Publication Type: Poster
Abstract: The development of communication satellites during the 1960s was a major technological innovation that has played an important role establishing not only new global communication industries but also new business relationships connected to the process of economic globalization. Although key individual inventors made important contributions to this process, it is important to understand the larger context of entrepreneurial activity that made possible innovative arrangements on a global scale. This poster exhibit examines the establishment, during the 1960s, of the first global satellite communication system, Intelsat (the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization). Policy entrepreneurs in the United States decided to establish a satellite communication system open to all countries in the world. Partly as a response to cold war competition with the Soviet Union, the Kennedy administration overturned the previous administration’s policy of treating satellite communications as simply an extension of traditionally regulated telecommunications. Instead of allowing private communication companies, most notably the dominant communications carrier, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), to set up separate systems that would likely primarily serve profitable communication routes to Europe or other major developed regions, the US government decided to take the lead in establishing a single world system. Interconnected organizational and technical innovations reflected a new view of international communications. The old large-scale system was based on the commercial dominance of AT&T, with the support of government regulators; the new system reflected a different understanding of commercial technology serving the public good, one in which global needs ranked with domestic economic and political considerations. The individuals involved in the creation of a global system recognized that they could not compartmentalize such subjects as international treaties covering frequency allocation, the development of system standards, foreign aid to developing countries, domestic economic policy, and military planning. Drawing on extensive archival research, especially a detailed examination of US State Department records at the National Archives, the poster presentation specifically explores the strategies used by the United States to convince developing countries to participate in the first global communication satellite system.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Minority ethnic viewers originating from the Arab world are more densely equipped with satellite receivers than the majority population in the United States. Very little research has so far been conducted on the impact of satellite channels. This research study seeks to fill in the knowledge and information gaps in the literature of mass media and ethnic communication and in the literature of Arabs in the United States. This paper is based on a qualitative survey among 50 viewers of Arabic satellite channels in the Portland metropolitan area all from Arab descent. Respondents were asked what they had expected of satellite programs, how their viewing habits had changed with the installation of satellite receivers and how this had affected personal and family attitudes. The study reveals major differences between first generation and second generation Arab viewers as well as significant variations related to gender.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Since the 1990s, India?s state directed development model has been replaced by privatized, liberalized and deregulated economic policies. This paper locates the unprecedented rise of private satellite television in India at a historical conjuncture of political and economic change, to investigate the emerging significance of the new television industry as a social force and its impact on cultural and national identity. By drawing correspondences between the entertainment television experience ? in particular, cultural adaptations of global formats for ?reality shows? ? and the political economic transformations taking place in society, I argue that questions of power spill over from regulatory policies and debates to primetime television menu. Television programming, as a technological-social space, mediates the ideational and material changes. In examining how cultural expressions refer to political and economic organization of power I argue that culture is where political contestations are and will increasingly take place.

Publication Type: Oral Presentation
Abstract: ABSTRACT. The information's knowledge that expresses the water requirement of the plants is a fundamental issue for water management. The main objective of this research was to study the evapotranspiration using the SEBAL model (Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land), Bastiaanssen (1995), to improve water management in semiarid region. This work was carried out in an irrigated area of semiarid region of Northeastern Brazil. A pair of satellite images from Landsat-5 TM was used to calculate the reflectivity for each band, the albedo at the top of the atmosphere, the surface albedo, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), the Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) and Leaf Area Index (LAI). Under this investigation, it was found that these calculations were helpful to solving the surface radiation balance equation for the net surface radiation flux (Rn). The second step of SEBAL was to compute the terms: soil heat flux (G) and sensible heat flux (H) of the surface energy budget equation. The latent heat flux (LE) was computed as a residual of net radiant energy after soil heat flux and sensible heat flux are subtracted. Reference evapotranspiration (ETo) was estimated by the Penman-Monteith method, using data from a micrometeorological station mounted in area. The evapotranspiration calculated by SEBAL was determined pixel by pixel and it varied from 3.1 mm day-1 to 4.2 mm day-1. The results showed that SEBAL model can be used to optimize the water management in semiarid environments.



Author: José Ferreira da Costa Filho
Adress: Center for Agricultural Science -Federal University of Paraíba
Areia-PB., Brazil

Publication Type: Poster
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The satellite cell (SC) is a tissue-specific adult stem cell responsible for postnatal skeletal muscle growth and regeneration. The state of commitment of satellite cells to myogenesis remains controversial and the precursor populations from which they derive have only been partially characterized. We addressed the developmental origin and potential of mouse satellite cells using Cre/loxP lineage analyses. Animals with MyoDiCre knockin and cre-dependent reporter allele demonstrate that satellite cells have expressed MyoD prenatally and functional analysis of adult satellite cells indicates that they are committed to myogenesis.