bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Nation-building, industrialisation, and spectacle: Political functions of Gujarat’s Narmada pipeline project
Authors: Luxion Mona
Published: July 2018

Since 2000 the Indian state of Gujarat has been working to construct a state-wide water grid to connect 75% of its approximately 60 million urban and rural residents to drinking water sourced from the controversial Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada River. This project represents a massive undertaking – it is billed as the largest drinking water project in the world – and is part of a broader predilection toward large, concrete-heavy supply-side solutions to water insecurity across present-day India. This paper tracks the claims and narratives used to promote the project, the political context in which it has emerged, the purposes it serves and, following Ferguson (1990), the functioning of the discursive-bureaucratic 'machine' of which it is a product.The dam’s reinvention as the solution to Gujarat’s drinking water shortfall – increasingly for cities and Special Industrial Regions – reflects a concern with attracting and retaining foreign investment through the creation of so-called 'world-class' infrastructure. At the same time, this reinvention has contributed to a project of nation-building, while remaining cloaked in a discourse of technological neutrality. The heavy infrastructure renders visible Gujarat’s commitment to 'development' even when that promise has yet to be realised for many, while the promise of Narmada water gives Gujarat’s leaders political capital with favoured investors and political supporters. In conclusion, I suggest that the success of infrastructure mega-projects as a political tool is not intrinsically tied to their ability to achieve their technical and social objectives. Instead, the 'spectacle' of ambitious infrastructural development projects may well yield political gains that outweigh, for a time, the real-world costs of their inequity and unsustainability.
Frequency, duration and medium of advertisements for gambling and other risky products in commercial and public service broadcasts of English Premier League football
Authors: Cassidy Rebecca , Ovenden Niko
Published: July 2018

Background: There is concern in the media and among public health professionals about the proliferation of advertisements for gambling and other risky products during sporting broadcasts and its potential impact on vulnerable groups including children and young people.Methods: An established coding framework was used to identify and categorize all instances of risky product marketing in six broadcasts of English Premier League football: three episodes of Match of the Day, a highlights program on the BBC (a public service broadcaster), and three full matches on Sky Television (a commercial subscription channel).Results: Gambling advertising occurred more frequently than either alcohol or hyperpalatable food advertising in both sporting highlights broadcasts on non-commercial UK television and full sports broadcasts on commercial stations. Overall, there was more advertising of risky products during highlights shows on the BBC than there was during live matches on Sky.Conclusions: Concern about the advertising of gambling, alcohol and hyperpalatable food has focused on commercial stations which include advertisement breaks in their broadcasts. However, this research suggests that public broadcasts of football highlights, which do not include advertisement breaks, are also saturated with gambling and other risky product advertising. Further research is needed to investigate how advertising impacts different groups, particularly children and young people.
Microentrepreneurship Development in Bangladesh
Authors: Alam Md. Mahmudul
Published: July 2018

Micro-entrepreneurial activities play a pivotal role in rural economic development in the third world countries. As a result, in Bangladesh poverty alleviation through rural centric micro-entrepreneurship development has been focused for more than thirty five years. Over 600 registered and thousands unregistered microcredit organizations including globally prominent institutions like Grameen Bank, BRAC, ASA, BARD, ActionAid, CARE etc. are operating here with their own reputed models. However, the micro-entrepreneurship development and its achievements in the country are still lagging behind a satisfactory level due to a number of prevailing factors. This book examines its major achievements and shortcomings from the perspectives of the structured institutions, non-structured institutions, and non-institutional factors, and government‘s policy guidelines influencing development of micro-entrepreneurship, and makes recommendations for overcoming the shortcomings.
Preprint: Lange and Crusius (2015) - The tango of two deadly sins: The social-functional relation of envy and pride
Authors: Lange Jens , Crusius Jan
Published: July 2018

Envy stems from a social comparison with a superior standard. Its 2 distinct forms are directed at changing this situation in different ways, either by becoming as successful as the envied person (in benign envy) or by lowering the envied person’s advantage (in malicious envy). In essence, envy is thus a social phenomenon. Nevertheless, most previous research has focused on its underlying intrapersonal processes, overlooking envy’s interpersonal core. In contrast, we show in 6 studies (N = 1,513) that envy and pride are intertwined in a social-functional relationship. Envy and pride often co-occur (Study 1) and pride displays enhance envious feelings (Studies 2 and 3). Specifically, authentic (success attributed to effort) and hubristic pride (success attributed to talent) modulate envious intentions and behavior toward their benign and malicious form (Study 2 to 6). This effect is mediated via liking, perceived prestige, and perceived dominance (Study 4). In accordance with a social-functional approach, the effects emerge only when authentic and hubristic pride are expressed by the superior person and not when the respective information about the superior person’s feelings is simply available in the environment (Study 5). These effects are present when participants recall envy situations (Study 1), when they imagine being in a competitive situation (Studies 3, 4, and 5), or when envy is elicited in situ (Studies 2 and 6). Our findings show the value of studying envy as a social phenomenon and open up numerous avenues for research on envy at the interpersonal and intergroup level.
Bullying Acoso Escolar
Authors: Urra Miguel
Published: July 2018

