Gateway District: health impact assessment report

tableOfContents: Health assessment report -- Gateway District and its residents -- Gateway residents -- Gateway health assets -- Access to healthy food -- Healthy food options -- Other food outlets -- Community-identified barriers to healthy food -- Access to recreation -- Hilaria Rodriguez Park -- Wilson Elementary School -- Grand Canal Trail -- Safe streets and public spaces -- Community-identified street concerns -- Injury analysis -- Street analysis -- Public transportation -- Temperature analysis -- Health strategy report -- Healthy food strategies -- Strategy one. Convert existing convenience stores into corner grocery stores -- Strategy two. Create new healthy food outlets in the Gateway District -- Strategy three. Provide safe and inexpensive public transit options to existing healthy food retailers outside of the Gateway District -- Strategy four. Improve the pedestrian environment to encourage residents to walk or bike to healthy food outlets -- Tools for implementation of healthy food strategies -- Recreation strategies -- Strategy one. Enhance existing public recreation amenities within the Gateway District -- Strategy two. Create free and low-cost recreation facilities and opportunities for physical activity within the Gateway District -- Strategy three. Improve and enhance the street environment to encourage residents to walk or bicycle in the Gateway District -- Tools for implementation of recreation strategies -- Safe streets and public spaces strategies -- Strategy one. Make personal safety a top priority in the Gateway District -- Strategy two. Implement infrastructure improvements to create safe streets and public spaces in the Gateway District -- Strategy three. Increase the quality and safety for pedestrians, cyclists and transit users in Gateway -- Tools to implement safe streets and public spaces -- References -- Appendix 1. Issue brief on built environment and health -- Appendix 2. Community workshop report -- Appendix 3. Streets report -- Appendix 4. Community outreach report -- Appendix 5. Street and park auditsabstract: The Gateway Health Assessment and Strategy Report is submitted by a multidisciplinary health team, convened by St. Luke's Health Initiatives (SLHI), as part of Reinvent PHX. Funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Reinvent PHX is a partnership between the city of Phoenix, Arizona State University, and SLHI to develop a holistic, long-range sustainability plan for the neighborhoods along the light rai

Local Energy

At a point in the future that is no longer remote, renewable energy will be a necessity. The construction of large renewable energy farms is central to a transition away from fossil fuels, but distributed renewable energy technologies¿wind turbines in backyards and solar panels on roofs¿are immediately essential as well. Widespread deployment of distributed renewable technologies requires rapid innovation led by renewable energy pioneers¿individuals who act as market leaders and prove to their neighbors that these new energy devices are safe and worthy of use. This Article assesses the relative institutional capacities of different levels of government to determine which will best ensure that land-energy rules enable a drive toward distributed renewable energy and concludes that the powers of municipal governments must be unleashed

Improving Urban Cooling in the Semi-arid Phoenix Metropolis: Land System Science, Landscape Ecology and Urban Climatology Approaches

abstract: The global increase in urbanization has raised questions about urban sustainability to which multiple research communities have entered. Those communities addressing interest in the urban heat island (UHI) effect and extreme temperatures include land system science, urban/landscape ecology, and urban climatology. General investigations of UHI have focused primarily on land surface and canopy layer air temperatures. The surface temperature is of prime importance to UHI studies because of its central rule in the surface energy balance, direct effects on air temperature, and outdoor thermal comfort. Focusing on the diurnal surface temperature variations in Phoenix, Arizona, especially on the cool (green space) island effect and the surface heat island effect, the dissertation develops three research papers that improve the integration among the abovementioned sub-fields. Specifically, these papers involve: (1) the quantification and modeling of the diurnal cooling benefits of green space; (2) the optimization of green space locations to reduce the surface heat island effect in daytime and nighttime; and, (3) an evaluation of the effects of vertical urban forms on land surface temperature using Google Street View. These works demonstrate that the pattern of new green spaces in central Phoenix could be optimized such that 96% of the maximum daytime and nighttime cooling benefits would be achieved, and that Google Street View data offers an alternative to other data, providing the vertical dimensions of land-cover for addressing surface temperature impacts, increasing the model accuracy over the use of horizontal land-cover data alone. Taken together, the dissertation points the way towards the integration of research directions to better understand the consequences of detailed land conditions on temperatures in urban areas, providing insights for urban designs to alleviate these extremes.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Geography 201

