Two concepts that provide new directions for public policy, environmental justice and sustainability, are both highly contested. Each has tremendous potential to effect long-lasting change. Despite the historically different origins of these two concepts and their attendant movements, there exists an area of theoretical compatibility between them. This conceptual overlap is a critical nexus for a broad social movement to create livable, sustainable communities for all people in the future. The goal of this articleis to illustrate the nexus in the United States. The authors do this by presenting a range of local or regionally based practical models in five areas of common concern to both environmental justice and sustainability: land use planning, solid waste, toxic chemical use, residential energy use, and transportation. These models address both environmental justice principles while working toward greater sustainability in urbanized areas.

SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS (Management of) - a function performed by all music - "music's inability to express unambiguous meaning underwrites its powers to manage situations of social uncertainty" (2)

HONEST SIGNALLING- "revealing the the receiver qualities of the signaller that are relevant to the communicative situation" (3) " Music, as an expression of emotion, constitutes an 'honest signal' in revealing to a listener qualities of the music's producer that are necessarily concomitant on the nature of the signal" (3)

MOOD INDUCTION PROCEDURE - Music can affect and control moods more effectively than other methods.

MANAGEMENT-ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK - Animals make sounds to manage  "their physical and social envireonments rather than to transmit information" (4)

EXPRESSIVE SIZE SYMBOLISM -  A small animal transmits a low frequency to "broadcast an impression of large size" (4)

Cartography of Protest and Social Changes

This panel discussion will take place at Conflux HQ on Sunday, September 14, from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM.

Project Description::

The spread of global positioning systems, interactive geolocating tools and social networks have ensured that mapping is even more fashionable than the new black.

New technologies have not just freed us from the curse of impossibly difficult to fold and unfold paper maps, they have freed geographical data themselves. At least, that’s what it says on the box. Until recently, the representation of territory was coming “from above”. Maps were conceded exclusively by structures of power. Today instead, they are built by individuals who re-frame the urban space according to new coordinates.

The panel will introduce the work of a new breed of cartographers who know that even the most innocent-looking map has its own agenda and that far from being neutral accessories which would merely help you find your way in urban space, maps are often used as instruments for controlling and shaping beliefs. Conversely, maps can be at the service of protest and social change.

Speakers: Lize Mogel, John Emerson and Brooke Singer.
Moderator: Régine Debatty.

Cherneff, Jill BR. " Dreams Are Made like This: Hortense Powdermaker and the Hollywood Film Industry." Journal of Anthropological Research. Vol. 47, No. 4 (Winter 1991), pp.429-440. JSTOR. 9 Apr. 2008. <http://www.jstor.org/action/showArticle?doi=10.2307/3630352&Search=yes&term=dreams&term=hollywood&item=5&returnArticleService=showArticle&ttl=3533&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dhollywood%2Bdreams;gw%3Djtx;prq%3Djeepers%2Bcreepers;Search%3DSearch;hp%3D25>.

           

            This article largely chronicles and responds to Hortense Powdermaker’s study of Hollywood culture in the late 1940s.  In the book, she wrote following her study, Powdermaker highlights the struggle between art and business and Hollywood and suggests the social underpinnings of Hollywood culture determine what types of films are made.  Powdermaker’s original contention is that the Hollywood film has had an impact on human behavior as dramatic as that of the wheel’s invention.  Powdermaker observed that the power of movies lies in it’s depiction of apparent reality—that what appears on the screen looks real and thus must accompany real values and ideas to be absorbed.  The remainder of the article focuses less on Powdermaker’s conclusions and research in order to focus on analyzing the research itself.  The author discusses the challenges facing Powdermaker in reporting on a population unlike those most anthropologists focus on.  Further, the author notices the absence of women in important roles behind the lens in Powdermaker’s research and contextualizes this historically as well as socially. 

            On a superficial level, it is interesting how Powdermaker’s journey in conducting her research mirrors that of Tod in the film The Day of the Locust.  Both leave a successful endeavor at Yale and go to Hollywood for a sociological investigation of sorts—Powdermaker an unbiased anthropological study and Tod an emotional snapshot of Hollywood’s locusts.  Some of Powdermaker’s research sheds light on the images of the industry contained in the film, such as the hierarchy of production and the social constructs behind the films. 

