Local Enterprise Zone Programs and Economic Development Planning: A Case Study of California and Four Mid-Atlantic States

This dissertation explores the underlying concepts of enterprise zones, assesses their effectiveness, and seeks to identify conditions under which enterprise zones work. It covers 70 zones in California, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia (roughly one-tenth of the nation\u27s locally administered zones established before 1987). It first reviews previous studies and exposes common methodological problems and theoretical weaknesses they confront. Pulling literature from industrial location, local economic development, and taxation studies, it develops and applies an analytical framework for classifying and evaluating zone performance. It measures zone performance in terms of the difference in the percent changes in employment and business establishment between zones and their regions. Next, it conducts a survey to investigate how zones are structured and managed. Combining survey results and zone performance data, it uses regression models to identify determinants of zone success. Finally, it includes case studies of three zones, all with an above-average performance to further validate previous statistical findings and to provide insights on the operation of \u27successful\u27 zones. This research finds that there is considerable variability among zones, but most of them do not adhere to the original laissez-faire conception of enterprise zones. In general, changes in employment and business establishment within a zone differ little from those of its region. However, active management and outreach by zone administrators tends to improve zone performance. Successful zones are typically those which are small, actively managed, with a simple program structure, located in a growing region, and with some basic location advantages. This dissertation research cannot link any specific economic development tool adopted in enterprise zones to their performance. Instead, regression models and case studies find that zone performance is determined by regional growth, initial zone conditions, and the employment size of the zone. Finally, income and employment levels in enterprise zone communities are found barely changing even when zones are experiencing rapid employment growth

Fiscal Impacts of the Proposed Beazer Projects Hopewell Township, New Jersey

This report examines the fiscal structure of Hopewell Township and its regional school district, and develops various types of demographic multipliers. It offers a concise discussion of methodologies of fiscal impact study. Using an improved average cost method and case studies, this report provides an assessment of the net fiscal effects of three proposed residential projects. It provides a discussion of the impacts of age-restricted development

GAF: Mechanical Paint Line Test Stand

The roofing manufacturer GAF located in Shafter, CA is in pursuit of a mechanism with the ability to improve the quality of paint lining applied on a dynamic roll of roofing shingles. The mechanism must consist of an alignment system along which a paint line applicator can be adjusted in the vertical direction and operate at a certain range of speeds. Other requirements for the mechanism demand that it is feasibly portable, reasonably durable, capable of accurate alignment, mountable to the ground, and within a budget of $15,000. With the customer\u27s design requirements established and understood, a one-year project has been outlined with details on how the objectives assigned to the Cal Poly 2018 senior project team will be satisfied. The first quarter was spent researching, brainstorming ideas, drafting a Quality Functional Deployment chart and producing different design concepts from which a final design would be made. After finalizing the design concept, it was presented to GAF for evaluation where approval and feedback were provided. After evaluating the feedback from GAF, the team proceeded with the project doing an Interim Design review to finalize the design by deciding which parts of the design concept can remain in use, and identifying parts that needed to be changed or added to. Some of the original structural components were modified in an effort to help improve the quality of paint application. Additionally, the Pac-Man device is driven by a belt and pulley coupled to a motor while maintaining the use of a mill table and hydraulic scissor link table for horizontal and vertical position adjustability respectfully. Throughout the second quarter the team was tasked with conducting a critical design review which involved calculations needed for design verification. Also the majority of the quarter was spent on planning for the manufacturing and testing part of the following quarter. The third and final quarter was spent doing a final design review where the team concludes the project with the last round of design modifications, followed by a hardware and safety demo. From there the project was assembled and tested after all parts were ordered, manufactured, and assembled. This was then followed by the project exposition where it has been presented and shown to viewers what it was designed for and how it operates

Creating a Positive Future for a Minority Community: Transportation and Urban Renewal Politics in Miami

