bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Computational Model for Behavior Shaping as an Adaptive Health Intervention Strategy
Authors: Berardi Vincent
Published: July 2018

Background: Adaptive behavioral interventions that automatically adjust in real-time to participants’ changing behavior, environmental contexts, and individual history are becoming more feasible as the use of real-time sensing technology expands. This development is expected to improve shortcomings associated with traditional behavioral interventions, such as the reliance on imprecise intervention procedures and limited/short-lived effects. Purpose: JITAI adaptation strategies often lack a theoretical foundation. Increasing the theoretical fidelity of a trial has been shown to increase effectiveness. This research explores the use of shaping, a well-known process from behavioral theory for engendering or maintaining a target behavior, as a JITAI adaptation strategy. Methods: A computational model of behavior dynamics and operant conditioning was modified to incorporate the construct of behavior shaping by adding the ability to vary, over time, the range of behaviors that were reinforced when emitted. Digital experiments were performed with this updated model for a range of parameters in order to identify the behavior shaping features that optimally generated target behavior. Results: Narrowing the range of reinforced behaviors continuously in time led to better outcomes compared to a discrete narrowing of the reinforcement window. Rapid narrowing followed by more moderate decreases in window size was more effective in generating target behavior than the inverse scenario. Conclusions: The computational shaping model represents an effective tool for investigating JITAI adaptation strategies. Model parameters must now be translated from the digital domain to real-world experiments so that model findings can be validated.
(How) Does Initial Self-Control Undermine Later Self-Control in Daily-Life?
Authors: Wilkowski Benjamin
Published: July 2018

Past research suggests that self-control lapses occur more frequently following demanding experiences in daily-life. However, the reason for these effects is debated. Three studies were therefore conducted to better understand self-control lapses. Exploratory analyses were conducted in Study 1 to identify possible effects. Studies 2-3 evaluated these effects’ reliability. Two patterns were identified. First, initial desire-goal conflict predicted later increases in subjective fatigue. This was in turn related to less effective self-control-attempts. Second, initial self-control-attempts also led participants to enact desires more frequently. This latter effect occurred even when (and perhaps especially when) those later desires were not resisted. In contrast, the strength model of self-control did not receive support, as initial self-control attempts did not affect the success of subsequent self-control attempts. These studies therefore suggest initial self-control does play an important role in producing later self-control lapses - just a different role than predicted by the strength model.
Are perceived prevalences of infection also biased and how? Lessons from large epidemics of mosquito-borne diseases in tropical regions
Authors: Raude Jocelyn
Published: July 2018

Objectives: Although people have been repeatedly found to underestimate the frequency of risks to health from common diseases, we still do not know much about reasons for this systematic bias, which is also referred to as “primary bias” in the literature. In this study, we take advantage of a series of large epidemics of mosquito-borne diseases to examine the accuracy of judgments of risk frequencies. In this aim, we assessed the perceived versus the observed prevalence of infection by zika, chikungunya or dengue fever during these outbreaks, as well as their variations among different subpopulations and epidemiological settings.Design: We used data drawn from 4 telephone surveys, conducted between 2006 and 2016, among representative samples of the adult population in tropical regions (Reunion, Martinique, and French Guiana). The participants were asked to estimate the prevalence of these infections by using a natural frequency scale.Results: The surveys showed that (1) most people greatly overestimated the prevalence of infection by arbovirus, (2) these risk overestimations fell considerably as the actual prevalence of these diseases increased, (3) the better-educated and male participants consistently yielded less inaccurate risk estimates across epidemics, and (4) that these biases in the perception of prevalence of these infectious diseases are relatively well predicted by probability weighting function.Conclusions: These findings suggest that the cognitive biases that affect perception of prevalence of acute infectious diseases are not fundamentally different from those that characterize other types of probabilistic judgments observed in the field of behavioral decision-making. They also indicate that numeracy may play a considerable role in people’s ability to transform epidemiological observations from their social environment to more accurate risk estimates.
Are free will believers nicer people? (Four studies suggest not)
Authors: Crone Damien , Levy Neil L
Published: July 2018

Free will is widely considered a foundational component of Western moral and legal codes, and yet current conceptions of free will are widely thought to fit uncomfortably with much research in psychology and neuroscience. Recent research investigating the consequences of laypeople’s free will beliefs (FWBs) for everyday moral behavior suggest that stronger FWBs are associated with various desirable moral characteristics (e.g., greater helpfulness, less dishonesty). These findings have sparked concern regarding the potential for moral degeneration throughout society as science promotes a view of human behavior that is widely perceived to undermine the notion of free will. We report four studies (combined N = 921) originally concerned with possible mediators and/or moderators of the abovementioned associations. Unexpectedly, we found no association between FWBs and moral behavior. Our findings suggest that the FWB – moral behavior association (and accompanying concerns regarding decreases in FWBs causing moral degeneration) may be overstated.
Rapid orienting of spatial attention toward and away from aggressive voices
Authors: Burra Nicolas , Kerzel Dirk , Munoz David , Grandjean Didier , Ceravolo Leonardo
Published: July 2018

