Responsible Promotion of Gaming and Dealing with Problem Gamblers

In this paper, the Chief Executive of Christchurch Casino indicates the need to conduct gaming in a socially responsible manner. Even though there are other forms of gambling, Casinos attract greater amounts of media attention and political advocacy. And while governments have become silent partners to legalised gaming, there are areas where governments fall short of their financial or legislative obligations to the community. In contrast, there are actually sound economic reasons for casinos to be responsive to community concerns about gambling.     

American Indian household structure and income

We use the 1980 Public-Use Microdata Sample to consider the relationship between household structure and economic well-being among American Indians. We focus on the total U.S. Indian population and on the residents of 19 "Indian states" where there has been relatively little growth in the Indian population by means of changes in racial self-identification. Using Sweet's (1984) scheme of household types, we find that the prevalence among Indians of female-headed households with children is intermediate between that among blacks and whites, but the prevalence of couple-headed households with children is highest among Indians. Racial differences in the distribution of household types and differences in average household size are important determinants of black-white and Indian-white differences in average household income.     

A critique of the ZPG urban stress test: On the uses and misuses of social indicators

This is an expanded version of a paper originally prepared for presentation at the annual meetings of the North Central Sociological Association: Louisville, KY; March 22–24, 1990.     

Breaking Carbon Lock-In: Path Dependencies in Large-Scale Transportation Infrastructure Projects

The central focus of this paper is to highlight the ways in which path dependencies and increasing returns (network effects) serve to reinforce carbon lock-in in large-scale road transportation infrastructure projects. Breaking carbon lock-in requires drastic changes in the way we plan future transportation infrastructure projects, and documentary evidence presented here from the metropolitan regions of Copenhagen, Denmark and Portland, USA, indicate that there may be a discontinuity in the system of automobility (Urry, 2004), thereby increasing the likelihood that such drastic measures may in fact be successfully realized.     

从分析哲学、历史叙事到分析美学——关于哲学、美学前沿问题的对话

阿瑟.丹托从方法论的基础上认定,分析哲学并不是一种哲学,而是能够用于解决哲学问题的一套工具;分析哲学史就是发现了哲学分析工具的历史。在这个意义上,它可能还没有终结。刘悦笛却认为,从以言逮意发展到语言转向的所谓常青哲学的思维模式,倒可以从重在得意忘言与立象尽意的中国本土意象思维那里获得启示,言、象、意皆不可或缺。在历史哲学领域,丹托将分析哲学应用于历史叙事的分析,叙事句构成了其历史叙事理论的核心,它根据未来去描述过去因而是以今释古的。刘悦笛则认为,这种对叙事句的真值的分析仍是非历史性的,丹托只能将历史哲学分析化,但却并未使分析哲学历史化。丹托承认,他最初即为本体论的美学始终是其哲学的重要组成部分;从追问何为艺术、探求艺术史哲学回归到审美之思,构成了自己分析美学的三部曲。但刘悦笛认为,丹托的美学仍难逃唯科学主义的藩篱,而且其艺术本质观也没有考虑到东西方的本然差异。丹托从当代欧美艺术状态出发,认为艺术终结只是一种历史运作的方式,艺术已经完全丧失了方向。刘悦笛则进一步认定,未来的艺术必将终结在观念、身体与自然当中,因而主张一种全新的生活美学。     

Sophisticated voting under the plurality procedure: A test of a new definition

The Niemi-Frank definition of sophisticated voting can now be evaluated on two grounds. First, we can compare our definition to Farquharson's. For the most part, the two definitions yield identical outcomes. Both pickCondorcet winners a very high proportion of the time and prevent the selection of Condorcet losers. The major differences are in the logic underlying the two definitions and in the rate of determinacy of outcomes. Here there is a tradeoff. The logic underlying the Farquharson model is especially persuasive, although it is our feeling that the Niemi-Frank definition comes closer to mirroring the way in which voters might actually analyze a plurality situation. In any case, the price paid by the Farquharson definition for its ironclad logic is a much higher rate of indeterminacy. In over half of the cases, the Farquharson logic fails to lead to any conclusion whatsoever. The Niemi-Frank definition yields many more determinate situations, with mostly Condorcet winners and with strategies that make good, if not completely unassailable sense. A second way of evaluating the Niemi-Frank definition is in comparison with sincere voting. A commonly-cited shortcoming of plurality voting is that often fails to choose a Condorcet winner. As we notedearlier, sophisticated plurality voting, unlike binary voting, is imperfect in this respect. Nonetheless, even taking account of the indeterminacy thatremains in the Niemi-Frank definition, sophisticated voting picked a Condorcet winner about 10 percent more frequently than did sincere voting as well as eliminating the possibility of a Condorcet loser being chosen. By this measure, the Niemi-Frank definition is not only acceptable but suggests that this form of strategic behavior actually leads tobetter outcomes. By proposing and now by testing a new definition of sophisticated voting under plurality rule, we have begun to make some headway on understanding strategic behavior and its effects in an outwardly simple yet deceptively complex voting system. We are, of course, far from finished. Most significantly, our definition applies to only three alternatives, and Farquharson's (even if one is willing to live with its high indeterminacy) becomes extraordinarily cumbersome with more than three alternatives? In any event, the results of this foray into sophisticated nonbinary voting suggests once again that strategic behavior, rather than making things worse, improves the chances that the outcome will be the one most favored by the majority criterion.