Prioritization of development interventions in Egyptian slums through an urban appraisal index

ABSTRACT

The evident conflict in upgrading policies between several entities necessitates the crucial need to develop a reliable urban appraisal method to ensure successful interventions. The Egyptian initiative, aims at categorizing them into ‘unsafe’ versus ‘unplanned’ areas. Yet, it has ignored some basic socio-spatial and psychological quality of life indicators. Accordingly, the study aims at strengthening the local-level data collection through testing the reliability of the ‘ISDF’ index versus the two other sets of indicators statistically, by conducting an urban socio-economic survey on 30 different Ashwa’iyyat areas in Egypt.     

试论环境监测与社会经济发展的关系

文章介绍了环境监测与社会经济发展的关系,环境监测为社会经济发展服务。环境监测为环境管理和决策部门提供环境状况、污染物时空分布、环境变化趋势及突发污染事件应急监测等信息,在环境保护的系统工程中起到了至关重要的作用。加强环境监测技术体系的现代化建设,可为提高环境监测数据的准确性、代表性、完整性提供有力的保证。     

The effect of experience and socio-economic status on web searching performance: a South African perspective

The digital divide can be described in terms of two dimensions: access and usage. Many statistics exist to prove the existence of the gap with regard to access to information and communication technology, and specifically the Internet, in South Africa. In this study, the focus was on users' aptitude in searching for information on the World Wide Web once access had been obtained. It was found that experience of 20 browser sessions is not adequate to ensure that learners from lower socio-economic communities improve in their ability to obtain the correct information during web searches but learners from higher socio-economic communities may, depending on the level of difficulty of the task and the phase of search, benefit from this amount of experience. Web experience has no effect on users' efficiency in terms of the number of mouse clicks made although socio-economic status (SES) is a significant predictor of efficiency for users with no or limited experience. Although low-SES users make fewer clicks en route to an answer as they gain experience, it does not necessarily mean that they perform better in obtaining the correct information.     

退役坝拆除现状及其影响研究进展综述

我国降等与报废水库逐年增加,大坝退役拆除成为必然趋势。针对退役坝拆除问题,从各国拆坝数量、拆坝地区分布、拆坝原因和拆坝相关政策入手,对国内外大坝拆除现状进行分析总结,并对拆坝后对生态环境和社会经济产生的影响进行综述。研究发现国内外关于拆坝影响研究多为定性分析,缺少定量分析和一套切实可行的计算方法,且多为单因素研究,缺乏综合影响因素评估分析。由此展望未来的拆坝影响研究中应由定性分析向定量分析转变,并耦合水动力、泥沙、生物响应、水生环境等多方面因素,构建拆坝影响的综合评估体系。     

Facebook and socio-economic benefits in the developing world

Facebook is becoming increasingly important for the socio-economic development of countries across the globe as stakeholders engage in online social interaction and expand their reach for new products, services and markets to open up new revenue streams. Past studies have examined the environment that supports effective use of social networking technologies in the developed world. This study argues that the enabling environment in developed and developing countries may vary and therefore may impact Facebook adoption and its socio-economic benefits differently. The model integrates the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and revised UTAUT. Using a structured questionnaire on a sample of 367 Facebook users, the results show that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions (affordability and regulatory environment) are important factors that impact Facebook adoption in a developing country such as Malaysia. The study contributes to the literature by identifying that Facebook user's perceived socio-economic benefits act as a mediator between adoption and actual use behaviour (information seeking, socialisation, entertainment and business development). The findings also indicate that religion, ethnicity, language, gender and education are significant factors moderating the adoption-perception-use behaviour of Facebook. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed in the paper.     

浅析我国当代艺术设计理念的创新与发展

我国当代艺术设计理念的创新与发展在内部和外部生存环境不断变化的作用下几经变迁,经历了漫长而起伏的发展过程,可以说当今艺术设计的繁荣发展见证了我国社会经济的发展成就。本文从我国不同历史时期社会经济、文化与艺术设计创新发展的辨证关系出发,阐述了"解放思想"是中国艺术设计多元化发展的原动力,市场需求是品牌设计理念成熟发展的基础,以及可持续发展的非物质文化理念与绿色设计理念之间和谐、共融的关系。     

Multi-Criteria Approach for Evaluating Long Term Water Strategies

Abstract

Long-term national water strategies, which are formulated to cope with the socio-economic development plans, have either positive or negative impacts in several domains including environment, economy, and social life. Intuitive evaluation of policies and actions on the basis of their social, economic, and environmental utilities is ambiguous and very complex. Setting water resources policies for a country like Egypt is a good example of this type of complexity due to its multisectoral, interdisciplinary, interrelated environment. There is a classical assumption in water resources planning and management that stipulates decisions based on optimization of a well-defined single objective. In reality, the decision-making process is much more complex. Decision makers seek an optimal compromise among several objectives or try to achieve satisfying levels of their goals. Therefore, the present study proposes the multi-criteria analysis as an approach for evaluating Egypt's long term plans to reveal their rank and behavior throughout the foreseen planning horizon. Several evaluation criteria (indicators) have been articulated and grouped into four main categories: water, environment, social, and economy. A simple empirical simulation model was used to score different criteria. Four cases have been compared and evaluated by the suggested approach. Each case represents an anticipated national water-related development plan. This is carried out under specific scenarios for uncontrolled variables such as population growth rate, hydrological river flow into the system, and others. The application showed that a multi-criteria approach could contribute significantly to the decision making process in Egypt. It provides a systematic way of presenting the tradeoffs among policy choices considering many issues.     

Socio-economic impact assessment of industrial projects in India

Socio-economic impact assessment (SEIA) is conducted in advance to determine the socioeconomic consequences of industrial projects. The focus is on the project-affected people. All possible data is collected from census information and academic institutions. Personal interviews are also conducted with the local people and their administrative heads. The main phases of the project addressed are pre- construction, construction and operation. Issues addressed include compensation payment for the land, provision of employment, and alternative accommodation for the people affected. A decision on the acceptability of the project is taken after assessing the positive and negative socio-economic impacts.     

Planning Land Reform on a Regional Scale: A Case Study from Brazil

This article makes a case for using regional planning to improve the social and economic regional impact of land reform policy in developing countries. We focus on rural settlements in the Brazilian north-east, where land reallocation has been approached in a variety of ways over many decades. The study identifies problems deriving from the lack of a plan-led strategy, leading to failures in identifying sustainable areas and designing appropriate policy interventions on a regional scale. Based on the planning literature and our empirical results, it is proposed that different views on land reform should be combined into a broader regional strategy. This involves strategic targeting of specific areas to define a portfolio of investment and spending priorities, combined with intergovernmental and intersectoral co-ordination, running from the early stages of a project's formulation until the final stages of its implementation. Additionally, this paper shows that combining top-down and bottom-up approaches to land reform, and supplementing policy-making at the national level with programme/project design and implementation at the subnational level, allows an effective government response to rural poverty and landlessness.