Long-standing Claim Research Articles

Testing a somatization hypothesis to explain the Black-White depression paradox.

Epidemiologic studies document a lower prevalence of major depression in Blacks than Whites in the United States. This is paradoxical from the perspective of social stress theory. A long-standing claim in the (clinical) literature is that Blacks express depression more somatically than Whites. If true, the diagnostic algorithm may undercount depression in Blacks, since the screening symptoms privilege the psychological rather than somatic dimensions of depression. We test hypotheses that (1) Blacks express depression more somatically than Whites which (2) reduces their likelihood of endorsing screening symptoms, thereby undercounting Blacks' depression and explaining the Black-White depression paradox. We use cross-sectional data collected in 1991-92 from the National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey (n = 42,862) among Blacks and Whites endorsing at least one past-12-month depression symptom. We compare groups on depression somatization and test whether greater somatization in Blacks leads to lower endorsement of psychological screening symptoms, and therefore under-diagnosis. Blacks have higher mean depression somatization scores than Whites (0.28, SE 0.04 vs. 0.15, SE 0.02), t(122) = - 2.15, p = 0.03. This difference is small and driven by Blacks' higher endorsement of 1 somatic symptom (weight/appetite change) and Whites' greater propensity to endorse psychological symptoms. However, Blacks have the same odds as Whites of endorsing screening symptoms, before and after adjusting for somatization. We find minimal evidence that Blacks express depression more somatically than Whites. Furthermore, this small difference does not appear to inhibit endorsement of diagnostic depression screening symptoms among Blacks, and therefore does not resolve the Black-White depression paradox.

Obligation to Negotiate Access to the Pacific Ocean (Bolivia v. Chile)

More than thirteen decades after Chile annexed Bolivia's coastal regions, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) denied Bolivia's longstanding claim that Chile had undertaken a legal obligation to negotiate granting it sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean.

Branding the United Nations: The Adoption of the UN Insignia and Flag, 1941–1950

This article contends that the symbols of the United Nations (UN) have played a vital role in establishing the organization’s identity and in protecting its personnel. The design and usage of these emblems developed in a number of steps in the 1940s and early 1950s, a process dominated mainly by Americans. Although private admirers of the UN originated a number of serviceable and aesthetically pleasing designs, products mainly of their own self-initiative, the emblems chosen by the UN were prepared by professional designers, starting with an Office of Strategic Services (OSS) team operating under the aegis of the U.S. State Department. The author compares this process to product ‘branding’, and he also sees it as reflecting a longstanding claim to predominance in the internationalist project by technical specialists. In the 1940s, this dynamic revealed itself in rivalry between an elite of liberal internationalist technocrats and ‘populist internationalists’, the former coming to determine the character and choice of UN emblems. Members of the OSS design team had backgrounds in advertising and – not surprisingly – produced a logo-like design. The ultimate product of this process, a UN flag, was adopted in 1947, but it was treated by early UN bureaucrats like a protected trademark of the UN, at least until popular pressure-driven by an outpouring of mass emotion at the time of the Korean War – forced its release for broader public use.

Genealogies of Sympathy: Reclaiming the Maternal in Frederick Douglass's Narrative and Toni Morrison's Beloved

This essay seeks to reappraise the long-standing claim that Douglass's 1845 autobiography presents enslaved women predominantly as victims. Building on the analysis of Douglass's Narrative, I examine Toni Morrison's Beloved and emphasize the debt of trauma theory to antebellum conventions of sympathy. The paper aligns two texts that have traditionally been read in diametrically opposed ways from feminist perspectives. Specifically, I argue that Douglass's Narrative places the acquisition of literacy, often considered the slaves' proof of humanity, in domestic and maternal settings. In this context, the text portrays female slaves as salvific figures. In the second part, I suggest that Morrison's Beloved, similar to its antebellum predecessor, carves out domestic and maternal spaces for reading the inscriptions of past suffering on the characters' bodies. In resorting to and reshaping tropes of reading and women's victimization in Douglass's 1845 Narrative, Beloved performs its own act of intertextual sympathy.

