Community Land Trusts, affordable housing and community organising in low-income neighbourhoods

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) offer a community-led response to housing problems and can provide affordable housing for low-income residents. Generally the academic work on CLTs remains underdeveloped, particularly in the UK, although some argue that they can be an efficient way in which to manage scarce resources while others have noted that CLTs can provide a focal point for community resistance. In this article we provide evidence on two active CLTs in inner urban areas in major US cities, New York and Boston. In Cooper Square, Lower East Side Manhattan and Dudley Street, south Boston, we see the adoption of different approaches to development suggesting that we should speak of models of CLTs rather than assuming a single operational approach. The cases we present indicate both radical and reformist responses to the state and market provision of housing and neighbourhood sustainability. They also suggest community activism can prove to be significant in securing land and the development of the CLT

Neighbourhood Renewal Fund Phase Two Create Project Evaluation.

The  Social  Research  &  Regeneration  Unit  at  the  University  of  Plymouth  was  commissioned  by  Plymouth  2020  Partnership  to  evaluate  the  Community  Renewal  Education  And  Training  Enterprise  (CREATE)  project  as  part  of  Plymouth’s  overall Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF) Phase Two Evaluation.  The CREATE evaluation was conducted between the autumn of 2005 and January 2006.  This report summarises  the main research findings

Short Range Ising Spin Glasses: a critical exponent study

The critical properties of short-range Ising spin-glass models, defined on a diamond hierarchical lattice of graph fractal dimension $d_{f}=2.58$, 3, and 4, and scaling factor 2 are studied via a method based on the Migdal-Kadanoff renormalization-group scheme. The order parameter critical exponent $\beta$ is directly estimated from the data of the local Edwards- Anderson (EA) order parameter, obtained through an exact recursion procedure. The scaling of the EA order parameter, leading to estimates of the $\nu$ exponent of the correlation length is also performed. Four distinct initial distributions of the quenched coupling constants (Gaussian, bimodal, uniform and exponential) are considered. Deviations from a universal behaviour are observed and analysed in the framework of the renormalized flow in a two dimensional appropriate parameter space.Comment: 9 pages, 01 figure (ps

Occurrence of Eimeria species parasites on small-scale commercial chicken farms in Africa and indication of economic profitability.

Small-scale commercial poultry production is emerging as an important form of livestock production in Africa, providing sources of income and animal protein to many poor households, yet the occurrence and impact of coccidiosis on this relatively new production system remains unknown. The primary objective of this study was to examine Eimeria parasite occurrence on small-scale commercial poultry farms in Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia. Additionally, farm economic viability was measured by calculating the farm gross margin and enterprise budget. Using these economic measures as global assessments of farm productivity, encompassing the diversity present in regional husbandry systems with a measure of fundamental local relevance, we investigated the detection of specific Eimeria species as indicators of farm profitability. Faecal samples and data on production parameters were collected from small-scale (less than 2,000 birds per batch) intensive broiler and layer farms in peri-urban Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia. All seven Eimeria species recognised to infect the chicken were detected in each country. Furthermore, two of the three genetic variants (operational taxonomic units) identified previously in Australia have been described outside of Australia for the first time. Detection of the most pathogenic Eimeria species associated with decreased farm profitability and may be considered as an indicator of likely farm performance. While a causal link remains to be demonstrated, the presence of highly pathogenic enteric parasites may pose a threat to profitable, sustainable small-scale poultry enterprises in Africa

Z_2-vortex ordering of the triangular-lattice Heisenberg antiferromagnet

Ordering of the classical Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the triangular lattice is studied by means of a mean-field calculation, a scaling argument and a Monte Carlo simulation, with special attention to its vortex degree of freedom. The model exhibits a thermodynamic transition driven by the Z_2-vortex binding-unbinding, at which various thermodynamic quantities exhibit an essential singularity. The low-temperature state is a "spin-gel" state with a long but finite spin correlation length where the ergodicity is broken topologically. Implications to recent experiments on triangular-lattice Heisenberg antiferromagnets are discussed

Metric characterization of cluster dynamics on the Sierpinski gasket

We develop and implement an algorithm for the quantitative characterization of cluster dynamics occurring on cellular automata defined on an arbitrary structure. As a prototype for such systems we focus on the Ising model on a finite Sierpsinski Gasket, which is known to possess a complex thermodynamic behavior. Our algorithm requires the projection of evolving configurations into an appropriate partition space, where an information-based metrics (Rohlin distance) can be naturally defined and worked out in order to detect the changing and the stable components of clusters. The analysis highlights the existence of different temperature regimes according to the size and the rate of change of clusters. Such regimes are, in turn, related to the correlation length and the emerging "critical" fluctuations, in agreement with previous thermodynamic analysis, hence providing a non-trivial geometric description of the peculiar critical-like behavior exhibited by the system. Moreover, at high temperatures, we highlight the existence of different time scales controlling the evolution towards chaos.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figure

Spin glasses without time-reversal symmetry and the absence of a genuine structural glass transition

We study the three-spin model and the Ising spin glass in a field using Migdal-Kadanoff approximation. The flows of the couplings and fields indicate no phase transition, but they show even for the three-spin model a slow crossover to the asymptotic high-temperature behaviour for strong values of the couplings. We also evaluated a quantity that is a measure of the degree of non-self-averaging, and we found that it can become large for certain ranges of the parameters and the system sizes. For the spin glass in a field the maximum of non-self-averaging follows for given system size a line that resembles the de Almeida-Thouless line. We conclude that non-self-averaging found in Monte-Carlo simulations cannot be taken as evidence for the existence of a low-temperature phase with replica-symmetry breaking. Models similar to the three-spin model have been extensively discussed in order to provide a description of structural glasses. Their theory at mean-field level resembles the mode-coupling theory of real glasses. At that level the one-step replica symmetry approach breaking predicts two transitions, the first transition being dynamical and the second thermodynamical. Our results suggest that in real finite dimensional glasses there will be no genuine transitions at all, but that some features of mean-field theory could still provide some useful insights.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figure