Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Political Opportunism, Position Taking, And Court-Curbing Legislation., Laura Moyer, Ellen M. Key

Laura Moyer

Although there is extensive scholarship on court-curbing efforts directed at the U.S. Supreme Court, much less is known about bills targeting the lower federal courts. This article argues that members of Congress also engage in position taking with respect to the U.S. Courts of Appeals, by proposing legislation to divide up the Ninth Circuit. Over seven decades, no other circuit has attracted as much court-curbing legislation as the Ninth Circuit, and yet no bill has succeeded. What accounts for this persistent focus on one court? We argue that bill sponsors are motivated primarily by electoral considerations and capitalize on the …

Equity In Transportation Planning: An Analysis Of The Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization, Marcos Luna

Marcos Luna

This article presents an analysis of representational equity within the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). MPOs are regional transportation organizations that exert significant influence over state transportation planning and the allocation of funding. The analysis shows that under almost any voting or membership configuration, population representation is correlated with racial and ethnic composition. This outcome is not just a function of the system of representation but also the geography of residential segregation. The results of this analysis highlight the problem of creating systems of equitable representation within the context of preexisting and persistent social inequalities.

Do The Right Thing: The Impact Of Ingo Legitimacy Standards On Stakeholder Input, Christopher Pallas, David Gethings, Max Harris

Christopher L. Pallas

Confronting Language, Representation, And Belief: A Limited Defense Of Mental Continuity, Kristin Andrews, Ljiljana Radenovic

Kristin Andrews, PhD

According to the mental continuity claim (MCC), human mental faculties are physical and beneficial to human survival, so they must have evolved gradually from ancestral forms and we should expect to see their precursors across species. Materialism of mind coupled with Darwin’s evolutionary theory leads directly to such claims and even today arguments for animal mental properties are often presented with the MCC as a premise. However, the MCC has been often challenged among contemporary scholars. It is usually argued that only humans use language and that language as such has no precursors in the animal kingdom. Moreover, language is …

Depth Image Super-Resolution Using Multi-Dictionary Sparse Representation, Haoheng Zheng, Abdesselam Bouzerdoum, Son Lam Phung

Haoheng Zheng

In this paper, we propose a new depth super-resolution technique based on multiple dictionary learning. A novel dictionary selection method using basis pursuit is proposed to generate multiple dictionaries adaptively. A sparse representation of each low-resolution input patch is derived based on the learned dictionaries, and then used to reconstruct the corresponding high-resolution patch. Experimental results are presented which show that the proposed multi-dictionary scheme outperforms existing depth super-resolution methods.

Minority Report: Evaluating Political Equality In America, Brian Newman, John Griffin

Brian Newman

Are the views of Latinos and African Americans underrepresented in our federal government? For that matter, what does it mean to be represented equitably? Rather than taking for granted a single answer to these complex questions, John Griffin and Brian Newman use different measures of political equality to reveal which groups get what they want from government and what factors lead to their successes. One of the first books to compare the representation of both African Americans and Latinos to that of whites, Minority Report shows that congressional decisions and federal policy tend to mirror the preferences of whites as …

Re-Presenting Urban Aboriginal Identities: Self-Representation In "Children Of The Sun", Colleen Mcgloin, Bronwyn Lumby

Colleen McGloin

Teaching Aboriginal Studies to a diverse student cohort presents challenges in the pursuit of developing a critical pedagogy. In this paper, we present Children of the Sun, a local film made by Indigenous Youth in the Illawarra region south of Sydney, New South Wales. We outline the film's genesis and its utilisation in our praxis. The film is a useful resource in the teaching of urban Aboriginal identity to primarily non-Indigenous students in the discipline of Aboriginal Studies. It contributes to the development of critical thinking, and our own critical practice as educators and offers a starting point to address …

The Interactions Of Ethnic Minorities In Beijing, Reza Hasmath

Reza Hasmath

A Critique Of The Granger Representation Theorem, Edgar J. Wilson

Edgar Wilson

The Granger representation theorem states that if a set of nonstationary variables are cointegrated then they can be characterized as generated by an error correction mechanism. This paper uses the continuous time equivalent representation for two variables to demonstrate the relatively large number of restrictions required to represent a cointegrating relationship as an error correction mechanism. It is shown that the restrictions result from placing too much importance on the long run, which excludes interesting and possibly important short run dynamics. This is surprising because these restrictions are at odds with the a-theoretical vector autoregressive approach, which criticises the ad-hoc …

