bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Sex, Age, and Progression of Drug Use in Adolescents Admitted for Substance Use Disorder Treatment in the Northeastern United States: Comparison with a National Survey
Authors: Bracken Bethany K. , Rodolico John , Hill Kevin P.
Published: February 2013

Background

National adolescent drug use surveys are distributed in United States schools. Survey results determine trends in drug use and inform research and prevention efforts; however, students who have dropped out of school or were truant the day of the survey are excluded. Examining drug trends in a high-risk population (adolescents admitted for drug treatment) may better characterize drug users and their use patterns.

Methods

The current study examined questionnaires completed by 939 adolescents admitted for substance abuse treatment between 1995 and 2010.

Results

Age of first use (ranging from 13.2 years for alcohol to 15.1 years for cocaine) was significantly younger for cigarettes, alcohol, and cannabis than for “harder” drugs such as cocaine and heroin, and adolescents increased their use of almost every substance (except inhalants) with increasing age. This was not true of national data. Additionally, in the national data, less than 1.5% of participants reported using any of the harder drugs more than 5 times, but in the McLean data, even for harder drugs, >10% of adolescents used >50 times.

Conclusions

In the high-risk sample examined here, progression to harder drugs is accelerated and increases with age regardless of sex. These data underscore the importance of prevention and immediate treatment when adolescent substance use is identified.
Myosin VI small insert isoform maintains exocytosis by tethering secretory granules to the cortical actin
Authors: Tomatis Vanesa M. , Papadopulos Andreas , Malintan Nancy T. , Martin Sally , Wallis Tristan , Gormal Rachel S. , Kendrick-Jones John , Buss Folma , Meunier Frédéric A.
Published: February 2013

Before undergoing neuroexocytosis, secretory granules (SGs) are mobilized and tethered to the cortical actin network by an unknown mechanism. Using an SG pull-down assay and mass spectrometry, we found that myosin VI was recruited to SGs in a Ca2+-dependent manner. Interfering with myosin VI function in PC12 cells reduced the density of SGs near the plasma membrane without affecting their biogenesis. Myosin VI knockdown selectively impaired a late phase of exocytosis, consistent with a replenishment defect. This exocytic defect was selectively rescued by expression of the myosin VI small insert (SI) isoform, which efficiently tethered SGs to the cortical actin network. These myosin VI SI–specific effects were prevented by deletion of a c-Src kinase phosphorylation DYD motif, identified in silico. Myosin VI SI thus recruits SGs to the cortical actin network, potentially via c-Src phosphorylation, thereby maintaining an active pool of SGs near the plasma membrane.
Greek City-States
Authors: Hansen Mogens Herman
Published: February 2013

This chapter examines the history of city-states of polis in ancient Greece. It explains that a polis was a strongly institutionalized and centralized micro-state consisting of one city and its immediate hinterland, and that it had an advanced degree of urbanization whereby the majority of the population lived in the urban center. Aside from being the center of habitation, it was also the center of industry and trade, education and entertainment, political institutions, and defense. The chapter furthermore considers the relation between the poleis.
Greek Multicity States
Authors: Morris Ian
Published: February 2013

This chapter, which explores the history of multi-city states in ancient Greece during the archaic and classical periods, explains that leaders of small city-states were forced to attempt to establish multi-city states because of increasing competition for scarce resources in an age of expanding population and pressures from neighboring cities. It analyzes why these attempts failed, arguing that it is more fruitful to consider state formation as an ongoing process of structural change than as a one-time event.
Carthage
Authors: Ameling Walter
Published: February 2013

This chapter examines the history of state formation in Carthage, explaining that the history of the Carthaginian state is one with a changing constitution, with new institutions emerging and old institutions losing importance. It investigates why Carthage did not go the way of many other poleis like those in Greece. The chapter also argues that the end of Carthage is inextricably bound up with the question of Roman imperialism and that while its ruling aristocracy died with its city, there was no doubt that the Carthaginians had identified themselves with their city, its history, and its traditions.
War and Warfare in Ancient Greece
Authors: Rawlings Louis
Published: February 2013

This chapter reviews some of the main elements of warfare conducted by the Greeks between the eighth and third centuries. The hybristic acts of the enemy have been regarded as sufficient provocation for war. Warriors have frequently been prompted by the chance for self-enrichment through booty. There has been enormous variety of warfare in Greece and beyond. The methods of warfare have undergone a number of significant developments. The evolutions in the tools of war have a variety of military, institutional and ideological ramifications. Many members of Greek communities might relish the opportunity for war. These developments gave the Greek and Macedonian armies the capacity to resist and then overcome the Persian Empire, and contributed to the essential character of warfare in the era of the Successors.
Warfare and Environment in the Ancient World
Authors: Hughes J. Donald
Published: February 2013

