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Recent reports stress the vulnerability of forest ecosystems in the European Union (EU), especially in the south. Cyprus is an island in the south of EU and the eastern of the Mediterranean Sea. While Cyprus' vulnerability is stressed, Cyprus was included in the worst-performing countries regarding EU carbon emission's targets of 2020. For mitigating climate change, Cyprus could benefit for tailored education and improved policy making. This study analyses the perceptions of the Cypriot residents about climate change and forest degradation aiming (1) to gain a better understanding of whether Cypriot residents understand its importance, (2) to understand if the general public is able to observe the changes noted in the literature, (3) to understand how perceptions are differentiated across different demographic categories, and (4) to derive correlations between demographic data and perceptions. This is a quantitative study; a questionnaire was used as a tool and the responses received were 416. It was highlighted that 65.62% of the participants stated that they noticed moderate to very much degradation of Cypriot coniferous forests. A potential degradation reason was written down by 150 people, of whom 31.33% referred to tree die-back, while many stated decreased soil moisture and difficulty in regeneration. All these reasons of degradation were either stated or suspected in the literature. Additionally, the demographic analysis showed that there may be an association between employability and beliefs/observations about climate change. The results of the research could be used for tailored education, further research, and promoting environmentally friendly policies. This will support Cyprus and other countries in reaching their Green Deal targets and, consequently, mitigate the severe effects of climate change.

The study aimed to investigate the changing culture of social engagement toward aged persons along with stereotypes that aged person be constrained in their contacts and engagement. Despite the fact that the society of Pakistan is rooted on the culture that dignifies the lives of aged person and place them on the high position of virtue but current reaction of the society is hostile regarding their engagement in terms of local community connections, religious connections and work connections by stereotypes that elderly are supposed to perform limited role. The study aimed to assess the level of social engagement, opportunities available and encouragement from different stake holder of society for the aged persons. In order to explore, the study targeted retired pensioners from government department across the south Punjab region by focusing all cadres of pensioner's i.e. Class-IV, Clerical Cadre and Gazatted. The study selected 400 retired pensioners (i.e. 302 male 98 females) from districts Multan, Khenewal, Bahawlpur, Rahim Yar Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan and Muzaffargarh of South Punjab, through stratified random sampling technique. The study used proportionate sampling technique in order to select true representatives of the population from each selected district. The study used self-constructed Social Engagement Scale for data collection through survey method and face-to-face interview schedule. The study concluded that aged persons deserve dignified life in the society. For this state should device the policies and their implementations as well along with society proactive role for those who had served their potential and still can add for the betterment of society as well. Keywords: Population ageing, Social engagement, Cultural influences

Recent reports stress the vulnerability of forest ecosystems in the European Union (EU), especially in the south. Cyprus is an island in the south of EU and the eastern of the Mediterranean Sea. While Cyprus' vulnerability is stressed, Cyprus was included in the worst-performing countries regarding EU carbon emission's targets of 2020. For mitigating climate change, Cyprus could benefit for tailored education and improved policy making. This study analyses the perceptions of the Cypriot residents about climate change and forest degradation aiming (1) to gain a better understanding of whether Cypriot residents understand its importance, (2) to understand if the general public is able to observe the changes noted in the literature, (3) to understand how perceptions are differentiated across different demographic categories, and (4) to derive correlations between demographic data and perceptions. This is a quantitative study ; a questionnaire was used as a tool and the responses received were 416. It was highlighted that 65.62% of the participants stated that they noticed moderate to very much degradation of Cypriot coniferous forests. A potential degradation reason was written down by 150 people, of whom 31.33% referred to tree die-back, while many stated decreased soil moisture and difficulty in regeneration. All these reasons of degradation were either stated or suspected in the literature. Additionally, the demographic analysis showed that there may be an association between employability and beliefs/observations about climate change. The results of the research could be used for tailored education, further research, and promoting environmentally friendly policies. This will support Cyprus and other countries in reaching their Green Deal targets and, consequently, mitigate the severe effects of climate change.

