Experiencing War as the \u27Enemy Other\u27: Italian Scottish experience in World War II (Book Review) by Wendy Ugolini

Review of Experiencing War as the \u27Enemy Other\u27: Italian Scottish experience in World War II. Wendy Ugolini. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011. Pp. 288

Demographic trends in the Manchester-Nashua metropolitan area

In the city of Manchester, New Hampshire, 25 percent of children live below the poverty line, a high rate that is in stark contrast to the state\u27s rate of just 10 percent, one of the nation\u27s lowest. That is the most surprising finding from this new analysis of demographic trends in the Manchester-Nashua metropolitan area. The brief presents recent demographic shifts in Manchester, Nashua, and suburban Hillsborough County alongside historical perspectives of the region

A Community Schools Approach to Accessing Services and Improving Neighborhood Outcomes in Manchester, NH

This brief uses data collected by the Manchester Health Department in 2013 and analyzed by the Carsey School of Public Policy in the Bakersville, Beech Street, and Gossler Park neighborhoods in Manchester, New Hampshire, to provide information about how barriers to various dimensions of well-being differ by place and also across race/ethnicity, foreign-born status, and age. Survey data and focus groups also gave residents a voice in the implementation of the Manchester Community Schools Project—a partnership between the Manchester Health Department, city elementary schools, philanthropists, neighborhood residents, and several nonprofit agencies—to improve and enhance educational achievement, economic well-being, access to health care services, healthy behaviors, social connectedness, safety, and living environments. A key element of this project is to make elementary schools in the Bakersville, Beech Street, and Gossler Park neighborhoods centerpieces of community life for all residents, not just those with children. Author Justin Young reports that one-quarter of residents surveyed in 2013 in the Manchester neighborhoods of Bakersville, Beech Street, and Gossler Park say that difficulty in finding services is a major hindrance, especially to economic stability, health, and social connectedness. Focus group data suggest that the city’s foreign-born residents, especially Hispanics, have the most trouble finding and accessing services. Cost is an obstacle to accessing health care services, and older and younger focus group participants, as well as immigrants, say the cost of transportation is a barrier to accessing services. He concludes that the neighborhood in which one lives shapes a variety of outcomes related to well-being, and that a place-based approach like the community schools model can improve outcomes not only for residents of the Bakersville, Beech Street, and Gossler Park areas but for all Manchester residents

Input Design for System Identification via Convex Relaxation

This paper proposes a new framework for the optimization of excitation inputs for system identification. The optimization problem considered is to maximize a reduced Fisher information matrix in any of the classical D-, E-, or A-optimal senses. In contrast to the majority of published work on this topic, we consider the problem in the time domain and subject to constraints on the amplitude of the input signal. This optimization problem is nonconvex. The main result of the paper is a convex relaxation that gives an upper bound accurate to within $2/\pi$ of the true maximum. A randomized algorithm is presented for finding a feasible solution which, in a certain sense is expected to be at least $2/\pi$ as informative as the globally optimal input signal. In the case of a single constraint on input power, the proposed approach recovers the true global optimum exactly. Extensions to situations with both power and amplitude constraints on both inputs and outputs are given. A simple simulation example illustrates the technique.Comment: Preprint submitted for journal publication, extended version of a paper at 2010 IEEE Conference on Decision and Contro

Pulsar Timing Arrays and their Applications

Millisecond pulsars are intrinsically very stable clocks and precise measurement of their observed pulse periods can be used to study a wide variety of astrophysical phenomena. In particular, observations of a large sample of millisecond pulsars at regular intervals, constituting a Pulsar Timing Array (PTA), can be used as a detector of low-frequency gravitational waves and to establish a standard of time independent of terrestrial atomic timescales. Three major timing array projects have been established: The European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA), the North American pulsar timing array (NANOGrav) and the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA). Results from the PPTA project are described in some detail and future prospects for PTA projects are discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the AIP Conference Proceedings for the Pulsar Conference 2010, Sardinia, Italy, October 201

Symbol Detection of Ambient Backscatter Systems with Manchester Coding

Ambient backscatter communication is a newly emerged paradigm, which utilizes the ambient radio frequency (RF) signal as the carrier to reduce the system battery requirement, and is regarded as a promising solution for enabling large scale deployment of future Internet of Things (IoT) networks. The key issue of ambient backscatter communication systems is how to perform reliable detection. In this paper, we propose novel encoding methods at the information tag, and devise the corresponding symbol detection methods at the reader. In particular, Manchester coding and differential Manchester coding are adopted at the information tag, and the corresponding semi-coherent Manchester (SeCoMC) and non-coherent Manchester (NoCoMC) detectors are developed. In addition, analytical bit error rate (BER) expressions are characterized for both detectors assuming either complex Gaussian or unknown deterministic ambient signal. Simulation results show that the BER performance of unknown deterministic ambient signal is better, and the SeCoMC detector outperforms the NoCoMC detector. Finally, compared with the prior detectors for ambient backscatter communications, the proposed detectors have the advantages of achieving superior BER performance with lower communication delay.Comment: accepted by IEEE transaction on wireless communicatio

Universities, regional policy and the knowledge economy

This article focuses on the spatial clustering dimension of new information and communications technology (ICT)-driven economic activity based on knowledge industries and especially the tacit knowledge synergies to be achieved through networking in geographical space. The article first details the new knowledge economy, reviewing claims made for its distinctiveness and its role in raising levels of productivity before turning to a brief study of the clustering effects of new ICT-driven economic activity and the development of policies designed to enhance regional development. The remainder of the article details a case study – Univercities: the Manchester Knowledge Capital Initiative – in the North-west of the United Kingdom based on recent research into the attempt to create a ‘Knowledge Capital’ within the Greater Manchester conurbation, which is designed to position Manchester at the heart of the knowledge economy