Search

Shaping the administrative division of the country is influenced by various factors. Based on the analysis of 22 municipal divorces in Poland between 1995 and 2019 the article attempts to identify the determinant factors of these splits. The article examines environmental (economic or cultural) and political factors which may stimulate the fragmentation initiatives. The results indicate that in Poland cultural factors appear to be at least as important as economic ones. An argument of great significance in the process of a new municipality creation (both in the case of successful and unsuccessful splits) was the memory of the inhabitants about the time when they were operating as a separate municipality. In case of rural municipalities the existence of a second almost equally important population centre in the municipality was an important factor contributing to the municipal splits.

The deficiency of water resources in the Don River Basin is demonstrated along with the administrative division of the basin territory and the population of the Russian Federation as of January 1, 2018. The present-day state of the key participants of the water-management system is analyzed. Data are given to characterize the increase in the availability of central water supply to housing stock in the constituent entities of the federation in basin territory in 2001–2018 and a decrease in the mean daily water consumption by 30–50%. In 2000–2018, the share of water samples with poor sanitary-chemical and microbiological characteristics in water bodies of the first category decreased in all regions except for Rostov oblast and the Republic of Kalmykia. The rural population in the Don Basin receive high-quality water at a far lower level than the urban population. The coefficient of water rotation in the industry all over the Don Basin increased from 64.2 to 85.3% in the period from 1990 to 2018. Since the early 1990s, the area of irrigated lands in the basin started rapidly decreasing. In 2000, only half of the lands requiring irrigation received it; in 2016, the proportion decreased to one quarter.

The activity of the Ufa governor Lev Yegorovich Nord is considered. The scientific novelty of the study is that the activities of the governor are covered on the basis of an analysis of unpublished sources. The author shows that the efforts of the Ufa governor L. Ye. Nord and local authorities implemented a set of measures, most of which had a positive effect on the socio-economic development of the region. It is shown that much attention was paid to the land issue, the preservation of the natural wealth of the Southern Urals, the rights of Bashkir patriarchs to freely alienate their lands. The successful work of L. Ye. Nord in lean years of 1890-1891 is emphasized. The article describes social activities: providing an opportunity for the starving population to earn money for food, introducing quarantine in the province in connection with the cholera epidemic, in particular the isolation of patients in specially designated barracks. It is reported that with the assistance of the governor, a highway was laid, the construction of an elevator in Ufa and a grain barn in Davlekanovo was started. The author comes to the conclusion that the activity of the Ufa governor was aimed exclusively at the good of the Fatherland, brought great benefits to the region, which caused respect for his contemporaries.

The scientific community has been studying for some time a measure capable of quantifying and monitoring the well-being of the population in the territories; this measure cannot be represented exclusively by economic components but also by dimensions that represent different domains of a mainly demographic-social nature. This paper aims to consider well-being from a multidimensional point of view and measure it for the 7983 Italian municipalities in order to highlight differences and similarities. To go down to such a fine territorial detail, it was necessary to use indicators implemented by administrative sources collected in a recently published portal. The application of composite indices allows a one-dimensional measurement that makes a complex phenomenon such as well-being more readable. From a territorial point of view, moreover, the work aims to overcome the administrative division already criticized in literature because it does not allow a reading corresponding to the real behaviors and lifestyles of citizens, embracing a classification more appropriate to the objective of the study. Since the elementary indicators taken into consideration are in some way influenced by reasons of proximity and/or territorial conformation, it was decided to use the classification in Ecoregions of Italy to assess whether the well-being, within the same municipality, “moves” in relation to the municipalities ecologically homogeneous. The results of the analyses present numerous aspects of originality in which the Ecoregions draw an interesting geography of the country.

The urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, which is the second largest urban agglomeration in China, represents a typical land space range of ecological vulnerability in China. Large differences occur in economic development mode between resource- and non-resource-based cities in this basin area. Accurate identification of the evolution and regional differences in the production-living-ecological space (PLES) is very important in order to elucidate the development and utilization of land space in the region. At present, relevant research has largely focused on the classification and determination of PLES temporal and spatial patterns. Temporal and spatial pattern research has mainly considered a single scale of administrative division, whereas fewer studies have analyzed the temporal and spatial patterns and regional differences in the PLES in ecologically fragile natural watersheds. Therefore, based on PLES classification, the regional differences in the PLES between two types of cities in the basin are measured via the Theil index and exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA). First, the ecological space (ES) of these two types of cities in the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River is compressed by the production space (PS) and living space (LS), in which the ES of resource-based cities is compressed for a longer period, and the phenomenon involving PS compression by the LS and ES mainly occurs in non-resource-based cities within the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. Second, the PLES of these two types of cities exhibits the characteristics of spatial aggregation, and high- and low-density areas of the PLES remain relatively stable. Third, the regional differences in the PLES of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River mainly originate from intraregional differences. The PLES of these two types of cities in the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River is more sensitive to changes in economic development than to those in the population distribution.

The article presents estimates of the Transport Spatial Coverage Index (TSCI), which describes the spatial accessibility of the Russian road and rail infrastructure at the regional (85 subjects of the Russian Federation) and municipal (more than 22 thousand municipalities, about 98% of their total number) levels. The obtained results emphasize the spatial heterogeneity of the development of the Russian transport infrastructure both at the level of federal districts and regions, and at the lower municipal level of administrative division. The highest TSCI values were obtained for the European part of the country, while the eastern part of the country is characterized by low indicators of transport infrastructure provision, despite the significant length of the communication lines (for example, railway infrastructure). The ranking of regions by the level of transport provision on the basis of the obtained assessments of the TSCI shows that some regions are relatively ‘farther’ (‘closer’) from each other than can be seen on the basis of other standard indicators, as the TSCI allows to take into account the location of infrastructure in the space, rather than just analyze at some level averaged for each region. At the same time, analysis at the municipal level shows that practically in all regions the average value of the TSCI for the municipalities included in them is higher than the average value of the TSCI at the level of the respective region as a whole. The difference in the assessment of availability of infrastructure at the two levels of detail under consideration is greater the more uneven the administrative division and spatial location of the transport network in the region. Thus, the assessment of the regional TSCI at the expense of formal accounting in its calculation of territories outside municipal entities in which the majority of the population and economic activity is located is to a certain extent underestimated (for example, it is 0.03 for the Krasnoyarskiy Krai as a whole against 0,44 on average for the municipalities that are part of it)

Objetivo do estudo: analisar a governança ambiental em um cenário binacional, mais especificamente nas cidades gêmeas de Ponta Porã (Brasil) e Pedro Juan Caballero (Paraguai), buscando-se identificar as políticas ambientais nacionais dos dois países (ações conjuntas e individuais) e seus impactos/efetividade em um território internacional. Metodologia/abordagem: com abordagem qualitativa, o escopo metodológico inicialmente, baseia-se em aportes teóricos da governança ambiental e complementados com um estudo empírico in loco realizado através de entrevistas semiestruturadas com representantes municipais dos dois países. Originalidade/relevância: a temática ambiental requer a discussão dos efeitos negativos e positivos tanto do crescimento econômico como do urbano-demográfico. Assim, não podem ser negligenciadas as reflexões sobre a interdependência ecológica, seja no âmbito local ou global. Esses desafios são potencializados em territórios localizados na fronteira internacional, especialmente quando caracterizados pela condição de conurbação, como é o caso em epígrafe. Principais resultados: frente à complexidade de um cenário binacional, a descentralização proposta pelos princípios da governança ambiental implica, primeiramente, no rompimento das barreiras políticas, culturais e jurídicas; além disso, constatou-se que é imprescindível que ambos governos atuem juntos visando sensibilizar e fomentar a preocupação ambiental da população. Contribuições teóricas/metodológicas: a governança ambiental em território binacional deve ser planejada e orientada pelos gestores públicos dos dois lados da fronteira, pois negligenciar a complexidade e desafios impostos por essa divisão política e administrativa confere grande inconsistência na efetividade de ações individualizadas. Conclusão: neste cenário binacional, a aplicação dos princípios da governança ambiental faz-se extremamente relevante, mas sua efetividade está condicionada a diferentes fatores.