“The Problem Of Science” In Nietzsche And Heidegger, Babette Babich

Babette Babich

Nietzsche and Heidegger pose important philosophical questions to science and its technological projects. The resultant contributes to what may be called a continental philosophy of science and I argue that only such a rigorously critical approach to the question of science permits a genuinely philosophical reflection on science. The resultant contributes to what may be called a continental philosophy of science and I argue that only such a rigorously critical approach to the question of science permits a genuinely philosophical reflection on science. More than a thoughtful reflection on science, however, the heart of philosophy is also at stake in …

This Little Piggy Went To Press: The American News Media's Construction Of Animals In Agriculture, Carrie Packwood Freeman

Carrie P. Freeman

This textual analysis examines the representations of farmed animals in national print and broadcast news discourse in over 100 stories published from 2000-2003. Findings show these American news media largely support the speciesist status quo by favoring elite viewpoints and failing to provide balance. Although exceptions are provided, news media often objectify nonhuman animals discursively through: 1) commodification, 2) failure to acknowledge their emotional perspectives, and 3) failure to describe them as inherently-valuable individuals.

The Electoral Consequences Of Party Loyalty In Congress, Jamie Carson

Gregory Koger

No abstract provided.

The Electoral Consequences Of Party Loyalty In Congress, Jamie Carson, Gregory Koger, Matthew J. Lebo, Everett Young

Gregory Koger

To what extent is party loyalty a liability for incumbent legislators? Past research on legislative voting and elections suggests that voters punish members who are ideologically “out of step” with their districts. In seeking to move beyond the emphasis in the literature on the effects of ideological extremity on legislative vote share, we examine how partisan loyalty can adversely affect legislators' electoral fortunes. Specifically, we estimate the effects of each legislator's party unity—the tendency of a member to vote with his or her party on salient issues that divide the two major parties—on vote margin when running for reelection. Our …

Playing With Landscape: Social Process And Spatial Form In Video Games, Michael Longan

Michael W Longan

Video games not only incorporate representations of landscapes, they are themselves a form of landscape representation that communicates ideas about how the world is and how it should be. Like traditional forms of landscape representation, video games use tricks of perspective and realistic graphics to represent real world places or to create worlds that appear to be real. Through their interactivity, video games also give their players a sense of power and control over the spatial form of the landscape. However, unlike traditional forms of landscape representation, video games offer opportunities to subjectively enter the space of the game and …

Reason, Representation, And Participation, Cillian Mcbride

Cillian McBride

No abstract provided.

Aporias Of Identity: Bicommunalism, Hybridity And The 'Cyprus Problem', Costas M. Constantinou

Costas M. Constantinou

Melville’S Economy Of Language, Paul Royster

Paul Royster

This essay discusses two works by American writer Herman Melville: Moby-Dick (1851) and Pierre (1852), with emphasis on the uses of economic metaphors and on the issues of labor and alienation in the production of whale oil and of literature. Its argument is that Melville considered the mythology of American capitalism positively in the earlier work, and negatively in the later one. Moby-Dick explores the economic relations of the (capitalist) production of whale oil and converts them to metaphors for metaphysical truths. Pierre explores the economic relations involved in the production of literature and exposes the extent to which a …

Are Voters Better Represented?, Brian Newman, John D. Griffin

Brian Newman

Studies of political participation and representation often contend that elected officials respond more to the preferences of voters than those of nonvoters, but seldom test this claim. This is a critical assumption because if true, biases in who participates will lead to biased representation. Office holders might respond disproportionately to voters’ preferences because voters tend to select like-minded representatives, voters tend to communicate their preferences more, and only voters can reelect representatives. We find that voter preferences predict the aggregate roll-call behavior of Senators while nonvoter preferences do not. We also present evidence supporting the three explanations advanced to account …

Deliberative Democracy And The Politics Of Recognition, Cillian Mcbride

Cillian McBride

No abstract provided.

"The U.S. Congress In 2001 - Representation And Structure," At Nuffield College (Oxford University), David R. Mayhew

David Mayhew

No abstract provided.

Representing American Speech, Barbara Johnstone

Barbara Johnstone

No abstract provided.

Danger In The Safety Zone: Notes On Race, Resentment, And The Discourse Of Crime, Violence, And Suburban Security, Cameron Mccarthy, A. Rodriguez, E. Buendia, S. Meacham, S. David, Heriberto Godina Phd, K. E. Supriya, C. Wilson-Brown

Heriberto Godina PhD

No abstract provided.

"Congress As A Representational And Policymaking Institution," At U.S. Civil Service Commission, David R. Mayhew

David Mayhew

No abstract provided.

1970s Courses At Yale, David R. Mayhew

David Mayhew