The Effect of Journalistic Co-Orientation on Press Coverage: A Time Series Analysis

Journalistic co-orientation is defined as journalists’ use of other media with the function of ensuring legitimate news decisions or enhancing journalistic prestige, as well as promoting economic success under conditions of uncertainty. Among the different forms of co-orientation, the effect of the routine use of quality media as a source of orientation in news selections is analyzed. Data from a content analysis was used, covering the period of one year. In a time series analysis based on both linear models and neural networks, the news value conferred to a political issue by one of the two national German newspapers included in the study was shown to have an effect on the intensity of coverage by one of the two regional newspapers under consideration. There is a similar tendency for the evaluation of the issue. In particular, a non-linear component can be found in the relationship between the different newspapers' coverage

How Accurately Can Parents Judge Their Children\u27s Boredom in School?

The purpose of the present study was to explore what parents know about their Children’s boredom in school; specifically, the frequency, intensity, and antecedents of their Children’s boredom, as well as how they cope with boredom. A questionnaire was administered to 437 grade 9 students (54% female, Mage = 14.82) and their parents (72% mothers, 14% fathers, 12% both parents, Mage = 45.26) measuring variables related to students boredom in mathematics class. Three different measurements were used to evaluate the accuracy of parents’ judgments: (1) the correlation between parents’ and students’ answers, (2) the mean differences between parents’ and students’ answers, and (3) the mean values of absolute differences of parents’ and students’ answers. The results suggest that parents generally have an informed knowledge about their child’s boredom and related facets. This is reflected by a mean correlation of medium size (r = 0.34) and a small mean effect size of the difference between parents’ and students’ judgments over all items (d = 0.20). Parents are also substantially better in judging their Children’s boredom compared to guessing for all variables (mean effect size of d = 0.65). They had the most precise judgments for the frequency and intensity of boredom. The antecedents of boredom (e.g., characteristics of instruction) were also well estimated by parents; specifically, parents tend to have a bias in favor for their children evidenced by overestimating antecedents that cannot be influenced by the students and underestimating those that can be influenced by the students. The least concordance was found between parents’ and Children’s perception of boredom coping strategies (e.g., accepting boredom), implying that parents lack information about how their children intentionally cope with boredom. Implications for research on student boredom are discussed as well as practical applications involving parents in boredom prevention

States oder Traits? Was beinflußt die Teilnahmebereitschaft an telefonischen Interviews?

'Um zu untersuchen, was die Teilnahmebereitschaft an telefonischen Interviews beeinflusst, wurden 301 Teilnehmer und 326 Verweigerer einer telefonisch durchgeführten Marktforschungsstudie befragt. Basierend auf den geführten Interviews zeigt sich, dass in erster Linie zwei Faktoren entscheidend für die Teilnahmebereitschaft an telefonischen Umfragen sind: die persönliche Einstellung zu Umfragen und der Zeitpunkt der Befragung. Die Bedeutung der Zeit für die Teilnahmeentscheidung spricht für einen zufälligen Ausfallprozess - wird ein potenziell Befragter zu einem anderen Zeitpunkt kontaktiert, fällt seine Entscheidung wahrscheinlich auch anders aus. Die Umfrageeinstellung hingegen ist ein stabiler Einflussfaktor. Da sich aber nur wenige und schwache Zusammenhänge mit grundlegenden Persönlichkeitseigenschaften und soziodemografischen Merkmalen zeigen, spricht dies zwar dafür, dass es bestimmte Personen gibt, die Befragungen gegenüber grundsätzlich abgeneigt sind, diese sich aber nicht grundlegend von den Teilnehmern einer Befragung unterscheiden. Somit kann davon ausgegangen werden, dass Verweigerungen nicht zu systematischen Verzerrungen der Ergebnisse von Umfragen führen.' (Autorenreferat)'To examine the factors influencing the willingness of target persons to participate in telephone surveys, 301 participants and 326 non-respondents of a market research telephone survey were interviewed on this subject. These interviews show that two factors are predominantly decisive for the willingness to participate in telephone surveys: the personal attitude towards surveys and the moment of interview. The significance of the moment for the decision on participation speaks for a random dropout process - if a potential interviewee is contacted at another time, he will probably make a different decision. By contrast, the attitude towards surveys is a stable influencing factor. However, there are only a few and weak correlations with primary personal characteristics and socio-demographic criteria; this speaks for there being certain persons who, in principle, are averse to surveys, but they do not differ essentially from the participants of a survey. Therefore it can be assumed that non-respondence does not automatically lead to systematic distortions of survey results.' (author's abstract)

Modelo de localización de centros de acopio para la gestión del riesgo hidrometeorológico asociado a movimientos en masa en Antioquia

