Consideration Of Infrastructure Research Articles

Fostering incidental experiences of nature through green infrastructure planning

Concern for a diminished human experience of nature and subsequent decreased human well-being is addressed via a consideration of green infrastructure’s potential to facilitate unplanned or incidental nature experience. Incidental nature experience is conceptualized and illustrated in order to consider this seldom addressed aspect of human interaction with nature in green infrastructure planning. Special attention has been paid to the ability of incidental nature experience to redirect attention from a primary activity toward an unplanned focus (in this case, nature phenomena). The value of such experience for human well-being is considered. The role of green infrastructure to provide the opportunity for incidental nature experience may serve as a nudge or guide toward meaningful interaction. These ideas are explored using examples of green infrastructure design in two Nordic municipalities: Kristianstad, Sweden, and Copenhagen, Denmark. The outcome of the case study analysis coupled with the review of literature is a set of sample recommendations for how green infrastructure can be designed to support a range of incidental nature experiences with the potential to support human well-being.

"People seem to really enjoy the mix of humour and intelligence": science humour in online settings

This commentary considers the topics of humour and online settings. Both have received increasing attention amongst researchers and practitioners of science communication, and both raise numerous questions around the role of informality and enjoyment in the spread of information. However, online settings also provide a great range of data with which to address these questions. Here I suggest that close consideration of technical infrastructure plays an important role in this data collection. I shall do so using case studies drawn from two popular participatory websites, reddit and Facebook, which display contrasting attitudes towards using humour. I argue that these attitudes are partly products of the different tools provided by the pages for users to show appreciation, which affect the appearance of content on the websites. I also suggest that these tools allow users to appreciate jokes in multiple ways, and by extension might provide researchers with methods for assessing different forms of engagement.

Possibilities and Expectations for mHealth in the Pacific Islands: Insights From Key Informants

BackgroundThe increase in mobile phone use across the globe is creating mounting interest for its application in addressing health system constraints. Although still limited, there is growing evidence of success in using mobile phones for health (mHealth) in low- and middle- income countries. The promise of mHealth to address key health system issues presents a huge potential for the Pacific Island countries where mobile use has radically increased. Current projections indicate an improved information and communications technology (ICT) environment to support greater access to mobile and digital devices in the Pacific region.ObjectiveThe objective of the study was to explore key stakeholder perspectives on the potential for mHealth in the Pacific region.MethodsA series of in-depth interviews were conducted either face-to-face, via Skype or by email, with a series of key informants from the Pacific Rim region. Interviews were audio-recorded and later transcribed for detailed thematic analysis.ResultsWe found widespread support for the potential to use mobile phones as a mechanism to facilitate improved health service delivery in the region. Essential elements for the successful development and implementation of mHealth were identified by these stakeholders. These included: developing an understanding of the local context and the problems that may be usefully addressed by the addition of mHealth to existing strategies and services; consideration of local infrastructure, capability, policy, mobile literacy and engagement; learning from others, particularly other low- and middle-income countries (LMICs); the importance of building supportive environments and of evaluation to provide evidence of impact and total cost.ConclusionsThe rapid growth of mobile phone use in the region presents a unique juxtaposition of opportunity and promise. Though the region lags behind other LMICs in the adoption of mHealth technologies, this offers the convenience of learning from past mHealth interventions and applying these learnings to achieve scale, sustainability and success. This study deepens the understanding of the potential of mHealth for the region, and offers a baseline from which discussions can be made to examine the limitations, barriers and complexities inherent in mHealth applications.

The politics of infrastructure investment: The role of product market competition

In spatial competition, public infrastructure plays a crucial role in determining product market outcomes. In our model, consideration of infrastructure's impact on the product market drives the preferences of consumers in their dual role as voter/taxpayers. The spatial heterogeneity of consumers produces conflicting political interests and in many cases inefficient outcomes. However across both exogenous and endogenous market environments product market competition consistently leads to higher levels of publicly funded infrastructure than monopoly/collusion. Furthermore, competition's boost to the popular support for infrastructure investment is often excessive while monopoly leads to underinvestment.