PROBLEMS OF SEPARATION UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH FROM THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE

The modern problems of obtaining autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are analyzed. The centennial struggle for autocephaly of the UOC proves that the problem of obtaining independence from the Russian Orthodox Church îf the Moscow Patriarchate (ROC MP) is very complicated, both according to the legislation of Ukraine and the canons of the church law. The Kyiv metropolis was an integral part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from 988 to 1686, when it was, from the point of view of many Orthodox churches, illegally and not canonically annexed to the Moscow Patriarchate. In this movement the Orthodox Church was divided into three separate churches – the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), which now calls itself simply «the UOC»; UOC of the Kyiv Patriarchate (KP), established in 1992 and not recognized by the Ecumenical Orthodoxy as canonical and God-inspired, and The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), which arose in 1919-1921. It should be noted that in the period of the Ukrainian Revolutions of 2004 and 2014 and at the beginning of the war in the Eastern Ukraine, the hierarchs of the UOC-MP organized an open antiUkrainian and anti-constitutional campaign, both behind the walls of temples, and at mass events. During the presidential election, this church illegally campaigned for one a pro-Russian Candidate only. In these conditions, the question of the separation of the UOC from the Moscow Patriarchate became more pressing and urgent.Proponents of autocephaly point out that the grounds for granting UOC Tomos for autocephaly are identical to that of the Polish version of 1924. However, we consider the obvious difficulties that distinguish the situation with Orthodoxy in Ukraine, compared with the UOC of Poland. In order to make the Russian Orthodox Church not to interfere in the internal affairs of Ukraine, not to agitate against the state of Ukraine, include in the name of the UOC the phrase that it is an Orthodox Church in Ukraine with a center abroad – in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine two bills – No. 4511 and No. 5309, which since 2016 it was never accepted, because they duplicate the existing Law and contradict Art. 35 of the Constitution. However, as we see, de facto the ROC (MP), directly and indirectly, is campaigning for so-called – «Russian World». For example, just recently the Russian edition of «Orthodoxy and World» published an interview with a member of the Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and a supporter of Ukrainian autocephaly by the Metropolitan of Prussia Elpidophor, from which the publication dropped unwanted phrases.On April 22, 2018, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate adopted a petition from the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to give Tomos on autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Resolution in support of this appeal, and the appeal of the hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox churches – KP and UAOC and some of the ÌPs. Similar Tomos is now awaiting northern Macedonia. History shows that the procedure for the delivery of Tomos for autocephaly is not easy, long-term.The analysis shows that, despite the difficulties of securing the separation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the Moscow Patriarchate by legislative means, there are grounds to expect that the UOC of Tomos would be still received. This decision is not obvious, since some autocephalous Orthodox churches against it and support arguments of the Russian Orthodox Church. The petition of the state authorities concerning the autocephaly of the church is a long-standing claim by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Thus, Ukraine has to wait for the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to hold the Unifying Synod.

Long-standing dark-matter detection claim takes a hit

Long-standing dark-matter detection claim takes a hit

To B or not to B: primordial magnetic fields from Weyl anomaly

The quantum effective action for the electromagnetic field in an expanding universe has an anomalous dependence on the scale factor of the metric arising from virtual charged particles in the loops. It has been argued that this Weyl anomaly of quantum electrodynamics sources cosmological magnetic fields in the early universe. We examine this long-standing claim by using the effective action beyond the weak gravitational field limit which has recently been determined. We introduce a general criteria for assessing the quantumness of field fluctuations, and show that the Weyl anomaly is not able to convert vacuum fluctuations of the gauge field into classical fluctuations. We conclude that there is no production of coherent magnetic fields in the universe from the Weyl anomaly of quantum electrodynamics, irrespective of the number of massless charged particles in the theory.

