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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social research & statistics
'Soft' Counterinsurgency reviews the promise and actual achievement of Human Terrain Teams, the small groups of social scientists that were eventually embedded in every combat brigade in Iraq and Afghanistan. The book, based on interviews with both HTT personnel and their military commanders, examines the military's need for sociocultural information, the ethical issues surrounding research carried out in combat zones, and the tensions between military and social science organizational cultures. The account provides a close, detailed account of HTT activities, a critical reflection on the possibilities of creating a 'softer, ' less violent counterinsurgency, and the difficulty of attempting to make war more 'intelligent' and discriminating.
The mission of Social Work & Social Sciences Review has been to promote a social science perspective in social work and social service agencies, and to reinforce the links between practice and the disciplines which should inform it. Over the years, the journal has published some of the most innovative material in the field. This material is now being made available again in this book series
'Morland predicts the future of humanity in 10 illuminating statistics (could the Japanese and Italians now go the way of the dodo?) and looks back to how ebbs and flows of population have shaped history, such as the Soviet Union's plummeting birth rate in the 1960s, which hastened the end of the Cold War.' - The Daily Telegraph 'The Best Books for Summer 2022' The great forces of population change - the balance of births, deaths and migrations - have made the world what it is today. They have determined which countries are superpowers and which languish in relative obscurity, which economies top the international league tables and which are at best also-rans. The same forces that have shaped our past and present are shaping our future. Illustrating this through ten illuminating indicators, from the fertility rate in Singapore (one) to the median age in Catalonia (forty-three), Paul Morland shows how demography is both a powerful and an under-appreciated lens through which to view the global transformations that are currently underway. Tomorrow's People ranges from the countries of West Africa where the tendency towards large families is combining with falling infant mortality to create the greatest population explosion ever witnessed, to the countries of East Asia and Southern Europe where generations of low birth-rate and rising life expectancy are creating the oldest populations in history. Morland explores the geographical movements of peoples that are already under way - portents for still larger migrations ahead - which are radically changing the cultural, ethnic and religious composition of many societies across the globe, and in their turn creating political reaction that can be observed from Brexit to the rise of Donald Trump. Finally, he looks at the two underlying motors of change - remarkable rises in levels of education and burgeoning food production - which have made all these epochal developments possible. Tomorrow's People provides a fascinating, illuminating and thought-provoking tour of an emerging new world. Nobody who wants to understand that world should be without it.
The number of homeless people in America has continued to grow at an alarming rate since the 1970s. Yet many members of the general public still have far more questions than answers about the magnitude and implications of this complex social problem and the reasons for its persistence. Now the answers can be found in "Homelessness in America," the most current, comprehensive, and authoritative volume available on this subject. Focusing on the broad social issue of homelessness, the book's 19 essays offer in-depth examinations of policy-related issues by noted social workers, researchers, advocates, and other experts in the field. Chapter topics include the causes and prevention of homelessness, national and local advocacy movements, the local regulation of public space, and current policies on employment, income maintenance, and housing. Up-to-date statistics and tables are included along with an extensive bibliography and an appendix listing national or state advocacy organizations.
This collection discusses and illustrates how educational research is affected by the economic, institutional and physical contingencies of its time, and in our time even increasingly is driven by them. It is argued that the antidote to this is, however, not to aspire to 'thought itself', but instead to do justice to its own rootedness in the 'material', including textuality. From an historical point of view such an innovative approach can itself revamp the material scholarly culture and the way it is represented. The chapters address a variety of topics such as the cultural heritage of the school desk, the significance of images for research into long-term educational processes, the way iconic signs function, and how modes of enquiry relate to the materiality of education. Attention is also given to standards for reporting on educational research studies and how these limit the scope and communication and moreover shape researchers, to the forms of citation practices as substantially influencing methods and content, and to the centrality of conversation not just as the means to an end but as what matters; further to representational and to non-representational theories for educational research. Some examples are drawn from the area of arts-based educational research, from mathematics education, and from the discourse on universities.
