This work is motivated by the ongoing open question of how information in the outside world is represented and processed by the brain. Consequently, several novel methods are developed. A new mathematical formulation is proposed for the encoding and decoding of analog signals using integrate-and-fire neuron models. Based on this formulation, a novel algorithm, significantly faster than the state-of-the-art method, is proposed for reconstructing the input of the neuron. Two new identification methods are proposed for neural circuits comprising a filter in series with a spiking neuron model. These methods reduce the number of assumptions made by the state-of-the-art identification framework, allowing for a wider range of models of sensory processing circuits to be inferred directly from input-output observations. A third contribution is an algorithm that computes the spike time sequence generated by an integrate-and-fire neuron model in response to the output of a linear filter, given the input of the filter encoded with the same neuron model.

Among the abundance of material available about death and dying, there is a very limited amount that deals directly with the needs of a school community when one of its members dies. In addition, a great need exists for schools to develop an organized plan for responding to the death of a student or staff member. A Student Dies, ASchool Mourns aims to fill this gap. The book not only examines and explains the grief reactions of students and school staff members and the factors that affect these reactions, it also provides a systematic guide for developing a death-related crisis response plan. This timely book is designed to be a systematic guide that incorporates a thorough analysis of grief in school, including normal and abnormal grief reactions, factors affecting these grief responses, and the differences in death beliefs and responses of students at different ages and developmental stages. It also acts as a map or step-by-step guide for establishing a death-related response plan. The liberal use of flow charts, time tables, and action plans, turns the often daunting task of creating a response plan into a relatively painless activity, stating what must be done, who should do it, and when. Extensive coverage is given to two issues in particular: youth suicide and violence/murder in the school. A Student Dies, ASchool Mourns will be a vital resource for school counselors, social workers, rehab psychologists, school administrators, teachers, clergy and anyone with an interest in death as it pertains to the school community. It will also be of use as a textbook for courses in death and dying, educational psychology, education, and educational administration.

This highly original, thought-provoking book - written by a pioneer of communication studies - is the first to analyze the post 9/11 world in terms of global media and popular culture.
Written in an engaging and candid manner by a leading expert in this field
Argues that cross-cultural understanding can only be achieved by harnessing the power of global media, popular culture, information technology, and personal communications technologies
Examines the global trend of using film, video, music, and TV "on-demand" as the framework through which we experience all cultural activity
Draws inspiration from the work of a range of theorists, from Charles Darwin to Anthony Giddens
Candidly interrogates the very latest developments in world affairs, especially the roles of fundamentalist religious ideology, media globalization, and individualism, whose complex relationships have yet to be explained by social scientists

This book provides detailed insights into how space and popular culture intersect across a broad spectrum of examples, including cinema, music, art, arcade games, cartoons, comics, and advertisements. This is a pertinent topic since the use of space themes differs in different cultural contexts, and these themes can be used to explore various aspects of the human condition and provide a context for social commentary on politically sensitive issues. With the use of space imagery evolving over the past sixty years of the space age, this is a topic ripe for in-depth exploration. The book also discusses the contrasting visions of space from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the reality of today, and analyzes space vehicles and habitats in popular depictions of space from an engineering perspective, exploring how many of those ideas have actually been implemented in practice, and why or why not (a case of life imitating art and vice versa). As such, it covers a wide array of relevant and timely topics examining intersections between space and popular culture, and offering accounts of space and its effect on culture, language, and storytelling from the southern regions of the world.

This book develops original results regarding singular dynamic systems following two different paths. The first consists of generalizing results from classical state-space cases to linear descriptor systems, such as dilated linear matrix inequality (LMI) characterizations for descriptor systems and performance control under regulation constraints. The second is a new path, which considers descriptor systems as a powerful tool for conceiving new control laws, understanding and deciphering some controller's architecture and even homogenizing different-existing-ways of obtaining some new and/or known results for state-space systems. The book also highlights the comprehensive control problem for descriptor systems as an example of using the descriptor framework in order to transform a non-standard control problem into a classic stabilization control problem. In another section, an accurate solution is derived for the sensitivity constrained linear optimal control also using the descriptor framework. The book is intended for graduate and postgraduate students, as well as researchers in the field of systems and control theory.

