A local view on the role of friction and shape

Leibniz said "Naturam cognosci per analogiam": nature is understood by making analogies. This statement describes a seminal epistemological principle. But one has to be aware of its limitations: quantum mechanics for example at some point had to push Bohr's model of the atom aside to make progress. This article claims that the physics of granular packings has to move beyond the analogy of frictionless spheres, towards local models of contact formation.Comment: accepted for publication in the conference proceedings of Powders and Grains 201

Shear Stress Correlations in Hard and Soft Sphere Fluids

The shear stress autocorrelation function has been studied recently by molecular dynamics simulation using the 1/q^n potential for very large n. The results are analyzed and interpreted here by comparing them to the shear stress response function for hard spheres. It is shown that the hard sphere response function has a singular contribution and that this is reproduced accurately by the simulations for large n. A simple model for the stress autocorrelation function at finite n is proposed, based on the required hard sphere limiting form.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures; submitted for special issue of Molecular Physic

"Authenticity with Teeth: Positing Process"

The goal or criterion of "authenticity" for judging a change in art or ethics or culture is notoriously vague and can be dangerous. This essay proposes a version of authenticity based on a quasi-Hegelian version of the process of development rather than on any specific patrimony to be preserved. Oddly enough, the proposed criterion has many similarities with one proposed by a staunch anti-Hegelian, Gilles Deleuze

Approaching Women\u27s Education: Utilizing Islamic Sources for Empowerment

When the Taliban rose to power in Afghanistan in the 1990s, an Islamic fundamentalist approach was utilized to disempower the Afghani people. The group particularly targeted women and girls, who were stripped of their rights, including their right to an education. While the Taliban is no longer in power, the issue of women’s education in Afghanistan has not received adequate attention, as threats and violence continue to keep women and girls out of school. This paper seeks to address the issue of women’s education in Afghanistan in the post-Taliban period with a focus on alternative models of education, including the Muslim feminist model and the Islamic secular feminist model. Specifically, this paper utilizes Islamic sources, including the Qur’an and hadith reports, and interviews conducted by Lina Abirafeh in Gender and International Aid in Afghanistan and by Rosemarie Skaine in The Women of Afghanistan under the Taliban to reveal a misunderstanding regarding Islam and the rights of women, especially the right of women to an education. I argue that based on the current realities in Afghanistan, the Muslim feminist model is the ideal model for re-structuring the educational system in post-Taliban Afghanistan because it empowers Afghan women to live devoutly as Muslims, while also empowering them to fully participate in society

The Western Irish Namurian Basin reassessed

Current basin models for the Western Irish Namurian Basin (WINB) envisage an elongate trough along the line of the present-day Shannon Estuary that was infilled with clastic sediments derived from a hinterland that lay to the W or NW. This paper argues for an alternative basin configuration with source areas to the SW supplying sediment to a basin where deepest water conditions were in northern County Clare. Rapid subsidence along the present-day Shannon Estuary ponded sediment in this area throughout the early Namurian and, only with the rapid increase of sedimentation rates within the mid-Namurian (Kinderscoutian Stage), were substantial amounts of sediment able to prograde to the NE of the basin. This alternative model better explains the overwhelming predominance of NE-directed palaeocurrents in the Namurian infill, but requires fundamental revisions to most aspects of current depositional models. Deep-water black shales (Clare Shale Formation) initially accumulated throughout the region and were progressively downlapped by an unconfined turbidite system (Ross Formation) prograding to the NE. This in turn was succeeded by an unstable, siltstone-dominated slope system (Gull Island Formation) characterized by large-scale soft-sediment deformation, which also prograded to the NE. In the northern-most basin outcrops, in northern County Clare, this early phase of basin infill was developed as a condensed succession of radiolarian-rich black shales, minor turbiditic sandstones and undisturbed siltstones. The new basin model envisages the northern exposures of County Clare to be a distal, basin floor succession whereas the traditional model considers it a relatively shallow, winnowed, basin margin succession. Later stages of basin infill consist of a series of deltaic cycles that culminate in major, erosive-based sandstone bodies (e.g. Tullig Sandstone) interpreted either as axial, deltaic feeder channels or incised valley fills genetically unrelated to the underlying deltaic facies. Within the context of the new basin model the former alternative is most likely and estimated channel depths within the Tullig Sandstone indicate that the basal erosive surface could have been generated by intrinsic fluvial scour without recourse to base-level fall. The northerly flowing Tullig channels pass down-dip into isolated channel sandbodies interbedded with wave-dominated strata that suggest the deltas of the WINB were considerably more wave-influenced than hitherto proposed. The retreat of the Tullig delta during sea-level rise saw the rapid southerly retrogradation of parasequences, as may be expected if the basin margin lay to the SW of the present-day outcrops

Introduction : human rights and legal pluralism : four research agendas

In this volume, we interrogate how human rights law and practice acquire meaning in contexts of legal pluralism, and influence interactions that are subject to regulation by more than one normative regime. Legal pluralism refers to the coexistence of more than one legal order in a particular field of social relations. The concept denotes a plurality of laws and/or mechanisms for processing disputes stemming from different sources of legitimation, such as the state, religion or custom, which operate within a same sociopolitical, temporal and geographical space... As in the case of human rights, legal pluralism also has a ‘ legal ’ and a ‘ social ’ face, or what we would call normative and empirical dimensions

Sound Speeds, Cracking and Stability of Self-Gravitating Anisotropic Compact Objects

Using the the concept of cracking we explore the influence of density fluctuations and local anisotropy have on the stability of local and non-local anisotropic matter configurations in general relativity. This concept, conceived to describe the behaviour of a fluid distribution just after its departure from equilibrium, provides an alternative approach to consider the stability of selfgravitating compact objects. We show that potentially unstable regions within a configuration can be identify as a function of the difference of propagations of sound along tangential and radial directions. In fact, it is found that these regions could occur when, at particular point within the distribution, the tangential speed of sound is greater than radial one.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, 4 new references added. typos correcte

Ambivalences of the Creative Class: Space, reflexivity and the Restructuring of the German Advertising Industry

One of the most remarkable and successful regional science publications of the last years is certainly Richard Florida's "The Rise of the Creative Class". Based on the key idea that today's economy is increasingly "powered by human creativity" Florida holds that the presence of a non-conformist creative workforce is the crucial factor for the future competitiveness and development of cities and regions. This in turn will substantially change the subject of local economic policy in that it has to be increasingly directed towards the living conditions of this workforce. The suggested paper, despite acknowledging the vital importance of an individualistic – or 'reflexive' – labour force for the (not only) spatial organisation of the future economy, will be strongly critical with Florida's arguments, maintaining that he starts from a too self-evident and monocausal understanding of the relation between creativity/individualism and economic success. Basically it is held that the way from non-conformism to business is full of ambivalences, uncertainties, frictions etc. which have to be dealt with. The spatial dimension of the future economy is based precisely on and shaped by these 'refractions', respectively by the ways to handle them. The argument will be underpinned by highlighting the evidence of an in-depth study of the spatial structure and spatial change of the German advertising industry.