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While Harold A. Innis's contributions to media theory and economic history are well recognized, his attention to Canada's North has received less notice. This paper brings together and analyzes Innis's most sustained engagement with the North: his sixteen-year project of reviewing more than 150 books about the region for the Canadian Historical Review. By examining Innis's North as a mediated text, the paper traces how his reviews were informed by concerns with enacting space and binding time. The paper discusses how Innis used his reviews to compile information about a largely unknown area, map its natural-resource potential, and commemorate its colourful and sometimes-turbulent past. Innis contributed to a construction of the region as a last frontier whose conquest could unite Canadians in common purpose and identity. Innis's reviews provided a platform for him to criticize the federal government s policies on the region, but his contributions to our understanding of the region largely failed to reflect the complexities of an already occupied, already changing North. Nevertheless, his discussions of political and economic development in the North anticipated current discussions of how Canada's northern tier is undergoing transformation through the exploitation of resources and climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares why McLuhan's work in communications has been the source of much acclaim whereas that of lnnis has attracted attention only recently. It argues that the disparate responses to the contributions of these two theorists are rooted not only in the extent to which their writings were available, but also in their differing communication practices. The latter account for why Innis' studies of media were initially ignored and why McLuhan was able to develop a considerable following, in part by drawing on Innis as a precursor; this resulted in a distorted view of lnnis' ideas that has persisted to this day. As a corrective, the article challenges McLuhan's claims that Innis viewed media as a form of staple and that he sought to understand how various knowledge specialities could be unified. Finally, it makes the case that the Innis/McLuhan tandem should be decoupled, to make better sense of a "de-McLuhanised" Innis on the one hand, and the McLuhanist-centred Toronto School on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including Canadian thinkers Marshall McLuhan and Harold A. Innis, McLuhanian concept of medium, and the place of poetry in the work of McLuhan.

We aim to detail some of the ways that social policy and gendered practices put older men at risk of elder mistreatment. Research on the abuse and neglect that older adults experience has often focused on the characteristics of the victims and the dynamics within families, emphasizing factors such as the likelihood of an intergenerational cycle of violence, substance abuse and dependency, and older men's financial status as key risks in elder abuse. The effect on men from this type of analysis is that elder mistreatment remains an individual or family problem rather than being viewed as a larger societal concern. This article challenges the individualistic focus by outlining the importance of societal forces affecting older men's risk of mistreatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On May 12, 1943, Harold Innis delivered a speech entitled "The Crisis in Public Opinion" at the annual luncheon of the Canadian National Newspapers and Periodicals Association, held in Toronto. The address has survived in transcript form in the Innis Papers collection at the University of Toronto Archives. Our paper can best be seen as a companion piece to the edited transcription of Innis' original speech, which follows in this issue of the Canadian Journal of Communication. Emphasizing the performative nature of the speech, we contextualize "The Crisis of Public Opinion" by examining the correspondence leading up to and following the speech. We argue that Innis' views on the "crisis of public opinion" in the print media indicate that he understood this particular issue as part of a broader public crisis related to the decline of political and juridical institutions and to shifts in power and influence. His commentary on media in Canada was bound up with his effort to promote collective engagement as a corrective to the biases in power that he had detected. The 1943 speech is thus significant not simply as a "missing link" between Innis' writings on Canada and his later work on communication theory; it is a clear and compelling distillation of the engagement, enactment, and performance that were the abiding features of his work as an intellectual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the authors discuss the significant technical challenges facing the computer-aided design (CAD) industry and research community and present an approach to address these issues. Ivan Sutherland, developer of the original Sketchpad application, used the number 10 to bring significant consistency to hidden surface algorithms for computer graphics in his classic paper. The concept of CAD itself has expanded into computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) and computer-aided engineering (CAE). Basic CAD techniques are reapplied in a number of places, including electrical and mechanical product development, buildings, and entertainment. CAD, CAM and CAE generate massive amounts of data that must be clearly organized and placed under strict configuration control. The CAD industry also provides support to these functions through product lifecycle management systems. The key component of all CAD applications is the end user. Users' success or failure in interacting with CAD products ultimately governs the success of the products themselves.

