Central Coordination Mechanism Research Articles

Maintaining Warp Speed: Policy Requirements for a Just-in-Time, Capability-Based, Scalable Medical Countermeasure Research and Development Enterprise.

Maintaining Warp Speed: Policy Requirements for a Just-in-Time, Capability-Based, Scalable Medical Countermeasure Research and Development Enterprise.

Fostering cardiovascular health at work \u2013 case study from Senegal

BackgroundOf the 15 million annual premature deaths from non-communicable diseases (NCDs), 85% occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Affecting individuals in the prime of their lives, NCDs impose severe economic damage to economies and businesses, owing to the high mortality and morbidity within the workforce. The Novartis Foundation urban health initiative, Better Hearts Better Cities, was designed to improve cardiovascular health in Dakar, Senegal through a combination of interventions including a workplace health program. In this study, we describe the labor policy environment in Senegal and the outcomes of a Novartis Foundation-supported multisector workplace health coalition bringing together volunteering private companies.MethodsA mixed method design was applied between April 2018 and February 2020 to evaluate the workplace health program as a case study. Qualitative methods included a desk review of documents relevant to the Senegalese employment context and work environment and in-depth interviews with eight key informants including human resource representatives and physicians working in the participating companies. Quantitative methods involved an analysis of workplace health program indicators, including data on diagnosis, treatment and control of hypertension in employees, provided by the coalition companies, and a cost estimate of NCD-related ill-health as compared to the investment needed for hypertension screening and awareness raising events.ResultsSenegal has a legal and regulatory system that ensures employee protection, supports social security benefits, and promotes health and hygiene in companies. The Dakar Workplace Health Coalition comprised 18 companies, with a range of staff between 300 and 4′220, covering 36′268 employees in total. Interviews suggested that the main enablers for workplace program success were strong leadership support within the company and a central coordination mechanism for the program. The main barrier to monitor progress and outcomes was the reluctance of companies to share data. Four companies provided aggregated anonymized cohort data, documenting a total of 21′392 hypertension screenings and an increasing trend in blood pressure control (from 34% in Q4 2018 to 39% in Q2 2019) in employees who received antihypertensive treatment.ConclusionEvidence on workplace health and wellness programs in Africa is scarce. This study highlights how private sector companies can play a significant role in improving cardiovascular population health in LMICs.

Decentralized decomposition algorithms for peer-to-peer linear optimization

We propose Decentralized Benders Decomposition and Decentralized Dantzig–Wolfe Decomposition algorithms for large-scale block angular linear programming problems. Our methods allow multiple peer decision makers to cooperate with the aim of solving the problem without the need of a central coordination mechanism. Instead we achieve cooperation by partial information sharing across a strongly connected communication network. Our main goal is to design decentralized solution approaches for decision makers who are unwilling to disclose their local data, but want to solve the global problem collaboratively for mutual benefit. We prove that our proposed methods reach global optimality in a finite number of iterations. We confirm our theoretical results with computational experiments.

Networks of Opposition: A Structural Analysis of U.S. Climate Change Countermovement Coalitions 1989–2015

The climate change countermovement (CCCM) in the United States has exerted an important influence on delaying efforts to address climate change. Analyses of this countermovement have primarily focused on the role of conservative think tanks. Expanding this research, this article initiates an examination of the structure of key political coalitions that worked to oppose climate action. In conjunction with their allied trade associations, these coalitions have served as a central coordination mechanism in efforts opposed to mandatory limits on carbon emissions. These coalitions pool resources from a large number of corporations and execute sophisticated political and cultural campaigns designed to oppose efforts to address climate change. Through an analysis of twelve prominent CCCM coalitions from 1989 to 2015, I show that over 2,000 organizations were members of these coalitions and that a core of 179 organizations belonged to multiple coalitions. Organizations from the coal and electrical utility sectors were the most numerous and influential organizations in these coalitions. The article concludes with suggestions for further research to expand understanding of complex social movements and countermovements.

