The postliberal politics of halal: new directions in the civilizing process?

This paper examines the emergence of postliberal halal politics in European societies. Building on research undertaken during the EU funded Dialrel project, it examines how the Malaysian state is inserting hegemonic claims into transnational space in order to dominate the international halal market. Moving beyond the idea of horizontally aligned networks of transnational power as the dominant framework for understanding social and economic change, the paper explores the complex interweaving of the large-scale macro processes and everyday micro practices underpinning the rise of Malaysia’s postliberal halal strategy. It is argued that the processes of social and economic differentiation emerging as a result of these processes have the potential to be an important step in the global civilizing process. In conclusion, the paper discusses the implication of these developments for figurational sociology

Developing a strong and sustainable food economy in Kirklees

Executive Summary Kirklees Public Health Directorate commissioned the research on which this report is based. Between October 2014 and July 2015, fifteen interviews were conducted in Kirklees with key actors in the community food sector and the local authority. These interviews were complimented with five more at the national level. The overall aim of the research was to provide evidence of how the current Kirklees food system contributes to the aim of making local people and the economy more resilient. The research had three main objectives: • To explore the potential impact of local food on economic development. • To examine possible frameworks for an independent Kirklees food partnership. • To develop awareness and promote the significance of these issues. A number of key findings emerge. Key findings 1. Many community food enterprises exist in isolation and there is little to bind them together beyond small reciprocal exchanges. 2. The community food sector needs more support and Kirklees should focus on the many good things that are already happening across the borough. 3. Redefining what is meant by ‘local food’ would improve the effectiveness of local supply chains and enable better procurement. 4. Better local procurement and sourcing would enable local producers and entrepreneurs to make a more effective contribution to the local economy. 5. A system of local/ sub regional food hubs is already in place across Kirklees comprised of community retailers, farms shops and schools. 6. There is a wide support for the development of an independent Kirklees food partnership and central food hub to coordinate these initiatives more effectively. 7. The Brighton and Hove partnership provides a good model for Kirklees to follow, but the right people must be involved from the outset if any new approach is to be successful. 8. Any new agenda must ensure that all the diverse communities across Kirklees, deprived as well as affluent benefit from any new ways of working. 9. Better planning and public policies are needed if the joint Kirklees Health/Well-Being and Economic Strategies are to bring about outcomes that cut across different areas of service delivery. 10. More commitment and support for partnership working is needed across all sectors in West Yorkshire. Five recommendations are made. Recommendations 1. Provide more support for the community food sector in Kirklees 2. Initiative better partnership working and collaboration across all sectors in West Yorkshire 3. Link the local food system with local supply chains to enhance local sourcing and procurement 4. Initiative better planning and policy to link the food system to population needs across different areas of service delivery more effectively. 5. Develop a local food partnership and food hub infrastructure to drive the food strategy to the next level

Convergence Analysis of the Approximate Newton Method for Markov Decision Processes

Recently two approximate Newton methods were proposed for the optimisation of Markov Decision Processes. While these methods were shown to have desirable properties, such as a guarantee that the preconditioner is negative-semidefinite when the policy is $\log$-concave with respect to the policy parameters, and were demonstrated to have strong empirical performance in challenging domains, such as the game of Tetris, no convergence analysis was provided. The purpose of this paper is to provide such an analysis. We start by providing a detailed analysis of the Hessian of a Markov Decision Process, which is formed of a negative-semidefinite component, a positive-semidefinite component and a remainder term. The first part of our analysis details how the negative-semidefinite and positive-semidefinite components relate to each other, and how these two terms contribute to the Hessian. The next part of our analysis shows that under certain conditions, relating to the richness of the policy class, the remainder term in the Hessian vanishes in the vicinity of a local optimum. Finally, we bound the behaviour of this remainder term in terms of the mixing time of the Markov chain induced by the policy parameters, where this part of the analysis is applicable over the entire parameter space. Given this analysis of the Hessian we then provide our local convergence analysis of the approximate Newton framework.Comment: This work has been removed because a more recent piece (A Gauss-Newton method for Markov Decision Processes, T. Furmston & G. Lever) of work has subsumed i

Simulated [111] Si-SiGe terahertz quantum cascade laser

The prospect of developing a silicon laser has long been an elusive goal, mainly due to the indirect band gap and large effective carrier masses. We present a design for a terahertz intersubband laser grown on the [111] crystal plane and simulate performance using a rate equation method including scattering due to alloy disorder, interface roughness, carrier-phonon and Coulombic interactions. We predict gain greater than 40 cm-1 and a threshold current density of 70 A/cm2

Substrate orientation and alloy composition effects in n-type SiGe quantum cascade structures

We show using a theoretical self-consistent effective mass/rate equation approach that n-type SiGe-based quantum cascade lasers are potentially made viable by either using the (111) orientation or a Ge-rich substrate

Sociology Still Lagging on Climate Change

This note responds to the discussion pieces by Elizabeth Shove and John Urry in the debates section of Sociological Research Online, 31 August 2010.[No keywords]