Is Sexual-Orientation Discrimination a Form of Sex Discrimination?

Liverpool Law Review - In Bostock v Clayton County (2020) Gorsuch J holds that direct discrimination because of sexual orientation is a form of direct discrimination because of sex. I argue that...     

Using Big Data and Algorithms to Determine the Effect of Geographically Targeted Advertising on Vote Intention: Evidence From the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election

We develop a new conceptualization of political advertising effects by looking at the effect of the marginal advertising dollar during the heat of presidential campaigns. We argue that in contrast to other studies investigating effects of political ads, our approach is more apt to capture the natural environment in which political ads are encountered during a presidential campaign. We focus on the intense inundation of political ads voters are confronted with in swing states in the weeks leading up to the presidential election, and argue that it is unclear a priori whether we should expect advertising to affect vote intention in that critical circumstance. We empirically validate this hypothesis using a trove of data from the 2012 campaign: daily polling in media markets around the country, detailed data on all registered voters in the country, all TV advertisements by market and exact airtime, and the entire Twitter corpus. We find that neither overall increases in advertising spending nor partisan imbalances in spending expanded the candidates’ electorate. In fact, total Designated Market Area (DMA)-level spending significantly moderates a negative relationship between spending advantages and advantages in vote intention, suggesting a boomerang effect of additional spending late in the campaign. In closing, we discuss the ramifications of our findings for future research, and stress the importance of research tracking advertising effects.     

Parent-Child Conflict during Elementary School as a Longitudinal Predictor of Sense of Purpose in Emerging Adulthood

Having a sense of purpose is viewed as a benchmark of adaptive development. Though adolescence and emerging adulthood are viewed as central periods for the development of a purpose, work still is needed to understand the childhood factors that influence this developmental process. The current study provides an initial investigation into whether parent-child conflict during elementary school predicts later sense of purpose, assessed during emerging adulthood (mean age: 21.01 years; range: 19.97–23.53). The sample included 1074 students (50% female), and their parents, who both reported on their levels of parent-child conflict during grades 1–5. Higher levels of parent-child conflict were associated with lower levels of purpose in emerging adulthood. Moreover, the study examined whether these effects remained when predicting the variance unique to purpose while accounting for other indicators of well-being in emerging adulthood. Bi-factor models demonstrated that the child’s perception of mother-child conflict has a unique prospective effect on purpose in emerging adulthood, above and beyond its negative association with general well-being. The findings are discussed with respect to how positive parent-child relationships may prove important for starting youth on the path to purpose.

     

Church Engagement, Religious Values, and Mass-Elite Policy Agenda Agreement in Local Communities

We provide evidence on two prominent but heretofore untested expectations about the relevance of religion for the democratic process: (1) that greater engagement in churches or comparable religious institutions and their organizational life enhances representational processes; and (2) that religious values in a community have greater influence on the latter processes, with more liberal religious values expected to enhance the responsiveness of community leaders to general public preferences. Using data on local communities in the United States in the late 1960s, we find strong support for the expected relevance of religious liberalism for representation, but none for the expected effect of church engagement. We provide evidence, too, that our findings about religious values are generalizable to present-day politics.     

Attitude generalization and the measurement of trust in American leadership

For nearly a decade informed observers of American public opinion have vigorously debated the “crisis of confidence” question: Does the ongoing tide of political distrust ported cataclysmic change in the body politic or is the public harmlessly letting off some steam? This paper approaches the debate from a new perspective by reflecting on the manner in which researchers have sought to measure public confidence in leaders and political institutions. It is argued herein that researchers' dependence on global measures of political trust has lead to overestimation of the extent to which public confidence has eroded. Evidence is presented which suggests that survey respondents engage in a process of attitude generalization which causes them to express distrust of leaders generally when only certain specific leaders are actually seen as culpable. The methodological and theoretical significance of this sort of generalization is discussed.     

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) analysis by restriction fragment length polymorphisms of blood and other body fluid stains subjected to contamination and environmental insults.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) profile results were obtained from bloodstains and other body fluid stains subjected to mixture with other body fluids, environmental insults (sunlight and temperature), different substrates (cotton, nylon, blue denim, glass, aluminum, and wood), and contaminants (gasoline, bleach, sodium hydroxide, soil, motor oil, detergent, phosphate salt, glacial acetic acid, and microorganisms). Of the samples that produced profile results, all had profiles that were consistent with those of untreated control samples.     

The biochemistry of vitreous humour. A comparative study of the potassium, sodium and urate concentrations in the eyes at identical time intervals after death

Analysis of the vitreous humour from an individual's eyes collected at the same time since death showed variation between the eyes in the concentration of potassium, sodium and/or urate. This previously unreported finding would limit the use of measuring these electrolytes in determining the time of death.