How Holocaust Memories Continue to Divide the Serbs and the Croats

In Holocaust and genocide education, we frequently and rightly stress remembrance in order to honor the victims of the past as well as to safeguard our future from repeated transgressions. However, there are parts of the world where remembering or “misremembering” atrocities accentuates the fracturing of communities. In the Balkans, the festering wounds that have been inflicted throughout history never seem to truly heal, as the past, both real and fictionalized, drives contemporary and competing realities. This is noticeably evident with the modern-day rifts separating ethnic Croats and ethnic Serbs, which despite recent political inroads and relative stability, persist in being purveyors of mutual animosity

The Philosopher"s Garden: Scepticism within (and from without) Wittgenstein

I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again "I know that that"s a tree�, pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: "This fellow isn"t insane. We are only doing philosophy.� On Certainty § 467 If philosophy is disease, the sceptic must surely have a terminal case. There seems to be no relief for one so ill. However, in On Certainty Wittgenstein offers us a new way to examine the problem, a new treatment, as it were. As Wittgenstein"s methodology is so uniquely multi-faceted, so too is his attack on the sceptic, and as it has been said before, Wittgenstein has a marvelous capacity, not for solving problems, but dissolving them. We should not therefore be surprised that the die-hard sceptic remains unconvinced by Wittgenstein"s attack; it is not the sort of maneuver the sceptic is used to. Indeed, at times it does not seem like an attack at all. The sceptic must beware however; behind Wittgenstein"s oblique style there lies an assault of such subtlety and caliber that only a master of could deliver it. But really, for all his mastery, for all his philosophical poignancy, how effective is Wittgenstein"s criticism? It is certainly of a very different order than those we have seen in the past, but can Wittgenstein ultimately avoid the charge of "question begging� that have plagued so many before him? The question is somewhat complicated in the case of Wittgenstein, not only by his philosophical position, but also by his methodology

How Ethnic and Religious Nationalism Threaten the Bosnian State

When the wars ceased in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, as in the aftermath of other past conflicts in the Balkans, ethnic and religious divisions prevailed. Bosnia Herzegovina is perhaps the most vulnerable of the newly independent states of the former Yugoslavia, partially due to the manner it was established. Ethnic cleansing and discord have marred Bosnia while the three principal ethnoreligious entities continue to struggle to maintain their distinct identity within the context of a convoluted political system wrestling against domestic and international intrigue. Ethnoreligious nationalism threatens to further rupture the Bosnian state and create a renewed state of violence that ultimately endangers this nation’s future

Representing the UK's cattle herd as static and dynamic networks

Network models are increasingly being used to understand the spread of diseases through sparsely connected populations, with particular interest in the impact of animal movements upon the dynamics of infectious diseases. Detailed data collected by the UK government on the movement of cattle may be represented as a network, where animal holdings are nodes, and an edge is drawn between nodes where a movement of animals has occurred. These network representations may vary from a simple static representation, to a more complex, fully dynamic one where daily movements are explicitly captured. Using stochastic disease simulations, a wide range of network representations of the UK cattle herd are compared. We find that the simpler static network representations are often deficient when compared with a fully dynamic representation, and should therefore be used only with caution in epidemiological modelling. In particular, due to temporal structures within the dynamic network, static networks consistently fail to capture the predicted epidemic behaviour associated with dynamic networks even when parameterized to match early growth rates

Vehicle fuel efficiency standards

This paper provides an overview of mandatory vehicle CO2 emission (mandatory fuel efficiency) standards adopted overseas and the standards adopted by Australia.IntroductionFuel efficiency pertains to the conversion of chemical fuel energy into vehicle movement, whereas fuel economy is the energy efficiency of a particular vehicle. Larger vehicles, for example, typically have lower fuel economy than smaller vehicles, although their efficiency may be higher. While vehicles have tended to become more fuel-efficient over time, with improved vehicle specifications, the growth in sales of larger types has resulted in little change to overall fleet fuel economy. Fuel consumption in litres per 100 kilometres (km) is actually the reciprocal ratio of fuel economy in kilometres per litre, a semantic difference perhaps, but a subtlety that belies the complexity of the standards used. Fuel efficiency, whether measured per km or per litre, can be divided into engine and total vehicle efficiency, also links to Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions (divided into carbon dioxide (CO2) and non-CO2 GHGs).This paper provides an overview of mandatory vehicle CO2 emission (mandatory fuel efficiency) standards adopted overseas and the standards adopted by Australia. Fuel efficiency links also to air quality emissions (which this paper is not discussing) and issues of fuel quality supply and other combustion emission standards such as those for toxic gases and air particulates are not considered. The paper concerns itself with an emphasis on reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, not on improving general air quality by reducing emissions of oxides of nitrogen and sulphur (NOx, SOx), unburned hydrocarbons (HC), and carbon monoxide (CO). The paper does not cover the possible effects of and trends for these pollutant chemicals.In considering the fuel efficiency standards which are evolving in Australia, the paper discusses a range of questions, some of which have an automotive industry focus—concentrating on passenger car, rather than light truck or heavy vehicle, limits. The central question to be answered is what standards Australia should adopt. Some of the difficulties to be overcome may be summed up as:The process of developing new fuel economy standards is inherently more complex than can be done justice in a short paper. The timing of standards ... is clearly a crucial element of any new standard—redesigning vehicles is a time-intensive and very expensive process that requires large engineering teams. Redesigning the large part of the new vehicle fleet will require at least a decade, and automakers must proceed cautiously in introducing new technologies to avoid maintenance and operational disasters.Another issue ... is the economic impact of new standards. In the past, economic analyses of proposed standards have tended to follow a common script—the industry and its consultants forecast huge negative impacts, the environmental community forecasts large positive impacts. In all cases, the results flow primarily from the input assumptions, not robust analysis—the automakers tend to assume that consumers will resist purchasing new models or that they will have to shift to less profitable market segments, while the environmental community assumes that sales will remain robust and the greater vehicle content will generate new jobs.After extensive analysis and industry consultation, any new vehicle efficiency standards might be prescribed under the existing arrangements for Australian Design Rules (see later in this paper). However, any such decisions would have to consider the initiatives undertaken by global vehicle manufacturers along with any international movements towards tightening emission standards.This paper begins by looking at the global push for fuel efficiency standards before turning to comparing existing standards around the world and then examining Australian policy initiatives