Determinants of disaffiliation: an international study

Using a dataset of 15,000 subjects from 32 Western countries, the current study examines individuals who were raised in a certain religion and, at some stage of their lives, left it. Currently, they define their religious affiliation as ‘no religion’. A battery of explanatory variables (country-specific, personal attributes and marriage variables) was employed to test for determinants of this decision. It was found that the tendency of individuals to leave their religion—the most extreme symptom of secularization—is strongly correlated with their liberal beliefs and with parental and spousal religious characteristics. Moreover, country characteristics, as well as personal socio-demographic features seem to be much less relevant, except for the religious diversity of the country that has a positive effect on disaffiliation

Intergenerational transmission of ‘religious capital’. Evidence from Spain

This paper examines intergenerational transmission of ‘religious capital’ from parents to their offspring within an economic framework. The analytical tool is a ‘production function of religiosity’ where parental religious inputs serve as factors of production. The database used is based on a large-scale survey that was conducted in 1998 in Spain. In addition to information on the religious affiliation of the respondent and his parents, it has detailed data on two dimensions of the individual’s religious performance: church attendance and prayer. It also includes information on the mother’s and father’s church attendance when the respondent was a child, as well as the respondent’s participation in mass services at the age of 12. Socio-economic background data are also available. The core findings are: (i) parental religious inputs significantly affect individuals’ religiosity; (ii) interestingly, the route of intergenerational transmission is from mother to daughter and from father to son; and (iii) current mass participation of respondents is more affected by parental- than by own childhood mass attendance

What is a fair wage? Reference points, entitlements and gift exchange

We look at the effect of endogenous and exogenous wage setting institutions on wage offers and effort in the classic gift exchange experiments (Fehr, Kirchsteiger and Riedl, 1993). An exogenously imposed minimum wage at the competitive outcome lowers average wage offers. Workers do not negatively reciprocate and continue to offer high effort. In the endogenous wage setting institution, where workers first make wage proposals, wage offers increase marginally and average effort decreases relative to the baseline when wage proposals are not matched. Relative to the baseline, efficiency decreases in the minimum wage treatment while it marginally increases in the endogenous treatment. We find evidence that the institutional structure has important implications towards wage offers, effort and efficiency

Stationary waves and slowly moving features in the night upper clouds of Venus

At the cloud top level of Venus (65-70 km altitude) the atmosphere rotates 60 times faster than the underlying surface, a phenomenon known as superrotation. Whereas on Venus's dayside the cloud top motions are well determined and Venus general circulation models predict a mean zonal flow at the upper clouds similar on both day and nightside, the nightside circulation remains poorly studied except for the polar region. Here we report global measurements of the nightside circulation at the upper cloud level. We tracked individual features in thermal emission images at 3.8 and 5.0 $\mathrm{\mu m}$ obtained between 2006 and 2008 by the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS-M) onboard Venus Express and in 2015 by ground-based measurements with the Medium-Resolution 0.8-5.5 Micron Spectrograph and Imager (SpeX) at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Infrared Telescope Facility (NASA/IRTF). The zonal motions range from -110 to -60 m s$^{-1}$, consistent with those found for the dayside but with larger dispersion. Slow motions (-50 to -20 m s$^{-1}$) were also found and remain unexplained. In addition, abundant stationary wave patterns with zonal speeds from -10 to +10 m s$^{-1}$ dominate the night upper clouds and concentrate over the regions of higher surface elevation.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, 6 supplementary figure

Metal-insulator transition in Nd1−x_{1-x}Eux_{x}NiO3_{3} compounds

Polycrystalline Nd$_{1-x}$Eu$_{x}$NiO$_3$ ($0 \leq x \leq 0.5$) compounds were synthesized in order to investigate the character of the metal-insulator (MI) phase transition in this series. Samples were prepared through the sol-gel route and subjected to heat treatments at $\sim$1000 $^\circ$C under oxygen pressures as high as 80 bar. X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Neutron Powder Diffraction (NPD), electrical resistivity $\rho(T)$, and Magnetization $M(T)$ measurements were performed on these compounds. The results of NPD and XRD indicated that the samples crystallize in an orthorhombic distorted perovskite structure, space group $Pbnm$. The analysis of the structural parameters revealed a sudden and small expansion of $\sim$0.2% of the unit cell volume when electronic localization occurs. This expansion was attributed to a small increase of $\sim$0.003 \AA{} of the average Ni-O distance and a simultaneous decrease of $\sim$$- 0.5^\circ$ of the Ni-O-Ni superexchange angle. The $\rho(T)$ measurements revealed a MI transition occurring at temperatures ranging from $T_{\rm MI}\sim 193$ to 336 K for samples with $x = 0$ and 0.50, respectively. These measurements also show a large thermal hysteresis in NdNiO$_{3}$ during heating and cooling processes suggesting a first-order character of the phase transition at $T_{\rm MI}$. The width of this thermal hysteresis was found to decrease appreciably for the sample Nd$_{0.7}$Eu$_{0.3}$NiO$_{3}$. The results indicate that cation disorder associated with increasing substitution of Nd by Eu is responsible for changing the first order character of the transition in NdNiO$_{3}$.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figure

Overview of progress in European medium sized tokamaks towards an integrated plasma-edge/wall solution

Integrating the plasma core performance with an edge and scrape-off layer (SOL) that leads to tolerable heat and particle loads on the wall is a major challenge. The new European medium size tokamak task force (EU-MST) coordinates research on ASDEX Upgrade (AUG), MAST and TCV. This multi-machine approach within EU-MST, covering a wide parameter range, is instrumental to progress in the field, as ITER and DEMO core/pedestal and SOL parameters are not achievable simultaneously in present day devices. A two prong approach is adopted. On the one hand, scenarios with tolerable transient heat and particle loads, including active edge localised mode (ELM) control are developed. On the other hand, divertor solutions including advanced magnetic configurations are studied. Considerable progress has been made on both approaches, in particular in the fields of: ELM control with resonant magnetic perturbations (RMP), small ELM regimes, detachment onset and control, as well as filamentary scrape-off-layer transport. For example full ELM suppression has now been achieved on AUG at low collisionality with n = 2 RMP maintaining good confinement HH(98,y2) 0.95. Advances have been made with respect to detachment onset and control. Studies in advanced divertor configurations (Snowflake, Super-X and X-point target divertor) shed new light on SOL physics. Cross field filamentary transport has been characterised in a wide parameter regime on AUG, MAST and TCV progressing the theoretical and experimental understanding crucial for predicting first wall loads in ITER and DEMO. Conditions in the SOL also play a crucial role for ELM stability and access to small ELM regimes.European Commission (EUROfusion 633053

Injectable hydrogels based on pluronic/water systems filled with alginate microparticles: Rheological characterization

In this paper the rheological characterization of Pluronic/water systems filled with alginate microparticles is presented. The rheological characterization of the Pluronic/water systems allowed for the choice of the best Pluronic concentration taking into account its applications as injectable hydrogels for tissue repair. The effect on the rheological behavior of the addition of alginate microparticles, to be loaded with the drug, was analyzed and the maximum concentration of microparticles determined.Spanish Ministerio de Economia y CompetitividadV Plan Propio Universidad de SevillaEuropean Union (EU)Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology 288 UID/CTM/50025/201

Expectativas sobre comportamiento egoista

In this paper we present experimental results concerning the beliefs that subjects hold about the weight of selfishness on decision, compared to the social norm that would prescribe a more generous behavior. The main conclusion is that subjects underestimate selfishness

Detection of Causal Relations in Time Series Affected by Noise in Tokamaks Using Geodesic Distance on Gaussian Manifolds

Modern experiments in Magnetic Confinement Nuclear Fusion can produce Gigabytes of data, mainly in form of time series. The acquired signals, composing massive databases, are typically affected by significant levels of noise. The interpretation of the time series can therefore become quite involved, particularly when tenuous causal relations have to be investigated. In the last years, synchronization experiments, to control potentially dangerous instabilities, have become a subject of intensive research. Their interpretation requires quite delicate causality analysis. In this paper, the approach of Information Geometry is applied to the problem of assessing the effectiveness of synchronization experiments on JET (Joint European Torus). In particular, the use of the Geodesic Distance on Gaussian Manifolds is shown to improve the results of advanced techniques such as Recurrent Plots and Complex Networks, when the noise level is not negligible. In cases affected by particularly high levels of noise, compromising the traditional treatments, the use of the Geodesic Distance on Gaussian Manifolds allows deriving quite encouraging results. In addition to consolidating conclusions previously quite uncertain, it has been demonstrated that the proposed approach permit to successfully analyze signals of discharges which were otherwise unusable, therefore salvaging the interpretation of those experiments.EURATOM 63305

Molecular ND Band Spectroscopy in the Divertor Region of Nitrogen Seeded JET Discharges

In this contribution we present OES measurements in the JET tokamak of the deuterated NH (ND) radical and the correlation between results of those experiments and measurement of ammonia production. The observation region covers most of the divertor and its outer throat. Measurements are performed in different magnetic configurations. The results include temporal and spatial dependence of the molecular emission intensity and study of the emission band shape (vibrational and rotational temperatures) during different JET pulses, with or without nitrogen seeding. Results are a step towards the understanding of nitrogen-containing molecule creation and destruction in the divertor plasmaEURATOM 63305