For many parents, learning about new media technologies can seem like playing catch-up with their children. Teenagers, especially, are quick to learn new technologies: putting their music collection on iPods, texting on mobile phones, chatting on instant messaging services. They are also quick to drop a technology they think is old: the bad news for parents who’ve just gotten to grips with em…
France has been widely acknowledged as the principal driving force behind European economic and monetary union (EMU). Every French president from Georges Pompidou onwards has placed the creation of EMU at the centre of France’s European policy. President François Mitterrand finally clinched the deal when, in December 1991, he secured German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s agreement at the Maas…
The purpose of this book is to move beyond a purely economic under- standing of the euro crisis and its likely aftermath by emphasizing the political foundations of markets. Our goals in doing so are threefold: first, to develop a holistic understanding of what caused the euro crisis, which incorporates political, ideational, institutional, as well as economic and financial factors; second, to …
This chapter provides a (necessarily) brief introduction to computer net- working concepts. For many applications of gawk to TCP/IP networking, we hope that this is enough. For more advanced tasks, you will need deeper background, and it may be necessary to switch to lower-level programming in C or C++. There are two real-life models for the way computers send messages to each other over a netw…
The rise of social networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook over the past decade has been nothing short of phenomenal. Once regarded as nothing more than a passing "fad", these websites have grown to astronomical proportions; each website currently boasts 60+ million unique visitors each month. Certain businesses are beginning to notice the potential for reaching out to their target aud…
Why would anyone who does not work in the banking industry want to read a book about banking? The subject should be a bore. Savings accounts are not fashionable. Mortgages do not entertain. Most of us – well, apart from banking professionals and a few banking professors like myself – have better things to do than think about payment cards or credit transfers. All we want from banks is secur…
Remember that phrase from your own childhood? It’s still a valid question, but now, it comes with a twist: “Do you know where your kids are — and who they’re chatting with online?” Social networking sites have morphed into a mainstream medium for teens and adults. These sites encourage and enable people to exchange information about themselves, share pictures and videos, and use …
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2014), approximately one in six children in the USA has a developmental disability with 1 in 68 diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. The societal costs for caring for children with autism are estimated at over $61 billion per year in the USA (Buescher et al. 2014), suggesting a need for high-quality research on assessment and …
I ended up working on European and international energy law issues more or less by coincidence. Having embarked on a career in general EU law, I worked on the first merchant infrastructure case under the (then) new EU regulatory frameworks for electricity and gas. Thinking that this was an interesting project, I decided to write an article explaining the regulatory considerations to be taken in…
The universalist view of acquisition, which espouses the idea that children’s acquisition of phonology is guided by universal principles, has been the dominant position for decades. However, a growing body of literature during the last two decades on children’s early use of words in various languages has brought into focus the relationship between developmental patterns and language-specifi…
Are you involved in implementing wireless mesh networks? As mesh networks move towards large-scale deployment, this highly practical book provides the information and insights you need. The technology is described, potential pitfalls in implementation are identified, clear hints and tips for success are provided, and real-world implementation examples are evaluated. Moreover, an introduction t…
Humans have been forming social networks since pre- historic times. The first networks were based around the family, clan, or tribe to ensure the survival of the group. In the Book of Numbers in the Old Testament, God instructs Moses how to organize the Hebrews and thus structure the nomads’ social interactions. Plato and Aristotle described the social structure of ancient Greece, and Alexand…
Models of networked diffusion that are motivated by analogy with the spread of infectious have been applied to a wide range of social and economic adoption processes, including those related to new products, ideas, norms and behaviors.
Social networking forms an important part of online activities of Web users. Web sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Orkut have millions of users using them everyday. However, these sites present two problems. Firstly, these sites form information silos. Information on one site is not usable in the others. Secondly such sites do not allow users much control over how their personal information i…