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The planetary commons
(2024)
The Anthropocene signifies the start of a no- analogue trajectory of the Earth system that is fundamentally different from the Holocene. This new trajectory is characterized by rising risks of triggering irreversible and unmanageable shifts in Earth system functioning. We urgently need a new global approach to safeguard critical Earth system regulating functions more effectively and comprehensively. The global commons framework is the closest example of an existing approach with the aim of governing biophysical systems on Earth upon which the world collectively depends. Derived during stable Holocene conditions, the global commons framework must now evolve in the light of new Anthropocene dynamics. This requires a fundamental shift from a focus only on governing shared resources beyond national jurisdiction, to one that secures critical functions of the Earth system irrespective of national boundaries. We propose a new framework—the planetary commons—which differs from the global commons framework by including not only globally shared geographic regions but also critical biophysical systems that regulate the resilience and state, and therefore livability, on Earth. The new planetary commons should articulate and create comprehensive stewardship obligations through Earth system governance aimed at restoring and strengthening planetary resilience and justice.
Open edX is an incredible platform to deliver MOOCs and SPOCs, designed to be robust and support hundreds of thousands of students at the same time. Nevertheless, it lacks a lot of the fine-grained functionality needed to handle students individually in an on-campus course. This short session will present the ongoing project undertaken by the 6 public universities of the Region of Madrid plus the Universitat Politècnica de València, in the framework of a national initiative called UniDigital, funded by the Ministry of Universities of Spain within the Plan de Recuperación, Transformación y Resiliencia of the European Union. This project, led by three of these Spanish universities (UC3M, UPV, UAM), is investing more than half a million euros with the purpose of bringing the Open edX platform closer to the functionalities required for an LMS to support on-campus teaching. The aim of the project is to coordinate what is going to be developed with the Open edX development community, so these developments are incorporated into the core of the Open edX platform in its next releases. Features like a complete redesign of platform analytics to make them real-time, the creation of dashboards based on these analytics, the integration of a system for customized automatic feedback, improvement of exams and tasks and the extension of grading capabilities, improvements in the graphical interfaces for both students and teachers, the extension of the emailing capabilities, redesign of the file management system, integration of H5P content, the integration of a tool to create mind maps, the creation of a system to detect students at risk, or the integration of an advanced voice assistant and a gamification mobile app, among others, are part of the functionalities to be developed. The idea is to transform a first-class MOOC platform into the next on-campus LMS.
This chapter provides an overview of methods to capture developments and changes in motivational beliefs. Motivational research has recently begun to venture beyond just examining average developmental trends in motivational variables by starting to investigate how developmental changes in motivational variables differ between and within individuals in different learning situations and across contexts. Although studies have started to uncover differences in motivational changes, a systematic overview of suitable methods for capturing motivational differences in developmental processes is still missing. In this chapter, we review key methods of change modelling, bringing together variable-centred approaches, such as growth modelling and true intraindividual change (TIC) models, and person-centred approaches, such as latent transition and growth mixture models. We illustrate the value of the reviewed statistical methods for the analysis of context-specific motivational changes by reviewing recent empirical studies that identify different patterns and trajectories of such motivational beliefs across time. Our focus is thereby on research grounded in situated expectancy-value theory as a core theory in motivational research.
Navigating the unknown
(2024)
Visionary leadership is considered to be one of the most important elements of effective leadership. Among other things, it is related to followers' perceived meaningfulness of their work. However, little is known about whether uncertainty in the workplace affects visionary leadership's effects. Given that uncertainty is rising in many, if not most, workplaces, it is vital to understand whether this development influences the extent to which visionary leadership is associated with followers' perceived meaningfulness. In a two-source, lagged design field study of 258 leader-follower dyads from different settings, we show that uncertainty moderates the relation between visionary leadership and followers' perceived meaningfulness such that this relation is more strongly positive when uncertainty is high, rather than low. Moreover, we show that with increasing uncertainty, visionary leadership is more negatively related to followers' turnover intentions via perceived meaningfulness. This research broadens our understanding of how visionary leadership may be a particularly potent tool in times of increasing uncertainty.
In many churches nowadays, there has been a standardized approach to premarital counseling for couples involving social, pastoral, and psychological perspectives. In contrast, many rabbis and other Jewish officials still concentrate on legal aspects alone. The need for resolving important issues on the verge of wedlock is too often left to secular experts in law, psychology, or counseling. However, in recent years, this lack of formal training for marriage preparation has also been acknowledged by the Jewish clergy in order to incorporate it in the preparatory period before the bond is tied. This case study focuses on Jewish and Roman Catholic conceptions of marriage, past and present. We intend to do a comparative analysis of the prerequisites of religious marriage based on the assumption that both Judaism and the Roman Catholic Church have a distinct legal framework to assess marriage preparation.
Sulfur is an important element that is incorporated into many biomolecules in humans. The incorporation and transfer of sulfur into biomolecules is, however, facilitated by a series of different sulfurtransferases. Among these sulfurtransferases is the human mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase (MPST) also designated as tRNA thiouridine modification protein (TUM1). The role of the human TUM1 protein has been suggested in a wide range of physiological processes in the cell among which are but not limited to involvement in Molybdenum cofactor (Moco) biosynthesis, cytosolic tRNA thiolation and generation of H2S as signaling molecule both in mitochondria and the cytosol. Previous interaction studies showed that TUM1 interacts with the L-cysteine desulfurase NFS1 and the Molybdenum cofactor biosynthesis protein 3 (MOCS3). Here, we show the roles of TUM1 in human cells using CRISPR/Cas9 genetically modified Human Embryonic Kidney cells. Here, we show that TUM1 is involved in the sulfur transfer for Molybdenum cofactor synthesis and tRNA thiomodification by spectrophotometric measurement of the activity of sulfite oxidase and liquid chromatography quantification of the level of sulfur-modified tRNA. Further, we show that TUM1 has a role in hydrogen sulfide production and cellular bioenergetics.
In late summer, migratory bats of the temperate zone face the challenge of accomplishing two energy-demanding tasks almost at the same time: migration and mating. Both require information and involve search efforts, such as localizing prey or finding potential mates. In non-migrating bat species, playback studies showed that listening to vocalizations of other bats, both con-and heterospecifics, may help a recipient bat to find foraging patches and mating sites. However, we are still unaware of the degree to which migrating bats depend on con-or heterospecific vocalizations for identifying potential feeding or mating opportunities during nightly transit flights. Here, we investigated the vocal responses of Nathusius’ pipistrelle bats, Pipistrellus nathusii, to simulated feeding and courtship aggregations at a coastal migration corridor. We presented migrating bats either feeding buzzes or courtship calls of their own or a heterospecific migratory species, the common noctule, Nyctalus noctula. We expected that during migratory transit flights, simulated feeding opportunities would be particularly attractive to bats, as well as simulated mating opportunities which may indicate suitable roosts for a stopover. However, we found that when compared to the natural silence of both pre-and post-playback phases, bats called indifferently during the playback of conspecific feeding sounds, whereas P. nathusii echolocation call activity increased during simulated feeding of N. noctula. In contrast, the call activity of P. nathusii decreased during the playback of conspecific courtship calls, while no response could be detected when heterospecific call types were broadcasted. Our results suggest that while on migratory transits, P. nathusii circumnavigate conspecific mating aggregations, possibly to save time or to reduce the risks associated with social interactions where aggression due to territoriality might be expected. This avoidance behavior could be a result of optimization strategies by P. nathusii when performing long-distance migratory flights, and it could also explain the lack of a response to simulated conspecific feeding. However, the observed increase of activity in response to simulated feeding of N. noctula, suggests that P. nathusii individuals may be eavesdropping on other aerial hawking insectivorous species during migration, especially if these occupy a slightly different foraging niche.
Its properties make copper one of the world’s most important functional metals. Numerous megatrends are increasing the demand for copper. This requires the prospection and exploration of new deposits, as well as the monitoring of copper quality in the various production steps. A promising technique to perform these tasks is Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS). Its unique feature, among others, is the ability to measure on site without sample collection and preparation. In this work, copper-bearing minerals from two different deposits are studied. The first set of field samples come from a volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposit, the second part from a stratiform sedimentary copper (SSC) deposit. Different approaches are used to analyze the data. First, univariate regression (UVR) is used. However, due to the strong influence of matrix effects, this is not suitable for the quantitative analysis of copper grades. Second, the multivariate method of partial least squares regression (PLSR) is used, which is more suitable for quantification. In addition, the effects of the surrounding matrices on the LIBS data are characterized by principal component analysis (PCA), alternative regression methods to PLSR are tested and the PLSR calibration is validated using field samples.
Long COVID patients show symptoms, such as fatigue, muscle weakness and pain. Adequate diagnostics are still lacking. Investigating muscle function might be a beneficial approach. The holding capacity (maximal isometric Adaptive Force; AFisomax) was previously suggested to be especially sensitive for impairments. This longitudinal, non-clinical study aimed to investigate the AF in long COVID patients and their recovery process. AF parameters of elbow and hip flexors were assessed in 17 patients at three time points (pre: long COVID state, post: immediately after first treatment, end: recovery) by an objectified manual muscle test. The tester applied an increasing force on the limb of the patient, who had to resist isometrically for as long as possible. The intensity of 13 common symptoms were queried. At pre, patients started to lengthen their muscles at ~50% of the maximal AF (AFmax), which was then reached during eccentric motion, indicating unstable adaptation. At post and end, AFisomax increased significantly to ~99% and 100% of AFmax, respectively, reflecting stable adaptation. AFmax was statistically similar for all three time points. Symptom intensity decreased significantly from pre to end. The findings revealed a substantially impaired maximal holding capacity in long COVID patients, which returned to normal function with substantial health improvement. AFisomax might be a suitable sensitive functional parameter to assess long COVID patients and to support therapy process
Networking fast and slow
(2023)
Growing interest in network dynamics has led to insights about patterns of network change, drivers of tie formation, and the temporal unfolding of the consequences of networks. To this area of inquiry, we introduce networking speed—the time that it takes for individuals to form a network tie—as an important but so far largely overlooked aspect. We develop a theory of networking speed that explains how different catalysts enable professionals to introduce variation into the speed with which they form interpersonal network ties. We discuss how such variation in the speed with which ties have been formed influences relational outcomes and the network returns that these ties generate. This discussion illustrates that high networking speed can entail advantages as well as pitfalls. We also explore temporal implications of networking speed—for instance, the persistence of the effects of speed over time. Overall, we conceptualize networking speed as a constitutive element of how interpersonal networks function in professional settings, and we propose a future research program for the integration of this novel concept into organizational network research.
Digitalization, as well as sustainability, are gaining increased relevance and have attracted significant attention in research and practice. However, the research already published about this topic examining digitalization in the retail sector does not consider the acceptance of related innovations, nor their impact on sustainability. Therefore, this article critically analyzes the acceptance of customers towards digital technologies in fashion stores as well as their impact on sustainability in the textile industry. The comprehensive analysis of the literature and the current state of research provide the basis of this paper. Theoretical models, such as the Technology-Acceptance-Model (TAM) and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT 2) enable the evaluation of expectations and acceptance, as well as the assessment of possible inhibitory factors for the subsequent descriptive and statistical examination of the acceptance of digital technologies in fashion stores. The research on this subject was examined in a quantitative way. The key findings show that customers do accept digital technologies in fashion stores. The final part of this contribution describes the innovative Digitalization 4 Sustainability Framework which shows that digital technologies at the point of sale (PoS) in fashion stores could have a positive impact on sustainability. Overall, this paper shows that it is particularly important for fashion stores to concentrate on their individual strengths and customer needs as well as to indicate a more sustainable way by using digital technologies, in order to achieve added value for the customers and to set themselves apart from the competition while designing a more sustainable future. Moreover, fashion stores should make it a point of their honor to harness the power of digitalization for sake of sustainability and economic value creation.