A través de más de 100 referencias bibliográficas, de distintos países y en distintos idiomas, este artículo pretende 1) clarificar la definición de bullying y de acoso escolar; 2) abordar los roles que tienen lugar en el mismo (acosado, acosador, grupo de iguales, escuela, familia y sociedad/políticos/medios de comunicación); 3) presentar datos de la prevalencia del acoso escolar en distintos países y en distintos entornos culturales y, por último, 4) ofrecer un resumen de las propuestas de actuación generales en las que parecen coincidir todos los expertos sobre el tema.
The epistemic value of p-values
Authors: Kovic Marko
Published: July 2018

How do p-values relate to beliefs? p-values are widely used in data analytic contexts, and the misuse of p-values can have grave consequences. In order to get a better grip on p-values, we need to make epistemological sense of them. I argue that the least inappropriate way of understanding the relation of p-values to beliefs is to regard p-values as a degree of epistemic luck, or, in the rare contexts in which the belief in a null model is justified, as a degree of justifiedness. When we handle p-values in an epistemically responsible way, there is no need to abandon them. What should be abandoned, however, is the use of p-values as a default tool in data analysis: Instead of relying on default tools, we should justify our data analysis tools each time we perform some data analytic task.
A Multi-Scale Analysis of 27,000 Urban Street Networks: Every US City, Town, Urbanized Area, and Zillow Neighborhood
Authors: Boeing Geoff
Published: July 2018

OpenStreetMap offers a valuable source of worldwide geospatial data useful to urban researchers. This study uses the OSMnx software to automatically download and analyze 27,000 US street networks from OpenStreetMap at metropolitan, municipal, and neighborhood scales - namely, every US city and town, census urbanized area, and Zillow-defined neighborhood. It presents empirical findings on US urban form and street network characteristics, emphasizing measures relevant to graph theory, transportation, urban design, and morphology such as structure, connectedness, density, centrality, and resilience. In the past, street network data acquisition and processing have been challenging and ad hoc. This study illustrates the use of OSMnx and OpenStreetMap to consistently conduct street network analysis with extremely large sample sizes, with clearly defined network definitions and extents for reproducibility, and using nonplanar, directed graphs. These street networks and measures data have been shared in a public repository for other researchers to use.
An Analysis and Brief History of Foreigners' Rights under the US Constitution
Authors: Bennett J. Holder
Published: July 2018

In response to the various travel restrictions put in place by President Donald J. Trump's various executive orders, the author analyzes their implications in the context of existing policy and the structure of recognized constitutional rights for foreigners visiting the United States.
Margaret Archer, Modes of Reflexivity: The structured agency of nursing action.
Authors: Goodman Benny
Published: July 2018

Margaret Archer was a professor of sociology at Warwick University for 30 years. Her theoretical work is devoted to an important problem in the social sciences: the problem of structure and agency. To what degree are we free agents in deciding a course of action? To what degree does the social structure constrain or enable action? This is a key question to consider when we try to understand why nurses do or do not act to uphold standards in certain contexts. If we wish to understand the limits of agency or the effects of structure upon clinical decision making, Archer’s ‘modes of reflexivity’ could be a very useful starting point. Stenhouse et al (2016) in a recent paper on the ‘compassion deficit’, illustrate the relevance of the discussion.
The Death of ‘No Monitoring Obligations’: A Story of Untameable Monsters
Authors: Frosio Giancarlo
Published: July 2018

In imposing a strict liability regime for alleged copyright infringement occurring on YouTube, Justice Salomão of the Brazilian Superior Tribunal de Justiça stated that “if Google created an ‘untameable monster,’ it should be the only one charged with any disastrous consequences generated by the lack of control of the users of its websites.” In order to tame the monster, the Brazilian Superior Court had to impose monitoring obligations on YouTube. This was not an isolated case. Proactive monitoring and filtering found their way in the legal system as a privileged enforcement strategy through legislation, judicial decisions and private ordering. In multiple jurisdictions, recent case law has imposed proactive monitor obligations on intermediaries. These cases uphold proactive monitoring across the entire spectrum of intermediary liability subject matters: intellectual property, privacy, defamation, and hate/dangerous speech. In this context, however, notable exceptions—such as the landmark Belen case in Argentina—highlight also a fragmented international response. Legislative proposals have been following suit. As part of its Digital Single Market Strategy, the European Commission, would like to introduce filtering obligations for intermediaries to close a “value gap” between rightholders and online platforms allegedly exploiting protected content. In addition, proactive monitoring and filtering obligations would also feature in an update of the European audio-visual media legislation. Meanwhile, online platforms have already set up miscellaneous filtering schemes on a voluntary basis.In this paper, I suggest that we are witnessing the death of “no monitoring obligations,” a well-marked trend in intermediary liability policy. Current Internet policy—especially in Europe—is silently drifting away from a fundamental safeguard for freedom of expression online. In this respect, this paper would like to contextualize this trend within the emergence of a broader move towards private enforcement online. The EU Digital Single Market Strategy apparently endorsed voluntary measures as a privileged tool to curb illicit and infringing activities online. As I argued elsewhere, the intermediary liability discourse is shifting towards an intermediary responsibility discourse. This process might be pushing an amorphous notion of responsibility that incentivizes intermediaries’ self-intervention. In addition, filtering and monitoring will be dealt almost exclusively by intermediaries through automatic infringement assessment systems. Due process and fundamental guarantees get mauled by algorithmic enforcement, limiting enjoyment of exceptions and limitations, use of public domain works, and silencing speech according to the mainstream ethical discourse. The upcoming reform—and the border move that it portends—might finally slay “no monitoring obligations” and fundamental rights online, together with the untameable monster.
A Remedy for Racism
Authors: McGettigan Timothy
Published: July 2018

Racism begins with dehumanization and ends with rehumanization. Racism is a form of suggestion-induced sadism that authorities create by selectively dehumanizing people. Authorities can eradicate racist-sadism by invalidating dehumanizing suggestions. On many occasions, Jane Elliott has created and destroyed “eye pigment racism” purely through the power of suggestion. The US created skin pigment racism by establishing a white supremacist democracy. The US can destroy skin pigment racism by (1) removing dehumanizing white supremacist language from the US Constitution and (2) replacing it with a rehumanizing Declaration of Human Equality. On many occasions the US has generated nationwide support for bad ideas, such as unjust wars in Iraq and Vietnam. In theory, the US could also mobilize nationwide support for good causes, such as eradicating skin pigment racism
Variation in Caste Homophily Across Villages and Contexts in Rural India
Authors: Davidson Thomas
Published: July 2018

This paper studies on caste homophily across seventy-five villages in rural Karnataka, India. Caste is conceptualized as a system of ethnic categories that map onto positions within the social structure of each village. Despite being a salient category across India, the caste structure is not uniform across villages, caste groups or network contexts. Using social network and demographic data collected by Banerjee et al. (2013) I investigate how caste homophily varies within villages across social contexts and between villages. Overall I find strong evidence of caste homophily across the majority of contexts; people tend to exchange resources and socialize with other people occupying a similar position in the caste order. However this varies across villages, relations, and groups. It appears to be strongest among higher caste groups, although it weakens with regards to the lending and borrowing of money, a vertical relationship between high and low castes. The lending of rice and kerosene and social relationships involving advice giving and important decisions are also particularly homophilous for both groups. This demonstrates how the strength of ethnic boundaries can vary based on the relational and spatial context.
Economic Inequality and Campaign Participation
Authors: Solt Frederick , Ritter Michael
Published: July 2018

Objective. How does economic inequality shape participation in political campaigns? Previous research has found that higher inequality makes people of all incomes less likely to participate in politics, consistent with relative power theory, which holds that greater inequality enables wealthier citizens to more fully reshape the political landscape to their own advantage. Campaign activities, however, demand more time and money than previously examined forms of participation and so might better conform to the predictions of resource theory, which focuses narrowly on the ramifications of inequality for individuals’ resources. Methods. We combine individual-level data on donations, meeting attendance, and volunteer work for political campaigns with measures of state-level income inequality to construct a series of multilevel models. Results. The analyses reveal that where inequality is higher, campaign participation is lower among individuals of all incomes. Conclusion. Patterns of participation in even resource-intensive campaign activities provide support for the relative power theory. Forthcoming, Social Science Quarterly.
The role of the social economy in the welfare regimes. An alternative to explore in time of crisis.
Authors: Urra Miguel
Published: July 2018

In the main areas of the welfare regimes, as education, health, housing, employ or social prevision, we can find teorical points of view about the public (sinonimous of State), the private (sinonimous of tradicional capitalism model) and the third sector (sinonimous of voluntary action). In this important areas, the social economy is able to articulate a proposal that understand the public as the comunitary, the private as a market who is able to empoderate the people and the third sector as a social participation area by the economical activity. In this way, we can notice that the social economy offer specific solutions and efficient models in each social area: education cooperatives, health cooperatives, housing cooperatives, mutualism movement, social enterprises... etc. All of them can play an important role lessening the crisis impact and proposing alternative solutions.
Rural waste management at global level (Introductory chapter)
Authors: MIHAI Florin Constantin
Published: July 2018

