Combination Of Actors Research Articles

Public reaction to public-private partnerships (PPPs): citizen assessments of four different types of PPPs and policy support

ABSTRACT Solving problems through collaborative efforts of public, private, and nonprofit groups has become more important in recent years. One type of public-private partnerships (PPPs) has been studied in some depth – government-business contracts for transportation infrastructure. Little is known, however, about other types of partnership arrangements that deal with other community issues or services and may involve different combinations of actors. And there is little information on how the public views any of the available PPP options and arrangements for possible transportation infrastructure design, development and implementation. This article focuses on the public's views of four PPP transportation infrastructure options. The overall results show that respondents’ do differentiate between types of PPPs and that respondents’ PPP preferences are associated with their views on community engagement policy on infrastructure.

Mediating space: Framing strategy and sense of presence across the real-virtual environments

This study discusses the idea of mediated space as a space formed through the combination of actor and entities in real and virtual environment. This mix of real and virtual environments is made possible through the involvement of the screen as the technological device that mediate the connection between them. Question then arises regarding the process that happen during this mediation, specifically regarding how to frame the virtual environment on the screen to establish an engagement with actor in real environment. Using the case of video game titled Persona 5, this study investigates this question through the concept of framing strategy and sense of presence. The discussion addresses two main points: (1) Utilisation of different framing strategies—based on the idea of immersion, mapping, and miniaturisation—provide different possibilities of action and interaction for the actor; (2) each framing strategy contribute to different dimension of presence that can complement each other within the formation process of mediated space.

The benefits of specialized knowledge in polycentric governance

AbstractPolicy forums bring individual actors together to deliberate on specific policy issues. The literature found that actors' perceptions of forum performance depend on both their individual characteristics (goals, expertise, resources) and forum processes (trust, learning, beliefs). However, we do not know how different combinations of actors, embodying different types of knowledge or expertise, relate to forum performance. We distinguish between policy and institutional specialization. Forum participants can be policy specialists, who are experts on the policy issue, and/or institutional specialists, who are expert of the policy process in the governance system. The former excel at problem definition and facilitation; the latter enable inclusivity. We surmise that higher proportions of specialized actors positively affect the group's perceptions of forum performance in terms of both process and outcomes, particularly in high conflict forums. We test this claim using survey data on 55 policy forums working on adaptation to sea level rise in the San Francisco Bay Area, collected in summer 2018. The empirical findings lend support to our hypothesis as concerns policy specialists but not as concerns institutional specialists. Further research should devote more effort to study how actor composition affects forum performance.

Indonesia’s Climate Change Policies: Under the Tug of Domestic and International Influences

Paris Agreement with its ‘bottom-up’ approach is an attempt to address climate change problem. The Parties of the Paris Agreement decide their own policies in the national scope and present it as pledges in the form of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). I explore the evidence to the shaping of the climate change policies in Indonesia, mainly regarding NDCs and the engagement of actors behind the shaping of that pledge. The main question is which actor or combination of actors in terms of domestic and international interests actually influenced and shaped Indonesia’s NDCs? This article aims to give practical evidence regarding the influences of different positions among competing interests through negotiation. In terms of Indonesia’s policymaking, this study is hoped to foster a viewpoint for the sake of acceptable practices to intensify policymaking preferences. In this literature review Liberal Intergovernmentalism propositions were used in examining the dynamics at the domestic level as well as transnational/regional negotiation and interdependence. I also used multiple sources from other studies and governmental documents in the analysis of this qualitative research. As a result, some evidence were found, showing the influence of domestic actors such as Local and Environmental NGOs, CSOs, public perceptions to certain extent, and insignificant influence of business groups. I also found that the transnational institutions and developed countries have impacts on Indonesia’s CC policy framework, funding provision and the balance between mitigation and adaptation.

The pre-history of sustainability reporting: a constructivist reading

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to provide an account of the period prior to the creation of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI): a body that was critical to the institutionalization of sustainability reporting (SR). By examining this “pre-history,” we bring to light the actors, activities and ways of thinking that made SR more likely to be institutionalized once the GRI entrepreneurship came to the fore.Design/methodology/approachThe paper revisits a time period (the 1990s) that has yet to be formally written about in any depth and traces the early development of what became SR. This material is examined using a constructivist understanding of regulation.FindingsThe authors contend that a convergence of actors and structural conditions were pivotal to the development of SR. Specifically, this paper demonstrates that a combination of actors (such as epistemic communities, carriers, regulators and reporters) as well as the presence of certain conditions (such as the societal context, analogies with financial reporting, environmental reporting and reporting design issues) contributed to the development of SR which was consolidated (as well as extended) in 1999 with the advent of the GRI.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper theorizes (through a historical analysis) how SR is sustained by a network of institutional actors and conditions which can assist reflection on future SR development.Originality/valueThis paper brings together empirical material from a time that (sadly) is passing from living memory. The paper also extends the use of a conceptual frame that is starting to influence scholarship in accounting that seeks to understand how norms develop.