Achilles tendinopathy (AT) is a debilitating injury in athletes, especially for those engaged in repetitive stretch-shortening cycle activities. Clinical risk factors are numerous, but it has been suggested that altered biomechanics might be associated with AT. No systematic review has been conducted investigating these biomechanical alterations in specifically athletic populations. Therefore, the aim of this systematic review was to compare the lower-limb biomechanics of athletes with AT to athletically matched asymptomatic controls. Databases were searched for relevant studies investigating biomechanics during gait activities and other motor tasks such as hopping, isolated strength tasks, and reflex responses. Inclusion criteria for studies were an AT diagnosis in at least one group, cross-sectional or prospective data, at least one outcome comparing biomechanical data between an AT and healthy group, and athletic populations. Studies were excluded if patients had Achilles tendon rupture/surgery, participants reported injuries other than AT, and when only within-subject data was available.. Effect sizes (Cohen's d) with 95% confidence intervals were calculated for relevant outcomes. The initial search yielded 4,442 studies. After screening, twenty studies (775 total participants) were synthesised, reporting on a wide range of biomechanical outcomes. Females were under-represented and patients in the AT group were three years older on average. Biomechanical alterations were identified in some studies during running, hopping, jumping, strength tasks and reflex activity. Equally, several biomechanical variables studied were not associated with AT in included studies, indicating a conflicting picture. Kinematics in AT patients appeared to be altered in the lower limb, potentially indicating a pattern of “medial collapse”. Muscular activity of the calf and hips was different between groups, whereby AT patients exhibited greater calf electromyographic amplitudes despite lower plantar flexor strength. Overall, dynamic maximal strength of the plantar flexors, and isometric strength of the hips might be reduced in the AT group. This systematic review reports on several biomechanical alterations in athletes with AT. With further research, these factors could potentially form treatment targets for clinicians, although clinical approaches should take other contributing health factors into account. The studies included were of low quality, and currently no solid conclusions can be drawn.
In this paper, we show how socialist planning can be based on input-output data. We argue that the information required for this can be obtained by a central planning agency and thus dismiss Hayek’s information argument against socialism. We further show how economic planning can be made responsive to consumer demand through a feedback control mechanism. Output targets of products would be adjusted in response to observed consumer demand or based on predictions about future demand. Planners can use machine learning to make more accurate forecasts. The valuation of goods plays an important role in the feedback control mechanism. The values of goods can either be measured by the labour time necessary for their production (labour values) or through shadow prices based on linear programming.
A right to research?
(2023)
Terminology is a critical instrument for each researcher. Different terminologies for the same research object may arise in different research communities. By this inconsistency, many synergistic effects get lost. Theories and models will be more understandable and reusable if a common terminology is applied. This paper examines the terminological (in)consistence for the research field of job-shop scheduling by a literature review. There is an enormous variety in the choice of terms and mathematical notation for the same concept. The comparability, reusability and combinability of scheduling methods is unnecessarily hampered by the arbitrary use of homonyms and synonyms. The acceptance in the community of used variables and notation forms is shown by means of a compliance quotient. This is proven by the evaluation of 240 scientific publications on planning methods.
Competence development must change at all didactic levels to meet the new requirements triggered by digitization. Unlike classic learning theories and the resulting popular approaches (e.g., sender-receiver model), future-oriented vocational training must include new learning theory impulses in the discussion about competence acquisition. On the one hand, these impulses are often very well elaborated on the theoretical side, but the transfer into innovative learning environments - such as learning factories - is often still missing. On the other hand, actual learning factory (design) approaches often concentrate primarily on the technical side. Subject-oriented learning theory enables the design of competence development-oriented vocational training projectsin learning factories in which persons can obtain relevant competencies for digitization. At the same time, such learning theory approaches assume a potentially infinite number of learning interests and reasons. Following this, competence development is always located in an institutional or organizational context. The paper conceptionally answers how this theoryimmanent challenge is synthesizable with the reality of organizationally competence development requirements.
Many widely used observational data sets are comprised of several overlapping instrument records. While data inter-calibration techniques often yield continuous and reliable data for trend analysis, less attention is generally paid to maintaining higher-order statistics such as variance and autocorrelation. A growing body of work uses these metrics to quantify the stability or resilience of a system under study and potentially to anticipate an approaching critical transition in the system. Exploring the degree to which changes in resilience indicators such as the variance or autocorrelation can be attributed to non-stationary characteristics of the measurement process – rather than actual changes in the dynamical properties of the system – is important in this context. In this work we use both synthetic and empirical data to explore how changes in the noise structure of a data set are propagated into the commonly used resilience metrics lag-one autocorrelation and variance. We focus on examples from remotely sensed vegetation indicators such as vegetation optical depth and the normalized difference vegetation index from different satellite sources. We find that time series resulting from mixing signals from sensors with varied uncertainties and covering overlapping time spans can lead to biases in inferred resilience changes. These biases are typically more pronounced when resilience metrics are aggregated (for example, by land-cover type or region), whereas estimates for individual time series remain reliable at reasonable sensor signal-to-noise ratios. Our work provides guidelines for the treatment and aggregation of multi-instrument data in studies of critical transitions and resilience.
Recent research suggests that design thinking practices may foster the development of needed capabilities in new digitalised landscapes. However, existing publications represent individual contributions, and we lack a holistic understanding of the value of design thinking in a digital world. No review, to date, has offered a holistic retrospection of this research. In response, in this bibliometric review, we aim to shed light on the intellectual structure of multidisciplinary design thinking literature related to capabilities relevant to the digital world in higher education and business settings, highlight current trends and suggest further studies to advance theoretical and empirical underpinnings. Our study addresses this aim using bibliometric methods—bibliographic coupling and co-word analysis as they are particularly suitable for identifying current trends and future research priorities at the forefront of the research. Overall, bibliometric analyses of the publications dealing with the related topics published in the last 10 years (extracted from the Web of Science database) expose six trends and two possible future research developments highlighting the expanding scope of the design thinking scientific field related to capabilities required for the (more sustainable and human-centric) digital world. Relatedly, design thinking becomes a relevant approach to be included in higher education curricula and human resources training to prepare students and workers for the changing work demands. This paper is well-suited for education and business practitioners seeking to embed design thinking capabilities in their curricula and for design thinking and other scholars wanting to understand the field and possible directions for future research.
Development of self-concept and task interest has been shown to be affected by social comparison processes in a variety of cross-sectional studies. A potential explanation for these effects is an effect of social comparative performance feedback on an individual’s self-evaluation of performance, which in turn influences development of self-concept and task interest. There are, however, only few studies addressing this topic with experimental designs. This study was aimed at closing this research gap by experimentally manipulating social comparative performance. Feedback given was based on 2 × 2 experimental conditions: social position (high vs. low) and average performance of the reference group (high vs. low). Results show a strong effect of social position on self-evaluation of performance and smaller effects on self-concept and task interest.
The retention of actinides in different oxidation states (An(X), X = III, IV, VI) by a calcium-silicate-hydrate (C-S-H) phase with a Ca/Si (C/S) ratio of 0.8 was investigated in the presence of gluconate (GLU). The actinides considered were Am(III), Th(IV), Pu(IV), and U(VI). Eu(III) was investigated as chemical analogue for Am(III) and Cm(III). In addition to the ternary systems An(X)/GLU/C-S-H, also binary systems An(X)/C-S-H, GLU/C-S-H, and An(X)/GLU were studied. Complementary analytical techniques were applied to address the different specific aspects of the binary and ternary systems. Time-resolved laser-induced luminescence spectroscopy (TRLFS) was applied in combination with parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) to identify retained species and to monitor species-selective sorption kinetics. ¹³C and ²⁹Si magic-angle-spinning (MAS) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were applied to determine the bulk structure and the composition of the C-S-H surface, respectively, in the absence and presence of GLU. The interaction of Th(IV) with GLU in different electrolytes was studied by capillary electrophoresis-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (CE-ICP-MS). The influence of GLU on An(X) retention was investigated for a large concentration range up to 10⁻² M. The results showed that GLU had little to no effect on the overall An(X) retention by C-S-H with C/S of 0.8, regardless of the oxidation state of the actinides. For Eu(III), the TRLFS investigations additionally implied the formation of a Eu(III)-bearing precipitate with dissolved constituents of the C-S-H phase, which becomes structurally altered by the presence of GLU. For U(VI) sorption on the C-S-H phase, only a small influence of GLU could be established in the luminescence spectroscopic investigations, and no precipitation of U(VI)-containing secondary phases could be identified.
Defining the metaverse
(2023)
The term Metaverse is emerging as a result of the late push by multinational technology conglomerates and a recent surge of interest in Web 3.0, Blockchain, NFT, and Cryptocurrencies. From a scientific point of view, there is no definite consensus on what the Metaverse will be like. This paper collects, analyzes, and synthesizes scientific definitions and the accompanying major characteristics of the Metaverse using the methodology of a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). Two revised definitions for the Metaverse are presented, both condensing the key attributes, where the first one is rather simplistic holistic describing “a three-dimensional online environment in which users represented by avatars interact with each other in virtual spaces decoupled from the real physical world”. In contrast, the second definition is specified in a more detailed manner in the paper and further discussed. These comprehensive definitions offer specialized and general scholars an application within and beyond the scientific context of the system science, information system science, computer science, and business informatics, by also introducing open research challenges. Furthermore, an outlook on the social, economic, and technical implications is given, and the preconditions that are necessary for a successful implementation are discussed.
Using time-resolved x-ray diffraction, we demonstrate the manipulation of the picosecond strain response of a metallic heterostructure consisting of a dysprosium (Dy) transducer and a niobium (Nb) detection layer by an external magnetic field. We utilize the first-order ferromagnetic–antiferromagnetic phase transition of the Dy layer, which provides an additional large contractive stress upon laser excitation compared to its zerofield response. This enhances the laser-induced contraction of the transducer and changes the shape of the picosecond strain pulses driven in Dy and detected within the buried Nb layer. Based on our experiment with rare-earth metals we discuss required properties for functional transducers, which may allow for novel field-control of the emitted picosecond strain pulses.
The Adaptive Force (AF) reflects the neuromuscular capacity to adapt to external loads during holding muscle actions and is similar to motions in real life and sports. The maximal isometric AF (AFisoₘₐₓ) was considered to be the most relevant parameter and was assumed to have major importance regarding injury mechanisms and the development of musculoskeletal pain. The aim of this study was to investigate the behavior of different torque parameters over the course of 30 repeated maximal AF trials. In addition, maximal holding vs. maximal pushing isometric muscle actions were compared. A side consideration was the behavior of torques in the course of repeated AF actions when comparing strength and endurance athletes. The elbow flexors of n = 12 males (six strength/six endurance athletes, non-professionals) were measured 30 times (120 s rest) using a pneumatic device. Maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC) was measured pre and post. MVIC, AFisoₘₐₓ, and AFₘₐₓ (maximal torque of one AF measurement) were evaluated regarding different considerations and statistical tests. AFₘₐₓ and AFisoₘₐₓ declined in the course of 30 trials [slope regression (mean ± standard deviation): AFₘₐₓ = −0.323 ± 0.263; AFisoₘₐₓ = −0.45 ± 0.45]. The decline from start to end amounted to −12.8% ± 8.3% (p < 0.001) for AFₘₐₓ and −25.41% ± 26.40% (p < 0.001) for AFisoₘₐₓ. AF parameters declined more in strength vs. endurance athletes. Thereby, strength athletes showed a rather stable decline for AFmax and a plateau formation for AFisoₘₐₓ after 15 trials. In contrast, endurance athletes reduced their AFₘₐₓ, especially after the first five trials, and remained on a rather similar level for AFisomax. The maximum of AFisoₘₐₓ of all 30 trials amounted 67.67% ± 13.60% of MVIC (p < 0.001, n = 12), supporting the hypothesis of two types of isometric muscle action (holding vs. pushing). The findings provided the first data on the behavior of torque parameters after repeated isometric–eccentric actions and revealed further insights into neuromuscular control strategies. Additionally, they highlight the importance of investigating AF parameters in athletes based on the different behaviors compared to MVIC. This is assumed to be especially relevant regarding injury mechanisms.
