The Structure of Municipal Voting in Vancouver

We offer a new interpretation of the structure of municipal electoral competition in Vancouver, focusing on the city’s high-profile municipal election in 2018. Using novel “cast vote records” – a dataset containing each of the 176,450 ballots cast in the city’s municipal election – we use a Bayesian multidimensional scaling procedure to estimate the location of every 2018 candidate and voter in Vancouver in a shared two-dimensional political space. We then match observed votes from the cast vote records to survey responses in the Canadian Municipal Election Study (CMES), a large election survey undertaken in Vancouver in 2018, using 96 CMES variables to interpret our two measured dimensions of electoral competition. We find evidence of a single primary dimension of competition, structured by left-right ideology, along with a secondary dimension dividing establishment from upstart parties of the right. Our paper supplies a new interpretation of Vancouver’s electoral landscape, clarifies our understanding of the role of left-right ideology in municipal electoral competition, and demonstrates the promise of cast vote records for research on municipal elections and voting.

Determinants of Quality of Health Insurance Services in Brazil

This research proposes the application of a hierarchical and multidimensional model for quality measurement in health insurance services. The modelling assumes that perceived health insurance quality is composed of a three-stage hierarchical structure, which includes primary quality dimensions, interaction, environment conditions and outcome and each primary dimension is supported from the following sub-dimensions: Interaction quality (attitude), behaviour and expertise; environment conditions quality (environment conditions), design and social factors; and outcome quality (waiting time, tangibles and valence). For model validation, structural equation system is used. The application through structural equation modelling showed that only the outcome quality is significant to the overall perceived quality with the health insurance, and significant sub-dimensions for the study were social conditions, waiting time and tangible. The application of the modelling provided the estimation of the determinants of quality in the service. The determinants of perceived quality can help managers in the direction of improvement actions in order to increase the quality perceived by the users of health insurance services.

Prosodic categories in speech are acoustically multidimensional: evidence from dimension-based statistical learning

Segmental speech units (e.g. phonemes) are described as multidimensional categories wherein perception involves contributions from multiple acoustic input dimensions, and the relative perceptual weights of these dimensions respond dynamically to context. Can prosodic aspects of speech spanning multiple phonemes, syllables or words be characterized similarly? Here we investigated the relative contribution of two acoustic dimensions to word emphasis. Participants categorized instances of a two-word phrase pronounced with typical covariation of fundamental frequency (F0) and duration, and in the context of an artificial ‘accent’ in which F0 and duration covaried atypically. When categorizing ‘accented’ speech, listeners rapidly down-weighted the secondary dimension (duration) while continuing to rely on the primary dimension (F0). This clarifies two core theoretical questions: 1) prosodic categories are signalled by multiple input acoustic dimensions and 2) perceptual cue weights for prosodic categories dynamically adapt to local regularities of speech input.HighlightsProsodic categories are signalled by multiple acoustic dimensions.The influence of these dimensions flexibly adapts to changes in local speech input.This adaptive plasticity may help tune perception to atypical accented speech.Similar learning models may account for segmental and suprasegmental flexibility.

A Constitutive Model for Yield Strength and Work Hardening Behaviour of Aluminium Alloys during Artificial Ageing

In this study, a unified constitutive model has been developed for both yield strength and work hardening behaviour prediction of aluminium alloys with different types of precipitates during and after artificial ageing. The different type and dimensions of general precipitate shapes (sphere, plate, rod) have been classified and modelled by a primary dimension and aspect ratio, with which a general set of equations has been utilised to model the precipitates evolutions during ageing of various aluminium alloys. In addition, the effects of main microstructures on not only yield strength but also work-hardening behaviour of artificially aged aluminium alloys have been considered and modelled, based on which, a whole set of unified constitutive model considering both micro- and macro-properties for long-term artificial ageing of aluminium alloys has been proposed. Artificial ageing of two representative aluminium alloys (an Al-Mg-Si alloy AA6063 and an Al-Cu-Li alloy AA2198) has been adopted to show the capability and effectiveness of the developed model. The results show that the model can successfully predict the microstructures, yield strength and work hardening behaviour of various aluminium alloys with different precipitate types after long-term artificial ageing process, e.g., from 0 h to 500 h. It is believed that the model can be used for ageing of other aluminium alloys with dominant sphere, plate or rod-shaped precipitates.

Sted og lokalitet i transnasjonale empiriske kontekster

This chapter discusses how transnational fields are understood, defined, and negotiated both by those who participate in them and the researchers who study such fields. Two very different empirical cases are presented. The cases actualize the concept “transnational” in quite distinctive ways, reminding us that transnational is not a given size and that the meaning put into the concept is dependent on the situations one aims to comprehend. The chapter argues for the importance of understanding the processes of production of locality, and how participants work to localize experience, without a-priori assuming that geography is the primary dimension for sense-making. The discussion shows how global connections arise and dissolve through interaction, and that the dimensions relevant for meaning-making are situationally given. Locality is continually produced, both by participants and researchers. The chapter reflects on the implications of how “transnational” is actualized in different ways, due to the mutually constitutive relationship between our questions and the field sites chosen to study them.

Affective Technologies

The ways Amazonian Kichwa (Quichua) women produce, circulate, and engage with other women’s songs demonstrates that both music and radio media are significant methods for linguistic and cultural activism in the province of Napo, Ecuador. Indigenous engagements with aural mediation and media, particularly those of Indigenous women, allow for new insights within both studies of media and cultural revitalization. Media technologies alone may not be enough to return a language to daily use, but they are an important support for language activism and site of soundwork for Indigenous peoples. Focused on the convergence of new radio forms and screen-based technologies, speech has been taken as the primary dimension of soundwork, with noise and music as secondary aspects. Kichwa radio media reveals that music can also comprise a primary dimension of soundwork, which produces affective and interpersonal experiences for listeners through aural engagements that encourage the vitality of shifting languages.

