Bücher veröffentlicht von Cambria Press

Taking as its central argument the question of whether an intelligence system is both desirable and feasible within the UN structure, this study explores the complex and sometimes, irreconcilable issues of strategic intelligence in a sharing context. This study further identifies and develops both conceptual and empirical framework for a viable intelligence capability in multi-agency institutions; exploring and suggesting, for the first time, necessary and acceptable conditions for collective intelligence in an environment characterised by conflicting objectives among international actors. It takes as its main premise the view that the United Nations and the world of intelligence are two separate and contradicting entities that conflict in both principles and operating doctrines. From this point of view, the author explores the many theoretical imperatives which set the two institutions apart and stand in the way of understanding the concepts. He also goes further to examine the contexts in which the contradictions could be harmonised. This book is one of a handful of studies; it is highly original in that it focuses on the relationship between intelligence and the United Nations. While previous efforts to examine the subject have approached it from a strictly practical point of view, this work is clearly focused on the linkages between theory and practice. The methodology is thoughtful and broad in scope, and the work is theoretically well informed and sophisticated in its analysis of the subject matter. The discussion of aspects of the theory of international relations--specifically those relevant to the role of international governance and the examination of the working of the UN--and several case studies of the UN in action are further characteristics of the rigor and clarity in which the author approaches the study in an intelligent and illuminating manner. While the book's many contributions can be found at various levels of originality, its thorough assessment of the linkage between theory and policy stands out, perhaps, as the most important and primary contribution to the areas of collective intelligence and international relations. Other important contributions include the case study analyses and specification of criteria for evaluating collective security intelligence mechanisms. In essence, a lack of scholarly efforts to ground the notion of collective intelligence within a rigorous intellectual framework is a significant vacuum in the study of intelligence which the present study has filled. Scholars working within the international relations discipline and more specifically issues of global governance and security will find this study invaluable. The book should also appeal to many categories of readers working in information and policy environment, as well as governmental and non-governmental organisations.

Tremendous changes have occurred in the field of education over the past generation as emerging technologies, especially the widespread adoption of the internet, have created new opportunities for teaching and learning. The tools and technologies employed in successful distance education ventures are now increasingly blended with traditional instructional formats, creating what is known as blended learning environments. However, these developments have not always been informed by sound instructional design theory. Despite a growing body of experimental and practical knowledge concerning the best teaching practices for blended learning contexts, there still remains a great need for prescriptive guidance to design blended learning environments. Instructional design theories can fill that gap. What are the best strategies for designing instruction for blended learning formats? Which instructional design theories are best suited to accomplish this task? This book proposes to offer some answers to these questions by identifying instructional design theories (i.e., sets of prescriptive strategies for designing instruction), selecting the most promising theory (Pennsylvania State University s Innovations in Distance Education or IDE), applying that theory to a blended learning environment, and using formative evaluation to improve the theory for future applications. Blended learning will continue to be a promising avenue for teaching and learning for the foreseeable future. Many university instructors are already using some aspect of an online or technology-mediated learning environment to supplement, enhance, or extend the traditional learning environment. It is only appropriate that instructional design strategies are provided to guide the development of these learning environments. This book is an attempt to address that need. This book highlights the positive learning outcomes that the IDE instructional design theory can generate for blended learning environments. For example, based on IDE prescriptions, blending learning environments should employ asynchronous discussions. In a small class, an instructor can reasonably participate in and review all discussions. But this work becomes exponentially more time-consuming with each student added to the roster. Asynchronous discussion technology can help an instructor accommodate larger class sizes without sacrificing attending to the individual in class discussions. Furthermore, learner participation in blended learning environments tends to be more substantial as students put more thought and research into their responses since they are not given at the spur of the moment. The IDE theory is valuable in providing specific strategies for designing sustained and extended learning environments. This finding has implications for humanities-based courses where instruction often touches upon issues that are controversial, complicated, or close to the heart for many students. The formative evaluation of the IDE theory demonstrates that blended learning environments can provide learners a sense of safety for exploring challenging topics. When students feel safe to explore new ideas in a non-threatening manner, they are more likely to learn and to grow. Blended learning environments, if one follows the IDE prescriptions, also provide opportunities for all learners to participate, not just those who might dominate a face-to-face classroom thereby intimidating other learners from fully participating. This book adds to the growing evidence that blended learning promises to be a significant step in the evolutionary process of great teaching and learning. It provides solid, straightforward guidance on building robust blended learning, and will be of interest to those in education, particularly instructors and designers of humanities-based college courses. It will also be of interest to instructional design theorists and practitioners seeking guidance in designing blended-learning environments.

