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The LC Science Tracer Bullet, one of the most underused reference sources in many government documents collections, provides access to a wealth of information on subjects from beekeeping and folk‐medicine to aeronautics and lasers. Each Tracer Bullet is devoted to a specific topic and is designed “to help a reader begin to locate published materials on a subject about which he or she has only a general knowledge.” Developed in the style of Library Pathfinders, each explores the resources available on its topic and lists texts, handbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, bibliographies, government documents, and journal articles. Other sources such as the addresses and telephone numbers of relevant organizations are included and appropriate Library of Congress subject headings to use in searching for additional material are suggested.

Published by the Science and Technology Division of the Library of Congress since 1972, the Tracer Bullet series is an underused reference source available in many library and government documents collections. The Tracer Bullets cover a wide variety of subjects in the natural and physical sciences and technology. Each one is devoted to a specific topic and is designed “to help a reader begin to locate published material on a subject about which he or she has only general knowledge.” Developed in the style of a library pathfinder, each explores the resources available, listing texts, handbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, bibliographies, government documents, and journal articles. Addresses and telephone numbers of relevant organizations are also included as are appropriate Library of Congress subject headings to use in locating additional material.

Serially published bibliographies raise a number of issues across all areas of library operations and generate a bewildering array of policies, procedures, and problems. Initially there is the question of collection development and acquisition: Are these titles to be identified and purchased individually for their specific subject coverage, or are they to be placed on standing order? The answer to this question may depend on whether the individual titles are to be classified together as a series or separately by subject. A library may choose to purchase such series selectively or comprehensively. Sometimes the format of the series is a factor. Are the individual volumes numbered or otherwise prominently identified as part of an ongoing series, or are they a little more separate in their identity? Their physical location within a given library's collections may also be a consideration: Will they be located in the reference collection, in the general book stacks, or in a special collection or branch? Ultimately, there is the question of their access and use. Will patrons be able to find these bibliographies through public catalogs and/or indexes and abstracts (in whatever their formats), or will reference librarians have to direct users to them? The answer to this question will very likely influence how the other questions are answered.

According to the introduction, this five volume set is intended to update Eric H. Boehm and Lalit Adolphus's Historical Periodicals: An Annotated World List of Historical and Related Serial Publications (Santa Barbara, CA: Clio Press, 1961). That goal is met admirably. The editors have combed the standard periodical sources, as well as the periodical lists of relevant European indexing services, and produced a list of 8,900 periodicals in history and related fields. The coverage is worldwide. While the United States has the most entries, these entries represent only about fifteen percent of the total.

FEW BOOKS have been so enthusiastically received in England as The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane's novel of the American Civil War. In December 1895 it was welcomed unanimously by authors and critics alike, and caused a good deal of public excitement. The book arrived in England, in the words of Joseph Conrad, ‘with the impact of a twelve‐inch shell’. It has since come to be regarded as one of the most significant books in the development of modern American literature.

Consumer marketing suggests that greater concern for the environment is impacting purchase behavior. Recent surveys into US pro-environmental (PE) purchase patterns show a considerable gap between consumers’ attitude and actual behavior regarding PE products. What these products have in common is a normative component. This research aims to understand whether perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE) and social desirability bias (SDB) influence consumers’ purchase decisions regarding PE wine products and willingness to pay (WTP).

To assess whether PCE and SDB influence consumer’s actual WTP for PE and conventional wine despite normative beliefs (NBs), two studies with sample sizes of 117 and 124 were conducted in the USA. The first part of each study involved surveying participants as to their NB, SDB, PCE and demographics. The second part of the study measured their actual WTP through participation in an experimental auction.

Consumers with high levels of NBs were significantly more likely to pay higher premiums for PE wines compared to non-PE wines and had higher levels of PCE, suggesting that they believe their purchase behavior makes a difference to the environment. However, this same group is strongly influenced by SDB, indicating that they may “over-report” desirable behaviors. Controlling for PCE and SDB, the significant difference in price for PE wine and non-PE wine was mitigated. Those with lower NBs were just the opposite, less concerned whether their purchase behavior directly impacts the environment, feeling that non-PE wine may be a better value proposition.

The use of an auction method to assess actual behavior may be skewed by the attempt to get a winning bid, and this research was conducted in one particular part of the USA, which limits the generalizability of the results to other parts of the country or world.

The findings from the current research provide important information for wine producers, distributors and retailers, specifically the development of marketing and branding strategies, and as a method for normative product/brand differentiation in a competitive marketplace.

Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the Afro‐American experience and to show the joys, sorrows, needs, and ideals of the Afro‐American woman as she struggles from day to day.