This book is a practical, step-by-step introduction to microsimulation in demography. It shows how to use Modgen, a powerful and free microsimulation platform built by Statistics Canada. The authors' hands-on explanation of model development will help readers make their own. The book teaches how to create and run a simple cohort model with a single fixed-rate event, and builds upon this concept. It introduces how to develop both a single state life table as well as a multiple increment-decrement life table using the tools provided by Modgen. The authors illustrate how to easily upgrade an existing model by adding new modules and new dimensions as determinants of a risk already modeled. The integration of a fertility module and a base population allows the user to bring new actors into the simulation and transform a cohort-based model into a population-based one. The final addition of an international migration module allows the user to accomplish fully open, multi-regional projections. This accessible introduction will be of interest to researchers and students in population studies and other social sciences. It will also appeal to anyone interested in the computational modeling of population dynamics.
This book discusses the smooth integration of optical and RF networks in 5G and beyond (5G+) heterogeneous networks (HetNets), covering both planning and operational aspects. The integration of high-frequency air interfaces into 5G+ wireless networks can relieve the congested radio frequency (RF) bands. Visible light communication (VLC) is now emerging as a promising candidate for future generations of HetNets. Heterogeneous RF-optical networks combine the high throughput of visible light and the high reliability of RF. However, when implementing these HetNets in mobile scenarios, several challenges arise from both planning and operational perspectives. Since the mmWave, terahertz, and visible light bands share similar wave propagation characteristics, the concepts presented here can be broadly applied in all such bands. To facilitate the planning of RF-optical HetNets, the authors present an algorithm that specifies the joint optimal densities of the base stations by drawing on stochastic geometry in order to satisfy the users' quality-of-service (QoS) demands with minimum network power consumption. From an operational perspective, the book explores vertical handovers and multi-homing using a cooperative framework. For vertical handovers, it employs a data-driven approach based on deep neural networks to predict abrupt optical outages; and, on the basis of this prediction, proposes a reinforcement learning strategy that ensures minimal network latency during handovers. In terms of multi-homing support, the authors examine the aggregation of the resources from both optical and RF networks, adopting a two-timescale multi-agent reinforcement learning strategy for optimal power allocation. Presenting comprehensive planning and operational strategies, the book allows readers to gain an in-depth grasp of how to integrate future coexisting networks at high-frequency bands in a cooperative manner, yielding reliable and high-speed 5G+ HetNets.
This book provides an up-to-date overview of demographic analysis and methods, including recent developments in demography. Concepts and methods, from the nature of demographic information through data collection and the basics of statistical measures and on to demographic analysis itself are succinctly explained. Measures and analyses of fertility, mortality, life tables, migration and demographic events such as marriage, education and labour force are described while later chapters cover multiple decrement tables, population projections, the importance of testing and smoothing demographic data, the stable population model and demographic software. An emphasis on practical aspects and the use of real-life examples based on data from around the globe make this book accessible, whilst comprehensive references and links to data and other resources on the internet help readers to explore further. The text is concise and well written, making it ideally suited to a wider audience from students to academics and teachers. Students of demography, geography, sociology, economics, as well as professionals, academics and students of marketing, human resource management, and public health who have an interest in population issues will all find this book useful.
In the last few years we have witnessed the widespread proliferation of video camcorders as a powerful and sophisticated instrument for data collection. Video is increasingly used in broad areas of research throughout the social sciences. It allows for a rich recording of social processes and provides a completely new kind of data. Used as a "microscope of interaction", this "video revolution" is expected to exert profound impact on research practice. But despite its popularity as an instrument, the methodological discussion of video is still underdeveloped. This book gathers a selection of outstanding European researchers in the field of qualitative interpretive video analysis. The contributions discuss the crucial features of video data and present different approaches how to handle, interpret, analyse and present video data collected in a wide range of "real world" social fields. The book thereby aims at providing an overview on contemporary interpretive and qualitative approaches to video analysis.