Salient vocalizations, especially aggressive voices, are believed to attract attention due to an automatic threat detection system. However, studies assessing the temporal dynamics of auditory spatial attention to aggressive voices are missing. Using event-related potential markers of auditory spatial attention (N2ac and LPCpc), we show that attentional processing of threatening vocal signals is enhanced at two different stages of auditory processing. As early as 200 ms post stimulus onset, attentional orienting/engagement is enhanced for threatening as compared to happy vocal signals. Subsequently, as early as 400 ms post stimulus onset, the reorienting of auditory attention to the center of the screen (or disengagement from the target) is enhanced. This latter effect is consistent with the need to optimize perception by balancing the intake of stimulation from left and right auditory space. Our results extend the scope of theories from the visual to the auditory modality by showing that threatening stimuli also bias early spatial attention in the auditory modality. Although not the focus of the present work, we observed that the attentional enhancement was more pronounced in female than male participants.
The Effects of Feedback Format, and Egocentric & Allocentric Relative Phase on Coordination Stability
Authors: Pickavance John Patrick , Azmoodeh Arianne , Wilson Andrew D
Published: July 2018

The stability of coordinated rhythmic movement is primarily affected by the required mean relative phase. In general, symmetrical coordination is more stable than asymmetrical coordination; however, there are two ways to define relative phase and the associated symmetries. The first is in an egocentric frame of reference, with symmetry defined relative to the sagittal plane down the midline of the body. The second is in an allocentric frame of reference, with symmetry defined in terms of the relative direction of motion. Experiments designed to separate these constraints have shown that both egocentric and allocentric constraints contribute to overall coordination stability, with the former typically showing larger effects. However, separating these constraints has meant comparing movements made either in different planes of motion, or by limbs in different postures. In addition, allocentric information about the coordination is either in the form of the actual limb motion, or a transformed, Lissajous feedback display. These factors limit both the comparisons that can be made and the interpretations of these comparisons. The current study examined the effects of egocentric relative phase, allocentric relative phase, and allocentric feedback format on coordination stability in a single task. We found that while all three independently contributed to stability, the egocentric constraint dominated. This supports previous work. We examine the evidence underpinning theoretical explanations for the egocentric constraint, and describe how it may reflect the haptic perception of relative phase.
On measuring the local perceived blur in natural scenes both in the lab and online
Authors: Taylor Christopher Patrick , Bex Peter J.
Published: July 2018

Natural retinal images contain blur. Image blur varies across the visual field depending on the three dimensional image structure and the observers’ point of accommodation. There is currently no consensus in the field on how to quantify local perceived blur in natural images. We developed a biologically-plausible measure of local image blur, local slope, which is computed from the output of a set spatial frequency and orientation band-limited filters. To determine if local slope captured the perception of image blur variation, we used a task in which observers traced regions in natural images that matched the perceived blur of a standard blur. We ran our tracing task both under controlled laboratory conditionswith a small number of observers and online using a large sample of Amazon Mechanical Turk Workers. There was good agreement across observes on image regions with matched perceived blur and a correlation between local slopes of blur-matching areas of natural and standard images for data collected in the lab and online. These data indicate that local slope may provide a rapid and simple metric of perceived blur in natural scenes for human observers.
Meta-bias: A practical theory of motivated thinking
Authors: Gehlbach Hunter , Vriesema Christine Calderon
Published: July 2018

For a host of reasons, training students and teachers to more accurately discern the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of others is more important than ever. One approach to improving social perspective taking entails teaching students to understand when and how bias impedes their efforts to “read” others. To facilitate this educational goal, we propose a theory of meta-biases that unifies and distills those biases that frequently derail perspective taking attempts. Specifically, we argue that, as a default, people strive to accurately read themselves and others. However, two competing motives—meta-biases—often derail this default goal: a desire for cognitive efficiency and a need to protect or enhance one’s sense of self. We hope the proposed theory proves to be: practical for educators trying to facilitate interpersonal understanding and relationships, stimulating for researchers interested in testing theory, and generative for anyone developing interventions to mitigate social cognitive biases and improve person perception attempts.
Reducing Inoperative Days of Soldiers Under Stress: A Novel Approach
Authors: Kirk Nicholas Hubert , Arbanasić Karmela
Published: July 2018

