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The Micro-Foundations of Employment Systems: An Empirical Case Study of Britain and France
Get PDFBuilding on existing studies of national employment systems, we undertake a comparative analysis of the micro-foundations of employment relations in Britain and France. Our analysis utilises harmonised, linked employer-employee survey data for the two countries and takes a multi-dimensional approach in which the national level remains meaningful but within-country variance is also emphasised. Our analysis contrasts the British model characterised by variability and heterogeneity with a French model characterised by stability and uniformity. We discuss ways in which these systems are shaped by differences in employer and employee networks, the financial and organisational links between firms, and macro-institutions
Governing corporations in national and transnational spaces: Cross-level governmental orchestration of corporate social responsibility in South Korea
Get PDFThe loose spatial and temporal coordination of national and transnational governmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies enables multinational corporations (MNCs) to externalise irresponsible behaviours. Political CSR (PCSR) and ‘government and CSR’ studies show how governmental authority shapes CSR at the domestic and transnational levels but provide only limited insights into how to govern MNCs across levels and over time. Combining the concept of orchestration with insights from power transition theory, we theorise cross-level governmental orchestration as power-imbued, dynamic, and involving multiple modes of orchestration. Through an analysis of how the South Korean state has deployed CSR domestic and transnational strategies over 30 years, we induce three configurations of cross-level governmental orchestration, blending coercive, directive, delegative and facilitative modes of orchestration, and identify the mechanisms behind Korea’s transition from one configuration to another. Our results: (1) contribute to PCSR and ‘government and CSR’ studies by conceptualising a systemic and dynamic view of crosslevel orchestration of governmental CSR strategies; (2) advance transnational governance studies by consolidating orchestration theories and considering coercive power, and (3) add to power transition theory by explaining how regulatory capacity-building enables shifts of cross-level orchestration configurations
On the Potential of Logic and Reasoning in Neurosymbolic Systems using OWL-based Knowledge Graphs
Get PDFKnowledge graphs feature ever more frequently as symbolic components in neurosymbolic research and systems. But even though a central concern of neurosymbolic AI is to combine neural learning with symbolic reasoning, relatively little neurosymbolic research focuses on leveraging the logical representation and reasoning capabilities of OWL-based knowledge graphs. The objective of this position paper is to inspire more neurosymbolic researchers to embrace the OWL and the Semantic Web by raising awareness of the benefits, capabilities, and applications of OWL-based knowledge graphs, particularly with respect to logical reasoning. We describe the ecosystem of open W3C standards-based resources available that support the adoption and use of OWL-based knowledge graphs; we describe tools that exist for engineering custom OWL ontologies tailored to particular research needs; we discuss the encoding of background KG knowledge in subsymbolic embedding spaces and various applications of this approach; we discuss and illustrate the reasoning capabilities of OWL-based knowledge graphs; and we describe several promising directions for research that focus on leveraging these reasoning capabilities. We also discuss the specialised resources needed to undertake research on OWL-based knowledge graphs in neurosymbolic systems. We use the example of NeSy4VRD, an image dataset with a custom-designed companion OWL ontology. The scarcity of this kind of resource should be addressed to accelerate research in this field
Enforcing Disclosure Compliance in Mergers and Acquisitions: Evidence from China
Get PDFThis study examines how enforcement of acquisition disclosure regulation affects investors’ assessment of the transactions’ quality at merger and acquisition (M&A) announcements. Using a novel sample of comment letters on acquisition filings by public companies in China, we document that regulatory requests for disclosure enhancement and clarifications are more common on lower quality transactions obfuscated by weaker disclosure as evidenced by (i) a lower likelihood of the deal closing, and if the deal does close, lower post-deal firm profitability; and, (ii) a greater likelihood of subsequent goodwill impairment. Using entropy balancing matching, we document that transactions that receive comment letters associate with significant negative bidder announcement returns suggesting that regulatory actions reveal new information that aids investors to identify lower quality deals. The negative price effect is greater when comment letters have more acquisition-specific comments, compared to letters with more comments on general accounting and governance issues. Our results showcase that enforcing disclosure compliance in M&A filings aids investors in assessing the quality of M&A transactions at the time when the filings are made public
Reduced Visual Function in Schizotypal Traits: an exploratory study
Get PDFBackground and Hypothesis:
Visual impairments have been proposed as risk factors for psychotic symptoms and illnesses. Visual impairments can considerably impact peoples’ daily lives, but little is known about the impact and diagnostic sensitivity of such abnormalities for schizotypal personality traits. This study aims to explore possible relationships between schizotypy and visual acuity, contrast sensitivity and parameters that describe eye movements and visual processing times.
Study Design:
Schizotypy was assessed in thirty-seven participants with the Multidimensional Schizotypy ScaleBrief (MSS-B). For the visual function measures we used the Acuity-Plus test and the new Eye Movement and Integrated Saccade Latency (EMAIL) test. The latter measures oculomotor performance during an eye movement task, including the visual processing time at the end of each saccade.
Study Results:
The disorganised dimension of the schizotypy scores predicted visual acuity when measured with black optotypes. Additionally, we found that participants who had higher disorganised scores showed an increased response variability, as assessed through the goodness of fit measure from the EMAIL test.
