Emerging Strategies for Healthy Urban Governance

Urban health promotion is not simply a matter of the right interventions, or even the necessary resources. Urban (and indeed global) health depends to an important extent on governance, the institutions and processes through which societies manage the course of events. This paper describes the concept of governance, distinguishing between reforms aimed at improving how government works and innovations that more fundamentally reinvent governance by developing new institutions and processes of local stakeholder control. The paper highlights strategies urban governors can use to maximize their influence on the national and international decisions that structure urban life. It concludes with some observations on the limitations of local governance strategies and the importance of establishing a “virtuous circuit” of governance through which urban dwellers play a greater role in the formation and implementation of policy at the national and global levels

Characterization of between-receiver GPS-Galileo inter-system biases and their effect on mixed ambiguity resolution

The Global Positioning System (GPS) and Galileo will transmit signals on similar frequencies, that is, the L1–E1 and L5–E5a frequencies. This will be beneficial for mixed GPS and Galileo applications in which the integer carrier phase ambiguities need to be resolved, in order to estimate the positioning unknowns with centimeter accuracy or better. In this contribution, we derive the mixed GPS + Galileo model that is based on “inter-system” double differencing, that is, differencing the Galileo phase and code observations relative to those corresponding to the reference or pivot satellite of GPS. As a consequence of this, additional between-receiver inter-system bias (ISB) parameters need to be solved as well for both phase and code data. We investigate the size and variability of these between-receiver ISBs, estimated from L1 and L5 observations of GPS, as well as E1 and E5a observations of the two experimental Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element (GIOVE) satellites. The data were collected using high-grade multi-GNSS receivers of different manufacturers for several zero- and short-baseline setups in Australia and the USA. From this analysis, it follows that differential ISBs are only significant for receivers of different types and manufacturers; for baselines formed by identical receiver types, no differential ISBs have shown up; thus, implying that the GPS and GIOVE data are then fully interoperable. Fortunately, in case of different receiver types, our analysis also indicates that the phase and code ISBs may be calibrated, since their estimates, based on several datasets separated in time, are shown to be very stable. When the single-frequency (E1) GIOVE phase and code data of different receiver types are a priori corrected for the differential ISBs, the short-baseline instantaneous ambiguity success rate increases significantly and becomes comparable to the success rate of mixed GPS + GIOVE ambiguity resolution based on identical receiver types

Description and release of Australian gravity field model testing data

Gravimetric geoid and/or quasigeoid models are routinely evaluated using co-located GPS-levelling and/or astrogeodetic vertical deflections, globally and regionally. This short note describes these ground-truth data for Australia as of August 2017, which are provided as Electronic Supplementary Material. We provide ~7500 GPS-derived ellipsoidal heights, normal-orthometric heights from the 1971 adjustment of the Australian Height Datum, normal heights from a readjustment of levelling constrained to a model of the ocean's mean dynamic topography, and ~1000 historical astrogeodetic vertical deflections. Updates to these data will be posted on the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping GitHub repository (https://github.com/icsm-au), together with a readme.txt file describing them

Anxiety Treatment and Targeted Sleep Enhancement to Address Sleep Disturbance in Pre/Early Adolescents with Anxiety.

Sleep disturbance is prevalent in anxious youth and prospectively predicts poor emotional adjustment in adolescence. Study 1 examined whether anxiety treatment improves subjective and objective sleep disturbance in anxious youth. Study 2 examined whether a sleep intervention called Sleeping TIGERS can further improve sleep following anxiety treatment. Study 1 examined 133 youth (ages 9-14; 56% female; 11% ethnic/racial minority) with generalized, social, or separation anxiety over the course of anxiety treatment (cognitive behavioral treatment or client-centered treatment). Sleep-related problems (parent-, child-report) and subjective (diary) and objective (actigraphy) sleep patterns were assessed across treatment in an open trial design. Study 2 included 50 youth (ages 9-14; 68% female; 10% ethnic/racial minority) who continued to report sleep-related problems after anxiety treatment and enrolled in an open trial of Sleeping TIGERS. Pre- and postassessments duplicated Study 1 and included the Focal Interview of Sleep to assess sleep disturbance. Study 1 demonstrated small reductions in sleep problems and improvements in subjective sleep patterns (diary) across anxiety treatment, but outcomes were not deemed clinically significant, and 75% of youth stayed above clinical cutoff. Study 2 showed clinically significant, large reductions in sleep problems and small changes in some subjective sleep patterns (diary). Anxiety treatment improves, but does not resolve, sleep disturbance in peri-pubertal youth, which may portend risk for poor emotional adjustment and mental health. The open trial provides preliminary support that Sleeping TIGERS can improve sleep in anxious youth to a clinically significant degree

ADOP in closed form for a hierarchy of multi-frequency single-baseline GNSS models

Successful carrier phase ambiguity resolution is the key to high-precision positioning with Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). The ambiguity dilution of precision (ADOP) is a well-known scalar measure which can be used to infer the strength of the GNSS model for carrier phase ambiguity resolution. In this contribution we present analytical closed-form expressions for the ADOP. This will be done for a whole class of different multi- frequency single baseline models. These models include the geometry-fixed, the geometry-free and the geometry-based models, respectively. And within the class of geometry-based models, we discriminate between short and long observation time spans, and between stationary and moving receivers. The easy-to-use ADOP expressions can be applied to infer the contribution of various GNSS model factors. They comprise, for instance, the type, the number and the precision of the GNSS observations, the number and selection of frequencies, the presence of atmospheric disturbances, the length of the observation time span and the length of the baseline.Delft Institute of earth Observation and Space Systems (DEOS)Aerospace Engineerin

European Humus Forms Reference Base

Base di riferimento europeo per le forme di humus. (ABSTRACT: In Europe an abundance of humus taxonomies exists starting with early approaches in the late 19th century. Frequently used in an international context, they do not cover all site conditions in the European area. Although having basic concepts and general lines, the European (and North American, Canadian) classification systems differ in important parameters used for the description and classification of humus forms. These discrepancies result in incongruities, so require adjustments when exchanging partially compatible soil data, even between nearby countries. In 2003, 26 European specialists in humus forms met in Trento (Italy) and decided to formulate rules of classification based on morphogenetic descriptions and diagnostic horizons, adapted to European ecological conditions. Taking into account old and new European and North American systems of humus forms classification, six main references (Anmoor, Mull, Moder, Mor, Amphi and Tangel) were defined, each of them further dividing into detailed categories. This inventory assigned a strong discriminatory power to the action of the pedofauna. Both semiterrestrial (anoxic) and terrestrial (aerated) topsoils were classified. The descriptors of the diagnostic horizons were conceived in accordance with the spirit of recent international soil classifications. Assigning an \u201cecological value\u201d to each main humus form along a gradient dividing those characterized by accumulation of poorly transformed organic matter, from very biologically active forms degrading and incorporating all organic remains, this European system of classification avoids a hierarchical structure and allows an elastic approach open to additional ecological contributions and renditions