Research integrity,image manipulation,and anonymizing photographs in visual social science research

Undocumented alterations to research images, defined in this piece as image manipulation, may represent a case of research misconduct. What constitutes image manipulation, particularly when images of human participants used in research need to be adjusted for protection of participant confidentiality? In this article, conceptual clarifications of the definition of image manipulation, image management, and research integrity are developed and adapted to the context of visual social research. Using these definitions, a series of recommendations for notifying human participants of image management techniques via the informed consent processes and a set of guidelines for managing images of identifiable human participants in research in visual studies research are developed.     

Near-optimal control policy for loss networks

In this paper, the phenomenon of the optimal management of requests of service in general networks is formulated as a control problem for a finite number of multiserver loss queues with Markovian routing. This type of problem may arise in a wide range of fields, e.g., manufacturing industries, storage facilities, computer networks, and communication systems. Using inductive approach of dynamic programming, the optimal admission control can be induced to be the functions of the number of requested service in progress. However, for large-scale network, the computational burden to find optimal control policy may be infeasible due to its involvement of the states for all stations in the networks. Hence, the idea of bottleneck modeling is borrowed to compute the near-optimal admission control policy. We reduced the scale of loss network and decreased the difference between the original and reduced models by making compensation for system parameters. A novel method is proposed in this paper to compute the compensation. Numerical results show that the near-optimal control policy demonstrates close performance to the optimal policy.     

An index of the quality of life for victorian children and youth,the vicy index

The range of life-styles of children in nineteenth century Britain is discussed. Concepts of quality-of-life are reviewed and a model for nineteenth century children is formulated. Annual data in three domains are indexed to 1914. Sub-indexes for these domains and a total index are presented and compared with the full index.     

Two envelopes

“You have been given either envelopeA orB. B contains either one-half or twice the money inA. Do you want to switch? Now you open your envelope? Are you still happy to stand pat?” Answers depend on whether you think there is an upper bound to the money inA. You should no longer be indifferent if you think there is not an upper bound, but, if you think there is a certain upper boundU, you should want to switch or not depending on whether your envelope holds less thanU. Expected monetary values are extended to acts with infinitely many equally possible monetary values. It is maintained that though strong dominance under infinite partitions does not in the absence of an upper bound for values imply greater expected value, ‘univocal strong dominance’ is even then properly decisive for choice.     

Contradictions in Nigeria's Fertility Transition: The Burdens and Benefits of Having People

Nigeria appears to be experiencing a transition to lower fertility. Based on ethnographic research, this article shows how Nigerians navigate a paradoxical political‐economic and cultural context, wherein they face powerful pressures both to limit their fertility and to have relatively large families. The main argument advanced here is that Nigerians' fertility behavior must be understood in the context of the ways that parenthood, children, family, and kinship are inextricably intertwined with how people survive in a political economy organized around patron‐clientism. Despite the fact that fertility transition is widely associated with broad processes of modernization and development, ordinary Nigerians experience the pressures to limit fertility in terms of a failed economy, development disappointments, and personal hardship–even while they see relatively smaller families as essential if they are to educate their children properly and adapt to a changing society.     

The Americans with Disabilities Act in Federal Court: litigating against public entities

This study represents the first systematic inquiry into the outcome of litigation against state and local public entities under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. Because Congress instituted a system of judicial review that established the courts as the final authority of rights and responsibilities under the Act, Title II litigation has a potentially significant impact on the disability policymaking of state and local governments in the United States. The analysis is based on all reported federal court rulings through June 2000 in which the court adjudicated a Title II claim against a public entity. The results show that plaintiffs are moderately successful in their suits against public entities, especially when compared to their record in litigating against private employers. However, the courts, particularly at the appellate level, still exercise restraint about interfering in the disability policies of subnational governments when implementing the ADA.     

The Desire to Thrive: Families Overcoming Economic Hardships Through Educational Aspirations

The immigrant Latino community is faced with political challenges unmatched in the United States. Many of these individuals came to the United States to find a more successful place to raise a family due to increased work opportunities. After the Great Recession, many of these opportunities were terminated with the closure of industrialized manufacturing corporations. With the loss of jobs, increased economic pressure mounted and hardships, especially in the educational system, increased. The current study addresses how immigrant Latinos view the education environment in North Central Indiana. A 3 year ethnographic research project presents a greater understanding of the complex economic and educational ecology. For this study, 40 families consisting of 63 parents were identified, along with seven school liaisons. Fifty-six percent of the participating Latinos received less than a high school diploma, adding additional economic strain to families. Qualitative reports are framed around in-vivo coding factors resulting in two themes, Policy, Educational Practices, and Sociological Perceptions and Cultural Desire to Better One’s Family. Evidence from this study calls for policy change to create unity and a place free from fear for Latinos to learn about programs available to aid their children’s academic attainment.     

Derived Equivalence Relations of Geometry Skills in Students with Autism: an Application of the PEAK-E Curriculum

The present study evaluated the efficacy of equivalence-based instruction (EBI) as described in the PEAK-E curriculum (Dixon, 2015) for promoting the emergence of derived geometry skills in two children with high-functioning autism. The results suggested that direct training of shape name (A) to shape property (B) (i.e., A-B relations) was effective for both participants. Following A-B training, both participants demonstrated emergent relations that are consistent with symmetry (B-A), as well as emergent shape name (A) to shape picture (C) relations that are consistent with transitivity (A-C). The results expand on existing literature by demonstrating the emergence of an A-C relation when neither A nor B stimuli were ever trained to C stimuli and illustrate the efficacy of EBI for training geometry skills.