Academic literature on the topic 'Roald Gaiman'

The potential for the quokka (Setonix brachyurus (Quoy & Gaimard, 1830)), a threatened macropodid marsupial, to increase in abundance following the initiation of predator control was investigated by determining the cause of deaths of radio-collared individuals. Predation was identified as a major cause of death followed by road kills. The non-parametric Kaplan–Meier method modified for staggered entry of individuals was used to estimate survivorship. Although males and females were affected differently by each cause of mortality, their overall survivorship did not differ significantly. Individuals alive at the beginning of the 25-month study had a 61% chance of surviving to the end. This represented an 81% chance of surviving for 1 year. There was no significant difference in survivorship between adults and juveniles. Current rates of adult and juvenile survivorship should allow population recovery, although none has been evident. Pouch young mortality is hypothesised to have inhibited the anticipated quokka population increase since the initiation of predator control. The observed expulsion of pouch young by females when threatened may be a primary predator avoidance strategy.

IntroductionNordic mythology, also known as Norse mythology, is a term used to describe Medieval creation myths and tales of Gods and otherworldly realms, told and retold by Northern Germanic and Scandinavian tribes of the ninth century AD (see for example Gaiman).I discuss a new type of Nordic mythology that is being created through popular culture, social media, books, and television shows. I am interested in how contemporary portrayals of the Nordic countries has created a kind of mythological place called Scandinavia, where things, people, and ideas are better than in other places.Whereas the old myths portray a fierce warrior race, the new myths create a utopian Scandinavia as a place that is inherently good; a place that is progressive and harmonious. In the creation of these new myths the underbelly of the North is often neglected, producing a homogenised representation of a group of countries that are in actuality diverse and inevitably imperfect.ScandimaniaGenerally the term Scandinavia always refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. When including Finland and Iceland, it is more accurate to refer to the five as the Nordic countries. I was born and grew up in Denmark. My observations are skewed towards a focus on Denmark, rather than Scandinavia as a whole. Though I will use the term Nordic and Scandinavia throughout the article, it is worth noting that these definitions describe a group of countries that despite some commonalities are also quite different in geography, and culture.Whether we are speaking strictly of Scandinavia or of the Nordic countries as a whole, one thing is certain: in recent years there has been a surge of popularity in all things Nordic. Scandinavian design has been popular since the 1950s, known for its functionality and simplistic beauty, and globalised through the Swedish furniture chain IKEA. Consequently, Nordic interior design has become a style widely praised and emulated, as has Nordic fashion, architecture, and innovation.The fact that Scandinavian people are often represented as being intelligent and beautiful adds to the notion of stylish and aesthetically pleasing ideals. This is partly why sperm from Danish sperm donors is the most sought after and widely distributed in the world: perhaps prospective parents find the idea of having a baby of Viking stock appealing (Kale). Nordic countries are also known for their egalitarian societies, which are described as “the holy grail of a healthy economy and society” (Cleary). These are countries where the collective good is cherished. Tax rates are high (in Denmark between 55 per cent and 60 per cent of income), which leads to excellent welfare systems.In recent years other terms have entered the collective Western vocabulary. New Nordic Cuisine describes a trend that has taken the culinary world by storm. This term refers to food that is created with seasonal, local, and foraged ingredients. The emphasis being a renewed connection to nature and old ways. In 2016 the Danish word hygge was shortlisted by the Oxford Dictionary as word of the year. A word, which has no direct English translation, it means “a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture)”. Countless books were published in the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, explaining the art of hygge. Other Scandinavian words are now becoming popular, such as the Swedish lagom, meaning “just enough”.In the past two years, the United Nations’ World Happiness Report listed Denmark and Norway as the happiest places on earth. Other surveys similarly put the Nordic countries on top as the most prosperous places on earth (Anderson).Mythologies and Discursive FormationsThe standard definition of myth is a “traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.” Or “A widely held but false belief or idea” (Oxford Dictionaries, Myth).During what became known as the “discursive turn”, both Barthes and Foucault expanded the conception of myth by placing it within a wider socio-political and historical contexts of power and truth. “Discursive formations” became a commonly accepted way of describing a cluster of ideas, images, and practices that define particular “truths” within a given cultural context (Hall 6). In other words, myths serve specific purposes within given socio-cultural constructions.I argue that the current idolisation of Scandinavia is creating a common global narrative of a superior society. A mythical place that has “figured it out”, and found the key to happiness. The mythologised North is based on an array of media stories, statistics, reports, articles, advertising, political rhetoric, books, films, TV series, exhibitions, and social media activity. These perpetuate a “truth” of the Nordic countries as being especially benign, cultured, and distinguished. The Smiling PolicemanIn his well-known essay Myth Today, Barthes analyses an image of a North African boy in uniform saluting the French flag on the front cover of a magazine. Barthes argues that by analysing the semiotic meaning of the image in two stages, one can identify the “myth”.The first level is the signifiers (what we see), a dark skinned boy, a uniform, a raised arm, a flag. The signified is our recognition of these as a North African boy raising his arm to the French flag. The second level of interpretation is the wider context in which we understand what we see: the greatness of France is signified in the depiction of one of her colonial subjects submitting to and glorifying the flag. That is to say, the myth generated by the image is the story of France as a great colonial and military nation.Now take a look at this image, which was distributed the world over in newspapers, online media, and in turn social media (Warren; Kolff). This image is interesting because it epitomises much of what is believed about Scandinavia (the new myths). If we approach the image through the semiotic lens of Barthes, we firstly describe what is seen in the picture (signifiers): a blonde policeman, a girl of dark complexion, a road in the countryside, a van in the distance, and some other people with backpacks on the side of the road. When we put these elements together in context, we understand that the image to be depicting a Danish policeman, blonde, smiling and handsome, playing with a Syrian refugee girl on an empty Danish highway, with