This volume proposes the mobile Internet is best understood as a socio-technical "assemblage" of objects, practices, symbolic representations, experiences and affects. Authors from a variety of disciplines discuss practices mediated through mobile communication, including current phone and tablet devices. The converging concepts of Materialities (ranging from the political economy of communication to physical devices) and Imaginaries (including cultural values, desires and perceptions) are touchstones for each of the chapters in the book.

This volume proposes the mobile Internet is best understood as a socio-technical "assemblage" of objects, practices, symbolic representations, experiences and affects. Authors from a variety of disciplines discuss practices mediated through mobile communication, including current phone and tablet devices. The converging concepts of Materialities (ranging from the political economy of communication to physical devices) and Imaginaries (including cultural values, desires and perceptions) are touchstones for each of the chapters in the book.

Author Biography:
Andrew Herman is Associate Professor of Sociology and Cultural Studies at Drake University. Thomas Swiss is Center for the Humanities Professor of English and Director of the Web-Assisted Curriculum at Drake University.

The World Wide Web is the most well-known, celebrated, and promoted contemporary manifestation of 'cyberspace'. To date, however, most of the public discourse on the Web falls into the category of explanatory journalism - the Web has remained largely unmapped in terms of contemporary cultural research. This book, however, begins that mapping by bringing together more than a dozen well-known scholars across the humanities and social sciences to explore the Web as a cultural technology characterized by a nexus of economic, political, social, and aesthetic forces. Engaging the thematic issues of the Web as a space where magic, metaphor, and power converge, the chapters cover such subjects as The Web and Corporate Media Systems, Conspiracy Theories and the Web, The Economy of Cyberpromotion, The Bias of the Web and The Web and Issues of Gender.

Why do aid agencies from wealthy donor countries with diverse domestic political and economic contexts arrive at very similar positions on a wide array of aid policies and priorities? This book suggests that this homogenization of policy represents the effects of common processes of globalization manifest in the aid sector. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative analysis of policy adoption, the book argues that we need to examine macro-level globalizing influences at the same time as understanding the micro-level social processes at work within aid agencies, in order to adequately explain the so-called 'emerging global consensus' that constitutes the globalization of aid. The book explores how global influences on aid agencies in Canada, Sweden, and the United States are mediated through micro-level processes. Using a mixed-methods approach, the book combines cross-national statistical analysis at the global level with two comparative case studies which look at the adoption of common policy priorities in the fields of gender and security. The Globalization of Foreign Aid will be useful to researchers of foreign aid, development, international relations and globalization, as well as to the aid policy community.

The year in which this first number of "Annals of Life Insurance Medicine" goes to press happens to be the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Swiss Reinsurance Com pany's activity in the field of underwriting and reassuring those risks which later became known as "substandard lives." In retrospect, it is a far cry from the old days when life assurance proposals were either accepted or rejected on medical grounds to the modern principles and methods of rating substandard cases both medically and actuarially. It can be assumed that in the course of the last few decades solutions, or at least approxi mate solutions sufficiently accurate for practical purposes, have been found to most of the numerous and often rather tricky actuarial problems relating to substandard policies, adequate premiums and reserves. No Life Assurer to-day however can fail to recognize that actuarial skill may only be applied to of medical assessment. Even the lay under substandard life risks on the basis writer certainly realizes that the medical and statistical problems inherent in the underwriting of substandard risks are infinitely more complex than any actuarial consequences of a calculated or assumed extramortality. It is primarily this basic fact which has stimulated the Swiss Reinsurance Company's plans to intensify and develop its research work in the field of the medical assessment of substandard lives."

One thousand unselected patients with bronchial asthma have been followed up for an average period of 11 years, with extremes of 33 years and three years. The average period from the first symptoms to the date of follow-up was 20.6 years in the 562 males and 22.3 years in the 438 females, with extremes of 72 years and three years. Since throughout the analysis no differences were found between the sexes, they have been grouped together. Terms used, such as asthma, chronic bronchitis, childhood bronchitis, age of onset, etc., have been carefully defined, as have the descriptions of intermittent and continuous asthma. The present state of the patients has been classified as A (good), B (fair), C (poor), and D (dead). Early age of onset (before 16) and intermittent asthma were associated and had a more favourable prognosis, while the childhood bronchitic had a better outlook than the adult bronchitic. Intermittent and continuous asthma have been compared. The incidence of bronchitis initially was higher in the continuous group, and the tendency to develop bronchitis over the years (present in all asthmatics) was also greater in the continuous group. Those with bronchitis were in much poorer health on follow-up than those without.

