Alliance Network Research Articles

Development and Implementation of the AIDA International Registry for Patients with Non-Infectious Scleritis.

IntroductionThis article points out the design, methods, development and deployment of the international registry promoted by the AutoInflammatory Disease Alliance (AIDA) Network with the aim to define and assess paediatric and adult patients with immune-mediated scleritis.MethodsThis registry collects both retrospective and prospective real-world data from patients with non-infectious scleritis through the Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) tool and aims to promote knowledge and real-life evidence from patients enrolled worldwide; the registry also allows the collection of standardised data, ensuring the highest levels of security and anonymity of patients’ data and flexibility to change according to scientific acquisitions over time. The communication with other similar registries has been also ensured in order to pursue the sustainability of the project with respect to the adaptation of collected data to the most diverse research projects.ResultsSince the launch of the registry, 99 centres have been involved from 20 countries and four continents. Forty-eight of the centres have already obtained a formal approval from their local ethics committees. At present, the platform counts 259 users (95 principal investigators, 160 site investigators, 2 lead investigators, and 2 data managers); the platform collects baseline and follow-up data using 3683 fields organised into 13 instruments, including patient’s demographics, history, symptoms, trigger or risk factors, therapies and healthcare utilization.ConclusionsThe development of the AIDA International Registry for patients with non-infectious scleritis will allow solid research on this rare condition. Real-world evidence resulting from standardised real-life data will lead to the optimisation of routine clinical and therapeutic management, which are currently limited by the rarity of this ocular inflammatory condition.

Data-model alliance network for the online multi-step thermal warning of energy storage system based on surface temperature diffusion

SummaryAs an important type of energy storage, battery energy storage systems have been widely used. However, there are frequent cases of battery explosion due to high temperature. To address this issue, researches have been carried out either in the model-driven or the data-driven aspects to predict the temperature of the battery. In this paper, a two-node electrothermal model and a multi-scale long short-term memory network are established formulating a data-model alliance network (DMAN) for surface temperature diffusion. An improved adaptive boosting algorithm is then employed to enhance the bridge of the two models. Integrating a data-model alliance module (DMAM) and multi-step-ahead thermal warning network (MATWN), this DMAN provides an advanced online multi-step-ahead thermal warning structure to achieve early warning of temperature crossing. Experimental results verify the progressiveness of the proposed technique.

How much does the firm's alliance network matter?

AbstractResearch SummaryExtant empirical work partitioning the variance in firm (business segment) profitability has identified industry, corporate parent, business segment, and time as key sources. However, this variance decomposition research stream has treated firms as atomistic, autonomous entities. We employ a fast‐unfolding community‐detection algorithm to detect firms' network memberships and use the Shapley Value method to isolate the effect of the firm's alliance network, in addition to industry, corporate parent, business segment, and year effects, on the variance in business unit performance. Our findings demonstrate that the effect of the firm's alliance network explains 11% of the variance in firm ROA among 16,381 business segments from 1979 through 1996. We also extend the time period through 2018 and find that our results broadly hold.Managerial SummaryIn the search for superior firm performance, managers typically focus their attention externally on profitable industries in which to operate, as well as internally on their firms' idiosyncratic and valuable resources and capabilities. In addition to these profitability sources, our work suggests another important, but heretofore overlooked, factor in the managerial quest for competitive advantage: the value‐creating potential of alliance networks. We employ a machine‐learning algorithm to detect firms' network memberships. Our findings indicate that as much as 11% of the variance in firm profitability (ROA) is explained by the network of alliances of which the firm is a part. Our study also implies that the emphasis on networks continues to be relevant in a technology age in which industry boundaries are blurring.

Spinoffs’ alliance network growth beyond parental ties: performance diminishing, then performance enhancing

Spinoff firms are a common phenomenon in entrepreneurship where employees leave incumbent parent firms to found their own. Like other types of new firms, such new spinoffs face liabilities of newness and smallness. Previous research has emphasised the role of the initial endowments from their parent firm to overcome such liabilities. In this study, we argue and are the first to show, that, in addition to such endowments, growing an alliance network with firms other than their parents’ is also critical for spinoff performance. Specifically, we investigate the performance effect of alliance network growth in newly founded spinoffs using a longitudinal sample of 248 spinoffs and 3370 strategic alliances in the mining industry. Drawing on theory based on the resource adjustment costs of forming alliances, we posit and find a U-shaped relationship between the alliance network growth and spinoff performance, above and beyond the parent firm’s influence. We further hypothesise and find that performance effects become stronger with increased time lags between alliance network growth and spinoff performance, and when spinoffs delay growing their alliance networks. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Decoupling from China: how U.S. Asian allies responded to the Huawei ban

