MEGAPOLI: concept of multi-scale modelling of megacity impact on air quality and climate

The EU FP7 Project MEGAPOLI: "Megacities: Emissions, urban, regional and Global Atmospheric POLlution and climate effects, and Integrated tools for assessment and mitigation" (http://megapoli.info) brings together leading European research groups, state-of-the-art scientific tools and key players from non-European countries to investigate the interactions among megacities, air quality and climate. MEGAPOLI bridges the spatial and temporal scales that connect local emissions, air quality and weather with global atmospheric chemistry and climate. The suggested concept of multi-scale integrated modelling of megacity impact on air quality and climate and vice versa is discussed in the paper. It requires considering different spatial and temporal dimensions: time scales from seconds and hours (to understand the interaction mechanisms) up to years and decades (to consider the climate effects); spatial resolutions: with model down- and up-scaling from street- to global-scale; and two-way interactions between meteorological and chemical processes.

Judith Butler's postmodern existentialism : a critical analysis

Bucher ascertains that Butler's description of the temporalized process of structuration, which seeks to avoid recourse to political voluntarism, or the sovereign intentionality of the autonomous individual, yields powerful insights into social identity. He asserts further that Butler's description of the dominant heterosexual culture in terms of melancholia, and her insights into the structures of repetition and difference that make up the social conventions that produce cultural norms, represent important resources in thinking about contemporary cultural conflicts.