her fellow refugees behind her.The second level of interpretation (the myth) is created by combining the elements into a story: A friendly police officer is playing with a refugee girl, which is unusual because policemen are commonly seen as authoritarian and unfriendly to illegal immigrants. This policeman is smiling. He is happy in his job. He is healthy, good-looking, and compassionate.This fits the image of Scandinavian men as good fathers (they have paternity leave, and often help equally with child rearing). The image confirms that the happiest people on earth would of course also have happy, friendly policemen. The belief that the Scandinavian social model is one to admire would appear to be endorsed.The fact that this is in a rural setting with green landscapes adds further to the notion of Nordic freshness, naturalness, environmentalism, and food that comes from the wild. The fact that the policeman is well-groomed, stylish, well-built, and handsome reinforces the notion that Scandinavia is a place of style and taste, where the good Viking gene pool produces fit and beautiful people.It makes sense that in a place with a focus on togetherness and the common good, refugees are also treated well. Just as the French image of a dark-skinned boy saluting the French flag sent out messages of French superiority, this image sends out messages of inherent Nordic goodness in a time where positive images of the European refugee crisis are few and far between.In a discursive discussion, one asks not only what meanings does this image convey, but why is this image chosen, distributed, shared, tweeted, and promoted over other images? What purpose does its proliferation serve? What is the historical context in which it is popularised? What is the cultural imagination/narrative that is served? In the current often depressing socio-political situation in Europe, people like to know that there is a place where compassion and play exists.Among other news stories of death, despair, and border protection, depictions of an idealised North can help calm anxieties by implying the existence of a place that is free of conflict. Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen writes:The flood of journalistic and popular ethnographic explorations of the Nordic region in the UK is an expression, perhaps, of a search for a lost sense of identity, a nostalgic longing for an imagined past society more in tune with pre-Thatcherite welfarist values, by way of consuming, appropriating and exoticising proximate cultural identities such as the now much hyped Danish or Nordic utopias. (Nordic Noir, 6)In The Almost Nearly Perfect People, British writer Michael Booth wonders: “one thing in particular about this new-found love of all things Scandinavian … which struck me as particularly odd: considering all this positive PR, and with awareness of the so-called Nordic miracle at an all-time high, why wasn’t everyone flocking to live here [in Denmark]?” (7).In actuality not many people in the West are interested in living in the Nordic countries. Rather, as Barbara Goodwin writes: “utopias hold up a mirror to the fears and aspirations of the time in which they were written” (2). In other words, in an age of anxiety, where traditional norms and stabilities are shifting, to believe that there is a place where contemporary societies have found a way of living in happiness and togetherness provides a sense of hope. People are not flocking to live in Scandinavia because it is not in their interests to have their utopian ideals shattered by the reality that, though the North has a lot to offer, it is inevitably not a utopia (Sougaard-Nielsen, The Truth Is).UnderbellyParadoxically, in recent years, Scandinavia has become well known for its “Nordic Noir” crime fiction and television. In the documentary TV series Scandimania, British TV personality Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall travels through Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, exploring the culture, scenery, and food. He finds it curious that Denmark has become so famous for its sombre crime series, such as The Killing and The Bridge, because it seems so far removed from the Denmark he experiences riding around the streets of Copenhagen on his bike.Fearnley-Whittingstall ponders that one has to look hard to find the dark side of Denmark, and that perhaps it does not actually exist at all. This observation points to something essential. Even though millions of viewers worldwide have seen shows such as The Killing, which are known for their dark story lines, bleak urban settings, complex but realistic characters, progressive gender equality, and social commentary, the positive mythologising of Scandinavia remains so strong that it engenders a belief that the underbelly shown in Nordic Noir is perhaps entirely fictional.Stougaard-Nielsen (see also Pitcher, Consuming Race) argues that perhaps the British obsession with Nordic Noir (and this could be applied to other western countries) can be attributed to “a more appropriate white cosmopolitan desire to imagine rooted identities in an age of globalisation steeped in complex identity politics” (Nordic Noir, 8). That is to say that, for a segment of society which feels overwhelmed by contemporary multiculturalism, there may be a pleasure in watching a show that is predominantly populated by white Nordic protagonists, where the homes and people are stylish, and where the Nordic model of welfare and progressive thinking provides a rich identity source for white people as a symbolic point of origin.The watching/reading of Nordic Noir, as well as other preoccupations with all things Nordic, help build upon a mythological sense of whiteness that sets itself apart from our usual notions of race politics, by being an accepted form of longing for the North of bygone ages: a place that is progressive, moral, stylish, and imbued with aspirational ways of living, thinking, and being (Pitcher, Racial Politics).The image of the Danish police officer and the refugee girl fits this ideal of a progressive society where race relations are uncomplicated. The policeman who epitomises the Nordic ideal is in a position of power, but this is an authority which is benevolent. The girl is non-threatening in her otherness, because she is a child and female, and therefore does not fit the culturally dreaded Muslim/terrorist stereotype. In this constellation the two can meet beautifully.The reality, of course, is that the race relations and issues surrounding immigration in Denmark, and in other Nordic countries, are as complicated and often messy and hateful as they are in other countries. In Sweden, as Fearnley-Whittingstall touches upon in Scandimania, there are escalating problems with integration of the many new Swedes and growing inequalities in wealth. In Norway, the underlying race tensions became acutely topical in the aftermath of the 2011 massacre, where right-wing extremist Anders Breivik killed 77 people. Denmark has one of the harshest anti-immigration laws in Europe, laws that are continuously being tightened (Boserup); and whenever visiting Denmark I have been surprised to see how much space and time discussions about immigration and integration take up in the news and current affairs.If we contrast the previous image with the image above, taken within a similar timeframe on the same Danish highway, we can see the reality of Danish immigration policies. Here we are exposed to a different story. The scene and the location is the same, but the power dynamics have shifted from benign, peaceful, and playful