International Society for Third-Sector Research PhD Seminar, Italy July 2012 (January 2012 deadline)

ISTR PhD Seminar

Siena, Italy, July 8-10, 2012

Universita degli Studi di Siena

Call for Applications—Deadline January 15, 2012

ISTR is pleased to announce the launch of the first ISTR PhD Seminar preceding the 10^th International Conference in Sienna, Italy, in July 2012. (http://www.istr.org/conference/siena/index.htm ) The ISTR PhD Seminar will be a recurring event that takes place bi-annually in conjunction with the international conference.

The ISTR PhD Seminar is open to all doctoral students in the field of third sector and civil society research, across the different regions in the world, and at all stages of their doctoral research. The aim of the workshop is to provide doctoral students with the opportunity to receive extensive intellectual and methodological advice on their doctoral research, to introduce them to main theories and developments in the field, to reflect upon publication and career strategies, and to provide a unique opportunity to network with junior and senior scholars with the international ISTR research community.

More specifically, the seminar will consist of both plenary sessions with presentations by leading scholars in the field, and parallel group sessions in which the participants have the opportunity to present and discuss their doctoral research with peers, junior and senior faculty. Participants will be grouped thematically, but the group composition will be heterogeneous in terms of concrete research topics, disciplinary background, research stage, method, and regional affiliation.

The seminar is limited to a group of (up to) 50 doctoral students. Applicants must be members of ISTR and register to attend the conference. The ISTR PhD Seminar will start with an informal dinner on Sunday evening, July 8, 2012. Plenary and group sessions will take place on Monday, July 9 and Tuesday, July 10 in the morning. Participants are expected to arrive on Sunday. ISTR will cover two nights of accommodation (Sunday July 8 and Monday July 9) as well as coffee breaks and meals during the Seminar. Travel costs will not be refunded.  ISTR will offer conference registration subsidies. Applicants for discounted registration conference fees should go directly to ISTR.

Applications for subsidies will be available in January 2012.

Eligibility and selection criteria

To be eligible for participation, possible applicants should consider the following criteria:

– To be enrolled as a doctoral student (all stages of the doctoral research are allowed)

– Working in the field of third sector and civil society research (all academic disciplines are invited)

– To be a member of ISTR and register to attend the 2012 conference

– To be able to participate in the PhD Seminar from Sunday evening to Tuesday around noon

– Be prepared to present and discuss their doctoral work to peers and faculty, and to participate in an active and constructive way in group discussions

Application process – (download application at http://www.istr.org/conference/siena/PhD.htm)

Interested students should send their application directly to the Chair of the ISTR PhD Taskforce 2012, Dr. Lesley Hustinx (lesley.hustinx@ugent.be), no later than January 15, 2012, and include the following information:

– Full name and gender

– Contact details (including e-mail and phone number)

– Disciplinary background

– Institutional affiliation and name(s) of the supervisor(s)

– Working title of PhD project and formal start/end dates

– Abstract of PhD research (min. 500 – max. 800 words)

– A brief description (100-150 words) of your motivation to participate in the ISTR PhD Seminar

The ISTR PhD Taskforce 2012 will consider all applications that meet the eligibility criteria. In line with ISTR’s mission to build a global community of scholars and subscribe to the values of diversity and pluralism, participants in the ISTR PhD Seminar will be representative in terms of gender and region, as well as disciplines and stages in the PhD process.

For further inquiries, please contact the ISTR Secretariat (istr@jhu.edu).

Selected applicants will be notified by February 15, 2012.

Help SCAG Plan a Sustainable Future at the 2012 RTP/SCS Workshop

SCAG is in the process of developing the 2012 Draft Regional Transportation Plan, which will include a Sustainable Communities Strategy to address the requirements of Senate Bill  375.  To encourage collaboration with stakeholders, SCAG is  conducting a series of public outreach workshops throughout the region.  SCAG believes students would be interested in participating in this opportunity to play a role in planning the future of Southern California, and welcome their participation in a dynamic discussion on the region’s future at any of the upcoming workshops.

