Mediating Islamic State: Introduction

How does the group that calls itself “Islamic State” communicate? How has Islamic State been understood and contested? This Special Section gathers emergent scholarly voices, many deploying humanistic inquiry, to probe a phenomenon that has predominantly been the province of social scientists, to explore and understand the players, patterns, and practices that have mediated Islamic State: the communicative ways in which the group has been studied, reported on, visualized, narrated, mocked, spoofed, and resisted. We use “mediation” rather than “media” to shift public discourse on Islamic State beyond the focus on technology that has characterized research on media and sociopolitical change generally, and Islamic State communication in particular. We seek to understand the historical, ideological, technological, and cultural complexity of Islamic State, meshing translocal struggles with global geopolitics. Mediation connotes a broad approach to media, which includes words, images, bodies, platforms, and the expressive capacities and meaning-making practices that communicators generate when they deploy these media

The Revolutionary Public Sphere: The Case of the Arab Uprisings

A comprehensive picture of dissent in the Arab uprisings requires an understanding of how revolutionaries have represented themselves and how various media, digital and otherwise, were incorporated in these communicative processes. Together, the articles in this Special Issue focus on the myths, ideologies, and histories that inspired slogans, murals, and poems of pointed social relevance and politically potency. Originally presented at the inaugural biennial symposium of what was then the Project for Advanced Research in Global Communication in 2014, these papers explore the creative permutations of symbols, words, images, colors, shapes, and sounds that revolutionaries deployed to contest despots, to outwit each other, to attract attention, and to conjure up new social and political imaginaries. The issue exemplifies one of the fundamental principles undergirding the institutional mission of the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication: a robust dialogue between theoretical advances on one hand, and deep linguistic, cultural, historical knowledge of the world region under study, on the other. To read this special issue of Communication and the Public in full, visit http://journals.sagepub.com/toc/ctpa/2/2

Navigation and meteorological error equations for some aerodynamic parameters

Mathematical equations for the analysis of the errors that are expected in a set of postflight aerodynamic parameters are presented. The errors are due to inaccuracies in the Shuttle best estimate trajectory and in the meteorological data obtained in support of the flights. The error analysis shows that the parameter vector, Z, and its associated error covariance matrix, C sub Z, is calculated from a given state vector, X, and its associated covariance matrix, C sub X

Improved metabolic function and cognitive performance in middle-aged adults following a single dose of wild blueberry

Purpose: Research has demonstrated cognitive benefits following acute polyphenol-rich berry consumption in children and young adults. Berry intake also has been associated with metabolic benefits. No study has yet examined cognitive performance in middle-aged adults. We investigated the relationships among cognitive and metabolic outcomes in middle-aged adults following wild blueberry (WBB) consumption. Methods: Thirty-five individuals aged 40 to 65 years participated in a randomized, double blind, cross-over study. Participants consumed a breakfast meal and 1-cup equivalent WBB drink or matched placebo beverage on two occasions. Participants completed cognitive tasks and had blood drawn before and at regular intervals for 8 h after each meal/treatment. Changes in episodic memory and executive function (EF) were assessed alongside plasma levels of glucose, insulin, and triglyceride. Results: Analysis of the memory related Auditory Verbal Learning Task (AVLT) word recognition measure revealed a decrease in performance over the test day after placebo intake, whereas performance after WBB was maintained. For the AVLT word rejection measure, participants identified more foils following WBB in comparison to placebo. Benefits were also observed for EF on the Go-NoGo task with fewer errors following WBB intake on cognitively demanding invalid NoGo trials in comparison to placebo. Furthermore, in comparison to placebo, response times were faster for the Go-NoGo task, specifically at 4h and 8h following WBB treatment. We also observed reduced post meal glucose and insulin, but not triglyceride, concentrations in comparison to placebo over the first 2h following ingestion. Though the addition of Age, BMI, glucose and insulin as covariates to the analysis reduced the significant effect of beverage for AVLT word rejection, metabolic outcomes did not interact with treatment to predict cognitive performance with the exception of one isolated trend. Conclusions: This study indicated acute cognitive benefits of WBB intake in cognitively healthy middle-aged individuals, particularly in the context of demanding tasks and cognitive fatigue. WBB improved glucose and insulin responses to a meal. Further research is required to elucidate the underlying mechanism by which WBB improves cognitive function

Resummation of perturbation series and reducibility for Bryuno skew-product flows

We consider skew-product systems on T^d x SL(2,R) for Bryuno base flows close to constant coefficients, depending on a parameter, in any dimension d, and we prove reducibility for a large measure set of values of the parameter. The proof is based on a resummation procedure of the formal power series for the conjugation, and uses techniques of renormalisation group in quantum field theory.Comment: 30 pages, 12 figure

