Complex biological systems are considered to be controlled using feedback mechanisms. Reduced systems modelling has been effective to describe these mechanisms, but this approach does not sufficiently encompass the required complexity that is needed to understand how localised control in a biological system can provide global stable states. Self-Organised Criticality (SOC) is a characteristic property of locally interacting physical systems, which readily emerges from changes to its dynamic state due to small nonlinear perturbations. These small changes in the local states, or in local interactions, can greatly affect the total system state of critical systems. It has long been conjectured that SOC is cardinal to biological systems, that show similar critical dynamics, and also may exhibit near power-law relations. Rate Control of Chaos (RCC) provides a suitable robust mechanism to generate SOC systems, which operates at the edge of chaos. The bio-inspired RCC method requires only local instantaneous knowledg…
This chapter investigates the construction of the blasphemy provisions of the Indian Criminal Code of 1860 and its subsequent revisions. This is shown to have a substantial afterlife as a touchstone of potential multicultural significance in refereeing between the competing claims of different religious groups. As such, it has regularly been invoked as a possible solution to issues facing countries seeking to move beyond protection for a state religion to a wider recognition of the rights of all the religious. The Code’s provisions also seemed attractive because they focussed upon apparently equalising conceptions of public order, but the politics surrounding this often served to inhibit the wholesale adoption of its provisions.
The combined processes of globalisation, urbanisation, environmental change, population growth and rapid technological development have resulted in an increasingly complex, dynamic and interrelated world in which concerns about the meaning of cultural heritage and identity, the depletion of natural resources, the increasing gap between rural and urban areas, and the impacts of climate change are increasingly prominent in the global consciousness. As the need for culturally and environmentally sustainable design grows, the challenge for professionals involved in the management of inherited built environments is to respond to this rapidly evolving context in a critical, dynamic and creative way. In addition to by now well-established historic conservation practices, the active regeneration, rehabilitation or revitalisation of existing buildings has emerged in recent years as an important field of architectural practice. At a time when regeneration policy has shifted to the recognition that ‘heritage matters…
This paper proposes and empirically assesses a social cognition conceptual model linking creativity (both artistic and scholarly), entrepreneurial personality traits, and entrepreneurial intention. Specifically, the study draws on social cognition perspectives to investigate the potential role of creativity as a mechanism underlying the relationship between entrepreneurial personality traits and entrepreneurial intention. Using a sample of 194 creative nascent entrepreneurs, the study tests the proposed model using Partial Last Squares Structural Equations Modeling (PLS-SEM). The study reveals that, among entrepreneurial personality traits, only risk-taking propensity is positively related to entrepreneurial intention. Interestingly, while artistic creativity seems to enhance entrepreneurial intention, scholarly creativity is found to stimulate a more cautious approach toward venturing. The findings also reveal that scholarly creativity fully mediates the relationship between tolerance for ambiguity and entre…
Heritage or conservation-led regeneration has now become an accepted and recognised approach to the conservation, economic and social development of historic areas. The benefits of reusing the existing building stock, however, can be much wider and should not be confined to strictly ‘heritage’ areas or those perceived as having a ‘historic’ character. Reuse and adaptation of existing buildings contributes to regeneration and sustainability at many levels. The existing building stock includes a broad range of buildings from highly significant historic buildings where sensitive and meticulous conservation is of the essence to buildings that are arguably less important in their own right but nonetheless contribute to the character of an area. Existing buildings, whether they are of great historic significance or not, form a significant part of the real estate asset with opportunities for change and reuse. Pressures on land and increasing density in city centre locations can result in buildings being demolishe…
Historic buildings, urban quarters and even small remnants of past layers all contribute to the character, identity and diversity of the urban environment. The value of historic quarters as one of the defining elements of a city’s identity now enjoys global recognition (Bandarin and van Oers 2012). The walkability, mixed use and low-rise high density characteristics, particularly of preindustrial quarters, are part of the attraction that see them variously re-imagined as centres for creativity, as tourism magnets and more recently as templates for sustainable living. An historic quarter or urban area can be any number of things to include tight knit town centres with medieval or earlier origins, former villages now absorbed into urban conurbations, colonial settlements and planned neighbourhoods of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and former industrial clusters and waterfronts. Most importantly, they are integral components of a greater urban whole, markers of a city’s identity and lived-in places of co…
Cycles of decline and rejuvenation, and the adaptation and re-use of buildings, have been common constants of the built environment throughout the history of human settlement. The more formalised practices of building conservation and regeneration on the other hand are an outcome of movements that emerged in the nineteenth century, which were informed by theoretical standpoints that were products of the post-Enlightenment positivist, rational and romantic outlooks (Gelernter 1995). Some of these theories and standpoints continue to inform interventions in the built environment, while others have been eclipsed by alternative worldviews and environmental realities. Architectural regeneration as a notion and as a distinct discipline emerges from a number of those concurrent, symbiotic, complementary and sometimes conflicting theories. The purpose of this chapter is to position architectural regeneration into its theoretical context and to demonstrate how it continues to be informed by a range of contemporary phi…
The previous chapters have considered regeneration as a long term investment in an area through securing the future of buildings and places of architectural and communal significance. This chapter expounds the temporal dimension of regeneration and specifically focuses on short term or time bound interventions, considering their longer term implications for architectural regeneration in the context of the economic and social sustainability of places. Temporary structures have always been a fixture of urban and rural places, allowing spaces to be used for different functions, such as weekly markets or seasonal festivals. In rural areas temporary structures provide accommodation for seasonal agricultural workers, while entire towns are temporarily constructed to house pilgrims (Mehrotra and Vera 2015). In many parts of the world, temporary street vendors contribute to diversification of the retail offer and activate public spaces in the urban realm. There are also a host of other temporary activities that com…
Cities are faced with complex challenges in urban governance, integrating the many and varied voices of the city into decision-making frameworks. This is particularly the case in the arena of urban regeneration, where (at times) opposing interests are involved in governance processes at the level of neighbourhood regeneration. The aim of this chapter is to explore the key players that are involved in the process of regeneration, from national governments through to local public sector bodies, private sector involvement, and the engagement of community groups and civil society, and to analyse how the balance of interests between these players has changed over time with the evolution of policy towards urban regeneration since the 1980s. Urban regeneration is an umbrella term that refers to ‘those policies and strategies that have been designed to deal with urban decline, decay and social and economic transformation’ (Imrie et al. 2009: 4). Given its broad remit, the term ‘urban regeneration’ implies an integr…