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Increasing physical activity can reduce obesity risk among adolescents. This study analyses how behaviours, ethnicity and various sociocultural characteristics may influence the likelihood of engaging in active commute and other healthy activities. The authors analyse data from the 2010 National Youth Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey. The sample included US Hispanic high school students from 9th to 12th grade. Quasi-Poisson regression was used to understand the association between 24 possible variables and the number of days physically active at least 60 minutes per day. This study will present findings by race and ethnicity: non-Hispanic whites and blacks, as well as Hispanics. The research findings uncover that walking is the most predominant physical activity among Hispanics, especially from school to home, which indicates engagement in active transportation. This study shows the need for tailoring physical activity and health programmes by race and ethnicity. Interventions that encourage active commute can be effective for adolescents to achieve physical activity guidelines – at least 60 minutes per day.

The Norwegian Ministry of Environment has undertaken to build and implement a meta information system for environmental information/data. The objective is to increase availability of cross sector information and efficiency in use of environmental information/data. The system is to be accessible via Internet, but based on SQL‐database. Further the same system may be used locally by the governmental institutions and centrally at national level. Access will be public and free of charge, software will be free of charge. The metadata will be characterized according to European standards; amongst others, by use of the multilingual environmental thesaurus (GEMET) and a standard for mandatory field entries. Interoperability with other systems is assured by used of standard communication protocols (Z.39.50). To define objectives at a high precision level and to have a development guide, a technical “Systems Requirements” were defined. Development is done with users, and by means of prototypes, laboratory and field tests.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the preservation and dissemination of women's cultural heritage in selected university libraries in Nigeria.

The descriptive survey research design using questionnaire to collect data was employed.

The study revealed that non-print materials constitute an average of about 28 per cent of the forms in which cultural heritage materials for women are obtained and preserved in some Nigerian leading academic libraries. Over 50 per cent of the respondents in their views agreed that the benefits are accruable when women's cultural heritage materials are kept including enhancement of public perception of women, improvement in accessibility to information about women, improvement in the visibility of women as essential contributors to the development of the society, fostering of tourism among others. The most prominent barrier that the respondents believed could hamper the preservation of women's cultural heritage materials was the adverse tropical climatic conditions.

It encourages information experts to engage in capacity building for effective preservation and dissemination of cultural heritage information that are gender related. It also stressed the need for networking and collaboration among information experts as an essential strategy in promoting women's cultural heritage information system. All stakeholders are urged to prioritize and demonstrate fiscal commitment towards the preservation of cultural heritage resources. This paper was presented at IFLA Women, Information and Libraries Satellite Conference, 2012.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the need to go beyond the “monumentalist” vision in restoration of built heritage and embrace principles of sustainability in this architectural practice.

Case studies as conceptual reference. Architectural typology.

The environmental crisis that is currently recognized as one of the most important problems that contemporary society must address urgently is a situation that still has not permeated enough in the practice of monumental restoration, which is still carried out using unlimited resources.

In that sense, the close relationship between the built and the natural environment as an essential ingredient of the vernacular is analysed.

Much of the sustainable principles, that have been put forward as an example to be followed, are elements that have hundreds of years in the constructive tradition.

In this context, vernacular architecture has much to contribute in the field of conservation by the enormous accumulated knowledge that its shapes, materials and social use represent.

This experience must be retrieved, but not as an aseptic laboratory experiment, but through its updated application and active implementation to improve the quality of life for inhabitants and contribute to the preservation of our cultural and natural environments.

The purpose of this paper is to present the physical context of the necropolis of Bat, look at its management by the Omani Ministry of Heritage and Culture (MHC), and discusse the challenges it is facing. It will also shed light on how the site of Bat is perceived by the local community and visitors.

The archaeological complex of Bat, al-Khutm, and al-Ayn was listed by the UNESCO as a world heritage site in 1988. Despite this classification, relatively little attention has been given to the management of this site. The author conducted interviews with representatives of the MHC in order to understand how this site is being managed, and the author uploaded an online public questionnaire to learn how the population is being educated about the importance of this heritage.

The results of this investigation revealed a surprisingly high level of public awareness about the importance of this site to the country socially, and economically. In spite of this awareness, the site is not visited frequently because it is not adequately equipped: a situation that was clearly outlined by the respondents. Suggestions were proposed in order to better integrate this site into the local development plans and the socio-economic growth of the whole region.

The originality of this research is that it took the site of investigation an archaeological site listed by the UNESCO for its outstanding universal value and contrary to what is expected, this site was “forgotten” in all development and management plans executed by the local and central government for almost two decades. It is also the first research about a site in Oman to address such issues and use these methods.