C.A.W. Manning and the Study of International Relations

Suganami, H., C.A.W.Manning and the Study of International Relations, Review of International Studies (2001), 27 : 091-107 RAE2008

Interaction of additive and quantization noises in digital PLLs

Phase-locked loops (PLLs) are a crucial component in modern communications systems. Comprising of a phase-detector, linear filter, and controllable oscillator, they are widely used in radio receivers to retrieve the information content from remote signals. As such, they are capable of signal demodulation, phase and carrier recovery, frequency synthesis, and clock synchronization. Continuous-time PLLs are a mature area of study, and have been covered in the literature since the early classical work by Viterbi [1] in the 1950s. With the rise of computing in recent decades, discrete-time digital PLLs (DPLLs) are a more recent discipline; most of the literature published dates from the 1990s onwards. Gardner [2] is a pioneer in this area. It is our aim in this work to address the difficulties encountered by Gardner [3] in his investigation of the DPLL output phase-jitter where additive noise to the input signal is combined with frequency quantization in the local oscillator. The model we use in our novel analysis of the system is also applicable to another of the cases looked at by Gardner, that is the DPLL with a delay element integrated in the loop. This gives us the opportunity to look at this system in more detail, our analysis providing some unique insights into the variance `dip' seen by Gardner in [3]. We initially provide background on the probability theory and stochastic processes. These branches of mathematics are the basis for the study of noisy analogue and digital PLLs. We give an overview of the classical analogue PLL theory as well as the background on both the digital PLL and circle map, referencing the model proposed by Teplinsky et al. [4, 5]. For our novel work, the case of the combined frequency quantization and noisy input from [3] is investigated first numerically, and then analytically as a Markov chain via its Chapman-Kolmogorov equation. The resulting delay equation for the steady-state jitter distribution is treated using two separate asymptotic analyses to obtain approximate solutions. It is shown how the variance obtained in each case matches well to the numerical results. Other properties of the output jitter, such as the mean, are also investigated. In this way, we arrive at a more complete understanding of the interaction between quantization and input noise in the first order DPLL than is possible using simulation alone. We also do an asymptotic analysis of a particular case of the noisy first-order DPLL with delay, previously investigated by Gardner [3]. We show a unique feature of the simulation results, namely the variance `dip' seen for certain levels of input noise, is explained by this analysis. Finally, we look at the second-order DPLL with additive noise, using numerical simulations to see the effects of low levels of noise on the limit cycles. We show how these effects are similar to those seen in the noise-free loop with non-zero initial conditions.

Skin and bone: the face in the archaeological imagination

Thirteen unique archaeological countenances from Ireland were produced through the Manchester method of facial reconstruction. Their gaze prompts a space for a broad discourse regarding the face found within human and artefactual remains of Ireland. These faces are reminders of the human element which is at the core of the discipline of archaeology. These re-constructions create a voyeuristic relationship with the past. At once sating a curiosity about the past, facial reconstructions also provide a catharsis to our presently situated selves. As powerful visual documents, archaeological facial reconstructions illustrate re-presentations of the past as well as how the present can be connected to the past. Through engagment with Emmanuel Levinas’s (1906- 1995) main philosophical themes, the presence of the face is examined in a diachronic structure. The ‘starting point’ is the Neolithic period which has been associated with the notion of visuality with a reconstruction from the early Neolithic site of Annagh, Co. Limerick. The following layer of analysis appears with attention to intersubjectivity in the early medieval period with facial reconstructions from Dooey, Co. Donegal and Owenbristy, Co. Galway. Building upon the past concepts, the late medieval period is associated with the notion of alterity and paired with faces from Ballinderry, Co. Kildare and a sample of males from Gallen Priory, Co. Offaly. The final layer of examination culminates with the application of response and respons-ibility to the post-medieval Irish landscape with facial reconstructions from the prison on Spike Island, Co. Cork. These layers of investigation are similar to the stratigraphical composition of both the archaeological landscape and the skeletal/soft tissue landscape of the face. The separation of the neglected phenomenon of the face from the overwhelming embrace of the field of craniometrics is necessary. Through this detachment a new manner in which to discuss the face and its place within the (bio)archaeological record is possible. Encountering the faces seen in mortuary contexts, material culture, and archaeological facial reconstructions, inform and shape the archaeological imagination.

Not published, not indexed: issues in generating and finding hospice and palliative care literature.

