Challenges facing green space: is statute the answer?

Against a backdrop of austerity, characterised by public-sector funding cuts and a devolutionary agenda, this paper explores how legislation might address two, inter-related challenges which face public urban green space ('greenspace') in England and Wales; namely, responsibility for provision, and identification of supporting funds. It focuses on two proposals; first, the introduction of legislative powers to enable local authorities to create user-charging schemes, and secondly, the imposition of a local authority statutory duty to provide greenspace

Admiralty Law - Coloma v. Director, Office of Workers\u27 Compensation Programs: The Battle Over Maritime Status Continues

In Coloma u. Director, Office of Workers\u27 Compensation Programs the Ninth Circuit considered whether a cook who worked in a dining facility located on a longwharf was a maritime employee and therefore eligible to qualify for benefits under the Longshoremen\u27s and Harbor Workers\u27 Compensation Act (LHWCA). The Ninth Circuit held that because the cook\u27s duties did not involve loading or unloading a vessel, he was not a maritime employee and was ineligible for workers\u27 compensation benefits under the LHWCA

Admiralty Law - Coloma v. Director, Office of Workers\u27 Compensation Programs: The Battle Over Maritime Status Continues

In Coloma u. Director, Office of Workers\u27 Compensation Programs the Ninth Circuit considered whether a cook who worked in a dining facility located on a longwharf was a maritime employee and therefore eligible to qualify for benefits under the Longshoremen\u27s and Harbor Workers\u27 Compensation Act (LHWCA). The Ninth Circuit held that because the cook\u27s duties did not involve loading or unloading a vessel, he was not a maritime employee and was ineligible for workers\u27 compensation benefits under the LHWCA

Designing choice experiments to incorporate tests for geographic scale and scope differences

Designing a choice modelling (CM) experiment to place a value on increasing protection of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) raises complex issues. The size and diversity of the GBR, and the number of different pressures impacting on it, mean protection and improvement scenarios can be drafted in several different ways. This report discusses some of the considerations in selecting, describing and combining choice attributes. It also looks at how to incorporate tests for geographic scale (size) and scope (complexity) differences into the design of the CM survey instrument. The potential to include information about management options designed to achieve increased protection, and the associated risk and uncertainty, is also discussed.choice modelling, scale, scope, coral reef, Environmental Economics and Policy, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

An Analysis of Personal Pronouns in Middle English Literary Texts

This thesis examines the evolution of personal pronouns from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries, with a particular focus upon the southern literary dialects of that era. The baseline text for this analysis is the Anglo-Saxon poem The Dream of the Rood, although Bright\u27s paradigm of Anglo-Saxon pronouns is also employed. The Owl and the Nightingale (circa 1200), The Fox and the Wolf (circa 1275), Piers Plowman (circa 1375), and Parliament of Fowls (circa 1375) are used to illustrate the changes in the forms of the pronouns over four centuries, Chaucer\u27s Parliament serving to represent the emerging London standard. The results of this line-by-line analysis are presented in paradigms supported by narrative commentary which notes significant changes in pronoun forms from text to text. Texts from the southwestern dialect from 1200 to 1375 were chosen because of the geographic and linguistic correspondence between them and the standard literary dialect of the Anglo-Saxon period, West Saxon. What we see in the analysis of the pronouns from these texts is a continuum of some aspects of the West Saxon dialect: the continual use of the dual case through 1200 (The Owl and the Nightingale), the use of the h- form third person pronouns through 1375 (Parliament of Fowls), and the use of the yogh and the thorn consistently into 1200 (The Owl and the Nightingale), the yogh even being seen in some words as late as Piers Plowman, though intrestingly not in the personal pronouns. At the same time we are beginning to see variations in the pronoun forms anticipating the London standard. The changes in pronouns serve as a microcosm of the larger changes in the language which eventually result in the formulation of the London standard. While a number of the forms remain fairly constant, changing primarily in terms of simplification of spelling and reductions in the number of forms for a given pronoun, these changes illustrate the evolution of the language toward the London standard. The changes in pronouns demonstrate the tendency of the language toward simplification. For example, the number of pronoun forms have decreased from fifty-three in Bright\u27s paradigm to some thirty-four used in Chaucer\u27s Parliament of Fowls. Moreover, the dual case still in evidence in The Owl and the Nightingale (circa 1200) has disappeared by Chaucer\u27s time. By the late fourteenth century, the years of Langland and Chaucer, the secon person plural pronouns forms have been reduced to the y- forms (yow). In the same era, the first person nominative pronoun has largely been simplified to I, although Chaucer occasionally uses the southern ich for emphasis or, as in the Reeve\u27s Tale, ik for charactarization (Fisher 964), both exceptions, however, noteworthy in that they represent conscious variations from the standard. This movement toward simplification and reduction of forms indicates the movement toward a standard dialect