Conclusions:
These results from this exploratory study extend upon earlier findings from both general and patient samples, highlighting the clinical and subclinical importance of understanding how spatial vision can be affected in people with schizotypal disorganised behaviour
The promised futures of military protection
No full textThis short piece problematises the politics of the British military’s protection promises. In it, we explore how the future is instrumentalised to govern in the present and how this shapes the military’s response to sexual violence perpetrated by its personnel. First, we consider protection as a negotiated attachment to future security. We show how the military’s promise to protect women within its ranks through the eradication of sexual violence works to substitute crises in the present for an investment in tomorrow. Second, we argue that through this promise of a future untainted by sexual violence, the figure of the female soldier is sustained and re-integrated into a future imagination of a progressive military and, in turn, a more gender-equal national public. Third, through a discussion of the enduring temporalities of sexual violence we reveal the fragile and illusory efforts underpinning these promises of protection. In recognising the diverse temporal patterns contained within military sexual violence discourse, then, we highlight the everyday violence inflicted upon servicewomen whilst problematising the tacit formations of military power reproduced through promises of protection
Subjective survival beliefs and the life-cycle model
Get PDFEvidence from panel surveys of households, collected over several years and in different countries, shows that people’s perception about their remaining lifetime deviates from actuarial data
This has consequences for consumption, savings and investment over an individual’s financial life cycle, and in particular for retirement planning and the purchase of annuities. We use data from the U.S. Survey of Consumer Finances to estimate subjective survival probabilities at different ages. This relies on two different methods of adjusting survival probabilities from a suitable life table. We observe survival pessimism at younger ages and optimism at older ages, consistent with the literature. We optimize numerically for consumption, investment and annuitization in a life-cycle model where individuals receive stochastic labour income and invest in a risk-free asset and in stock whose returns are imperfectly correlated with wages, and where they can annuitize their wealth at retirement. We demonstrate that there is some under-saving before retirement, over-saving post-retirement, and under-annuitization when subjective survival beliefs are used, relative to objective survival expectations. These effects are fairly small, irrespective of the method employed to estimate subjective mortality. Subjective survival beliefs do not therefore fully explain household finance puzzles such as the “annuity puzzle”, i.e. observed lower-than-optimal demand for annuities. This conclusion is robust to variations in risk preferences, in the labour income profile, and in the loading factored by insurers in annuity prices
Attitudes, experiences, and implications of asking about suicide during the perinatal period: A qualitative study with maternity healthcare practitioners
Get PDFBackground
Suicide is a leading cause of maternal death. Maternity healthcare practitioners (HCPs) are uniquely positioned to identify perinatal mental health (PMH) problems and/or suicidality. Research exploring HCPs attitudes towards suicide-related screening items and their experiences of asking about perinatal suicidality is limited.
Objectives
(i) to explore HCPs attitudes towards 16 suicide-related screening items; and (ii) to explore HCPs broader views, experiences and implications of discussing suicide with perinatal women in maternity care settings.
Methods
Fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with maternity HCPs. The sample included midwives, health visitors, general practitioners, and specialist PMH practitioners working in the United Kingdom (UK). Inductive thematic analysis was used to explore the data and identify themes.
Results
Most HCPs felt uncomfortable with, disliked, or found half of the suicide-related items unhelpful. Reasons included use of ambiguous or emotive terms. HCPs preferred not to use the word ‘suicide’ with pregnant or postnatal women. In the thematic analysis, four themes were identified: (i) Approaches for discussing and identifying PMH problems and suicidality; (ii) Competing demands and continuity of carer; (iii) PMH and suicidality training and support; and (iv) Availability of PMH services and referral pathways. These factors affected HCPs capacity, willingness, and confidence to ask women suicide-related questions.
Conclusions
HCPs need targeted PMH and suicidality training and support in maternity care contexts to enable them to feel more equipped, comfortable, and available to have conversations with women about PMH and suicide. Timely detection and intervention may help to improve care for women experiencing perinatal suicidality
IP's Pluralism Puzzle
Get PDFAt the core of intellectual property (IP) law lies a fundamental question of political philosophy: can any argument justify the state’s grant of private property rights in intangibles? Scholars answering this question frequently resort to a single theory or value, such as efficiency, natural rights, or personality. But each justification offered faces substantial objections. To overcome the limitations of other theories, an emerging group of scholars, who we dub IP Pluralists, argue that IP can be justified using more than one theory or value.
This Article is the first to critically evaluate the pluralist arguments for IP. In so doing, it highlights “IP’s pluralism puzzle”: surprisingly few scholars have explicitly articulated a pluralist argument for IP rights despite a reasonably common belief that one exists. Given these arguments face serious objections, the potential gap between belief in pluralism and reasoned argument against believing it presents a puzzle. The Article tries to explain why the puzzle exists and how it might be solved
Improving operational use of post-disaster damage assessment for Urban Search and Rescue by integrated graph-based multimodal remote sensing data analysis
Get PDFThis work investigates the application of remote sensing technologies within the specific operational context of emergency urban search and rescue (USAR) efforts post-disaster. We thoroughly investigate two innovative methodologies, each tailored to meet distinct operational goals in a USAR setting. The first employs a belief propagation framework that is designed to provide prompt and robust initial damage assessments using sparse data, with the capability to incorporate additional on-site information as it becomes available. The second methodology introduces a modified graph convolutional network to quantify the uncertainty levels inherent in damage classification tasks. Three case studies were considered, using damage assessment data from the 2020 Beirut explosion, the 2021 Haiti earthquake and the 2023 Türkiye-Syria earthquake. Our experimental results demonstrate the potential of these approaches to achieve operational objectives, particularly in terms of robustness and scalability in disaster scenarios. The versatility offered by graph-based methodologies establishes a solid foundation for addressing these dynamic challenges, suggesting a promising direction for continued research in this field
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