Overtown, once the center of African American life in Miami, lost 40% of its population when Interstate 95 was built through the heart of the community in the 1960s. Even though a variety of non-policy factors played a role in the decline of the area, expressway construction and urban renewal greatly accelerated the process. Just as important, efforts to mitigate the impact of the highway were delayed for many years, thus magnifying the negative effects of public policies. The political barriers preventing the redevelopment of Overtown are described and analyzed. The future of Overtown is critically examined and evaluated

Comparing Measures of Linguistic Diversity Across Social Media Language Data and Census Data at Subnational Geographic Areas

This paper describes a preliminary study on the comparative linguistic ecology of online spaces (i.e., social media language data) and real-world spaces in Aotearoa New Zealand (i.e., subnational administrative areas). We compare measures of linguistic diversity between these different spaces and discuss how social media users align with real-world populations. The results from the current study suggests that there is potential to use online social media language data to observe spatial and temporal changes in linguistic diversity at subnational geographic areas; however, further work is required to understand how well social media represents real-world behaviour

Implementation and Utilisation of Community-based Mortality Surveillance: a case study from Chad

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Prospective surveillance is a recognised approach for measuring death rates in humanitarian emergencies. However, there is limited evidence on how such surveillance should optimally be implemented and on how data are actually used by agencies. This case study investigates the implementation and utilisation of mortality surveillance data by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in eastern Chad. We aimed to describe and analyse the community-based mortality surveillance system, trends in mortality data and the utilisation of these data to guide MSF’s operational response.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The case study included 5 MSF sites including 2 refugee camps and 3 camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs). Data were obtained through key informant interviews and systematic review of MSF operational reports from 2004–2008.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Mortality data were collected using community health workers (CHWs). Mortality generally decreased progressively. In Farchana and Breidjing refugee camps, crude death rates (CDR) decreased from 0.9 deaths per 10,000 person-days in 2004 to 0.2 in 2008 and from 0.7 to 0.1, respectively. In Gassire, Ade and Kerfi IDP camps, CDR decreased from 0.4 to 0.04, 0.3 to 0.04 and 1.0 to 0.3. Death rates among children under 5 years (U5DR) followed similar trends. CDR and U5DR crossed emergency thresholds in one site, Kerfi, where CDR rapidly rose to 2.1 and U5DR to 7.9 in July 2008 before rapidly decreasing to below emergency levels by September 2008.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>Mortality data were used regularly to monitor population health status and on two occasions as a tool for advocacy. Lessons learned included the need for improved population estimates and standardized reporting procedures for improved data quality and dissemination; the importance of a simple and flexible model for data collection; and greater investment in supervising CHWs.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This model of community based mortality surveillance can be adapted and used by humanitarian agencies working in complex settings. Humanitarian organisations should however endeavour to disseminate routinely collected mortality data and improve utilisation of data for operational planning and evaluation. Accurate population estimation continues to be a challenge, limiting the accuracy of mortality estimates.</p

cantnlp@LT-EDI@RANLP-2023: Homophobia/Transphobia Detection in Social Media Comments using Spatio-Temporally Retrained Language Models

This paper describes our multiclass classification system developed as part of the LTEDI@RANLP-2023 shared task. We used a BERT-based language model to detect homophobic and transphobic content in social media comments across five language conditions: English, Spanish, Hindi, Malayalam, and Tamil. We retrained a transformer-based crosslanguage pretrained language model, XLMRoBERTa, with spatially and temporally relevant social media language data. We also retrained a subset of models with simulated script-mixed social media language data with varied performance. We developed the best performing seven-label classification system for Malayalam based on weighted macro averaged F1 score (ranked first out of six) with variable performance for other language and class-label conditions. We found the inclusion of this spatio-temporal data improved the classification performance for all language and task conditions when compared with the baseline. The results suggests that transformer-based language classification systems are sensitive to register-specific and language-specific retraining

The development of a multilingual tool for facilitating the primary-specialty care interface in low resource settings: the MSF tele-expertise system

