Real Cooperation Research Articles

STRATEGIC EFFECTS OF WAR IN IRAQ: FUTURE OF TRANSATLANTIC PARTNERSHIP

Following the end of the Cold War there was a need for new order in the world, but such an order that would not lead to another conflict. It was a very difficult task, which was to be proven by the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. Neither Americans nor Europeans wanted to allow the others to have any advantage. Each party valued its independence and thought that its visions concerning crucial decisions were right. Both Europeans and Americans wanted to avoid conflicts, hence the aspiration to changes in the security issue. However, critical situations were supposed to verify the power of prior decisions and the willingness for real co-operation. In the course of time some reservations and accusations related to important issues appeared. The establishment of the European Union, NATO and all the decrees of these institutions, unfortunately were not able to solve conflicts. The attacks of 9/11 and the different approach towards war on terror further deteriorated the tense situation. The issue of war in Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein put the quality of the transatlantic relations to the test again. Every party had its own arguments and was ready to defend them. Some other important questions appeared. Is war in Iraq necessary? Is its waging in accordance with the international law and all conventions? All of these issues have questioned the transatlantic relations. Additionally, the disproportion of military might between both sides does not contribute to fruitful co-operation either. Therefore, is it possible to formulate and pursue a policy satisfying both sides? Will the next crucial decisions and problems unite Americans and Europeans or irretrievably divide them? Time will tell.

Stability Analysis of Supply Chain Cooperation Contract under Asymmetric Information

The stability of cooperation contract is the result of abandon opportunistic behavior in the process of repeated games among the enterprise and the other subjects in the supply chain from long-term interests, and is also the foundation of healthy development for the whole supply chain. But in real life cooperation contract instability everywhere for a variety of reasons, such as ethical considerations, institutional factors, cultural factors and special reasons during the transition period and so on. From the perspective of information economics and game theory, the main game process of cooperation between enterprise and the other subjects in supply chain is not only the game of information, but also the game of interests. Information structure and the interesting structure are the important factors for the subjects of the game of the implementation of decisions and the basic contractual constraints for cooperative game equilibrium. Cooperation behaviors among the enterprise and the other subjects in the supply chain were studied on the basis of game theory, and the stability of cooperation contract is also being discussed in this paper.

Environmental and economic cooperation in the Mekong region

Greater Mekong Subregional Integration has been promoted quite remarkably in the past decade with the support from key international and regional actors. Hard and soft infrastructure has been developed extensively. The road connection development in the Greater Mekong Subregion under the framework of East–West Corridor and North–South Corridor encourages more human and goods exchanges. The policy coordination and harmonization among the countries in the region have been upgraded but at a very slow pace. The future of the regional integration in the region is realizable through hard and soft infrastructure integration. As this article attempts to demonstrate, the main concern, though, still surrounds the issue of political willingness and real cooperation.

A Petri Net-Based Model for Verification of Obligations and Accountability in Cooperative Systems

In cooperative systems (CSs), participants cannot usually ensure the correct behavior of their partners. Obligations and proofs of participants have to be performed together to achieve a common goal in a real cooperation. Without adequate accountability assurances of actions, there is no means of reliably enforcing punitive measures against fraudulent participants. However, the existing formal methods for analyzing CSs cannot properly deal with accountability and obligations. As such, this paper proposes a new class of labeled Petri net (LPN) models. The behavior of each partner is represented by an LPN, while a CS is modeled by the combination of all partners' LPN models. The behavioral properties of an overall modeled system can be well verified only by analyzing each individual LPN. LPNs provide the integration of formal notations with graphical notations and formal proofs with commonly used verification techniques. The obligations are verified based on LPN languages and the nonblocking properties of action sequences, while accountability can be proved by the network conditions and local action sequences on each partner's side. The proposed approaches are illustrated with the modeling and analysis of a purchase transaction using the Internet Open Trading Protocol.

