Popular Books Research Articles

An Enhanced Item-Based Collaborative Filtering Approach for Book Recommender System Design

The massive amounts of web-sourced data have made accessibility of precise (tailored) information for end-users a challenging task. If this personalized information-filtering technology is possibly thought to get automated at the machine level, this necessitates the design of an appropriate machine-assisted recommender system that suffices both system and end-user requirements. This paper attempts to make use of an innovative hybrid approach to build a prototype of a machine-assisted recommender that can be used as a tool in the physical library of universities, organizations, and institutions. In this manuscript, an Enhanced Item-Based Collaborative Filtering Approach for Book Recommender System Design is proposed to predict the popular books based on the transactions found in the issue/return transaction database. Demographic attributes of books are used for the precise calculation of item-item similarity with cosine/correlation coefficient by discovering all significant associations rules in the formulated item set and it provides the recommendations. The proposed algorithm’s performances are calculated based on accuracy, precision, and recall.

The apportionment of citations: a scientometric analysis of Lewontin 1972.

‘The apportionment of human diversity’ (1972) is the most highly cited research article published by geneticist Richard Lewontin in his career. This study's primary result—that most genetic diversity in humans can be accounted for by within-population differences, not between-population differences—along with Lewontin's outspoken, politically charged interpretations thereof, has become foundational to the scientific and cultural discourse pertaining to human genetic variation. The article has an unusual bibliometric trajectory in that it is much more salient in the bibliographic record today compared to the first 20 years after its publication. Here, we highlight four factors that may have played a role in shaping the paper's fame: (i) citations in influential publications across several disciplines; (ii) Lewontin's own popular books and media appearances; (iii) the renaissance of population genetics research of the early 1990s; and (iv) the serendipitous collision of scientific progress, influential books and papers, and heated controversies around the year 1994. We conclude with an analysis of Twitter data to characterize the communities and conversations that continue to keep this study at the centre of discussions about race and genetics, prompting new challenges for scientists who have inherited Lewontin's legacy.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Celebrating 50 years since Lewontin's apportionment of human diversity’.

Plant and bird phenology and plant occurrence from 1851 to 2020 (non-continuous) in Thoreau's Concord, Massachusetts.

Concord, Massachusetts, USA has served as an active location for phenological observations since philosopher and naturalist Henry David Thoreau began recording plant and animal occurrence and phenology in 1851. Since that time, numerous naturalists, scientists, and researchers have continued this tradition, creating an invaluable time series of 758 species in a single location. In total, 13,441 phenological records, spanning 118 years, now exist, with observations of many species ongoing. Relative abundance data for an additional 200 plant species is also provided. Thoreau's published journals and records in Special Collections libraries at the Concord Free Public Library, Harvard University, Peabody Essex Museum, and Morgan Library and Museum provide insight into his methods of routinely walking around Walden Pond, through natural areas, and within the town of Concord, seeking the first leaf or flower on plants, seasonal observations of migratory birds, and fruit maturation times. Several amateur naturalists, and most recently the present research group, have followed this method of regularly searching Concord for the earliest signs of seasonal events, visiting many of the same locations including Walden Pond, the site made famous by Thoreau. While Thoreau's observations were initially made out of a curious desire to document the natural world, these data have led to dozens to contemporary studies, addressing timely issues such as climate change, conservation, ecology, and invasive species. This time series of data, initiated by Thoreau and continued by others, has resulted in dozens of peer-reviewed publications, a popular science book, and numerous educational and outreach opportunities. These data grow increasingly valuable with time and as new and creative studies are undertaken with Thoreau's historic records. No copyright restrictions apply to the use of this data set other than citing this publication.

Can Mental Tricks Effect Social Change?

Can Mental Tricks Effect Social Change?

Yiddish: Biography of a Language by Jeffrey Shandler

Reviewed by: Yiddish: Biography of a Language by Jeffrey Shandler Gennady Estraikh Jeffrey Shandler. Yiddish: Biography of a Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. 264 pp. It is no coincidence that Jeffrey Shandler turns in his new book to anthropomorphism, which is widely used in school education, making historical and other narratives more vivid and engaging. Yiddish: Biography of a Language has to be seen not as purely an academic work, but as largely a reading for those who know little about Yiddish. Moreover, it is a portrayal of the language depicted from a very personal vantage point, giving the book its own interesting twist to make it different from other works on and around Yiddish. Attribution of human characteristics to Yiddish implies unavoidably that the language has a lifespan, from birth to death. True, Yiddish is not pronounced dead in the book. Rather, the language continues to live in ultra-Orthodox communities (which are of obviously little interest to the author) and operates, predominantly in a "postvernacular"—symbolic—mode, among less or nonobservant Jews as well as non-Jewish enthusiasts. As we know, Shandler's term "postvernacular Yiddish" has found a niche in the academic discourse. The contention of seven cities for the birth place of Homer pales in comparison with the debate on where Yiddish—or proto-Yiddish—saw the light of day for the first time. Who were its speakers? Were they really directly related to the Jews from the Land of Israel? Was it in its early years a Germanic language or, rather, did it first develop as a Slavic vernacular and adopt Germanic traits later? Application of contemporary DNA methods adds a Jurassic Park spice to the discussion, with participation of historical linguists and lay researchers. Shandler carefully navigates this treacherous terrain in one of the best chapters of his book. It is an open secret that a millennium or so after the "birth" of the language, many vital "organs" of Yiddish have become entirely or partly atrophied. One of the organs is academic work in Yiddish. From the 1910s onwards, academic [End Page 176] publications in Yiddish aimed to show in particular that Yiddish belongs to the category of languages rather than to lexically deficient "jargons." Shandler argues that all Yiddish "research institutions, established in the 1920s and 1930s, were liquidated during World War II." In fact, the Soviet authorities closed the Minsk and Kiev institutes as early as 1936, leaving a smaller academic unit in Kiev (and in evacuation during the war) operational until its liquidation in 1949. In the 1950s and later, Yiddish studies found a growing recognition in American, Israeli, and other universities. However, English, Hebrew, German, and, to a lesser degree, a few other languages have been the working mediums for Yiddish studies. The YIVO Institute, established in Europe almost a century ago as a trend-setting scholarly and language-planning Yiddish Olympus, functions in New York almost exclusively as an exceptionally important library-cum-archive. The 1990s saw the last noteworthy attempts to produce academic publications in Yiddish, though lectures on academic topics have continued to be delivered on some occasions. The decline in the 1990s of the Tel Aviv literary journal Di goldene keyt (The golden chain), its Moscow counterpart Sovetish heymland (Soviet homeland, called in its post-Soviet years Di yidishe gas—The Jewish street), and a couple of smaller literary periodicals effectively marked the end of secular Yiddish literature as an institution. This became particularly clear after the failure of the Oxford-based monthly journal Di pen (The pen, 1994–1998) to demonstrate that Yiddish literary creativity had not lost its vitality. The journal was discontinued due to lack of contributors and readers. There are talented people who continue to write in Yiddish (Brooklynite Boris Sandler is arguably the most significant among them) and have an Internet-based regular and occasional readership of, probably, several hundred worldwide, which does not amount to what can be called an institution. The reader of Yiddish: Biography of a Language gets predominantly a telescopic view on Yiddish and its associated culture. It is probably good for a popular book not to overload the reader with facts and names. However, the...

Research on the enterprise online marketing mode based on data mining

With the development and popularity of mobile networks, online shopping has gradually become a trend. For enterprises, the traditional marketing mode has been difficult to play an effective role when facing the emerging online shopping mode. This study aims to improve the revenue benefits of online shopping. This paper first introduces the traditional marketing mode and then selects the data mining model used for consumption preference segmentation to build an online marketing mode. An example analysis was conducted on a book sales company and a real estate company. The results showed that more users in this community preferred five types of books, and the percentages from high to low were teaching and learning materials, modern novels, popular science books, historical literature, and classical novels; more customers preferred online platforms among the channels for collecting information on home purchase. No matter it was the book sales company or the real estate company, compared with no fluctuation in the company’s turnover under the traditional marketing mode, the turnover of the company increased month by month after adopting the online marketing mode.

Women's Psychotypes in Nino Haratishwili's novel ‘’Juja"

Nino Haratischwili tells us about the results of a popular book "written" by a young suicide bomber in the feminist circles of the 70s, which pushed many young people to commit suicide. Eventually, one art critic was "forced" to take the path of revealing its author and unveil a shocking reality. After much research, it turned out that this destined and outcast writer Jana Sare, because of which, many people died, never really existed and was just a literary fiction of a misogynistic publisher. Around the main conflict of the novel are several women, who have completely different psychotypes from each other.In her novel, Nino Haratischwili creates a panorama of women with different aspirations, who have one thing in common: they want to grasp the secret of a girl who wanted to save a hostile, alien world and instead of it, they committed suicide. Voiced female characters: Laura, Francesca, Olga, Nadine and "I" are looking for their place in life. Some of them manage to find their own identity after a collision with life, while others get lost in the chaos and commit suicide like Jeanne Sarah or her prototype - Daniele Sarera. There are no dynamic actions in the novel, it tells us nothing but how each characte obtain the book "Ice Age" and what is the result of their acquaintance in the life of each of them.

The Soviet Lubok of the First Half of the 1920s as a Form of Propaganda among the Peasantry

The lubok of the 1920s is a little-studied page of Soviet art. The tradition of using lubki (popular prints) and folklore for revolutionary propaganda goes back to the 19th century. The first part of the article examines the cases of using the lubki in the revolutionary movement. The Narodniks were the first who used the lubok literature form for revolutionary propaganda among peasants. The Narodniks’ “ryazhenaya” (“mummer”) literature masked in lubok clothing both for the purposes of conspiracy and for attractiveness for the peasantry. Before the October Revolution, the lubok had been mainly used by the Narodniks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who positioned themselves as a peasant party. After the revolution, the Bolsheviks also used the lubok form when it was necessary to broadcast Marxist ideas to the countryside. For this purpose, they used Soviet popular prints (Soviet lubki) and lubok books (propaganda prints). The second part of the article is dedicated to Soviet popular prints. At first, the Soviet lubki were oriented in their pictorial form on old traditional folk prints, and in their texts — on folklore. They imitated folk speech and took over ditties (chastushki) from the new Soviet folklore. From the second half of the 1920s, the Soviet lubok started changing its form, transforming into a reproduction from realistic easel paintings. The third part of the article considers the lubok books and agro tales for peasants. There is shown that the Soviet lubok books in their form also resembled pre-revolutionary ones.

The Quantified Caveman

This is a detailed study of nutritional and lifestyle data on a single individual who adhered to the Paleolithic diet (PD) for a full year. The dietary intake was compared with evidence-based guidelines and various PD iterations from the research literature and popular diet books. Although the subject's diet aligned with PD book recommendations, several nutrients differed markedly from estimations in the scientific literature, highlighting the importance of relying on evidence-based dietary advice. These findings provide insight into a contemporary PD in practice, the feasibility of nutrition tracking, and how self-tracked dietary data can inform health behavior.

The anecdotal patient: brain injury and the magnitude of harm

In this study of the history of brain injury, I take up the discursive study of medical cases as a genre for the purposes of illustrating clinically important, philosophically meaningful and socially pertinent elements of medical patients’ lives. My objective is to assert the value of single cases, which derives from the way they allow others insight into significant and otherwise often overlooked elements of personal, social and future experience that speak to the harm from such injuries. Drawing on examples of brain damage recorded in clinical literature, textbooks, legal documents and popular books published over the last two centuries, I contrast the power of those texts’ single cases with qualifications and equivocations about the status of such evidence as it emerges in clinical practice and courtroom settings. I argue that single cases illustrate loss, redemption, context and narrative in ways that cannot be dismissed as merely anecdotal and that they point the way towards clinical discovery and patient survival.

