Boundary Spaces

While shows like The X-Files and 24 have merged conspiracy theories with popular science (fictions), some video games have been pushing the narrative even further. Electronic Art's Majestic game was released in July 2001 and quickly generated media buzz with its unusual multi-modal gameplay. Mixing phone calls, faxes, instant messaging, real and "fake' websites, and email, the game provides a fascinating case of an attempt at new directions for gaming communities. Through story, mode of playing, and use of technology, Majestic highlights the uncertain status of knowledge, community and self in a digital age; at the same time, it allows examination of alternative ways of understanding games' role and purpose in the larger culture. Drawing on intricate storylines involving government conspiracies, techno-bio warfare, murder and global terror, players were asked to solve mysteries in the hopes of preventing a devastating future of domination. Because the game drew in both actual and Majestic-owned/-designed websites, it constantly pushed those playing the game right to borders where simulation collides with " factuality'. Given the wide variety of "legitimate' conspiracy theory, alien encounters and alternative science web pages, users often could not distinguish when they were leaving the game's pages and venturing into " real' World Wide Web sites. Its further use of AOL's instant messenger system, in which gamers spoke not only to bots but to other players, pushed users to evaluate constantly both the status of those they were talking to and the information being provided. Additionally, the game required players to occupy unfamiliar subject positions, ones where agency was attenuated, and which subsequently generated a multi-layered sense of unease among players. This mix of authentic and staged information in conjunction with technologically mediated roles highlights what are often seen as phenomenon endemic to the Internet itself; that is, the destabilization of categories of knowing, relating, and being.     

魏晋南北朝的美学思想和盆景艺术

魏晋南北朝是中国古代动乱最多、人民生活最悲惨的时代。战争、动乱使汉王朝“独尊儒术”的旧思想体制大崩溃 ,导致魏晋南北朝时期的古代中国思想最解放、最自由。美学思想和精神的自由 ,酿就了艺术创造精神的勃发 ,因而新的艺术形式、艺术规律应运而生并相互融会贯通。此时的盆景艺术正是在绘画、园林、盆栽、赏石等艺术形式的影响下孕育了自己最初的表现形式和美学规律 ,因此可以说该时期是盆景发展史上的一个重要阶段     

Preparing Parents for Adoption: An Agency Experience

To prepare for the complexities of family formation, 78 prospective adoptive parents participated in Pre-Adopt, a psychosocial educational orientation program offered by one private nonprofit agency. The five-session curriculum included an overview of adoption policies and procedures, discussion of the child placement process, exploration of couples' adoption concerns and expectations about child characteristics, information about adoption laws and birth-parent/child searches, and examination of anticipatory fantasies about birth parents. Program evaluation yielded statistically significant and clinically meaningful findings about changes in emotional readiness to adopt, parenting knowledge, and satisfaction with group participation, adoption policies and agency practices. Practice implications are considered.     

Measuring Substance Abuse Treatment Need Among Adults in Florida: A Social Indicators Approach

Determining the size and demographiccharacteristics of substance abuse populationsis extremely important for implementing publicpolicies aimed at the control of substanceabuse. Such information not only assists in theallocation of limited treatment resources bythe state, but also in the monitoring ofsubstance abuse trends over time and in theevaluation of innovative policy initiatives. Inthis study, we develop three composite measuresof treatment need. We then use these measuresto estimate treatment need for alcohol abuseand for controlled substance abuse within eachof Florida's 67 counties. This study providesan important empirical component of communityplanning, quantifying and, to a limited degree,specifying the level of need for the substanceabuse treatment of community residents. Anadditional benefit is the development of a costeffective and unobtrusive methodology fordetermining empirically when levels of need arechanging so that treatment levels can beadjusted accordingly. With proper use,policymakers can readily employ the methodologydeveloped in this study in Florida andelsewhere to make better-informed decisions inthe allocation of finite substance abusetreatment resources.     

Knowledge,power, and ethics in qualitative social research

Philadelphia, then and still one of the worst governed of America’s badly governed cities, was having one of its periodic spasms of reform. A thorough study of causes was called for. Not but what the underlining cause was evident to most white Philadelphians: the corrupt semi-criminal vote of the Negro Seventh Ward…. Would it not be well, to elucidate the known causes by a scientific investigation?… With my bride of three months, I settled in one room over a cafeteria run by a College Settlement, in the worst part of the Seventh Ward. We lived there a year, in the midst of an atmosphere of dirt, drunkenness, poverty and crime. Murder sat on our doorstep, police were our government, and philanthropy dropped in with periodic advice. (DuBois, 1968/1975: 194–5 also in Logan, ed. 1944: 42) What had been borne into me during my book studies was my utter ignorance of the manual-working class, that is, of four-fifths of my countrymen…. How was I to get an opportunity of watching, day by day, in their homes and in their workshops, a sufficient number of normal manual-working families to enable me to visualize the class as a whole; to understand what was meant by chronic poverty and insecurity of livelihood. (Webb, 1926: 146–7)     

论曾纪泽的外交思想及实践

曾纪泽是我国近代著名的爱国外交家。中西文化是曾纪泽外交思想的源泉。他是传统外交向近代外交转化的代表人物之一 ,他的外交思想反映了当时中国外交发展的方向。中俄谈判和中法交涉无疑体现了他的外交思想。他既不同于主和派 ,又不同于主战派。     

数字技术与法律之间的互动关系

数字技术的飞速发展 ,其辐射性、渗透性影响着人类法律生活的各个方面 :从法的规范到法的形式 ,从立法内容到立法过程 ,从执法到司法 ,几乎无一不在数字技术影响的范围内。这种全方位的影响既为法的进步和发展创造新的机遇和前提 ,又对法、法的运作和法学研究提出了挑战和问题 ,两者相互作用、相互协调、相互补充 ,共同推动全人类的进步