Research as a Tool for Empowerment: Theory Informing Practice will be an edited volume that will include an array of research-based chapters that not only further the field of second/foreign language research, but that also provide practical implications to language classrooms in international and national settings. Unlike previous anthologies in second/foreign language research, this proposed volume will present studies from various research paradigms: quantitative, qualitative, teacher-research, and mixed-methods research. Each of these three sections is tied together by the overall theme of empowerment.

Knowledge and expertise, especially of the kind that can shape public opinion, have been traditionally the domain of individuals holding degrees awarded by higher learning institutions or occupying formal positions in notable organizations. Expertise is validated by reputations established in an institutionalized marketplace of ideas with a limited number of "available seats" and a stringent process of selection and retention of names, ideas, topics and facts of interest. However, the social media revolution, which has enabled over two billion Internet users not only to consume, but also to produce information and knowledge, has created a secondary and very active informal marketplace of ideas and knowledge. Anchored by platforms like Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, this informal marketplace has low barriers to entry and has become a gigantic and potentially questionable, knowledge resource for the public at large. Roles, Trust and Reputation in Social Media Knowledge Markets will discuss some of the emerging trends in defining, measuring and operationalizing reputation as a new and essential component of the knowledge that is generated and consumed online. The book will propose a future research agenda related to these issues. The ultimate goal of research agenda being to shape the next generation of theoretical and analytic strategies needed for understanding how knowledge markets are influenced by social interactions and reputations built around functional roles. The authors, including leading scholars and young innovators, will share with the readers some of the main lessons they have learned from their own work in these areas and will discuss the issues, topics and sub-areas that they find under-studied or that promise the greatest intellectual payoff in the future. The discussion will be placed in the context of social network analysis and "big data" research. Roles, Trust and Reputation in Social Media Knowledge Markets exposes issues that have not been satisfactorily dealt with in the current literature, as the research agenda in reputation and authorship is still emerging. In a broader sense, the volume aims to change the way in which knowledge generation in social media spaces is understood and utilized. The tools, theories and methodologies proposed by the contributors offer concrete avenues for developing the next generation of research strategies and applications that will help: tomorrow's information consumers make smarter choices, developers to create new tools and researchers to launch new research programs.

"Action Research and Organizational Development" describes a process of change that encourages research and consulting skills. In this process, research data about an organization or culture is systematically collected to develop an understanding of the needs, issues and problems. The information provides the impetus for focusing the change and making discoveries. This work describes the characteristics of the action research process and the procedure for its implementation. This particular type of applied social research differs from other varieties in the immediacy of the researcher's involvement and collaboration in each stage of researching, focusing, and implementing. The work describes the continuous process of research and learning in relation to the researcher's long-term relationship with a problem or issue. This book is relevant for all those who share the goal of positive change within the organization.

This book presents the signal processing and data mining challenges encountered in drilling engineering, and describes the methods used to overcome them. In drilling engineering, many signal processing technologies are required to solve practical problems, such as downhole information transmission, spatial attitude of drillstring, drillstring dynamics, seismic activity while drilling, among others. This title attempts to bridge the gap between the signal processing and data mining and oil and gas drilling engineering communities. There is an urgent need to summarize signal processing and data mining issues in drilling engineering so that practitioners in these fields can understand each other in order to enhance oil and gas drilling functions. In summary, this book shows the importance of signal processing and data mining to researchers and professional drilling engineers and open up a new area of application for signal processing and data mining scientists.

Organizations of all kinds struggle to understand, adapt, respond and manipulate changing conditions in their internal and external environments. Approaches based on the causal, linear logic of mechanistic sciences and engineering continue to play an important role, given people's ability to create order. But such approaches are valid only within carefully circumscribed boundaries. They become counterproductive when the same organizations display the highly reflexive, context-dependent, dynamic nature of systems in which agents learn and adapt and new patterns emerge. The rapidly expanding discussion about complex systems offers important contributions to the integration of diverse perspectives and ultimately new insights into organizational effectiveness. There is increasing interest in complexity in mainstream business education, as well as in specialist business disciplines such as knowledge management. Real world systems can't be completely designed, controlled, understood or predicted, even by the so-called sciences of complexity, but they can be more effective when understood as complex systems. While many scientific disciplines explore complexity principally through abstract mathematical models and simulations, Emergence: Complexity & Organization explores the emerging understanding of human systems from both the 'hard' quantitative sciences and the 'soft' qualitative perspectives. This 2008 Annual includes articles from Stephen J. Guastello, Ken Baskin, Mihnea Moldoveanu, Frank Boons, Duncan A. Robertson, Brenda L. Massetti, Maria May Seitanidi, Mary Lee Rhodes and many more, which explore a range of complexity-related topics from philosophical concerns through to the practical application of complexity ideas, concepts and frameworks in human organizations. Also included are a series of four reproductions of classical papers in the fields of complexity and systems, each with critical introductions that explore their modern relevance: "The Meanings of 'Emergence' and Its Modes" by Arthur O. Lovejoy (originally published in 1927) "An Outline of General System Theory" by Ludwig von Bertalanffy (originally published in 1950) "Society as a Complex Adaptive System" by Walter Buckley (originally published in 1968) "Is Adaptability Enough?" by Geoffrey Vickers (originally published in 1959)

