The Telephone as a Medium of Faith,Hope, Terror,and Redemption: America,September 11

This article explores how ordinary people used telephone technology during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the USA. Personal emergency communication is heavily imbued with emotional meaning. These messages address major life problems and values, such as leaving final messages and expressing love and concern, sometimes requiring extreme efforts. They also show that formal technical characteristics of media, and boundaries across media, are not particularly salient to people who have pressing personal and social communication needs.     

Universal Service from the Bottom Up: A Study of Telephone Penetration in Camden, New Jersey

Ethnographic methods and geographic information systems were used to investigate the extent, causes and consequences of telephone disconnection in Camden, NJ. The results have significant implications for public policies intended to promote universal telephone penetration. Universal service is usually perceived as an issue for rural areas and the elderly, but the most extensive pockets of low telephone penetration are found in inner cities, where the problem is associated with the young, the transient, and ethnic minorities. The basic monthly rate paid by subscribers is usually thought to be the most important factor affecting affordability, but the data suggest that most marginal users are driven off the network by usage-related costs, and more generally by the problem of credit-worthiness. Given prevailing consumption patterns in low-income urban areas, 'electronic redlining' seems less of a threat than that poor Americans will, upon exposure to the advanced features of the national information infrastructure (NII), buy services that they cannot afford. Intellectuals and policy analysts value telephone service more than cable television service, but residents of inner cities frequently do not agree with this evaluation. In reformulating universal service policy, we must take account of the growing heterogeneity of telecommunications services, and keep in mind the importance of credit risk as a factor affecting the public's ability to access and use telecommunication networks.     

语音识别技术概述

语音识别主要指让机器听懂人说的话,即在各种情况下,准确识别出语音的内容,从而根据其信息执行人的各种意图.根据作者的工程开发实践,本文从语音识别技术、识别方法和识别程序设计编写等方面,详细地概述了语音识别技术.     

Taming Noisy Women

This paper focuses on women who worked at Bell Telephone Company in the USA during 1930s and 1940s as telephone operators, and the training programmes they went through. Transmission of information depended on their actions because they had to facilitate the switchboards, and therefore held a crucial position as part of the communication channel. Thus, Bell felt they should tune their ‘bad’ behaviour which embodied noise in their systems. In order to maintain equilibrium, Bell enmeshed Michel Foucault’s disciplinary and biopower forms of governmentality and developed a hybrid form. This combination was seen in their flagship training programme, A Design for Living, where Bell penetrated operators’ bodies and minds, inside and outside work. When the operators revolted, Bell realised power should be exercised through automated dial machines. This would then become an inspiration for cybernetics who aimed to control communication systems that constructed information’s correct behaviour, and consequently users.     

基于AT89C52的家用智能电话控制电器和智能报警系统装置

本控制系统是基于电话网络开发的、以单片机AT89C52为核心的家用智能电话控制电器和智能报警系统装置。利用电话网传输数字和语音信息,远程控制部分接收电话网发送来的DTMF信号,对其进行解码,解码后由中央处理器AT89C52分析是哪种情况后做出相应的电器开启和关闭;智能报警部分利用DTMF芯片通过电话网向用户发送报警信息从而完成智能报警。本系统设计实用,功能灵活多样,可靠性高,操作方便,可以广泛地应用于家庭或者其它场所的安全防范和智能控制。     

Social and legal ramifications of a child crisis line

The article suggests the importance of a crisis line for children as a way of making it easier for them to report when they are abused or neglected. The Childhelp Line set up in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1982, has shown that such a service is effective in reaching critical child and family situations not previously known to helping professionals. The Line is manned by carefully selected and trained volunteers. This has proved to have significant advantages, particularly in the absence of mandatory reporting of child abuse. The article also looks at the ambivalence towards the Childhelp Line expressed by parents, children, counselors, and the community, and at the legal issues raised by the service.     

Telephone Testing and Teacher Assessment of Reading Skills in 7-year-olds: I. Substantial Correspondence for a Sample of 5544 Children and for Extremes

Many research questions require the assessment of reading in large samples of children. We compared two nonconventional procedures for early reading assessment: test administration by telephone, and teacher assessment. Five thousand five hundred and forty four children participating in a longitudinal twin study were assessed by telephone using the Test of Early Word Reading Efficiency, and by their teachers using the UK National Curriculum criteria. A correlation of 0.69 was obtained between the TOWRE and Teacher Assessment for Reading. There was also good agreement between the two procedures for identification of children at the lower extreme. Both appear to be practical and valid for research studies.     

Comparison of an SMS text messaging and phone reminder to improve attendance at a health promotion center： A randomized controlled trial

Objective To compare the efficacy of a short messaging service (SMS) text messaging and phone reminder to improve attendance rates at a health promotion center. Methods A total of 1 859 participants who had scheduled appointments in the health promotion center of our hospital from April 2007 to May 2007 were enrolled in the study and randomly assigned into 3 groups control (no reminder) group, SMS text messaging reminder group and telephone reminder group. Attendance rates and costs of interventions were collected. Results A total of 1848 participants were eligible for analysis. Attendance rates of control,SMS and telephone groups were 80.5%, 87.5% and 88.3%, respectively. The attendance rates were significantly higher in SMS and telephone groups than that in the control group, with odds ratio 1.698, 95% confidence interval 1.224 to 2.316, P=0.001 in the SMS group, and odds ratio 1.829, 95% confidence interval 1.333 to 2.509, P＜0.001 in the telephone group. However, there was no difference between the SMS group and the telephone group (P=0.670). The cost effectiveness analysis showed that the cost per attendance for the SMS group (0.31 Yuan) was significantly lower than that for the telephone group (0.48 Yuan). ConclusionSMS and telephone are effective reminders for improving attendance rate at a health promotion center. SMS reminder may be more cost-effective compared with the telephone reminder.