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This paper considers the issue of channel structure selection when an incumbent supply chain faces a potential entrant supply chain. Each chain can choose its channel structure, namely, decentralization or coordination. Specifically, both the incumbent manufacturer and the entrant manufacturer can choose to sell their products by themselves or through their exclusive retailers. Our objective is to discuss whether the entrant chain should enter the retail market and, if so, how the dominant manufacturer of each chain strategically selects the channel structure, and how the asymmetric cost information affects the equilibrium structure. The results show that (1)Under asymmetric information game, the chain without competitive advantage is more likely to exit market when the intensity of price competition increases. (2)Under the symmetric information game, both coordination and decentralization can be the optimal structure for the entrant chain and the optimal entry depends on the incumbent chains action. In contrast, under the asymmetric information game, the entrant chain prefers coordinated structure rather than decentralized structure. (3)As the entrant products competitiveness increases, the incumbent manufacturer will switch from coordinated structure to decentralized structure. (4)When the price competition intensity increases, the entrant manufacturer will change coordinated structure into decentralized structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As more retailers gradually possess more dominant right of supply chain, the external environment and internal interests of supply chain gradually face many problems. How to formulate reasonable product prices, and coordinate with the interests of the other members of the supply chain becomes the key to collaborative operation. This paper conducted retailer-leading supply chain pricing and interest coordination of members; the influence of the third-party logistics on retailer-leading supply chain pricing and interest coordination of members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper introduces a decentralized approach to optimizing the flood reduction efficiency of multiple detention reservoirs in urban areas. The flood reduction effects of a detention reservoir system were regionally assessed, and a new model was then created using an optimization technique which involved coupling extraordinary particle swarm optimization with a flood simulation engine, Storm Water Management Model, EPA-SWMM, to identify optimal outlet designs for a detention reservoir system. When applied to the To Lich drainage network (Hanoi, Vietnam) the proposed method outperformed the present design, reducing flooding under the design flood event. The performance of the approach was verified by comparing it with the overall objective function of total flooded volume for different design floods. The better performance of the decentralized optimization approach described here, in terms of local and regional flood management, illustrated its effectiveness for urban flooding reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on an intensive literature review, this paper investigates and presents generalized answers to the two basic questions of port governance, namely who governs and what is governed. There are totally 77 studies selected as the core literature sample according to a five-step approach. The results from literature review show evidences in favor of the important roles played by governmental organizations and port organizations as the main governing bodies of port governance. Furthermore, our analysis shows first, that multilevel governance has become a notable feature of port governance. Second, there are increasing involvements by national or regional levels of government in some countries such as the USA, Brazil, China. Third, port authorities at local level are generally holding the centre-stage position with further autonomy in managing port operations. Fourth, not-for-profit organizations related to port activities play the role of coordinators in port governance. Finally, different governance regimes with different specific governing actors for different port classifications can be identified for many nations. This study shows that fundamentally institutional arrangements and specific port activities are the two basic categories of what is governed. The institutional arrangements determine the port governance configuration and allocation of responsibilities of port activities. There are 12 groups of specific port activities within five categories identified in port governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops two duopoly game models to explore price decisions and the channel benefit of decentralization for two supply chains, and investigates the channel structure decisions in the presence of fixed marketing and manufacturing costs. We give the price decisions and discuss price distortion. Under the downward decentralization model, our analysis reveals that first, symmetric decentralization improves supply chain profit only when the fixed marketing costs are high or product substitutability is high; second, decentralization improves channel profit, and symmetric decentralization (i.e., both manufacturers use decentralization) is an equilibrium if the fixed marketing (or unit production) costs are sufficiently high and the market scales are sufficiently small; and third, the presence of fixed marketing costs and asymmetry of supply chains support the existence of asymmetric equilibrium. Under the upward decentralization model, we find that symmetric outsourcing emerges when the fixed manufacturing cost or the unit production cost is low while both market scale and product substitutability are large in the supplier-led setting, the channel profit under downward decentralization is higher than that under symmetric outsourcing only if product substitutability is high, and the sourcing strategy largely depends on the specific game sequence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capacity for a suburban or a rural community to maintain retail activities in its town centre have often been considered as an indicator of its viability. But, since the 1970s, the expansion of new forms of retail, such as hypermarkets, shopping malls or retail parks has created a highly competitive environment for the small town centre retail units. Consequently, several central and local governments have developed rules in order to prevent an excessive development of large decentralized stores. In this paper, our goal is to assess the efficiency of land use regulation aiming at protecting existing retail units and its broader impacts on the size and localization of the retail stores in the Île-de-France region, the most populated area in France. The data we use over the 1975–2013 period include the evolution of small retail units, large retail stores and total retail floor space built at a local level. Using spatial statistics and econometric models we study the effects of land use regulation on retail patterns and local restrictiveness towards new large stores in the municipalities of the region over the last 40 years. We conclude that land use policies have impacted retail patterns