Bargaining bodies: the EU’s deal with Turkey has sacrificed Europe’s principles to appease domestic politics

The EU and Turkey have agreed on the broad elements of a deal to help stem the flow of people across the Turkish border into the EU. Assessing the content of the agreement, Rebecca Bryant writes that the EU is on the brink of making a costly mistake for the sake of domestic expediency. She argues that rather than shutting down migrant pathways, the EU should provide safe routes to Europe while obligating members to fulfil increased resettlement obligations

Cyprus ‘peace water’ project: how it could affect Greek-Turkish relations on the island

A water pipeline between Turkey and northern Cyprus was recently completed, despite criticism from some Greek Cypriot politicians that the project would increase Turkey’s influence over the north of the island. Rebecca Bryant writes that the project represents part of Turkey’s long-term strategy to increase development in the north, preparing it for an agreement to end the division of the island, but also making it prepared to stand on its own. She argues that Greek Cypriots nevertheless carry some of the blame for Turkey’s growing influence over northern Cyprus and that they should focus on developing new and urgent policies regarding the north rather than delaying engagement until after a solution is reached

The victory of Mustafa Akıncı in northern Cyprus gives hope to Turkish Cypriots of a better future

Northern Cyprus held the second round of its presidential election on 26 April, with Mustafa Akıncı defeating the incumbent President, Derviş Eroğlu. Rebecca Bryant writes on what the result of the election might mean for the people of northern Cyprus and future negotiations with the Greek Cypriot-controlled Republic of Cyprus. She notes that while Akıncı’s victory has been met with euphoria on both sides of the island, all indications are that he will not only work toward a federation, but will also seek to defend the interests of Turkish Cypriots

Creating regional crime statistics from administrative data

Abstract: The only publicly-available information on the geographical distribution of crime in New Zealand is offence statistics for police administrative units. We investigate whether existing data can be used to construct geographical crime statistics that correspond to regional councils, territorial authorities, and urban areas. Methods We build experimental output geographies from police stations, the smallest administrative unit for which there are long time series of offence statistics. We develop three rules for assigning police stations to the new geographies: one based on population, one based on land area, and one based on both. We assess the performance of these rules by calculating the proportion of national land area and population that is misclassified, and the number of target units that do not receive at least one police station. We also look at whether regional statistics on serious assaults are sensitive to the choice of allocation rule. Findings The new output geographies approximate the target geographies well. For instance, our preferred rule assigns 96 percent of the national population to the correct territorial authority. Moreover, a case study of serious assaults suggests that most regional crime statistics are not sensitive to the choice of rule. Conclusion The new output geographies perform sufficiently well that they could, if required, be used to produce regional crime statistics

Post-Ottoman Coexistence

In Southeast Europe, the Balkans, and Middle East, scholars often refer to the “peaceful coexistence” of various religious and ethnic groups under the Ottoman Empire before ethnonationalist conflicts dissolved that shared space and created legacies of division. "Post-Ottoman Coexistence", interrogates ways of living together and asks what practices enabled centuries of cooperation and sharing, as well as how and when such sharing was disrupted. Contributors discuss both historical and contemporary practices of coexistence within the context of ethno-national conflict and its aftermath

Optimal Data Split Methodology for Model Validation

The decision to incorporate cross-validation into validation processes of mathematical models raises an immediate question - how should one partition the data into calibration and validation sets? We answer this question systematically: we present an algorithm to find the optimal partition of the data subject to certain constraints. While doing this, we address two critical issues: 1) that the model be evaluated with respect to predictions of a given quantity of interest and its ability to reproduce the data, and 2) that the model be highly challenged by the validation set, assuming it is properly informed by the calibration set. This framework also relies on the interaction between the experimentalist and/or modeler, who understand the physical system and the limitations of the model; the decision-maker, who understands and can quantify the cost of model failure; and the computational scientists, who strive to determine if the model satisfies both the modeler's and decision maker's requirements. We also note that our framework is quite general, and may be applied to a wide range of problems. Here, we illustrate it through a specific example involving a data reduction model for an ICCD camera from a shock-tube experiment located at the NASA Ames Research Center (ARC).Comment: Submitted to International Conference on Modeling, Simulation and Control 2011 (ICMSC'11), San Francisco, USA, 19-21 October, 201