The Handbook of Gender, Sex and Media offers original insights into the complex set of relations which exist between gender, sex, sexualities and the media, and in doing so, showcases new research at the forefront of media and communication practice and theory. * Brings together a collection of new, cutting-edge research exploring a number of different facets of the broad relationship between gender and media * Moves beyond associating gender with man/woman and instead considers the relationship between the construction of gender norms, biological sex and the mediation of sex and sexuality * Offers genuinely new insights into the complicated and complex set of relations which exist between gender, sex, sexualities and the media * Essay topics range from the continuing sexism of TV advertising to ways in which the internet is facilitating the (re)invention of our sexual selves.

From the arrival of the penny papers in the 1830s to the coming of radio news around 1930, the American newspaper celebrated its Golden Age and years of greatest influence on society. Born in response to a thirst for news in large eastern cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, the mood of the modern metropolitan papers eventually spread throughout the nation. Douglas tells the story of the great innovators of the American press--men like Bennett, Greeley, Bryant, Dana, Pulitzer, Hearst, and Scripps. He details the development of the bond between newspapers and the citizens of a democratic republic and how the newspapers molded themselves into a distinctly American character to become an intimate part of daily life.

Technological developments in papermaking, typesetting, and printing, as well as the growth of advertising, gradually made possible huge metropolitan dailies with circulations in the hundreds of thousands. Soon journalism became a way of life for a host of publishers, editors, and reporters, including the early presence of a significant number of women. Eventually, feature sections arose, including comics, sports, puzzles, cartoons, advice columns, and sections for women and children. The hometown daily gave way to larger and impersonal newspaper chains in the early twentieth century. This comprehensive and lively account tells the story of how newspapers have influenced public opinion and how public demand has in turn affected the presentation of the news.

Global Mobility of Research Scientists: The Economics of Who Goes Where and Why brings together information on how the localization and mobility of academic researchers contributes to the production of knowledge. The text answers several questions, including "what characterizes nationally and internationally mobile researchers?" and "what are the individual and social implications of increased mobility of research scientists?" Eight independent, but coordinated chapters address these and other questions, drawing on a set of newly developed databases covering 30 countries, including the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and China, among others.

This book examines a writing activity that has recently fallen into disrepute. Outlining has a bad reputation among students, even though many teachers and textbooks still recommend the process. In part, the author argues, the medium is to blame. Paper and ink make the revision difficult. But if one uses an electronic outliner, the activity can be very helpful in developing a thoughtful and effective document, particularly one that spans many pages and deals with a complicated subject. Outlining Goes Electronic takes an historical approach, examining the way people developed the idea of outlining, from the classical period to the present. We see that the medium in which people worked strongly shaped their assumptions, ideas, and use of outlines. In developing a theoretical model of outlining as an activity, the author argues that a relatively new electronic tool-software that accelerates and performs the process of outlining-can give us a new perspective from which to engage previous classroom models of writing, recent writing theory, and current practice in the technical writing field.

As society becomes more culturally diverse and globally connected, churches and seminaries are rapidly changing. And as the church changes, preaching must change too. Crossover Preaching proposes a way forward through conversation with the "dean of the nation's black preachers," Gardner C. Taylor, senior pastor emeritus of Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York. In this richly interdisciplinary study, Jared E. Alcantara argues that an analysis of Taylor's preaching reveals an improvisational-intercultural approach that recovers his contemporary significance and equips US churches and seminary classrooms for the future. Alcantara argues that preachers and homileticians need to develop intercultural and improvisational proficiencies to reach an increasingly intercultural church. Crossover Preaching equips them with concrete practices designed to help them cultivate these competencies and thus communicate effectively in a changing world.

This unique book systematically examines the interplay among foreign policymakers, the press, and public opinion in the process of China policy decision making from 1950 to 1984. Readers will benefit from the findings that, through 35 years of Sino-American relations, the press helps perpetuate the illusion that has existed in the public mind since 1950. The comprehensive analysis allows readers to understand hoe the press shapes and is shaped by foreign policy decisions.

Gring-Pemble asserts that the role of language in shaping policy options is rarely studied and poorly understood. She seeks to analyze congressional hearings and debates on welfare to understand the role of language in framing welfare policy and contemporary welfare discussions. She reviews welfare history in the United States and provides a rhetorical analysis of welfare deliberations. In the process she illustrates the significance of language and ideology in shaping American social policy outcomes.