“Creating a Maritime Future”
(2023)
This article explores the importance of the port city of Hamburg in the evolving discourses on the creation of a maritime future, a vision which became influential in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. While some Jewish representatives in the city aimed at preserving and intertwining Hanseatic and Jewish traditions in order to secure a Jewish presence in the port city under the pressure of the Nazi regime and thereafter, others wanted to create new emigration opportunities, especially to Mandatory Palestine, and create a Jewish maritime future in Eretz Israel. Different Zionist organizations supported the newly evolving maritime ideas, such as the “conquest of the sea”, and promoted the image of a Jewish seafaring nation. Despite the difficulties in the 1940s, these concepts gained influence post-1945 and led to the foundation of the fishery kibbutz “Zerubavel” in Blankenese/Hamburg. However, the idea of a Hanseatic Jewish future also remained influential and illustrates how differently a “Jewish maritime future” was imagined and used to link past, present and future.
A review of all research papers published in the European Sociological Review in 2016 and 2017 (N = 118) shows that only a minority of papers clearly define the parameter of interest and provide sufficient reasoning for the selected control variables of the statistical analysis. Thus, the vast majority of papers does not reach minimal standards for the selection of control variables. Consequently, a majority of papers interpret biased coefficients, or statistics without proper sociological meaning. We postulate that authors and reviewers should be more careful about control variable selection. We propose graphical causal models in the form of directed acyclic graphs as an example for a parsimonious and powerful means to that end.
Although hate speech is widely recognized as an online phenomenon, very few studies have investigated hate speech among adolescents in offline settings (e.g., schools). At the same time, not much is known about countering hate speech (counterspeech) among adolescents and which factors are associated with it. To this end, the present study used the socio-ecological framework to investigate the direct and indirect links among one contextual factor (i.e., classroom climate) and two intrapersonal factors (i.e., empathy for victims of hate speech, self-efficacy regarding intervention in hate speech) to understand counterspeech among adolescents. The sample is based on self-reports of 3,225 students in Grades 7 to 9 (51.7% self-identified as female) from 36 schools in Germany and Switzerland. Self-report questionnaires were administered to measure classroom climate, empathy, self-efficacy, and counterspeech. After controlling for adolescents' grade, gender, immigrant background, and socioeconomic status (SES), the 2-(1-1)-1 multilevel mediation analysis showed that classroom climate (L2), empathy for victims of hate speech (L1), and self-efficacy toward intervention in hate speech (L1) had a positive effect on countering hate speech (L1). Classroom climate (L2) was also positively linked to empathy for victims of hate speech (L1), and self-efficacy toward intervention in hate speech (L1). Furthermore, classroom climate (L2) was indirectly associated with countering hate speech (L1) via greater empathy (L1) and self-efficacy (L1). The findings highlight the need to focus on contextual and intrapersonal factors when trying to facilitate adolescents' willingness to face hate speech with civic courage and proactively engage against it.
In this chapter, I consider the unity of self-consciousness and objectivity. Starting from the notion that the objective character and the self-conscious character of thought seem in tension, I discuss Sebastian Rödl’s Self-Consciousness and Objectivity and his thesis that this tension is merely apparent. This resolution suggests an immediate route to absolute idealism. I recall two Hegelian objections against such an immediate route. Against this background, it transpires that the dissolution of the apparent opposition of objectivity and self-consciousness can only be a preliminary step, opening our eyes to an actual opposition animating the pursuit of knowledge: the opposition of knowledge of nature and self-knowledge. This actual opposition cannot be removed as merely apparent and instead has to be sublated through articulation of its speculative unity. I consider two paradigms for the exposition of such a speculative unity: Kant’s account of judgments of beauty, and Hegel’s account of the speculative unity of life and self-consciousness. I close by contrasting these two approaches with Rödl’s characterization, which strikes me as one-sided. Absolute idealism, properly understood, requires us to develop the speculative unity of knowledge of nature and self-knowledge from both sides, showing us that knowledge of nature is self-knowledge, but equally: that self-knowledge requires knowledge of ourselves as nature.
Dotting the “I think”
(2023)
This chapter discusses a central problem in Sebastian Rödl’s Self-Consciousness and Objectivity and in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In a statement of the form “I think p”, the words “I think” do not contribute to the content, and yet they are not redundant. In other words, a thinking subject is not something and yet not nothing. But then in what sense is a thinking subject a part of the world? The problem is intractable on a merely negative understanding of “I think”, like Anscombe’s merely negative thesis, endorsed by Rödl, that “I” is not a referring expression. In search of a positive understanding, this chapter proposes to understand “I think” by comparison to “hello”. A speaking subject is the expression of mutual presence in conversation – in that sense a limit of the world. Such expression may be compared to facial expression, with the crucial difference that a verbal expression can be taken up – i.e., repeated – in the third person. A speaking subject, then, is potentially absent from conversation, and in that sense a part of the world.
Humboldtian science aims at an empirically supported transdisciplinary and at the same time transareal development of a world consciousness. In the development of this world consciousness, not only Europe and the Americas, but also Central Asia and especially China play an important role. The Humboldt Center for Transdisciplinary Studies (HCTS) in Changsha, is attempting to address the fact that China has been largely left out of international Humboldt studies and that Alexander von Humboldt was intensively engaged with Central Asia and China for decades. Therefore, the Humboldt Center in Changsha sets itself the goal of expanding Humboldt Studies to include this important aspect, to stimulate and coordinate special research work, and to build scientific and cultural bridges between Germany and China, Europe and Asia.
Megatrends, affecting multiple aspects of future society, economy, and technology, drive today's business world. They are expected to impact all areas in companies and will, therefore, most likely occur in business negotiations. Although several studies address future developments of different business divisions, the megatrends' impact on negotiations has, thus far, not been analyzed. We designed a model including the three megatrends, i.e., globalization and economic shift, digitalization and new technologies, and demographic and social change, which have main effects on specific negotiation aspects. Our study combined an online survey and expert interviews with negotiation practitioners to provide a first broad view of how megatrends affect future business negotiations. The results confirm our model and reveal a close connection of megatrends and single negotiation aspects. Among others, we examine an orientation toward global partners, an increased interconnection through various electronic systems, as well as two opposite relationship directions - long-term and integrative through strategic cooperation vs. short-term and distributive through competition and new technologies.
The genetic structure of Bryde's whale (Balaenoptera brydei) on the central and western North Pacific feeding grounds was investigated using a total of 1195 mitochondrial control region sequences and 1182 microsatellite genotypes at 17 loci in specimens collected from three longitudinal areas, 1W (135 degrees E-165 degrees E), 1E (165 degrees E-180 degrees), and 2 (180 degrees-155 degrees W). Genetic diversities were similar among areas and a haplotype network did not show any geographic structure, while an analysis of molecular variance found evidence of genetic structure in this species. Pairwise FST and G'ST estimates and heterogeneity tests attributed this structure to weak but significant differentiation between areas 1W/1E and 2. A Mantel test and a high-resolution analysis of genetic diversity statistics showed a weak spatial cline of genetic differentiation. These findings could be reconciled by two possible stock structure scenarios: (1) a single population with kin-association affecting feeding ground preference and (2) two populations with feeding ground preference for either area 1W or area 2. An estimated dispersal rate between areas 1W and 2 indicates that both scenarios should be considered as a precautionary principle in stock assessments.
Transferability of data-driven models to predict urban pluvial flood water depth in Berlin, Germany
(2023)
Data-driven models have been recently suggested to surrogate computationally expensive hydrodynamic models to map flood hazards. However, most studies focused on developing models for the same area or the same precipitation event. It is thus not obvious how transferable the models are in space. This study evaluates the performance of a convolutional neural network (CNN) based on the U-Net architecture and the random forest (RF) algorithm to predict flood water depth, the models' transferability in space and performance improvement using transfer learning techniques. We used three study areas in Berlin to train, validate and test the models. The results showed that (1) the RF models outperformed the CNN models for predictions within the training domain, presumable at the cost of overfitting; (2) the CNN models had significantly higher potential than the RF models to generalize beyond the training domain; and (3) the CNN models could better benefit from transfer learning technique to boost their performance outside training domains than RF models.
Thus far, research into reservations to treaties has often overlooked reservations formulated to both European Social Charters (and its Protocols) and the relevant European Committee of Social Rights practices. There are several pressing reasons to further explore this gap in existing literature. First, an analysis of practices within the European Social Charters (and Protocols) will provide a fuller picture of the reservations and responses of treaty bodies. Second, in the context of previous landmark events it is worth noting the practices of another human rights treaty monitoring body that is often omitted from analyses. Third, the very fact that the formulation of reservations to treaties gives parties such far-reaching flexibility to shape their contractual obligations (à la carte) is surprising. An important outcome of the research is the finding that, despite the far-reaching flexibility present in the treaties analysed, both the States Parties and the European Committee of Social Rights generally treat them as conventional treaties to which the general rules on reservations apply. Consequently, there is no basis for assuming that the mere fact of adopting the à la carte system in a treaty with no reservation clause implies a formal prohibition of reservations or otherwise discourages their formulation.
Multiplexity, the coexistence of more than one type of relationship between two actors, is a prevalent phenomenon with clear relevance for a wide range of management settings and phenomena. While there is a substantial body of work on multiplexity, the absence of a shared terminology and a typology for the mechanisms and arguments that are used in theorizing about its implications nevertheless hamper its appeal to organizational network scholars and slow its progress. Based on content analysis of 103 studies, we propose “relational harmony,” “task complementarity,” and “relational scope” as three categories to integrate the mechanisms and arguments used in the literature to theorize about the implications of multiplexity. We then survey the literature in light of this typology to show how it is also useful in revealing patterns of theorizing; for example, with respect to the types of relationships that are studied in relation to multiplexity. We conclude with suggestions for future research directions, focusing on how these can be pursued based on our integrative typology. We hope that the common ground we provide for theorizing about the implications of multiplexity will make it an even more engaging topic for organizational network and management scholars, and place it in the company of more prominently used relational constructs in management research, as aligned with its prevalence and relevance.
This essay takes an Anglophone Cultural Studies approach to reflect on the interdependence among as well as the individual (implicit) impact of the elements constituting our (embodied) power structures. These are, e.g., bodily experience/s such as shame and fear, everyday and institutional discourses and practices, but also manifestations of differences and particularities that we transform into phenomena such as “norms”, “binary systems” and “binary organisations”. The analysis of seemingly cyclic “Othering processes” and patterns of violence shows how people who identify as trans*, inter*, or non-binary have to live through and embody epistemological, emotional, and/or physical violence. At the same time, the descriptions illustrate numberless potential forms of resistance and change.
