Search results

The Debye theory of dielectric relaxation as corrected for inertial effects has as yet been only considered in the linear approximation. There, the rise and decay transients are identical. Here a method recently developed for the treatment of a rotator in a periodic potential is applied to calculate the transient behaviour when the linear approximation is discarded. The Kramers equation for the problem is expanded in a set of orthogonal functions which lead to a set of linear differential difference equations giving the relaxation behaviour. It is shown that the Mori formalism for the problem leads to the same set of differential difference equations as the Kramers equation.

What insights might attending to the cyclical history of colonially imposed environmental change experienced by Indigenous peoples offer to critical intellectual projects concerned with race? How might our understanding of race shift if we took Indigenous peoples' concerns with the usurpation and transformation of land seriously? Motivated by these broader questions, in this chapter, I deploy an approach to the critical inquiry of race that I have tentatively been calling anticolonial environmental sociology. As a single iteration of the anticolonial environmental sociology of race, this chapter focuses on Native (American) perspectives on land and experiences with colonialism. I argue that thinking with Native conceptualizations of land forces us to confront the ecomateriality of race that so often escapes sight in conventional analyses. The chapter proceeds by first theorizing the ecomateriality of race by thinking with recent critical theorizing on colonial racialization, alongside Native conceptualizations of land. To further explicate this theoretical argument, I then turn to an historical excavation of the relations between settlers, Natives, and the land in Rhode Island that is organized according to spatiotemporal distinctions that punctuate Native land relations in this particular global region: the Reservation, the Plantation, and the Narragansett.

This chapter examines the continued presence of sexualized violence against girls and gender nonconforming/lesbian, gay, trans* or inter* students in education. It discusses endeavours to establish ‘true’ safe spaces as preconditions for and effects of efforts to prevent or minimize sexualized violence. It shows thereby that debates on safe or even brave spaces provide further stimuli for the topic of sexualized violence and reveals the significance of the interaction of sexism, heteronormativity and hatred of people who are perceived as ‘different’. Counselling centres, survivor support associations, schools, and child and youth welfare organizations are now developing concepts to protect all target groups. However, there is still a lack of sufficient and well-conceived offers, especially for lesbians, gays and trans*. Strengthening the agency of those affected could be a promising starting point.

This chapter provides a critical analysis of a case study of a self-managed informal collective and leftist house project in Germany, the Political Cultural Centre (PCC), drawing on observations, group discussions and biographical interviews conducted between June and December 2016. Formed in 2015 by a group of art students and left-wing activists as an alternative space housed in an old building, the PCC consisted of about 30 young people, ranging in age from 18 to 40 years of age, with the majority between 20 and 25 years at the time of our research. This chapter analyses the group’s experiences of alternative-space life through the lens of (counter)politics, focusing on how these young people dealt with the challenges of self-performative contradictions through practices of coping. In so doing, this chapter reflects on the complexities that arise from the (counter-)hegemonic idea of the centre as a political project and reconstructs the power relations and the temporality of doing counter-hegemonic politics within a capitalist society. Based on this analysis, the chapter compares the PCC experience with case studies of other social movements, specifically the Manchester-based young feminists and socialists (Chapters 5 and 6, respectively).

The process of knowledge production is usually assigned to scientists who use specific methods to extract knowledge from someone else's experience. Usually this includes collecting, aggregating and interpreting data from an uninvolved point of view; that is, from the outside. This procedure is supposed to guarantee objectivity and generalisation. Many child sexual abuse (CSA) survivors reject such an approach that turns them into objects again. This presents a problem for research because it limits the number and contribution of potential participants and can lead to bias. In self-help groups of CSA survivors, an enormous amount of experiential knowledge accumulates, and sometimes this is transferred into more than only individually valid knowledge. Based on this experience and aiming for more agency of CSA Survivors, a group of adult survivors and researchers developed a new approach to research. It focuses on the development of self-organised research, which enables survivors of sexualised violence to practice research without losing agency. They are indispensable and elementary parts in all phases of the process. This chapter shows one way of formalising this process so quality criteria can be developed and applied. Following the presented approach, evaluation of the presented methods is the appropriate next step because self-help groups give reason to estimate significant outcomes. These outcomes not only enable self-help groups of CSA survivors to incorporate new methods but also include the chance to empower adults, children or youth who have been victims of sexualised violence.

In the 21st century, libraries are experiencing a significant decline in users due to shifting reading habits and the impact of technology, necessitating library transformation and a heightened emphasis on library marketing. Special libraries, in particular, rely heavily on patrons for survival, often due to their private ownership and limited resources. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned objectives.

This paper examines the Taste Library, a special library in Hong Kong, and analyzes its current practices based on an interview with its founder, website content, and social media presence. The 7Ps Marketing Mix model is employed to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the library's current market position.

The Taste Library's existing practices exhibit limitations in attracting young patrons. To address this issue, we propose marketing strategies focused on enhancing social network presence, offering digitized content, and engaging in school outreach.

By concentrating on youth marketing, this study offers valuable insights for special libraries in developing strategic plans for transitioning and maintaining sustainability.

Few studies concentrate on marketing small special libraries, particularly in the East, within today's digitized economy.

The chapter explores an overlooked theme across the literature: capturing the experience of childhood family disruption and transitional flux between foster family homes and the independent sensemaking into the present of young care-experienced parents. The chapter draws upon research that constructed 20 biographical life story accounts of a diverse sample of foster care-experienced young people. The chapter aims to reflect upon the findings garnered from six of these accounts through extracting the narratives of a selection of participants who were to become or had become parents. This chapter makes sociological connections between past family disruption, demarcating present families of choice, and reconciliation of the past through experiencing parenting into the future within constructed ‘family displays’ (Finch, 2007). The chapter illustrates this phenomenon through narrative accounts offering a family history of parents who have experienced a variance of transitions between family units and who were negotiating, or had negotiated, their post-care independence through the role of becoming a parent themselves. The chapter highlights the symbolic value of parenting to the lives of young people who have experienced care in recalibrating their past familial experiences, as demonstrated through their family displays. Through the family displays of care-experienced parents, the importance of the relational context to youth transition ultimately reveals itself, as does the development of relational agency, and ultimately the role of parenting in developing a young person’s independent ‘post-care’ identity.

This paper aims to examine whether a customer’s perceptions of hotel tablet apps serve as determinants of customers’ behavioral intention in terms of the app’s ease of use, usefulness, credibility and subjective norm. It also explored age and gender as moderators of the relationships between these determinants and customers’ behavioral intention as well as customers’ likelihood of using specific app functions across age and gender.

A research model, grounded in the technology acceptance model (TAM), used data collected from 751 hotel customers in the USA. The model was tested using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

The results showed that three of the four proposed determinants positively influenced customers’ behavioral intention toward hotel tablet apps. Neither gender nor age played significant moderating roles in the relationships between the four determinants and the behavioral intention. The study also revealed age- and gender-related differences in preferences for specific hotel tablet app functions.

This study helps operators successfully plan for investing in and implementing hotel apps. It assists operators in developing effective marketing strategies by understanding factors influencing customers’ app adoption and between group differences in their preferences on app functions.

This is the first tablet app adoption study that extends TAM to the hotel industry. Thus, it extends the literature on technology adoption by exploring both existing and new variables and testing them in a new context.