We consider some general properties of black holes and event horizons, of causality and topology. We define trapped surfaces, congruence, convergence, and show an example of a marginally trapped surface different than the event horizons. We prove the existence of an horizon for de Sitter spacetime, via its Penrose diagram. We then define Rindler spacetime, as the accelerated Minkowski spacetime, that gains an event horizon and mimics what happens for a black hole.

The relevant international treaty-based law on corruption, human rights and the environment, with a focus on the convergence of these areas of law. Anti-corruption treaties, especially UNCAC, and human rights treaties are both moving towards recognition of the commonalities. Traces 3 approaches to convergence: corruption as background/context, a human-rights based approach, and a human right to be free of corruption.

Baptista and Sedlacek’s chapter takes Bickerton’s view that admixture is one of the chief characteristics of Creole languages (Bickerton 2008) as a starting point. The objective of their chapter is to bring to light the tight connections between the congruent forms observed across Creole languages (Faraclas et al. 2014; Faraclas 2012; Baptista 2006, 2009, 2020) which have been argued to result from speakers’ perception of similarities between the languages in contact and Weinreich’s notion of interlingual identification. A close review of interlingual identification (as it was laid out in Weinreich 1953) and how the concept has been applied and experimentally tested in situations of both bilingualism (Flege 1991) and multilingualism (Kresić and Gulan 2012) attest to how speakers use their native language as the mold through which they shape differently their interpretation of the same linguistic element in another language. As a result, the chapter argues that interlingual identification is ground zero for language mixing and language change.

When Japanese people confronted the international community in the interwar era, their concerns and ideals about the fringes of the family and marriage were aimed at not only the Japanese metropole but also its colonies like Taiwan. Metropole–colony relations were not as clear as one might expect in that there was no direct institutional connection between Japan and Taiwan regarding marriage gifts, daughter adoption, and premarital sexual relationships. However, this chapter reconstructs their discursive links and reveals how cultural critics, social workers, jurists, and others simultaneously presented their competing visions of social progress in Japan and colonial Taiwan. In Japan, progress appeared in the visions of assuming and ensuring women’s personal independence, choice, and self-awareness; in Taiwan, Japanese colonizers defined progress as incorporating women into society. Despite the hierarchical divergence of the metropolitan and colonial perspectives, however, they converged on emphasizing women’s expected behavior as members of the family and society in the 1930s. Women became the sole bearers of progress, which ultimately engendered the empire.

The book concludes with a brief discussion of a number of the themes covered in the book, in particular, multilingualism. The chapter points out that linguistic contact is likely to be more central to the processes of language change than has been assumed by many specialists.

This chapter focuses on critical concepts that underlie our conceptualization of public opinion, including the link between the public and those who govern, public opinion’s stability, opinion as an attitude, and convergence. Pollsters need to understand these concepts to do their job properly. This chapter seeks to answer the questions: Why is public opinion important? Is it stable? and What is the role of emotions in opinion formation?

This chapter examines trade rules and practices regarding technical standards on energy efficiency, carbon emissions and renewable energy. Such standards usually complement anti-pollution, decarbonization and subsidization measures discussed in the previous chapters. The active use and trade implications of these measures in the energy–environment context have intensified the pace of raising related trade concerns in the WTO. Often tensions arise because of regulatory divergence that stems from differences in domestic situations, conditions and preferences as reflected in national standardization policies. But the notion that regulatory convergence is important in cutting trade costs is widely recognized, with many jurisdictions being increasingly involved in regulatory cooperation. Clean energy products can be supplied together with the associated services. Yet international trade rules on service standards are nearly under-developed and lack substantive details, which gives leeway to national regulators. Besides ‘general’ markets, green goods and services find their use in the segment of government procurement where environmental aspects are made part of technical specifications.

There is a convergence on the protection of the traditional right to privacy and today’s right to data protection as evidenced by judicial rulings. However, there are still distinct differences among the jurisdictions based on how personal data is conceived (as a personality or proprietary right) and on the aims of the regulation. These have implications for how the use of AI will impact the laws of US and EU. Nevertheless, there are some regulatory convergences between US and EU law in terms of the realignment of traditional rights through data-driven technologies, the convergence between data protection safeguards and consumer law, and the dynamics of legal transplantation and reception in data protection and consumer law.

This chapter surveys the economic growth experience of Iberia since the early nineteenth century. After more than a century dominated by sluggish growth and divergence from Western Europe, there was a substantial acceleration in GDP and per capita GDP growth of both Iberian economies c. 1950. As a result, in the very long term, Iberia has partially closed its initial gap with the Western European core. The chapter also shows that, in the case of Spain, the early 1950s represent a divide between a hundred years of moderate growth dominated by factor accumulation, and half a century of fast growth led by total factor productivity (TFP). By contrast, this intensive model of growth was not shared by Portugal, where per capita GDP increases so far have been mainly associated to factor accumulation, rather than to TFP increases. Finally, new estimates of regional historical GDPs show that regional inequality emerged after the first long wave of modern economic growth and market integration. By 1950, the geographical patterns of regional inequality were well established, and since then they have just been consolidated. As a result, a poor Iberia has emerged that spreads over a continuous area around the border between Spain and Portugal.

This chapter collects the historical threads about the economic growth of the two Iberian nations. From a disappointing nineteenth century, during which they fell behind the rest of Europe, and the conflicts of the first half of the twentieth century, the two nations quickly caught up from the 1950s. Growth was mostly extensive and pulled by physical capital accumulation, with small contributions from human capital or productivity. The Iberian divergence from its European peers has often been blamed on natural endowments, modest domestic markets and savings, as well as on second-nature geography (market access). However, this volume shows that all of these were endogenous to the growth itself, which requires looking for deeper explanations. Institutions and the political equilibria that underpin them loom large here. After a century of fragile liberal monarchies and radical republican regimes, the two nations stood out for their long authoritarian regimes. Inward-looking economic policies promoted by the dictators favoured domestic incumbents but harmed the growth potential of the two countries. Only their gradual reopening from the 1950s unleashed this potential. Nevertheless, the gains from growth have not been equally distributed and convergence stalled in the new millennium, with the adoption of the Euro.

This chapter first addresses the question of whether latecomer firms will catch up with and eventually overtake the incumbent by merely imitating the incumbent or by initiating innovation different from those of incumbents. Section 3 deals with the coevolution of firms and surrounding institutions in the context of post-reform China where firms with diverse ownership have emerged. Productivity of locally owned enterprises is shown to eventually catch up with foreign-owned enterprises, because institutions developing over time were better exploited by the former than the latter. It suggests that private firms cannot prosper without sound institutions, and institutional development may be useless unless there are private firms that can benefit from this institutional development. Section 4 will elaborate the case of one region, Hsinchu City, in Taiwan to show that its long-term trajectory of upgrading is driven by the rise of a leading big business, namely TSMC. The final section finds that the behavior of Korean firms earlier corresponded with that of typical catching-up firms (e.g., prioritizing growth over profitability, borrowing and investing more, and specializing in short-cycle technologies) but currently show radical changes in their behavioral pattern to show signs of convergence toward the behavior of mature firms in the US.

This chapter explores the intersection of transnational law with contemporary corporate governance laws and principles. Corporate governance, with its complex array of public and private actors, fits naturally within the modern concept of transnational law as a species of law that "can no longer be viewed through a purely national lens." Financial markets today are global and interconnected and events, such as the 2007-2009 global financial crisis and the COVID-19 crisis, exemplify the risk of contagion across those markets. Not only can corporate governance problems transcend national boundaries, so too can their solutions, which often involve regulatory efforts that operate at a transnational level. The chapter explores, from a transnational perspective, the transmission of laws and norms that are designed to constrain directors’ conduct and enhance corporate accountability. It focuses on two key examples of such accountability mechanisms-fiduciary duties and corporate codes. The chapter examines, for example, the global transmission of corporate governance and shareholder stewardship codes. These codes, which are a relatively recent phenomenon, play an important role as “norm creators.” The chapter assesses the transmission of laws and norms against the backdrop of convergence and path dependence theories of corporate governance.

This chapter describes the ways in which emoji and language synchronise to realise textual meaning in a social media post. It organises these as features of a system network that describes this sychronicity. A primary distinction is made between instances where emoji replace linguistic co-text (inset) and instances where emoji accompany the linguistic co-text (punctuate) in a manner similar to punctuation or discourse markers. In terms of language, the key discourse semantic systems involved are identification and periodicity, which are crucial in tracking participants and organising information flow in texts. In terms of the SFL model of textual meaning, emoji appear to occupy a wavelength between clauses and higher-level periodicity, while the unique affordances of emoji also provide new opportunities for creating meaning in texts.

This chapter summarises the model developed for exploring emoji-text convergence in this book. It reviews the system network for describing this convergence which was built up progressively throughout, covering textual synchronicity, ideational concurrence, and interpersonal resonance. The chapter also consolidates the book’s exploration of the role of emoji in negotiating and communing around social bonds through affiliation. The chapter works through a full analysis of an extract from a Twitter thread to show how the various kinds of analysis developed in the book might be deployed, drawing on the complete convergence network as well as the affiliation networks. The chapter concludes by underscoring the crucial role that linguists might play as emoji and other forms of digital paralanguage increase in cultural prominence