An Assessment and Explanation of Environmental Inequity in Baltimore

In Baltimore, census tracts made up of White, working-class people are more likely to contain a Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) facility than primarily Black census tracts. Differences in race characteristics decrease with larger units of analysis and with the use of half-mile buffers around TRI sites. At the census-tract level, race is the most significant population characteristic, followed by income and education. A long history of residential and occupational segregation may explain the proximity of toxic-release sites to working-class White neighborhoods.     

Access,Equity, and Urban Greenways: An Exploratory Investigation

Recurring issues in the social sciences concern the distribution of public facilities such as parks and equity of access to them. Geographers have observed that access has perceptual as well as physical dimensions and that perceptions of difference can affect use of public space. This study explores the nature of greenways as public space and a set of issues related to equity of access to greenway trails in Indianapolis, Indiana. The study uses proximity as a measure of access and simple GIS analyses of census and other data to assess equality of access. Evidence is provided that suggests that minorities and the poor have disproportionate access to trails. It is also shown that populations adjacent to the trails differ and that the populations along particular trails are segregated. Spatial differences in trail populations are associated with historic land use patterns and population movements within the city. The implications of the findings of difference for use of the greenways system are explored. Implications for management of the greenways system—including achievement of the goal of linking neighborhoods—are also discussed.     

Have we learned to count yet? A health services perspective on the 2001 census

English health services require reliable population denominators to guide equitable sharing of resources. 2001 census counts for England are compared with the corresponding 2000-base projections for 2001, both at the national scale and for individual local authorities and also with corresponding 1996-base projections. Comparison is made with the 2001 census for Northern Ireland. National patterns of variation predominantly may be explained by mis-estimation of international out-migration, but local patterns of variation may be more specifically related to mis-estimation of international in-migration. This suggests two distinct patterns of systematic error in official UK migration statistics between 1991 and 2001.     

Overstaying our welcome: On the rise of women's seniority in the academy

Issues surrounding gender equality are—and should be—front and centre in the water resources community, and other science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Very necessarily, the focus tends to be on recruitment, offering support for students and early career academics. The leaky pipeline concept used to describe the incremental loss of women from STEM fields with career duration describes a disproportionate loss of senior women, creating a parallel problem where highly qualified, top tier academics are lost from the system after significant financial and personnel investment by institutions. Ultimately, the leaky pipeline undermines the extensive investment of the hydrology and other STEM communities in equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility (EDIA) recruitment and retention programmes by cutting short career ambitions and the trajectories of diverse top performing individuals, resulting in no net benefit of EDIA policy investments and a lack of diversity with seniority. Addressing this critical gender gap requires the attention and support of the hydrology community of practice with specific focus on generating opportunities for advancement, confronting systemic and structural biases and improving education around allyship. Institutions and professional organizations need to consciously grow diversity in leadership and recognize and outwardly manage the perception of academic excellence around slow research and education that attracts increased diversity. Supporting allyship, reducing competitiveness among community members and reinforcing collaboration will not only attract, but retain, a higher proportion of diversity in the hydrology community, academia and STEM professions in general. It is time for the water resources (and other STEM) communities to demand broader accountability and recognition of the barriers to women, implement and reward more diverse definitions of research excellence, and offer allyship training to the community of practice at large.     

Capitalising the farm family entrepreneur: negotiating private equity partnerships in Australia

ABSTRACT

Research on the financialisation of land and agribusiness has highlighted major shifts in agri-food systems globally. Yet these accounts tend to focus on the activities of financial actors, and few take seriously the role of farmers in negotiating investments in land and agribusiness. Farmers in the global North may be well placed to benefit from partnerships with financial investors, although little is known about the way that such partnerships are formed. Australian studies of farmer agency have been productive in examining farm family entrepreneurs and globally engaged farmers who work beyond the farm gate to organise supply chains. This paper adds to these studies by providing insights about a capitalising farm family entrepreneur, who successfully negotiated and entered into a direct equity partnership with a large foreign pension fund. Several observations are significant: the exceptional skill, time and expense required to negotiate these partnerships; the role of consultants and non-human actors in structuring them; and the spatially- and temporally divergent farm development practices that are enabled by a shift from debt to equity financing. These observations are indicative of a new adaptive strategy of family farmers to shifting financial landscapes and of emergent family, corporate, and financial farm hybridity.     

