Teaching examples for the design of experiments: geographical sensitivity and the self‐fulfilling prophecy

Many scientists believe that small experiments, guided by scientific intuition, are simpler and more efficient than design of experiments. This belief is strong and persists even in the face of data demonstrating that it is clearly wrong. In this paper, we present two powerful teaching examples illustrating the dangers of small experiments guided by scientific intuition. We describe two, simple, two‐dimensional spaces. These two spaces give rise to, and at the same time appear to generate supporting data for, scientific intuitions that are deeply flawed or wholly incorrect. We find these spaces useful in unfreezing scientific thinking and challenging the misplaced confidence in scientific intuition. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Negotiating the boundaries of intimacy: the personal lives of asexual people

This paper uses findings from research diaries to explore the use of practices of intimacy among asexual people. While much of the literature to date has focused on the supposedly transformative and political nature of uniquely asexual practices of intimacy, our findings suggest something different. Rather than seeking to transform the nature of intimate relationships, asexual people make pragmatic adjustments and engage in negotiations to achieve the forms of physical and emotional intimacy they seek. We discuss this in relation to three areas: friendships, sex as a practice of intimacy, and exclusion from intimacy. Our findings suggest the importance of not only considering the social context in which asexual people practise intimacy, but also how the practices in which they engage may be shared with non‐asexual people.     

Volunteering Hierarchies in the Global South: Remuneration and Livelihoods

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This paper explores volunteering and inequality in the global South through an analysis of volunteering remuneration. We...     

A Comparative Exposure Assessment of Campylobacter in Ontario,Canada

To inform source attribution efforts, a comparative exposure assessment was developed to estimate the relative exposure to Campylobacter, the leading bacterial gastrointestinal disease in Canada, for 13 different transmission routes within Ontario, Canada, during the summer. Exposure was quantified with stochastic models at the population level, which incorporated measures of frequency, quantity ingested, prevalence, and concentration, using data from FoodNet Canada surveillance, the peer‐reviewed and gray literature, other Ontario data, and data that were specifically collected for this study. Models were run with @Risk software using Monte Carlo simulations. The mean number of cells of Campylobacter ingested per Ontarian per day during the summer, ranked from highest to lowest is as follows: household pets, chicken, living on a farm, raw milk, visiting a farm, recreational water, beef, drinking water, pork, vegetables, seafood, petting zoos, and fruits. The study results identify knowledge gaps for some transmission routes, and indicate that some transmission routes for Campylobacter are underestimated in the current literature, such as household pets and raw milk. Many data gaps were identified for future data collection consideration, especially for the concentration of Campylobacter in all transmission routes.     

Muslims in Prison: Challenge and Change in Britain and France

Hans Entzinger and Jack Carter (eds.), International Review of Comparative Public Policy, Volume 1, Immigration in Western Democracies: The United States and Western Europe (Greenwich, CT and London: JAI Press, 1989). Pp.ix + 258. £43 (hardback). ISBN 1 55 938 109 4

Josef Hayim Yerushalmi, Freud's Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1991). Pp.159. £16.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 300 04 92 18

Ronald Dotterer, Deborah Dash Moore and Steven M. Cohen (eds.), Jewish Settlement and Community in the Modern Western World (Cranbury, NJ and London: Associated University Presses, 1991). Pp.218. £22.95. ISBN 0 945636 3 X

Minority Rights Group, Minorities and Autonomy in Western Europe. Minority Rights Group, 379 Brixton Road, London. Pp.32. £3.75 (including postage). ISBN 0 946690 93

L. Eve Armentrout Ma, Revolutionaries, Monarchists, and Chinatowns: Chinese Politics in the Americas and the 1911 Revolution (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1990). Pp.xii + 227. $28. ISBN 0 8248 1239 5

David Leviatin, Followers of the Trail: Jewish Working‐Class Radicals in America (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1989). Pp.ix + 298. £25. ISBN 0 300 04354 6

Richard Williams, Hierarchical Structures and Social Value: The Creation of Black and Irish Identities in the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Pp.190. £27.95 ISBN 0 521 35147 2

Michael Tadman, Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990). Pp.xviii + 317. $27.9. ISBN 0299 11850 9

Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany 1933–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Pp.xiv + 386. ISBN 0521 39114 8     

Attitudinal Polarization and Trimodal Distributions: Measurement Problems and Theoretical Implications

Objective . We present trimodality as a distributional pattern that is relevant to conceptual issues of attitudinal polarization but fits nowhere along the modality-bimodality continuum. Methods . We use simulated univariate distributions and distributions taken from the 1994 General Social Survey to investigate how commonly used measures track (or fail to track) noteworthy shifts in the distributions. Results . The kurtosis and variance are largely insensitive to important distributional differences, most importantly that between bimodality and trimodality. Conclusions . We argue that the lack of attention to trimodality and the insensitivity of commonly used measures of polarization (kurtosis in particular) to that distributional pattern create a blind spot in our thinking about polarization and can lead to basic misinterpretations of extant patterns in public opinion data.     

The Global War on Terror and Automatic License Plate Recognition

En sciences sociales un produit un vaste corpus de recherche concernant la pratique et la politique des Systèmes de Surveillance en Circuit Fermé (CCTV). La recherche a cependant négligé les CCTV automatisés et informatisés. Je m'adresse à ces formes de culture de la surveillance au moyen d'un point de vue institutionnel d'explorer ce qui a été appelé de reconnaissance automatique des plaques d'immatriculation (ALPR). En retraçant la manière dont les plans d'un système de surveillance Warzone sont utilisés comme une ressource dans les pratiques policières américaines, je trouve qu'ils ont tous deux impliquent un positionnement géo‐des véhicules, l'analyse de l'apparence des véhicules, et en minimisant le travail de l'analyse des plaques d'immatriculation. Je montre comment ces liens sont obscurcies, puis terminera par une discussion de trois implications de ce point de vue institutionnel sur ALPR. Social science has produced a fine body of research on the practices and politics of closed‐circuit television (CCTV) surveillance. Automated CCTV systems, however, have been neglected. I address these growing forms of surveillance through an institutional perspective to explore what has been called Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR). By tracing how plans for a war‐zone surveillance system are used as a resource in American policing practices, I find that they both involve a geo‐positioning of vehicles, analyzing the appearance of vehicles, and minimizing the labor of analyzing license plates. I show how these links are obscured, and then conclude with a discussion of three implications of this institutional perspective on ALPR.