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In 2012, the US Forest Service promulgated new regulations for land-management planning that emphasize the importance of scientifically credible assessment and monitoring strategies for adaptive forest planning and the maintenance or restoration of ecological integrity. However, in an era of declining budgets, the implementation of robust assessment and monitoring strategies represents a significant challenge for fulfilling the intent of the new planning rule. In this article, we explore opportunities for using data and products produced by the USDA Forest Service's Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program to support the implementation of the 2012 Planning Rule. FIA maintains a nationally consistent statistical sample of field plots that covers most national forests with hundreds of plots. We suggest that leveraging FIA data and products can generate efficiencies for assessment, planning, and monitoring requirements detailed in the 2012 Planning Rule, and help fulfill the adaptive intent of the new planning rule. However, strong national leadership and investment in regional-level analytical capacity, FIA liaisons, and decision-support tools are essential for systematically realizing the benefits of FIA data for forest planning across the National Forest System. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term hippocampal replay originally referred to the temporally compressed reinstantiation, during rest, of sequential neural activity observed during prior active wake. Since its description in the 1990s, hippocampal replay has often been viewed as the key mechanism by which a memory trace is repeatedly rehearsed at high speeds during sleep and gradually transferred to neocortical circuits. However, the methods used to measure the occurrence of replay remain debated, and it is now clear that the underlying neural events are considerably more complicated than the traditional narratives had suggested. "Replay-like" activity happens during wake, can play out in reverse order, may represent trajectories never taken by the animal, and may have additional functions beyond memory consolidation, from learning values and solving the problem of credit assignment to decision-making and planning. Still, we know little about the role of replay in cognition, and to what extent it differs between wake and sleep. This may soon change, however, because decades-long efforts to explain replay in terms of reinforcement learning (RL) have started to yield testable predictions and possible explanations for a diverse set of observations. Here, we (1) survey the diverse features of replay, focusing especially on the latest findings; (2) discuss recent attempts at unifying disparate experimental results and putatively different cognitive functions under the banner of RL; (3) discuss methodological issues and theoretical biases that impede progress or may warrant a partial revaluation of the current literature, and finally; (4) highlight areas of considerable uncertainty and promising avenues of inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several countries in the Region in general and Jordan in particular are moving towards what is called “knowledge economy" and to become more linked to and integrated in global business within the context of "globalization". The main objective of this research was to document and share the experiences of the private sector especially companies in Jordan as part of their work to develop and expand their role in the knowledge-based economy. The paper discussed the contribution of libraries (libraries, information and documentation centers) in business development and the extent to which libraries are used in business management including planning, organization, human resources management and direction and control. The role of libraries in supporting research and development, protection of intellectual property and trademarks, the development of professional networks and working groups through the implicit and explicit information sources was elaborated based on previous studies. The paper attempted to identify the areas that contribute to business information or business intelligence in the success of businesses, thus building the knowledge economy. The paper utilizeddata using standardized interviews with senior executives in six companies in Jordan, including small, medium and large enterprises to understand how they use information to support businesses, identify the channels they use to access information to support policies, procedures and decision making. The paper discussed the role of knowledge management, in particular lessons learned and best practices, and leveraging experiential knowledge in business administration. Based on the analysis of data collected through the interviews, it was concluded that libraries and information centers are underutilized by the business community while implicit knowledge and social networks are more used. The paper offered a number of recommendations: libraries should promote and market their services, they should change the role they play form storage places to more proactive agents to access information, library and information sciences departments should focus on business information in teaching, research and publishing and that research on use of information for planning and decision-making should continue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a systematic process for examining complex public policy choices that has been developed and refined over the past 50 years and is often called policy analysis. Its purpose is to assist policymakers in choosing preferred courses of action by clarifying the problem, outlining the alternative solutions and displaying tradeoffs among their consequences. In most real-world policy situations there are many possible alternatives, many uncertainties, many stakeholders and many consequences of interest. Also, there is usually no single decisionmaker and little chance of obtaining agreement on a single set of preferences among the consequences. As a result, there is no way to identify an optimal solution. Instead, policy analysis uses a variety of tools to develop relevant information and present it to the parties involved in the policymaking process in a manner that helps them come to a decision. It is a problem-oriented approach that does not presume a model structure for assessing the consequences of a policy or ranking the alternatives. The paper provides a brief history of policy analysis, describes the most important elements of the policy analysis process, provides an illustrative example of the use of the approach and suggests directions for future developments that can enrich the approach and increase the chances for successful use of the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, more than 230 habitat conservation plans (HCPs) have been developed since 1992, encompassing nearly 12 million acres of endangered species habitat. Relatively little has been produced that describes the actual steps or processes that have been utilized in the development of HCPs and associated conservation plans. In 1998, the National Center for Environmental Decision-making Research conducted 124 interviews of conservation planning