Contrasting models of land use regulation: Community, government and tourism development

This paper assesses the capacity of local communities and sub-national governments to influence patterns of tourism development, within the context of a globalizing economy. Through a comparison of the contrasting examples of Hawaii and Queensland, the paper indicates the consequences of different approaches to land use regulation. It points to the importance of planning and policy processes that integrate community interests, in order to achieve long-term, sustainable tourism development. Effective regulation of development can minimize the social and environmental impacts of tourism. The paper illustrates how community organizations and sub-national governments can articulate local interests, despite the global demands of investors for more deregulated markets in land.

A typology of community opportunity and vulnerability in metropolitan Australia

A multivariate model using hierarchical clustering and discriminant analysis is used to identify clusters of community opportunity and community vulnerability across Australia's mega metropolitan regions, Variables used in the model measure aspects of structural economic change, occupational change, human capital, income, unemployment, family/household disadvantage, and housing stress. A nine-cluster solution is used to categorise communities across metropolitan space. Significant between-city variations in the incidence of these clusters of opportunity and vulnerability are apparent, suggesting the emergence of marked differentiation between Australia's mega metropolitan regions in their adjustments to changing economic and social conditions. JEL classification: C49, R11, R12.

Analysis of the microbial community structure and function of a laboratory scale enhanced biological phosphorus removal reactor

A laboratory scale sequencing batch reactor (SBR) operating for enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) and fed with a mixture of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) showed stable and efficient EBPR capacity over a four-year-period. Phosphorus (P), poly-beta-hydroxyalkanoate (PHA) and glycogen cycling consistent with classical anaerobic/aerobic EBPR were demonstrated with the order of anaerobic VFA uptake being propionate, acetate then butyrate. The SBR was operated without pH control and 63.67+/-13.86 mg P l(-1) was released anaerobically. The P% of the sludge fluctuated between 6% and 10% over the operating period (average of 8.04+/-1.31%). Four main morphological types of floc-forming bacteria were observed in the sludge during one year of in-tensive microscopic observation. Two of them were mainly responsible for anaerobic/aerobic P and PHA transformations. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and post-FISH chemical staining for intracellular polyphosphate and PHA were used to determine that 'Candidatus Accumulibacter phosphatis' was the most abundant polyphosphate accumulating organism (PAO), forming large clusters of coccobacilli (1.0-1.5 mum) and comprising 53% of the sludge bacteria. Also by these methods, large coccobacillus-shaped gammaproteobacteria (2.5-3.5 mum) from a recently described novel cluster were glycogen-accumulating organisms (GAOs) comprising 13% of the bacteria. Tetrad-forming organisms (TFOs) consistent with the 'G bacterium' morphotype were alphaproteobacteria , but not Amaricoccus spp., and comprised 25% of all bacteria. According to chemical staining, TFOs were occasionally able to store PHA anaerobically and utilize it aerobically.

Multilingualism and interpreting: training for the EU

AGM and Conference in Mechelen 27 ��� 30 April 2010

Music and drama in primary schools in the Madeira Island - Narratives of ownership and leadership

Este artigo foi uma das publica����es resultantes do projeto financiado pela FCT "M��sica e Drama no 1�� ciclo do Ensino b��sico ��� o caso da Regi��o Aut��noma da Madeira" (PTDC/CED/72112/2006).

Vocal warm-up and breathing training for teachers: randomized clinical trial

OBJECTIVE To compare the effectiveness of two speech therapy interventions, vocal warm-up and breathing training, focusing on teachers’ voice quality.METHODS A single-blind, randomized, parallel clinical trial was conducted. The research included 31 20 to 60-year old teachers from a public school in Salvador, BA, Northeasatern Brazil, with minimum workloads of 20 hours a week, who have or have not reported having vocal alterations. The exclusion criteria were the following: being a smoker, excessive alcohol consumption, receiving additional speech therapy assistance while taking part in the study, being affected by upper respiratory tract infections, professional use of the voice in another activity, neurological disorders, and history of cardiopulmonary pathologies. The subjects were distributed through simple randomization in groups vocal warm-up (n = 14) and breathing training (n = 17). The teachers’ voice quality was subjectively evaluated through the Voice Handicap Index (��ndice de Desvantagem Vocal, in the Brazilian version) and computerized voice analysis (average fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer, noise, and glottal-to-noise excitation ratio) by speech therapists.RESULTS Before the interventions, the groups were similar regarding sociodemographic characteristics, teaching activities, and vocal quality. The variations before and after the intervention in self-assessment and acoustic voice indicators have not significantly differed between the groups. In the comparison between groups before and after the six-week interventions, significant reductions in the Voice Handicap Index of subjects in both groups were observed, as wells as reduced average fundamental frequencies in the vocal warm-up group and increased shimmer in the breathing training group. Subjects from the vocal warm-up group reported speaking more easily and having their voices more improved in a general way as compared to the breathing training group.CONCLUSIONS Both interventions were similar regarding their effects on the teachers’ voice quality. However, each contribution has individually contributed to improve the teachers’ voice quality, especially the vocal warm-up.TRIAL RECORD NCT02102399, “Vocal Warm-up and Respiratory Muscle Training in Teachers”.

