From “Face‐Saving” to “Cost Saving”: Encouraging and Promoting Business Mediation in Asia

The past decade has witnessed a surge in efforts to institutionalize and popularize business mediation as an alternative to litigation in Asia. For example, the anticipated establishment of the Singapore International Mediation Centre ( bit.ly/1rqO845 ) and the existence of the Hong Kong Mediation Council ( bit.ly/1vQWqGS ) and Financial Dispute Resolution Centre ( bit.ly/1skmJpO ), evince an increasing demand for mediation in Asia. It has been just over two years since the Hong Kong SAR adopted a Mediation Ordinance ( bit.ly/1pUVDRe ), which entered into effect on January 1, 2013, signaling that states are becoming aware of the need to regulate mediation.     

Programmable “Semismart” Sensor: Relevance to Monitoring Antipsychotics

Mental health disorders are complex and poorly understood but would benefit from real‐time chemical analysis capable of assessing a patient's current status, personalizing a therapeutic action, and monitoring compliance. Here, an electrochemical sensor is reported for detecting the antipsychotic drug clozapine which is one of the most effective but under‐utilized drugs for managing schizophrenia. This sensor employs a composite film of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) embedded within a matrix of the aminopolysaccharide chitosan. Chitosan allows programmable assembly of the composite film at an electrode address while the CNTs confer electrocatalytic activities that displace interfering serum peaks from the voltage region where clozapine oxidation occurs. Using differential pulse voltammetry, high sensitivities (limit of detection 0.05 × 10^–6m ) are demonstrated for clozapine analysis in buffer. In serum, clozapine sensitivity is reduced by an order of magnitude but still sufficient for clinical analysis. Finally, the detection of clozapine from the serum of a schizophrenia patient is demonstrated without the need for serum pretreatment. In the long term, it is envisioned that the CNT‐chitosan coated electrode could be integrated within a small array of other sensor types to enhance information‐extraction to allow mental health disorders to be better managed and better understood.     

Journalism,Poverty, and the Marketing of Misery: News From Chile's “Largest Ghetto”

Research on the news coverage of poverty has largely overlooked the agency of the actors involved. This study addressed this gap by combining ethnographic fieldwork in a poor neighborhood with an analysis of television news about the neighborhood and interviews with the journalists who produced this news. The analysis shows a relationship between journalists and poor people significantly more complex than the relationship described in previous research: Journalists and poor people marketed the neighborhood's misery collaboratively. They shaped news in ways that could be stigmatizing, but that served their converging interests. By acknowledging that structure and agency presuppose each other, this paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of journalism, as well as to efforts to address poverty's symbolic injustice.     

Beyond “Europe 1992”: Communication and cultural identity in small nation states

This article focuses on the changing role of the European Community (EC) and its impact on national media systems and policies. It points out that the EC policies advocate total freedom to provide services across borders, and that, total liberalization may lead to a future cultural synchronization and economic oligopolization of Europe. It is questionable whether the European policies will be in the advantage of the so-called smaller countries in the European Community, like for instance Belgium or the Netherlands, on the one hand, and whether these policies will be able to secure a free and balanced flow of information, ideas, opinions, and cultural activities within the Community on the other hand.     

Superhydrophobic “Pump”: Continuous and Spontaneous Antigravity Water Delivery

Antigravity transportation of water, which is often observed in nature, is becoming a vital demand for advanced devices and new technology. Many studies have been devoted to the motion of a single droplet on a horizontal or inclined substrate under specific assistance. However, the self‐propelled water motion, especially continuous antigravity water delivery, still remains a considerable challenge. Here, a novel self‐ascending phenomenon driven only by the surface energy release of water droplets is found, and a superhydrophobic mesh to pump water up to a height of centimeter scale is designed. An integrated antigravity transportation system is also demonstrated to continuously and spontaneously pump water droplets without additional driving forces. The present novel finding and integrated devices should serve as a source of inspiration for the design of advanced materials and for the development of new technology with exciting applications in microfluidics, microdetectors, and intelligent systems.     

Magnetic Liquid Marbles: Toward “Lab in a Droplet”

Liquid marbles exhibit great potential for use as miniature labs for small‐scale laboratory operations, such as experiment and measurement. While important progress has been made recently in exploring their applications as microreactions, “on‐line” measurement of the components inside the liquid still remains a challenge. Herein, it is demonstrated that “on‐line” detection can be realized on magnetic liquid marbles by taking advantage of their unique magnetic opening feature. By partially opening the particle shell, electrochemical measurement is carried out with a miniaturized three‐electrode probe and the application of this technique for quantitative measurement of dopamine is demonstrated. Fully opened magnetic liquid marble makes it feasible to detect the optical absorbance of the liquid in a transmission mode. With this optical method, a glucose assay is demonstrated. Moreover, when magnetic particle shell contains low melting point material, e.g., wax, the liquid marble shows a unique encapsulation ability to form a rigid shell after heating, which facilitates the storage of the non‐volatile ingredients. These unique features, together with the versatile use as microreactors, enable magnetic liquid marbles to function as a miniature lab (or called “lab in a droplet”), which may find applications in clinical diagnostics, biotechnology, chemical synthesis, and analytical chemistry.     

The “Myth” of Media Multitasking: Reciprocal Dynamics of Media Multitasking,Personal Needs,and Gratifications

The increasing popularity of media multitasking is frequently reported in national surveys while laboratory research consistently confirms that multitasking impairs task performance. This study explores this apparent contradiction. Using dynamic panel analysis of time series data collected from college students across 4 weeks, this study examines dynamic reciprocal impacts of media multitasking, needs (emotional, cognitive, social, and habitual), and corresponding gratifications. Consistent with the laboratory research, cognitive needs are not satisfied by media multitasking even though they drive media multitasking in the first place. Instead, emotional gratifications are obtained despite not being actively sought. This helps explain why people increasingly multitask at the cost of cognitive needs. Importantly, this study provides evidence of the dynamic persistence of media multitasking behavior.     

Lanthanide “Chameleon” Multistage Anti‐Counterfeit Materials

Hybrid materials displaying multistage security behavior, where a single material shows both wavelength‐ and temperature‐dependent luminescence properties, are reported. The materials consist of mixed‐lanthanide β‐diketonate complexes grafted into the pores of a nanosized 2,2′‐bipyridine‐5,5′‐dicarboxylate‐acid MOF. A very specific choice of lanthanides and their ratios, as well as β‐diketonate ligand, is crucial for obtaining the desired properties. The wavelength‐dependent luminescence properties of the materials are very well matched with the excitation wavelengths of a standard UV lamp, and a clearly visible change in luminescence is observed in a narrow temperature range (slightly below and above room temperature), proving them to be excellent materials for use in anti‐counterfeit technologies, which would be almost impossible to mimic.