Home Edition Research Articles

Extreme homes, extreme consumption? The American Dream in Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

This article examines the phenomenon of the commercialization of the American Dream through the example of consumerism around the realm of the suburban home, a key element of this concept in the United States, as well as the role of reality television in creating and encouraging inflated standards of consumption. It uses the example of the American television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The article outlines the history and role of the American Dream, particularly the origins of the term itself, coined by Truslow Adams. The behaviour that Thorsten Veblen calls conspicuous consumption, which is characterized by a tendency to display material status in order to gain social respectability and prestige, is identified. The suburban house as a key element of the American Dream is analysed through the example of the makeovers presented in the programme. Their significant scale and unrealistic nature are often at odds with the real financial capabilities of the participants and are the cause of bankruptcies and financial problems. As the programme belongs to a genre that is supposed to reflect reality, in the light of the cultivation theory, created by George Gerbner, it influences viewers whose world-view is shaped by it and whose role models are imitated. Thus, the presented standards of a comfortable home in line with the American Dream can influence viewers’ consumption behaviour by showing them that the acquisition of possessions is a solution to problems, a reward for an honest life and that there are no financial consequences associated with them. The lavishness of the houses and their luxury reinforce this impression. Finally, the article seeks to answer the question to what extent and why the need of Americans to live up to the vision of living the illusive American Dream – thus creating an image of success and social status – is exaggerated and its standards are taken to an ‘extreme’.

汉语水平考试居家考试与纸笔考试和现场机考成绩比较研究 ——以印尼泗水考点为例

摘要新冠肺炎疫情期间，汉考国际实行HSK 居家网络考试。2020 年5 月，印尼泗水HSK考点也开始举办居家考试。目前有关居家考试的研究还非常少，而考虑到居家考试的信度，需要研究居家考试的成绩，尤其是与纸笔考试成绩的比较。因为纸笔考试和现场机考得分也出现差异现象，基于三者是目前采用的考试形式，本研究对泗水考点居家考试和纸笔考试以及现场机考成绩进行比较。统计结果表示，HSK（一级）至（三级）纸笔考试和现场机考成绩基本高于居家考试。相反，HSK（四级）至（六级）居家考试成绩基本高于纸笔考试和现场机考。居家考试信度受几个因素的影响，即考试地点、考生群体、监控效力以及考试环境。关键词: HSK；HSK 居家考试；HSK 成绩；泗水考点 AbstractDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese Testing International implemented HSK HomeEdition. In May 2020, the HSK test center in Surabaya, Indonesia also began to hold homeedition tests. At present, there are very few studies on HSK Home Edition, and considering thereliability of HSK Home Edition, it is necessary to study the scores of HSK Home Edition,especially the comparison with paper-based test scores. Because the scores of thepaper-based test and the on-site computer-based test are also different, and currently thesethree forms of HSK are all used, this study compares the scores of HSK Home Edition withpaper-based and on-site computer-based HSK at the Surabaya test center. Statistics show thatthe scores of HSK (Level 1) to (Level 3) paper-based tests and on-site computer-based testsare basically higher than that of Home Edition. On the contrary, the scores of the HSK (Level4) to (Level 6) Home Edition are basically higher than those of the paper-based test and theon-site computer-based test. HSK Home Edition reliability is affected by several factors,namely testing location, participant groups, proctoring effectiveness, and testing environmentKeywords: HSK; HSK Home Edition; HSK score; Surabaya test center

Implementation of the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi and its Home Edition During the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Survey of European Test Centres

The Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) test is a standardized Chinese language proficiency test targeting non-native speakers. Compared with other Chinese proficiency tests, the HSK has the largest test population in the world and has attracted the most academic research. This article examines how the HSK was carried out during the Covid-19 pandemic and the issues facing home-based HSK test, the so-called HSK Home Edition. The results of a primary survey showed that the majority of test centres in Europe opted to implement the traditional paper-based format of the HSK during the Covid-19 pandemic, despite the availability of the HSK Home Edition. Concerns related to technical and security issues were among the major factors that hindered successful implementation of the Home Edition. Of the test centres that utilised the Home Edition, they rated their overall experience as satisfactory. This finding suggests that concerns relating to technical and security issues associated with the adoption of the Home Edition may be less daunting than anticipated. Additional training for test centre staff could improve the implementation of the Home Edition.