ABSTRACT As the U.S.-China strategic rivalry has intensified, Washington has looked to its close allies and partners to counter Chinese clout in global technology leadership. With the Huawei ban as a proxy for the U.S.-China competition, the paper focuses on the concept of the alliance halo and analyzes how the three key U.S. allies in Asia—Australia, Japan, and South Korea—responded to Washington’s expectations of mutual support on the decoupling of Chinese technology companies from global supply chains. We argue that given that the Huawei ban is about future risks associated with China’s economy, as opposed to demonstrated military threats, it was more challenging to establish allied reliability within the U.S. alliance network as a whole. Our comparative analysis shows that Australia’s reactions have been the most direct, banning Huawei before the United States, showing a contrast with South Korea’s relatively muted responses. Japan’s decision to ban Huawei was as decisive as Australia’s but Tokyo sought to keep a low profile. Rather than the diplomatic pressure from the Trump administration, these allies’ varied responses resulted from their own assessments of security risks associated with Huawei.

Deep Learning for B5G Open Radio Access Network: Evolution, Survey, Case Studies, and Challenges

Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) alliance was recently launched to devise a new RAN architecture featuring open, software-driven, virtual, and intelligent radio access architecture. O-RAN architecture is based on (1) disaggregated RAN functions that run as Virtual Network Function (VNF) and Physical Network Function (PNF); (2) the notion of RAN controller that runs centrally RAN applications such as mobility management, users’ scheduling, radio resources allocation, etc. The RAN controller is in charge of enforcing the application decisions by using open interfaces with the RAN functions. One important feature introduced by O-RAN is the heavy usage of Machine Learning (ML) techniques, particularly Deep Learning (DL), to foster innovation and ease the deployment of intelligent RAN applications that are able to fulfill the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of the envisioned 5G and beyond network services. In this work, we first give an overview of the evolution of RAN architectures toward 5G and beyond, namely C-RAN, vRAN, and O-RAN. We also compare them based on various perspectives, such as edge support, virtualization, control and management, energy consumption, and AI support. Then, we review existing DL-based solutions addressing the RAN part. We also show how they can be integrated/mapped to the O-RAN architecture since these works were not initially adapted to the O-RAN architecture. In addition, we present two case studies for DL techniques deployment in O-RAN. Furthermore, we describe how the main steps of deployed DL models in O-RAN can be automated, to ensure stable performance of these models, introducing ML system operations (MLOps) concept in O-RAN. Finally, we identify key technical challenges, open issues, and future research directions related to the Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled O-RAN architecture.

