Building revolutionary subjectivity: creative tensions in the Plataforma de Afectados por La Hipoteca

ABSTRACT

The paper assesses the Spanish housing activists Plataforma de Afectados por La Hipoteca (PAH, Platform for the Mortgage-Affected) as an example of left-wing convergence. From the perspective of the horizontal democratic practices and civil disobedience tactics they adopt, the paper acknowledges the anarchist, Marxist and reformist influences in PAH and reveals how the creative tension between activists of different persuasions has aided the movement’s relative success. In harnessing and transforming the revolutionary subjectivity of the movement of the squares in 2011, PAH has in turn led to a broader urban radical politics. This new revolutionary subjectivity captures PAH’s legacy and positioning within broader anti-austerity politics.     

The Structure of Social Cohesion: An Analysis of Its Levels and Dimensions in Mexico City1

This article aims to conceptualize and assess social cohesion in Mexico, taking into account their multilevel and multidimensional nature. To measure social cohesion levels and dimensions, we used the Social Welfare Survey (N = 2871) for the 16 municipalities in Mexico City. Then, we employed the distance method to construct a social cohesion index. In addition, we define social cohesion degrees (very high, high, medium, and low) to explore the relevance of each indicator. The findings suggest that the objective and subjective indicators at the meso‐level has the highest contribution, regardless of the territory or degrees of cohesion. This finding suggests that neighborhoods are well organized for solving everyday problems. Meanwhile, the willingness to help both friends and members of one’s network was not a priority, which can be explained by the suspicion toward other people and the prevalent economic conditions.     

Bidirectional Linkages Between Emotion Recognition and Problem Behaviors in Elementary School Children

Cross-sectional studies support negative associations between children’s skills in recognizing emotional expressions and their problem behaviors. Few studies have examined these associations over time, however, precluding our understanding of the direction of effects. Emotion recognition difficulties may contribute to the development of problem behaviors; additionally, problem behaviors may constrain the development of emotion recognition skill. The present study tested the bidirectional linkages between children’s emotion recognition and teacher-reported problem behaviors in 1st and 3rd grade. Specifically, emotion recognition, hyperactivity, internalizing behaviors, and externalizing behaviors were assessed in 117 children in 1st grade and in 3rd grade. Results from fully cross-lagged path models revealed divergent developmental patterns: Controlling for concurrent levels of problem behaviors and first-grade receptive language skills, lower emotion recognition in 1st grade significantly predicted greater internalizing behaviors, but not hyperactivity or externalizing behaviors, in 3rd grade. Moreover, greater hyperactivity in 1st grade marginally predicted lower emotion recognition in 3rd grade, but internalizing and externalizing behaviors were not predictive of emotion recognition over time. Together, these findings extend previous research to identify specific developmental pathways, whereby emotion recognition difficulties contribute to the development of internalizing behaviors, and early hyperactivity may contribute to the development of emotion recognition difficulties, thus highlighting the importance of examining these processes and their mutual development over time.     

Analysis of Latin American Fertility in Terms of Probable Social Classes

Theories of demographic change have not paid enough attention to how factors associated with fertility decline play different roles across social classes that are defined multidimensionally. I use a multidimensional definition of social class along with information on the reproductive histories of women born between 1920 and 1965 in six Latin American countries to show the following: the enduring connection between social stratification and fertility differentials, the concomitance of diverse fertility decline trajectories by class, and the role of within- and between-class social distances in promoting/preventing ideational change towards the acceptance of lower fertility. These results enable me to revisit the scope of theories of fertility change and to provide an explanatory narrative centred on empirically constructed social classes (probable social classes) and the macro- and micro-level conditions that influenced their life courses. I use 21 census samples collected between 1970 and 2005 in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Paraguay.     