Stress is proven to be one of the major causes of work absenteeism of professionals working in public safety. The high rate of inoperative days and the related financial costs highlight the need for an effective stress-reaction assessment tool. The here presented psychometric system architecture proposes the evaluation and monitoring of the reliability of individuals in high risk professions, by analyzing the individual’s capability to transform an arbitrary state of mind (hereby represented as self- and world-schema) to a stress coping level. This is performed to predict the development of psychological disorders and violent behaviour, useful in military contexts. On the basis of Bond's and Vaillant's hierarchy of coping mechanisms, we developed a novel approach to analyze the extent to which the individual i) shows cognitive bias in perceiving new information, ii) is prone to violent behavior, or iii) performs major reality distortion, by considering relations between the manifestation level and the current schema of the individual. The objective is to detect, during both recruitment and ongoing monitoring phases, which individuals have maladaptive behaviour and/or mental state. The immediate quantifiable benefit we forecast, thanks to the devised instrument, is the reduction of inoperative days brought by stress-related traumas of various nature and intensity, as a result of selecting only individuals with a higher degree of coping mechanisms.
From unconscious inference to the beholder's share: predictive perception and human experience
Authors: Seth Anil
Published: July 2018

Science and art have long recognised that perceptual experience depends on the involvement of the experiencer. In art history, this idea is captured by Ernst Gombrich’s ‘beholder’s share’. In neuroscience, it traces to Helmholtz’s concept of ‘perception as inference’, which is enjoying renewed prominence in the guise of ‘prediction error minimization’ or the ‘Bayesian brain’. The shared idea is that our perceptual experience – whether of the world, of ourselves, or of an artwork – depends on the active ‘top-down’ interpretation of sensory input. Perception becomes a generative act, in which perceptual, cognitive, affective, and sociocultural expectations conspire to shape the brain’s ‘best guess’ of the causes of sensory signals. In this paper, I explore the parallels between the Bayesian brain and the beholders’ share, illustrated, somewhat informally, with examples from Impressionist, Expressionist, and Cubist art. By connecting phenomenological insights from these traditions with the cognitive neuroscience of predictive perception, I outline a reciprocal relationship in which art reveals phenomenological targets for neurocognitive accounts of subjectivity, while the concepts of predictive perception may in turn help make mechanistic sense of the beholder’s share. This is not standard neuroaesthetics – the attempt to discover the brain basis of aesthetic experience – nor is it any kind of neuro-fangled ‘theory of art’. It is instead an examination of one way in which art and brain science can be equal partners in revealing deep truths about human experience.
Induction and knowledge-what
Authors: Gärdenfors Peter , Stephens Andreas
Published: July 2018

Within analytic philosophy, induction has been seen as a problem concerning inferences that have been analysed as relations between sentences. In this article, we argue that induction does not primarily concern relations between sentences, but between properties and categories. We outline a new approach to induction that is based on two theses. The first thesis is epistemological. We submit that there is not only knowledge-how and knowledge-that, but also knowledge-what. Knowledge-what concerns relations between properties and categories and we argue that it cannot be reduced to knowledge-that. We support the partition of knowledge by mapping it onto the long-term memory systems: procedural, semantic and episodic memory. The second thesis is that the role of inductive reasoning is to generate knowledge-what. We use conceptual spaces to model knowledge-what and the relations between properties and categories involved in induction.
Scholars' Open Letter to the World Health Organization on Gaming Disorder Proposal
Authors: Przybylski Andrew K , Van Rooij Antonius J. , Colder Carras Michelle , Kardefelt-Winther Daniel
Published: July 2018

Concerns about problematic gaming behaviors deserve our full attention. However, we claim that it is far from clear that these problems can or should be attributed to a new disorder. The empirical basis for a Gaming Disorder proposal, such as in the new ICD-11, suffers from fundamental issues. Our main concerns are the low quality of the research base, the fact that the current operationalization leans too heavily on substance use and gambling criteria, and the lack of consensus on symptomatology and assessment of problematic gaming. The act of formalizing this disorder, even as a proposal, has negative medical, scientific, public-health, societal and human rights fallout that should be considered. Of particular concern are moral panics around the harm of video gaming. They might result in premature application of diagnosis in the medical community and the treatment of abundant false-positive cases, especially for children and adolescents. Secondly, research will be locked into a confirmatory approach, rather than an exploration of the boundaries of normal versus pathological. Thirdly, the healthy majority of gamers will be affected negatively. We expect that the premature inclusion of Gaming Disorder as a diagnosis in ICD-11 will cause significant stigma to the millions of children who play video games as part of a normal, healthy life. At this point, suggesting formal diagnoses and categories is premature: the ICD-11 proposal for Gaming Disorder should be removed to avoid a waste of public health resources as well as to avoid causing harm to healthy video gamers around the world.
Modeling Corruption as a Contagious Disease
Authors: Pabico Jaderick
Published: July 2018

