The language-communication-society triangle defies traditional scientific approaches. Rather, it is a phenomenon that calls for an integration of complex, transdisciplinary perspectives, if we are to make any progress in understanding how it works. The highly diverse agents in play are not merely cognitive and/or cultural, but also emotional and behavioural in their specificity. Indeed, the effort may require building a theoretical and methodological body of knowledge that can effectively convey the characteristic properties of phenomena in human terms.

New complexity approaches allow us to rethink our limited and mechanistic images of human societies and create more appropriate emo-cognitive dynamic and holistic models. We have to enter into dialogue with the complexity views coming out of other more material sciences, but we also need to take steps in the linguistic and psycho-sociological fields towards creating perspectives and concepts better fitted to human characteristics.

Our understanding of complexity is different but not opposed to the one that is more commonly found in texts written by people working in physics or computer science, for example. The goal of this book is to extend the knowledge of these other more human or socially oriented perspectives on complexity, taking account of the language and communication singularities of human agents in society.

Our understanding of complexity is different but not opposed to the one that is more commonly found in texts written by people working in physics or computer science, for example. The goal of this book is to extend the knowledge of these other more human or socially oriented perspectives on complexity, taking account of the language and communication singularities of human agents in society.

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In April 2009, an inspiring international conference was held at Bielefeld on the topic "Children and the Good Life: New Challenges for Research on Children." The focus was on how we can define and measure a "good life" for children growing up in the modern world. This tied in with discussions on how convincing universalistic theories are, what research on children can contribute, and how children themselves can be integrated into the research process and debates on the "good life."

Discourses and the production of knowledge on the "good life" or "well-being" require a guiding idea or a theoretical frame. This frame can come from the feminist ethic of care or from the Human and Children's Rights Convention, from the idea of welfare, or from the Capability Approach.

Our book is a useful "how to" book for researchers and government offices wanting to start or improve their own QOL survey, and contains "best practices" from all over the world. We discuss cutting-edge surveys that are being adopted by all countries in the European community as a standardized measure of each country's progress. We also discuss how developing countries can begin the measurement of Quality of Life in ways that will increase political credibility and require smaller budgets. Other chapters describe policy applications of the Quality of Life surveys, including nations' health goals, smoking cessation, child welfare, and poverty reduction.

The authors of these chapters are the world's top experts on assessing Quality of Life. For example, the author of the first chapter is Sten Johansson, former Director of Statistics Sweden, responsible for creating the first comprehensive QOL assessment systems in the world, beginning in the 1960's. The author of the second chapter is Professor Ruut Veenhoven, known as the premier researcher on national happiness, having developed the largest database in the world on the subjective measures of well-being. Heinz-Herbert Noll is responsible for developing the unified Quality of Life measurement system for the new European Union, where up to 25 countries will be assessed using the same methodology and questionnaires.

This volume is a valuable resource for four groups of readers. To researchers interested in best practices for well-established surveys of living conditions, the papers by Boelhouwer, Noll, Vogel, and Berger-Schmitt will be of special interest. To researchers and policy analysts interested in establishing a living-conditions report in their country, the papers by Kamen, Moller and Dickow, Estes, Andersen and Poppel, May, Stevens and Stols and Aasland and Tyldum give invaluable information about developing credibility, consensus-building, and survey design. For researchers interested in cross-national comparison, the papers by Hudler and Richter, and Delhey, Bohnke, Habich, and Zapf describe the rich resources already available, as well as problems of different wording, interpretation, etc. Finally, for citizens wishing to effect changes in public policy, and for researchers studying that process, the papers by Ferris, Estes, Hagerty, and Behrendt outline how organizations should select goals, utilize social indicators, and develop programs that improve the Quality of Life in their nations. "

This is a scholarly assessment of broad-ranging research on the Vietnam War over the last seventeen years by the editor of the prize-winning Dictionary of the Vietnam War. James Olson and his contributors offer fascinating insights as they evaluate the significant literature, films, and TV programs, offering different perspectives on the historical background; strategy and conduct of the war; the perspectives of Americans, the Indochinese, women, minorities, and veterans; the impact of the war on the homefront; and major problems and issues in the aftermath of the war.

This one-volume major reference covers all genres of literature, primary and secondary sources, personal narratives and oral histories, fiction and non-fiction, popular accounts, expert studies of military strategy and operations, Indochinese studies, books about the involvement and role of women and blacks, and discussions about Indochinese refugees, prisoners of war, those missing in action, veterans and post-traumatic shock. Films, TV programs, comic books and studies pointing to the effect of the war on the homefront and on others make up an important part of the book. A full index makes the volume easily accessible to students, scholars, and professionals in military studies, American and world history, American studies and popular culture, political science and international relations--an important acquisition for libraries of all kind.

This book draws upon case studies and practices of different types of DRR involvement by the private sector from all over the world. The book comprises two parts, Part I: Overview and Regional Cases; and Part II: Country Cases. The regional cases include those from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Central America, and the country cases include ones from India, Japan, the United States, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Nepal. DRR at the international level is discussed from the perspective of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR). The perspective of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is presented in the discussion of DRR at the societal level. The private sector is becoming more active in disaster management and plays an important role in distributing relief items and sending search and rescue teams in the response phase. However, once the response stage is over, private sector involvement tends to fade. While a number of disaster risk reduction (DRR) initiatives by the private sector are documented, they remain limited. The private sector can contribute enormously to DRR by developing business continuity plans, innovating technology for early warning systems, and providing and sharing technical knowledge, skills, and resources in the field of disaster preparedness. To strengthen DRR capacity, it is crucial to involve the private sector as major actors in DRR. The primary target groups for this book are students and researchers in the fields of disaster management and DRR studies. Another target group comprises practitioners and policy makers, who will be able to apply the collective knowledge from this work to policy and decision making. The book provides an overview of the current research trends and furnishes basic knowledge on this important topic.

This is Volume III of seven in a collection on Social Psychology. Originally published in 1932, the study upon which this volume is based was conducted under the auspices of The Inquiry, an organization devoted to the analysis and improvement of conference methods. The project began as a fact-finding investigation directed toward newer phases of industrial management, particularly managerial instruments in which both employees and employers participated. (Such instruments are usually called ' employee representation ' or ' company unions.') So the study developed in the direction of exploration with newer research techniques and it finally became a project in research method rather than a conventional fact-finding inquiry.

Routledge is now re-issuing this prestigious series of 204 volumes originally published between 1910 and 1965. The titles include works by key figures such asC.G. Jung, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Otto Rank, James Hillman, Erich Fromm, Karen Horney and Susan Isaacs. Each volume is available on its own, as part of a themed mini-set, or as part of a specially-priced 204-volume set. A brochure listing each title in the "International Library of Psychology" series is available upon request.

This book focuses on how statistical reasoning works and on training programs that can exploit people's natural cognitive capabilities to improve their statistical reasoning. Training programs that take into account findings from evolutionary psychology and instructional theory are shown to have substantially larger effects that are more stable over time than previous training regimens. The theoretical implications are traced in a neural network model of human performance on statistical reasoning problems. This book apppeals to judgment and decision making researchers and other cognitive scientists, as well as to teachers of statistics and probabilistic reasoning.

The Ninth Edition of Social Statistics for a Diverse Society continues to emphasize intuition and common sense, while demonstrating the link between the practice of statistics and important social issues. Recognizing that we live in a world characterized by a growing diversity and richness of social differences, best-selling authors Frankfort-Nachmias, Leon-Guerrero, and Davis help you learn key statistical concepts through real research examples related to the dynamic interplay of race, class, gender, and other social variables. The text also helps you develop important skills such as problem-solving (through a rich variety of exercises), use of statistical software (both SPSS and Excel), and interpreting research literature.

Past, Present and Future of Research in the Information Society examines the role of research and the production of knowledge in the information society, with special emphasis on developing areas of the world. Past, Present and Future of Research in the Information Society is based on a three day conference that immediately precedes the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), in Tunisia (November 2005). Core issues of the conference lie at the intersection of computer science and engineering, information and communication technologies, the world wide web and development. Past, Present and Future of Research in the Information Society is designed for a professional audience, composed of researchers and practitioners in industry. This book is also suitable for graduate-level students in computer science, engineering and sociology.

