Journal articles on the topic 'Mivan structural system'

India's metropolitan population is now the world's second-largest, and its projected growth is causing more demand in housing. To deal with this problem, India must urgently prepare for the acquisition of land and the rapid construction of housing units. In recent years, there have been significant modifications in the construction process. Buildings were created with the aim of load-bearing in mind in ancient times, and the RCC framed approach was established later. The RC structural wall technology is widely used at the moment. Aluminium formwork, also known as Mivan technology, is a more advanced advancement of the current building approach. This technology uses an RC structural wall system to design the entire construction, which is also known as a Shear wall system. It is primarily meant to allow.

Earthquake is the important term that is considered while designing any multistorey structure. During earthquake large amount of energy is released in crust due to failure of rupture plane or tectonic plate movements. This energy reaches the surface of earth in form of waves. Due to this earthquake cause huge destruction on surface of earth and will cause damage to the structure. Hence earthquake is considered as one of the most disastrous of natural criteria. In this study G+11 storey building of rectangular plan is considered for the seismic analysis. The equivalent static method and response spectrum method is used for seismic evaluation of both conventional RC frame structure and mivan structure. ETABs 2017 software used for the analysis of the building, by considering seismic zone V and medium soil (Type II) as per IS 1893-2016. Storey displacement and storey shear are considered for checking the performances of the building. Objective of this study is to compare results obtained from static and response spectrum analysis in both longitudinal and transverse direction.

This paper discusses the monitoring of Palazzo Lombardia, one of the tallest high-rise buildings in Italy. First, the layout of the monitoring system is addressed for a general description of the sensors used. The paper provides details about how data coming from transducers are used. Special focus is put on the use of signals acquired by means of accelerometers, which are employed for the estimation of modal parameters through operational modal analysis. The procedure used for choosing the modal analysis algorithm and fixing the values of its main parameters is discussed in detail. The modal identification results on the first eight months of monitoring are discussed in the second part of the manuscript, together with a statistical analysis. This allows for a first model of the relationships between eigenfrequencies and environmental variables aiming at a general structural health monitoring procedure based on the evolution of the building’s modal parameters.

The connecting links between the exhibition pavilions of the new trade fair in Milan are mostly covered by innovative steel-glass-structures which are very attractive from an architectural point of view. At the main entrance the ‘Logo’ arises: A doubly-curved free-formed surface, which ascends to the sky like a volcano. With a height of 37 m, this structure will be identified from afar as the new fair's landmark. Further, a 1,300 m long and 30 m wide free-formed glass roof, the so-called ‘Vela’, links the individual exhibition halls along the main axis of the trade fair and reflects the nearby Alps in its architectural appearance. Emphasizing the ‘Logo’, besides the overall architectural concept, this paper mainly deals with the basic principles for the development of the grid topology and the characteristics of the structural system of the arbitrary curved free-formed surfaces.

The COVID-19 virus is a tremendous burden for the Italian health system. The regionally-based Italian National Health System has been reorganized. Hospitals' biggest challenge was to create new intensive care unit (ICU) beds, as the existing system was insufficient to meet new demand, especially in the most affected areas. Our institution in the Milan metropolitan area of Lombardy, the epicentre of the infection, was selected as one of the three regional hub for major trauma, serving a population of more than three million people. The aims were the increase the ICU beds and the rationalization of human and structural resources available for treating COVID-19 patients. In our hub hospital, the reorganization aimed to reduce the risk of infection and to obtained resources, in terms of beds and healthcare personnel to be use in the COVID-19 emergency. Non-urgent outpatient orthopaedic activity and elective surgery was also suspended. A training programme for healthcare personnel started immediately. Orthopaedic and radiological pathways dedicated to COVID-19 patients, or with possible infection, have been established. In our orthopaedic department, we passed from 70 to 26 beds. Our goal is to treat trauma surgery's patient in the “golden 72 hours” in order to reduce the overall hospital length of stay. We applied an objective priority system to manage the flow of surgical procedures in the emergency room based on clinical outcomes and guidelines. Organizing the present to face the emergency is a challenge, but in the global plan of changes in hospital management one must also think about the near future. We reported the Milan metropolitan area orthopaedic surgery management during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our decisions are not based on scientific evidence; therefore, the decision on how reorganize hospitals will likely remain in the hands of individual countries.

The COVID-19 virus is a tremendous burden for the Italian health system. The regionally-based Italian National Health System has been reorganized. Hospitals' biggest challenge was to create new intensive care unit (ICU) beds, as the existing system was insufficient to meet new demand, especially in the most affected areas. Our institution in the Milan metropolitan area of Lombardy, the epicentre of the infection, was selected as one of the three regional hub for major trauma, serving a population of more than three million people. The aims were the increase the ICU beds and the rationalization of human and structural resources available for treating COVID-19 patients. In our hub hospital, the reorganization aimed to reduce the risk of infection and to obtained resources, in terms of beds and healthcare personnel to be use in the COVID-19 emergency. Non-urgent outpatient orthopaedic activity and elective surgery was also suspended. A training programme for healthcare personnel started immediately. Orthopaedic and radiological pathways dedicated to COVID-19 patients, or with possible infection, have been established. In our orthopaedic department, we passed from 70 to 26 beds. Our goal is to treat trauma surgery's patient in the “golden 72 hours” in order to reduce the overall hospital length of stay. We applied an objective priority system to manage the flow of surgical procedures in the emergency room based on clinical outcomes and guidelines. Organizing the present to face the emergency is a challenge, but in the global plan of changes in hospital management one must also think about the near future. We reported the Milan metropolitan area orthopaedic surgery management during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our decisions are not based on scientific evidence; therefore, the decision on how reorganize hospitals will likely remain in the hands of individual countries.

The paper investigates the variation in building thermal energy demand for different indoor air set-point temperature and presents an economic analysis comparing the cost of a heating generation system based on an air-to-water heat pump and a gas boiler. Dynamic simulations were performed considering three different residential building characteristics of the Italian building stock placed in different Italian municipalities: Milan, Rome and Naples. An economic analysis was carried out considering the gas and electricity prices related to the years 2019–2022 provided by Italian Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and Environment (ARERA). The analysis showed the competitiveness of the heat pump compared with the gas boiler as a heating generation system in terms of annual costs for heating in almost all the scenarios considered and also showed an important reduction in building thermal energy demand if the set-point temperature was reduced, even by 1 °C.

Diesel exhaust is hazardous to human health. In time, this has led the EU to impose on manufacturers lower and lower emission standards. These limits are very challenging in particular for nitrogen oxides (NOx) emitted by diesel-fueled vehicles. For the town of Milan (Italy), we used a complex modeling system that takes into account the NOx emissions from vehicular traffic and other urban sources, as well as their dispersion and chemical transformations in the atmosphere related to meteorological parameters. The traffic emissions in the Milan urban area were estimated using the geometric and structural characteristics of the road network, whereas the traffic flows were provided by the Environment and Territory Mobility Agency. Car emissions were estimated by the official European method COPERT 5. The nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations were estimated under two scenarios: the actual scenario with real emissions and the Diesel Emission Standards Compliance (DESC) scenario. Using a recent meta-analysis, limited to European studies, we evaluated the relationship between NO2 concentrations and natural mortality. For the actual scenario, the NO2 annual concentration mean was 44.3 µg/m3, whereas under the DESC hypothetical scenario, this would have been of 37.7 µg/m3. This “extra” exposure of 6.6 µg/m3 of NO2 leads to a yearly excess of 574 “natural” deaths. Diesel emissions are very difficult to limit and are harmful for exposed people. This suggests that specific policies, including traffic limitations, need to be developed and enforced in urban environments.

Abstract The integration of buildings into vegetation has become a necessity in many metropolitan areas of the world today. It expands the potential of vertical and horizontal, exterior and interior, exposed and enclosed spaces in a building that can be used to accommodate plants. Green infrastructures have benefits both on urban and building scales. They can be categorized into green roofs and vertical greenery systems that can be divided further into green façade, green wall, green terraces, elevated forest and vertical forest. There are many design and planting considerations for architects, structural engineers and botanists when using living architectures to mimic natural systems, such as plant characteristics and environmental conditions. Plants used for vertical greenery are more likely to be hardwood species to adjust solar radiation during cooling and heating periods, as well as for aesthetic pleasure. Take Bosco Verticale, which is located in Milan, as an example to look into engineering methods when trees grow on balconies of high-rise buildings. It can be concluded that planting restraint safety systems and regular maintenance are necessary for the tree growth in the sky. However, the change in growing conditions causes various problems such as stability and irregular growth of trees. Instead of using steel cables and cages to prevent trees from falling off in the sky, the concept of self-growing connections is proposed to act as natural bracings and provide the stability for vertical forests. This paper is meant to generate awareness of the possibilities of the vertical integration of trees into buildings, show application considerations, and inspire future developments.

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The focus of this paper is to discuss the peculiarities of the digital modelling of masonry cross vaults. The proposed methodological approach for a multidisciplinary study of masonry vaults will be focused on: geometrical survey, crack pattern, geometrical modelling, and safety assessment based on structural analysis.</p><p>Automatic reconstruction procedures recently proposed in the literature for ribbed masonry vaults, are used to overcome time-consuming modelling tasks. The created digital models take into consideration the different aspects of the three-dimensional geometry, the internal divisions with variations of material properties in different parts, and a suitable discretization for finite element analysis. Moreover, the same model can be used in BIM (Building Information Modelling), judged as a suitable environment in which to combine different aspects of the restoration works such as: documentation, intervention design, and the data system in an unique model. The same model is then used to perform finite element analysis. Each of these aspects is clarified with examples of different vaults typology coming from case studies as that of the church of St. Bassiano in Pizzighettone (Cremona) or the notable Milan Cathedral.</p>

To boost energy efficiency in the building sector at urban and district scales, the use of a Geographic Information System (GIS) for data collection and energy spatial analysis is relevant. As highlighted in many studies on this topic reported in literature, the correlation among available databases is complex due to the different levels of information. As the first part of a wide research aimed at estimating the energy demand of urban buildings, we present in this article a focus on the details of the GIS-based procedure developed to assess the main energy-related features of existing building stocks. The procedure is based on the elaboration of data from the Italian Topographic Databases, under provision at the national level according to the INSPIRE European Directive and the national General Census of Population and Houses. It enables one to calculate and map the urban built volume characterized by mostly diffuse use categories in an urban context (residential and offices), to which different equipment and building usage patterns can be associated, and by construction periods, featuring different technological solutions. The method has been applied to the city of Milan (Italy). An insight into the outcomes from the overall method of the wider research is also reported.

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> In recent years, the generative process of building information modeling (BIM) digital models oriented to the digitisation of heritage buildings has been supported by the development of new modeling tools, able to integrate the point cloud data produced by laser scanning and digital photogrammetry in major modeling software applications such as Autodesk Revit and Graphisoft Archicad. Architectural and structural elements of churches, castles, and historical monuments such as complex vaults, arches, decorations and ornaments, irregular walls with a variable section and wall stratigraphy require higher levels of detail (LOD) and information (LOI) than new buildings. Consequently, the structure of a BIM model oriented to represent heritage buildings (HBIM) required the definition of a new digital process capable of converting the traditional techniques to the generation of 'unique' digital models able to connect different type of information. Consequently, the generation of 'new' 3D objects able to follow the constructive logic of the detected artefact has required the establishment of new grades of generation (GOG) and accuracy (GOA) to reduce the time and cost of the scan-to-BIM process. The main challenge of this research was the integration of these new modeling requirements in BIM software through the development of an add-in for one of the most used BIM software (Autodesk Revit). Through the generation of the complex vaulted system of the Basilica of Collemaggio (L’Aquila, Italy) and one of the most famous monuments of northern Italy (Arch of Peace in Milan, Italy), the following research shows how it was possible to support users in the HBIM generation, reducing the modeling impact of complex shapes from point cloud data and increasing information sharing for different BIM-based analysis, disciplines and users.</p>

Background: Balloon aortic valvuloplasty (BAV) is currently used as pre-treatment for patients undergoing trans-catheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) as well as a stand-alone option for subjects with significant contraindications to TAVR. Mammoth is a newly available non-compliant balloon catheter (BC) included in the balloon-expandable Myval THV system (Meril Life Sciences Pvt. Ltd., India). As limited data on the performance of this BC are available, we here report the results following its use for BAV as pre-dilatation during TAVR or as a stand-alone procedure. Methods: A retrospective, single-center cohort analysis was performed on patients with severe aortic valve stenosis (AS) treated with the Mammoth BC at IRCCS Ospedale Galeazzi Sant’Ambrogio, Milan, Italy. The primary endpoint was technical success defined as successful Mammoth BC advancement across the AS followed by its full and homogeneous inflation without major complications such as aortic root/left ventricular outflow tract injury and/or stroke. Results: A total of 121 patients were treated by BAV with Mammoth BC during the study period. Among these, 105 patients underwent BAV pre-dilatation before TAVR while 16 patients underwent a stand-alone BAV procedure. Mammoth BC was delivered and successfully inflated at the target site in all of the 121 cases without BC-related complications (100% technical success). However, in the BAV “stand-alone group”, three patients required two different balloon sizes while in nine patients multiple rounds (two to three) of balloon inflation were needed to significantly lower the transvalvular gradient. No cases of aortic root injury or massive aortic regurgitation due to Mammoth BC-related aortic leaflet injury were reported while one major stroke occurred late after TAVR. No intra-procedural deaths occurred nor bleeding (BARC 3-4) or major vascular complication. Conclusions: Mammoth BC use in patients with severe AS proved safe and effective, either before TAVR or as a stand-alone procedure, expanding the range of available tools for structural operators.

IntroductionMany different long-term neuropsychiatric sequelae of the novel Coronavirus have been described after the pandemic outbreak. One of the most common symptoms in the months following infection is related to “brain fog”. This condition includes several signs of cognitive impairment like mental slowness, deficits in attention, executive functions, processing, memory, learning, and/or psychomotor coordination, which can be perceived on a subjective level and further confirmed by objective data. Since this kind of mental status has been documented in previous viral infections, and the SARS-COV-2 has been characterized by a worldwide diffusion, investigation into this condition in post-covid individuals is warranted. Currently, several hypotheses on its pathophysiology have been put forward, mostly hypothesizing a direct effect of the virus on the central nervous system or indirect consequences of the inflammatory response.ObjectivesThe aim of our research is to analyze brain correlates of subjective cognitive complaints in Covid-19 survivors using multimodal brain imaging.MethodsWe performed a voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and a resting state functional connectivity analysis on 60 post-COVID-19 individuals recruited from the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, that underwent a 3 tesla MRI scan. We assessed the perceived cognitive impairment both after the infection and at the time of the MRI scan through the PROMIS Cognitive Abilities scale. The difference of the two scores (delta PROMIS) was calculated as a measure of cognitive improvement over time.ResultsWe found the perceived amelioration of cognitive abilities (delta PROMIS) to be positively associated to grey matter volumes in the bilateral caudate, putamen and pallidum (pFWE: ˂0.001). Moreover, in the resting state fMRI analysis, subjective cognitive status at MRI was found to be associated with functional connectivity between the right putamen and pallidum, and two clusters belonging to the attentional (pFWE: ˂0.001) and salience (pFWE: 0.02) networks.ConclusionsThis is one of the first studies investigating brain correlates of subjective cognitive impairment after COVID-19 infection; our main finding is the convergence of structural and functional results on brain areas located within the basal ganglia, implying their possible role in the pathophysiology of the condition. Moreover, this research could be interpreted as the first step toward understanding a very complex condition, with potential implications for the development of treatment and neurorehabilitative strategies.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

[1] PPL official e-report, Sawan Gas Field. www.ppl.com.pk/content/sawan-gas-field-overview, 2018.[2] M.J. Khan, M. Umar, M. Khan and A. Das, “2D Seismic Interpretation to Understand the Structural Geometry of Cretaceous Sand Packages, Jabo Field, Pakistan”, The Nucleus, vol. 56, pp 78-85, 2019.[3] H.M. Anwer, A.M. Tiago, A. Ali and A. Zubair, “Effects of sand shale anisotropy on amplitude variation with angle (AVA) modelling: the sawan gas filed (Pakistan) as a key study for south Asia’s sedimentary basins”, J. Asian Earth Sci, vol. 147, pp. 516-531, 2017.[4] T.S. Abbas, K. Mirza and J.S. Arif. “Lower Goru Formation-3D Modeling and Petrophysical Interpretation of Sawan Gas Field, Lower Indus Basin, Pakistan”, The Nucleus, vol. 52, pp.138-145, 2015.[5] S.M. Siyar, M. Waqas, S. Mehmood, A. Jan, M. Awais and F. Islam, “Petrophysical characteristics of Lower Goru Formation (Cretaceous) in Sawan gas field, Central Indus basin, Pakistan”. J. Biodiv. Envir. Sci., vol. 10, pp. 260-266, 2017.[6] N. Ahmad and M.R. Khan, “Evaluation of a Distinct Sub-Play for Enhanced Exploration in an Emerging Petroleum Province, Bannu-Kohat Sub-Basin, Pakistan”. AAPG Int. Conf. and Ex., Milan, Italy, October 23-26, 2011.[7] M.J. Khan, M. Ali and M. Khan, “Gamma ray-based facies modelling of lower Goru formation: a case study in Hakeem Daho well lower Indus basin Pakistan”, Bahria Univ. Res. J. Earth Sci., vol. 2, pp. 40-45, 2017.[8] M.O. Baig, N.B. Harris, H. Ahmed and M.O.A. Baig, “Controls on reservoir diagenesis in the Lower Goru Sandstone Formation, Lower Indus basin, Pakistan”, J. Pet. Geol., vol. 39, pp. 29–47, 2016.[9] A. Berger, S. Gier and P. Kroi, “Porosity-preserving chlorite cements in shallow marine volcanoclastic sandstones; evidence of the Sawan gas field Pakistan”. AAPG Bull., vol. 93, pp. 595-615, 2009.[10] N. Ahmed, P. Fink, S. Sturrock, T. Mahmood and M. Ibrahim, “Sequence stratigraphy as predictive tool in lower Goru fairway, lower and middle Indus platform, Pakistan”, Pak. Assoc. Petro. Geoscientist, Annual Tech. Conf., pp. 85-104, 2004.[11] U.B. Nisar, S. Khan, M.R. Khan, A. Shahzad, M. Farooq and S.A.A. Bukhari, “Structural and reservoir interpretation of Cretaceous lower Goru formation, Sanghar area, Lower Indus basin, Pakistan”, J. Himalaya Earth Sci., vol. 49, pp. 41-49, 2016.[12] I.B. Kadri, “Petroleum geology of Pakistan”, Pakistan Petroleum Limited, Karachi, 1995.[13] T. Azeem, Y.W. Chun, P. Khalid, I.M. Ehsan, F. Rehman and A.A. Naseem, “Sweetness analysis of Lower Goru sandstone intervals of the Cretaceous age, Sawan gas field, Pakistan”, Episodes: J. Int. GeoSci., vol. 41, pp. 235-247, 2018.[14] C.J. Wandrey, B.E Law and H.A. Shah. “Sembar Goru/Ghazij composite total petroleum system Indus and Sulaiman-Kirthar geologic Provinces Pakistan and India”, US Geolog. Survey, USA, 2004.[15] M. Naeem, M.K. Jafri, S.S. Moustafa, N.S. AL-Arifi, S. Asim, F. Khan and N. Ahmed, “Seismic and well log driven structural and petro-physical analysis of the Lower Goru Formation in the Lower Indus Basin, Pakistan”, Geosci. J., vol. 20, pp. 57–75, 2016.[16] A. Nazeer, S.A. Abbasi and S.H. Solangi, “Sedimentary facies interpretation of Gamma Ray (GR) log as basic well logs in Central and Lower Indus Basin of Pakistan”, Geodesy Geodyn. 7, pp. 432-443, 2016.[17] N. Ahmad and S. Chaudhry, “Kadanwari gas field, Pakistan: a disappointment turns into an attractive development opportunity”, Petrol. Geosci., vol.8, pp. 307–316, 2002.[18] J.J. Chow, L. Ming-Ching and S. Fuh, “Geophysical well log study on the paleoenvironment of the hydrocarbon producing zones in the Erchungchi Formation, Hsinyin, SW Taiwan”, Terr. Atmos Ocean Sci., vol. 16, pp. 531-543, 2005.[19] M. Ali, M.J. Khan, M. Ali and S. Iftikhar, “Petrophysical Analysis of Well Logs for Reservoir Evaluation: A Case Study of ‘Kadanwari’ Gas Field, Middle Indus Basin, Pakistan”, Arabian J. Geosci. vol. 12, 2019.[20] I.A.K. Jadoon, R.D. Lawrence and R.J. Lillie, “Seismic data, geometry, evolution, and shortening in the active Sulaiman Fold-and-Thrust Belt of Pakistan, Southwest of the Himalayas”, AAPG Bull., vol. 78, pp. 758–774, 1994.[21] S.H. Solangi, A. Nazeer, S.A. Abbasi, L.D. Napar, P.A. Usmani and A.G. Sahito, “Sedimentology and petrographic study of B-sand of Upper sands of Lower Goru Formation, based well cuttings and wire line logs from wells of southern Sindh monocline, lower Indus basin, Pakistan”, Bahria Uni Res. J. Earth Sci. vol. 1, pp 45-54, 2016.[22] G. Asquith and C. Gibson, “Basic well log analysis for geologists”, AAPG methods in exploration series, Tulsa, pp. 2l6, 1983. [23] F.J. Lucia, “Rock-fabric/petrophysical classification of carbonate pore space for reservoir characterization”, AAPG bulletin, vol. 79, pp. 1275-1300, 1995.[24] M.H. Rider, “Geologic interpretation of well logs”, Whittles Publishing Services, 1999.

In the last few decades, the studies in second language acquisition have not answered the question what mechanisms a human’s brain uses to make acquisition of language(s) possible. A neurocognitive model which tries to address SLA from such a perspective was suggested by Ullman (2005; 2015), according to which, “both first and second languages are acquired and processed by well-studied brain systems that are known to subserve particular nonlanguage functions” (Ullman, 2005: 141). The brain systems in question have analogous roles in their language and nonlanguage functions. This article is meant to critically analyse the suggested DP model within the context of neurocognitive studies of L2; and evaluate its contribution to the field of SLA studies.
 References
 
 Aboitiz, F. (1995). Working memory networks and the origin of language areas in the human brain. Medical Hypothesis, 25, 504-506.
 Aboitiz, F. & Garcia, R. (1977). The anatomy of language revisited. Biological Research, 30, 171-183.
 Aboitiz, F., Garcia, R., Brunetti, E. & Bosman, C. (2006). The origin of Broca’s area and its connections from an ancestral working memory network. In: Broca’s Region, (pp. 3-16). Y.Grodzinsky and K. Amunts, (Eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Alexander, M. P. (1997). Aphasia: clinical and anatomic aspects. In: Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychology, (pp. 133–150). T. E. Feinberg, & M. J. Farah, (Eds.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
 Alexander, G.E., DeLong, M.R. & Strick, P.L. (1986). Parallel organisation of functionally segregated circuits linking basal ganglia and cortex. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 9, 357-381.
 Anderson, J. R., Bothell, D., Byrne, M. D., Douglass, S., Lebiere, C., Qin, Y. (2004). An integrated theory of the mind. Psychological Review, 111, 1036–1060.
 Birdsong, D., ed. (1999). Second Language Acquisition and the Critical Period Hypothesis. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
 Buckner, R. L., & Wheeler, M. E. (2001). The cognitive neuroscience of remembering. Nature Review Neuroscience, 2(9), pp. 624–634.
 Calabresi, P., Centonze, D., Gubellini, P., Pisani, A. & Bernardi, G. (2000). Acetyl-chlorine-ediated modulation of striatal function. Trends in Neurosciences, 23(3), 120-126.
 Cepeda, N.J., Vul. E., Rohrer, D., Wixted, J. T., Pashler, H. (2008) Spacing effects in learning: A temporal ridgeline of optimal retention. Psychological Science, 19, 1095-1102.
 Chun, M.M. (2000). Contextual cueing of visual attention. Trends in Cognitive Science, 4(5), 170-178.Crosson, B., Benefield, H., Cato, M. A., Sadek, R. J., Moore, A. B., Auerbach, E. J., Gokcay, D., Leonard, C.M. & Briggs, R.W. (2003). Left and right basal ganglia activity during language generation: contributions to lexical, semantic and phonological processes. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 9, 1061-1077.
 Devescovi, A., Caselli, M. C., Marchione, D., Pasqualetti, P., Reilly, J., & Bates, E. (2005). A crosslinguistic study of relationship between grammar and lexical development. Journal of Child Language, 32, 759–786.
 Di Giulio, D.V., Seidenberg, M., O’Leary, D. S. & Raz, N. (1994). Procedural and declarative memory: a developmental study. Brain and Cognition, 25(1), 79-91.
 Dionne, G., Dale, P., Boivin, M., & Plomin, R. (2003). Genetic evidence for bidirectional effects of early lexical and grammatical development. Child Development, 74, 394–412.
 Eichenbaum, H. & Cohen, N.J. (2001). From Conditioning to Conscious Recollection: Memory Systems of the Brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Ellis, N.C. (1994). Implicit and Explicit Learning of Languages. New York: Academic Press.
 Ellis, N.C. (2002). Reflections on frequency effects in language processing. Studies in Second language acquisition, 24, 297-339.
 Ellis, R., Loewen, S., Elder, C., Erlam, R., Philp, J., Reinders, H. (2009). Implicit and Explicit Knowledge in Second Language Learning, Testing and Teaching. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
 Embick, D., Marantz, A., Miyashita, Y., O’Neil, W., & Sakai, K. L. (2000). A syntactic specialization for Broca’s area. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 97, (6150–6154).
 Fabbro, F., Clarici, A., Bava, A. (1996). Effects of left basal ganglia lesions on language production. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 82(3), 1291–1298.
 Ferman, S., Olshtain, E., Schechtman, E. & Karni, A. (2009). The acquisition of a linguistic skill by adults: procedural and declarative memory interact in the learning of an artificial morphological rule. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 22, 384-412. Retrieved from: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jneuroling.
 Fredriksson, A. (2000). Maze learning and motor activity deficits in adult mice induced by iron exposure during a critical postnatal period. Developmental Brain Research, 119(1), 65-74.
 Friederici, A. (2002). Towards a neural basis of auditory sentence processing. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6(2), 78–84.
 Friederici, A., von Cramon, D., Kotz, S. (1999). Language related brain potentials in patients with cortical and subcortical left hemisphere lesions. Brain, 122, 1033-1047.
 Goodale, M. A. (2000). Perception and action in the human visual system. In: The New Cognitive Neurosciences, (pp. 365-378). M. S. Gazzaniga, (ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
 Hahne, A., Friederichi, D. (2003). Processing a second language: late learners’ comprehension strategies as revealed by event-related brain potentials. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 4, 1-42.
 Henke, K (2010) A model for memory systems based on processing modes rather than consciousness. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11, 523–532.
 Hikosaka, O., Sakai, K., Nakahara, H., Lu, X., Miyachi, S., Nakamura, K., Rand, M. K. (2000). Neural mechanisms for learning of sequential procedures. In: The New Cognitive Neurosciences, (pp. 553-572). M. S. Gazzaniga, (ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
 Joanisse, M.F., Seidenberg, M.S. (1999). Impairments in verb morphology after brain injury: a connectionist model. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA. 96, (7592 –7597).
 Middleton, F.A., Strick, P.L. (2000). Basal ganglia and cerebral loops: motor and cognitive circuits. Brain research reviews, 31, 236-250.
 Moro, A., Tettamanti, M., Perani, D., Donati, C., Cappa, S. F., & Fazio, F. (2003). Syntax and the brain: disentangling grammar by selective anomalies. Neuroimage, 13(1), 110–118.
 Neurolinguistic and Psycholinguistic Perspectives on SLA. (2010). Arabski, J. & Wojtaszek, A. (Eds.), Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
 Newport, E. (1993). Maturational constraints on language learning. Cognitive Science, 14(1), 11-28.
 Opitz, B. & Friederichi, A.D. (2003). Interactions of the hippocampal system and the prefrontal cortex in learning language-like rules. Neuroimage, 19(4), 1730-1737.
 Packard, M.& Knowlton, B. (2002). Learning and memory functions of the basal ganglia. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 25, 563–593.
 Park, D., Lautenschlager, G., Hedden, T., Davidson, N., Smith, A. & Smith, P. (2002). Models of visuospatial and verbal memory across the adult life span. Psychology and Aging, 16, 299-320.
 Peelle, J.E., McMillan, C., Moore, P., Grossman, M. & Wingfield, A. (2004). Dissociable patterns of brain activity during comprehension of rapid and syntactically complex speech: evidence from fMRI. Brain and Language, 91, 315-325.
 Pinker, S. (1994). The Language Instinct. New York: William Morrow.
 Poldrack, R., Packard, M. G. (2003). Competition among multiple memory systems: converging evidence from animal and human brain studies. Neuropsychologia, 41(3), 245–251.
 Roediger, H.L., Butler, A.C. (2011). The critical role of retrieval practice in long-term retention. Trends in Cognitive Science, 15, 20-27.
 Schlaug, G. (2001). The brain of musicians: a model for functional and structural adaptation. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 930(1), 281-299.
 Squire, L.R., Knowlton, B.J. (2000). The medial temporal lobe, the hippocampus, and the memory systems of the brain. In: The New Cognitive Neurosciences. (pp. 765-780). M. S. Gazzaniga, Ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
 Squire, L. R., Zola, S. M. (1996). Structure and function of declarative and nondeclarative memory systems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 93. (13515–13522).
 Sun, R., Zhang, X. (2004). Top-down versus bottom-up learning in cognitive skill acquisition. Cognitive Systems Research, 5, 63–89.
 Ullman, M.T. (2004). Contributions of memory circuits to language: the declarative/procedural model. Cognition, 92(1-2), 231-70.
 Ullman, M.T. (2005). A cognitive neuroscience perspective on second language acquisition: the declarative/procedural model. In: Adult Second Language Acquisition, (pp. 141-178). C. Sanz, (ed.). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
 Ullman, M.T. & Pieport, E.I. (2005). Specific language impairment is not specific to language: the procedural deficit hypothesis. Cortex, 41, 399-433.
 Ullman, M. (2006). Is Broca’s area part of a basal ganglia thalamocortical circuit? In: The Cortex: Integrative Models of Broca’s Area and the Ventral Premotor Cortex. (pp. 480-485). R. Schubotz & C. Fiebach, (Eds.). Milan: Masson.
 Ullman, M. (2015) The declarative / procedural model: A neurobiologically motivated theory of first and second language. In: Theories in Second Language Acquisition: An Introduction, (pp. 135-158.) VanPatten, B. and J. Williams, (Eds.). 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.
 Ullman, M. and Lovelett, J. (2016). Implications of the declarative / procedural model for improving second language learning: The role of memory enhancement techniques. Second Language Research, Special issue, 1-27.
 Zurowski, B., Gostomzyk, J., Gron, G., Weller, R., Schirrmeister, H., Neumeier, B., Spitzer, M., Reske, S.N. & Walter, H. (2002). Dissociating a common working memory network from different neural substrates of phonological and spatial stimulus processing. Neuroimage, 15, 45-57.

