Urbanisation is one of the most forceful social and economic trends currently affecting large cities in the developing world and is an important component of national economic development processes. This is despite the general decline of formal urban economies in both developed and developing countries. A mirror-image reflection of the urbanisation process is increasing urban poverty, clearly evident in large cities and metropolitan areas in South Africa. The urban poor, local government, and urban planners have responded to urbanisation and poverty in different ways. Informal settlement processes take place and consolidate themselves in a climate of isolation and continuous conflict with the rules of the established formal urban economy, with the informal sector providing a safety net for survival. With the barest minimum of resources people living in informal settlements have provided some sort of shelter for themselves in spite of successive and systematic governmental opposition. They have generated many income earning opportunities in the informal sector; and in some cases they have made and effort to supplement household food supplies through direct production within the city. The practice of urban agriculture is guided by the "logic for survival" and it may be equated to squatter housing and street trading in that they are all examples of innovative responses from the urban poor. In the recent past the general response of local government planning authorities in African cities has been the fomiulation and implementation of urban management programmes linked to poverty alleviation programmes. It is within this context that various government authorities have responded by repressing the survival strategies of the urban poor, · tolerating it if they lacked the capacity to control it, or encouraging it by having had enabling mechanisms in place to support such activities. Generally, government authorities have used all of the above strategies simultaneously due to a relatively greater acceptance or tolerance of some informal activities in comparison to others. The practice of urban agriculture has been repressed in certain countries, while tolerated or promoted in others. For urban planners the connection between food and the land on which it is produced has become increasingly remote and abstract as an issue that directly concerns urban planning and wellfare. Food production and distribution is intricately linked to the global economic trade, and it will be difficult to change the terms of trade in an effort to produce subsistence food supplies. People living in urban areas are reliant on the cash purchase of food which in turn is linked to levels of affordability. However in the face of declining real incomes and reduced purchasing power, and as mentioned above, the poor and destitute have resorted to supplementing their household food supplies through direct production within the city. Food relief programmes are an added expense to government's already overburdened coffers. As such food security is a matter that urban planners and policy makers should consider from now on. Urban agriculture has an important role to play in feeding the ever growing urban popUlation, especially the urban poor. The planning of cities rarely considers the production of urban food supplies since the prevailing attitude is one that consigns food production to the rural areas, with the focus of the city on the pursuit of economic activities. There is an compelling urgency to defeat the ethical, ideological, psychological, attitudinal and practical obstacles to promoting urban agriculture since positive policies in support of urban agriculture are unlikely to emerge from this negative frame of mind. / Thesis (MTRP)-University of Natal, Durban, 1995.

Greater Vancouver is a cooperative federalism in which planning relies on consensus and cooperation between municipalities, provincial ministries and Crown corporations. A result of this approach is a system in which each organisation and municipality is responsible for making decisions and funding the issues within its jurisdiction. Often this results in inefficient decisions being made; decisions, that otherwise would have considered regional issues, tend to consider only local concerns. Experience suggests that regional governments are generally distrusted by the general public and may pose a threat to the urban power base of the provincial government. Instead, a conjoint approach - which uses the existing agencies and is activated at key points in the process - offers the optimum configuration. In Greater Vancouver, a commission made up of nine directly elected, nine municipally appointed, and nine provincially appointed councillors will provide a well balanced organisation which is responsible to the province, municipalities, and the public. The new commission will be responsible for creating regional goals and ensuring conformity of the municipalities, ministries and Crown corporations to those goals. Adjustments in the provincial legislations will be required to transfer control and funding functions to the new commission, and to pave the way for a truly integrated transportation planning process for Greater Vancouver.

Decisions made regarding road building have far-flung consequences. Spending money on roads means that other public goals such as farmland preservation, air quality improvement and provision of housing may be frustrated. In order for knowledgeable land-use decisions to be made, the full cost of roads needs to be examined. This thesis explores the issue of roadway land costs from a professional planning point of view. A method for calculating roadway land costs is developed and is then applied to provincially-funded roads in the Greater Vancouver region. The case study revealed that annual provincial roadway land costs amount to approximately $162 per automobile. Limited supplies of land and limited financial resources suggest that it may be time to examine approaches that would make it less necessary to add capacity to the existing road network. Expenditures on roads can be reduced by shifting from current "supply side" tactics. This thesis suggests various policies that could be enacted to effect such a change.

Economic development implies that a country's real output is growing at a faster rate than its population so that over time per caput output rises. One very simple way of achieving the growth of output is to bring formerly unemployed manpower into the labour force. But, since there is an inevitable limit to this method, a far more important aim is to bring about an increase in output per employed worker. [...]

Swarm Intelligence (SI) is a young field of study from which solutions to complex problems have been proposed based on how some natural organisms (e.g. ants, bees and others) achieve many of their daily tasks through simple sets of interactions. This thesis proposes two models for area exploration and coverage based on SI principles. These two models present a novel approach based on the combination of: ants’ pheromones, in order to keep track of visited places; and bird flocks or fish schooling, so as to move and collaborate. An implementation of both models was done in order to simulate and evaluate both the emergent behavior of the agents as well as their area exploration and coverage performance. Based on the outcome of the simulations it is concluded that both models are able to perform the exploration and coverage task and that one model is better than the other.

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STARNET is a fiber optic based network which facilitates the interconnection of distributed Local Area Networks. Configured as a sixteen pointed star topology with a multiprocessor based controller at the center of the star (named the Central Switch). STARNET is capable of scheduling calls from users connected to User Access Nodes located at the points of the star. Messages are passed from one node to another through the Central Switch via duplex fiber optic lines connecting each node to the center. / This paper presents a multiprocessor based design of the User Access Node. The hardware and software structure is examined in depth, providing solid guidelines for the physical construction of the unit. The performances of statistical STARNET models using parameters obtained from the design (and three different Central Switch models) are plotted and compared for five different examples of external traffic. The model analysis gives an indication of the expected message delays, supporting the feasibility of the design.

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No description available.

This thesis provides a comprehensive review of recent developments in the economic regulation of air transport in the Asia-Pacific region. The focus is on the progressive liberalisation of the designation criteria in selected agreements. A brief historical overview is followed by a summary of the decision of the European Court of Justice in the "open skies" cases. The thesis then examines three recent Asia-Pacific agreements: the Australia - New Zealand arrangements; the APEC Multilateral agreement; and the Pacific Islands agreement. This review is followed by a discussion of some potential developments in the region that could lead to the conclusion of a new multilateral agreement between the European Union and selected Asia-Pacific States.