Social Media and Revolution: The Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement as Seen through Three Information Studies Paradigms

Using three Information Studies paradigms--the physical metaphor, cognitive metaphor, and social informatics--this paper discusses how researchers might approach the study of social media and revolution. Drawing from the Arab Spring and Occupy movements, with specific examples from Occupy Oakland, it provides potential research questions and methods that would be appropriate within each framework. It concludes by reminding readers that each paradigm is a tool that can be used to view a subject from a certain perspective, and that they should be chosen and combined based on the research topic and research questions. This approach allows us to envision the paradigms as lying along a spectrum rather than existing as discrete points that cannot be synthesized

Social Communication And Interaction Amongst Children And Young People With Severe Learning Difficulties

This study explores the social and communicative interactions among children and young people in special schools who have severe learning difficulties. It considers the concept ofphatic communion or 'small talk' and its importance as a social and cultural practice. The study focuses on the actual communication of the children and young people and investigates the functions, patterns and strategies they employ. It considers the development of language and communication from birth onwards, particularly the processes involved in the progress of increasing skills in socially interactive communication. The study reviews literature concerning the development of communication in proto-conversations to the talk of children of typical development and children and adults with learning difficulties. It also investigates the role of non-verbal communication and context and how these can affect and support the social interaction process. The study employed an observational approach to data collection,recording predominantly by field notes, but also utilising some video and audio recording.The data were transcribed and analysed to provide examples of the range and variety of socio-communicative interactions between the children and young people. The findings demonstrate the multiplexity of skill involved in creating and perpetuating the social dynamics of amicable interaction. Finally conclusions are drawn to provide some significance of the impact that this study may offer to professionals working in the special educational sector, particularly with children and young people with severe learning difficulties

Learning from the Past: Digitization and Information Loss

The increased use of the Internet for research, as well as the desire to preserve information, has necessitated the digitization of library materials. This paper seeks to draw a comparison between the challenges of microfilming and digitizing, and what can be learned from previous formatting efforts to reduce data loss during current endeavors

Influence of Dialect and Stimulus Audibility on LiSN-S Performances

The main objectives were to investigate the effect of dialect on Listening in Spatialized Noise-Sentences (LISN-S) performances and to assess the relationship between bilateral pure-tone threshold averages (PTAs) and LISN-S performances. Participants were young adults with normal audiograms with self-identified American Southern or non-Southern dialects. No significant LiSN-S threshold differences were found between dialect groups. The strongest significant correlations were found between PTAs and the LiSN-S +/-90° conditions

Broadening Responsibilities: Consideration Of The Potential To Broaden The Role Of Uniformed Fire Service Employees

What is this report about? This report, commissioned by the National Joint Council for Local Authority Fire and Rescue Services (NJC), aims to identify what impact, if any, firefighters can have on the delivery of emergency medical response and wider community health interventions in the UK. What are the overall conclusions? Appropriately trained and equipped firefighters co-responding1 to targeted, specific time critical medical events, such as cardiac arrest, can improve patient survival rates. The data also indicate that there is support from fire service staff – and a potential need from members of the public, particularly the elderly, isolated or vulnerable – to expand ‘wider work’. This includes winter warmth assessments, Safe and Well checks, community defibrillator training and client referrals when staff believe someone may have dementia, are vulnerable or even, for example, have substance dependencies such as an alcohol addiction. However, there is currently insufficient data to estimate the net benefit of this work

Minimum standards of clinical practice for physiotherapists working in critical care settings in Australia and New Zealand: A modified Delphi technique

<p><b><i>Objective:</i></b> Achieving competency in critical care in entry-level physiotherapy courses across Australia and New Zealand is not essential, and accredited training for qualified physiotherapists working in critical care units is lacking. As a result, practice standards and training may vary. The objective was to establish consensus-based minimum clinical practice standards for physiotherapists working in critical care settings in Australia and New Zealand. <b><i>Design:</i></b> A modified Delphi technique, which consisted of three rounds of questionnaires, was used to obtain consensus on items. <b><i>Setting:</i></b> Australian and New Zealand critical care settings. <b><i>Participants:</i></b> A panel (<i>n</i> = 61) was invited from a pool of eligible physiotherapists throughout Australia and New Zealand (<i>n</i> = 93). Eligibility criteria were defined <i>a-priori</i> on the basis of possession of expertise and experience in the practice and teaching of critical care physiotherapy clinical skills. <b><i>Main Outcome Measure:</i></b> Questionnaires were disseminated electronically (either via email, or SurveyMonkey^®). Items were designated by participants as being ‘Essential/Unsure/Not Essential’. Consensus for inclusion was achieved when items were ranked ‘Essential’ by more than 70% of participants. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Fifty physiotherapists consented and participated in the initial Delphi round, of whom 45 (90%) completed all rounds. Consensus was reached on 199 (89%) items. The panel agreed that 132 (58%) items were ‘Essential’ items for inclusion in the final framework. <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> This is the first study to develop a consensus framework of minimum standards of practice for physiotherapists working in critical care. The clinical utility of this framework now requires assessment.</p

