An analysis of UK policies for domestic energy reduction using an agent based tool

This paper introduces a new agent-based model, which incorporates the actions of individual homeowners in a long-term domestic stock model, and details how it was applied in energy policy analysis. The results indicate that current policies are likely to fall significantly short of the 80% target and suggest that current subsidy levels need re-examining. In the model, current subsidy levels appear to offer too much support to some technologies, which in turn leads to the suppression of other technologies that have a greater energy saving potential. The model can be used by policy makers to develop further scenarios to find alternative, more effective, sets of policy measures. The model is currently limited to the owner-occupied stock in England, although it can be expanded, subject to the availability of data

Faith, Flight and Foreign Policy: Effects of war and migration on Western Australian Bosnian Muslims

This article examines the nexus between war, religion and migration through a series of qualitative interviews with Bosnian Muslim humanitarian entrants to Western Australia. By utilising a three-tiered model for assessing religiosity, the interviews reveal that a substantial number of participants placed a greater emphasis on Islam during the Balkan conflict. The way in which individual religiosity was expressed upon resettlement in Western Australia was largely determined by pre-migration religiosity and postmigration contact with other Muslims. In particular, migrants with a low level of Islamic knowledge tended to internalise the values and ideas of more conservative Muslims upon arriving in the receiver-nation. Meanwhile, those with a well-developed pre-migration understanding of Islam tend to resist outside influence and continue their original beliefs and practices. The findings demonstrate that conflicts at the state level frequently precipitate psychological crises of identity at the personal level; this in turn has an effect on the cultural and political landscape of migrant receiving nations

The Alternative Business History: Business in Emerging Markets

This article suggests that the business history of emerging markets should be seen as an alternative business history, rather than merely adding new settings to explore established core debates. The discipline of business history evolved around the corporate strategies and structures of developed economies. The growing literature on the business history of emerging markets addresses contexts that are different from those of developed markets. These regions had long eras of foreign domination, had extensive state intervention, faced institutional inefficiencies, and experienced extended turbulence. This article suggests that this context drove different business responses than are found in the developed world. Entrepreneurs counted more than managerial hierarchies; immigrants and diaspora were critical sources of entrepreneurship; illegal and informal forms of business were common; diversified business groups rather than the M-form became the major form of large-scale business; corporate strategies to deal with turbulence were essential; and radical corporate social-responsibility concepts were pursued by some firms

Should science educators deal with the science/religion issue?

I begin by examining the natures of science and religion before looking at the ways in which they relate to one another. I then look at a number of case studies that centre on the relationships between science and religion, including attempts to find mechanisms for divine action in quantum theory and chaos theory, creationism, genetic engineering and the writings of Richard Dawkins. Finally, I consider some of the pedagogical issues that would need to be considered if the science/religion issue is to be addressed in the classroom. I conclude that there are increasing arguments in favour of science educators teaching about the science/religion issue. The principal reason for this is to help students better to learn science. However, such teaching makes greater demands on science educators than has generally been the case. Certain of these demands are identified and some specific suggestions are made as to how a science educator might deal with the science/religion issue. © 2008 Taylor & Francis

Reading and Ownership

First paragraph: ‘It is as easy to make sweeping statements about reading tastes as to indict a nation, and as pointless.’ This jocular remark by a librarian made in the Times in 1952 sums up the dangers and difficulties of writing the history of reading. As a field of study in the humanities it is still in its infancy and encompasses a range of different methodologies and theoretical approaches. Historians of reading are not solely interested in what people read, but also turn their attention to the why, where and how of the reading experience. Reading can be solitary, silent, secret, surreptitious; it can be oral, educative, enforced, or assertive of a collective identity. For what purposes are individuals reading? How do they actually use books and other textual material? What are the physical environments and spaces of reading? What social, educational, technological, commercial, legal, or ideological contexts underpin reading practices? Finding answers to these questions is compounded by the difficulty of locating and interpreting evidence. As Mary Hammond points out, ‘most reading acts in history remain unrecorded, unmarked or forgotten’. Available sources are wide but inchoate: diaries, letters and autobiographies; personal and oral testimonies; marginalia; and records of societies and reading groups all lend themselves more to the case-study approach than the historical survey. Statistics offer analysable data but have the effect of producing identikits rather than actual human beings. The twenty-first century affords further possibilities, and challenges, with its traces of digital reader activity, but the map is ever-changing

Schoolbooks and textbook publishing.

In this chapter the author looks at the history of schoolbooks and textbook publishing. The nineteenth century saw a rise in the school book market in Britain due to the rise of formal schooling and public examinations. Although the 1870 Education and 1872 (Scotland) Education Acts made elementary education compulsory for childern between 5-13 years old, it was not until the end of the First World War that some sort form of secondary education became compulsory for all children

Barbarians at the British Museum: Anglo-Saxon Art, Race and Religion

A critical historiographical overview of art historical approaches to early medieval material culture, with a focus on the British Museum collections and their connections to religion

A New handbook of living religions

Massachusettsxi, 902 p.; 23 cm

Evaluation of environmental impacts of domestic appliances and implications for public policy

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DXN002998 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo