The Neoliberalization of Sleep

This article explores the implications of sleep apps which are sociologically significant in that they represent an attempt to colonize, exploit, and make profitable one of the last vestiges of the human lifeworld through discourses of self-subjectification, authenticity, and self-improvement. I assess the websites of two sleep tracking apps (Pillow and Sleep Score) using critical discourse analysis (CDA), new materialism, and autoethnography. I make the case that the neoliberal values associated with the use of these apps perpetuate the logic that a better sleep makes for a more productive worker, better citizen, and ideal consumer subject. I also demonstrate how these apps function to open new sites of potential profit and reproduce a form of embodied neoliberal subjectivity generated by intra-active entanglements between identities, technologies, and discourses. Finally, I take up the issue of marginalization and intersecting subject positions as it relates to inequalities that these sleep trackers might exacerbate.

Option informativeness before earnings announcements and under real activity manipulation

Purpose This paper aims to investigate whether single-name options trading prior to earnings announcements is more informative when there exist real activity manipulations. Design/methodology/approach Using 5,419 earnings announcements during 2004–2018 made by 208 public US companies with relatively high options volumes ranked by the CBOE, the authors uncover two regularities using predictive regressions for stock return. Findings First, the total options volume up to twenty days pre-announcement is significantly higher than that in other periods only for earnings management firms; moreover, after detailing options characteristics, the authors find these intensive pre-announcement trading to be concentrated in transactions of in-the-money call and long-term maturity put options. Second, an increase in the single-name call minus put options volume can positively predict the underlying stock’s next-day excess return much better in real earnings management firms, with a larger magnitude of effect in periods right before regular earnings announcement dates. Originality/value This paper makes a marginal and novel contribution by showing that real earnings management can serve as a proxy for the potential profit from informed trading in options as the return predictability of options volume becomes stronger for firms that have the manipulation motive and indeed perform manipulative actions.

Assessment and Optimization of Water Division Pattern in Sampean Baru Irrigation Area

Recently, agricultural production in the Sampean Baru Irrigation area has not shown optimal cropping production. The average percentage of planted areas in the first (November-February),second (March-June), and third (July-October) planting seasons for the upstream area was 93.67%; 98.02%, and 76.76%, and for the downstream area was 83.54%; 80.81%; and 89.36%. This research aims to optimize the water distribution system based on the calculation of water requirements for plants and the availability of channels to obtain the maximum planting area and amount of agricultural production. This optimization method uses a Dynamic Program with three scenarios. This calculation is based on effective rainfall, crop water requirements, and water discharge availability. Percentage of planted area obtained from the calculation in the dry year for the first, second, and third planting seasons respectively were 100%, 100%, and 90.36%. Based on the existing condition, potential profit obtained for a year is Rp. 170.08 billion. After optimization using Dynamic Program, potential profit in the dry year, normal year, and wet year are IDR 213.52 billion, IDR 215.92 billion, and IDR 228.50 billion, respectively.

Penanganan dan Pemanfaatan Limbah Biomassa Sawit Ramah Lingkungan di PT Semen Baturaja

In order to meet the land requirements for housing construction of its employees, PT Semen Baturaja Tbk. (PTSB) opens approximately 27 ha of land which is estimated to have approximately 2700 less productive oil palm trees. The opening of the land will produce substantial palm biomass. One of the efforts to utilize palm oil biomass waste is by processing it into compost. Compost can be used for rehabilitation of ex-mine land by PTSB. So far, PTSB has no experience in the field of composting, therefore PTSB in collaboration with the Faculty of Forestry, Gadjah Mada University produces compost from waste palm oil biomass. The method used in this service activity is socialization, participatory composting, and mentoring in the field. The output of this activity is in the form of palm biomass compost and knowledge about the technology of the composting process for PTSB. The amount of compost that can be obtained from 8 oil palm leaf mounds is 248.9 tons while that of the oil palm stem is 1,236.6 tons. Compost fertilizer after composting for 2 months has a C/N ratio of 13.7. The cost for composting is Rp. 591,405,000, with a potential profit of Rp. 6,093,232,500, -. The impact of knowledge on composting is saving on spending on PTSB to buy fertilizer for land rehabilitation and handling the problem of biomass waste.

