Promoting ecosystem and human health in urban areas using green infrastructure: A literature review

Europe is a highly urbanised continent. The consequent loss and degradation of urban and peri-urban green space could adversely affect ecosystems as well as human health and well-being. The aim of this paper is to formulate a conceptual framework of associations between urban green space and ecosystem and human health. Through an interdisciplinary literature review the concepts of Green Infrastructure, ecosystem health, and human health and well-being are discussed. The possible contributions of urban and peri-urban green space systems, or Green Infrastructure, on both ecosystem and human health are critically reviewed. Finally, based on a synthesis of the literature a conceptual framework is presented. The proposed conceptual framework highlights many dynamic factors, and their complex interactions, affecting ecosystem health and human health in urban areas. This framework forms the context into which extant and new research can be placed. In this way it forms the basis for a new interdisciplinary research agenda

Optimal Provision of Infrastructure Using Public-Private Partnership Contracts

This paper deals with the optimal provision of infrastructure by means of public-private partnership contracts.In the economic literature infrastructure is characterized as a large, indivisible and non-rival capital good that produces services for its users.Users can be both consumers and producers. Consumers may derive utility from infrastructure, either indirectly, because it facilitates the use of some particular private good, or directly, because it is available for this facility.Examples are roads that facilitate the use of private cars, or computer systems facilitating the use of personal computers. Producers may use infrastructure as one of their production factors.The non-rivalness or nonexcludability of the infrastructure and the large costs to produce and maintain the infrastructure causes it to be a public good.On the other hand, infrastructure also possesses characteristics of a private commodity because it facilitates of the use of a complementary private commodity.Modern information-technological developments open new possibilities to eveal the need of individual users for a specific public infrastructure, by monitoring the private use they make of it.Consequently, a large part of the public financing of infrastructure can be privatised.That forms the base for public private partnerships to establish and maintain infrastructure.In this paper we discuss the design of an operational system to finance the costs of infrastructure.It will be shown that the system basically can result in an economically efficient level of infrastructure.The basic idea is that use of infrastructure is constrained by the availability of the infrastructure being provided.Therefore users who are hampered by too small a provision of the infrastructure are willing to pay for the use of infrastructure.contracts;general equilibrium;infrastructure;public goods;efficiency;public private partnerships

Virtual Simulation Objects Concept as a Framework for System-Level Simulation

This paper presents Virtual Simulation Objects (VSO) concept which forms theoretical basis for building tools and framework that is developed for system-level simulations using existing software modules available within cyber-infrastructure. Presented concept is implemented by the software tool for building composite solutions using VSO-based GUI and running them using CLAVIRE simulation environment.Comment: Proceedings of IEEE e-Sceince Conference. 2012. CD-ROM. ISBN 978-1-4673-4465-

Certifying Services in Cloud: The Case for a Hybrid, Incremental and Multi-layer Approach

The use of clouds raises significant security concerns for the services they provide. Addressing these concerns requires novel models of cloud service certification based on multiple forms of evidence including testing and monitoring data, and trusted computing proofs. CUMULUS is a novel infrastructure for realising such certification models

A Note on Infrastructure Quality in South Africa

The emphasis, both in research and in policy making, seems to be on more infrastructure, rather than better infrastructure. This research note aims to critically analyse the lack of quality indicators in infrastructure empirics and to redirect attention to improving infrastructure quality in its various forms in South Africa.Infrastructure, South Africa, quality, international trade, port facilities, binding constraints

Securities Regulation: SEC Brands Sales Reward Interpositioning a Breach of Fiduciary Duty and Antifraud Violation

The report analyzes governance forms (primarily organization and financing) for the planning and realization of cross-border transport infrastructure projects in the Öresund region. The study is nased on analyses related to the current Öresund Bridge and the planned and proposed new fixed links in the Öresund Region; the Helsingborg-Elsinore-connection (HH-link) and the metro-line extension Copenhagen-Malmoe. The project has been financed by Region Skåne as part of the EU-funded Baltic Sea Region TransGovernance-project.QC 20140613</p

Trade, Growth and Increasing Returns to Infrastructure: The Role of the Sophisticated Monopolist