This book provides a critical assessment of progress towards the Information Society. Drawing upon unique empirical data, this book lays the foundation for more useful theories of the process of change, and more effective strategies and policies for increasing the benefits from the Information Society. The authors provide insights into the social, economic, and political forces that are structuring the pathway to the Information Society-and its consequences for business and individuals in their everyday lives.

This open access book details tools and procedures for data collections of hard-to-reach, hard-to-survey populations. Inside, readers will discover first-hand insights from experts who share their successes as well as their failures in their attempts to identify and measure human vulnerabilities across the life course. Coverage first provides an introduction on studying vulnerabilities based on the Total Error Survey framework. Next, the authors present concrete examples on how to survey such populations as the elderly, migrants, widows and widowers, couples facing breast cancer, employees and job seekers, displaced workers, and teenagers during their transition to adulthood. In addition, one essay discusses the rationale for the use of life history calendars in studying social and psychological vulnerability while another records the difficulty the authors faced when trying to set-up an online social network to collect relevant data. Overall, this book demonstrates the importance to have, from the very beginning, a dialogue between specialists of survey methods and the researchers working on social dynamics across the life span. It will serve as an indispensable resource for social scientists interested in gathering and analyzing data on vulnerable individuals and populations in order to construct longitudinal data bases and properly target social policies.

Academic literature rarely gives an account of the ethical challenges and emotional pitfalls the researcher is confronted with before, during and after being in the field. Giving personal accounts, the authors explore some of the challenges one can face when engaging in local-level research in difficult situations.

The subject of the book is advanced statistical analyses for quantitative research synthesis (meta-analysis), and selected practical issues relating to research synthesis that are not covered in detail in the many existing introductory books on research synthesis (or meta-analysis). Complex statistical issues are arising more frequently as the primary research that is summarized in quantitative syntheses itself becomes more complex, and as researchers who are conducting meta-analyses become more ambitious in the questions they wish to address. Also as researchers have gained more experience in conducting research syntheses, several key issues have persisted and now appear fundamental to the enterprise of summarizing research. Specifically the book describes multivariate analyses for several indices commonly used in meta-analysis (e.g., correlations, effect sizes, proportions and/or odds ratios), will outline how to do power analysis for meta-analysis (again for each of the different kinds of study outcome indices), and examines issues around research quality and research design and their roles in synthesis. For each of the statistical topics we will examine the different possible statistical models (i.e., fixed, random, and mixed models) that could be adopted by a researcher. In dealing with the issues of study quality and research design it covers a number of specific topics that are of broad concern to research synthesists. In many fields a current issue is how to make sense of results when studies using several different designs appear in a research literature (e.g., Morris & Deshon, 1997, 2002). In education and other social sciences a critical aspect of this issue is how one might incorporate qualitative (e.g., case study) research within a synthesis. In medicine, related issues concern whether and how to summarize observational studies, and whether they should be combined with randomized controlled trials (or even if they should be combined at all). For each topic, included is a worked example (e.g., for the statistical analyses) and/or a detailed description of a published research synthesis that deals with the practical (non-statistical) issues covered.

There is no other print source, online source, or Web search engine that provides the wide range and depth of insight found in Vital Statistics on American Politics. This new 2015-2016 edition is updated with the most recent information available. The editors consult hundreds of sources to calculate and locate the data, facts, and figures that offer a vivid and multifaceted portrait of the broad spectrum of United States politics and policies. Students, professional researchers, and interested citizens will find chapters devoted to key subject areas such as elections and political parties, public opinion and voting, the media, the three branches of U.S. government, foreign, military, social and economic policy, and much more. For depth of information and ease of use, this updated edition is the best resource of its kind available and should be a key component of all academic and large public library collections.