to aggressive, authoritarian, and conflict ridden. A desperate father carries his daughter, determined to march on towards their destination of Sweden. The policeman is pulling his arm, attempting to detain the refugees so that they cannot go further, the goal being to deport the Syrians back to their previous place of detention, just over the border in Germany (Harticollis). While the previous image reflects the humanity of the refugee crisis, this image reflects the politics, policies, and to a large extent public opinion in Denmark, which is not refugee-friendly. This image, however, was not widely distributed, partly because it feeds into the same depressing narrative of an unsolvable refugee crisis seen so often elsewhere, and partly because it does not fit into the narrative of the infallible North. It could not be tweeted with the hashtag #Humanity, nor shared on Facebook with a smiley face and liked with an emoji heart.Another image from Denmark, in the form of a politically funded billboard, shows that there are deep-seated tendencies within Danish society that want to promote and retain a Denmark which adheres to its traditional values and ethnic whiteness. The image was displayed all over the country, at train stations, bus stops, and other public spaces when I visited in 2016. It was issued by Dansk Folkeparti (the Danish People’s Party); a party which is anti-immigration and which was until recently the country’s second largest party. The title says “Our Denmark”, while the byline cleverly plays with the double meaning of passe på: it can mean “there is so much we need to take care of”, but also “there is so much we need to beware of.” In other words, the white working-class family needs to take care of their Denmark, and beware of anyone who does not fit into this norm. Though hugely contested and criticised (Cremer; see a counter-reaction designed by opponents below), the fact that thinly veiled anti-immigration propaganda can be so readily distributed speaks of an underbelly in Danish society that is not made of the dark murder mysteries in The Killing, but rather of a quietly brewing distain for the foreigner that reigns within stylishly designed living rooms. ConclusionMyths are stories cultures tell and retell until they form a belief system that becomes a natural part of our collective narrative. For Barthes, these stories were intrinsically connected to our understanding of language and our ability to read images, films, artifacts, and popular culture more generally. To later cultural theorists, the notion of discursive formations expands this understanding, to see myth within a broader network of socio-political discourses placed within a certain place and time in history. When connected, small narratives (images, advertising, film, music, news stories, social media sharing, scientific evidence, etc.) come together to form a common narrative (the myth) about how things are and should be in relation to a particular topic. The culminating popularity of numerous Nordic themes (Nordic television/film, interior design, fashion, cuisine, architecture, lifestyle, sustainability, welfare system, school system, gender equality, etc.) has created a grand narrative of the Nordic countries as a type of utopia: one that shows the rest of the world that an egalitarian society of togetherness and progressive innovation is possible. This mythologisation serves to quell anxieties about the flux and uncertainty of contemporary times, and may also serve to legitimise a yearning for a simple, benign, and progressive whiteness, where we imagine Nordic families sitting peacefully at their beechwood dining tables, candles lit, playing board games. This is a projected yearning which is otherwise largely disallowed in today’s multicultural societies.ReferencesAnderson, Elizabeth. “The Most Prosperous Countries in the World, Based on Happiness and Financial Health.” The Telegraph, 2 Nov. 2015. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11966461/The-most-prosperous-countries-in-the-world-based-on-happiness-and-financial-health.html>.Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. London: Vintage, 2000 [1957].———. “Myth Today.” Mythologies. London: Vintage, 2000 [1957].Booth, Michael. The Almost Nearly Perfect People. London: Jonathan Cape, 2014.Boserup, Rasmus Alenius. “Denmark’s Harsh New Immigration Law Will End Badly for Everyone.” Huffington Post. <https://www.huffingtonpost.com/rasmus-alenius-boserup/denmark-immigration-law_b_9112148.html>.Bridge, The. (Danish: Broen.) Created by Hans Rosenfeldt. Sveriges Television and DR, 2013-present.Cleary, Paul. “Norway Is Proof That You Can Have It All.” The Australian, 15 July 2013. <http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/norway-is-proof-that-you-can-have-it-all/news-story/3d2895adbace87431410e7b033ec84bf>.Colson, Thomas. “7 Reasons Denmark Is the Happiest Country in the World.” The Independent, 26 Sep. 2016. <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/7-reasons-denmark-is-the-happiest-country-in-the-world-a7331146.html>.Cremer, Justin. “The Strangest Political Story in Denmark Just Got Stranger.” The Local, 19 May 2016. <https://www.thelocal.dk/20160519/strangest-political-story-in-denmark-just-got-stranger>.Dregni, Eric. “Why Is Norway the Happiest Place on Earth?” Star Tribune, 11 June 2017. <http://www.startribune.com/the-height-of-happy/427321393/#1>.Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge. London: Penguin Books, 1998 [1976]. Gaiman, Neil. “Neil Gaiman Retells Classic Norse Mythology.” Conversations. Radio National 30 Mar. 2017.Goodwin, Barbara, ed. The Philosophy of Utopia. London: Frank Cass, 2001.Hall, Stuart, ed. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage, 1997.Hartocollis, Anemona. “Traveling in Europe’s River of Migrants.” New York Times, 9 Sep. 2015. <https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/reporters-notebook/migrants/denmark-refugees-migrants>.Helliwell, J., R. Layard, and J. Sachs. World Happiness Report 2017. New York: Sustainable Development Solutions Network, 2017.Kale, Sirin. “Women Are Now Pillaging Sperm Banks for Viking Babies.” Vice, 2 Oct. 2015. <https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/3dx9nj/women-are-now-pillaging-sperm-banks-for-viking-babies>.Killing, The. (Danish: Forbrydelsen.) Created by Søren Sveistrup. DR, 2007-2012.Kolff, Louise. “Part III: The Hunk & the Refugee.” Perspectra, 3 Dec. 2015. <https://perspectra.org/2015/12/03/danish-police-and-refugee-girl/>.Oxford Dictionaries. “Hygge.” <https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/hygge>.Oxford Dictionaries. “Myth.” <https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/myth>.Pitcher, Ben. Consuming Race. London: Routledge, 2014.———. “The Racial Politics of Nordic Noir.” Mecetes, 9 April 2014. <http://mecetes.co.uk/racial-politics-nordic-noir/>.Scandimania. Featuring H. Fearnley-Whittingstall. Channel 4, 2014.Sougaard-Nielsen, Jacob. “Nordic Noir in the UK: The Allure of Accessible Difference.” Journal of Aesthetics & Culture 8.1 (2016). 1 Oct. 2017 <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/jac.v8.32704>.———. “The Truth Is, Scandinavia Is Neither Heaven nor Hell.” The Conversation, 19 Aug. 2014. <https://theconversation.com/the-truth-is-scandinavia-is-neither-heaven-nor-hell-30641>.Warren, Rossalyn. “The Touching Moment a Policeman Sat Down to Play with a Syrian Refugee.” BuzzFeed News, 15 Sep. 2015. <https://www.buzzfeed.com/rossalynwarren/the-adorable-moment-a-policeman-sat-down-to-play-with-a-syri?utm_term=.qjzl2WEk7#.kgZXOp76M>.