With lockdowns consequent to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, most people were confined to their homes, along with their children and many of the vulnerable elderly. The spill-over effect of the pandemic brought about rampant changes in the lives of all, with working from home being a major one. This study was done to find the perspective and experiences of the Indian workforce after two years of working from home, with many still pursuing the same format. Also, it was intended to assess the personal factors contributing to one’s willingness to continue to work from home post-pandemic. The chi-square test and the SPSS ordinal regression procedure were employed to test the hypotheses defined for achieving the objectives of the study. The study found that the experiences and challenges faced by both males and females were significantly different, with females facing greater stress. For males, working from home was more pleasant. However, they faced difficulty maintaining a work-life balance. While gender was insignificant, age and having no children, particularly less than ten years old, were significant predictors of willingness to work from home in the post-pandemic era. References Abdullah, N. A., Rahmat, N. H., Zawawi, F. Z., Khamsah, M. A., & Anuarsham, A. H. (2020). Coping with Post Covid-19: Can Work from Home be a New Norm? European Journal of Social Sciences Studies, 61-81. Agresti, A. (1981). Measures of Nominal-Ordinal Association. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 524-529. Aldossari, M., & Chaudhry, S. (2021). Women and Burnout in the Context of a Pandemic. Gender, Work & Organization, 826-834. Allen, T. D., Golden, T. D., & Shockley, K. M. (2015). How Effective Is Telecommuting? Assessing the Status of Our Scientific Findings. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 40-68. Alon, T., Doepke, M., Olmstead-Rumsey, J., & Tertilt, M. (2020). The Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Gender Equality. Covid Economics Vetted and Real-Time Papers, 62-85. Angelici, M., & Profeta, P. (2020). Smart-working: Work Flexibility Without Constraints. Milan: Università Bocconi & The Dondena Centre: Working Paper No. 137. Asif, M., Pasha, M. A., Shafiq, S., & Craine, I. (2022). Economic Impacts of Post COVID-19. Inverge Journal of Social Sciences, 1(1), 56-65. Beniwal, V. (2020, June 26). The Virus Has Made India’s Devastating Gender Gap Even Worse. Retrieved from Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-06-25/india-coronavirus-lockdown-hits-women-hard-worsening-gender-gap#xj4y7vzkg Berniell, I., Berniell, L., De la Mata, D., Edo, M., & Marchionni, M. (2021). Gender Gaps in Labor Informality: The Motherhood Effect. Journal of Development Economics, 102599. Bick, A., Blandin, A., & Mertens, K. (2020). Work from Home After the COVID-19 Outbreak. Dallas: Federal Reserve Bank Dallas. Working Paper. Bloom, N., Liang, J., Roberts, J., Ying, & Jenny, Z. (2015). Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 165–218. Boris, E. (2019). Homework in the Past, it’s Meaning for the Future. In K. E. Christensen, The New Era of Home-based Work- Directions and Policies. Routledge. Buffer & AngelList . (2020). The 2020 State of Remote Work. Buffer & AngelList . Chattopadhyay, S. (2021). The Pandemic of Productivity- The Work of Home and the Work from Home. Anthropology in Action- Journal for Applied Anthropology in Policy and Practice, 47-51. Chauhan, P. (2022). “I Have No Room of My Own”: COVID-19 Pandemic and Work-From-Home Through a Gender Lens. Gender Issues, 507-533. Collins, C., Landivar, L. C., Ruppanner, L., & Scarborough, W. J. (2020). COVID-19 and the Gender Gap in Work Hours. Gender Work Organization, 1–12. Crowson, M. (2019, july 15). Ordinal logistic regression using SPSS. Retrieved from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSCdwZD1DuM Cummings, M. (2020, July 17). Study Reveals Gender Inequality in Telecommuting. Retrieved from YaleNews: https://news.yale.edu/2020/07/17/study-reveals-gender-inequality-telecommuting De Klerk, J. J., Joubert, M., & Mosca, H. F. (2021). Is Working from Home the New Workplace Panacea? Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic for the Future World of Work. SSA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 1-14. Del Boca, D., Oggero, N., Profeta, P., & Rossi, M. (2020). Women’s and Men’s Work, Housework and Childcare, Before and During COVID-19. Review of Economics of the Household, 1001–1017. Deniz, M. E., Satici, S. A., Doenyas, C., & Griffiths, M. D. (2022). Zoom Fatigue, Psychological Distress, Life Satisfaction, and Academic Well-Being. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 270-277. Dizaho, E. K., Salleh, R., & Abdullah, A. (2017). Achieving Work Life Balance through Flexible Work Schedules and Arrangements. Global Business and Management Research: An International Journal, 455. Eddleston, K. A., & Mulki, J. (2017). Toward Understanding Remote Workers’ Management of Work–family Boundaries: The Complexity of Workplace Embeddedness. Group & Organization Management, 346-387. Esquivel, A., Marincean, S., & Benore, M. (2023). The Effect of the Covid-19 Pandemic on STEM Faculty: Productivity and Work-life Balance. PlosOne, 18, e0280581. Ford Media Centre. (2015, April 27). For Europeans, the Journey to Work Causes More Stress Than Their Actual Jobs (or Even The Dentist), New Ford Survey Shows. Retrieved from Ford Media Centre: https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu/en/news/2015/04/27/for-europeans--the-journey-to-work-causes-more-stress-than-their.html#:~:text=The%20Ford%20European%20Commuter%20Survey%20of%205%2C503%20commuters,of%20stress%20than%20moving%20into%20a%20new Fosslien, L., & Duffy, M. W. (2020, April 29). How to Combat Zoom Fatigue. Harvard Business Review. Franke, T. M., Ho, T., & Christie, C. A. (2012). The Chi-square Test: Often Used and More Often Misinterpreted. American Journal of Evaluation, 448-458. Friedman, S. (2015). Still a “stalled revolution”? Work/family Experiences, Hegemonic Masculinity, and Moving Toward Gender Equality. Sociology Compass, 140-155. Gelles, D. (2020, June 23). Are Companies More Productive in a Pandemic? Retrieved from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/business/working-from-home-productivity.html Georgieva, K., Fabrizio, S., Lim, C. H., & Tavares, M. M. (2020). The COVID-19 Gender Gap. IMF. Gorlick, A. (2020, March 30). Productivity Pitfalls of Working from Home in the Age of COVID-19. Stanford News. Retrieved from Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Grant, C. A., Wallace, L. M., Spurgeon, P. C., Tramontano, C., & Charalampous, M. (2019). Construction and Initial Validation of the e-Work Life Scale to Measure Remote e-Working. Employee Relations , 16–33. Haider, F. (2020, September 01). Average Indian Saving Almost Two Hours of Commute Time While Working from Home: Survey. Retrieved from The Economics Times: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/working-from-home-saves-rs-5520-per-month-for-an-average-professional-in-india/articleshow/77850500.cms Hassan, H., & Nuruddin, A. R. (2011). Working From Home Concept for Quantity Surveying Employment. The Quantity Surveying International Convention 2011, (pp. 127-135). Penang, Malaysia. Hennekam, S., & Shymko, Y. (2020). Coping with the COVID-19 Crisis: Force Majeure and Gender Performativity. Gender, Work and Organization, 788-803. Hjálmsdóttir, A., & Bjarnadóttir, V. S. (2021). “I have turned into a foreman here at home”: Families and Work–life Balance in Times of COVID-19 in a Gender Equality Paradise. Gender, Work & Organization, 268-283. IANS. (2020, April 14). Work from Home is Making 67% Indians Suffer from Sleep Deprivation, Says Study. Retrieved from Times of India: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/relationships/work/work-from-home-is-making-67-indian-suffer-from-sleep-deprivation-says-study/articleshow/75126242.cms ILO. (2020). An Employers’ Guide on Working from Home in Response to the Outbreak of COVID-19. Geneva: International Labour Organization. Israni, M., & Kumar, V. (2021). Gendered Work and Barriers in Employment Increase Unjust Work–Life Imbalance for Women: The Need for Structural Responses. The International Journal of Community and Social Development, 290–295. Jóhannsdóttir, Á. (2018). Young Femininity in Iceland and its Discontents. Psychology of Women Section Review- British Psychological Society, 17-30. Kamdar, B. (2020, July 31). Women Left Behind: India’s Falling Female Labor Participation. Retrieved from The Diplomat: https://thediplomat.com/2020/07/women-left-behind-indias-falling-female-labor-participation/ Kaspersky. (2020). How COVID-19 Changed the Way People Work. AO Kaspersky Lab. Kaur, T., & Sharma, P. (2020). A Study on Working Women and Work from Home Amid Coronavirus Pandemic. Journal of Xi'an University of Architecture & Technology, 1006-7930. Kazekami, S. (2020). Mechanisms to Improve Labor Productivity by Performing Telework. Telecommunications Policy, 101868. Koziol, N. A., & Bilder, C. R. (2014). MRCV: A Package for Analyzing Categorical Variables with Multiple Response Options. R Journal, 144-150. Kramer, A., & Kramer, K. Z. (2020). The Potential Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Occupational Status, Work from Home and Occupational Mobility. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 119. Lachapelle, U., Tanguay, G. A., & Neumark-Gaudet, L. (2018). Telecommuting and Sustainable Travel: Reduction of Overall travel Time, increases in Non-motorised Travel and Congestion Relief? . Urban Studies, 2226–2244. Lavassani, K. M., Movahedi, B., & Kumar, V. (2009). Development in Analysis of Multiple Response Survey Data in Categorical Data Analysis: The Case of Enterprise System Implementation in Large North American Firms. Journal of Applied Quantitative Methods, 45-53. Lavelle, J. (2020, April 3). Gartner CFO Survey Reveals 74% Intend to Shift Some Employees to Remote Work Permanently. Retrieved from Gartner : https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-04-03-gartner-cfo-surey-reveals-74-percent-of-organizations-to-shift-some-employees-to-remote-work-permanently2 Lund, A., & Lund, M. (2018). Ordinal Regression using SPSS Statistics. Retrieved from Laerd Statistics: https://statistics.laerd.com/spss-tutorials/ordinal-regression-using-spss-statistics.php Lupu, V. L. (2017). Teleworking and Its Benefits on Work-Life Balance. International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference on Social Sciences & Arts, SGEM, 693-700. Lyttelton, T., Zang, E., & Musick, K. (2020). Gender Differences in Telecommuting and Implications for Inequality at Home and Work. SSRN 3645561. Mandavia, M., & Chandrashekhar, A. (2020, June 21). India Inc Suffers a New Ailment, Complains of Webinar Fatigue, Zoom Gloom. Retrieved from The Economic Times: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/india-inc-suffers-a-new-ailment-complain-of-webinar-fatigue-zoom-gloom/articleshow/76496912.cms Mccloskey, D. (2018). An Examination of the Boundary Between Work and Home for Knowledge Workers. International Journal of Human Capital and Information Technology Professionals, 25–41 . Mirela, B. (2020). The Impact of Working from Home on Productivity. A Study on The Pandemic Period. Annals of the University of Oradea, Economic Science Series, 267-275. Morgan, J. (2013, October 24). Women 'Better at Multitasking' than Men, Study Finds. Retrieved from Science Reporter, BBC News: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-24645100 Mustajab, D., Bauw, A., Rasyid, A., Irawan, A., Muhammad, A., Akbar, M. A., & Hamid, M. A. (2020). Working from Home Phenomenon as an Effort to Prevent COVID-19 Attacks and Its Impacts on Work Productivity. The International Journal of Applied Business, 13-21. Nakrošienė, A., Bučiūnienė, I., & Goštautaitė, B. (2019). Working from Home: Characteristics and Outcomes of Telework. International Journal of Manpower, 1-22. Naughton, J. (2020, August 15). Working from Home was the Dream but is it Turning into a Nightmare? Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/15/working-from-home-was-the-dream-but-is-it-turning-into-a-nightmare Nayak, S., & Pandit, D. (2021). Potential of Telecommuting for Different Employees in the Indian Context Beyond COVID-19 Lockdown. Transport Policy, 98-110. Oakman, J., Kinsman, N., Stuckey, R., Graham, M., & Weale, V. (2020). A Rapid Review of Mental and Physical Health Effects of Working at Home: How Do We Optimise Health? BMC Public Health, 1-13. O'Connell, A. A. (2006). Logistic Regression Models for Ordinal Response Variables . Sage. OECD. (2021). Caregiving in Crisis: Gender Inequality in Paid and Unpaid During COVID-19 . Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Óladóttir, Á. D., Christiansen, Þ. H., & Aðalsteinsson, G. D. (2021). If Iceland Is a Gender Paradise, Where Are the Women CEOs of Listed Companies? Exploring Gender at Work: Multiple Perspectives, 317-337. Parkes, A., Sweeting, H., & Wight, D. (2015). Parenting Stress and Parent Support Among Mothers with High and Low Education. Journal of Family Psychology, 907. Patwa, P. (2020, May 14). Is Work from Home the New Lifestyle Change That Young India Was Seeking? Retrieved from Entrepreneur India: https://www.entrepreneur.com/en-in/lifestyle/is-work-from-home-the-new-lifestyle-change-that-young-india/350630 Périvier, H. (2014). Men and Women During the Economic Crisis: Employment Trends in Eight European Countries. Revue de l’OFCE, 41-84. Petriglieri, G. (2020, July 15). In Praise of the Office. HBR- The New Reality of WFH. Harvard Business Review. Purwanto, A., Asbari, M., Fahlevi, M., Mufid, A., Agistiawati, E., Cahyono, Y., & Suryani, P. (2020). Impact of Work From Home (WFH) on Indonesian Teachers Performance during the Covid-19 Pandemic: An Exploratory Study. International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 6235–6244. Reichelt, M. M. (2021). The Impact of COVID-19 on Gender Inequality in the Labor Market and Gender-role Attitudes. European Societies, S228- S245. Ruppanner, L. (2015, August 15). Women Are Not Better at Multitasking. They Just Do More Work, Studies Show. Retrieved from THE CONVERSATION- Science Alert: https://www.sciencealert.com/women-aren-t-better-multitaskers-than-men-they-re-just-doing-more-wor Russell, S. (2019, October 28). Mental Health. Retrieved from World Economic Forum: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/10/remote-working-from-home-increase-stress-anxiety-mental-health/ Saludin, N. A., & Hassan, H. (2012). A Conceptual Study on Working from Home in Malaysian Construction Industry. Saludin, N. A., & Hassan, H. (2012). International Proceedings of Economics Development and Research (pp. 67-72). IACSIT Press. Sevilla, A., Phimister, A., Krutikova, S., Kraftman, L., Farquharson, C., Dias, M. C., . . . Andrew, A. (2020). How are mothers and fathers balancing work and family under lockdown? Bristol: IFS Briefing Note; No. 290. Shafizadeh, K. R., Mokhtarian, P. L., Niemeier, D. A., & Salomon, I. (2020). The Costs and Benefits of Home-Based Telecommuting. California: Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH). Shahid, N., Asif, M., & Pasha, A. (2022). Effect of Internet Addiction on School Going Children. Inverge Journal of Social Sciences, 1(1), 13-55. Shareena, P., & Shahid, M. (2020). Work from home during COVID-19: Employees Perception and Experiences. Global Journal for Research Analysis, 1-3. Sharma, M. K., Amudhan, S., & Ganjekar, S. (2021). Webinar fatigue: Fallout of COVID-19. Journal of the Egyptian Public Health Association. Singer-Velush, N., Sherman, K., & Anderson, E. (2020, July 15). Microsoft Analyzed Data on Its Newly Remote Workforce- the New Realityof WFH. Harvard Business Review. Soman, S., & Mohanan, D. (2022). Home-based Work and Stress in the Pandemic Period: A Case of Working Women in Kerala. IIM Ranchi Journal of Management Studies, 160-174. Song, Y., & Gao, J. (2019). Does Telework Stress Employees Out? A Study on Working at Home and Subjective Well-Being for Wage/Salary Workers. Journal of Happiness Studies, 1-20. Stadtlander, L., Sickel, A., La Civita, L., & Giles, M. (2017). Home as Workplace: A Qualitative Case Study of Online Faculty Using Photovoice. Journal of Educational Research and Practice, 45–59. Stoet, G., O’Connor, D. B., Conner, M., & Laws, K. R. (2013). Are women Better than Men at Multi-tasking? BMC Psychology, 1-10. Szameitat, A. J., Hamaida, Y., Tulley, R. S., Saylik, R., & Otermans, P. C. (2015). “Women Are Better Than Men”–Public Beliefs on Gender Differences and Other Aspects in Multitasking. PLoS ONE , e0140371. Thorstensson, E. (2020). The Influence of Working from Home on Employees' Productivity: Comparative document analysis between the years 2000 and 2019-2020. Karlstad: Karlstad Business School, B-Thesis. Turmaud, D. R. (2020, December 31). The Science Behind Pandemic Fatigue. Retrieved from Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/lifting-the-veil-trauma/202012/the-science-behind-pandemic-fatigue Vander Elst, T., Verhoogen, R., Sercu, M., Van den Broeck, A., Baillien, E., & Godderis, L. (2017). Not Extent of Telecommuting, But Job Characteristics as Proximal Predictors of Work-related Well-being. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, e180-e186. Vlach, P., & Plašil, M. (2006). Analysis of Multiple-response Data. 9th International Scientific Conference on Applications of Mathematics and Statistics in Economics, (pp. 1-5). Vyas, L., & Butakhieo, N. (2021). The Impact of Working from Home During COVID-19 on Work and Life Domains: An Exploratory Study on Hong Kong. Policy Design and Practice, 59-76. Wang, V., & Inoue, M. (2020, March 4). New York Times. Retrieved from When Can we Go to School? Nearly 300 Million Children are Missing Class: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/world/coronavirus-schools-closed.html WEF. (2023). Global Gender Gap Report 2023. Geneva: World Economic Forum. Wienclaw, R. A. (2019). Telecommuting. Salem Press Encyclopedia.

India's metropolitan population is now the world's second-largest, and its projected growth is causing more demand in housing. To deal with this problem, India must urgently prepare for the acquisition of land and the rapid construction of housing units. In recent years, there have been significant modifications in the construction process. Buildings were created with the aim of load-bearing in mind in ancient times, and the RCC framed approach was established later. The RC structural wall technology is widely used at the moment. Aluminium formwork, also known as Mivan technology, is a more advanced advancement of the current building approach. This technology uses an RC structural wall system to design the entire construction, which is also known as a Shear wall system. It is primarily meant to allow.

Purpose This paper aims to identify modern construction techniques for affordable housing, such as prefabrication and interlocking systems, that can save time and cost while also providing long-term sustainable benefits that are desperately needed in today's construction industry. Design/methodology/approach The need for housing is growing worldwide, but traditional construction cannot cater to the demand due to insufficient time. There should be some paradigm shift in the construction industry to supply housing to society. This paper presented a state-of-the-art review of modern construction techniques practiced worldwide and their advantages in affordable housing construction by conducting a systematic literature review and applying the backward snowball technique. The paper reviews modern prefabrication techniques and interlocking systems such as modular construction, formwork systems, light gauge steel/cold form steel construction and sandwich panel construction, which have been globally well practiced. It was understood from the overview that modular construction, including modular steel construction and precast concrete construction, could reduce time and costs efficiently. Further enhancement in the quality was also noticed. Besides, it was observed that light gauge steel construction is a modern phase of steel that eases construction execution efficiently. Modern formwork systems such as Mivan (Aluminium Formwork) have been reported for their minimum construction time, which leads to faster construction than traditional formwork. However, the cost is subjected to the repetitions of the formwork. An interlocking system is an innovative approach to construction that uses bricks made of sustainable materials such as earth that conserve time and cost. Findings The study finds that the prefabrication techniques and interlocking system have a lot of unique attributes that can enable the modern construction sector to flourish. The study summarizes modern construction techniques that can save time and cost, enhancing the sustainability of construction practices, which is the need of the Indian construction industry in particular. Research limitations/implications This study is limited to identifying specific modern construction techniques for time and cost savings, lean concepts and sustainability which are being practiced worldwide. Practical implications Modern formwork systems such as Mivan (Aluminium Formwork) have been reported for their minimum construction time which leads to faster construction than traditional formwork. Social implications The need for housing is growing rapidly all over the world, but traditional construction cannot cater to the need due to insufficient time. There should be some paradigm shift in the construction industry to supply housing to society. Originality/value This study is unique in identifying specific modern construction techniques for time and cost savings, lean concepts and sustainability which are being practiced worldwide.

Abstract Issue/problem Physical activity is a protective factor for preventing Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and, for this reason, it plays an important role in all the different guidelines for prevention and health promotion. The Italian Regional Prevention Plans and in particular the Lombardy one promote physical activity with a systemic approach, through both upstream and downstream actions to encourage the role of communities. Description of the problem Based on the regional plan, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) of the Metropolitan City of Milan developed locally validated actions and best practices for the promotion of physical activity, through the cross-sectoral involvement of different stakeholders (health system, companies, universities, local authorities, sports associations, etc.). Results Physical activity is embedded in all lines of health promotion activities in local planning documents. Sustainable and active mobility activities have been implemented in companies and schools with a comprehensive approach. Validated regional programs (Pedibus, Walking Groups, ecc.) have been implemented in the local community, along with the construction of permanent local laboratories for physical activity, structured through the development of specific territorial networks and providing for integration with the socio-sanitary setting. Lessons Promoting physical activity becomes an opportunity to both consolidate territorial networks and to develop evidence-based health promotion actions able to meet the different health needs of the population and to produce a structural change in living contexts. Key messages • Physical activity is both a protective factor for health promotion and a tool for implementing intersectoral and equity-oriented system actions from a life-course perspective. • Promoting physical activity becomes an opportunity to consolidate territorial networks.