El artículo muestra un estudio realizado en el marco del proyecto interunidad de la Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica (UNA), titulado: “Las competencias científicas en estudiantes del tercer ciclo (9º) de educación general básica en la Región Central de Heredia circuito 01 y 02 de la Universidad Nacional” (Zúñiga y León 2017) , sobre competencias científicas y mediación pedagógica. Específicamente este escrito se abocó al desarrollo del objetivo caracterizar la mediación pedagógica que utilizan docentes en su práctica cotidiana, para el desarrollo de las competencias científicas en estudiantes de 9º año (de tercer ciclo de educación general básica). La investigación se fundamentó en el paradigma naturalista y una metodología que asume un tipo de investigación mixta, donde se contrastan datos cualitativos y cuantitativos a partir de la utilización de la observación y el cuestionario, para lograr un análisis más profundo. La investigación se efectuó con la colaboración de 17 docentes de ciencias de la Regional de Heredia (división de zonas escolares, que propone el Ministerio de Educación de Costa Rica), anuentes a colaborar, por lo que los resultados obtenidos solo aplican a ese grupo, no se pueden generalizar. Dentro de los principales resultados se resalta que el rol, metodología (estrategias-recursos), acto educativo y evaluación utilizada por el colectivo docente del III ciclo tiende a estar más cercano a un modelo tradicional de enseñanza centrado en la transmisión de conocimientos. De igual forma, se evidencia que dado que la mediación principalmente se centra en el modelo tradicional, se priorizan, en la planificación, evaluación y mediación, conocimientos científicos conceptuales por encima de los procedimentales y actitudinales. This article presents the results of a study conducted within the framework of an interunit project of the National University of Costa Rica (UNA), titled “Las competencias científicas en estudiantes del tercer ciclo (9º) de educación general básica en la Región Central de Heredia circuito 01 y 02” (Zúñiga y León 2017), on scientific competencies and pedagogical mediation. Specifically, this paper focused on the objective of characterizing the pedagogical mediation that teachers use in their daily practice, for the development of scientific competencies in ninth grade students (corresponding to the third cycle of Costa Rican general basic education). The research was based on the naturalist paradigm and a methodology that assumes a type of mixed research design, where qualitative and quantitative data are compared with the use of observation and a questionnaire to achieve a deeper analysis. The research was conducted with the collaboration of 17 science teachers from Heredia School District (the administrative division of school zones proposed by the Ministry of Education of Costa Rica), willing to collaborate; so, to avoid generalizations, the results obtained only apply to that group. Among the main results, it is highlighted that the role, methodology (strategies and resources), educating act, and evaluation used by the teaching group of the third cycle tends to be closer to a traditional teaching model focused on the transmission of knowledge. Likewise, it is evident that, since mediation mainly focuses on the traditional model, conceptual and scientific knowledge is prioritized over procedural and attitudinal one in planning, evaluation, and mediation. O artigo mostra um estudo realizado no âmbito de um projeto inter-unidades da Universidade Nacional da Costa Rica (UNA) titulado: “Las competencias científicas en estudiantes del tercer ciclo (9º) de educación general básica en la Región Central de Heredia circuito 01 y 02” (Zúñiga y León 2017) sobre competencias científicas e mediação pedagógica. Especificamente, este trabalho evocou o objetivo de caracterizar a mediação pedagógica que docentes utilizam na sua prática cotidiana, para o desenvolvimento de competências científicas em alunos do 9º ano (do terceiro ciclo da educação geral básica). A pesquisa baseou-se no paradigma naturalista e uma metodologia que pressupõe um tipo de pesquisa mista, na qual os dados qualitativos e quantitativos são verificados a partir da observação e do questionário, usado para se obter uma análise mais profunda. A pesquisa foi realizada com a colaboração de 17 professores de ciências da Regional Heredia (divisão de zonas escolares, proposta pelo Ministério da Educação da Costa Rica), dispostos a colaborar, de modo que os resultados obtidos se aplicaram apenas a esse grupo, sem poder generalizar. Dentre os principais resultados destaca-se que o papel, a metodologia (estratégias-recursos), o ato educativo e a avaliação utilizadas pelo corpo docente do terceiro ciclo tendem a estar mais próximos de um modelo tradicional de ensino dirigido a transmissão do conhecimento. Da mesma forma, é evidente que, como a mediação se concentra principalmente no modelo tradicional, os conhecimentos conceituais e científicos sobre procedimentos e atitudes são priorizados no planejamento, avaliação e mediação. Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica Centro de Investigación y Docencia en Educación

The adjustment of administrative division is one of the powerful tools used to promote urbanization by the Chinese government in recent decades, and there is little literature to discuss whether the government-led expansion of urban space through city-county mergers can bring about a decline in urban energy intensity. With the multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) method and comprehensive urban datasets, this research investigates the urban energy intensity results of the city-county mergers policy experiment in China from 2000 to 2017. We present evidence that city-county mergers are indeed beneficial in reducing urban energy intensity, and that the energy-saving effect of the policy only starts to become significant in the third year after implementation. We also further adopt a series of robustness tests, such as the counterfactual test, placebo tests and PSM-DID tests to find if this effect still exists. The mechanism test with mediating effects indicates they are potential contributors to the positive effects of mergers with moderate fiscal centralization, population agglomeration and regional integration. We further explore positive effects of mergers, relying on the scientifically design official appraisal system and improve government efficiency.

Background: Russia, then part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (the USSR), introduced compulsory cancer registration in 1953, but a clear overall contemporary description of the cancer surveillance system in Russia is not available. Methods: We summarized historical landmarks and the development of the standards of classification and coding of neoplasms in Russia and described current population-based cancer registries' (PBCR) procedures and practices. Results: Cancer registration is organized according to the administrative division of the Russian Federation. More than 600,000 cases are registered annually. All medical facilities, without exception, are required to notify the PBCR about newly diagnosed cases, and each regional PBCR is responsible for registering all cancers diagnosed in citizens residing in the region. The data collection can be described as passive and exhaustive. Hematological malignancies, brain, and CNS tumors are often not referred to cancer hospitals in some regions, explaining the problems in registering these cancers. Conclusion: Russia's cancer registration system is population-based, and practices seem to be generally internationally comparable. However, coding practices and national guidelines are still outdated and not up to the most recent international recommendations. Further analyses are needed to assess the comparability, validity, completeness, and timeliness of Russia's PBCRs data. publishedVersion

The process of administrative and territorial reform in Ukraine urges most of the population to think about their future because the finalization of the reform stipulates that local governments are independent, and residents are responsible for their territories. To finish the process of administrative reform, it is necessary to efficiently use resources to achieve the ultimate decentralization objective. The paper aims to evaluate the efficiency of decentralization as an essential tool for the socio-economic development of regions. The efficiency of the reform implementation in Ukrainian regions is suggested to be evaluated across the organizational-administrative and budgetary components. The parameters of analysis of the reform implementation efficiency in the regions across the suggested components are systematized. The absence of a consistent relationship between the organizational-administrative and budgetary components is confirmed.

The municipality is a form of local administrative division, mainly used in urbanized areas. In the West, it originated in medieval Europe. Pirenne noted that an important feature of the medieval municipality is the rise of the class of citizen, and a set of special laws and independent urban organization system are developed. Under the special law system, the citizens enjoy privilege which separates them from the rural masses, which constitute substantial majority of the population.

