Shifting Core and Slipping Foundation: An Uncertain Future of Landscape Architecture in European Universities

Faced with the dual and often conflicting necessity to be scientific and design practices the discipline of landscape architecture today is challenged to re-examine its core and intellectual foundation. There is a growing trend toward design as reflective practice. The discipline is maturing and needs autonomous theories and methods. Global and social externalities favor attention to landscape and landscape-based design. Landscape is not only an integrative and evolving concept and practice but also a trans-disciplinary cultural concern. Under such circumstances the core of landscape architecture is shifting and its intellectual foundation is questione

Relic gravitational wave spectrum, the trans-Planckian physics and Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz gravity

We calculate the spectrum of the relic gravitational wave due to the trans-Planckian effect in which the standard linear dispersion relations may be modified. Of the modified dispersion relations suggested in literatures which have investigated the trans-Planckian effect, we especially use the Corley-Jacobson dispersion relations. The Corley-Jacobson type modified dispersion relations can be obtained from Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz gravity which is non-relativistic and UV complete. Although it is not clear how the transitions from Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz gravity in the UV regime to Einstein gravity in the IR limit occur, we assume Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz gravity regime is followed by the inflationary phase in Einstein gravity.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures; added references and comment

Differential evolution based bi-level programming algorithm for computing normalized nash equilibrium

The Generalised Nash Equilibrium Problem (GNEP) is a Nash game with the distinct feature that the feasible strategy set of a player depends on the strategies chosen by all her opponents in the game. This characteristic distinguishes the GNEP from a conventional Nash Game. These shared constraints on each player’s decision space, being dependent on decisions of others in the game, increases its computational difficulty. A special solution of the GNEP is the Nash Normalized Equilibrium which can be obtained by transforming the GNEP into a bi-level program with an optimal value of zero in the upper level. In this paper, we propose a Differential Evolution based Bi-Level Programming algorithm embodying Stochastic Ranking to handle constraints (DEBLP-SR) to solve the resulting bi-level programming formulation. Numerical examples of GNEPs drawn from the literature are used to illustrate the performance of the proposed algorithm

Bipolarity and Ambivalence in Landscape Architecture

Our discipline of landscape architecture contains bipolarity, not only in terms of landscape and architecture but also because the idea of landscape is both aesthetic and scientific. Furthermore, within landscape architecture there is a gap between design (as implied by architecture) and planning (implying land-use plan and policy orientation) on one hand, and a similar gap between design (associated with artistic activity, concerned with aesthetics as well as science) and research (considered as scientific activity Landscape architects often retain as much ambivalence between design and planning, as they do between design and research

Nash Equilibria, collusion in games and the coevolutionary particle swarm algorithm

In recent work, we presented a deterministic algorithm to investigate collusion between players in a game where the players’ payoff functions are subject to a variational inequality describing the equilibrium of a transportation system. In investigating the potential for collusion between players, the diagonalization algorithm returned a local optimum. In this paper, we apply a coevolutionary particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm developed in earlier research in an attempt to return the global maximum. A numerical experiment is used to verify the performance of the algorithm in overcoming local optimum

Meissner effect in a charged Bose gas with short-range repulsion

The question of whether the BEC is a necessary condition of the Meissner effect is examined. The electromagnetic susceptibility of a charged Bose gas with short-range repulsion is studied using the perturbation theory with respect to the repulsive force. With decreasing temperature, the Bose-statistical coherence grows, and prior to the BEC phase the susceptibility shows a singularity implying the Meissner effect. This means that the BEC is a sufficient, but not a necessary condition of the Meissner effect in the charged Bose gas with short-range repulsion.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

On a landscape approach to design and eco-poetic approach to Landscape

For Landscape Architecture to become an academic discipline it must present its own coherent theory and methodology for the planning, designing and management of (built) landscapes. This also requires not only an articulated if difficult differentiation of planning, design and management and the interrelationship between them, but also clarification of the term landscape itself