A system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) was developed to model the interaction dynamics between public servants and the citizens they serve to provide insights to the evolution of corruption in the public service. Corruption is modeled as a contagious disease that can "infect" susceptible citizens when they interact with "infected" (i.e., corrupt) public servants through harassment bribery. In this model, the public servants and the citizens are compartmentalized into different classes. The public servants could be honest (SH), on a crossroad (SX), corrupt (SC), or dismissed (SD), while citizens could either be upright (CU), apathetic (CA), cooperators (CC), or whistleblowers (CW). SH do not ask for harassment bribery while SX have asked for harassment bribery but only choose which citizen to ask from. SC always ask for harassment bribery no matter what, while SD have been dismissed from public service (and prosecuted) as a result of complaints. CU and CA do not give bribery but the former always complain when public servants ask for them, while the later do not do anything. CC and CW give bribery but the former willingly give them, while the later grudgingly give them and then complain. The ODEs provide for intra- and inter-action dynamics between the public servants and citizens with probabilities of interactions among actors as parameters of the model. Various combinations of interaction probability values provide for scenarios when corruption in the form of harassment bribery will become contagious, epidemic, and self-correcting (i.e., self-healing).
The GSA Difference: LGBTQ and Ally Experiences in High Schools with and without Gay-Straight Alliances
Authors: Fetner Tina , Elafros Athena
Published: July 2018

We examine the lived experiences of high-school students who participatedin lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ)-centered activismof some kind, highlighting the promise of gay-straight alliance groups bycomparing the experiences of students at schools with gay-straightalliances (GSA schools) with the experiences of students at schools thatdid not have an LGBTQ-specific group (no-GSA schools). We compare studentsat GSA and no-GSA schools based on their experiences of harassment,experiences of support from authority figures, and patterns of friendships.We find that students at both types of schools experienced harassment andheard negative comments about lesbian and gay people. However, students atGSA schools reported more support from teachers and administrators thanstudents at no-GSA schools, who have stories of teachers and administratorsactively opposing equality for LGBTQ people. Students at GSA schoolsreported a wide variety of friendships across sexual identities, whilestudents at no-GSA schools felt more isolated and withdrawn. Thismuch-needed qualitative comparative analysis of students’ experiencesbrings a human face to the improved quality of life that schools withgay-straight alliances can bring to young people.
Redistribution and Social Information (ReSoc)
Authors: O'Garra Tanya , Sisco Matthew R.
Published: July 2018

We use a ‘multi-player dictator game’ (MDG) to examine how aggregate and individual redistribution behaviour is influenced by the observable actions of peers, and to identify whether the redistributive strategy selected by individuals is subject to an ‘anchoring effect’. We find that in the aggregate, individuals positively condition their redistribution choices on the contributions of first-movers in their group, suggesting conformity to peers. However, examination of second-mover ‘types’ (classified using the full vector of individual contributions stated in response to a range of first-mover donations) indicates that only 17% can be classed as ‘conformists’; the remaining major 'types' include self-interested players (42%), unconditional givers (22%) and ‘compensators’ (8.3%). Most strikingly, the first observable amount presented to second-movers in the strategy game (the anchor) is found to influence the likelihood of choosing a giving strategy versus a self-interested strategy. Specifically, low anchors increase the likelihood of selecting self-interested strategies, whilst high anchors increase the likelihood of conformist and compensating strategies. The distribution of ‘types’ is therefore dependent on the initial conditions of play in the strategy game. Thus, not only is individual redistribution behaviour observed to be path dependent, but initial conditions strongly determine the path.
Don't Break the Internet
Authors: Lemley Mark
Published: July 2018

Two bills now pending in Congress – the “Protect IP Act” (“Protect IP”) inthe Senate, the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (“SOPA”) in the House – representthe latest legislative attempts to address online copyright and trademarkinfringement. Although the bills differ in certain respects, they share anunderlying approach and an enforcement philosophy that pose graveconstitutional problems and that could have potentially disastrousconsequences for the stability and security of the Internet's addressingsystem, for the principle of interconnectivity that has helped drive theInternet’s extraordinary growth, and for free expression.
Gender and Poetry in Muslim Spain: Mapping the Sexual-Textual Politics of Al-Andalus
Authors: Studies AWEJ-tls for Translation & Literary , Tijani O. Ishaq , Nsiri Imed
Published: July 2018

