We use the New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) framework and Vector Autoregressive (VAR) to investigate the usefulness and relevancy of monetary services, augmented to include credit card transaction services. We use the new credit-card-augmented Divisia monetary aggregates in the models to further the existing research on their usefulness and relevancy. In this research, we compare three different monetary aggregates within the New Keynesian framework: (1) the aggregation-theoretic “true” monetary aggregate, (2) the credit-card-augmented Divisia monetary aggregate, and (3) the simple sum monetary aggregate.

We acquire the following primary results. (1) The credit-card-augmented Divisia monetary aggregate tracks the theoretical (true) monetary aggregate, while simple sum does not. Although this result would be expected from the theory in classical economic models, the result is not an immediate implication of the theory in New Keynesian models and therefore needs empirical confirmation. (2) Under the recursive VAR framework, the credit-card-augmented Divisia monetary aggregate serves as a preferable monetary policy indicator compared to the traditional federal funds rate. (3) On theoretical grounds, we find that the separability condition for existence of a monetary aggregator function could fail, if credit card deferred payment services were excluded from the monetary services block, unless all markets are perfect.

In a smoothly bounded domain $\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^n$, $n\ge 1$, this manuscript considers the homogeneous Neumann boundary problem for the chemotaxis system

\begin{eqnarray*} \left \{ \begin{array}{l} u_t = \Delta u - \nabla \cdot (u\nabla v), \\[5pt] v_t = \Delta v + u - \alpha uv, \end{array} \right . \end{eqnarray*}

$\alpha \gt 0$

It is shown that there exists $\delta _\star =\delta _\star (n)\gt 0$ such that for any given $\alpha \ge \frac{1}{\delta _\star }$ and for any suitably regular initial data satisfying $v(\cdot, 0)\le \delta _\star$, this problem admits a unique classical solution that stabilizes to the constant equilibrium $(\frac{1}{|\Omega |}\int _\Omega u(\cdot, 0), \, \frac{1}{\alpha })$ in the large time limit.

The currently defined Global Stratotype Section and Point for the Campanian/Maastrichtian boundary at Tercis (France) lacks any belemnite record. However, the detailed correlation of Tercis with the Kronsmoor section in northern Germany has enabled recognising this boundary in terms of belemnite stratigraphy close to the first appearance datum (FAD) of Belemnella obtusa Schulz, 1979. Originally, the FAD of the genus Belemnella Nowak, 1913 (e.g. of Belemnella lanceolata (von Schlotheim, 1813)) has been widely used for defining the base of the traditionally understood Maastrichtian stage in the Boreal Realm. Belemnella appeared almost contemporaneously across a significant portion of epicontinental Europe in what is now considered topmost Campanian and dominated the lower Maastrichtian belemnite assemblages, co-occurring with Belemnitella d’Orbigny, 1840 and rare Fusiteuthis Kongiel, 1962. It disappeared in Western and Central Europe during the mid-Maastrichtian, and as a consequence, the FAD of Belemnitella junior Nowak, 1913 served as a biomarker defining the base of the upper Maastrichtian substage. It is only at the end of the Maastrichtian that the genus Neobelemnella Naidin, 1975 became abundant, replacing Belemnitella steadily from the east to the west as the dominating species. The factors underlying those remarkable shifts in belemnite assemblages remain uncertain, but various environmental elements, especially water depth and temperature, in addition ocean currents, and oceanic chemical composition are considered influential.

The available energy of a plasma is defined as the maximum amount by which the plasma energy can be lowered by volume-preserving rearrangements in phase space, so-called Gardner restacking. A general expression is derived for the available energy of a nearly homogeneous plasma and is shown to be closely related to the Helmholtz free energy, which it can never exceed. A number of explicit examples are given.

A gluten-free diet (GFD) may have a stronger potential impact on reducing cardiovascular (CV) risk factors, according to research evidence. We investigated the impact of GFD on CV risk variables by doing a systematic review and meta-analysis for this reason. We conducted a thorough database search starting on January 1, 2000, and ending on July 12, 2022. We used random-effects models to pool the data. Totally 19 articles met the eligible criteria and were included. Pooled findings indicated that intervention with GFD has a significantly beneficial effect on high-density lipoprotein (HDL) (WMD: 4.80 mg/dl, 95% CI: 2.09, 7.51, P = 0.001), systolic blood pressure (SBP) (WMD: –2.96 mmHg; 95% CI: –4.11, –1.81, P < 0.001), and C-reactive protein (CRP) (WMD: –0.40, mg/l, 95% CI: –0.67, –0.14, P = 0.002) levels. In celiac patients as well as with an intervention duration of more than 48 weeks, GFD increased TC and HDL compared to non-celiac patients and with an intervention duration lower than 48 weeks, respectively. The results of the present study showed that GFD can have a significant and beneficial effect on HDL, SBP, and CRP.

