Car Ownership and Mode of Transport to Work in Ireland

Rapid economic and demographic change in Ireland over the last decade, with associated increases in car dependence and congestion, has focused policy on encouraging more sustainable forms of travel. In this context, knowledge of current travel patterns and their determinants is crucial. In this paper, we extend earlier Irish research to examine the joint decision of car ownership and mode of transport to work. We employ cross-section micro-data from the 2006 Census of Population to estimate discrete choice models of car ownership and commuting mode choice for four sub-samples of the Irish population, based on residential location. Empirical results suggest that travel and supply-side characteristics such as travel time, costs, work location and public transport availability, as well as demographic and socio-economic characteristics such as age and household composition have significant effects on these decisions.

Immigrant Integration: Educator Resource Guide

Recommends ways for district administrators, school administrators, and teachers to promote immigrant integration in schools in critical areas, including school enrollment, classroom instruction, student assessment, and family and community outreach

Future Perspectives on Rural Areas.

End of Project ReportThe aim of this project was to project the potential impact of post-2000 economic and policy changes on Irish rural areas. It was intended originally to use a model-building approach in collaboration with the University of Missouri but this did not prove feasible. Instead, a possible scenario of future change for the rural economy was developed under four headings: • number of farms and the size of the farm labour force • agricultural structures • employment and enterprise • population and settlement. The scenario is based on assessment of current trends, on key assumptions about the future, and on the likely directions of relevant policies

Precision muon lifetime and capture experiments at PSI

The muLan experiment at the Paul Scherrer Institute will measure the lifetime of the positive muon with a precision of 1 ppm, giving a value for the Fermi coupling constant G_F at the level of 0.5 ppm. Meanwhile, by measuring the observed lifetime of the negative muon in pure hydrogen, the muCap experiment will determine the rate of muon capture, giving the proton's pseudoscalar coupling g_p to 7%. This coupling can be calculated precisely from heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory and therefore permits a test of QCD's chiral symmetry.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Neutrino Factories and Superbeams (NuFACT04), July 26-August 1, 2004, Osaka, Japan; revised to add one reference (other small edits to conserve length

Governance and Institutional Innovation: The need for strategic management

Within a comparatively short time there has emerged in Ireland an ad hoc ensemble of initiatives, funds and organisations pursuing aspects of rural development. As a result development policy is faced with a series of institutional and organisational questions (NESC, 1994: 115). These questions concern central-local relationships, possible overlap between agencies, the appropriate spatial units for different programmes, the choice between territorially-based organisations versus sectoral agencies, and accountability in regard to the use of public funds. This paper presents some results from a prospective model designed to facilitate analysis of the policy and institutional environment pertaining to rural development in Ireland. It identifies weaknesses in the institutional fabric: the high degree of centralisation of power and responsibility within agencies; related to this, the sharp compartmentalisation among agencies which act independently of each other, in singularly focusing on separately defined areas of administration; the proliferation of agencies and programmes, this partly reflects the influence of EU funded programmes which have promoted ?bottom up? approaches; the lack of an adequate sub-national spatial focus in policy implementation, and a ?democratic deficit? to the extent that emerging new partnerships are not inclusive of local representative democratic structures. Policy instruments are evaluated and issues for future policy emphasis explored. The paper concludes that organisational structures are vitally important to successful policy intervention in lagging regions. Within the Irish system institutional change is urgently needed.

Electric Dipole Moments in Gauge Mediated Models and a Solution to the SUSY CP Problem

The SUSY CP problem in the framework of gauge mediated SUSY breaking model is considered. We first discuss the electric dipole moments of the electron and neutron, which are likely to be larger than the experimental upper bound if all the phases in the Lagrangian are O(1). We derive a constraint on the phases in the so-called $\mu$- and $B_\mu$-parameters and gaugino masses. Then, we discuss a model in which the CP violating phase can be adequately suppressed. If the $\mu$- and $B_\mu$-parameters originate from the same superpotential interaction as the SUSY breaking field, the CP violating phase vanishes. However, in this class of models, the ratio $B_\mu/\mu$ becomes too large, and we discuss a possible scenario to fix this problem.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure

The Promotion and Marketing of Qulaity Products from Disadvantaged Rual Areas.

End of Project ReportThis report is based on work undertaken as part of a collaborative research project involving a number of European centres, under the EU’s FAIR programme (FAIR 3-CT96-1827), and directed by Professor Brian Ilbery at the Department of Geography, University of Coventry, UK.The present study was part of a project co-funded under the EU’s Fifth Framework Programme. The project was concerned with 12 ‘lagging rural regions’ in six countries of the EU and, specifically, with the strategies, structure and policies used to support the successful marketing and promotion of quality products and services in these regions. Its aims were: – to identify current marketing strategies and promotional activities among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with special reference to the use of regional imagery in marketing quality products and services; – to explore consumer perceptions in relation to the purchase of quality products and services from specific lagging regions; – to identify the strategies and practices of the main institutional structures (e.g., local authorities, development agencies, marketing organisations) in supporting the marketing of quality products and services; – to bring forward ideas for the future development of regional quality products and services.European Unio

The determinants of mode of transport to work in the Greater Dublin Area

Rapid economic and demographic change in the Greater Dublin Area over the last decade, with associated increases in car dependence and congestion, has focused policy on encouraging more sustainable forms of travel. In this context, knowledge of current travel patterns and their determinants is crucial. Here we concentrate on travel for a specific journey purpose, namely the journey to work. We employ cross-section micro-data from the 2006 Census of Population to analyse the influence of travel and supply-side characteristics, as well as demographic and socio-economic characteristics on the choice of mode of transport to work in the Greater Dublin Area