Conclusions and discussion. The intention to increase wealth is among the key reasons for conflict – individuals, groups and nation states initiate and escalate predatory attacks on others to appropriate resources, to increase access to precious materials and territories controlled by others, or to benefit otherwise from what neighbors hold and produce. Even the mere anticipation of such predatory attacks can lead individuals, groups, and nation states to introduce a range of preventive measures, from legally-binding contracts to investing in military defense and pre-emptive strikes (Abbink & de Haan, 2014; Xxxxxx, 1978). The inevitable arms-race set in motion by predatory attacks can be excessively costly, reducing (rather than increasing) economic wealth and prosperity in both conflict initiators and responders (Xx Xxxx et al., 2022). Already in the simple attacker-defender contest studied here, attackers on average lost 20.87% of their original wealth, and defenders 62.63%. Whereas both sides started out equally wealthy, attackers on average earned 111.73% more post-conflict than their defending counterparts. Next to using predatory attacks on others, individuals gain wealth through economic production, including technological innovation and investing in human capital. Individuals, groups, and nation states oftentimes face a tradeoff between investing in ‘peaceful’ economic production and ‘aggressive’ predation on what others have and produce. We modeled such tradeoffs under various cost levels and found that having rather than not having ‘peaceful’ production opportunities can indeed reduce overall conflict, and investment in predatory attacks in particular. We also found that when economic production becomes a more costly way to create wealth, predatory attacks become more rather than less likely. Our results therefore suggest that preventing renewed aggression would not only require opportunities for economic production but also opportunities that are comparatively easy to implement and realize. Indeed, both our model and our experiments revealed that while introducing costly production opportunities reduces the intensity of conflict, it does not eliminate predatory attacks. With the threat of predatory attacks looming, individuals continue to invest in defense and cannot fully focus on ‘peaceful’ creation of wealth through economic production (also see Xxxxxxxxx, 1999). When peace is costly, wasteful conflicts emerge and persist, diminishing wealth and intensifying inequalitie...
Conclusions and discussion. In this subsection, a starting point has been the maximization of the system level gains under ideal conditions, in particular assuming ideal CSI. Some first steps were taken to understand the limitations and requirements regarding channel estimation as well as for CSI feedback. Without suitable enhancements, a significant part of the system level gains under ideal conditions are easily lost, but for some well justified enhancements for channel estimation, feedback, robust precoding in combination with fine tuning of the CoMP scheduler, a significant part of the gains is achievable even under real world conditions. The here developed IMF-A framework for JT CoMP was introduced and elaborated on in Subsection 5.1.1, with the design principles:
1. use of enlarged clusters of coordinated cells, with means for inter-cluster interference suppression (interference floor shaping),
2. scheduling and beamforming design is made independently at each cellular base station,
3. use of coherent robust linear precoding, with single-cell transmission or non-coherent joint transmission as fallback modes, and
4. use of prediction of channel state information.
Conclusions and discussion. This work originated on the question of whether an effective gauge field would be induced by strain on the surface of a topological in- sulator. As is known this is the case in graphene which can be seen in many respects as a precursor of the actual topological insulators. It is known that elastic deforma- tions and geometrical corrugations in graphene can be de- scribed by and induced fictitious gauge field coupling to the electronic degrees of freedom [2]. The apparent para- dox that the strains do not break time reversal symmetry while magnetic fields do is solved in the graphene case by the fact that the induced fictitious field couples to the two Dirac cones with opposite signs and time reversal symme- try is preserved in the complete system. This mechanism will probably occur also in the case of weak topological insulators with an even number of Dirac cones at the sur- face. The response of a strong topological insulator to elastic deformations has to be different and remains to be studied. In this work we have seen an alternative way to generate gauge fields in a strong topological insulator and we have studied the modification of the energy spectrum caused by the gauge fields.