Direct Cooled Ceramic Substrate for Thermal Control of Automotive Power Electronics

As electric vehicle technology develops, manufacturers would like to move toward hotter coolants for power electronic components to reduce system level costs. Thus, unique designs of inverter designs were sought to enable operation with 105°C coolant. The proposed solution in this research incorporated flow channels into the ceramic layer of the direct-bonded copper substrate typically found in power electronic packages. The focus of this research details the design and analysis of the direct cooled ceramic substrate from the perspective of its thermal performance and innovative packaging concept. The research was directed to pursue alumina as the substrate ceramic because of its low cost. Alumina, which has the lowest thermal conductivity among four materials considered, requires a larger substrate cross-sectional area to result in a viable design. Based on preliminary model parameters, two flow channel designs with larger alumina substrates were shown to meet the design goals. Experiments were conducted to characterize the pressure drop across metal foam inserts which were used to enhance the heat transfer in the flow channels. Other experiments were conducted to validate the thermal performance and model configuration. The results of thermal validation experiment showed that the assumed effective thermal conductivity of the metal foam – fluid matrix was too large. The small contact area between the metal foam inserts and ceramic substrate reduces the effective thermal conductivity. Based on the data reduction method, the model parameters were modified to produce temperature distributions that better reflected the experimental data. Simulations were updated with the modified model parameters. These models showed that the cross-sectional area of the alumina substrate had to increase further in order to adequately manage the heat load. In parallel efforts, the overall inverter package was considered. A linear manifold package resulted in the highest power density. Technical review of the inverter package raised concerns about stray inductance. Incorporating the entire inverter leg on one substrate would alleviate these losses. Future research can use the parameters determined in this work to more confidently predict the performance of direct cooled ceramic substrate designs

Deconstructing the interconnectedness of community: An exploratory study on skill shortages, labour migration, and mining booms in Western Australia

In this exploratory study the experiences of employers, migrant workers, and stakeholders are captured in the context of the mining boom in the Mid West region, Western Australia. Framed in a community psychology paradigm, the findings identified four overarching themes which contribute to and perpetuate the skill shortage and xploitation of migrant workers. These findings illuminate the lack of awareness of the interconnectedness of the phenomenon, and the functioning of power embedded in these relationships

The progress of anomie in Australia between 2001 and 2011

The fundamental social structures of Australia and the Western world in the modern era differ greatly from those of fin de siècle France and the post-Depression industrialised West; yet, similar individual human responses to stressors remain. The sociological insights of Émile Durkheim and Robert Merton presented in their theories of Anomie and Strain provide a guide to understanding this. The present research considered the confluence of pressures that flowed from the changes to social structures in Australia after the attacks of September 11th, 2001, in an environment in which people felt increasingly unsettled and insecure. It positioned the changes within the global context of a broad range of social and structural developments in the Western world. This thesis argues that one of the responses to upheavals and disorder is increased levels of punitiveness, one of the reactions described by the Strain theory that extended our understanding of the behavioural responses of people living in a state of Anomie. Starting in January 2001, a study of the attitudes of the Australian population to crime and punishment is used as evidence for this contention. The attitudes are discoverable through the records of the print media and the Legislatures from two periods a decade apart, 2001 and 2011, and across two Australian jurisdictions, Western Australia and Victoria. The analysis of these records identified a complex interconnection of three equally powerful elements: the media, the Legislature and the public. From this, the model of the Triangle of Power was developed to illustrate how each element reflects both the community mood and incites it. As postulated, the results of the analysis of both sets of data verified an increase in punitiveness that confirmed the existence of Anomie in the early twenty-first century which was revealed through

Driving Into the Twenty-First Century: Technology Solutions to Transportation Problems Symposium, IISTPS Report S-99-I

Driving Into the Twenty-First Century: Technology Solutions to Transportation Problems is the transcript of a symposium held on November 16, 1998. The symposium was sponsored by the Norman Y. Mineta International Institute for Surface Transportation Policy Studies, the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group, Hewlett-Packard and Lockheed Martin. Numerous industry leaders and innovators were invited to participate in the open forum, and several vendors of electric and alternative power vehicles were on hand for participants to view and test drive. Topics of discussion included new technologies which will make commute times more pleasant for the 21st century worker. These possibilities include high-tech user-friendly highways, electronic toll collections, quicker response times for emergency vehicles, and the Intelligent Vehicles of tomorrow will help ease time spent in traffic thus making commute time less stressful, and perhaps even productive