This is the first book to compare eight LDFs by different types of datasets, such as Fisher's iris data, medical data with collinearities, Swiss banknote data that is a linearly separable data (LSD), student pass/fail determination using student attributes, 18 pass/fail determinations using exam scores, Japanese automobile data, and six microarray datasets (the datasets) that are LSD. We developed the 100-fold cross-validation for the small sample method (Method 1) instead of the LOO method. We proposed a simple model selection procedure to choose the best model having minimum M2 and Revised IP-OLDF based on MNM criterion was found to be better than other M2s in the above datasets. We compared two statistical LDFs and six MP-based LDFs. Those were Fisher's LDF, logistic regression, three SVMs, Revised IP-OLDF, and another two OLDFs. Only a hard-margin SVM (H-SVM) and Revised IP-OLDF could discriminate LSD theoretically (Problem 2). We solved the defect of the generalized inverse matrices (Problem 3). For more than 10 years, many researchers have struggled to analyze the microarray dataset that is LSD (Problem 5). If we call the linearly separable model "Matroska," the dataset consists of numerous smaller Matroskas in it. We develop the Matroska feature selection method (Method 2). It finds the surprising structure of the dataset that is the disjoint union of several small Matroskas. Our theory and methods reveal new facts of gene analysis.
This book is an authoritative handbook of current topics, technologies and methodological approaches that may be used for the study of scholarly impact. The included methods cover a range of fields such as statistical sciences, scientific visualization, network analysis, text mining, and information retrieval. The techniques and tools enable researchers to investigate metric phenomena and to assess scholarly impact in new ways. Each chapter offers an introduction to the selected topic and outlines how the topic, technology or methodological approach may be applied to metrics-related research. Comprehensive and up-to-date, Measuring Scholarly Impact: Methods and Practice is designed for researchers and scholars interested in informetrics, scientometrics, and text mining. The hands-on perspective is also beneficial to advanced-level students in fields from computer science and statistics to information science.
In this book the theory of social production is systematically formulated in terms and concepts of classical political economy and neo-classical economics. In this way the subject becomes accessible not only to professional researchers in areas of the theory of production and economic growth, but also to the educated reader who is curious about the principles behind the functioning of a national economy. The book can be considered as an introduction for students with a background in physics, chemistry and engineering, who wish to specialize in economics. It is explained how the growth of production is connected with achievements in technological consumption of labour and energy. The theory allows one to analyse the past and the present of the social production system and to build scripts of the future progress. The book could be interesting for energy specialists who are engaged in planning and analysing production and consumption of energy carriers and determining energy policy, and for economists who want to know how energy and technology are affecting economic growth.
Research that has been presented primarily by quantitative research can benefit from the voice of the participants and the added value of the different perspective that qualitative research can provide. The purpose of mixed methods research is to draw from the positive aspects of both research paradigms to better answer the research question. This type of research is often used in schools, businesses, and non-profit organizations as they strive to address and resolve questions that will impact their organizations. Applied Social Science Approaches to Mixed Methods Research: Emerging Research and Opportunities is an academic research publication that examines more traditional and common research methods and how they can be complimented through qualitative counterparts. The content within this publication covers an array of topics such as entrepreneurship, social media, and marginalization. It is essential for researchers, academicians, non-profit professionals, business professionals, and higher education faculty, and specifically targets master or doctoral students committed to writing their theses, dissertations, or scholarly articles, who may not have had the benefit of working on a traditional research team.
This practical guide provides step-by-step instruction for conducting a mixed methods research synthesis (MMRS) that integrates both qualitative and quantitative evidence. The book progresses through a systematic, comprehensive approach to conducting an MMRS literature review to analyze and summarize the empirical evidence regarding a particular review question. Readers will benefit from discussion of the potential advantages of MMRS and guidance on how to avoid its potential pitfalls. Using Mixed Methods Research Synthesis for Literature Reviews is Volume 4 in the SAGE Mixed Methods Research Series.
