Localized Innovation, Localized Diffusion and the Environment: An Analysis of CO2 Emission Reductions by Passenger Cars, 2000-2007

We investigate technological change with regard to CO2 emissions by passenger cars, using a Free Disposal Hull methodology to estimate technological frontiers. We have a sample of cars available in the UK market in the period 2000 – 2007. Our results show that the rates of technological change (frontier movement) and diffusion (distance to frontier at the car brand level) differ substantial between segments of the car market. We conclude that successful policies should be aimed at diffusion of best-practice technology, and take account of the different potential for further progress between different segments of the market (e.g., diesel and gasoline engines, and small vs. large engines).

Embodied cognition through cultural interaction

In this short paper we describe a robotic setup to study the self-organization of conceptualisation and language. What distinguishes this project from others is that we envision a robot with specic cognitive capacities, but without resorting to any pre-programmed representations or conceptualisations. The key to this all is self-organization and enculturation. We report preliminary results on learning motor behaviours through imitation, and sketch how the language plays a pivoting role in constructing world representations

The interior as architectural principle

AbstractThe principle of architecture is the creation of an “inside” or an interior. There are three layers of meaning involved in isolating and defining a space as an “inside”: the floor/earth, the wall/world, the ceiling/heavens. The three combined constitute and define a particular version of the archetypical “interior”: the room. Each architectural interior, though, is at the same time a closed space, on itself, and at the same time represents and relates to an “outside” or to the World. This article is published as part of a collection on interiorities.</jats:p

The strategic use of metaphors by political and media elites: the 2007-11 Belgian constitutional crisis

On 9 December 2011 a new Belgian government was sworn in after a record-breaking 541 days of negotiations between all democratic political forces with the aim to alter the constitution and provide more autonomy to the different regions that make up Belgium. In this article, the frequent use of political metaphors by North-Belgian politicians and journalists is analysed through a critical metaphor analysis (CMA) that approaches the different metaphors at a descriptive, an interpretative and a motivational level. Four meta-categories of metaphors were identified - sports and games metaphors, war metaphors, culinary metaphors and transport metaphors. The different metaphors fed into six core frames: expressing immobility, attributing blame, the need for unity, bargaining and teasing, the end is nigh and finally lack of direction and leadership. Metaphors were instrumental in strategies to present the Flemish demands as unquestionable and common sense, while the counter-demands of the French-speaking parties were positioned as unreasonable, impossible to accept. In other words, the strategic use of metaphors, some of which resonated throughout the long period of analysis, not only served to represent complex political issues in an easily digestible language, but also shaped and influenced the negotiations through their various mediations and the ideological intentions embedded within the metaphor

Banal revolution: the emptying of a political signifier

If you type in the word ‘revolution’ in the Google search engine the top result that comes up is a chain of bars called Revolution. Other results on the first page of the search engine include a commercial radio station, clothing, a skate park and a software company. A Wikipedia page and the website of the Revolutionary Socialist Youth are the only non-commercial results Google provides us on its first page. This says as much about the business model of Google than it does about the changes at the level of meanings attributed to revolution. Revolution, it will be argued here, is a political signifier emptied of its radical connotations and currently used graciously as a brand or as a buzzword to mean change in whatever direction. As a result, revolution has been firmly incorporated into the neoliberal discourse and value system..

There is a thin line between privacy and secrecy, and increasingly only the famous and wealthy can afford to have their privacy protected when it suits them: the UK needs a proper privacy law

Recent revelations of celebrity ‘super-injunctions’ have reopened the debate on privacy and celebrity in the UK. Bart Cammaerts finds that those who live in the limelight often have the greatest resources, compared to ‘ordinary’ citizens to protect their own privacy when the media uncovers stories they would prefer to be kept secret. A new, considered, privacy law might go some way towards redressing this imbalance