Optimizing Green Infrastructure Implementation with a Land Parcel-Based Credit Trading Approach on Different Spatial Scales

Implementing green infrastructure (GI) to reach certain stormwater reduction goal may be a challenging task for some land parcels (LP) in urban areas due to their unfavorable landuse conditions. In this paper, we proposed a capacity/credit trading (CT) method that allows city LPs with favorable landuse conditions to build more GIs than required and trade their extra capacity as monetary credit to LPs with building difficulties; this will allow the whole city area to achieve general stormwater mitigation goal in a more cost effective way. We investigated the effects of CT on cost reduction and (re)distribution of GIs among LPs over different trading scales, and an optimization model was constructed on the basis of different zoning of CT. The model was applied to determine GI distributions among individual LPs in order to minimize the overall cost. With a case study, we demonstrated that, without CT, requiring individual LPs to meet the mitigation goal on their own can be costly, and the cost grows with implementation pressure from storm runoff reduction; engaging CT for GI implementation reduced the cost significantly even at a small trading scale. Our analysis showed that, cost increment for GI implementation can be cut in half by performing CT at a spatial scale of 500–600 m that includes 5–6 LPs; when the CT trading zone is expanded to 1200 m that include 17 LPs, the cost increment can be cut by 3/4. The benefit of CT is obtained by re-distributing GIs among different LPs; but the spatial scale of CT needs to be limited to preserve the virtue of onsite treatment of stormwater with GIs. The proposed approach can be used to take advantage of the city landuse diversities to lower the overall cost of GI implementation for stormwater management.

     

The contract,accounting and trust: A case study of an international joint venture (IJV) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

This paper reports on the results of a case study that examines the effect of the contract and accounting on inter-organisational trust in an international joint venture (IJV). The empirical setting of the research was an IJV relation between a United Arab Emirates (UAE) firm and its western partner. Data were gathered from multiple sources, including documents, observations, interviews and discussions with managers. The paper aims to explore the process of trust development and the role of the contract and accounting in this. We find that trust developed differently for the partners. Moreover the trust concerns of the partners were not the same. Based on this we conclude that trust was not automatically reciprocated. Instead it needs relating to other items such as the contract, accounting and also the institutional environment. The open-book accounting we observed could only be termed ‘partial’ because the western partner had access to the local partner's books but not the vice versa. But this partial open-book accounting created conflicts between the partners. We argue that developing one kind of trust through one particular medium may help one party but may damage the relationship between the partners.     

Testing for short-run money neutrality in a small open economy: The case of Canada

This paper adopts an econometric methodology which is based on standard nested-hypotheses testing in order to test the policy ineffectiveness proposition in the context of the Canadian economy. It thus avoids some problems associated with the non-nested hypotheses framework used by Barro and numerous other writers. The substantial openness of the Canadian economy is taken into account through the use of a Mundell-Flemming aggregate demand side. The supply response of the economy is carefully modelled, in the same context, and the familiar Sargent-Wallace aggregate supply function is derived as a special case of a more general Keynesian function — by assuming instantaneous adjustment of prices to costs. Empirical tests based on a data sample spanning the period of Canada's recent experience with flexible exchange rates are unfavorable to the policy ineffectiveness proposition.     

TND-3000 two-loop water-treatment machine

Translated from Gidrotekhnicheskoe Stroitel'stvo, No. 10, pp. 23–25, October, 1991.     

FACTORS INFLUENCING CHOICE OF DISCIPLINE OF STUDY — ACCOUNTANCY,ENGINEERING, LAW AND MEDICINE

This paper examines the factors which influence high calibre students in their choice of a professional discipline of study. Using a questionnaire approach students were requested to determine the relative importance of eleven factors in their choice of discipline of study. Results showed that accountancy students appeared most concerned with job satisfaction, earnings potential, availability of employment, aptitude for subject and years of formal education, and to have a different, and more distinctive, profile than that of other students. These results may have important implications for recruitment into the profession.     

The Marib dam (History and the present time)

Translated from Gidrotekhnicheskoe Stroitel'stvo, No. 4, pp. 50–55, April, 1991.