The book explores new ways to reconstruct and enhance speech that is compromised by various neuro-motor disorders - collectively known as "dysarthria." The authors address some of the extant lacunae in speech research of dysarthric conditions: they show how new methods can improve speaker recognition when speech is impaired due to developmental or acquired pathologies; they present a novel multi-dimensional approach to help the speech system both assess dysarthric speech and to perform intelligibility improvement of the impaired speech; they display well-performing software solutions for developmental and acquired speech impairments, and for vocal injuries; and they examine non-acoustic signals and muted nonverbal sounds in relation to audible speech conversion.

The original edition of this accessible and interdisciplinary textbook was the first to consider the ethical issues of digital media from a global perspective, introducing ethical theories from multiple cultures. This second edition has been thoroughly updated to cover current research and scholarship, and recent developments and technological changes. It also benefits from extensively updated case-studies and pedagogical material, including examples of watershed events such as privacy policy developments on Facebook and Google+ in relation to ongoing changes in privacy law in the US, the EU, and Asia. New for the second edition is a section on citizen journalism and its implications for traditional journalistic ethics. With a significantly updated section on the ethical toolkit, this book also introduces students to prevailing ethical theories and illustrates how they are applied to central issues such as privacy, copyright, pornography and violence, and the ethics of cross- cultural communication online. Digital Media Ethics is student- and classroom-friendly: each topic and theory is interwoven throughout the volume with detailed sets of questions, additional resources, and suggestions for further research and writing. Together, these enable readers to foster careful reflection upon, writing about, and discussion of these issues and their possible resolutions.

This important text synthesizes the state of knowledge related to thinking and technology and provides strategies for helping young people cultivate thinking skills required to navigate the new digital landscape. The rise of technology has resulted in new ways of searching and communicating information among youth, often creating information "overload". We do not know how the new technologies will affect the ways young people learn and think. There are plenty of warnings about the dangers of information technology, but there is also enormous potential for technology to aid human thinking, which this book explores from an open-minded perspective. Coverage Includes: - An up to date review of the literature on thinking skills in general, and in relation to technology.- Practical guidelines for thinking with technology.- A scholarly review of the characteristics of the digital generation.- A discussion of the various steps involved in the thinking process.- A historical context of the Information Age and the transition from oral history, to printing press, to the Internet. Thinking Skills for the Digital Generation: The Development of Thinking and Learning in the Age of Information is an invaluable reference for educators and research professionals particularly interested in educational technology, and improving thinking and problem-solving skills.

Social networks have emerged as a major trend in computing and social paradigms in the past few years. The social network model helps to inform the study of community behavior, allowing qualitative and quantitative assessments of how people communicate and the rules that govern communication. Social Networking and Community Behavior Modeling: Qualitative and Quantitative Measures provides a clear and consolidated view of current social network models. This work explores new methods for modeling, characterizing, and constructing social networks. Chapters contained in this book study critical security issues confronting social networking, the emergence of new mobile social networking devices and applications, network robustness, and how social networks impact the business aspects of organizations.

Ananda Kiamsha Madelyn Leeke became a pioneer in the digital universe twenty-seven years ago, when she logged in to the LexisNexis research service as a first-year law student at Howard University School of Law. She was immediately smitten with what the World Wide Web could do. Later, while attending the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, in 1995, Leeke found herself in an Internet cafe, where she experienced an interaction that changed her life.

Over time, through interactions and conversations both online and in-person, Leeke developed the concept of "digital sisterhood." Embracing this revolutionary concept led to a complete career reinvention that finally allowed her to embrace her enormous creative spirit. She found in her digital sisters true "sheroes" and virtual mentors. Her blogging and social media adventures highlight the lessons she learned in the process, the reasons she launched the Digital Sisterhood Network, and the experiences that caused her to adopt what she terms the "fierce living" commitments.

In her memoir, Leeke details her journey, sharing experiences and insights helped her and her digital sisters use the Internet as a self-discovery tool and identifying leadership archetypes that shaped her role as a social media leader.

