Describes a variety of composting techniques that may be utilized in a municipal level solid waste management program. Suggests how composting system designers should determine the amount and type of organics in the waste stream, evaluate separation approaches and assess collection techniques. Outlines the advantages of mixed waste composting and…

Describes an interdisciplinary project at Mankato State University in which a team constructed a solar car and competed in SUNRAYCE '93. (SK)

Describes North Dakota's family transportation program, which subsidizes parent-provided transportation as an alternative to school bus transportation. Reports on surveys of administrator and parent attitudes. Discusses potential cost savings and potential problems with insurance, tardiness, and increased student parking. (SV)

Two studies examined the effectiveness of external-speaker announcements in identifying incoming buses to 21 adults with visual impairments, including the placement of external speakers, the ability to understand simultaneous bus announcements, and the speech enhancement of announcements. Announcements could be heard above ambient traffic sounds…

A study explored how four Swedish adolescents with low vision and two sighted adolescents spent their leisure time and whether their activities were bound to places or people. Adolescents with low vision performed fewer activities, did not regularly spend much time with friends, and were dependent on parents for transportation. (Contains…

Student transportation complexities make evaluating a program's cost and quality very difficult. The first step in measuring performance is defining an operation's functional components: level of service delivery, units of service, and cost of services. Other considerations include routing, logistics, and fleet maintenance and support operations.…

A survey of 68 schools shows that half of all volunteers have college degrees; most support classroom and tutoring activities. Volunteers are beneficial, despite costs associated with program administration, recruitment, interviewing, screening, orientation, training, performance assessment, motivation, recognition, record keeping, reporting,…

Public health, city planning, and transportation officials can work toward reducing the public health burden of physical inactivity by promoting the integration of walking and bicycling into daily routines. The paper discusses urban design challenges, promotion of walking and bicycling, and the importance of physical activity for children.…

Recently, some school districts have established ties between their own and city/county transportation systems. This article examines outcomes of consolidated services in a sample of seven Michigan communities. Successful consolidation requires a policy champion, safety assurances, confidence and positive experiences, and resource capacity. (MLH)

The National Highway Traffic Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) is in the midst of the first school-bus crash tests in more than 10 years. Its report is expected in June 2000, and those on both sides of the seat-belt debate are waiting to see what NHTSA will recommend on passenger restraints in large school buses. A sidebar lists sources…

Families with severely disabled children were studied to identify transport-related costs which are not fully covered by current statutory provisions, and to identify the characteristics of children who most often incur these costs. Inadequacy of statutory financial assistance was confirmed by analysis of grants from the Family Fund Trust.…

The National Engineers Week Future City Competition provides compelling evidence of the power of pairing computer software and technology with traditional hands-on activities to teach challenging subject matter and also harder- to- measure "real" workplace skills. Now in its 13th year, the Competition asks middle school students to work in teams…

On March 13, 1879, the "Salisbury Carolina Watchman" noted that the longest and most difficult tunnel in the struggle to lay a railroad line across the Blue Ridge Mountains has been opened. Convicts from North Carolina's new penitentiary built this transportation system and solved the state's need for a cheap labor force as well as the…

Despite advances in early detection and prevention of cervical cancer, women living in rural areas, and particularly in Appalachia, the rural South, the Texas-Mexico border, and the central valley of California, have had consistently higher rates of cervical cancer mortality than their counterparts in other areas during the past several decades.…

This work extends the theory of the fixed charge transportation problem (FCTP), currently based mostly on a forty-year-old publication by Hirsch and Danzig. This paper presents novel properties that need to be considered by those using existing, or those developing new methods for optimizing FCTP. It also defines the problem in an easier way,…