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Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) are known to exist in various forms. In this study, we investigate the role of Red-Tape Barriers (RTBs), a type of NTBs resulting from wasteful bureaucratic procedures, in a bilateral trade model under international oligopolistic competition. We demonstrate that, under relatively weak conditions, RTBs can arise endogenously. Furthermore, we reveal that RTBs can exhibit reactions opposite to tariffs. Specifically, we show that an increase in tariffs can lead to a significant decrease in RTBs, causing total trade costs to decline, which we call 'backlash'. Additionally, when the backlash occurs, an increase in tariffs can improve consumer surplus, government revenue and expenditure, and social surplus. This study implies that tariff elimination, with the presence of RTBs, may hinder trade liberalization and reduce social surplus, emphasizing the need to carefully consider RTBs' effects in trade policy, especially for oligopolistic industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the difficulties faced in Kenya regarding sexual and reproductive health and rights policy making. It discusses the impact of the global anti-rights movement on women, girls, and the LGBTIQ+ community in Kenya. The article also examines the role of foreign governments, religious groups, and US-based lobby groups in shaping policies and laws in Africa. It emphasizes the importance of defending human rights, social justice, and equality in the face of these challenges. The article further delves into the politicization of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services in Kenya and the obstacles encountered in implementing abortion provisions. It concludes by addressing the exclusion of SRHR advocates from policy discussions and the suppression of their voices in favor of anti-reproductive rights groups. The text highlights the challenges faced by the SRHR sector in Kenya, particularly in relation to the adoption and implementation of progressive policies. It emphasizes the influence of anti-SRHR actors who rely on moral and religious reasoning, often disregarding scientific evidence and existing data. The SRHR sector has responded by adopting a holistic ecosystem approach and collaborating with diverse partners to address these challenges. The text stresses the need for discreet strategies and continuous advocacy to protect and advance SRHR in the face of opposition. It also calls for stronger African voices and leadership in the global discourse on SRHR to challenge dominant narratives and promote a more nuanced understanding of the regional landscape. [Extracted from the article]

This paper presents an eight degree-of-freedom dynamic model of a spur gear system under varying crack depth scenarios for nonlinear analysis. Unlike previously reported reduced order models, which fail to capture realistic system behavior, such as chaos in healthy gears observed experimentally, this realistic model offers a more accurate representation. The proposed model is validated against experimental data and used to analyze the effect of varying tooth root crack depth as a bifurcation parameter, a novel investigation in this field. The proposed model incorporates major nonlinearities such as analytically improved time-varying mesh stiffness (AI-TVMS), backlash, static transmission error, and bearing clearances. The AI-TVMS model under healthy and varying crack depth scenarios is incorporated to analyze the nonlinear characteristics of the system. The analysis is presented via different tools such as bifurcation diagrams, phase portraits, Poincare maps, power spectral density, cepstrum analysis, envelope analysis, multifractal spectral analysis, Lyapunov exponents, and approximate entropy. The results demonstrate the chaotic nature of both healthy and defective gear systems. Additionally, the transient nature of the system at fault locations increased with the severity of % the crack depth, due to which the transient chaos phenomenon appeared for defective gear systems. Finally, the evaluation of tools attempts to distinguish between inherent nonlinearity and crack-induced nonlinearity. The findings of this study will aid in more precise gear system failure diagnosis in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More aggressive campaigning styles focusing on criticizing opponents (negativity) or using inappropriate language to vilify opponents (incivility) tend to be disliked by voters, and remain thus risky for parties facing off in competitive elections. Backlashes against attackers often cancel out any dent the attacks may leave in the support for the targets. Yet, research on the conditions under which these backlashes are more likely to happen remains fragmentary. In this article, we argue that the nature of the electoral competition – specifically, the presence of viable alternative parties for voters to choose from – matters. Voters could be more likely to withdraw political support from the attacker when such alternatives exist. We test whether the availability and ideological attractiveness of alternatives intervene to explain the backlash effect associated with negativity and incivility, at the election, party, and voter levels. We do so comparatively in the context of the 2019 European Parliament elections in 27 EU countries, by linking a cross-sectional post-election survey (N = 18,790) with an expert survey covering the campaigning strategies of 175 parties that participated in the election across the continent. Estimating mixed effects multi-level models, we find support for the moderating effect of alternatives at the voter-level; voters who have at least equally attractive alternatives available to them are less likely to support parties that go negative than voters to whom the attacking party is the most viable option. Alternatives do not seem to play a major role, however, at the party and election levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Populism