Which Inequality Makes People Dissatisfied with Their Lives? Evidence of the Link Between Life Satisfaction and Inequalities

This paper aims at establishing a clear link between different types of inequality and life satisfaction in Europe. We analyse the relationship between life satisfaction and both income inequality and inequality of opportunity using seven waves of the European Social Survey. The results show that in Europe both income inequality and inequality of opportunity reduce people’s life satisfaction. Our main results suggest that all socio-economic groups are dissatisfied with income inequality, whereas primarily low socio-economic individuals worry about inequality of opportunity. We find that expected mobility is very important in explaining the link between inequality and life satisfaction for all socio-economic groups in Europe. We advance the hypothesis that life satisfaction is conditioned by a mix of normative arguments against inequality and by the fear/possibility to lose/gain a good social position. This result complements findings on the mediating role of social mobility in the relationship with subjective well-being.     

Experimental Analysis of the Game in Pathological Gamblers: Effect of the Immediacy of the Reward in Slot Machines

Slot machines are the most “addictive” games because (a) the disorder (pathological gambling) appears more rapidly in these games than with any other; (b) most patients who seek professional help are mainly addicted to electronic gambling, and (c) even though it is not the more frequent game, most of all the money spent on legal games of chance (at least in Spain) goes to slot machines. Structural characteristics of slot machines induce to gamble because electronic games show the main parameters of operant conditioning, mainly the immediacy of the reinforcement. Ten pathological gamblers played slot machine in two conditions: immediate and delayed reinforcement. The results corroborate the importance of the immediacy of the reinforcement in gambling, because when the result appears immediately (after 2 s), more games are played than when the result is delayed only 10 s. Critical issues in problem gambling prevention and public health are discussed.     

Note on reduction of dimensionality for second-order response surface design model

To reduce the dimensionality of the second-order response surface design model, variance component indices under imposing and non imposing restrictions on the moment matrix toward the orthogonality are derived and presented and the same is illustrated with suitable examples in this article.     

Distance Testing for Selecting the Best Population

Consider testing the null hypothesis that a given population has location parameter greater than or equal to the largest location parameter of k competing populations. This paper generalizes tests proposed by Gupta and Bartholomew by considering tests based on p -distances from the parameter estimate to the null parameter space. It is shown that all tests are equivalent when k →∞ for a class of distributions that includes the normal and the uniform. The paper proposes the use of adaptive quantiles. Under suitable assumptions the resulting tests are asymptotically equivalent to the uniformly most powerful test for the case that the location parameters of all but one of the populations are known. The increase in power obtained by using adaptive tests is confirmed by a simulation study.     

The Sonoran Desert’s Domestic Bracero Programme: Institutional Actors and the Creation of Labour Migration Streams

This paper traces the journeys of male migrants to Empalme, Sonora, Mexico to uncover the development of the often overlooked domestic bracero programme that operated in conjunction with its well‐known international equivalent. Drawing on interviews and observations with ex‐braceros who met at a park near the Mexico‐US border, I examine their experiences and participation in Mexico’s domestic bracero program, an unintended and unexplored consequence of its international counterpart. The study shows how regulation and control were constantly reinvented at every step of the selection process by state actors and their affiliates in Mexico. The paper reveals how the oversupply of labour and modernization of agriculture in Sonora resulted in the development of a migration industry where local municipal leaders, coyotes, the state, and Mexican agribusiness capitalized from men’s displacement. The migration industry during the bracero selection process controlled who gained access to the United States labour market by capturing migrant labour en route to the United States in the process fueling a thriving cotton industry in the otherwise stagnant Sonoran Desert economy. The study concludes by taking the lessons from the historic domestic bracero programme to show one instance in which internal and international labour markets were closely interwoven. In the end, I call for more research that examines the relationship between markets on both sides of the border that uncovers how networks are not only structured by personal ties but also by state and market relations.     

Childhood in Children's Eyes: Analysis of a Discourse among Middle‐Income Sectors in Santiago,Chile

This article describes the results of a qualitative study, based on the perspective of critical discourse analysis, which explores the discourse on childhood of 10‐ and 11‐year‐old boys and girls from a middle‐income socioeconomic sector in Santiago, Chile. Among the findings, a complex and relational notion of childhood is highlighted. The children perceive themselves as overwhelmed and subjected to excessive demands by grown‐ups, and conceive of adulthood as a state without real freedom due to the excessive demands of work and family.     

Embeddings into almost self-centered graphs of given radius

A graph is almost self-centered (ASC) if all but two of its vertices are central. An almost self-centered graph with radius r is called an r-ASC graph. The r-ASC index \(\theta _r(G)\) of a graph G is the minimum number of vertices needed to be added to G such that an r-ASC graph is obtained that contains G as an induced subgraph. It is proved that \(\theta _r(G)\le 2r\) holds for any graph G and any \(r\ge 2\) which improves the earlier known bound \(\theta _r(G)\le 2r+1\). It is further proved that \(\theta _r(G)\le 2r-1\) holds if \(r\ge 3\) and G is of order at least 2. The 3-ASC index of complete graphs is determined. It is proved that \(\theta _3(G)\in \{3,4\}\) if G has diameter 2 and for several classes of graphs of diameter 2 the exact value of the 3-ASC index is obtained. For instance, if a graph G of diameter 2 does not contain a diametrical triple, then \(\theta _3(G) = 4\). The 3-ASC index of paths of order \(n\ge 1\), cycles of order \(n\ge 3\), and trees of order \(n\ge 10\) and diameter \(n-2\) are also determined, respectively, and several open problems proposed.     

User-Centered Design (UCD) applied to the identification and modification of unustainable practices

Metropolitan Autonomous University, Cuajimalpa Unit (UAM-C) has as one of its main themes, researching and teaching of sustainability. In it, the Bachelor of Design program considers among its teaching approaches those of User-Centered Design and Eco-design as important issues, this explains the interest in addressing the areas in which both approaches can be articulated to reduce unsustainable practices through the design of messages, environments and products.