Resolving IT-Culture Conflict in Enterprise 2.0 Implementations

Social media technologies have grown from the personal recreation tools of college students to systems that can benefitbusiness. In addition to using social networking to market, sell, and manage external stakeholder relationships, someorganizations are leveraging social networking’s communication and collaboration tools to improve internal operations.However, implementing social networking systems (hereinafter SNSs) within an organization can prove challenging since thevalues associated with SNSs (i.e., having fun and getting to know people personally) may conflict with an organization’sculture (i.e., work, control, and authority). Therefore, the purpose of this case study is to understand how to resolve IT–culture conflict in workplace implementations of internal SNSs, often referred to as Enterprise 2.0

Diagnostic validity of early-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder in the Danish Psychiatric Central Register:findings from a cohort sample

Employing national registers for research purposes depends on a high diagnostic validity. The aim of the present study was to examine the diagnostic validity of recorded diagnoses of early-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in the Danish Psychiatric Central Register (DPCR)

Global impacts of aerosols from particular source regions and sectors

We study the impacts of present-day aerosols emitted from particular regions and from particular sectors, as predicted by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies GCM, We track the distribution and direct radiative forcing of aerosols, including sulfate and black and organic carbon, emitted from major source regions (North America, Europe, south Asia, Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa). We also partition the emissions by sector, including industrial, power, residential, transport, biomass burning, and natural. Southeast Asia produces 15% and 10% of the world's black carbon and sulfate and exports over 2/3 of this burden over the Northern Hemisphere. About 1/2 of the SO<inf>2</inf> emitted by Southeast Asia and Europe is not converted to sulfate because of oxidant limitation. Although Africa has the largest biomass burning emissions, South America generates a larger (about 20% of the global carbonaceous) aerosol burden; about 1/2 of this burden is exported and dominates the carbonaceous aerosol load in the Southern Hemisphere. Calculated direct anthropogenic radiative forcings are -0.29, -0.06, and 0.24 W m-2 for sulfate, organic, and black carbon, respectively. The largest BC radiative forcings are from residential (0.09 W m-2) and transport (0.06 W m-2) sectors, making these potential targets to counter global warming. However, scattering components within these sectors reduce these to 0.04 and 0.03 W m-2, respectively. Most anthropogenic sulfate comes from power and industry sectors, and these sectors are responsible for the large negative aerosol forcings over the central Northern Hemisphere. Copyright 2007 by the American Geophysical Union

General circulation model assessment of direct radiative forcing by the sulfate-nitrate-ammonium-water inorganic aerosol system

An on-line simulation of aerosol sulfate, nitrate, ammonium, and water in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies general circulation model (GCM II-prime) has been used to estimate direct aerosol radiative forcing for the years 1800, 2000, and 2100. This is the first direct forcing estimate based on the equilibrium water content of a changing SO42−-NO3−-NH4+ mixture and the first estimate of nitrate forcing based on a global model of nitrate aerosol. Present-day global and annual average anthropogenic direct forcing is estimated to be −0.95 and −0.19 W/m2 for sulfate and nitrate, respectively. Simulations with a future emissions scenario indicate that nitrate forcing could increase to −1.28 W/m2 by 2100, while sulfate forcing declines to −0.85 W/m2. This result shows that future estimates of aerosol forcing based solely on predicted sulfate concentrations may be misleading and that the potential for significant concentrations of ammonium nitrate needs to be considered in estimates of future climate change. Calculated direct aerosol forcing is highly sensitive to the model treatment of water uptake. By calculating the equilibrium water content of a SO42−-NH4+ aerosol mixture and the optical properties of the wet aerosol, we estimate a forcing that is almost 35% greater than that derived from correcting a low relative humidity scattering coefficient with an empirical f(RH) factor. The discrepancy stems from the failure of the empirical parameterization to adequately account for water uptake above about 90% relative humidity. These results suggest that water uptake above 90% RH may make a substantial contribution to average direct forcing, although subgrid-scale variability makes it difficult to represent humid areas in a GCM.Engineering and Applied Science

Global atmospheric black carbon inferred from AERONET,

AERONET, a network of well calibrated sunphotometers, provides data on aerosol optical depth and absorption optical depth at &gt;250 sites around the world. The spectral range of AERONET allows discrimination between constituents that absorb most strongly in the UV region, such as soil dust and organic carbon, and the more ubiquitously absorbing black carbon (BC). AERONET locations, primarily continental, are not representative of the global mean, but they can be used to calibrate global aerosol climatologies produced by tracer transport models. We find that the amount of BC in current climatologies must be increased by a factor of 2-4 to yield best agreement with AERONET, in the approximation in which BC is externally mixed with other aerosols. The inferred climate forcing by BC, regardless of whether it is internally or externally mixed, is Ϸ1 W͞m 2 , most of which is probably anthropogenic. This positive forcing (warming) by BC must substantially counterbalance cooling by anthropogenic reflective aerosols. Thus, especially if reflective aerosols such as sulfates are reduced, it is important to reduce BC to minimize global warming. It is difficult to determine the BC climate forcing by using emission estimates and aerosol transport models, because of imprecise knowledge of BC sources and uncertainties in simulation of aerosol removal mechanisms. We propose an alternative empirical approach for estimating the BC amount that uses photometer data in the long wave (red) portion of the spectrum. This approach is based on the fact that BC absorption exhibits a 1͞ spectral dependence over this entire wavelength range (5). This makes it possible to distinguish BC from other absorbing aerosols, specifically organic carbon (OC) and soil dust, which have appreciable absorption only at Ͻ 600 nm (6). We employ the optical depths for aerosol absorption ( a ) measured by AERONET photometers The aerosol compositions are treated as if they were externally mixed in the aerosol climatologies and in our radiative forcing calculations. This assumption does not affect our resulting estimate for the BC climate forcing, because both the forcing and the AERONET-measured a depend on the BC absorption, not the BC mass. However, it means that, because internally mixed BC absorbs more effectively (3, 11), the BC mass may be less than obtained in the externally mixed approximation. We first describe the AERONET data and the aerosol climatologies. We discuss assumed optical properties for soil dust and OC, because the absorption by these aerosols is not negligible in comparison with that of BC. We then estimate the amounts of BC and OC that provide the best match to aerosol absorption measured by AERONET. Finally we calculate the climate forcing associated with the inferred BC amount and discuss implications for strategies to minimize anthropogenic climate effects. AERONET Data AERONET is an internationally federated, globally distributed network of automatic sun and sky scanning radiometers that routinely observe and transmit observations for processing and posting to the AERONET web site (7). The instruments are returned annually to Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, for calibration against Mauna Loa Langley calibrated reference instruments for aerosol optical depth (Ϯ0.01) and a National Institute of Standards and Technology referenced integrating sphere for sky radiances (Ͼ5% absolute accuracy). Our analysis uses the quality assured data that were available in late November of 2002, when there were 322 AERONET sites, of which 263 had data available for at least 1 month. The processing method for the AERONET data (8, 12) involves fitting the multiangle multiwavelength observations with Mie scattering calculations, yielding best-fit values for aerosol (extinction) optical thickness () and aerosol absorption optical thickness ( a ). We employ the AERONET calculated monthly means of and a . These data are available for four narrow wavelength bands centered at 440, 670, 870 and 1,020 nm. We prepare the AERONET data for map display and comparison with aerosol model climatologies as follows. If there are two or more stations within a 1°ϫ 1°box for any given month, their data (for and a ) are combined with equal weights. Further, data for the 1°ϫ 1°boxes within each 4°ϫ 5°box are combined with equal weights. If there are at least 2 months with data in a given season for a given (4°ϫ 5°) grid box, we calculate the seasonal means of and a . The number of 4°ϫ 5°boxes with seasonal mean data are thus 102 (March-April-May), 117 (June-July-August), 108 (September-October-November), and 81 (December-January-February). Annual means are calculated for the 95 4°ϫ 5°boxes with at least three seasons of data. There are 3,312 4°ϫ 5°grid boxes on the globe, so the 95 boxes with annual data cover Ϸ3% of the world. The locations of the boxes with data are shown in later figures in this paper. Coverage is good in the United States, Europe, and most of South America and Southern Africa. We do not imply that a single station should be taken as providing a representative mean for a 4°ϫ 5°region. One can Abbreviations: BC, black carbon; OC, organic carbon

Pleasure and meaningful discourse: an overview of research issues

The concept of pleasure has emerged as a multi-faceted social and cultural phenomenon in studies of media audiences since the 1980s. In these studies different forms of pleasure have been identified as explaining audience activity and commitment. In the diverse studies pleasure has emerged as a multi-faceted social and cultural concept that needs to be contextualized carefully. Genre and genre variations, class, gender, (sub-)cultural identity and generation all seem to be instrumental in determining the kind and variety of pleasures experienced in the act of viewing. This body of research has undoubtedly contributed to a better understanding of the complexity of audience activities, but it is exactly the diversity of the concept that is puzzling and poses a challenge to its further use. If pleasure is maintained as a key concept in audience analysis that holds much explanatory power, it needs a stronger theoretical foundation. The article maps the ways in which the concept of pleasure has been used by cultural theorists, who have paved the way for its application in reception analysis, and it goes on to explore the ways in which the concept has been used in empirical studies. Central to our discussion is the division between the ‘public knowledge’ and the ‘popular culture’ projects in reception analysis which, we argue, have major implications for the way in which pleasure has come to be understood as divorced from politics, power and ideology. Finally, we suggest ways of bridging the gap between these two projects in an effort to link pleasure to the concepts of hegemony and ideology

Climate response to projected changes in short-lived species under an A1B scenario from 2000-2050 in the GISS climate model

We investigate the climate forcing from and response to projected changes in short-lived species and methane under the A1B scenario from 2000-2050 in the GISS climate model. We present a meta-analysis of new simulations of the full evolution of gas and aerosol species and other existing experiments with variations of the same model. The comparison highlights the importance of several physical processes in determining radiative forcing, especially the effect of climate change on stratosphere-troposphere exchange, heterogeneous sulfate-nitrate-dust chemistry, and changes in methane oxidation and natural emissions. However, the impact of these fairly uncertain physical effects is substantially less than the difference between alternative emission scenarios for all short-lived species. The net global mean annual average direct radiative forcing from the short-lived species is .02 W/m{sup 2} or less in our projections, as substantial positive ozone forcing is largely offset by negative aerosol direct forcing. Since aerosol reductions also lead to a reduced indirect effect, the global mean surface temperature warms by {approx}0.07 C by 2030 and {approx}0.13 C by 2050, adding 19% and 17%, respectively, to the warming induced by long-lived greenhouse gases. Regional direct forcings are large, up to 3.8 W/m{sup 2}. The ensemble-mean climate response shows little regional correlation with the spatial pattern of the forcing, however, suggesting that oceanic and atmospheric mixing generally overwhelms the effect of even large localized forcings. Exceptions are the polar regions, where ozone and aerosols may induce substantial seasonal climate changes