Policy ‘framing’ and evidence-based planning: ‘epistemic communities’ in the multi-jurisdictional environment of an enlarged Europe

The following paper builds on ongoing discussions over the spatial and territorial turns in planning, as it relates to the dynamics of evidence-based planning and knowledge production in the policy process. It brings this knowledge perspective to the organizational and institutional dynamics of transformational challenges implicit in the recent enlargement of the EU. Thus it explores the development of new spatial ideas and planning approaches, and their potential to shape or ‘frame’ spatial policy through the formulation of new institutional arrangements and the de-institutionalization of others. That is, how knowledge is created, contested, mobilized and controlled across governance architectures or territorial knowledge channels. In so doing, the paper elaborates and discusses a theoretical framework through which the interplay of knowledge and policymaking can be conceptualized and analyzed.

Keeping Hertfordshire green: the implementation of strategic environmental policy 1983-1993

This paper evaluates the implementation of environmental policy in the County of Hertfordshire during the 1980's and early 1990's. It emphasises that the recent growth of interest in environmental policy and sustainable planning initiatives should not cause researchers and practitioners to ignore the long history and experience of environmental policy implementation in local government. By looking at the experience of strategic environmental policy in Hertfordshire, the paper identifies the successes and failures of a range of implementation tools utilised by the County and district planning authorities to progress policies concerned with the conservation and improvement of urban and rural environments. It concludes that the planning authorities of Hertfordshire have stabilised the deterioration in the County's environment and have established some programmes which provide good examples of coordinated action in environmental policy implementation. These types of mechanism will need to be built upon in the new policy epoch where environmental sustainability and capacity planning take centre stage.

Enriching enterprise resource planning systems for strategic advantage: a semiotic motivated approach

Enterprise Resource Planning is often endorsed as a means to facilitate strategic advantage for businesses. The scarcity of resources is the method by which some businesses maintain their position. However, the ubiquitous trend towards the adoption of Enterprise Resourcing Planning systems coupled with market saturation makes the promise of advantage less compelling. Reported in this paper is a proposed solution based upon semiotic theory that takes a typical Enterprise Resource Planning deployment scenario and shapes it according to the needs of people in post-implementation contexts to leverage strategic advantage in different ways.

Motion planning of autonomous vehicles in a non-autonomous vehicle environment without speed lanes

Planning is one of the key problems for autonomous vehicles operating in road scenarios. Present planning algorithms operate with the assumption that traffic is organised in predefined speed lanes, which makes it impossible to allow autonomous vehicles in countries with unorganised traffic. Unorganised traffic is though capable of higher traffic bandwidths when constituting vehicles vary in their speed capabilities and sizes. Diverse vehicles in an unorganised exhibit unique driving behaviours which are analysed in this paper by a simulation study. The aim of the work reported here is to create a planning algorithm for mixed traffic consisting of both autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles without any inter-vehicle communication. The awareness (e.g. vision) of every vehicle is restricted to nearby vehicles only and a straight infinite road is assumed for decision making regarding navigation in the presence of multiple vehicles. Exhibited behaviours include obstacle avoidance, overtaking, giving way for vehicles to overtake from behind, vehicle following, adjusting the lateral lane position and so on. A conflict of plans is a major issue which will almost certainly arise in the absence of inter-vehicle communication. Hence each vehicle needs to continuously track other vehicles and rectify plans whenever a collision seems likely. Further it is observed here that driver aggression plays a vital role in overall traffic dynamics, hence this has also been factored in accordingly. This work is hence a step forward towards achieving autonomous vehicles in unorganised traffic, while similar effort would be required for planning problems such as intersections, mergers, diversions and other modules like localisation.

Industry analysis of the high frequency trading industry : an assessment of the industry boundaries, environment and strategic options

