Self-help housing in urban Colombia; alternatives for the production and distribution of building materials

Building materials account for a high percentage of the non-land cost of self-help housing. Few studies, however, have examined the use of building materials by self-help builders and the practicalities of producing and distributing the materials in an alternative manner. This paper discusses the nature of construction by self-help in the intermediate-sized Colombian city of Pereira, focusing in particular on the building materials used, and examines various attempts to reduce the cost of building-materials for self-help builders. It is concluded that projects which aim to introduce alternative building materials or retail outlets for self-help builders, need to consider the nature of construction by self-help and the operation of the building-materials market, if they are to have any chance of success.     

Informal shelter providers: Low income households sheltering the homeless

Despite the important role they play in preventing homelessness, those who shelter people who can not afford housing of their own have been neglected by researchers. This study examines the characteristics of these low income informal shelter providers. While informal shelter providers were similar to a comparison group of low income households that did not shelter others, there were also significant differences between the two groups. Informal shelter providers were more much more likely to live in single family dwellings, they were more likely to be long-term residents of the community, they were more likely to have experienced homelessness themselves, and they devoted a disproportionate share of their incomes to housing.     

Dioxin in the Agricultural Food Chain

Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin's (PCDD) behavior in the agricultural food chain was modeled in this study. The source of PCDD was a municipal solid waste (MSW) incinerator. Of the farm livestock investigated only the beef cow and the milk cow were shown to contribute significant amounts of PCDD to humans. Milk was the single highest dietary source of PCDD. Comparison of the calculated human dose of PCDD from the agricultural food chain with an estimate human PCDD dose from inhalation of contaminated air revealed that the agricultural food chain could be responsible for a vast majority of the dose to an individual impacted by these facilities. Thus, these data suggest that operating MSW facilities in agricultural areas may result in enhanced PCDD exposure to individuals via the agricultural food chain. The data also suggest that milk and beef may be good sentinels to evaluate environmental impacts of these facilities.     

The office of scientific integrity investigations: The importance of data analysis

Certified Public Accountants serve as independent auditors of financial statements. They perform information‐integrity testing for the economy and society, adding creditability to financial statements prepared by organizations’ management. Investors, creditors, and others rely on these financial statements and the audit report to make business decisions. Auditing work involves gathering evidence (research) and forming an opinion (reporting results) about the “fairness”; of financial statements according to regulatory, legal, and professional rules. As researchers, auditors are subject to a complex network of mechanisms to promote accountability in their work. These mechanisms exist at environmental, professional, and audit‐firm levels. They combine to influence the judgments of individual auditors.     

Scheduling Truck Arrivals at an Air Cargo Terminal

We consider the scheduling of truck arrivals at an air cargo terminal. By coordinating arrivals of cargo delivery trucks with outbound flight departure schedules, some of the shipments can be transferred directly to the departing flights, while others will be stored at the terminal's storage facility and incur extra handling and storage costs. The objective is to obtain a feasible schedule so as to minimize the total cost of operations. We formulate the problem as a time‐indexed integer program and show that, even with limited number of unloading docks at the terminal, the problem is non‐trivial (NP‐hard in the strong sense). Our solution method includes an exact solution procedure to determine an optimal unloading sequence for the shipments carried by each truck, together with a Lagrangian relaxation‐based heuristic for assigning trucks to truck docks and determining truck arrival times. We conducted computational experiments to test the performance of our solution method. Computational results show that our method can generate near‐optimal solutions efficiently. Our simulation results indicate that the scheduling approach proposed in this paper has the potential to generate significant cost savings over a first‐come, first‐served approach currently used at the air cargo terminal that we observed.     

The healing power of dogs: Cocoa's story

Animals bring a sense of "at homeness" and even normalcy to people who are hospitalized or live in health care facilities. Illnesses, separation from family, fear, loneliness, and even depression may be lessened for those who receive a therapy dog visit by providing a welcome change in routine and something to look forward to. Individuals are often more active and responsive during and after a visit. Just stroking and petting a dog requires the use of hands and arms, as well as the motions of stretching and turning. Dogs are also unconcerned with age or physical ability; they accept people as they are. This alone causes many to reach out and interact with dogs. Animals provide a focus for conversation and a common interest. As Cocoa's human partner can attest, a pet also makes it easier for strangers to talk. Cocoa is known by so many people at the facilities she visits that residents' family members often stop to talk with "Cocoa's mom" when they meet her in the community, asking questions about how Cocoa is doing. When Cocoa is no longer able to perform her services, many in her community will mourn. Cocoa's story, as well as the limited research literature, supports the positive physical and psychological effects of animals, but continued research on the effect of therapy animals on health outcomes is needed. As advocates for clients, nurses are in key positions to facilitate the inclusion of animals in clients' care. Although not for everyone, including those who react negatively to animals or who are allergic, pet therapy offers important possibilities for providing holistic care that extends not only to clients, but also to family members and staff, and to the pets themselves.