Croatia and the Chinese “17+1” Cooperation Framework

The proliferation of mobile devices has driven significant growth in adaptive mobile applications (AMAs) that dynamically adjust their behavior based on contextual changes. While existing research has extensively studied individual adaptive systems, limited attention has been given to cooperative adaptation—where multiple AMAs coordinate their adaptive behaviors within shared mobile ecosystems. This systematic literature review addresses this research gap by analyzing 95 peer-reviewed studies published between 2010 and 2025 to characterize the current state of cooperative adaptation in mobile applications. Following established systematic review protocols, we searched six academic databases and applied rigorous inclusion/exclusion criteria to identify relevant studies. Our analysis reveals eight critical dimensions of cooperative adaptation: Monitor–Analyze–Plan–Execute–Knowledge (MAPE-K) structure, application domain, adaptation goals, context management, adaptation triggers, aspect considerations, coordination mechanisms, and cooperation levels. The findings indicate that 63.2% of studies demonstrate some form of cooperative behavior, ranging from basic context sharing to sophisticated conflict resolution mechanisms. However, only 7.4% of studies explicitly address high-level cooperative adaptation involving global goal optimization or comprehensive conflict resolution. Energy efficiency (21.1%) and usability (33.7%) emerge as the most frequently addressed adaptation goals, with Android platforms dominating the research landscape (36.8%). The review identifies significant gaps in comprehensive lifecycle support, standardized evaluation methodologies, and theoretical frameworks for multi-application cooperation. These findings establish a foundation for advancing research in cooperative adaptive mobile systems and provide a classification framework to guide future investigations in this emerging domain.

The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 accelerated the rising profile of national health security, given its indiscriminate devastation of economies and livelihoods. Health has thus become an issue of strategic importance in global discourse. The study sought to explore the mechanisms that are in place for cooperation between the two sectoral dockets of foreign affairs and health in Kenya in the implementation of foreign policy towards achieving health security objectives. It adopted a desktop review of secondary data, which was subsequently analyzed thematically. The study found that health interests are contemplated within the broader framework of cooperation with other states and organizations. However, the absence of a “health diplomacy” pillar in Kenya’s foreign policy exposes an existing gap in operational clarity among the foreign policy practitioners. This notwithstanding, existing cooperation has brought about tangible health benefits, including the campaign and efforts to rollback major diseases, while bilateral frameworks have provided for investments in the sector, exchange of personnel and expertise, and transfer of technology. The foreign affairs and health ministries have a significant level of interaction towards delivering the national health security agenda, albeit in silo-like manner. As the prominence of health as an issue of strategic importance ascends, a case is being made for the addition of “health diplomacy” pillar, into the Foreign Policy to alleviate the identified gap.