While a sharp debate is emerging about whether conventional biometric technology offers society any significant advantages over other forms of identification, and whether it constitutes a threat to privacy, technology is rapidly progressing. Politicians and the public are still discussing fingerprinting and iris scan, while scientists and engineers are already testing futuristic solutions. Second generation biometrics - which include multimodal biometrics, behavioural biometrics, dynamic face recognition, EEG and ECG biometrics, remote iris recognition, and other, still more astonishing, applications - is a reality which promises to overturn any current ethical standard about human identification. Robots which recognise their masters, CCTV which detects intentions, voice responders which analyse emotions: these are only a few applications in progress to be developed.

This book is the first ever published on ethical, social and privacy implications of second generation biometrics. Authors include both distinguished scientists in the biometric field and prominent ethical, privacy and social scholars. This makes this book an invaluable tool for policy makers, technologists, social scientists, privacy authorities involved in biometric policy setting. Moreover it is a precious instrument to update scholars from different disciplines who are interested in biometrics and itswider social, ethical and political implications.

The advent of the Information Society is marked by the explosive penetration of information technologies in all aspects of life and by a related fundamental transofmation in every form of the organization. Researchers, business people and policy makers have recognized the importance of addressing technological, economic and social impacts in conjunction. For example, the rise and fall of the dot-com hype depended a lot on the strenght of the business model, on the technological capabilities avalable to firms and on the readiness of the socity and economy at large sustain a new breed of business activity. However, it is notoriously difficult to examine the cross-impacts of social, economic and technological aspects of the Information Socity. This kind of work requires multidisciplinary work and collaboration on a wide range of skills. Social and Economic Transformation in the Digital Era addresses this challenge by assembling the latest thinking of leading researchers and policy makers. The book covers all key subject areas of the Information Society an presents innovative business models, case studies, normative theories and social explanations.

Cyberspace is everywhere in today s world and has significant implications not only for global economic activity, but also for international politics and transnational social relations. This compilation addresses for the first time the cyberization of international relations - the growing dependence of actors in IR on the infrastructure and instruments of the internet, and the penetration of cyberspace into all fields of their activities. The volume approaches this topical issue in a comprehensive and interdisciplinary fashion, bringing together scholars from disciplines such as IR, security studies, ICT studies and philosophy as well as experts from everyday cyber-practice.

In the first part, concepts and theories are presented to shed light on the relationship between cyberspace and international relations, discussing implications for the discipline and presenting fresh and innovative theoretical approaches.

Contributions in the second part focus on specific empirical fields of activity (security, economy, diplomacy, cultural activity, transnational communication, critical infrastructure, cyber espionage, social media, and more) and address emerging challenges and prospects for international politics and relations."

How are the new electronic technologies transforming business here and abroad -- indeed, the entire world economy -- and what new strategies must business develop to meet the challenges of this transformation? Economist, writer, and communications executive Maurice Estabrooks provides a readable, comprehensive survey of how businesses are using microchips, computers, and telecommunications to reshape the entire world of work -- its cultures, organization, and economic systems. With insight and impeccable scholarship he provides concrete evidence of the emergence of artificially intelligent, cybernetic, network-based entities that are creating new linkages between businesses, markets, and technology itself -- linkages that will profoundly affect the way businesses create and implement their corporate survival and growth strategies in the future.

Drawing on the work of economic theorist Joseph Schumpeter, Estabrooks shows how Schumpeterian dynamics have played a key role in the breakup of AT&T and the Bell System, and in the deregulation of telecommunications, broadcasting, banking, finance, and other economically critical industries. What has emerged, he maintains, is an increasingly integrated, global information- and software-based services economy. Optical fibers, satellites, and wireless communications systems have already made possible the development of electronic superhighways, but in doing so they have also initiated a massive redistribution of economic power and wealth throughout the world, the implications of which are only now being understood. Historical, analytical, descriptive, Estabrooks' book will speak not only to academics and others who observe world transformations from relatively theoretical perspectives, but also to corporate and other executives whose organizations, and certainly their personal work lives, will be changed dramatically by the developments he describes in practical day-to-day situations.