This chapter intends to draw attention to solid waste management sector toward rural areaswhere bad practices and public health threats could be avoided through traditional and integratedwaste management routes. The expansion of waste collection services across ruralmunicipalities should be a priority for many countries. Agricultural and municipal wastediversion from wild dumps and open burning practices must be avoided through smart solutionsat the local level which are cost-efficient particularly in developing countries. The bookfurther examines, on the one hand, the main challenges in the development of reliable waste management practices across rural regions and, on the other hand, the concrete solutions andthe new opportunities across the world in dealing with rural solid waste.
Are Genes Destiny? Exploring the Role of Intrauterine Environment in Moderating Genetic Influences on Body Weight
Authors: Kim Jinho
Published: July 2018

By incorporating molecular genetic variants and the fetal origins of obesity hypothesis into a gene-environment interaction framework, this study investigates the potential interactive effects of variation in the obesity-associated gene (FTO) and intrauterine environment on body mass index (BMI) in adulthood. This study draws on data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, and uses sibling comparisons that allow for quasi-experimental variations in both genetic and environmental factors. Findings demonstrated that even after controlling for unobserved family background, the FTO variants and birth weight are generally associated with adult BMI. Moreover, this study found that the effects of having a risk allele of the FTO gene are largely concentrated on those who were heavier at birth, providing evidence for a gene-environment interaction on BMI and the development of obesity. Results of this study suggest that genes are not destiny and environmental factors may offset the effects of obesity-promoting genes. In particular, efforts to counteract genetic effects on obesity may begin as early as in utero. Interventions to prevent higher birth weight may help reduce the risk of obesity later in life, by directly addressing the programming effects of the in utero environment and also indirectly moderating the obesity-promoting genetic effects.
Seeing like a market
Authors: Fourcade Marion , Healy Kieran
Published: July 2018

What do markets see when they look at people? Information dragnets increasingly yield huge quantities of individual-level data, which is analyzed to sort and slot people into categories of taste, riskiness, or worth. Developed to better understand and improve customer experience, these tools deepen the reach of the market and define new strategies of profit-making. We present a new theoretical framework for understanding them. We argue that (1) modern organizations follow an institutional data imperative to collect as much data as possible; (2) as a result of the analysis and use of this data individuals accrue ubercapital, a form of capital flowing from their positions as measured by various digital scoring and ranking methods; and, (3) the facticity of these scoring methods makes them organizational devices with powerful classifying effects. They offer firms new opportunities to structure and price offerings to consumers. For individuals, they create classification situations that identify shared life-chances in product and service markets. Finally, these new market lenses, and especially the self-quantification tools they rely upon, are also presented, and experienced, as a moralized system of opportunities and just deserts.
Evidence of Open Access of scientific publications in Google Scholar: a large-scale analysis
Authors: Martín-Martín Alberto , Costas Rodrigo , van Leeuwen Thed , López-Cózar Emilio Delgado
Published: July 2018

This article uses Google Scholar (GS) as a source of data to analyse Open Access (OA) levels across all countries and fields of research. All articles and reviews with a DOI and published in 2009 or 2014 and covered by the three main citation indexes in the Web of Science (2,269,022 documents) were selected for study. The links to freely available versions of these documents displayed in GS were collected. To differentiate between more reliable (sustainable and legal) forms of access and less reliable ones, the data extracted from GS was combined with information available in DOAJ, CrossRef, OpenDOAR, and ROAR. This allowed us to distinguish the percentage of documents in our sample that are made OA by the publisher (23.1%, including Gold, Hybrid, Delayed, and Bronze OA) from those available as Green OA (17.6%), and those available from other sources (40.6%, mainly due to ResearchGate). The data shows an overall free availability of 54.6%, with important differences at the country and subject category levels. The data extracted from GS yielded very similar results to those found by other studies that analysed similar samples of documents, but employed different methods to find evidence of OA, thus suggesting a relative consistency among methods.
Enriching undergraduate experiences with outreach in school STEM clubs
Authors: Ferrara Michael , Talbot Robert M. , Mason Hillary , Wee Bryan , Rorrer Ronald , Jacobson Michael , Gallagher Doug
Published: July 2018