Miaoicization vis-à-vis sinicization: contrasting Miao subgroups in contemporary China

This article studies the Miao classification as an example to examine the minzu shibie project initiated by the Chinese Communist Party after 1949. The Miao classification that originates with the minzu shibie project can be defined as a process of miaoicization; however, it is not a unified Miao group (as projected by the classification team) that has emerged but rather one dominant Miao subgroup that defines the official Miao category in contemporary China. At the moment the most dominant Miao subgroup is the Hmu group in Southeast Guizhou. The overemphasis of Hmu sub-culture to represent all the Miao of China is related to the fact that over the last decades many important leaders in Guizhou have been Hmu. While all Hmu are sinicized to a certain extent, it seems that the Hmu at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale are most likely to be sinicized and to amalgamate with the Han majority.     

A general hazard model for lifetime data in the presence of cure rate

Historically, the cure rate model has been used for modeling time-to-event data within which a significant proportion of patients are assumed to be cured of illnesses, including breast cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia, prostate cancer, melanoma, and head and neck cancer. Perhaps the most popular type of cure rate model is the mixture model introduced by Berkson and Gage [1]. In this model, it is assumed that a certain proportion of the patients are cured, in the sense that they do not present the event of interest during a long period of time and can found to be immune to the cause of failure under study. In this paper, we propose a general hazard model which accommodates comprehensive families of cure rate models as particular cases, including the model proposed by Berkson and Gage. The maximum-likelihood-estimation procedure is discussed. A simulation study analyzes the coverage probabilities of the asymptotic confidence intervals for the parameters. A real data set on children exposed to HIV by vertical transmission illustrates the methodology.     

Modeling Lifetimes by a Stochastic Process Hitting a Critical Point

First hitting times arise naturally in survival analysis where the underlying stochastic counting process represents the strength of the health of an individual. The patient experiences a clinical endpoint when this process reaches a critical point for the first time. We propose a very flexible and unified first hitting time density function in a stochastic carcinogenesis counting process, and its mathematical properties are investigated. The Poisson and negative binomial first hitting time models are addressed and two examples with real data are presented.     

A distance-based model for spatial prediction using radial basis functions

In the context of local interpolators, radial basis functions (RBFs) are known to reduce the computational time by using a subset of the data for prediction purposes. In this paper, we propose a new distance-based spatial RBFs method which allows modeling spatial continuous random variables. The trend is incorporated into a RBF according to a detrending procedure with mixed variables, among which we may have categorical variables. In order to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed method, a simulation study is carried out for a variety of practical scenarios for five distinct RBFs, incorporating principal coordinates. Finally, the proposed method is illustrated with an application of prediction of calcium concentration measured at a depth of 0–20 cm in Brazil, selecting the smoothing parameter by cross-validation.     

Student-t censored regression model: properties and inference

In statistical analysis, particularly in econometrics, it is usual to consider regression models where the dependent variable is censored (limited). In particular, a censoring scheme to the left of zero is considered here. In this article, an extension of the classical normal censored model is developed by considering independent disturbances with identical Student-t distribution. In the context of maximum likelihood estimation, an expression for the expected information matrix is provided, and an efficient EM-type algorithm for the estimation of the model parameters is developed. In order to know what type of variables affect the income of housewives, the results and methods are applied to a real data set. A brief review on the normal censored regression model or Tobit model is also presented.     

Finding Love: Passion,Intimacy, and Commitment in the Relationships of Gay Men

This paper identifies the stages of gay male relationships through a qualitative analysis of the interviews of 12 gay men within the context of the Sternberg ( 1986 ) three component model of love. Four stages were identified: Confrontation with sexuality: Preparing for intimacy, Exploration of Sexuality: Engaging with passion, Experimentation with Relationships: Uniting intimacy and passion, and Formation of Committed Relationships: Integrating passion, intimacy, and commitment. Confrontation with Sexuality was a necessary first step before forming intimate relationships, as it provided a context for the second stage of Exploration of Sexuality, where passion could be explored. Once sexuality had been explored, Experimentation with Relationships was the next stage which involved uniting passion with intimacy, often including a period of experimenting with the types of relationships that are usually explored much earlier for heterosexuals. Finally, the fourth stage of Formation of Committed Relationships was identified which involved the integration of passion, intimacy, and commitment. The therapeutic implications of these results are elaborated by an analysis of these stages in clinical cases.