Suchergebnisse

Rank data arise when a set of judges rank some or all of a set of objects. Rank data emerges in many areas of society; the list of the world?s most cited scientists or the final ordering of horses in a race provide examples of such data. Irish society generates a wealth of rank data in two specific contexts: applicants to Irish third level educational institutions rank degree courses in order of preference and under the Irish electoral system voters rank candidates in order of preference. The relationships that may exist between the set of objects ranked and between the judges who rank them are explored in this thesis. The set of applicants to Irish third level institutions in the year 2000 are investigated to determine if groups of similar applicants exist and if so, what characteristics they share. Voters and candidates from the 1997 Irish presidential election and from the 2002 Irish general election are examined. The (dis)similarities that the Irish electorate deem to exist between candidates are revealed. Complex rank data models are developed which take account of the ranked nature of the data. Mixture models, and extensions thereof, are used to model heteroge?neous populations which generate rank data; a latent space model is also proposed which locates the ranked objects in an unobservable space. Model fitting is performed in both classical and Bayesian frameworks. Unique model fitting techniques are necessary due to the complex nature of the models. Examining fitted model parameters provides insight to the underlying mecha?nisms which drive Irish social opinions. Applicants to Irish third level institutions are in.uenced by course discipline, an institutions? geographical location and by course prestige. Evidence of both candidate orientated and politically driven voters is also presented. ; TARA (Trinity?s Access to Research Archive) has a robust takedown policy. Please contact us if you have any concerns: rssadmin@tcd.ie

Where did civilisation begin? How did environmental conditions influence the origins? Did you always consider humanity to exploit or cause nature to be artificially produced? Why did the first cities emerge, which later gave rise to great empires, in some spaces and environments and not in others? Who were the water owners? Should this resource have owners? He selected these short examples of common education, which illustrate how the concern about the use of this element is almost as old as humanity, since throughout history there has been a close and complex relationship between the emergence and development of civilisations and the principles and ways in which they took ownership or exploited natural resources. Publication by the Directorate-General for Culture and Education of the Province of Buenos Aires. Faculty of Journalism and Social Communication ; ¿Dónde comenzó la civilización? ¿Cómo influyeron en los orígenes las condiciones ambientales? ¿Siempre consideró la humanidad necesario explotar o hacer producir a la naturaleza en forma artificial? ¿Por qué emergieron las primeras ciudades, que luego dieron origen a grandes imperios, en algunos espacios y ambientes y no en otros? ¿Quiénes fueron los dueños del agua? ¿Debe tener este recurso dueños? Anales de la educación común seleccionó estos breves ejemplos que ilustran cómo la preocupación por el uso de este elemento es casi tan vieja como la humanidad, ya que a lo largo de toda la historia ha existido una estrecha y compleja relación entre el surgimiento y el desarrollo de las civilizaciones y los principios y los modos en que éstas se apropiaron y/o explotaron los recursos naturales. Publicación de la Dirección General de Cultura y Educación de la provincia de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Periodismo y Comunicación Social

"Civil society participation has become the new mantra in foreign development assistance. The international finance institutions claim that civil society participation in economic policy-making helps to formulate pro-poor policies - by giving 'voice to the poor' - in order to achieve equitable growth. Also, civil society support has become an important instrument in the good governance 'tool box' of most bilateral cooperation programmes, based on the assumption that civil society forms a critical counterweight to an elitist government. In short, civil society participation is seen as the panacea against poverty and authoritarianism in development cooperation. As a consequence of this global trend, aid recipient countries in the developing world have witnessed a transformation of aid flows and conditionalities. This article discusses the promises and pitfalls of this development, with particular attention given to the case of Bolivia. It uses the example of this 'donor darling' to inquire in what way civil society is shaped by international development cooperation and its requirements at the national level. The Bolivian case is particularly apt to illustrate the dialectic relationship between foreign aid donors and local civil society. The Bolivian government organised a countrywide National Dialogue to consult with civil society on the issue of the PRSP formulation. It has gone further than most in responding to the global trend by implementing civil society participation at a national level. Even so, the historical divide between Bolivia's governing elite and society has only deepened. The schism culminated in the dismissal of two presidents by the people, while economic growth has yet to set in and poverty continues. The article discusses how international donors' participation programmes can raise societal expectations in a way that can only be diasppointed by the recipient government. By doing so, civil society participation programmes can de-legitimize a nascent representative democracy, without offering a functioning participatory democracy as an alternative." (author's abstract)