Event Likelihood Judgments Revisited

Affect control theory shows how cultural meanings for identities and behaviors are used to form impressions of events and guide social action. The theory’s impression formation equations are the engine of its predictions about events and the deflection they generate (i.e., how much they violate, versus conform to, cultural prescriptions). In this research, I examine the relationship between affective (deflection) and cognitive responses to events, with a focus on judgments of event likelihood. I present a series of analyses that show that event likelihood judgments are impacted by events’ perceived normativity, commonality in social life, and our personal experience with events like them and by the appearance likelihood of the actors, combinations of actors, and behaviors they involve and that likelihood ratings and deflection most often diverge for institutionally vague events. I additionally show that deflection computed using Heise’s 2014 impression-change equations strongly predicts event likelihood.

A Linear Relaxation-Based Heuristic for Iron Ore Stockyard Energy Planning

Planning the use of electrical energy in a bulk stockyard is a strategic issue due to its impact on efficiency and responsiveness of these systems. Empirical planning becomes more complex when the energy cost changes over time. The mathematical models currently studied in the literature consider many actors involved, such as equipment, sources, blends, and flows. Each paper presents different combinations of actors, creating their own transportation flows, thus increasing the complexity of this problem. In this work, we propose a new mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model for stockyard planning solved by a linear relaxation-based heuristic (LRBH) to minimize the plan’s energy cost. The proposed algorithm will allow the planner to find a solution that saves energy costs with an efficient process. The numerical results show a comparison between the exact and heuristic solutions for some different instances sizes. The linear relaxation approach can provide feasible solutions with a 3.99% average distance of the objective function in relation to the optimal solution (GAP) in the tested instances and with an affordable computation time in instances where the MILP was not able to provide a solution. The model is feasible for small and medium-sized instances, and the heuristic proposes a solution to larger problems to aid in management decision making.

Composing markets: A framework of intentionality in market-shaping

Successful market-shaping that leads to the creation, transformation, or maintenance of markets has primarily been conceptualized as resulting from the future-oriented intentions of single market actors. Scholars have paid less attention to other forms of intentions or combination of actors, despite their potential to also contribute to market-shaping. Therefore, this conceptual study draws on the philosophy of action and institutional theory to construct a broader definition of market-shaping and advance extant knowledge. The proposed framework of intentionality in market-shaping features two main dimensions: temporality (present or future orientation of intentions) and membership (individual actors or groups). It thus reveals four theoretically distinct forms of intention in market-shaping: conducting, choiring, practicing, and jamming, and outlines how the dynamic nature of intentions inform market-shaping activities. The paper concludes by offering theoretical and managerial implications and a research agenda.

Вооруженные конфликты начала XXI века: типология и направления трансформации

The fact that, in 2015–2018, the world faced roughly the same peak number of state-based conflicts as 30 years earlier, during the collapse of the bipolar system, does not mean it faced the same conflict patterns. In the early 21st century, the main patterns of armed conflicts evolved significantly, to the point that it is fair to claim: the war of the industrial age – large-scale, direct confrontation between conventional armies of two or more states – all but faded away. While the article briefly reviews long-term decline in old challenges (share of major wars, number and share of inter-state conflicts, battle-related deaths), its main focus is on new types and patterns of armed conflict that either did not clearly manifest themselves, or had no parallels or analogues in the 20th century. On the basis of analysis of lead academic datasets on conflicts and other types of violence linked to and widespread in conflict areas, a typology of contemporary conflicts is formulated and several main trends are indentified. To a varying extent, these trends affect and permeate all three main types of conflict of the early 21st century. The first, widespread type is comprised by localized state-based conflicts of limited intensity, mostly on the periphery of functional states that keep overall control of the national territory. 3/4 of such conflicts are not internationalized; most respective states are strong enough to contain escalation of violence, but often not enough to afford a decisive crackdown, which leaves such peripheral violence hovering at a low level. In contrast, the second type is comprised of very few larger, more intense, heavily transnationalized civil wars, mostly in weak, failed, dysfunctional or proxy states, with major external interventions (such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, or Yemen). These conflicts produce a lion’s share of battle-related deaths worldwide. The same conflict areas also account for the bulk of terrorist attacks and fatalities. In a 30-year period since 1989, conflicts of the third type fought between non-state actors comprised almost half of all armed conflicts. While shorter, less intense and often linked to and co-located with the type two conflicts, non-state conflicts started to systematically outnumber state-based conflicts in the 2010s. The article identifies several disturbing new challenges. Two out of three main types of contemporary conflict – internationalized civil wars and non-state conflicts – and related battle deaths are on the rise. Armed non-state actors multiply, diversify and play a growing role in both combat and other armed violence (one-sided violence against civilians, including terrorism, predatory violence). Violence in armed conflicts becomes more fragmented, in more ways than one, and transnationalized at the same time. New variations of conflict, by type of contested incompatibility and by combination of actors and location, emerge and spread. They include: conflicts fought between state and foreign non-state actor, in one of their two countries or in a third country; conflicts between non-state actors, one or none of which originates from the country where they are fighting; the phenomenon of violent, often cross-border, localized power-play that can last longer than the main conflict dyad(s). High rates of conflict recurrence are closely linked to prevalence of unstable and inconclusive “no war, no peace” conflict outcomes. While conflicts of the early 21st century are on average less intense, they are harder to manage by either traditional military means and structures, or through negotiations, or by a combination of the two.