Film Collaboration and Creative Conflict

SCENARIO: THREE STUDENT CREWS SPEND a weekend creating short group projects. They have all received the same technical training and are using the same type of equipment. There is a balance of previous experience, strengths, and liabilities in each crew. Crew A returns glowing with pride in their production, feeling connected to each other and proud of the strong footage they produced. Members of Crew B no longer speak to each other; their footage is incoherent and far from their initial intentions. Crew C is in neutral-they experienced a safe and cautious shoot but felt no excitement about their project and their mediocre footage. If so many factors were relatively equal going into the shoot, why such a disparity in the outcomes? One factor became painfully clear to the instructor: each crew had a markedly different level of collaboration and degree of conflict. In their written reflections at the end of the project, many of these students considered effective collaborations to be due to the luck of the draw and the makeup of the crew; conflict was largely attributed to a few difficult personalities. They had little sense of what they could do another to either reproduce successful interactions or negotiate disastrous ones. They had come to believe that conflict was to be avoided at all costs and that real cooperation and effective communication required more and effort than they could afford to invest in a film. Ultimately, many believed that being the director was the only way to have real creative impact. The class discussions and critiques concentrated on logistical and technical problems. Even when asked to share their most valuable learning points, no one addressed their difficulties with collaboration or conflict. The very factors that had the most impact on the success and failure of their projects were not a conscious or articulated element of their filmmaking process. Imagine, instead, collaboration presented as a set of specific skills that could be developed and insights that could be nurtured in all filmmakers, and imagine conflict analyzed as a complex web of energy-potentially creative if shorn of its destructive components. What if skilled collaboration and conflict negotiation were essential elements of our production curriculum equal in value to technical skills and aesthetic talent? What if the philosophical beliefs about the value of collaboration in our film program descriptions and class syllabi were translated into a more conscious, concrete set of skills woven into our technical training, our assignments, and our critiques of student work? What if, as teachers, we shared more of our professional experiences and struggles with artistic collaboration, our successes and failures with conflict negotiation, and our resulting hard-won insights? Our students could be motivated to explore the deeper aspects of this mysterious thing called collaboration and the multiple ways that even the most disastrous conflicts can be negotiated. Beyond the practical use of skilled collaboration to avoid disasters, there is much more: the enhancement of a filmmaker's ability to work well with a rich variety of personalities to consider a wider set of artistic possibilities, resulting in the realization of a more compelling artistic vision. Film editor and sound designer Walter Murch says it well: Each of those moments of collaboration, each contribution by someone other than the director, adds a slightly different perspective to the work, some chisel mark slightly at an angle to the central vision. And each of these moments, these facets, has the potential to make the work 'sparkle' in a creative sense, and make it accessible to a greater variety of people over a longer period of time (Ondaatje 242). Realities of Student Filmmaking Collaboration in student filmmaking is, of course, significantly different from collaboration in industry filmmaking. Student filmmakers must work with some critically important differences that add to the complexity of collaborating. …

Computer aids for plant protection, historical perspective and future developments*

Initiatives such as Videotext and forecasting models resulted in a relatively fast introduction of computer technology on to farms at the end of the 1980s. In several countries there were developments to create models for supervised control and data exchange became digital. Most models were developed for diseases that could expand very rapidly, or diseases that should be controlled regularly. In the 1990s, development of weather‐related Decision Support Systems (DSSs) began. It is important to use the optimal way to disseminate information to the target group; which can differ between or even within countries. The use of DSSs results in a lower risk of crop damage by diseases and pests, and a lower input of active substances, from the use of adjusted dosages. Future developments may include the possibility of implementing a number of DSS‐models into a Geographical Information System, which will support precision agriculture by providing adjusted spraying advice based on plot‐specific characteristics. The success of DSSs is despite its development occurring independently in a number of countries. The speed of development of these systems would have been substantially faster had there been real cooperation between countries or groups of researchers. In order to withstand funding reductions, it is necessary for the development of new DSSs that collaboration between researchers and research groups internationally increases significantly in the near future.

Regional energy cooperation in North East Asia: Lessons from the European Experience

The three major oil importing countries of Northeast Asia—China, Japan and South Korea—are concerned about future security of energy supplies to fuel their dynamic economic activity. Currently all three countries are highly dependent on imports of oil from the Middle East, a region with inherent political instability. Russia’s rich reserves of oil and gas in Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East offer an obvious alternative. Given the geographical proximity of Russia and its desire to increase its energy exports to Northeast Asia, there is huge potential for cooperation. So far there has been no real intra-regional cooperation and no common external policy towards Russia. Despite obvious differences between Europe and North East Asia, the European model of energy cooperation, developed over the past 50 years, offers some useful lessons.

The programming of interdisciplinary research through informal science-policy interactions

At the universities, a particular model of interdisciplinary science can be found: large coordinated international programmes. Nowadays, the programming of sciences does not stop at the planning phase but continues during the entire running phase of the programmes. The net effect is that scientists are guided toward real cooperation. Two mechanism help to accomplish this goal: sharing data, and sharing technology. Since 1990 or so, funding agencies have taken it upon themselves to steer the sciences toward interdisciplinarity. Prior to 1980, funding agencies spoke in the name of science to the national states, articulating the needs of science. They now speak to science, urging reforms and increased cooperation among scientists. In this paper, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) is studied, along with an informal science policy body: the International Group of Funding Agencies for Global Change Research (IGFA). Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Følelser og sociale bånd i Akademia