This article revisits the role of women in the Andalusian literature and culture of the period between the 8th through the 15th centuries C.E. Drawing on some Western sexual-textual political models of analysis, the article reexamines the literary methods and devices employed by selected Andalusian women poets to demonstrate their intellectual equality with men. Moreover, by providing a sexual-textual political reading of some of the women’s poems and/or the anecdotes (akhbār) about them, the article demonstrates how these women exerted their social and political agency in a male-dominated society. The article seeks to bolster an argument that the frequent mention of the preponderance of women poets—their names and the anecdotes about them—suggests the existence of a female literary sub-culture in al-Andalus that was more vibrant than has been documented in the male-authored classical Arabic texts
Three Conceptions of Spatial Locality in Chicago School Sociology (And Their Significance Today)
Authors: Merriman Ben
Published: July 2018

The development of new spatial methods has heightened long-standing interest in the local organization of urban life. This growth in empirical research has run ahead of theories about the nature of local space: to a large extent, contemporary sociology employs the same conceptions of space developed in works of the Chicago School produced between 1918 and the early 1930’s. This article describes three major notions of locality developed by the Chicago School, respectively defined by ecology, institutions, and subjective perceptions. These accounts of locality are not theoretically consistent, and make reference to partially distinct empirical phenomena. A brief survey of contemporary neighborhood research reveals the persistence of these spatial accounts, as well as uncertainty about the goals of neighborhood research. Revisiting the accounts of urban place developed by the Chicago School suggests five distinct ends for research on locality: research programs focusing specifically on ecology, institutions, or perceptions; methodological and theoretical pluralism in pursuit of maximally rich description; and empirical integration seeking to describe the role of multiple processes in the production of local space.Citation: Merriman, Ben. 2015. “Three Conceptions of Spatial Locality in Chicago School Sociology (And Their Significance Today)” American Sociologist 46(2):269-287.
Patenting Nanotechnology
Authors: Lemley Mark
Published: July 2018

Universities and companies are rushing to the patent office in recordnumbers to patent nanotechnology inventions. This rush to the patent officeis so significant that many law firms have established nanotechnologypractice groups, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has now created anew technology class designed to track nanotechnology products. Three bigdifferences between the emerging science of nanotechnology and otherinventions make the role of patents more significant here than elsewhere.First, this is the first new field in a century in which people startedpatenting the basic ideas at the outset. In most other fields of inventionover the past century - computer hardware, software, biotechnology, theInternet - the basic building blocks of the field were unpatented. Innanotech, by contrast, companies and universities alike are patenting earlyand often. A second factor driving the importance of patents innanotechnology is its unique cross-industry structure. Unlike other newindustries, in which the patentees are largely actual or at least potentialparticipants in the market, a significant number of nanotechnologypatentees will own rights not just in the industry in which theyparticipate, but in other industries as well. This may significantly affecttheir incentives to license the patents. Finally, a large number of thebasic patents have issued to universities, who have become far more activein patenting in the last 25 years. While universities have no directincentive to restrict competition, their interests may or may not alignwith the optimal implementation of building-block nanotechnology inventions.
Diagnosing Multicollinearity in Exponential Random Graph Models
Authors: Duxbury Scott W
Published: July 2018

Exponential random graph models (ERGM) have been widely applied in the social sciences in the past ten years. However, diagnostics for ERGM have lagged behind their use. Collinearity-type problems can emerge without detection when fitting ERGM, skewing coefficients, biasing standard errors, and yielding inconsistent model estimates. This article provides a method to detect multicollinearity in ERGM. It outlines the problem and provides a method to calculate the variance inflation factor from ERGM parameters. It then evaluates the method with a Monte Carlo simulation, fitting 216,000 ERGMs and calculating the variance inflation factors for each model. The distribution of variance inflation factors is analyzed using multilevel regression to determine what network characteristics lend themselves to collinearity-type problems. The relationship between variance inflation factors and unstable standard errors (a standard sign of collinearity) is also examined. The method is shown to effectively detect multicollinearity and guidelines for interpretation are discussed.
Structure and dynamics of populations: The ‘years-to-live’ pyramid, national aspects and regional examples.
Authors: Riffe Tim , Brouard Nicolas
Published: July 2018

We translate Brouard (1986) to English from the original French. Figures are originals with translated captions. This article has been notable in the field of demography for its influence on later work relating to mortality tempo effects, the CAL index, and for mathematical demography on years lived and years left in stationary populations. A translation of a 1985 theorem on (and proof of) equality between age distributions and years-left distributions in stationary populations that is mentioned in section 1.1 is provided in an appendix.
Data-Specific Functions: A Comment on Kindel et al.
Authors: Fisher Jacob C.
Published: July 2018

