Social Science Computer Review

Geographical information illuminates many features of culture that cannot be seen otherwise. Higher-resolution mapping of cultural traits, now possible with computerized techniques, can open a new window on human cultural adaptation. It can look at where people live on a scale that is small enough to reveal the features of the environment to which their cultures respond. This article discusses the mapping of language in a rural area of Mexico. Much GIS technology has become so elaborate that it is not appropriate to cultural anthropology. The project described was successful because it developed and used techniques that were appropriate to the problem being studied and the situation in the field. The techniques can be used for other types of mapping projects. Keywords: GIS, geographical information systems, cultural anthropology, maps, peasant culture.

With the focus on larger and faster computers and multimedia presentations, the trend in computer-aided instruction implies bigger (or more complex) must be necessarily better. Whereas more powerful applications allow economics instructors to demonstrate some very interesting and often complicated procedures and theories, there is much that can be done with very simple and widely available programs. In this paper, I explain the advantages of introducing undergraduate students to econometrics by helping them design their own statistical packages using a spreadsheet program. Keywords : Economics, instruction, computers, econometrics, statistics, spreadsheets.

This paper presents two recent developments in the European GIS scene that have a clearly European-wide dimension and probably will have an important impact on GIS-related developments in the years to come. The first is GISDATA, a scientific program at the European scale, and the second is EUROGI, the European Umbrella Organisation for Geographic Information. Keywords GIS, Europe.

Computer technology has yet to redefine how historians conceive the past. This article shows that a computer database is a better metaphor for antebellum legal activity than the leading cases scholars usually present to their students. A database can present a picture of an island community's determinedly local peculiarities better than data structured by a researcher's assumption that, within a national or even world context, one neighborhood is much the same as another. In the future, computers will allow scholars to disaggregate the past for their students, making comprehensible the decentralized reality of traditional society. Keywords: education, federalism, computers, databases, Mississippi.

This paper describes in technical detail the Kansas Event Data System (KEDS) and summarizes our experience in coding Reuters data for the Middle East. The components of KEDS are first described; this discussion is intended to provide sufficient detail about the program that one could develop a more sophisticated machine-coding system based on our research. We then discuss a number of problems we have encountered in machine coding, focusing on the Reuters data source and the KEDS program itself. The paper concludes with a discussion of future approaches to machine coding in event data research and other potential applications of the technology. Keywords. event data, natural language, full-text databases, international relations, social science.

This paper reviews the use of educational technology within United Kingdom university psychology departments based on the experience of a national support center, the Computers in Teaching Initiative (CTI) Centre for Psychology. First we describe the background and work of the center. This is followed by presentation and discussion of the results of a major survey to assess both current usage and the factors that enable or inhibit use of educational technology within psychology. Finally, we provide an overview of the current and potential use of computers within the teaching of psychology. Keywords: psychology, computers, United Kingdom, educational technology, teaching.

Computational organization theory is a growing interdisciplinary area centered on the development of organization theory through the use of computational techniques. Research in this area grows out of work in many scientific areas including sociology, psychology, classic organization theory, and distributed artificial intelligence. The research in this area is united by a view of organizations as collections of processes and intelligent adaptive agents that are task oriented, socially situated, and technologically bound. This paper reviews this growing area and discusses both issues involved in the development of models in this area and theoretical issues that are being explored by work in this area. Keywords' simulation, organization theory, organizational learning, social networks, expert systems, computers.

Searching for numeric solutions to complex nonlinear equations is a resource-consuming, risky business. For a given equation, there can be an infinite number of often dramatically quite different solutions meeting a specified goodness-of-fit criterion. Although the leading statistical packages have nonlinear regression procedures, these procedures all require "seeding" with initial estimates of equation parameters. Often one has only the vaguest notion as to what might be realistic estimates of these parameters. Yet one selection might lead to a failure to find any solution, whereas another might lead to a less-than-optimal, or even less-than-close-to-optimal, solution. The source of this problem is, of course, that nonlinear equations can generate a series of local minima. Consequently, for any specific investigation involving nonlinear equations, barring some theoretical, empirical, or mathematical basis for estimating initial parameter values, one is reduced to trial-and-error methods, exceptional good luck, or a combination of both. With the advent of powerful, distributed computing and the diffusion of desktop graphical capability, visualization techniques hold potential for short-circuiting the trial-and-error process. In this paper we report on one such effort using an off-the-shelf Windows-based, curve-fitting program as the visualization engine for an eight-parameter, nonlinear equation derived by Heligman and Pollard to model mortality. First, we review the theory and mathematics of the so-called law of mortality. Second, we develop the working equation for solution and describe the data sources. Third, we attempt unsuccessfully to use standard techniques to solve the equations. Finally, we develop and illustrate a visualization technique designed to generate initial parameter estimates. We then apply the visualization technique and successfully solve the equations for 22 sets of mortality data. Keywords: visualization, law of mortality, nonlinear, mathematical demography.

Active experimentation with telecommuting in both the United States and Japan is among the most extensive in the world. However, policy, social, and cultural distinctions result in some important differences in the way telecommuting is adopted by each country. This paper presents a comparison of the policy, social, and cultural contexts for telecommuting in Japan and the United States. An overview of various types of telecommuting and remote office arrangements is provided, illustrating the diversity of Japanese experimentation with the remote-work concept.

Reasons for interest in telecommuting are compared, including commute stress, urban growth management, air quality and energy concerns, employee recruitment and retention, savings on office-space costs, and disaster response. Cultural barriers to the adoption of telecommuting in Japan are discussed, including the lack of formal job definition, the preference for face-to-face communication, the importance of the group, limitations of home-based telecommuting, and others. Operational issues potentially supporting or inhibiting the adoption of telecommuting are also described, including technology, marketing, and training. Keywords: telecommuting, teleworking, comparative studies (U.S. / Japan).