If, in a metropolitan system, public transport is always organized around a central pole and ramification subsequently takes place, there are different ways in which to influence the ramifications, accentuating the hierarchy or the suburban networks for which each lay out project corresponds to a different interpretation of the land system.To plan transport for a hierarchical metropolitan region means reinforcing the radial lines; to plan transport for an urban network implies operations on public transport of a transverse type, and the need to closely combine the transport policy and the land policy, that is to say, the design of the lines and the content of the junctions of the network. The study identifies the network of arches and junctions in the metropolitan area of Milan. Si dans un système métropolitain, les transports en commun sont toujours articulés autour du pôle central et qu'ils se ramifient ensuite, il existe des modalités différentes pour intervenir entre chaque ramification, en accentuant la hiérarchie ou les réseaux périphériques pour lesquels chaque projet de configuration correspond à une interprétation différente du système territorial.Aménager les transports pour une région métropolitaine hiérarchique, cela signifie renforcer des lignes de banlieue ; aménager les transports pour un réseau de villes, cela suppose des interventions de transports en commun de type transversal et la nécessité d'associer étroitement une politique de transports à une politique territoriale, c'est-à-dire, en quelques mots, le dessin des lignes et le contenu des nœuds du réseau. Le travail reconnaît le réseau de lignes et des nœuds de la région métropolitaine milanaise.

Quality public spaces, especially pedestrian areas, play an essential role in cities. Communities gather in these spaces and benefit from the proximity to activities in a safe and car‐free environment. Pedestrian areas can have greenery, which helps address the issues raised by climate change. Repurposing existing roads is a priority in many cities worldwide whose aim is to improve their social and environmental performance. This study presents a systemic, data‐based approach that supports the transition from the current pervasive car‐based mobility model to a people‐centric, pedestrian‐based one. This transformative model leverages the structural properties of urban systems to reconfigure streets as integral components of a comprehensive strategy aimed at mitigating the effects of climate change. Image segmentation is used to assess the presence of people in the streets. The numerical evidence provided by metrics and indicators is complemented by visual evidence from local‐scale maps. The proposed method is tested on a portion of Bairro Cidade Nova in Rio de Janeiro within the framework of the Integrated and Sustainable Urban Regeneration Milan–Rio (REMIRIO) project, a city‐to‐city cooperation project between Milan (Italy) and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) funded by the European Union which aims to implement pilot nature‐based solutions to address local environmental issues such as flooding and overheating. In particular, five North–South streets are compared to define customised pedestrianisation interventions within a more comprehensive super‐block strategy with the aim of improving the continuity of the existing green system and the ecosystem services. This precise network diagnostic process can be easily transferred to any urban system.

The COVID-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented challenge for public transport systems. The capacity of transport systems has been significantly reduced because of the social distancing measures. Therefore, new avenues to increase the resilience of public urban mobility need to be explored. In this work, we investigate the integration of bike sharing and public transport systems to compensate for limited public transport capacity under the disruptive impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a first step, we develop a data analysis model to integrate the demand of the two underlying systems. Next, we build an optimization model for the design and operation of hybrid mixed-fleet bike sharing systems. We analyze the case of the subway and public bike sharing systems in Milan to assess this approach. We find that the bike sharing system (in its current state) can only compensate for a minor share of the public transport capacity, as the needs in fleet and station capacity are very high. However, the resilience of public urban mobility further increases when new design concepts for the bike sharing system are considered. An extension to a hybrid free-floating bike and docked e-bike system doubled the covered demand of the system. An extension of the station capacity of about 37% yields an additional increase of the covered demand by 6.5%–7.5%. On the other hand, such a hybrid mixed-fleet bike sharing system requires many stations and a relatively large fleet to provide the required mobility capacity, even at low demand requirements.

In recent times, a growing body of research has emerged to evaluate how structures respond to dynamic forces generated by human activities. Notably, stadiums and sports arenas require significant attention due to the presence of spectators during events such as football matches and concerts. The way the crowd behaves during such events causes significant vibration levels which can be critical for both human comfort and structural integrity. Generally, the interaction between humans and structures is a significant concern in structural health monitoring. While a structure behavior may be considered deterministic (albeit challenging to predict), the forces exerted by crowds are inherently variable and uncontrollable. A critical aspect is related to the fact that studying the crowd behavior is a complex task, because modelling it not only implies engineering knowledge but also taking into account other complex factors, e.g., the social and psychological aspects of human behavior. In this context, this paper uniquely contributes by presenting and analyzing real-world vibration data gathered by the monitoring system of the G. Meazza stadium in Milan. This extensive dataset, built over the past 15 years, represents a one-of-a-kind contribution in the literature on stadiums and sport arenas, offering valuable insights into possible factors that influenced the evolution of crowd behavior during large-scale events.

AbstractBackgroundThis study aims at applying the AT(N) classification to a cohort of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related disorders, and to investigate how many cases would be eligible for the emerging disease‐modifying treatments.MethodWe conducted a retrospective evaluation of 429 patients referred to the Memory Center of IRCCS San Raffaele Hospital in Milan. Patients underwent clinical/neuropsychological assessments, lumbar puncture, structural brain imaging, and positron emission tomography (FDG‐PET). Patients were stratified according to AT(N) classification, group comparisons were performed and the number of eligible cases for anti‐β amyloid monoclonal antibodies was calculated.ResultSociodemographic and clinical features were similar across groups. Although the clinical presentation was similar, the A+T+N+ group showed more severe cognitive impairment in memory, language, attention, executive, and visuospatial functions compared to other AT(N) groups. Notably, T+ patients demonstrated greater memory complaints compared to T‐ cases. FDG‐PET outperformed MRI and CT in distinguishing A+ from A‐ patients. Although the 60.8% of the observed cases were A+, only the 17.2% were eligible for amyloid‐targeting treatments.ConclusionThe AT(N) classification is applicable in a real‐world clinical setting. The classification system provided insights into clinical management and treatment strategies. Low cognitive performance and specific regional FDG‐PET hypometabolism at diagnosis are highly suggestive for A+T+ or A‐T+ profiles. This work provides also a realistic picture of the proportion of AD patients eligible for disease modifying treatments emphasizing the need for early detection.Funding: Foundation Research on Alzheimer Disease. Next Generation EU/National Recovery and Resilience Plan, Investment PE8‐Project Age‐It.

AbstractIn long transmission mains (TMs), maintenance operations and repairs often require the preliminary closure of some of the installed in-line valves. If perfectly sealed, these valves avoid leakage and then the possible emptying of the pipelines, air entry through leaks, and the successive unwanted transients at the filling completion. The poor accessibility of TMs makes the check of the valve sealing quite difficult since in most cases the confined space where they are installed implies the adoption of severe prevention measures. Therefore, expeditious and possibly remote survey procedures are strongly required by pipe system managers. In this paper, an innovative technique based on the execution of safe transient tests is proposed. It is tested on the Dorsale TM – a long, large diameter pipe system – in the northeast of Milan, Italy, where the sealing of three in-line valves had to be checked. The analysis of the test results allows pointing out successfully not only the valves sealing, but also refining a quick and reliable procedure – the so called “diagnostic kit” – that leads the way to automatic and periodic checks of the valve sealing. In the proposed procedure – that can be straightforwardly exported to other TMs – only a single pressure measurement section is required, that significantly simplifies the survey.

Abstract Issue Dementia is among the main causes of disability and dependency in the elderly. It was defined a public health priority by the WHO. The health and social-care system of the Lombardy region (SSR) plays a key role in implementing assistance and care pathways specifically designed for fragile populations, including those affected by dementia and Alzheimer's disease, its most common form. Description of the Problem The SSR provides residential care options especially conceived for dementia patients, known as Alzheimer's special care units (ASCU). However, waiting lists are concerning, and distribution of these facilities is inconsistent throughout the region. In 2018 there were 981 accredited and SSR-covered ASCU beds in the Metropolitan City of Milan (MCM), translating in 1.26 beds/1000 people aged ≥ 65. With regional legislation (DGR 1046/2018), the SSR proposed activation of new ASCU beds in all territories with less than 2 beds/1000 people aged ≥ 65. The MCM Agency for Health Protection (ATS) thus analyzed the distribution of ASCU beds in afferent districts, defining specific needs for each district. The aim was to fund and activate 574 new ASCU beds homogenously among previously accredited and SSR-covered residential care facilities, reaching the targeted 2 ASCU beds/1000 people aged ≥ 65. Applicant facilities had to respond to specific personnel, technological, therapeutic and structural requirements. Results Preliminary results indicate 29 residential care facilities applied for evaluation in 2019. The ATS received and evaluated all applications. Following site-inspection, 8 facilities were deemed inappropriate. Lessons In 2019, 21 residential care facilities were approved for funding and activation of 558 new ASCU beds. Residual beds will be funded in 2020. Main messages: Activation of new ASCU beds in 2019 and 2020 increased specialized long-term care beds for dementia patients by almost 60%, allowing a more homogenous distribution among MCM districts. Key messages The health and social-care system of the Lombardy region proposed activation of new Alzheimer’s special care units beds in all territories with less than 2 beds/1000 people aged ≥ 65. Activation of 574 new Alzheimer’s special care units beds increased by almost 60%, allowing a more homogenous distribution among Metropolitan City of Milan districts.

SummaryIn 2005, Moon proposed to equip tall buildings with movable façades to improve structural performance. Previous studies showed that, although this could be very effective in mitigating wind‐induced vibrations, its applicability is limited, as façades tend to exhibit excessive relative displacements. To solve this issue, two improvements are proposed in this work. First, the original idea of a monolithic façade is generalized to a Multiblock Movable Façade (MMF) where the external building skin is segmented into several independent blocks. Second, a friction slider equipped with bumpers is used to realize a dissipative connection capable of limiting the displacements of the façade. To evaluate the applicability of these ideas, the case study of a tall building (the Isozaki tower in Milan, Italy) is considered. Dissipative sliders are modeled as nonlinear hysteretic elements incorporated into a finite element model of the building. Numerical simulations of the dynamical effects of wind‐actions are carried out to compare the performances of the building with and without MMF. The results show that the actions transmitted to the building by the façade can be tuned by properly setting the characteristics of the MMF system to achieve satisfactory performance in terms of maximum displacements and accelerations.

Purpose The paper aims to investigate the comfort-related performances of an innovative solar shading solution based on a new composite patented material that consists of a cement-based matrix coupled with a stretchable three-dimensional textile. The paper’s aim is, through a performance-based generative design approach, to develop a high-performance static shading system able to guarantee adequate daylit spaces, a connection with the outdoors and a glare-free environment in the view of a holistic and occupant-centric daylight assessment. Design/methodology/approach The paper describes the design and simulation process of a complex static shading system for digital manufacturing purposes. Initially, the optical material properties were characterized to calibrate radiance-based simulations. The developed models were then implemented in a multi-objective genetic optimization algorithm to improve the shading geometries, and their performance was assessed and compared with traditional external louvres and overhangs. Findings The system developed demonstrates, for a reference office space located in Milan (Italy), the potential of increasing useful daylight illuminance by 35% with a reduced glare of up to 70%–80% while providing better uniformity and connection with the outdoors as a result of a topological optimization of the shape and position of the openings. Originality/value The paper presents the innovative nature of a new composite material that, coupled with the proposed performance-based optimization process, enables the fabrication of optimized shading/cladding surfaces with complex geometries whose formability does not require ad hoc formworks, making the process fast and economic.

Abstract Study question Do viable pregnancies after transfer of mosaic blastocysts present different perinatal outcomes as compared to those deriving from transfer of euploid blastocysts? Summary answer Pregnancies from transfer of mosaic vs. euploid blastocysts showed an increased rate of fetal structural malformations and postpartum haemorrhages (PPH). What is known already The incidence of mosaicisms in the trophoectoderm is a relatively frequent event and most true embryo mosaicisms result in spontaneous intrauterine demise. The confirmation of the mosaic aneuploidy in the fetus is related to the type and grade of the aneuploidy with higher risk for chromosomes 13, 14, 15, 16, 18 and 21 and X monosomy. On the other hand, selected mosaic blastocysts have been transferred with subsequent birth of healthy neonates. However, the risk of abnormal obstetric outcomes after transfer of mosaic embryos remains to be completely elucidated. Study design, size, duration Explorative cohort study between 2016 and 2021 including consecutive viable ART pregnancies developing from transfer of mosaic blastocysts (n = 39 cases). Transfer of available mosaic embryos was considered for patients with a poor response to ovarian stimulation or recurrent implantation failures and no available euploid blastocysts, after genetic counselling. Cases were matched for maternal age, parity and body mass index to women with viable pregnancies after transfer of euploid blastocysts (n = 39, controls) and followed-up until delivery. Participants/materials, setting, methods All patients recruited at San Raffaele, Scientific Institute of Milan, underwent a prenatal genetic testing by trophoectoderm biopsy and next-generation sequencing analysis. Patients with a viable fetus at 12 weeks gestation were included and underwent detailed ultrasound assessment at 12, 20 and 32 weeks including fetal biometry and anatomical survey. Frequency of adverse pregnancy and perinatal outcomes including maternal, fetal and delivery complications were compared between patients who received a mosaic versus a euploid blastocyst. Main results and the role of chance No difference in indications to preimplantation diagnosis was found between cases and controls. In the group who transferred mosaic embryos, median rate of mosaicisms was 35% (IQR 30%-40%) and they were characterized by heterogeneous anomalies including complex aneuploidies (n = 12), autosomal monosomies (n = 13), trisomies (n = 8) and duplications/deletions (n = 6). Invasive testing was performed in 62.0% of mosaics (5 chorion villous samplings; 19 amniocenteses; 2 anomalies: confined placental mosaicism trisomy 15 after transfer of mosaic monosomy 6 and fetal microduplication 6p after transfer of mosaic deletion 10p) vs 2.5% of controls (p < 0.001). Structural malformations were observed in 6 neonates in the study group (tanatophoric skeletal dysplasia, complex central nervous system anomaly, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, cerebral arteriovenous fistulae, pyeloureteral junction stenosis, diffuse haemangiomatosis) compared to 1 in controls (pulmonary stenosis) (p = 0.04). One neonate per group was followed-up for future surgery. PPH rate was significantly higher in cases vs controls (15 vs 7; p = 0.04). Neonatal survival at hospital discharge was not different in the two groups (p = 0.30). No significant differences were recorded in rates of preterm birth, small or large for gestational age, fetal growth restriction, miscarriage, preeclampsia and median birthweight centile or gestational age at birth. Limitations, reasons for caution Data from our exploratory study should be interpreted cautiously given the limited sample size which makes it challenging to infer a causal relationship between the association found and transfer of mosaic blastocysts. Wider implications of the findings The higher rates of structural malformations and PPH in ART pregnancies after transfer of mosaic embryos strongly suggest the need for strict monitoring of these patients. First and second trimester ultrasound screening for structural defects, and preventive measures to minimize bleeding at delivery should be implemented. Trial registration number not applicable

