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A persistent and seemingly intractable problem is the systemic failure to successfully scale evidence-informed social services to a level that achieves population-level improvements in well-being. There is a growing call for governments to enter the scaling environment as primary coordinators, trainers, and funders. Prior scholarship has identified four strategies governments may employ to enact these roles: convene and support high-level leadership teams, assess organizational readiness, provide technical assistance, and align funding. But it is unclear whether use of any or all of these government scaling strategies is sufficient to achieve desired outcomes. Moreover, prior scholarship largely focused on state and federal government roles, largely ignoring how these factors might operate in local government environments. Yet counties may hold the greatest scaling leverage because they often have well-established relationships with service providers through shared clients, contracts, and advocacy. The current study, thus, aimed to provide much needed insight into the relationship between these strategies and scaling outcomes in a local governmental context. Drawing data from a single county with a stated goal of scaling evidence-informed practices across human service organizations, it used public government records and crowd-sourced and computational data-extraction methods to create measures of these four alternative strategies. It assessed the relative effects of these strategies on scaling progress using time-to-event analysis. It found that county governments are well positioned to implement scaling strategies and that the proportion of social service providers adopting evidence-informed services can increase, as can the proportion of county funding directed to these organizations. It also found some empirical support for a link between three of the strategies and scaled evidence-informed services—convening a leadership team, assessing readiness, and aligning funding. Moreover, it identified a new and potentially desirable county strategy—establishing a shared local measure of evidence-informed service. This study design is highly replicable and as such provides a general model to apply to other local environments to identify common county levers that effectively promote the scaling of evidence-informed social services.

AbstractUsing an interdisciplinary systems approach, this paper presents a comprehensive overview of our scientific knowledge of the Cosmos within a conceptual four dimensional tetrahedral geometry where relationships are primary. Vital to the development of this model is a proposed innovative pattern, using the 48 basic measure formulas and their associated 24 relationships from within the area of physics. It is from these patterns, developed at the most basic level of our scientific understanding, geometry and physics, that the proposal is made that these patterns might be carried over into other areas and meaningful conclusions drawn. Since this is a philosophical inquiry, only patterns and relationships within and between fields of scientific knowledge have been demonstrated. Detailed development of the tetrahedral geometric patterning and the placement of knowledge within five transcendent classifications has been demonstrated. Challenging tentative conclusions in many areas, including human relations involving conflict resolution and avoidance of war, have also been presented.

The SARS crisis revealed critical gaps in Ontario's health emergency response capacity, and identified, in the starkest terms possible, the need for improved emergency response planning. This article reviews the development of the Ontario Health Plan for an Influenza Pandemic (OHPIP), released in June 2005. Some key points arising from the provincial planning process include the necessity to: ensure a broad and inclusive development process; ensure the pandemic plan identifies: 1) clear roles and responsibilities of federal, provincial/territorial and municipal levels of government, 2) the approach to occupational health and safety issues and ethical decision-making, 3) a communications strategy linking all affected sectors and levels of government and health sector; 4) any commitments to antiviral stockpiling, vaccine and antiviral allocation and use, and an approach for drug delivery from provincial stockpiles to local public health units; 5) health human resource management and supplementation; and 6) key programs/services to be scaled back to maximize surge capacity; address best practices (e.g., involve all sectors of the health care system at the outset, acquire strategic expertise, coordinate/advocate with broader emergency response system, etc); and outline future stages that include strengthening the delivery of clinical care to influenza cases; clarifying the role of primary care practitioners during a pandemic; leveraging Ontario's significant e-Health investments. Ontario's pandemic planning process aims to provide a robust, detailed document that will offer useful advice and information well beyond its borders.

The vulnerability of urban environments in continental regions to earthquake forces was explicitly demonstrated in Australia's devastating Newcastle earthquake on December 28, 1989. This moderately-sized earthquake of Richter magnitude ML 5.6 (Moment magnitude M 5.3) claimed 13 lives, damaged more than 70,000 properties and left an estimated total loss of about $AU (1991) 4 billion. The need for an earthquake mitigation programme in Australia was thus clearly established. It is for this reason that a multidisciplinary approach involving seismology, geology, engineering, insurance, local government and emergency services is being followed to study this event and its consequences. The earthquake source is defined as being on a thrust fault trending NW-SE dipping 75° to the NE, with a depth of focus at 11.5 km, source radius of 1.86 km, stress drop of at least 24 bars and a displacement along the rupture surface of at least 310 mm. The epicentre is located at 32.95°S, 151.61°E close to Boolaroo, about 15 km SW of the City of Newcastle, and with an epicentral error of about + 15 km. More than 100,000 observations from damage and felt reports are being analysed and integrated with the wide experiences gained in the rescue, recovery and renewal phases that have extended over the two years since the event. The specific issue of the geotechnical aspects is of great importance. It is being considered from the view of urban geology (surface alluvial sediments), rather than from theoretical considerations, to explain the major extent of building damage on the alluvial areas, amplification and liquefaction. Apart from the immediate "causes" of damage, serious consideration is being given to the long-term effects which have resulted in the latent and recurrent defects to buildings. The engineering findings from the Newcastle earthquake are discussed in detail. While it is uneconomical and not necessary to design a structure to withstand the greatest likely earthquake without damage in Australia, the cost of providing strength to resist very high intensity loads must be weighed against the importance of the structure and probability of the earthquakes, particularly in areas such as this with relatively little known seismic histories. Lessons for local government authorities who had not previously considered seismic activity are addressed. Based on the response and recovery of the City of Newcastle, the lessons include the development of a recovery management plan, revision of building regulations and the requirements for hazard mitigation. Unfortunately, several misconceptions about some aspects of the consequences of this earthquake have arisen. These concern the limitations of some analyses, use of selected data sets rather than all the available data and apparent lack of understanding of complex, rather than singular, causal relationships. Implications for the engineering, insurance and possibly the legal professions need to be considered. The potential to reduce losses in future earthquakes in Australia through an earthquake mitigation programme is now an achievable goal. The scenarios of such an event occurring at a different time or in a different city can be addressed, based on the Newcastle and other international experiences. Sufficient information is available to prepare the revised Australian earthquake loading code as a reliable and practical document for use by engineers. The consequences of the 1989 Newcastle earthquake have also captured the interest of researchers from many other continental areas of the Earth who must consider preparations for similar situations. All aspects of the study ultimately lead to the preparedness of urban communities to deal with such consequences with the assistance of emergency services agencies to minimize the social and economic traumas that will inevitably occur.