No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Habitat selection by, ecological energetics of, and the effects of changes in white pine (Pinus strobus L.) forests on Red Crossbills (Loxia curvirostra) were studied in Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario. Birds were surveyed in several forest habitats and daily activities were observed during the breeding season in the autumn of 1998, a good year for white pine seed production. During the autumn of 1997 and summer of 1998, surveys of white pine stumps from trees harvested in the mid-late 1800s were conducted. Breeding birds foraged in stands with a minimum of 40% white pine, and appeared to prefer stands, both mixed deciduous-coniferous (40--70% white pine) and pine (>70% white pine) along roads. Possible reasons for this were: (1) seeds from trees along the road were more available to birds; (2) open-grown trees along the road had larger crowns with more seeds; and (3) the road provided grit and was adjacent to a favorite foraging area. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

No description available.

Magister Legum - LLM / South Africa

Thesis (M.Dev)--University of Limpopo, 2007. / This study is the first of its kind in the Limpopo Province, consequently, much of its literature focus on Strategic Planning in general. The researcher was motivated to undertake this study due to the manner in which departments were producing Strategic Plans. Different formats were used in departments, Strategic Planning was treated as an add-on activity to personnel, and there is also the lack of alignment and integration between the Strategic Plans and PGDS. The objective of the study is to asses the existing capacity of departments to perform Strategic Planning functions that will inform growth and development in the province; to asses the level of compliance with the Medium Term Strategic Framework; and to recommend strategies to enhance Strategic Planning capacity in departments, thereby ensuring alignment with PGDS. This study, thus examines the capacity of all departments, including the Office of the Premier, to implement the objectives of the PGDS, with specific focus on the Strategic Plans, the type and number of human resources available to perform the duties of Strategic Planning. The researcher follows a qualitative approach. Questionnaires, which comprised both closed and open–ended questions, were e-mailed to 11 provincial department in Limpopo Province and the target respondents were planners, Chief Financial Officers and workstudy officers. Discussions and interviews were conducted with Heads of Departments and Planners, respectively. The results from the SPSS reconciled with the qualitative analysis on open-ended questions show that there is limited planning capacity in the majority of provincial departments in the Limpopo Province. Further research is required with regard to project-specific strategic planning that supports the achievement of the PGDS. / Office of the Premier (Limpopo Government)

China is moving towards a market economy. The greater use of market forces has made China richer, accelerated modernisation and increased productive efficiency but has created new problems, including, in the health sector, problems of inequity and allocative inefficiency. From 1997, the Chinese government committed to a national policy of regional health planning (RHP), as part of a broader commitment to harmonising social and economic development. However, RHP has been slow to impact on the equity and efficiency problems in health care. Planning requires information; better health decision-making requires better health information. Information systems constitute a resource that is vital for the health planning and the management of the health system. Properly developed, managed and used, health information systems are a highly cost-effective resource for the nation and its regions. Bureaucratic resistance, one of critical reasons is that regional health planners gained insufficient support from information system. Health information needs to adopt into the new way of government health management. The objective of the study is to contribute to the development of China�s health information system (HIS) over the next 5-10 years, in particular to suggest how provincial health information systems could be made more useful as a basis for RHP. The existing HIS is examined in relation to its support for and relevance to RHP, including policy framework, institutional structures and resources, networks and relationships, data collection, analysis, quality and accessibility of information as well as the use of information in support of health planning. Data sources include key informant interviews, a questionnaire survey and various policy documents. Qualitative (questionnaire survey on provincial HIS) and quantitative (key informant interviews) approaches are used in this study. Document analysis is also conducted. The research examines information for planning within the macro and historical context of health planning in China, in particular having regard to the impacts and implications of the transition to a market economy. It is evident that the implementation of RHP has been retarded by poor performance of information system, particularly at the provincial level. However, the implementation of RHP has also been complicated by fragmented administrative hierarchies, weak implementation mechanisms and contradictions between different policies, for example, between improved planning and the encouragement of market forces in health care. To support RHP which is needs based, has a focus on improving allocative efficiency and is adapted to the new market development will require new information products and supports including infrastructure reform and capacity development. Provincial HIS needs to move from being data generators and transmitters to becoming information producers and providers. Health planning has moved to greater use of population-based benchmark and demand-side control. Therefore, information products should be widened from supply side data collection (in particular assets and resources) to include demand-side collection and analysis (including utilisation patterns and community surveys of opinion and experience). The interaction between users (the planners) and producers (the HIS) should be strengthened and regional networks of information producers and planners should be established.

The writer set out to evaluate the extent to which the Boards of Governors of six provincial high schools in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea were conforming with the provisions of the 1970 Education Act and subsequent Departmental directives. Interviews were conducted with senior officers of the Department of Education, members of the Boards of the six schools and Mission Agency personnel. Board meetings were observed by the writer and records of past meetings and Departmental files were examined. The writer has traced the development of community participation and the sharing of decision making in Papua New Guinea education up to 1970 when school Boards were established by the Education Act, as well as subsequent developments in the relationship between the Department of Education and Boards of Governors. Histories of the six schools used as case studies are given, including accounts of the establishment and development of their Boards of Governors. In only one function, student discipline, did the Boards appear to have a largely executive role. This function was regarded by most Board members as being the area in which their Boards did their most important work. In some of the other functions listed in the Act and in subsequent directives, the Boards' role was found to be only a partially executive one or an advisory or critical one. With some of the functions assigned to them, there was little or no involvement by the Boards. Although the Boards have continued to be viable and to contribute to the effective running of their schools, they were not being used to their full potential and there was a need for their relationship with emerging Provincial Governments to be defined. The writer collected suggestions for improvements in the operations of the Boards from the people interviewed and made further suggestions based on his own observations.

Understanding the determinants of employment growth is important in light of the concentration of population and employment in urban centres. As economic activity concentrates, smaller urban centres, and rural areas and towns find themselves at a growing disadvantage. Yet not all small urban or rural towns share the same experience. Moreover, not all urban centres grow significantly. It is thus of academic interest to discover more precisely what the employment growth determinants are.<p>Another aspect of employment growth is the particular source of employment change. Employment growth is not single-dimensional, but it has four components (growth from firm births and business expansions; and decreases from firm deaths and business declines), each of which may have unique determinants. Thus, in investigating the determinants of employment change, it is important to recognize the businesses life cycle and test whether the key influences vary over that life cycle. <p>This study empirically estimates the determinants of employment growth and assesses their role and relative importance in a communitys job growth. The major determinants include industrial composition, human capital, spatial variables and policy variables. The study is carried out at two levels: sub-provincial and provincial and covers the years 1983-1999. Two econometric methods of estimation are applied, random effects and fixed effects. <p>An important finding is that there are significant differences among the four components of employment change. This implies that when we simply examine overall employment growth we are masking very different effects that the determinants of employment change have among the four components of job growth. At the community level industrial diversification assists the growth of expanding firms and boosts employment due to the establishment of new businesses. On the other side, communities that have high industrial concentration experience lower employment losses from declining and exiting firms. Regions with a higher share of population that has received some post secondary education have, ceteris paribus, higher job growth rates. Another finding is that the farther away a community is situated from a large Census Metropolitan Area, the less employment growth it has. These results offer significant refinements to undifferentiated employment change findings.