The need for a more robust, well-trained STEM workforce is becoming increasingly acute in the U.S., and there is a clear need to recruit and retain a larger and more diverse population of undergraduate STEM majors. While numerous efforts to improve engagement and support in the traditional P-16 classroom have been implemented successfully, it is also critical to explore other types of activities that have potential for high impact. The STEM Club Leadership for Undergraduate STEM Education, Recruiting and Success (STEM-CLUSTERS) project at our large public research university in the Mountain West presents an outreach model to engage undergraduate STEM majors in developing and facilitating activities in local middle and high school STEM clubs. Through case studies, built upon data from reflective journals and semi-structured interviews, the project has identified a number of benefits to the first cohort of participants, which is comprised of eleven undergraduate students operating in interdisciplinary teams across five schools. In this paper we describe the essential elements of our outreach model and suggest benefits related to undergraduates’ content knowledge, metacognition, communication skills, and identity as a future STEM professional.
Where It Matters to Be the Only One: School Performance Outcomes of Only-children across 31 Countries
Authors: Choi Seongsoo , Monden Christiaan Willem Simon
Published: July 2018

Despite the increasing number and visibility of only-children (children raised without any siblings) in low-fertility societies, our understanding of how they perform relative to children with siblings is surprisingly limited. Especially little is known about how only-children fare in different societies. Using data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2000 on 15-year old students from 31 countries, we examine how family socioeconomic status (SES) and cognitive and noncognitive outcomes of only-children vary across countries. In particular, we analyze the importance of the country-level family size composition to explain cross-national differences in only-children's status and performance. Our analysis reveals four patterns: First, we found a substantial variation in the proportion of only-children across countries. Second, only-children in countries where small families are more prevalent are more likely to come from high-SES families than are those in countries where small families are less prevalent. Third, where the proportion of small families is higher, only-children fare consistently better across performance outcomes than do those in countries where the proportion is lower. With regard to cognitive outcomes, such cross-national patterns are largely explained by the cross-national variation in only-children’s prestige in family SES. Lastly, we also find important associations between the relative outcomes of only-children and policies, such as educational policies and the school tracking system.
Social Interaction and the City: The Effect of Space on the Reduction of Entropy
Authors: Netto Vinicius M. , Meirelles João Vitor , Ribeiro Fabiano L.
Published: July 2018

How can individual acts amount to coherent systems of interaction? In this paper, we attempt to answer this key question by suggesting that there is a place for cities in the way we coordinate seemingly chaotic decisions. We look into the elementary processes of social interaction exploring a particular concept, “social entropy,” or how social systems deal with uncertainty and unpredictability in the transition from individual actions to systems of interaction. Examining possibilities that (i) actions rely on informational differences latent in their environments and that (ii) the city itself is an information environment to actions, we propose that (iii) space becomes a form of creating differences in the probabilities of interaction. We investigate this process through simulations of distinct material scenarios, to find that space is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the reduction of entropy. Finally, we suggest that states and fluctuations of entropy are a vital part of social reproduction and reveal a deep connection between social, informational, and spatial systems.
A brief intervention for reducing procrastination
Authors: Strunk Kamden K
Published: July 2018

Student academic procrastination presents a significant issue for educators. This procrastination may be due to self-regulatory issues, low self-efficacy, and self-handicapping as a coping mechanism for fear of failure. Academic procrastination may also lead to a number of negative outcomes, including psychological and academic issues. However, little research exists on effective interventions with procrastination in the classroom. This study investigates an effective point of identification at the beginning of the semester for intervention, and a possible brief intervention strategy that can be easily used by classroom instructors. Results show fewer late assignments turned in and higher course grades among those receiving the brief intervention. The limitations of the study and directions for future research are discussed.
Coaches' Justifications for Male Dominance in Coaching
Authors: Bolzendahl Catherine , Kauffman Vanessa , Broadfoot Jessica
Published: July 2018

Exploring perceptions of why there are so few women coaching women's or men's teams.
Theurgical ritual of making stecak tombstones in medieval Bosnia
Authors: Dardagan Amer
Published: July 2018

The practice of theurgy in Late antiquity and Middle Ages can be understood correctly and comprehensively only if we take into account the basic principles of Neoplatonist philosophy and theology as the basis of medieval mysticism. In order to understand the basic purpose and goal of the theurgical ritual of making stone tombstones with appropriate symbols in medieval Bosnia (Stećak) it is necessary for us to know the basic postulates of Neoplatonist philosophy (creation of the world, emanation and reversion of the Good, the Virtue) and Neoplatonist theology within the religious discourse of the Middle Ages (allegorical reading of the Scripture, the mystical theology of affirmation and negation). Theurgy as an expression of ritual mysticism puts an emphasis on experience and "living religion“. Every aspect of the imbalance in the soul can be purified through a theurgical ritual where the appropriate "theurgical token" (sunthemata) balances the soul and prepares it for the ascent. Philosophy is purifying, religion illuminating, but theurgy is uplifting.
Resisting “Changes That Make Things Worse”: Decremental—Not Relative—Deprivation Motivates Political Violence
Authors: Bartusevicius Henrikas , van Leeuwen Florian
Published: July 2018

