Chinese state and society in epidemic governance: A historical perspective

This paper looks at the role of state and society in the history of epidemic governance in China for an appreciation of the way China manages the current COVID-19 epidemic.     

重庆主城区城市空间结构演变与优化——基于公共服务功能组织视角

城市空间结构与城市公共服务功能组织密切相关。重庆主城区作为典型的"多中心、组团式"城市,在城市公共服务功能的就近组织、公共服务需求的均衡化方面具有先天的优势。本文梳理重庆主城区空间结构的演进历程以及与公共服务需求变化的互动关系,辨识随着城市功能由生产向消费转型,空间面临的结构问题及其内在动因,借鉴马斯洛理论,提出顺应当前及未来公共服务需求层次的分异,城市空间结构应从"多中心、组团式"进一步向"分层多中心、组团式"优化,引导形成相对集中、功能综合的基层"小、微中心"体系,以有序组织公共服务功能,最大限度地减少非必要交通出行,降低居民出行的时耗,提升城市效率,并借鉴恩格尔系数构建衡量城市效率的评价框架,为破解山地城市空间结构问题,推动城市空间转型提供新的思考视角。     

兴隆庄煤矿生态系统服务价值评估

以兖州矿区兴隆庄煤矿为例,基于1990-2018年间的遥感影像数据,从供给、调节、支持和文化4个方面对兴隆庄生态系统服务价值进行测算评估,并分析其动态变化度及敏感性。评估结果表明,总生态服务价值表现为先增加后减少,1990-2010年矿区生态系统服务总价值从18841.5万元增加至29034.2万元,主要原因是采煤塌陷导致耕地向塌陷水体转变以及林地面积的增加;2010-2018年生态总价值减少了2484.8万元,主要在于耕地大规模地转变为建设用地以及区域地下水位下降造成的水域面积减小。敏感性分析显示,耕地和水体是平原矿区生态系统服务价值最敏感的因素,耕地的敏感性指数由1990年的0.79降为2018年的0.28,说明其在生态服务价值中的影响逐年降低。     

基本公共服务均等化背景下吉林市社区养老问题研究

近年来，以推进基本公共服务均等化为依托而促进养老等社会服务的发展已成为各省市的重点工作之一，立足于吉林市市情，通过调查研究、定量分析等方式探索本地社区养老存在的问题以及对策。     

杭州公共设施调研与分析——基于日常生活服务需求的视角

面对新形势下基本公共服务设施配置的新要求,杭州市开展了公共服务设施基本配套规定的评估与修订。有别于传统的"自上而下"制定各类设施配套标准的思路,此次评估与修订工作采用基于日常生活服务需求视角的"自下而上"的创新型思路,问卷与访谈相结合并将调研设施从公益性设施拓展到商业性设施,了解居民使用设施的频率、步行容忍时间等特征及对设施集中设置的意愿,以此为依据,对杭州市公共设施基本配套规定中设施类型的确定、设施功能的复合设置、服务半径的选取等方面提出建议。     

A self‐scalable load injection service

Load testing of applications is an important and costly activity for software provider companies. Classical solutions are very difficult to set up statically, and their cost is prohibitive in terms of both human and hardware resources. Virtualized cloud computing platforms provide new opportunities for stressing an application's scalability, by providing a large range of flexible and less expensive (pay‐per‐use model) computation units. On the basis of these advantages, load testing solutions could be provided on demand in the cloud. This paper describes a Benchmark‐as‐a‐Service solution that automatically scales the load injection platform and facilitates its setup according to load profiles. Our approach is based on: (i) virtualization of the benchmarking platform to create self‐scaling injectors; (ii) online calibration to characterize the injector's capacity and impact on the benched application; and (iii) a provisioning solution to appropriately scale the load injection platform ahead of time. We also report experiments on a benchmark illustrating the benefits of this system in terms of cost and resource reductions. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

NIOSH national survey of long-haul truck drivers: Injury and safety

Approximately 1,701,500 people were employed as heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers in the United States in 2012. The majority of them were long-haul truck drivers (LHTDs). There are limited data on occupational injury and safety in LHTDs, which prompted a targeted national survey. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health conducted a nationally representative survey of 1265 LHTDs at 32 truck stops across the contiguous United States in 2010. Data were collected on truck crashes, near misses, moving violations, work-related injuries, work environment, safety climate, driver training, job satisfaction, and driving behaviors. Results suggested that an estimated 2.6% of LHTDs reported a truck crash in 2010, 35% reported at least one crash while working as an LHTD, 24% reported at least one near miss in the previous 7 days, 17% reported at least one moving violation ticket and 4.7% reported a non-crash injury involving days away from work in the previous 12 months. The majority (68%) of non-crash injuries among company drivers were not reported to employers. An estimate of 73% of LHTDs (16% often and 58% sometimes) perceived their delivery schedules unrealistically tight; 24% often continued driving despite fatigue, bad weather, or heavy traffic because they needed to deliver or pick up a load at a given time; 4.5% often drove 10 miles per hours or more over the speed limit; 6.0% never wore a seatbelt; 36% were often frustrated by other drivers on the road; 35% often had to wait for access to a loading dock; 37% reported being noncompliant with hours-of-service rules (10% often and 27% sometimes); 38% of LHTDs perceived their entry-level training inadequate; and 15% did not feel that safety of workers was a high priority with their management. This survey brings to light a number of important safety issues for further research and interventions, e.g., high prevalence of truck crashes, injury underreporting, unrealistically tight delivery schedules, noncompliance with hours-of-service rules, and inadequate entry-level training.     

P2Care: A dynamic peer-to-peer network for collaboration in personalized healthcare service delivery

In the healthcare domain, the quality of personalized service delivery is strongly tied with collaboration among multiple stakeholders for accurate and reliable access to a variety of distributed and heterogeneous information and services. Existing healthcare information systems lack collaboration since they offer limited accessibility to resources and pose many restrictions in terms of scalability and flexibility. In this work, we propose P2Care, a decentralized, dynamic, scalable and self-organized network that exploits the functionalities of the structured peer-to-peer networks in order to provide collaboration. P2Care provides efficient ubiquitous access to medical information by organizing participating entities into groups according to common characteristics and interests. It incorporates enhanced lookup mechanisms with low response time and signaling overhead. The performance of the P2Care system has been evaluated through simulations. A prototype application demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed system for cooperation and collaboration in order to facilitate personalized service delivery.     

Framing processes in planning disputes: analysing dynamics of contention in a housing project in Hong Kong

Opposition to planned housing projects can lead to considerable delays. Hong Kong is characterized by an executive-dominant planning system, whereby the government possesses strong planning powers, while elected district councillors play an advisory role only. Curiously, planning delays are fairly common. The above paradox is analysed in this paper through examining a major dispute over public housing development in Hong Kong. This dispute involved lengthy processes of bargaining, which were vulnerable to legitimacy challenges. Councillors acted strategically by tapping into prevailing social values to frame the legitimacy of bargaining processes. Despite discontent with these informal bargaining processes, the dispute has not evolved into more radical challenges to existing governance arrangements. The paper concludes by considering how hegemonic discourses of planning efficiency may have constrained the emergence of radical contention, which adds to broader debates about the conditions which shape the trajectories and transformative prospects of contentious urban developments.