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UCI Social Sciences E-News


Welcome to the February issue of the Social Sciences E-News


Upcoming Events

RIGS and CGPACS Meet and Greet Reception
2/3/2010

French Suburbs and Social Bonds: Between Inclusion and Exclusion
2/3/2010

Greening Aid? Understanding the Environmental Impact of Development Assistance
2/4/2010

UCI cognitive scientists explore new frontiers in mind, brain and behavior research
2/4/2010

Protesting While Black: The Differential Policing of US Protesters, 1960-1990
2/5/2010

Calibrated Probabilities and the Epistemology of Disagreement
2/5/2010

Behind the Scenes at the Immigration History Museums in Paris and Ellis Island
2/8/2010

U.S. Israel Relations from a Political and Personal Perspective
2/8/2010

Church & State: The Faith-Based Initiative Under Obama
2/10/2010

A Discussion with Counterterrorism and Humanitarian Law Specialist Daniel Taub
2/10/2010

First Amendment in a Multicultural Society
2/11/2010

Modeling Conflict and Its Governance
2/12/2010

MSTS: Emergent Intersections, Unexpected Syntheses
2/19/2010

Constructing Disease in the Genomics Era
2/19/2010

Measuring the Size of Infinite Collections of Natural Numbers
2/19/2010

How Transnational Families, Networks & Remittances Shape Decisions to Stay or Go
2/23/2010

Detecting Discrimination in Audit and Correspondence Studies
2/23/2010

A Huge Emotional Thing: The Work of Feeling at Her Majesty’s Prison Grendon
2/25/2010

FregeFest 2010
2/26/2010

Beyond Contagion: Explaining International Cooperation on Health
2/26/2010

Former Harvard dean and author of Bowling Alone talks religion at UCI
2/26/2010


See more events


Social Sciences
in the Media

Marta Tienda, Princeton sociologist, incorporates her past in effort to aid immi

Medicalization of race

DeSipio on recall election process

Economists' views on interest rates, housing bubble

Candidate flip roils Calif. governor, Senate races

Study says children ignore dads more than moms




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New lecture series highlights social sciences research making a difference

Inaugural topics focus on applications of research in mind, brain and behavior; population and immigration; and local California politics

UCI social scientists investigate issues that matter to society, from the wiring of the brain to the cultural implications of the wiring of the planet. Their interdisciplinary research findings help spark innovative solutions to problems that impact the world around us. Whether it's the economy, transportation, family, social processes, the mind, international affairs, politics or culture, the work of UCI’s social scientists makes a difference.

With the launch of the school’s new expert speaker series, “Changing Perceptions, Making Connections,” we invite you to come learn how UCI social sciences research is making a difference in areas of mind, brain and behavior; population and immigration; and local California politics.

Mind, Brain and Behavior
February 4, 2010

Population & Immigration
March 18, 2010

California Politics
April 29, 2010

All events will be held in Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway, Room 1517 from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. with a reception preceding each discussion. Pictured: Cognitive scientists Alyssa Brewer and Jeff Krichmar, featured speakers at February 4 mind, brain and behavior discussion.

Read On...



Camouflaged cuttlefish

Cognitive scientist Charlie Chubb studies studies why visual perception process makes camouflage effective

Take a good look at the picture at right. Can you spot the two well concealed cuttlefish camouflaging themselves against their surroundings? If you can't, you’re not alone, says Charlie Chubb, UCI cognitive sciences professor. “Human visual perception is very crude in terms of what it extracts from a scene,” he says. “Things we see are made up of many different textures and substances, but we summarize and simplify these substances using very few qualities. This makes the world we see dramatically different from the world that exists.” These shortcuts taken during the visual perception process are what make camouflage effective in tricking the eye and concealing what - or who - is really there.

With a newly awarded $420,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, he and cognitive scientist George Sperling are working to catalogue these elementary image properties sensed by human vision. The resulting “Table of the Dimensions of Preattentive Visual Sensitivity” as it is tentatively being called, will provide scientists with a conceptual framework for formulating theories about visual perception which, according to Chubb, has been missing from the field.

Read On...

Chinese medicine goes global

Anthropology professor studies evolution of practice from tradition among rural poor to lucrative modern industry

Mei Zhan's travels have taken her from medical schools in Shanghai to acupuncture clinics in San Francisco. For the past decade, she has traced the transformation of traditional Chinese medicine from its roots among China's rural poor into a multibillion-dollar alternative-medicine industry. A UC Irvine associate professor of anthropology, Zhan discusses the global influences behind this transformation in her new book, Other-Worldly: Making Chinese Medicine Through Transnational Frames.

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Neumark’s Minimum Wages earns Outstanding Title honors from Choice

Honor recognizes book as one of the most significant print and electronic works reviewed in the magazine in 2009

Economist David Neumark’s Minimum Wages has been named a 2009 Outstanding Academic Title by Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. Drawing upon more than 15 years of minimum wage research and expertise, Neumark and co-author William L. Wascher present a comprehensive overview of the policy's distributive effects across different population groups. Their findings lead them to conclude that an increase yields no long term, net positive returns and inevitably plays out negatively for the economy in terms of creating a lower skilled pool of human capital. The Outstanding Title honor is awarded annually by Choice in recognition of the most significant print and electronic works reviewed in the magazine during the previous calendar year. In 2009, 652 titles received recognition.

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Michael Montoya selected as UROP's Faculty Mentor of the Month

Honor recognizes the assistant professor for his commitment to mentoring undergraduates

Michael Montoya, anthropology and Chicano/Latino studies assistant professor, knows firsthand the important role a good mentor plays in guiding professional and personal growth. As an undergrad and later as a grad student at Stanford, he says he received excellent guidance and now he's passing the lessons he's learned along the way to the students he mentors at UCI. His efforts have earned him recognition as this month's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) Faculty Mentor of the Month.

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SPOTLIGHT EVENT - Modeling Conflict and Its Governance

February 12-14, 2010
Social Science Plaza A, Room 2112

Using math models to explore potential effects of strategic decisions made during times of war and peace will be the topic of a three day conference hosted by the School of Social Sciences' Institute for Mathematical Behavior and Center for the Study of Democracy. Political scientists and economists from several UCs, Northwestern University, University of Iowa, Columbia University and Drexel will explore issues including: why conflict occurs and what its main risk factors are; which actions, if any, adversaries and outsiders can take to reduce the chance of conflict and induce peace; potential mechanisms for reducing armament costs during peacetime; and effects of the potential for conflict on international trade and trade policy.

Read On...



SPOTLIGHT EVENT - FregeFest 2010

February 26-27, 2010
Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway, Room 1517

Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege was a German mathematician, logician, and philosopher who became famous for formalizing the notion of a mathematical proof in terms that are still accepted today. Every other year, UCI's Department of Logic & Philosophy of Science hosts a conference in his honor during which experts on Frege's work come together to present their current research.

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SPOTLIGHT EVENT - Former Harvard dean and author of Bowling Alone talks religion at UCI

Friday, February 26, 2010 2:00 - 3:30 p.m.  
UCI Student Center, Emerald Bay Rooms A&B

Robert D. Putnam, Harvard public policy professor and author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, will discuss the changing role of religion in America at this year's Harry Eckstein Lecture, sponsored by the UCI Center for the Study of Democracy, Program in International Studies and Department of Political Science.  

Established in 1999, the Eckstein Lecture recognizes Center for the Study of Democracy co-founder Harry Eckstein for his scholarly contributions to the study of democracy. Eckstein was a UCI political science distinguished professor from 1980 to 1993 and a political science distinguished research professor of political science from 1993 to 1999.

Read On...







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