Facial emotion identification and sexual assault risk detection among college student sexual assault victims and nonvictims

Objective: High rates of sexual victimization among college students necessitate further study of factors associated with sexual assault risk detection. The present study examined how social information processing relates to sexual assault risk detection as a function of sexual assault victimization history. Participants: 225 undergraduates (M_age = 19.12, SD = 1.44; 66% women). Methods: Participants completed an online questionnaire assessing victimization history, an emotion identification task, and a sexual assault risk detection task between June 2013 and May 2014. Results: Emotion identification moderated the association between victimization history and risk detection such that sexual assault survivors with lower emotion identification accuracy also reported the least risk in a sexual assault vignette. Conclusions: Findings suggest that differences in social information processing, specifically recognition of others' emotions, are associated with sexual assault risk detection. College prevention programs could incorporate emotional awareness strategies, particularly for men and women who are sexual assault survivors.     

Examining the historical and present energy metabolism of a Rust Belt City: Syracuse,NY 1840–2005

Early cities depended on local, solar-based energy resources for their metabolism. Over time, cities have become increasingly dependent on fossil fuels, both directly and indirectly, as they facilitate exploitation of solar resources from much farther away. Alternatives to fossil fuels, typically generated locally, often provide lower surplus energy to society. As cities consider the transition back to solar-based energy resources, it becomes necessary to understand the capability of the solar-based economy to provide e.g. energy (including food) from nearby lands. To do so, we compared the energy metabolism (respiration) of a typical rust-belt city, Syracuse, NY, with the net primary production in the surrounding county (production) over its development (1840–2005). We calculated the ratio of respiration to production (R:P) and examined how this ratio changed during the periods of industrialization, shifts in major fuel types, and deindustrialization. We found that from 1840 to 1950 respiration became increasingly centralized in the urban core; since then it has become more diffused. Urban respiration exceeded production in the county by 9:1 in 1930, and it remains just under 2:1 today. Respiration reached an absolute (67 PJ) and a per capita (339 GJ) maximum in 1970, then fell by 40 % and 20 % respectively, due to deindustrialization and population losses. Conversely, production increased 480 % from its lows in 1930 because of reforestation and improved agricultural yields. What this means is that to achieve a higher P:R ratio requires either increased production of food and fuels in areas surrounding the city, or decreased per capita energy consumption.     

Public relations functions: Perspective from a Japanese corporation

This paper examines public relations (PR) functions in a large Japanese corporation as well as the PR role in the management function. The corporation under study is Kao Corporation, which is one of the largest Japanese consumer and industrial goods manufacturers. Information was collected from interviewing a PR manager of Kao Corporation. Evidence suggests that Kao's PR department functions more or less like an advertising department. Press releases are placed in the media as paid advertisements. Kao's PR uses a third-party endorsement to establish a new product's credibility. The company has a participative corporate culture that allows the PR director to work closely with the top management. The idea of collaborative efforts between departments and the practice of being a socially responsible company suggest that Kao's PR department uses a combination of communication models and Japanese management styles to project a good corporate citizen image.     

Wind,coal, and copper: the politics of land grabbing,counterinsurgency, and the social engineering of extraction

ABSTRACT

The multiplicity of violent techniques employed to impose land control and extraction remains under acknowledged. This article reviews research conducted between the years 2014 and 2018 and draws on three case studies: wind energy development in Mexico, coal mining in Germany, and copper mining in Peru. The idea of 'engineering extraction' is advanced through counterinsurgency to acknowledge the extent of extractive violence, arguing that the term ‘land grabbing’ is indeed a more appropriate term than ‘land deals’. Engaging with the land grabbing literature, the three cases seek to advance discussions around ‘the political reactions “from below”’ by emphasizing ‘insurrectionary’ positions with resistance movements fighting land deals and extractive projects. This is followed by offering a typology of ‘hard’ coercive techniques and ‘soft’ technologies of social pacification that surfaced in each case. The conclusion reflects on the social technologies of resource extraction, recognizing how social discord, ecological and climate crises are engineered and enforced.     

‘Fuck It,Shit Happens (FISH)’: a social generations approach to understanding young people’s imaginings of life after school in 2016–2017

ABSTRACT

This article uses a social generations approach to explore the lives of young people transitioning to life after schooling. Drawing on ethnographic research in England during the geopolitical uncertainty of 2016–2017, we track the trajectories and narratives of six individuals. The research begins with final year pupils in schools talking about their futures, during and after their A-Level exams. We then follow these individuals on routes to Higher Education and employment, exploring how they are socialised into imaginings of the future and/or struggle to inhabit these futures. A deeply ingrained, modernist, neoliberal reckoning of future time is normalised through experiences of schooling. However, this logic is troubled profoundly in the transition to life after school. Young people’s experiences in an unpredictable present run in stark contrast to the ordered trajectory of future action they have been socialised to expect. Amidst this uncertainty, ambivalence towards shaping the future (‘Fuck It, Shit Happens’) can in some ways feel like the most agentic stance to take. Furlong et al.’s (2011) social generations approach to understanding youth transitions reveals how we must critique the very concept of ‘the future’ if we are to understand the reality of youth transitions in the present.     

Statistical estimation for a failure model with damage accumulation in a case of small samples

A failure model with damage accumulation is considered. Damages occur according to a Poisson process and they degenerate into failures in a random time. The rate of the Poisson process and the degeneration time distribution are unknown. Two sample populations are available: a sample of intervals between damages and a sample of degeneration times. The case of small samples is considered. The purpose is to estimate the expectation and the distribution of the number of damages and failures at time t. We consider the plug-in and resampling estimators of the above mentioned characteristics. The expectations and variances of the suggested estimators are investigated. The numerical examples show that the resampling estimator has some advantages.     

Valuation effects of corporate strategic transactions in the cleantech industry

This paper investigates capital market reactions to announcements of corporate strategic transactions in the clean technology, or cleantech, industry. Using the event study method in a multi-country setting, we exploit a dataset of 328 hand-collected announcements of mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and asset disposals that took place between 2001 and 2011. We provide strong evidence of significant wealth gains from cleantech deals. On average, cleantech companies earn significantly higher abnormal returns than non-cleantech companies, confirming the beneficial idiosyncrasies of the cleantech industry. These high premia are likely driven by government interventions that are believed to be a necessary pre-condition for development of clean technology. Alternatively, the premia are commanded by the acquisition of cutting-edge environmental innovations and the positive credibility spillover inherent in cleantech deals.