bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Magnetization reversal signatures of hybrid and pure Néel skyrmions in thin film multilayers
Authors: Duong Nghiep Khoan , Tomasello Riccardo , Raju M. , Petrović Alexander P. , Chiappini Stefano , Finocchio Giovanni , Panagopoulos Christos
Published: November 2020

We report a study of magnetization reversals and skyrmion configurations in two systems, Pt/Co/MgO and Ir/Fe/Co/Pt multilayers, where magnetic skyrmions are stabilized by a combination of dipolar and Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interactions (DMIs). The First Order Reversal Curve (FORC) diagrams of low-DMI Pt/Co/MgO and high-DMI Ir/Fe/Co/Pt exhibit stark differences, which are identified by micromagnetic simulations to be indicative of hybrid and pure Néel skyrmions, respectively. Tracking the evolution of FORC features in multilayers with dipolar interactions and DMI, we find that the negative FORC valley, typically accompanying the positive FORC peak near saturation, disappears under both reduced dipolar interactions and enhanced DMI. As these conditions favor the formation of pure Néel skyrmions, we propose that the resultant FORC feature—a single positive FORC peak near saturation—can act as a fingerprint for pure Néel skyrmions in multilayers. Our study thus expands on the utility of FORC analysis as a tool for characterizing spin topology in multilayer thin films.
Alumina coating for dispersion management in ultra-high Q microresonators
Authors: Inga Marvyn , Fujii Laís , da Silva Filho José Maria C. , Quintino Palhares João Henrique , Ferlauto Andre Santarosa , Marques Francisco C. , Mayer Alegre Thiago P. , Wiederhecker Gustavo
Published: November 2020

Silica optical microspheres often exhibit ultra-high quality factors, yet their group velocity dispersion, which is crucial for nonlinear optics applications, can only be coarsely tuned. We experimentally demonstrate that group-velocity dispersion of a silica microsphere can be engineered by coating it with conformal nanometric layers of alumina yet preserving its ultra-high optical quality factors (∼107) at telecom wavelengths. Using the atomic layer deposition technique for the dielectric coating, which ensures nm-level thickness control, we not only achieve a fine dispersion tailoring but also maintain a low surface roughness and material absorption to ensure a low optical loss. Numerical simulations supporting our experimental results show that the alumina layer thickness is a promising technique for precise tuning of group-velocity dispersion. As an application, we demonstrate the generation of Kerr optical frequency combs, showing that the alumina coatings can also sustain the high optical intensities necessary for nonlinear optical phenomena.
Case for antimicrobial stewardship pharmacy technicians in Australian hospitals
Authors: Cheah Ron , Rajkhowa Arjun , James Rodney , Wangeman Kym , Koning Sonia , Thursky Karin , Buising Kirsty
Published: November 2020

The pharmacist’s role in hospital antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) programs is known to improve patient safety and the quality of care. Despite this, many Australian hospitals struggle to provide adequate pharmacy AMS program resourcing and need to explore newer models of care. The Pharmacy Board of Australia’s Guidelines for Dispensing Medicines permit suitably qualified, competent and experienced pharmacy technicians to assist pharmacists in ‘tasks in a pharmacy department’. The pharmacy technician workforce is expanding, and there is growing interest in career advancement and expansion of the pharmacy technician role. We propose that the pharmacy technician, a well-integrated member of many Australian hospital pharmacy departments, can play an important role in hospital AMS programs. To bolster AMS initiatives in Australian hospitals, this paper explores the existing evidence for pharmacy technicians in AMS programs and describes how this role may be better supported in Australia.
Recurrent coral bleaching in north-western Australia and associated declines in coral cover
Authors: Babcock R. C. , Thomson D. P. , Haywood M. D. E. , Vanderklift M. A. , Pillans R. , Rochester W. A. , Miller M. , Speed C. W. , Shedrawi G. , Field S. , Evans R. , Stoddart J. , Hurley T. J. , Thompson A. , Gilmour J. , Depczynski M.
Published: November 2020

Coral reefs have been heavily affected by elevated sea-surface temperature (SST) and coral bleaching since the late 1980s; however, until recently coastal reefs of north-western Australia have been relatively unaffected compared to Timor Sea and eastern Australian reefs. We compare SST time series with changes in coral cover spanning a period of up to 36 years to describe temporal and spatial variability in bleaching and associated coral mortality throughout the Pilbara–Ningaloo region. Declines in coral cover ranged from 12.5 to 51.3%, with relative declines ranging from 38 to 92%. Since 2013, coral cover throughout the region has declined to historically low levels at four of five subregions, with impaired recovery occurring at two subregions. Observations are consistent with global trends of repeated severe heat waves, coral bleaching and acute declines in coral cover. Locations within this study region have already experienced multiple coral-bleaching events within a period of less than 5 years. There is a high likelihood that reefs in the western Pilbara and northern Ningaloo regions will experience more frequent marine heatwaves, coral bleaching and mortality events in the future. Action, therefore, needs to be taken now to support the resilience of coral reef ecosystems in the region, which is arguably the most important coral-reef province on Australia’s western coast.
An investigation of in-ear sensing for motor task classification
Authors: Wu Xiaoli , Zhang Wenhui , Fu Zhibo , Cheung Roy T H , Chan Rosa H M
Published: November 2020

