Revisionism and collective memory: The struggle for meaning in the Amistad affair

This essay problematizes “history” and “public memory” by examining their polysemic and polyvalent nature. Collective memories are selectively chosen and highlighted to fit the needs of a particular social group. Ownership of “history” then becomes a hegemonic device that controls our interpretation of the past and subsequent behavior in the future. In the case of the “Amistad Affair, “the ramifications of these choices reached from the early nineteenth century court of law to the Hollywood studio of the late twentieth century. Thus, it serves as a paradigm case of the struggle over who controls the narrative possibilities of history and memory.     

TOXMAP: a GIS-based gateway to environmental health resources

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) has an extensive collection of environmental health information, including bibliographic and technical data on hazardous chemical substances, in its TOXNET databases. TOXNET also provides access to the United States Environment Protection Agency (EPA)'s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data, which covers release of specific chemicals via air, water, and land, and by underground injection, as reported by industrial facilities around the United States. NLM has developed a Web-based geographic information system (GIS), TOXMAP , which allows users to create dynamic maps that show where TRI chemicals are released and that provides direct links to information about the chemicals in TOXNET. By extracting the associated regional geographic text terms from the displayed map (e.g., rivers, towns, county, state), TOXMAP also provides customized chemical and/or region-specific searches of NLM's bibliographic biomedical resources. This paper focuses on TOXMAP's features, data accuracy issues, challenges, user feedback techniques, and future directions.     

The construction of academic publishing and terminological structures using the Google Scholar search engine: An example of environmental terms in publications at the classical universities of Kharkiv and Skopje

A methodology for constructing academic terminological and publishing structures using the Google Scholar search engine is presented. These structures are formed for the classical universities of Kharkiv and Skopje based on the example of basic environmental terms of a general nature that are distinguished in English-language publications. The environmental theme is more actively studied at Kharkiv National University. The first publications produced by the researchers of this university in the considered area of science were written in the early 1980s. An analysis of the most-frequently cited publications that contain the selected environmental terms shows that such publications are often a result of the work of an international team of authors. This is of great importance for the development of journal strategies and policies. By using Google Scholar, one can find significantly more publications on the website of Kharkiv University compared to that of the University of Skopje, due to the electronic open access archive system of publications at Kharkiv University. The frequency of occurrence for publications that contain selected environmental terms is higher in the case of the University of Skopje due to the fact that the publications of this university are poorly represented on the web and also because of their predominantly English-language character.     

科技名词规范化的意义

本文给出了科技名词规范化的定义,对其历史进行了简要回顾;从几个方面探讨了科技名词规范化的意义,指出其对于科学研究、国内外科技合作与学术交流、科技成果的推广应用、科技文献的编辑与情报检索等都是十分重要的。要加速科学技术的发展并提高信息流的质量,就必须实现科技名词术语的规范化。     

The interplay of linguistic universals and cultural knowledge in personal address: Colombian Madre terms

A general question that communication theories seek to answer is what kinds of resources and knowledge must be drawn upon for communication to take place. This essay proposes that the question may usefully be pursued through investigation of personal address. It elucidates ten address terms in Colombian Spanish derived from the central term madre, “mother.” From the data, a functional model of personal address is generated which incorporates both universal resources for communication (the ubiquitous phenomenon of personal address, universal semantic principles that reflect basic human experiences, and metaphorical usage) and cultural resources (a particular set of address terms, a range of intention and interpretation that may be realized, and a system of cultural premises that organizes and makes sensible the terms and actions that constitute the system). Extensions of the study to other forms of personal address and other kinds of communication behavior are suggested.     

The information behaviors of environmental planners: An exploratory study

This paper reports the findings of a study that explored the information behavior of environmental planners in Botswana, with a view to determine how it (information behavior) can be supported by an information policy. Ten environmental planners were purposively selected and interviewed to collect the data. The study found that an information policy for environmental planners should focus on the development of information skills, standards for the organization and storage, transfer and distribution of information, and the evaluation of the information to determine its quality. The lack of a relevant environmental information policy was found to be a barrier to its use. Furthermore, the study also found that the environmental planners make use of people that they know to get easy access to information. The information is found in various organizations. With regards to the environmental experts, it is their trustworthiness and willingness to share information that facilitates the use of information. For the local communities, the experience that the people have about the environment forms an essential part of the information input in environmental planning.     

