This chapter examines the legal framework governing mergers, divisions and conversions of companies within the European Union. It analyses the relevant EU directives designed to facilitate corporate restructuring while protecting stakeholders’ rights and ensuring transparency. The chapter explores procedural requirements, cross-border challenges and the impact of these transformations on capital maintenance and creditor protection. By reviewing case law and national implementations, it highlights efforts to harmonize rules and promote business flexibility across Member States. The discussion underscores how these mechanisms support corporate efficiency, market integration and the dynamic nature of the EU’s internal market.

All we had to operate on was gut feeling. My gut feeling was that we were in deep trouble, and that the confidence, indeed the arrogance, of the Remain campaign was being fuelled by a failure to speak to enough voters outside London and the other big cities. I spent the day of the referendum in my constituency getting out the vote. On Upper Street, every single person was wearing an ‘I’m in’ sticker. I spotted the one and only man who wasn’t and offered him one. He said that he was happy to wear it in London, but would be taking it off when he went home to Peterborough. Again, I saw that you could be caught up in the bubble in London and assume everything would be fine, but the moment you stepped out you could see that it wasn’t. I went into that evening with a really heavy heart. I was sent out on the media round, to a massive great barn in outer London from which the BBC was hosting its referendum coverage. I was waiting in the wings at 4:40am when David Dimbleby announced ‘We’re out.’

This almanac-style handbook presents the historical background, contemporary status, and potential future development of psychology of religion (PoR) across 32 global areas. The emphasis on uniformity of structure and diversity facilitates dual purposes of presenting basic information about countries and offering chapters as data points for cross-comparison. The handbook provides a concrete starting point for systematic discussions and collaborations; readers can compare chapters discovering shared characteristics and/or collaborative possibilities. “Inside” author perspectives promote awareness of fundamental elements of the field in different locations, illuminate contexts and needs of global peers, and offer an authentic and respectful path forward. This systematic, closely defined approach to the global psychology of religion will reveal more of what we know and some of what we don’t know. To the extent that this is realized, the field can expand through fresh collaborative efforts in thoughtful, useful directions we have not even imagined.

This final chapter reviews what we’ve learned from the 2024 nomination cycle, arguing that it shows a party establishment that once had control over nominations but has lost it. While elites had mixed feelings about Trump and legitimate concerns about his divisiveness and electability, they were powerless to prevent a nomination that so many partisan voters were so eager to see happen. It also explores some predictions about just what comes next for the party, the enduring strengths of the conservative populist faction, and the likely successors of Donald Trump.

We are sometimes told that the Declaration is an airy statement about individual rights, whereas the Constitution does the hard work of structuring a government. This Part argues that the Declaration is primarily concerned, not with individual rights, but with the structure of government. That is, how do we structure a government so that our rights are most reliably protected? And the answer is not as little government as possible, but a competently structured government, subject to the rule of law, that works for the benefit of the people.

Advancements in ceramic production technology during the Song period, coupled with a mature transportation and market system, resulted in ceramics of higher quality and greater variety becoming available to both domestic and overseas consumers. While the export of ceramics began prior to the Song, it reached new heights during this period, as evidenced by the records related to the Maritime Trade Superintendency, archaeological discoveries from the “Chinese Quarter” in Hakata and the Nanhai yihao shipwreck, and the prized collections of Japanese high authorities. As Chinese ceramics became integral to the daily lives of overseas consumers or even took on new functions abroad, ceramics production outside China also progressed, fostering more active exchanges of technologies and commodities between China and the wider world.

This chapter examines the significance of fashion in Ann Petry’s 1946 novel The Street. Briefly tracing the use of fashion, gloves, and related accessories in American and Black women’s literature, the chapter closely reads two moments in the novel in which the protagonist, Lutie Johnson, dons white gloves. The chapter argues that although the gloves are signs of Lutie’s financial aspirations and facilitate her movement away from her confined apartment, the gloves ultimately fail to protect her from the violence of the street.