An understanding of each of the critical components of the funding process is key to meeting the challenges posed by the increasingly intense competition for research funds. This book is a vital tool for those who want to build and maximize their grant support. Although many publications provide valuable information about proposal preparation, few cover the full spectrum of issues--from planning through execution--in the funding process. The book leads off with a discussion of the relationship between researchers and the funding environment, features of good short- and long-range funding plans, characteristics of funding organizations in terms of funding power, mission, and priorities, and the manner in which funding information is disseminated. Succeeding chapters focus on the actual development of the many different types of opportunities--research projects, multicomponent research programs, career development and training programs, and small business innovation research. These chapters emphasize conceptualizing an idea, optimizing the researcher-sponsor match, and testing the concept for competitiveness. Further chapters deliver strategies for translating research ideas into written proposals, preparing administrative sections and communicating with a sponsor. The final chapters are dedicated to the outcomes of the proposal process: reviews, rebuttals, and resubmissions; and to progress reports and future proposals for maintaining and building on funding. Flowcharts, examples, and summary tables are used throughout the text to highlight key points.

The 398 tables, graphs, and charts in this handbook focus on this growing segment of America's population. Census data are supplemented by statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics and special interest groups such as the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). A special glossary defines census and demographic terms, and relevant sources of additional data are included.

Based on large research material collected in Hungary, Macedonia, Serbia and Bulgaria Social change, Gender and Violence is the book which explores the impact of transition from communism and war on everyday life of women and men, as well as the way how everyday life and gender related changes affect women's vulnerability to domestic violence and trafficking in women. The book also explores the impact of micro level changes on development of civil society, women's movement, and legal and policy changes regarding violence against women. This is a unique book, which tries to look at violence against women as connected to oppression of both women and men. It argues that violence against women in post-communist and war affected societies is significantly connected to the increase of social stratification, economic hardship, unemployment, instability, uncertainty and related social stresses, changes in gender identity and structural inequalities brought by new world order. Using largely accounts of more than hundred interviewed people, the author shows vividly how, in post-communist societies, the contradictions of capitalism are interlaced with the mostly negative relics of communism. Moreover, the book shows how contradictory processes in post-communist societies have led to a rather paradoxical result: political pluralism and a capitalist economic system generated both violence against women and a women's movement, albeit not the conditions for a reduction of violence.

This book contains a selection of the latest research in the field of Computational Social Science (CSS) methods, uses, and results, as presented at the 2021 annual conference of the Computational Social Science Society of the Americas (CSSSA). Computational social science (CSS) is the science that investigates social and behavioral dynamics through social simulation, social network analysis, and social media analysis. The CSSSA is a professional society that aims to advance the field of computational social science in all areas, including basic and applied orientations, by holding conferences and workshops, promoting standards of scientific excellence in research and teaching, and publishing research findings and results.

Over the past forty years, the term Holocaust has come to represent the deliberate campaign of extermination of Jews by the Nazis of Germany's Third Reich preceding and during World War II. Masses of edited documents and analytical material have been generated by Holocaust scholars, and some bibliographical and encyclopedic guides to the field are available. However, a student or researcher may be confounded by the abundance of publications and may lack the necessary background and endurance to sift the wheat from the chaff. The present volume has a two-fold purpose: to offer substantial analysis in intrinsic areas of study and to assess the relevant literature in each case.

Major scholars and brilliant, less established historians from Israel, Canada, and the United States have contributed more than thirty essays complete with extensive reference lists in three broad divisions. The section on conceptual approaches to the Holocaust is composed of such topics as the rise of national socialism, biographies and interpretations of Hitler, concentration camps, post-Holocaust Jewish philosophies, and the righteous gentiles. Area studies deal with aspects of the Holocaust in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, the Balkans, France, Holland, Italy, and Spain, and with effects and reactions in Switzerland and Britain. Arab-German collaboration and American responses are also addressed. A third section takes up Holocaust subjects in education, belles lettres, and the arts, including diaries and memoirs, fiction, poetry, books for children, art, music, and films. Although the scholars all provide evaluative surveys of their subjects and related literature, each enjoyed considerable latitude in coverage and each presents his or her own views and selections, not all of which are shared by other contributors or the volume editor. The editor also provides an introduction and a final survey of major institutions and resources for Holocaust study. A significant reference tool, this volume will be consulted by researchers at all levels in university, public, secondary, and parochial school libraries and at religious institutions.

