Jon Clark’s study of the effect of the modernization of a telephone exchange on exchange maintenance work and workers is a solid contribution to a debate that [1] holds two lively issues [2] in the history and sociology of technology; technological determinism and social constructivism.

[3] Clark makes the point that the characteristics of a technology have a decisive influence on job skills and work organization. Put more strongly, technology can be a primary determinant of social and managerial organization. Clark [4] has believed this possibility has been obscured by the recent sociological fashion [5], exemplified by Braverman’s analysis, that emphasizes the way machinery reflects social choices. For Braverman, the shape of a technological system is [6] minor to the manager’s desire to wrest control of the labor process from the workers. Technological change is construed as the outcome of negotiations among interested parties who seek to incorporate their own interests into the design and configuration of the machinery. This position represents the new mainstream called social constructivism.

[7] The constructivists gaining acceptance by misrepresenting technological determinism: technological determinists are supposed to believe, for example, that machinery imposes appropriate forms of order on society. The alternative to constructivism, in other words, is to view technology as existing outside society, capable of directly influencing skills and work organization.

Clark refutes the extremes of the constructivists by both theoretical and empirical arguments. Theoretically he defines “technology” in terms of relationships between social and technical variables. Attempts to reduce the meaning of technology to cold [8] hard metal, are bound to fail, machinery is just scrap unless it is organized functionally and supported by appropriate systems of operation and maintenance. [9] Despite his several attempts, Clark shows how a change at the telephone exchange from maintenance-intensive electromechanical switches [10] and semi electronic switching systems altered work tasks, skills, training opportunities, administration, and organization of workers. Some changes Clark attributes to the particular way management and labor unions negotiated the introduction of the technology, whereas others are seen as arising from the capabilities and nature of the technology itself. Thus, Clark helps answer the question: “When is social choice decisive and when are the concrete characteristics of technology more important?” [11]

[12] For some time, this theory was considered untestable [13], largely because there was no sufficiently precise chronology of the ice ages with which the orbital variations could be matched. [14] Refuting those that believed it was untestable, it is necessary to determine the relative amounts of land ice that existed at various times in the Earth’s past. A recent discovery makes such a determination possible: relative land-ice volume for a given period can be deduced from the ratio of two oxygen isotopes, 16 and 18, found in ocean sediments. Almost all the oxygen in water is oxygen 16, but a few molecules out of every thousand incorporate the heavier isotope 18. [15] An ice age begins, the continental ice sheets grow, steadily reducing the amount of water evaporated from the ocean that will eventually return to it. Because heavier isotopes tend to be left behind when water evaporates from the ocean surfaces, the remaining ocean water becomes progressively enriched in oxygen 18. The degree of enrichment can be determined by analyzing ocean sediments of the period because these sediments are [16] contrived of calcium carbonate shells of marine organisms, shells that were constructed with oxygen atoms drawn from the surrounding ocean.[17] 

As an indicator of [18] shifts in the Earth’s climate’s, the isotope record has two advantages. [19] First thing is first, it is a global record: there is remarkably little variation in isotope ratios in sedimentary specimens taken from different continental locations. Second, it is a [20] more continuous record than those taken from rocks on land. Because of these advantages, sedimentary evidence can be dated with sufficient accuracy by radiometric methods to establish a precise chronology of the ice ages. The dated isotope record shows that the fluctuations in global ice volume over the past several hundred thousand years have a pattern: an ice age [21] storms through roughly once every 100,000 years. These data have established a strong connection between variations in the Earth’s orbit and the periodicity of the ice ages.

However, it is important to note that other factors, such as volcanic particulates or variations in the amount of sunlight received by the Earth, could potentially have affected the climate. The advantage of the Milankovitch theory is that it is testable; changes in the Earth’s orbit can be calculated and dated by applying Newton’s laws of gravity to progressively earlier configurations of the bodies in the solar system. Yet the lack of information about other possible factors affecting global climate [22] do not make them unimportant.

Even the smallest quantity of salmonella may, in the future, be easily detected with a technology known as SERS [23]. U.S. Department of Agriculture [24] , (USDA) scientist, Bosoon Park, at Athens, GA, is leading exploratory studies of [25] these analytical techniques potential for quick, easy, and reliable detection of salmonella and other foodborne pathogens. [26]

If SERS proves successful [27] to corner salmonella, the technique might be used at public health laboratories around the nation to rapidly identify this or other pathogens responsible for outbreaks of foodborne illness, according to Park, an agricultural engineer. What’s more, tomorrow’s food makers [28] might use SERS at their in-house quality control labs.

The Agricultural Research Service is the USDA’s chief intramural scientific research agency. Park’s research supports the USDA priority of enhancing food safety.

[29] In a SERS analysis a specimen is placed on a surface, such as a stainless steel plate, that has been “enhanced,” or changed from smooth to rough. For some of their research, Park’s team enhanced the surface of stainless-steel plates by coating them with tiny spheres, made up of a biopolymer encapsulated with nanoparticles of silver.

Rough surfaces, and colloidal metals, such as silver, can [30] improve the scattering of light that occurs when a specimen, placed on this nano substrate, is scanned with the Raman spectrometer’s laser beam.

The scattered light that comes back to the spectroscope forms a dis- tinct spectral pattern known as a Raman spectral signature, or Raman scattered signal. Researchers expect to prove the concept that all molecules [31], such as those that make up salmonella, have their own unique Raman spectral signature.

The idea of using a substrate of silver nanoparticles for Raman spectroscopy is not new. [32] But in SERS studies to detect foodborne pathogens, the use of a surface enhanced with biopolymers coated with silver nanoparticles is apparently [33]one of a kind.

In work with comparatively large concentrations of two different kinds, or serotypes, of salmonella enterica—enteritidis and typhimurium—Park’s tests showed, apparently for the first time, that SERS can differentiate these two serotypes. With further research, SERS may prove superior for finding very small quantities of bacteria in a complex, real-world background, such as a food or beverage sample, Park notes.

[34]. These investors are typically institutions, such as pension funds, university endowments and foundations, or [35] high-net-worth individuals who are considered to have the knowledge or resources to understand the nature of the funds. As a class, hedge funds invest in a diverse range of assets, but they most commonly trade liquid securities on public markets. [36] A hedge fund also employ a wide variety of investment strategies and make use of techniques such as short selling and leverage.

Hedge funds are typically open-ended, meaning that investors [37] could invest and withdraw money at regular, specified intervals. [38] The value in a hedge fund of an investment is calculated as a share of the fund’s net asset value, meaning that increases and decreases in the value of the fund’s investment assets (and fund expenses) are directly reflected in the amount an investor can later withdraw.

Most hedge fund investment strategies aim to achieve a [39] winning return on investment whether  markets  are  rising  or  falling.  Hedge fund managers typically invest their own money in the fund they manage, which serves to align their interests [40] with investors in the fund. A hedge fund typically pays its investment manager a management fee that is a percentage of the assets of the fund, and a performance fee if the fund’s net asset value increases during the year. [41] Some hedge funds have a net asset value of several billion dollars. As of 2009, hedge funds represented 1.1% of the total funds and assets held by financial institutions. As of April 2012, the estimated size of  the  global  hedge fund industry was US$2.13 trillion.

[42] Because hedge funds are not sold to the public or retail investors,  the funds and their managers have historically not been [43] subjected to the same restrictions that govern other funds and investment fund managers with regard to how the fund may be structured  and how strategies and techniques are employed. Regulations passed in the United States and Europe after the 2008 credit crisis [44] were intended to increase government oversight of hedge funds and eliminate certain regulatory gaps.