Decelerated invasion and waning-moon patterns in public goods games with delayed distribution

We study the evolution of cooperation in the spatial public goods game, focusing on the effects that are brought about by the delayed distribution of goods that accumulate in groups due to the continuous investments of cooperators. We find that intermediate delays enhance network reciprocity because of a decelerated invasion of defectors, who are unable to reap the same high short-term benefits as they do in the absence of delayed distribution. Long delays, however, introduce a risk because the large accumulated wealth might fall into the wrong hands. Indeed, as soon as the curvature of a cooperative cluster turns negative, the engulfed defectors can collect the heritage of many generations of cooperators and by doing so start a waning-moon pattern that nullifies the benefits of decelerated invasion. Accidental meeting points of growing cooperative clusters may also act as triggers for the waning-moon effect, thus linking the success of cooperators with their propensity to fail in a rather bizarre way. Our results highlight that “investing in the future” is a good idea only if that future is sufficiently near and not likely to be burdened by inflation

Presidential Leadership in the Development of the U.S. Space Program

Papers presented at a historical symposium on Presidential leadership in the space program include the following: 'The Imperial Presidency in the History of Space Exploration'; 'The Reluctant Racer: Dwight D. Eisenhower and United States Space Policy'; 'Kennedy and the Decision to Go to the Moon'; 'Johnson, Project Apollo, and the Politics of Space Program Planning'; 'The Presidency, Congress, and the Deceleration of the U.S. Space Program in the 1970s'; 'Politics not Science: The U.S. Space Program in the Reagan and Bush Years'; 'Presidential Leadership and International Aspects of the Space Program'; 'National Leadership and Presidential Power'; and 'Epilogue: Beyond NASA Exceptionalism'

Unmet goals of tracking: within-track heterogeneity of students' expectations for

Educational systems are often characterized by some form(s) of ability grouping, like tracking. Although substantial variation in the implementation of these practices exists, it is always the aim to improve teaching efficiency by creating homogeneous groups of students in terms of capabilities and performances as well as expected pathways. If students’ expected pathways (university, graduate school, or working) are in line with the goals of tracking, one might presume that these expectations are rather homogeneous within tracks and heterogeneous between tracks. In Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), the educational system consists of four tracks. Many students start out in the most prestigious, academic track. If they fail to gain the necessary credentials, they move to the less esteemed technical and vocational tracks. Therefore, the educational system has been called a 'cascade system'. We presume that this cascade system creates homogeneous expectations in the academic track, though heterogeneous expectations in the technical and vocational tracks. We use data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), gathered during the 2013-2014 school year from 2354 pupils of the tenth grade across 30 secondary schools in the city of Ghent, Flanders. Preliminary results suggest that the technical and vocational tracks show more heterogeneity in student’s expectations than the academic track. If tracking does not fulfill the desired goals in some tracks, tracking practices should be questioned as tracking occurs along social and ethnic lines, causing social inequality

Asian Transformations

Gunnar Myrdal published his magnum opus, Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations, in 1968. He was deeply pessimistic about development prospects in Asia. The fifty years since then have witnessed a remarkable social and economic transformation in Asia – even if it has been uneven across countries and unequal between people – that would have been difficult to imagine, let alone predict at the time. This book analyses the fascinating story of economic development in Asia spanning half a century. The study is divided into three parts. The first part sets the stage by discussing the contribution of Gunnar Myrdal, the author, and Asian Drama, the book, to the debate on development then and now, and by providing a long-term historical perspective on Asia in the world. The second part comprises cross-country thematic studies on governments, economic openness, agricultural transformation, industrialization, macroeconomics, poverty and inequality, education and health, employment and unemployment, institutions and nationalisms, analysing processes of change while recognizing the diversity in paths and outcomes. The third part is constituted by country-studies on China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam, and sub-region studies on East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia, highlighting turning points in economic performance and analysing factors underlying success or failure. This book, with in-depth studies by eminent economists and social scientists, is the first to examine the phenomenal changes which are transforming economies in Asia and shifting the balance of economic power in the world, while reflecting on the future prospects in Asia over the next twenty-five years. It is a must-read

