Complexity Meets Development - A Felicitous Encounter on the Road of Life

Since before Adam Smith, economists have been concerned with development. However, they have seldom understood it or paid it enough mind. For example, the “sequence” economists, such as Marx in the 19th Century and Rostow in the 20th sought to force development everywhere into a rigid pattern. Since 1874, the marginalists and their Neoliberal descendents have emphasised comparative statics and steady-state equilibriums, not growth. Although many new ideas popped up after WW II, none proved satisfactory. These included alleged “silver bullets” such as “free” trade, foreign direct investment, import substitution, industrialization and investment in human capital, as well as varied sets of “multiple drivers”, whose individual effects proved hard to sort out. Meanwhile, Neoliberal economics gradually took over the non-Marxist world. But it lost its credibility by spawning a mindless globalisation and long series of economic, human and social disasters. So today development economics is undergoing a “rebirth”, with “the Barcelona Consensus”, custom design, multiple objectives and sustainability among its guiding stars. By happy coincidence, a new discipline called complexity began to emerge in the mid 1980’s. Out of it has come a new kind of economics which is not only congruent with current thinking about development but also provides useful advice in the design and management of development programs, including those related to poverty. Meanwhile the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (USA) is trying a new approach to the eradication of this evil. Poor communities have been identified, organised and then made responsible for taking the lead in coordinating their own development. This coordination covers not only projects managed by the community but those sponsored by outside private- and public-sector organisations. The “jury is still out” but the odds are that this approach will provide much more civic, economic and social development for the poor than previous attempts. And a major factor improving these odds, is that this approach is the one most compatible with a vision of Puerto Rican society as a complex system

The Windrush Compensation Scheme: Unmet Need For Legal Advice

The aim of this research was to obtain a better understanding of the unmet need for legal advice amongst those who have been affected by the Windrush scandal, as well as other factors influencing the success of claims. The research is also intended to inform the development of the Windrush Justice Clinic (WJC) and to assess how best the Clinic can deliver support to those who most need it. The research found that: a. the WCS application process is too complex for claimants to complete alone and the limited support provided by the Home Office is insufficient; b. legal advice and support is necessary for claimants to prepare their applications, provide necessary evidence and pursue reviews if appropriate; c. other than the WJC and its partner organisations, there are very few sources of totally free and easily accessible legal advice for WCS claimants in the UK; d. this preliminary research has been unable to quantify the exact number of people with an unmet need. However, available statistics suggest that it is highly likely that there are significant numbers of people who have been affected by the Windrush Scandal who would benefit from from legal advice to make a claim under the WCS, seek a review of an existing offer, or to ensure payment of an award that has been offered

Data assimilation of three mars years of thermal emission spectrometer observations: Large-scale transient and stationary waves

Introduction: Large-scale traveling and stationary planetary waves are diagnosed from an analysis of profiles retrieved from the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) [1] aboard the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft during its scientific mapping phase. The analysis was conducted by assimilating the TES temperature profile and total dust opacity retrievals [2] into a pseudo-spectral Mars general circulation model to produce a full, physically self consistent record of all atmospheric variables stored at an interval of two hours over the entire MGS mapping phase. The data cover a period of about three Mars years, corresponding to the interval 1999–2004 on Earth. These include the year which contained the 2001 global dust storm [3] and two years of more moderate dust activity, although large regional storms occurred during southern hemisphere summer in both years and there was considerable atmospheric variability between all three years [4]. We focus on the planetary wave activity, both traveling and stationary large-scale waves, in the assimilated record. Data assimilation is a particularly useful technique for the analysis of transient wave behaviour since it is capable of producing global, time-dependent atmospheric fields, which the assimilation scheme endeavours to make as consistent as possible with whatever observations are available. These atmospheric variables may be sampled from the model as often as desired, on a regular grid of points. If particular variables, or regions of the atmosphere, are not observed directly, the model will at least ensure that they are consistent with the laws of physics incorporated within its framework. A complex climatology of transient waves is revealed, modulated by the large-scale topography and surface thermal properties, the time of year and, crucially, the amount of dust suspended in the atmosphere. Some individual case studies show the temporal and spatial structures of the waves in the assimilation record, although the large data set has by no means been fully explored. Companion papers discuss the thermal atmospheric tides [5] and the processes associated with the initiation of dust storms [6] from the same assimilated analysis. Output from the same assimilation has also been used to identify potential deficiencies in the model, such as the lack of water ice clouds [7]

Assimilation of TES data from the Mars Global Surveyor scientifc mapping phase

The Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES)aboard Mars Global Surveyor has produced data which cover almost two Martian years so far (during its scientific mapping phase). Thermal profiles for the atmosphere below 40 km and total dust opacities can be retrieved from TES nadir spectra and assimilated into a Mars general circulation model (MGCM), by using the assimilation techniques described in detail by Lewis et al. (2002). This paper describes some preliminary results from assimilations of temperature data from the period Ls=141°- 270° corresponding to late northern summer until winter solstice on Mars. Work in progress is devoted to assimilate both temperature and total dust opacity data for the full period for which they are already available

