304 research outputs found
Generationing development
The articles in this special issue present a persuasive case for accounts of development to recognise the integral and fundamental roles played by age and generation. While the past two decades have witnessed a burgeoning of literature demonstrating that children and youth are impacted by development, and that they can and do participate in development, the literature has tended to portray young people as a special group whose perspectives should not be forgotten. By contrast, the articles collected here make the case that age and generation, as relational constructs, cannot be ignored. Appropriating the term ‘generationing’, the editors argue that a variety of types of age relations profoundly structure the ways in which societies are transformed through development – both immanent processes of neoliberal modernisation and the interventions of development agencies that both respond and contribute to these. Drawing on the seven empirical articles, I attempt to draw some of the ideas together into a narrative that further argues the case for ‘generationing’ but also identifies gaps, questions and implications for further research
D-optimal designs via a cocktail algorithm
A fast new algorithm is proposed for numerical computation of (approximate)
D-optimal designs. This "cocktail algorithm" extends the well-known vertex
direction method (VDM; Fedorov 1972) and the multiplicative algorithm (Silvey,
Titterington and Torsney, 1978), and shares their simplicity and monotonic
convergence properties. Numerical examples show that the cocktail algorithm can
lead to dramatically improved speed, sometimes by orders of magnitude, relative
to either the multiplicative algorithm or the vertex exchange method (a variant
of VDM). Key to the improved speed is a new nearest neighbor exchange strategy,
which acts locally and complements the global effect of the multiplicative
algorithm. Possible extensions to related problems such as nonparametric
maximum likelihood estimation are mentioned.Comment: A number of changes after accounting for the referees' comments
including new examples in Section 4 and more detailed explanations throughou
Dynamic Critical Behavior of a Swendsen-Wang-Type Algorithm for the Ashkin-Teller Model
We study the dynamic critical behavior of a Swendsen-Wang-type algorithm for
the Ashkin--Teller model. We find that the Li--Sokal bound on the
autocorrelation time ()
holds along the self-dual curve of the symmetric Ashkin--Teller model, and is
almost but not quite sharp. The ratio appears
to tend to infinity either as a logarithm or as a small power (). In an appendix we discuss the problem of extracting estimates of
the exponential autocorrelation time.Comment: 59 pages including 3 figures, uuencoded g-compressed ps file.
Postscript size = 799740 byte
Determination of the exponent gamma for SAWs on the two-dimensional Manhattan lattice
We present a high-statistics Monte Carlo determination of the exponent gamma
for self-avoiding walks on a Manhattan lattice in two dimensions. A
conservative estimate is \gamma \gtapprox 1.3425(3), in agreement with the
universal value 43/32 on regular lattices, but in conflict with predictions
from conformal field theory and with a recent estimate from exact enumerations.
We find strong corrections to scaling that seem to indicate the presence of a
non-analytic exponent Delta < 1. If we assume Delta = 11/16 we find gamma =
1.3436(3), where the error is purely statistical.Comment: 24 pages, LaTeX2e, 4 figure
'Dreamers’, (un)deserving immigrants and generational interdependence
Undocumented young people known as the ‘Dreamers’ have become the embodiment of the ‘deserving immigrant’ in US public debates on immigration. Through exploring the narratives of undocumented young organisers in California, this article examines how they came to be framed in this way and the limitations of this as a pathway to social justice. It explores their accounts of organising in the undocumented youth movement to examine how their relationships with their families have influenced their engagement with the Dreamer narrative and its contestation. It was found that the figure of the deserving Dreamer represented an overly individualised account of migrant youth experiences and trajectories. Drawing on a relational understanding of migration and life course pathways, it is argued that undocumented youth are embedded in interdependent intergenerational relationships which affect their experiences and outcomes and therefore need to be recognised in any pathway to social justice
Regularity Properties and Pathologies of Position-Space Renormalization-Group Transformations
We reconsider the conceptual foundations of the renormalization-group (RG)
formalism, and prove some rigorous theorems on the regularity properties and
possible pathologies of the RG map. Regarding regularity, we show that the RG
map, defined on a suitable space of interactions (= formal Hamiltonians), is
always single-valued and Lipschitz continuous on its domain of definition. This
rules out a recently proposed scenario for the RG description of first-order
phase transitions. On the pathological side, we make rigorous some arguments of
Griffiths, Pearce and Israel, and prove in several cases that the renormalized
measure is not a Gibbs measure for any reasonable interaction. This means that
the RG map is ill-defined, and that the conventional RG description of
first-order phase transitions is not universally valid. For decimation or
Kadanoff transformations applied to the Ising model in dimension ,
these pathologies occur in a full neighborhood of the low-temperature part of the first-order
phase-transition surface. For block-averaging transformations applied to the
Ising model in dimension , the pathologies occur at low temperatures
for arbitrary magnetic-field strength. Pathologies may also occur in the
critical region for Ising models in dimension . We discuss in detail
the distinction between Gibbsian and non-Gibbsian measures, and give a rather
complete catalogue of the known examples. Finally, we discuss the heuristic and
numerical evidence on RG pathologies in the light of our rigorous theorems.Comment: 273 pages including 14 figures, Postscript, See also
ftp.scri.fsu.edu:hep-lat/papers/9210/9210032.ps.
Mary Adams and the producer’s role in early BBC science broadcasts
Mary Adams was a science producer at the BBC from 1930–6. She is shown to have played a crucial role in shaping science broadcasts, in particular devising formats and styles of presentation. However, her approach is shown to have been primarily motivated by broadcasting considerations rather than by the popularisation of science. Through her interaction with scientists she helped to construct a new professional domain, that of the science-broadcasting professional, at a time when other producers were creating analogous roles in other areas of broadcasting. This paper is based largely on unpublished archival documents
Critical Exponents, Hyperscaling and Universal Amplitude Ratios for Two- and Three-Dimensional Self-Avoiding Walks
We make a high-precision Monte Carlo study of two- and three-dimensional
self-avoiding walks (SAWs) of length up to 80000 steps, using the pivot
algorithm and the Karp-Luby algorithm. We study the critical exponents
and as well as several universal amplitude ratios; in
particular, we make an extremely sensitive test of the hyperscaling relation
. In two dimensions, we confirm the predicted
exponent and the hyperscaling relation; we estimate the universal
ratios , and (68\% confidence
limits). In three dimensions, we estimate with a
correction-to-scaling exponent (subjective 68\%
confidence limits). This value for agrees excellently with the
field-theoretic renormalization-group prediction, but there is some discrepancy
for . Earlier Monte Carlo estimates of , which were , are now seen to be biased by corrections to scaling. We estimate the
universal ratios and ; since , hyperscaling holds. The approach to
is from above, contrary to the prediction of the two-parameter
renormalization-group theory. We critically reexamine this theory, and explain
where the error lies.Comment: 87 pages including 12 figures, 1029558 bytes Postscript
(NYU-TH-94/09/01
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