bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Development of a Within-Subject, Repeated-Measures Ego Depletion Paradigm: Inconsistent Results and Future Recommendations
Authors: Francis Zoë Lynn , Milyavskaya Marina , Lin Hause , Inzlicht Michael
Published: July 2018

The ego-depletion effect is currently under scrutiny for low replicability, possibly reflecting the limited statistical power available in between-subject designs. In response, we created a within-subject, repeated-measures ego-depletion paradigm that repeatedly alternated depletion and recovery manipulations. Each manipulation was followed by measuring subjective fatigue, mood, and self-control performance. Across twelve studies (N = 754), participants reliably reported having less energy and lower mood after depleting manipulations compared to after recovery manipulations. Depletion manipulations did not consistently affect behavioral self-control, although the small effect was meta-analytically significant (d = .045). Furthermore, unintended fatigue and practice effects occurred over the course of the paradigm, systematically interfering with the intended depletion effects. We recommend that depletion research take advantage of within-subject designs without using repeated-measures.
Concepts as explanatory theories: Evidence from word learning and the development of lexical flexibility
Authors: Srinivasan Mahesh
Published: July 2018

By some theories, children are guided by explanatory frameworks, which motivate them to understand why objects have the properties they do. In this chapter, I describe how language development can inform such theories, by reviewing previous work on how children extend new words, and more recent work on how children learn to use words flexibly, with multiple, related meanings (e.g., shattered/drinking glass; thirsty/tasty chicken). Interestingly, some scholars have proposed that the different meanings of flexible words reflect different modes of explanation, raising the possibility that children’s understanding of flexible words will lend insight into the role of explanatory structures in conceptual development. To this end, this chapter presents a background on lexical flexibility, and brings together recent evidence on how it is acquired, represented, and instantiated across languages. Together, these recent developments provide new support for the idea that explanatory frameworks shape how children conceptualize the world.
The social brain automatically predicts others’ future mental states
Authors: Thornton Mark Allen , Schwyck Miriam E. , Tamir Diana
Published: July 2018

Social life requires people to predict the future: people must anticipate others’ thoughts, feelings, and actions in order to interact with them successfully. The theory of predictive coding suggests that the social brain may meet this need by automatically predicting others’ social futures. If so, when representing others’ current mental state, the brain should already start representing their future states. To test this hypothesis, we used functional neuroimaging to measure participants’ neural representations of mental states. Representational similarity analysis revealed that neural patterns associated with mental states currently under consideration resembled patterns of likely future states, more so than patterns of unlikely future states. This effect manifested in activity across the social brain network, and in medial prefrontal cortex in particular. Repetition suppression analysis also supported the social predictive coding hypothesis: considering mental states presented in predictable sequences reduced activity in the precuneus, relative to unpredictable sequences. In addition to demonstrating that the brain makes automatic predictions of others’ social futures, the results also demonstrate that the brain leverages a three-dimensional representational space to make these predictions. Proximity between mental states on the psychological dimensions of rationality, social impact, and valence explained much of the association between state-specific neural pattern similarity and state transition likelihood. Together, these findings suggest that the way the brain represents the social present gives people an automatic glimpse of the social future.
Comparison of performance on verbal and nonverbal multiple-cue responding tasks in children with ASD
Authors: Lokshina Lisa , Faisman Alexander , Elgart Jonah , Khokhlovich Edward , Gankin Yuriy , Vyshedskiy Andrey
Published: July 2018

In this manuscript, we present data from an ongoing study of a tablet-based therapeutic application designed for newly diagnosed children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and modeled on Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT), a technique known to be effective in educating children with ASD. We describe the creation of a variety of analogous tasks that were presented both verbally and nonverbally within the application. This work presents our hypothesis that children with ASD perform better when a command is presented nonverbally. This approach may have important implication for the most effective way of delivering early therapeutic interventions to children with ASD.
Learning mathematics in a visuo-spatial format: A randomized, controlled trial of mental abacus instruction
Authors: Barner David , Alvarez George , Sullivan Jess , Brooks Neon Blue , Srinivasan Mahesh , Frank Michael C.
Published: July 2018

Mental abacus (MA) is a technique for performing fast and accurate arithmetic using a mental image of a physical abacus. Expert users exhibit astonishing calculation abilities. In a 3-year randomized, controlled trial of 204 elementary-school students, we investigated the nature of MA expertise, and whether it can be acquired by large groups of children in standard classroom settings. We asked whether MA improves students’ mathematical abilities, and whether expertise – which requires sustained practice of mental imagery – is driven by changes to basic cognitive capacities like working memory. MA students improved on arithmetic tasks relative to controls, but training was not associated with changes to basic cognitive abilities. Instead, differences in spatial working memory at the beginning of the study mediated MA learning. We conclude that MA expertise can be achieved by many children in standard classrooms and results from efficient use of pre-existing abilities.
Memory Accessibility Shapes Explanation: Testing Key Claims of the Inherence Heuristic Account
Authors: Hussak Larisa , Cimpian Andrei
Published: July 2018