Chefs' Feast Home Edition Raises More Than $380,000

Successful FundraisingVolume 29, Issue 9 p. 1-1 Profitable Events Chefs' Feast Home Edition Raises More Than $380,000 Kerry Nenn, Search for more papers by this author Kerry Nenn, Search for more papers by this author First published: 05 August 2021 https://doi.org/10.1002/sfr.31785Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume29, Issue9September 2021Pages 1-1 RelatedInformation

Chefs' Feast ‘Home Edition’ Raises More Than $380,000

Special Events GaloreVolume 21, Issue 8 p. 5-5 Profitable Events Chefs' Feast ‘Home Edition’ Raises More Than $380,000 First published: 01 July 2021 https://doi.org/10.1002/speg.31618Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume21, Issue8August 2021Pages 5-5 RelatedInformation

"Not Just for Doctors Anymore": How the Merck Manual Became a Consumer Health "Bible".

The transformation of the Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy from a "doctors-only" reference into a consumer health bible illuminates a critical era in the history of the twentieth-century medical book. Merck and Company restricted sales of its Merck Manual, first published in 1899 to offer up-to-date information for the busy practitioner, to physicians and other health care professionals until the 1970s. As more laypeople sought to get involved in their own health care decision making, the Merck Manual developed a devoted following. In the late 1980s, with almost a quarter of its sales going to nonphysicians, Merck and Company decided to put out a home edition of its famous manual. This evolution provides important insights into both the history of the medical book and the doctor-patient relationship in the United States.

Test Review: Current options in at-home language proficiency tests for making high-stakes decisions

Administration of high-stakes language proficiency tests has been disrupted in many parts of the world as a result of the 2019 novel coronavirus pandemic. Institutions that rely on test scores have been forced to adapt, and in many cases this means using scores from a different test, or a new online version of an existing test, that can be taken at home. The switch to accepting at-home proficiency tests for high-stakes decisions raises many concerns for stakeholders, such as technological demands, exam security, and validity of score use. Along these lines, this thematic review addresses such concerns and features brief reviews of seven options in at-home proficiency testing: ACTFL Assessments, Duolingo English Test, IELTS Indicator, LanguageCert, TEF Express, TOEFL iBT Special Home Edition, and Versant. Considering at-home testing more broadly, we discuss key considerations for selecting an at-home test. We close with speculation on how at-home tests may shape language testing going forward: Beyond adapting to the current pandemic, at-home testing might address longstanding issues in access to language testing services and the representation of real-world communication practices in language tests.

Developing PC-Based Driving Simulator System for Driver Behavior Analysis Research

Driving simulator is one of important system for driving behavior studies. It offers a replicable virtual driving environment and it has possibility to create a various scenarios to carry out in real environment. The problem in development of this simulator is how to reduce a prices in certain point areas have made it possible to create low-cost driving simulators, but with the features that are usually found only in expensive driving simulators. This article is presented a low cost PC-based driving simulator. The aim is to use the simulator as a platform for studies of the driver’s behavior. The complete simulator is using three 27” LED screen, handle by a standard PC, typically used for computer games. As Input we using steering, pedal and shifter G29, with force feedback. For software we using city car home edition as tools to measure validity user and developing simulator to driver’s behavior study.

Spontaneous Versus Medical Induction of Labour in Previous One Caesarean Term Patients: A Prospective Analytical Study

Introduction: The rate of Caesarean Section (CS) either primary or repeat has significantly increased worldwide over the time. Trial of Labour After Caesarean (TOLAC) is an important strategy to limit the number of repeat CS. TOLAC either spontaneous or induced offers both benefits and risks to the mother and neonate. Aim: To determine the risks and benefits of inducing labour with Prostaglandin Gel (PGE2) in women with previous one CS and to compare it with patients who developed spontaneous labour in terms of fetal and maternal outcome. Materials and Methods: A prospective interventional study was conducted over a period of one year from June 2017 to May 2018. A total of 322 pregnant patients with previous one CS who fulfill the eligibility criteria for TOLAC were enrolled and divided into two groups. Of these 74 patients were induced with PGE2 gel (study group) and 248 experienced spontaneous labour. Data were analysed via Chi-square test and unpaired t-test using analytical tool pack of Microsoft excel (version-10.0)-2010 home edition. Results: In study group and control group, 51 (68.9%) and 191 (77.01%) women respectively delivered vaginally either spontaneous or assisted, but the difference was not statistically significant. Two cases in the study group had laparotomy for uterine rupture with favourable feto-maternal outcome. Vaginal Birth After Caesarean (VBAC) rate was significantly more in women who had history of prior vaginal delivery (p=0.0024). TOLAC was successful in 242 women while CS was done in 80 women. Mean BMI in women with successful TOLAC was significantly lower than in women with unsuccessful TOLAC (23.42±2.07 versus 26.08±3.07, p=0.0001). With an inter-pregnancy interval of 25-36 months, 45.1% in study group and 47.6% in control group delivered vaginally. Conclusion: For women with previous one CS, TOLAC is a reasonable option as compared to planned repeat Caesarean. In these women with continuous supervision, PGE2 is as safe and effective as spontaneous labour in achieving vaginal birth after Caesarean.