Administrative geography plays a role in reflecting public services to spaces. Increasing administrative geography research will produce important data for detecting and solving the problems related to an administrative division. The aim of the study is to analyze the administrative geography of Ilgaz district and to create data in this field. In this context, the literature has been searched in accordance with the purpose of the study. The borders, current names and numbers of administrative units within the scope of the research have been reached from the relevant public institutions. All the data obtained by revising the boundaries of the village administrative areas of Ilgaz district have mapped and analyzed. Ilgaz has 76 administrative areas, one of which is urban and 75 of which are villages. Although the average population size in the district is 85 people, there are 25 village administrative areas with a total population of fewer than 50 people. The legal entity of some villages with low population needs to be removed., Kamu hizmetlerinin yapılacak planlar çerçevesinde oluşturulmasında ve mekâna yansıtılmasında, yönetsel coğrafya görev almaktadır. Yönetsel coğrafya araştırmalarının artması, yönetsel bölünüşün oluşturulmasında ve oluşturulduktan sonra ortaya çıkan aksaklıkların tespit edilmesi ve giderilmesi açısından önemli çıktılar üretecektir. Çalışmanın amacı Ilgaz ilçesinin yönetsel coğrafya analizini yaparak bu konudaki boşluğu doldurmak ve bu alanda bilgi gereksinimi olan kurum ve kuruluşların istifade edebileceği verileri oluşturmaktır. Bu çerçevede çalışmanın amacına uygun olarak literatür taranarak detaylı bir incelemeye tabi tutulmuştur. Araştırma kapsamındaki idari ünitelerin sınırları, köyler ve bağlılarının güncel ad ve sayılarına ilgili kamu kurumlarından ulaşılmıştır. Ilgaz ilçesine bağlı köy idari alanlarının sınırları revize edilerek sayısallaştırılmış ve elde edilen tüm veriler haritalandırılarak analize tabi tutulmuştur. Ilgaz, biri kentsel 75’i köy olmak üzere 76 idari alana sahiptir. İlçede ortalama nüfus büyüklüğü 85 kişi olsa da toplam nüfusları 50 kişiden daha az olan 25 köy idari alanı vardır. Nüfusu düşük olan bazı köylerin tüzel kişiliğinin kaldırılması gerekmektedir.

International audience; Background - A regional hospital group located in northeastern Brittany (France) won a national call for improving the care provided to children at risk.Objective - Our work analyzed and compared the health paths of children at risk in this administrative territory of the French healthcare system. This work, thanks to its territorial approach, can help to better understand and identify mechanisms for improving the quality of care as well as the mechanisms that contribute to disruptions and inequalities in the access to a Child protection system.Methods - This qualitative study was based on a field analysis where 28 people were interviewed. The inclusion criteria were being: in one of the four domains of child protection (justice, health, social services and education), in one of the five target service areas (n = 21) and an expert in the field of children at risk (n = 7).Results - The results showed that the health pathway of abused children was unequal and followed a silo trajectory, with multiple breaks in the support provided. We found many barriers to multi-professional collaboration: institutional, professional, individual and regional.Conclusion - In terms of recommendations, we underline the relevance of models that promote greater integration. The article ends with a discussion of evidence to this effect.

Background Lymphatic filariasis (LF) is a major public health problem in the Pacific Region, including in Fiji. Through transmission by the mosquito vector Aedes, Fiji has suffered the burden of remaining endemic with LF despite efforts at elimination prior to 1999. In the year 1999, Fiji agreed to take part in the Pacific Programme for Elimination of LF (PacELF) and the Global Programme to Eliminate LF. Methods This study reviewed and collated past data on LF in Fiji between 1997 and 2007. Sources included published papers as well as unpublished PacELF and WHO program meeting and survey reports. Records were held at Fiji’s Department of Health and Medical Services, James Cook University and the WHO office in Suva, Fiji. Results Baseline surveys between 1997 and 2002 showed that Fiji was highly endemic for LF with an estimated 16.6% of the population antigen positive and 6.3% microfilaria positive at that time. Five rounds of annual mass drug administration (MDA) using albendazole and diethylcarbamazine commenced in 2002. Programmatic coverage reported was 58–70% per year, but an independent coverage survey in 2006 in Northern Division after the fifth MDA suggested that actual coverage may have been higher. Monitoring of the program consisted of antigen prevalence surveys in all ages with sentinel and spot check surveys carried out in 2002 (pre MDA), 2004, and 2005, together with knowledge, attitude, and practice surveys. The stop-MDA survey (C survey) in 2007 was a nationwide stratified cluster survey of all ages according to PacELF guidelines, designed to sample by administrative division to identify areas still needing MDA. The national antigen prevalence in 2007 was reduced by more than a third to 9.5%, ranging from 0.9% in Western Division to 15.4% in Eastern Division, while microfilaria prevalence was reduced by almost four-fifths to 1.4%. Having not reached the target threshold of 1% prevalence in all ages, Fiji wisely decided to continue MDA after 2007 but to move from nationwide implementation to four (later five) separate evaluation units with independent timelines using global guidelines, building on program experience to put more emphasis on increasing coverage through prioritized communication strategies, community participation, and morbidity alleviation. Conclusion Fiji conducted nationwide MDA for LF annually between 2002 and 2006, monitored by extensive surveys of prevalence, knowledge, and coverage. From a high baseline prevalence in all divisions, large reductions in overall and age-specific prevalence were achieved, especially in the prevalence of microfilariae, but the threshold for stopping MDA was not reached. Fiji has a large rural and geographically widespread population, program management was not consistent over this period, and coverage achieved was likely not optimal in all areas. After learning from these many challenges and activities, Fiji was able to build on the progress achieved and the heterogeneity observed in prevalence to realign towards a more stratified and improved program after 2007. The information presented here will assist the country to progress towards validating elimination in subsequent years.

The article examines the share of the Russian ethnos in the ethnodemographic structure of the south of Russia for a period of 300 years, and investigates changes in the relative proportion of Russians and representatives of the titular peoples in the respective administrative units over time. The geographical scope of the study covers the North Caucasus region as well as some adjacent territories, taking into consideration the changes that occurred in Russia’s administrative division. In particular, the article is based on the materials of audits and population censuses in the Russian Empire (1897) and the USSR (1926, 1939, 1959, 1970, 1979, 1989) as well as in the Russian Federation (2002, 2010). Methodologically, the present study correlates civilizational approach theory with an empirical study of ethno-demographic processes. The authors advance the theory that civilizational ups and downs correlate with the dynamics of migration by the civilization-forming people, and with their settling in the ethnic periphery. The article argues that in the regional ethnic make-up, the share of Russians, as the civilization-forming people, reflects the region’s degree of integration in the Russian civilizational system. In particular, a clear correlation is visible between the descending phase of the Soviet project and the decrease of representatives of the Russian ethnos in the national and administrative entities of the region. Given that over centuries Russia developed as a multinational state - as a state-civilization kept together by the Russian people at its center - the authors emphasize the need to strengthen Russia’s statehood.

The adjustment of administrative divisions is one of the important factors guiding China’s urbanization, which has profound economic and social effects for regional development. In this paper, we comprehensively describe the process of the adjustment of administrative divisions at provincial and municipal levels in China and summarize the effects on the basic structure and patterns of the spatial development. We quantitatively assess the effects on fields such as urbanization and social economy through the use of multidimensional scaling. The results show that: 1) Upgrading county to municipality (or city-governed district) is the main way of adjusting the administrative divisions. It is also an important factor in the spatial differentiation of interprovincial urbanization. China’s population urbanization can be divided into four patterns including interprovincial migration, provincial migration, natural growth, and growth caused by the adjustment of administrative divisions, which is also the main reason for the increased Chinese urbanization rate at the provincial level. 2) Taking the city of Beijing as an example, we generalize five adjustment patterns made to administrative divisions: the set-up of sub-districts, the set-up of regional offices, the upgrading of townships to sub-districts, the upgrading of townships to towns, and the set-up of towns and the addition of new regional offices. We summarize the municipal urban spatial structure, including the sub-district office area in the central urban area, the regional office area in the new urban area, the mixed area of villages, towns, and sub-district offices in the suburb area, and the township area in the outer suburb area. 3) The adjustment of administrative divisions triggers a significant circulative accumulation effect, resulting in the spatial locking of population and industrial agglomeration. It affects the evolution of the urban spatial form and plays an important role in shaping the urban spatial structure to move to the characteristic of multicenter. In general, the adjustment of administrative divisions was an important factor affecting the inflated statistical level of urbanization and also an important driving force for the evolution of Chinese urban spatial organization structure.

