4,608 research outputs found
Episode 35: Alexis Castellanos, Author of “Isla to Island”, and Her Panel Presentation during the Operación Pedro Pan Two-Day Event
No full textIn Part 1 of “Operación Pedro Pan: The Voices and Stories of Cuba’s Child Exodus—A Knights HistoryCast Mini-Series,” the Department of History’s Sebastian Garcia talked with Alexis Castellanos, an author, illustrator, graphic novelist, and a panelist at the esteemed, conspicuous, and powerful “Operación Pedro Pan: Honoring the Cultural, Historical Legacy of Cuba’s Child Exodus” Two-Day Program that Florida Humanities, UCF’s Department of English and Department of Modern Languages and Literatures sponsored (see https://cah.ucf.edu/pedro-pan/ for more details on sponsors and the program in general).
Sebastian structured this specific episode on Alexis Castellanos’ Isla to Island, a wordless graphic novel grounded by her personal family history and the history of Operación Pedro Pan (Operation Peter Pan). By analyzing such a historic event through the medium of fiction, Sebastian argued that this is one of the most unique Knights HistoryCast episodes of all time. Naturally, their conversation expanded to what she talked about during her panel presentation in Panel One, Day 1 of the event that featured “internationally renowned scholars that discussed the political, historical, and cultural legacy of Operación Pedro Pan (1960-1962).” (https://cah.ucf.edu/pedro-pan/)
To purchase Isla to Island (strongly recommend), check out: https://islatoisland.com/.
To find out more about Alexis and her professional work, check out her website at https://alexiscastellanos.com/https://stars.library.ucf.edu/knightshistorycast/1034/thumbnail.jp
Essays in Behavioral and Experimental Economics
No full textFew economic decisions are ever made in a social vacuum. Many of us look constantly to others for guidance or for comparison. Our actions might benefit or hurt others, so we use said actions strategically to reward or to punish. We are appalled if our sense of distributional justice gets wronged and refuse to cooperate with those who offended it. Over the past decades the emergence of behavioral economics has put these social aspects of decision making into sharp focus. Behavioral economics has advanced our collective understanding of social preferences and comparisons by incorporating insights from neighboring disciplines such as psychology or political science. A key ingredient for this evolution lies in the controlled examination of human behavior -- frequently using laboratory or field experiments -- to uncover its underlying mechanisms. The causal identification of these hidden motives in turn gave rise to new theoretical models that include reciprocity or preferences for status and fair outcomes. This thesis consists of five essays that each contribute to different facets of the literature on the behavioral impact of social comparisons and social preferences. All of them employ laboratory or field experiments and combine them with theoretical frameworks that incorporate different kinds of social motives. In Chapter 2 (joint work with Sebastian Kube, Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch and Elina Khachatryan), I study how social preferences can hamper the adoption of efficient legislation. Institutions and their endogenous adaption are increasingly thought to facilitate cooperation and to mitigate the free-rider problem inherent in the provision of public goods. In this paper, we test within a unified framework how the process of institution formation is affected by three key aspects of natural environments: i) heterogeneity among players in the benefits of cooperation, ii) (a)symmetry in players' institutional obligations, and iii) potential trade-offs between efficiency and equality in payoff allocations. We observe social preferences to be limiting the scope for institution formation. Inequality-averse players frequently object to institutions that fail to address differences in players' benefits from cooperation -- even if rejecting the institution causes monetary losses to all players. Building on these results, Chapter 3 (joint work with Sebastian Kube) investigates the interplay between cooperation and redistribution if individuals profit heterogenously from public goods. We analyze such situations, both from a theoretical and empirical perspective, to explore to what extent formal redistribution can alleviate the implementation problem. We find that the answer to this question depends on whether redistribution and governance i) form two distinct institutions to be decided upon separately or ii) are ``bundled'' into a single institution. Implementation and cooperation rates are higher in the latter case, where parties decide over the joint implementation of the combined institution. By contrast, coordination problems arise if redistribution is available separately from, rather than being an integral component of, the governing institution; resulting in significantly lower cooperation rates compared to the bundled case. In Chapter 4 I study how social preferences can be leveraged to obtain valuable information about employees. Peer evaluations are frequently used if an employee's performance is hard or even impossible to observe by a principal. If, however, the evaluating peer is in direct competition with the evaluated peer for bonuses or promotions, incentives for truthful reporting might be reduced. I explore to what extent team-incentives -- in contrast to fixed wages -- can encourage truthful evaluations. I use a laboratory experiment that combines a real effort task and a rank-order tournament, where the prizes are distributed on basis of the mutual evaluations of the tournament participants. I find that the outcome depends on whether