People understand the world by constructing explanations for what they observe. It is thus important to identify the cognitive processes underlying these judgments. According to a recent proposal, everyday explanations are often constructed heuristically: Because people need to generate explanations on a moment-by-moment basis, they cannot perform an exhaustive search through the space of possible reasons and may instead use the information that is most easily accessible in memory (Cimpian & Salomon 2014a, 2014b). In the present research, we tested two key claims of this proposal that have so far not been investigated. First, we tested whether—as previously hypothesized—the information about an entity that is most accessible in memory tends to consist of inherent or intrinsic facts about that entity rather than extrinsic (contextual, historical, etc.) facts about it (Studies 1 and 2). Second, we tested the implications of this difference in the memory accessibility of inherent vs. extrinsic facts for the process of generating explanations: Does the fact that inherent facts are more accessible than relevant extrinsic facts give rise to an inherence bias in the content of the explanations generated (Studies 3 and 4)? The findings supported the proposal that everyday explanations are generated in part via a heuristic process that relies on easily accessible—and often inherent—information from memory.
Opening Burton's Clock: Psychiatric insights from computational cognitive models
Authors: Bennett Daniel , Niv Yael
Published: July 2018

Computational psychiatry is a nascent field that seeks to use computational tools from neuroscience and cognitive science to understand psychiatric illness. In this chapter, we make the case for computational cognitive models as a bridge between the cognitive and affective deficits experienced by those with a psychiatric illness and the neurocomputational dysfunctions that underlie these deficits. We first review the history of computational modelling in psychiatry and conclude that a key moment of maturation in this field occurred with the transition from qualitative comparison between computational models and human behaviour to formal quantitative model fitting and model comparison. We then summarise current research at one of the most exciting frontiers of computational psychiatry: reinforcement learning models of mood disorders. We review state-of-the-art applications of such models to major depression and bipolar disorder, and outline important open questions to be addressed by the coming wave of research in computational psychiatry.
Discrimination in the English and Polish Housing Markets
Authors: Antfolk Jan , Szala Anna , Öblom AnnaMaria
Published: July 2018

Several studies have documented ethnic and gender discrimination in a variety markets, including the housing market. Discrimination in the housing market is associated with decreased social integration and is costly both at social and individual levels. In the current pre-registered field experiment, we sent inquires to advertisements for rentals in England and Poland. Inquires were signed with Arabic, English, or Polish sounding male and female names. Contrary to our expectation, we found no evidence of discrimination in the English housing market. We, however, found evidence of discrimination of Arabic males in the Polish housing market. The probability of receiving a response was generally lower in England compared to Poland. The results are discussed against current social and political situations in both countries.
Wiki Editors' Acceptance of Additional Guidance on Talk Pages
Authors: Heimbuch Sven , Bodemer Daniel
Published: July 2018

One purpose of wikis like Wikipedia is to collaboratively generate content. During the creation processes controversies between multiple authors might emerge that are further discussed on a wiki article's so-called talk page. Research has shown that controversies grounded on opposing points of view and contradictory evidence can be fruitful to trigger individual elaboration processes. But it has also been shown that many wikis are not necessarily suited to identify relevant discussion contents and thus need additional support to guide users. In an experimental study (N = 181) we implemented on a wiki talk page (1) visual controversy status highlights as implicit guidance and (2) a collaboration script directing users towards discussions as explicit guidance. We analyzed their user adoption and influence on wiki activities. Our results show that both experimental additions affect user behaviors and that in particular the visual controversy status highlights are positively adopted by users.
Lexical Ambiguity
Authors: Rodd Jennifer M
Published: July 2018

Chapter on 'Lexical Ambiguity' to be included in Oxford Handbook of Psycholinguistics. Eds M.G. Gaskell & S-A Rueschemeyer. Includes sections on how ambiguous words are learned and processed, and why indvidual differences in understanding ambiguous words arise. The neural basis of disambiguation is also discussed.
Reducing Implicit Racial Preferences: II. Intervention Effectiveness Across Time
Authors: Lai Calvin K. , Nosek Brian A. , Sartori Giuseppe , Shin Jiyun Elizabeth L. , Marini Maddalena , Rubichi Sandro
Published: July 2018

