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Outlines the background to neural computing and the learning abilities of neural networks. Describes the design and operation of the Neural Instruction Set Processor [NiSP], the world’s first dedicated neural computer on a single chip. The key task performed by the NiSP, which forms the basis of most of the current applications of neural computers, is recognising patterns. This makes it deal for applications such as speech, vision and handwriting recognition, biosensing to detecting intruders, and explosive and drug identification. Ends with an example of the use of NiSP in the production of an intelligent vehicle sensor unit to help create a more effective traffic control system.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of some issues and controversies surrounding arguments for regulating cyberspace.

The paper begins with a brief investigation of some background questions such as “What is cyberspace?” and “What is meant by ‘regulation’?” It then considers some distinctions between descriptive and normative aspects of questions involving internet regulation. Next, the paper examines Lawrence Lessig's model, which describes four modes of regulation that can be applied to cyberspace. The paper then considers some recent controversies that have emerged because of “regulation by code” and the “privatization of information policy.”

Cyberspace regulation raises ethical concerns.

Internet regulation is evolving.

The way cyberspace is viewed, either as a “place” or as a “medium,” affects how it will be regulated.

Approach – A handful of studies in ethnomethodology have targeted the conflicts of young members of society (Butler, 2008; Church, 2009; Danby & Baker, 1998a; Maynard, 1985a; Theobald & Danby, 2012, in press). Two occasionally overlapping strands of inquiry may be identified in this research: studies with an interest in charting the local organization of dispute exchanges and those seeking to highlight the socializing aspects of dispute procedures.

Purpose – This chapter examines a single feature of everyday exchanges taking place in a correctional facility for male youth. It investigates the ways through which certain membership category collections (such as ‘gender’ or ‘stage-of-life’) are drawn upon to instigate (Goodwin, M. H. (1982). ‘Instigating’: Storytelling as a social process. American Ethnologist, 9, 799–819.) adversarial exchanges.

Methodology – In so doing, this chapter draws on the two chief strands of ethnomethodological inquiry: sequential analysis of talk as well as membership categorization analysis.

Research implications – The analysis not only allows for a deeper understanding of commonplace discourse practices in a confined correctional facility for young people, but more importantly, of the methods through which inmates draw on local, situational as well as commonsense resources to proverbially ‘rock the boat’, that is, to change the order of ongoing events.

Social implications – In this way, this chapter offers insight into the mundane life of a group of young people in forced care.

The arrival of cheap video equipment would seem to have opened up a whole range of methodological opportunities for the social scientist, especially the sociologist. The poor quality, expense and time-consuming clumsiness of film has over the last ten years been replaced with a flexible and easy to use technology, cheaply available in the high street that enables the researcher to record social action “au naturel.” As a social researcher who has been seduced by this opportunity I would like to comment on the process from the experience of a recent project. Without the breadth of experience to offer anything like a systematic methodology for using video in the social sciences, what I hope to do in this piece is to raise methodological issues that affect every research method but which take on a different quality with visual data. It is remarkable how little film and video data feature within the social sciences. Because of the capability of capturing the visible and hearable actions and interactions of people going about their ordinary life, it would seem to provide a rich source of data for those social scientists interested in studying local social situations. The flow and pattern of life as it is lived is recorded and retained in the moving picture with sound, to become available for close study and multiple replays. The action can be frozen, slowed down and instances separated in time and place easily compared.

To understand the phenomena of people revealing regrettable information on the Internet, we examine who people think they’re addressing, and what they say, in the process of interacting with those not physically or temporally co-present.

We conduct qualitative analyses of interviews with student bloggers and observations of five years’ worth of their blog posts, drawing on linguists’ concepts of indexical ground and deictics. Based on analyses of how bloggers reference their shared indexical ground and how they use deictics, we expose bloggers’ evolving awareness of their audiences, and the relationship between this awareness and their disclosures.

Over time, writers and their regular audience, or “chorus,” reciprocally reveal personal information. However, since not all audience members reveal themselves in this venue, writers’ disclosures are available to those observers they are not aware of. Thus, their overdisclosure is tied to what we call the “n-adic” organization of online interaction. Specifically, and as can be seen in their linguistic cues, n-adic utterances are directed toward a non-unified audience whose invisibility makes the discloser unable to find out the exact number of participants or the time they enter or exit the interaction.

Attention to linguistic cues, such as deictics, is a compelling way to identify the shifting reference groups of ethnographic subjects interacting with physically or temporally distant others.

We describe the social organization of interaction with undetectable others. n-adic interactions likely also happen in other on- and offline venues in which participants are obscured but can contribute anonymously.

Informed by multiple disciplines, theories, and methods, higher education scholars have developed a robust and diverse literature in many countries. Yet, some important (organizational) sociological perspectives, both more established and more recent, are insufficiently linked. In particular, we identify two theoretical strands – institutional and relational – that, when joined, help to explain contemporary developments in global higher education and yield new organizational insights. We review relevant literature from each perspective, both in their general formulations and with specific reference to contemporary higher education research. Within the broad institutional strand, we highlight strategic action fields, organizational actorhood, and associational memberships. Within the relational strand, we focus on ties and relationships that are especially crucial as science has entered an age of (inter)national research collaboration. Across these theories, we discuss linkages between concepts, objects, and levels of analysis. We explore the methodological approach of social network analysis as it offers great potential to connect these strands and, thus, to advance contemporary higher education research in a collaborative era.