Sectoral Media Focus and Aggregate Fluctuations

We formalize the editorial role of news media in a multisector economy and show that media can be an independent source of business cycle fluctuations, even when they report accurate information. Public reporting about a subset of sectoral developments that are newsworthy but unrepresentative causes firms across all sectors to hire too much or too little labor. We construct historical measures of US sectoral news coverage and use them to calibrate our model. Time-varying media focus generates demand-like fluctuations that are orthogonal to productivity, even in the absence of non-TFP shocks. Presented with historical sectoral productivity, the model reproduces the 2009 Great Recession. (JEL D22, D83, E32, L82)

Evidence of Positive Intergroup Perceptions About the Role of Religious Belief in an Intractable Conflict

Diversity of religious belief and identity is widely believed to be a source of intergroup conflict. Yet, emerging research challenges the notion that belief in God promotes parochialism. Because inaccurate and negative intergroup perceptions often underlay conflict, we theorized that negative perceptions about outgroup members’ religious beliefs may represent an independent source of discord. Contrary to this prediction, three preregistered experiments demonstrate that religious Muslim Palestinians and Jewish Israelis believe that the other understands their God to be an entity that encourages intergroup prosociality and benevolence. Muslim Palestinians (Study 1, N = 314) and Jewish Israelis (Study 2, N = 394) predicted outgroup members would give more money in intergroup contexts when asked to think about God. Study 3 (N = 373) extends this to a more conflict-adjacent domain; Jewish Israelis predicted that Muslim Palestinians believed God would prefer them to value the lives of Jews and Muslims more equally.

Circuits with a mem-element: invariant manifolds control via pulse programmed sources

The paper considers the problem of controlling multistability in a general class of circuits composed of a linear time-invariant two-terminal (one port) element, containing linear R, L, C components and ideal operational amplifiers, coupled with one of the mem-elements (memory elements) introduced by Prof. L.O. Chua, i.e., memristors, memcapacitors, and meminductors. First, explicit expressions of the invariant manifolds of the circuit are directly given in terms of the state variables of the two-terminal element and the mem-element. Then, the problem of steering the circuit dynamics from an initial invariant manifold to a final one, and hence to potentially switch among different attractors of the circuit, is addressed by designing pulse shaped control inputs. The control inputs ensure that the transition between the initial and final manifolds is accomplished within a given finite time interval. Moreover, it is shown how the designed control inputs can be implemented by introducing independent voltage and current sources in the two-terminal element. Notably, it turns out that it is always possible to solve the considered control problem by using a unique independent source. Several examples are provided to illustrate how the proposed approach can be applied to different circuits with mem-elements and to highlight the influence of the features of the designed sources on the behavior of the controlled dynamics.

THE ROLE OF GEOPOLITICAL, CLIMATIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS IN ESTABLISHING THE RATIO OF RENEWABLEAND FOSSIL ENERGY SOURCES

In assessing the relationship between renewable and fossil energy sources, consideration of geopolitical, climatic and technological factors has revealed the dominant role of natural gas as an energy source. Examples of the winter 2020-21 are here considered, confirming that natural gas is a relatively cheap and environmentally friendly source of energy (energy carrier). This happens to be true of natural gas as an independent source, not merely as a compensator of renewable energy sources.

IDENTIFICATION OF THE SOURCE FOR FULL PARABOLIC EQUATIONS

In this work, we consider the problem of identifying the time independent source for full parabolic equations in Rn from noisy data. This is an ill-posed problem in the sense of Hadamard. To compensate the factor that causes the instability, a family of parametric regularization operators is introduced, where the rule to select the value of the regularization parameter is included. This rule, known as regularization parameter choice rule, depends on the data noise level and the degree of smoothness that it is assumed for the source. The proof for the stability and convergence of the regularization criteria is presented and a Hölder type bound is obtained for the estimation error. Numerical examples are included to illustrate the effectiveness of this regularization approach.

