Search results for: public policies.

Authors: Samuel Carpintero

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Public-private partnerships (PPP) arrangements have been extensively used in Canada, where the participation of private companies in financing and managing infrastructure projects has increased significantly in the last decade, particularly in the transportation sector. This paper analyses the evolution of the PPP market for transportation projects in Canada and examines the participation of Spanish developers in this market, which have been particularly successful in winning PPP contracts during the last decade.

Keywords: PPP, concession, infrastructure, construction.

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Authors: Jihye Jeon

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This paper analyzes the political and economic issues that people with disabilities face related to globalization; how people with disabilities have been adapting globalization and surviving under worldwide competition system. It explains that economic globalization exacerbates inequality and deprivation of people with disabilities. The rising tide of neo-liberal welfare policies emphasized efficiency, downsized social expenditure for people with disabilities, excluded people with disabilities against labor market, and shifted them from welfare system to nothing. However, there have been people with disabilities' political responses to globalization, which are characterized by a global network of people with disabilities as well as participation to global governance. Their resistance can be seen as an attempt to tackle the problems that economic globalization has produced. It is necessary paradigm shift of disability policy from dependency represented by disability benefits to independency represented by labor market policies for people with disabilities.

Keywords: Economic Globalization, People with Disability, Deprivation, Welfare Cut, Disability Right Movement, Resistance.

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Authors: Y. Egercioglu, S. Yalciner

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With the development of technology, the growing trend of fast and safe passenger transport, air pollution, traffic congestion, increase in problems such as the increasing population and the high cost of private vehicle usage made many cities around the world with a population of more or less, start to build rail systems as a means of urban transport in order to ensure the economic and environmental sustainability and more efficient use of land in the city. The implementation phase of rail systems costs much more than other public transport systems. However, social and economic returns in the long term made these systems the most popular investment tool for planned and developing cities. In our country, the purpose, goals and policies of transportation plans are away from integrity, and the problems are not clearly detected. Also, not defined and incomplete assessment of transportation systems and insufficient financial analysis are the most important cause of failure. Rail systems and other transportation systems to be addressed as a whole is seen as the main factor in increasing efficiency in applications that are not integrated yet in our country to come to this point has led to the problem.

Keywords: Urban Transportation Projects, Urban Light Rail Systems, Urbanization, Izmir.

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Authors: Osamah A. Alsayegh

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This paper contributes to the literature by updating the analysis of the impact of the recent oil prices fall on the renewable energy (RE) industry and deployment. The research analysis uses the Renewable Energy Industrial Index (RENIXX), which tracks the world’s 30 largest publicly traded companies and oil prices daily data from January 2003 to March 2016. RENIXX represents RE industries developing solar, wind, geothermal, bioenergy, hydropower and fuel cells technologies. This paper tests the hypothesis that claims high oil prices encourage the substitution of alternate energy sources for conventional energy sources. Furthermore, it discusses RENIXX performance behavior with respect to the governments’ policies factor that investors should take into account. Moreover, the paper proposes a theoretical model that relates RE industry progress with oil prices and policies through the fuzzy logic system.

Keywords: Fuzzy logic, investment, policy, stock exchange index.

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Authors: Israngkura Na Ayudhya B, Kunishima M.

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This paper analysis performance of disbursement procedure of public works project in Thailand. The results of research were summarised based on contracts, submitted invoice, inspection dated, copies of disbursement dated between client and their main contractor and interviewed with persons involved in central and local government projects during 1994-2008 in Thailand. The data collection was to investigate the disbursement procedure related to performance in disbursement during construction period (Planned duration of contract against Actual execution date in each month). A graphical presentation of a duration analysis of the projects illustrated significant disbursement formation in each project. It was established that the shortage of staff, the financial stability of clients, bureaucratic, method of disbursement and economics situation has play major role on performance of disbursement to their main contractors.

