How to manage self-inflicted stress

a post by Jaimee Bell for the Big Think blog

Stress and anxiety therapist Dr. Amelia Aldao suggests waiting 60 seconds before reacting to a stressor, giving your rational mind time to catch up to your emotions.
Sounds like good DBT to me!

• Stress is a complex defense mechanism that we experience in relation to either internal or external threats.
• Self-inflicted stress is stress we inflict upon ourselves with our emotional and behavioural responses to certain situations. An example of self-inflicted stress would be your car breaking down on the morning of an important meeting because your "check engine" let had been on, but you ignored it.
• There are a few ways for you to cope with self-inflicted internal and external stressors, put forth by researchers and therapists.

Continue reading (or listening)

Labels:
decision-making, emotions, failure, fear, motivation, mental_health,

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Abstract Digital Internet-distributed audiobooks are a surprising game changer in digital publishing. In recent years, audiobooks have moved from being a peripheral by-product of the printed book into the centre of digital publishing and reading, but are typically still ignored in publishing studies. This article raises the voice of the audiobook by giving it a privileged status in the current transformations of book publishing caused by digitization. We present an original model of the digital audiobook circuit, which is based on interviews and knowledge from the Danish market as part of a global industry, which makes it possible to reflect and adjust according to national variations. The model is framed by theoretical discussions of values and dynamics within the digital audiobook circuit in general. Keywords Audio media, audiobook distribution, audiobook production, book circuit, book distribution, book production, digital audiobooks, digital publishing, digital reading, the audiobook circuit

an article by Mark Ledwich (software engineer) and Anna Zaitsev (The University of California, Berkeley, USA) published in First Monday Volume 25 Number 3 (March 2020)

Abstract

The role that YouTube and its behind-the-scenes recommendation algorithm plays in encouraging online radicalisation has been suggested by both journalists and academics alike.

This study directly quantifies these claims by examining the role that YouTube’s algorithm plays in suggesting radicalised content. After categorising nearly 800 political channels, we were able to differentiate between political schemas in order to analyse the algorithm traffic flows out and between each group.

After conducting a detailed analysis of recommendations received by each channel type, we refute the popular radicalisation claims. On the contrary, these data suggest that YouTube’s recommendation algorithm actively discourages viewers from visiting radicalising or extremist content.

Instead, the algorithm is shown to favour mainstream media and cable news content over independent YouTube channels with a slant towards left-leaning or politically neutral channels.

Our study thus suggests that YouTube’s recommendation algorithm fails to promote inflammatory or radicalised content, as previously claimed by several outlets.

Full text (HTML) with lots of graphs and charts to explain the words to people like me who learn best visually.

Labels:
YouTube, recommendation_algorithm, radicalisation,

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The audiobook circuit in digital publishing: Voicing the silent revolution

an article by Iben Have and Birgitte Stougaard Pedersen (Aarhus University, Denmark) published in New Media and Society Volume 22 Issue 3 (March 2020)

Abstract

Digital Internet-distributed audio-books are a surprising game changer in digital publishing.

In recent years, audio-books have moved from being a peripheral by-product of the printed book into the centre of digital publishing and reading, but are typically still ignored in publishing studies.

This article raises the voice of the audio-book by giving it a privileged status in the current transformations of book publishing caused by digitisation.

We present an original model of the digital audio-book circuit, which is based on interviews and knowledge from the Danish market as part of a global industry, which makes it possible to reflect and adjust according to national variations. The model is framed by theoretical discussions of values and dynamics within the digital audio-book circuit in general.

Labels:
audio_media, audio-book_distribution, audio-book_production, book_circuit, book_distribution, book_production, digital_audio-books, digital_publishing, digital_reading, the_audio-book_circuit,

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The Returns to Personality Traits Across the Wage Distribution

an article by Matthias Collischon (University of Erlangen‐Nuremberg, Germany) published in Labour: review of labour economics and industrial relations Volume 34 Issue 1 (March 2020)

Abstract

This paper investigates variation in the wage effects of personality traits across the wage distribution. I expect increasing magnitudes of the effects of personality traits on wages for high‐ compared to low‐wage employees and test this hypothesis using unconditional quantile regressions with data from Germany, the UK, and Australia. The findings show increasing magnitudes of the effects of especially agreeableness, neuroticism and risk taking across the wage distribution and provide further evidence for the importance of non‐cognitive skills for wages.

