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Learn the simple techniques straight A students are using everyday to get an unfair advantage over you in the class room. You will be shocked to learn just how simple these techniques really are to use!

I guarantee you that you will learn everything you need to know about more effective study in this ebook or your money back! ... Read more

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We are always reminded that exercise could do wonders for the body. Aerobics, a kind of exercise which helps your body use more oxygen while maintaining your target heart range, can definitely help a person live longer and healthier. There are studies showing that 30 minutes of aerobics every day would benefit the body a lot. ... Read more

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In a total war, each person in the Nation should do nearly as possible that thing for which he is best equipped. The War Manpower Commission and the Selective Service System recognize this principle and propose to leave in industry the irreplaceable worker and to allow employers time to procure and train replacements for those who are taken into the armed forces. The Manning Table Plan is a method developed by the staff of the War Manpower Commission and the Selective Service System to assist management in accomplishing the foregoing. Paul V. McNutt, Chairman, War Manpower Commission. Lewis B. Hershey, Director, Selective Service System.--p. 2. ... Read more

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Diana E. Forsythe was a leading anthropologist ofscience, technology, and work who pioneered the field of theanthropology of artificial intelligence. This volume collects herbest-known essays, along with other major works that remainedunpublished upon her death in 1997. It is also an exemplar of howreflexive ethnography should be done. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Must-Read for Those Developing Online Health Systems
I first met Diana Forsythe at the 1992 annual meeting of the American Medical Informatics Association. She was one of the few people I'd met who shared my interests in Information Technology's potential to empower patients.

Diana told me about a recent study she'd done in which the physicians caring for migraine patients had little idea of their patients' chief concerns and thus did a woefully inadequate job of dealing with their information needs. Most of the patients had never even asked their doctors the question that concerned them most during the long painful attacks they sometimes experienced-"could I die of this?" Since the doctors all knew that no one dies of migraines, they considered this a trivial and irrelevant concern and somehow discouraged questions about it.

Over the months that followed, Diana and I had several wonderful long conversations about the need to understand and rethink some of the tacit assumptions of current healthcare system as a necessary prelude to attempting to computerize it. And so, like many of her other friends and colleagues who had been impressed by her brilliance and touched by her intellectual generosity, I was heartsick, some years later, when I learned that she had drowned in a raging river while backpacking in Alaska.

A group of her concerned colleagues, worried that her remarkable articles and talks might be lost, banded together and convinced Stanford University Press to publish a volume containing her collected works. The book, long in preparation, has just been published. It is entitled: "Studying Those Who Study Us: An Anthropologist in the World of Artificial Intelligence, by Diana E. Forsythe (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2001 ISBN 0-8047-4203-0)

If you are a clinician or medical informatics professional interested in developing effective IT systems for patients, I strongly suggest that you order this book today. And when it comes, turn directly to Chapter Seven: "New Bottles, Old Wine: Hidden Cultural Assumptions in a Computerized Explanation System for Migraine Sufferers." This may be the most insightful paper ever written on the subtle difficulties that typically arise when doctors try to build IT systems designed to be used by patients.

To build effective online health systems for end-users one must combine the knowledge of a medical professional, the skills of a programmer/developer, the perspective of a medical anthropologist, and the wisdom of Solomon. And since Solomon is not currently available, an insightful social scientist like Diana-who can help us see our current healthcare practices from a 'man-from-mars' perspective-can offer invaluable insights.

Selected quotes & summaries:

"Both builders and users of [CHI] systems tend to think of them simply as technical tools or problem-solving aids, assuming them to be value-free. However, observation of the system-building process reveals that this is not the case: the reasoning embedded in such systems reflects cultural values and disciplinary assumptions, including assumptions about the everyday world of medicine."

"The system-builders systematically excluded the possibility that many of the migraines in female patients might be related to domestic violence, even though the ethnographers' interviews suggested that this was indeed the case."

Great collection which explores anthropology & AI
Diane Forsythe was trained in both anthropology and artificial intelligence, and her work offers insights to both of these realms.It's a pleasure to have her work collected and published (posthumously) in this volume. Many of the issues which Diana Forsythe confronted implicitly and explicitly in her work are issues which are of ongoing concern for all anthropologists.Her concerns included the responsibilities, opportunities, and limitations that come with funding sources, and, not unrelated, the numerous challenges associated with `studying up.'Finally, Forsythe struggled with the difficulty of balancing her participant observation with social action.

Forsythe argued that `studying up' disrupts the `traditional fieldwork narrative,' and at the same time calls into question all that is familiar ground for anthropologists from an ethical and methodological perspective.Often, said Forsythe, this type of participation requires anthropologists to be experts not only in anthropology, but also to some extent in their area of inquiry.As a result, we may have similar skill sets and jobs to those we study, but we may also be competing against them for funding and/or workplace resources.This twist poses a complex ethical dilemma for which anthropologists do not readily have the answers.In addition, informants can read what is being written about them, which results in a new accountability and criticism as part of the research process.

The Medical Anthropology Quarterly article provides one example of the many challenges she encountered in her work.In it, Forsythe argues that computer programs are a product of the culture from which they emerge, and that her intent is to describe how this occurs. She says that the program which was designed to aid migraine sufferers espouses the physicians point of view, and it may in fact reinforce the divide in the doctor-patient relationship rather than improve it.Rather than developing the questionnaire from a social sciences perspective, she describes a team dynamic where a programmer understands this task to be a logical one rather than a social one, and so takes this on as his primary task.As a result, the questions in the tool are structured in such a way that they do not make room for issues like violence against women, which is potentially a major factor in the case of female migraine sufferers.She also says that the composition of the team included no nurses, and, although members of the team were migraine sufferers, they nonetheless spoke with their professional perspective throughout the process, and never with the perspective of a patient.She goes on to describe the nature of the program that was created, saying that it really only answers questions that patients would normally ask in the office, and that, as a result, it did not address any of the needs of the patient that were not addressed in clinic visits.Ultimately, then, the system reinforces the doctor's diagnosis, and provides little to no new information or insights to the patient.Through her description, she offers a set of issues and concerns which change the perception of the project and provide insight into the tool and its limitations.

Many anthropologists have attempted to answer the question of how to be sufficiently engaged and disengaged simultaneously.How can we - or can we - be agents of change in the world we study?Forsythe illustrates the challenges of finding paid work in non-academic anthropology, the complexities of studying up which may accompany that work, and the difficulties with being engaged in critical practice at the same time. ... Read more

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IT audit area study and evaluation mastery reflects professional experience and training.Regarding subject mastery, this booklet contains a detail control system review, analysis, and evaluation process for IT audits; which can be translated, if practiced, into professional experience.Chronologically, this monograph describes required audit steps performed during an audit area assignment.Specifically, internal and external controls study and evaluation are described from an Information System Auditor's perspective, while simultaneously presenting other equivalent audit standards and guidelines.Furthermore, audit risk and testing reassessment are discussed at this monograph's conclusion. ... Read more

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This book explores the political process behind the construction of cyber-threats as one of the quintessential security threats of modern times in the US.

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The technologies emerging from the information technology and bitechnology revolutions present unprecedented goverance challenges to national and international political systems.It is clear that technological innovations are not always benign, and regulations can be an effective way to serve societal objectives.But regulating new technologies can be challenging and can have unintended consequences, which may be as troublesome to society as the problems the regulations were intended to prevent.Accommodating both perspectives raises difficult and complex issues for those who would offer governance approaches. ... Read more

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Copyright is of considerable importance in today's globalinformation society, and the rapid pace of technological developmentshas posed a significant challenge for copyright policymakers andlegislators. The problems international, regional and national bodiesare currently grappling with include:+ identifying and defining the range of rights to cover all theimportant economic methods of exploiting copyright works; + enforcing these rights at a time when all such works have becomecapable of being digitised, transmitted instantaneously and, with orwithout authority, reproduced flawlessly and at minimal cost. Copyright in a Global Information Society examines the scope ofauthors' rights in relation to the exploitation of their works bybroadcasting, whether terrestrial or by satellite, cabling or overcomputer networks, in three important jurisdictions and under relevantinternational conventions. The analysis traces the gradual expansionof the various exclusive rights granted by copyright law in responseto technological developments and puts them in their modern context,focusing on the overarching right of public performance orcommunication. The author argues that the advent of moderntechnologies, which recognise no national boundaries, necessitate theadoption of an internationally harmonised concept of 'communication tothe public' as the primary right applicable to the dissemination ofcopyright works in non-material form. This work is a valuable contribution to the study and understanding ofcopyright law and will be of great interest to academic and practisinglawyers, and to those involved in shaping modern copyright policy. ... Read more

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New information technologies are being applied swiftly to all levels of government service: local, county, regional and even national and international. Information technology (IT) is being used to improve data management and data sharing, planning and decision support, service delivery, and more. Application areas affected by government mandates to improve e-government service include healthcare and safety; law enforcement, security, and justice; education; land use; and many others. Information technology is being used to increase public access to information, to provide more convenient and timely transaction services, and to increase citizen participation in the establishment of government regulations and other processes. DIGITAL GOVERNMENT: E-Government Research, Case Studies, and Implementation provides the field with a definitive, interdisciplinary, and understandable review of recent IT and related research of particular importance to digital government. The book also includes explorations of current and future policy implications, and case studies of successful applications in a variety of government settings.

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The European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) is a European-wide qualification that enables you to demonstrate your competence in computer skills. It covers a range of specific knowledge areas and skill sets, broken down into seven modules. Module 7: Information and Communication is divided into two main sections. The first covers basic Web search tasks using a Web browser and search engine tools. The second addresses the use of electronic mail software to send and receive messages, to attach documents, and to organise and manage message folders and directories. This study guide covers all the knowledge areas and skills required to understand and pass Module 7 of the ECDL syllabus. Throughout we have used clear, jargon free, self-paced exercises to provide you with an understanding of all the key elements to prepare you for the ECDL Test. ... Read more

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Tarski's World 4.0 is an innovative and enjoyable way to introduce your students to the language of first-order logic. Using this program, students quickly master the meaning of the connectives and quantifiers, and soon become fluent in the symbolic language at the core of modern logic. Tarski's World allows the students to build three-dimensional worlds, and to describe them in first-order logic. They evaluate the sentences in the constructed worlds, and if their evaluation is incorrect, the program provides them with a game that leads them to understand where they went wrong. The package is intended as a supplement to any standard logic text, or for use by anyone who wants to learn the language. The disk and manual contain over a hundred exercises from very basic to highly sophisticated. ... Read more