This proposed text appears to be a good introduction to evolutionary computation for use in applied statistics research. The authors draw from a vast base of knowledge about the current literature in both the design of evolutionary algorithms and statistical techniques. Modern statistical research is on the threshold of solving increasingly complex problems in high dimensions, and the generalization of its methodology to parameters whose estimators do not follow mathematically simple distributions is underway. Many of these challenges involve optimizing functions for which analytic solutions are infeasible. Evolutionary algorithms represent a powerful and easily understood means of approximating the optimum value in a variety of settings. The proposed text seeks to guide readers through the crucial issues of optimization problems in statistical settings and the implementation of tailored methods (including both stand-alone evolutionary algorithms and hybrid crosses of these procedures with standard statistical algorithms like Metropolis-Hastings) in a variety of applications. This book would serve as an excellent reference work for statistical researchers at an advanced graduate level or beyond, particularly those with a strong background in computer science.

Expert interviews are today a standard method of qualitative approach in the social sciences. It is surprising that methodological reflections about the expert interview are still lacking. This book gives a comprehensive overview of their theory and practice. The contributors are experienced theorists and practitioners of expert interviews.

This book is a collection of work by migration scholars and researchers who are actively conducting fieldwork in Southeast Asia. It presents a wide variety of current research and approaches the field of international labor migration from a regional perspective, acknowledging that the migration process goes beyond local and national boundaries and is embedded in regional and global interconnections. The chapters capture the complexity and richness of the migration phenomenon and experience, which manifests itself in a multitude of ways in a region well known for its diversity. The collection highlights the continuities and discontinuities in the linkages that have been forged through the movement of people between sending and receiving societies. Such linkages are explained by distinguishing between migration that has been sustained by a colonial past and migration that has been precipitated by globalization in the last two decades. The diversity of issues in the region covered by this volume will encourage a rethink of some of the conventional views of migration scholarship and result in a more critical reflection of how we approach migration research.

Having spent forty years teaching education and philosophy at Harvard, and publishing widely on these topics during this period, Israel Scheffler has now written a more personal book, looking at education through the prism of his own early experience, primarily of religious learning. The book consists mainly of portraits of his early teachers, most of whom belonged to a transitional generation of immigrant Hebrew scholars -- unsung heroes of Jewish education on the American scene. Through the medium of such portraits of teaching personalities and styles, as well as firsthand descriptions of various educational settings in the New York City of the 30s and 40s, he comments on aspects of immigrant life, the tensions between religious and secular worlds, the psychology of learning and teaching, the relations between universalism and particularism, the contrasts between intensive education and instrumental schooling, and related themes. These themes, although exemplified in the details of his own experience, are of quite general significance. The book will be of special interest for those concerned with Jewish life, with religious education, with the immigrant experience and with the recent American past.

Netnography has become an essential tool for qualitative research in the dynamic, complex, and conflicted worlds of contemporary technoculture. Shaped by academic fields, industries, national contexts, technologies and platforms, and languages and cultures for over two decades, netnography has impacted the research practices of scholars around the world. In this volume, 34 researchers present 19 chapters that examine how they have adapted netnography and what those changes can teach us. Positioned for students and researchers in academic and professional fields, this book examines how we can better use netnographic research to understand the many ways networked technologies affect every element of contemporary business life and consumer existence. Netnography Unlimited provides an unprecedented new look at netnography. From COVID-19 to influencer empathy, gambling and the Dark Web to public relations and the military, AI and more-than-human netnography to video-streaming and auto-netnography, there has never been a wider or deeper treatment of technocultural netnographic research in one volume. Readers will learn what kind of work they can do with netnography and gain an up-to-date understanding of the most pressing issues and opportunities. This book is a must-read for those interested in technology, research methods, and contemporary culture.

