‘The party’s over’: critical junctures, crises and the politics of housing policy

The key argument set out in this article is that historical and comparative forms of investigation are necessary if we are to better understand the ambitions and scope of contemporary housing interventions. To demonstrate the veracity of our claim, we have set out an analysis of the UK housing polices enacted in the mid-1970s as a basis for comparison with those pursued 40 years later. The article begins with a critical summary of some of the methodological approaches adopted by researchers used to interpret housing policy. In the main section, we present our critical analysis of housing policy reforms (implemented by the Labour government between 1974 and 1979) noting both their achievements and limitations. In the concluding section, we use our interpretation of this period as a basis to judge contemporary housing policy and reflect on the methodological issues that arise from our analysis

Managing the Misinformation Marketplace: The First Amendment and the Fight Against Fake News

In recent years, fake news has overtaken the internet. Fake news publishers are able to disseminate false stories widely and cheaply on social media websites, amassing millions of likes, comments, and shares, with some fake news even “trending” on certain platforms. The ease with which a publisher can create and spread falsehoods has led to a marketplace of misinformation unprecedented in size and power. People’s vulnerability to fake news means that they are far less likely to receive accurate political information and are therefore unable to make informed decisions when voting. Because a democratic system relies on an informed populace to determine how it should act, fake news presents a unique threat to U.S. democracy. Although fake news threatens democratic institutions, First Amendment protections for false speech present a significant obstacle for regulatory remedies. This Note explores the ways these speech protections interfere with the government’s ability to protect political discourse—the process that enables it to function effectively—and proposes that the government regulate journalists to ensure that people can rely on legitimate news media to receive accurate information

Multivariate dependence modeling using copulas

There exist necessary and sufficient conditions on the generating functions of the FGM family, in order to obtain various dependence properties. We present multivariate generalizations of this class studying symmetry and dependence concepts, measuring the dependence among the components of each class and providing several examples.copula, density function, FGM copulas, dependence, symmetry

Ferrocene and Ferrocenium Modified Clays and Their Styrene and EVA Composites

In this work, ferrocene- and ferrocenium-containing salts were employed to modify montmorillonite. X-ray measurements show an increase in the interlayer spacing upon clay modification, which means that the larger and more organophilic cations were inserted into the gallery space of montmorillonite. Attempts to prepare nanocomposites of polystyrene and ethylene vinyl acetate copolymers lead to immiscible systems; the morphology of these systems was elucidated with TEM, XRD and cone calorimetry. The thermal stability of the composites is greater than that of the virgin polymer

Fire Retardancy of Melamine and Zinc Aluminum Layered Double Hydroxide in Poly(methyl Methacrylate)

The thermal and fire properties of PMMA modified with various loadings of melamine or zinc aluminum undecenoate LDH were evaluated using TGA, DTA and cone calorimetry. The additives were characterized by X-ray diffraction, TGA, FT-IR and elemental analysis. While the two additives are very effective with this polymer, a higher loading of melamine (30%) is required to reach a good reduction in PHRR (47%) relative to the pure polymer, while with the LDH, 10% loading is enough to obtain a similar reduction. The combinations of these additives in PMMA reveal that the time to PHRR and the amount of smoke produced are the key differences, with melamine increasing the first parameter and leading to less smoke production relative to LDH-rich PMMA systems at similar total additive loadings. Analysis of the residue shows that melamine is completely lost during combustion while the LDH forms ZnO and ZnAl2O4