Longitudinal actor, partner, and similarity effects of personality on well-being.

The current study aimed to conceptually replicate previous studies on the effects of actor personality, partner personality, and personality similarity on general and relational well-being by using response surface analyses and a longitudinal sample of 4,464 romantic couples. Similar to previous studies using difference scores and profile correlations, results from response surface analyses indicated that personality similarity explained a small amount of variance in well-being as compared with the amount of variance explained by linear actor and partner effects. However, response surface analyses also revealed that second-order terms (i.e., the interaction term and quadratic terms of actor and partner personality) were systematically linked to couples' well-being for all traits except neuroticism. In particular, most response surfaces showed a complex pattern in which the effect of similarity and dissimilarity on well-being depended on the level and combination of actor and partner personality. In addition, one small but robust similarity effect was found, indicating that similarity in agreeableness was related to women's experience of support across the eight years of the study. The discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for theory and research on personality similarity in romantic relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Governance and Innovations in Local Food System Development: A Bottom-Up Approach in North Carolina

Governance is a collaborative and systemic approach to governing that fosters innovation and inclusiveness of a broad combination of actors, processes, and instruments (Jordan, Wurzel, & Zito, 2005). It draws from the energy, expertise, and resources of the collaborative to employ more sustainable, bottom-up policy solutions. The growth in popularity of local foods and community-based food systems as a pushback to the globalization of our food industry has given rise to a network of coalitions, institutions, and actors in North Carolina that are engaging in local food system development and governance to create a place-based local food economy in the state. The case reviews the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS), a trans­disciplinary, interinstitutional collaboration between the state’s two land-grant institutions, (North Carolina State University and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University), and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences, as an active and prominent stakeholder in the process of local food system governance. The Farm to Fork Initiative, now over 10 years in operation, is reviewed to provide both insight into and reflection of a bottom-up approach to creating a local food economy through governance, innovation, and the implementation of community-based food system initiatives.

Collective Action Problem Characteristics and Partner Uncertainty as Drivers of Social Tie Formation in Collaborative Networks

The effectiveness of collaboration is often explained by the alignment of social networks with collective‐action problem characteristics, yet previous research on social tie formation has focused almost exclusively on actor and relational attributes. We theorize that collective‐action problem characteristics together with actor and relational attributes explain social tie formation and that the relative effect of these factors varies with uncertainty about collaboration partners. The study tests seven hypotheses associated with these factors by estimating multilevel network models of collaboration and task engagement among managers responding to a major wildfire in Sweden. The combination of actors and tasks in a single model captured key characteristics of the collective action problem (task engagements and task interdependencies), and disentangled the relative effects of these factors from actor and relational attributes. Results suggest that social tie formation can be explained both by actors’ task engagements, and actor attributes associated with leadership, professionalization, and experience. Further, the effect of task engagements decreases in organizational relationships where collaborative uncertainty is high. Since the alignment of social ties with problem characteristics is supposedly positively associated with collaborative effectiveness, this finding suggests that risk‐aversion is a more deep‐rooted driver of tie formation than the pursuit of collective performance.

