LATEST JOURNAL ARTICLES

ASIAN & MIDDLE EASTERN CULTURES

GUOBIN YANG, "Coping With Digital Revolution: China Offers Green Dam, Iran Faces Neda," YaleGlobal, June 23, 2009

The global response to China’s filtering software Green Dam Youth Escort and the Iranian election are not only proof of the power of the internet as a democratic form of communication, but also as a lever for democracy itself. Barnard Professor Guobin Yang shows how. Meant to protect children from internet pornography, Green Dam also filers out politically sensitive web sites, leading many to question the software’s real intent. Indeed, the insidious nature of the program has fomented a groundswell in opposition that has left Beijing struggling to save face. The Iranians, however, have used the internet – by many twists and turns – to express themselves freely in the aftermath of the election debacle via Twitter and Facebook. The ballooning interest in human rights in China and Iran by netizens of multiple nationalities elucidates how the power of digital democracy is borderless.

CHEMISTRY

Guino-o, Marites A.; JACOB S. ALEXANDER; McKee, Michael L.; Hope, Hakon; Englich, Ulrich B.; Ruhlandt-Senge, Karin. "When VSEPR Fails: Experimental and Theoretical Investigations of the Behavior of Alkaline-Earth-Metal Acetylides." Chemistry–A European Journal (2009), 15(44), 11842-11852

The synthesis, structural, and spectral characterization as well as a theoretical study of a family of alkaline-earth-metal acetylides provides insights into synthetic access and the structural and bonding characteristics of this group of highly reactive compounds. Based on our earlier communication that reported unusual geometry for a family of triphenylsilyl-substituted alkaline-earth-metal acetylides, we herein present our studies on an expanded family of target derivatives, providing experimental and theoretical data to offer new insights into the intensively debated theme of structural chemistry in heavy alkaline-earth-metal chemistry.

Gupta, R.; Sogi, K. M.; Bernard, S. E.; Decatur, J. D.; CHRISTIAN ROJAS, "Protecting Group and Solvent Control of Stereo- and Chemoselectivity in Glucal 3-Carbamate Amidoglycosylation," Organic Letters 2009, Volume 11, pp 1527–1530

In the Rh2(OAc)4-catalyzed amidoglycosylation of glucal 3-carbamates, anomeric stereoselectivity and the extent of competing C3–H oxidation depend on the 4O and 6O protecting groups. Acyclic protection permits high α-anomer selectivity with further improvement in less polar solvents, while electron-withdrawing protecting groups limit C3-oxidized byproducts. Stereocontrol and bifurcation between alkene insertion and C3–H oxidation reflect an interplay of conformational, stereoelectronic, and inductive factors.

Mo, X. Y., Bernard, S. E., Khrapunovich, M., DINA C. MERRER, "A Computational Study of Chlorocarbene Additions to Cyclooctyne," Journal of Organic Chemistry, Vol. 73 (2008), pp. 8537-8544

Dichloro- and phenylchlorocarbene (CCl2 and PhCCl) add to cyclooctyne via a barrierless process (MP2/6-311+G*, B3LYP/6-311+G*, B3LYP/6-31G*) to yield the expected corresponding cyclopropene adducts. A three-dimensional potential energy surface (PES) for CCl2 addition to cyclooctyne (B3LYP/6-31G*) shows the formation of the cyclopropene product and also possible formation of a vinylcarbene. Residing in a shallow energy well, the vinylcarbene easily rearranges to the cyclopropene product, or to an exocyclic vinyl bicyclo[3.3.0]octane. Although the calculated three-dimensional PES indicates possible dynamic control of the cyclooctyne-chlorocarbene system through the putative formation of a vinylcarbene (in addition to the expected cyclopropene), additional calculations and preliminary experimental work show paths through the vinylcarbene to be unlikely. If the additions of chlorocarbenes to cyclooctyne are controlled by reaction dynamics, we predict that the vast majority of the reactions proceed via traditional carbene cycloaddition with only a very minor amount of products formed from the alternative pathway.

ECONOMICS

RANDALL REBACK, "Teaching to the Rating: School Accountability and the Distribution of Student Achievement," Journal of Public Economics, Volume 92 Issue 5-6 (2008) pp. 1394-1415.

This paper examines whether minimum competency school accountability systems, such as those created under No Child Left Behind, influence the distribution of student achievement. Because school ratings in these systems only incorporate students' test scores via pass rates, this type of system increases incentives for schools to improve the performance of students who are on the margin of passing but does not increase short-run incentives for schools to improve other students' performance. Using student-level, panel data from Texas during the 1990's, I explicitly calculate schools' short-run incentives to improve various students' expected performance, and I find that schools do respond to these incentives. Students perform better than expected when their test score is particularly important for their schools' accountability rating. Also, low achieving students perform better than expected in math when many of their classmates' math scores are important for the schools' rating, while relatively high achieving students do not perform better. Distributional effects appear to be related to broad changes in resources or instruction, as well as narrowly tailored attempts to improve the performance of specific students.