Attachment to God and Death Anxiety in Later Life: Does Race Matter?

Research suggests that religion plays a critical role in individuals' attitudes toward death in later life. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether a previously unexamined aspect of religion-secure attachment to God-is associated with death anxiety among U.S. older adults and whether this association varies across race. Using longitudinal data from a representative sample of adults aged 65 and older ( N = 936), the analyses reveal that secure attachment to God is associated with a decrease in death anxiety over time. Furthermore, the negative association between secure attachment to God and change in death anxiety is greater for older Blacks than their White counterparts. These results indicate that religion serves a protective function against death anxiety in later life. Moreover, religion provides greater psychological benefits for older Blacks than older Whites, reinforcing a long-standing claim that religion is particularly valuable for individuals from marginalized backgrounds.

Students’ Perceptions of Group Journal Writing as a Tool for Enhancing Sense of Community on Wilderness Educational Expeditions

Journal writing is a common practice in outdoor education (OE) and there is a long-standing claim that OE programs enhance sense of community (SOC). However, there remains a call for additional evidence to support the relationship between participation in outdoor programs and SOC. This study examines students’ perceptions of the role of a group journal activity (GJA)—an uncommon form of journaling—on the development of SOC during a wilderness educational expedition (WEE) and proposes group journal writing as an additional model of journaling on WEEs. To measure SOC, we used Chavis, Lee, and Acosta’s (2008) Sense of Community Index version 2. Although the total SOC scale did not increase significantly, the two subscales, membership and shared emotional connection, increased as a result of participation in the WEE and remained stable over time. In addition, students perceived the GJA as contributing to the enhancement of SOC. Subscribe to JOREL

European law as a lever for female workers at the national level: Belgium and the Equal Pay Directive of 1975

‘Equal pay for equal work’ is a longstanding feminist claim. In this regard, the 1975 Equal Pay Directive of the European Economic Community has generated momentum for women at the national level. Based on the Belgian case, we explain how national actors – and more specifically trade unions and their women’s committees – have used European law to foster wage equality. Despite the existence of binding norms since the 1950s, this principle of equal pay has been poorly applied. The implementation of the directive in the Belgian neo-corporatist institutional framework has given trade unions the possibility to secure an extensive interpretation of the directive’s general provisions. The assumption driving this paper is that this directive has generated momentum for change – though this is not a synonym of ‘a miracle solution’ – in Belgium regarding wage equality. More fundamentally, this study is about the intertwining of European and national laws and the way in which European norms can offer instrumental opportunities to national actors to impact their domestic polity and policies, here on social and gender matters.

Production of neutral tones in three Mandarin dialects

Neutral tone (NT) in Mandarin refers to syllables with shorter duration and whose pitch realisations depend on preceding syllables (Chao 1968; Lee and Zee 2008). There are few acoustic studies on NT in Mandarin dialects outside the standard, and on how NT interacts with sentence modality and prosodic position. We report results from a reading task with 3 speakers each from Chongqing, Kunming, and Nanjing (N = 9). A set of 8 syllables with potential NT and control lexical tones are placed in phrase-medial and final positions and in statements and echo questions. Pitch contours of entire utterances are analysed to determine the variation in pitch height, slope and tonal coarticulatory influence on target syllables. We find NT-like behaviour in Chongqing and Kunming, despite the longstanding claim of their absence (Luo and Wang 1981; Zhai 1996): e.g., in Chongqing, NT syllables are high-falling medially, but undergo more pitch reduction than control and exhibit obligatory tonal spreading from preceding tone regardless of speech rate. Nanjing NT interacts strongly with modality: statement-final NT is almost invariably realised as strong creak if preceding tone is mid-falling. We also report hitherto unreported variation and hypothesise on the impact of standard Mandarin on NT in these dialects.