This book is an introduction into stochastic processes for physicists, biologists and financial analysts. Using an informal approach, all the necessary mathematical tools and techniques are covered, including the stochastic differential equations, mean values, probability distribution functions, stochastic integration and numerical modeling. Numerous examples of practical applications of the stochastic mathematics are considered in detail, ranging from physics to the financial theory. A reader with basic knowledge of the probability theory should have no difficulty in accessing the book content.

Surveys enjoy great ubiquity among data collection methods in social research: they are flexible in questioning techniques, in the amount of questions asked, in the topics covered, and in the various ways of interactions with respondents. Surveys are also the preferred method by many researchers in the social sciences due to their ability to provide quick profiles and results. Because they are so commonly used and fairly easy to administer, surveys are often thought to be easily thrown together. But designing an effective survey that yields reliable and valid results takes more than merely asking questions and waiting for the answers to arrive. Geared to the non-statistician, the Handbook of Survey Methodology in Social Sciences addresses issues throughout all phases of survey design and implementation. Chapters examine the major survey methods of data collection, providing expert guidelines for asking targeted questions, improving accuracy and quality of responses, while reducing sampling and non-sampling bias. Relying on the Total Survey Error theory, various issues of both sampling and non-sampling sources of error are explored and discussed. By covering all aspects of the topic, the Handbook is suited to readers taking their first steps in survey methodology, as well as to those already involved in survey design and execution, and to those currently in training. Featured in the Handbook: * The Total Survey Error: sampling and non-sampling errors. * Survey sampling techniques. * The art of question phrasing. * Techniques for increasing response rates * A question of ethics: what is allowed in survey research? * Survey design: face-to-face, phone, mail, e-mail, online, computer-assisted.? * Dealing with sensitive issues in surveys. * Demographics of respondents: implications for future survey research. * Dealing with nonresponse, and nonresponse bias The Handbook of Survey Methodology in Social Sciences offers how-to clarity for researchers in the social and behavioral sciences and related disciplines, including sociology, criminology, criminal justice, social psychology, education, public health, political science, management, and many other disciplines relying on survey methodology as one of their main data collection tools.

The focus of this volume is on the further development of the Quality of Life Theory and the means to measure the concept. The volume summarizes Michalos' fundamental assumptions about the nature of quality of life or human well-being and explains in detail the two variable theory of the quality of life. It gives an update of the journal Social Indicators Research after forty years, an explanation of the role of community indicators in connecting communities, and a critical review of the much publicized Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi report. It deals with the multiple discrepancies theory (MDT), the empirical theory designed to provide the foundation of the pragmatic theory of value. Other concepts discussed in this volume are the stability, sensitivity, and other different features of measures of domain and life satisfaction and happiness, measures of arts-related activities and beliefs, measures of knowledge, attitudes and behaviour concerning sustainable development, and the role of quality of life in sustainable development research. The volume concludes with discussions on connections between social indicators and communities, aspects of community quality of life in Prince George, British Columbia and Jasper, Alberta, and British Columbians' expectations and attitudes going into the third millennium.

In the series: Advances in Cultural Psychology, Jaan Valsiner Memory construction and national identity are key issues in our societies, as well as it is patriotism. How can we nowadays believe and give sense to traditional narrations that explain the origins of nations and communities? How do these narrations function in a process of globalization? How should we remember the recent past? In the construction of collective memory, no doubt history taught at school plays a fundamental role, as childhood and adolescence are periods in which the identity seeds flourish vigorously. This book analyses how history is far more than pure historical contents given in a subject matter; it studies the situation of school history in different countries such as the former URSS, United States, Germany, Japan, Spain and Mexico, making sensible comparisons and achieving global conclusions. The empirical part is based on students interviews about school patriotic rituals, very close to the teaching of history, specifically carried out in Argentina but very similar to these rituals in other countries. The author analizes in which ways that historical knowledge is understood by students and its influence on the construction of patriotism. This book--aside from making a major contribution to the cultural psychology field--should be of direct interest and relevance to all people interested in the ways education succeeds in its variable functions. As a matter of fact, it is related to other IAP books as Contemporary Public Debates Over History Education (Nakou & Barca, 2010) and What Shall We Tell the Children? International Perspectives on School History Textbooks (Foster & Crawford, 2006).

An in-depth look at current issues, new research findings, and interdisciplinary exchange in survey methodology and processing

Survey Measurement and Process Quality extends the marriage of traditional survey issues and continuous quality improvement further than any other contemporary volume. It documents the current state of the field, reports new research findings, and promotes interdisciplinary exchange in questionnaire design, data collection, data processing, quality assessment, and effects of errors on estimation and analysis.

