Unequal Distributions Research Articles

Periurbanization as the institutionalization of place: The case of Japan

This contribution suggests that the process of periurbanization should be understood as a contingent and dynamic process of institutionalization of place, and that a key focus of research should be on the institution-transformative and generative aspects of periurbanization processes, and the factors that shape them. These processes take place at a moment of institutional openness, when existing land uses and institutions are displaced, and during which actors of all sorts compete over space and the establishment of new institutions, infrastructures and power relationships. I argue for comparative study of both the institutions that structure processes of land-use change and land development in the periurbs, and the spatially differentiated institutional landscapes that are created during processes of periurbanization. I suggest that we see periurbanization not merely as land development, but as a place-making and institution-building process, during which dense matrices of new institutions are established, often with enduring impacts. This overlay of new institutional structures onto existing places is highly variable in different places, and produces contingent sets of opportunities and sometimes highly unequal distributions of the costs and benefits of periurbanization that have long-term consequences for the future urbanity that develops. The case of Japan is presented as an example of one way in which an evolving set of institutions shaped periurbanization through the period of modernization and of rapid urban industrial growth.

Unveiling the photonic spin Hall effect with asymmetric spin-dependent splitting.

The photonic spin Hall effect (SHE) manifests itself as the spin-dependent splitting of light beam. Usually, it shows a symmetric spin-dependent splitting, i.e., the left- and right-handed circularly polarized components are equally separated in position and intensity for linear polarization incidence. In this paper, we theoretically propose an asymmetric spin-dependent splitting at an air-glass interface under the illumination of elliptical polarization beam and experimentally demonstrate it with the weak measurement method. The left- and right-handed circularly polarized components show expectedly unequal intensity distributions and unexpectedly different spin-dependent shifts. Remarkably, the asymmetric spin-dependent splitting can be modulated by adjusting the handedness of incident polarization. The inherent physics behind this interesting phenomenon is attributed to the additional spatial Imbert-Fedorov shift. These findings offer us potential methods for developing new spin-based nanophotonic applications.

Connected Mobility in a Disconnected World: Contested Infrastructure in Postdisaster Contexts

Drawing on research in postearthquake Haiti, with reference to other postdisaster situations, this article examines how uneven mobility and communication systems often reinforce unequal distributions of network capital and thereby reproduce uneven physical and informational space. The reflexive mobile methodology highlights how postdisaster humanitarian mobilizations, including interventions by diaspora members and researchers, could inadvertently intensify uneven access to blended physical and digital infrastructures. Focusing on the intersection of disaster logistics with systems for mobile communication, remote data collection, aerial vision technologies, and data visualizations assisted by satellites and aerial photography, the article draws on two specific local examples of contested water and energy infrastructure to explore how recipients of international aid contest unequal network capital and struggle against the reproduction of uneven spatialities and mobilities. In conclusion, it suggests that critical awareness of uneven network capital and more reflexive efforts to build connectivity across differentiated mobility systems, communication platforms, and scales might help lessen the negative retrenching of differential mobilities during postdisaster recovery.

Public Perceptions of Regulatory Costs, Their Uncertainty and Interindividual Distribution.

Public perceptions of both risks and regulatory costs shape rational regulatory choices. Despite decades of risk perception studies, this article is the first on regulatory cost perceptions. A survey of 744 U.S. residents probed: (1) How knowledgeable are laypeople about regulatory costs incurred to reduce risks? (2) Do laypeople see official estimates of cost and benefit (lives saved) as accurate? (3) (How) do preferences for hypothetical regulations change when mean-preserving spreads of uncertainty replace certain cost or benefit? and (4) (How) do preferences change when unequal interindividual distributions of hypothetical regulatory costs replace equal distributions? Respondents overestimated costs of regulatory compliance, while assuming agencies underestimate costs. Most assumed agency estimates of benefits are accurate; a third believed both cost and benefit estimates are accurate. Cost and benefit estimates presented without uncertainty were slightly preferred to those surrounded by "narrow uncertainty" (a range of costs or lives entirely within a personally-calibrated zone without clear acceptance or rejection of tradeoffs). Certain estimates were more preferred than "wide uncertainty" (a range of agency estimates extending beyond these personal bounds, thus posing a gamble between favored and unacceptable tradeoffs), particularly for costs as opposed to benefits (but even for costs a quarter of respondents preferred wide uncertainty to certainty). Agency-acknowledged uncertainty in general elicited mixed judgments of honesty and trustworthiness. People preferred egalitarian distributions of regulatory costs, despite skewed actual cost distributions, and preferred progressive cost distributions (the rich pay a greater than proportional share) to regressive ones. Efficient and socially responsive regulations require disclosure of much more information about regulatory costs and risks.

