Cliché: An Introduction

Before writing the call for papers for this issue, I conducted an online search for 'cliché in writing.' Predictably, the search produced dozens of pages with tips for writers: '12 Clichés all Writers Should Avoid' (Klems), 'Avoiding Clichés in Writing' (Writer’s Web), and one article brewing dangerously close to a perfect meta-cliché storm: '681 Clichés to Avoid in Your Creative Writing' (Luke). Cautions about clichés extend to both creative and academic communities. This introduction offers thoughts on these academic recommendations and discusses the ab(use) and (un)necessity of clichés

Is there a crisis of participatory planning?

The critical literature on participation warns that a focus on 'consensus' evades the political in planning, preventing citizens from confronting and challenging discourse and prevailing orthodoxy about the way the urban ought to be constituted. These critiques raise important questions about the efficacy of participatory planning and its political formation. Moreover, the extent to which citizen's participation can ever challenge dominant trajectories has reached a point of conceptual 'crisis'. In this article, I explore the different ways in which participation manifests from the politicising participatory moments in planning. Examining a single case study in Melbourne, Australia, I draw upon 15 key informant interviews with community campaigners who mounted a successful campaign to defeat the controversial East West Link road project. By examining the formal and informal political manifestations of participation over a period of 2 years, this article challenges the sentiment that there is a crisis of participatory planning. It shows how decisions to engage the citizenry in prescribed ways induce other manifestations and formations of citizen's participation through politics and how these manifestations garner a pervasive and influential trajectory to reshape participatory planning

Fe-Catalyzed Ca-H Oxidation of Tertiary Amines: Synthetic and Mechanistic Studies

Presented herein is the development, optimization and mechanistic investigation of an Fe-catalyzed reaction for the Cα-H oxidation of tertiary aliphatic amines to form amides, and related synthetic reactions. Traditional amide synthesis typically involves nucleophilic substitution, and thus produces stoichiometric waste. The need to develop safer, more efficient methodologies for amide synthesis is well documented. The field of transition metal catalysis has made progress toward meeting this synthetic need by developing a variety of transition metal-catalyzed reactions for the oxidation of primary, secondary and benzylic amines. However, tertiary aliphatic Cα-H amine oxidation had not been developed. Guided by literature precedent, and inspired by cytochrome P450, initial investigations involved the evaluation of Fe-based transition metal catalysts with a variety of mono- and bidentate ligands, oxidants and solvents. Ultimately, the ligands picolinic acid and pyridine, the oxidant tert-butyl peroxybenzoate, and water as additive were identified as key players in this catalytic reaction. Through the systematic evaluation of reaction conditions, the Cα-H oxidation of tripropylamine to form N,N-dipropylpropanamide was optimized to afford 63% yield. The Cα-H oxidation of a variety of other amine substrates, including the complex pharmaceutical amines Lidocaine and Donepezil, were optimized to afford amide product in synthetically useful yields. Preliminary mechanistic investigations revealed water to be the source of the O atom in amide formation. Furthermore, these studies suggested that the amine substrate forms an iminium ion after C-H activation, which then undergoes nucleophilic attack by water to form a hemiaminal intermediate. These results allowed us to hypothesize that other nucleophiles, such as CN-, may be used to attack the iminium ion intermediate and thus afford other products. Using slightly modified reaction conditions, this catalytic system was optimized to perform Cα -H cyanation of dimethylaniline. This finding expanded the utility of the reaction as well as supported the mechanistic hypothesis of the presence of an iminium intermediate. Once the Fe/picolinic acid-catalyzed reaction for the Cα-H oxidation of tertiary aliphatic amines was firmly established, detailed mechanistic investigations were conducted using tripropylamine as substrate. Using in-situ IR spectroscopy, the structure of the resting state of the catalyst was probed. These studies revealed that picolinic acid binds to the Fe center in a 1:1 ratio to produce the catalytically active species. Amine substrate as well as water and pyridine were also found to be coordinated to the Fe center. Furthermore, initial rate kinetics were used to establish the dependence of the reaction rate on the concentration of each reaction component. Through these investigations, the kinetic order in each reagent was established and a rate law determined. Additionally, a primary kinetic isotope effect was observed using deuterated substrate, which implicated C-H bond cleavage as the turnover-limiting step in the catalytic cycle. Finally, Eyring studies and oxidant radical probe reactions were conducted, and implicated a concerted 2e- turnover- limiting step. This finding is in contrast to many mechanisms of Fe-catalyzed oxidation reactions found in the literature and allowed us to propose the unprecedented, detailed mechanistic hypothesis described herein. The research presented here establishes an unprecedented amide synthesis methodology through the use of both simple and complex amines. Because this catalytic reaction selectively oxidizes the Cα-H bonds of amines, a high percentage of atoms in the starting material are incorporated into the amide product, and it thus affords a significant increase in atom economy. The mechanistic work offers unique insight into 2e- Fe-oxidation catalysis, and may serve as a foundation for additional optimization, including industrial scale-up