Vaporization of actinide oxides in thermal treatment processes for mixed waste

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the volatilities of U, Pu, and Am in thermal treatment processes for mixed wastes. The thermodynamics of vaporization U and Pu oxides in the presence of oxygen and water vapor and of U oxide in the presence of oxygen and chlorine were studied. Experimental studies of U oxide volatilities by previous authors have also been reviewed. For species where data are unavailable estimation methods were used to obtain free energies of formation of the gaseous species, The data are applied to thermal treatment processes in general and then more specifically to conditions representative of the Rocky Flats Plant Fluidized Bed Unit. (RFP FBU), molten salt oxidizer, and an incinerator. U volatilities are greatest ranging from 2.67 x 10{sup -7} gU/h in the RFP FBU to 4. 00 gU/h for typical incinerator conditions. Pu volatilities are almost 5 orders of magnitude less than U and Am volatilities are about 3 orders of magnitude less than Pu

Chronic Effects of a Wild Green Oat Extract Supplementation on Cognitive Performance in Older Adults: A Randomised, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Crossover Trial

Background and aim: Preliminary evaluation of a wild green oat extract (WGOE) (Neuravena® ELFA®955, Frutarom, Switzerland) revealed an acute cognitive benefit of supplementation. This study investigated whether regular daily WGOE supplementation would result in sustained cognitive improvements. Method: A 12-week randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over trial of WGOE supplementation (1500 mg/day) versus placebo was undertaken in 37 healthy adults aged 67 ± 0.8 years (mean ± SEM). Cognitive assessments included the Stroop colour-word test, letter cancellation, the rule-shift task, a computerised multi-tasking test battery and the trail-making task. All assessments were conducted in Week 12 and repeated in Week 24 whilst subjects were fasted and at least 18 h after taking the last dose of supplement. Result: Chronic WGOE supplementation did not affect any measures of cognition. Conclusion: It appears that the cognitive benefit of acute WGOE supplementation does not persist with chronic treatment in older adults with normal cognition. It remains to be seen whether sustained effects of WGOE supplementation may be more evident in those with mild cognitive impairment

A Nonperturbative Eliasson's Reducibility Theorem

This paper is concerned with discrete, one-dimensional Schr\"odinger operators with real analytic potentials and one Diophantine frequency. Using localization and duality we show that almost every point in the spectrum admits a quasi-periodic Bloch wave if the potential is smaller than a certain constant which does not depend on the precise Diophantine conditions. The associated first-order system, a quasi-periodic skew-product, is shown to be reducible for almost all values of the energy. This is a partial nonperturbative generalization of a reducibility theorem by Eliasson. We also extend nonperturbatively the genericity of Cantor spectrum for these Schr\"odinger operators. Finally we prove that in our setting, Cantor spectrum implies the existence of a $G_\delta$-set of energies whose Schr\"odinger cocycle is not reducible to constant coefficients

Which executive functioning deficits are associated with AD/HD, ODD/CD and comorbid AD/HD+ODD/CD?

Item does not contain fulltextThis study investigated (1) whether attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) is associated with executive functioning (EF) deficits while controlling for oppositional defiant disorder/conduct disorder (ODD/CD), (2) whether ODD/CD is associated with EF deficits while controlling for AD/HD, and (3)~whether a combination of AD/HD and ODD/CD is associated with EF deficits (and the possibility that there is no association between EF deficits and AD/HD or ODD/CD in isolation). Subjects were 99~children ages 6–12 years. Three putative domains of EF were investigated using well-validated tests: verbal fluency, working memory, and planning. Independent of ODD/CD, AD/HD was associated with deficits in planning and working memory, but not in verbal fluency. Only teacher rated AD/HD, but not parent rated AD/HD, significantly contributed to the prediction of EF task performance. No EF deficits were associated with ODD/CD. The presence of comorbid AD/HD accounts for the EF deficits in children with comorbid AD/HD+ODD/CD. These results suggest that EF deficits are unique to AD/HD and support the model proposed by R. A. Barkley (1997).17 p

Flavonoid-rich orange juice is associated with acute improvements in cognitive function in healthy middle-aged males

Purpose: Epidemiological evidence suggests that chronic consumption of fruit-based flavonoids is associated with cognitive benefits; however, the acute effects of flavonoid-rich (FR) drinks on cognitive function in the immediate postprandial period require examination. The objective was to investigate whether consumption of FR orange juice is associated with acute cognitive benefits over 6 h in healthy middle-aged adults. Methods: Males aged 30–65 consumed a 240-ml FR orange juice (272 mg) and a calorie-matched placebo in a randomized, double-blind, counterbalanced order on 2 days separated by a 2-week washout. Cognitive function and subjective mood were assessed at baseline (prior to drink consumption) and 2 and 6 h post consumption. The cognitive battery included eight individual cognitive tests. A standardized breakfast was consumed prior to the baseline measures, and a standardized lunch was consumed 3 h post-drink consumption. Results: Change from baseline analysis revealed that performance on tests of executive function and psychomotor speed was significantly better following the FR drink compared to the placebo. The effects of objective cognitive function were supported by significant benefits for subjective alertness following the FR drink relative to the placebo. Conclusions: These data demonstrate that consumption of FR orange juice can acutely enhance objective and subjective cognition over the course of 6 h in healthy middle-aged adults