International Journal on Bioinformatics & Biosciences (IJBB) Vol.3, No.3, September 2013 DOI: 10.5121/ijbb.2013.3302 13 SURVEY ON MODELLING METHODS APPLICABLE TO GENE REGULATORY NETWORK Chanda Panse1 and Dr. Manali Kshirsagar1 1Department of Computer Technology, Yeshwantrao Chavan College of Engineering, Nagpur, India 1Department of Computer Technology, Yeshwantrao Chavan College of Engineering, Nagpur, India ABSTRACT Gene Regulatory Network (GRN) plays an important role in knowing insight of cellular life cycle. It gives information about at which different environmental conditions genes of particular interest get over expressed or under expressed. Modelling of GRN is nothing but finding interactive relationships between genes. Interaction can be positive or negative. For inference of GRN, time series data provided by Microarray technology is used. Key factors to be considered while constructing GRN are scalability, robustness, reliability and maximum detection of true positive interactions between genes. This paper gives detailed technical review of existing methods applied for building of GRN along with scope for future work. KEYWORDS Gene Regulatory Network, Microarray, robustness, scalability, reliability 1.INTRODUCTION Cellular biology is now becoming growing area for researchers to carry out research. There is ample amount of biological data available because of different, advanced experimental technologies like Microarray. In order to analyze and retrieve informative knowledge from these data efficient computational methods are required. These methods helps in knowing interactions carried out in organisms at genomic levels through some mathematical formalism. Such gene to gene communications are represented in terms of special network known as Gene Regulatory Network (GRN). It is a graphical representation in which nodes consist of genes or protein or metabolites and edges connecting them show regulatory relationships between them. It is constructed by observing the behaviour of genes and their impact on other genes at particular experimental condition. This behaviour is analysed in terms of measuring the values of gene expressions with the help Microarray technology. Gene expressions are dynamic and non-linear in nature. When specialised proteins known as Transcription Factors (TFs) bind to promoter region of DNA, it intervenes the rate of protein synthesis which in turn results in sudden change in values of gene expressions. This intervention can be positive or negative. If rate of protein synthesis increases then it is called as activation or up-regulation or positive regulation and if it decreases then it is called as inhibition or down regulation or negative regulation. If gene g1 positively regulates gene g2 then it mean there is increase in expression level of g2 because of g1 and in negative regulation it decreases expression level of g2. GRN is useful for analyzing the effect of International Journal on Bioinformatics & Biosciences (IJBB) Vol.3, No.3, September 2013 14 drugs on genes. It also helps in studying dynamics of specific gene under particular diseased or experimental conditions. It helps in studying diseases caused due to genes (hereditary diseases). Considering all advantages of GRN, identifying GRN is quite complicated and interesting task for researchers. There are many mathematical models like [1][2][6][26][17][13] proposed for inference of GRN but still this research area is in the stage of babyhood because of inability to reach to maximum detection of true positive interactions between genes. Depends on the availability of models they are classified into two major categories i.e. traditional and untraditional. A traditional model includes Boolean Network, Bayesian Network, Linear Differential Model etc and non-traditional model includes Neural Network model and Model based on Evolutionary algorithms. This paper gives detailed review of all those mathematical formalisms used for identifying GRN along with database and experimental setup used. It also describes challenges while handling gene expression data generated from microarray technology. The paper is organized as follows: section 2 describes properties of GRN. Section 3 talks about difficulties in gathering data. Section 4 discusses detailed literature survey of existing models in terms of model name, mathematical representation and database used accompanying with advantages and limitation followed by summary and conclusion in last section. 2. PROPERTIES Gene regulation occurs at any stage of transcription, translation and post-transcription or posttranslation. Regulatory elements involved can be proteins (TFs) or genes or RNAs or metabolites. Depends on elements involved and mathematical model used GRN has following properties which have to be considered while inventing new method [11]. 2.1. Anatomy of network GRN is represented using graph. Anatomy of GRN is nothing but the topology of how regulatory elements are arranged in it. Generally genes are used as nodes of graph and solution from mathematical models decoded into directed or undirected edges depends on models used. Those edges can be activatory or inhibitory. How to represent genes and different types of interactive edges is going to create topology of GRN. 2.2 Sensitivity GRN are insensitive to the variations in model parameters. This robustness is guaranteed by models following specific topology. Robust nature of GRN assures same plan for functioning of genes even though genome is dynamic in nature. 2.3 Noise Data required for modelling GRN is a biological data which has inherited noise from biochemical reactions. This noise can be advantageous or disadvantageous to some models. Therefore handling this noise is the main concern. It is considered in terms of inclusion of some parameters in mathematical form of model 3. CHALLENGES For the designing of GRN time series data from Microarray is used which is in the form of matrix of order N by M where N represents number of genes and M represents length of International Journal on Bioinformatics & Biosciences (IJBB) Vol.3, No.3, September 2013 15 experiments which is shown in Fig1. Gij represents expression of gene i at jth time interval of particular experimental condition. Genes T1 T2 ....... TM G1 G11 G12 ....... G1M G2 G21 G22 ....... G2M : : : : : : : : : : GN GN1 GN2 ....... GNM Figure 1. Microarray time series data As microarray captures temporal response of genes it is very difficult to select specific model which will analyze these expression patterns of genes and state causal relationship among them. Because of this there are many computational challenges described by [29] at different levels of analysis of time series gene expression. Those four different levels are experimental design, data analysis, pattern recognition and network. This section is going to focus on challenges to be faced at above levels. If there is deficiency in sampling (under sampling) then there is a possibility of missing major change in gene expression which might respond in later stage of sampling. Along with this if ample amount of samples are needed then again it is very time consuming as well as costly process. This is the main challenge at the level of experimental designing. While doing data analysis there is possibility of unavailability of continuous gene expression for every time slot. This is the challenge at second level. Microarray experiments also add noise to data which might or might not be advantageous. For calculating missing gene expression some effective interpolation techniques are needed. Third challenge is at pattern analysis level. In pattern analysis genes are grouped into different clusters on the basis of their mere expression values. Built in dependencies of consecutive time points are not exploited by existing clustering algorithms which is very important in GRN modelling. None of the clustering algorithms is taking advantage of this while clustering. Major challenge at network level is going to generation of such a predictive model which actually predict biologically possible interaction among genes. i.e. which gene is going to interact with which other gene, which gene is going to expressed first, which is going to expressed next. Thus considering limitations of sampling and data analysis it requires preprocessing of gene expression data before designing model. Pre-processing is in terms of clustering or noise removing or interpolating missing values. Next section is going to describe methods and algorithms proposed by different authors for modelling GRN. 4. MATHEMATICAL MODELS There are large number mathematical models proposed for inference of GRN. On the basis of their chronological order those are classified into: traditional and un-traditional models. Traditional model includes Boolean network, Bayesian network, Dynamic Bayesian. network model, Differential equation model and untraditional model includes models based on evolutionary algorithms like Genetic algorithms and PSO. The model discussed in [9] is based on Boolean network without time delay. Value of gene regulatory relationship is calculated by applying Boolean function which contains Boolean International Journal on Bioinformatics & Biosciences (IJBB) Vol.3, No.3, September 2013 16 operators like AND, OR, NOT etc. on at most two genes contributing to in degree of some other gene G. This model considers conditions of gene disruption and over expression for building GRN but it is limited to only two regulators not more than that. Discrete time model developed in [20] is based on weight matrices. All regulatory interactions between genes are computed as linear coefficient which is summation of independent regulatory input. i.e. net regulatory effect of gene j on gene i at some time t is given by the expression ௜ݎ ௝,௜ݓ෍ = (ݐ) ௝ (ݐ)௝ݑ where Wij is regulatory influence of gene j on i and uj(t) represents expression level of gene j at time t. Positive value of Wij represents activation of gene i by gene j and negative value indicates inhibition. This model suffers from data loss because of not considering dependency in gene interactions. Hybrid model developed in [30] uses integration of Boolean network and S-system model. Boolean network of this model helps in treating large genome data and S-system model adds loop structure in genetic network which is important and not discussed in prior existing models. From the observation of pattern of gene expressions a new model is proposed in [12]. From those observation directed graph with labelled edges are constructed. Because of possibility of existing false positive regulatory edges the graph is then pruned using combinatorial optimization problem i.e. simulated annealing but concluded with assumption that some factors like phosphorylation are required for activation of gene expression which cannot be measured by gene chips at RNA levels. Because of only considering two states of gene by Boolean network, intermediate state get neglected [25] [31]. As an extension of Boolean network, Generalized Logical Network (GLN) is developed by Thomas and colleagues [32]. It allows having intermediate values of gene expression (other than 0 and 1) and transition can occur synchronously and asynchronously between these values. In GLN each node (gene) is associated with generalized truth table (GTT) which contains all possible values of parent nodes. This GTT maps values of parent nodes to the value of corresponding child node. Because of complex nature of gene regulatory process, model based on Bayesian Network (BN) is proposed in [33]. BN has ability to capture complex stochastic process. In this model genes are assumed to be random variables and regulatory interaction is obtained by applying joint probability distribution for each random expression of gene. The Bayesian network which formed, gives the topology of GRN. Drawback of this network is that it fails to consider dynamic nature of genes as well feedback loops. To overcome this the model is extended to Dynamic Bayesian Network(DBN) which considers temporal aspects to gene data. Inference of GRN using DBN is same as that of Bayesian network except that extra parameters of time t-1 are added [35]. It is limited to small network because of high computational overhead. Another two probabilistic graphical models used for reconstruction of GRN using microarray are discussed in [19]. One is independence graph model which is based on forward and backward search algorithm and another is based on Gaussian Network (GN) model which is rooted on Greedy Search method. Out of these two models GN provides better results in terms of genegene interactions than later model but it suffers from longer learning time. These are all traditional models which can either applied to discrete or continuous data. In [24] author proposed Neural network based model. Genes are represented by nodes of neural network and connection between nodes represents regulatory relationship between genes and International Journal on Bioinformatics & Biosciences (IJBB) Vol.3, No.3, September 2013 17 weight matrix obtained after training gives type of regulatory relationships. Expression of a gene gi at time t+Δt is obtained from weight of edge Wij between nodes i,j and expression yi at time t. Thus regulatory effect on gene gi is obtained from ݃௜ ≈ ෍ ௝ ௝ݕ௝௜ݓ Sigmoid function is then applied to this equation to transform it in the interval . The model was computationally intensive because of large number of parameters obtained from experimental data. This is the first non-traditional model used for inference of GRN. It provides better description of biological system and can be used to better measure the reasonableness of mathematical model. Another model based on linear differential equation is implemented in [21]. In this model author has utilized a statistical method the Lasso to reverse engineer the network. The linear timecontinuous dynamical model is of the form ௜ݔ݀ (ݐ) ௝ݔ௝௜ݓ෍ = ݐ݀ ௜∋+ (ݐ) ே ௝ୀଵ This method helps in providing insight of GRN on a large scale but cannot be used to get detailed information of small sub-networks related to biological function. In order to deal with uncertainty in the function of genes, models based on fuzzy system are described in [16][5][8]. Once clustering is done in [5], the model is simplified as linear model and with the help of evidence code generated by Gene Ontology. This assessed function of gene and gene interaction. But the major limitation of this method is that it shows relationship between clusters instead of individual gene. Another fuzzy based model in [16] talks about fuzzy data mining technique which transfers quantitative gene expression values into linguistic terms which in turn discovers fuzzy dependency relationships between genes from unseen samples and genes in original database. Dynamic fuzzy model is developed in [8]. It incorporates structural knowledge in gene network. This helps in knowing which gene affects another gene and whether effect is positive or negative. It achieves fast identification of regulatory interaction and captures inherent non-linear dynamic property of gene network so that prediction of fuzzy gene network will be easier. A two stage methodology based on Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Expectation Maximization algorithm is implemented in software GnetXp is mentioned in [10]. In first stage gene expression trajectories are clustered based on expression values and in second stage Kalman filtering is applied to parameters of first order