INTRODUCTION: Accessing new knowledge as the evidence base for hospice and palliative care grows has specific challenges for the discipline. This study aimed to describe conversion rates of palliative and hospice care conference abstracts to journal articles and to highlight that some palliative care literature may not be retrievable because it is not indexed on bibliographic databases. METHODS: Substudy A tracked the journal publication of conference abstracts selected for inclusion in a gray literature database on www.caresearch.com.au . Abstracts were included in the gray literature database following handsearching of proceedings of over 100 Australian conferences likely to have some hospice or palliative care content that were held between 1980 and 1999. Substudy B looked at indexing from first publication until 2001 of three international hospice and palliative care journals in four widely available bibliographic databases through systematic tracing of all original papers in the journals. RESULTS: Substudy A showed that for the 1338 abstracts identified only 15.9% were published (compared to an average in health of 45%). Published abstracts were found in 78 different journals. Multiauthor abstracts and oral presentations had higher rates of conversion. Substudy B demonstrated lag time between first publication and bibliographic indexing. Even after listing, idiosyncratic noninclusions were identified. DISCUSSION: There are limitations to retrieval of all possible literature through electronic searching of bibliographic databases. Encouraging publication in indexed journals of studies presented at conferences, promoting selection of palliative care journals for database indexing, and searching more than one bibliographic database will improve the accessibility of existing and new knowledge in hospice and palliative care.

Ethnomathematical research and drama in education techniques: developing a dialogue in a geometry class of 10th grade students

Ethnomathematical research, together with digital technologies (WebQuest) and Drama-in- Education (DiE) techniques, can create a fruitful learning environment in a mathematics classroom—a hybrid/third space—enabling increased student participation and higher levels of cognitive engagement. This article examines how ethnomathematical ideas processed within the experiential environment established by the Drama-in-Education techniques challenged students‘ conceptions of the nature of mathematics, the ways in which students engaged with mathematics learning using mind and body, and the ̳dialogue‘ that was developed between the Discourse situated in a particular practice and the classroom Discourse of mathematics teaching. The analysis focuses on an interdisciplinary project based on an ethnomathematical study of a designing tradition carried out by the researchers themselves, involving a search for informal mathematics and the connections with context and culture; 10th grade students in a public school in Athens were introduced to the mathematics content via an original WebQuest based on this previous ethnomathematical study; Geometry content was further introduced and mediated using the Drama-in-Education (DiE) techniques. Students contributed in an unfolding dialogue between formal and informal knowledge, renegotiating both mathematical concepts and their perception of mathematics as a discipline.

Temporal structure and enablement representation for mutual wills: A Petri net approach

Those temporal formalisms that are sporadically found nowadays in the literature of AI & Law are based on temporal logic. We claim a revived role for another major class of temporal representation: Petri nets. This formalism, popular in computing from the 1970s, had its potential recognized on occasion in the literature of legal computing as well, but apparently the discipline has lost sight of it, and its practitioners on average need be tutored into this kind of representation. Asynchronous, concurrent processes—for which the approach is well‐suited—are found in the legal domain, in disparate contexts. We develop an example for Mutual Wills.

L'histoire assassinee: Manfredo Tafuri and the present

Italian historian Manfredo Tafuri develops his ‘historical project’ in architecture during the 1960’s and 1970’s in three seminal books, which reach the English speaking specialist audience with a certain delay. Histories and Theories of Architecture (1968), which prepares the ground for the redefinition of a critical and independent history of architecture is first translated in English in 1979. Architecture and Utopia (Progetto e utopia, 1973) is translated in 1976, and becomes a point of reference for architectural histories and for the definition of architectural theories, mainly in the United States. The Sphere and the Labyrinth (1980), translated in 1987, is the text which formally defines and presents the ‘historical project’. Tafuri’s dense and highly politicized prose is often subjected in the English versions to numerous simplifications and reductive interpretations. Yet, the time lag and the space between languages that these translations occupy are inhabited by polemical and fertile reactions to the texts from the world of architectural design. Symptomatic of all, Aldo Rossi’s L’architecture assassinée, a rebuke in drawing to some of Tafuri’s remarks in Architecture and Utopia that seemed to suggest -but the interpretation is arguable– the ‘death’ of architecture as project (progetto). Tafuri’s texts instigate a dialogue between architectural history and practice, particularly relevant at a time in the development of the discipline when history was being redefined in its critical role as a ‘project’ –thus appropriating the active and propositional role traditionally assigned to architectural design–, while architectural design –still coping with the legacy of Modernism and with changed production systems- often found itself relegated to the paper of exhibitions, competitions and theoretical projects. This paper explores the relationship between architectural history and design in Tafuri’s work, focusing on recent reconsideration and interpretations of his work. It argues that, beyond instrumental simplifications, Tafuri’s ‘project’ remains active and essential in architecture’s critical culture today.