Keywords: Construction disbursement, Payment procedure, Public works

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Authors: Irida Agolli Nasufi, Anxhela Bruci

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This paper presents Albanian government policies regarding the reintegration process for returning Albanian survivors of trafficking in human beings. Focusing on an in-depth analysis of governmental, non-governmental documents and semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted with service providers and trafficking survivors. Furthermore, this paper will especially focus on the governmental efforts to provide support to the survivors, focusing on their needs and challenges. This study explores the conditions and actual services provided to the survivors of trafficking in human beings that are in the reintegration process in Albania. Moreover, it examines the responsible mechanisms accountable for the reintegration process, by analysing synergies between governmental and non-governmental organisations. Also, this paper explores the governmental approach towards trafficking survivors and apprises policymakers to undertake changes and reforms in their future actions.

Keywords: Policies, social services, service user, trafficking in human beings, government.

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Authors: S. Ahmed Sinthia

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Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, is one of the densely populated cities in the world. Due to rapid urbanization 60% of its population lives in slum and squatter settlements. The reason behind this poverty is low economic growth, inequitable distribution of income, unequal distribution of productive assets, unemployment and underemployment, high rate of population growth, low level of human resource development, natural disasters, and limited access to public services. Along with poverty, creating pressure on urban land, shelter, plots, open spaces this creates environmental and ecological degradation. These constraints are mostly resulted from the failures of the government policies and measures and only Government can solve this problem. This is now prime time to establish planning and environmental management policy and sustainable urban development for the city and for the urban slum dwellers which are free from eviction, criminals, rent seekers and other miscreants.

Keywords: Economic and resource constraints, environmental degradation and management, government policy, land management and policy, sustainable development.

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Authors: Anunya Thanasrisuebwong

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This research paper aimed to find out how was the ethical climate in an organization and job performance satisfaction of employees affected employees’ engagement and commitment by using the case study of PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited, Thailand. The population of this research was 4,383 Thai employees of PTTEP, Thailand. From a total of 420 questionnaires sent out, 345 respondents replied. The statistics utilized was mean score and Multiple Regression Analysis. The findings revealed that the respondents had opinion towards ethical climate of their organization, job performance satisfaction and organization engagement and commitment at a high level. The test of hypothesis disclosed the determinant attributes of job performance satisfaction that affected the respondents’ overall level of organization engagement and commitment. The set of these determinant attributes consisted of employees’ responsibilities for duties, organization’s policies and practice, relationship with organization’s commanders, work security and stability, job description, career path and relationship with colleagues. These variables were able to predict the employees’ organization engagement and commitment at 50.6 percent.

Keywords: Ethical Climate in Organization, Job Performance Satisfaction, Organization Engagement and Commitment.

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Authors: Sajjad Rostami-Sani, Mojtaba Valinataj, Amir-Hossein Khojir-Angasi

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The cache has an important role in the reduction of access delay between a processor and memory in high-performance embedded systems. In these systems, the energy consumption is one of the most important concerns, and it will become more important with smaller processor feature sizes and higher frequencies. Meanwhile, the cache system dissipates a significant portion of energy compared to the other components of a processor. There are some elements that can affect the energy consumption of the cache such as replacement policy and degree of associativity. Due to these points, it can be inferred that selecting an appropriate configuration for the cache is a crucial part of designing a system. In this paper, we investigate the effect of different cache replacement policies on both cache’s performance and energy consumption. Furthermore, the impact of different Instruction Set Architectures (ISAs) on cache’s performance and energy consumption has been investigated.

Keywords: L1-cache, energy consumption, replacement policy, Instruction set architecture, multicore processor.

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Authors: Sahar Sohrabi

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The emergence of Cloud data centers has revolutionized the IT industry. Private Clouds in specific provide Cloud services for certain group of customers/businesses. In a real-time private Cloud each task that is given to the system has a deadline that desirably should not be violated. Scheduling tasks in a real-time private CLoud determine the way available resources in the system are shared among incoming tasks. The aim of the scheduling policy is to optimize the system outcome which for a real-time private Cloud can include: energy consumption, deadline violation, execution time and the number of host switches. Different scheduling policies can be used for scheduling. Each lead to a sub-optimal outcome in a certain settings of the system. A Bayesian Scheduling strategy is proposed for scheduling to further improve the system outcome. The Bayesian strategy showed to outperform all selected policies. It also has the flexibility in dealing with complex pattern of incoming task and has the ability to adapt.