Health Nationalism

Health Nationalism Stephanie DeGooyer (bio) and Srinivas Murthy (bio) On April 9, 2021, only two days after receiving its first shipment of the COVID-19 vaccine, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines suffered an enormous volcanic eruption. Plumes of smoke and ash billowed across the main island, necessitating a large-scale evacuation of its residents to neighboring countries. But, as Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves explained in an emotional press conference, only vaccinated residents could be evacuated. The transporting ships, and the islands themselves, had vaccine mandates. This meant that only residents with preferential access to the vaccine—;at the time, 10,805 out of a population of approximately 111,000—;had the opportunity to flee. The relationship between health status and freedom of movement is nothing new. A year earlier, in March 2020, as COVID-19 cases skyrocketed around the world, national leaders sought to protect their domestic populations by closing national borders. "Heath nativism," we wrote in this magazine, was more than just public-health policy; it was an illogical attempt "to keep out that which is already inside, put borders around a problem that is borderless, and shore up an illusion of safety by projecting the origin of the problem as always somewhere else." It was no surprise that Donald Trump would respond to a major health crisis by promoting a border wall and attacking China on Twitter. Trump, like many leaders before him, was leaning on a nationalistic association of disease and the enemy. COVID-19 is "our big war," he declared in March 2020. "It's a medical war. We have to win this war." At the time, we cautiously hoped a global response to the pandemic might still materialize. Scientists were only beginning to learn about the virus. There was still time for world leaders to form a collective plan. In the ensuing months, there was a Herculean effort to develop effective vaccines. But, despite the successful delivery of several vaccines, health nativism has only grown more entrenched. The problem is not just right-wing xenophobia but the purportedly science-based general response of the world's richest nations to a major global threat. Policies regulating vaccine access and [End Page 69] Click for larger view View full resolution Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine pictured on December 15, 2020 (Ariana Drehsler/AFP via Getty Images) [End Page 70] border closures have been dressed up as public-health initiatives but, in reality, have tended to support the same nationalistic agendas. The international cooperation needed to end this pandemic—;and prepare for future ones—;appears as far off as ever. When Joe Biden became president, one of his first actions was to rescind Trump's travel ban against travelers from primarily Muslim and African countries. On his second day in office, Biden signed an executive order saying the ban had "jeopardized our global network of alliances and partnerships" and "dulled the power of our example the world over." Apparently the same was not true of Trump's other travel bans. Under Biden, the country's borders with Canada and Mexico remained closed to non-essential travel. The administration also extended Trump's ban on travelers from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil, and the twenty-six countries in the Schengen border-free area of Europe. South Africa was added to the list of restricted countries. At the end of April, citing concerns about the spread of the Delta variant, Biden imposed restrictions on travelers from India. Biden has used scientific language to distinguish his reasons for imposing travel restrictions from the racism and xenophobia of his predecessor. But border shutdowns rarely work to stop the progression of disease. Travel bans could, in theory, keep out the coronavirus, if they were near total and rigorously enforced. This is not what has happened. Instead, border policies have been implemented in a haphazard manner based on market imperatives rather than public-health policy. A large proportion of the initial spread of COVID-19, in early 2020, was due to people scrambling to airports before selective border closures went into effect. Since then, domestic case numbers have soared in rich nations, even as governments have continued to ban travel from countries deemed higher...

The Strategic Logic of Large Militant Alliance Networks

The Strategic Logic of Large Militant Alliance Networks

Does Locker Alliance Network Improve Last Mile Delivery Efficiency? An Analysis using Prize-collecting Traveling Salesman Model

Does Locker Alliance Network Improve Last Mile Delivery Efficiency? An Analysis using Prize-collecting Traveling Salesman Model

The Nexus of India and the Gulf Cooperation Council: The Dynamics of Partnership and Dissension

Strategic partnership represents one of the essential tools of inter-state engagement in International Relations, primarily from the post-Cold War period. Contrary to the erstwhile partnership agreements, the nature of alignment in this rubric demands more cooperation, interaction, flexibility and encompasses both strategic and non-military attributes at a much wide-ranging dimension, by defying the conventional understanding of alliance networks. Within this broad setting, India and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) seek to redefine their partnership with a fresh orientation and nurture a reciprocal relationship through their shared political, historic and cultural linkages. As an emerging economy, India harps on the geo-strategic and geo-economic primacy of the GCC and acknowledges this regional bloc as its promising source of energy and reliable partner in pursuit of its national interest vis-à-vis China and Pakistan. Likewise, the Gulf monarchs are attracted to India’s democratic political tradition and ever-growing significance in world politics and recognize New Delhi’s unequivocal cooperation and support in advancing the politico-economic necessities of the region. This paper examines the efficacy of strategic, energy, maritime and economic security realms, and cultural quotients as crucial determinants behind the success of strategic partnership that these two regional powers seek to solidify in this polycentric world, drawing from the theoretical framework of alliance formation both from the Cold War and post-Cold War perspectives. This article also unravels the presence of divergences that affect their relationship and concludes by highlighting the significance of India-GCC partnership as the representation of South-South cooperation in this critical world scenario.

Strategic business management for airport alliance: A complex network approach to simulation robustness analysis

In recent years, the issue of airport alliance has been the hot interest in academia. Compared with the total aviation network, the airport alliance network has higher flight density, which may lead to different topological and robustness properties. However, few studies have focused on the airport alliance and its strategic business management. In this paper, we leverage a complex network approach to conduct the topological analysis and robustness simulation by taking North China Regional Airport Alliance as a case, we apply “random disturbance” and “intentional attack” to measure the connectivity, functionality and aggregation robustness. The results show that the airport alliance has strong robustness against disturbances while has weak robustness against intentional attacks. Furthermore, the large difference exists in the impacts of distinct airports, and critical navigable cities which have significant influence on the overall system performance are identified.