differential equation which describes dynamic of GRN in terms of gene interaction and future time points prediction. Another method based on ordinary differential equation is employed in [15] which developed mathematical formulation for identifying gene interaction from time series expression profiles. But the method is only applicable to small network consisting of 4-8 genes Similar to [10] a method is proposed in [4]. In this model instead of GA, genetic programming is used to infer ordinary differential equation framework with noise using time-series data and Kalman filtering is used to estimate model parameters. Considering this method as a base, Extended Kalman Filtering (EKF) approach is used to model non-linear dynamics of GRN in [3]. This method helps to deal with scarcity of time series gene data and EKF is applied to calculate parameters of model estimated by differential equation. International Journal on Bioinformatics & Biosciences (IJBB) Vol.3, No.3, September 2013 18 As Bayesian Network based modelling is time consuming hybrid approach is proposed in [7]. It is based on gene expression and gene ontology. This method is going to detect potential gene regulatory pair which cannot be detected by any general inferring method and also identifies feedback loops between genes. For this purpose overlap clustering is used to find local components of global network so that search space of Bayesian Network method get reduced and then BN is applied on each cluster to infer local networks. The algorithm based on Bayesian network is proposed in [17]. This algorithm performs several independence tests on given biological data and then build network from it. Although the algorithm is for sparse graph, it identifies dense nodes first and then constructs network. The main advantage of this method is that it can also applicable for large network and helps in achieving good quality network with minimum computational overhead. Method discussed in [18] overcomes the problem of Bayesian Network of neglecting time series data which is useful in identifying direction of regulatory interactions among genes. This method uses the concept of influence vector. Value of this influence vector associated with individual gene increases as gene expression increases with time step. Finally vector with highest score helps in building GRN. In order to overcome scalability issue of previous methods Markov blanket method for modelling GRN is presented in [2]. The method starts with formation of Markov Blankets for each gene X. Putative network model is selected using first and second order partial co-relations on the basis of achieved excellent meaningful relationships. Again false positive edges are removed from remaining model using guided GA on the basis of overall network score. Disadvantage of this method is that there is loss of data as it is applicable to discrete data. Advantage is that it is fast because of calculation of partial correlations only up to second order and also because of guided GA which keeps track of intermediate results and calculations. Another class of evolutionary algorithms i.e. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is used for finding interaction among genes in many models [26][14][22][6]. Considering limitations of all traditional modelling methods, the best formalism to tackle complex time series gene data is Recurrent Neural Network (RNN). Inference of GRNs with RNN Models using PSO uses PSO to train parameters of RNN based model and type of regulatory interaction between genes is stated with the help of weight matrix obtained after training. Modelling GRN using hybrid DEPSO [26] states that main difficulty with RNN is its training. Training of RNN is done with three different methods: Differential Evolution (DE), PSO, and hybrid of these two (DE and PSO) DEPSO. Out of these three DEPSO proved to be efficient than individual method which is then applied for inference of GRN. Parameters of the model are calculated by training of RNN using this hybrid approach. It has been observed that the method provides meaningful insight in capturing non-linear dynamics of gene networks and reveals gene to gene interaction through weight matrix. Reverse Engineering of Gene Regulatory Networks using Dissipative Particle Swarm Optimization [22] applied PSO for calculating parameters of S-system which creates mathematical framework for reverse engineering of GRN. S-system is a Biochemical system theory represented by following mathematical equation: ݀ܺ௜ ௝ܺෑ௜ ߙ = ݐ݀ ௚೔ೕ ே ௝ୀଵ ௝ܺෑ௜ ߚ − ௛೔ೕ ே ௝ୀଵ International Journal on Bioinformatics & Biosciences (IJBB) Vol.3, No.3, September 2013 19 Kinetic order gij regulates activation of gene expression Xi due to Xj and hij regulates inhibition of Xi due to Xj . The method helps in minimizing false positive interactions. It is specifically applicable to small network of 5-8 genes. Swarm Intelligence Framework for Reconstructing Gene Networks [6] uses computationally intelligent two swarm intelligence algorithms i.e. PSO and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) for retrieving biologically possible architecture along with RNN. Different architectures are generated using RNN whose parameters are again trained by PSO and ACO is used for reducing searching time of networks using stochastic graph generation. Thus many methods have been reviewed which are summarized in table 1. In accompanying with this, advantages, limitations, and modelling equations of Bayesian Network, Boolean network, ordinary differential equation model, and neural network model are discussed in detailed in [35]. Table 1. Summary Table. International Journal on Bioinformatics & Biosciences (IJBB) Vol.3, No.3, September 2013 20 International Journal on Bioinformatics & Biosciences (IJBB) Vol.3, No.3, September 2013 21 3. CONCLUSIONS Thus, this paper has discussed many methodologies used for inference of GRN. Many are limited to small GRN consisting of 5-8 genes. Many methodologies are able to find more true positive interactive edges but along with that they also added false positive edges in the network. None of the method also discussed about how to deal with curse of dimensionality problem. Many traditional models are focussing on either structure or structure along with dynamics [28]. There is lot more scope in modelling GRN with respect to scalability, robustness and reliability. Major source of Database required for GRN is Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) which is freely downloadable. In addition to this tools along with type of data handled by particular method are discussed in [27]. REFERENCES [1] Amina Noor, Erchin Serpedin, Mohamed Nounou, and Hazem N. Nounou “Inferring Gene Regulatory Networks via Nonlinear State-Space Models and Exploiting Sparsity”, IEEE/ACM Transactions On Computational Biology And Bioinformatics, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 1203-1211, July/August 2012 [2] Ramesh Ram and Madhu Chetty, “A Markov-Blanket-Based Model for Gene Regulatory Network Inference”, IEEE/ACM Transactions On Computational Biology And Bioinformatics, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 353-367,March/April 2011 [3] Zidong Wang, Xiaohui Liu, Yurong Liu, Jinling Liang, and Veronica Vinciotti, “An Extended Kalman Filtering Approach to Modeling Nonlinear Dynamic Gene Regulatory Networks via Short Gene Expression Time Series”, IEEE/ACM Transactions On Computational Biology And Bioinformatics, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp.410-419,July-September 2009 [4] Lijun Qian, Haixin Wang, and Edward R. Dougherty, “Inference of Noisy Nonlinear Differential Equation Models for Gene Regulatory Networks Using Genetic Programming and Kalman Filtering”, IEEE Transactions On Signal Processing, Vol. 56, No. 7, pp. 3327-3339,July 2008 [5] Pan Du, Jian Gong, Eve Syrkin Wurtele, and Julie A. Dickerson, Member, IEEE, “Modeling Gene Expression Networks Using Fuzzy Logic”, IEEE Transactions On Systems, Man, And Cybernetics—Part B: Cybernetics, Vol. 35, No. 6, pp. 1351-1359,December 2005 [6] Kyriakos Kentzoglanakis and Matthew Poole, “A Swarm Intelligence Framework for Reconstructing Gene Networks: Searching for Biologically Plausible Architectures”, IEEE/ACM Transactions On Computational Biology And Bioinformatics, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 358-371, March/April 2012 [7] Liping Jing, Michael K. Ng, and Ying Liu, “Construction of Gene Networks With Hybrid Approach From Expression Profile and Gene Ontology”, IEEE Transactions On Information Technology In Biomedicine, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 107-118,January 2010 [8] Yonghui Sun, Gang Fengand Jinde Cao “A New Approach to Dynamic Fuzzy Modeling of Genetic Regulatory Networks”, IEEE Transactions On Nanobioscience, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 263- 272, December 2010 [9] Tatsuya Akutsu, Satoru Kuhara, Osamu Maruyama, Satoru Miyano, “A System for Identifying Genetic Networks from Gene Expression Patterns Produced by Gene Disruptions and Overexpressions”, Universal Academy Press , 1998 [10] Zeke S.H. Chan, N. Kasabov, Lesley Collins, “A two-stage methodology for gene regulatory network extraction from time–course gene expression data” Expert Systems with Applications 30 (2006) 59–63 [11] Vladimir Filkov, “Identifying Gene Regulatory Networks from Gene Expression Data”, Handbook on Computational Molecular Biology ch.-27, 2005 [12] Ting Chen, Vladimir Filkov, Steven Skiena, “Identifying gene regulatory networks from experimental data”, Journal of Parallel Computing Elsevier,27(2001) pp.141-162 International Journal on Bioinformatics & Biosciences (IJBB) Vol.3, No.3, September 2013 22 [13] Hitoshi Iba, Atsushi Mimura, “Inference of gene regulatory network by means of interactive evolutionary computing”, International Journal of Information Sciences ,Elsevier 145 (2002) 225- 236 [14] Rui Xu, Donald C. Wunsch II, and Ronald L. Frank, “Inference of Genetic Regulatory Networks with Recurrent Neural Network Models Using Particle Swarm Optimization”, IEEE/ACM Transactions On Computational Biology And Bioinformatics, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 681-692, October-December 2007 [15] Shinuk Kim, Junil Kim, Kwang-Hyun Cho, “Inferring gene regulatory networks from temporal expression profiles under time-delay and noise”, Journal of Computational Biology and Chemistry,Sciencedirect 31(2007) pp. 239-245. [16] Patrick C. H. Ma and Keith C. C. Chan,” Inferring Gene Regulatory Networks From Expression Data by Discovering Fuzzy Dependency Relationships”, IEEE Transactions On Fuzzy Systems, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 455-465,APRIL 2008 [17] Mehmet Tan, Mohammed Alshalalfa, Reda Alhajj, and Faruk Polat, “Influence of Prior Knowledge in Constraint-Based Learning of Gene Regulatory Networks”, IEEE/ACM Transactions On Computational Biology And Bioinformatics, Vol. 8, No. 1,pp. 130-142 January/February 2011 [18] Nathan A. Barker, Chris J. Myers, and Hiroyuki Kuwahara, “Learning Genetic Regulatory Network Connectivity from Time Series Data”, IEEE/ACM Transactions On Computational Biology And Bioinformatics, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 152-165,January/February 2011 [19] Junbai wang, Leo Wang-Kit Cheung, Jan Delabie, “New probabilistic graphical models for genetic regulatory networks studies”, Elsevier Journal of Biomedical Informatics 38 (2005) pp. 443-455 [20] D.C. Weaver, C.T. Workman, G.D. Stormo, “Modeling Regulatory Networks With Weight Matrices”, Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing 4:112-123 (1999) [21] Mika Gustafsson, Michael Hornquist, and Anna Lombardi, “Constructing and Analyzing a LargeScale Gene-to-Gene Regulatory Network—Lasso-Constrained Inference and Biological Validation”, IEEE/ACM Transactions On Computational Biology And Bioinformatics, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 254-261, July-September 2005 [22] Leon Palafox, Noman Nasimul, and Hitoshi Iba, “Reverse Engineering of Gene Regulatory Networks using Dissipative Particle Swarm Optimization”, IEEE Transaction of Evolutionary Computation, December 2011 [23] Tianhai Tian and Kevin Burrage, “Stochastic Neural Network Models for Gene Regulatory Networks”, IEEE Computer Society, pp. 162-169, December 2003 [24] Vohradsky J., “ Neural network model of gene expression”, FASEB J. 15, 846–854 (2001) [25] Reka Albert, “Boolean Modeling of Genetic Regulatory Networks”, Springer Lecture notes on Physics 650, pp. 459-481, 2004 [26] Rui Xu, Ganesh venayagamoorthy, Donald Wunsch, “Modeling of gene regulatory networks with hybrid differential evolution and particle swarm optimization”, ScienceDirect, Neural Networks 20 (2007) 917–927 [27] Wei-Po Lee and Wen-Shyong Tzou, “Computational methods for discovering gene networks from expression data”, Briefing in Bioinformatics, Vol 10, No. 4, 408-423 [28] Chao Sima, Jianping Hua and Sungwon Jun, “Inference of Gene Regulatory Networks Using Time-Series Data: A Survay” Journal of Current Genomics, pp. 416-429 October 2009 [29] Ziv Bar-Joseph, “Analyzing time series gene expression data”, Journal of Bioinformatics, Vol. 20 no. 16 , pages 2493–2503, 2004 [30] Y. Mak i , D. Tominaga, M. Okamoto, S. Watanabe, Y. Eguchi, “Development Of A System For The Inference Of Large Scale Genetic Networks”, Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing 6:446- 458 2001 [31] Hidde De Jong, “Modeling and Simulation of Genetic Regulatory Systems: A Literature Review”, Journal Of Computational Biology Volume 9, Number 1, pp.67-103, 2002 [32] Thomas R., “Regulatory networks seen as asynchronous automata:A logical description”, Journal of Theoretical Biolgy, 1991:153:1-23 [33] Nir Friedman, Michal Linial, Iftach Nachman, Dana Peer, “Using Bayesian Networks to Analyze Expression Data”, Proceedings of the Fourth Annual International Conference on Computational Molecular Biology, 2000. [34] Kevin Murphy and Saira Mian, “Modelling Gene Expression Data using Dynamic Bayesian Networks” 1999. International Journal on Bioinformatics & Biosciences (IJBB) Vol.3, No.3, September 2013 23 [35] Hanif Yghoobi, Siyamak Haghipour, Hossein Hamzeiy, Masoud Asadi- Khiavi, “ A Review of Modelling Techniques for Genetic Regulatory Networks”, Journal of Medical Signals and sensors, Vol. 2, Issue 1, pp. 61-70, January-March 2012 Authors Chanda Panse received her Bachelor of Engineering degree from Pune University in 2004. She has completed her M.E. in Computer Science and Engineering from BITS Pilani, Rajasthan in 2008. She is an Asst. Professor in Yeshwantrao Chavan College of Engineering, Nagpur. She has around 5 Yrs of teaching experience. Currently she is persueing her Ph.d in Gene Regulation from Nagpur University. Her area of research includes Data Structures, Operating Systems, Parallel Programming and Bioinformatics. Dr. Manali Kshirsagar received her B.E. in Computer Technology, M.E. Computer Science & Engineering and Ph.D. in the faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology. Her specialization at the PG and Ph.D. level has been in the areas of Data Warehousing , Data Mining and Bioinformatics. She has about 20 technical and research publications to her credit which have appeared in International Journals, International and National conferences. She is guiding 08 Ph.D. students at present. With a total experience of 18 years of teaching and industry. She was Head of Computer Technology Department of YCCE ,Nagpur from 2008 till 2012. She is currently a Vice- President of ADCC Infotech, Nagpur.