Bridging equity? Washington,D.C.’s new elevated park as a test case for just planning

In the last decade, justice has been revived as a primary criterion for the analysis and evaluation of planning policies. This paper continues this line of research by examining a proposed redevelopment project in Washington, D.C. that sets equitable development as its goal . The proposed 11th Street Bridge Park would be a top-notch elevated park, physically and symbolically connecting D.C’s wealthy west with the disadvantaged east. The project is managed by a nonprofit organization and seemingly stands out in its progressive vision: An Equitable Development Plan has been developed in an attempt to secure the future of the local residents in light of the neighborhood's anticipated gentrification. However, preliminary findings show that despite explicit commitment to equity, the planning of the park also resurfaces racial and class tensions . The analysis of procedural and substantive aspects of justice in this case suggests that issues of recognition, power and representation are instrumental to fully understand urban (in)justices.     

两层级公共医疗资源空间均衡性及其影响机制——以分级诊疗改革为背景

中国公共医疗资源在层级间和地区间配置不合理的问题较为突出。分级诊疗改革对优化医疗资源配置、实现供需均衡具有重要意义。运用探索性空间分析法和地理探测器分别从全国地级市域和四川县域两个尺度分析了2015年两层级医疗资源的空间配置特征与影响机制。结果表明：基层和上层医疗资源均呈显著空间聚集特征,而层级间空间配置格局具有差异性。不同尺度和区域两层级医疗资源配置的决定力及其影响强度不同,上层医疗资源对外部影响因素响应强度大于基层。对上层级医疗资源配置而言,城镇化率、人口密度、经济发展水平是全局性因素,老龄化、地形条件和发病率为地方性因素;对基层医疗资源配置而言,人口密度是较为显著的全局性影响因素,城镇化率是重要的地方性影响因素,地形、经济发展水平、人口老龄化和发病率在部分尺度和区域有局部影响。为实现分级诊疗改革的目标,各级决策部门需以“全局性和地域性因素相结合,统一性和地方性政策相结合,自上而下与自下而上决策机制相结合”为思路,统筹不同区域和层级医疗资源配置,以提高医疗卫生服务体系的整体功能,促进其均衡、协同发展。     

Getting Charlie off the MTA: a multiobjective optimization method to account for cost constraints in public transit accessibility metrics

Most analyses of accessibility by public transit have focused on travel time and not considered the cost of transit fares. It is difficult to include fares in shortest-path algorithms because fares are often path-dependent. When fare policies allow discounted transfers, for example, the fare for a given journey segment depends on characteristics of previous journey segments. Existing methods to characterize tradeoffs between travel time and monetary cost objectives do not scale well to complex networks, or they rely on approximations. Additionally, they often require assumed values of time, which may be problematic for evaluating the equity of service provision. We propose a new method that allows us to find Pareto sets of paths, jointly minimizing fare and travel time. Using a case study in greater Boston, Massachusetts, USA, we test the algorithm’s performance as part of an interactive web application for computing accessibility metrics. Potential extensions for journey planning and route choice models are also discussed.     

绿色资源开发利用的激励机制研究

从伦理与经济两方面分析了绿色资源开发利用模式的价值;分析了实施绿色资源开发利用模式的内在矛盾;指出了代际公平观是实施绿色资源开发利用模式的伦理基础,同时市场与政府对绿色资源开发利用的激励及资源开发利用产业系统内部的激励相容是实施绿色资源开发利用的重要推动力;利用博弈论的基本方法优化了市场、政府及资源开发利用团队内部的激励机制.     

Soil Plug Effect Prediction and Pile Driveability Analysis for Large-Diameter Steel Piles in Ocean Engineering

Long steel piles with large diameters have been more widely used in the field of ocean engineering.Owing to the pile with a large diameter,soil plug development during pile driving has great influences on pile driveability and beating capacity.The response of soil plug developed inside the open-ended pipe pile during the dynamic condition of pile-driving is different from the response under the static condition of loading during service.This paper addresses the former aspect.A numerical procedure for soil plng effect prediction and pile driveability analysis is proposed and described.By taking into consideration of the pile dimension effect on side and tip resistance,this approach introduces a dimensional coefficient to the conventional static equilibrium equations for the plug differential unit and proposes an improved static equity method for the plug effect prediction.At the same time,this approach introduces a simplified model by use of one-dimensional stress wave equation to simulate the interaction between soft ping and pile inner wall.The proposed approach has been applied in practical engineering analyses.Results show that the calculated plug effect and pile driveability based on the proposed approach agree well with the observed data.