Desperately Seeking Sameness

The Internet offers a plethora of venues for autobiographical self-representation: webcams, personal websites, blogs. There is much research on self-representation online, whereas very little research has focused on the consumption of online self-representation. This article focuses on the act of reading diary blogs. Who are the actual readers of a specific blog and what values do they place on the event of reading? What draws them to the diary site in the first place and what mechanisms make them return? To attempt to uncover the reading practices involved for readers of diary weblogs I have conducted an explorative web survey on “how/when/why we read weblogs” on four independent diary blog sites kept by women in their 30s. The consumption of these blogs seem to be severely circumscribed by notions of sameness: based on gender, age, place of living, race/ethnicity, educational level. Readers report being drawn to the diary blog for the rhythm of serial autobiographical consumption and the possibilities of identification. They report looking for “likeness” in the first place. The lure of identification might always have led readers to autobiographical writing. Yet, these diary weblog readers, who in the main self-identify as female, report feeling heightened senses of identification by the proximity in time between the scenes of production and the scenes of consumption and by the deferral of the notion of an ending. This article explores the discursive connections made between the serial, the longitudinal, the consistent, and the construction and consumption of recognizable female selves.     

Psychiatric Symptoms and Same-Sex Sexual Attraction and Behavior in Light of Childhood Gender Atypical Behavior and Parental Relationships

This study explores the relation between the level of current symptoms of depression and anxiety and recalled childhood gender atypical behavior (GAB), and quality of relationships with parents among men and women who reported same-sex sexual attraction or engaged in same-sex sexual behavior and men and women who did not. Matched pairs, 79 men (n = 158) and 148 women (n = 296), with equal levels of GAB were created of Finnish participants with either same-sex sexual attraction or behavior and participants without. The measures used were retrospective questionnaires. Ratings of maternal and paternal over-control and coldness differed as a function of same-sex sexual attraction or behavior. Childhood GAB was correlated with negative ratings of parental relationships. Both same-sex sexual attraction or behavior and a history of childhood GAB affected the reported levels of current depression and anxiety. Only gender typical participants with no same-sex sexual attraction or behavior reported significantly lower levels of symptoms. The findings suggest that childhood GAB is related to later distress both among hetero- and homosexual individuals. The elevated level of psychological distress among homosexual individuals, reported in several studies, might—to some extent—be caused by their generally higher levels of childhood GAB as opposed to a homosexual orientation per se.     

Renaissance of a rural artifact in a city with a million people: biodiversity responses to an agro-forestry restoration in a large urban traditional fruit orchard

The rural landscapes surrounding large cities are rapidly becoming incorporated into the urban environment. The most conspicuous changes involve green spaces, such as former agro-forestry systems like fruit orchards. In this paper, we assess the influence on biodiversity of restoring a large urban traditional fruit orchard as reflected by six selected taxa: plants, lichens, butterflies, beetles, orthopteroids and birds. The study was performed in Prague, which is the capital city of the Czech Republic and has more than a million inhabitants. We studied the effect of orchard renewal in 45 patches (15 for birds and 30 for other taxa). The majority of taxa responded positively to the restoration. The restoration had a significant positive effect on the species richness of lichens, butterflies and beetles. All taxa showed significantly altered species compositions, and the number of red-listed species increased. Orchards have a high potential for multi-functional use. Orchards are productive agro-forestry systems and host numerous possible human activities. Therefore, orchard restoration also has a social aspect. Moreover, our research in this artificial ecosystem revealed that its restoration increased the biodiversity and conservation potential of the associated areas.

     

Expected and unexpected values of individual Mahalanobis distances

This paper derives first-order sampling moments of individual Mahalanobis distances (MDs) in cases when the dimension p of the variable is proportional to the sample size n. Asymptotic expected values when n, p → ∞ are derived under the assumption p/n → c,?0 ? c < 1. It is shown that some types of standard estimators remain unbiased in this case, while others are asymptotically biased, a property that appears to be unnoticed in the literature. Second-order moments are also supplied to give some additional insight to the matter.     

Hybrid and Size‐Corrected Subsampling Methods

This paper considers inference in a broad class of nonregular models. The models considered are nonregular in the sense that standard test statistics have asymptotic distributions that are discontinuous in some parameters. It is shown in Andrews and Guggenberger (2009a) that standard fixed critical value, subsampling, and m out of n bootstrap methods often have incorrect asymptotic size in such models. This paper introduces general methods of constructing tests and confidence intervals that have correct asymptotic size. In particular, we consider a hybrid subsampling/fixed‐critical‐value method and size‐correction methods. The paper discusses two examples in detail. They are (i) confidence intervals in an autoregressive model with a root that may be close to unity and conditional heteroskedasticity of unknown form and (ii) tests and confidence intervals based on a post‐conservative model selection estimator.     

Estimating mean-standard deviation ratios of financial data

This article treats the problem of linking the relation between excess return and risk of financial assets when the returns follow a factor structure. The authors propose three different estimators and their consistencies are established in cases when the number of assets in the cross-section (n) and the number of observations over time (T) are of comparable size. An empirical investigation is conducted on the Stockholm stock exchange market where the mean-standard deviation ratio is calculated for small- mid- and large cap segments, respectively.     

Taxes and Quantity Constraints in a Model of Male Labour Supply in Sweden

The purpose of this study is to estimate a model of male labour supply, when agents may be subject to quantity constraints. As the data contain direct information about hours constraints, this information is used in the estimation. We also quantify the importance of such rationing for the response in the hours of work to changes in wages, income and the tax system. As it turns out, quantity constraints appear only to slightly reduce the sensitivity of the average hours of work to changes in the economic environment.     

Communicating equality through policy documents: On legitimacy,double logic and stable translations

This article discusses gender mainstreaming (GMS) as a strategy to implement gender equality in public work organizations by analysing discourse in terms of the theoretical notions of translation and circulation in organizations to shed light on how gender equality and the mainstreaming strategy are formulated in the documents which govern the Swedish fire and rescue services. More specifically, it looks at how the goals regarding gender equality are circulated and translated. The results show that gender equality as a practice is created in the translation of national goals in terms of the local context and its specific gender equality challenges. Furthermore, the article discusses how vague formulations in the documents are stabilized through circulation between the government and the public agency in question. The results indicate the central role played by maintaining stable translations over time and the presence of a double logic of change in the processes, as well as the importance of legitimizing gender equality initiatives.