L'obiettivo del presente elaborato è di fornire una proposta di traduzione dall'inglese all'italiano del poema "The White Road" di Neil Gaiman, pubblicato in Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears (1995) e in Smoke and Mirrors (1998). L'elaborato è articolato in: una breve presentazione dell’autore, con accento sui temi ricorrenti presenti nelle sue opere; una descrizione del testo scelto, sia in termini di struttura che di contenuti e riferimenti culturali; la proposta di traduzione con testo originale a fronte; un’analisi dei problemi traduttivi riscontrati con le relative soluzioni adottate.

A presente dissertação debruça-se sobre a formação e configuração da "cidade difusa" que caracteriza a aglomeração urbana do Porto e o modo como se manifesta no território analisando, por um lado, os factores indutores dessa dispersão e, por outro, reconhecendo os efeitos de catálise urbana produzidos pelo enclave de estruturas urbanas de excepção (após década de 60). Escolheu-se para estudo de cas, a mancha difusa envolvente do nó rodoviário da Afurada, em Vila Nova de Gaia, tornando assim mais clara, a articulação das questões morfológicas e funcionais com os tecidos que compõem este território, tendo sempre presente as questões de acessibilidade e mobicilidade acrescidas que tanto o nó rodoviário como as vias estruturantes metropolitanas introduziram naquele local. Reconhecemos, assim, que efeitos de centralidade e nucleação urbana revelam-se potenciais intensificadores dos processos de transformação urbana e da sua vasta e benéfica diversidade.