In a recent article, Salganik et al. describe a new approach to managing survey data in service of the Fragile Families Challenge, which they call “treating metadata as data.” Although the approach that they present is a good first step, a more ambitious proposal could improve survey data analysis even more substantially. I recommend that data collection efforts distribute an open-source set of tools for working with a particular data set that I call data-specific functions. The goal of these functions is to codify best practices for working with the data in a set of functions for commonly used statistical software. These functions would be jointly developed by the users and distributers of the data. Building such functions would both shorten the learning curve for new users, and would improve the quality of the data, by making tacit knowledge about problems with the data explicit and easy to act on.
A possible case of mycetoma in ancient Rome (Italy, 2nd-3rd centuries AD)
Authors: Killgrove Kristina
Published: July 2018

Reports of historical individuals with mycetoma are anecdotal in the palaeopathology literature, particularly in more temperate areas of the world. This article details a probable case of mycetoma in Imperial-era Rome, Italy. Differential diagnoses of leprosy, erosive arthropathy, sarcoidosis, and mycoses are considered. Given the morphology and pattern of the lower leg lesions and the ecology of the disease, the authors conclude that mycetoma is the most likely explanation.
“Service Programmes” on Jordanian Radio: Understanding Broadcaster Persona through an Interdisciplinary Analysis of Language and Performance
Authors: Fras Jona
Published: July 2018

My ESRC-funded doctoral research explores linguistic practice on Jordanian radio today. The main conclusion of my research is that details of Arabic use in the radio setting have significant implications for the kind of audiences addressed – that is, who is included as a legitimate or “validated” listener – and the way members of the public can participate in radio discourse – this latter in particularly through call- ins, which are a frequent feature of Jordanian radio programming more generally.This paper looks at one type of programmes present on many contemporary Jordanian radio stations: the so-called “service programmes,” "barāmiž ḳadamātiyya," in which listeners call the station and speak live on the air in order to request assistance or mediation with local authorities in resolution of an issue – such as a damaged road, a broken water pipe, et cetera. It compares two popular service programmes: Barnāmiž al-wakīl, hosted by Muhammad al-Wakeel, and Wasaṭ al- balad, hosted by Hani al-Badri. It argues that, in order to properly appreciate the differences between the two programmes, an interdisciplinary approach to the data is required. This has raised certain methodological issues for my work, but on the other hand allowed me to explore new theoretical pathways and contribute new insights to scholarship on both contemporary Arabic language use, and Middle Eastern media.
Our Divided Patent System
Authors: Lemley Mark
Published: July 2018

In this comprehensive new study, we evaluate all substantive decisionsrendered by any court in every patent case filed in 2008 and 2009 —decisions made between 2009 and 2013. We assess the outcome of litigationby technology and industry. We relate the outcomes of those cases to a hostof variables, including variables related to the parties, the patents, andthe courts in which those cases were litigated.We find dramatic differences in the outcomes of patent litigation by bothtechnology and industry. For example, owners of patents in thepharmaceutical industry fare much better in dispositive litigation rulingsthan do owners of patents in the computer & electronics industry, andchemistry patents have much greater success in litigation than theirsoftware or biotech counterparts. Our results provide an important windowinto both patent litigation and the industry-specific battles over patentreform. And they suggest that the traditional narrative ofindustry-specific patent disputes, which pits the IT industries against thelife sciences, is incomplete.
Network structure and patterns of information diversity on Twitter
Authors: Shore Jesse Conan , Baek Jiye , Dellarocas Chrysanthos
Published: July 2018

Social media have great potential to support diverse information sharing, but there is widespread concern that platforms like Twitter do not result in communication between those who hold contradictory viewpoints. Because users can choose whom to follow, prior research suggests that social media users exist in "echo chambers" or become polarized. We seek evidence of this in a complete cross section of hyperlinks posted on Twitter, using previously validated measures of the political slant of news sources to study information diversity. Contrary to prediction, we find that the average account posts links to more politically moderate news sources than the ones they receive in their own feed. However, members of a tiny network core do exhibit cross-sectional evidence of polarization and are responsible for the majority of tweets received overall due to their popularity and activity, which could explain the widespread perception of polarization on social media.
Property, Intellectual Property, and Free Riding
Authors: Lemley Mark
Published: July 2018

