Books on the topic 'B. Information use and sociology of information'

Recently, public policies of urban regeneration have intensified and multiplied. They are being promoted with the aim to start social and economic dynamics within the local context which is subject to intervention. From the empirical analysis, we realise that such activities are mainly implemented by three subjects or by mixed coalitions (public institutions, actors of the third sector and companies). Within them, each player is moved by a multiplicity of interests and goals that go beyond their own nature – public interest, market and mutualism – and tend to redefine themselves, thus becoming hybrid forms of production of value (social, economic, cultural). By studying a number Italian and Catalan cases, this essay deals with the theory that, under specific conditions and configurations, a collaborative direction – of organization, production and design – would give life to successful procedures, even without the identification of a one-best-way. The collaboration is not simply a choice of operation, but a real production method which mobilises social resources to create hybrid solutions – between state, market and society – to complex issues that could not be faced solely with the use of the rationale of action of one among the three actors. In this framework, the systems of relations and interactions between players and shared capital become an essential condition for the success of every initiative of urban redevelopment, or failure thereof. Such initiatives are brought to life by the strategic role of individuals who foster connections as well as the dissemination of non-redundant information between social networks, and collective and individual actors which would otherwise be separated and barely able to communicate and collaborate with each other. In addition to the functions carried out by knowledge brokers, that have been extensively described in organisational studies and economic sociology, the aforementioned figures act as real social enzymes, that is to say, they handle the available information and function as catalysts of social processes of production of knowledge. Moreover, they increase the reaction speed, working on mechanisms which control the spontaneity.

This chapter highlights the recent changes in the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) postgraduate examination required for Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training in the United Kingdom and focuses on the key aspects of the new Fellowship of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (FRCEM) intermediate short-answer question (SAQ) exam, previously the MRCEM B. The chapter provides a description of the exam style and layout, marking system, and curriculum content, as well as exam tips to aid revision. The new FRCEM exam structure is linked to the new 2015 RCEM curriculum and this chapter reflects that. In addition this chapter provides useful information on how to use this book to optimize revision.

The publication contains materials of the training course “and trends in the development of school education in the EU, USA and China” for educational use in the process of training of applicants for the degree of “Doctor of Philosophy” in the specialties 011 “Educational, Pedagogical Sciences”, 013 “Primary Education”, 014 “Secondary education” (by subject specializations). The mastering of the course involves the formation of holistic comparative and pedagogical competence of a researcher - a qualified specialist who has a high level of readiness for professional activity in the field of comparative education studies. In the manual the purpose and objectives of the course are defined, a description of the study discipline done (Appendix A), thematic information, dictionary of foreign terms and concepts are provided (Appendix B).

This synthesis chapter summarizes the central themes from the essays in Part VI of the handbook. The uniting refrain of this section is the important role of the audience, and specifically how audience choices, attention, biases, and heuristics affect interpretation of complex scientific topics. We first summarize what we term “phenomena of selection” and describes empirical insights indicating that audience and communicator choices can cause diverging views. The second focus is how audiences reason about scientific information, with particular attention to some of these biases and motivations relied on in these contexts. The unique challenges these phenomena pose to the field are then discussed, including (a) how communicators can effectively condense scientific information while retaining accuracy and the interest of audiences and (b) how science communication must accommodate for audiences’ use of values and cognitive shortcuts to make sense of these issues.

This chapter focuses on the limited success of the police in improving public safety in most countries of the region, showing that in most countries law enforcement agencies have been unable to lead effective anti-crime programs. Police structures and crime-fighting strategies are surveyed, and it is argued that police forces generally reacted slowly and erratically against rising crime, that they did not develop strong information systems to fight organized crime, and that they have lacked the support of citizens due to the past repression and corruption. Using arrest, survey, and administrative data this text underscores two variables that correlate with rising criminality: a) the failure to incorporate modern, large-scale policing techniques, particularly those that make use of information and intelligence, and b) the failure of police to adjust to new standards after transitions to democracies, undermining bonds of trust between police and citizens.

The use of evidence-based assessment principles is critical in providing contemporary psychological assessment services. Moreover, to ensure that psychological practice is truly evidence-based, scientifically sound assessment results must be incorporated into psychological treatment services. To this end, this volume provides reviews of psychological instruments appropriate for the clinical assessment purposes of (a) diagnosis, (b) case conceptualization and treatment planning, and (c) treatment monitoring and treatment evaluation. Chapters in this volume address the assessment of the most common disorders and conditions among children, adolescents, adults, older adults, and couples. Strategies and instruments for assessing mood disorders, anxiety disorders, couple distress and sexual problems, health-related problems, and many other conditions are covered in depth. Chapters include standardized tables that present ratings of norms, reliability, validity, and clinical utility for clinical assessment instruments. Overall, the volume provides essential information on the most scientifically sound instruments available for a range of psychological assessment purposes.