In a globalized world, one of the most prominent developments in technology has been the advancement of non-human entities. The applications of these entities in media as well as other fields of science have been looked upon as irrelevant for understanding human agency. Analytical Frameworks, Applications, and Impacts of ICT and Actor-Network Theory provides innovative insights into human and non-human roles (e.g., physical objects, technology, animals, or even beliefs, scientific facts, or discourses) and their influence on this theory and to each other. The content within this publication represents the work of consumer culture, technology, and the arts. It is designed for researchers, students, and professionals as it covers topics centered on a multidisciplinary reading of actor-network theory for a variety of fields.

This book explores a society currently being transformed by the influence of advanced information technology, and provides insights into the main technological and human issues and a holistic approach to inclusion, security, safety and, last but not least, privacy and freedom of expression. Its main aim is to bridge the gap between technological solutions, their successful implementation, and the fruitful utilization of the main set of e-Services offered by governments, private institutions, and commercial companies. Today, various parameters actively influence e-Services' success or failure: cultural aspects, organisational issues, bureaucracy and workflow, infrastructure and technology in general, user habits, literacy, capacity or merely interaction design. The purpose of this book is to help in outlining and understanding a realistic scenario of what we can term e-Citizenry. It identifies today's citizen, who is surrounded by an abundance of digital services, as an "e-Citizen" and explores the transition from their traditional role and behaviour to new ones. The respective chapters presented here will lay the foundation of the technological and social environment in which this societal transition takes place. With its balanced humanistic and technological approach, the book mainly targets public authorities, decision-makers, stakeholders, solution developers, and graduate students.

This book addresses the topic of playable cities, which use the 'smartness' of digital cities to offer their citizens playful events and activities. The contributions presented here examine various aspects of playable cities, including developments in pervasive and urban games, the use of urban data to design games and playful applications, architecture design and playability, and mischief and humor in playable cities. The smartness of digital cities can be found in the sensors and actuators that are embedded in their environment. This smartness allows them to monitor, anticipate and support our activities and increases the efficiency of the cities and our activities. These urban smart technologies can offer citizens playful interactions with streets, buildings, street furniture, traffic, public art and entertainment, large public displays and public events.

This book attempts to rethink the concept of technological literacy in a modern context, not only in terms of a subject area taught in schools, but also as an important general concept that all citizens should engage with. As this book will illustrate, the concept of technological literacy has no universally agreed definition.

The use of contextually aware, pervasive, distributed computing, and sensor networks to bridge the gap between the physical and online worlds is the basis of mobile social networking. This book shows how applications can be built to provide mobile social networking, the research issues that need to be solved to enable this vision, and how mobile social networking can be used to provide computational intelligence that will improve daily life. With contributions from the fields of sociology, computer science, human-computer interaction and design, this book demonstrates how mobile social networks can be inferred from users' physical interactions both with the environment and with others, as well as how users behave around them and how their behavior differs on mobile vs. traditional online social networks.

There has been a growth in the use, acceptance, and popularity of indigenous knowledge. High rates of poverty and a widening economic divide is threatening the accessibility to western scientific knowledge in the developing world where many indigenous people live. Consequently, indigenous knowledge has become a potential source for sustainable development in the developing world. The Handbook of Research on Theoretical Perspectives on Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Developing Countries presents interdisciplinary research on knowledge management, sharing, and transfer among indigenous communities. Providing a unique perspective on alternative knowledge systems, this publication is a critical resource for sociologists, anthropologists, researchers, and graduate-level students in a variety of fields.

How is the adoption of digital media in the Arab world affecting the relationship between the state and its subjects? What new forms of online engagement and strategies of resistance have emerged from the aspirations of digitally empowered citizens? Networked Publics and Digital Contention: The Politics of Everyday Life in Tunisia tells the compelling story of the concurrent evolution of technology and society in the Middle East. It brings into focus the intricate relationship between Internet development, youth activism, cyber resistance, and political participation. Taking Tunisia - the birthplace of the Arab uprisings - as a case study, it offers an ethnographically nuanced and theoretically grounded analysis of the digital culture of contention that developed in an authoritarian context. It broadens the focus from narrow debates about the role that social media played in the Arab uprisings toward a fresh understanding of how changes in media affect existing power relations. Based on extensive fieldwork, in-depth interviews with Internet activists, and immersive analyses of online communication, this book redirects our attention from institutional politics to the informal politics of everyday life. An original contribution to the political sociology of Arab media, Networked Publics and Digital Contention provides a unique perspective on how networked Arab publics negotiate agency, reconfigure political action, and reimagine citizenship.