is multilayered and involves two main dimensions – ideology and strategy – which are employed within and beyond political parties. These dimensions can result in sometimes overlapping but generally divergent backlashes, targeting specific climate and sustainability interventions in cities. This critical commentary presents episodic populist backlashes against urban climate actions by exploring how they create their own political landscapes across the political spectrum in cities against progressive urban climate agendas. Specifically, the article examines how episodic populist backlashes manifest on an urban scale and highlights the need for urban scholars to pay more attention to the phenomenon. The article proposes two complementary explanations for why populism precedes urban climate actions in episodic and thematic ways. These explanations include policy backlashes against diffused global climate norms in cities, and counter-movements and rhetoric against climate justice and what it entails, such as inclusion in decision-making and intersectionality. The article then concludes by offering a research agenda on the episodic populist backlashes against urban climate actions, which highlights the need for a better understanding of how episodic populist movements might emerge into global climate policy diffusion, and climate justice coupled with intersectionality in cities of the Global North and Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do people react to information that challenges their party's policies? While most of the existing literature focuses on possible changes in issue opinions, we know less about other implicit and explicit ways people may contend with counter-attitudinal information. In an online experiment in India, I present participants with potentially incongruent information about a controversial economic policy and ask them to evaluate the quality of this information. I find that strong party supporters (non-supporters) feel that an article that criticizes (praises) the policy is of very poor quality. Further, people are much more likely to ignore the biased nature of an article if it reinforces their priors—but complain if it does not. Yet, although I observe strong affective reactions against information that is counter-attitudinal, there is no evidence of opinion backlash; instead, there is (weak) evidence of people updating in the direction of incongruent information. These findings reinforce the importance of studying reactions to counter-attitudinal information above and beyond issue-specific opinions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the adoption of restrictive regulations shape numbers of non-governmental organizations? Since the late 1990s, governments around the world have been enacting new legal measures designed to suppress civil society's functions and organizational space to carry out advocacy and politically oriented work. Scholars have investigated the impact of these new regulations on foreign aid flows, voting behavior, and on organizations, but to date, we lack a systematic analysis about the cross-national global effects of these legal restrictions on numbers of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) in particular, since it is these organizations (and their funders) that have been heavily targeted. In this research note, we fill this gap through an empirical analysis of the effects of various types of restrictive laws on INGO numbers in 96 countries between 1992 and 2018 and find that advocacy restrictions result in a reduction of transnational human rights organizations but not numbers of INGOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has drawn attention to states' backlash against international organizations (IOs), including whether member state withdrawals affect the longevity of IOs. We therefore ask when do member state withdrawals lead to the death of IOs? We are skeptical of a general link between withdrawal and IO death because on average, any one member is not critical for the survival of an IO. Also, withdrawal is often driven by one member state's preferences diverging from remaining members; these remaining states may band together after withdrawal, ensuring or even enhancing the longevity of the IO. Even withdrawal by several states may not contribute to IO death because a smaller group of remaining members may better overcome collective action challenges. Nonetheless, exit by an important member may affect IO survival by removing resources, market power, and guidance. We test these arguments using survival models on an original dataset of withdrawals across 532 IOs from 1909 to 2014/2020 and illustrate the dynamics with case vignettes. The results support our arguments: withdrawals in general do not lead to IO death but the withdrawal of founding members can speed IO death. Interestingly, withdrawal by economically powerful states seems to facilitate IO survival (often through reform and/or re-entry). These findings contribute to a better understanding of the lifecycle of IOs as well as to the resilience and vulnerabilities of international cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even in academic fields dominated by women students (e.g., educational research), academic careers are characterized by vertical gender segregation in favor of men. This clashes with the public understanding of educational research as a women's domain that is more strongly associated with warmth (a stereotypically feminine trait) than competence (a stereotypically masculine trait), as revealed in our first study. We thus conducted an experimental vignette study of 189 adults from the general public to explore how women versus men researchers working in educational research versus physics (as a contrasting domain clearly dominated by men) were perceived on several dimensions of competence and warmth. Whereas the female researcher in physics was rated as more competent than the female researcher in educational research, the woman in physics was penalized for her