(DSF)n-graphene: Carbon semimetal with double stacking faults

The synthesis of graphene-like structure [Fan et al., Science 372 (2021) 8527] with periodically embedded one-dimensional grain boundaries [Liu et al., Nat. Commun. 8 (2017)14924] is a strong incentive for...

Education for security versus education for sustainable development

The article presents issues related to the practice of sustainable development against the background of selected strategies and models of education. In the face of the ecological crisis, as well as growing threats to the social and natural environment, the need to modify education for sustainable development programmes appears more apparent. It has been proposed that this model of education should be supported by education for security, since security is a need, value, and a dynamic social process, and any actions in its favour, offer a strong incentive for people to be active and adopt new attitudes.

A Comparison of Three Ridesharing Cost Savings Allocation Schemes Based on the Number of Acceptable Shared Rides

Shared mobility based on cars refers to a transportation mode in which travelers/drivers share vehicles to reduce the cost of the journey, emissions, air pollution and parking demands. Cost savings provide a strong incentive for the shared mobility mode. As cost savings are due to cooperation of the stakeholders in shared mobility systems, they should be properly divided and allocated to relevant participants. Improper allocation of cost savings will lead to dissatisfaction of drivers/passengers and hinder acceptance of the shared mobility mode. In practice, several schemes based on proportional methods to allocate cost savings have been proposed in shared mobility systems. However, there is neither a guideline for selecting these proportional methods nor a comparative study on effectiveness of these proportional methods. Although shared mobility has attracted much attention in the research community, there is still a lack of study of the influence of cost saving allocation schemes on performance of shared mobility systems. Motivated by deficiencies of existing studies, this paper aims to compare three proportional cost savings allocation schemes by analyzing their performance in terms of the numbers of acceptable rides under different schemes. We focus on ridesharing based on cars in this study. The main contribution is to develop theory based on our analysis to characterize the performance under different schemes to provide a guideline for selecting these proportional methods. The theory developed is verified by conducting experiments based on real geographical data.

Individual Parental Leave for Fathers: Promoting Gender Equality in Norway

This chapter takes as its point of departure the design elements of the Norwegian parental leave system for fathers and examines how it works as a regulatory measure to promote equality in care work. The findings show that the design of the father’s quota as a statutory, earmarked, and non-transferrable right for fathers promotes the fathers’ use of leave and hence equality. The earmarking, and the fact that it cannot be transferred to the mother, renders it unnecessary for fathers to negotiate with the mother about this leave. The father’s quota is also an important bargaining chip in relation to working life for having time off for doing care-work. These findings support other research on fathers’ use of leave which have shown that these design characteristics of father’s quota represents a strong incentive for greater involvement in caregiving on the part of fathers.

“Choose your opponent”: A new knockout design for hybrid tournaments †

We present a new, simple knockout format for sports tournaments, that we call “Choose Your Opponent”, where the teams that have performed best during a preliminary group stage can choose their opponents during the subsequent knockout stage. The main benefit of this format is that it essentially solves a recently identified incentive compatibility problem when more than one teams from a group advance to the knockout stage, by effectively canceling the risk of tanking. This new design also makes the group stage more exciting, by giving teams a strong incentive to perform at their best level, and more fair, by limiting the risk of collusion and making sure that the best group winners are fairly rewarded in the knockout round. The choosing procedure would add a new, exciting strategic component to the competition. Advancing teams would choose their opponent during new, much anticipated TV shows which would attract a lot of media attention. We illustrate how this new format would work for the round of 16 of the UEFA Champions League, the most popular soccer club competition in the world.

“A Canonical Marriage for the Uninterrupted Succession to Your Royal Dynasty”

This chapter explores in detail the changes made to the sixteenth-century model by the choreographers of the wedding of the first Romanov tsar, and how these changes were aimed at solidifying Romanov rule after the chaos and violence of the Time of Troubles (1598–1613). The chapter also notes that the Romanov had an extensive kinship network based on marriage links to other boyar families that went back a half century. It discusses their network of in-laws who largely survived the upheavals of the Troubles and were now in a position to help the Romanovs, and themselves, politically. The chapter then shifts to describe the qualities of a potential Romanov candidate, and the real possibility of a Romanov on the throne, which would mean a restoration of the fortunes of boyar families — strong incentive for them to advocate and defend Romanov interests. Ultimately, the chapter reviews the Romanov's election in 1613 and their adept exploitation of ritual. It also analyses what it meant for them to have one of the greatest choreographers of the time on their side.

