Structure and Culture in Social Movement Theory

Sociological Forum -     

Hierarchical Bayesian level set inversion

The level set approach has proven widely successful in the study of inverse problems for interfaces, since its systematic development in the 1990s. Recently it has been employed in the context of Bayesian inversion, allowing for the quantification of uncertainty within the reconstruction of interfaces. However, the Bayesian approach is very sensitive to the length and amplitude scales in the prior probabilistic model. This paper demonstrates how the scale-sensitivity can be circumvented by means of a hierarchical approach, using a single scalar parameter. Together with careful consideration of the development of algorithms which encode probability measure equivalences as the hierarchical parameter is varied, this leads to well-defined Gibbs-based MCMC methods found by alternating Metropolis–Hastings updates of the level set function and the hierarchical parameter. These methods demonstrably outperform non-hierarchical Bayesian level set methods.     

Constraints and the Measurement of Freedom of Choice

This paper introduces considerations about constraints in the construction of measures of an agent's freedom. It starts with motivating the exercise from both the philosophical and the informational point of view. Then it presents two rankings of opportunity sets based on information about the extent of options and the constraints that a decision maker faces. The first ranking measures freedom as variety of choice; the second as non-restrictedness in choice.     

Italian corporate foundations and the challenge of multiple stakeholder interests

This article investigates corporate foundations, a specific expression of corporate philanthropy that is narrowly considered in the literature. We aim to verify whether the interests of the founder firm are significant antecedents of the model, activities, and issues addressed by the related foundation. Data were collected through a survey of seventy Italian corporate foundations, representing 59.8 percent of the total number of such foundations based in Italy. The analysis identified three clusters of corporate foundations—granter, expert, and edifier. Research demonstrates that through these clusters, the interests pursued by founder firms have a significant influence on integration between firms and corporate foundations and on the foundations' activities.     

Problem and Pathological Gambling in a Sample of Casino Patrons

Relatively few studies have examined gambling problems among individuals in a casino setting. The current study sought to examine the prevalence of gambling problems among a sample of casino patrons and examine alcohol and tobacco use, health status, and quality of life by gambling problem status. To these ends, 176 casino patrons were recruited by going to a Southern California casino and requesting that they complete an anonymous survey. Results indicated the following lifetime rates for at-risk, problem, and pathological gambling: 29.2, 10.7, and 29.8%. Differences were found with regards to gambling behavior, and results indicated higher rates of smoking among individuals with gambling problems, but not higher rates of alcohol use. Self-rated quality of life was lower among pathological gamblers relative to non-problem gamblers, but did not differ from at-risk or problem gamblers. Although subject to some limitations, our data support the notion of higher frequency of gambling problems among casino patrons and may suggest the need for increased interventions for gambling problems on-site at casinos.     

Luck or cheating? A field experiment on honesty with children

We run an experiment to study the relationship between honesty, age and self-control. We focus on children aged between 5 and 15 as the literature suggests that self-control develops within such age range. We ask each child to toss a fair coin in private and to record the outcome (white or black) on a paper sheet. We only reward children who report white. Although we are unable to tell whether each child was honest or not, we speculate about the proportion of reported white outcomes. Children report the prize-winning outcome at rates statistically above 50% but below 100%. Moreover, the probability of cheating is uniform across groups based on child’s characteristics, in particular age. In a second treatment we explicitly tell children not to cheat. This request has a dampening effect on their tendency to over-report the prize-winning outcome, especially in girls. Furthermore, while this effect in boys is constant with age, in girls it tends to decrease with age.     

The Gini concentration test for survival data

We apply the well known Gini index to the measurement of concentration in survival times within groups of patients, and as a way to compare the distribution of survival times across groups of patients in clinical studies. In particular, we propose an estimator of a restricted version of the index from right censored data. We derive the asymptotic distribution of the resulting Gini statistic, and construct an estimator for its asymptotic variance. We use these results to propose a novel test for differences in the heterogeneity of survival distributions, which may suggest the presence of a differential treatment effect for some groups of patients. We focus in particular on traditional and generalized cure rate models, i.e., mixture models with a distribution of the lifetimes of the cured patients that is either degenerate at infinity or has a density. Results from a simulation study suggest that the Gini index is useful in some situations, and that it should be considered together with existing tests (in particular, the Log-rank, Wilcoxon, and Gray–Tsiatis tests). Use of the test is illustrated on the classic data arising from the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group melanoma clinical trial E1690.     

Let's meet up! The role of relational goods in promoting cooperation

The present paper draws on data collected through a Traveler's Dilemma experiment where the possibility of consuming relational goods is introduced by allowing (or forcing) agents to meet after the experiment. It enriches the literature on social distance by comparing the effect of its reduction when it is a voluntary subject's choice and when it is compulsory.We show that the existing interpretations of the effect of social distance reduction cannot explain the differences in agents’ behavior across our experimental treatments. This allows us to give to the theory of social distance an original interpretation based on the concept of relational goods where the possibility to consume relational goods promotes non-selfish behavior.