Citing of previous publications is an important factor in knowledge development. Because of the great amount of publications available, only a selection of studies gets cited, for varying reasons. If the selection of citations is associated with study outcome this is called citation bias. We will study determinants of citation in a broader sense, including e.g. study design, journal impact factor or the funding source of the publication. As a case study we assess which factors drive citation in the human (...) literature on phthalates, specifically the metabolite mono phthalate. A systematic literature search identified all relevant publications on human health effect of MEHP. Data on potential determinants of citation were extracted in duplo. Specialized software was used to create a citation network, including all potential citation pathways. Random effect logistic regression was used to assess whether these determinants influence the likelihood of citation. 112 Publications on MEHP were identified, with 5684 potential citation pathways of which 551 were actual citations. Reporting of a harmful point estimate, journal impact factor, authority of the author, a male corresponding author, research performed in North America and self-citation were positively associated with the likelihood of being cited. In the literature on MEHP, citation is mostly driven by a number of factors that are not related to study outcome. Although the identified determinants do not necessarily give strong indications of bias, it shows selective use of published literature for a variety of reasons. (shrink)

This article aims to explain the declining efficacy of California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act over the past quarter century. It argues that the origins, terms, and outcomes of the Act emerged from an interplay between state and society: between the capacity of the state to initiate and implement social reform policy and the capacities of key social classes to tilt outcomes to their benefit. In contrast to both “state-centered” and “society-centered” views of the relationship among social classes, state structures, and (...) public policies, an historical-institutional theoretical frame reveals that social forces and political institutions are reciprocally constitutive, and that policy outcomes emerge from their interaction. Whereas labor union decline and policy failure are usually attributed to shifts in the political climate, in this case shifts in class leverage effected by the strategic choices of the farm labor union movement were at certain points more influential. (shrink)

This study examines the socioeconomic and familial background of Irish Catholic priests born between 1867 and 1911. Previous research has hypothesized that lack of marriage opportunities may influence adoption of celibacy as part of a religious institution. The present study traced data from Irish seminary registries for 46 Catholic priests born in County Limerick, Ireland, using 1901 Irish Census returns and Land Valuation records. Priests were more likely to originate from landholding backgrounds, and with landholdings greater in size and wealth (...) than the local average. Priests were found to originate from families with more sons than the national average, but with similar numbers of daughters. These findings are discussed in relation to competition for resources and lineage survival strategies. (shrink)

BackgroundKnowledge development depends on an unbiased representation of the available evidence. Selective citation may distort this representation. Recently, some controversy emerged regarding the possible impact of swimming on childhood asthma, raising the question about the role of selective citation in this field. Our objective was to assess the occurrence and determinants of selective citation in scientific publications on the relationship between swimming in chlorinated pools and childhood asthma.MethodsWe identified scientific journal articles on this relationship via a systematic literature search. The (...) following factors were taken into account: study outcome, other content-related article characteristics, content-unrelated article characteristics, author characteristics, and citation characteristics. To assess the impact of these factors on citation, we performed a series of univariate and adjusted random-effects logistic regressions, with potential citation path as unit of analysis.ResultsThirty-six articles were identified in this network, consisting of 570 potential citation paths of which 191 were realized. There was strong evidence that articles with at least one author in common, cited each other more often than articles that had no common authors 5.2, 95% confidence interval 3.1–8.8). Similarly, the chance of being cited was higher for articles that were empirical rather than narrative, that reported a large sample size, and that were written by authors with a high authority within the network. Further, there was some evidence for citation bias: articles that confirmed the relation between swimming and asthma were cited more often, but this finding was not robust.ConclusionsThere is clear evidence of selective citation in this research field, but the evidence for citation bias is not very strong. (shrink)

ABSTRACTExcessive fear generalisation is a feature characteristic of clinical anxiety and has been linked to its aetiology. Previous animal studies have shown that the mere passage of time increases fear generalisation and that brief exposure to training cues prior to long-term testing reverses this effect. The current study examined these phenomena in humans. Healthy participants learned the relationship between the presentation of a picture of a neutral male face and the delivery of a mild shock. One group was immediately tested (...) with a novel picture of a somewhat different male face. Another group was tested one week later. A third group was also tested one week later and was additionally exposed to the training picture prior to testing. During picture presentations, shock-expectancy ratings were obtained as a measure of fear. Fear generalisation increased from the immediate test to the 1-week follow-up test. This result could not be attributed to level of neuroticism or a general... (shrink)

