The Modern Language Association of America referred to as the Modern Language Association, is the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "strengthen the study and teaching of language and literature"; the organization includes over 25,000 members in 100 countries academic scholars and graduate students who study or teach language and literature, including English, other modern languages, comparative literature. Although founded in the United States, with offices in New York City, the MLA's membership, concerns and influence are international in scope; the MLA was founded in 1883, as a discussion and advocacy group for the study of literature and modern languages. According to its profile featured by the American Council of Learned Societies, "The Modern Language Association is formed for educational, scientific and social objects and purposes, more for the promotion of the academic and scientific study of English, French, Spanish and other so-called modern languages and literatures."
The officers of the MLA are elected by its members. The 2019-2020 president is Simon Gikandi, the first vice-president is Judith Butler and the second vice-president is Barbara Fuchs; the MLA is governed by an Executive Council, elected periodically by its members, according to the MLA Constitution. The Executive Director is Paula Krebs; the MLA publishes several academic journals, including Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, one of the most prestigious journals in literary studies, Profession, now published online on MLA Commons and discusses professional issues faced by teachers of language and literature. The association publishes the MLA Handbook, a guide, geared toward high school and undergraduate students and has sold more than 6,500,000 copies. An eighth edition was published in spring 2016; the MLA Style Manual was geared toward graduate students and professional writers, the third edition was declared out of print in September 2016. The MLA produces the online database, MLA International Bibliography, the standard bibliography in language and literature.
Since 1884 the MLA has held a four-day convention. Beginning in 2011, the convention dates moved to the first Thursday following 2 January. Eight to twelve thousand members attend, depending on the location, which alternates among major cities in various regions of the United States; the MLA Annual Convention is the largest and most important of the year for scholars of languages and literature. Language departments of many universities and colleges interview candidates for teaching positions at the convention, although hiring occurs all year long; the organization's Job Information List is available online. In addition to its job-placement activities, the convention features about 800 sessions, including presentations of papers and panel discussions on diverse topics and social events hosted by English and language departments and allied or affiliated organizations. There are extensive book exhibits in one of the main hotel or convention center exhibition areas. In November 2016, the association launched Humanities Commons, an open-access, crossdisciplinary hub for anyone interested in humanities research and scholarship.
Other not-for-profit organizations involved in this project include College Art Association. The MLA's Web site features the MLA Language Map, which presents overviews and detailed data from the United States 2000 Census about the locations and numbers of speakers of thirty languages and seven groups of less spoken languages in the United States and Canada; the association has highlighted issues such as race and class in its professional deliberations. In The New Criterion, a classicist and politically conservative magazine, Roger Kimball and Hilton Kramer argued that this was part of a "rampant politicization of literary study that the MLA has aggressively supported" in American colleges and universities, including elevating popular culture to a position of parity with great works of literature as subjects for classroom study, other "radical" postures; the association has been criticized by some for considering the proposal of an academic boycott of Israel, in December 2016. The proposed Boycott and Sanctions resolution was met with backlash from scholars and organizations that denounced its sentiments and potential illegality.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law issued a letter to the association's President Kwame Anthony Appiah and Executive Director Rosemary G. Feal, warning the association that the resolution was ultra vires; the MLA rejected the boycott in a 113 to 79 vote during its annual meeting in January 2017. There are several regional associations that are independent of the primary MLA, which host smaller conventions at other times of the year: Midwest Modern Language Association Northeast Modern Language Association Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association South Atlantic Modern Language Association South Central Modern Language Association Association of Departments of English Association of Departments of Foreign Languages Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship The International Federation for Modern Languages and Literatures List of most learned foreign languages in the Unit
Azrael's Tear is a 1996 first-person adventure game published by Mindscape and developed by Intelligent Games. Taking place in 2012, the player assumes the role of a futuristic grave robber/archaeologist called a "raptor", who has come to explore a opened cavern in Scotland rumoured to contain the Holy Grail. Ken Haywood produced the original concept for the game and worked with Intelligent Games's own Richard Guy on the final design; the original design called for a Myst-style pre-rendered environment. As development progressed, the team switched to real-time 3D; the game features music written by Ray Shulman and Kerry Minnear, both former members of Gentle Giant. Both GameSpot and Next Generation commented that the control interface is counterintuitive the inverted cursor movement, cannot be changed. GameSpot reviewer Tal Blevins opined that the game is otherwise well-worth playing, citing the atmospheric music, entertaining story, good integration of the puzzles into the plot, he was pleased with the graphic design, remarking that "the game is steeped in shadow that hides a subtle richness.