participants and produced summaries of the processes used in the development of 31 plans. While analysis of these summaries and interviews is ongoing, we present here five initial process components: type of permit applicant, role of the administering federal agencies, participation in planning, decision-making process design, and management and review of technical data. Our discussion of these components raises a number of questions that must be addressed in order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of individual planning processes, endangered species policy, and other efforts to balance private economic interests with conservation of the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Years of citizen furore finally caused the City and State of New York (USA) to agree recently to a legislated closure of the enormous Fresh Kills landfill site by the year 2001. This landfill currently handles 80% of the City's non-commercial discards, but the closure decision was made without any prior waste management planning to accommodate the need for alternative waste management treatment and disposal routes. This paper describes the planning process that ensued after thedecision was made to close Fresh Kills, including the Borough and City-wide Fresh Kills Closure Task Force reports written since the legislation was enacted, plus the Administration's Solid Waste ManagementPlan issued in April 1998. Recommendations from the Manhattan Solid Waste Management Task Force are also described. The paper illuminatesthe continuing and often tense debate between six Citizens' Solid Waste Advisory Boards, the City Council, and the City Administration todetermine whether and how to expand reduction, recycling and composting, or to export 80% of its residential and institutional waste streams to other neighbouring states for ultimate disposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complexity and uncertainty play important roles in coastal management. Economic development may push the coastal system beyond its resilience thresholds as a result of interactions between environmental andsocio-economic processes. The concepts in this paper link processes of system change, natural evolutionary processes observed in coastal zones, to processes of social evolution. An indicator based on calculating an ecological footprint for coastal zones is presented to guidedecision-making in spatial and economic planning. The suggested indicator may support a range of methods linking economic valuation and environmental impact analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to determine the extent to which current assessment practice of transport infrastructure-related policies, plans, and programs (PPPs) results in certain benefits of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in three European Union regions, namely, the region of North West England (UK), the provincie (administrative region) Noord-Holland (The Netherlands), and the engerer Verflechtungsraum (planning region) Brandenburg-Berlin (Germany). The number of assessments of transport infrastructure-related PPPs that potentially may be called SEA in the three regions is estimated. Benefits that should result from the application of SEA can be determined based on a review ofexisting academic literature. An analytical framework is prepared, introducing evaluation criteria that are based on principles of SEA frameworks and procedures. The framework is used to analyze transport infrastructure-related PPPs at all administrative levels of decision-making in the three study regions. It is concluded that current assessment practice indeed results in certain SEA benefits, although to differing extents. It appears that there is more SEA-'related' experience in the European Union than is frequently anticipated in the academic literature. It is observed that case studies that were reviewed on a number of previous occasions and those that are included in this analysis do not necessarily appear to be 'good practice' cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental assessment of plans, programs, and policies shouldserve as an open policy forum where mutual learning among participants takes place. However, problems of communication may occur when theactors cannot agree which alternatives should be examined. It may beunclear what choices the assessment should shed light on. This article studies the conflicts related to the construction of policy alternatives by analyzing the environmental assessment of a transport infrastructure plan. The results indicate that not only the definition of the scope of the assessment task, but also the restrictions of decision-making, are key issues. It is sometimes harder to achieve agreement on freedom of action than to reach consensus about how to assess a particular set of alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study of participation and decision making in a farming coop in Mindanao, Philippines. In this community, as in many other Third World areas, the government has a limited and declining presence. Nongovernment organizations, co-ops and other local associations are the everyday governing bodies which have closer contact with and more impact on the community that an often distant government. Several themes in participation are examined, including: power,hierarchy, exclusion and decision making; development as process, not simply end product and the role of local culture in participatory processes. The line between encouraging local decision making and abdicting support under the guise of promoting local control is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid impact assessment matrix (RIAM) is a. new tool for execution of an environmental impact assessment (EIA). Many traditional methods of EIA have produced large reports setting out the subjective judgments reached by the assessors. RIAM uses a structured matrix to allow for such judgments (both subjective and those based on quantitative data) io be made on a like-by-like basis, and provides a transparent and permanent record of the judgments made. The computerized RIAM system allows for the matrix to be shown in graphical form, which greatly enhances the clarity of the results produced by this method. RIAMprovides a system by which development options and scenarios can be rapidly evaluated. To illustrate the use of RIAM, an example from an EIA study on fly ash deposition into landfill is given The criteria that might be used to evaluate EIA methods, and how RIAM measures up against these criteria, are discussed. (c) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) requires agencies to use a systematic, interdisciplinary approach to ensure integrated use of natural and social sciences and the environmental design arts in planning and decision-making. Numerous environmental analyses have been prepared that contain valuable information about regions and ecosystems, but these data were not stored in a retrievable manner. In 1993 and 1994, agency-specific NEPA and related datasets wereconsolidated into the U.S. Department of Energy NEPA Web and NEPAnet. These improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the environmentalimpact assessment/NEPA process in the United States. (c) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]