ANALISIS EKONOMI SYARIAH MENURUT SUDUT PANDANG AGAMA BUDDHA

Sharia economics is a teaching that puts forward religious and ethical values in muamalah, which provides a fair value of benefits to both parties concerned and distributes existing losses so that they are not burdened with only one party. On this basis, this study was made to find out the correlation between Islamic economics and economics in Buddhism. The research method is based on literature review and uses methods that are relevant to existing theories. Sources of data used in this study took primary and secondary sources. Primary sources are Al-Quran and Hadith, Tipitaka. Secondary sources are popular books and other supporting sources that are relevant to the problem being discussed. The data analysis technique used in the preparation of the thesis mostly uses a deductive way of drawing conclusions. Deductively, namely the collection of data from things that are general to things that are specific, as well as correlatives that have a reciprocal relationship with one another. In this research, it was found that there was a correlation between Economics in Islam and Buddhism, which was carried out with effort without harming oneself, others or other creatures. From the point of view of Buddhism, it shows that the economy that is carried out must go through the right and legitimate path, according to what is taught, namely by being guided by the noble eightfold path, namely right livelihood. Buddhist economics not only considers one's own happiness, but also considers others.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Versus the Low FODMAP Diet for Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Non-Inferiority Comparison of Two Self-Help Books

Background: IBS is a highly prevalent, chronic gastrointestinal (GI) disorder of gut-brain interaction that can lead to considerable distress and disability. Although IBS does not respond particularly well to standard medical care, empirically supported treatments exist, including CBT and the low FODMAP diet. Many patients with IBS seek self-help and adjunctive treatments to supplement traditional medical care. Therefore, it is important to rigorously test some of those publicly available options to see if they provide measurable benefit to consumers. Aims: This study compared the efficacy of 2 self-help books (one cognitive-behavioral therapy or CBT book and one low FODMAP diet book) for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Method: This study was a randomized, controlled, optional cross-over, single-blind, non-inferiority trial of 2 popular self-help books with 3 months of longitudinal follow-up. The books were Reclaim Your Life from IBS and The Complete Low FODMAP Diet Book. Result: Immediately post-treatment, participants in both conditions showed significant improvement in health-related quality of life (HRQL), GI symptom severity, catastrophizing, anxiety about visceral sensations, and depressive symptoms. There were no significant between-group differences at post-treatment in HRQL; although, the low FODMAP group did show greater declines in GI symptom severity. By 3-month follow-up, both groups continued to show significant improvement over baseline in HRQL, and there were no significant between group-differences on any measure. Conclusion: Reading either book with no professional guidance resulted in substantial improvement in patients with self-reported IBS.

Desert Insurgency: Archaeology, T. E. Lawrence, and the Arab Revolt

Desert Insurgency: Archaeology, T. E. Lawrence, and the Arab Revolt

Post-Editese in Literary Translations

In the present study, we investigated the post-editese phenomenon, i.e., the unique features that set machine translated post-edited texts apart from human-translated texts. We used two literary texts, namely, the English children’s novel by Lewis Carroll Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (AW) and Paula Hawkins’ popular book The Girl on the Train (TGOTT). Both literary texts were Google translated from English into Brazilian Portuguese to investigate whether the post-editese features can be found on the surface of the post-edited (PE) texts. In addition, we examined how the features found in the PE texts differ from the features encountered in the human-translated (HT) and machine translation (MT) versions of the same source text. Results revealed evidence for post-editese for TGOTT only with PE versions being more similar to the MT output than to the HT texts.

COURT VOYAGE DANS LE MONDE DES NANOSCIENCES ET NANOTECHNOLOGIES : UN PROJET MULTILINGUE POUR LA TRADUCTION DE LA TERMINOLOGIE SCIENTIFIQUE

Starting from the development of a multilingual project aiming at the publication of the popular science book Breve viaggio multilingue nel nanomondo. Con un glossario di nanoscienze e nanotecnologie in six languages (English, French, Italian, German, Russian and Romanian), this paper sets out to highlight the translator's approach and, at the same time, to question the classic debate between the two main types of translation approaches: semasiological and/or onomasiological. The conclusion that emerges is that these two approaches are complementary, ensuring a plural inter- and intra-lingual reading, as the translator has several paths of access to the world of nanosciences and nanotechnologies through routes that guarantee a journey that facilitates a good appropriation of this new terminology.

