This chapter discusses whether the existing IP laws in Europe offer sufficient room for upcycling from the perspective of fundamental rights. It is argued that both the EU Charter and the ECHR may include obligations to facilitate the innovative reuse of materials. This is considered both as a matter of artistic freedom and as a positive obligation to safeguard the right to life, health, and a sustainable environment. From this perspective, existing IP laws may not be accommodating enough of creative and innovative upcycling practices. It is suggested that, as a matter of direct effect of primary EU law, both the Charter and free movement of goods may have a limiting effect on the enforceability of IP rights.

Upcycling, the creative reuse of pre-existing materials, offers clear environmental benefits by reducing waste and conserving resources, while also promoting sustainable consumption. However, despite its potential, consumer understanding of upcycling remains limited, with many either unfamiliar with the term or conflating it with other sustainable practices. This conceptual ambiguity can undermine confidence in upcycled products, hinder market adoption, and pose challenges for businesses. The inclusion of branded materials in upcycled goods further complicates the landscape, raising legal and reputational concerns for trademark holders and prompting questions about consumer confusion and fairness. To investigate these issues, this chapter presents empirical insights from three studies involving 2,393 participants. Study 1 examines consumers’ understanding of upcycling. Study 2 explores how branded materials in upcycled products influence evaluations and manufacturer identification. Study 3 assesses the effect of different information about manufacturers on consumer perceptions and recall. Findings provide a foundation for considering the legality of trademark use in upcycling and inform strategies for promoting consumer awareness, supporting sustainable business models, and safeguarding both brand and consumer interests in the transition from a linear to a circular economy.

This chapter focuses on the eigenvalues of a prescribed matrix associated with a signed graph. The exposition begins with the concept of main eigenvalues and examines their role in various structural analyses. It then proceeds to specific computations, including determinants, relationships with the spectrum of the underlying graph, and the effects of particular operations on signed graphs and their resulting spectra. Further developments consider signed graphs with specified spectral properties, such as those exhibiting a symmetric spectrum. The chapter also explores eigenvalue bounds, including limit points for the largest eigenvalue, spectral distances between signed graphs, and spectral deviations of a signed graph relative to related signed graphs, providing a detailed and comprehensive analysis of these spectral characteristics.

This chapter explores the foundations from which cultural variability in emotion emerges by providing a theoretical framework to query degrees of universality for different emotion components. We first review two dominant approaches in affective science that diverge on the extent to which culture is deemed central for emotion: the basic emotions approach and the psychological constructionist approach. Then we apply Norenzayan and Heine’s hierarchical system of cultural universals to the empirical literature on cultural variation in two components of emotion: felt experience and nonverbal expression. In reviewing representative sets of findings, we suggest that while some aspects of emotional experience may be existential universals, nonverbal expressions may reflect functional universals. Our chapter emphasizes the interplay between biological preparedness and cultural learning in shaping emotions. To enable fruitful discussions between scholars of varied research traditions, we advocate for a common set of criteria to evaluate cultural similarities and differences in emotion.

Upcycling describes the process of altering an existing product by modifying it, which in many instances involves improving it and consequently giving a new lease of life to a pre-existing product. It has been increasingly recognized as a promising way to reduce material and energy use, and to promote sustainable production and consumption. Alongside this, there is an increasing customer preference towards environmentally friendly products and minimal waste. Unsurprisingly, upcycling has received considerable attention, particularly in discussion about the circular economy. However, upcycling also poses a challenge to businesses looking to control their IP rights, particularly those seeking to protect their brand and control their reputation through IP protections. This chapter explores these issues, with particular reference to trademark and copyright law in the Pacific region.

This chapter develops a conceptual framework for understanding the Right to Repair (R2R) and its intersection with upcycling within contemporary intellectual property and sustainability discourse. It argues that the right to repair encompasses both negative and positive rights: the former protecting individual freedom from interference in repairing owned goods (‘freedom to repair’), and the latter requiring institutional and manufacturer support to ensure ‘repairability’. These differing conceptions manifest in contrasting policy models. Decentralized, market-oriented approaches in the US emphasizing ownership and autonomy, and centralized, circular economy frameworks in the EU prioritizing product design, durability, and extended producer responsibility.

In this chapter we focus on two important functions of complex analysis, which play a key role in the theory of composition operators:

Traditional Knowledge (TK) refers to any knowledge that results from intellectual activity in a traditional context. In addition to knowledge, TK may include practices, skills, and innovations. It embodies the traditional lifestyles of Indigenous peoples and local communities, and is passed down through the generations. As it has been pointed out, it is a living body of knowledge that is developed, sustained, and passed on from generation to generation within a community, often forming part of its cultural or spiritual identity. As such, it is not easily protected by the current IP system, which typically grants protection for a limited period to inventions and original works by named individuals or companies. The chapter reflects on the different ways in which TK can be protected through IP, and its importance and value in an economic context which encourages sustainable practices. Finally, an analysis is given of the extent to which TK may be affected by the practice of upcycling and if (as it happens with regard to other IP rights as trademarks) there is a conflict between them.

