Contemporary Objectives Research Articles

Retrofitting the city: reuse of non-domestic buildings

The aim of this paper is to identify and understand the commercial framing of retrofitting activities of existing buildings in the UK, the mediation of these issues in current regeneration processes and their relation to objectives for sustainable development. A case study focusing on the dynamics and retrofitting of non-domestic buildings in Bristol, UK showed that commercial objectives and local community regeneration are more prevalent in practice than environmental protection and carbon reduction objectives. This situation is supported by current regeneration policies and commercial interests. Sustainability issues have had an impact on current building practices and the UK property sector may be experiencing a shift as it gains understanding of the risks involved in ‘unsustainable’ buildings. The case study indicates that more radical changes in current practice are needed in order to reach contemporary objectives for carbon reduction in the existing building stock and to meet anticipated stronger policy and regulation. The Bristol case study was carried out in 2008, but before the global financial crisis impacted on development activity in the city.

Livestock as Ecosystem Engineers for Grassland Bird Habitat in the Western Great Plains of North America

Domestic livestock have the potential to function as ecosystem engineers in semiarid rangelands, but prevailing management practices largely emphasize livestock production and uniform use of vegetation. As a result, variation in vegetation structure might not occur at appropriate spatial and temporal scales to achieve some contemporary conservation objectives. Here, we introduce the utility of livestock as ecosystem engineers and address potential benefits and consequences associated with heterogeneity-based management practices for conservation grazing in the semiarid rangelands of the western North American Great Plains. To illustrate the potential value of this approach, we provide specific examples where engineering effects of livestock could alter vegetation heterogeneity at within-pasture (< 100 ha) and among-pasture (∼100 ha to thousands of hectares) scales to improve habitat for declining native grassland birds. Experimental evaluations of the efficacy of livestock to achieve desired modifications to vegetation structure are needed, along with the economic aspects associated with implementing heterogeneity-based management practices. Using livestock as ecosystem engineers to alter vegetation structure for grassland bird habitat is feasible in terms of application by land managers within the context of current livestock operations, and provides land managers important tools to achieve desired contemporary objectives and outcomes in semiarid rangelands of the western North American Great Plains. El ganado domestico tiene el potencial de funcionar como ingeniero de los ecosistemas en los pastizales semiáridos, pero las practicas de manejo que existen principalmente se enfocan en la producción ganadera y el uso uniforme de la vegetación. Como resultado, la variación en la estructura de la vegetación puede no darse apropiadamente a escalas espaciales y temporales para llevar a cabo objetivos de conservación contemporáneos. Aquí, presentamos la utilidad del ganado como ingeniero de ecosistemas y en los beneficios y las consecuencias de la heterogeneidad basada en las prácticas de manejo para la conservación del pastoreo en los pastizales de las zonas semiáridas en el Oeste de las grandes planicies de Norte América. Para ilustrar el valor potencial de este método, proporcionamos ejemplos específicos donde los efectos de ingeniería del ganado domestico pueden alterar la heterogeneidad de la vegetación a escalas dentro (< 100 ha) y entre los potreros (∼100–1 000 s ha) para mejorar el hábitat de pastizales nativos que están disminuyendo para las aves. Evaluaciones experimentales de la eficiencia del ganado en la estructura de la vegetación son necesarias, de la misma manera los aspectos económicos asociados con la implementación de la practicas de manejo usadas para la heterogeneidad. El utilizar ganado como ingeniero de los ecosistemas para alterar la estructura de la vegetación para las aves del pastizal es posible en términos de aplicación por los manejadores de las tierras dentro del contexto de las actuales operaciones de ganado, permitiendo darles a los manejadores las herramientas para llevar a cabo los objetivos contemporáneos y resultados en los pastizales semiáridos de las grandes planicies de América del norte.

What is the Goal of Head Start? Four Decades of Confusion and Debate

ABSTRACT This article provides a brief history of interpretations of Head Start's objectives over the last 4 decades. We begin with the founding goal of helping children prepare for school and the later misguided adaptation of increases in IQ scores as an indicator of children's readiness. We then discuss Head Start's more contemporary objectives, social competence and school readiness, and discuss the relation between these two constructs. Only by defining at the outset what Head Start is striving for will we be able to judge objectively if the program has succeeded and create social policies that facilitate its effectiveness.

