Dual Interest Research Articles

Targeted monetary policy, dual rates, and bank risk-taking

We assess whether dual interest rates – central bank funding at rates below the interest rates on reserves – influence the size and composition of bank credit. We measure exposure to the policy using daily reactions of bank funding costs to the announcement of the recalibration of the ECB’s TLTROs in April 2020. We then use the Euro area credit register to follow the evolution of bank lending conditions and risk-taking. We find that the measure had a strong positive effect on bank credit and, in contrast to a standard rate cut, was not accompanied by an increase in risk-taking.

Higher dimensional sports statistics and real-time game prediction

The rapid expansion of comprehensive sports datasets and the successful application of data mining techniques in various domains have given rise to the emergence of sports data prediction techniques. These techniques enable the extraction of hidden knowledge that can significantly impact the sports industry, as more and more clubs are using Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) methods to manage athletes and training. In this research, the focusing and intriguing aspects is predicting the outcomes of a specific basketball athletes, which has garnered significant attention for research. The paper was motivated by a dual interest in college and NBA basketball matches, alongside a keen observation of the evolving strategies employed by coaches in athlete management. Additionally, the interest was further reinforced by firsthand observations of such evolving methods during a baseball game at City Field in New York. These factors collectively underpin the relevance and significance of this research endeavor, highlighting the intersection of personal interest and the evolving landscape of sports management as compelling reasons for its pursuit. In the process of data selection, we acquired data from previously published essays as well as from Kaggle, a reputable online platform. Following this, we proceeded to evaluate several prominent machine learning models, namely Linear Regression, KNN, Gradient Boosting, Elastic Net, and Lasso, to ascertain their effectiveness in predicting the performance of specific players. Through rigorous analysis and comparison, we concluded that Linear Regression and Gradient Boosting exhibited superior predictive capabilities compared to the other models considered. These two models demonstrated a higher degree of accuracy and reliability in forecasting player performance, thus establishing them as the most suitable choices for our predictive modeling purposes. This meticulous selection process, involving both data acquisition and model evaluation, forms the foundation of our research methodology and underscores the rigor and precision with which our conclusions are drawn.

Green transition and financial stability: The role of green monetary and macroprudential policies and vouchers

This paper analyzes a mix of alternative policies in supporting the green transition and the phase-out of fossil fuels, without compromising financial stability. An environmental dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (E-DSGE) model with two sectors (green and brown) and endogenous default is developed to assess potential climate-induced financial stability threats that can be mainly generated through physical and transition risks mechanism. Those risks are evaluated through a compound capital depreciation shock and a carbon tax shock. The paper offers several findings. First of all, a too stringent carbon tax would increase the medium-term default rate in both sectors, harming financial stability due to potentially detrimental effects on banks’ balance sheet. Second, there exists a trade-off in implementing green monetary or macroprudential policies: if a policy can encourage the green transition, financial stability is compromised due to a rise in default rates. In contrast, if a policy aims to reduce vulnerabilities and financial stability risks, then the phase-out of the polluting sector to foster the green sector would be hard to achieve. The model finds that under certain physical and transition risks, a dual interest rate policy, coupled with a fiscal policy in which carbon tax revenues are redistributed to households as vouchers to encourage the consumption of green goods, is able to support the green transition and safeguard financial stability. Therefore, top-down and bottom-up approaches are the keys for sustainability in the whole economy and financial system.

MATEO: intermolecular α-amidoalkylation theoretical enantioselectivity optimization. Online tool for selection and design of chiral catalysts and products.

The enantioselective Brønsted acid-catalyzed α-amidoalkylation reaction is a useful procedure is for the production of new drugs and natural products. In this context, Chiral Phosphoric Acid (CPA) catalysts are versatile catalysts for this type of reactions. The selection and design of new CPA catalysts for different enantioselective reactions has a dual interest because new CPA catalysts (tools) and chiral drugs or materials (products) can be obtained. However, this process is difficult and time consuming if approached from an experimental trial and error perspective. In this work, an Heuristic Perturbation-Theory and Machine Learning (HPTML) algorithm was used to seek a predictive model for CPA catalysts performance in terms of enantioselectivity in α-amidoalkylation reactions with R2 = 0.96 overall for training and validation series. It involved a Monte Carlo sampling of > 100,000 pairs of query and reference reactions. In addition, the computational and experimental investigation of a new set of intermolecular α-amidoalkylation reactions using BINOL-derived N-triflylphosphoramides as CPA catalysts is reported as a case of study. The model was implemented in a web server called MATEO: InterMolecular Amidoalkylation Theoretical Enantioselectivity Optimization, available online at: https://cptmltool.rnasa-imedir.com/CPTMLTools-Web/mateo . This new user-friendly online computational tool would enable sustainable optimization of reaction conditions that could lead to the design of new CPA catalysts along with new organic synthesis products.