Theorizing resistance: Foucault, Cross-Cultural Psychiatry, and the User/Survivor Movement

This article aims to contribute toward the theoretical and philosophical framework for the inclusion of user/survivor voices in psychiatric and psychological practice and research. Drawing from the writings of Michel Foucault, psychology and psychiatry are positioned as security apparatuses: Systems of technologies, discourses, and practices whose goal is securing the body and mind of the patient. These apparatuses rely on unequal distributions of power, for example, between the patient and the doctor, to function, and maintain interest in reproducing these relations to continue. This understanding gives a theoretical basis for questioning the authority of the ‘expert’ to assert discursive expertise over experiential account and, in so doing, marginalize the voice of the user/survivor by listening and diagnosing it. Evidence to support this theoretical framework is presented from cross-cultural psychiatry and recent and ongoing user/survivor-led research.

The Fundamental Right to Property in the Indian Constitution

The Fundamental Right to Property enjoys the unique distinction of not only being the second most contentious provision in the drafting of the Constitution, but also the most amended provision, and the only fundamental right to be ultimately abolished in 1978. Unlike other rights of life, liberty, and equality that can at least theoretically be conceived as applying equally to all, the especially contentious nature of the right to property arises because the protection of property rights inevitably results in entrenching unequal distributions of existing property entitlements. This chapter narrates the evolution of the fundamental right to property in the Indian Constitution, and outlines the chequered trajectory of its doctrinal development, following the First (1951), Fourth (1955), Seventh (1956), Seventeenth (1964), Twenty-Fourth (1971), Twenty-Fifth (1972), Twenty-Sixth (1972), Twenty-Ninth (1972), Thirty-Fourth (1974) and Thirty-Ninth (1975) constitutional amendments. The Forty Fourth Constitutional Amendment, 1978, deleted Articles 19(1)(f) and 31 from Part III, the chapter on Fundamental Rights in the Constitution. Instead, it inserted Article 300A in a new chapter IV of Part XII of the Constitution, thereby depriving the ‘right to property’ of its ‘fundamental right’ status. However, in the last five years, there have been attempts made judicially to restore the right to its fundamental right status, as it existed before the Forty Fourth amendment. Simultaneously, the requirements of ‘public purpose’ and ‘compensation’ have been strengthened legislatively through the repeal and replacement of the Land Acquisition Act 1894 by the LARR Act 2013. The LARR Act’s amendment by the thrice promulgated LARR Amendment Ordinance within a year of its enactment, and yet the inability of the government to garner parliamentary support to pass the LARR Amendment Bill, 2015, into law, testifies to the intense social and political contestation around the contours of the right to property, both as a legal and constitutional right. The paper argues that the trajectory of the right to property in the Constitution, as seen from the drafting of the original constitutional property clause, and its evolution through judicial interpretation, legislation, and constitutional amendment, demonstrates the Indian State’s continual attempts to reshape property relations in society to achieve its goals of economic development and social redistribution. Each iteration of the property clause favoured property rights of certain groups and weakened those of others and was the product of intense contestation between competing groups that used both the legislature and the judiciary to further their interests. Concomitantly, lurking behind the development of the Supreme Court’s doctrinal jurisprudence is the Court’s fear of arbitrariness of State action. Almost all of the property cases also involved a challenge on grounds of the equality guarantee in Article 14, and in a majority of these cases, the impugned law was invalidated for violating the right to equality and not the right to property.