Implicit preferences are malleable, but does that change last? We tested 9 interventions (8 real and 1 sham) to reduce implicit racial preferences over time. In 2 studies with a total of 6,321 participants, all 9 interventions immediately reduced implicit preferences. However, none were effective after a delay of several hours to several days. We also found that these interventions did not change explicit racial preferences and were not reliably moderated by motivations to respond without prejudice. Short-term malleability in implicit preferences does not necessarily lead to long-term change, raising new questions about the flexibility and stability of implicit preferences.
Topic modeling reveals distinct posting patterns within an online conspiracy forum.
Authors: Klein Colin , Clutton Peter , Polito Vince
Published: July 2018

Conspiracy theories play a troubling role in political discourse, yet the motivations of conspiracy endorsers can be obscure to outsiders. Online forums provide a valuable window into the day-to-day discourse of conspiracy theorizing, but one that is difficult to quantify. We used non-negative matrix factorization to create a topic model of the r/conspiracy forum on Reddit.com. This subreddit provides a large and unique corpus which spans many years and numerous authors. We show that within the forum, there are multiple sub-populations distinguishable by their topic loading. Further, these differences are readily interpretable as differences in background beliefs and motivations. These groups regularly interact with one another by commenting; hence topic modeling reveals subgroups that would not be revealed by simple network analyses. The diversity of the distinct subgroups places constraints on theories of what generates conspiracy theorizing: neither simple irrationality nor common preoccupations of topics seem to fit the bill. Instead, we suggest, conspiracy theorizing seems to be primarily driven by higher-order preoccupations with evidence and argument, along with rhetorical strategies which allow diverse groups to each address any particular theme.
An analysis of the structural relationship between job stress, coping, belief conflict, and occupational dysfunction in healthcare workers involved in dialysis treatment
Authors: Oogishi Taichi , Kyougoku Makoto , Teraoka Mutsumi
Published: July 2018

Background. Job stress can be high in healthcare workers involved in dialysis treatment. This study intended to verify the structural relationship among job stress, coping, belief conflict, and occupational dysfunction in healthcare workers involved in dialysis treatment.Methods. Participants completed a composite questionnaire combining the Brief Job Stress Questionnaires, Coping Scale, Assessment of Belief Conflict in Relationship–14, and Classification and Assessment of Occupational Dysfunction. Hypothetical models were compared using Bayesian structural equation modeling (BSEM). Results. The 185 participants included 22 physicians, 46 nurses, 38 medical engineers, 50 physical therapists, and 25 occupational therapists. As a result of the BSEM, the following type A of hypothetical model 1 was selected as the most suitable through comparison of the deviance and Bayesian information criteria (DIC = 5033.848, BIC = 5312.447). Belief conflict had a significant direct effect on occupational dysfunction (direct effect = 0.441, p = 0.000), and occupational dysfunction had a direct effect on stress response (direct effect = 0.406, p = 0.000). Discussion. This result suggests that belief conflict has the potential to increase job stress via occupational dysfunction in healthcare workers involved in dialysis treatment. To reduce job stress, belief conflict should be evaluated and appropriate interventions performed.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be: Energy efficiency decision- making among class B and C offices in Pittsburgh
Authors: Davis Alex
Published: July 2018

Even when the benefits seem to outweigh the costs, many building owners do not invest in energy efficiency. Here a framework is presented for understanding energy efficiency investment decisions drawing on methods from behavioral decision research. The approach begins with a normative analysis that characterizes how building owners should behave, compares this to interview andsurvey data from decision-makers, then concludes with policy recommendations suggesting how to bridge that gap. The framework is demonstrated with a sample of class B and C office building owners in Pittsburgh, a population believed to under-invest in energy efficiency. Interviews (n = 16) and a survey (n = 132) found that while uncertainty and a lack of information about costs and energy savings play a critical role in decision-making, a significant proportion of the respondents also express aversion to debt and a lack of sensitivity to split incentives. Based on the results, providing owners of class B and C offices cost-benefit information and resolving energy savings uncertainty through guarantees, trial periods, or grants that fully subsidize energy efficiency for a small part of a building may be a way to enhance investment. The approach can be applied to other energy efficiency decision-making contexts by anyone with training in behavioral research.
Is source information automatically available in working memory?
Authors: CHEN HUI , Carlson Richard , Wyble Brad
Published: July 2018

We often remember information without its source (e.g. word or picture format). This phenomenon has been studied extensively in long-term memory, but rarely in the context of short-term/working memory(WM). It is an open question as to whether source amnesia is the result of forgetting over a prolonged period of time. This study provided a series of striking and novel demonstrations showing participants’ inability to report the source of a color representation immediately after that color was used in a task, and stored in memory. These counterintuitive findings occurred when participants repeatedly judged the congruency between two color representations from one single object (i.e., color and identity of a color word) or two distinct objects (i.e., color of a square and identity of a color word) and then were unexpectedly asked to report the source of one color representation. These discoveries suggested that source information was not spontaneously stored into WM.
When High Reliability (Assessed in non-Clinical Samples) May Indicate Poor Diagnostic Utility: A Cautionary Note
Authors: Meiran Nachshon
Published: July 2018

