Home sweet home: The emotional construction of places

The social sciences have recently shown a revival of interest in space and place. In this “spatial turn” the place is seen as a “place-in-process” (Thrift, 2008) and as the emergent result of constant re-involvement processes based on the continuous re-definition and re-construction of its meaning. Moreover, elderly people's homes have acquired a renewed importance in the wake of an aging in place strategy in social and health policies. This study describes the processes of situatedness of place that occur during the widowhood. Involving ten older widows, our analysis identifies four distinct processes in the construction of the situated meaning of a place: ‘Heart displacement’, ‘The showcase of the self’, ‘Refuge’ and ‘Introjection of external spaces’.     

Return Schemes from European Countries: Assessing the Challenges

Drawing on a review of the academic literature on return migration and return migration policies, as well as on reports and project documentation, this article provides a general assessment of return schemes from European countries, with a focus on those targeting failed asylum‐seekers and irregular migrants. The article first highlights the contrasted understanding of return and reintegration by migration policy‐makers and migration scholars respectively. It then provides an overview of the main challenges, focusing on seven key issues: preparedness to return, the imbalance of represented interests, legal mobility, conditions in the countries of origin, the reintegration package, integration in Europe, and the specific obstacles to return faced by failed asylum‐seekers. The article highlights the need to reassess return policies and frame more realistic schemes.     

The role of prosody in infants’ preference for speech: A comparison between speech and birdsong

Speech preferences emerge very early in infancy, pointing to a special status for speech in auditory processing and a crucial role of prosody in driving infant preferences. Recent theoretical models suggest that infant auditory perception may initially encompass a broad range of human and nonhuman vocalizations, then tune in to relevant sounds for the acquisition of species‐specific communication sounds. However, little is known about sound properties eliciting infants’ tuning‐in to speech. To address this issue, we presented a group of 4‐month‐olds with segments of non‐native speech (Mandarin Chinese) and birdsong, a nonhuman vocalization that shares some prosodic components with speech. A second group of infants was presented with the same segment of birdsong paired with Mandarin played in reverse. Infants showed an overall preference for birdsong over non‐native speech. Moreover, infants in the Backward condition preferred birdsong over backward speech whereas infants in the Forward condition did not show clear preference. These results confirm the prominent role of prosody in early auditory processing and suggest that infants’ preferences may privilege communicative vocalizations featured by certain prosodic dimensions regardless of the biological source of the sound, human or nonhuman.     

Relational Resources of Individuals Living in Couple: Evidence from an Italian Survey

The need for support becomes stronger in situations of pressure, uncertainty and overload caused by unfavorable economic, demographic or social circumstances. Especially in countries—such as Italy—where an adequate welfare system is lacking, the individual’s social space can represent a resilience (anti-frailty) tool through the activation of a support network. While the literature has mainly analyzed the support that some vulnerable categories (e.g., elderly and youths) receive from their family, we focus on individuals living in Italy in the first stages of their family life, with the aim of describing their support network. We construct the potential support ego-centered (PSE) network—at partner and couple level—of individuals living in couple using data from the survey “Family and Social Subjects” carried out in Italy in 2009 by the Italian National Statistical Institute. Furthermore, we compare the network typologies detected using two alternative clustering techniques with the objective of finding the partners’ and couples’ network types and verifying whether traditional strong support received by the family persists in Italy and/or whether new kinds of support networks are emerging. Several PSE network typologies, ranging from empty to comprehensive networks, were determined with a fair match between the two procedures. Analysis revealed the importance of friends and neighbors, especially in the North of Italy, to the support of partners and couple as a whole.     

Hierarchical Bayesian Models for the Estimation of Correlated Effects in Multilevel Data: A Simulation Study to Assess Model Performance

In this article, we aim at assessing hierarchical Bayesian modeling for the analysis of multiple exposures and highly correlated effects in a multilevel setting. We exploit an artificial data set to apply our method and show the gains in the final estimates of the crucial parameters. As a motivating example to simulate data, we consider a real prospective cohort study designed to investigate the association of dietary exposures with the occurrence of colon-rectum cancer in a multilevel framework, where, e.g., individuals have been enrolled from different countries or cities. We rely on the presence of some additional information suitable to mediate the final effects of the exposures and to be arranged in a level-2 regression to model similarities among the parameters of interest (e.g., data on the nutrient compositions for each dietary item).     

