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Books in Social sciences and humanities

  • Soviet Population Policy

    Conflicts and Constraints
    • 1st Edition
    • Helen Desfosses
    • English
    Soviet Population Policy: Conflicts and Constraints focuses on the study of population policy in the USSR. The text looks at the problems identified with population, including migration, depopulation of rural areas, and rapid urbanization. The book starts by outlining the development of Soviet census, considering its purposes and methods involved. The text then proceeds by giving information on population dynamics in which the issue of population is seen as inseparable from political, economic, and social concerns. One of the issues discussed is how military manpower can be affected by the problem on population. Another feature of the book is the sector of aging citizens in which it is identified that the country has experienced an increase in the number of pensioners. In this context, a comparison of the retirement systems of the United States and Russia is presented. The book also looks at the relationship of fertility and female work status in the country. The text goes further by discussing the pro-natalist policies of the country in which the reduction in the psychological and material costs of having children is noted. A discussion on the four models used by demographers to emphasize the issues affecting the population is also presented. The book notes that the country’s position on population is rooted in Marxism. Readers who are interested in establishing the relationship of population with other social concerns of a country can find this book worth considering.
  • Transitions and Social Change

    The Early Lives of American Men
    • 1st Edition
    • Dennis P. Hogan
    • English
    Transitions and Social Change: The Early Lives of American Men deals with the timing and synchronization of transition events that signify the passage of American males from adolescence to adulthood. The book is divided into four parts. Part I is an introduction to the study and its data and methods. This part also deals with the passage to adulthood, education, work, and adolescence. Part II covers the intercohort differences in the transition to adulthood. Part III studies the effects of social background differentials such as social class background, the size of the community, and ethnic ancestry to the transition to adulthood. Part IV talks about the possible consequences of early life-course transition behavior, transition to adulthood and marital stability, and social change and the transition to adulthood. The text is recommended for anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, and any experts in the field who wish to know more about the transition of American adolescent males into adulthood, the factors that affect it, and its effects.
  • Can Governments Learn?

    American Foreign Policy and Central American Revolutions
    • 1st Edition
    • Lloyd S. Etheredģe
    • Richard Brody + 2 more
    • English
    Can Governments Learn? American Foreign Policy and Central American Revolutions examines U.S. foreign policy toward revolutions which use Marxist rhetoric, receive material aid from the Soviet Union, and are directed against a repressive government that has been the beneficiary of substantial material and political assistance from the United States. The case material is drawn from the history of American policy in Latin America; the 1954 overthrow of a leftist government in Guatemala; the evolution of Cuban policy from 1958 to 1962; and the repetition of similar policies in the 1980s. This book is comprised of seven chapters and begins by reviewing the history of America's failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, Operation MONGOOSE, and the Cuban nuclear confrontation crisis of 1962. The successful use of the Bay of Pigs model in 1954 (against a government in Guatemala) is examined, along with the U.S. government's contract with the Mafia to assassinate Premier Fidel Castro at the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion. The following chapters look at three vectors reflecting the blockage of government learning: the adoption of similar policies across historical encounters; the repetition of collectively self-blocking behavior within the national security decision process; and the repetition of a common syndrome of errors in judgment and perception. The final chapter analyzes American foreign policy toward Central America in the 1980s and offers suggestions to improve the foreign policy learning rate. This monograph will be of interest to diplomats, politicians, political scientists, and others concerned with international relations.
  • Progress in Behavior Modification

    Volume 15
    • 1st Edition
    • Michel Hersen + 2 more
    • English
    Progress in Behavior Modification, Volume 7 covers the developments in the study of behavioral modification. The book discusses the behavioral intervention with child abuse and neglect; the effects of depression in the mentally retarded; and the critical issues in the assessment of headache. The text also describes social skills training; behavior modification in social work practice; and the outcomes and elements of behavioral contracting. The status of cognitive variables in assertiveness training is also considered. Psychologists and psychiatrists will find the book invaluable.
  • Lexical Ambiguity Resolution

