My fieldwork uncovers the differing dynamics of the homeowner self-governance movement in three cities: In Shanghai, 94 percent of condominium communities have established homeowners’ associations (HoAs), compared with 41 percent in Shenzhen and only 12 percent in Beijing. In this chapter, I present a framework with two variables, the risk to social stability and state capacity, to explain the different styles of authoritarianism in the three cities, and examine the role of the local state in the development of HoAs.

There are four fundamental optimization problems arising in information theory: I-projection, maximum likelihood, rate distortion, and capacity. In Chapter 5 we show that all these problems have convex/concave objective functions, discuss iterative algorithms for solving them, and study the capacity problem in more detail. As an application, we show that Gaussian distribution extremizes mutual information in various problems with second moment constraints.

In Chapter 20 we study data transmission with constraints on the channel input. For example, how many bits per channel use can we transmit under constraints on the codewords? To answer this question in general, we need to extend the setup and coding theorems to channels with input constraints. After doing that we will apply these results to compute the capacities of various Gaussian channels (memoryless, with intersymbol interference and subject to fading).

The Introduction summarises the core themes of the book and outlines how the argument will proceed over the course of its chapters. It explains why the issue it centres around – namely, how the law grapples with the impact of mental disorder on decision-making – is so important, and why successfully navigating the tension between respect for (and deference to) idiosyncratic values, and protection from disorder or impairment, must be a precondition of England and Wales adopting ‘fused’ mental capacity and health legislation, or a more CRPD-compliant statutory framework. It also explains how the book relates to the existing literature in this area, which has focused in recent years on concerns about the binary nature of the capacity framework, and on the individualistic and rational ‘liberal subject’ on which this framework rests. Finally, it elaborates briefly on some of the concepts which the book will draw upon, in particular what is meant by ‘values’ and ‘beliefs’.

Here, we dive deeper into the realm of reversible Markov chains, via the perspective of network theory. The notions of conductance and resistance are defined, as well as voltage and current, and the corresponding mathematical theory.The Laplacian and Green function are defined and their relation to harmonic functions explained. The chapter culminates with a proof (using network theory) that recurrence and transience are essentially group properties: these properties remain invariant when changing between different reasonable random walks on the same group (specifically, symmetric and adapted with finite second moment).

This chapter reorients readings of Harriet Jacobs’s and Harriet Wilson’s (semi)autobiographies as narratives of disability. I underscore the inextricable links between girlhood, labor, and disability began in their self-authored texts, alongside Jean Fagan Yellin’s publication of The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers and other documents which detail the life of Harriet Wilson. I argue that these life writings demonstrate each woman’s post-captivity labors as a challenge to nineteenth-century extractive economies of bondage. Studying the (semi)autobiographies, public and private correspondence, journal entries, and newspaper advertisements related to Harriet Jacobs and Harriet Wilson not only makes legible their disabled lives, but also provides a complex understanding of the interrelation between labor, disability, capacity, and resistance.

This chapter deals with public health and pandemic preparedness. It recognises the five stages of a new pandemic (detection, assessment, treatment, escalation and recovery). The chapter also deals with the issue of laboratory preparedness and the need to maintain a critical mass of laboratory and skilled staff expertise at all times in order to be able to respond rapidly and effectively to a new emerging pandemic.

In Australia, the intentional teaching of social and emotional competencies and the implementation of social and emotional learning (SEL) programs have increasingly engaged early childhood educators over the last decade. Disruptions to normal routines from fires, floods and the COVID−19 pandemic have heightened the need to support children, families and educators, and have made SEL an essential part of curricula (Cahill et al., 2020). This chapter establishes the broad rationale and key concepts associated with SEL, and also details recommended approaches and evidence-based practices relevant to teaching for SEL. It also considers the crucial role that educators play in supporting young children during troublesome times.

The law presumes that all persons are capable of guiding their own day-to-day lives, but the presence of various types and degrees of mental disability or mental incapacity can call this capability into question. When competency is convincingly demonstrated to be impaired, to the extent that decision-making requires input, persistent guidance, or outright control by some external entity, the civil courts might elect at that juncture to impose some form of “substituted judgment.” Substituted judgment undertakes to address three broad and potentially overlapping decision-making domains, described here with brief accompanying examples: prior judgment (regarding wills and other advance directives), present judgment (regarding informed consent and the corresponding right to refuse treatment), and future judgment (regarding guardianship and conservatorship). This chapter will explore each of these domains in detail, identifying the contributions mental health professionals can make to reliable and valid forensic assessment in this regard.

This chapter considers children’s evolving capacities, particularly during adolescence. The law must value adolescence, while also recognising the risks it may entail. The chapter starts by reviewing some of the extensive body of research on children’s developing capacity for decision-making and explores how it might inform the law on adolescence. The chapter then considers the legal principles governing the relationship between adolescents and their parents. That law is ambivalent both over the extent of parental authority and the circumstances in which mature adolescents should be recognised as having the ability to make decisions over their own lives, regardless of the views of their parents. The chapter concludes by considering the application of these general principles in the fraught context of deprivation of liberty. The law’s confused approach to adolescent decision-making and parental authority leaves adolescents at risk of being deprived of this most important of rights without access to the legal safeguards that protect adults. This area of law is an excellent example of the practical consequences of the law’s ambivalence on adolescent autonomy and the role of parents.

In preparation for Chapters 5–7 – which detail the three components of the proposed trust-based framework – this chapter addresses three issues. With reference to the social rights literature, it first substantiates the conclusion that social rights are justiciable, justifying the need for an enforcement framework to be used by the courts. Secondly, the chapter describes how the courts can use the concept of political trust as the basis for a social rights enforcement framework. It explains that under the trust-based framework, the courts promote the elected branches’ trustworthiness with respect to social rights. The courts specifically hold the elected branches to a ‘standard of trustworthiness’, effectively enforcing the three constituent expectations of trust in the citizen-government relationship – goodwill, competence and fiduciary responsibility. Lastly, the chapter outlines four justifications – theoretical, instrumental, practical and democratic – for why political trust should provide the basis for a social rights enforcement framework.

this chapter will discuss the regulation of personal capacity (ahliya) and agency under the civil law of Qatar and will not deal with the issue of competence pertinent to foreign investors or specific competence of state (or administrative) entities, even if said competence concerns contractual freedom. The chapter deals with the most important types of agency and hence several are missing from this discussion. It will become clear from the discussion relating to personal capacity that several (but not all) principles underpinning classical Islamic law have been incorporated in the Qatari CC, despite the fact that they are to a large degree antiquated and out of touch with Qatar’s international obligations.