Full text (PDF 32pp)

JEL Classification: C21, J24, J31

Labels:
personality_traits, employment_characteristics, wages, pay_levels, labour_market_outcomes,

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Making welfare conditional: A street‐level perspective

an article by Rik van Berkel (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) published in Social Policy and Administration Volume 54 Issue 2 (March 2020)

Abstract

This article looks at how welfare conditionality is delivered at the street level.

It argues that the street‐level delivery of welfare conditionality is structured by policies, the governance context in which workers deliver welfare conditionality, the organisation in which they work, and the occupation they are part of.

Characteristics of these contexts present street‐level workers with a variety of signals and incentives that direct their decision making.

The article elaborates on this proposition on the basis of a review of academic studies analysing the street‐level delivery of various aspects of welfare conditionality: the use of sanctions, service personification, and the treatment of vulnerable clients. The review shows that context characteristics together have a significant impact on the street‐level transformation of welfare conditionality policies into practices.

Street‐level decision-making concerning the use of sanctions is far more complex than can be captured by a perspective on street‐level workers as merely policy implementers. Sanctioning practices are sometimes harsher, sometimes more lenient than policies lead us to expect. The “soft” side of welfare conditionality – represented by service personification – is often under pressure at the street level, potentially strengthening welfare conditionality's tough side.

This affects vulnerable jobseekers most: Street‐level studies show that the balance between disciplining and enabling aspects of welfare‐to‐work is most at risk for more vulnerable groups.

The article concludes that the contextual pressures street‐level workers have to deal with in their daily work hardly reflect the “delicate equilibrium” that they need to deliver welfare conditionality in a professional, responsive, and responsible way.

Full text (PDF 14pp)

Labels:
conditionality, governance, sanctions, street-level_work, welfare-to-work,

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Debt and financial crises: Will history repeat itself?

a column by M. Ayhan Kose, Peter Nagle, Franziska Ohnsorge and Naotaka Sugawara (World Bank) for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

The global economy has experienced four waves of rapid debt accumulation in emerging and developing economies over the past 50 years.

This column examines these waves of debt and puts the fourth (current) wave in historical context. The current wave of debt, which started in 2010, stands out for its exceptional size, speed, and breadth. While the previous three waves all ended with widespread financial crises, policymakers have a range of options to reduce the likelihood of the current debt wave ending in crisis.

Labels:
debt, financial_crises,

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Why Iran’s dependence on China puts it at risk

a post by Daniel Markey for the OUP blog



The depth of ties between China and Iran was revealed dramatically in late February 2020, when news broke that some of Tehran’s most senior officials had contracted the coronavirus. By early March, one of Iran’s vice presidents, the deputy health minister, and 23 members of parliament were reported ill. A member of the 45-person Expediency Council charged with advising Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei died, and even the head of Iran’s coronavirus task force is sick. After China and Italy, Iran has more confirmed deaths from the virus than any other nation.

Yet this episode is only the latest indication of intensified relations between China and Iran. Over the past two decades, their links have deepened along strategic, commercial, technological, and political dimensions.

Leaders in Tehran and Beijing often invoke their 2,000 years of peaceful civilizational ties. The two nations were undeniably connected by the famous caravan routes of the Silk Road in ancient times, but their strategic relationship really dates to the 1980s, when China opportunistically sold arms to both sides in the Iran-Iraq War. China’s military support to Iran has waxed and waned over the subsequent decades, but it is clear that critical advances in Iran’s missile programs owe much to Chinese technologies, and the US intelligence community remains convinced that Chinese networks continue to provide sensitive defence materials to Iran in spite of international sanctions. Over the past several years, Beijing and Tehran have expanded their military partnership to include a series of joint exercises and a military cooperation agreement signed in 2016. As China’s defence industry matures and overtakes Russia’s, Iran has every incentive to continue its investments in Chinese arms.

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Labels:
international_trade, commercial_relationships, Iran, China,

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