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Green infrastructure development is desired in many municipalities because of its potential to address pressing environmental and social issues. However, despite technical optimism, institutional challenges create significant barriers to effective green infrastructure design, implementation, and maintenance. Institutional challenges stem from the disparate scales and facility types that make up the concept of green infrastructure, which span from large-scale natural areas to small engineered bioswales. Across these disparate facilities 1) different performance metrics are used, 2) different institutions have jurisdiction, and, 3) facility types are differentially classified as assets, producing epistemological and ontological variegation across the spectrum of green infrastructure that must be negotiated within and across municipal institutions. This has led to knowledge challenges that constrain and shape facility design, implementation, maintenance, and--ultimately--performance on-the-ground. Here, the eco-techno spectrum is developed to highlight the different degree to which biological entities (e.g. plants, microbes) are incorporated as infrastructural components in facilities; this inclusion presents a major knowledge challenge to green infrastructure, namely it brings biological and ecological knowledge into traditionally engineering-dominated decision-making spaces where it does not easily fit procedures for defining, measuring, or valuing existing facility component types. Therefore, municipal institutions have created and vetted new practices, protocols, and institutional structures to appropriately implement and manage green infrastructure. The institutionalization of green infrastructure is examined in this dissertation using knowledge systems analysis in two comparative case studies conducted in Portland and Baltimore. Discourse analysis provides 'thick' description of knowledge systems dynamics within and between different municipal departments in each city; a follow-up Q-method survey is used to further examine these qualitative results and explore the subjectivities that underlie the various ways of 'knowing' green infrastructure in the city.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1992. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [246]-256).

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Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) is one of the most common birth defects. It is the single most modifiable cause of infant mortality under one year of age. Therefore, the causes of CHD have been extensively researched in the past but the etiology remains largely unknown. Environmental risks, particularly maternal risk factors for congenital cardiac malformation have been evaluated in the original BWIS previously. However, in this research we examined one of the additional risk factors. We sought to determine whether maternal headache during six months prior to conception and throughout gestation until birth is a risk factor for CHD in the BWIS dataset. Among 3274 singleton cases and 3519 controls, a maternal report of headache was found to be associated with a nearly 20% increase in the risk of a congenital heart defect (OR= 1.2 p=0.001). Moreover, any medications use for headache 1-6 months prior to conception increased the risk of abnormal cardiac development by 1.3 fold (OR = 1.3, p=0.0004). Aspirin or aspirin containing analgesics were found to increase the risk for CHD at the defined risk period. According to subgroup analysis, aspirin or aspirin containing analgesics and acetaminophen or acetaminophen containing analgesics were found to be the risk factor for CTD i.e. Conotruncal defects. Furthermore, aspirin or aspirin containing analgesics increased the risk for PVSD i.e. Peri-membranous Ventricular Defect in offspring when the mother uses these drugs 1-6 months prior to conception. Additionally, the risk for CVD i.e. critical valve disease were found to be increased when women were exposed to aspirin or aspirin containing analgesics during third trimester after pregnancy. In conclusion, maternal headache increased the risk for CHD by 20% and the use of headache medications specifically pain relievers during 1-6 months prior to conception modulated type of defect was observed.