Tracking the Origin and Early Evolution of Reptiles

The origin of Reptilia and the biostratigraphic and palaeobiogeographic distribution of its early representatives are still poorly understood. An independent source of information may come from the extensive Carboniferous footprint record of reptiles, which is arguably richer and more complete than the skeletal record. Nevertheless, previous studies often failed to provide useful information because they were based on poorly preserved material and/or characters non-exclusive of reptile tracks. In fact, a large part of the supposed early reptile tracks can be assigned to the anamniote ichnotaxon Hylopus hardingi. Here, we revise the ichnotaxon Hylopus hardingi based on anatomy-consistent material, attribute it to anamniote reptiliomorphs, and distinguish it from Notalacerta missouriensis, the earliest ichnotaxon that can be attributed to reptiles, and the somewhat younger Varanopus microdactylus (attributed to parareptiles, such as bolosaurians) and Dromopus lacertoides (attributed to araeoscelid reptiles and non-varanodontine varanopids). These attributions are based on correlating morphofunctional features of tracks and skeletons. Multivariate analysis of trackway parameters indicates that the late Bashkirian Notalacerta missouriensis and Hylopus hardingi differ markedly in their trackway patterns from Late Mississippian Hylopus hardingi and Late Pennsylvanian reptile tracks, which appear to share a derived amniote-like type of gait. While the first occurrence/appearance of reptile tracks in the tetrapod footprint record during the late Bashkirian corresponds to the first occurrence/appearance of reptiles in the skeletal record, footprints significantly enlarge the paleobiogeographic distribution of the group, suggesting an earlier radiation of reptiles during the Bashkirian throughout North America and possibly North Africa. Dromopus appeared in the Kasimovian together with the diapsid group Araeoscelidia, but footprints from Western-European occurrences enlarge the paleobiogeographic distribution of diapsids and varanopids. Varanopus and bolosaurian parareptiles appear in the Gzhelian of North America. Older parareptiles are, however, known from the late Moscovian. In all, the footprint record of early reptiles supplements the skeletal record, suggesting possible future lines of research.

Legal Features of the Provisions of Unjust Enrichment in Jordanian Civil Law and Comparative Law

Unjust enrichment is considered one source of obligations, which stands in contrast to harmful acts as another source of obligation in the Jordanian Civil Code (JCC). The Unjust Enrichment Rule has developed historically from Roman law, through Islamic jurisprudence, then French law and jurisprudence to modern laws, such as that in Egypt influenced by French law. All these laws have recognised the Unjust Enrichment Rule as an independent source of obligation. Although the JCC was influenced by Islamic jurisprudence, Arab laws, such as the Egyptian Civil Code, and foreign-influenced Arab laws, its features distinguish it from other laws, either in terms of naming the source or the details related to its legal provisions. JCC’s special features need to be highlighted, defined and evaluated for comparison with other laws, i.e., proving beneficial when enacting a new JCC or defining it as unique rather than a copy of other precedent Arab laws.

Anatomy promotes neutral coexistence of strains in the human skin microbiome

What enables strains of the same species to coexist in a microbiome? Here, we investigate if host anatomy can explain strain co-residence of Cutibacterium acnes, the most abundant species on human skin. We reconstruct on-person evolution and migration using 947 C. acnes colony genomes acquired from 16 subjects, including from individual skin pores, and find that pores maintain diversity by limiting competition. Although strains with substantial fitness differences coexist within centimeter-scale regions, each pore is dominated by a single strain. Moreover, colonies from a pore typically have identical genomes. An absence of adaptive signatures suggests a genotype-independent source of low within-pore diversity. We therefore propose that pore anatomy imposes random single-cell bottlenecks during migration into pores and subsequently blocks new migrants; the resulting population fragmentation reduces competition and promotes coexistence. Our findings imply that therapeutic interventions involving pore-dwelling species should focus on removing resident populations over optimizing probiotic fitness.

Perceptual Reasons and Defeat

Perceptual evidence about the external world is paradigmatically defeasible. If something looks red to you, it is reasonable to believe that it is red, but if you are wearing rose-tinted glasses, it may not be reasonable at all to believe this, unless you have some independent source of evidence. In this paper, I will compare four models for how to understand this phenomenon. These models differ in their answers to two questions: what evidence we get about the external world through perception, and what our having that evidence consists in. I like one of these models better than the others, but in this paper my primary concern will be to compare their virtues and vices.

Licences Implied by Custom

This chapter focuses on licences implied by custom. A custom in this context represents the conduct of a community (of members of a trade, profession, industry, or market), as opposed to an individual copyright owner enabling the copyright work to be used in a particular way. So long as the community within which the custom is alleged represents the copyright owner, the community’s conduct will be taken as being on behalf of the copyright owner. Once established, a custom does not require validation by a court of law for it to be binding, so that a custom becomes an independent source of power that drives the implication of a copyright licence. Also, once established, a custom can be the basis for implying both a bare licence and a contractual licence, depending on the content of the custom. Therefore, the chapter analyses the case law within a single framework for implying both bare and contractual licences. It builds on the criteria developed by the courts in commercial law to establish a custom (certainty, notoriety, and reasonableness), incorporating factors specific to the copyright context.