If the Moon Smiles on the Mappers of Madness: A Critique of the Cartographers of Insanity in Chandani Lokug's If the Moon Smiled

In her novel, If the Moon Smiled, Chandani Lokuge, the Sri Lankan-Australian writer, presents us with a madwoman figure whose gendered body, it can be argued, reflects the symbolic crisscrossing between the body as a 'bounded system' and the nation's territory as a bounded space. The constrictions that this boundedness and embodiedness entail, along with their various cultural encodings, are deftly and subtly treated in Lokuge's novel. The madwoman, Manthri, in the narrative, challenges many of our received ideas about place and displacement, and more importantly, sanity and insanity. Again, the novel stages a metaphorical interplay between the topoi of (gendered) insanity and political insanity, social 'normalization'(a la Michel Foucault) of the sexed body and political normalization of the nation's territorial body. The present article seeks to explore all these themes from the vantage point of gender. At the same time, it also interrogates the political dimension of the 'ethics of sexual difference'(a la Luce Irigaray). The main objective of this article is to situate a diasporic text within the problematic no-man's-land between place and displacement, sanity and insanity, dissent and dismemberment, Self and Other(individual/national/cultural)

Appreciative Methods Applied to the Assessment of Complex Systems

No abstract availabl

Appreciative Methods Applied to the Assessment of Complex Systems

Complex systems have characteristics that challenge traditional systems engineering processes and methods. These characteristics have been defined in various ways. INCOSE has previously identified characteristics of complex systems and potential methods to deal with complexity in system development. The purpose of this paper is to provide definitions and describe distinguishing characteristics of complexity using example systems to illustrate approaches to assessing the extent of complexity. The paper applies Appreciative Inquiry to identify and assess complex system characteristics. The characteristics are used to examine several different examples of systems to illuminate areas of complexity. These examples range from seemingly simple systems to complicated systems to complex systems. Different tiers of complexity are identified as a result of the assessment. The paper also identified and introduces topics on managing complexity and the integrating system perspective that represent new directions for the engineering of complex systems. The Appreciative Inquiry approach provides a method for systems engineering practitioners to more readily identify complexity when they encounter it, and to deal more effectively with this complexity once it has been identified

Two Higgs Doublet Model and Lepton Polarization in the B -> K tau+ tau- Decay

The decay width, forward-backward asymmetry and tau lepton longitudinal and transversal polarization for the exclusive (B -> K tau^+ tau^-) decay in a two Higgs doublet model are computed. It is shown that the forward-backward asymmetry and longitudinal polarization of the tau lepton are very effective tools for establishing new physics.Comment: 25 pages, 20 figures, LaTeX formatte

Rare B -> K^* l^+ l^- decay, two Higgs doublet model, and light cone QCD sum rules

The decay width, forward-backward asymmetry and lepton longitudinal and transversal polarization for the exclusive K^* -> l^+ l^- decay in a two Higgs doublet model are computed. It is shown that all these quantities are very effective tools for establishing new physics.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, LaTeX formatte

Analysis of the Department of Labor's role in advancing farmworker wages

This report describes farmworker wages since 1989 and assess what factors affect these wages. Two questions are answered: (1) What factors affect farmworker wage? (2) And what steps can the Department of Labor take to ensure equitable wages? The research found that several factors affect farmworker wages including gender, race, citizenship, legal exemptions, and the historical normalization of low wages paid on farms. The report concludes with recommendations for the Department of Labor on further research and policy solutions.Public Affair

Municipal Consolidation Strategies for Allegheny County

Due to the numerous municipal jurisdictions statewide and in our region, government fragmentation has become a significant impediment to providing efficient and effective municipal services. The revenue and administrative limitations on local governments make it difficult to maintain adequate emergency response services, park and recreation services, schools, and infrastructure. Historically this issue has been addressed as a structural problem, suggesting municipal mergers as an appropriate solution, however, political obstacles to actually eliminating inefficient municipalities have deterred this approach. Thus, the contemporary political vogue in our region has shifted to functional consolidation efforts through municipal cooperation. There are several avenues to realizing functional consolidation efforts for municipal jurisdictions. Act 177 of 1996 (Intergovernmental Cooperation Law) includes broad language regarding municipal cooperation. There are myriad applications of this legislation evident between municipalities, the most compelling and widely applicable seem to be Councils of Governments (COG's). Councils of Governments are a unique application of the Act 177 language; multifunctional organizations established by a group of municipalities in the interest of facilitating service programs better suited to cooperative provision than by individual local governments. However, in the more than forty years since their inception Councils of Governments remain chronically underutilized resources for many municipal regions. In fact, statewide COG's are widely considered to be an ineffective model for governance. In many cases this is due to a lack of funding, resources, and public awareness about the value of COG participation . It is this report's contention that by providing examples of best management practices for Pennsylvania Councils of Governments and increasing state funding and incentives for municipalities to participate in COG programs through the Pennsylvania State Department for Community and Economic Development (DCED), much of the factionalization of the local government structure in the state can be overcome. Because COG's are voluntary organizations, they can be strengthened without cumbersome legislative change and draw the support of many leaders in local government. Moreover, with minor legislative change to the COG's legal status Pennsylvania COG's could be an effective solution to the inefficiency of Allegheny County local government system