Activated carbons from open air and microwave-assisted impregnation of cotton and neem husks efficiently decolorize neutral cotton oil

The decolorization of cottonseed oil with activated carbons (ACs) from neem and cotton husks has a dual interest: elimination of undesirable pigments in oil and valorization of the husks; by-products of neem and cottonseed processing, which would otherwise be dumped along riverbanks and farms causing environmental pollution. ACs were produced from neem and cottonseed husks after acid impregnation assisted by microwave heating and in ambient air for the decolorization of neutral cottonseed oil. The experimental data were analyzed by the intraparticle diffusion and the pseudo-second-order kinetic models as well as the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. The method of impregnation and carbonization time had dramatic effects on the specific surface area (800–1500 g/m2), the quantity of burn-off (50–70 %), and methylene blue index (300–5000 mg/g) values which indicated the potential of the prepared activated carbons in the bleaching of vegetable oil and in other applications such as environmental clean-up and in agriculture. Pigment adsorption increased with temperature for all ACs indicating that the decolorization process was endothermic. The quantity of adsorbent equally had a significant effect on the pigment adsorption process for all ACs. All the activated carbons prepared in this work were 30–80 % more efficient in pigment adsorption than bleaching earth that is normally used in decolorizing neutral cotton seed oil in industries. All tested models are adequate to describe pigment adsorption by the ACs. Both methods of preparation of ACs were effective for oil decolorization, but microwave impregnation is more appealing because it requires only 1 h compared to 6 h for ambient air. Optimum decolorization conditions were 90 °C for 40min and adsorbent concentration of 2 %.

Towards Dual Interest Theory in Metaeconomics

The purpose of this article is to expand the economic discourse beyond single interest as the dominant analytical foundation of microeconomics towards dual interest and metaeconomics. Metaeconomics is based on the reality of joint and non-separable self and other-interest arising because of non-allocable goods and non-allocable inputs. Non-allocable goods are explained by the internal tendencies in the mind to a more primal ego-based self-interest tempered by an empathy-based other (shared with the other, while internalised within the own-self-interest). Non-allocable inputs giving joint products and dual interest in the outcomes are explained by thermodynamics: production is internal to and non-separable from the natural system on the Spaceship Earth. Dual Interest Theory (DIT) assumes that self-interest is accompanied by empathy-based other-interest and that individuals tend to balance both interests in their decisions and behaviour. Several empirical tests of DIT demonstrated its advantages in explaining the observed behavioural outcomes as compared to the consideration of self-interest alone. DIT is also more powerful in explaining many other social phenomena than if one relies on the single/self-interest assumption of microeconomics alone. JEL Codes: A20, D11, D21, D62, D64, H41

Feeding Infants: Choice-Specific Considerations, Parental Obligation, and Pragmatic Satisficing

Health institutions recommend that young infants be exclusively breastfed on demand, and it is widely held that parents who can breastfeed have an obligation to do so. This has been challenged in recent philosophical work, especially by Fiona Woollard. Woollard’s work critically engages with two distinct views of parental obligation that might ground such an obligation—based on maximal benefit and avoidance of significant harm—to reject an obligation to breastfeed. While agreeing with Woollard’s substantive conclusion, this paper (drawing on philosophical discussion of the ‘right to rear’) argues that there are several more moderate views of parental obligation which might also be thought to ground parental obligation. We first show that an obligation to breastfeed might result not from a general obligation to maximally benefit one’s child, but from what we call ‘choice-specific’ obligations to maximise benefit within particular activities. We then develop this idea through two views of parental obligation—the Dual Interest view, and the Best Custodian view—to ground an obligation to exclusively breastfeed on demand, before showing how both these more moderate views fail. Finally, we argue that not only is there no general obligation to breastfeed children, but that it is often morally right not to do so. Since much advice from health institutions on this issue implies that exclusive breastfeeding on demand is the best option for all families, our argument drives the feeding debate forward by showing that this advice often misrepresents parents’ moral obligations in potentially harmful ways.

Effectiveness of the use of nanofluids in concentrated solar power plants – Electrical and environmental assessment

Nanofluids are reported in the literature as advanced heat transfer fluids that improve significantly the thermo-physical properties of base fluids and, thus, enhance the performance of the solar systems. However, despite their great potential to improve the thermal and rheological properties when combined with a base fluid, it has been proven in this paper that they have a major limit that makes their integration in commercial scale CSP plants questionable. Indeed, based on various numerical simulations of three different nanofluids (MgO-VP1, Al2O3-VP1, Fe2O3-VP1), the results have revealed that when the base fluid (Therminol VP1) is doped with a certain volume fraction of nanoparticles, its circulation through the CSP’s canalization becomes more energy-intensive. Accordingly, the pumps’ electrical energy consumption increased proportionally with the nanoparticles’ concentration ratio. Consequently, when the nanofluids are used, the net energy production of the studied CSP plant (Noor I, Morocco) decreases compared to the reference case when the base fluid is used. From an environmental point of view, the use of nanofluids in CSP plants aggravates the negative environmental impact by increasing the GHG emissions related to the pumps’ operating process during the life cycle of the CSP plant. Thus, this article has a dual interest; on the one hand, it confirms the benefits of nanofluids on a thermo-physical level and, on the other hand, it highlights their major limitation from an energetic and environmental point of view, when used in CSP plants.

The Origin and Character of God: Ancient Israelite Religion through the Lens of Divinity, Yahweh before Israel: Glimpses of History in a Divine Name and Yahweh: Origin of a Desert God

The Origin and Character of God: Ancient Israelite Religion through the Lens of Divinity, Yahweh before Israel: Glimpses of History in a Divine Name and Yahweh: Origin of a Desert God

Semiconducting Soft Submicron Particles from the Microwave-Driven Polymerization of Diaminomaleonitrile.

The polymers based on diaminomaleonitrile (DAMN polymers) are a special group within an extensive set of complex substances, namely HCN polymers (DAMN is the formal tetramer of the HCN), which currently present a growing interest in materials science. Recently, the thermal polymerizability of DAMN has been reported, both in an aqueous medium and in bulk, offering the potential for the development of capacitors and biosensors, respectively. In the present work, the polymerization of this plausible prebiotic molecule has been hydrothermally explored using microwave radiation (MWR) via the heating of aqueous DAMN suspensions at 170–190 °C. In this way, polymeric submicron particles derived from DAMN were obtained for the first time. The structural, thermal decomposition, and electrochemical properties were also deeply evaluated. The redox behavior was characterized from DMSO solutions of these highly conjugated macromolecular systems and their potential as semiconductors was described. As a result, new semiconducting polymeric submicron particles were synthetized using a very fast, easy, highly robust, and green-solvent process. These results show a new example of the great potential of the polymerization assisted by MWR associated with the HCN-derived polymers, which has a dual interest both in chemical evolution and as functional materials.

Fluctuations of magnetic inclination and declination in Mexico during the last three millennia

Revealing the evolution of the past geomagnetic field is of dual interest. It is crucial to estimate the conditions of the Earth's deep interiors, while it offers a reliable absolute dating tool of burned archaeological artifacts. Although a substantial effort was paid during the last decade to construct a reference archaeomagnetic curve for Mesoamerica, mostly absolute intensity variations are revealed for the previous three millennia. Here, we report an updated directional (inclination and declination) reference secular variation curve based on volcanic lava flows and archaeological artifacts carrying full thermoremanent magnetization. A bootstrap method with penalized cubic b-splines was used to develop the directional curve. Relocation error exercise and strict selection criteria allowed to use 82 well-defined palaeodirections. Both data distribution density and the firm relationship between the ages and samples, ensure the reliability of the curve for the dating purposes. The combination of directional data with available intensity variation highlights some sudden geomagnetic field fluctuations.

Review: Neoclásicos: Edgar Negret y Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar entre París, Nueva York y Bogotá, 1944–1964, by Ana M. Franco

Review: <i>Neoclásicos: Edgar Negret y Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar entre París, Nueva York y Bogotá, 1944–1964</i>, by Ana M. Franco

Feminist and Materialist Philosophies of History in Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls

The first act of Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls does away with temporal boundaries, inviting women across historical periods, artistic masterworks, and literary epics to a dinner party. During the evening, the women share their life stories, interrupt each other, and attempt to be heard over the roar of their fellow guests. In some ways, it resembles an indecipherable oral history. What is history if not indecipherable? It is the role of the historian to wade through primary and secondary sources, cultural memories and forgotten artifacts, in order to construct a written, visual, or auditory historical narrative. Thus, a history as we consume it, although based in fact, necessarily relies on narrative structure. Top Girls reminds us that history is like any other narrative: shaped by social, political, and economic forces; made unintelligible, fantastical, and surreal at times, by representative modes and their failings. By playing with the notion of history, notably combining fictional and historical figures in the first act, Top Girls emphasizes the claim that history is, among other things, reliant on both factual and fictional elements, like concrete dates and narrative structures. Top Girls narrows in on two models of historical narratives: the feminist history and materialist history. In this play, there are only women onstage. Women picture, or reference, the men in their past and present—an alcoholic father, a lousy ex-husband, an insecure coworker, Rocky Mountain Jim, and the Emperor of Japan—but a man never sets foot on stage. Only women enter and exit, only women go to and from work, only women tell their histories, signaling Churchill’s dual interest in a Marxist philosophy of history and the notion of a feminist history, which emerged in the feminist movement in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Through the dramatic form, which provides a fantastical element, Churchill animates and complicates history as a feminist and socialist practice.

The outcomes of directionality: Towards a morphology of sociotechnical systems

The sustainability transitions literature departs from the idea that grand challenges such as climate change and rising inequality call for far-reaching changes in sociotechnical systems of production and consumption. This implies a dual interest in the directionality of innovation; some directions of change can be perceived as more desirable, while others may be more plausible due to the path dependent nature of sociotechnical change. The specific characteristics of the potential outcomes of directionality have, however, received little attention. Our aim is therefore to unpack and conceptualize the multidimensional space in which sociotechnical systems may adopt different shapes and configurations. We also provide three illustrative empirical examples where directionality has resulted in systems with different technical, social and spatial characteristics. The ideas put forward in this paper can be seen as a contribution to a morphology of sociotechnical systems and thereby support efforts to investigate or promote specific directions of change.

A Small Town’s Quest for Modernity in the Shadow of the Big City : The Case of Senj and Fiume

Most of the theories concerning modernization and a number of trends in the historiography treat the big city as the most important arena of modernization, an arena which, thanks to our grasp of an array of social and economic transformations, can be made the ideal subject of studies on the processes and consequences of modernization. From this perspective, the small town becomes a kind of abstraction for backwardness, failed attempts to catch up, or a community that simply has remained unaffected by modernization. Thus, the study of the dynamics of modernization in smaller urban settlements from a new perspective which attributes genuine agency to them may well offer new findings and insights. In the historiography concerning the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the recent imperial turn has shown a perfectly natural interest in the peripheries of the empire, as it has striven to untangle the intertwining strands of local, regional, national, and imperial loyalties found there. The research on which this article is based, which focuses on Senj (Zengg), a small seaside Croatian city, is shaped by this dual interest. Senj’s resistance and adaptation to top-down initiatives of modernization can be captured through its conflict with the city of Fiume (today Rijeka, Croatia), which is not far from Senj and which before World War I belonged to Hungary. In this story, Fiume represents the “mainstream” manner of big-city modernization: it became the tenth most active port city in Europe over the course of a few decades. The area surrounding the city, however, was not able to keep up with this rapid pace of development. In this article, I present the distinctive program for modernization adopted by the elites of Senj, as well as their critique of modernization. Furthermore, the history of the city towards the end of the nineteenth century sheds light on the interdependencies among the cities of Austria–Hungary, interdependencies which were independent of legal or administrative borders. By analyzing relations between Senj and Fiume, I seek to offer a nuanced interpretation of the conflict between the two cities, which tends to be portrayed simply as a consequence of national antagonisms.

Cultural research according to ukrainian culture history of 19th century in Mykhailo Hrushevsky heritage

Purpose of the Article. The scientific heritage of Mykhailo Hrushevsky occupies an important place in Ukrainian history science, especially in the learning of the cultural science of Ukrainian people. However, long time his activity and work were silent because it didn't fit the framework of prevailing Russian concentric ideology. The investigation goal is Mykhailo Hrushevsky's vision of history according to its Ukrainian culture development in the nineteenth century, expressed by him in popular scientific and journalistic works. The time frames of the named publication coincide with the period of the Ukrainian national revival at the end of eighteenth the beginning of the twentieth century. Methodology. The selection of the material was based on common scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, comparison, and generalization; methods of comprehensiveness, objectivity, and retrospect were used precisely to examine respondents' level of dual interest in learning. Scientific novelty. According to Mykhailo Hrushevsky’s point of view, a long time the first stage of the Ukrainian national cultural movement was the literature. The especially great influence had a prohibition of the Ukrainian language in Russian empire and revolutionary events in Western Ukraine in 1848. At the beginning of twentieth century in Ukraine appeared a growth of Ukrainian culture everywhere in its territory. Conclusions. Great importance he paid to the processes of national-cultural revival in the second part of the nineteenth, the beginning of twentieth centuries because he was the immediate participant of it.

John Calvin and Virtue Ethics

AbstractMany scholars have argued that the Protestant Reformation generally departed from virtue ethics, and this claim is often accepted by Protestant ethicists. This essay argues against such discontinuity by demonstrating John Calvin’s reception of ethical concepts from Augustine and Aristotle. Calvin drew on Augustine’s concept of eudaimonia and many aspects of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, including concepts of choice, habit, virtue as a mean, and the specific virtues of justice and prudence. Calvin also evaluated the problem of pagan virtue in light of traditional Augustinian texts discussed in the medieval period. He interpreted the Decalogue as teaching virtue, including the cardinal virtues of justice and temperance. Calvin was not the harbinger of an entirely new ethical paradigm, but rather a participant in the mainstream of Christian thinkers who maintained a dual interest in Aristotelian and Augustinian eudaimonist virtue ethics.

The inhabitants' dual interest preferences and their impact on pro-environmental behavior in China.

The land use changes and farmers' unreasonable land use behaviors continue to threaten China's agricultural land, exacerbating the impact of pollution. The factors that persuade farm households to perform pro-environmental actions are preliminary efforts to strengthen environmental protection. The current study aims to better understand how the dual interest preferences of rural households are interrelated and influence their environmental behavior. A structured questionnaire was employed to collect the primary data from 4 provinces in China to develop new methods to measure the dual interest preferences of farmers and to study their impact on pro-environmental behaviors. The structural equation model (SEM) in Stata14 was used to analyze the relationship between latent and observed variables and to understand their impact on farmers' environmental behavior. The results showed that all the observed variables have the expected signs and have a significant relationship with their latent variables. With the coefficients of 0.76, 0.88, and 0.64, the underlying variables related to the households' dual interest preferences are statistically significantly correlated. The coefficient 0.34 of the latent variable ensures a direct and significant impact on farm households' pro-environmental behavior, suggesting that non-uniformity preferences or conflicts exist between the short- and long-term economic interests. Similarly, a positive and significant coefficient of 0.28 suggests the non-uniformity of preferences in short-term economic and social interests. All the fitness indices ensured that our model fits well. To improve the environment and land quality, the current research has policy implications for the adoption of environment-friendly pesticide and organic fertilizers.

The impact of prenatal environment on postnatal life and performance: Future perspectives for prevention and treatment

The present review aims to offer a non-comprehensive outline of the current state-of-the-art and future perspectives on management and therapeutic tools for intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and associated prenatal programming in both human and animal species. Animals are used as models for the study of phenomena related to IUGR, but also for research on prenatal therapies with the main objective of designing and developing preventive and therapeutic strategies. The research is currently paying attention on maternal-focused pharmacological treatments and nutritional strategies but also on fetal-focused treatments. Fetal-focused treatments, administered either directly at the fetus or by using infusion of umbilical cord, amniotic sac or placenta, which avoids the administration of substances at high doses to the mother for allowing their availability at the fetoplacental level. The results obtained in this area of research using large animals (rabbits, pigs and ruminants) have a dual interest, for translational biomedicine and for veterinary medicine and animal production.

Engaging the Ottoman Empire: Vexed Mediations, 1690–1815 by Daniel O'Quinn

Reviewed by: Engaging the Ottoman Empire: Vexed Mediations, 1690–1815 by Daniel O'Quinn Julia Landweber Daniel O'Quinn, Engaging the Ottoman Empire: Vexed Mediations, 1690–1815 (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2019). Pp. 552; 29 color, 10 b/w illus. $75.00 cloth. Engaging the Ottoman Empire: Vexed Mediations, 1690–1815 spans the fields of history, literature, and art history, while also putting the varied cultural [End Page 712] experiences of Dutch, British, French (and to a lesser degree, Ottoman) perspectives in dialogue, to assess the question of what the Ottoman Empire meant conceptually to Western Europeans across the long eighteenth century. O'Quinn proposes that in the process of grappling with the question of how to represent Ottoman culture and politics, certain European powers "found themselves examining the ways and means in which they represented themselves"—which in turn helped frame their emerging senses of national identity (4). This is not a new question, but by bringing together all these fields of inquiry, O'Quinn marshals a more nuanced response than those of many who have explored this subject area before him. His particular innovation is the creative decision to approach European engagement with the Ottoman Empire through the concept of "mediation," which he deploys doubly: on one hand, he explores the role of ambassadors as diplomatic mediators; on the other, he examines the many uses of media to represent these and other intercultural communications to the public, as was transmitted via circulated letters, printed news, published books, and the visual arts (39). There is a venerable tradition of scholars following these paths separately. The records and experiences of diplomats, and the language of diplomatic communication, have been recognized as a key entry point for studying European-Ottoman relations dating back at a minimum to the nineteenth-century work of Albert Vandal. In the early twentieth century, art historian Auguste Boppe launched the study of Europeans who painted Ottoman or Turkish subjects, and Pierre Martino did the same for Eastern themes in Western literature—making Boppe and Martino pioneer interrogators of the practices and attitudes in art and literature that later came to be considered under the heading of "Orientalism."1 Recently there has been a strong resurgence of interest in the subject of European-Ottoman relations, but for the most part military/political historians and cultural-studies scholars still follow those separate paths of inquiry laid out long ago by Vandal, Boppe, and Martino. O'Quinn does us a great service by uniting all these strands within a single compelling study. Engaging the Ottoman Empire is divided topically and chronologically into two sections of four chapters each. Part I, "After Peace," covers the period 1690–1734, an era marked at the beginning by the Ottomans' last attempt to expand their empire westward, and marked at the end by the Patrona Halil rebellion, which badly shook up the imperial Ottoman government. In keeping with O'Quinn's dual interest in diplomatic mediators and cultural mediation, Part I focuses on the long aftermath of the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699). This peace treaty concluded the War of the Holy Roman League that had pitted the Ottoman Empire against the combined forces of Habsburg Austria, Russia, Poland, and Venice; it has traditionally—if wrongly, argues O'Quinn—been understood to be the beginning of the end for the Ottoman Empire (40). Chapter 1 focuses on words and imagery generated by the process of making peace. O'Quinn produces a remarkable close reading of the choreography for mediating the peace that British ambassador Lord William Paget and Dutch ambassador Jacobus Colyer worked out with their Ottoman counterparts, minister of foreign affairs Rami Mehmed Efendi and the sultan's dragoman (translator) Alexander Mavrocordato, in a house custom-built for this purpose along the frontier between Ottoman and Habsburg lands. This structure was literally a "theater of peace," in which each side intended the other to perform deference or reverence to their opponents, while presenting themselves as the victors, in an effort to achieve a détente (51). The rest of Part I analyzes the works of two Europeans, Franco-Flemish painter Jean-Baptiste Vanmour and English author Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who were...