In search of more than a state: trajectories of political ordering and identity plurality in Somalia

Past and present efforts at reconstructing a Somali state have centred on the long-standing claim that Somalis have constituted a ‘nation in search of a state’. Yet, casting Somali state trajectories in a historical light, this article shows that the Somali sociopolitical construct has always been much less homogenous and united than frequently depicted. Analysing Somali state-making endeavours from the final years of colonialism in the late 1950s to the politico-territorial fragmentation of the 1990s, I argue that Somalis have not only been in search of a state, but Somali society has been characterized by the emergence of plural political identities, inhibiting the consolidation of a national identity. I propose that the identity plurality has largely hinged on the volatility and multiplicity of institutions broadcasted in the context of changing politico-territorial orders. The article suggests that political identity in Somalia has been dynamic and fluctuating during the post-independence decades, that it hinged significantly on aspects of territorial ordering and concomitant institutional structures, and that the formation of a cohesive Somali national identity has in part been hampered by the governments’ inability to build and implement overarching political institutions. This carries important implications for contemporary efforts at addressing conflict and fragility in Somalia. Federalization and mini-state formation are likely to see regional identities trump its national counterpart. Yet, it might also spark a process in which political identities start overriding kinship ones, which has been a shared central policy objective of many governments of the past.

Mapping the pastoral migratory patterns under land appropriation in East Sudan: the case of the Lahaween Ethnic Group

The loss of about 4 million ha of land in East Sudan to mechanised rain‐fed agriculture severely restricts pastoral mobility, as much of this land is the traditional rangeland for different transhumant pastoralists and smallholder farmers in the area. The aim of this paper is to map the current transformations of the migration patterns of transhumant pastoralists in East Sudan as a result of the land appropriation, by taking the Lahaween ethic group as an example. The paper followed a mixed approach of mapping, geo‐coded field trips using GPS device, focus group discussion and key informant interviews. The findings showed that the annual movement of the Lahaween covers approximately 350 km. They spend 77% of their annual cycle in the summer areas. Frequent and rapid herd movement is a principal strategy in the process of coping with land appropriation. Other coping and adaptation mechanisms taken by the Lahaween included separation of animal types; separation of herds from households; fragmentation of households; use of vehicles and mobile phones in managing herds; entering the national game park; and crossing the international border. The need to promote and facilitate livestock mobility is a longstanding claim in the region. However, the continued neglect of livestock movement territories by state planners is a contested issue which might add a new dilemma of conflict to the country. The mapping exercise presented in this paper is expected to offer a technical guide for solving the problem of congested mobility. It also provides decision‐makers with the current territories of pastoralists' movements.

Electronic and optical characteristics of an m-plane GaN single crystal grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy on a GaN seed synthesized by the ammonothermal method using an acidic mineralizer

Fundamental electronic and optical properties of a low-resistivity m-plane GaN single crystal, which was grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy on a bulk GaN seed crystal synthesized by the ammonothermal method in supercritical ammonia using an acidic mineralizer, were investigated. The threading dislocation and basal-plane staking-fault densities of the crystal were around 104 cm−2 and less than 100 cm−1, respectively. Oxygen doping achieved a high electron concentration of 4 × 1018 cm−3 at room temperature. Accordingly, a photoluminescence (PL) band originating from the recombination of hot carriers was observed at low temperatures, even under weak excitation conditions. The simultaneous realization of low-level incorporation of Ga vacancies (VGa) less than 1016 cm−3 was confirmed by using the positron annihilation technique. Consistent with our long-standing claim that VGa complexes are the major nonradiative recombination centers in GaN, the fast-component PL lifetime of the near-band-edge emission at room temperature longer than 2 ns was achieved.

L1 INFLUENCE ON THE ACQUISITION ORDER OF ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES

We revisit morpheme studies to evaluate the long-standing claim for a universal order of acquisition. We investigate the L2 acquisition order of six English grammatical morphemes by learners from seven L1 groups across five proficiency levels. Data are drawn from approximately 10,000 written exam scripts from the Cambridge Learner Corpus. The study establishes clear L1 influence on the absolute accuracy of morphemes and their acquisition order, therefore challenging the widely held view that there is a universal order of acquisition of L2 morphemes. Moreover, we find that L1 influence is morpheme specific, with morphemes encoding language-specific concepts most vulnerable to L1 influence.

