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Growing Role (growing + role)
Selected AbstractsThe Potential for Species Conservation in Tropical Secondary ForestsCONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 6 2009ROBIN L. CHAZDON especialización de hábitat; biodiversidad forestal; bosque secundario; bosque tropical; sucesión Abstract:,In the wake of widespread loss of old-growth forests throughout the tropics, secondary forests will likely play a growing role in the conservation of forest biodiversity. We considered a complex hierarchy of factors that interact in space and time to determine the conservation potential of tropical secondary forests. Beyond the characteristics of local forest patches, spatial and temporal landscape dynamics influence the establishment, species composition, and persistence of secondary forests. Prospects for conservation of old-growth species in secondary forests are maximized in regions where the ratio of secondary to old-growth forest area is relatively low, older secondary forests have persisted, anthropogenic disturbance after abandonment is relatively low, seed-dispersing fauna are present, and old-growth forests are close to abandoned sites. The conservation value of a secondary forest is expected to increase over time, as species arriving from remaining old-growth forest patches accumulate. Many studies are poorly replicated, which limits robust assessments of the number and abundance of old-growth species present in secondary forests. Older secondary forests are not often studied and few long-term studies are conducted in secondary forests. Available data indicate that both old-growth and second-growth forests are important to the persistence of forest species in tropical, human-modified landscapes. Resumen:,A raíz de la pérdida generalizada de los bosques maduros en el trópico, los bosques secundarios probablemente jugarán un mayor papel en la conservación de la biodiversidad forestal. Consideramos una jerarquía compleja de factores que interactúan en el espacio y tiempo para determinar el potencial de conservación de los bosques tropicales secundarios. Más allá de las características de los fragmentos de bosque locales, la dinámica espacial y temporal del paisaje influye en el establecimiento, la composición de especies y la persistencia de bosques secundarios. Los prospectos para la conservación de especies primarias en los bosques secundarios se maximizan en regiones donde la proporción de superficie de bosque maduro-bosque secundario es relativamente baja, los bosques secundarios más viejos han persistido, la perturbación antropogénica después del abandono es relativamente baja, hay presencia de fauna dispersora de semillas y donde hay bosques primarios cerca de sitios abandonados. Se espera que el valor de conservación de un bosque secundario incremente en el tiempo, a medida que se acumulan especies provenientes de los fragmentos de bosque primario remanentes. Muchos estudios están pobremente replicados, lo que impide evaluaciones robustas del número y abundancia de especies primarias presentes en bosques secundarios. Los bosques secundarios más viejos generalmente no son estudiados y son pocos los estudios a largo plazo en bosques secundarios. Los datos disponibles indican que tanto los bosques primarios como los secundarios son importantes para la persistencia de especies forestales en paisajes tropicales modificados por humanos. [source] Helping South Asia Cope Better with Natural Disasters: The Role of Social ProtectionDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 6 2007Rasmus Heltberg Social protection (income) support to households in the wake of major natural disasters is assuming a growing role for the World Bank, and major cash transfers in Turkey, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Pakistan are reviewed in this article. Such support is usually best provided directly as cash to affected households; it complements other relief and reconstruction efforts, is demanded by client countries and has a positive impact on short-term food security and long-term recovery. It could be geared for greater impact and more efficient delivery in future by the use of a best-practice toolkit and a right-on-time technical assistance facility, and its integration in emergency preparedness and capacity-building for implementing agencies. [source] Tailored for Panama: Offshore Banking at the Crossroads of the AmericasGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 1 2002Barney Warf With the steady integration of a deregulated world of hypermobile capital, offshore banking has become an increasingly significant part of the geography of international finance. Many interpretations tend to treat offshore banking centres as identical sites of investment that can be easily substituted for one another by completely mobile, fungible capital. This paper explores the nature of offshore banking in one largely overlooked centre, Panama. It charts the historic context that led to the creation of Latin America's most important centre of international banking, emphasizing the unique qualities that stand in contrast to hyperglobalist interpretations, including the Canal and the role of the US dollar. Second, it summarizes the regulatory changes initiated in the face of global neoliberalism, including the absence of a central bank and recent reforms designed to attract foreign capital. Using primary and secondary data, the paper maps Panama's growing role as a net capital exporter, charting domestic and foreign loan markets. Finally, it also addresses the trade,offs between confidentiality, and transparency in the context of illicit activities frequently alleged to occur in offshore banking centres, which in Panama revolve around drug trafficking and money laundering. It concludes by noting that even in an ostensibly seamless world, offshore banking exhibits the place,based embeddedness of financial capital within local institutional relations. [source] The Role of the Development Industry in Shaping Urban Social Space: a Conceptual ModelGEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2007EDDO COIACETTO Abstract Socio-spatial differentiation or the spatial arrangement of social groups in cities has long been the subject of scholarly attention in urban studies from a variety of perspectives. In many contemporary societies, the development industry plays an important and growing role in socio-spatial differentiation. This paper presents a conceptual model for the empirical analysis of the role of this industry in shaping urban social space. [source] Non-medical