Analyzing the patterns of ICT utilization for online public participatory planning in Queensland, Australia

Public participation in urban planning includes involving, informing, and consulting the public in planning, management, and other decision-making activities. It is an important part of the planning process, providing opportunity and encouragement for members of the public to express their views. Despite the usefulness of new technologies, however, the majority of Internet and GIS applications have not been very successful in encouraging significant public participation. One reason for this is the lack of readiness in accepting ICTs, both on the part of planning agencies, such as local councils, and members of the public. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the readiness of local councils in Queensland, Australia, to implement online urban planning. Local government authorities (LGAs) comprise the third tier of government in Australia. In Queensland, the local councils have statutory powers over land use zoning and the development approval processes. LGAs develop and implement strategic and local plans, including those for land use. This article considers the extent to which local councils are willing to embrace ICTs as a public participation tool and the extent to which households might be ready to access new computer technologies

Modelling leadership and institutional factors in endogenous regional development.

Theories and approaches to endogenous growth and regional development tend to neglect or at best underplay the role of leadership and the way institutional factors are considered is usually simplistic. This paper builds on work the authors have been developing over the last year or so to develop a model framework of regional economic development that explicitly incorporates leadership and institutional factors along with the consideration of resource endowments and market fit and of entrepreneurship. An approach to operationalizing the model is proposed.

Some challenges for regional science research

Regional scientists have long faced challenges in developing the\ud interdisciplinary field where their focus is on the spatial context of social, economic and environmental phenomena, and dealing with spatial data presents considerable methodological challenges. This article discusses the evolution of Regional Science, the critiques it has received and the challenges it has confronted. It addresses specifically some contemporary challenges that relate to methodological issues, such as: how to measure and model endogenous regional growth performance; the limitations of using "de jure" regions rather than "functional" regions as the spatial framework in regional analysis; the need to making greater use of unit record data and integrating those data into generalised spatial frameworks; and making use of the opportunities offered by «big data» in urban and regional analysis.Los científicos regionalistas se han enfrentado a numerosos desafíos en el desarrollo del ámbito interdisciplinario en el que analizan el contexto espacial de los fenómenos sociales, económicos y medioambientales, y asimismo tratar con amplias bases de datos plantea desafíos metodológicos considerables.\ud Este artículo estudia la evolución de la Ciencia Regional, las críticas que ha recibido y los retos con los que se ha enfrentado. Analiza específicamente algunos retos contemporáneos relacionados con problemas metodológicos como: de qué forma medir y los logros del modelo de crecimiento endógeno regional;\ud los límites de la utilización de regiones "de iure" más que regiones "funcionales" como base espacia en el análisis regional; la necesidad de realizar un mayor uso de microdatos o datos por unidad y de integrarlos en estructuras espaciales más generales; y las oportunidades que ofrece la utilización de «big data» en el\ud análisis urbano y regional

Measuring Community Strength and Social Capital

In 2001/02 five case study communities in both metropolitan and regional urban locations in Australia were chosen as test sites to develop measures of community strength on four domains: natural capital; produced economic capital; human capital; and social and institutional capital. Secondary data sources were used to develop measures on the first three domains. For the fourth domain?social and institutional capital?primary data collection was undertaken through sample surveys of households. A structured approach was devised. This involved developing a survey instrument using scaled items relating to four elements: formal norms; informal norms; formal structures; and informal structures?which embrace the concepts of trust, reciprocity, bonds, bridges, links and networks in the interaction of individuals with their community inherent in the notion social capital. Exploratory principal components analysis was used to identify factors that measure those aspects of social and institutional capital, with confirmatory analysis conducted using Cronbach?s Alpha. This enabled the construction of four primary scales and 15 sub-scales as a tool for measuring social and institutional capital. Further analyses reveals that two measures?anomie and perceived quality of life and wellbeing?relate to certain primary scales of social capital.

A planar quasi-optical SIS receiver for array applications

A planar, quasi-optical SIS receiver operating at 230 GHz is described. The receiver consists of a 2 x 5 array of half wave dipole antennas with ten niobium-aluminum oxide-niobium SIS junctions on a quartz dielectric-filled parabola. The 1.4 GHz intermediate frequency is coupled from the mixer via coplanar strip transmission lines and 4:1 balun transformers. The receiver is operated at 4.2 K in a liquid helium immersion cryostat. We report accurate measurements of the performance of single receiver elements. A mixer noise temperature of 89 K DSB, receiver noise temperature of 156 K DSB, and conversion loss of 3 dB into a matched load have been obtained

Liderazgo e instituciones factores endógenos del desarrollo de la economía regional

This paper proposes that a virtuous circle for the sustainable development of a city or region is achieved through a process whereby proactive and strong leadership and effective institutions enhance the capacity and capability of a place to better use its resource endowments and gain an improved market fit in becoming competitive and being entrepreneurial. It is proposed that the performance of a city or region at a point in time and the path of its economic development over time may be represented by its position in a Regional Competitiveness Performance Cube. The paper proposes a new model framework whereby a city or region’s economic development and performance is an outcome dependent on how its resource endowments and market fit as quasi-independent variables are mediated by the interaction between leadership, institutions, and entrepreneurship as intervening variables. The experiences of a number of case study cities from a variety of settings in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia are explored within that framework.Este artículo propone que un círculo virtuoso para el desarrollo sostenible de una ciudad o región se logra a través de un proceso por el que el liderazgo proactivo y fuerte y las instituciones efectivas refuerzan la capacidad y aptitud de un lugar para hacer un mejor uso de sus dotaciones de recursos y lograr un mercado mejorado que consiga ser competitivo y emprendedor. Se propone que el funcionamiento de una ciudad o región en un punto en el tiempo y la trayectoria de su desarrollo económico a lo largo del tiempo puede representarse por su posición en un Cubo de resultados de Competitividad Regional. El artículo propone una nueva estructura de modelo donde el desarrollo económico y funcionamiento de una ciudad o región sea un resultado dependiente de cómo sus dotaciones de recursos y mercado ajustadas como variables cuasi-independientes son mediadas por la interacción entre el liderazgo, instituciones y espíritu empresarial como variables intervinientes. Las experiencias de un cierto número de casos de estudio de ciudades dentro de una variedad de lugares en EE.UU., Europa, Asia y Australia se exploran dentro de esa estructura

Child relationships in the middle grades

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

The declining representativeness of the British party system, and why it matters

In a recent article, Michael Laver has explained ‘Why Vote-Seeking Parties May Make Voters Miserable’. His model shows that, while ideological convergence may boost congruence between governments and the median voter, it can reduce congruence between the party system and the electorate as a whole. Specifically, convergence can increase the mean distance between voters and their nearest party. In this article we show that this captures the reality of today’s British party system. Policy scale placements in British Election Studies from 1987 to 2010 confirm that the pronounced convergence during the past decade has left the Conservatives and Labour closer together than would be optimal in terms of minimising the policy distance between the average voter and the nearest major party. We go on to demonstrate that this comes at a cost. Respondents who perceive themselves as further away from one of the major parties in the system tend to score lower on satisfaction with democracy. In short, vote-seeking parties have left the British party system less representative of the ideological diversity in the electorate, and thus made at least some British voters miserable