1,720,956 research outputs found
Urban governance and spatial planning for sustainable urban development in Tamale, Ghana
Get PDFThis study investigated urban governance and spatial planning practices for sustainable urban development in Tamale, Ghana, regarding provision and access to urban infrastructure and basic services. This broad aim of the study was divided into three objectives, namely to 1) review of the statutory provisions for the conduct of urban governance and spatial planning in Ghana and Tamale, 2) assess the spatio-temporal growth dynamics and provision of urban infrastructure and basic services in Tamale, and 3) to explore stakeholder engagement in spatial planning in the city. Research questions that guided the study were: a) what is the extent of the physical expansion of Tamale and how does urban governance respond to the growth dynamics regarding infrastructure and service provision?, b) to what extent does the spatial growth patterns of the city reflect local and national development aspirations, c) what national and local statutory frameworks guide the practice of urban governance and spatial planning, d) what are the modes of stakeholder engagement in urban governance and spatial planning and who are the stakeholders, and e) is the city’s urban governance inclusive and amenable to decentralisation, entrepreneurialism and democratisation (DED) principles? The DED analytical framework and collaborative planning theoretical perspective were adopted to analyse urban governance practices and outcomes in Tamale. Four evaluative questions were addressed using the DED and collaborative planning frameworks, namely how urban governance is lived in Tamale, whether urban governance leads to job creation, and for whom, whether urban governance results in improved urban services and whether urban governance empowers people at the grass roots and promotes accountable governance.
A mixed methods research design was employed in the study. This comprised of quantitative analysis of the city’s spatial growth using remote sensing and geographic information systems techniques, and qualitative investigation of urban governance processes and outcomes. The results show that the legislative provisions guiding urban governance in Ghana have not been effective in promoting sustainable urban development leading to the country transitioning towards spatial development frameworks (SDFs) as alternative approaches. Also, both the city’s spatial and demographic growth has been phenomenal, but access to urban infrastructure and services has lagged behind. Moreover, there was limited stakeholder engagement in urban governance and that resulted in low accountability. In terms of the DED and collaborative planning frameworks, there were generally no straightforward answers to the evaluative questions, except with respect to the question of accountability, which was almost non-existent in the urban governance practices of Tamale. The study concludes by lauding efforts to reform urban governance laws and initiatives to engender participatory and partnership-based urban governance and service delivery in the city. It is recommended that these reforms should be encouraged and operationalised within real decentralisation, entrepreneurialism and democratisation. Comprehensive needs assessment, institutional and stakeholder capacity-building efforts, and empathic stakeholder engagements will be crucial in this regard, especially if social justice, economic viability, and environmental health and sustainability are considered in the management of the city’s urban growth. Further research is recommended to provide detailed understanding of urban governance outcomes in Tamale, such as the magnitude of job creation, distribution and sustainability.National Research Foundatio
No. 27: Social Protection and Urban Food Systems
Get PDFThis discussion paper examines development implications for food and nutrition when cash transfer interventions intersect with food system changes, particularly in urban areas where food is predominantly accessed through the market. South Africa is used as a case study because of its advanced social protection system as well as the rapid food system changes it is experiencing that are similar to those in other cities in the Global South. The authors consider the possible nutritional transition-related consequences for society, as well as the livelihood-related consequences for the poor when cash transfer systems, such as that of the South African social grant, are integrated with formal financial systems. They argue that while social protection and particularly cash transfers offer real benefits to society, certain social protection initiatives, especially those in urbanized environments experiencing food system transitions, could have unintended negative consequences. The authors ask whether specific social protection strategies could unintentionally exclude certain actors. Ultimately, in a rapidly urbanizing context, could certain approaches to social protection constrain the development ambitions embedded in these programs
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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