Objective: Neuropsychological tests are sometimes used to discriminate between non-pathological and pathological populations, and their reliability is frequently assessed using non-pathological samples. The objective of this note is to alert to the fact that, for these tests, high reliability as assessed in non-clinical samples may imply poor diagnostic-utility.Method: Rational analysis and a mathematical proof were used.Results: The results indicate a reciprocal relationship between reliability, assessed in non-clinical samples, and validity/diagnostic-utility such that when reliability is low, validity and diagnostic-utility may be high.Conclusions: Diagnostic utility should be of prime consideration, and for that reason, reliability estimates, if done, should be assessed in samples including both pathological and non-pathological participants.
Reconciling change blindness with long-term memory for objects
Authors: Wood Katherine , Simons Daniel J.
Published: July 2018

How can we reconcile remarkably precise long-term memory for thousands of images with failures to detect changes to similar images? We explored whether people can use detailed, long-term memory to improve change detection performance. Subjects studied a set of images of objects and then performed recognition and change detection tasks with those images. Recognition memory performance exceeded change detection performance, even when a single familiar object in the post-change display consistently indicated the change location. In fact, participants were no better when a familiar object predicted the change location than when the displays consisted of unfamiliar objects. When given an explicit strategy to search for a familiar object as a way to improve performance on the change detection task, they performed no better than in a six-alternative recognition memory task. Subjects only benefited from the presence of familiar objects in the change detection task when they had more time to view the pre-change array before it switched. Once the cost to using the change detection information decreased, subjects made use of it in conjunction with memory to boost performance on the familiar-item change detection task. This suggests that even useful information will go unused if it is sufficiently difficult to extract.
Enhancing mental health recovery by joining arts-based groups: A role for social identification
Authors: Williams Elyse , Dingle Genevieve , Calligeros Renee , Sharman Leah , Jetten Jolanda
Published: July 2018

Emerging evidence suggests that arts-based programs are helpful in mental health treatment, however, the research has lacked a cohesive and compelling theoretical framework. This study explored how the psychological mechanisms involved in participating in a choir and a creative writing group relate to a social identity theoretical approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 choir members, and 23 creative writing group members at two time points. A thematic analysis revealed that the programs provided participants with a new group identity and renewed participants’ creative identities. These identities frame how the groups meet psychological needs (belonging, esteem, agency, purpose, and hedonic enjoyment) on both a collective and individual level, thus enhancing wellbeing. Challenges relating to attending and connecting with the group were also identified (experiences of identity incompatibility, anxiety, chronic pain, and practical barriers). These findings conceptualise how arts-based groups can develop empowered identities which provide pathways toward mental health recovery.
A network perspective to academic emotions
Authors: Mattsson Markus , Hailikari Telle , Parpala Anna
Published: July 2018

Research into the nature of academic emotions has thus far been dominated by factor analyses of self-report questionnaire data. Recently, network analysis has arisen as an alternative method of conceptualizing the nature and composition of psychological phenomena such as emotions. In this contribution we assess the structure and functioning of a Finnish questionnaire of academic emotions using both network analysis and factor analysis on cross-sectional data obtained during a single course. In network analysis the correlational structure of the questionnaire is understood as consisting of local interactions among the items. Our results show that items related to individual emotions such as boredom appeared as tightly connected clusters in the network. Items related to anger and boredom were positively related. Those relationships, explained in previous research by positing the underlying latent variable of frustration, can also be understood as family resemblance between the semantic contents of the respective items in the network model. From the theoretical point of view, network analysis is most naturally compatible with perceiving emotions as wholes arising out of the interactions among their component parts. From the practical point of view, the present study offers a critical perspective on the use of self-report measures in the study of academic emotions, focusing especially on currently prevailing practices of data analysis.
Empirical evidence for resource-rational anchoring and adjustment
Authors: Lieder Falk , Griffiths Tom , Huys Quentin J.M. , Goodman Noah D.
Published: July 2018

People’s estimates of numerical quantities are systematically biased towards their initial guess. This anchoring bias is usually interpreted as sign of human irrationality, but it has recently been suggested that the anchoring bias instead results from people’s rational use of their finite time and limited cognitive resources. If this were true, then adjustment should decrease with the relative cost of time. To test this hypothesis, we designed a new numerical estimation paradigm that controls people’s knowledge and varies the cost of time and error independently while allowing people to invest as much or as little time and effort into refining their estimate as they wish. Two experimentsconfirmed the prediction that adjustment decreases with time cost but increases with error cost regardless of whether the anchor was self-generated or provided. These results support the hypothesis that people rationally adapt their number of adjustments to achieve a near-optimal speed-accuracy tradeoff. This suggests that the anchoring bias might be a signature of the rational use of finite time and limited cognitive resources rather than a sign of human irrationality.
Does socioeconomic status mediate racial differences in the cortisol response in middle childhood?
Authors: Tackett Jennifer L , Herzhoff Kathrin , Smack Avante J. , Reardon Kathleen Wade , Adam Emma K.
Published: July 2018