Environmental management and mudit training at the New University of Lisbon by University-Industry co-operation

Environmental Training in Engineering Education (ENTREE 2001) - integrated green policies: progress for progress, p. 329-339 (Florence, 14-17 November 2001; proceedings published as book)

Flexibility and leadership advantages in a model with uncertain demand

We consider a differentiated Stackelberg model with demand uncertainty only for the first mover. We study the advantages of flexibility over leadership as the degree of the differentiation of the goods changes.

A matter of time: Phases of customer co-creation community participation and their impact on customer behavior

Despite the growing relevance of co-creating customer communities only little scientific evidence is available on their impact on transactional behavior of participants. Previous research has mostly used self-reported data or distinguished only between during and pre-community phases obtaining mixed results. However, the author proposes that co-creating community activity takes place in five distinguishable phases and changes in transactional behavior are limited to certain phases. Using 33 months of transactional data of a Dutch online auction provider a study was conducted covering all five phases of the community co-creation process from community planning over community set-up, co-development and co-testing to post-launch. The overall results indicate mixed effects of community participation on the different transactional variables during the co-creation process. Community participation had positive effects on auctions listing behavior at the community set-up, co-development and post-launch phases, whereby the number of auctions listed peaked during the community set-up phase. These results suggest that the impact on transactional behavior differs between co-creation phases and different psychological mechanism limited to certain phases might trigger the respective changes.

Study of the of the concept of community buildings and its importance for land use efficiency

Nowadays cities are facing several environmental problems due to the population migration to urban areas, which is causing urban sprawl. This way, it is very important to define solutions to improve Land Use Efficiency (LUE). This article proposes the use of community buildings features as a solution to increase land use efficiency. Community buildings consider the design of shared building spaces to reduce the floor area of buildings. This work tests the performance of some case-study buildings regarding LUE to analyse its possible pros and cons. A quantifiable method is used to assess buildings�� LUE, which considers the number of occupants, the gross floor area, the functional area, the implantation area and the allotment area. Buildings with higher values for this index have reduced environmental impacts because they use less construction materials, produce less construction and demolition wastes and require less energy for building operation. The results showed that the use of community building features can increase Land Use Efficiency of buildings.

La institucionalizaci��n de la Comunidad Regional Punilla (Provincia de C��rdoba): estudio y promoci��n de metodolog��as de dise��o participativo y gesti��n asociada de pol��ticas p��blicas para el desarrollo. The institution of Punilla Regional Community: study and promotion of participative metodologies for the associated planning and management of development policies.

Durante el per��odo 2006-2008, las actividades de investigaci��n y asistencia t��cnica de este equipo enfatizaron en la necesaria pr��ctica social y pol��tica de horizontalidad en las relaciones, en la 'dimensi��n intersubjetiva o relacional de la regionalizaci��n' (C��ceres, 2006) en el marco de la Comunidad Regional Punilla (CRP), considerando a la identidad regional como un condicionante relevante de la 'construcci��n de la regi��n como unidad de acci��n(Boisier, 2003). As��, durante ese per��odo, se ha ido conformando un espacio 'regional' de composici��n multiactoral, social y gubernamental, para el trabajo asociativo (PROFIM, SIP, UCC 2007, 2008). Con el prop��sito de profundizar el Programa, este proyecto propone el fortalecimiento institucional de la CRP a trav��s de la formalizaci��n del escenario participativo regional (Poggiese, 2001, 2002) para el dise��o y gesti��n asociada de pol��ticas de desarrollo. Tales prop��sitos y mecanismos est��n previstos en la Ley Org��nica de Regionalizaci��n de la Provincia de C��rdoba (9.206/04) y en las normativas regionales derivadas de ��sta a trav��s de la figura del 'Consejo de la Sociedad Civil'. Con base en la observaci��n del proceso desarrollado en Punilla desde el a��o 2006, esta propuesta suscribe el car��cter interdisciplinario e intersectorial de la red social y pol��tica en la que se sustentar�� el Consejo y la l��gica 'procesal y consensual' de su construcci��n, considerando, adem��s, la nueva configuraci��n del mapa pol��tico de la CRP a partir de los resultados electorales del a��o 2008 en tanto cambios estructurales en la relaci��n gobierno y oposici��n que se presentan como una oportunidad para desarrollar los espacios p��blicos participativos que la sociedad regional puede ocupar para canalizar institucionalmente sus demandas. El proyecto busca 'analizar' pero tambi��n 'promover' el proceso de cambio pol��tico y social en marcha para facilitar su 'ampliaci��n democr��tica' (Red��n y Moroni, 2003), reflexionado cr��ticamente y poniendo en cuesti��n algunos de los supuestos que han caracterizado a la ret��rica de la regionalizaci��n provincial: la existencia de una sociedad civil debidamente organizada en cada una de las regiones, cuya concurrencia al proceso decisorio puede asegurarse una vez 'abiertos' -formalizados- los canales de participaci��n; la superaci��n de la direcci��n bottom up en los procesos de toma de decisiones y la preeminencia de modalidades de 'articulaci��n intermunicipal' para la gesti��n de pol��ticas all�� donde la Ley y las ordenanzas locales declaran establecida una 'Comunidad Regional'. El cuestionamiento de dichos supuestos sustenta, en definitiva, las preguntas que delimitan los temas- problema que se abordar��n a partir de este trabajo.