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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary
This volume of essays explores the long-unstudied relationship between religion and human security throughout the world. The 1950s marked the beginning of a period of extraordinary religious revival, during which religious political-parties and non-governmental organizations gained power around the globe. Until now, there has been little systematic study of the impact that this phenomenon has had on human welfare, except of a relationship between religious revival to violence. The authors of these essays show that religion can have positive as well as negative effects on human wellbeing. They address a number of crucial questions about the relationship between religion and human security: Under what circumstances do religiously motivated actors tend to advance human welfare, and under what circumstances do they tend to threaten it? Are members of some religious groups more likely to engage in welfare-enhancing behavior than in others? Do certain state policies tend to promote security-enhancing behavior among religious groups while other policies tend to promote security-threatening ones? In cases where religious actors are harming the welfare of a population, what responses could eliminate that threat without replacing it with another? Religion and Human Security shows that many states tend to underestimate the power of religious organizations as purveyors of human security. Governments overlook both the importance of human security to their populations and the religious groups who could act as allies in securing the welfare of their people. This volume offers a rich variety of theoretical perspectives on the nuanced relationship between religion and human security. Through case studies ranging from Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan, to the United States, Northern Ireland, and Zimbabwe, it provides important suggestions to policy makers of how to begin factoring the influence of religion into their evaluation of a population's human security and into programs designed to improve human security around the globe.
Australian Library Supervision and Management is aimed at both
students and practitioners at supervisory to middle management
levels. It introduces management theory, but much of the theory is
woven through the text, which emphasises practical issues and
perspectives. Topics given special attention include skills
required to implement and support participative management, team
management, leadership, self management, change management,
strategic planning, job design, performance measurement,
negotiation and conflict resolution.
There are many data communications titles covering design,
installation, etc, but almost none that specifically focus on
industrial networks, which are an essential part of the day-to-day
work of industrial control systems engineers, and the main focus of
an increasingly large group of network specialists.
Since 1997, the war in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has taken more than 6 million lives and shapes the daily existence of the nation's residents. While the DRC is often portrayed in international media as an unproductive failed state, the Congolese have turned increasingly to art-making to express their experience to external eyes. Author Cherie Rivers Ndaliko argues that cultural activism and the enthusiasm to produce art exists in Congo as a remedy for the social ills of war and as a way to communicate a positive vision of the country. Ndaliko introduces a memorable cast of artists, activists, and ordinary people from the North-Kivu province, whose artistic and cultural interventions are routinely excluded from global debates that prioritize economics, politics, and development as the basis of policy decision about Congo. Rivers also shows how art has been mobilized by external humanitarian and charitable organizations, becoming the vehicle through which to inflict new kinds of imperial domination. Written by a scholar and activist in the center of the current public policy debate, Necessary Noise examines the uneasy balance of accomplishing change through art against the unsteady background of civil war. At the heart of this book is the Yole!Africa cultural center, which is the oldest independent cultural center in the east of Congo. Established in the aftermath of volcano Nyiragongo's 2002 eruption and sustained through a series of armed conflicts, the cultural activities organized by Yole!Africa have shaped a generation of Congolese youth into socially and politically engaged citizens. By juxtaposing intimate ethnographic, aesthetic, and theoretical analyses of this thriving local initiative with case studies that expose the often destructive underbelly of charitable action, Necessary Noise introduces into heated international debates on aid and sustainable development a compelling case for the necessity of arts and culture in negotiating sustained peace. Through vivid descriptions of a community of young people transforming their lives through art, Ndaliko humanizes a dire humanitarian disaster. In so doing, she invites readers to reflect on the urgent choices we must navigate as globally responsible citizens. The only study of music or film culture in the east of Congo, Necessary Noise raises an impassioned and vibrantly interdisciplinary voice that speaks to the theory and practice of socially engaged scholarship.
