1,548 research outputs found
On the Impact of Strategy and Utility Structures on Congestion-Averse Games
No full textRecent results regarding games with congestion-averse utilities (or, congestion-averse games---CAGs) have shown they possess some very desirable properties. Specifically, they have pure strategy Nash equilibria, which may be found by a polynomial time algorithm. However, these results were accompanied by a very limiting assumption that each player is capable of using any subset of its available set of resources. This is often unrealistic---for example, resources may have complementarities between them such that a minimal number of resources is required for any to be useful. To remove this restriction, in this paper we prove the existence and tractability of a pure strategy equilibrium for a much more general setting where each player is given a matroid over the set of resources, along with the (upper and lower) bounds on the size of a subset of resources to be selected, and its strategy space consists of all elements of this matroid that fit in the given size range. (This, in particular, includes the possibility of having a full matroid, or having a set of bases of a matroid.) Moreover, we show that if a player strategy space in a given CAG does not satisfy these matroid properties, then a pure strategy equilibrium need not exist, and in fact the determination of whether or not a game has a pure strategy Nash equilibrium is NP-complete. We further prove analogous results for each of the congestion-averse conditions on utility functions, thus showing that current assumptions on strategy and utility structures in this model cannot be relaxed anymore
The Great Recession and School District Property Tax Revenues in Georgia
No full textCSLF Policy Brief , Publication No. 9, Feb. 10, 2015, Nicholas Warner The author outlines how declines in property values post-recession have greatly affected Georgia school districts, most especially those located in metro Atlanta.To learn more about the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies and Policy Briefs & Reports , visit https://aysps.gsu.edu/ and https://cslf.gsu.edu/research/
Mitigation in the law of damages
No full textThis thesis is the first monograph on mitigation in the English law of damages. Mitigation concerns the effect of the claimant's post-breach conduct on the assessment of damages. The leading texts propose that the doctrine consists of two main rules: first, the claimant cannot recover damages for losses that it could reasonably have avoided (the 'avoidable loss rule'); and second, the claimant cannot recover damages for losses that it has in fact avoided, except where the benefit did not 'arise out of the breach' (the 'avoided loss rule'). This thesis proposes a new descriptive and explanatory account of mitigation. It argues that the apparent distinction between the avoidable and avoided loss rules is illusory; instead, the rules of mitigation apply symmetrically to both harms and benefits. Contrary to the leading texts, it is argued that judges have been correct to explain mitigation as an aspect of causation. However, to understand why, we must move beyond the 'but-for' concept of causation and instead seek to apply the ordinary causal principles that people use outside the law. The implications of the thesis extend beyond the law of mitigation. First, the rules of mitigation also explain the so-called 'market rule', the 'betterment' rule, and 'supervening acts by the claimant'. Second, the thesis shows why the rights-based model of damages has overstretched in claiming that the law provides a universal entitlement to 'substitutive damages' for the infringement of rights. Third, the thesis revives and defends key arguments from Hart and Honoré's seminal investigation into ordinary causal concepts, with implications for every area of law where causal reasoning is invoked. Author also known as Andrew Summer
Edith (the chronicles)
No full textA book made as part of the Edith project commissioned by Hastings Council for the Root 1066 International Festival with support from the University for the Creative Arts.
The book, published by Badbloodandsibyl and edited by Andrew Kötting, includes both pinhole and 'digital' pinhole photographs by Anonymous Bosch and additional photographs by Iain Sinclair, with essays and texts from David Aylward, Claudia Barton, Anne Caron- Delion, John Clare, Gareth Evans, Jem Finer, Heinrich Heine, Nicholas Johnson, Ben Hopkins, Sarah Lloyd, Kristin O’Donnell, Alan Moore and Iain Sinclair.
To coincide with the release of the film, Edith Walks, the book is being distributed through Home in Manchester, The Lux and The Swedenborg Society.
