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Public–private partnerships (PPPs) and sustainability have received considerable attention in delivery and execution of transportation infrastructure projects in the United States. Existing sustainability rating tools are neither designed nor suitable for PPPs due to unbalanced weights among the triple bottom line (TBL) of sustainability and the lack of additional considerations beyond the TBL. This study proposes and validates an integrated sustainability assessment framework that aims to capture all of the relevant and important decision factors in terms of assessing the sustainability of PPP highway projects in a comprehensive manner. Through literature review, semistructured interviews, and questionnaire surveys featuring Delphi and analytic hierarchy process techniques, a list of applicable assessment factors (five dimensions, 18 indicators, and 65 subindicators) and their respective weights and priorities were identified. Based on these assessment factors, the proposed framework seeks to determine PPP projects’ level of achievement in terms of sustainable practices. The framework was validated for its applicability and usability for US PPP highway projects through an online survey. Results show that the economic/ financial dimension is the most important dimension for highway PPP experts, followed by contractual, technical, environmental, and social dimensions in descending order by relative importance. This calls for additional attention to be paid to environmental and social sustainability considerations in PPP highway projects. Meanwhile, the results also reflect an urgent need for improved sustainability planning and awareness among stakeholders of PPP highway projects [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative capacity is central to long-term problem-solving success and poses a challenge for public management scholars—How does one measure collaborative capacity? The authors treat collaborative capacity as an outcome and develop a multidimensional collaborative capacity assessment framework that measures whether capacity is enhanced, stays the same, or is diminished. The framework is applied to two collaborations involving endangered species in the United States. Although traditional measures of compliance show little difference, the full framework finds a stark contrast in long-term problem-solving capacity. One case evinces high overall capacity, whereas the second case registers low, even diminished, capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cigarette smoking causes many human diseases including cardiovascular disease, lung disease and cancer. Novel tobacco products with reduced yields of toxicants compared to cigarettes, such as tobacco-heating products, snus and electronic cigarettes, hold great potential for reducing the harms associated with tobacco use. In the UK several public health agencies have advocated a potential role for novel products in tobacco harm reduction. Public Health England has stated that "The current best estimate is that e-cigarettes are around 95% less harmful than smoking" and the Royal College of Physicians has urged public health to "Promote e-cigarettes widely as substitute for smoking". Health related claims on novel products such as 'reduced exposure' and 'reduced risk' should be substantiated using a weight of evidence approach based on a comprehensive scientific assessment. The US FDA, has provided draft guidance outlining a framework to assess novel products as Modified Risk Tobacco Products (MRTP). Based on this, we now propose a framework comprising pre-clinical, clinical, and population studies to assess the risk profile of novel tobacco products. Additionally, the utility of this framework is assessed through the pre-clinical and part of the clinical comparison of a commercial e-cigarette (Vype ePen) with a scientific reference cigarette (3R4F) and the results of these studies suggest that ePen has the potential to be a reduced risk product., (Copyright © 2017 British American Tobacco Ltd. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)