The drivers of the post-entry internationalisation commitment of small and medium-sized enterprises

By integrating relational embeddedness in international strategic alliance networks (ISANs) and the dynamic capability perspective, this article presents an examination of the drivers of the post-entry internationalisation commitment of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Specifically, we investigated the mediating effect of opportunity-sensing capabilities (OSCs) on the relationship between ISAN relational embeddedness and the post-entry internationalisation commitment of SMEs. We also examined the moderating impact of strategic adaptiveness on the relationship between OSCs and post-entry internationalisation commitment. An analysis of 320 UK-based SMEs, performed using structural equation modelling, revealed that OSCs are an important mechanism through which the ISAN relational embeddedness leads to increased post-entry internationalisation commitment. Furthermore, strategic adaptiveness strengthens the positive relationship between OSCs and post-entry commitment to foreign markets. This article extends the existing SME venturing and internationalisation literature to the domain of SME post-entry internationalisation commitment.

The Significance of Alliance Networks in Research and Development of Digital Health Products for Diabetes: Observational Study.

BackgroundDigital health has been advancing owing to technological progress by means of smart devices and artificial intelligence, among other developments. In the field of diabetes especially, there are many active use cases of digital technology supporting the treatment of diabetes and improving lifestyle. In the innovation ecosystem, new alliance networks are formed not only by medical device companies and pharmaceutical companies, but also by information and communications technology companies and start-ups. While understanding and utilizing the network structure is important to increase the competitive advantage of companies, there is a lack of previous research describing the structure of alliance networks and the factors that lead to their formation in digital health.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to explore the significance of alliance networks, focusing on digital health for diabetes, in effectively implementing processes, from the research and development of products or services to their launch and market penetration.MethodsFirst, we listed the companies and contracts related to digital health for diabetes, visualized the change in the number of companies and the connections between companies in each industry, and analyzed the overview of the network. Second, we calculated the degree, betweenness centrality, and eigenvector centrality of each company in each year. Next, we analyzed the relationship between network centrality and market competitiveness by using annual sales as a parameter of company competitiveness. We also compared the network centrality of each company by industry or headquarters location (or both) and analyzed the characteristics of companies with higher centrality. Finally, we analyzed the relationship between network centrality and the number of products certified or approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.ResultsWe found the degree centrality of companies was correlated with an increase in their sales. The betweenness and eigenvector centralities of medical devices companies located in the United States were significantly higher than those outside the United States (P=.04 and .005, respectively). Finally, the degree, betweenness, and eigenvector centralities were correlated with an increase in the number of Class III, but not of Class I nor II, medical device products.ConclusionsThese findings give rise to new insights into industry ecosystem for digital health and its requirement and expect a contribution to research and development practices in the field of digital health.

The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation

While Colin Calloway’s latest book returns to a topic the author has visited throughout his career, eighteenth-century Native history, it does so from a new angle. In The Indian World of George Washington, Calloway’s objective is to attract readers whose interests typically lie in the genre of presidential or Founding Father biography. As the title suggests, George Washington is the vehicle through which the author aims to persuade these readers to think deeply about Native peoples and their role in shaping the history of the United States.Calloway’s work still demonstrates the power and influence Native peoples wielded throughout eighteenth-century North America. Washington’s importance to the early history of the United States assists in communicating this message to nonspecialists. By analyzing how Native peoples informed Washington’s actions and decision-making, his successes and failures, Calloway leaves the reader with little choice but to acknowledge the Native role in determining the nature of both colonial America and the Early Republic. The bulk of the text focuses on military and diplomatic disputes, notably the Seven Years’ War, the American Revolution, and relations between Native societies and the fledgling United States. The third part of the book, covering Washington’s interactions with Native peoples during his presidency, is the most compelling. While there are plenty of works attesting to the role of Native peoples in early American military conflicts, their diplomatic importance during the Early Republic often receives less scholarly attention. Calloway illustrates how Washington had to treat with Native dignitaries as representatives of “foreign nations rather than domestic subjects” (2). The reader gets a clear sense of the power that peoples such as the Creek, Haudenosaunee, and Shawnee wielded and how they mounted a genuine challenge to American expansionist aims. Calloway also highlights the ingenuity and skill of Native leaders such as Red Jacket, Alexander McGillivray, and Joseph Brant, showing them to be Washington’s equal as tacticians, strategists, and negotiators.Although it is not his core focus, Calloway also weaves together the social and cultural worlds of Native peoples and American colonists. He evokes images of cities where “tribal delegations were a regular sight,” mingling among Euro-Americans (5). The impact of trade and cultural exchange appears throughout, as Native people bear gorgets and manufactured textiles alongside leggings and moccasins. Countless examples abound to show that Native societies adapted and experimented with the objects and ideas of the outside world, challenging popular depictions that continue to caricature Indians as anti-technological, static, and unchanging. For a nonspecialist or casual reader who might possess more stereotypical notions of Native societies, these descriptions matter.Calloway’s focus on Washington does have significant drawbacks. The author acknowledges a multipolar Indigenous world, a “continent crisscrossed by networks of kinship, exchange, and alliance,” where Washington only operated on the “peripheries” (9). However, by placing Washington at the center of the volume, the author only allows the reader to see glimpses of this world. The book shuffles from crisis to crisis, in line with Washington’s biography. Unfortunately, this leaves Native people to feature only insofar as they “shaped the life of the man who shaped the nation” (15). The result is a revolving cast of American Indian peoples and leaders, popping in and out of the historical narrative. The volume does a masterful job of demonstrating how Native peoples influenced Washington’s life and American history at every turn. However, some readers will be disappointed, and others disoriented, by the way in which Native nations and historical actors move in and out of focus.Deeply researched, richly detailed, and persuasively argued, The Indian World of George Washington is the rare work that should appeal to academics and readers of so-called popular history alike. Most notably, it may just help bring the insights of countless ethnohistorians to eyes of a broader audience.