REGIONAL ASPECTS OF MODERN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS IN THE CONDITIONS OF WORLD GLOBALIZATION

The modern world is determined with political interest in both territories and spatial relations. The article is devoted to some topical issues which are relaten to regional and subregional subsystems connecting with new trends in modern international relations: globalization, regionalization and fragmentation. For a long period of time, the subordinate nature of the problem of regional and subregional subsystems did not raise doubts in the categories of bipolar interaction. The situation became more complicated after the collapse of the bipolar structure of relations. Therefore, the question has arisen as to what might be the criteria for dividing the world space in the new conditions. It was discovered that regional international systems are very complex connections between existing social communities, the interaction of which has certain features of a systemic spatial organization. It leads to the fact that regional processes can influence or reformate global ones. Different elements of the regional subsystem or various combinations of actors at the regional level affect the global level in different ways. They can maintain and strengthen the global order, contribute to its radical breakdown and overthrow or evolutionary transformation into a new quality. Therefore, the regional level of analysis allows us to study the problems of countries and international relations, differentiate space / territories in accordance with quantitative and qualitative criteria, since the concept of physical and political boundaries takes on some relativity in the real world. Regional integration issues are particularly relevant to Ukraine since it has a unique choice of its direction – European (integration into the EU) or Eurasian (integration into the Customs Union). Given this, the scientific justification of this choice is of great importance.

Mathematical model for supply chain design with time postponement

Projetar cadeia de suprimentos é uma importante decisão estratégica e seu impacto influencia diretamente na eficiência e no nível de serviço. O projeto se torna mais complexo quando o objetivo é minimizar o custo de distribuição e utilizar a postergação de tempo na cadeia de suprimentos. Os modelos matemáticos atualmente estudados na literatura de cadeia de suprimentos consideram vários atores. Entretanto, em problemas reais existem diferentes combinações desses atores, criando fluxos próprios de transportes e aumentando a complexidade da cadeia de suprimentos. Este artigo propõe um modelo matemático para projetar a cadeia de suprimentos com postergação de tempo a partir da programação não linear inteira mista para minimizar o custo total, considerando os custos de transportes, abertura de instalações e operacionais. O modelo permite a possibilidade de uma instalação híbrida, ou seja, dois tipos de instalações abertas no mesmo local, sendo uma importante oportunidade de redução de custos. Diferentes conjuntos de instâncias foram simulados para buscar a solução ótima e analisar o comportamento da cadeia de suprimentos em diferentes tamanhos de cenários, os quais foram resolvidos usando um solver comercial e suas performances foram estudadas. O modelo proposto apresenta viabilidade em seu uso para instâncias pequenas e médias com tempo computacional suficiente para auxílio no processo de tomada de decisão.

A local landscape in transition between production and consumption goals: can new management arrangements preserve the local landscape character?

Around towns in the Alentejo region, the landscape is dominated by a characteristic agricultural small-scale mosaic. These areas are central in the region landscape character – even if the large-scale latifundia landscape of the extensive silvo-pastoral systems is most commonly associated with the region. In the last two decades, these parcels became extremely attractive for new comers, who settle in the rural context as residents, week-end visitors, being often also lifestyle farmers. The paper presents a case study landscape, in Montemor-o-Novo, a small town 100 km from Lisbon, highly subject to the pressure for consumption uses, by urban users. The study shows that the new owners, even if they have settled in the area due to the tranquility and social bindings of the rural, end up doing farming, with new or reshaped production objectives, markets and models, but at the same time maintaining the traditional farm systems. Thus, the landscape character is maintained, so far. Nevertheless, the role of these neo-rurals and lifestyle farmers is still an unseen role, both by the agriculture and the planning sectors. And thus the question is, whether the combination of actors and land management drivers will continue maintaining the landscape in the future.

Recollection and unitization in associating actors with extrinsic and intrinsic motions.

Four experiments provide evidence for a distinction between 2 different kinds of motion representations. Extrinsic motions involve the path of an object with respect to an external frame of reference. Intrinsic motions involve the relative motions of the parts of an object. This research suggests that intrinsic motions are represented conjointly with information about the identities of the actors who perform them, whereas extrinsic motions are represented separately from identity information. Experiment 1 demonstrated that participants remembered which actor had performed a particular intrinsic motion better than they remembered which actor had performed a particular extrinsic motion. Experiment 2 replicated this effect with incidental encoding of actor information, suggesting that encoding intrinsic motions leads one to automatically encode identity information. The results of Experiments 3 and 4 were fit by Yonelinas's (1999) source-memory model to quantify the contributions of familiarity and recollection to memory for the actors who carried out the intrinsic and extrinsic motions. Successful performance with extrinsic motion items in Experiment 3 required participants to remember in which scene contexts an actor had appeared, whereas successful performance in Experiment 4 required participants to remember the exact path taken by an actor in each scene. In both experiments, discrimination of old and new combinations of actors and extrinsic motions relied strongly on recollection, suggesting independent but associated representations of actors and extrinsic motions. In contrast, participants discriminated old and new combinations of actors and intrinsic motions primarily on the basis of familiarity, suggesting unitized representations of actors and intrinsic motions.

