Joint Throughput Maximization and Fair Uplink Transmission Scheduling in CDMA Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Symeon Papavassiliou

2009-01-01

Full Text Available We study the fundamental problem of optimal transmission scheduling in a code-division multiple-access wireless system in order to maximize the uplink system throughput, while satisfying the users quality-of-service (QoS requirements and maintaining fairness among them. The corresponding problem is expressed as a weighted throughput maximization problem, under certain power and QoS constraints, where the weights are the control parameters reflecting the fairness constraints. With the introduction of the power index capacity, it is shown that this optimization problem can be converted into a binary knapsack problem, where all the corresponding constraints are replaced by the power index capacities at some certain system power index. A two-step approach is followed to obtain the optimal solution. First, a simple method is proposed to find the optimal set of users to receive service for a given fixed target system load, and then the optimal solution is obtained as a global search within a certain range. Furthermore, a stochastic approximation method is presented to effectively identify the required control parameters. The performance evaluation reveals the advantages of our proposed policy over other existing ones and confirms that it achieves very high throughput while maintains fairness among the users, under different channel conditions and requirements.

On the modeling of uplink inter-cell interference based on proportional fair scheduling

KAUST Repository

Tabassum, Hina

2012-10-03

We derive a semi-analytical expression for the uplink inter-cell interference (ICI) assuming proportional fair scheduling (with a maximum normalized signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) criterion) deployed in the cellular network. The derived expression can be customized for different models of channel statistics that can capture path loss, shadowing, and fading. Firstly, we derive an expression for the distribution of the locations of the allocated user in a given cell. Then, we derive the distribution and moment generating function of the uplink ICI from one interfering cell. Finally, we determine the moment generating function of the cumulative uplink ICI from all interfering cells. The derived expression is utilized to evaluate important network performance metrics such as outage probability and fairness among users. The accuracy of the derived expressions is verified by comparing the obtained results to Monte Carlo simulations. © 2012 IEEE.

On the modeling of uplink inter-cell interference based on proportional fair scheduling

KAUST Repository

Tabassum, Hina; Yilmaz, Ferkan; Dawy, Zaher; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim

2012-01-01

We derive a semi-analytical expression for the uplink inter-cell interference (ICI) assuming proportional fair scheduling (with a maximum normalized signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) criterion) deployed in the cellular network. The derived expression can be customized for different models of channel statistics that can capture path loss, shadowing, and fading. Firstly, we derive an expression for the distribution of the locations of the allocated user in a given cell. Then, we derive the distribution and moment generating function of the uplink ICI from one interfering cell. Finally, we determine the moment generating function of the cumulative uplink ICI from all interfering cells. The derived expression is utilized to evaluate important network performance metrics such as outage probability and fairness among users. The accuracy of the derived expressions is verified by comparing the obtained results to Monte Carlo simulations. © 2012 IEEE.

Fair decentralized data-rate congestion control for V2V communications

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Belagal Math, C.; Li, H.; Heemstra De Groot, S.M.; Niemegeers, I.G.M.M.

2017-01-01

Channel congestion is one of the most critical issues in IEEE 802.11p-based vehicular ad hoc networks because congestion may lead to unreliability of applications. As a counter measure, the European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI), proposes a mandatory Decentralized Congestion Control

Fair packet scheduling in Wireless Mesh Networks

KAUST Repository

Nawab, Faisal; Jamshaid, Kamran; Shihada, Basem; Ho, Pin Han

2014-01-01

ordering of timestamps among neighboring nodes is sufficient for enforcing local fairness, subsequently leading to flow rate fairness in a multi-hop WMN. We show that TMAC can be implemented using the control frames in IEEE 802.11, and thus can be easily

A decentralized scheduling algorithm for time synchronized channel hopping

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrew Tinka

2011-09-01

Full Text Available Time Synchronized Channel Hopping (TSCH is an existing Medium Access Control scheme which enables robust communication through channel hopping and high data rates through synchronization. It is based on a time-slotted architecture, and its correct functioning depends on a schedule which is typically computed by a central node. This paper presents, to our knowledge, the first scheduling algorithm for TSCH networks which both is distributed and which copes with mobile nodes. Two variations on scheduling algorithms are presented. Aloha-based scheduling allocates one channel for broadcasting advertisements for new neighbors. Reservation- based scheduling augments Aloha-based scheduling with a dedicated timeslot for targeted advertisements based on gossip information. A mobile ad hoc motorized sensor network with frequent connectivity changes is studied, and the performance of the two proposed algorithms is assessed. This performance analysis uses both simulation results and the results of a field deployment of floating wireless sensors in an estuarial canal environment. Reservation-based scheduling performs significantly better than Aloha-based scheduling, suggesting that the improved network reactivity is worth the increased algorithmic complexity and resource consumption.

Load scheduling for decentralized CHP plants

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Henrik Aalborg, orlov 31.07.2008; Madsen, Henrik; Nielsen, Torben Skov

) an interactive decision support tool by which optimal schedules can be found given the forecasts or user-defined modifications of the forecasts, and (iii) an automatic on-line system for monitoring when conditions have changed so that rescheduling is appropriate. In this report the focus is on methods applicable...... be obtained. Furthermore, we believe that all relevant forecasting methods are far too complicated to allow for this integration; both uncertainties originating from the dependence of heat load on climate and from meteorological forecasts need to be taken into account. Instead we suggest that the decision....... By letting the system find optimal schedules for each of these realizations the operator can gain some insight into the importance of the uncertainties. It is shown that with modern personal computers (e.g. 1 GHz Pentium III), operating systems (e.g. RedHat Linux 6.0), and compilers (e.g. GNU C 2...

Consensus based scheduling of storage capacities in a virtual microgrid

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brehm, Robert; Top, Søren; Mátéfi-Tempfli, Stefan

2017-01-01

We present a distributed, decentralized method for coordinated scheduling of charge/discharge intervals of storage capacities in a utility grid integrated microgrid. The decentralized algorithm is based on a consensus scheme and solves an optimisation problem with the objective of minimising......, by use of storage capacities, the power flow over a transformer substation from/to the utility grid integrated microgrid. It is shown that when using this coordinated scheduling algorithm, load profile flattening (peak-shaving) for the utility grid is achieved. Additionally, mutual charge...

Design of an autonomous decentralized MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Hoesel, L.F.W.; Dal Pont, L.; Havinga, Paul J.M.

In this document the design of a MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks is discussed. The autonomous decentralized TDMA based MAC protocol minimizes power consumtion by efficiency implementing unicast/omnicast, scheduled rendezvous times and wakeup calls. The MAC protocol is an ongoing research

Introducing local property tax for fiscal decentralization and local authority autonomy

Science.gov (United States)

Dimopoulos, Thomas; Labropoulos, Tassos; Hadjimitsis, Diafantos G.

2015-06-01

Charles Tiebout (1956), in his work "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures", provides a vision of the workings of the local public sector, acknowledging many similarities to the features of a competitive market, however omitting any references to local taxation. Contrary to other researchers' claim that the Tiebout model and the theory of fiscal decentralization are by no means synonymous, this paper aims to expand Tiebout's theory, by adding the local property tax in the context, introducing a fair, ad valorem property taxation system based on the automated assessment of the value of real estate properties within the boundaries of local authorities. Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal methodology integrated with Remote Sensing technology and GIS analysis is applied to local authorities' property registries and cadastral data, building a spatial relational database and providing data to be statistically processed through Multiple Regression Analysis modeling. The proposed scheme accomplishes economy of scale using CAMA procedures on one hand, but also succeeds in making local authorities self-sufficient through a decentralized, fair, locally calibrated property taxation model, providing rational income administration.

FAIR - Baseline technical report. Executive summary

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gutbrod, H.H.; Augustin, I.; Eickhoff, H.; Gross, K.D.; Henning, W.F.; Kraemer, D.; Walter, G.

2006-09-01

This document presents the Executive Summary, the first of six volumes comprising the 2006 Baseline Technical Report (BTR) for the international FAIR project (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research). The BTR provides the technical description, cost, schedule, and assessments of risk for the proposed new facility. The purpose of the BTR is to provide a reliable basis for the construction, commissioning and operation of FAIR. The BTR is one of the central documents requested by the FAIR International Steering Committee (ISC) and its working groups, in order to prepare the legal process and the decisions on the construction and operation of FAIR in an international framework. It provides the technical basis for legal contracts on contributions to be made by, so far, 13 countries within the international FAIR Consortium. The BTR begins with this extended Executive Summary as Volume 1, which is also intended for use as a stand-alone document. The Executive Summary provides brief summaries of the accelerator facilities, the scientific programs and experimental stations, civil construction and safety, and of the workproject structure, costs and schedule. (orig.)

Abstract flexibility description for virtual power plant scheduling

OpenAIRE

Fröhling, Judith

2017-01-01

In the ongoing paradigm shift of the energy market from big power plants to more and more small and decentralized power plants, virtual power plants (VPPs) play an important role. VPPs bundle the capacities of the small and decentralized resources (DER). Planing of VPP operation, that is also called scheduling, relies on the flexibilities of controllable DER in the VPP, e.g., combined heat and power plants (CHPs), heat pumps and batteries. The aim of this thesis is the development of an abstr...

Fair cost distribution among smart homes with microgrid

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Di; Liu, Songsong; Papageorgiou, Lazaros G.

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Work aims at fair cost distribution among smart homes with microgrid. • An MILP-based approach is adopted based on lexicographic minimax method. • Domestic appliances from multiple smart homes are scheduled. • Results from two illustrative examples indicate fair cost distribution. - Abstract: Microgrid is composed of a set of distributed energy resources (DER) and is considered as an alternative energy providing system to the current centralised energy generation. Smart homes equipped with smart grid technology, such as smart meter and communication system, are becoming popular for their lower energy cost and provision of comfort. Flexible energy-consuming household tasks can be scheduled coordinately among multiple homes which share the common microgrid. When local DERs cannot fulfill the whole demand, smart homes will compete with each other to obtain energy from local DERs and achieve their respective lowest energy cost. In this paper, a mathematical programming formulation is presented for the fair cost distribution among smart homes with microgrid. The proposed model is based on the lexicographic minimax method using a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) approach. One-day forecasted energy cost of each smart home is minimised under fairness concern. DER operation, DER output sharing among smart homes and electricity consumption household tasks are scheduled. Two numerical examples with 10 and 50 smart homes are studied. The computational results illustrate that the proposed approach can obtain obvious cost savings (30% and 24% respectively) and fair cost distribution among multiple homes under given fairness scenario

Proportional green time scheduling for traffic lights

NARCIS (Netherlands)

P. Kovacs; Le, T. (Tung); R. Núñez Queija (Rudesindo); Vu, H. (Hai); N. Walton

2016-01-01

textabstractWe consider the decentralized scheduling of a large number of urban traffic lights. We investigate factors determining system performance, in particular, the length of the traffic light cycle and the proportion of green time allocated to each junction. We study the effect of the length

A combined fair decentralized message-rate and data-rate congestion control for V2V communication

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Belagal Math, Chetan; Li, Hong; De Groot, Sonia Heemstra; Niemegeers, Ignas

2018-01-01

Channel congestion Is one of the most critical Issues In IEEE 802.11p-based vehicular ad hoc networks as it leads to unreliability of safety applications. As a counter measure, the European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI), proposes a mandatory Decentralized Congestion Control (DCC)

A reduced feedback proportional fair multiuser scheduling scheme

KAUST Repository

Shaqfeh, Mohammad; Alnuweiri, Hussein M.; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim

2011-01-01

. A slight reduction in the prospected multiuser diversity gains is an acceptable trade-off for great savings in terms of required channel-state-information feedback messages. In this work, we propose a novel proportional fair multiuser switched

Decentralization and mechanism design for online machine scheduling

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Arge, Lars; Heydenreich, Birgit; Müller, Rudolf; Freivalds, Rusins; Uetz, Marc Jochen

We study the online version of the classical parallel machine scheduling problem to minimize the total weighted completion time from a new perspective: We assume that the data of each job, namely its release date $r_j$, its processing time $p_j$ and its weight $w_j$ is only known to the job itself,

Policy Implementation Decentralization Government in Indonesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kardin M. Simanjuntak

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Decentralization in Indonesia is that reforms not completed and until the current implementation is not maximized or have not been successful. The essence of decentralization is internalising cost and benefit' for the people and how the government closer to the people. That's the most important essence of essence 'decentralization’. However, the implementation of decentralization in Indonesia is still far from the expectations. It is shown that only benefits of decentralization elite and local authorities, decentralization is a neo-liberal octopus, decentralization of public services are lacking in character, decentralization without institutional efficiency, decentralization fosters corruption in the area, and quasi-fiscal decentralization.

50 CFR 34.6 - Schedule of appraisals.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... Secretary shall make fair market value appraisals of areas administered by the Service within five years... reappraised on a schedule of at least once every five years. Until areas are appraised, the fair market value... fee lands added to such areas after that date shall be on the basis of fair market value. ...

A market approach to decentralized control of a manufacturing cell

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shao Xinyu; Ma Li; Guan Zailin

2009-01-01

Based on a fictitious market model, a decentralized approach is presented for the workstation scheduling in a CNC workshop. A multi-agent framework is proposed, where job agents and resource agents act as buyers and sellers of resource in the virtual market. With cost and benefit calculation of these agent activities, which reflects the state of the production environment, various, and often conflicting goals and interests influencing the scheduling process in practice can be balanced through a unified instrument offered by the markets. The paper first introduces a heuristic procedure that makes scheduling reservations in a periodic manner. A multi-agent framework is then introduced, in which job agents and resource agents seek appropriate job-workstation matches through bidding in the construction of the above periodic 'micro-schedules'. A pricing policy is proposed for the price-directed coordination of agent activities in this. Simulation results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach and give some insights on the effects of some decision making parameters. Future work will be focused on the designing of some more sophisticated coordination mechanism and its deployment.

A market approach to decentralized control of a manufacturing cell

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Shao Xinyu [State Key Lab of Digital Manufacturing and Equipments, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei (China)], E-mail: shaoxy@hust.edu.cn; Ma Li [State Key Lab of Digital Manufacturing and Equipments, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei (China)], E-mail: china_ml@163.com; Guan Zailin [State Key Lab of Digital Manufacturing and Equipments, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei (China)], E-mail: zlguan@hust.edu.cn

2009-03-15

Based on a fictitious market model, a decentralized approach is presented for the workstation scheduling in a CNC workshop. A multi-agent framework is proposed, where job agents and resource agents act as buyers and sellers of resource in the virtual market. With cost and benefit calculation of these agent activities, which reflects the state of the production environment, various, and often conflicting goals and interests influencing the scheduling process in practice can be balanced through a unified instrument offered by the markets. The paper first introduces a heuristic procedure that makes scheduling reservations in a periodic manner. A multi-agent framework is then introduced, in which job agents and resource agents seek appropriate job-workstation matches through bidding in the construction of the above periodic 'micro-schedules'. A pricing policy is proposed for the price-directed coordination of agent activities in this. Simulation results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach and give some insights on the effects of some decision making parameters. Future work will be focused on the designing of some more sophisticated coordination mechanism and its deployment.

Fair-share scheduling algorithm for a tertiary storage system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jakl, Pavel; Sumbera, Michal; Lauret, Jerome

2010-01-01

Any experiment facing Peta bytes scale problems is in need for a highly scalable mass storage system (MSS) to keep a permanent copy of their valuable data. But beyond the permanent storage aspects, the sheer amount of data makes complete data-set availability onto live storage (centralized or aggregated space such as the one provided by Scalla/Xrootd) cost prohibitive implying that a dynamic population from MSS to faster storage is needed. One of the most challenging aspects of dealing with MSS is the robotic tape component. If a robotic system is used as the primary storage solution, the intrinsically long access times (latencies) can dramatically affect the overall performance. To speed the retrieval of such data, one could organize the requests according to criterion with an aim to deliver maximal data throughput. However, such approaches are often orthogonal to fair resource allocation and a trade-off between quality of service, responsiveness and throughput is necessary for achieving an optimal and practical implementation of a truly faire-share oriented file restore policy. Starting from an explanation of the key criterion of such a policy, we will present evaluations and comparisons of three different MSS file restoration algorithms which meet fair-share requirements, and discuss their respective merits. We will quantify their impact on a typical file restoration cycle for the RHIC/STAR experimental setup and this, within a development, analysis and production environment relying on a shared MSS service [1].

Weighted-SNR-based fair scheduling for uplink OFDMA

KAUST Repository

Ma, Yao; Leith, Alex; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim; (Sherman) Shen X., Xuemin

2009-01-01

rates for different users. The offline optimization technique requires to know the channel distribution information (CDI) at the scheduler. The online method uses the weight adaption combined with individual user rate tracking, which avoids the need

Scheduling nurses’ shifts at PGI Cikini Hospital

Science.gov (United States)

Nainggolan, J. C. T.; Kusumastuti, R. D.

2018-03-01

Hospitals play an essential role in the community by providing medical services to the public. In order to provide high quality medical services, hospitals must manage their resources (including nurses) effectively and efficiently. Scheduling of nurses’ work shifts, in particular, is crucial, and must be conducted carefully to ensure availability and fairness. This research discusses the job scheduling system for nurses in PGI Cikini Hospital, Jakarta with Goal Programming approach. The research objectives are to identify nurse scheduling criteria and find the best schedule that can meet the criteria. The model has hospital regulations (including government regulations) as hard constraints, and nurses’ preferences as soft constraints. We gather primary data (hospital regulations and nurses’ preferences) through interviews with three Head Nurses and distributing questionnaires to fifty nurses. The results show that on the best schedule, all hard constraints can be satisfied. However, only two out of four soft constraints are satisfied. Compared to current scheduling practice, the resulting schedule ensures the availability of nurses as it satisfies all hospital’s regulations and it has a higher level of fairness as it can accommodate some of the nurses’ preferences.

Geometric Distribution-Based Readers Scheduling Optimization Algorithm Using Artificial Immune System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Litian Duan

2016-11-01

Full Text Available In the multiple-reader environment (MRE of radio frequency identification (RFID system, multiple readers are often scheduled to interrogate the randomized tags via operating at different time slots or frequency channels to decrease the signal interferences. Based on this, a Geometric Distribution-based Multiple-reader Scheduling Optimization Algorithm using Artificial Immune System (GD-MRSOA-AIS is proposed to fairly and optimally schedule the readers operating from the viewpoint of resource allocations. GD-MRSOA-AIS is composed of two parts, where a geometric distribution function combined with the fairness consideration is first introduced to generate the feasible scheduling schemes for reader operation. After that, artificial immune system (including immune clone, immune mutation and immune suppression quickly optimize these feasible ones as the optimal scheduling scheme to ensure that readers are fairly operating with larger effective interrogation range and lower interferences. Compared with the state-of-the-art algorithm, the simulation results indicate that GD-MRSOA-AIS could efficiently schedules the multiple readers operating with a fairer resource allocation scheme, performing in larger effective interrogation range.

Challenges to fair decision-making processes in the context of health care services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shayo, Elizabeth H.; Norheim, Ole F.; Mboera, Leonard E. G.

2012-01-01

challenges to fair decision-making processes in health care services with a special focus on the potential influence of gender, wealth, ethnicity and education. We draw on the principle of fairness as outlined in the deliberative democratic theory. METHODS: The study was carried out in the Mbarali District......ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Fair processes in decision making need the involvement of stakeholders who can discuss issues and reach an agreement based on reasons that are justifiable and appropriate in meeting people's needs. In Tanzania, the policy of decentralization and the health sector reform place......: The study findings indicate a substantial influence of gender, wealth, ethnicity and education on health care decision-making processes. Men, wealthy individuals, members of strong ethnic groups and highly educated individuals had greater influence. Opinions varied among the study informants as to whether...

Real-time Energy Resource Scheduling considering a Real Portuguese Scenario

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Silva, Marco; Sousa, Tiago; Morais, Hugo

2014-01-01

The development in power systems and the introduction of decentralized gen eration and Electric Vehicles (EVs), both connected to distribution networks, represents a major challenge in the planning and operation issues. This new paradigm requires a new energy resources management approach which...... scheduling in smart grids, considering day - ahead, hour - ahead and real - time scheduling. The case study considers a 33 - bus distribution network with high penetration of distributed energy resources . The wind generation profile is base d o n a rea l Portuguese wind farm . Four scenarios are presented...... taking into account 0, 1, 2 and 5 periods (hours or minutes) ahead of the scheduling period in the hour - ahead and real - time scheduling...

Coordinating decentralized optimization of truck and shovel mining operations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cheng, R.; Fraser Forbes, J. [Alberta Univ., Edmonton, AB (Canada). Dept. of Chemical and Materials Engineering; San Yip, W. [Suncor Energy, Fort McMurray, AB (Canada)

2006-07-01

Canada's oil sands contain the largest known reserve of oil in the world. Oil sands mining uses 3 functional processes, ore hauling, overburden removal and mechanical maintenance. The industry relies mainly on truck-and-shovel technology in its open-pit mining operations which contributes greatly to the overall mining operation cost. Coordination between operating units is crucial for achieving an enterprise-wide optimal operation level. Some of the challenges facing the industry include multiple or conflicting objectives such as minimizing the use of raw materials and energy while maximizing production. The large sets of constraints that define the feasible domain pose as challenge, as does the uncertainty in system parameters. One solution lies in assigning truck resources to various activities. This fully decentralized approach would treat the optimization of ore production, waste removal and equipment maintenance independently. It was emphasized that mine-wide optimal operation can only be achieved by coordinating ore hauling and overburden removal processes. For that reason, this presentation proposed a coordination approach for a decentralized optimization system. The approach is based on the Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition and auction-based methods that have been previously used to decompose large-scale optimization problems. The treatment of discrete variables and coordinator design was described and the method was illustrated with a simple truck and shovel mining simulation study. The approach can be applied to a wide range of applications such as coordinating decentralized optimal control systems and scheduling. 16 refs., 3 tabs., 2 figs.

Decentralized Quasi-Newton Methods

Science.gov (United States)

Eisen, Mark; Mokhtari, Aryan; Ribeiro, Alejandro

2017-05-01

We introduce the decentralized Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (D-BFGS) method as a variation of the BFGS quasi-Newton method for solving decentralized optimization problems. The D-BFGS method is of interest in problems that are not well conditioned, making first order decentralized methods ineffective, and in which second order information is not readily available, making second order decentralized methods impossible. D-BFGS is a fully distributed algorithm in which nodes approximate curvature information of themselves and their neighbors through the satisfaction of a secant condition. We additionally provide a formulation of the algorithm in asynchronous settings. Convergence of D-BFGS is established formally in both the synchronous and asynchronous settings and strong performance advantages relative to first order methods are shown numerically.

Federalism and Decentralization of Education in Argentina. Unintended Consequences of Decentralization of Expenditures in a Federal Country.

Science.gov (United States)

Falleti, Tulia G.

By analyzing the process of decentralization of education in Argentina, this paper complements the existing literature on decentralization and federalism in two ways: (1) it studies the impact of federal institutions on the origins and evolution of decentralization; and (2) it analyzes a case of decentralization of education that, in a way not…

An Organizational and Qualitative Approach to Improving University Course Scheduling

Science.gov (United States)

Hill, Duncan L.

2010-01-01

Focusing on the current timetabling process at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), I apply David Wesson's theoretical framework in order to understand (1) how increasing enrollment interacts with a decentralized timetabling process to limit the flexibility of course schedules and (2) the resultant impact on educational quality. I then…

The Two Edge Knife of Decentralization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ahmad Khoirul Umam

2011-07-01

Full Text Available A centralistic government model has become a trend in a number of developing countries, in which the ideosycretic aspect becomes pivotal key in the policy making. The situation constitutes authoritarianism, cronyism, and corruption. To break the impasse, the decentralized system is proposed to make people closer to the public policy making. Decentralization is also convinced to be the solution to create a good governance. But a number of facts in the developing countries demonstrates that decentralization indeed has ignite emerges backfires such as decentralized corruption, parochialism, horizontal conflict, local political instability and others. This article elaborates the theoretical framework on decentralization's ouput as the a double-edge knife. In a simple words, the concept of decentralization does not have a permanent relationship with the creation of good governance and development. Without substantive democracy, decentralization is indeed potential to be a destructive political instrument threating the state's future.

