An impulse to exploit: the behavioral turn in data-driven marketing

Industry advocates argue that by tailoring services and commercial solicitations to match media users’ personal interests, data-driven marketing benefits both consumers and businesses. This article shows, however, that advertisers and marketers who are taking up ideas and techniques from behavioral economics tell their clients a very different story about the aims and use of digital marketing and consumer surveillance. Listening in on this discourse demonstrates that some digital marketers conceptualize their own practices as forms of social control, appropriating concepts from behavioral economics to identify consumers’ cognitive and affective biases and target their vulnerabilities. Behavioral economics recognizes that economic decisions are not simply dictated by rational self-interest; rather, such choices depend on cognitive heuristics and habits, and can be manipulated through the design of “choice architecture.” This article discusses implications of the behavioral turn in data-driven marketing for critical advertising scholars, public advocates, and regulators.     

The IR Has Two Faces: Positioning Institutional Repositories for Success

This article describes the ongoing efforts at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Libraries to evolve the role of the institutional repository (IR) and to effectively position it within the context of the Libraries’ collections, research support, and scholarly communication services. A major component of this process is re-examining the fundamental aims of the IR and aligning it to the Libraries and the campus strategic goals. The authors situate UNLV Libraries’ experience within the context of the current literature to provide background and reasoning for our decision to pursue two, at times conflicting, aims for the IR: one for scholarly communication and another for research administration.     

Citizen-Centered Journalism and Contested Boundaries

This article explores the existence of a “citizen-centered journalism” that sees citizens as crucial participants in the construction of news and as co-creators of their own worlds. Through qualitative case studies of three news organizations, the article examines the motivation for using a citizen-centered approach, the news routines that are required to do so, the categories of content produced, and the perceived impact of this approach. The results suggest these news organizations are working in partnership with communities and striving to give a voice to historically marginalized communities. The journalists, however, see citizen participation as complementary to professional journalistic routines that favor verifiable information, rather than assigning inherent value to it for its own sake.     

Science Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities: A Meta‐Analysis

Although science has received much attention as a political and educational initiative, students with learning disabilities (LD) perform significantly lower than their nondisabled peers. This meta‐analysis evaluates the effectiveness of instructional strategies in science for students with LD. Twelve studies were examined, summarized, and grouped according to the type of strategy implemented. Effect sizes (ES) were calculated for each study. Across all studies, a mean ES of .78 was obtained, indicating a moderate positive effect on students with LD science achievement. Findings also align with past reviews of inquiry‐based instruction for students with special needs, indicating that students with LD need structure within an inquiry science approach in order to be successful. Additionally, results suggest that mnemonic instruction is highly effective at increasing learning disabled students' acquisition and retention of science facts.     

Elitism and Meritocracy in UK Universities: the UK Needs Investment in its Labour Force

This article summarises previous academic research into university education, distinguishing between arguments for and against improving access. Several views are summarised, including structural‐functionalism, which claims that powerful social groups maintain their status and income, and human capital theory, which focuses on employee productivity. Almost all viewpoints discussed in this article support meritocracy. UK universities differ in their openness to people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Many universities, referred to here as ‘inclusive’, deserve credit for encouraging disadvantaged people to become students; in contrast, ‘exclusive’ universities tend to have fewer disadvantaged students than expected. There are barriers facing disadvantaged students, including unequal access to universities, which can at least partly be explained by private schools for rich pupils and financial burdens at university causing some students to take paid work (reducing time available for study). The UK spends less per student on universities than the world average and less than half as much as some European countries. The UK Government could increase university funding, concentrating on universities that are most inclusive and that tend to have the largest problems in affording sufficient staff and teaching facilities. This investment would give long‐term benefits to the UK economy.     

Recent developments in microfluidic synthesis of artificial cell-like polymersomes and liposomes for functional bioreactors

Recent advances in droplet microfluidics have led to the fabrication of versatile vesicles with a structure that mimics the cellular membrane. These artificial cell-like vesicles including polymersomes and liposomes effectively enclose an aqueous core with well-defined size and composition from the surrounding environment to implement various biological reactions, serving as a diverse functional reactor. The advantage of realizing various biological phenomena within a compartment separated by a membrane that resembles a natural cell membrane is actively explored in the fields of synthetic biology as well as biomedical applications including drug delivery, biosensors, and bioreactors, to name a few. In this Perspective, we first summarize various methods utilized in producing these polymersomes and liposomes. Moreover, we will highlight some of the recent advances in the design of these artificial cell-like vesicles for functional bioreactors and discuss the current issues and future perspectives.