Search results

This chapter identifies the reasons why widespread and large-scale development of DRT has not emerged in the past 10 years even though previous research and analysis had suggested that conditions existed to facilitate such development.

Drawing on personal experience of operating DRT networks, supplemented by an analysis of the operating environment, operational barriers to implementation are identified.

Research results into the identified inhibiting factors are presented and supplemented by personal experience and interviews with key individuals. A successful integrated approach that has allowed a large DRT network to develop is described.

Recent changes in financial and structural conditions affecting the suitability of DRT in the United Kingdom as a solution to unmet travel needs and as a cost-effective alternative to conventional passenger transport are described. It is suggested that these factors have the potential to overcome barriers to further development. However, remaining obstacles in the field of Telematics are identified which may need further attention.

Introduction of large-scale DRT networks will not only be more cost effective but also offset financially driven service reductions and allow unmet travel needs to be met.

The identification of financial, technical, legal and social obstacles to the widespread implementation of DRT allows barriers to be addressed and removed and the full benefits of DRT to be realised. At a time of financial constraint, this allows more economic and integrated passenger transport solutions to be introduced to benefit both end users and service commissioners.

The purpose of this paper is to identify higher authority organizational stressors encountered by higher education deans.

This current research employed a qualitative approach utilizing a contextual paradigm with a multiple case study methodology.

Out of ten investigated deans in a public higher education institution in Malaysia, nine reported experiences of organizational stressor elements arising from higher authority. Three non-overlapping subthemes were systematically discovered.

Successful identification of these higher authority organizational stressors has implications for higher education management policies. Policies that reduce or eliminate these stressors may create a positive and progressive environment for deans and the higher education field.

This study will thus serve to promote a deeper understanding of higher authority organizational stressors encountered by higher education deans.

It is a widely held belief that labour market failure amongst young people is heavily influenced by formal educational attainments. Few British studies, however, have paid specific attention to the question of what particular level of academic achievement is valued most highly by the market within any period of time. This article queries the focus of earlier research – explicitly concerned with education and labour market fortune – which implicitly suggested that the Certificate of Secondary Education was of prime importance in securing employment for the youngest members of the labour force in recent years. Moreover, it is demonstrated that omitting controls for influences frequently held to be important determinants of educational attainment generates upward bias in the estimated returns to education and thereby inflates expectations as to the benefits likely to follow from even seemingly radical reforms to the formal schooling system.

Access to high-speed Internet is essential for full and consequential participation in the civic, economic, and education systems of modern life. Yet 30% of Californians continue to lack “meaningful Internet access” at home. This digital divide is worse among already disadvantaged communities and prevents rural, lower-income, and disabled individuals from fully participating in the civic, economic, and education systems of life in 2018. This chapter establishes the magnitude of the digital divide, examines the factors that contribute to the Divide, and looks at which groups are most affected. Successful government programs that invested in utility infrastructure and adoption, such as the Rural Electrification Act, the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act and the California Advanced Services Fund, are examined to provide a foundation for broadband specific policy recommendations. The chapter sets up a framework for policy recommendations by segmenting the population based upon the concepts of material and motivational access and establishing meaningful Internet access as the goal for policy-makers. The chapter puts forth a number of specific policy recommendations to address the technological disparity and prevent it from furthering the economic and educational divides.

The purpose of this paper is to address the impact of caste and religious diversity on individual‐level social capital.

Based on the World Bank's field tested assessment tools, SOCAT, the field survey of the authors' study considers data related to most of the indicators of social capital. This study considers stratified random sampling method. The selection of four municipalities was done by purposive method and the data include information on 440 households from four municipal wards chosen from four municipalities of West Bengal. Out of four municipalities, two are most homogenous (Serampore) and most heterogeneous (Ashoke Nagar Kalyan Garh) along caste dimension and the other two are most homogenous (Purulia) and most heterogeneous (Santipur) religion based municipalities. Caste and religious heterogeneity are measured by an index of ethnic fractionalization, ETHNIC; the index calculates the probability that two randomly‐chosen individuals will not belong to the same group.

Using different measures of social capital, results of the analysis strongly support adverse effect of ethnicity on individual non‐structural social capital. The data set and results imply that for every dimension, the formation of social capital for each individual is higher among same (homogeneous) individuals along caste and religious dimensions in their social sphere. Moreover the level of structural social capital in the form of associations and cognitive form are lower than individual form of non‐structural social capital for each individual, irrespective of interactions between same or different (heterogeneous) types.

The study is important in that it tries to explore the impact of diversity along caste and religious dimensions on the non‐structural individual social capital, in an Indian context; whereas all the previous literature focuses on diversity along ethno‐linguistic and racial lines and most of these studies consider social capital at aggregative level.

Presents the Mohonk Criteria for Humanitarian Assistance in Complex Emergencies, produced by the Task Force on Ethical and Legal Issues in Humanitarian Assistance, convened by the Program on Humanitarian Assistance at the World Conference on Religion and Peace, as guidelines for co‐operative relationships between political, humanitarian and military actors in complex humanitarian emergencies created by armed conflict.

The premise that the U.S. Supreme Court never veers too far off from the dominant national political coalition (Dahl, 1957) has become widely accepted among social scientists today. To fulfill that promise, however, the confirmation process for justices must serve as a plebiscite through which the public can ratify or reject future justices based on their views. Unfortunately, modern confirmation hearings have become an exercise in obfuscation, providing little meaningful dialogue on important issues. Because conservative Republican presidents have made the lion's share of appointments in recent times, social conservatives have most often benefited from a process that has severed the link between Supreme Court nominees and the polity they must serve.