Design and Analysis of Time Series Experiments presents the elements of statistical time series analysis while also addressing recent developments in research design and causal modeling. A distinguishing feature of the book is its integration of design and analysis of time series experiments. Drawing examples from criminology, economics, education, pharmacology, public policy, program evaluation, public health, and psychology, Design and Analysis of Time Series Experiments is addressed to researchers and graduate students in a wide range of behavioral, biomedical and social sciences. Readers learn not only how-to skills but, also the underlying rationales for the design features and the analytical methods. ARIMA algebra, Box-Jenkins-Tiao models and model-building strategies, forecasting, and Box-Tiao impact models are developed in separate chapters. The presentation of the models and model-building assumes only exposure to an introductory statistics course, with more difficult mathematical material relegated to appendices. Separate chapters cover threats to statistical conclusion validity, internal validity, construct validity, and external validity with an emphasis on how these threats arise in time series experiments. Design structures for controlling the threats are presented and illustrated through examples. The chapters on statistical conclusion validity and internal validity introduce Bayesian methods, counterfactual causality and synthetic control group designs. Building on the earlier of the authors, Design and Analysis of Time Series Experiments includes more recent developments in modeling, and considers design issues in greater detail than any existing work. Additionally, the book appeals to those who want to conduct or interpret time series experiments, as well as to those interested in research designs for causal inference.
The powerful potential of digital media to engage citizens in political actions has now crossed our news screens many times. But scholarly focus has tended to be on "networked," anti-institutional forms of collective action, to the neglect of advocacy and service organizations. This book investigates the changing fortunes of the citizen-civil society relationship by exploring how social changes and innovations in communication technology are transforming the information expectations and preferences of many citizens, especially young citizens. In doing so, it is the first work to bring together theories of civic identity change with research on civic organizations. Specifically, it argues that a shift in "information styles" may help to explain the disjuncture felt by many young people when it comes to institutional participation and politics. The book theorizes two paradigms of information style: a dutiful style, which was rooted in the society, communication system and citizen norms of the modern era, and an actualizing style, which constitutes the set of information practices and expectations of the young citizens of late modernity for whom interactive digital media are the norm. Hypothesizing that civil society institutions have difficulty adapting to the norms and practices of the actualizing information style, two empirical studies apply the dutiful/actualizing framework to innovative content analyses of organizations' online communications-on their websites, and through Facebook. Results demonstrate that with intriguing exceptions, most major civil society organizations use digital media more in line with dutiful information norms than actualizing ones: they tend to broadcast strategic messages to an audience of receivers, rather than encouraging participation or exchange among an active set of participants. The book concludes with a discussion of the tensions inherent in bureaucratic organizations trying to adapt to an actualizing information style, and recommendations for how they may more successfully do so.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is often discussed as something extraordinary, a dream-or a nightmare-that awakens metaphysical questions on human life. Yet far from a distant technology of the future, the true power of AI lies in its subtle revolution of ordinary life. From voice assistants like Siri to natural language processors, AI technologies use cultural biases and modern psychology to fit specific characteristics of how users perceive and navigate the external world, thereby projecting the illusion of intelligence. Integrating media studies, science and technology studies, and social psychology, Deceitful Media examines the rise of artificial intelligence throughout history and exposes the very human fallacies behind this technology. Focusing specifically on communicative AIs, Natale argues that what we call "AI" is not a form of intelligence but rather a reflection of the human user. Using the term "banal deception," he reveals that deception forms the basis of all human-computer interactions rooted in AI technologies, as technologies like voice assistants utilize the dynamics of projection and stereotyping as a means for aligning with our existing habits and social conventions. By exploiting the human instinct to connect, AI reveals our collective vulnerabilities to deception, showing that what machines are primarily changing is not other technology but ourselves as humans. Deceitful Media illustrates how AI has continued a tradition of technologies that mobilize our liability to deception and shows that only by better understanding our vulnerabilities to deception can we become more sophisticated consumers of interactive media.
The reality of transnational innovation and dissemination of new
technologies, including digital media, has yet to make a dent in
the deep-seated culturalism that insists on reinscribing a divide
between the West and Japan. The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Cinema
aims to counter this trend toward dichotomizing the West and Japan
and to challenge the pervasive culturalism of today's film and
media studies.
