The Land of My Consciousness

Latin American Studie

A model of riots dynamics: shocks, diffusion and thresholds

We introduce and analyze several variants of a system of differential equations which model the dynamics of social outbursts, such as riots. The systems involve the coupling of an explicit variable representing the intensity of rioting activity and an underlying (implicit) field of social tension. Our models include the effects of exogenous and endogenous factors as well as various propagation mechanisms. From numerical and mathematical analysis of these models we show that the assumptions made on how different locations influence one another and how the tension in the system disperses play a major role on the qualitative behavior of bursts of social unrest. Furthermore, we analyze here various properties of these systems, such as the existence of traveling wave solutions, and formulate some new open mathematical problems which arise from our work

Immercity: a curation content application in Virtual and Augmented reality

When working with emergent and appealing technologies as Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality and Augmented Reality, the issue of definitions appear very often. Indeed, our experience with various publics allows us to notice that technology definitions pose ambiguity and representation problems for informed as well as novice users. In this paper we present Immercity, a content curation system designed in the context of a collaboration between the University of Montpellier and CapGemi-ni, to deliver a technology watch. It is also used as a testbed for our experiences with Virtual, Mixed and Augmented reality to explore new interaction techniques and devices, artificial intelligence integration, visual affordances, performance , etc. But another, very interesting goal appeared: use Immercity to communicate about Virtual, Mixed and Augmented Reality by using them as a support

IPOSS, Executive Compensation, and Firm Performance

IPOs, Executive Compensation, and Firm Performance Nancy Lopez-Rodriguez, Dr. Ansley Chua Department of Finance College of Business Administration Most businesses in the United States have had the chance to become public through initial public offerings, or IPOs. IPOs allow for some of the stock of a private company to be sold to the public. These IPOs generally bring in more capital to a business so the question of whether there is a specific determinant in executive compensation between males and females during these IPOs and if this has an impact on firm performance arises. The purpose of this research is to find if gender inequality pay exists in executive compensation during IPOs and if there is an impact on the performance of a firm. The age, gender, and ethnicities of over 1,240 executives of about 230 firms was hand collected mainly from EDGAR’s (SEC’s Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system) IPO prospectus filings. The sample of IPO’s is from 2005 and 2010. With the data collected, the comparison of male and female executives’ earnings is analyzed, and the performance of the businesses is seen through stock prices and failure or success of the company. The number of females serving as executives for each company was also taken into consideration. The results show that women executives make significantly less than their male counterparts when compared with similar executive positions. We can conclude that factors such as gender can affect executive compensation and that the number of female executives serves as a determinant in firm performance overall

Effects of Individual and Contextual Characteristics on Preadjudication Detention of Juvenile Delinquents

This study examined individual and contextual factors affecting preadjudication detention of juvenile delinquents in 65 counties of a northeastern state. Results demonstrated that while individual characteristics of the juvenile delinquents were important predictors, much of the variation in decisions was explained when contextual factors of the counties were included in a two‐level hierarchical linear model. In addition to the statistically significant legal and extralegal juvenile characteristics, our study found that counties with a higher percentage of non‐White population were more likely to detain juvenile delinquents prior to adjudication. These findings demonstrate the importance of considering both individual and contextual factors of jurisdictions when examining the adjudication process