This chapter deals with ancient warfare and the environment. Hunting was often been considered as a form of warfare, and art frequently portrayed humans in battle with animals. Armed conflict had its direct influences on the environment. Along with damage to settled agriculture, warfare had affected other lands such as pastures, brush lands, and forests. It is noted that birds, pigs, bears, rodents, snakes, bees, wasps, scorpions, beetles, assassin bugs, and jellyfish have been employed as weaponized animals in ancient warfare, which, in the Mediterranean area and Near East, had vital environmental properties. The direct effects of battle have been shown by ancient historians, but just as important were the influences of the military-oriented organization of societies on the natural environment and resources.
Treating the Sick and Wounded
Authors: Salazar Christine F.
Published: February 2013

This chapter discusses the wounds caused by warfare. Treating those who had been wounded in combat was a way of acquiring medical knowledge and of developing new surgical techniques. The majority of wounds—made by swords, spears, javelins, or arrows—will have been to the arms and legs. The most fatal were those penetrating the chest, abdomen, or head. The possible treatments for these wounds are reported. It can be stated that the medical treatment of casualties itself did not change very drastically in the roughly ten centuries between classical Greece and late antiquity, based on its reflection in medical literature. The main changes were arterial ligature, more adventurous surgery, and a trend toward polypharmacy from Hellenistic times onwards.
Arguing for Media Psychology as a Distinct Field
Authors: Rutledge Pamela Brown
Published: February 2013

The field of media psychology is a recent arrival to the academic world. In spite of apparent overlaps with other disciplines, such as media studies, communications, or sociology, media psychology serves a distinct and necessary role because it shifts the focus of inquiry from media-centric to human-centric. When the Internet replaced the one-to-many communication model of mass media with a many-to-many model, it created peer-to-peer connectivity and turned information distribution into a social system. Interconnectivity is blurring what we once perceived as distinct divisions among technologies. More profoundly, a networked society with real-time access has redefined the roles of media producer, consumer, and distributor, challenging many core beliefs about the world and our place in it. In this globally connected world, media technologies are inextricable from daily life. How individuals and society use these capabilities will be determined in large part by whether we, as a society, are preoccupied with the challenges or seek out the opportunities. Seeing potential demands a forward-looking science that can move beyond traditional models to embrace the complex social system of technology and human behavior. Media psychology bridges this gap. At its best, media psychology seeks to understand the intersection of human behavior and technology to connect the positive capabilities of technology with human needs and goals so that individuals and society can grow and flourish.
Media Psychology and Its History
Authors: Tuma Regina M.
Published: February 2013

Currently, media psychology appears to be a fragmented area of study, an appendage of sorts to many disciplines such as communication studies and even psychology. And yet, it is the case that this current state obscures a long history and tradition that leads to the development of media psychology within psychology as a discipline. The history of media psychology will be explored at two levels. First, it will be argued that the idea of media psychology emerges with the notion of mediation of reality by our senses in philosophy, the study of perception and cognition in early psychology. This tradition is then carried into a social psychology that is influenced by the study of perception and where the idea and role of media as instruments of culture, influence and cognition is further developed. The final section explores the status of media psychology within current research in psychology and social psychology.
Qualitative Research and Media Psychology
Authors: Polkinghorne Donald E.
Published: February 2013

Qualitative research is a family of approaches designed to study people’s experiences. In media psychology it is used to study the experiences of receiving and creating media messages and for analyzing media messages. Qualitative research principles also can be used in content analysis to study message meanings. Ethnographers, grounded theory researchers, and phenomenological researchers developed techniques and procedures employed in contemporary qualitative research. Qualitative researchers produce descriptive findings by analyzing gathered and generated information. This analysis leads to a description of the structures that produce meaning and understanding of media-communicated events. The analyzed information is generated through interviews and focus groups and gathered from media presentations and documents.
Why It Is Hard To Believe That Media Violence Causes Aggression
Authors: Huesmann L. Rowell , Dubow Eric F. , Yang Grace
Published: February 2013

Research studies on how media violence influences aggressive and violent behaviors face unusual hurdles in having an impact on the public, journalists, and even other scientists. Despite the existence of compelling empirical evidence that media violence causes increased aggression in the observer or game player, intelligent people still doubt the effects. A fundamental reason is that the outcomes of such research have implications not only for public policy, but also for how one views oneself. Through several well-understood psychological processes, this leads to many people denying the results of the scientific research. There are four psychological processes that together can account for most denials of media violence effects: (1) the need for cognitive consistency; (2) reactance; (3) the “third-person effect”; and (4) desensitization. This chapter illustrates how these processes lead to disbelief. Finally, it offers conclusions and ideas for future directions of how research may contribute to public opinion and public policy.
The Role of Emotion in Media Use and Effects
Authors: Konijn Elly A.
Published: February 2013

