This book presents a comprehensive analysis of the established and expanding body of research on promissory representation.It examines how context shapes what political parties promise during campaigns and whether they deliver once in power. The book focuses on established Western democracies such as the USA, UK, France, Germany, and Australia, as well as emerging and non-Western democracies, namely Ukraine, Indonesia and India. It reveals tactical promises designed to win votes bu...

On a foggy night on the Scottish coast in 1934, a most unusual visitor arrives at an inn and rents a room on the upper floor. He is colorful and charming and appears to be harmless, and at first the other guests staying at the inn think nothing of his presence, but as the night wears on events take a turn for the worse.The innkeeper and his guests learn that a series of murders have taken place in the surrounding area and that the police are baffled. In the thick fog that enshrouds...

Brooks Hospital, once among the largest psychiatric facilities in Pennsylvania and former host to the most violent patients in the state, now sits abandoned on a sprawling section of forgotten land. Most of its windows have been shattered, the stone of its exterior cracked and worn and its interior ruined by vandals and the passage of time.For Charles Gray and Sabine Jensen, who make a living filming abandoned places and selling their footage to YouTube, the old building is like a ...

This volume contains the proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling, SBP-BRiMS 2025, which took place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, in October 2025.The 23 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 56 submissions. They are divided into the following themes: Advances in Tools and Theory; Data-Driven Approaches.Another focus of the conference is on understanding, predicting, and influencing ...

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling, SBP-BRiMS 2024, which was held in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, during September 18–20, 2024.The 24 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 54 submissions.They are grouped into the following topics: advancements in tools and theory; data-driven approaches.

Using an innovative mix of cross-national analyses, original survey experiments, and detailed case studies across advanced democracies, Promises Made, Promises Kept provides a compelling exploration of how globalization constrains domestic politics and transforms the nature of democratic representation. The authors show how globalization reduces the ability of governing parties to keep their campaign promises, and how parties strategically adapt to this by making vaguer promises or shiftin...

When people discuss politics, they often mention the promises politicians make during election campaigns. Promises raise hopes that positive policy changes are possible, but people are generally skeptical of these promises. Party Mandates and Democracy reveals the extent to and conditions under which governments fulfill party promises during election campaigns. Contrary to conventional wisdom a majority of pledges—sometimes a large majority—are acted upon in most countries, most o...

The field of ultrafast nonlinear optics is broad and multidisciplinary, and encompasses areas concerned with both the generation and measurement of ultrashort pulses of light, as well as those concerned with the applications of such pulses. Ultrashort pulses are extreme events – both in terms of their durations, and also the high peak powers which their short durations can facilitate. These extreme properties make them powerful experiment tools. On one hand, their ultrashort durations faci...

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling, SBP-BRiMS 2021, which was held online during July 6–9, 2021.The 32 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 56 submissions. The papers were organized in topical sections as follows: COVID-related focus; methodologies; social cybersecurity and social networks; and human and agent modeling. They represent a wide number of disci...

This book fills a void in the market for specialists who are working in areas without the support of gastroenterologists. Due to a lack of local expertise, treatment decisions in the field of gastroenterology frequently have to be made by non-gastroenterologists. The book addresses this problem by providing clear instructions on the diagnosis, medical management and on-going treatment of the most common disease patterns encountered in gastroenterology. Written by leading experts in their r...

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling, SBP-BRiMS 2022, which was in Pittsburgh, PA, USA in September 2022.The 25 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 50 submissions. The papers were organized in topical sections as follows: computer science, psychology, sociology, communication science, public health, bioinformatics, political science, and organizational scien...

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling, SBP-BRiMS 2023, which was held in Pittsburgh, PA, USA in September 2023.The 31 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 73 submissions. The papers were organized in topical sections as follows: Detecting malign influence; human behavior modeling; and social-cyber behavior modeling.