Oldest Papers

Increasing adoption of modern marketing techniques by colleges and universities coupled with challenging economics has created significant competition in higher education. Institutions that avail themselves of current research and best practices in regard to brand management will be in the best position to succeed. This paper looks at factors that can help create a successful university brand. The use of a consumer-driven revealed preference ranking metric provides a testable method for location and brand experience attributes. The results provide support for particular attributes of a successful university brand. This analysis extends the understanding of university brands and develops a greater understanding of successful university brand components, particularly within the USA. Implications for future research and suggestions for practitioners are discussed.

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US Food Aid and Civil Conflict

Nathan Nunn, Nancy Qian

American Economic Review·2014·1573 citations

We study the effect of US food aid on conflict in recipient countries. Our analysis exploits time variation in food aid shipments due to changes in US wheat production and cross-sectional variation in a country's tendency to receive any US food aid. According to our estimates, an increase in US food aid increases the incidence and duration of civil conflicts, but has no robust effect on interstate conflicts or the onset of civil conflicts. We also provide suggestive evidence that the effects are most pronounced in countries with a recent history of civil conflict. (JEL D74, F35, O17, O19, Q11, Q18)

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Mike Rose: New Edition of Book Revisits Cognitive Demands of Service Industries - UCLA School of Education & Information Studies

UCLA staff

UCLA School of Education & Information Studies·2014

Let me start close to home. I think I picked up from my folks a dogged determination. My mother was indomitable, worked hard as hell. Writing a book, or writing a dissertation, takes persistence, sometimes in the face of big-time ambiguity and uncertainty. I think it was Virginia Woolf who said that the hardest part of writing is putting the seat of your pants onto the seat of the chair. If I may, let me talk a little bit more about my forebears. My folks had little formal education, but they were terrific storytellers; I grew up hearing tales about the old days and the old country, full of vivid characters, and gestures and sound effects—all that. I think my exposure to those stories influenced my writing. Finally, I was immersed in the lives of immigrant, working-class people, so I absorbed a kind of knowledge—not book-based and not theoretical, but experiential—that I know affects the way I see the world and write about it. Some of the types of work I observed—carpentry, for example—requires planning, thinking things through, and anticipating problems. A lot of the work—from hair styling to plumbing —also requires an attention to detail and being methodical. Waitressing or working in a shop or factory requires managing the flow of work—hugely important if you want to keep from being overwhelmed and exhausting yourself.

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Generative Adversarial Networks

Ian J. Goodfellow, Jean Pouget-Abadie, Mehdi Mirza, Bing Xu, David Warde-Farley, Sherjil Ozair, Aaron Courville, Yoshua Bengio

arXiv·2014

We propose a new framework for estimating generative models via an adversarial process, in which we simultaneously train two models: a generative model G that captures the data distribution, and a discriminative model D that estimates the probability that a sample came from the training data rather than G. The training procedure for G is to maximize the probability of D making a mistake. This framework corresponds to a minimax two-player game. In the space of arbitrary functions G and D, a unique solution exists, with G recovering the training data distribution and D equal to 1/2 everywhere. In the case where G and D are defined by multilayer perceptrons, the entire system can be trained with backpropagation. There is no need for any Markov chains or unrolled approximate inference networks during either training or generation of samples. Experiments demonstrate the potential of the framework through qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the generated samples.

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Academic urban legends

Ole Bjørn Rekdal

Social Studies of Science·2014·58 citations

Many of the messages presented in respectable scientific publications are, in fact, based on various forms of rumors. Some of these rumors appear so frequently, and in such complex, colorful, and entertaining ways that we can think of them as academic urban legends. The explanation for this phenomenon is usually that authors have lazily, sloppily, or fraudulently employed sources, and peer reviewers and editors have not discovered these weaknesses in the manuscripts during evaluation. To illustrate this phenomenon, I draw upon a remarkable case in which a decimal point error appears to have misled millions into believing that spinach is a good nutritional source of iron. Through this example, I demonstrate how an academic urban legend can be conceived and born, and can continue to grow and reproduce within academia and beyond.

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The Medicalization of Love

BRIAN D. EARP, ANDERS SANDBERG, JULIAN SAVULESCU

Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics·2014·41 citations

Abstract:Pharmaceuticals or other emerging technologies could be used to enhance (or diminish) feelings of lust, attraction, and attachment in adult romantic partnerships. Although such interventions could conceivably be used to promote individual (and couple) well-being, their widespread development and/or adoption might lead to the ‘medicalization’ of human love and heartache—for some, a source of a serious concern. In this essay, we argue that the medicalization of love need not necessarily be problematic, on balance, but could plausibly be expected to have either good or bad consequences depending upon how it unfolds. By anticipating some of the specific ways in which these technologies could yield unwanted outcomes, bioethicists and others can help to direct the course of love’s medicalization—should it happen to occur—more toward the ‘good’ side than the ‘bad.’

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Desorption of oxygen from alloyed Ag/Pt(111)

Maciej Jankowski, Herbert Wormeester, Harold J. W. Zandvliet, Bene Poelsema

The Journal of Chemical Physics·2014·6 citations

We have investigated the interaction of oxygen with the Ag/Pt(111) surface alloy by thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS). The surface alloy was formed during the deposition of sub-monolayer amounts of silver on Pt(111) at 800 K and subsequent cooling to 300 K. The low-temperature phase of the surface alloy is composed of nanometer-sized silver rich stripes, embedded within platinum-rich domains, which were characterized with spot profile analysis low energy electron diffraction. The TDS measurements show that oxygen adsorption is blocked on Ag sites: the saturation coverage of oxygen decreases with increasing Ag coverage. Also, the activation energy for desorption (Edes) decreases with Ag coverage. The analysis of the desorption spectra from clean Pt(111) shows a linear decay of Edes with oxygen coverage, which indicates repulsive interactions between the adsorbed oxygen atoms. In contrast, adsorption on alloyed Ag/Pt(111) leads to an attractive interaction between adsorbed oxygen atoms.

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The Racialization of Muslims: Empirical Studies of Islamophobia

Steve Garner, Saher Selod

Critical Sociology·2014·294 citations

Racialization is a concept that is theoretically underdeveloped. Although there has been an increased interest in Islamophobia since 9/11, it is very rarely discussed as racial in its nature. In this special issue on Islamophobia and the Racialization of Muslims scholars connect racism to Islamophobia. This issue situates racialization as a way to explain and understand Islamophobia, as racism towards a Muslim population. Through empirical studies, this issue uncovers the processes of racialization of Muslims and the rise of Islamophobia in both Europe and the USA. Case studies include the experiences of middle-class US Muslims; of white British converts to Islam; of young working-class British-Pakistani men; policing practices in Ireland; and the construction of Muslim identities through online comments about a reality television show. As well as identifying some issues specific to the nation, each case study also reveals the intersection of the racialization process with class and gender experiences.

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Informational balance: slow principles in the theory and practice of information behaviour

Liz Poirier, Lyn Robinson

Journal of Documentation·2014·27 citations

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the principles of the Slow Movement may be applied to information behaviour.Design/methodology/approach– The study uses three methods: a literature analysis and synthesis; a Delphi study; and a focus group. All are carried out in accordance with Slow principles, to assess the value of Slow in the conduct of the research itself.Findings– Slow principles are applicable to both the theory and practice of information behaviour. They allow theory to be more realistic by encompassing a broader range of behaviours than those included in most established models of information behaviour and information literacy, particularly behaviours relating to temporal and experiential factors. The use of Slow principles in information practice may help to overcome problems relating to personal information management. The notion of “informational balance” stems from Slow ideas and is a useful concept for theory and practice.Research limitations/implications– The empirical parts of the study use small groups of participants, and the emphasis of the focus group in particular was on everyday information, rather than on professional or academic information. The results of the study show that research and theory in information behaviour would benefit form more explicit attention to time factors.Practical implications– The findings may be used in the design of information literacy instruction, and in encouraging a more reflective approach to personal information management.Originality/value– This is the first study to examine the applicability of Slow principles in an information context. It is also original in explicitly applying Slow principles to the research design.

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Oldest Papers

Microbiological effects of sublethal levels of antibiotics

Odor Valence Linearly Modulates Attractiveness, but Not Age Assessment, of Invariant Facial Features in a Memory-Based Rating Task

Attributes of successful university brands in the USA

US Food Aid and Civil Conflict

Mike Rose: New Edition of Book Revisits Cognitive Demands of Service Industries - UCLA School of Education & Information Studies

Generative Adversarial Networks

Academic urban legends

The Medicalization of Love

Desorption of oxygen from alloyed Ag/Pt(111)

Crying While Reading Through the Centuries | The New Yorker

The Racialization of Muslims: Empirical Studies of Islamophobia

Informational balance: slow principles in the theory and practice of information behaviour