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10519 10525 20 10 ; S ; This paper was published in OPTICS EXPRESS and is made available as an electronic reprint with the permission of OSA. The paper can be found at the following URL on the OSA website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OE.20.010519 . Systematic or multiple reproduction or distribution to multiple locations via electronic or other means is prohibited and is subject to penalties under law [EN] We theoretically and experimentally compare the performance of two fully tunable phase shifter structures based on semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA) by means of several figures of merit common to microwave photonic systems. A single SOA stage followed by a tailored notch filter is compared with a cascaded implementation comprising three SOA-based phase shifter stages. Attention is focused on the assessment of the RF net gain, noise figure and nonlinear distortion. Recommendations on the performance optimization of this sort of approaches are detailed. The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support of the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) project GOSPEL; the GVA PROMETEO 2008/092, the Plan Nacional I + D TEC2011-29120-C05-05 and Infraestructura FEDER UPVOV08-3E-008. Sancho Durá, J.; Lloret Soler, JA.; Gasulla Mestre, I.; Sales Maicas, S.; Capmany Francoy, J. (2012). Figures of merit for microwave photonic phase shifters based on semiconductor optical amplifiers. Optics Express. 20(10):10519-10525. https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.20.010519

This research focused on analyzing public policies for sustainability of the quality of community life in the Idelfonso Vasquez Parish, Maracaibo. The theoretical contributions of Ruiz (2006), Mascareño (2003), Kelly (2003) and Centelles (2006) were used, among others. Research was descriptive and analytical, with a non-experimental, field design. The population of sectors Chino Julio, Cujicito and Mamon were used, and a purposive sample of 65 people was made. Information was collected through a survey consisting of 20 questions. The existence of public policies oriented toward the common good was determined. However, monitoring for sustainability of the quality of life for inhabitants of the parish under study is incipient. ; Esta investigación estuvo centrada en analizar las políticas públicas para la sustentabilidad de la calidad de vida comunitaria, implementadas en la Parroquia Idelfonso Vázquez de la ciudad de Maracaibo. Utilizándose los aportes teóricos de Ruiz (2006), Mascareño (2003), Kelly (2003), Centelles (2006), entre otros. Con una investigación analítica descriptiva y un diseño de campo no experimental, teniendo como población los Barrios Chino Julio, Cujicito y el Mamón, con una muestra intencional de 65 personas, recolectando la información a través de una encuesta de 20 preguntas. Se determinó la existencia de políticas públicas orientadas al bien común, sin embargo, su seguimiento es insipiente para la sustentabilidad de la calidad de vida de los habitantes de las parroquias objeto de estudio.

For 20 years the successor states of the former Czechoslovakia have tried to improve health outcomes in an efficient or at least effective manner. Slovakia and the Czech Republic chose partly different policies, different health delivery and finance systems, and different payment and incentive structures. And yet in both countries better health outcomes emerged, but at great cost, as efficiency proved elusive. The goal of the paper is to examine processes and results of health care reforms in the Czech Republic and Slovakia – are both countries after 20 years of changes still on the same track? The paper has four sections. Following the first section of background and introduction, we examine the principles and development of social policy in health care, how political instability neutered reform, yet politicised health issues, sometimes resulting in policy reversals. The third section explores the outcomes of the transition health care policies and how voters have perceived them. A summary of findings concludes, indicating that both systems are still very close, but some important differences emerged during the reforms process. Although there has been progress towards western European outcome standards, there is much to be done. While the costs of health care will continue to rise, it is unclear that the present political, policy-making and implementation systems can deliver either efficiency or a responsiveness to patients` views.

