3,285 research outputs found

    Hooligans, vandals and the community: a study of social reaction to juvenile delinquency

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    The thesis consists of three studies on various ways in which society reacts to juvenile delinquency. It is introduced with an account of recent developments in the sociology of deviance which have drawn attention to the nature and effect of the societal reaction to deviance. These developments, termed the "transactional perspective", are put in the context of a "sceptical" reaction against more conventional ways of conceptualizing deviance. The implications of this new perspective for theory and research are indicated. The first study is on vandalism, and starts by attempting to unravel the different definitions of this behaviour as a form of rule-breaking and deviance. It goes on to consider the processes through which vandalism becomes defined as a social problem and then discusses the main images and stereotypes through which society tries to conceptualize this form of delinquency. It finally considers the organized approaches to the prevention and control of vandalism. The second study is a survey of the views about delinquency - its nature, causes and control - and allied topics, held by a selected sample of official and unofficial control agents in a London Borough "Northview". The relevance of these views to understanding the social control of delinquency is considered. The final study is of various types of response to the Mods and Rockers phenomenon. Using mass media and observational sources, an analysis is made of how this form of deviance was reported and conceptualized. The emergent images of the behaviour are related to the ways in which society attempted to control it. The effects of these reactions on the form and development of the phenomenon are suggested

    The SMEs’ technology acceptance of digital media for stakeholder engagement

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    Purpose: Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly communicating and interacting with stakeholders through digital media. Therefore, this research investigates the SME owner-managers' attitudes toward the pace of technological innovation, and it examines their perceived use and ease of digital media for stakeholder engagement. Design: The research methodology integrated measuring items from the technology acceptance model, the pace of technological innovation and corporate social responsibility (CSR), to better understand the SME owner-managers’ rationale for using digital media. The respondents were expected to reveal their attitudes toward commercial, ethical and social responsibilities. Findings: A factor analysis indicated that the SME owner-managers were perceiving the usefulness of digital media to engage with marketplace stakeholders. Whilst, a stepwise regression analysis reported positive and significant relationships between the pace of technological innovation and the SMEs’ perceived usefulness of digital media for communication purposes. The results also revealed that young owner-managers from large SMEs were more likely to utilize digital media than their smaller counterparts. Originality: This contribution implies that both small and micro businesses are utilizing digital media to improve their stakeholder engagement. This study indicates that the pace of technological innovation, the SMEs’ perceived ease of use of digital media, as well as their commercial responsibility were significant antecedents for the SMEs’ online communication.peer-reviewe

    Gamification Framework for Sensor Data Analytics

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    Data in all of its form is becoming a central part of our existence, it is being captured in every facets of our everyday life: social media, pictures, smartphones, wearable devices, smart building etc. One of the main drivers of this Big Data Revolution is the Internet of Things, which enables inert objects to communicate through a multitude of sensors. The data amassed fuels a thirst for information, the extraction of such knowledge is rendered possible through Data Analytics Techniques. However, when it comes to sensor data our large-scale ability to perform analytics is highly limited by the difficulties associated with collecting sensor data labels. Current crowdsourcing platforms historically used to gather labels are unable to process sensor data due to its low level nature. The solution proposed in this thesis enables the deployment of a crowdsourcing platform for sensor data. This research presents a novel solution to acquire sensor labels by leveraging the power of crowdsourcing using gamification. The work in this thesis describes not only a framework that facilitates the capture of sensor data label through a flexible gamification architecture but also a solution that outlines the mechanics required to integrate gamification in a variety of contexts. Additionally, the framework is designed in a flexible manner to support any type of sensor data given that human can readily interact with them. Additionally, the work presented describes and supports both real time and historical data analytics through the captured data and associated labels. This work was successfully evaluated in the context of a case study where the gamification implementation was tested for a number of electrical sensors. Real time and historical data analytics were successfully performed with the use of the framework. The robustness of the solution was evaluated though the injection of invalid data and the result showed that the framework is effectively capable of reducing the level of noise in the data labels

    Rules of Distributary Engagement: Cultural Adaptation and Digital Enhancement of Hydro-ecological Decision-making in the Mekong Delta, Việt Nam

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    Focused on current initiatives for climate resilience, this paper explores a culturally adaptive approach to participatory planning in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. It details key engagement components to accompany the use of Tangible Landscape, an interactive, data-driven modeling platform, in a series of workshops sponsored by the World Bank. Innovations like Tangible Landscape hold the potential to significantly increase stakeholders’ accessibility to scientific data and scenario models. To what extent do the specificity of place and culture determine the efficacy of these tools in democratizing decision-making? This paper delves into Việt Nam’s socioeconomic development through Mekong agriculture, as well as its history of colonization, disempowerment, war, and perseverance, as background to the complex identity, political climate and mounting environmental precarity of the delta. Hydro-ecological issues and interventions are framed in a human context, informed by research on art, visual communication, and media strategies utilized by government, citizen, and international groups. With an awareness that current power structures and foreign aid/intervention complicate citizens’ perception of security and self-determination, the goal of proposing a combined technological and arts-based approach to participatory planning is to maximize the inclusion of those whose lives are most closely tied to the changing environment

    WATCHING YOU, WATCHING ME: REPRESENTATIONS OF FEMALE FANS AND FANDOM IN ACADEMIA, NEWS MEDIA AND POPULAR CULTURE

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    This project is a close examination of the representation of female participatory fandom, including scholarly work on fandom from the 1980s to the present, recent news media coverage of fan fiction, and a case study of fan responses to their own representation on the television series Supernatural. I will argue that outsider representations treat fans as a convenient Other, in order to normalize ‘mainstream’ relationships to media texts. This function is gendered, drawing on historical, philosophical and medical discourses which associate femininity with the body and emotion, and masculinity with the mind and reason. I close with a case study of television series Supernatural, which features recurring fan characters based on the program’s real fandom. Through a survey questionnaire, fans were given the chance to respond to these representations. A much more complex picture of female fan identity emerges from these accounts

    A framework for mobile activity recognition

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    Geoinformatics in Citizen Science

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    The book features contributions that report original research in the theoretical, technological, and social aspects of geoinformation methods, as applied to supporting citizen science. Specifically, the book focuses on the technological aspects of the field and their application toward the recruitment of volunteers and the collection, management, and analysis of geotagged information to support volunteer involvement in scientific projects. Internationally renowned research groups share research in three areas: First, the key methods of geoinformatics within citizen science initiatives to support scientists in discovering new knowledge in specific application domains or in performing relevant activities, such as reliable geodata filtering, management, analysis, synthesis, sharing, and visualization; second, the critical aspects of citizen science initiatives that call for emerging or novel approaches of geoinformatics to acquire and handle geoinformation; and third, novel geoinformatics research that could serve in support of citizen science
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