Enhancing Ontario’s Rural Infrastructure Preparedness: Inter-Community Service Sharing in a Changing Climate — Environmental Scan

Given the research that has been done in this environmental scan and the gaps found in this research, it is our aim to find out: What types of service sharing are going on in Ontario municipalities, particularly in rural/remote areas? How can inter-community service sharing (ICSS) benefit the asset management planning process in these rural/remote areas to enhance capacities for climate change resilience? Climate change (CC) will exacerbate deterioration to existing infrastructure and increase replacement costs. Improved preparedness reduces risks and increases efficiency, readiness and coping capacity. To increase the preparedness of Ontario rural communities, this project develops CC-Prepared Inter-Community Service Sharing (ICSS) as an innovative strategy that expands cost-effective solutions within Ontario’s standardized Asset Management Planning (AMP) process. Overseen by a Project Advisory Board (PAB), it identifies a suite of best practice ICSS processes and principles and a range of factors and indicators that influence the uptake of ICSS as a viable and practical opportunity targeted to enhance rural infrastructure preparedness for CC. It utilizes a multimethod, interdisciplinary approach involving an environmental scan, interviews, a survey and case studies and develops an ICSS Toolkit consisting of reports, workbook, policy brief and media kit. Knowledge translation and transfer (KTT) includes blogs, teleconferences, articles, presentations and a workshop. For small rural Ontario communities, this study enhances management of CC impacts on infrastructure through the development of a CC-Prepared ICSS strategy, increasing anticipatory, collective actions that reduce dam age and increase efficiencies. It informs sound municipal/provincial level programs and policies about innovative ICSS that benefit rural communities through the identification of Ontario-wide trends, case study best practises and action-oriented recommendations

European Economic Crisis: Ireland in Comparative Perspective

The current economic crisis has hit all European countries hard, but some are much more severely affected others. The problems manifest in European peripheral countries, especially Ireland, Spain, and Greece, have roots in domestic policy mistakes. However, the European context of these policy profiles also needs to be taken into account. The creation of the Euro initially yielded large credibility gains for the weaker economies, extending low interest rates across the Eurozone. But it also introduced a set of perverse incentives toward fiscal expansion which were supposed to be managed at domestic level. Weak European coordinating capacity meant there were few effective external disciplines on national decision-making. The sanctions built into the Stability and Growth Pact proved more controversial and therefore less constraining than originally envisaged. The problems accumulating in the weaker economies made them particularly exposed to crisis when the downturn came. The crisis is not merely one of peripheral economies’ policy errors, but extends to the design of European decision-making and the management of monetary union. These issues are explored with reference to the Irish case: the crisis of the Irish and other peripheral economies points to a crisis at the heart of European politics.

Performance Analysis and Enhancement of QoS Framework for Fixed WiMAX Networks. Design, analysis and evaluation of 802.16 Point-to-Multipoint (PMP) Quality of Service Framework based on uplink scheduler and call admission control analysis.

Given the current developments and advances in the scientific and technological aspects of human knowledge and introducing new approaches in various fields of telecommunication technologies and industries, there has been an increasing growth in its players¿ plans and a positive change in their outlooks in order to achieve the target of "anywhere and anytime access". Recent developments of WiMAX (Worldwide interoperability for Microwave Access) networks, as a sign of increasing needs and demands for new telecommunication services and capabilities, have led to revolutions in global telecommunication which should be perceived properly in terms of the commercial and technical aspects in order to enjoy the new opportunities. Most experts believe that WiMAX technology is a preliminary step to develop Fourth Generation networks known as 4G technologies. It has not only succeeded in the utilization of several of the latest telecommunication techniques in the form of unique practical standards, but also paved the way for the quantitative and qualitative developments of high-speed broadband access. IEEE 802.16 Standard introduces several advantages, and one of them is the support for Quality of Services (QoS) at the Media Access Control (MAC) level. For these purposes, the standard defines several scheduling classes at MAC layer to treat service flow in a different way, depending on QoS requirements. In this thesis, we have proposed a new QoS framework for Point-to-Multi Point (PMP) 802.16 systems operating in Time Division Duplexing (TDD) mode over a WirelessMAN-OFDM physical layer. The proposed framework consists of a Call Admission Control (CAC) module and a scheduling scheme for the uplink traffic as well as a simple frame allocation scheme. The proposed CAC module interacts with the uplink scheduler status and it makes its decision based on the scheduler queue status; on the other hand, the proposed scheduling scheme for the uplink traffic aims to support realtime flows and adapts the frame-by-frame allocations to the current needs of the connections, with respect to the grants boundaries fixed by the CAC module. Extensive OPNET simulation demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed architecture

Exploding Deficits, Declining Growth: The Federal Budget and the Aging of America

This report urges the Administration and Congress to "wage war on many fronts" against our nation's deteriorating fiscal situation and set aside any effort to stimulate the economy through tax reductions

The Emerging Budget Crisis: Urgent Fiscal Choices

This report presents a sober examination of the large, long-term federal budget deficits facing the United States. The report also strongly warns that, with the retirement of the baby-boom generation a few short years away, policymakers can afford to wait no longer to make the difficult decisions necessary to prepare the country for the economic consequences of an aging population. Prudent action is needed now on all budgetary fronts to avoid a financial debacle -- with significant implications for important issues such as taxes, health care, and Social Security

Investigation of efficient resource allocation schemes for WiMAX networks

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University on 9 July 2008.WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is a promising wireless technology with the aim of providing the last mile wireless broadband access designed for both fixed and mobile consumers as an alternative solution to the wired DSL and cable access schemes. The purpose of this research project is to investigate efficient resource allocation algorithms for WiMax. To achieve this goal, we investigate efficient PHY layer Partial Usage of SubCarriers (PUSC) allocation as well as MAC layer piggyback bandwidth request mechanisms. At the PHY layer we proposed improvements on the Uplink and Downlink PUSC subcarrier allocation scheme. For the Uplink PUSC we suggested a method by allocating different frequencies to neighbouring cells in combination with the Integer Frequency Reuse (IFR) and Fractional Frequency Reuse (FFR) in order to reduce interferences and collisions. The simulation results exhibit that collision rates can be reduced to zero for both IFR and FFR patterns with the proposed improvement by assuming that perfect power control is used in the system. In addition, there is no collision at cell edges. The results also show that FFR patterns achieve lower inter-cell interference and higher capacities as compared to the IFR patterns. For the Downlink PUSC we introduced an offset scheme with the purpose of increasing the number of users in the system. At the MAC layer we propose an improvement on the piggyback bandwidth request mechanism by increasing the size of the piggyback bandwidth request in order to reduce the number of bandwidth requests and hence improve the resource utilisation. The simulation results demonstrate that our improved scheme achieves higher throughput, less delay and packet loss rates as compared to the standardised piggyback bandwidth request mechanism