Keywords: Bayesian, cloud computing, real-time private cloud, scheduling.

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Authors: Edikan E. Akpanibah Obinichi C. Mandah Imoleayo S. Asiwaju

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In this paper, we studied the effect of supplementary premium on the optimal portfolio policy in a defined contribution (DC) pension scheme with refund of premium clauses. This refund clause allows death members’ next of kin to withdraw their relative’s accumulated wealth during the accumulation period. The supplementary premium is to help sustain the scheme and is assumed to be stochastic. We considered cases when the remaining wealth is equally distributed and when it is not equally distributed among the remaining members. Next, we considered investments in cash and equity to help increase the remaining accumulated funds to meet up with the retirement needs of the remaining members and composed the problem as a continuous time mean-variance stochastic optimal control problem using the actuarial symbol and established an optimization problem from the extended Hamilton Jacobi Bellman equations. The optimal portfolio policy, the corresponding optimal fund size for the two assets and also the efficient frontier of the pension members for the two cases was obtained. Furthermore, the numerical simulations of the optimal portfolio policies with time were presented and the effect of the supplementary premium on the optimal portfolio policy was discussed and observed that the supplementary premium decreases the optimal portfolio policy of the risky asset (equity). Secondly we observed a disparity between the optimal policies for the two cases.

Keywords: Defined contribution pension scheme, extended Hamilton Jacobi Bellman equations, optimal portfolio policies, refund of premium clauses, supplementary premium.

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Authors: Beata Wentura-Dudek

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In Sweden the needs of the labor market are regularly monitored. Test results and forecasts translate directly into the education system in this country, which is largely a state system. Sweden is one of the first countries in Europe that has used active labor market policies. It is realized that there is an active unemployment which includes a wide range of activities that can be divided into three groups: Active forms of influencing the creation of new jobs, active forms that affect the labor supply and active forms for people with disabilities. Most of the funding is allocated there for subsidized employment and training. Research conducted in Sweden shows that active forms of counteracting unemployment focused on the long-term unemployed can significantly raise the level of employment in this group.

Keywords: Sweden, research conducted in Sweden, labour market, labour market policies, unemployment, active forms of influencing the creation of new jobs, active forms of counteracting unemployment, employment, subsidized employment education.

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Authors: Patrick T. I. Lam, Wenjing Yang

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A smart city project embraces benefits and costs which can be classified under direct and indirect categories. Externalities come into the picture, but they are often difficult to quantify. Despite this barrier, policy makers need to carry out cost-benefit analysis to justify the huge investments needed to make a city smart. The recent trend is towards the engagement of the private sector to utilize their resources and expertise, especially in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) areas, where innovations blossom. This study focuses on the identification of costs (on a life cycle basis) and benefits associated with smart city project developments based on a comprehensive literature review and case studies, where public-private partnerships would warrant consideration, the related costs and benefits are highlighted. The findings will be useful for policy makers of cities.

Keywords: Costs and benefits, identification, public-private partnerships, smart city projects.

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Authors: Rami Darwish

Abstract:

The transport industry is transitioning to sustainable industrial systems to meet its environmental targets. At the heart of this transition lies the electrification of bus systems, which involves the introduction and testing of sustainable technologies in protected environments for customer evaluation. While the transition necessitates business-model innovation, practical implementation has proven to be complex. This article delves into efforts to present the business model of a bus operator engaged in public procurement with the goal of facilitating the industry's shift towards electrification. Through an in-depth case study, the influence of public contracts’ design on the evolution of a technology and the operator's business model for electrification is explored. While the extant literature suggests that public procurement can facilitate business-model innovation and sustainable development, the findings reveal that public-contract design can limit value creation and value capture in potential business models, locking organizations into existing business models and hindering the socio-technical transition to sustainability. Interestingly, public-procurement contract design can play a pivotal role in preventing sustainable innovations from breaking through. This highlights the importance of contract design as a vehicle for dialogue between businesses and authorities that can enable systemic change. The case study also illuminates a paradoxical scenario in which the transport authority was required to reconcile the efficiency and stability required for bus transport with the potential benefits of electrification technologies promising sustainability. Finally, recommendations for navigating and addressing this tension are provided. The implications of these findings extend to the literature on discontinuous innovation and business-model innovation.