Objective: Race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status are both associated with stress physiology as indexed by cortisol. The present study tested the extent to which racial/ethnic disparities in cortisol reactivity are explained by socioeconomic status. Methods: The sample consisted of 296 racially and socioeconomically diverse children ages 8-11 (47% boys). Mothers reported on children’s stressors and socioeconomic status; salivary cortisol levels were assessed before and after the Trier Social Stress Test. Results: Results demonstrated that racial group differences in cortisol reactivity were partially accounted for by differences in socioeconomic status, but racial group differences in cortisol recovery were not. Conclusions: These findings suggest that cumulative effects of stress and disadvantage may result in differences in stress response physiology as early as middle childhood, and that race-specific mechanisms account for additional variance in cortisol reactivity and recovery.
Los Angeles language schools and competing Chinese nationalisms
Authors: Ho Calvin N.
Published: July 2018

The relationship between homeland states and their diasporic subjects abroad has been a subject of social scientific inquiry on both sides of the Atlantic (Dufoix 2008; Smith 2003). Scholars from various disciplinary perspectives have put forth theories of why homeland states engage with emigrant or coethnic populations, and why these populations seek to engage with the government of their homeland. What is missing in the literature is a theory of how such homeland-diaspora relationships come into being and how they change over time. Understanding the development of homeland-diaspora relationships is crucial for making sense of migrant transnationalism and of state sovereignty in a globalized era. This study addresses this gap in the literature through a historical and ethnographic study of the relationship between the Republic of China (ROC) and Chinese language schools in Los Angeles. The case of the ROC and the Chinese diaspora is an illuminating case because the anomalous nature of the ROC’s political status calls into question many of the main assumptions in the existing literature. In particular, it challenges the assumption that each diaspora corresponds to a sole, legitimated homeland state. In the Chinese case, the geopolitical divisions at the end of the Chinese Civil War resulted in two states: the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the Chinese mainland and the ROC on the island of Taiwan. While the communist PRC was not geopolitically legitimate in the West during the early part of the Cold War, widespread recognition of the PRC in the 1970s has left the ROC’s statehood claim in a liminal state. For the diaspora, this has resulted in two potential homeland states. The ROC’s de-legitimated claim to statehood has left it dependent on diaspora political support just as demographic shifts and transformations in the US social and political environment made it easier for the diaspora to support the PRC. I argue that the balance of power between the ROC diaspora bureau and the language schools have transformed since the Cold War as a result of domestic and geopolitical changes. The key factor shaping this relationship is the presence of the PRC and its changing geopolitical role since the 1980s. My explanation bridges theories of migrant transnationalism with theories of resource dependence among hierarchically linked organizations. This study contributes to the literatures on immigration, nationalism, and ethnicity, but also to broader literatures on borders and the reach of the state.
The Thirty-Hour Day: Law and MBA Student Responses to Work-Family Dilemmas
Authors: Schleef Debra
Published: July 2018

Utilizing interviews with 37 law students and 42 business students, I examine the expectations and strategies of elite professional students to dilemmas posed by the balance of work and family. Students support a strong family-oriented gender ideology in which they claim that family is more important than career. However, the respondents plan for careers with greedy institutions with long hours, commutes, and travel, precluding the possibility of such a commitment to family and children. I argue that an examination of student expectations of the work-family balance reflects the continuing role that gender plays as an organizing societal frame, even more so than social class. Despite the advances women have made in these elite occupations, then, gender is rewritten into interactional and institutional arrangements in ways that constrain professional occupational choices for both men and women.
‘There's no way that you get paid to do the arts’. Unpaid labour across the cultural and creative life course
Authors: Brook Orian , O'Brien Dave , Taylor Mark
Published: July 2018

Unpaid or ‘free’ labour is an important element of how precarity has been theorized. It is also an issue that is often seen as endemic to cultural and creative work, rightly attracting a range of criticism. Questions as to the role of unpaid work, for example internships, have become central to understanding the social exclusiveness of many cultural and creative jobs. This paper develops this existing analysis by comparing and contrasting the meaning of 'free' work over the life course of a range of creative occupations, historicising the impact of unpaid labour on the creative sector and showing how it has been stratified by social class, age and career stage. The paper uses two datasets drawn from the Panic! What happened to social mobility in the arts? project, to outline the differing experiences of unpaid labour in cultural and creative occupations. By demonstrating the stratification of unpaid work as a form of precariousness in cultural jobs, along with the social distribution of benign narratives of unpaid work, the paper aims to offer new empirical evidence for those seeking to resist precarious forms of labour.
A School-to-Prison Pipeline? Exclusionary Discipline and the Production of Delinquency
Authors: Mittleman Joel
Published: July 2018

