I think we have some connection difficulty: a review of architectural vocabulary and representation in our condition of remote communication

The distance required to slow this pandemic created a need for Zoom technology in maintaining our economies of mental production and social closeness. Just like scientists examined the COVID-19 virus globally in its petri under the electron microscope, Zoom exposed our domestic interiors. This platform stitched together our personal existence into an infinite interior. To some extent this places Zoom attendees into a new space of vulnerability where the platform turns passive observers into active participants in a hyper self-aware virtual world where all are forced to share their fragile environments of everyday life. While videotelephony software thankfully facilitated communication beyond just language, we lost the connectedness of a myriad of stereo sensations such as time, touch, gesture, and context. . . Using the architectural tools of drawings, scans, probes, and models at varying scales, one may better connect spatially their own space and empathize with other distant rooms. This thesis proposes an addendum to the architectural discipline’s forms of representation and language in the framework of this past year’s spaciotemporal condition. A reexamination of vocabulary and representation may provide a model of how to curate our spaces for more empathetic connectedness

Asset servicing at a second-tier financial centre: Framing embeddedness through mechanisms of the firm-territory nexus

The integration of regional economies within multi-location firm networks, and the development effects stemming from such integration, is recognised as a critical but deeply complex research area (Dicken and Malmberg, 2001). In this paper, with Edinburgh’s asset servicing activities providing an empirical context, a conceptual framework is developed that points to an initial suite of mechanisms that may underpin the firm-territory nexus. By doing this, a revised perspective on how territorial and network embeddedness overlap, is given. Recognising the heterogeneous nature of head office-branch and subsidiary relationships - which asset servicing functions are ultimately inscribed in - this paper shows how the local economic and institutional contexts present in Edinburgh mesh and jostle with the co-ordinating dynamics of the global financial services sector

Beluga, Delphinapterus leucas, Group Sizes in Cook Inlet, Alaska, Based on Observer Counts and Aerial Video

Belugas, Delphinapterus leucas, groups were videotaped concurrent to observer counts during annual NMFS aerial surveys of Cook Inlet, Alaska, from 1994 to 2000. The videotapes provided permanent records of whale groups that could be examined and compared to group size estimates ade by aerial observers.Examination of the video recordings resulted in 275 counts of 79 whale groups. The McLaren formula was used to account for whales missed while they were underwater (average correction factor 2.03; SD=0.64). A correction for whales missed due to video resolution was developed by using a second, paired video camera that magnified images relative to the standard video. This analysis showed that some whales were missed either because their image size fell below the resolution of hte standard video recording or because two whales surfaced so close to each other that their images appeared to be one large whale. The correction method that resulted depended on knowing the average whale image size in the videotapes. Image sizes were measured for 2,775 whales from 275 different passes over whale groups. Corrected group sizes were calcualted as the product of the original count from video, the correction factor for whales missed underwater, and the correction factor for whales missed due to video resolution (averaged 1.17; SD=0.06). A regression formula was developed to estimate group sizes from aerial observer counts; independent variables were the aerial counts and an interaction term relative to encounter rate (whales per second during the counting of a group), which were regressed against the respective group sizes as calculated from the videotapes. Significant effects of encounter rate, either positive or negative, were found for several observers. This formula was used to estimate group size when video was not available. The estimated group sizes were used in the annual abundance estimates

Soulistic health: the church\u27s ministry of healing intercession

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/1031/thumbnail.jp

The COVID-19 Crisis and Universal Credit in Glasgow

Policy Scotland researchers Dr Sarah Weakley and Dr David Waite today publish a new working paper on the ways that the COVID-19 crisis has impacted unemployment and the labour market in Glasgow, with a focus on how this crisis is illustrated by Universal Credit data. In this paper they begin to chart the interactions between shifts in the labour market and Universal Credit. Within the context of sharp ruptures to the labour market brought about by the closing of large swathes of the economy, this paper hinges, in the main, on reporting the emerging trends that can be observed for Universal Credit in Glasgow. The paper provides a glimpse of the labour market-Universal Credit challenge at a point in time – a point where great uncertainty still prevails – so much further research will necessarily follow this contribution. This paper, nevertheless, raises issues to look out for as further data emerges [1] and we begin to understand the shape of labour market recovery in Glasgow. Key findings: Sharp ruptures to the labour market are already apparent, yet future policy transitions – including businesses resuming activity safely and furloughing schemes ending – may have pronounced effects on employment and unemployment in Glasgow. We consider how these ruptures are illustrated in data for Universal Credit, the primary working age benefit in the UK. In just one month (early March – early April) nearly 18,000 new people came on to the Universal Credit caseload in Glasgow. They had to wait until at least May in order to receive their first payment. The majority of new UC recipients are young workers and families (aged 25-39), who make up the bulk of the UC caseload in Glasgow (nearly 25,000 people). We are beginning to see an emergence of young people who have had to claim UC (under age 25) – these young people are likely facing much more severe hardship than peers who have their families to fall back on in an economic crisis. Given the nature of this crisis future reports may likely see a larger spike in UC for this group. Most of the new UC recipients are those disconnected from the labour market and are now required to work as a condition of their UC payment. However, vacancies are down in the Glasgow local authority by 65%. It is unclear how this context can complement a welfare state predicated on a buoyant labour market for recipients to easily reengage with work or else be sanctioned. Although the initial spike of UC claims passed relatively quickly, there is a distinct concern of a comparable spike in October when the furlough scheme ends. It is therefore valuable for policymakers to consider programmes that will stimulate employment quickly now, before this spike occurs

City Deals in the polycentric state: the spaces and politics of Metrophilia in the UK

This paper draws attention to the burgeoning phenomenon of Metrophilia, the fashionable yet uncritical embrace of city-centric narratives of development in place-based policymaking. Within this narrative, City Deals have emerged as mechanisms that pit places in competition with each other through the promotion of local economic growth compacts. Despite being launched with great fanfare as localised victories, City Deals raise important questions regarding the shape of the UK state system and the objectives of spatial policy. Addressing these concerns, and focusing on the tripartite political arrangements in the UK’s devolved administrations nations, we argue that political tensions between nationalism and city-regionalism may be exacerbated through deal-making approaches

Spaces of city-regionalism: conceptualising pluralism in policymaking

City-regionalism is now established as a key spatial arena for shaping sub-national urban policy. In these spaces, economic growth interests are marshalled within a competitiveness narrative as the dominant approach for the development of governance and policy. Yet such dominance in principle does not preclude other policy approaches from emerging and re-fashioning city-regionalism. In this paper, making reference to evolving city-region arrangements in the UK, specifically Cardiff, we explore and conceptualise policy pluralism. Our core argument is that to determine the possibilities for plural approaches to emerge, researchers can productively assess the intersections of relational and territorial geographies filtered through a micro-meso-macro framework. The framework positions governing principles, institutions and practices as mediators of, or triggers for, relational and territorial policymaking processes whose interaction may open up windows through which pluralistic approaches might develop. With such a conceptual approach applied in the context of city-regionalism, the break points in competitiveness-focused policymaking may more readily come into view