in the region and that suburban and rural authorities, where town centre activities are crucial to their quality of life, are more restrictive towards large retail stores than urban ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decentralized rainwater harvesting (RWH) from roof runoff can complement the centralized supply of mains (drinking) water for a range of contexts, to assist in alleviating issues of water security. However, treatment to potable standard of harvested rainwater is not widespread. Consequently a comparative life cycle analysis (LCA) of decentralized and centralized potable water supply has not previously been undertaken. In this paper we describe a novel point-of-use (POU) treatment device, which was used to treat harvested rainwater to potable standard. We then provide a performance assessment for this system and an LCA with a comparison to centralized supply. Results of the performance assessment indicate a water saving efficiency (E T ) of between 0.6 and 100%, depending on rainfall (0.6 from April when rainfall was significantly below average). This highlights that the POU device was able to deal with the scale of roof runoff supply originating from a RWH system at a commercial building scale. The LCA results suggest that potable water produced from this decentralized RWH POU system currently performs more poorly than centralized water from an environmental perspective. Its impacts in most categories would be significantly reduced if the electricity consumed by the system were supplied from a renewable source such as solar PV or wind turbines instead of the UK grid. Priority should be given to optimizing the energy efficiency and exploring opportunities for combined use with renewable energy technologies in order to improve the environmental performance of POU treatment devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the complex problem of controlling and coordinating Autonomous Guided Vehicles (AGV) by a decentralized approach. Each AGV selects its route by a consensus algorithm based on some Integer Linear Programming problem solutions. Moreover, the AGVs move inside a zone-controlled guidepath network and coordinate their movements by a decentralized protocol based on a zone-controlled approach, which guarantees the avoidance of deadlocks and collisions. The proposed decentralized strategy is applied to a guidepath network by means of a simulation software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to provide a flexible access control in a secure manner in open networks, Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE) implements a fine-grained decentralized access control that is based on properties or attributes a user/node owns, which has paid more attention to the applications in large-scale and dynamic networks such as Mesh network, Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN), and Internet of Things etc. However, as the openness and exposure in such networks, an attacker (e.g., virus, eavesdropper or sniffer) can blow the concrete implementation of cryptosystems, for example side channel attacks, and then obtains some sensitive and secret states in the system by monitoring pseudo-random numbers, internal results and secret keys and thus breaks the provable security of the systems. In this paper, in order to tolerate the possible key leakage, we model a fine-grained attribute revocable attribute-based encryption, namely ADR-lrABE, and then give the concrete construction, security analysis and resilient-leakage performance. The scheme tolerates the key of matching the challenge ciphertext to be partially revealed (i.e., key leakage resilience), and it provides a update mechanism to tolerate continual leakage that allows the attacker gains the leakage beyond the bound in the lifetime of the system (i.e., continual leakage tolerance). Also, it supports the properties of attribute direct revocation that the revocation procedure does not affect any other user's secret key. That is, the proposed scheme is proven to be semantically secure even the decryption key is partially leaked to the attacker. We analyze the leakage-resilient performance of our scheme, and indicate that the scheme achieves approximate (82 + o(1)) fraction of the bits of a decryption key being leaked. We also provide a mechanism to transform the scheme into a prime-order group. To the best of our knowledge, our schemes are the first ABE that support attribute direct revocation mechanism in the presence of key leakage in noise channel or memory leakage environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we firstly prove that the absorption law for one-sided inverses along an element holds, and derive the absorption law for the inverse along an element. We then obtain the absorption law for the inverse along different elements. Also, we prove that a left inverse of a along d coincides with a right inverse of a along d , provided that they both exist. Then, the reverse order law and the existence criterion for the inverse along an element are given by centralizers in a ring. Finally, we characterize the Moore–Penrose inverse of a regular element by one-sided invertibilities in a ring with involution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wastewater and greywater have different scales of end-uses in irrigation in Portugal. Wastewater is treated in a central wastewater treatment plant and reused in public/private large areas of irrigation, like agriculture, public gardens and golf courses. On the contrary, greywater reuse is generally applied in in situ small scales, treated and used in the same place, generally in the production site. The main aim of this paper is to compare the two types of systems: a wastewater centralized reuse system (WWCRS) and a greywater decentralized reuse system (GWDRS) in terms of water quality, energy consumption and CO2 emissions. In this paper, the main characteristics of both streams are presented and the degree of treatment required in each stream is analyzed. The advantages and disadvantages of its reuse in different scales, in terms of water quality, energy consumption and CO2 emissions are discussed. A methodology to calculate the energy consumptions and CO2 emissions related to wastewater treatment that may be applied in different cases is presented. A hypothetical example of the two systems: one referring to a WWCRS and the other to a GWDRS is presented. The energy consumption and the CO2 emissions are analyzed and compared. The WWCRS needs a higher degree of treatment and so it spends more energy and leads to more CO2 emissions to the environment than the GWDRS that consumed between 11.8 and 37.5% of the energy consumed in the WWCRS considering the same number of inhabitants served. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes facing higher education from increased government, student and community demands are resulting in a greater focus on leadership within universities. Attempts to adapt to higher education theory that underpins leadership in other sectors have been criticised for failing to recognise its unique role in the development of creative and innovative thinking required to increase and exchange knowledge. What is needed is a new approach to leadership that goes beyond individual control and management bureaucracy to embrace more sharing and collaboration. One such approach is distributed leadership; however, existing research into distributed leadership in higher education has been criticised for being normative and less democratic than is suggested in its theorisation. The research for this paper focuses on the reflections of participants in projects designed to use distributed leadership to build leadership capacity in learning and teaching in Australian higher education. The outcome was a resource designed to identify actions needed to enable a distributed leadership process that is genuinely aimed at engaging staff in influencing leadership decision making. The authors propose that this paper extends research in distributed leadership beyond the normative, subjectivist functionalist research for which it is criticised, towards a more universally applicable research paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Decentralization can be generally described as a process in which selected functions are assigned to sub-national units. The literature identifies a number of positive consequences of decentralization which all lead to a better satisfaction citizens' needs for public services. Although the decentralization process in Croatia started more than ten years ago, it has not yet been completed. While leading to a new allocation of authorities and responsibilities to local government units, the level of fiscal decentralization remained lower than in the EU countries. In this paper we analyze the fiscal capacity of local government units to provide an insight into the main problems of decentralization in Croatia. We show that most local government units have very low fiscal capacity, which is insufficient for financing basic public functions with their own resources. The paper presents the results of a survey relating to the decentralization process conducted among local councilors at the regional level in Croatia. We explore how local councilors at the regional level evaluate different goals of decentralization. With the lack of fiscal capacity in mind, we identify two possible solutions for an optimal provision of public functions. The first one is the level of political will for a joint provision of public functions by different local units, and the second one is a change in the territorial organization of the country. We measure the difference in the attitudes toward these questions across counties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many companies with global supply networks suffer from market volatility and supply disruptions, which adversely affect both their short and long-term profits. Although using mechanisms, such as supply contracts, is useful to mitigate uncertainty, the inherent inefficiency of decentralization is a critical issue that needs to be considered at early design stages. This paper studies a supply chain problem where a buyer receives a product from a cheap but unreliable main supplier and signs an option contract with a perfectly reliable backup supplier to share supply and demand uncertainty. To build efficiency benchmark models, we first consider a centralized problem and then explore a decentralized problem where there is only a wholesale price contract between the buyer and the backup supplier. Considering the option contract, we reconstruct optimization problems and sequentially characterize the members' reservation and production policies under a voluntary compliance regime. Subsequently, we establish a win–win coordination mechanism that maximizes system efficiency and meanwhile is desirable from both contract members' perspectives. Results reveal that the proposed mechanism leads the backup supplier to choose a lower level of production capacity than the buyer's reservation amount (i.e., an underproduction policy). We realize that the existing mismatch between the members' optimal policies is caused by the buyer's phantom ordering. This paper sheds light on the effectiveness of contract-based mitigation strategies that enable firms to ensure responsive backup capacity under demand uncertainty and supply disruptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the degrowth literature, relocalization is widely considered as a strategic approach to transition to a degrowth society, and eco-village/urban village is argued to be the spatial organization suitable for implementing localism. These debates on eco-village/urban village as a vision for long-term sustainability have profound implications for the spatial development of our society. This paper aims to challenge this proposition from an urban planner's perspective by dwelling on spatial implications and planning process. It is argued that spatial decentralization can lead to various social and environmental consequences contradicting the multi-goals of a degrowth society. Localizing and decentralizing decision making in the planning process does not necessarily lead to a just and sustainable society. Instead, it is of importance to have multi-scalar strategies in the planning context to pursue degrowth. The paper concludes by pointing out the complex relation between paradigmatic societal transformation and spatial development, and the significant role that urban planning can play in the transition to degrowth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-disaster governance is a popular discussion topic in disaster research, but in practice understanding of the issue is limited. This paper discusses recovery governance since the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, focusing on two dimensions: decentralisation and citizen participation in local governance. Regional Japan's socio-spatial vitality has been shrinking and weakening under the developmental state system. The 2011 disaster exposed vulnerabilities in the sociopolitical system. For a short time it appeared that local political space had been opened for alternative governance systems; however, only limited improvements have occurred in decentralisation reform and civic participation systems. Tsunami recovery was constrained and delayed by predisaster trajectories, although socio-spatial inequalities increased. The paper suggests the implications of this for the developmental state and argues that drastic action should be taken to rectify the faults of the socio-political system, to stop the disaster-affected area's decline, and to promote regional and community recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines decentralized reform initiatives in the Indian rural water sector from a policy perspective as well as from a political perspective focused on institutional design and implementation at the local level. It argues that normative economic prescriptions regarding decentralization are not very useful. The paper finds that the institutional architecture for decentralized reforms is highly contested and requires a better understanding of power and the role of micro-politics in shaping decentralization designs and outcomes. It also suggests that greater devolution in the water sector can lead to greater decentralization and democratization across sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an effective method to control distributed energy resources (DERs) installed in a microgrid (MG) to guarantee its stability after islanding occurrence. Considering voltage and frequency variations after islanding occurrence and based on stability criteria, MG pre-islanding conditions are divided into secure and insecure classes. It is shown that insecure MG can become secure, if appropriate preventive control is applied on the DERs in different operating conditions of the MG. To select the most important variables of MG, which can estimate proper values of output power set points of DERs, a feature selection procedure known as symmetrical uncertainty is used in this paper. Among all the MG variables, critical ones are selected to calculate the appropriate output power of different DERs for different conditions of the MG. The values of selected features are transmitted by the communication system to the control unit installed on each DER to control its output power set point. In order to decrease the communication system cost, previous researchers have used local variables to control the set point of different DERs. This approach decreases the accuracy of the controller because the controller uses incomplete information. In this paper, multi-objective approach is used in order to decrease the cost of the communication system, while keeping the accuracy of the preventive control strategy in an allowable margin. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in comparison with other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The “bullwhip” effect is a major cause of supply chain deficiencies. This phenomenon refers to grow the amplification of demand or inventory variability as it moves up the supply chain. Supply chain managers experience this variance amplification in both inventory levels and orders. Other side, dampening variance in orders may have a negative impact on customer service due to the increase in the inventory variance. This paper with simulating a three stage supply chains consisting of a single retailer, single wholesaler and single manufacturer under both centralized and decentralized chains. In this paper, it is intended to analysis the causes of bullwhip effect from two dimensions of order and inventory variance using the response surface methodology. The results show that in both supply chains, rationing factor is considered as the least important cause of bullwhip effect. While the wholesaler’s order batching and the chain’s order batching are considered as the main causes for the bullwhip effect in the decentralized and centralized chains, respectively. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Although urbanization in smaller cities is arguably not imperative, the future of urban living is no longer expected to be principally in mega-cities. People increasingly live in intermediate and smaller cities, in line with the proportion of people residing in urban areas, which is also gradually rising. Smaller cities in Indonesia, like other smaller cities in the developing world, are relatively densely populated, and many of them are experiencing extended urbanization, thereby exceeding their administrative boundaries. This paper seeks to explore the factors triggering urban development in these smaller cities, for a case in Indonesia. Urban change in Cirebon Region has accelerated in recent years, very much in line with the decentralization policy in Indonesia. This paper shows how urban change is influenced by economic restructuring, which encourages people to live closer to the core of the region, representing a new link between the core and new emerging urban areas in the region. This paper reveals these attributes to identify the characteristics of smaller urban centres, thereby contributing a more nuanced image of small cities in general. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper presents several models to compare centralized and distributed automated separation assurance concepts in aviation. In a centralized system, safety-related functions are implemented by common equipment on the ground. In a distributed system, safety-related functions are implemented by equipment on each aircraft. Failures of the safety-related functions can increase the risk of near mid-air collisions. Intuitively, failures on the ground are worse than failures in the air because the ground failures simultaneously affect multiple aircraft. This paper evaluates the degree to which this belief is true. Using region-wide models to account for dependencies between aircraft pairs, we derive the region-wide expectation and variance of the number of separation losses for both centralized and distributed concepts. This derivation is done first for a basic scenario involving a single component and function. We show that the variance of the number of separation losses is always higher for the centralized system, holding the expectations equal. However, numerical examples show that the difference is negligible when the events of interest are rare. Results are extended to a hybrid centralized-distributed scenario involving multiple components and functions on the ground and in the air. In this case, the variance of the centralized system may actually be less than that of the distributed system. The overall implication is that the common-cause failure of the ground function does not seriously weaken the overall case for using a centralized concept versus a distributed concept. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper focuses on Romanian experiences regarding the financial strategies used by managers from pre-university education. In Romania, local public authorities provide funds to pre-university institutions. Given the sharp economic recession and the austerity measures imposed by Romanian government, the public executives had to find solutions in collecting additional funds and in spending wisely the existing financial resources. Therefore, our paper aims at examining several practices regarding: (i) employees' wages, (ii) EU funds implementing, (iii) self-financing activities, (iv) public procurement and (v) balancing strategies for the budgets, which could improve the financial management of public institutions. This also can contribute to the increase in the efficiency of spending at micro-level within public administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pricing decisions of two complementary products in a fuzzy environment are considered in this paper. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the changes of the optimal retail pricing of two complementary products under two different decentralized decision scenarios (e.g., Nash game case and Stackelberg game case). As a reference model, the centralized pricing model is also established. The closed-form optimal pricing decisions of the two complementary products are obtained in the above three decision scenarios. Some interesting management insights into how pricing decisions vary with decision scenarios are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to empirically evaluate the electoral competition in the Brazilian election for Congress. The evaluation focused on the regional dimension of electoral competition, what is sustained by concepts such as informal electoral districts (AMES, 2001; 2003) or political hamlets (HUNTER AND POWER, 2007; ZUCCO, 2008). This paper considers electoral results from 1994 to 2010 and uses the imbalance index (TAAGEPERA, 1979) in a timing frame perspective as basic criteria because the Effective Number of Parties does not capture the decentralization of electoral competition. Results suggests that the personal and regional political control is not the rule of political competition in Brazil; the informal district theory lacks of empirical support and, the politicians that are successful in avoiding competition do not always get elected and vary in their power over electorate through time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers firms making collaborative production-distribution planning with shipment consolidation to reduce costs. However, the firms have private cost information which they are not willing to disclosure. We develop a computable mechanism based on a decentralized local search heuristic combined with simulated annealing, which allows for not only system optimization but also cost allocation. The mechanism is especially applicable to the firms with private cost information, due to its good incentive properties and budget balance in almost all the cases. Computational experiments indicate that the cost savings are significant for both the system and the individual firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the adoption and motivation to adopt global spare parts practices in autonomous units servicing the products of an original equipment manufacturer.Design/methodology/approach The methodological approach is case study investigating the reasons for different levels of use and the perceptions regarding the benefits of a centralized supply chain management in four representative service units.Findings Autonomous spare part units often source locally because local suppliers are easy to work with in terms of purchasing processes and have no requirements for systematic planning and control of spare parts purchases and inventory management. However, increasing the share of centrally sourced and managed spare parts in the supply chain brings advantages in terms of lower total cost and higher availability. From the perspective of individual subunits engaged in providing product support services, this advantage of relying on a centrally managed spare parts supply chain of an original equipment manufacturer is not self-evident. Autonomous units frequently choose to continue sourcing spare parts from alternative sources, undermining the economies of scale attainable through the original equipment manufacturer’s supply chain. Higher levels of use are facilitated by back-office purchasing management at the unit level. The positive perceptions of centralized supply management in general – including the relationship between the supply unit and the service unit – further facilitate adoption, while local requirements and practices inhibit it.Research limitations/implications The study is a single case study and presents proposals requiring further study of the reasons for the observed differences in use of centralized supply chain management.Practical implications Centralized spare parts management service requires investment in back-office resources at the service unit level.Originality/value The research increases the practical relevance of existing research through an empirical investigation on the autonomous units’ motivations for and perceived benefits of centralized spare parts supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software-defined networking (SDN) introduces a new method in networking that by offering programmability and centralization, it can dynamically control and configure networks. In traditional networks, data plane did the whole forwarding process, but SDN decouples data plane and control plane by using programmable software controllers for deciding how to forward different flows. By implementing control plane in a software-based independent layer, the network management will become much easier and new policies can be applied to the network by changing a few lines of code. Since the resource allocation and meeting the required service-level agreement are really important in large-scale networks such as cloud datacenters, using SDN can be very useful. In these networks, one logically centralized controller cannot handle the whole network traffic and it will become network bottleneck. Therefore, multiple distributed controllers should be allocated in different regions of the network. Since the request rate of switches varies in time, by dynamic allocation of controllers, network resources will be allocated efficiently and this approach can also reduce power consumption. In this paper, we are going to propose a framework for provisioning software controllers in cloud datacenters by using metaheuristic algorithms. These algorithms can be less accurate compared to other kinds, but their main characteristics like simplicity, flexibility, derivation free, and local optimum avoidance make them a good nominee for solving controller provisioning problem and controller placement problem. Our framework improves computation time and reaches better results compared to other allocation techniques, but it is less accurate in some scenarios. Therefore, we believe metaheuristic approach can be very useful in developing new technologies for SDN in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bridging the water infrastructure gap has become a major policy concern. In rural areas of Africa, access to water is as much constrained by territorial coverage as it is by the poor conditions of water points due to the difficulty in mobilizing communities for repairs. This paper examines the equity considerations of a rural water and sanitation programme in a district of Mozambique, and their impacts on the achievement of the programme's objectives. Our analysis underlines the contradictions in the conceptualization of equity in the design, planning and implementation of the programme. Even an explicitly pro-poor strategy can fall short of delivering equity. Our findings stress the fact that overlooking local perception of equity can have a direct impact on the ability of a community to ensure the maintenance of their water points. They call for a careful definition of equity in the design of water programmes, as well as closer attention to this criterion as a precondition to achieving the long-term objective of the programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the increasing concern about the environmental quality of human settlements makes people realize that the attractive environment given by natural ecology also deficiently needs the feedback and protection of nature in some forms so that the natural ecology can be endlessly cycled on its own. Taking the project of German Enterprise Center in Qingdao Sino-German Ecopark as an example, this paper discussed construction of outdoor environment water circulation system using the landscape building method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In 2013, Kenya transitioned into a devolved system of government with a central government and 47 semi-autonomous county governments. In this paper, we report early experiences of devolution in the Kenyan health sector, with a focus on public county hospitals. Specifically, we