InsectBrainDatabase - A unified platform to manage, share, and archive morphological and functional data

Insect neuroscience generates vast amounts of highly diverse data, of which only a small fraction are findable, accessible and reusable, despite open data mandates by funding bodies. We have therefore developed the InsectBrainDatabase (IBdb), an open platform for depositing, sharing and managing a wide range of insect neuroanatomical and functional data. It facilities biological insight by enabling effective cross-species comparisons, by intimately linking data on structure and function, and by serving as hub for information on insect neuroethology. The IBdb provides novel visualization and search tools, which are also available in a unique private mode of the database, before data is made public. This allows users to manage and visualize unpublished data, creating a strong incentive for data contribution and eliminating additional effort when publicly depositing the data at a later stage. These design principles could also serve as a blueprint for similar databases in other fields.

Targeted advertisements and incentive for market consolidation in next-generation TV

The next-generation television (TV) standard will give over-the-air (OTA) broadcasters the ability to target advertisements. This could give a competitive advantage to broadcasters with more channels and hence create incentive for consolidation. Consolidation in the OTA TV industry could concern policy-makers. We construct a model to estimate revenues and costs of targeted advertising and derive profit-maximizing strategies. We find that profit is maximized by sending targeted advertisements via fixed broadband, even on devices that are watched for only a few minutes per week, but until costs drop significantly, not via mobile broadband in most cases. Our results show that targeted advertisements would not create strong incentive for consolidation in the scenarios that we consider most likely, so policy-makers should be sceptical of arguments that consolidation should be allowed on the grounds that consolidation leads to large cost savings. However, we do identify plausible scenarios where broadcasters with more channels would be significantly more profitable.

Greek–Turkish Relations

This chapter examines the development of Greek–Turkish relations under the influence of the European Union and the limits of the rapprochement between the two countries. The 1999 lifting of the Greek veto on the improvement of EU–Turkey relations triggered an improvement in bilateral relations which has remained unprecedented since the 1950s. Bilateral relations underwent a paradigmatic shift which allowed for zero-sum game-based approaches to be challenged. Economic and civil society ties grew stronger; minority problems were mitigated while longstanding bilateral diplomatic disputes remained unresolved and far from international adjudication. Turkey’s faltering EU membership ambitions weakened a crucial catalyst of Greek–Turkish rapprochement, yet there was no relapse to the pre-1999 problematic relations. Despite the severe economic and social crises that hit Greece and Turkey in the last decade, Greek–Turkish relations have not fallen victim to rampant populism. In both countries, the bilateral disputes and the Cyprus issue declined in importance compared to other foreign policy issues. This allowed both sides to focus on urgent questions but removed a strong incentive to take risks for conflict resolution. The costs of avoiding a bitter compromise appear low, and this provides a strong incentive to political leaders to refrain from necessary political risks. This poses substantial risks for the future and prevents the development of even closer economic and social relations.

Party Competition, Personal Votes, and Strategic Disloyalty in the U.S. States

Legislators will sometimes vote against their party’s position on roll-call votes to differentiate themselves from the party mainstream and to accrue a “personal vote.” Research suggests that the use of rebellion to generate a personal vote is more common (1) among majority party members and (2) among ideological extremists. But these majority party extremists only have a strong incentive to rebel in situations where the accrual of a personal vote is electorally useful. In this manuscript, we evaluate variation in rebellion rates of state legislators in the United States conditional on ideological extremism and majority control. Using donation-based measures of ideology and roll call–based measures of party loyalty over a twenty-year period across more than 30,000 legislators, we find that when legislators have little incentive to differentiate themselves from their parties, this “strategic” party disloyalty among majority party ideological extremists is limited. However, when legislators have strong incentives to craft a personal vote, ideological extremists defect from their party more often than their moderate counterparts. In particular, we find greater evidence for this type of strategic party disloyalty in states with high intra-party competition and low inter-party competition and less evidence in states with high inter-party competition.