Non-participants’ support for protest violence: the role of the perceived political context

Psychological research on collective action has suggested that protesters may change their ideas about the legitimacy of protest violence when police actions are perceived as illegitimate and indiscriminate. However, no research has explored yet whether a similar process can be experienced by those who do not take an active part in protests, i.e., nonparticipants. In this thesis, I argue that non-participants may support protesters’ violence against the police as a function of people’s perceptions of the political context where protests take place: the restrictions imposed by authorities (the government and the police) and the legitimacy public opinion gives to protests. Combining sociological and psychological theory and research, Chapter 2 describes the development and validation of a scale of measurement of people’s perceptions of their political context (Subjective Political Openness, SPO-R). Then, in Chapter 3, employing SPO-R, I suggest that non-participants may support protesters’ violence against the police following a rationale centred on the perceived restrictions imposed on the right to protest, and public opinion’s legitimisation of protests. In Chapter 4, I argue that the rationale stated above is based on a dilemma non-protesters face when supporting or opposing protest violence: advocating peaceful protest versus defending the right to protest against authorities’ restrictions. The dilemma implies that non-participants may hold contradictory ideas about protest violence, and that its use can be legitimised as self-defence when protesters have to confront authorities who restrict the right to protest. Finally, Chapter 5 covers the idea that non-participants’ support for self-defence actions may be considered as an act of political solidarity with those who hit the streets triggered by authorities’ restrictions, public opinion’s legitimisation of protests, and own opinions about the right to protest

Including political context in the psychological analysis of collective action: development and validation of a measurement scale for subjective political openness

Sociological and Political Science research has argued that political conditions affect both the occurrence of protests and the actions protesters choose. However, an approach that considers people’s perceptions on these conditions is still absent in the social psychological literature. Subjective Political Openness (SPO) is a new construct which fills this gap by incorporating features of political context into the psychological analysis of protests. We propose that SPO comprises perceptions relating to three dimensions: government actions to allow/restrict protests, police measures to actively prevent them, and the extent that public opinion legitimizes protests. We conducted two studies in the UK and Chile to validate scales created for each proposed dimension, test their measurement invariance, establish SPO’s configuration, and demonstrate its convergent validity. Participants in Study 1 were university students (n UK = 203; n Chile = 237), whereas in Study 2 a general population sample from both countries was included (n UK = 377; n Chile = 309) with the purpose of generalizing the results. Both studies consistently showed that SPO is a multidimensional construct configured as a bifactor model comprising the dimensions associated with perceptions of the government and police actions to confront protests. Although we tested two different measurement scales for the perceived legitimacy given by public opinion to protests, results demonstrated this dimension is not part of SPO. The SPO configuration has implications for both our understanding of collective action and how we study it

Seguridad regional : panorama y perspectivas

La seguridad y la defensa regional están cobrando lentamente mayor atención gubernativa y militar. La seguridad de los intereses comunes y la prevención de riesgos emergen como fundamento de la proposición realizada por la Corporación de Estudios Estratégicos (CEES) de crear un mecanismo de seguridad y defensa anivel del MERCOSUR. Los testimonios de altos jefes militares en la II Jornada Internacional sobre estos temas destacaron enfoques concordantes en las visiones político-estratégicas y un favorable clima de cooperación para considerar este componente en el MERCOSUR. Sin embargo, resta aún remover diversos obstáculos para alcanzar una fase más avanzada de cooperación militar en esta zona

Learning Non-robustness using Simulation-based Testing: a Network Traffic-shaping Case Study