There is growing concern that school discipline policies increase children’s risk of contact with the justice system, promoting a “school-to-prison pipeline.” Despite the popularity of this concern, the evidence of discipline’s impact on arrests remains limited in important ways. The current study leverages a unique combination of data sources to provide plausibly causal evidence that school suspensions mark a turning point in children’s lives, increasing their risk of later arrest. Combining fifteen years of data from the Fragile Families and Childhood Wellbeing Study with contextual data on neighborhoods and schools, I estimate that suspended children are two times more likely to experience an adolescent arrest than otherwise similar children. Although suspended children experienced significantly greater escalations in delinquency than their peers, post-suspension changes in behavior are unable to explain the association between childhood suspension and adolescent arrest. Instead, the data are consistent with a labeling theory of school sanctions, whereby suspended children face higher rates of subsequent discipline in ways that are largely unexplained by their reported behavior. At a time when juvenile arrests can permanently alter youth’s risks and opportunities, this study highlights an important mechanism by which schools shape inequality across the institutions that govern children’s lives.
Does Familiarity Breed Contempt Among Judges Deciding Patent Cases?
Authors: Urban Jennifer
Published: July 2018

*Abstract: *We offer the first comprehensive look at how a district judge’s experience affects decisionmaking in patent cases. We find that that there is a strong, statistically significant relationship between a judge’s experience and case outcome: more experienced judges are less likely to rule for the patentee. Notably, the relationship exists for rulings finding noninfringement; judicial experience had no relationship to the likelihood a judge would find a patent invalid. The relationship appears to hold across judges, rather than to be driven by the rulings of particular judges. Beyond individual judges, some technologies (biotechnology, mechanics) are associated with more patentee wins, while patentees are less likely to win computer hardware and software cases. Some district courts (Delaware, New Jersey) are more likely to find patents infringed. By contrast, perhaps surprisingly, we find no significant relationship between litigation in the Eastern District of Texas and a judge’s ruling for or against the patentee. Finally, we find that suing on multiple patents is associated with an increased likelihood that at least one patent will be found to be infringed.Our results challenge what has been an implicit assumption in the literature and discussion that particular districts are biased in a particular direction, driving forum shopping. And they test for the first time the implicit assumption in the literature, in calls for specialized patent trial courts, and in the Patent Pilot Program, that experience with patent cases at the trial level will lead to different — usually assumed to be “better” — outcomes from what we see from generalist courts. Our results suggest that there is a difference, but that “better” may be in the eye of the beholder. They suggest some sort of learning effect among district court judges across the country, and that patentees benefit from litigating before inexperienced judges, at least on issues of infringement. Depending on the reason for this effect, adoption of a specialized patent trial court might help accused infringers but not patentees, raising broader questions about patent reform and how to measure the value of an expert court.Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2347712
El mundo de la niñez y su sexualidad
Authors: Gallardo Nicole
Published: July 2018

En el presente artículo se revisan las percepciones que se tienen respecto a la sexualidad infantil desde experiencias de personas adultas sobre cómo vivenciaron su propia etapa de niñez en relación a su proceso de construcción sexual. Para lo cual se hace un recorrido sobre las concepciones que se tienen sobre sexualidad, la manera en que la educación sexual incidió en sus experiencias y la relevancia que tiene al momento de desarrollar una sexualidad integral. Como principales resultados se evidencian cambios a nivel generacional respecto a lo que se entiende por sexualidad y cómo se debiera abordar la sexualidad infantil desde este punto, además se le otorga un rol importante a la calidad y al tipo de educación que se recibe en esta materia.
Ending Abuse of Patent Continuations
Authors: Lemley Mark
Published: July 2018