This book is primarily designed for clinicians and researchers interested in learning how to conduct an empirically supported culturally informed therapy for schizophrenia (CIT-S) that integrates core components of evidenced-based family therapy. It is estimated that approximately 1% of adults in the United States will be diagnosed with schizophrenia or a related schizophrenia spectrum disorder. Without treatment, prognosis is generally poor. Fortunately, traditional family therapies have shown increasing promise in reducing relapse rates and improving mental health for this population. As more and more societies become multicultural, however, there is an increasing expectation that mental health providers will also be prepared to meet the needs of unique and culturally diverse clients in an efficient, skillful, and culturally relevant manner. CIT-S is a 15-week, family-focused, cognitive behavioral approach for managing schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The intervention draws upon clients’ cultural beliefs, practices, and traditions to help them conceptualize and manage mental illness. It aims to improve the quality of clients’ lives in a manner that is in line with their values and takes into account their cultural norms when discussing important issues and addressing challenges (such as mental illness) within the family. CIT-S contains five distinct modules: (a) family collectivism, (b) psychoeducation, (c) spirituality, (d) communication training, and (e) problem-solving. For each module, a detailed rationale, background information, therapy instructions, suggested homework assignments, and a sample case vignette are provided in an accessible, easy-to-use manner.

Paired informal and scholarly essays show how everyday events reveal fundamental concepts of data, including its creation, aggregation, management, and use. Whether questioning numbers on a scale, laughing at a misspelling of one's name, or finding ourselves confused in a foreign supermarket, we are engaging with data. The only way to handle data responsibly, says Melanie Feinberg in this incisive work, is to take into account its human character. Though the data she discusses may seem familiar, close scrutiny shows it to be ambiguous, complicated, and uncertain: unruly. Drawing on the tools of information science, she uses everyday events such as deciding between Blender A and Blender B on Amazon to demonstrate a practical, critical, and generative mode of thinking about data: its creation, management, aggregation, and use. Each chapter pairs a self-contained main essay (an adventure) with a scholarly companion essay (the reflection). The adventure begins with an anecdote—visiting the library, running out of butter, cooking rice on a different stove. Feinberg argues that to understand the power and pitfalls of data science, we must attend to the data itself, not merely the algorithms that manipulate it. As she reflects on the implications of commonplace events, Feinberg explicates fundamental concepts of data that reveal the many tiny design decisions—which may not even seem like design at all—that shape how data comes to be. Through the themes of serendipity, objectivity, equivalence, interoperability, taxonomy, labels, and locality, she illuminates the surprisingly pervasive role of data in our daily thoughts and lives.

Do bots have the capacity to influence the flow of political information over social media? This chapter answers this question through two methodological avenues: a) a qualitative analysis of how political bots were used to support United States presidential candidates and campaigns during the 2016 election, and b) a network analysis of bot influence on Twitter during the same event. Political bots are automated software programs that operate on social media, written to mimic real people in order to manipulate public opinion. The qualitative findings are based upon nine months of fieldwork on the campaign trail, including interviews with bot makers, digital campaign strategists, security consultants, campaign staff, and party officials. During the 2016 campaign, a bipartisan range of domestic and international political actors made use of political bots. The Republican Party, including both self-proclaimed members of the “alt-right” and mainstream members, made particular use of these digital political tools throughout the election. Meanwhile, public conversation from campaigners and government representatives is inconsistent about the political influence of bots. This chapter provides ethnographic evidence that bots affect information flows in two key ways: 1) by “manufacturing consensus,” or giving the illusion of significant online popularity in order to build real political support, and 2) by democratizing propaganda through enabling nearly anyone to amplify online interactions for partisan ends. We supplement these findings with a quantitative network analysis of the influence bots achieved within retweet networks of over 4 million tweets, collected during the 2016 US election. The results of this analysis confirm that bots reached positions of measurable influence during the 2016 US election.

