The African Union as a security actor: African solutions to African problems?

This paper focuses on the problem-solving capacity of the African Union (AU) and its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). It forms a companion paper to WP56.2 which looks specifically at the ability of African sub-regional organisations to play their part in dealing with Africa's conflicts and security issues. Both papers examine the hypothesis that a regional hegemon, and a measure of shared values and norms, are necessary requirements for an effective regional security organisation. The paper commences with a brief account of the concept of hegemony, followed by an analysis of the empirical question as to whether there are any potential hegemons in Africa. The author goes on to analyse the OAU's record in dealing with conflict and traces the genesis of the AU, its ambitions, organisational structure and actual accomplishments in the realm of peace and security

Modelling aggregation on the large scale and regularity on the small scale in spatial point pattern datasets

We consider a dependent thinning of a regular point process with the aim of obtaining aggregation on the large scale and regularity on the small scale in the resulting target point process of retained points. Various parametric models for the underlying processes are suggested and the properties of the target point process are studied. Simulation and inference procedures are discussed when a realization of the target point process is observed, depending on whether the thinned points are observed or not. The paper extends previous work by Dietrich Stoyan on interrupted point processes

Constructing Universal Abelian Covers of Graph Manifolds

To a rational homology sphere graph manifold one can associate a weighted tree invariant called splice diagram. It was shown earlier that the splice diagram determines the universal abelian cover of the manifold. We will in this article turn the proof of this in to an algorithm to explicitly construct the universal abelian cover from the splice diagram.Comment: 12 page

Homotopy Lie groups

Homotopy Lie groups, recently invented by W.G. Dwyer and C.W. Wilkerson, represent the culmination of a long evolution. The basic philosophy behind the process was formulated almost 25 years ago by Rector in his vision of a homotopy theoretic incarnation of Lie group theory. What was then technically impossible has now become feasible thanks to modern advances such as Miller's proof of the Sullivan conjecture and Lannes's division functors. Today, with Dwyer and Wilkerson's implementation of Rector's vision, the tantalizing classification theorem seems to be within grasp. Supported by motivating examples and clarifying exercises, this guide quickly leads, without ignoring the context or the proof strategy, from classical finite loop spaces to the important definitions and striking results of this new theory.Comment: 16 page

A Remark on Wick Ordering of Random Variables

This paper is a small note on the notation $\,:\! q(X)\!:\,$, for the Wick ordering of polynomials $q$ of random variables $X = (X_1,\dotsc,X_n)$, as introduced by Segal in [6]. We argue that expressing $q(X)$ as another polynomial $p$ of a different set of random variables $Y = (Y_1,\dotsc,Y_m)$, does not give rise to a different Wick ordered random variable $\, : \! p(Y) \! : \,$, provided the new random variables $Y_j$ are linear combinations of the $X_i$'s

Determining When The Universal Abelian Cover of a Graph Manifold is a Rationla Homology Sphere

It was shown in my earlier article that the splice diagram of a rational homology sphere graph manifold determines the manifolds universal abelian cover. In this article we use the proof of this to give a condition on the splice diagram to determine when the universal abelian cover itself is a rational homology sphere.Comment: 13 page