One of the oddest things to an outsider about the United States patentsystem is that due to continuation practice it is impossible for the U.S.Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) ever to finally reject a patentapplication. Continuation applications have led to abuse of the patentprosecution process. They serve very little useful purpose, and whatbenefits they confer may be outweighed by their potential for mischief. Inan effort to study the pervasiveness of continuation practice, we compiledan original dataset comprising 2,224,379 patents, every patent issued from1976 through 2000. We found that while continuations are filed in 23% ofall patent applications, patents based on continuation applicationsrepresent 52% of all litigated patents. Although continuations are used ina minority of all patents, it is the most important minority because it isthe minority most likely to end up in litigation. We examine the effortsundertaken to control the problems associated with continuation patents(changing the patent term, publishing applications, prosecution laches) andfind them insufficient. The world would probably be a better place if theywere abolished. Recognizing, however, that the abuse of continuationpractice is not as pervasive as some might think, we propose a number ofmeans by which Congress and the courts could strengthen existing rulesdesigned to limit their abuse while preserving the practice. At a minimum,the empirical data we present can provide litigants and judges with abaseline for assessing the reasonableness of delay caused by the filing ofmultiple continuations by the patentee in determining the applicability ofequitable remedies such as prosecution laches.
O Corrupira e seus vizinhos na Terra da Uva: a família rural jundiaiense e a urbanização.
Authors: Padilha Rafael Antunes
Published: July 2018

Este artigo tem por objetivo apresentar os avanços, mesmo que modestos, no projeto etnográfico de iniciação cientifica em bairros tradicionalmente ligados à produção agrícola do município de Jundiaí, São Paulo. Nele serão expostas as diferentes forças em ação na consolidação de um a nova configuração espacial e social em um a cidade em desenvolvimento em franco processo de elitização e diversificação de sua economia. A grande pergunta que orientou o pesquisador, e que deve ser mantida pelo leitor deste trabalho, é com o famílias de origem colona italiana se identificam e interpretam as mudanças que afetam o seu mundo – aí incluídos o espaço físico, a vizinhança e seu entendimento por cidade.
Tense and Aspect in Translation from Arabic into English: Azazeelby Youssef Ziedan as a Case Study
Authors: Studies AWEJ-tls for Translation & Literary , Alsaif Ebtisam Abdullah
Published: July 2018

The translation of tense and aspect between English and Arabic can be a challenge for translators because of the major differences in this respect between the two languages. In addition, there is lack in the translation literature of studies of authentic translations of tense and aspect from Arabic into English. The present study aims to fill this gap by examining the translation of tense and aspect from Arabic into English in a published translation made by a professional English translator. It also aims to clarify the evident confusion in understanding the categories of tense and aspect, particularly in languages that are as divergent as Arabic and English. In order to achieve these objectives, the researcher analyzed, compared, and explained examples drawn from selected chapters from Jonathan Wright’s (2009) English translation of Youssef Ziedan’s (2008) novel Azazeel. The researcher followed a descriptive analytical approach and, with the use of the quantitative approach, individually analyzed the English translations of the Arabic aspectual forms from Scrolls (chapters) One, Fourteen, and Twenty-four. The results of the study revealed that Wright’s (2009) English equivalents of the Arabic aspectual forms in Azazeel were mostly accurate. The findings also showed through Wright’s (2009) translation that there is not a standard approach to translate Arabic aspectual forms.
Detecting Deception In Spontaneous Versus Rehearsed Statements: Direct Deception Judgments for Rehearsed Truths Fall Short While Affective Character Judgments Endure
Authors: van 't Veer Anna Elisabeth , Stel Marielle , van Beest Ilja
Published: July 2018

Detection deception in statements others make—whether directly or by an impression that something is off—is integral to everyday morality. Here we consider whether these statements are spontaneous or rehearsed. Participants (N = 147) watched spontaneous and rehearsed statements of liars and truth-tellers, and indicated whether they felt lied to as well as other impressions. Whereas during spontaneous statements liars came across more deceptive than truth-tellers, during rehearsed statements this distinction disappeared; rehearsed truths looked like lies. Furthermore, liars were liked less than truth-tellers irrespective of whether statements were rehearsed. This suggests that while direct veracity judgments no longer discriminate between liars and truth-tellers when statements are rehearsed, impressions of a person’s likeability remain valuable guides in social interaction.
Spatial analysis of dumpsites volumes from rural territory Case study: Neamt County, Romania
Authors: MIHAI Florin Constantin
Published: July 2018

Open dumps were the main option for the local communities in householdwaste management, this practice being banned after July 16, 2009. The paperexamines the correlation between dumpsites volumes, population density, andlocal geographical conditions in the context that in most ruraladministrative-territorial units of the county there were no facilities forwaste collection. The geographical distribution of dumpsites volumesreflects the disparities between different areas of the county and on theother hand, it highlights the spaces exposed to pollution. Also, thecomparative analysis between 2004 (pre-accession) and 2009 (post-accession)reflects a rudimentary waste management system in this period which favoredthe waste dumping. This paper analyses the issues of rural waste managementand its environmental implications at local scale. Such approaches arenecessary for a proper analysis of EU environmental policies implementationat regional and local level
An Exploratory Study on the Relationship between Demotivation and Academic Fields among Chinese EFL Learners
Authors: Journal Arab World English , Li Chili , Zhou Ting
Published: July 2018

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between demotivation and academic fields among Chinese EFL learners. To this end, a 33-item self-made questionnaire was administered to 128 Chinese tertiary EFL students. The collected data were processed by means of both descriptive and inferential analysis. The results identified eight salient demotivators: Teaching Contents and Teaching Process, Teacher-related Factors, Classroom Learning Environment and Facilities, Deficient English Learning Abilities, Lack of Intrinsic Interest, Undesired Influences of Important Others, Textbooks and Teaching Materials, and Lack of Effective Learning Strategies. The Independent T-test results showed that English majors were significantly different from the students of International Trade in the following four demotivators: Teacher-related Factors, Teaching Environment and Teaching Facilities, Lack of Intrinsic Interest, and Undesired Influences of Important Others. The findings of this study would be implicative for helping English teachers reduce the negative effect of demotivation in college English class in China and beyond.
Gun Control in the Crosshairs: Christian Nationalism and Opposition to Stricter Gun Laws
Authors: Whitehead Andrew L , Schnabel Landon , Perry Samuel
Published: July 2018

Despite increasingly frequent mass shootings and a growing dissatisfaction with current gun laws, American opposition to federal gun legislation remains strong. We show that opposition to stricter gun control is closely linked to Christian nationalism, a religious cultural framework that mandates a symbiotic relationship between Christianity and civil society. Using data from a national population-based survey, we show that Christian nationalism is an exceptionally strong predictor of opposition to the federal government enacting stricter gun laws. In fact, of all the variables we considered only general political orientation has more predictive power than Christian nationalism. We propose that the gun control debate is complicated by deeply held moral and religious schemas that discussions focused solely on rational public safety calculations do not sufficiently address. For the substantial proportion of American society who are Christian nationalists, gun rights are God-given and sacred. Consequently, attempts to reform existing gun laws must attend to the deeper cultural and religious identities that undergird Americans’ beliefs about gun control.
Deliberative Performance of Television News in Three Types of Democracy: Insights from the United States, Germany, and Russia
Authors: Wessler Hartmut , Rinke Eike Mark
Published: July 2018

We show that television news is considerably more deliberative in established (United States, Germany) than in defective democracies (Russia) and slightly more deliberative in a power-sharing political system (Germany) than in a power-concentrating system (United States). We further demonstrate that public-service channels, nonpartisan programs, and in-depth news shows make stronger overall contributions toward deliberativeness than their respective counterparts. While national news cultures produce distinct national styles of mediated deliberation, individual channels in the United States (Fox, CNN) and Russia (REN) cut across these national patterns. The significance of deliberative media content for citizens and political elites is discussed.
Smart Cities Are Little More than Technological Utopianism
Authors: Burns Ryan , Wark Grace
Published: July 2018

On November 23 of last year, Infrastructure Canada announced its utopian vision for the country’s cities in its Smart Cities Challenge. Contra the hype surrounding the challenge, smart cities are merely an evolution in how cities are planned and developed. They are not as revolutionary as their proponents claim.
Unequal Families, Unequal Effects: How Parental Divorce Differentially Impacts Children's Educational Attainment
Authors: Brand Jennie E. , Moore Ravaris , Song Xi , Xie Yu
Published: July 2018

A substantial literature suggests that family disruption leads to lower educational attainment among children. We focus on how the effects of parental divorce on children’s education differ across families with varying likelihoods of disruption. Using U.S. panel data, with careful attention to the assumptions and methods needed to estimate total and mediating causal effects, we find a significant effect of parental divorce on educational attainment among children whose parents were unlikely to divorce, for whom divorce was thus a relative shock. We find no effect among children whose parents were likely to divorce and for whom divorce was one of many disadvantages, and thus less economically and socially disruptive. We also find that the observed effect of divorce on children’s education is strongly mediated by post-divorce family income. Children’s psychosocial skills also explain a portion of the effect among children with a low propensity for parental divorce, while cognitive skills play no role in explaining the negative association between divorce and children’s education. Our results suggest that family disruption does not uniformly disrupt children’s attainment.
Square pegs and round holes? Challenges in assessing the EU-level integrity system
Authors: Perera Mark , Patz Ronny
Published: July 2018

For over a decade now, Transparency International (TI) has undertaken National Integrity System (NIS) assessments to determine a country’s effectiveness in fighting corruption, making recommendations for institutional or policy reform. The NIS approach evaluates key ‘pillars’ in a country’s governance system, both in terms of their internal corruption risks and their contribution to fighting corruption in society at large, highlighting, amongst others, rules and practices regarding transparency and accountability. The TI EU Office has now embarked upon an assessment of the EU-level integrity system (EUIS) based upon the NIS methodology and focused around EU institutions. The difficulties in transposing this approach to the EU-level encompass a number of normative, analytical and empirical questions.