Environmental and Natural Resources Management: Lessons from City Program Innovations

The enactment of the 1991 Local Government Code has brought greater responsibilities for local government units to manage their natural resources and the environment. This move has encouraged greater dynamism and innovation in some Philippine cities. Strategies employed and programs undertaken by various cities largely depend on the stage of development and their respective focus and priorities. For large urban cities, environmental problems are associated with growth and economic activity and thus, a special attention is given for a clean air and a healthy environment. This paper aims to draw lessons from selected cities that have undertaken innovative environmental programs and to highlight key elements that have made their programs successful and sustainable.metropolitan structure, environmental issues, metropolitan planning and development, environmental management

Managing the Environment and Natural Resources: Lessons from City Program Innovations

The enactment of 1991 Local Government Code has brought greater responsibilities for local government units to manage their natural resources and the environment. This move has encouraged greater dynamism and innovation in some Philippine cities. Strategies employed and programs undertaken by various cities largely depend on the stage of development and their respective focus and priorities. For large urban cities, environmental problems are associated with growth and economic activity and thus, a special attention is given for a clean air and a healthy environment. This paper aims to draw lessons from selected cities that have undertaken innovative environmental programs and to highlight key elements that have made their programs successful and sustainable.metropolitan structure, metropolitan planning and development, environmental management

Environmental and Natural Resources Management: Lessons from City Program Innovations

The enactment of the 1991 Local Government Code has brought greater responsibilities for local government units to manage their natural resources and the environment. This move has encouraged greater dynamism and innovation in some Philippine cities. Strategies employed and programs undertaken by various cities largely depend on the stage of development and their respective focus and priorities. For large urban cities, environmental problems are associated with growth and economic activity and thus, a special attention is given for a clean air and a healthy environment. This paper aims to draw lessons from selected cities that have undertaken innovative environmental programs and to highlight key elements that have made their programs successful and sustainable.metropolitan structure, environmental issues, metropolitan planning and development, environmental management

Improving the Spatial Dimension of the Annual Budget

With the delivery of most basic social services now devolved in the hands of local government units, has the process of budgeting followed suit? How far has the spatial dimension of the annual budget taken shape? Has regional budgeting--which was introduced as far back as the 1970s--become the norm and institutionalized as a process?fiscal management, fiscal sector

Metropolitan Arrangements in the Philippines: A New Urban Development Challenge

The formation of metropolitan arrangements has recently become the trend. As these are still in the early stage of developing their identity, this note deals with the policy issues concerning metropolis and how to sustain such arrangements. It also presents the profile of the different emerging metropolis in the country.urban management, urbanization, metropolitan structure, metropolitan planning and development

Accessibility to health care facilities in Montreal Island: an application of relative accessibility indicators from the perspective of senior and non-senior residents

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Geographical access to health care facilities is known to influence health services usage. As societies age, accessibility to health care becomes an increasingly acute public health concern. It is known that seniors tend to have lower mobility levels, and it is possible that this may negatively affect their ability to reach facilities and services. Therefore, it becomes important to examine the mobility situation of seniors vis-a-vis the spatial distribution of health care facilities, to identify areas where accessibility is low and interventions may be required.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Accessibility is implemented using a cumulative opportunities measure. Instead of assuming a fixed bandwidth (i.e. a distance threshold) for measuring accessibility, in this paper the bandwidth is defined using model-based estimates of average trip length. Average trip length is an all-purpose indicator of individual mobility and geographical reach. Adoption of a spatial modelling approach allows us to tailor these estimates of travel behaviour to specific locations and person profiles. Replacing a fixed bandwidth with these estimates permits us to calculate customized location- and person-based accessibility measures that allow inter-personal as well as geographical comparisons.</p> <p>Data</p> <p>The case study is Montreal Island. Geo-coded travel behaviour data, specifically average trip length, and relevant traveller's attributes are obtained from the Montreal Household Travel Survey. These data are complemented with information from the Census. Health care facilities, also geo-coded, are extracted from a comprehensive business point database. Health care facilities are selected based on Standard Industrial Classification codes 8011-21 (Medical Doctors and Dentists).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Model-based estimates of average trip length show that travel behaviour varies widely across space. With the exception of seniors in the downtown area, older residents of Montreal Island tend to be significantly less mobile than people of other age cohorts. The combination of average trip length estimates with the spatial distribution of health care facilities indicates that despite being more mobile, suburban residents tend to have lower levels of accessibility compared to central city residents. The effect is more marked for seniors. Furthermore, the results indicate that accessibility calculated using a fixed bandwidth would produce patterns of exposure to health care facilities that would be difficult to achieve for suburban seniors given actual mobility patterns.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The analysis shows large disparities in accessibility between seniors and non-seniors, between urban and suburban seniors, and between vehicle owning and non-owning seniors. This research was concerned with potential accessibility levels. Follow up research could consider the results reported here to select case studies of actual access and usage of health care facilities, and related health outcomes.</p

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged jet production in root s(NN)=2.76 TeV Pb-Pb collisions

We present measurements of the azimuthal dependence of charged jet production in central and semi-central root s(NN) = 2.76 TeV Pb-Pb collisions with respect to the second harmonic event plane, quantified as nu(ch)(2) (jet). Jet finding is performed employing the anti-k(T) algorithm with a resolution parameter R = 0.2 using charged tracks from the ALICE tracking system. The contribution of the azimuthal anisotropy of the underlying event is taken into account event-by-event. The remaining (statistical) region-to-region fluctuations are removed on an ensemble basis by unfolding the jet spectra for different event plane orientations independently. Significant non-zero nu(ch)(2) (jet) is observed in semi-central collisions (30-50% centrality) for 20 <p(T)(ch) (jet) <90 GeV/c. The azimuthal dependence of the charged jet production is similar to the dependence observed for jets comprising both charged and neutral fragments, and compatible with measurements of the nu(2) of single charged particles at high p(T). Good agreement between the data and predictions from JEWEL, an event generator simulating parton shower evolution in the presence of a dense QCD medium, is found in semi-central collisions. (C) 2015 CERN for the benefit of the ALICE Collaboration. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Peer reviewe

Forward-central two-particle correlations in p-Pb collisions at root s(NN)=5.02 TeV

Two-particle angular correlations between trigger particles in the forward pseudorapidity range (2.5 2GeV/c. (C) 2015 CERN for the benefit of the ALICE Collaboration. Published by Elsevier B. V.Peer reviewe

Event-shape engineering for inclusive spectra and elliptic flow in Pb-Pb collisions at root(NN)-N-S=2.76 TeV

Peer reviewe

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead