Does circular economy mitigate the extraction of natural resources? Empirical evidence based on analysis of 28 European economies over the past decade

Moving towards a circular economy (CE) has become one of the main strategic initiatives on a global scale in the search for sustainable economic systems. However, the conceptual relationship between sustainable development and the circular economy is a matter of ongoing debate. In particular, the extent to which CE initiatives are contributing to the mitigation of resource extraction seems to be a still unclear topic. This paper investigates the relationship between the extraction of natural resources and the CE, and also analyses the effects of critical socioeconomic drivers such as economic and population growth and economic structures. The analysis is based on a panel data covering 28 European countries during the period 2010–2019. Results confirm that promoting a shift towards more circular economic systems can reduce the extraction of primary resources. However, the mitigating effect of CE initiatives remains rather marginal when compared to the impact of economic growth. Namely, estimates show that the primary resources extracted annually linked to economic growth are roughly four times the resources saved by CE initiatives. The findings provide evidence that the circularity of economic systems should be approached from a systemic perspective that includes both production and consumption as well as waste management. In particular, complementary measures addressing behavioural consumption are needed if we want to achieve a sustainable development

On the origin of beliefs about the sexual orientation and gender-role development of children raised by gay-male and heterosexual parents : An Italian study

In three studies, heterosexual participants were presented with descriptions of heterosexual and gay-male parents. Importantly, the level of gender-role conformity of the gay-male parents was experimentally manipulated, resulting in their level of gender-role conformity ranging from high to low. Compared to the son of a heterosexual couple, the son of all gay-male couples had a lower expected likelihood of developing as heterosexual. This result was independent of the level of gender-role conformity of the gay-male couples (study 1–3). The beliefs about the gender-role development of the son, in terms of anticipated masculinity (study 1), gender stereotyping (study 2), and affective adjustment (study 3), mapped onto the level of gender-role conformity of the parents, regardless of their sexual orientation. Also, heterosexual parents were consistently judged more positively than gay-male parents, independently of their level of gender-role conformity (study 1–3). Results were discussed within the theoretical framework of stereotypes about gay-male parenting

Regional monitoring frameworks for the circular economy: implications from a territorial perspective

Progress in implementing circular solutions in European regions has so far been limited. This is partly due to the multifaceted territorial contexts characterizing the continent. Ultimately, the understanding of territorial dynamics is key to envisage a successful transition to a circular economy (CE). However, CE discussion from a regional standpoint is still limited and CE frameworks that can be applied to monitor and measure the CE potential in a specific territory remain at a rather theoretical level. This paper contributes to this research gap by (1) presenting a regional monitoring framework across three case studies; (2) analysing the respective territorial patterns from a CE perspective. The three case studies include the central cross-border Scandinavian area, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, and the Duchy of Luxembourg. The results reveal that circular initiatives are generally designed on the basis of available local resources and, depending on these, regional strategies seek to optimize the technical and/or biological cycles of local economies. Furthermore, the increasing levels of waste generation observed in all case studies challenge traditional waste policy approaches, generally centred on end-of-life management, in favour of more ambitious initiatives aimed at optimizing use of resources and preventing waste.This work received funding from the ESPON 2020 Cooperation Programme within the framework of the initiative to support young researchers and dissemination of ESPON results among the scientific community

What do you mean by european?: spontaneous ingroup projection : evidence from sequential priming

According to the Ingroup Projection Model (Mummendey & Wenzel, 1999), people who belong to a group tend to generalize typical ingroup characteristics to the superordinate category. That is, they project ingroup features onto the inclusive category. As a consequence of this process, the more group members perceive their ingroup as prototypical for the inclusive category the more the attitudes towards an outgroup become negative (Waldzus & Mummendey, 2004). In my dissertation, evidence was found for a “spontaneous ingroup projection”, that is, an association between a superordinate category prime and the ingroup instead of the outgroup prototype. In order to examine the process of ingroup projection at the implicit level, I decided to rely on sequential priming techniques. These techniques have been used in the context of research on implicit stereotyping precisely because they provide strong tests for the existence of an association between two concepts (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000). Specifically, I adapted a procedure from Wittenbrink, Judd and Park (1997). In Experiment 1 (N=95), it has been examined whether there was a spontaneous association between a superordinate category and the ingroup or the outgroup stereotypes. Concretely, it has been tested whether a superordinate category prime, namely European, facilitated the processing of ingroup rather than outgroup stereotypical attributes in two different populations, namely Italian and German undergraduate students. Research rooted in Self-Categorization Theory (Turner et al., 1987) highlighted that what is believed to be true of the ingroup depends on the particular frame of reference participants are embedded. With experiment 2 (N=42), 3 (N=81), and 4 (N=53), my goal was to investigate the process of spontaneous ingroup projection in the absence of an inter-group context and to compare this “solo” situation (i.e., intra-group context) with a situation in which the ingroup is compared with an other group i.e., inter-group context). Interestingly, research shows that stereotyping can be context-sensitive (Wittenbrink, Judd, & Park, 2001). Along similar lines, ingroup stereotypes have been shown to be determined by the frame of reference emerging from the context (Haslam & Turner; 1992). Different from Experiments 2, 3, and 4, in Experiment 5 two different inter- roup contexts were compared (e.g., Germans vs. Italians or Germans vs. British)

Age stereotyping of gay and heterosexual men: Why does a minority sexual orientation blur the age of old men, in particular?

This research examined age stereotyping of male individuals displaying intersectional memberships stemming from the combination of age (Young vs. Elderly) and sexual orientation categories (Gay vs. Heterosexual). We found that the age stereotypes of ‘Elderly gay men’ were blurred: ‘Elderly gay men’ were stereotyped less on elderly- and more on young-stereotypical traits than both ‘Elderly heterosexual men’ (Study 1) and ‘Elderly men’ (Studies 2–4). These findings did not occur with any subtype, as was also not the case for ‘Elderly right-handed men’ (Study 3), but replicate only with atypical subtypes (Study 4). Indeed, the blurring of the age stereotypes for ‘Elderly gay men’ was replicated for an additional atypical subtype, ‘Elderly Atheist men’, and amplified when the atypical subtype involved ‘Elderly men’ in combination with ‘Athlete men’, whose stereotypes implied youthful traits (Study 4). The results informed cognitive models of multiple category stereotyping

An Off-Nucleus Nonstellar Black Hole in the Seyfert Galaxy NGC 5252

We report the discovery of a ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX; CXO J133815.6+043255) in NGC 5252. This ULX is an off-nuclear point-source, which is 22$^{\prime\prime}$ away from the center of NGC 5252, and has an X-ray luminosity of 1.5 $\times$ $10^{40}$erg s$^{-1}$. It is one of the rare examples of ULX, which exhibits clear counterparts in radio, optical, UV bands. Follow-up optical spectrum of the ULX shows strong emission lines. The redshift of [O III] emission line coincides with the systematic velocity of NGC 5252, suggesting the ULX is gravitationally bound to NGC 5252. The flux of [O III] appears to be correlated with both X-ray and radio luminosity in the same manner as ordinary AGNs, indicating that the [O III] emission is intrinsically associated with the ULX. Based on the multiwavelength data, we argue that the ULX is unlikely to be a background AGN. A more likely option is an accreting BH with a black hole mass of $\geq 10^4M_\odot$, which might be a stripped remnant of a merging dwarf galaxy.Comment: To appear in Ap

Validation in agent-based models: an investigation on the CATS model

In this paper we deal with some validation experiments on the complex adaptive trivial system (CATS) model proposed in Gallegati et al. [Gallegati, M., Giulioni, G., Palestrini, A., Delli Gatti, D., 2003a. Financial fragility, patterns of firms’ entry and exit and aggregate dynamics. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 51, 79–97; Gallegati, M., Delli Gatti, D., Di Guilmi, C., Gaffeo, E., Giulioni, G., Palestrini, A., 2005. A new approach to business fluctuations: heterogeneous interacting agents, scaling laws and financial fragility. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 56, 489–512]. In particular starting from a sample of Italian firms included in the AIDA database, we perform several ex post validation experiments over the simulation period 1996–2001. In the experiments, the model parameters have been estimated using actual data and the initial set up consists of a sample of agents in 1996. The CATS model is then simulated over the period 1996–2001. Using alternative validation techniques, the simulations’ results are ex post validated respect to the actual data

QEVSEC: Quick Electric Vehicle SEcure Charging via Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer

Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer (DWPT) can be used for on-demand recharging of Electric Vehicles (EV) while driving. However, DWPT raises numerous security and privacy concerns. Recently, researchers demonstrated that DWPT systems are vulnerable to adversarial attacks. In an EV charging scenario, an attacker can prevent the authorized customer from charging, obtain a free charge by billing a victim user and track a target vehicle. State-of-the-art authentication schemes relying on centralized solutions are either vulnerable to various attacks or have high computational complexity, making them unsuitable for a dynamic scenario. In this paper, we propose Quick Electric Vehicle SEcure Charging (QEVSEC), a novel, secure, and efficient authentication protocol for the dynamic charging of EVs. Our idea for QEVSEC originates from multiple vulnerabilities we found in the state-of-the-art protocol that allows tracking of user activity and is susceptible to replay attacks. Based on these observations, the proposed protocol solves these issues and achieves lower computational complexity by using only primitive cryptographic operations in a very short message exchange. QEVSEC provides scalability and a reduced cost in each iteration, thus lowering the impact on the power needed from the grid.Comment: 6 pages, conferenc