examine changes in hospital autonomy as a result of devolution, and how these have affected hospital functioning. Methods: We used a qualitative case study approach to examine the level of autonomy that hospitals had over key management functions and how this had affected hospital functioning in three county hospitals in coastal Kenya. We collected data by in-depth interviews of county health managers and hospital managers in the case study hospitals (n = 21). We adopted the framework proposed by Chawla et al (1995) to examine the autonomy that hospitals had over five management domains (strategic management, finance, procurement, human resource, and administration), and how these influenced hospital functioning. Findings: Devolution had resulted in a substantial reduction in the autonomy of county hospitals over the five key functions examined. This resulted in weakened hospital management and leadership, reduced community participation in hospital affairs, compromised quality of services, reduced motivation among hospital staff, non-alignment of county and hospital priorities, staff insubordination, and compromised quality of care. Conclusion: Increasing the autonomy of county hospitals in Kenya will improve their functioning. County governments should develop legislation that give hospitals greater control over resources and key management functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the impacts of political decentralization and women reservation in local governance on institutional births and child mortality in the state of Bihar, India. Using the difference-in-differences methodology, we find a significant positive association between political decentralization and institutional births. We also find that the increased participation of women at local governance led to an increased survival rate of children belonging to richer households. We argue that our results are consistent with female leaders having policy preference for women and child well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a decentralised tracking control (DTC) scheme is developed for unknown large-scale nonlinear systems by using observer-critic structure-based adaptive dynamic programming. The control consists of local desired control, local tracking error control and a compensator. By introducing the local neural network observer, the subsystem dynamics can be identified. The identified subsystems can be used for the local desired control and the control input matrix, which is used in local tracking error control. Meanwhile, Hamiltonian-Jacobi-Bellman equation can be solved by constructing a critic neural network. Thus, the local tracking error control can be derived directly. To compensate the overall error caused by substitution, observation and approximation of the local tracking error control, an adaptive robustifying term is employed. Simulation examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed DTC scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The literature concerned in fiscal federalism and fiscal decentralization promotes the sub-national responsibility for sub-national resources and spending. In this paper sub-national tax revenues are compared to total tax revenues expressing the tax decentralization for the sample of EU 28 countries. Beside it, the main part of sub-national taxes, the immovable property tax -- tax on land building or other structure, is compared to total sub-national tax revenues. Using the GMM system estimation determinants of sub-national tax revenues, real estate tax revenues and tax decentralization are investigated on the sample of EU countries. Results show the significant negative relation between GDP per capita growth, population density and inflation rate and all variables in question. In the case of sub-national government real estate tax revenues the positive relation with public debt is observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A smart camera is a vision system capable of extracting application-specific information from the captured images. The paper proposes a decentralized and efficient solution for visual parking lot occupancy detection based on a deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) specifically designed for smart cameras. This solution is compared with state-of-the-art approaches using two visual datasets: PKLot, already existing in literature, and CNRPark-EXT. The former is an existing dataset, that allowed us to exhaustively compare with previous works. The latter dataset has been created in the context of this research, accumulating data across various seasons of the year, to test our approach in particularly challenging situations, exhibiting occlusions, and diverse and difficult viewpoints. This dataset is public available to the scientific community and is another contribution of our research. Our experiments show that our solution outperforms and generalizes the best performing approaches on both datasets. The performance of our proposed CNN architecture on the parking lot occupancy detection task, is comparable to the well-known AlexNet, which is three orders of magnitude larger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bullwhip effect in supply chain is a phenomenon which can emerge in both inventory levels and replenishment orders. Bullwhip effect causes variations in cash conversion cycle (CCC) across cash flow of supply chain. As a result, it can lead to inefficiencies such as cash flow bullwhip (CFB). Due to negative impact of CFB on cash flow of supply chain, it can lead to a decrease in efficiency of supply chain management (SCM). That is why supply chain modeling is a proper start point for effective management and control of the CFB. This paper aims to analyze concurrent impact of causes of inventory bullwhip effect and effect of their interactions on CFB based on generalized OUT policy from aspect of CCC variance. To this end, first we develop system dynamics structure of beer distribution game as simulation model which includes multi-stage supply chain under both centralized and decentralized supply chains. Then, in order to develop CFB function, we design experiments in developed simulation model using response surface methodology (RSM). Results demonstrate that if each chain member uses generalized OUT policy as replenishment model, there still exists CFB in both chains and CFB largely stems from rationing and shortage gaming in both centralized and decentralized supply chain. In addition, when information on ordering parameters are not shared among members, parameters of downstream stage (i.e. retailer) are more important than parameters of upstream stage (i.e. manufacturer) in reducing CFB function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses teacher autonomy in the case of the Swedish teaching profession since the 1980s. It is argued that deregulation, decentralization, and marketization reforms of the 1990s have indeed increased teacher autonomy, but in some respects also led to a increase of complexity in the Swedish school system. In order to handle this complexity, the state intensified a standardization of schooling, which restricts teacher autonomy today. Relevant the paper's understanding is that teacher autonomy is always about control, exerted internally