4,021 research outputs found
Online tracking: Questioning the power of informed consent
Online tracking technologies have raised considerable concerns regarding privacy and the protection of personal data of users. In order to help users to regain control over their personal data, Europe has amended its ePrivacy directive towards an opt-in regime. There are however many open questions concerning its implementation, especially regarding the issue of informed consent. This paper explores how the new legal situation impacts on behavioral advertising practices via the storing and reading of cookies in the Netherlands. The results show that the majority of the surveyed parties involved in behavioural advertising do not inform users about the storing of cookies or the purposes of data processing of the subsequently obtained data, neither do they have obtained users' consent for the storage of cookies. We also found that the majority of users lack the skills and knowledge how to handle cookies. These findings critically question the wisdom of the informed consent regime which lies currently at the heart of Europe's ePrivacy directive. --Online behavioural advertising,profiling,cookies,informed consent,Do Not Track,ePrivacy Directive
How generational replacement undermined the electoral resilience of Fianna Fáil
This chapter focuses on party switching. The civil-war cleavage that differentiated the two main Irish parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, has been gradually diminishing in importance in recent decades. This trend reached a crescendo in 2011, when the incumbent Fianna Fáil party saw a dramatic decline in voter support, with swathes of its core voters switching to the main opposition party, Fine Gael. This volatility must be seen from the perspective of a generational replacement. To understand the potential for electoral switching, as opposed to change after the fact, the chapter investigates the configuration of voters’ preferences expressed through propensity to vote questions in the INES. The general framework provides theoretical tools better to understand the scale of Fianna Fáil’s defeat, as unique commitment to that party had declined markedly from the position a generation previously and it was thus more vulnerable to punishment following the crisis
Counting loop diagrams: computational complexity of higher-order amplitude evaluation
We discuss the computational complexity of the perturbative evaluation of
scattering amplitudes, both by the Caravaglios-Moretti algorithm and by direct
evaluation of the individual diagrams. For a self-interacting scalar theory, we
determine the complexity as a function of the number of external legs. We
describe a method for obtaining the number of topologically inequivalent
Feynman graphs containing closed loops, and apply this to one- and two-loop
amplitudes. We also compute the number of graphs weighted by their symmetry
factors, thus arriving at exact and asymptotic estimates for the average
symmetry factor of diagrams. We present results for the asymptotic number of
diagrams up to 10 loops, and prove that the average symmetry factor approaches
unity as the number of external legs becomes large.Comment: 27 pages, 17 table
No Black Box and No Black Hole: from Social Capital to Gift Exchange
In this paper, we draw on the literature about gift exchange to suggest a conceptualization of the
emergence, maintenance and use of social capital (SK). We thus open up the black box of how social relations are established, and are able to indicate what can be meaningfully ascribed to social capital. Social capital as a concept cannot be invoked at will to explain situations that are
primarily perceived as favorable. Instead, when the way in which social capital emerges, maintained and used is conceptually clarified, it becomes clear that situations perceived as unfavorable can be ascribed to SK as well, and it becomes clear that SK cannot be drawn on at will, by just anybody. SK resides in what we call a social capital community
Surface Reaction Films from Amine-Based Organic Friction Modifiers and Their Influence on Surface Fatigue and Friction
Surface reactive additives are crucial in the lubrication of surfaces experiencing cyclic contact. The combination of additives in the lubricant, on the material surface and the complex tribo-contact conditions hinders the design of additive packages which can simultaneously protect steel surfaces from wear and fatigue. Amine-based Organic Friction Modifiers (OFMs) influence the tribological performance of steel surfaces. This study investigates the tribochemical impact of three amine-based OFMs in combination with Zinc DialkylDithioPhosphate (ZDDP) on tribological performance, particularly surface fatigue, for steel surfaces in severe rolling–sliding contacts. The thickness of reaction films was tracked throughout experiments and the chemistry of reaction films was examined using X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS). Results highlight the impact of the OFM polar moiety on tribological performance and its influence on chemical composition of tribo-reaction films and their formation kinetics. The combination of selected OFMs with ZDDP reduces frictional forces and can mitigate surface fatigue under certain conditions
Giving voters what they want? Party orientation perceptions and preferences in the British electorate
Some of the most important propositions in the political marketing literature hinge on assumptions about the electorate. In particular, voters are presumed to react in different ways to different orientations or postures. Yet there are theoretical reasons for questioning some of these assumptions, and certainly they have seldom been empirically tested. Here, we focus on one prominent example of political marketing research: Lees-Marshment’s orientations’ model. We investigate how the public reacts to product and market orientation, whether they see a trade-off between the two (a point in dispute among political marketing scholars), and whether partisans differ from non-partisan voters by being more inclined to value product over market orientation. Evidence from two mass sample surveys of the British public (both conducted online by YouGov) demonstrates important heterogeneity within the electorate, casts doubt on the core assumptions underlying some political marketing arguments and raises broader questions about what voters are looking for in a party
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