Toward Probabilistic Prediction of Flash Flood Human Impacts

This article focuses on conceptual and methodological developments allowing the integration of physical and social dynamics leading to model forecasts of circumstance‐specific human losses during a flash flood. To reach this objective, a random forest classifier is applied to assess the likelihood of fatality occurrence for a given circumstance as a function of representative indicators. Here, vehicle‐related circumstance is chosen as the literature indicates that most fatalities from flash flooding fall in this category. A database of flash flood events, with and without human losses from 2001 to 2011 in the United States, is supplemented with other variables describing the storm event, the spatial distribution of the sensitive characteristics of the exposed population, and built environment at the county level. The catastrophic flash floods of May 2015 in the states of Texas and Oklahoma are used as a case study to map the dynamics of the estimated probabilistic human risk on a daily scale. The results indicate the importance of time‐ and space‐dependent human vulnerability and risk assessment for short‐fuse flood events. The need for more systematic human impact data collection is also highlighted to advance impact‐based predictive models for flash flood casualties using machine‐learning approaches in the future.     

Making the Randomized Response Technique Work

The ability of the randomized response technique to obtain sensitiveinformation on surveys was compared to two other methods involvingself-administered questionnaires. Using a national probabilitysample, and extending upon a number of developmental changeswhich have evolved over the years, the randomized response techniqueproved to be decidedly superior to the other methods.     

Robust signed-rank estimation and variable selection for semi-parametric additive partial linear models

A fully nonparametric model may not perform well or when the researcher wants to use a parametric model but the functional form with respect to a subset of the regressors or the density of the errors is not known. This becomes even more challenging when the data contain gross outliers or unusual observations. However, in practice the true covariates are not known in advance, nor is the smoothness of the functional form. A robust model selection approach through which we can choose the relevant covariates components and estimate the smoothing function may represent an appealing tool to the solution. A weighted signed-rank estimation and variable selection under the adaptive lasso for semi-parametric partial additive models is considered in this paper. B-spline is used to estimate the unknown additive nonparametric function. It is shown that despite using B-spline to estimate the unknown additive nonparametric function, the proposed estimator has an oracle property. The robustness of the weighted signed-rank approach for data with heavy-tail, contaminated errors, and data containing high-leverage points are validated via finite sample simulations. A practical application to an economic study is provided using an updated Canadian household gasoline consumption data.     

Asset or Liability: Transnational Links and Political Participation of Foreign‐Born Citizens in Taiwan

Viewed as outsiders clinging onto links with their country of origin, immigrants do not often feature positively in electoral politics in their host society. Challenging this conventional view, this article examines how immigrants make use of their transnational ties to foster their political participation in the host state. This exploration is conducted through our study of the political participation of Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants in Taiwan. Our research finds that transnational ties are politicized by the mainstream political parties. However, such politicization does not necessarily restrict immigrants’ agency and their sociopolitical space for political participation. Their transnational ties constitute a dynamic sociopolitical field in which these maintained connections are acted upon and give rise to a variety of strategies for responding to issues affecting their interests.     

Psychological Vulnerability and Problem Gambling: The Mediational Role of Cognitive Distortions

Despite numerous studies demonstrating the influence of cognitive distortions on gambling problem severity, empirical data regarding the role of psychological vulnerability on the latter is limited. Hence, this study assesses the mediating effect of cognitive distortions between psychological vulnerability (personality and mood), and gambling problem severity. It also verifies whether the relationships between these variables differs according to the preferred gambling activity. The sample is composed of 272 male gamblers [191 poker players; 81 video lottery terminal (VLT) players] aged between 18 and 82 years (M = 35.2). Bootstrap analysis results revealed that cognitive distortions mediate the effect of narcissism on gambling problem severity for both groups. The level of depression for VLT players significantly predicted gambling problem severity, both directly and indirectly via the mediating effect of cognitive distortions. Mediation analyses also indicated that narcissism had an indirect impact on problem gambling through cognitive distortions for both groups. These findings suggest that certain vulnerabilities related to personality and mood may influence cognitive distortion intensity and gambling problem severity. In addition, psychological vulnerabilities could differ based on preferred gambling activity. These results may be useful for prevention policies, identifying high risk gamblers and planning psychological interventions.     

