Politics of inclusion: which conception of citizenship for animals?

The text discusses Donaldson and Kymlicka's approach to citizenship claims for animals in the context of competing conceptions of citizenship in current political theory. It outlines the normative dynamic of inclusion that modern conceptions of citizenship have stimulated and analyses possible tensions for a republi-can approach to citizenship. These tensions increase, it is argued, when the republican conception of citizenship (which Kymlicka developed in his earlier writings) is shifted towards a more communitarian one in the context of animal rights

‘Zombie Urbanism’ and the Search for New Sources of Solidarity

Let me start with a reminiscence: a few weeks ago, I was sitting in one of my preferred cafés in Paris, le Café Odéon- Théâtre de l’Europe, a vivid place near the Jardin de Luxembourg in the heart of the university quarter. I realised that the waiter was wearing a shirt with the letters "Defend Paris", which he explained to be a statement against the forces that make Paris an uneasy place to live, a defiance against the powerful and social injustice. With a mixture of rebellion and idealism, he added that he understands himself as part of a "Reclaim Your City" Movement, thus representing what is central for urban citizenship today: a republican defence against forces that make a metropolitan city a trademark to be sold to people who can afford it, but increasingly less a home for ordinary people who want to live in the city. Walking through the streets, passing a small jewelry shop, a place of distinguished understatement showing a picture of Meghan Markle wearing "rose"-earrings displayed in the window, the term "zombie urbanism" came to my mind – a term used by Jonny Aspen, professor at the Institute of Urbanism and Landscape in Oslo (See Bjerkeset and Aspen (forthcoming 2020) and here), to describe a cliché-like way of dealing with urban environment by developers and designers – a "staged urbanism", in which urban features are used as a means for selling, marketing and branding. This kind of city-marketing can prove quite successful: whereas the burning of Notre Dame mobilised hundreds of millions of donations within a short period of time, the burning of the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro soon after, extinguishing 200 years of documentation of cultural memory, mobilised only 225.000 Euros (state 1.4.2019). ..

Spectral Synthesis of Jordan Operators

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to extend results of J. Wermer (1952, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc.3, 270–277), L. Brown et al. (1960, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc.96, 162–183), and D. Sarason (1972, J. Reine Agnew. Math.252, 1–15; 1966, Pacific J. Math.17, 511–517) on spectral subspaces of diagonalizable operators on separable complex Hilbert space to the class of so-called Jordan operators or infinite direct sums of Jordan cells

Refrigerant-based propulsion system for small spacecraft

The MR SAT spacecraft under development at UMR requires a propulsion system that can be utilized to perform orbital maneuvers and three-axis attitude control to complete its mission objective of conducting spacecraft formation flight. This thesis documents the research, analysis design and development of the cold gas propulsion system that was integrated on the MR SAT spacecraft --Abstract, page iii

‘Sanitise your hands with rainbows!’ Encouraging self-representation in times of crisis: inclusive reflections on Covid-19, together with women with learning disabilities from East London

This article re-contextualises applied drama practice in the wake of Covid-19, with a particular focus on cognitive diversity. From an inclusive perspective, it asks how encouraging self-expression helps to diversify the still often one-dimensional perception of people with learning disabilities in media reports. It thereby continues an on-going argument around empowered representation within disability drama and culture. The article traces arts practice that engaged a group of women with learning disabilities in reflections about the lockdown 2020. The practice section of the article documents three concrete examples from a workshop series with the members of Powerhouse, a group of women with learning disabilities from the East of London

Maturity choice of private mortgage borrowers

This paper asks what factors influence the maturity choice of private mortgage borrowers and if the choice is rational. Using a unique data set from the German market with more than 50,000 financed projects, we find a significant influence of personal and macroeconomic factors. A high income, a low loan value, and a low value to income ratio lead to short maturities; so do economically good times with high GDP growth and low unemployment. In addition, we show that the importance of pricing variables is age dependent and declining for older borrowers. Moreover, we demonstrate that borrowers behave irrational and not according to the recommendations of models on optimal mortgage choice when choosing the maturity of their mortgage

5, 10, or 15: Maturity Choice of Private Mortgage Borrowers

This paper analyzes the factors that influence the maturity choice of private mortgage borrowers. Using a unique dataset from the German market with more than 40,000 mortgages we find a significant influence of pricing variables, especially of the relative pricing of a mortgage provider compared to the market average. In addition, we show that personal factors matter suggesting that risk averse borrowers and borrowers who suffer most from interest rate increases choose longer maturities. Finally, we show that mortgage brokers' advice is significantly influenced by their commission scheme