In the preface to Volume 1 of the 'Annals of Life Insurance Medicine' Dr. MAX E. EISENRING described the goal of this publication as follows: "Any project which aims at contributing substantially to the modern science of medical underwriting can do so only if the many people preoccupied with these problems throughout the world join forces to the ultimate benefit of those most in need of life assurance." In an endeavour to keep the life insurance medical directors all over the world informed of the developments in the field of life insurance medicine, we have decided to publish the papers which were presented at the 11 th International Congress of Life Assurance Medicine in Mexico in 1973 in Volume 5 of the 'Annals'. We are most grateful to Dr. J. REN06N, President of the Organizing Commit tee of the Congress in Mexico for having consented to our publishing the proceed ings of the Congress in a special edition of the 'Annals'. It is a source of great satisfaction to us that in this way a much larger circle of life insurance medical directors can be reached than would have been the case if only the participants themselves were to receive the proceedings of the Congress. Dissemination of the results of medical research on an international basis, in particular those findings that have a bearing on life insurance medicine, is one of our foremost aims."

Today, the integration of life insurance medicine into the framework of general medicine goes without saying. On the one hand, the diagnostic therapeutic knowledge of clinical medical science forms the tools of the insurance medical adviser for the evaluation of life insurance applications. On the other hand, life insurance medicine has been able to pro vide valuable statistical data for long-term prognosis which have become an essential part of the daily medical practice and prognostic appraisal. This mutual engagement and en richment has again distinctly manifested itself in the scientific program of the 13th Con gress of Life Assurance Medicine held in Madrid. Among the broad and varied data available, the insurance problem of cancer and ma lignant diseases of the haematopoietic system were extensively dealt with for the first time. Diagnostic therapeutic progress increasingly allows valuable insurance cover to be granted to formerly uninsurable risks, a group which is particularly in need of, and re quires, life insurance cover. The number of risks which are uninsurable becomes smaller and smaller."

The organic chemist is rarely satisfied by a simple "explanation" of the reactivity of organic molecules. Rather, the chemist wants to go one step further, to "control" the behavior of molecules by altering their structure in a controlled way. This is, in fact, a rather stringent definition of "understanding," as it requires the "prediction" of behavior from structure (or structure from behavior). But it also places technical demands on the chemist. He must be able to synthesize the molecules he studies, characterize them at the atomic level of structural resolution, and then measure their behaviors to the precision that his explanation demands. Biological chemistry presents special problems in this regard. Although the tools for synthesis, purification, and structural characterization are now available for manipulating rather large biological macromolecules (proteins and nucleic acids in particular), the theory supporting these manipulations is inadequate. We certainly do not know enough to control generally the behavior of biological macromolecules; still worse, it is not clear that we know enough to design synthetic molecules to expand our understanding about how reactivity in such biological macromolecules might be controlled. Starting from scratch, there are simply too many oligopeptides to make; starting from native proteins, there are simply too many structural mutations that might be introduced.

A leading figure of photorealist painting, Franz Gertsch (born 1930, Switzerland) has created monumental portraits of charismatic youths and meditative depictions of nature in vivid and pains- taking detail for over fifty years. Polyfocal Allover surveys Gertsch's paintings from 1970 to 1982 and woodcut prints from 1979 to 2019, reflecting a vision in which all that lies within the frame is accorded equal value. The essays, interviews, and conversations in this publication bring further definition to the lives and landscapes Gertsch renders with such virtuosic, eerie precision.

A decade after the Swiss National Bank had opened its neo-baroque building in Berne, the bank's Zurich-based Governing Board moved into its own grand office building in 1922. This major work of the local firm of Otto and Werner Pfister is a prime example of neo-classicism in Switzerland and provided Zurich with an architectural landmark at the top end of its famous Bahnhofstrasse. Marking its centenary, this book celebrates the Zurich home of the Swiss Franc. It describes in detail and lavishly illustrated the architecture and building history from planning stage until today. This is supplemented by essays on bank architecture since the Middle Ages, the urban formation of Zurich and the city's development into a financial centre in the late 19th century. In his contribution, the renowned Canadian-British architect Adam Caruso compares it from today's perspective with other central bank buildings and places it in context of the Pfister brothers' other public commissions, many of which are occupying prominent locations in Zurich's cityscape. Richly illustrated with historical and new photographs, original plans and other historical documents, the volume pays tribute to a piece of public architecture that combines monumentality with pragmatism and republican modesty.