Transnational Cooperation: An Issue-Based Approach presents an analysis of transnational cooperation or collective action that stresses basic concepts and intuition. Throughout the book, authors Clint Peinhardt and Todd Sandler identify factors that facilitate and/or inhibit such cooperation. The first four chapters lay the analytical foundations for the book, while the next nine chapters apply the analysis to a host of exigencies and topics of great import. The authors use elementary game theory as a tool for illustrating the ideas put forth in the text. Game theory reminds us that rational actors (for example, countries, firms, or individuals) must account for the responses by other rational actors. The book assumes no prior knowledge of game theory; all game-theoretic concepts and analyses are explained in detail to the reader. Peinhardt and Sandler also employ paired comparisons in illustrating the book's concepts. The book is rich in applications and covers a wide range of topics, including superbugs, civil wars, money laundering, financial crises, drug trafficking, terrorism, global health concerns, international trade liberalization, acid rain, leadership, sovereignty, and many others. Students, researchers, and policymakers alike have much to gain from Transnational Cooperation. It is a crossover book for economics, political science, and public policy.
Research is such an important subject for information professionals
that there will always be a need for effective guides to it.
Research skills are a prerequisite for those who want to work
successfully in information environments, an essential set of tools
which enable information workers to become information
professionals. This book focuses on producing critical consumers of
research. It also goes some way towards producing researchers in
the fields of information management and systems.
Making Institutions Work places institutions, the processes and structures of institutionalisation at the centre of constitutional democracy, state and society. By doing so, it recognises that (a) institutions are the pillows of a constitutional democracy, (b) institutions evolve through the action of persons (agency); (c) institutions as organisations form structures of dynamic shared social patterns of behaviour through the implementation of a system of rule of law. The book offers an interdisciplinary critical commentary by scholars, analysts and experts regarding strategic thinking, form, structural and functional impediments and facilitators to institutions and institutionalisation.
In 1962, when the Cold War threatened to ignite in the Cuban Missile Crisis, when more nuclear test bombs were detonated than in any other year in history, Rachel Carson released her own bombshell, Silent Spring, to challenge society's use of pesticides. To counter the use of chemicals-and bombs-the naturalist articulated a holistic vision. She wrote about a "web of life" that connected humans to the world around them and argued that actions taken in one place had consequences elsewhere. Pesticides sprayed over croplands seep into ground water and move throughout the ecosystem, harming the environment. Thousands accepted her message, joined environmental groups, flocked to Earth Day celebrations, and lobbied for legislative regulation. Carson was not the only intellectual to offer holistic answers to society's problems. This book uncovers a holistic sensibility in post-World War II American culture that both tested the logic of the Cold War and fed some of the twentieth century's most powerful social movements, from civil rights to environmentalism to the counterculture. The study examines six important leaders and institutions that embraced and put into practice a holistic vision for a peaceful, healthful, and just world: nature writer Rachel Carson; structural engineer R. Buckminster Fuller; civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.; Jesuit priest and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin; humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow; and the Esalen Institute and its founders, Michael Murphy and Dick Price. Each looked to whole systems instead of parts and focused on connections, interdependencies, and integration to create a better world. In the 1960s and 1970s, holistic conceptions and practices infused the March on Washington, Earth Day, the human potential movement, New Age spirituality, and alternative medicine. Though dreams of creating a more perfect world were tempered by economic inequalities, political corruption, and deep social divisions, this sensibility influenced American culture in important ways that continue into the twenty-first century.
