Global warming and hepatotoxin production by cyanobacteria: what can we learn from experiments?

Global temperature is expected to rise throughout this century, and blooms of cyanobacteria in lakes and estuaries are predicted to increase with the current level of global warming. The potential environmental, economic and sanitation repercussions of these blooms have attracted considerable attention among the world’s scientific communities, water management agencies and general public. Of particular concern is the worldwide occurrence of hepatotoxic cyanobacteria posing a serious threat to global public health. Here, we highlight plausible effects of global warming on physiological and molecular changes in these cyanobacteria and resulting effects on hepatotoxin production. We also emphasize the importance of understanding the natural biological function(s) of hepatotoxins, various mechanisms governing their synthesis, and climate-driven changes in food-web interactions, if we are to predict consequences of the current and projected levels of global warming for production and accumulation of hepatotoxins in aquatic ecosystems.     

Connecting physical and social dimensions of place attachment: What can we learn from attachment to urban recreational spaces?

This paper is concerned with the ways in which people form attachments to recreational spaces. More specifically it examines the relationship between recreational spaces associated with sporting activity in urban neighbourhoods and place attachment. The focus is on the ways in which changes to these spaces exposes the affective bonds between people and their surroundings. The paper applies a qualitative methodology, namely focus groups and photo elicitation, to the case study of Parkhead, a neighbourhood in the East End of Glasgow. Parkhead has historically been subjected to successive waves of redevelopment as a result of deindustrialization in the late twentieth century. More recently redevelopment associated with the 2014 Commonwealth Games involved further changes to neighbourhood recreational spaces, including refurbishing of existing sports facilities and building new ones. This paper reflects on the cumulative impacts of this redevelopment to conclude (a) that recreational sports spaces provoke multi-layered and complex attachments that are inextricably connected to both temporal and spatial narratives and (b) that research on neighbourhood recreational spaces can develop our understanding of the intricate relationship between the social and physical dimensions of place attachment.     

What can we learn from the Hoover Dam project that influenced modern project management?

The Hoover Dam was completed two years ahead of schedule and under budget despite political, economical, technical, and organizational obstacles. Previous literature regarding the Hoover Dam project focused primarily on the aspects of design, engineering, and construction, with minimal analysis or discussions on project and program management techniques unique to this undertaking. This paper examines project and program management practices applied to the building of the Hoover Dam, and discusses how these factors contributed to the establishment and evolution of modern project management principles, tools, and techniques. A historical review of the Hoover Dam project reveals that the project team implemented a number of innovative strategies and practices that are comparable to critical success factors for today's megaprojects to overcome monumental project challenges and obstacles. This paper conveys the organizational and managerial best practices and presents lessons learned associated with the planning and construction of the Hoover Dam project.     

Planning for Social Inclusion? What Planners from Glasgow,Melbourne and Toronto Say

Drawing on interviews with planners implementing metropolitan plans for Glasgow, Melbourne and Toronto in 2005 and 2006, this article examines the extent to which planners can effectively plan for social inclusion. It assesses their views in the context of ‘actual existing neo-liberalism’, concluding that while some believe in its importance, planning for social inclusion is not often realized in practice. Why this might be and how it could be accomplished is then considered.     

What Is Planning? Definition and Strategy

A profession, such as planning, needs an explicit definition, a satisfactory something to profess. The purposes such a definition must serve are touched upon, but whatever other characteristics the definition has it must be “strategic,” that is, adapted to the internal and external necessities of the planning game. A number of going definitions are examined and summarily rejected, and a new start is attempted. The complexities of what is actually intended by “planning” are given fresh consideration. A “clouded clarity” is aimed at: something clear enough to make certain vital distinctions, but not so clear as to introduce an artificial distinction or corner one in an untenable position. The much neglected side of planning as “Art” rather than technology is sketched as to its nature and pleaded for as to its place. A final cast is made—final to the paper, but we would hope initiatory to an extended conversation—at a definition of the planner as a rational artist or artist of rationality. It is in his spanning of the terms of such an antinomy that his peculiar role is believed to lie.     

Responsibility for Sustainable Development in Europe: What Does It Mean for Planning Theory and Practice?

Responsibility in planning for sustainable development (SD) is little conceptualised in the planning literature. This paper sets up a theoretical framework to extend its understanding by drawing on ethics and political constructions of responsibility at their intersection with planning studies and SD debates. This is then applied to explore responsibility outlooks in planning practice in Sweden and England. It is argued that planning theory needs to further engage with the ethics of responsibility in planning but also with its politics, while the variety of responsibility landscapes in planning practice calls for a re-examination of responsibilities in planning for SD.     

A reappraisal of the terrestrial nitrogen cycle: what can we learn by extracting concepts from Gaia theory?

Although soil scientists and most environmental scientists are acutely aware of the interactions between the cycling of carbon and nitrogen, for conceptual convenience when portraying the nitrogen cycle in text books the N cycle tends to be considered in isolation from its interactions with the cycling of other elements and water, usually as a snap shot at the current time; the origins of dinitrogen are rarely considered, for example. The authors suggest that Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis provides a useful and stimulating framework for consideration of the terrestrial nitrogen cycle. If it is used, it suggests that urbanization and management of sewage, and intensive animal rearing are probably bigger global issues than nitrogen deposition from fossil fuel combustion, and that plant evolution may be driven by the requirement of locally sustainable and near optimal soil mineral N supply dynamics. This may, in turn, be partially regulating global carbon and oxygen cycles. It is suggested that pollutant N deposition may disrupt this essential natural plant and terrestrial ecosystem evolutionary process, causing biodiversity change. Interactions between the Earth and other bodies in the solar system, and possibly beyond, also need to be considered in the context of the global N cycle over geological time scales. This is because of direct potential impacts on the nitrogen content of the atmosphere, potential long-term impacts of past boloid collisions on plate tectonics and thus on global N cycling via subduction and volcanic emissions, and indirect effects upon C, O and water cycling that all may impact upon the N cycle in the long term.     

Planning for Mixed Use: Affordable for Whom?

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Mixed-use zoning is widely advocated to increase density; promote active transportation; encourage economic development; and create lively, diverse neighborhoods. We know little, however, about whether mixed-use developments affect housing affordability. We question the impact of mixed-use zoning on housing affordability in Toronto (Canada) between 1991 and 2006 in the face of waning government support for affordable housing and increasing income inequality due to the occupational restructuring accompanying a shift to a knowledge-based economy. We fi nd that housing in mixed-use zones remained less affordable than housing in the rest of the city and in the metropolitan region. High-income service occupations experienced improved affordability while lower wage service, trade, and manufacturing occupations experienced stagnant or worsening affordability. Housing in mixed-use zones is increasingly affordable only to workers already able to pay higher housing costs. Our findings are limited to Canada's largest city but have lessons for large North American cities with similar urban economies and housing markets.

Takeaway for practice: Mixed-use developments may reduce housing affordability in core areas and inadvertently reinforce the sociospatial inequality resulting from occupational polarization unless supported by appropriate affordable housing policies. Planners should consider a range of policy measures to offset the unintentional outcomes of mixed-use developments and ensure affordability within mixed-use zones: inclusionary zoning, density bonuses linked to affordable housing, affordable housing trusts, and other relevant methods.     

What do we mean by ‘flexibility’ and ‘variability’ of systems?

International usage highlights interesting differences in interpreting the terminology commonly associated with building systems, says the author, who here suggests a more unified interpretation.     

Employment-intensive growth for poverty reduction: What can labour-based technology in infrastructure contribute?

4. Conclusion: Employment-Intensive Investment, a Tool to Address Wider Policy Concerns Evidence presented in this paper indicates that a high rate of economic growth is a necessary precondition for a sustained reduction in poverty, but it is not enough. The degree of employment-intensity of the growth process is extremely important for achieving the goal of poverty alleviation. This is amply demonstrated by the contrasting experiences of the countries of South East and East Asia which succeeded in reducing poverty very substantially and those of South Asian countries where success in poverty reduction has been moderate. Limited data presented in this paper on selected African countries also points to the importance of employment. Indeed, employment-intensity of growth is seen to make a significant difference to the impact of economic growth on poverty reduction. Results of case studies presented in section 3 show that investment in labour-based approaches to infrastructure can not only generate much needed employment for the poor, but can also be technically sound and economically efficient. The added advantages of such approaches are their greater reliance on local resources and potential to save scarce foreign exchange. As infrastructure is a key factor in influencing investment, and economic growth, such an approach can engender a process of growth which is also employment-intensive and pro-poor. While the above has been demonstrated with particular reference to the infrastructure and construction sectors, there is also a great potential to apply similar approaches to other sectors, e.g, agriculture and forestry, manufacturing, environment protection, and services. If labour-based approaches could be mainstreamed into overall investment policies, that would enable the simultaneous pursuit of the objectives of economic growth, employment generation, and poverty reduction.     

‘Yes we can’: identity politics and project politics for a late-modern world

There is widespread agreement in mainstream participation studies that social capital and civic engagement in Western democracies are in steady and continuous decline. How did it happen, then, that Barack Obama was able to mobilize tens of millions of volunteers and supporters for his spectacularly successful and novelty-creating presidential campaign? Part of the answer is that his campaign was directed to building political capital for solving common policy concerns. This marks a creative shift in political communication from being oriented towards keeping government effective and legitimate to getting people freely and actively to accept and help in executing what has to be done in order to solve common concerns. The paper discusses why this shift has not been detected by mainstream participation studies, following their development in Almond and Verba's civic culture, through Putnam's social capital framework, to Norris's cause-oriented politics. Later, Marsh et al.'s new politics of lived experience is introduced and connected to the project politics model for studying ‘everyday makers and expert citizens’. The conclusion is that Obama's rhetoric in particular appeals to everyday makers and expert citizens, and that their reciprocal resonance opens for a fusion of identity politics and project politics in a new, much more communicative and interactive democratic model for doing what neither neoliberalism nor statism apparently can do: getting things done in prudent manner by establishing more balanced and discursive two-way relations of autonomy and dependence between political authorities and lay people.     

Sustainability Science and Planning: A Crucial Collaboration?

In this age of public skepticism about science, sustainability science offers a way to increase the application of science in planning and policy. This paper explores the relationship between science and society and the emergence of sustainability science. A comparison of the theory and practice of sustainability science and planning reveals the potential for a natural partnership. Based on the analysis, I suggest ways that planning may bridge the gap and build on the opportunity to strengthen its purpose and impact.     

Related to what? Reviewing the literature on technological relatedness: Where we are now and where can we go?

The objective of this paper is to critically review contemporary insights derived from studies that focus on relatedness. A well-established body of literature has identified three approaches for measuring relatedness, those based on co-occurrence matrices, industrial hierarchy and resource similarity. From these measures, several authors have begun developing relational networks to capture the branching capabilities of products, industries, technologies and skills. Thereafter the present contribution then shifts from analysing ‘what is' and begins considering what ‘could be'? It argues that the concept of relatedness lies at the heart of deconstructing issues of unrelated diversification and smart specialisation.     

What Makes a Good City in Pre-schoolers' Eyes? Findings from Participatory Planning Projects in Australia and New Zealand

Pre-schooler's voices are absent in urban planning and design. With the possible exception of playgrounds, there is limited knowledge about their experiences in and expectations for urban environments. This paper discusses pre-schoolers' aspirations and desires for aesthetic and accessible green spaces as well as social and physical connectedness. Although this age range has so far been limited in its ability to inform policy and decision-makers, it is argued that pre-schoolers have the capacity and capability of making valuable contributions to design. In the eyes of pre-schoolers, creating a good city means to live in a safe place full of diverse destinations in which they can become streetwise and socialize as part of society.