A Strategic Approach to Conservation Planning for Coastal New Zealand Landscapes

In New Zealand's lowland production landscapes less than 5% of the land comprises native vegetation. The continuing loss of lowland habitats remains, as the New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy (2000) recognized, one of the most intractable of New Zealand's conservation problems. The reasons behind this loss are explored and possible approaches to arresting this decline are considered. Field research was undertaken in two coastal plains landscapes. The purpose of the research was to examine the extent and character of native habitats remaining on the plains. A database comprising data on 744 sites with predominantly native habitats was created. The majority of these sites were not included on existing conservation databases and as such fall outside the remit of existing conservation planning and management processes. The study indicates that if the decline of native habitats on the plains is to be halted and reversed, a new approach to conservation planning is needed. A strategic planning approach to conservation is required, based on ecological regions where the focus is on co-ordinated planning of natural areas at the landscape scale.     

The Strategic Incrementalism of Lahti Master Planning: Three Lessons

ABSTRACT

The city of Lahti, Finland, has developed a unique policy of combining city strategy work with strategic master planning in an iterative process. It thereby offers insights to research on strategic spatial planning, exemplifying how institutional frameworks of statutory planning can be utilized as resources in strategic planning. Three lessons from the Lahti case are drawn: (1) utilize the moments of opportunity in the institutional environment of statutory planning, (2) shift the focus from the level of ‘strategic plans’ to the policy level of strategy work, (3) develop strategic planning as a platform for diverse ‘languages’.     

Behavioral rehabilitation of the "treatment-refractory" schizophrenia patient: Conceptual foundations, interventions, and outcome data.

This article describes an intensive, inpatient behavioral rehabilitation program for patients with schizophrenia who have been considered "treatment-refractory" at state hospitals. The program is a public-private partnership involving state and private hospitals and community residence providers. The essential elements of this program are described, along with the conceptual and philosophical bases of its treatment and examples of staff behaviors critical to treatment success. Outcome data are then discussed to emphasize the point that when evidence-based psychological treatment is implemented with this population, outcomes can be positive in most cases, and therefore, the number of treatment-refractory patients is actually far less than is estimated on the basis of response to medication alone. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Biofuels in the energy transition beyond peak oil.: A macroscopic study of energy demand in the Stockholm transport system 2030

The objective of this study is to examine the potential for a full transition to domestically produced biofuels in the Stockholm County transport system in 2030, without exceeding the proportional share of national bioenergy assets. This target is chosen in order to test the potential of biofuel assets in Sweden, facilitating the transition to renewable fuel systems, and to display the potential of transport energy demand at macrolevel under tighter conditions on the energy market after fossil oil production has peaked. The distribution of bioenergy to the transport sector, including conversion losses and relationships to other energy sectors, is analysed explicitly. State-of-the-art traffic forecasting models, complemented with a specially designed energy quantification model, are applied to assess energy quantities needed at different vehicle efficiency levels and mobility patterns. The purpose is not to determine the most energy-efficient transport system possible, or to forecast the optimal distribution of bioenergy set aside for the transport sector in the future. Rather, we try to visualise, at a more conceptual level, energy demand as dependent on principle transport strategies, future technological developments and a type of planning that takes technological interlinkages between evolving components into strategic account. This work highlights the importance of implementing both demand and supply-side policies in order to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in all energy sectors before making assessments of reasonable distributions of bioenergy between energy sectors and other biomass usage.     

中国钨业在21世纪的战略调整研究

本文通过对我国钨资源储备和钨业生产现状调查，指出我国钨业战略调整的必要性，根据波特理论，构造钨业战略调整模型，提出我国钨业在21世纪初发展战略思路。     

Generation expansion planning in electricity markets: A novel framework based on dynamic stochastic MPEC

This paper presents a novel framework for generation expansion planning (GEP) of restructured power systems under uncertainty in a multi-period horizon, which includes generation investment from a price maker perspective. The investment problem is modeled as a bi-level optimization problem. The first level problem includes decisions related to investment in order to maximize total profit in the planning horizon. The second level problem consists of maximizing social welfare where the power market is cleared. Rival uncertainties on offering and investment are modeled using sets of scenarios. The bi-level optimization problem is then converted to a dynamic stochastic MPEC and represented as a mixed integer linear program (MILP) after linearization. The proposed framework is examined on a typical six-bus power network, MAZANDARAN regional electric company (MREC) transmission network as an area of IRAN interconnected power system and IEEE RTS 24-bus network. Simulation results confirm that the proposed framework can be a useful tool for analyzing the behavior of investments in electricity markets.     

Modeling and analysis of strategic forward contracting in transmission constrained power markets

Taking the effects of transmission network into account, strategic forward contracting induced by the interaction of generation firms’ strategies in the spot and forward markets is investigated. A two-stage game model is proposed to describe generation firms’ strategic forward contracting and spot market competition. In the spot market, generation firms behave strategically by submitting bids at their nodes in a form of linear supply function (LSF) and there are arbitrageurs who buy and resell power at different nodes where price differences exceed the costs of transmission. The owner of the grid is assumed to ration limited transmission line capacity to maximize the value of the transmission services in the spot market. The Cournot-type competition is assumed for the strategic forward contract market. This two-stage model is formulated as an equilibrium problem with equilibrium constraints (EPEC); in which each firm's optimization problem in the forward market is a mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (MPEC) and parameter-dependent spot market equilibrium as the inner problem. A nonlinear complementarity method is employed to solve this EPEC model.     

印度TVET系统中的合作关系评价及启示

本文简要介绍了印度技术和职业教育与培训(TVET)系统中的合作关系,并对这种合作关系作了一定的分析和评价,认为尽管当前印度TVET系统中的合作关系处于一个两难的境地,但对我国高职院校的发展仍有许多可借鉴之处。     

台湾质子交换膜燃料电池的研发

燃料电池由于直接将化学能转换成电能,能源转换效率高于一般传统能源技术,同时由于环保无污染的特色,所以也几乎不需任何后处理。简单介绍了6种不同类型的燃料电池,虽然到目前为止燃料电池仍未能完全大量商业化应用,不过质子交换膜燃料电池近期商业化潜力相当大,而2002年6月台湾燃料电池伙伴联盟正式成立,主要目的即为提倡燃料电池技术应用。针对质子交换膜燃料电池的研发工作已展开,主要集中在系统的开发与应用,并已成功开发出千瓦级纯氢定置型发电系统。虽然燃料电池具有许多优于传统能源技术的特点,但是诸如氢气供应、价格等许多商业化的障碍仍然有待克服;长期而言,再生能源与燃料电池结合可能在能源供应方面扮演相当重要的角色。