User-Centred Time Geography for Location-Based Services

Location‐based services assist people in their decision‐making during the performance of tasks in space. They do not consider the user's individual preferences, time constraints and possible subtasks to be performed. In order to account for these important aspects, a user‐centred spatio‐temporal theory of location‐based services is required. We propose such a theory by combining classical time geography with an extended theory of affordances. It assumes that affordances belong to three realms: physical, social‐institutional, and mental. In addition to covering the capability, coupling and authority constraints from time geography, this allows for a user‐centred perspective because affordances describe action possibilities with regard to a specific person. Furthermore, the integration of mental affordances offers the possibility to account for cognitive time constraints due to the duration of decision‐making processes. This new theory for location‐based services is closer to the individual user and more plausible with respect to their daily lives. A business traveller scenario is used as a case study to demonstrate this.     

Making Space in Geographical Analysis

In this commentary we reflect on the potential and power of geographical analysis, as a set of methods, theoretical approaches, and perspectives, to increase our understanding of how space and place matter for all. We emphasize key aspects of the field, including accessibility, urban change, and spatial interaction and behavior, providing a high-level research agenda that indicates a variety of gaps and routes for future research that will not only lead to more equitable and aware solutions to local and global challenges, but also innovative and novel research methods, concepts, and data. We close with a set of representation and inclusion challenges to our discipline, researchers, and publication outlets.     

Taking perspective of the stories we tell about transgender rights: The narrative policy framework

Our project uses the narrative policy framework (NPF) to explore narrative effects on attitudes about transgender rights. The framework focuses on the stories that are told about public policy. As opposed to conceptualizing communications as informational, NPF suggests that getting lost in the story is primary for attitude change. We also incorporate a perspective taking exercise to examine its effects on individual attitudes. Using an experiment on 1784 American adults, we found that individuals who received the inclusive transgender policy narrative by either watching or reading the narrative held views more supportive of transgender rights, with the effect greater for watching than reading. Those who experienced greater narrative transportation, being more lost in the story, reported more supportive attitudes. We further find that those with traits that lead them to become more imaginatively involved in stories occasionally are more greatly affected by watching policy narratives than those who are less imaginatively involved. However, perspective taking did not influence attitudes and weakened the treatment effects of the narratives. Our findings suggest stories can affect policy attitudes and beliefs, which may be conceptually distinct from traditional framing-based accounts and implies distinctive causal mechanisms that result in attitude change.     

To Lobby or Not to Lobby? Examining the Determinants of Nonprofit Organizations Taking the IRS 501(h) Election

While public policy scholars are gaining a better understanding of the nonprofit sector's impact on the policy process, the sector's role in lobbying efforts has only been studied in a limited manner. Currently, nonprofit organizations' lobbying activities and expenditures are limited by federal regulations, which are often misunderstood by nonprofit leaders. This article uses 2003 IRS Form 990 data for all nonprofit organizations in the United States to examine the organizational determinants of 501(c)3 nonprofits taking the Internal Revenue Service's 501(h) election and whether organizations use h‐election in a manner consistent with patterns of strategic behavior. Results show that nonprofit organizations that are reliant on direct public support are more likely to take the h‐election, while those reliant on government grants are less likely to take the h‐election. Examining lobbying expenditures, we find nonprofits associate with 501(h) election in a pattern consistent with strategic behavior. The findings suggest that nonprofit organizations with certain revenue streams and in specific subsectors respond differently to this election decision, and that organizations may respond strategically to mechanisms regulating their political activity.     

Designing a brave new world: eugenics, politics, and fiction

Aldous Huxley composed Brave New World in the context of the Depression and the eugenics movement in Britain. Today his novel is best known as satirical and predictive, but an additional interpretation emerges from Huxley's nonfiction writings in which the liberal hurmanist expressed some surprising opinions about eugenics, citizenship, and meritocracy. He felt that his role as an artist and public intellectual was to formulate an evolving outlook on urgent social, scientific, and moral issues. His brave new world can therefore be understood as a serious design for social reform, as well as a commentary about the social uses of scientific knowledge.     

Prediction and its discontents: guidance for Australia from the debate over social science forecasting

The well-documented failure of many experts to predict many events of strategic importance—from 9/11 to the global financial crisis to the Arab Spring—has led to a fashionable belief amongst some academics and popular commentators that prediction is a ‘fool's errand’. Problems inherent in forecasting political events, such as cognitive biases, strategic interaction, complexity effects and various others, make this an attractive position. However, although a proper degree of humility is warranted about the ability to predict strategic events, this article argues that not making predictions at all is not an option. No genuinely workable policy advice could flow to Australian policy makers unless analysts are able, however roughly, to try to forecast the future. Moreover, with some hard, determined work, social scientists have recently produced work which promises to be able to foresee important events such as state failures and civil wars with reasonable accuracy. Experts should be encouraged to make, and should routinely be evaluated on, predictions about their area of expertise. Even failed predictions can be useful in pointing up gaps in knowledge and understanding which would otherwise have remained opaque.     

Ohio Hopewell Ceremonial Bladelet Use at the Moorehead Circle,Fort Ancient

In the past twenty years, lithic use-wear studies have been used to determine the function of Hopewell bladelets. These studies have uniformly shown that the bladelets were multipurpose, utilitarian tools in domestic contexts. Debate arises as to their function in ritual or ceremonial contexts. The question of bladelet function in ceremonial contexts remains unanswered because use-wear studies of bladelets have not been extensively applied to well-provenienced ceremonial assemblages. Microwear analysis was conducted on a sample of bladelets recovered from the Moorehead Circle within the Fort Ancient Earthworks in order to comment on the above debate as well as to determine the activities that occurred there prehistorically. The Moorehead Circle was a center of intensive activity as evidenced by the high rate of utilization and numerous tasks performed with bladelets. Intersite comparison indicates that the Moorehead Circle bladelets were utilized for the same range of tasks as bladelets from other sites in Ohio.