Despite extensive scholarly interest in the association between economic inequality and political violence, we know surprisingly little about the micro-level mechanisms through which the former influences the latter. Drawing on pioneering theories of political violence, social psychological research on intergroup attitudes and behavior, and prospect theory, we examine individual-level mechanisms relating inequality to political violence. Our theoretical analysis generates two propositions that diverge from extant civil conflict research. Despite being the key explanatory mechanism, perceived lower economic status vis-à-vis other individuals (relative deprivation) is unlikely to motivate people to participate in political violence. By contrast, although virtually unexplored, a projected decrease in one’s own economic status (prospective decremental deprivation) is likely to motivate participation in political violence. Multilevel analyses of nationally representative samples from a large number of countries provide strong evidence to support these claims. Based on this, we posit that focusing on economic changes, rather than the economic status quo, is key to understanding political violence. We conclude by discussing how focusing on temporal changes, as contrasted to static characteristics, can advance the study of civil conflict writ large.
Through the Ol, and What the Maya Found There: Sacred Cenotes as Portals to the Otherworld
Authors: Oman-Reagan Michael P.
Published: July 2018

This article explores the origins and role of the portal in the ancient religion of the Maya, beginning with a possible naturally occurring archetype for the circular passageway, the cenote (tz’onot). I explore possible connections between the cenote and Mayan portal iconography with Yucatán geography, geology, and an asteroid impact crater (Chicxulub crater).Keywords:Geography, Latin American Studies, Archaeology, Geology, Maya Archaeology, Maya Art, Maya History, Mexico, Mexico, Ancient ReligionPlease cite as:Oman-Reagan, Michael P. 2006. “Through the Ol, and What the Maya Found There: Sacred Cenotes as Portals to the Otherworld.” SocArXiv, Open Science Framework. Manuscript, submitted January 23, 2017. osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/mhbdf
The Impact of Financial Education Participation on Financial Knowledge and Efficacy: Evidence from the Canadian Financial Capability Survey
Authors: Rothwell David W. , Wu Shiyou
Published: July 2018

Very little is known about how participation in financial education affects cognitive outcomes such as financial knowledge and self-efficacy. We used two waves of the nationally representative Canadian Financial Capability Survey along with propensity score matching to compare outcomes between persons who had taken a financial education course to those who had not. After matching and adjusting for demographic and economic factors, financial education participants exhibited significantly higher financial knowledge and financial self-efficacy scores. Post-estimation analysis showed that higher overall financial knowledge scores of participants were at least partially driven by higher scores of men. There was no difference in knowledge scores for women across all age groups. Financial education participants had higher efficacy scores for both genders and across age. Future research into the impact of financial education ought to consider cognitive dimensions in addition to strictly behavioral and financial outcomes.
The System of Equitable Remedies
Authors: Bray Samuel L
Published: July 2018

The conventional wisdom is that the distinction between legal and equitable remedies is outmoded and serves no purpose. This Article challenges that view. It argues that the equitable remedies and remedy-related doctrines that presently exist in American law can be understood as a system. The components of the system fall into three categories: (1) the equitable remedies themselves, (2) equitable managerial devices, and (3) equitable constraints. ese components interact subtly and pervasively. Together, they make the equitable remedies apt for compelling action (or inaction), especially when the action may be continuing or iterative and is not easily measured. The system of equitable remedies is a useful and integrated whole.This argument offers some support for an emerging body of Supreme Court cases that have sharply distinguished between legal and equitable remedies—cases such as Great- West Life & Annuity Insurance Co. v. Knudson, eBay v. MercExchange, and Petrella v. MGM. Moreover, this argument helps explain why there has been so little merger between law and equity in remedies, even as merger has occurred in other aspects of American law. Finally, this argument offers a new perspective on the requirement that a plaintiff, in order to receive an equitable remedy, must show that legal remedies are inadequate. That requirement helps maintain the system of equitable remedies.
Rational Ignorance at the Patent Office
Authors: Lemley Mark
Published: July 2018

It is common to assert that the Patent and Trademark Office does a bad jobof examining patents, and that it should spend more time and money weedingout bad patents. In this article, Professor Lemley challenges thatconventional wisdom. Using available data regarding the cost and incidenceof patent prosecution, litigation, licensing and other uses of patents, hedemonstrates that strengthening the examination process is not costeffective. The core insight is that very few patents are actually litigatedor licensed; most simply sit on a shelf unused, or are used only fornoncontroversial purposes like financing. Because of this, society would bebetter off spending its resources in a more searching judicial inquiry intovalidity in those few cases in which it matters than paying for a moreprotracted examination of all patents ex ante. In economic terms, thepatent office is "rationally ignorant" of the objective validity of thepatents it issues.
The Sociology of Globalization, second edition, 2016 - Introduction
Authors: Martell Luke
Published: July 2018