Marshall Legacy Institute 2011 Annual Report

This past year has been one of accomplishment and growth for the Marshall Legacy Institute. We provided critically needed assistance to some of the most landmine-affected regions of the world. Our Mine Detection Dog Partnership Program (MDDPP) put 22 lifesaving dogs into service in Afghanistan, Angola, and Sri Lanka. Our Children Against Mines Program (CHAMPS) engaged thousands of American schoolchildren on an important global humanitarian issue and linked them with their peers in mine-affected communities. Dozens of landmine survivors received medical assistance and vocational training through our Survivors’ Assistance programs in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, and Yemen, while at-risk populations in Bosnia-Herzegovina received Mine Risk Education through an innovative partnership with the Fantomi Sitting Volleyball team comprised of inspirational landmine survivors. History has shown that the end of violence cannot be the beginning of peace when chaos, desperation, and fear prevail. Landmines, which may lie hidden beneath the soil for decades, force families to make intolerable decisions. Parents weigh the possibility of injury or death from mines as they tend the land to place food on their tables. Children risk life and limb as they walk to school or play in the fields. While threatening hundreds of thousands daily, landmines also inhibit access to critical resources, prevent the return of the internally displaced, and impede agricultural production and infrastructure development, thereby stifling the economic activity that leads to peace and stability. MLI’s work in war-torn countries offers sustainable solutions that provide hope and empowerment for a brighter future. Through cooperation and partnership with the U.S. Government, international mine-action organizations, indigenous demining groups, and concerned citizens, we continue to help eliminate the humanitarian dangers and destabilizing effects of landmines and other explosive remnants of war. Together, our efforts can replace landmines and fear with opportunity and hope. As we enter 2012, I look forward to continue building upon the generous public and private support that enables MLI to help create a better and safer world free of landmines

Bermuda's Legacy

The Sargasso Sea is one of the great ecological wonders of the world; on its surface floats a "golden rainforest" as teeming with colorful life as a coral reef. It remains much as it was when first described by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Plants, fish, turtles, and crabs thrive in this exceptionally clear, warm body of water, miles above the ocean floor. Among its wonders are birds that roost on the mats of golden Sargassum seaweed; a fish that has evolved pectoral fins, like five-fingered hands, that enable it to grasp and climb the seaweed; and eels that travel vast distances from the rivers of Europe and North America to reproduce somewhere in its depths before they die. This is the only sea in the world surrounded by currents, rather than land, and Bermuda is the only island within it. In addition to providing a nursery for fish and other sea life, the seaweed benefits Bermuda directly when it washes ashore and sinks into the sand, fertilizing the soil and strengthening the island against storms and erosion

