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Consumers’ adoption of autonomous cars as a personal values-directed behavior
Get PDFAutonomous cars are the future of transportation. Manufacturers’ success is, nonetheless, dependent on consumers’ adoption of such innovation. Past studies distinguish between factors contributing to autonomous cars’ adoption and those prompting resistance. Extant evidence does not explain, however, when and why certain factors both facilitate and inhibit adoption. Addressing this gap, we propose a personal values-directed perspective on consumers’ adoption of autonomous cars. Through a means-end chain analysis of 54 laddering interviews and an online survey, we show that personal values function as a sense-making mechanism in innovation adoption decisions. We propose a comprehensive set of consumer-perceived consequences arising from autonomous cars’ attributes, which explain adoption and non-adoption based on personal values. Notably, we show an innovative application of means-end chain analysis based on bipolar hierarchical value maps to investigate the adoption of highly novel innovations. Findings have implications for managers seeking to encourage the adoption of yet-to-be-commercially-launched innovations
The problem of dependency
Get PDFIt is a wide-spread assumption that multiple pieces of evidence, whether they involve measurements or testimony, provide stronger evidential support when they are independent than when they are not. The standard view is that non-independence creates redundancy and leads to over-confidence (see e.g., Soll, 1999; Nisbett & Ross, 1980). In keeping with this, fields as diverse as law, statistics, and philosophy have sought to understand the implications of non-independence and set out rules for dealing with it. In this paper, we set out how the challenges posed by non-independence are both far more wide-spread and more challenging than typically assumed. Specifically, we review how Bayesian probabilistic analysis reveals that “simple” inference cases conflict with wide-spread assumptions about the value of independence. These suggest that mere intuition is not a reliable guide in this arena. However, we then show that the same framework cannot (in its current form) be scaled to common real-world situations, even in principle. We conclude with a discussion of the more modest, partial, solutions that are currently available and outline possible future directions
Why are universities pulling out of big publishing deals?
No full textIntense financial pressure and frustration over slow open access transition fuel concern over existing deals. With comment from Martin Paul Eve
Ageing workers
No full textIn considering ageing workers, retirement transitions have historically been the main gerontological focus. However, extended working lives are becoming normalised due to factors including demographic shifts and fiscal policy. Our chapter explores three contemporary research issues, providing an overview of the contribution of different perspectives to our understanding of the following: ways of working in later life; older workers’ bodies; and ageing, work and retirement. We conclude with a summary of ongoing work, including the reinvigoration of life course perspectives and the importance of intersectionality. We also reflect on new issues and understandings emerging from our crisis-ridden contemporary context
"A cabinet of many rare secrets": the uses and abuses of Aristotle's Masterpiece
No full textThis paper is inspired by Liba Taub’s work on genres in scientific writing and the use of scientific instruments and objects. It concentrates on Aristotle’s Masterpiece, a work widely distributed in the 17th and 18th centuries which combined ancient learning with contemporary midwifery. Scholarship on Aristotle’s Masterpiece has seldom considered its scientific use and background, concentrating more on its social and literary influences. This paper considers the work as part of material culture which contributed to the practice and dissemination of scientific ideas. I will argue my case with an eye on the use of this little book by the actual people who read it, and how this use interacted with the broader scientific background, including the illustrations and the instruments employed in the context of reproduction and midwifery
Socio-legal studies and criminal justice: reflections on ‘participation’
Get PDFThe Journal of Law and Society (JLS) is nationally and internationally recognised for its ground-breaking contribution to shaping understandings of the relationship between law and society. We relished the opportunity to come together to reflect upon ‘participation’ and its relationship to criminal justice as part of the JLS 50th anniversary celebrations. In this paper we examine the concept of participation from both a ‘socio’ and ‘legal’ standpoint, highlighting the intersection between the two, and explore the ways in which the theme of participation has been approached by existing JLS contributors. We do this by discussing the themes of doctrinal approaches to effective participation; access to justice; legitimacy; and procedural justice; and conclude by considering avenues for future research