An input to a system reveals a non-robust behaviour when, by making a small change in the input, the output of the system changes from acceptable (passing) to unacceptable (failing) or vice versa. Identifying inputs that lead to non-robust behaviours is important for many types of systems, e.g., cyber-physical and network systems, whose inputs are prone to perturbations. In this paper, we propose an approach that combines simulation-based testing with regression tree models to generate value ranges for inputs in response to which a system is likely to exhibit non-robust behaviours. We apply our approach to a network traffic-shaping system (NTSS) -- a novel case study from the network domain. In this case study, developed and conducted in collaboration with a network solutions provider, RabbitRun Technologies, input ranges that lead to non-robustness are of interest as a way to identify and mitigate network quality-of-service issues. We demonstrate that our approach accurately characterizes non-robust test inputs of NTSS by achieving a precision of 84% and a recall of 100%, significantly outperforming a standard baseline. In addition, we show that there is no statistically significant difference between the results obtained from our simulated testbed and a hardware testbed with identical configurations. Finally we describe lessons learned from our industrial collaboration, offering insights about how simulation helps discover unknown and undocumented behaviours as well as a new perspective on using non-robustness as a measure for system re-configuration.Comment: This paper is accepted at the 16th IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST 2023

Modelo didáctico alternativo para el ajuste de curvas

El análisis de datos ha cambiado muchísimo en estos últimos años con la inclusión de ciertas técnicas que en general son muy sencillas y poco conocidas por ejemplo los diagramas de tallos y hojas o los diagramas de cajas y bigotes, estos últimos ya incorporados en algunas calculadoras gráficas. La recta de Tukey, o mejor conocida como el método de Mediana-Mediana, que figura en el currículo de Matemáticas IV, del tronco común de los programas actuales del Colegio de Ciencias y Humanidades, permite ajustar una recta a una nube de puntos en algunos casos en los que el ajuste mínimo cuadrático produce resultados no muy buenos. Por eso, nos ha parecido que podría tener cierto interés el conocer esta técnica desarrolladas por el matemático americano John Wilder Tukey. La recta de Tukey o Mediana-Mediana es un método novedoso y práctico que puede venir a apoyar a otro que tradicionalmente se ha empleado en el ajuste de curvas, a nivel bachillerato, el de mínimos cuadrados. En el presente trabajo presentamos las bondades prácticas de este método ingenioso que no requiere de un fundamento matemático demasiado abstracto en su tratamiento, y por lo cual se puede emplear en el cuarto semestre del tronco común de los programas vigentes del Colegio de Ciencias y Humanidades

PhD supervisors and faculty members might help to avoid burnout as well as enhance engagement and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) among PhD students.

There has been increased interest in the wellbeing and mental health of postgraduate students in light of the recent portrayal of the academic career as overworked and isolated. Research points to PhD students as being particularly at risk, yet the factors that contribute to PhD students’ compromised wellbeing are unclear. In this study (N = 392), we combine the social cure approach in social psychology with advances in organizational psychology to investigate potential predictors of work-related wellbeing and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) among PhD students in the UK. In particular, we explore the relationships between social support, willingness to support others, clarity of role, group belonging, engagement, and burnout using structural equation modelling (SEM). Our results point to the importance of support provided by both the supervisor and faculty members in helping to avoid burnout and enhance engagement among students. We also found that students’ identification with supervisors and faculty members together with clarity of role are positively associated with students’ work-related well-being. Moreover, although particular processes differ for early vs. late stage PhD students, our findings suggest that support from faculty members is a key predictor of intentions to perform OCB. Thus, received support is positively related to performing OCB both directly and indirectly via a sense of identification with faculty members. We discuss the implications of our findings in relation to policies aiming at improving the well-being of PhD students

PhD supervisors and faculty members might help to avoid burnout as well as enhance engagement and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) among PhD students.

There has been increased interest in the wellbeing and mental health of postgraduate students in light of the recent portrayal of the academic career as overworked and isolated. Research points to PhD students as being particularly at risk, yet the factors that contribute to PhD students’ compromised wellbeing are unclear. In this study (N = 392), we combine the social cure approach in social psychology with advances in organizational psychology to investigate potential predictors of work-related wellbeing and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) among PhD students in the UK. In particular, we explore the relationships between social support, willingness to support others, clarity of role, group belonging, engagement, and burnout using structural equation modelling (SEM). Our results point to the importance of support provided by both the supervisor and faculty members in helping to avoid burnout and enhance engagement among students. We also found that students’ identification with supervisors and faculty members together with clarity of role are positively associated with students’ work-related well-being. Moreover, although particular processes differ for early vs. late stage PhD students, our findings suggest that support from faculty members is a key predictor of intentions to perform OCB. Thus, received support is positively related to performing OCB both directly and indirectly via a sense of identification with faculty members. We discuss the implications of our findings in relation to policies aiming at improving the well-being of PhD students

