National Policies for Local Urban Sustainability: A New Governance Approach?

Cities have become a focal point for efforts to transition towards a more sustainable, low-carbon society, with many municipal agencies championing ‘eco city’ initiatives of one kind or another. And yet, national policy initiatives frequently play an important – if sometimes overlooked – role, too. This chapters provides comparative perspectives on four recent national sustainable city programmes from France, India, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The analysis reveals two key insights: first, national policy is found to exercise a strong shaping role in what sustainable development for future cities is understood to be, which helps explain the considerable differences in priorities and approaches across countries. Second, beyond articulating strategic priorities, national policy may exercise a ‘soft’ governance function by incentivising and facilitating wider, voluntary governance networks in the effort to implement sustainable city projects locally. This innovative role, however, depends on the ability of national policy to produce resonance among societal actors and on its effective interaction with formal planning processes

Prospects for Standardising Sustainable Urban Development

This paper goes beyond the well-established debate over how urban sustainability indicator sets should be constructed, and what purposes such indicators might serve, to examine what has actually happened as theory has turned into widespread practice. This involves two levels of analysis. First, there is consideration of how impacts on the ground involve negotiation between shifting networks of heterogeneous actors in particular local settings. Specific examples are given of how the outcomes of adopting sustainable indicator sets are indeterminate until these detailed local circumstances are considered. Second, there is a survey of the available urban sustainability frameworks at the global level, emphasising their sheer variety. Such frameworks are shaped by the proposer’s particular agendas and by expectations of their adopter’s needs. The field of frameworks is therefore constituted by emergent co-production both at the level of concrete results and of the frameworks themselves. At both levels, real-world innovation is enabled and constrained by divergent systems of motivations; it does not flow in a linear fashion from abstract principles of urban sustainability, however these may be defined. This emphasises the need for ongoing critical evaluation of the practices surrounding the adoption and mobilisation of these frameworks

The Magellanic Stream: break up and accretion onto the hot Galactic corona

The Magellanic HI Stream (~2x10^9 Msun [d/55 kpc]^2) encircling the Galaxy at a distance 'd' is arguably the most important tracer of what happens to gas accreting onto a disk galaxy. Recent observations reveal that the Stream's mass is in fact dominated (3:1) by its ionised component. Here we revisit the origin of the mysterious H-alpha recombination emission observed along much of its length that is overly bright (~150-200 milli-Rayleigh) for the known Galactic ultraviolet background (~20-40 mR / [d/55 kpc]^2). In an earlier model, we proposed that a slow shock cascade was operating along the Stream due to its interaction with the extended Galactic hot corona. We find that, for a smooth coronal density profile, this model can explain the bright H-alpha emission if the coronal density satisfies 2 < (n / 10^{-4} cm^{-3}) < 4 at d = 55 kpc. But in view of updated parameters for the Galactic halo and mounting evidence that most of the Stream must lie far beyond the Magellanic Clouds (d>55 kpc), we revisit the shock cascade model in detail. At lower densities, the HI gas is broken down by the shock cascade but mostly mixes with the hot corona without significant recombination. At higher densities, the hot coronal mass (including the other baryonic components) exceeds the baryon budget of the Galaxy. If the H-alpha emission arises from the shock cascade, the upper limit on the smooth coronal density constrains the Stream's mean distance to < 75 kpc. If, as some models indicate, the Stream is even further out, either the shock cascade is operating in a regime where the corona is substantially mass-loaded with recent gas debris, or an entirely different ionization mechanism is responsible.Comment: Significant expansion of the parameter space explored in response to referee's comments. ApJ accepte

Predictive inference generation in the cerebral hemispheres: An investigation of time course and reader goals

