Through political and cultural analysis of representations of the so-called war on drugs, Oswaldo Zavala makes the case that the very terms we use to describe drug traffickers are a constructed subterfuge for the real narcos: politicians, corporations, and the military. Though Donald Trump's incendiary comments and monstrous policies on the border reveal the character of a deeply depraved leader, state violence on both sides of the border is nothing new. Immigration has endured as a prevailing news topic, but it is a fixture of modern society in the neoliberal era; the future will be one of exile brought on by state violence and the plundering of our natural resources to sate capitalist greed. Yet, the realities of violence in Mexico and along the border are obscured by the books, films, and TV series we consume. In truth, works like Sicario, The Queen of the South, and Narcos hide Mexico's political realities. Along with these examples, Zavala discusses Charles Bowden, 2666 by Roberto BolaNo, and other important Latin American writers as examples of works that do capture the realities of the drug war. Drug Cartels Do Not Exist will be useful for journalists, political scientists, philosophers, and writers of any kind who wish to break down the constructed barriers-physical and mental-created by those in power around the reality of the Mexican drug trade.

Focusing on films from Chile since 2000 and bringing together scholars from South and North America, Chilean Cinema in the Twenty-First-Century World is the first English-language book since the 1970s to explore this small, yet significant, Latin American cinema. The volume questions the concept of "national cinemas" by examining how Chilean film dialogues with trends in genre-based, political, and art-house cinema around the world, while remaining true to local identities. Contributors place current Chilean cinema in a historical context and expand the debate concerning the artistic representation of recent political and economic transformations in contemporary Chile. Chilean Cinema in the Twenty-First-Century World opens up points of comparison between Chile and the ways in which other national cinemas are negotiating their place on the world stage. The book is divided into five parts. "Mapping Theories of Chilean Cinema in the Worl"" examines Chilean filmmakers at international film festivals, and political and affective shifts in the contemporary Chilean documentary. "On the Margins of Hollywood: Chilean Genre Flicks" explores on the emergence of Chilean horror cinema and the performance of martial arts in Chilean films. "Other Texts and Other Lands: Intermediality and Adaptation Beyond Chile(an Cinema)" covers the intermedial transfer from Chilean literature to transnational film and from music video to film. "Migrations of Gender and Genre" contrasts films depicting transgender people in Chile and beyond. "Politicized Intimacies, Transnational Affects: Debating (Post)memory and History" analyzes representations of Chile's traumatic past in contemporary documentary and approaches mourning as a politicized act in postdictatorship cultural production. Intended for scholars, students, and researchers of film and Latin American studies, Chilean Cinema in the Twenty-First-Century World evaluates an active and emergent film movement that has yet to receive sufficient attention in global cinema studies.

Which Evidence-Based Practice Should I Use? A Social Worker's Handbook for Decision Making provides readers with a step-by-step guide for applying the original evidence-based practice (EBP) model to carefully select interventions from the research base for individual clients. Readers learn how to obtain and integrate information from three key components-the best available evidence; clinical expertise; and the client's characteristics, values, and preferences-to support their choice of an effective intervention for the client. The text employs problem-based learning and case method approaches to teach readers how to access intervention literature; how to evaluate what is "best evidence"; what the research endeavor represents and who it excludes; how to rely on the expertise of the practitioner community; and how to consider the client's view of the problem. Ultimately, readers are guided to select an EBP for a client and write a case paper that articulates the steps they took and the reasoning for their selection. Filled with brief lectures, reflection questions, activities, and case examples, Which Evidence-Based Practice Should I Use? is an ideal text for social work practice and research courses and for mental health practitioners who wish to sharpen their skills for using the evidence base.