palliative care and education to improve end-of-life care at geriatric health services facilities: A nationwide questionnaire survey of chief nursesGERIATRICS & GERONTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL, Issue 3 2007Yoshihisa Hirakawa Background: Geriatric health services facilities (GHSF) are expected to assume a growing role in caring for the dying elderly. However, research in this area has so far been scant. The purpose of the present study is to reveal the status of non-medical palliative care and staff education aiming at improving and enhancing end-of-life care at GHSF. Methods: The subjects were 2876 chief nurses of GHSF. Data was collected through a mailed questionnaire in 2003. The questionnaire covered the following: (i) staff perception of end-of-life care policies; (ii) staff education; and (iii) available non-medical care. To evaluate the factors correlated with end-of-life care policies at GHSF, we divided the facilities into two groups. Results: We analyzed the answers collected from 313 facilities with a progressive policy toward end-of-life care (PP group) and 818 with a regressive policy toward it (RP group). It was found that staff training was conducted more frequently among PP facilities. Generally, nurses in the PP facilities were more confident that they could provide comprehensive on-site end-of-life care and grieving support, but did not feel so sure about their ability to provide better end-of-life environments for dying residents and family by organizing outside support from voluntary and/or governmental organizations and religious organization for healing and to pursue appropriately a written follow-up communication with the bereaved family. Conclusions: Our results suggest that providing GHSF staff with education about end-of-life issues or setting up collaboration with the outside is an important factor to enhance overall end-of-life care at these facilities. [source] Immigrant Place Entrepreneurs in Los Angeles, 1970,99INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2002Ivan Light Proclamations of the death of Los Angeles' growth machine are premature. These proclamations overlook the growing role of immigrant Korean and Chinese entrepreneurs in regional property development. Since 1970, Korean and Chinese entrepreneurs have seriously restructured Los Angeles' morphology, creating hierarchically arranged residential and business clusters for co,ethnic immigrants. Koreatown and Monterey Park are the brand names most familiar to outsiders, but these prominent localities really coexist with a multiplicity of less well,known ethnic communities that owe their origins to immigrant property developers. The immigrant property developers use the classic methods of the growth machine: buy land cheaply, promote it in Chinese or Korean emigration basins, then sell it to co,ethnic immigrants at a profit. In the process, the immigrant property developers reduce the difficulty of immigration to Los Angeles at the same time that they enhance its perceived desirability. The success of the Chinese and Korean developers highlights the hazard of assuming, as is conventionally done, that ethnic residential clustering arises from leaderless social processes. In both these highlighted cases, entrepreneurial elites created residential clusters of co,ethnics from conscious, long,term plans that required political as well as economic savoir,faire. In so doing, the immigrant property developers joined the Los Angeles growth machine whose fortunes, admittedly, have been waning among the native born population of the region. La mort annoncée de la dynamique de croissance de Los Angeles est prématurée. Ce serait oublier le rôle grandissant des chefs d'entreprise immigrés coréens et chinois dans l'aménagement immobilier régional. Depuis 1970, ces entrepreneurs ont considérablement restructuré la morphologie de Los Angeles, créant des ,agglomérats' commerciaux et résidentiels hiérarchisés pour migrants de m?,me ethnie. Si Koreatown et Monterey Park sont des noms bien connus des étrangers, ces lieux dominants coexistent en réalité avec une multiplicité de communautés ethniques moins renommées qui doivent leurs origines à des promoteurs immigrés. Ces derniers appliquent les mécanismes classiques de la prospérité: acheter le terrain bon marché, le promouvoir dans des bassins d'émigration chinois ou coréens, puis le vendre à profità des immigrants co,ethniques. Ainsi, les promoteurs immigrés facilitent l'immigration vers Los Angeles tout en en accentuant l'aspect attractif. La réussite des aménageurs chinois et coréens souligne le risque qu'il y a à supposer, comme bien souvent, que tout regroupement résidentiel ethnique naît de processus sociaux non dirigés. Dans les deux cas exposés, les élites commerciales ont créé des regroupements résidentiels de m?,me ethnie selon des plans délibérés à long terme, impliquant un savoir,faire à la fois politique et économique. Ce faisant, les promoteurs immigrés ont rejoint la dynamique de croissance de Los Angeles qui, il est vrai, a vu décliner les succès au sein de sa population de souche. [source] The Impact of Interpersonal Satisfaction on Repurchase DecisionsJOURNAL OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2003Michael W. Preis SUMMARY Having once made a purchase from a supplier, customer satisfaction has been found to drive buyers'decisions about the firms from which they will repurchase goods or services. Interpersonal satisfaction, the gratification that buyers receive from relationships with salespeople, is an important component of overall customer satisfaction. Even with the growing role of technology in procurement and supply chain management, interpersonal relationships between individual buyers and sellers are an important factor in supplier selection. Other components of overall satisfaction are satisfaction with the product or service and satisfaction with the performance of the supplier. In order to measure the role of these several aspects of overall satisfaction, a survey of Institute for Supply ManagementÔ (ISM) members responsible for making repurchase decisions was conducted. The results demonstrate that satisfaction with the product, satisfaction with the supplier's performance, and satisfaction with the salesperson are correlated with intention to repurchase. Managerial implications of the results are discussed. [source] Going privately: partnership and outsourcing in UK public servicesPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 3 2002Damian Grimshaw Public private partnerships provide an important illustration of the way the