The private value of software patents

We investigate the value creation or destruction associated with the introduction of software patents in the United States in two ways. The first looks at the cumulative abnormal returns to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) firms around the time of important court decisions that impacted software patents, and the second analyzes the relationship between firms’ stock market value, the sector in which they operate, and their holdings of software patents. We conclude that the market evaluated software patents as a negative development ex ante. Ex post, a greater number of firms in all ICT sectors invested in these patents, and these firms had slightly higher market values than those with no software patents. However, while we obtain clear evidence that the technological importance or quality of patented innovation mattered for the market value of hardware firms both before and after the legal changes, it is less clear that the marginal patent right per se was associated with increases in market value, and there are no significant valuation effects associated with patents for pure software firms after the change.     

Relational Uncertainty as a Consequence of Partner Jealousy Expressions

The present study examines how the relational-uncertainty levels of individuals whose partners are jealous (i.e., “jealousy targets”) are predicted by how partners express jealousy. Students and community members completed a questionnaire where they recalled an instance when they were the recipients of their romantic partners' expression of jealousy. In general, jealousy-target relational uncertainty was positively predicted by a majority of negative and general behavioral partner jealousy expressions. However, positive partner jealousy expressions were not generally associated with jealousy-target relational uncertainty. Implications for the theoretical understanding of relational uncertainty and consequences of partner jealousy expression are discussed.     

Information Quality,Uncertainty, and Quality of Care in Long-Distance Caregiving

Approximately 13% of Americans who provide care for an ailing family member do so from a distance, making long-distance caregiving a relevant health communication topic to study. A self-report online survey examined the quality of information provided by care recipient to distant caregiver, uncertainty about care recipient health, and perceived quality of care from the distant caregivers' perspective. Information quality, uncertainty, and perceived quality of care were significantly related as predicted. How these findings offer new insight into the complex nature of distant caregiving communication is discussed.     

A sociocultural analysis of the ethics of involving children in educational research

ABSTRACT

This article explores the ethical complexities of involving children in research in the contexts of their families, schools and communities. We argue for an approach that is dynamic, reflexive, responsive and informed by an understanding of how local cultures impact on and shape negotiations and practices around ethical issues and processes. We use different sociocultural lenses to analyse the complexities of ethical processes and practices at the beginning of a research project which explored children’s informal and everyday learning. The article contributes to ethical debates about involving children with research through foregrounding the multiplicities and complexities that emerge when researchers are attentive to the practices and values of the settings that children’s and researchers’ lives traverse.     

Privileged but pressured? A study of affluent youth

The purpose of this study was to build on preliminary findings of unusually high internalizing symptoms and substance use among suburban high school students. The sample consisted of 302 sixth- and seventh-grade students in an affluent, suburban community. Findings corroborated expectations regarding several domains of vulnerability, showing (1) high rates of clinically significant depressive symptoms among older girls, (2) significant links between various internalizing symptoms and substance use among both boys and girls, and (3) peers' approval of substance use among older boys. In exploring potential causes of distress in this suburban sample, associations were found for achievement pressures (particularly excessive perfectionistic strivings), and isolation from parents (particularly low perceived closeness to mothers). Findings of this study are discussed in terms of widespread stereotypes about affluent families, as well as implications for future research and preventive interventions for a subgroup of youth typically viewed as being at "low risk."     

Becoming Schoolgirls: The ambivalent project of subjectification

In this article, the authors examine the concept and practices of subjectification; that is, the processes through which we are subjected, and actively take up as our own the terms of our subjection. They use Judith Butler's theorising of subjection both as a starting point for working with their own memories of being subjected in school settings, and as the theoretical basis of their analysis of subjectification. Their method of working, which they refer to as collective biography, is derived from Haug et al. 's methods developed in Female Sexualization . Their memories focus on aspects of the achievement of the individual, appropriate(d) schoolgirl subject who simultaneously constitutes herself and is constituted through discourse. They analyse the illusion of autonomy through which modern subjects are made possible, and the inevitable ambivalence that is experienced as schoolgirls take themselves up appropriately within the possibilities made available to them. Through re-membering their own pasts, and the embodied and emotional detail through which we became (and go on becoming) subjects, they open up for inspection the contradictory ground of the humanist subject, and in particular the feminine humanist subject, as it is achieved in educational settings.     

Agency as a Form of Discursive Practice. A Classroom Scene Observed

In this paper an analysis of the concept of agency is undertaken. The traditional or agonistic definition of agency which assumes that to be a person is to have agency is rejected in favour of a definition that shows the way in which agency may be discursively constructed as a positioning made available to some but not to others. This analysis is then applied to an episode in a primary school classroom to see whether the discursive practices in that classroom can be said to position the students as agentic. The particular classroom was chosen on the basis of the teacher's explicit wish that his students be agentic, but what the analysis shows is the extreme complexity involved in actually carrying this off, given all of the contradictory beliefs and practices that militate against children actually being agentic.