Field-level coordination of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) services for Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar

The areas around Ukhiya and Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar district in Bangladesh are the location of some of the world’s largest and most congested refugee settlements. The refugees have myriads of needs, and hundreds of different organisations provide assistance in an enormously complex and at times chaotic humanitarian operation. The humanitarian community in Bangladesh has identified the provision of effective mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) services as a priority. However, the multi-sectoral nature of MHPSS can create challenges especially when it comes to coordination of services. A central coordination mechanism, the MHPSS working group, was established in December 2017. It is a sub-working group of the health sector and it has close ties with other sectors, mainly protection. This central MHPSS working group is attended mostly by mid-level and senior staff involved in policy and programming. We found that adding ‘field-level coordination’ with actors who work in the same geographical area helped to strengthen communication, cooperation and local coordination. It assists field-based staff to stay informed of each other’s work and can promote collaboration. For example, in the elaboration of the Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan to mitigate the effect of monsoon-related events in Cox’s Bazar, the field-level coordination mechanism proved very useful. Moreover, an area-based coordination mechanism can be a suitable platform to engage the affected communities in MHPSS coordination. This field report highlights the rationale, challenges and lessons learned from field-level coordination experience and argues that in large humanitarian settings establishing such area-based coordination mechanisms can have a clear added value and should be routinely considered.

Material Mediations Complicate Communication Privacy Management. The Case Of Wilma In Finnish High Schools

Increasingly, school settings are implementing digital technologies to coordinate teachers’ work. This article examines the role of these technologies in teachers’ boundary regulation processes through the lens of communication privacy management theory, and it provides empirical insight into the renegotiation of being a teacher in the presence of rules formalized in software code. The case of Finnish high school teachers exposed to the use of Wilma, a distributed computing system used to store, process, and transmit student data, revealed experiences of a need to renegotiate formalized and trackable work processes, faster and more colloquial communication, and intensified day-to-day work. These influence modes of accountability and the need to negotiate visibility, along with understandings of rules as a central coordination mechanism for interpersonal boundary regulation. The authors suggest in addition that these technologies inure various social stakeholders to constant technical monitoring and regular accounting, thereby advancing the normalization of surveillance practices. This creates good reason to pay closer attention to how rules of engagement may be coordinated.

Public–Private Partnerships: Where Do We Go From Here? A Belgian Perspective

The use of public–private partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure provision has not always been based on their promise to deliver value for money (VfM). PPPs have also been applied to keep investments off governments’ annual accounts. This article links that motivation to particular modes of practice. It depicts the case of the Belgian region of Flanders. In this jurisdiction, a long-term PPP policy strategy, central coordination mechanism, and application of VfM assessment tools have remained absent. PPP has been used in an ad hoc way, which has granted government departments leeway in closing partnership deals. The result has been a fragmentation of both knowledge and practices. It will be challenging to realize reforms that include a more critical stance toward PPP and foster learning processes: Actors have become used to their ways of dealing with PPP and seek to pursue their own fragmented trajectories.

Trust Certificate Based Cluster Head Misbehaviour Detection And Isolation In Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Absence of any central co-ordination mechanism and shared wireless medium makes MANET more vulnerable to wide variety of attacks. In an internal attack, the attacker gains the normal access to the network and takes part in the network activities, either by some malicious impersonation to get the access to the network as a new node, or by directly compromising a current node and using it as a basis to conduct its malicious behaviors. In this paper, we developed an autonomous trust evaluation based cluster head misbehaviour detection and isolation in mobile ad hoc networks where the entire network is divided into hierarchical group of clusters, each cluster having a fully trusted Cluster Head (CH). As, CH, being an independent node that has mobility and autonomy behaviour, has the possibility that it may be vulnerable to DoS attacks. Hence, the assumption of CH being trusted cannot be considered. Therefore, ensuring the security of CH is essential which can be done by evaluating the trustworthiness of each CH. The trustworthiness of each CH is determined by its Group Leader (GL). In order to determine the cluster head and the group leader that are free from malicious attack, an autonomous trust evaluation is done for each CH to detect and isolate the misbehaving cluster head.

