Archival Work as Qualitative Sociology

Qualitative Sociology -     

Urban vegetation cover correlates with environmental variables in a desert city: insights of mitigation measures to climate change

Urban Ecosystems - Green cover and air quality are important components of life quality and human ecology in arid lands. In the Sonoran Desert of Mexico, Hermosillo is the largest city with a...     

Comparative Perspectives on Social Indicators

Social Indicators Research -     

Efficient Bayesian inference in generalized inverse gamma processes for stochastic volatility

This paper develops a novel and efficient algorithm for Bayesian inference in inverse Gamma stochastic volatility models. It is shown that by conditioning on auxiliary variables, it is possible to sample all the volatilities jointly directly from their posterior conditional density, using simple and easy to draw from distributions. Furthermore, this paper develops a generalized inverse gamma process with more flexible tails in the distribution of volatilities, which still allows for simple and efficient calculations. Using several macroeconomic and financial datasets, it is shown that the inverse gamma and generalized inverse gamma processes can greatly outperform the commonly used log normal volatility processes with Student’s t errors or jumps in the mean equation.     

The Global Compact for Safe,Orderly and Regular Migration: What's Next

The Director General of IOM reflects on the next steps to implement the Global Compact for Migration, IOM's new responsibility as Coordinator of the UN Migration Network, and the role that research can play in realizing the Compact's potential.     

The Role of Self-Conscious Emotions in the Sexual Health of Gay and Bisexual Men: Psychometric Properties and Theoretical Validation of the Sexual Shame and Pride Scale

Researchers have theorized about the role of sexual shame as a mechanism through which sexual minority stress manifests into mental health difficulties, such as sexual compulsivity for gay and bisexual men (GBM), and about the resilience-promoting effects of sexual pride. However, no validated measures to date have directly tapped into these constructs rather than using proxies for them, such as internalized homonegativity. We developed the Sexual Shame and Pride Scale (SSPS) and conducted a psychometric evaluation of it using a sample of 260 highly sexually active GBM. The scale had the expected structure in factor analysis and showed evidence of internal consistency and test–retest reliability. Correlational analyses demonstrated the convergent validity of sexual shame and sexual pride with relevant constructs. Regression analyses demonstrated the predictive validity of sexual shame in relation to sexual compulsivity, accounting for unique variability even after adjusting for previously demonstrated etiological factors, and the predictive validity of both shame and pride, which interacted to consistently predict four sexual behavior outcomes. Findings suggest the SSPS is a psychometrically valid and reliable measure that may be useful in future empirical work and highlight preliminary evidence for the role of these constructs in the sexual health of GBM.     

H-Day 1967 – An alternative perspective on “propaganda” in the historiography of public relation

This article presents an alternative perspective regarding the concept of “propaganda” in the historiography of public relations. Recent scholars of public relations have rightly criticized early attempts to write the field’s history as a linear progression, from propaganda to excellence. At the same time, however, the same recent scholars have come to accept a linear conceptual change, and that “propaganda” became an impossible term in liberal democratic countries in the 1960s. By using the empirical case of the massive communication efforts initiated by the Swedish Commission on Right-Hand Traffic, which was assigned to implement right-hand traffic in 1967, this article shows that the concept of “propaganda” both occurred frequently and was used in a neutral sense. To deepen the understanding of this alternative perspective, the article both presents how the historical actors conceptualized their work, and describes how the communication work of the Commission was performed.     

Effects of variations in water quantity and quality in the structure and functions of invertebrates’ community of a Mediterranean urban stream

Urban Ecosystems - Urban streams provide important ecosystem services to cities’ population, from the maintenance of urban biodiversity, temperature, humidity and air quality to improving...     

Reliability,Population Classification and Weighting in Multidimensional Poverty Measurement: A Monte Carlo Study

Social Indicators Research - In poverty measurement, differential weighting aims to take into account the unequal importance of the diverse dimensions and aspects of poverty and to add valuable...     

Design of ISD-1: an instrument for social diagnosis in care homes for older persons*

This article describes the design process and main features of an instrument developed for use in the specialist area of intervention in care homes for older persons. The essential aim of ISD-1 (instrument for social diagnosis) is to permit the correct formulation of social diagnoses and to standardise and define the professional language used by social workers. Its content has been organised into 4 dimensions of social diagnosis, divided into 15 sub-dimensions containing 83 diagnostic categories. This work was performed in Spain, in the 24 care homes of the Madrid Social Care Agency of the Community of Madrid, involving the participation of the 40 social workers practising in these centres. ISD-1 is an easily understood and used tool, of potential use for social workers practising in care homes for older persons and capable of being adapted for use in other institutional environments, as well as being capable of adaptation and translation for its application in other countries.