Decentralized neural control application to robotics

CERN Document Server

Garcia-Hernandez, Ramon; Sanchez, Edgar N; Alanis, Alma y; Ruz-Hernandez, Jose A

2017-01-01

This book provides a decentralized approach for the identification and control of robotics systems. It also presents recent research in decentralized neural control and includes applications to robotics. Decentralized control is free from difficulties due to complexity in design, debugging, data gathering and storage requirements, making it preferable for interconnected systems. Furthermore, as opposed to the centralized approach, it can be implemented with parallel processors. This approach deals with four decentralized control schemes, which are able to identify the robot dynamics. The training of each neural network is performed on-line using an extended Kalman filter (EKF). The first indirect decentralized control scheme applies the discrete-time block control approach, to formulate a nonlinear sliding manifold. The second direct decentralized neural control scheme is based on the backstepping technique, approximated by a high order neural network. The third control scheme applies a decentralized neural i...

An Integrated Decentralized Energy Planning Model considering Demand-Side Management and Environmental Measures

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seyed Mahmood Kazemi

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Decentralized energy planning (DEP is looked upon as an indisputable opportunity for energy planning of villages, isolated islands, and far spots. Nonetheless, at this decentralized planning level, the value of demand-side resources is not fairly examined, despite enjoying great advantages. Therefore, the core task of this study is to integrate demand-side resources, as a competing solution against supply-side alternatives, with decentralized energy planning decisions and demonstrate the rewarding role it plays. Moreover, sustainability indicators (SIs are incorporated into DEP attempts in order to attain sustainable development. It is emphasized that unless these indicators are considered at lower energy planning levels, they will be ignored at higher planning levels as well. Hence, to the best knowledge of the authors, this study for the first time takes into account greenhouse gas (GHG emissions produced by utilization of renewable energies in DEP optimization models. To address the issues mentioned previously, multiobjective linear programming model along with a min-max goal programming approach is employed. Finally, using data taken from the literature, the model is solved, and the obtained results are discussed. The results show that DSM policies have remarkably contributed to significant improvements especially in terms of environmental indicators.

A decentralized control method for direct smart grid control of refrigeration systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shafiei, Seyed Ehsan; Izadi-Zamanabadi, Roozbeh; Rasmussen, Henrik

2013-01-01

. No model information is required in this method. The temperature limits/constraints are respected. A novel adaptive saturation filter is also proposed to increase the system flexibility in storing and delivering the energy. The proposed control strategy is applied to a simulation benchmark that fairly......A decentralized control method is proposed to govern the electrical power consumption of supermarket refrigeration systems (SRS) for demand-side management in the smart grid. The control structure is designed in a supervisory level to provide desired set-points for distributed level controllers...

Scheduling Algorithms for Maximizing Throughput with Zero-Forcing Beamforming in a MIMO Wireless System

Science.gov (United States)

Foronda, Augusto; Ohta, Chikara; Tamaki, Hisashi

Dirty paper coding (DPC) is a strategy to achieve the region capacity of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) downlink channels and a DPC scheduler is throughput optimal if users are selected according to their queue states and current rates. However, DPC is difficult to implement in practical systems. One solution, zero-forcing beamforming (ZFBF) strategy has been proposed to achieve the same asymptotic sum rate capacity as that of DPC with an exhaustive search over the entire user set. Some suboptimal user group selection schedulers with reduced complexity based on ZFBF strategy (ZFBF-SUS) and proportional fair (PF) scheduling algorithm (PF-ZFBF) have also been proposed to enhance the throughput and fairness among the users, respectively. However, they are not throughput optimal, fairness and throughput decrease if each user queue length is different due to different users channel quality. Therefore, we propose two different scheduling algorithms: a throughput optimal scheduling algorithm (ZFBF-TO) and a reduced complexity scheduling algorithm (ZFBF-RC). Both are based on ZFBF strategy and, at every time slot, the scheduling algorithms have to select some users based on user channel quality, user queue length and orthogonality among users. Moreover, the proposed algorithms have to produce the rate allocation and power allocation for the selected users based on a modified water filling method. We analyze the schedulers complexity and numerical results show that ZFBF-RC provides throughput and fairness improvements compared to the ZFBF-SUS and PF-ZFBF scheduling algorithms.

Development of a pharmacy resident rotation to expand decentralized clinical pharmacy services.

Science.gov (United States)

Hill, John D; Williams, Jonathan P; Barnes, Julie F; Greenlee, Katie M; Cardiology, Bcps-Aq; Leonard, Mandy C

2017-07-15

The development of a pharmacy resident rotation to expand decentralized clinical pharmacy services is described. In an effort to align with the initiatives proposed within the ASHP Practice Advancement Initiative, the department of pharmacy at Cleveland Clinic, a 1,400-bed academic, tertiary acute care medical center in Cleveland, Ohio, established a goal to provide decentralized clinical pharmacy services for 100% of patient care units within the hospital. Patient care units that previously had no decentralized pharmacy services were evaluated to identify opportunities for expansion. Metrics analyzed included number of medication orders verified per hour, number of pharmacy dosing consultations, and number of patient discharge counseling sessions. A pilot study was conducted to assess the feasibility of this service and potential resident learning opportunities. A learning experience description was drafted, and feedback was solicited regarding the development of educational components utilized throughout the rotation. Pharmacists who were providing services to similar patient populations were identified to serve as preceptors. Staff pharmacists were deployed to previously uncovered patient care units, with pharmacy residents providing decentralized services on previously covered areas. A rotating preceptor schedule was developed based on geographic proximity and clinical expertise. An initial postimplementation assessment of this resident-driven service revealed that pharmacy residents provided a comparable level of pharmacy services to that of staff pharmacists. Feedback collected from nurses, physicians, and pharmacy staff also supported residents' ability to operate sufficiently in this role to optimize patient care. A learning experience developed for pharmacy residents in a large medical center enabled the expansion of decentralized clinical services without requiring additional pharmacist full-time equivalents. Copyright © 2017 by the American Society of

Organizational decentralization in radiology.

Science.gov (United States)

Aas, I H Monrad

2006-01-01

At present, most hospitals have a department of radiology where images are captured and interpreted. Decentralization is the opposite of centralization and means 'away from the centre'. With a Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) and broadband communications, transmitting radiology images between sites will be far easier than before. Qualitative interviews of 26 resource persons were performed in Norway. There was a response rate of 90%. Decentralization of radiology interpretations seems less relevant than centralization, but several forms of decentralization have a role to play. The respondents mentioned several advantages, including exploitation of capacity and competence. They also mentioned several disadvantages, including splitting professional communities and reduced contact between radiologists and clinicians. With the new technology decentralization and centralization of image interpretation are important possibilities in organizational change. This will be important for the future of teleradiology.

Deficit Round Robin with Fragmentation Scheduling to Achieve Generalized Weighted Fairness for Resource Allocation in IEEE 802.16e Mobile WiMAX Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chakchai So-In

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Deficit Round Robin (DRR is a fair packet-based scheduling discipline commonly used in wired networks where link capacities do not change with time. However, in wireless networks, especially wireless broadband networks, i.e., IEEE 802.16e Mobile WiMAX, there are two main considerations violate the packet-based service concept for DRR. First, the resources are allocated per Mobile WiMAX frame. To achieve full frame utilization, Mobile WiMAX allows packets to be fragmented. Second, due to a high variation in wireless channel conditions, the link/channel capacity can change over time and location. Therefore, we introduce a Deficit Round Robin with Fragmentation (DRRF to allocate resources per Mobile WiMAX frame in a fair manner by allowing for varying link capacity and for transmitting fragmented packets. Similar to DRR and Generalized Processor Sharing (GPS, DRRF achieves perfect fairness. DRRF results in a higher throughput than DRR (80% improvement while causing less overhead than GPS (8 times less than GPS. In addition, in Mobile WiMAX, the quality of service (QoS offered by service providers is associated with the price paid. This is similar to a cellular phone system; the users may be required to pay air-time charges. Hence, we have also formalized a Generalized Weighted Fairness (GWF criterion which equalizes a weighted sum of service time units or slots, called temporal fairness, and transmitted bytes, called throughput fairness, for customers who are located in a poor channel condition or at a further distance versus for those who are near the base stations, or have a good channel condition. We use DRRF to demonstrate the application of GWF. These fairness criteria are used to satisfy basic requirements for resource allocation, especially for non real-time traffic. Therefore, we also extend DRRF to support other QoS requirements, such as minimum reserved traffic rate, maximum sustained traffic rate, and traffic priority. For real

(DeCentralization of the Global Informational Ecosystem

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Johanna Möller

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Centralization and decentralization are key concepts in debates that focus on the (antidemocratic character of digital societies. Centralization is understood as the control over communication and data flows, and decentralization as giving it (back to users. Communication and media research focuses on centralization put forward by dominant digital media platforms, such as Facebook and Google, and governments. Decentralization is investigated regarding its potential in civil society, i.e., hacktivism, (encryption technologies, and grass-root technology movements. As content-based media companies increasingly engage with technology, they move into the focus of critical media studies. Moreover, as formerly nationally oriented companies now compete with global media platforms, they share several interests with civil society decentralization agents. Based on 26 qualitative interviews with leading media managers, we investigate (decentralization strategies applied by content-oriented media companies. Theoretically, this perspective on media companies as agents of (decentralization expands (decentralization research beyond traditional democratic stakeholders by considering economic actors within the “global informational ecosystem” (Birkinbine, Gómez, & Wasko, 2017. We provide a three-dimensional framework to empirically investigate (decentralization. From critical media studies, we borrow the (decentralization of data and infrastructures, from media business research, the (decentralization of content distribution.

Decentralization in Air Transportation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Udluft, H.

2017-01-01

In this work,we demonstrate that decentralized control can result in stable, efficient, and robust operations in the Air Transportation System. We implement decentralized control for aircraft taxiing operations and use Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation to analyze the resulting system behavior

Goal programming for cyclical auxiliary police scheduling at UiTM Cawangan Perlis

Science.gov (United States)

Mustapar, Wasilatul Effah; Nasir, Diana Sirmayunie Mohd; Nor, Nor Azriani Mohamad; Abas, Sharifah Fhahriyah Syed

2017-11-01

Constructing a good and fair schedule for shift workers poses a great challenge as it requires a lot of time and effort. In this study, goal programming has been applied on scheduling to achieve the hard and soft constraints for a cyclical schedule that would ease the head of auxiliary police at building new schedules. To accomplish this goal, shift types were assigned in order to provide a fair schedule that takes into account the auxiliary police's policies and preferences. The model was run using Lingo software. Three out of four goals set for the study were achieved. In addition, the results considered an equal allocation for every auxiliary police, namely 70% for total duty and 30% for the day. Furthermore, the schedule was able to cyclically generate another 10 sets schedule. More importantly, the model has provided unbiased scheduling of auxiliary policies which led to high satisfaction in auxiliary police management.

39 CFR 266.8 - Schedule of fees.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... micrographic record or publication or computer report, the fee is $.15 per page, except that the first 100... 39 Postal Service 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Schedule of fees. 266.8 Section 266.8 Postal... Schedule of fees. (a) Policy. The purpose of this section is to establish fair and equitable fees to permit...

Decentralized control of complex systems

CERN Document Server

Siljak, Dragoslav D

2011-01-01

Complex systems require fast control action in response to local input, and perturbations dictate the use of decentralized information and control structures. This much-cited reference book explores the approaches to synthesizing control laws under decentralized information structure constraints.Starting with a graph-theoretic framework for structural modeling of complex systems, the text presents results related to robust stabilization via decentralized state feedback. Subsequent chapters explore optimization, output feedback, the manipulative power of graphs, overlapping decompositions and t

What supervisors want to know about decentralization.

Science.gov (United States)

Boissoneau, R; Belton, P

1991-06-01

Many organizations in various industries have tended to move away from strict centralization, yet some centralization is still vital to top management. With 19 of the 22 executives interviewed favoring or implementing some form of decentralization, it is probable that traditionally centralized organizations will follow the trend and begin to decentralize their organizational structures. The incentives and advantages of decentralization are too attractive to ignore. Decentralization provides responsibility, clear objectives, accountability for results, and more efficient and effective decision making. However, one must remember that decentralization can be overextended and that centralization is still viable in certain functions. Finding the correct balance between control and autonomy is a key to decentralization. Too much control and too much autonomy are the primary reasons for decentralization failures. In today's changing, competitive environment, structures must be continuously redefined, with the goal of finding an optimal balance between centralization and decentralization. Organizations are cautioned not to seek out and install a single philosopher-king to impose unified direction, but to unify leadership goals, participation, style, and control to develop improved methods of making all responsible leaders of one mind about the organization's needs and goals.

Construction of basic match schedules for sports competitions by using graph theory

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Weert, Arjan; Schreuder, J.A.M.; Burke, Edmund; Carter, Michael

1997-01-01

Basic Match Schedules are important for constructing sports timetables. Firstly these schedules guarantee the fairness of the sports competitions and secondly they reduce the complexity of the problem. This paper presents an approach to the problem of finding Basic Match Schedules for sports

Decentralized portfolio management

OpenAIRE

Coutinho, Paulo; Tabak, Benjamin Miranda

2003-01-01

We use a mean-variance model to analyze the problem of decentralized portfolio management. We find the solution for the optimal portfolio allocation for a head trader operating in n different markets, which is called the optimal centralized portfolio. However, as there are many traders specialized in different markets, the solution to the problem of optimal decentralized allocation should be different from the centralized case. In this paper we derive conditions for the solutions to be equiva...

Opportunistic splitting for scheduling using a score-based approach

KAUST Repository

Rashid, Faraan

2012-06-01

We consider the problem of scheduling a user in a multi-user wireless environment in a distributed manner. The opportunistic splitting algorithm is applied to find the best group of users without reporting the channel state information to the centralized scheduler. The users find the best among themselves while requiring just a ternary feedback from the common receiver at the end of each mini-slot. The original splitting algorithm is modified to handle users with asymmetric channel conditions. We use a score-based approach with the splitting algorithm to introduce time and throughput fairness while exploiting the multi-user diversity of the network. Analytical and simulation results are given to show that the modified score-based splitting algorithm works well as a fair scheduling scheme with good spectral efficiency and reduced feedback. © 2012 IEEE.

Wage Dispersion and Decentralization of Wage Bargaining

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dahl, Christian Møller; le Maire, Christian Daniel; Munch, Jakob R.

2013-01-01

This article studies how decentralization of wage bargaining from sector to firm level influences wage levels and wage dispersion. We use detailed panel data covering a period of decentralization in the Danish labor market. The decentralization process provides variation in the individual worker......'s wage-setting system that facilitates identification of the effects of decentralization. We find a wage premium associated with firm-level bargaining relative to sector-level bargaining and that the return to skills is higher under the more decentralized wage-setting systems. Using quantile regression......, we also find that wages are more dispersed under firm-level bargaining compared to more centralized wage-setting systems....

Decentralization and Governance in Indonesia

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Holzhacker, Ronald; Wittek, Rafael; Woltjer, Johan

2016-01-01

I. Theoretical Reflections on Decentralization and Governance for Sustainable Society 1. Decentralization and Governance for Sustainable Society in Indonesia Ronald Holzhacker, Rafael Wittek and Johan Woltjer 2. Good Governance Contested: Exploring Human Rights and Sustainability as Normative Goals

Structural Optimisation Of Payload Fairings

Science.gov (United States)

Santschi, Y.; Eaton, N.; Verheyden, S.; Michaud, V.

2012-07-01

RUAG Space are developing materials and processing technologies for manufacture of the Next Generation Launcher (NGL) payload fairing, together with the Laboratory of Polymer and Composite Technology at the EPFL, in a project running under the ESA Future Launchers Preparatory Program (FLPP). In this paper the general aims and scope of the project are described, details of the results obtained shall be presented at a later stage. RUAG Space design, develop and manufacture fairings for the European launch vehicles Ariane 5 and VEGA using well proven composite materials and production methods which provide adequate cost/performance ratio for these applications. However, the NGL shall make full use of innovations in materials and process technologies to achieve a gain in performance at a much reduced overall manufacturing cost. NGL is scheduled to become operational in 2025, with actual development beginning in 2014. In this current project the basic technology is being developed and validated, in readiness for application in the NGL. For this new application, an entirely new approach to the fairing manufacture is evaluated.

New preemptive scheduling for OBS networks considering cascaded wavelength conversion

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Xingbo; Bassiouni, Mostafa A.; Li, Guifang

2009-05-01

In this paper we introduce a new preemptive scheduling technique for next generation optical burst-switched networks considering the impact of cascaded wavelength conversions. It has been shown that when optical bursts are transmitted all optically from source to destination, each wavelength conversion performed along the lightpath may cause certain signal-to-noise deterioration. If the distortion of the signal quality becomes significant enough, the receiver would not be able to recover the original data. Accordingly, subject to this practical impediment, we improve a recently proposed fair channel scheduling algorithm to deal with the fairness problem and aim at burst loss reduction simultaneously in optical burst switching. In our scheme, the dynamic priority associated with each burst is based on a constraint threshold and the number of already conducted wavelength conversions among other factors for this burst. When contention occurs, a new arriving superior burst may preempt another scheduled one according to their priorities. Extensive simulation results have shown that the proposed scheme further improves fairness and achieves burst loss reduction as well.

A contingency approach to decentralization

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fleurke, F.; Hulst, J.R.

2006-01-01

After decades of centralization, in 1980 the central government of the Netherlands embarked upon an ambitious project to decentralize the administrative system. It proclaimed a series of general decentralization measures that aimed to improve the performance of the administrative system and to boost

Quality and Pricing Decisions in a Two-Echelon Supply Chain with Nash Bargaining Fairness Concerns

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ji-cai Li

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Product quality and pricing, as the important competitive tools, play a key role in attracting consumers. In a supply chain, the decisions on product quality and pricing are usually interlinked and would influence the cooperation relation between the members, especially when they are fairness-concerned and have different bargaining power. However, linking the quality and pricing decisions to the decision-makers’ behavioral factors such as fairness concern draws a little attention in the literature of supply chain management. This paper incorporates the members’ fairness preference and bargaining power into the product quality and pricing decisions in a two-echelon supply chain, where the supplier offers core components with a certain quality level to the downstream manufacturer, who subsequently sells the final products in the end market. Both the supplier and the manufacturer are assumed to be fairness-concerned by adopting Nash bargaining solutions as their fairness reference points. We use game-theoretic models to analyze the equilibrium product quality and pricing strategies under the setting of integrated and decentralized supply chain, respectively. Detailed comparisons and sensitivity analysis are further conducted to examine the impacts of members’ strengths of fairness concern, bargaining power, and decision structure on their equilibrium product quality and pricing strategies and corresponding payoffs.

On Decentralization and Life Satisfaction

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bjørnskov, Christian; Dreher, Axel; Fischer, Justina A.V.

2008-01-01

We empirically analyze the impact of fiscal and political decentralization on subjective well-being in a cross-section of 60,000 individuals from 66 countries. More spending or revenue decentralization raises well-being while greater local autonomy is beneficial only via government consumption sp...

Wage Dispersion and Decentralization of Wage Bargaining

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dahl, Christian M.; Le Maire, Christian Daniel; Munch, Jakob Roland

in the individual worker's wage-setting system that facilitates identification of the effects of decentralization. Consistent with predictions we find that wages are more dispersed under firm-level bargaining compared to more centralized wage-setting systems. However, the differences across wage-setting systems......This paper studies how decentralization of wage bargaining from sector to firm level influences wage levels and wage dispersion. We use a detailed panel data set covering a period of decentralization in the Danish labor market. The decentralization process provides exogenous variation...

Decentralized Procurement in Light of Strategic Inventories

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Frimor, Hans; Arya, Anil; Mittendorf, Brian

2015-01-01

The centralization versus decentralization choice is perhaps the quintessential organizational structure decision. In the operations realm, this choice is particularly critical when it comes to the procurement function. Why firms may opt to decentralize procurement has been often studied and conf......The centralization versus decentralization choice is perhaps the quintessential organizational structure decision. In the operations realm, this choice is particularly critical when it comes to the procurement function. Why firms may opt to decentralize procurement has been often studied...... and confirmed to be a multifaceted choice. This paper complements existing studies by detailing the trade-offs in the centralization versus decentralization decision in light of firm's decision to cede procurement choices to its individual devisions can help moderate inventory levels and provide a natural salve...

Wind Farm Decentralized Dynamic Modeling With Parameters

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Soltani, Mohsen; Shakeri, Sayyed Mojtaba; Grunnet, Jacob Deleuran

2010-01-01

Development of dynamic wind flow models for wind farms is part of the research in European research FP7 project AEOLUS. The objective of this report is to provide decentralized dynamic wind flow models with parameters. The report presents a structure for decentralized flow models with inputs from...... local models. The results of this report are especially useful, but not limited, to design a decentralized wind farm controller, since in centralized controller design one can also use the model and update it in a central computing node.......Development of dynamic wind flow models for wind farms is part of the research in European research FP7 project AEOLUS. The objective of this report is to provide decentralized dynamic wind flow models with parameters. The report presents a structure for decentralized flow models with inputs from...

Ubiquitous consultation tool for decentral knowledge workers

OpenAIRE

Nazari Shirehjini, A.A.; Rühl, C.; Noll, S.

2003-01-01

The special issue of this initial study is to examine the current work situation of consulting companies, and to elaborate a concept for supporting decentralized working consultants. The concept addresses significant challenges of decentralized work processes by deploying the Peer-to-Peer methodology to decentralized expert and Knowledge Management, cooperation, and enterprise resource planning.

Query Optimizations over Decentralized RDF Graphs

KAUST Repository

Abdelaziz, Ibrahim; Mansour, Essam; Ouzzani, Mourad; Aboulnaga, Ashraf; Kalnis, Panos

2017-01-01

Applications in life sciences, decentralized social networks, Internet of Things, and statistical linked dataspaces integrate data from multiple decentralized RDF graphs via SPARQL queries. Several approaches have been proposed to optimize query

Multiuser switched diversity scheduling schemes

KAUST Repository

Shaqfeh, Mohammad; Alnuweiri, Hussein M.; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim

2012-01-01

Multiuser switched-diversity scheduling schemes were recently proposed in order to overcome the heavy feedback requirements of conventional opportunistic scheduling schemes by applying a threshold-based, distributed, and ordered scheduling mechanism. The main idea behind these schemes is that slight reduction in the prospected multiuser diversity gains is an acceptable trade-off for great savings in terms of required channel-state-information feedback messages. In this work, we characterize the achievable rate region of multiuser switched diversity systems and compare it with the rate region of full feedback multiuser diversity systems. We propose also a novel proportional fair multiuser switched-based scheduling scheme and we demonstrate that it can be optimized using a practical and distributed method to obtain the feedback thresholds. We finally demonstrate by numerical examples that switched-diversity scheduling schemes operate within 0.3 bits/sec/Hz from the ultimate network capacity of full feedback systems in Rayleigh fading conditions. © 2012 IEEE.