The book's five sections discuss a broad range of issues and topics in each of five major areas, including

• Questionnaire design—conceptualization, design of rating scales for effective measurement, self-administered questionnaires, and more
• Data collection—new technology, interviewer effects, interview mode, children as respondents
• Post-survey processing and operations—modeling of classification operations, coding based on such systems, editing, integrating processes
• Quality assessment and control—total quality management, developing current best methods, service quality, quality efforts across organizations
• Effects of misclassification on estimation, analysis, and interpretation—misclassification and other measurement errors, new variance estimators that account for measurement error, estimators of nonsampling error components in interview surveys

Survey Measurement and Process Quality is an indispensable resource for survey practitioners and managers as well as an excellent supplemental text for undergraduate and graduate courses and special seminars.

Reinhard Selten, to date the only German Nobel Prize laureate in economics, celebrates his 80th birthday in 2010. While his contributions to game theory are well-known, the behavioral side of his scientific work has received less public exposure, even though he has been committed to experimental research during his entire career, publishing more experimental than theoretical papers in top-tier journals. This Festschrift is dedicated to Reinhard Selten's exceptional influence on behavioral and experimental economics. In this collection of academic highlight papers, a number of his students are joined by leading scholars in experimental research to document the historical role of the "Meister" in the development of the research methodology and of several sub-fields of behavioral economics. Next to the academic insight in these highly active fields of experimental research, the papers also provide a glance at Reinhard Selten's academic and personal interaction with his students and peers.

Organizations of all kinds struggle to understand, adapt, respond and manipulate changing conditions in their internal and external environments. Approaches based on the causal, linear logic of mechanistic sciences and engineering continue to play an important role, given people's ability to create order. But such approaches are valid only within carefully circumscribed boundaries. They become counterproductive when the same organizations display the highly reflexive, context-dependent, dynamic nature of systems in which agents learn and adapt and new patterns emerge. The rapidly expanding discussion about complex systems offers important contributions to the integration of diverse perspectives and ultimately new insights into organizational effectiveness. There is increasing interest in complexity in mainstream business education, as well as in specialist business disciplines such as knowledge management. Real world systems can't be completely designed, controlled, understood or predicted, even by the so-called sciences of complexity, but they can be more effective when understood as complex systems. While many scientific disciplines explore complexity through mathematical models and simulations, Emergence: Complexity & Organization explores the emerging understanding of human systems that is informed by this research. This 2005 Annual includes articles from Max Boisot, Ken Baskin, Robert E. Ulanowicz, Heather H pfl, Victoria Alexander, and many more, which explore a range of complexity-related topics from philosophical concerns through to the practical application of complexity ideas, concepts and frameworks in human organizations. Also included are a series of four reproductions of classical papers in the fields of complexity and systems: "Futurology and the Future of Systems Analysis" by Ida R. Hoos (originally published in 1972) "A Form of Logic Suited for Biology" by Walter M. Elsasser (originally published in 1981) "Beyond Open Systems Models of Organization" by Louis R. Pondy (originally unpublished conference paper from 1976) "The Architecture of Complexity" by Herbert A. Simon (originally published in 1962)

These essays by no means cover all areas of interest in long-term care programs, but they offer new insights (and intriguing questions for future research) about how differently policies in this important area can be carried out in different countries.

What should you do when results don't match your expectations? How is it possible to make the best of existing evidence? Is it acceptable to adapt your research question in the middle of a project? This book examines how experienced researchers have tackled these questions in their own projects. Moving beyond abstract discussions of method, it explores how social scientists collect and construct evidence in real-life practice. Looking critically at nine examples of recent research, Doing Social Science gives a thorough yet accessible examination of how research is planned, carried out, recorded and analysed in real-life situations. The book covers core and new areas of social science, with each chapter looking at a different contemporary study that taps into a key aspect of modern everyday life. Diverse and globally relevant, these studies include themes from online gaming and news interviews to post-colonial life and Goth subculture. The book relates the theory behind such social issues to the methods being used, as it gives critical evaluation alongside careful explanation and invaluable advice. Showing how the choice and use of particular methods and techniques can critically shape the findings of social science research, the authors also explain how to deal with complex research issues. Written and edited by experts in the field, this innovative book highlights the excitement as well as the challenge of conducting real-life research. After reading this, students throughout the social sciences will have the confidence and skills to evaluate the research of others and carry out their own research projects.

This book studies the process of demographic transition which has played a key role in the economic development of Western countries. The special focus is on France, which constitutes the first clear case of fertility decline in Europe. The book analyzes the reasons behind this phenomenon by examining the evolution of demographic variables in France over the past two hundred years. To better understand the reasons of the changing patterns of demographic behavior, the authors investigate the development of the female labor force, study educational investments, and explore the evolution of gender roles and relations.