Although the regional competitiveness is essentially related to its economic activity, there is an increasing consensus that competitiveness is best assessed in the context of regional business environment assets such as human capital, innovative capacity, local infrastructure quality, etc. (Huggins, Izushi, Prokop, Thopson, 2014). Thus, the regional competitiveness is not only economic indicators, it is increasingly based on creativity, knowledge and environmental conditions. Competitiveness is a multidimensional term, so soft variables need to be taken into account in order to understand, assess and strengthen regional activity and development. Therefore the purpose of this article is to determine the role of the social model to the increase of the regional competitiveness (Borozan, 2008).The aim of the article is to determine the role of the social model in increasing the competitiveness of the region. In order to achieve the goal, the following objectives are formulated: to analyze social models by identifying their characteristics; to assess the suitability of selected social models for the increase of regional competitiveness; to analyze and evaluate the regional policy in Lithuania. The main methods used are scientific literature analysis, statistical analysis, expert evaluation, descriptive analytical and comparative analysis. The first typology of welfare states models was presented by English political scientist R.Titmuss, who distinguishes three models – marginal (residual) model, which is found in United States and means that the main function of welfare providers lies with the market and family; industrial achievement performance model in Germany based on the level of industry in a country, where the welfare depends and is closely linked to work and productivity; and the institutional-redistributive model usually applied in Scandinavian countries, in which the provision of welfare depends on needs.Subsequently, Danish sociologist G.Esping-Andersen adjusted the classification of social models develop ed by R.Titmuss by adapting it more to the political science, thus identifying three welfare state regimes (models) - liberal, conservative-corporate and social-democratic (redistributive) (Aidukaitė, 2010).These three models differ in the aspects of the organization of social policy, their dependence on the market conditions, their ideology, priorities, the impact on the country’s stratification system, which means the division of society into social strata and the degree of decommodification, defining the person’s liberation from the need to work while maintaining the basic standards of life (material life conditions).Some states quite clearly reflect the typology of G. Esping-Andersen. For example, Germany is an example of a conservative-corporate model, Norway or Sweden is a social-democratic model, while a liberal model is typically found in Anglo-Saxon states. However, there are many states with certain characteristics that are inherent different kind of welfare systems (models). Therefore, in different scientific research the place in the typology of some countries differs because researchers tend to emphasize a particular feature or characteristic that determines the assignment of a state to different types.This article proves, that in order to review the diversity of the whole world, three models are not enough. Given that none of these models do not exist in a pure form. Taking this into account, the main attempts to extend or to adjust the essentially considered as traditional typology by E. Esping-Andersen are presented in this article. Most of such attempts are limited to extending the typology by inserting a fourth or several additional types (models), for example, southern model, Latin region model, European Union model, post-communist states model, etc.As mentioned before, there is a large variety of social models in the world, although only three are considered as main models – liberal (in Anglo-Saxon countries), conservative (in Scandinavian countries) and social-democratic (originating from Germany).In order to determine which one of these three models may be the most competitive in the globalized economy Regional Competitiveness Index published by the European Commission has been analyzed. Regional competitiveness is understood as the ability of a region to offer an attractive and sustainable environment for firms and residents to live and work. The Regional Competitiveness Index consists of eleven indicators (pillars), divided into three groups (dimensions): basic dimension, efficiency dimension and innovation dimension. The Global Competitiveness Report, published by the World Economic Forum, was also detailed analyzed.The countries representing different social models were studied: United States and United Kingdom representing the liberal model, Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway) representing the social-democratic model and Germany representing the conservative model. The research has shown that countries with a liberal social model, compared with other models, have achieved better results in assessing their competitiveness.The particular attention is paid to the case of Lithuania – the social model as well as the development of regional policy in Lithuania have been analyzed with special focus on the decision to divide Lithuania into two regions.Having assessed all the circumstances, it is not yet clear whether the solution of division of Lithuania into two regions can be justified. Such decision was made without proper modeling of socio-economic consequences of the corresponding process. The division of Lithuania into two regions would inevitably mean greater concentration of the population in one, in economic and social sense stronger, more business-intensive and more innovative region. Therefore, the chosen decision of the division of the two regions into Lithuania can not be scientifically considered as unquestionable, consequently more detailed research is needed in order to model the consequences of such an administrative division.

Administrative division adjustment (ADA) is the highest-level design policy for China’s spatial management. Nevertheless, its impacts on urban land use change are still ambiguous, especially in mega-urban agglomerations. This study aims to quantitatively evaluate the mechanism and effects of ADA on the urban expansion patterns of three mega-urban agglomerations in China, i.e., the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, by using geographic detector in conjunction with landscape pattern index. The results showed that ADA has a 10-year “significant impact” for urban expansion: a 0–5 year lag promoted outlying and edge-expansion and a 6–10 year lag accelerated infilling expansion. The ADA determined an average of 12.79%, 7.76%, and 5.04% of outlying, edge-, and infilling expansion during 2000–2018 by stimulating industrial and infrastructure development, guiding population movement and government investment, and accelerating urban renewal and public services equalization, respectively. Moreover, the promotional impacts of ADA gradually shifted from peripheral sprawl during 2000–2012 to infilling expansion during 2012–2018. Due to differences in industrial structure, urbanization, and development degree, ADA’s urbanization effects were heterogeneous in three mega-urban agglomerations. This study helps decision-makers evaluate and formulate differentiated urban planning and land use policy to improve regional urban-rural integration and achieve sustainable development.

This paper investigates youth migration in Russia at the sub-regional level of administrative division. The aim of the research is to assess the volume of internal youth migration in cohort perspective. The task is only doable with the use of census data, which not only makes it possible to conduct research at the sub-regional level, but also provides much more accurate information on youth migration than the current migration record. I utilize cohort-component analysis to study sub-regional population dynamics. As mortality is quite insignificant at young ages, most of the change in cohort size is caused by migration. My estimates show that during the last intercensal period, 2003–2010, up to 70% of youth cohorts have left the regional periphery after graduating from school, and there was no substantial return to the demographically depleted periphery in the young working ages.

BackgroundPrior studies on spatial inequalities in mortality in Russia were restricted to the highest level of administrative division, ignoring variations within the regions. Using mortality data for 2239 districts, this study is the first analysis to capture the scale of the mortality divide at a more detailed level.MethodsAge-standardised death rates are calculated using aggregated deaths for 2008–2012 and population exposures from the 2010 census. Inequality indices and decomposition are applied to quantify both the total mortality disparities across the districts and the contributions of the variations between and within regions.ResultsRegional variations in mortality mask one-third (males) and one-half (females) of the inequalities observed at the district level. A comparison of the 5% of individuals residing in the districts with the highest and the lowest mortality shows a gap of 15.5 years for males and 10.3 years for females. The lowest life expectancy levels are in the shrinking areas of the Far East and Northwest of Russia. The highest life expectancy clusters are in the intercity districts of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and in several science cities. Life expectancy in these best-practice districts is close to the national averages of Poland and Estonia, but is still substantially below the averages in Western countries.ConclusionThe large between-regional and within-regional disparities suggest that national-level mortality could be lowered if these disparities are reduced by improving health in the laggard areas. This can be achieved by introducing policies that promote health convergence both within and between the Russian regions.

Remote-sensing-technology can evaluate ecological environment quickly, objectively and quantitatively. This paper used the remote-sensing ecological model to inverse ecological indexes based on satellite images and basic geographic data in Beijing, China. And then explained causes of such above ecological environment from seven factors, consisting of elevation, land use, geomorphic, soil, gridded population, gridded GDP and administrative division, respectively and their interactions using geographical detector. Results showed that land use, elevation and geomorphic type attributed mostly to such ecological index, whose values is 0.455, 0.446 and 0.407, respectively. Moreover, all pairwise interactions among seven factors nonlinearly enhanced effects on ecological indexes. It indicated that interactions among factors attributed ecological index largely.

