American Culture: A Sociological Perspectives

The culture of the United States of America is primarily of Western origin but is influenced by a multicultural ethos that includes African, Native American, Asian, Pacific Island, and Latin American people and their cultures. American culture encompasses the customs and traditions of the United States. The United States is sometimes described as a "melting pot" in which different cultures have contributed their own distinct "flavors" to American culture. The United States of America is a North American nation that is the world\u27s most dominant economic and military power. Likewise, its cultural imprint spans the world, led in large part by its popular culture expressed in music, movies and television. The culture of the United States of America is primarily of Western culture (European) origin and form but is influenced by a multicultural ethos that includes African, Native American, Asian, Polynesian, and Latin American people and their cultures. The American way of life or simply the American way is the unique lifestyle of the people of the United States of America. It refers to a nationalist ethos that adheres to the principle of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

Latin America 2040 — Breaking Away from Complacency: An Agenda for Resurgence

Latin America

The ISCIP Analyst, Volume XIV, Issue 5

This repository item contains a single issue of The ISCIP Analyst, an analytical review journal published from 1996 to 2010 by the Boston University Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy

Recognition and Understanding of Meetings

This paper is about interpreting human communication in meetings using audio, video and other signals. Automatic meeting recognition and understanding is extremely challenging, since communication in a meeting is spontaneous and conversational, and involves multiple speakers and multiple modalities. This leads to a number of significant research problems in signal processing, in speech recognition, and in discourse interpretation, taking account of both individual and group behaviours. Addressing these problems requires an interdisciplinary effort. In this paper, I discuss the capture and annotation of multimodal meeting recordings - resulting in the AMI meeting corpus - and how we have built on this to develop techniques and applications for the recognition and interpretation of meetings

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A COUPLE OBSERVATIONAL CODING SYSTEM FOR COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

Many romantic couples integrate text and computer-mediated communication (CMC) into their relationship dynamics, both for general relationship maintenance and for complex dynamics such as problem solving and conflict. Romantic couple dynamics are interactional, dynamic, and sequenced in nature, and a common method for studying interactions of this nature is observational analyses. However, no behavioral or observational coding systems exist that are able to capture text-based transactional couple communication. The main purpose of this dissertation was to develop an observational coding system that can be used to assess sequenced computer- mediated, text-based communication that takes place between romantic partners. This process included assessing couples’ text communication to determine how verbal and non-verbal communication behaviors are enacted in CMC, modifying an observational coding system, and establishing reliability and validity of the revised coding system. Secondary data was utilized, including 48 logs of romantic couples engaging in problem-solving discussions using online chatting for 15 minutes, where a log of the conversation was saved for future research purposes. For this dissertation, the researcher evaluated the dynamics in these logs to determine if behaviors and sequences were similar to basic romantic relationship dynamics that are present in face-to-face (FtF) couples’ dynamics. The researcher determined that the dynamics between CMC and FtF were similar, and that modifying a couple observational coding system would be appropriate. The Interaction Dimensions Coding System was selected for use and modification for this study, and the training manual and codebook were updated to integrate CMC examples. Multiple avenues of assessing face validity were also pursued and feedback from the coding team and original authors of a couple coding system were integrated into the modified coding system. The modified coding system, IDCS-CMC, was used to code 43 text-based chat logs. A team of 4 coders was trained on the coding system, where they provided ratings from 1 to 9 on each partner for different dimensions of communication behaviors that were observed and they also rated each couple on 5 dyadic categories of relationship functioning. Interrater reliability was assessed throughout the training and independent coding process using the intraclass correlation coefficient. Results indicate that good or excellent interrater reliability was established for the individual dimensions of Positive Affect, Negative Affect, Problem Solving, Support/Validation, Denial, Conflict, and Communication Skills and for the dyadic codes of Positive Escalation, Negative Escalation, Commitment, Satisfaction, and Stability. There were only two dimensions that resulted in fair or poor interrater reliability, which were Dominance and Withdrawal, both of which warrant additional study in how these dynamics are enacted in and coded in CMC. Overall, the IDCS-CMC demonstrated good interrater reliability, and construct validity was established for the coding system in a variety of ways. Construct validity was established by assessing face, content, and convergent validity. Face validity was established by eliciting feedback on the IDCS-CMC from the coding team as well as one of the authors of the system used to inform the development of the IDCS-CMC. Content validity was established by assessing the degree to which the couples in the chat logs engaged in conversations of a similar nature in their real lives, and also by determining the degree to which the couple participants followed instructions to focus on a problem-solving topic during the chats. Convergent validity was assessed by comparing the IDCS-CMC dimensions and positive and negative communication composite scores to a measure of relationship satisfaction. Overall, this dissertation details the process by which a couple observational coding system was developed and tested, and puts forth a methodological tool that can be used to better assess transactional use of CMC by romantic couples by researchers as well as practitioners and therapists

Promoting Journalism as Method

The marketplace of ideas has been a centerpiece of free speech jurisprudence for a century. According to the marketplace theory, the vigorous competition of ideas, free from government interference, is the surest path to truth. As our metaphorical marketplace has moved online, the competition has never been so heated. We should be drowning in truth. Yet, in reality, truth has perhaps never been more elusive. As we struggle to promote democratic debate and surface truth in our chaotic networked public sphere, we are understandably drawn to familiar frames and tools. These include the source of the marketplace of ideas theory—the First Amendment—as well the institutional press, once a key gatekeeper of that marketplace. Yet, both the institutional press and the First Amendment have limitations that hamper their ability to spark transformative change. Instead, this Article proposes that we look to journalism. Journalism is not the press or a journalist. Rather, it is a method and a practice—an evolving system for gathering, curating, and conveying information. Among its aims are accuracy and truth, the checking of power, and the creation of spaces for criticism and compromise. Seeding and propagating journalism could have numerous benefits. It could help to provide some of the norms desperately needed for our new information environment. It might inject democratic values into an information ecology that is driven by profit-seeking. It could create friction where speed and scale now reign. Finally, it could help reinvigorate and even repopulate an institutional press in desperate need of reinforcement

The ISCIP Analyst, Volume XIV, Issue 12

This repository item contains a single issue of The ISCIP Analyst, an analytical review journal published from 1996 to 2010 by the Boston University Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy

The ISCIP Analyst, Volume XIV, Issue 12

This repository item contains a single issue of The ISCIP Analyst, an analytical review journal published from 1996 to 2010 by the Boston University Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy

Water Figures: quarterly newsletter of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

Groundwater irrigation, Electrification, Biofuels, Sedimentation, Catchment areas, India