Postcolonial futures: postcolonial literature and the Obama moment

Since the late 1970s the western academy has encouraged the development of postcolonial literary theory and the formulation of a postcolonial literary canon existing outside the prescriptive narratives of the ‘mother’ country and empire. Having lost faith in the binary oppositions underpinning such narratives, we turned to alternative fictions that contested the construction of the ‘other’, the world divided between the ‘West and the Rest’. The publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978 marked the beginning of the discipline now known as postcolonial studies with its new ways of understanding ‘the west’s’ relationship with ‘the east’ and, by extension, all the former colonies of empire. Despite these radical origins, however, postcolonialism’s more recent emphasis on the psychological and its affirmation of the hybrid text and self has, for many, served to obscure real economic social realities that have very little to do with the magical or wondrous textual expression of a postcolonial identity. This paper considers problems associated with defining the postcolonial and proposes that, in a literary context, we broaden its meaning to include texts traditionally outside the category of postcolonial literature. To extend the meaning of postcolonial is timely as we are now witnessing its relocation from ‘margin’ to ‘centre’ with the election of Barack Obama. This moment may be seen as a disruption of conventional understandings of what constitutes postcolonial literature, essentially as oppositional discourse that could only define itself as peripheral to, or ‘post’, metropolitan and economic concerns. [From the Author]

Relational dimensions of corporate governance in translation: networked governance in China and India

The effectiveness of corporate governance mechanisms has been a subject of academic research for many decades. Although the large majority of corporate governance studies prior to mid 1990s were based on data from developed market economies such as the U.S., U.K. and Japan, in recent years researchers have begun examining corporate governance in transition economies. A comparison of China and India offers a unique environment for analyzing the effectiveness of corporate governance. First, both countries state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform strategies hinges on the Modern Enterprise System characterized by the separation of ownership and control. Ownership of an SOE’s assets is distributed among the government, institutional investors, managers, employees, and private investors. Effective control rights are assigned to management, which generally has a very small, or even nonexistent ownership stake. This distinctive shareholding structure creates conflict of interest not only between management (insiders) and outside investors but also between large shareholders and minority investors. Moreover, because both governments desire to retain some control—in part through partial retained ownership of commercialized SOEs, further conflicts arise between politicians and firms. Second, directors in publicly listed firms in both countries are predominantly drawn from institutions with significant non-market objectives: the government and other state enterprises, particularly in China, and extended families, particularly in India. As a result, the effectiveness of internal governance mechanisms, such as the number of independent directors on the board and the number of independent supervisors on the supervisory committee, are likely to be quiet limited, although this has yet to be fully evaluated. Third, because of the political nature of the privatization process itself, typical external governance mechanisms, such as debt (in conjunction with appropriate bankruptcy procedures), takeover threats, legal protection of investors, product market competition, etc., have not been effective. Bank loans have traditionally been viewed as grants from the state designed to bail out failing firms. State-owned banks retain monopoly or quasi-monopoly positions in the banking sector and profit is not their overriding objective. If political favor is deemed appropriate, subsidized loans, rescheduling of overdue debt or even outright transfer of funds can be arranged with SOEs (soft budget constraints). In addition, a market for private, non-bank debt is limited in India and has yet to be established China. There is no active merger or takeover activity in Chinese stock markets to discipline management. Information available in the capital markets is insufficient to keep at arm’s length of the corporate decisions. In light of the above peculiarities, China and India share many of the typical institutional characteristics as a transition economy, including poor legal protection of creditors and investors, the absence of an effective takeover market, an underdeveloped capital market, a relative inefficient banking system and significant interference of politicians in firm management. Su (2005) finds that the extent of political interference, managerial entrenchment and institutional control can help explain corporate dividend policies and post-IPO financing choices in this situation. Allen et al. (2005) demonstrate that standard corporate governance mechanisms are weak and ineffective for publicly listed firms while alternative governance mechanisms based on reputation and relationship have been remarkably effective in the private sector. Because the peculiarities are significant in this context, the differences in the political-economies of the two countries are likely to be evident in such relational terms. In this paper we explore the peculiarities of corporate governance in this transitional environment through a systematic examination of certain aspects of these reputational and relationship dimensions. Utilising the methods of social network analysis we identify the inter-organisational relationships at board level formed by equity holdings and by shared directors. Using data drawn from the Orbis database we map these relations among the 3700 largest firms in India and China respectively and identify the roles played in these relational networks by the particularly characteristic institutions in each case. We find greatly different social network structures in each case with some support in these relational dimensions for their distinctive features of governance. Further, the social network metrics allow us to considerably refine proxies for political interference, managerial entrenchment and institutional control used in earlier econometric analysis.