Multiuser switched diversity scheduling schemes

KAUST Repository

Shaqfeh, Mohammad

2012-09-01

Multiuser switched-diversity scheduling schemes were recently proposed in order to overcome the heavy feedback requirements of conventional opportunistic scheduling schemes by applying a threshold-based, distributed, and ordered scheduling mechanism. The main idea behind these schemes is that slight reduction in the prospected multiuser diversity gains is an acceptable trade-off for great savings in terms of required channel-state-information feedback messages. In this work, we characterize the achievable rate region of multiuser switched diversity systems and compare it with the rate region of full feedback multiuser diversity systems. We propose also a novel proportional fair multiuser switched-based scheduling scheme and we demonstrate that it can be optimized using a practical and distributed method to obtain the feedback thresholds. We finally demonstrate by numerical examples that switched-diversity scheduling schemes operate within 0.3 bits/sec/Hz from the ultimate network capacity of full feedback systems in Rayleigh fading conditions. © 2012 IEEE.

Decentralized Job Scheduling in the Cloud Based on a Spatially Generalized Prisoner’s Dilemma Game

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gąsior Jakub

2015-12-01

Full Text Available We present in this paper a novel distributed solution to a security-aware job scheduling problem in cloud computing infrastructures. We assume that the assignment of the available resources is governed exclusively by the specialized brokers assigned to individual users submitting their jobs to the system. The goal of this scheme is allocating a limited quantity of resources to a specific number of jobs minimizing their execution failure probability and total completion time. Our approach is based on the Pareto dominance relationship and implemented at an individual user level. To select the best scheduling strategies from the resulting Pareto frontiers and construct a global scheduling solution, we developed a decision-making mechanism based on the game-theoretic model of Spatial Prisoner’s Dilemma, realized by selfish agents operating in the two-dimensional cellular automata space. Their behavior is conditioned by the objectives of the various entities involved in the scheduling process and driven towards a Nash equilibrium solution by the employed social welfare criteria. The performance of the scheduler applied is verified by a number of numerical experiments. The related results show the effectiveness and scalability of the scheme in the presence of a large number of jobs and resources involved in the scheduling process.

ADRES : autonomous decentralized regenerative energy systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brauner, G.; Einfalt, A.; Leitinger, C.; Tiefgraber, D. [Vienna Univ. of Technology (Austria)

2007-07-01

The autonomous decentralized regenerative energy systems (ADRES) research project demonstrates that decentralized network independent microgrids are the target power systems of the future. This paper presented a typical structure of a microgrid, demonstrating that all types of generation available can be integrated, from wind and small hydro to photovoltaic, fuel cell, biomass or biogas operated stirling motors and micro turbines. In grid connected operation the balancing energy and reactive power for voltage control will come from the public grid. If there is no interconnection to a superior grid, it will form an autonomous micro grid. In order to reduce peak power demand and base energy, autonomous microgrid technology requires highly efficient appliances. Otherwise large collector design, high storage and balancing generation capacities would be necessary, which would increase costs. End-use energy efficiency was discussed with reference to demand side management (DSM) strategies that match energy demand with actual supply in order to minimize the storage size needed. This paper also discussed network controls that comprise active and reactive power. Decentralized robust algorithms were investigated with reference to black-start ability and congestion management features. It was concluded that the trend to develop small decentralized grids in parallel to existing large systems will improve security of supply and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Decentralized grids will also increase energy efficiency because regenerative energy will be used where it is collected in the form of electricity and heat, thus avoiding transport and the extension of transmission lines. Decentralized energy technology is now becoming more economic by efficient and economic mass production of components. Although decentralized energy technology requires energy automation, computer intelligence is becoming increasingly cost efficient. 2 refs., 4 figs.

Packet-Scheduling Algorithm by the Ratio of Transmit Power to the Transmission Bits in 3GPP LTE Downlink

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gil Gye-Tae

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Packet scheduler plays the central role in determining the overall performance of the 3GPP long-term evolution (LTE based on packet-switching operation. In this paper, a novel minimum transmit power-based (MP packet-scheduling algorithm is proposed that can achieve power-efficient transmission to the UEs while providing both system throughput gain and fairness improvement. The proposed algorithm is based on a new scheduling metric focusing on the ratio of the transmit power per bit and allocates the physical resource block (PRB to the UE that requires the least ratio of the transmit power per bit. Through computer simulation, the performance of the proposed MP packet-scheduling algorithm is compared with the conventional packet-scheduling algorithms by two primary criteria: fairness and throughput. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the conventional algorithms in terms of the fairness and throughput.

Modelling a Nurse Shift Schedule with Multiple Preference Ranks for Shifts and Days-Off

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chun-Cheng Lin

2014-01-01

Full Text Available When it comes to nurse shift schedules, it is found that the nursing staff have diverse preferences about shift rotations and days-off. The previous studies only focused on the most preferred work shift and the number of satisfactory days-off of the schedule at the current schedule period but had few discussions on the previous schedule periods and other preference levels for shifts and days-off, which may affect fairness of shift schedules. As a result, this paper proposes a nurse scheduling model based upon integer programming that takes into account constraints of the schedule, different preference ranks towards each shift, and the historical data of previous schedule periods to maximize the satisfaction of all the nursing staff's preferences about the shift schedule. The main contribution of the proposed model is that we consider that the nursing staff’s satisfaction level is affected by multiple preference ranks and their priority ordering to be scheduled, so that the quality of the generated shift schedule is more reasonable. Numerical results show that the planned shifts and days-off are fair and successfully meet the preferences of all the nursing staff.

Decentralization and the local development state

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Emmenegger, Rony Hugo

2016-01-01

This article explores the politics of decentralization and state-peasant encounters in rural Oromiya, Ethiopia. Breaking with a centralized past, the incumbent government of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) committed itself to a decentralization policy in the early 1990......s and has since then created a number of new sites for state-citizen interactions. In the context of electoral authoritarianism, however, decentralization has been interpreted as a means for the expansion of the party-state at the grass-roots level. Against this backdrop, this article attempts...... between the 2005 and 2010 elections. Based on ethnographic field research, the empirical case presented discloses that decentralization and state-led development serve the expansion of state power into rural areas, but that state authority is simultaneously constituted and undermined in the course...

Decentralized or Centralized Systems for Colleges and Universities?

Science.gov (United States)

Heydinger, Richard B.; Norris, Donald M.

1979-01-01

Arguments for and against decentralization of data management, analysis, and planning systems are presented. It is suggested that technological advances have encouraged decentralization. Caution in this direction is urged and the development of an articulated decentralization program is proposed. (SF)

Uplink Packet-Data Scheduling in DS-CDMA Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Choi, Young Woo; Kim, Seong-Lyun

In this letter, we consider the uplink packet scheduling for non-real-time data users in a DS-CDMA system. As an effort to jointly optimize throughput and fairness, we formulate a time-span minimization problem incorporating the time-multiplexing of different simultaneous transmission schemes. Based on simple rules, we propose efficient scheduling algorithms and compare them with the optimal solution obtained by linear programming.

Decentralization and Economic Growth per capita in Europe

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Crucq, Pieter; Hemminga, Hendrik-Jan

2007-01-01

In this paper the relationship between decentralization and economic growth is investigated. The focus is on decentralization from the national government to the highest substate level in a country, which we define as regional decentralization. Section 2 discusses the different dimensions of

MACROECONOMIC IMPACT OF DECENTRALIZATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emilia Cornelia STOICA

2014-05-01

Full Text Available The concept of decentralization has a variety of expressions, but the meaning generally accepted refers to the transfer of authority and responsibility of the public functions from central government to sub-national public entities or even to the private sector. Decentralization process is complex, affecting many aspects of social and economic life and public management, and its design and implementation cover several stages, depending on the cyclical and structural developments of the country. From an economic perspective, decentralization is seen as a means of primary importance in terms of improving the effectiveness and efficiency of public services and macroeconomic stability due to the redistribution of public finances while in a much closer logic of the government policy objectives. But the decentralization process behaves as well some risks, because it involves the implementation of appropriate mechanisms for the establishment of income and expenditure programming at the subnational level, which, if is not correlated with macroeconomic policy imperatives can lead to major imbalances, both financially as in termes of economic and social life. Equally, ensuring the balance of the budget at the local level is imperative to fulfill, this goal imposing a legal framework and specific procedures to size transfers of public funds, targeted or untargeted. Also, public and local authorities have to adopt appropriate laws and regulations such that sub-national public entities can access loans - such as bank loans or debentures from domestic or external market - in terms of a strict monitoring national financial stability. In all aspects of decentralization - political, administrative, financial -, public authorities should develop and implement the most effective mechanisms to coordinate macroeconomic objectives and both sectoral and local interests and establish clear responsibilities - exclusive or shared - for all parties involved in the

Performance Analysis of the Decentralized Eigendecomposition and ESPRIT Algorithm

Science.gov (United States)

Suleiman, Wassim; Pesavento, Marius; Zoubir, Abdelhak M.

2016-05-01

In this paper, we consider performance analysis of the decentralized power method for the eigendecomposition of the sample covariance matrix based on the averaging consensus protocol. An analytical expression of the second order statistics of the eigenvectors obtained from the decentralized power method which is required for computing the mean square error (MSE) of subspace-based estimators is presented. We show that the decentralized power method is not an asymptotically consistent estimator of the eigenvectors of the true measurement covariance matrix unless the averaging consensus protocol is carried out over an infinitely large number of iterations. Moreover, we introduce the decentralized ESPRIT algorithm which yields fully decentralized direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimates. Based on the performance analysis of the decentralized power method, we derive an analytical expression of the MSE of DOA estimators using the decentralized ESPRIT algorithm. The validity of our asymptotic results is demonstrated by simulations.

(De)centralization of the global informational ecosystem

OpenAIRE

Möller, Johanna; Rimscha, M. Bjørn von

2017-01-01

Centralization and decentralization are key concepts in debates that focus on the (anti)democratic character of digital societies. Centralization is understood as the control over communication and data flows, and decentralization as giving it (back) to users. Communication and media research focuses on centralization put forward by dominant digital media platforms, such as Facebook and Google, and governments. Decentralization is investigated regarding its potential in civil society, i.e., h...

Decentralized control using compositional analysis techniques

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kerber, F.; van der Schaft, A. J.

2011-01-01

Decentralized control strategies aim at achieving a global control target by means of distributed local controllers acting on individual subsystems of the overall plant. In this sense, decentralized control is a dual problem to compositional analysis where a global verification task is decomposed

Partially Decentralized Control Architectures for Satellite Formations

Science.gov (United States)

Carpenter, J. Russell; Bauer, Frank H.

2002-01-01

In a partially decentralized control architecture, more than one but less than all nodes have supervisory capability. This paper describes an approach to choosing the number of supervisors in such au architecture, based on a reliability vs. cost trade. It also considers the implications of these results for the design of navigation systems for satellite formations that could be controlled with a partially decentralized architecture. Using an assumed cost model, analytic and simulation-based results indicate that it may be cheaper to achieve a given overall system reliability with a partially decentralized architecture containing only a few supervisors, than with either fully decentralized or purely centralized architectures. Nominally, the subset of supervisors may act as centralized estimation and control nodes for corresponding subsets of the remaining subordinate nodes, and act as decentralized estimation and control peers with respect to each other. However, in the context of partially decentralized satellite formation control, the absolute positions and velocities of each spacecraft are unique, so that correlations which make estimates using only local information suboptimal only occur through common biases and process noise. Covariance and monte-carlo analysis of a simplified system show that this lack of correlation may allow simplification of the local estimators while preserving the global optimality of the maneuvers commanded by the supervisors.

DECENTRALIZATION IN THE SYSTEM OF NATIONAL ECONOMY MANAGEMENT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stepaniuk Nataliia

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Introduction. Article deals with the investigation of the theoretical approaches to the notion of decentralization in the system of management of the national economy. Purpose. It has been found that for the effective functioning of the state it is necessary to achieve a rational relationship between centralization and decentralization, change the role, responsibility and powers for local self-government and executive authority. Results. t is substantiated that most of the scientific works are devoted to the study of the issue of decentralization of power, the implementation of reform of public finances, the transfer of power to the place as a guarantee of the development of the national economy. It is emphasized that the main idea of decentralization is to transfer competence to local government to address local needs issues. Consequently, decentralization is closely linked to the organization of public administration, promotes the building of effective relations between state authorities and local government. The main advantages of decentralization are: simplified management on the local area, establishing closer connection with civil society, increasing transparency of managerial decisions and raising the level of responsibility to the territorial community. Considered organizational and legal aspects of introduction of decentralization in Ukraine. It is noted that the course on decentralization outlines both prospects and implementation problems. Among the main risks of decentralization are the inconsistencies of the development of separate territorial units and strategic goals, the loss of state mobility, reduction of workplaces of the state apparatus, risks of complication of coordination between levels of management. Conclusions. It has been determined that for efficiency and effectiveness of the reform decentralization principles are necessary for wide introduction in the administrative, political, budgetary, financial and social spheres

Centralized vs. de-centralized multinationals and taxes

OpenAIRE

Nielsen, Søren Bo; Raimondos-Møller, Pascalis; Schjelderup, Guttorm

2005-01-01

The paper examines how country tax differences affect a multinational enterprise's choice to centralize or de-centralize its decision structure. Within a simple model that emphasizes the multiple conflicting roles of transfer prices in MNEs – here, as a strategic pre-commitment device and a tax manipulation instrument –, we show that (de-)centralized decisions are more profitable when tax differentials are (small) large. Keywords: Centralized vs. de-centralized decisions, taxes, MNEs. ...

Sustainability evaluation of decentralized electricity generation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Karger, Cornelia R.; Hennings, Wilfried

2009-01-01

Decentralized power generation is gaining significance in liberalized electricity markets. An increasing decentralization of power supply is expected to make a particular contribution to climate protection. This article investigates the advantages and disadvantages of decentralized electricity generation according to the overall concept of sustainable development. On the basis of a hierarchically structured set of sustainability criteria, four future scenarios for Germany are assessed, all of which describe different concepts of electricity supply in the context of the corresponding social and economic developments. The scenarios are developed in an explorative way according to the scenario method and the sustainability criteria are established by a discursive method with societal actors. The evaluation is carried out by scientific experts. By applying an expanded analytic hierarchy process (AHP), a multicriteria evaluation is conducted that identifies dissent among the experts. The results demonstrate that decentralized electricity generation can contribute to climate protection. The extent to which it simultaneously guarantees security of supply is still a matter of controversy. However, experts agree that technical and economic boundary conditions are of major importance in this field. In the final section, the article discusses the method employed here as well as implications for future decentralized energy supply. (author)

A microeconomic scheduler for parallel computers

Science.gov (United States)

Stoica, Ion; Abdel-Wahab, Hussein; Pothen, Alex

1995-01-01

We describe a scheduler based on the microeconomic paradigm for scheduling on-line a set of parallel jobs in a multiprocessor system. In addition to the classical objectives of increasing the system throughput and reducing the response time, we consider fairness in allocating system resources among the users, and providing the user with control over the relative performances of his jobs. We associate with every user a savings account in which he receives money at a constant rate. When a user wants to run a job, he creates an expense account for that job to which he transfers money from his savings account. The job uses the funds in its expense account to obtain the system resources it needs for execution. The share of the system resources allocated to the user is directly related to the rate at which the user receives money; the rate at which the user transfers money into a job expense account controls the job's performance. We prove that starvation is not possible in our model. Simulation results show that our scheduler improves both system and user performances in comparison with two different variable partitioning policies. It is also shown to be effective in guaranteeing fairness and providing control over the performance of jobs.

Performance of Spatial Division Multiplexing MIMO with Frequency Domain Packet Scheduling

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wei, Na; Pokhariyal, Akhilesh; Sørensen, Troels Bundgaard

2008-01-01

the performance bounds of SDM-FDPS. To facilitate the analysis, a unified SINR concept is utilized to make a fair comparison of MIMO schemes with different number of spatial streams. The effect of packet scheduling is included in the post-scheduling SINR distribution using an analytical model. Based on that...

Decentralized Decision Making Toward Educational Goals.

Science.gov (United States)

Monahan, William W.; Johnson, Homer M.

This monograph provides guidelines to help those school districts considering a more decentralized form of management. The authors discuss the levels at which different types of decisions should be made, describe the changing nature of the educational environment, identify different centralization-decentralization models, and suggest a flexible…

Decentralized Software Architecture

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Khare, Rohit

2002-01-01

.... While the term "decentralization" is familiar from political and economic contexts, it has been applied extensively, if indiscriminately, to describe recent trends in software architecture towards...

Peer-to-peer Cooperative Scheduling Architecture for National Grid Infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Matyska, Ludek; Ruda, Miroslav; Toth, Simon

For some ten years, the Czech National Grid Infrastructure MetaCentrum uses a single central PBSPro installation to schedule jobs across the country. This centralized approach keeps a full track about all the clusters, providing support for jobs spanning several sites, implementation for the fair-share policy and better overall control of the grid environment. Despite a steady progress in the increased stability and resilience to intermittent very short network failures, growing number of sites and processors makes this architecture, with a single point of failure and scalability limits, obsolete. As a result, a new scheduling architecture is proposed, which relies on higher autonomy of clusters. It is based on a peer to peer network of semi-independent schedulers for each site or even cluster. Each scheduler accepts jobs for the whole infrastructure, cooperating with other schedulers on implementation of global policies like central job accounting, fair-share, or submission of jobs across several sites. The scheduling system is integrated with the Magrathea system to support scheduling of virtual clusters, including the setup of their internal network, again eventually spanning several sites. On the other hand, each scheduler is local to one of several clusters and is able to directly control and submit jobs to them even if the connection of other scheduling peers is lost. In parallel to the change of the overall architecture, the scheduling system itself is being replaced. Instead of PBSPro, chosen originally for its declared support of large scale distributed environment, the new scheduling architecture is based on the open-source Torque system. The implementation and support for the most desired properties in PBSPro and Torque are discussed and the necessary modifications to Torque to support the MetaCentrum scheduling architecture are presented, too.

Computing for Decentralized Systems (lecture 1)

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2018-01-01

With the rise of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies it is becoming apparent the paradigm shift towards decentralized computing. Computer engineers will need to understand this shift when developing systems in the coming years. Transferring value over the Internet is just one of the first working use cases of decentralized systems, but it is expected they will be used for a number of different services such as general purpose computing, data storage, or even new forms of governance. Decentralized systems, however, pose a series of challenges that cannot be addressed with traditional approaches in computing. Not having a central authority implies truth must be agreed upon rather than simply trusted and, so, consensus protocols, cryptographic data structures like the blockchain, and incentive models like mining rewards become critical for the correct behavior of decentralized system. This series of lectures will be a fast track to introduce these fundamental concepts through working examples and pra...

Computing for Decentralized Systems (lecture 2)

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2018-01-01

With the rise of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies it is becoming apparent the paradigm shift towards decentralized computing. Computer engineers will need to understand this shift when developing systems in the coming years. Transferring value over the Internet is just one of the first working use cases of decentralized systems, but it is expected they will be used for a number of different services such as general purpose computing, data storage, or even new forms of governance. Decentralized systems, however, pose a series of challenges that cannot be addressed with traditional approaches in computing. Not having a central authority implies truth must be agreed upon rather than simply trusted and, so, consensus protocols, cryptographic data structures like the blockchain, and incentive models like mining rewards become critical for the correct behavior of decentralized system. This series of lectures will be a fast track to introduce these fundamental concepts through working examples and pra...

Decentralization or centralization: striking a balance.

Science.gov (United States)

Dirschel, K M

1994-09-01

An Executive Vice President for Nursing can provide the necessary link to meet diverse clinical demands when encountering centralization--decentralization decisions. Centralized communication links hospital departments giving nurses a unified voice. Decentralization acknowledges the need for diversity and achieves the right balance of uniformity through a responsive communications network.

Balancing Long Lifetime and Satisfying Fairness in WBAN Using a Constrained Markov Decision Process

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yingqi Yin

2015-01-01

Full Text Available As an important part of the Internet of Things (IOT and the special case of device-to-device (D2D communication, wireless body area network (WBAN gradually becomes the focus of attention. Since WBAN is a body-centered network, the energy of sensor nodes is strictly restrained since they are supplied by battery with limited power. In each data collection, only one sensor node is scheduled to transmit its measurements directly to the access point (AP through the fading channel. We formulate the problem of dynamically choosing which sensor should communicate with the AP to maximize network lifetime under the constraint of fairness as a constrained markov decision process (CMDP. The optimal lifetime and optimal policy are obtained by Bellman equation in dynamic programming. The proposed algorithm defines the limiting performance in WBAN lifetime under different degrees of fairness constraints. Due to the defect of large implementation overhead in acquiring global channel state information (CSI, we put forward a distributed scheduling algorithm that adopts local CSI, which saves the network overhead and simplifies the algorithm. It was demonstrated via simulation that this scheduling algorithm can allocate time slot reasonably under different channel conditions to balance the performances of network lifetime and fairness.

Decentralized Bribery and Market Participation

OpenAIRE

Popov, Sergey V.

2012-01-01

I propose a bribery model that examines decentralized bureaucratic decision-making. There are multiple stable equilibria. High levels of bribery reduce an economy's productivity because corruption suppresses small business, and reduces the total graft, even though the size of an individual bribe might increase. Decentralization prevents movement towards a Pareto-dominant equilibrium. Anticorruption efforts, even temporary ones, might be useful to improve participation, if they lower the bribe...

A Hybrid OFDM-TDM Architecture with Decentralized Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation for PONs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Taner Cevik

2013-01-01

Full Text Available One of the major challenges of passive optical networks is to achieve a fair arbitration mechanism that will prevent possible collisions from occurring at the upstream channel when multiple users attempt to access the common fiber at the same time. Therefore, in this study we mainly focus on fair bandwidth allocation among users, and present a hybrid Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed/Time Division Multiplexed architecture with a dynamic bandwidth allocation scheme that provides satisfying service qualities to the users depending on their varying bandwidth requirements. Unnecessary delays in centralized schemes occurring during bandwidth assignment stage are eliminated by utilizing a decentralized approach. Instead of sending bandwidth demands to the optical line terminal (OLT which is the only competent authority, each optical network unit (ONU runs the same bandwidth demand determination algorithm. ONUs inform each other via signaling channel about the status of their queues. This information is fed to the bandwidth determination algorithm which is run by each ONU in a distributed manner. Furthermore, Light Load Penalty, which is a phenomenon in optical communications, is mitigated by limiting the amount of bandwidth that an ONU can demand.

A Hybrid OFDM-TDM Architecture with Decentralized Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation for PONs

Science.gov (United States)

Cevik, Taner

2013-01-01

One of the major challenges of passive optical networks is to achieve a fair arbitration mechanism that will prevent possible collisions from occurring at the upstream channel when multiple users attempt to access the common fiber at the same time. Therefore, in this study we mainly focus on fair bandwidth allocation among users, and present a hybrid Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed/Time Division Multiplexed architecture with a dynamic bandwidth allocation scheme that provides satisfying service qualities to the users depending on their varying bandwidth requirements. Unnecessary delays in centralized schemes occurring during bandwidth assignment stage are eliminated by utilizing a decentralized approach. Instead of sending bandwidth demands to the optical line terminal (OLT) which is the only competent authority, each optical network unit (ONU) runs the same bandwidth demand determination algorithm. ONUs inform each other via signaling channel about the status of their queues. This information is fed to the bandwidth determination algorithm which is run by each ONU in a distributed manner. Furthermore, Light Load Penalty, which is a phenomenon in optical communications, is mitigated by limiting the amount of bandwidth that an ONU can demand. PMID:24194684

Job shop scheduling problem with late work criterion

Science.gov (United States)

Piroozfard, Hamed; Wong, Kuan Yew

2015-05-01

Scheduling is considered as a key task in many industries, such as project based scheduling, crew scheduling, flight scheduling, machine scheduling, etc. In the machine scheduling area, the job shop scheduling problems are considered to be important and highly complex, in which they are characterized as NP-hard. The job shop scheduling problems with late work criterion and non-preemptive jobs are addressed in this paper. Late work criterion is a fairly new objective function. It is a qualitative measure and concerns with late parts of the jobs, unlike classical objective functions that are quantitative measures. In this work, simulated annealing was presented to solve the scheduling problem. In addition, operation based representation was used to encode the solution, and a neighbourhood search structure was employed to search for the new solutions. The case studies are Lawrence instances that were taken from the Operations Research Library. Computational results of this probabilistic meta-heuristic algorithm were compared with a conventional genetic algorithm, and a conclusion was made based on the algorithm and problem.

