425 research outputs found
Outsourcing Participatory Democracy: Critical Reflections on the Participatory Budgeting Experiences in Taiwan
This article attempts to critically examine the experiences of participatory budgeting (PB) that have proliferated across Taiwan’s cities over the past three years. It is argued that PB in Taiwan remains an isolated initiative instead of an integral part of a comprehensive administrative reform. What makes Taiwan’s PB experiences theoretically interesting is that, in most cases outside the Taipei City, the tasks of promoting PB, designing the procedure of participation, and organizing and mobilizing lay citizens have been contracted out to NGOs or teams led by scholars.In light of the analytical framework of state power - political society - civil society, this article argues that (1) PB in Taiwan takes place in the absence of active support from civil society and confronts a political society that is hostile to or skeptical of PB; (2) the “outsourced” model of PB generates incentives for the commissioner to evade administrative and political responsibilities, and imposes structural constraints on the performance of the contractor regarding mobilization, organizing and deliberative quality; and (3) the future of PB in Taiwan depends on whether the current modus operandi of PB will give way to a more comprehensive institutional reform and whether a growing number of active citizens and civil society organizations can fill the new political space created by PB that may otherwise be occupied by vested interests and political elites
Dialética, Complexidade e a Abordagem Sistêmica: por uma Reconciliação Crítica
Este artigo tenta avaliar as críticas importantes, mas amplamente ignoradas de Mario Bunge à dialética, entendida aqui segundo a acepção de Friedrich Engels e Leon Trotsky. Argumenta-se que, embora algumas das críticas de Bunge sejam importantes, os princípios que permeiam o trabalho de cientistas dialéticos (como Stephen Rose, Lewis, Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould, etc.) são ainda compatíveis com a aproximação sistêmica e emergentista de Bunge. Finalmente, inferimos que a dialética é melhor compreendida se analisada como uma ferramenta heurística, podendo, se assim utilizada, ser útil para cientistas fortalecerem ou refinarem seus próprios princípios metodológicos, facilitando assim a pesquisa empírica em si
Automatic enhancement of vascular configuration for self-healing concrete through reinforcement learning approach
Vascular self-healing concrete (SHC) has great potential to mitigate the environmental impact of the construction industry by increasing the durability of structures. Designing concrete with high initial mechanical properties by searching a specific arrangement of vascular structure is of great importance. Herein, an automatic optimization method is proposed to arrange vascular configuration for minimizing the adverse influence of vascular system through a reinforcement learning (RL) approach. A case study is carried out to optimize a concrete beam with 3 pores (representing a vascular network) positioned in the beam midspan within a design space of 40 possibilities. The optimization is performed by the interaction between RL agent and Abaqus simulation environment with the change of target properties as a reward signal. The results illustrates that the RL approach is able to automatically enhance the vascular arrangement of SHC given the fact that the 3-pore structures that have the maximum target mechanical property (i.e., peak load or fracture energy) are accessed for all of the independent runs. The RL optimization method is capable of identifying the structure with high fracture energy in the new optimization task for 4-pore concrete structure.</p
Constraints on the DGP Universe using observational Hubble parameter
AbstractIn this work, we use observations of the Hubble parameter from the differential ages of passively evolving galaxies and the recent detection of the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) at z1=0.35 to constrain the Dvali–Gabadadze–Porrati (DGP) Universe. For the case with a curvature term, we set a prior h=0.73±0.03 and the best-fit values suggest a spatially closed Universe. For a flat Universe, we set h free and we get consistent results with other recent analyses
Spin Excitation Spectra of Anisotropic Spin- Triangular Lattice Heisenberg Antiferromagnets
Investigation of dynamical excitations is difficult but crucial to the
understanding of many exotic quantum phenomena discovered in quantum materials.
This is particularly true for highly frustrated quantum antiferromagnets whose
dynamical properties deviate strongly from theoretical predictions made based
on the spin-wave or other approximations. Here we present a large-scale
numerical calculation on the dynamical correlation functions of spin-
triangular Heisenberg model using a state-of-the-art tensor network
renormalization group method. The calculated results allow us to gain for the
first time a comprehensive picture on the nature of spin excitation spectra in
this highly frustrated quantum system. It provides a quantitative account for
all the key features of the dynamical spectra disclosed by inelastic neutron
scattering measurements for , revealing the importance of
the interplay between low- and high-energy excitations and its renormalization
effect to the low-energy magnon bands and high-energy continuums. We identify
the longitudinal Higgs modes in the intermediate-energy scale and predict the
energy and momentum dependence of spectral functions along the three principal
axes that can be verified by polarized neutron scattering experiments.
Furthermore, we find that the spin excitation spectra weakly depend on the
anisotropic ratio of the antiferromagnetic interaction.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, and a Supplemental Materia
Understanding the phenomenological and intrinsic blazar sequence using a simple scaling model
The blazar sequence, including negative correlations between radiative
luminosity and synchrotron peak frequency , and between
Compton dominance and , is widely adopted as a phenomenological
description of spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of blazars, although its
underlying cause is hotly debated. In particular, these correlations turn
positive after correcting Doppler boosting effect. In this work, we revisit the
phenomenological and intrinsic blazar sequence with three samples, which are
historical sample (SEDs are built with historical data), quasi-simultaneous
sample (SEDs are built with quasi-simultaneous data) and Doppler factor
corrected sample (a sample with available Doppler factors), selected from
literature. We find that phenomenological blazar sequence holds in historical
sample, but does not exist in quasi-simultaneous sample, and intrinsic
correlation between and becomes positive in Doppler factor
corrected sample. We also analyze if the blazar sequence still exists in
subclasses of blazars, i.e., flat-spectrum radio quasars and BL Lacertae
objects, with different values of . To interpret these correlations, we
apply a simple scaling model, in which physical parameters of the dissipation
region are connected to the location of the dissipation region. We find that
the model generated results are highly sensitive to the chosen ranges and
distributions of physical parameters. Therefore, we suggest that even though
the simple scaling model can reproduce the blazar sequence under specific
conditions that have been fine-tuned, such results may not have universal
applicability. Further consideration of a more realistic emission model is
expected.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS (14 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables
A Review on Electronic Transport Properties of Individual Conducting Polymer Nanotubes and Nanowires
Bio-oil based biorefinery strategy for the production of succinic acid
Background: Succinic acid is one of the key platform chemicals which can be produced via biotechnology process instead of petrochemical process. Biomass derived bio-oil have been investigated intensively as an alternative of diesel and gasoline fuels. Bio-oil could be fractionized into organic phase and aqueous phase parts. The organic phase bio-oil can be easily upgraded to transport fuel. The aqueous phase bio-oil (AP-bio-oil) is of low value. There is no report for its usage or upgrading via biological methods. In this paper, the use of AP-bio-oil for the production of succinic acid was investigated
Tetrakis(μ-anthracene-9-carboxylato)bis[(anthracene-9-carboxylato)(2,2′-bipyridyl)lanthanum(III)]
The title complex, [La2(C15H9O2)6(C10H8N2)2], has a centrosymmetric binuclear cage structure in which two LaIII atoms are both nine-coordinated and bridged by four anthracene-9-carboxylate ligands, with an La⋯La separation of 4.0880 (4) Å. The remaining coordination sites are occupied by two N atoms of a 2,2′-bipyridine (bipy) and two O atoms of an anthracene-9-carboxylate ligand. The six anthracene-9-carboxylate groups coordinate each LaIII atom in three different ways. Adjacent discrete dinuclear units are arranged into a one-dimensional chain along the [111] direction by intermolecular π–π stacking interactions, with a centroid–centroid separation of 3.704 (7) Å
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