Forcing the empties back to work? : ruinphobia and the bluntness of law and policy

Since at least the mid Nineteenth century (but having important antecedents far back in feudalism’s concern for the proper utilisation of land – the law of waste) many pages of the statute book have been dedicated to the creation of measures to encourage or force property back into productive use, or at least occupancy. This paper will critically examine the ‘challenge’ of the city’s empty, unproductive and/or dilapidated places: First, by questioning the unstated assumption that emptiness and dis-use are problematic. This requires an analysis of the latent ruinphobia that lies at the heart of the policy agenda and finds iits expression in the policy’s links to the social sciences (e.g. Wilson & Kelling's ‘broken window theory’ of crime caused by urban dereliction), in community governance measures such as the Clean Neighbourhood & Environment Act 2005, and the embers of slum clearance (Housing Market Renewal). This fear of emptiness (and its related Protestant ethic of full utilisation) is palpable (and unquestioned) in The Portas Review, in the 2007 abolition of empty premises rate relief, in the ‘bedroom tax’, in the proliferation of charity shop and other ‘meanwhile’ occupancies. Secondly, by exploring the bluntness of ‘temporality’ within the planning law and policy system and its implications for use-forcing. Here ‘temporality’ is used in two senses – both as an awareness of the passage of time, and more specifically in acknowledgement that law attaches to familiar-sized moments – phases of use. Our contention is that for all its talk of planning (which implies a command of the future) planning law and policy has only limited effective reach across time (for it cannot force development to occur, merely channel the development aspirations of other stakeholders) and that it also rests upon a specific time horizon – that of the ‘medium term’. Consents are granted without time limit (but implicitly anchored to the 20 years or so likely life of a building) or are restricted to a handful of years. The planning system is not set up to act or think in terms months – its notion of temporary being confined to 28 days (a nod back to pre-industrial fairs, hunting seasons and the like).</p

Practice Change: No Shows to Medical Appointments: Where Is Everyone?

The purpose of this practice change was to increase the percentage of patients attending their appointments with their health care providers at an urban health center serving female patients. When patients fail to attend their scheduled medical appointment it impacts the organizational efficiency, continuity of care, and can affect patient health care outcomes (Perron et al., 2010). The health center in this project had a patient no-show rate of approximately 13%. With input from the authors, the health center manager made the decision to use the innovation of having medical assistants make patient reminder telephone calls at 48 and 24 hours prior to all scheduled appointments. Evidence from research reports show this technique is effective in reducing the number of patient no-shows in various clinical settings. The practice change project was initiated after developing and reviewing a proposal with the health center manager. A Call Tracking Form was completed by the medical assistants making reminder phone calls in order to identify who was called, at what interval(s), and if the appointment was confirmed. During the nine-weeks of practice change implementation a total of 699 appointments were scheduled with fifty-seven percent of these patients receiving reminder phone calls at 24 and 48 hours. In a nine week period prior to implementing this change, forty five of the 355 scheduled patients failed to attend their scheduled appointment, for a no-show rate of 13%. This is compared to 72 of the 699 patients with scheduled appointments during the practice change failing to attend a scheduled appointment, for a post-change no-show rate of 10%. In conclusion, reminder phone calls were effective in increasing the number of patients who attended their scheduled medical appointments. The combined effect of the reminder phone calls reduced the no-show rate by approximately 3%

Cardiovascular Disease in Elders: Is It Inevitable?

Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of death and disability in America. The burden of cardiovascular disease is higher in elders than in younger populations, presumably because of life-long exposure to risk factors such as hypertension, smoking, abnormal blood lipids, lack of exercise, and/or obesity. Many assume that it is too late to attempt to modify risk factors in elders because behavior is so difficult to change. The purpose of this article is to argue that cardiovascular risk factor modification is effective in elders and should be vigorously pursued for the good of individuals, families, communities, and societies