Introduction In December 2010, Nespresso, the world’s leading brand of premium-portioned coffee, opened a flagship “boutique” in Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall. This was Nespresso’s fifth boutique opening of 2010, after Brussels, Miami, Soho, and Munich. The Sydney debut coincided with the mall’s upmarket redevelopment, which explains Nespresso’s arrival in the city: strategic geographic expansion is key to the brand’s growth. Rather than panoramic ubiquity, a retail option favoured by brands like McDonalds, KFC and Starbucks, Nespresso opts for iconic, prestigious locations. This strategy has been highly successful: since 2000 Nespresso has recorded year-on-year per annum growth of 30 per cent. This has been achieved, moreover, despite a global financial downturn and an international coffee market replete with brand variety. In turn, Nespresso marks an evolution in the coffee market over the last decade. The Nespresso Story Founded in 1986, Nespresso is the fasting growing brand in the Nestlé Group. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland, with over 7,000 employees worldwide. In 2012, Nespresso had 270 boutiques in 50 countries. The brand’s growth strategy involves three main components: premium coffee capsules, “mated” with specially designed machines, and accompanied by exceptional customer service through the Nespresso Club. Each component requires some explanation. Nespresso offers 16 varieties of Grand Crus coffee: 7 espresso blends, 3 pure origin espressos, 3 lungos (for larger cups), and 3 decaffeinated coffees. Each 5.5 grams of portioned coffee is cased in a hermetically sealed aluminium capsule, or pod, designed to preserve the complex, volatile aromas (between 800 and 900 per pod), and prevent oxidation. These capsules are designed to be used exclusively with Nespresso-branded machines, which are equipped with a patented high-pressure extraction system designed for optimum release of the coffee. These machines, of which there are 28 models, are developed with 6 machine partners, and Antoine Cahen, from Ateliers du Nord in Lausanne, designs most of them. For its consumers, members of the Nespresso Club, the capsules and machines guarantee perfect espresso coffee every time, within seconds and with minimum effort—what Nespresso calls the “ultimate coffee experience.” The Nespresso Club promotes this experience as an everyday luxury, whereby café-quality coffee can be enjoyed in the privacy and comfort of Club members’ homes. This domestic focus is a relatively recent turn in its history. Nestlé patented some of its pod technology in 1976; the compatible machines, initially made in Switzerland by Turmix, were developed a decade later. Nespresso S. A. was set up as a subsidiary unit within the Nestlé Group with a view to target the office and fine restaurant sector. It was first test-marketed in Japan in 1986, and rolled out the same year in Switzerland, France and Italy. However, by 1988, low sales prompted Nespresso’s newly appointed CEO, Jean-Paul Gillard, to rethink the brand’s focus. Gillard subsequently repositioned Nespresso’s target market away from the commercial sector towards high-income households and individuals, and introduced a mail-order distribution system; these elements became the hallmarks of the Nespresso Club (Markides 55). The Nespresso Club was designed to give members who had purchased Nespresso machines 24-hour customer service, by mail, phone, fax, and email. By the end of 1997 there were some 250,000 Club members worldwide. The boom in domestic, user-friendly espresso machines from the early 1990s helped Nespresso’s growth in this period. The cumulative efforts by the main manufacturers—Krups, Bosch, Braun, Saeco and DeLonghi—lowered the machines’ average price to around US $100 (Purpura, “Espresso” 88; Purpura, “New” 116). This paralleled consumers’ growing sophistication, as they became increasingly familiar with café-quality espresso, cappuccino and latté—for reasons to be detailed below. Nespresso was primed to exploit this cultural shift in the market and forge a charismatic point of difference: an aspirational, luxury option within an increasingly accessible and familiar field. Between 2006 and 2008, Nespresso sales more than doubled, prompting a second production factory to supplement the original plant in Avenches (Simonian). In 2008, Nespresso grew 20 times faster than the global coffee market (Reguly B1). As Nespresso sales exceeded $1.3 billion AU in 2009, with 4.8 billion capsules shipped out annually and 5 million Club members worldwide, it became Nestlé’s fastest growing division (Canning 28). According to Nespresso’s Oceania market director, Renaud Tinel, the brand now represents 8 per cent of the total coffee market; of Nespresso specifically, he reports that 10,000 cups (using one capsule per cup) were consumed worldwide each minute in 2009, and that increased to 12,300 cups per minute in 2010 (O’Brien 16). Given such growth in such a brief period, the atypical dynamic between the boutique, the Club and the Nespresso brand warrants closer consideration. Nespresso opened its first boutique in Paris in 2000, on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. It was a symbolic choice and signalled the brand’s preference for glamorous precincts in cosmopolitan cities. This has become the design template for all Nespresso boutiques, what the company calls “brand embassies” in its press releases. More like art gallery-style emporiums than retail spaces, these boutiques perform three main functions: they showcase Nespresso coffees, machines and accessories (all elegantly displayed); they enable Club members to stock up on capsules; and they offer excellent customer service, which invariably equates to detailed production information. The brand’s revenue model reflects the boutique’s role in the broader business strategy: 50 per cent of Nespresso’s business is generated online, 30 per cent through the boutiques, and 20 per cent through call centres. Whatever floor space these boutiques dedicate to coffee consumption is—compared to the emphasis on exhibition and ambience—minimal and marginal. In turn, this tightly monitored, self-focused model inverts the conventional function of most commercial coffee sites. For several hundred years, the café has fostered a convivial atmosphere, served consumers’ social inclinations, and overwhelmingly encouraged diverse, eclectic clientele. The Nespresso boutique is the antithesis to this, and instead actively limits interaction: the Club “community” does not meet as a community, and is united only in atomised allegiance to the Nespresso brand. In this regard, Nespresso stands in stark contrast to another coffee brand that has been highly successful in recent years—Starbucks. Starbucks famously recreates the aesthetics, rhetoric and atmosphere of the café as a “third place”—a term popularised by urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg to describe non-work, non-domestic spaces where patrons converge for respite or recreation. These liminal spaces (cafés, parks, hair salons, book stores and such locations) might be private, commercial sites, yet they provide opportunities for chance encounters, even therapeutic interactions. In this way, they aid sociability and civic life (Kleinman 193). Long before the term “third place” was coined, coffee houses were deemed exemplars of egalitarian social space. As Rudolf P. Gaudio notes, the early coffee houses of Western Europe, in Oxford and London in the mid-1600s, “were characterized as places where commoners and aristocrats could meet and socialize without regard to rank” (670). From this sanguine perspective, they both informed and animated the modern public sphere. That is, and following Habermas, as a place where a mixed cohort of individuals could meet and discuss matters of public importance, and where politics intersected society, the eighteenth-century British coffee house both typified and strengthened the public sphere (Karababa and Ger 746). Moreover, and even from their early Ottoman origins (Karababa and Ger), there has been an historical correlation between the coffee house and the cosmopolitan, with the latter at least partly defined in terms of demographic breadth (Luckins). Ironically, and insofar as Nespresso appeals to coffee-literate consumers, the brand owes much to Starbucks. In the two decades preceding Nespresso’s arrival, Starbucks played a significant role in refining coffee literacy around the world, gauging mass-market trends, and stirring consumer consciousness. For Nespresso, this constituted major preparatory phenomena, as its strategy (and success) since the early 2000s presupposed the coffee market that Starbucks had helped to create. According to Nespresso’s chief executive Richard Giradot, central to Nespresso’s expansion is a focus on particular cities and their coffee culture (Canning 28). In turn, it pays to take stock of how such cities developed a coffee culture amenable to Nespresso—and therein lays the brand’s debt to Starbucks. Until the last few years, and before celebrity ambassador George Clooney was enlisted in 2005, Nespresso’s marketing was driven primarily by Club members’ recommendations. At the same time, though, Nespresso insisted that Club members were coffee connoisseurs, whose knowledge and enjoyment of coffee exceeded conventional coffee offerings. In 2000, Henk Kwakman, one of Nestlé’s Coffee Specialists, explained the need for portioned coffee in terms of guaranteed perfection, one that demanding consumers would expect. “In general”, he reasoned, “people who really like espresso coffee are very much more quality driven. When you consider such an intense taste experience, the quality is very important. If the espresso is slightly off quality, the connoisseur notices this immediately” (quoted in Butler 50). What matters here is how this corps of connoisseurs grew to a scale big enough to sustain and strengthen the Nespresso system, in the absence of a robust marketing or educative drive by Nespresso (until very recently). Put simply, the brand’s ascent was aided by Starbucks, specifically by the latter’s success in changing the mainstream coffee market during the 1990s. In establishing such a strong transnational presence, Starbucks challenged smaller, competing brands to define themselves with more clarity and conviction. Indeed, working with data that identified just 200 freestanding coffee houses in the US prior to 1990 compared to 14,000 in 2003, Kjeldgaard and Ostberg go so far as to state that: “Put bluntly, in the US there was no local coffee consumptionscape prior to Starbucks” (Kjeldgaard and Ostberg 176). Starbucks effectively redefined the coffee world for mainstream consumers in ways that were directly beneficial for Nespresso. Starbucks: Coffee as Ambience, Experience, and Cultural Capital While visitors to Nespresso boutiques can sample the coffee, with highly trained baristas and staff on site to explain the Nespresso system, in the main there are few concessions to the conventional café experience. Primarily, these boutiques function as material spaces for existing Club members to stock up on capsules, and therefore they complement the Nespresso system with a suitably streamlined space: efficient, stylish and conspicuously upmarket. Outside at least one Sydney boutique for instance (Bondi Junction, in the fashionable eastern suburbs), visitors enter through a club-style cordon, something usually associated with exclusive bars or hotels. This demarcates the boutique from neighbouring coffee chains, and signals Nespresso’s claim to more privileged patrons. This strategy though, the cultivation of a particular customer through aesthetic design and subtle flattery, is not unique. For decades, Starbucks also contrived a “special” coffee experience. Moreover, while the Starbucks model strikes a very different sensorial chord to that of Nespresso (in terms of décor, target consumer and so on) it effectively groomed and prepped everyday coffee drinkers to a level of relative self-sufficiency and expertise—and therein is the link between Starbucks’s mass-marketed approach and Nespresso’s timely arrival. Starbucks opened its first store in 1971, in Seattle. Three partners founded it: Jerry Baldwin and Zev Siegl, both teachers, and Gordon Bowker, a writer. In 1982, as they opened their sixth Seattle store, they were joined by Howard Schultz. Schultz’s trip to Italy the following year led to an entrepreneurial epiphany to which he now attributes Starbucks’s success. Inspired by how cafés in Italy, particularly the espresso bars in Milan, were vibrant social hubs, Schultz returned to the US with a newfound sensitivity to ambience and attitude. In 1987, Schultz bought Starbucks outright and stated his business philosophy thus: “We aren’t in the coffee business, serving people. We are in the people business, serving coffee” (quoted in Ruzich 432). This was articulated most clearly in how Schultz structured Starbucks as the ultimate “third place”, a welcoming amalgam of aromas, music, furniture, textures, literature and free WiFi. This transformed the café experience twofold. First, sensory overload masked the dull homogeny of a global chain with an air of warm, comforting domesticity—an inviting, everyday “home away from home.” To this end, in 1994, Schultz enlisted interior design “mastermind” Wright Massey; with his team of 45 designers, Massey created the chain’s decor blueprint, an “oasis for contemplation” (quoted in Scerri 60). At the same time though, and second, Starbucks promoted a revisionist, airbrushed version of how the coffee was produced. Patrons could see and smell the freshly roasted beans, and read about their places of origin in the free pamphlets. In this way, Starbucks merged the exotic and the cosmopolitan. The global supply chain underwent an image makeover, helped by a “new” vocabulary that familiarised its coffee drinkers with the diversity and complexity of coffee, and such terms as aroma, acidity, body and flavour. This strategy had a decisive impact on the coffee market, first in the US and then elsewhere: Starbucks oversaw a significant expansion in coffee consumption, both quantitatively and qualitatively. In the decades following the Second World War, coffee consumption in the US reached a plateau. Moreover, as Steven Topik points out, the rise of this type of coffee connoisseurship actually coincided with declining per capita consumption of coffee in the US—so the social status attributed to specialised knowledge of coffee “saved” the market: “Coffee’s rise as a sign of distinction and connoisseurship meant its appeal was no longer just its photoactive role as a stimulant nor the democratic sociability of the coffee shop” (Topik 100). Starbucks’s singular triumph was to not only convert non-coffee drinkers, but also train them to a level of relative sophistication. The average “cup o’ Joe” thus gave way to the latte, cappuccino, macchiato and more, and a world of coffee hitherto beyond (perhaps above) the average American consumer became both regular and routine. By 2003, Starbucks’s revenue was US $4.1 billion, and by 2012 there were almost 20,000 stores in 58 countries. As an idealised “third place,” Starbucks functioned as a welcoming haven that flattened out and muted the realities of global trade. The variety of beans on offer (Arabica, Latin American, speciality single origin and so on) bespoke a generous and bountiful modernity; while brochures schooled patrons in the nuances of terroir, an appreciation for origin and distinctiveness that encoded cultural capital. This positioned Starbucks within a happy narrative of the coffee economy, and drew patrons into this story by flattering their consumer choices. Against the generic sameness of supermarket options, Starbucks promised distinction, in Pierre Bourdieu’s sense of the term, and diversity in its coffee offerings. For Greg Dickinson, the Starbucks experience—the scent of the beans, the sound of the grinders, the taste of the coffees—negated the abstractions of postmodern, global trade: by sensory seduction, patrons connected with something real, authentic and material. At the same time, Starbucks professed commitment to the “triple bottom line” (Savitz), the corporate mantra that has morphed into virtual orthodoxy over the last fifteen years. This was hardly surprising; companies that trade in food staples typically grown in developing regions (coffee, tea, sugar, and coffee) felt the “political-aesthetic problematization of food” (Sassatelli and Davolio). This saw increasingly cognisant consumers trying to reconcile the pleasures of consumption with environmental and human responsibilities. The “triple bottom line” approach, which ostensibly promotes best business practice for people, profits and the planet, was folded into Starbucks’s marketing. The company heavily promoted its range of civic engagement, such as donations to nurses’ associations, literacy programs, clean water programs, and fair dealings with its coffee growers in developing societies (Simon). This bode well for its target market. As Constance M. Ruch has argued, Starbucks sought the burgeoning and lucrative “bobo” class, a term Ruch borrows from David Brooks. A portmanteau of “bourgeois bohemians,” “bobo” describes the educated elite that seeks the ambience and experience of a counter-cultural aesthetic, but without the political commitment. Until the last few years, it seemed Starbucks had successfully grafted this cultural zeitgeist onto its “third place.” Ironically, the scale and scope of the brand’s success has meant that Starbucks’s claim to an ethical agenda draws frequent and often fierce attack. As a global behemoth, Starbucks evolved into an iconic symbol of advanced consumer culture. For those critical of how such brands overwhelm smaller, more local competition, the brand is now synonymous for insidious, unstoppable retail spread. This in turn renders Starbucks vulnerable to protests that, despite its gestures towards sustainability (human and environmental), and by virtue of its size, ubiquity and ultimately conservative philosophy, it has lost whatever cachet or charm it supposedly once had. As Bryant Simon argues, in co-opting the language of ethical practice within an ultimately corporatist context, Starbucks only ever appealed to a modest form of altruism; not just in terms of the funds committed to worthy causes, but also to move thorny issues to “the most non-contentious middle-ground,” lest conservative customers felt alienated (Simon 162). Yet, having flagged itself as an ethical brand, Starbucks became an even bigger target for anti-corporatist sentiment, and the charge that, as a multinational giant, it remained complicit in (and one of the biggest benefactors of) a starkly inequitable and asymmetric global trade. It remains a major presence in the world coffee market, and arguably the most famous of the coffee chains. Over the last decade though, the speed and intensity with which Nespresso has grown, coupled with its atypical approach to consumer engagement, suggests that, in terms of brand equity, it now offers a more compelling point of difference than Starbucks. Brand “Me” Insofar as the Nespresso system depends on a consumer market versed in the intricacies of quality coffee, Starbucks can be at least partly credited for nurturing a more refined palate amongst everyday coffee drinkers. Yet while Starbucks courted the “average” consumer in its quest for market control, saturating the suburban landscape with thousands of virtually indistinguishable stores, Nespresso marks a very different sensibility. Put simply, Nespresso inverts the logic of a coffee house as a “third place,” and patrons are drawn not to socialise and relax but to pursue their own highly individualised interests. The difference with Starbucks could not be starker. One visitor to the Bloomingdale boutique (in New York’s fashionable Soho district) described it as having “the feel of Switzerland rather than Seattle. Instead of velvet sofas and comfy music, it has hard surfaces, bright colours and European hostesses” (Gapper 9). By creating a system that narrows the gap between production and consumption, to the point where Nespresso boutiques advertise the coffee brand but do not promote on-site coffee drinking, the boutiques are blithely indifferent to the historical, romanticised image of the coffee house as a meeting place. The result is a coffee experience that exploits the sophistication and vanity of aspirational consumers, but ignores the socialising scaffold by which coffee houses historically and perhaps naively made some claim to community building. If anything, Nespresso restricts patrons’ contemplative field: they consider only their relationships to the brand. In turn, Nespresso offers the ultimate expression of contemporary consumer capitalism, a hyper-individual experience for a hyper-modern age. By developing a global brand that is both luxurious and niche, Nespresso became “the Louis Vuitton of coffee” (Betts 14). Where Starbucks pursued retail ubiquity, Nespresso targets affluent, upmarket cities. As chief executive Richard Giradot put it, with no hint of embarrassment or apology: “If you take China, for example, we are not speaking about China, we are speaking about Shanghai, Hong Kong, Beijing because you will not sell our concept in the middle of nowhere in China” (quoted in Canning 28). For this reason, while Europe accounts for 90 per cent of Nespresso sales (Betts 15), its forays into the Americas, Asia and Australasia invariably spotlights cities that are already iconic or emerging economic hubs. The first boutique in Latin America, for instance, was opened in Jardins, a wealthy suburb in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In Nespresso, Nestlé has popularised a coffee experience neatly suited to contemporary consumer trends: Club members inhabit a branded world as hermetically sealed as the aluminium pods they purchase and consume. Besides the Club’s phone, fax and online distribution channels, pods can only be bought at the boutiques, which minimise even the potential for serendipitous mingling. The baristas are there primarily for product demonstrations, whilst highly trained staff recite the machines’ strengths (be they in design or utility), or information about the actual coffees. For Club members, the boutique service is merely the human extension of Nespresso’s online presence, whereby product information becomes increasingly tailored to increasingly individualised tastes. In the boutique, this emphasis on the individual is sold in terms of elegance, expedience and privilege. Nespresso boasts that over 70 per cent of its workforce is “customer facing,” sharing their passion and knowledge with Club members. Having already received and processed the product information (through the website, boutique staff, and promotional brochures), Club members need not do anything more than purchase their pods. In some of the more recently opened boutiques, such as in Paris-Madeleine, there is even an Exclusive Room where only Club members may enter—curious tourists (or potential members) are kept out. Club members though can select their preferred Grands Crus and checkout automatically, thanks to RFID (radio frequency identification) technology inserted in the capsule sleeves. So, where Starbucks exudes an inclusive, hearth-like hospitality, the Nespresso Club appears more like a pampered clique, albeit a growing one. As described in the Financial Times, “combine the reception desk of a designer hotel with an expensive fashion display and you get some idea what a Nespresso ‘coffee boutique’ is like” (Wiggins and Simonian 10). Conclusion Instead of sociability, Nespresso puts a premium on exclusivity and the knowledge gained through that exclusive experience. The more Club members know about the coffee, the faster and more individualised (and “therefore” better) the transaction they have with the Nespresso brand. This in turn confirms Zygmunt Bauman’s contention that, in a consumer society, being free to choose requires competence: “Freedom to choose does not mean that all choices are right—there are good and bad choices, better and worse choices. The kind of choice eventually made is the evidence of competence or its lack” (Bauman 43-44). Consumption here becomes an endless process of self-fashioning through commodities; a process Eva Illouz considers “all the more strenuous when the market recruits the consumer through the sysiphian exercise of his/her freedom to choose who he/she is” (Illouz 392). In a status-based setting, the more finely graded the differences between commodities (various places of origin, blends, intensities, and so on), the harder the consumer works to stay ahead—which means to be sufficiently informed. Consumers are locked in a game of constant reassurance, to show upward mobility to both themselves and society. For all that, and like Starbucks, Nespresso shows some signs of corporate social responsibility. In 2009, the company announced its “Ecolaboration” initiative, a series of eco-friendly targets for 2013. By then, Nespresso aims to: source 80 per cent of its coffee through Sustainable Quality Programs and Rainforest Alliance Certified farms; triple its capacity to recycle used capsules to 75 per cent; and reduce the overall carbon footprint required to produce each cup of Nespresso by 20 per cent (Nespresso). This information is conveyed through the brand’s website, press releases and brochures. However, since such endeavours are now de rigueur for many brands, it does not register as particularly innovative, progressive or challenging: it is an unexceptional (even expected) part of contemporary mainstream marketing. Indeed, the use of actor George Clooney as Nespresso’s brand ambassador since 2005 shows shrewd appraisal of consumers’ political and cultural sensibilities. As a celebrity who splits his time between Hollywood and Lake Como in Italy, Clooney embodies the glamorous, cosmopolitan lifestyle that Nespresso signifies. However, as an actor famous for backing political and humanitarian causes (having raised awareness for crises in Darfur and Haiti, and backing calls for the legalisation of same-sex marriage), Clooney’s meanings extend beyond cinema: as a celebrity, he is multi-coded. Through its association with Clooney, and his fusion of star power and worldly sophistication, the brand is imbued with semantic latitude. Still, in the television commercials in which Clooney appears for Nespresso, his role as the Hollywood heartthrob invariably overshadows that of the political campaigner. These commercials actually pivot on Clooney’s romantic appeal, an appeal which is ironically upstaged in the commercials by something even more seductive: Nespresso coffee. References Bauman, Zygmunt. “Collateral Casualties of Consumerism.” Journal of Consumer Culture 7.1 (2007): 25–56. Betts, Paul. “Nestlé Refines its Arsenal in the Luxury Coffee War.” Financial Times 28 Apr. (2010): 14. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984. Butler, Reg. “The Nespresso Route to a Perfect Espresso.” Tea & Coffee Trade Journal 172.4 (2000): 50. Canning, Simon. “Nespresso Taps a Cultural Thirst.” The Australian 26 Oct. (2009): 28. Dickinson, Greg. “Joe’s Rhetoric: Finding Authenticity at Starbucks.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 32.4 (2002): 5–27. Gapper, John. “Lessons from Nestlé’s Coffee Break.” Financial Times 3 Jan. (2008): 9. Gaudio, Rudolf P. “Coffeetalk: StarbucksTM and the Commercialization of Casual Conversation.” Language in Society 32.5 (2003): 659–91. Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1962. Illouz, Eva. “Emotions, Imagination and Consumption: A New Research Agenda.” Journal of Consumer Culture 9 (2009): 377–413. Karababa, EmInegül, and GüIIz Ger. “Early Modern Ottoman Coffehouse Culture and the Formation of the Consumer Subject." Journal of Consumer Research 37.5 (2011): 737–60 Kjeldgaard, Dannie, and Jacob Ostberg. “Coffee Grounds and the Global Cup: Global Consumer Culture in Scandinavia”. Consumption, Markets and Culture 10.2 (2007): 175–87. Kleinman, Sharon S. “Café Culture in France and the United States: A Comparative Ethnographic Study of the Use of Mobile Information and Communication Technologies.” Atlantic Journal of Communication 14.4 (2006): 191–210. Luckins, Tanja. “Flavoursome Scraps of Conversation: Talking and Hearing the Cosmopolitan City, 1900s–1960s.” History Australia 7.2 (2010): 31.1–31.16. Markides, Constantinos C. “A Dynamic View of Strategy.” Sloan Management Review 40.3 (1999): 55. Nespresso. “Ecolaboration Initiative Directs Nespresso to Sustainable Success.” Nespresso Media Centre 2009. 13 Dec. 2011. ‹http://www.nespresso.com›. O’Brien, Mary. “A Shot at the Big Time.” The Age 21 Jun. (2011): 16. Oldenburg, Ray. The Great Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts, and How They Get You Through the Day. New York: Paragon House, 1989. Purpura, Linda. “New Espresso Machines to Tempt the Palate.” The Weekly Home Furnishings Newspaper 3 May (1993): 116. Purpura, Linda. “Espresso: Grace under Pressure.” The Weekly Home Furnishings Newspaper 16 Dec. (1991): 88. Reguly, Eric. “No Ordinary Joe: Nestlé Pulls off Caffeine Coup.” The Globe and Mail 6 Jul. (2009): B1. Ruzich, Constance M. “For the Love of Joe: The Language of Starbucks.” The Journal of Popular Culture 41.3 (2008): 428–42. Sassatelli, Roberta, and Federica Davolio. “Consumption, Pleasure and Politics: Slow Food and the Politico-aesthetic Problematization of Food.” Journal of Consumer Culture 10.2 (2010): 202–32. Savitz, Andrew W. The Triple Bottom Line: How Today’s Best-run Companies are Achieving Economic, Social, and Environmental Success—And How You Can Too. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006. Scerri, Andrew. “Triple Bottom-line Capitalism and the ‘Third Place’.” Arena Journal 20 (2002/03): 57–65. Simon, Bryant. “Not Going to Starbucks: Boycotts and the Out-sourcing of Politics in the Branded World.” Journal of Consumer Culture 11.2 (2011): 145–67. Simonian, Haig. “Nestlé Doubles Nespresso Output.” FT.Com 10 Jun. (2009). 2 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0dcc4e44-55ea-11de-ab7e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1tgMPBgtV›. Topik, Steven. “Coffee as a Social Drug.” Cultural Critique 71 (2009): 81–106. Wiggins, Jenny, and Haig Simonian. “How to Serve a Bespoke Cup of Coffee.” Financial Times 3 Apr. (2007): 10.

Introduction This article is a study in anxiety with regard to social online spaces (SOS) conceived of as dark. There are two possible ways to define ‘dark’ in this context. The first is that communication is dark because it either has limited distribution, is not open to all users (closed groups are a case example) or hidden. The second definition, linked as a result of the first, is the way that communication via these means is interpreted and understood. Dark social spaces disrupt the accepted top-down flow by the ‘gazing elite’ (data aggregators including social media), but anxious users might need to strain to notice what is out there, and this in turn destabilises one’s reception of the scene. In an environment where surveillance technologies are proliferating, this article examines contemporary, dark, interconnected, and interactive communications for the entangled affordances that might be brought to bear. A provocation is that resistance through counterveillance or “sousveillance” is one possibility. An alternative (or addition) is retreating to or building ‘dark’ spaces that are less surveilled and (perhaps counterintuitively) less fearful. This article considers critically the notion of dark social online spaces via four broad socio-technical concerns connected to the big social media services that have helped increase a tendency for fearful anxiety produced by surveillance and the perceived implications for personal privacy. It also shines light on the aspect of darkness where some users are spurred to actively seek alternative, dark social online spaces. Since the 1970s, public-key cryptosystems typically preserved security for websites, emails, and sensitive health, government, and military data, but this is now reduced (Williams). We have seen such systems exploited via cyberattacks and misappropriated data acquired by affiliations such as Facebook-Cambridge Analytica for targeted political advertising during the 2016 US elections. Via the notion of “parasitic strategies”, such events can be described as news/information hacks “whose attack vectors target a system’s weak points with the help of specific strategies” (von Nordheim and Kleinen-von Königslöw, 88). In accord with Wilson and Serisier’s arguments (178), emerging technologies facilitate rapid data sharing, collection, storage, and processing wherein subsequent “outcomes are unpredictable”. This would also include the effect of acquiescence. In regard to our digital devices, for some, being watched overtly—through cameras encased in toys, computers, and closed-circuit television (CCTV) to digital street ads that determine the resonance of human emotions in public places including bus stops, malls, and train stations—is becoming normalised (McStay, Emotional AI). It might appear that consumers immersed within this Internet of Things (IoT) are themselves comfortable interacting with devices that record sound and capture images for easy analysis and distribution across the communications networks. A counter-claim is that mainstream social media corporations have cultivated a sense of digital resignation “produced when people desire to control the information digital entities have about them but feel unable to do so” (Draper and Turow, 1824). Careful consumers’ trust in mainstream media is waning, with readers observing a strong presence of big media players in the industry and are carefully picking their publications and public intellectuals to follow (Mahmood, 6). A number now also avoid the mainstream internet in favour of alternate dark sites. This is done by users with “varying backgrounds, motivations and participation behaviours that may be idiosyncratic (as they are rooted in the respective person’s biography and circumstance)” (Quandt, 42). By way of connection with dark internet studies via Biddle et al. (1; see also Lasica), the “darknet” is a collection of networks and technologies used to share digital content … not a separate physical network but an application and protocol layer riding on existing networks. Examples of darknets are peer-to-peer file sharing, CD and DVD copying, and key or password sharing on email and newsgroups. As we note from the quote above, the “dark web” uses existing public and private networks that facilitate communication via the Internet. Gehl (1220; see also Gehl and McKelvey) has detailed that this includes “hidden sites that end in ‘.onion’ or ‘.i2p’ or other Top-Level Domain names only available through modified browsers or special software. Accessing I2P sites requires a special routing program ... . Accessing .onion sites requires Tor [The Onion Router]”. For some, this gives rise to social anxiety, read here as stemming from that which is not known, and an exaggerated sense of danger, which makes fight or flight seem the only options. This is often justified or exacerbated by the changing media and communication landscape and depicted in popular documentaries such as The Social Dilemma or The Great Hack, which affect public opinion on the unknown aspects of internet spaces and the uses of personal data. The question for this article remains whether the fear of the dark is justified. Consider that most often one will choose to make one’s intimate bedroom space dark in order to have a good night’s rest. We might pleasurably escape into a cinema’s darkness for the stories told therein, or walk along a beach at night enjoying unseen breezes. Most do not avoid these experiences, choosing to actively seek them out. Drawing this thread, then, is the case made here that agency can also be found in the dark by resisting socio-political structural harms. 1. Digital Futures and Anxiety of the Dark Fear of the darkI have a constant fear that something's always nearFear of the darkFear of the darkI have a phobia that someone's always there In the lyrics to the song “Fear of the Dark” (1992) by British heavy metal group Iron Maiden is a sense that that which is unknown and unseen causes fear and anxiety. Holding a fear of the dark is not unusual and varies in degree for adults as it does for children (Fellous and Arbib). Such anxiety connected to the dark does not always concern darkness itself. It can also be a concern for the possible or imagined dangers that are concealed by the darkness itself as a result of cognitive-emotional interactions (McDonald, 16). Extending this claim is this article’s non-binary assertion that while for some technology and what it can do is frequently misunderstood and shunned as a result, for others who embrace the possibilities and actively take it on it is learning by attentively partaking. Mistakes, solecism, and frustrations are part of the process. Such conceptual theorising falls along a continuum of thinking. Global interconnectivity of communications networks has certainly led to consequent concerns (Turkle Alone Together). Much focus for anxiety has been on the impact upon social and individual inner lives, levels of media concentration, and power over and commercialisation of the internet. Of specific note is that increasing commercial media influence—such as Facebook and its acquisition of WhatsApp, Oculus VR, Instagram, CRTL-labs (translating movements and neural impulses into digital signals), LiveRail (video advertising technology), Chainspace (Blockchain)—regularly changes the overall dynamics of the online environment (Turow and Kavanaugh). This provocation was born out recently when Facebook disrupted the delivery of news to Australian audiences via its service. Mainstream social online spaces (SOS) are platforms which provide more than the delivery of media alone and have been conceptualised predominantly in a binary light. On the one hand, they can be depicted as tools for the common good of society through notional widespread access and as places for civic participation and discussion, identity expression, education, and community formation (Turkle; Bruns; Cinque and Brown; Jenkins). This end of the continuum of thinking about SOS seems set hard against the view that SOS are operating as businesses with strategies that manipulate consumers to generate revenue through advertising, data, venture capital for advanced research and development, and company profit, on the other hand. In between the two polar ends of this continuum are the range of other possibilities, the shades of grey, that add contemporary nuance to understanding SOS in regard to what they facilitate, what the various implications might be, and for whom. By way of a brief summary, anxiety of the dark is steeped in the practices of privacy-invasive social media giants such as Facebook and its ancillary companies. Second are the advertising technology companies, surveillance contractors, and intelligence agencies that collect and monitor our actions and related data; as well as the increased ease of use and interoperability brought about by Web 2.0 that has seen a disconnection between technological infrastructure and social connection that acts to limit user permissions and online affordances. Third are concerns for the negative effects associated with depressed mental health and wellbeing caused by “psychologically damaging social networks”, through sleep loss, anxiety, poor body image, real world relationships, and the fear of missing out (FOMO; Royal Society for Public Health (UK) and the Young Health Movement). Here the harms are both individual and societal. Fourth is the intended acceleration toward post-quantum IoT (Fernández-Caramés), as quantum computing’s digital components are continually being miniaturised. This is coupled with advances in electrical battery capacity and interconnected telecommunications infrastructures. The result of such is that the ontogenetic capacity of the powerfully advanced network/s affords supralevel surveillance. What this means is that through devices and the services that they provide, individuals’ data is commodified (Neff and Nafus; Nissenbaum and Patterson). Personal data is enmeshed in ‘things’ requiring that the decisions that are both overt, subtle, and/or hidden (dark) are scrutinised for the various ways they shape social norms and create consequences for public discourse, cultural production, and the fabric of society (Gillespie). Data and personal information are retrievable from devices, sharable in SOS, and potentially exposed across networks. For these reasons, some have chosen to go dark by being “off the grid”, judiciously selecting their means of communications and their ‘friends’ carefully. 2. Is There Room for Privacy Any More When Everyone in SOS Is Watching? An interesting turn comes through counterarguments against overarching institutional surveillance that underscore the uses of technologies to watch the watchers. This involves a practice of counter-surveillance whereby technologies are tools of resistance to go ‘dark’ and are used by political activists in protest situations for both communication and avoiding surveillance. This is not new and has long existed in an increasingly dispersed media landscape (Cinque, Changing Media Landscapes). For example, counter-surveillance video footage has been accessed and made available via live-streaming channels, with commentary in SOS augmenting networking possibilities for niche interest groups or micropublics (Wilson and Serisier, 178). A further example is the Wordpress site Fitwatch, appealing for an end to what the site claims are issues associated with police surveillance (fitwatch.org.uk and endpolicesurveillance.wordpress.com). Users of these sites are called to post police officers’ identity numbers and photographs in an attempt to identify “cops” that might act to “misuse” UK Anti-terrorism legislation against activists during legitimate protests. Others that might be interested in doing their own “monitoring” are invited to reach out to identified personal email addresses or other private (dark) messaging software and application services such as Telegram (freeware and cross-platform). In their work on surveillance, Mann and Ferenbok (18) propose that there is an increase in “complex constructs between power and the practices of seeing, looking, and watching/sensing in a networked culture mediated by mobile/portable/wearable computing devices and technologies”. By way of critical definition, Mann and Ferenbok (25) clarify that “where the viewer is in a position of power over the subject, this is considered surveillance, but where the viewer is in a lower position of power, this is considered sousveillance”. It is the aspect of sousveillance that is empowering to those using dark SOS. One might consider that not all surveillance is “bad” nor institutionalised. It is neither overtly nor formally regulated—as yet. Like most technologies, many of the surveillant technologies are value-neutral until applied towards specific uses, according to Mann and Ferenbok (18). But this is part of the ‘grey area’ for understanding the impact of dark SOS in regard to which actors or what nations are developing tools for surveillance, where access and control lies, and with what effects into the future. 3. Big Brother Watches, So What Are the Alternatives: Whither the Gazing Elite in Dark SOS? By way of conceptual genealogy, consideration of contemporary perceptions of surveillance in a visually networked society (Cinque, Changing Media Landscapes) might be usefully explored through a revisitation of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon, applied here as a metaphor for contemporary surveillance. Arguably, this is a foundational theoretical model for integrated methods of social control (Foucault, Surveiller et Punir, 192-211), realised in the “panopticon” (prison) in 1787 by Jeremy Bentham (Bentham and Božovič, 29-95) during a period of social reformation aimed at the improvement of the individual. Like the power for social control over the incarcerated in a panopticon, police power, in order that it be effectively exercised, “had to be given the instrument of permanent, exhaustive, omnipresent surveillance, capable of making all visible … like a faceless gaze that transformed the whole social body into a field of perception” (Foucault, Surveiller et Punir, 213–4). In grappling with the impact of SOS for the individual and the collective in post-digital times, we can trace out these early ruminations on the complex documentary organisation through state-controlled apparatuses (such as inspectors and paid observers including “secret agents”) via Foucault (Surveiller et Punir, 214; Subject and Power, 326-7) for comparison to commercial operators like Facebook. Today, artificial intelligence (AI), facial recognition technology (FRT), and closed-circuit television (CCTV) for video surveillance are used for social control of appropriate behaviours. Exemplified by governments and the private sector is the use of combined technologies to maintain social order, from ensuring citizens cross the street only on green lights, to putting rubbish in the correct recycling bin or be publicly shamed, to making cashless payments in stores. The actions see advantages for individual and collective safety, sustainability, and convenience, but also register forms of behaviour and attitudes with predictive capacities. This gives rise to suspicions about a permanent account of individuals’ behaviour over time. Returning to Foucault (Surveiller et Punir, 135), the impact of this finds a dissociation of power from the individual, whereby they become unwittingly impelled into pre-existing social structures, leading to a ‘normalisation’ and acceptance of such systems. If we are talking about the dark, anxiety is key for a Ministry of SOS. Following Foucault again (Subject and Power, 326-7), there is the potential for a crawling, creeping governance that was once distinct but is itself increasingly hidden and growing. A blanket call for some form of ongoing scrutiny of such proliferating powers might be warranted, but with it comes regulation that, while offering certain rights and protections, is not without consequences. For their part, a number of SOS platforms had little to no moderation for explicit content prior to December 2018, and in terms of power, notwithstanding important anxiety connected to arguments that children and the vulnerable need protections from those that would seek to take advantage, this was a crucial aspect of community building and self-expression that resulted in this freedom of expression. In unearthing the extent that individuals are empowered arising from the capacity to post sexual self-images, Tiidenberg ("Bringing Sexy Back") considered that through dark SOS (read here as unregulated) some users could work in opposition to the mainstream consumer culture that provides select and limited representations of bodies and their sexualities. This links directly to Mondin’s exploration of the abundance of queer and feminist pornography on dark SOS as a “counterpolitics of visibility” (288). This work resulted in a reasoned claim that the technological structure of dark SOS created a highly political and affective social space that users valued. What also needs to be underscored is that many users also believed that such a space could not be replicated on other mainstream SOS because of the differences in architecture and social norms. Cho (47) worked with this theory to claim that dark SOS are modern-day examples in a history of queer individuals having to rely on “underground economies of expression and relation”. Discussions such as these complicate what dark SOS might now become in the face of ‘adult’ content moderation and emerging tracking technologies to close sites or locate individuals that transgress social norms. Further, broader questions are raised about how content moderation fits in with the public space conceptualisations of SOS more generally. Increasingly, “there is an app for that” where being able to identify the poster of an image or an author of an unknown text is seen as crucial. While there is presently no standard approach, models for combining instance-based and profile-based features such as SVM for determining authorship attribution are in development, with the result that potentially far less content will remain hidden in the future (Bacciu et al.). 4. There’s Nothing New under the Sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9) For some, “[the] high hopes regarding the positive impact of the Internet and digital participation in civic society have faded” (Schwarzenegger, 99). My participant observation over some years in various SOS, however, finds that critical concern has always existed. Views move along the spectrum of thinking from deep scepticisms (Stoll, Silicon Snake Oil) to wondrous techo-utopian promises (Negroponte, Being Digital). Indeed, concerns about the (then) new technologies of wireless broadcasting can be compared with today’s anxiety over the possible effects of the internet and SOS. Inglis (7) recalls, here, too, were fears that humanity was tampering with some dangerous force; might wireless wave be causing thunderstorms, droughts, floods? Sterility or strokes? Such anxieties soon evaporated; but a sense of mystery might stay longer with evangelists for broadcasting than with a laity who soon took wireless for granted and settled down to enjoy the products of a process they need not understand. As the analogy above makes clear, just as audiences came to use ‘the wireless’ and later the internet regularly, it is reasonable to argue that dark SOS will also gain widespread understanding and find greater acceptance. Dark social spaces are simply the recent development of internet connectivity and communication more broadly. The dark SOS afford choice to be connected beyond mainstream offerings, which some users avoid for their perceived manipulation of content and user both. As part of the wider array of dark web services, the resilience of dark social spaces is reinforced by the proliferation of users as opposed to decentralised replication. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) can be used for anonymity in parallel to TOR access, but they guarantee only anonymity to the client. A VPN cannot guarantee anonymity to the server or the internet service provider (ISP). While users may use pseudonyms rather than actual names as seen on Facebook and other SOS, users continue to take to the virtual spaces they inhabit their off-line, ‘real’ foibles, problems, and idiosyncrasies (Chenault). To varying degrees, however, people also take their best intentions to their interactions in the dark. The hyper-efficient tools now deployed can intensify this, which is the great advantage attracting some users. In balance, however, in regard to online information access and dissemination, critical examination of what is in the public’s interest, and whether content should be regulated or controlled versus allowing a free flow of information where users self-regulate their online behaviour, is fraught. O’Loughlin (604) was one of the first to claim that there will be voluntary loss through negative liberty or freedom from (freedom from unwanted information or influence) and an increase in positive liberty or freedom to (freedom to read or say anything); hence, freedom from surveillance and interference is a kind of negative liberty, consistent with both libertarianism and liberalism. Conclusion The early adopters of initial iterations of SOS were hopeful and liberal (utopian) in their beliefs about universality and ‘free’ spaces of open communication between like-minded others. This was a way of virtual networking using a visual motivation (led by images, text, and sounds) for consequent interaction with others (Cinque, Visual Networking). The structural transformation of the public sphere in a Habermasian sense—and now found in SOS and their darker, hidden or closed social spaces that might ensure a counterbalance to the power of those with influence—towards all having equal access to platforms for presenting their views, and doing so respectfully, is as ever problematised. Broadly, this is no more so, however, than for mainstream SOS or for communicating in the world. References Bacciu, Andrea, Massimo La Morgia, Alessandro Mei, Eugenio Nerio Nemmi, Valerio Neri, and Julinda Stefa. “Cross-Domain Authorship Attribution Combining Instance Based and Profile-Based Features.” CLEF (Working Notes). Lugano, Switzerland, 9-12 Sep. 2019. Bentham, Jeremy, and Miran Božovič. The Panopticon Writings. London: Verso Trade, 1995. Biddle, Peter, et al. “The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution.” Proceedings of the 2002 ACM Workshop on Digital Rights Management. Vol. 6. Washington DC, 2002. Bruns, Axel. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Chenault, Brittney G. “Developing Personal and Emotional Relationships via Computer-Mediated Communication.” CMC Magazine 5.5 (1998). 1 May 2020 <http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1998/may/chenault.html>. Cho, Alexander. “Queer Reverb: Tumblr, Affect, Time.” Networked Affect. Eds. K. Hillis, S. Paasonen, and M. Petit. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2015: 43-58. Cinque, Toija. Changing Media Landscapes: Visual Networking. London: Oxford UP, 2015. ———. “Visual Networking: Australia's Media Landscape.” Global Media Journal: Australian Edition 6.1 (2012): 1-8. Cinque, Toija, and Adam Brown. “Educating Generation Next: Screen Media Use, Digital Competencies, and Tertiary Education.” Digital Culture & Education 7.1 (2015). Draper, Nora A., and Joseph Turow. “The Corporate Cultivation of Digital Resignation.” New Media & Society 21.8 (2019): 1824-1839. Fellous, Jean-Marc, and Michael A. Arbib, eds. Who Needs Emotions? The Brain Meets the Robot. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Fernández-Caramés, Tiago M. “From Pre-Quantum to Post-Quantum IoT Security: A Survey on Quantum-Resistant Cryptosystems for the Internet of Things.” IEEE Internet of Things Journal 7.7 (2019): 6457-6480. Foucault, Michel. Surveiller et Punir: Naissance de la Prison [Discipline and Punish—The Birth of The Prison]. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Random House, 1977. Foucault, Michel. “The Subject and Power.” Michel Foucault: Power, the Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954–1984. Vol. 3. Trans. R. Hurley and others. Ed. J.D. Faubion. London: Penguin, 2001. Gehl, Robert W. Weaving the Dark Web: Legitimacy on Freenet, Tor, and I2P. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2018. Gehl, Robert, and Fenwick McKelvey. “Bugging Out: Darknets as Parasites of Large-Scale Media Objects.” Media, Culture & Society 41.2 (2019): 219-235. Gillespie, Tarleton. Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, Content Moderation, and the Hidden Decisions That Shape Social Media. London: Yale UP, 2018. Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Trans. Thomas Burger with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989. Inglis, Ken S. This Is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission 1932–1983. Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 1983. Iron Maiden. “Fear of the Dark.” London: EMI, 1992. Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York UP, 2006. Lasica, J. D. Darknet: Hollywood’s War against the Digital Generation. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2005. Mahmood, Mimrah. “Australia's Evolving Media Landscape.” 13 Apr. 2021 <https://www.meltwater.com/en/resources/australias-evolving-media-landscape>. Mann, Steve, and Joseph Ferenbok. “New Media and the Power Politics of Sousveillance in a Surveillance-Dominated World.” Surveillance & Society 11.1/2 (2013): 18-34. McDonald, Alexander J. “Cortical Pathways to the Mammalian Amygdala.” Progress in Neurobiology 55.3 (1998): 257-332. McStay, Andrew. Emotional AI: The Rise of Empathic Media. London: Sage, 2018. Mondin, Alessandra. “‘Tumblr Mostly, Great Empowering Images’: Blogging, Reblogging and Scrolling Feminist, Queer and BDSM Desires.” Journal of Gender Studies 26.3 (2017): 282-292. Neff, Gina, and Dawn Nafus. Self-Tracking. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2016. Negroponte, Nicholas. Being Digital. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. Nissenbaum, Helen, and Heather Patterson. “Biosensing in Context: Health Privacy in a Connected World.” Quantified: Biosensing Technologies in Everyday Life. Ed. Dawn Nafus. 2016. 68-79. O’Loughlin, Ben. “The Political Implications of Digital Innovations.” Information, Communication and Society 4.4 (2001): 595–614. Quandt, Thorsten. “Dark Participation.” Media and Communication 6.4 (2018): 36-48. Royal Society for Public Health (UK) and the Young Health Movement. “#Statusofmind.” 2017. 2 Apr. 2021 <https://www.rsph.org.uk/our-work/campaigns/status-of-mind.html>. Statista. “Number of IoT devices 2015-2025.” 27 Nov. 2020 <https://www.statista.com/statistics/471264/iot-number-of-connected-devices-worldwide/>. Schwarzenegger, Christian. “Communities of Darkness? Users and Uses of Anti-System Alternative Media between Audience and Community.” Media and Communication 9.1 (2021): 99-109. Stoll, Clifford. Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway. Anchor, 1995. Tiidenberg, Katrin. “Bringing Sexy Back: Reclaiming the Body Aesthetic via Self-Shooting.” Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace 8.1 (2014). The Great Hack. Dirs. Karim Amer, Jehane Noujaim. Netflix, 2019. The Social Dilemma. Dir. Jeff Orlowski. Netflix, 2020. Turkle, Sherry. The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005. Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. UK: Hachette, 2017. Turow, Joseph, and Andrea L. Kavanaugh, eds. The Wired Homestead: An MIT Press Sourcebook on the Internet and the Family. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003. Von Nordheim, Gerret, and Katharina Kleinen-von Königslöw. “Uninvited Dinner Guests: A Theoretical Perspective on the Antagonists of Journalism Based on Serres’ Parasite.” Media and Communication 9.1 (2021): 88-98. Williams, Chris K. “Configuring Enterprise Public Key Infrastructures to Permit Integrated Deployment of Signature, Encryption and Access Control Systems.” MILCOM 2005-2005 IEEE Military Communications Conference. IEEE, 2005. Wilson, Dean, and Tanya Serisier. “Video Activism and the Ambiguities of Counter-Surveillance.” Surveillance & Society 8.2 (2010): 166-180.