An n-town, n ∈ N, is a group of n buildings, each occupying a distinct position on a 2-dimensional integer grid. If we measure the distance between two buildings along the axis-parallel street grid, then an n-town has optimal shape if the sum of all pairwise Manhattan distances is minimized. This problem has been studied for cities, i.e., the limiting case of very large n. For cities, it is kno...

s Review Panel Chen Yu (Indiana University), Marty Mayberry (Saarland University) Ben Bergen (University of Hawaii at Manoa), Stefanie Kelter (Technical University of Berlin), Diane Pecher (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Seana Coulson (UCSD, USA), Marco Tettamanti (Institute of Molecular Bioimaging and Physiology, Italy), Berry Claus (Saarland University, Germany), Yuki Kamide (University of Du...

This article defines the key parameters of ‘state entrepreneurialism’ as a governance form that combines planning centrality and market instruments, and interprets how these two seemingly contradictory tendencies are made coherent in the political economic structures of post-reform China. Through examining urban regeneration programmes (in particular ‘three olds regeneration’, sanjiu gaizao), t...

Until now there have been no national estimates of the extent of poverty in Britain at the turn of the 20 century. This paper introduces a newly-discovered household budget data set for the early 1900s that is more representative of urban working households in Britain in the period than any other existing record, although not without deficiencies. We use these data to estimate urban poverty amo...

The theory of hyperstructures has been introduced byMarty in 1934 during the 8th Congress of the Scandinavian Mathematicians [4]. Marty introduced the notion of a hypergroup and since then many researchers have worked on this new topic of modern algebra and developed it. The notion of a hyperfield and a hyperring was studied first by Krasner [2] and then some authors followed him, for example, ...

Decentralization reforms aim at strengthening democracy by promoting political participation among citizens. Research shows (1) that information is a prerequisite for political participation and (2) that people face different private costs in acquiring information. Here we combine the two lines of research and ask: what private costs hamper the acquisition of information on decentralization? Fo...

1. Using beauty as an advertising tool – does it always work? 2. The ‘smell’ of other people’s anxiety makes us take more risks 3. Shock result! Asking children and teens to promise to tell the truth actually works 4. Moving the eyes but not looking – why do we do it? 5. How skilled are London taxi drivers at learning routes through unfamiliar towns? 6. Dramatic study shows participants are aff...

This is the third of our brief statistical reports on the daily life, health and environmental conditions of families living under curfew and in fear and danger, during the latest Israeli invasion of the town of Jenin. This report excludes Jenin Refugee Camp which deserves an investigation on its own. These reports form a series covering life events during Israel’s April 2000 re-occupation of t...

Unquestionably, rural Australia is under stress with the future of many small rural towns uncertain. To begin the process of reversing these downward trends, there needs to be increased community participation and improved democratic processes at the local level, and a framework through which to manage change. The role of leadership and the creation of learning communities are essential element...