Mobile payments: Current and emerging regulatory and contracting issues

Sitting at the heart of m-commerce and at the intersection of the value chains of the payments, mobile, retail and technology industries, mobile payments are set to grow rapidly in the short and medium terms. M-payments are giving rise to the development of a new ecosystem of market participants including card schemes, MNOs, retailers, device suppliers, service providers and trusted service managers. Key regulatory considerations arising include e- money and payment services, mobile services regulation, consumer protection, data privacy and standards. The contractual landscape linking the various parties inhabiting the ecosystem is also rapidly developing, with key issues around revenue models, customer ownership, technology development, and risk and liability. Parties involved in mobile payments will need to carefully assess their and others' roles and regulatory aspects in determining their strategy and how to approach contractual discussions.     

Co-witnesses talk: A survey of eyewitness discussion

Abstract

The objective of this study was to obtain a quantitative measure of the discussion behaviour of real eyewitnesses. Undergraduate psychology students were given a questionnaire to determine if they had witnessed a serious event. Results from the questionnaire showed that the majority of respondents had witnessed a serious event at some point in their lives, and the majority of witnesses were not alone when they observed the event. Respondents who had experienced a serious event for which there was more than one witness present were invited to fill out a follow-up questionnaire. The follow-up study showed that when there is a co-witness present, most people (86%) report discussing the event with the co-witness. This is potentially problematic if the witnesses are contaminating one another's memories of the event. The results are discussed in terms of psychological research and policy implications.     

Can a witness report hearsay evidence unintentionally? The effects of discussion on eyewitness memory

Abstract

When eyewitnesses are exposed to misinformation about an event from a co-witness, they often incorporate this misinformation in their recall of the event. The current research aimed to investigate whether this memory conformity phenomenon is due to change in the witness's memory for the event, or to social pressures to conform to the co-witness's account. Participants were shown a crime video and then asked to discuss the video in groups, with some receiving misinformation about the event from their discussion partners. After a one-week delay some participants were warned about possible misinformation before all participants provided their own account of the event. In Study 1, participants made remember/know judgments about the items recalled, and in Study 2 they indicated the source of their memories. Co-witness information was incorporated into participants’ testimonies, and this effect was not reduced by warnings or source monitoring instructions, suggesting memory change may have occurred. However, there was some indication that remember/know judgments may help distinguish between ‘real’ memories and co-witness information.     

Getting out what we put in: productivity of the English National Health Service

Many countries are incorporating direct measures of non-market outputs in the national accounts. For any particular output to be included there has to be data about it for two adjacent periods. This is problematic because the classification of non-market outputs is often subject to wholesale revision. We outline the challenges associated with classification changes and propose a solution. To illustrate we construct output and input indices and estimate productivity growth of the English National Health Service (NHS) for the period 2003-2004 to 2007-2008. Our index of output growth incorporates all care provided to NHS patients and captures improvements in survival rates, waiting times and disease management. We find that more patients are being treated and the quality of the care they receive has been improving. We implement our approach to dealing with changes as to how health services are defined and show what effect this has on estimates of output growth. Our index of input growth captures all labour, intermediate and capital inputs into health service production and we improve on how capital has been measured in the past. Inputs have increased over time but there has also been a slowdown since 2005-2006, primarily the result of a levelling off in staff recruitment and less reliance on the use of agency staff. Productivity is assessed by comparing output growth with growth in inputs, the net effect being constant productivity growth between 2003-2004 and 2007-2008.     

Perceived Discrimination and Mexican-Origin Young Adults’ Sleep Duration and Variability: The Moderating Role of Cultural Orientations

Perceived ethnic discrimination is central to the experiences of Latino young adults, yet we know little about the ways in which and the conditions under which ethnic discrimination relates to Latino young adults’ sleep patterns. Using a sample of 246 Mexican-origin young adults (M _age  = 21.11, SD = 1.54; 50 % female), the current study investigated the longitudinal links between perceived ethnic discrimination and both sleep duration and night-to-night variability in duration, while also examining the moderating roles of Anglo and Mexican orientations in the associations. The results revealed that perceived discrimination predicted greater sleep variability, and this link was not moderated by cultural orientations. The relation between perceived discrimination and hours of sleep, however, was moderated by Anglo and Mexican orientations. Individuals with high Anglo and Mexican orientations (bicultural) and those with only high Mexican orientations (enculturated), showed no association between discrimination and hours of sleep. Individuals with low Anglo and Mexican orientations (marginalized) displayed a positive association, whereas those with high Anglo and low Mexican orientations (acculturated) displayed a negative association. The results suggest that discrimination has long term effects on sleep variability of Mexican-origin young adults, regardless of cultural orientations; however, for sleep duration, bicultural and enculturated orientations are protective.     

Globalising cities at the crossroads of migration: Puebla,Tijuana and Monterrey

This article is part of a larger project that focuses in part on the migration dynamics in large Mexican metropolitan areas or globalising cities. In particular, it develops a comparative analysis of the urbanised region of Puebla-Tlaxcala, the metropolis of Monterrey and Tijuana. All three metropolitan areas are important industrial centres that attract rural–urban as well as interstate migrations. Moreover, these urban centres are situated at routes used by migrants from Central and South America to get to the US. Yet, despite the increasing impact of migration(s) on urban areas, very little is known about its characteristics and municipal authorities have not identified inward or transmigration as issues of political importance. For our analysis we intend to map the different migrations through addressing the following question: How are migrations transforming the urban areas of Monterrey, Tijuana and Puebla-Tlaxcala and how are they inserted in and contributing to urban assemblages in these metropolitan zones? For this particular article we have chosen three distinct migratory groups to contrast: Germans in Puebla-Tlaxcala, Haitians in Tijuana and Indigenous populations in Monterrey.     

A Father's Body,a Nation's Heart—Caregiving Fathers in Contemporary Norwegian Film

Norway is internationally known for progressive gender politics that have emancipated women and domesticated fathers. Norwegian films produced in the last decade articulate a conservative counter-discourse to this state-feminist discourse of women's progress. In contemporary Norwegian films, men subscribe to caregiving fatherhood in order to prove their (hetero)sexual prowess and earn social recognition. In addition, by pledging to become caregiving fathers, these often troubled and undisciplined men become worthy members of the Norwegian national community. A closer investigation of caregiving fatherhood will help us better understand how heteronormativity continues to proliferate even in Norway, where state feminism has come a long way.