Decentralized Consistency Checking in Cross-organizational Workflows

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wombacher, Andreas

Service Oriented Architectures facilitate loosely coupled composed services, which are established in a decentralized way. One challenge for such composed services is to guarantee consistency, i.e., deadlock-freeness. This paper presents a decentralized approach to consistency checking, which

Decentralization and Participatory Rural Development: A Literature Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhammad Shakil Ahmad

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Most of the developing nations are still struggling for efficient use of their resources. In order to overcome physical and administrative constraints of the development, it is necessary to transfer the power from the central government to local authorities. Distribution of power from improves the management of resources and community participation which is considered key to sustainable development. Advocates of decentralization argue that decentralized government is source to improve community participation in rural development. Decentralized government is considered more responsive towards local needs and development of poor peoples. There are many obstacles to expand the citizen participation in rural areas. There are many approaches for participatory development but all have to face the same challenges. Current paper highlights the literature about Decentralization and participatory rural development. Concept and modalities of Decentralization, dimensions of participation, types of rural participation and obstacles to participation are also the part of this paper.

Trends in research on forestry decentralization policies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lund, Jens Friis; Rutt, Rebecca Leigh; Ribot, Jesse

2018-01-01

institutions; studies focusing on power and the role of elites in forestry decentralization, and; studies that historicize and contextualize forestry decentralization as reflective of broader societal phenomena. We argue that these strands reflect disciplinary differences in values, epistemologies, and methods...

Comparison of centralized and decentralized energy supply systems

OpenAIRE

Pfeifer, Thomas; Fahl, Ulrich; Voß, Alfred

1991-01-01

Communal energy programs are often embedded in a conception of a decentralized energy supply system where electricity is produced by a number of smaller power plants. For a comprehensive survey the question arises whether these decentralized systems are more advantageous than centralized systems with regard to the criterions energy consumption, safety of supply, environmental compatibility and economy. In the following, after a definition of the term "decentralized", the present structure of ...

Decentralized Control of Autonomous Vehicles

Science.gov (United States)

2003-01-01

Autonomous Vehicles by John S. Baras, Xiaobo Tan, Pedram Hovareshti CSHCN TR 2003-8 (ISR TR 2003-14) Report Documentation Page Form ApprovedOMB No. 0704...AND SUBTITLE Decentralized Control of Autonomous Vehicles 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) 5d. PROJECT...Standard Form 298 (Rev. 8-98) Prescribed by ANSI Std Z39-18 Decentralized Control of Autonomous Vehicles ∗ John S. Baras, Xiaobo Tan, and Pedram

Robust Decentralized Formation Flight Control

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhao Weihua

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Motivated by the idea of multiplexed model predictive control (MMPC, this paper introduces a new framework for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs formation flight and coordination. Formulated using MMPC approach, the whole centralized formation flight system is considered as a linear periodic system with control inputs of each UAV subsystem as its periodic inputs. Divided into decentralized subsystems, the whole formation flight system is guaranteed stable if proper terminal cost and terminal constraints are added to each decentralized MPC formulation of the UAV subsystem. The decentralized robust MPC formulation for each UAV subsystem with bounded input disturbances and model uncertainties is also presented. Furthermore, an obstacle avoidance control scheme for any shape and size of obstacles, including the nonapriorily known ones, is integrated under the unified MPC framework. The results from simulations demonstrate that the proposed framework can successfully achieve robust collision-free formation flights.

Anesthesiology Nurse Scheduling using Particle Swarm Optimization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leopoldo Altamirano

2012-02-01

Full Text Available In this article we present an approach designed to solve a real world problem: the Anesthesiology Nurse Scheduling Problem (ANSP at a public French hospital. The anesthesiology nurses are one of the most shared resources in the hospital and we attempt to find a fair/balanced schedule for them, taking into account a set of constraints and the nursesarsquo; stated preferences, concerning the different shifts. We propose a particle swarm optimization algorithm to solve the ANSP. Finally, we compare our technique with previous results obtained using integer programming.

Decentralization: Another Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Chapman, Robin

1973-01-01

This paper attempts to pursue the centralization-decentralization dilemma. A setting for this discussion is provided by noting some of the uses of terminology, followed by a consideration of inherent difficulties in conceptualizing. (Author)

Distribution of decentralized renewable energy resources

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bal, J.L.; Benque, J.P.

1996-01-01

The existence of a great number of inhabitants without electricity, living in areas of low population density, with modest energy requirements and low income provides a major potential market for decentralized renewable energy sources. Ademe and EDF in 1993 made two agreements concerning the development of Renewable Energy Sources. The first aims at promoting their decentralized use in France in pertinent cases. The second agreement concerns other countries and has two ambitions: facilitate short-term developments and produce in the longer term a standardised proposal for decentralized energy production using Renewable Energy Sources to a considerable extent. These ideas are explained, and the principles behind the implementation of both Ademe-EDF agreements as well as their future prospects are described. (R.P.)

Towards Automatic Decentralized Control Structure Selection

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

for decentralized control is determined automatically, and the resulting decentralized control structure is automatically tuned using standard techniques. Dynamic simulation of the resulting process system gives immediate feedback to the process design engineer regarding practical operability of the process......A subtask in integration of design and control of chemical processes is the selection of a control structure. Automating the selection of the control structure enables sequential integration of process and controld esign. As soon as the process is specified or computed, a structure....... The control structure selection problem is formulated as a special MILP employing cost coefficients which are computed using Parseval's theorem combined with RGA and IMC concepts. This approach enables selection and tuning of large-scale plant-wide decentralized controllers through efficient combination...

Towards Automatic Decentralized Control Structure Selection

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, John Bagterp; Jørgensen, Sten Bay

2000-01-01

for decentralized control is determined automatically, and the resulting decentralized control structure is automatically tuned using standard techniques. Dynamic simulation of the resulting process system gives immediate feedback to the process design engineer regarding practical operability of the process......A subtask in integration of design and control of chemical processes is the selection of a control structure. Automating the selection of the control structure enables sequential integration of process and control design. As soon as the process is specified or computed, a structure....... The control structure selection problem is formulated as a special MILP employing cost coefficients which are computed using Parseval's theorem combined with RGA and IMC concepts. This approach enables selection and tuning of large-scale plant-wide decentralized controllers through efficient combination...

Decentral Smart Grid Control

Science.gov (United States)

Schäfer, Benjamin; Matthiae, Moritz; Timme, Marc; Witthaut, Dirk

2015-01-01

Stable operation of complex flow and transportation networks requires balanced supply and demand. For the operation of electric power grids—due to their increasing fraction of renewable energy sources—a pressing challenge is to fit the fluctuations in decentralized supply to the distributed and temporally varying demands. To achieve this goal, common smart grid concepts suggest to collect consumer demand data, centrally evaluate them given current supply and send price information back to customers for them to decide about usage. Besides restrictions regarding cyber security, privacy protection and large required investments, it remains unclear how such central smart grid options guarantee overall stability. Here we propose a Decentral Smart Grid Control, where the price is directly linked to the local grid frequency at each customer. The grid frequency provides all necessary information about the current power balance such that it is sufficient to match supply and demand without the need for a centralized IT infrastructure. We analyze the performance and the dynamical stability of the power grid with such a control system. Our results suggest that the proposed Decentral Smart Grid Control is feasible independent of effective measurement delays, if frequencies are averaged over sufficiently large time intervals.

Decentral Smart Grid Control

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schäfer, Benjamin; Matthiae, Moritz; Timme, Marc; Witthaut, Dirk

2015-01-01

Stable operation of complex flow and transportation networks requires balanced supply and demand. For the operation of electric power grids—due to their increasing fraction of renewable energy sources—a pressing challenge is to fit the fluctuations in decentralized supply to the distributed and temporally varying demands. To achieve this goal, common smart grid concepts suggest to collect consumer demand data, centrally evaluate them given current supply and send price information back to customers for them to decide about usage. Besides restrictions regarding cyber security, privacy protection and large required investments, it remains unclear how such central smart grid options guarantee overall stability. Here we propose a Decentral Smart Grid Control, where the price is directly linked to the local grid frequency at each customer. The grid frequency provides all necessary information about the current power balance such that it is sufficient to match supply and demand without the need for a centralized IT infrastructure. We analyze the performance and the dynamical stability of the power grid with such a control system. Our results suggest that the proposed Decentral Smart Grid Control is feasible independent of effective measurement delays, if frequencies are averaged over sufficiently large time intervals. (paper)

Policy Recommendations on Decentralization, Local Power and ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

2010-12-22

Policy Recommendations on Decentralization, Local Power and Women's Rights. December 22, 2010. Image. The present document comprises a set of policy recommendations that define a global agenda on gender and decentralization. It emerged from the analysis and experiences shared during the Conference and the ...

Rethinking Decentralization in Education in terms of Administrative Problems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vasiliki Papadopoulou

2013-11-01

Full Text Available The general purpose of this study is to thoroughly examine decentralization in education according to the literature and previous research, and to discuss the applicability of educational decentralization practices in Turkey. The literature was reviewed for the study and findings reported. It has been observed that decentralization in education practices were realized in many countries after the 1980’s. It is obvious that the educational system in Turkey has difficulty in meeting the needs, and encounters many problems due to its present centralist state. Educational decentralization can provide effective solutions for stakeholder engagement, educational financing and for problems in decision making and operation within the education system. However, the present state of local governments, the legal framework, geographical, cultural and social features indicate that Turkey’s conditions are not ready for decentralization in education. A decentralization model realized in the long run according to Turkey’s conditions, and as a result of a social consensus, can help resolve the problems of the Turkish education system.

Solving cyclical nurse scheduling problem using preemptive goal programming

Science.gov (United States)

Sundari, V. E.; Mardiyati, S.

2017-07-01

Nurse scheduling system in a hospital is being modeled as a preemptive goal programming problem that is solved by using LINGO software with the objective function to minimize deviation variable at each goal. The scheduling is done cyclically, so every nurse is treated fairly since they have the same work shift portion with the other nurses. By paying attention to the hospital's rules regarding nursing work shift cyclically, it can be obtained that numbers of nurse needed in every ward are 18 nurses and the numbers of scheduling periods are 18 periods where every period consists of 21 days.

Effective preemptive scheduling scheme for optical burst-switched networks with cascaded wavelength conversion consideration

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Xingbo

2010-03-01

We introduce a new preemptive scheduling technique for next-generation optical burst switching (OBS) networks considering the impact of cascaded wavelength conversions. It has been shown that when optical bursts are transmitted all optically from source to destination, each wavelength conversion performed along the lightpath may cause certain signal-to-noise deterioration. If the distortion of the signal quality becomes significant enough, the receiver would not be able to recover the original data. Accordingly, subject to this practical impediment, we improve a recently proposed fair channel scheduling algorithm to deal with the fairness problem and aim at burst loss reduction simultaneously in OBS environments. In our scheme, the dynamic priority associated with each burst is based on a constraint threshold and the number of already conducted wavelength conversions among other factors for this burst. When contention occurs, a new arriving superior burst may preempt another scheduled one according to their priorities. Extensive simulation results have shown that the proposed scheme further improves fairness and achieves burst loss reduction as well.

Energy and air emission implications of a decentralized wastewater system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shehabi, Arman; Stokes, Jennifer R; Horvath, Arpad

2012-01-01

Both centralized and decentralized wastewater systems have distinct engineering, financial and societal benefits. This paper presents a framework for analyzing the environmental effects of decentralized wastewater systems and an evaluation of the environmental impacts associated with two currently operating systems in California, one centralized and one decentralized. A comparison of energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and criteria air pollutants from the systems shows that the scale economies of the centralized plant help lower the environmental burden to less than a fifth of that of the decentralized utility for the same volume treated. The energy and emission burdens of the decentralized plant are reduced when accounting for high-yield wastewater reuse if it supplants an energy-intensive water supply like a desalination one. The centralized facility also reduces greenhouse gases by flaring methane generated during the treatment process, while methane is directly emitted from the decentralized system. The results are compelling enough to indicate that the life-cycle environmental impacts of decentralized designs should be carefully evaluated as part of the design process. (letter)

Decentralization in Botswana: the reluctant process | Dipholo ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Botswana\\'s decentralization process has always been justified in terms of democracy and development. Consequently, the government has always argued that it is fully committed to decentralization in order to promote popular participation as well as facilitating sustainable rural development. Yet the government does not ...

Decentralized indirect methods for learning automata games.

Science.gov (United States)

Tilak, Omkar; Martin, Ryan; Mukhopadhyay, Snehasis

2011-10-01

We discuss the application of indirect learning methods in zero-sum and identical payoff learning automata games. We propose a novel decentralized version of the well-known pursuit learning algorithm. Such a decentralized algorithm has significant computational advantages over its centralized counterpart. The theoretical study of such a decentralized algorithm requires the analysis to be carried out in a nonstationary environment. We use a novel bootstrapping argument to prove the convergence of the algorithm. To our knowledge, this is the first time that such analysis has been carried out for zero-sum and identical payoff games. Extensive simulation studies are reported, which demonstrate the proposed algorithm's fast and accurate convergence in a variety of game scenarios. We also introduce the framework of partial communication in the context of identical payoff games of learning automata. In such games, the automata may not communicate with each other or may communicate selectively. This comprehensive framework has the capability to model both centralized and decentralized games discussed in this paper.

The effects of fiscal decentralization in Albania

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dr.Sc. Blerta Dragusha

2012-06-01

Full Text Available “Basically decentralization is a democratic reform which seeks to transfer the political, administrative, financial and planning authority from central to local government. It seeks to develop civic participation, empowerment of local people in decision making process and to promote accountability and reliability: To achieve efficiency and effectiveness in the collection and management of resources and service delivery”1 The interest and curiosity of knowing how our country is doing in this process, still unfinished, served as a motivation forme to treat this topic: fiscal decentralization as a process of giving 'power' to local governments, not only in terms of rights deriving from this process but also on the responsibilities that come with it. Which are the stages before and after decentralization, and how has it affected the process in several key indicators? Is decentralization a good process only, or can any of its effects be seen as an disadvantage?

Subsidiarity in Principle: Decentralization of Water Resources Management

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ryan Stoa

2014-05-01

Full Text Available The subsidiarity principle of water resources management suggests that water management and service delivery should take place at the lowest appropriate governance level. The principle is attractive for several reasons, primarily because: 1 the governance level can be reduced to reflect environmental characteristics, such as the hydrological borders of a watershed that would otherwise cross administrative boundaries; 2 decentralization promotes community and stakeholder engagement when decision-making is localized; 3 inefficiencies are reduced by eliminating reliance on central government bureaucracies and budgetary constraints; and 4 laws and institutions can be adapted to reflect localized conditions at a scale where integrated natural resources management and climate change adaptation is more focused. Accordingly, the principle of subsidiarity has been welcomed by many states committed to decentralized governance, integrated water resources management, and/or civic participation. However, applications of decentralization have not been uniform, and in some cases have produced frustrating outcomes for states and water resources. Successful decentralization strategies are heavily dependent on dedicated financial resources and human resource capacity. This article explores the nexus between the principle of subsidiarity and the enabling environment, in the hope of articulating factors likely to contribute to, or detract from, the success of decentralized water resources management. Case studies from Haiti, Rwanda, and the United States’ Florida Water Management Districts provide examples of the varied stages of decentralization.

FISCAL DECENTRALIZATION IN THE DRC: EVIDENCE OFREVENUE ASSIGNMENT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Angelita Kithatu-Kiwekete

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The rationalefor central government to devolve resources for service provisionhas been debated in decentralization literature. Decentralization enhancesdemocracy,encouragesparticipation in local development initiativesandpromotes local political accountability.This discourse has been complemented bythe implementation of fiscal decentralization to increase the ability of sub-nationalgovernment in financing municipal service delivery. Fiscal decentralization hasoften been adopted by African statessince the onset ofthe New PublicManagement erain an effortto improvethe standard ofgovernance. The concernis that African states have taken minimal steps to adopt fiscal devolution thatpromotes revenue assignment which in turn limits sub-nationalgovernments’ability to generate own source revenues.This article examines the revenue assignment function of fiscal decentralization inthe Democratic Republic of Congo(DRCinthelight of decentralizationconcerns that have been raised by civil society, as the country charts its course todemocracy. The article is a desktop study that will consider documents andpoliciesin theDRCon thenational, provincialand locallevel as far asstaterevenue sourcesare concerned. Revenue assignment should enable DRC’sprovinces and local authoritiestogeneratesignificantrevenueindependently.However, post-conflict reconstruction and development efforts in the Great Lakesregion and in the DRC have largely isolated decentralization which wouldotherwise entrench local fiscalautonomy infinancing for local services anddevelopment. The article concludes that revenue generation for local authoritiesandtheprovinces in the DRC is still very centralised by the national government.Thearticleproposes policy recommendations that will be useful for the country toensurethatdecentralization effortsinclude fiscal devolution toenhance thefinancing for local development initiatives.

How fair is fair trade?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Maseland, Robbert; Vaal, Albert de

2001-01-01

This paper investigates to what extent fair trade programmes, are indeed ‘fair’. This is accomplished by comparing fair trade with free trade and protectionist trade regimes on their compliance of the criteria set by the fair trade movement itself. This comparison is made using comparative cost

Traffic Scheduling in WDM Passive Optical Network with Delay Guarantee

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

无

2005-01-01

WDM passive optical network becomes more favorable as the required bandwidth increases, but currently few media access control algorithms adapted to WDM access network. This paper presented a new scheduling algorithm for bandwidth sharing in WDM passive optical networks, which provides per-flow delay guarantee and supports variable-length packets scheduling. Through theoretical analysis and simulation, the end-to-end delay bound and throughput fairness of the algorithm was demonstrated.

Fuzzy-Logic-Based Gain-Scheduling Control for State-of-Charge Balance of Distributed Energy Storage Systems for DC Microgrids

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Aldana, Nelson Leonardo Diaz; Dragicevic, Tomislav; Vasquez, Juan Carlos

2014-01-01

-charge or deep-discharge in one of the energy storage units. Primary control in a microgrid is responsible for power sharing among units; and droop control is typically used in this stage. This paper proposes a modular and decentralized gain-scheduling control strategy based on fuzzy logic that ensures balanced...

Blockchain-Empowered Fair Computational Resource Sharing System in the D2D Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhen Hong

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Device-to-device (D2D communication is becoming an increasingly important technology in future networks with the climbing demand for local services. For instance, resource sharing in the D2D network features ubiquitous availability, flexibility, low latency and low cost. However, these features also bring along challenges when building a satisfactory resource sharing system in the D2D network. Specifically, user mobility is one of the top concerns for designing a cooperative D2D computational resource sharing system since mutual communication may not be stably available due to user mobility. A previous endeavour has demonstrated and proven how connectivity can be incorporated into cooperative task scheduling among users in the D2D network to effectively lower average task execution time. There are doubts about whether this type of task scheduling scheme, though effective, presents fairness among users. In other words, it can be unfair for users who contribute many computational resources while receiving little when in need. In this paper, we propose a novel blockchain-based credit system that can be incorporated into the connectivity-aware task scheduling scheme to enforce fairness among users in the D2D network. Users’ computational task cooperation will be recorded on the public blockchain ledger in the system as transactions, and each user’s credit balance can be easily accessible from the ledger. A supernode at the base station is responsible for scheduling cooperative computational tasks based on user mobility and user credit balance. We investigated the performance of the credit system, and simulation results showed that with a minor sacrifice of average task execution time, the level of fairness can obtain a major enhancement.

Least-cost network evaluation of centralized and decentralized contributions to global electrification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Levin, Todd; Thomas, Valerie M.

2012-01-01

The choice between centralized and decentralized electricity generation is examined for 150 countries as a function of population distribution, electricity consumption, transmission cost, and the cost difference between decentralized and centralized electricity generation. A network algorithm is developed to find the shortest centralized transmission network that spans a given fraction of the population in a country. The least-cost combination of centralized and decentralized electricity that serves the country is determined. Case studies of Botswana, Uganda, and Bangladesh illustrate situations that are more and less suited for decentralized electrification. Specific maps for centralized and decentralized generation are presented to show how the least-cost option varies with the relative costs of centralized and decentralized generation and transmission cost. Centralized and decentralized fractions are calculated for 150 countries. For most of the world's population, centralized electricity is the least-cost option. For a number of countries, particularly in Africa, substantial populations and regions may be most cost-effectively served by decentralized electricity. - Highlights: ► Centralized and decentralized electrification are compared for 150 countries. ► A cost-optimized network algorithm finds the least-cost electrification system. ► Least-cost infrastructures combine centralized and decentralized portions. ► For most people, centralized electricity is cheapest option. ► In much of Africa, decentralized electricity may be cheaper than centralized.

Responsiveness and flexibility in a Decentralized Supply Chain

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petersen, Kristian Rasmus; Bilberg, Arne; Hadar, Ronen

Today’s supply chains are not capable of managing the instabilities that is the case in the market. Instead, there is a need to develop supply chains that are capable of adapting to changes. Through a case study of LEGO, the authors suggest a possible solution: a decentralized supply chain serving...... independent and self-sufficient local factories. The decentralized supply chain is provided with materials, parts and pre-assembled elements from local suppliers and supplies the local market in return. Keywords: Decentralize, Responsiveness, Flexibility...

Decentralized Portfolio Management

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Benjamin Miranda Tabak

2003-12-01

Full Text Available We use a mean-variance model to analyze the problem of decentralized portfolio management. We find the solution for the optimal portfolio allocation for a head trader operating in n different markets, which is called the optimal centralized portfolio. However, as there are many traders specialized in different markets, the solution to the problem of optimal decentralized allocation should be different from the centralized case. In this paper we derive conditions for the solutions to be equivalent. We use multivariate normal returns and a negative exponential function to solve the problem analytically. We generate the equivalence of solutions by assuming that different traders face different interest rates for borrowing and lending. This interest rate is dependent on the ratio of the degrees of risk aversion of the trader and the head trader, on the excess return, and on the correlation between asset returns.

Two-user opportunistic scheduling using hierarchical modulations in wireless networks with heterogenous average link gains

KAUST Repository

Hossain, Md Jahangir

2010-03-01

Our contribution, in this paper, is two-fold. First, we analyze the performance of a hierarchical modulation-assisted two-best user opportunistic scheduling (TBS) scheme, which was proposed by the authors, in a fading environment where different users have different average link gains. Specifically, we present a new expression for the spectral efficiency (SE) of the users and using this expression, we compare the degrees of fairness (DOF) of the TBS scheme with that of classical single user opportunistic scheduling schemes, namely, absolute carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR) based single-best user scheduling (SBS) and normalized CNR based proportional fair scheduling (PFS) schemes. The second contribution is that we propose a new hybrid two-user opportunistic scheduling (HTS) scheme based on our earlier proposed TBS scheme. This HTS scheme selects the first user based on the largest absolute CNR value among all the users while the second user is selected based on the ratios of the absolute CNRs to the corresponding average CNRs of the remaining users. The total transmission rate i.e., the constellation size is selected according to the absolute CNR of the first best user. The total transmission rate is then allocated among these selected users by joint consideration of their absolute CNRs and allocated number of information bit(s) are transmitted to them using hierarchical modulations. Numerical results are presented for a fading environment where different users experience independent but non-identical (i.n.d.) channel fading. These selected numerical results show that the proposed HTS scheme can considerably increase the system\\'s fairness without any degradation of the link spectral efficiency (LSE) i.e., the multiuser diversity gain compared to the classical SBS scheme. These results also show that the proposed HTS scheme has a lower fairness in comparison to the PFS scheme which suffers from a considerable degradation in LSE. © 2010 IEEE.

Communication network for decentralized remote tele-science during the Spacelab mission IML-2

Science.gov (United States)

Christ, Uwe; Schulz, Klaus-Juergen; Incollingo, Marco

1994-01-01

The ESA communication network for decentralized remote telescience during the Spacelab mission IML-2, called Interconnection Ground Subnetwork (IGS), provided data, voice conferencing, video distribution/conferencing and high rate data services to 5 remote user centers in Europe. The combination of services allowed the experimenters to interact with their experiments as they would normally do from the Payload Operations Control Center (POCC) at MSFC. In addition, to enhance their science results, they were able to make use of reference facilities and computing resources in their home laboratory, which typically are not available in the POCC. Characteristics of the IML-2 communications implementation were the adaptation to the different user needs based on modular service capabilities of IGS and the cost optimization for the connectivity. This was achieved by using a combination of traditional leased lines, satellite based VSAT connectivity and N-ISDN according to the simulation and mission schedule for each remote site. The central management system of IGS allows minimization of staffing and the involvement of communications personnel at the remote sites. The successful operation of IGS for IML-2 as a precursor network for the Columbus Orbital Facility (COF) has proven the concept for communications to support the operation of the COF decentralized scenario.

Decentralization, Local Rights and the Construction of Women's ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

Decentralization, Local Rights and the Construction of Women's Citizenship : a Comparative Study in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda - Phase II. Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have adopted new land laws, policies and institutional arrangements to accommodate decentralization of land administration and management.

Decentralized Blended Acquisition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Berkhout, A.J.

2013-01-01

The concept of blending and deblending is reviewed, making use of traditional and dispersed source arrays. The network concept of distributed blended acquisition is introduced. A million-trace robot system is proposed, illustrating that decentralization may bring about a revolution in the way we

The Two Edge Knife of Decentralization

OpenAIRE

Umam, Ahmad Khoirul

2011-01-01

A centralistic government model has become a trend in a number of developing countries, in which the ideosycretic aspect becomes pivotal key in the policy making. The situation constitutes authoritarianism, cronyism, and corruption. To break the impasse, the decentralized system is proposed to make people closer to the public policy making. Decentralization is also convinced to be the solution to create a good governance. But a number of facts in the developing countries demonstrates that dec...

Real-time distributed scheduling algorithm for supporting QoS over WDM networks

Science.gov (United States)

Kam, Anthony C.; Siu, Kai-Yeung

1998-10-01

Most existing or proposed WDM networks employ circuit switching, typically with one session having exclusive use of one entire wavelength. Consequently they are not suitable for data applications involving bursty traffic patterns. The MIT AON Consortium has developed an all-optical LAN/MAN testbed which provides time-slotted WDM service and employs fast-tunable transceivers in each optical terminal. In this paper, we explore extensions of this service to achieve fine-grained statistical multiplexing with different virtual circuits time-sharing the wavelengths in a fair manner. In particular, we develop a real-time distributed protocol for best-effort traffic over this time-slotted WDM service with near-optical fairness and throughput characteristics. As an additional design feature, our protocol supports the allocation of guaranteed bandwidths to selected connections. This feature acts as a first step towards supporting integrated services and quality-of-service guarantees over WDM networks. To achieve high throughput, our approach is based on scheduling transmissions, as opposed to collision- based schemes. Our distributed protocol involves one MAN scheduler and several LAN schedulers (one per LAN) in a master-slave arrangement. Because of propagation delays and limits on control channel capacities, all schedulers are designed to work with partial, delayed traffic information. Our distributed protocol is of the `greedy' type to ensure fast execution in real-time in response to dynamic traffic changes. It employs a hybrid form of rate and credit control for resource allocation. We have performed extensive simulations, which show that our protocol allocates resources (transmitters, receivers, wavelengths) fairly with high throughput, and supports bandwidth guarantees.

Decentralization : Local Partnerships for Health Services in the ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

Cameroon, like most other sub-Saharan African countries, has adopted laws devolving various responsibilities to local administrations. In the local political discourse, decentralization is seen as bringing essential services closer to the users, especially those in greatest need. However, the national decentralization program ...

Decentralization and financial autonomy: a challenge for local public authorities in the Republic of Moldova

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tatiana MANOLE

2017-09-01

Full Text Available This article reflects the decentralization process currently taking place in the Republic of Moldova. The purpose of the research is to acquaint readers with the fundamental concept of decentralization, with the areas of administrative decentralization, with the forms of manifestation of financial decentralization: fiscal decentralization and budget decentralization. The priorities of the decentralization process are identified.

Are the FAIR Data Principles Fair?

OpenAIRE

Dunning, Alastair; de Smaele, Madeleine; Boehmer, Jasmin

2017-01-01

Presentation given at IDCC17 about FAIR data research done by Research Data Services of TU Delft, on 22nd February 2018. Relates to practice paper: Dunning, Alastair, de Smaele, Madeleine, & Böhmer, Jasmin. (2017, January 31). Are the FAIR Data Principles fair?. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.321423  Relates to data-set: Dunning, A.C. (Alastair); de Smaele, M.M.E. (Madeleine); Böhmer, J.K. (Jasmin) (2017) Evaluation of data repositories based on the FAIR Principles for ...

Centralized, Decentralized, and Hybrid Purchasing Organizations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bals, Lydia; Turkulainen, Virpi

This paper addresses one of the focal issues in purchasing and supply management – global sourcing – from an organizational design perspective. In particular, we elaborate the traditional classification of global sourcing organization designs into centralized, decentralized, and hybrid models. We...... organization we can identify organization designs beyond the classical centralization-decentralization continuum. We also provide explanations for the observed organization design at GCC. The study contributes to research on purchasing and supply management as well as research on organization design....

DECENTRALIZATION OF MUNICIPAL SERVICES – LEARNING BY DOING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cristina Elena NICOLESCU

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Public services decentralization is a major concern for policy makers when it comes to identifying the optimum model for reorganizing these services, in light of the 3Es of the organizational performance. The field experiences show that this process is different both from one state to another, and depending on the targeted activity sector, out of which the local transport service is distinguished as an ‘institutional orphan’. Taking into account one of the smart-cities’ recognition criteria, the urban mobility, the paper aims at substantiating that, despite the specific incrementalism of the public services decentralization, having a negative impact upon the services’ efficiency, in the case of local transport service, recognizing the right to mobility and the need to ensuring the environment for exercising this right, impels the ‘bureaucratic apparatus’ to accelerate and consolidate the decentralization of this service. Therefore, the paper puts forward a case study on the impact of decentralization upon the local public transport service of Bucharest municipality.

Towards a Decentralized Magnetic Indoor Positioning System

Science.gov (United States)

Kasmi, Zakaria; Norrdine, Abdelmoumen; Blankenbach, Jörg

2015-01-01

Decentralized magnetic indoor localization is a sophisticated method for processing sampled magnetic data directly on a mobile station (MS), thereby decreasing or even avoiding the need for communication with the base station. In contrast to central-oriented positioning systems, which transmit raw data to a base station, decentralized indoor localization pushes application-level knowledge into the MS. A decentralized position solution has thus a strong feasibility to increase energy efficiency and to prolong the lifetime of the MS. In this article, we present a complete architecture and an implementation for a decentralized positioning system. Furthermore, we introduce a technique for the synchronization of the observed magnetic field on the MS with the artificially-generated magnetic field from the coils. Based on real-time clocks (RTCs) and a preemptive operating system, this method allows a stand-alone control of the coils and a proper assignment of the measured magnetic fields on the MS. A stand-alone control and synchronization of the coils and the MS have an exceptional potential to implement a positioning system without the need for wired or wireless communication and enable a deployment of applications for rescue scenarios, like localization of miners or firefighters. PMID:26690145

Towards a Decentralized Magnetic Indoor Positioning System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zakaria Kasmi

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Decentralized magnetic indoor localization is a sophisticated method for processing sampled magnetic data directly on a mobile station (MS, thereby decreasing or even avoiding the need for communication with the base station. In contrast to central-oriented positioning systems, which transmit raw data to a base station, decentralized indoor localization pushes application-level knowledge into the MS. A decentralized position solution has thus a strong feasibility to increase energy efficiency and to prolong the lifetime of the MS. In this article, we present a complete architecture and an implementation for a decentralized positioning system. Furthermore, we introduce a technique for the synchronization of the observed magnetic field on the MS with the artificially-generated magnetic field from the coils. Based on real-time clocks (RTCs and a preemptive operating system, this method allows a stand-alone control of the coils and a proper assignment of the measured magnetic fields on the MS. A stand-alone control and synchronization of the coils and the MS have an exceptional potential to implement a positioning system without the need for wired or wireless communication and enable a deployment of applications for rescue scenarios, like localization of miners or firefighters.

Price fairness

OpenAIRE

Diller, Hermann

2013-01-01

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to integrate the various strands of fair price research into a concise conceptual model. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed price fairness model is based on a review of the fair pricing literature, incorporating research reported in not only English but also German. Findings – The proposed fair price model depicts seven components of a fair price: distributive fairness, consistent behaviour, personal respect and regard for the partner, fair dea...

Job schedulers for Big data processing in Hadoop environment: testing real-life schedulers using benchmark programs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohd Usama

2017-11-01

Full Text Available At present, big data is very popular, because it has proved to be much successful in many fields such as social media, E-commerce transactions, etc. Big data describes the tools and technologies needed to capture, manage, store, distribute, and analyze petabyte or larger-sized datasets having different structures with high speed. Big data can be structured, unstructured, or semi structured. Hadoop is an open source framework that is used to process large amounts of data in an inexpensive and efficient way, and job scheduling is a key factor for achieving high performance in big data processing. This paper gives an overview of big data and highlights the problems and challenges in big data. It then highlights Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS, Hadoop MapReduce, and various parameters that affect the performance of job scheduling algorithms in big data such as Job Tracker, Task Tracker, Name Node, Data Node, etc. The primary purpose of this paper is to present a comparative study of job scheduling algorithms along with their experimental results in Hadoop environment. In addition, this paper describes the advantages, disadvantages, features, and drawbacks of various Hadoop job schedulers such as FIFO, Fair, capacity, Deadline Constraints, Delay, LATE, Resource Aware, etc, and provides a comparative study among these schedulers.

Decentralization: A panacea for functional education and national ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Decentralization of power from the federal government to state and local governments is the way to go, especially in the management of our education system. Education can be best delivered at the state and local government levels. Decentralization of educational management in Nigeria will encourage creativity and ...

Decentralized flight trajectory planning of multiple aircraft

OpenAIRE

Yokoyama, Nobuhiro; 横山　信宏

2008-01-01

Conventional decentralized algorithms for optimal trajectory planning tend to require prohibitive computational time as the number of aircraft increases. To overcome this drawback, this paper proposes a novel decentralized trajectory planning algorithm adopting a constraints decoupling approach for parallel optimization. The constraints decoupling approach is formulated as the path constraints of the real-time trajectory optimization problem based on nonlinear programming. Due to the parallel...

A Prudent Approach to Fair Use Workflow

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Karey Patterson

2018-02-01

Full Text Available This poster will outline a new highly efficient workflow for the management of copyright materials that is prudent and accommodates generally and legally accepted Fair Use limits. The workflow allows library or copyright staff an easy means to keep on top of their copyright obligations, manage licenses and review and adjust schedules but is still a highly efficient means to cope with large numbers of requests to use materials. The poster details speed and efficiency gains for professors and library staff while reducing legal exposure.

Modeling Nurse Scheduling Problem Using 0-1 Goal Programming A Case Study Of Tafo Government Hospital Kumasi-Ghana

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wallace Agyei

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract The problem of scheduling nurses at the Out-Patient Department OPD at Tafo Government Hospital Kumasi Ghana is presented. Currently the schedules are prepared by head nurse who performs this difficult and time consuming task by hand. Due to the existence of many constraints the resulting schedule usually does not guarantee the fairness of distribution of work. The problem was formulated as 0-1goal programming model with the of objective of evenly balancing the workload among nurses and satisfying their preferences as much as possible while complying with the legal and working regulations.. The developed model was then solved using LINGO14.0 software. The resulting schedules based on 0-1goal programming model balanced the workload in terms of the distribution of shift duties fairness in terms of the number of consecutive night duties and satisfied the preferences of the nurses. This is an improvement over the schedules done manually.

A DIFFERENTIAL EVOLUTION ALGORITHM DEVELOPED FOR A NURSE SCHEDULING PROBLEM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shahnazari-Shahrezaei, P.

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Nurse scheduling is a type of manpower allocation problem that tries to satisfy hospital managers objectives and nurses preferences as much as possible by generating fair shift schedules. This paper presents a nurse scheduling problem based on a real case study, and proposes two meta-heuristics a differential evolution algorithm (DE and a greedy randomised adaptive search procedure (GRASP to solve it. To investigate the efficiency of the proposed algorithms, two problems are solved. Furthermore, some comparison metrics are applied to examine the reliability of the proposed algorithms. The computational results in this paper show that the proposed DE outperforms the GRASP.

U-Form vs. M-Form: How to Understand Decision Autonomy Under Healthcare Decentralization?

Science.gov (United States)

Bustamante, Arturo Vargas

2016-01-01

For more than three decades healthcare decentralization has been promoted in developing countries as a way of improving the financing and delivery of public healthcare. Decision autonomy under healthcare decentralization would determine the role and scope of responsibility of local authorities. Jalal Mohammed, Nicola North, and Toni Ashton analyze decision autonomy within decentralized services in Fiji. They conclude that the narrow decision space allowed to local entities might have limited the benefits of decentralization on users and providers. To discuss the costs and benefits of healthcare decentralization this paper uses the U-form and M-form typology to further illustrate the role of decision autonomy under healthcare decentralization. This paper argues that when evaluating healthcare decentralization, it is important to determine whether the benefits from decentralization are greater than its costs. The U-form and M-form framework is proposed as a useful typology to evaluate different types of institutional arrangements under healthcare decentralization. Under this model, the more decentralized organizational form (M-form) is superior if the benefits from flexibility exceed the costs of duplication and the more centralized organizational form (U-form) is superior if the savings from economies of scale outweigh the costly decision-making process from the center to the regions. Budgetary and financial autonomy and effective mechanisms to maintain local governments accountable for their spending behavior are key decision autonomy variables that could sway the cost-benefit analysis of healthcare decentralization. PMID:27694684

Adaptive Subframe Partitioning and Efficient Packet Scheduling in OFDMA Cellular System with Fixed Decode-and-Forward Relays

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Liping; Ji, Yusheng; Liu, Fuqiang

The integration of multihop relays with orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) cellular infrastructures can meet the growing demands for better coverage and higher throughput. Resource allocation in the OFDMA two-hop relay system is more complex than that in the conventional single-hop OFDMA system. With time division between transmissions from the base station (BS) and those from relay stations (RSs), fixed partitioning of the BS subframe and RS subframes can not adapt to various traffic demands. Moreover, single-hop scheduling algorithms can not be used directly in the two-hop system. Therefore, we propose a semi-distributed algorithm called ASP to adjust the length of every subframe adaptively, and suggest two ways to extend single-hop scheduling algorithms into multihop scenarios: link-based and end-to-end approaches. Simulation results indicate that the ASP algorithm increases system utilization and fairness. The max carrier-to-interference ratio (Max C/I) and proportional fairness (PF) scheduling algorithms extended using the end-to-end approach obtain higher throughput than those using the link-based approach, but at the expense of more overhead for information exchange between the BS and RSs. The resource allocation scheme using ASP and end-to-end PF scheduling achieves a tradeoff between system throughput maximization and fairness.

A comparison of decentralized, distributed, and centralized vibro-acoustic control.

Science.gov (United States)

Frampton, Kenneth D; Baumann, Oliver N; Gardonio, Paolo

2010-11-01

Direct velocity feedback control of structures is well known to increase structural damping and thus reduce vibration. In multi-channel systems the way in which the velocity signals are used to inform the actuators ranges from decentralized control, through distributed or clustered control to fully centralized control. The objective of distributed controllers is to exploit the anticipated performance advantage of the centralized control while maintaining the scalability, ease of implementation, and robustness of decentralized control. However, and in seeming contradiction, some investigations have concluded that decentralized control performs as well as distributed and centralized control, while other results have indicated that distributed control has significant performance advantages over decentralized control. The purpose of this work is to explain this seeming contradiction in results, to explore the effectiveness of decentralized, distributed, and centralized vibro-acoustic control, and to expand the concept of distributed control to include the distribution of the optimization process and the cost function employed.

Bi-Level Decentralized Active Power Control for Large-Scale Wind Farm Cluster

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Huang, Shengli; Wu, Qiuwei; Guo, Yifei

2018-01-01

This paper presents a bi-level decentralized active power control (DAPC) for a large-scale wind farm cluster, consisting of several wind farms for better active power dispatch. In the upper level, a distributed active power control scheme based on the distributed consensus is designed to achieve...... fair active power sharing among multiple wind farms, which generates the power reference for each wind farm. A distributed estimator is used to estimate the total available power of all wind farms. In the lower level, a centralized control scheme based on the Model Predictive Control (MPC) is proposed...... to regulate active power outputs of all wind turbines (WTs) within a wind farm, which reduces the fatigue loads of WTs while tracking the power reference obtained from the upper level control. A wind farm cluster with 8 wind farms and totally 160 WTs, was used to test the control performance of the proposed...

Decentralization : Local Partnerships for Health Services in the ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

However, the national decentralization program is having a hard time getting on track. In the face of day-to-day difficulties Zenü Network, a nongovernmental organization, would like to make a contribution to this social project. The Network would like to demonstrate that civil society can work with decentralized government ...

Depression Screening at a Community Health Fair: Descriptives and Treatment Linkage.

Science.gov (United States)

Opperman, Kiel J; Hanson, Devin M; Toro, Paul A

2017-08-01

Health fairs are a cost-efficient platform for dissemination of preventive services to vulnerable populations. Effectiveness of depression screenings and associated treatment linkage via community health fairs warrants investigation. This study offers the first examination of a depression screening at a community health fair in 261 adult men (18-87years). The PHQ-9 was administered via interview by graduate students and on-site psychiatric nurses were available for a brief consultation for those interested. Over a quarter of participants screened positive for at least moderate depressive symptomatology. Of those who screened positive, 35.8% met with an on-site psychiatric nurse for a consultation. At six-month follow-up, none of the participants given a referral made an appointment at the community mental health agency. This suggests the importance of providing on-site clinician consultations at health fairs and the need for a more coordinated system to schedule future appointments while at the event. Community health fairs reach vulnerable populations, such as those who are uninsured and who have not spoken with a professional about mental health concerns. By conducting depression screening and providing onsite access to a mental health consultation at community health fairs, participants are better able to identify their depressive symptoms and are introduced to ways to treat depression. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Driving up Standards: Civil Service Management and Decentralization: Case Study of Uganda

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lazarus Nabaho

2012-12-01

Full Text Available There is a consensus that decentralization by devolution leads to improved service delivery, but debate on the appropriate type of personnel arrangements for delivering decentralized services is far from over. Put differently, the discourse on whether civil service management should be decentralized or devolved still rages on. Little wonder that countries which started off with decentralized civil service management models in the 1990s are currently centralizing some aspects of personnel management while others are having centralized and decentralized personnel arrangements operating side by side in sub-national governments. The paper argues that civil service management should be decentralized whenever a country chooses the path of decentralization by devolution. Using Uganda’s example, the paper highlights two major challenges of managing the civil service under separate personnel arrangements: civil service appointments devoid of merit, and the perennial failure to attract and retain qualified human resource. The paper presents proposals on how to ensure meritocracy in appointments and how to bolster attraction and retention of human capital in local governments.

MAC-layer protocol for TCP fairness in Wireless Mesh Networks

KAUST Repository

Nawab, Faisal

2012-08-01

In this paper we study the interactions of TCP and IEEE 802.11 MAC in Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs). We use a Markov chain to capture the behavior of TCP sessions, particularly the impact on network throughput performance due to the effect of queue utilization and packet relaying. A closed form solution is derived to numerically determine the throughput. Based on the developed model, we propose a distributed MAC protocol to alleviate the unfairness problem in WMNs. Our protocol uses the age of packet as a priority metric for packet scheduling. Simulation is conducted to validate our model and to illustrate the fairness characteristics of our proposed MAC protocol. We conclude that we can achieve fairness with only little impact on network capacity.

On Multiple Users Scheduling Using Superposition Coding over Rayleigh Fading Channels

KAUST Repository

Zafar, Ammar

2013-02-20

In this letter, numerical results are provided to analyze the gains of multiple users scheduling via superposition coding with successive interference cancellation in comparison with the conventional single user scheduling in Rayleigh blockfading broadcast channels. The information-theoretic optimal power, rate and decoding order allocation for the superposition coding scheme are considered and the corresponding histogram for the optimal number of scheduled users is evaluated. Results show that at optimality there is a high probability that only two or three users are scheduled per channel transmission block. Numerical results for the gains of multiple users scheduling in terms of the long term throughput under hard and proportional fairness as well as for fixed merit weights for the users are also provided. These results show that the performance gain of multiple users scheduling over single user scheduling increases when the total number of users in the network increases, and it can exceed 10% for high number of users

EFFECT OF FISCAL DECENTRALIZATION ON CAPITAL EXPENDITURE, GROWTH, AND WELFARE

OpenAIRE

Badrudin, Rudy

2013-01-01

This research analyzes the influence of fiscal decentralization on capital expenditure, economic growth, and social welfare of 29 regencies and 6 cities in Central Java Province based on the data of year 2004 to 2008. The method used to analyze the hypotheses is the Partial Least Square. The results showes that fiscal decentralization has no significant effect on capital expenditure; fiscal decentralization has significant effect on economic growth and social welfare; capital expenditure has ...

Making decentralization work for women in Uganda

OpenAIRE

Lakwo, A.

2009-01-01

This book is about engendering local governance. It explores the euphoria with which Uganda's decentralization policy took centre stage as a sufficient driver to engender local development responsiveness and accountability. Using a case study of AFARD in Nebbi district, it shows first that decentralized governance is gendered and technocratic as grassroots women's effective participation is lacking. Second, it shows that the insertion of women in local governance is merely a symbolic politica...

Efficient Resource Scheduling by Exploiting Relay Cache for Cellular Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chun He

2015-01-01

Full Text Available In relay-enhanced cellular systems, throughput of User Equipment (UE is constrained by the bottleneck of the two-hop link, backhaul link (or the first hop link, and access link (the second hop link. To maximize the throughput, resource allocation should be coordinated between these two hops. A common resource scheduling algorithm, Adaptive Distributed Proportional Fair, only ensures that the throughput of the first hop is greater than or equal to that of the second hop. But it cannot guarantee a good balance of the throughput and fairness between the two hops. In this paper, we propose a Two-Hop Balanced Distributed Scheduling (TBS algorithm by exploiting relay cache for non-real-time data traffic. The evolved Node Basestation (eNB adaptively adjusts the number of Resource Blocks (RBs allocated to the backhaul link and direct links based on the cache information of relays. Each relay allocates RBs for relay UEs based on the size of the relay UE’s Transport Block. We also design a relay UE’s ACK feedback mechanism to update the data at relay cache. Simulation results show that the proposed TBS can effectively improve resource utilization and achieve a good trade-off between system throughput and fairness by balancing the throughput of backhaul and access link.