Economists, capitalists, and the making of globalization: North American free trade in comparative-historical perspective.

Why did globalization happen? Current explanations point to a variety of conditions under which states have made the free market policy changes driving international economic integration since the 1980s. Such accounts disagree, however, about the key actors involved. This article provides a reconciliation, showing how two different combinations of actors, and two different political economic pathways, have led to globalization in recent decades. In developed countries, mobilization by business has been central; elsewhere, technocrats both constrained and empowered by international finance have pursued globalization more independently of business. In both contexts, economists' technical authority has helped legitimate liberalization, despite the limited diffusion of their ideas. The article validates and elaborates this model using a comparative-historical study of how the United States, Canada, and Mexico proposed, negotiated, and ratified agreements for free trade in North America.

The sense of time in the north: a Sámi perspective

ABSTRACTThis paper refers to some aspects of the theoretical anthropological debate on the perception of time and I shall argue, following Ingold (2000) that amongst the Sámi people time is understood as an unfolding of interrelated tasks, rather than as a linear succession of standardised and arbitrary units. I also argue that the Sámi perception of time is not opposed to the western perception, but rather entails a different approach to the significance of clock time. The results of my fieldwork, conducted among the Sámi people in Finnish Lapland, lend support to the idea that the basis for a people's shared understanding and subjective experience of time lies in the interaction of skilful agents in carrying out diverse but interrelated tasks. It is not sufficient to live in a place, to belong to a particular ethnic group or to be engaged in the same subsistence activity to perceive time in a certain fashion. No matter how much we change the combination of actors, the perception of time is generated in each case through situated activity within the landscape.

New actors, new theater

Since the first catheterization of a human ves­ sel by Werner Forssmann in 1929 [1], the actors playing in the field of vessel catheterization have continued to change over time, passing from the radiologist to the radiologist with angio­ logy expertise to the cardiologist with radiologi­ cal expertise, and with the advent of coronary angio plasty by Gruentzing [2], to the cardiolo­ gist with surgical skills, that is, the interven­ tional cardiolo gist. Similarly, the old, dirty and dark radiological suites, which resembled a photo graphy dark room rather than an operat­ ing room, have becoming larger, brighter and contain plenty of new and exciting equipment including the brilliance intensificator, the recent flat panel, intravascular ultrasound, intracardiac echocardiogram, functional flow and pressure wire consoles, optical coherence tomography, angioplasty catheters and a number of differ­ ent small and large stents and occluder devices. This technological escalation changed the role of the invasive professional from a simple observer and recorder of physiological and pathological pheno mena to a real endovascular intervention­ alist, the expert in translating body images into therapeutic actions. Now, with the advent of hybrid procedures such as congenital heart and structural heart disease interventions, in particular percutaneous heart valve implantation, the interventionalist’s next leap is to gain real surgical skills, becoming a new figure – a true endocardiovascular sur­ geon. In the 1940s’ poor Italy, which lacked a true working public health system, the family physician was not only the physician, but also the surgeon and medicine doctor. They were able to not only make a diagnosis, but also to carry out surgical procedures such as cesarean partum, skin incision and abscess drainage. Now, we have to simply go back and re­educate ourselves about a little bit of surgery. By changing the actor, the theater cannot remain the same; it is necessary that health sys­ tem governers throughout the world are aware of the dramatic changes and must be prepared to provide hybrid rooms that incorporate all the necessities of this new age: space, sterility and powerful image equipment including flat panel and computed tomography, together with all the usual instrumentation of the interventional cardiologist. The cost would probably be high to begin with, but this new combination of actor and theater will probably be the only cardiovascular surgery required for the next 30 years.

Business on the Margin: Local Practices and the Politics of Forests in Finland

This paper explores the dynamic potential inherent in stable looking technological systems. I follow a small Finnish heating business and describe how alternative production practices were established within Finnish forestry. The case shows an interesting development in a sector where local activities have traditionally been coordinated through standardised practices and the physical structure of the forest. My focus is on micro-level shifts of power and I analyse the changing position of local actors in the margins of conventional forestry to understand the fragile nature of the forestry standards. They not only stabilise forestry practices but enable complex interactions and new combinations of actors. Therefore, they also increase the degrees of freedom. My analysis draws from theoretical perspectives of technology studies, actor–network theory and recent discussions in geography on the spatial distribution of power.