Search results for "world"
showing 10 items of 1612 documents
More Choice for Better Choosers: Political Freedom, Autonomy, and Happiness
2016
A substantial literature finds that freedom in the sense of an expanded opportunity set is positively related to happiness. A contrasting literature, however, finds that an excess of choice can have socially undesirable outcomes. We test the effect of two types of freedom—autonomy and political—on happiness using five waves of World Values Survey data (1981–2008). We find evidence supporting the claim that equipping people with the tools to direct the course of their lives (i.e. increasing autonomy freedom) incentivizes the desire to investigate alternatives (e.g. political parties) before making a decision. The effect of freedoms on happiness is diminished in contexts where individuals hav…
What do users associate with ‘interactivity’?
2009
‘Interactivity’ was one of the major buzzwords of the 1990s. Although the academic discourse has produced a large number of different concepts of ‘interactivity’, in everyday life it still remains a label put on all kinds of aspects of online communication and digital media. Drawing on schema theory this article explores the concepts of ‘ordinary’ users (i.e. people who are not professional experts). The results indicate that users associate the foremost social and individual issues with the term ‘interactivity’, i.e. what they can accomplish by using media in terms of self-development, social influence and social relationships.
The interplay between media-for-monitoring and media-for-searching: How news media trigger searches and edits in Wikipedia
2016
This study investigates how traditional news media and Internet services have become entangled in recipients’ habits of gathering information on current topics. Push media enable citizens to scan the issue environment while pull media enable them to seek out in-depth information if information needs have been elicited. Furthermore, content quality in many pull media may increase when more users generate content, removing flaws and adding information. We expected that TV and newspaper coverage of an issue will lead to increases in (a) searches for and (b) user edits in related articles in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Our findings reliably support the hypotheses, but the extent to whic…
The Gender Politics of Celebrity Humanitarianism in Africa
2011
This article examines Anglo-American news media through a discourse-theoretical framework to study first, how celebrities are constituted as gendered humanitarian subjects acting on behalf of African problems, and second, how the concept of ‘Africa’ is produced, not only as a place, but also as a purpose in the world system. The debate surrounding celebrities is at an impasse, where they are seen as either instrumental or detrimental to African development. To break this standoff, we begin by placing celebrities in their neo-colonial context. We argue that the legitimacy of Bono, Bob Geldof and Angelina Jolie as humanitarian actors is underpinned by particular reproductions of race, class a…
The belief in an unjust world: An egotistic delusion
1996
The main hypothesis of Lerner's just world theory says that people are inclined to think that their physical and social environment is just and that individuals generally get what they deserve and deserve what they get. Contrary to Lerner's assumption, however, it is suggested in the article that in some situations, people may perceive the world as unjust because such a belief has a specific “ego-defensive” compoment for an individual. It is likely, for instance, that the belief in an unjust world, though in itself a legitimate block to success, may be aggrvated in conditions diagnostic for competence and hence can be used as a special form of self-handicapping strategy. This assumption has…
The role played by doctors, the Government and the who in the implementation of poliomyelitis, measles and rubella serological surveys in Spain (1958…
2020
Serological surveys, which acquired considerable importance in the mid twentieth century, are still a key tool to address infectious diseases. This article, using archival and printed sources from the WHO and the medical and general press, analyses the role of doctors and scientists, government, and the WHO in the implementation of serological surveys to evaluate the situation of poliomyelitis, measles and rubella in Spain and to set up a plan of action against them. The paper shows the role of Florencio Pérez Gallardo and his group at the National School of Health, favoured by the Franco regime to receive the support of WHO collaborative programmes after Spain joined in 1951, and the impac…
Pedodiversity
2013
In Chap. 6, dealing with pedodiversity of Italy, Edoardo A. C. Costantini, Roberto Barbetti, Maria Fantappie` , Giovanni L’Abate, Romina Lorenzetti, and Simona Magini illustrate the distribution of soil classes, mainly by means of maps. Soil regions on hills are the most lithologically and climatically variable environments, and host the greatest soil variability and endemisms. A vast majority of the WRB reference soil groups (25 out of 32), as well as soil orders of Soil Taxonomy (10 out of 12) are represented in the main Italian soil typological units (STUs), but the clear skewness and lognormal distribution of STUs demonstrate the utmost endemic nature of many Italian soils. In particula…
Influence of environmental factors on the spatial distribution and diversity of forest soil in Latvia
2012
This study was carried out to determine the spatial relationships between environmental factors (Quaternary deposits, topographical situation, land cover, forest site types, tree species, soil texture) and soil groups, and their prefix qualifiers (according to the international Food and Agricultural Organization soil classification system World Reference Base for Soil Resources [FAO WRB]). The results show that it is possible to establish relationships between the distribution of environmental factors and soil groups by applying the generalized linear models in data statistical analysis, using the R 2.11.1 software for processing data from 113 sampling plots throughout the forest terri…
Treatment of Hepatocellular Carcinoma with Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors and Applicability of First-Line Atezolizumab/Bevacizumab in a Real-Life Setti…
2021
Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are the new frontier for the treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Since the first trial with tremelimumab, a cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 inhibitor, increasing evidence has confirmed that these drugs can significantly extend the survival of patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). As a matter of fact, the overall survival and objective response rates reported in patients with advanced HCC treated with ICIs are the highest ever reported in the second-line setting and, most recently, the combination of the anti-programmed death ligand protein-1 atezolizumab with bevacizumab—an anti-vascular endothelial growth fa…
Changes in fluid geochemistry and physico-chemical conditions of geothermal systems caused by magmatic input: The recent abrupt outgassing off the is…
2005
Abstract Hydrothermal systems and related vents can exhibit dramatic changes in their physico-chemical conditions over time as a response to varying activity in the feeding magmatic systems. Massive steam condensation and gas scrubbing processes of thermal fluids during their ascent and cooling cause further compositional changes that mask information regarding the conditions evolving at depth in the hydrothermal system. Here we propose a new stability diagram based on the CO2-CH4-CO-H2 concentrations in vapor, which aims at calculating the temperatures and pressures in hydrothermal reservoirs. To filter gas scrubbing effects, we have also developed a model for selective dissolution of CO2-…