394 research outputs found
Never again:Legal change after public health crises in China
This thesis examines legal change after public health crises in China. The research aim is threefold. First of all, it aims to contribute to our understanding of how crises can lead to legal change in China. Secondly, the thesis aims to contribute to our understanding of post-crisis lawmaking. Thirdly, the thesis aims to develop tools for measuring and assessing the nature of legal change and of post-crisis legal change in particular. These three aims have been captured in one overarching research question: To what extent and under which conditions do public health crises lead to legal change in China
Process, politics and participation: Experiences with strategies for local capacity building
This seminar report is about the Sinpa programme. Therefore a brief explanation of
the objectives and project history is provided in this chapter to serve as background
information for what is to follow.
Objectives of the SINPA programme
The overall goal of the SINPA programme is to help implement National Plans of
Action and the Habitat Agenda by building sustainable local capacity for effective
planning and management of urban development. More concretely, the programme
aims to assist local government and its partners in capacity building for action in the
broad areas of housing, local environmental management and participative planning
processes and partnerships relating to these subjects. It especially focuses on the
challenges of improving access to services and better environment for the urban
poor, with particular regard to gender issues.
The broad objectives of the programme are:
ā¢ to stimulate the development of local capacity building strategies;
ā¢ to stimulate selected local and national capacity building institutions to become
more responsive to needs and to enhance quality of performance;
ā¢ to stimulate urban stakeholders to learn from relevant past and ongoing
experience with implementing urban development policy and projects;
ā¢ to improve understanding and communication of experience relevant to needs of
city development in the linked areas of housing, environmental management,
participative planning and partnerships.
SINPA aims to achieve these objectives by helping to bring local development
partners and capacity building institutions together so as to improve capacity in a
manner that will be sustainable locally. The programme is structured in a core
programme, which provides co-ordination, information inputs, linkage and
dissemination, and three country programmes that are developed locally in response
to local issues. The country programmes are being implemented in secondary cities
in Bangladesh, Bolivia and Zambia.
The SINPA programme adopts a proces
Driving Performance in Patients With Idiopathic Cervical Dystonia; A Driving Simulator Pilot Study
Objective: To explore driving performance and driving safety in patients with cervical dystonia (CD) on a simulated lane tracking, intersections and highway ride and to compare it to healthy controls. Design: This study was performed as an explorative between groups comparison. Participants: Ten CD patients with idiopathic CD, 30 years or older, stable on botulinum toxin treatment for over a year, holding a valid driver's license and being an active driver were compared with 10 healthy controls, matched for age and gender. Main outcome measures: Driving performance and safety, measured by various outcomes from the simulator, such as the standard deviation of the lateral position on the road, rule violations, percentage of line crossings, gap distance, and number of collisions. Fatigue and driving effort were measured with the Borg CR-10 scale and self-perceived fitness to drive was assessed with Fitness to Drive Screening. Results: Except for a higher percentage of line crossings on the right side of the road by controls (median percentage 2.30, range 0.00-37.00 vs. 0.00, range 0.00-9.20, p = 0.043), no differences were found in driving performance and driving safety during the simulator rides. Fatigue levels were significantly higher in CD patients just before (p = 0.005) and after (p = 0.033) the lane tracking ride (patients median fatigue levels before 1.5 (range 0.00-6.00) and after 1.5 (range 0.00-7.00) vs. controls median fatigue levels before and after 0.00 (no range). No significant differences were found on self-perceived fitness to drive. Conclusion: In patients with CD there were no indications that driving performance or driving safety were significant different from healthy controls in a simulator. Patients reported higher levels of fatigue both before and after driving compared to controls in accordance with the non-motor symptoms known in CD
Test Arrangement of Small-scale Shear Tests of Composite Slabs
AbstractComposite slab consists of the layer of concrete above the trapezoidal sheeting. The sheeting serves as a lost formwork as well as a tension bearing member after the hardening of concrete. The interaction between the sheeting and the concrete is necessary for composite action and can be ensured by prepressed embossments in the sheeting. According to nowadays codes, full scale bending tests are required in the design of the new sheeting of this type of composite slabs. An alternative longitudinal shear tests of a small part of the slab have already been derived by many authors. However, the testing arrangement is not unified. The results of the shear tests can be influenced by the magnitude and the way of application of the clamping force, the loading speed, the interface conditions and others. This paper presents a proposal of the testing arrangement and the recommendations for the testing procedure of small-scale shear tests. The recommendations are posted based on the results of several series of performed laboratory tests
Habitatmapping Westerschelde: deelrapport 2. Ecologische karakteristieken en ecotopen in het subtidaal van de Westerschelde
Regulacija puta razgradnje pentoza s pomoÄu gena izoliranih iz plijesni Aspergillus niger
The aim of this study was to obtain a better understanding of the pentose catabolism in Aspergillus niger and the regulatory systems that affect it. To this end, we have cloned and characterised the genes encoding A. niger L-arabitol dehydrogenase (ladA) and xylitol dehydrogenase (xdhA), and compared the regulation of these genes to other genes of the pentose catabolic pathway. This demonstrated that activation of the pathway depends on two transcriptional regulators, the xylanolytic activator (XlnR) and an unidentified L-arabinose specific regulator (AraR). These two regulators affect those genes of the pentose catabolic pathway that are related to catabolic conversion of their corresponding inducers (D-xylose and L-arabinose, respectively).Istraživanje je provedeno radi boljeg razumijevanja puta razgradnje pentoza plijesni Aspergillus niger i regulacijskih sustava koji na njega utjeÄu. Klonirani su i karakterizirani geni koji kodiraju L-arabitol dehidrogenazu (ladA) i ksilitol dehidrogenazu (xdhA) plijesni A. niger, te usporeÄeni s ostalim genima koji reguliraju put razgradnje pentoza. Otkriveno je da aktivacija puta razgradnje ovisi o dva regulatora transkripcije gena, tj. aktivatoru razgradnje D-ksiloze (XlnR) i regulatoru ekspresije gena pri razgradnji L-arabinoze (AraR)
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