What Are the Challenges of Increasing the Sustainability of Urban Livelihoods?

. This article places the challenge of rapid urbanisation throughout the world into a perspective that acknowledges inequalities due to economic history. As well as a brief exploration of the site-specific nature of challenges faced, this article seeks to outline the economic and structural obstacles that act as a backdrop to the lives of the poor. Such a perspective can inform attempts to improve the lot of the poor and help in outlining the moral obligation for the powerful to help the poor and vulnerable face up to the issue of Climate Change

Not All “Designers Are Wankers”: Connecting Design, Enterprise and Regional Cultural Development

This paper reports on how a University’s Designer in Residence Scheme has contributed to both the local cultural and economic regeneration of the design sector in the North East of England. This case study specifically reflects on how the schemes ‘practitioner mentoring’ has created a significant community of practice through the collaborations of a Design School, Enterprise Campus and regional development agencies. British design education is often bemoaned by the creative industries for failing to properly equip graduates for the ins and outs of the business of design; whilst at the same time it has become a truism of British industry that it innovates but does not make and sell. Northumbria University’s Designer in Residence scheme was established with a view to addressing both of these issues. A modern university is not wholly or even mainly just an academy. It could rather be seen as a context for the non-academic acquisition of higher-level practical skills, especially in creative fields. This is quite a different activity from the conventional teaching and tutoring process in which most universities, even today, are educationally landlocked. The industrial workshops, studios and ateliers that used to provide the context for this practical skills development no longer exist. It could be argued that they anyway never offered the grounding in independent, effective, self-management that a present day design sector needs. In the Designer in Residence Scheme such independence is routinely imparted and acquired by succeeding ‘breaking waves’ of designers. As academic partners on the scheme, the authors reflect on the value and methodologies of the initiative evolved throughout its ten-year span, focusing on the nature of the community of practice established between successive residents, academics and Enterprise Campus and crucially how the designers have owned the process of developing directional design practice. This creative dialogue has resulted in a number of key findings to be discussed in this paper on the relevance and value of design enterprise to regional development, cultural identity, and economic growth. The paper concludes by discussing the value to Higher Education in developing an integrated approach to the culture of design, enterprise and manufacture

Two-particle irreducible effective actions versus resummation: analytic properties and self-consistency

Approximations based on two-particle irreducible (2PI) effective actions (also known as $\Phi$-derivable, Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis or Luttinger-Ward functionals depending on context) have been widely used in condensed matter and non-equilibrium quantum/statistical field theory because this formalism gives a robust, self-consistent, non-perturbative and systematically improvable approach which avoids problems with secular time evolution. The strengths of 2PI approximations are often described in terms of a selective resummation of Feynman diagrams to infinite order. However, the Feynman diagram series is asymptotic and summation is at best a dangerous procedure. Here we show that, at least in the context of a toy model where exact results are available, the true strength of 2PI approximations derives from their self-consistency rather than any resummation. This self-consistency allows truncated 2PI approximations to capture the branch points of physical amplitudes where adjustments of coupling constants can trigger an instability of the vacuum. This, in effect, turns Dyson's argument for the failure of perturbation theory on its head. As a result we find that 2PI approximations perform better than Pad\'e approximation and are competitive with Borel-Pad\'e resummation. Finally, we introduce a hybrid 2PI-Pad\'e method.Comment: Version accepted for publication in Nuclear Physics B. 31 pages, 16 figures. Uses feynm

APFIC/FAO Regional Consultative Workshop: Securing sustainable small-scale fisheries: Bringing together responsible fisheries and social development, Windsor Suites Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand 68 October 2010

In the Global Overview, we attempt to view reefs in terms of the poor who are dependent on reefs for their livelihoods, how the reefs benefit the poor, how changes in the reef have impacted the lives of the poor and how the poor have responded and coped with these changes. It also considers wider responses to reef issues and how these interventions have impacted on the lives of the poor

Key Factors Supporting Small-Scale Coastal Fisheries Management

This synthesis was designed to provide an evidence base on the success factors in small-scale coastal fisheries management in developing countries and, in turn, to assist the Rockefeller Foundation in developing its strategy for its Oceans and Fisheries Initiative. In doing so, it identifies and describes some 20 key factors believed to influence success in small-scale coastal fisheries management. The report was completed via a rapid review of key sources of knowledge from formal published literature, institutional literature, key informants and Internet searches. The focus was on key success factors in achieving a balance of social, economic and ecological benefits from the management of small-scale coastal fisheries. A summary of these success factors can also be explored via an interactive visualization that accompanies this report

