The end of the map?

Martin Smith and Andy Howard* explain why moving away from the printed map to a digital 3D National Geological Model is a ‘coming of age’ for William Smith’s great visio

Europeanisation, Bosman and the financial 'crisis' in English professional football: some sociological comments

Paper given at the 10th annual European Union Studies Association conference in Montreal, Canada, 17-19 May 2007.This paper discusses an sociological explaination as to the extent to which Europeanisation process, among others, have contributed to an increasingly unequal concentration of financial resources among a small number of English football clubs. The impact of the Bosman case is discussed

The correlation between RAE ratings and citation counts in psychology

We counted the citations received in one year (1998) by each staff member in each of 38 university psychology departments in the United Kingdom. We then averaged these counts across individuals within each department and correlated the averages with the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) grades awarded to the same departments in 1996 and 2001. The correlations were extremely high (up to +0.91). This suggests that whatever the merits and demerits of the RAE process and citation counting as methods of evaluating research quality, the two approaches measure broadly the same thing. Since citation counting is both more cost-effective and more transparent than the present system and gives similar results, there is a prima facie case for incorporating citation counts into the process, either alone or in conjunction with other measures. Some of the limitations of citation counting are discussed and some methods for minimising these are proposed. Many of the factors that dictate caution in judging individuals by their citations tend to average out when whole departments are compared

Flexible couplings: diffusing neuromodulators and adaptive robotics

Recent years have seen the discovery of freely diffusing gaseous neurotransmitters, such as nitric oxide (NO), in biological nervous systems. A type of artificial neural network (ANN) inspired by such gaseous signaling, the GasNet, has previously been shown to be more evolvable than traditional ANNs when used as an artificial nervous system in an evolutionary robotics setting, where evolvability means consistent speed to very good solutions¿here, appropriate sensorimotor behavior-generating systems. We present two new versions of the GasNet, which take further inspiration from the properties of neuronal gaseous signaling. The plexus model is inspired by the extraordinary NO-producing cortical plexus structure of neural fibers and the properties of the diffusing NO signal it generates. The receptor model is inspired by the mediating action of neurotransmitter receptors. Both models are shown to significantly further improve evolvability. We describe a series of analyses suggesting that the reasons for the increase in evolvability are related to the flexible loose coupling of distinct signaling mechanisms, one ¿chemical¿ and one ¿electrical.

The Politics of EU Economic Policymaking: Values, Institutions and Social Outcomes

At the heart of European integration lies a ‘Single Market’ wherein production and trade across national borders take place relatively freely within the framework of EU-­‐wide legislation and policies. Although many actors and commentators reject the term, research has convincingly shown that many of these interventions in the economy amount to industrial policy in some shape or form. However, much less is known about the politics driving how these policies have been made and the orientations they have taken. Indeed, a lack of knowledge in this matter has been caused by failures to define precisely this very politics and, consequently, an absence of research which targets it directly. In seeking to escape from this analytical cul-­‐de-­‐ sac, this paper has two more specific aims. The first is to propose a sharp and operational definition of politics as being the mobilization or suppression of values in order to change or reproduce the institutions which structure economic activity. This definition has been derived from a melding together of constructivist, institutionnalist and Weberian theories and concepts. From empirically-­‐oriented constructivism an initial premise adopted is that we live in a world of contingency within which actors shape not only their own strategies, but also the very ‘problems’ they seek to reduce, regularize or mediate. However, as historical and sociological institutionalism has convincingly shown, for such representations of reality to become ‘social’ and thereby impact upon collective and public action, they have to be judged ‘appropriate’ to changing or reproducing the ‘institutional orders’ which structure societies, economies and polities. When studying such change or reproduction, adding Weberian sociology to this framework guides research to focus upon confrontations between values, i.e. beliefs about what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, that lie at their heart. Even within the constructivism and institutionalisms I draw upon, the role played by values is too often obscured by important, yet ultimately secondary, issues of argument and alliance-­‐making. The second aim of the paper is to test the heuristic value of this value-­‐centered approach to politics using two case studies of EU-­‐scale regulation: one of the pharmaceutical industry, the other of inter-­‐firm competition. As will be highlighted, focusing upon the role played by values during these instances of policymaking provides a means of revealing the key choices that have been made, the alternatives stifled and the patterns of domination that have resulted or been reproduced. In so doing, a further goal will be to go considerably beyond visions of the EU in general, and its economic policies in particular, as ‘neo-­‐liberal’ and depoliticized. Although, many actors involved in this scale of government can be depicted in general terms as neo-­‐liberals and do indeed seek to technicize the making of EU policies, this tells us little about the fundamentally political content of their value systems. For both analytical and normative reasons, this politics simply must be researched then debated more directly and openly than European Studies has thus far been able to do

Antivortex Dynamics in Magnetic Nanostripes

In a thin magnetic nanostripe, an antivortex nucleates inside a moving domain wall when driven by an in-plane magnetic field greater than the so-called Walker field. The nucleated antivortex must cross the width of the nanostripe before the domain wall can propagate again, leading to low average domain wall speeds. A large out-of-plane magnetic field, applied perpendicularly to the plane of the nanostripe, inhibits the nucleation of the antivortex leading to fast domain wall speeds for all in-plane driving fields. We present micromagnetic simulation results relating the antivortex dynamics to the strength of the out-of-plane field. An asymmetry in the motion is observed which depends on the alignment of the antivortex core magnetic moments to the direction of the out-of-plane field. The size of the core is directly related to its crossing speed, both depending on the strength of the perpendicular field and the alignment of the core moments and direction of the out-of-plane field

The Facts on Protection Needs in Humanitarian Demining

When assessing protection needs, my approach has been to determine what the risks are, what injuries result and then decide how to minimize these risks and protect against any residual danger. I also bear in mind that there is no point in prescribing an action or a garment that will not be used