As petroleum reserves depleted, certainly encourage the government to search for new energy sources. Eksploration of coal is the right choice because its potential is so great in Indonesian especially in South Sumatera Province is known have content 37,80% from total resources in Indonesian. Well loggging method is one of geophysics method used to find and estimate coal resources. Advantages of well logging method is able to describe subsurface laterally. The purpose of this study is displaying an overview of subsurface rock layers, determine the direction of distribution by correlating coal seam between wells based on data logging, and to estimate coal resources in the research area. The total area of the author's research is 442.056 m2 has 10 wells. Log data used in this study is gamma ray log dan density log, where coal seams are characterized by gamma ray log response and low log density responses. On the field "ADA" found four coal seam, that is seam A1 with thickness 8,28 m, seam A2 with thickness 13,62 m, seam B with thickness 18,50, and seam C with thickness 8,84. Direction of coal distribution from South to North with slope angle 5-30º and direction of sincerity from East to West. The author calculates the estimated coal resource using polygon method because this calculates method can be done with a short time and the results are right. Total coal by polygon method of 18.322.653 m3 in tons of 21.987.184–27.483.980 ton while calculations with software rock works 15 amount 18.786.254 m3 in tons of 22.543.505–28.179.381 ton.

Australia's form of democracy is suffering a crisis of public confidence. In one major record of public opinion, confidence in government was 40 percent, the second-lowest point since records commenced in 1969. This research project has investigated one aspect of the democratic contract between a government and its citizenry: government openness with its public and the effect of this on public trust. It is an area of research that is not well investigated. Focusing on circumstances where governments should be focused on the interests of their citizens and not on themselves, the research project investigated the crisis narrative of the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, specifically the official commentaries of the Malaysian and Australian governments and their agencies. These official statements were subjected to review using a case study approach involving qualitative methods. This analysis found three distinctive discourses; the first focused almost singularly on the Malaysian government's efforts to meet the needs of the families of those lost in the disaster; the second was almost exclusively related to search operations and operational information provided by search agencies when operations shifted to the Southern Indian Ocean; and the third related to the strategic opportunities explored by the Australian government during search operations in the southern search arc. It was found that existing crisis communication models do not reflect the pressures and demands of the contemporary information environment. Furthermore, the research data and their analysis led to the conclusion and recommendation that a more open government may be required in the current political environment in which public trust has been declining.

In 2012, the World Bank signed five agreements with MRDPA for advisory services, out of which one relates to the growth poles policy and to its improvement for the programming period 2014-2020. This agreement has three components: 1) an analysis of the growth poles policy, 2) energy efficiency studies for each growth pole; and 3) a review of the Integrated Development Plans prepared by the growth poles for the period 2007-2013. In this context, South Muntenia Regional Development Agency, through the coordinator of Ploiești Growth Pole, requested the World Bank, under a project funded by ERDF through the Technical Assistance Operational Program 2007-2013, to support the Growth Pole in implementing the recommendations stemming from the previous analysis with: 1) updating the Integrated Development Plan for 2014-2020; and 2) proposing an improved institutional framework for coordinating the planning, implementation and monitoring of projects under this plan. The current document of the Integrated Development Plan belonging to Ploiești Growth Pole was developed during the period 2008-2009 and approved and submitted to South Muntenia RDA in April 2010. It contains a total number of 93 projects with a total value of RON 5,136,143,583.91, out of which 762,515,322.81 are EU funds, and the remainder comes from the national budget and the beneficiaries' own contribution. In the process of updating the plan, the implementation status of these projects will be studied further, while attention will be also given to the unimplemented projects in order to see whether they will be included in the documentation, depending on their response to the new development conditions of the growth pole.

