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11 – 20 of over 2000I don’t know why, but a few months ago I found myself reading Herbert Marcuse, the “improbable guru” of the Sixties, as Fortune, the popular U.S. business magazine, labeled him at…
Abstract
I don’t know why, but a few months ago I found myself reading Herbert Marcuse, the “improbable guru” of the Sixties, as Fortune, the popular U.S. business magazine, labeled him at the time. Fortune found him improbable on two counts. First, his age: Marcuse in the Sixties was himself in his sixties, leading the decade of those in their twenties who said they trusted no one in their thirties or above – except Marcuse and his paradigm-shattering One Dimensional Man. Second, his philosophy: a magazine like Fortune could hardly be expected, though, to approve of a writer who penned passages like the following (Marcuse, 1964, p. 9): We are again confronted with one of the most vexing aspects of advanced industrial civilization: the rational character of its irrationality.Or this one (Marcuse, 1964, p. 3): By virtue of the way it has organized its technological base, contemporary industrial society tends to be totalitarian. For ‘totalitarian’ is not only a terroristic political coordination of society, but also a non-terroristic economic-technical coordination which operates through the manipulation of needs by vested interests.Or this (Marcuse, 1972, p. 131): The fetishism of the commodity world, which seems to become denser every day, can be destroyed only by men and women who have torn aside the technological and ideological veil which conceals what is going on, which covers the insane rationality of the whole – men and women who have become free to develop their own needs, to build, in solidarity, their own world.Ripping good lines, steaming with the same liquid fire, as I once heard it described, with which Marx himself often wrote. But the Sixties have come and gone, quaintly registered now only in the gray hair of its dark-suited former activists, dressed for consensus about what they take to be the actual nature of human satisfaction: the fortunes of capitalism. It is, of course, in the nature of the true guru to be improbable, right?
The importance of the adverse impacts of network degradation has stimulated substantial international research interest in transport network reliability, that is, the ability of…
Abstract
The importance of the adverse impacts of network degradation has stimulated substantial international research interest in transport network reliability, that is, the ability of degraded transport networks to cope with travel demand. Most of the recent research effort has focused on the reliability of urban passenger transport networks, in terms of the probability that the network will deliver a required standard of performance. This situation is characterised by high levels of congestion, a dense road network, and quantifiable probability of degradation of the network. Outside major urban centres, the situation is very different. The main dominant consideration in transport network infrastructure provision is accessibility - linking urban centres, providing regional coverage, and basic levels of accessibility for the non-urban community and economy. The network is sparse, congestion is not a significant issue, and access to essential community services and to markets is the major driving force underlying network development. In this context, the vulnerability of the network is perhaps more important than ‘reliability’. This paper develops the concept of network vulnerability. It begins by reviewing the current state of research into network reliability, then proposes extensions and adaptations to the reliability concepts that are more appropriate for strategic-level multi-modal transport systems. Several alternative definitions for vulnerability are proposed. The paper also discusses the development of algorithmic and visualisation tools that may be used to identify specific ‘weak spots’ in a network, where failure of some part of the transport infrastructure would have the most serious effects on access to specific locations and on overall system performance. Finally, the paper describes potential applications of network vulnerability concepts, and proposes directions for further research.
The purpose of this article is to share my own narrative on theological exegesis and my life journey as a gay Christian in my expedition to reconcile sexuality and faith. The main…
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to share my own narrative on theological exegesis and my life journey as a gay Christian in my expedition to reconcile sexuality and faith. The main focus will be on religion, gender, sexuality and sexual health issues as they affect African lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people in the UK and Africa. The article will examine patterns that either deny or lead to a complete reconciliation.Today, many LGBTI people struggle in society to reconcile sexuality, culture and faith. This article will focus on the journey to reconcile spirituality and sexuality. Other areas also covered are human rights, including issues in and around the activities of sexual health organisations and religious communities. This article focuses on:• the marginalisation of LGBTI Christians of African and Caribbean descent• the challenges of having to deal with sexual orientation and health• the trauma of being non heterosexual where faith dominates the spectrum of living• the effects of religious homophobia and exclusion from religious communities.This article also explores the experience of African LGBTI people generally scrambling for something in which to put their confidence for the future. There is no doubt that Christianity is relevant to many situations, there are endless list of examples, injustice, dysfunctional families, unemployment, culture, poverty, social justice, breach of human rights, inequality, misogyny, denominational rife, unruly government, homophobia, discrimination, corruption, and hypocrisy of the religious communities. We therefore need a balance to restore order, sanity, love, endurance, control, gratitude, accountability, respect, manners, responsibility, liberation, freedom, helping the poor, works, support, preaching the gospel of inclusion, baptising the people and winning souls.
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Yasuo Asakura, Eiji Hato and Masuo Kashiwadani
An optimal network design model is formulated providing a set of link investment pattern for the most reliable network with highest network performance under uncertain conditions…
Abstract
An optimal network design model is formulated providing a set of link investment pattern for the most reliable network with highest network performance under uncertain conditions. The connectivity probability of a link is assumed to be improved by the investment to the link. The object function is represented as the expected performance measure. The formulated model is categorized in a group of stochastic network design problem in which the existence of a link is probabilistic. The characteristics of the gradient vector of the objective function are analyzed. The derivatives of the objective function can be approximately evaluated without enumerating all possible network state vectors. Numerical examples are calculated for analyzing the sensitivity of optimal investment policies.
Tessa Sayers, Jessica Anderson and Michael Bell
The increasing awareness of the importance of the wider objectives of traffic management and control has led to the work described in this paper. The aim of the study is to…
Abstract
The increasing awareness of the importance of the wider objectives of traffic management and control has led to the work described in this paper. The aim of the study is to develop a flexible signal controller which may be configured so that it embodies the objectives appropriate for the situation in which it is to be used. This paper describes the optimisation of a prototype fuzzy logic signal controller with respect to several criteria simultaneously. Having demonstrated the controller's sensitivity to changes in its parameters, a multiobjective genetic algorithm (MOGA) optimisation technique is used to derive a family of solutions, each of which is optimal with respect to at least one of the criteria, whilst minimising the trade-off with respect to the other criteria.
An earlier study found that certain Minnesota state aid programs stimulated city property tax levies to a high degree. If this is accurate, it suggests potentially serious…
Abstract
An earlier study found that certain Minnesota state aid programs stimulated city property tax levies to a high degree. If this is accurate, it suggests potentially serious problems with state property tax relief efforts. This article re-examines this question and finds that most aid programs have little direct effect on property tax levies. However, certain aid formulas that reduce the effective price of property taxes do indirectly stimulate property taxes. Therefore, states need to be careful in designing aid programs intended to reduce property taxes.
William H. K. Lam and Mei-Lam Tam
This paper attempts to assess the parking reliability with taking into account drivers' travel choice behaviors under various traffic conditions. Apart from the well-known…
Abstract
This paper attempts to assess the parking reliability with taking into account drivers' travel choice behaviors under various traffic conditions. Apart from the well-known travel-time reliability, a parking reliability is newly defined as the probability that the drivers' average searching time for parking is less than a given threshold. This is particularly important under conditions of shortage of parking spaces in urban areas. A Monte Carlo simulation approach, which incorporates a combined trip distribution and assignment model with explicit elastic demand function, is proposed to estimate the two reliability measures of road network (i.e. travel-time and parking reliabilities). A numerical example is used to illustrate the applications of the reliability measures and the proposed approach.