Just another brick in the wall? The relationship between classroom-based political education and the political interest of young adults in Switzerland

This article asks whether political education at upper secondary school – i.e. shortly before or at the age when young people receive the right to vote – affects individual political interest as well as differences in political interest between social groups. Empirically, we use a novel data set combining individual student data with information on classroom-based political education as well as teacher characteristics. We do not find support for a more or less automatic and positive effect of classroom-based political education on young people’s political interest. Whereas we analyzed three dimensions of political education (knowledge, skills, arousing interest in politics), the skills dimension was the only one that exhibited a consistent positive (and mostly significant) relationship with young peoples’ political interest. Moreover, classroom-based political education seems not to compensate for a lack of political socialization at home but rather tends to affect students with politically interested parents most strongly.     

Awareness Promotion About Excessive Gambling Among Video Lottery Retailers

This paper describes and evaluates “As luck would have it,” an awareness program completed by retailers in Quebec Province. This program, which is presented as a two-hour awareness promotion workshop, aimed to inform retailers about excessive gambling. More specifically, it provided answers to the following questions: (1) What is chance and randomness? (2) Is there a link between misunderstanding the concept of chance and excessive gambling? (3) How does one recognise the symptoms of this disorder? (4) How should retailers intervene if they decide to do so? Results showed that retailers developed a better understanding of problem gambling, could recognise its main symptoms, felt more capable of coping with excessive gamblers, and of choosing the most appropriate moment to do so. In the follow-up phase, retailers who had attended the workshop reported that they approached a problem gambler significantly more often than the retailers who had not attended the workshop, and had discussed how to help problem gamblers significantly more often. The practical implications of these results are briefly discussed.     

Globalization and Political Change in the Women's Movement: The Politics of Scale and Political Empowerment in the World March of Women*

Objective. The objective of the article is to show that in order to understand the ongoing transnational mobilizations of the European wing of the World March of Women (WMW) between 2000 and 2006 we also need to consider the politics of scale of the transnational social movements' mobilizations. The WMW is a transnational collective action that integrates women from grassroots organizations, labor unions, and leftist political parties in over 150 countries (approximately 6,000 groups) into a process of transnationalization of solidarities. Method. The method is based on the analysis of internal documents of the international and European wings of the movement, interviews with key actors and militants, and direct observations over the years 1998–2005. Results. The results are twofold: we investigate the shift in the politics of scale of the movement, from using the same scale as the political authorities with which they interact to the creation of its own scales of action (first part); we focus on the articulation of different scales of protest, showing how, by constructing networks and coalitions, actions, and demands under the WMW umbrella, grassroots women's groups are becoming empowered and are regaining political power over the definition, dissemination, and resolution of gender issues (second part). Conclusion. The conclusion is that this specific process of empowerment helps to explain why feminist activists pursue transnationalization actions despite all the material, ideological, and relational difficulties that accompany such actions.     

Cry Wolf!: Narratives of Wolf Recovery in France and Norway*

Abstract Due to strict protection through the last decades, wolves have returned to many areas from which they have been absent for a long time. This is a conservation success story, but the wolves also cause conflicts wherever they arrive. We have studied the situation in southeastern Norway and in the French Alps, where the conflict patterns are similar. Diverging interpretations of the situation are supported by narratives, and two varieties have become increasingly significant in both countries. Rumors about the secret reintroduction of wolves are common among wolf adversaries. Another narrative, important to the pro‐wolf camp, is based on the notion that particular sheep husbandry practices (unattended rough grazing) are unique to either Norway or France—whereas there are in fact more similarities than differences. Yet, while the reintroduction‐conspiracy rumors are ridiculed, the notion of unique national conflict patterns has achieved a status almost of official truth. Furthermore, the story about natural wolf recovery is itself a value‐laden narrative, and not only “scientific fact.” The different status of these narratives tell us something about power relations: Given their different social basis, it seems relevant to consider the national uniqueness image and the natural recovery theory as tightly interwoven with symbolic power and the reintroduction conspiracy rumors as similarly interwoven with patterns of cultural resistance.     

权近(1352-1409)的人性与天命观:理学在韩国发展的几个特征

权近从心性的角度处理天人关系,认为其非常现实且与生命息息相关.在对心的阐释上与朱子不同,认为心虽由气构成,但更主要的是由来自天的理构成,并且把恶与心分割开来.其天人关系的意义及其重要性主要体现在政治实践当中,提出了体用、圣学等重要思想.他用图解的形式来处理天人关系的方法得到了广泛的使用和继承.