Activists Against Autocrats: TSMO Networks and Democratic Diffusion

Do transnational social movement organizations (TSMOs) promote the international diffusion of democracy? If so, how? Scholars of democratization have studied a plethora of international factors in the spread of democracy, including geographic or regional proximity, colonial history, trade and alliance networks, and joint inter-governmental organization (IGO) memberships. Few have studied the role of TSMO networks in democratic diffusion. We theorize that TSMOs empower and connect civil societies and thus promote democracy from the “bottom up.” Leveraging a new TSMO Dataset and data on the dimensions of democracy from the Varieties of Democracy project over the 1953–2013 period, we find that TSMOs promote democratic diffusion. TSMOs are strongest at diffusing participatory democracy. TSMOs also contribute to the diffusion of electoral democracy but do so by promoting the diffusion of freedom of association and freedom of expression rather than elections.

The network of interfamily marriages in ’Ndrangheta

A common claim is that mafia families arrange marriages strategically to seal alliances, cement partnerships and enhance cohesion. However, this claim is mainly based on anecdotal evidence and limited case studies. In this paper, by relying on an original database of biographical and relational information on over 4,600 members, we carry out the first large-scale exploratory analysis of the network of interfamily marriages in ’Ndrangheta. Our analysis shows that this alliance network is polycentric, made up of cohesive subgroups centered around well-connected, powerful families, that occupy different positions in the network. The presence of patterns suggests that marriages in ’Ndrangheta are possibly the result of family strategies to explore and exploit their power and business. We discuss the implications of these findings for the study of marriages as an organizational instrument.

COVID-19 and maternity care in South East London: shared working and learning initiative

The SARS-CoV-2 COVID-19 pandemic has had an immediate and profound impact on how healthcare systems organise and deliver services and specifically, there is a disproportionate negative impact on Black, Asian...

Community-driven network building in health care: creating an exploratory social space to pursue co-production following reforms

