Accelerating Parallel Tempering: Quantile Tempering Algorithm (QuanTA)

Using MCMC to sample from a target distribution, $\pi(x)$ on a $d$-dimensional state space can be a difficult and computationally expensive problem. Particularly when the target exhibits multimodality, then the traditional methods can fail to explore the entire state space and this results in a bias sample output. Methods to overcome this issue include the parallel tempering algorithm which utilises an augmented state space approach to help the Markov chain traverse regions of low probability density and reach other modes. This method suffers from the curse of dimensionality which dramatically slows the transfer of mixing information from the auxiliary targets to the target of interest as $d \rightarrow \infty$. This paper introduces a novel prototype algorithm, QuanTA, that uses a Gaussian motivated transformation in an attempt to accelerate the mixing through the temperature schedule of a parallel tempering algorithm. This new algorithm is accompanied by a comprehensive theoretical analysis quantifying the improved efficiency and scalability of the approach; concluding that under weak regularity conditions the new approach gives accelerated mixing through the temperature schedule. Empirical evidence of the effectiveness of this new algorithm is illustrated on canonical examples

When leaseholders are landlords: Edwards v Kumarasamy [2016] UKSC 40; [2016] 3 W.L.R. 310

The course of social changes can often be traced in the evolution of case law. The recent decision of the Supreme Court in Edwards v Kumarasamy is a good example. Here landlord and tenant law has had to get to grips with how far a landlord should be under an obligation to repair, where the landlord is himself a leaseholder, and not primarily liable for repairs. This scenario has arisen due to the revival of the ‘buy-to-let’ property market, and because properties which are affordable – both to the buyer and the renter – will often be leasehold flats. In allowing the landlord’s appeal, the Supreme Court has clarified the extent of the immediate landlord’s repairing obligations towards the tenant, and rejected some rather unorthodox views expressed by the Court of Appeal

Bridging the divide in heritage?: managing caves as heritage places within the Sepon Gold and Copper Mine, Lao PDR

This thesis applies a Critical Heritage Studies Framework to examine the effectiveness of applying international 'best practice' to identify and manage heritage as part of operations within the Sepon Gold & Copper Mine, Lao PDR. The management of caves as 'heritage places' is applied as a case study to highlight and discuss general heritage management issues as well as issues specific to caves. In particular, this examination will critique the way international 'best practice' applies a 'divided' heritage - the constructed nature-culture dichotomisation, and categorisation of cultural heritage as tangible, intangible, or historical heritage – and will critique the outcomes of applying the 'divide' in practice. Findings from this thesis indicate that caves located within the Sepon Mine support a range of natural and cultural uses and values that often overlap or are interdependent. Caves are also identified to hold past, present and future uses and values and remain significant to local community groups. From this perspective, caves can be managed for a range of 'living', 'plural', and 'sacred' heritage significance. Heritage management practices at the Sepon Gold & Copper Mine are guided by international regulatory processes, with Archaeological Heritage Management predominately applied to identify and manage heritage in operations. Following international 'best practice' and Lao heritage legislation, caves remain generally managed for natural or cultural tangible, intangible and historical heritage values independently, rather than as integrated 'living', 'plural', and 'sacred' places, that support a range of cross-cutting past, present, and future uses and values. Mining activity is also found to have increased the threat of damage and destruction to caves and other locally significant natural and cultural heritage. Unmitigated mining activity and application of a 'divided' heritage increase the risk to the sustainability of natural places like caves and their associated local heritage knowledge and practices. Overall, mining is a transnational commercial context that has arguably supported the alteration, and in some cases destruction, of aspects of local community heritage and the knowledge and practices associated with them. Mining and heritage together act as agents of change that together engender a process of 'reterritorialization' of the physical natural environment and associated local cultural knowledge and practices. The current context however represents a new phase in an ongoing process of change and interaction between human society and natural landscapes/places in the region in the Lao 'frontier' uplands as a result of social, economic or political interactions and influences. Managing present interactions and change sustainably will require stronger national regulation advocating for heritage management and protection within mining operations and after operations cease to support longer-term and sustainable management practices. To alleviate impacts and produce sustainable and longer-term management practices the application of local 'heritage' values in conjunction with regional and international 'best practice' approaches for heritage management is required. To meet local management needs in the present and future this will involve moving beyond application of international 'best practice' outright. Further, applying multi-lateral heritage management practices that integrate community knowledge and participation with international 'best practice' approached within mining operations can embrace a broader interpretation and management of caves as 'living' places, with 'plural' uses and values, and 'sacred' qualities. Community-based control of heritage can support efforts to localise identification and management of heritage, supporting effort to 'bridge the divide' in how heritage is defined, managed, and lived with

Reader as Author in \u3cem\u3eTristram Shandy\u3c/em\u3e

In a letter dated June 1764, Laurence Sterne wrote to Elizabeth Montagu, I am going down to write a world of Nonsense (467). He was referring, of course, to Tristram Shandy, a popular sensation from the time the first two volumes appeared four years earlier. Despite Samuel Johnson\u27s prediction that nothing odd will do long (qtd. in Sterne 484), Sterne\u27s masterpiece has maintained its prominence, appearing in our own time as the most modem of the eighteenth-century novels. In this essay, I am concerned with Sterne\u27s use of asterisks and blank pages-literary devices leaving gaps in the text-to engage the reader of the novel. Just as Kate Chopin\u27s The Awakening cannot reasonably be isolated from the feminist viewpoint, the reader\u27s thoughts and responses cannot be left out of Tristram Shandy. Several examples of how Sterne requires the reader to interact with the text will illuminate my point