In the Global South, many ongoing public transport improvement initiatives are based on a complete restructuring of the existing system. More often than not, plans call for an eventual absorption of incumbent operators into a new "formal" system or for a more radical eradication. These operators are often considered by city authorities to be the cause of inefficient transport systems. When implementing bus-rapid-transit-based plans, public transport improvement initiatives typically propose the transformation of paratransit-based direct services into feeder-trunk-distributor models that introduce new "formal" and "modern" modes. The move from direct services to feeder-trunk-distributor services can, however, have significant implications for travel patterns within the urban territory. Formal feeder-trunk-distributor public transport systems are more rigid than the paratransit-based model they are meant to replace. Some areas of cities in the Global South, generally located in peripheral zones, are growing and changing rapidly, and as such they ideally require a public transport system that is flexible and demand-responsive to fulfill their residents' basic access needs. With the introduction of formal-only trunk-and-feeder schemes, some of these benefits of paratransit services are lost. Without disregarding the need for paratransit upgrade in terms of operations and business practices, it is argued that complementarity between formal and paratransit services is possible within a feeder-trunk-distributor model. Such complementarity should eventually lead to more equitable and sustainable public transport systems in cities that are changing fast and where the development of paratransit operators has, in one way or another, contributed to the inclusion of the poorest sectors of society in the city.

© 2015, Urban Studies Journal Limited 2015. This special issue, papers presented at an Urban Studies Foundation-funded conference in Jakarta (March 2011), examines the current 'urban century' in terms of three revolutions. Revolutions from above index the logics and norms of mainstream global urbanism, particularly the form they have taken as policymakers work with municipal officials worldwide to organise urban development around neoliberal norms. Revolutions from below refer to the multifaceted contestations of global urbanism that take place in and around cities, ranging from urban street demonstrations and occupations (such as those riveting the world in early 2011 when these papers were written) to the quotidian actions of those pursuing politics and livelihoods that subvert the norms of mainstream global urbanism. It also highlights conceptual revolutions, referencing the ongoing challenge of reconceptualising urban theory from the South – not simply as a hemispheric location or geopolitical category but an epistemological stance, staged from many different locations but always fraught with the differentials of power and the weight of historical geographies. Drawing on the insights of scholars writing from, and not just about, such locations, a further iteration in this 'southern' turn of urban theorising is proposed. This spatio-temporal conjunctural approach emphasises how the specificity of cities – their existence as entities that are at once singular and universal – emerges from spatio-temporal dynamics, connectivities and horizontal and vertical relations. Practically, such scholarship entails taking the field seriously through collaborative work that is multi-sited, engages people along the spectrum of academics and activists, and is presented before and scrutinised by multiple publics.

The economic bank of Prizren, Peć, Priština, Uroševac, Vučitrn, Gnjilane and South-Serbian bank from Mitrovica established The Financial Institute so called 'Old Serbia' in Skopje in 1923. The economic life of all the founders' towns tended towards Skopje, so it was reasonable that banks' financial interests had a decisive role on foundation of this institute. The banks were able to found independently from each other their own branches in Skopje, or to work with already existing institutes in Skopje. But from the very early age, initiated by the banks from Peć and Prizren, they realized all the advantages that the own economic institute provided and thus would operate all the bank-business operations and represent their interests on the market of Skopje. That bank was often considered to be a holding bank, but it was wrongly understood, because it didn't have the shares of seven banks in its portfolio. On the contrary, at the beginning there were six, and then seven banks that founded and later overtook the shares of the Bank and thus became its owners. The Bank had worked successfully until the appearance of banking crisis in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1931. It enlarged its capital constantly providing the profit. All the bank founders had benefits of successful business dealing, while South-Serbian bank' business was normalized with the intervention of 'Old Serbia'. The reputation and safety of the bank's making business made it possible for it to successfully cope with all problems caused by the financial crisis and to become one of few private financial institutes in Yugoslavia that could make business without any losses.