On June 18, 1948, the trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation approved an appropriation of $25,000 for use by the officers for the Social Sciences in the development of opportunities in the general area of Moral Issues in the Economic Order. This funding was to enable the officers to invite memoranda from thoughtful students and men of affairs who, it is believed, may have significant ideas to contribute to the Foundation as to directions in which work in this area may be most profitably prosecuted. One of the thoughtful students who was evidently invited to submit a memorandum was Harold Adams Innis, professor of political economy at the University of Toronto, he had established himself as the Rockefeller Foundation's most trusted advisor on matters pertaining to the social sciences in Canada. Innis duly submitted a letter to his friend Joseph Willits, in which he requested support for a small discussion group which has been set up in response to a suggestion from Pendleton Herring, president of the American Social Science Research Council of an interest in the problem of value.

While Harold Innis' address at le Collége de France in 1951 has recently begun to draw some attention, the circumstances surrounding Innis' brief appearance in France remain obscure, and the meaning and significance of the address have yet to be explored in any detail. This article seeks to provide context to Innis' talk by examining his long-standing "French inflection." It also examines the address itself, not only in terms of its themes and concerns, but also as a performative bid to find common ground with others (including the Annales School) who were challenging emergent monopolies of knowledge about the history of civilization. The presentation provides a point of entry into a final phase of Innis' intellectual life that has been overlooked, namely, his efforts to generate a community of like-minded interlocutors who were opposed to particular currents of thought that had become ascendant in the post-war period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Marshall is best remembered as the first resident director of the Rockefeller Foundation's Study and Conference Center at Bellagio. Yet, his influence on knowledge, thought, and practice rivalled that of any of his contemporaries at the Rockefeller. This paper describes how he `went about his business' as a Foundation officer, and examines his contribution to the creation of a transatlantic community of like-minded theorists and practitioners of communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the traditional and current uses of large displays in automotive design. Applications that make innovative use of large-format electronic displays; Traditional uses of large displays; Emerging generation of large-format displays for automotive design and construction.

The article relates the details of a meeting between sociologists Talcott Parsons and Ken'ichi Tominaga in 1978. The discussion between Talcott Parsons and Ken'ichi Tominaga took place at the Iwanami Shoten publishers office in Tokyo, Japan on the afternoon of December 12, 1978. Parsons arrived in Tokyo at mid-day, after having taken the train that had departed from Osaka around 9:00 a.m. that morning. In a letter written to Parsons, a few weeks before the Parsons' visit to Tokyo, Professor Tominaga described the Iwanami Shoten session as a colloquy with himself concerning the retrospection of Parsons on the formation of his own sociological thought. What Tominaga had in mind was something along the lines that Parsons had written for Daedalus. Iwanami Shoten had already shown some interest in Parson's work, having published in 1958 a Japanese translation of Economy and society, with an introduction by Tominaga. Parsons was paid an honorarium of 50,000 yen for the discussion, the same amount that he was given for his lecture later in the day. A few days prior to the discussion, Tominaga had supplied Parson with the following list of provisional questions: voluntarism vs. utilitarianism, motivation vs. value orientation, nature of system theory, relation between the Theory of Action and the Structural-functional theory, phenomenological approach.

In striking contrast to the conflict surrounding his earlier studies of Japanese society and culture, an amicable climate of mutual respect developed between Parsons and Japanese scholars in the 1970s. During this time, Parsons made two visits to Japan, where he was hailed as a great theorist whose views were taken most seriously by Japanese sociologists. The data indicate that, shortly before his sudden death in the spring of 1979, Parsons had begun to reformulate his ideas about modernization as a result of his increasing knowledge of Japanese society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a text of the discussion that took place between Talcott Parsons and Ken'ichi Tominaga on December 12, 1978. Tominaga claims that he asked the editor of SHISO to publish questions and answers between them. His role will be limited to ask several questions. He also claims that his questions are from the point of view of the general readers and Japanese social scientists. According to Tominaga, the books and papers of Parsons developed much original theoretical thinking especially the voluntaristic theory of action, the action frame of reference, the theory of social system, structural-functional analysis, the paradigm of four functional requisites of A-G-I-L, the scheme of boundary interchange and the theory of generalized media of exchange. In terms of the problem areas, perhaps economic sociology, political sociology, and religious sociology would be the big three among other things and in addition to that, organization theory, social stratification, ego structure, educational problems, and medical problems are several topics which Parsons has developed. Parsons states that not only did he borrow ideas from European scholars but he actually translated two things from Max Weber from German into English and thinks that is one of the best possible ways to get to understand his work.