An analysis of perceptions and support for Windows 10 Home Edition update features

Abstract Home computer users are regularly advised to install software updates to stay secure. Windows 10 Home Edition automatically downloads and installs updates, restarting the computer if needed. Automatic restarts can be managed through a number of features, such as ‘active hours’ (within which a computer will not restart to complete an update) or by setting a time for restart. Applications active prior to a restart can register with the operating system, to automatically restart once updates have been installed. This research investigates if the features Microsoft provides for managing updates on Windows 10 Home Edition are appropriate for computer owners. We build a model of Windows 10 update behaviour, identifying interaction points between update features and users. We contrast theory with reality in a survey with 93 Windows 10 Home users, capturing experiences and perceptions. While overall perceptions of updates were positive, the pattern of use of most participants was incompatible with the default ‘active hours’ settings (28% of participants knew of its existence). Participants were mostly unaware of quality (bug fix) updates, mostly perceiving that updates add features. Half of our participants reported unexpected restarts, while half also reported growing concern about the state of their device if an update took a long time. Those with previous negative update experiences had weaker beliefs about their ability to control updates than those who had not. To make the updates less disruptive, applications can request to be restarted by Windows after a reboot. Of the 47 commonly used applications which were tested, only two supported seamless continuation after a restart. Unsaved data were lost in 21 applications, and 14 appeared to rely on internal autosave features to capture unsaved data, but did not completely restore User Interface arrangements. We recommend that operating systems obtain explicit permission for restarts, consistently; there are opportunities for features such as active hours and update progress displays to learn from usage activity. At the same time, applications should be more resilient to restarts to reduce the burden on users to recover their activities.

Fronto-striatal activity predicts anhedonia and positive empathy subtypes.

The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, globus pallidus, and nucleus accumbens are important components of the reward circuit in the brain; and prior research suggests individuals with damage to these regions feel less pleasure (i.e., are anhedonic). However, little is known about how these brain regions relate to vicarious pleasure. Pilot fMRI data were collected from 20 participants (Mage = 22, SD = 7.0, 63% female) during a validated empathy induction paradigm that utilized video clips extracted from the television show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" to elicit empathic happiness (i.e. vicarious happiness) when targets display positive affect, and either empathic cheerfulness (i.e. the tendency to want to cheer someone up) or empathic concern (i.e. vicarious sadness) when targets display negative affect. Participants also completed the novel "Happy Faces" task-a behavioral measure of anhedonia-while fMRI was collected. fMRI data during task completion were used to predict trait empathy measured via self-report outside of the scanner, and accuracy on the "Happy Faces" task. Results indicate that globus pallidus activity during empathic concern-eliciting video clips significantly predicted self-reported trait empathic cheerfulness (R2 = 26%, p = 0.045). Furthermore, greater dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity during the Happy Faces task predicted accurate performance on the task (R2 = 34%, p < .05); and greater nucleus accumbens shell activity during the Happy Faces task predicted greater trait empathic happiness (R2 = 38%, p < .05). These results suggest that fronto-striatal circuitry contributes to our experience of anhedonia, empathic happiness, and empathic cheerfulness.

Extreme Hoards: Race, Reality Television &amp; Real Estate Value During the 2008 Financial Crisis

Two hit reality television shows, just before 2008 and in the foreclosure crisis just after, disciplined particular economic subjects and naturalized historically specific immanent power structures. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition re-imagined the leveraged construction of massive houses in the exurbs. Its sentimentality and its reliance on ethnic minorities dove-tailed with the rhetoric of social justice that politicians used to push for deregulation of mortgage financing, then later facilitated the popular right-wing narrative blaming minorities. After the crash, Hoarders visually mimicked the stages of foreclosure. While Extreme Home Makeover sought to contain the bodies of the poor as static reserves of value in their own neighborhoods, Hoarders re-identified real estate value with normative mental health and commensurable white feminine domesticity.