    Perspective from Psycholinguistics, Neuropsychology and Artificial Intelligence
    • 1st Edition
    • Steven L. Small + 2 more
    • English
    The most frequently used words in English are highly ambiguous; for example, Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary lists 94 meanings for the word "run" as a verb alone. Yet people rarely notice this ambiguity. Solving this puzzle has commanded the efforts of cognitive scientists for many years. The solution most often identified is "context": we use the context of utterance to determine the proper meanings of words and sentences. The problem then becomes specifying the nature of context and how it interacts with the rest of an understanding system. The difficulty becomes especially apparent in the attempt to write a computer program to understand natural language. Lexical ambiguity resolution (LAR), then, is one of the central problems in natural language and computational semantics research.A collection of the best research on LAR available, this volume offers eighteen original papers by leading scientists. Part I, Computer Models, describes nine attempts to discover the processes necessary for disambiguation by implementing programs to do the job. Part II, Empirical Studies, goes into the laboratory setting to examine the nature of the human disambiguation mechanism and the structure of ambiguity itself.A primary goal of this volume is to propose a cognitive science perspective arising out of the conjunction of work and approaches from neuropsychology, psycholinguistics, and artificial intelligence--thereb... encouraging a closer cooperation and collaboration among these fields.Lexical Ambiguity Resolution is a valuable and accessible source book for students and cognitive scientists in AI, psycholinguistics, neuropsychology, or theoretical linguistics.
  • Handbook of Research Methods in Human Memory and Cognition

    • 1st Edition
    • C. Richard Puff
    • English
    Handbook of Research Methods in Human Memory and Cognition is a compilation of critical examinations of major contemporary research methods in the area of human memory and cognition. The book covers topics that are defined in terms of experimental tasks and materials, aiming to introduce newcomers to the range of methodologies available and allow flexibility of choices for established investigators on how to attack the problem. Recognition memory, free-recall, and prose memory are discussed in detail. Psychologists and researchers in allied fields will find the book a good reference material.
  • London Docklands

    Urban Design in an Age of Deregulation
    • 1st Edition
    • Brian C. Edwards
    • English
    London Docklands: Urban Design in an Age of Deregulation discusses the process and products of the first 10 years of the London Docklands. The book is comprised of 10 chapters that are organized into three parts. The first part talks about the potentials of the London Docklands. The second part presents the area of studies, which are the Isle of Dogs, Surrey Docks, Wapping, and the Royal Docks. The last part deals with the observations and speculations. The text will be a great source to urban planners, particularly those who are involved in projects that deal with cities that are in close proximity to large bodies of water.
  • Psychology of Music

    • 1st Edition
    • Diana Deutsch
    • English
    The Psychology of Music draws together the diverse and scattered literature on the psychology of music. It explores the way music is processed by the listener and the performer and considers several issues that are of importance both to perceptual psychology and to contemporary music, such as the way the sound of an instrument is identified regardless of its pitch or loudness, or the types of information that can be discarded in the synthetic replication of a sound without distorting perceived timbre. Comprised of 18 chapters, this book begins with a review of the classical psychoacoustical literature on tone perception, focusing on characteristics of particular relevance to music. The attributes of pitch, loudness, and timbre are examined, and a summary of research methods in psychoacoustics is presented. Subsequent chapters deal with timbre perception; the subjective effects of different sound fields; temporal aspects of music; abstract structures formed by pitch relationships in music; different tests of musical ability; and the importance of abstract structural representation in understanding how music is performed. The final chapter evaluates the relationship between new music and psychology. This monograph should be a valuable resource for psychologists and musicians.
  • The Ocean Basins

    Their Structure and Evolution
    • 1st Edition
    • Joan Brown
    • Gerry Bearman
    • English
    This Volume describes the processes that shape ocean basins, determine the structure and composition of the ocean crust, and control the major features of the continental margins. Further subjects examined are the 'hot springs' of the deep oceans, the main pattern of sediment distribution in ocean basins including the recording of past climatic and sea-level changes, and the role of oceans as an integral part of global chemical cycles. Each Volume in this set is well laid out and copiously illustrated with full colour photographs, graphs and graphics. Questions to help develop arguments and/or understanding can be found in the text and at the end of each chapter, with worked answers provided at the back of each Volume. Each chapter also concludes with a sum mary to help consolidate understanding before the next chapter is begun.
  • The Growth of Parliamentary Scrutiny by Committee

    A Symposium
    • 1st Edition
    • Alfred Morris
    • English
    The Growth of Parliamentary Scrutiny by Committee documents the proceedings of a symposium convened by Alfred Morris, a Member of Parliament (MP) for Manchester, Wythenshawe. This book compiles a series of essays written by seven other MPs of the 1966-70 Parliament who are either “for” or “against” the proposed Select Committee on Procedure, which is a committee composed of back-benchers of all parties who specialize in parliamentary procedure. This text also discusses the Select Committee in several departments in the parliamentary, such as science and technology, agriculture, overseas aid, nationalized industries, race relations, and immigration. The role of Britain's “Ombudsman” in the process of parliamentary scrutiny is likewise deliberated. This publication is a good source for students and individuals researching on the select committee system and parliamentary scrutiny.