Keywords: Sustainable transition, public procurement, business-model innovation, discontinuous innovation, lock-in.

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Authors: J. Nikolov, N. Todorovic, S. Forkapic, I. Bikit, D. Mrdja

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Exposure to radon occurs when breathing airborne radon while using water: showering, washing dishes, cooking, and drinking water that contain radon. The results of radon activity measurements in water from public drinking fountain in city of Novi Sad, Serbia is presented in this paper. Radon level in some samples exceeded EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) recommendation for maximum contaminant level (MCL) for radon in drinking water of 11.1 Bq/l.

Keywords: radon, radioactivity dose, public drink fountain.

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Authors: M. Ahmadi Baseri, R. Mokhtari Malekabadi, A. Gandomkar

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Nowadays, one of the most important problems of the metropolises and the world large cities is the habitant traffic difficulty and lack of sufficient parking site for the vehicles. Esfahan city as the third metropolis of Iran has encountered with the vehicles parkingplace problems in the most parts of fourteen regions of the city. The non principled and non systematic dispersal and lack of parking sites in the city has created an unfavorable status for its traffic and has caused the air and sound pollutions increase; in addition, it wastes the most portions of the citizenship and travelers' charge and time in urban pathways and disturbs their mental and psychical calmness, thus leads to their intensive dissatisfaction. In this study, by the usage of AHP model in GIS environment, the effective criteria in selecting the public parking sites have been combined with each other, and the results of the created layers overlapping represent the parking utilitarian vastness and widths. The achieved results of this research indicate the pretty appropriate public parking sites selection in region number 3 of Esfahan; but inconsequential dispersal and lack of these parking sites in this region have caused abundant transportation problems in Esfahan city.

Keywords: Public parking lots, Parking site selection, Geographical Information System (GIS), Hierarchical Analysis Model, Isfahan city.

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Authors: Priya Sepaha

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Social media has loomed as the most effective tool in recent times to flag the causes, contents, opinions and direction of any social movement and has demonstrated that it will have a far-reaching effect on government as well. This study focuses on India which has emerged as the fastest growing community on social media. Social movement activists, in particular, have extensively utilized the power of digital social media to streamline the effectiveness of social protest on a particular issue through extensive successful mass mobilizations. This research analyses the role and impact of social media as a power to catalyze the social movements in India and further seeks to describe how certain social movements are resisted, subverted, co-opted and/or deployed by social media. The impact assessment study has been made with the help of cases, policies and some social movement which India has witnessed the assertion of numerous social issues perturbing the public which eventually paved the way for remarkable judicial decisions. The paper concludes with the observations that despite its pros and cons, the impacts of social media on the functioning of the Indian Government have demonstrated that it has already become an indispensable tool in the hands of social media-suave Indians who are committed to bring about a desired change.

Keywords: Impact, Indian government, misuse, social media, social movement.

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Authors: Chen Zhang, Jiwu Wang

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With China's urbanization continuing to accelerate, a amount of rural people flood into China's cities in recent years, and the issue of agriculture, rural areas and farmers is getting more and more serious. In 2005, the Chinese government put forward a plan for “the construction of new rural village", in order to coordinate the development of both urban and rural areas. The planning method of rural region differs sharply from that of urban areas, as same as village social structure and habits of farmer-s life, so the studies which can consider the special needs of village construction in China are absolutely essential. This paper expresses explore current situation and problems existing in the construction of China-s new rural village, such as bigger gap between urban and rural areas, excessive new construction projects, extinct traditional village style and so on. It tries to analyze the deep reason of the present situation of the village from law system, industrial structure, financial sources and planning method. Then it also provides a guide for developing policies and procedures promoting the development of china-s rural areas.

Keywords: Rural areas, village construction, physical planning, law system, financial sources, Public participation, China.