Performing tasks in agriculture, such as fruit monitoring or harvesting, requires perceiving the objects’ spatial position. RGB-D cameras are limited under open-field environments due to lightning interferences. So, in this study, we state to answer the research question: “How can we use and control monocular sensors to perceive objects’ position in the 3D task space?” Towards this aim, we approached histogram filters (Bayesian discrete filters) to estimate the position of tomatoes in the tomato plant through the algorithm MonoVisual3DFilter. Two kernel filters were studied: the square kernel and the Gaussian kernel. The implemented algorithm was essayed in simulation, with and without Gaussian noise and random noise, and in a testbed at laboratory conditions. The algorithm reported a mean absolute error lower than 10 mm in simulation and 20 mm in the testbed at laboratory conditions with an assessing distance of about 0.5 m. So, the results are viable for real environments and should be improved at closer distances.

During the Nigerian Civil War, France became the main supplier of military assistance to the secessionist Biafra. In a neo-imperial pursuit to weaken the potential regional hegemon Nigeria, it secretly provided arms and ammunition to the Biafrans in collusion with Côte d'Ivoire and Gabon. Yet the driving force behind this Franco-African arms triangle was not the Elysée, but the Ivorian president Félix Houphouët-Boigny. Newly unearthed documentary evidence from French archives enables this article to break new historiographical ground: firstly, to show the Elysée's sheer reluctance to militarily assist Biafra and lack of a coherent policy in doing so; secondly, to confirm Houphouët-Boigny as the “mastermind” behind the arming of Biafra, as well as to identify his Cold War motivations; thirdly, to uncover Gabonese president Omar Bongo's increasing agency and influence in the scheme; fourthly, to demonstrate that it was the Ivorian and Gabonese presidents who transformed the arms triangle into a square by bringing the Rhodesians and, especially, the South Africans in; and, finally, to retrace the emergence and functioning of the “African-French” military assistance to Biafra at the policy level not only from Paris's, but also Abidjan's and Libreville's perspectives.

This response to the comments on The Digital Factory discusses why and how the concepts of the digital factory and digital Taylorism have been applied in the book, as well as the question of the relationship between digital control and workers' resistance to algorithmic management technologies. While agreeing with the comments that point to the limitations of the concepts used, this response argues that these can be productive precisely by drawing our attention to aspects that are otherwise difficult to bring to light. In terms of the potential for workers' resistance, many collective and individual forms of such resistance remain possible in labour regimes under algorithmic management, as well as in other coexisting labour regimes.

Theories about the impact of digital technology on society and the development of capitalism and debates about the influence of digital information technologies on the future of work have been abundant since the end of the twentieth century. Most of the academic debate has taken place outside labour history, leaving the actual effects of digital technologies on human work and labour relations often overlooked. Moritz Altenried's The Digital Factory: The Human Labor of Automation focuses precisely on these effects, and as such provides a good opportunity to engage with these debates from a labour history perspective. This Review Dossier includes four comments on Altenried's book, by Bridget Kenny, Nico Pizzolato, Görkem Akgöz, and Greg Downey, to which the author responds. The contributors focus on different aspects of The Digital Factory depending on their own perspective on recent developments in the digital economy in the larger context of global capitalism.

This article describes John Wesley's evolving visions of Christian singleness (celibacy) and three commitments related to his changing views: a commitment to celibacy in an Oxford college; a commitment to marriage with Mary Vazeille; a de facto commitment to single life after Mary's separation from him. Protestant Churches lacked structures to support celibate commitment, structures that might have discouraged his unguarded and intimate correspondence with married women that lay behind his separation from Mary. The article asks why Protestants, although formally allowing single life, have not found ways to honour commitments to it.

Nudging is a policy tool that steers people’s behavior through noncoercive psychological pushes. This has consequences for people’s lives to varying degrees. For example, the nudge of a sticker of a fly in a urinal encourages peeing inside a urinal, while an organ donation default brings people to agree to donating their organs after their decease. Governments do not yet systematically examine which nudges have to be subjected to all safeguards of the rule of law—for example, parliamentary control, judicial review, or compliance with legal principles such as proportionality. This article argues that a legal doctrine is necessary to carry out this examination. Moreover, it contributes to the development of such a doctrine, using the approach of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of inspiration. The doctrine consists of a “de minimis” principle for nudges: Public institutions only need to ensure that a nudge complies with rule of law safeguards when the nudge has substantial consequences. In addition, the doctrine includes a criterion to determine which nudges have such substantial consequences. In particular, it is argued that a nudge should be subjected to at least some safeguards when it has a serious effect on people’s autonomy.