Crucial Questions About the Future presents readers concerned about the long-range future and their place in it with a series of tough but necessary questions and, refreshingly, offers no pat answers. Instead, what is offered is a structured and reason-bound exploration of the complexities of modern life with which the reader, or the future-studies inclined academic, can provide his own answers to these eternal and critical questions. Contents: The Future of Human Civilization; What Is Most Important of All?; Why Do We Act In Ways That Hurt Our Future?; What Will Our Actual Future Turn Out To Be?; How Can We Achieve a Satisfactory Future?; Preventing the Worst Catastrophes; Intelligent Life in the Universe: What Role Will It Play In Our Future?; From Which Aspects of Reality Can We Gain Meaning and Purpose?; How Can Each Person Contribute?
This book applies a range of ideas about scientific discovery found in contemporary philosophy of science to psychology and related behavioral sciences. In doing so, it aims to advance our understanding of a host of important methodological ideas as they apply to those sciences. A philosophy of local scientific realism is adopted in favor of traditional accounts that are thought to apply to all sciences. As part of this philosophy, the implications of a commitment to philosophical naturalism are spelt out, and a correspondence theory of truth is defended by showing how it helps explain various features of scientific practice. The central chapter of the book presents a broad theory of scientific method that comprises the detection of empirical phenomena and their subsequent understanding by constructing explanatory theories through the use of abductive methods. This theory of scientific method is then used as a framework to reconstruct the well-known qualitative method of grounded theory, and to present a systematic perspective on clinical reasoning and case formulation. Relatedly, an abductive or explanationist understanding of methods is employed to evaluate the knowledge credentials of evolutionary psychology. In addition, the conceptual and methodological foundations of a variety of quantitative methods are examined. Exploratory factor analysis and tests of statistical significance are given special attention.
The need for evaluation of public sector research and development activity is critical in today's political environment to assist policymakers with resource allocation. Methodology for evaluating public sector research and development activity is described and illustrated by the author using in-depth case studies drawn from the research programs at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. These cases range from newly formed federal laboratory research initiatives to well-established research programs. Managerial and evaluative guidelines are enunciated. The United States has supported research and development activity on both the applied and basic research levels for most of its history. The importance of public sector research has often been discussed but its effectiveness has not been adequately reviewed. The need for evaluation of public sector research and development activity is critical in today's political environment to assist policymakers with resource allocation. Methodology for evaluating public sector research and development activity is described and illustrated by the author using in-depth case studies drawn from the research programs at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. These cases range from newly formed federal laboratory research initiatives to well-established research programs. Managerial and evaluative guidelines are enunciated. This work should be of interest to scholars who deal with economics in general, public policy, science policy, and public administration. In addition, practitioners in public administration and managers of public sector research laboratories on federal and state levels should find the information useful. Those who depend on research and development done with public sector money or who use it to supplement their research programs will also be interested.
Teacher research is an extension of good teaching, observing students closely, analysing their needs, and adjusting the curriculum to fit the needs of all. In this completely updated second edition of their definitive work, Ruth Shagoury and Brenda Miller Power present a framework for teacher research along with an extensive collection of narratives from teachers-novices and veterans from all backgrounds and parts of the country-engaged in the process of designing and carrying out research projects to inform their instruction. Threaded throughout the chapters and narratives is a discussion of the emergence of digital tools and their effect on both teaching and the research process, along with an expanded number of research designs. The book has three primary components: chapters explaining key elements of the research process, research activities that enable readers to try out the featured strategies and techniques, and teacher-researcher essays that share details of completed projects and discuss the impact they have had in the classroom. Living the Questions, Second Edition: A Guide for Teacher-Researchers will take you step-by-step through the process of designing, implementing, and publishing your research. Along the way, it will introduce you to dozens of kindred spirits who are finding new passion for teaching by "living the questions" every day in their classrooms. You will be reminded of why you became a teacher yourself.