What’s off-centre of empire? Introduction to the special issue

ABSTRACT

In this Introduction, we discuss the aims of this publication along with guidelines to locate and connect the essays part of the edited volume. We start by highlighting the original contribution of our intervention in terms of what off-centring empire offers in relation to scholarship that de-centres empire. To us, this means to look at the processes, dynamics, and movements that connect empire (as a centre of power) to its peripheries (as a site of difference, struggles, and resistance). To be sure, attempts to off-centre and de-centre empire are related, relational, and they both commit to the project of challenging the centrality of empire, to confronting its lasting legacies and normative powers. Yet to off-centre, as we argue, is to focus on the electrifying force-field generated by the poles of imperial power, rather than oppose centre and peripheries to subvert their relationship. Our aim is to reveal the complex ways centre and periphery connect and distance with the aim to highlight emerging modes of counter-imperial practice. Further, this introduction serves as the opportunity to discuss the structure of the SI and its three main sections – Public Memory, Orientations, and More-than-human. Here we reflect upon how each essay brings to the fore a unique way to off-centre empire, and thus provide examples that may inspire future research. Finally, we highlight how conversations emerging from individual essays can be assembled and read into threads, pointing to multiple ways in which we seek to off-centre empire through empirical research.     

A Stochastic Volatility Model With Realized Measures for Option Pricing

Abstract

Based on the fact that realized measures of volatility are affected by measurement errors, we introduce a new family of discrete-time stochastic volatility models having two measurement equations relating both observed returns and realized measures to the latent conditional variance. A semi-analytical option pricing framework is developed for this class of models. In addition, we provide analytical filtering and smoothing recursions for the basic specification of the model, and an effective MCMC algorithm for its richer variants. The empirical analysis shows the effectiveness of filtering and smoothing realized measures in inflating the latent volatility persistence—the crucial parameter in pricing Standard and Poor’s 500 Index options.     

Effect of a web-based positive psychology intervention on prenatal well-being: A case series study

Background

Detrimental effects of women’s negative feelings during pregnancy have been extensively examined and documented, but research on the influence of positive feelings and protective factors on their prenatal mental health is scarce. Evidence from the positive psychology field has shown that practicing some brief positive exercises, called positive psychology interventions, can maximize well-being by increasing positive emotions, engagement, and meaning.

Attitudes Toward Parenthood,Partnership, and Social Rights for Diverse Families: Evidence From a Pilot Study in Five Countries

Attitudes toward the civil and social citizenship rights of individuals in diverse family forms are underresearched. We use cross-national data from a pilot study among students in Denmark, Spain, Croatia, Italy, and the Netherlands to explore cross-country differences in beliefs about partnership, parenthood, and social rights of same-sex couples vs. heterosexual couples or married vs. cohabiting couples. The results suggest a polarization in students’ attitudes between countries that appear more traditional (i.e., Italy and Croatia) and less traditional (Spain and the Netherlands), where the rights of married heterosexual couples are privileged over other family forms more so than in nontraditional countries. Moreover, equality in social rights is generally more widely accepted than equality in civil rights, particularly in relationship to parenthood rights and in more traditional countries. We discuss the implications of these findings and the implications for further research in this underexplored area of attitudinal research.     

Trajectory Discrimination and Peripersonal Space Perception in Newborns

The ability to discriminate the trajectories of moving objects is highly adaptive and fundamental for physical and social interactions. Therefore, we could reasonably expect sensitivity to different trajectories already at birth, as a precursor of later communicative and defensive abilities. To investigate this possibility, we measured newborns' looking behavior to evaluate their ability to discriminate between visual stimuli depicting motion along different trajectories happening within the space surrounding their body. Differently from previous studies, we did not take into account defensive reactions, which may not be elicited by impending collision as newborns might not categorize approaching stimuli as possible dangers. In two experiments, we showed that newborns display a spontaneous visual preference for trajectories directed toward their body. We found this visual preference when visual stimuli depicted motion in opposite directions (approaching vs. receding) as well as when they both moved toward the peripersonal space and differed only in their specific target (i.e., the body vs. the space around it). These findings suggest that at birth human infants seem to be already equipped with visual mechanisms predisposing them to perceive their presence in the environment and to adaptively focus their attention on the peripersonal space and their bodily self.