Introduction
(2023)
This study analyses the impact of managers’ risk preferences on their training allocation decisions. We begin by providing nationally representative evidence that managers’ risk-aversion is negatively correlated with the likelihood that their firms engage in any worker training. Using a novel vignette study, we then demonstrate that risk-tolerant and risk-averse decision makers have significantly different training preferences. Risk aversion results in increased sensitivity to turnover risk. Managers who are risk-averse offer less general training and are more reluctant to train workers with a history of job mobility. Adopting a weighting approach to flexibly control for observed differences in the characteristics of risk-averse and risk-tolerant managers, we show that our findings cannot be explained by heterogeneity in either managers’ observed characteristics or the type of firms where they work. All managers, irrespective of their risk preferences, are sensitive to the investment risk associated with training, avoiding training that is more costly or that targets those with less occupational expertise or nearing retirement. This provides suggestive evidence that the risks of training are primarily due to the risk that trained workers will leave the firm (turnover risk) rather than the risk that the benefits of training do not outweigh the costs (investment risk).
Satisfaction and frustration of the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, as assessed with the 24-item Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale (BPNSFS), have been found to be crucial indicators of individuals’ psychological health. To increase the usability of this scale within a clinical and health services research context, we aimed to validate a German short version (12 items) of this scale in individuals with depression including the examination of the relations from need frustration and need satisfaction to ill-being and quality of life (QOL). This cross-sectional study involved 344 adults diagnosed with depression (Mage (SD) = 47.5 years (11.1); 71.8% females). Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the short version of the BPNSFS was not only reliable, but also fitted a six-factor structure (i.e., satisfaction/frustration X type of need). Subsequent structural equation modeling showed that need frustration related positively to indicators of ill-being and negatively to QOL. Surprisingly, need satisfaction did not predict differences in ill-being or QOL. The short form of the BPNSFS represents a practical instrument to measure need satisfaction and frustration in people with depression. Further, the results support recent evidence on the importance of especially need frustration in the prediction of psychopathology.
This paper examines how wealth and income inequality dynamics are related to fluctuations in the functional income distribution over the business cycle. In a panel estimation for OECD countries between 1970 and 2016, although inequality is, on average countercyclical and significantly associated with the capital share, one-third of the countries display a pro- or noncyclical relationship. To analyze the observed pattern, we incorporate distributive shocks into an RBC model, where agents are ex ante heterogeneous with respect to wealth and ability. We find that whether wealth and income inequality behave countercyclically or not depends on the elasticity of intertemporal substitution and the persistence of shocks. We match the model to quarterly US data using Bayesian techniques. The parameter estimates point toward a non-monotonic relationship between productivity and inequality fluctuations. On impact, inequality increases in response to TFP shocks but subsequently declines. Furthermore, TFP shocks explain 17% of inequality fluctuations.
The abrahamic religions
(2023)
In recent experimental work, arguments for or against Condition C reconstruction in A'-movement have been based on low/high availability of coreference in sentences with and without A'-movement. We argue that this reasoning is problematic: It involves arbitrary thresholds, and the results are potentially confounded by the different surface orders of the compared structures and non-syntactic factors. We present three experiments with designs that do not require defining thresholds of 'low' or 'high' coreference values. Instead, we focus on grammatical contrasts (wh-movement vs. relativization, subject vs. object wh-movement) and aim to identify and reduce confounds. The results show that reconstruction for A'-movement of DPs is not very robust in German, contra previous findings. Our results are compatible with the view that the surface order and non-syntactic factors (e.g. plausibility, referential accessibility of an R-expression) heavily influence coreference possibilities. Thus, the data argue against a theory that includes both reconstruction and a hard Condition C constraint. There is a residual contrast between sentences with subject/object movement, which is compatible with an account without reconstruction (and an additional non-syntactic factor) or an account with reconstruction (and a soft Condition C constraint).
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) moves atmospheric carbon to geological or land-based sinks. In a first-best setting, the optimal use of CDR is achieved by a removal subsidy that equals the optimal carbon tax and marginal damages. We derive second-best policy rules for CDR subsidies and carbon taxes when no global carbon price exists but a national government implements a unilateral climate policy. We find that the optimal carbon tax differs from an optimal CDR subsidy because of carbon leakage and a balance of resource trade effect. First, the optimal removal subsidy tends to be larger than the carbon tax because of lower supply-side leakage on fossil resource markets. Second, net carbon exporters exacerbate this wedge to increase producer surplus of their carbon resource producers, implying even larger removal subsidies. Third, net carbon importers may set their removal subsidy even below their carbon tax when marginal environmental damages are small, to appropriate producer surplus from carbon exporters.
This meta-analysis synthesizes 332 effect sizes of various methods to enhance creativity. We clustered all studies into 12 methods to identify the most effective creativity enhancement methods. We found that, on average, creativity can be enhanced, Hedges’ g = 0.53, 95% CI [0.44, 0.61], with 70.09% of the participants in the enhancement conditions being more creative than the average person in the control conditions. Complex training courses, meditation, and cultural exposure were the most effective (gs = 0.66) while the use of cognitive manipulation drugs was the least and also noneffective, g = 0.10. The type of training material was also important. For instance, figural methods were more effective in enhancing creativity, and enhancing converging thinking was more effective than enhancing divergent thinking. Study effect sizes varied considerably across all studies and for many subgroup analyses, suggesting that researchers can plausibly expect to find reversed effects occasionally. We found no evidence of publication bias. We discuss theoretical implications and suggest future directions for best practices in enhancing creativity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
Portal Wissen = Excellence
(2023)
When something is not just good or very good, we often call it excellent. But what does that really mean? Coming from the Latin word “excellere,” it describes things, persons, or actions that are outstanding or superior and distinguish themselves from others. It cannot get any better. Excellence is the top choice for being the first or the best. Research is no exception.
At the university, you will find numerous exceptional researchers, outstanding projects, and, time and again, sensational findings, publications, and results. But is the University of Potsdam also excellent? A question that will certainly create a different stir in 2023 than it did perhaps 20 years ago. Since the launch of the Excellence Initiative in 2005, universities that succeed in winning the most comprehensive funding program for research in Germany have been considered – literally – excellent. Whether in the form of graduate schools, research clusters, or – since the program was continued in 2019 under the title “Excellence Strategy” – entire universities of excellence: Anyone who wants to be among the best research universities needs the seal of excellence.
The University of Potsdam is applying for funding with three cluster proposals in the recently launched new round of the “Excellence Strategy of the German Federal and State Governments.” One proposal comes from ecology and biodiversity research. The aim is to paint a comprehensive picture of ecological processes by examining the role of single individuals as well as the interactions among many species in an ecosystem to precisely determine the function of biodiversity. A second proposal has been submitted by the cognitive sciences. Here, the complex coexistence of language and cognition, development and learning, as well as motivation and behavior will be researched as a dynamic interrelation. The projects will include cooperation with the educational sciences to constantly consider linked learning and educational processes. The third proposal from the geo and environmental sciences concentrates on extreme and particularly devastating natural hazards and processes such as floods and droughts. The researchers examine these extreme events, focusing on their interaction with society, to be able to better assess the risks and damages they might involve and to initiate timely measures in the future.
“All three proposals highlight the excellence of our performance,” emphasizes University President Prof. Oliver Günther, Ph.D. “The outlines impressively document our commitment, existing research excellence, and the potential of the University of Potsdam as a whole. The fact that three powerful consortia have come together in different subject areas shows that we have taken a good step forward on our way to becoming one of the top German universities.”
In this issue, we are looking at what is in and behind these proposals: We talked to the researchers who wrote them. We asked them about their plans in case their proposals are successful and they bring a cluster of excellence to the university. But we also looked at the research that has led to the proposals, has long shaped the university’s profile, and earned it national and international recognition. We present a small selection of projects, methods, and researchers to illustrate why there really is excellent research in these proposals!
By the way, “excellence” is also not the end of the flagpole. After all, the adjective “excellent” even has a comparative and a superlative. With this in mind, I wish you the most excellent pleasure reading this issue!
This qualitative study explores the impact of Personalized Learning Experience (PLE) courses at a higher education institution from the perspective of undergraduate students. The PLE program requires students to take at least one of their elective courses in the form of MOOCs during their undergraduate studies. Drawing on interviews with six students across different faculties, the study identified four key themes that encapsulate the effects of PLE courses: (1) Certificate driven learning with a focus on occupation skill enhancement, (2) diverse course offerings to enhance personal and academic development, (3) learning flexibility, and (4) student satisfaction. The findings suggest that PLE courses offered through MOOC platforms allow students to broaden their academic horizons, gain valuable skills, and tailor their education to better align with their interests and goals. Furthermore, this study highlights the potential benefits of incorporating PLE courses in higher education institutions, emphasizing their role in promoting a more dynamic and student-centered learning environment.
This work explores the use of different generative AI tools in the design of MOOC courses. Authors in this experience employed a variety of AI-based tools, including natural language processing tools (e.g. Chat-GPT), and multimedia content authoring tools (e.g. DALLE-2, Midjourney, Tome.ai) to assist in the course design process. The aim was to address the unique challenges of MOOC course design, which includes to create engaging and effective content, to design interactive learning activities, and to assess student learning outcomes. The authors identified positive results with the incorporation of AI-based tools, which significantly improved the quality and effectiveness of MOOC course design. The tools proved particularly effective in analyzing and categorizing course content, identifying key learning objectives, and designing interactive learning activities that engaged students and facilitated learning. Moreover, the use of AI-based tools, streamlined the course design process, significantly reducing the time required to design and prepare the courses. In conclusion, the integration of generative AI tools into the MOOC course design process holds great potential for improving the quality and efficiency of these courses. Researchers and course designers should consider the advantages of incorporating generative AI tools into their design process to enhance their course offerings and facilitate student learning outcomes while also reducing the time and effort required for course development.
The massive growth of MOOCs in 2011 laid the groundwork for the achievement of SDG 4. With the various benefits of MOOCs, there is also anticipation that online education should focus on more interactivity and global collaboration. In this context, the Global MOOC and Online Education Alliance (GMA) established a diverse group of 17 world-leading universities and three online education platforms from across 14 countries on all six continents in 2020. Through nearly three years of exploration, GMA has gained experience and achieved progress in fostering global cooperation in higher education. First, in joint teaching, GMA has promoted in-depth cooperation between members inside and outside the alliance. Examples include promoting the exchange of high-quality MOOCs, encouraging the creation of Global Hybrid Classroom, and launching Global Hybrid Classroom Certificate Programs. Second, in capacity building and knowledge sharing, GMA has launched Online Education Dialogues and the Global MOOC and Online Education Conference, inviting global experts to share best practices and attracting more than 10 million viewers around the world. Moreover, GMA is collaborating with international organizations to support teachers’ professional growth, create an online learning community, and serve as a resource for further development. Third, in public advocacy, GMA has launched the SDG Hackathon and Global Massive Open Online Challenge (GMOOC) and attracted global learners to acquire knowledge and incubate their innovative ideas within a cross-cultural community to solve real-world problems that all humans face and jointly create a better future. Based on past experiences and challenges, GMA will explore more diverse cooperation models with more partners utilizing advanced technology, provide more support for digital transformation in higher education, and further promote global cooperation towards building a human community with a shared future.