This twenty-seventh volume of Research in Organizational Behavior carries forward the tradition of high-level scholarship on a broad array of organizational topics. Like many previous volumes, this collection is truly interdisciplinary, with chapters ranging from personality and decision making in organizations, to interpersonal dynamics such as helping and group process, to organizational-level analyses of legitimization and change. Each of the essays is well-reasoned, thoughtful, and provocative-- proving, once again, that the field of organizational behavior is flourishing in both its depth and scope. *Interdisciplinary with a wide range of subjects discussed by experts in their fields *Addresses personality development, empowerment, creativity, dysfunctional groups, institutionalization, and more
This timely study examines the increasing importance of the Sunbelt and its megastates--Florida, California, and Texas--in the U.S. election process. The purpose of the work is to provide a longitudinal analysis of partisan and gender election success and incumbency in the elections of 1986, 1988, 1992, and the realignment of 1994 (bringing up to date some of the classic studies from the 1970s and 1980s). In tracing the pattern of partisan success, the effect of incumbency, and the success of males and females in each party, the author is able to project the likely success of the two parties in the 1996 and subsequent elections in each megastate. This important election-year book will be of interest to scholars, students, and practitioners of politics.
This book presents the most serious and comprehensive study, by far, of American public perceptions about the meaning of space exploration, analyzing vast troves of questionnaire data collected by many researchers and polling firms over a span of six decades and anchored in influential social science theories.It doesn't simply report the percentages who held various opinions, but employs sophisticated statistical techniques to answer profound questions and achieve fresh discoveries. Both the Bush and the Obama administrations have cut back severely on fundamental research in space science and engineering. Understanding better what space exploration means for citizens can contribute to charting a feasible but progressive course. Since the end of the Space Race between the US and the USSR, social scientists have almost completely ignored space exploration as a topic for serious analysis and this book seeks to revive that kind of contribution. The author communicates the insights in a lucid style, not only intelligible but interesting to readers from a variety of backgrounds."
"Qualitative Research Methods "is an indispensable, definitive collection of readings for students undertaking any kind of social science inquiry. These readings represent the finest classic and contemporary scholarship in the field. Each conceptually accessible article includes an editorial introduction for students using and studying research methods for the first time. This volume will acquaint students with not only the full range of contemporary qualitative research methods, but also the location of these methods in wider scientific breakthroughs.
This important volume by Edward W. Ellsworth examines the conflicting interests, programs, and goals which influenced the emergence of Anglo-Indian social purpose and scientific organizations between 1780 and 1880. The intellectual energy that promoted the growth of these multi-racial associations and their efforts toward reform was often diverted by British government structures, financial limitations, and Indian resistance. Ellsworth's study traces how, despite these obstacles, these Anglo-Indian groups became the foundation for both the official and reformist programs which were integral to the formation of the Indian Congress at the end of the 19th century. After a brief historical introduction, Ellsworth offers an overview of social science ideology from British and Anglo-Indian perspectives with specific emphasis on the progressive intellectual development, both social and personal, advanced by members of the Bengal, Bombay, and Punjab associations. The author traces government involvement in select areas of science associational research and the relationship of that research to official policies and regulations, agribusiness goals and the commonweal. He also deals with key elements of Anglo-Indian science associational programs shaped by needs of the community but also by the British science world and British and Anglo-Indian economic interests. The creation of a colonial science is thus outlined. Concluding with a selected bibliography and full index, the book proves a comprehensive account of an intellectually vital period in Indian history.
"Networks of Echoes: Imitation, Innovation and Invisible Leaders" is a mathematically rigorous and data rich book on a fascinating area of the science and engineering of social webs. There are hundreds of complex network phenomena whose statistical properties are described by inverse power laws. The phenomena of interest are not arcane events that we encounter only fleetingly, but are events that dominate our lives. We examine how this intermittent statistical behavior intertwines itself with what appears to be the organized activity of social groups. The book is structured as answers to a sequence of questions such as: How are decisions reached in elections and boardrooms? How is the stability of a society undermined by zealots and committed minorities and how is that stability re-established? Can we learn to answer such questions about human behavior by studying the way flocks of birds retain their formation when eluding a predator? These questions and others are answered using a generic model of a complex dynamic network one whose global behavior is determined by a symmetric interaction among individuals based on social imitation. The complexity of the network is manifest in time series resulting from self-organized critical dynamics that have divergent first and second moments, are non-stationary, non-ergodic and non-Poisson. How phase transitions in the network dynamics influence such activity as decision making is a fascinating story and provides a context for introducing many of the mathematical ideas necessary for understanding complex networks in general. The decision making model (DMM) is selected to emphasize that there are features of complex webs that supersede specific mechanisms and need to be understood from a general perspective. This insightful overview of recent tools and their uses may serve as an introduction and curriculum guide in related courses."