Large surveys are becoming increasingly available for public use, and researchers are often faced with the need to analyse complex survey data to address key scientific issues. For proper analysis it is also important to be aware of the different aspects of the design of complex surveys. Practical Methods for Design and Analysis of Complex Surveys features intermediate and advanced statistical techniques for use in designing and analysing complex surveys. This extensively updated edition features much new material, and detailed practical exercises with links to a Web site, helping instructors and enabling use for distance learning.
* Provides a comprehensive introduction to sampling and estimation in descriptive surveys, including design effect statistic and use of auxiliary data.
* Includes detailed coverage of complex survey analysis, including design-based ANOVA and logistic regression with GEE estimation.
* Contains much new material, including handling of non-sampling errors, and model-assisted estimation for domains.
* Features detailed real-li fe case studies, such as multilevel modeling in a multinational educational survey.
* Supported by a Web site containing software codes, real data sets, computerized exercises with solutions, and online training materials.

Practical Methods for Design and Analysis of Complex Surveys provides a useful practical resource for researchers and practitioners working in the planning, implementation or analysis of complex surveys and opinion polls, including business, educational, health, social, and socio-economic surveys and official statistics. In addition, the book is well suited for use on intermediate and advanced courses in survey sampling.

Contributors from diverse backgrounds explore a range of issues in relation to the media and journalism's role in ascribing meaning to tourism practices. This fascinating account offers a thoroughly international and interdisciplinary perspective on an increasingly important field of journalism scholarship.

Ordinal Computability discusses models of computation obtained by generalizing classical models, such as Turing machines or register machines, to transfinite working time and space. In particular, recognizability, randomness, and applications to other areas of mathematics are covered.

The world is witnessing a media revolution similar to the birth of the film industry from the early 20th Century. New forms of media are expanding the human experience from passive viewership to active participants, surrounding and enveloping us in ways film or television never could. New immersive media forms include virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (XR), fulldome, CAVEs, holographic characters, projection mapping, and mixed experimental combinations of old and new, live, and generated media. With the continued expansion beyond the traditional frame, practitioners are crafting these new media to see how they can influence and shape the world. The Handbook of Research on the Global Impacts and Roles of Immersive Media is a collection of innovative research that provides insights on the latest in existing and emerging immersive technologies through descriptions of case studies, new business models, philosophical viewpoints, and scientific findings. While highlighting topics including augmented reality, interactive media, and spatial computing, this book is ideally designed for media technologists, storytellers, artists, journalists, designers, programmers, developers, manufacturers, entertainment executives, content creators, industry professionals, academicians, researchers, and media students.

While much has been written about the impact of Darwin's theories on U.S. culture, and countless scholarly collections have been devoted to the science of evolution, few have addressed the specific details of Darwin's theories as a cultural force affecting U.S. writers. "America's Darwin" fills this gap and features a range of critical approaches that examine U.S. textual responses to Darwin's works.

The scholars in this collection represent a range of disciplines--literature, history of science, women's studies, geology, biology, entomology, and anthropology. All pay close attention to the specific forms that Darwinian evolution took in the United States, engaging not only with Darwin's most famous works, such as "On the Origin of Species," but also with less familiar works, such as "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals."

Each contributor considers distinctive social, cultural, and intellectual conditions that affected the reception and dissemination of evolutionary thought, from before the publication of "On the Origin of Species" to the early years of the twenty-first century. These essays engage with the specific details and language of a wide selection of Darwin's texts, treating his writings as primary sources essential to comprehending the impact of Darwinian language on American writers and thinkers. This careful engagement with the texts of evolution enables us to see the broad points of its acceptance and adoption in the American scene; this approach also highlights the ways in which writers, reformers, and others reconfigured Darwinian language to suit their individual purposes.

"America's Darwin" demonstrates the many ways in which writers and others fit themselves to a narrative of evolution whose dominant motifs are contingency and uncertainty. Collectively, the authors make the compelling case that the interpretation of evolutionary theory in the U.S. has always shifted in relation to prevailing cultural anxieties.