Lithic resources as a proxy for the social use of territory among hunter-gatherers of Central Chile

This paper presents the results of a study of the composition of lithic raw materials from the contexts of archaeological sites of hunter-gatherers of Central Chile (latitudes 33° to 34.5° S) between 5000 to 1000 years BP. This territory is characterized by a wide distribution of certain coarse and medium-grained lithic raw materials (andesite, basalt and granite), preferably used in low formatted tools, and the specific location of those of fine grain (obsidian and siliceous rocks), suitable for bifacial reduction, only in some localities. In this analysis, 22 sites have been included, each of which presents different proportions of these raw materials in their context, a set that, when analysed in terms of the diversity of each case, generated clear spatial groupings which were ratified by means of a principle component analysis. These groupings of sites are located in direct association with the lithic landscape of different localities within the region, although we propose that the simple cost-benefit explanation would not account for their formation. According to the authors, these groups would be marked by behaviours that can only result from social restrictions on access to certain sources of these raw materials, especially considering that the distances between their location and the position of the different sources in several cases is not too large to be considered a factor in itself. These restrictions could be interpreted as the existence of socially different groups within the study area, a question that is compared with ethnographic data currently available on the size of the territories of different groups of hunter-gatherers and their annual mobility ranges.Se presentan los resultados de un estudio de la composición de materias primas líticas en sitios arqueológicos de cazadores recolectores tardíos de Chile Central (3000 años a.C. a 1000 años d.C.). En base a métodos estadísticos univariados y multivariados se propone que es posible definir la existencia de cuatro distintos grupos de sitios que tendrían marcados énfasis en el acceso a materias primas de grano fino aptas para la talla bifacial. Estos grupos se localizarían en directa asociación al paisaje lítico de distintas localidades dentro de esta región, aunque se propone que la simple explicación de costo beneficio no daría cuenta de la formación de estos grupos, los que están marcados por conductas que solo pueden resultar de restricciones en el acceso a ciertas fuentes. Estas restricciones podrían interpretarse como la existencia de grupos socialmente distintos dentro del área de estudio, cuestión que es comparada con datos etnográficos actualmente disponibles

Evaluacion del efecto de cuatro protocolos de despanoje sobre el rendimiento de maiz (Zea mays L.) semillero en una linea tardia

