Original Members Research Articles

Optimal Bundling Cooperation Strategies for Online Paid Membership Programs

ABSTRACTPaid membership programs are popular in Internet firms, and “bundling cooperation for paid memberships” is trendy in their online operations. Unlike traditional product bundling problems, membership bundling between Internet firms presents new characteristics such as member sharing, which brings challenges to profit allocation and partner selection. Despite being a commonly seen business practice, little is known about the optimal bundling strategies and the cooperation mechanisms regarding firms' membership status. To fill this gap, we develop a stylized model that considers the potential added‐value income of membership to analyze the bundling problem between two firms. We show that the optimal bundling strategy depends on firms' original member bases and their ability to mine member value (i.e., value‐monetization ability). We discuss the allocation policy with Nash bargaining and find that the firm may entirely waive its bundled membership fee income and even compensate its partner to achieve cooperation. Surprisingly, a start‐up partner with no member base may be the optimal option. Nevertheless, if there is no such a partner in the market, forming a bundle with a well‐established partner is the right choice. Our findings provide novel managerial insights into bundled membership operations of Internet firms in practice.

Legal Support of Artificial Intelligence in Countering Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Regimes in the BRICS Plus Countries

The increasing integration of artificial intelligence technologies into the financial structures of the BRICS Plus countries (comprising the original member countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa as well as the four new member countries of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates) presents both opportunities and challenges in combating economic crimes, which include money laundering and terrorism financing. This article explores the complex regulatory landscape that governs the application of artificial intelligence in these efforts. It examines how artificial intelligence can enhance the performance of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing frameworks by enabling the evaluation of massive datasets, the identification of anomalous transaction patterns, and the automation of compliance procedures. Simultaneously, the article addresses the highly challenging situations that arise when using artificial intelligence. For instance, these technologies can make it difficult to understand the fluctuation of illicit price ranges, thereby complicating efforts to determine their origins and destinations. Through a comparative analysis of the frameworks throughout the BRICS Plus countries, this research highlights the varying levels of regulatory readiness of these frameworks and proposes pathways for harmonizing artificial intelligence-driven economic security measures. The overarching goal of an artificial intelligence model is to enhance both the effectiveness and the integrity of the financial sectors in the BRICS Plus consortium, necessitating a collaborative approach to combating financial crimes in an increasing number of digital economies across the world.

From Anxiety to Aesthetics: "Rank Horror: An International Symposium".

This report on the proceedings of the "Rank Horror" symposium, convened in May 2024 to reconsider Otto Rank's life, work, and enduring contributions to psychoanalytic theory and practice, includes a brief historical survey of Rank's relationship to Sigmund Freud and other original members of the International Psychoanalytic Association's Central Committee, and an account of the symposium's wider intellectual and political context. It outlines the reasons for returning to Rank now, and a summary of the papers presented. Particular focus is afforded to Rank's 1924 book, The Trauma of Birth.

How the size and structure of egocentric networks change during a life transition

While social networks are typically relatively stable in size over time, major changes in life circumstances can result in opportunities to acquire new friends. How young adults manage their relationships with their wider network of friends and family during such transitions is, however, not well understood. Using a prospective longitudinal design, we investigate changes in the size and composition of complete egocentric networks of two cohorts of young adults moving away from home to college. We show that, although networks grow rapidly due to an influx of new friends made at college, the social overload that would result is partially mitigated through the progressive loss of pre-transition friendships (but not family relationships). In addition, most of the new relationships are placed in the outermost, emotionally less close network layers that are less costly to maintain. In contrast, the more intimate inner layers of the network remain stable in size, with efforts being made to conserve these relationships. The overriding importance of face-to-face interaction in creating and maintaining ties (compared to digital media) results in the emotional quality of a tie being traded off against the constraints imposed by physical distance. The most reliable predictor of the proportion of original members with whom relationships were maintained post-transition was pre-transition network size, with weaker effects due to geographical proximity and personal popularity in the new social context. These findings have implications for managing transitions to a new environment at any life stage.