During reading, individuals activate information that is not explicitly stated to make connections (i.e., inferences) about what is occurring in a text. Readers often make connections between events in a text and their background knowledge by generating expectations about what will occur next (i.e., generating a predictive inference). Although predictive inferences have been shown to improve text comprehension (Magliano et al.,1994), it is currently unclear whether readers routinely generate predictive inferences during reading. Multiple factors have been shown to influence predictive inference generation (e.g., Murray&Burke, 2003); Linderholm, 2002). For example, characteristics of the text (such as the level of textual constraint) and characteristics of the reader (such as an individual\u27s goal during reading) influence how readers process predictive inferences. Specifically, readers generate more predictive inferences when a text is strongly constrained (Virtue, van den Groek, &Linderholm, 2002). In addition, the amount of time (i.e., the can influence how predictive inferences are processed (Till, Mross, & Kintsch, 1988). Specifically, some research does not find evidence of predictive inferences unless readers are given approximately 100 ms to generate an inference (Calvo &Castillo, 1996), whereas other research shows evidence of predictive inference generation after only 500 ms (Klin, Murray, Guzman, & Levine, 1999). Thus conflicting findings exist regarding the generations of predictive inferences. To further examine predictive inference generation, researcher can use a cognitive neuroscience approach to gain a better understanding of how predictive inferences are process in the cerebral hemispheres. Thus, the current study used a divided visual field paradigm to investigate how reading goals, textual constraint, and SOA influence predictive inference generation in the right and left hemisphere. Four experimental studies were conducted in which participants were presented texts that either strongly led to a specific outcome (i.e., were strongly constrained towards a specific predictive inference) or weakly led to a specific outcome (i.e.,were weakly constrained towards a specific predictive inference). Participants then made lexical decision to related target words that were presented to either the right visual field-left hemisphere or the left visual field of right hemisphere. In Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, participants were given an SOA of 500 ms to generate the predictive inference to examine an early time point during inference generation. In Experiment 3 and 4, participants were given an SOA of 1000 ms to generate the predictive inference to examine a later time point during inference generation. Additionally, participants in Experiment 2 and Experiment 4 were instructed to read as if they were preparing for an upcoming exam (i.e, there were given a study goal). Findings showed that reading goals influenced predictive inference generation in the right and left hemisphere at a long SOA, but not at a short SOA. Specifically, when readers were given a reading goal, strongly and weakly constrained predictive inferences were processed similarly in the left hemisphere at a long SOA, whereas strongly constrained predictive inferences showed greater facilitation than weakly constrained predictive inferences in the right hemisphere. In contrast, when readers were not given a specific reading goal, strongly constrained predictive inferences showed a processing advantage in the left hemisphere, whereas strongly and weakly constrained predictive inferences were processed similarly in in the right hemisphere at a long SOA. These findings suggest that reading goals differently influence how predictive inferences are processed in the hemispheres during reading. In addition, findings showed that overall, strongly constrained predictive inferences had a processing advantage over weakly constrained predictive inferences. These findings are consistent with existing theoretical frameworks

Hysteresis in the de Haas-van Alphen Effect

A hysteresis loop is observed for the first time in the de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) effect of beryllium at low temperatures and quantizing magnetic field applied parallel to the hexagonal axis of the single crystal. The irreversible behavior of the magnetization occurs at the paramagnetic part of the dHvA period in conditions of Condon domain formation arising by strong enough dHvA amplitude. The resulting extremely nonlinear response to a very small modulation field offers the possibility to find in a simple way the Condon domain phase diagram. From a harmonic analysis, the shape and size of the hysteresis loop is constructed.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PR

The smart city and its publics: insights from across six UK cities

This is the final version of the article. Available from Taylor & Francis (Routledge) via the DOI in this record.In response to policy-makers’ increasing claims to prioritise ‘people’ in smart city development, we explore the publicness of emerging practices across six UK cities: Bristol, Glasgow, London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, and Peterborough. Local smart city programmes are analysed as techno-public assemblages invoking variegated modalities of publicness. Our findings challenge the dystopian speculative critiques of the smart city, while nevertheless indicating the dominance of ‘entrepreneurial’ and ‘service user’ modes of the public. We highlight the risk of bifurcation within smart city assemblages, such that the ‘civic’ and ‘political’ roles of the public become siloed into less obdurate strands of programmatic activity.This study was undertaken at the University of Westminster with financial support from ESRC grant ES/L015978/1. Youri Dayot was Visiting Fellow from the University of Grenoble

Wildlife art and illustration: drawing in ink - some experiments in Auroville, India

The various styles employed by some artists at the Pitchandikulam studio in Auroville International Township are discussed and some works analysed and commented upon. The basic history and applications of pen and ink drawing and black and white illustration are touched upon and the various schools of thought mentioned and discussed - from it simply being technically accurate and easily printed, to the conundrums with which it is beset