Oscillator strengths and line widths of dipole-allowed transitions in ¹⁴N₂ between 89.7 and 93.5 nm

Line oscillator strengths in the 20 electric dipole-allowed bands of ¹⁴N₂ in the 89.7–93.5nm (111480–106950cm⁻¹) region are reported from photoabsorptionmeasurements at an instrumental resolution of ∼6mÅ (0.7cm⁻¹) full width at half maximum. The absorptionspectrum comprises transitions to vibrational levels of the 3pσᵤc′₄¹Σᵤ⁺, 3pπᵤc³Πᵤ, and 3sσgo₃¹ΠᵤRydberg states and of the b′¹Σᵤ⁺ and b¹Πᵤ valence states. The J dependences of band f values derived from the experimental line f values are reported as polynomials in J′(J′+1) and are extrapolated to J′=0 in order to facilitate comparisons with results of coupled Schrödinger-equation calculations. Most bands in this study are characterized by a strong J dependence of the band f values and display anomalous P-, Q-, and R-branch intensity patterns. Predissociation line widths, which are reported for 11 bands, also exhibit strong J dependences. The f value and line width patterns can inform current efforts to develop comprehensive spectroscopic models that incorporate rotational effects and predissociation mechanisms, and they are critical for the construction of realistic atmospheric radiative-transfer models.This work was supported in part by NASA Grant No. NNG05GA03G to Wellesley College and Australian Research Council Discovery Program Grant No. DP0558962

Student Portfolios and the College Admissions Problem

We develop a decentralized Bayesian model of college admissions with two ranked colleges, heterogeneous students and two realistic match frictions: students find it costly to apply to college, and college evaluations of their applications are uncertain. Students thus face a portfolio choice problem in their application decision, while colleges choose admissions standards that act like market-clearing prices. Enrollment at each college is affected by the standards at the other college through student portfolio reallocation. In equilibrium, student-college sorting may fail: weaker students sometimes apply more aggressively, and the weaker college might impose higher standards. Applying our framework, we analyze affirmative action, showing how it induces minority applicants to construct their application portfolios as if they were majority students of higher caliber.Economic

Data assimilation for the Martian atmosphere using MGS Thermal Emission Spectrometer observations

From the introduction: Given the quantity of data expected from current and forthcoming spacecraft missions to Mars, it is now possible to use data assimilation as a means of atmospheric analysis for the first time for a planet other than the Earth. Several groups have described plans to develop assimilation schemes for Mars [Banfield et al., 1995; Houben, 1999; Lewis and Read, 1995; Lewis et al., 1996, 1997; Zhang et al., 2001]. Data assimilation is a technique for the analysis of atmospheric observations which combines currently valid information with prior knowledge from previous observations and dynamical and physical constraints, via the use of a numerical model. Despite the number of new missions, observations of the atmosphere of Mars in the near future are still likely to be sparse when compared to those of the Earth, perhaps comprising one orbiter and a few surface stations at best at any one time. Data assimilation is useful as a means to extract the maximum information from such observations, both by a form of interpolation in space and time using model constraints and by the combination of information from different observations, e.g. temperature profiles and surface pressure measurements which may be irregularly distributed. The procedure can produce a dynamically consistent set of meteorological fields and can be used directly to test and to refine an atmospheric model against observations

Cosmological surveys with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder

This is a design study into the capabilities of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder in performing a full-sky low redshift neutral hydrogen survey, termed WALLABY, and the potential cosmological constraints one can attain from measurement of the galaxy power spectrum. We find that the full sky survey will likely attain 0.6 million redshifts which, when combined with expected Planck CMB data, will constrain the Dark Energy equation of state to 20%, representing a coming of age for radio observations in creating cosmological constraints.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted in PASA, updated to match published versio

Dark Before Light: Testing the Cosmic Expansion History through the Cosmic Microwave Background

The cosmic expansion history proceeds in broad terms from a radiation dominated epoch to matter domination to an accelerated, dark energy dominated epoch. We investigate whether intermittent periods of acceleration are possible in the early universe -- between Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) and recombination and beyond. We establish that the standard picture is remarkably robust: observations of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background exclude any extra period of accelerated expansion between 1 \leq z \lesssim 10^5 (corresponding to 5\times10^{-4}\ {\rm eV} \leq T \lesssim 25\ {\rm eV}).Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Description strategies to make an interactive science simulation accessible

Interactive simulations are increasingly important in science education, yet most are inaccessible to blind learners. In developing an accessible prototype of a PhET interactive science simulation, we encountered significant challenges in providing screen reader access, including the need to: 1) describe unpredictable event sequences, 2) cue productive interactions, and 3) to simultaneously convey multiple changes. To address these challenges, we extended existing practices for verbal description of visual interactive content, and we created new strategies for developing rich description for accessible interactive science simulations