Convencido de la necesidad de integrar los tres pilares del desarrollo sustentable –desarrollo económico, desarrollo social y protección del medio ambiente–, el Instituto Internacional de Análisis de Sistemas Aplicados (IIASA) reunió a más de veinte expertos en población y desarrollo para discutir sobre cómo los factores poblacionales promueven o impiden un desarrollo sustentable. La reunión contó con el apoyo del Fondo de Población de Naciones Unidas y se llevó a cabo en las instalaciones de iiasa, en Viena, del 30 de septiembre al 1 de octubre de 2011.El panel de expertos propuso cinco acciones amplias que recomienda en el marco de la Conferencia Río+20 de Naciones Unidas sobre Desarrollo Sustentable. A continuación se incluyen sus conclusiones y recomendaciones. AbstractConvinced by the need to integrate the three pillars of sustainable development (economic development, social development and environmental protection), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) brought together more than twenty experts on population and development to discuss how population factors promote or impede sustainable development. The meeting, supported by the United Nations Population Fund, was held at the iiasa headquarters in Vienna from 30 September to 1 October, 2011.The panel of experts proposed five broad actions which were recommended within the framework of the Río+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. Their conclusions and recommendations are given below.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to argue that there is still much scope for improvement in planning and training, for both actors and disaster victims, in the front line of disaster management in Malaysia. Although the established ethos of Malaysia's public service sector has tended to be one of control from above, there is promise and virtue in seeking to promote a professional culture. Ideas and recommendations in finding new solutions to old problems can move upwards as well as downwards due to the technical design in rules and regulations which is now to be accompanied by organisational design.Design/methodology/approachResearch was undertaken to determine attitudes of actors in disaster management mechanism in Malaysia.FindingsThe actors in public service sectors in Malaysia had a negative attitude towards disaster planning implementation because they are usually not familiar with the Standard Operational Procedure in handling land disaster management in Malaysia called the MNSC Directive 20. Social learning is about initiative of organisations and policy makers in learning through actor's interactions with others and through the knowledge and expertise of others.Originality/valueThe paper shows that the MNSC Directive 20 document is not available for public scrutiny and restricted for reasons of national security, which limits the policy's effectiveness. Even then, documents were circulated for office use only. Learning from status of current policy implementation and suggestion will promote awareness raising and capacity building from the inside of organisations.

Background: Death thoughts and wishes occur frequently among older people. In different European countries estimates of 10%–20% have been found. Aims: To determine the prevalence and associated factors of death thoughts and wishes among older people in The Netherlands. Methods: In The Netherlands 1794 people (58–98 years) were interviewed in 2005/2006 (Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam). Results: 81.3% reported never having death thoughts/wishes; 15.3% reported having had such thoughts/wishes; 3.4% reported currently having a wish to die and/or a weakened wish to continue living. Of those with a current wish to die, 67% had depressive symptoms (vs. 32% of people with death thoughts/wishes ever and 9% of people who never had had death thoughts/wishes), and 20% suffered from a depressive disorder (vs. 5% if death thoughts/wishes ever; 0.3% if never death thoughts/wishes). In a multivariate analysis, a current wish to die was associated with having depressive symptoms, a depressive disorder, lower perceived mastery, financial problems, loneliness, small network, involuntary urine loss, being divorced, and having a speech impediment. Conclusions: Practical implications for health-care professionals are that they should be aware that in certain situations older people are more likely to develop a wish to die, and that a wish to die does not necessarily mean that someone has a depressive disorder. Nevertheless, it should serve as a trigger to investigate and to treat depression if present.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to conduct a systematic review of the sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) literature in the principal logistics and supply chain management journals, across a 20‐year time frame.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use a systematic literature review methodology. This methodology allows for the minimization of researcher bias and the maximization of reliability and replicability. The study's empirical validity is further enhanced by demonstrating high levels of inter‐coder reliability across families of codes.FindingsThe field of SSCM has evolved from a perspective and investigation of standalone research in social and environmental areas; through a corporate social responsibility perspective; to the beginnings of the convergence of perspectives of sustainability as the triple bottom line and the emergence of SSCM as a theoretical framework. While the SSCM research has become more theoretically rich and methodologically rigorous, there are numerous opportunities for further advancing theory, methodology, and the managerial relevance of future inquiries.Research limitations/implicationsThe trends and gaps identified through our analysis allow us to develop a cogent agenda to guide future SSCM research.Practical implicationsThe current perspectives of SSCM hold important implications for managers, by directing limited resources toward projects which intersect environmental and/or social performance, and economic performance.Originality/valueThe paper provides a systematic, rigorous, and methodologically valid review of the evolution of empirical SSCM research across a 20‐year time period.

Processing liquid waste oil industry has reached concentration of COD 60.000 mg / L. If discharged directly into water bodies can contaminate the environment because of the quality standard set by the government through Ministerial Decree No. 51 of 1995 Environment is the COD value of 350 mg / L. This research aims to reduce levels of COD in wastewater using hybrid anaerobic bioreactors combine 2 patterns of growth of microorganisms that is suspended insulated section and attached growth using palm shell as a medium of cell immobilization. Sampling was conducted in 2 phases. The first stage start-up are performed with organic loading rate of 12 kgCOD/m3 days. The second stage is a hybrid anaerobic continuous bioreactor with variable organic load 12; 15; 20; 30 and 60 kgCOD/m3hari, with a working volume of bioreactor, 11.34 L / day. The results showed that the removal efficiency of each of the organic load is 90,2; 89,1; 88.6, 85 and 85% respectively and the production of biogas in their respective organic load reached 340, 490, 320, 340 and 230 mL. The results obtained at optimum efficiency of COD organic loading 20 kgCOD/m3 day, while biogas production on organic load 15 kgCOD/m3. As such it deserves a hybrid bioreactor used for wastewater treatment plant oil. Keywords: Anaerobes, COD removal, hybrid bioreactor, palm shell, wastewater palm oil

20 years after unification, the East German twin's economic position is relatively stagnant compared to most of the West German productivity and income variables. The strong initial takeoff until the mid-end 1990s ended at a level of 70% to 80% of the western reference. In this paper, two interdependent hypotheses are put to the test: (i) that the communist economy prior to unification was on a stagnating path contrary to what standard analyses show; (ii) that strong elements of path dependence exist and that the switch from plan to market offset the pre-unification stagnation but was not able to repair structural deficits inherited from the past. In fact, looking into West German long-term data, an extremely stable development path can be found that extends from the 19th century to the present. Thus, the analysis of the East German development path is both economically relevant and politically interesting if economic policies are to be formulated . ; 20 Jahre nach dem Vollzug der Einheit stagniert die Wirtschaftsentwicklung des 'ostdeutschen Zwillings' im Vergleich zu westdeutschen Einkommens- und Produktionskennzahlen. Der starke Wachstumsschub bis in die Mitte der 1990er Jahre ebbte ab, und die Wirtschaft verharrt seitdem auf einem Niveau, das 70% bis 80% der westdeutschen Referenzgrößen entspricht. In diesem Beitrag werden zwei voneinander unabhängige Hypothesen überprüft: (i), dass bereits die kommunistische Wirtschaft Ostdeutschlands vor der Einheit auf einem Stagnationspfad war, ganz im Gegensatz zu dem, was andere Untersuchungen ausweisen; (ii), dass eine starke Pfadabhängigkeit existiert und der Umstieg von der Zentralverwaltungs- zur Marktwirtschaft nur diese vorangegangene Stagnationsphase kompensierte, die tiefer liegenden strukturellen Defizite aber nicht löste. Im Falle Westdeutschlands reicht ein stabiler Entwicklungspfad vom 19. Jahrhundert in die Gegenwart. Daher ist die Analyse des ostdeutschen Entwicklungspfads gleichzeitig ökonomisch relevant und wirtschaftspolitisch bedeutsam .

VTT Working Papers 187 ; The purpose of this study is to explore feasible gasoline biocomponents supplementary to ethanol, and to assess their exhaust emissions performance. Although ethanol is the dominant liquid biofuel globally, technical restrictions limit its use in conventional gasoline cars to 10-15 v/v% (bio-energy 7-10%). Since current conventional cars will continue to take the major share of gasoline car fleets for at least the next 10-20 years, it is necessary to establish and assess biocomponent options for them. Today, higher ethanol blending ratios are possible only with the use of flexible fuel vehicle (FFV) technology. The European Union requires renewable energy to have at least a 10% share of transport energy by 2020, and even higher shares are being attempted regionally. Biocomponents alternative or supplementary to ethanol are therefore desired in the gasoline pool. Interesting gasoline biocomponents are bioethers, biobutanols and biohydrocarbons. Oxygenated and non-oxygenated biocomponents can be combined to increase the bio-share of gasoline. This study consists of a literature review of the production processes, and an evaluation of the end-use performance of gasoline biocomponents. The results show that there are many options for increasing the bio-energy content of gasoline to 20% or more without increasing the gasoline oxygen content to a higher level than can be tolerated by E10-compatible gasoline cars.

En el presente trabajo se estudian aspectos económicos y políticos de la comunidad campesina del corregimiento de San Juan entre 1.986 y 2.006, el cual se encuentra ubicado en el costado sur del Distrito, entre el corregimiento de Nazareth y el municipio de Colombia (Huila); teniendo en cuenta que dicho territorio estuvo relativamente aislado de Bogotá D.E y en general de influencias externas. En este sentido, su población configuró una cultura tradicional en un proceso de desarrollo endógeno, que registró transformaciones importantes relacionadas con la conformación de la localidad 20 de Sumapaz en 1986 y la descentralización administrativa a partir de 1991. Se trata entonces de indagar lo que sucedió con esta comunidad campesina en su contacto con la modernización. / Abstract. This research is about certain economic and political issues affecting the community in the town of San Juan, between 1986 and 2006. San Juan is located in the south limit of Bogotá City, between the Nazareth town and the municipality of Colombia (Huila); and had been almost isolated from Bogotá and other external influences. For this reason, its population had a unique traditional culture that responded to its endogenous development process, which showed important transformations related to the creation of the localidad 20 (Sumapaz) in 1986 and the administrative decentralization process that began in 1991. Overall, this research is about the events that happened in this rural community during its modernization process. ; Maestría