Literature and Ethics covers a wide gamut of literary periods and genres, including essays on Victorian literature and modernism, as well as several studies on narrative, but the central ethos emerges from considerations of issues of responsibility and irresponsibility as they find expression in literary study, and in ethics. Students and academics who are interested in literary theory, ethics, narrative form, and issues of authorial responsibility, and how such matters inform the reading of literary texts, will find that this collection offers a wide array of approaches and viewpoints by major figures from the relevant sub-disciplines in literary studies. The collection offers much-timely critical observation on a variety of contemporary authors but also provides critically adventurous commentaries on Victorian literature, and on Indian, African, Irish, and Australian literature. The volume assembles a collection of essays that would illustrate the great diversity of methods by which considerations of responsibility can and do offer insight into a range of literary texts, and theoretical discourses, while also making a contribution to the philosophical question of responsibility (and irresponsibility) in the contemporary world. The collection as a whole testifies to the human fascination with issues of responsibility, just as it testifies to the necessity of posing questions of responsibility as questions of ethics and literature, the necessity of recognizing, in other words, that "responsibility" names a concept whose only ground is the history of those fictional narratives of responsibility and irresponsibility that modern civilization would do well to continue inventing and reflecting upon critically. So whether ethical discourses find expression in theoretical debate--or in and through the sophisticated fictions that constitute an imaginative culture--what is clear, both from wider discussions related to the value of literary texts that are such a central part of contemporary literary studies, and from the varied and nuanced arguments that are made in this collection, is that questions of responsibility are central to literature, philosophy, and the arts, just as they are to the social realities that spawned them in the first place. Literature and Ethics is an important book for all literature and literary theory collections. It has specific resonance for students and teachers who are interested in the value of literary study, and in questions of ethics and narrative.

The Humble and the Heroic: Wartime Italian Americans asks two basic questions: Was an extra measure of loyalty and patriotism required of Italian immigrants because the country of their birth was a declared enemy of their adopted country; and, does their WW II experience offer meaningful insights as to how we should treat other immigrant groups in future conflicts? While the answer to both questions is in the affirmative, the long, arduous, road traveled by the ethnic group has not received the attention it deserves. Their quest for acceptance amidst a path paved with sacrifice, bitter poverty, discrimination, and, for many, the devastating indignity of being designated as "enemy aliens," is worthy of scholarly study. This book, by noted historian Dr. Salvatore J. LaGumina, has received rave reviews. William J. Connell, Professor of History and La Motta Chair in Italian Studies, Seton Hall University , writes:"LaGumina has put it all together for future generations." William J. Connell, Professor of History and La Motta Chair in Italian Studies, Seton Hall University states: "This constitutes a major contribution not only to the field of Italian American studies, but to a wider understanding of American society." Joseph Sciame, National and New York State Past President, Order Sons of Italy in America praises the work saying: We owe Dr. LaGumina a debt of gratitude for emblazoning in our hearts and minds the memories and realities of the early struggles and travails of our grandparents and how their fruits bore freedom to the world, especially during world War II. "

The acquisition of the English article system has been a subject of inquiry for linguists, psychologists, child language specialists, and second language acquisition researchers. Strong interest in the study of the acquisition and uses of English articles can be attributed to a few main factors. First, it is a known fact that second language (L2) learners of English often have difficulty engaging in the use of articles until the very late stages of acquisition. More often than not, they do not ever attain mastery of using articles at the level of a native English speaker. In fact, the misuse of articles is often a marker of a non-native English speaker s having not reached a native English speaker s level. Second, the acquisition of English articles has proven to be a notoriously difficult process because of semantic features, syntax-morphology interfaces, syntax-pragmatics interfaces, and meaning-form connections. This is especially the case for L2 learners whose native languages do not have an article system or have a different article system. Third, interest in the acquisition of English articles by L2 learners is strong because of the challenges faced by ESL/EFL instructors, who are often at a loss on how to respond to the requests of L2 learners for simple and straightforward rules for the use of English articles, as well as how to address the random use of English articles by L2 learners. There is thus a need to develop effective and efficient pedagogy to facilitate L2 learners acquisition of English articles. Fourth, the study of L2 learners acquisition of English articles also provides insight into the general processes of L2 acquisition and helps bring us closer to answers to important questions on interlanguage grammar, the role of L1 transfer, the metalinguistic knowledge that L2 learners employ in learning a new language, and second language acquisition processes. While there are studies concerning the acquisition of English articles and some identifiable stages that are based on various perspectives and different empiric data, with several acquisition sequences for ESL learners proposed, the universality and applicability of those proposed sequences remain to be tested. There are also no studies at present that address how L2 learners distinguish a from an, identify the acquisition process related with the zero article, or present a systematic description of noun phrases in conjunction with the use of articles. This book which details an in-depth longitudinal study of Chinese ESL learners' acquisition process of English articles endeavors to fill this need. It combines a qualitative approach with quantitative methods to understand the acquisition sequence of English articles, using the case of a beginner Chinese ESL learner in an American context. The longitudinal data collected during the 13-month period are first carefully indexed using a qualitative-oriented computer software program and then statistically analyzed by using SPSS. An in-depth examination of different types of articles, as well as their relations with noun phrases and other types of determinants, was then conducted using the perspectives gained from both the accuracy paradigm and the usage pattern. The analyses of the data reveal the acquisition sequence of English articles for the Chinese ESL learner. The data indicates that the acquisition of different types of articles can be identified and grouped into distinctive developmental stages in terms of semantic functions and variation patterns. While the findings from this study challenge several claims documented in current L2 research literature on one hand, it also casts some much-needed light on the acquisition processes of English articles by Chinese ESL learners. This is an important book for scholars interested in second language acquisition, child language development, language learning and teaching, and Chinese learners of English.

This book explores the various facets of the relationship between minorities and the state across Africa. The motivation for this collection lies in the growing need to understand the often tenuous relationship between minorities and the state. Through this collection, the editors and contributors present thoughtful ways for understanding forms of hegemony imposed by dominant groups in relational, national, and regional experiences. The book offers alternative conceptual and theoretical approaches and alternative research strategies for dealing with minority/majority issues, as well as resource control in historical and contemporary perspectives. This interdisciplinary framework draws into dialogue critical theories in the humanities and social sciences and brings together the discourses of scholars, policy makers, and activists whose experiences have led them to face forms of hegemonic control within the state. The relevance of minorities in state structures, issues of identity, human rights, and race as broadly conceived concepts, would serve well in informing new theories in this era of globalization. This volume consists of a set of nested themes that present minorities issues as fluid, contested, and under continues transformation, especially when examined within the larger context of a globalized human right agenda. The collection focuses on minority issues in contemporary Africa from a historical perspective, but also links these issues to global movements (such as international human rights) in an innovative manner. This book employs a cross-regional approach to explore specific issues in minority-state relations and human rights. This unprecedented approach holds the potential of serving as a foundation study for future research that seek to employ a comparative approach to specific issues in minority and human rights studies.

This book is an intellectual and cultural history about one of the most striking phenomena in all of nineteenth-century culture-namely, the interaction of nationalism and music. Nearly all the nation-building movements that swept across Europe in that century found some of their most influential and lasting expressions through the art of nationalist composers who took an active part in those movements. The political, intellectual, and artistic story behind some of the greatest musical works of the time and the artists who created them is the book''s focus.Beginning with a theoretical explanation of the relationship between nationalism and music, three composers then come forward to stand at the center of the analysis: Richard Wagner in Gemany, Bedrich Smetana in the Czech lands, and Edvard Grieg in Norway. Their political and artistic projects to create a national music for their countries are the topic of the second chapter. The third chapter explores in detail the essential role that folk music played in nationalism as an attempt to fuse artistically the urban and rural populations into one national whole.The fourth chapter discusses the conflicts within nationalist movements over foreign artistic influence on the national culture. The international dimensions of nationalist music are the subject of the fifth chapter, examining Wagner''s, Smetana''s, and Grieg''s aspirations for their art to represent their nations to the world. Finally, the concluding chapter offers a sweeping overview of nationalist composers and their works for a probing historical summary of music''s contribution to nation building.As one of the very few broad, comparative studies of nationalist music, Music Makes the Nation is an essential resource for students and scholars in history and musicology. In addition, as a groundbreaking analysis of the socio-political functions of nationalist music, the book will be of interest to those studying nationalism and political science.

With the expanding use of the World Wide Web in society, American libraries have undergone massive changes. This new information tool has provided both opportunities and challenges to libraries of all kinds. To have a better understanding of the World Wide Web, the roles libraries and librarians have played in its development and use, and the interactions between the library and the Web cannot be overlooked. How do American librarians define their roles in the changing environment, and how do they understand and appropriate the Web in their profession and work place? Previous studies have shown that the knowledge, perceptions, and expectations people have about a technology may influence the ways they react and use the technology. This study examines how librarians have perceived the World Wide Web from its early implementation to 2003, how the Web is appropriated and used in libraries, and provides a deeper understanding of Web use in libraries, and yields new insights into the future development of both libraries and Web technologies. Policy makers evaluating and planning information policies at different levels and system developers designing technology applications for use in libraries will find this book to be a valuable guide.

