5,432 research outputs found
Ukraine at a Crossroads
No full textThe Orange Revolution in the fall of 2004 built great hopes for a better future for Ukraine. However, three years later those hopes have been replaced by disappointment, frustration and confusion. Although progress in the areas of political freedom, pluralism, civil rights and freedom in the media remains unquestionable the record of economic, institutional and legal reforms is much more problematic. The key macroeconomic indicators are not better than they were few years ago and the business climate has barely improved. The WTO accession process remains incomplete. The perspectives of Euro-Atlantic integration are continually subject to heated domestic political controversies. The political situation remains unstable, mostly due to the hasty constitutional changes that were adopted during the Orange Revolution. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the state of the Ukrainian economy at the end of 2007 and reflect upon what kind of reform program the Ukrainian government should consider, regardless of its political color. The reforms suggested in this paper involve a broad agenda of macroeconomic, social, structural and institutional measures. This agenda goes beyond the purely economic sphere and also addresses issues of legal, administrative and political reforms. The politics and political economy of any future reform effort will not be easy because the country is deeply divided in political, cultural, regional and ethnic terms. In such an environment, crucial reforms and strategic decisions will require a wider cross-party political consensus.Ukraine, Orange Revolution, CIS, transition, European Naighborhood Policy, Euro-Atlantic integration
A SUPERPOSITION PRINCIPLE FOR MIXED STATES
No full textAn approximate description of cyclic evolution of mixed states ρ (density matrices) is discussed in terms of vectors in R ⊗R (or Hilbert-Schmidt operators in R). It combines the decomposition ambiguity of ρ into pure states with the usual Berry phase for state vectors. The resulting non-Abelian quantum holonomy may be observable if the superposition principle is extended to R ⊗R © 1991 Società Italiana di Fisica
Introduction: drawing lessons from international policy-transfer initiatives in regional and urban development and spatial planning
No full textThe collection of papers in this issue brings new insights to the processes of international policy transfer and learning in the fields of regional and urban development policy, regional innovation and transit-oriented development. It explores, through the perspective of different disciplines, the motivations of actors, tangible and non-tangible outputs, the role of factors affecting the process, and the spillover effects of such process. The contributions bring new insights into what represents success and failure in policy transfer and provide valuable lessons for policy-makers facing the challenges of a fast-changing global context.Spatial Planning and Strateg
Quantum gauge symmetries in noncommutative geometry
No full textWe discuss generalizations of the notion of i) the group of unitary elements of a (real or complex) finite dimensional C*-algebra, ii) gauge transformations and iii) (real) automorphisms, in the framework of compact quantum group theory and spectral triples. The quantum analogue of these groups are defined as universal (initial) objects in some natural categories. After proving the existence of the universal objects, we discuss several examples that are of interest to physics, as they appear in the noncommutative geometry approach to particle physics: in particular, the C*-algebras M_n(R), M_n(C) and M_n(H), describing the finite noncommutative space of the Einstein-Yang-Mills systems, and the algebras A_F=C+H+M_3(C) and A^{ev}=H+H+M_4(C), that appear in Chamseddine-Connes derivation of the Standard Model of particle physics minimally coupled to gravity. As a byproduct, we identify a "free" version of the symplectic group Sp(n) (quaternionic unitary group)
Four Clusters o fThought on Flood Resilience and Climate Adaptation: The state of the art and new directions for spatial planning
No full textThe need to respond to increasing flood risk, climate change, and rapid urban development has shaped innovative policies and practices of spatial planning in many countries over recent decades. As an instrumental–technical intervention, planning is mainly used to improve the physical environment (through concepts such as regulating waterproof facades of architecture, setting buffering zones, and designing green-blue corridors). However, the implementation of the proposed physical interventions is often challenging and necessitates assistance from practices such as climate assessment, policy disciplines, civil societies, and economic resources. These extensive perspectives have spawned many new research domains in the realm of spatial planning. This chapter provides a review of the recent developments in flood resilience, risk management, and climate adaptation; based on this, it positions planning research and practice within these works of literature. Four clusters of thought are identified, mainly in the European and American scholarship of the last two decades. They are environmental concerns, disaster management concerns, socio-economic concerns, and institutional concerns. Current planning research concentrates on disaster management in the underlying belief that planning is functionally efficient. The attention to environmental concerns, socio-economic concerns, and institutional concerns of planning research remains insufficient but has been growing. This, in turn, enlarges the scope of planning research and indicates future directions for study. These new concerns relate to spatial planning’s ability to operate effectively in a multi-sectoral setting, despite limited resources and in the face of uncertain risk.Spatial Planning and Strateg
Diffeomorphisms, Orientation, and Pin Structures in 2 Dimensions
No full textA set of generators for the modular group of a surface with boundary, both in the orientable and nonorientable cases is given. All inequivalent pin structures are constructed and their transformations under these generators are computed
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