The transformations in the existing forms of governmentality and power regimes are deeply rooted within the political economy of advanced neoliberalism, having profound implications in the governance matrix. The new rationalities and instrumentalities of governance involve ‘governing without government’ (Rhodes, 1996) following the delegitimisation and deconstruction of the Keynesian Welfare State and the gradual enactment of what Jessop (2002) calls the Schumpeterian Competition State. This chapter throws open the play field for competing standpoints on governing the mega corporates. Various theorists consider that there is emptiness within the existing global regulatory armoury concerning the operational activities of TNCs. The convolution of ‘steering’ in this poly-centred, globalised societies with its innate uncertainty makes it tricky to keep an eye on the fix of ‘who actually steers whom’ and ‘with what means’. There also appears to be huge disinclination to spot systemic technical description of the evolving modern institutional structure of economic regulation in a composite and practical manner. Thus, the complexity of international issues, their overlapping nature and the turmoil within the arena in which they surface defy tidy theorizing about effective supervision.

This brings in the wider questions dealt with in the chapter – Is globalisation then a product of material conditions of fundamental technical and economic change or is it collective construct of an artifact of the means we have preferred to arrange political and economic activity? The new reflexive, self-regulatory and horizontal spaces of governance are getting modelled following the logic of competitive market relations whereby multiple formally equal actors (acting or aspiring to act as sources of authority) consult, trade and compete over the deployment of various instruments of authority both intrinsically and in their relations with each other (Shamir, 2008). The chapter also looks into these messy and fluid intersections to situate the key actors at the heart of processes of ‘rearticulation’ and ‘recalibration’ of different modes of governance which operates through a somewhat fuzzy amalgamation of the terrain by corporates, state hierarchy and networks all calibrating and competing to pull off the finest probable’s in metagovernance landscape. Unambiguously, this chapter seeks to elaborate on an institutional-discursive conceptualization of governance while stitching in and out of the complex terrain a weave of governances for modern leviathan – the global corporates.

This chapter offers novel insights into how global corporations can innovate to tackle the global waste crisis and gain sustainable competitive positions. Using two of the most prominent types of global waste crises – food and plastic wastes – we discuss the dilemma of food and plastic waste, why innovations in global firms are needed to address them, and argue that a different perspective among those firms is needed, one which conceptualizes the development, dissemination and use of innovations in waste management, and one which recognizes that innovations, thus, created contribute to advancing the creation of economic, environmental and social value. We conclude using an overarching conceptual framework that depicts the complexity of the new perspective.

To understand how parents make the decision to implant their deaf young children with cochlear implants, focusing specifically on the concepts of normality, medicalization, and stigma.

I conducted 33 semi-structured interviews with the hearing parents or parent of children with cochlear implants. In all but two families I interviewed the primary caretaker which in all cases was a mother. In the remaining two interviews, I interviewed both parents together. Because of the relative scarcity of families with children with cochlear implants, and the difficulty in connecting with these families, I used a convenience sample, and I did not stratify it in any way. The only requirement for parents to be interviewed is that they had at least one deaf child who had been implanted with at least one cochlear implant. Although this is a small sample, the findings are transferable to other families with the same sociodemographic characteristics as those in my study.

Parents in the study focused on three key concepts: normality, risk analysis, and being a good parent. Dispositional factors such as the need to be “normal” and the desire for material success for one's children appeared to moderate the cost-benefit calculus.

This interview project concentrated on hearing families who had implanted their deaf children with cochlear implants; it does not include culturally Deaf parents who choose to use American Sign Language (ASL) with their Deaf children. Understanding how Deaf families understand the concepts of normality, medicalization, and stigma would shed light on how a distinctly “abnormal” group (by a statistical conception of normal) – ASL-using Deaf people-explain normality in the face of using a non-typical communication method. One can learn a lot by studying the absence of a phenomena, in this case, not implanting children with cochlear implants. It is possible that the existential threat felt by some Deaf people, specifically the demographic problem presented by cochlear implants, led Deaf educators or parents to resist being the subject of research.

Overwhelmingly the sample was female, and white. Only two participants were male, and none of the participants were non-white. The lack of diversity in the sample does not necessarily reflect a lack of diversity of children receiving cochlear implants. Medicaid, which disproportionately covers families of color, covers cochlear implants in most cases, so low SES/racial intersectionality should not have affected the lack of diversity in the sample. However, the oral schools are all private pay, with few scholarships available, so low SES/racial intersectionality in the sampling universe (all children who attend oral schools), may have played a part in the lack of racial diversity within the sample.

Parents in this study were very specific about the fact that they believed cochlear implants would lead to academic, professional, and personal success. They weaved narratives of normality, medicalization, and stigma through their stories. Normality is an important lens from which to see stories about disability and ability, as well as medical correction. As medical science continues to advance, more and more conditions will become medicalized, leading to more and more people taking advanced medical treatments to address problems that were previously considered “problems with living” that are now considered “medical problems” that can be treated with advanced science.

This chapter's contribution to the sociological cochlear implant literature is it's weaving of narratives about normality, stigma, and medicalization into parental stories about the cochlear implant decision-making process. Most literature about the cochlear implant decision-making process focus on cost-benefit analysis, and logical decision-making processes, whereas this paper focuses on decision-making factors stemming from bias, emotions, and values.