Introduction to second edition of The Sociology of Globalization, 2016
Work-Family Calendars for Family Sociology Research
Authors: Danforth Emily , Cohen Philip N. , Horowitz Jonathan
Published: July 2018

We present an active learning exercise for students in family sociology, gender, or population studies. The main contribution is to introduce a standard work-family history calendar which students use to structure inter-views with women ages 34-65. We offer details on the exercise, the attendant research paper assignment, and suggestions for class activities and discussions to enhance the learning experience. Feedback from students suggests the calendar exercise helps organize the interview, recognize patterns in the data, and develop an ar-gument for the research paper. Finally, we present a simple quantitative data manipulation, based on several hundred student calendars, as an example of the potential benefit of aggregating the calendars within or across classes performing the exercise.
The mutual specification of genres and audiences: Reflective two-mode centralities in person-to-culture data
Authors: Lizardo Omar
Published: July 2018

Recent developments at the intersection of cultural sociology and network theory suggest that the relations between persons and the cultural forms they consume can be productively analyzed using conceptual resources and methods adapted from network analysis. In this paper I seek to contribute to this developing line of thinking on the culture-networks link as it pertains to the sociology of taste. I present a general analytic and measurement framework useful for rethinking traditional survey (or population) based data on individuals and their cultural choices as a “two mode” persons X genres network. The proposed methodological tools allow me to develop a set of “reflective” metrics useful for ranking both persons and genres in terms of the pattern of choices and audience composition embedded in the cultural network. The empirical analysis shows that these metrics have both face and criterion validity, allowing us to extract useful information that would remain out of reach of standard quantitative strategies. I close by outlining the analytic and substantive implications of the approach.
Central banking and the infrastructural power of finance: The case of ECB support for repo and securitization markets
Authors: Braun Benjamin
Published: July 2018

The pre-crisis rise and post-crisis resilience of European repo and securitisation markets represent political victories for the interests of large banks. To explain when and how finance wins, the literature emphasises lobbying capacity (instrumental power) and the financial sector’s central position in the economy (structural power). Increasingly, however, finance also enjoys infrastructural power, which stems from entanglements between specific financial markets and public-sector actors, such as treasuries and central banks, that govern by transacting in those markets. To demonstrate the analytical value of this perspective, the article traces how the European Central Bank, motivated by monetary policy considerations, has shaped post-crisis financial policymaking in the EU. It shows that the ECB has played a key part in fending off a financial transaction tax on repos and in shoring up and rebuilding the securitisation market. With market-based forms of state agency on the rise, infrastructural entanglement and power shed new light on the politics of finance.
Education and Voluntary Association Participation: Evidence for Selection and Causation
Authors: Bekkers Rene
Published: July 2018

We study the relationship of education and participation in voluntary associations throughout the life course, using retrospective data from the Netherlands (covering the period 1932-2000) and prospective panel data from Wisconsin (1957-2003). In both datasets, we find that those who will eventually achieve a higher level of education are already more likely to participate in voluntary associations before they have completed their educational career. This implies that the relationship between education and participation in voluntary associations is partly due to selection effects. However, both datasets also reveal that increases in education are associated with increases in voluntary associations memberships, suggesting causative effects of education. The Dutch data reveal no causative effect of education on volunteering if selection into membership is taken into account.
Feels Like Home: Home Staging, Materiality, and Embodied Consumption
Authors: Vercel Kelcie
Published: July 2018

Bringing together research on culture, materiality and consumption, I conceptualize home stagers as market and cultural intermediaries who do their work in the space between a home (the product) and potential homebuyers (the consumer). Using data from the content analysis of nearly 200 staging documents, as well as from interviews and observations with home stagers, I describe the strategic cultural and material work performed by home stagers as they attempt to construct the optimal purchasing experience for potential buyers. Specifically, I examine how home stagers convey a home’s livability to buyers by using material objects to influence their senses, imaginations and processes of evaluation. In so doing, I reveal a previously overlooked process that shapes the most consequential consumption decision most people will ever make (Koklic and Vida 2009), and describe how this process may act as a mechanism of exclusion. I also contribute to work on cultural intermediaries more generally by describing two new dimensions along which their practices may vary: neutrality and temporal orientation.
Generating measures of access to employment for Canada's eight largest urban regions
Authors: Allen Jeff , Farber Steven
Published: July 2018

