The possible benefits of e-government are currently generating far more interest than the limitations. The dominant view is that the Internet offers almost unlimited potential and that governments are not fully exploiting this opportunity. The authors' findings question this conclusion. They find a strong preference for in-person and telephone communication, even when these methods might actually be less convenient. The authors focus on a single public agency, but the circumstances they address are common in public organizations.
The paper presents a theoretical model that seeks to answer the question of why former squatter settlements tend to upgrade/redevelop at a slower pace than otherwise similar settlements originating in the formal sector. We argue that squatter settlers' initial strategy to access urban land creates a 'legacy effect' that curtails settlement upgrading possibilities even after the settlements are granted property titles. We test our model using the case of Cochabamba, Bolivia and obtain results consistent with our theoretical model prediction. Our results suggest that the commonly used 'benign neglect while keeping the threat of eviction' policy has profound impacts on how land is developed in the informal sector and this poses costly consequences for local governments after legalization.
This article examines how racial and ethnic representation influences the tools that public officials use in designing policy. We use Schneider and Ingram's policy tools framework to empirically test how racial and ethnic representation affects student discipline outcomes in a sample of Georgia public schools. We find that schools with balanced racial and ethnic representation are more likely to adopt learning-oriented discipline policies, whereas those with imbalanced representation are more likely to implement sanction-oriented policies. The results demonstrate that representation is an important lever in policy design, with broad social and political consequences that extend beyond the immediate organization.
[EN] This paper is based on the contents of the postgraduate course "Prediction and optimization models of concrete structures", taught in the Master of Concrete Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, in which civil engineering students are taught the various techniques of multi-criteria assessment, with a sustainable approach, applied to the optimal design of structures. This allows the student to compare complex aspects with generally contradictory objectives that characterize sustainability under criteria of economic, environmental and social efficiency, among others. Construction companies usually focus on cost optimization during the construction stage of structures that are currently not sufficient to meet the growing social demands of the 21st century world, needing to balance the criteria that support sustainability. The construction sector represents a relevant percentage of the total CO2 emissions, being responsible for a great part of the environmental impacts, which is enough reason for the European Union policies to be more and more oriented to the reduction of these emissions. This document presents a case study on a research being carried out by the faculty and students who are part of the research team, comparing two different construction alternatives, namely "traditional" in-situ concrete versus "prefabricated" with blocks and plates of Ytong. The aim is to find the structural optimum of an urban single-family house from the economic and environmental point of view throughout its life cycle. The objective is to find the structural optimum of an urban single-family house from the economic and environmental point of view throughout its life cycle. An analysis of indicators including the production phase, construction, the use and maintenance stage and the end of life has been carried out. The environmental impacts throughout the life cycle of the alternatives have been evaluated on the basis of the Ecoinvent 3.3 environmental database, using the ReCiPe impact assessment ...
The harvesting of processing tomatoes is fully mechanised and it is well known that during harvest, fruits are subjected to mechanical stress causing physical injuries, including skin punctures, pulp and cell rupture. Some wireless sensors have been used for research during recent years with the main purpose of reducing the quality loss of tomato fruits by diminishing the number and intensity of impacts. In this study the IRD (impact recorder device) sensor was used to evaluate several tomato harvesters. The specific objectives were to evaluate the impacts during mechanical harvest using a wireless sensor, to determine the critical points at which damage occurs, and to assess the damage levels. Samples were taken to determine the influence of mechanical harvest on texture, or on other quality characteristics including percentage of damages. From the obtained data it has been possible to identify the critical points where the damages were produced for each one of the five harvester models examined. The highest risk of damage was in zone 1 of the combine—from the cutting system to the colour selector—because the impacts were of higher intensity and hit less absorbing surfaces than in zone 2—from colour selector to discharge. The shaker and exit from the shaker are two of the harvester elements that registered the highest intensity impacts. By adjusting, in a specific way each harvester model, using the results from this research, it has been possible to reduce the tomato damage percentage from 20 to 29% to less than 10%. ; The funding of this work has been covered by: Navarre Government Concerted Project: "Damage Determination in Processing Tomato Harvesters in Navarre", and CICYT Project AGL2000-0811
The study was aimed at comparing lower-limb strength and respiratory parameters between male and female athletes and their interaction with performance in a 107 km mountain ultramarathon. Forty seven runners (29 males and 18 females; mean ± SD age: 41 ± 5 years) were enrolled. Lower-limb strength assessment comprised a squat jump test, an ankle rebound test, and an isometric strength test. Respiratory assessment included pulmonary function testing and the measurement of maximal inspiratory pressure. Male athletes performed largely better in the squat jump (26 ± 4 vs. 21 ± 3 cm; p < 0.001; d = 1.48), while no sex differences were found in the other two lower-limb tests. Concerning the respiratory parameters, male athletes showed largely greater values in pulmonary expiratory variables: forced vital capacity (5.19 ± 0.68 vs. 3.65 ± 0.52 L; p < 0.001; d = 2.53), forced expiratory volume in 1 s (4.24 ± 0.54 vs. 2.97 ± 0.39 L; p < 0.001; d = 2.69), peak expiratory flow (9.9 ± 1.56 vs. 5.89 ± 1.39 L/min; p < 0.001; d = 2.77) and maximum voluntary ventilation in 12 s (171 ± 39 vs. 108 ± 23 L/min; p < 0.001; d = 1.93); while no sex differences were identified in maximal inspiratory pressure. Race time was associated with ankle rebound test performance (r = −0.390; p = 0.027), isometric strength test performance (r = −0.349; p = 0.049) and maximal inspiratory pressure (r = −0.544; p < 0.001). Consequently, it seems that athletes competing in mountain ultramarathons may benefit from improving lower-limb isometric strength, ankle reactive strength and inspiratory muscle strength. Nevertheless, further interventional studies are required to confirm these exploratory results. In addition, the fact that the magnitude of the sex difference for isometric strength was minor, as compared with the other strength tests, could represent one of the factors explaining why the performance gap between males and females is reduced in ultramarathons.