The problems of studying families arise from the difficulty in studying systems where there are multiple elements interacting with each other and with the child. How should this system be described? Still other problems relate to indirect effects; namely the influence of a particular dyad's interaction on the child when the child is not a member of the dyad. While all agree that the mother-father relationship has important bearing on the child's development, exactly how to study this--especially using observational techniques--remains a problem. While progress in studying the family has been slow, there is no question that an increase in interest in the family systems, as opposed to the mother-child relationship, is taking place. This has resulted in an increase in research on families and their effects.
This volume, by leading figures in child development on families, attests to the growing sophistication of the conceptualization and measurement techniques for getting at family processes. The third in a series that aims to address topics relevant to the developmental problems and developmental disabilities of retardation, this volume is divided into two parts. Section 1 presents basic family processes and approaches for describing family dynamics. It deals with these issues from a broad perspective, including studying families at dinner, families in different cultural contexts, and the understanding of family in nonhuman primates. Section 2 looks at family processes in the service of studying families at-risk. The risk factors include poverty, malnutrition, and developmental delay and retardation. The study of family processes in these contexts provides data on family dynamics as well as how these dynamics impact on the children's developing competence. This volume will be informative for researchers, clinicians, and educators from a variety of disciplines and settings. The editors' aim is to bring a greater clarity to issues concerning the family life of children and highlight new research and possibilities for intervention.

Contents:
Global perspectives on drug injecting; the social context of injectors' risk behaviour; health and social consequences of injecting drug use; drug injecting and HIV-1 infection - major findings from the multi-city study; new injectors and HIV-1 risk; the structure of stable seroprevalence HIV- 1 epidemics among injecting drug users; mobility and the diffusion of drug injecting and HIV infection; modelling the HIV-1 and AIDS epidemic among drug injectors; drug injecting and sexual safety - cross-national comparisons among cocaine and opioid injectors; cities responding to HIV- 1 epidemics among injecting drug users; prison and HIV-1 infection among drug injectors; preventing epidemics of HIV-1 among injecting drug users; overview - policies and interventions to stem HIV-1 epidemics associated with injecting drug use; appendix 1 - methodology of the World Health Organization multi-city study on drug injecting and risk of HIV infection; appendix 2 - city epidemics and contexts; appendix 3 - contributors and collaborating agencies in the World Health Organization multi-city study on drug injecting and risk of HIV infection.

Drug Injecting and HIV Infection is a comparative international study of drug injecting behaviour and HIV infection based on the World Health Organization's study of 13 cities as disparate as Athens, Bangkok, Glasgow and Rio de Janeiro. Using a standardized methodology for the collection of data, as well as central data management and analysis, this study represents the largest international project of its kind. It presents a comprehensive overview of what is currently known about drug injecting, HIV infection, epidemic dynamics and possibilities for prevention.
Stressing the importance of linking research to intervention and policy, the contributors emphasize the need to place HIV and policy issues on the international agenda. Written by experts in the field, this global study offers an in-depth and definitive analysis of the subject.

In a time of great gloom and doom internationally and of major global problems, this book offers an invaluable contribution to our understanding of alternative societies that could be better for humans and the environment. Bringing together a wide range of approaches and new strands of economic and social thinking from across the US, Mexico, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Middle East and Africa, Luke Martell critically assesses contemporary alternatives and shows the ways forward with a convincing argument of pluralist socialism. Presenting a much-needed introduction to the debate on alternatives to capitalism, this ambitious book is not about how things are, but how they can be!

"Technology and Social Science" examines the development and implementation of computer-assisted-learning in the social sciences. Encouraging both students and academics to improve the quality of their teaching and learning by using the wide range of new technologies effectively, this work highlights some of the pros and cons of technology, critically evaluating the technological process and its potential in the field. Encouraging the social science community to take an increasingly active role in this debate, the contributors examine key isues and emphasize areas in need of attention.