Integration among the BRICS stock markets: Filtering out global factors

ABSTRACT Despite the prominence of the BRICS bloc, little attention has been given to their stock market co-movement. This study investigates the time- and frequency-varying integration of the BRICS stock markets including new BRICS + members with active markets. We explore whether market integration is driven by common exposure to global factors using the DCC-GARCH model and wavelet coherence. Results show that removing global influences reduces variation, range and, for some country pairs, magnitude in correlations. The markets of India and Russia are most integrated with other markets in the bloc, while the markets of China and Brazil are most segmented from others in the bloc. New BRICS members, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, exhibit strong integration with some original bloc members. Crisis impacts are more systemic rather than specific to market linkages, with stable co-movements after filtering returns. Wavelet analysis shows that most integration between markets occurs over longer horizons. These findings have implications for portfolio construction and policymakers tasked with financial stability.

Numerical simulations suggest asteroids (101955) Bennu and (162173) Ryugu are likely second or later generation rubble piles

Rubble pile asteroids are widely understood to be composed of reaccumulated debris following a catastrophic collision between asteroids in the main asteroid belt, where each disruption can make a family of new asteroids. Near-Earth asteroids Ryugu and Bennu have been linked to collisional families in the main asteroid belt, but surface age analyses of each asteroid suggest these bodies are substantially younger than their putative families. Here we show, through a coupled collisional and dynamical evolution of members of these families, that neither asteroid was likely to have been created at the same time as the original family breakups, but rather are likely remnants of later disruptions of original family members, making them second, or later, generation remnants. Our model finds about 80% and 60% of asteroids currently being delivered to near-Earth orbits from the respective families of New Polana and Eulalia are second or later generation. These asteroids delivered today in the 0.5-1 km size range have median ages since their last disruption that are substantially younger than the family age, reconciling their measured crater retention ages with membership in these families.

An Investigation into the Variables Influencing the Structural Bamboo Architecture Using Filled Concrete and Cement Mortar

Bamboo, as a green building material, plays a vital role in construction. Bamboo has good properties and appearance, making it highly attractive for building structures and designs. Since the compressive capacity of bamboo is considerably lower than its tensile capacity, with the ratio typically ranging between 300% to 900%, this limits its application dimensions in construction. Therefore, filling the original bamboo structural members with specific materials or applying different connection methods can not only maintain the appearance of the bamboo structure but also improve its compressive capacity and overall durability, thus expanding the application range of bamboo structural members and enhancing the performance of the architectural design process. Two hollow bamboo specimens were among the eight BFC specimens tested for this paper. Key components such as transverse stiffeners, steel bars, filler materials, and bamboo nodes were examined for their influence on the specimens’ ductility, peak strain, ultimate bearing capacity, and failure mechanisms. The test results showed that the ratio of the ultimate bearing capacity of BFC specimens to hollow bamboo samples could reach up to 538%, while the peak strain differences were minimal. A non-linear finite element model was developed and its accuracy confirmed based on the test results. This work proposes a new approach to determine the final axial compressive capacity of BFC columns by creating an elastic model of transversely isotropic cylinders. As a result, the primary goal of this study is to establish a foundation for more scientific building design techniques and procedures by examining the axial compression mechanics of structural bamboo filled with cement and concrete (BFC) and how it influences building design.

The all-female Goth band that never existed: Voces de Ultratumba

Feminist musicology has studied and questioned the dynamics of power, privilege and discrimination that have developed in the history of popular music due to gender. In line with these contributions, there is an intention of recovering the memory and value of the first Goth group formed entirely of women in Vigo (Galicia, Spain): Voces de Ultratumba. The quality of their music, performance, lyrics and activism is not referenced as it should be in the collective imagination, which is unaware of its existence. The documented record is very scarce since its formation in 1984, as opposed to the amount of information about mixed groups or male bands of that time. Thus, after digitizing newspaper articles and live material, data collection was also performed by biographical-narrative methodology of life history. Its three original members – Chus Taboada, Marisé Izquierdo and Eva Izquierdo – were interviewed and their discourse was analysed through grounded theory (GT). Historical press was also consulted. The details of this analysis are presented in this article. The results of it indicate that, despite the political, musical and social openness that Spain was going through after the death of the Dictator Francisco Franco on 20 November 1975, gender roles continued to operate even in the underground scene, where the political–musical experiences of dissident identities were left out of official Goth history.

