32,375 research outputs found
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The trade in water services: How does GATS apply to the water and sanitation services sector ?
Copyright @ 2009 The University of SydneyThis paper explores the potential impact of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (âGATSâ) on the water and sanitation services sector. It argues that water and sanitation require special consideration in the liberalisation debate given their essential role in promoting human health and survival and their position as a human right. GATS has the potential to benefit the sector through creating increased efficiencies and encouraging additional funds to expand dilapidated infrastructure. Conversely, the at times punitive nature of trade laws risk undermining individual human rights and national legislation. At present there is some uncertainty as to how the Agreement will apply to the sector as no WTO
Members have nominated their water sectors for liberalisation. The recent US â Gambling decision demonstrates the power of the WTO to define and potentially to extend a Member Stateâs original commitment. Similarly, it has been argued that certain provisions have the scope to trigger a commitment without the
consent of the Member State. This paper argues that given the essential role of water and sanitation, greater certainty must be provided to ensure the effective operation of trade laws, the validity of national legislation and the protection of
water consumers
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Country Report: United Kingdom: Energy, badgers and noise pollution
The full version of the report can be viewed at the link below.The United Kingdom (UK), like many other industrialised countries, faces a multitude of challenges balancing its consumptive needs, the management of its ecosystems and ecological footprint. This Country Report will focus on these challenges in the context of the Energy Act (2011), the Governmentâs proposed changes to Feed-in-Tariffs (FITS) for renewable energy and the National Ecosystem Assessment. This Report will also provide a brief update on the Welsh badger cull discussed in issue 2(1) of the eJournal
An introduction to the person-centred approach as an attitude for participatory design
This paper is one of three talks which reflect on the use of participatory design methods, especially in the context of design for mental health and wellbeing. In them we: introduce the Person-Centred Approach as a framework for conducting Participatory Design; outline the method of Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR); and present a heuristic case study of these approaches being developed by a multidisciplinary design research team with Mind, a UK mental health charity. In this paper, we introduce the Person-Centred Approach (PCA) as found in psychotherapy, education and conciliation processes. We propose that this approach can help the field of Participatory Design recognise that researchers and research teams constructively inform their practice through the attitudes they bring to what is necessarily a relational situation. The PCA will be of interest to researchers working with mental health and wellbeing communities in particular, but may also be valuable in offering a framework for Participatory Design as a broad field of practice. The paper describes different modes of practice to be found in psychotherapy and outlines key aspects of the PCA, before discussing its implications for doing Participatory Design
Reflections on the heuristic experiences of a multidisciplinary team trying to bring the PCA to participatory design (with emphasis on the IPR method)
This paper introduces a heuristic case study, reflecting on the use of the Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) method as part of An Internet of Soft Things, a multidisciplinary design research project working with the UK mental health charity, Mind. The three authors represent three different disciplines within the project â Psychotherapy, e-Textiles, and Human-Computer Interaction â and naturally bring their own experiences and expectations to the multidisciplinary team process. The aim of the project is to develop, through practice, a methodology for a Person-Centred Approach to design, informed by the theories and practice of Carl Rogers, and thereby to address the increasing need for researcher reflection in Participatory Design. The paper outlines the project and describes our experiences of IPR within it; it discusses how we are taking this work forward and closes with some guidelines based on our personal observations in working with this method
The Pseudo-continuum Bound-free Opacity of Hydrogen and its Importance in Cool White Dwarf Atmospheres
We investigate the importance of the pseudo-continuum bound-free opacity from
hydrogen atoms in the atmospheres of cool white dwarfs. This source of
absorption, when calculated by the occupation probability formalism applied in
the modeling of white dwarf atmospheres with ,
dominates all other sources of opacity at optical wavelengths. This is
unrealistic and not observed. On the other hand, a significant flux suppression
in the blue part of the spectra of cool white dwarfs has been reported, and
mainly interpreted as a result of the pseudo-continuum absorption from atomic
hydrogen. We investigate this problem by proposing a new, more realistic
approach to calculating this source of opacity. We show that this absorption is
orders of magnitude smaller than that predicted by current methods. Therefore,
we rule out the pseudo-continuum opacity as a source of the flux deficiency
observed in the spectra of cool white dwarfs.Comment: 11 pages, 5 gigures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journa
An introduction to IPR as a Participatory Design research method
This paper outlines the method of Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) as a Participatory Design method, especially in the context of design for mental health and wellbeing. IPR is more commonly used in psychotherapy and other helping professions to help trainees and practitioners and their clients reflect on their process, using AV recordings of interactions for the facilitation of deep and accurate recall. We propose that it can provide a mechanism for reflection on team working and relational aspects of Participatory Design. The paper discusses the rationale for using IPR and the ways in which the method relate to phenomenological inquiry (including the Person-Centred Approach); it describes an IPR research method protocol, and finishes with a discussion of the implications for Participatory Design methodologies
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