gender stereotype-incongruent domain choice by being perceived as less warm. However, the male researcher in educational research was perceived as both warmer and more competent than his man counterpart in physics, and as smarter than the female researcher in educational research. These findings suggest rewards instead of penalties for men pursuing academic careers in initially women-dominated domains, likely contributing to the increasing gender gap in academic careers in these domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note analyzes GEM's research agenda in Latin America amid democratic reversals. Contextually, two factors are highlighted: the rise of conservative anti-gender actors and high levels of intersectional inequalities challenging plural and democratic feminist political projects. From this, three discussions are proposed: (1) conceptualizing success and GEMs, (2) advancing comparative analysis of insiders in Latin America, and (3) integrating intersectional and dissident sexualities in the future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we ask if there was a backlash against film feminism in Norway in the 1980s. In Norwegian film history, this decade is known as "the helicopter period" and is associated with a turn towards commercial genre film and classical dramaturgy. This has usually been narrated as a success story for Norwegian cinema. It is, however, also a decade connected to a loss of position for the women directors who had gained a footing in Norwegian cinema in the 1970s. We thus question the idea of progress associated with this decade in film history and propose avenues of investigation. We explore the loss of position of female directors by looking at film reception and film criticism. We further present and discuss a numerical breakdown of women directors and female lead characters in the 1980s and 1990s and point to thematic readings of the on-screen portrayal of women characters in this time span. We find evidence of aggression towards women and a disappearance of women's film and argue that this points to an anti-feminist pushback in Norwegian cinema of the 1980s and 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools mainly use transmission elements such as screws and gears as drive systems. To obtain better accuracy, equipment manufacturers apply pre-pressure to the screw to reduce the occurrence of backlash errors. Backlash errors are one of the important factors affecting positioning accuracy. When the pre-pressure fails, a backlash error occurs. Backlash error can cause abnormal vibration or drive delays in CNC drive systems, leading to reduced transmission efficiency and poor positioning accuracy. Therefore, in most research, vibration sensors are installed on the fixed end of the screw or the nut to detect abnormal phenomena and to estimate the backlash error using the algorithmic model. This traditional method has been established on the basis of the relationship between the amount of vibration and backlash error using an algorithmic model. The backlash can be estimated using this traditional method. However, this traditional method cannot directly sense backlash errors, and the accuracy of the measurement is limited by the algorithm model. Therefore, in this study, we attempted to use a photoelectric switch sensor combined with a microcontroller unit to detect the backlash errors of the CNC drive system. This system can detect a time change of 10 µs. After error corrections, the gain values of each backlash amount and delay time can be used to predict the backlash amount. Through the final verification with commercially available instruments, the system accuracy was found to reach 0.001 mm on the linear axis and 0.001° on the rotating axis. Owing to the streamlined sensing principle of the proposed system, in the future, the system can be integrated into the relevant rotary table components or within the CNC drive system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are policymakers rewarded in elections when they succeed in moving public policy in their ideological direction? Or do they face a thermostatic backlash, as citizens judge their policy moves as too hot or too cold? Our analysis of Congressional election outcomes since 1948 adds information on Congressional policy actions to traditional election models emphasizing the surge and decline of presidential support and referendums based on presidential approval and the economy. We find that the electorate reacts to the ideological direction of policy, voting against parties that push policy further to the left or the right in both midterm and presidential years. Even after accounting for policy and traditional explanations, however, there remains a large midterm penalty for the president's party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-speed gear reducers are highly sensitive to vibration and noise, especially in new-energy vehicles. Hence, the current nonlinear dynamics model of gears does not fully consider the influence of tooth microstructure on backlash and friction. This study establishes a nonlinear friction dynamics model for a high-speed helical gear system, which includes time-varying dynamic backlash and friction coefficient based on the fractal characterization of tooth roughness. Furthermore, it investigates the influence of tooth surface roughness on the dynamic performance by taking into account the interaction between friction and vibration under Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication (EHL). Theoretical simulation results show that an increase in tooth roughness leads to an overall deterioration in the dynamic performance of the helical gear system; however, local optimization can also be observed. In the case of a dynamic tooth backlash, the amplitude of displacement oscillations increases, and the number of frequencies increases; in terms of frictional coefficient, the amplitude of displacement oscillations increases, but the change is small compared with that of the dynamic tooth backlash, and the number of frequencies in the spectrum decreases. The results indicate that the proposed model can provide a reference for controlling the tooth roughness of high-speed gears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores a backlash against the net zero greenhouse gas emissions target within the UK. It introduces the term "anti-net zero populism" to analyse ideological and opportunistic counter-movements working to undermine climate policy. It builds a conceptual framework based on the literatures on "policy dismantling" and "discursive opportunity structures" to analyse how right-wing populists seek to undermine the net zero goal and dismantle policies. The article compares these efforts across six specific policy areas involved in pursuing net zero. Overall, it contributes to understanding the roles of discourse for policy dismantling, and the comparative strategies pursued to undermine net zero. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, a dynamic model considering time-varying mesh stiffness and backlash was proposed and a test rig was built to investigate the vibration behavior of the idle gear set in a gerotor pump. The effects of input shaft speed, torque fluctuation, and gear tooth backlash on the dynamic performance of gerotor pump were analyzed according to the numerical and experimental results. Results demonstrate that when the torque fluctuation is neglected, the dynamic transmission error of drive gear is dominated by the first three mesh harmonic components; however, the RMS values of vibration acceleration have high frequency characteristics. When the torque fluctuation is considered, the dynamic responses of gerotor pump are modulated by the torque fluctuation. The effect of tooth backlash on the dynamic performance of gerotor pump is limited and mostly depended on the torque fluctuation condition. The gerotor pump noise is dominated by the low frequency component around the mesh frequency. The vibration energy can be divided into two parts in the frequency domain. In the low frequency band, the vibration energy is caused by the mechanical vibration. However, in the high frequency band, the cavitation phenomena may cause the concentration of the vibration energy and resonant of pump structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For two-inertia servo mechanisms, the high order, backlash nonlinearity and external disturbance make the precise modeling and control difficult to implement. This article provides an easily implemented modeling and control strategy to deal with this problem. A characteristic modeling framework of disturbed nonlinear systems is proposed. To restrain the modeling error, the backlash nonlinearity and torque disturbance are observed by constructing a finite-time extended state observer (FESO) based on homogeneity properties and then the compensation action can be taken. Based on the compensated system, the discrete-time characteristic model is established using the sampled input-output data, which degrades the modeling complicacy. To estimate the model parameters, an adaptation law with projection algorithm is proposed using the tracking error and the estimation error as the excitation signal. A discrete-time second-order fast terminal sliding-mode control (DSFTSC) is proposed based on the characteristic model to stabilize the whole system, where an improved reaching law is designed to enhance the rapidity and weaken the chattering and the utilization of the fast terminal switching surface also speeds up the regression rate and decreases the tracking error. Finally, the effectiveness of the characteristic modeling, the adaptive law and the control scheme is validated by simulations in Matlab and experiments in a practical test rig, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the backlash effect has long studied the social sanctions that individuals impose on those who do not conform to stereotypical expectations. Specifically, research has focused on reactions to gender stereotype violations. Studies have shown that adults, adolescents, and even children will sanction others when they fail to conform to gender stereotypes. The present pre-registered research (https://tinyurl.com/4epypv3a) studied this gender backlash among adolescents in French middle and high-schools. For this study, we were also interested in exploring the moderating role of participants' socioeconomic status in their expression of backlash. We created four profiles of adolescents presenting their candidacy for a school representative role. The profiles varied in the personality traits and behaviors they contained (stereotypically feminine vs. masculine) and the gender of the target (boy vs. girl). A sample of 840 participants between the ages of 13 and 18 rated the target adolescent on measures intended to capture backlash, as well as gender stereotypicality items. Using multilevel models to analyze our data, we did not find evidence of backlash as hypothesized. However, unexpectedly, on a measure of perception of arrogance, we found that participants judged a counter-stereotypical target more positively than a stereotypical target. Furthermore, we also found evidence that, compared to stereotypical targets, counter-stereotypical targets were judged more competent, mostly by high SES adolescents. Possible methodological and theoretical explanations for these results are discussed, as well as implications for future research on the backlash effect, particularly among adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examines the poor fit between the idea of school meritocracy and the successful inclusion of students with special educational needs (SEN). Because students with SEN are assigned negative stereotypes related to suffering, failure, and difficulty regarding their school achievement, we argue that, if they succeed at levels comparable to those of regular students, they may experience backlash, a sanction for challenging the status quo. The results of two studies show that backlash can manifest itself in the form of lower assigned competence to students with special educational needs who succeed. More precisely, across a pilot and a main study, our findings indicate that while performing as well as students without special educational needs, the perceived competence of students with special educational needs was evaluated as lower by participants (pre- and in-service teachers), particularly when these students benefitted from an accommodation perceived as "unfair". Due to its potential role in justifying inequities within educational contexts, the backlash effect is discussed as an ideological barrier to the inclusion of students with special educational needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender equality issues are receiving increasing media attention. At the same time, journalists reporting on such issues experience hostility and online harassment. This study investigates which factors drive users' intentions to engage with journalistic content on gender equality issues and whether the author's gender plays a role in this. An experiment was conducted among German online users (n = 612) with issue ownership and backlash as two central mechanisms to explain gendered perceptions and engagement with articles on gender equalityissues. Results show that men journalists writing about harassment in the workplace were perceived more negatively than women journalists writing about the same issue, which partially also affects engagement. In the case of a less sensitive topic such as women's leadership, participants' feminine gender role orientation increased intentions to engage with the article written by a woman, whereas in the case of a sensitive topic such as harassment it fostered backlash toward the woman author. Findings indicate that both backlash theory and role congruity theory account for distinct partially contradicting effects of gender norms and role perceptions on the engagement with articles on gender equality issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite their complex design, cycloidal gearboxes are characterized by high efficiency. Nevertheless, due to friction, some power is lost during gearbox operation. Basically, these losses occur in two structural nodes: the cycloid gearing and the output mechanism. Since the first of these nodes has been well discussed in the literature, the output mechanism will be discussed in this article. The design of the output mechanism has a significant impact on mechanical power losses. There are several mechanism design solutions. One of them is a mechanism with serially arranged rollers. Three solutions that are different in design but work identically will be discussed. Due to this affinity, a single, common mathematical model will be used to determine the value of losses. As will be shown, the value of losses is directly affected by the backlash, number, and diameter of the rollers used in the output mechanism and indirectly by the ratio and eccentricity of the cycloidal gearbox. Sample calculations were carried out using the developed model of mechanical power losses in the output mechanism. This made it possible to analyze the distribution of backlash created by manufacturing tolerances. It was also shown that the backlash has a significant effect on the number of rollers involved in torque transmission, as well as on the distribution of loads, contact pressures, and mechanical power losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to correctly understand the output characteristics of gear-motors with different types of backlash sizes/offset unloading slots, a unified simplified formula for output characteristics such as speed/torque is constructed based on the different meshing line intervals of meshing tooth profiles/output characteristics, using the type value that measures the backlash size and the offset value between the symmetrical line of the double unloading slots and the centerline of the gear pair as variables. The results show that through the interval of the output characteristic meshing-line, the output speed and torque curve can be directly obtained from the speed and torque curve of meshing tooth-profile; under the symmetrical relief-groove type, the average output speed is the smallest, the average torque is the biggest, and the ripple coefficients of the output speed and torque are the smallest; the offset range of the relief-groove and the range of the output speed and torque regulating are larger under small backlash type than large backlash type; with small backlash and symmetrical relief-groove type, the average output speed is smaller, the average output torque is larger, and the ripple coefficient of the output speed and torque is smaller; the torque-ripple coefficient of the gear-motor is completely consistent with the flow-ripple coefficient of the gear-pump; the torque-ripple coefficient is slightly less than the speed-ripple coefficient, and can be approximately equal under the condition of large tooth-number; when high-speed is pursued, the type combination of large backlash and relief groove limit-offset shall be selected; with the pursuit of large torque or high output ripple-quality, the type combination of small backlash and symmetrical relief-groove shall be selected, etc. It is concluded that the obtaining method of output characteristics is simpler, the principle is clearer, the form is more concise, and the results are more reliable.