This chapter provides a summary of the existing media psychology literature regarding the role of emotions in media use and effects. Traditionally, emotions as an object of study from a media psychological perspective have largely been understood within the context of media entertainment research. General involvement mechanisms and affective dispositions of media users toward characters are addressed, as well as the effects of more specific displays of media violence, and frightening and otherwise disturbing materials. However, other branches of media-related emotion research can also be found, such as those related to persuasion and news effects. Most recently, emotions have become a hot topic, and an increased emphasis can be found on emotions as a mechanism underlying media use and effects. Likewise, studies in emotions have become omnipresent in online and computer-based communication, most notably including virtual humans expressing and detecting emotions. The newest trends in applying psychological emotion theories in modeling emotions in virtual humans are discussed. Although a review, this chapter goes beyond the boundaries of the extant knowledge base by raising new questions and providing innovative views on future research in media psychology.
The Psychology Underlying Media-Based Persuasion
Authors: Nabi Robin L. , Moyer-Gusé Emily
Published: February 2013

Attempts at persuasion are as ubiquitous as the media often used to disseminate them. However, to explore persuasion in the context of media, we must first consider the psychological processes and mechanisms that underlie persuasive effects generally, and then assess how those strategies might apply in both traditional as well as more innovative media. This chapter overviews three dominant frameworks of persuasion (cognitive response models, expectancy value theories, and emotional appeals), along with three more subtle forms of influence (framing, narrative, and product placement) to explore how psychological theory and media effects research intersect to shed light on media-based persuasive influence.
A General Framework for Media Psychology Scholarship
Authors: Potter W. James
Published: February 2013

This chapter presents a critical analysis of many of the assumptions and practices that characterize the media effects literature. The thesis argued here is that a Generating-Findings perspective has been useful in producing this literature, but that this perspective has outlived its usefulness. It is time to shift into a new perspective now that the media effects literature has grown so large and fragmented and now that the distribution technologies as well as the culture itself has changed so much over the past few decades. The suggested newer perspective on media research and scholarship—called the Mapping-Phenomenon perspective—builds off the strengths in the existing literature while moving beyond its limitations. This new perspective requires a clear conceptualization of “mass” media along with its four major components of industries, audiences, messages, and effects.
Engaging with Stories and Characters: Learning, Persuasion, and Transportation into Narrative Worlds
Authors: Green Melanie C. , Dill Karen E.
Published: February 2013

Although individuals often believe they are immune to media influence, a substantial body of research suggests that media presentations, including fictional narratives, can influence individuals’ attitudes and beliefs. The current chapter explores reasons why individuals fail to recognize media effects in their own lives, and explains the mechanisms by which media influence occurs. We highlight the operation of unconscious processes that can account for both pervasive media effects and a lack of awareness of these effects. We also focus specifically on transportation, the experience of cognitive and emotional immersion into a story. Transported readers experience emotions in response to a story, form connections with characters, and are more cognitively open to story claims.
The Political Narrative of Children's Media Research
Authors: McIntyre Jeff J.
Published: February 2013

This narrative recounts the strategy and struggle of children’s media advocates who have engaged the media industry over proposed federal policy. Beginning with the issues surrounding scientific research, this chapter recounts the difficulties in translating research for policymakers and the media. This, in turn, can lead to political fights over interpretation of scientific terms and data—which sets the foundation for debates over funding and the use of the scientific research in the political arena. The political strategy of media industry and children’s media advocates is examined in a case study of the effort around the Federal Communications rulemaking on Children’s Television Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters.
Historicizing the Cold War
Authors: Iriye Akira
Published: February 2013

This chapter discusses the process of historicizing the Cold War. It explains that the Cold War had no influence on major world affairs from the late nineteenth century onward and that, under such a view, the Cold War can only be considered as but a fraction of world history. It argues that if the Cold War is to be historicized, it is important to broaden the perspective and relativize the geopolitical story against the background of many other stories which comprise history. The chapter explores the role or contribution the Cold War in the three sub-periods after World War 2: 1945–70, 1970–90, and 1990 to the present.
Britain and the Cold War, 1945–1990
Authors: Larres Klaus
Published: February 2013

This chapter examines the role of Great Britain in the Cold War. It describes the condition and experiences of Britain from 1945 to 1990 and explores how Britain managed to maintain its global influence during the Cold War, despite its decline. The chapter argues that although Britain was forced to operate within structure of the Cold War, the British state and its leaders were able to make their own political decisions. Examples of these include the war resolution against Argentina to recapture the Falklands Islands in 1982, the decision not to participate in the Schuman Plan negotiations of 1950, and the determination to develop a nuclear bomb shortly after the end of World War 2.
Western Europe
Authors: Etges Andreas
Published: February 2013