Natural disasters around the world have increased in last decades, this has generated the need to create contingency plans by governments to reduce the associated risks. These plans include the facility location with the aim to attend emergencies. At the theoretical level, the associated problem is known as Facility Location, this has been studied with the use of methodologies like Linear Programming, Metaheuristics, and Agent Based Modeling (ABM) Simulations integrated with Geographical Information Systems (GIS). In Colombia, hydrometeorological disasters, especially mass movements, are the principal cause of most of the deaths due to natural disasters. For this reason, the lack of sectorial plans that mitigates the impact of this kind of disasters is associated with the increase of victims and affected families in Colombia. (DNP y Banco Mundial, 2012). In this project was studied the case of Emergency Facility Location in Antioquia, Colombia. The main objective was to determine the potential locations for Facilities that will distribute humanitarian aid to the affected population by mass movements. For this reason, it was intended to maximize the served population while minimizing the number of assigned facilities. Therefore, for the location of the Facilities, was performed the interaction of a metaheuristics and an Agent Based Model Simulation in the software Netlogo. The goal of the metaheuristics was to determine the potential locations for Facilities with the use of an Iterated Local Search (ILS) methodology. First, his methodology established an initial solution, that guaranteed a wide coverage of the affected population. Secondly, the metaheuristics carried out the Iteration process, in which was analyzed the towns that were attended by each Facilities, this with the aim of maximizing the coverage of the affected population. Then, the Perturbation process was carried out, this process depended of an exploration percentage and of a defined number of disturbances. The Perturbation process had the aim of reallocate the Facilities established in the initial solution, this in order to find another local maximums in the Objective Function. Finally, all the selected solutions by the metaheuristics were evaluated in the simulation model for a medium period of time. The simulation model was based on the information provided by a Geographical Information System (topographic and mass movements maps, provided by Geological Colombian Service). The simulation model 2 recreated the creation of mass movements and evaluated the impact on towns according to the interaction of the agents in each of the scenarios. Then, in order to find the best solution, 27 scenarios were established by the combination of the following parameters: number of Facilities (5, 10 and 15), Exploration Percentage (30%, 50% and 75%), number of Iterations (10, 25 and 50) and Disturbances (3, 5 and 10). Each of these scenarios was executed twice, and through a series of statistical analyzes and tests (ANOVA and LSD) it was possible to determine the best solution in terms of the parameters mentioned above, it is represented on Table 1 and the Figure 1 (the yellow towns are those that were assigned as a Facilities). Once the best solution was determined, it was evaluated on the simulation environment for a period of 30 years. From the results obtained, a descriptive analysis of the data was carried out. It was observed that the with the proposed locations for the Facilities the 70% of the affected population will be attended. The above results indicates that the solution found was good in terms of achieving the objectives proposed in the project, it was not intended to provide full coverage, the idea was to guarantee at least a high percentage of coverage with the least amount of Facilities. Consequently, the social and economic impact of the construction of the Facilities was evaluated. It was established that the cost of the project would be approximately the 15% of the annual national budget for infrastructure that reduce the consequences of natural disasters in the Colombia. In conclusion, with this project was possible to establish a methodology that allocates Facilities for humanitarian aid distribution in a region of Colombia prone to mass movements. This methodology can be used for future works that cover the problem of facility location or it can also be complemented from different types of engineering problems such as the implementation of an inventory model or a routing problem.Ingeniero (a) IndustrialPregrad

Erwartungsbildung über den Wahlausgang und ihr Einfluss auf die Wahlentscheidung

Erwartungen über den Wahlausgang haben einen festen Platz sowohl in Rational-Choice-Theorien des Wählerverhaltens als auch in stärker sozialpsychologisch orientierten Ansätzen. Die Bildung von Erwartungen und ihr Einfluss auf die Wahlentscheidung ist dabei jedoch ein noch relativ unerforschtes Gebiet. In diesem Beitrag werden anhand von Wahlstudien für Belgien, Österreich und Deutschland verschiedene Fragen der Erwartungsbildung und ihrer Auswirkungen untersucht. Zunächst wird die Qualität der Gesamterwartungen analysiert und verschiedene Faktoren identifiziert, die einen systematischen Einfluss auf die Erwartungsbildung haben. Im zweiten Schritt wenden wir uns den Einzelerwartungen über verschiedene Parteien und Koalitionen zu und finden eine moderate Verzerrung zugunsten der präferierten Parteien und Koalitionen. Dabei kann gezeigt werden, dass der Effekt des Wunschdenkens mit dem politischen Wissen und dem Bildungsgrad abnimmt. Schließlich werden in einem letzten Schritt zwei unterschiedliche Logiken für die Auswirkungen von Erwartungen getestet, das rationale Kalkül des koalitionsstrategischen Wählens zur Vermeidung der Stimmenvergeudung sowie der sozialpsychologisch begründete Bandwagon-Effekt. Das Ausmaß an politischem Wissen scheint dabei eine zentrale vermittelnde Variable zwischen den beiden Logiken zu sein

It’s not what you say, it’s the way you say it! Effective message styles for promoting innovative new services

While innovations are critical to firms' long-term survival, they have a high failure rate. Identifying the factors that encourage consumer adoption of innovations is therefore essential for the successful management of new products and services. While prior research suggests that two message styles (i.e., metaphors and narratives) can help convey the benefits of new services, extant scholarly work has not examined which style increases adoption intentions to a greater extent. Study 1 demonstrates that metaphors enhance adoption intentions more than narratives for incrementally new services (INSs) but not for really new services (RNSs). Study 2 shows that low-figurativeness metaphors enhance adoption intentions more than high-figurativeness metaphors for INSs but not for RNSs and that consumers' negative cognitive responses underlie this effect. These findings have important implications for theory and practice