Children's developing understanding of legitimate reasons for allocating resources unequally

Recent research on distributive justice suggests that young children prefer equal distributions. But sometimes unequal distributions are justified, such as when some individuals deserve more than others based on merit, need, or agreed-upon rules. When and how do children start incorporating such factors in their distributive decisions? Three-, 5-, and 8-year-old children (N=72) had the opportunity to allocate several items to two individuals. One individual was neutral and the other provided a reason why she should be favored. Three of these reasons were legitimate (based on merit, need, or agreed-upon rules) whereas a fourth was idiosyncratic (“I just want more.”). We found that with age, children's equality preference diminished and their acceptance of various reasons for privileged treatment increased. It was not until 8 years, however, that they differentiated between legitimate and idiosyncratic reasons for inequality. These findings suggest that children's sense of distributive justice develops from an early equality preference to a more flexible understanding of the basic normative reasons that inequality may, in some cases, be just.

Academic inequality through the lens of community ecology: a meta-analysis.

Ecological assemblages are generally characterized by a few dominant species and numerous others. Such unequal distributions of dominance also emerge in human society, including in scientific communities. Here, based on formal community ecological analyses, we show the temporal trends in the number of scientific publication in the discipline of “ecology.” Based on this, we infer possible factors causing the imbalance of reputation and dominance among countries. We relied on 454 ecological meta-analysis papers published from 1998 to 2014, which sourced over 29,000 original publications. Formal meta-analyses are essential for synthesizing findings from individual studies and are critical for assessing issues and informing policy. We found that, despite the rapid expansion of outlets for ecology papers (analogous to an increase in carrying capacity, in ecological systems), country diversity as determined from first author affiliations (analogous to species diversity) did not increase. Furthermore, a country identity was more powerful than the popularity of the scientific topic and affected the chance of publication in high-profile journals, independent of the potential novelty of findings and arguments of the papers, suggesting possible academic injustice. Consequently, a rank order and hierarchy has been gradually formed among countries. Notably, this country-dominance rank is not only specific to this scientific domain but also universal across different societal situations including sports and economics, further emphasizing that inequality and hierarchical structure exist even in modern human society. Our study demonstrates a need for having robust frameworks to facilitate equality and diversity in the scientific domain in order to better inform society and policy.

Conceptualizing Household Distribution of Labor from Feminist Theory: Why Power Matters in Psychotherapy

ABSTRACTThis article reviews existing literature on unequal distributions of household labor among heterosexual dual-earner marriages in the United States. Specifically, this article summarizes the literature linking women’s continued performance of the majority of household labor to decreased well-being and overall functioning and situates this problem in the context of psychotherapy. Feminist theory is used to conceptualize this topic by exploring the role of equality in women’s relationships with their spouses. This article suggests that although women and men are likely to agree with the basic tenets of equality, few individuals attain this ideal in psychotherapy due to gender-based assumptions that continue to influence the perceptions and behaviors of all people (e.g., clients and psychotherapists alike). Implications for clinical practice and research are discussed.

Derivation and application of blending constraints in lamination parameter space for composite optimisation

This article introduces a set of blending constraints expressed in lamination parameter space, applicable during the optimisation of composite structures. Unequal spatial load distributions lead to locally optimised thicknesses and ply orientations. However, ensuring structural continuity during composite tailoring is essential in order to achieve ready-to-manufacture designs. Single step stacking sequence optimisations relying on evolutionary algorithms to enforce continuity through the application of blending rules are prone to the curse of dimensionality. By contrast, multi-step optimisation including a continuous sub-step can optimise composite structures at reasonable computational costs. However, discrepancies between continuous and discrete optimisations result in performance loss during stacking sequence retrieval. This study demonstrates performance improvement during stacking sequence retrieval due to the application of the proposed continuous blending constraints. Numerical results based on the benchmark 18-panel horseshoe blending problem highlight the achievement of near-optimal easy-to-blend continuous designs in a matter of seconds.

Inequality, Aspirations, and Social Comparisons

We develop a model of adaptive learning with social comparisons. Actors are more likely to choose actions that recently yielded satisfactory payoffs; satisfaction is evaluated relative to an aspiration level that reflects previous payoffs and possibly other players’ payoffs. This captures the phenomenon of social comparison viareference groups. We show that if agents compare themselves to those who are receiving higher payoffs then in stable outcomes all payoffs must be equal. If, however, agents’ aspirations are driven by less ambitious social comparisons then very unequal distributions can be stable. We apply our general results to collective action problems in socio-political hierarchies and derive conditions for stable exploitation. Finally, we develop a computational model, which shows that increases in payoff inequality make outcomes less stable.