Performance and Feminist Collectivizing

On November 23, 2022, three original core members of the all‐woman art collective DISBAND—Ilona Granet, Donna Henes, and Martha Wilson—sat down to discuss the therapeutic effects of collaborative performance, the role of comedy in addressing traumatic topics, and the activist potential of feminist collectivizing. Between 1978 and 1982, DISBAND performed in a diverse cultural circuit in downtown New York City where the burgeoning performance art, no wave, and feminist art scenes collided. The multidisciplinary backgrounds of the women in DISBAND matched the hybridity of this cultural circuit; other members included Barbara Kruger, Ingrid Sischy (former editor in chief of Artforum), Diane Torr (performance artist, drag king, and gender activist), Barbara Ess (photographer and member of the no wave band Y Pants), and Daile Kaplan (photographer and drummer of The Gynecologists). The women of DISBAND approached the song format fluidly, combining hymn, anthem, cheer, and protest movement (stomping, chanting, clapping) with rapid‐fire improvisation. DISBAND's songs reflected the members’ personal and collective political concerns, often focusing directly on female oppression. The women's use of costumes, role‐playing, and DIY instruments brought levity and playfulness to what they describe as an apocalyptic moment.

„In Vielfalt vereint“ – Die wirtschaftliche Lage in den Beitrittsländern nach 20 Jahren in der EU

Abstract Twenty years have passed since the largest enlargement of the European Union in history. During the eastern enlargement, 10 new member states entered the union, seven of which belonged to the former Eastern bloc. The new members have since experienced astonishing growth rates, closing the large gap between them and the rest of the EU. The GDP growth rates were consistently higher than those of the original members. Now, the EU must once again look east: the integration of the West Balkan countries would be a crucial step in the future development of the EU, not only economically, but also politically, provided the formal provisions of an accession are satisfied. A strong united Europe benefits all.

Bangladesh and New Development Bank (NDB): Accession and after, money and more

AbstractThis article examines Bangladesh's new membership in the BRICS‐led New Development Bank (NDB), as the Bangladesh country study for the Special Section on ‘The Evolution of New Development Bank: A Decade Plus in the Making’, in Global Policy journal. In September 2021, Bangladesh became the first country outside of the original BRICS founding members to join NDB. The analysis details how Bangladesh went about joining NDB, especially the geopolitics and diplomacy between Bangladesh and the key NDB founding members (India, China, Russia) which supported Bangladesh's entry; why Bangladesh joined NDB, the main motivations or interests; and how NDB membership is turning out for Bangladesh after acceding to the Bank, what are Bangladesh and the Bank actually doing together, are they realizing the main opportunities as intended, or are outcomes not as intended. Throughout the analysis, we assess how Bangladesh's membership in NDB compares to its multi‐decade memberships in the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), Islamic Development, and its newer relations with the other new China‐supported multilateral bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). This study combines primary data gathered from field research, primary desk research, and cross‐verification with the related data, and secondary sources.

Does the level of e‐government affect value‐added tax collection? A study conducted among the European Union Member States

AbstractThe digitalization of the economy and state administration are important economic research topics. This paper focuses on value‐added tax and its collection from the e‐government perspective, more precisely, the digitalization of tax administration. Research has examined the digitalization of tax collection and its effect on tax evasion only to a limited extent. Our paper examines the impact of the level of e‐government expressed by the e‐government Development Index on value‐added tax (VAT) evasion as measured by the VAT gap. A dynamic panel regression model on the European Union (EU) Member States data between 2003 and 2020 showed that more developed e‐government reduces the VAT gap, that is, improves VAT collection. In addition to the e‐government level, the VAT share in tax revenues also reduces tax evasion. On the other hand, the factors that increase the VAT gap are the final consumption of households and the standard rate. Apart from these results, VAT evasion in original and new EU Member States was found to be affected by different factors. This fact should be considered when deciding the tax policy.

Wilderness Medical Society Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Prevention and Treatment of Heat Illness: 2024 Update.

The Wilderness Medical Society (WMS) convened an expert panel in 2011 to develop a set of evidence-based guidelines for the recognition, prevention, and treatment of heat illness. The current panel retained 5 original members and welcomed 2 new members, all of whom collaborated remotely to provide an updated review of the classifications, pathophysiology, evidence-based guidelines for planning and preventive measures, and recommendations for field- and hospital-based therapeutic management of heat illness. These recommendations are graded based on the quality of supporting evidence and the balance between the benefits and risks or burdens for each modality. This is an updated version of the WMS clinical practice guidelines for the prevention and treatment of heat illness published in Wilderness & Environmental Medicine. 2019;30(4):S33-S46.

樂浪郡 호구 목독의 사료적 성격과 郡의 주민구성

The purpose of this paper is to review the original text and related studies of the “the Household Register of Lelang Commandery,” which was a wooden tablet recording the number of households of the Lelang Commandery. It specifically focused on the issues about the ethnic composition of the population of Lelang Commandery, since the ethnic composition was closely related to the commandery’s governance over the residents. The discussions about the ethnic composition was closely related to the debate over classification criteria for the households listed under Kiho(其戶) in the Register. Accordingly, the paper suggested that the criteria of the households listed under Kiho were an ethnic distinction between Han Chinese and Old Chosŏn’s population.
 This ethnic distinction in the register reflected active process of Sinicization to the residents of the commandery from the Han Empire, which influenced the number of resident per household. Although there was assuredly intensity difference, Sinicization was applied to the ‘Seven Counties in Yŏngdong,’ which were believed to be the most unstable region for the Han Empire’s governance. As a result, the system of the commandery’s governance remained in this region for a long time, and only those from different ethnicity replaced the original members of this system after the counties transferred into marquisates.

Peoples, Inhabitants and Workers: Colonialism in the Treaty of Rome

Abstract In 1957, when the Treaty of Rome was signed, founding the European Economic Community (EEC), which later became the European Union (EU), four out of six of the original member states were colonial powers. This article uses archival material from the Treaty of Rome negotiations to interrogate ways in which the colonial politics of the time shaped the drafting of legal categories describing individuals: those of peoples, inhabitants and workers. As the Treaty of Rome ‘associated’ colonized territories to the EEC, this article shows how the treaty simultaneously arranged its legal categories to exclude individuals who lived in colonized territories from legal benefits and representation. This article situates the EU as an example of a post-World War II international organization, with its founding legal texts shaped by colonialism.

Retail Interest Rate Differentials in the Eurozone: A Co-Integration Analysis Approach

Over the last decades, despite the remarkable progress toward the harmonization of banking regulation, interest rate differentials in the Eurozone remain large. In this context, rejecting the law of one price as a measure of financial integration, this paper applies the co-integration technique to investigate the presence of a long-run equilibrium relationship among retail interest rates. The data sample of the co-integration analysis conducted in this paper includes three (3) loan and two (2) deposit interest rates data sets from the 12 original Eurozone member countries for the time period 2000–2020, filling in that way the gap in the existing research by extending the application of this methodology to incorporate an updated database. The empirical findings of the paper provide evidence that in most of cases, there is a co-movement and a long-run equilibrium relationship between retail interest rates. On the basis of the co-integration approach, these findings are being perceived as a signal of retail banking market integration in the Eurozone.

Axial compressive behaviour of corroded circular steel tube columns retrofitted by laser-cladding additive manufacturing

Surface damage, such as corrosion, fatigue, and impact, poses a serious threat to the service life and safety of steel structures. To address this issue, this study employed the laser cladding (LC) additive manufacturing technology as a novel repair method for damaged steel structures. The aim was to achieve a "restored repair" that restores the stiffness, strength, and geometric dimensions of the repaired member to those of the original intact member. To evaluate the effectiveness of the LC repair method, axial compression tests were conducted on six circular steel tube columns, including one intact specimen, one corroded specimen and four repaired specimens. The study focused on the steel tubes with mid-height surface corrosion and also investigated the influence of corrosion angle, corrosion depth, and repair material on the mechanical behaviour of the repaired members. The experimental results showed that the stiffness and strength of the repaired compression members were restored and even slightly enhanced compared with those of the corroded member. The strain analysis indicated that the LC repair technique could significantly reduce stress/strain concentration caused by local corrosion. Furthermore, finite element models for simulating the axial compressive behaviour of repaired circular steel tube columns were developed and validated by comparing the experimental and numerical results. The findings of the paper confirm that the proposed LC strengthening method provides an additional solution for effectively repairing damaged steel structures.

Efficiency of rapid repairing for composites and structural fibre-reinforced plastic waste aggregate concrete members

In underdeveloped countries, improperly disposed of electronic waste material (E-waste) causes environmental deterioration and health hazards. The previous related work focused on the axial performance of concrete compressive members reinforced with glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP), rather than the efficacy of repairing them after minor damage. The present work has endeavored to deliberate the structural performance of partially damaged E-waste aggregate concrete (EAC) compressive members reinforced with structural synthetic fibres reinforced with GFRP bars and GFRP spirals. Carbon fibre-reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheets were utilized to quickly restore the damaged samples. Twelve circular samples with diameters of 250 mm and heights of 1000 mm were constructed. Six samples were reinforced with GFRP bars and spirals (SSEAC compressive members) while the others had steel reinforcement. Following concentric and eccentric compression, which caused a 30% reduction in axial load-carrying capacity in the stage following peak loading, the samples were repaired using CFRP sheets. Before and after their rapid repair, samples' axial load-carrying capacity, load-shortening response, stiffness index, axial shortening, strength index, ductility index, and failure modes were assessed. These factors included spiral pitch, CFRP wrapping, structural synthetic fibres, E-waste concrete, and reinforcement type. The findings showed that as compared to the original compressive members, both restored SSEAC and GSEAC compressive members had good structural behavior in terms of studied parameters due to the efficiency of CFRP wraps. A new theoretical model is also suggested to predict the axial load-carrying capacity of CFRP-repaired members.

Shibboleth: An agent-based model of signalling mimicry.

Mimicry is an essential strategy for exploiting competitors in competitive co-evolutionary relationships. Protection against mimicry may, furthermore, be a driving force in human linguistic diversity: the potential harm caused by failing to detect mimicked group-identity signals may select for high sensitivity to mimicry of honest group members. Here we describe the results of five agent-based models that simulate multi-generational interactions between two groups of individuals: original members of a group with an honest identity signal, and members of an outsider group who mimic that signal, aiming to pass as members of the in-group. The models correspond to the Biblical story of Shibboleth, where a tribe in conflict with another determines tribe affiliation by asking individuals to pronounce the word, 'Shibboleth.' In the story, failure to reproduce the word phonetically resulted in death. Here, we run five different versions of a 'Shibboleth' model: a first, simple version, which evaluates whether a composite variable of mimicry quality and detection quality is a superior predictor to the model's outcome than is cost of detection. The models thereafter evaluate variations on the simple model, incorporating group-level behaviours such as altruistic punishment. Our results suggest that group members' sensitivity to mimicry of the Shibboleth-signal is a better predictor of whether any signal of group identity goes into fixation in the overall population than is the cost of mimicry detection. Thus, the likelihood of being detected as a mimic may be more important than the costs imposed on mimics who are detected. This suggests that theoretical models in biology should place greater emphasis on the likelihood of detection, which does not explicitly entail costs, rather than on the costs to individuals who are detected. From a language learning perspective, the results suggest that admission to group membership through linguistic signals is powered by the ability to imitate and evade detection as an outsider by existing group members.

Mobilities in Religious Knowledge: Phiroz Mehta and the Logics of Transreligiosity in 1970s–80s South London

This paper examines transreligiosity in the context of the transmission of South Asian concepts of spirituality to the UK in the 20th century. Between the 1920s and 1990s, Indian teacher and author Phiroz Mehta (1902–1994) crossed borders in a colonial and postcolonial shuttling between India and the UK but also transgressed conceptual and practice borders of religion, teaching Indian religious concepts to post-Christian spiritual seekers in 1970s–80s South London. Mehta cultivated an elasticity between many religious and philosophical traditions, recognising the post-institutional fatigue of subjects who sought alternative forms of ‘belonging without believing’. Privileging the domestic space for teaching, as well as transitory ‘camp’ gatherings in the UK and Germany, Mehta often operated in the social margins, combining teachings from Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity with Zoroastrianism, Judaism (specifically Kabbalah), and Daoism. He offered his tutees the freedom to practice religion in whatever way they chose by drawing on a broad range of traditions concurrently to create a transreligiosity. This paper examines Panagiotopoulos and Roussou’s ‘transgressional webs of practising individualised forms of alternative spirituality’ in relation to Mehta’s followers in the 1970s-1980s and asks how transreligiosity relates to other theoretical analyses, such as religious exoticism, bricolage, religious appropriation, cultural re-articulation or assemblage. This paper focuses on qualitative interviews with original members of the Mehta community conducted between 2021 and 2022.