Users of heavy trucks, as well as legislation, put increasing demands on heavy trucks. The vehicles should be more comfortable, reliable and safe. Furthermore, they should consume less fuel and be more environmentally friendly. For example, this means that faults that cause the emissions to increase must be detected early. To meet these requirements on comfort and performance, advanced sensor-based computer control-systems are used. However, the increased complexity makes the vehicles more difficult for the workshop mechanic to maintain and repair. A diagnosis system that detects and localizes faults is thus needed, both as an aid in the repair process and for detecting and isolating (localizing) faults on-board, to guarantee that safety and environmental goals are satisfied. Reliable fault isolation is often a challenging task. Noise, disturbances and model errors can cause problems. Also, two different faults may lead to the same observed behavior of the system under diagnosis. This means that there are several faults, which could possibly explain the observed behavior of the vehicle. In this thesis, a Bayesian approach to fault isolation is proposed. The idea is to compute the probabilities, given ``all information at hand'', that certain faults are present in the system under diagnosis. By ``all information at hand'' we mean qualitative and quantitative information about how probable different faults are, and possibly also data which is collected during test drives with the vehicle when faults are present. The information may also include knowledge about which observed behavior that is to be expected when certain faults are present. The advantage of the Bayesian approach is the possibility to combine information of different characteristics, and also to facilitate isolation of previously unknown faults as well as faults from which only vague information is available. Furthermore, Bayesian probability theory combined with decision theory provide methods for determining the best action to perform to reduce the ...

The embassies of communities of Greek regions under Venetian rule werean institution of the Serenissima Republic of Saint Mark, via which the localsocieties communicated with Venice. In the frame of the research programPYTHAGORAS II, titled «Greek Communities and European World (13th-19th c). Patterns of self-administration, social organization, identities'formation», were chosen the embassies that were included in the work ofConstantinos Sathas, «Monuments of Greek History», and more specifically,those from the IV and V volumes. The registration of a total of 94 embassiesof the 15th and 16th century from various Greek regions under Venetian rule,excluding Crete, and the presentation of short summaries of the content ofdemands and answers, in the data base that was created, offer information forthe study of a wide thematic field of Venetian and Greek history.As an example of using the data base, this article describes aspects ofinstitutions of social concern, focusing on the demands that were related tocereal supply policy, education and medical care.The requests of communities for the construction of barns and the missionof money for the supply of cereals reveal the vital problems of provisioningaccording to community and time. From another angle, the insistent demandsof communities for the employment of schoolteachers and for their paymentfrom Venice provide clues about the educational activities of Hellenism underVenetian rule. We also draw information about medical care as thecommunities asked from the Metropolis a community doctor and hisfinancing from Venice.The examination of these three aspects of social policy reveals to us thecontinuous efforts of local communities for the organization of a network ofsocial benefits, as well as the correspondence of Venice, positive or negative,in accordance always with the various economic, political and social factors ofeach time and place. Care for the different institutions of social concern appeared particularly important, to the extent that it served the catholicconcern of the Serenissima Republic of Saint Mark for the maintenance of hersocial status.

AbstractThe duty of states to settle their disputes peacefully and in accordance with international law is emphasized in a number of important provisions enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations (UN) and state practices. Adjudication is one among a range of existing means of pacific settlement of disputes. This article analyzes the role of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in pacific settlement of international disputes. It critically examines judicial settlement of armed conflicts, taking the ICJ decision in the Case Concerning Armed Activities in the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo v. Uganda) as a focal point. The main argument of the author is that while the adjudicatory role of the ICJ as the principal judicial organ of the UN is a crucial method in the pacific settlement of international disputes, it is unlikely to suit armed conflicts situations. Jurisdictional limitations of the ICJ in adjudication of armed conflicts situations is pointed out. The article points to the preclusion of the Court from adjudicating the other cases brought by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) against Rwanda and Burundi as an illustration of such limitations. It, however, stresses that the very outcome of the 2005 ICJ decision in the Democratic Republic of Congo v. Uganda case is another clear example of such shortcomings. Without getting into detailed discussions of theories of compliance with international law, the article further discusses the question of compliance with the current ICJ decision in the light of previous state practices. Since there are no established enforcement mechanisms in the international system akin to those in national legal systems, the question whether decisions of international judicial bodies (the ICJ in this case) are complied with remains at the mercy of condemned states. In the final analyses, the author points to the current weaknesses and limitations of the international legal system as a whole in the administration of justice.