Conclusions and discussion. For a long period of time, the idea prevailed that Dutch spatial planning is a public good that should be produced and managed by government authorities. However, the past decades have shown that governments are not always successful, as they tend to be inflexible and only slowly adapt to changing circumstances. Moreover, due to huge financial losses on their investments in public land development, local governments have become very reluctant and actually lack the money to continue with govern- ment-steered planning at the same scale as they used to do. Therefore, market-steered and self-regulated planning – defined as co-production in this article – have become attractive alternatives, at least from a government point of view. Co-production has been relatively uncommon in the field of Dutch public space, while shifting the responsibilities for public space away from the public sector is more generally accepted in liberal welfare states such as the United States. This paper has investigated three different forms of co-production of public space in NYC. The incentive zoning policy has led to the creation of over 500 publicly accessible spaces in a city that has a scarcity of available public space. Parks and squares that were run down in the 1970s and 1980s, such as Bryant Park and Times Square, have been redeveloped by means of additional tax raising in BIDs. The High Line is one more example in which new public space is created or existing public space is made more attractive through the involvement of individual citizens and corporations. However, opponents would claim that only a limited part of the population benefits from these new public spaces (x.x. Xxxxx, 1995; Xxxxxxxxxx, 2008; Xxxxxxxx, 2014). This paper does not aim to advocate for the privatisation of public space. As indicated in the introduction, we feel there is a distinct difference between privati- sation and co-production. While the former is about handing over responsibility for public space to the market, the latter is about sharing costs, rights and responsibili- ties by individual citizens and/or non-state corporations. Although co-production might sound benign (as opposed to privatisation), we feel that it better reflects current trends of collaborative planning, in which more hybrid forms of cooperation between governments, markets and civil society occur. In this respect, we follow Xxxxxxx (2014), who argues for a new, more nuanced narrative in public-space literature; one in which...
Conclusions and discussion. To answer our central research question, What perspectives do teachers in upper secondary and higher education have on self-regulated learning?, we identified, as a result of the analysis of the interviews, four perspectives: meaning-oriented and loose regulation, meaning-oriented and strong regulation, knowledge-oriented and loose regulation, and knowledge-oriented and strong regulation. It is remarkable that teachers from both secondary schools and university were found in each perspective. Another finding was that the different disciplines taught by the teachers were represented in every perspective. Furthermore, teachers in the perspectives characterized by loose regulation were somewhat younger on average and less experienced on average than the teachers in the perspectives characterized by strong regulation (see also Table 5). A comparison can be made between the outcomes of our study and the results obtained by Xxxxxxxx et al. (2002), who made a distinction between a narrow and a broad view on learning to learn. In Waeytens’ broad view, many elements can be found which are similar to those in our ‘meaning-loose’ perspective (1): the elements of task conception, where learning to learn is important, and the learner as the one responsible for many learning activities, and the capability of students. The narrow view has many elements in common with our ‘knowledge- strong’ perspective (4): a task conception where transferring information is important and the teacher is the one in control of most instructional activities. Differences between these two studies concern the two additional perspectives we found. This may be a result of the analysis, in which we introduced ‘regulation’ as a part of our own framework to analyze teachers’ perspectives. In the study by Bolhuis and Voeten (2004), traditional and process- oriented conceptions were distinguished. Unlike these researchers, we did not find mainly process-oriented views, e.g., with the focus mainly on learner regulation and knowledge as actively constructed by the learner. The majority of the teachers in our study appeared to have a knowledge-oriented view and about half of the teachers saw regulation as the teachers’ responsibility. Both these characteristics seem to fit better with a traditional conception than with a process-oriented view. This difference may be related to the instruments used to measure teachers’ conceptions. In Bolhuis’ study, a closed questionnaire was used in which every item c...