Community-driven network building in health care: creating an exploratory social space to pursue co-production following reformsIntroduction:Integrated care requires engaging and empowering people and communities to take an active role in designing and delivering health services (WHO 2019). Their capacities to co-produce health outcomes alongside formal providers are key to assuring sustainability and equity. However collaborative dynamics are compromised by power differentials that limit recognition of community capacities, and are vulnerable to system reforms. Much of the literature on co-production focuses on provider-side initiatives to engage communities. This paper provides an alternate view, exploring how community actors forge network alliances to gain legitimacy and power to co-produce care.Methods:We conducted a longitudinal case study of the network development efforts of a community working group (WG) concerned with access to health services following reforms in Québec, Canada. The WG brought together concerned citizens along with community organizations working with seniors, minorities, immigrants, youth, and people with disabilities. Data were collected over three years from observation, documents and interviews, and social network analysis was conducted to reveal the evolution of relationships among community actors, and between community and public actors. Actor-network theory (Callon) was used to distinguish stages of network maturation. These analyses explored how interactions contributed to identifying and opening pathways for co-production.Results:The WG pursued network building in two stages. A first focused on problem definition: WG members brought their existing networks together to validate access problems perceived in their constituencies, then reached out as a group to public sector contacts to achieve a better understanding of precisely what had changed in the system. In a second stage, the WG mobilized this network of community and public actors to equip a broader public to more effectively draw upon public and community resources to meet their needs. Two factors appeared to impede co-production: the limited influence of front-line actors on public system processes; and discrepancies between community priorities and system mechanisms for participation.Discussion:In the context of reforms, 'problematization' was an especially important stage in network development and showed signs of consensus development on 1. the existence and nature of problems, and 2. interdependencies between public and community actors in identifying and implementing solutions.Conclusions:Network development through the WG enabled community actors to gain the "organizational infrastructure" to participate in collaborative governance (Ansell and Gash 2008). Community efforts can open new spaces to enhance co-productive capacities of people and communities; public provider ability to integrate these capacities into processes is reduced by reforms.Lessons:Network interactions enable the recognition of interdependencies and the development of consensus, and in this way create conditions for collaboration even among actors of different strengths (Benson).The fragility and disruption through reforms of links between public and community actors impede co-production.LimitationsLonger follow-up and comparison with other community initiatives may have provided additional insight into community strategies for gaining legitimacy in co-production.Future researchResearch on factors limiting the effectiveness of longstanding 'concertation' venues after reforms would be helpful, as would exploration of territorial dimensions of co-production between public and community actors in healthcare services.

University-industry collaboration and firm innovation: an empirical study of the biopharmaceutical industry.

Existing research has shown that university–industry collaboration (UIC) helps a firm achieve superior innovation outcomes. However, little is known about how UIC affects firm innovation when considering interfirm alliances. In this paper, we examine the influence of UIC on firm innovation performance by considering the interfirm alliance network. Based on a panel of 285 biopharmaceutical firms across the world over a thirty-year period from 1985 to 2014, we find that UIC enhances firm innovation performance. More alliances with other firms hinder the positive effect of UIC on firm innovation, whereas technological diversity strengthens the influence of UIC. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Qualitative Evaluation of the Africa Malaria Task Force Symposia Effectiveness on African Partner Nations' Malaria Vector Management Capacity.

Creating health alliances to build meaningful networks is critical to combating regional and global burdens of disease. These alliances work by uniting support for elimination efforts through cooperative engagement at the national and international levels. The reduction in malaria-related morbidity and mortality in Africa since 2001 is in part because of investments of international organizations and governments in national level malaria control and prevention-related programs and research. Investment in malaria reduction networks has contributed to this success by strengthening support to overcome the conditions that restrict or prevent change through local laboratory and epidemiological capacity building, thereby resulting in a decrease in burden of disease, increase in economic prosperity, and improvements in stability worldwide.The reformation of local military efforts to combat disease through incorporation into health security alliance networks by the provision of training and financial support is key to reinforcing this success at the national level. One such example of this is the U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM) established and partner nation (PN) led Africa Malaria Task Force (AMTF) program. USAFRICOM's mission for AMTF as a health security alliance was to develop sustainable African-led malaria diagnostic, vector surveillance and control capabilities, and to increase collaborations among AMTF military PNs by enabling national and international-level network capacity. The overall objective of this evaluation of the AMTF program was to assess the implementation effectiveness of two AMTF supported symposia in improving the individual, organizational, and institutional diagnostic capacity of the Ghanaian, Ivorian, and Senegalese armed forces. The specific aims of this process evaluation were to identify procedural, contextual, and capacity-related factors that influence the effect of the symposia events on laboratory capabilities at the individual, organizational, and institutional levels through a two-phased formative evaluation approach utilizing qualitative methodologies. Findings indicate that the AMTF program symposia positively encouraged malaria prevention and control efforts in all three countries included in the evaluation. Conclusions suggest that learning about the different types of malaria prevention and control efforts underway in other countries helped to contextualize the burden of malaria-related morbidity and mortality not only within their respective countries, but also across the African continent. Participation in the AMTF Symposia and Key Leader Events helped military leadership clarify the purpose and intention of their military objectives related to systemic malaria prevention and control while purposefully contributing to national land international-level malaria reduction capacity.