Baltimore fait partie des grandes métropoles américaines qui se sont lancées dans le cercle vertueux du développement durable. Traditionnellement acquise aux votes démocrates, constituée d’une majorité d’Afro-Américains appartenant aux classes sociales défavorisées, et portant les profonds stigmates de la crise industrielle et des récessions économiques successives, la ville offre un terreau favorable aux expériences de gestion urbaine intégrant la notion de durabilité. Bien plus, tant du point de vue des caractéristiques économiques et démographiques que de celui de l’héritage marqué de la ségrégation, c’est la dimension sociale du développement durable et la justice environnementale qui sont en jeu. Depuis 2000, la municipalité a initié deux grands projets intégrant le développement durable dans ses dimensions de « sustainability », « livability » et « smart growth », pouvant être regroupées sous l’appellation de « green politics ». L’essentiel de ses efforts porte sur la revitalisation de deux ghettos du centre-ville tombés en complète déshérence, East Baltimore et West Baltimore. Nous concentrerons notre réflexion sur deux exemples précis de « green politics » (la réhabilitation d’une partie du ghetto d’East Baltimore avec le Grand Piano ; la Red Line, ligne de train qui doit relier les deux ghettos et des zones de friches industrielles au quartier des affaires). À partir de ces exemples, nous étudierons les modes de gouvernance mis en place et le rôle joué par les différents acteurs qui y participent (« anchor institutions », grandes fondations, acteurs publics et associations de quartier). Nous nous interrogerons sur l’émergence de formes inédites de citoyenneté façonnées par ces nouveaux modes de participation à l’aménagement urbain durable. Il s’agira de comprendre si le développement durable est conçu au service des habitants du ghetto afin de lutter contre la pauvreté et les injustices sociales et environnementales, ou si, au contraire, la racialisation de ce concept favorise la gentrification, crée de nouvelles formes de ségrégation et aboutit à la fin programmée des ghettos. / Baltimore is part of the big American metropolises committed in a race for sustainable development. Traditionally a democratic stronghold, with a majority of city dwellers who are poor Afro-Americans, and harshly battered by the industrial crisis and the economic recession, Baltimore City is the perfect laboratory for urban planning projects experimenting sustainable development. Furthermore, with regard to its economic and demographic characteristics and the importance of segregation in the city, the social dimension of sustainable development and the issue of environmental justice are at stake. Since 2000, the Mayor and the City Council initiated two ambitious projects integrating the various aspects of sustainable development (« sustainability », « livability » and « smart growth »), which are all belonging to « green politics ». These efforts are focused on East Baltimore and West Baltimore, two huge ghettos surrounding the financial district in the downtown area. The core of our analysis concerns two projects of green politics (the rehabilitation of a part of the East Baltimore ghetto through the Grand Piano; the Red Line, a train connecting the ghettos, some industrial wastelands and the Central Business District). Through these examples, we will put under study the types of urban governance and urban regimes at work, and the role played by the different stakeholders (« anchor institutions », philanthropic foundations, public actors and neighborhood associations). New forms of citizenship may appear with unheard modes of participation to sustainable urban planning. Sustainable development may be an opportunity to improve the living conditions in the ghetto and fight against poverty and social and environmental injustices. The seamy side of the story may be a racialization of sustainable development nourishing gentrification, creating new forms of segregation and bringing about the death of the ghettos.

Management practices in the rehabilitation and criminal justice system are primarily concerned with how employees sense, collect, organize, and process information regarding the criminal offender. The purpose of this quantitative study was to measure parole and probation officers' perceptions regarding management support and effectiveness in the workplace, with particular emphasis on communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution. Herzberg's 2-factor theory of motivation served as the theoretical framework for the study, supporting the concept of participatory management as a central factor in job satisfaction. A researcher-designed, Likert-type questionnaire was administered to a randomly selected sample of 31 parole and probation officers in Baltimore County. The sample size was determined using a power analysis for the 2-sample t test. The power analysis was completed with alpha levels of .05, and a .80 level of statistical power. Participants had been employed for at least a year as parole and probation officers who supervised African American criminal offenders. Results from the questionnaires were analyzed using t tests, frequency distribution analysis, and comparison of means analysis, with mixed findings. The majority of participants felt that managers provide a positive overall work environment and effectively communicate with parole and probation officers. At the same time, the majority of respondents also believed that managers do not collaborate with employees and do not resolve conflicts with employees in a timely manner. Possible reasons for these contradictory perceptions are discussed. The study contributes to positive social change by providing leaders with improved methods for measuring parole and probation officers' perceptions regarding managerial support for and effectiveness in the rehabilitation of reentry offenders.

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