The operation and management of agencies and institutions working in the field of science and technology in selected CDCC member countries

Includes bibliography

New approaches by highway agencies in dealing with road users

The context in which society develops has changed. The principles of democracy and human rights, in addition to the explosive development of communications, have encouraged citizens' desire for involvement in many areas which formerly had been the preserve of the State. This is also reflected in the attitudes of public utility customers, who are no longer prepared to accept mediocre service from the bodies responsible; on the contrary, they are increasingly putting pressure on those bodies, demanding better service in return for the charges they pay. Road agencies are no exception. They can no longer maintain their traditional isolation from the public and from users in areas such as decision-making or accountability for results achieved. Furthermore, it is no longer enough to provide road networks; these must be managed in such a way as to ensure improved levels of service, acceptable to users who are more and more demanding. This is why conventional styles of highway management have become unsatisfactory and new approaches are developing. There is a gradual increase in openness to the interests and views of users, who are increasingly considered as partners and participants in management. There are numerous examples in various countries, including those of Latin America, of this significant change; it is likely to cause a major transformation in the way in which public highways are managed. The innovations are recent, many of them still at the embryonic stage. A wide variety of concrete measures have been proposed or tried out. It is not yet possible to predict the size or scope of these changes, or which of them will ultimately become normal practice, but the changes have begun. The purpose of this article is to outline the principal changes which are being observed and the new outlook for road users.

Report on the implementation of the ECLAC work programme subregional activities for the Caribbean 2006-2007 biennium [Covering the period 1 Janurary 2006- 31 December 2007]

The focus of the activities of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean/Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (ECLAC/CDCC) secretariat during the 2006-2007 biennium continued to be on assistance to member governments of the subregion with policy-making and development strategies, especially on issues relevant to the promotion of the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of development in the Caribbean. The Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean worked closely with member countries of the CDCC in an effort to ensure the relevance of outputs which would inform policy options. This involved the strengthening of partnerships with both regional and subregional institutions and relevant agencies of the United Nations system working in the Caribbean. A major decision was taken to refocus the operational aspects of the secretariat to ensure that they were relevant to the development goals of its members. This involved the introduction of a thematic approach to the work of the office. One of the changes resulting from this was the restructuring and renaming of the Caribbean Documentation Centre. The Caribbean Knowledge Management Centre (CKMC), as it is now known, has changed its emphasis from organizing and disseminating documents, and is now a more proactive partner in the research undertaken by staff and other users of the service. The CKMC manages the ECLAC website, the public face of the organization. Newsletters and all other documents, including Information and Communications Technology (ICT) profiles of selected countries, prepared by the secretariat, are now available online at the ECLAC/CDCC website www.eclacpos.org . The Caribbean Knowledge Management Portal was launched at a meeting of information specialists in St. Vincent and the Grenadines in 2007. In addition to reaching a wider public, this measure was introduced as a means of reducing the cost of printing or disseminating publications. In spite of the unusually high vacancy rate, at both the international and local levels, during the biennium, the subregional headquarters accomplished 98 per cent of the 119 outputs earmarked for the period. Using vacant positions to carry out the assignments was not an easy task, given the complexity in recruiting qualified and experienced persons for short periods. Nevertheless, consultancy services and short-term replacement staff greatly aided the delivery of these outputs. All the same, 35 work months remained unused during the biennium, leaving 301 work months to complete the outputs. In addition to the unoccupied positions, the work of the subprogramme was severely affected by the rising cost of regional and subregional travel which limited the ability of staff to network and interact with colleagues of member countries. This also hampered the outreach programme carried out mainly through ad hoc expert group meetings. In spite of these shortcomings, the period proved to be successful for the subprogramme as it engaged the attention of member countries in its work either through direct or indirect participation. Staff members completed 36 technical papers plus the reports of the meetings and workshops. A total of 523 persons, representing member countries, participated in the 18 intergovernmental and expert meetings convened by the secretariat in the 24-month period. In its effort to build technical capacity, the subprogramme convened 15 workshops/seminars which offered training for 446 persons.

