The Importance of Attention Diversity and How to Measure It

Studies of political attention often focus on attention to a single issue, such as front‐page coverage of the economy. However, examining attention to a single issue without accounting for the agenda as a whole can lead to faulty assumptions. One solution is to consider the diversity of attention; that is, how narrowly or widely attention is distributed across items (e.g., issues on an agenda or, at a lower level, frames in an issue debate). Attention diversity is an important variable in its own right, offering insight into how agendas vary in their accessibility to policy problems and perspectives. Yet despite the importance of attention diversity, we lack a standard for how best to measure it. This paper focuses on the four most commonly used measures: the inverse Herfindahl Index, Shannon's H, and their normalized versions. We discuss the purposes of these measures and compare them through simulations and using three real‐world datasets. We conclude that both Shannon's H and its normalized form are better measures, minimizing the danger of spurious findings that could result from the less sensitive Herfindahl measures. The choice between the Shannon's H measures should be made based on whether variance in the total number of possible items (e.g., issues) is meaningful.     

Simon McBurney’s Ambitious Pursuit of the Pure Maths Play

Abstract

When Simon McBurney set out to create a play about the fabled relationship between Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy and the self-taught Indian genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, he was immediately confronted by the question of how to engage the mathematics authentically. Undaunted by his own uneasiness with the subject, McBurney incorporated a host of experts into the rehearsal process, calling on mathematical educators, expositors, and Fields medalists to come work with the company. While on the surface maths and drama make an incongruous pair, the result was a vibrant collaboration. The final product — the award-winning play A Disappearing Number — shines an interesting light on the surprising similarity between the creative process in mathematics and the creative process in theatre, especially as manifested by the company at Complicite.     

希腊化时期王友刍议

王友在希腊化时期的君主统治中起着关键作用,但国内外学者对王友的本质还存在不同看法,如认为王友是朋友、佣人或士等。从王友的起源与构成来看,王友的任用带有明显的种族歧视;王友与国王的关系是一种基于仪式化友谊而建立起来的复杂的个人关系;王友的功能与作用随着历史的发展从朋友间的互助发展到一个官僚集团。如果把上述关于王友的三个方面与中国战国时期的士进行比较,并进一步分析两者之间的共同点和不同点,可以得出王友是仕,而不是士、朋友或佣人的结论。     

皖南上海小三线职工的民生问题研究

上海小三线分布于皖南和浙西数百公里的山区,从1965年兴建到1988年移交结束,前后历时24年,人数最多时达到7.2万余人。小三线作为上海的后方基地和经济"飞地",自成一个社会体系。如何保障数万人的日常生活,解决他们面临的婚姻、户口、医疗、教育等问题,是小三线建设中的核心问题,也关涉到沪皖两地政府和职能部门的各项政策与协调。民生问题是研究小三线建设这一国家战略政策时不可忽略的重要方面。     

Des porte-parole protestants au chevet de l'édit de Nantes moribond

This article shows how the Edict of Nantes (1598), that had been criticized by French Protestants when it came out, progressively became the symbol of their belonging to the French nation and the acceptance of their religious particularity. But it is finally after its revocation (1685) that this Edict appears to make most sense to the Huguenot spokesmen. Thinking from a theological point of view as well as an historical, juridical and philosophical one, they consider it as a symbol of religious freedom. However, it is only by giving up their former status lost with the Revocation that they manage to develop an original thinking on the relationship between the State and individuals. In order to achieve this, they must distinguish between the subject or the citizen on one hand, and the believer on the other. But this distinction implies the renunciation of the nostalgia for aProtestant body, recognized as such in the kingdom of France.     

Einstein et «Zweistein»

As the sobriquet «Zweistein» suggests, within the theoretical physics community Wolfgang Pauli came to be regarded as second in eminence only to Albert Einstein. Over a period of thirty-five years, they interacted both intellectually and personally. This paper focuses on four interrelated topics of their discussions. 1) The theory of relativity: at the age of twenty, Pauli prepared the definitive survey of relativity, a survey which he revised near the end of his life and which remains invaluable to physicists and historians of physics. 2) Unified field theories: although initially sympathetic to Einstein's search for a unified theory of electromagnetism and gravitation, and having made important contributions to the subject, Pauli came to regard such efforts as fruitless. 3) Foundations of quantum mechanics: Pauli's negative evaluation of Einstein's program grew out of their sharply differing evaluations of the role that quantum mechanics would play in the future, development of theoretical physics. 4) Quantum gravity: Pauli recognized that, until the achievement of a successful reconciliation of quantum mechanics and general relativity — an achievement that still eludes us — Einstein's challenge to quantum mechanics could not be laid to rest.     

从老股票看20世纪50年代的股份制企业

从已搜集到的20世纪50年代上海市的几种老股票来看,新中国成立初期的股份制企业至少存在三种类型。旧社会承继下来的资本主义性质的股份制企业是接受社会主义改造的重点对象和主角,通过实行“定息”,以“赎买”的方式,切断了所有制与经营者之间的联系,此时的股票与债券无异,股东与企业的关系是债权债务关系;农村的供销合作社和城市中的街道办股份制企业,与真正意义上的股份制企业相比都有很大的不同,它们的目的都是在抵制资本主义复辟和改变小生产方式的前提下发展社会生产力,目标是建成生产资料公有制的社会主义计划经济。     

Quelques repéres historiques sur la théorie des jeux

Résumé  L'article s'attache à dégager le fil rouge qui relie les réflexions de Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz sur les jeux de société à la théorie des jeux, telle qu'on la trouve dans l'ouvrage de John Von Neumann et Oskar Morgenstern. L'itinéraire décrit passe par les travaux de plusieurs mathématiciens du XVIII^e siècle sur différents jeux de hasard, pour aboutir aux recherches de quelques-uns des fondateurs des mathématiques modernes, comme Ernst Zermelo pour la théorie des ensembles et émile Borel pour la théorie des probabilités. II montre comment une analyse mathématique des jeux de société a débouché sur l'élaboration d'une grille générale d'analyse des phénomènes sociaux. Son cheminement révèle, en outre, la longue parenthèse du XIX^e siècle où ce programme s'est trouvé abandonné et esquisse, en conclusion, quelques hypothèses pour l'expliquer. The paper strives to find the clue which links Leibniz' thoughts on parlour games to the mathematical theory of games in John Von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern.Magna opera the way goes through the works of several XVIII^th century mathematicians on various games of chance to reach the research of some of the modern mathematics founders, as Ernst Zermelo for the sets theory and émile Borel for the theory of probabilities. The paper shows how a mathematical analysis of parlour games ends at a general framework to study the social phenomena. Its development also reveals how this research program has disappeared, all along the XIX^th century, and suggests, in conclusion, some tentative explanations of this development. Une version préliminaire de cet article a été publiée dans la revue de l'Association historique des élèves du lycée Henri IV,Jeu et histoire, n^o spéc.:L'émoi de l'histoire, 25–26, printempsautomne 2002, p. 94–115.