Available online: https://pub.norden.org/nord2023-037/ This policy brief highlights the main takeaways from the project “Nordic Stocktake and Visions – Pathways to climate neutrality”. The project has resulted in two main reports: Nordic Stocktake – Pathways to Climate Neutrality & Nordic Visions of Climate Neutrality. The Nordic Stocktake concludes that the Nordics need to accelerate the green transition, especially within transport, industry and agriculture. Countries that have the tools, know-how and institutional and financial capacity can demonstrate mitigation options in all sectors. The project's visions of a climate neutral Nordic society is not just only about emission reductions and technology. The net zero transformation creates opportunities, jobs and spurs investments and innovation. Nordic climate neutral societies are in social and environmental balance. A smarter society with inclusive democracy and long-term policies.
Available online: https://pub.norden.org/nord2023-038/ Visions are powerful tools in spurring action and creating support for the green transition. In the light of this, climate change policies need to be aligned with visions. The report shows that the Nordic countries share many of the same visions. Importantly, visions of a climate neutral Nordic society are not just about emission reductions and technologies. Instead, visions are about issues such as physical and mental health, spare time, and strong communities. This report is meant as a starting point for further dialogue about positive visions of climate neu-trality. From citizens to politicians, we all need to start thinking about what “a good life” is in a climate neutral world. The report presents a range of different visions derived from interviews with Nordic experts and thought leaders and from discussions at the Nordic Pavilion at COP27.
Available online: https://pub.norden.org/temanord2023-545/ The UNFCCC Global Stocktake will be conducted during COP28 in December 2023. The Nordic Stocktake report is intended as a regional tool to support the Global Stocktake process and spur to further climate action, both within the Nordics and beyond. The Nordic region needs to increase the pace of the green transition if we are to lead by example. The report is a stocktake of GHG emissions in the Nordic countries, and a description and assessment of the different national pathways towards climate neutrality in the Nordic region. Many of the challenges on the path towards climate neutrality are not unique to the Nordic countries and solving these in the Nordic region – in countries well-positioned to do so – would prove valuable for global climate action. The report highlights common challenges across the Nordic countries and proposes opportunities for further cross-Nordic collaboration.
The extraordinary recent increase in rates of cohabitation and non-marital birth presents a major challenge to traditional family law principles, and the legal rules governing cohabitation are thus among the most hotly contested areas of family law and policy today. In many nations, courts, legislatures, and law-reform bodies are "reinventing" common law marriage, seemingly without any sense of its history, doctrinal development, or limitations. The current law surrounding common law marriage is extremely complex. Professor Göran Lind has undertaken the demanding task of writing the most well-researched text on this topic to date. Separated into three Parts, Common Law Marriage covers the origins of the doctrine, its legal aspects in modern America, and the future of cohabitation law across the globe and in the 11 American jurisdictions that currently recognize common law marriage. It provides a cultural and historical history of the subject, from Ancient Roman Law to Medieval Canon Law, and analyzes over 2,000 American cases which have utilized the doctrine. This timely book is an excellent resource for scholars, legislators, and policymakers who are interested in the complex legalities of common law marriage.
Why small business is not the basis of American prosperity, not the foundation of American democracy, and not the champion of job creation. In this provocative book, Robert Atkinson and Michael Lind argue that small business is not, as is widely claimed, the basis of American prosperity. Small business is not responsible for most of the country's job creation and innovation. American democracy does not depend on the existence of brave bands of self-employed citizens. Small businesses are not systematically discriminated against by government policy makers. Rather, Atkinson and Lind argue, small businesses are not the font of jobs, because most small businesses fail. The only kind of small firm that contributes to technological innovation is the technological start-up, and its success depends on scaling up. The idea that self-employed citizens are the foundation of democracy is a relic of Jeffersonian dreams of an agrarian society. And governments, motivated by a confused mix of populist and free market ideology, in fact go out of their way to promote small business. Every modern president has sung the praises of small business, and every modern president, according to Atkinson and Lind, has been wrong. Pointing to the advantages of scale for job creation, productivity, innovation, and virtually all other economic benefits, Atkinson and Lind argue for a “size neutral” policy approach both in the United States and around the world that would encourage growth rather than enshrine an anachronism. If we overthrow the “small is beautiful” ideology, we will be able to recognize large firms as the engines of progress and prosperity that they are.