Science Fiction as an Instructional Strategy: Foundations, Procedures, and Results for Pre-service Teachers.

Science fiction (SF) combines realistic and imaginary elements of science and technology and develops students’ imagination, creativity, and interest in science. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine SF stories written by pre-service science teachers (PSTs) in terms of various textual and science variables. The case study of SF story writing aimed to develop a theoretical framework to analyze how narrative elements, plot structure, agency, the nature of science content, characteristics of the SF genre, and ethics in scientific research are included in the stories of a group of Turkish PSTs. The participants of the study were 58 pre-service teachers enrolled in the science education department at a public university in Turkey. Working in groups, they wrote 13 different SF stories. The stories were analyzed with a rubric including two parts: narrative and other story elements and the characteristics of the SF genre. The results showed that the stories included fictional and realistic features of science and technology, scientific concepts, and details about scientific realities. The stories addressed the social and cultural embeddedness of scientific knowledge and details about the scientific method. However, the originality is limited in many stories as they had traces from popular movies, books, and TV series. The stories did consider a range of ethical issues, including unauthorized experimentation and manipulating scientific information for personal, political, and financial interests. The current study could contribute to the literature about the use and assessment of SF stories in science education.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10763-021-10244-4.

Demystifying ‘diet culture’: Exploring the meaning of diet culture in online ‘anti-diet’ feminist, fat activist, and health professional communities

Social aspects of dieting are discussed in the extant feminist literature. However, despite frequent use of the term ‘diet culture’ in online communities critical of weight-loss dieting and popular books about the harms of restrictive eating, academic studies have not yet investigated its meaning holistically. We used thematic analysis to examine how those in the broad ‘anti-diet movement’ have challenged norms representing ‘diet culture,’ and how the term can be used to unite feminist researchers, activists, and health professionals. One-hundred and eighteen online qualitative survey participants (94.92% female; 37.29% health professionals; 51.70% anti-diet activists; Mage = 36.67) characterised ‘diet culture’ as ‘health myths about food and eating,’ and a ‘moral hierarchy of bodies’ driven by ‘systemic and structural factors.’ Feminist researchers, activists, and health professionals can use ‘diet culture’ to challenge myths and misconceptions about dieting and health, as well as the broader systems and structures that perpetuate these myths.

An appreciation: Matthew Alastair Parkes (1961–2020)