Globalization is fast becoming the most over-used and least-understood word in the world. For Tony Blair it is 'inevitable and irresistible'. To deny it, says Nelson Mandela, is 'like saying I do not recognize winter'. The accelerating political, economic, cultural and environmental interconnections that it describes are powerful and controversial. But where did globalization come from - and where is it going next? By identifying successive waves of globalization - from 15th-century explorations to the European trading empires of the 19th century; from the construction of the Great Wall of China to the fall of the Berlin Wall - Alex MacGillivray tells the incredible story of how a mysterious flat earth became a global village. Covering globalization from all angles (the rise of the multinational corporation, the birth of the football World Cup, how most film stars know a friend of a friend of Kevin Bacon), MacGillivray opens the lid on the complex economics behind the controversies and gives equal play to technology and culture, politics and war.; From Babylon and Bollywood to Seattle and satellite navigation, this book is rich in detail, wide-ranging in scope and even-handed in its
How can "Speaking Rights to Power" construct political will to respond to human rights abuse worldwide? Examining dozens of cases of human rights campaigns, this book shows how carefully crafted communications build recognition, solidarity, and social change. Alison Brysk presents an innovative analysis of the politics of persuasion, based in the strategic use of voice, framing, media, protest performance, and audience bridging. Building on twenty years of research on five continents, this comprehensive study ranges from Aung San Suu Kyi to Anna Hazare, from Congo to Colombia, and from the Arab Spring to Pussy Riot. It includes both well-chronicled campaigns, such as the struggle to end violence against women, as well as lesser-known efforts, including inter-ethnic human rights alliances in the U.S. Brysk compares relatively successful human rights campaigns with unavailing struggles. Grounding her analysis in the concrete practice of human rights campaigns, she lays out testable strategic guidance for human rights advocates. Speaking Rights to Power addresses cutting edge debates on human rights and the ethic of care, cosmopolitanism, charismatic leadership, communicative action and political theater, and the role of social media. It draws on constructivist literature from social movement and international relations theory, and it analyzes human rights as a form of global social imagination. Combining a normative contribution with judicious critique, this book shows not only that human rights rhetoric matters-but how to make it matter more.
Famous for his painstaking attention to detail and for the craftsmanship and artistry he brought to his work, filmmaker Stanley Kubrick is by now long established as both the subject of an entire sub-field of scholarly inquiry, and as the object of all levels of cinema studies pedagogy. His oeuvre, developed over nearly 50 years, traverses an immensely broad variety of film genres and subjects and has long been studied and understood in terms of its narrative, thematic, and striking visual elements. However, unique and often startling encounters between music and the moving image are central trademarks of Kubrick's style; witness the powerful effects of Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" in 2001: A Space Odyssey and of Beethoven's 9th Symphony in A Clockwork Orange, each excerpt hand-picked by Kubrick himself. We'll Meet Again argues that some of the most compelling and understudied aspects of Stanley Kubrick's films are musically conceived. Author Kate McQuiston illustrates that, for Kubrick, music is neither post-production afterthought nor background nor incidental, but rather core to films' themes and meanings. The book is divided into three sections, the first of which identifies the building blocks in Kubrick's sonic world and illuminates the ways in which Kubrick uses them to substantiate his characters and to define character relationships. The second section delves into the effects of Kubrick's signature musical techniques, including the use of texture, recurrence, and inscription to render and reinforce psychological ideas and particular spectator responses. The third and final section presents case studies in which the history of the music Kubrick chooses plays a vital and dynamic role. Throughout the author's arguments, the book locates Kubrick as a force in music reception history by examining the relationship between his musical choices and popular culture.
The first edition of this popular reference work was published in
1993 and received critical acclaim for its achievement in bringing
together international perspectives on research and development in
giftedness and talent. Scholars welcomed it as the first
comprehensive volume in the field and it has proved to be an
indispensable resource to researchers. Since the first edition, the
scholarly field of giftedness and talent studies has expanded and
developed, welcoming contributions from researchers in related
disciplines. Several theoretical frameworks outlined in the first
edition have now been empirically tested and a number of new trends
have emerged.
This volume of "Progress in Heterocyclic Chemistry" (PHC) is the twelfth annual review of the literature, covering the work published on most of the important heterocyclic ring systems during 1999, with inclusions of earlier material as appropriate. As in PHC-11, there are also three specialized reviews in this year's volume. In the inaugural chapter, Michael Groziak revitalizes the field of boron heterocycles, a relatively obscure class of heterocycles, but with a promising future. Heterocyclic phosphorus ylides are similarly a little known but useful class of compounds and Alan Aitken and Tracy Massil have provided a comprehensive review of them in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3 Jack Li discusses the remarkably versatile palladium chemistry in pyridine alkaloid synthesis. The subsequent chapters deal with recent advances in the field
of heterocyclic chemistry arranged by increasing ring size and with
emphasis on synthesis and reactions.