Applying an Agility/Discipline Assessment for a Small Software Organisation

The adoption of agile software development methodologies may appear to be a rather straightforward process yielding instantly improved software in less time and increasingly satisfied customers. This paper will show that such a notion is a misunderstanding and can be harmful to small software development organisations. A more reasonable approach involves a careful risk assessment and framework for introducing agile practices to address specific risks. A case study with a small software development organisation is provided to show the assessment in practice and the resulting risk mitigation strategies for process improvement.

Application of a Generic Curriculum Change Management Process to Motivate and Excite Students

The School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast is committed to enhancing the quality of student learning. A plan to implement curriculum change around this goal has been formulated and is already several years underway. A specific part of the plan involved instigating a first year introductory module to engage the students in the practice of their engineering discipline. The complicated nature of devising this type of module with regard to objectives, resources, timeframe and the number of students involved meant that a very systematic approach had to be adopted. This paper presents the simple but definitive change management process that facilitated in the creation of a first year Introduction to Engineering module. The generic nature of this process is described and its application to other facets of curriculum change is discussed. Within this process the importance of collaboration to establish a forward momentum is emphasised. This enables academic staff to progress as a group and build curriculum development based on their own experiences, expertise and established practice

Perceptions and reality: Economic voting at the 2004 European Parliament elections

One of the most influential explanations of voting behaviour is based on economic factors: when the economy is doing well, voters reward the incumbent government and when the economy is doing badly, voters punish the incumbent. This reward-punishment model is thought to be particularly appropriate at second order contests such as European Parliament elections. Yet operationalising this economic voting model using citizens' perceptions of economic performance may suffer from endogeneity problems if citizens' perceptions are in fact a function of their party preferences rather than being a cause of their party preferences. Thus, this article models a 'strict' version of economic voting in which they purge citizens' economic perceptions of partisan effects and only use as a predictor of voting that portion of citizens' economic perceptions that is caused by the real world economy. Using data on voting at the 2004 European Parliament elections for 23 European Union electorates, the article finds some, but limited, evidence for economic voting that is dependent on both voter sophistication and clarity of responsibility for the economy within any country. First, only politically sophisticated voters' subjective economic assessments are in fact grounded in economic reality. Second, the portion of subjective economic assessments that is a function of the real world economy is a significant predictor of voting only in single party government contexts where there can be a clear attribution of responsibility. For coalition government contexts, the article finds essentially no impact of the real economy via economic perceptions on vote choice, at least at European Parliament elections.

The Gerontological Imagination : Crime Policy and Older Prisoners

The Gerontological Imagination, Crime Policy and Older Prisoners This paper will discuss the needs of a group that more often than not has been ignored by criminologists and gerontologists: older offenders in prison. In relation to the disci-pline of criminology, I want to suggest that the gerontological and criminological ima-gination indeed are creative, resourceful, eclectic and can cross disciplinary boundaries. By drawing on the concept of the sociological imagination “which works between the personal troubles of milieu” and “the public issues of social structure” (Mills, 1959: 8): this paper will draw out the troubles and concerns of an aging prison population from a gerontological and criminological theoretical perspective. As the reader, you may be asking: why integrate the discipline of gerontology and criminology?

Information sharing and reporting systems in the UK and Ireland: Professional barriers to reporting child maltreatment concerns

Across the UK recent policy developments have focused on improved information sharing and inter-agency cooperation. Professional non-reporting of child maltreatment concerns has been consistently highlighted as a problem in a range of countries and the research literature indicates that this can happen for a variety of reasons. Characteristics such as the type of abuse and the threshold of evidence available are key factors, as are concerns that reporting will damage the professional-client relationship. Professional discipline can also impact on willingness to report, as can personal beliefs about abuse, attitudes towards child protection services and experiences of court processes. Research examining the role of organisational factors in information sharing and reporting emphasises the importance of training and there are some positive indications that training can increase professional awareness of reporting processes and requirements and help to increase knowledge of child abuse and its symptoms. Nonetheless, this is a complex issue and the need for training to go beyond simple awareness raising is recognised. In order to tackle non-reporting in a meaningful way, childcare professionals need access to on-going multidisciplinary training which is specifically tailored to address the range of different factors which impact on reporting attitudes and behaviours.