SUMMARY:
The present article reconstructs the political theology of the medieval historical epos "Kartlis Tshovreba." The term "tshovreba" has a double meaning, encompassing both "history" and "salvation." Thus the history of Kartly was constructed by medieval Georgian historians as a history of salvation and directly associated with Kartly's Christianization. Through the religious conversion, its population acquired a status of the chosen people, while Kartly as land was perceived as sacral. Political theology of "Kartlis Tshovreba" unfolds between two poles: the heavenly and the mundane glory. The central paradigm of this political theology is based on the ambivalent interpretation of the image of the sacral worrier, who simultaneously suffers and triumphs. While suffering represents a victory in the name of Christ, i.e., the heavenly glory, victory over the infidels as symbolized by the transformation of saint-warriors from sufferers into triumphant heroes, brought closer the notions of heavenly and mundane glories. The symbol of the dual mundane and heavenly glory found its fullest expression in the image of the righteous monarch. This model can be seen in the idealized descriptions of the reigns of David IV and Tamara.

This "martyrology paradigm" of Georgian political theology was successfully applied against Georgia's Muslim environment. However it presented problems while directed toward the Orthodox Byzantium – and later on toward imperial Russia. In these cases, the legitimization of the "martyrology paradigm" required the representation of the enemy as a religious apostate, and the opposition of the righteous biblical kingdom of David and Solomon to the Roman model of imperialist statehood. The article shows how historical applications of this paradigm added an anti-imperial dimension to the Georgian historical consciousness, finding explicit or latent examples of such anti-imperialism in medieval texts as well as in political narratives of the nineteenth century. The same political theology, in the author's interpretation, informs the current political processes in Georgia.

International audience ; Byzantine monarchy may be defined as an autocracy of theocratic origin: the basileus was considered as God's representative – hence the part ceremonial played in underlining the emperor's sacred character. Nevertheless, several rituals existed in Byzantium to protect the basileus from hubris – rituals that reminded him of the transitory character of power and of his necessary subservience to the Almighty (uncrowning rite, memento mori, derision practices, mimesis Christou). The mirrors of princes express similar admonishing: they insist upon the emperor's human frailty and solidarity with other men, and put emphasis on the Christian virtue of humility. These texts show how much Byzantine political theory was influenced by Holy Scripture: the Bible was read as a repertory of models and counter-examples, with which contemporary events were to be compared, according to a typological interpretation of history, prone to see hubris as the main dividing criterion between good and bad people. ; La monarchie byzantine, monarchie absolue, de caractère théocratique, passait pour émaner de Dieu même, d'où l'importance prise à Byzance par les cérémonies destinées à souligner la sacralité de l'empereur. Il existait néanmoins diverses parades rituelles visant à protéger le basileus contre la tentation de l'hybris, en lui rappelant la précarité du pouvoir et sa nécessaire soumission au Tout-Puissant (rite du découronnement, memento mori, conduites de dérision, mimesis Christou). Les miroirs des princes formulent d'identiques mises en garde, en insistant sur l'humaine fragilité de l'empereur, sur sa solidarité avec les autres hommes, et en valorisant par-dessus tout la vertu chrétienne d'humilité. On peut y observer l'influence profonde exercée sur la pensée politique des Byzantins par le texte de la Bible, considérée au Moyen Âge comme un répertoire de modèles et d'antimodèles, permettant d'évaluer l'histoire du présent, soumis à une interprétation typologique, qui fait bien souvent de la démesure la ...

This thesis is concerned with three language debates that reached their most crucial peaks in Sweden at the beginning of the twenty-first century: (i) the debate on the promotion of the Swedish language, (ii) the debate on language testing for citizenship, and (iii) the debate on mother tongue instruction. The main scope of the thesis is to take a theoretically multi-pronged approach to these debates trying to shed light on the following aspects: Why did such debates emerge when they did? Which discourses were available in those specific historical moments? Who are the social actors that intervened in these debates? What is at stake for them? What do they claim? What systems of values, ideas and beliefs – i.e. ideologies – underlie such claims? What are the effects in terms of identities, objects of political intervention, commonsensical knowledge and authority that these discourses and ideologies produce? Taking Sweden as a case in point, the thesis adds to the existing literature another example of how language debates are the manifestation of conflicts between different language ideologies that struggle for hegemony, thus attempting to impose one specific way of envisaging the management of a nation-state in a time of globalisation. In their outer and most patent facets, these struggles deal with the relationships between languages in today's Sweden, and how the state, through legislation, should – or should not – regulate such relationships in order to (re)produce some kind of linguistic order. However, the thesis also illustrates that when social actors appeal to a linguistic order, they not only draw boundaries between different languages in a given society, but they also bring into existence a social world in which the speakers of those languages come to occupy specific social positions. These linguistic and social hierarchies, in turn, are imbricated in an often implicit moral regime of what counts as good or bad, acceptable or taboo in that society.