Gender, religion, and sociopolitical issues in cross-cultural online education.

Cross-cultural education is thought to develop critical consciousness of how unequal distributions of power and privilege affect people's health. Learners in different sociopolitical settings can join together in developing critical consciousness-awareness of power and privilege dynamics in society-by means of communication technology. The aim of this research was to define strengths and limitations of existing cross-cultural discussions in generating critical consciousness. The setting was the FAIMER international fellowship program for mid-career interdisciplinary health faculty, whose goal is to foster global advancement of health professions education. Fellows take part in participant-led, online, written, task-focused discussions on topics like professionalism, community health, and leadership. We reflexively identified text that brought sociopolitical topics into the online environment during the years 2011 and 2012 and used a discourse analysis toolset to make our content analysis relevant to critical consciousness. While references to participants' cultures and backgrounds were infrequent, narratives of political-, gender-, religion-, and other culture-related topics did emerge. When participants gave accounts of their experiences and exchanged cross-cultural stories, they were more likely to develop ad hoc networks to support one another in facing those issues than explore issues relating to the development of critical consciousness. We suggest that cross-cultural discussions need to be facilitated actively to transform learners' frames of reference, create critical consciousness, and develop cultural competence. Further research is needed into how to provide a safe environment for such learning and provide faculty development for the skills needed to facilitate these exchanges.

Procedural justice in children: Preschoolers accept unequal resource distributions if the procedure provides equal opportunities

When it is not possible to distribute resources equitably to everyone, people look for an equitable or just procedure. In the current study, we investigated young children’s sense of procedural justice. We tested 32 triads of 5-year-olds in a new resource allocation game. Triads were confronted with three unequal reward packages and then agreed on a procedure to allocate them among themselves. To allocate the rewards, they needed to use a “wheel of fortune.” Half of the groups played with a fair wheel (where each child had an equal chance of obtaining each reward package), and the other half played with an unfair wheel. We analyzed children’s interactions when using the wheel and conducted an interview with each child after the game was over. Children using the unfair wheel often decided to change the rules of the game, and they also rated it as an unfair procedure in the interview. In contrast, children who played with the fair wheel were mostly accepting of both the outcome and the procedure. Overall, we found that children as young as preschool age are already sensitive not only to distributive justice but to procedural justice as well.

Who Is Responsible for a Social Problem? News Framing and Attribution of Responsibility

Since Shanto Iyengar's (1991) study of responsibility framing and Bernard Weiner's (1995) work on attribution theory, a significant amount of communication research has investigated how society attributes responsibility for social problems, examining societal- and personal-level consequences of the responsibility attribution. The question of responsibility has been one of the core concepts in understanding policy making processes, human interactions, and evaluation of other people (Weiner, 1995). In Entman's (1993) definition, framing functions to shape the way the public thinks about an issue by suggesting what the issue is about, who the cause is, and what should be done as a solution. News media can frame the question of responsibility, leading the audience to determine important causes of and solutions to social problems (Iyengar, 1991).The discussion of responsibility involves two conflicting views (Weiner, 1995). One view holds that a social problem is caused primarily by the deficiencies of individuals, often those who are affected by the problem. Change efforts tend to focus on modifying the individuals' deficiencies and behaviors. According to the other view, a social problem results largely from flaws in social conditions, such as unethical business practices, unsafe environments, and unequal distributions of economic resources. Remedies require societal-level interventions, including changes in government policies, business practices, and other social forces. According to Iyengar (1991), the media's frequent uses of episodic framing, where a topic is presented in a specific event or in a personal case, necessarily displace attention away from larger social conditions and instead lead the audience to focus more on individuals' accountabilities. Thematic framing, although not as prominent, places a topic in a more abstract social context, leading the audience to a more socially oriented interpretation of the causes and solutions. Although episodic stories are relatively easier to prepare and thus preferred, thematic stories require a significant amount of background research and data collection.This special collection compiles seven Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly (JMCQ) articles that addressed the question of news framing of responsibility. This review will be outlined under three questions as follows: (a) In general, do the media focus more on individual- or societal-level responsibilities? (b) What are the internal and external factors of news organizations that can affect the way responsibility is framed in the news? and (c) What effects can responsibility framing have on the audiences?Individual- Versus Societal-Level FocusNews media are often criticized for reducing important social issues to mere individual-level matters, while societal-level responsibilities are largely ignored (Wallack, Dorfman, Jernigan, & Themba, 1993). Mastin, Choi, Barboza, and Post's (2007) article in this theme collection supports this idea. Their analysis of newspaper coverage of elder abuse indicated that uses of episodic frames outnumbered uses of thematic frames, and the majority of news stories framed elder abuse as an individual-level, rather than a societal-level, problem, suggesting that elder abuse was an individuallevel problem that did not require societal interventions.Kensicki (2004), however, reports a different finding. Her analysis of newspaper coverage of three specific social problems-pollution, poverty, and incarceration- indicated that newspapers' mentions of societal-level responsibilities, such as the government and the industry, significantly outnumbered mentions of individuals as being responsible for the problems. This finding is inconsistent with the idea that the media tend to focus largely on individual-level responsibilities. In fact, another two articles in this theme collection provided similar findings. In an analysis of news coverage of poverty, Kim, Carvalho, and Davis (2010) found that the media's attributions of responsibility were primarily societal, focusing largely on the causes and solutions at a societal level. …

