Clock and Trigger Synchronization between Several Chassis of Digital Data Acquisition Modules

In applications with segmented high purity Ge detectors or other detector arrays with tens or hundreds of channels, where the high development cost and limited flexibility of application specific integrated circuits outweigh their benefits of low power and small size, the readout electronics typically consist of multi-channel data acquisition modules in a common chassis for power, clock and trigger distribution, and data readout. As arrays become larger and reach several hundred channels, the readout electronics have to be divided over several chassis, but still must maintain precise synchronization of clocks and trigger signals across all channels. This division becomes necessary not only because of limits given by the instrumentation standards on module size and chassis slot numbers, but also because data readout times increase when more modules share the same data bus and because power requirements approach the limits of readily available power supplies. In this paper, we present a method for distributing clocks and triggers between 4 PXI chassis containing DGF Pixie-16 modules with up to 226 acquisition channels per chassis in a data acquisition system intended to instrument the over 600 channels of the SeGA detector array at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. Our solution is designed to achieve synchronous acquisition of detector waveforms from all channels with a jitter of less then 1 ns, and can be extended to a larger number of chassis if desired.Comment: CAARI 200

Moral wrongs, disadvantages, and disability: a critique of critical disability studies

Critical disability studies (CDS) has emerged as an approach to the study of disability over the last decade or so and has sought to present a challenge to the predominantly materialist line found in the more conventional disability studies approaches. In much the same way that the original development of the social model resulted in a necessary correction to the overly individualized accounts of disability that prevailed in much of the interpretive accounts which then dominated medical sociology, so too has CDS challenged the materialist line of disability studies. In this paper we review the ideas behind this development and analyse and critique some of its key ideas. The paper starts with a brief overview of the main theorists and approaches contained within CDS and then moves on to normative issues; namely, to the ethical and political applicability of CDS

Study on the gender dimension of trafficking in human beings

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the identification and understanding of what it means to be ‘taking into account the gender perspective, to strengthen the prevention of this crime and protection of the victims there-of’, as required in Article 1 of European Union (EU) Directive 2011/36/EU on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Human Beings and Protecting its Victims in the context of the EU Strategy (COM(2012) 286 final) Towards the Eradication of Trafficking in Human Beings. The study contributes to Priority E Action 2 of the Strategy, which states that ‘the Commission will develop knowledge on the gender dimensions of human trafficking, including the gender consequences of the various forms of trafficking and potential differences in the vulnerability of men and women to victimisation and its impact on them.’ Its specific objectives and tasks are to address: the ‘gender dimension of vulnerability, recruitment, and victimisation’; ‘gender issues related to traffickers and to those creating demand’; and ‘an examination of law and policy responses on trafficking in human beings from a gender perspective’. The study addresses the five priorities of the EU Strategy: identifying, protecting, and assisting victims of traf-ficking; stepping up the prevention of trafficking in human beings; better law enforcement; enhanced coordination and cooperation among key actors and policy coherence; and increased knowledge of an effective response to emerging concerns. This study, according to its terms of reference, aims to look specifically at the gender dimension of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. This follows evidence from statistical data from Eurostat, as well as da-ta from The European Police Office (Europol) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), accord-ing to which the most reported form of exploitation of victims is that of sexual exploitation and its strong gen-der dimension (96 % women and girls). It further addresses recommendations addressed in the Resolution of the European Parliament of 26 February 2014 on sexual exploitation and prostitution and its impact on gender equality (2013/2103(INI)) urging the European Commission to evaluate the impact that the European legal frame-work designed to eliminate trafficking for sexual exploitation has had to date and to undertake further research on patterns of prostitution, on human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and on the increased lev-el of sex tourism in the EU, with particular reference to minors, and to promote the exchange of best practices among the Member States. The study identifies and draws on EU law and policy competence in gender equality in its identification of the gen-der dimensions of trafficking. The gender dimensions are clustered into five issues: gender specificity and equal treatment; gender expertise, gender balance in decision-making and gender mainstreaming; the relationship be-tween prostitution and trafficking; gendered policy fields and strategic priorities; gendered systems and the the-ory of prevention