A presente dissertação debruça-se sobre a formação e configuração da "cidade difusa" que caracteriza a aglomeração urbana do Porto e o modo como se manifesta no território analisando, por um lado, os factores indutores dessa dispersão e, por outro, reconhecendo os efeitos de catálise urbana produzidos pelo enclave de estruturas urbanas de excepção (após década de 60). Escolheu-se para estudo de cas, a mancha difusa envolvente do nó rodoviário da Afurada, em Vila Nova de Gaia, tornando assim mais clara, a articulação das questões morfológicas e funcionais com os tecidos que compõem este território, tendo sempre presente as questões de acessibilidade e mobicilidade acrescidas que tanto o nó rodoviário como as vias estruturantes metropolitanas introduziram naquele local. Reconhecemos, assim, que efeitos de centralidade e nucleação urbana revelam-se potenciais intensificadores dos processos de transformação urbana e da sua vasta e benéfica diversidade.

碩士<br>國立政治大學<br>亞太研究英語碩士學位學程(IMAS)<br>104<br>The One Belt, One Road (OBOR, 一帶一路, yidaiyilu) initiative announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 represents China’s most forthright articulation of its status as a world power yet. It is symbolically, and potentially in practice, the country’s most important foreign policy initiative of modern times. The intention of this thesis is to investigate why China is investing in the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB, 丝绸之路经济带, sichouzhilu jingjidai) portion of OBOR, explain what some of the likely geopolitical consequences will be and comment on how the existing international order should respond. I will explore why China is investing in the project and apply the theories of offensive realism and complex interdependence to analyze its motivations. I will synthesize these realist and liberal perspectives and conclude that although China does likely seek to use the SREB as part of attempts to significantly expand its power, which would probably lead to conflict with the United States, domestic and international constraints will prevent it from succeeding; at the same time, the stability-creating interlinkages and developmental advantages that are achievable through the project are something that the international order can benefit from while supporting the legitimate national development strategies of China and avoiding the potential for conflict that would come from attempting to constrain China’s ambitions.