Understanding China's Belt & Road Initiative: Motivation, framework and assessment

The Belt & Road Initiative is China's greatest international economic ambition, aiming at stimulating economic development in a vast region covering sub regions in Asia, Europe and Africa, which accounts for 64% of world population and 30% of world GDP. The Initiative is devised to reconfigure China's external sector in order to continue its strong growth. While infrastructure development plays a central role, the Belt & Road Initiative is a comprehensive one, including also policy dialogue, unimpeded trade, financial support and people-to-people exchange. It is too early to assess the impact of this ambitious Initiative. It certainly has the potential of turning the underdeveloped “Belt & Road” region into a new vibrant economic pillar and contributing to economic policy thinking by incorporating successful experiences of emerging market economies. However, the Initiative also faces very high barriers, including lack of central coordination mechanism, potential clash of different political regimes and beliefs and financial viability of cross-border projects.

A Navigating Navigator Onboard or a Monitoring Operator Ashore? Towards Safe, Effective, and Sustainable Maritime Transportation: Findings from Five Recent EU Projects

This paper aims to summarize and make some conclusions from findings of five EU project during the period 2009–2015. In the ACCSEAS project (2012–2015) the future accessibility of the North Sea region was investigated from a shipping perspective. The EfficienSea project (2009–2012) and the two MONALISA projects (2010–2013, and 2013–2015) investigated Sea Traffic Management (STM) as a way to optimize ship traffic that might satisfy safety and efficiency demands as well as the demands for lower emissions. The paper will look in detail on the navigational solutions and the user tests that has been done with ship officers, pilots and VTS operators.The EU commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% to 2050 is another factor acting on the shipping industry. By “slow steaming” and just-in-time-arrival, substantial reduction in emissions can be made.A surprising finding was the large number of planned offshore windmill installations in the North Sea. Managing a growing number of ships in a shrinking sea space will led to issues of who is in control: the master onboard or the central coordination mechanism overseeing the whole traffic situation. The task of the mariner risk being reduced to keeping the ship in a time-slot-box, monitoring an ever better automation. In addition, slower speeds lead to longer voyages, which risk being less socially attractive. Lack of competent seafarers is already today a problem. Finally, the issue of unmanned ships will be considered, the MUNIN project (2013–2015), Maritime Unmanned Navigation through Intelligence in Networks. Even before this project has finished the industry has picked up some of these new possibilities and has proposed different solutions for unmanned ships, one of them electrical, with zero emission.

Working in the Public Sector Introduction to the Thematic Issue

Work in the public sector has been changing dramatically in recent decades. Reforms aimed at increasing the efficiency of public services have been extensive in the Nordic countries and elsewhere since the 1980s. The reforms and changes have to a large extent been associated with so-called New Public Management (NPM) principles, emphasizing the market as a central coordination mechanism. Consequently, public institutions have been restructured, their services are standardized and commodified, and market-like relationships between them have been created. In order to create markets and transform citizens into customers on a market, outsourcing and privatization have been stimulated (Blomqvist & Rothstein 2000, Busch et al 2005, Christensen & Lægreid 2007, Greve 2003). At the same time, traditional Weberian bureaucratic principles are still viable and even enhanced within the sector, for instance, as a consequence of the use of contracts as a means of managing public organizations (Greve 2008). Lately, large reforms aimed at centralized coordination of different service providers, such as the integration of the Norwegian welfare administration, have been labeled post-NPM reforms by some researchers. The implication of all these parallel tendencies is that the institutional and organizational landscape surrounding the work situations of employees in the public sector have become increasingly complex, some call them hybrid, putting a variety of conflicting pressures on the performance of work within the sector (Christensen & Lægreid 2011, Hasselbladh et al. 2008).In this special issue, we explore some of the consequences of these structural and normative changes on the work of public sector employees in different sectors and contexts (...)

