Showing papers by "School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences published in 2017"
TL;DR: In this paper, three different approaches to neoliberalism are identified (as a phase of capitalism, as a discourse and as governmentality): while dialogue may exist between them, they are still disjointed and built on different inquiries.
131 citations
TL;DR: The increasing integration of wearable technologies with the human body raises neural and cognitive challenges and opportunities as discussed by the authors, as well as the opportunities of using wearable technologies to improve the human brain's performance.
Abstract: The increasing integration of wearable technologies with the human body raises neural and cognitive challenges and opportunities.
113 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that Hayek's economic vision and critique of equilibrium theory not only remain relevant, but apply with greater force as information has become ever more central to economic activity and the complexity of the information aggregation process has become increasingly apparent.
Abstract: Friedrich A. Hayek (1899-1992) is known for his vision of the market economy as an information processing system characterized by spontaneous order: the emergence of coherence through the independent actions of large numbers of individuals, each with limited and local knowledge, coordinated by prices that arise from decentralized processes of competition. Hayek is also known for his advocacy of a broad range of free market policies and, indeed, considered the substantially unregulated market system to be superior to competing alternatives precisely because it made the best use of dispersed knowledge. Our purpose in writing this paper is twofold: First, we believe that Hayek's economic vision and critique of equilibrium theory not only remain relevant, but apply with greater force as information has become ever more central to economic activity and the complexity of the information aggregation process has become increasingly apparent. Second, we wish to call into question Hayek's belief that his advocacy of free market policies follows as a matter of logic from his economic vision. The very usefulness of prices (and other economic variables) as informative messages—which is the centerpiece of Hayek's economics—creates incentives to extract information from signals in ways that can be destabilizing. Markets can promote prosperity but can also generate crises. We will argue, accordingly, that a Hayekian understanding of the economy as an information-processing system does not support the type of policy positions that he favored. Thus, we find considerable lasting value in Hayek's economic analysis while nonetheless questioning the connection of this analysis to his political philosophy.
45 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the impact of the economic crisis and the policy reaction on inequality and relative poverty in four European countries: France, Germany, Ireland and the UK, and found that the first stage of the Great Recession contributed to stabilising or even decreasing inequality and poverty in UK, France and Ireland.
Abstract: In this paper, we examine the impact of the economic crisis and the policy reaction on inequality and relative poverty in four European countries: France, Germany, Ireland and the UK. The period examined, 2008–13, was one of great economic turmoil, yet it is unclear whether changes in inequality and poverty rates over this time period were mainly driven by changes in market income distributions or by tax-benefit policy reforms. We disentangle these effects by producing counterfactual (‘no reform') scenarios using tax-benefit microsimulation and representative household surveys for each country. For the first stage of the Great Recession, we find that the policy reaction contributed to stabilising or even decreasing inequality and relative poverty in the UK, France and, especially, Ireland. Market income changes nonetheless pushed up inequality and relative poverty in France. Relative poverty increased in Germany as a result of policy responses combined with market income changes. Subsequent policy reforms, in the later stage of the crisis, had markedly different cross-country effects, decreasing overall poverty in France, increasing it in Ireland, and giving mixed effects for different subgroups in Germany and the UK.
37 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze the limitations of industrial policies from the late 2000s in Japan and Korea and their limitations in a context of liberalized financial systems, to which government entities in charge of industrial policy have contributed, and identify some significant differences in the initial institutional arrangements and in the process of institutional change.
36 citations
TL;DR: On the sidelines of the application of COP21 decisions that should give back to man his place into the environment, autochthonous people leaders, anthropologists and MDs explain why these three concepts are fundamental and universal health determinants, and need to be included in a new WHO definition of health.
34 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use field studies to test the predictions generated by a theoretical model in analytical sociology and examine the micro-processes at stake in the non-diffusion of techniques: to which extent techniques contributes to a sharp disagreement between groups and promote polarization.
31 citations
TL;DR: The multifaceted nature of the phenomenon of prosthesis integration, which involves its incorporation as a tool, but also various specific subjective aspects, is illustrated.