This chapter explores the role and experience of Western Europe in the Cold War. It explains that Western Europe is not a precise political or geographical entity, and that its role in the Cold War can only be understood in the context of its changing internal dynamics and changing relationship with the United States, the Soviet Union, and countries of Eastern Europe. The chapter argues that Western Europe both shaped and was shaped by Cold War in a political, economic, military, cultural, and ideological sense, and also considers the German question, Franco-German rapprochement and European integration, and military aspects of the Western alliance.
South Asia
Authors: Rotter Andrew J.
Published: February 2013

This chapter examines the history of the Cold War in South Asia. It describes the position of South Asia in the Cold War, and investigates the reasons why Pakistan decided to side with the United States while India sought to avoid great power alliances and keep the Cold War at arm's length. The chapter highlights the negative reaction of India on the decision of the U.S. government to provide military aid to Pakistan, its main rival, and also considers Cold War legacies and the legacy of colonialism in India and Pakistan.
The Cold War and the Middle East
Authors: Yaqub Salim
Published: February 2013

This chapter, which examines the history of the Cold War in the Middle East. It explains that the Cold War in the Middle East was never a contest between equals and explains that Western powers always enjoyed a decisive advantage. Despite this, they were not able to retain outright control over the oil reserves and strategic positions of the region, and only succeeded in maintaining access to them through cooperative local regimes. This chapter also describes how the Cold War accentuated existing patterns in Middle Eastern geopolitics and how the great powers enhanced the ability of local actors to pursue rivalries.
Internal Challenges to the Cold War
Authors: Gassert Philipp
Published: February 2013

This chapter examines the internal challenges or oppositional movements to the Cold War in both the East and West. It suggests that the challenges to the Cold War paradigm can be divided into societal challenges such as the anti-Vietnam protests and the 1956 Hungarian uprising and government-led oppositions to the Cold War order as part of domestic foreign policy. The chapter analyzes five core periods of the Cold War including the Korean War, the 1954 hydrogen bomb testing on Bikini Atoll, and the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The analysis reveals that the Cold War order was almost never unchallenged from 1947 to 1990.
Gender and Women's Rights in the Cold War
Authors: Laville Helen
Published: February 2013

This chapter, which examines the issues of gender and women's rights during the Cold War, discusses how the United States and the Soviet Union used the status of women as a measure of national progress. It explains that the United States promoted women's domesticity and consumerism while the Soviet Union maintained that the measure of woman's status was her equality to men, which should be measured in terms of equal pay and the number of women in the workforce. The chapter also discusses the factors that led to the breakdown of the Cold War paradigms for women's rights, and describes how non-aligned countries challenged the early Cold War agenda and worked toward a more nuanced approach to the global improvement of women's status.
Ethical Theories among Medieval Jewish Philosophers
Authors: Harvey Warren Zev
Published: February 2013

This chapter discusses the ethical views of medieval Jewish philosophers, showing that the varieties of Jewish philosophy in the medieval period defy easy categorization, let alone condensation into a single notion of Jewish ethics. Scholars surveyed include Saadia Gaon, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Bahya ibn Paquda, Judah Halevi, Abraham ibn Ezra, Abraham ibn Daud, Moses Maimonides, Levi Gersonides, Jedaiah Bedersi, Hesdai Crescas, Joseph Albo, and Joseph ibn Shemtob.
Spinoza and Jewish Ethics
Authors: Novak David
Published: February 2013

Baruch Spinoza's Aristotelian critique of Judaism, and religion in general, in the seventeenth century marked the beginning of a period of intense Jewish self-evaluation that continues to this day. This chapter unpacks Spinoza's criticisms to show that the ultimate ethical existence, that is, a virtuous existence, is one which entails attention to three interpenetrating relations: between the self and God, between the self and others, and with oneself. Obedience and love, Spinoza asserts, are the ultimate character traits that instantiate the highest forms of ethical existence in these realms.
Mussar Ethics and Other Nineteenth-Century Jewish Ethical Theories
Authors: Stone Ira F.
Published: February 2013

The nineteenth century witnessed the dramatic growth of Jewish thought and activity spurred by the increasing civic and intellectual freedoms that emancipation and the Enlightenment brought to Jews. This chapter traces the challenges that this new modernity posed to Jews and how they responded. It considers scholars such as Moses Mendelssohn, Samuel David Luzzato, Elijah Benamozegh, Nachman Krochmal, Samson Raphael Hirsch, Hermann Cohen, and Israel Lipkin's Mussar Movement. Although they variously retained traditionalism, their responses were all reforms insofar as they each created “what might be called an indigenous Jewish response to modernity.”
Ethical Theories of Abraham Isaac Kook and Joseph B. Soloveitchik
Authors: Kaplan Lawrence
Published: February 2013