Over the past four decades, the Latino population of the United States was transformed from a small, ethnically segmented population of Mexicans in the southwest, Puerto Ricans in New York, and Cubans in Miami into a large national population dominated by Mexicans, Central Americans, and South Americans. This transformation occurred through mass immigration, much of it undocumented, to the point where large fractions of non-Caribbean Hispanics lack legal protections and rights in the United States. Rising illegality is critical to understanding the disadvantaged status of Latinos today. The unauthorized population began to grow after avenues for legal entry were curtailed in 1965. The consequent rise in undocumented migration enabled political and bureaucratic entrepreneurs to frame Latino migration as a grave threat to the nation, leading to a rising frequency of negative framings in the media, a growing conservative reaction, and increasingly restrictive immigration and border policies that generated more apprehensions. Rising apprehensions, in turn, further enflamed the conservative reaction to produce even harsher enforcement and more still more apprehensions, yielding a self-feeding cycle in which apprehensions kept rising even though undocumented inflows had stabilized. The consequent militarization of the border had the perverse effect of reducing rates of out-migration rather than inhibiting in-migration, leading to a sharp rise in net undocumented population and rapid growth of the undocumented population. As a result, a majority of Mexican, Central American, and South American immigrants are presently undocumented at a time when unauthorized migrants are subject to increasing sanctions from authorities and the public, yielding down-ward pressure on the status and well-being of Latinos in the United States.

Over the past four decades, the Latino population of the United States was transformed from a small, ethnically segmented population of Mexicans in the southwest, Puerto Ricans in New York, and Cubans in Miami into a large national population dominated by Mexicans, Central Americans, and South Americans. This transformation occurred through mass immigration, much of it undocumented, to the point where large fractions of non-Caribbean Hispanics lack legal protections and rights in the United States. Rising illegality is critical to understanding the disadvantaged status of Latinos today. The unauthorized population began to grow after avenues for legal entry were curtailed in 1965. The consequent rise in undocumented migration enabled political and bureaucratic entrepreneurs to frame Latino migration as a grave threat to the nation, leading to a rising frequency of negative framings in the media, a growing conservative reaction, and increasingly restrictive immigration and border policies that generated more apprehensions. Rising apprehensions, in turn, further enflamed the conservative reaction to produce even harsher enforcement and more still more apprehensions, yielding a self-feeding cycle in which apprehensions kept rising even though undocumented inflows had stabilized. The consequent militarization of the border had the perverse effect of reducing rates of out-migration rather than inhibiting in-migration, leading to a sharp rise in net undocumented population and rapid growth of the undocumented population. As a result, a majority of Mexican, Central American, and South American immigrants are presently undocumented at a time when unauthorized migrants are subject to increasing sanctions from authorities and the public, yielding down-ward pressure on the status and well-being of Latinos in the United States.

Abstract
The southern United States is no stranger to hazard and disaster events. Intense hurricanes, drought, flooding, and other climate-sensitive hazards are commonplace and have outnumbered similar events in other areas of the United States annually in both scale and magnitude by a ratio of almost 4:1 during the past 10 years. While losses from climate-sensitive hazards are forecast to increase in the coming years, not all of the populations residing within these hazard zones have the same capacity to prepare for, respond to, cope with, and rebound from disaster events. The identification of these vulnerable populations and their location relative to zones of known or probably future hazard exposure is necessary for the development and implementation of effective adaptation, mitigation, and emergency management strategies. This paper provides an approach to regional assessments of hazards vulnerability by describing and integrating hazard zone information on four climate-sensitive hazards with socioeconomic and demographic data to create an index showing both the areal extent of hazard exposure and social vulnerability for the southern United States. When examined together, these maps provide an assessment of the likely spatial impacts of these climate-sensitive hazards and their variability. The identification of hotspots—counties with elevated exposures and elevated social vulnerability—highlights the distribution of the most at risk counties and the driving factors behind them. Results provide the evidentiary basis for developing targeted strategic initiatives for disaster risk reduction including preparedness for response and recovery and longer-term adaptation in those most vulnerable and highly impacted areas.

