The impact of Participatory Budgeting on health and wellbeing:A scoping review of evaluations

Background: Participatory budgeting (PB), citizens deliberating among themselves and with officials to decide how to allocate funds for public goods, has been increasingly implemented across Europe and worldwide. While PB is recommended as good practice by the World Bank and the United Nations, with potential to improve health and wellbeing, it is unclear what evaluations have been conducted on the impact of PB on health and wellbeing. Methods: For this scoping review, we searched 21 databases with no restrictions on publication date or language. The search term ‘participatory budget’ was used as the relevant global label for the intervention of interest. Studies were included if they reported original analysis of health, social, political, or economic and budgetary outcomes of PB. We examined the study design, analysis, outcomes and location of included articles. Findings are reported narratively. Results: From 1458 identified references, 37 studies were included. The majority of evaluations (n = 24) were of PB in South America, seven were in Europe. Most evaluations were case studies (n = 23) conducting ethnography and surveys, focussing on political outcomes such as participation in PB or impacts on political activities. All of the quantitative observational studies analysing population level data, except one in Russia, were conducted in South America. Conclusion: Despite increasing interest in PB, evaluations applying robust methods to analyse health and wellbeing outcomes are scarce, particularly beyond Brazil. Therefore, implementation of PB schemes should be accompanied by rigorous qualitative and quantitative evaluation to identify impacts and the processes by which they are realised

Multidimensional simple waves in fully relativistic fluids

A special version of multi--dimensional simple waves given in [G. Boillat, {\it J. Math. Phys.} {\bf 11}, 1482-3 (1970)] and [G.M. Webb, R. Ratkiewicz, M. Brio and G.P. Zank, {\it J. Plasma Phys.} {\bf 59}, 417-460 (1998)] is employed for fully relativistic fluid and plasma flows. Three essential modes: vortex, entropy and sound modes are derived where each of them is different from its nonrelativistic analogue. Vortex and entropy modes are formally solved in both the laboratory frame and the wave frame (co-moving with the wave front) while the sound mode is formally solved only in the wave frame at ultra-relativistic temperatures. In addition, the surface which is the boundary between the permitted and forbidden regions of the solution is introduced and determined. Finally a symmetry analysis is performed for the vortex mode equation up to both point and contact transformations. Fundamental invariants and a form of general solutions of point transformations along with some specific examples are also derived.Comment: 21 page

Turning Ideas into Proposals : A Case for Blended Participation During the Participatory Budgeting Trial in Helsinki

Balancing between online-offline stages of participatory procedures is a delicate art that may support or hinder the success of participatory democracy. Participatory budgeting (PB), in particular, is generally rooted in online platforms, but as our case study on the City of Helsinki PB trial suggests, face-to-face events are necessary to engage targeted and often less resourceful actors in the process. Based on a longer-term participant observation, covering the PB process from its early to ideation phase to the current stage of proposal development for the final vote, we argue that the process has thus far been successful in blending online-offline components, largely supported by the active support of borough liaisons who have served as navigators between the different stages. From the point of view of co-creation, different stages of the PB process (ideation, co-creation) call for different strategies of online-offline participation. Effective mobilization of marginalized actors and interactions between public servants and citizens seem to benefit from face-to-face processes, while city-wide voting and discussion can effectively occur in the online platform.Peer reviewe

City rankings and the citizens: exposing representational and participatory gaps

Acritical reflection on the purposes, role and performance of city rankings through an holistic communicational approach is at the core of this article. Grounded on a conceptual framework that highlights the contemporary idea of the city—beyond the smart city and more as a co-intelligent, collaborative and co-creative entity, and on the performance outputs of city rankings as territorial and strategic communication tools that actually represent the state of cities, we address the citizens’ presence or contribute—as main city stakeholders—to city rankings. In order to make research tangible with a practical component, an exploratory comparative content analysis of three recognized city rankings: the CBI – City Brands Index 2017, the GCR – 2018 Global Cities Report, and the Global Liveability Index 2018—was carried out. Conclusive notes argue that in order to effectively represent cities, as they are lived, thought and built by their citizens in their everyday, city rankings must rely in more real-time, updated, people’s perception centred data, and embed more citizen participation and insights. Moreover, methodology transparency and accountability should be promoted in order to add trust value to city rankings.(undefined

Global Existence and Large-Time Behavior of Solutions to the Three-Dimensional Equations of Compressible Magnetohydrodynamic Flows

The three-dimensional equations of compressible magnetohydrodynamic isentropic flows are considered. An initial-boundary value problem is studied in a bounded domain with large data. The existence and large-time behavior of global weak solutions are established through a three-level approximation, energy estimates, and weak convergence for the adiabatic exponent $\gamma>\frac32$ and constant viscosity coefficients

Agricultura orgânica em áreas urbanas e periurbanas com base na agroecologia.

A agricultura orgânica com base na agroecologia é o mote tecnológico adequado à realidade dos agroecossistemas urbanos. Este artigo ressalta a necessidade de se desenvolver tecnologias e insumos específicos. A partir de experiências com agricultura urbana em diferentes países em desenvolvimento, evidencia-se a necessidade de se buscar capacidades locais e apoio do poder público, especialmente nas iniciativas da sociedade organizada e mobilizada para a produção agrícola urbana

Weak and strong solutions of equations of compressible magnetohydrodynamics

International audienceThis article proposes a review of the analysis of the system of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). First, we give an account of the modelling asumptions. Then, the results of existence of weak solutions, using the notion of renormalized solutions. Then, existence of strong solutions in the neighbourhood of equilibrium states is reviewed, in particular with the method of Kawashima and Shizuta. Finally, the special case of dimension one is highlighted : the use of Lagrangian coordinates gives a simpler system, which is solved by standard techniques