This study investigates the problems of eccentricity and backlash using an analytical spur gear model with 26 degrees of freedom (DOF). Previous studies have only investigated the case of eccentricity with a parallel shift of the axis of rotation of the gear relative to its geometric axis of symmetry. This study presents a novel method for determining the radius of eccentricity and its angular position at any distance from the bearing support, in which the axis of rotation and the geometric axis of symmetry of the gear are non-parallel. The effect of gear motion in the line of action (LOA) and off-line of action (OLOA) directions on backlash is precisely determined, despite the fact that most studies usually ignore gear displacement along the OLOA direction. Numerical simulations are performed to determine the effect of eccentricity on backlash, and their results confirm that the proposed method for determining the radius of eccentricity for any eccentricity type is correct. A gear slice model is used for dynamic analysis. Results show that the type of eccentricity has a significant effect on the gear dynamics and that eccentricity analyses have to include other cases than merely eccentricity with parallel axes of gears.

Although the Declaration of Independence stated that "[a]ll men are created equal," due to the institution of slavery, this statement was not to be grounded in law in the U.S until after the Civil War. Often, American blacks looked to the courts to protect important social values and when the courts ruled in favor, there was always a backlash and resistance to judicial fiat. This paper makes a historical analysis of the South's response to judicial social change. For instance, when Brown v. Board of Education of Tepeka was decided in 1954, school boards in portions of the country actively resisted the court mandated school integration. Thus, the paper argues that social change should be a gradual process and not a forced enterprise by the courts or indeed, any governmental structure since an assertive judiciary can spark a political and cultural backlash that may hurt, more than help, progressive values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigate the practice of feminism among young South Korean women in the era of backlash. Drawing on interviews with 40 female college students in South Korea, we found that most of the participants self-identify as feminists who engage in feminist activities primarily in private offline settings on their college campuses. To understand this phenomenon of quiet feminism, which contradicts the global trend of postfeminist attitudes and online feminism, we link the students' offline practice of everyday feminism with what we term everyday backlash. Our findings reveal that these young women have encountered widespread antifeminist sentiments in both online and offline everyday contexts since the rapid popularization of feminism in South Korea in the late 2010s. We argue that this pervasive everyday backlash not only motivates the students to create safe spaces within their college campuses but also discourages them from publicly disclosing their feminist identities. Through this research, we contribute to the literature on contemporary feminist practice and its relationship with backlash by offering a nuanced understanding of the local context in South Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Western Europe the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020 marked the close of a period of climate activism that had until then been dominated by the Fridays for Future movement, with its youth-driven protests and pleas to listen to the science. But now that its political star has faded more radical groups have taken the reins—many of which are less interested in organising mass rallies than in staging acts of civil disobedience. This article charts some of the fault lines created by this activist changing of the guard, takes a critical look at the now prevalent logic of attention at all costs and outlines how and why it may give rise to feelings of reactance. It concludes that the zeal of this new generation of activists must be curbed if the acceptance of climate protection measures is to be ensured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The matrix of deep-rooted social, political, sectarian, and patriarchal structures in Lebanon necessitates the introduction of a nuanced understanding of 'backlash' that veers away from definitions of the notion that apply mostly in Western contexts. This article proposes a contextualised definition of backlash for Lebanon and frames it by unpacking the structural flaws found in the very way Lebanese society is constructed, and in power relations within the country's familial structures. It also discusses the different forms of anti-feminist backlash observed in the country over the past few years, focusing on three axes: systemic violence, tactical backlash, and atomised backlash. Explored through case studies ranging from the hostile sectarian system against women in politics to radical religious groups, this article explores how backlash in this context diverges from the conceptualisations of backlash in existing literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India is facing a period of seismic backlash against feminist and progressive politics and the pace of change, particularly over the last ten years, has been breakneck with serious consequences for women's equality and human rights. Drawing on an examination of the reversals and pushbacks against women's rights in three areas - the citizenship rights of Muslim women, the rights of domestic workers, and the impacts of restrictions on foreign funding on women's rights organising - this article seeks to contribute not just to an understanding of the nature of the backlash faced by women's rights in India, but also to the wider debates on backlash from global South feminist perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considerable progress has been seen in Ugandan women's collective advocacy for their rights since independence. Notably, women activists' efforts in the early 1990s culminated in the institutionalisation of gender equality in Uganda's constitution and a subsequent resurgence of the women's movement. Despite these efforts, certain egalitarian and inclusive policy reforms have been postponed, stripped of clauses that question patriarchal power, watered down, bureaucratically frustrated, or outrightly rejected. This article draws on ongoing contestations around the stalled Sexual Offences Bill, 2019 to address the following questions: How do we