Neuroprosthesis Devices Based on Micro- and Nanosensors: A Systematic Review

Background. A neuroprosthesis (NP) is a medical device that compensates and restores functionality of neural dysfunctions affected by different pathologies and conditions. To this end, an implantable NP (INP) must monitor and electrically stimulate neuronal small structures in the peripheral and central nervous system. Therefore, one of the most important parts of INPs are the sensors and electrodes since their size, resolution, and material are key for their design and performance. Currently, most of the studies focus only on the INP application but do not show the technical considerations of the sensors. Objective. This paper is a systematic literature review that summarizes and synthesizes implantable micro- and nanosensors/electrodes used in INPs for sensing and stimulating tissues. Data Sources. Articles and patents published in English were searched from electronic databases. No restrictions were made in terms of country or journal. Study Selection. All reports related to sensors/electrodes applied in INPs were included, focusing on micro- and nanotechnologies. Main Outcome Measures. Performance and potential profit. Results. There was a total of 153 selected articles from the 2010 to June 2020 period, of which 16 were about cardiac pacemakers, 15 cochlear implants, 13 retinal prosthesis, 31 deep brain stimulation, 6 bladder implants, and 18 implantable motor NPs. All those INPs are used for support or recovery of neural functions for hearing, seeing, pacing, and motor control, as well as bladder and bowel control. Micro- and nanosensors for signal stimulation and recording have four special requirements to meet: biocompatibility, long-term reliability, high selectivity, and low-energy consumption. Current and future considerations in sensor/electrode design should focus on improving efficiency and safety. This review is a first approximation for those who work on INP design; it offers an idea of the complexity on the matter and can guide them to specific references on the subject.

Analisis Tax Potential Profit/Loss pada Zona Nilai Tanah di Kota Semarang

PBB merupakan salah satu pajak daerah yang berkontribusi signifikan pada pendapatan asli daerah. Penentuan zona nilai tanah (ZNT) sebagai basis penentuan NJOP seringkali kurang representatif dibandingkan dengan kondisi lapangan. Penelitian ini mencoba mengkaji secara detail tax potential loss/ profit mempergunakan pendekatan biaya pada sebuah properti yang memiliki karakteristik identik dengan lingkungannya. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan terdapat tax potential loss sebesar 35,36% pada pengenaan PBB di kawasan Kecamatan Pedurungan Kota Semarang untuk jenis properti perumahan

Intertitle translation of Chinese silent films

There is a misconception that film translation did not exist in China before 1949. The paper argues that the translation of Chinese silent films was vibrant in the 1920s and the early 1930s. Most of the extant copies of Chinese films from that period have bilingual intertitles. Chinese film companies have two purposes in translating their productions: the potential profit obtained from international audiences, and the desire to change the negative image of Chinese people portrayed in Hollywood films and project a positive image of China. Driven by these two objectives, Chinese film companies placed considerable emphasis on translation quality and hired both Chinese translators and foreign translators to translate their productions.

The corporate menagerie

This paper offers a typology of university management roles in the age of permanent austerity. The repackaging of every function within the university administration as a cost centre – meaning of course a potential profit centre – has long been seen as an unsustainable market model. Yet perversely it persists, and we would do well to name the hyperbolic functionaries of this administered institutional reconstruction, in a place where a humourless credentialism prevails. The paper revives the work, and temperament, of the early 20th-century sociologist Thorstein Bunde Veblen as a heuristic aid. With Veblen, the protocols of commercial imperative in the state education sector masquerade as education as a social good while the ‘university’ itself is skewered with the tragic realism of forms.