This book focuses on filtering, control and model-reduction problems for two-dimensional (2-D) systems with imperfect information. The time-delayed 2-D systems covered have system parameters subject to uncertain, stochastic and parameter-varying changes. After an initial introduction of 2-D systems and the ideas of linear repetitive processes, the text is divided into two parts detailing: * General theory and methods of analysis and optimal synthesis for 2-D systems; and * Application of the general theory to the particular case of differential/discrete linear repetitive processes. The methods developed provide a framework for stability and performance analysis, optimal and robust controller and filter design and model approximation for the systems considered. Solutions to the design problems are couched in terms of linear matrix inequalities. For readers interested in the state of the art in linear filtering, control and model reduction, Filtering and Control for Classes of Two-Dimensional Systems will be a useful reference for exploring the field of 2-D systems either from a purely theoretical research perspective or from the point of view of a multitude of potential applications including image processing, and the study of seismographic data or thermal processes.

"Story Circle" is the first collection ever devoted to a comprehensive international study of the digital storytelling movement, exploring subjects of central importance on the emergent and ever-shifting digital landscape.Covers consumer-generated content, memory grids, the digital storytelling youth movement, participatory public history, audience reception, videoblogging and microdocumentary
Pinpoints who is telling what stories where, on what terms, and what they look and sound like
Explores the boundaries of digital storytelling from China and Brazil to Western Europe and Australia

This important new text brings together an outstanding group of international scholars to look at the current state of electoral politics around the world. Elements of the modern (or American) model of election campaigning have been adopted in many countries in recent years--including the use of mass media, the personalization of campaigns, use of public opinion polls, and a general professionalization of campaigns--and conditions would seem to favor the spread of that model. Contributors to this volume, from established democracies, new and restored democracies, and democracies facing destabilizing pressure, examine the extent to which electoral politics in their countries have been affected by the emergence of high-tech professional campaigns. Countries examined provide a cross-section of today's democracies, including the United States, Britain, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Poland, Spain, Israel, Italy, Argentina, and Venezuela. The work will be of interest to scholars and students alike in political communication, political parties and elections, and comparative politics.

This is the first book to explore the broad influence of computers and television on the evolution of the American legal process. Katsh asserts that the electronic media have had an increasingly powerful impact on all facets of American law - its methods, values, and societal role. These changes, he argues, are related primarily to the appearance of new means of storing, processing and communicating information. Highly publicized legal cases, such as those involving libel verdicts, obscenity prosecutions, the First Amendment and other areas of media law have focused attention on only one part of the new media's impact on law. Katsh broadens the debate about the relationship between law and the electronic media, explaining the critical role of information in many different aspects of the legal process and arguing that the influence of new modes of communication can be seen in changes occurring in goals, doctrines, concepts, and beliefs that underlie our system of law. In the history of law, fundamental change has occurred very infrequently. This book looks at law in an evolutionary and historical light and explains why these new forms of electronic communications may be the trigger for one of these rare transformations.

The era of literary modernism coincided with a dramatic expansion of broadcast media throughout Europe, which challenged avant-garde writers with new modes of writing and provided them with a global audience for their work. Historicizing these developments and drawing on new sources for research - including the BBC archives and other important collections - "Broadcasting in the Modernist Era" explores the ways in which canonical writers engaged with the new media of radio and television. Considering the interlinked areas of broadcasting 'culture' and politics' in this period, the book engages the radio writing and broadcasts of such writers as Virginia Woolf, W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, George Orwell, E. M. Forster, J. B. Priestley, Dorothy L. Sayers, David Jones and Jean-Paul Sartre. With chapters by leading international scholars, the volume's empirical-based approach aims to open up new avenues for understandings of radiogenic writing in the mass-media age.

One of the consequences of the digital revolution is the availability and pervasiveness of media and technology. They became an integral part of many people's lives, including children, who are often exposed to media and technology at an early age. Due to this early exposure, children have become targeted consumers for businesses and other organizations that seek to utilize the data they generate. The Handbook of Research on Children's Consumption of Digital Media is a scholarly research publication that examines how children have become consumers as well as how their consumption habits have changed in the age of digital and media technologies. Featuring current research on cyber bullying, social media, and digital advertising, this book is geared toward marketing and advertising professionals, consumer researchers, international business strategists, academicians, and upper-level graduate students seeking current research on the transformation of child to consumer.