The Third Party Transfer Program: A Tool Buffalo Can Use to Reduce Property Abandonment

Buffalo needs an effective program to quickly fight abandonment. In the past twenty years, Buffalo’s tax-foreclosure abandonment rate has increased. If the City does not sell these abandoned properties or at it’s an annual In-rem auction, then it generally takes title to them, selling a small number and putting the rest on the City’s long demolition list. This leaves the City to maintain many unsold dilapidated properties that drain City resources and decrease property value in their neighborhoods. The current processes are slow and do not adequately address the abandonment problem

Statistical fluctuations in pedestrian evacuation times and the effect of social contagion

Mathematical models of pedestrian evacuation and the associated simulation software have become essential tools for the assessment of the safety of public facilities and buildings. While a variety of models are now available, their calibration and test against empirical data are generally restricted to global, averaged quantities, the statistics compiled from the time series of individual escapes (" microscopic " statistics) measured in recent experiments are thus overlooked. In the same spirit, much research has primarily focused on the average global evacuation time, whereas the whole distribution of evacuation times over some set of realizations should matter. In the present paper we propose and discuss the validity of a simple relation between this distribution and the " microscopic " statistics, which is theoretically valid in the absence of correlations. To this purpose, we develop a minimal cellular automaton, with novel features that afford a semi-quantitative reproduction of the experimental " microscopic " statistics. We then introduce a process of social contagion of impatient behavior in the model and show that the simple relation under test may dramatically fail at high contagion strengths, the latter being responsible for the emergence of strong correlations in the system. We conclude with comments on the potential practical relevance for safety science of calculations based on " microscopic " statistics

BAC\u27s Comeback: The Bricklayers\u27 Renewal Program

[Excerpt] The Bricklayers\u27 and Allied Craftsmen\u27s International Union (BAC) typifies the contemporary crisis of the building trades. Membership plunged from a high of 160,000 in 1970 to just over 100,000 in 1986. As a result, the International Union ran a budget deficit five years in a row. Fewer than half the craftsmen in BAC\u27s jurisdiction now belong to the union, and many BAC members can be found working on nonunion projects. Even where union contracts prevail, wage and work-rule concessions have become standard fare. But BAC is not taking its decline lying down. Over the past five years, the International Union has embarked on an imaginative process of renewal, one which combines efforts to revive the masonry industry with programs to strengthen the union through education, organizing, and structural reform. While it is too early to tell whether BAC\u27s campaign will succeed, it is already clear that the effort has brought new hope and determination to a union that desperately needed them

Design and development of a technological system for grey water reuse

This work has as purpose "contribute to the decrease of the consumption of water drinking to purposes that not so require". Its objectives are to design, develop and transfer a system not conventional for such purpose; to improve the health and conditions of habitability of sanitary spaces with sustainability. To such end, it proposes are: an strategy of "Participatory action research" as "a social practice of knowledge production that seeks social change seen as a totality, occurs in the very action and contributes to it?; a system that allows to replace the traditional toilet tank and reuse and store water used in toilets to be downloaded in nuclei sanitary toilets. With regard to the results achieved, the work has 2 stages that includes: 1. Developing the theoretical framework; the study of history and analysis of geographical areas of application; the generation of possible solutions for responding to the system; the selection of surpassing proposal; 2. adjustment of the surpassing proposal; preparation of technical documentation; design of your building process; adjustment of its operation, use and maintenance; its materialization; experimentation and evaluation. The conclusions was that this system is "Adaptive" and "affordable" that presents facility construction and installation work; features that make it an "adoptable product" in different types of architectural objects and a "sustainable product" because that makes it possible to the care of the environment.Indizada en: Agricultural & Environmental Science Database, CAB Abstracts, Pollution Abstracts, Veterinary Science DatabaseFil: Garzon, Beatriz Silvia. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Tucuman. Secretaria de Ciencia, Arte E Innovación Tecnologica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucumán; ArgentinaFil: Paterlini, Leonardo. Universidad Nacional de Tucuman. Secretaria de Ciencia, Arte E Innovación Tecnologica; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucumán; Argentin

MEANING AND RELEVANCE IN NIGERIAN TRADITIONAL ARCHITECTURE: THE DIALECTICS OF GROWTH AND CHANGE

Aside from the brief descriptions of some traditional dwelling types and settlements gleaned from the notes of early Europeans explorers and missionaries, few and scattered efforts exist to provide information on the African Traditional Architecture. The early assumption that the Africans lived in unstructured, isolated bush communities with little appreciation of the aesthetics in town design may have restricted enquiry into indigenous African Architecture. This lack in information would appear compounded as architectural history and the theory of Architecture have traditionally emphasized the study of monuments. The monumental work in Sir Bannister Fletcher's History of Architecture left out the rest of Africa after elaborating on the Architecture of Egypt which featured the pyramids and the temple

Low-Carbon Technologies in the Post-Bali Period: Accelerating their Development and Deployment. CEPS ECP Report No. 4, 4 December 2007

This report analyses the very broad issue of technology development, demonstration and diffusion with a view to identifying the key elements of a complementary global technology track in the post-2012 framework. It identifies a number of immediate and concrete steps that can be taken to provide content and a structure for such a track. The report features three sections dealing with innovation and technology, investment in developing countries and investment and finance, followed by an analysis of the various initiatives being taken on technology both within and outside the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). A final section presents ideas for the way forward followed by brief concluding remarks

The evolution of Chinese entrepreneurial firms: Township-village enterprises revisited

"Township-village enterprises (TVEs) were a major engine of China's rapid rural industrialization in the past three decades. TVEs also played a key role in fostering entrepreneurship and served as a major stepping-stone for institutional changes when legal protections of private property rights were not in place and the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) were slow to react to changing market demand. As private ownership was gradually recognized legally, TVEs lost their edge in competing with private firms. In the past two decades, industrial clusters with a concentration of private entrepreneurial firms coordinated by local governments have emerged rapidly in many areas. The structures of such firms as TVEs and the subsequent clustering modes of production are an outcome of interaction with other local and macro environments. As the environment changes, a firm's organization and organizational structure may change as well." from authors' abstractCluster, Firm theory, Industrialization, Growth, Development strategies,