Who do they think they're talking to? framings of the audience by social media users

This paper examines the understandings and meanings of personal information sharing online using a predominantly symbolic interactionist analytic perspective and focusing on writers’ conceptions of their relationships with their audiences. It draws on an analysis of in-depth interviews with 23 personal bloggers. They were found to have limited interest in gathering information about their audiences, appearing to assume that readers are sympathetic. A comprehensive and grounded typology of imagined relationships with audiences was devised. Although the blogs of those interviewed were all public, some appear to frame their blogging practice as primarily self-directed, with their potential audiences playing a marginal role. These factors provide one explanation for some forms of potentially risky self-exposure that have been observed among social media user

Transition trauma

If you have been at the same university for a number of years you may find it hard to remember how it felt when you started teaching there. If you were lucky, after being told where the expenses forms are, how many library books you could sign out and the like, a colleague who had taught the courses you were going to teach in the coming year would take you aside, sit you down with the existing teaching materials, explain how the lectures that have been prepared before relate to the syllabus and how the coming year was likely to unfold. Unfortunately, this kind of easing-in process does not always occur. If there is a core of experienced staff who have taught across a variety of units in a programme and have the leisure and motivation to pass their knowledge onwards to new staff, continuity can be assured informally but this can go awry where a single member of staff is responsible for teaching a particular set of units for a number of years and then leaves or retires, or if a number of staff leave from a small team. The purpose of this piece is to outline (based in part on my own experience) some scenarios where as a result newly-arrived lecturers' experiences can be more difficult than they need to be, the student experience can be compromised by confusing inconsistencies in how they are taught, and a great deal of accumulated knowledge from lecturers who were long-serving in a department can fall between the cracks and be lost. Having identified some of these problem areas, I have some suggestions for how they can be addressed

A PERSPECTIVE ON THE FINANCIAL SITUATION IN AGRICULTURE

My purpose in this presentation is to give an overview or perspective on the financial situation in U.S. agriculture. Since descriptions of the situation are generally available (Easterbrook, J. Lee, Melichar-1985, ERS-USDA, van Blokland), I'll only briefly review the problem and its roots. The major emphasis of my presentation is devoted to two areas: difficulties in addressing current financial problems of the sector, and issues which deserve consideration for the future.Agricultural Finance,

INFLATION, CASH FLOWS, AND GROWTH: SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FARM FIRM

Agribusiness,

First-principle density-functional calculation of the Raman spectra of BEDT-TTF

We present a first-principles density-functional calculation for the Raman spectra of a neutral BEDT-TTF molecule. Our results are in excellent agreement with experimental results. We show that a planar structure is not a stable state of a neutral BEDT-TTF molecule. We consider three possible conformations and discuss their relation to disorder in these systems.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, submitted to the proceedings of ISCOM 200

Meeting the Need: A Summary and Evaluation of Ny Farmnet

A.E. Res. 91-3New York FarmNet, a state supported, toll-free, phone help-line for farmers began in March 1986 in response to the farm financial crisis. Its purpose included providing information/refelTal, individualized business/financial analysis and a general safety net for farm families, From March 1986 through March 1991 FmmNet received 3853 calls and assigned 534 consultants to work one-to-onc with fm'm families experiencing severe problems. A summm'y of caller characteristics revealed that slightly over half of callers were males, and nearly all were owners or operators rather than farm workers. Each year caller fmm size averaged between 230 and 320 acres, but the range was from one acre to over 4000 acres. Years of fm'ming experience each year averaged 16 to 23 years, but the range was from I yem' or less to a lifetime. Average debt of callers each yem' averaged between $100,000 and$200,000, and several callers reported debt of over $1,000,000. The main reasons for calling FarmNet were financial or financial/legal problems, but many other reasons were given including need for job information and emotional stress, A 1990-91 phone survey sampled people who had called FarmNet in 1986-87. The survey asked about their recollections of help received from FarmNet. They were generally positive on the helpfulness of the phone operators and remembered considering a number of options as a result of a FarmNet consultant visit. About one third of those callers is no longer fm'ming, and one fifth is in a different type of farming than in 1986-87. Based on five years of the program, several conclusions were offered. 1) A segment of the fm'm population is likely to be at risk each yem'; hence, there is a continuing need for addressing such problems; 2) FarmNet served an audience that would not have been reached by previously existing programs; 3) FarmNet's accomplishments went beyond just focusing on problems of callers to build expertise within Cornell Cooperative Extension staff and networking with other agencies and help sources; 4) The program achieved a positive image under the difficult circumstances of sometimes being the messenger of bad news; and 5) individualized, demand-driven programs such as FarmNet require difficult policy choices in these times of tight budgets