...the story takes some refreshingly unexpected turns, picking a path through genre cliches and keeping readers guessing. Fans of silver screen crime should approve, as, in many respects, this reads like the novelization of a movie." — Kirkus “Britt Lind has written an intriguing mystery filled with twists and turns that takes place in a world she knows well from every perspective.” – Carlyne Grager – Talent Representative and Owner of Dramatic Artists Agency Los Angeles and Seattle. The battle between good and evil is ill defined in the land of Hollywood. Rarely do kind, compassionate souls win the spoils of war which makes their rare victories all the sweeter. Josh Sibley, singer/songwriter, is handsome, talented, smart and headed for oblivion. Alcohol provides relief when his demons threaten to overwhelm his every effort to break free of his past. When his friend Jennie Seger arranges for him to write songs for a multi-million-dollar feature, all his doubts and fears fall away, and he embraces the opportunity like a starving man who has found a bounteous feast during a famine. Lightning strikes his lonely heart in the form of singer/actress Lila Levy who is married to the producer of the movie and flaunts her sexuality at Josh knowing her breathtaking beauty more than makes up for her lack of talent. Knowing his love for Lila is doomed from the start, he overlooks her shortcomings and keeps his feelings under wraps as he teaches her to sing his songs. But this is Hollywood, and nothing is as it seems. Lila has secrets that Josh cannot begin to fathom and doesn’t want to know. When her husband Stan is murdered, Lila disappears and Josh is confronted by the woman determined to track her down - Sergeant Rosemaria Baker of the Beverly Hills Police Department. Rosemaria is the opposite of Lila; hates show business and considers Josh a delusional loser. When the cops track down Lila and bring her in, Lila declares herself innocent and the fight for the soul of Josh Sibley begins.
Since the establishment of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) tensions concerning immigration trends and policies, which continued to escalate at the turn of the millennium resulted in revised national security policies in Mexico, Canada, and the United States. These tensions have catalyzed the three governments to rethink their political and economic agendas. While national feminist scholarship in and on these respective countries continue to predominate, since NAFTA, there has been increasing feminist inquiry in a North American regional frame. Less has been done to understand challenges of the hegemonies of nation, region, and empire in this context and to adequately understand the meaning of (im)mobility in people's lives as well as the (im)mobilities of social theories and movements like feminism. Drawing from current feminist scholarship on intimacy and political economy and using three main frameworks: Fortressing Writs/Exclusionary Rights, Mobile Bodies/Immobile Citizenships, and Bordered/Borderland Identities, a handpicked group of established and rising feminist scholars methodically examine how the production of feminist knowledge has occurred in this region. The economic, racial, gender and sexual normativities that have emerged and/or been reconstituted in neoliberal and securitized North America further reveal the depth of regional and global restructuring.
A major new theory of why human intelligence has not evolved in other species The Human Evolutionary Transition offers a unified view of the evolution of intelligence, presenting a bold and provocative new account of how animals and humans have followed two powerful yet very different evolutionary paths to intelligence. This incisive book shows how animals rely on robust associative mechanisms that are guided by genetic information, which enable animals to sidestep complex problems in learning and decision making but ultimately limit what they can learn. Humans embody an evolutionary transition to a different kind of intelligence, one that relies on behavioral and mental flexibility. The book argues that flexibility is useless to most animals because they lack sufficient opportunities to learn new behavioral and mental skills. Humans find these opportunities in lengthy childhoods and through culture. Blending the latest findings in fields ranging from psychology to evolutionary anthropology, The Human Evolutionary Transition draws on computational analyses of the problems organisms face, extensive overviews of empirical data on animal and human learning, and mathematical modeling and computer simulations of hypotheses about intelligence. This compelling book demonstrates that animal and human intelligence evolved from similar selection pressures while identifying bottlenecks in evolution that may explain why human-like intelligence is so rare.