Objective. Our study aims to investigate the feasibility of in-ear sensing for human–computer interface. Approach. We first measured the agreement between in-ear biopotential and scalp-electroencephalogram (EEG) signals by channel correlation and power spectral density analysis. Then we applied EEG compact network (EEGNet) for the classification of a two-class motor task using in-ear electrophysiological signals. Main results. The best performance using in-ear biopotential with global reference reached an average accuracy of 70.22% (cf 92.61% accuracy using scalp-EEG signals), but the performance in-ear biopotential with near-ear reference was poor. Significance. Our results suggest in-ear sensing would be a viable human–computer interface for movement prediction, but careful consideration should be given to the position of the reference electrode.
Efficient high resolution sLORETA in brain source localization
Authors: Sadat-Nejad Younes , Beheshti Soosan
Published: November 2020

Objective. Estimation of the source location within the brain from electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography measures is a challenging task. Among the existing techniques in the field, which are known as brain imaging methods, standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) is the most popular method due to its simplicity and high accuracy. However, in this work we illustrate that sLORETA is still noisy and the additive noise is causing the blurry image. The existing pre-fixed/manual thresholding process after sLORETA can partially take care of denoising. However, this ad-hoc theresholding can either remove so much of the desired data or leave much of the noise in the process. Manual correction to avoid such extreme cases can be time-consuming. The objective of this paper is to automate the denoising process in the form of adaptive thresholding. Approach. The proposed method, denoted by efficient high-resolution sLORETA (EHR-sLORETA), is based on minimizing the error between the desired denoised source and the source estimates. Main results. The approach is evaluated using synthetic EEG and real EEG data. spatial dispersion (SD), and mean square error (MSE) are used as metrics to provide the quantitative performance of the method. In addition, qualitative analysis of the method is provided for real EEG data. This proposed model demonstrates advantages over the existing methods in sense of accuracy and robustness with SD and MSE comparison. Significance. EHR-sLORETA could have a significant impact on clinical studies with source estimation task, as it improves the accuracy of source estimation and eliminates the need for manual thresholding.
Commissioning of the electromagnetic calorimeter ECAL of the HADES experiment
Authors: Chudoba P , Borisenko D , Chlad L , Galatyuk T , Guber F , Gumberidze M , Kugler A , Lalik R , Morozov S , Pechenov V , Pethukov O , Prozorov A , Rathod N , Pietraszko J , Reshetin A , Rost A , Shabanov A , Salabura P , Svoboda O , Tlusty P
Published: November 2020

HADES (High Acceptance Di-Electron Spectrometer) is located at the GSI (Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung) Darmstadt. It is an experiment focused on the study of the hot and dense nuclear matter mainly via the detection of the di-lepton pairs. Electromagnetic CALorimeter (ECAL) was recently added to the HADES setup. This new subdetector allows measuring of photons from the decay of neutral mesons and resonances. It also allows to discriminate between electrons and pions in the high-momenta region over 400 MeV/c. ECAL follows same hexagonal geometry as HADES, i.e. it consists of six sectors in azimuth. The first four sectors were finished and commissioned in 2018. The first experiment with ECAL included in HADES setup took place on March 2019, investigating the Ag+Ag reaction at beam energy of 1.65 A GeV. During the commissioning, several issues popped up and they were addressed. The issues and their solution will be described in the article.
Light Hadron Spectroscopy at BESIII
Authors: Gong Li
Published: November 2020

Light hadron spectroscopy plays an important role in understanding the decay dynamics of unconventional hadronic states. The huge amount of data has been collected by BESIII which provides an ideal place to search for the exotic states. This paper reviews the latest results about the study of X(1835)/X

(
p

p
¯

)

, η(1475) and

a
0
0

(980) — fo(980) mixing from BESIII.
Future Spin Observables Measurements with the

P¯

ANDA Detector at FAIR
Authors: Andersson W Ikegami
Published: November 2020

Hyperon production in

p
¯

p
→

Y
¯

Y

reactions is one of the main parts of the

P
¯

ANDA physics program. By colliding antiprotons and protons with HESR at FAIR, antihyperon hyperon pairs can be produced via the annihilation of light antiquark quark pairs and the production of

s
¯

s

pairs. Feasibility studies have been performed for a set of

p
¯

p
→

Y
¯

Y

reactions. Reconstruction rates for these reactions at

P
¯

ANDA have been estimated. In particular, the feasibility of measuring spin observables in the

p
¯

p
→

Ξ
¯

+

Ξ

−

reaction at p
beam = 7.0 GeV/c is presented.
Performance of Forward Hadron Calorimeter at MPD/NICA
Authors: Izvestnyy A , Golubeva M , Guber F , Ivashkin A
Published: November 2020

