What Happens if Air Pressure Changes?

Air pressure is the force exerted on you by the weightof tiny particles of air (air molecules). Although airmolecules are invisible, they still have weight and take upspace. Since there's a lot of "empty" space between airmolecules, air can be compressed to fit in a smallervolume.     

What difference does history of science make, anyway?

This essay opens up the question of what difference the history of science makes. What is the value of the history of science, beyond its role as an academic pursuit that we historians of science know and love? It introduces the set of essays that follow as explorations that grew out of a seminar on this topic and that arise from the authors' particular concerns both that historians of science do not work hard enough to make their work of value and that others do not know of the potential. That seminar, at the Marine Biological Laboratory, was funded for nineteen years by the Dibner Institute and last year by Brent Dibner. It will continue and carry such discussions forward in new ways as the Arizona State University-Marine Biological Laboratory History of Biology Seminar Series. This set of focused essays seeks to invite lively discussion and response.     

What is a genetic test, and why does it matter?

How the term ‘genetic test’ is defined, matters for social policy. The past few years have witnessed many efforts to enact legal barriers specifically against genetic discrimination. To the extent that information derived from genetic tests receives special protection, both enthusiasts for genetic medicine and those who stress its perils have an incentive to adopt a broad interpretation of genetic testing. However, the consequences have not always been those anticpated.     

Does a contextualized theory of planned behavior explain why teenagers stay in virtual worlds?

Academics and business practitioners are intrigued by the factors that foster continued user engagement in virtual worlds (VWs). It is unclear how, and to what extent, existing theories can explain their continued use. As young people constitute the majority of VW users, understanding the reasons for their continued use intentions is important. Taking the distinctive features of VW services into account, such as the visibility of users’ actions to other users, we contextualize the Theory of Planned Behavior and investigate the role of teenagers’ attitudes, social influences and perceived behavioral control as the determinants of their continued intention to use VW. We then apply a set of constructs from prior Information Systems (IS) literature to decompose these constructs. By analyzing primary data collected from 923 users of Habbo Hotel, a leading virtual world for teenagers, this study confirms the role of users’ intrinsic motivation, interpersonal influence and self-efficacy as key constituents of sustained user engagement in VWs. In addition, we demonstrate that decomposing these three established constructs can capture many of the key contextual characteristics of VWs. The study contributes to the literature by showing that IS theories and constructs are appropriate for the VW setting and teenage users.     

How does government microblog affect tourism market value? The perspective of signaling theory

The emotion of social media users has been found to impact market value, but the mechanism of emotion transmission needs to be further explored. Based on the signaling theory, this study formulates the hypothesis that government microblog affects tourism market value by affecting consumers' emotion. A total of 10020 pieces of observation data on four famous Chinese scenic spots are analyzed with text analysis technique, and the correlations between government microblog emotion, comment emotion, and market value are confirmed. Besides, the moderating roles played by the COVID-19 epidemic and tourism attention are verified, and the crowding-out effect of tourism attention on comment emotion is validated. This study provides new understandings of signal transmission as well as practical suggestions for promoting the development of tourism through government social media in the context of COVID-19.     

The World War II crisis innovation model: What was it,and where does it apply?

World War II was one of the most acute emergencies in U.S. history, and the first where mobilizing science and technology was a major part of the government response. The U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) led a far-ranging research effort to develop technologies and medical treatments that not only helped win the war, but also transformed civilian life. Scholars and policymakers have appealed to the wartime approach as a template for other problems, typically focusing on the Manhattan Project, but overlooking the broader OSRD effort of which atomic fission and dozens of other programs were a part. In this paper we bring OSRD into focus, describe how it worked, and explore what insights its experience offers today. We argue that several aspects of OSRD continue to be relevant, especially in crises, while also cautioning on the limits to generalizing from World War II to other settings.     

What to post? Understanding engagement cultivation in microblogging with big data-driven theory building

This paper examines how alternative food networks (AFNs) cultivate engagement on a social media platform. Using the method proposed in Kar and Dwivedi (2020) and Berente et al. (2019), we contribute to theory through combining exploratory text analysis with model testing. Using the theoretical lens of relationship cultivation and social media engagement, we collected 55,358 original Weibo posts by 90 farms and other AFN participants in China and used Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) modeling for topic analysis. We then used the literature to map the topics with constructs and developed a theoretical model. To validate the theoretical model, a panel dataset was constructed on Weibo account and year level, with Chinese city-level yearly economic data included as control variables. A fixed effects panel data regression analysis was performed. The empirical results revealed that posts centered on openness/disclosure, sharing of tasks, and knowledge sharing result in positive levels of social media engagement. Posting about irrelevant information and advertising that uses repetitive wording in multiple posts had negative effects on engagement. Our findings suggest that cultivating engagement requires different relationship strategies, and social media platforms should be leveraged according to the context and the purpose of the social cause. Our research is also among the early studies that use both big data analysis of large quantities of textual data and model validation for theoretical insights.     

A theoretical look at firm performance in high-tech organizations: what does existing theory tell us?

This paper looks at the changing nature of work for workers in knowledge-intensive high-tech firms. Four theories (institutional theory [IT], resource-based theory, game theory, and agency theory) are examined and propositions formulated as to how each theory helps explain the existence of intellectual cooperation and knowledge sharing within high-tech firms. The paper examines the usefulness of existing theory and suggests new research propositions, constructs, and methods to focus on building an empirical approach towards organizational research in the high-tech arena.     

The important thing is not to win,it is to take part: What if scientists benefit from participating in research grant competitions?

“The important thing is not to win, it is to take part,” this famous saying by Pierre de Coubertin asserts that the value athletes draw from Olympic games lies in their participation in the event and not in the gold they collect during it. We find similar evidence for scientists involved in grant competitions. Relying on unique data from a Swiss funding program, we find that scientists taking part in a research grant competition boost their number of publications and average impact factor while extending their knowledge base and their collaboration network regardless of the result of the competition. Receiving the funds increases the probability of co-authoring with co-applicants but has no additional impact on the individual productivity.     

Algebraic methods in statistical mechanics and quantum field theory : by G. G. Emch. Diagrams, 6 x 9 in. New York,John Wiley & Sons, 1972. Price, $19.95 (approx. £7·50).

The Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope which is presently under construction in central New Mexico is considered the highest priority new astronomical facility in the U.S.A. during the next decade. The instrument will consist of 27 separate parabolic antennas each of which will be movable along the arms of a Y-configuration. The technique of earth-rotation aperture synthesis will allow an aperture of 25 miles dia. to be synthesized. When the VLA is completed in 1981 it will be better than any other radio telescope, by one or two orders of magnitude, in terms of resolution, sensitivity and speed.