This chapter analyzes the ethical theories of Rabbis Abraham Isaac Kook and Joseph B. Soloeitchik, two luminaries in of twentieth-century Orthodoxy in Israel and the United States, respectively. Despite Kook's lean toward the mystical and Soloveitchik's tendency toward the rational, they nonetheless share in the perspective that ethics is central to proper Jewish living and theology. Whereas Kook views the moral impulse as already embedded in Jewish existence, Soloveitchik understands imitatio Dei as the central mechanism through which Jewish ethical behaviour comes into being.
Ethical Implications of the Holocaust
Authors: Berenbaum Michael
Published: February 2013

This chapter examines the difficulties the Holocaust posed and continues to raise for Jews, Jewish theology, and specifically Jewish ethics, identifying eight major commitments made by Jews and non-Jews that have since then inspired Jewish and global responses to human-made atrocities such as genocide and crimes against humanity. These are (1) to survive; (2) to perpetuate the memory of what happened; (3) to survive as Jews; (4) to set the moral bar high such that people are expected to be “upstanders,” not bystanders, in the face of evil; (5) to recreate relationships with people of other faiths; (6) to combat discrimination and genocide; (7) to define and demand humane standards for medical research; and (8) to learn how to attain both justice and reconciliation after genocidal atrocities.
Jewish Sexual Ethics
Authors: Ruttenberg Danya
Published: February 2013

This chapter discusses a few major concepts in Jewish sexual ethics. These include extramarital sex and marriage, consent and pleasure in contrast to the duty of both partners to satisfy each other sexually, the traditional requirement that a couple refrain from sexual relations during the woman's menstrual period, masturbation, procreation, same-sex relationships, and gender identity and sexuality. These issues are considered from the author's unique vantage point as both a Conservative rabbi and a feminist. As a Conservative rabbi, she is committed to the Jewish tradition and aware that it both has changed in the past and must be adjusted to respond to new scientific findings about sexual orientation and sexual practices, and new social conditions and moral sensitivities. As a feminist, the author probes that tradition for its biases against women, homosexuals, and transgender people.
Jewish Environmental Ethics
Authors: Waskow Arthur
Published: February 2013

This chapter discusses Jewish environmental ethics. It focuses on what two central biblical stories—the Garden of Eden and the Flood—tell us about Jewish ecological ethics as the Torah itself tells those stories, and as the later rabbis interpreted and expanded them, with special concern for the emerging ethics of Eco-Judaism. In so doing, the chapter illustrates how the Jewish tradition uses midrash, the interpretation of texts and their literary nuances, to discover meanings in sacred texts that make them ever relevant to us in changing times and circumstances. It briefly develops one of the Torah's laws on ecology, and an emerging interest on the part of some Jews to understand God differently to reflect our current ecological understanding of life as one integrated whole, in order to demonstrate how Jewish law and theology are relevant to ecology.
Jewish Animal Ethics
Authors: Gross Aaron S.
Published: February 2013

This chapter discusses Jewish animal ethics, describing a central concept, tza'ar ba'alei hayyim, the ban on causing undue pain to animals, and the varying justifications for that ban. Some of these justifications focus on how compassion for animals will benefit human beings, including human moral character, and others assert the inherent value of animals in and of themselves. The chapter also discusses how the prohibition against causing animals pain is balanced in Jewish sources by human need, a balance that affects not only our use of animals but also Jewish rules regarding eating their flesh, with a persistent minority strain which urges vegetarianism. It then turns to two responsibilities that humans have to animals according to the Jewish tradition—to preserve compassion toward them and to guard them from abuse produced by economic motives. In general, Jews are required to provide animals with both a good life and a good death; this goes against many of the methods used in modern factory farming.
Jewish Political Ethics in America
Authors: Jacobs Jill
Published: February 2013

This chapter examines Jewish political ethics as it has emerged in the American setting. Unlike virtually all the places where Jews have lived throughout history, American Jews are full-fledged citizens, and some have taken leadership roles in both local and national politics, to say nothing of the professions, academia, and business. Four different approaches that Jews have taken to respond to this new reality are described: (1) Jews should participate in American politics in service of Jewish self-interest; (2) political participation replaces religion; (3) the United States is a step in the march toward messianic redemption; and (4) Jews should involve themselves in American politics, as Jews, for the betterment of all. The chapter describes each of these positions, quotes some representative spokespersons for each, and shows how each has influenced Jewish political ethics in America, and then illustrates how varying Jewish prayers for the nation articulate each of these approaches.
The Intersections of Language Socialization and Sociolinguistics
Authors: Watson-Gegeo Karen Ann , Bronson Matthew C.
Published: February 2013