This research paper provides an overview of the current state of MOOCs (massive open online courses) and universities in Austria, focusing on the national MOOC platform iMooX.at. The study begins by presenting the results of an analysis of the performance agreements of 22 Austrian public universities for the period 2022–2024, with a specific focus on the mention of MOOC activities and iMooX. The authors find that 12 of 22 (55 %) Austrian public universities use at least one of these terms, indicating a growing interest in MOOCs and online learning. Additionally, the authors analyze internal documentation data to share insights into how many universities in Austria have produced and/or used a MOOC on the iMooX platform since its launch in 2014. These findings provide a valuable measure of the current usage and monitoring of MOOCs and iMooX among Austrian higher education institutions. Overall, this research contributes to a better understanding of the current state of MOOCs and their integration within Austrian higher education.
Modularization describes the transformation of MOOCs from a comprehensive academic course format into smaller, more manageable learning offerings. It can be seen as one of the prerequisites for the successful implementation of MOOC-based micro-credentials in professional education and training. This short paper reports on the development and application of a modularization framework for Open Online Courses. Using the example of eGov-Campus, a German MOOC provider for the public sector linked to both academia and formal professional development, the structural specifications for modularized MOOC offerings and a methodology for course transformation as well as associated challenges in technology, organization and educational design are outlined. Following on from this, future prospects are discussed under the headings of individualization, certification and integration.
The main aim of this article is to explore how learning analytics and synchronous collaboration could improve course completion and learner outcomes in MOOCs, which traditionally have been delivered asynchronously. Based on our experience with developing BigBlueButton, a virtual classroom platform that provides educators with live analytics, this paper explores three scenarios with business focused MOOCs to improve outcomes and strengthen learned skills.
From MOOC to “2M-POC”
(2023)
IFP School develops and produces MOOCs since 2014. After the COVID-19 crisis, the demand of our industrial and international partners to offer continuous training to their employees increased drastically in an energy transition and sustainable mobility environment that finds itself in constant and rapid evolution. Therefore, it is time for a new format of digital learning tools to efficiently and rapidly train an important number of employees. To address this new demand, in a more and more digital learning environment, we have completely changed our initial MOOC model to propose an innovative SPOC business model mixing synchronous and asynchronous modules. This paper describes the work that has been done to transform our MOOCs to a hybrid SPOC model. We changed the format itself from a standard MOOC model of several weeks to small modules of one week average more adapted to our client’s demand. We precisely engineered the exchanges between learners and the social aspect all along the SPOC duration. We propose a multimodal approach with a combination of asynchronous activities like online module, exercises, and synchronous activities like webinars with experts, and after-work sessions. Additionally, this new format increases the number of uses of the MOOC resources by our professors in our own master programs.
With all these actions, we were able to reach a completion rate between 80 and 96% – total enrolled –, compared to the completion rate of 15 to 28% – total enrolled – as to be recorded in our original MOOC format. This is to be observed for small groups (50–100 learners) as SPOC but also for large groups (more than 2500 learners), as a Massive and Multimodal Private Online Course (“2M-POC”). Today a MOOC is not a simple assembly of videos, text, discussions forums and validation exercises but a complete multimodal learning path including social learning, personal followup, synchronous and asynchronous modules. We conclude that the original MOOC format is not at all suitable to propose efficient training to companies, and we must re-engineer the learning path to have a SPOC hybrid and multimodal training compatible with a cost-effective business model.
As the climate targets tighten and countries are impacted by several crises, understanding how and under which conditions carbon dioxide emissions peak and start declining is gaining importance. We assess the timing of emissions peaks in all major emitters (1965–2019) and the extent to which past economic crises have impacted structural drivers of emissions contributing to emission peaks. We show that in 26 of 28 countries that have peaked emissions, the peak occurred just before or during a recession through the combined effect of lower economic growth (1.5 median percentage points per year) and decreasing energy and/or carbon intensity (0.7) during and after the crisis. In peak-and-decline countries, crises have typically magnified pre-existing improvements in structural change. In non-peaking countries, economic growth was less affected, and structural change effects were weaker or increased emissions. Crises do not automatically trigger peaks but may strengthen ongoing decarbonisation trends through several mechanisms.
Thermal energy from concentrating solar thermal technologies (CST) may contribute to decarbonizing applications from heating and cooling, desalination, and power generation to commodities such as aluminium, hydrogen, ammonia or sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). So far, successful commercial-scale CST projects are restricted to solar industrial process heat (SIPH) and concentrating solar power (CSP) generation and, at least for the latter, depend on support from public policies that have been stagnating for years. As they are technologically similar, spillovers between SIPH or CSP and other emerging CST could accelerate commercialization across use cases while maximizing the impact of scarce support. Here, we review the technical potential for cross-fertilization between different CST applications and the ability of the current policy regime to enable this potential. Using working temperature as the key variable, we identify different clusters of current and emerging CST technologies. Low-temperature CST (<400℃) applications for heating, cooling and desalination already profit from the significant progress made in line-focussing CSP over the last 15 years. A newly emerging cluster of high temperature CST (>600℃) for solar chemistry and high-grade process heat has significant leverage for spillovers with point-focussing solar tower third-generation CSP currently under development. For these spillovers to happen, however, CSP policy designs would need to prioritize innovation for high working temperature and encourage modular plant design, by adequately remunerating hybridized plants with heat and power in and outputs that include energy sources beyond CST solar fields. This would enable synergies across applications and scales by incentivizing compatibility of modular CST components in multiple sectors and use cases.
Renewable energy changes the geopolitics of energy: whereas access to fossil fuel resources were key in the past, control over technology and industry will be key in the future. Consequently, different scholars have predicted that a growing focus on renewables will increase or decrease conflict in the energy sector, with no consensus on which is most likely. Here, we investigate the degree of conflict in renewable energy technology (RET) trade by analyzing data on 7041 trade conflicts 1995–2020, guided by two sets of theory-driven hypotheses. We show that RET trade is associated with more, longer, and more intense trade conflicts than other trade conflicts for 1995–2016. This supports the neorealist, geo-economic view of countries being willing to risk conflict to increase their share of a market rather than avoiding conflicts to increase the overall market size. It also contradicts the view that renewables will reduce conflict: at least in the past and regarding trade, it has increased rather than decreased conflict. For 2017–2020, this trend is reversed and RET trade became significantly less conflictive than other trade. Our findings imply that improved conflict-resolution institutions for RET are needed. We also suggest establishing specific institutions to govern trade in immature technologies.
This research paper aims to introduce a novel practitioner-oriented and research-based taxonomy of video genres. This taxonomy can serve as a scaffolding strategy to support educators throughout the entire educational system in creating videos for pedagogical purposes. A taxonomy of video genres is essential as videos are highly valued resources among learners. Although the use of videos in education has been extensively researched and well-documented in systematic research reviews, gaps remain in the literature. Predominantly, researchers employ sophisticated quantitative methods and similar approaches to measure the performance of videos. This trend has led to the emergence of a strong learning analytics research tradition with its embedded literature. This body of research includes analysis of performance of videos in online courses such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Surprisingly, this same literature is limited in terms of research outlining approaches to designing and creating educational videos, which applies to both video-based learning and online courses. This issue results in a knowledge gap, highlighting the need for developing pedagogical tools and strategies for video making. These can be found in frameworks, guidelines, and taxonomies, which can serve as scaffolding strategies. In contrast, there appears to be very few frameworks available for designing and creating videos for pedagogica purposes, apart from a few well-known frameworks. In this regard, this research paper proposes a novel taxonomy of video genres that educators can utilize when creating videos intended for use in either video-based learning environments or online courses. To create this taxonomy, a large number of videos from online courses were collected and analyzed using a mixed-method research design approach.
Research within the framework of Basic Psychological Need Theory (BPNT) finds strong associations between basic need frustration and depressive symptoms. This study examined the role of rumination as an underlying mechanism in the association between basic psychological need frustration and depressive symptoms. A cross-sectional sample of N = 221 adults (55.2% female, mean age = 27.95, range = 18–62, SD = 10.51) completed measures assessing their level of basic psychological need frustration, rumination, and depressive symptoms. Correlational analyses and multiple mediation models were conducted. Brooding partially mediated the relation between need frustration and depressive symptoms. BPNT and Response Styles Theory are compatible and can further advance knowledge about depression vulnerabilities.
As Thailand moves towards becoming an innovation-driven economy, the need for human capital development has become crucial. Work-based skill MOOCs, offered on Thai MOOC, a national digital learning platform launched by Thailand Cyber University Project, ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, provide an effective way to overcome this challenge. This paper discusses the challenges faced in designing an instruction for work-based skill MOOCs that can serve as a foundation model for many more to come. The instructional design of work-based skill courses in Thai MOOC involves four simple steps, including course selection, learning from accredited providers, course requirements completion, and certification of acquired skills. The development of such courses is ongoing at the higher education level, vocational level, and pre-university level, which serve as a foundation model for many more work-based skill MOOC that will be offered on Thai MOOC soon. The instructional design of work-based skills courses should focus on the development of currently demanded professional competencies and skills, increasing the efficiency of work in the organization, creativity, and happiness in life that meets the human resources needs of industries in the 4.0 economy era in Thailand. This paper aims to present the challenges of designing instruction for work-based skill MOOCs and suggests effective ways to design instruction to enhance workforce development in Thailand.
Innovat MOOC
(2023)
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the importance for university teachers to have adequate pedagogical and technological competences to cope with the various possible educational scenarios (face-to-face, online, hybrid, etc.), making use of appropriate active learning methodologies and supporting technologies to foster a more effective learning environment. In this context, the InnovaT project has been an important initiative to support the development of pedagogical and technological competences of university teachers in Latin America through several trainings aiming to promote teacher innovation. These trainings combined synchronous online training through webinars and workshops with asynchronous online training through the MOOC “Innovative Teaching in Higher Education.” This MOOC was released twice. The first run took place right during the lockdown of 2020, when Latin American teachers needed urgent training to move to emergency remote teaching overnight. The second run took place in 2022 with the return to face-to-face teaching and the implementation of hybrid educational models. This article shares the results of the design of the MOOC considering the constraints derived from the lockdowns applied in each country, the lessons learned from the delivery of such a MOOC to Latin American university teachers, and the results of the two runs of the MOOC.
Loss of expertise in the fields of Nuclear- and Radio-Chemistry (NRC) is problematic at a scientific and social level. This has been addressed by developing a MOOC, in order to let students in scientific matters discover all the benefits of NRC to society and improving their awareness of this discipline. The MOOC “Essential Radiochemistry for Society” includes current societal challenges related to health, clean and sustainable energy for safety and quality of food and agriculture.
NRC teachers belonging to CINCH network were invited to use the MOOC in their teaching, according to various usage models: on the basis of these different experiences, some usage patterns were designed, describing context characteristics (number and age of students, course), activities’ scheduling and organization, results and students’ feedback, with the aim of encouraging the use of MOOCs in university teaching, as an opportunity for both lecturers and students. These models were the basis of a “toolkit for teachers”. By experiencing digital teaching resources created by different lecturers, CINCH teachers took a first meaningful step towards understanding the worth of Open Educational Resources (OER) and the importance of their creation, adoption and sharing for knowledge progress. In this paper, the entire path from MOOC concept to MOOC different usage models, to awareness-raising regarding OER is traced in conceptual stages.
