The role of ICT in assuring environmental sustainability

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) affect the environment both positively and negatively at various levels. At the most direct level, production, use and disposal of IT equipment is becoming a serious environmental concern. While by many measures the impacts of automobiles are much larger than those of computers, the short lifespan, chemically intensive production processes and content of toxic materials in a computer imply it has a significant environmental impact. There is much that is being done to deal with these issues, such as recently passed EU legislation mandating takeback and recycling systems for electronic goods. Much remains murky, however, about the scope and nature of the problems involved and what should be the appropriate response. There is thus much useful work to be done to realize environmentally friendly computers. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/839

The Rise of Political Fact-checking How Reagan Inspired a Journalistic Movement: A Reporter's Eye View

This report uses the Washington Post as a case study to trace the rise of modern political fact-checking. It considers fact-checking as a symptom of the larger, centuries-old struggle between the political establishment and the Fourth Estate to shape the narrative that will be presented to the voters. Through devices such as "Pinocchios" and "Pants-on-Fire" verdicts, journalists have formally asserted their right to adjudicate the truth or falsehood of the carefully-constructed campaign narratives of political candidates. This represents a shift of power back to the media following a low point during the run-up to the war in Iraq when The Post and other leading newspapers failed to seriously challenge the White House line on "weapons of mass destruction."The modern-day fact checking movement can be dated back to the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who attracted widespread ridicule for his claim that trees cause four times more pollution than automobiles. The ascent of political bloggers during the 2004 campaign put additional pressure on The Post and other mainstream news outlets to upgrade their fact checking operations. The Internet has democratized the fact-checking process by making information that was previously available only through expensive news databases such as Lexis-Nexis easily accessible to bloggers without any research budget

TRUST RECEIPTS- RIGHTS AS BETWEEN THE PARTIES

The defendant financed purchases of automobiles by plaintiff, a retail dealer, in the following manner. The manufacturer would send the bill of lading and draft on plaintiff to a bank acting as agent for defendant. The bank would advance the amount of the draft and deliver the bill of lading to plaintiff, taking a trust receipt on the cars. This trust receipt recited that defendant was the owner of the automobiles and might retake possession at any time. On breach of the agreement, defendant retook possession of the cars with plaintiff\u27s consent and thereafter sold them without plaintiff\u27s knowledge. Plaintiff sued for conversion. Held, that the transaction constituted a chattel mortgage and that defendant, though having taken possession of the cars rightfully, became liable for conversion when he sold them without complying with the statutory requirements for foreclosure of chattel mortgages. McLeod Nash Motors v. Commercial Credit Trust, (Minn. 1932) 246 N. W. 17

A survey study of steering wheel vibration and sound in automobiles at idle

Copyright @ 2009 Engineering Integrity SocietyThis work is supported by Shell Global Solutions UK for their sponsorship of this research as part of the activities of the EFII3 project

On Liability Insurance for Automobiles

Car owners are liable for property damage inflicted on other motorists. In most countries such liability must be insured by law. That law may favor expensive or heavy vehicles, prone to suffer or inflict large losses. This paper explores links between liability rules and vehicle choice. It presumes cooperative insurance, but non-cooperative acquisition of vehicles. Thus, the Nash equilibrium and its degree of efficiency depend on the liability regime

The Travel Behavior and Needs of the Poor: A Study of Welfare Recipients in Fresno County, California, MTI Report 01-23

The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 fundamentally transformed the provision of social assistance in the United States. Gone is Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), a program that entitled needy families with children to an array of benefits and public services. In its place is Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), a program that abolishes federal entitlements, provides flexible block grants to the states, mandates tough new work requirements, and imposes a five-year lifetime limit on the receipt of public assistance. Current welfare programs mandate employment for most recipients and offer temporary financial aid and short-term employment assistance to help recipients transition into the labor market. As a result of this fundamental restructuring of the U.S. welfare system, millions of welfare recipients are required to enter the paid labor market. Public agencies must establish programs to transition recipients into the labor market or risk dramatic increases in poverty rates. A growing number of studies suggest that reliable transportation-whether automobiles or public transit-is essential to linking welfare participants to employment opportunities. The purpose of this study is to: Understand the travel behavior of welfare participants; Examine strategies by which welfare participants overcome their transportation barriers; Identify the transportation needs of welfare participants living in the Central Valley; Examine the relationship between access to reliable transportation and employment status; and Develop a set of policy and planning recommendations to improve the transportation options of welfare recipients and other low-wage workers living in smaller, more rural, metropolitan areas

Time factors in slowing down the rate of growth of demand for primary energy in the United States

The purpose of this report is to identify the time scales involved in slowing down the rate of growth of primary energy consumption in the U.S., as one component of an overall energy/environment strategy designed to limit the required volume of energy imports from overseas. Two important energy-consuming sectors of the economy are chosen as illustrative examples: (1) the "automobile" as a total system (25%); (2) space heating, air conditioning and water heating in the residential sector (22%). Efficient, light-weight vehicles are introduced into the automobile population by allocating an increasing percentage of new car production to such vehicles year by year until some fixed percentage is attained. Parametric calculations show that significant reductions in the annual rate of energy consumption by automobiles can be achieved if (a) the fuel consumption of efficient vehicles is 60% or less of "standard" vehicles; (b) the increment in percentage of new car production devoted to efficient vehicles is not less than 8% per year; (c) the efficient vehicles are "frozen" at not less than 80% or more of all new car production at the end of an eight to ten year period. In the residential sector the "turnover" rate is comparatively low, and the calculated reduction in annual energy growth rate produced by energy-conserving measures is modest, as expected, unless a "retrofit" rate of older living units of at least 2% per year can be attained. These two components of an energy-conserving policy taken together would bring the growth rate in U. S. primary energy demand down from its present rate of 4.2% per year to about 2.8% per year by 1985. Reductions in the annual growth rate of the remaining 50% of U.S. primary energy consumption that seem quite feasible would bring the overall growth rate down to about 2.5% per year by 1985. If reductions in growth rate of this magnitude could in fact be achieved, energy imports would peak in the mid-1980s at a level no higher than about 60% above the present (1973) volume of imports. Incentives and disincentives designed to bring about this slowdown in the rate of U. S. energy consumption are discussed briefly