The Chilean health authorities have implemented a sanitary strategy known asdynamic quarantineorstrategic quarantineto cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. Under this system, lockdowns were established, lifted, or prolonged according to the weekly health authorities’ assessment of municipalities’ epidemiological situation. The public announcements about the confinement situation of municipalities country-wide are made typically on Tuesdays or Wednesdays before noon, have received extensive media coverage, and generated sharp stock market fluctuations. Municipalities are the smallest administrative division in Chile, with each city broken down typically into several municipalities. We analyze social media behavior in response to the confinement situation of the population at the municipal level. The dynamic quarantine scheme offers a unique opportunity for our analysis, given that municipalities display a high degree of heterogeneity, both in size and in the socioeconomic status of their population. We exploit the variability over time in municipalities’ confinement situations, resulting from the dynamic quarantine strategy, and the cross-sectional variability in their socioeconomic characteristics to evaluate the impact of these characteristics on social sentiment. Using event study and panel data methods, we find that proxies for social sentiment based on Twitter queries are negatively related (more pessimistic) to increases in the number of confined people, but with a statistically significant effect concentrated on people from the wealthiest cohorts of the population. For indicators of social sentiment based on Google Trends, we found that search intensity during the periods surrounding government announcements is positively related to increases in the total number of confined people. Still, this effect does not seem to be dependent on the segments of the population affected by the quarantine. Furthermore, we show that the observed heterogeneity in sentiment mirrors heterogeneity in stock market reactions to government announcements. We provide evidence that the observed stock market behavior around quarantine announcements can be explained by the number of people from the wealthiest segments of the population entering or exiting lockdown.

As an important form of public transport and utilisation of urban underground space (UUS), metro has been promoted in an increasing number of large cities in China. By the end of 2019, China’s 37 cities had developed metro systems with a total length of over 5000 km. It is widely acknowledged that urban and economic factors can significantly influence transport infrastructure development and UUS utilisation. The results of this study indicate that there are statistically significant relationships between urban and economic factors and the level of metro development. The results of the regression analyses show that the variables of metro operation history and general public budget revenue are significantly and positively related to metro operation length, number of lines and number of stations of cities with metros in China. Resident population in urban areas does not appear to be a significant determinant of the level of metro development when other urban economic factors are controlled for. Administrative division (prefecture-level cities) and economic regions (Northeast Region) are significantly and negatively associated with the level of metro development in China. The findings of this study suggest that policy and institutional factors, and operation history of metro, along with urban and economic factors such as economic capabilities, regional differentiation, and administrative divisions, play important roles in influencing the development levels of metro systems in China.

For almost half a century, this collective monograph was the only scientific publication dedicated to the history of Kuzbass. However, accumulated new factual material, together with a significant expansion of the historiographical and source base, requires the preparation of a new monograph. The article states the urgency of the problem, features a source and historiography analysis, settles territorial and chronological framework. The author introduces modern methodological guidelines for the preparation of a new «History of Kuzbass». It should rely on a wide range of sources, its material must be set out precisely and specifically, its main object of study should be society and people; the analysis of previously closed issues (such as self-government, administrative division, activities of religious affiliations, relations between Russian and indigenous populations) should be made significant. Particular attention in the preparation of the new monograph should be given to the formation of the mentality and the conditions of life of the population residing in theterritory o fKuzbass.

This paper examines what to some is a well-worked furrow; the processes and outcomes involved in what is typically referred to as ‘marketization’ in the higher education sector. We do this through a case study of Newton University, where we reveal a rapid proliferation of market exchanges involving the administrative division of the university with the wider world. Our account of this process of ‘market making’ is developed in two (dialectically related) moves. First, we identify a range of market exchanges that have emerged in the context of wider ideological and political changes in the governance of higher education to make it a more globally competitive producer of knowledge, and a services sector. Second, we explore the ways in which making markets involve a considerable amount of microwork, such as the deployment of a range of framings, and socio-technical tools. Taken together, these market-making processes are recalibrating and remaking the structures, social relations and subjectivities, within and beyond the university and in turn reconstituting the university and the higher education sector.

In this work, we elaborate on the changes and transformations in the Israeli education system (including higher education) from Israel’s independence in 1948 to 2019. Specifically, the study places special emphasis on developments commencing in 1976 in response to the establishment of a separate administrative division for Druze and Circassian Education in the Ministry of Education, and division’s impact on the rate of youngsters who earn matriculation certificates and the number of Druze students attending higher education institutions. of the study analyzes the administrative separation of Druze education in the education system and its effect on the integration of Druze youngsters in higher education in Israel. The current study contributes to our understanding of the development of the Druze education system as a distinct unit in the Israeli Ministry of Education. The findings of this study and its conclusions will contribute to policymakers in the Ministry of Education in general, and policymakers concerning Druze education specifically, seeking to improve educational achievements and apply the insights of the current study to other minority groups to which higher education has become increasingly accessible in recent years.

Northeast China has been involved in urban shrinkage, or a decline in the economy and the population in recent years. This paper used population data to identify shrinking cities, analyzed the space-time distribution of urban shrinkage in Northeast China, and then attempted to identify influencing factors. The space-time distribution of the urban shrinkage was measured at the prefecture and district–county levels using data from 2000, 2008, 2010, and 2016. During 2000–2010, nearly 1/3 of prefecture-level units and 1/2 of district–county units experienced urban shrinkage. Moreover, during 2008–2016, the data increased to nearly 8/9 and 3/4. The phenomenon of urban shrinkage is becoming increasingly common in Northeast China. Several significant agglomeration areas have been formed in Daxinganling, Yichun-Heihe, Jiamusi, and Jixi-Qitaihe-Mudanjiang-Yanbian. On the whole, the shrinking areas are expanding. The phenomenon is obvious, particularly in Heilongjiang Province. This paper uses quantitative and qualitative methods to identify influencing factors from regional economic disparities, urbanization processes, industrial structure changes, population structure changes, and administrative division adjustments. The results showed that the secondary and tertiary industrial structure changes and administrative division adjustments had the strongest relevance to urban shrinkage in Northeast China and that this urban shrinkage was mainly influenced by the second industry atrophy caused by the “deindustrialization” of this time. At the same time, the adjustment of regional divisions in Northeast China objectively led to substantial changes in population statistics, which caused population shrinkage in some areas. Urban shrinkage is a process of objective development and an unavoidable and diachronic issue in many cities. The process is complex, and the population changes and economic vitality, in particular, represent a mutual cause-and-effect phenomenon that requires more in-depth research.

Although many urban scholars have reached a consensus that depopulation is the major benchmark by which to define shrinking cities, some scholars have proposed distinct standards for this benchmark, which has caused confusion for those seeking to conduct comparison studies. On the other hand, because of the differences in administrative division systems, cities in different nations have distinct relationships between geographic boundaries and jurisdictional boundaries, as well as varied relationships with their higher and lower level jurisdictions, which makes transnational comparison an arduous and problematic task in urban studies. This study aims to unveil the differences in depopulation processes and in the spatial patterns of depopulation between shrinking cities in China and those in the US. In contrast to the US, whose shrinking cities are well known to a broader audience due to American scholars’ predominance in the academic discussion of shrinking cities, China’s shrinking cities are poorly studied. To enrich the current literature on shrinking cities and provide foundations for a better understanding of Chinese shrinking cities, this study analyzes the historical depopulation processes and their manifestations at different spatial scales of two shrinking cities, one in China (the City of Yichun, Heilongjiang) and the other in the US (Youngstown Metropolitan Area, Ohio). The study reveals differences between the two cases in both their general depopulation processes and their municipalities’ depopulation patterns. Compared with the Youngstown Metropolitan Area, the City of Yichun exhibits a much shorter boom and bust cycle. On the municipality level, the City of Yichun’s high population density municipalities still maintain population stability, while most low-density municipalities have endured drastic population loss in the meantime. In contrast, after the whole region entered its depopulation era, most of Youngstown Metropolitan Area’s high population density municipalities lost population, while most of those low-density municipalities gained population.