Diverging discourses: Examining how college students majoring in communication define diversity

Colleges and universities in the United States often promote diversity through a neoliberal lens by framing diversity as a celebration of individual differences or a commodity that students can gain by attending their institution. In communication courses, diversity has been conceptualized through both neoliberal and critical lenses, but limited research has investigated how communication students define and explain diversity. The focus of this study was to understand how communication students define diversity. We performed thematic analyses on open-ended survey responses to investigate how communication students define diversity. Four themes emerged from our analyses: (a) diversity is a mechanism for unifying communities, (b) diversity is an affirmation of individual differences, (c) diversity is a harbinger of acceptance and equality, and (d) diversity is a disruptive force that re-centers the voices of traditionally marginalized people. Our findings indicate most communication students define diversity through a neoliberal lens. However, 3% of our participants conceptualized diversity through a critical lens by explaining that diversity should create space for those who are marginalized to have their voices heard. We conclude by providing recommendations for communication instructors to incorporate more critical conversations about diversity into their classrooms and foster diverging discourses about diversity across communication curricula.     

科技编辑应善待科技新词

基于科技名词是科技信息交流与传播的工具,论述规范使用科技新词是科技编辑的义务和责任,严格执行国家标准、加强使用规范科技名词的权威性与约束力,正确对待、妥善处理全国名词委尚未审定公布的科技新词等几个问题.阐明正确把握与规范使用科技新词在编辑实践中的重要意义.     

Mass media,class, and democracy: the struggle over newspaper representation of the UPS strike

–This paper investigates whether organized labor can challenge the news media's pro-corporate representations of strikes and labor struggles. I studied the coverage of the 1997 UPS strike in three newspapers: USA Today, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. I found that their strike coverage, spanning about 191 articles, went through three distinct phases over the 15-day period. By studying these phases I agree that, for a brief period, public opinion and class solidarity, mobilized on the basis of a strike against corporate mistreatment of workers, played a key role in changing the tone of reporting, particularly in the Post and the Times. During this phase, the contradictions of the 1990s economic recovery and the problems of the working class became an issue of sustained interest in the public sphere. By showing how labor was able briefly to create an “open marketplace of ideas,” the paper concludes with an assessment of the democratizing potential of a politicized labor movement.     

Transnational audience reception as a theater of struggle: young Filipino women's reception of Korean television dramas

This study examines the ‘theater of struggle’ in young Filipino women's reception of Korean television dramas in view of the American cultural imperialism that is deeply entrenched in the Philippine society. Mainly anchored on Gramsci's concept of hegemony and Stuart Hall's encoding-decoding theory, the researcher conducted a reception analysis through a textual analysis of selected Korean television comedy-dramas and focus group discussions with young Filipino women in different colleges. The young Filipino women expressed cultural affinity with the culture, storylines, values, and environment in Korean and other Asian television dramas that have invaded the Philippines in the twenty-first century. ‘Negotiation, resistance, and struggle’, in Hall's sense, against both the liberalism in American dramas and the pre-modern themes in local dramas were manifested in the young women's discourses. Consequently, American cultural imperialism in the Philippines was undermined, challenged, and to some extent subverted. The study also looked into the young women's dominant, negotiated, and oppositional readings of the dominant capitalist patriarchal values and ideologies that were embedded in selected Korean dramas. While there were young female participants who subscribed to global capitalist values showing their cooptation within Western cultural hegemonic domains, the young women largely articulated negotiated readings of capitalist values and oppositional readings with regard to the dominant ideology of capitalist patriarchy. In reading the selected Korean dramas reflexively, the young women identified social pathologies of poverty, class inequality, and capitalist patriarchal values and constructed emancipatory discourses with regard to these.     

Setting the agenda for environmental news: The effects of media and public characteristics

This study examined the relationship between different media agendas and public agendas in the agenda‐setting process. The local and regional media agendas for environmental news in the Lansing, Michigan, area were exactly the same. It was also found that respondents could accurately assess media issue emphasis when they were asked to do so.     

