Extending geodemographics using data primitives: a review and a methodological proposal

This paper reviews geodemographic classifications and developments in contemporary classifications. It develops a critique of current approaches and identifiea a number of key limitations. These include the problems associated with the geodemographic cluster label (few cluster members are typical or have the same properties as the cluster centre) and the failure of the static label to describe anything about the underlying neighbourhood processes and dynamics. To address these limitations, this paper proposed a data primitives approach. Data primitives are the fundamental dimensions or measurements that capture the processes of interest. They can be used to describe the current state of an area in a multivariate feature space, and states can be compared over multiple time periods for which data are available, through for example a change vector approach. In this way, emergent social processes, which may be too weak to result in a change in a cluster label, but are nonetheless important signals, can be captured. As states are updated (for example, as new data become available), inferences about different social processes can be made, as well as classification updates if required. State changes can also be used to determine neighbourhood trajectories and to predict or infer future states. A list of data primitives was suggested from a review of the mechanisms driving a number of neighbourhood-level social processes, with the aim of improving the wider understanding of the interaction of complex neighbourhood processes and their effects. A small case study was provided to illustrate the approach. In this way, the methods outlined in this paper suggest a more nuanced approach to geodemographic research, away from a focus on classifications and static data, towards approaches that capture the social dynamics experienced by neighbourhoods

Towards the european strategy for particle physics: The briefing book

This document was prepared as part of the briefing material for the Workshop of the CERN Council Strategy Group, held in DESY Zeuthen from 2nd to 6th May 2006. It gives an overview of the physics issues and of the technological challenges that will shape the future of the field, and incorporates material presented and discussed during the Symposium on the European Strategy for Particle Physics, held in Orsay from 30th January to 2nd February 2006, reflecting the various opinions of the European community as recorded in written submissions to the Strategy Group and in the discussions at the Symposium

Building resilience or reinforcing vulnerability? The enduring allure of hard infrastructure as adaptation

This paper examines a climate buffer infrastructural paradox: that, despite an expansive archive documenting the limits of hard structural solutions, they retain their allure as a popular technical solution to protect against climatic hazards. The Leyte Tide Embankment Project (LTEP) in the Philippines, also known as “The Great Wall of Leyte”, is one of dozens of climate buffer megaprojects proliferating globally that promise to protect coastal zones from increasingly devastating climate hazards. Using the LTEP as a case study, we ask: what and who drives and sustains hard infrastructure as climate adaptation, and through what processes? To analyse this question, we conducted 45 in-depth interviews with project proponents, government officials, academics, practitioners and community members, as well as reviewed relevant documents to unravel the relations of power and politics that position the project as an effective and popular adaptation strategy. Through the lenses of urban political ecology and infrastructure studies, we argue that the LTEP derives its allure from the infrastructural politics of (in)visibility: the strategic deployment of hard infrastructures as visual tools to advance political agendas. These politics selectively highlight elements that symbolise protection and progress while obscuring aspects that fail to meet technical and aesthetic standards. The infrastructural politics of (in)visibility are shaped by multi-scalar power dynamics linking global and local interests that are propelled by a constellation of actors with diverse agendas and become active sites of negotiation and contestation where communities can organise and voice dissent