The logic of semantic differentation; The dimensionality of the semantic space; The semantic differential as a measuring instrument; Evaluation of the semantic differential; Attitude measurement and the principle of congruity; Semantic measurement in personality and psychotherapy research; Semantic measurement in communications research.

Dr Keith Allan presents a coherent, consistent and comprehensive account of linguistic meaning, centred around an informally presented theory of meaning. It is intended for graduate and undergraduate students of linguistics, or any linguist curious about what a theory of meaning should seek to accomplish and the way to achieve that aim. The work assumes that the primary task of a theory of linguistic meaning is to describe the meaning of speech acts. This in turn presupposes a theory of semantics and a theory of prosodic meaning, as well as a proper treatment of the co-operative principle, context and background information. These matters are dealt with in detail. The second task of a theory of linguistic meaning is to identify what meaning is, to explain the relationships between sense and denotation, and to explicate the nature of meaningful properties and meaning relations. These matters are fully covered, and the work concludes with a summary of the principle arguments presented.

No detailed description available for "A Modern Theory of "Langue"".

Martin Hülsen explores individual behavioral trustworthiness of and within the banking industry in Germany based on an economic experiment combined with psychological instruments. He finds that bankers have a reputation for being untrustworthy. However, his evidence also shows that the true story of banker trustworthiness is more complex: In particular, he explores differences between employees of commercial banks on the one hand and employees of savings and cooperative banks on the other.

At this point in time, there is no generally accepted methodology for explaining and predicting human behavior given a product choice situation. This is true despite the critical importance of such meth odology to marketing, transportation and urban planning. While the social sciences provide numerous theories to be tested and the mathe matical and statistical procedures exist in general to do so, at this point, no single unified theory has emerged. It is generally accepted that to explain product choice behav ior,products must be described in terms of attributes. Using anyone of a number of procedures, it is possible to obtain measurements on the attributes of the products under consideration. However, there is no generally accepted methodology. Given the attribute profiles of two products, in order to explain and predict preference, it is necessary to determine the relative importance of each of the product attributes. Once again, there is no generally accepted methodology. There are two basic approaches: The first, called the attitudinal approach, obtains importance measure ments directly from respondents using one of many scaling techniques; the second, termed the inferential method endeavors to infer impor tances from product preference and attribute data. Since it is gen erally felt that respondents are unwilling and/or unable to provide meaningful importance measurements, the inferential method is most widely accepted.

The role of design in the formation of the Silicon Valley ecosystem of innovation. California's Silicon Valley is home to the greatest concentration of designers in the world: corporate design offices at flagship technology companies and volunteers at nonprofit NGOs; global design consultancies and boutique studios; research laboratories and academic design programs. Together they form the interconnected network that is Silicon Valley. Apple products are famously “Designed in California,” but, as Barry Katz shows in this first-ever, extensively illustrated history, the role of design in Silicon Valley began decades before Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak dreamed up Apple in a garage. Offering a thoroughly original view of the subject, Katz tells how design helped transform Silicon Valley into the most powerful engine of innovation in the world. From Hewlett-Packard and Ampex in the 1950s to Google and Facebook today, design has provided the bridge between research and development, art and engineering, technical performance and human behavior. Katz traces the origins of all of the leading consultancies—including IDEO, frog, and Lunar—and shows the process by which some of the world's most influential companies came to place design at the center of their business strategies. At the same time, universities, foundations, and even governments have learned to apply “design thinking” to their missions. Drawing on unprecedented access to a vast array of primary sources and interviews with nearly every influential design leader—including Douglas Engelbart, Steve Jobs, and Don Norman—Katz reveals design to be the missing link in Silicon Valley's ecosystem of innovation.