Complexity and coherence

Leslie Topp traces the emergence of the asylum mortuary as an architectural challenge. Drawing on new archival research, Complexity and Coherence: The Challenge of the Asylum Mortuary in Central Europe, 1898–1908 unpacks the highly fraught combination of scientific practices, death rituals, and psychiatric strategies that made up the mortuary's program. Topp analyzes three mortuary buildings in new psychiatric institutions at Vienna, Mauer-Öhling (Lower Austria), and Kroměříž (Moravia). Far from conforming to an established type, each building represents a radically different approach to the challenge of rendering the program's abrupt juxtapositions meaningful and coherent. In each case the building is conceived within the force field of Wagner School modernism, but the contrasting built results show the diversity of that modernism pushed to its limits by the complexity of the program's requirements and associations

Pilot Survey – Queue Management Strategies for Urban Traffic Control Systems

BACKGROUND 1.1 Advances in traffic signal optimization have produced increases in the capacity of urban road networks, but recent growth in demand has meant that many junctions operate at or above saturation levels. Delay costs increase dramatically when queues extend to block upstream junctions and queue management strategies are now required to ensure that local traffic signals operate effectively when oversaturated conditions occur. 1.2 The aims of this SERC-funded "Queue Management Strategies" project are as follows: (a) To generalise the strategies for queue management that were developed and tested empirically in Bangkok (See ITS WP 249 and WP 251); (b) To develop a computer graphics model to represent queue propagation; (c) To test the strategies' applicability and performance in UK networks; (d) To investigate their incorporation into standard signal optimization programs

Uniform Equicontinuity for a family of Zero Order operators approaching the fractional Laplacian

In this paper we consider a smooth bounded domain $\Omega \subset \R^N$ and a parametric family of radially symmetric kernels $K_\epsilon: \R^N \to \R_+$ such that, for each $\epsilon \in (0,1)$, its $L^1-$norm is finite but it blows up as $\epsilon \to 0$. Our aim is to establish an $\epsilon$ independent modulus of continuity in ${\Omega}$, for the solution $u_\epsilon$ of the homogeneous Dirichlet problem \begin{equation*} \left \{ \begin{array}{rcll} - \I_\epsilon [u] \&=\& f \& \mbox{in} \ \Omega. \\ u \&=\& 0 \& \mbox{in} \ \Omega^c, \end{array} \right . \end{equation*} where $f \in C(\bar{\Omega})$ and the operator \I_\epsilon has the form \begin{equation*} \I_\epsilon[u](x) = \frac12\int \limits_{\R^N} [u(x + z) + u(x - z) - 2u(x)]K_\epsilon(z)dz \end{equation*} and it approaches the fractional Laplacian as $\epsilon\to 0$. The modulus of continuity is obtained combining the comparison principle with the translation invariance of \I_\epsilon, constructing suitable barriers that allow to manage the discontinuities that the solution $u_\epsilon$ may have on $\partial \Omega$. Extensions of this result to fully non-linear elliptic and parabolic operators are also discussed

Lipschitz regularity for integro-differential equations with coercive hamiltonians and application to large time behavior

In this paper, we provide suitable adaptations of the "weak version of Bernstein method" introduced by the first author in 1991, in order to obtain Lipschitz regularity results and Lipschitz estimates for nonlinear integro-differential elliptic and parabolic equations set in the whole space. Our interest is to obtain such Lipschitz results to possibly degenerate equations, or to equations which are indeed "uniformly el-liptic" (maybe in the nonlocal sense) but which do not satisfy the usual "growth condition" on the gradient term allowing to use (for example) the Ishii-Lions' method. We treat the case of a model equation with a superlinear coercivity on the gradient term which has a leading role in the equation. This regularity result together with comparison principle provided for the problem allow to obtain the ergodic large time behavior of the evolution problem in the periodic setting

Potential economic gains from using forage legumes in organic livestock systems in northern Europe

This report was presented at the UK Organic Research 2002 Conference of the Colloquium of Organic Researchers (COR). Forage legumes, with their ability to fix nitrogen biologically, seem especially attractive for organic livestock production. In an attempt to assess their true potential, this study draws on a four-year trial conducted at 12 sites in northern Europe with four different forage legumes. One third of the sites were managed as organic systems, with the harvested forage being fed as silage to dairy cows. Based on the trial results, an economic assessment has been made of the potential of forage legumes to improve the competitive edge of organic dairy systems, relative to conventional grass-based ones. Although the results suggest that the organic milk price premium plays a major role in determining the comparative profitability of organic dairy systems, the use of forage legumes also gives a significant cost advantage to organic production

Steady-state thermodynamics of non-interacting transport beyond weak coupling

We investigate the thermodynamics of simple (non-interacting) transport models beyond the scope of weak coupling. For a single fermionic or bosonic level -- tunnel-coupled to two reservoirs -- exact expressions for the stationary matter and energy current are derived from the solutions of the Heisenberg equations of motion. The positivity of the steady-state entropy production rate is demonstrated explicitly. Finally, for a configuration in which particles are pumped upwards in chemical potential by a downward temperature gradient, we demonstrate that the thermodynamic efficiency of this process decreases when the coupling strength between system and reservoirs is increased, as a direct consequence of the loss of a tight coupling between energy and matter currents.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, to appear in EP