Curriculum has become a core element of universities' competitive positioning, internationally and nationally. This paper presents a longitudinal analysis of policy processes and outcomes associated ...with 'radical' university curriculum reforms that resulted in divergence from institutions' own historical patterns and national conventions and traditions. The empirical investigations draw on a policy trajectory conceptual framework and focus on how two research-intensive Australian universities navigated global-local policy flows throughout their curriculum transformations. Findings revealed that each reform project manifested proactive policy learning and, ultimately, agency, as global and national influences were articulated into local contexts, with the effect of 'breaking the mould' of relatively standardised university curriculum provision in Australia. At the same time, the analyses revealed a similar pattern of intensified bureaucratisation of curriculum governance within the two universities, as well as the compromising of initial reform objectives in key curriculum areas such as interdisciplinarity, internationalisation and so-called twenty-first-century skills.
Oral anticoagulants are prescribed for stroke prophylaxis in patients with atrial fibrillation, which is the most common heart arrhythmia worldwide. The vitamin K antagonist (VKA) warfarin is a ...long-established anticoagulant. However, newer direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) have been recently introduced as an alternative. Given the prevalence of atrial fibrillation, anticoagulant choice has substantial clinical and financial implications for healthcare systems. In this study, we explore trends and geographic variation in anticoagulant prescribing in English primary care. Because national guidelines in England do not specify a first-line anticoagulant, we investigate the association between local policies and prescribing data.
Primary care prescribing data of anticoagulants for all NHS practices from 2014 to 2019 in England was obtained from the ePACT2 database. Public formularies were accessed online to obtain local anticoagulation prescribing policies for 89.5% of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). These were categorized according to their recommendations: no local policies, warfarin as first-line, or identification of a preferred DOAC (but not a preferred anticoagulant). Local policies were cross-tabulated with pooled prescribing data to measure the strength of association with Cramér's V.
Nationally, prescribing of DOACs increased from 9% of all anticoagulants in 2014 to 74% in 2019, while that of warfarin declined accordingly. Still, there was significant local variation. Across geographical regions, DOACs ranged from 53 to 99% of all anticoagulants. Most CCGs (73%) did not specify a first-line choice, and 16% recommended warfarin first line. Only 11% designated a preferred DOAC. Policies with a preferred DOAC indeed correlated with increased prescribing of that DOAC (Cramér's V = 0.25, 0.27, 0.38 for rivaroxaban, apixaban, edoxaban respectively). However, local policies showed a negligible relationship with the classes of anticoagulants prescribed-DOAC or VKA (Cramér's V = 0.01).
Nationally, the use of DOACs to treat atrial fibrillation has increased rapidly. Despite this, significant geographical variation in uptake remains. This study provides insights on how local policies relate to this variation. Our findings suggest that, in the absence of a nationally recommended first-line anticoagulant, local prescribing policies may aid in deciding between individual DOACs, but not in adjudicating between DOACs and vitamin K antagonists (i.e. warfarin) as general classes.
Problem, research strategy, and findings: A growing number of cities, especially those outside traditional immigrant gateways, have sought to leverage immigrant resources to promote local economic ...development in recent years. Although some cities have explicitly included immigrant entrepreneurship as a focal area in their plans, we know little about the breadth and depth of such strategies. In this research we explore the current landscape of local small business development policies toward immigrant entrepreneurship. We conduct a detailed review of the program documents of 16 selected welcoming cities and derive 20 specific programs across five broad types: information, language, business service, financial support, and place-based approaches. Their popularity, however, varies among the case cities given the number of adoptions. For example, all 16 cities adopted information hub-related strategies, whereas only 2 considered immigrant-friendly financing programs. In comparing these policies with immigrant entrepreneurs' needs and barriers, we find their service gaps are addressed to different extents.
Takeaway for practice: Here we provide a comprehensive analysis of current local government policies that aim at tapping into immigrants' entrepreneurial potential for community and economic development and their adoption levels across cities. Existing policies are able to address immigrants' information and language needs but are less targeted at developing their business skills and facilitating their access to financial capital. Place-based approaches may serve to connect immigrant-owned businesses to customers and market in the mainstream economy and thus expand their scope beyond ethnic neighborhoods. Because these programs require different levels of resources, planners and policymakers considering this agenda can assess their relative fit with local population demand in designing appropriate policies.
What are the consequences of electing a female leader for policy and political outcomes? We answer this question in the context of U.S. cities, where women's participation in mayoral elections ...increased from negligible numbers in 1970 to about one-third of the elections in the 2000's. A novel data set of U.S. mayoral elections from 1950 to 2005 was used, and a regression discontinuity design was employed to deal with the endogeneity of female candidacy to city characteristics. In contrast to most research on the influence of female leadership, we find no effect of gender of the mayor on policy outcomes related to the size of local government, the composition of municipal spending and employment, or crime rates. These results hold both in the short and the long run. While female mayors do not implement different policies, they do appear to have higher unobserved political skills, as they have at least a 5 percentage point higher incumbent effect than a comparable male. But we find no evidence of political spillovers: exogenously electing a female mayor does not change the long run political success of other female mayoral candidates in the same city or of female candidates in local congressional elections.
In recent years, city projects using street art murals have flourished all over Europe. For many scholars, these projects can be considered as an appropriation of a subversive subculture for ...gentrification purposes. The present article aims to discuss the perspective of street art policy as a means of gentrification by looking at the constitution of street art projects, rather than at their effects. In order to do so, two projects are investigated in central neighbourhoods in Brussels and Marseille respectively. The paper shows that street art policies are driven by very heterogeneous coalitions of actors (artists, storekeepers, city representatives…). These actors manage to unite despite their differences because they share a common language that presents street art as a tool to increase the attractiveness of working-class neighbourhoods for new categories of inhabitants. However, these various actors do not necessarily fully subscribe to that gentrification norm. Rather, they refer to it because it offers them retributions in the specific fields in which they are engaged. The analysis of the formation of each of these coalitions by replacing every actor in the logic of his own field helps to understand the variety of results that can emerge from projects that are similar in type.
While France is often described as a representative case of colour-blindness, recent decades have seen the adoption of antidiscrimination as a public policy objective. However, its implementation ...remains problematic. This study attempts to make sense of this, exploring the challenges of adopting and implementing antidiscrimination policy in France; and the ways in which disagreements between stakeholders about what discrimination is and how to fight it complicate the issue. The analysis was based on qualitative interviews that examined the adoption and the implementation of antidiscrimination policies in Vaulx-en-Velin, a suburb of Lyon. While the analysis indicates that it is a good example of what can be implemented at a local level, it also demonstrates the vagueness surrounding the concept of antidiscrimination and how it weakens the fight against discrimination in France.
In this paper, a discrete-time optimal control scheme is developed via a novel local policy iteration adaptive dynamic programming algorithm. In the discrete-time local policy iteration algorithm, ...the iterative value function and iterative control law can be updated in a subset of the state space, where the computational burden is relaxed compared with the traditional policy iteration algorithm. Convergence properties of the local policy iteration algorithm are presented to show that the iterative value function is monotonically nonincreasing and converges to the optimum under some mild conditions. The admissibility of the iterative control law is proven, which shows that the control system can be stabilized under any of the iterative control laws, even if the iterative control law is updated in a subset of the state space. Finally, two simulation examples are given to illustrate the performance of the developed method.
In this study, the supply of and demand for carbon storage and sequestration of woody biomass in the socio-ecological environment of the Wabe River catchment in Gurage Mountains, Ethiopia, were ...estimated. This information was subsequently integrated into a map that showed the balance between supply capacities and demand in a spatially explicit manner to inform planners and decision makers on methods used to manage local climate change. Field data for wood biomass and soil were collected, satellite images for land use and land cover (LULC) were classified, and secondary data from statistics and studies for estimation were obtained. Carbon storage, the rate of carbon sequestration and the rate of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from diverse sources at different LULCs, was estimated accordingly by several methods. Even though a large amount of carbon was stored in the catchment, the current yearly sequestration was less than the CO2-eq. GHG emissions. Forest and Enset-based agroforestry emissions exhibited the highest amount of woody biomass, and cereal crop and wetland exhibited the highest decrease in soil carbon sequestration. CO2-eq. GHG emissions are mainly caused by livestock, nitrogenous fertilizer consumption, and urban activities. The net negative emissions were estimated for the LULC classes of cereal crop, grazing land, and urban areas. In conclusion, without any high-emission industries, GHG emissions can be greater than the regulatory capacity of ecosystems in the socio-ecological environment. This quantification approach can provide information to policy and decision makers to enable them to tackle climate change at the root level. Thus, measures to decrease emission levels and enhance the sequestration capacity are crucial to mitigate the globally delivered service in a specific area. Further studies on the effects of land use alternatives on net emissions are recommended to obtain in-depth knowledge on sustainable land use planning.
Display omitted
•Information on the regulatory capacity of ecosystems is needed to manage ecosystem services.•The balance between net ecosystem services can be mapped in a spatially explicit manner.•An ecosystem which has a large carbon storage may not exhibit a high carbon sequestration.•Net negative GHG emissions can be produced in the socio-ecological environment.•Supply-demand balance of carbon sequestration provide information to decision makers in mitigating climate change.
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