The Next Generation reviewer agreed that the story is gripping but was somewhat less impressed, summarizing, "Azrael's Tear brings adventure, high-resolution graphics, a smattering of action to what is a Myst clone, adding a little life - just a little - to a genre that sorely needs it." Nicholas Petreley of InfoWorld wrote, "Azrael's Tear is not a crowd-pleaser, I'm grateful for it. It is for those people who like to lose themselves in an different world. If you're among that camp, prepare to enter the world of Azrael's Tear and come up for air."Andy Butcher reviewed Azrael's Tear for Arcane magazine, rating it a 7 out of 10 overall. Butcher comments that "If you take the time to get into it Azrael's Tear is atmospheric and satisfying."In a 2002 retrospective review for Just Adventure, Michael Necasek commented, "The story of Azrael's Tear revolves around props far from unusual in adventure games: the Holy Grail, the Knights Templar, secret conspiracies to rule the world. These all are clichés.
But like other good games, Azrael's Tear manages to explain them with unexpected twists."Azrael's Tear was not a commercial success. However, project leader Matthew Stibbe said in a presentation on the history of games that it is the only game he produced that got fan mail. Azrael's Tear at MobyGames
The term opt-out refers to several methods by which individuals can avoid receiving unsolicited product or service information. This ability is associated with direct marketing campaigns such as, e-mail marketing, or direct mail. A list of those who have opted out is called a Robinson list. In the US, the Reference Service composes these lists; the U. S. Federal Government created the United States National Do Not Call Registry to reduce the telemarketing calls consumers receive at home. Numbers listed on the registry were due to be kept for five years but will now remain on it permanently due to the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007, which became law in February 2008; the UK's Direct Marketing Association operates an opt-out scheme through the Telephone Preference Service. While the service will reduce unsolicited calls it does not stop solicited calls, market research calls, silent calls or overseas calls. Canada's National Do Not Call List operates an opt-out list which allows consumers to register their wishes not to have telemarketing calls.
Charities and pollsters are exempt although each of these is required to keep their own do not call list that consumers can be added to at their request. Australia has a national; the Australian Communications and Media Authority is responsible for the register under the Do Not Call Register Act 2006. In order to be included on the register, a telephone number must be used or maintained for private or domestic purposes, or for transmitting and/or receiving faxes. Government body numbers and emergency services numbers are able and numbers can be removed at any time. In e-mail marketing, a clickable link or "opt-out button" may be included to notify the sender that the recipient wishes to receive no further e-mails. While 95% of all commercial e-mails from reputable bulk emailers with an unsubscribe feature indeed work in this manner, unscrupulous senders and spammers can include a link that purports to unsubscribe a recipient. Targeted advertising and behavioral targeting are a series of technologies and techniques used in online advertising to increase the effectiveness of advertisements.
By capturing data generated by website and landing page visitors, advertisements are placed so as to reach consumers based on various traits such as demographics, behavioral variables, firmographic variables or other second-order activities which serve as a proxy for these traits. Many of the biggest third party ad-serving companies offer opt-out cookies to users. Opt-out cookies are cookies created by ad-serving companies to enable the user to block and prevent the advertising network from installing future tracking cookies. Opt-out cookies are server specific, meaning that they only block cookies of a specific ad-serving company and won't block cookies from other companies. To do generalized blocking, the users must manage their cookies via their own browser's cookie settings. Do Not Track is an HTTP header field that requests that a web application or web site to disable its direct or cross-site user tracking of an individual user; the header field name is DNT and it accepts three values: 1, when the user does not want to be tracked 0, when the user consents to being tracked Null, when the user does not set a preference Wi-Fi-based positioning systems take advantage of the rapid growth of wireless access points in urban areas, are used by companies like Google and Microsoft, to obtain data about their customers' location, in order to provide a better service.
The localization technique is based on measuring the intensity of the received signal and access-point "fingerprinting". However some users have expressed concern about their privacy being affected by this type of unsolicited positioning systems, have asked for opt-out alternatives. Google suggested the creation of a unified approach for opting-out from taking part in Wi-Fi-based positioning systems. Suggesting the usage of the word "_nomap" append to a wireless access point's SSID to exclude it from Google's WPS database; each year American consumers receive several billion written offers of credit or insurance they did not request. In many cases, the senders have prescreened the recipients for creditworthiness and suitability using consumer credit records in the files of consumer reporting agencies; the Fair Credit Reporting Act permits creditors and insurers to use CRA information as a basis for sending unsolicited firm offers of credit or insurance known as prescreened solicitations, to consumers who meet certain criteria, but only within limits specified in the act.
The FCRA provides a mechanism by which consumers can elect not to receive such solicitations by directing CRAs to exclude their names and addresses from lists provided by these agencies for sending prescreened solicitations. Consumers who choose to have their names removed from lists used for prescreened solicitations may well still receive offers of credit or insurance by mail or telephone, but such offers will not be based on the credit records maintained by the CRAs. People are able to opt out of receiving any offers from U. S. national credit bureaus. In the United States, the Data & Marketing Assocpiation's Mail Preference Service provides an opt-out service; the consumer's name is added to a "delete" file, made available to direct-mail marketers. This process does not cover opting out of Bulk Mail known as Standard mail or Current Resident Mail, which will require opting out on a company by company basis. There