High speed/high capacity railway and regional development - evaluation of effects on spatial accessibility

In the last decade the theme of high speed infrastructure in Italy has been deeply debated, with different political and technical opinions, which have expanded the time for projects and constructions. As a consequence of this long debate, a redefinition of the whole system, moving from high speed to high speed/high capacity railway system (HS/HC) has been agreed. This new model can be considered more suitable especially for the northern Italy corridor, which is highly populated and densely urbanised. Moreover, while the environmental effects of transportation facilities and of high speed infrastructure are relatively well known in literature since the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedure has been applied to several study cases, the effects on economical and geographical structure are less studied and so quite often misunderstood or underestimated. According to a demand-side approach, infrastructure investments will follow mobility needs by the economical system, while from a supply-side approach infrastructure are a crucial means of regional growth. This paper presents a study case in northern Italy (the Milan-Verona track, of about 140 km of lenght), and it shows how spatial effect of a transport network can spread off far from the line, determining a new regional hierarchy and new location opportunity in a wide and highly populated area. A comparison has been made between the original high speed model and the most recent high speed-high capacity model. In the two cases the work investigates what is the area where the new infrastructure shows effects, at short and long term. With a spatial interaction model, used to represent residential location in relation to the distribution of workplaces, HS/HC line efficiency by accessibility calculus has been measured, showing several important results. Those results may be of interest even in similar European context where the HS programme is developing.

Building Evaluation Muscle: Practical Steps for Health Nonprofits at Any Stage

This paper bridges the academic literature and ordinary practice to show how nonprofit organizations, regardless of where they are on the spectrum of evaluation capacity, and regardless of their desire to conduct evaluation internally or use external consultants, can strengthen their ability to engage in and sustain an ongoing evaluation practice. These suggestions are not exhaustive; but they are meant to be practical, accessible, and realistically doable for most nonprofits

It's about time: WHO and partners release programming strategies for postpartum family planning

The postpartum period is a critical time to address high unmet family planning need and to reduce the risks of closely spaced pregnancies. Practical tools are included in the new resource for integrating postpartum family planning at points when women have frequent health system contact, including during antenatal care, labor and delivery, postnatal care, immunization, and child health care

Anthropological Perspectives on Grassroots Development in Nepal

Occasional Papers in Sociology and Anthropology - Volume 4, 198

Learning and communicating about livelihoods: a process guide. Draft 23 June 2005

The process helps to build shared understandings through three phases: Defining the Conversation Group, Sharing Meanings and Sharing Understandings. (PDF contains 42 pages

Environmental capacity building through knowledge transfer partnerships

This paper describes the need for organisations to develop adaptive capacity in the face of environmental challenges. It argues that "knowledge transfer" can provide a useful mechanism for developing this environmental adaptive capacity and outlines the experiences of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between North Tyneside Council and Northumbria University. Initial findings from the partnership suggest that the knowledge and skills transferred to the local authority through knowledge transfer, are already building capacity within the organisation, and beginning to filter down to private sector companies involved with the authority and the communities who they represent

Engaging youth in post-disaster research: Lessons learned from a creative methods approach

Children and youth often demonstrate resilience and capacity in the face of disasters. Yet, they are typically not given the opportunities to engage in youth-driven research and lack access to official channels through which to contribute their perspectives to policy and practice during the recovery process. To begin to fill this void in research and action, this multi-site research project engaged youth from disaster-affected communities in Canada and the United States. This article presents a flexible youth-centric workshop methodology that uses participatory and arts-based methods to elicit and explore youth’s disaster and recovery experiences. The opportunities and challenges associated with initiating and maintaining partnerships, reciprocity and youth-adult power differentials using arts-based methods, and sustaining engagement in post-disaster settings, are discussed. Ultimately, this work contributes to further understanding of the methods being used to conduct research for, with, and about youth.Keywords: youth, disaster recovery, engagement, resilience, arts-based methods, participatory researc

Hospital and Physician Capacity Update

Offers an alternative view of healthcare costs by examining trends in hospital capacity and healthcare labor across regions. Outlines how effective management of healthcare capacity would enable affordable quality care that meets patient needs and wants

Vulnerability to Hunger: Improving Food Crisis Responses in Fragile States

The paper examines the imperative for improved classification and analysis of food crises in different fragile contexts. Recognizing the persistence and protracted nature of food crises, the paper questions how prevention and response mechanisms could be improved to help decisionmakers better address the underlying causes of vulnerability and hunger. The paper draws on case study information to examine real life opportunities and constraints in applying a recently developed food security classification system, named the analytical frameworks at country level, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). Developed originally in Somalia, this classification framework is now being applied in a range of country contexts within and outside of Africa by national governments, UN agencies, donors and NGO organizations. The paper draws on early applications of the IPC to consider opportunities and constraints in the application of common classification systems, taking into account issues of institutional adaptation, methodologies, data and analysis.food security, humanitarian assistance, complex emergencies