Guest Editorial Special Issue on Advances in Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

[EN] With the advances in vehicle and sensor technologies, there is a growing interest in the design and deployment of Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UASNs). A typical UASN employs underwater nodes, surface sinks, autonomous underwater vehicles and low-power gliders to collaboratively perform underwater operating missions. For the ease of deployment as well as the ability in intellectualization information processing, UASNs are envisioned to enable marine applications for oceanographic data collection, pollution monitoring, offshore exploration, disaster prevention, assisted navigation and tactical surveillance. Compared with traditional monitoring technologies, e.g., remote sensing or sonar sweeping, USANs have clear advantages in terms of infrastructureless, real-time, high-precision and low-cost detectionHan, G.; Shu, L.; Rodrigues, JJPC.; Kim, K.; Lloret, J.; Wu, H. (2016). Guest Editorial Special Issue on Advances in Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks. IEEE Sensors Journal. 16(11):3994-3994. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSEN.2016.2550282S39943994161

Aesthetic labour, emotional labour and masculinity

This special issue of the journal focuses on the topic of service work and gender. The theme for this special issue arose out of a stream on service work and gender at the 2005 Gender Work and Organization conference. In many respects this special edition can be considered as complementary to an earlier special edition on gender and service work that came out in 2005. In the editorial for the 2005 special edition Kerfoot and Korczynski raised a number of issues, questions and points for debate. It is worth briefly reprising some of these here as in many respects they provide a point of departure for a number of the concerns of this particular special edition

Guest Editorial: Ethics and Privacy in Learning Analytics

The European Learning Analytics Community Exchange (LACE) project is responsible for an ongoing series of workshops on ethics and privacy in learning analytics (EP4LA), which have been responsible for driving and transforming activity in these areas. Some of this activity has been brought together with other work in the papers that make up this special issue. These papers cover the creation and development of ethical frameworks, as well as tools and approaches that can be used to address issues of ethics and privacy. This editorial suggests that it is worth taking time to consider the often intertangled issues of ethics, data protection and privacy separately. The challenges mentioned within the special issue are summarised in a table of 22 challenges that are used to identify the values that underpin work in this area. Nine ethical goals are suggested as the editors’ interpretation of the unstated values that lie behind the challenges raised in this paper

Surveillance and response systems for elimination of tropical diseases : summary of a thematic series in infectious diseases of poverty

The peer-reviewed journal Infectious Diseases of Poverty provides a new platform to engage with, and disseminate in an open-access format, science outside traditional disciplinary boundaries. The current piece reviews a thematic series on surveillance-response systems for elimination of tropical diseases. Overall, 22 contributions covering a broad array of diseases are featured - i.e. clonorchiasis, dengue, hepatitis, human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), H7N9 avian influenza, lymphatic filariasis, malaria, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), rabies, schistosomiasis and tuberculosis (TB). There are five scoping reviews, a commentary, a letter to the editor, an opinion piece and an editorial pertaining to the theme "Elimination of tropical disease through surveillance and response". The remaining 13 articles are original contributions mainly covering (i) drug resistance; (ii) innovation and validation in the field of mathematical modelling; (iii) elimination of infectious diseases; and (iv) social media reports on disease outbreak notifications released by national health authorities. Analysis of the authors' affiliations reveals that scientists from the People's Republic of China (P.R. China) are prominently represented. Possible explanations include the fact that the 2012 and 2014 international conferences pertaining to surveillance-response mechanisms were both hosted by the National Institute of Parasitic Diseases (NIPD) in Shanghai, coupled with P.R. China's growing importance with regard to the control of infectious diseases. Within 4 to 22 months of publication, three of the 22 contributions were viewed more than 10 000 times each. With sustained efforts focusing on relevant and strategic information towards control and elimination of infectious diseases, Infectious Diseases of Poverty has become a leading journal in the field of surveillance and response systems in infectious diseases and beyond

Editorial Special Issue on Enhancement Algorithms, Methodologies and Technology for Spectral Sensing

The paper is an editorial issue on enhancement algorithms, methodologies and technology for spectral sensing and serves as a valuable and useful reference for researchers and technologists interested in the evolving state-of-the-art and/or the emerging science and technology base associated with spectral-based sensing and monitoring problem. This issue is particularly relevant to those seeking new and improved solutions for detecting chemical, biological, radiological and explosive threats on the land, sea, and in the air

Pioneers in the Victorian provinces: veterinarians, public health and the urban animal economy

From the 1850s in Britain, concerns were growing about the role of animals in transmitting disease to man, whether through the food chain or through infection. While London is often seen as providing a model for public health reform, it was the great provincial cities that initiated veterinary involvement in public health in the closing years of the century. The emergence of this new strand of public health activity is the subject of this paper

International Law Status of WTO Dispute Settlement Reports: Obligation to Comply or Option to Buy Out ?

In four further parts of this comment, I undertake to fulfill my obligation to present a more thorough analysis. In part II, I briefly introduce some of the different elements that would go into normal treaty interpretation related to the issue in question, such as which text should be part of the analysis and whether preparatory work or intent of the parties, including statements by some nation-state governmental officials made contemporaneously with the drafting of the treaty, should be considered. Likewise, I mention the importance of the forty seven years of GATT practice to the interpretive process, and I note that one way to sharpen the focus of treaty interpretation is to assess the relevance of a prediction of what the WTO Appellate Body would decide if the issue came before it. In part III, I take a detailed look at the various treaty text provisions. The texts themselves are contained in an appendix so that the reader can examine them in context, if he or she wishes. In part IV, I outline several of the important policies that support the view I am taking and that I believe to be enormously significant in suggesting that the Schwartz and Sykes approach is markedly deficient. Finally, in part V, I briefly summarize my conclusions and perceptions