Chapter 3 turns to one of the best known but most controversial instances of ecological practice under Nazi auspices. It centers on the coterie of “advocates for the landscape” responsible for environmental planning on a series of major Nazi public works projects, most famously the building of the Autobahn system. The group was led by Alwin Seifert, whose title was Reich Advocate for the Landscape. Seifert was a pivotal figure in the development of the post-war environmental movement in Germany, and the work of his landscape advocates on the Autobahn has been the subject of several important previous studies. The focus of the chapter extends far beyond the Autobahn project to include many other fields in which the landscape advocates took an active part, styling themselves “the conscience of the German countryside.” The chapter shows that Seifert and the landscape advocates consistently applied ecological techniques even in the face of concerted resistance from other branches of the Nazi bureaucracy, with the support of a surprising range of high-level party and state functionaries. Though their achievements were limited in significant ways, through a modernized version of blood and soil ideology they conjoined Nazi ideals with environmentally sustainable policies.

This chapter discusses an integrated and holistic approach to preventing, responding to and managing sexual abuse of doctors, at organisational as well as individual level. Organisational factors which can predispose to abuse are discussed, alongside opportunities to engage in work to prevent abuse. A case study illustrates themes and impacts in cases of abuse, and the holistic lens through which support can be offered. The authors are experienced across the medical career spectrum including the support and case management of a number of doctors in training affected by sexual abuse. This includes organisational level interface with employers, regulatory bodies, health and legal services in relation to matters resulting from sexual abuse of doctors.

This chapter discusses relative clauses in some theoretical detail. It begins by establishing a working definition of relative clauses appropriate for the purposes of the book, providing an overview of the different semantic and syntactic types. It then moves on to the way in which these clauses are analysed within Minimalist linguistic theory, weighing up the Head-External, Head-Raising and Matching analyses; this is followed by a more detailed look at the left periphery as a vital part of this structure. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the ways in which these formal approaches have been applied to ancient Indo-European languages, isolating the points of identity and divergence between them. These establish the relevant points of comparison, which inform the reconstructive program pursued in subsequent chapters.

Quadratic fields are the simplest examples of number fields, yet they already exhibit the full richness of the theory of class groups and class numbers. Their study originated with Gauss’s binary quadratic forms, later linked to quadratic fields via Dedekind’s correspondence between narrow ideal classes and proper equivalence classes of forms.

A significant portion of this chapter is devoted to the reduction theory of binary quadratic forms, which, among other applications, enables the algorithmic computation of class numbers via Dedekind’s correspondence.

For definite forms, reduction yields unique representatives for proper equivalence classes. The modular group acts via linear substitution, inducing Möbius transformations on principal roots in the upper half-plane. Each orbit intersects the fundamental domain at a unique point, corresponding to a canonical reduced form.

Indefinite forms are more intricate. Though the modular group similarly acts on principal roots, no natural fundamental domain exists to select unique orbit representatives. Instead, Zagier’s notion of reduction – distinct from Gauss’s – establishes a bijection between reduced indefinite forms and purely periodic negative regular continued fractions. Remarkably, cyclic permutations of the period generate all reduced forms within a proper equivalence class.

Chapter 5 analyzes the symbolic and political meanings ascribed to the birth of Spain’s first Bourbon crown prince, Luis I, and the broader theme of dynastic succession. It explores how pro-Bourbon orators and visual artists celebrated the royal birth as a miraculous sign of divine favor, emphasizing fertility, continuity, and providence. Sermons of thanksgiving and ceremonial oaths of allegiance to Luis I presented him as a flower blooming from sacred roots, a living promise of future abundance. This chapter further examines the role of Queen María Luisa Gabriela de Saboya, who emerged as a symbol of both fecundity and pious maternity. Using floral imagery, Marian symbolism, and genealogical metaphors, propagandists portrayed the Bourbon line as physically vigorous and spiritually blessed. In doing so, they addressed lingering anxieties about Habsburg infertility and cast the Bourbons as restorers of imperial health and sacred monarchy.

Chapter 2 uses official data and primary documents to examine land as a factor of production and the legal status of land in China’s political economy. It highlights how insecure property rights and incomplete markets for land diverge from the liberal economic model. As codified in law, the state generates rents through its ability to take land from the rural sector at below-market prices to sell into the urban real estate and industrial sectors at higher and lower prices, respectively. This pattern is reminiscent of the planned economy and enacts urban bias. Local governments rely on land for revenue, as a tool of industry policy, and for capital mobilization through local government financing vehicles (LGFVs). Informality persists in the form of illegal land conversion and “small property rights” in urban villages and elsewhere. Beyond the analysis of land law at the rural-urban interface, the chapter also analyzes land rights within the rural and urban sectors, respectively. Within the agricultural sector, reforms have improved the property rights of rural households to arable land, but limits on rights and sources of insecurity remain. Urban households have been the beneficiaries of housing reforms, giving them a vested interest in resisting property taxes.

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning is leading to a revolution in the way we think about economic decisions. The Economics of Language explores how the use of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) can transform the way we think about economic behaviour. It introduces the LENS framework (Linguistic content triggers Emotions and suggests Norms, which shape Strategy choice) and presents empirical evidence that LLMs can predict human behaviour in economic games more accurately than traditional outcome-based models. It draws on years of research to provide a step-by-step development of the theory, combining accessible examples with formal modelling. Offering a roadmap for future research at the intersection of economics, psychology, and AI, this book equips readers with tools to quantify the role of language in decision-making and redefines how we think about utility, rationality, and human choice.