The authors present the most relevant factors and considerations involved in the intersection between behavioral science and firearms. The intent is to provide a comprehensive review of these issues in the context of the professional literatures in these areas and to serve as an informational and educational source for a wide range of readers and as a reference text for practitioners, institutional and law enforcement personnel, legislators, and academicians and students in fields such as psychology, criminal justice, and public health. Concepts are presented using a best-practices model that encourages and promotes empirically supported practice, research, policy, and overall decision-making. This book is distinct from all others published in this area, given its inclusion and integration of the following: (1) a focus on the behavioral science of firearm-related matters; (2) review of the professional literatures and case law/legal statutes, particularly as related to firearm development and use, laws, regulations, violence, suicide, and safety; (3) considerations and information from various relevant areas: psychology, sociology, criminal justice, law, and others specific to the general public (e.g., media); (4) presentation of a framework for the assessment of civilians seeking firearms permits, reinstatement of their firearms subsequent to revocation, and considerations for relevant others, such as military, law enforcement and corrections personnel, and security and armed guards; (5) issues related to treatment and self-care in the context of firearm use and ownership; (6) a focus on how the principles and empirical knowledge within behavioral science can inform and improve firearm-related policy, practice, and research.

The best one-volume overview of the field ever published, The Oxford Handbook of Pragmatics brings together the world’s most distinguished scholars to present an authoritative, comprehensive, thorough, and yet accessible state-of-the-art survey of current original research in pragmatics—the study of language use in context, one of the most vibrant and rapidly growing fields in linguistics and the philosophy of language. Covering a wider range of subjects than any other one-volume pragmatics handbook on the market, this one is divided into five thematic parts. Part I is concerned with schools of thought, foundations, and theories. Part II deals with central topics, with chapters discussing implicature, presupposition, speech acts, deixis, reference, and context. Cognitively oriented (macro-)pragmatics, such as computational, experimental, and neuropragmatics, is the topic of Part III. Part IV takes a look at socially and/or culturally oriented (macro-)pragmatics, such as politeness/impoliteness studies, cross- and intercultural, and interlanguage pragmatics. Finally, the chapters in Part V explore the interfaces of pragmatics with semantics, grammar, morphology (morphopragmatics), the lexicon (lexical pragmatics), prosody, language change (historical pragmatics), and information structure. The handbook will be an indispensable reference for scholars and students of linguistics and the philosophy of language, and a valuable resource for researchers and students of language working in cognitive science, artificial intelligence, computer science, anthropology, and sociology.

Apostles of Certainty: Data Journalism and the Politics of Doubt traces the way American journalists have made use of quantitative information in their news reporting from the early twentieth century to the present day. In so doing, it examines changing notions of journalistic objectivity and truth telling, particularly as these have evolved alongside social science disciplines such as political science and sociology. Apostles of Certainty uses methodological techniques pioneered in science and technology studies to link the study of newsroom ontologies and epistemologies to a broader analysis of how public knowledge is produced and distributed in the digital age. Though largely historical, the book also sheds light on politics and media in the twenty-first century, with findings that speak to current public conversations around so-called post-truth and the spread of fake news. The book concludes that, viewed over the long term, journalistic reporting in the United States has improved in its accuracy, subtlety, and professional self-certainty, but we have not witnessed a simultaneous improvement in the conduct of US political discourse. In part this is because political journalism only influences politics to a limited degree. To the degree it does have an impact on the political process, the book argues that data-oriented journalism plays a largely tribal and aesthetic role and divides Americans into empirical “tribes” based in part on the perceived elitism of data-based reporting.

Over the past decades, waves of political contention involving the use of information and communication technologies have swept across the globe. The phenomenon stimulates the scholarship on digital communication technologies and contentious collective action to thrive as an exciting, relevant, but highly fragmentary and contested field with disciplinary boundaries. To advance the interdisciplinary understanding, Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age outlines a communication-centered framework that articulates the intricate relationship between technology, communication, and contention. It further prods us to engage more critically with existing theories from communication, sociology, and political science on digital technologies and political movements. Given the theoretical endeavor, Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age systematically explores, for the first time, the influence of mobile technology on political contention in China, the country with the world’s largest number of mobile and Internet users. Using first-hand in-depth interview and fieldwork data, it tracks the strategic choice of mobile phones as repertoires of contention, illustrates the effective mobilization of mobile communication on the basis of its strong and reciprocal social ties, and identifies the communicative practice of forwarding officially alleged “rumors” as a form of everyday resistance. Through this ground-breaking study, Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age presents a nuanced portrayal of an emerging dynamics of contention—both its strengths and limitations—through the embedding of mobile communication into Chinese society and politics.

