Experiencing War as the \u27Enemy Other\u27: Italian Scottish experience in World War II (Book Review) by Wendy Ugolini

Review of Experiencing War as the \u27Enemy Other\u27: Italian Scottish experience in World War II. Wendy Ugolini. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011. Pp. 288

Demographic trends in the Manchester-Nashua metropolitan area

In the city of Manchester, New Hampshire, 25 percent of children live below the poverty line, a high rate that is in stark contrast to the state\u27s rate of just 10 percent, one of the nation\u27s lowest. That is the most surprising finding from this new analysis of demographic trends in the Manchester-Nashua metropolitan area. The brief presents recent demographic shifts in Manchester, Nashua, and suburban Hillsborough County alongside historical perspectives of the region

A Community Schools Approach to Accessing Services and Improving Neighborhood Outcomes in Manchester, NH

This brief uses data collected by the Manchester Health Department in 2013 and analyzed by the Carsey School of Public Policy in the Bakersville, Beech Street, and Gossler Park neighborhoods in Manchester, New Hampshire, to provide information about how barriers to various dimensions of well-being differ by place and also across race/ethnicity, foreign-born status, and age. Survey data and focus groups also gave residents a voice in the implementation of the Manchester Community Schools Project—a partnership between the Manchester Health Department, city elementary schools, philanthropists, neighborhood residents, and several nonprofit agencies—to improve and enhance educational achievement, economic well-being, access to health care services, healthy behaviors, social connectedness, safety, and living environments. A key element of this project is to make elementary schools in the Bakersville, Beech Street, and Gossler Park neighborhoods centerpieces of community life for all residents, not just those with children. Author Justin Young reports that one-quarter of residents surveyed in 2013 in the Manchester neighborhoods of Bakersville, Beech Street, and Gossler Park say that difficulty in finding services is a major hindrance, especially to economic stability, health, and social connectedness. Focus group data suggest that the city’s foreign-born residents, especially Hispanics, have the most trouble finding and accessing services. Cost is an obstacle to accessing health care services, and older and younger focus group participants, as well as immigrants, say the cost of transportation is a barrier to accessing services. He concludes that the neighborhood in which one lives shapes a variety of outcomes related to well-being, and that a place-based approach like the community schools model can improve outcomes not only for residents of the Bakersville, Beech Street, and Gossler Park areas but for all Manchester residents

A Postcard from Oxford: Rudolf Steiner at Manchester College

At the height of his powers, Rudolf Steiner presented a two-week conference at Oxford. The ‘Oxford Holiday Conference’ was titled ‘Spiritual Values in Education & Social Life’ (Mackenzie, 1922b), and it was this 1922 conference that laid the foundations for establishing Waldorf education in Britain and from there the rest of the Anglo world. The original Waldorf School had been established in 1919 by Rudolf Steiner at the invitation of a German industrialist, Emil Molt, in Stuttgart, Germany. Steiner states that in the Waldorf School he sought "to apply the educational principles arising out of Anthroposophy”. The Stuttgart school began with 150 students and this had grown to 700 by the time of the Oxford Conference. The Oxford Conference ran from 15-29 August, there were 14 presenters, 230 delegates, morning lectures were presented by Steiner in Arlosh Hall at Manchester College, and afternoon lectures were held at Keble College. The Conference was organised by Professor Millicent Mackenzie. Steiner spoke in German, with George Adams Kaufmann translating. The Conference was widely and favourably reported in the British press. At the close of the Conference a committee was formed of at least 11 individuals, including Mackenzie and Professor L. P. Jacks, the Principal of Manchester College, to progress the ideas presented. Photos of the Conference venues within Manchester College include the Manchester College Library, Arlosh Hall and the Manchester College Chapel

Universities, regional policy and the knowledge economy

This article focuses on the spatial clustering dimension of new information and communications technology (ICT)-driven economic activity based on knowledge industries and especially the tacit knowledge synergies to be achieved through networking in geographical space. The article first details the new knowledge economy, reviewing claims made for its distinctiveness and its role in raising levels of productivity before turning to a brief study of the clustering effects of new ICT-driven economic activity and the development of policies designed to enhance regional development. The remainder of the article details a case study – Univercities: the Manchester Knowledge Capital Initiative – in the North-west of the United Kingdom based on recent research into the attempt to create a ‘Knowledge Capital’ within the Greater Manchester conurbation, which is designed to position Manchester at the heart of the knowledge economy

Input Design for System Identification via Convex Relaxation

This paper proposes a new framework for the optimization of excitation inputs for system identification. The optimization problem considered is to maximize a reduced Fisher information matrix in any of the classical D-, E-, or A-optimal senses. In contrast to the majority of published work on this topic, we consider the problem in the time domain and subject to constraints on the amplitude of the input signal. This optimization problem is nonconvex. The main result of the paper is a convex relaxation that gives an upper bound accurate to within $2/\pi$ of the true maximum. A randomized algorithm is presented for finding a feasible solution which, in a certain sense is expected to be at least $2/\pi$ as informative as the globally optimal input signal. In the case of a single constraint on input power, the proposed approach recovers the true global optimum exactly. Extensions to situations with both power and amplitude constraints on both inputs and outputs are given. A simple simulation example illustrates the technique.Comment: Preprint submitted for journal publication, extended version of a paper at 2010 IEEE Conference on Decision and Contro

Pulsar Timing Arrays and their Applications

Millisecond pulsars are intrinsically very stable clocks and precise measurement of their observed pulse periods can be used to study a wide variety of astrophysical phenomena. In particular, observations of a large sample of millisecond pulsars at regular intervals, constituting a Pulsar Timing Array (PTA), can be used as a detector of low-frequency gravitational waves and to establish a standard of time independent of terrestrial atomic timescales. Three major timing array projects have been established: The European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA), the North American pulsar timing array (NANOGrav) and the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA). Results from the PPTA project are described in some detail and future prospects for PTA projects are discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the AIP Conference Proceedings for the Pulsar Conference 2010, Sardinia, Italy, October 201

Staff gender Balance in Primary Schools

Copyright Manchester University PressPeer reviewe

EIT Reconstruction Algorithms: Pitfalls, Challenges and Recent Developments

We review developments, issues and challenges in Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT), for the 4th Workshop on Biomedical Applications of EIT, Manchester 2003. We focus on the necessity for three dimensional data collection and reconstruction, efficient solution of the forward problem and present and future reconstruction algorithms. We also suggest common pitfalls or ``inverse crimes'' to avoid.Comment: A review paper for the 4th Workshop on Biomedical Applications of EIT, Manchester, UK, 200