L1 Influence on the Acquisition Order of English Grammatical Morphemes: A Learner Corpus Study

We revisit morpheme studies to evaluate the long-standing claim for a universal order of acquisition. We investigate the L2 acquisition order of six English grammatical morphemes by learners from seven L1 groups across five proficiency levels. Data are drawn from approximately 10,000 written exam scripts from the Cambridge Learner Corpus. The study establishes clear L1 influence on the absolute accuracy of morphemes and their acquisition order, therefore challenging the widely held view that there is a universal order of acquisition of L2 morphemes. Moreover, we find that L1 influence is morpheme specific, with morphemes encoding language-specific concepts most vulnerable to L1 influence.

Modeling Abstractness and Metaphoricity

This paper presents and evaluates a model of how the abstractness of source and target concepts influences metaphoricity, the property of how metaphoric a linguistic metaphoric expression is. The purpose of this is to investigate the long-standing claim that metaphoric mappings are from less abstract concepts to more abstract concepts. First, abstractness is modeled using Searle’s social ontology and this model of abstractness evaluated using a participant-based measure of abstractness. Second, this model of abstractness is used to determine the direction and distance in abstractness of metaphoric mappings. Direction of abstractness in these mappings is whether the source or target concept is the more abstract. Distance is the difference in abstractness between source and target concepts. Both factors influence metaphoricity, as measured using introspection and a participant-based study of metaphoricity. The results give empirical support for a long-standing claim about abstractness in mappings, but also provide important new details about the nature of metaphoric mappings.

Individual Aesthetic Preferences for Faces Are Shaped Mostly by Environments, Not Genes

Although certain characteristics of human faces are broadly considered more attractive (e.g., symmetry, averageness), people also routinely disagree with each other on the relative attractiveness of faces. That is, to some significant degree, beauty is in the "eye of the beholder." Here, we investigate the origins of these individual differences in face preferences using a twin design, allowing us to estimate the relative contributions of genetic and environmental variation to individual face attractiveness judgments or face preferences. We first show that individual face preferences (IP) can be reliably measured and are readily dissociable from other types of attractiveness judgments (e.g., judgments of scenes, objects). Next, we show that individual face preferences result primarily from environments that are unique to each individual. This is in striking contrast to individual differences in face identity recognition, which result primarily from variations in genes [1]. We thus complete an etiological double dissociation between two core domains of social perception (judgments of identity versus attractiveness) within the same visual stimulus (the face). At the same time, we provide an example, rare in behavioral genetics, of a reliably and objectively measured behavioral characteristic where variations are shaped mostly by the environment. The large impact of experience on individual face preferences provides a novel window into the evolution and architecture of the social brain, while lending new empirical support to the long-standing claim that environments shape individual notions of what is attractive.

‘X marks the spot’: Urban dystopia, slum voyeurism and failures of identity in District X

Abstract This article studies the ‘imaginative mapping’ of a real-world neighbourhood in one comic book series: lower Manhattan’s Alphabet City in writer David Hine and artists David Yardin and Lan Medina’s District X (July 2004–January 2006). In contrast to a long-standing claim to ‘realism’ in Marvel’s use of New York City, this article argues that the real Alphabet City – at the time a contested and rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood – is nowhere to be found in District X, replaced by a voyeuristic fabrication, a sensationalistic node of concentration for middle-class fears about urban decline and blight amid prosperity and contemporary discourses about drugs, crime and homelessness that reproduces long-standing cultural representations of the neighbourhood as different and inferior. In doing so, the series polices a boundary of identity, empathy and imagination and tells readers that force in favour of clearing out radical difference in the neighbourhood and making it into a space fit for ‘normal’ people is natural, rational and logical and in the best interest even of those who might be displaced by gentrification, disproportionately incarcerated in the name of ‘law and order’, or put at risk of their lives in dangerous shelters.