We tend to think about memory in terms of our own experience, but a series of our direct ancestors—from the earliest vertebrates to archaic humans—also had memories. The evolutionary history that we share with these ancestral species has left its mark on modern memory, complemented by other forms of memory that are uniquely human. This book traces the long evolutionary road to human memory by explaining how a series of now-extinct ancestral species adapted to life in their world, in their time and place. As they did, new brain areas appeared, each of which supported an innovative form of memory that helped them gain an advantage in life. Through inheritance and modification across millions of years, these evolutionary novelties created several kinds of memory that influence the human mind today. Then, during human evolution, yet another new kind of memory emerged: about ourselves and others. This evolutionary innovation ignited human imagination; empowered us to remember and talk about a personal past; and enabled the sharing of knowledge about our world, our cultures, and ourselves. Through these developments, evolution made it possible for every individual, day upon day, to add new pages to the story of a life: the remarkable, rich record of experiences and knowledge that make up a human mind.

This chapter describes events in the life of Anna Howard Shaw from 1871 to 1880. Shaw had a vision that God had called her to a larger life. However, with no independent means of wealth, her choices appeared to be limited to marrying or resigning herself to struggle along as an impoverished schoolteacher, living in her parents' home. To gain access to any formal education for herself, she would have to leave that home. At this point Anna turned to the only resource she did have beyond her own dreams, ingenuity, and determination—her sister Mary, who had married a successful entrepreneur. So it was that Anna made the difficult and seemingly selfish decision to leave her parents' home and move in with her sister to seek her options in the small town of Big Rapids, Michigan. On August 26, 1873, the Big Rapids District Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church enthusiastically licensed twenty-six-year-old “Annie Howard Shaw” as a local preacher. In June 1878 Shaw sailed for Europe. By then she had earned her education and possessed her first investments. This thirty-one-year-old daughter of impoverished immigrants returned to tour the great sights of the continent.

This chapter argues that, if liberty is understood strictly in its “negative” sense, that is, as the absence of obstacles to action imposed by humans, then Isaiah Berlin and Ronald Dworkin and others are mistaken in claiming that there is a conflict between the respective demands of liberty and equality. This chapter demonstrates that there is no such conflict because any gain in some person’s liberty is accompanied by a loss in liberty on the part of others, even if certain values associated with liberty and equality may sometimes conflict with them. As a result, enforced egalitarian policies can only redistribute liberty: they cannot be shown to diminish it.

Zhu Li, a leading expert on China’s economic engagement with the Indian Ocean region, gives a Chinese perspective on the impact of China’s Maritime Silk Road (MSR) initiative on South Asia. Li considers the differing Chinese and Indian perspectives on MSR, particularly what he calls the ‘cognitive divergence’ between China’s economic perspectives and India’s tendency to see Chinese initiatives in highly securitized terms. Li then examines India’s main options in responding to the MSR. Li argues that it will be in India’s interests to play an active role in the project. India has only to gain in economic terms from participating and the MSR could well become a focus for cooperation between the two countries. On the other hand, while the MSR would be negatively affected by India’s non-participation the MSR would not end. India does not have a veto over the MSR.

The flows of remittances and artefacts are centred upon the material entity of the house. New or totally refurbished houses in Albania emerge as the major materialisation of migratory remittances in the country of origin. The Albanian houses under research are perpetually undergoing construction, while their building materials are brought gradually from Greece, most of the time by the migrants themselves and of course, via the major cross-border road - namely the Kakavijë–Gjirokastër road. The material fluidity of these houses shows their integration into the prevalent cosmology of flows while it signifies an ontological link between the house and the roads. None of the two categories has static materiality; both are inflowing from Greece and represent simultaneously a wanted and an unwanted gain of postsocialist globalised experience. Migrants’ houses and roads are two aspects of the same process but with very different perceptions.

The aim of this case study is first, to determine the extent to which web 2.0 can be the technology that would enable a strong relationship between government and its citizens to develop in managing road safety and second, to examine the endeavours of the WA Office of Road Safety (ORS) in fostering the relationship. It shows that in ORS’ road safety strategy for 2008-2020, community engagement is strongly advocated for the successful development and execution of its road safety plan but the potential of web 2.0 approaches in achieving it is not recognised. This would involve the use of blogs and RSS as suitable push strategies to get road safety information to the public. Online civic engagement would harness collective intelligence (‘the wisdom of crowds’) and, by enabling the public to annotate information on wikis, layers of value could be added so that the public become co-developers of road safety strategy and policy. The case identifies three major challenges confronting the ORS to become Road Safety 2.0 ready: how to gain the publics’ attention in competition with other government agencies, how to respond internally to online citizen engagement, and how to manage governmental politics.

