In a series of recent papers, Jane Heal (1994, 1995a, 1995b, 1996a, 1996b) has developed her own quite distinctive version of simulation theory and offered a detailed critique of the arguments against simulation theory that we and our collaborators presented in earlier papers. Heal's theory is clearly set out and carefully defended, and her critique of our arguments is constructive and well inf...

This study uses communication, critical race theory (CRT), and storytelling to examine environmental racism and environmental justice efforts. In New Mexico’s Petroglyph National Monument, a conflict emerged when officials moved protected rock carvings to build a road through the park. When creating the monument, stakeholders evoked cultural and environmental protectionism. Yet, proroad campaig...

Tailored push advertising on smartphones is a key target for the advertising industry. We conducted a study with 20 professionals ‘in the wild’: over 5 consecutive days participants received ads tailored to their personal profiles and geographical location on their personal smartphones. Of the 400 ads sent, participants accepted 20%, rejected 30%, said ‘maybe’ to 17%. Interviews revealed that a...

Wireless underground sensor networks (WUSNs) can enable many important applications such as intelligent agriculture, pipeline fault diagnosis, mine disaster rescue, concealed border patrol, crude oil exploration, among others. The key challenge to realize WUSNs is the wireless communication in underground environments. Most existing wireless communication systems utilize the dipole antenna to t...

The use of information technologies (IT) to collect personal health information is growing in popularity via computer-assisted interviewing and a wide variety of healthcare Web sites. However, a review of the literature on computer-assisted interviewing exhibits confounding and equivocal results regarding the effects of IT on individuals’ willingness to disclose socially sensitive health inform...

Key findings: Municipal governments can have a major influence on building design, and local officials can play a much stronger role in fostering security planning. Because parking facilities are more likely settings for crime—both violent and property—than all other real estate except residential, security is one of the most critical issues facing the owners and operators of parking facilities...

In this paper we propose, develop, and test a new single-feature evaluator called Significant Proportion of Target Instances (SPTI) to handle the direct-marketing data with the class imbalance problem. The SPTI feature evaluator demonstrates its stability and outstanding performance through empirical experiments in which the real-world customer data of an e-recruitment firm are used. This resea...