An analysis of other countries’ international public relations in the U.S.

The purpose of this study was to examine the various aspects of international public relations by other countries in the U.S. Based on the Foreign Agency Registration Act (FARA) report in 2002, this study analyzed client, activity types, purpose of activity, and key U.S. partners for activity. This study found that (1) business organizations and central governments were major clients of international public relations in the U.S., (2) meeting with governmental officials and congressional leaders was the primary type of activity followed by information dissemination, and (3) economic purpose led by trade promotion was the primary motive for these activities.     

An improved alternative estimation procedure for current population mean in presence of positively and negatively correlated auxiliary variables in two-occasion rotation patterns

Abstract

The present study confirms the influential role of a positively and a negatively correlated auxiliary variables in enhancing the precision of estimates of current population mean in two occasion rotation (successive) sampling. Exponential-type estimators of current population mean have been proposed for three different situations: (i) the information on a positively correlated auxiliary variable is readily available on both occasions (ii) the information on a negatively correlated auxiliary variable is readily available on both occasions and (iii) the information on both positively and negatively correlated auxiliary variables are readily available on both the occasions. The characteristics of the proposed estimators have been explored and their efficacious performances are compared with the natural and recent contemporary estimators. Optimum replacement strategies of the proposed estimation procedures have been formulated. Simulation and empirical studies are carried out to justify the proposition of the proposed estimators and appropriate recommendations have been put forward to the survey practitioners.     

DOES WHOM YOU KNOW MATTER? UNRAVELING THE INFLUENCE OF PEERS' NETWORK ATTRIBUTES ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

This paper examines how students' network size, distance, prestige, and connections to influential individuals impact academic performance. Larger and closer networks facilitate information exchange, but may also increase distractions that decrease productivity. We resolve this ambiguity using administrative data from a business school that features random assignment of students to multiple overlapping sets of peers, allowing us to calculate degree, closeness, eigenvector, and Katz‐Bonacich centrality for each node. We find that increasing closeness centrality within the network negatively affects student performance measured by grade point average, suggesting that synergy reduction and information processing costs outweigh benefits from greater information access. (JEL I23, L14, L23)     

Does It Matter How We Assess Standard of Living? Evidence from Indian Slums Comparing Monetary and Multidimensional Approaches

As part of Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations have set targets of upgrading slums and reducing poverty in all its dimensions by 2030. Policies towards improving the living conditions of slum-dwellers require proper assessment of their standard of living as well as understanding the associated characteristics. In this paper, using slum-level primary household survey data from three largest Indian cities, we, first, assess the standard of living of slum dwellers using both monetary and non-monetary approaches and then explore how various household and spatial characteristics are consistently or differently associated with both forms of assessments. We use standard monetary indicators, but to assess non-monetary standard of living, use a counting approach framework and justify the selection of specific indicators in the context of slums. Our analysis yields some interesting observations as some characteristics are differently associated with monetary and non-monetary living standards, which should affect policy designs in slums.     

The ‘digital glimpse’ as imagining home

This paper proposes the concept of the ‘digital glimpse’, which develops the existing framing of imaginative travel. Here it articulates the experiences of mobile workers digitally connecting into family life and everyday rituals when physically absent with work. The recent embedding of digital communication technologies into personal relationships and family life is reconfiguring how absence is experienced and practiced by workers on the move, and through this, new digital paradigms for life on-the-move are emerging. This paper explores how such social relationships are maintained at-a-distance through digital technology – using evidence from qualitative interviews with mobile workers and their families. Digital technology now enables expressive forms of ‘virtual travel’, including video calling, picture sharing, and instant messaging. This has implications for the ways in which families can manage the social and relational pressures of being apart. Experiences of imaginative travel created through novel media can enrich the experience and give a greater sense of connection for both those who are at home and those who are away. While technology is limited in its ability to replicate a sense of co-presence, ‘digital glimpses’ are an emergent set of sociotechnical practices that can reduce the negative impact of absence on family relationships.     

International public relations as a predictor of prominence of US news coverage

This study aims to test the public relations efforts of other countries as a predictor of their newsworthiness in the US news media, after controlling for national traits and social significance. Based on a content analysis of US newspaper and television news coverage (New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN) of 97 countries, this study found that the public relations of other countries’ governments is a significant predictor of these countries’ prominence in the US news coverage.     

Racism and Xenophobia

Racism is perhaps the most serious basic problem affecting the welfare of people referred to as migrants or black people in Europe today. Racism is not just about personal racial prejudice but also about institutional processes, ways of thinking and ways of doing things that are deeply ingrained in European culture, including health care—especially mental health care. The prevention of racism in a health service requires a clear statement of intent in a race equality policy that generates monitoring systems, action plans and forward planning. Combating racism must go hand‐in‐hand with the promotion of cultural sensitivity in health care; equal opportunities in access to a service must be balanced by strict control of institutional racism in the quality of the service and employment practices.     

Relations for reliability measures of weighted distributions

Relibility measures of weighted distribution of alifeistribution have been derived Sufficientconditions on the weight function have been obtained for the weighted distribution of an IFR distribution to be IFR. Length-biased and equilibrium distributions have been discussed as weighted distributions in the reliability context.     

Bayes estimators of the average failure rates

In the present paper we have proposed a Bayesian approach for making inferences from accelerated life tests which do not require distributional assumptions