Using CORBA's advanced services to enhance the integrity of QoS management programmable networks

The development of wideband network services and the new network infrastructures to support them have placed much more requirements on current network management systems. Issues such as scalability, integrity and interoperability have become more important. Existing management systems are not flexible enough to support the provision of Quality of Service (QoS) in these dynamic environments. The concept of Programmable Networks has been proposed to address these requirements. Within this framework, CORBA is regarded as a middleware technology that can enable interoperation among the distributed entities founds in Programmable Networks. By using the basic CORBA environment in a heterogeneous network environment, a network manager is able to control remote Network Elements (NEs) in the same way it controls its local resources. Using this approach both the flexibility and intelligence of the overall network management can be improved. This paper proposes the use of two advanced features of CORBA to enhance the QoS management in a Programmable Network environment. The Transaction Service can be used to manage a set of tasks, whenever the management of elements in a network is correlated; and the Concurrency Service can be used to coordinate multiple accesses on the same network resources. It is also shown in this paper that proper use of CORBA can largely reduce the development and administration of network management applications.

Families with multiple problems: Some challenges in identifying and providing services to those experiencing adversities across the life course

Summary A concern amongst policy makers to identify high cost and low productivity populations has created a new interest in identifying those who experience adversities across the life-course. This paper outlines the development of conceptual understandings of families whose children experience multiple adversities and links this with later poor outcomes in adult life and examines some of the research challenges in establishing such linkages. Findings It is argued that current thinking with regard to these issues reflects historical domains within which services to children and to adults are located. The challenge to domain thinking is both horizontal and vertical. Policy being required to address the horizontal axis by co-ordinating planned approaches to multiple needs across services. And policy being necessary to address the vertical cleavage between children’s and adult services in ways which join up services across the life path; conceptually and practically acknowledging the links between child and adult experiences. Application Such policy developments will inevitably require social work to develop alternative paradigms for understanding the needs of children and adults and designing services to effectively meet these.

Reconsidering Resource Rights: The Case for a Basic Right to the Benefits of Life-Sustaining Ecosystem Services

In the presence of anthropogenic climate change, gross environmental degradation, and mass abject poverty, many political theorists currently debate issues such as people's right to water, the right to food, and the distribution of rights to natural resources more generally. However, thus far many theorists either focus (somewhat arbitrarily) only on one particular resource (e.g. water) or they treat all natural resources alike, meaning that many relevant distinctions within the group of natural resources are overlooked. Hence, the paper will start with an analysis of the various forms which natural resources can take and how this might influence one's conception of resource rights. In so doing, the paper argues that we have to carefully distinguish between the actual physical resources people might control and how we distribute these, and the life-sustaining benefits each and every person draws from sustainable and functioning ecosystems. Based on this distinction, the paper will argue for a right to the benefits of life-sustaining ecosystem services as a universal basic right every person has. Further distributive claims with respect to particular physical resources would thus be limited by the requirements of such a basic right.

Applying the recovery approach to the interface between mental health and child protection services

There are a range of theoretical approaches which may inform the interface between child protection and adult mental health services. These theoretical perspectives tend to be focused on either child protection or mental health with no agreed integrating framework. The interface continues to be identified, in research, case management reviews and inquiry reports, as complex and problematic. This paper proposes that more positive, integrated approaches to service user engagement, risk assessment and management may lead to better outcomes in working with families experiencing parental mental health problems and child protection concerns. It is proposed that the recovery approach, increasingly used in mental health services, can inform the processes of engagement, assessment and intervention at the mental health and child protection interface. The article provides a critical overview of the recovery approach and compares it with approaches typifying interventions in child protection work to date. Relevant research and inquiries are also examined as a context for how to more effectively respond to cases where there are issues around parental mental health problems and child protection. The article concludes with case material to illustrate the potential application of the recovery approach to the interface between mental health and child protection services.

Using life strategies to explore the vulnerability of ecosystem services to invasion by alien plants

Invasive plants can have different effects of ecosystem functioning and on the provision of ecosystem services, from strongly deleterious impacts to positive effects. The nature and intensity of such effects will depend on the service and ecosystem being considered, but also on features of life strategies of invaders that influence their invasiveness as well as their influence of key processes of receiving ecosystems. To address the combined effect of these various factors we developed a robust and efficient methodological framework that allows to identify areas of possible conflict between ecosystem services and alien invasive plants, considering interactions between landscape invasibility and species invasiveness. Our framework combines the statistical robustness of multi-model inference, efficient techniques to map ecosystem services, and life strategies as a functional link between invasion, functional changes and potential provision of services by invaded ecosystems. The framework was applied to a test region in Portugal, for which we could successfully predict the current patterns of plant invasion, of ecosystem service provision, and finally of probable conflict (expressing concern for negative impacts, and value for positive impacts on services) between alien species richness (total and per plant life strategy) and the potential provision of selected services. Potential conflicts were identified for all combinations of plant strategy and ecosystem service, with an emphasis for those concerning conflicts with carbon sequestration, water regulation and wood production. Lower levels of conflict were obtained between invasive plant strategies and the habitat for biodiversity supporting service. The added value of the proposed framework in the context of landscape management and planning is discussed in perspective of anticipation of conflicts, mitigation of negative impacts, and potentiation of positive effects of plant invasions on ecosystems and their services.

Message from the President of the United States, in relation to the claim of Virginia, an account of interest paid by that State, on moneys borrowed for the payment of the militia thereof, for services rendered the United States.--

April 13, 1824. Printed by order of the Senate of the United States.

Message from the President of the United States, in relation to the claim of Virginia, an account of interest paid by that State, on moneys borrowed for the payment of the militia thereof, for services rendered the United States

April 13, 1824. Printed by order of the Senate of the United States. At head of title: 18th congress, 1st session. [64]. Printed by Cales and Seaton

Engineer services in the marsh lands drainage to the 28th of April inclusive to Frederick Holmes, Louis Clement and Thomas Baird

Engineer services in the marsh lands drainage to the 28th of April inclusive to Frederick Holmes, Louis Clement and Thomas Baird. Signed by S.D. Woodruff, April 28, 1855.

Engineer services in the marsh lands drainage to the 29th day of August inclusive to Frederick Holmes, Thomas Baird and Thomas Gilleland

Engineer services in the marsh lands drainage to the 29th day of August inclusive to Frederick Holmes, Thomas Baird and Thomas Gilleland. Signed by S.D. Woodruff, Aug. 31, 1855.