The aim of this case study is first, to determine the extent to which web 2.0 can be the technology that would enable a strong relationship between government and its citizens to develop in managing road safety, and second, to examine the endeavours of the WA Office of Road Safety (ORS) in fostering the relationship. It shows that in ORS’ road safety strategy for 2008-2020, community engagement is strongly advocated for the successful development and execution of its road safety plan, but the potential of web 2.0 approaches in achieving it is not recognised. This would involve the use of blogs and RSSes as suitable push strategies to get road safety information to the public. Online civic engagement would harness collective intelligence (the wisdom of crowds) and, by enabling the public to annotate information on wikis, layers of value could be added so that the public become co-developers of road safety strategy and policy. The case identifies three major challenges confronting the ORS to become Road Safety 2.0 ready: how to gain the publics’ attention in competition with other government agencies, how to respond internally to online citizen engagement, and how to manage governmental politics.

This chapter develops an account of critical cli-fi dystopias that exhibit, by turn, each of five ideal-typical responses to climate change: denial, mitigation, negative adaptation, positive adaptation, and Gaian deep ecological anti-humanism. The texts analysed include Ian McEwan’s Solar, Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312 and Aurora, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Jean-Marc Ligny’s AquaTM, David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks, Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, Claire Vaye Watkins’s Gold Fame Citrus, Brian Aldiss’s Helliconia trilogy and Frank Schätzing’s Der Schwarm.

Beijing has geopolitical, economic, and geostrategic ambitions for the Belt and Road. First, it wants to harness the Belt and Road to legitimize China’s developmental model of political authoritarianism and state capitalism worldwide. Africa, and large economies such as Kenya and Ethiopia, represents a key venue for the expansion of China’s model. China also seeks to drive the global expansion of China’s state-owned enterprises and private corporations and to offshore China’s overcapacity in heavy industries on its path to full economic development and modernization. Finally, Beijing aims to harness the Belt and Road to alleviate its geostrategic vulnerabilities. But there are challenges facing the Belt and Road. China’s model will only gain long lasting legitimacy if the initiative produces tangible economic development for foreign countries. In Sri Lanka, Malaysia, the Maldives, and across Asia, China’s economic and geostrategic aims face entrenched business and political interests, changing politics, conflict, and varying economic capacities to shoulder new debt.

An adaptive searching algorithm for the optimal slip during ABS wheel slip control is proposed. By taking advantage of the fluctuation of wheel slip control, the direction towards the optimal slip can be found, and the target slip calculated by the algorithm asymptotically converged to the optimal slip, which is proved using the Lyapunov theory. A gain-scheduling wheel slip controller is developed to control the wheel slip to the target slip. Simulations on the uniform road and on the road with changed friction are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Simulation results show that the ABS algorithm using the proposed searching algorithm can make full use of the road friction and adapts to road friction changes. Comparing with the conventional rule-based ABS, the pressure modulation amplitude and wheel speed fluctuation is significantly reduced, improving control performance of ABS.

Abstract An analytical investigation of a half-car model including passenger dynamics, subjected to random road disturbances is performed, and the advantage of active over conventional passive suspension systems are examined. Two different performance indices for optimal controller design are proposed. The performance index is a quantification of both ride comfort and road handling. Due to practical limitations, all the states required for the state-feedback controller are not measurable, and thus must be estimated with an observer. Stochastic inputs are applied to simulate realistic road surface conditions, and statistical comparisons between passive system and the two controllers, with and without state estimator, are carried out to gain a clearer insight into the performance of the controllers. The simulation results demonstrate that an optimal observer-based controller, when including passenger acceleration in the performance index, retains both excellent ride comfort and road handling characteristics.

This paper aims to present the role railway transport plays in European Union and in Romania. The importance of this mode of transport is shortly put to the reader forefronts, while at the same time there is presented its share in land transport market. Road transport has its advantages, but its market share cannot be motivated only by market considerations; there are other factors which put this type of transport on a predominant position. The advantages of rail transport are presented face-to-face with road transport especially for passengers’ transport, how railway transport can gain a greater share in land transport market, and how it can contribute to create the conditions of a more sustainable future.

For the past five years, Westinghouse Electric Company, PLC, has made ever increasing use of Technology Road Mapping, to direct company development efforts to achieve maximum benefits for our customers and ourselves. Comprised of business units in Nuclear Fuels, Nuclear Services and Nuclear Power Plants, including domestic and international business segments, Westinghouse must pay particular attention to coordinating development to satisfy the diverse needs of our growing international customer base. We must develop products which both benefit the individual Business Unit customer base, and which create synergy to produce the best possible offerings to the broader marketplace. The knowledge we gain through customer contacts and direct customer participation provides the basis from which we develop the Technology Road Map. This Road Map development process can be compared to painting a picture, where the background colors and features correspond to drivers related to the Customer and the prevailing features of the market environment. The subsequent layers of detail include broad Technical Objectives and then specific Technical Goals which will support achieving those Objectives. The process is described in detail, and examples are provided.

Based on the curvature information for an upcoming road, an automatic speed control system regulates vehicle speed to improve vehicle curve following performance. The road information is extracted from a digitally stored map using the current vehicle position obtained from Global Positioning System (GPS) data. Then, a safe curve speed is determined using the lateral dynamics of vehicle in turn to ensure proper curve handling. Other factors, such as vehicle characteristics, driver preferences, and road and environment conditions are also considered so that vehicle safety and driver comfort are enhanced. An acceleration command is generated from the current vehicle speed and the desired curve speed profile. Driving mode, such as conservative, normal, or aggressive mode, can be selected from the console for a desired driving style. The gain and preview time to determine the vehicle cornering speed are selected according to driver’s preference. The functional blocks of the system include computation of the road curvature, determination of a desired curve speed profile for the best cornering performance for an upcoming curve, and regulation of vehicle speed toward the desired speed. Signal input blocks and actuator control blocks are added to interface with the bus oriented sensors and actuators. The entrance and exit conditions block checks for various vehicle status signals to enter or exit the curve speed control mode gracefully. It also generates a diagnostic message when map data is absent or an error occurs on acceleration command computation. The vehicle studies indicated that the curve speed control system is effective in regulating vehicle speed during curve following maneuvers.

In this paper, a collision avoidance algorithm (CAA) has been proposed using variable time headway considering heterogeneous traffic. The time headway used in the proposed CAA was tuned based on the traffic scenarios, the host vehicle’s load conditions and the type of the lead vehicle that the host vehicle encounters in the traffic. The proposed variable time headway would help to avoid the intervention of the collision avoidance system during normal driving and gain driver’s acceptance. The CAA was evaluated using a hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) experimental set-up integrated with the vehicle dynamic simulation software IPG/TruckMaker® for different categories of lead vehicles such as 2/3 wheelers, passenger cars, light commercial road vehicles (LCVs) and heavy commercial road vehicles (HCVs). From the results, it was observed that while following a HCV, a smaller time headway was sufficient to prevent a collision compared to following a passenger car, LCV and 2/3 wheeler.

A comparison of the lateral stability behaviour between an autonomous vehicle, a vehicle with driver and a vehicle without driver (fixed steering wheel) is made by introducing a simple mathematical model of a vehicle running on even road. The mechanical model of the vehicle has two degrees of freedom and the related equations of motion contain the nonlinear tyre characteristics. The driver is described by a well-known model proposed in the literature. The autonomous vehicle has a virtual driver (robot) that behaves substantially like a human, but with its proper reaction time and gain. The road vehicle model has been validated. The study of vehicle stability has to be based on bifurcation analysis and a preliminary investigation is proposed here. The accurate computation of steady-state equilibria is crucial to study the stability of the three kinds of vehicles here compared. The stability of the bare vehicle without driver (fixed steering wheel) is studied in a rather complete way referring to a number of combinations of tyre characteristics. The (known) conclusion is that the understeering vehicle is stable at each lateral acceleration level and at each vehicle speed. The additional (partially unknown) conclusion is that the vehicle (model) with degradated tyres may exhibit a huge number of different bifurcations. The driver has many effects on the stability of the vehicle. One positive effect is to eliminate the many possible different equilibria of the bare vehicle and keep active one single equilibrium only. Another positive effect is to broaden the basin of attraction of stable equilibria (at least at relatively low speed). A negative effect is that, even for straight running, the driver seem introducing a subcritical Hopf bifurcation which limits the maximum forward speed of some understeering vehicles (that could run faster with fixed steering wheel). Both the mentioned positive and negative effects appear to be applicable to autonomous vehicles as well. Further studies could be useful to overcome the limitations on the stability of current autonomous vehicles that have been identified in the present research.