The Arizona Department of Transportation's (ADOT's) SPR-570: Rural ITS Progress Study - Arizona 2004 provided 20 key recommendations for improved utilization of the rural Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) infrastructure. Two years later, in reviewing the outcomes of the 2004 study and the ongoing rural technology deployments, the Department identified several of the key concerns as still being unresolved. In general, ADOT has been successful in implementing the recommendations of the 2004 statewide review, but five areas of unmet needs or unfulfilled potential remain. These five gap areas are the primary focus of this new research project, to fully implement the potential of all of the recommendations from the 2004 study. The five primary focus areas are: ITS maintenance, weather information systems, highway advisory radio, motorist assist patrols, and information sharing. The research team interviewed the project's stakeholders from Arizona's rural districts to identify recent changes in their ITS deployment, goals, and visions for future deployment, as well as current needs and desires since the previous 2004 study. The investigators also reviewed the current practices and concepts of rural ITS among other transportation agencies throughout the country. This included conducting personal interviews with recognized industry leaders, attending industry conferences, and performing extensive research in literature, products (both off-the-shelf and in-development), and on-line. Based on the interviews and state-of-the-practice research components, the investigators developed a list of ITS concepts that might service the rural needs of the Department. Each of the five focus areas contains several concepts that address needs identified as original project goals, or new topics identified during the field interviews. Each discussion section provides a conceptual approach and application of ITS technology or state-of-the-practice development, a breakdown of benefits and challenges for implementation, implementation recommendations and a breakdown of the engineer's opinion of cost. Each concept has been ranked by the project advisory group based on implementation priority. A potential process owner and potential resources for deployment are also identified.

"Chapters in Rural Progress" by Kenyon L. Butterfield Butterfield was an American agricultural scientist and college administrator known for developing the Cooperative Extension Service at the Land Grant Universities. This book served as a timeline and history of how rural areas of the United States developed and slowly became more and more inhabitable as time went on. Though still behind cities, these areas became more welcoming and vital to the American way of life.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

The concept of environmental justice has offered a new direction for social movements and public policy in recent decades, and researchers worldwide now position social equity as a prerequisite for sustainability. Yet the relationship between social equity and environmental sustainability has been little studied in Canada. Speaking for Ourselves draws together Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal scholars and activists who bring equity issues to the forefront by considering environmental justice from multiple perspectives and in specifically Canadian contexts.