The film Edith Walks is about a walk from Waltham Abbey to St Leonards-on-Sea documenting a pilgrimage made in memory of Edith Swan Neck, the eleventh-century wife of King Harold II of England. Bits of King Harold's body were brought to Waltham for burial near the High Altar after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and his hand-fast wife Edith Swan Neck is seen cradling him in a remarkable sculpture at Grosvenor Gardens on the seafront in St Leonards. The film reconnects the lovers after 950 years of separation. The 108-mile journey is interspersed with conversation between Alan Moore, Iain Sinclair and Edith Swan Neck, all key elements in the unfolding of the 'story'
What is the epidemiology and burden of foot fractures in the United Kingdom? Analysis of the global burden of disease study 2021.
No full textBackground: Foot fractures account for approximately 10 % of all fractures and 40 % of lower extremity fractures. They are associated with pain, mobility limitations, and prolonged recovery, contributing to considerable healthcare and societal costs. While the clinical and economic burden of foot fractures is recognised globally, data specific to the UK population are sparse, outdated, and often grouped under broader injury categories. Given rising demands on the UK's publicly funded NHS, an up-to-date, population-level understanding of foot fracture burden is essential for targeted prevention and planning.
Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study used publicly available model-based estimates from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2021 study. Incidence and Years Lived with Disability (YLDs) for foot fractures (excluding ankle) were analysed across the UK from 1990 to 2021. Age-standardised incidence rates (ASIR) and age-standardised YLD rates (ASYR) were examined. Poisson regression and Pearson correlation were used to explore associations between geography, age, and incidence. Leading causes of injury were also described.
Results: Between 1990 and 2021, the UK experienced an overall decline in ASIR for foot fractures, from 376.6 to 314.9 per 100,000. All four UK nations showed decreasing trends, with England demonstrating the steepest reduction (annual percentage change: -0.18 %). Regionally, London had the lowest incidence and highest rate of decline. Males had consistently higher incidence rates than females, with adolescent males (15-24) particularly affected. A strong negative correlation was observed between age and incidence (r = -0.850, p < .001), though incidence and YLDs in the elderly increased between 1990 and 2021. Falls were the leading cause of foot fractures, especially among older adults, and their incidence rose markedly over time.
Conclusion: Foot fractures remain a significant and evolving public health issue in the UK, particularly among young men and older women. The observed trends highlight successes in injury prevention but also reveal emerging needs-particularly in fall prevention and support for the ageing population. These findings support more targeted public health strategies and future economic evaluations of injury-related care in the NHS.This study was conducted as part of an MSc in Surgical Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. The lead author received an ASiT–ESO bursary to support MSc tuition fees. No other funding was received, and the authors declare no additional conflicts of interest relevant to this work
Emperor and author : the writings of Julian the Apostate /
No full textIncludes bibliographical references and index.Introduction Nicholas Baker-Brian and Shaun Tougher -- Julian the writer and his audience / Susanna Elm -- Reading between the lines : ; Julian's First Panegyric on Constantius II / Shaun Tougher -- 'But I digress...' : ; rhetoric and propaganda in Julian's second oration to Constantius / Hal Drake -- Is there an empress in the text? ; Julian's Speech of thanks to Eusebia / Liz James -- Julian's Consolation to himself on the departure of the excellent Salutius : ; rhetoric and philosophy in the fourth centurry / Josef Lössl -- The tyrant's mask? ; Images of good and bad rule in Julian's Letter to the Athenians / Mark Humphries -- Julian's Letter to Themistius -- and Themistius' response? / John W. Watt -- The emperor's shadow : ; Julian in his correspondence / Michael Trapp -- Julian the lawgiver / Jill Harries -- Words and deeds : ; Julian in the epigraphic record / Benet Salway -- Julian and his coinage : ; a very Constantinian prince / Fernando López Sánchez -- Roman authority, imperial authoriality, and Julian's artistic program / Eric R. Varner -- Julian's Hymn to the mother of the gods : ; the revival and justification of traditional religion / J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz -- Julian's Hymn to King Helios : ; the economical use of complex Neoplatonic concepts / Andrew Smtih -- The forging of an Hellenic orthodoxy : ; Julian's speeches against the cynics / Arnaldo Marcone -- The Christian context of Julian's Against the Galileans / David Hunt -- The politics of virtue in Julian's Misopogon / Nicholas Baker-Brian -- The Caesars of Julian the Apostate in translation and reception, 1580-ca -- 1800 / Rowland SmithAfterword: studying Julian the author / Jacqueline Long