This paper investigates the shrinkage patterns and related influencing factors in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region (BTH) and the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) using data from the 5th and 6th national censuses. The permanent resident population, registered population and working population are used to measure the urban shrinkage. The results show the following: (1) nearly twenty percent of cities/countries/districts of BTH and half of YRD present a local shrinkage phenomenon, which is still growing. (2) The shrinkage areas in BTH are primarily mainly located north of Hebei in Zhangjiakou and Chengde, and it has spread to the south central plain of Hebei, while the shrinkage in the YRD presents a spatial agglomeration pattern distributed in Northern Jiangsu, southwestern Zhejiang and most of Anhui province, except Hefei and Wuhu. (3) The shrinkage trajectories in the megacity regions can be classified into five forms: less-developed peripheral shrinking, large city downtown shrinking, industrial and mineral city shrinking, adjustment of administrative division and county/rural/town shrinking. (4) Outflow of population caused by unequal development of the regional economy, urbanization level and urban administrative system contributed to the shrinkage; some western shrinkage included suburbanization, deindustrialization or industrial transformation, whereas demographic shifts only emerged in a small number of large cities’ downtowns and some old industrial and mining cities (towns). (5) Urban shrinkage in China is more complex and should be considered a cumulative and self-reinforcing process, which warrants further investigation.

We undertake an exploration of the economic income (Gross Domestic Product, GDP) of Indian districts and cities based on scaling analyses of the dependence of these quantities on associated population size. Scaling analysis provides a straightforward method for the identification of network effects in socioeconomic organization, which are the tell-tale of cities and urbanization. For districts, a sub-state regional administrative division in India, we find almost linear scaling of GDP with population, a result quite different from urban functional units in other national contexts. Using deviations from scaling, we explore the behavior of these regional units to find strong distinct geographic patterns of economic behavior. We characterize these patterns in detail and connect them to the literature on regional economic development for a diverse subcontinental nation such as India. Given the paucity of economic data for Urban Agglomerations in India, we use a set of assumptions to create a new dataset of GDP based on districts, for large cities. This reveals superlinear scaling of income with city size, as expected from theory, while displaying similar underlying patterns of economic geography observed for district economic performance. This analysis of the economic performance of Indian cities is severely limited by the absence of higher-fidelity, direct city level economic data. We discuss the need for standardized and consistent estimates of the size and change in urban economies in India, and point to a number of proxies that can be explored to develop such indicators., 16 pages, 9 figures

The competence and performance of school administration personnel is very important in achieving school success, especially the performance of individual administration, because of the high individual performance that can affect group performance which will ultimately affect the overall performance of the school organization. The purposes of this research finding is to improve the performance of the less optimal administrative division thus affecting the quality of administrative services provided. This study produced several conclusions and implications, namely there is still a lack of training in developing the infrastructure in administration, planning the development program of administrative staff by preparing training and coaching programs, and including administration in training or seminar. In general, principals must provide services professionally in the field of educational administration in the context of the implementation of the education process effectively and efficiently.

The article addresses the problem of depopulating towns in the postwar period (1946–1990) in Poland. The essence of this study is to highlight the problem rather neglected in scientific research on two levels – empirical and explanatory. In the article, a full inventory of towns, which recorded a decrease in population, in the period, was made on the basis of available statistical sources and relating studies on the issues of population. Due to short-term population swings, only the facts related to depopulation that took place in perspective of the designated research sub-periods were taken into consideration: 1946–1950, 1950–1960, 1960–1970, 1970–1980 and 1980–1990. The analysis was made on the basis of the contemporary administrative division of the country into provinces. The primary purpose of the article was an attempt to answer the question regarding the role of depopulation in the socialist period and the possible connotations of this fact, in relation to population loss reported presently in Polish towns. The starting point was, however, a detailed discussion of conditions of urban depopulation in the socialist period. It was recognized that the understanding of this genetically multifaceted problem should form the basis of interpretation to any generalizations made in relation to the past, present and future demographic changes in Poland and other countries. It was also found that understanding the facts connected with demographic development should be a canon of research conducted with reference to the analysed problems. The raised issue of demographic decrease in Polish towns during the socialist period, falls within such an explanatory model.

The current state of terrestrial broadcasting networks in the Republic of Angola is described. It is shown that the existing broadcasting network is an analog network, which uses mainly MF, HF and VHF ranges, does not allow to receive public broadcasting programs throughout its territory. Transmitter service areas in each frequency range are presented, along with their territorial distribution features in the Republic of Angola. The ways of transition to digital broadcasting are defined, taking into account the documents adopted by the Government of the Republic of Angola, the administrative division, the existing topology of the broadcasting network, natural and climatic conditions, and the peculiarities of population distribution across the territory of the Republic of Angola.

The uneven distribution of centres in settlement systems and the non-homogeneity of social-economic space are the stimuli for the existence of spatial interactions. The interactions, that manifest the changes in their intensity with an increasing distance from a centre, can be described by distance-decay functions. This paper presents the construction, analysis and typology of distance-decay functions for regional centres of Slovakia using the daily travel-to-work flow data. Apart from an estimation of individual distance decay functions for each centre, a universal distance-decay function is also constructed through more sophisticated statistical analyses, where not only distance is the input parameter, but also the population of a centre. The resulting distance-decay functions have a wide range of uses in spatial interaction modelling (commuting, transportation, etc.). They also define the range of spatial influence of regional centres and therefore they can be used, for example, in proposals and revisions for the administrative division of a territory.

This article discusses issue relating to the current administrative division of Poland, as it seems there are more arguments emerging that make such a discussion of a possible amendment necessary. In recent times there has been yet-further conditioning of the situation as regards anticipated depopulation and a weakening economic base, with more functions expected to be lost by some urban centres. In these circumstances it is worth offering examples of how use may be made of the gravity analysis to show what possibilities for optimisation may exist. The article refers in particular to elaborations by D. Sokolowski (2014) and Ł. Zaborowski (2014a) which concern the administrative division of Poland at the level of the voivodship (province-region). The background to the discussion is an administrative division of Poland that has now been in place for more than 15 years, making it possible for a comprehensive assessment of its impact on wider economic and social life to be made. There are three main reasons why such an assessment ought to be critical. First, the effects of reforms and adopted administrative-territorial solutions seem not to be satisfactory, or at least are less so than expected (as regards the division of competences, and the numbers and sizes of individual units). Second, there is the polarising nature of the country’s current development, which is assessed negatively. And the third relevant factor is then the expected intensification of the depopulation process in Poland, with further deterioration of the age structure to the Polish population, an associated decrease in revenues to territorial units of administration and a consequent need to further optimise public services. All these factors make plainer the need for a discussion regarding optimisation of the country’s administrative division. It seemed clear from the outset that gravity analysis might prove a useful method of optimisation. The assumption is that the determination of the number and designation of areas belonging to or affiliated with major settlement centres can involve consideration being given to natural gravitation, as related to a physical understanding of relevant socio-economic impacts. If a given unit experiences greater attraction to another, their legal and administrative linkages may denote, not only greater spatial and functional cohesion, but also a greater possibility of synergies, benefits of cooperation, and so on, arising. The analyses made use of a classic gravitation model with a matrix of cities/towns together with Poland’s units of local-government administration at gmina level (as aggregated in the case of the Upper Silesian conurbation and the Tri-City (GdanskGdynia-Sopot), as well as the urban and rural gminas sharing the same seats). Adopted to give the assumed weight was a synthetic index composed in equal proportions of the size of the population and the number of enterprises. Analyses were then performed in relation to two issues: the optimal number of highest-order units and ranges of impact or influence. Analyses drawing on the aforesaid gravity analysis point to the sub-optimal nature of both the number of first-tier administrative units and their boundaries as delineated currently. For example, it may be concluded that a division of Poland more justified than the present one involving 16 voivodships (province-regions) would comprise 14 units at this level (i.e. a reduced number) or else 18-20 (an increase).

The process of agricultural collectivization and formation of collective farm villages[1] started in 1948. There was started an intensive expropriation of land, the intensification of mechanization as well as concentration of the production of agricultural commodities; there was initiated the development of the villages for the newly organized collective farms. During the Soviet period, all villages were classified according to the number of the population in the villages, spheres of control, social and production potential. (Bielinskis F. Stanevicius St.,). Within the development of new large farming centres, the other classification of new villages was introduced according to the functions and administrative division. (The Administrative Territorial...of the Republic of the Soviet Lithuania ..., 1972). The central and secondary villages developed as the derivative structures of the collective farming system or as the principal urban formations. The process of collectivization itself in rural areas together with the industrialization in towns had to serve the increase of economy in the Soviet Union. Afterwards, all the processes related to collectivization significantly slowed down and finally in the nineties of the previous century, were doomed to fail together with the collapse of the Soviet Union. A huge number of the former existed collective farm villages as well as rather dense location of them throughout the whole territory of the country indicate the impact of those villages on the urban and land management framework of the country. Heretofore, every collective farm village turned to be a guarantee of employment for the population residing in the village because in each collective farm village there were economic-industrial buildings and goods were manufactured by an abundant work force. At present, when a great number of the buildings have been abandoned, the villages have confronted with the urgent problem of unemployment which has caused social problems. The mentioned above problems have derived from one aspect, i.e., the loss of the function of the former collective farm villages. In case, a newly derived function could be provided for those villages, there might be solved the issues of unemployment, neglected buildings, impoverishment of the landscape, demographic decline of the population in those rural areas as well as certain social economic problems could be solved.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sace.19.2.18426

After the devastating earthquake, the earthquake emergency personnel need to get the detailed geographical information of the epicentral position in the first time, including the location of the epicenter, the administrative division of the earthquake area, the traffic, the population, the economy, the terrain, the active fault distribution, the historical earthquake and many more. The traditional approach is presented in the form of data from the Earthquake Response Base database and the production of thematic maps (two-dimensional floor plans), but it cannot describe and express the elevation of the ground and the height of the ground. Based on this, emergency rescue decision-makers on the location of the epicenter of the spatial cognitive constraints, affecting decision-makers on the field of information to determine, and thus affect the efficiency of earthquake emergency rescue work. Based on the three-dimensional symbols of seismic emergency, this paper summarizes the technical process of 3D emergency map of seismic emergency based on GIS, and realizes the threedimensional display of seismic emergency information on two-dimensional medium, Hoping to provide more realistic and more accurate mapping services for earthquake emergency rescue decision makers.

Background: Undernutrition among mothers and children is currently a major public health and development concern in Bangladesh. In literature relating to nutritional determinants, of particular interest is the geography, as regions with poor nutrition tend to pull down the overall nutritional status of the country. As such, reducing the regional gap can alone reduce overall undernutrition significantly, especially when regional gaps are high. The aim of this study is, therefore, to assess the magnitude of inequalities in undernutrition in children aged under 5 years in Bangladesh and their mothers, and relate this to the administrative divisions of the country. Methods: The Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys (1996–1997, 1999–2000, 2004 and 2007) were the sources of data, and a total of 16 278 mother–child pairs whose records were complete for the required individual and household-level variables were included in the analysis. Maternal nutritional status was measured by the body mass index (BMI). Weight-for-age, height-for-age and weight-for-height z-scores were calculated by use of the World Health Organization (WHO) Child Growth Standards to assess the nutritional status of children aged under 5 years. General linear model, sequential linear and multinomial logistic regression analyses were done to assess the inequalities in maternal and child nutritional status among the six administrative divisions of Bangladesh. Socioeconomic variables that were controlled for were residency, education and occupation of the mothers and their husbands, house type and possession score in the household. Results: Maternal BMI and prevalence of underweight, stunting and wasting in children aged under 5 years were found to vary significantly according to administrative division. Of the six divisions, Sylhet was found to have highest prevalence of undernourished mothers and children. The trends from 1996 to 2007 also established Sylhet as the poorest-performing region overall. Conclusion: The Sylhet administrative division needs specially focused attention from policy-makers if the overall performance of the health, nutrition and population sector is to reach the targets set by the country.

This paper looked at the barriers to ICT integration in teaching practices from the perspective of Chinese early childhood teachers in Mainland China. A total of 46 Chinese early childhood teachers in Mainland China participated in this study. They were from three early childhood settings located in three different cities in terms of the administrative division. A self-designed questionnaire was adopted as the research instrument. It was found that a range of first-order barriers, which included lack of hardware (laptops, notebooks, and computers), lack of teaching content and material, as well as lack of pedagogical models were perceived as main barriers by the teachers. However, several second-order barriers, such as lack of teachers' interest, and lack of teachers' support were perceived as the least main barriers. Furthermore, the variable "ICT use in daily life" was found play an important role in determining the teachers' perceptions of barriers both on the overall level and on the specific level. Several recommendations for future practices and research were also provided.

Building on goal-regulation theory, we develop and test the hypothesis that proactive goal generation fosters individual innovative work behavior. Consistent with a resource-based perspective, we further examine two-three-way interactions to assess whether the link between proactive goal generation and innovative behavior is jointly moderated by organizational affective commitment and production ownership, or, alternatively, leader support for innovation. In a sample of 442 municipal employees from the administrative division of an Italian city hall, proactive goal generation was positively associated with innovative work behavior. Additionally, as expected, this relationship was stronger when employees were highly affectively committed to their organization and when they exhibited a high level of production ownership or received extensive support for innovation from their supervisors. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

This chapter provides: (1) an overview of the statistical systems and methods of maintaining population statistics in the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation: (2) population statistics in territorial units comparable to the Russian Federation based on primary materials; and (3) a general view of long-term population dynamics from the late imperial era to the new Russian Federation. There is a large gap between research dealing with population during the imperial period and that which examines the period after the October Revolution, since few studies utilized primary data in investigating population figures of the imperial era.

This chapter highlights a small-scale green water environment social economic system in the context of the New Normal for China’s urban-rural integration. A literature review of water environment social economic system was carried out and included a discussion of a small- and medium-sized urban coordinated development theory on land and infrastructure aspects relative to Jiaxing’s location, scale, and administrative division. Jiaxing is a prefecture city with a population of four million, located in Yangtze River Delta of Eastern China within Zhejiang province, between the cities of Shanghai and Hangzhou, and belongs to a typical area of river network. Furthermore, water governance and rural non-point source pollution due to intensive livestock breeding in the south of Yangtze River region, especially due to a recent incident involving diseased pigs, were comprehensively analyzed. Finally, recommendations on green environment social economic system for urban-rural integration in China were proposed.

Changes in Population and Economy in Śląskie Voivodship in the Context of the Suburbanization Process This paper attempts to determine and describe suburbanization stages (especially in the context of political-economic transformations and population changes) and also, to verify classical models of urbanization stages as a system of concentric zones, basing on historical process of development of complex settlement systems of Katowice voivodship (according to the former administrative division), i.e., Katowice conurbation, Rybnik agglomeration, Bielsko-Biała agglomeration, and Częstochowa agglomeration. The analysis includes the population number and the balance of migration between 1975 and 2008, as well as the number of entities of national economy between 1995 and 2008. Every settlement system was divided into its core, such as the main city or a group of cities, and its surrounding area, comprising urban and rural municipalities directly neighbouring the core. The calculations included absolute single-base increments and chain increments.The analysis showed that the historical processes of urbanization of the Śląskie voivodship reveal significant variations in the way they were shaped in comparison with model-based approaches included in the literature of the subject matter. The agglomeration of Częstochowa is the closest to the concentric model, consisting of urbanization, suburbanization and deurbanization, whereas the remaining settlement systems reveal bigger or smaller differences. Variations between analyzed settlement systems reveal themselves also in contemporary times. The rate of population growth and migration balances divide the systems into different stages of maturity of suburbanization. The earliest were discovered in the Katowice conurbation. As much as the rate of population changes and migration balances significantly differentiated the core areas in comparison with their surroundings, the differences were less obvious in the aspect of business growth rate. This results from the fact that the core areas still retain the majority of workplaces. An increase of business activity around the surrounding areas remains selective, both as to the kind and space, revealing somehow higher rate as far as the agglomeration of Bielsko-Biała is concerned.