This article traces the involvement of Talcott Parsons in research and teaching about Asian nations, especially China and Japan, in the period of World War II. The data indicate that, in contrast to his Eurocentric image, Parsons worked to develop a global perspective in studies on comparative institutions. This approach, inspired by the sociology of Max Weber, also addressed the practical needs of policy makers in connection with the war effort. Within Parsons's intellectual biography, it stands between the "voluntaristic" framework of his early treatise, The Structure of Social Action (1937) and the later non-historical formalism of The Social System (1951) for which he is perhaps most famous. An understanding of this relatively unknown phase of Parsons's work is therefore indispensable for an adequate appreciation of his career as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper seeks to demonstrate the inherently practical intent of the Marshall Lectures. It argues that Parsons' views on the relationship between sociology and economics were presupposed by his broader vision of how the social sciences could contribute to the successful functioning of the social order. This conception of a new division of labor in the social sciences arose from Parsons' concern with the shortcomings of both utilitarian economics and Marxism. Evidence from Parsons' writings of the 1930s and 1940s is provided in support of these claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the sociology of knowledge. Despite occasional outbursts, the sociology of knowledge has failed to emerge as a clearly defined area of research. Many social scientists have endeavored to define the sociology of knowledge as a disciplinary matrix, whose main identifying feature would be to empirically explain the relationship between ideas and social structure. Sociologist Karl Mannheim and his sociology of knowledge have been prominent targets for the presentist project in the social sciences, most notably through the efforts of another sociologist Robert Merton. The practice of sociology of knowledge is at odds with the overall concerns of a scientific community to enforce consensus of belief and method among its members. Despite the failure of Merton's groundwork to give form and substance to the sociology of knowledge, an inchoate field addressing similar issues has emerged.

The article discusses the essay "The Theory of Social Action in the Schutz-Parsons Debate," by Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab. The paper describes that in an age in which academics tend to confine themselves to familiar and predictable patterns of discourse, it is refreshing to return to an era in which searching discussion about foundational issues was not only possible, but eagerly carried out. The Parsons-Schutz "debate", which took place over a brief span a little more than fifty years ago, is notable as an exchange of this kind. The reasons are not difficult to deduce. Those working within human studies--particularly in Germany--have shown considerably more interest. But perhaps feeling that they have learned what is possible from the debate, they have moved on to other matters. More generally, with the demise of the sociology of knowledge and the philosophy of the social sciences, and the resurgence of positivism and applied quantitative approaches, less attention has been given in recent years to issues concerning the foundations of the social sciences.

The place of Georg Simmel in the thought of Talcott Parsons has come under increasing scrutiny, a concern fuelled by a "Simmel Renaissance" on the one hand, and by a resurgence of interest in Parsons's early writings on the other. This paper raises some question, about Parsons's interpretation of Simmel in light of the discovery of a second manuscript on Simmel that Parsons wrote in 1939. This document (which was unknown until quite recently) may best be seen as an elaboration and reworking of the fragment on Simmel that had been left out of The Structure of Social Action (1937). After summarizing and comparing the two documents, the paper demonstrates that Parsons blurred them in his recollections. This means that interpretations of his engagement with Simmel--which have often drawn on Parsons's later testimony (19681979)--need to be reconsidered. The discovery of the second manuscript also underscores the importance of examining how Simmel fit into Parsons's evolving thought, rather than narrowly focusing on why he left Simmel out of the convergence in European social thought that he traced in Structure. Taking the former approach as a point of reference, the paper outlines some interpretive issues that arise from the discovery of Parsons's second Simmel document. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluates the design of a one-handed typing technique performed on a standard keyboard with modified software. Usability to facilitate the transfer of two-handed touchtyping skill to the one-handed condition; User's ability to touch-type on a standard QWERTY keyboard; Speed of one-handed and two-handed chord keyboard typing.

Explores the articulatory and cognitive aspects of marking menus for different numbers of items per menu using different input devices. Execution of the physical actions from the pie marking menu; Comparison between the performance of the subject better with the mouse and stylus than with the trackball; Degradation on the performance of the subjects given an increased number of items.

Examines the use of different kinds of feedback in preventing mode errors. Definition of a mode error; Frequency of mode errors in a text-editing task; Comparison of effectiveness between kinesthetic and visual feedback; Factors contributing to the superiority of kinesthetic feedback.