Be Big Online


Book Description

Learn how successful small businesses use the World Wide Web to drive traffic to their physical storefronts -- especially when they offer products and services that don't translate into easy e-commerce sales.




Alcoholics Anonymous


Book Description

A 75th anniversary e-book version of the most important and practical self-help book ever written, Alcoholics Anonymous. Here is a special deluxe edition of a book that has changed millions of lives and launched the modern recovery movement: Alcoholics Anonymous. This edition not only reproduces the original 1939 text of Alcoholics Anonymous, but as a special bonus features the complete 1941 Saturday Evening Post article “Alcoholics Anonymous” by journalist Jack Alexander, which, at the time, did as much as the book itself to introduce millions of seekers to AA’s program. Alcoholics Anonymous has touched and transformed myriad lives, and finally appears in a volume that honors its posterity and impact.




Online Optimization of Large Scale Systems


Book Description

In its thousands of years of history, mathematics has made an extraordinary ca reer. It started from rules for bookkeeping and computation of areas to become the language of science. Its potential for decision support was fully recognized in the twentieth century only, vitally aided by the evolution of computing and communi cation technology. Mathematical optimization, in particular, has developed into a powerful machinery to help planners. Whether costs are to be reduced, profits to be maximized, or scarce resources to be used wisely, optimization methods are available to guide decision making. Opti mization is particularly strong if precise models of real phenomena and data of high quality are at hand - often yielding reliable automated control and decision proce dures. But what, if the models are soft and not all data are around? Can mathematics help as well? This book addresses such issues, e. g. , problems of the following type: - An elevator cannot know all transportation requests in advance. In which order should it serve the passengers? - Wing profiles of aircrafts influence the fuel consumption. Is it possible to con tinuously adapt the shape of a wing during the flight under rapidly changing conditions? - Robots are designed to accomplish specific tasks as efficiently as possible. But what if a robot navigates in an unknown environment? - Energy demand changes quickly and is not easily predictable over time. Some types of power plants can only react slowly.




The SAGE Handbook of Online Research Methods


Book Description

Online research methods are popular, dynamic and fast-changing. Following on from the great success of the first edition, published in 2008, The SAGE Handbook of Online Research Methods, Second Edition offers both updates of existing subject areas and new chapters covering more recent developments, such as social media, big data, data visualization and CAQDAS. Bringing together the leading names in both qualitative and quantitative online research, this new edition is organised into nine sections: 1. Online Research Methods 2. Designing Online Research 3. Online Data Capture and Data Collection 4. The Online Survey 5. Digital Quantitative Analysis 6. Digital Text Analysis 7. Virtual Ethnography 8. Online Secondary Analysis: Resources and Methods 9. The Future of Online Social Research The SAGE Handbook of Online Research Methods, Second Edition is an essential resource for anyone interested in the contemporary practice of computer-mediated research and scholarship.




Getting It On Online


Book Description

Learn how gay men use Internet technologies to connect with others sharing their erotic desires and to forge affirming communities online! Getting It On Online: Cyberspace, Gay Male Sexuality, and Embodied Identity examines the online embodied experiences of gay men. At once scholarly and sensual, this unique book is the result of a three-year ethnographic study chronicling the activities on three distinct social scenes in the world of Internet Relay Chat (IRC)—virtual spaces constructed by gay men for the erotic exploration of the male body. Examining the vital role the body plays in defining these online spaces offers insight into how gay men negotiate their identities through emerging communication technologies. The author combines a critical look at the role of the body in cyberspace with candid accounts of his own online experiences to challenge conventional views on sex, sexuality, and embodied identity. Getting It On Online provides an inside look at three specific online communities—gaychub (a community celebrating male obesity), gaymuscle (a community formulated around images of the muscular male body), and gaymusclebears (a space representing the erotic convergence of the obese and muscular male bodies emerging out of the gay male “bear” subculture)—in an effort to unsettle those models of beauty and the erotic depicted in more mainstream media. The book demonstrates how the social position of these men in the physical world in regards to age, race, gender, class, and physical beauty influences their online experiences. Far from a realm of bodiless exultation, Getting It On Online illustrates how the flesh remains very much present in cyberspace. Getting It On Online examines topics such as: why people chat online the history of IRC (Internet Relay Chat) how people construct their identities in cyberspace how some online spaces function like virtual gay bars the concept of online disembodiment the role the body plays in online social relations the future of online communication ethnographic research in cyberspace mediated images of the male body and the gay male beauty myth and much more! Getting It On Online: Cyberspace, Gay Male Sexuality, and Embodied Identity is an essential resource for anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists; academics working in gender studies, queer theory, cultural studies, and cyber-culture studies; and anyone interested in gay and lesbian issues and/or cyberspace.