Imagining new feminist futures:How feminist social movements contest the neoliberalization of feminism in an increasingly corporate‐dominated world

Increasingly it is argued that feminism has been co‐opted by neoliberal agendas: becoming more individualistic and losing touch with its wider social change objectives. The neoliberalization of feminism is driven in part by increased corporate power, including the growing role of corporations in governance arenas, and corporate social responsibility agendas. However, we turn to social movement theory to elucidate strategies that social movements, including feminist social movements, are adopting in such spaces. In so doing, we find that feminist activists are engaging with new political opportunities, mobilizing structures and strategic framing processes that emerge in the context of increasingly neoliberal and privatized governance systems. We suggest that despite the significant challenges to their agendas, far from being co‐opted by neoliberalism, feminist social movements remain robust, existing alongside and developing new strategies to contest the neoliberalization of feminism in a variety of innovative ways

Data collection on trafficking in human beings in the EU: Final report

Trafficking in human beings is the buying and selling of women, girls, men, and boys. It has hugely deleterious consequences for individuals, society, and the economy. This is the fourth report published by the European Commission that presents a compilation of statistics at the EU Member State level on trafficking in human beings. This data collection exercise approached all 28-Member States and covers the years 2015 and 2016and updates the 2014 data collection as relevant

Gender equality, austerity, vulnerabilities and resistance in the Spanish neo-liberal life cycle

We examine how austerity measures have affected gender equality in the context of women workers in Spain. We adopt a feminist perspective to explore the multiple nature of the impact of the recession, emerging policy scenarios and forms of gender action that have developed. One of the unforeseen outcomes of the economic crisis in Spain is the opening up of new forms of collective action that have emerged in two political movements: ‘Podemos’ and ‘Barcelona en Comú’ and two examples of feminist activism: ‘La Vaga de Totes’ and ‘Igualdad de género frente a la crisis económica’—initiatives which point to alternative ways of engaging with work and working lives, in the hope of redressing the inequalities that have increased over recent years. New forms of organization have been successful in mobilizing people by developing the struggle against austerity from a progressive perspective and radical democratic forms of action have come to the fore

Developing the concept of society: Institutional domains, regimes of inequalities and complex systems in a global era

This article develops the concept of society to meet the challenge of cross-border and global processes. Global processes have made visible the inadequacy of interpreting the concept of society as if it were a nation-state, since there is a lack of congruence of institutional domains (economy, polity, civil society, violence) and regimes of inequality (class, gender, ethnicity). The article engages with two strands of intellectual heritage in sociological analysis of society as a macro concept: the differentiation of institutions and the relations of inequality. The concepts of society and societalisation are developed by hybridising these two approaches rather than selecting only one or the other. To achieve this, the concept of system is developed by drawing on complexity science. This enables the simultaneous analysis of differentiated institutional domains (economy, polity, violence, civil society) and multiple regimes of inequality without reductionism. In turn, this facilitates the fluent theorisation of variations in the temporal and spatial reach of social systems

Gender, foundation degrees and the knowledge economy

This article questions the concept of ‘education for employment’, which constructs a discourse of individual and societal benefit in a knowledge‐driven economy. Recent policy emphasis in the European Union promotes the expansion of higher education and short‐cycle vocational awards such as the intermediate two‐year Foundation Degree recently introduced into England and Wales. Studies of vocational education and training (VET) and the knowledge economy have focused largely on the governance of education and on the development and drift of policy. Many VET programmes have also been considered for their classed, raced and gendered take‐up and subsequent effect on employment. This article builds on both fields of study to engage with the finer cross‐analyses of gender, social class, poverty, race and citizenship. In its analysis of policy texts the article argues that in spite of a discourse of inclusivity, an expanded higher education system has generated new inequalities, deepening social stratification. Drawing on early analyses of national quantitative data sets, it identifies emerging gendered, classed and raced patterns and considers these in relation to occupationally and hierarchically stratified labour markets, both within and without the knowledge economy

Situating commercialization of assisted reproduction in its socio-political context: a critical interpretive synthesis.

