Speech and the “new” philosophies

Speech philosophy, in the face of the current anti‐intellectualism, deals with the place of rational‐logical elements in discourse. The author argues for the supremacy of reason in communication, and calls for neo‐classical communicative logic fused with the social direction of thought. Such a goal inevitably incorporates value judgments. Thus the intellectual, logical, and ethical components are an unbroken continuum in their expression and effect.     

Telecommunications

SILICON VALLEY FEVER: GROWTH OF HIGH-TECHNOLOGY CULTURE by Everett M. Rogers and Judith K. Larsen (New York: Basic Books, 1984---$19.95)

TECHNOSTRESS: THE HUMAN COST OF THE COMPUTER REVOLUTION by Craig Brod (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1984---$16.95)

THE NAKED COMPUTER: A LAYPERSON'S ALMANAC OF COMPUTER LORE, WIZARDRY, PERSONALITIES, MEMORABILIA, WORLD RECORDS, MIND BLOWERS AND TOMFOOLERY by Jack Rochester and John Gantz (New York: William Morrow, l983---$15.95)

TELEMATICS AND INFORMATICS edited by Indu B. Singh and Jay Liebowitz (Pergamon Press, Fairview Park, Elmsford, NY 10523----$95.00 institutions/$45.00 to individuals, quarterly)

MICROCOMPUTER COMMUNICATIONS: A WINDOW ON THE WORLD by Barbara E. McMullen and John F. McMullen (New York: John Wiley, 1983---$14.95, paper)     

Learning to rank query suggestions for adhoc and diversity search

Query suggestions have become pervasive in modern web search, as a mechanism to guide users towards a better representation of their information need. In this article, we propose a ranking approach for producing effective query suggestions. In particular, we devise a structured representation of candidate suggestions mined from a query log that leverages evidence from other queries with a common session or a common click. This enriched representation not only helps overcome data sparsity for long-tail queries, but also leads to multiple ranking criteria, which we integrate as features for learning to rank query suggestions. To validate our approach, we build upon existing efforts for web search evaluation and propose a novel framework for the quantitative assessment of query suggestion effectiveness. Thorough experiments using publicly available data from the TREC Web track show that our approach provides effective suggestions for adhoc and diversity search.     

The Effect of Newspaper Coverage of Influenza on the Rate of Physician Visits for Influenza 2002–2008

The effect that newspapers had on patients visiting physicians for influenza was examined for 2002 to 2008. The basis for this investigation rests on theories of media effects drawn from agenda setting, media hype, and the Social Amplification of Risk Framework. It was hypothesized that controlling for the rate of influenza, a positive relationship exists in which increases and decreases of newspaper attention to influenza precede increases and decreases in the percentage of patients visiting physicians for flu symptoms. The percentage of visits and the percentage of positive flu tests are taken from the Centers for Disease Control's flu report. Media attention was located through the Lexis/Nexis database as words per week in stories having flu in the headline in 32 newspapers. Time series analysis shows that controlling for autoregressive and seasonal effects, and the actual rate of disease present, news attention in the previous week accounts for a statistically significant portion of the increase and decrease in the number of individuals who go to their physician reporting influenza-like symptoms. Reverse causality was examined. It was shown that controlling for autoregressive and seasonal effects, patient visits did not predict news coverage, whereas the rate of the flu in the previous 3 weeks did.     

Attributional support: Targeting attributions underlying recipient emotions

The attribution theory of emotion (Weiner, 1986) is presented as a common example of a naïve theory finding that people expect attributions of personal control and other control to underlie feelings of guilt and anger respectively. The study predicts that supporters use this implicit knowledge to focus their supportive messages on the attributions corresponding to their recipients’ reported emotions. It is also possible that supporters are influenced by their own attributions about support recipients’ problems. The data from 84 college students indicate that the supporters’ intended and actual messages tended to follow their own attributions about their recipients’ situation rather than the attributions implied by the emotions reported by their recipients. It is suggested that some supporters fail to be comforting to their recipients because they do not perceive the situation in the same way as their recipients, and may therefore try to change their recipients ‘ perceptions of their problems.     

从专业教育视野看参考咨询与信息服务过程模型

二十多年来,参考咨询与信息服务日益介入电子世界,而逐渐远离图书馆的参考咨询台和纸质馆藏.本文介绍一项基于不断变化的环境针对参考咨询与信息服务进行的研究,旨在分析两个研究问题:①从用户和馆员行为及其所利用信息源的角度来看,当前参考咨询与信息服务活动有哪些趋势?②当前参考咨询过程的基本模型是什么?作者通过焦点访谈法搜集承担参考咨询与信息服务专业课程教师的意见,并通过自由讨论的形式征集其他专业课程教师和博士研究生有关虚拟参考咨询教育的看法.研究结果表明,参考咨询模型具有明显的互动性和合作性,其中参考馆员和用户均扮演信息获取、信息接收和信息生成的角色.论文提出参考咨询过程的模型,并分析这一模型对参考咨询与信息服务活动产生的影响.图1.参考文献63.     

The Impact of Multidirectional Item Parameter Drift on IRT Scaling Coefficients and Proficiency Estimates

Item parameter drift (IPD) occurs when item parameter values change from their original value over time. IPD may pose a serious threat to the fairness and validity of test score interpretations, especially when the goal of the assessment is to measure growth or improvement. In this study, we examined the effect of multidirectional IPD (i.e., some items become harder while other items become easier) on the linking procedure and rescaled proficiency estimates. The impact of different combinations of linking items with various multidirectional IPD on the test equating procedure was investigated for three scaling methods (mean-mean, mean-sigma, and TCC method) via a series of simulation studies. It was observed that multidirectional IPD had a substantive effect on examinees' scores and achievement level classifications under some of the studied conditions. Choice of linking method had a direct effect on the results, as did the pattern of IPD.     

From stories of staying to stories of leaving: a US beginning teacher’s experience

This narrative inquiry traces a beginning teacher’s unfolding career over a six-year period in a diverse middle school in the fourth largest city in the USA. The work revolves around two conceptualizations: ‘stories to live by’ and ‘stories to leave by.’ How these identity-related phenomena surface and play out in an entry-level teacher’s experiences become revealed. The stories of experience lived and told, and relived and retold, illuminate the influence of context on beginning teachers’ knowing. The interwoven nature of educators’ lives also forms a major theme. In the final analysis, the beginning teacher’s ‘stories to live by’ are no longer able to sustain her in her urban teaching milieu. Shifting occurs and ‘stories to leave by’ prevail.     

A narrative inquiry into schooling in China: three images of the principalship

This narrative inquiry exploring contemporary Chinese schooling involved three researchers who worked collaboratively as a team. Each researcher resonated with a different image of the principalship embedded in the storied account proffered by Xu Xiaozhang 校长, leader of Hexie Elementary School in Tianjin, China. (1) Principal as the lead teacher; (2) principal as an agent of a harmonious learning community; and (3) principal as a teacher-maker were the images Principal Xu held and expressed. In the interpretive analysis, Xu Xiaozhang’s images of principal were nested one within the other in ways that brought Deweyan pragmatism and Confucian thought fruitfully together. The subtle nuances of the images provide an upclose view of schooling on one elementary campus in China that is of international interest and value.     

From Wimsey to The Wire: Distracting Discourse and Attentional Practice

This essay explores the intervolvement of attentional practice and discursive action. Drawing on Michael Polanyi's phenomenology, I examine occasions when discourse does not sound like deliberate utterance and when attention does not look rationally focused—but when both are rhetorically inventive. Taking a cue from the growing (though conceptually and historically thin) self-help literature on attention and mindfulness, I examine the sometimes distracting speech of that paragon of attentiveness, the fictional detective. Dorothy Sayers’ witty sleuth, Wimsey, and The Wire's profane investigators, Bunk and McNulty, practice transgressive speech that seems nonsensical, but which animates and extends indirect attention for the sake of solving problems in bewildering conditions. These case studies in crime fiction strengthen rhetorical scholarship on embodiment, affect, and verbal inadvertency by locating deliberative dimensions in apparently indeliberate discourses. This essay concludes by conceptualizing the communicative practice that modulates indirect attention, referring to its transgressive nonsensicality as a rhetoric of idiocy.