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Miniature physical sphere-in-contact models of heterogeneous catalysts and metal nanoparticles
Get PDFPhysical molecular models have played a fundamental role in the understanding of chemical reactions on heterogeneous catalysts and on metal nanoparticles. To date, these physical models have been based on separate models of the metal nanoparticle (NP) or surface and of the substrate and the molecular structure of reactant and product adsorbates and their intermediates. In this paper, we try to provide a new miniature physical molecular model, the sphere-in-contact model of heterogeneous catalysts and metal nanoparticles that can build inexpensive, small and efficient molecular models that can be transported or shipped easily and that depict the chemical reaction as a whole, showing reactants, intermediates, products, the metal nanoparticle bound to the substrate which can give information about a reaction mechanism. These models reveal that there are certain rules with respect to the kind of sites you observe at the metal NP interface with the support by small movement of the nanoparticle
Strategic narratives of Russia’s war in Ukraine: perspectives from China
Get PDFStrategic narratives have become an important tool with which states define their geopolitical reality and shape the types of foreign policy decisions that emerge. In order to build a more favourable international environment, China has deployed substantial resources to disseminate its strategic narratives and communicate its role, identity and vision and legitimise Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule. Despite the obvious importance of narratives on conflict and global security, remarkably few studies have examined China’s strategic narratives on security-related issues. This article marks the first systematic effort to map out China’s strategic narratives in the context of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Based on a corpus linguistics approach and qualitative content analysis, the findings reveal that China does not project itself as a neutral player and that its strategic narratives often echo Russia’s portrayal of the Ukrainian war. However, the analysis also highlights China’s efforts to maintain its distance from Russia while presenting itself against the backdrop of the US/West-Russian rivalry as an equidistant player belonging to the wider international community as well as the most suitable actor to manage a peaceful global order
Walking on the tightrope between moderation and radicalisation: the first 100 days of the Meloni government
Get PDFAs the fatal grip of the Covid-19 pandemic started to ease, in summer 2022 Italy underwent seismic political developments, which saw the establishment of the first totally populist radical right government in Italian history. On 25 September
2022, the general elections shook up the Italian political scene, with Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) scoring a resounding victory that earned the party the seat of the Prime Minister.
Despite fears of a radicalisation of FdI resulting in a neofascist government, evidence points in a different direction. Therefore, the aim of this article is to investigate whether, in the first 100 days in government, FdI moderated, radicalised, or displayed continuity with its trademark ideology and manifesto pledges. While acknowledging the copious amount of bills, decrees, and laws proposed by the governing coalition, as well as a plethora of speeches they released, in the interest of space, the scope of this article
is circumscribed to the analysis of the new executive, with a special emphasis on FdI, in the timeframe between the election results and the first 100 days of the new government.
Considering this evidence, this article argues that FdI is definitely acting as a populist radical right party, tilted towards moderation, and, mostly, continuity with the 2022 electoral pledges, albeit with some oscillations to radicalisation
Polarization and multiscale structural balance in signed networks
Get PDFPolarization, or a division into mutually hostile groups, is a common feature of social systems. It is studied in Structural Balance Theory in terms of semicycles in signed networks. However, enumerating semicycles is computationally expensive, so approximations are often needed. Here we introduce the Multiscale Semiwalk Balance approach for measuring the degree of balance (DoB) in (un)directed, (un)weighted signed networks by approximating semicycles with closed semiwalks. It allows selecting the resolution of analysis appropriate for assessing DoB motivated by the Locality Principle, which posits that patterns in shorter cycles are more important than in longer ones. Our approach overcomes several limitations affecting walk-based approximations and provides methods for assessing DoB at various scales, from graphs to individual nodes, and for clustering signed networks. We demonstrate its effectiveness by applying it to real-world social systems, which leads to explainable results for networks with expected patterns (polarization in the US Congress) and a more nuanced perspective for other systems. Our work may facilitate studying polarization and structural balance in a variety of contexts and at multiple scales
Peace in cities, peace through cities? Theorising and exploring geographies of peace in violently contested cities
Get PDFThis special issue explores geographies of peace in violently contested cities – cities where the socio-political order is contested by actors who use violence and repression to either challenge or reinforce the prevailing distribution of power and political, economic, and social control. The articles within the special issue theorise and explore where, when, how, and why urban conflicts manifest themselves in the context of contested cities. Together, they also uncover strategies and mechanisms that can break dynamics of violence and repression, lead to urban coexistence, and generate peaceful relations in cities, grounding their analyses in rich case studies of different violently contested cities. The special issue thereby advances the research front on violently contested cities by studying their previously underexplored constructive potential. Bringing together different disciplinary perspectives, the special issue speaks to broader issues of conflicted and conflict-driven urbanisation, political violence in cities, and wider processes of urban change
Volitive Grey Wolf Optimizer
Get PDFSwarm-based metaheuristics have become the most prominent method for solving optimization problems. Several operators already proposed in the literature can also be reused to expand the current metaheuristics. We present in this paper the Volitive Grey Wolf Optimizer (VGWO), a Grey Wolf Optimizer variant created by the addition of the collective volitive movement proposed in Fish School Search. The Volitive operator allows a self-regulated balance between exploration and exploitation that generates diversity when necessary. We evaluate the performance of VGWO and five other metaheuristics by simulating them in ten different problems. VGWO has overcome in most cases compared to other well-known metaheuristics. Therefore, we found that by including a self-regulating operator as the volitive collective, we can improve the quality of results provided by GWO
Fossil fuel companies' climate communication strategies: Industry messaging on renewables and natural gas
Get PDFResearch shows that multinational oil and gas companies have recently made a strategic shift away from outright climate denial to more nuanced discourses of climate delay. Communication on social media is an under-analyzed part of the fossil fuel industry's strategy to delay the energy transition away from fossil fuels to a renewable future. This study examines how four companies (Shell, ExxonMobil, BP, and TotalEnergies) are communicating about the renewable transition by analyzing tweets published by their global Twitter accounts. Each of these companies tweets about different renewable technologies in the context of showcasing their own renewable projects. TotalEnergies and BP focus mostly on solar, ExxonMobil on biofuels, and Shell on hydrogen; geothermal and hydropower are hardly mentioned by any of the companies. The number of tweets mentioning renewables increased rapidly after 2015. Topic modeling on tweets about renewables shows that renewables are often mentioned together with natural gas, emphasizing how both are essential for emissions reductions. Similarly, computational text analysis on tweets about natural gas reveals how companies highlight the social good of natural gas including promoting its role in emissions reductions, presenting natural gas as a fuel for a cleaner future, and emphasizing that natural gas is critical to meeting growing societal demand for energy. This pattern of communication - linking renewables to natural gas and promoting natural gas as part of their corporate response to climate change - suggests an evolution of fossil fuel companies' strategic efforts to delay the energy transition and obstruct climate action
Readiness for Enterprise Social Media: A Multi-Country Investigation of User Cultural Values and Intention to Use
Get PDFEnterprise Social Media (ESM) empowers connections throughout an organization in real-time. However, research reveals that enterprise-wide adoption is a challenge for businesses. Research indicates that culture is one of the impediments to enterprise-wide adoption. Thus, a deeper understanding of the cultural influence on organizational readiness will help organizations plan more effectively. Schwartz’s cultural framework was used in a quantitative study to investigate the intention to use ESM at various levels in multiple countries. The participants’ responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling, including multiple group analysis. The test results suggest significant effects of autonomy and egalitarianism on individuals’ intention to adopt ESM. However, contrary to previous research, the effects of egalitarianism were found to be negative. This study emphasizes the importance of cultural values in shaping individuals’ intentions to use ESM, which contributes to organizational readiness for ESM adoption. The findings of this study provide organizations with awareness of cultural influences on intention to use ESM and can help organizations identify potential barriers to ESM adoption readiness