by the profession itself and facilitated externally by state standards. The article argues that the restriction of teacher autonomy in recent times is also related to a simplified understanding of the phenomenon in the reforms of the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the economic transition, manufacturing in China has undergone profound changes not only in number of enterprises, but also in ownership structure and intra-urban spatial distribution. Investigating the changing manufacturing landscape from the perspective of ownership structure is critical to a deep understanding of the changing role of market and government in re-shaping manufacturing location behavior. Through a case study of Wuxi, a city experiencing comprehensive ownership reform, this paper presents a detailed analysis of the intra-urban spatial shift of manufacturing, identifies the location discrepancies, and examines the underlying forces responsible for the geographical differentiations. Through zone- and district-based analysis, a distinctive trend of decentralization and suburbanization, as well as an uneven distribution of manufacturing, is unveiled. The results of Location Quotient analysis show that the distribution of manufacturing by ownership exhibits distinctive spatial patterns, which is characterized by a historically-based, market-led, and institutionally-created spatial variation. By employing Hot Spot analysis, the role of development zones in attracting manufacturing enterprises of different ownerships is established. Overall, the location behavior of the diversified manufacturing has been increasingly based on the forces of market since the land marketization began. A proactive role played by local governments has also guided the enterprise location decision through spatial planning and regulatory policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory of probabilistic linguistic term sets (PLTSs) is very useful in dealing with the multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problems in which there is hesitancy in providing linguistic assessments; and PLTSs allow experts to express their preferences on one linguistic term over another. The existing approaches associated with PLTSs are limited or highly complex in real applications. Hence, the main purpose of this paper is to establish more appropriate comparison method and develop a more efficient way to handle with MCDM problems. We first put forward a diagram method to analyze the structures of PLTSs and develop the visualized way for readers to comprehend. Then a possibility degree formula is given for ranking PLTSs. Based on the new comparison method and the theory of the fuzzy preference relation, an efficient decision-making framework is proposed to solve real-life problems under linguistic environment. Conventional TOPSIS methods combined with PLTSs are also included for comparison. All results demonstrate the practicality of the new framework. Finally, we also seek out relationship between PLTSs and hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets (HFLTSs), and compare the new formula with the similar approaches to HFLTSs’ rating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid growth of Web 2.0 technology, a new paradigm has been developed that allows many users to participate in decision-making processes within online social networks. The social information (i.e., social ties and social influence) of the members that is stored in online social networks provides a new perspective for investigating group decision-making (GDM) problems. In this paper, a new interactive GDM approach, based on online social networks, is proposed to address a ranking problem with incomplete additive preference relations (IAPRs). This approach incorporates the strength of social ties and social influence calculated by social network analysis methods regarding the decision-making process. After decision makers (DMs) provide IAPRs, a searching algorithm is developed to identify the optimal preference information transfer path from DMs to the decision supporters who can provide the corresponding preference information. Next, a linear programming model is constructed to complete the missing preference values of the IAPRs. The main features of the linear programming model include its ability to account for other DMs’ preference information and to maintain consistency. To help the group reach an agreement on the ranking of alternatives, a consensus reaching process is proposed. The strength of social ties and social influence are used to calculate the acceptable adjustment coefficients for DMs in the feedback mechanism. Finally, an illustrative example and further discussion demonstrate the validity of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study on how cooperation versus non-cooperation, and centralization versus distribution impact the performance of a traffic game of autonomous vehicles. A model using a particle-based, Lagrange representation, is developed, instead of an Eulerian, flow-based one, usual in routing problems of the game-theoretical approach. This choice allows representation of phenomena such as fuel exhaustion, vehicle collision, and wave propagation. The elements necessary to represent interactions in a multi-agent transportation system are defined, including a distributed, priority-based resource allocation protocol, where resources are nodes and links in a spatial network and individual routing strategies are performed. A fuel consumption dynamics is developed in order to account for energy cost and vehicles having limited range. The analysis shows that only the scenarios with cooperative resource allocation can achieve optimal values of either collective cost or equity coefficient, corresponding respectively to the centralized and to the distributed cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of biomass in energy sector is continuously growing all over the world due to a number of factors such as low emissions, need for alternative energy sources, increased government initiatives for renewable energy technologies and a substantial untapped biomass potential. But, the economics of biomass based power projects depends on the long term and secure supplies of sustainable feedstock. In case of agricultural residues, the feasibility of installation of a power plant is directly dependent on the transport cost and their availability in a region. Therefore, region-wise planning and policies are required to promote their utilization for energy purpose. The present paper summarizes the methodology to evaluate the state-wise power potential of agricultural residues in India. Further, other issues related with their utilization for electricity generation have also been discussed. It has been revealed that biomass power potential is highest in the state of Uttar Pradesh (6045 MW) followed by Punjab (3585 MW), Maharashtra (3139 MW) and Haryana (2300 MW), while its value varies significantly within the country. But, these resources are not exploited to a considerable extent by various states due to a number of challenges. The logistics of biomass collection and the moisture contents are the major barriers in this regard. But, selection of appropriate technology (combustion or gasification) and favorable