This book will providean accessible account of the key issues involved in risk assessment and management. It will focus on how nurses make decisions about clients and risk, which are essential to quality, safe nursing care. It will draw extensively on case study material gained through research in this area which the authors have undertaken and was commissioned by the English National Board, and will be likely to form the basis for educational requirements in this area in the future.Leading author in this field Link to ENB research which will be used as basis for educational developments in this area Case studies from research provide 'real life' examples from practice Drawn from 3 main areas for nursing risk management i.e. Mental health, learning disabilities, and care of the elderly Reflect multi-professional context of risk
First published in 1984, Gerald Bordman's Oxford Companion to
American Theatre is the standard one-volume source on our national
theatre. Critics have hailed its "wealth of authoritative
information" (Back Stage), its "fascinating picture of the volatile
American stage" (The Guardian), and its "well-chosen, illuminating
facts" (Newsday).
This handbook includes the principal methodological tools and data
required to comprehend, evaluate and execute analysis of chemical
risk in practical working situations.
The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies introduces and reviews current thinking in the interdisciplinary field of material culture studies. Drawing together approaches from archaeology, anthropology, geography, and Science and Technology Studies, through twenty-eight specially commissioned essays by leading international researchers, the volume explores contemporary issues and debates in a series of themed sections - Disciplinary Perspectives, Material Practices, Objects and Humans, Landscapes and the Built Environment, and Studying Particular Things. From Coca-Cola, chimpanzees, artworks, and ceramics, to museums, cities, human bodies, and magical objects, the Handbook is an essential resource for anyone with an interest in materiality and the place of material objects in human social life, both past and present. A comprehensive bibliography enhances its usefulness as a research tool.
The most famous name in French literary circles from the late 1950s till his death in 1981, Roland Barthes maintained a contradictory rapport with the cinema. As a cultural critic, he warned of its surreptitious ability to lead the enthralled spectator toward an acceptance of a pre-given world. As a leftist, he understood that spectacle could be turned against itself and provoke deep questioning of that pre-given world. And as an extraordinarily sensitive human being, he relished the beauty of images and the community they could bring together.
A new edition of this best-selling textbook reintroduces the topic of library cataloging from a fresh, modern perspective. Not many books merit an eleventh edition, but this popular text does. Newly updated, Introduction to Cataloging and Classification provides an introduction to descriptive cataloging based on contemporary standards, explaining the basic tenets to readers without previous experience, as well as to those who merely want a better understanding of the process as it exists today. The text opens with the foundations of cataloging, then moves to specific details and subject matter such as Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR), Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD), the International Cataloging Principles (ICP), and RDA. Unlike other texts, the book doesn't presume a close familiarity with the MARC bibliographic or authorities formats; ALA's Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd Edition, revised (AACR2R); or the International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD). Subject access to library materials is covered in sufficient depth to make the reader comfortable with the principles and practices of subject cataloging and classification. In addition, the book introduces MARC, BIBFRAME, and other approaches used to communicate and display bibliographic data. Discussions of formatting, presentation, and administrative issues complete the book; questions useful for review and study appear at the end of each chapter. Delineates the new cataloging landscape Shares a principles-based perspective An introductory text for beginners and intermediate students Emphasizes descriptive and subject cataloging, as well as format-neutral cataloging Covers new cataloging rules and RDA
‘Hallo, everyone, I’m back!' Stunning 100th anniversary hardback edition of the official sequel story collection by David Benedictus, inspired by Milne’s classic stories about everyone’s favourite bear. The Rumours are true – Christopher Robin is back in the Hundred Acre Wood. This authorised sequel to A.A.Milne’s original stories allows readers to spend a few more treasured hours with the Best Bear in All the World as he goes in search of honey, is introduced to the game of cricket and enjoys a Harvest Festival. From the excitement of Christopher Robin’s return, to the curious business of learning to play cricket, Return to the Hundred Acre Wood features all the old friends we know and love – from Pooh to Piglet, Eeyore to Owl and Tigger to Rabbit. This 100th Anniversary range’s edition of David Benedictus’s authorised sequel to A.A.Milne’s original Winnie-the-Pooh stories is splendidly illustrated by Mark Burgess in the style of the original E.H.Shepard decorations. All of the old friends are in attendance. There’s still plenty of fun to be had in this Forest. The stories are decorated with beautiful illustrations by Mark Burgess in the style of E.H.Shepard. Mark is uniquely suited to this having also illustrated Once There Was a Bear,The Best Bear in All the World, Once There Was a Bear, Tales from the Forest and Winter in the Wood. |
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