Clans, Cliques, and Captured States: Rethinking 'Transition' in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union

Informal social networks, Corruption, Social capital, Economies in transition

The influence of advertisement familiarity and originality on visual attention and brand memory.

Based on Mandler's theory of schema organization and previous visual attention research, we formulate and test hypotheses about the impact of ad familiarity and ad originality on attention and memory for print advertisements. To that end, one hundred and nineteen consumers browsed through two consumer magazines containing 68 print advertisements. Attention to the ads and their brand, picture and text components was assessed through infrared eye tracking. Trained judges rated the ads independently for familiarity and originality. In support of the hypotheses we find a sharp attention decline with ad familiarity, which is largely due to a reduction in attention to text. Originality of ad execution serves as a buffer against the negative influence of ad familiarity on attention, but only for the brand and picture components. The reduction of attention to the text is even larger for original than for unoriginal ads. Moreover, over and above their indirect influence through visual attention patterns, ad familiarity, ad originality and their interaction had a direct influence on brand memory.Advertising;

The direct-historical approach in Pawnee archeology (with six plates)

The direct-historical approach in archaeology assumes the existence of an analogous relationship between historic accounts and prehistoric data, serving to establish cultural identity under the basis of cultural continuity. In this article, Dr. Waldo Wedel uses the direct-historical approach to review some preliminary findings of archaeological investigations undertaken as part of an early effort to study the Pawnee culture of eastern Nebraska. The University of Nebraska Archeological Survey was established in 1929, led by Dr. W. D. Strong, in an attempt to better understand prehistoric Pawnee culture. Previous evidence existed in the form of A. T. Hill’s artifact collection and 19th century maps and narratives. After reviewing early archaeological work conducted at various Pawnee village sites, Wedel offers a comparison of traits in historic Pawnee, Lower Loup Focus, and Oneota Aspect material culture, looking for universal traits in archaeological remains from all sites. Analysis of the data reveals that the Lower Loup Focus has a greater number of parallels in terms of material traits to the historic Pawnee. Following a discussion on the presence of early European manufactured goods and evidence supporting the presence of Pawnee in the Platte-Loupe region, Wedel concludes that there exists a direct linkage between historic and protohistoric Pawnee traditions

Visual attention to advertising:A segment-level analysis

We propose a methodology to study the effects of physical ad properties on consumers' Visual attention to advertising that accounts for heterogeneity in these effects across consumers. In an illustrative experiment, we monitor consumers' eye movements during naturalistic exposure to a consumer magazine, in which experimentally designed ads are inserted. A latent class regression model accounting for heterogeneity across consumers through unobserved segments is used to analyze the eye movement data in detail. Three consumer segments are identified that exhibit distinct patterns of visual attention as well as different profiles of product involvement, brand attitude, and advertising recall. Implications for visual attention theory and for advertising research are discussed

The direct-historical approach in Pawnee archeology (with six plates)

The direct-historical approach in archaeology assumes the existence of an analogous relationship between historic accounts and prehistoric data, serving to establish cultural identity under the basis of cultural continuity. In this article, Dr. Waldo Wedel uses the direct-historical approach to review some preliminary findings of archaeological investigations undertaken as part of an early effort to study the Pawnee culture of eastern Nebraska. The University of Nebraska Archeological Survey was established in 1929, led by Dr. W. D. Strong, in an attempt to better understand prehistoric Pawnee culture. Previous evidence existed in the form of A. T. Hill’s artifact collection and 19th century maps and narratives. After reviewing early archaeological work conducted at various Pawnee village sites, Wedel offers a comparison of traits in historic Pawnee, Lower Loup Focus, and Oneota Aspect material culture, looking for universal traits in archaeological remains from all sites. Analysis of the data reveals that the Lower Loup Focus has a greater number of parallels in terms of material traits to the historic Pawnee. Following a discussion on the presence of early European manufactured goods and evidence supporting the presence of Pawnee in the Platte-Loupe region, Wedel concludes that there exists a direct linkage between historic and protohistoric Pawnee traditions

Consideration sets, intentions and the inclusion of "Don't know" in a two-stage model for voter choice

We present a statistical model for voter choice that incorporates a consideration set stage and final vote intention stage. The first stageinvolves a multivariate probit model for the vector of probabilities that a candidate or a party gets considered. The second stage of the model is a multinomial probit model for the actual choice. In both stages we use asexplanatory variables data on voter choice at the previous election, as well as socio-demographic respondent characteristics. Importantly, our modelexplicitly accounts for the three types of "missing data" encountered in polling. First, we include a no-vote option in the final vote intention stage. Second, the "do not know" response is assumed to arise from too little difference in the utility between the two most preferred options in the consideration set. Third, the "do not want to say" response is modelled as a missing observation on the most preferred alternative in the consideration set. Thus, we consider the missing data generating mechanism to be non-ignorable and build a model based on utility maximization to describe the voting intentions of these respondents. We illustrate the merits of the model as we have information on a sample of about 5000 individuals from the Netherlands for who we know how they voted last time (if at all), which parties they would consider for the upcoming election,and what their voting intention is. A unique feature of the data set is that information is available on actual individual voting behavior, measured at the day of election. We find that the inclusion of the consideration set stage in the model enables the user to make more precise inferences on the competitive structure in the political domain and to get better out-of-sample forecasts.Bayesian method;Choice model;Election data;Polling;Probit model

A Data Modeling Case: Writers Guild of America, East

This article presents a case study that was developed as an instructional case for teaching systems analysis and database design. Students are required to utilize their data modeling skills to design an appropriate data structure for the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE). The core application in the case is an accounts receivable system, but with several unique features that necessitate creative thought by the student analysts. The case has been used successfully as both group and individual projects. Student feedback indicates that the WGAE Case is realistic, engaging and challenging without being excessively complex. Teaching notes and a suggested solution consisting of an entity-relationship diagram (ERD) and the associated list of entities and attributes are available through the JISE web site

Anthropological Papers, No. 51: Observations on Some Nineteenth-Century Pottery Vessels from the Upper Missouri

Published as a bundle of anthropological works sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology, paper number 51 is an analysis of 25 pottery specimens from the Upper-Missouri area. These specimens are attributed to the Lewis and Clark expedition, to army personnel, and to other travelers. The origin of the pottery is uncertain, though there are indications that some pieces may have originated from Fort Berthold, Fort Buford, and Fort Stevenson. The paper offers background on pottery making in the Upper-Missouri, noting that the Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa tribes made paddle-and-anvil pottery rather than coil pottery. Further background observations help illuminate the possible history of the pottery specimens found. The paper includes illustrations and a map.https://commons.und.edu/indigenous-gov-docs/1104/thumbnail.jp