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Chronicling the city they built : ‘first-builders’ as guardians of memory in Komsomolsk-na-Amure
Get PDFThis article explores urban memory politics in Komsomolsk-na-Amure – a military-industrial stronghold erected in Russia’s Far East in the 1930s with the participation of Komsomol volunteers from across the USSR. Known as pervostroiteli or ‘first-builders’, Komsomolsk’s founders became the city’s first chroniclers, who played an enduring role in shaping the city’s heroic popular image. I argue that the Soviet government’s active efforts to glorify Komsomol builders endowed the figures of pervostroiteli with unparalleled moral authority, which participants in the city’s early development used to curate their own memorialization and local historical politics.Peer reviewe
Central bank asset purchases : theory and practice
Get PDFChapter 1 proposes a novel method for modelling the signalling channel of asset purchases, and integrates this with a stylised portfolio balance model. It then proceeds to identify the signalling channel as responsible for 55% of the GDP response to Quantitative Easing (QE) in the UK, with high uncertainty. While the utility impact of each channel is similar, the signalling channel has a more persistent impact on medium-term consumption and investment.
Chapter 2 uses as context a rare natural experiment, the 2022 UK gilt crisis, and develops a DSGE model featuring Non-Bank Financial Institutions to replicate the crisis and policy response. Asset purchases restore market functioning, and their temporary nature is crucial to avoiding a trade-off with monetary policy. Repo loans and macroprudential regulation are viable alternative policies. These results show the central bank can ease financial market stress without loosening monetary policy, delivering its two objectives at all times.
Chapter 3 incorporates QE into a New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (NK-DSGE) model featuring verlapping Generations (OLG). I find that QE at the ELB is utility-increasing for all ages and cohorts, but the gains are not evenly distributed and depend on the implementation of Quantitative Tightening (QT). With fast QT, the majority of the utility gains accrue to a narrow group aged 60-64, who benefit from both higher wages and wealth effects. With slow QT, most of the gains instead go to younger households via a tighter labour market. In steady state, looser policy benefits younger households at the expense of older households regardless of whether this is implemented through short-term interest rates or through asset purchases
Retail loyalty schemes : a practical theological response to surveillance capitalism and its construction of the flawed prosumer
Get PDFThis paper argues that retail loyalty schemes lie at the intersection of three sites of struggle: datafication, competitiveness, and commodification. It is where these overlap that the production of data-doubles (inferred categories into which individuals are placed), digital self-interest, and neoliberal (finance-dominated) economics, coalesce in surveillance capitalism. By re-deploying Bauman’s notion of the flawed consumer, a category of ‘flawed prosumer’ is used in relation to Stoddart’s analytical device of the common gaze, a preferential optic for those who are digitally poor. It is proposed that Christians contribute to public debate three theological themes: solidarity, the universal destination of goods, and the shadow of the cross cast from the future upon the present. It draws upon Kathryn Tanner’s theological critique of financed-dominated economics, Roman Catholic Social Teaching, and Jürgen Moltmann’s theology of hope to contribute to the public debates promoted by Shoshana Zuboff on surveillance capitalism, Christian Fuchs on digital humanism, and George Monbiot on ‘the commons’. The aim is not to adjudicate a ‘Christian position’ on retail loyalty schemes but rather to argue that by giving attention to those who are excluded, better, more humane, digital societies may be imagined in which ‘flawed prosumer’ is a token of honourable subversion.Peer reviewe
Episodic rhythmicity is generated by a distributed neural network in the developing mammalian spinal cord
Get PDFFunding: This research is supported by grants provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (P.J.W.) and an NSERC Discovery grant (P.J.W.).Spinal circuits generate locomotor rhythms, but the mechanisms behind episodic locomotor behaviors remain unclear. This study investigated dopamine-induced episodic rhythms in isolated neonatal mouse spinal cords to understand these mechanisms. The episodic rhythms were generally synchronous and propagated rostro-caudally, although occasional asynchrony was observed. Electrical stimulation of the L5 dorsal root entrained the episodic rhythms, suggesting afferent control and a distributed network. Even after transection or ventrolateral funiculus (VLF) lesions, episodic activity persisted in isolated thoracic or sacral segments, implying VLF-coupled networks. Rhythmicity was observed in VLF and dorsal root axons and was independent of cholinergic excitation via motoneurons, GABAA receptors, or dorsal inhibitory circuits. These findings suggest a flexibly coupled, distributed spinal interneuron network underlies episodic rhythmicity, providing a foundation for future investigations into how spinal circuits are modulated to produce diverse motor outputs.Peer reviewe
Role of Ni to Mn ratio in Ca-pillared O3-type cathodes : decoupling structural dynamics and electrochemical performance via operando characterization
Get PDFFunding: This work was supported by the Faraday Institution (Grant Nos. FIRG018 and FIRG064) and China Scholarship Council (CSC No. 202109110017). The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through the Light Element Facility Grants EP/L017008/1, EP/R023751/1, and EP/T019298/1, which enabled the acquisition of the scanning electron microscopes and Raman spectrometer. The authors acknowledge the support from EPSRC Core Equipment Grant (EP/V034138/1) for powder diffractometers. The authors also thank Diamond Light Source for providing beamtime on Beamline B18 (Proposal No. SP36598).O3 phase NiFeMn- based layered transition metal oxides have attracted interest for positive electrode materials for Na-ion batteries. However, they generally suffer from challenges like phase transitions and Fe migration. Recently, the substitution of Ca into the Na layer, serving as a ‘pillar’, has proven to be an effective approach to overcome these challenges. Here, we systematically studied the composition-dependent Ca pillaring effect on the electrochemical performance and structure evolution of two O3 phase NiFeMn-based layered transition metal oxides. It is found that, although moderate Ca doping in high-Ni system - Na1-2xCaxNi0.25Mn0.25Fe0.5O2 (x = 0.00, 0.03) enhances cycling stability and reduces polarization, excessive doping compromises rate capability and does not effectively prevent Fe migration. Conversely, high-Mn system - Na1-2xCaxNi0.17Mn0.33Fe0.5O2 (x = 0.00, 0.04) exhibits a more robust and beneficial response to Ca incorporation, showing enhanced structural integrity, improved redox reversibility, and effective suppression of Fe migration. This study provides insights into the tunable chemical environments of transition metal oxides, thereby advancing the design of high-performance positive electrode materials and contributing to the development of next-generation sodium-ion batteries.Peer reviewe
Food cravings are associated with increased self-regulation, even in the face of strong instigation habits : a longitudinal study of the transition to plant-based eating
Get PDFFunding: This research was funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to MM and JA.Frequently engaging in a positive health behaviour, like following a vegetarian or vegan (veg*n) diet, can bring benefits to both the individual and society. We investigated the roles of two psychological determinants of behaviour—instigation habits and self-regulation strategy use—in a cohort of individuals who were newly transitioning to a veg*n diet. In a longitudinal study over 6 months (7 waves including baseline), 222 individuals transitioning to a veg*n diet reported their monthly habit strength, craving frequency, self-regulation strategies and animal product consumption. Our results supported the benefits of having a healthy habit, as stronger habits predicted fewer cravings and lower consumption of animal products, in line with the person's target diet. However, in contrast to some theoretical accounts, having a strong instigation habit did not reduce the use of self-regulation strategies; people with strong habits used multiple strategies to maintain their diet, especially when they experienced frequent diet-inconsistent cravings. These findings challenge the idea that habits eliminate the need for self-regulation, and suggest that habits do not fully circumvent motivational challenges in the pursuit of complex health behaviours. Our results are consistent with recent suggestions that automatic and intentional processes act simultaneously during the enactment of complex health behaviours.Peer reviewe
Indigenous coastal management in Papua New Guinea : resilience and the revitalization of polepole stone fish traps on Lovongai island
Get PDFOn Lovangai Island in Papua New Guinea, Indigenous communities have worked with Indigenous scientists and international anthropologists to document and revitalize traditional stone fish traps. These locally designed and enacted projects are an Indigenous form of coastal planning which refuses both state-planning and conservation organization planning. They are also a form of biocultural revitalization that foregrounds Indigenous sovereignty. Based on a traditional design, the Lovangai stone fish trap known as polepole works to provide pool habitat for important aquatic biota, to increase food security, to increase respect for, and interest in, traditional practices, and it is also hoped that it may contribute to prevention of coastal erosion. In this paper we describe the reciprocal collaborative process by which this project came to be, the methodology used, and the relationship between biocultural approaches to research and Indigenous-led resilience projects.Peer reviewe
Compensated altruism and moral autonomy
Get PDFIt is sometimes morally permissible not to help others even when doing so is overall better for you. For example, you are not morally required to take a career in medicine over a career in music, even if the former is both better for others and better for you. I argue that the permissibility of not helping in a range of cases of “compensated altruism” is explained by the existence of autonomy-based considerations. I sketch a view according to which you can have autonomy-based permissions to choose between alternatives when these alternatives differ in terms of the valuable features they instantiate. Along the way, I argue that considerations of moral autonomy do not support rejecting the plausible view that we each constantly face reasons with morally requiring strength to help (distant) strangers.Peer reviewe
Getting money in the country : is there a liability of rurality facing SMEs?
Get PDFFunding: The authors wish to acknowledge the funding they received from the ESRC grant number ES/W010259/1.This paper examines the loan interest rates offered in rural versus urban locations to test whether a “liability of rurality” confronts rural SMEs. Using a fine grained rural-urban spatial classification system we test whether small firms located across the NUTS 3 areas of England face a rural interest rate “price penalty”. On average rural SMEs take out smaller loans and are less inclined to offer collateral than urban counterparts. Counterintuitively, our key finding is that rural firms benefit from lower average loan interest rates. Regional development funds need to extend their spatial horizons to address their lack of rural outreach.Peer reviewe
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