Forward Hadron Calorimeter is a part of MPD experiment setup at NICA beam facility. FHCal structure and purpose are presented in this proceedings. Methods of collision centrality and event plane reconstruction are discussed. Simulation, beam test results and production status are presented.
Study of the hadron calorimeters response for CBM and BM@N experiments at hadron beams
Authors: Karpushkin N , Finogeev D , Golubeva M , Guber F , Ivashkin A , Izvestnyy A , Morozov S
Published: November 2020

The results of beam tests of the hadron calorimeter with transverse and longitudinal segmentation and with the micropixel photodetectors light readout performed at CERN T9 and T10 beamlines in proton momentum range 2-10 GeV/c are shown. The new signal processing technique based on the waveform fitting of calorimeter signals using the Prony least squares method is proposed. This technique allows to identify weak signals comparable to the level of electronic noise, which is important for performing a muon calibration of calorimeter sections. For the energy calibration of the hadron calorimeter sections with cosmic muons, a new approach that uses the reconstruction of the muon track in the calorimeter is proposed.
Overview of quarkonium production studies at the STAR experiment
Authors: Kosarzewski Leszek
Published: November 2020

Quarkonium states can be used to study the properties of the quark-gluon plasma created in heavy-ion collisions. However, Cold Nuclear Matter (CNM) effects need to be taken into account when interpreting the quarkonium suppression observed in these collisions. In addition, the quarkonium production mechanism in elementary collisions need to be better understood. These proceedings contains an overview of recent quarkonium measurements with the STAR experiment. A comprehensive study of both J/ψ and Υ production is performed in different colliding systems (p+p, p+Au, Au+Au).
The gravitational wave damping timescales of f-modes in neutron stars
Authors: Lioutas Georgios , Stergioulas Nikolaos
Published: November 2020

Gravitational asteroseismology studies applied to neutron stars aim to relate stellar properties to characteristics of the gravitational wave signal. In the case of non-rotating neutron stars, gravitational waves produced by linear oscillations are characterized by their pulsation frequency and damping timescale. We focus on the main emitter, the quadrupole fundamental mode, and review a higher order empirical relation for the damping timescale, which was initially presented in [1]. The relation is accurate throughout a wide range of compactness, covering the expected values for neutron stars, while involving only the mass and radius and no other quantity, such as the moment of inertia.
Charm Physics at BESIII
Authors: Ma Xin-Xin
Published: November 2020

Recently, BESIII has performed many analyses with the largest
e+

e-

annihilation data set taken on the mass-thresholds. Those works focus on the measurements of the CKM matrix elements |Vcd(s)|, the transition form factors

f

D

(
s
)

, tests of lepton flavor universality, precise measurements of branching fraction, studies of interesting intermediate states in the multiple-body decays, and searchs for the new physics. Among those, we present the results with three categorities, the (semi-) leptonic decays, hadronic decays, and the rare decays.
The FOOT experiment
Authors: Ridolfi Riccardo
Published: November 2020

The main goal of the FOOT (FragmentatiOn Of Target) experiment is the measurement of the differential cross sections with respect to the energy and angle of the produced fragments in nuclear interactions between an ion beam, such as proton, Helium, Carbon, and different targets (proton, Carbon, Oxygen). Two important fields can benefit from these kind of measurements: firstly, in the 150 — 400MeV/u beam energy range, the data will be used to evaluate the nuclear fragmentation occurring in a standard hadrontherapy treatment and thus potential side effects. Secondly, in the 700 — 1000MeV/u beam energy range, the FOOT experiment aims at studying novel shields for spacecrafts involved in long term missions within the Solar System. The experiment has been funded by INFN since September 2017 and it is currently in its construction phase while the first data taking is scheduled by the end of 2020. A description of the experiment and a overview of expected performances and test beam results will be presented.
Excitation of baryonic resonances in stable medium-mass nuclei of Sn
Authors: Rodríguez-Sánchez J L , Benlliure J , Haettner E , Scheidenberger C , Vargas J , Ayyad Y , Alvarez-Pol H , Atkinson J , Aumann T , Beceiro-Novo S , Boretzky K , Caamaño M , Casarejos E , Cortina-Gil D , DÍaz Fernández P , Estrade A , Geissel H , Itahashi K , Kelić-Heil A , Lenske H , Litvinov Yu A , Paradela C , Pérez-Loureiro D , Pietri S , Prochazka A , Saito T R , Takechi M , Tanaka Y K , Vidaña I , Weick H , Winfield J S
Published: November 2020

Isobaric charge-exchange reactions induced by beams of 112Sn have been investigated at the GSI facilities using the fragment separator FRS. The high-resolving power of this spectrometer makes it possible to obtain the isobaric charge-exchange cross sections with an accuracy of 3% and to separate quasi-elastic and inelastic contributions in the missing-energy spectra, in which the inelastic component is associated to the in-medium excitation of baryonic resonances such as the Δ resonance. We report on the results obtained for the (p,n) and (n,p) channels excited by using different targets that cover a large range in neutron excess.
Exotic and conventional quarkonium physics prospects at Belle II
Authors: Scavino Bianca
Published: November 2020