First- and second-language-acquisition researchers have increasingly adopted language socialization (LS) as a productive and realistic strategy for examining the intertwined relationships among language, culture, and learning. This chapter reviews recent developments in LS in relation to sociolinguistics, with an emphasis on work in bilingual and multilingual situations cross-culturally. It argues for the value of accelerating the current shift in sociolinguistics from interdisciplinary toward transdisciplinary inquiry. Interdisciplinary work is interactive, combining theory, methods, and practices to address questions difficult to tackle with the tools of a single discipline. It adapts but does not challenge existing boundaries. In contrast, transdisciplinary inquiry problematizes disciplinary compartmentalization as imposing limits in creating useful knowledge to address complex issues. The discussion suggests a framework for evaluating sociolinguistic LS research, concluding that the best LS research always involves a commitment to benefit the communities studied.
Psycholinguistic Approaches
Authors: Loudermilk Brandon C.
Published: February 2013

The fundamental goal of the study of sociolinguistic cognition is to characterize the computational stages and cognitive representations underlying the perception and production of sociolinguistic variation. This chapter discusses psycholinguistic approaches in four sections. The first section discusses different methods for examining how dialectal variation is represented, perceived, and learned. The second section reviews studies investigating the role of sociolinguistic stereotypes in speech processing. The third section explores the attitudinal aspects of language variation by presenting two recent studies using innovative variations of the matched-guise technique. It concludes by introducing the implicit association test, which may be able to address some of the limitations of alternative methods. The fourth section reports on studies that use eye tracking and event-related brain potentials to investigate sociolinguistic cognition.
Studies of the Community and the Individual
Authors: Walker James A. , Meyerhoff Miriam
Published: February 2013

Within the study of sociolinguistic variation and change, two approaches have been developed that attempt to link individual speaker behavior with the study of the community. One approach makes use of “linguistic grouping,” examining the linguistic conditioning of individual speakers and looking for social correlates of the resulting groups. Another approach is the detailed analysis of individual speakers in different social situations. This chapter presents an overview of these two research traditions. It provides analyses across groups and individuals in the English spoken on the island of Bequia. Two well-studied grammatical variables constitute the linguistic focus of this research: The absence of copula/auxiliary be and existential constructions. The discussion compares the linguistic conditioning of these features in the speech of individuals who have left Bequia for long periods of time with that of their stay-at-home peers.
Experimental Methods for Measuring Intelligibility of Closely Related Language Varieties
Authors: Gooskens Charlotte
Published: February 2013

To test intelligibility, a large number of tests have been developed. By means of such tests, the degree of intelligibility can be expressed in a single number, often the percentage of input that was correctly recognized by the subject. This chapter presents an overview of methods for measuring the intelligibility of closely related languages, and discusses their advantages and disadvantages. It focuses on spoken-language comprehension, but many tests can also be applied to the comprehension of written language. Methods for investigating mutual intelligibility can be taken from other disciplines, for example in the area of speech technology, second language acquisition, and speech pathology.
Analyzing Qualitative Data
Authors: Langman Juliet
Published: February 2013

In the case of sociolinguistic research, qualitative research requires a focus on the details and particularities of language use in context. This chapter outlines current perspectives on conducting qualitative research in multilingual contexts. It focuses on providing an understanding of the unique opportunities and challenges of conducting qualitative research in multilingual contexts in which proficiency in the various languages and multiple varieties employed in the research context is a key component of research. Using data from over ten years of ethnographic fieldwork among members of the Hungarian-minority population in Eastern Europe as one example, the chapter illustrates processes involved in qualitative research, beginning with outlining a theoretical perspective, conceptualizing a research problem, gaining access in the field, developing participant and participant-observer stances, gathering and organizing data, and analyzing and verifying analyses of such data.
Sociolinguistics and Second Language Acquisition
Authors: Howard Martin , Mougeon Raymond , Dewaele Jean-Marc
Published: February 2013

While the focus on sociolinguistic and sociopragmatic variation is relatively new, linguistic variation continues to be an important issue that SLA research has grappled with. By linguistic variation, one understands the learner’s variable use of two or more L2 forms to express the same functional value, where one or all forms are nonnative. This chapter focuses on type II variation and presents an overview of the research findings that illuminate the challenge to the learner of developing sociolinguistic and sociopragmatic competence in the L2. While the application of sociolinguistic variationist methods to the study of type II variation has been relatively recent in SLA research, such methods have also been fruitfully used by some SLA researchers in relation to type I variation.
Pragmatics and Variationist Sociolinguistics
Authors: Cameron Richard , Schwenter Scott
Published: February 2013

This chapter identifies how pragmatics may inform definitions of the sociolinguistic variable, provide a basis for generating hypotheses about constraints, and contribute to useful debates about where variation may or may not occur. It shows show how variationist research may provide empirically based tests of pragmatic hypotheses, contribute to discussions of meaning-in-use, and identify facts of language use that challenge key ideas in the field of pragmatics, such as the speaker as rational message designer. The chapter notes the asymmetrical relationship between the fields of pragmatics and variationist sociolinguistics. It also cites the lack of statistical analysis in much of pragmatics.
Language Policy, Ideology, and Attitudes Key Issues in Western Europe
Authors: Grin François
Published: February 2013