The book presents statistical methods and models that can usefully support the ev- uation of educational services and quality of products. The contributions collected in this book summarize the work of several researchers from the universities of Bologna, Firenze, Napoli and Padova. The contributions are written with a cons- tent notation and a uni?ed view, and concern methodological advances developed mostly with reference to speci?c problems of evaluation using real data sets. The evaluation of educational services, as well as the analysis of judgements and preferences, poses severe methodological challenges because of the presence of one or more of the following aspects: the observational (non experimental) nature of the context, which is associated with the well-known problems of selection bias and presence of nuisance factors; the hierarchical structure of the data, that entails c- related observations and consideration of effects at different levels of the hierarchy and their interactions (multilevel analysis); the multivariate and qualitative nature of the dependent variable, that requires the use of ad hoc statistical methodologies; the presence of non observable factors, e. g. the satisfaction, calling for the use of latent variables models; the simultaneous presence of components of pleasure and components of uncertainty in the explication of the judgments, that asks for the speci?cation and estimation of mixture models. The ?rst part of the book deals with latent variable models.

In the global south, and South Africa in particular, the increasing demographic, economic and political weight of this part of the world is calling for the development of research capacity, which has so far been lacking, to guide society in making informed choices that suit and enhance the African culture and context. Fundamentals of research in Humanities, Social Sciences and Science Education follows all the steps of the research endeavour, from the selection and formulation of a research problem, to the writing or reporting, to the publication of research results. Fundamentals of research in Humanities, Social Sciences and Science Education is informed by practical experience. It is easy to read and understand, is context based and interactive, and can be used for self-study. Fundamentals of research in Humanities, Social Sciences and Science Education is aimed at students and novice researchers.

The book shows a very original organization addressing in a non traditional way, but with a systematic approach, to who has an interest in using mathematics in the social sciences.

The book is divided in four parts: (a) a historical part, written by Vittorio Capecchi which helps us understand the changes in the relationship between mathematics and sociology by analyzing the mathematical models of Paul F. Lazarsfeld, the model of simulation and artificial societies, models of artificial neural network and considering all the changes in scientific paradigms considered; (b) a part coordinated by Pier Luigi Contucci on mathematical models that consider the relationship between the mathematical models that come from physics and linguistics to arrive at the study of society and those which are born within sociology and economics; (c) a part coordinated by Massimo Buscema analyzing models of artificial neural networks; (d) a part coordinated by Bruno D'Amore which considers the relationship between mathematics and art.

The title of the book "Mathematics and Society" was chosen because the mathematical applications exposed in the book allow you to address two major issues: (a) the general theme of technological innovation and quality of life (among the essays are on display mathematical applications to the problems of combating pollution and crime, applications to mathematical problems of immigration, mathematical applications to the problems of medical diagnosis, etc.) (b) the general theme of technical innovation and creativity, for example the art and mathematics section which connects to the theme of creative cities.

The book is very original because it is not addressed only to those who are passionate about mathematical applications in social science but also to those who, in different societies, are: (a) involved in technological innovation to improve the quality of life; (b) involved in the wider distribution of technological innovation in different areas of creativity (as in the project "Creative Cities Network" of UNESCO).

This highly practical resource brings new dimensions to the utility of qualitative data in health research by focusing on naturally occurring data. It examines how naturally occurring data complement interviews and other sources of researcher-generated health data, and takes readers through the steps of identifying, collecting, analyzing, and disseminating these findings in ethical research with real-world relevance. The authors acknowledge the critical importance of evidence-based practice in today's healthcare landscape and argue for naturally occurring data as a form of practice-based evidence making valued contributions to the field. And chapters evaluate frequently overlooked avenues for naturally occurring data, including media and social media sources, health policy and forensic health contexts, and digital communications. Included in the coverage:* Exploring the benefits and limitations of using naturally occurring data in health research * Considering qualitative approaches that may benefit from using naturally occurring data * Utilizing computer-mediated communications and social media in health * Using naturally occurring data to research vulnerable groups * Reviewing empirical examples of health research using naturally occurring data Using Naturally Occurring Data in Qualitative Health Research makes concepts, methods, and rationales accessible and applicable for readers in the health and mental health fields, among them health administrators, professionals in research methodology, psychology researchers, and practicing and trainee clinicians.

A discussion of the case study method which develops an integrative framework for causal inference in small-n research. This framework is applied to research design tasks such as case selection and process tracing. The book presents the basics, state-of-the-art and arguments for improving the case study method and empirical small-n research.