科技名词规范化表达的要求及意义 ——以工程爆破论文为例

科技名词规范化是学术交流和科技发展的有效支撑。阐述了科技名词规范化的意义及术语表达不规范的危害,以工程爆破类论文为例,分析了期刊论文中科技名词使用不规范的几类典型问题,涉及同(近)音字术语混用、概念混淆引起的术语误用、沿用曾称(俗称)和表述不统一等。指出问题原因,结合科技名词的使用要求,探讨了相应的处理策略。提出促进术语规范化工作的建议,建议期刊同人在论文编辑加工中注意和倡导科技名词的规范使用,同时呼吁广大科技工作者关注和重视科技名词的规范化。     

The environmental self and a sense of place: Communication foundations for regional ecosystem management

In order to engage in large‐scale ecosystem management, natural resource managers must take into account the perceptions of citizens living in areas to be managed in a sustainable manner. Among other bases for perception, an individual's “sense of place” and beliefs connecting the self to a larger environment play pivotal roles in the process of attending to advocacy regarding natural resource policies. This study examines the perceptions of individuals living in the Lake Superior basin regarding their identification with a sense of place. Analysis of interview and survey data reveals that interviewees relate themselves to their region and environment primarily by way of “natural” and “social” features in their daily lives and that one's focus on either of the two dimensions, as well as their perceptions of various activities, is mediated by how long they have lived in the area. Implications for the development of ecosystem management communication campaigns are discussed.     

Financial literacy and education: An environmental scan

The article provides an environmental scan of financial literacy activities and information resources. The complex intermingling of economic policies with perceived need for improved financial literacy are touched on. Organizations providing financial literacy and education are identified with their corresponding agendas and available information resources. Reviews of effectiveness of sample financial education programs for adults and K-12 are described. The community is seen as the locus for increasing the availability of financial education for both adults and children, and gaps in best practices are identified.     

Swedish full text retrieval: Effectiveness of different combinations of indexing strategies with query terms

In this paper, which treats Swedish full text retrieval, the problem of morphological variation of query terms in the document database is studied. The Swedish CLEF 2003 test collection was used, and the effects of combination of indexing strategies with query terms on retrieval effectiveness were studied. Four of the seven tested combinations involved indexing strategies that used normalization, a form of conflation. All of these four combinations employed compound splitting, both during indexing and at query phase. SWETWOL, a morphological analyzer for the Swedish language, was used for normalization and compound splitting. A fifth combination used stemming, while a sixth attempted to group related terms by right hand truncation of query terms. The truncation was performed by a search expert. These six combinations were compared to each other and to a baseline combination, where no attempt was made to counteract the problem of morphological variation of query terms in the document database. Both the truncation combination, the four combinations based on normalization and the stemming combination outperformed the baseline. Truncation had the best performance. The main conclusion of the paper is that truncation, normalization and stemming enhanced retrieval effectiveness in comparison to the baseline. Further, normalization and stemming were not far below truncation.     

Variations in Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) mapping: from the natural language of patron terms to the controlled vocabulary of mapped lists

Objectives: This study compared the mapping of natural language patron terms to the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) across six MeSH interfaces for the MEDLINE database.Methods: Test data were obtained from search requests submitted by patrons to the Library of the Health Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, over a nine-month period. Search request statements were parsed into separate terms or phrases. Using print sources from the National Library of Medicine, Each parsed patron term was assigned corresponding MeSH terms. Each patron term was entered into each of the selected interfaces to determine how effectively they mapped to MeSH. Data were collected for mapping success, accessibility of MeSH term within mapped list, and total number of MeSH choices within each list.Results: The selected MEDLINE interfaces do not map the same patron term in the same way, nor do they consistently lead to what is considered the appropriate MeSH term.Conclusions: If searchers utilize the MEDLINE database to its fullest potential by mapping to MeSH, the results of the mapping will vary between interfaces. This variance may ultimately impact the search results. These differences should be considered when choosing a MEDLINE interface and when instructing end users.