multidimensional mode of cultural analysis that takes account of the moments of production, consumption and textual meaning in the circulation of communications and culture. In accordance with this framework of analysis, the cool-capitalism thesis is outlined and illustrated with reference to Apple, the 'cool' corporation. And, the all-purpose mobile communication device is selected as a key and urgent focus of attention for research on commodity fetishism and labour exploitation on a global scale today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to evaluate the economic benefits of the country of origin labeling (COOL) in Taiwan. A Vickrey second-price sealed-bid auction was conducted to estimate the consumer's willingness to pay for Taiwan products versus those from China and Vietnam. Our experiment was designed to investigate the impacts of product tasting on bidding behavior. The regression results show that tasting raised bids for Taiwan and China teas, but lowered bids for Vietnam tea. The econometric results show very high premiums for Taiwan products. Taiwanese consumers and food producers stand to benefit greatly with COOL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tactile and thermal sensitivity of diverse regions of the human body have been documented extensively, with one exception being the scalp. Additionally, sensory changes may accompany the hair loss from the scalp in androgen-related alopecia (ARA), but formal quantitative sensory testing (QST) has not been reported in respect of this. Therefore, light touch detection thresholds were obtained at nine scalp sites and one forehead site, using Semmes-Weinstein filaments (Von Frey hairs), and for warming and cooling from skin baseline temperature, using 28 and 256 mm2 thermodes. Affective, thermal, and nociceptive sensations experienced at thermal detection threshold were quantified. Thirty-two male participants were recruited, 10 of whom had normal hair coverage, 12 of whom had shaved scalp but with potentially normal hair coverage, and 10 of whom exhibited ARA to some extent. The scalp was relatively insensitive to tactile and thermal stimulation at all tested sites, especially so along the midline and near the apex of the skull. Threshold level warm stimuli were rated less pleasant, the less sensitive the test site. After correction for age-related changes in sensitivity, bald scalp sites were found more sensitive to cooling than the same sites when shaved, consistent with prior informal reports of increased sensitivity for some scalp sensations in ARA. QST on hair-covered sites was subject to methodological issues that render such testing non-ideal, such as bias in measurement of resting skin temperatures, and the near impossibility of delivering filament stimuli to the scalp skin without disturbing neighboring hairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the population trend of Fulica atra or the Black Coot in the province of Punjab in Pakistan from 1989 to 2008. The researchers estimated close to 853,000 Black Coot at several study sites during the period, the mean value of which is 42,638 birds every year. They found that the declining population in the study areas can be attributed to various threats including the land leased by the Punjab Irrigation and Power Development to the farmers for crop cultivation, the large scale netting practiced by fishermen and illegal hunting.

Coolness is an elusive concept. This research note seeks to understand its place in the life of the sociologist. Reflecting on the recent experiences of the author, this piece focuses on the problems of studying music cultures where the interested researcher has become uncool. It begins by tracking this problem, with particular regard to the problems of identifying and studying the very aspects of culture that the researcher wishes to investigate, before suggesting how we might react where we think our uncoolness is a problem in our research. The note concludes with a discussion of the implications of these issues for sociology more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Beginning with a problematic assignment in a “New Media Writing” class, this article demonstrates, first, the significant, perhaps irreconcilable differences in the writing/reading environments of print as opposed to New Media: the interiority, on one hand, of the individual text implied in the “shape” of narratives and other elaborated verbal performances and, on the other hand, the mythic exteriority of networked, information space and the market logic of its “attention economy.” These differences pose a challenge not only to the traditional practices of academic, literary, and professional discourse communities, but to what this article terms “writing culture”—that is, popular cultural practices and assumptions conditioned by the procedures and experience of textual elaboration. Examining student hypertexts, key critical works on New Media, web sites, and literary theory and history, this article suggests a solution to this challenge, arguing that the future development of online writing genres ultimately cannot depend on imposing written shapes on network space. Instead, a close analysis of a hoax from the auction site, eBay, suggests how parody can constitute a lens through which the Web''s own generic conventions filter the critical/creative consciousness that has long epitomized writing culture. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Compost can have a disease suppressive effect, but compost research is constrained by the fact that repetition of experiments with a similar batch of compost is impossible, since storage affects the organic material including the microbial communities. The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that differential changes in microbial community structure and associated microbial activities after various storage methods (drying, freezing and cooling) lead to differential changes in the disease suppressive ability of compost material with respect to Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lini induced by mixes of composts with peat substrate (20/80%, vol./vol.). A significant (P<0.0001) storage method × compost interaction was found with respect to suppression of Fusarium wilt of flax, indicating that the effect of storage type on disease suppression is compost-dependent. For seven composts storage had no (13 cases) or a significantly positive effect (eight cases) on disease suppression and for 1 compost there was a significant negative effect of storage on disease suppression. Significant changes in microbial activity and 16S-rDNA DGGE banding patterns of the composts were observed as a result of all tested ways of storage and these changes could be related to changes in disease suppression: relatively strong changes in microbial activity and bacterial composition due to storage had a relatively strong effect on disease suppression. The cool storage treatment (4°C) resulted in the least deviation in disease suppression from the fresh compost, although the freezing treatment gave the most reliable results with the lowest standard deviation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Weber’s silver Thaler illusion is the perception that cold objects appear heavier than warm objects. We were interested in studying the pharmacology of mechanoreceptor units that displayed increased spontaneous firing to cold stimuli. An isolated rat sinus hair preparation with intact nerve terminals was used to record the activity of two types of slowly adapting mechanoreceptors (St I and St II) during temperature ramps (0.91–1.73 °C/min) from normal bath temperature of 31±2 °C, cold to 14.5 °C and heat to 46 °C. Twenty-seven of the 43 mechanoreceptor units displayed marked increases in their spontaneous firing to cold or cooling thermal gradients, and were classified as cold mechanoreceptors. A high proportion (3:1) of St II units were responsive to cold than not, while the ratio was reversed for St I units (1:2). Most cold mechanoreceptor units showed decreases in mechanical responses to cold thermal gradients. Similar to specific cold thermoreceptors, many of the cold mechanoreceptor units briefly displayed increased spontaneous firing at higher (>41 °C) temperatures. The spontaneous firing of cold mechanoreceptor units was increased by the transient receptor potential (TRP) channel agonist icilin (30–100 μM) in a dose-dependent manner. Responses to mechanical stimulation were generally unaffected by icilin in these units, although their evoked response latencies were significantly reduced (similar to the effect of K+ channel blocker tetraethylammonium in St II units). TRPM8 channel agonist, (−) menthol 200 μM, had mixed effects on spontaneous firing but consistently enhanced cold responses. Other TRP agonists, cinnamaldehyde 1–2 mM and camphor 0.5–2 mM, reduced spontaneous and evoked responses. TRPA1 agonist allyl isothiocyanate (mustard oil) 50–100 μM and TRPV1 agonist capsaicin 1–3 μM had no effect. A broad spectrum TRP antagonist, Ruthenium Red 30 μM, had no effect. The TRPM8 antagonist, capsazepine 100–200 μM, blocked cold-evoked responses. Although these data generally provide support for the possibility that cooling responses are mediated by TRPM8 channels, the detailed profile of results suggests that another, as yet unidentified TRP channel, is involved. Multiplex coding of mechanical and thermal information by slowly adapting mechanoreceptors may play a functional role in thermal perception, and may explain Weber’s silver Thaler illusion. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Consumers have become increasingly concerned with the quality, safety and production features of food. Certain population segments will pay more for food products carrying a label identifying credence features that consumers cannot evaluate, even after consumption. Seventy-nine market research questionnaires were completed by consumers purchasing live shrimp at two harvest sales at a University of Florida pond aquaculture facility. A conjoint analysis experiment was included to quantify the utility value and relative importance of seven different shrimp product physical and credence features: species, size, refrigeration state, product form, purchase price, country of origin label, and production method label. Both credence features had positive impacts on shrimp product utility, with country of origin label conferring higher positive utility than any other shrimp feature. Utility associated with wild-harvested shrimp was slightly higher than the utility of farm-raised shrimp. These results provide justification of seafood industry support for mandatory country of origin labeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper reports experimental studies on the ripped-rock revetment embankment and the traditional embankment in permafrost regions of the Qinghai–Tibet railroad. The laboratory embankment models were designed according to similarity theory. Preliminary results show that the temperature distribution of the traditional embankment was asymmetric; the asymmetry was changed after the ripped-rock revetment was installed and the soil under the ripped-rock was cooled. Preliminary field experiment results show that the temperature trend under the ripped-rock was consistent with the result of the laboratory tests. The thickness of the ripped-rock on the south slope should be greater than 80cm in Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. Experimental studies show that the ripped-rock revetment can cool