Spain is a country with a large hydrogeologic potential. As in other southern European countries the water resources, besides urban supply, are used mainly for irrigation and much of the groundwater abstraction is concentrated in a number of intensively exploited aquifers. Groundwater was declared a public domain resource in Spain in 1985, but the real implementation of such a declaration has encountered many difficulties in practice. Because groundwater was a private property before the 1985 Water Act, it was not considered a task for water management agencies and water authorities in Spain. As with aIl the European Union Member States, Spain is nowadays fuIly involved in the process of implementing the principies of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) (European Commission, 2000). Such a process constitutes a unique opportunity to improve groundwater protection and knowledge, and achieve effective management of this resource. However, to adapt the WFD principies to the hydro-climatic and socio-economic context of a south European Mediterranean country is not an easy task. The current papel' provides an overview of the hydrogeologic context and groundwater management practices in Spain. The main groundwater "facts and figures" of Spain are introduced first, mainly concerning the hydrogeologic knowledge and groundwater use in the country, with a section on specific technical measures. A summary of the groundwater management context is described afterwards, introducing the institutional and legal framework as weIl as sorne basic concepts related to groundwater management, and also a section on groundwater cost issues. Next, a section of discussion about the ongoing process of the WFD implementation in Spain is offered. This paper finishes with a general summary and some conclusions. ; Postprint (published version)

The aims of local autonomy is to achieve local independence funding, sothat the areas can organize themselves without any central governmentinterference. The direct implications for the implementation of the aboveis needed great for adequate funding. Local government's main fundingsource, comes from the PAD, which is used to finance expenditures anddevelopment. But in some of the current year funding sources not onlyfrom the PAD. Local governments also get help from central governmenttransfers such as Equalization Fund in this case is Block Grant Aid(DAU). In the course of the central government transfers actuallybecome a disincentive for increased regional funding. Regions becomemore dependent on central government transfers rather than optimizetheir own revenues (PAD). There are has indications of asymmetricbehavior in response to the transfer of central government.This research has the objective to provide empirical evidence or did nothappen flypaper effect in the Block Grant Aid and the Regional RealIncome to Regional Expenditure district/city in South Sumatra. Theanalyzed data obtained from the reports of the Real Budget and RegionalIncome. The results show that the coefficient of DAU and the coefficientof PAD when tested simultaneously (simultaneous) has effect on regionalexpenditure. However, when tested separately (partial) results indicatethat coefficient of DAU is greater than coefficient of PAD, it means thereis flypaper effect in the Expenditure Area district/ city in South Sumatra.These results are only based on statistical tests and can not be used tomeasure of the performance of local governments at district / city inSouth Sumatra, as it still needs testing through next research.Keywords: flypaper effect, Block Grant Aid, Regional Real Income, RegionalExpenditure

After six or seven years of generalised infestation in Sulawesi, this level of losses has been reached despite a range of CPB control programmes launched by extension services in addition to specific projects. As a consequence, we believe that this major economic problem deserves strong investment in research in entomology, selection of planting material, but also in farm economics. What are Sulawesi smallholders' strategies with respect to the CPB and to cocoa farming in general? How can these strategies be taken into account in a global national strategy to control CPB and improve the sustainability of cocoa? These questions led the USDA/CIRAD to conduct a brief survey with the aim of contributing to a 'CPB research action plan' to be discussed with Indonesian partners in mid 2007. The outputs of this survey will be a few memos with qualitative findings and considerations and longer papers with a more detailed analysis. This first memo summarizes the very first qualitative results from a preliminary sample of 51-farms conducted in December 2006: 31 smallholders were interviewed in two villages in Bungku (Central Sulawesi), where the CPB started to infest part of the cocoa farms as recently as in 2005/06, and 20 smallholders were interviewed in three villages in Southern and Northern Palopo (South Sulawesi) where CPB has been active for at least seven years. Before conducting a complete analysis of these data, some preliminary results of the survey led us to draw provisional conclusions that may seem too strong at this stage but we believe it is useful to put them forward as hypotheses to be verified in the next steps of the survey.