Ultracold homonuclear and heteronuclear collisions in metastable helium

Scattering and ionizing cross sections and rates are calculated for ultracold collisions between metastable helium atoms using a fully quantum-mechanical close-coupled formalism. Homonuclear collisions of the bosonic ${}^{4}$He$^{*} +{}^{4}$He$^{*}$ and fermionic ${}^{3}$He$^{*} + {}^{3}$He$^{*}$ systems, and heteronuclear collisions of the mixed ${}^{3}$He$^{*} +{}^{4}$He$^{*}$ system, are investigated over a temperature range 1 $\mu$K to 1 K. Carefully constructed Born-Oppenheimer molecular potentials are used to describe the electrostatic interaction between the colliding atoms, and complex optical potentials used to represent loss through ionization from the ${}^{1,3}\Sigma$ states. Magnetic spin-dipole mediated transitions from the ${}^{5}\Sigma$ state are included and results reported for spin-polarized and unpolarized systems. Comparisons are made with experimental results, previous semi-classical models, and a perturbed single channel model.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure

When is general wariness favored in avoiding multiple predator types?

Free access to article and electronic appendices via DOI.Adaptive responses to predation are generally studied assuming only one predator type exists, but most prey species are depredated by multiple types. When multiple types occur, the optimal antipredator response level may be determined solely by the probability of attack by the relevant predator: "specific responsiveness." Conversely, an increase in the probability of attack by one predator type might increase responsiveness to an alternative predator type: "general wariness." We formulate a mathematical model in which a prey animal perceives a cue providing information on the probability of two predator types being present. It can perform one of two evasive behaviors that vary in their suitability as a response to the "wrong" predator type. We show that general wariness is optimal when incorrect behavioral decisions have differential fitness costs. Counterintuitively, difficulty in discriminating between predator types does not favor general wariness. We predict that where responses to predator types are mutually exclusive (e.g., referential alarm-calling), specific responsiveness will occur; we suggest that prey generalize their defensive responses based on cue similarity due to an assumption of response utility; and we predict, with relevance to conservation, that habituation to human disturbance should generalize only to predators that elicit the same antipredator response as humans

Towards a Horizontal Theory of Autonomy

This thesis criticises 'hierarchical' accounts of personal autonomy, and outlines the core features of an alternative, 'horizontal' account. It specifically focuses on the conditions of autonomous action. The current dominant approaches to the phenomenon of personal autonomy, or self-governance, tend to isolate certain privileged aspects of the self, that wield control when an agent is autonomous. In this sense, they can be labelled as 'hierarchical' accounts. For instance, Frankfurt's early (1971) account bases the conditions for autonomous action in conformity with an individual's higher-order volitions. However, I argue that such 'hierarchical' approaches are unsatisfactory. Bringing in considerations from Buss (1994, 2013), I argue that they are unable to adequately account for the phenomenon of nonautonomous action, or to explain how these privileged aspects of the soul exert authority over the rest. Instead, I argue for a 'horizontal' account of the self-relation involved when an individual acts autonomously. Such an account does not locate the conditions for autonomous action in some limited subsection of the self, but instead takes a more holistic approach to the aspects of the self that can be involved in self-governance. I suggest that the positive conditions for personal autonomy can instead be understood to involve the individual's conceptualisation of the decision-situation before them, and the range of factors incorporated into their decision-making. Under this kind of account, personal autonomy is a notion admitting of degrees

Inflation expectations and Real Return Bonds

The existence of a market for Real Return Bonds in Canada provides a direct tool with which to measure market expectations of inflation by comparing the yields on these bonds with those on conventional Government of Canada long-term bonds. However, there are other factors besides inflation expectations that may affect the yield differential. After reviewing these factors, the authors note that they can lead to a potentially large bias in the level of inflation expectations. The changes in the differential over time may, nonetheless, be a good indicator of movements in long-run inflation expectations. Based on this measure, expectations of long-run inflation have declined since late 1994.