Chronology of Events:October 2018 to December 2018 CHEN Juan (bio) As a research institute based in Singapore, the EAI monitors developments in relations and interactions between China and the individual countries of Southeast Asia as well as the ASEAN grouping as a whole. This material is presented in the form of (i) a chronology of events and (ii) important documents. —the Editors CHINA–ASEAN RELATIONS OCTOBER 2018 TO DECEMBER 2018: CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS Compiled by CHEN Juan OCTOBER 2018 12th The 18th Meeting of the ASEAN Plus Three Ministers on Agriculture and Forestry is held in Hanoi, Vietnam. The meeting reaffirms support for the ASEAN Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserve (APTERR) Agreement through the signing of a protocol to amend "Attachment 2" of the agreement. The amendment extends financial contribution to the operational cost account of the APTERR Fund by five years (2018 to 2022). The Sixth ASEAN–China Ministerial Meeting on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Cooperation, also held in Hanoi, adopts the Plan of Action for 2019–2020 that covers food safety, plant and animal inspection and quarantine. This plan also maintains the previous scopes of cooperation on the establishment of a communication system, personnel exchanges, organising trainings and seminars, collaborative research and the setting up of consultation mechanism. 13th The Sixth Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Intersessional Ministerial Meeting is held in Singapore. The ministers from the 16 RCEP participating countries highlight the need to further narrow the gaps in market access and note the progress made in the negotiations of other chapters on rules. All RCEP participating countries are also urged to fulfil the targets set out in the Package of Year-End Deliverables, which the ministers have reiterated to be important particularly at the time of uncertainties in global trade. 18th At the Third Meeting of the China–Philippines Bilateral Consultation Mechanism on the South China Sea held in Beijing, China, both sides exchange views on issues of concern and mutually beneficial approaches to address the issues. There are also discussions about the methods to enhance maritime cooperation, and possible cooperation in joint exploration and development of maritime oil and gas. 18th–19th Leaders of 51 European and Asian countries, European Union representatives and the ASEAN Secretariat convene at the 12th Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM), held in Brussels, Belgium under the theme "Global Partners for Global Challenges". They agree to renew support for the rules-based international order during their discussions that focus on sustainable and rules-based connectivity. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivers a speech at the meeting, urging participating countries to strengthen "soft connectivity" in areas such as institutions, policies, rules and standards in order to invigorate factors of production. On the sidelines of the ASEM, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang meets with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who welcomes Chinese enterprises to build industrial parks in Vietnam. The latter also affirms willingness to jointly work with China to maintain maritime peace and stability. Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen also meets with Chinese Premier Li on the sidelines of the ASEM. Li says that China will continue to import Cambodia's competitive agricultural products, and calls upon the two countries to enhance synergy of their development strategies and expand bilateral trade. Li also expresses China's support for Cambodia to host the next ASEM summit. Hun Sen hopes to expand practical cooperation with China in trade and agriculture, and welcomes investments from Chinese companies. Hun Sen adds that Li's visit to Cambodia and co-chairing of the Lancang–Mekong Cooperation (LMC) leaders' meeting in 2018 had injected new impetus into Cambodia–China relations and the LMC. 20th The Fifth ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) on Preventing and Countering the Threat of Terrorism, held in Singapore, discusses specific initiatives to deal with terrorism and prevent mishaps in the air for military aircraft. The ADMM-Plus convenes defence ministers from the 10 ASEAN countries and also defence ministers from Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia and the United States. Consensus achieved at the meeting results in the issuance of two joint statements, one on Preventing and Countering the Threat of Terrorism, and the other on Practical Confidence...

Currently, the issue of international cooperation in countering transnational crimes is quite relevant for all countries of the world, including the Russian Federation and the countries of the African continent. In addition, the relevance of the chosen area of international cooperation for scientific research is given by the strengthening of Russian-African relations over the past few years in the context of a changing geopolitical structure of the world, one of the areas of which is the issue of effective counteraction to the most widespread transnational crimes. The subject of the study is the international counteraction to transnational crimes within the framework of cooperation between Russia and the countries of the African continent. The purpose of the research is to study international cooperation between Russia and African countries in the field of countering transnational crimes at the present stage. The methods used in the research were general (dialectical method, systematic and integrated approaches) and special formal legal methods. In the course of the research, the following results were obtained: the signs of transnational crimes identified in international law were studied, as well as their additional characteristics were indicated, the approaches of foreign and domestic experts to the definition of "transnational crimes" were analyzed, the content of international cooperation in the field of countering crimes was studied, the basis for international cooperation in the field of countering transnational crimes was outlined, and the author's definition of the concept of "transnational crimes". The results obtained have a scientific novelty due to the fact that they clarify the content of the concept of transnational crimes and can be applied in the practical activities of various public authorities, primarily in improving mechanisms for countering transnational crimes at the level of international cooperation, as well as in the framework of scientific and representative events on the subject of research.

Evolutionary game theory is one of the key paradigms behind many scientific disciplines from science to engineering. Previous studies proposed a strategy updating mechanism, which successfully demonstrated that the scale-free network can provide a framework for the emergence of cooperation. Instead, individuals in random graphs and small-world networks do not favor cooperation under this updating rule. However, a recent empirical result shows the heterogeneous networks do not promote cooperation when humans play a prisoner’s dilemma. In this paper, we propose a strategy updating rule with payoff memory. We observe that the random graphs and small-world networks can provide even better frameworks for cooperation than the scale-free networks in this scenario. Our observations suggest that the degree heterogeneity may be neither a sufficient condition nor a necessary condition for the widespread cooperation in complex networks. Also, the topological structures are not sufficed to determine the level of cooperation in complex networks.

Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) involves the integration of the multiple uses of water, the integration of multiple properties of water: water disaster, water resources, waterways, water environment, water ecology, water landscape and water culture, and the integration of water by space: upstream vs downstream, left bank vs right bank. The main problems of IRBM within the Lancang-Mekong River Basin includes flood disaster, navigation and its impact to basin cooperation, contradiction between development and protection, and public security in a framework of cooperation and integration. It has been a general concern for Mekong countries to manage water conservancy engineering and coordinate water supply, navigation, fishery, power generation, and water disaster management. All stakeholders put great emphasis on water conservancy engineering management in terms of basin planning, domestic and cross-border project construction, and cooperation mechanisms. In order to ensure the sustainable use of water resources, a series of continuously updated plans were proposed. Those plans set goals and provided measures for the rational and sustainable development of the resources in the basin, and meanwhile, it also put forward a mechanism to offset the adverse effects. The development of international navigation has deepened win-win cooperation, strengthened regional economic exchanges and tourism development, promoted regional prosperity among China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand. The basin has abundant fishery resources and has the world’s third most diverse fish population, with 1,148 fish species, after the Amazon and Congo River Basins. Mekong countries have different needs for the development of fishery resources due to their different geographical locations and economic development, and thus very little cooperation in fisheries has been carried out among Mekong countries. The basin’s ecohydrological management involves environmental flow, water quality, soil erosion and sedimentation, aquatic organism and underground water protection. The current measures include enhancing monitoring, scientific assessment, rational regulation of water system, the establishment of natural reserves, and international cooperation. Climate change and construction of dams are both critical challenges faced by the basin in terms of ecohydrological management in the 21st century.

ChAFTA, Trade, and Food Safety: When the Rubber Hits the Road Over the past decade, food safety has evolved into a compelling issue in China. The Chinese government has been committed to strengthening the regulatory framework. A series of laws and regulations ensuring the quality and safety of food in the interests of public health have been promulgated. However, a fairly comprehensive set of laws, along with harsh punishments, does not substantially deter food safety violations. Rather, foodborne illnesses continue to occur on a daily basis. How to improve food safety has become China’s national priority; it is also the main focus of this research. This article determines that one of the main obstacles to food safety is poor implementation of laws. It identifies the external and internal impediments to food safety governance in China. It further proposes an evolving series of potential solutions. Externally, weak enforcement undermines the credibility of the food safety laws. Internally, food manufacturers and distributors in China lack the sense of corporate social responsibility (CSR). To effectively reduce or even remove the external impediment, it is imperative to improve the overall governance in various sectors. As for the internal impediment, incorporating CSR principles into business operations is vital for food safety governance. In fact, the enforcement of many regional trade agreements, in particular, the enforcement of China–Australia FTA (ChAFTA) will largely increase market share of Australian food products in China. Undoubtedly, Chinese food businesses will face unprecedented competition. The pressure to gain competitive advantages in food markets yields an enormous change in motivation for Chinese food businesses. Chinese food companies will ultimately be forced to ‘voluntarily’ integrate CSR principles into their business operations. A significant change in the food sector is expected to be seen within the next decade. The article concludes that better practice in food safety governance in China requires two essential elements: a comprehensive regulatory and cooperative framework with essential rules and institutions, and an effective implementation mechanism involving both the public and private sectors.

The Lumpsum contract system with a Fix Price value with the financing system is Contractor's Full Prefinanced (CPF). This system will be implemented for owners to ease costs, considering that financing is charged to contractors 100%. and paid 30 days after the minutes of the PHO were signed by both parties, Rato (20018). One of the contract systems used in the contract for the purchase of a construction project is the Remeasure Contract (Unit Price). Bridge construction infrastructure is one of the land transportation infrastructure that has an important role in the distribution of goods and services as well as mobility for the community and other economic sectors. Therefore, bridge construction plays a very important role in economic growth in a region. From the above background, the author needs to re-analyze a construction project in the Mountainous Papua Province in terms of the quality of work of the contractor, the lumpsum contract system, and the unit price contract system in the bridge construction project. The results of this study are as follows: the effect of the Lumpsum contract system on the quality of contractors' work in road and bridge construction projects is GOOD. The effect of the Unit Price contract system on the quality of contractors' work in road and bridge construction projects is GOOD. There is no effect of the contract system on the quality of contractors' work on road and bridge construction projects in Papua Mountainous Province.