In her memoir, Ilina Sen reflects on the political currents that shaped a generation of civil liberties activists in the 1960s and 1970s, including her own journey and that of her partner, Binayak Sen. Both were members of the PUCL, having served as its office-bearers. She describes how Gandhian, democratic-socialist, and communist political traditions in India inspired a generation of young, urban thinkers and activists who sought to reimagine their role in public life. For some, this political commitment demanded a renunciation of middle-class comforts of city life, to move to and live in rural areas, immersing themselves in grassroots social movements and taking on leadership roles within emerging movements. For others, like the members of the PUCL, it meant channelling their energies from the urban centres, supporting various movements using available resources to sustain and amplify movements. Through this, a politics of allyship took shape, through creation of platforms that provided emerging movement groups visibility and voice.

This chapter documents how cultural variation in emotion is not arbitrary, but follows a “cultural logic.” It examines how cultural models of independence and interdependence – along with their associated interpersonal goals and focus – co-occur with the emotions people both value (their ideal affect) and actually experience. For example, people in independent cultures (e.g., the United States) tend to value high arousal positive states like excitement more, and report socially disengaging emotions like anger more than people in interdependent cultures (e.g., East Asia), who tend to place greater value on low arousal positive states like calm and more frequently report socially engaging emotions like shame. These differences emerge across every level of the cultural cycle: in individual behaviors, social interactions, institutional practices, and broader cultural ideas. The chapter highlights how these cultural logics shape various aspects of life, including social judgments, resource sharing, and well-being. and concludes by outlining a roadmap for future research.

As allies, civil liberties activists have often reflected on normative questions and searched for shared, general and internally consistent principles to act upon. G. Haragopal and K. Balagopal, both members of the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC), raised the questions in the above quote. Others like Smitu Kothari and Harsh Sethi asked similar questions of themselves and their fellow activists. They ask, for instance, ‘How are we to react to the violence that the “revolutionary” groups engage in—be it against the state apparatus, other revolutionary groups, or against a general mass of the population?’ (Kothari and Sethi 1989, 13). A second dilemma emerged from the state being both the ultimate appellate authority and the perpetrator. In the context of communal violence, where the government and the local administration might have been complicit, civil liberties groups wondered who the appropriate appellate authority should be. ‘When communal violence is at its fever pitch, do we have any instrumentality other than the state to appeal to?’ (Kothari and Sethi 1989, 14). As we can see, these questions have both a political dimension (that is, to do with strategy formulation) and an ethical one (that is, to do with developing a code of conduct for themselves). These debates helped allies understand and build their own identity. In this chapter, I analyse two recurring debates within and across civil liberties groups to understand how these debates shaped the organisational identity of ally groups.

This chapter analyzes the marketing of upcycled products from a perspective of European and German unfair competition law. As part of the sustainability trend, some traders use upcycled products to enhance their image or develop new business models. Marketing such products must not only comply with trademark law but also with unfair competition law rules. Under Articles 6, 7 UCP Directive, traders must not mislead consumers about a product’s commercial origin. When upcycling involves third-party products, consumers might wrongly assume the upcycled items come from the original producer, especially when both operate in similar markets. Clear information is therefore required to prevent confusion. If traders reference the original products in their advertising, the rules on comparative advertising under MCA Directive may apply, since even broadly interchangeable goods, like wine bottles upcycled into vases, can qualify as competitors. Additionally, German unfair competition law may restrict practices that exploit another trader’s reputation. For instance, using luxury goods to create everyday items could unlawfully damage the reputation of the original brand.

In this chapter, we review emerging evidence on cultural differences in emotion regulation by featuring three key aspects. First, cultural contexts influence what people want to feel (i.e., emotion goals). Second, cultural contexts shape the means with which people try to change their emotions (i.e., emotion regulation strategies). Third, cultural contexts guide the extent to which people attend to emotions. Furthermore, cultural contexts influence the association between emotion regulation and well-being. Engaging in emotion regulation valued within one’s cultural contexts tends to be associated with better well-being and health, whereas engaging in devalued emotion regulation tends to be associated with poorer well-being and health. These findings on cultural differences in emotion regulation and their consequences for well-being and health provide insight into how cultural meaning systems shape individuals’ emotional experiences.