1,666 research outputs found
Summary and recommendations on nuclear electric propulsion technology for the space exploration initiative
A project in Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) technology is being established to develop the NEP technologies needed for advanced propulsion systems. A paced approach has been suggested which calls for progressive development of NEP component and subsystem level technologies. This approach will lead to major facility testing to achieve TRL-5 for megawatt NEP for SEI mission applications. This approach is designed to validate NEP power and propulsion technologies from kilowatt class to megawatt class ratings. Such a paced approach would have the benefit of achieving the development, testing, and flight of NEP systems in an evolutionary manner. This approach may also have the additional benefit of synergistic application with SEI extraterrestrial surface nuclear power applications
“Drawing lines on a map”: English Regionalism and Regional Identity in Post-war Yorkshire and Humberside
The failure of either a regional tier of government, or a strong and coherent regional political movement to emerge in England – in contrast to the Post-war devolution developments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, not to mention Europe – has led to the general dismissal of regionalism as a significant political force in England, and led to its characterization as the ‘dog that never barked’; merely the preserve of a handful of committed regionalists. This thesis builds on recent scholarship in Post-war British history, broadly categorized as the ‘new political history’, to challenge these traditional narratives. It explores how regional identities were constructed and articulated in a number of official, semi-official and unofficial spheres. It also considers how these interacted with central government and other interests. It does so through a number of case studies, or ‘core samples’, exploring various dimensions of regional action in different contexts. These include regional economic development and industrial promotion agencies; local government; airports and other transport considerations; and regional arts policy. The thesis focuses on Yorkshire and Humberside, a region that has not received much scholarly interest with regards to regionalism, but which has been considered prominently on literature exploring ‘the North’. Through this case study, this thesis highlights not only the potency of regionalism and regional identity, but also its complexities, contingencies and constraints. Through its core samples into economic planning, regional boosterism, local government reorganisation, transport and arts policy, this study adds additional perspectives to on-going historical discourses in contemporary British and European history. It also provides some insight into contemporary political concerns around the re-emergence of identity politics. It argues that complex, pluralist and distinct regionalisms – as were articulated and mobilized in Yorkshire during this period – form an important and often neglected dimension of contemporary British history that requires more concerted study
New Labour: governmentality, social exclusion and education policy
This thesis critically explores the broad relationship between New Labour’s adoption of social exclusion as a policy concept and the outworking of this commitment within instances of policy directed at compulsory education. It presents and deploys Foucault’s idea of governmentality as a perspective from which to undertake critical policy analysis. It considers approaches to policy analysis and posits a layered model that looks to explicate levels and forms of power within the policy system; including a concern to integrate the place and function of policy texts. An account of the main dimensions of New Labour’s Third Way politics is developed, together with a broad account of New Labour’s attempts to govern compulsory education. Critical Discourse Analysis is applied to interpret and explain two texts posited as capturing a particular historical moment in New Labour’s adoption and commitment to a recognisable conceptualisation of social exclusion. A governmentality perspective is employed to analyse policy around social exclusion within the Third Way politics of New Labour following 1997. This analysis has a particular focus on how this social exclusion dimension was accommodated within the broader schematic of Third Way governmentality and how it interacted with and emerged within policy around compulsory education in the early years of New Labour. The analysis concludes that the social exclusion dimension of New Labour’s policy ambitions was present, but sublimated within the conflicted policy climate of compulsory education arising from New Labour’s distinctive governmentality
The Case for Provincial Regulation of Community Antenna Television Systems in the Wake of Capital Cities and Dionne
While observers of the Canadian Constitution may believe that jurisdiction over cable television in this country was finally and clearly given to the federal government and its Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, by the Capital Cities and Dionne cases, there is still much to be decided. If there are any doubts, then consider news reports of November 1978, and January and February 1979 which highlighted the prominence of cable television as a negotiable federal/provincial subject at several conferences. Vibrations from several provincial governments 4 indicate that cable television and data communications are two areas of communications that provinces would dearly like to have under their jurisdiction. Yet even if the current negotiations are not successful, the provinces have a solid, although restrictive, constitutional groun
Less Support for the Death Penalty, Especially Among Democrats
The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted March 25-29 among a national sample of 1,500 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (525 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 975 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 567 who had no landline telephone). The survey was conducted by interviewers at Princeton Data Source under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. A combination of landline and cell phone random digitdial samples were used; both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. Respondents in the landline sample were selected by randomly asking for the youngest adult male or female who is now at home. Interviews in the cell sample were conducted with the person who answered the phone, if that person was an adult 18 years of age or older
