Issues in Evaluating Health Department Web-Based Data Query Systems: Working Papers

Compiles papers on conceptual and methodological topics to consider in evaluating state health department systems that provide aggregate data online, such as taxonomy, logic models, indicators, and design. Includes surveys and examples of evaluations

A DECISION-BASED DESIGN PROCESS FOR ECO-INDUSTRIAL PARKS

This thesis presents a new process for designing eco-industrial parks (i.e., EIPs) that identifies the decisions that need to be made during each phase. A literature review about the different EIP development processes in the U.S. and worldwide is conducted to create a general EIP development process. A careful analysis of 21 EIP development processes was conducted to illuminate the different routines associated with each step in these processes. This thesis presents a revised EIP development process that follows the decision-based design principle of aligning all decisions with the involved organizations' most important objectives

Making Growth Work for California’s Communities

If the State of California government is to become a stronger advocate for transportation and land use policies that address growth patterns and related issues associated with community planning and development, it will be helpful for state policymakers, concerned professionals, and others involved in shaping California’s land use policies to have the clearest and most up-to-date understanding of existing efforts by local governments to improve and update planning methods; the status of, and attitude toward, innovation and change in the planning and community development profession; the extent to which local governments are incorporating new ideas and concepts into local plans and then implementing them into practice; and the sources and nature of support and opposition to these changes at the local community level. The research in Making Growth Work for California’s Communities is unique in its degree of integration of sustainable development, smart growth, and livable communities concepts, and in its assessment of the land use and transportation strategies being incorporated into both local plans and implementation activities. It is intended to help state officials, concerned professionals, and other stakeholders select and shape effective and feasible state policies and programs that will support and promote better management of California’s future growth

The QuakeAware Business Plan

This business plan details the operating, marketing, financial, competitive, and technological landscapes of QuakeAware. QuakeAware is a website and iPhone / Android mobile phone application that helps citizens prepare for and react to a local earthquake. Presently, QuakeAware faces the challenges of becoming a sustainable enterprise and selecting the optimal strategic direction and operating mode for its future growth. This business plan identifies and assesses the options available to QuakeAware and outlines the recommended next steps. A strategic analysis and a business framework will bolster our plan to source grant funds. This will allow us to hire a full time employee to further QuakeAware‘s goal of providing community earthquake safety in selected earthquake-prone regions around the world. To achieve these goals, QuakeAware will need to register itself as a \u27Not for profit\u27 organization, develop grant funding and earned income streams, maintain a key relationship with a government partner, and transition toward a volunteer-driven organization

The needs of industry and future technologies landscapes and the resultant requirements for the graduate profile

This report presents current and future technology landscapes that can be affected by design for all in the field of ICT, and how these landscapes can affect the future graduate profile. It also presents an overview of current industry awareness about the topic, and a summary of the industry needs

The Slow Violence of Business As Usual Planning: Racial Injustice in Public Health Crises

This thesis is a critical analysis of the normative planning practice in relation to the aspirational principles of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) (especially Section A, Part 1: Overall Responsibility to the Public). By exploring several dimensions of typical, or Business As Usual, planning practices in a local planning department in Springfield, Massachusetts and contextualized within larger planning concerns in the United States, I illustrate that socio-spatial, racialized oppression is deeply embedded in these common practices. Through a multimethod approach that includes historical survey, archival research, interviews, and direct observation, I argue that most professional planning operates from within antiquated frameworks that prioritize professionalism and expertise over genuine community engagement, relationality, and collective agency. This structure contributes to weakened trust in government and inequitable allocation of attention and resources, thereby reproducing inequity, particularly in disaster contexts. While these are my findings from site-specific research, I contend that such outcomes are evident in planning departments more generally. Thus, I conclude that the exacerbation of inequity during crises is not isolated, but instead a result of deeply embedded neoliberal planning practices. Specifically, I identify key barriers to equitable planning as 1) absence of care, 2) over-reliance on economic development, 3) disconnects between research and implementation, 4) degraded linking social capital and top-down public participation, and 5) illusions of objectivity in planning. These patterns contribute to what I, following Rob Nixon (2011), call slow violence against vulnerable populations through professional silence about and complicity in violent structures. Associating these trends with the violence of COVID-19 and racism, I find that planning may be participating in structural slow violence against communities of color, especially in Legacy Cities such as Springfield, Massachusetts. Finally, I call for a shift in planning practice, wherein we acknowledge and take responsibility for the unavoidable political role of the planner. I propose five steps to redirect our practices: 1) acknowledge our past, 2) reject illusions of objectivity, 3) identify injustices and define resilience collectively, 4) center care frameworks, and 5) invest in the implementation of research finding

