More ties than we thought

We extend the existing enumeration of neck tie-knots to include tie-knots with a textured front, tied with the narrow end of a tie. These tie-knots have gained popularity in recent years, based on reconstructions of a costume detail from The Matrix Reloaded, and are explicitly ruled out in the enumeration by Fink and Mao (2000). We show that the relaxed tie-knot description language that comprehensively describes these extended tie-knot classes is context free. It has a regular sub-language that covers all the knots that originally inspired the work. From the full language, we enumerate 266 682 distinct tie-knots that seem tie-able with a normal neck-tie. Out of these 266 682, we also enumerate 24 882 tie-knots that belong to the regular sub-language.Comment: Accepted at PeerJ Computer Science 12 pages, 6 color photograph

The Myth of the Patient Japanese: Corporate Myopia and Financial Distress in Japan and the US

It is widely believed that the stock-market oriented US financial system forces corporate managers to behave myopically relative to their Japanese counterparts, who operate in a bank-based system. We hypothesize that if US firms are more myopic than Japanese firms, then episodes of financial distress (when myopia should be most pronounced) should cause US firms to decrease their R&D spending (our main proxy for long-term investment) more than Japanese firms. We find no evidence that this is the case. In addition, we show that Japanese firms do not invest more than US firms after the onset of distress. Our results hold up even when US firms are compared to Japanese financial ties to their banks and are thought to be the least myopic (and the most able to weather distress). The results also withstand a variety of robustness checks. Our findings that US and Japanese firms respond similarly to financial distress cast doubt on the view that US managers are more short-sighted than their Japanese counterparts.

Euripides and the Decline of Character: A Soap Opera Connection

To the Greeks of the fifth century, the heroes and heroines of myth, the villains and villainesses--even the sorcerers and monsters--were figures from history, or at least historical legend. Surely the sophisticated Athenian of the fifth century did not believe in a literal interpretation of Scylla and Charybdis any more than we do, nor that Odysseus actually underwent every single setback and adventure retailed in the Odyssey. But, just as surely, he believed that there had been an Odysseus, just as implicitly as we believe in George Washington or Richard the Lion-Hearted. Unlike us, however, he also had an intimate knowledge of the characters of his myth-history. Whereas not many Americans today could tell you more than three salient facts about the lives of Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin, or (God forbid!) Charlemagne, virtually every fifth-century Greek would be utterly familiar with most, or at least many, of the details (and variants on each detail) of the lives of Herades, Agamemnon, and hundreds of others less renowned. Their emotional ties to these heroes were strong, too--partly in the same way as people of all eras feel attached to their best-loved storybook heroes and villains; but an extra dimension is added to their attachment by the fact that, before the Sophistic revolution in thought, traditional Greek education consisted to a great extent of moral admonitions to model one\u27s life on those of the great heroes of myth, on the grounds that Virtue consists, for a boy, in being like Achilles or like Orestes (as Telemachus is told, early on, in the Odyssey) and, for a girl, in being like Penelope or unlike Clytemnestra

The Stoic Monastic: Taiwanese Buddhism and the Problem of Emotions

This paper explores the stoicism of Taiwanese monastics and argues that, in this context, emotions are believed to be dangerous in part because they interfere with spiritual cultivation. A stoic exterior further represents an inner state of calm and a lack of emotionality. Since women are believed to have more emotional problems than men, nuns in particular seek to control their emotions, in part by studying the example of monks. Women’s emotions are contrasted with the trait of compassion, which is associated with men and thought to be selfless. Cultivating compassion is the focus of much of their spiritual practice and at the center of the vow taking ceremony, wherein they burn scars into their foreheads, signaling their compassion and willingness to endure the world’s suffering, and also concretizing the abstract emotion of compassion through bodily pain

Property dualism and the merits of solutions to the mind-body problem: a reply to Strawson

This paper is divided into two main sections. The first articulates what I believe Strawson's position to be. I contrast Strawson's usage of 'physicalism' with the mainstream use. I then explain why I think that Strawson's position is one of property dualism and substance monism. In doing this, I outline his view and Locke's view on the nature of substance. I argue that they are similar in many respects and thus it is no surprise that Strawson actually holds a view on the mind much like one plausible interpretation of Locke's position. Strawson's use of terminology cloaks this fact and he does not himself explicitly recognize it in his paper. In the second section, I outline some of Strawson's assumptions that he uses in arguing for his position. I comment on the plausibility of his position concerning the relation of the mind to the body compared with mainstream physicalism and various forms of dualism. Before embarking on the two main sections, in the remainder of this introduction, I very briefly sketch Strawson's view

Sister-to-sister oocyte donation: couples’ experiences with regard to genetic ties

Objective: This study aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of the experiences of genetic ties in intrafamily oocyte donation families. Background: Previous research has shown that most mothers have a good and stable relationship with their donor. Little is known about the meaning of the difference in genetic ties for parents who conceived through sister-to-sister oocyte donation. Methods: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was performed and focused on both individual experiences and couple experiences with regard to genetic ties. Ten participants were recruited via an infertility clinic and took part in semistructured couple interviews. Results: Our analysis revealed that the donation was seen as a way to equal genetic parenthood. Participants struggled with this prevailing ideal of genetic parenthood and questioned the legitimacy of their motherhood. Several dynamics were identified when couples tried to deal with the imbalance in genetic ties: they acknowledged each other, convinced one another, or pushed away the difference in genetic ties. Couples also managed the presence of a genetic tie with the donor by negotiating the closeness in their family relationships. Conclusion: The lack of a full genetic tie remained a meaningful absence for some mothers and the way couples dealt with this varied. We plead that the option of post-donation care should be offered to support couples with the complexities they try to deal with

"French Suburbs": a New Problem or a New Approach to Social Exclusion? GSPE Working Paper 1/27/2009

At the end of 1980s, the question of "quartiers sensibles" (at-risk neighborhoods) started being very publicized in France. It was not only the subject of many front page articles, but also the target of a new public policy aimed at promoting urban and social development in about 500 neighborhoods (Politique de la ville). I argue that such focalization on "quartiers sensibles" does not only result from increasing problems such as unemployment, poverty or juvenile delinquency. It also represents a major change in public policy. Focusing on "quartiers sensibles" directly contributed to the restructuring of the French Welfare State by centering its action on specific urban spaces rather than national territory, and on social links rather than economic reality, contrary to what Welfare State claimed to do during the Fordist period. The outbreak of November 2005 riots is inextricably bound up to the way some problems (like lack of communication and weakening social links) have been associated to the question of "quartiers sensibles" whereas the French model of integration, based on equality between abstract citizens, let some others (like ethnic discrimination) unquestioned

The College Transition: What Changes, Who Changes, and Why?

To assess changes in student behavior between high school and college, and any factors contributing to behavioral changes, eight students from the University of New Hampshire were interviewed. To determine if changes in environment, or a greater distance from home, lead to greater changes in behavior, half of participants interviewed were in-state students and half were out-of-state students. Participants were interviewed on their opinions toward college and differences between high school and college in four areas: relationships, alcohol use, academics, and group participation. Interviews with participants were recorded and later transcribed. The transcriptions were then compared, looking for themes both within and among the interviews. The results showed that there were changes in these four areas but there were no differences in changes between in-state students and out-of-state students. On average, students’ grades stayed the same from high school to college and participation in group activities decreased from high school to college. The most common change was an increase in alcohol use from high school to college. Changes in behavior seemed unrelated to whether or not a student was in-state or out-ofstate. Changes in behavior seemed to be, in part, influenced by social relations, and also the freedom that comes with living away from home

Rethinking Criminal Law and Family Status

In our recent book, Privilege or Punish: Criminal Justice and the Challenge of Family Ties (OUP 2009), we examined and critiqued a number of ways in which the criminal justice system uses family status to distribute benefits or burdens to defendants. In their review essays, Professors Alafair Burke, Alice Ristroph & Melissa Murray identify a series of concerns with the framework we offer policymakers to analyze these family ties benefits or burdens. We think it worthwhile not only to clarify where those challenges rest on misunderstandings or confusions about the central features of our views, but also to show the deficiencies of the proposed alternatives. While we appreciate and admire the efforts of our critics to advance this important conversation, we hope this Essay will illuminate why the normative framework of Privilege or Punish remains a more helpful structure to policymakers assessing how family status should intersect with the criminal law within a liberal democracy such as our own