From Damsels in Distress to Sexy Superheroes

Video games are an important form of media that have the potential to impact gender role attitudes. Sexist portrayals of characters may affect gender behaviors and attitudes. As such, it is important to discover how characters, particularly females, are portrayed in video games. The current study examined video game magazines analyzing the portrayal of female video game characters and how this portrayal has changed in the last twenty years. Results indicate a growing trend toward a decreased benevolent sexism portrayal and an increase in a hostile sexism portrayal over time.     

Effectiveness of combinations of Gaussian graphical models for model building

Combining statistical models is an useful approach in all the research area where a global picture of the problem needs to be constructed by binding together evidence from different sources [M.S. Massa and S.L. Lauritzen Combining Statistical Models, M. Viana and H. Wynn, eds., American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI, 2010, pp. 239–259]. In this paper, we investigate the effectiveness of combining a fixed number of Gaussian graphical models respecting some consistency assumptions in problems of model building. In particular, we use the meta-Markov combination of Gaussian graphical models as detailed in Massa and Lauritzen and compare model selection results obtained by combining selections over smaller sets of variables with selection results over all variables of interest. In order to do so, we carry out some simulation studies in which different criteria are considered for the selection procedures. We conclude that the combination performs, generally, better than global estimation, is computationally simpler by virtue of having fewer and simpler models to work on, and has an intuitive appeal to a wide variety of contexts.     

Estimation of spatial processes using local scoring rules

We display pseudo-likelihood as a special case of a general estimation technique based on proper scoring rules. Such a rule supplies an unbiased estimating equation for any statistical model, and this can be extended to allow for missing data. When the scoring rule has a simple local structure, as in many spatial models, the need to compute problematic normalising constants is avoided. We illustrate the approach through an analysis of data on disease in bell pepper plants.     

Hierarchical space-time modelling of epidemic dynamics: an application to measles outbreaks

How infectious diseases spread in space and time is an important question that has received considerable theoretical attention. There are, however, few empirical studies to support theoretical approaches, because data is scarce. In this paper we propose to model the epidemic spread of measles in the London boroughs between 1960 and 1970 by an extension of the Kriged Kalman filter (Mardia et al. , 1998) to count data. Results show the flexibility of our approach in describing complex spatio-temporal dynamics.     

Children's Reasoning about Lie-telling and Truth-telling in Politeness Contexts

Children's reasoning about lying and truth-telling was examined among participants ages 7–11 (total N  =  181) with reference to conflicts between being honest and protecting the feelings of others. In Study 1, participants showed different patterns of evaluation and motivational inference in politeness contexts vs. transgression contexts: in politeness contexts, they rated lie-telling more favorably and were far more likely to assume that motives were prosocial. In Study 2, participants evaluated lie-telling more positively and truth-telling more negatively in politeness contexts, especially when they focused on the implications of the statements for others instead of whether the statements were true or false.     

On the likelihood of Condorcet's profiles

Consider a group of individuals who have to collectively choose an outcome from a finite set of feasible alternatives. A scoring or positional rule is an aggregation procedure where each voter awards a given number of points, w _j, to the alternative she ranks in j ^th position in her preference ordering; The outcome chosen is then the alternative that receives the highest number of points. A Condorcet or majority winner is a candidate who obtains more votes than her opponents in any pairwise comparison. Condorcet [4] showed that all positional rules fail to satisfy the majority criterion. Furthermore, he supplied a famous example where all the positional rules select simultaneously the same winner while the majority rule picks another one. Let P ^* be the probability of such events in three-candidate elections. We apply the techniques of Merlin et al. [17] to evaluate P ^* for a large population under the Impartial Culture condition. With these assumptions, such a paradox occurs in 1.808% of the cases. Received: 30 April 1999/Accepted: 14 September 2000     

An agent-based approach to modelling virtual enterprises

This paper describes how virtual enterprises (VEs) can be modelled using the AGORA multi-agent architecture, designed for modelling and supporting cooperative work among distributed entities. The model consists of a structure of AGORAs and agents, where AGORAs are facilitators of cooperative work for agents and the agents represent the partners of the VE, the cooperative mechanisms and the service providers. The distributed and goal-oriented nature of the VE provides a strong motivation for the use of agents to model VEs. The main advantages of this approach are that the structure of AGORAs provides a homogeneous modelling environment throughout the life cycle of the VE, traceability of the VE activities and a history of the VE. In addition to these, it is important to point out that, agents being computational entities, the resulting model provides an easy and efficient passage from the model to the computational support that is required by the VE.     

The Rights and Responsibilities of Gay and Lesbian Parents: Legal Developments, Psychological Research, and Policy Implications

With the growing number of same-sex unions, the legal system must determine the rights and responsibilities of gay parents who decide to end a relationship. In 2005, the California Supreme Court found that a child's lesbian caregiver was a legal "parent" despite having no biological or adoptive relationship, while the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 2004 concluded the opposite. Psychologists can inform this debate by presenting research demonstrating that (a) children benefit from contact with two parents, and (b) children's well-being is unaffected by their parents' sexual orientation. Psychologists can further assist the legal system by conducting future research. In order for psychologists to impact laws and policies, legal actors must utilize this expertise .