This paper presents a new design for MOOCs for professional development of skills needed to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals – the CoMOOC or Co-designed Massive Open Online Collaboration. The CoMOOC model is based on co-design with multiple stakeholders including end-users within the professional communities the CoMOOC aims to reach. This paper shows how the CoMOOC model could help the tertiary sector deliver on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) – including but not limited to SDG 4 Education – by providing a more effective vehicle for professional development at a scale that the UNSDGs require. Interviews with professionals using MOOCs, and design-based research with professionals have informed the development of the Co-MOOC model. This research shows that open, online, collaborative learning experiences are highly effective for building professional community knowledge. Moreover, this research shows that the collaborative learning design at the heart of the CoMOOC model is feasible cross-platform Research with teachers working in crisis contexts in Lebanon, many of whom were refugees, will be presented to show how this form of large scale, co-designed, online learning can support professionals, even in the most challenging contexts, such as mass displacement, where expertise is urgently required.
The integration of MOOCs into the Moroccan Higher Education (MHE) took place in 2013 by developing different partnerships and projects at national and international levels. As elsewhere, the Covid-19 crisis has played an important role in accelerating distance education in MHE. However, based on our experience as both university professors and specialists in educational engineering, the effective execution of the digital transition has not yet been implemented. Thus, in this article, we present a retrospective feedback of MOOCs in Morocco, focusing on the policies taken by the government to better support the digital transition in general and MOOCs in particular. We are therefore seeking to establish an optimal scenario for the promotion of MOOCs, which emphasizes the policies to be considered, and which recalls the importance of conducting a delicate articulation taking into account four levels, namely environmental, institutional, organizational and individual. We conclude with recommendations that are inspired by the Moroccan academic contex that focus on the major role that MOOCs plays for university students and on maintaining lifelong learning.
“Financial Analysis” is an online course designed for professionals consisting of three MOOCs, offering a professionally and institutionally recognized certificate in finance. The course is open but not free of charge and attracts mostly professionals from the banking industry. The primary objective of this study is to identify indicators that can predict learners at high risk of failure. To achieve this, we analyzed data from a previous course that had 875 enrolled learners and involve in the course during Fall 2021. We utilized correspondence analysis to examine demographic and behavioral variables.
The initial results indicate that demographic factors have a minor impact on the risk of failure in comparison to learners’ behaviors on the course platform. Two primary profiles were identified: (1) successful learners who utilized all the documents offered and spent between one to two hours per week, and (2) unsuccessful learners who used less than half of the proposed documents and spent less than one hour per week. Between these groups, at-risk students were identified as those who used more than half of the proposed documents and spent more than two hours per week. The goal is to identify those in group 1 who may be at risk of failing and those in group 2 who may succeed in the current MOOC, and to implement strategies to assist all learners in achieving success.
With the growing number of online learning resources, it becomes increasingly difficult and overwhelming to keep track of the latest developments and to find orientation in the plethora of offers. AI-driven services to recommend standalone learning resources or even complete learning paths are discussed as a possible solution for this challenge. To function properly, such services require a well-defined set of metadata provided by the learning resource. During the last few years, the so-called MOOChub metadata format has been established as a de-facto standard by a group of MOOC providers in German-speaking countries. This format, which is based on schema.org, already delivers a quite comprehensive set of metadata. So far, this set has been sufficient to list, display, sort, filter, and search for courses on several MOOC and open educational resources (OER) aggregators. AI recommendation services and further automated integration, beyond a plain listing, have special requirements, however. To optimize the format for proper support of such systems, several extensions and modifications have to be applied. We herein report on a set of suggested changes to prepare the format for this task.
xMOOCs
(2023)
The World Health Organization designed OpenWHO.org to provide an inclusive and accessible online environment to equip learners across the globe with critical up-to-date information and to be able to effectively protect themselves in health emergencies. The platform thus focuses on the eXtended Massive Open Online Course (xMOOC) modality – contentfocused and expert-driven, one-to-many modelled, and self-paced for scalable learning. In this paper, we describe how OpenWHO utilized xMOOCs to reach mass audiences during the COVID-19 pandemic; the paper specifically examines the accessibility, language inclusivity and adaptability of hosted xMOOCs. As of February 2023, OpenWHO had 7.5 million enrolments across 200 xMOOCs on health emergency, epidemic, pandemic and other public health topics available across 65 languages, including 46 courses targeted for the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results suggest that the xMOOC modality allowed OpenWHO to expand learning during the pandemic to previously underrepresented groups, including women, participants ages 70 and older, and learners younger than age 20. The OpenWHO use case shows that xMOOCs should be considered when there is a need for massive knowledge transfer in health emergency situations, yet the approach should be context-specific according to the type of health emergency, targeted population and region. Our evidence also supports previous calls to put intervention elements that contribute to removing barriers to access at the core of learning and health information dissemination. Equity must be the fundamental principle and organizing criteria for public health work.
Divergent thinking is the ability to produce numerous and diverse responses to questions or tasks, and it is used as a predictor of creative achievement. It plays a significant role in the business organization’s innovation process and the recognition of new business opportunities. Drawing upon the cumulative process model of creativity in entrepreneurship, we hypothesize that divergent thinking has a lasting effect on post-launch entrepreneurial outcomes related to innovation and growth, but that this relation might not always be linear. Additionally, we hypothesize that domain-specific experience has a moderating role in this relation. We test our hypotheses based on a representative longitudinal sample of 457 German business founders, which we observe up until 40 months after start-up. We find strong relative effects for innovation and growth outcomes. For survival, we find conclusive evidence for non-linearities in the effects of divergent thinking. Additionally, we show that such effects are moderated by the type of domain-specific experience that entrepreneurs gathered pre-launch, as it shapes the individual’s ideational abilities to fit into more sophisticated strategies regarding entrepreneurial creative achievement. Our findings have relevant policy implications in characterizing and identifying business start-ups with growth and innovation potential, allowing a more efficient allocation of public and private funds.
‘Crazy Man-Killing Monsters’
(2023)
The Amazons have a long legacy in literature and the visual arts, extending from antiquity to the present day. Prior scholarship tends to treat the Amazons as hostile ‘Other’ figures, embodying the antithesis of Greco-Roman cultural norms. Recently, scholars have begun to examine positive portrayals of Amazons in contemporary media, as role models and heroic figures. However, there is a dearth of scholarship examining the Amazons’ inherently multifaceted nature, and their subsequent polarised reception in popular media.
This article builds upon the large body of scholarship on contemporary Amazon narratives, in which the figures of Wonder Woman and Xena, Warrior Princess dominate scholarly discourse. These ‘modern Amazon’ figures epitomise the dominant contemporary trend of portraying Amazons as strong female role models and feminist icons. To highlight the complexity of the Amazon image in contemporary media, this article examines the representation of the Amazons in the Supernatural episode ‘Slice Girls’ (S7 E13, 2012), where their portrayal as hostile, monstrous figures diverges greatly from the positive characterisation of Wonder Woman and Xena. I also consider the show’s engagement with ancient written sources, to examine how the writers draw upon the motifs of ancient Amazon narratives when crafting their unique Amazon characters. By contrasting the Amazons of ‘Slice Girls’ to contemporary figures and ancient narratives, this article examines how factors such as feminist ideology, narrative story arcs, characters’/audience’s perspectives and male bias shape the representation of Amazons post-antiquity.
The modern conception of the werewolf is heavily influenced by Gothic reinterpretations of medieval European stories. This kind of werewolf is the one that has appeared on screen and written fiction for decades, but MTV’s Teen Wolf, a re-boot of the 1980s film which aired between 2011 – 17, is different. In this young adult supernatural drama, werewolves descend directly from Lycaon, and a substantial proportion of the show’s werewolf lore derives from Graeco-Roman stories about wolf-shifters and versipelles. This paper wants to explore the extent of the use in the show of the myth of Lycaon in particular, of Classical versipelles in general, the significance of these two references for the narrative, and the degree of innovation in modern supernatural fiction of this adaptation of Greek and Roman stories.
On the surface the television series Lucifer (2016 – 21) is a simple police procedural but, in actuality, the criminal cases in the show serve merely as window-dressing and structure for the deeper consideration of issues, such as guilt, shame, love, and even the meaning of life on both an individual and universal level. These topics are explored through the ever-developing character of Lucifer himself, who, like other recent anti-hero depictions, is initially presented in a manner that is very different from traditional portrayals of the Devil, and is, in fact, far closer to that of the Greek Olympian gods. Over the course of six seasons, the depiction of Lucifer alters, however, as he becomes a figure that is in many ways Christ-like, but with a 21st century twist that places the individual in an exalted position that is superior to that of divinity.
This paper applies Monster Theory to the use of Greek mythology in three creator-owned comic series by female writers: InSEXts (2016 – 2017) by American comic writer Marguerite Bennett and Indonesian artist working in America Ariela Kristantina as well as Eros/Psyche (2021) and Porcelain (2021) by Maria Llovet, a comic writer and artist from Barcelona. In the first volume of InSEXts, set in Victorian London, there are allusions to the Furies and Pandora, linked with the discourse of the repression of women. In the second volume, set in the late nineteenth century Paris art world, the representation of classical subjects in art becomes a means to repress women, and a goddess with a Gorgon-like appearance takes revenge on the male repressors. In Eros/Psyche the story of Eros and Psyche and broken statues forms the backdrop and context for a tale of love and deception at a girls’ school, and in Porcelain a girl is faced with a choice of paths towards Eros or Thanatos, like Herakles at the crossroads choosing between the paths of virtue and vice. With reference to Cohen’s seven theses of Monster Culture I examine how Bennett and Lovett subvert the idea of the monster and the hero.
This article proposes several conceptual frameworks for examining the widespread use of classical intertexts depicting the supernatural in popular media. Whether the supernatural is viewed as reality or simply a trope, it represents the human capacity and desire to explore worlds and meanings beyond the obvious and mundane. Representations of classical gods, heroes, and monsters evoke the power of mythic stories to probe and explain human psychology, social concerns, philosophical questions, and religious beliefs, including belief about the paranormal and supernatural. The entertainment value of popular media allows creators and audiences to engage with larger issues in non-dogmatic and playful ways that help them negotiate tensions among various beliefs and identities. This paper also gives an overview of the other articles in this journal issue, showing overlapping themes and patterns that connect with these tensions. By combining knowledge of classical myths in their original contexts with knowledge about contemporary culture, classical scholars contribute unique perspectives about why classical intertexts dominate in popular media today.
Megan Whalen Turner’s series The Queen’s Thief (1996 – 2020) centres on the political intrigues in a group of countries which are at once very like – but also very unlike – Bronze Age and archaic Greece threatened by a powerful Persian Empire. The first book in the series, The Thief (1996), begins as a political adventure haunted by stories of the gods. When those gods directly influence the action, the narrative changes from present political intrigue to a fantasy from the distant past. The mythology in The Thief reflects, imitates and distorts archaic Greek creation myths – stories about how the earth and sky were formed, the divine pantheon and heroes. I examine the presentation of this divine pantheon against the narratives about the gods in Hesiod, the Homeric hymns and Homer’s epics. I evaluate how the supernatural element interacts with the largely political narrative of The Thief. In so doing, I explore how the text blends a ‘classical supernatural’ with a world that is like – but in many ways very unlike – Bronze Age and archaic Greece.
Resurrecting the Argo
(2023)
This paper analyses the relationship between the figure of the Argo (ship and character) and the supernatural in the mythic fantasy of Robert Holdstock’s Merlin Codex. It shows how Holdstock’s re-writing of the Argonautica draws on various versions from the Argonautic tradition, including Euripides’ Medea, Apollonius, Valerius Flaccus, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Treece and the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts. It sets Holdstock’s Argo alongside other representations, as divine herself, possessed by divinity, and a channel of communication with the divine, and in the context of Holdstock’s previous work, particularly Mythago Wood, Lavondyss and Merlin’s Wood. The paper argues that Holdstock uses the Argo as a reflection of myth itself, a version of the forest in Mythago Wood, as well as a metapoetic image for the challenges and complexities of adapting a well-known story, bringing multiple mythological traditions (Arthurian, Finnish and Argonautic) together. It reflects on Holdstock’s relationship to the ancient genres of epic and tragedy, as well as Argo as plot facilitator and mechanism of transformation and transition. Holdstock’s relationship with ancient literature is richer and deeper than previously acknowledged; his self-conscious plays reveal a deep understanding of the polymorphous nature of mythical traditions.
The Persistence of Memory
(2023)
The 2017 Pixar film Coco and the 2021 Disney film Encanto form a small part of an increasing modern wave of media focused on parent-child conflicts caused by intergenerational trauma and rejection. Other recent works in this genre include the video game Hades, the films Turning Red and Everything Everywhere All At Once, and the television series Ms. Marvel. The traumas in all these films, some directed explicitly at a younger audience and some pitched more broadly, serve as a distinct set of meditations on the immigrant experience, even while not necessarily focusing on literal immigration. They also all invoke imagery of ghosts and death, both echoing specific classical Mediterranean motifs and tropes and incorporating a wide variety of other cultures’ supernatural traditions. These works’ concern with familial traumas of separation, culture shock, and loss of ancestral memories and connections contrasts sharply with the individual-focused myth of the American Dream common to earlier generations of American media, in which a lone individual typically emigrates, assimilates, and succeeds in a new culture, forming a new family and set of myths. However, themes of assimilation and questions of cultural imperialism also form a bridge between ancient Roman and modern North American anxieties and traditions.
The COVID-19 pandemic and related closures of day care centres and schools significantly increased the amount of care work done by parents. There has been much speculation over whether the pandemic increased or decreased gender equality in parental care work. Based on representative data for Germany from spring 2020 and winter 2021 we present an empirical analysis that shows that although gender inequality in the division of care work increased to some extent in the beginning of the pandemic, it returned to the pre-pandemic level in the second lockdown almost nine months later. These results suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic neither aggravated nor lessened inequality in the division of unpaid care work among mothers and fathers in any persistent way in Germany.
Gravitating exogenous shocks to the next normal through entrepreneurial coopetive interactions
(2023)
Purpose: Entrepreneurship can be viewed as an individual or group pursuit of market opportunities irrespective of the context. But when an exogenous shock alters and permanently alters the known normal, entrepreneurs can do no more than cope with the immediate impact. Covid-19 changed the normal for every-one, and the current study aims to analyse how the pandemic changed the context and entrepreneurial perspective of business owners geographically located in different cultural environments. Various experiences impacted them as they tried to navigate and mitigate the effects of the crisis on the wider economy and their business. We seek to identify the probable relevant entrepreneurial configurations in which one or more combinations of antecedent conditions are needed to cause entrepreneurs to adapt their behavior in order to increase their coopetitive interactions further, to mitigate the effects of the crisis.Originality: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first empirical study to address an entrepreneurial phenomenon using an integrative approach using PLS-SEM and fsQCA as separate prediction-oriented methods in order to validate the proposed conceptual model and to create a preliminary scaffolding for building the Theory of Unplanned Behavior in a crisis context.
Objective
Leaders differ in their personalities from non-leaders. However, when do these differences emerge? Are leaders "born to be leaders" or does their personality change in preparation for a leadership role and due to increasing leadership experience?
Method
Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, we examined personality differences between leaders (N = 2683 leaders, women: n = 967; 36.04%) and non-leaders (N = 33,663) as well as personality changes before and after becoming a leader.
Results
Already in the years before starting a leadership position, leaders-to-be were more extraverted, open, emotionally stable, conscientious, and willing to take risks, felt to have greater control, and trusted others more than non-leaders. Moreover, personality changed in emergent leaders: While approaching a leadership position, leaders-to-be (especially men) became gradually more extraverted, open, and willing to take risks and felt to have more control over their life. After becoming a leader, they became less extraverted, less willing to take risks, and less conscientious but gained self-esteem.
Conclusions
Our findings suggest that people are not simply "born to be leaders" but that their personalities change considerably in preparation for a leadership role and due to leadership experience. Some changes are transient, but others last for a long time.
Reply and Counter-Reply
(2023)
Records from ocean bottom seismometers (OBSs) are highly contaminated by noise, which is much stronger compared to data from most land stations, especially on the horizontal components. As a consequence, the high energy of the oceanic noise at frequencies below 1 Hz considerably complicates the analysis of the teleseismic earthquake signals recorded by OBSs.
Previous studies suggested different approaches to remove low-frequency noises from OBS recordings but mainly focused on the vertical component. The records of horizontal components, which are crucial for the application of many methods in passive seismological analysis of body and surface waves, could not be much improved in the teleseismic frequency band. Here we introduce a noise reduction method, which is derived from the harmonic–percussive separation algorithms used in Zali et al. (2021), in order to separate long-lasting narrowband signals from broadband transients in the OBS signal. This leads to significant noise reduction of OBS records on both the vertical and horizontal components and increases the earthquake signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) without distortion of the broadband earthquake waveforms. This is demonstrated through tests with synthetic data. Both SNR and cross-correlation coefficients showed significant improvements for different realistic noise realizations. The application of denoised signals in surface wave analysis and receiver functions is discussed through tests with synthetic and real data.
This article responds to critical reflections on my Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism by Sarah Birch, Kevin J. Elliott, Claudia Landwehr and James L. Wilson. It discusses how different types of representative democracy, especially different forms of government (presidential, parliamentary or hybrid), can be justified. It clarifies, among other things, the distinction between procedural and process equality, the strengths of semi-parliamentary government, the potential instability of constitutional designs, and the difference that theories can make in actual processes of constitutional reform.
Influence of generational status on immigrants’ entrepreneurial intentions to start new ventures
(2023)
Purpose: This study aims to identify the intentions of immigrant entrepreneurs to start new projects by investigating the role of influence of institutional support, social context, cultural intelligence, self-efficacy, optimizing personality traits and hierarchy legitimacy on intentions to start new ventures. In addition, the strength of the relationship for such factors and intentions to start new ventures was determined through the moderator role of easy access to venture capital.
Design/methodology/approach: To this end, this study complements the academic literature by integrating the structural equation modeling (SEM) and multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques. Thus, the MCDM (i.e. analytic hierarchy process and vlsekriterijumska optimizcija i kaompromisno resenje [VIKOR]) is an effective approach to solving the problem of complexity and evaluation (i.e. multiple evaluation criteria, important criteria and data variation). Hence, to complete the strategic guideline solution, this study uses a survey for collecting data from 202 immigrants in Malaysia, Pakistan, Nigeria and Singapore.
Findings
The results from SEM prove several critical factors of immigrants’ entrepreneurs. These factors of immigrants’ entrepreneurs can be vital for academics and host countries. By focusing on these aspects and by developing some personality traits (such as self-efficacy and optimal personality traits), these factors can contribute a good deal to increasing the capabilities of immigrant’s entrepreneurs toward entrepreneurial intentions. In the validation, the statistical objective method indicates that the immigrants' prioritizations in all countries are supported by the systematic ranking. Thus, entrepreneurial intentions for immigrants can pursue the order proven by the VIKOR results.
Research limitations/implications: This study has some significant practical and theoretical implications. Practically, the study findings will enable managers to develop strategies to support immigrants for entrepreneurial intentions to start new ventures.
Originality/value: The novelty of the context under given circumstances of global environment adds to the originality of this study. Several previous studies have also emphasized the need for this type of study in other contexts. The findings can call managers’ attention toward a critical issue of immigrants’ entrepreneurial intentions to start new ventures.
This research examines the impact of firms’ decision-making, crisis management, and risk-taking behaviors on their sustainability and circular economy behaviors through the mediating role of their eco-innovation behavior in the energy industry in Iraq. Firms are exploring applicable mechanisms to increase green practices. This requires the industry to possess the essential skills to overcome the challenges that reduce sustainable activities. We applied a dual-stage structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach to explore the linear relationships between variables, determine the weight of the criteria, and rank energy companies based on a circular economy. The online questionnaire was sent to 549 managers and heads of departments of Iraqi electric power companies. Out of these, 384 questionnaires were collected. The results indicate that firms’ crisis management, decision-making, and risk-taking behaviors are significantly and positively linked to their eco-innovation behavior. This study confirms the significant and positive impact of firms’ eco-innovation behavior on their sustainability and circular economy behaviors. Likewise, eco-innovation behavior has a fully mediating role. For the MCDM methods, ranking energy companies according to the circular economy can support policymakers’ decisions to renew contracts with leading companies in the ranking. Practitioners can also impose government regulations on low-ranked companies. Thus, governments can reduce the problems of greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental pollution.
Our study applies legitimacy theorizing to service research, zooming in on co-prosumption service business models, which reside on significant direct contacts among provider-actors and customers as well as fellow customers in the service space. Our findings are based on a longitudinal flexible pattern matching method on 17 coworking spaces. The service cocreation nuances the double role of customers as evaluators and cocreators of legitimacy. This is because customers can have immediate perceptions of the actions and values of the services in their legitimacy evaluation while cocreating the service. Legitimacy shaped via social and recursive processes occurs in three stages: provisional, calibrated, and affirmed legitimacy. Findings inform four trajectory mechanisms of value-in-use pattern provenance, emergent Business Model development adaptive to the spatial context and loyal customers, visible trances as well as inside-out and outside-in identification processes. Further, the processes in the micro-ecosystem of an interstitial service space can develop a superordinate logic which overlays the potentially present coopetive and heterogenous institutional logics and interests of service customers.
Entrepreneurship education has gained widespread attention in both education practice and research over the past three decades. However, whereas research has a strong focus on its effects and many normative concepts exist, little is known about how entrepreneurship is actually taught. To address this research gap, we conduct a curriculum analysis of the 50 best programs in entrepreneurship, according to the 2018 Financial Times ranking “Top MBAs for Entrepreneurship 2018”. In particular, we examine their objectives, learning contents and teaching as well as assessment methods as four major dimensions of a graduate entrepreneurship curriculum. The results show that the programs are primarily business and management programs, with a comparatively small share of entrepreneurship itself. Entrepreneurship-specific goals are entrepreneurial attitudes and competences, such as entrepreneurial leadership, entrepreneurial mindset, entrepreneurial skills, opportunity creation, opportunity identification, and transforming uncertainty into opportunity. The learning contents also focus on business, management, and law, whereas the contents relating to entrepreneurship include entrepreneurial failure, entrepreneurial management, entrepreneurial thinking, and entrepreneurship in general. Teaching methods are mainly the ones usually found in higher education, with business plans and prototyping as additional entrepreneurial ones. Assessment methods do not differ from those in business and management education.
Purpose – Design thinking has become an omnipresent process to foster innovativeness in various fields. Due to its popularity in both practice and theory, the number of publications has been growing rapidly. The authors aim to develop a research framework that reflects the current state of research and allows for the identification of research gaps.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors conduct a systematic literature review based on 164 scholarly articles on design thinking.
Findings – This study proposes a framework, which identifies individual and organizational context factors, the stages of a typical design thinking process with its underlying principles and tools, and the individual as well as organizational outcomes of a design thinking project.
Originality/value – Whereas previous reviews focused on particular aspects of design thinking, such as its characteristics, the organizational culture as a context factor or its role on new product development, the authors provide a holistic overview of the current state of research.