Charlotte Bloch: Emotions and Social Bonds in Academia
 
 The purpose of this article is to expand our understanding of social relations in academia by examining the role that the emotional dimensions of these social relations play in academic life. It is based on the results of an interview study of emotions and emotional culture among people in various scholarly positions in academia. The article makes analytical distinctions between the structural conditions of emotions, the emotional culture of academia, lived or felt emotions and the management of emotions. And it identifies different ways of managing the emotions of uncertainty, shame, anger, pride and laughter. These feelings emerge from the structural conditions of the social relations in academic life, and the tacit rules of feeling in academic life define how these feelings are managed. Life in academia presupposes a certain amount of feeling labour and management of feelings. Thomas Scheff’s theory about emotions and social bonds is employed to identify what this management of feelings means for social relations in academia. Bonds in academia are stable and fluctuate between solidarity, isolation and engulfment, but primarily the last two. Loneliness, group conformity, absence of real cooperation, and weakening of individual and collective creativity are some of the consequences of this kind of social bond.

P2P architecture over IPv6 for personal internetworking

The purpose of this paper is to study the feasibility of Personal Internetwork (PIN) and find the approach to achieve the real cooperation of multiple personal devices and improve the usability of Hybrid and Pure P2P architecture within a personal scope. We proposed an IPv6 based Node Discovery Stack (NDS) to make the usage of Personal P2P application possible. This paper clarifies the architecture of the PIN and shows how NDS could enhance the personal communication with co-working devices.

Partnership development between product customer and tool and die supplier

Generally, the tool and die industry is acting as a tooling supplier for customers' product development. It is widely acknowledged that tool and die suppliers are now more than ever having to improve the cooperation or collaboration level with their customers to gain the tooling market. However, real cooperation or collaboration between product customer and tool and die supplier cannot be achieved before an appropriate partnership is developed. Moreover, the partnership needs to be adaptive to the changing market and requirement levels of customers. The purpose of the present research is to investigate adaptive partnership development between product customer and tool and die supplier through several steps. A set of performance measurements are defined to help the product customer evaluate the capability of tool and die supplier candidates. Different interfaces between product customer and tool and die supplier are analysed. How to develop the right interface structure for adaptive partnership between them is discussed. According to the rational early supplier involvement (ESI) methodology, the adaptive partnership requires the tool and die supplier to justify its role as an active partner along the entire product development process chain, and a decision model is established to specify the ESI partnership between product customer and tool and die supplier. It is suggested that the collaborative partnership be implemented through stronger integration of the tool and die supplier's know-how into the customer's product development process. It is hoped that this research idea can provide comprehensive support for partnership development and management between product customer and tool and die supplier.

The Impact on the U.S. Dollar of the Conflict between the American Locomotive's Model and the Emerging Economies' Autopoietic Growth

The purpose of this paper is to put the future of the US dollar into a logical framework which comprises the global development mechanism. Two models of growth collide: the US 'locomotive,' based on the international use of the dollar, and which requires exogenous pushes coming permanently from the foreign deficit and periodically from the public deficit, and the 'endogenous,' or 'autopoietic.' The engine of autopoietic growth is the process of globalization, alimented by foreign investments and the emerging economies' domestic demand, which in turn require the establishment of an international monetary standard. In absence of a real international cooperation, the conflict of the two models might bring a global currency crisis and a fall in the global growth rate, with a possible negative impact in foreign relations and policies at the global level.

Rapprochement or Rivalry? Russia-China Relations in a Changing Asia. Edited by Sherman W. Garnett. Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2000. x, 439 pp. $24.95 (paper).

The emerging relationship between China and Russia is perhaps the most important force redefining international relations in post-Cold War Asia. In the past five years, Russia and China have built a strategic partnership aimed at the 21st century, a development that deeply worries some Western observers and puzzles others. In this first comprehensive study of Russian-Chinese relations, Sherman Garnett and a team of 15 U.S., Russian, and Chinese scholars analyze the most important issues posed by the relationship, including cross-border trade, the impact of Russia's center-periphery politics, migration, arms sales, and (mis)perceptions of one another. The book assesses what will be one of the most important relationships, economically and strategically, in the dynamic region stretching from Central Asia to the Far East. It also weighs the prospects for real cooperation between Russia, a severely weakened power, and China, a power on the rise. Contributing authors include Stephen Blank, Sherman Garnett, Vilya Gel'bras, Harry Gelman, Li Jingjie, Michael McFaul, Lu Nanquan, Martha Olcott, Gilbert Rozman, Judith Thornton, Dmitri Trenin, Tamara Troyakova, Galina Vitkovskaya, Alexei Voskressenski, Elizabeth Wishnick, and Zhanna Zayonchkovskaya.