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Authors: Manal Rayes

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In its efforts to utilize the information and communication technology to enhance the quality of public service delivery, national and local governments around the world are competing to introduce more ICT applications as tools to automate processes related to law enforcement or policy execution, increase citizen orientation, trust, and satisfaction, and create one-stop-shops for public services. In its implementation, e-Government ICTs need to maintain transparency, participation, and collaboration. Due to this diverse of mixed goals and requirements, e-Government systems need to be designed based on special design considerations in order to eliminate the risks of failure to compliance to government regulations, citizen dissatisfaction, or market repulsion. In this article we suggest a framework with guidelines for designing government information systems that takes into consideration the special requirements of the public sector. Then we introduce two case studies and show how applying those guidelines would result in a more solid system design.

Keywords: e-government, framework, guidelines, system design.

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Authors: Giani Gradinaru

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Biodiversity crisis is one of the many crises that started at the turn of the millennia. Concrete form of expression is still disputed, but there is a relatively high consensus regarding the high rate of degradation and the urgent need for action. The strategy of action outlines a strong economic component, together with the recognition of market mechanisms as the most effective policies to protect biodiversity. In this context, biodiversity and ecosystem services are natural assets that play a key role in economic strategies and technological development to promote development and prosperity. Developing and strengthening policies for transition to an economy based on efficient use of resources is the way forward. To emphasize the co-viability specific to the connection economyecosystem services, scientific approach aimed on one hand how to implement policies for nature conservation and on the other hand, the concepts underlying the economic expression of ecosystem services- value, in the context of current technology. Following the analysis of business opportunities associated with changes in ecosystem services was concluded that development of market mechanisms for nature conservation is a trend that is increasingly stronger individualized within recent years. Although there are still many controversial issues that have already given rise to an obvious bias, international organizations and national governments have initiated and implemented in cooperation or independently such mechanisms. Consequently, they created the conditions for convergence between private interests and social interests of nature conservation, so there are opportunities for ongoing business development which leads, among other things, the positive effects on biodiversity. Finally, points out that markets fail to quantify the value of most ecosystem services. Existing price signals reflect at best, only a proportion of the total amount corresponding provision of food, water or fuel.

Keywords: ecosystem services, economic evaluation, nature conservation

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Authors: Medya Fathi

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When public transportation projects were delivered through design-bid-build and later design-build, governments found a serious issue: inadequate funding. With population growth, governments began to develop new arrangements in which the private sectors were involved to cut the financial burden. This arrangement, Public-Private Partnership (PPP), has its own risks; however, performance outputs can motivate or discourage its use. On top of such output are time and budget, which can be affected by the type of project delivery methods. Project completion within or ahead of schedule as well as within or under budget is among any owner’s objectives. With a higher application of PPP in the highway industry in the US and insufficient research, the current study addresses the schedule and cost performance of PPP highway projects and determines which one outperforms the other. To meet this objective, after collecting performance data of all PPP projects, schedule growth and cost growth are calculated, and finally, statistical analysis is conducted to evaluate the PPP performance. The results show that PPP highway projects on average have saved time and cost; however, the main benefit is a faster delivery rather than an under-budget completion. This study can provide better insights to understand PPP highways’ performance and assist practitioners in applying PPP for transportation projects with the opportunity to save time and cost.

Keywords: Cost, delivery method, highway, public-private partnership, schedule, transportation.

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Authors: Hussain Ali Bekhet, Nor Hamisham Harun

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The main objective of this paper is to give a comprehensive review of non-renewable energy and renewable energy utilization in Malaysia, including hydropower, solar photovoltaic, biomass and biogas technologies. Malaysia mainly depends on non-renewable energy (natural gas, coal and crude oil) for electricity generation. Therefore, this paper provides a comprehensive review of the energy sector and discusses diversification of electricity generation as a strategy for providing sustainable energy in Malaysia. Energy policies and strategies to protect the non-renewable energy utilization also are highlighted, focusing in the different sources of energy available for high and sustained economic growth. Emphasis is also placed on a discussion of the role of renewable energy as an alternative source for the increase of electricity supply security. It is now evident that to achieve sustainable development through renewable energy, energy policies and strategies have to be well designed and supported by the government, industries (firms), and individual or community participation. The hope is to create a positive impact on sustainable development through renewable sources for current and future generations.