Behavioral strategy
(2023)
Purpose: Behavioral strategy, as a cognitive- and social-psychological view on strategic management, has gained increased attention. However, its conceptualization is still fuzzy and deserves an in-depth investigation. The authors aim to provide a holistic overview and classification of previous research and identify gaps to be addressed in future research.
Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a systematic literature review on behavioral strategy. The final sample includes 46 articles from leading management journals, based on which the authors develop a research framework.
Findings: The results reveal cognition and traits as major internal factors. Besides, organizational and environmental contingencies are major external factors of behavioral strategy.
Originality/value: To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the first holistic systematic literature review on behavioral strategy, which categorizes previous research.
In social networks or, more specifically, online communities on tech-products, opinion leaders are important sources of advice for other consumers in the adoption and diffusion of new products. However, possibilities for potential users to exert their influence on opinion leadership are ignored. This study determines whether and how lead users may serve as opinion leaders in social networks and advise other consumers in the adoption and diffusion of new products. Our survey with 308 users in the Xiaomi and Huawei communities suggests that higher lead userness is positively and significantly associated with the likelihood of opinion giving and passing. Product-possessing innovativeness has a higher impact compared with information-possessing innovativeness. Product involvement does not enhance the effect of information-possessing innovativeness. The findings provide a better understanding of the formation of opinion leadership in social networks for an accelerated diffusion of new products.
Portal Wissen = Learning
(2023)
Changing through learning is one of the most important characteristics we humans have. We are born and can – it seems – do nothing. We have to comprehend, copy, and acquire everything: grasping and walking, eating and speaking. Of course, we also have to read and do number work. In the meantime, we know: We will never be able to finish this. At best, we learn for a lifetime. If we stop, it harms us. The Greek philosopher Plato said more than 2,400 years ago, “There is no shame in not knowing something. The shame is in not being willing to learn.”
As humans we are also capable of learning; thanks to more and more knowledge about the world around us, we have moved from the Stone Age into the digital age. That this development is not a finish line either, but that we still have a long way to go, is shown by man-made climate change – and above all by our inability as a global community to translate what research teaches us into appropriate actions. Let us dare to hope that we also comprehend this.
What we tend to ignore in the intensive discussion about the multi-layered levels of learning: We are by no means the only learners. Many, if not all, living beings on our planet learn, some more in a more purposeful and complex and more cognitive way than others. And for some time now, machines have also been able to learn more or less independently. Artificial intelligence sends its regards.
The significance of learning for human beings can hardly be overestimated. Science has also understood this and has discovered the learning processes and conditions in almost all contexts for itself, no matter whether it is about our own learning processes and conditions or those around us. We have investigated some of these for the current issue of “Portal Wissen”.
Psycholinguist Natalie Boll-Avetisyan has developed a box that can be used to detect language learning disorders already in young children. The behavioral biologists Jana Eccard and Valeria Mazza investigated the behavior of small rodents and found out that they do not only develop different personality traits but they also described how they learn to adapt them different environmental conditions. Computer linguist David Schlangen examines the question what machines have to learn so that our communication with them works even better.
Since research is ultimately always a learning process that strives to understand something yet unknown, this time all texts are somehow along the motto of the title theme: It is about what the history of past centuries reveals about “military cultures of violence” and the question of what lessons we should learn from natural hazards for the future.
We talked with a legal scholar who looks beyond the university’s backyard and wants to make law comprehensible to everyone. We also talked with a philosopher who analyzes why “having an opinion” means something different today than 100 years ago. We report about an AI-based genome analysis that can change healthcare sustainably. Furthermore, it is about the job profile “YouTuber”, minor cosmopolitanisms, and wildlife management in Africa. When you have finished reading, you will have learnt something. Promised! Enjoy your read!
PyFin-sentiment
(2023)
Responding to the poor performance of generic automated sentiment analysis solutions on domain-specific texts, we collect a dataset of 10,000 tweets discussing the topics of finance and investing. We manually assign each tweet its market sentiment, i.e., the investor’s anticipation of a stock’s future return. Using this data, we show that all existing sentiment models trained on adjacent domains struggle with accurate market sentiment analysis due to the task’s specialized vocabulary. Consequently, we design, train, and deploy our own sentiment model. It outperforms all previous models (VADER, NTUSD-Fin, FinBERT, TwitterRoBERTa) when evaluated on Twitter posts. On posts from a different platform, our model performs on par with BERT-based large language models. We achieve this result at a fraction of the training and inference costs due to the model’s simple design. We publish the artifact as a python library to facilitate its use by future researchers and practitioners.
“Israel am Meere”
(2023)
For Jews in Germany, the period following the Nazis’ rise to power in January 1933 was a period of decision-making on many levels: How should they respond to the persecution? If they decided to emigrate, many more decisions had to be made: How does one leave a country, and where should one go? A key moment in the process and in the cultural practice of emigration is the beginning of the sea voyage – when the need for departure and the hope for a new arrival jointly create a period of liminality. Looking at reports from sea voyages of exploration and emigration from the 1930s, this contribution discusses the question whether, and in what ways, such reflections can be read in the context of religious experiences and in the search for Jewish identities in times of turmoil.
Desperados at Sea
(2023)
Pirates are fortune-seeking fighters at sea. Their exploits fire the imaginations of their victims and admirers, drawing a veil over individuals who rarely bear a real name and pursue their adventurous occupations as buccaneers, filibusters, freebooters, privateers, pirates, or corsairs. Piracy, corsairing, and contraband trade were epidemic among the Egyptians and the Phoenicians, the Greeks and the Vikings, the Spaniards and the Ottomans, the Muslims, and the Christians. And the Jews.
The birth of the Yishuv’s national shipping company, ZIM was preceded by private enterprise; the sea had not traditionally been a focus of the Zionist movement. In the 1930s, a five-year span of private commercial shipping saw three companies in the Jewish community in Palestine – Palestine Shipping Company, Palestine Maritime Lloyd, and Atid – before shipping was cut short by the outbreak of the Second World War. Despite their brief lifespans and their negligible contribution to general shipping, these companies constituted an important milestone. Their existence helped shift the Yishuv leadership’s attitudes about shipping’s importance for the community and the need for it to be supported by national institutions.
Jacob Brandon Maduro’s Memoirs and Related Observations (Havana, 1953) speak to the lasting yet malleable legacy of Jewish Caribbean/Atlantic mercantile communities that defined early modern settlement in the Americas. A close reading of the Memoirs, alongside relevant archival records and community narratives, lends new perspectives to scholarship on Port Jewries and the Atlantic Diaspora. Specifically concerned with Jacob’s adoption of such leading intellectual and political tropes as the Monroe doctrine, José Martí’s Nuestra America, and a Zionism that evolved from an ideology to a reality, the Memoirs reveal a narrative at once defined by the tremendous upheavals of the first half of the 20th century, and an enduring sense of Jewish diasporic peoplehood defined through a Port Jew paradigm whereby the preservation of Jewish ethnicity is understood as synonymous with the championing of modernity.
Mothers of Seafaring
(2023)
The article aims to trace the contribution of Jewish women in the Yishuv’s maritime history. Taking the example of Henrietta Diamond, a founding member and chairperson of the Zebulun Seafaring Society, the article seeks to explore the representation and role of women in a growing Jewish maritime domain from the 1930s to the 1950s. It examines Zionist narratives on the ‘New Jew’ and the Jewish body and studies their relevance for the emerging field of maritime activities in the Yishuv. By contextualizing the work and depiction of Henrietta Diamond, the article sheds new light on the gendered notions that underlay the emergence of the Jewish maritime domain and illustrates the patterns of inclusion and exclusion in it.
Despite energy efficiency measures, global energy demand has gradually increased due to global economic growth and changes in consumer behavior. Even if people are aware of the problem and want to change their energy consumption, they have difficulty acting on their attitudes. This is called the attitude-behavior gap. To narrow this gap and reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions, behavioral interventions beyond technological advances must be considered. A promising intervention is nudging, which uses insights from behavioral economics to gently nudge individuals toward more sustainable choices. In this study, we investigate how modifying digital choice architectures with nudges can be used to influence consumer energy conservation behavior in smart home applications (SHAs). We conducted an online experiment with 391 participants to test the effectiveness of the following three digital nudges in an SHA: self-commitment, reminder, and social norm nudge. While the results of a structural equation model indicated no effect on bridging the gap between attitude and behavior, we found the potential to promote energy conservation with two nudge types. Thus, this paper makes substantial contribution to persuasive and information systems-enabled sustainability for a better world in the form of digital nudges for emerging technologies.
Working conditions of knowledge workers have been subject to rapid change recently. Digital nomadism is no longer a phenomenon that relates only to entrepreneurs, freelancers, and gig workers. Corporate employees, too, have begun to uncouple their work from stationary (home) offices and 9-to-5 schedules. However, pursuing a permanent job in a corporate environment is still subject to fundamentally different values than postulated by the original notion of digital nomadism. Therefore, this paper explores the work identity of what is referred to as ‘corporate nomads’. By drawing on identity theory and the results of semi-structured interviews, the paper proposes a conceptualization of the corporate nomad archetype and presents nine salient identity issues of corporate nomads (e.g., holding multiple contradictory identities, the flexibility paradox, or collaboration constraints). By introducing the ‘corporate nomad’ archetype to the Information Systems literature, this article helps to rethink established conceptions of “home office” and socio-spatial configurations of knowledge work.
Review symposium
(2023)
Steffen Ganghof’s Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism: Democratic Design and the Separation of Powers (Oxford University Press, 2021) posits that “in a democracy, a constitutional separation of powers between the executive and the assembly may be desirable, but the constitutional concentration of executive power in a single human being is not” (Ganghof, 2021). To consider, examine and theorise about this, Ganghof urges engagement with semi-parliamentarism. As explained by Ganghof, legislative power is shared between two democratically legitimate sections of parliament in a semi-parliamentary system, but only one of those sections selects the government and can remove it in a no-confidence vote. Consequently, power is dispersed and not concentrated in the hands of any one person, which, Ganghof argues, can lead to an enhanced form of parliamentary democracy. In this book review symposium, George Tsebelis, Michael Thies, José Antonio Cheibub, Rosalind Dixon and Daniel Bogéa review Steffen Ganghof’s book and engage with the author about aspects of research design, case selection and theoretical argument. This symposium arose from an engaging and constructive discussion of the book at a seminar hosted by Texas A&M University in 2022. We thank Prof José Cheibub (Texas A&M) for organising that seminar and Dr Anna Fruhstorfer (University of Potsdam) for initiating this book review symposium.
Controlling bioenergy-induced land-use-change emissions is key to exploiting bioenergy for climate change mitigation. However, the effect of different land-use and energy sector policies on specific bioenergy emissions has not been studied so far. Using the global integrated assessment model REMIND-MAgPIE, we derive a biofuel emission factor (EF) for different policy frameworks. We find that a uniform price on emissions from both sectors keeps biofuel emissions at 12 kg CO2 GJ−1. However, without land-use regulation, the EF increases substantially (64 kg CO2 GJ−1 over 80 years, 92 kg CO2 GJ−1 over 30 years). We also find that comprehensive coverage (>90%) of carbon-rich land areas worldwide is key to containing land-use emissions. Pricing emissions indirectly on the level of bioenergy consumption reduces total emissions by cutting bioenergy demand but fails to reduce the average EF. In the absence of comprehensive and timely land-use regulation, bioenergy thus may contribute less to climate change mitigation than assumed previously.