Automated Essay Evaluation for English Language Learners:A Case Study of MY Access

ABSTRACTComputer technology made its way into writing instruction and assessment with spelling and grammar checkers decades ago, but more recently it has done so with automated essay evaluation (AEE) and diagnostic feedback. And although many programs and tools have been developed in the last decade, not enough research has been conducted to support or evaluate the claims of the developers. This study examined the effectiveness of automated writing instructional programs in consistent scoring of essays and appropriate feedback to student writers. It examined the scoring and instructional program called MY Access! Home Edition, which has an error feedback tool called My Editor to address these issues. The study combined a quantitative study of agreement and correlational analyses with an analysis of content and topic. Participants included 114 English language learners who wrote 147 essays to three writing prompts, which were graded by trained EFL raters and MY Access. From the sample, 15 randomly selected essays were also used for an error analysis comparing My Editor with human annotations to examine My Editor’s accuracy. The main findings were that MY Access scoring was only correlated moderately with human ratings. Furthermore, because MY Access scoring is limited to the recognition of content words, not how these words are organized at the discourse level, it did not detect slightly off-topic essays and plagiarism. Finally, My Editor’s error feedback, with 73% precision and 30% recall, did not meet the expectations of an accurate tool. In conclusion, the home edition of MY Access was not found to be useful as an independent instructional tool. These findings give us pause regarding the effectiveness of MY Access.

Parent and teacher perspectives on psychological adjustment: A national measurement study in Trinidad and Tobago

This article reports on the national standardization and psychometric properties of the Adjustment Scales for Children and Adolescents–Home Edition (ASCA-H) for use in Trinidad and Tobago. ASCA-H is a parent rating scale composed of behavioral indicators in play, social, and learning contexts. The sample was comprised of students (N = 780) attending government and assisted elementary schools. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed two internally consistent dimensions, Problems in Contexts Requiring Disciplined Behavior (i.e., Indiscipline) and Problems in Contexts Requiring Engaged Behavior (i.e., Disengagement). Dimensions were scaled with IRT and Bayesian scoring methods, with Disengagement scores more strongly relating to clinical disturbances, peer contexts, and classroom learning contexts. The norming information on the ASCA-H will enable identification of at-risk students and allow resources to be targeted to specific situational contexts with parents and other adults.

Electromyographically assessed empathic concern and empathic happiness predict increased prosocial behavior in adults

The relation between empathy subtypes and prosocial behavior was investigated in a sample of healthy adults. “Empathic concern” and “empathic happiness”, defined as negative and positive vicarious emotion (respectively) combined with an other-oriented feeling of “goodwill” (i.e. a thought to do good to others/see others happy), were elicited in 68 adult participants who watched video clips extracted from the television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Prosocial behavior was quantified via performance on a non-monetary altruistic decision-making task involving book selection and donation. Empathic concern and empathic happiness were measured via self-report (immediately following each video clip) and via facial electromyography recorded from corrugator (active during frowning) and zygomatic (active during smiling) facial regions. Facial electromyographic signs of (a) empathic concern (i.e. frowning) during sad video clips, and (b) empathic happiness (i.e. smiling) during happy video clips, predicted increased prosocial behavior in the form of increased goodwill-themed book selection/donation.

Websites of note

Websites of note

(Re)Creating a World in Seven Days: Place, Disability and Salvation in Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

At its most superficial rhetorical level, ABC’s hit television show, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, equates the condition of the family home with the condition of the bodies inside the home. If the home is ‘fixed’, then the people who live in that home will be 'fixed', as well. In this essay, I consider the ways that Extreme Makover: Home Edition constructs the human body as disabled through the medium of architecture, helped along by reality television’s version of Christian sacrificial atonement.