Courts and scholars have increasingly assumed that intellectual property isa form of property, and have applied the economic insights of HaroldDemsetz and other property theorists to condemn the use of intellectualproperty by others as "free riding." In this article, I argue that thisrepresents a fundamental misapplication of the economic theory of property.The economics of property is concerned with internalizing negativeexternalities - harms that one person's use of land does to another'sinterest to it, as in the familiar tragedy of the commons. But theexternalities in intellectual property are positive, not negative, andproperty theory offers little or no justification for internalizingpositive externalities. Indeed, doing so is at odds with the logic andfunctioning of the market. From this core insight, I proceed to explain whyfree riding is desirable in intellectual property cases except in limitedcircumstances where curbing it is necessary to encourage creativity. Iexplain why economic theory demonstrates that too much protection is justas bad as not enough protection, and therefore why intellectual propertylaw must search for balance, not free riders. Finally, I consider whetherwe would be better served by another metaphor than the misused notion ofintellectual property as a form of tangible property.
An (increasingly) visible college: Mapping and strengthening research and innovation networks with open data
Authors: Mateos-Garcia Juan
Published: July 2018

Innovation policymakers need timely, detailed data about scientific research trends and networks to monitor their evolution and put in place suitable strategies to support them. We have analysed the Gateway to Research, an open dataset about research funding and university-industry collaborations in the UK in a project to map innovation in Wales. We use supervised learning and Natural Language Processing to improve data coverage and measure activity in research topics, build a recommendation engine to identify new opportunities for collaboration in the Welsh innovation system, and present the results through interactive visualisations. Our results suggest that Wales is becoming more competitive in areas identified as strategic targets by Welsh Government, that its research ecosystem is geographically diversified, and that research collaborations tend to take place between organisations that are geographically close. The data sources and methods we have used in the project can help understand this system better, and support it more effectively.
The Ayatollahs and the Republic: The religious establishment in Iran and its interaction with the Islamic Republic
Authors: Kadivar Mohammad Ali
Published: July 2018

The Islamic Republic of Iran is usually referred to as a theocracy, and this is a correct description in different senses. According to the constitution, a Shi’a cleric must fill the office of the leader, the highest de facto and de jure position in the country; a Shi’a jurist should also fill the head of judiciary; and Islam should be the main source of law-making in the country. On the other hand, if calling Iran a theocracy means that the Shi’a clergy as an institution rules the country, then this is not an accurate description. The clerical establishment, even after the revolution, has been separate from the regime, even though the relationship between these two entities has changed drastically after the revolution. While the Shi’a establishment in Qom claims authority over interpretation of the sacred text, the formation of a Shi’a government in Tehran with similar claims about Islamic authority and legitimacy in Tehran has created tensions and sometimes conflicts between these two. In this essay, I will look at patterns of conflict and cooperation between the Islamic Republic mainly the institution of Velayat-e Faqih (guardianship of jurist) and the clerical establishment in Qom, specifically grand ayatollahs[2] or sources of emulation at the highest levels of the Shi’a clerical hierarchy.
Information Ethics and the Law of Data Representations
Authors: Burk Dan
Published: July 2018

The theories of information ethics articulated by Luciano Floridi and his collaborators have clear implications for law. Information law, including the law of privacy and of intellectual property, is especially likely to benefit from a coherent and comprehensive theory of information ethics. This article illustrates how information ethics might apply to legal doctrine, by examining legal questions related to the ownership and control of the personal data representations, including photographs, game avatars, and consumer profiles, that have become ubiquitous with the proliferation of information and communication technologies. Recent controversy over the control of player performance statistics in "fantasy" sports leagues provides a limiting case for the analysis. Such data representations will in many instances constitute the kind of personal data that information ethics asserts constitutes an information entity. Legal doctrine in some instances proves sympathetic to such an assertion, but remains largely inchoate as to which data might constitute a given information entity in a given instance. Neither is information ethics, in its current state of development, entirely helpful in answering this critical question. While information ethics holds some promise to bring coherence to this area of the law, further work articulating a richer theory of information ethics will be necessary before it can do so.
Supporting affordable housing supply: inclusionary planning in new and renewing communities
Authors: Gurran Nicole , Gilbert Catherine , Gibb Kenneth , van den Nouwelant Ryan , James Amity , Phibbs Peter
Published: July 2018

This study examined how planning mechanisms support affordable housing supply in Australia and overseas. In England 43 per cent of affordable housing built in 2015–16 (12,866 units) were delivered due to inclusionary planning requirements, while more than 500 cities in the United States have inclusionary zoning or impact fee requirements to supply affordable housing. In Australia planning systems can support affordable housing supply, but additional funding or subsidy is usually required to produce homes affordable to those on low and very low incomes.
Prison Sentence Trends By Area Type 1985-2001
Authors: Oliver Pamela Elaine
Published: July 2018