Current scientific developments in project management can be compared with other fields of management science. One of the important points in scientific analysis of project management is the study of the level of success of a project. This paper tries to examine the level of project success based on aspects of project management knowledge. The study was carried out at a company that was working on the construction of a building. The 14 aspects of project management knowledge were developed to see how each aspect contributes to the success of a project. 70 respondents who were involved in construction projects were the objects of this research. PLS SEM is used as an analytical tool to see the contribution of project knowledge aspects to project success. It was concluded that the 3 aspects that contributed most to project success were Project Financial Management, Project Claims Management and Project Communication Management.

Objective: based on a systematic analysis of the actual level of international cooperation in overcoming digital inequality, to determine the parameters of its further development, taking into account modern legal and other barriers and global challenges caused by the transition from the knowledge economy to the data economy.Methods: the methodological basis of the research is represented by dialectics, comparative legal and historical legal approaches, and the method of system analysis.Results: the problem of digital inequality was considered in the following key aspects: access to the Internet; differences in the level of digital literacy; features of technology use and the versatility of digital inequality. It is noted that access to the Internet and digital technologies should become one of the fundamental human rights in order to ensure equal opportunities for all segments of society, since initially the crystallization of clearly expressed digital differences is based on the existing offline social differences. It was established that, in order to successfully overcome digital inequality, the key global task is to develop digital skills and literacy among the population. It is also important to stimulate the rational use of technologies and ensure people’s understanding of working with both the technologies and the data obtained through them. The authors propose to expand and deepen cooperation between developed and developing countries so that the latter can produce more data that may serve as a metric and a basis for creating development strategies. At the same time, greater transparency should be ensured by providing effective and accessible means so that the data owner can clearly understand who and why processes their personal data. The article argues that the transition from the knowledge economy to the data economy requires the adaptation of international cooperation strategies to ensure equitable access to both data and their processing. This may accelerate scientific discoveries and support inclusive economic development. The issues of fragmentation and defragmentation of international law are analyzed.Scientific novelty: it is due to the current lack of scientific results concerning the level of international cooperation achieved so far in overcoming digital inequality given the parameters of its systemic development and the main (legal and other) barriers.Practical significance: the study results can be used to improve the legal framework and strategies for international cooperation in overcoming digital inequality to ensure equitable access to data and their processing.

Escalating tension and a sense of mistrust currently prevail between downstream and upstream countries in the Nile Basin over Ethiopia's construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Striving for self-sufficiency in hydropower generation, Ethiopia has initiated a new series of upstream reservoir construction projects, with the GERD being the largest, and this may affect the water availability in downstream countries of Egypt and Sudan. This paper examines a set of compensation options to induce cooperation through trust-building, possibly minimizing uncertainties in water allocation decision-making and simplifying complex inter-relationships in the basin using laboratory game experiments. The game was developed and conducted using hydro-economic modeling of the basin with GAMS software, an expert survey with the SPSS program and Z-tree software to design and analyze the laboratory experiment. This paper presents the results of the laboratory game experiment where the Eastern Nile Basin scenario was modeled as a multi-round, adjusted trust game with non-binding deals among players. The results suggest that the win for all situation may be reached through a stable integrative, cooperative framework. Building the enabling environment, in particular, transparency, knowledge, trust, and confidence among riparian states is the first step in developing transboundary cooperation. Basin-wide cooperation requires a transparent environment including a variety of compensation options, institutional changes, and incentive-compatible considerations.Research article