Centralization vs. Decentralization: A Location Analysis Approach for Librarians

Science.gov (United States)

Raffel, Jeffrey; Shishko, Robert

1972-01-01

An application of location theory to the question of centralized versus decentralized library facilities for a university, with relevance for special libraries is presented. The analysis provides models for a single library, for two or more libraries, or for decentralized facilities. (6 references) (Author/NH)

Integration of look-ahead multicast and unicast scheduling for input-queued cell switches

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yu, Hao; Ruepp, Sarah Renée; Berger, Michael Stübert

2012-01-01

This paper presents an integration of multicast and unicast traffic scheduling algorithms for input-queued cell switches. The multi-level round-robin multicast scheduling (ML-RRMS) algorithm with the look-ahead (LA) mechanism provides a highly scalable architecture and is able to reduce the head...... module that filters out the conflicting requests to ensure fairness. Simulation results show that comparing with the scheme using WBA for the multicast scheduling, the scheme proposed in this paper reduces the HOL blocking problem for multicast traffic and provides a significant improvement in terms...

The Rhetoric of Decentralization

Science.gov (United States)

Ravitch, Diane

1974-01-01

Questions the rationale for and possible consequences of political decentralization of New York City. Suggests that the disadvantages--reduced level of professionalism, increased expense in multiple government operation, "stabilization" of residential segregation, necessity for budget negotiations because of public disclosure of tax…

Decentralized energy supply and electricity market structures

OpenAIRE

Weber, Christoph; Vogel, Philip

2005-01-01

Small decentralized power generation units (DG) are politically promoted because of their potential to reduce GHG-emissions and the existing dependency on fossil fuels. A long term goal of this promotion should be the creation of a level playing field for DG and conventional power generation. Due to the impact of DG on the electricity grid infrastructure, future regulation should consider the costs and benefits of the integration of decentralized energy generation units. Without an adequate c...

Decentralized electricity production. v. 1 and 2

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1991-01-01

The first part of the symposium is concerned with market analysis, case studies and prospectives for the decentralized production of electricity in France: cogeneration, heat networks, municipal waste incineration, etc. Financing systems and microeconomical analysis are presented. The second part is devoted to macroeconomical outlooks (France and Europe mainly) on decentralized electricity production (cogeneration, small-scale hydroelectric power plants), to other countries experience (PV systems connected to the grid, cogeneration, etc.) and to price contracts and regulations

FINANCIAL CONSOLIDATION OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE-TERRITORIAL ENTITY IN THE LIGHT OF DECENTRALIZATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tatiana MANOLE

2017-02-01

Full Text Available „Should we head towards ‘self-government’ required by many of the participants, would that be a selfgovernmentof the citizens or the elect representatives? Whatever would happen, decentralization is, ina way, the book of our society, a book in which we find its aspirations, discrepancies and questions…It is well led from above, but it is well administered from the bottom.”(Xavier Frège, Paris, 1986 This article presents the results of study regarding the decentralization process, which is currentlyunderway in the Republic of Moldova. The purpose of the study is to highlight the fundamental concept ofdecentralization, the areas of administrative decentralization, the forms of manifestation of financialdecentralization (fiscal decentralization and budget decentralization, to identify the priorities of thedecentralization process, and to establish the indicators for measuring the degree of decentralization. Inbase of the statistical analysis and synthesis method, it was determined the current state of the art in theadministrative-territorial entities in the course of the decentralization process in relation to the publicfinance management reform. It were formulate proposals to accelerate the process of financialdecentralization and self-government.

FISCAL DECENTRALIZATION IN ALBANIA: EFFECTS OF TERRITORIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mariola KAPIDANI

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The principle of decentralization is a fundamental principle for the establishment and operation of local government. It refers to the process of redistributing the authority and responsibility for certain functions from central government to local government units. In many countries, particularly in developing countries, fiscal decentralization and local governance issues are addressed as highly important to the economic development. According to Stigler (1957, fiscal decentralization brings government closer to the people and a representative government works best when it is closer to the people. Albania is still undergoing the process of decentralization in all aspects: political, economic, fiscal and administrative. Decentralization process is essential to sustainable economic growth and efficient allocation of resources to meet the needs of citizens. Albania has a fragmented system of local government with a very large number of local government units that have neither sufficient fiscal or human capacity to provide public services at a reasonable level (World Bank. However, recent administrative and territorial reform is expected to have a significant impact in many issues related to local autonomy and revenue management. This paper is focused on the progress of fiscal decentralization process in Albania, stating key issues and ongoing challenges for an improved system. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of recent territorial reform, identifying problems and opportunities to be addressed in the future.

Decentralizing decision making in modularization strategies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Israelsen, Poul; Jørgensen, Brian

2011-01-01

which distorts the economic effects of modularization at the level of the individual product. This has the implication that decisions on modularization can only be made by top management if decision authority and relevant information are to be aligned. To overcome this problem, we suggest a solution...... that aligns the descriptions of the economic consequences of modularization at the project and portfolio level which makes it possible to decentralize decision making while making sure that local goals are congruent with the global ones in order to avoid suboptimal behaviour. Keywords: Modularization......; Accounting; Cost allocation; Decision rule; Decentralization...

Near optimal decentralized H_inf control

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Stoustrup, J.; Niemann, Hans Henrik

It is shown that foir a class of decentralized control problems there does not exist a sequence of controllers of bounded order which obtains near optimal control. Neither does there exist an infinity dimentional optimal controller. Using the insight of the line of proof of these results, a heuri......It is shown that foir a class of decentralized control problems there does not exist a sequence of controllers of bounded order which obtains near optimal control. Neither does there exist an infinity dimentional optimal controller. Using the insight of the line of proof of these results...

The Bases of Federalism and Decentralization in Education

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carlos Ornelas

2003-05-01

Full Text Available This essay uses the Weberian-type ideal to define the conceptual bases of federalism and the decentralization of education. Classic federalism, ficticious federalism (corporativism, the origins and the indigenous version of the new federalism are discussed. We conclude that Mexican constitutional federalism is baroque and ambiguous. Based on theory and the experiences of various countries, bureaucratic centralism and its main characteristics are defined. As a contrast, a typology of educational decentralization is developed. Taken into account are its political, judicial and administrative definitions; a distinction is made between delegation and decentralization. It is argued that with the signing of the Agreement for the Modernization of Basic Education, the Mexican government sought to increase its legitimacy without losing control of education.

The political economy of decentralization of health and social services in Canada.

Science.gov (United States)

Tsalikis, G

1989-01-01

A trend to decentralization in Canada's 'welfare state' has received support from the Left and from the Right. Some social critics of the Left expect decentralization to result in holistic services adjusted to local needs. Others, moreover, feel we are in the dawn of a new epoch in which major economic transformations are to bring about, through new class alliances and conflict, decentralization of power and a better quality of life in communities. These assumptions and their theoretical pitfalls are discussed here following an historical overview of the centralization/decentralization issue in Canadian social policy. It is argued that recent proposals of decentralization are a continuation of reactionary tendencies to constrain social expenditures, but not a path to better quality of life.

The interplay between decentralization and privacy: the case of blockchain technologies

OpenAIRE

De Filippi , Primavera

2016-01-01

International audience; Decentralized architectures are gaining popularity as a way to protect one's privacy against the ubiquitous surveillance of states and corporations. Yet, in spite of the obvious benefits they provide when it comes to data sovereignty, decentralized architectures also present certain characteristics that—if not properly accounted for—might ultimately impinge upon users' privacy. While they are capable of preserving the confidentiality of data, decentralized architecture...

Centralization Versus Decentralization: A Location Analysis Approach for Librarians.

Science.gov (United States)

Shishko, Robert; Raffel, Jeffrey

One of the questions that seems to perplex many university and special librarians is whether to move in the direction of centralizing or decentralizing the library's collections and facilities. Presented is a theoretical approach, employing location theory, to the library centralization-decentralization question. Location theory allows the analyst…

Corruption and government spending : The role of decentralization

OpenAIRE

Korneliussen, Kristine

2009-01-01

This thesis points to a possible weakness of the empirical literature on corruption and government spending. That corruption affects the composition of government spending, and in particular that it affects education and health spending adversely, seems to be empirically well established. However, there exist additional literature closely related to corruption and government spending, treating(i) a relationship between corruption and decentralization, and (ii) a relationship between decentral...

On Deciding How to Decide: To Centralize or Decentralize.

Science.gov (United States)

Chaffee, Ellen Earle

Issues concerning whether to centralize or decentralize decision-making are addressed, with applications for colleges. Centralization/decentralization (C/D) must be analyzed with reference to a particular decision. Three components of C/D are locus of authority, breadth of participation, and relative contribution by the decision-maker's staff. C/D…

Research on calculation of the IOL tilt and decentration based on surface fitting.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Lin; Wang, Ke; Yan, Yan; Song, Xudong; Liu, Zhicheng

2013-01-01

The tilt and decentration of intraocular lens (IOL) result in defocussing, astigmatism, and wavefront aberration after operation. The objective is to give a method to estimate the tilt and decentration of IOL more accurately. Based on AS-OCT images of twelve eyes from eight cases with subluxation lens after operation, we fitted spherical equation to the data obtained from the images of the anterior and posterior surfaces of the IOL. By the established relationship between IOL tilt (decentration) and the scanned angle, at which a piece of AS-OCT image was taken by the instrument, the IOL tilt and decentration were calculated. IOL tilt angle and decentration of each subject were given. Moreover, the horizontal and vertical tilt was also obtained. Accordingly, the possible errors of IOL tilt and decentration existed in the method employed by AS-OCT instrument. Based on 6-12 pieces of AS-OCT images at different directions, the tilt angle and decentration values were shown, respectively. The method of the surface fitting to the IOL surface can accurately analyze the IOL's location, and six pieces of AS-OCT images at three pairs symmetrical directions are enough to get tilt angle and decentration value of IOL more precisely.

Research on Calculation of the IOL Tilt and Decentration Based on Surface Fitting

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lin Li

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The tilt and decentration of intraocular lens (IOL result in defocussing, astigmatism, and wavefront aberration after operation. The objective is to give a method to estimate the tilt and decentration of IOL more accurately. Based on AS-OCT images of twelve eyes from eight cases with subluxation lens after operation, we fitted spherical equation to the data obtained from the images of the anterior and posterior surfaces of the IOL. By the established relationship between IOL tilt (decentration and the scanned angle, at which a piece of AS-OCT image was taken by the instrument, the IOL tilt and decentration were calculated. IOL tilt angle and decentration of each subject were given. Moreover, the horizontal and vertical tilt was also obtained. Accordingly, the possible errors of IOL tilt and decentration existed in the method employed by AS-OCT instrument. Based on 6–12 pieces of AS-OCT images at different directions, the tilt angle and decentration values were shown, respectively. The method of the surface fitting to the IOL surface can accurately analyze the IOL’s location, and six pieces of AS-OCT images at three pairs symmetrical directions are enough to get tilt angle and decentration value of IOL more precisely.

U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, Price Reasonableness Determinations for Federal Supply Schedule Orders for Supplies Need Improvement

Science.gov (United States)

2016-03-29

Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, Price Reasonableness Determinations for Federal Supply Schedule Orders for Supplies Need...0207.000) │ i Results in Brief U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, Price Reasonableness Determinations for Federal Supply Schedule...officers made determinations of fair and reasonable pricing for General Services Administration Federal supply schedule orders awarded for purchases

The Wolf and the Caribou: Coexistence of Decentralized Economies and Competitive Markets

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andreas Freund

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Starting with BitTorrent and then Bitcoin, decentralized technologies have been on the rise over the last 15+ years, gaining significant momentum in the last 2+ years with the advent of platform ecosystems such as the Blockchain platform Ethereum. New projects have evolved from decentralized games to marketplaces to open funding models to decentralized autonomous organizations. The hype around cryptocurrency and the valuation of innovative projects drove the market cap of cryptocurrencies to over a trillion dollars at one point in 2017. These high valued technologies are now enabling something new: globally scaled and decentralized business models. Despite their valuation and the hype, these new business ecosystems are frail. This is not only because the underlying technology is rapidly evolving, but also because competitive markets see a profit opportunity in exponential cryptocurrency returns. This extracts value from these ecosystems, which could lead to their collapse, if unchecked. In this paper, we explore novel ways for decentralized economies to protect themselves from, and coexist with, competitive markets at a global scale utilizing decentralized technologies such as Blockchain.

Analysis and design of robust decentralized controllers for nonlinear systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schoenwald, D.A.

1993-07-01

Decentralized control strategies for nonlinear systems are achieved via feedback linearization techniques. New results on optimization and parameter robustness of non-linear systems are also developed. In addition, parametric uncertainty in large-scale systems is handled by sensitivity analysis and optimal control methods in a completely decentralized framework. This idea is applied to alleviate uncertainty in friction parameters for the gimbal joints on Space Station Freedom. As an example of decentralized nonlinear control, singular perturbation methods and distributed vibration damping are merged into a control strategy for a two-link flexible manipulator.

Decentralization in Ethiopia

OpenAIRE

Gemechu, Mulugeta Debebbe

2012-01-01

Ethiopia officially launched the District Level Decentralization Program (DLDP) by the year 2002. The program flagged core objectives such as institutionalizing viable development centers at local levels, deepening devolution of power, enhancing the democratization process through broad-based participatory strategy, promoting good governance and improving service delivery. Since the inception of this program two strategic planning terms (one strategic term is five years) have already elapsed ...

Decentralized control and communication

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Bakule, Lubomír; Papík, Martin

2012-01-01

Roč. 36, č. 1 (2012), s. 1-10 ISSN 1367-5788 R&D Projects: GA MŠk(CZ) LG12014 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z10750506 Keywords : decentralization * communication * large-scale complex systems Subject RIV: BC - Control Systems Theory Impact factor: 1.289, year: 2012

A Mixed Method Research for Finding a Model of Administrative Decentralization

OpenAIRE

Tahereh Feizy; Alireza Moghali; Masuod Geramipoor; Reza Zare

2015-01-01

One of the critical issues of administrative decentralization in translating theory into practice is understanding its meaning. An important method to identify administrative decentralization is to address how it can be planned and implemented, and what are its implications, and how it would overcome challenges. The purpose of this study is finding a model for analyzing and evaluating administrative decentralization, so a mixed method research was used to explore and confirm the model of Admi...

Analysis of power and frequency control requirements in view of increased decentralized production and market liberalization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Roffel, B.; Boer, W.W. de

2003-01-01

This paper presents a systematic approach of the analysis of the minimum control requirements that are imposed on power producing units in the Netherlands, especially in the case when decentralized production increases. Also some effects of the liberalization on the control behavior are analyzed. First an overview is given of the amount and type of power production in the Netherlands, followed by a review of the control requirements. Next models are described, including a simplified model for the UCTE power system. The model was tested against frequency and power measurements after failure of a 558 MW production unit in the Netherlands. Agreement between measurements and model predictions proved to be good. The model was subsequently used to analyze the primary and secondary control requirements and the impact of an increase in decentralized power production on the fault restoration capabilities of the power system. Since the latter production units are not actively participating in primary and secondary control, fault restoration takes longer and becomes unacceptable when only 35% of the power producing units participate in secondary control. Finally, the model was used to study the impact of deregulation, especially the effect of 'block scheduling', on additional control actions of the secondary control. (Author)

Decentralized Interleaving of Paralleled Dc-Dc Buck Converters: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Johnson, Brian B [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Rodriguez, Miguel [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Sinha, Mohit [University of Minnesota; Dhople, Sairaj [University of Minnesota; Poon, Jason [University of California at Berkeley

2017-09-01

We present a decentralized control strategy that yields switch interleaving among parallel connected dc-dc buck converters without communication. The proposed method is based on the digital implementation of the dynamics of a nonlinear oscillator circuit as the controller. Each controller is fully decentralized, i.e., it only requires the locally measured output current to synthesize the pulse width modulation (PWM) carrier waveform. By virtue of the intrinsic electrical coupling between converters, the nonlinear oscillator-based controllers converge to an interleaved state with uniform phase-spacing across PWM carriers. To the knowledge of the authors, this work represents the first fully decentralized strategy for switch interleaving of paralleled dc-dc buck converters.

Decentralization can help reduce deforestation when user groups engage with local government

Science.gov (United States)

Wright, Glenn D.; Gibson, Clark C.; Evans, Tom P.

2016-01-01

Policy makers around the world tout decentralization as an effective tool in the governance of natural resources. Despite the popularity of these reforms, there is limited scientific evidence on the environmental effects of decentralization, especially in tropical biomes. This study presents evidence on the institutional conditions under which decentralization is likely to be successful in sustaining forests. We draw on common-pool resource theory to argue that the environmental impact of decentralization hinges on the ability of reforms to engage local forest users in the governance of forests. Using matching techniques, we analyze longitudinal field observations on both social and biophysical characteristics in a large number of local government territories in Bolivia (a country with a decentralized forestry policy) and Peru (a country with a much more centralized forestry policy). We find that territories with a decentralized forest governance structure have more stable forest cover, but only when local forest user groups actively engage with the local government officials. We provide evidence in support of a possible causal process behind these results: When user groups engage with the decentralized units, it creates a more enabling environment for effective local governance of forests, including more local government-led forest governance activities, fora for the resolution of forest-related conflicts, intermunicipal cooperation in the forestry sector, and stronger technical capabilities of the local government staff. PMID:27956644

Decentralization can help reduce deforestation when user groups engage with local government.

Science.gov (United States)

Wright, Glenn D; Andersson, Krister P; Gibson, Clark C; Evans, Tom P

2016-12-27

Policy makers around the world tout decentralization as an effective tool in the governance of natural resources. Despite the popularity of these reforms, there is limited scientific evidence on the environmental effects of decentralization, especially in tropical biomes. This study presents evidence on the institutional conditions under which decentralization is likely to be successful in sustaining forests. We draw on common-pool resource theory to argue that the environmental impact of decentralization hinges on the ability of reforms to engage local forest users in the governance of forests. Using matching techniques, we analyze longitudinal field observations on both social and biophysical characteristics in a large number of local government territories in Bolivia (a country with a decentralized forestry policy) and Peru (a country with a much more centralized forestry policy). We find that territories with a decentralized forest governance structure have more stable forest cover, but only when local forest user groups actively engage with the local government officials. We provide evidence in support of a possible causal process behind these results: When user groups engage with the decentralized units, it creates a more enabling environment for effective local governance of forests, including more local government-led forest governance activities, fora for the resolution of forest-related conflicts, intermunicipal cooperation in the forestry sector, and stronger technical capabilities of the local government staff.

A Statistical Model for Uplink Intercell Interference with Power Adaptation and Greedy Scheduling

KAUST Repository

Tabassum, Hina

2012-10-03

This paper deals with the statistical modeling of uplink inter-cell interference (ICI) considering greedy scheduling with power adaptation based on channel conditions. The derived model is implicitly generalized for any kind of shadowing and fading environments. More precisely, we develop a generic model for the distribution of ICI based on the locations of the allocated users and their transmit powers. The derived model is utilized to evaluate important network performance metrics such as ergodic capacity, average fairness and average power preservation numerically. Monte-Carlo simulation details are included to support the analysis and show the accuracy of the derived expressions. In parallel to the literature, we show that greedy scheduling with power adaptation reduces the ICI, average power consumption of users, and enhances the average fairness among users, compared to the case without power adaptation. © 2012 IEEE.

A Statistical Model for Uplink Intercell Interference with Power Adaptation and Greedy Scheduling

KAUST Repository

Tabassum, Hina; Yilmaz, Ferkan; Dawy, Zaher; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim

2012-01-01

This paper deals with the statistical modeling of uplink inter-cell interference (ICI) considering greedy scheduling with power adaptation based on channel conditions. The derived model is implicitly generalized for any kind of shadowing and fading environments. More precisely, we develop a generic model for the distribution of ICI based on the locations of the allocated users and their transmit powers. The derived model is utilized to evaluate important network performance metrics such as ergodic capacity, average fairness and average power preservation numerically. Monte-Carlo simulation details are included to support the analysis and show the accuracy of the derived expressions. In parallel to the literature, we show that greedy scheduling with power adaptation reduces the ICI, average power consumption of users, and enhances the average fairness among users, compared to the case without power adaptation. © 2012 IEEE.

Decentralization of health care systems and health outcomes: Evidence from a natural experiment.

Science.gov (United States)

Jiménez-Rubio, Dolores; García-Gómez, Pilar

2017-09-01

While many countries worldwide are shifting responsibilities for their health systems to local levels of government, there is to date insufficient evidence about the potential impact of these policy reforms. We estimate the impact of decentralization of the health services on infant and neonatal mortality using a natural experiment: the devolution of health care decision making powers to Spanish regions. The devolution was implemented gradually and asymmetrically over a twenty-year period (1981-2002). The order in which the regions were decentralized was driven by political factors and hence can be considered exogenous to health outcomes. In addition, we exploit the dynamic effect of decentralization of health services and allow for heterogeneous effects by the two main types of decentralization implemented across regions: full decentralization (political and fiscal powers) versus political decentralization only. Our difference in differences results based on a panel dataset for the 50 Spanish provinces over the period 1980 to 2010 show that the lasting benefit of decentralization accrues only to regions which enjoy almost full fiscal and political powers and which are also among the richest regions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Decentralized Budgeting: Getting the Most Out of Disbursements of Funds.

Science.gov (United States)

Jefferson, Anne L.

1995-01-01

Decentralizing educational budgets allows the disbursement of funds aimed at maximizing student development. Three strategies for decentralizing budgets are program budgeting, which eliminates line-item budgeting and allows administrators to address questions regarding the relative value of educational programs; zero-based budgeting, which allows…

Centralization or decentralization of facial structures in Korean young adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Yoo, Ja-Young; Kim, Jeong-Nam; Shin, Kang-Jae; Kim, Soon-Heum; Choi, Hyun-Gon; Jeon, Hyun-Soo; Koh, Ki-Seok; Song, Wu-Chul

2013-05-01

It is well known that facial beauty is dictated by facial type, and harmony between the eyes, nose, and mouth. Furthermore, facial impression is judged according to the overall facial contour and the relationship between the facial structures. The aims of the present study were to determine the optimal criteria for the assessment of gathering or separation of the facial structures and to define standardized ratios for centralization or decentralization of the facial structures.Four different lengths were measured, and 2 indexes were calculated from standardized photographs of 551 volunteers. Centralization and decentralization were assessed using the width index (interpupillary distance / facial width) and height index (eyes-mouth distance / facial height). The mean ranges of the width index and height index were 42.0 to 45.0 and 36.0 to 39.0, respectively. The width index did not differ with sex, but males had more decentralized faces, and females had more centralized faces, vertically. The incidence rate of decentralized faces among the men was 30.3%, and that of centralized faces among the women was 25.2%.The mean ranges in width and height indexes have been determined in a Korean population. Faces with width and height index scores under and over the median ranges are determined to be "centralized" and "decentralized," respectively.

Economic Inequalities and the Level of Decentralization in European Countries: Cluster Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laboutková Šárka

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This submitted article identifies relations between the degree of decentralization and economic imbalances on the basis of a cluster (exploratory analysis. Two indicators have been chosen for measuring economic inequalities: an indicator of dispersion of regional GDP per capita as representative of the performance imbalances within countries (it measures the economic development gap among regions in European countries; and a multidimensional inequality-adjusted human development index as representative of inequalities in the distribution of wealth in the countries. Decentralization is measured by means of a decentralization index, which contains both quantitative and qualitative components. Although groups of countries characterised by a high degree of decentralization do not necessarily show the lowest degrees of economic imbalances, it is however possible to conclude that the countries in groups with a higher degree of decentralization are among those countries with more favourable values of the economic imbalances indicators monitored. As a part of the research, two clusters of countries were identified which are identical in their degree of decentralization, but differ in the results connected with economic imbalances. The differences are caused by different institutional qualities in the two groups.