National-level trends in racial patterns of incarceration hide the fact that different trends were happening in different kinds of places. Overall, the national Black prison admission rate leveled off after 1995 while the White rate continued to rise. Detailed investigation of types of places reveals that the national trend for Blacks hides a steep decline in Black prison admissions in a few large metropolitan areas coupled with a continued rise in other places, especially those where Blacks were a smaller percentage of the population. White prison admission rates were consistently low and relatively stable in the large metropolitan areas. The growth in White prison admission was concentrated in rural areas and smaller cities that were overwhelmingly White. These trends have not been noticed in the prior literature and require further research.
Teachers’ Perspectives of the use of CLT in ELT Classrooms: A Case of Soran District of Northern Iraq
Authors: Journal Arab World English , SHERWANI Serwan Husein Taha , KILIÇ Mehmet
Published: July 2018

This mixed-method study aims at exploring Iraqi English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ attitudes towards Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). The study was conducted in Soran town, in the northern part of Iraq. The participants of the study were 58 EFL teachers from secondary and high school classrooms. In the first phase, a five-point Likert-scale questionnaire was administered (Karavas-Doukas, 1996) to examine the participants’ attitudes towards CLT principles: “place/importance of grammar, group/pair work, quality and quantity of error correction, the role of the teacher in the classroom, the role and contribution of learners in the learning process.” The second phase of the study was qualitative and consisted of semi-structured interviews to examine the reasons behind the implementation of CLT in terms of the factors that hinder and encourage the implementation of CLT in the Iraqi setting. The results of the quantitative analysis revealed that the teachers held overall positive attitudes towards the use of CLT. The findings of the interview phase concluded that the main factors that cause the failure and success of the implementation of CLT in Iraq can be categorized under four headings: educational factors, teacher factors, student factors, and CLT factors. The results of the study suggest that the educational system and the teachers’ communicative competence are essential to promote the employment of CLT in Iraqi EFL classrooms.
Getting it Right or Being Top Rank: Games in Citizen Science
Authors: Ponti Marisa , Hillman Thomas , Kasperowski Dick , Kullenberg Christopher
Published: July 2018

The use of games in citizen science is growing, but can create tension as gaming and science can be seen as incompatible areas of activity. For example, the motivations for winning a game and scientific pursuit of knowledge may be seen as contrary. Over a one-year period, we conducted a virtual ethnographic study of the public forums of two online citizen science projects, Foldit and Galazy Zoo. The first where gaming is an explicit design feature and the second where it is not. The aim was to give a nuanced view of how participants topicalize and respond to tensions between gaming and science. Thematic analysis of discussion forum posts suggests that participants in the two projects respond differently to the tension. By unpacking participant responses to the tension between games and science, our study highlights that citizen science projects using games are not just about fun. To enrol and retain volunteers, our findings suggest that they must also recognize and manage the implicit normative scientific ideals that participants bring with them to a project.
The Persistence of Gender Segregation at Work
Authors: Cohen Philip N.
Published: July 2018

Occupational gender segregation remains one of the defining elements of gender inequality in modern societies. Recent trends for the United States show that occupational segregation remains high, and did not substantially decline in the decade of the 2000s for the first time since 1960. Men and women work in different occupations because of a combination of forces, including culturally-defined choices by workers themselves, discrimination by employers, and differences in skill levels and qualities. Research has shown that occupational segregation is an important aspect of gender inequality in earnings, and contributes to other forms of inequality as well. The prospects for reducing gender segregation in the short term appear slim, based on the weak effects of educational attainment, cultural attitudes, and state intervention in the current period.
The Significance of Teacher Leadership in TESOL: A Theoretical Perspective
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Shah Sayyed Rashid
Published: July 2018

This paper reviews literature on the notion of teacher leadership to ascertain what skills, knowledge and competencies teachers require to assume leadership roles in educational institutions. The historical evolution of teacher leadership through various phases gives useful insights into how this concept has emerged, developed and perceived in different educational contexts and how it appears in today’s institutions around the world. The definitions of teacher leadership delineate various features of teachers’ roles, responsibilities and their expected contribution to organisational effectiveness while operating in a wide range of formal and informal leadership roles. Review of the literature also shows the significance of leadership knowledge and skills for the academic leadership positions that need to be fostered in a school context. Moreover, it highlights factors that might hinder the emergence of teacher leadership in academic institutions. The last section of this paper indicates a void in the literature on the issue of teacher leadership in the field of Teaching of English to the Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) that also directs researchers’ endeavours towards investigating this concept in the context of English language teaching.