Emerging surveillance technologies now allow operators to collect information located within the brain of an individual, allow the collection of forensic evidence regarding cerebral and cognitive processes, and are even beginning to be able to predict human intentions. While science has not yet produced a mind-reading machine per se, the devices referred to as cognitive camera technologies are substantial steps in the direction of that inevitable result. One such technique, a proprietary method called Brain Fingerprinting, is used as an example of the strong trend towards increasingly invasive and ever more powerful surveillance methods, and provides an entrée to a discussion of the limitations, if any, that the constitution might impose on such methods. The article then outlines three basic frameworks used by the Supreme Court in its Fourth Amendment jurisprudence that might be used to determine whether official use of cognitive camera technologies would pass constitutional muster, and concludes with the suggestion that no one of the three available frameworks would create a significant obstacle to the exploitation of these techniques or to the use of the collected information in legal proceedings. The Fourth Amendment's failure in this regard is demonstrated by reference to underlying, socially-constructed norms regarding freedom of thought and cognitive autonomy. The article samples the fields of social psychology and Cartesian philosophy, theology, and democratic political theory in order to weave together what may be called a social consensus on the place, importance, and substance of free and unfettered cognitive liberty - the right to be left alone in one's head, the right to create a social persona using particular and unique identity vectors, and the right to think and imagine what we wish without the possible threat of observation. The inability of the Fourth Amendment to preserve that kind of freedom, which our society has always cherished, and which by consensus we agree must be protected against ...

A la différences des systèmes mono-agent, la plani- fication multi-agent doit résoudre des conflits entre les intérêts individuels d'un agent et l'intérêt du groupe. Dans cet article, nous utilisons un processus décisionnel de Markov décentralisé valué par des vecteurs (2V-DEC-MDP) en vue de résoudre ce problème. Le cadre formel considéré, celui des MDP à valuation vectorielle, utilise une fonction de valeur qui retourne un vecteur représentant à la fois l'intérêt personnel et l'intérêt du groupe. L'intérêts individuel d'un agent, calculé hors-ligne, repose sur sa politique optimale . L'intérêt du groupe est calculé en ligne par les agents à partir de leurs observations locales. Afin de tenir compte de ces deux critères dans un processus de décision, nous avons développé un algorithme basée sur le regret à partir de la norme de Tchebychev. L'objectif est de trouver un bon compromis entre l'intérêt du groupe et celui de l'agent. Ces résultats sont illustrés par un exemple. In spite of mono-agent systems, multi-agent planing addresses the problem of resolving conflicts between individual interests and group interest. In this paper, we are using a Decentralized Vector Valued Markov Decision Process (2V-DEC-MDP) in order to solve this problem. This formal framework, the Vector valued MDP, uses an utility function which is returning a vector representing both individual interest and group interest. The individual interest of an agent, computed off-line, is based on is optimal policy. Group interest is computed on-line by the agent using local observations. In order to take into account both criteria in a decision process, we develop a regret-based algorithm from the Tchebychev Norm. The goal is to find a good trade-off between the group interest and the agent one. This results are illustrated by an example.

This article intends to analyse the role of elected officials in policy making processes, taking as an example their involvement in contractual local developement policies. These policies are symbolic of changes in the way public action is conducted in France and therefore offer an ideal ground to observe how such changes impact the way local elected representatives participate in policy making. Paying a special attention to the links between political careers and participation in policy building, the paper leads to the conclusion that the representation of a territory is still an important motivating force behind the action of elected officials and to intercede on behalf of their constituency with public autorities is a prevalent mode of action for many of them, even if the trend is to emphasize their involvement in social networks and in projects affecting much larger areas than their electoral strongholds. ; Cet article se propose d'interroger la place des élus locaux dans les processus de construction de l'action publique, à un moment où celle-ci connaît un certain nombre d'évolutions, qui tendent en particulier à accentuer le décalage entre les territoires de la représentation politique et ceux de l'action publique. L'analyse s'appuie sur l'étude de politiques contractuelles de développement local comme la politique des pays, emblématiques de ces changements. En regardant de près comment les élus locaux s'investissent dans la conception et la mise en oeuvre de ces politiques et en examinant les ressources qu'ils peuvent en tirer dans le cadre de la compétition politique, l'analyse souligne un point essentiel : à l'heure où l'on insiste sur l'intégration des élus dans les réseaux socio-économiques et dans des démarches de projet qui peuvent les conduire à être moins ancrés dans leurs territoires d'élection, la logique de représentation territoriale et d'intercession en faveur d'un territoire au sein du système politco-administratif garde toute son importance pour un certain nombre d'élus.