Sculpting the “ebbing after-life of death” in Renaissance Italy
Get PDFThis article traces signs of life in figural sculptures made in Italy between 1400 and 1550. It is inspired by a Victorian writer, Vernon Lee, who, during her encounters with Renaissance Italian statues, observed a quality she called the “ebbing after-life of death.” The article establishes the quality as a conscious feature of Renaissance art, defining it through key art works that encouraged contemporary viewers to see and feel movement. Such works, it is argued, describe dying rather than dead bodies. A parallel examination of Renaissance texts reveals how these descriptions fit with contemporary tastes that saw the representation of death as “the most difficult of all to do.” The classical inheritance will be considered by looking at literary accounts of “the last sinking into death” and the death sleep motif. Finally, Goethe’s concept of Übergang helps explain how the “ebbing after-life” came to pass in viewers’ imaginations
Mechanisms of COPII coat assembly and cargo recognition in the secretory pathway
No full textOne third of all proteins in eukaryotes transit between the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and the Golgi to reach their functional destination inside or outside of the cell. During export, secretory proteins concentrate at transitional zones of the ER known as ER exit sites, where they are packaged into transport carriers formed by the highly conserved coat protein complex II (COPII). Despite long-standing knowledge of many of the fundamental pathways that govern traffic in the early secretory pathway, we still lack a complete mechanistic model to explain how the various steps of COPII-mediated ER exit are regulated to efficiently transport diverse cargoes. In this Review, we discuss the current understanding of the mechanisms underlying COPII-mediated vesicular transport, highlighting outstanding knowledge gaps. We focus on how coat assembly and disassembly dictate carrier morphogenesis, how COPII selectively recruits a vast number of cargo and cargo adaptors, and finally discuss how COPII mechanisms in mammals might have adapted to enable transport of large proteins
Results on H-Freeness testing in graphs of Bounded r-Admissibility
Get PDFWe study the property of H-freeness in graphs with known bounded average degree, i.e. the property of a graph not containing some graph H as a subgraph. H-freeness is one of the fundamental graph properties that has been studied in the property testing framework.
Levi [Reut Levi, 2021] showed that triangle-freeness is testable in graphs of bounded arboricity, which is a superset of e.g. planar graphs or graphs of bounded degree. Complementing this result is a recent preprint [Talya Eden et al., 2024] by Eden ηl which shows that, for every r ≥ 4, C_r-freeness is not testable in graphs of bounded arboricity.
We proceed in this line of research by using the r-admissibility measure that originates from the field of structural sparse graph theory. Graphs of bounded 1-admissibility are identical to graphs of bounded arboricity, while graphs of bounded degree, planar graphs, graphs of bounded genus, and even graphs excluding a fixed graph as a (topological) minor have bounded r-admissibility for any value of r [Nešetřil and Ossona de Mendez, 2012].
In this work we show that H-freeness is testable in graphs with bounded 2-admissibility for all graphs H of diameter 2. Furthermore, we show the testability of C₄-freeness in bounded 2-admissible graphs directly (with better query complexity) and extend this result to C₅-freeness. Using our techniques it is also possible to show that C₆-freeness and C₇-freeness are testable in graphs with bounded 3-admissibility. The formal proofs will appear in the journal version of this paper.
These positive results are supplemented with a lower bound showing that, for every r ≥ 4, C_r-freeness is not testable for graphs of bounded (⌊r/2⌋ - 1)-admissibility. This lower bound will appear in the journal version of this paper. This implies that, for every r > 0, there exists a graph H of diameter r+1, such that H-freeness is not testable on graphs with bounded r-admissibility. These results lead us to the conjecture that, for every r > 4, and t ≤ 2r+1, C_t-freeness is testable in graphs of bounded r-admissibility, and for every r > 2, H-freeness for graphs H of diameter r is testable in graphs with bounded r-admissibility
Would Elizabeth Fry approve Shrewsbury Prison’s 2025 Mother’s Day Weekend?
Get PDFThe role of mothers in prison has historically carried deep social significance and deserves serious attention. A touristic event like Mother’s Day in prison would have likely drawn criticism from Elizabeth Fry, as it risks trivialising and overlooking the harsh realities of imprisonment
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