In 2009, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) started a pilot trial of store-and-forward telemedicine to support field workers. One network was operated in French and one in English; a third, Spanish network was brought into operation in 2012. The three telemedicine pilots were then combined to form a single multilingual tele-expertise system, tailored to support MSF field staff. We conducted a retrospective analysis of all telemedicine cases referred from April 2010 to March 2014. We also carried out a survey of all users in December 2013. A total of 1039 referrals were received from 41 countries, of which 89% were in English, 10% in French, and 1% in Spanish. The cases covered a very wide range of medical and surgical specialties. The median delay in providing the first specialist response to the referrer was 5.3 h (interquartile range 1.8, 16.4). The survey was sent to 294 referrers and 254 specialists. Of these, 224 were considered as active users (41%). Out of the 548 users, 163 (30%) answered the survey. The majority of referrers (79%) reported that the advice received via the system improved their management of the patient. The main concerns raised by referrers and specialists were the lack of support or promotion of system at headquarters' level and the lack of feedback about patient follow-up. Because of the size of the MSF organization, it is clear that there is potential for further organizational adoption

The intramitochondrial dynamin-related GTPase, Mgm1p, is a component of a protein complex that mediates mitochondrial fusion

Abalance between fission and fusion events determines the morphology of mitochondria. In yeast, mitochondrial fission is regulated by the outer membrane–associated dynamin-related GTPase, Dnm1p. Mitochondrial fusion requires two integral outer membrane components, Fzo1p and Ugo1p. Interestingly, mutations in a second mitochondrial-associated dynamin-related GTPase, Mgm1p, produce similar phenotypes to fzo1 and ugo cells. Specifically, mutations in MGM1 cause mitochondrial fragmentation and a loss of mitochondrial DNA that are suppressed by abolishing DNM1-dependent fission. In contrast to fzo1ts mutants, blocking DNM1-dependent fission restores mitochondrial fusion in mgm1ts cells during mating. Here we show that blocking DNM1-dependent fission in Δmgm1 cells fails to restore mitochondrial fusion during mating. To examine the role of Mgm1p in mitochondrial fusion, we looked for molecular interactions with known fusion components. Immunoprecipitation experiments revealed that Mgm1p is associated with both Ugo1p and Fzo1p in mitochondria, and that Ugo1p and Fzo1p also are associated with each other. In addition, genetic analysis of specific mgm1 alleles indicates that Mgm1p's GTPase and GTPase effector domains are required for its ability to promote mitochondrial fusion and that Mgm1p self-interacts, suggesting that it functions in fusion as a self-assembling GTPase. Mgm1p's localization within mitochondria has been controversial. Using protease protection and immuno-EM, we have shown previously that Mgm1p localizes to the intermembrane space, associated with the inner membrane. To further test our conclusions, we have used a novel method using the tobacco etch virus protease and confirm that Mgm1p is present in the intermembrane space compartment in vivo. Taken together, these data suggest a model where Mgm1p functions in fusion to remodel the inner membrane and to connect the inner membrane to the outer membrane via its interactions with Ugo1p and Fzo1p, thereby helping to coordinate the behavior of the four mitochondrial membranes during fusion

Detection of microalbuminuria in non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) patients without overt proteinuria by a semiquantitative albumin-creatinine urine strips

AbstractMicroalbuminuria is the hallmark of the reversible stage of incipient diabetic nephropathy. A cost- effective and convenient bedside screening test is essential to detect this phase. We used Clinitek 50® which is a semiquantitative strip test to check spot urine sample from 81 patients with albustix one plus or less. The incidence of Clinitek 50® microalbuminuria was 17%, 18.2% and 75% in 47, 22 and 12 patients with albustix negative, trace or one plus respectively. Nineteen and 13 of the 21 Clinitek 50® positive patients were checked for spot urine DCA 2000® and two 12-hour urine collection for immunoassay respectively. Around 60% of these samples fell into the microalbuminuria range and 40% into the overt albuminuria range by either technique. There was no false positive of Clinitek 50®. The lowest range of microalbuminuria detected by Clinitek 50® was 27 μg/minute (38 mg/day). We concluded that Clinitek 50® is a useful screening test as it is nonexpensive, easily operated and has a sensitivity close to the lower range of microalbuminuria