Shortly before his death, John Lennon called himself a "Zen Pagan." With this he gave an excellent name to a religious trend that goes back at least as far as Henry David Thoreau, who wrote of his love and respect for both the ancient nature god Pan and the Buddha. The connection between Buddhism and nature spirituality is ancient. According to legends of the Buddha's enlightenment, in his hour of need he asked the Earth to bear him witness rather than appealing to a heavenly deity. Over the centuries, Buddhism influenced and was influenced by nature religions like Taoism and Shint, while its introduction to the West came partly through spiritual nature writers like Thoreau and Gary Snyder. Occultists Aleister Crowley and H.P. Blavatsky played key roles in both Buddhist and Neopagan history. Why Buddha Touched the Earth investigates the rise of Buddhism as a world religion during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, its relationship to the Neopagan movement, and how both are related to the extraordinary changes civilization has seen since the Industrial Revolution. It combines rigorous history with lively and practical discussions of mysticism, magic, meditation, ethics, and the future of religion in a scientific age.

The Swiss National Museum's permanent collection reflects Switzerland's history from pre-historic times until the present day. Each object also represents the location where it was found or made; the people who made or used it; a trade or profession; a personal or regional identity. Published to coincide with the opening of the new extension of the Landesmuseum in Zurich, Swiss National Museum's oldest and largest site, 26 Things features as many highlights from its collection, one from each of Switzerland's cantons. The selection ranges from a Celtic gold bowl from ca. 1500 BC (Zurich) to a miniature electro motor that propelled NASA's Mars rover Spirit in 2004 (Obwalden). It includes Switzerland's first snow gun of 1978 (Grisons) as well as a medieval Madonna sculpture (Valais) or a clock made in 1796 that once belonged to Napoleon (Neuchatel).The beautifully designed small book offers a varied Swiss panorama, taking the reader all around the country's twenty-six cantons, each with its own history and cultural identity.

Visit the Unspun website which includes Table of Contents and the Introduction.

"Every essay develops a cultural studies approach to understanding the World Wide Web that feels more unified in purpose than many other collections. Moreover, unlike most of the other collections that comprise the "new millennium" wave . . ., Swiss's book sustains its commitments to critical perspectives throughout. The wide range of interconnected topics makes for a valuable "re-introduction" to the World Wide Web."
--"Journal of Advanced Composition"

"You will be enriched by stepping back and looking at the whole spectrum of possibilites presented in this book."
--"Technical Communication"

The World Wide Web has cut a wide path through our daily lives. As claims of "the Web changes everything" suffuse print media, television, movies, and even presidential campaign speeches, just how thoroughly do the users immersed in this new technology understand it? What, exactly, is the Web changing? And how might we participate in or even direct Web-related change?

Intended for readers new to studying the Internet, each chapter in Unspun addresses a different aspect of the "web revolution"--hypertext, multimedia, authorship, community, governance, identity, gender, race, cyberspace, political economy, and ideology--as it shapes and is shaped by economic, political, social, and cultural forces. The contributors particularly focus on the language of the Web, exploring concepts that are still emerging and therefore unstable and in flux. Unspun demonstrates how the tacit assumptions behind this rhetoric must be examined if we want to really know what we are saying when we talk about the Web.

Unspunwill help readers more fully understand and become critically aware of the issues involved in living, as we do, in a wired society.

Contributors include: Jay Bolter, Sean Cubitt, Jodi Dean, Dawn Dietrich, Cynthia Fuchs, Matthew Kirschenbaum, Timothy Luke, Vincent Mosco, Lisa Nakamura, Russell Potter, Rob Shields, John Sloop, and Joseph Tabbi.

The convict women who built a continent..."A moving and fascinating story." -Adam Hochschild, author of "King Leopold's Ghost"

"The Tin Ticket" takes readers to the dawn of the nineteenth century and into the lives of three women arrested and sent into suffering and slavery in Australia and Tasmania-where they overcame their fates unlike any women in the world. It also tells the tale of Elizabeth Gurney Fry, a Quaker reformer who touched all their lives. Ultimately, this is a story of women who, by sheer force of will, became the heart and soul of a new nation.