The Mediation Window: Regulation of Argumentation and Affect in Custody Mediation

High-conflict custody mediation requires working with both the emotional and the factual aspects of the conflict, while balancing unequal power relations between parents. Applying conversation analysis methods to a case of “treatment as usual” high-conflict mediation, this study offers an analysis of the process of establishing a balance point—the mediation window—where both emotional and practical concerns can be discussed efficiently. Communication patterns in the selected case are compared to an extract of the remaining corpus from which it is drawn, consisting of 38 high-conflict mediation cases. Findings are discussed with respect to the practice and ideology of custody mediation, particularly concerning empowerment, self-determination, and mediator control.     

Efficient frontiers for electricity procurement by an LDC with multiple purchase options

In meeting its retail sales obligations, management of a local distribution company (LDC) must determine the extent to which it should rely on spot markets, forward contracts, and the increasingly popular long-term tolling agreements under which it pays a fee to reserve generator capacity. We address these issues by solving a mathematical programming model to derive the efficient frontier that summarizes the optimal tradeoffs available to the LDC between procurement risk and expected cost. To illustrate the approach, we estimate the expected procurement costs and associated variances that proxy for risk through a spot-price regression for the spot-purchase alternative and a variable-cost regression for the tolling-agreement alternative. The estimated regressions yield the estimates required to determine the efficient frontier. We develop several such frontiers under alternative assumptions as to the forward-contract price and the tolling agreement's capacity payment, and discuss the implications of our results for LDC management.     

Towards next-generation visual archives: image,film and discourse

The digital turn in visual studies has played a major role in the terminological overlap between ‘archive’, ‘database’ and ‘corpus’, and it has brought about a number of positive developments such as improved accessibility and availability. At the same time, it has also raised important questions pertaining to the materiality, searchability, annotation and analysis of the data at hand. Through a series of theoretical constructs and empirical examples, this paper illustrates the necessity and benefits of interdisciplinary dialogue when tackling the multimodal corpus annotation challenge. The meaningful interrelations between semiotic modes, the combinations between manual and (semi)automated annotation, the seamless integration of coding and annotation schemes which share common logics and the contextual embedding of the presented analyses strongly suggest multimodal document analysis in all its forms will continuously benefit from a corpus-based approach.     

Onset of substance use among early adolescents in Sweden

ABSTRACT

Problem: Early onset, prevalence, and predictors of substance use – tobacco, alcohol-drinking, alcohol-drunkenness, and drugs – were studied in 13 and 14-year-old boys and girls in Sweden. Methods: Self-reported data in four communities were used (n = 1,716). A large set of psychological and social factors were tried as predictors of early onset use (n = 1,459). Results: There were few gender differences and low prevalence. Primary predictor for early onset in tobacco use was availability; perceived parental approval for alcohol use, and delinquent behaviors for alcohol-drunkenness and drug use. Conclusions: Individual behavioral factors and parental norms seem to be most important in this age.     

SENTIMENT BIAS AND ASSET PRICES: EVIDENCE FROM SPORTS BETTING MARKETS AND SOCIAL MEDIA

Previous research using attendance‐based proxies for sentiment bias in sports betting markets confirmed the presence of investor sentiment in these markets. We use data from social media (Facebook “Likes”) to proxy for sentiment bias and analyze variation in bookmakers' prices investor sentiment. Based on betting data from seven professional sports leagues in Europe and North America, we find evidence that bookmakers increase prices for bets on teams with relatively more Facebook “Likes,” indicating the presence of price‐insensitive investors with sentiment bias. These price changes do not affect informational efficiency in this market. (JEL L81, G14)     

Combined multiple testing by censored empirical likelihood

We propose a new procedure for combining multiple tests in samples of right-censored observations. The new method is based on multiple constrained censored empirical likelihood where the constraints are formulated as linear functionals of the cumulative hazard functions. We prove a version of Wilks’ theorem for the multiple constrained censored empirical likelihood ratio, which provides a simple reference distribution for the test statistic of our proposed method. A useful application of the proposed method is, for example, examining the survival experience of different populations by combining different weighted log-rank tests. Real data examples are given using the log-rank and Gehan-Wilcoxon tests. In a simulation study of two sample survival data, we compare the proposed method of combining tests to previously developed procedures. The results demonstrate that, in addition to its computational simplicity, the combined test performs comparably to, and in some situations more reliably than previously developed procedures. Statistical software is available in the R package ‘emplik’.     

Sleep patterns and sleepiness of working college students

The double journey (work and study) may result or aggravate health problems, including sleep disturbances, as observed in previous studies with high school students. The aim of this study is to analyze the sleep-wake cycle and perceived sleepiness of working college students during weekdays. Twenty-three healthy college male students, 21-24 years old, working during the day and attending classes in the evening, participated in this study. During five consecutive days, the students filled out daily activities logs and wore actigraphs. Mean sleeping time was lower than 6 hours per night. No significant differences were observed in the sleep-wake cycle during the weekdays. The observed lack of changes in the sleepwake cycle of these college students might occur as participants were not on a free schedule, but exposed to social constraints, as was the regular attendance to evening college and day work activities. Sleepiness worsened over the evening school hours. Those results show the burden carried by College students who perform double activities - work and study.     

Symbolic production of social coherence

This is a case study in historical empiry, makingan effort to tell a convincing story about the evolution of human communication and cognition. The story‐telling is guided by Holzkamp's (1983) five‐step‐rule for the explanation of a qualitative leap in evolution. Evidence is taken from archeological and anthropological sources to support the main thesis: The basic social role of communication is to reproduce the social coherence of communities, the habitual “styles of doing things” (Bourdieu). The complex cultural pattern of activites, with internal tensions and dialectical contradictions, continually changes during reproduction by the consecutive generations. It is shown how human natural and social history may be understood as expansion of the forms and means of social self‐regulation. Human use of mediational means could have developed in three stages: mimetic, discursive, and object‐symbolic communication develop out of each other in sequence as the dominant regulators of social coherence. In closing, some consequences for a future revision of historical materialism aresuggested.