Legislative regulation, a study of the ways and means of written law,

Mode of access: Internet.

EC 1992 : an assessment of economic policy issues raised by the European Community's single market program /

Mode of access: Internet.

Commercial and financial legislation of Europe and America; with a pro-forma revision of the taxation and the customs tariff of the United Kingdom.

Mode of access: Internet.

Do nations' mental health policies, programs and legislation influence their suicide rates? An ecological study of 100 countries

Objective: To test the hypothesis that the presence of national mental health policies, programs and legislation would be associated with lower national suicide rates. Method: Suicide rates from 100 countries were regressed on mental health policy, program and legislation indicators. Results: Contrary to the hypothesized relationship, the study found that after introducing mental health initiatives (with the exception of substance abuse policies), countries' suicide rates rose. Conclusion: It is of concern that most mental health initiatives are associated with an increase in suicide rates. However, there may be acceptable reasons for the observed findings, for example initiatives may have been introduced in areas of increasing need, or a case-finding effect may be operating. Data limitations must also be considered.

Is corrections correcting? An examination of prisoner rehabilitation policy and practice in Queensland

This article provides an analysis of the policy and practice of prisoner rehabilitation in Queensland, and the extent to which they accord with international best practice. Actual practice was identified through interviews and written submissions from 20 ex-prisoners and 18 prisoner service providers (including two past staff members from Queensland prisons), as well as through an examination of reported judicial review decisions and Department of Corrective Services statistics. The results demonstrate that although the legislation and procedures suggest that a best practice system of prisoner rehabilitation exists in Queensland, there is a significant gulf between policy and practice. Far from being sufficiently prepared for release, Queensland prisoners are generally released directly from high security facilities into a community which they have great difficulty reintegrating into. The results suggest that the corrective services system in Queensland is not succeeding in fulfilling its primary purpose, 'correction', or in meeting its well-publicised goal of ensuring community safety.

Decompression illness and its regulation in contemporary UK tunnelling : an engineering perspective:an engineering perspective

This thesis records the findings of a retrospective study of decompression illness (DCI) in the UK compressed air tunnelling industry since the mid-1980s. The thesis describes how the study arose, its scope and objectives, along with an overview of tunnelling and shaft-sinking. The development of compressed air working techniques is reviewed along with a description of decompression practice and DCI, and an outline of relevant legislation and guidance. The acquisition and manipulation of data to form a number of databases and spreadsheets on which the analysis was performed is discussed. That analysis examined measures of DCI incidence and quantified that incidence using these measures. Also considered is the variation in tolerance and susceptibility to DCI in the workforce, and the phenomenon of acclimatisation. An examination of the extent to which men worked on multiple contracts and the variation in their susceptibility to DCI on these contracts is included. Options are then considered for reducing the incidence of DCI. The first retained air-only decompression through the application of restrictions on exposure. The second related to the use of oxygen decompression. Finally the adequacy of the existing Regulations and Guidance is considered and recommendations made for possible changes to them, arising from the study. The main conclusions are that a number of measures of DCI incidence were identified, some more appropriate than others and that the incidence of DCI when so measured was high, disproportionately so in shift workers. No reasonably practicable restrictions on exposure were identified which would have allowed the retention of air-only decompression. Oxygen decompression looked promising but had yet to be used sufficiently extensively to generate enough data for analysis. Recommendations included one that an alternative technique for monitoring the effectiveness of decompression should be developed. The thesis ends with recommendations for further research.

On the Regulation of Small Actors: Three Experimental Essays about Policies based on Voluntary Compliance and Decentralized Monitoring

Monitoring and enforcement are perhaps the biggest challenges in the design and implementation of environmental policies in developing countries where the actions of many small informal actors cause significant impacts on the ecosystem services and where the transaction costs for the state to regulate them could be enormous. This dissertation studies the potential of innovative institutions based on decentralized coordination and enforcement to induce better environmental outcomes. Such policies have in common that the state plays the role of providing the incentives for organization but the process of compliance happens through decentralized agreements, trust building, signaling and monitoring. I draw from the literatures in collective action, common-pool resources, game-theory and non-point source pollution to develop the instruments proposed here. To test the different conditions in which such policies could be implemented I designed two field-experiments that I conducted with small-scale gold miners in the Colombian Pacific and with users and providers of ecosystem services in the states of Veracruz, Quintana Roo and Yucatan in Mexico. This dissertation is organized in three essays.

