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Preface -- Contents -- Contributors -- About the Editor -- Abbreviations -- Part I: Humanitarian and Social Perspectives on Suffering Alleviation -- Chapter 1: A Worldview of the Alleviation of Suffering -- Introduction -- The Definition and Concept of Suffering -- Basic Principles of Alleviating Suffering -- Useful Frames for Thinking About Suffering-Alleviation -- Suffering-Alleviation as Moral and Social Responsibility -- Suffering-Alleviation as Unnecessary If Not Harmful -- Suffering-Alleviation as Human Purpose and Meaning -- Suffering-Alleviation as Key to Community and Civil Society -- Suffering-Alleviation as Improving Quality of Life -- Suffering-Prevention as a Perspective on the Future -- Global Social Sectors of Suffering-Alleviation -- The Humanitarian Sector -- The Social Policy Sector -- The Caregiving Sector -- The Spiritual Sector -- Philosophical Issues in Prioritizing Suffering-Alleviation -- Approaches to Alleviating Extreme Suffering -- Global Trends in Suffering and Suffering-Alleviation -- Nations with Dramatic Declines in Suffering -- Overview of the Chapters -- Part I. Humanitarian and Social Perspectives on Suffering-Alleviation -- Part II. Quality of Life (QOL), Caring and Suffering-Alleviation -- Part III. Improving Global Development, Healthcare and Poverty Reduction -- Part IV. Violent Societal Conflict, Human Rights and Justice -- Part V. Preventing Future Suffering -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 2: Systemic Humiliation as Daily Social Suffering -- Introduction -- Humiliation as Physical, Social, and Moral Suffering -- Systemic Humiliation -- Discriminatory State Directives -- Ideologies of Rank-Ordering -- Essentializing Language -- Stereotypical Images -- Destructive Cultural Symbols -- Alleviating the Impact of Systemic Humiliation -- Political Perspective -- Social Perspective

This is the first book tackling the topic of world suffering. It compiles in one place the ideas, perspectives, and findings of researchers from around the world who pioneered research-based understanding of human suffering. Some chapters use the paradigm of 'quality of life' to explore ways to enhance knowledge on suffering. Other chapters show how concepts and knowledge from suffering research can benefit studies on quality of life. By bringing together in one volume, ideas and research experience from the best minds and leading researchers in the fields of pain, suffering, poverty, deprivation, disability and quality of life (including well-being and happiness), this volume advances social science solutions to a number of major threads of research, most notably suffering. As a whole, the volume advances the fields of suffering and deprivation by suggesting a working typology of suffering and by pointing out the major paradigms for relief of suffering, such as humanitarianism, human rights, caring, and healing. This volume provides a wealth of insights about the interaction between suffering and quality of life, the most up-to-date characterization of worldwide suffering, and a grasp of the implications of these data for local and global policy on health and social well-being.

This brief on human suffering adds to understanding of suffering by contextualizing both stories and statistics on pain and suffering, while showing that suffering adds a useful perspective to contemporary thought and research on quality of life, social well-being, and measures of societal progress. The scholarship on suffering is made more comprehensible in the book by using nine different conceptual frames that have been used for making sense of suffering. The primary focus of this work is with the last frame, the quality of life frame. Overall, these chapters show for the first time how the research on quality of life and well-being can be enhanced by embracing human suffering

The article highlights the history of the section on Communication and Information Technologies of the American Sociological Association (CITASA), focusing on the early years. In that early period in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the emphasiswas on helping sociologists adjust to the new potential of microcomputers for research and teaching. A tension emerged because new users of computing held different priorities than did those who were developers, specialists, or cyberspace researchers.

The 1996 Conference on Computing for the Social Sciences was a milestone in cooperation and in emphasis on research on the Internet. The program contributions are summarized within the structure of an agenda for future research on the social role of information technology and development of methodological tools for social science research.

Information sifting consists of all kinds of differentiation and evaluative actions in response to information overload. Like its alter ego, knowledge construction, it encompasses both social and nonsocial strategies. Research is suggested on what information-sifting mechanisms are used in cyberspace and how increasing use of software mechanisms may affect the pattern of social sifting behavior.

Prison sentencing needs to be comprehensive, adapt to changes over time, and avoid racial, gender, and age disparities. The Structured Sentencing Simulation (sss) addresses these needs through a microsimulation of court and correctional systems, providing parameters to generate the hypothetical impact of changes in sentencing policies. The program design utilizes microsimulation techniques including micro-data input, cell-based submodels, dynamic and static aging, dynamic transition models, discrete time slicing, and disaggregation for output distributions. The quality of the results depends upon the collection and processing of large amounts of data describing an existing population of court sentences, demographic characteristics of those sentenced, cell-based estimates of transition probabilities through the criminal justice system, and global parameter estimates of overall system characteristics. The program output includes 5- and 10-year projections of prison, jail, residential treatment, and community service populations In the output from the model all population counts are broken down by sex, race, age, and other demographic variables enabling policy analysts to momtor the extent to which inmate populations are likely to be free of sentencing disparities The program has been implemented in several state sentencing studies. Aspects of the system have implications for simulations in other social contexts.

Associations of computing specialists have adopted codes of ethics parallel to those of professional societies of engineers and scientists. These codes have attempted to address the special ethical dilemmas posed by computing. Difficulties in obtaining consensus about ethical imperatives make the development, revision, and maintenance of these codes problematic. The codes of professional ethics from 10 associations are compared with respect to content and focus. A recent revision of the Code of Ethics for the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is offered as a model for social science computing specialists. Keywords: ethics, codes of ethics, computer professionals, computers and society.

Common categories of scholarly work are needed to facilitate communication among di verse researchers. Although a theoretically derived taxonomy is generally important, nevertheless, for constructing a bibliography, reviewing new books, and refereeing article submissions, a classification that reflects the terminology of the entire literature is more practical. A classification scheme is out lined and within this context, the growing body of literature on computer research in the social scien ces is highlighted. Readers are invited to propose alternatives, revisions, or extensions to this class ification.