This chapter examines Indigenous nation-building as a critical strategy for bridging gaps between policy intent and meaningful connection to Country, focusing on the Western Australian Aboriginal Empowerment Strategy. It highlights persistent disparities stemming from settler-colonial governance, where institutions often fail to address Indigenous cultural, social, economic, and ecological priorities. The analysis shows how empowerment efforts encounter resistance when they challenge entrenched power dynamics, reflecting systemic reluctance toward transformative change. In contrast, Indigenous nation-building provides a self-determined framework for governance, development, and community empowerment rooted in Aboriginal worldviews. The chapter assesses Western Australia’s Closing the Gap Implementation Plan 2023–2025 through this lens, underscoring the importance of cultural integrity, truth-telling, genuine partnerships, and shared decision-making. It concludes with recommendations for institutional reform, arguing that only deep systemic change can deliver equity and improved outcomes for Aboriginal communities.

Understanding the sources and consequences of luck has important behavioural and policy implications. Most prior research has treated luck as the residue of rationality, models or foresight. This chapter proposes a novel approach to help quantify the impact of luck and its interaction with human behaviours, particularly useful for behavioural data scientists. It illustrates the approach using three datasets with contexts that generate idiosyncratic patterns and behavioural implications, labelled swing luck, undeserved luck and network-bounded luck. The chapter concludes by discussing how this approach can be applied to other contexts and its scope conditions.

The probabilistic method is now an integral part of combinatorics. We introduce the basic methods, including Markov’s and Chebyshev’s Inequalities, the local lemma, concentration of measure, the Chernoff Bound, martingales, Poisson approximation, and correlation inequalities. Two salient examples are the Hoeffding– Azuma Inequality and Janson Inequalities, and we give some brief applications of each result, including balancing vectors, random graphs, property B, concentration of chromatic number, and triangles in random graphs. The tools discussed in this chapter are used frequently in the material covered by this text.

This chapter explores the psychological impacts of climate change, focusing on how communities adjust to disruptions in place caused by extreme events. It argues that global adaptation frameworks, including those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, often overlook psychological factors such as grief, place attachment, and the need to repurpose or redefine damaged environments. Drawing on examples from Australia and the United States, the chapter shows how these psychological dimensions shape community resilience, adaptation, and collective action. By critically examining existing adaptation policies, it identifies significant gaps in acknowledging the central role of psychology in shaping sustainable responses. The chapter advocates for integrating psychological insights into policymaking and community engagement to support more effective, equitable climate strategies. Ultimately, it stresses that recognising these relationships with place is essential for addressing the difficult choices that arise when beloved environments become unliveable due to escalating climate risks.

Mistakes and missteps in theory development and testing are inevitable but there are ways to decrease them. One way to detect potential problems is to outline the definitions, scope conditions, assumptions and finally derivations. Stripping down the theory to the simplest form helps spot definitions that are not precise or derivations that are not sound. Once done, it becomes easier to diagnose problems and think through potential solutions. Another way to find potential problems is to talk through your ideas with others—especially those you know to be skeptical. Having to explain your logic and then your potential tests with others can provide invaluable feedback and can make you rethink aspects of your formulations.

Behavioural Data Science is an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of behavioural science, data science, computer science, statistics, engineering and economics. This chapter offers a historical overview of the field’s evolution –from foundational developments in early computation and decision theory to the modern integration of machine learning, artificial intelligence and digital behavioural data. We explore major milestones, methodological innovations and successful applications across health, education, business and public policy. In addition to tracing this growth, we address the complex challenges the field faces, including ethical concerns, data limitations and interpretability of algorithmic models. We demonstrate how these formative tensions shaped the field’s development and continue to inform its future trajectory. The chapter concludes with a forward-looking perspective on how emerging technologies such as generative AI and quantum computing may further refine the goals, tools and ethical frameworks of Behavioural Data Science.

The eighth chapter digs into the topic of political violence in the United States and how Trump has used the threat of violence as another tool for maintaining control over his party. Unlike some modern political coverage that suggested that what happened on January 6, 2021 at the US Capitol was unprecedented, this provides a brief history of American political violence. It then turns to more evidence from the county chairs to understand their beliefs about political violence. While the vast majority reject violence as a legitimate act in pursuit of political ends, there are important differences in assessments of January 6th, and evidence suggests that who oppose Trump are far more worried about political violence than his supporters are.