Abstract: Amputated patients are hardly satisfied with upper limb prostheses, and tend to favour the use of their contralateral arm to partially compensate their disability. This may seem surprising in light of recent evidences that external objects (rubber hand or tool) can easily be embodied, namely incorporated in the body representation. We investigated both implicit body representations (by evaluating the peripersonal space using a reachability judgement task) and the quality of bodily integration of the patient's prosthesis (assessed via questionnaires). As expected, the patients estimated that they could reach further while wearing their prosthesis, showing an embodiment of their prosthesis in their judgement. Yet, the real reaching space was found to be smaller with their prosthesis than with their healthy limb, showing a large error between reachability judgement and actual capacity. An overestimation was also found on the healthy side (comparatively to healthy subjects) suggesting a bilateral modification of body representation in amputated patients. Finally, a correlation was found between the quality of integration of the prosthesis and the way the body representation changed. This study therefore illustrates the multifaceted nature of the phenomenon of prosthesis integration, which involves its incorporation as a tool, but also various specific subjective aspects.
30 citations
TL;DR: The use of touch and speech together by having mothers read their 5-month-olds books about body parts and animals suggests that tactile cues could potentially aid both infant word segmentation and word learning.
Abstract: Both touch and speech independently have been shown to play an important role in infant development. However, little is known about how they may be combined in the input to the child. We examined the use of touch and speech together by having mothers read their 5-month-olds books about body parts and animals. Results suggest that speech+touch multimodal events are characterized by more exaggerated touch and speech cues. Further, our results suggest that maternal touches are aligned with speech and that mothers tend to touch their infants in locations that are congruent with names of body parts. Thus, our results suggest that tactile cues could potentially aid both infant word segmentation and word learning.
28 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare the discourses accompanying Basel II with an in-depth analysis of its technical provisions for credit risk regulation, and show that, if the Basel reform was driven by a neoliberal political agenda, it counterintuitively resulted in a significant development of intrusive disciplinary processes for banks and their credit-management processes.
27 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a new scale called the Child Food Rejection Scale (CFRS) was proposed to assess food rejection in French children aged 2-7 years, which included six items relating to food neophobia and five items related to pickiness.
Abstract: Introduction The two strongest obstacles to extend children's consumption of fruit and vegetables are food neophobia and pickiness, assumed to be the main kinds of food rejection in children. Accordingly, psychometric tools that provide a clear assessment of these kinds of food rejections are greatly needed. Objective To design and validate a new scale for the assessment of food neophobia and pickiness, thus filling a major gap in the psychometric assessment of food rejection by French children. Method We concentrated on French children aged 2–7 years, as no such scale exists for this young population, and on the two known dimensions of food rejection, namely food neophobia and pickiness, as the nature of the relationship between them is still unclear. The scale was tested on two samples (N1 = 168; N2 = 256) of caregivers who responded for their children. Additionally, a food choice task was administered to 17 children to check the scale's predictive validity. Results The resulting scale, called the Child Food Rejection Scale (CFRS), included six items relating to food neophobia and five items relating to pickiness. A factor analysis confirmed the two-dimensional structure of the scale. Internal consistency, test–retest reliability, and convergent and discriminant validity were all satisfactory. Moreover, results from the food choice task showed that scores on the CFRS accurately predicted children's attitudes toward new and familiar foods. Conclusion Taken together, these findings suggest that the CFRS, a short and easy-to-administer scale, represents a valuable tool for studying food rejection tendencies in French children.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: A significant, small effect size for conceptual replications of Saffran, Aslin, & Newport (1996), and a nonsignificant effect across all studies that incorporate transitional probabilities to segment words are revealed.
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TL;DR: This paper contrasts two disorders affecting the control of voluntary action: the anarchic hand syndrome and utilization behavior and discusses how top-down and bottom-up processes involved in the generation of agentive self-awareness would have to be related in order to account for these differences.
Abstract: Summary Two main approaches can be discerned in the literature on agentive self-awareness: a top-down approach, according to which agentive self-awareness is fundamentally holistic in nature and involves the operations of a central-systems narrator, and a bottom-up approach that sees agentive self-awareness as produced by lowlevel processes grounded in the very machinery responsible for motor production and control. Neither approach is entirely satisfactory if taken in isolation; however, the question of whether their combination would yield a full account of agentive self-awareness remains very much open. In this paper, I contrast two disorders affecting the control of voluntary action: the anarchic hand syndrome and utilization behavior. Although in both conditions patients fail to inhibit actions that are elicited by objects in the environment but inappropriate with respect to the wider context, these actions are experienced in radically different ways by the two groups of patients. I discuss how top-down and bottom-up processes involved in the generation of agentive self-awareness would have to be related in order to account for these differences.