In Central Asia, energy policy and energy projects as part of the fuel and energy complex and regional economy as a whole are two sides of the same coin. In other words, the key energy projects that determine the development trends and major parameters of the republics' fuel and energy complexes for many years to come are, as a rule, closely connected with the main strategic foreign policy trends of those who rule Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The main strategic actors (Russia, the United States, EU, and China) are exerting their influence on the local developments in the energy sphere. The second echelon (Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, and Poland) recently joined the struggle over influence in the energy sphere. The list of those involved is even longer: Japan, India, Malaysia, and South Korea are ready with their money to pursue their commercial and resource-related interests. The long list of those wishing to have a finger in the Central Asian resource pie explains the local countries' multi-vector energy policy. While bringing certain short-term political and even economic dividends, this policy interferes with long-term strategic decisions and slows down progress in the region's fuel and energy complex. Here are several recent examples: the already commissioned or planned pipelines depend for their continued functioning or even realization on Central Asian involvement. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline will not reach its designated annual capacity of 50 million tons of oil without Kazakhstan's oil. The planned Trans-Caspian pipeline (along the seabed) will never be realized if the Central Asian countries refuse to use it. This explains the heightened attention (bordering on pressure) to the leaders of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The aim is obvious: the two countries should be removed from Russia's gasand oil transport orbit to channel their fuel to Europe bypassing the Russian Federation and its pipeline system.

The election of Nicolas Sarkozy as the new French President and the potential changes in the French security and defence policy. As the French prepare for the changes in domestic policy promised by Nicolas Sarkozy, France's allies and the international strategic community are watching for any sign of a repositioning in defence and security matters. On the other side of the Atlantic, expectations are high, but Sarkozy might not be the Atlanticist that some people suppose. Most of the changes are likely to be more of style and personality rather than fundamental shifts in policy. During their first weeks in power, Sarkozy and his new government have focused mainly on European Union (EU) policy and the Middle East. France, for example, has remained surprisingly discreet on the issue of missile defence, perhaps a sign of a more business-like approach and of less grandstanding. One of Sarkozy's priorities will be to reposition his country as a European player. His challenge will be to consolidate a more independent European defence effort, while not distancing France from the US and NATO. The new spirit of renovation might also emerge as a more pragmatic and flexible approach to strategic doctrine and the review of France's White Book on Defence. Sarkozy's emphasis on lifting France's economic performance is also likely to be felt in defence planning and defence economics in general, with a strong support for the industry, as exemplified by the visit to EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space) facilities in Toulouse, his first trip inside France as new President. Sarkozy has been rather ambiguous on France's role in stabilisation operations and peacekeeping, an elusiveness he will have to brush away very soon as pressure in Afghanistan is mounting. Finally, one of the new President's most surprising proposals is to create a National Security Council on the US model, which will necessary shake up a long-standing French institutional balance in defence matters.

2014 Summer. ; Includes bibliographical references. ; Highways have become a symbol of modern America (Levinson, 2004), and infrastructure investment plays a pivotal role both in short-term and long-term economic growth and in job creation. In the US, it represents 16% of the gross national product, and every dollar of public investment in highways has a net rate of return of 22 cents, and every billion dollars of federal highway investment generates 47,500 jobs (AASHTO 2003). In response to the inabilities to raise government revenues in the US, aging infrastructure systems, and high construction and O/M costs, infrastructure development has steadily become a collaboration work between the public and private sector. In liberalized infrastructure markets, various governance structures are being tested for application of public-private partnerships (PPPs or P3s) strategies in infrastructure development (Estache, 2004). This thesis aims to review the key complex PPP issues in transportation renewal projects in the US that adopt PPPs. While PPPs can be applied to a range of agreements, the PPP projects to be studied and analyzed in this paper will be limited to those involving complex financing, design, construction and long-term operation and maintenance of transportation infrastructure of at least 10 years. These issues are examined in the context of six case studies in six different state across the US by means of interview and archival record. Findings resulting from this work suggested that PPPs have been increasingly implemented by departments of transportation in the US as a mean to tape into private resources. In addition, this research identified four key complex PPP issues in transportation projects as such Economic issue, Procurement issue, Risk Issue, and Governance issue. States have established a dedicated organizational unit to facilitate the use of PPPs, for example High Performance Enterprise (HPTE) in Colorado and Innovative Project Delivery Division in Virginia, but there exist no standards or best practices in the United States for procurement, concession terms, or risk-sharing.