New Perspectives in Advanced Learning Technology.- R&D on Advanced Learning Technologies in the New Framework Programme.- Cognitive and Educational Problems of the New Learning Technologies.- Educational Requirements of Vocational Training Using Expert Systems.- The Learner's View of Hypermedia.- Deep-Knowledge Acquisition for Learner Modelling in Second Language Learning.- Communications-Centred Multi-Media Learning Systems.- A Functional Architecture for Intelligent Simulation Learning Environments.- An Overview of Key Issues to the Development of a "Learning Services based on Technology" European Market.- The Integration of Advanced Learning Technologies in Corporate Training Activities.- Pro-DELTA Portuguese Research on Delta.- The Influence of Public Policies on the Structure, Conduct and Performance of the Advanced Learning Technology Market.- Flexible Distance Learning; Barriers to Growth.- Computer-Based Training Producers: A Market for Delta R&D Products.- Educational Technologies for SME's; Problems & Ways towards solutions.- State of the art in the application of telecommunications to learning.- Eurostep: An Experiment of Crucial Importance for the Developement of Distance Education by Satellite in Europe.- Flexible Distance Learning Education for Doctors - The SATDOC Project.- Communications Infrastructure for Interactiv Video Using DBS and ISDN.- An 'Intelligent' Database System of Audio-Visual Material.- XTEC Online In-Service Teacher Training Project.- Multimedia Interactive applications & ISDN for Distant Learning.- Telecommunication in Distance Education: User-Demands and Technological Possibilities.- Learner Places for European Learning - the LAT Approach to Deriving Functions.- Information Retrieval and Interactive Learning in a Broadband Information System.- EPOS: Telecommunication in Computer-Delivered Training and Education.- Telecommunication Aspects of OLE.- Video Conferencing in a Learning Context.- Tools for Building Learner Models.- The ECAL Teaching Engine: Pragmatic AI for Education.- Artificial Intelligence: The Key to Open Learning.- Experiments on Knowledge Acquisition for Learner Modelling.- NOBILE: An Object-Based User Model Acquisition Shell.- Student Modelling Toolkits.- An Adaptive Environment for Open Learning in DELTA.- Generation and Maintenance of Computational Viewpoints in Student Models.- Belief-Based Bounded User Modelling.- Connectionist Models for Dialogue Systems.- Connectionist Models for the Simulation of Student Mistakes in Learning a Foreign Language.- Hypermedia: How Will The Author Cope?.- The I.C.A.T. Project (ILVA Computer Aided Training).- An Object-Oriented Data Model for Hypermedia Systems.- Multilingual Aspects of a Multimedia Database of Learning Materials.- Perpetuating the Myth.- Next Generation Authoring Systems: Integration of Multiple Methodologies and Tools.- On the Concept of Reusability in Educational Design.- A Framework for Authoring Tool Integration.- The Relationship between PETE and PCTE.- Multi-Strategy Authoring Toolkit for Intelligent Courseware: Better Courses for Less.- Generic Tool for Courseware Authoring.- The CAMCE Project: An Environment for Cooperative and Distributed Authoring.- The DEEP Methodology for Authoring.- Authoring for Intelligent Simulation Based Instruction: A Model Based Approach.- Authoring for Intelligent Tutoring Systems.- Intelligent Multimedia Authoring: Advancing Towards Users in a European Context.- A Courseware Production Model which Integrates the Results of the Development Systems.- Transferring Knowledge in a Cross-Cultural Perspective.- Sociological Questions in Open Learning Standards and the Learner Environment.- Video Conference: Intercultural Learning in the Virtual Classroom.- Issues in Instructional Design for CAL: Problems and Possible Solutions.- Delta and the Back of Beyond.- European School Project: On Cultural Conversations. |
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