TL;DR: In the case of thin layers of calcite that overlie Palaeolithic cave drawings, it is nearly impossible and very dangerous to base archaeological reasoning on U/Th ages of palaeolithic artworks, so long as the dates are not confirmed by an independent method, dating the carbonates in the same samples by 14C being the best means of detecting anomalies.
TL;DR: It is proved that whenever the set of alternatives relative to which exhaustification takes place is semantically closed under conjunction, the two operators are necessarily equivalent.
Abstract: In this paper, I investigate the formal relationships between two types of exhaustivity operators that have been discussed in the literature, one based on minimal worlds/models, noted exh-mw (van Rooij & Schulz 2004, Schulz & van Rooij 2006, Spector 2003, 2006, with roots in Szabolcsi 1983, Groenendijk & Stokhof 1984), and one based on the notion of innocent exclusion, noted exh-ie (Fox 2007). Among others, I prove that whenever the set of alternatives relative to which exhaustification takes place is semantically closed under conjunction, the two operators are necessarily equivalent. Together with other results, this provides a method to simplify, in some cases, the computation associated with exh-ie, and, in particular, to drastically reduce the number of alternatives to be considered.
Besides their practical relevance, these results clarify the formal relationships between both types of operators.
BibTeX info
01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: It is paradoxical that economists wish to consider the economy as a system which can be studied almost independently of the fact that it is embedded in a much larger socio-economic framework as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: It is paradoxical that economists wish to consider the economy as a system which can be studied almost independently of the fact that it is embedded in a much larger socio-economic framework. Our difficulties in analysing and diagnosing economic problems lie, in effect, precisely in the fact that the social system constantly generates feedbacks into the economy and that this is at the root of much of the instability that the overall system exhibits.
TL;DR: Evidence that the use of misoprostol for abortion occurred among women with the most access to information and resources in this study suggests that increased awareness of and use of MISProstol in both countries is likely in the coming years.
24 Jan 2017
TL;DR: In this article, the specific aim of this special issue is to contribute to scholarship engaging with state rescaling theory in non-western societies as well as to on-line comparative research.
Abstract: Engaging with theory and comparative research, the specific aim of this special issue is to contribute to scholarship engaging with state rescaling theory in non-Western societies as well as to on-...
27 Apr 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated whether changes in the communication of the Central Bank of Chile generates a permanent or temporary change in the volatility of interest rates, after controlling for changes in monetary policy instruments.
Abstract: During the past few years, monetary policy communication has become a hot topic in as far as it seems to have become a very relevant way for central banks to guide markets, beyond actual monetary policy decisions. This paper investigates this issue empirically for the case of Chile. More specifically, using data from 2005 to 2014 and a Component GARCH model, we assess whether changes in the communication of the Central Bank of Chile generates in particular a permanent or temporary change in the volatility of interest rates, after controlling for changes in monetary policy instruments. Our results show that the volatility in interest rate futures in Chile’s swap markets increases following the Central Bank’s communication. However, the impact tends to be temporary instead of permanent and only statistically significant in the pre-crisis period. All in all, our results indicate a reduced relevance of Central Bank’s communication for short term swap markets which may reflect that market participants have learned to anticipate changes in monetary policy communication, especially after the global financial crisis.
TL;DR: The authors argue that applying a "decentred" conception of diaspora provides an understanding of the complexity of Palestinian identity-making in Britain, based on ethnographic research among Palestinians in Britain.
Abstract: In this article based on ethnographic research among Palestinians in Britain, I argue that applying a ‘decentred’ conception of diaspora provides an understanding of the complexity of Palestinian identity-making in Britain. After a critical review of theorizations of the notion of diaspora and its relevance to this case study, I discuss ethnographic data to illustrate how processes of rooting and mobility are linked together in various contexts in which personal migration trajectories and positionalities play an important part. I demonstrate that, for Palestinians in Britain, diaspora relates to connections constructed both in relation to their homeland and other frames of reference: in relation to both roots and mobility.
TL;DR: The European Psychiatric Association (EPA) guidance on suicide treatment and prevention needs to be adjusted to autochthonous individuals’ needs.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a synthetic way to define Pierre Bourdieu's sociology as one only focusing on reproductive tendencies and thus being incapable of dealing with the possibility of social change.
Abstract: Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological determinism is a recurrent issue in French as well as in Anglo-Saxon sociology. Accusations of ‘determinism’ are very often coupled with the enunciation of a mechanistic and rigid structuralist vision of society which would result in a ‘reproductivist’ approach of social relations. In such a perspective, social change would be hardly possible. Without ignoring Bourdieu’s particular attention to structural constraints, in this article my intention will be to refute the accusations of social determinism by showing in a synthetic manner why it would be if not completely erroneous, but at least simplistic to define Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology as one only focusing on reproductive tendencies and thus being incapable of dealing with the possibility of social change.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors revisited the optimal population size problem in a continuous time Ramsey setting with costly child rearing and both intergenerational and intertemporal altruism.
Abstract: This paper revisits the optimal population size problem in a continuous time Ramsey setting with costly child rearing and both intergenerational and intertemporal altruism. The social welfare functions considered range from the Millian to the Benthamite. When population growth is endogenized, the associated optimal control problem involves an endogenous effective discount rate depending on past and current population growth rates, which makes preferences intertemporally dependent. We tackle this problem by using an appropriate maximum principle. Then we study the stationary solutions (balanced growth paths) and show the existence of two admissible solutions except in the Millian case. We prove that only one is optimal. Comparative statics and transitional dynamics are numerically derived in the general case.
11 Sep 2017
TL;DR: A neuro-mathematical model for the well-known Poggendorff illusion, where an illusory contour appears as a geodesic in some given metric, induced in the primary visual cortex V1 by a visual stimulus is presented.
Abstract: We present a neuro-mathematical model for the well-known Poggendorff illusion, where an illusory contour appears as a geodesic in some given metric, induced in the primary visual cortex V1 by a visual stimulus. Our model extends the cortical based model by Citti and Sarti of perceptual completion in the roto-translation space \({\text {SE(2)}}\), where the functional architecture and neural connectivity of V1 of mammalians is modelled as principal fiber bundle of \({\text {SE(2)}}\) equipped with a sub-Riemannian (SR) metric. We extend the model by taking into account a presence of a visual stimulus (data adaptivity), which is done by including an appropriate external cost modulating the SR-metric. Perceptual curves appear as geodesics, that we compute via SR-Fast Marching.
TL;DR: A mathematical model of figure-ground articulation that takes into account both local and global gestalt laws and is compatible with the functional architecture of the primary visual cortex V1 is presented in this article.
Abstract: This letter presents a mathematical model of figure-ground articulation that takes into account both local and global gestalt laws and is compatible with the functional architecture of the primary visual cortex V1. The local gestalt law of good continuation is described by means of suitable connectivity kernels that are derived from Lie group theory and quantitatively compared with long-range connectivity in V1. Global gestalt constraints are then introduced in terms of spectral analysis of a connectivity matrix derived from these kernels. This analysis performs grouping of local features and individuates perceptual units with the highest salience. Numerical simulations are performed, and results are obtained by applying the technique to a number of stimuli.
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the data of listed firms in Japan, and explored the impact of institutional change on organisational diversity in terms of gender diversity on boards, focusing on analyzing the institutional pressure which Japan has been recently undergoing: financialisation and incremental regulatory reform.
Abstract: Enhancing gender diversity on boards of directors is an important policy agenda across societies. Despite being the third largest economic power in the world, the proportion of female members on boards of directors in Japan was only 3 per cent in 2016, which is one of the lowest among the OECD countries. This paper examines the data of listed firms in Japan, and explores the impact of institutional change on organisational diversity in terms of gender diversity on boards. In particular, it focuses on analysing the institutional pressure which Japan has been recently undergoing: financialisation and incremental regulatory reform. It is found that firms take institutional change as an incentive to relieve institutional pressure. Whilst increasing foreign investors and new policies encourage independence and gender diversity on boards, Japanese firms relieve both pressures by appointing female directors as outside directors after regulatory reform. Further, it is also found that firms have persistence in maintaining their corporate governance systems even when they are transforming their systems. Firms that implemented a more independent board structure do not necessarily nominate female board members, because the implementation of a more independent system complements board gender diversity.