the embankment and adjust the temperature distribution near the north and south slopes of embankment, and is an available technique to protect embankment from thawing settlement and longitudinal cracks in permafrost regions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article compares the work of fashion models and “new media workers” (those who work in the relatively new medium of the Internet as dot-com workers) in order to highlight the processes of entrepreneurial labor in culture industries. Based on interviews and participant-observation in New York City, we trace how entrepreneurial labor becomes intertwined with work identities in cultural industries both on and off the job. While workers are drawn to the autonomy, creativity and excitement that jobs in these media industries can provide, they have also come to accept as normal the high risks associated with this work. Diffused through media images, this normalization of risk serves as a model for how workers in other industries should behave under flexible employment conditions. Using interview data from within the fashion media and the dot-com world, we discuss eight forces that give rise to the phenomenon of entrepreneurial labor: the cultural quality of cool, creativity, autonomy, self-investment, compulsory networking, portfolio evaluations, international competition, and foreshortened careers. We also provide a model of what constitutes the hierarchy of “good work” in cultural industries, and we conclude with implications of what entrepreneurial labor means for theories of work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four subjects with small restricted cerebral cortical infarcts have been examined. One had a lesion confined to the parietal operculum (SII), while in the second the SII lesion also encroached on the posterior insula; in the third subject, both banks of the sylvian fissure and the dorsal insula were involved, while in the fourth the lesion involved the upper bank of the sylvian fissure. In all cases, the postcentral gyrus (SI) was intact. Subjects 1 and 2 had mild spontaneous pain, but subjects 3 and 4 had never had spontaneous pain. In the affected areas, none could feel mechanical (skinfold pinch) pain. The 2 subjects with spontaneous pain could not discriminate sharpness (pinprick), but this was unimpaired in the third and fourth subjects. Warmth, cold, and heat pain were impaired in the 2 subjects with spontaneous pain, but not in those without; however warm-cold difference was greater in the affected regions of all subjects. The possibility must nevertheless be considered that the presence of central pain in some way alters the cortical mechanisms for the perception of thermal stimuli. Certainly, as we had earlier observed, spontaneous pain only occurs when there is interference with thermal sensation. Functional MRI (fMRI) studies following thermal stimulation in subjects 1 and 2 showed these areas, particularly SII, to be concerned with the reception of innocuous and noxious thermal stimuli, mechanical (skinfold pinch) pain and sharpness (pinprick), implying that SI is principally concerned with the reception of low-intensity mechanical stimuli, although it was activated in 1 of our fMRI-studied subjects by innocuous cooling. Copyright © 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cool-2 (cloned-out of library-2) protein (identical to a-Pix for Pak-interactive exchange factor) has been implicated in various biological responses including chemoattractant signaling and in certain forms of mental retardation. We show that when Cool-2 exists as a dimer, it functions as a Rac-specific guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF). Dimerization of Cool-2 enables its Dbl (diffuse B-cell lymphoma) and pleckstrin homology domains to work together (in trans) to bind specifically to Rac-GDP. Dissociation of dimeric Cool-2 into its monomeric form allows it to act as a GEF for Cdc42 as well as for Rac. The binding of either PAK (p21-activated kinase) or Cbl (Casitas B-lymphoma) to the SH3 domain of monomeric Cool-2 is necessary for the functional interactions between GDP-bound Cdc42 or Rac and the Cool-2 monomer. Theß?subunit complex of large GTP-binding proteins, by interacting with PAK, stimulates the dissociation of the Cool-2 dimer and activates its GEF activity for Cdc42. Overall, these findings highlight novel mechanisms by which extracellular signals can direct the specific activation of Rac versus Cdc42 by Cool-2/a-Pix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes as its departure point the near simultaneous work on notions of cool, technology, and composition in 1963, to begin discussion on how the juxtaposition of these moments can lead to an electronic rhetoric. Based on classroom work done at the University of Florida in two courses entitled “Writing About Cool,” the article presents juxtaposition as a method for writing electronically. Because this particular juxtaposition revolves around the word cool, the rhetoric proposed here is called a rhetoric of cool. The article frames a rhetoric of cool by describing how temporal events in the respective fields of writing, technology, and cultural studies seen in juxtaposition provide a model for electronic research. The article considers the influential 1963 Conference on College Composition and Communication (4Cs), writings by Albert Kitzhaber, Marshall McLuhan, Douglas Engelbart, and Amiri Baraka, and demonstrates how these works inform writing instruction in a contemporary networked writing classroom. Finally, the article examines how students working with hypertext, drawing from these works and juxtapositions, are able to not only write about cool, but are able to write cool as well. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]