The Belle II experiment belongs to a new generation of B-factories, and it is located at the SuperKEKB collider. Its goal is to collect an integrated luminosity of 50 ab-1, corresponding to a data sample that is 50 times larger than the one collected by its predecessor Belle. From February to July 2018, the machine has completed a commissioning run, achieving a peak luminosity of 5.5 × 1033 cm-2 s-1, and a data sample of about 0.5 fb-1 has been recorded. Belle II is capable of studying the so-called XYZ states with unprecedented precision: heavy exotic hadrons consisting of more than three quarks. First discovered by Belle, these now number in the dozens, and represent the emergence of a new category within quantum chromodynamics. In this paper, a general introduction to the experiment is presented, together with the perspectives for studies of conventional and exotic quarkonium-like states.
Exploring the partonic phase at finite chemical potential within a covariant off-shell transport approach
Authors: Soloveva E , Moreau P , Oliva L , Song T , Bratkovskaya E L , Cassing W
Published: November 2020

We report on the extended Parton-Hadron-String Dynamics (PHSD) transport approach in the partonic sector by explicitly calculating the total and differential partonic scattering cross sections as a function of temperature T and baryon chemical potential μऔ on the basis of the effective propagators and couplings from the Dynamical QuasiParticle Model (DQPM). We calculated the ratio of shear viscosity η over entropy density s, i.e. η/s is evaluated using the collisional widths and compared to lQCD calculations for μB = 0 as well. We find that the ratio η/s does not differ very much from that calculated within the original DQPM on the basis of the Kubo formalism. Furthermore, there is only a very modest change of η/s with the baryon chemical μB as a function of the scaled temperature T/TC(μ
B). This also holds for a variety of hadronic observables from central A+A collisions in the energy range 5 GeV

≤
 

s
N
N

≤
200

GeV when implementing the differential cross sections into the PHSD approach. Accordingly, it will be difficult to extract finite μB-signals from the partonic dynamics based on bulk observables.
Lattice investigation of an inhomogeneous phase of the 2 + 1-dimensional Gross-Neveu model in the limit of infinitely many flavors
Authors: Winstel Marc , Stoll Jonas , Wagner Marc
Published: November 2020

We investigate the phase structure of the 2 + 1 dimensional Gross-Neveu model in the large-Nf
limit, where Nf
denotes the number of fermion flavors. We discuss two different fermion representations and their implication on the interpretation of a discrete symmetry of the action. We present numerical results, which indicate the existence of an inhomogeneous phase similar as in the 1+1-dimensional Gross-Neveu model.
A review of energy-for-water data in energy-water nexus publications
Authors: Chini Christopher M , Excell Lauren E , Stillwell Ashlynn S
Published: November 2020

Published literature on the energy-water nexus continues to increase, yet much of the supporting data, particularly regarding energy-for-water, remains obscure or inaccessible. We perform a systematic review of literature that describes the primary energy and electricity demands for drinking water and wastewater systems in urban environments. This review provides an analysis of the underlying data and other properties of over 170 published studies by systematically creating metadata on each study. Over 45% of the evaluated studies utilized primary data sources (data collected directly from utilities), potentially enabling large-scale data sharing and a more comprehensive understanding of global water-related energy demand. The most prevalent geographic scale of the existing literature was at the individual city scale (39%), limiting comparisons between utilities. Additionally, energy-for-water studies span 34 different countries with 11 countries having at least 4 published studies. The analyzed literature often considered greenhouse gas emissions of energy demand as an important input for life cycle analysis, highlighting the broader impact of the energy-water nexus. As a result of the review, we identify several common practices for filling data gaps, discover that research and data are primarily concentrated in three countries (Australia, China, and the United States), and offer suggestions for the future of the energy-water nexus, specifically regarding energy-for-water.
Driven tracer dynamics in a one dimensional quiescent bath
Authors: Miron Asaf , Mukamel David
Published: November 2020

The dynamics of a driven tracer in a quiescent bath subject to geometric confinement models a broad range of phenomena. We explore this dynamics in a 1D lattice model, where geometric confinement is tuned by varying the rate of particle overtaking. Previous studies of the model’s stationary properties on a ring of L sites have revealed a phase in which the bath density profile extends over an

∼

O

L

distance from the tracer and the tracer’s velocity vanishes as ∼1/L. Here, we study the model’s long time dynamics in this phase for L → ∞. We show that the bath density profile evolves on a

∼

t

time-scale and, correspondingly, that the tracer’s velocity decays as

∼

1
/

t

. Unlike the well-studied case of a non-driven tracer, whose dynamics becomes diffusive whenever overtaking is allowed, we here find that driving the tracer preserves its hallmark sub-diffusive single-file dynamics, even in the presence of overtaking.
Boundary effects on symmetry resolved entanglement
Authors: Bonsignori Riccarda , Calabrese Pasquale
Published: November 2020