We create and release a publicly available dataset of neighbourhood level measures of access to employment for the eight largest urban regions in Canada. Measures of access to employment are key indicators for analyzing the characteristics of transport networks and urban form. Specifically, we generate cumulative measures (number of jobs reachable within 30, 45, and 60 minute commutes), gravity measures, as well as a competitive measure of accessibility which is standardized to allow for comparisons between regions. These are generated at the census Dissemination Area level for two travel modes, car and transit, including accounting for minute-by-minute variations in transit schedules. We release the data, and the code to generate it, openly on GitHub (https://github.com/SAUSy-Lab/canada-transit-access), as well as visualize the data on an interactive map (https://sausy-lab.github.io/canada-transit-access/map.html) so that they can easily be used by researchers, planners, and the general public. The input data and tools used are all open source so they can be shared or replicated elsewhere with minimal cost.
Secularism and Fertility Worldwide
Authors: Schnabel Landon
Published: July 2018

This study proposes and explores a new fertility determinant: societal secularism. Using country-level data from multiple sources (N=181) and multilevel data from 58 countries in the World Values Survey (N=83,301), I document a strong negative relationship between societal secularism and both country-level fertility rates and individual-level fertility behavior. Secularism, even in small amounts, is associated with population stagnation or even decline absent substantial immigration, whereas highly religious countries have higher fertility rates that promote population growth. This country-level pattern is driven by more than aggregate lower fertility of secular individuals. In fact, societal secularism is a better predictor of highly religious individuals’ fertility behavior than that of secular individuals, and this pattern is largely a function of cultural values related to gender, reproduction, and autonomy in secular societies. Beyond their importance for the religious composition of the world population, the patterns presented in this study are relevant to key fertility theories and could help account for below-replacement fertility.
What Drives State-Sponsored Violence?: Evidence from Extreme Bounds Analysis and Ensemble Learning Models
Authors: Freire Danilo , Uzonyi Gary
Published: July 2018

The literature on state-sponsored violence has grown significantly over the last decades. Although scholars have suggested a number of potential correlates of mass killings, it remains unclear whether the estimates are robust to different model specifications, or which variables accurately predict the onset of large-scale violence. We employ extreme bounds analysis and distributed random forests to test the sensitivity of 40 variables on a sample of 177 countries from 1945 to 2013. The results help clear the brush around mass killings, as few variables in this literature are robust determinants of atrocity. However, support for an opportunity logic persists as greater constraints on a government limit its ability to employ barbarous tactics. It appears that the Conflict Trap applies to government atrocity. Atrocity breeds atrocity, while wealthy stable democracies tend to avoid episodes of mass killing.
geographies of (con)text: language and structure in a digital age
Authors: Thornton Pip
Published: July 2018

This paper puts forward the concept of ‘geographies of (con)text’ to critique the metaphors and materialities of ‘the digital’, concentrating on the physical constructs and constraints of language on the web. A landscape of words as opposed to a landscape of code (Thrift & French, 2002), language-as-data becomes material in ways very different from both print and spoken word; its physicality represented in bits, bytes and circuitry, and its limits and variations mediated and governed by the processes which order, sort, move and index it. By virtue of their reproducibility and enhanced means of dissemination, digitised words can have paratextual – and often political – agencies and excesses beyond their linguistic function. Using examples of online search, dictionaries and translation, the paper will imagine how context as a kind of space might be produced, constructed and limited, how competing actors contribute tactically (de Certeau, 1984) to the (in)visibility and (im)mobility of the linguistic data in the searchable database, and how these actors negotiate the conflicting interests of money, efficiency and truth (Lyotard, 1984) in the geo-linguistic spaces of the web. With a geography of (con)text thus imagined, the mathematical and binary logics that construct and mediate the language within it are also clearly exposed. The paper goes on to discuss how creativity and originality might be restricted by ongoing processes of quantification and monetisation of language, before concluding that digitised language falls somewhere in the middle of a structuralist/post-structuralist critique; being at the same time both free from and constrained by the geographies of context.
The Rise of African SIM Registration: The Emerging Dynamics of Regulatory Change
Authors: Donovan Kevin P.
Published: July 2018

The African experience with mobile telephony has been extolled as a defining moment in the continent’s contemporary economic, social, and political development. Yet SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) registration schemes are threatening to throttle the technology’s developmental potential. These mandates, which require the registration of identity information to activate a mobile SIM card, are fast becoming universal in Africa, with little to no public debate about the wider social or political effects. Whereas some authors have explored the motivations behind these drives, as well as their potential economic impacts, this paper focuses its critique on the broader diversity of implications of this regulatory transformation. Viewing SIM registration through a lens that combines surveillance studies and information & communication technologies for development, it examines elements of resistance across a range of actors, as well as other emerging effects like access barriers, linkages to financialization, and Africa’s budding mobile surveillance society.