Link prediction is required to understand the evolutionary theory of computing for different social networks. However, the stochastic growth of the social network leads to various challenges in identifying hidden links, such as representation of graph, distinction between spurious and missing links, selection of link prediction techniques comprised of network features, and identification of network types. Hidden Link Prediction in Stochastic Social Networks concentrates on the foremost techniques of hidden link predictions in stochastic social networks including methods and approaches that involve similarity index techniques, matrix factorization, reinforcement, models, and graph representations and community detections. The book also includes miscellaneous methods of different modalities in deep learning, agent-driven AI techniques, and automata-driven systems and will improve the understanding and development of automated machine learning systems for supervised, unsupervised, and recommendation-driven learning systems. It is intended for use by data scientists, technology developers, professionals, students, and researchers.

Through political and cultural analysis of representations of the so-called war on drugs, Oswaldo Zavala makes the case that the very terms we use to describe drug traffickers are a constructed subterfuge for the real narcos: politicians, corporations, and the military. Though Donald Trump's incendiary comments and monstrous policies on the border reveal the character of a deeply depraved leader, state violence on both sides of the border is nothing new. Immigration has endured as a prevailing news topic, but it is a fixture of modern society in the neoliberal era; the future will be one of exile brought on by state violence and the plundering of our natural resources to sate capitalist greed. Yet, the realities of violence in Mexico and along the border are obscured by the books, films, and TV series we consume. In truth, works like Sicario, The Queen of the South, and Narcos hide Mexico's political realities. Along with these examples, Zavala discusses Charles Bowden, 2666 by Roberto BolaNo, and other important Latin American writers as examples of works that do capture the realities of the drug war. Drug Cartels Do Not Exist will be useful for journalists, political scientists, philosophers, and writers of any kind who wish to break down the constructed barriers-physical and mental-created by those in power around the reality of the Mexican drug trade.

Fashion is an integral part of popular culture, closely intertwined with tales, magazines, photography, cinema, television, music and sports...up to the emergence of dedicated exhibitions and museums. Fashion is undergoing a major digital transformation: garments and apparels are presented and sold online, and fashion trends and styles are launched, discussed and negotiated mainly in the digital arena. While going well beyond national and linguistic borders, digital fashion communication requires further cultural sensitivity: otherwise, it might ignite inter-cultural misunderstandings and communication crises. This book presents the recent transformation of fashion from being a Cinderella to becoming a major cultural attractor and academic research subject, as well as the implications of its digital transformation. Through several cases, it documents intercultural communication crises and provides strategies to interpret and prevent them.

Social media has emerged as a powerful tool that reaches a wide audience with minimum time and effort. It has a diverse role in society and human life and can boost the visibility of information that allows citizens the ability to play a vital role in creating and fostering social change. This practice can have both positive and negative consequences on society. Examining the Roles of IT and Social Media in Democratic Development and Social Change is a collection of innovative research on the methods and applications of social media within community development and democracy. While highlighting topics including information capitalism, ethical issues, and e-governance, this book is ideally designed for social workers, politicians, public administrators, sociologists, journalists, policymakers, government administrators, academicians, researchers, and students seeking current research on social advancement and change through social media and technology.

Writing comprises a significant proportion of academic staff members' roles. While academics have been acculturated to the notion of 'publish or perish,' they often struggle to find the time to accomplish writing papers and tend to work alone. The result can be a sense of significant stress and isolation around the writing process. Writing partnerships, groups, and retreats help mitigate these challenges and provide significant positive writing experiences for their members. Critical Collaborative Communities describes diverse examples of partnerships from writing regularly with one or two colleagues to larger groups that meet for a single day, regular writing meetings, or a retreat over several days. While these approaches bring mutual support for members, each is not without its respective challenges. Each chapter outlines an approach to writing partnerships and interrogates its strengths and limitations as well as proposes recommendations for others hoping to implement the practice. Authors in this volume describe how they have built significant trusting relationships that have helped avoid isolation and have led to their self-authorship as academic writers.

Quality assurance is an essential aspect for ensuring the success of corporations worldwide. Consistent quality requirements across organizations of similar types ensure that these requirements can be accurately and easily evaluated. Shaping the Future Through Standardization is an essential scholarly book that examines quality and standardization within diverse organizations globally with a special focus on future perspectives, including how standards and standardization may shape the future. Featuring a wide range of topics such as economics, pedagogy, and management, this book is ideal for academicians, researchers, decision makers, policymakers, managers, corporate professionals, and students.

