Understanding voluntary organizations : guidelines for donors

Voluntary development organizations have demonstrated substantial comparatiave advantage in developing countries - especially in their ability to innovate, adapt to local conditions, and reach and work with poor and difficult to reach populations. These capabilities are a function of their values, special skills, small size, limited resources, flexibility, and freedom from political constraints. Their weaknesses are a function of many of the same characteristics - particularly their value commitments, small size, independence, and lack of administrative rigidity. The authors explain that the strongest Voluntary Organizations (VOs) and People's Organizations (POs) respond to more than financial incentives. Their strength lies in the fact that they are not the same as government organizations or businesses. At the same time, they are not immune to financial incentives, which if wrongly applied can destroy the voluntarism of all but the most strongly aware of VOs and POs.Environmental Economics&Policies,Early Child and Children's Health,Health Economics&Finance,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Poverty Assessment

A ship-based methodology for high precision atmospheric oxygen measurements and its application in the Southern Ocean region

A method for achieving continuous high precision measurements of atmospheric O-2 is presented based on a commercially available fuel-cell instrument, (Sable Systems, Oxzilla FC-II) with a precision of 7 per meg (approximately equivalent to 1.2 ppm) for a 6-min measurement. The Oxzilla was deployed on two voyages in the Western Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean, in February 2003 and in April 2004, making these the second set of continuous O-2 measurements ever made from a ship. The results show significant temporal variation in O-2, in the order of +/- 10 per meg over 6-hourly time intervals, and substantial spatial variation. Data from both voyages show an O-2 maximum centred on 50 degrees S, which is most likely to be the result of biologically driven O-2 outgassing in the region of subtropical convergence around New Zealand, and a decreasing O-2 trend towards Antarctica. O-2 from the ship-based measurements is elevated compared with measurements from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography flask-sampling network, and the O-2 maximum is also not captured in the network observations. This preliminary study shows that ship-based continuous measurements are a valuable addition to current fixed site sampling programmes for the understanding of ocean-atmosphere O-2 exchange processes. [References: 39

Contrasting Views of Complexity and Their Implications For Network-Centric Infrastructures

There exists a widely recognized need to better understand and manage complex “systems of systems,” ranging from biology, ecology, and medicine to network-centric technologies. This is motivating the search for universal laws of highly evolved systems and driving demand for new mathematics and methods that are consistent, integrative, and predictive. However, the theoretical frameworks available today are not merely fragmented but sometimes contradictory and incompatible. We argue that complexity arises in highly evolved biological and technological systems primarily to provide mechanisms to create robustness. However, this complexity itself can be a source of new fragility, leading to “robust yet fragile” tradeoffs in system design. We focus on the role of robustness and architecture in networked infrastructures, and we highlight recent advances in the theory of distributed control driven by network technologies. This view of complexity in highly organized technological and biological systems is fundamentally different from the dominant perspective in the mainstream sciences, which downplays function, constraints, and tradeoffs, and tends to minimize the role of organization and design

Studies of Birds and Mammals in the Baird and Schwatka Mountains, Alaska

In 1963 a joint University of Alaska-Smithsonian Institution crew worked at five locations in the Baird and Schwatka mountains in northwestern Alaska, conducting an ecological reconnaissance and faunal and floral inventory. Standard methods of observation and collection were used. Camps in the Kobuk drainage were located in the Redstone River valley and at Walker Lake, both on the margin of the taiga. The Noatak valley was represented by one camp each in the lower, middle, and upper reaches of the river, all in tundra. A summary of pre-1963 ornithological work in the region is presented. Significant records of distribution and/or breeding were obtained for the following birds: Podiceps grisegena, Anas platyrhynchos, Aythya valisineria, Histrionicus histrionicus, Melanitta perspicillata, Mergus merganser, Aphrizia virgata, Bartramia longicauda, Actitis macularia, Tringa flavipes, Phalaropus fuficarius, Lobipes lobatus, Larus hyperboreus,Xema sabini, Sayornis saya, Nuttalornis borealis, Eremophilia alpestris, Tachycineta thalassina, Riparia riparia, Petrochelidon pyrrhonota, Phylloscopus borealis, Dendroica petechia, Leucosticte tephrocotis, Zonotrichia atricapilla, Calcarius pictus; and the mammal, Spermophilus undulatus. Good series of Cletihrionomys rutilius (350) and Microtus miurus (147) have been deposited in the University of Alaska Museum. Severe doubt has been raised regarding the validity of the standard three-night trap grid for population estimation under wet conditions in arctic areas