Governments increasingly offer or demand apologies for past human rights abuses, and it is widely believed that such expressions of contrition are necessary to promote reconciliation between former adversaries. The post-World War II experiences of Japan and Germany suggest that international apologies have powerful healing effects when they are offered, and poisonous effects when withheld. West Germany made extensive efforts to atone for wartime crimes-formal apologies, monuments to victims of the Nazis, and candid history textbooks; Bonn successfully reconciled with its wartime enemies. By contrast, Tokyo has made few and unsatisfying apologies and approves school textbooks that whitewash wartime atrocities. Japanese leaders worship at the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors war criminals among Japan's war dead. Relations between Japan and its neighbors remain tense. Examining the cases of South Korean relations with Japan and of French relations with Germany, Jennifer Lind demonstrates that denials of past atrocities fuel distrust and inhibit international reconciliation. In Sorry States, she argues that a country's acknowledgment of past misdeeds is essential for promoting trust and reconciliation after war. However, Lind challenges the conventional wisdom by showing that many countries have been able to reconcile without much in the way of apologies or reparations. Contrition can be highly controversial and is likely to cause a domestic backlash that alarms—rather than assuages—outside observers. Apologies and other such polarizing gestures are thus unlikely to soothe relations after conflict, Lind finds, and remembrance that is less accusatory-conducted bilaterally or in multilateral settings-holds the most promise for international reconciliation.
This two-volume work addresses every key, cutting-edge issue regarding the First Amendment, including subjects such as freedom of religion, freedom of press, freedom of speech, and freedom of organization. First Amendment Rights: An Encyclopedia provides both historical information and current, 21st-century topics in First Amendment issues. Volume 1 addresses the subject through the lens of past decisions and precedent, updated to include controversies between new social media and civil liberties. Volume 2 examines the current state of First Amendment rights, addressing the changes in interpretations of the First Amendment by the Roberts Court as well as in-vogue issues such as Occupy Movements as well as student rights and responsibilities in freedom of religion and speech cases. Key cases are highlighted throughout the text to further comprehension of the underlying issues and subtle complexities. The information is presented so that readers can examine cases in the Roberts court and draw their own conclusions. Coverage is also provided of the challenges and opportunities that arise with the adoption of new technologies and their impact on the interpretations of the First Amendment.
Symbolic dynamics is a mature yet rapidly developing area of dynamical systems. It has established strong connections with many areas, including linear algebra, graph theory, probability, group theory, and the theory of computation, as well as data storage, statistical mechanics, and $C^*$-algebras. This Second Edition maintains the introductory character of the original 1995 edition as a general textbook on symbolic dynamics and its applications to coding. It is written at an elementary level and aimed at students, well-established researchers, and experts in mathematics, electrical engineering, and computer science. Topics are carefully developed and motivated with many illustrative examples. There are more than 500 exercises to test the reader's understanding. In addition to a chapter in the First Edition on advanced topics and a comprehensive bibliography, the Second Edition includes a detailed Addendum, with companion bibliography, describing major developments and new research directions since publication of the First Edition.
The agent metaphor and the agent-based approach to systems design constitute a promising new paradigm for building complex distributed systems. However, until now, the majority of the agent-based applications available have been built by researchers who specialize in agent-based computing and distributed artificial intelligence. If agent-based computing is to become anything more than a niche technology practiced by the few, then the base of people who can successfully apply the approach needs to be broadened dramatically. A major step in this broadening endeavor is the development of methodologies for agent-oriented software engineering accessible to and attractive for professional software engineers in their daily work. Against this background, this book presents one of the first coherent attempts to develop such a methodology for a broad class of agent-based systems. The author provides a clear introduction to the key issues in the field of agent-oriented software engineering.
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