the participants i) can evaluate their peers individually or ii) have to rank them. Team-incentives have significant positive impact on the sincerity of peer evaluations only in the latter case. Without team-incentives and forced rankings the evaluation behavior carries little to no meaning. In Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 (joint work with Lukas Kießling and Jonas Radbruch) I investigate whom individuals choose as peer and how these self-selected peers impact individual performance. While the influence of peers on our consumption behavior, general well-being, and individual performance on the job or in school is widely accepted, we know relatively little about how these peers arise in the first place. Frequently they are not randomly selected, but might be carefully chosen. We conduct a field experiment in physical education classes at secondary schools. Students participate in a running task twice: first, the students run alone, then with a peer. Before the second run, we elicit preferences for peers. We experimentally vary the matching in the second run and form pairs either randomly or based on elicited preferences. We find that students on average prefer peers of higher ability, but these preferences vary with their personality traits. Higher competitiveness, lower extraversion, and an internal locus of control are associated with preferences for superior peers. Taking social network information into account, we find homophily in agreeableness and attitudes for social comparisons even conditional on friendship ties. These self-selected peers improve individual performance by .14-.15 SD relative to randomly assigned peers. While self-selection leads to more social ties and lower performance differences within pairs, this altered peer composition does not explain performance improvements. Rather, we provide evidence that self-selection has a direct effect on performance and provide several markers that the social interaction has changed. Regarding the design of peer assignment mechanisms, our results also highlight the importance of accounting for the multidimensionality of peer preferences. In summary, this thesis documents effects on individual behavior that are not predicted by standard economic theory, but underscore the relevance of social preferences for our understanding of economic decision making and behavior, and the design of efficient institutions
"Cronica der Turckey" Sebastian Franck's Translation of the "Tractatus de Moribus, Condicionibus et Nequitia Turcorum" by Georgius de Hungaria
No full textThe Tractatus de moribus, condicionibus et nequitia Turcorum is one of the most important first-hand accounts of life in fifteenth-century Turkey known to modern scholarship. It is the work of a Christian former slave of the Turks, writing after his return to the West. Although the author does not name himself, he can be identified as a
Dominican priest, Georgius de Hungaria, who died in Rome in 1502. His Tractatus is conceived as a work of anti-Islamic polemic, yet it contains a surprisingly unbiased appraisal of Turkish customs.
First printed c.1480 when European apprehension in the face of Ottoman expansion was at its height, the Tractatus was reprinted in numerous editions, and was widely used as a
source by other authors. Luther edited the text in 1530, using the positive account of Turkish customs and religious observance as a weapon in his polemic against the Roman
Catholic Church: if heathens could perform such exemplary works, who could fail to doubt the efficacy of works as a means of salvation?
Sebastian Franck in his German translation of the Tractatus went further: replacing Georgius' commentary with his own, he used the text to attack institutional religion as a
whole and to promote his concept of a non-dogmatic, spiritual Church of individuals united with each other only through their union with God -a Church which was not closed to Moslems or members of any other creed. This translation or adaptation, the Cronica der Türckey, marks Franck's decisive break with the Lutheran cause and the beginning of his lonely path as a 'spiritual individualist'. Franck reworked his translation of the Tractatus for his major geographical work, the Weltbuch of 1534.
This thesis concerns itself primarily with Franck's Cronica, providing the first modern critical edition of this text, in a near-diplomatic transcription with an extensive glossary. The thesis also includes transcriptions of the Tractatus; of Türckei, an anonymous translation of the Tractatus, and of relevant additional material from Franck's Weltbuch. None of these texts has been published in full in a modern edition.
In the Introduction Franck's Cronica is compared in detail with the Tractatus, highlighting the changes that occur in translation; the character and the significance of these changes are then discussed. It is established that Franck, whilst being unwilling to reverse any of Georgius' value judgements on Islam and Turkish culture, is highly selective in his choice of material for translation, and frequently gives the text new nuances and adds his own
comment. The question of the Tractatus' influence on Franck's further development as a writer and thinker is also raised.
The investigation then turns to Franck's use of the Tractatus material in his Weltbuch. His eclecticism becomes apparent in this text, in which Georgius' account is juxtaposed - but not synthesised - with material from other sources, often of lesser veracity and greater anti-Islamic bias. Franck's distortion of the Tractatus material to suit his own line of argument is clearly discernible: from the unique phenomenon presented in the Tractatus the Turks
become one more example of the general human tendency to externalise and dogmatise faith.
In addition, the transmission of Cronica and Türckei is examined, and the relationship between these two translations is clarified: Franck certainly used Türckei in writing his Cronica, but is unlikely to be the author of the anonymous work
Peer Data Management
No full textPeer Data Management (PDM) deals with the management of structured data in unstructured peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. Each peer can store data locally and define relationships between its data and the data provided by other peers. Queries posed to any of the peers are then answered by also considering the information implied by those mappings.
The overall goal of PDM is to provide semantically well-founded integration and exchange of heterogeneous and distributed data sources. Unlike traditional data integration systems, peer data management systems (PDMSs) thereby allow for full autonomy of each member and need no central coordinator. The promise of such systems is to provide flexible data integration and exchange at low setup and maintenance costs.
However, building such systems raises many challenges. Beside the obvious scalability problem, choosing an appropriate semantics that can deal with arbitrary, even cyclic topologies, data inconsistencies, or updates while at the same time allowing for tractable reasoning has been an area of active research in the last decade. In this survey we provide an overview of the different approaches suggested in the literature to tackle these problems, focusing on appropriate semantics for query answering and data exchange rather than on implementation specific problems
2. A Human Being to Be Remembered | The 2024 UCF VLP Podcast Series
No full textIn Episode Two, Andrew Carroll’s herculean efforts to seek and collect over 210,000 war letters—that span since the American Revolution—demonstrate how others are as seriously committed to preserving the legacies of the men and women who served and fought for their country. Andrew shares several letters from his impressive collection, allowing us to be as close as possible to the Veterans—engaging with their own words, thoughts, and emotions. Indeed, themes central to UCF VLP are often exemplified in the 210,000 war letters Andrew has preserved for over twenty-five years.
Andrew Carroll is an award-winning historian and author and is the founder and director of the Center for American War Letters at Chapman University. Andrew was the second keynote speaker invited to share his extraordinary work during the 2024 UCF VLP Institute.
This episode was directed, produced, written, edited, and hosted by Sebastian Garcia and featured Andrew Carroll.
Executive Producers: Sebastian Garcia and Dr. Amelia Lyons.
Music: “Honor and Glory” and “Real Heroes” by SergePavkinMusic (Pixabay)
Podcast Cover Artwork: Sebastian Garcia
The 2024 UCF VLP Podcast Series is brought to you by the UCF History Department Podcast Network and UCF’s Veterans Legacy Program—a partnership with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Cemetery Administration.https://stars.library.ucf.edu/knightshistorycast/1051/thumbnail.jp
Wang Tao’s Diary: excerpts Translated by Sebastian Eicher
No full textIn a little regarded episode from Wang Tao’s diaries, the author tells us about a two-week long journey from Shanghai to Hangzhou and to the West Lake. Wang Tao undertook this journey together with the missionary Griffith John, who at that time was trying to find ways to preach the gospel outside the treaty port of Shanghai. We know the rough outline of this journey from Griffith John’s writings, as it was the second half of a longer journey along the Grand Canal. But Wang Tao’s presence and his notes on it have so far been neglected. This is a loss, as the diary Wang Tao kept offers not only a personal and lively account of the journey, it also gives us some insight in the Chinese perception of the missionaries’ activities and a description of the Hangzhou era before the Taiping would ravage it only a bit more than a year later
Episode 31: Professor Paul W. Wehr Day at the Pioneer Days Pine Castle Historical Society History Tent Event
No full textThe Department of History’s Sebastian Garcia talked with Mr. Richard Lee Cronin, author, historian, and event coordinator of the Pine Castle Historical Society HISTORY TENT, at the Annual Pine Castle Pioneer Days Event.
This episode is dedicated to and is in honor of Professor Paul W. Wehr.
A Professor of History at UCF since the Department’s inception in 1969, Professor Wehr retired in 1995 after 25 years of teaching his passion for history—inspiring countless students and faculty. Professor Wehr devoted much of his time to documenting the history of Orange County, specifically Pine Castle. This naturally led to a close relationship with the Pine Castle Historical Society, which dedicated Day 1 of the 2-day event at Pioneer Days to Professor Wehr for the first time this year. Sebastian decided to pay tribute to one of UCF’s original history professors by going to the Pine Castle Pioneer Days HISTORY TENT event dedicated to him and produced a podcast on location with Mr. Richard Lee Cronin, who knew Professor Wehr personally.