Hedge Fund Activism and Their Long-Term Consequences: Unanswered Questions to Bebchuk, Brav and Jiang

In our paper “Activist” hedge funds: creators of lasting wealth? What do the empirical studies really say?” (available here), we asked Lucian Bebchuk, Alon Brav and Wei Jiang questions of the sort that any referee/reviewer for a professional journal would raise about their paper The Long-Term Effects of Hedge Fund Activism. Their paper’s aim is to examine the empirical basis for “the long-standing claim that activist interventions are followed by declines in long-term operating performance”.The reply we got from Professor Bebchuk was essentially that he had already answered all our questions in his reply to Wachtell Lipton “Don’t run away from the evidence” and that our paper was not academically rigorous because “it expresses an opposition to relying on empirical evidence”. He is wrong on both counts.First, we must inform Bebchuk that we were once of the faith, believers in the power of statistical analysis to prove and disprove any and all assertions about social phenomena. We were, in short, empirical positivists who, like Bebchuk et al, asserted the superiority of statistical evidence and quantitative analysis over experience-based empirical knowledge and derided the “self-reported impressions of business leaders”.After running hundreds, if not thousands, of multivariate analyses since my days at MIT, having taught for years doctoral seminars on multivariate analysis, I (Allaire) grew increasingly doubtful that the tool kit of multivariate analysis always provided a superior grasp of complex social phenomena.The ease of use and the power of computer algorithms produced a surfeit of papers with exaggerated claims, which did not withstand the scrutiny of expert analysis or the passage of time.Too often, today’s study and results are contradicted by tomorrow’s study. Results vary and swing in significance as a consequence of slight changes in the definition of sample and variables, in the structure of equations, in included/omitted variables, in ways of dealing with several statistical pathologies, and so on.For instance and for the benefit of readers who are not specialists in esoteric statistical analysis, let’s examine briefly the issue of what causes deadly car accidents.Several dozen statistical studies have been carried out to establish the correlates of deadly car accidents. Some find that speed limits do not have any statistically significant impact, other studies actually do; some find that seat-belt laws have an impact, others don’t; generally, studies agree on the negative role of alcohol consumption but in some studies, this variable is just barely significant; age of driver is sometimes a significant factor, sometimes not; sex of driver also; even use of cell phones while driving is sometimes a significant factor, in other studies, it is not. To try to fully account for the multiple factors, some studies include up to 50 variables (time of accident, weather conditions, lighting conditions, road conditions, etc.). Of course, there is high likelihood of interactions (of the non-linear type) among variables (time of accident, weather conditions, speed, alcohol consumption for instance may well interact in complex fashion). But to include all potential interactions would consume large number of degrees of freedom and make interpretation of results very difficult.Another type of empirical evidence comes from the police investigators who have examined hundreds of deadly accidents and developed a sophisticated understanding of the key contributing factors.What should policy makers do? Rely on the conclusions, variable in time, contradictory across studies, of researchers far removed from actual deadly car accidents or should they listen to the empirical observations of investigators with years of experience in the field?Now to our case. Bebchuk, Brav and Jiang claim to have conclusively shown that “activist interventions are followed by improved operating performance during the five-year period following the intervention”.Their findings were broadcast widely, including in a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Professor Bebchuk (August 7th 2013).In spite of the limited aim for their study (“whether the long-standing claim that activist interventions are followed by declines in long-term operating performance”), Bebchuk, Brav and Jiang get carried away and associate hedge fund intervention to the subsequent performance of companies long after the hedge funds have sold their shares.One must examine closely the empirical basis for such claims of a quasi-causal relationship as one should for a study purporting to show that hedge funds do great harm.