traditional role of government as employer and service provider is being transformed. While policy,makers argue that the growing role of the private sector is not driven by ideological thinking , that, in fact, both public and private sector organizations can benefit from working together in partnership relations , in practice it is the norms and rules of private sector management that underpin reforms. This paper assesses evidence from two detailed case studies of partnerships and demonstrates, first, that there is little evidence of mutual gains from partnership arrangements and, second, that because of an imbalance of power between public and private sector partners, any gains achieved are not distributed equitably. These results suggest that current reforms need to be refocused around building on the distinctive qualities of services provision in the public sector, rather than expanding the private sector world of markets and contracts. [source] Private tax collection,remnant of the past or a way forward?PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & DEVELOPMENT, Issue 4 2006Evidence from rural Uganda Abstract This article examines the growing role and impacts of private tax collection under fiscal decentralisation in Uganda. Based on evidence from six rural councils, three aspects of privatised tax collection are examined: (i) the impact on the nature of fiscal corruption; (ii) the problem of overzealous collection; and (iii) the challenge of assessing revenue potentials. While possibly meeting short-term demands for local revenue growth and stability, the present form of private tax collection appears to transform the nature of fiscal corruption by reducing corruption at collection point and transferring the problem into the district administration. Moreover, while the charge of overzealousness permeates historical and theoretical work on privatised tax collection, the Ugandan experience casts doubt on its general validity. Instead, perverse distributional effects are the most likely cause of deteriorating state-citizen relations in rural Uganda. Finally, the article considers the merit of the prediction of private collection as a preferred contractual choice for certain indirect taxes, suggesting that problems of asymmetric information in assessing the revenue yields of most rural markets are exaggerated. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Nonprofits as Local Government Service ContractorsPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 4 2009Richard C. Feiock Despite the growing role that contracts with nonprofits play in local service delivery, only limited attention has been directed to why some cities rely more on nonprofit organizations to produce services or how political institutions influence the role nonprofits play in service delivery. To investigate these issues, the authors present a transaction cost explanation that focuses on how political system characteristics and structures of service markets shape the costs of negotiating, monitoring, and enforcing contracts for local governments. The findings indicate that forms of government, mayoral turnover, racial segregation, and the market of nonprofit producers influence the role of nonprofits in delivering elder services, but decisions to contract exclusively with nonprofits are subject to different influences than decisions to jointly produce service with a nonprofit organization. [source] The Challenge of Strengthening Nonprofits and Civil SocietyPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 2008Steven Rathgeb Smith The Winter Commission Report was centrally concerned with improving the performance of state and local governments. Since the issuance of the commission's report in 1993, the delivery of services by state and local government has been substantially changed by the growing role of nonprofit organizations in providing public services and representing citizen interests. As a result, state and local governments and nonprofit agencies are faced with complex governance challenges. The central argument of this paper is that despite the dramatic changes in the relationship between government and nonprofit organizations in recent years, the key tenets of the Winter Commission report,the need for improved training and education, greater transparency and accountability, more emphasis on performance, and improved citizen engagement,remain deeply relevant in improving the governance of the public services in an increasingly complex policy process and service delivery system at the state and local levels. [source] Global production networks, the developmental state and the articulation of Asia Pacific economies in the commercial aircraft industryASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 3 2007John T. Bowen Jr. Abstract: Asia Pacific economies , particularly Japan, South Korea, China and Singapore , play a large and growing role in the commercial aircraft industry, despite the fact that the region has no major independent plane-maker. Instead, Asia has secured a significant position in the increasingly elaborate global production networks of Boeing and Airbus. The wider Asian significance in those networks has been fostered not only by the region's deep capital and human resource assets but also by the catalytic actions of developmental states in the region. Moreover, decades of rapid air traffic growth have made Asia a crucial market for Boeing and Airbus. In response, the American and European giants have been compelled to outsource more of their business to Asia in order to win sales and to design new airliners tailored to the needs of Asian customers. Together, the increased importance of Asia in both the design and the manufacture of commercial aircraft point to a future in which Asia will capture an ever-larger share of the value created in one of the world's most technologically sophisticated and strategically significant industries. [source] The Australian grocery industry: a competition perspective,AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2006Rhonda L. Smith This article discusses whether at a theoretical level the large and growing role of the vertically integrated supermarket chains raises a buyer-power concern because of potential harm to other retailers, suppliers, and/or consumers. Even if this is possible, whether it is a real concern depends on whether provision exists to constrain the exercise of that power through market responses, such as entry, or through regulatory provisions, such as those contained in the Trade Practices Act. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||