EPISTEMIC MODALITY: A CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS OF EPISTEMIC MARKERS IN EU AND POLISH JUDGMENTS

The aim of this paper is to establish the repertoire and distribution of verbal and adverbial exponents of epistemic modality in English- and Polish-language judgments passed by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) and non-translated judgments passed by the Supreme Court of Poland (SN). The study applies a model for categorizing exponents of epistemicity with regard to their (i) level (high-, medium- and low-level of certainty, necessity or possibility expressed by the markers; primary dimension), (ii) perspective (own vs. reported perspective), (iii) opinion (based either on facts or beliefs) and (iv) time (the embedding of epistemic markers in sentences relating to the past, present or future) (contextual dimensions). It examines the degree of intra-generic convergence of translated EU judgments and non-translated national judgments in terms of the employment of epistemic markers, as well as the degree of authoritativeness of judicial argumentation, and determines whether the frequent use of epistemic markers constitutes a generic feature of judgments. The research material consists of a parallel corpus of English- and Polish-language versions of 200 EU judgments and a corpus of 200 non-translated domestic judgments. The results point to the high salience and differing patterns of use of epistemic markers in both EU and national judgments. The frequent use of high-level epistemic markers boosts the authoritativeness of judicial reasoning.

人類的尊嚴、人權和自主性

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.人的尊嚴概念是一個包含多重含義的概念。其首要含義是作為一個整體的人類所具有的尊嚴。人類整體的尊嚴的來源是人類物種特有的本質，其道德要求在於維護人類本質並促進其發展。在生命倫理研究中，人的尊嚴概念常被視為同人權、自主相似的概念，甚至被認為可以被人權和自主的概念所替換。通過分析作為一個整體的人類所具有的尊嚴及其道德要求，可以論證，人的尊嚴不等同於人權，其更重要的角色是人權的基礎；人的尊嚴也不等同於自主，尊重人的尊嚴在很多情境下要求我們對自主行為進行限制。面對當代科學技術發展帶來的倫理挑戰，人類整體的尊嚴將在生命倫理研究中發揮更重要的作 用。Human dignity is a concept with multiple dimensions. Its primary dimension should be the dignity of the human species as a whole. The basis of the dignity of the human species rests on certain essential characteristics of the species, and the moral demand of the dignity of the human species is to maintain and promote these characteristics. In bioethical research, human dignity has often been equated with human rights or autonomy. Some people have even suggested that the concept of human dignity can be replaced with the concept of human rights or autonomy. However, the analysis of the dignity of the human species and its moral demand shows that human dignity cannot be equated to human rights or autonomy. Instead, it is the basis for human rights and requires restrictions on autonomous behaviors in certain situations. In the face of the ethical challenges posed by new technologies, the dignity of the human species will play a more crucial role in bioethical research.DOWNLOAD HISTORY | This article has been downloaded 52 times in Digital Commons before migrating into this platform.

Visualizing mental representations in schizophrenia patients: a reverse correlation approach

Introduction: Schizophrenia patients have difficulties recognizing emotional states from faces, with severe consequences for daily life. What do these patients see in their minds eye, when they think of a face expressing a particular emotion or trait? The content of such mental representations can shed light into the nature of their deficits, but are usually inaccessible. For the first time, we explored the applicability of reverse correlation, which has been successfully used to visualize mental representations in healthy populations, to visualize mental representations in schizophrenia patients. Method: We investigated mental representations of trustworthy faces, a primary dimension of social face evaluation. Patients (n = 23) and healthy controls (n = 34) classified images of noise-distorted faces as ‘trustworthy’, ‘untrustworthy’ or ‘neutral’. We visualized their mental representations of these concepts by averaging the noise patterns based on their classifications. These visualizations were then rated on trustworthiness by an independent sample of participants. Results: Patients were able to perform the reverse correlation task, with response times and biases similar to those of healthy controls, and the obtained images vividly reflected the respective constructs of interest. However, there were no significant differences between the ratings of the visualizations of patients and controls. Conclusion: These novel findings provide a proof of principle that the reverse correlation technique can be applied to investigate mental representations in schizophrenia patients.

Indigenous Places and the Making of Undocumented Status in Mexico-US Migration

The uneven distribution of economic and social resources across communities often falls along ethno-racial dimensions. Few demographers have considered whether such axes of place stratification in a migrant-sending country relate to individuals’ access to economic and social resources in a migrant-receiving country. Taking Mexico-US migration flows as our focus, we examine if having origins in an indigenous place, a primary axis of stratification in Mexico, is associated with migrants’ documentation status when crossing the border, a primary dimension of stratification in the United States. We rely on individual-level data from the Mexican Migration Project merged with municipal-level data from the Mexican Census. Using multilevel models, we find that migrants from communities in indigenous municipalities in Mexico are more likely to migrate undocumented than documented to the United States compared with those from communities in non-indigenous municipalities, net of the economic and social resources identified in prior work as useful for international movement. We discuss why indigenous places — marked by a set of correlated conditions of economic and social disadvantage — disproportionately channel migrants into an undocumented status. This study contributes to understandings of stratification processes in cross-border contexts and has implications for the production of inequality in the United States.