Consolation Prize Research Articles

Network Externalities and Market Dominance

We propose a monopoly and Stackelberg duopoly model for “new economy” markets—with a Beckerian S-shaped demand curve at its center—that allows for intermediate degrees of firm focality and consumer heterogeneity. Because of network externalities, firms compete for the dominant market share, rather than the marginal consumer. This leads to a type of limit pricing—from within, rather than from outside the market—where the nondominant firm captures a positive market share that serves as a consolation prize. We characterize how firms’ technologies, “consumer impulses” (which might be influenced by past sales, defaults, or advertising), and network externalities affect competition, and derive implications for firm strategy. Broadly speaking, we find that the dominant firm should adopt an aggressive “top-dog” stance (akin to, but not identical to, that of a firm seeking to deter rival entry), whereas the nondominant firm should respond with an accommodating “puppy-dog” approach. This paper was accepted by Alfonso Gambardella, business strategy. Funding: R. Akerlof received financial support from the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Men Becoming Gods in “Style”

Men Becoming Gods in “Style”

The IRA Is an Invitation to Organizers

The Inflation Reduction Act would not have happened without the movement for a Green New Deal, but it shouldn’t be confused for one. The climate left (broadly defined) now faces a novel problem: how to deal with having won something—and keep fighting for more. It’s understandably hard for those who supported Green New Deal proposals for transformative investments in public goods to see the IRA—a bundle of tax credits whose benefits accrue largely to corporations—as a consolation prize. For the many climate hawks galvanized by Bernie Sanders’s bid for the Democratic nomination in 2020, it’s also a far cry from what, for a moment, looked to be within striking distance: governing power.

Should Mozum Menswear Compete in The Digital Era?

“I have won a number of sewing competitions in domestic and international level, partly due to the uniqueness and trendy designs that I create. My teachers have always praised my design, along with the unusual sewing techniques that I use. They say my designs have been followed by other students as well."
 
 Since 1990, Mr. Haikal who is passionate in sewing, had learned to sew at Institut Kemahiran Belia Negara (IKBN). During his golden age circa 1990 until 1993, he was well-known among IKBN staff and students for being a top student and having won several national and international competitions. He had been a champion of many sewing competitions at the IKBN level throughout Malaysia. Later on, he was sent to compete in the ASEAN stage held in the Philippines in 1992, and became the ASEAN champion. Subsequently, he was sent to compete on a world stage in 1993 and received a consolation prize.

Efficient Monte Carlo Methods for Multidimensional Modeling of Slot Machines Jackpot

Nowadays, entertainment is one of the biggest industries, which continues to expand. In this study, the problem of estimating the consolation prize as a fraction of the jackpot is dealt with, which is an important issue for each casino and gambling club. Solving the problem leads to the computation of multidimensional integrals. For that purpose, modifications of the most powerful stochastic quasi-Monte Carlo approaches are employed, in particular lattice and digital sequences, Halton and Sobol sequences, and Latin hypercube sampling. They show significant improvements to the classical Monte Carlo methods. After accurate computation of the arisen integrals, it is shown how to calculate the expectation of the real consolation prize, taking into account the distribution of time, when different numbers of players are betting. Moreover, a solution to the problem with higher dimensions is also proposed. All the suggestions are verified by computational experiments with real data. Besides gambling, the results obtained in this study have various applications in numerous areas, including finance, ecology and many others.

Keine Reform des konstitutionellen Parlamentsrechts: Kenias gescheiterte Building Bridges Initiative als eine institutionenpolitisch verpasste Chance?

Following the handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and his main contender Raila Odinga in 2018, the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) was launched to unite the country and improve governance. As a main outcome, a proposal to amend the 2010 constitution was introduced in 2020. However, on 31 March 2022 the Supreme Court declared the BBI unconstitutional since Kenyatta had opted to alter Kenya’s highest law by means of a popular initiative under Article 257 which is the preserve of ordinary citizens. Against the background of this failure for procedural reasons, the paper evaluates the initiative’s most important proposals in the realm of constitutional parliamentary law, i.e. the introduction both of a prime minister and the office of the leader of the opposition. For that purpose, the reform coalition’s own claims and intentions serve as a yardstick. The analysis yields mixed results. While the court’s verdict plainly provides proof that the rule of law prevails, it is more difficult to speak of a missed opportunity to readjust the political system’s design. The executive extension hardly mitigates the winner-takes-all principle that centres around the presidency. It neither shows real interest in more inclusive politics. Constitutionalizing the chief opposition post might be more welcomed even though its selection rule holds potential for conflict. It reduces the stakes of elections by giving greater weight to this office which might serve as consolation prize but also stands as symbol of democratic tolerance. In general, failed attempts to revise the supreme law merit more attention since they are part and parcel of a country’s constitutional politics and, hence, form the background for future reforms.

Soviet National Autonomy in the 1920s: The Dilemmas of Ukraine’s Jewish Population

AbstractThis article examines the Soviet system of territorial autonomy by studying its impact on the Jewish population of Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s. While the new Soviet state created national republics, districts, and village councils for its non-Russian nationalities, Ukraine’s Jewish population was faced with a dilemma: Ukrainian Jews lived predominantly in cities, but urban space could not be claimed for Jewish territorial autonomy because the Soviet government hoped that peasant immigration would produce a Ukrainian working class. Without an autonomous status, many Jews felt threatened by the increasing influx of Ukrainians and the spread of Ukrainian-language institutions. Offered as a consolation prize, the Soviet Yiddishization initiative failed to cater to the needs of many Jews who preferred the Russian language as a means for social mobility. Attempts to resettle urban Jews in compact agricultural colonies suitable for territorial autonomy never reached the necessary scale. In conclusion, this article argues that the incompatibility of Soviet territorial autonomy with Ukrainian Jewish needs anticipated the Soviet state’s inability to accommodate the increasingly urban, heterogeneous, transnational, multilingual, and mobile society that emerged in the postwar Soviet Union.

The Power of Presence: One-Shots, Relational Teaching, and Instruction Librarianship

In Connected Teaching: Relationship, Power, and Mattering in Higher Education , Harriet L. Schwartz presents “relationship as a site and source for learning.” It is both where the learning takes place and the mechanism through which we teach and learn, making it the “essential driver of teaching and learning.” Application of relationship and relational thinking to academic librarians’ work as educators has gained traction in recent years, yet the concept of teaching and learning as a relationship remains one that we idealize in librarianship as occurring only through longer-term experiences like teaching credit-bearing courses or becoming embedded in classes for the duration of a semester or quarter. The one-shot—a one-time-only information literacy or research workshop that takes place within the context of faculty-led courses—is seen as a consolation prize: ineffective, exhausting, tacked on, and demoralizing. However, there are one-shot classes or workshops that leave us, as librarians, feeling connected to students and faculty, deeply moved by the learning that has happened in the last hour or two (and in the hours of planning before the class even occurs). Conversely, we may have taught semester-long courses that leave us drained, questioning the purpose of the hours spent in the classroom. So what, then, is the difference? What is the quality that makes some teaching experiences fulfilling and others exhausting for librarians?

Review: Consolation Prize podcast. Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University

Review: <i>Consolation Prize</i> podcast. Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University

Tail autotomy works as a pre-capture defense by deflecting attacks.

Caudal autotomy is a dramatic antipredator adaptation where prey shed their tail in order to escape capture by a predator. The mechanism underlying the effectiveness of caudal autotomy as a pre‐capture defense has not been thoroughly investigated. We tested two nonexclusive hypotheses, that caudal autotomy works by providing the predator with a “consolation prize” that makes it break off the hunt to consume the shed tail, and the deflection hypothesis, where the autotomy event directs predator attacks to the autotomized tail enabling prey escape. Our experiment utilized domestic dogs Canis familiaris as model predator engaged to chase a snake‐like stimulus with a detachable tail. The tail was manipulated to vary in length (long versus short) and conspicuousness (green versus blue), with the prediction that dog attacks on the tail should increase with length under the consolation‐prize hypothesis and conspicuous color under the deflection hypothesis. The tail was attacked on 35% of trials, supporting the potential for pre‐capture autotomy to offer antipredator benefits. Dogs were attracted to the tail when it was conspicuously colored, but not when it was longer. This supports the idea that deflection of predator attacks through visual effects is the prime antipredator mechanism underlying the effectiveness of caudal autotomy as opposed to provision of a consolation prize meal.

Can We Learn Anything from Brain Simulation?

If you figure out how machines learn, then you will figure out how the brain works, and what the brain’s functions are. Such an idea is widespread among philosophers and computer scientists who agree with a functionalist reductionist point of view of consciousness. This theory leads to hold that the more accurate the simulation of cognitive behavior is, the more the math behind it must be true – when true means what really happens in our brain. In this article, we aim to show that, on one hand, brain simulation is nothing more than just another simulation, and it offers very little help to understand – nor to produce – the vivid experiences (qualia) of cognitive functions. On the other hand, we would like to emphasize that when it succeeds at predicting a mechanism with less ambiguity and more accuracy than without a simulation nor direct observation, it really develops the knowledge of our brain. As long as brain simulation follows scientific principles, it should be regarded as valuable, even though the knowledge it brings to science must not be confused for the real phenomenon. Brain simulation, like all simulation, cannot fill any reality or epistemic gap. It is a consolation prize.

Turning back the tide? Local‐scale impacts of climate change may have positive effects by restoring natural riverine habitat and reducing invasive fish density

Abstract Global biodiversity is increasingly threatened by habitat loss, climate change, and biological invasion. However, predictions of impacts on native fauna are hampered by an inadequate knowledge of how these factors interact and how climate change will affect the distribution, abundance, and behaviour of both native and invasive species, not least as most predictions are based on the long‐term effects of temperature alone. Here, we present a case study illustrating how local‐scale climate change impacts (increased temperature, reduced rainfall, shifts in peak rainfall) affected the hydrology of a channelised lowland European river (reduced flow, reduction in flood events, increased siltation, macrophyte growth), allowing native fish species to recolonise the bankside zone and reducing the density of invasive round goby Neogobius melanostomus by removing its preferred habitat. While most studies predict long‐term negative impacts on global fish populations, some suggest potential direct and indirect benefits at a local scale. We are of the opinion that, at a local scale, climate change impacts on fish will be more nuanced and complex than long‐term predictions suggest, resulting in both positive and negative effects, with consolation prizes in the face of larger losses. While impacts on fish will differ between regions and/or continents, depending on the specific impacts of climate change, identification of positive effects will be essential in clarifying long‐range forecasts and identifying management procedures for mitigating overall negative impacts.

Keynes as Consolation Prize: Russia’s (Re)Turn to the State

Keynes as Consolation Prize: Russia’s (Re)Turn to the State

Angiolo Mazzoni: la estética mussoliniana aplicada a la arquitectura estatal. Relaciones con las artes plásticas y reminiscencias en la arquitectura de la ciudad contemporánea

Angiolo Mazzoni, an Italian architect in the inter-war period, was linked to Futurism and Novecento from a workload that was an extension of the political regime. His most well-known piece, the Thermal Station in Santa Maria Novella was a consolation prize that came from the controversy that his project, Santa Maria Novella Station, suscitated in Florence (1929). Based on the Futuristic and Constructivist aspects of the Thermal Station, Mazzonis' work acquired a Novecentist tone, metaphysical even, following painters like De Chirico, Carlo Carra and Mario Sironi. His works were a reflection of the political and cultural landscape, like Calambrone (1925-26), the designs for post offices made between 1925 and 1935, as well as his work for Ferrovie dello Stato. Those projects made him one of the architects that translated fascist aesthetics into its buildings, creating an iconography linked to the political power in Mussolini's Italy. This lecture will be centered around Mazzoni's styles, his relationships with the metaphysical artists, his contributions to Futurist, as well as the links between this architectural style and Aldo Rossi's, or Massimo Scolari's, where the different projects and buildings are related to the big financial and cultural corporations of their time.

How valuable is a legislative seat? Incumbency effects in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies

AbstractIn many developing countries, national legislative seats are considered less valuable than (subnational) executive positions. Even then, ambitious politicians may seek a legislative seat either (a) as a window of opportunity for jumping to an executive office; or (b) as a consolation prize when no better option is available. Using a regression discontinuity design adapted to a pr setting, we examine these possibilities in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies between 1983 and 2011. In line with the consolation prize story, we find that marginal candidates from the Peronist party—which controls most provincial governorships—are more likely to be renominated and serve an additional term in the legislature, but not necessarily to jump to an executive office. The effect is stronger in small provinces.

Enhanced Recommendation System in Community–Question-Answering Websites using Splay-Tree Methodology

In community-driven ranking systems participants with superior scores acquire strong reputation than low scored participants. The community-question-aswering websites, like stackexchange network, participants with unreciprocated or unnoticed questions for a long time get a badge called tumbleweed without taking into account of their earlier period performance. The user-driven question and answering website considers this reward as a consolation prize and discourages them instead of encouraging. Mostly, the users who ask unnoticed questions are either a new or less scored participants. The center of attention of this research work is to propose a recommendation system that prevents unnoticed questions from the participants who are about to receive a tumbleweed badge. A splay-tree is a tree with a self-balancing ability which brings the newly accessed node to the apex of the tree. In this paper, the splay-tree correspond to participants’ ranks and the highlight of the work is to raise average or beneath average scorer to apex without disturbing existing toppers.

Monsters in the Attic: Women’s Rage and the Gothic

Monsters in the Attic: Women’s Rage and the Gothic

New Aphorisms

New Aphorisms Aaron Haspel (bio) Do what you love for a living, and learn to hate it. Love is often cured by acquaintance. A civilized man will sometimes go native; but a native, except under extraordinary duress, will never go civilized. We are regularly informed, by people with talent for a discipline, that nothing is required to master it but effort. The consolation prize for being out of power is unswerving commitment to timeless civic principles. The stupid kids turned out to be not quite as stupid as we thought, and the smart kids nowhere near as smart. The greater good is distant and speculative: the lesser evil required to achieve it is immediate and certain. Capitalism is a daily exercise in getting what you want without knowing what you want. Imbecility, like many infectious diseases, has asymptomatic carriers. Equality is the expression of envy, not the cure: there is no cure. Covers are to judge books by. Ideologies overtly hostile to civilization are among its less fortunate byproducts. [End Page 227] Today we publish all of our thoughts, except the interesting ones. We admire success, and deplore most of the qualities and behavior that produce it. The dots are mostly real, the connections mostly imagined. We rarely absorb ideas; they settle on us, like dust or ash. Written history is mostly war, and the surest way to be remembered is to start one. Secret police at all times and places have been delighted by the size and enthusiasm of their volunteer auxiliaries. Better than nothing is an exacting standard: medicine has met it only recently, and to many prestigious and lucrative occupations it remains a fond hope. A government of laws, not men, requires suitable men. Unable to reach the grapes, we conclude first that they are sour; and later, after meditating deeply, that sweetness is not worth having. Only atheists take the Bible literally. Depth is the desire not to be judged by surface. Language is viscous, it resists: one thinks in words as one swims in water. Genuine error increases with spurious precision. Whatever the fanatic permits himself is a duty: whatever he denies himself is a crime. Those who disagree with us used to be evil, and then they were stupid: now they are ill. Understanding looks, to others, like forgiveness; and forgiveness, to oneself, like understanding. [End Page 228] Man is the only animal that cheats at solitaire. The stupider the idea, the more intelligent you have to be to believe it. Things are so much as they seem that good-looking people really are more virtuous. Progress: n., the gradually increasing belief in the stupidity of one's ancestors. Community college used to be high school with ashtrays, and then that was college, and then they took away the ashtrays. In order that our boys shall not have died in vain, a great many of our boys die in vain. We call ideas pretty when they are false, and ugly when we do not care if they are true. You can't tell a man what he doesn't know he doesn't know. The desire to rule would be impotent without the desire to be ruled. People resent being told what to think, but they scarcely notice being told what to think about. We are asked to be tolerant when we are expected to approve. The feeling that one has narrowly escaped punishment is the sign that it is preparing. Men first lie and cheat for sport, then for trinkets, and finally for great ends, having formed the habit. A suppressed idea mutates into ever more virulent forms, which are then invoked to justify its continued suppression. When we adhere to convention in appearance, we show that we care what others think; and we show that we care deeply when we depart from it. [End Page 229] It is the work of art to conceal art, and of criticism to reveal it again. The two great moral lessons of our time: we must celebrate our differences, and we are all the same. Feelings can be every bit as wrong as thoughts. When one hears that a public figure hates journalists, it may be...

A short solution to the many-player silent duel with arbitrary consolation prize

The classical constant-sum ‘silent duel’ game had two antagonistic marksmen walking towards each other. A more friendly formulation has two equally skilled marksmen approaching targets at which they may silently fire at distances of their own choice. The winner, who gets a unit prize, is the marksman who hits his target at the greatest distance; if both miss, they share the prize (each gets a ‘consolation prize’ of one half). In another formulation, if they both miss they each get zero. More generally we can consider more than two marksmen and an arbitrary consolation prize. This non-constant sum game may be interpreted as a research tournament where the entrant who successfully solves the hardest problem wins the prize. We consider only the ‘symmetric’ case where all players are identical (having the same probability of missing at a given distance), and for this case we give the first complete solution to the many-player problem with arbitrary consolation prize. Moreover our theorem includes both the zero and non-zero-sum cases (by taking particular values for the consolation prize), and has a relatively simple proof.

Personalised recommendation system for ranking in question-answering websites with splay tree by avoiding tumbleweed badge

An efficient and effective way to construct trust relationship among peer users in electronic learning environment is ranking. User-driven ranking systems are based only on the feedback or ratings provided by the users. Users with higher points obtain high reputation compared to less scored users. In popular question-answering websites, like stack exchange network sites, users with unanswered or ignored questions for a long time get a tumbleweed badge without considering their past history. The question-answering website community considers this award as a consolation prize and discourages the awardees instead of encouraging them. Most of the people who ask Tumbleweed questions are new or low-reputation users. The focus of this research work is to design a recommendation system that prevent tumbleweed questions from the users who are about to receive a tumbleweed badge. A splay tree is a binary search tree with a self-balancing skill which brings the recently accessed item to the top of the tree. In this paper, the splay tree represents users' ranks with methods to avoid tumbleweed badge. The spotlight of the work is to bring up average or below average scorer to top without affecting existing topers.