Conclusions and discussion. In this paper, we have introduced a study in which a Visitor controlling a telepresence robot went through several approach/converse/retreat cycles with a group of three Inter- action Targets. During these cycles, they together attempted to solve a murder mystery, with the Visitor leaving repeat- edly to collect clues. We then identified various qualitative and quantitative patterns in the data we recorded in these interactions; common behaviors, regularities in the behaviors that were rated as most/least comfortable, and a correlation between these ratings and a particular positioning. Using inductive reasoning, all these patterns can be used as hypotheses for more general settings. These could be settings with a different task, different people, and a different robot. One of the limitations of inductive reasoning is that it is impossible to know beforehand if such a generalization is justified. For example, since our patterns were found in a setting with a telepresence robot, there is no guarantee they
Conclusions and discussion. In the last decades far-reaching changes have occurred in the labour market situation in the Netherlands. Like in other European countries, the work itself and the work circumstances have changed radically. These transformations can be interpreted, as an improvement of the quality of work and the conditions of the working life in general. Beside improvements some serious drawbacks are easy to mention. One of the most obvious is the quick increasing pressure of work. The development of a 16 hour economy combined with the growing possibilities especially for empowered professionals to work whenever and wherever they like, the work-family interface becomes a field of tension. However, most studies of well-being at work focus merely on the field of paid labour, or to be more specific the characteristics of the work itself. To the best of our knowledge an approach of well-being at work focussing on the work-family interface does not exist. In our view it is worthwhile to study the determinants of well-being from an interrelated dynamical approach between work and family, especially care activities. The results of our analysis are summarised in table 5. The findings illustrate clearly that the characteristics of work are the most important determinants of well-being. Especially the difficulty of work, the completeness of work and the amount of information are significant factors. To date, this confirms the sociotechnical assumption especially. However, the characteristics of the fit between work and worker are also relevant. Especially the perception of the job content by the worker contributes significantly. Finally, even the household situation of the respondents adds extra explaining power to our model. Remarkable however is that, although the model fit increases significantly, none of the variables is significant separately. However, the influence of the total amount of working hours of both partners is close to significance. Summing up, it is not legitimate to conclude that the characteristics of work are the only important determinants of well-being. After all the fit between work and worker and even the household situation of the respondents adds extra explaining power to our models. Because this article is our first attempt to study well-being at work from an integrated approach focussing on the work-family interface, definite conclusions are rather premature. But we carefully conclude that definitions of well-being at work based solely in terms of job c...
Conclusions and discussion. Taking an overall look at Table 4.5, we notice the strong contrasts be- tween the three villages in terms of productivity, intensity, incorporation and food security. Nalang, with its relatively abundant land suitable for rice production, reaches its high production of rice per capita without high yields (tons/ha), without much external inputs, without great invol- vement in external markets and with robust options to keep up its basic (food security) independence. Dy Abra, on the other hand, focuses much on (timber) extraction and on non-rice agriculture that is fully fer- tilizer-based and export-oriented, with concomitant high indicator va- lues on capital intensity of agriculture and market incorporation, which would result in an acute crisis if these markets would fail (a very low ‘actual food autarky’). The high fertilizer application and high extraction per hectare point at risks of unsustainability, undermining the soils that should be the basis of the ‘organic option’ expressed by its high ‘poten- tial food autarky’. Tat, finally, squeezed as it is in its narrow valley be- tween very steep slopes, hence possessing neither Nalang’s paddy space nor Dy Abra’s space of rolling hills, appears to have used all its options already; it is hanging on with the highest intensity of agriculture, the highest production per hectare of agriculture and extraction, but low le- vels of food self-sufficiency and autarky. For Tat, the risk of unsustain- ability of its (forest) extraction and, invisible in the table, of its swidden agriculture too, spell a disaster scenario of hunger and out-migration. In the remainder of this section, these results will be put in a broader context. First, the outcomes of the standard MFA indicators will be compared with those of other case studies. Then, one of these case stu- dies will be used to discuss some of the rMFA indicators developed in this chapter. Finally, the relation between MFA and the more problem- oriented style of doing environmental science is explored. Table 4.6 shows a comparison with other cases and societies in terms of the two most important Eurostat MFA indicators. Xxxxxxx, studied by Xxxxx and Xxxxxxxxx (2003), is one of the isolated Nicobar islands, In- dia, depending mainly on coconuts. SangSaeng, studied by Xxxxxxxxx et al. (2003), is a small village in remote Northwest Thailand in which glutinous rice, gathering of NTFP and migrant labour are the mainstays of the economy. The table shows that our three v...