Governance system of governmental R&D programs: Formation and transformation of the Framework Act on Science and Technology in Korea

Growing beyond the catch-up model of imitative innovations, Korea has considerably expanded its national R&D budget since the 1990s. However, the rapid expansion brought about a decentralization of the national R&D programs by competing ministries, thus raising significant concerns about inter-ministerial duplication and overlap. Ratified in 2001, the Framework Act on Science and Technology (FAST) instituted a central coordination mechanism for national R&D programs. Adopting the 'institutional system' perspective, this paper examines the role of the FAST in coordinating and integrating national R&D programs. This paper emphasizes the significance of the integrity and interconnectivity of institutional components, including the National Science and Technology Council, national R&D planning, and performance evaluation. It also highlights the importance of an organizational body with the requisite capabilities for effective operation of legal institutions as well as the significant effects of informal institutions in bureaucracy. Copyright The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com, Oxford University Press.

Coordinating the service process of two business units towards a joint customer

This article presents a new theoretical framework for coordinating an inter-unit collaborative service process towards a joint customer. To guarantee the quality and the added value of the service offering for the end customer, the two business units should organise their work as cross-functional and cross-unit business processes. The common service process is itself presented as a central coordination mechanism. It defines how tasks and responsibilities are shared between the collaborating units. The framework presents the factors supporting cooperation between the units, the prerequisites of the common service process and the ways of coordinating inter-unit cooperation. The study applies a constructive action research approach and abductive reasoning to develop the new framework through a single-company longitudinal, qualitative case study that consists of three development projects. Business unit managers can use the new framework as an analytical tool for recognising potential factors supporting cooperation and coordination in their specific operating environments.

A Hierarchical-GIS-Based Decision Model for Forest Management: The Systems Approach

We developed a decentralized decision support system for forest management with a central coordination mechanism. It consists of (1) an LP model, a forest estate simulation model, and a geographic information system linked in an iterative process, at the regional level, and (2) a provincewide central coordination mechanism using a system of charges and subsidies that reflect provincewide values in regional decisions. Each of the components of the decision support system can be used independently, but their linkages provide the facility to deal with the complex pattern of interactions between subsystems and the global system of the forest resource. To date, the simulation and the geographic information system have been implemented for use in a commercial forest neighboring Mount Revelstoke and Glacier National Parks.

A Prey-Type Dependent Hypoglossal Feedback System in the Frog <i>Rana pipiens</i>

Nerve transection experiments combined with high-speed videography and electromyography were used to characterize a prey-type dependent hypoglossal feedback system which coordinates mouth opening and tongue protraction in the common leopard frog, Rana pipiens. When feeding on small prey, sensory feedback from the tongue through the hypoglossal nerve is necessary to trigger mouth opening. If sensory feedback is prevented from reaching the brain by transection of the hypoglossal nerve, then the mouth fails to open although the feeding behavior appears otherwise normal. However, when feeding on large prey, the mouth opens normally even after the hypoglossal nerve has been transected. Thus, peripheral feedback is not necessary to trigger mouth opening when feeding on large prey, and presumably a central coordination mechanism is used. In Rana pipiens, the evolution of a new tongue morphology and a new motor pattern for feeding on small prey has been accompanied by the evolution of a novel, peripheral mechanism for coordinating tongue protraction and mouth opening. However, the primitive motor pattern for feeding on large prey and the primitive coordinating mechanism have been retained. These results imply that the neural circuits producing the different motor patterns for large and small prey are anatomically distinct at some level in the central nervous system. If they are not anatomically distinct, then sensory feedback should be necessary to trigger mouth opening regardless of which motor pattern is being expressed. While the anatomy of these distinct pathways remains to be elucidated, these results suggest that novel neural circuits may in fact underlie different behaviors even when they seem, superficially, to be relatively similar.