Tribal Corridor Management Planning: Model, Case Study, and Guide for Caltrans District 1, Research Report 10-01

In Northern California, tribal governments and personnel of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) District 1, have applied innovative context-sensitive solutions to meet a variety of transportation challenges along state highways that traverse tribal lands. This report describes and discusses the efforts under way and offer suggestions for continuing and extending these initiatives through the development of Tribal Corridor Management Plans (TCMPs). The methods employed in this project are multidisciplinary and include: (1) content analysis of existing corridor management plans; (2) literature review to identify “best practices;” (3) participant observation; (4) interviews with local stakeholders; (5) focus group interviews with Caltrans personnel; and (6) landscape analysis. This study’s authors conclude that Caltrans District 1 staff and tribal governments share common goals for highway operations; however, progress —while significant—has been somewhat hampered by geographic and administrative challenges. It is recommended that Caltrans and the tribes seek early and frequent communication and collaboration to overcome these obstacles. Further, they identify several examples of non-standard design elements that could be incorporated into highway improvements to enhance local sense of place among both residents and travelers. A preliminary TCMP for the segment of State Route 96 that lies within the boundaries of the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation is presented as an example. Beyond its role as a guide for initiating tribal corridor projects within Caltrans District 1, the report should prove instructive for any efforts to enhance sense of place within transportation byways, particularly in Native communities

Past and Present Milwaukee Civil Rights Education: the Significant Arenas of Community Activism and Current Digital Archival Collection Assessment

This thesis explores civil rights education as practiced by civil rights activists from the 1960s to the present day using the city of Milwaukee as a geographical focus. The first part of the thesis focuses on the civil rights historical narratives employed throughout the second half of the twentieth century, with a focus on activists in Milwaukee. The first chapter describes the various social realms in which activists employed civil rights education including law, religious organizations, and schools. The second chapter uses 1964 Milwaukee Freedom School curricula as a case study to analyze a historically significant form of civil rights education. The second part of this thesis analyzes the more recent creation of a digital collection as an effective and increasingly relevant educational tool. The final chapter uses the March on Milwaukee Civil Rights Project collection as a case study to consider how digital archival collections can become effective educational tools in academic institutions and beyond. The final chapter contributes to existing literature by modeling assessment methods specific to a digital archival collection. The thesis argues that the March on Milwaukee digital collection is distinctive because of its community outreach initiatives, which have extended a target audience beyond the confines of higher education to at-risk high school students. This thesis finds that local activists, teachers, and scholars have used civil rights narratives to educate and motivate people residing in cities such as Milwaukee, WI, to actively reflect on the causes of racial inequality as well as possible solutions. The case studies involving the 1964 Milwaukee freedom school curricula and the current March on Milwaukee digital collection provide specific evidence of community-driven education that have successfully engaged people who have traditionally been underserved by academic libraries and archives. The thesis analyzes a wide range of primary sources, including archival documents and newspapers, in addition to germane secondary works relevant to the history of race relations in Milwaukee and the United states. This thesis also uses interviews, historical scholarship, and current assessment models relating to digital collections. The evidence gathered from March on Milwaukee developer interviews and secondary scholarship on digital collections supports the idea that Milwaukee civil rights histories have evolved and continue to be relevant in 2014. The thesis concludes that the success of future digital archival collections will depend not merely on making information available to site visitors but also on the ability of librarians and archives to reach out to communities through partnerships and collaborations similar to those associated with the March on Milwaukee Civil Rights Project. Assessment of engagement efforts of this kind will require librarians and archives to complement quantitative measures with qualitative approaches that consider not just how many people access a site for how long, but also the extent to which people engage meaningfully with the information and find it useful and relevant for their own lives

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Game Changer: Investing in Digital Play to Advance Children's Learning and Health

Based on a literature review and interviews with digital learning experts, explores how digital games can foster skills and knowledge for better academic performance and health. Makes recommendations for government research, partnerships, and media