This chapter revisits the distinction between implicit and explicit latent variables and concentrates on explicit latents and how to model them in covariance-based SEM via a ‘measurement’ model or else a ‘composite’ latent. It explains how to model these using covariance-based SEM via the lavaan package.

Dark matter has become a central research topic in astrophysics and cosmology, as well as in high-energy physics. However, it is an open question to what extent the epistemic status of research in astrophysics and cosmology depends on that of the research in high-energy physics. This chapter argues that there are two different (but related) dark matter concepts at play in science: one that is central in cosmology and astrophysics, and one that is central to high-energy physics. Recognizing the distinction between the two can help clarify certain epistemic challenges that arise in context of dark matter candidate searches and of cosmological computer simulations.

This chapter looks at how risk appetite can be defined and how risk can be measured and used in further analysis.

This chapter describes the concept of economic capital and the construction of an economic capital model, as well as principles of capital allocation.

I begin this chapter by discussing people’s subjective and psychological interpretations of objective economic realities. I present social psychological evidence suggesting that people frequently misinterpret economic realities. I then present evidence from multiple sources illustrating the key point of the chapter: that the rich are getting richer. These data are from Our World in Data and are presented to illustrate how income and wealth inequality in Western neoliberal societies, and throughout the world, wax and wane over time. I critically assess the realities behind these figures and delve into the complexities behind changing patterns of economic inequality. I end the chapter by discussing the ways in which rising levels of contemporary income and wealth inequalities have permeated contemporary political realities.

This chapter describes the four modes of representation in international organizations—formal, operational, aspirational, and alternative. They are separate yet intertwined; they contend with yet depend on each other. Together they form the international system of representation. This is not simply descriptively true. The resort to, and the use of, the four modes is also optimal, under current conditions. All four are necessary, as for any successful system to evolve and maintain equilibrium there needs to be a variety of mechanisms available that allow for the balancing of competing values and the reconciliation of formal rules with the actualities of power and expectations of legitimacy, as the alignment will never be perfect. Importantly, the four modes allow a range of entry points for democratic legitimacy in the representative practices of international organizations, creating the possibility of change going forward and meeting that challenge. The international representational system of the four modes is thus second-best. Yet second best is better than any of the possible alternatives while the process of change slowly proceeds.

Within and through international institutions, public and private, international, transnational and national actors have reacted to recent crisis-phenomena in the field of international health, nuclear disarmament, and climate change by launching new political and legal initiatives. Broad coalitions of small and middle-sized states, including civil society organizations are currently pushing for major institutional reforms in and outside certain international institutions through complementary treaties reacting rather creatively to a perceived institutional stand-still often caused by great powers defending the legal and political status quo. The new treaty projects claim a specific legitimacy due to a stronger focus on those actors who are negatively affected by the existing regimes and their perceived deficiencies. The contribution describes these recent initiatives as a form of “corrective treaty making” promoted by coalitions of “the most affected” analyzing their legal and theoretical repercussions in the context of broader legitimation-narratives in the law of international institutions.

In this chapter, we define what migration management aid is and is not. We argue that migration management aid is a specialized kind of foreign aid because it aims to transform domestic migration institutions of recipient states, advocates for restrictive migration policies, and is ideologically motivated by the “root causes” of migration. The chapter also describes a brief history of foreign aid and migration, connecting the history of colonialism, imperialism, development, and migration controls.

Chapter 2 analyzes the concept of not-knowing through various anthropological and philosophical perspectives. It examines how culture addresses the boundaries of knowledge and what transcends rationality. A crucial aspect of this discussion is the notion of blind spots, which connect to extreme experiences of alterity, and which are often challenging to describe ethnographically. The blind spot encompasses a wide range of knowledge-generating structures, including the natural sciences, but also, and particularly, the humanities, literature, and theology. The latter has, ironically, transformed its blind spot into a historically intricate discursive form – negative theology. The chapter contends that this theology of unsaying provides a platform for exploring diverse processes of not-knowing within religious contexts.

This chapter describes various definitions of risk, including financial and operational, both from a regulatory and a non-regulatory standpoint.

International organizations (IOs) are instances of international governance, i.e., places where international (normative) power is exercised. As such, they are subject to requirements for democratization, among which is the need for democratic representation. The meaning of democratic representation varies. When applied to IOs in the context of globalization, democratic representation is understood as the set of mechanisms and techniques that make individuals present in their functioning, particularly in the making of international norms, including soft norms. Among these mechanisms and techniques, parliamentarization is supposed to involve national parliaments to a greater extent, either as such, through their members, or through the institutions that brings them together: the international parliamentary institutions. Notwithstanding their diversity, these institutions appear to be the preferred vehicle for the parliamentarization of IOs because they institutionalize international parliamentary representation. Yet, the extent to which this parliamentarization effectively serves democratic representation in IOs is open to discussion. First, representation within international parliamentary institutions reveals that the parliamentary representative can be a false friend of IOs as democratic representatives. Moreover, representation by international parliamentary institutions or their members is often a false pretence of democratic representation within IOs, despite clear democratic virtues for their functioning.

Chapter 5 challenges the notion that human beings are entirely confined within conventional worlds and that fieldwork serves solely as a creative means of accessing alternative cultural conventions. The objective is to demonstrate the potential existence of a domain of human life that exists at the boundaries of conventionality, at its periphery, or even transcends it, which is referred to as the “extra-cultural.” The chapter explores the “extra-cultural” within the ethnographic contexts of Afro-Brazilian capoeira and body modification, particularly extreme tattooing. We contend that both in capoeira and the pursuit of extreme tattoos, there is a yearning to transcend the confines of human measure and its limitations through the transformative experience of pain, exhaustion, and the renunciation of comfort and societal norms.

A dsep test uses the notion of d-separation to produce an inferential statistical test comparing observed data to the hypothesized mechanism (piecewise SEM). This involves obtaining a subset of d-separation claims that logically imply all others (the union basis set), obtaining the null probability of each of the (conditional) independence claims implied by the d-separation claims in this basis set, and combining them. Two ways of obtaining the null probabilities of each of these d-separation claims are explained: using regression slopes and using the generalized covariance statistic. These are implemented in the ‘piecewiseSEM’ and ‘pwSEM’ packages of R respectively. The rules for interpreting and manipulating the resulting path coefficients are explained.

This chapter examines Wednesday’s meditation, which concludes with a long tract on the active and contemplative lives. It is preceded by sections describing Christ’s public ministry, healing miracles, and preaching around Galilee. While Christ’s ministry exemplifies the Franciscan vita activa, the rendering of these episodes in text and image also prompts the reader-viewer to reflect on contemplative ascent, the remission from sin, and the efficacy of persistent prayer. Repeated pictorial motifs, including mountains, food, and tables, encourage meditation on paradoxical pairs, such as descent and ascent, service and prayer, and bodily and spiritual nourishment, underscoring the interdependence of the active and contemplative lives.

This chapter describes the ways in which institutions can respond to each of the various risks they face.