understand the current and recent swell of anti-feminist backlash? What motivates backlash against gender equity reforms? And what will it take to counter these oppositional forces? The article reveals overt and covert forms of backlash in the sexual offences legislative process, the ways in which gender justice actors countered these, and the implications for understanding and countering backlash in Uganda and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a grounded example of backlash in action surrounding the implementation of the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act 2010 in Bangladesh. While formulation and enactment of the law marked significant achievements, its implementation has been weak. Unlike conventional analyses that concentrate on backlash in gender equality policy formulation, this study focuses on the obstacles encountered during the implementation phase. Through in-depth interviews with advocates and stakeholders responsible for implementation, the article examines their attitudes and interests concerning the law and women's rights to life, dignity, and bodily integrity. Prevailing gender norms perpetuate the trivialisation of domestic violence, framing it as a personal issue of minimal importance. Consequently, service providers tend to delegitimise and deprioritise it. This article investigates the strategies and tactics of deliberate inaction employed by backlash proponents, which is different from lack of capacity, and explores the counter-strategies deployed by advocates aiming to ensure the Act's effective implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the backlash against reproductive rights during Jair Bolsonaro's government, focusing on access to legal abortions. Although access to abortion is quite restricted in Brazil, under Bolsonaro it was further curtailed through institutionalised spaces of power. This was met by counterbacklash actions, with an intensification of feminist activism in an attempt to secure an agenda of hard-won reproductive rights. To address this struggle for reproductive rights and against restrictions, we focus our analysis on the high-profile media case of an 11-year-old girl, pregnant after being raped. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voice is central to claims-making and contestations around gender equality. This article engages with a diverse set of literature, social and feminist movement theory, and gender and development scholarship, to foreground voice in the analysis of the discursive strategies of backlash actors and the counter-actions by feminist coalitions. Drawing on rich discussions with feminist academic-activists based in the global South and the UK, the article unpacks the various conceptual and methodological challenges that emerge in researching feminist collective voice in countering backlash, particularly on matters such as intersectionality and building collective feminist voice; intra-movement backlash and fragmentation of voice; capturing subtler forms of expressions of agency; and the cyclical nature of backlash. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst international policy between the mid-1990s and mid-2010s gave some hope for progress on gender equality, events since then - including conflicts, climate change, the pandemic, and an increasingly insecure world - have thrown these hopes into doubt. Far from steady progress on gender equality, we now face backlash against gender and sexual rights. This article introduces our IDS Bulletin which explores understandings of backlash from a primarily global South perspective. Articles from Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Uganda, and the UK detail examples of anti-gender backlash in different contexts, and the actors, interests, and tactics involved. This introduction groups the issues into three themes: voice and tactics, framings and direction, and temporality and structure. It also briefly touches on the tactics gender activists have used in countering backlash. In conclusion, the article calls for an increased analysis of backlash from more diverse settings to develop better strategies for resistance and reclaiming gender justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mainstream human rights activists typically attribute the signature successes of their movement (e.g. antislavery, Gandhi, Martin Luther King) to their uncompromisingly principled stance on behalf of the weak and the exploited. Naming and shaming and ending impunity loom large in their lore. This attitude works well to recruit idealistic activists, but their moralism, legalism, and secular universalism miss the central role of the self-interest of the majority in powering the progress of human rights. A core of idealists has defined aspirational goals, but progress has depended on support from majority mass movements and reform parties that gained power through expedient compromise. The human rights enterprise is now facing fierce pushback from illiberal strongmen and populists who counter-shame the liberal order as decadent, degenerate, and threatening to deeply rooted values. Too often, contemporary rights rhetoric plays into the hands of these illiberal critics. Human Rights for Pragmatists explains how rights-based societies can recover a more accurate narrative of their past pragmatic successes, repair their tactical flaws, and withstand illiberal challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the problems of eccentricity and backlash using an analytical spur gear model with 26 degrees of freedom (DOF). Previous studies have only investigated the case of eccentricity with a parallel shift of the axis of rotation of the gear relative to its geometric axis of symmetry. This study presents a novel method for determining the radius of eccentricity and its angular position at any distance from the bearing support, in which the axis of rotation and the geometric axis of symmetry of the gear are non-parallel. The effect of gear motion in the line of action (LOA) and off-line