Football hooliganism as a transnational phenomenon: Past and present analysis: A critique – More specificity and less generality

Despite the ongoing globalization of football culture and societies at large, there remain important cross-national and cross-local variations in the level and forms of football hooliganism. These dissimilarities thwart efforts to conceptualize and explain football hooliganism as a homogeneous phenomenon and, more specifically, seriously limit the applicability of dominant sociological theories on the subject. The author illustrates his argument with an examination of international research literature and empirical data on the social composition of one Spanish and one Dutch hooligan group. He argues that comparative research into football hooliganism should move beyond general explanations in terms of societal fault lines and towards a more detailed analysis of hooligans' subcultural identities and social interactions.     

Nuevas perspectivas metodológicas para el estudio del habla egocéntrica

Resumen

Las hipótesis de Vygotski sobre el papel del habla egocéntrica en la regulación de las acciones representa uno de los temas de mayor interés para los estudiosos del binomio pensamiento-lenguaje. Para abrir nuevas vías al análisis de este campo del lenguaje es necesario reflexionar sobre una serie de cuestiones fundamentales, sin las cuales el sentido de estas hipótesis se desvirtúa. Estas quedan reflejadas en los siguientes puntos: a) definición vygotskiana de habla egocéntrica (indiferentiatión entre el habla para los demás y el habla para uno mismo); b) requisitos conversacionales elicitadores de este tipo de habla, los cuales evidencian su origen social (i. e., incremento del número de emisiones egocéntircas cuando el niño actúa en compañía de otros niños); y por último, c) el papel del contexto extralingüistico (i. e., objetos físicos sobre los que se actúa). Dada la gran dependencia del discurso infantil de la situación concreta, el contexto extralingüístico es analizado como un requisito conversational más, responsable del mantenimiento de la conversación (habla social) y del habla egocéntrica asociada a ésta. Finalmente, la revisión de estas cuestiones invita a desarrollar una perspectiva dialógica de análisis a partir de las nociones de diálogo, habla interna y emisión de Bajtin. La perspectiva dialógica permitirá analizar las emisiones de carácter egocéntrico en el contexto lingüístico y/o conversacional en que emergen.     

Separación de palabras (programa correctivo)

RESUMEN

Se describe un programa correctivo destinado a niños con un índice elevado de errores en la unión y separación de las palabras escritas, partiendo de la idea de que cuando esto ocurre es porque el niño no tiene claro el concepto de palabra como unidad. Por ello el procedimiento insiste en que cada niño, a nivel individual, visualice y discrimine auditivamente cada palabra aislada de las otras. El programa consta de ocho pasos, con un índice de dificultad creciente y acumulativo.     

Identities, social representations and critical thinking

This comment on L. Simonneaux and J. Simonneaux paper focuses on the role of identities in dealing with socio-scientific issues. We argue that there are two types of identities (social representations) influencing the students’ positions: On the one hand their social representations of the bears’ and wolves’ identities as belonging to particular countries (Slovenia versus France for bears, France and Italy for wolves), in other words, as having national identities; on the other hand representations of their own identities as belonging to the field of agricultural practitioners, and so sharing this socio-professional identity with shepherds and breeders, as opposed to ecologists. We discuss how these representations of identities influenced students’ reasoning and argumentation, blocking in some cases the evaluation of evidence. Implications for developing critical thinking and for dealing with SSI in the classrooms are outlined.

Through-wall radar imaging using UWB noise waveforms

This paper examines the results of our research on the use of ultrawideband noise waveforms for imaging objects behind walls. The advantages of using thermally generated noise as a probing signal are introduced. The technique of heterodyne correlation used to inject coherence in the random noise probing signal and to collapse the wideband reflected signal into a single frequency are presented. Central to successful imaging through building walls is the characterization of the wideband propagation properties of wall materials and these are discussed. The basic concepts of synthetic aperture radar image formation using noise waveforms and the unique problems associated with the random nature of the transmit waveform are analyzed. We also address issues related to locating, detection, and tracking humans behind walls, using new tools for human activity characterization, namely the Hilbert-Huang Transform approach. The results indicate that noise radar technology combined with modern signal processing approaches is indeed a viable technique for covert high-resolution imaging of obscured stationary and moving targets.     

Improving probabilistic information retrieval by modeling burstiness of words

The classical probabilistic models attempt to capture the ad hoc information retrieval problem within a rigorous probabilistic framework. It has long been recognized that the primary obstacle to the effective performance of the probabilistic models is the need to estimate a relevance model. The Dirichlet compound multinomial (DCM) distribution based on the Polya Urn scheme, which can also be considered as a hierarchical Bayesian model, is a more appropriate generative model than the traditional multinomial distribution for text documents. We explore a new probabilistic model based on the DCM distribution, which enables efficient retrieval and accurate ranking. Because the DCM distribution captures the dependency of repetitive word occurrences, the new probabilistic model based on this distribution is able to model the concavity of the score function more effectively. To avoid the empirical tuning of retrieval parameters, we design several parameter estimation algorithms to automatically set model parameters. Additionally, we propose a pseudo-relevance feedback algorithm based on the mixture modeling of the Dirichlet compound multinomial distribution to further improve retrieval accuracy. Finally, our experiments show that both the baseline probabilistic retrieval algorithm based on the DCM distribution and the corresponding pseudo-relevance feedback algorithm outperform the existing language modeling systems on several TREC retrieval tasks. The main objective of this research is to develop an effective probabilistic model based on the DCM distribution. A secondary objective is to provide a thorough understanding of the probabilistic retrieval model by a theoretical understanding of various text distribution assumptions.     

Effect of the addition of hydroxyl-terminated polydimethylsiloxane to TEOS-based stone consolidants

Hybrid stone consolidants prepared from tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and α,ω-hydroxyl-terminated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS-OH) have been considered as one of the most promising approaches to improve the effectiveness of traditional alkoxysilane-based formulations. They have emerged as response to the negative reports commonly found in the literature: the resulting silica gel phase (SiO₂) tends to develop fractures and fissures inside the stone as the gel shrinks during the drying stage. In this work, we employed SEM, solid-state ²⁹Si NMR spectroscopy and compressive tests to characterize SiO₂-PDMS hybrid gels. We report the morphological characteristics exhibited by gels prepared in vitro and in situ. It was found an appreciable reduction of gel fracture for hybrids prepared from 5% w/w of PDMS. As TEOS polycondenses, PDMS-OH is chemically incorporated into the gel matrix via Si-O-Si bonds. The inclusion of these elastic chains provides the necessary flexibility to resist the stress imposed by capillary pressure. Additionally, an important hydrophobic character is imparted to the stone.     

The Impact of Early Social Interactions on Later Language Development in Spanish–English Bilingual Infants

This study tested the impact of child‐directed language input on language development in Spanish–English bilingual infants (N = 25, 11‐ and 14‐month‐olds from the Seattle metropolitan area), across languages and independently for each language, controlling for socioeconomic status. Language input was characterized by social interaction variables, defined in terms of speech style (“parentese” vs. standard speech) and social context (one‐on‐one vs. group). Correlations between parentese one‐on‐one and productive vocabulary at 24 months (n = 18) were found across languages and in each language independently. Differences are highlighted between previously published monolingual samples, which used the same methods as the current study of bilingual infants. The results also suggest cultural effects on language input and language development in bilingual and bicultural infants.     

Early Adolescents’ Food Selection After Evaluating the Healthiness of Remote Peers’ Food Choices

This study investigates whether asking early adolescents to evaluate the food choices of remote peers improves their own food selection. Participants were students from fifth (N = 219, M_age = 9.30 years) and sixth grades (N = 248, M_age = 10.28 years) of varying nationalities living in the United Arab Emirates (race and ethnicity were not collected). Students saw peers’ healthy or unhealthy food choices before picking their own food. In some conditions, students also critically evaluated the healthiness of the peers’ choices. Evaluation of peer choices led to healthier decisions (d = .53) to the point that it offsets the negative impact of observing unhealthy peer choices. This effect is larger for sixth graders compared to fifth graders.