This book is a journey deep into the heart of patriotism. It begins with a review of the current body of research, integrating the phenomenon's definitions and sharpening our ability to draw its exact outlines. It does so by extracting the attributes that shape patriotism as well as the components that form it and then analyzing them through worldwide historic examples of patriotic behavior. Once an understanding of the attributes of patriotism and its components is established, the Israeli case study is examined. The Israeli case study offers a scientific opportunity to investigate patriotism in the context of a long historical period of history and through different facets of life. At the same time, however, it is important to point out that this study holds a perspective far beyond the specific times and places upon which the empiric data has been founded. This book is about patriotism in a large spectrum, crossing boundaries of country, nation or era, and its fundamental target is to locate and decode the very basic machinery of how patriotism thrives. One preliminary mission that lays basic foundations for any discussion concerning patriotism is coherently integrating its various descriptions from the assortment of scholarly literature. By doing so, this book adds to the current corpus of research an important layer for any further comprehension of the inquired phenomenon. The major goal of this study is to uncover which social variables are capable of encouraging or discouraging patriotism. In other words, it aims to locate the basics of the social machinery that motivates individuals to set aside their personal well being and sacrifice their resources for the sake of the common good. However, this research also examines the social predictors of patriotism through a quest for the hierarchy of their importance. Following a thorough assessment of each variable, given that in real life none of them act in isolation, the great question is which social factor is dominant and which might practically be counted as ineffective. The book establishes an integrative overview of a relatively understudied social phenomenon. Patriotism has been examined and related to in bibliographical sources to which this study refers; however, this book enables a large overview of the different approaches and integrates a cohesive approach. In addition to the theoretical discussion, the presentation and analyses of empirical date enable a practical evaluation of the concepts that have been developed. Data from large-scale surveys data, together with in-depth interviews, enable a rare opportunity to confirm or to invalidate some existing theories, in particular those focusing on the social conditions for patriotism. All in all, then, this research provides a systematic inquiry of patriotism and its social and political causes. Yet beyond the conclusions stemming from its numerous quantitative and qualitative data, it also presents a holistic point of view and manages to put together the pieces that form one of the most unique social phenomena. Among other findings, the book presents research that invalidates a theoretical concept according to which patriotism is closer to conservatism than to liberalism. Whereas surveys and polls show a tendency of right-wing politicians to be more patriotic than leftists, this book has gone the extra mile of statistically analyzing the data in a multivariate regression; that is, examining how political attitudes affect patriotism in reality, once all the factors act together. This statistical analysis shows clearly how in practice political attitude is very loosely connected to patriotism. In addition to that, the patriotic conservative in-depth interviewees of this study have been inspired to love their country by their political ideologies just like the patriotic liberal interviewees. This finding thus reinforces how the accusations of one political party against another for not being patriotic should be taken with more than a grain of salt. The book will be of interest to specialists and students in the field of the social and political sciences, especially those whose research focus on social behavior in political contexts.

If novelist Paul Mark Scott (1920-1978) has secured a niche in English literature, it is on the merits of his Raj Quartet and its sequel, Staying On, for which he won the Booker Prize in 1977. Yet by the time he had published The Jewel in the Crown in 1966, he had supported his family on his writing for six years, worked as a literary advisor for several publishers, routinely written book reviews for The Times, the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, and Country Life, and published eight novels. Scott's literary reputation was already considerable when, at the age of 44, he embarked on The Raj Quartet that would take up the last fourteen years of his life-a masterpiece that reinterpreted the major events of his generation and challenged his contemporaries to face the legacy of their past. Beginning in 1964, Scott negotiated with the Harry Ransom Research Center at The University of Texas-Austin for the purchase of his manuscripts. Later, when he was teaching creative writing at the University of Tulsa in 1976, he arranged to sell his letters to the archives at McFarlin Library. Many years after his death, David Higham Associates (the literary agency for which Scott worked from 1950-1960 and which acted as Scott's own agent until his death in 1978) sold archival materials to the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas-Austin. Only a limited amount of material from McFarlin's Paul Scott Collection has been published to date. The David Higham Collection has not been systematically used until now. Together, the Tulsa and Austin Collections involve many thousands of Scott's professional and personal letters, to a large degree untapped by scholars of literature. In this two-volume collection, Janis Haswell makes available to the reading public for the first time several hundred letters from the Tulsa and Austin archives, as well as dozens of private letters to daughters Carol and Sally Scott. Scott's letters never disappoint. They are intriguing, well-penned and (in most cases) well-preserved in carbon form by Scott himself. They explore in depth and detail available nowhere else his view of the themes and structure of his novels; his experience and views of India; his dealings with publishers, agents, critics, readers, and writer friends (the likes of Muriel Spark, Gabriel Fielding, M. M. Kaye); his role as an agent and influential reviewer of fiction; his trials in supporting himself and family as a freelancer; his experience as a teacher in the United States; and his love and loyalty to family and friends.