BACKGROUND: In many countries, ART service provision is a commercial enterprise. This has benefits, for example, creating efficiencies and economies of scale, but there are also concerns that financial imperatives can negatively impact patient care. The commercialization of ART is often conceptualized as being driven solely by the financial interests of companies and clinicians, but there are in fact many complex and intersecting socio-political demands for ART that have led to, sustain and shape the industry. OBJECTIVE AND RATIONALE: To use the academic and policy discourse on the commercialization of ART to build a theoretical model of factors that influence demand for ART services in high-income countries in order to inform potential policy responses. SEARCH METHODS: We searched electronic databases for journal articles (including Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed) and websites for grey literature, carried out reference chaining and searched key journals (including Human Reproduction, Fertility and Sterility). The terms used to guide these searches were 'assisted reproductive technology' OR 'in vitro fertilization' AND 'commerce' OR 'commercialisation' OR 'industry' OR 'market'. The search was limited to the English language and included articles published between 2010 and 2020. We used an established method of critical interpretive synthesis (CIS) to build a theoretical model of factors that influence demand for ART services in high-income countries. We developed initial themes from a broad review of the literature followed by iterative theoretical sampling of academic and grey literatures to further refine these themes. OUTCOMES: According to contemporary academic and broader socio-political discourse, the demand for ART has arisen, expanded and evolved in response to a number of intersecting forces. Economic imperatives to create sustainable national workforces, changing gender roles and concerns about the preservation of genetic, national/ethnic and role-related identities have all created demand for ART in both public and private sectors. The prominence given to reproductive autonomy and patient-centred care has created opportunities to (re)define what constitutes appropriate care and, therefore, what services should be offered. All of this is happening in the context of technological developments that provide an increasing range of reproductive choices and entrench the framing of infertility as a disease requiring medical intervention. These socio-political drivers of demand for ART can be broadly organized into four theoretical categories, namely security, identity, individualization and technocratization. LIMITATIONS REASONS FOR CAUTION: The primary limitation is that the interpretive process is ultimately subjective, and so alternative interpretations of the data are possible. WIDER IMPLICATIONS: Development of policy related to commercial activity in ART needs to account for the broad range of factors influencing demand for ART, to which commercial ART clinics are responding and within which they are embedded. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTERESTS: This work was supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council Ideas Grant (APP1181401). All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest in relation to this work.Narcyz Ghinea, Miriam Wiersma, Ainsley J. Newson, Catherine Walby, Robert J. Norman, and Wendy Lipwort

Entrepreneurial sons, patriarchy and the Colonels' experiment in Thessaly, rural Greece

Existing studies within the field of institutional entrepreneurship explore how entrepreneurs influence change in economic institutions. This paper turns the attention of scholarly inquiry on the antecedents of deinstitutionalization and more specifically, the influence of entrepreneurship in shaping social institutions such as patriarchy. The paper draws from the findings of ethnographic work in two Greek lowland village communities during the military Dictatorship (1967–1974). Paradoxically this era associated with the spread of mechanization, cheap credit, revaluation of labour and clear means-ends relations, signalled entrepreneurial sons’ individuated dissent and activism who were now able to question the Patriarch’s authority, recognize opportunities and act as unintentional agents of deinstitutionalization. A ‘different’ model of institutional change is presented here, where politics intersects with entrepreneurs, in changing social institutions. This model discusses the external drivers of institutional atrophy and how handling dissensus (and its varieties over historical time) is instrumental in enabling institutional entrepreneurship