We study the symmetry resolved entanglement entropies in one-dimensional systems with boundaries. We provide some general results for conformal invariant theories and then move to a semi-infinite chain of free fermions. We consider both an interval starting from the boundary and away from it. We derive exact formulas for the charged and symmetry resolved entropies based on theorems and conjectures about the spectra of Toeplitz+Hankel matrices. En route to characterise the interval away from the boundary, we prove a general relation between the eigenvalues of Toeplitz+Hankel matrices and block Toeplitz ones. An important aspect is that the saddle-point approximation from charged to symmetry resolved entropies introduces algebraic corrections to the scaling that are much more severe than in systems without boundaries.
Electroless nickel–phosphorus and cobalt–phosphorus coatings on multi-walled carbon nanotubes
Authors: Ergul Engin , Kurt Halil Ibrahim , Oduncuoglu Murat , Yilmaz Necip Fazil
Published: November 2020

The multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) have drawn great attention due to their exceptional mechanical, physical, thermal and electrical properties. The MWCNTs as the reinforcements significantly improved the properties of materials. However, the major challenges in composites containing CNTs are the poor wettability and poor interfacial bonding between matrix and CNTs. In this study, the used MWCNTs have a diameter of 8–10 nm and 1.5 μm in length. MWCNTs are purified in HNO3: H2SO4, sensitized in Sn solution and activated in Pd solution at 90 °C, and coated with the Nickel and Cobalt elements using an electroless coating method. The holding time in the bath is 15, 30 and 60 min, and the bath concentration is also changed. The coatings are characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) equipped with electron dispersive spectrum (EDS), elemental mapping, x-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometer. The results showed that the Ni and Co coating layers are successfully formed on the surface of MWCNTs. The deposition rate is affected by the holding time and the bath concentration. The optimal results are obtained at the holding time of 60 min in the C concentration sample.
Structural, elastic, electronic, and magnetic properties of MnNbZ (Z = As, Sb) and FeNbZ (Z = Sn, Pb) semi-Heusler alloys
Authors: Yadav Dinesh Kumar , Bhandari Shalika Ram , Kaphle Gopi Chandra
Published: November 2020

The study of structural, electronic, magnetic, and elastic properties of a new series of semi-Heusler alloys MnNbZ (Z = As, Sb) and FeNbZ (Z = Sn, Pb) has been performed by density functional theory. The magnetic phase and hence the structural stability of the alloys were considered wherein the ferromagnetic state is found to be stable. The half-metallic states are observed from the density of states and band structure calculations. The total magnetic moments found for all studied compounds are 1 μ

B
/f.u., which obey the Slater-Pauling rule for semi-Heusler with ferromagnetic behavior. The calculated cohesive and formation energies confirmed the thermodynamical stability and elastic constant C
ij
confirmed the mechanical stability. Among the four systems, MnNbAs is found to have the highest ductility (i.e., non-directional metallic bonding) while the remaining systems are found to be brittle in nature (i.e., directional covalent bonding). These properties confirmed that among others, MnNbAs is one of the novel candidate for spintronic device applications.
Effects of Helmholtz coil magnetic fields on microstructure and mechanical properties for sand-cast A201 Al-Cu alloy
Authors: Wang Cheng-Shun , Lin Shih-Chao , Lin Tsung-Ying , Wang Jian-Yih , Muhfidin Rivan , Yu Ing-Song
Published: November 2020

In this report, the effects of magnetic fields by using Helmholtz coils on the microstructures and mechanical properties of sand-casting Al-Cu alloys were firstly investigated. Due to the magnetic field stirring effect during the solidification process, the average grain size of sand-casting A201 ingots decreased, and the uniformity of α-Al grain increased. The grain refinement by the magnetic fields equipped with Helmholtz coils enhanced the mechanical properties of sand-casting A201 ingots, including hardness, yield strength, ultimate tensile strength and elongation. Meanwhile, according to the characterization of x-ray diffraction, preferred orientation (111) planes of α-Al phase was observed as the increase of the magnetic field. The magnetic field of Helmholtz coils provided the Lorenz force to agitate the melt during the solidification of sand-casting Al-Cu ingots, which had influence on the migration of solid-liquid interface and the rotation of the single-crystal nucleus. In summary, an easy and low-cost technique was proposed to improve the mechanical properties of sand-casting A201 alloys.
Celebrity
Authors: York Lorraine
Published: November 2020

Celebrity is the public performance, reception, and discursive interpretation of highly visible individual identities. The field of celebrity studies, which emerged from the study of cinema, has sought to theorize the celebrity phenomenon across numerous cultural sites and products, and for this reason theorists often distinguish the term “celebrity” from the more cinematically specific terms “star” and “stardom.” Theoretical accounts of celebrity have focused on the interactions of fantasy and the everyday, the negotiations of ordinariness and special status within the celebrity persona, the role of psychological drives or needs, the performance of an authenticity effect, and celebrity’s alignment with individualism in the context of commodity capitalism and neoliberal regimes of affect. Questions of celebrity agency and power have attracted special attention, as applied to specific issues of celebrity activism, as well as being more broadly considered in accounts of relations of power such as gender, race, and sexuality. In the 21st century, those analyses of gender, sexuality, and race in the production and consumption of celebrity, as well as theories of celebrity formations and practices in digital culture, have moved to the forefront of the field’s concerns.
Reinsurance Function and Market
Authors: Haueter Niels Viggo
Published: November 2020