Decentralized guaranteed cost static output feedback vibration control for piezoelectric smart structures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jiang, Jian-ping; Li, Dong-xu

2010-01-01

This paper is devoted to the study of the decentralized guaranteed cost static output feedback vibration control for piezoelectric smart structures. A smart panel with collocated piezoelectric actuators and velocity sensors is modeled using a finite element method, and then the size of the model is reduced in the state space using the modal Hankel singular value. The necessary and sufficient conditions of decentralized guaranteed cost static output feedback control for the reduced system have been presented. The decentralized and centralized static output feedback matrices can be obtained from solving two linear matrix inequalities. A comparison between centralized control and decentralized control is performed in order to investigate their effectiveness in suppressing vibration of a smart panel. Numerical results show that when the system is subjected to initial displacement or white noise disturbance, the decentralized and centralized controls are both very effective and the control results are very close

[Analysis of the healthcare service decentralization process in Côte d'Ivoire].

Science.gov (United States)

Soura, B D; Coulibaly, S S

2014-01-01

The decentralization of healthcare services is becoming increasingly important in strategies of public sector management. This concept is analyzed from various points of view, including legal, economic, political, and sociological. Several typologies have been proposed in the literature to analyze this decentralization process, which can take different forms ranging from simple deconcentration to more elaborate devolution. In some instances, decentralization can be analyzed by the degree of autonomy given to local authorities. This article applies these typologies to analyze the healthcare system decentralization process in Cote d'Ivoire. Special attention is paid to the new forms of community healthcare organizations. These decentralized structures enjoy a kind of autonomy, with characteristics closer to those of devolution. The model might serve as an example for population involvement in defining and managing healthcare problems in Cote d'Ivoire. We end with proposals for the improvement of the process.

Decentralized Gauss-Newton method for nonlinear least squares on wide area network

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Lanchao; Ling, Qing; Han, Zhu

2014-10-01

This paper presents a decentralized approach of Gauss-Newton (GN) method for nonlinear least squares (NLLS) on wide area network (WAN). In a multi-agent system, a centralized GN for NLLS requires the global GN Hessian matrix available at a central computing unit, which may incur large communication overhead. In the proposed decentralized alternative, each agent only needs local GN Hessian matrix to update iterates with the cooperation of neighbors. The detail formulation of decentralized NLLS on WAN is given, and the iteration at each agent is defined. The convergence property of the decentralized approach is analyzed, and numerical results validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Enhanced round robin CPU scheduling with burst time based time quantum

Science.gov (United States)

Indusree, J. R.; Prabadevi, B.

2017-11-01

Process scheduling is a very important functionality of Operating system. The main-known process-scheduling algorithms are First Come First Serve (FCFS) algorithm, Round Robin (RR) algorithm, Priority scheduling algorithm and Shortest Job First (SJF) algorithm. Compared to its peers, Round Robin (RR) algorithm has the advantage that it gives fair share of CPU to the processes which are already in the ready-queue. The effectiveness of the RR algorithm greatly depends on chosen time quantum value. Through this research paper, we are proposing an enhanced algorithm called Enhanced Round Robin with Burst-time based Time Quantum (ERRBTQ) process scheduling algorithm which calculates time quantum as per the burst-time of processes already in ready queue. The experimental results and analysis of ERRBTQ algorithm clearly indicates the improved performance when compared with conventional RR and its variants.

A Review of Characteristics and Experiences of Decentralization of Education

Science.gov (United States)

Mwinjuma, Juma Saidi; Kadir, Suhaida bte Abd.; Hamzah, Azimi; Basri, Ramli

2015-01-01

This paper scrutinizes decentralization of education with reference to some countries around the world. We consider discussion on decentralization to be complex, critical and broad question in the contemporary education planning, administration and politics of education reforms. Even though the debate on and implementation of decentralization…

Cooperative Strategies for Maximum-Flow Problem in Uncertain Decentralized Systems Using Reliability Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hadi Heidari Gharehbolagh

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This study investigates a multiowner maximum-flow network problem, which suffers from risky events. Uncertain conditions effect on proper estimation and ignoring them may mislead decision makers by overestimation. A key question is how self-governing owners in the network can cooperate with each other to maintain a reliable flow. Hence, the question is answered by providing a mathematical programming model based on applying the triangular reliability function in the decentralized networks. The proposed method concentrates on multiowner networks which suffer from risky time, cost, and capacity parameters for each network’s arcs. Some cooperative game methods such as τ-value, Shapley, and core center are presented to fairly distribute extra profit of cooperation. A numerical example including sensitivity analysis and the results of comparisons are presented. Indeed, the proposed method provides more reality in decision-making for risky systems, hence leading to significant profits in terms of real cost estimation when compared with unforeseen effects.

Decentralized energy studies: compendium of international studies and research

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wallace, C.

1980-03-01

The purpose of the compendium is to provide information about research activities in decentralized energy systems to researchers, government officials, and interested citizens. The compendium lists and briefly describes a number of studies in other industrialized nations that involve decentralized energy systems. A contact person is given for each of the activities listed so that interested readers can obtain more information.

The Politics of Fiscal Decentralization Revisited: a Typology and Comparative Evidence

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jorge P. Gordin

2009-06-01

Full Text Available Although the practice of fiscal decentralization is worldwide and its implementation and effects vary from country to country, its political significance has been often neglected, or worse, treated as implicit to decentralization. This study considers the sources of politicization of fiscal decentralization, focusing on the determination and manipulation of intergovernmental transfers. It develops a new index of fiscal politicization and proposes an explanatory typology that takes into account subnational transfer dependency and the extent to which transfers are politically determined. This analysis renders a conceptual tool that captures nuanced facts about the intergovernmental level of conflict to a larger extent than conventional measures of fiscal decentralization do. We found that the effects of fiscal dependency are intertwined with political asymmetries derived from legislative overrepresentation of territorial units and intergovernmental bargaining strategies.

Regional Development and Decentralization – two Options to Overcome Lack of Funding

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dubravka JURLINA ALIBEGOVIC

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Decentralization can be generally described as a process in which selected functions are assigned to sub-national units. The literature identifies a number of positive consequences of decentralization which all lead to a better satisfaction of citizens’ needs for public services. Although the decentralization process in Croatia started more than ten years ago, it has not yet been completed. While leading to a new allocation of authorities and responsibilities to local government units, the level of fiscal decentralization remained lower than in the EU countries.In this paper we analyze the fiscal capacity of local government units to provide an insight into the main problems of decentralization in Croatia. We show that most local government units have very low fiscal capacity, which is insufficient for financing basic public functions with their own resources. The paper presents the results of a survey relating to the decentralization process conducted among local councilors at the regional level in Croatia. We explore how local councilors at the regional level evaluate different goals of decentralization. With the lack of fiscal capacity in mind, we identify two possible solutions for an optimal provision of public functions. The first one is the level of political will for a joint provision of public functions by different local units, and the second one is a change in the territorial organization of the country. We measure the difference in the attitudes toward these questions across counties.

Decentralization in Zambia: resource allocation and district performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Bossert, Thomas; Chitah, Mukosha Bona; Bowser, Diana

2003-12-01

Zambia implemented an ambitious process of health sector decentralization in the mid 1990s. This article presents an assessment of the degree of decentralization, called 'decision space', that was allowed to districts in Zambia, and an analysis of data on districts available at the national level to assess allocation choices made by local authorities and some indicators of the performance of the health systems under decentralization. The Zambian officials in health districts had a moderate range of choice over expenditures, user fees, contracting, targeting and governance. Their choices were quite limited over salaries and allowances and they did not have control over additional major sources of revenue, like local taxes. The study found that the formula for allocation of government funding which was based on population size and hospital beds resulted in relatively equal per capita expenditures among districts. Decentralization allowed the districts to make decisions on internal allocation of resources and on user fee levels and expenditures. General guidelines for the allocation of resources established a maximum and minimum percentage to be allocated to district offices, hospitals, health centres and communities. Districts tended to exceed the maximum for district offices, but the large urban districts and those without public district hospitals were not even reaching the minimum for hospital allocations. Wealthier and urban districts were more successful in raising revenue through user fees, although the proportion of total expenditures that came from user fees was low. An analysis of available indicators of performance, such as the utilization of health services, immunization coverage and family planning activities, found little variation during the period 1995-98 except for a decline in immunization coverage, which may have also been affected by changes in donor funding. These findings suggest that decentralization may not have had either a positive or

To what extent Fair Value is Fair, an Analysis of Reliability and Relevance of the Fair Value Accounting Paradigm.

OpenAIRE

Dugarte, Rafael

2006-01-01

To what extent Fair Value is Fair, an Analysis of Reliability and Relevance of the Fair Value Accounting Paradigm. Rafael Dugarte Escalante September, 2006 Fair value accounting is fair and important for financial reporting in providing relevant, reliable, comparable and understandable information to the users depending on what kind of information is expected from it, and the way in which fair value is actually found. This study complemen...

Decentralized control: An overview

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Bakule, Lubomír

2008-01-01

Roč. 32, č. 1 (2008), s. 87-98 ISSN 1367-5788 R&D Projects: GA AV ČR(CZ) IAA200750802; GA MŠk(CZ) LA 282 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z10750506 Keywords : decentralized control * large-scale systems * decomposition Subject RIV: BC - Control Systems Theory Impact factor: 1.109, year: 2008

Economic analysis of centralized vs. decentralized electronic data capture in multi-center clinical studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Walden, Anita; Nahm, Meredith; Barnett, M Edwina; Conde, Jose G; Dent, Andrew; Fadiel, Ahmed; Perry, Theresa; Tolk, Chris; Tcheng, James E; Eisenstein, Eric L

2011-01-01

New data management models are emerging in multi-center clinical studies. We evaluated the incremental costs associated with decentralized vs. centralized models. We developed clinical research network economic models to evaluate three data management models: centralized, decentralized with local software, and decentralized with shared database. Descriptive information from three clinical research studies served as inputs for these models. The primary outcome was total data management costs. Secondary outcomes included: data management costs for sites, local data centers, and central coordinating centers. Both decentralized models were more costly than the centralized model for each clinical research study: the decentralized with local software model was the most expensive. Decreasing the number of local data centers and case book pages reduced cost differentials between models. Decentralized vs. centralized data management in multi-center clinical research studies is associated with increases in data management costs.

Reliable Decentralized Control of Fuzzy Discrete-Event Systems and a Test Algorithm.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Fuchun; Dziong, Zbigniew

2013-02-01

A framework for decentralized control of fuzzy discrete-event systems (FDESs) has been recently presented to guarantee the achievement of a given specification under the joint control of all local fuzzy supervisors. As a continuation, this paper addresses the reliable decentralized control of FDESs in face of possible failures of some local fuzzy supervisors. Roughly speaking, for an FDES equipped with n local fuzzy supervisors, a decentralized supervisor is called k-reliable (1 ≤ k ≤ n) provided that the control performance will not be degraded even when n - k local fuzzy supervisors fail. A necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of k-reliable decentralized supervisors of FDESs is proposed by introducing the notions of M̃uc-controllability and k-reliable coobservability of fuzzy language. In particular, a polynomial-time algorithm to test the k-reliable coobservability is developed by a constructive methodology, which indicates that the existence of k-reliable decentralized supervisors of FDESs can be checked with a polynomial complexity.

Community Development in the context of the power decentralization in Ukraine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. P. Berezinskiy

2017-03-01

Full Text Available The aim of the study is to define opportunities of development of the community in the implementation of the power decentralization reform in Ukraine. It has been shown that the principle of decentralization provides for territorial and political unity of the state by a legal delimitation of powers between central government agencies and regional public authorities (or local authorities. It makes it clear that the issue of power decentralization in Ukraine has a constitutional and legal framework, as the Main Law states that the power system is based on a combination of centralization and decentralization. The requirement of power decentralization has been constitutionally justified. It has been revealed that according to the State Regional Development Strategy, the following priorities of the state regional policy are: increase of the competitiveness of regions; territorial socio-economic integration and spatial development; effective governance in regional development. It has been disclosed that in Ukraine the deepening of the decentralization is aimed at the strengthening of the role of local self-government, empowerment of the representative authorities of local communities to get more authority for managing local affairs, deprivation of local power authorities for the preparation and fulfilment of budgets in regions, the transfer of significant powers and financial resources from government to local self-governmental authorities. It has been proved that decentralization contributes to the democratization of the local government and the development of local community as the ultimate goals of the reform of the power decentralization are the creation and maintenance of good living environment for citizens. This reform should correspond to interests of citizens in all spheres of life, and it must support on the relevant territory. In this regard, series of legislative acts were adopted («On a voluntary association of local communities», �

Decentralization and Distribution Primary Education Access in Indonesia 2014

OpenAIRE

Benita, Novinaz

2016-01-01

This paper examines decentralisation and distribution of access to primary school in Indonesia. Data come from Indonesia National Socio Economic Survey 2014, and statistic reports from Ministry of education, Ministry Of Finance, and General Election Commision. Descriptive statistic is used to describe spatial distribution of decentralization in primary education system and distribution of primary education access. The results show there are districts disparities in decentralization of primary...

Emergent Semantics Interoperability in Large-Scale Decentralized Information Systems

CERN Document Server

Cudré-Mauroux, Philippe

2008-01-01

Peer-to-peer systems are evolving with new information-system architectures, leading to the idea that the principles of decentralization and self-organization will offer new approaches in informatics, especially for systems that scale with the number of users or for which central authorities do not prevail. This book describes a new way of building global agreements (semantic interoperability) based only on decentralized, self-organizing interactions.

On decentralized adaptive full-order sliding mode control of multiple UAVs.

Science.gov (United States)

Xiang, Xianbo; Liu, Chao; Su, Housheng; Zhang, Qin

2017-11-01

In this study, a novel decentralized adaptive full-order sliding mode control framework is proposed for the robust synchronized formation motion of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) subject to system uncertainty. First, a full-order sliding mode surface in a decentralized manner is designed to incorporate both the individual position tracking error and the synchronized formation error while the UAV group is engaged in building a certain desired geometric pattern in three dimensional space. Second, a decentralized virtual plant controller is constructed which allows the embedded low-pass filter to attain the chattering free property of the sliding mode controller. In addition, robust adaptive technique is integrated in the decentralized chattering free sliding control design in order to handle unknown bounded uncertainties, without requirements for assuming a priori knowledge of bounds on the system uncertainties as stated in conventional chattering free control methods. Subsequently, system robustness as well as stability of the decentralized full-order sliding mode control of multiple UAVs is synthesized. Numerical simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control framework to achieve robust 3D formation flight of the multi-UAV system. Copyright © 2017 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

(De)Centralization of Public Procurement at the Local Level in the EU

OpenAIRE

Boštjan BREZOVNIK; Žan Jan OPLOTNIK; Borut VOJINOVIĆ

2015-01-01

The so-called decentralization of public procurement in EU Member States is accepted as the most suitable design of the public procurement system, often justifi ed by greater economic effi ciency and by the possibility of boosting the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, which act on the public procurement market as providers of goods, services and works. Despite the existence of highly decentralized public procurement systems which refl ect the decentralization of administrativ...

Fair play in energy policy decisions: Procedural fairness, outcome fairness and acceptance of the decision to rebuild nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Visschers, Vivianne H.M.; Siegrist, Michael

2012-01-01

To raise public acceptance of new energy policies, promoting the fairness of the outcomes and of the decision-making procedure has been suggested. Very few studies have examined the role of fairness in public acceptance of rebuilding nuclear power plants. Therefore, using a large mail survey, we investigated the public’s acceptance of the decision to rebuild nuclear power plants in Switzerland by 2020. The study examined the influence of procedural fairness and outcome fairness on the acceptance of this decision, as well as other factors such as risk perception and benefit perception. Additionally, we investigated the moderating influence of general attitudes towards nuclear power on the relation between fairness and decision acceptance. Results indicated that outcome fairness strongly increased decision acceptance, along with general attitudes towards nuclear power and perceived economic benefits. Procedural fairness had only a small impact on decision acceptance. The influence of fairness on decision acceptance did not seem to depend on general nuclear attitudes. Our findings imply that, in the case of rebuilding nuclear power plants, perceived benefits and outcome fairness are important determinants of acceptance of the decision, while procedural fairness only has a limited impact. - Highlights: ► We investigated the role of fairness in the acceptance of a nuclear policy decision. ► Outcome fairness strongly influenced decision acceptance regarding nuclear power plants. ► The role of procedural fairness was relatively small in this respect. ► Also, nuclear attitudes and perceived economic benefits affected decision acceptance. ► Outcome fairness seems more relevant for decision acceptance than procedural fairness.

Joint Scheduling for Dual-Hop Block-Fading Broadcast Channels

KAUST Repository

Zafar, Ammar

2012-09-16

In this paper, we propose joint user-and-hop scheduling over dual-hop block-fading broadcast channels in order to exploit multi-user diversity gains and multi-hop diversity gains all together. To achieve this objective, the first and second hops are scheduled opportunistically based on the channel state information and as a prerequisite we assume that the relay, which is half-duplex and operates using decode-and-forward, is capable of storing the received packets from the source until the channel condition of the destined user becomes good to be scheduled. We formulate the joint scheduling problem as maximizing the weighted sum of the long term achievable rates by the users under a stability constraint, which means that on the long term the rate received by the relay should equal the rate transmitted by it, in addition to constant or variable power constraints. We show that this problem is equivalent to a single-hop broadcast channel by treating the source as a virtual user with an optimal priority weight that maintains the stability constraint. We show how to obtain the source weight either off-line based on channel statistics or on real-time based on channel measurements. Furthermore, we consider special cases including the maximum sum rate scheduler and the proportional fair scheduler. We demonstrate via numerical results that our proposed joint scheduling scheme enlarges the rate region as compared with a scheme that employs multi-user scheduling alone.

DECENTRALIZATION OF PUBLIC AND LOCAL AUTHORITIES IN UKRAINE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lyudmila Pron’ko

2016-11-01

Full Text Available The purpose of research is to examine the purpose of a modern system of local government in Ukraine, scientific analysis of the feasibility and benefits of implemented reforms for decentralization and subsidiary of local authorities, decentralization of public power and public control, and the need to strengthen the political status of local governments. Methodology. The methodological base for research on decentralization and local government reforms to strengthen the political status of local government and decentralization of public power is the Constitution of Ukraine, Laws of Ukraine, Decrees of the President of Ukraine, as well as publications on these issues of domestic and foreign authors. As a result (Results study determined that according to Article 5 of the Law of Ukraine “On local government in Ukraine” The elements of local government are: local community; Village, town, city council; Village, town, city mayor; executive bodies of village, town and city councils; district (in the city Council, created in cities with district division by the decision of the territorial community, or city council; district and regional councils, which represent common interests of territorial communities of villages, towns and cities; BSP; system of government in Ukraine is not fulfilling the role assigned to it, because there is twofold subordination and uncertainty powers of representative and executive bodies. Today there is a three-level administrative division: basic level (village, town or city, district level and level area. There is a local government council and executive body (all the decisions and programs approved by the Regional Council performed by RSA, those public authorities. Thus there is a need for continued reform of local government on the principles of decentralization and subsidiary principle because they are building the foundation of the state; One of the hallmarks of a modern democratic society has become political

Jealousy Graphs: Structure and Complexity of Decentralized Stable Matching

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-01

REPORT Jealousy Graphs: Structure and Complexity of Decentralized Stable Matching 14. ABSTRACT 16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: The stable matching...Franceschetti 858-822-2284 3. DATES COVERED (From - To) Standard Form 298 (Rev 8/98) Prescribed by ANSI Std. Z39.18 - Jealousy Graphs: Structure and...market. Using this structure, we are able to provide a ner analysis of the complexity of a subclass of decentralized matching markets. Jealousy

Computational State Transfer: An Architectural Style for Decentralized Systems

OpenAIRE

Gorlick, Michael Martin

2016-01-01

A decentralized system is a distributed system that operates under multiple, distinct spheres of authority in which collaboration among the principals is characterized by mutual distrust. Now commonplace, decentralized systems appear in a number of disparate domains: commerce, logistics, medicine, software development, manufacturing, and financial trading to name but a few. These systems of systems face two overlapping demands: security and safety to protect against errors, omissions and thre...

Decentralized investment management: evidence from the pension fund industry

OpenAIRE

Blake, David; Timmermann, Allan; Tonks, Ian; Wermers, Russ

2010-01-01

The past few decades have seen amajor shift from centralized to decentralized investment management by pension fund sponsors, despite the increased coordination problems that this brings. Using a unique, proprietary dataset of pension sponsors and managers, we identify two secular decentralization trends: sponsors switched (i) from generalist (balanced) to specialist managers across asset classes and (ii) from single to multiple competing managers within each asset class. We study the effe...

Query Optimizations over Decentralized RDF Graphs

KAUST Repository

Abdelaziz, Ibrahim

2017-05-18

Applications in life sciences, decentralized social networks, Internet of Things, and statistical linked dataspaces integrate data from multiple decentralized RDF graphs via SPARQL queries. Several approaches have been proposed to optimize query processing over a small number of heterogeneous data sources by utilizing schema information. In the case of schema similarity and interlinks among sources, these approaches cause unnecessary data retrieval and communication, leading to poor scalability and response time. This paper addresses these limitations and presents Lusail, a system for scalable and efficient SPARQL query processing over decentralized graphs. Lusail achieves scalability and low query response time through various optimizations at compile and run times. At compile time, we use a novel locality-aware query decomposition technique that maximizes the number of query triple patterns sent together to a source based on the actual location of the instances satisfying these triple patterns. At run time, we use selectivity-awareness and parallel query execution to reduce network latency and to increase parallelism by delaying the execution of subqueries expected to return large results. We evaluate Lusail using real and synthetic benchmarks, with data sizes up to billions of triples on an in-house cluster and a public cloud. We show that Lusail outperforms state-of-the-art systems by orders of magnitude in terms of scalability and response time.

Decentralized energy policy turnaround. Opportunities and challenges; Dezentrale Energiewende. Chancen und Herausforderungen

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Eiselt, Juergen

2012-07-01

This book supplies a comprehensive inventory of an already beginning decentralized energy policy turnaround. The potentials of an effective energy policy turnaround are described by means of present structures, technologies and scientifically proven results. The book presents new technologies and effective concepts in order to replace the centralised energy supply by decentralized structures. The reduction of expenses and energy-autonomous systems up to the zero-tariff heating are the main impulses for the utilization of decentralized forms of energy.

Decentralized H∞ Control of Interconnected Systems with Time-varying Delays

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Amal Zouhri

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This paper focuses on the problem of delay dependent stability/stabilization of interconnected systems with time-varying delays. The approach is based on a new Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional. A decentralized delay-dependent stability analysis is performed to characterize linear matrix inequalities (LMIs based on the conditions under which every local subsystem of the linear interconnected delay system is asymptotically stable. Then we design a decentralized state-feedback stabilization scheme such that the family of closedloop feedback subsystems enjoys the delay-dependent asymptotic stability for each subsystem. The decentralized feedback gains are determined by convex optimization over LMIs. All the developed results are tested on a representative example and compared with some recent previous ones.

Decentralized control: Status and outlook

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Bakule, Lubomír

2014-01-01

Roč. 38, č. 1 (2014), s. 71-80 ISSN 1367-5788 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA13-02149S Institutional support: RVO:67985556 Keywords : decentralized control * networked control systems * event-triggered approach Subject RIV: BC - Control Systems Theory Impact factor: 2.518, year: 2014

Validity and Fairness

Science.gov (United States)

Kane, Michael

2010-01-01

This paper presents the author's critique on Xiaoming Xi's article, "How do we go about investigating test fairness?," which lays out a broad framework for studying fairness as comparable validity across groups within the population of interest. Xi proposes to develop a fairness argument that would identify and evaluate potential fairness-based…

Decentralization – the way of democratization and modernization of the Republic of Moldova

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Iurie ŢAP

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Decentralization as a way of organizing a state represents the path to its democratization and effectiveness. Furthermore, territorial decentralization establishes the relations between state and local communities, and in order to be efficient some fundamental theoretic conditions should be respected, guidelines followed and two great balances achieved. Generally, an appropriate decentralization can be a catalyst for development and a remedy to overcome internal crises.

