Thoughts about disordered thinking: measuring and quantifying the laws of order and disorder

Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

The problem of causality in cultivation research

This paper offers an up-to-date review of problems in determining causal relationships in cultivation research, and considers the research rationales of various approaches with special reference to causal interpretation. It describes in turn a number of methodologies for addressing the problem and resolving it as far as this is possible. The issue of causal inference arises not only in cultivation research, however, but is basic to all media effects theories and approaches primarily at the macro-level whose main methodology rests on correlational studies (agenda-setting, spiral of silence, knowledge gap hypothesis, etc.). We therefore first discuss problems of causal interpretation in connection with the cultivation hypothesis, and then sketch in summary how these problems arise with other media effects theories. We first set out the basic features of the cultivation approach, then consider the difficulties with correlational studies and discuss alternative research designs - designs which are not original to us, but have been adapted for cultivation research. These comprise laboratory experiments, sequential studies, social studies and time-series procedures. Finally, we argue for multiple approaches that complement one another's advantages and balance out their disadvantages

Branding as an essential element in the creation process of the image of the brand in national tourism destinations

Purpose: Presentation of branding as an important element in the creation process of the brand image of national tourism destinations on the example of the operation of 39 National Tourism Organizations (NTOs) in Europe. Design/Methodology/Approach: For the selection of NTOs the following criteria were taken into account. 1. The functional criterion: the main functions attributed to NTOs were accepted as the grounds for the verification, firstly, it was considered whether the promotion of a given country on foreign markets is included among these tasks. 2. The economic criterion: possession of an autonomous financial budget by a given organization (regardless of the percentage share of funds from the budget of the state or from the private sector, or from any other sources) was accepted as the grounds for verification. 3. The organizational criterion: a separation of a given organization in the structure of a superior body was accepted as the grounds for verification. The research methods used include a method of diagnostic survey including a questionnaire technique, a direct interview and a statistical analysis. Findings: The analysis demonstrated among others that the vast majority of the NTOs examined (92.3%) implement the objectives of branding in practice. At the same time, a significant part of these organizations (86.1%) recognized the activities taken within branding to be very effective. Moreover, the vast majority of the NTOs analysed (91.7%) undertake the initiatives realized as part of branding on the global tourist market. Practical Implications: The conclusions following the study can be used by various entities which are responsible for an effective realization of the management process of the brand of tourism destinations on the different levels of administration. Originality/Value: The study constitutes an entirely new insight into the functioning of NTOs while presenting a substantially broader spectrum of the areas of interest for this type organizations as compared to those presented in the source literature till now.peer-reviewe

The Case for Combining a Large Low-Band Very High Frequency Transmitter With Multiple Receiving Arrays for Geospace Research: A Geospace Radar

We argue that combining a high‐power, large‐aperture radar transmitter with several large‐aperture receiving arrays to make a geospace radar—a radar capable of probing near‐Earth space from the upper troposphere through to the solar corona—would transform geospace research. We review the emergence of incoherent scatter radar in the 1960s as an agent that unified early, pioneering research in geospace in a common theoretical, experimental, and instrumental framework, and we suggest that a geospace radar would have a similar effect on future developments in space weather research. We then discuss recent developments in radio‐array technology that could be exploited in the development of a geospace radar with new or substantially improved capabilities compared to the radars in use presently. A number of applications for a geospace radar with the new and improved capabilities are reviewed including studies of meteor echoes, mesospheric and stratospheric turbulence, ionospheric flows, plasmaspheric and ionospheric irregularities, and reflection from the solar corona and coronal mass ejections. We conclude with a summary of technical requirements

Ditransitive verbs and the ditransitive construction: a diachronic perspective

This paper argues for the adoption of a construction-based perspective to the investigation of diachronic shifts in valency, which is a hitherto largely neglected topic in the framework of valency grammar. On the basis of a comparison of the set of verbs attested in the double object argument structure pattern in a corpus of 18th-century British English with the construction's present-day semantic range, I will distinguish between three kinds of valency shifts. It will be shown that the semantic ranges of schematic argument structure constructions are subject to diachronic change, and that the shifts in valency observed in individual verbs are often part of more general changes at the level of the associated argument structure constructions. The latter part of the paper explores frequency shifts in valency and constructional semantics