‘The party’s over’: critical junctures, crises and the politics of housing policy

The key argument set out in this article is that historical and comparative forms of investigation are necessary if we are to better understand the ambitions and scope of contemporary housing interventions. To demonstrate the veracity of our claim, we have set out an analysis of the UK housing polices enacted in the mid-1970s as a basis for comparison with those pursued 40 years later. The article begins with a critical summary of some of the methodological approaches adopted by researchers used to interpret housing policy. In the main section, we present our critical analysis of housing policy reforms (implemented by the Labour government between 1974 and 1979) noting both their achievements and limitations. In the concluding section, we use our interpretation of this period as a basis to judge contemporary housing policy and reflect on the methodological issues that arise from our analysis

Shock-tube measurements of the homogeneous rate of decomposition on NH_3 in NH_3-AR mixtures

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Further shock-tube studies by infrared emission of the decomposition of ammonia

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The status of household food security targets in South Africa

This article investigates the conceptual and methodological challenges to develop a set of baseline indicators for South African food security targets. A food security target is a well-defined and measurable goal to reduce the numbers of people who lack enough food of the right quality to live healthy lives. To derive baseline indicators for household food security, the following question is asked: what is the average cost of a nutritionally adequate food basket per person? The cost of recommended nutrient intake is based on estimates of dietary energy costs. Reported food expenditure for each household based on 2005/2006 Income and Expenditure Survey data gets compared to two dietary energy cost baskets. The food expenditure shares of the poorest households vary between 38% and 71% according to different surveys. At food expenditure levels reported in the IES, one in five households meet their average dietary energy cost. Deep levels of food insecurity exist in rural areas with 85% of rural households unable to afford even the ‘below average dietary energy costs’. Food security policy based on refined baseline indicators can better target food insecure households. Another policy benefit is that robust indicators help to develop effective monitoring capabilities.food security, dietary energy cost, household expenditure, methodology, South Africa, Consumer/Household Economics,

Fibrational induction rules for initial algebras

This paper provides an induction rule that can be used to prove properties of data structures whose types are inductive, i.e., are carriers of initial algebras of functors. Our results are semantic in nature and are inspired by Hermida and Jacobs’ elegant algebraic formulation of induction for polynomial data types. Our contribution is to derive, under slightly different assumptions, an induction rule that is generic over all inductive types, polynomial or not. Our induction rule is generic over the kinds of properties to be proved as well: like Hermida and Jacobs, we work in a general fibrational setting and so can accommodate very general notions of properties on inductive types rather than just those of particular syntactic forms. We establish the correctness of our generic induction rule by reducing induction to iteration. We show how our rule can be instantiated to give induction rules for the data types of rose trees, finite hereditary sets, and hyperfunctions. The former lies outside the scope of Hermida and Jacobs’ work because it is not polynomial; as far as we are aware, no induction rules have been known to exist for the latter two in a general fibrational framework. Our instantiation for hyperfunctions underscores the value of working in the general fibrational setting since this data type cannot be interpreted as a set

Modernisation, marketization and housing reform: the use of evidence based policy as a rationality discourse

Evidence based policy (EBP) has served as a persuasive rationale for government intervention; providing a framework for evaluation through techniques of comprehensive and systematic review, closely associated in the UK with the welfare reforms undertaken by the Blair and Brown led Labour governments. In this article, we seek to show how EBP continues to serve as a convenient device for governments to present policy-making to a wider public, gaining legitimacy through an appeal to technical rationality and thereby shielding from scrutiny the underlying ideologies and politics that constitute housing practice. Following a brief discussion of the emergence of an ‘instrumental’ turn in housing policy, we consider the deployment of evidence based rationalities using the examples of public housing stock transfer, the Housing Market Renewal programme and the 2011 Localism Act as evidence to support our arguments. Our key claim is that whilst housing policy makers continue to promote EBP as a rationality to justify decision making, the choices they pursue are best explained by factors largely unrelated to ‘evidence’; for example the relative power and influence of interest groupings both within government and beyond. We conclude with the suggestion that housing policy research requires a significant reorientation if it is to provide insights into aspects of policy making that remain under-examined

Single Photon Source Using Laser Pulses and Two-Photon Absorption

We have previously shown that two-photon absorption (TPA) and the quantum Zeno effect can be used to make deterministic quantum logic devices from an otherwise linear optical system. Here we show that this type of quantum Zeno gate can be used with additional two-photon absorbing media and weak laser pulses to make a heralded single photon source. A source of this kind is expected to have a number of practical advantages that make it well suited for large scale quantum information processing applications

Magnetic structures of RbCuCl_3 in a transverse field

A recent high-field magnetization experiment found a phase transition of unknown character in the layered, frustrated antiferromagnet RbCuCl_3, in a transverse field (in the layers). Motivated by these results, we have examined the magnetic structures predicted by a model of RbCuCl_3, using the classical approximation. At small fields, we obtain the structure already known to be optimal, an incommensurate (IC) spiral with wave vector q in the layers. At higher fields, we find a staircase of long-period commensurate (C) phases (separated initially by the low-field IC phase), then two narrow IC phases, then a fourth IC phase (also with intermediate C phases), and finally the ferromagnetically aligned phase at the saturation field H_S. The three-sublattice C states familiar from the theory of the triangular antiferromagnet are never optimal. The C phases and the two intermediate IC phases were previously unknown in this context. The magnetization is discontinuous at a field \approx 0.4H_S, in qualitative agreement with experiment, though we find much fine structure not reported.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure