Do Different Models of Integration Affect Actual Integration? The Cases of France and Great Britain Revisited

Britain and France adapted two different integration models, namely assimilationist and multiculturalism to integrate their immigrants. These two big models of integration have distinctive characteristics to integrate immigrants. There is a general claim that multiculturalism model is the best for integrating immigrants in terms of actual integration, however, some argue the opposite, that French assimilationist model is ‘better off.’ This study examines these controversial claims by looking at the level to which immigrants are integrated in economic, social, political, cultural dimensions of integration and attitudes towards immigrants in Britain and France. Within a given theoretical framework, this study compares the overall competency level of immigrants’ integration in terms of actual integration between British multiculturalism model and French assimilationist model and validate that both these two big models of integration have reached a comparable level of integration and they do not have any decisive impact on actual integration.

System Integration of PV/T Collectors in Solar Cooling Systems

The demand for cooling and air-conditioning of building is increasingly ever growing. This increase is mostly due to population and economic growth in developing countries, and also desire for a higher quality of thermal comfort. Increase in the use of conventional cooling systems results in larger carbon footprint and more greenhouse gases considering their higher electricity consumption, and it occasionally creates peaks in electricity demand from power supply grid. Solar energy as a renewable energy source is an alternative to drive the cooling machines since the cooling load is generally high when solar radiation is high. This thesis examines the performance of PV/T solar collector manufactured by Solarus company in a solar cooling system for an office building in Dubai, New Delhi, Los Angeles and Cape Town. The study is carried out by analyzing climate data and the requirements for thermal comfort in office buildings. Cooling systems strongly depend on weather conditions and local climate. Cooling load of buildings depend on many parameters such as ambient temperature, indoor comfort temperature, solar gain to the building and internal gains including; number of occupant and electrical devices. The simulations were carried out by selecting a suitable thermally driven chiller and modeling it with PV/T solar collector in Polysun software. Fractional primary energy saving and solar fraction were introduced as key figures of the project to evaluate the performance of cooling system. Several parametric studies and simulations were determined according to PV/T aperture area and hot water storage tank volume. The fractional primary energy saving analysis revealed that thermally driven chillers, particularly adsorption chillers are not suitable to be utilizing in small size of solar cooling systems in hot and tropic climates such as Dubai and New Delhi. Adsorption chillers require more thermal energy to meet the cooling load in hot and dry climates. The adsorption chillers operate in their full capacity and in higher coefficient of performance when they run in a moderate climate since they can properly reject the exhaust heat. The simulation results also indicated that PV/T solar collector have higher efficiency in warmer climates, however it requires a larger size of PV/T collectors to supply the thermally driven chillers for providing cooling in hot climates. Therefore using an electrical chiller as backup gives much better results in terms of primary energy savings, since PV/T electrical production also can be used for backup electrical chiller in a net metering mechanism.

Integration eller illusion : et deviance-perspektiv

Integration or illusion – a deviance perspective Denmark experienced one of its most successful periods of economic growth in 2004– 2008 with a tremendous reduction of unemployment, which in June 2008 was around. 1.5 percent, far below the expected level of structural unemployment. In the wake of this development the lack of utilization of migrants’ educations and skills became, once again, a core concern. The political, societal and academic debate followed to a great extent the traditional top-down approach to the problem and revolved around two axes: 1. How effective the labour market was/is to make use of migrants’ skills. 2. Whether there were patterns of over-education as expression of institutional and societal discrimination. The focus of the present study is, however, quite different: We examine the pattern of deviance in relation to labour market participation (not integration), and instead of searching for explanations for the lack of integration, we attempt to identify and explain the deviance pattern as a product of institutionally inherent possibilities and barriers on the one hand and articulating immigrants as rational actors (not victims) on the other. We argue that deviance is not only a more fruitful theoretical and analytical framework than integration and discrimination. Taking departure in empirical evidence on immigrants’ preferences and behaviour as bounded rational actors, and how they actually articulate their everyday life practical experiences, including adjustment of what they want and what they can, the deviance perspective, we believe, also reduces the theoretical and normative biases, that characterises the discrimination and integration framework, and provide more reliable explanations. 

Using structured observation and content analysis to explore the presence of older people in public fora in developing countries

There is a lack of research on the everyday lives of older people in developing countries. This exploratory study used structured observation and content analysis to examine the presence of older people in public fora, and considered the methods’ potential for understanding older people’s social integration and inclusion. Structured observation occurred of public social spaces in six cities each located in a different developing country, and in one city in the United Kingdom, together with content analysis of the presence of people in newspaper pictures and on television in the selected countries. Results indicated that across all fieldwork sites and data sources, there was a low presence of older people, with women considerably less present than men in developing countries. There was variation across fieldwork sites in older people’s presence by place and time of day, and in their accompanied status. The presence of older people in images drawn from newspapers was associated with the news/non-news nature of the source. The utility of the study’s methodological approach is considered, as is the degree to which the presence of older people in public fora might relate to social integration and inclusion in different cultural contexts.