The year 2007 marked not only the centenary of Imperial College London but also the 50th anniversary of the late Nobel Laureate Professor Abdus Salam's arrival at the College. Accordingly, a conference entitled “Salam + 50” organized by the Theoretical Physics Group was held at Imperial College on 7 July 2007.Many distinguished guests attended and paid their respects to the great man. Their contributions recorded in these proceedings are divided into three sections, designed to reflect the three dimensions of Salam's character: 1) Salam the Scientist, 2) Salam the Humanitarian, and 3) Salam the Man./a
One of our most eminent Lincoln scholars, winner of a Lincoln Prize for his Lincoln at Cooper Union, examines the four months between Lincoln's election and inauguration, when the president-elect made the most important decision of his coming presidency—there would be no compromise on slavery or secession of the slaveholding states, even at the cost of civil war. Abraham Lincoln first demonstrated his determination and leadership in the Great Secession Winter—the four months between his election in November 1860 and his inauguration in March 1861—when he rejected compromises urged on him by Republicans and Democrats, Northerners and Southerners, that might have preserved the Union a little longer but would have enshrined slavery for generations. Though Lincoln has been criticized by many historians for failing to appreciate the severity of the secession crisis that greeted his victory, Harold Holzer shows that the presidentelect waged a shrewd and complex campaign to prevent the expansion of slavery while vainly trying to limit secession to a few Deep South states. During this most dangerous White House transition in American history, the country had two presidents: one powerless (the president-elect, possessing no constitutional authority), the other paralyzed (the incumbent who refused to act). Through limited, brilliantly timed and crafted public statements, determined private letters, tough political pressure, and personal persuasion, Lincoln guaranteed the integrity of the American political process of majority rule, sounded the death knell of slavery, and transformed not only his own image but that of the presidency, even while making inevitable the war that would be necessary to make these achievements permanent. Lincoln President-Elect is the first book to concentrate on Lincoln's public stance and private agony during these months and on the momentous consequences when he first demonstrated his determination and leadership. Holzer recasts Lincoln from an isolated prairie politician yet to establish his greatness, to a skillful shaper of men and opinion and an immovable friend of freedom at a decisive moment when allegiance to the founding credo "all men are created equal" might well have been sacrificed.
Okay, who was the first flatterer? If you guessed Satan, you'd be close, but according to YOU'RE TOO KIND, flattery began with chimpanzees, who groom each other all day long. In fact, flattery is an adaptive behaviour that has helped us survive since caveman days. It's in our genes. Our flattery is simply strategic praise, and to illustrate its myriad forms, Richard Stengel takes us on a witty idiosyncratic tour, from chimps to the God of the Old Testament (who craved flattery but never got it), to the troubadour poets of the Middle Ages (who invented the sappy cliches of romantic flattery), all the way through to Dale Carnegie (flattery will get you everywhere) and Monica Lewinsky's adoring love letters to her Big Creep (faux insults are also a form of flattery). Flattery thrives in hierarchical settings like royal courts or Fortune 500 boardrooms, and it oils the social machinery of everyday life. Studies show it works best on those who already have high opinions of themselves. Stengel sees public flattery as an epidemic in our society and private praise as being all too scarce. Most often, though, flattery these days is just a harmless deception, a victimless crime that often ends up making both the giver and the receiver feel a little better. In short, flattery works.
We construct a comprehensive public sector balance sheet for Finland from 2000 to 2016 by complementing general government statistics with data on public corporations and public pensions. We show that exposure to valuation changes in equity markets through asset holdings and increases in pension liabilities relative to GDP amplify crisis impacts on public finances. We expand the balance sheet by including present value estimates of future fiscal flows; this allows us to perform fiscal stress tests and policy experiments. These analyses suggest that Finland’s public finances will remain sound provided ongoing reform and consolidation efforts to address aging pressures are implemented as planned.
This study explores the prospect of the application of the basic principles of ICL into many other potential areas of social and economic policy. Using case studies it evaluates previously implemented ICL schemes where interest rate subsidies are usually the norm, and questions the merits of this approach.
The Internet was supposed to be an antidote to authoritarianism. It can enable citizens to express themselves freely and organize outside state control. Yet while online activity has helped challenge authoritarian rule in some cases, other regimes have endured: no movement comparable to the Arab Spring has arisen in China. In Contesting Cyberspace in China, Rongbin Han offers a powerful counterintuitive explanation for the survival of the world’s largest authoritarian regime in the digital age. Han reveals the complex internal dynamics of online expression in China, showing how the state, service providers, and netizens negotiate the limits of discourse. He finds that state censorship has conditioned online expression, yet has failed to bring it under control. However, Han also finds that freer expression may work to the advantage of the regime because its critics are not the only ones empowered: the Internet has proved less threatening than expected due to the multiplicity of beliefs, identities, and values online. State-sponsored and spontaneous pro-government commenters have turned out to be a major presence on the Chinese internet, denigrating dissenters and barraging oppositional voices. Han explores the recruitment, training, and behavior of hired commenters, the “fifty-cent army,” as well as group identity formation among nationalistic Internet posters who see themselves as patriots defending China against online saboteurs. Drawing on a rich set of data collected through interviews, participant observation, and long-term online ethnography, as well as official reports and state directives, Contesting Cyberspace in China interrogates our assumptions about authoritarian resilience and the democratizing power of the Internet.
In Putting the Humanities PhD to Work Katina L. Rogers grounds practical career advice in a nuanced consideration of the current landscape of the academic workforce. Drawing on surveys, interviews, and personal experience, Rogers explores the evolving rhetoric and practices regarding career preparation and how those changes intersect with admissions practices, scholarly reward structures, and academic labor practices—especially the increasing reliance on contingent labor. Rogers invites readers to consider how graduate training can lead to meaningful and significant careers beyond the academy. She provides graduate students with context and analysis to inform the ways they discern their own potential career paths while taking an activist perspective that moves toward individual success and systemic change. For those in positions to make decisions in humanities departments or programs, Rogers outlines the circumstances and pressures that students face and gives examples of programmatic reform that address career matters in structural ways. Throughout, Rogers highlights the important possibility that different kinds of careers offer engaging, fulfilling, and even unexpected pathways for students who seek them out.
Tomorrow's best physicians will be those who continually learn, adjust, and innovate as new information and best practices evolve, reflecting adaptive expertise in response to practice challenges. As the first volume in the American Medical Association's MedEd Innovation Series, The Master Adaptive Learner is an instructor-focused guide covering models for how to train and teach future clinicians who need to develop these adaptive skills and utilize them throughout their careers. - Explains and clarifies the concept of a Master Adaptive Learner: a metacognitive approach to learning based on self-regulation that fosters the success and use of adaptive expertise in practice. - Contains both theoretical and practical material for instructors and administrators, including guidance on how to implement a Master Adaptive Learner approach in today's institutions. - Gives instructors the tools needed to empower students to become efficient and successful adaptive learners. - Helps medical faculty and instructors address gaps in physician training and prepare new doctors to practice effectively in 21st century healthcare systems. - One of the American Medical Association Change MedEd initiatives and innovations, written and edited by members of the ACE (Accelerating Change in Medical Education) Consortium – a unique, innovative collaborative that allows for the sharing and dissemination of groundbreaking ideas and projects.