Tilted guides with friction in web conveyance systems

One challenge in designing web conveyance systems is controlling the displacement and vibration of the webs by guides without introducing instabilities or higher frequency disturbances from flange impacts. A solution to this problem is to use an actively or passively tilted guide or roller to steer the web. In this paper, a model of tilted guides with friction is developed, and it is shown that tilted guides produce a change in the web’s displacement, slope, bending moment, and shear force. When the web is conceptually unwrapped from its path, the normal force between the web and a tilted guide has a component that acts in the direction of the web’s lateral displacement, resulting in an equivalent force and bending moment acting on the web. The model is validated by measurements, and is compared to a previously existing model of guide tilt. In the configurations studied, the displacement of the web near the guide is linearly dependent on the tilt angle and tension and it increases exponentially with the web’s span length. When the guide’s tilt is oriented towards the center of the web’s wrap around the guide, the equivalent bending moment is zero in the absence of friction, and there is good agreement between the model developed in this paper and the previously existing model. However, when the center of the web’s wrap is oriented 90° away from the guide’s tilt orientation, the equivalent force is zero in the absence of friction, and measurements demonstrate the necessity of the equivalent bending moment

The UT 19-channel DC SQUID based neuromagnetometer

A l9-channel DC SQUID based neuromagnetometer is under construction at the University of Twente (UT). Except for the cryostat all elements of the system are developed at the UT. It comprises 19 wire-wound first-order gradiometers in a hexagonal configuration. The gradiometers are connected to planar DC SQUIDS fabricated with a Nb/Al, AlOx/Nb technology. For this connection we developed a method to bond a Nb wire to a Nb thin-film. The SQUIDs are placed in compartmentalised Nb modules. Further, external feedback is incorporated in order to eliminate cross talk between the gradiometers. The electronics basically consist of a phase-locked loop operating with a modulation frequency of 100 kHz. Between SQUID and preamplifier a small transformer is used to limit the noise contribution of the preamplifier. In the paper the overall system is described, and special attention is paid to the SQUID module (bonding, compartments, external-feedback setup, output transformer)

Human fur gene encodes a yeast KEX2-like endoprotease that cleaves pro-beta-NGF in vivo.

Extracts from BSC-40 cells infected with vaccinia recombinants expressing either the yeast KEX2 prohormone endoprotease or a human structural homologue (fur gene product) contained an elevated level of a membrane-associated endoproteolytic activity that could cleave at pairs of basic amino acids (-LysArg- and -ArgArg-). The fur-directed activity (furin) shared many properties with Kex2p including activity at pH 7.3 and a requirement for calcium. By using antifurin antibodies, immunoblot analysis detected two furin translation products (90 and 96 kD), while immunofluorescence indicated localization to the Golgi apparatus. Coexpression of either Kex2p or furin with the mouse beta-nerve growth factor precursor (pro-beta-NGF) resulted in greatly enhanced conversion of the precursor to mature nerve growth factor. Thus, the sequence homology shared by furin and the yeast KEX2 prohormone processing enzyme is reflected by significant functional homology both in vitro and in vivo