Social Embodiment of Technical Devices: Eyeglasses Over the Centuries and According to their Uses

This article is an attempt to prepare the ground for the analysis and theorization of the connection between the body and technical devices emerging from miniaturized wearable technologies. The research object is a secular and common “body object,” namely, eyeglasses. The article reviews the social history of this artifact and analyzes its patterns of use, showing how the distributed sociotechnical networks of action containing these simple optical systems are constantly deconfigured and reconfigured. In other words, the device is not simply subject to physical incorporation. The unstable balance between the artifact's projection onto the surrounding space and its attachment to the physical body is analyzed through the heterogeneousness of bodies coming into play as the device is socially embodied. As the corporal frame and physical, distributed, and social bodies overlap, the notion of “bodies object” emerges. This covers the artifact-related and social environment, the plural nature of which could be of great value to research and development teams, helping them to diversify their representations of the user, as an agent acting in a variety of networks with a variety of bodies.     

The segregative properties of endogenous formation of jurisdictions with a welfarist central government

This paper examines the segregative properties of Tiebout-type process of jurisdiction formation by freely mobile households in the presence of a central government which makes equalization transfers across jurisdictions so as to maximize a generalized utilitarian or a max–min objective. It is shown that the introduction of such a central government significantly affects the set of stable jurisdiction structures. It is also shown that the class of households additively separable preferences that guarantees the wealth segregation of any stable jurisdiction structure is unaffected by the presence of a central government if this government uses a generalized utilitarian objective.     

Intergenerational reliance on social assistance: Evidence from Canada

This paper provides the first analysis of the intergenerational transmission of participation in a Canadian social assistance program. Two sources of intergenerational transmission are taken into account: one that is due to a possible causal link between parents' and children's participation, and one that is due to a correlation between individual and environment specific characteristics across generations. The basic data come from the Québec government's administrative records and cover 17,203 young people who were 18 years old in 1990 and whose parents were recipients of social assistance during at least one month between 1979 and 1990. The results reveal that, on average, a one-percentage unit increase in parental participation during the youth's pre-adult years (age 7–17) raises the youth's participation rate by 0.29 percentage unit during early adulthood (age 18–21). This impact is stronger during the early stages of childhood (age 7–9) and during late adolescence (age 16–17).     

礼仪的交织——以抄本清初中国天主教葬礼仪式指南为例

对明末清初中西文化交流的研究,主要集中于思想与科学交流,而较少关注礼仪.但是,礼仪是中国文化很重要的一个特色.作者以清初的丧葬礼仪为例,从社会学及人类学的角度分析中国儒家与欧洲天主教礼仪的互动与交织.在17世纪中期,中国天主教葬礼已经变得较为巩固,然而传教十和中国信徒仍然在为葬礼的具体形式寻求共识.文献显示,广州事件过后,传教士和中国信徒移植天主教礼仪的方法发生了变化,由原来的简单调整,改为进行一系列的重组,因为中国的文化传统是如此之强势.     

Eliciting vague but proper maximal entropy priors in Bayesian experiments

Priors elicited according to maximal entropy rules have been used for years in objective and subjective Bayesian analysis. However, when the prior knowledge remains fuzzy or dubious, they often suffer from impropriety which can make them uncomfortable to use. In this article we suggest the formal elicitation of an encompassing family for the standard maximal entropy (ME) priors and the maximal data information (MDI) priors, which can lead to obtain proper families. An interpretation is given in the objective framework of channel coding. In a subjective framework, the performance of the method is shown in a reliability context when flat but proper priors are elicited for the Weibull lifetime distributions. Such priors appear as practical tools for sensitivity studies.     

COLLABORATE OR CONSOLIDATE: ASSESSING THE COMPETITIVE EFFECTS OF PRODUCTION JOINT VENTURES

We analyze collaborations in which two firms facing external competition reorganize to form an input joint venture as an alternative to horizontal merger. Under standard regularity conditions, the collaboration can lead to higher profits than a horizontal merger, though the effect on prices, quantities, and welfare depends on the form of downstream competition. In light of our results regarding profits, we provide reasons why firms might still wish to merge: imperfect information, cost synergies, and organizational asymmetries. We further consider how our comparisons change with the managerial structure of the joint venture (i.e., by delegation of input pricing). (JEL L13, L23, L42)     

Applications of Bayesian analysis to proof‐of‐concept trial planning and decision making

Decision making is a critical component of a new drug development process. Based on results from an early clinical trial such as a proof of concept trial, the sponsor can decide whether to continue, stop, or defer the development of the drug. To simplify and harmonize the decision‐making process, decision criteria have been proposed in the literature. One of them is to exam the location of a confidence bar relative to the target value and lower reference value of the treatment effect. In this research, we modify an existing approach by moving some of the “stop” decision to “consider” decision so that the chance of directly terminating the development of a potentially valuable drug can be reduced. As Bayesian analysis has certain flexibilities and can borrow historical information through an inferential prior, we apply the Bayesian analysis to the trial planning and decision making. Via a design prior, we can also calculate the probabilities of various decision outcomes in relationship with the sample size and the other parameters to help the study design. An example and a series of computations are used to illustrate the applications, assess the operating characteristics, and compare the performances of different approaches.     

Risk aversion and the value of diagnostic tests

Theory and Decision - Diagnostic tests allow better informed medical decisions when there is uncertainty about a patient’s health status and, therefore, about the desirability to undertake...     

L'intensification du travail en débat. Ethnographie et histoire aux chaînes de Peugeot-Sochaux

With the use of ethnography and history, this study of work in the Peugeot-Sochaux automobile factory in the last half of the 20th century makes us stand back from a unifying, generalized view of the intensification of labor. For one thing, variations in work rules and the diversity of related problems bring to light the tensions underlying the issue of workloads. For another, detecting when workloads are actually heavier and more stressful calls for taking into account a variety of periods and tendencies while studying working conditions. This study conducted in workshops in the Sochaux plant leads us away from a quantitative, abstract view of the intensification of work. We are thus led to examine the concrete changes that affect employment conditions and the technical aspects of work over a longer term. Far from losing sense, the idea of an intensification of work processes becomes richer and more relevant for analyzing the world of work.     

Risk aversion and equilibrium selection in a vertical contracting setting: an experiment

Theory and Decision - The theoretical literature on vertical relationships usually assumes that beliefs about secret contracts take specific forms. In a recent paper, Eguia et al. (Games Econ Behav...