8. The 1980s
From the Introduction, “The Changes at ILR that began in the seventies slipped imperceptibly into the eighties, and those that may have originated at that time have, for better or worse, left their mark on the present decade. In other words, dividing history into decades is not a particularly precise way of delineating times. Clearly, there was much gaiety preceding and following the Gay Nineties, as there were certainly many roars heard before and after the Roaring Twenties. Moreover, since the speed of change in academia runs at such a leisurely pace, it is virtually impossible to say exactly when an idea found its way into formal practice. Includes: Introduction; A Dean’s View, 1980-85; Deaning, 1985-88; Robert Risley; and An Advisory Council Perspective
Rapid recovery of an urban remnant reptile community following summer wildfire
Reptiles in urban remnants are threatened with extinction by increased fire frequency, habitat fragmentation caused by urban development, and competition and predation from exotic species. Understanding how urban reptiles respond to and recover from such disturbances is key to their conservation. We monitored the recovery of an urban reptile community for five years following a summer wildfire at Kings Park in Perth, Western Australia, using pitfall trapping at five burnt and five unburnt sites. The reptile community recovered rapidly following the fire. Unburnt sites initially had higher species richness and total abundance, but burnt sites rapidly converged, recording a similar total abundance to unburnt areas within two years, and a similar richness within three years. The leaf-litter inhabiting skink Hemiergis quadrilineata was strongly associated with longer unburnt sites and may be responding to the loss of leaf litter following the fire. Six rarely-captured species were also strongly associated with unburnt areas and were rarely or never recorded at burnt sites, whereas two other rarely-captured species were associated with burnt sites. We also found that one lizard species, Ctenotus fallens, had a smaller average body length in burnt sites compared to unburnt sites for four out of the five years of monitoring. Our study indicates that fire management that homogenises large areas of habitat through frequent burning may threaten some species due to their preference for longer unburnt habitat. Careful management of fire may be needed to maximise habitat suitability within the urban landscape
Rapid Recovery Of An Urban Remnant Reptile Community following Summer Wildfire
Reptiles in urban remnants are threatened with extinction by increased fire frequency, habitat fragmentation caused by urban development, and competition and predation from exotic species. Understanding how urban reptiles respond to and recover from such disturbances is key to their conservation. We monitored the recovery of an urban reptile community for five years following a summer wildfire at Kings Park in Perth, Western Australia, using pitfall trapping at five burnt and five unburnt sites. The reptile community recovered rapidly following the fire. Unburnt sites initially had higher species richness and total abundance, but burnt sites rapidly converged, recording a similar total abundance to unburnt areas within two years, and a similar richness within three years. The leaf-litter inhabiting skink Hemiergis quadrilineata was strongly associated with longer unburnt sites and may be responding to the loss of leaf litter following the fire. Six rarely-captured species were also strongly associated with unburnt areas and were rarely or never recorded at burnt sites, whereas two other rarely-captured species were associated with burnt sites. We also found that one lizard species, Ctenotus fallens, had a smaller average body length in burnt sites compared to unburnt sites for four out of the five years of monitoring. Our study indicates that fire management that homogenises large areas of habitat through frequent burning may threaten some species due to their preference for longer unburnt habitat. Careful management of fire may be needed to maximise habitat suitability within the urban landscape
Agricultural and food systems in the Mekong region: Drivers of transformation and pathways of change
Agricultural and food systems in the Mekong Region are undergoing transformations because of increasing engagement in international trade, alongside economic growth, dietary change and urbanisation. Food systems approaches are often used to understand these kinds of transformation processes, with particular strengths in linking social, economic and environmental dimensions of food at multiple scales. We argue that while the food systems approach strives to provide a comprehensive understanding of food production, consumption and environmental drivers, it is less well equipped to shed light on the role of actors, knowledge and power in transformation processes and on the divergent impacts and outcomes of these processes for different actors. We suggest that an approach that uses food systems as heuristics but complements it with attention to actors, knowledge and power improves our understanding of transformations such as those underway in the Mekong Region. The key transformations in the region include the emergence of regional food markets and vertically integrated supply chains that control increasing share of the market, increase in contract farming particularly in the peripheries of the region, replacement of crops cultivated for human consumption with corn grown for animal feed. These transformations are increasingly marginalising small-scale farmers, while at the same time, many other farmers increasingly pursue non-agricultural livelihoods. Food consumption is also changing, with integrated supply chains controlling substantial part of the mass market. Our analysis highlights that theoretical innovations grounded in political economy, agrarian change, development studies and rural livelihoods can help to increase theoretical depth of inquiries to accommodate the increasingly global dimensions of food. As a result, we map out a future research agenda to unpack the dynamic food system interactions and to unveil the social, economic and environmental impacts of these rapid transformations. We identify policy and managerial implications coupled with sustainable pathways for change
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