Employer Involvement in Office of Disability Employment (ODEP) Demonstration Programs

[Excerpt] As part of the independent evaluation of ODEP’s demonstration program being conducted by Westat, the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) asked Westat to provide in-depth analysis of three issues that were identified at site visits and in Quarterly Reports during Phase II of the evaluation. This report provides in-depth analysis on the first issue—employer involvement in adult demonstration programs

An Agent-Based Decision Support Model for the Development of E-Services in the Tourist Sector

This paper regards cultural heritage as a strategic development tool for urban tourist policy. It highlights the use of e-services as a central instrument in a competitive tourist sector. The appropriate choice of e-services - and packages thereof - depends on the various strategic considerations of urban stakeholders (agents) and may differ for each individual city. The paper offers a systematic analysis framework for supporting these choices and deploys multi-criteria analysis as a systematic evaluation methodology, in particular the Regime method. The evaluation framework is exemplified through an application to three field cases in Europe, viz. the cities of Amsterdam, Genoa and Leipzig. Our analysis concludes that tailor-made packages of e-services that serve the needs of the stakeholders can be made with the help of our evaluation tools.cultural heritage, e-services, city marketing, agent-based decision support model

AN AGENT-BASED DECISION SUPPORT MODEL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF E-SERVICES IN THE TOURIST SECTOR

This paper regards cultural heritage as a strategic development tool for urban tourist policy. It highlights the use of e-services as a central instrument in a competitive tourist sector. The appropriate choice of e-services – and packages thereof – depends on the various strategic considerations of urban stakeholders (agents) and may differ for each individual city. The paper offers a systematic analysis framework for supporting these choices and deploys multi-criteria analysis as a systematic evaluation methodology, in particular the Regime method. The evaluation framework is exemplified through an application to three field cases in Europe, viz. the cities of Amsterdam, Genoa and Leipzig. Our analysis concludes that tailor-made packages of e-services that serve the needs of the stakeholders can be made with the help of our evaluation tools.

NHEP Year 11 Work Plan

The New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP) is part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Estuary Program which is a joint local/state/federal program established under the Clean Water Act with the goal of protecting and enhancing nationally significant estuarine resources. The NHEP’s Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (Management Plan)for New Hampshire’s estuaries was completed in 2000 and updated in 2005. The Management Plan outlines key issues related to management of New Hampshire’s estuaries and proposes strategies (Action Plans) to protect, enhance, and monitor the state’s estuarine resources. Local stakeholders established the NHEP’s priorities, which include water quality improvements, shellfish resource enhancements, land protection, habitat restoration, and outreach and education. Projects addressing these priorities are undertaken throughout New Hampshire’s 42 community coastal watershed. In addition, the NHEP developed and now implements a comprehensive monitoring program for the coastal watershed. The NHEP collects, compiles and analyzes data for a number of environmental indicators. The NHEP finalized its communications plan, which outlines goals and strategies to shape the program’s outreach and communications activities to better support Management Plan implementation. Each year the NHEP prepares its work plan, which describes recent accomplishments and priority activities and projects to be undertaken in the next year to implement the Management Plan. The work plan is developed by the NHEP with input from NHEP’s four project teams. The NHEP Management Committee reviews and approves the work plan each year. The current work plan represents the eleventh year of the NHEP’s activities and involvement in collaboratively protecting, enhancing, and monitoring New Hampshire’s estuaries

A Crowdsourcing Mode of Tourism Customization Based on Sharing Economy

China’s latest innovations of Internet Economy are partly reflected in video living broadcast, shared bicycles etc. In recent years, tourism industry in China obtains rapid development by utilizing Internet. However, it is still difficult to meet the growing tourist demands. In order to solve this problem, in this paper, we put forward a Tourism Crowdsourcing Model (TCM), which utilizes the public creativity to meet the increasing demands for personalized tourism. Firstly, the main problems of the tourism industry are analyzed. Secondly, the pattern of TCM is elaborated, and a matching algorithm between the tourist requirements and the workers’ abilities is well designed to find the qualified service providers efficiently and accurately. Finally, an example is given to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the TCM based on shared economy. The results shows that TCM has some significant advantages to satisfy the tourism personalized needs by motivating the public to participate in the tourism industry initiatively

Applying Gender Action Plan Lessons: A Three-Year Road Map for Gender Mainstreaming (2011- 2013)

This transition plan identifies key lessons from the implementation of the World Bank Group action plan, Gender Equality as Smart Economics (GAP), and sets out a proposal to improve the performance on Gender and Development. It seeks to strengthen the implementation of the Bank?s gender policy and places special emphasis on improving attention to gender in Bank instruments (CASs). It covers World Bank Group (WBG) operations from 2011 to 2013, and was produced on a request by the World Bank Board of Executive Directors. A GAP Three-year Progress Report accompanies this plan