Creating Performance Indicators for Public-Private Partnerships in Healthcare-Saudi Arabia

Introduction The Saudi government and Ministry of Health are under increasing pressure to find, evaluate, select, and adopt new solutions in order to improve the quality and access to healthcare facilities. One solution the government is exploring is public private partnerships (PPPs), the premise being that the private sector has more experience in effective and efficient operations and management of healthcare services. However, when adopting such solutions, the primary focus of decision-makers is the financial and managerial aspects during negotiating the contracts and partnerships with the private sector. This dissertation has made an effort to take the perspective of healthcare experts on prioritising proposed indicators in the two main domains of quality of care and access to care; for potential inclusion in contracts between the government and the private sector to manage the services utilising the PPP models. Study Aims The study began with a literature review about the Saudi healthcare system and the history of PPPs and management reforms in Saudi Arabia, aimed at understanding the historical relationship between the two sectors. The second manuscript focuses on the selection of performance indicators by experts, using the Delphi technique, to determine which should be included in the contracts between the government and the private sector for managing and operating the services in secondary care hospital settings in the Saudi healthcare system. Finally, the third paper assesses the feasibility of measuring the selected indicators if they were to be included in the contracts. However, the main objective of this study is to propose a methodology to decision makers suggesting ways to consider the healthcare professionals’ perspectives and inputs as part of contractual performance measurements with respect to important domains such as, quality of care and accessibility in initiatives such as PPPs. Methods The first manuscript’s methods included a review of literature between 1980 and 2017. The sources and type of the literature were from international and national journals in addition to local libraries to review both peer-reviewed papers, thesis and grey literature. For the second manuscript, the method used to reach an agreement among the experts to select the indicators for PPP project was Delphi technique with a questionnaire of list of indicators from valid sources, whereby the experts can rank them and score them using Likert-scale for scoring of each indicator. Finally, the third manuscript was a cross-sectional study of evaluating the feasibility to measure the recommended indicators from the second manuscript. This was achieved by sending a questionnaire with five questions to the quality directors in each hospital in the pilot. Thereafter, the discrepancy between the scores of the feasibility for each indicator was compared among the four hospitals by using Golden Standards method. Results The work from the first manuscript provided a general overview of the management reforms in the last three decades in the healthcare system in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the study analysed the history of the relationship between the governmental and private sector in the healthcare industry during the same period. In the second and third manuscripts, the experts recommended 23 performance indicators including 17 Quality indicators (two for clinical care, 13 for patient safety, and two for patient-centred and coordinated care) and six Access indicators. Three of the 23 indicators were identified non-feasible to be measured and have high discrepancies among the pilot hospitals. It is proposed that these 20 recommended and feasible indicators can be included in contracts when the private sector is assuming control and offering services while utilising the PPP model. Conclusions In healthcare system, it is essential and significant to consider the perceptions and perspectives of healthcare professionals on monitoring and measurement of the performance, when private sector companies start operating and managing the services, historically offered by the government. Moreover, the experts appreciated the process followed in seeking their input using an evidence-based methodology such as the Delphi technique, which provides a good opportunity to achieve a general agreement among experts

Local Energy

At a point in the future that is no longer remote, renewable energy will be a necessity. The construction of large renewable energy farms is central to a transition away from fossil fuels, but distributed renewable energy technologies—wind turbines in backyards and solar panels on roofs—are immediately essential as well. Widespread deployment of distributed renewable technologies requires rapid innovation led by renewable energy pioneers—individuals who act as market leaders and prove to their neighbors that these new energy devices are safe and worthy of use. Existing law and the very structure of governmental authority over energy is ill-suited to this energy transition and stifles the efforts of these pioneers. Public bodies must therefore embark upon a substantial overhaul of what we call land-energy rules—legal requirements governing the construction and physical location of renewable technology. This Article assesses the relative institutional capacities of different levels of government to determine which will best ensure that land-energy rules enable a drive toward distributed renewable energy and concludes that the powers of municipal governments must be unleashed. Innovation will occur from the ground up, and municipalities must actively work to enable the next great energy transition in this country: a move toward energy produced from the sun, the wind, the earth’s internal heat, and other renewable sources