The Speech-Language Pathologist’s Role in Concussion Management: A Systematic Review

Traumatic brain injury (or TBI) is a an injury gaining widespread notoriety due to its deadly reputation among professional athletes and military personnel. But according to the CDC, “most TBIs that occur each year are mild, commonly called concussions.” In the past decade, the rate of medical treatment required from sport and recreation-related injuries has doubled in those under age 18. Symptoms of a concussion included headaches, dizziness, amnesia, ringing in the ears, nausea, vomiting, slurred speech, language issues, and confusion. With the increase in injuries, awareness for mTBI treatment has risen in response. The role SLP’s play and the assessments and interventions they provide may vary greatly depending on the setting, age group, and cause of injury, and current research on the specific roles of SLPs in this population is limited

Networked Technologies and Exploded Context: The Case of Facebook Activism

This poster examines the Facebook presence of two grassroots political movements as two distinct information worlds. Upon examining Facebook pages that supported and decried the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements, it was found that while there were some clear differences in ideology and information values, there was also a considerable amount of overlap in rhetorical approach and "positioning." Situating this behavior within Erdelez' (Burnett & Erdelez, 2010) idea of "exploded context," which conceptualizes context as always multiple, this research also offers the opportunity to explore barriers between the groups, and whether these are surmountable or an innate part of the groups' information worlds.publishedye

Past carbonate preservation events in the deep Southeast Atlantic Ocean (Cape Basin) and their implications for Atlantic overturning dynamics and marine carbon cycling

Micropaleontological and geochemical analyses reveal distinct millennial-scale increases in carbonate preservation in the deep Southeast Atlantic (Cape Basin) during strong and prolonged Greenland interstadials that are superimposed on long-term (orbital-scale) changes in carbonate burial. These data suggest carbonate oversaturation of the deep Atlantic and a strengthened Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) during the most intense Greenland interstadials. However, proxy evidence from outside the Cape Basin indicate that AMOC changes also occurred during weaker and shorter Greenland interstadials. Here we revisit the link between AMOC dynamics and carbonate saturation in the deep Cape Basin over the last 400 kyr (sediment cores TN057-21, TN057-10 and ODP Site 1089) by reconstructing centennial changes in carbonate preservation using mm-scale X-ray fluorescence (XRF) scanning data. We observe close agreement between variations in XRF Ca/Ti, sedimentary carbonate content and foraminiferal shell fragmentation, reflecting a common control primarily through changing deep-water carbonate saturation. We suggest that the high-frequency (sub-orbital) component of the XRF Ca/Ti records indicates the fast and recurrent redistribution of carbonate ions in the Atlantic basin via the AMOC during both long/strong- and short/weak North Atlantic climate anomalies. In contrast, the low- frequency (orbital) XRF Ca/Ti component is interpreted to reflect slow adjustments through carbonate compensation, and/or changes in the deep-ocean respired carbon content. Our findings emphasize the recurrent influence of rapid AMOC variations on the marine carbonate system during past glacial periods, providing a mechanism for transferring the impacts of North Atlantic climate anomalies to the global carbon cycle via the Southern Ocean.J.G. acknowledges support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant 200021_163003), the German Research Foundation (grant GO 2294/2-1) and the Gates Cambridge Trust. L.C.S. acknowledges the Royal Society, the Cambridge Isaac Newton Trust and NERC grant NE/J010545/1. S.L.J was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grants PP00P2-144811 and PP002_172915)

Abrupt changes in the southern extent of North Atlantic Deep Water during Dansgaard–Oeschger events

The glacial climate system transitioned rapidly between cold (stadial) and warm (interstadial) conditions in the Northern Hemisphere. This variability, referred to as Dansgaard–Oeschger variability, is widely believed to arise from perturbations of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Evidence for such changes during the longer Heinrich stadials has been identified, but direct evidence for overturning circulation changes during Dansgaard–Oeschger events has proven elusive. Here we reconstruct bottom water [CO32−] variability from B/Ca ratios of benthic foraminifera and indicators of sedimentary dissolution, and use these reconstructions to infer the flow of northern-sourced deep water to the deep central sub-Antarctic Atlantic Ocean. We find that nearly every Dansgaard–Oeschger interstadial is accompanied by a rapid incursion of North Atlantic Deep Water into the deep South Atlantic. Based on these results and transient climate model simulations, we conclude that North Atlantic stadial–interstadial climate variability was associated with significant Atlantic overturning circulation changes that were rapidly transmitted across the Atlantic. However, by demonstrating the persistent role of Atlantic overturning circulation changes in past abrupt climate variability, our reconstructions of carbonate chemistry further indicate that the carbon cycle response to abrupt climate change was not a simple function of North Atlantic overturning