Information Technology Impacts on Firm Performance: An Extension of Kohli and Devaraj (2003)

Despite the importance of investing in information technology, research on business value of information technology (BVIT) shows contradictory results, raising questions about the reasons for divergence. Kohli and Devaraj (2003) provided valuable insights into this issue based on a meta-analysis of 66 BVIT studies. This paper extends Kohli and Devaraj by examining the influences on BVIT through a meta-analysis of 303 studies published between 1990 and 2013. We found that BVIT increases when the study does not consider IT investment, does not use profitability measure of value, and employs primary data sources, fewer IT-related antecedents, and larger sample size. Considerations of IT alignment, IT adoption and use, and interorganizational IT strengthen the relationship between IT investment on BVIT, whereas the focus on environmental theories dampens the same relationship. However, the use of productivity measures of value, the number of dependent variables, the economic region, the consideration of IT assets and IT infrastructure or capability, and the consideration of IT sophistication do not affect BVIT. Finally, BVIT increases over time with IT progress. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Infrastructure Provision, Gender, and Poverty in Indian Slums

Using a mixed-method approach of qualitative analysis and regression modeling, we find that infrastructure was associated with a 66% increase in education among females. Service provision increased literacy by 62%, enhanced income by 36%, and reduced health costs by 26%. Evidence suggests that a gender-sensitive consideration of infrastructure is necessary and that a 'one-size-fits-all' approach will not suffice. We provide evidence that infrastructure investment is critical for well-being of slum dwellers and women in particular.

Optimization of Siding Location for Single-Track Lines

The demand for rail transportation in North America is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. Additional capacity will be required to accommodate the new traffic demand for both passenger and freight services. The majority of the network is single track with passing sidings, which trains use for meets and passes; therefore, allocating sidings properly can significantly increase line capacity and reduce train delay. Railroads usually rely on experienced personnel to determine new siding locations to improve line capacity through infrastructure upgrades. Experienced railroaders often identify good solutions; however, this method does not guarantee that all good alternatives have been evaluated or that the best one is implemented. In this research, an optimal siding location model is developed with consideration of infrastructure and traffic characteristics to determine the optimal number and locations of sidings. The empirical results demonstrate that this model is able to generate an optimal plan for the number of additional sidings and their respective locations. This tool can therefore help railroads maximize their return on investment from capacity expansion projects and achieve the service quality desired by customers.

Laparoscopic total mesorectal excision

This article describes the operative technique that my colleagues and I apply to total mesorectal excision in patients with rectal cancer. A body of data support improvement of short-term outcomes over open resection. Although long-term data remain scarce, several ongoing trials may clarify this deficiency. The appropriateness of laparoscopy in the treatment for rectal cancer should be carefully weighed with consideration of patient preferences, surgeon experience, and available infrastructure.

Charge your engines [electric vehicle

The Obama administration has set a goal of one million electric cars on the road by 2015 to reduce air pollution and dependence on fossil fuels. The UK government has similarly ambitious targets, but all of this is dependent on public confidence that the charging infrastructure will be in place. The paper investigates how electric vehicle market is gaining strength through careful consideration of the future charging-point infrastructure.

The Future of public health services in Europe: Strategic intersection with healthcare services

This paper outlines some of the major challenges on strengthening public health, including consideration of public health services (PHS) and infrastructure, as well as some of the public health aspects of health care services. The purpose of the paper is to articulate the roles and functions of PHS and health care services. Such integrated health systems that combine individual and community approaches have an important potential to improve health outcomes. In line with the broad scope of PHS, where it spans the health-generating activities of both the health system and other sectors of society, it analyses its role and links towards health outcomes. The paper further presents the 10 horizontal ‘essential public health operations’ (EPHOs), describing the core PHS within each of them, as the unifying and guiding basis to set up, monitor and evaluate actions and strategies for development of public health. It concludes that strengthening PHS calls for implementation of the EPHOs while recognising strategic linkages with health care services and other sectors of society. Within this context, opportunities for intersection emerge towards improvement of health care quality, health promotion, disease prevention, and health surveillance.

The Future of Renewables Linked by a Transnational Asian Grid

In this paper, we argue that Asia's unique geography, abundant low-emission energy resources, rapid economic growth, and rising energy demands merit consideration of a Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure. In our study, we focus on development of wind and solar resources in Australia, China, Mongolia, and Vietnam as the potential foundation for an electricity grid stretching from China to Australia. Hourly climate data for a full year are used to estimate renewable energy generation, electricity demand, generation capacity are projected forward to the year 2025, and economic dispatch in an international market is simulated to demonstrate cost benefits. Intermittency, connectivity, future dispatch orders, storage, line losses, and engineering and financial issues are all addressed.