History, landscape and national identity:a comparative study of contemporary English and Icelandic literature for children

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DXN055211 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Bowdoin Orient v.111, no.1-24 (1981-1982)

https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/bowdoinorient-1980s/1002/thumbnail.jp

Cinema at the Crossroads: Bruce Conner’s Atomic Sublime, 1958 - 2008

This dissertation examines the films of Kansas-born, San Francisco-based artist Bruce Conner (1933-2008) over a period of fifty years, and contextualizes these works against the backdrop of Cold War American culture, politics, and history.It offers close readings of Conner’s films and related activities, from his pioneering work with found footage, to the visionary works he shot with his own camera, as well as his involvement in psychedelic light shows and in the Bay Area counterculture. Throughout, I explore how Conner’s films, situated at the historical “crossroads” of the Cold War, negotiated the cultural politics of race, nation, gender, and sexuality during this fraught period, with particular attention to their complex, and often ambivalent, engagement with popular culture. The dissertation is loosely chronological, with each chapter focusing on a specific cross-section of Conner’s filmmaking practice. It begins with Conner’s first film, A MOVIE (1958), a densely packed montage of found footage fragments that is widely celebrated as an incisive critique of both Cold War ideology and the cinematic medium itself. A MOVIE is the first instance in which Conner used the iconic image that would reappear in his films over the following two decades: the atomic mushroom cloud. Footage of atomic explosions resurfaces in many later films, culminating with CROSSROADS (1976), an extended motion study comprised of archival footage of the Bikini Atoll underwater atomic tests. CROSSROADS supplies the title of this dissertation, as well as its central metaphor—“cinema at the crossroads”— and its primary hermeneutic, the “atomic sublime.” Throughout, I argue that Conner’s films visualize the tense oscillation between dystopian anxieties and utopian aspirations that epitomized the atomic age. These tensions, I propose, are encapsulated in the aesthetic category of the “atomic sublime,” which describes the paradoxical experience of “terrible beauty,” prompted by the visual spectacle of an atomic explosion. By providing an in-depth examination of Conner’s distinctive body of films, this study ultimately aims to expand the narrative of postwar American art to account for the pivotal roles played by both avant-garde cinema and West Coast artists in that history

The History of the Future: Apocalyptic, Community Organizing, and the Theo-politics of Time in and Age of Global Capital

<p>This dissertation attempts to do two things. First, I provide a theological interpretation of congregation-based community organizing by connecting this activity to the politics of the church. The link between the two, I argue, is the rule of Christ, a non-hierarchical process of political judgment that operates in a mode of receptive generosity and vulnerability as well as accountability to deliberate and discern how best to resolve conflicts. Situating this activity within an apocalyptic orientation determined by lordship of Jesus Christ, I suggest that this process, when accompanied by the other structuring practices of the church, allows the social, historical community to embody the new age of God's reign. Congregation-based community organizing, I conclude, is the extension and extrapolation of this constitutive process, and therefore, can be understood as an act of mission in witness and service to the world. In addition, this missionary activity can also help to retool the church in the practice of binding and loosing, which has fallen into desuetude. Second, I describe how this missionary activity functions both faithfully and effectively to challenge and counteract the forces of late, global capital. By challenging the configuration and experience of time under capital, the work of organizing can serve to recover political judgment from a regnant market ideology so as to reconstitute the way decisions are made and conflicts resolved by opening them to a process more lilted to the justice of God's reign. Moreover, in doing so, the political work of organizing can serve to offer a new future through forgiveness and reconciliation to individuals and a society trapped within a capitalist history whose end is immanently experienced in the destructive pursuit of unlimited growth and expansion.</p>Dissertatio