Civil society and financial markets : what is not happening and why

Why have commercial financial flows – as a major force in contemporary society with a number of significant problematic consequences – attracted relatively little effective public-interest response from civil society? Change-oriented NGOs, labour unions, faith-based organisations and other social movements have mostly remained in the shadows vis-à-vis private financial markets. Impacts from these citizen associations have not gone beyond promoting modest rises in public awareness, certain limited policy shifts, and minor institutional reforms of a few public governance agencies. The reasons for these scant achievements are partly related to capacities and practices in civil society groups, relevant governance agencies, and financial firms. Also important in constraining civil society impacts to reform and transform contemporary financial markets are deeper structural circumstances such as embedded social hierarchies (among countries, classes, etc.), the pivotal role of finance capital in accumulation processes today, and the entrenchment of prevailing neoliberal policy discourses

Fourier based high-resolution near-field sound imaging

Noise pollution is a generally acknowledged problem in modern day society. The current tendencies towards lightweight and cheaper product design are primarily responsible for increasing nuisance, annoyance and environmental problems caused by acoustic noise. There are several reasons for research towards technologies that facilitate acoustic noise reduction. Nowadays, low noise design of consumer electronics, high-tech systems and automotive are restricted to increasingly stringent regulations and quality aspects. Effective countermeasures in order to reduce sound radiation are only taken when the source of sound is known. "Inverse Acoustics" is a very effective method to visualize and quantize the sound sources, which reconstructs source information based on measurements away from the source, yet in the near-field. In fact, the system is able to reconstruct the entire acoustic message that a source radiates in the direction of interest. The current methods for source reconstruction produce sound images with very little detail, they often require cumbersome numerical calculations and models, and they are often highly impractical for industrial applications. This research focuses on fast and accurate measurement and signal processing methods for inverse acoustics that are applicable in practical situations which require high resolutions under hazardous acoustic conditions. The inverse process is based upon spatial and wavenumber domain Fourier techniques, also referred to as Near-field Acoustic Holography. More in detail, spatial properties with respect to aliasing, leakage, signal-to-noise ratio and sensor set-ups are investigated and explicit methods and rules are developed to assist in proper determination of the acoustic holograms. In order to correctly transform the spatial hologram data into the wavenumber domain or k-space, a method called border-padding is developed. This method, which is an alternative to spatial windowing, is highly accurate without slowing down the processing time considerably. Another important factor is regularization, which is required since the inverse process is highly ill-posed. Without proper filtering action taken, noise blows up as the hologram-source distance or the wavenumber grows. In this research project a method is developed to automatically determine the proper filter function and filter parameters, which is a near-optimal trade-off between noise blow-up and deterioration of useful source information. These important properties are combined in a fully automated near-field sound imaging system design. At the Technical University of Eindhoven two versions of this system were developed and built; a large version that is based in the semi-anechoic room of the laboratory and a portable system that is suitable for small electronic devices and high-tech systems. A number of practical cases are used to qualitatively as well as quantitatively validate the improvements with respect to existing methods and illustrate the possibilities for industrial application

High resolution near-field acoustic holography

High resolution Near-field Acoustic Holography (NAH) is not a widely discussed topic in open literature. For instance articles on automotive or naval applications do not discuss resolutions beyond one centimetre. Electronic appliances on the other hand demand a high spatial resolution, since the components of printed circuit boards become smaller and smaller. These applications require a spatial resolution in the order of millimetres. As an example, components such as Surface Mounted Devices (SMDs) carry high frequent switching voltages, which may have a noise generating effect. Even sound power levels as low as 30 dB(A) can be annoying to the customer, requiring a diagnostic tool such as NAH to localise the sound source(s) of relatively low acoustic levels at a high spatial resolution. To obtain high-resolution acoustic images, the acoustic signal processing and measurement set-up have to be tuned carefully. The paper focuses upon the determination of optimal measurement and reconstruction parameters to enable highly accurate source reconstructions, which in this case are limited to stationary, coherent sources only. To illustrate the high-resolution capabilities of Planar Near-field Acoustic Holography (PNAH) a test case is used. The test case is a plate containing three baffled sources, each two millimetre in diameter, half a millimetre apart. The measurements show that the sources are identified with sub-millimetre resolution

Parental resilience and the quality of life of children with developmental disabilities in Indonesia

Cultures could influence parents in the way they perceive adverse situations and in how external factors influence resilience, which in turn, may differentially affect the quality of life of a child. The present study aimed to examine the associations between different dimensions of parental resilience and the quality of life of children in Indonesia. The samples consisted of 497 families. This study used the Parenting Resilience Elements and the Quality of Life Questionnaire. Parental resilience consists of three dimensions, knowledge of child’s characteristics, positive perception of parenting, and perceived social support. Knowledge of child’s characteristics, one of the parental resilience dimensions, significantly related to the Quality of Life dimensions of communication and influence, and development. Positive perceptions of parenting related to socio-emotional well-being. Perceived social support related to material well-being, activity, and socio-emotional well-being. We found that the parental resilience related to Quality of Life of children with developmental disabilities. Some findings could be unique for a collectivist culture and highlight the complexities of the association between different factors of parent resilience and Quality of Life of children with developmental disabilities in Indonesia

Brief report: Follow-up outcomes of Multisystemic Therapy for adolescents with intellectual disabilities and the influence of parental intellectual disability

Research on follow‐up outcomes of systemic interventions for family members with an intellectual disability is scarce. In this study, short‐term and long‐term follow‐up outcomes of multisystemic therapy for adolescents with antisocial or delinquent behaviour and an intellectual disability (MST‐ID) are reported. In addition, the role of parental intellectual disability was examined. Outcomes of 55 families who had received MST‐ID were assessed at the end of treatment and at 6‐month, 12‐month and 18‐month follow‐up. Parental intellectual disability was used as a predictor of treatment outcomes. Missing data were handled using multiple imputation. Rule‐breaking behaviour of adolescents declined during treatment and stabilized until 18 months post‐treatment. The presence or absence of parental intellectual disability did not predict treatment outcomes. This study was the first to report long‐term outcomes of MST‐ID. The intervention achieved similar results in families with and without parents with an intellectual disability

How hummingbirds hum: acoustic holography of hummingbirds during maneuvering flight

Hummingbirds make a characteristic humming sound when they flaptheir wings. The physics and the biological significance of hummingbird aeroacoustics is still poorly understood. We used acoustic holography and high-speed cameras to determine the acoustic field of six hummingbirds while they either hovered stationary in front of a flower or maneuvered to track flower motion. We used a robotic flower that oscillated either laterally or longitudinally with a linear combination of 20 different frequencies between 0.2 and 20 Hz, a range that encompasses natural flower vibration frequencies in wind. We used high-speed marker tracking to dissect the transfer function between the moving flower, the head, and body of the bird. We also positioned four acoustic arrays equipped with 2176 microphones total above, below, and in front of the hummingbird. Acoustic data from the microphones were back-propagated to planes adjacent to the hummingbird to create the first real-time holograms of the pressure field a hummingbird generates in vivo. Integration of all this data offers insight into how hummingbirds modulate the acoustic field during hovering and maneuvering flight