Poverty and social policy in Europe 2020: ungovernable and ungoverned

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copy edited version of an article published in Policy and Politics. The definitive publisher-authenticated version of: Copeland, Paul, and Mary Daly. "Poverty and social policy in Europe 2020: ungovernable and ungoverned." Policy & Politics 42.3 (2014): 351-365 is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/030557312X655503This article examines the latest iteration of EU social policy – the target to reduce poverty and social exclusion by 20 million. The application of a three-part conceptual matrix – focused on ideas, politics and governance – indicates key weaknesses. The target is ungovernable because it melds different approaches to poverty and social exclusion and because of the leeway to Member States to adopt an approach of their own choice. And the target is ungoverned because of low political priority and uncertainty around its legal status, as well as ambiguity over how it fits into the Europe 2020 governance process

Multiscale models of colloidal dispersion of particles in nematic liquid crystals

We use homogenization theory to develop a multiscale model of colloidal dispersion of particles in nematic liquid crystals under weak-anchoring conditions. We validate the model by comparing it with simulations by using the Landau–de Gennes free energy and show that the agreement is excellent. We then use the multiscale model to study the effect that particle anisotropy has on the liquid crystal: spherically symmetric particles always reduce the effective elastic constant. Asymmetric particles introduce an effective alignment field that can increase the Fredericks threshold and decrease the switch-off time

Psychological and Biological Foundations of Time Preference: Evidence from a Day Reconstruction Study with Biological Tracking

This paper considers the relationship between the economic concept of time preference and relevant concepts from psychology and biology. Using novel data from a time diary study conducted in Ireland that combined detailed psychometric testing with medical testing and real-time bio-tracking, we examine the distribution of a number of psychometric measures linked to the economic concept of time preferences and test the extent to which these measures form coherent clusters and the degree to which these clusters are related to underlying biological substrates. The paper finds that financial discounting is related to a range of psychological variables including consideration of future consequences, self-control, conscientiousness, extraversion, and experiential avoidance as well as being predicted by heart rate variability and blood pressure.time preferences, day reconstruction study, economics and psychology, economics and biology

Mobile integrated conditional access system

This paper presents design of a novel security architecture integrating mobile and broadcasting technologies in the Pay-TV system. The security architecture proposed herein is a state-of-the-art solution to tackle well-known problems challenging current Pay-TV systems including but not limited to interoperability amongst service providers, relatively high cost of the service deployment, the security compromise, limited interactivity and bespoken services offered to subscribers. It also proposes the Follow-me service that enables subscribers to access their entitlements via an arbitrary set-top box

Struggling Towards Coherence in Canadian Administrative Law? Recent Cases on Standard of Review and Reasonableness

Although the Supreme Court of Canada’s seminal decision in Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick has now been cited more than 10,000 times by Canadian courts and administrative tribunals, many of its key features remain obscure. In this article, the author analyzes recent cases decided under the Dunsmuir framework with a view to determining where Canadian courts might usefully go next. The author’s argument is that the two important principles said to underlie the Dunsmuir framework—the rule of law and democracy—can provide guidance to courts in simplifying and clarifying judicial review of administrative action. In Part I, the author explains how the relationship between Dunsmuir’s categorical approach and the contextual approach that it replaced is uncertain and causes significant confusion, and explores the potential utility of the two underlying principles in simplifying the law. The application of the reasonableness standard of review is the focus of Part II, in which the author criticizes the general approach to reasonableness review in Canada, but suggests that the rule of law and democracy may assist in clarifying the law, by setting the boundaries of the “range” of reasonable outcomes and structuring the analytical framework for identifying unreasonable administrative decisions. Finally, the author draws the strands of Parts I and II together by arguing for the adoption of a unified, context-sensitive reasonableness standard, underpinned by the rule of law and democracy, with the aim of providing clarity and simplicity to Canadian administrative law in a manner faithful to the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Dunsmuir

Security architectures in mobile integrated pay-TV

This paper presents the design and describes the advantage of the state-of-the-art Mobile Integrated Conditional Access System (MICAS) concerning interoperability, personalisation, security and operational costs in Pay-TV systems. The Message Handling Subsystem is proposed and outlined together with ‘Follow-Me’ service, which proposed herewith to extend mobility and personalisation concepts on Pay-TV service

Cosmological Studies with Radio Galaxies and Supernovae

Physical sizes of extended radio galaxies can be employed as a cosmological "standard ruler", using a previously developed method. Eleven new radio galaxies are added to our previous sample of nineteen sources, forming a sample of thirty objects with redshifts between 0 and 1.8. This sample of radio galaxies are used to obtain the best fit cosmological parameters in a quintessence model in a spatially flat universe, a cosmological constant model that allows for non-zero space curvature, and a rolling scalar field model in a spatially flat universe. Results obtained with radio galaxies are compared with those obtained with different supernova samples, and with combined radio galaxy and supernova samples. Results obtained with different samples are consistent, suggesting that neither method is seriously affected by systematic errors. Best fit radio galaxy and supernovae model parameters determined in the different cosmological models are nearly identical, and are used to determine dimensionless coordinate distances to supernovae and radio galaxies, and distance moduli to the radio galaxies. The distance moduli to the radio galaxies can be combined with supernovae samples to increase the number of sources, particularly high-redshift sources, in the samples. The constraints obtained here with the combined radio galaxy plus supernovae data set in the rolling scalar field model are quite strong. The best fit parameter values suggest a value of omega is less than about 0.35, and the model parameter alpha is close to zero; that is, a cosmological constant provides a good description of the data. We also obtain new constraints on the physics of engines that power the large-scale radio emission.Comment: 32 pages. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Direct Determinations of the Redshift Behavior of the Pressure, Energy Density, and Equation of State of the Dark Energy and the Acceleration of the Universe

One of the goals of current cosmological studies is the determination of the expansion and acceleration rates of the universe as functions of redshift, and the determination of the properties of the dark energy that can explain these observations. Here the expansion and acceleration rates are determined directly from the data, without the need for the specification of a theory of gravity, and without adopting an a priori parameterization of the form or redshift evolution of the dark energy. We use the latest set of distances to SN standard candles from Riess et al. (2004), supplemented by data on radio galaxy standard ruler sizes, as described by Daly and Djorgovski (2003, 2004). We find that the universe transitions from acceleration to deceleration at a redshift of about 0.4. The standard "concordance model" provides a reasonably good fit to the dimensionless expansion rate as a function of redshift, though it fits the dimensionless acceleration rate as a function of redshift less well. The expansion and acceleration rates are then combined with a theory of gravity to determine the pressure, energy density, and equation of state of the dark energy as functions of redshift. Adopting General Relativity as the correct theory of gravity, the redshift trends for the pressure, energy density, and equation of state of the dark energy out to redshifts of about one are determined, and are found to be generally consistent with the concordance model.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures. Invited presentation at Coral Gables 200