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No bird brains as young scientists test their theories

Friday, January 10, 2014

Students wonder whether social networking promotes narcissism; whether anxiety affects examination performance; and if they can save an endangered bird.

Judges will have sifted through the 550 projects on display four times before the overall winner is announced tonight.

Among the young scientists was Christine Marron, 15, a transition-year student at Kinsale Community School, Co Cork, who found that people who use social networking sites have higher narcissistic tendencies.

However, her statistical study was inconclusive as to whether people who used social networking could be defined as narcissistic.

Christine surveyed 92 people who used social networking and most thought they were good at influencing people.

I carried out another test to determine peoples self-esteem and I found that although people agreed with positive comments about themselves, they disagreed with negative ones.

Lee Warner, 16, a transition-year student at Scoil Ruain, Killenaule, Co Tipperary, wants to play a part in saving the hen harrier.

His project looked how the native bird of prey, now reduced to an estimated 344, can be saved from extinction.

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No bird brains as young scientists test their theories

New Delhi: Encouraged by its success in reaching out to people through social networking site Facebook, Isrohas decided to use social networking site Youtube.

"We received tremendous response to our Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) project through Facebook. We have now decided to use Youtube to reach out to people in a better way," Department of Space secretary K Radhakrishnan told reporters here.

He said the younger generation was a major chunk that follows the space agency on social networking sites.

"Healthy discussions take place on the Facebook page and most of the people are between the age group of 18-24 years," Radhakrishnan said.

During the MOM, IRSO also released information related to the project in a capsule form. It also kept updating the mission details on the Facebook page.

Minister of State for PMO V Narayanasamy said Isrohad opened a Facebook page on the MOM, which has received over 3 lakh 'likes' so far, while the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Facebook page received over 39,000 likes in less than a week after its launch.

The Union Minister added the space agency has also started a Twitter account, which already has a large number of followers.

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After Facebook, Isro turns to Youtube

Social networking sites offer endless possibilities. They can even rebuild lives when life itself knocks you down. This is what happens to the main character in La vida era eso (or, So that was life), a novel by the Valencian journalist and writer Carmen Amoraga.

On Monday, the book won the 70th Nadal Prize, which has traditionally been handed out on the evening of January 6 since 1944.

The story follows a woman in her forties who loses her husband after a long battle with disease. She is left alone with two small children, as well as the people that her husband was in touch with through the social networks that he was so fond of.

After initial feelings of rejection, the widow starts to get in touch with them all, helping her overcome her terrible loss and ultimately rebuilding her own life.

The jury said that the book has managed to address the new forms of communication and relationships through social networks and, at the same time, deal humorously with such a tough topic as the loss of a loved one.

The jury said the book managed to address new types of relationships formed on social networks

Amoraga, a newspaper columnist and contributor to radio and TV talk shows, won the prestigious award having already been a finalist in 2007 with Algo tan parecido al amor (or, Something a lot like love), and the 2010 Planeta Award runner-up with El tiempo mientras tanto (or, Time in the meantime).

The evenings other award, the Josep Pla prize, went to Els ambaixadors (The ambassadors, in Catalan), a historical speculation by the archivist and archeologist Albert Villar. This piece of alternate history muses on what would have happened if Francisco Franco had died in a plane accident, rather than generals Sanjurjo and Mola. The plot draws on current affairs, with the government of Catalonia proclaiming independence for the region and a main character who works as a Catalan government spy.

Villar, director of the culture and tourism department of the government of Andorra, specializes in crime novels, and in 2006 he won the Carlemany Prize with Blau de Prssia, a story set in the Pyrenees.

The other star of the evening was the veteran Spanish writer Ana Mara Matute, who handed out the Nadal in the name of all past winners (she herself won it in 1959).

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Social networking novel scoops award

Dr. Anderson Uvie-Emegbo | credits: File copy

In giving approval to its corporate communications department to officially open a presence on social networking platforms, an executive management team made it clear that they did not want their corporate social media pages to be overtaken by complaints from customers.

And they had good reasons to be worried the organisation was still struggling with customer complaints arising from interactions with its brick and mortar offices.

Though the organisation had started making changes to some of the processes that customers complained about, a significant number of customers still perceived the pace of change as slow.

The organisation was also in the process of retraining its frontline staff nationwide on customer service. At times the service transformation programme seemed to be taking one step forward and two steps backwards.

The corporate communication director certainly had his hands full. Later on in this article, we would explore how he mitigated this risk.

It is not surprising that when war is declared, truth is the first casualty. Social media is a battleground and sparks are bound to fly. Organisations would be unduly optimistic not to expect disgruntled customers to vent their frustrations using social media.

The very fact that misunderstandings can occur between the organisation and its customers only makes social media even more likely to be used by customers who regard this medium (social media) as a genuine customer touch point or as a channel to get back at the organisation.

Some organisations have also been known to manipulate these channels to de-market their competitors. Social media is a double-edged sword especially for corporate organisations.

The love garnered within a short time can be dissipated over some real or frivolous issues. Several heads of corporate communication, public relations and social media functions have had their fingers burnt from their brands misadventure on social media.

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Protecting your corporate voice across social media channels

TUESDAY, Jan. 7, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Although social networking sites let users keep in touch with a wide group of acquaintances, new research shows that people still put most of their efforts into communicating with a small group of friends or family members.

To maintain a manageable group of close contacts, people often institute an unconscious "one in, one out" rule, the study found. As friendships evolve or new friends are made, old friends may be cast out of the inner circle, the researchers said.

"Although social communication is now easier than ever, it seems that our capacity for maintaining emotionally close relationships is finite," study author Felix Reed-Tsochas, a lecturer in complex systems at the Said Business School of the University of Oxford, in England, said in a university news release.

"While this number varies from person to person, what holds true in all cases is that at any point individuals are able to keep up close relationships with only a small number of people, so new friendships come at the expense of 'relegating' existing friends," he said.

The study, published online Dec. 6 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involved survey data and mobile phone call records. The researchers used this information to identify changes in the communication networks of 24 students in the United Kingdom.

Over the course of the 18-month study, the students were transitioning from school to college or a job. When the study began, the researchers assessed the emotional closeness of each student's network of friends and family. In each case, a small, close group of people was called much more often than anyone else.

Although the people in the participants' social networks changed as they made a major life transition, they still made the same number of calls to the same number of people depending on their "emotional closeness" ranking, said Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford.

"As new network members are added, some old network members are either replaced or receive fewer calls," Dunbar said in the news release. "This is probably due to a combination of limited time available for communication and the great [mental] and emotional effort required to sustain close relationships."

Even with the efficiency of devices such as cell phones, people's communication patterns appear too deeply set to change, she said.

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Acquaintances in social networks may find themselves 'replaced'