The rise of the internet as a global trading platform has focused increased attention on trust in business relations. Ebay is just one example of the thousands of online auctions and exchanges that facilitate transactions among parties who may not be able to directly communicate. In these exchanges, trust is facilitated through the use of rating systems. Research indicates that trust is positively related to consumer willingness to pay higher prices and disclose information. This pioneering study shows that in addition to trust, a value congruence strategy can be employed to charge higher prices and increase disclosure of personal information. Value congruence reflects shared beliefs between the firm and the consumer. In fact, the author finds that value congruence is more powerful than trust in fostering these desired outcomes.Value Congruence and Trust Online is must reading for any business scholar or executive concerned with pricing, privacy issues, and marketing strategy online. Marketing academics will also find great value in the rigorous and detailed method and model employed. The results are a significant advance in our understanding of how to effectively market online.

In 1894 Jesus appeared in a dream to Rainisoalambo during a period of intense national crisis shortly before the French colonial invasion of Madagascar. An educated member of the southern highlands aristocracy, Rainisoalambo was also a traditional medicine man who had fallen into grave difficulty. Being stricken with a case of then-rampant leprosy, his business had vanished and he and his family were starving. In this vision, Jesus told Rainisoalambo to put away his sampy, the small idols and charms he used for his traditional divining and healing. When he awoke, he found that he was healed. He quickly got rid of his charms and began a new life of fervent prayer, witnessing to his neighbors about what had happened, and reading the gospels with new eyes, as current reality rather than ancient reports of the far-away dealings of the white man's god. A group of believers soon gathered around him. Within a year of intense activity they had formally organized themselves at Soatanàna into what we would now call a base community, the Disciples of the Lord. Their simple rules called them to lives of economic sharing and self-sufficiency, cleanliness and orderliness in their persons, houses, and lands, learning to read the Bible, daily communal prayers and study, and sending out apostles and evangelists to establish other such households and communities. This was the beginning of what is now called the Fifohazana, or Awakening. More than a century later the movement comprises several tobys, or base communities, following the appearance of several more prophets, female and male, and their miracle-working. The members of the movement, or mpiandry, live throughout the island, some in the tobys but most in the cities and villages as members of a variety of churches. The Fifohazana continues to stress spiritual healings, exorcisms, personal service to the poor and sick, cleanliness, prayer, Bible study, and witnessing. This volume provides the reader with a very clear understanding of what the Fifohazanamovement is all about historically, theologically, in terms of the main characters involved, its tremendous contributions to what a Christian healing ministry might ideally be, and as it relates to the larger world of church and society. The book is strengthened by the contributions of a diverse international group of scholars and participants in the movement. This has fostered the creation of an authentic piece of research, which combines the actual voices of participants within the movement itself along with the perspectives of scholars, who analyze the movement from the external periphery. This is the first book-length treatment of the Fifohazana in English. Editor Cynthia Holder Rich has gathered contributions from authors from five countries, including several members of the movement, to offer several perspectives onto the history and current life of the movement. Articles include analysis of major movement leaders, the place of healing in the movement, history of the conflict between the missions and the movement, the significance of oral expression in proclamation and as a means of revival, the role of women as leaders in the movement, and theological issues. The Fifohazana is one of the most intriguing current instances of indigenous Christianity in the world. While the movement has greatly evolved and changed in over a century, Jesus continues to appear and raise up new leaders. Various branches of the movement have developed a variety of institutions, but the movement has not lost its power of transformation and change. The Fifohazana: Madagascar's Indigenous Christian Movement is an important volume for research libraries, universities, African studies institutions and theological schools.

The focus of this book is on Chinese immigration in the past two decades and its spatial manifestations in Britain. A major argument in this study is that if the 1980s can be recorded as a turning point in the history of Chinese immigration to Britain because the decade marked a substantial increase in and a diversity of Chinese immigrants, it should also be considered a landmark in contemporary British urban history as it featured a major transformation in the Chinese urban landscape. This book examines how changes in the contexts of exit and reception have stimulated quantitative and qualitative changes in Chinese immigration, and how these changes in immigration facilitate the development of Chinatowns and Chinese settlements.