Re-thinking the Legacy 2012: The Olympics as commodity and gift

This paper opens discussion about the nature of Olympic ‘legacy’ and articulates a contradiction in the way ‘legacy’ is conceived - between ’gift’ and ’commodity’ (Mauss 1954).The The paper argues that establishing working definitions and parameters for ‘legacy’ is a difficult task. Defining ‘legacy’ is problematic especially if conceived as an entirely predictable or measurable set of objectives. Indeed, the definition of ‘legacy’ is partly constitutive of the legacy itself, a component of achievements that the city might make. Such a ‘legacy definition’ will become a functional term in the complex planning and evolving conceptions underpinning urban change for some time—if successfully negotiated and if governable. As such, ‘legacy’, and the activities and values entailed to it, can come to provide a catalytic ‘vocabulary of motives’ and a legitimating discourse enabling politicians, communities and their individual representatives to justify investments, evolving strategies and activities connected to and connecting developmental gains in a more or less healthy fashion. It is because of this that legacy and its various meanings come to matter

Talking about the 'rotten fruits' of Rio 2016:framing mega-event legacies

Legacy has become a watchword of hosting mega-events in recent years, used to justify massive spending and far-reaching urban transformations. However, academic studies of legacy outcomes suggest there is only limited evidence for the efficacy of using mega-events to deliver broader policy goals. The discourse of legacy promulgated by the International Olympic Committee promotes a fantastical vision of the possibilities created by mega-events while obfuscating critical analyses of legacy. This paper explores legacy talk among a wholly different group – activists who have protested against the Olympic Games, specifically in Rio de Janeiro – based on interviews conducted two years after the Games as part of a broader ethnographic study. The positive connotations of legacy, even among these Olympic critics, places a straitjacket on conversation, leading activists to discuss specific legacy projects, at the expense of highlighting the very real harms of mega-event development, such as evictions, gentrification and militarization. As such, there is a need to deepen understanding that legacy encompasses all that is left behind after mega-events, not only the positive impacts.</p

Governance of the London 2012 Olympic Games legacy

© The Author(s) 2011. This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below.This study addresses the governance of the London 2012 Olympics legacy. It presents legacy not as a retrospective but a prospective concept concerned with shaping the future through interactions between the state, market and society. This entails designing systems of governance to guide and steer collective actions towards a consensus amongst various parties concerned. Four modes of governance and a range of policy instruments were examined in the delivery of sustainable London Olympics sport legacy including coercive, voluntarism, targeting and framework regulation. The British government actively created a new policy space and promoted institutional conduct consistent with its legacy visions. The current global legacy framework is lacking the governance dimension and its logic needs to be reconsidered. A meaningful sport legacy requires not top-down approaches but locally informed strategies supported by a developmental design of the Olympic Games informed by sustainable principles

Anomalies in the Kepler Asteroseismic Legacy Project Data. A re-analysis of 16 Cyg A&B, KIC8379927 and 6 solar-like stars

I compare values of the frequencies, separation ratios, errors and covariance matrices from a new analysis of 9 solar-like stars with the Legacy project values reported by Lund et al and, for 16Cyg A&B and KIC8379927, with values derived by Davies et al. There is good agreement between my results (using Davies power spectra) and Davies's for these 3 stars, but no such agreement with the Legacy project results. My frequencies differ from the Legacy values, there are inconsistencies in the Legacy frequency covariance matrices which are not positive definite, and the Legacy errors on separation ratios are up to 40 times larger than mine and the values and upper limits derived from the Legacy frequency covariances. There are similar anomalies for 6 other solar-like stars: frequencies and separation ratio errors disagree and 2 have non positive definite covariance matrices. There are inconsistencies in the covariance matrices of 27 the 66 stars in the full Legacy set and problems with the ratio errors for the vast majority of these stars}Comment: 10 pages, 11 figure

The Graaskamp Legacy

James A. Graaskamp\u27s perspective on classroom education and his alternative research paradigm pioneered or greatly enhanced several real estate principles that are more relevant today than during his life. These principles are summarized and presented in 5 sections: A Different Brand of Research, The Development Feasibility, How Appraisers Value, Who\u27s Watching the Chicken Coop, and Teaching an Ethical Vision