Regional service delivery among Pacific Island countries: an assessment

Experience with pooling service delivery among Pacific Island countries has not met the optimistic expectations of advocates, finds this study. Abstract Pacific Island countries face a range of development challenges, including smallness, distance from major markets and capacity constraints. Regional service delivery, or pooling, has been advocated as a means of addressing these challenges. This article presents the findings from the first comprehensive study of pooling initiatives in the Pacific. It draws on a review of the literature pertaining to 20 pooling initiatives identified in the region and on interviews with stakeholders involved in many of those initiatives. The study finds that experience with pooling among Pacific Island countries has not met the optimistic expectations of advocates, including development partners. This is the result of the challenges inherent in voluntary regionalism, which are exacerbated by the diversity of Pacific Island states and political economy constraints. The article concludes that an incremental approach to expansion of regional service provision in the Pacific is both likely and appropriate given these factors

Microbial Source Tracking of Nonpoint Source Pollution in New Jersey Rivers

The bodies of water of New Jersey serve many different purposes from recreational to agricultural and drinking to waste water treatment. Due to the vast diversity of usage and the many people that rely on these water bodies for everyday life it is essential that the health and quality of the water bodies is monitored and maintained regularly. Sources of pollution that affect the health of rivers, lakes and streams include biological, microbial, physical and chemical contaminants. All of these pollutions can impact the health of the water body, the organisms living in it and those who come into contact with the contaminated water. This research focuses on the microbial contaminants of the bodies of water using microbial source tracking (MST) techniques to determine the presence or absence of fecal matter contamination from different species-specific sources. Primer development and optimization lead to the utilization of a PCR based-assay and a real-time PCR (qPCR) based-assay and species-specific primers, which were used to determine a relation between the land cover and land use by the sources of contaminants that were found in the water bodies tested in specific areas representing different types of land usages (agricultural, urban and forested). We found that nonpoint source pollution is higher during rain events. The results obtained identified that the agricultural land use is a higher contributor to nonpoint source pollution than urban and forested land uses. Also, we were able to identify nonpoint source pollution from Canadian goose, cow, deer, dog, horse and human throughout the sampling areas tested. Using qPCR based-assay and a copy number equation we were able to quantify the most dominant sources of contaminants in the agricultural area. In this study, horse was found to be the most dominant

Tetraria triangularis (Boeck.) C.B. Clarke and the Cape fold archipelago : an analysis of genetic and morphological variation in a high-altitude species native to the moutains of the Cape floristic region

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-127).The Cape Floristic Region (CPR) is renowned for its high plant species richness and high floristic endemism (Marloth 1929, Takahatjan, 1986, Goldblatt and Manning 2000, Linder 2003). A small number of clades (33) account for 50% of the species diversity, indicating that much of the diversification has occurred in situ, rendering it reminiscent of island archipelago radiations (Marloth 1929, Linder 2003). At a higher taxonomic level, 16.2 % of genera and four families are endemic to the area (Goldblatt et al. 2005

National accounting rules in a globalized world (Pro and contra) ; contra - the best of both worlds

Grundsätze ordnungsmäßiger Buchführung, Bilanztheorie, Globalisierung, GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), Accounting theory, Globalization

A 2-Question Summative Score Correlates with the Maslach Burnout Inventory

Introduction: There is a high prevalence of burnout among emergency medicine (EM) residents. The Maslach Burnout Inventory - Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS) is a widely used tool to measure burnout. The objective of this study was to compare the MBI-HSS and a two-question tool to determine burnout in the EM resident population.Methods: Based on data from the 2017 National Emergency Medicine Resident Wellness Survey study, we determined the correlation between two single-item questions with their respective MBI subscales and the full MBI-HSS. We then compared a 2-Question Summative Score to the full MBI-HSS with respect to primary, more restrictive, and more inclusive definitions of burnout previously reported in the literature.Results: Of 1,522 residents who completed the survey 37.0% reported “I feel burned out from my work,” and 47.1% reported “I have become more callous toward people since I took this job” once a week or more (each item >3 on a scale of 0-6). A 2-Question Summative Score totaling >3 correlated most closely with the primary definition of burnout (Spearman’s rho 0.65 [95% confidence interval 0.62-0.68]). Using the summative score, 77.7% of residents were identified as burned out, compared to 76.1% using the full MBI-HSS, with a sensitivity and specificity of 93.6% and 73.0%, respectively.Conclusion: An abbreviated 2-Question Summative Score correlates well with the full MBI-HSS tool in assessing EM resident physician burnout and could be considered a rapid screening tool to identify at-risk residents experiencing burnout

Shaping the game : federalism and voting behavior in advanced industrial democracies

For countries that possess a federal structure, this institution is a crucial component of the constitutional arrangement of the nation. This institution arguably plays a role in nearly all aspects of a country's political environment. Although political science has much to say about federalism in the abstract, each country's federal system works differently. Unfortunately this variation has gone underappreciated in much of the scholarship on voting behavior. This dissertation seeks to inject our theoretical understanding of federalism, largely stemming from the works of William Riker, into comparative empirical analysis of voting behavior. As argued here, federalism in and of itself does not have a direct effect on behavior, instead it has indirect effects largely through the party system in place in a country. These theories will be tested for explaining differences in voter turnout cross-nationally and then again in more focused analyses of voter party choice in the three federal countries of the United States, Canada, and Germany. Ultimately the dissertation finds support for the theoretical and hypothesized effect of federalism on voters' decisions to turn out to vote, as well as how such allows for a considerable portion of the voting electorate in federal countries to cast inconsistent votes between the levels of government. These findings bring federalism back to the forefront of academic consideration in these types of studies