This chapter suggests that specific language policy issues that arise in various parts of Western Europe are endless, and thus emphasizes issues that are generally relevant across Western Europe. These are the management of communication in supra-, inter-, or multinational structures, in particular the European Union; the protection and promotion of regional or minority languages; and the linguistic dimensions of immigration and migrant integration. The concluding section proposes an integrative assessment, before venturing suggestions regarding suitable policy responses to meet these challenges.
Language Management in the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, and Post-Soviet Countries
Authors: Pavlenko Aneta
Published: February 2013

This chapter examines four aspects of language management—nativization, linguistic assimilation, de-russification, and bilingual education—in the multilingual territory first occupied by the Russian Empire, then by the USSR, and then by the successor states. The rationale for this diachronic approach is twofold. The three settings are interrelated: post-Soviet developments cannot be fully understood outside their historic context, just as the full impact of Soviet language policies can only be established through the post-Soviet lens. In addition, sociolinguists generally lack familiarity with Russian and Soviet language management. The discussion focuses on the territories occupied by the fourteen successor states and on their titular languages; the processes taking place in the Russian Federation are sufficiently different to merit a separate review.
Language and Law
Authors: Matoesian Gregory
Published: February 2013

This chapter focuses on the complex yet elusive relationship between language, law, and sociocultural context. It discusses the sociocultural dimensions of language and law, paying particular attention to the role of power in legal discourse. The first section discusses the major contributing approaches to the sociocultural analysis of language and law: conversation analysis, linguistic anthropology, and, to a lesser extent, Critical Discourse Analysis. The second section covers substantive studies from what has been referred to as the language and power school of legal anthropology: Law school socialization, police–citizen interaction, courtrooms, bilingual encounters, and cross-cultural misunderstandings in legal interviews and translation. The last section suggests a new direction for the study of language and law, one that may provide a deeper understanding of language, law, and sociocultural context.
Sociolinguistic Studies of Signed Language Interpreting
Authors: Metzger Melanie , Roy Cynthia
Published: February 2013

Sociolinguistic processes are inherent in the practice of interpretation. Interpreters, within seconds, receive, interpret, and reconstruct utterances between two languages, using their linguistic, social and cultural, or sociolinguistic, knowledge to create a successful, communicative exchange. This chapter describes some major and minor sociolinguistic studies of interpretation with the underlying assumption that interpretation itself constitutes a sociolinguistic activity from the moment an assignment is accepted, including the products and processes inherent to the task, reflecting variously issues of bilingualism or multilingualism, language contact, variation, language policy and planning, language attitudes, and, of course, discourse analysis.
Congress and Environmental Policy
Authors: Kraft Michael E.
Published: February 2013

This article focuses on Congress and both the internal and external policy actors who affect its policy decisions. It also reviews the institution's distinctive features that affect its actions on environmental policy and related issues. It suggests that Congress needs to be much more proactive in addressing emerging environmental problems and to find a way to resolve its partisan differences.
Issue Framing, Agenda Setting, and Environmental Discourse
Authors: Guber Deborah Lynn , Bosso Christopher J.
Published: February 2013

This article reviews key scholarship in the field of environmental policy. It does so by connecting two broad interdisciplinary threads. First, it addresses the subject of issue framing, which focuses on the formation of public attitudes and the way in which issues are packaged and presented for mass consumption. Second, it considers agenda setting, which centers on political elites and the decisions that are made—or deferred—within the policy-making process. Finally, it draws on both to suggest productive avenues for future research.
Organized Interests and Environmental Policy
Authors: Duffy Robert J.
Published: February 2013

This article reviews research on organized interests in environmental and natural resource policy making, with an eye toward identifying the most significant contributions. It begins by considering the question of how groups mobilize and maintain themselves. This is followed by a discussion of some of the key debates in the literature: efforts to map the contours, composition, and evolution of the environmental group system, what groups do to influence policy making, and how to assess group influence in policy making. It concludes with suggestions for future research.
The Role of Market Incentives in Environmental Policy
Authors: Olmstead Sheila M.
Published: February 2013

This article surveys the framework that economics brings to environmental policy and, in particular, the use of market incentives in relation to conventional approaches to regulating environmental quality. The article is organized as follows. Section 2 defines market failure more precisely in the context of environmental problems. Section 3 considers what economic theory has to say about solutions to market failure in the environmental realm. Section 4 compares and contrasts market-based environmental policies with more traditional, prescriptive approaches. Section 5 offers a closer focus on market-based policy instruments themselves; it compares and contrasts the two most common approaches, taxes and tradable permits. Section 6 summarizes the experience with selected market-based environmental policies in practice. Conclusions and possible areas for future research are offered in Section 7.
Flexible Approaches to Environmental Regulation
Authors: Bennear Lori S. , Coglianese Cary
Published: February 2013