Conclusions and discussion. The analysis presented compares the incidence of intracranial injury and in-hospital mortality as well as costs associated with motorcycle-related hospitalizations on the basis of universal motorcycle helmet use legislation in the US. To do so, all injury- related hospitalizations for motor vehicle accidents associated with a motorcycle within three years of the HCUP NIS were analyzed for differences and associations in clinical and economic outcomes between the presence and absence of universal motorcycle helmet use legislation. The first null hypothesis is that there is no difference in intracranial injury rates on the basis of motorcycle helmet use legislation. Based on bivariate analysis, intracranial injuries are significantly higher in the absence of universal motorcycle helmet use legislation (p=0.0195; OR 1.20; 95% CI 1.022-1.418). Logit regression of the relationship between intracranial injury and universal motorcycle helmet use legislation demonstrated an estimated difference of 0.1577 and an adjusted odds ratio of OR 1.171 (95% CI 1.002-1.368) indicating that, in the absence of legislation, the odds of intracranial injury are significantly increased. As such, the author rejects the null hypothesis at the 5% level, indicating that the incidence of intracranial injury as a result of motorcycle-related crashes is different, i.e. higher, in the absence of universal motorcycle helmet use legislation. The second null hypothesis is that there is no difference in in-hospital mortality rates on the basis of motorcycle helmet use legislation. Based on bivariate analysis, in-hospital mortality is significantly higher in the absence of universal motorcycle helmet use legislation (p<0.0001; OR 3.825; 95% CI 3.061-4.781). Logit regression of the relationship between in-hospital mortality and universal motorcycle helmet use legislation demonstrated an estimated difference of 0.7746 and an adjusted odds ratio of OR 2.170 (95% CI 1.496-3.147) indicating that the presence of such legislation, versus its absence, significantly increases the likelihood of survival. As such, the author rejects the null hypothesis at the 5% level, indicating that the incidence of in-hospital mortality as an outcome associated with motorcycle-related hospitalizations is different, i.e. higher, in the absence of universal motorcycle helmet use legislation. The final null hypothesis is that there is no difference in inpatient costs on the basis of motorcycle helmet use legislation. Bas...
Conclusions and discussion. This study through its analytical approach brings out thorough insight into the Scania basic warranty forecasting method. Investigations into the simplified forecast method CLIFF resulted in interpretation of differences in the rate of claim accumulation across different assembly units and regions. In general, vehicles sold to the America region (Middle and South America) are assembled in the Brazil assembly unit and for this set of vehicle population, claims are more delayed towards the end of basic warranty period. Nonetheless, claims are observed to be skewed towards the latter half of the basic warranty period for all vehicles. This trend conforms to the distribution of repair probability (t) mentioned in the description of main forecast method in SAS. Moreover, this same trend is observed irrespective of whether Lambda is computed based on the number of claims or the money value of claims. The historical dataset facilitates a detailed observation of delivery of vehicles, occurrence of claims, extent of finished warranty period, and trend of actual value of claims per vehicle as a function of time from the assembly of vehicle. Most importantly, this part of the work establishes key numbers – 23 months for the global truck production and 32 months for the global bus production – as a measure of time from the assembly period by which majority of the claims have been recorded and the value of claims per vehicle realizes at least 95% of its final value. Additionally, the examination of claims per vehicle against the share of finished warranty reconfirms the skewing of claims towards the end of basic warranty period. The study of vehicle delivery time and calculation of claims per vehicle with respect to vehicle delivery time leads to the conclusion that vehicles getting delivered early in time end up having higher value of claims per vehicle as compared to the vehicles getting delivered late in time. However, this trend is specific for the global truck population for the years 2007 to 2012. And the existing organizational knowledge at YQI group suggests that this trend might look different if figured out for other products or for other assembly months. The ANOVA exercise determines factors from vehicle and claim data which significantly affect the parameters used in main forecast method in SAS and thereby influence the outcome of forecast. Responsible department’ comes out to be the most significant factor which incidentally is already included in the for...
