Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World

Digital dating dynamics: age differences in online dating profiles

By Eden M. Davis

Online dating is becoming an increasingly prevalent context to begin a romantic relationship. Nearly 40% of single adults have used online dating websites or apps. Furthermore, the world of online dating is no longer confined to young adults; reports suggest adults aged 60 and older are the largest growing segment of online daters. Obviously, adults using these websites are motivated to find a partner, but we know little about why they want to date or how adults of different ages present themselves to potential partners.

Read More

A look at the ‘Internet of Things’

By Marie-Helen Maras

Everyday objects are becoming increasingly connected to the internet. Whether it’s a smart phone that allows you to check your home security, or an app that lets you start your car or close your garage door from anywhere in the world; these technologies are becoming part of what is known as the Internet of Things.

Read More

India’s unique identification number: is that a hot number?

By S. K. Das

Perhaps you are on your way to an enrollment center to be photographed, your irises to be screened, and your fingerprints to be recorded. Perhaps, you are already cursing the guys in the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) for making you sweat it out in a long line.

Read More

Devising data structures for scholarly works

By Mark Dunn

For over 100 years, Oxford University Press has been publishing scholarly editions of major works. Prominent scholars reviewed and delivered authoritative versions of authors’ work with notes on citations, textual variations, references, and commentary added line by line—from alternate titles for John Donne’s poetry to biographical information on recipients of Adam Smith’s correspondence.

Read More

Just a face in the crowd

By Niloufer Selvadurai and Julia Hörnle

The widespread practice of uploading photographs onto internet social networking and commercial sites has converged with advances in face recognition technologies to create a situation where an individual can no longer be just a face in the crowd. Despite the intrusive potential of face recognition technologies (FRT), the unauthorised application of such technologies to online digital images so as to obtain identity information is neither specifically prohibited nor a critical part of the international law reform discourse.

Read More

Using web search data to study elections: Q&A with Alex Street

By Alex Street and R. Michael Alvarez

Social scientists made important contributions towards improving the conduct and administration of elections. A paper recently published in Political Analysis continues that tradition, and introduces the use of web search data to the study of public administration and public policy.

Read More

Electronic cigarettes may lead to nicotine addiction

By Mike Fillon

Are electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) a relatively harmless substitute for cigarettes? Or are they a Trojan horse leading to nicotine addiction and ultimately chronic smoking? Many researchers believe the latter. E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that deliver aerosolized nicotine and kid-friendly flavored additives, such as chocolate mint, piña colada, atomic fireball candy, and even gummy bears. Designed to mimic the look and habit of smoking, the devices are marketed as a relatively benign alternative to smoking, without the tar, carbon monoxide, and other harmful ingredients adversely affecting the heart and respiratory system. “Vaping,” the term for using e-cigarettes, emits only a cloud of vapor—not secondhand smoke.

Read More

How complex is net neutrality?

By V. Sridhar and Rohit Prasad

Thanks to the recent release of consultation paper titled <“Regulatory Framework for Over-the-top (OTT) services," for the first time in India's telecom history close to a million petitions in favour of net neutrality were sent; comparable to millions who responded to Federal Communications Commission’s position paper on net neutrality last year.

Read More

What if printed books went by ebook rules?

By Dennis Baron

I love ebooks. Despite their unimaginative page design, monotonous fonts, curious approach to hyphenation, and clunky annotation utilities, they’re convenient and easy on my aging eyes. But I wish they didn’t come wrapped in legalese. Whenever I read a book on my iPad, for example, I have tacitly agreed to the 15,000-word statement of terms and conditions for the iTunes store. It’s written by lawyers in language so dense and tedious it seems designed not to be read, except by other lawyers, and that’s odd, since these Terms of Service agreements (TOS) concern the use of books that are designed to be read.

Read More

Six things you didn’t know about light

By Ian Walmsley

Light occupies a central place in our understanding of the world both as a means by which we locate ourselves in nature and as a thing that inspires our imagination. Light is what enables us to see things, and thus to navigate our surroundings. It is also a primary means by which we learn about the world – light beams carry information about the constituents of the universe, from distant stars and galaxies to the cells in our bodies to individual atoms and molecules.

Read More

A thousand words: Photography in the Lincoln era

By Christopher Hall

Lincoln was not the first president of the United States to be photographed, but he was the first to be photographed many times, and not only in the portrait studio. His photo archive makes him a modern figure, a celebrity. His short presidency happened just at the time when photography first became straightforward and reliable. Many of the Lincoln photographs were taken by Scottish-born Alexander Gardner.

Read More

Five tips for women and girls pursuing STEM careers

By Mariangiola Dezani

Many attempts have been made to explain the historic and current lack of women working in STEM fields. During her two years of service as Director of Policy Planning for the U. S. State Department, from 2009 to 2011, Anne-Marie Slaughter suggested a range of strategies for corporate and political environments to help better support women at work. These spanned from social-psychological interventions to the introduction of role models and self-affirmation practices.

Read More

Jonathan Nagler: writing good code

By R. Michael Alvarez and Jonathan Nagler

Today’s data scientist must know how to write good code. Regardless of whether they are working with a commercial off-the-shelf statistical software package, R, Python, or Perl, all require the use of good coding practices. Large and complex datasets need lots of manipulation to wrangle them into shape for analytics, statistical estimation often is complex, and presentation of complicated results sometimes requires writing lots of code.

Read More

Celebrating women in STEM

By Charley James

It is becoming widely accepted that women have, historically, been underrepresented and often completely written out of work in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Explanations for the gender gap in STEM fields range from genetically-determined interests, structural and territorial segregation, discrimination, and historic stereotypes. With free Oxford University Press content, we tell the stories and share the research of both famous and forgotten women.

Read More

Replication redux and Facebook data

By Nathaniel Beck

Introduction, from Michael Alvarez, co-editor of Political Analysis Recently I asked Nathaniel Beck to write about his experiences with research replication. His essay, published on 24 August 2014 on the OUPblog, concluded with a brief discussion of a recent experience of his when he tried to obtain replication data from the authors of a recent […]

Read More