The relevance of ecological ideals in lands occupied by Nazi forces would seem to be completely overshadowed by the ruinous impact of war. The book’s final chapter challenges this view through a thoroughly documented alternative analysis. Hitler’s vision of creating “a garden of Eden in the east” imbued longstanding racial myths with an ecological dimension, a call to restore harmony to the natural world, which in turn provided a crucial opening for environmentalists. The landscape advocates worked closely with German military authorities throughout occupied Europe on “green” programs that combined martial and environmental values. After the 1941 dissolution of the Reich League for Biodynamic Agriculture, leading biodynamic figures found a new institutional home in Himmler’s SS, working on settlement activities in the East and designing idealized rural communities founded on blood and soil precepts. The large biodynamic plantation at the Dachau concentration camp, growing organic products for the SS, served as a training center for environmental renewal as an integral part of occupation policy. Far from being consigned to insignificance, the full panoply of ecological aspirations came into their own in the midst of war. Their realization was prevented not by internal obstruction but by Germany’s defeat.

This chapter challenges economic consequentialism by testing behavioural equivalence across economically isomorphic decisions and documenting systematic violations. Evidence spans lying aversion in sender–receiver versus isomorphic Dictator Games; moral linguistic framings that reshape choices in Ultimatum, Prisoner’s Dilemma, Dictator, and Equity–Efficiency Trade-Off games; and the ‘dark side’ where moral labels strategically manipulate others and even increase corruption. Beyond social contexts, language also shifts intertemporal, risk, and ownership decisions (e.g., foreign-language effects). Together, the results imply that utilities depend not only on outcomes, probabilities, and timing but also on language that activates moral norms and beliefs, motivating a shift to language-based utility.

This chapter argues that language matters for economic decisions and that modern large language models (LLMs) can quantify this effect. After outlining the limits of lexicon-based tools, it examines BERT and MoralBERT, showing that generic sentiment scores struggle to predict human behaviour, while adding moral dimensions helps but the results remain imperfect. LLM-based chatbots (e.g., GPT-4) enable context-sensitive sentiment estimates that predict framing effects, particularly in Dictator Games. Building on this, the chapter formalises language-based utility functions that combine payoffs with sentiment or moral polarity and derives testable predictions. Evidence across Dictator, Equity–Efficiency, and Bribery games supports the approach, while highlighting caveats and aveThe chapter highlights applicationsnues for refinement.

Performance analysis for iterative decoders: In Chapter 7, we discuss the behavior of LDPC codes under iterative erasure decoding. When the blocklength goes to infinity, for many LDPC codes, the symbol error probability exhibits a so-called threshold phenomenon that is, there exists a certain channel erasure probability below which error-free communication is possible, while this is not guaranteed above it. We discuss how to compute this threshold for ensembles of LDPC codes on memoryless erasure channels. In the finite-length setting, one may observe a flattening of the symbol error rate curve owing to stopping sets – specific structures in the code’s bipartite graph. Knowing their number and size allows predicting this so-called error floor. Based on our findings, we discuss how to design good LDPC for memoryless erasure channels with extension to channels with memory.

Introducing our interlocutors and our research

Our methodological approach was based on semi-structured interviews conducted between October 2022 and February 2023. These interviews involved indigenous, Afro-descendant, and Campesinx leaders from academia, labour unions, and social movements. We conducted the interviews in person through video calls, email, and phone. Due to the diversity of the participants, the interviews were performed in Spanish, Portuguese, and English. We had the support of native and bilingual speakers to review the translations1 and shared the final version of the document with the interviewees.

The research highlights the perspectives of several influential voices, including Ana Lucía Ixchiu Hernández, a K’iche’ indigenous social leader and renowned activist for climate and cultural rights in Guatemala; Jen Deerinwater, an award-winning journalist and community organizer from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma in the United States (US); Eliana Asprilla, an Afro-descendant environmental engineer specializing in urban and management planning from Colombia; Ana Lilia Felix, an academic who aligns with the Zapatista movement's ‘Sixth Declaration of the Lacandona Jungle’ in Mexico; and Maria Estélia de Araújo and Luciomar Monteiro, members of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) and the Catholic Church's Land Pastoral Commission (CPT) in Brazil. For the interviewees’ biographical information and guiding questions, please refer to Appendix 7A in this chapter.

In terms of our selection criteria for interviewees, we employed a non-random sampling approach, specifically purposive sampling. This selection was based on the significant roles that these activists play in the social and environmental justice arenas within both their individual countries and the broader region.

Vicente Rocafuerte (1783–1847) was born in Guayaquil, in today’s Ecuador. Educated in Spain and France, he entered politics early, serving first in his native land as a local magistrate. While in Europe (since 1812) he was elected as one of the Spanish American representatives to the Spanish Cortes. In Madrid in 1814 he witnessed the demise of the parliament after the restoration of Ferdinand VII, devoting himself from then on to the service of some of the emerging nations of Spanish America. As an advocate of republicanism, he opposed the Mexican Empire of Agustín de Iturbide and served as Mexico’s representative in Great Britain and Europe. Back in Guayaquil in 1833, he opposed the regime of Juan José Flores, becoming president of Ecuador between 1835 and 1839, and serving later as president of the Senate. He died in Lima in 1847, while on a diplomatic mission to Peru. The current selection was written while in Mexico in 1830 and represents one of the earliest Spanish American arguments for religious toleration. Rocafuerte was by no means an atheist but opposed the establishment of an official religion for the emerging states.