The Stuart Hall Conjuncture

I recall distinctly when and where I first heard of Stuart Hall. It was in 1973 at a residential school I had organised at the University of Bristol on Marxism and Literature with Raymond Williams and E.P Thompson as its main—indeed, only— speakers. And it was Thompson who mentioned Stuart, saying that I ought to have asked him to speak in Thompson’s place. I put this down to Thompson’s characteristic modesty, for both he and Williams had commanded their audience’s attention throughout a memorable weekend. But I logged the name and began to look up Stuart’s wor

An Integrated Assessment approach to linking biophysical modelling and economic valuation tools

Natural resource management (NRM) typically involves complex decisions that affect a variety of stakeholder values. Efficient NRM, which achieves the greatest net environmental, social and financial benefits, needs to integrate the assessment of environmental impacts with the costs and benefits of investment. Integrated assessment (IA) is one approach that incorporates the several dimensions of catchment NRM, by considering multiple issues and knowledge from various disciplines and stakeholders. Despite the need for IA, there are few studies that integrate biophysical modelling tools with economic valuation. In this paper, we demonstrate how economic non-market valuation tools can be used to support an IA of catchment NRM changes. We develop a Bayesian Network model that integrates: a process-based water quality model; ecological assessments of native riparian vegetation; estimates of management costs; and non-market (intangible) values of changes in riparian vegetation. This modelling approach illustrates how information from different sources can be integrated in one framework to evaluate the environmental and economic impacts of NRM actions. It also shows the uncertainties associated with the estimated welfare effects. By estimating the marginal social costs and benefits, a cost-benefit analysis of alternative management intervention can be gained and provides more economic rationality to NRM decisions.Bayesian networks, bio-economic modelling, catchment management, cost-benefit analysis, environmental values, integrated assessment and modelling, non-market valuation, riparian vegetation, Environmental Economics and Policy, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Space proof complexity for random 3-CNFs

We investigate the space complexity of refuting 3-CNFs in Resolution and algebraic systems. We prove that every Polynomial Calculus with Resolution refutation of a random 3-CNF φ in n variables requires, with high probability, distinct monomials to be kept simultaneously in memory. The same construction also proves that every Resolution refutation of φ requires, with high probability, clauses each of width to be kept at the same time in memory. This gives a lower bound for the total space needed in Resolution to refute φ. These results are best possible (up to a constant factor) and answer questions about space complexity of 3-CNFs

Comparing Ecological Sensitivity with Stream Flow Rates in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin

Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Jim Allen : radical drama beyond 'days of hope'

Due to a desire to establish television as a serious medium, television drama has often been seen as a forum for writers, with names such as David Mercer, Dennis Potter and Trevor Griffiths identified by critics as the driving force, or auteur, behind the works that bear their names rather than, as in much writing about film, the director. However, while this has been so, there are also many examples of writers whose contribution to television writing has been much less celebrated, often due to their close collaboration with a high-profile director who in many critics’ view remains the most influential contributor to the final piece of work. One practitioner who arguably has failed to get the critical credit he is due is Jim Allen, a writer still perhaps best known for his work with one such high-profile director, Ken Loach

Twentieth Anniversary Colloquium : the Cultural and Communications Studies Section of the Australian Academy of the Humanities

In November 1991, the Australian Academy of the Humanities held a symposium under the title Beyond the Disciplines: the New Humanities. Convened by Ken Ruthven, the Professor of English at the University of Melbourne, and a member of the Academy’s English Section, the symposium set out to explore the ‘battering’ that the traditional humanities had received ‘from radical critiques of their methods and politics’ in the context of the ‘Theory Wars’.1 It did so by bringing together representatives of the ‘New Humanities’ to address six topics. Meaghan Morris and John Frow spoke to the interdisciplinary aspects of cultural studies; Paul Carter and Sneja Gunew addressed the topic of multicultural studies; Tony Bennett and Lesley Johnson looked at the place of cultural policy studies within cultural studies; Judith Allen and Maila Stevens engaged with the place of feminist and gender studies within and beyond the disciplines; Simon During and Dipesh Chakrabarty brought post-colonial and subaltern studies into the conversation; and Michael Meehan and Hilary Charlesworth presented on new directions in legal studies