Listing of workshops: http://www.scag.ca.gov/rtp2012/index.htm
Brochure online: http://www.scag.ca.gov/rtp2012/pdfs/SCS-RTPwkshp-brochure.pdf
E-blast: http://www.scag.ca.gov/events/eflyer/publicwksps.htm
RTP/SCS workshop video: http://www.scag.ca.gov/rtp2012/index.htm

For questions, contact:

Sylvia Patsaouras
Interim Director, Regional Services & Public Affairs
Southern California Association of Governments
818 W. 7th Street, 12th Floor
Los Angeles, Ca. 90017-3435
t(213) 236-1806   f(213) 236-1963

Brookings Event – Sizing the Clean Economy: A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment; July 13, 2011 @ 9am EST

Sizing the Clean Economy: A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment
Wednesday, July 13, 2011, 9:00 am — 12:30 pm
The Brookings Institution, Falk Auditorium, 1775 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC
 
This event will also be available as a live webcast.
No swath of the U.S. economy has been more widely celebrated as a source of economic renewal than the “clean” or “green” economy. However, surprisingly little is really known about these industries’ nature, size and growth—especially at the regional level. As a result, debates on transitioning to a green or clean economy are frequently short on facts and long on speculation as the nation searches for new sources of economic growth.

On July 13, the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings will bring together business, economic development and political leaders to review the progress of clean industries, identify policy issues and opportunities, and consider how faster and broader growth of the clean economy could be encouraged at the national, state and regional level. A report and first-of-its-kind database, produced in collaboration with Battelle’s Technology Partnership Practice, will be released at the event, providing new measures of the clean economy at the national and metropolitan levels. Also featured will be an interactive web tool that will allow users to track jobs, growth, segments, and other variables nationally, by state and by region.

Brookings Managing Director William Antholis will welcome participants and Bruce Katz, vice president and director of the Metropolitan Policy Program, will present the findings of this major new report on the status of the U.S. clean economy. Panel discussions will follow, presenting the corporate and regional perspective.

The event will be webcast live on the Brookings website. After each panel, the speakers will take audience questions. Participants may join the discussion on Twitter using the hashtag #CleanEcon.
Welcome : William J. Antholis, Managing Director and Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution

Introducing the Metropolitan Clean Economy: Bruce Katz , Vice President and Director, Metropolitan Policy Program, The Brookings Institution

Panel One: Advancing the Clean Economy, Company by Company
           
Panel Two: Advancing the Clean Economy, Metro by Metro

To RSVP for this event, please call the Office of Communications at 202.797.6105 or click here.
This event will be webcast live. To receive a reminder about the webcast, you may register here.

METRANS Seminar: Dynamic Pricing for Toll Lanes on Monday, June 27th @ 12pm

We are pleased to announce our first METRANS Transportation Seminar of this summer semester:
Topic: Dynamic Pricing for Toll Lanes
Speaker: Dr. Per-Olof Gutman, from the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion)
When: Monday, June 27th, noon (12:00pm) to 1:30pm
Where: Lewis Hall (RGL), Room 308 (University Park Campus) (USC Map http://web-app.usc.edu/maps/?b=RGL)
RSVP: Lunch will be served to those who RSVP.  Please RSVP by Friday (June 24th) at noon (12 pm) to Shawn Gong, tgong@usc.edu.

Prompted by the preparations for the recently opened Fast Lane, i.e. the additional toll lane on the part of the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv auto-route/autostrada/Autobahn Highway 1 that runs westwards between the Ben Gurion Airport and Tel Aviv, a dynamic toll fee control algorithm was developed, analyzed, and simulated. It was found that cascaded feedback control is suitable. Feed-forward from the measured traffic flow from the east is feasible only if a good model for the willingness to pay (“Value of time”) is available. While this author advised the franchise holder how the cascaded dynamic toll fee algorithm could be constructed, the franchise holder initially chose a fuzzy solution, but in the end turned to the cascaded feedback concept. Measured morning rush hour data for the toll lane under manual and automatic control are presented.

Dr. Per-Olof Gutman, (M.Sc. from UCLA; Ph.D. from Lund, Sweden), is a full professor at the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) in Haifa, Israel. He has broad experience in automation and control with research interests including robust and adaptive control, control of complex non-linear systems, computer aided design, vehicle control, and traffic control. His scholarly work has addressed many traffic and vehicular applications such as control of an unmanned motorcycle, sensor fusion of GPS with omni-directional image registration for off-road autonomous vehicle path tracking, steering and stability control of off-road autonomous vehicles, roll-over avoidance control for vehicles, navigation and guidance of a man-tracking vehicle, adaptive suspension system of a high mobility track vehicle, and optimal control for isolated signalized intersections. Gutman served as a consultant for Volvo Construction Equipment Ltd, Sweden, and for government agencies concerning the toll fee control algorithm for the Fast HOT lane along Israel Highway One. He has published 6 books, more than 70 papers in reviewed international journals and co-authored Qsyn – THE Toolbox for Robust Control Systems Design for use with Matlab. He served as an associate editor of Automatica, and as an EU evaluator of research proposals.