Recent studies :98–144, 2002; Weismann, J Bus Ethics 88:615–66, 2009) revealed that in the first 28 years of its existence, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was not enforced by the federal government. The Weismann study further concluded that the FCPA, designed by Congress as a self-regulatory model of corporate governance, failed to achieve the regulatory goal of deterring global bribery by U.S. companies. The current article addresses the reasons that the FCPA remains an ineffective measure to control bribery as a (...) global market entry strategy despite the highly publicized 2006 Department of Justice initiative to increase prosecutions and tighten enforcement efforts. The failure arises out of both the increased use of informal dispositions of case prosecutions,, which has made “getting caught” merely an increased “cost of doing business” and the failure to close the regulatory gaps in the statute that permit violators to slip through the enforcement net. The article updates and compiles the case prosecution data for every reported case prosecuted between 1977 and 2011. That data are then compared to the results of a 2010 integrity risk survey performed by Deloitte Financial Advisory Services and Forbes which reveal a widely held global business perception that compliance and integrity risks appear to be rising sharply and that the FCPA is ineffective in deterring bribery and corruption in foreign markets. The article aims to serve as a predictive tool for policy makers and business professionals in assessing risk in the global markets, particularly as commerce intensifies in the BRIC countries, notable for bribery and corruption. (shrink)

This study explores the relationship between moral intensity and the use of different sensemaking strategies in military critical incidents. First, narratives of military personnel were used to select prototypical high/low moral intensity critical incidents. In a follow-up, a scenario study was conducted with active duty military personnel to examine the relationship between moral intensity and the use of sensemaking tactics. This study offers three main conclusions. First, the use of sensemaking tactics is strongly tied to the level of moral intensity (...) in the situation. In high-intense situations, the servicemen draw on previous experiences, prediction of consequences, and help of others to recognize and interpret the situation. Less attention goes out to higher level critical thinking. Thus, it seems that in these critical incidents, the servicemen react without giving room for thorough consideration and deliberation. Second, the number of deployments a serviceman experienced influences the perceived seriousness and harmfulness of the situation negatively in low-intense situations. Finally, and in line with earlier studies, the results indicate that the concept of moral intensity is formed out of three rather than the six dimensions originally proposed by Jones. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

This curriculum inquiry explores scholarly influence by examining how Joseph J. Schwab’s ideas travelled over time and how his research was disseminated. The study begins with Schwab’s biography and a literature review, followed by descriptions of the research method and sources of evidence. Data analysis centre on The influence of Schwab’s ideas and approaches on people, Schwab’s direct impact through his involvement in various projects/institutions, Schwab’s impact on the scholarly literature and What archival material on Schwab reveals. Statements about generative (...) scholarship, intergenerational legacy and scholarly influence conclude the paper, along with a recommendation that the inquiry be re-enacted using different educational figures to aid in the understanding of the influence of ideas and research dissemination in education. (shrink)

Solutions to word problems are moderated by the semantic alignment of real-world relations with mathematical operations. Categorical relations between entities are aligned with addition, whereas certain functional relations between entities are aligned with division. Similarly, discreteness vs. continuity of quantities is aligned with different formats for rational numbers. These alignments have been found both in textbooks and in the performance of college students in the USA and in South Korea. The current study examined evidence for alignments in Russia. Textbook analyses (...) revealed semantic alignments for arithmetic word problems, but not for rational numbers. Nonetheless, Russian college students showed semantic alignments both for arithmetic operations and for rational numbers. Since Russian students exhibit semantic alignments for rational numbers in the absence of exposure to examples in school, such alignments likely reflect intuitive understanding of mathematical representations of real-world situations. (shrink)

Research on language processing has shown that the disruption of conceptual integration gives rise to specific patterns of event-related brain potentials —N400 and P600 effects. Here, we report similar ERP effects when adults performed cross-domain conceptual integration of analogous semantic and mathematical relations. In a problem-solving task, when participants generated labeled answers to semantically aligned and misaligned arithmetic problems, the second object label in misaligned problems yielded an N400 effect for addition problems. In a verification task, when participants judged arithmetically (...) correct but semantically misaligned problem sentences to be “unacceptable,” the second object label in misaligned sentences elicited a P600 effect. Thus, depending on task constraints, misaligned problems can show either of two ERP signatures of conceptual disruption. These results show that well-educated adults can integrate mathematical and semantic relations on the rapid timescale of within-domain ERP effects by a process akin to analogical mapping. (shrink)

