Resident engagement in the regeneration of social housing: the case of Woodberry Down, London

In recent decades policies of renewing social housing in partnership with private developers have become widespread and critics have described such policies as state-led gentrification. Whilst resident participation in such regeneration is often viewed as tokenistic, this paper presents a case of estate renewal where a well established residents’ association is having some success in influencing the outcomes of redevelopment as a result of engaging in a regeneration partnership. The residents’ association faces considerable challenges as the local authority has entered a partnership with a major developer and the majority of new homes will be for sale. Nonetheless, the residents’ association has been able to influence the regeneration in terms of the offers of rehousing to existing residents and in terms of maintaining their sense of place. However, many leaseholders have been displaced and there is an ongoing struggle to ensure that there is not a net loss of social rented housing. The paper highlights how sustained organisation by residents can affect the outcomes of redevelopment, but also illustrates the limitations of developer-led regeneration meeting social objectives

Effects of Sublethal, Cerebral X-Irradiation on Movement and Home-Range Patterns of Black-Tailed Jackrabbits

Effects of sublethal, cerebral irradiation on movement and home-range patterns of black-tailed jackrabbits were studied in Curlew Valley, Utah, using radio-telemetry. Irradiation of 70 captive animals indicated that the LD50(30)was between 5,556 and 6,200 roentgens. Nine wild, free-living experimentals were trapped in desert terrain, irradiated, transmittered, and released at the capture sites. Seven wild controls were treated similarly but were not irradiated. The field-irradiation dosage was 5,000 roentgens. Tracking accuracy was determined by telemetering transmitters at fixed locations. Mean hourly movement was measured within 20-30 percent error and home ranges were measured with an error of less than 22 percent. Experimentals had a mean hourly movement of 1,176.8 feet and controls 980.0 feet, significantly different at the .05 probability level. Experimentals had a bimodal activity curve with peaks at 5:00 p.m. and 3:00 to 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. Controls displayed no such pattern. Experimentals had a mean, daily home range of 66.1 acres and controls 34.1 acres, significantly different at the .05 probability level. Experimentals had a seasonal home range of 279.0 acres and controls 247.0 acres, not significantly different at the .05 probability level. A probability index showing the frequency distribution of each animal\u27s activity within 300-foot concentric, circular bands around a geometric center of activity showed similar distributions for both groups. The greatest concentrations of activity were within the innermost band for each group but experimentals had a slightly greater scatter of points in the outermost zone. These distributions were not significantly different at the .05 probability level. Sublethal, cerebral irradiation appears to have increased activity levels of experimental animals but not changed those home-range characteristics involving the total area occupied and tenacity of site attachment. This increased activity may have resulted from inhibitory areas in the cortex which permitted greater expression of activity from the limbic system

The Efficiency of Voluntary Incentive Policies for Preventing Biodiversity Loss

In this paper we analyze the efficiency of voluntary incentive-based land-use policies for biodiversity conservation. Two factors combine to make it difficult to achieve an efficient result. First, the spatial pattern of habitat across multiple landowners is important for determining biodiversity conservation results. Second, the willingness of private landowners to accept a payment in exchange for enrolling in a conservation program is private information. Therefore, a conservation agency cannot easily control the spatial pattern of voluntary enrollment in conservation programs. We begin by showing how the distribution of a landowner's willingness-to-accept a conservation payment can be derived from a parcel-scale land-use change model. Next we combine the econometric land-use model with spatial data and ecological models to simulate the effects of various conservation program designs on biodiversity conservation outcomes. We compare these results to an estimate of the efficiency frontier that maximizes biodiversity conservation at each level of cost. The frontier mimics the regulator's solution to the biodiversity conservation problem when she has perfect information on landowner willingness-to-accept. Results indicate that there are substantial differences in biodiversity conservation scores generated by the incentive-based policies and efficient solutions. The performance of incentive-based policies is particularly poor at low levels of the conservation budget where spatial fragmentation of conserved parcels is a large concern. Performance can be improved by encouraging agglomeration of conserved habitat and by incorporating basic biological information, such as that on rare habitats, into the selection criteria.

Proposal for a new UK national institute for biological security

We are currently witnessing the devastating impact that natural disease outbreaks can have on our health and economy. The coronavirus pandemic highlights the need for the UK to transform its level of preparedness against biological threats. But in our response, we cannot simply ‘prepare to fight the last war’ and focus on pandemic preparedness alone. We know from national security risk assessments and our Biological Security Strategy that we remain vulnerable to accidental and deliberate biological threats, which risk even worse consequences than the ongoing pandemic. To achieve the level of safety that the UK public will demand in the wake of the current pandemic, we recommend the creation of a National Institute forBiological Security. The Institute would go above and beyond the new UK Joint Biosecurity Centre and would be tasked with addressing the highest priority biological threats faced by the UK, regardless of their origin. Sitting adjacent to the government, the Institute would provide strategic direction over policy and technical solutions, along with national-level coordination and integration of expertise from a wide range of disciplines. It would also complement the proposed new UK ARPA by fulfilling a think-tank like function that delivers insights on new areas of opportunity and promising solutions. In short, the Institute’s mission would be to ensure the biological security of the UK. To achieve this, it would focus on the four areas of highest priority: Prevent and counter the threat of biological weapons from both state and non-state actors, treating them as a comparable security challenge to nuclear weapons; Develop effective defences to biological threats, helping bring horizon technologies (especially pathogen-blind diagnostics) to technical readiness; Promote responsible biotechnology development across the world; and Develop talent and collaboration across the UK biosecurity community, cementing the UK as a world leader in science and innovation. We set out each of these four priorities in further detail belo

Insulated Blackness: The Cause for Fracture in Black Political Identity

The Black Political Identity is often treated as a monolith in American politics, with interest groups and political parties employing blanket policy solutions to appease and engage African Americans. However, observations and scholarship show that Black Americans are not monolithic, possessing divergent views about social policies, so much so that some Black Americans can hold political positions that are oppositional to collective Black advancement. Therefore, this work theorizes the concept of insulated Blackness – the extent to which self-identified African Americans oppose pro-Black remedial policies and/or disagree with commonly held ideologies about the Black condition, as a result of an existence insulated from frequent experiences of racial discrimination. This analysis will use the 2016 American National Election Study to assess experientially constructed political Blackness in terms of policies and ideologies considered synonymous with Blackness. The analysis also presents predicted probability models that demonstrate that political Blackness is rooted in the heightened racial discrimination experiences. We conclude that self-identified Blacks may exist outside of the identity of political Blackness because they perceive they are insulated from racial discrimination

Beaver County Crop Production Costs and Returns, 2012

Sample costs and returns to establish and produce alfalfa hay, barley, oats, and corn (grain or silage) under pivot irrigation in Beaver County, Utah, are presented in this publication

Brief Announcement: Asymmetric Mutual Exclusion for RDMA

In this brief announcement, we define operation asymmetry, which captures how processes may interact with an object differently, and discuss its implications in the context of a popular network communication technology, remote direct memory access (RDMA). Then, we present a novel approach to mutual exclusion for RDMA-based distributed synchronization under operation asymmetry. Our approach avoids RDMA loopback for local processes and guarantees starvation-freedom and fairness