Patrimonio ferroviario y desarrollo sostenible en el noroeste argentino. Líneas de intervención

The aim of this paper is to provide guidelines for strategic planning based on the consideration of railway heritage and sustainable infrastructure. This emerged by the fact of having reached a nearly useless rail network and the continued loss of land and buildings linked to the rail. By this purpose, it examines the bases for intervention identified in some parts of the document around the railway line from Jujuy, La Quiaca in northwestern Argentina. It presents a diagnosis of the territory and its basic components: a model of colonial occupation and territorial organization, settlement and buildings and facilities related to the railway line and the operation of the system. This diagnosis that was made by the methodology of DAFO, shows the problems that led to the removal of the railroad but also the persistence of some features and the implications for their long-term conforming elements: the values are more or less damaged. Therefore, we analyze the potential to address the issues studied from a diversification of uses of the railway heritage oriented regional sustainable development. As results we suggest criteria for intervention on the scale of Northwest Argentina, again using the railway as a drive shaft development, recovering the use of the railway track and promoting reuse of architecture as an alternative means to rehabilitate the heritage.

The Relationality of Movements: Movement and Countermovement Resources, Infrastructure, and Leadership in the Los Angeles Tenants’ Rights Mobilization, 1976–1979

This article offers a comprehensive empirical analysis of the determinants of social movement mobilization, with serious consideration of countermovement leadership and infrastructure on terms comparable with those of the movement. The authors examine the role of resources, infrastructure, and leadership in tenant mobilization in the Los Angeles tenants’ rights movement between 1976 and 1979. Using survey and census data along with archival materials, they compare neighborhoods across Los Angeles and find a significant role for resources, infrastructure, and leadership; notably, the authors find that countermovement infrastructure and leadership are more important to renter mobilization than movement infrastructure and leadership.

Infrastructure investment under uncertainty

Many volatile factors influence the performance of infrastructure and these yield a range of uncertainties when forward-looking investment decisions are being considered. This article is restricted to consideration of physical infrastructure, which has a wide spectrum of such factors. It includes physical events such as earthquakes that are beyond the influence of humankind, other events for each of which there is a very small probability of occurrence, and events that will almost certainly occur at some point within any reasonable period of time. It also includes economic events relating to uncommon financial episodes and common, but uncertain, volatility in demand and cost. Rare physical events have implications for investment in infrastructure that provides some mitigation of the effects of these events. In so doing, there is a trade-off between providing in advance for remotely likely but substantial events in specific, and usually costly, redundancy infrastructure, and having an economy with the resources to deal ex post with natural disasters. Obviously, some intermediate position will be socially desirable.

A Report of the Lisbon Conference on the Care of the Kidney Transplant Recipient

An International Conference on the Care of the Kidney Transplant Recipient was convened in Lisbon, Portugal from February 2– 4, 2006 under the auspices of the National Kidney Foundation and Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO), and in cooperation with The Transplantation Society. Conference participants included over 100 experts and leaders in kidney transplantation, representing more than 40 countries from around the world, including participants from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North American, and South America (Appendix). The goal of the conference was to develop recommendations to improve the outcomes of kidney transplant recipients worldwide with regard to the following basic medical issues: cardiovascular disease (Work Group I), cancer and infection (Work Group II), and anemia, bone disease, reproductive issues, growth and development (Work Group III). Work Groups I, II, and III addressed the preand posttransplant care of kidney transplant recipients by the following components: timelines of preand posttransplantation, immunosuppression, level of kidney allograft function, and burden of disease (prior history of dialysis or preemptive transplant and how that history affects outcome). A graft maintenance section (Work Group IV) addressed: 1) recipient (and donor) selection; 2) surgical aspects and immediate posttransplant care of recipients including consideration of minimal surgical infrastructure; 3) immunosuppression including an assessment of the incremental expected value of more complex and expensive regimens in comparison to simpler and less expensive regimens, generics, midand long-term immunosuppression; 4) living donor versus deceased donor transplantation; and 5) midand long-term posttransplant care and monitoring of allograft function. In addition, conference participants were asked to examine the issue of applicability of the recently published Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (KDOQI) clinical practice guidelines for chronic kidney disease (CKD) in kidney allograft recipients (1). Specifically, Work Group V addressed the role of estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) in monitoring kidney function after transplantation, as well as the stratification for intervention according to eGFR values.

The search for policies to support sustainable housing

Housing policies have passed through many permutations in the last 50 years, based on differing, even conflicting, approaches that, if we were totally truthful, have not really solved the housing problems faced by the majority of the world's population. For most people, remembering that over half the world's population subsists on less than $2 per day, the challenge of housing is a simple one: the need for a healthy shelter at an affordable price. In recent years, the concept of sustainability has become central not just in housing policy, but in the consideration of human settlements, employment, infrastructure, transportation and urban services. In fact, the concept of sustainability may be one of the most overused and misunderstood urban policy component in use today. This paper attempts to clarify the concept of sustainability, leading to what is hopefully an operational definition that can be used to measure progress toward this desirable state. The ideas developed are then applied to the field of housing policies, that is, the guidance that governments can give to housing providers, whether they be commercial, public or self-builders, placing housing activity within the overall framework of the sustainability of human settlements and national and international economic activity. In the course of this discussion, certain criteria for sustainability will emerge, including the need for poverty reduction and slum eradication, as well as the broader goal of environmental preservation and the importance of developing channels for making viable finance available. Of course, without improvements in employment opportunity and incomes, whatever is done within the housing policy area is likely to lead to disappointing results.