The function of reinsurance is to absorb the risks of the direct insurance industry. This has two main purposes: (i) reinsurance capital allows direct insurers to write more business, and (ii) it protects them against balance sheet fluctuations caused by large and unexpected losses. The reinsurance market is served by a relatively small group of some 200 professional reinsurers. However, throughout history a variety of alternative forms appeared that could be used to distribute risks beyond one insurer. Co-insurance, for example, was one of the main forms of secondary risk spread in the marine community for centuries. It dominated the London market and was, to a large degree, responsible for the late and restricted development of reinsurance companies in Anglo-Saxon markets. The emergence of ever-larger risks in the 20th century forced the industry to focus increasingly on dealing with large losses and capping the maximum exposures of insurers. This made the business more financial, a trend which received a new boost with the advent of insurance-linked securities (ILSs) in the 1990s. Since then, the market for alternative risk transfer (ART) has grown, not least with the advent of new investors such as different investment funds that provide alternative risk capital. However, towards the 2020s, professional reinsurers started gaining ground again after a series of large natural catastrophes and with the continuous rise of Asian economies. Since the 2010s, growth opportunities for reinsurance are sought mostly in emerging markets and by making more risks insurable. Emerging market growth, however, is challenging and the gap between insured and insurable economic losses is still widening. Since the turn of the millennium, the industry has invested in finding solutions to close this so-called protection gap. Professional reinsurers are also seeking to develop new markets by making emerging risks such as cybercrime insurable. Yet such dynamic risks are fundamentally different from older static risks. Solutions are sought in applying methods that already made natural catastrophes insurable, modelling techniques, and ART products.
Spain and the European Union
Authors: Gomez Arana Arantza
Published: November 2020

The development of political and economic relations between Spain and the European Union commenced in 1970 with their first agreement and demonstrated the clear interest on the Spanish side to engage with this new Community. The full membership to the then European Community that took place in 1986, was previously supported by the Spanish political class when the country returned to democracy. In the more than three decades of membership, Spain has become the border of Europe in a key geopolitical part of the continent. It has contributed to the development of several Justice and Home Affairs measures and it has helped to the development of European external relations with other countries. Thirty-four years after joining the Community, history has demonstrated that Europhilia is still more important than any unintended consequences developed with the membership, including the Eurocrisis. Its roots could be found in Spain’s recent political and economic history, where isolationism and impoverishment dominated the country for most of the 20th century and the option of joining the Community was seen as a positive move against their political and economic problems. The membership has provided stability in some Spanish political and economic matters, but has not fully resolved the long-term and structural problems that this Iberian country suffers from. However, throughout this journey, Spain has held to a pro-EU sentiment, even in recent times, while other EU countries suffer from high levels of Euroscepticism. This chapter argues that despite some of the negative consequences of joining the European Union, Spain’s recent history has been too significant to transform its Europhilia into Europhobia.
Interest Groups, the Bureaucracy, and Issue Prioritization
Authors: Fraussen Bert , Halpin Darren
Published: November 2020

Interest groups—collective voluntary organizations for which political advocacy is a primary task such as business associations and citizen groups—are key agents engaging with the bureaucracy. While understudied, research on the relations between interest groups and civil servants highlights the importance of the bureaucratic arena. Recent studies present different perspectives on the interactions between these two actors and also highlight the process of issue prioritization, an important aspect of (internal) agenda setting within groups. This is a key process to study as it provides insight into why groups allocate their attention and resources to a specific set of policy issues, and in this way it clarifies how interest groups put representation into practice. Issue prioritization within groups can be conceptualized as being guided by five drivers: internal responsiveness, policy capacities, niche seeking, political opportunity structure, and issue salience. Recent scholarship has highlighted how rather than privileging one driver over another, this process is first and foremost a balancing exercise in which groups take on board various internal and external considerations. Similar processes are at work within bureaucracies. The intersection of prioritization processes of civil servants and interest groups is an important area for future research.
Electoral Reform and Political Representation of Women in Latin America
Authors: Freidenberg Flavia
Published: November 2020

Historically, women have been underrepresented in Latin America. In recent years, many countries promoted electoral reforms to improve the representation of women in national political institutions. The reforms incorporated affirmative action mechanisms (quota laws) and/or the principle of gender parity in the registry of candidacies that forced the parties to allow women to compete for political office. These changes, together with women-friendly electoral systems and the active commitment of political actors (women’s movements, academics, women in politics, judges, and electoral officials) have allowed formal and informal collaborative mechanisms to monitor, reinforce, and demand compliance with the laws, which have increased the levels of women’s political representation.
Instinct and the Origins of Mind and Behavior
Authors: Rodgers Diane M.
Published: November 2020