Being Online


Book Description

A pioneer of cloud computing and big data offers his vision of the future world taking shape around us. Jian Wang was the founder and architect of Alibaba's cloud and has been the driving force behind its technology innovations. He was also the founder of the City Brain initiative to develop a new digital infrastructure for sustainable cities. Being Online is his meditation on the moment we are in, as the digital era shifts to the internet era, spawning new innovations at a seemingly dizzying pace: cloud computing, 5G, artificial intelligence, big data, wearables, robots, virtual reality, the internet of things, blockchain, and more. For Wang, the invisible hand that connects them is being online. The conjunction of computing, data, and the internet has erased the difference between being online and off. When computing can be done in the cloud, it is on the road to becoming a utility. When data is connected, making it big, its usefulness multiplies exponentially in unforeseeable ways, as does its value. This moment will be as transformative for humanity as Henry Ford's production line. Data is changing the nature of business. Computing is reshaping the economy. The cloud will help us do things we could never do before, at scales that were previously impossible. It will reshape our vision of the world, as electrification once did and, more recently, the transition from analog to digital. While telling the story of Alibaba’s breakthroughs and the development of his own understanding of the internet, Jian Wang's visionary book lays out the implications of this shift and how to think about being online.




Online Game: Cultivating Mage


Book Description

Miracles are created. What about myths? In the game, one could look for miracles, but in the game, one needed to create a legend. Accidents are often the starting point for the achievement of myths. The accident that happened when he was a child caused him to obtain the Chaotic Body ... Yet, he was unable to cultivate due to an accident... There were too many accidents, and it was precisely these accidents that had made him so ... The game was merciless. It was brotherly!




Conducting Research in Online and Blended Learning Environments


Book Description

Conducting Research in Online and Blended Learning Environments examines various perspectives, issues, and methods for conducting research in online and blended learning environments. The book provides in-depth examinations of the perspectives and issues that anyone considering research in online or blended learning will find insightful as they plan their own inquiries. Grounded in educational research theory, this is invaluable to both the serious researcher as well as the occasional evaluator. Conducting Research in Online and Blended Learning Environments provides comprehensive, useful information on research paradigms, methodologies, and methods that should be considered in designing and conducting studies in this area. Examples of the most respected research in the field enhance each chapter’s presentation.




How to Enhance Learning Efficiency When Online Learning is Popular and Indispensable: Theory, Research and Practice


Book Description

Online learning has become more and more common globally, whether for comfort, adapting to work hours or just having the freedom to study from anywhere. And now under the coronavirus pandemic, as people are having to stay at home, it has become more important than ever. Although the popularity of wireless network and portable smart device makes it possible for people to acquire and learn knowledge anytime and anywhere, it does not necessarily mean an increased learning performance. Relevant research in cognitive science has revealed possible limitations in online learning. For example, the knowledge acquired through online learning tends to be fragmented and lacks guidance for integrated thinking among different subjects, which makes it difficult for learners to form a systematic knowledge structure. Learners may experience cognitive overload, metacognitive illusion and low learning efficiency in self-regulated learning. It follows that, in the post COVID-19 era, online learning puts forward new requirements and challenges to the contemporary students, not only to their learning strategies but positive character traits in learning. Most of the current learning theories were developed in the early 20th century and may not fit in well with the current situation, then possibly leading to inefficient learning and increased learning burden. Therefore, it is necessary and important to reexplore the influencing factors and mechanisms that affect the learning efficiency of students at all levels nowadays, based on which we could construct a theoretical model of efficient learning model.




Personality Traits in Online Communication


Book Description

Authoritative and illuminating, this book demonstrates how we reveal the secrets of our character through the disclosures we make about ourselves in the online world. The author expertly explores whether online information about people, derived from their search patterns, personal detail disclosures and the language they use when posting text, are all related to their personalities. The Internet era has given rise to an enormous explosion of data that is refreshed daily on a massive scale. The growth of online social network sites has created opportunities for more and more people to reveal intimate details about themselves and their lives. While some of these disclosures are consciously made, other, more subtle forms of person profiling can be produced by examining patterns in our online behavior and the language we use in our online posts. As this book will show, techniques have been developed which enable researchers to build detailed personality profiles of people without their awareness, by examining online behaviour and psycholinguistic analysis. Establishing how unlocking the full potential of ‘big data’ is dependent on having the right analytical tools that can be applied speedily and cost-effectively on a massive scale, the author also asks how powerful these methods are, and can they really be used to influence us in the way their critics fear and proponents claim. Explaining how we reveal the secrets of our character through the disclosures we make about ourselves in the online world, this is fascinating reading for students and academics in psychology, linguistics, computer science, and related areas.