policies (for use of biomass for energy) can help to resolve these issues. Various government incentives (at state and central level) such as schemes, grants and subsidies have encouraged the adoption of the grid connected biomass combustion/cogeneration projects (at megawatt scale) and the off-grid gasification units (small scale plants) for rural electrification. The study reveals that the future targets for the biomass based installed capacity can be achieved by successful implementation of these schemes in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the properties of the sets of strategic measures induced by admissible team policies in decentralized stochastic control and the convexity properties in dynamic team problems. To facilitate a convex analytical approach, strategic measures for team problems are introduced. Properties such as convexity, compactness, and Borel measurability under weak convergence topology are studied, and sufficient conditions for each of these properties are presented. These lead to existence of and structural results for optimal policies. It will be shown that the set of strategic measures for teams which are not classical is in general nonconvex, but the extreme points of a relaxed set consist of deterministic team policies, which lead to their optimality for a given team problem under an expected cost criterion. Externally provided independent common randomness for static teams or private randomness for dynamic teams do not improve the team performance. The problem of when a sequential team problem is convex is studied and necessary and sufficient conditions for problems which include teams with a nonclassical information structure are presented. Implications of this analysis in identifying probability and information structure dependent convexity properties are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a pilot study examining the extent to which preferences for decentralized organizational structures and entrepreneurship may be associated. Building upon the extant literature, relationships between level of education and a preference for centralization and between work experience and a preference for decentralization are analyzed. Also studied is the preference for centralization/decentralization according to demographic factors as well as how individuals perceive their readiness for and knowledge about entrepreneurship. A survey of students and non-students enabled comparisons across a range of ages and years of education. Regardless of whether they were categorized as employees, managers, or business owners, respondents with fewer years of education indicated a greater preference for centralization. Similarly, regardless of category, respondents with fewer years of work experience preferred centralization. Finally, those believing they were knowledgeable about and ready for entrepreneurship showed a greater preference for decentralization. Findings cannot be generalized due to the small, non-random convenience sample and the comparisons of small subsets of data. Lessons learned in the study and the increased understanding of attitudes regarding centralization/decentralization, however, may lead to new and useful concepts for entrepreneurship education and in forming entrepreneurial teams within organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geosensor networks present unique resource constraints to spatial computation, including limited battery power, communication constraints, and frequently a lack of coordinate positioning systems. As a result, there is a need for new algorithms that can efficiently satisfy basic spatial queries within those resource constraints. This paper explores the design and evaluation of a family of new algorithms for determining the topological relations between regions monitored by such a resource-constrained geosensor network. The algorithms are based on efficient, decentralized (in-network) variants of conventional 4-intersection and intersection and difference models, with in-network data aggregation. Further, our algorithms operate without any coordinate information, making them suitable applications where a positioning system is unavailable or unreliable. While all four algorithms are shown to have overall communication complexity O( n) and optimal load balance O(1), the algorithms differ in the level of topological detail they can detect; the types of regions they can monitor; and in the constant factors for communication complexity. The paper also demonstrates the impact of finite granularity observations on the correctness of the query results. In the conclusions, we identify the need to conduct further fundamental research on the relationship between topological relations between regions and limited granularity sensor observations of those regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the Chinese provincial panel data from 1995 to 2008, using the panel co-integration method, this paper presents an empirical study on the long-term equilibrium relationship between the fiscal decentralization, the local government competition and the farmland conversion. On this basis, establishing the dynamic panel data model, using the generalized method of moments (GMM) to analyze the dynamic impact of the fiscal decentralization and the local government competition on the farmland conversion from the view of three cross-regional groups and the mainland China. The results show that there is a long-run co-integration relationship between the fiscal decentralization, the farmland conversion and the local government competition, and also there is a positive significant influence of the fiscal decentralization and the local government competition on the farmland conversion, a 1% increase in the degree of fiscal decentralization will increase the area of farmland conversion by 0.3280%. In addition, there is a significant difference of the incentive effect of local government competition on the farmland conversion in different regions. Th e paper ends with policy suggestions for perfecting the system of the fiscal decentralization, taxation and the division of responsibility and authority, reforming the criterion of the political achievement assessment, strengthening the management of land revenue, reducing the reliance of the local government on land finance; at the same time, the farmers' land property rights should be perfected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to contribute to the sociological analysis of power through the study of the structuration and retrieval of information on the internet. The main argument of the paper is that, paradoxically, in an age when the availability of information has increased exponentially, there is a risk that diversity in the use of sources for the construction of knowledge becomes more restricted than in the past and that information search moves towards greater objectification and centralisation. Knowledge management systems increasingly shape the ways in which we think about the questions we ask and how we try to answer them, which raises fundamental and largely neglected questions for education policy. The paper illustrates these trends with particular reference to the use of Google and Google Scholar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]