E-government refers to a set of public administration and governance goals and practices involving information and communication technologies (ICTs). It utilizes such technologies to serve public agencies’ external audiences and constituents. However, the scope of that service is the subject of much debate and, consequently, no consensual definition of e-government had been formulated. The prehistory of e-government resonates with assumptions from the “new public management” (NPM), which proposed a restructuring of governmental agencies by adopting a market-based approach to ensure cost efficiencies in the public sector. Coined in the mid-1990s, the notion of e-government as equivalent to better government, economic growth, human development, and the knowledge society in general was quickly and uncritically accepted by practitioners and scholars alike. As scholars from different disciplines, including politics communication and sociology, paid increasing attention to the intersections of structural factors, hardware, and culture in the adoption and use of ICTs, research on e-government began to show some diversification. By the twenty-first century, the number of e-government websites from local and national administrations has grown sufficiently to allow some generalizations based on empirical observation. Meanwhile critical and comprehensive approaches to e-government frequently adopt a critical stance to denounce oversimplifications, determinisms, and omissions in the formulation of e-governance projects, as well as in the evaluation, adoption, and assessment of e-government effectiveness. Beyond the particularities of each emerging technology, reflection on the intersections between ICTs and government is moving away from an exclusive focus on hardware and functionality, to consider broader questions on governance.

