Social and semantic coevolution in knowledge networks

Socio-semantic networks involve agents creating and processing information: communities of scientists, software developers, wiki contributors and webloggers are, among others, examples of such knowledge networks. We aim at demonstrating that the dynamics of these communities can be adequately described as the coevolution of a social and a socio-semantic network. More precisely, we will first introduce a theoretical framework based on a social network and a socio-semantic network, i.e. an epistemic network featuring agents, concepts and links between agents and between agents and concepts. Adopting a relevant empirical protocol, we will then describe the joint dynamics of social and socio-semantic structures, at both macroscopic and microscopic scales, emphasizing the remarkable stability of these macroscopic properties in spite of a vivid local, agent-based network dynamics.     

The Cohort Size‐Wage Relationship in Europe

This paper estimates the impact of cohort size on wages using data on young males in European regions covering 2004–10. The effect of cohort size on wages is identified through an instrumental variables strategy which, in contrast to previous analyses of European data, addresses self‐selection into geographical areas as well as into educational groups. The results suggest that cohort size has a significant negative effect on male wages for individuals with secondary education — the largest group — but not for individuals with less than secondary education or tertiary education. This effect is underestimated if self‐selection into geographical areas is not addressed.     

Housing needs of grandparent caregivers: grandparent,youth, and professional perspectives

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study examined the housing needs of grandparent caregivers and the youth in their care in New York State. Nine focus groups were conducted separately with grandparent caregivers (n = 46) and youth (n = 34), and interviews were conducted with key informants (n = 17) knowledgeable about housing and issues. Housing needs of greatest priority, contextual differences, and potential barriers to securing housing and social services were identified. Key themes indicated that housing challenges stem from four problem domains: the experience of poverty, which creates affordability challenges that trap grandparent caregivers and their grandchildren in unsuitable homes and unsafe neighborhoods; physical challenges of aging grandparents, which require specific housing accommodations; changes in family composition when taking in grandchildren, which necessitate moving out of prior accommodations or changing housing plans due to regulatory issues; and obstacles to obtaining needed benefits, including a lack of information, burdensome application processes, ineligibility, and a shortage of resources. These issues are discussed with implications for policy and practice.     

Positive Changes in Perceptions and Selections of Healthful Foods by College Students After a Short-Term Point-of-Selection Intervention at a Dining Hall

Abstract

Objective: Determine the effects of a short-term, multi-faceted, point-of-selection intervention on college students’ perceptions and selection of 10 targeted healthful foods in a university dining hall and changes in their self-reported overall eating behaviors. Participants: 104 college students, (age 18–23) completed pre-I and post-I surveys. Methods: Pre-survey collected at dining hall in April 2007, followed by 3-week intervention then post-survey collected via email. Healthy choice indicators, large signs, table tents, flyers and colorful photographs with “benefit-based messages” promoted targeted foods. Response rate to both surveys was 38%. Results: Significantly more participants reported that healthful choices were clearly identified in the dining hall after the intervention. Over 20% of participants reported becoming more aware of healthful food choices in the dining hall after the intervention. Significant increases in self-reported intake were reported for cottage cheese and low-fat salad dressing, with a trend toward increased consumption of fresh fruit. Seven of the 14 assessed eating behaviors had significant changes in the desired direction. Increased awareness of healthful foods was the top reason for self-reported changes in overall eating behaviors. Conclusion: Short-term, multi-faceted, point-of-selection marketing of healthful foods in university dining halls may be beneficial for improving college students’ perceptions and selections of targeted healthful foods in the dining hall and may improve overall eating behaviors of college students.     

(Imagining) Erotic Mutuality: Negotiating Difference in Sexual Orientation in an Analysis

This article explores the clinical limitations of an exclusive adherence to the oedipal paradigm for the understanding of erotic material in the transference/countertransference in analytic treatments where the participants identify with differing sexual orientations. Its central argument posits that possibilities for recognizing developmentally significant, evolved connections with patients of all genders and sexual orientations is subtly circumscribed when understanding of these phenomena is partitioned chiefly by the “either/or” of a positive or negative form of oedipal desire.

The argument goes on to query and challenge formulations of a universal bisexuality as a satisfactory resolution to this conundrum, again, particularly when the 2 analytic partners claim different sexual orientations. Part object relations as residue of an early and ubiquitous polymorphous perversity are proposed as useful theoretical and clinical alternatives. Case material is also provided.     

Black women talk about stereotypical transference enactments in cross-cultural supervision

ABSTRACT

Little is known about cross-cultural supervision dynamics between Black, female supervisors who provide clinical supervision of White supervisees. This study examined transference enactments which occurred between Black, female clinical supervisors (N = 57) and White supervisees. The results show that White supervisees’ racist and sexist behaviors towards the Black, female supervisors demonstrated remnants of stereotypical images historically attributed to Black women (i.e., Mammy, Jezebel, and/or Sapphire). Moreover, the findings highlight the need to initiate multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills to enhance clinical skills. The paper concludes with recommendations for cross-cultural supervisory dyads and implications for future research.     

‘How a Slave was Made a Man’: Negotiating Black Violence and Masculinity in Antebellum Slave Narratives

In the manner in which they portrayed black masculinity, fugitive slave autobiographies published in the 1840s represented a sharp break from abolitionist narratives produced during the previous decade. Unlike anti-slavery authors writing in the 1830s, slave narrators of the 1840s deliberately renounced any connection between black manhood and a willingness to commit horrific acts of retributive violence against whites. At the same time, fugitive slave authors insisted on the admirable manliness of the African American men they depicted, including themselves as the protagonists of their stories. The return that radical abolitionist authors made to a glorification of black violence in the 1850s marks the publication of slave narratives in the 1840s as an exceptional moment in the history of antislavery literature. The popular success of these narratives, contrasted with the unpopularity of the more violent antislavery texts of the 1830s and the 1850s, also reveals the fears of black violence that white Americans harboured throughout the antebellum period and fugitive slave authors' consciousness of those fears.     

Relocating Prejudice: A Transnational Approach to Understanding Immigrants' Racial Attitudes

Immigration is changing the racial composition of many societies. Yet leading theories of racial prejudice, even in a multiracial context, focus on dynamics in a single nation‐state and fail to account for the experiences of the foreign‐born. We adopt a transnational approach that incorporates processes creating prejudice from both inside and outside the receiving society and that shows how attitudes move across borders through immigration, transnationalism, and globalization. We draw upon two in‐depth studies of immigrants and those who stay in the home countries, focusing on Koreans' and Dominicans' attitudes toward Black Americans. By situating existing theories of racial prejudice within a transnational framework, we illustrate how models of transnationalism are relevant not just within immigration scholarship, but to more general processes of social change.