of action (OLOA) directions on backlash is precisely determined, despite the fact that most studies usually ignore gear displacement along the OLOA direction. Numerical simulations are performed to determine the effect of eccentricity on backlash, and their results confirm that the proposed method for determining the radius of eccentricity for any eccentricity type is correct. A gear slice model is used for dynamic analysis. Results show that the type of eccentricity has a significant effect on the gear dynamics and that eccentricity analyses have to include other cases than merely eccentricity with parallel axes of gears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To address vehicle drivetrain vibrations that cause discomfort and poor drivability, this study proposes a new active damping strategy with simple backlash compensation based on the simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation (SPSA) with norm-limited update vector. First, an experimental device developed for a simplified drivetrain mechanism is demonstrated. A mechanism for reproducing both the contact mode and the backlash mode is included in the device. For the contact mode, a model-based H 2 controller is employed as the baseline damping strategy. Further, to mitigate the backlash effect, a simple algorithm based on mode-switching-based compensation is used with the H 2 controller. In particular, for the critical controller parameters, this article presents a systematic design approach to search for their optimal values. The key parameters, which are needed for the backlash and contact mode controllers, are simultaneously auto-tuned using norm-limited update vector-based SPSA, which ensures the stability in the iterative tuning. The novelty of this study is that both the backlash mode controller and the contact mode controller are simultaneously optimized by the improved version of SPSA, thus realizing a comprehensive auto-tuning design of an active drivetrain damping system. Finally, the active controller is experimentally verified using the actual test device. Comparative studies show that the proposed approach significantly reduces drivetrain vibrations and is robust against fluctuations in the backlash. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to realize multi-objective optimization of cycloid-pin gears to improve the positioning accuracy and load-carrying capacity of the rotary vector (RV) reducer, via the consideration of backlash, transmission error, and torsional stiffness. Initially, the analytical models of the RV transmission backlash and transmission error are developed by using both purely geometrical and equivalent model methods individually. Based on the generalized Hooke's law, a torsion angle model is established to characterize the torsional stiffness of the system, utilizing methods such as Hertzian contact theory and bearing stiffness models. Subsequently, employing the Monte Carlo method, extremum method, and quality loss function, mapping objective functions for dimensional accuracy (tolerance) and transmission performance (backlash, transmission error, and torsional stiffness) are constructed. The geometry dimensions, dimensional accuracy, and modification of the cycloid-pin gear are considered as design variables to create a multi-objective optimization model. The improved Parallel Adaptive Genetic Algorithm using Deferential Evolution (PAGA-DE) is used for multi-objective solutions. Through example calculations, the impact of cycloid-pin gear parameters on transmission performance before and after optimization is determined. The reliability of backlash after optimization within 1.5′ reaches 99.99%, showing an increase of 8.24%. The reliability of transmission error within 1′ reaches 98.52%, demonstrating an increase of 1.35%. The torsional angle is reduced by 8.9% before optimization. The results indicate that the proposed multi-objective optimization design method for cycloid-pin gears can achieve the goal of improving the transmission performance of the RV reducer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid growing polarisation in European societies, civil society elites, encompassing resource-rich, influential and often liberal-oriented civil society organisations (CSOs), are under increased attacks by conservative and progressive actors alike. This article aims to understand who challenges civil society elites, on what grounds, and with what means do they do so in the United Kingdom, by drawing on the cultural theory of frontlash/backlash. The article portrays two ideologically opposed challengers: one coming from within the charity sector in the form of the #CharitySoWhite campaign and another from outside the charity sector led by Conservative MPs, the Common Sense group. While these two challengers are not directly connected, they are part of the broader frontlash/backlash dynamic polarising public debates, with spillover effects in civil society. By applying a frontlash/backlash perspective, the article puts an emphasis on cultural cleavages as one of the central sources of polarisation in the civil space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel fuzzy adaptive sliding mode control method is proposed for realizing the asymptotic trajectory tracking of robotic manipulators with control backlash and uncertainties. The fuzzy logic system is introduced into the sliding mode control to estimate the system uncertainties. For compensating the unknown lumped disturbance and accelerating the convergence process, an adaptive super-twisting sliding mode controller is proposed with a novel adaptive law. The system states reach the sliding mode surface in a finite time and the control effect is continuous without over-estimation and control chattering. Depending on the Lyapunov stability theory, the tracking error converges to zero in a fast-exponential form. The effectiveness of the proposed method is fully indicated by the simulation of a robotic manipulator system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]