Erwartungen der Holzwirtschaft an das neue Holz-Förderprogramm des Bundes – Partnerschaftliche Arbeit in fünf Richtungen | The Timber Industry's Expectations of the Confederation's New Timber Promotion Programme – Five Areas for Potential Partnership

The Swiss forest- and timber industry has detailed five key development areas for the coming years. These are to increase raw material production from the current annual level of 4.5 million cubic metres of timber to 6 million; to increase net product throughout the whole timber chain; to open up new markets for timber and timber products; to increase entrepreneurial competitiveness; and to make communication channels more professional, by ensuring that the end consumer market is given consistent information. The clear outlines of the Confederation's follow-on programme for timber promotion coincide to a large extent with these goals. This marks a good starting point for real co-operation between the Confederation and the Swiss timber industry.

Planning for sustainability as a learning concept

The major theme of the following discussion is the importance of a transdisciplinary approach to guide sustainability-related planning and management activities. The proposed approach involves much more than the usual interaction between partners from different disciplines. A revised process is needed to allow real cooperation in sustainability planning. This process will require a more open recognition of the subjective priorities that become the framework of sustainable development issues of various interest groups and disciplines. The sustainable development agenda should be more geared towards learning processes than projected future outcomes. Learning is enhanced through a participatory framework inclusive of stakeholder interests. Insights from a broad range of disciplinary areas including the science of complexity, sociology, philosophy, law, economics and management are presented to support this position. The conventional stranglehold of disciplinary thinking in policy circles limits the capacity of our decision makers to unravel the complexity of all real world environmental policy and management problems. Policy making needs to embody respect for that complexity and allow flexibility to promote perpetually evolving learning. As a fundamentally transdisciplinary framework, ecological economics has some prospect to represent these interests in a purposeful and necessarily pragmatic way.

Voorbij de verzuiling?: Kontich twaalf jaar later: een replicatie-onderzoek naar organisatienetwerken en politieke partijen

The phenomenon of 'pillarisation' (the vertical division of society along ideological, religieus and philosophical lines which has long typified the structure of Dutch and Flemish society) has been a favourite topic of Flemish and Dutch sociologists for the last 30 years, as has its gradual dismantling, or 'depillarisation'. However, there has always been something of a shortage of empirical data. This paper discusses the main findings of a replication study of the local 'pillar' structures in the Flemish municipality of Kontich. Based on mutually overlapping leaderships of all social organisations in Kontich, the study examines to what extent there is still evidence of pillarisation at mesolevel and of ideologically-based links between organisational networks and political parties. In 1985 a study carried out in the same municipality confirmed that this was indeed the case: almost 80% of organisations could be placed in the Christian-Democratic, socialist or liberal (conservative) network. 12 years later, the number of overlapping leaderships or people holding dual functions in both social organisations and political parties has fallen sharply. Social network analysis is used to show that the pillarised networks are becoming smaller or less close-knit. At present this depillarisation process is most manifest in the periphery of the networks, and the basic pillarisation structure remains intact. Administrative contacts between different 'pillars' remain the exception rather than the rule, and there is no real cooperation over and above the pillarised structures. Further research in other municipalities could show whether this case of partial depillarisation at local level can be confirmed on a broader scale.

Introducing ADBS: The [French] Association of Information and Documentation Professionals

Introducing ADBS: The [French] Association of Information and Documentation Professionals

Technology-Driven Resource Sharing

Resource sharing, the use, in common, by two or more libraries of personnel, equipment, facilities, knowledge, expertise, and information resources, is no longer an option; it is the very essence of service to their clientele. This article presents resource sharing in a new light wherein real cooperation, automation, and data communication are the keys to effective and efficient resource sharing. New pricing and charging strategies and improvements in resource sharing through regional networks are also discussed.

European-US space cooperation at the crossroads

Abstract The changing geopolitical situation offers unparalleled opportunities for space cooperation. However, thanks to the USA's insistence on retaining control, the history of past US-European cooperation in space has been fraught with difficulties and disappointments, not least of which is the current debâcle over the International Space Station. This and other cooperative ventures are analysed and the need for truly equitable partnerships is argued. In conclusion the author presents a model for an expedition to Mars which could form the basis for real global cooperation in space.

Anthropogéographies

British anthropology has gradually freed itself from its colonial roots and taken an interest in the workings of power relations within the different societies. Called on to give advice in our societies, anthropologists now use some of the same notions (classes, communities, family, locality) also used by geographers. But any real cooperation between the two disciplines remains to be constructed.