Instinct has been one of the more contentious concepts throughout the history of psychology and social psychology. Broadly defined, instinct is considered innate, patterned behavior for living organisms that does not require learning or experience. Almost all early psychologists engaged in the study of instincts, and many attempted to classify them. One of the debates that emerged was whether there is a simple dichotomy between instinct and reason, with animals endowed with instinct for survival but only humans with the ability to rely on reason. With more influence from Darwin’s evolutionary theory, however, the idea that instincts were modifiable and a common trait for humans and animals became accepted. This also led to the idea that human instincts could be understood by examining the instincts of animals and the mental development of children. With the arrival of behaviorism, the concept of instinct began to fall out of favor altogether, and all behaviors were attributed to learning or conditioning. More recently, evolutionary psychologists have reclaimed the notion of instinct, although the understanding of this concept still varies and has an uncertain fate in the discipline.
Prison Gangs
Authors: Gundur R.V.
Published: November 2020

Prison gangs are often formally referred to as “security threat groups” or “disruptive groups.” Compared to street gangs, they are understudied criminal organizations. As is the case with many organized criminal groups, official definitions of prison gangs tend to be broad, typically defining one as any group of three or more people who engage in disruptive behavior in a carceral setting. Many prison gangs, however, have other, distinct characteristics, such as having formed or matured in adult prisons, being composed primarily of adults, having a clear organizational structure that allows the gang to persist, and having a presence both in and out of prison.

Research on prison gangs has been sporadic and focuses primarily, though not exclusively, on the United States. The first studies of inmate life occurred in the 1940s and 1950s, and in prisons that did not have modern incarnations of prison gangs. Until the 1980s, only a few academics described the existence of prison gangs or, their precursor, cliques. The 1980s and early 1990s saw the first studies of prison gangs, notably Camp and Camp’s historical study of prison gangs within the United States from the 1950s to the 1980s and Fong and Buentello’s work that documented the foundation and evolution of prison gangs in the Texas prison system in the 1980s. These studies marked some of the first, and last, significant, systematic studies of prison gangs until the new century.

The 21st century brought renewed attention to security threat groups, as scholars from a variety of disciplines, including sociology, criminology, and economics, engaged in the study of prison society and how inmate groups influence it. Some of these scholars introduced new methodologies to the study of prison gangs, thereby significantly increasing the available knowledge on these groups. Research on prison gangs has expanded to consider four broad categories: defining prison gangs and describing their formation and evolution; evaluating prison gangs’ organizational structure and governance in carceral and free settings; assessing the role of prison gangs on reoffending; and gauging how to control prison gangs both in and out of prison.
Youth Violence in Latin America
Authors: Alvarado Mendoza Arturo , Tenenbaum Ewig Gabriel
Published: November 2020

An issue of great importance in Latin America is what it means to become a youth, and more specifically, a juvenile victim or perpetrator of violence in relation to the territory and overall context of criminality in this region. Considering the historic singularities, an investigation of what it means to be/become must include what it means to be and become a young Indigenous, Black, mixed-race, or white youth and either poor, middle class, or wealthy. Admittedly, it is practically impossible to capture every existing difference in the juvenile condition in the region.

The study of these issues in Latin America must be approached by considering its history of colonialism, which subjugated its various cultures. One must also consider the long-term consequences of the military dictatorships that hounded the region for decades. Youth have also been affected by the global integration processes and the era of neoliberal policies. When studying juvenile deviant behavior and crime, we must consider the deep and cyclical economic crises that have scourged the region—the inherited disadvantages, the structural inequalities, and the lack of fundamental rights that impact what it means to be/become a youth in this region.

Self-inflicted, interpersonal, collective, and political violent behaviors affect Latin American youths. A salient form of aggression comes from lethal armed violence as well as other crimes that have specific regional traits. In most cases, the deviant behavior is a result of interpersonal conflicts. However, in other situations, collective violence is caused either by precarious urban settlements plagued by violence or by the presence of criminal organizations that affect their everyday life.

Widespread gender violence is also a problem in the region. Young women and girls are subject to systematic victimization: sexual, racial, occupational, and political. Latin America faces a profound crisis of gender violence, with a constant increase in its most fatal form: femicides.

In this context, national authorities have developed public policies but, for the most part, they still are ineffective in mitigating the problems.