Political debates have reached unprecedented levels of interest around the globe as more individuals begin to comprehend government proceedings and discourse. Utilizing this knowledge, individuals are becoming attentive to political language, but they lack information on the motivation behind it. Argumentation and Appraisal in Parliamentary Discourse seeks to interrogate the argumentation practices and appraisal forms realized in parliamentary discourse on various topics. While highlighting topics that include legislative immunity, political rivalry, and language evolution, it features crucial discourse-pragmatic research on parliamentary proceedings from various parliamentary settings. This book is recommended for linguists, politicians, professionals, and researchers working in the fields of discourse analysis, linguistics, politics, communication sciences, sociology, and conversational analysis.

Changing practices and perceptions of parenthood and family life have long been the subject of intense public, political and academic attention. Recent years have seen growing interest in the role digital media and technologies can play in these shifts, yet this topic has been under-explored from a discourse analytical perspective. In response, this book's investigation of everyday parenting, family practices and digital media offers a new and innovative exploration of the relationship between parenting, family practices, and digitally mediated connection. This investigation is based on extensive digital and interview data from research with nine UK-based single and/or lesbian, gay or bisexual parents who brought children into their lives in non-traditional ways, for example through donor conception, surrogacy or adoption. Through a novel approach that combines constructivist grounded theory with mediated discourse analysis, this book examines connected family lives and practices in a way that transcends the limiting social, biological and legal structures that still dominate concepts of family in contemporary society.

Spatial Regression Analysis Using Eigenvector Spatial Filtering provides theoretical foundations and guides practical implementation of the Moran eigenvector spatial filtering (MESF) technique. MESF is a novel and powerful spatial statistical methodology that allows spatial scientists to account for spatial autocorrelation in their georeferenced data analyses. Its appeal is in its simplicity, yet its implementation drawbacks include serious complexities associated with constructing an eigenvector spatial filter. This book discusses MESF specifications for various intermediate-level topics, including spatially varying coefficients models, (non) linear mixed models, local spatial autocorrelation, space-time models, and spatial interaction models. Spatial Regression Analysis Using Eigenvector Spatial Filtering is accompanied by sample R codes and a Windows application with illustrative datasets so that readers can replicate the examples in the book and apply the methodology to their own application projects. It also includes a Foreword by Pierre Legendre.

This compendium focuses on self-contained presentations of various developments in mathematical analysis, cryptography and information science.The volume features both original research and survey papers contributed by experts from the international community. The book has a strong interdisciplinary flavor and features the most recent developments in the topics treated.This useful reference text benefits professionals, researchers, academics and graduate students.

By Degrees: Resilience, Relationships, and Success in Communication Graduate Studies provides readers with an indispensable guide to navigating the graduate school experience in Communication Studies programs. The book helps current and future graduate students consider their options, make wise choices, and thrive within their master's or doctoral programs and beyond. The text's 15 contributed chapters discuss such topics as how to select the right program, build strong advisor-advisee relationships, navigate roadblocks, find community, share work, develop into competent scholars and teachers, and pursue careers inside and outside the academy. The diverse and global nature of communication research and pedagogy and finding and pursuing your passion within the discipline is evident throughout the book. Designed to resonate with today's learners, each chapter is co-authored by leading scholars and current or recent graduate students and features unique perspectives from students' experiences. This approach provides readers with an enlightening window into graduate students' insights, challenges, and lived experiences. The text also features a distinct emphasis on diversity, inclusion, equity, and access, and reflects upon the international character of communication research and pedagogy. Readers will engage in robust discussions related to justice and equity and learn how the Communication discipline has developed and continues to develop around the globe. By Degrees is an exemplary resource for introduction to graduate studies courses and for individuals considering master's or doctoral programs.