1-4 PMBOK は実際のプロジェクトに適用出来るのか? : プロジェクトマネジメントのインフラを考える

1-4 PMBOK は実際のプロジェクトに適用出来るのか? : プロジェクトマネジメントのインフラを考える

Research Opportunities from Emerging Atmospheric Observing and Modeling Capabilities

The Second Prospectus Development Team (PDT-2) of the U.S. Weather Research Program was charged with identifying research opportunities that are best matched to emerging operational and experimental measurement and modeling methods. The overarching recommendation of PDT-2 is that inputs for weather forecast models can best be obtained through the use of composite observing systems together with adaptive (or targeted) observing strategies employing both in situ and remote sensing. Optimal observing systems and strategies are best determined through a three-part process: observing system simulation experiments, pilot field measurement programs, and model-assisted data sensitivity experiments. Furthermore, the mesoscale research community needs easy and timely access to the new operational and research datasets in a form that can readily be reformatted into existing software packages for analysis and display. The value of these data is diminished to the extent that they remain inaccessible. The composite observing system of the future must combine synoptic observations, routine mobile observations, and targeted observations, as the current or forecast situation dictates. High costs demand fuller exploitation of commercial aircraft, meteorological and navigation [Global Positioning System (GPS)] satellites, and Doppler radar. Single observing systems must be assessed in the context of a composite system that provides complementary information. Maintenance of the current North American rawinsonde network is critical for progress in both research-oriented and operational weather forecasting. Adaptive sampling strategies are designed to improve large-scale and regional weather prediction but they will also improve diagnosis and prediction of flash flooding, air pollution, forest fire management, and other environmental emergencies. Adaptive measurements can be made by piloted or unpiloted aircraft. Rawinsondes can be launched and satellites can be programmed to make adaptive observations at special times or in specific regions. PDT-2 specifically recommends the following forms of data gathering: a pilot field and modeling study should be designed and executed to assess the benefit of adaptive observations over the eastern Pacific for mesoscale forecasts over the contiguous United States; studies should be done over the western Atlantic and Caribbean-Gulf of Mexico regions, particularly during hurricane season; and enhanced observations should be implemented for the mountainous western states and for the Mississippi and Missouri River Valleys. Data sensitivity tests and observing system simulation experiments (OSSEs) are important tools for gauging the benefit of existing or proposed observing systems. OSSEs involve only model predictions and are essentially self-contained. Data sensitivity tests require the full consideration of modeling infrastructure, namely, observation ingest quality control, objective analysis, and numerical prediction. Sensitivity tests involving both wind and moisture profiles are particularly needed to determine their impact on improved precipitation forecasts. New variational analysis techniques are capable of assimilating so-called proxy observations. These techniques should be fully exploited. Diabatic initialization should be addressed through the assimilation of satellite cloud data and very high resolution WSR-88D radar measurements into very high resolution models with sophisticated cloud microphysics. Success in this area should improve quantitative precipitation forecasts in the first few (model) hours. There is a pressing need to better understand the interaction of moist convection with large-scale flow. One key is better characterization of the impact of precipitation formation and evaporation on the fluxes of mass, momentum, and heat in moist convection. Humidity measurement in precipitating downdrafts is a crucial measurement, which currently cannot be made reliably. The capabilities of polarization-diversity radar should be explored in a quasi-operational context to determine whether WSR-88D radars should be upgraded. Progress in quantitative precipitation forecasting is impeded by poorly resolved and inaccurate water vapor measurements. Further improvements in numerical weather prediction demand improved monitoring of Earth surface characteristics so that spatial and temporal variations in air–surface fluxes are realistically simulated. Over land, priority should be given to the coupling of mesoscale meteorological models with hydrological models and to routine assimilation of surface (soil, moisture, and plant) characteristics. Improved air–sea fluxes are essential to proper modeling of marine cyclogenesis. The most important, practical ocean measurements include sea surface temperature, thermocline depth, wave spectra, and ice coverage and thickness.

Systems approach combining traction, power supply and signalling

British Rail's Network SouthEast sector will shortly be introducing Britain' first fleet of trains fitted with induction motor drives. Optimisation of the benefits of these drives, and resolution of the potential problems that they present, has been achieved by consideration of trains and infrastructure as interdependent parts of an overall system