The author, Cerulo, goes on a discovery that questions the formation of one's personal identity based on social interactions within a community. He speaks of the influence of society and social organizations in molding a sense of self. Through a study of social psychology that has transferred its subject from individuals to groups, and by addressing technology as a catalyst that has changed the concept of ‘I' from a physical co-presence to cyberspace identities, the author covers vast grounds to explore the meaning of identity. His theory also speaks of gender and age within a social structure that deeply influence a persons identity, and he goes on to further argue the importance rituals and symbols play to form an entity.

The characters in the movie have personalities that have been profoundly influenced by the caste system they grew up in, as well as their immediate families. The movie is an exploration of their personalities, and tends to draw audiences in as we go on a journey along with these characters. The protagonist, Apu, is a young boy whose identity is a loose combination of facets seen in his sister Durga, as well as in his father. Durga and her father on the other hand, seem to have personalities that match their neighbor's; this alludes to the idea of identity existing in accordance with one's social surroundings. This further goes to show the importance generated by a community on one's personal identity. Durga's overpowering sense of self, along with her father's unusually quiet persona translate beautifully onto Apu, showing the importance of age, and gender in shaping one's identity.  

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ISTE Events in Second Life: ISTE typically hosts in world events twice weekly: every Thursday at 6 PM SLT (that's US pacific time). They host a twice monthly speaker series, a monthly Educator Show and Tell session, and additional chats and discussions, typically on Tuesday evenings at 6 PM SLT.

ABSTRACT

Abstract
In this paper we explore a method of decomposition of compound tags found in social tagging systems
and outline several results, including improvement of search indexes, extraction of semantic information,
and benefits to usability. Analysis of tagging habits demonstrates that social tagging systems such as
del.icio.us and flickr include both formal metadata, such as geotags, and informally created metadata,
such as annotations and descriptions. The majority of tags represent informal metadata; that is, they are
not structured according to a formal model, nor do they correspond to a formal ontology.
Statistical exploration of the main tag corpus demonstrates that such searches use only a subset of the
available tags; for example, many tags are composed as ad hoc compounds of terms. In order to improve
accuracy of searching across the data contained within these tags, a method must be employed to
decompose compounds in such a way that there is a high degree of confidence in the result. An approach
to decomposition of English-language compounds, designed for use within a small initial sample tagset, is
described. Possible decompositions are identified from a generous wordlist, subject to selective lexicon
snipping. In order to identify the most likely, a Bayesian classifier is used across term elements. To
compensate for the limited sample set, a word classifier is employed and the results classified using a
similar method, resulting in a successful classification rate of 88%, and a false negative rate of only 1%.

There are numerous difficulties with collaborative tagging systems (e.g. low precision, lack of collocation, etc.) that originate from the absence of properties that characterise controlled vocabularies. However, such systems can not be dismissed. Librarians and information professionals have lessons to learn from the interactive and social aspects exemplified by collaborative tagging systems, as well as their success in engaging users with information management. The future co-existence of controlled vocabularies and collaborative tagging is predicted, with each appropriate for use within distinct information contexts: formal and informal.
Research limitations/implications – Librarians and information professional researchers should be playing a leading role in research aimed at assessing the efficacy of collaborative tagging in relation to information storage, organisation, and retrieval, and to influence the future development of collaborative tagging systems.
Practical implications – The paper indicates clear areas where digital libraries and repositories could innovate in order to better engage users with information.

ABSTRACT

Collaborative tagging systems, or folksonomies, have the potential of becoming technological infrastructure to support knowledge management activities in an organization or a society. There are many challenges, however. This paper presents designs that enhance collaborative tagging systems to meet some key challenges: community identification, ontology generation, user and document recommendation. Design prototypes, evaluation methodology and selected preliminary results are presented.

Costs of obesity are divided into three categories: direct costs of health care, indirect costs such as loss of economic activity due to illness, and intangible costs which are social and personal losses.