While recent genomic and isotopic information show that migration has been pervasive along human history, southern Andean archaeology has largely overlooked its importance in shaping human trajectories of sociocultural change. Building on previous isotopic research that identified the presence of migrant farmers in the Uspallata Valley (Mendoza, Argentina), we present chronological and bioarchaeological results that help to characterize the timing and mode of human migrations in the southern Andes. The burials with migrants show the representation of the different age classes, including a high abundance of children, as well as both men and women, suggesting that family groups were likely involved. The Bayesian modeling of 16 direct dates for migrants indicates that these migrations started between 1210–1275 CE (median 1255 CE) and finished at 1320–1425 CE (median 1360 CE), indicating that there is nearly no overlap between the commencement of this migration phase and the southwards expansion of the Inka Empire. The model defines a diachronic process that lasted between 55 and 195 years, implying that migration to Uspallata was a multi-generational process that involved between two and eight generations (median of four generations). Our contextual, bioarchaeological and chronological evidence indicates that the conditions fostering migration to Uspallata were sustained through time, inviting to explore persisting push-pull dynamics acting during this period. 87Sr/86Sr results show that migration occurred across the daily territories of these groups and may have involved movement across social or ethnic frontiers.

Between 1969 and 1975 the excavations promoted by the Soprintendenza alle Antichità dell'Etruria Meridionale in the area to the east of the church of Santa Maria of Falleri identified a building in opus quadratum, located at the intersection between the main east–west and north–south urban road axes. As part of the Falerii Novi Project, this area has been systematically surveyed and (re)studied, applying an interdisciplinary approach. This has allowed the identification in this area of a monumental republican temple, linked to the forum, which should be placed in the context of the earliest development of the town, which has been known to us up to now only via literary sources. The identification of the republican temple of Falerii Novi contributes to fresh insights into the foundation of the town and its urban development.

Understanding the partitioning of turbulent energy between ions and electrons in weakly collisional plasmas is crucial for the accurate interpretation of observations and modelling of various astrophysical phenomena. Many such plasmas are ‘imbalanced’, wherein the large-scale energy input is dominated by Alfvénic fluctuations propagating in a single direction. In this paper, we demonstrate that when strongly-magnetised plasma turbulence is imbalanced, nonlinear conservation laws imply the existence of a critical value of the electron plasma beta (the ratio of the thermal to magnetic pressures) that separates two dramatically different types of turbulence in parameter space. For betas below the critical value, the free energy injected on the largest scales is able to undergo a familiar Kolmogorov-type cascade to small scales where it is dissipated, heating electrons. For betas above the critical value, the system forms a ‘helicity barrier’ that prevents the cascade from proceeding past the ion Larmor radius, causing the majority of the injected free energy to be deposited into ion heating. Physically, the helicity barrier results from the inability of the system to adjust to the disparity between the perpendicular-wavenumber scalings of the free energy and generalised helicity below the ion Larmor radius; restoring finite electron inertia can annul, or even reverse, this disparity, giving rise to the aforementioned critical beta. We relate this physics to the ‘dynamic phase alignment’ mechanism (that operates under yet lower beta conditions and in pair plasmas), and characterise various other important features of the helicity barrier, including the nature of the nonlinear wavenumber-space fluxes, dissipation rates, and energy spectra. The existence of such a critical beta has important implications for heating, as it suggests that the dominant recipient of the turbulent energy, ions or electrons, can depend sensitively on the characteristics of the plasma at large scales.

This study examines disparities in health and nutrition among native and Syrian refugee children in Turkey. To understand the need for targeted programs addressing child well-being among the refugee population, we analyze the Turkey Demographic and Health Survey (TDHS) – which provides representative data for a large refugee and native population. We find no evidence of a difference in infant or child mortality between refugee children born in Turkey and native children. However, refugee infants born in Turkey have lower birthweight and age-adjusted weight and height than native infants. When we account for a rich set of birth and socioeconomic characteristics that display substantial differences between natives and refugees, the gaps in birthweight and age-adjusted height persist, but the gap in age-adjusted weight disappears. Moreover, the remaining gaps in birthweight and anthropometric outcomes are limited to the lower end of the distribution. The observed gaps are even larger for refugee infants born before migrating to Turkey, suggesting that the remaining deficits reflect conditions in the source country before migration rather than deficits in access to health services within Turkey. Finally, comparing children by the country of their first trimester, we find evidence of the detrimental effects of stress exposure during pregnancy.