A global oil price decline since the second half of 2014 has negatively impacted the economies of GCC countries, which heavily depend on the oil and gas sector. This led to a decline in trade surpluses and undermined current account balances, resulting in a slowdown of economic growth in these countries. GCC countries are carrying out several policies, as they face slowing economic growth, deepening budget deficits, diminishing foreign investment and shrinking construction project markets due to lower oil prices. In response, a new cooperation framework is required to strengthen bilateral ties for shared growth. First, industrial cooperation should be reinforced to expand economic diversification and job creation in GCC countries. Second, energy security is one of the most significant rationales for bilateral cooperation between Korea and the Middle East, since Korea imports more than 60% of the oil it uses from GCC countries. Third, investment cooperation should be strengthened to facilitate joint investment in the region, including joint ventures. Fourth, institutional cooperation between governments is needed to share experiences and know-how obtained in the process of Korea's institutional reforms in the fields of tax, subsidies, privatization and FDI. Civil servant exchange programs will also contribute to deepening mutual understanding in the bilateral economic partnership.

For the successful realization of large engineering and construction projects (LECPs), a systemic organizational learning framework for institutional cooperation is critical. Due to the long project life-cycle of LECPs, this is particularly important for this kind of project. The objective of this paper is to analyze to what extent the conformity assessment of LECPs, carried out under Engineering, Procurement and Construction management (EPCm) services, can be used as a tool for organizational learning and cooperation between typical stakeholders (project owners, engineering contractors, EPC contractors; subcontractors and certification bodies). The research, from which this paper emanates, was based on a case study concerning LECPs in an oil and gas company in Brazil. Based on its results, we suggest that the proposed organizational learning framework, supported by the conformity assessment rationale, constitutes an important management tool that can be disseminated in other organizational contexts where conformity assessments of LECPs take place.

This study aims to identify the main contemporary challenges ahead of the Chinese economy, as well as to assess to what extent China's policy of interaction with foreign partners contributes to overcoming the existing threats. The author concludes that the strategy of multilateral economic alliances and large-scale investment expansion is formed under the influence of three main internal challenges. Firstly, amid lowering foreign demand and shrinking pace of global trade growth there is a need to move towards a consumption-led growth model. Secondly, the threat of growing social tension within the country is growing because of gradual transformation of labor-intensive industries into capital-intensive one. Thirdly, the problems of ensuring food security become more acute. The opportunities to achieve strategic reorientation of the Chinese economy, to raise incomes, to stimulate domestic demand and to overcome the threat of potential growth of social tension solely from internal resources are very limited. Consequently, the importance of the “external” component of the realization of long-term national interests is growing rapidly. Under the influence of new challenges, the accents are gradually shifting from trade expansion to expanding the investment presence abroad. At the same time, the directions of Chinese foreign investments and investors’ motivation transform. They are gradually moving from investing as minority shareholders in the real sector to increasing their investments, shares in service enterprises, large strategic infrastructure facilities, high-tech companies, and projects. When making investment decisions, Chinese companies are driven by the motive to get access to new technologies and strategic facilities, to expand the network of business contacts and to improve their business reputation. The approach to economic integration is also changing. On the one hand, China initiates and promotes the concept of a broader framework for integration and cooperation. On the other hand, it aims to enhance the “quality” of integration agreements (both bilateral and multilateral), i.e. negotiate relatively more intensive abolition of non-tariff restrictions in trade in goods, active liberalization of trade in services, and the main, intensive elimination of restrictions on investment flows.&nbsp

ABSTRACTIn recent years, China’s overseas investment and construction projects have been developing rapidly. In the meantime, financing demand in developing and emerging economies for projects such as infrastructural and industrial development has soared. This paper assesses the status quo of China’s cooperation in overseas investment and financing, recommends that China should promote investment and financing cooperation under the leading principles of market-orientated operation and primary role of enterprises, and clarify the due positions of market, government, and international institutions. This paper presents the following policy recommendations: (1) Promoting the development financing; (2) Further improving China’s export credit mechanism, to provide investment and financing support for Chinese enterprises in overseas ventures; (3) Improving the network of Chinese financial institutions and the coverage of financial services; (4) Encouraging host countries, multilateral development banks, capital markets of developed economies, and international financial centers to perform due functions in overseas investment and financing cooperation; and (5) Appropriately using a variety of investment and financing methods, including equity investment.