We consider a model of international trade with increasing returns in a non-traded input into industry, “infrastructure”, and show that the nature of equilibrium depends crucially on whether the infrastructure provider acts in a “naïve” manner – akin to a Level 1 agent in a cognitive hierarchy (C-H) model – or in a more sophisticated manner. Infrastructure requires a fixed investment and is produced under decreasing marginal costs, and we model two possible market forms, monopoly and Cournot oligopoly with free entry – both capable of generating pecuniary externalities in the manufacturing sector . Unlike most other work exploring the theme of increasing returns, we derive a unique closed economy equilibrium. In a small open economy, we show that with “naïve” infrastructure provider(s), multiple equilibria obtain. In this event whether or not a small open economy becomes an industrial exporter depends crucially on the presence of unexhausted economies of scale, and it is possible to have equilibria where manufactures are exported in spite of the world price of manufactures being lower than the autarky price. With a more sophisticated infrastructure provider, however, even an open economy has a unique equilibrium, which for a wide range of parameter values also involves a greater degree of industrialization than any of the “naïve” equilibria. For some parameter values, however, neither infrastructure nor manufacturing can develop and the economy remains totally agrarian.Increasing returns to scale, cognitive hierarchy, multiple equilibria, uniqueness, Cournot oligopoly.

Capital and the determinants of poverty and social exclusion

Types of capital which determine the ability of individuals, of communities and of nations to avoid poverty and social exclusion are analysed. This analysis draws on changing explanations of economic growth and the recent literature on social capital. Five forms of capital are distinguished ¿ financial capital, physical capital, human capital, public infrastructure and social capital ¿ and their inter-relationships are discussed. The theoretical and policy implications of the different forms of capital are considered

Transgressive urbanism : borderlands and urban informality of american cities along the panamerican highway

This study explores the ways in which political boundaries can be trespassed in order to develop subaltern forms of urbanism and edge conditions, mainly to the comparative study of border cities in the Americas, predominantly ruled by informal economies, and which are situated alongside the largest land-transport infrastructure on Earth called ‘Pan-American Highway’. This land transport corridor operates as a grand linear urbanism and constitutes the economical catalyst of emerging urban economies in scenarios of political regional integration (‘soft boundaries’) or fortification (demarcations). As result of border pressure, the process of ‘instantness’ has upgraded various informal urban economies to adequate standards of production, consumption and exchange. In terms of regional development, one of the direct impacts of the Pan-American Highway – from Alaska to Patagonia – has been the expansion of formal and informal economic and trade corridors along this main infrastructure network, which is shaping the urban structure of border cities or towns. On one hand, this study reflects on the border conditions of American border cities ruled by formal and informal economies. On another hand, it compares and critically reflects on the socio-spatial principles of infrastructural urbanism and the phenomenon of metapolisation (Ascher, 2004) of urban economies in selected border cities. The novelty of this study lies in the observation and mapping of new spatial schemes in border landscapes alongside the largest infrastructure on Earth

Sharing Qualitative and Qualitative Longitudinal Data in the UK: Archiving Strategies and Development

Over the past two decades significant developments have occurred in the archiving of qualitative data in the UK. The first national archive for qualitative resources, Qualidata, was established in 1994. Since that time further scientific reviews have supported the expansion of data resources for qualitative and qualitative longitudinal (QL) research in the UK and fuelled the development of a new ethos of data sharing and re-use among qualitative researchers. These have included the Timescapes Study and Archive, an initiative funded from 2007 to scale up QL research and create a specialist resource of QL data for sharing and re-use. These trends are part of a wider movement to enhance the status of research data in all their diverse forms, inculcate an ethos of data sharing, and develop infrastructure to facilitate data discovery and re-use. In this paper we trace the history of these developments and provide an overview of data policy initiatives that have set out to advance data sharing in the UK. The paper reveals a mixed infrastructure for qualitative and QL data resources in the UK, and explores the value of this, along with the implications for managing and co-ordinating resources across a complex network. The paper concludes with some suggestions for developing this mixed infrastructure to further support data sharing and re-use in the UK and beyond