One of the most important difficulties faced when reforming juvenile justice systems in the region is recognizing adolescents as entitled to human rights and terminating the old inquisitorial or tutelage model. We must take into account that in this region, there is a cyclical demand for more punitive measures and hard-line policies against juvenile offenders.
The Mythopoetics of Curriculum
Authors: Doll Mary Aswell
Published: November 2020

Mythopoetics is a way of reading ideas for their connection to the basic stories known as myths, as well as to poets, writers, and educators concerned with self and culture. The mythopoetic method seeks understanding from the metaphors which myths and literature present. Ideas contain images, which offer insight into the language of the depth dimension. Psychology, whose root word is “psyche” (not “brain”), studies the expressions of the unconscious self in all its forms and deviations; and curriculum urges study of the various educational disciplines for understanding how they shape individual histories and identities. Psychology, education, and curriculum share Latin roots meaning “soul,” “leading out,” and “running within,” respectively. The confluence of these areas suggest that the real subject of education is the student’s subjectivity. The project of being human is understanding the self’s connection with the energy exchanges brought about through basic opposites, such as human–other, human–society, and human–environment relations. Two key ideas about which curriculum scholars theorize are the impact of place (and displacement) on individuals, first, and how alterity is envisioned both by self and from others (second). Writers, poets, and dramatists share curriculum’s concern with subjectivity formation by offering insight into the impact of place and alterity on the development (or repression) of consciousness. By discussing these two concepts through the lens of mythopoetics, there are many avenues for viewing the self, how it can be “led out,” what histories and social codes have influenced identity formation, and ways to access the hidden self by regressing into memory depths. The power of poetics is that it releases people from the stranglehold of their normalcy, bigotry, and hardheadedness. Curriculum scholars often write on the American South and its vexed race relations, for instance, as a necessary place to examine motive and repressions, whereas depth psychologists consider the South as the direction of the depth dimension, where one’s own Other, the alterity that needs access, resides. A mythopoetics of curriculum, then, uses literature as a means of analysis and synthesis in the formation of the self.
Alternative Conceptions of Adolescence as a Basis for Curriculum
Authors: Lesko Nancy , Simmons Jacqueline , Uva Jamie
Published: November 2020

Adolescence has been defined as a unique stage of development, and youth are marked and understood by their differences from adults and children. This perceived border between youth and adults also influences curriculum development, since knowledge for youth is often determined by their current developmental stage and/or what they need to know and be able to do when they are adults. Thus, curricular knowledge often participates in keeping youth “less than” adults. When we start with a conception of youth that emphasizes their competence or power, curricular options open. If we recognize that youth can take on political organizing or use social media in more sophisticated ways than adults, schools’ tight management of youth appears overzealous and miseducative. To rethink conceptions of youth, educators must confront the power differentials built into and maintained by school curricular knowledge.
Curricula of Museum Education: International Instances
Authors: Roberts Patrick
Published: November 2020

The application of curriculum theory and models of curriculum development to museum education helps inform the analysis of the representational, communicative, epistemological, and cognitive dimensions of the formal, informal, and nonformal learning that takes place in the museum setting. Museums and other in/nonformal learning environments implicitly and explicitly engage questions of worth inherent to curriculum inquiry. Within the Curriculum Studies field, such questions reflect both an historical and a contemporary concern with issues of diversity, accessibility, social justice, civic value, and human rights in school and non-school curriculum contexts. In addition to other curriculum analysis frameworks, international instances of museum education curricula can be understood through the lenses of three “human interests”: the technical, the practical, and the emancipatory.

A preference for designing educational materials and experiences around predetermined objectives reflects a technical interest in museum curricula. Within this technical approach, which can also be conceptualized as curriculum as product, the success or failure of a curriculum depends on the degree to which the intended objectives are achieved. Curriculum as practice reflects a practical interest in the way understanding and knowledge are created (rather than simply transmitted) through the dynamic social interactions between teacher and learner. A curriculum as practice orientation aligns with constructivist views on museum learning. Representing an emancipatory interest in human liberation and the overcoming of oppressive social structures is the curriculum as praxis orientation. This approach to museum curricula often assumes a social justice goal of community empowerment that seeks to translate understanding or consciousness-raising into action.
African Philosophies of Education
Authors: Waghid Yusef
Published: November 2020

African philosophies of education are multifold, depending on the specific geographic location in which a particular African philosophy of education is advanced. In northern Africa, African philosophy of education is biased towards Muslim understandings of education, whereas in western Africa, African philosophy of education is mostly attuned to Francophone thinking. In eastern Africa, Anglophone thinking seems to dominate an African philosophy of education. The focus on African philosophy of education is guided by thinking in the southern African region. In the main, African philosophy of education in the southern African region of the continent is considered as a philosophical activity that aims to identify major socio-economic, environmental, and politico-cultural problems on the African continent, and simultaneously to examine the educational implications of such problems for teaching and learning in higher education. It can be construed, for instance, that a military dictatorship is a major political and social problem on the continent, which implies that any form of democratic governance would be undermined. An educational implication of such a problem is that deliberative engagement among university teachers and students would not be regarded as appealing for higher education, as such a practice would be considered incommensurable with dictatorial rule. Identifying any other major problems or dystopias—such as terrorism committed by Boko Haram in western Africa (a violent movement undermining any form of Western education); children being used as soldiers in central Africa; and drug trafficking in sub-Saharan Africa—by proffering reasons why the latter instances are problems, and then examining how educational practices will manifest, are tantamount to enacting an African philosophy of education.