48 p.Con la finalidad de evaluar cuatro protocolos de despanoje se establecieron dos ensayos en un semillero comercial de maíz híbrido. Los tratamientos fueron: despanoje a dos hojas panojas (T1), despanoje a una hoja panoja (T2), despanoje mecánico con más de tres hojas panojas (T3) y despanoje mixto, que involucra lo mecánico con lo manual (T4). Esta investigación se llevó a cabo en la comuna de Colbún, provincia de Linares, en la VII región. El maíz fue sembrado el día 15 de octubre de 2009. Las evaluaciones fueron: tamaño plantas (cm), número de hojas/plantas, rendimiento bruto y de semilla (kg /ha), humedad de cosecha (%), número de hileras por mazorca, número de filas por mazorca, número de granos por mazorca, tamaño mazorca (cm) y peso de mil granos (gr). Una vez cosechados los ensayos las mallas que contenían las mazorcas se trasladaron a la planta de procesamiento de Agrícola Green Seed Limitada, ubicada en la comuna de San Francisco de Mostazal, VI región, en donde se procedió al pesaje de las mallas, secado de mazorcas, desgrane de mazorcas, al calibrado de semillas, evaluar la humedad de la semilla y determinar el peso de mil granos. Tanto el tamaño de plantas como el N° hojas por plantas se redujo en ambos ensayos con el despanoje mecánico. El despanoje mixto a pesar de que en cierta parte es mecanizado no mostró mayor diferencia con los tratamientos manuales (T1 y T2). El rendimiento de mazorcas bruto y de semillas fueron menores al utilizar despanoje mecánico, en comparación con un despanoje convencional. El tamaño de mazorcas fue también menor con el despanoje mecánico. Las componentes del rendimiento como el N° de hileras por mazorca y peso de mil granos no se vieron afectados por los distintos protocolos de despanoje usados a pesar del mayor grado de defoliación que implica el despanoje mecánico. Sin embargo los otros componentes del rendimiento como el N° filas por mazorca y cantidad de granos por mazorcas se vieron alteradas al realizar un despanoje mecanizado lo que explica la baja en el rendimiento del semillero./ ABSTRACT: In order to asses four detasseling methods, two trials were set up in a maize field for seed hybrid production. The treatments were: detassaling with two (T1) or one leaf (T2), mechanized including the extraction of more than three leaves (T3) and mixed one, which combines the mechanical and manual methods (T4). This research was realized in Colbún, located in Linares province (Chile, Maule region). Sowing date was 15 October 2009. Evaluations were: plant size (cm), number of leave per plant, gross yield and seed yield (kg/ha), grain moisture at harvest (%), number of grain lines per cob, number of grain rows per cob, number of grains per cob, size of the cob and the weight of a thousand grains. After the harvest, the bags with ears were sent to the processing plant Agricola Green Seed Limitada, located in San Francisco de Mostazal (Chile, O´Higgins region). In the processing plant the bags were weighed, kernels removed from the cob, the seeds were calibrated and tested the moisture, and weighed the thousand grains. Both, plant size and number of leaves per plant were reduced by the mechanical detasseling. The mixed detasseling did not show an statistical difference compared with the manual treatments (T1 and T2), despite of the fact that is partly mechanical. The gross (cobs plus kernel) and seed yield were lower under mechanical detasseling in comparison with traditional methods (T1 and T2). Cob size was also reduced by the mechanical detasseling. The yield components like number of grains per cob, and the weight of a thousand grains were not affected by the different detasseling methods, despite of the largest defoliation in the mechanical detasseling. Nevertheless, the others yield components like the raw numbers per cob, grain number per cob were affected by the mechanical detasseling, which explain the decline in grain yield

Liderazgo en un centro de atención telefónica de una empresa comercializadora y distribuidora de energía eléctrica en el noroeste de méxico (leadership in a call center of a company marketer and distributor electricity in northwest mexico)

Abstract. Using the Multifactor Leadership theoretical model (Bass and Avolio, 1995) was diagnosed the perceived leadership style by 161 workers of a Regional Call Center of a Mexican public company in charge of distribution and marketing of electricity. We used the short version of the MLQ (Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire), Likert-scaled, validating its internal reliability (Cronbach's alpha for each dimension). Statistical analysis included the overall narrative and the use of structural equations (SPSS 19 and Amos, 19). Model results showed the data are consistent with the proposed research model, with a Chi2 (2)=51.26, df=31, p=0.012,2/df=1.65, RMSEA=0.064, CFI =0.99, NFI=0.96 and TLI=.98). In general, all goodness of fit indicators manifest a good model fit. The results emphasized the importance of a good transactional leadership style complemented by a good transformational leadership style, to achieve good employee extra effort, effectiveness, and satisfaction. Resumen. Mediante el modelo teórico del Liderazgo Multifactorial (Bass y Avolio, 1995) fue diagnosticado el liderazgo percibido por 161 trabajadores de un Centro de Atención Telefónica Regional, en una empresa pública, mexicana, distribuidora y comercializadora de electricidad. Se utilizó la versión corta del MLQ (Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire), con escalamiento de Líkert, validándose su confiabilidad interna (alpha de Cronbach por dimensión). El análisis estadístico comprendió la parte descriptiva general y el uso de ecuaciones estructurales (SPSS, 19 y Amos, 19). Los resultados del modelo manifestaron que los datos concuerdan con el modelo de investigación propuesto, con una Chi2 (2)=51.26, gl=31, p=0.012, 2/gl=1.65), aceptándose Ha (RMSEA=.064, índices de comparación CFI=0.99, NFI=0.96y TLI=0.98). Los resultados enfatizaron la importancia del liderazgo transformacional complementado con el estilo transaccional para obtener la satisfacción del cliente, del empleado y la productividad de la organización