Why might it be beneficial for adults to process fractions componentially? Recent research has shown that college-educated adults can capitalize on the bipartite structure of the fraction notation, performing more successfully with fractions than with decimals in relational tasks, notably analogical reasoning. This study examined patterns of relational priming for problems with fractions in a task that required arithmetic computations. College students were asked to judge whether or not multiplication equations involving fractions were correct. Some equations served as structurally inverse (...) primes for the equation that immediately followed it. Students with relatively high math ability showed relational priming both with and without high perceptual similarity. Students with relatively low math ability also showed priming, but only when the structurally inverse equation pairs were supported by high perceptual similarity between numbers. Several additional experiments established boundary conditions on relational priming with fractions. These findings are interpreted in terms of componential processing of fractions in a relational multiplication context that takes advantage of their inherent connections to a multiplicative schema for whole numbers. (shrink)

The use of the three labels to denote the three foundational schools of the early twentieth century are now part of literature. Yet, neither their number nor the...

This paper presents the content of the unpublished notes that the Dutch mathematician Arend Heyting wrote in different periods of his life on solipsism and that are preserved in Heyting's archive at the University of Amsterdam. Most of the notes are quoted here and translated into English. Their study shows the originality of Heyting's reflections on a subject that was typical of his master, L. E. J. Brouwer, the father of intuitionism.

The present study examined whether a dissociation among formats for rational numbers can be obtained in tasks that require comparing a number to a non-symbolic quantity. In Experiment 1, college students saw a discrete or else continuous image followed by a rational number, and had to decide which was numerically larger. In Experiment 2, participants saw the same displays but had to make a judgment about the type of ratio represented by the number. The magnitude task was performed more quickly (...) using decimals, whereas the relation task was performed more accurately with fractions. The pattern observed for percentages was very similar to that for decimals. A dissociation between magnitude comparison and relational processing with rational numbers can be obtained when a symbolic number must be compared to a non-symbolic display. (shrink)

Earthcare: Readings and Cases in Environmental Ethics presents a diverse collection of writings from a variety of authors on environmental ethics, environmental science, and the environmental movement overall. Exploring a broad range of world views, religions and philosophies, David W. Clowney and Patricia Mosto bring together insightful thoughts on the ethical issues arising in various areas of environmental concern.

Building from an interactionist view of ethics, this study sought to integrate individual and contextual factors for understanding ethical perceptions in teams. Given the proximal nature of team members, this study specifically explored how individuals comparatively evaluate their own ethical behaviors and team members’ ethical behaviors to arrive at a perception of ethical person–group fit within a team. Grounding our theoretical arguments in relational schemas theory, we demonstrate that interpersonal ethical perceptions can have distal impacts on perceptions of team functioning. (...) The results support the hypotheses that a perceived ethical incongruence between the self and other team members negatively influenced perceptions of relationship conflict and ultimately information sharing. By exploring individual and team level aspects of ethics concurrently, we contribute to a deeper understanding of contextual forces in ethics through an interactionist approach. (shrink)

In “Hegel, Antigone, and Women,” Philip Kain argues for a socially constructive type of individualism that he also attributes to Hegel’s Antigone. He regards this non-destructive version of individualism as a model for non-liberal or post-liberal feminism. I would like to raise two problems with the argument here. First, does Kain’s conception adequately capture what we mean, at a bare minimum, by individualism, that is, some sort of development and expression of unique particularity? Second, is this concept of individualism, one (...) that is compatible with familial corporatism, in fact attributable to Hegel’s Antigone? Kain proposes that “Hegel’s goal is to get beyond [the] destructive form of individualism [that involves conflict] to an individualism formed by, in harmony with, and reinforcing the institutions of our sociocultural world”. Kain further proposes that we find this in Antigone. For Hegel’s conception of Antigone’s “individualism is... manifested in and through acting in perfect solidarity with the family, religion, and tradition”. “Her individualism,” Kain goes on, “is the sort that allows a self embedded in a context of cultural relations, institutions, and common customs, traditions, and practices to develop an individual identity”. And what is this sense of identity given that she is in “perfect solidarity” with her group and her times? It is this, according to Kain. (shrink)