This article examines what we know about flexible approaches to environmental regulation. It begins by defining more precisely what we mean by flexible regulation, placing the concept within a general framework of regulation. Adhering to this framework, it shows the role that flexible regulation can play in environmental protection and assesses what we know about flexible regulation's impacts on business behavior and environmental quality.
One Fungus, One Name: Defining the Genus Fusarium in a Scientifically Robust Way That Preserves Longstanding Use
Authors: Geiser David M. , Aoki Takayuki , Bacon Charles W. , Baker Scott E. , Bhattacharyya Madan K. , Brandt Mary E. , Brown Daren W. , Burgess Lester W. , Chulze Sofia , Coleman Jeffrey J. , Correll James C. , Covert Sarah F. , Crous Pedro W. , Cuomo Christina A. , De Hoog G. Sybren , Di Pietro Antonio , Elmer Wade H. , Epstein Lynn , Frandsen Rasmus J. N. , Freeman Stanley , Gagkaeva Tatiana , Glenn Anthony E. , Gordon Thomas R. , Gregory Nancy F. , Hammond-Kosack Kim E. , Hanson Linda E. , Jímenez-Gasco María del Mar , Kang Seogchan , Kistler H. Corby , Kuldau Gretchen A. , Leslie John F. , Logrieco Antonio , Lu Guozhong , Lysøe Erik , Ma Li-Jun , McCormick Susan P. , Migheli Quirico , Moretti Antonio , Munaut Françoise , O'Donnell Kerry , Pfenning Ludwig , Ploetz Randy C. , Proctor Robert H. , Rehner Stephen A. , Robert Vincent A. R. G. , Rooney Alejandro P. , bin Salleh Baharuddin , Scandiani Maria Mercedes , Scauflaire Jonathan , Short Dylan P. G. , Steenkamp Emma , Suga Haruhisa , Summerell Brett A. , Sutton Deanna A. , Thrane Ulf , Trail Francis , Van Diepeningen Anne , VanEtten Hans D. , Viljoen Altus , Waalwijk Cees , Ward Todd J. , Wingfield Michael J. , Xu Jin-Rong , Yang Xiao-Bing , Yli-Mattila Tapani , Zhang Ning
Published: February 2013

In this letter, we advocate recognizing the genus Fusarium as the sole name for a group that includes virtually all Fusarium species of importance in plant pathology, mycotoxicology, medicine, and basic research. This phylogenetically guided circumscription will free scientists from any obligation to use other genus names, including teleomorphs, for species nested within this clade, and preserve the application of the name Fusarium in the way it has been used for almost a century. Due to recent changes in the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, this is an urgent matter that requires community attention. The alternative is to break the longstanding concept of Fusarium into nine or more genera, and remove important taxa such as those in the F. solani species complex from the genus, a move we believe is unnecessary. Here we present taxonomic and nomenclatural proposals that will preserve established research connections and facilitate communication within and between research communities, and at the same time support strong scientific principles and good taxonomic practice.
Deliberative Manoeuvres in the Digital Darkness: E-Democracy Policy in the UK
Authors: Moss Giles , Coleman Stephen
Published: February 2013

Research Highlights and Abstract

This article

Critically reviews e-democracy policy thinking in the UK. Surveys and evaluates e-democracy activity in key areas, including online forums, open government and data, e-petitioning, and more recent ‘crowdsourcing’ initiatives. Defends the on-going importance of a more deliberative approach to e-democracy policy and practice.

This paper evaluates the UK Government's e-democracy policy and considers what lesson should be learned for future policy and practice. Despite some isolated examples of success, we argue that policy experimentation in the area has been disappointing overall, especially when compared with the ambitious rhetoric that has surrounded it, and has failed to culminate in a coherent strategy for using the Internet to support democratic citizenship. Our analysis emphasizes the on-going importance of online deliberation in achieving inclusive, informed, and negotiated policy formation and political decision-making. In the absence of inclusive sites and practices of public deliberation, the democratic value of non-deliberative experiments with petitioning and crowdsourcing and recent government efforts to open up public information and data for citizen auditing and evaluation is likely to remain limited.
Can Anchoring and Loss Aversion Explain the Predictability of Housing Prices?
Authors: Leung Tin Cheuk , Tsang Kwok Ping
Published: February 2013

We offer an explanation of why changes in house price are predictable. We consider a housing market with loss‐averse sellers and anchoring buyers in a dynamic setting. We show that when both cognitive biases are present, changes in house prices are predicted by price dispersion and trade volume. Using a sample of housing transactions in Hong Kong from 1992 to 2006, we find that price dispersion and transaction volume are, indeed, powerful predictors of housing return. For both in and out of sample, the two variables predict as well as conventional predictors such as the real interest rate and real stock return.