Australia and the Commonwealth

The Empire–Commonwealth played a key role in the evolution of Australia's international position. However, the post-1960s Commonwealth has only been of minor significance for Australia. The Commonwealth provides a backdrop for a number of Australia's bilateral relationships, the most important of which are those with Britain, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Canada, India, Malaysia and Singapore. The multilateral context provided by the Commonwealth is relevant to advancing Australian goals concerning North–South relations, world trade, South Pacific and southern African issues and newer issues such as the ‘war on terrorism’. Australia is a major contributor to Commonwealth aid programmes. The Commonwealth dimension has some relevance to the republican debate in Australia, although it is not a primary concern. Australia is a major participant in the ‘civil society’ aspect of the Commonwealth. The low priority accorded to the modern Commonwealth by Australia is generally a bipartisan matter: the Commonwealth has its uses but is not central to Australia's contemporary international objectives.

Ječmen při 21. století: současné cíle genetického inženýrství.

Základní pilíř pro genové manipulace položil již v&nbsp;19. století G. J. Mendel svým poznáním základních zákonů o dědičnosti. K&nbsp;rozvoji genetického inženýrství došlo v&nbsp;druhé polovině 20. století. Sladovnický ječmen jako prastará kulturní plodina prošel dlouhým obdobím klasické selekce a šlechtění. V&nbsp;současnosti jsou tradiční cíle šlechtění obohacovány novými požadavky pivovarského průmyslu, které již nelze zvládnout klasickými prostředku. Tyto požadavky mnohdy vyžadují začlenění nových unikátních vlastností, které se u něj přirozeně nevyskytují, do genetické výbavy ječmene. Pozornost se soustřeďuje zejména na vlastnosti známe u jiných organismů, např. tvorba termostabilní alfa-amylasy a beta-glukanasy, absence funkční lipoxygenasy nebo rezistence vůči patogenům.

Rewarding Employees Who Truly Make a Difference

Pay is most powerful when tied to successful job contributions that help fulfill the organization's mission and achieve contemporary objectives. This pay strategy challenges organizations to reward employees who contribute to the successful fulfillment of the organizations mission, while providing guidance to those who want to improve and weeding out those who don't. Implementing this pay strategy requires management commitment and a willingness to review practices in six key dimensions of organizational practice: explaining organization and department missions; defining job results; clarifying job outcomes; planning, monitoring, and appraising job contributions; applying motivational rewards; and establishing an integrated and coherent organization culture.

Improving Hospital Design

Iden Wickings King's Fund, £19.90, pp 76 ISBN 1–85551–072–3 We all want to live on Quality Street. Accessibility, privacy, confidentiality, dignity, choice, comfort, and security are the contemporary objectives in all services, especially health. And now that we take for granted the raw sufficiency of service that technology offers we are ready to trade up to health care that looks bespoke. Allegedly people dislike the hospitals of the 1960s and 1970s because the service they provide appears - inhospitable. In an effort to put the tenderness into health technology the King's Fund has commissioned research into hospital design. In 1993 it ran a “best new hospital competition,” which was won by the private Wellington Hospital, in St John's Wood, London. Outside, the Wellington is the architectural equivalent …

Considerations for Network Design for Water Quality and Quantity Surveys in Canada

Abstract A network of water quantity and/or quality stations is a composite of many different management information requirements. Conventionally, the objective of such stations has been to describe and quantify one or more of discharge, sediment flux, or water chemistry. This perspective is site-specific and descriptive. While quantity and quality surveying are usually separated, comprehensive water resource management is a composite activity involving the interrelationships amongst discharge, chemistry, biology, land use, etc.. The static and site-specific objectives of contemporary network stations fulfil limited management information requirements. Future network design should include a specific focus on functional behaviour of the watershed and its aquatic ecosystem. Behavioural data serve two contemporary objectives. One pertains to aquatic ecosystem management and/or protection. The second pertains to assessment of anthropogenic interventions within watersheds. The network requirements to meet these new information demands are examined in the context of conceptual, methodological and normative developments within the field of aquatic science and environmental assessment.

The Objects of Acceptance: Competing Scientific Explanations

AbstractImportant revisions and additions to the contemporary objectives of acceptance rules result from construing a theory of warranted inductive inference to presuppose an account of adequate scientific explanations. We conceive the objects of acceptance rules to be the best of competing scientific explanations. Our primary interest is to show how to construct an analysis of competing explanations. Hence our specific investigation concerns the interrelations between the criteria of adequacy for scientific explanations and the definitions of the modes of competition between explanations.