The emergence of the emergence-based approach in community practice

Community practitioners are often challenged to work in complex environments and situations that naturally occur in communities. This article focuses on the theoretical and practical use of the Emergence-Based Approach that is relevant for work in complex community situations. Using this approach, the practitioner encourages the emergence of novel ideas and initiatives, and engages a decentralized network of activists, helping them develop their initiatives. Using a field study, we compare this approach to the traditional Outcomes-Based Approach. Although their mindsets are very different, and even contradict one another, we suggest practical ways to combine the two in an effective way.     

从噪声产生有序的原理：非指导性的学习和做梦

文章从两个方面阐述了生物的自组织亦即其复杂性的问题：一、生物后天行为的性状不是机械地由遗传基因决定的,而是由基因组与细胞内理化环境（包括被基因决定产生的蛋白质）之间的相互作用所形成的调节机制决定的;二、生物的自组织和复杂化是通过生物在充满随机作用的环境中自主地摸索自身行为可以遵循的概率性规律、从而减少自身结构中的冗余性以增加异质性而实现的。     

古印度哲学的信息、系统、复杂性思想的基本特质(上)

古印度哲学中蕴涵着丰富而深刻的信息、系统与复杂性思想,可以归纳为十二个方面的特质:丰富的宇宙及其事物自生性的过程论思想;以大梵为本体的世界整体统一性理论;形形色色的多元实在论的本体论观念;明确的信息自在显现思想;丰富的宇宙、事物的全息思想;深刻的信息认识中介论思想;差异整体论和差异认识论的复杂性观念;和合论中的整体涌现论的复杂性思想;事物自然因、无目的、非决定论的复杂性观念;无常无我论、空论中的变易、无主宰、无主体的复杂性思想;"中道论"中两极兼容、对立互补的复杂性思想;具有直观性、猜测性、神秘性、神学性等缺陷.     

"Show me your impact": evaluating transitional justice in contested spaces

This paper discusses some of the most significant challenges and opportunities for evaluating the effects of programs in support of transitional justice - the field that addresses how post-conflict or post authoritarian societies deal with legacies of wide spread human rights violations. The discussion is empirically grounded in a case study that assesses the efforts of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and one of its Guatemalan partners to evaluate the effects of a museum exposition that is attempting to recast historic memory and challenge racist attitudes in post-conflict Guatemala. The paper argues that despite the increasing trend to fund transitional justice programs, many international aid donors are stuck in traditional and arguably orthodox paradigms of program evaluation. This is having a negative effect not only upon the administration of aid but also upon how transitional justice research is perceived and valued by local populations. The case study experience indicates that there is no perfect evaluation model or approach for evaluating transitional justice programming - only choices to be made by commissioners of evaluation, evaluators, and those being evaluated. These are profoundly influenced by the extreme politics and moral values that define transitional justice settings as contested spaces in which calls to remember the tragic past must be balanced with aspirations to re-build a hopeful future.     

Challenging the international peacebuilding evaluation discourse with qualitative methodologies

Monitoring and evaluating international peacebuilding efforts have become more sophisticated over the past years, but still relies on managerial approaches that often do not capture the complexity of war, peace and the grey areas in between. The article argues that organizations should embrace qualitative approaches more widely and introduces ethnographic vignettes as one example to explain the complexity of post-conflict situations. By understanding the personal dimension, the life- and work-styles of international peacebuilders, the current evaluation discourse can become more meaningful-both for organizational learning and sustainable peace efforts on the ground. The article ends by highlighting some approaches that deserve more attention and that promise to help to critically enhance current and future debates about the evaluation of peacebuilding.     

The Politics and Discourse of Migrant Return: The Role of UNHCR and IOM in the Governance of Return

This article proposes that there is added value in moving beyond isolated studies of return-related migration policies in order to consider both deportations and so-called assisted voluntary returns under the common heading of ‘state-induced returns’. Based on official documents and interviews with staff members of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organisation for Migration, it argues that international actors working in the field of migrant return engage in a type of task-sharing that goes beyond functional complementariness. With regard to the return of rejected asylum seekers, for instance, they legitimise each other's engagement as well as the overarching return objectives of governments, and are, therefore, involved in norm-building regarding the acceptability of state-induced returns. In addition to setting certain minimum standards regarding states' treatment of their immigrant population, international actors assist states in upholding control over them. Rather than merely replacing state-led regulation, international actors thus support domestic governments in reaching their migration control objectives, and thereby contribute to a stabilisation of state sovereignty in the governance of migration.     

On the computational hardness based on linear FPT-reductions

The notion of linear fpt-reductions has been recently introduced to derive strong computational lower bounds for well-known NP-hard problems. In this paper, we formally investigate the notion of W[t]-hardness under the linear fpt-reduction, and study the structural properties of the corresponding complexity classes. Additional complexity lower bounds on important computational problems are established. Some observations on structural properties of the standard parameterized hierarchy, the W -hierarchy, are also presented. In this paper, we always assume that complexity functions are “nice” with both domain and range being non-negative integers and the values of the functions and their inverses can be easily computed.     

Childhood family structure and complexity in partnership life courses

This study investigated the associations between childhood living arrangements and complex adult partnership trajectories. The authors defined first union dissolution as the event initiating a complex partnership life course, and measured the level of complexity using a weighted cumulative index of subsequent partnership episodes. The analyses were based on a representative sample of the German population born in 1971–73 from the German Family Panel and used multivariate hurdle models to estimate the probability of experiencing the initiation of a complex partnership trajectory, as well as the level of complexity. Results showed that respondents who did not grow up with both biological parents (i.e. those who experienced an alternative family structure) had both a greater likelihood of experiencing the dissolution of their own first union, and followed more complex subsequent partnership trajectories. These associations varied across types of (alternative) family structures experienced during childhood and according to the level of parental partnership (in)stability. This study contributes to our understanding of contemporary partnership complexity and its precursors using a long term life course theoretical and methodological frame. We acknowledge that continuities and disruptions in the development of adult (complex) partnership trajectories can be linked to a growing diversity of family structure in childhood. Thereby, we expand knowledge on intergenerational interdependencies of family instability and complexity beyond the reproduction of the event of union dissolution.     

理解的伦理学

人类之间的相互理解现在具有十分重要的意义,而真正地实现理解需要运用复杂性认识方法。看到每个人都具有潜在的多重人格,在随着历史背景条件飘移中实现某一种自身,因此我们不应把犯有罪过的人简化为他们一时犯下的罪过,而看到他们改变的可能性。客观的理性的理解还应辅之以主观的推己及人的理解,才能产生同情。了解产生不理解的各种根源自觉地加以克服,从而力争达到人类的相互宽容和团结。     

复杂性及其研究的意味

作为一种难以被科学和哲学严格界定（因其自身的复杂）的理论范式,“复杂性”虽然在语义上没有获得各学科都能够普遍接受的通论,但它总是伴随着我们,复杂性是实在（reality）的一种深刻特性。“复杂性”意味着存在着不熟悉、不理解;意味着困难、障碍和挑战;同时也意味着可能和开放。研究复杂性意味着思想范式的革命,这在哲学、科学和人类思维的变革中表现得最为深刻。这是哲学的自我救赎,也是人类破除科学迷信的路径,最重要的是复杂性思维将引导我们进入新文明时代。