The first essay, “Collective Incentives for Cleaner Small-Scale Gold Mining on the Frontier: Experimental Tests of Compliance with Group Incentives given Limited State Monitoring”, examines whether collective incentives, i.e. incentives provided to a group conditional on collective compliance, could “outsource” the required local monitoring, i.e. induce group interactions that extend the reach of the state that can observe only aggregate consequences in the context of small-scale gold mining. I employed a framed field-lab experiment in which the miners make decisions regarding mining intensity. The state sets a collective target for an environmental outcome, verifies compliance and provides a group reward for compliance which is split equally among members. Since the target set by the state transforms the situation into a coordination game, outcomes depend on expectations of what others will do. I conducted this experiment with 640 participants in a mining region of the Colombian Pacific and I examine different levels of policy severity and their ordering. The findings of the experiment suggest that such instruments can induce compliance but this regulation involves tradeoffs. For most severe targets – with rewards just above costs – raise gains if successful but can collapse rapidly and completely. In terms of group interactions, better outcomes are found when severity initially is lower suggesting learning.

The second essay, “Collective Compliance can be Efficient and Inequitable: Impacts of Leaders among Small-Scale Gold Miners in Colombia”, explores the channels through which communication help groups to coordinate in presence of collective incentives and whether the reached solutions are equitable or not. Also in the context of small-scale gold mining in the Colombian Pacific, I test the effect of communication in compliance with a collective environmental target. The results suggest that communication, as expected, helps to solve coordination challenges but still some groups reach agreements involving unequal outcomes. By examining the agreements that took place in each group, I observe that the main coordination mechanism was the presence of leaders that help other group members to clarify the situation. Interestingly, leaders not only helped groups to reach efficiency but also played a key role in equity by defining how the costs of compliance would be distributed among group members.

The third essay, “Creating Local PES Institutions and Increasing Impacts of PES in Mexico: A real-Time Watershed-Level Framed Field Experiment on Coordination and Conditionality”, considers the creation of a local payments for ecosystem services (PES) mechanism as an assurance game that requires the coordination between two groups of participants: upstream and downstream. Based on this assurance interaction, I explore the effect of allowing peer-sanctions on upstream behavior in the functioning of the mechanism. This field-lab experiment was implemented in three real cases of the Mexican Fondos Concurrentes (matching funds) program in the states of Veracruz, Quintana Roo and Yucatan, where 240 real users and 240 real providers of hydrological services were recruited and interacted with each other in real time. The experimental results suggest that initial trust-game behaviors align with participants’ perceptions and predicts baseline giving in assurance game. For upstream providers, i.e. those who get sanctioned, the threat and the use of sanctions increase contributions. Downstream users contribute less when offered the option to sanction – as if that option signal an uncooperative upstream – then the contributions rise in line with the complementarity in payments of the assurance game.

Energizing the Oak Ridges Moraine? Analyzing the Policy Implications of Three Wind Energy Developments on the Oak Ridges Moraine and their Potential Impact on the Coordinated Land Use Planning Review through the Involvement of First Nations and Environmental Non-governmental Organizations

This research explores the policy implications of the approval of three wind energy projects on the Oak Ridges Moraine, and their impact on the Coordinated Land Use Planning Review process. Specifically, it focuses on the involvement of First Nations and environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs). This research was conducted through analyzing submissions to the Coordinated Land Use Planning Review, related legislation and policy, Environmental Review Tribunal hearing documents, and interviews with key informants. This research culminates in a number of recommendations to the Coordinated Review informed by the analysis.

A HARD PUSH FOR SOFT SKILLS: AN EXAMINATION OF POLICY AND RESEARCH ON NON-COGNITIVE SKILLS IN CANADIAN K-12 SCHOOLING

Non-cognitive skills have caught the attention of current education policy writers in Canada. Within the last 10 years, almost every province has produced a document including the importance of supporting non-cognitive skills in K-12 students in the classroom. Although often called different names (such as learning skills, cross curricular competencies, and 20th Century Skills) and occasionally viewed through different lenses (such as emotional intelligence skills, character skills, and work habits), what unifies non-cognitive skills within the policy documents is the claim that students that are strong in these skills are more successful in academic achievement and are more successful in post-secondary endeavors. Though the interest from policy-makers and educators is clear, there are still many questions about non-cognitive skills that have yet to be answered. These include: What skills are the most important for teacher’s to support in the classroom? What are these skills’ exact contributions to student success? How can teachers best support these skills? Are there currently reliable and valid measures of these skills? These are very important questions worth answering if Canadian teachers are expected to support non-cognitive skills in their classrooms with an already burdened workload. As well, it can begin to untangle the plethora of research that exists within the non-cognitive realm. Without a critical look at the current literature, it is impossible to ensure that these policies are effective in Canadian classrooms, and to see an alignment between research and policy. Upon analysis of Canadian curriculum, five non-cognitive skills were found to be the most prevalent among many of the provinces: Self-Regulation, Collaboration, Initiative, Responsibility and Creativity. The available research literature was then examined to determine the utility of teaching these skills in the classroom (can students improve on these skills, do these skills impact other aspects of students’ lives, and are there methods to validly and reliably assess these skills). It was found that Self-Regulation and Initiative had the strongest basis for being implemented in the classroom. On the other hand, Creativity still requires a lot more justification in terms of its impact on students’ lives and ability to assess in the classroom.