The monograph reflects the problems of Russian psycholinguistics from the moment of its inception in Russia to the present day and presents its main directions that are currently developing. In addition, theoretical developments and practical results obtained in the framework of different directions and research centers are described in a concise form. The task of the book is to reflect, as far as it is possible in one edition, firstly, the history of the formation of Russian psycholinguistics; secondly, its methodology and developed methods; thirdly, the results obtained in different research centers and directions in different regions of Russia; fourthly, to outline the main directions of the further development of Russian psycholinguistics. There is no doubt that in the theoretical, methodological and applied aspects, the main problems and the results of their development by Russian psycholinguistics have no analogues in world linguistics and psycholinguistics, or are represented by completely original concepts and methods. We have tried to show this uniqueness of the problematics and the methodological equipment of Russian psycholinguistics in this book. The main role in the formation of Russian psycholinguistics was played by the Moscow psycholinguistic school of A.A. Leontyev. It still defines the main directions of Russian psycholinguistics. Russian psycholinguistics (the theory of speech activity - TSA) is based on the achievements of Russian psychology: a cultural-historical approach to the analysis of mental phenomena L.S. Vygotsky and the system-activity approach of A.N. Leontyev. Moscow is the most "psycholinguistic region" of Russia - INL RAS, Moscow State University, Moscow State Linguistic University, RUDN, Moscow State Pedagogical University, Moscow State Pedagogical University, Sechenov University, Moscow State University and other Moscow universities. Saint Petersburg psycholinguists have significant achievements, especially in the study of neurolinguistic problems, ontolinguistics. The most important feature of Russian psycholinguistics is the widespread development of psycholinguistics in the regions, the emergence of recognized psycholinguistic research centers - St. Petersburg, Tver, Saratov, Perm, Ufa, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Voronezh, Yekaterinburg, Kursk, Chelyabinsk; psycholinguistics is represented in Cherepovets, Ivanovo, Volgograd, Vyatka, Kaluga, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Vladivostok, Abakan, Maikop, Barnaul, Ulan-Ude, Yakutsk, Syktyvkar, Armavir and other cities; in Belarus - Minsk, in Ukraine - Lvov, Chernivtsi, Kharkov, in the DPR - Donetsk, in Kazakhstan - Alma-Ata, Chimkent. Our researchers work in Bulgaria, Hungary, Vietnam, China, France, Switzerland. There are Russian psycholinguists in Canada, USA, Israel, Austria and a number of other countries. All scientists from these regions and countries have contributed to the development of Russian psycholinguistics, to the development of psycholinguistic theory and methods of psycholinguistic research. Their participation has not been forgotten. We tried to present the main Russian psycholinguists in the Appendix - in the sections "Scientometrics", "Monographs and Manuals" and "Dissertations", even if there is no information about them in the Electronic Library and RSCI. The principles of including scientists in the scientometric list are presented in the Appendix. Our analysis of the content of the resulting monograph on psycholinguistic research in Russia allows us to draw preliminary conclusions about some of the distinctive features of Russian psycholinguistics: 1. cultural-historical approach to the analysis of mental phenomena of L.S.Vygotsky and the system-activity approach of A.N. Leontiev as methodological basis of Russian psycholinguistics; 2. theoretical nature of psycholinguistic research as a characteristic feature of Russian psycholinguistics. Our psycholinguistics has always built a general theory of the generation and perception of speech, mental vocabulary, linked specific research with the problems of ontogenesis, the relationship between language and thinking; 3. psycholinguistic studies of speech communication as an important subject of psycholinguistics; 4. attention to the psycholinguistic analysis of the text and the development of methods for such analysis; 5. active research into the ontogenesis of linguistic ability; 6. investigation of linguistic consciousness as one of the important subjects of psycholinguistics; 7. understanding the need to create associative dictionaries of different types as the most important practical task of psycholinguistics; 8. widespread use of psycholinguistic methods for applied purposes, active development of applied psycholinguistics. The review of the main directions of development of Russian psycholinguistics, carried out in this monograph, clearly shows that the direction associated with the study of linguistic consciousness is currently being most intensively developed in modern Russian psycholinguistics. As the practice of many years of psycholinguistic research in our country shows, the subject of study of psycholinguists is precisely linguistic consciousness - this is a part of human consciousness that is responsible for generating, understanding speech and keeping language in consciousness. Associative experiments are the core of most psycholinguistic techniques and are important both theoretically and practically. The following main areas of practical application of the results of associative experiments can be outlined. 1. Education. Associative experiments are the basis for constructing Mind Maps, one of the most promising tools for systematizing knowledge, assessing the quality, volume and nature of declarative knowledge (and using special techniques and skills). Methods based on smart maps are already widely used in teaching foreign languages, fast and deep immersion in various subject areas. 2. Information search, search optimization. The results of associative experiments can significantly improve the quality of information retrieval, its efficiency, as well as adaptability for a specific person (social group). When promoting sites (promoting them in search results), an associative experiment allows you to increase and improve the quality of the audience reached. 3. Translation studies, translation automation. An associative experiment can significantly improve the quality of translation, take into account intercultural and other social characteristics of native speakers. 4. Computational linguistics and automatic word processing. The results of associative experiments make it possible to reveal the features of a person's linguistic consciousness and contribute to the development of automatic text processing systems in a wide range of applications of natural language interfaces of computer programs and robotic solutions. 5. Advertising. The use of data on associations for specific words, slogans and texts allows you to predict and improve advertising texts. 6. Social relationships. The analysis of texts using the data of associative experiments makes it possible to assess the tonality of messages (negative / positive moods, aggression and other characteristics) based on user comments on the Internet and social networks, in the press in various projections (by individuals, events, organizations, etc.) from various social angles, to diagnose the formation of extremist ideas. 7. Content control and protection of personal data. Associative experiments improve the quality of content detection and filtering by identifying associative fields in areas subject to age restrictions, personal information, tobacco and alcohol advertising, incitement to ethnic hatred, etc. 8. Gender and individual differences. The data of associative experiments can be used to compare the reactions (and, in general, other features of thinking) between men and women, different social and age groups, representatives of different regions. The directions for the further development of Russian psycholinguistics from the standpoint of the current state of psycholinguistic science in the country are seen by us, first of all:  in the development of research in various areas of linguistic consciousness, which will contribute to the development of an important concept of speech as a verbal model of non-linguistic consciousness, in which knowledge revealed by social practice and assigned by each member of society during its inculturation is consolidated for society and on its behalf;  in the expansion of the problematics, which is formed under the influence of the growing intercultural communication in the world community, which inevitably involves the speech behavior of natural and artificial bilinguals in the new object area of psycholinguistics;  in using the capabilities of national linguistic corpora in the interests of researchers studying the functioning of non-linguistic and linguistic consciousness in speech processes;  in expanding research on the semantic perception of multimodal texts, the scope of which has greatly expanded in connection with the spread of the Internet as a means of communication in the life of modern society;  in the inclusion of the problems of professional communication and professional activity in the object area of psycholinguistics in connection with the introduction of information technologies into public practice, entailing the emergence of new professions and new features of the professional ethos;  in the further development of the theory of the mental lexicon (identifying the role of different types of knowledge in its formation and functioning, the role of the word as a unit of the mental lexicon in the formation of the image of the world, as well as the role of the natural / internal metalanguage and its specificity in speech activity);  in the broad development of associative lexicography, which will meet the most diverse needs of society and cognitive sciences. The development of associative lexicography may lead to the emergence of such disciplines as associative typology, associative variantology, associative axiology;  in expanding the spheres of applied use of psycholinguistics in social sciences, sociology, semasiology, lexicography, in the study of the brain, linguodidactics, medicine, etc. This book is a kind of summarizing result of the development of Russian psycholinguistics today. Each section provides a bibliography of studies on the relevant issue. The Appendix contains the scientometrics of leading Russian psycholinguists, basic monographs, psycholinguistic textbooks and dissertations defended in psycholinguistics. The content of the publications presented here is convincing evidence of the relevance of psycholinguistic topics and the effectiveness of the development of psycholinguistic problems in Russia.