2,489 research outputs found
The Muslim Question in Europe
The book challenges the popular notion of a clash of cultures pitting Muslim and non-Muslim Europeans against one another. The study finds instead vehement conflict among three longstanding European public philosophies: liberalism, nationalism, and postmodernism. The consequential differences of outlook are demonstrated in four policy areas: 1) citizenship requirements, 2) the headscarf debate, 3) mosque-state relations and 4) counter-terrorism. The book reaches three important conclusions. First, Muslim Europeans do not represent a monolithic anti-Western bloc -- a Trojan Horse -- within Europe. They vehemently disagree among themselves but along the same basic liberal, nationalist, and postmodern contours as non-Muslim Europeans. Second, ideological discord significantly contributes to policy “messiness,” that is, to inconsistent, contradictory policies
Model-robust and model-sensitive designs.
Abstract: The main drawback of the optimal design approach is that it assumes the statistical model is known. In this paper, a new approach to reduce the dependency on the assumed model is proposed. The approach takes into account the model uncertainty by incorporating the bias in the design criterion and the ability to test for lack-of-fit. Several new designs are derived in the paper and they are compared to the alternatives available from the literature.A-optimality; Bias; D-optimality; Lack-of-fit; Model-discrimination; Model-robustness;
A quantum delayed choice experiment
Quantum systems exhibit particle-like or wave-like behaviour depending on the
experimental apparatus they are confronted by. This wave-particle duality is at
the heart of quantum mechanics, and is fully captured in Wheeler's famous
delayed choice gedanken experiment. In this variant of the double slit
experiment, the observer chooses to test either the particle or wave nature of
a photon after it has passed through the slits. Here we report on a quantum
delayed choice experiment, based on a quantum controlled beam-splitter, in
which both particle and wave behaviours can be investigated simultaneously. The
genuinely quantum nature of the photon's behaviour is tested via a Bell
inequality, which here replaces the delayed choice of the observer. We observe
strong Bell inequality violations, thus showing that no model in which the
photon knows in advance what type of experiment it will be confronted by, hence
behaving either as a particle or as wave, can account for the experimental
data
Connecting community to a post-regeneration era
This chapter aims to bridge the discussion of the history of community in urban regeneration with the rest of the book. It does this by advancing a central argument- that urban policy has entered a post-regeneration era- along with a specific discussion of the Connected Communities programme. The chapter begins by outlining how and why the era of urban regeneration came to an end, building on the discussion in chapter two, with a specific focus on the combination of broader socio-economic structures and ideological decisions that have shaped urban policy since 2010. The ideas of localism, city mayors, big society and de-centralisation are all considered, along with practical developments such as the National Planning Policy Framework. These agendas and events are then used to understand the Connected Communities programme and the way that its focus, specifically on co-production and co-development with communities, has come to represent the leading edge of academic research in this area
Eleven Antitheses on Cities and States: Challenging the Mindscape of Chronology and Chorography in Anthropogenic Climate Change
Our basic argument is that we should be thinking in trans-modern ways when considering how to react to anthropogenic climate change. Showing that mainstream approaches to climate change theory and policymaking are overtly modern, we identify this as a mindscape inherently constrained by its particular chronology and chorography. Our contribution to necessary trans-modern thinking is a presentation of eleven basic and widely accepted theses on modern chronology and chorography that we contest through antitheses, which we argue are more suited to engaging with anthropogenic climate change. These support a consumption argument for urban demand being the crucial generator of climate for 8,000 years in direct contradiction to the production argument that greenhouse gases are the crucial generator of climate change for 200 years. The modern policymaking focus on curbing carbon emissions is thus fundamentally flawed - merely feeding energy for continuing an accelerating global consumption in a different way that is only marginally more climate-friendly. Reflecting on the antitheses, we conclude by discussing the difficulties of translating trans-modern ideas into political action
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