Keywords: Malaysia, non-renewable energy, renewable energy, sustainable energy.

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Authors: Jens-Phillip Petersen

Abstract:

The reduction of GHG emissions in buildings is a focus area of national energy policies in Europe, because buildings are responsible for a major share of the final energy consumption. It is at local scale where policies to increase the share of renewable energies and energy efficiency measures get implemented. Municipalities, as local authorities and responsible entity for land-use planning, have a direct influence on urban patterns and energy use, which makes them key actors in the transition towards sustainable cities. Hence, synchronizing urban planning with energy planning offers great potential to increase society’s energy-efficiency; this has a high significance to reach GHG-reduction targets. In this paper, the actual linkage of urban planning and energy planning in Denmark and Germany was assessed; substantive barriers preventing their integration and driving factors that lead to successful transitions towards a holistic urban energy planning procedures were identified.

Keywords: Energy planning, urban planning, renewable energies, sustainable cities.

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Authors: Julinda Keçi

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In many countries, governments have been promoting the involvement of private sector entities to enter into long-term agreements for the development and delivery of large infrastructure projects, with a focus on overcoming the limitations upon public fund of the traditional approach. The involvement of private sector through public private partnerships (PPP) brings in new capital investments, value for money and additional risks to handle. Worldwide research studies have shown that an objective, systematic, reliable and useroriented risk assessment process and an optimal allocation mechanism among different stakeholders is crucial to the successful completion. In this framework, this paper, which is the first stage of a research study, aims to identify the main risks for the delivery of PPP projects. A review of cross-countries research projects and case studies was performed to map the key risks affecting PPP infrastructure delivery. The matrix of mapping offers a summary of the frequency of factors, clustered in eleven categories: construction, design, economic, legal, market, natural, operation, political, project finance, project selection and relationship. Results will highlight the most critical risk factors, and will hopefully assist the project managers in directing the managerial attention in the further stages of risk allocation.

Keywords: Construction, infrastructure, public private partnerships, risks.

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Authors: Sibel Ecemis Kiliç, Neslihan Karatas

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The concept of urban transformation came about through interventions aimed at bringing socially and economically problematic areas of cities into use. The issue of urban transformation arose frequently during the post-2000 period in particular, and legal regulations on this matter were also developed in Turkey. Urban transformation project would be a focal point for the formation of the city in the near future. Izmir, which is third largest city of Turkey, is an important trade and port city. But, assessment of the current situation shows that, the majority of existing residential areas was formed with squatters and unplanned settlements in Izmir city center. Therefore an important part of these areas have significant problems in terms of the quality of life, safety and environmental quality. In this study, the central policies in Turkey and local policies in Đzmir about urban transformation will be considered. In addition, urban renewal projects that are being implemented in Izmir were discussed and suggestions will be developed in accordance with this policy.

Keywords: urban transformation, urban renewal projects, Izmir, urban planning.

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Authors: Poramet Saeng-On

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This research aims to develop ways of lodging business management of Bang Khonthi community in Samut Songkram province that are appropriate with the cultural context of the Bang Khonthi community. Eight lodging business owners were interviewed. It was found that lodging business that are family business must be done with passion, correct understanding of self, culture, nature, Thai way of life, thorough, professional development, environmentally concerned, building partnerships with various networks both community level, and public sector and business cohorts. Public relations should be done through media both traditional and modern outlets, such as websites and social networks to provide customers convenience, security, happiness, knowledge, love and value when travel to Bang Khonthi. This will also help them achieve sustainability in business, in line with the 10 Home Stay Standard Thailand. Suggestions for operators are as follows: Operators need to improve their public relations work. They need to use technology in public relations such as the internet. Management standards must be improved. Souvenir and local products shops should be arranged in the compound. Product pricing must be set accordingly. They need to join hands to help each other. Quality of the business operation should be raised to meet the standards. Educational measures to reduce the impact caused by tourism on the community such as efforts to reduce energy consumption.

