The senses and virtual environments

Designers and developers of immersive 3D virtual environments typically aim to faithfully recreate real-world scenarios yet, traditional emphasis is placed on recreating the visual, and to a much lesser extent, auditory scenes, while ignoring the other senses despite their importance in the real world. However, simulation all of the senses in real-time with a high level of fidelity is still not feasible and recent work has shown that high fidelity reproduction of the real world doesn’t necessarily lead to the greatest user experience and outcomes. In the real world, senses interact with one another and alter each other’s processing and ultimately perception. An understanding of this multi-modal interactivity can, therefore, inform our development of virtual environments. Through perceptual-based rendering, we can exploit multimodal effects to reduce computational requirements while creating more compelling scenarios that take advantage of current technology. In this article, we provide a brief review of fidelity, multimodal interactions and perceptual-based rendering in the virtual domain. We emphasize the perception of reality in the virtual world is subjective and not necessarily a reproduction of reality, but rather a combination of personal experiences including those pertaining to media consumption, which can ultimately lead to better user experiences.     

Is Stepfamily Status Associated With Cohabiting and Married Women’s Fertility Behaviors?

Children from prior relationships potentially complicate fertility decision-making in new cohabitations and marriages. On the one hand, the “value of children” perspective suggests that unions with and without stepchildren have similar—and deliberate—reasons for shared childbearing. On the other hand, multipartnered fertility (MPF) research suggests that childbearing across partnerships is often unintended. Using the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth and event-history models, I examine the role of stepfamily status on cohabiting and married women’s fertility and birth intendedness, with attention to union type and stepfamily configuration. Adjusting for covariates, women in stepfamily unions are more likely to have a first shared birth in a union than women in unions in which neither partner has children from past relationships, but stepfamily births are less likely to be intended than unintended. Further, this association varies by union type: married women have similar birth risks across stepfamily status, but births are less likely to be intended in marital stepfamilies. For cohabitors, women in a stepfamily are more likely to have a birth than women in nonstepfamily unions, with no differences in intendedness. Configuration (whose children and how many) also matters; for instance, women with one child from a past relationship are more likely to have a birth and to have an intended than unintended birth than women with other stepfamily configurations. It appears that children from either partner’s prior relationships influences subsequent fertility decision-making, undermining the utility of the “value of children” perspective for explaining childbearing behaviors in complex families.     

Effects of a novel positive psychological intervention on prenatal stress and well-being: A pilot randomised controlled trial

Problem

Low prenatal well-being has adverse outcomes for mother and infant but few interventions currently exist to promote and maintain prenatal well-being.

STUDENT RESPONSIVENESS TO EARNINGS DATA IN THE COLLEGE SCORECARD

Using the universe of SAT score sends to colleges and the exact date on which these scores are sent, we estimate how students responded to the release of the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard in September 2015. We find that data on annual cost and graduation rate, both of which were previously available, did not impact the volume of score sends received by colleges. By contrast, we estimate that each 10% increase in reported earnings resulted in a 2.4% increase in score sends. The impact is driven almost entirely by well‐resourced high schools and students. We find little evidence that the count or composition of enrolled students changed as a result of the Scorecard information shock with the exception of a slight increase in academic preparedness, as measured by SAT scores, among enrollees at colleges with higher reported earnings. (JEL I2, I23, I26, I28, L15)     

Socially distributing public relations: Twitter,Haiti, and interactivity in social media

Social media and communication technology have shifted the power of communication from public relations practitioners to social media users who may not have a recognized role or defined interest in an organization. What results is a social model of public relations in which traditional public relations responsibilities are distributed to social media users, and which depends on interactivity, legitimacy, and a user's social stake. This study explores social public relations through a qualitative analysis of user involvement on Twitter regarding relief efforts to support Haiti following the 7.0 earthquake that hit Port-Au-Prince in January, 2010. This analysis of Twitter posts also expands understanding of interactivity online and demonstrates social media user fulfillment of public relations objectives.     

Narrative analysis in aging studies: A typology for consideration

This article seeks to expand our understanding on narrative and the analysis of stories researchers invite and collect in the domain of aging studies. To do so, we first offer an understanding of what narrative inquiry can be by laying out a theoretical basis for this kind of research, and making a case for the relevance of narrative as an alternative methodology. Painting with broad strokes, narrative analysis as a method is then considered before a typology of different ways in which stories can be analyzed is introduced. Illuminated by the typology are two contrasting standpoints toward narrative analysis—storyteller and story analyst—and three specific methods—structural, performative, and autoethnograpic creative analytic practices—that each standpoint might use to analyse the whats and hows of storytelling. The article closes by suggesting that in order to assist us to understand the complexities of aging researchers might consider using a variety of analyses.     

The Business of Caring: Women's Self‐Employment and the Marketization of Care

Our goal in this article is to contribute to a differentiated analysis of paid caring work by considering whether and how women's experiences of such work is shaped by their employment status (for example, self‐employed versus employee) and the nature of care provided (direct or indirect). Self‐employed care workers have not been widely studied compared with other types of care workers, such as employees providing domestic or childcare in private firms or private homes. Yet their experiences may be quite distinct. Existing research suggests that self‐employed workers earn less than employees and are often excluded from employment protection. Nonetheless, they often report greater autonomy and job satisfaction in their day‐to‐day work. Understanding more about the experiences of self‐employed caregivers is thus important for enriching existing theory, research and policy on the marketization of care. Addressing this gap, our article explores the working conditions, pay and levels of satisfaction of care workers who are self‐employed. We draw on interviews from a small‐scale study of Canadian women engaged in providing direct care (for example, childcare) and indirect care (for example, cleaning).