The rapid evolution of technology continuously changes the way people interact, work, and learn. By examining these advances from a sociological perspective, researchers can further understand the impact of cyberspace on human behavior, interaction, and cognition. Analyzing Human Behavior in Cyberspace provides emerging research exploring the four types of cyber behavior, expanding the scientific knowledge about the subject matter and revealing its extreme complexity. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as cyber effects, emotion recognition, and cyber victimization, this book is ideally designed for sociologists, psychologists, academicians, researchers, and graduate-level students seeking current research on how people behave online.

This work examines the political choices that surround the new technologies of telecommunications and broadcasting, and focuses on the essential issues of who determines how they are implemented and why, as well as who benefits from them. In its study of the distributional potential of these technologies, the book concentrates on the political and economic interests that are in conflict over the possibilities, and, in particular, on the ways in which the American and European governments have attempted to innovate, organize, and control information technology, telecommunications, and broadcasting. The technological innovation backed by industrialized governments, the authors contend, has largely served political and military interests rather than those of the general population. Written from the perspective of the individual citizen, the book argues that the emphasis by governments on industrial leadership has preempted concern for access, information, and accountability. Among the issues discussed are the impact that the globalization of industry is having on national sovereignty; the evolution of three international trading blocs through the standardization of high definition television and digital networks; the politics of cable and satellite transmission; and the convergence of broadcasting and telecommunications. This work offers a unique linkage between telecommunications, broadcasting, and information technology, and it argues that governments have lost sight of the informational underpinnings of the democratic process. Students of politics, international relations, political economy, and media studies will find this book to be an invaluable resource.

Old age is currently the greatest risk factor for developing dementia. Since older people make up a larger portion of the population than ever before, the resulting increase in the incidence of dementia presents a major challenge for society. Dementia is complex and multifaceted and impacts not only the person with the diagnosis but also those caring for them and society as a whole. Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) design and development are pivotal in enabling people with dementia to live well and be supported in the communities around them. HCI is increasingly addressing the need for inclusivity and accessibility in the design and development of new technologies, interfaces, systems, services, and tools. Using interdisciplinary approaches HCI engages with the complexities and 'messiness' of real-world design spaces to provide novel perspectives and new ways of addressing the challenge of dementia and multi-stakeholder needs. HCI and Design in the Context of Dementia brings together the work of international experts, designers and researchers working across disciplines. It provides methodologies, methods and frameworks, approaches to participatory engagement and case studies showing how technology can impact the lives of people living with dementia and those around them. It includes examples of how to conduct dementia research and design in-context in the field of HCI, ethically and effectively and how these issues transcend the design space of dementia to inform HCI design and technology development more broadly. The book is valuable for and aimed at designers, researchers, scholars and caregivers that work with vulnerable groups like people with dementia, and those directly impacted.

The adoption of technology has provided opportunities for increased participation in global affairs both at an individual and organizational level. As a discipline, e-adoption focuses on the requirements, policies, and implications of widespread technology use in developed and developing countries. E-Adoption and Technologies for Empowering Developing Countries: Global Advances reviews the impact technology has had on individuals and organizations whose access to media and resources is otherwise limited. With overviews of topics including electronic voting, electronic delivery systems, social Web applications, and online educational environments, this reference work provides a foundation for understanding the interplay between technology and societal growth and development.

Emotion Online: Theorizing Affect on the Internet takes stock of where we are emotionally with regards to the Internet in social and cultural terms. Online users are switching between personal, national, international and global modes of being and feeling that shape private and public experiences. Drawing upon the well-established discipline of media studies, the book travels theoretically through, across, in and between examples of traditional media as they merge and emerge online. Garde-Hansen and Gorton explore how we feel about, and how we feel in, our online media ecology in the context of global media platforms.