Equal Share Research Articles

The unlimited joy, ‘once you start you can’t stop’: masculinity in domestic technology commercials in Turkey

Recently, studies have begun examining men’s interaction with domestic space to explore changing forms of masculinity and domesticity, arguing that housework has become a leisure activity for men, with domestic technologies serving as tools (toys) for them to engage with. In this article, we explore how men in Turkish television commercials of domestic technologies are portrayed and how these portrayals construct and reconstruct discourses of domesticity and masculinity. We aim to understand men’s relationship with masculinity, home and domestic work in these commercials. Alongside leisure and fun, we explore the construction of discourses of masculinity and domesticity through specific themes such as the naughty scientist, the self-seeking purchaser, and the flirtatious chef. We argue that seeing more men on screen does not democratise domesticity since the equal share of workload at home is still far from being realised even in these portrayals. We also argue that domesticity is aestheticized with the participation of men and technology. Finally, women are used as instruments by men in reconstructing their masculinity through heterosexuality.

A Kantian Justification of Fair Shares: Climate Ethics and Imperfect Duties

ABSTRACT The debate surrounding individual climate duties is divided between collectivists and unilateralists. The fair shares argument is the most influential unilateralist position. In this paper, I demonstrate how a Kantian approach could solve three problems the fair share argument faces. Firstly, the Kantian focus on an agent’s will avoids skepticism regarding the causal connections between individual actions and climate effects. Secondly, a Kantian argument for the imperfect duty to minimally restrict our emissions to an equal share justifies egalitarian fair shares. Thirdly, a Kantian ethical approach has direct political implications, taking away concerns about a distracting focus on individual efforts.

Failure intervention of transmission line tower primary legs using bi-angled cruciform retrofitting

Retrofitting has been suggested by researchers as an intervention measure against failure of transmission towers which needs to be done with minimal disruption. Retrofitting of the primary leg members of transmission line towers by bi-angled cruciform arrangement has been shown in literature to be effective. However, the influence of stresses and deformations existing in the leg member prior to retrofitting on the capacity of the final retrofitted member is not known. Therefore, this study assesses the effectiveness of bi-angled cruciform sections under preload conditions through experiment followed by a numerical study. The level of preload in the primary leg member with respect to its theoretical capacity, slenderness ratio and width-thickness ratio of the angle section were the parameters. The results suggest that bi-angled cruciform retrofit is more effective at lower slenderness and width-thickness ratios and the reduction in capacity of retrofitted member is more noticeable till 50 % preload after which the changes are not significant. While the former two parameters lead to lower load share in the retrofitting member, higher preloads however lead to more equal load share. The application of this retrofitting pattern is demonstrated numerically with a full-scale tower model simulated under code specified load cases. Critical load cases leading to tower failure before design loads were identified and the retrofitting was incorporated into the model for these load cases. The analysis showed that the final loads attained in these load cases improved by upto 70 % thus confirming the potential of this retrofitting technique in preventing tower failure.

Responsibility and Solidarity Principles in Sharing the Costs of Cleaning a Polluted River

To clean a polluted river, some agents must undertake operations that incur costs. The problem is to determine a fair method to share these expenses among agents. We consider the established methods of Local Responsibility Sharing and Upstream Equal Sharing, based on the responsibility principles of Absolute Territorial Sovereignty and Unlimited Territorial Integrity, respectively. We combine these with Total Solidarity, a method based on a solidarity principle. This yields new cost-sharing methods, which we characterize axiomatically.

Gender Disparities Regarding Food Consumption and Food Insecurity among Rural Women: Status & Causes

The study was designed to assess the status of food intake and the gender inequalities regarding food consumption among rural women in the Okara district, Punjab, Pakistan. This cross-sectional study used a sequential explanatory research design (Quantitative, Qualitative). The sample for this study was 390 respondents, and a multistage sampling technique was used to collect data from the respondents. The data was collected through a household survey using a well-structured questionnaire for quantitative data and in-depth interviews conducted for qualitative data. The findings revealed that more or less 43% of respondents agreed that males dominate in the families receiving a larger and better share of food, whereas females do not get an equal share in food. Moreover, 56% of respondents said that sons were preferred over daughters for food consumption. About 62.2% said that, in their opinion, young females face health issues due to poor quality of food consumption. This study concluded that gender inequalities and household income are significant factors that affect the food consumption of rural women. There is a dire need to initiate an awareness campaign among rural households regarding nutritious food intake and to reduce gender-based inequalities.

Estimating the income-related inequality aversion to energy limiting behavior in the United States

Distributive energy justice is measured by the degree to which, and whether, different members of society have equal share in the benefits and burdens of the energy system. One way to achieve distributional energy justice is to ensure all households, regardless of income, can use as much energy as they need to heat and cool their home to desired temperature. We define a household's cooling balance point (CBP) as the ideal set temperature at which the household desires to keep its living space in summer; the heating balance point (HBP) is defined as the ideal set temperature in winter. To quantify the extent to which balance points were disproportionately concentrated among certain income groups, we used the extended concentration index. This index has an inequality aversion parameter that reflects the value judgment of a society. If this parameter <1, the society is pro-rich; if this parameter >1, as it increases, the society becomes more pro-poor. We estimated the empirical value of the income-related inequality aversion in eight U.S. states and examined several effects of demographic characteristics on inequality aversion.In an online survey, 1066 (from four southern states) and 906 (from four Midwest states) participants made choices between energy policies leading to different distributions of CBP (southern) or HBP (Midwest) across five income groups in a hypothetical society. Participants showed a pro-poor propensity: the median inequality aversions were 1.37, 95% CI of [1.35, 1.39] (CBP) and 1.56, 95% CI of [1.56, 1.60] (HBP). For both CBP and HBP: younger participants were less averse to inequality. For CBP, blacks (vs. whites) and conservatives (vs. centrist) were less averse to inequality; for HBP, Hispanics (vs. whites), low (vs. high) education participants, and those whose homes were well insulated (vs. adequately and vs. poorly insulated) were less averse to inequality. Our findings provide insights into how the broader public values energy justice, which further provides important policymaking implications.

Enhancing social enterprise coffee marketability through sensory packaging: consumer impressions, willingness to buy, and gender differences

PurposeThis study investigates how consumers perceive the packaging of Philippine coffee social enterprise products and how this impression affects their willingness to purchase based on sensory expectations, brand attitude, product quality perception, and price perception.Design/methodology/approachFollowing a positivist research philosophy, this study used empirical methods, surveying 263 coffee consumers. The coffee packaging prototypes varied across material and graphic designs. The data was analyzed statistically using the Friedman test and Spearman correlation.FindingsIt was found that packaging elements elicit an equal share of emotional responses. Graphics have a greater impact than materials. Females are more affected by visuals, while materials influence males more. Further, packaging design correlates positively and significantly with consumer impressions and willingness to buy.Research limitations/implicationsThe sampling methodology limits generalizability. Future studies can use integrated models to analyze the effects of additional packaging variables like color and shape.Practical implicationsCoffee enterprises should focus on graphic rather than material elements. Paper packs with patterned graphics are most attractive to consumers. Targeted gender-sensitive packaging designs are needed. Standardized packaging can help build the Philippine coffee social enterprise industry and support small-scale farmer livelihoods. Environmentally sustainable materials should be prioritized.Social implicationsThe findings contribute to the success and growth of small-scale farmers and social enterprises in the Philippines. These businesses can attract more consumers, increase their market share, and ultimately generate more significant social impact by implementing packaging design strategies that effectively communicate product quality, sustainability, and social value.Originality/valueThe study uniquely integrates diverse methods to provide holistic insights into jointly analyzing the effects of packaging materials and graphics. It proposes an expanded conceptual role of packaging in shaping product perceptions using the affective response framework and Kansei approach.

Microbial influencers and cotton leaf curl disease (CLCuD) susceptibility: a network perspective.

Biotic stresses, such as plant viruses, e.g., cotton leaf curl virus (CLCuV), can alter root-associated and leaf-associated microbial diversities in plants. There are complex ecological dynamics at play, with each microbe contributing to a multitude of biotic and abiotic interactions, thus deciding the stability of the plant's ecosystem in response to the disease. Deciphering these networks of interactions is a challenging task. The inferential research in microbiome is also at a nascent stage, often constrained by the underlying analytical assumptions and the limitations with respect to the depth of sequencing. There is also no real consensus on network-wide statistics to identify the influential microbial players in a network. Guided by the latest developments in network science, including recently published metrics such as Integrated View of Influence (IVI) and some other centrality measures, this study provides an exposé of the most influential nodes in the rhizospheric and phyllospheric microbial networks of the cotton leaf curl disease (CLCuD) susceptible, partially tolerant, and resistant cotton varieties. It is evident from our results that the CLCuD-resistant Gossypium arboreum possesses an equal share of keystone species, which helps it to withstand ecological pressures. In the resistant variety, the phyllosphere harbors the most influential nodes, whereas in the susceptible variety, they are present in the rhizosphere. Based on hubness score, spreading score, and IVI, the top 10 occurring keystone species in the FDH-228 (resistant) variety include Actinokineospora, Cohnella, Thermobacillus, Clostridium, Desulfofarcimen, and MDD-D21. Elusimicrobia, Clostridium-sensu-stricto_12, Candidatus woesebacteria, and Dyella were identified as the most influential nodes in the PFV-1 (partially tolerant) variety. In the PFV-2 (susceptible) variety, the keystone species were identified as Georginia, Nesterenkonia, Elusimicrobia MVP-88, Acetivibrio, Tepedisphaerales, Chelatococcus, Nitrosospira, and RCP2-54. This concept deciphers the diseased and healthy plant's response to viral disease, which may be microbially mediated.

SISTEM PEMBAGIAN WARISAN BAGI RATA: UPAYA MENGHINDARI PERSELISIHAN ANTAR KELUARGA DALAM PERSPEKTIF HUKUM ISLAM DAN HUKUM ADAT

This study aims to examine the system of equal distribution in the distribution of inheritance applied by the community to avoid disputes between families, with a focus on customary law and Islamic law. This study uses a qualitative approach to deeply understand the practice of inheritance distribution in society, as well as how customary law and Islamic law are applied in this context. The location of the study is the Muslim community of Aek Marian. The subjects of the study include the head of the family or family members who have been involved in the inheritance distribution process. Data is collected through various techniques to ensure the richness of information and accuracy of research results. The result was the division of inheritance implemented in Aek Marian with a 'equal share' system. There is no distinction between male and female heirs. Boys should get twice the share of girls (An-Nisa: 11). Meanwhile, Article 176 of the KHI explains that boys get twice the share of girls. The equal distribution of inheritance from the perspective of Islamic Law and KHI is not in accordance with the principles set forth in the Qur'an and Hadith. Although this practice occurs due to the influence of customs or family agreements. It is important to consider the legal and social impacts and find solutions that are in line with the sharia to ensure justice and compliance with Islamic law. The distribution of inheritance in equal distribution is not in accordance with the provisions of Faraid and KHI, which has legal impacts and implications in the future.

Juridical Study of Inheritance Rights for Children of Foreign Citizens who Become Heirs of the Inheritance of Indonesian Citizenship Heirs in the Form of Land Rights

The issue of citizenship is an important issue, especially when it relates to the inheritance rights of people who have changed citizenship to become foreigners. This research aims to examine the legal rules for inheritance rights for children with foreign citizenship who become heirs to the inheritance of Indonesian citizen heirs in the form of land rights, as well as the legal implications of inheritance rights for heirs with foreign citizenship. The legal research method uses doctrinal research methods with statutory regulations and legal writings as legal material. Data analysis uses qualitative. The results of this research are: first, inheritance law in Indonesia in principle regulates that all heirs are entitled to an equal share of inheritance, without distinguishing between the gender or nationality of the heirs, but rather based on blood and marriage relations. So even though the heir is a foreign citizen (WNA), the heir still has the right to receive an inheritance from an heir who is an Indonesian citizen (WNI). However, if the heir's inheritance is in the form of land rights with ownership rights linked to the principle of nationality, then based on Article 21 paragraph (3) UUPA, foreigners who obtain rights to land with ownership rights due to inheritance are required to release these rights to other parties in a period of 1 (one) year, otherwise the right to the land will be forfeited and transferred to the State. Second, the legal implications for inheritance rights for heirs who are foreign citizens if the heir's inheritance is in the form of land rights, that is, if the land rights have the status of Ownership Rights, then the heirs are still entitled to their inheritance rights, but because foreigners cannot have rights property, heirs who are foreign citizens must reduce their rights to land certificates in accordance with the UUPA, namely to use rights, or sell the land so that they get cash from the sale in order to continue receiving their rights as heirs.

Value chain analysis of Eucalyptus poles in around Bahir Dar, Northwestern Ethiopia

Value chain development is critical for ensuring the benefits of rapidly evolving plantation forests, such as Eucalyptus. This study examines the value chain of Eucalyptus poles, focusing on the investigation of actors and their roles, the benefit margin and value added to each actor, as well as the potential opportunities and challenges. A total of 194 (157 tree growers and 37 other actors) were selected using a multistage purposive random sampling technique. The study used value chain analysis and gross margin to explore Eucalyptus pole marketing lines, their functions, and estimate cost and value-added distributions. The results revealed direct actors, including tree growers, workers, traders, transporters, and exporting agents, and indirect actors (government, brokers, service providers, etc.). Around 18 Eucalyptus pole marketing lines were identified, with 80 % of the poles transacted in the major three lines. The Eucalyptus pole business is profitable for all involved. But not all have received an equal share of the benefits along the chain. Tree growers generated the highest value in the shortest lines, and traders reaped the highest benefit from the longer chain. Traders captured the highest percentage of the domestic price, while tree producers captured the least. A lack of access to market information, storage space, government and NGO support, inter-actor cooperation, the external effects of Eucalyptus, and the absence of land segregation have hampered the sector's development. Policy interventions should prioritize cluster planting, storage space provision, and cooperative creations to enhance community livelihoods and the sustainable management of Eucalyptus plantations. This study focuses on the Eucalyptus pole value chain due to its market significance, strategic relevance, market dynamics, actor profiles, and marketing systems associated with Eucalyptus poles. However, it still advocates for further research on Eucalyptus charcoal to understand its value chain dynamics and the broader Eucalyptus industry ecosystem.

Designing Digital Voting Systems for Citizens: Achieving Fairness and Legitimacy in Participatory Budgeting

Participatory Budgeting (PB) has evolved into a key democratic instrument for resource allocation in cities. Enabled by digital platforms, cities now have the opportunity to let citizens directly propose and vote on urban projects, using different voting input and aggregation rules. However, the choices cities make in terms of the rules of their PB have often not been informed by academic studies on voter behaviour and preferences. Therefore, this work presents the results of behavioural experiments where participants were asked to vote in a fictional PB setting. We identified approaches to designing PB voting that minimise cognitive load and enhance the perceived fairness and legitimacy of the digital process from the citizens’ perspective. In our study, participants preferred voting input formats that are more expressive (like rankings and distributing points) over simpler formats (like approval voting). Participants also indicated a desire for the budget to be fairly distributed across city districts and project categories. Participants found the Method of Equal Shares voting rule to be fairer than the conventional Greedy voting rule. These findings offer actionable insights for digital governance, contributing to the development of fairer and more transparent digital systems and collective decision-making processes for citizens.

Long-Term Effects of Equal Sharing: Evidence from Inheritance Rules for Land

Abstract What are the long-term economic effects of a more equal distribution of wealth? We investigate consequences of land inequality, exploiting variation in land inheritance rules that traverse political, linguistic, geological, and religious borders in Germany. In some German areas, inherited land was to be shared or divided equally among children, while in others land was ruled to be indivisible. Using a geographic regression discontinuity design, we first show a more equal land distribution in areas with equal division; other potential drivers of growth are smooth at the boundary and equal division areas were not historically more developed. Today, equal division areas feature higher average incomes and more entrepreneurship which goes in hand with a right-shifted skill, income, and wealth distribution. We show evidence consistent with the more even distribution of land leading to more innovative industrial by-employment during Germany’s transition from an agrarian to an industrial economy that, in the long-run, led to more entrepreneurship.

Fair group decisions via non-deterministic proportional consensus

AbstractAre there group decision methods which (i) give everyone, including minorities, an equal share of effective decision power even when voters act strategically, (ii) promote consensus and equality, rather than polarization and inequality, and (iii) do not favour the status quo or rely too much on chance? We describe two non-deterministic group decision methods that meet these criteria, one based on automatic bargaining over lotteries, the other on conditional commitments to approve compromise options. Using theoretical analysis, agent-based simulations and a behavioral experiment, we show that these methods prevent majorities from consistently suppressing minorities, which can happen in deterministic methods, and keeps proponents of the status quo from blocking decisions, as in other consensus-based approaches. Our simulations show that these methods achieve aggregate welfare comparable to common voting methods, while employing chance judiciously, and that the welfare costs of fairness and consensus are small compared to the inequality costs of majoritarianism. In an incentivized experiment with naive participants, we find that a sizable fraction of participants prefers to use a non-deterministic voting method over Plurality Voting to allocate monetary resources. However, this depends critically on their position within the group. Those in the majority show a strong preference for majoritarian voting methods.

A Comprehensive Study on DC-DC Converter for Equal Current Sharing and Voltage Stability in Renewable Energy Resources

A Comprehensive Study on DC-DC Converter for Equal Current Sharing and Voltage Stability in Renewable Energy Resources

Investigations on the effects of injection parameters and EGR in a glow plug assisted methanol fueled Hot Surface Ignition (HSI) Engine

Methanol can be produced from renewable sources and is also clean burning. Hence it is an ideal alternative fuel for transportation applications. However, its low cetane number prevents its direct application in compression ignition (CI) engines. One of the promising but not widely explored methods is to use a hot surface for its ignition in CI engines at normal compression ratios. In this work a turbocharged automotive common rail diesel engine was modified to operate in the hot surface ignition (HSI) mode with methanol as the sole fuel with 3% by mass of lubricity and corrosion inhibiting additive. Initially, a single pulse injection (SPI) strategy was employed at different injection timings at a BMEP of 8 bar. Subsequently a double pulse injection (DPI) strategy was employed and the effects of gap between the injection pulses, injection timing and injection pulse width share among the two pulses were studied. The HSI mode of neat methanol performed with comparable brake thermal efficiency (BTE), reduced combustion rates and hence low NOx emission levels with respect to diesel operation when the DPI mode was employed with almost equal pulse width share. Engine performance was better at rail pressures of around 800 bar. Hot EGR of up to 8% was beneficial as it reduced the engine-out NOx without affecting the BTE. The engine was operated at different BMEPs in the range of 4–10 bar and compared with the baseline diesel operation. The BTE was similar to the baseline diesel engine at all loads. Engine-out NOx was lower than diesel operation by 23.6%–61.5% while near zero smoke levels and similar CO and THC emissions (after the DOC) were observed. Though slipped methanol and formaldehyde were the significant unregulated emissions, they were reduced to very low levels after the DOC.

Sharing Is Caring: Exploring Distributed Solar Photovoltaics and Local Electricity Consumption through a Renewable Energy Community

Renewable Energy Communities (REC) can play a crucial role in enhancing citizen participation in the energy transition. Current European Union legislation enshrines energy communities and mandates Member States to encourage these organizations, promoting adequate conditions for their establishment. Nevertheless, uptake has been slow, and more research is needed to optimize the associated energy sharing. Using a Portuguese case study (REC Telheiras, Lisbon), this research aims to match local generation through four photovoltaic systems (totalizing 156.5 kWp of installed capacity) with household electricity consumption while cross evaluating the Portuguese legislation for energy sharing. The latter aim compares two scenarios: (a) current legislation (generated energy must be locally self-consumed before shared) and (b) equal share for members with a fixed coefficient. The evaluation is performed according to two indexes of self-consumption (SCI) and self-sufficiency (SSI), related to the simulation of four photovoltaic systems in public buildings, their associated consumption profiles, and an average household consumption profile of community members. The results show that, while maximizing self-consumption for the same values of generation and consumption, the number of participants is considerably lower for Scenario A (SCI = 100% is achieved with at least 491 residential members in Scenario A and 583 in Scenario B), implying that legislative changes enabling energy communities to better tailor sharing schemes may be necessary for them to become more attractive. The methods and results of this research can also be applied to other types of facilities, e.g., industrial and commercial consumers, if they are members of a REC and have smart meters in their installations.

Proportional Aggregation of Preferences for Sequential Decision Making

We study the problem of fair sequential decision making given voter preferences. In each round, a decision rule must choose a decision from a set of alternatives where each voter reports which of these alternatives they approve. Instead of going with the most popular choice in each round, we aim for proportional representation, using axioms inspired by the multi-winner voting literature. The axioms require that every group of α% of the voters, if it agrees in every round (i.e., approves a common alternative), then those voters must approve at least α% of the decisions. A stronger version of the axioms requires that every group of α% of the voters that agrees in a β fraction of rounds must approve β⋅α% of the decisions. We show that three attractive voting rules satisfy axioms of this style. One of them (Sequential Phragmén) makes its decisions online, and the other two satisfy strengthened versions of the axioms but make decisions semi-online (Method of Equal Shares) or fully offline (Proportional Approval Voting). We present empirical results for these rules based on synthetic data and U.S. political elections. We also run experiments using the moral machine dataset about ethical dilemmas. We train preference models on user responses from different countries and let the models cast votes. We find that aggregating these votes using our rules leads to a more equal utility distribution across demographics than making decisions using a single global preference model.

Completing Priceable Committees: Utilitarian and Representation Guarantees for Proportional Multiwinner Voting

When selecting committees based on preferences of voters, a variety of different criteria can be considered. Two natural objectives are maximizing the utilitarian welfare (the sum of voters' utilities) and coverage (the number of represented voters) of the selected committee. Previous work has studied the impact on utilitarian welfare and coverage when requiring the committee to satisfy minimal requirements such as justified representation or weak proportionality. In this paper, we consider the impact of imposing much more demanding proportionality axioms. We identify a class of voting rules that achieve strong guarantees on utilitarian welfare and coverage when combined with appropriate completions. This class is defined via a weakening of priceability and contains prominent rules such as the Method of Equal Shares. We show that committees selected by these rules (i) can be completed to achieve optimal coverage and (ii) can be completed to achieve an asymptotically optimal approximation to the utilitarian welfare if they additionally satisfy EJR+. Answering an open question of Elkind et al. (2022), we use the Greedy Justified Candidate Rule to obtain the best possible utilitarian guarantee subject to proportionality. We also consider completion methods suggested in the participatory budgeting literature and other objectives besides welfare and coverage.

Decentralized utilization of distributed energy storage resources for simultaneous frequency regulation in a microgrid

A microgrid has emerged for the transformation from centralized into localized electricity generation, which increases the opportunity for renewable-based distributed generators (DGs) applications such as photovoltaic (PV) and wind as well as small-scale conventional generation units. PV and wind integration provides environmental, technical, and economic benefits. However, the low inertia of the PV system and decoupling due to the presence of the power electronics converter in the wind generation system led to a significant declination in the microgrid's inertia, which causes an excessive frequency nadir and a high rate of change of frequency (ROCOF) in the presence of disturbances. The microgrid's inertia can be enhanced by storing or releasing energy within the microgrid. The wind generation system has intrinsic kinetic energy stored in the rotating parts, while the PV system's sorted energy is improved by introducing an external supercapacitor on the DC link. The aforementioned energy storage elements provide limited energy resources, which should be employed in a proper manner. This article proposes a control scheme to boost the cooperation of wind and PV generation systems for the enhancement of inertia and frequency support. Therefore, the proposed scheme prevents excessive stress on individual generators and improves the utilization of available energy resources. For example, at load increase by 0.5 MW, with frequency support using PV only or wind only, the frequency deviation is enhanced by 44.4 % and 29.5 %, respectively. While for both PV and wind support the frequency simultaneously, the frequency deviation is enhanced by 53.3 %. In addition, with the cooperation of PV and wind, the required energy from PV and wind is reduced by 29.5 % and 13.7 % respectively and the rate of change of frequency is enhanced by 61.9 %. The energy share among PV and wind generation systems is investigated and verified by simulations; tuning formulas are also developed to attain predefined energy support with equal energy sharing among different resources. For instance, with a non-equal energy share strategy and load increases by 0.5 MW, the wind delivers almost 1.6 times the energy delivered from the PV. Hence, more stress occurs on the wind generation compared to PV. While, using equal energy share strategy, the required energy from wind is about 1.03 times the energy delivered from the PV. The proposed control scheme is applied to an AC microgrid that comprises a thermal generation plant, a PV generation system, and a doubly-feed induction generator-based wind generation system. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, different simulation cases considering load change, wind speed variation, irradiance variations, and weak grid integration are implemented. When compared to individual frequency support, the proposed scheme provides a superior response.