For agents, one of the advantages of being in a society is the satisfaction of those goals whose success depends on the abilities of other agents. In turn, societies are controlled by norms and, consequently, agents must be able first to model the society in which they exist, and then to identify the different relationships, due to norms, in which they might be involved in order to act appropri...

We describe the way to get benefit from broad cultural trends through the quantitative analysis of a vast digital book collection representing the digested history of humanity. Our research work has revealed that appropriately comparing the occurrence patterns of words in some periods of human literature can help us to accurately determine the semantic similarity between these words by means of...

In this essay I first discuss the physical relevance of the inequality m ≥ √ |J | for axially symmetric (non-stationary) black holes, where m is the mass and J the angular momentum of the spacetime. Then, I present a proof of this inequality for the case of one spinning black hole. The proof involves a remarkable characterization of the extreme Kerr black hole as an absolute minimum of the tota...

Recent empirical research conducted by Joshua Knobe has uncovered two asymmetries in our judgments about intentional action and moral responsibility. First, people are more inclined to say that a side effect was brought about intentionally when they regard that side effect as bad than when they regard it as good. Second, people are more inclined to ascribe blame to someone for bad effects than ...

We explore if traditional sharing norms in extended kinship systems distort consumption and accumulation decisions of poor black households in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. Our results suggest households try to evade their “sharing obligations” by (i) accumulating durables that are non-sharable at the expense of durables that may be shared, (ii) increasing consumption of non-durables, and (iii) ...

Disclaimer: This paper was written by two authors1 who grew up in the developed part of the Western world with experience in different countries and cultures within the developed Western world and to a limited extent in the southern hemisphere world. One of the authors brings with him an academic background in engineering. The other author brings a background in education and Religious Studies,...

Every day, millions of people publish their views on Web 2.0 (social networks, blogs, etc.). These comments focus on subjects as diverse as news, politics, sports scores, consumer objects, etc. The accumulation and agglomeration of these notices on an entity (be it a product, a company or a public entity) give birth to the brand image of that entity. Internet has become in recent years a privil...

Economists understand that mechanisms used by employers to resolve agency problems have surprising and profound consequences; when employers shape personnel policies to motivate workers, these efforts in turn affect organizational structures and such key labor market outcomes as wage inequality and involuntary unemployment. These insights emerge even in models that ascribe simple motives to emp...

Today, social media as a channel for offering educational services has become an extensive and effective educational tool for the students. This survey aimed to investigate the effective factors on intention towards social commerce of educational services among students. The statistical population included social media users at Isfahan university of medical sciences in Iran. 214 students were s...