Federal government use of storage and processor cards for identification and other business purposes are growing at an impressive pace. The number of cards in use is growing into the tens of millions. Accompanying the growing use of storage and processor cards is a growing need for interoperability in the hardware and software associated with those cards necessary to support efficient procurement, maintenance, training, and operations.
The General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report in January 2003 that evaluated the progress in promoting the use of smart cards across the Federal government. The “Progress in Promoting Adoption of Smart Card Technology”(GAO-03-144 report) sets forth recommendations regarding the role of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States Government Smart Card (GSC) program. As an initial response to the recommendations, NIST hosted the Storage and Processor Card-Based Technology Workshop. This workshop was organized to identify requirements for card based storage and processor technologies, card industry capabilities and trends, interoperability requirements and issues, and requirements and capabilities for single platform integration of multiple technologies. NIST not only developed and distributed card technology capabilities and requirements questionnaires and conducted interviews with Federal government agencies to further identify the state of current and planned technologies.
Bioenergetics, the study of the use and transfer of energy, can provide important insights into the ecology and evolution of early hominids. Energy dynamics represent a central interface between an organism and its environment; how energy is extracted from limited environmental resources and allocated to various somatic functions has consequences in terms of survival and reproduction (McNab, 2002; Leonard and Ulijaszek, 2002; Leonard et al., 2007). Thus, energy provides a useful currency for measuring fitness. Energy dynamics also shape aspects of an organism’s life history, given that energy used for functions related to maintenance (e.g., resting metabolic rate [RMR], physical activity, and thermoregulation) cannot be used for production, such as the metabolic costs associated with growth and reproduction.
Energetic studies offer a window into hominid brain evolution, as an increase in the size of this metabolically expensive organ requires a shift in energy allocation—either an absolute increase in energy intake or a reduction in the portion of energy allotted to other components of energy expenditure. Consequently, encephalization may affect an organism’s life history pattern and shape variables such as the timing of weaning, age at maturity, and reproductive scheduling (Bogin, 1999, 2002). Non-human primates, including hominids, are distinct from most other mammals in having relatively large brains for their body size, a pattern noted by numerous authors (e.g., Martin, 1990). Modern humans have extended this trend and, with brains averaging approximately 1300 g, are outside the range of other living primates (Jerison, 1973; Leonard and Robertson, 1992).
There has been a longstanding fascination with motorcycling culture in popular mainstream North American media as radio broadcasts, newspaper articles, television shows and films have created a popularized image of motorcyclists. Yet motorcycle culture has only recently become the focus of rigorous, contextualized academic research. While smaller research projects and highly detailed ethnographies have studied specific political movements, lifestyles and subcultures in motorcycling culture (Joans, 2001; McDonald-Walker, 2000; Sato, 1991; Wolf, 1991), few researchers have investigated the exclusionary discourses that underpin motorcycling culture and none have done so in a methodical manner.