KRISTIN MAMMEN, "The Effect of Children's Gender on Living Arrangements and Child Support," American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings. Volume 98 Issue 25 (2008)

Previous evidence suggests that the gender composition of a family's children specifically, the presence of sons affects a number of parental behaviors, including marriage formation, marriage disruption, and living arrangements. Using the March Current Population Survey from 1988 to 2006, this paper examines whether girls are at a double disadvantage in terms of living in single mother homes, and in the likelihood of receiving child support from absent fathers. The findings show that girls are indeed more likely to live in single mother homes and boys are overrepresented in married parent homes with a father or stepfather, and in single father families. However, the child support results suggest if anything that single mothers are slightly disadvantaged by having sons.

NEUROSCIENCE & BEHAVIOR

Akers, K. G., Yang, Z., DelVecchio, D. P., Reeb, B. C., Romeo, R. D., McEwen, B. S., and Tang, A. C.,
"Social competitiveness and plasticity of neuroendocrine function in old age: influence of neonatal
novelty exposure and maternal care reliability." PLoS ONE. 3(7):e2840. (2008)

Early experience is known to have a profound impact on brain and behavioral function later in life. Relatively few studies, however, have examined whether the effects of early experience remain detectable in the aging animal. Here, we examined the effects of neonatal novelty exposure, an early stimulation procedure, on late senescent rats' ability to win in social competition.

POLITICAL SCIENCE

SEVERINE AUTESSERRE, "Hobbes and the Congo: Frames, Local Violence, and International
Intervention," International Organization, volume 63, pages 249-280

Why do international peacebuilders fail to address the local causes of peace process failures? The existing explanations of peacebuilding failures, which focus on constraints and vested interests, do not explain the international neglect of local conflict. In this article, I show how discursive frames shape international intervention and preclude international action on local violence. Drawing on more than 330 interviews, multi-sited ethnography, and document analysis, I develop a case study of the Democratic Republic of Congo's transition from war to peace and democracy (20032006). I demonstrate that local agendas played a decisive role in sustaining local, national, and regional violence. However, a postconflict peacebuilding frame shaped the international understanding of violence and intervention in such a way that local conflict resolution appeared irrelevant and illegitimate. This frame included four key elements: international actors labeled the Co ngo a postconflict situation; they believed that violence there was innate and therefore acceptable even in peacetime; they conceptualized international intervention as exclusively concerned with the national and international realms; and they saw holding elections, as opposed to local conflict resolution, as a workable, appropriate, and effective tool for state- and peacebuilding. This frame authorized and justified specific practices and policies while precluding others, notably local conflict resolution, ultimately dooming the peacebuilding efforts. In conclusion, I contend that analyzing discursive frames is a fruitful approach to the puzzle of international peacebuilding failures beyond the Congo.

ALEXANDER COOLEY and Lincoln A. Mitchel, "No Way to Treat Our Friends: Recasting Recent U.S.-Georgian Relations," Washington Quarterly. Vol. 32, No. 1 (Jan. 2009)

As analysts focus on the Russian-Georgian relationship, the questions of how the United States–Georgia’s friend and patron–failed to anticipate the conflict and prevent its escalation need to be addressed. Two unequivocal, but ultimately flawed, principles guided recent U.S. policy towards Georgia. First, the United States supported the Saakashvili government, rather than promoting broader Georgian democratic development. Second, the United States backed reuniting Georgia’s territorial integrity, rather than acting as an honest broker to resolve the frozen conflicts with South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The strong personalized ties that developed between Washington and Tbilisi prevented the United States from using its power and influence to credibly restrain the Saakashvili government from adopting a military solution. U.S. reluctance to encourage Georgia to consider alternative sovereign formulas to resolve the frozen conflicts further emboldened Georgian hardliners. Over time, the Georgian regime’s domestic policies and priorities themselves became official U.S. policies and goals, leading to an unhealthy capture of U.S. foreign policy by Tbilisi.

Looking forward, the United States must continue to offer robust and sustained support to Georgia and its democratic development, but should do so by reversing these demonstrably flawed principles. What policies should the new U.S. administration adopt that would preserve its friendly relations with Georgia, while pushing Georgia toward a territorial compromise that it does not yet favor?

PSYCHOLOGY

ROBERT REMEZ, Daria F. Ferr o, Stephanie C. Wiss ig, and Claire A. Landau, "Asynchrony tolerance in the
perceptual organization of speech," Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 2008, 15 (4), 861-865

Is the syllable the unit of perceptual organization in the perception of speech? This project developed new, more sensitive measures of auditory perceptual coherence, and found that dynamic perceptual integration occurs at much finer temporal grain than the syllable pace. The results establish limits on accounts of auditory perceptual organization and audiovisual integration.