David Bancroft Johnson Travel Journals - Accession 32 - M9 (32)

The David Bancroft Johnson Travel Journals Collection consists of a diary of a trip taken by David Bancroft Johnson, Founder and First President of Winthrop, to Belgium, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, France, England, and Scotland during October- December 1908. The journals contains descriptions of areas visited, social life and customs. Also included is a description of his trip to Denver, Colorado in July 1909 in which he describes the area and its people.

Monitoring the Prey-Field of Marine Predators: Combining Digital Imaging With Datalogging Tags

There is increasing interest in the diving behavior of marine mammals. However, identifying foraging among recorded dives often requires several assumptions. The simultaneous acquisition of images of the prey encountered, together with records of diving behavior will allow researchers to more fully investigate the nature of subsurface behavior. We tested a novel digital camera linked to a time-depth recorder on Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella). During the austral summer 2000-2001, this system was deployed on six lactating female fur seals at Bird Island, South Georgia, each for a single foraging trip. The camera was triggered at depths greater than 10 m. Five deployments recorded still images (640 x 480 pixels) at 3-sec intervals (total 8,288 images), the other recorded movie images at 0.2-sec intervals (total 7,598 frames). Memory limitation (64 MB) restricted sampling to approximately 1.5 d of 5-7 d foraging trips. An average of 8.5% of still pictures (2.4%-11.6%) showed krill (Euphausia superba) distinctly, while at least half the images in each deployment were empty, the remainder containing blurred or indistinct prey. In one deployment krill images were recorded within 2.5 h (16 km, assuming 1.8 m/sec travel speed) of leaving the beach. Five of the six deployments also showed other fur seals foraging in conjunction with the study animal. This system is likely to generate exciting new avenues for interpretation of diving behavior.

Provisioning Strategies of Antarctic Fur Seals and Chinstrap Penguins Produce Different Responses to Distribution of Common Prey and Habitat

Central-place foragers that must return to a breeding site to deliver food to offspring are faced with trade-offs between prey patch quality and distance from the colony. Among colonial animals, pinnipeds and seabirds may have different provisioning strategies, due to differences in their ability to travel and store energy. We compared the foraging areas of lactating Antarctic fur seals and chinstrap penguins breeding at Seal Island, Antarctica, to investigate whether they responded differently to the distribution of their prey (Antarctic krill and myctophid fish) and spatial heterogeneity in their habitat. Dense krill concentrations occurred in the shelf region near the colony. However, only brooding penguins, which are expected to be time-minimizers because they must return frequently with whole food for their chicks, foraged mainly in this proximal shelf region. Lactating fur seals and incubating penguins, which can make longer trips to increase energy gain per trip, and so are expected to be energy-maximizers, foraged in the more distant (>20 km from the island) slope and oceanic regions. The shelf region was characterized by more abundant, but lower-energy-content immature krill, whereas the slope and oceanic regions had less abundant but higher-energy-content gravid krill, as well as high-energy-content myctophids. Furthermore, krill in the shelf region undertook diurnal vertical migration, whereas those in the slope and oceanic regions stayed near the surface throughout the day, which may enhance the capture rate for visual predators. Therefore, we sug- gest that the energy-maximizers foraged in distant, but potentially more profitable feeding regions, while the time-minimizers foraged in closer, but potentially less profitable regions. Thus, time and energy constraints derived from different provisioning strategies may result in sympatric colonial predator species using different foraging areas, and as a result, some central-place foragers use sub- optimal foraging habitats, in terms of the quality or quantity of available prey.

Air accident investigation among regulatory agencies

The aim of this manuscript is to describe and compare regulatory aviation agencies according to their subordination and attributions to investigate air accidents. Possible consequences in identifying the contributory factors are also presented. Distinct procedures investigating air accidents among agencies lead to a lack of standardization of the statistics, making it difficult to analyze the data globally. Separately the information does not configure the entire scenario of what occurred, affecting the analysis and subsequent interventions. We recommend a joint and collaborative work between the different committees that operate in the investigation of air accidents.