Keywords: Homestay, lodging business, management, standard.

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Authors: Prashant Verma, K. K. Singh, Anjali Singh, Ujjaval Srivastava

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Contraceptive policies have been derived to achieve desired reductions in the growth rate and also, applied to the data of Uttar-Pradesh, India for illustration. Using the Lotka’s integral equation for the stable population, expressions for the proportion of contraceptive users at different ages have been obtained. At the age of 20 years, 42% of contraceptive users is imperative to reduce the present annual growth rate of 0.036 to 0.02, assuming that 40% of the contraceptive users discontinue at the age of 25 years and 30% again continue contraceptive use at age 30 years. Further, presuming that 75% of women start using contraceptives at the age of 23 years, and 50% of the remaining women start using contraceptives at the age of 28 years, while the rest of them start using it at the age of 32 years. If we set a minimum age of marriage as 20 years, a reduction of 0.019 in growth rate will be obtained. This study describes how the level of contraceptive use at different age groups of women reduces the growth rate in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The article also promotes delayed marriage in the region.

Keywords: Child bearing, contraceptive devices, contraceptive policies, population growth, stable population.

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Authors: José Carlos Rodríguez, Mario Gómez

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This paper analyzes innovation trends in Latin America countries by means of the number of patent applications filed by residents and non residents during the period 1965 to 2012. Making use of patent data released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), we search for the presence of multiple structural changes in patent application series in Argentina, Brazil Chile, and Mexico. These changes may suggest that firms’ innovative activity has been modified as a result of implementing a particular science, technology and innovation (STI) policy. Accordingly, the new regulations implemented in these countries during 1980s and 1990s have influenced their intellectual property regimes. The question conducting this research is thus how STI policies in these countries have affected their innovation activity? The results achieved in this research confirm the existence of multiple structural changes in the series of patent applications resulting from STI policies implemented in these countries.

Keywords: Econometric methods, innovation activity, Latin America countries, patents, science, technology and innovation (STI) policy.

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Authors: Hasimah Sapiri, Anton Abdulbasah Kamil, Razman Mat Tahar, Hanafi Tumin

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Salary risk and demographic risk have been identified as main risks in analyzing pension expenditure particularly in Defined Benefit pension plan. Therefore, public pension plan in Malaysia is studied to analyze pension expenditure due to salary and demographic risk. Through the literature review and interview session with several officers in public sector, factors affecting pension expenditure are determined. Then, the inter-relationships between these factors are analyzed through causal loop diagram. The System Dynamics model is later developed using iThink software to show how demographic and salary changes affect the pension expenditure. Then, by using actual data, the impact of different policy scenarios on pension expenditure is analyzed. It is shown that dynamics simulation model of pension expenditure is useful to evaluate the impact of changes and policy decisions on risk particularly involving demographic and salary risk.

Keywords: Demographic and Salary risk, Pension Expenditure, Public Policy, System Dynamics.

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Authors: Nikolaos Georgantzis, Efi Vasileiou

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We present results from experimental price-setting oligopolies in which green firms undertake different levels of energy-saving investments motivated by public subsidies and demand-side advantages. We find that consumers reveal higher willingness to pay for greener sellers’ products. This observation in conjunction to the fact that greener sellers set higher prices is compatible with the use and interpretation of energy-saving behaviour as a differentiation strategy. However, sellers do not exploit the resulting advantage through sufficiently high price-cost margins, because they seem trapped into “run to stay still” competition. Regarding the use of public subsidies to energy-saving sellers we uncover an undesirable crowding-out effect of consumers’ intrinsic tendency to support green manufacturers. Namely, consumers may be less willing to support a green seller whose energy-saving strategy entails a direct financial benefit. Finally, we disentangle two alternative motivations for consumer’s attractions to pro-social firms; first, the self-interested recognition of the firm’s contribution to the public and private welfare and, second, the need to compensate a firm for the cost entailed in each pro-social action. Our results show the prevalence of the former over the latter.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, energy savings, public good, experiments, vertical differentiation, altruism.

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