Brazilian Social Segurity and Social Work: reflections on the Continuous Cash Benefit Programme

Guaranteed under the Federal Constitution of 1988, Brazilian social security covers rights relating to health, social welfare and social care. The Continuous Cash Benefit Programme (BPC) was approved as part of social care policy and is regulated under the Social Care Act (Ley Orgánica de Asistencia Social) of 1993. This benefit guarantees a minimum monthly income for persons with disabilities and for older adults. Certain requirements must be satisfied in order to obtain the assistance: medical and social assessment of disabled persons, a minimum age of 65 years for older adults, and, in both cases, the value of per capita income for the nuclear family in question, which must be lower than a quarter of the minimum wage. Regulation of the BPC has incorporated advances and setbacks in terms of legislation and implementation. In this framework, this article presents a theoretical reflection, an analysis of the legislation on the matter, and some reflections on the challenges that it poses for social workers.

Adaptive regulation or governmentality: patient safety and the changing regulation of medicine

Studies from across the world have shown that clinical mistakes are a major threat to the safety of patient care (World Health Organisation 2004). For the National Health Service (NHS) of England and Wales it is estimated that one in ten hospital patients experience some form of error, and each year these cost the service over £2billion in remedial care (Department of Health 2000). Unsurprisingly, ‘patient safety’ is now a major international health policy priority, questioning the efficacy of existing regulatory practices and proposing a new ethos of learning. Within England and Wales, the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) has been created to lead policy development and champion service-wide learning, whilst throughout the NHS the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS) has been introduced to enable this learning (NPSA 2003). This paper investigates the extent to which, in seeking to better manage the threats to patient safety, this policy agenda represents a transition in medical regulation.

Do school based food and nutrition policies improve diet and reduce obesity?

OBJECTIVE: To review the effectiveness of school food and nutrition policies world wide in improving the school food environment, student's dietary intake, and decreasing overweight and obesity. METHODS: Systematic review of published and unpublished literature up to November 2007 of three categories of nutrition policy; nutrition guidelines, regulation of food and/or beverage availability, and price interventions applied in preschools, primary and secondary schools. RESULTS: 18 studies met the inclusion criteria. Most evidence of effectiveness was found for the impact of both nutrition guidelines and price interventions on intake and availability of food and drinks, with less conclusive research on product regulation. Despite the introduction of school food policies worldwide few large scale or national policies have been evaluated, and all included studies were from the USA and Europe. CONCLUSION: Some current school policies have been effective in improving the food environment and dietary intake in schools, but there is little evaluation of their impact on BMI. As schools have been proposed worldwide as a major setting for tackling childhood obesity it is essential that future policy evaluations measure the long term effectiveness of a range of school food policies in tackling both dietary intake and overweight and obesity.

Contaminated sites and brownfield management State of art in Brazil and in Germany

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to briefly present aspects of public brownfield management policies from Brazilian and German points of view. Design methodology approach - The data collection method combined literature and documental research. The bibliography included Brazilian and German literature about brownfield management. The documental research includes Brazilian and German legislation and official documents published by CETESB, the Environmental Company of the State of São Paulo, Brazil. Furthermore, publications of German governmental research institutions have been integrated in the paper. Findings - In Brazil, despite the lack of a federal public policy, the State of São Paulo has approved specific rules to deal with contaminated sites. Topics that could be targets of scientific studies have been identified. Experiences in Germany show that it is essential to have political will and cooperation between the different political levels and technical disciplines. Partnerships between German and Brazilian universities would be welcome as there is a wide range of opportunities for academic post-graduation studies and research focusing on human resources capacitation in environmental management. Originality value - The paper makes an original contribution of exploring an area (brownfield management) that is at the forefront of discussion in academe and industry

Brazilian Agriculture and Environmental Legislation: Status and Future Challenges

Brazilian agriculture covers about one-third of the land area and is expected to expand further We assessed the compliance of present Brazilian agriculture with environmental legislation and identified challenges for agricultural development connected to this legislation We found (i) minor illegal land use in protected areas under public administration, (ii) a large deficit in legal reserves and protected riparian zones on private farmland, and large areas of unprotected natural vegetation in regions experiencing agriculture expansion Achieving full compliance with the environmental laws as they presently stand would require drastic changes in agricultural land use, where large agricultural areas are taken out of production and converted back to natural vegetation The outcome of a full compliance with environmental legislation might not be satisfactory due to leakage, where pristine unprotected areas become converted to compensate for lost production as current agricultural areas are reconverted to protected natural vegetation. Realizing the desired protection of biodiversity and natural vegetation, while expanding agriculture to meet food and biofuel demand, may require a new approach to environmental protection New legal and regulatory instruments and the establishment of alternative development models should be considered