Flexible Mx Specification of Various Extended Twin Kinship Designs
No full textThe extended twin kinship design allows the simultaneous testing of additive and nonadditive genetic, shared and individual-specific environmental factors, as well as sex differences in the expression of genes and environment in the presence of assortative mating and combined genetic and cultural transmission (Eaves et al., 1999). It also handles the contribution of these sources of variance to the (co)variation of multiple phenotypes. Keller et al. (2008) extended this comprehensive model for family resemblance to allow or a flexible specification of assortment and vertical transmission. As such, it provides a general framework which can easily be reduced to fit subsets of data such as twin-parent data, children-of-twins data, etc. A flexible Mx specification of this model that allows handling of these various designs is presented in detail and applied to data from the Virginia 30,000. Data on height, body mass index, smoking status, church attendance, and political affiliation were obtained from twins and their families. Results indicate that biases in the estimation of variance components depend both on the types of relative available for analysis, and on the underlying genetic and environmental architecture of the phenotype of interest. Author(s): Hermine H. Maes 1 * | Michael C. Neale 2 | Sarah E. Medland 3 | Matthew C. Keller 4 | Nicholas G. Martin 5 | Andrew C. Heath 6 | Lindon J. Eaves
Rethinking the Leges Henrici Primi
No full textThis essay demonstrates that the Leges Henrici Primi, the most important legal text surviving from early twelfth-century England, has been comprehensively misunderstood because modern readers have been misled by the considerable interpolations in the text. The essay exposes the interpolations and shows how the text should be understood as a tract on the hundred court; moreover, it argues that its author should now be identified as an anonymous hundred bailiff
Towards high-speed autonomous navigation of unknown environments
No full textIn this paper, we summarize recent research enabling high-speed navigation in unknown environments for dynamic robots that perceive the world through onboard sensors. Many existing solutions to this problem guarantee safety by making the conservative assumption that any unknown portion of the map may contain an obstacle, and therefore constrain planned motions to lie entirely within known free space. In this work, we observe that safety constraints may significantly limit performance and that faster navigation is possible if the planner reasons about collision with unobserved obstacles probabilistically. Our overall approach is to use machine learning to approximate the expected costs of collision using the current state of the map and the planned trajectory. Our contribution is to demonstrate fast but safe planning using a learned function to predict future collision probabilities.U.S. Army Research Laboratory. Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology Collaborative Technology Allianc
Planning for cooler cities: A framework to prioritise green infrastructure to mitigate high temperatures in urban landscapes
No full textabstract: Warming associated with urban development will be exacerbated in future years by temperature increases due to climate change. The strategic implementation of urban green infrastructure (UGI) e.g. street trees, parks, green roofs and facades can help achieve temperature reductions in urban areas while delivering diverse additional benefits such as pollution reduction and biodiversity habitat. Although the greatest thermal benefits of UGI are achieved in climates with hot, dry summers, there is comparatively little information available for land managers to determine an appropriate strategy for UGI implementation under these climatic conditions. We present a framework for prioritisation and selection of UGI for cooling. The framework is supported by a review of the scientific literature examining the relationships between urban geometry, UGI and temperature mitigation which we used to develop guidelines for UGI implementation that maximises urban surface temperature cooling. We focus particularly on quantifying the cooling benefits of four types of UGI: green open spaces (primarily public parks), shade trees, green roofs, and vertical greening systems (green walls and facades) and demonstrate how the framework can be applied using a case study from Melbourne, Australia.Corresponding Author:
Nicholas S.G. Williams
University of Melbourne
[email protected]
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