Advocacy for Health Equity: A Synthesis Review

ContextHealth inequalities are systematic differences in health among social groups that are caused by unequal exposure to—and distributions of—the social determinants of health (SDH). They are persistent between and within countries despite action to reduce them. Advocacy is a means of promoting policies that improve health equity, but the literature on how to do so effectively is dispersed. The aim of this review is to synthesize the evidence in the academic and gray literature and to provide a body of knowledge for advocates to draw on to inform their efforts.MethodsThis article is a systematic review of the academic literature and a fixed-length systematic search of the gray literature. After applying our inclusion criteria, we analyzed our findings according to our predefined dimensions of advocacy for health equity. Last, we synthesized our findings and made a critical appraisal of the literature.FindingsThe policy world is complex, and scientific evidence is unlikely to be conclusive in making decisions. Timely qualitative, interdisciplinary, and mixed-methods research may be valuable in advocacy efforts. The potential impact of evidence can be increased by “packaging” it as part of knowledge transfer and translation. Increased contact between researchers and policymakers could improve the uptake of research in policy processes. Researchers can play a role in advocacy efforts, although health professionals and disadvantaged people, who have direct contact with or experience of hardship, can be particularly persuasive in advocacy efforts. Different types of advocacy messages can accompany evidence, but messages should be tailored to advocacy target. Several barriers hamper advocacy efforts. The most frequently cited in the academic literature are the current political and economic zeitgeist and related public opinion, which tend to blame disadvantaged people for their ill health, even though biomedical approaches to health and political short-termism also act as barriers. These barriers could be tackled through long-term actions to raise public awareness and understanding of the SDH and through training of health professionals in advocacy. Advocates need to take advantage of “windows of opportunity,” which open and close quickly, and demonstrate expertise and credibility.ConclusionsThis article brings together for the first time evidence from the academic and the gray literature and provides a building block for efforts to advocate for health equity. Evidence regarding many of the dimensions is scant, and additional research is merited, particularly concerning the applicability of findings outside the English-speaking world. Advocacy organizations have a central role in advocating for health equity, given the challenges bridging the worlds of civil society, research, and policy.

Colchicine induced asynaptic chromosomal behavior at meiosis in Allium cepa L.

Two asynaptic plants were identified during meiosis from 0.2 % colchicine treated inflorescences for 12 h in Allium cepa. The asynaptic behavior could be noticed in early as well as at late diakinesis / metaphase-I. The chiasma frequency was very low as compared to control. At telophase-I/II, univalents created high abnormality. Unequal distributions, laggards, tripolar and micronuclei were found in asynaptic plants. Pollen fertility was found to be very low (55.1 and 52.6 %). Observations suggest that colchicine treatment impacts the meiosis of Allium cepa, suggesting that chromosomal associations in asynaptic plants are independent of meiotic behavior in the control.

The Economic Origins of Entrenched Judicial Review

This article proposes a new explanation for the origins of entrenched judicial review, or judicial review supported by supermajority constitutional amendment requirements. The explanation is based on ex ante levels of economic inequality: Where economic inequality is higher, economic elites have more to lose from the advent of majority rule. These elites will have both greater incentives and greater ability to resist or check institutions responsive to popular majorities. We may then be more likely to see the adoption of less democratically responsive institutions, like entrenched judicial review, where more unequal wealth and income distributions are threatened by majority rule. The theory is consistent with the qualitative historical record from several former British colonies, including that of the United States. It also finds considerable support in an econometric analysis of the presence of entrenched judicial review in the first year of continuous democracy for those former European colonies that had become democracies by 2008, where pre-independence European mortality rates are used as a proxy for pre-independence economic inequality. These findings suggest that the adoption of entrenched judicial review in democracies may have been motivated at least in part because of its anticipated protection for higher levels of economic inequality.

Short-stretch inelastic compression bandage in knee swelling following total knee arthroplasty study (STICKS): study protocol for a randomised controlled feasibility study

BackgroundEnhanced recovery programmes in total knee arthroplasty are well established. Post-operative knee swelling is common and impairs early post-operative function. The use of a short-stretch, inelastic compression bandage is hypothesised to reduce knee swelling and improve pain and early function. A study was designed to test feasibility with a view to informing a larger, future trial and to provide preliminary data.Methods/designThis is a randomised controlled feasibility study. Fifty consecutive patients selected for primary total knee arthroplasty will be enrolled in the trial. Patients with a BMI >35, latex allergy or neurological or peripheral vascular disease are excluded. Patients are randomised by distance randomisation to receive a compression bandage for 24 hours after surgery or a standard wool and crepe bandage. The bandages are applied by one of two consultant surgeons who have had training with their application. Knee swelling, range of motion and pain scores will be compared pre-operatively and at day 1, day 2 and at 6 weeks between groups. The Oxford knee score and EQ-5D health status will be compared pre-operatively and at 6 months between groups. Recruitment rates, retention rates, resource allocation, completeness of data collection, and tolerance and complications with the compression bandage are recorded. Descriptive statistics are used to calculate a standard deviation for post-operative knee swelling in the groups and to perform a power calculation incorporating anticipated patient retention rates to inform a future trial. Preliminary data will be analysed using the independent samples t-test for equal distributions and the Mann-Whitney U for unequal distributions with the significance denoted at P <0.05.DiscussionEnhanced recovery programmes have revolutionized the management of total knee arthroplasty. There is a paucity of clinical data regarding the efficacy of compression bandages. Large, randomised controlled trials are uncommon in orthopaedic surgery. The results of this study will provide feasibility and preliminary data prior to the construction of a larger, multicentre study.Trial registrationThe study was registered with Current Controlled Trials (ISRCTN86903140) on 30 May 2013.

A New Counterexample to Prioritarianism

Prioritarianism is the moral view that a fixed improvement in someone's well-being matters more the worse off they are. Its supporters argue that it best captures our intuitions about unequal distributions of well-being. I show that prioritarianism sometimes recommends acts that will make things more unequal while simultaneously lowering the total well-being and making things worse for everyone ex ante. Intuitively, there is little to recommend such acts and I take this to be a serious counterexample for prioritarianism.

Social Preferences Under Risk: Ex-Post Fairness vs. Efficiency

Social lotteries are lotteries that are played along with someone else. The experimental literature indicates that risk attitudes depend on how one's situation in the safe alternative compares to that of a peer. Evaluation of the risky alternative also depends on whether the lottery gives equal payoffs ex-post. Experiments usually present payoffs side-by-side (payoff for me, payoff for the other). This draws attention to inequality in payoffs and thus gives weight to fairness concerns. We consider whether showing own payoff as a share of the total payoff changes risk preferences. Showing total payoffs explicitly draws attention to risk at the level of the pair and may thus moderate dislike for negatively correlated lotteries, as those are less risky at the level of the group. We find that a significant minority of subjects keeps on disliking lotteries that lead to ex-post unequal distributions of payoffs. Subjects also tend to prefer taking a risk rather than obtaining safe but unequal payoff distributions. Beyond reconciling findings from the previous literature, we also discuss differences in sensitivity to the social setting across individuals and the relation between social value orientation in safe and in risky settings.