PurposeThis paper aims to report on how an Administrative Division at a research‐intensive Australian university utilised feedback data from the Learning and Growth Survey, to initiate changes.Design/methodology/approachThis paper refers to the actions taken by the Administrative Division to the results obtained from the Learning and Growth Survey. The questionnaire items are based on the “Balanced Scorecard” system outlined by Kaplan and Norton in 1996. It consists of a number of items identified as integral to effective growth and learning strategies for staff‐development. The questionnaire seeks staff perceptions of the individual items and how their needs are met in the current University management practices.FindingsThe results of this survey indicate that employees were willing to provide practical feedback on a range of dimensions, which they felt would assist improvement of their development and growth opportunities. Further, this paper demonstrates that in any exercise which involves collecting information on staff perceptions, staff not only expect that the data would be utilized constructively, but also that the institution would also make practical changes based on their feedback and that they would be informed about these changes.Practical implicationsThis survey revealed that some of the feedback obtained from participants had limitations as to what actions could be taken within the Administrative Division because of the ramifications for institutional budgets. However, issues related to improvement of the learning and growth environment were possible to address through practical changes within the bounds of the Division's budget. Further, when conducting similar surveys among university staff, it is essential that anonymity of the participants is ensured. It is also vital that the purposes, outcomes, proposed actions and progress in implementation of these actions are well communicated to all the staff.Originality/valueA growing number of tertiary institutions have recently started conducting surveys among their staff concerning the staff satisfaction with their work in the organisation(s). Despite this growing number of employee surveys, there is a lack of academic literature available describing how such surveys are conducted and the issues that institutions face when designing, implementing and evaluating these surveys. From the available information, it was also unclear what aspects of employee experience these surveys cover and whether they focus on staff learning and development. Therefore, this paper attempts to make a step in that direction by describing an employee survey regularly conducted among staff within administrative units at a large Australian University.

The physical and functional growth of Spanish cities has been very intense over the past decades. This has brought about the appearance of the metropolitarisation phenomenon in a large number of cities, which, nevertheless, has not been paralleled with the formation of organizations able to manage this new spatial reality. This has produced a large number of malfunctions and problems in the administration of public services. In this analysis, the main problems that are derived from the maladjustment between the metropolitan space, as a geographical unit, and the territorial management formulas will be presented. And, secondly, an assessment of Spanish experience in the area of metropolitan management will be carried out. The city as a physical and functional organization has acquired new forms of growth over the past few decades. The traditional ways of defining a city have given way to new realities, which change very quickly, and make them become very complex spaces. Nevertheless, political- administrative structures evolve at a much slower pace, making management and planning notably more difficult, and introducing certain contradictions between the process of physical expansion and the systems of government. Even though terms such as governing, cooperation or management innovation are becoming more and more frequent in the speeches of politicians and technicians, the reality of the case of Spain and in other countries that surround Spain is that the basic administrative division, and the municipality artificially fragments the city as a physical and functional unit. Attempts to define the main urban-metropolitan agglomerations and many other cities, independent of their sizes, are based on an inadequate local policy framework. The new urban culture advances towards the substitution of the compact city models by new forms of a dispersed city, starting with the spread of one unit family residential models and a more extensive use of space (1). The dispersion of work centres (both tertiary and industrial) throughout the suburbs must also be recognized. Linked to this process of change are new issues, which urban managers must solve include: people mobility, consumption of land, and transport management. Thus, we are witnessing the substitution of the idea of the city as a delimited unit, defined by precise limits, by concepts such as metropolitan area, and urban functional region", which define interaction spaces between a territory integrated by a reference urban center and other population nucleus placed in its surrounding zone of influence. Another frequently used concept is that of city region (2) where the city and its hinterland are seen as a social and functional unit.

Vulnerability assessments have become necessary to increase the understanding of climate-sensitive systems and inform resource allocation in developing countries. Challenges arise when poor economic and social development combines with heterogeneous climatic conditions. Thus, finding and harmonizing good-quality data at local scale may be a significant hurdle for vulnerability research. In this paper we assess vulnerability to climate change at a local level in Ecuador. We take Ecuador as a case study as socioeconomic data are readily available. To incorporate the spatial and temporal pattern of the climatic variables we use reanalysis datasets and empirical orthogonal functions. Our assessment strategy relies on the statistical behavior of climatic and socioeconomic indicators for the weighting and aggregation mechanism into a composite vulnerability indicator. Rather than assuming equal contribution to the formation of the composite indicator, we assume that the weights of the indicators vary inversely as the variance over the cantons (administrative division of Ecuador). This approach captures the multi-dimensionality of vulnerability in a comprehensive form. We find that the least vulnerable cantons concentrate around Ecuador’s largest cities (e.g. Quito and Guayaquil); however, approximately 20 % of the national population lives in other cantons that are categorized as highly and very highly vulnerable to climate change. Results also show that the main determinants of high vulnerability are the lack of land tenure in agricultural areas and the nonexistence of government-funded programs directed to environmental and climate change management. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40064-015-1536-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Cemeteries are not just burial sites. They mirror the development of a society and carry identity value. The way cemeteries are located and arranged may suggest former administrative boundaries, population dynamic s and other aspects of past life. This article gives an overview of civic cemeteries in Estonia, focusing mainly on the determinants of location pattern of burial places since the end of the eighteenth century. The principal aim is to provide a comprehensive database and typology of Estonian cemeteries based on historic and religious characteristics. As a result of the analysis of location criteria a number of key factors determining the network of cemeteries were detected. The se included legislation, administrative division, religion, regional economic peculiarities, population movements, and traditions.

The relationship between an ethnicity and different phases of integration (adaptation, acculturation, assimilation) of the Serbian ethnic community in Timisoara is being discussed in various historical periods (the Turkish, Austro-Hungarian and Romanian periods), with an emphasis on an administrative division, space segregation and social mobility of the Serbian population. The analysis shows that the Serbs in Timisoara have been exposed to various kinds of acculturation and assimilation which have sometimes been aggressive, resulting in decrease of the Serbian population. In spite of these facts, the Serbs are nevertheless solidly integrated in the socio-economic life of the city, preserving at the same time, specific cultural characteristics and maintaining a network of institutions of various kinds that affect social life of the community, at the level of the city and the state.

Aim: A cluster randomized cross-sectional survey to assess the prevalence of disability and access to support services was conducted in Albay Province, the Philippines in April 2016. Method: The population-based survey methodologies developed by the Washington Group of the United Nations Statistical Commission and UNICEF were utilized. A sample of 70 barangays (the 3 rd level administrative division in the Philippines) was selected as clusters, with probability proportional to size, and 30 households were selected randomly in each barangay to be surveyed. Results: The estimated prevalence of disability using the standard criteria of the Washington Group and UNICEF among children (2-17 years old) was 2.0% and for adults (≥18 years old) it was 6.5%. The estimated prevalence of disability was higher in rural than in urban areas. Deficiencies in the performance of existing services were identified; access by children with disabilities to support services was lowest in rural highland and rural plain barangays. Conclusions : There was a large unmet demand for support services addressing the needs of persons with disabilities in Albay Province, especially in rural highland areas. Persons with disabilities were disadvantaged in access to education and employment; many had not been educated in their basic rights. Implications: To identify, educate and fully support persons with disabilities, community-based rehabilitation (CBR), health and other rehabilitation services must communicate effectively with each other, their current work should be mapped and analysed, their comparative strengths identified, and their future work coordinated. It is a priority to educate persons with disabilities and their families about their rights, and facilitate their access to support services; this requires increased investment in communication targeting persons with disabilities and the communities, especially rural. Providers caring for persons with disabilities need to work in partnership to identify unreached persons with disabilities. Prevalence surveys, with stronger focus on the profiles and performance of CBR and related services, would add to the evidence-base to improve the quality and coverage of services for persons with disabilities.