International audience Most African countries struggle with food production and food security. These issues are expected to be even more severe in the face of climate change. Our study examines the likely impacts of climate change on agriculture with a view to propose adaptation options, especially in hard hit regions. We use a crop model to evaluate the impact of various sowing decisions on the water satisfaction index (WSI) and thus the yield of maize crop. The crop model is run for 176 stations over southern Africa, subject to climate scenarios downscaled from 6 GCMs. The sensitivity of these simulations is analysed so as to distinguish the contributions of sowing decisions to yield variation. We compare the WSI change between a 20 year control period (1979-1999) and a 20 year future period (2046-2065) over southern Africa. These results highlight areas that will likely be negatively affected by climate change over the study region. We then calculate the contribution of sowing decisions to yield variation, first for the control period, then for the future period. This contribution (sensitivity) allows us to distinguish the efficiency of adaptation decisions under both present and future climate. In most countries rainfall in the sowing dekad is shown to contribute more significantly to the yield variation and appears as a long term efficient decision to adapt. We discuss these results and additional perspectives in order to propose local adaptation directions.

Official journal of the Society of South African Geographers ; Between September 1997 and March 2006, 43,423 environmental impact assessment (EIA) applications were submitted in South Africa. This exceptionally high number reflects a particular weakness in the ability of the EIA system to effectively screen EIA applications. The 2006 EIA Regulations intended to reduce the number of EIA applications by 20%. This paper presents a comparative analysis of screening performance before and following the 2006 EIA Regulations in order to determine the improvement of screening effectiveness (and hence the EIA process) since the interventions introduced in the 2006 EIA Regulations. Changes in the number of EIA applications as well as the types of activities requiring EIA are analysed. The results show that the average number of EIA applications submitted per month reduced by 27% nationally from 1997 to 2006. Although the 20% reduction target has been achieved, the number of EIA applications remains high compared with international trends and considered against the available administrative capacity. Analysis of the Free State Province also shows that, for both periods, very similar types of activities triggered the majority of EIA applications, with transformation of land, construction of masts and storage of fuel being the most common. To improve EIA screening, it is recommended that the reduction target be reconsidered and that additional screening methods such as environmental management frameworks and norms and standards be implemented. ; http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03736245.2011.592263

The objective of this paper was to assess bacteriological quality of drinking water in a peri-urban area located in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, Brazil. A total of 89 water samples were collected from community plastic tanks and 177 water samples from wells were collected bimonthly, from September 2007 to November 2008, for evaluating bacteriological parameters including: Escherichia coli, Enterococcus and heterotrophic plate count (HPC). Clostridium perfringens was investigated in a subsample (40 samples from community plastic tank and 40 from wells). E. coli was present in 5 (5.6%) samples from community plastic tanks (2.0 - 5.1x104 MPN/100mL) and in 70 (39.5%) well samples (2.0 - 8.6x104 MPN/100mL). Thus, these samples were not in accordance with the Brazilian Regulation. Enterococcus was detected in 20 (22.5%) samples of the community plastic tanks (1 to 79 NC/100mL) and in 142 (80.2%) well samples (1 to >200 NC/100mL). C. perfringens was detected in 5 (12.5%) community plastic tanks samples and in 35 (87.5%) wells samples (2.2 to >16 MPN/100mL). HPC were above 500 CFU/mL in 5 (5.6%) waters from community plastic tanks. In wells samples, the HPC ranged from <1 to 1.6x104 CFU/mL. The residual chlorine did not attend the standard established in the drinking water legislation (0.2 mg/L), except in 20 (22.5%) samples. These results confirm the vulnerability of the water supply systems in this peri-urban area what is clearly a public health concern.

International audience ; Most African countries struggle with food production and food security. These issues are expected to be even more severe in the face of climate change. Our study examines the likely impacts of climate change on agriculture with a view to propose adaptation options, especially in hard hit regions. We use a crop model to evaluate the impact of various sowing decisions on the water satisfaction index (WSI) and thus the yield of maize crop. The crop model is run for 176 stations over southern Africa, subject to climate scenarios downscaled from 6 GCMs. The sensitivity of these simulations is analysed so as to distinguish the contributions of sowing decisions to yield variation. We compare the WSI change between a 20 year control period (1979-1999) and a 20 year future period (2046-2065) over southern Africa. These results highlight areas that will likely be negatively affected by climate change over the study region. We then calculate the contribution of sowing decisions to yield variation, first for the control period, then for the future period. This contribution (sensitivity) allows us to distinguish the efficiency of adaptation decisions under both present and future climate. In most countries rainfall in the sowing dekad is shown to contribute more significantly to the yield variation and appears as a long term efficient decision to adapt. We discuss these results and additional perspectives in order to propose local adaptation directions.