Below are links to an Orlando Memory interview featuring Professor Wehr himself that Sebastian mentioned in the introduction of this podcast, the page to know more about his books and association with Pine Castle, and a UCF CAH article written about Professor Wehr shortly after his passing in 2021. https://orlandomemory.info/topics/oral-history-interview-with-dr-paul-w-wehr/ https://www.pinecastlehistory.org/publications-books-pamphlets/ https://news.cah.ucf.edu/news/remembering-paul-w-wehr/https://stars.library.ucf.edu/knightshistorycast/1030/thumbnail.jp
Cosmoscepsia Catholica, Das ist/ Allgemeiner Weltlauff/ und was sich denckwürdiges unnd newes in der gehelen gantzen Welt/ sowol in Geistlichen als Weltlichen Sachen verlauffen und zugetragen / Mit schönen Kupfferstücken gezieret/ und in Truck gegeben: Durch M. Sebastianum Prennern ...
No full textEssays on Image Concerns and Norm-Enforcing Behavior
No full textThis thesis consists of four essays which contribute to a better understanding of the behavioral impact of image concerns as well as norm-enforcing behavior. All of them employ experiments, either in a lab setting or a lab-in-the-field setting, and together focus on the behavior of adults as well as the behavior of children and adolescents. In Chapter 2 (joint work with Armin Falk and Simone Quercia), I study how self and social image concerns influence prosocial behavior. A stream of evidence from economics and psychology indicates the importance of the two notions of image concerns as drivers of prosocial behavior; however, no study compares them. We, therefore, develop a symmetric design that allows us to contrast the influence of the two notions. In a large scale dictator game, we exogenously increase self-awareness and observability in order to direct subjects' focus on their private and public self, respectively. We show that both self and social image concerns are drivers of prosocial behavior. We observe, however, that manipulating observability causes a stronger increase in prosocial behavior compared to self-awareness. We also document a marked gender difference in self-image concerns, shedding light on the different effect sizes across our treatments. While both genders react similarly to the observability manipulation, only men react to the self-awareness manipulation, closing the initial gender gap in prosocial behavior. We report evidence indicating that men tend to be generally less self-aware than women, i.e., they are less focused on their prosocial standards, but can be "nudged" towards them. In Chapter 3 (joint work with Armin Falk and Simone Quercia), I study how self and social image concerns influence lying behavior. Image concerns are often hypothesized as an important component of lying costs. In a standard die-rolling paradigm, we expose subjects to the same manipulations as in Chapter 2, and find that an increase in self-awareness has no effect on their reports. In contrast, we show that an increase in subjects' observability, while still maintaining their private information, significantly decreases their reports (and with it, their profits). We finally show in a survey experiment that respondents believe that the likelihood of a lie increases with the reported outcome, and attribute negative traits to people who make high reports. This further supports reputation concerns as the explanation behind the results of our social image treatment. In Chapter 4 (joint work with Armin Falk and Simone Quercia), I study how self and social image concerns influence prosocial behavior in childhood and adolescence. While lots of studies focus on the effect of image concerns in adults, very little is known about their roots in young age. We show that in a dictator game with 7-14 year-old subjects, both self and social image concerns matter, however, only for boys: i) boys give more when social image concerns are increased, significantly more so than girls, who do not react, ii) boys give more when self-image concerns are increased, while girls do not, and iii) supporting evidence indicates that the observed gender asymmetry is not due to differences in understanding of normative behavior, suggesting an actual difference in concerns for appearing prosocial. Our results support evolutionary theories suggesting that men should be more inclined to signal prosociality as well as recent predictions about the age when reputation should start playing a role. In Chapter 5 (joint work with Armin Falk and Fabian Kosse), I study the development of egalitarian norm enforcement in childhood and adolescence. Egalitarian norm is a long-existing organizing principle, commonly enforced by adults across societies. We investigate the development of this enforcing-behavior with 9-18 year-old subjects, by taking the most commonly-used third-party punishment game where a third party is added to a dictator game, and adapting it for children. We show that children start enforcing the egalitarian norm at the age of 11-12. In addition, we show that: i) as the egalitarian norm enforcement emerges, a non-negligible proportion of punishers also disapprove of overly-generous transfers that exceed the norm, ii) the punishers' behavior only changes until 13-14 years of age, indicating that egalitarian norm enforcement is mainly developed by that period, and iii) the dictators increase their transfer in the direction of the egalitarian norm primarily in the period when norm enforcement develops
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