An appreciation:Matthew Alastair Parkes (1961–2020) Nigel T. Monaghan, Michael J. Simms, Patrick N. Wyse Jackson, and John Murray Matthew Parkes was a highly respected geologist and good friend to many who knew him. His legacy is his enduring scientific research, published in many popular articles, journals and books. It was important to him that geology was not only thoroughly researched and published for the scientific community, but that it should also be made fully accessible for the general public, particularly for any budding geologist. Once Matthew discovered geology as a teenager, the fascination never waned, and his work covered a wide expanse of geoscience topics across many countries. Click for larger view View full resolution The geologist Matthew was born 8 July 1961 and grew up in Hertfordshire. At school he focused on sciences, culminating with A levels in Geology and Geography in 1981. He worked at the Soil Survey of England and Wales, then studied geology at Sheffield University and was awarded his BSc in 1985. He then came to Ireland to study for his PhD at University College Galway (UCG; now University of Galway) as a recipient of an Anglo-Irish Postgraduate Exchange Scholarship. With typical careful dedication Matthew studied small areas of rocks of Ordovician and Silurian age on the south-eastern margin of the Iapetus Ocean, from Meath to Waterford, under the supervision of David Harper. These island relics with their endemic brachiopod faunas are poorly exposed and it took considerable determination to get decent fossils out of the scrappy outcrops. His good friend in UCG Eamon Doyle, now geologist for the Burren Geopark in County Clare, studied the other side of that ocean, but from the same office. Even before he completed his PhD in 1990, Matthew was working as an Assistant Lecturer and looking after overseas students on summer programmes. A post-doctoral appointment in Trinity College to work on the Irish-Italian EU-funded project 'Silurian ecostratigraphy in Ireland and Sardinia' organised by Charles Holland brought Matthew to Dublin in 1990 where he shared an office with Mike Simms. He was involved in leading student field trips in Ireland and overseas to the Mendip Hills and Devon and Dorset coasts. In 1997 he was awarded a Sylvester-Bradley Award by the Palaeontological Association. [End Page 1] Geologists will appreciate the quality and diversity of Matthew's contributions to our science. He produced well over a hundred publications, many as collaborations with experts in Ordovician rocks in other countries. His output ranged from the Geological Society's correlation of the Ordovician (Fortey et al. 2000), to books on Irish geology county by county and much more besides (see bibliography). Matthew produced high quality papers on Irish Paleozoic faunas that included studies on brachiopods (Parkes 1990; Harper et al. 1990, 2010), trilobites (Parkes and Owen 1994; Owen and Parkes 1996, 2000), Caradoc and Telychian faunas of south east and north west Ireland respectively (Parkes et al. 2017; Parkes 1993), and he also contributed to an assessment of elements of the significant Pennsylvanian Jarrow fauna (Orr et al. 1996). Matthew's publications on the Ordovician and Silurian faunas of Ireland, based on his PhD studies and subsequent research, have provided a significant volume of data that informs our current understanding of Lower Paleozoic geology in this part of the globe. The caver Matthew's time at Galway allowed him to indulge his love of caves and karst landscapes, something he maintained for the rest of his life, and caving led to many great friendships. Exploring Horse Discovery, near Cong, his height proved an advantage. The deep pool just inside was easily negotiated by Matthew (at six feet, seven and a half inches) but, as recalled by Mike Simms, it was a swim for the others in the group. Caving together became a lifelong activity, renewed in Wales when they found themselves working together in Cardiff, and again back in Ireland with Matthew based in Dublin and Mike in Belfast. The coast at Portrane, Dublin, with its Ordovician limestone shelly faunas was a great attraction and featured in Matthew's research. It was also a place where Mike found caves and Matthew discovered palaeokarst features...

В. И. Даль и словесность Древней Руси

The topic of folklore in Vladimir Dal’s work is well studied. In contrast, the original and persistent connection of his work with the style, plots and genres of medieval and early modern Russian literature still remains unexplored. Plots of Dal’s first tales often followed popular lubok prints and books. They were published in large number of copies for that time and, for that matter, populated not only chivalric romances, but also the lives of saints and folk satire, like Dal’s “Tale of Shemyaka’s Judgement”. Dal’s tales made a strong impression with their virtuoso language and cascades of prefaces, where he usually used the stylistic device of amplification filled with everyday features. Dal was well acquainted with medieval manuscript books. As a result, his writings contain numerous echoes of medieval Russian texts, including The Tale of Igor’s Campaign. Among Dal’s writings there are also texts that especially correspond to genres of medieval Russian literature. Dal was the first to compose a systematically ordered monthly folk calendar and to use the Herbal and the Physiologus books in his lexicological research. Dal acknowledged that the study of twelfth-century texts written in Old East Slavic (Old Russian) strengthened his intention to compile the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language. This work is no less important in the history of Russian culture than the legacy of Russian classics.

«Топонимические очерки Оренбуржья» Б. А. Моисеева

The popular scientific book “Toponymic Essays of the Orenburg Region” by Candidate of Philology, associate professor Boris Aleksandrovich Moiseyev from a position of the importance of the presented linguistic material for researchers in the field of toponymics, dialectology, history is reviewed. Advantages of author's interpretation of toponyms, originality in material statement, theoretical and practical importance of essays are shown. The edition opens the wide horizons not only for local history researches, but also researches devoted to interlingual and cross-cultural interaction.