O Mercado Acionário Americano evoluiu rapidamente na última década. Este tornou-se uma arquitetura aberta em que participantes com tecnologia inovadora podem competir de forma eficaz. Várias mudanças regulatórias e inovações tecnológicas permitiram mudanças profundas na estrutura do mercado. Essas mudanças, junto com o desenvolvimento tecnológico de redes de alta velocidade, agiu como um catalisador, dando origem a uma nova forma de negociação, denominada Negociação em Alta Frequência (HFT). As empresas de HFT surgiram e se apropriaram em larga escala do negócio de formação de mercado, no fornecimento de liquidez. Embora HFT tem crescido massivamente, ao longo dos últimos quatro anos, HFT perdeu rentabilidade significativamente, uma vez que mais empresas aderiram ao setor reduzindo as margens. Portanto, diante deste contexto, esta tese buscou apresentar uma breve revisão sobre a atividade de HFT, seguida de uma análise dos limites deste setor, bem como, das características do macroambiente do HFT. Para tanto, a tese realizou uma extensa revisão do histórico literário, documentos públicos qualitativos, tais como, jornais, atas de reunião e relatórios oficiais. A tese empregou um ferramental de análise, Barreiras de Entrada e Mobilidade (Porter, 1980); Modelos de Evolução Setorial (McGahan, 2004); Estrutura do Setor de Informação Intensiva (Sampler, 1998), para analisar os limites do setor de HFT. Adicionalmente, empregou as ferramentas de análise, Modelos de Evolução Setorial (McGahan, 2004) e PESTEL (JOHNSON, SCHOLES, and WHITTINGTON, 2011), para analisar o setor e o contexto que envolve o negócio de HFT. A análise concluiu que as empresas que empregam HFT para atuar e competir no mercado acionário, compoem um setor independente.

A Bilevel Approach to Transmission Expansion Planning Within a Market Environment

We present a bilevel model for transmission expansion planning within a market environment, where producers and consumers trade freely electric energy through a pool. The target of the transmission planner, modeled through the upper-level problem, is to minimize network investment cost while facilitating energy trading. This upper-level problem is constrained by a collection of lower-level market clearing problems representing pool trading, and whose individual objective functions correspond to social welfare. Using the duality theory the proposed bilevel model is recast as a mixed-integer linear programming problem, which is solvable using branch-and-cut solvers. Detailed results from an illustrative example and a case study are presented and discussed. Finally, some relevant conclusions are drawn.

Environment, crisis and development planning

Includes bibliography

Environment in Latin American planning: ways to greater incorporation

Includes bibliography

Environmental impact assessment as a method of incorporating the environment into planning

Includes bibliography

Strategic planning for dairy cattle: SWOT analysis applied to a property of a farmers' association in Dracena, São Paulo state, Brazil

The sector of milk production in Brazil is very heterogeneous (high-tech in large scale X family properties). This study aimed to develop a diagnostic as a basis for a strategic plan to face the challenges inherent in operating a dairy farm in property of a farmers' association in Dracena, São Paulo, Brazil. It was observed that the association needs a more efficient guidance in the marketing, production and finance areas, not to compromise the search for new markets and continued growth in activity.

Strategic environmental assessment in tourism planning - Extent of application and quality of documentation

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) has been applied throughout the world in different sectors and in various ways. This paper reports on results of a PhD research on SEA applied to tourism development planning, reflecting the situation in mid-2010. First, the extent of tourism specific SEA application world-wide is established. Then, based on a review of the quality of 10 selected SEA reports, good practice, as well as challenges, trends and opportunities for tourism specific SEA are identified. Shortcomings of SEA in tourism planning are established and implications for future research are outlined. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A regional environmental accounting matrix and integrated environmental economic analyses to support regional planning

This research deals with the deepening and use of an environmental accounting matrix in Emilia-Romagna, RAMEA air emissions (regional NAMEA), carried out by the Regional Environment Agency (Arpa) in an European project. After a depiction of the international context regarding the widespread needing to integrate economic indicators and go beyond conventional reporting system, this study explains the structure, update and development of the tool. The overall aim is to outline the matrix for environmental assessments of regional plans, draw up sustainable reports and monitor effects of regional policies in a sustainable development perspective. The work focused on an application of a Shift-Share model, on the integration with eco-taxes, industrial waste production, energy consumptions, on applications of the extended RAMEA as a policy tool, following Eurostat guidelines. The common thread is the eco-efficiency (economic-environmental efficiency) index. The first part, in English, treats the methodology used to build a more complete tool; in the second part RAMEA has been applied on two regional case studies, in Italian, to support decision makers regarding Strategic Environmental Assessments’ processes (2001/42/EC). The aim is to support an evidence-based policy making by integrating sustainable development concerns at all levels. The first case study regards integrated environmental-economic analyses in support to the SEA of the Regional Waste management plan. For the industrial waste production an extended and updated RAMEA has been developed as a useful policy tool, to help in analysing and monitoring the state of environmental-economic performances. The second case study deals with the environmental report for the SEA of the Regional Program concerning productive activities. RAMEA has been applied aiming to an integrated environmental-economic analysis of the context, to investigate the performances of the regional production chains and to depict and monitor the area where the program should be carried out, from an integrated environmental-economic perspective.