22 Oct 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze employment terminations in newsrooms in light of the interactions between separating parties and show that political control is perfectly compatible with the liberal management of press companies, which facilitates the use of financial justifications in cases of conflict, and with newsrooms' commitment to social civility, which insures observance of good morals.
Abstract: In the media community and sociopolitical publications, every termination of a journalist’s employment in Russia immediately raises suspicions of a crackdown on the “fourthestate.” In this article we analyze employment terminations in newsrooms in light of the interactions between separating parties. The political disputes that occurred in Russian news media between 2012 and 2014 shed light on the complex forms of pressure and compromise exerted on journalists. We have selected three cases (Gazeta.ru, Kommersant-Vlast’, and Lenta.ru) to illustrate three modalities of regulation of political disputesin the Russian media in the mid-2010s. They show that political control is perfectly compatible with the liberal management of press companies, which facilitates the use of financial justifications in cases of conflict, and with newsrooms’ commitment to social civility, which insures observance of good morals. Despite their differences, the three termination cases show the avoidance of politics in the Russian media in three ways. Neither authoritarian control nor renunciation on the part of journalists explains the exercise of power over the Russian media. It is rather on the side of negotiated arrangements meant to avoid political controversy that we observe the reconfiguration of public space in Russia. DOI: 10.25285/2078–1938–2017–9–2–39–58
TL;DR: In this paper, the orientation preference maps are obtained by mapping the orientation value found from the lifting of a noise stimulus onto the 2-dimensional retinal plane, which corresponds to a Bargmann transform in the reducible representation of the $\text{SE}(2)=\mathbb{R}^2\times S^1$ group.
Abstract: In this paper we present a new model for the generation of orientation preference maps in the primary visual cortex (V1), considering both orientation and scale features. First we undertake to model the functional architecture of V1 by interpreting it as a principal fiber bundle over the 2-dimensional retinal plane by introducing intrinsic variables orientation and scale. The intrinsic variables constitute a fiber on each point of the retinal plane and the set of receptive profiles of simple cells is located on the fiber. Each receptive profile on the fiber is mathematically interpreted as a rotated Gabor function derived from an uncertainty principle. The visual stimulus is lifted in a 4-dimensional space, characterized by coordinate variables, position, orientation and scale, through a linear filtering of the stimulus with Gabor functions. Orientation preference maps are then obtained by mapping the orientation value found from the lifting of a noise stimulus onto the 2-dimensional retinal plane. This corresponds to a Bargmann transform in the reducible representation of the $\text{SE}(2)=\mathbb{R}^2\times S^1$ group. A comparison will be provided with a previous model based on the Bargman transform in the irreducible representation of the $\text{SE}(2)$ group, outlining that the new model is more physiologically motivated. Then we present simulation results related to the construction of the orientation preference map by using Gabor filters with different scales and compare those results to the relevant neurophysiological findings in the literature.
01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: In this article, Benedicte Brac de la Perriere brings a fresh perspective on the semantics of the word thathana (from Pali sāsana), which lies at the basis of Burmese conceptualizations of "religion" as social space, by looking into its use within three contexts: universal, political and ritual.
Abstract: Benedicte Brac de la Perriere brings a fresh perspective on the semantics of the word thathana (from Pali sāsana), which lies at the basis of Burmese conceptualizations of ‘religion’ as social space, by looking into its use within three contexts: universal, political and ritual. The interface of Buddhism as a ‘universalism’ and its localization in Burma is first examined through the convening of councils. Then, both ideas and practices linked to thathana are examined in relation to political and religious configurations set in the colonial period and under the various regimes that have ruled the country since its independence in 1948. The last section deals with Burmese ritual sphere in which those events concerning the Buddha’s teachings are distinguished through their religious character from mere rituals.