LesMu - Lessico della letteratura musicale italiana 1490-1950 (review)

LesMu - Lessico della letteratura musicale italiana 1490-1950. Edited by Fiamma Nicolodi and Paolo Trovato. Information retrieval programme DBT (Textual Database) produced by Eugenio Picchi. User Manual and Bibliography (English translation by Aloma Bardi and Carolyn Demcy), pp. 167 + CD-ROM. Firenze: Franco Cesati Editore, 2007. [Requires Windows 98, ME Millennium Edition, XP (Home Edition and Professional), 500 MB hard disk free space minimum, 128 MB RAM. ISBN 978-88-7667-342-9. Pricing: euro900.00.] If we allow musicology any axiom, it would be that it is a metalanguage, as it uses verbal language to investigate and illustrate a nonverbal language. How has the discipline been conceptualized over time? The Italian linguist Fabio Rossi demonstrated in his article Tra musica e nonmusica: le metafore nel lessico musicale italiano (Between music and non-music: metaphors in the Italian vocabulary) (Musica e storia 10, no. 1 [2002]) that most of the essential vocabulary of musicology and music criticism has metaphorical origins. Metaphors loquaciously blossom in the attempt to describe without words the techniques and effects of a completely different system of signs-that of notes, tones, and tempos. How did this language become specialized? The answer involves centuries and many words, or musical talks. In his article, Rossi made extensive use of working material from the electronic music lexicon Lessico della Letteratura Musicale Italiana 1490-1950 (The Lexicon of Italian Musical Literature, 1490-1950), henceforth referred to as LesMu, for which the linguist Rossi acted as an editorial assistant. LesMu represents a remarkable corpus of sources in literature, stretching from the fifteenth century to the twentieth, from the invention of printing to the development of electronic music, before the mass spread of popular music, and before the enormous proliferation of musicological publications (User Manual, p. 69). LesMu's title is due in large part to the fact that beginning in the sixteenth century, Italian-in addition to its text having been frequently set to music-was a leading language of western art music. This does not mean, however, that LesMu is a resource solely intended for lexicographers, linguists, or musicologists engaged in Italian studies. Content LesMu is comprised of the lexicon on CD-ROM and a bilingual, printed user guide in Italian and English; the latter contains a lengthy bibliography which is also available in electronic format on the CDROM. Published in 2008, LesMu is the final outcome of a synergy of multiple disciplines. Over sixty accredited musicologists, philologists, linguists, computer scientists, and typists have worked on this project since 1989. The database contains approximately 22,500 lexicographical records, a total of over 8,000 entries (mostly locutions), 3,600,000 words, and 2,000 illustrations. The bibliography-which consists of 800 works chosen with knowledge and sensibility-includes treatises, periodicals, librettos, reviews by notable Italian authors such as Bruno Barilli, Fedele D'Amico, the Nobel author Eugenio Montale, and Alberto Savinio, correspondence, memoirs, and narrative (even novels by Carlo Collodi, author of Pinocchio). Entries are not exclusively about music but all are of some interest from a lexical point of view. LesMu was made possible by funds from the Italian Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Universita e della Ricerca (Ministry of Education, University and Research), and the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (National Research Council), the largest public research institute in Italy. Compared to updatable and augmentable online encyclopedias with cheap subscription costs, or compared to Google books or digital libraries that offer free access to some of the sources referenced in LesMu, the price of this CD-ROM is unreasonably high. I would also like to mention another resource, Saggi Musicali Italiani (SMI ), which shares the same field of interest with LesMu. …

Comforting the Comfortable: Extreme Makeover Home Edition's Ideological Conquest

The United States prides itself on being a classless society where economic determinism can be transcended by the right amount of merit, determination, and luck. At the same time, however, the U.S. has the second highest wealth inequality rate of any developed nation and the second lowest intergenerational mobility. Explaining the contradiction between the myth of the American Dream and the economic reality is no easy task. This article attempts to explain the role ideology and cultural myth play in mediating this contradiction by analyzing the ABC reality television series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is a wildly popular program in which a team of home builders and designers travel around the country building new homes for desperate and deserving families. I use the portrayals of seven of these families to explain the specific way Extreme Makeover portrays each families as deserving and meriting spectacular material assistance. This ideology offers support for the reinforcement of existing economic power structures and the myth of the American Dream.

Domesticating Citizenship: The Kairotopics of America's Post-9/11 Home Makeover

This essay analyzes how Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is making over democratic citizenship in post-9/11 America. Seeking to counter a temporal bias that displaces attention to the spatial in communication scholarship, I conduct a kairotopic, or temporal-spatial, analysis of this program to illustrate how it mediates citizenship through a particular material space-time: the contemporary American home. Overall, I argue that this show operates to domesticate political practices by relocating social responsibility from public institutions to private corporations and redirecting political agency into familiar (nuclear) familial space-times. In so doing, the program paradoxically combines the economic and governmental imperatives of neoliberalism with the moral and social norms of neoconservativism to build a new national home that is both post-dissident and postfeminist.