Current Discussion

Presented in this volume is a kaleidoscopic view of the research done in the PREMA project (Promoting Equity in Maths Achievement. Proceedings of the Project's Workshops), which was a twenty months research study type of project funded under the "General Activities of Observation, Analysis and Innovation" of the Socrates Programme (European Commission, DG for Education and Culture). The research is enrooted on the position that the achievement of Europe's Lisbon goal set in March 2000 is dependent on the extend to which Europe will utilize all of its human resources and its rich socio-cultural heritage

Electrical Shock Safety Criteria documents the proceedings of the First International Symposium on Electrical Shock Safety Criteria, held in Toronto, Canada, 7-9 September 1983. The objective was to establish the state of the art in the field of electrical shock safety criteria as applied to electrical power utilities. The symposium brought together leading experts from electrical utilities, universities, and research laboratories from around the world, interested in problems associated with electrical shock and safety. The proceedings are organized in three sections, each consisting of the morning review papers and afternoon panel discussions. Section 1 presents an in-depth analysis of the physiology of electrical shocks including such topics as body-weight scaling, electrocution equation, physiological effects of electrical current, and factors affecting fibrillation threshold. Section 2 focuses on the analysis of body impedance under various conditions and the techniques for measuring current distribution in the body. Section 3 is devoted to discussions of safety criteria and related standards from the point of view of current practices in electrical utilities.

This collection offers empirical studies and theoretical essays about human communication in everyday life. The writings come from many of the world's leading researchers and cut across academic boundaries, engaging scholars and teachers from such disciplines as communication, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, and education. Chapters emphasize empirical, qualitative studies of people's everyday uses of talk-in-interaction, and they feature work in such areas as sociolinguistics, conversation analysis, discourse analysis, and ethnography. The volume is dedicated to and highlights themes in the work of the late Robert Hopper, an outstanding scholar in communication who pioneered research in Language and Social Interaction (LSI). The contributors examine various features of human interaction (such as laughter, vocal repetition, and hand gestures) occurring naturally within a variety of settings (at a dinner table, a doctor's office, an automotive repair shop, and so forth), whereby interlocutors accomplish aspects of their interpersonal or institutional lives (resolve a disagreement, report bad medical news, negotiate a raise, and more), all of which may relate to larger social issues (including police brutality, human spirituality, death, and optimism). The chapters in this anthology show that social life is largely a communicative accomplishment and that people constitute the social realities experienced every day through small and subtle ways of communicating, carefully orchestrated but commonly taken for granted. In showcasing the diversity of contemporary LSI research, this volume is appropriate for scholars and graduate students in language and social interaction, communication, sociology, research methods, qualitative research methods, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, linguistics, and related areas.