Cross-layer optimized rate adaptation and scheduling for multiple-user wireless video streaming

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ozcelebi, T.; Sunay, M.O.; Tekalp, A.M.; Civanlar, M.R.

2007-01-01

We present a cross-layer optimized video rate adaptation and user scheduling scheme for multi-user wireless video streaming aiming for maximum quality of service (QoS) for each user,, maximum system video throughput, and QoS fairness among users. These objectives are jointly optimized using a

Corruption, accountability, and decentralization: theory and evidence from Mexico

OpenAIRE

Goodspeed, Timothy J.

2011-01-01

One of the fundamental tenets of fiscal federalism is that, absent various sorts of externalities, decentralized governments that rely on own-source revenues should be more fiscally efficient than decentralized governments that rely on grant financing. The argument relies in part on the idea that sub-national governments, being closer to the people, are more accountable to its citizens. Accountability to citizens is also important in understanding the presence of corruption in government. Thi...

PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF AI BASED QOS SCHEDULER FOR MOBILE WIMAX

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

D. David Neels Pon Kumar

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Interest in broadband wireless access (BWA has been growing due to increased user mobility and the need for data access at all times. IEEE 802.16e based WiMAX networks promise the best available quality of experience for mobile data service users. WiMAX networks incorporate several Quality of Service (QoS mechanisms at the Media Access Control (MAC level for guaranteed services for multimedia viz. data, voice and video. The problem of assuring QoS is how to allocate available resources among users to meet the QoS criteria such as delay, delay jitter, fairness and throughput requirements. IEEE standard does not include a standard scheduling mechanism and leaves it for various implementer differentiations. Although a lot of the real-time and non real-time packet scheduling schemes has been proposed, it needs to be modified to apply to Mobile WiMAX system that supports five kinds of service classes. In this paper, we propose a novel Priority based Scheduling scheme that uses Artificial Intelligence to support various services by considering the QoS constraints of each class. The simulation results show that slow mobility does not affect the performances and faster mobility and the increment in users beyond a particular load have their say in defining average throughput, average per user throughput, fairness index, average end to end delay and average delay jitter. Nevertheless the results are encouraging that the proposed scheme provides QoS support for each class efficiently.

4 CFR 21.10 - Express options, flexible alternative procedures, accelerated schedules, summary decisions, and...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... alternative procedures to promptly and fairly resolve a protest, including alternative dispute resolution... 4 Accounts 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Express options, flexible alternative procedures... alternative procedures, accelerated schedules, summary decisions, and status and other conferences. (a) At the...

Peer Matcher : Decentralized Partnership Formation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bozdog, Nicolae Vladimir; Voulgaris, Spyros; Bal, Henri; van Halteren, Aart

2015-01-01

This paper presents Peer Matcher, a fully decentralized algorithm solving the k-clique matching problem. The aim of k-clique matching is to cluster a set of nodes having pair wise weights into k-size groups of maximal total weight. Since solving the problem requires exponential time, Peer Matcher

Music Libraries: Centralization versus Decentralization.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuyper-Rushing, Lois

2002-01-01

Considers the decision that branch libraries, music libraries in particular, have struggled with concerning a centralized location in the main library versus a decentralized collection. Reports on a study of the Association of Research Libraries that investigated the location of music libraries, motivation for the location, degrees offered,…

PeerMatcher: Decentralized Partnership Formation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bozdog, N.V.; Voulgaris, S.; Bal, H.E.; van Halteren, A.

2015-01-01

This paper presents PeerMatcher, a fully decentralized algorithm solving the k-clique matching problem. The aim of k-clique matching is to cluster a set of nodes having pairwise weights into k-size groups of maximal total weight. Since solving the problem requires exponential time, PeerMatcher

Comparative LCA of decentralized wastewater treatment alternatives for non-potable urban reuse.

Science.gov (United States)

Opher, Tamar; Friedler, Eran

2016-11-01

Municipal wastewater (WW) effluent represents a reliable and significant source for reclaimed water, very much needed nowadays. Water reclamation and reuse has become an attractive option for conserving and extending available water sources. The decentralized approach to domestic WW treatment benefits from the advantages of source separation, which makes available simple small-scale systems and on-site reuse, which can be constructed on a short time schedule and occasionally upgraded with new technological developments. In this study we perform a Life Cycle Assessment to compare between the environmental impacts of four alternatives for a hypothetical city's water-wastewater service system. The baseline alternative is the most common, centralized approach for WW treatment, in which WW is conveyed to and treated in a large wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) and is then discharged to a stream. The three alternatives represent different scales of distribution of the WW treatment phase, along with urban irrigation and domestic non-potable water reuse (toilet flushing). The first alternative includes centralized treatment at a WWTP, with part of the reclaimed WW (RWW) supplied back to the urban consumers. The second and third alternatives implement de-centralized greywater (GW) treatment with local reuse, one at cluster level (320 households) and one at building level (40 households). Life cycle impact assessment results show a consistent disadvantage of the prevailing centralized approach under local conditions in Israel, where seawater desalination is the marginal source of water supply. The alternative of source separation and GW reuse at cluster level seems to be the most preferable one, though its environmental performance is only slightly better than GW reuse at building level. Centralized WW treatment with urban reuse of WWTP effluents is not advantageous over decentralized treatment of GW because the supply of RWW back to consumers is very costly in materials and

Decentralization's impact on the health workforce: Perspectives of managers, workers and national leaders

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kolehmainen-Aitken Riitta-Liisa

2004-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Designers and implementers of decentralization and other reform measures have focused much attention on financial and structural reform measures, but ignored their human resource implications. Concern is mounting about the impact that the reallocation of roles and responsibilities has had on the health workforce and its management, but the experiences and lessons of different countries have not been widely shared. This paper examines evidence from published literature on decentralization's impact on the demand side of the human resource equation, as well as the factors that have contributed to the impact. The elements that make such an impact analysis exceptionally complex are identified. They include the mode of decentralization that a country is implementing, the level of responsibility for the salary budget and pay determination, and the civil service status of transferred health workers. The main body of the paper is devoted to examining decentralization's impact on human resource issues from three different perspectives: that of local health managers, health workers themselves, and national health leaders. These three groups have different concerns in the human resource realm, and consequently, have been differently affected by decentralization processes. The paper concludes with recommendations regarding three key concerns that national authorities and international agencies should give prompt attention to. They are (1 defining the essential human resource policy, planning and management skills for national human resource managers who work in decentralized countries, and developing training programs to equip them with such skills; (2 supporting research that focuses on improving the knowledge base of how different modes of decentralization impact on staffing equity; and (3 identifying factors that most critically influence health worker motivation and performance under decentralization, and documenting the most cost-effective best

Decentralization's impact on the health workforce: Perspectives of managers, workers and national leaders.

Science.gov (United States)

Kolehmainen-Aitken, Riitta-Liisa

2004-05-14

Designers and implementers of decentralization and other reform measures have focused much attention on financial and structural reform measures, but ignored their human resource implications. Concern is mounting about the impact that the reallocation of roles and responsibilities has had on the health workforce and its management, but the experiences and lessons of different countries have not been widely shared. This paper examines evidence from published literature on decentralization's impact on the demand side of the human resource equation, as well as the factors that have contributed to the impact. The elements that make such an impact analysis exceptionally complex are identified. They include the mode of decentralization that a country is implementing, the level of responsibility for the salary budget and pay determination, and the civil service status of transferred health workers.The main body of the paper is devoted to examining decentralization's impact on human resource issues from three different perspectives: that of local health managers, health workers themselves, and national health leaders. These three groups have different concerns in the human resource realm, and consequently, have been differently affected by decentralization processes. The paper concludes with recommendations regarding three key concerns that national authorities and international agencies should give prompt attention to. They are (1) defining the essential human resource policy, planning and management skills for national human resource managers who work in decentralized countries, and developing training programs to equip them with such skills; (2) supporting research that focuses on improving the knowledge base of how different modes of decentralization impact on staffing equity; and (3) identifying factors that most critically influence health worker motivation and performance under decentralization, and documenting the most cost-effective best practices to improve them

Decentralized Economic Dispatch Scheme With Online Power Reserve for Microgrids

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nutkani, I. U.; Loh, Poh Chiang; Wang, P.

2017-01-01

Decentralized economic operation schemes have several advantages when compared with the traditional centralized management system for microgrids. Specifically, decentralized schemes are more flexible, less computationally intensive, and easier to implement without relying on communication...... costs, their power ratings, and other necessary constraints, before deciding the DG dispatch priorities and droop characteristics. The proposed scheme also allows online power reserve to be set and regulated within the microgrid. This, together with the generation cost saved, has been verified...... infrastructure. Economic operation of existing decentralized schemes is also usually achieved by either tuning the droop characteristics of distributed generators (DGs) or prioritizing their dispatch order. For the latter, an earlier scheme has tried to prioritize the DG dispatch based on their no...

Shorter Decentralized Attribute-Based Encryption via Extended Dual System Groups

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jie Zhang

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Decentralized attribute-based encryption (ABE is a special form of multiauthority ABE systems, in which no central authority and global coordination are required other than creating the common reference parameters. In this paper, we propose a new decentralized ABE in prime-order groups by using extended dual system groups. We formulate some assumptions used to prove the security of our scheme. Our proposed scheme is fully secure under the standard k-Lin assumption in random oracle model and can support any monotone access structures. Compared with existing fully secure decentralized ABE systems, our construction has shorter ciphertexts and secret keys. Moreover, fast decryption is achieved in our system, in which ciphertexts can be decrypted with a constant number of pairings.

Decentralized Optimization for a Novel Control Structure of HVAC System

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Shiqiang Wang

2016-01-01

Full Text Available A decentralized control structure is introduced into the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC system to solve the high maintenance and labor cost problem in actual engineering. Based on this new control system, a decentralized optimization method is presented for sensor fault repair and optimal group control of HVAC equipment. Convergence property of the novel method is theoretically analyzed considering both convex and nonconvex systems with constraints. In this decentralized control system, traditional device is fitted with a control chip such that it becomes a smart device. The smart device can communicate and operate collaboratively with the other devices to accomplish some designated tasks. The effectiveness of the presented method is verified by simulations and hardware tests.

The Dynamics of Decentralization Arrangements in Indonesia Constitutional System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Haposan Siallagan

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Local autonomy has long been implemented in Indonesia and has been experiencing a number of phases within governmental system. This writing is intended to fathom the dynamics of decentralization arrangement indeed. The discussion it-self shows that according to the substances in a number of decentralization policy which had/has been issued, the dynamics of local autonomy arrangements (as regulated in many decentralization policies are inclining to be captured in a broad meaning, which is frequently known as a broadest local autonomy. Through local autonomy mechanism, local governments are given a flexibility in order to manage and administer their own domestic household. In order to maximize the implementation of widest local autonomy, local government has to be pushed to be well prepared in handling many local governmental tasks. Such preparations are related to human resources capacity, the competences in running the tasks, and financial management capacity.

Evaluation of Meta scheduler Architectures and Task assignment Policies for High throughput Computing

CERN Document Server

Caron, E; Tsaregorodtsev, A Yu

2006-01-01

In this paper we present a model and simulator for many clusters of heterogeneous PCs belonging to a local network. These clusters are assumed to be connected to each other through a global network and each cluster is managed via a local scheduler which is shared by many users. We validate our simulator by comparing the experimental and analytical results of a M/M/4 queuing system. These studies indicate that the simulator is consistent. Next, we do the comparison with a real batch system and we obtain an average error of 10.5\\% for the response time and 12\\% for the makespan. We conclude that the simulator is realistic and well describes the behaviour of a large-scale system. Thus we can study the scheduling of our system called \\dirac in a high throughput context. We justify our decentralized, adaptive and opportunistic approach in comparison to a centralized approach in such a context.

Decentralized substations for low-temperature district heating with no Legionella risk, and low return temperatures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yang, Xiaochen; Li, Hongwei; Svendsen, Svend

2016-01-01

To improve energy efficiency and give more access to renewable energy sources, low-temperature district heating (LTDH) is a promising concept to be realized in the future. However, concern about Legionella proliferation restricts applying low-temperature district heating in conventional systems with domestic hot water (DHW) circulation. In this study, a system with decentralized substations was analysed as a solution to this problem. Furthermore, a modification for the decentralized substation system were proposed in order to reduce the average return temperature. Models of conventional system with medium-temperature district heating, decentralized substation system with LTDH, and innovative decentralized substation system with LTDH were built based on the information of a case building. The annual distribution heat loss and the operating costs of the three scenarios were calculated and compared. From the results, realizing LTDH by the decentralized substation unit, 30% of the annual distribution heat loss inside the building can be saved compared to a conventional system with medium-temperature district heating. Replacing the bypass pipe with an in-line supply pipe and a heat pump, the innovative decentralized substation system can reduce distribution heat loss by 39% compared to the conventional system and by 12% compared to the normal decentralized substation system with bypass. - Highlights: • The system of decentralized substations can realize low-temperature district heating without running the risk of Legionella. • Decentralized substations help reduce the distribution heat loss inside the building compared to conventional system. • A new concept that can reduce the return temperature for district heating is proposed and analysed.

Centralized vs. decentralized child mental health services.

Science.gov (United States)

Adams, M S

1977-09-01

One of the basic tenets of the Community Mental Health Center movement is that services should be provided in the consumers' community. Various centers across the country have attempted to do this in either a centralized or decentralized fashion. Historically, most health services have been provided centrally, a good example being the traditional general hospital with its centralized medical services. Over the years, some of these services have become decentralized to take the form of local health centers, health maintenance organizations, community clinics, etc, and now various large mental health centers are also being broken down into smaller community units. An example of each type of mental health facility is delineated here.

Decentralized control of discrete-time linear time invariant systems with input saturation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Deliu, C.; Deliu, Ciprian; Malek, Babak; Roy, Sandip; Saberi, Ali; Stoorvogel, Antonie Arij

We study decentralized stabilization of discrete-time linear time invariant (LTI) systems subject to actuator saturation, using LTI controllers. The requirement of stabilization under both saturation constraints and decentralization impose obvious necessary conditions on the open-loop plant, namely

Decentralized control of discrete-time linear time invariant systems with input saturation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Deliu, Ciprian; Deliu, C.; Malek, Babak; Roy, Sandip; Saberi, Ali; Stoorvogel, Antonie Arij

2009-01-01

We study decentralized stabilization of discrete time linear time invariant (LTI) systems subject to actuator saturation, using LTI controllers. The requirement of stabilization under both saturation constraints and decentralization impose obvious necessary conditions on the open-loop plant, namely

Decentralizing conservation and diversifying livelihoods within Kanchenjunga Conservation Area, Nepal.

Science.gov (United States)

Parker, Pete; Thapa, Brijesh; Jacob, Aerin

2015-12-01

To alleviate poverty and enhance conservation in resource dependent communities, managers must identify existing livelihood strategies and the associated factors that impede household access to livelihood assets. Researchers increasingly advocate reallocating management power from exclusionary central institutions to a decentralized system of management based on local and inclusive participation. However, it is yet to be shown if decentralizing conservation leads to diversified livelihoods within a protected area. The purpose of this study was to identify and assess factors affecting household livelihood diversification within Nepal's Kanchenjunga Conservation Area Project, the first protected area in Asia to decentralize conservation. We randomly surveyed 25% of Kanchenjunga households to assess household socioeconomic and demographic characteristics and access to livelihood assets. We used a cluster analysis with the ten most common income generating activities (both on- and off-farm) to group the strategies households use to diversify livelihoods, and a multinomial logistic regression to identify predictors of livelihood diversification. We found four distinct groups of household livelihood strategies with a range of diversification that directly corresponded to household income. The predictors of livelihood diversification were more related to pre-existing socioeconomic and demographic factors (e.g., more landholdings and livestock, fewer dependents, receiving remittances) than activities sponsored by decentralizing conservation (e.g., microcredit, training, education, interaction with project staff). Taken together, our findings indicate that without direct policies to target marginalized groups, decentralized conservation in Kanchenjunga will continue to exclude marginalized groups, limiting a household's ability to diversify their livelihood and perpetuating their dependence on natural resources. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

THE DECENTRALIZATION PROCESS IN ROMANIA HAS BEEN AFFECTED BY THE FINANCIAL CRISIS OR NOT; ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OR AGAINST DECENTRALIZATION IN THE MANAGEMENT OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

OLIVIA MANOLE

2012-12-01

Full Text Available Typically, the decentralization process is extremely complicated and involves many challenges, if we were to take into account local conflicts, the interests of the central government and the complexity of simultaneous decentralization in administrative, political and economic plan. The financial crisis has added another dimension to the complexity of this phenomenon, misbalancing the economy and creating a fiscal pressure both at central and local level. In this context it rises the problem whether the management of the financial crisis can be better realised within a decentralized system or whether it may lay pressure on the return to the centralized government form.

Agent-based Decentralization of Applications in Distributed Smart Grid Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kienesberger, Georg; Xypolytou, Evangelia; Marchgraber, Jurgen

2015-01-01

systems (DMACS) and aims to give an overview on the different requirements and challenges on the way from current centralized control systems to DMACS. Therefore, different ICT scenarios and MAS topologies are employed to discuss the decentralization of three exemplary smart grid applications: voltage......Smart grid technology promises to prepare today’s power systems for the challenges of the future by extensive integration of information and communication technology (ICT). One key aspect is the control paradigm which will have to be shifted from completely centralized control systems to more...... dezentralized concepts in order to adapt to the distributed nature of smart grids. Multi-agent systems (MAS) are a very promising approach for designing distributed, decentralized systems, naturally also in the field of smart grids. This work introduces the notion of decentralized multi-agent-based control...

Decentralized forest governance in central Vietnam

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tran Nam, T.; Burgers, P.P.M.

2012-01-01

A major challenge in decentralized forest governance in Vietnam is developing a mechanism that would support both reforestation and poverty reduction among people in rural communities. To help address this challenge, Forest Land Allocation (FLA) policies recognize local communities and individuals

OL-DEC-MDP Model for Multiagent Online Scheduling with a Time-Dependent Probability of Success

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cheng Zhu

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Focusing on the on-line multiagent scheduling problem, this paper considers the time-dependent probability of success and processing duration and proposes an OL-DEC-MDP (opportunity loss-decentralized Markov Decision Processes model to include opportunity loss into scheduling decision to improve overall performance. The success probability of job processing as well as the process duration is dependent on the time at which the processing is started. The probability of completing the assigned job by an agent would be higher when the process is started earlier, but the opportunity loss could also be high due to the longer engaging duration. As a result, OL-DEC-MDP model introduces a reward function considering the opportunity loss, which is estimated based on the prediction of the upcoming jobs by a sampling method on the job arrival. Heuristic strategies are introduced in computing the best starting time for an incoming job by each agent, and an incoming job will always be scheduled to the agent with the highest reward among all agents with their best starting policies. The simulation experiments show that the OL-DEC-MDP model will improve the overall scheduling performance compared with models not considering opportunity loss in heavy-loading environment.

A Retrospective Analysis of the Development of Fiscal Decentralization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rekova Nataliia Yu.

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The study forms the theoretical basis for the implementation of fiscal decentralization in Ukraine on the basis of determining the correspondence between the evolution of scientific approaches to the formation of an effective model of public administration and the degree of power centralization at a particular stage of the development of society. The views of thinkers of the ancient states of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, Rome, Greece are generalized, and the priority of centralized public administration without segregation of centralization forms is determined. The degree of centralization in the period of development of feudal states is characterized. The scientific views of representatives of the neoinstitutional direction of economic thought are analyzed in detail, and the stages of the formation of decentralization, in particular fiscal, as a separate theory, are defined. The stages of and the corresponding organizational and legislative documents for the implementation of decentralization in Ukraine are outlined, and its results are characterized.

Decentralization Challenges for Management of Cultural Patrimony in Ecuador

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dr.C. Carlos Leonel Escudero-Sánchez

2015-10-01

Full Text Available In Latin America  the new  decentralization policies in  the forms of government  challenging  institutional  processes  and management  practices.  In the context of  Ecuador  responds to  a constitutional  mandate expressed in  the reformulation of  the powers of the  municipal  autonomous governments. Consequently, the main  purpose of the article  is to present  the main  principles  expressed  in the  protection, evaluation and dissemination of cultural heritage.  Therefore  the  exercise of autonomy  and decentralization  is governed  by the principles  of solidarity, subsidiarity,  territorial equity, integration and participation.  Hence,  the main results  are  part of  the systematization of  such  socio-economic, institutional, governance  and participation, legal and financial  management of cultural heritage contexts.Keywords: decentralization, cultural heritage, cultural management, citizen participation.

Patient Experiences of Decentralized HIV Treatment and Care in Plateau State, North Central Nigeria: A Qualitative Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Grace O. Kolawole

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Background. Decentralization of care and treatment for HIV infection in Africa makes services available in local health facilities. Decentralization has been associated with improved retention and comparable or superior treatment outcomes, but patient experiences are not well understood. Methods. We conducted a qualitative study of patient experiences in decentralized HIV care in Plateau State, north central Nigeria. Five decentralized care sites in the Plateau State Decentralization Initiative were purposefully selected. Ninety-three patients and 16 providers at these sites participated in individual interviews and focus groups. Data collection activities were audio-recorded and transcribed. Transcripts were inductively content analyzed to derive descriptive categories representing patient experiences of decentralized care. Results. Patient participants in this study experienced the transition to decentralized care as a series of “trade-offs.” Advantages cited included saving time and money on travel to clinic visits, avoiding dangers on the road, and the “family-like atmosphere” found in some decentralized clinics. Disadvantages were loss of access to ancillary services, reduced opportunities for interaction with providers, and increased risk of disclosure. Participants preferred decentralized services overall. Conclusion. Difficulty and cost of travel remain a fundamental barrier to accessing HIV care outside urban centers, suggesting increased availability of community-based services will be enthusiastically received.

An Efficient Randomized Algorithm for Real-Time Process Scheduling in PicOS Operating System

Science.gov (United States)

Helmy*, Tarek; Fatai, Anifowose; Sallam, El-Sayed

PicOS is an event-driven operating environment designed for use with embedded networked sensors. More specifically, it is designed to support the concurrency in intensive operations required by networked sensors with minimal hardware requirements. Existing process scheduling algorithms of PicOS; a commercial tiny, low-footprint, real-time operating system; have their associated drawbacks. An efficient, alternative algorithm, based on a randomized selection policy, has been proposed, demonstrated, confirmed for efficiency and fairness, on the average, and has been recommended for implementation in PicOS. Simulations were carried out and performance measures such as Average Waiting Time (AWT) and Average Turn-around Time (ATT) were used to assess the efficiency of the proposed randomized version over the existing ones. The results prove that Randomized algorithm is the best and most attractive for implementation in PicOS, since it is most fair and has the least AWT and ATT on average over the other non-preemptive scheduling algorithms implemented in this paper.

Analysis for corruption and decentralization (Case study: earlier decentralization era in Indonesia)

OpenAIRE

Haryanto, Joko Tri; Astuti S.A., Esther Sri

2017-01-01

In many countries, relationship between decentralization of government activities and the extent of rent extraction by private parties is an important element in the recent debate on institutional design. The topic of corruption was actively, openly and debated in Indonesia by government, its development partners, and a broadly based group of political and civil society leaders are engaged in meetings and exchange on a daily basis. In the ongoing debate on corruption a lot of attention is pai...

Fair Value in the light of IFRS 13 «Fair Value Measurement»

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V.V. Svitselska

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The main provisions of IFRS 13 «Fair Value Measurement» have been researched as well as its critical analysis has been conducted. Comparison of the previous and the new definition of the concept «fair value» has been done on the basis of what the shortcomings of the previous definition have been highlighted, the characteristic features and advantages of new definition from IFRS 13 «Fair Value Measurement» have been outlined. It has been proved that new interpretation of the concept of «fair value» is narrower and more accurate than the previous, it clarifies the subject matter, subjects of transactions, as well as the date of its execution. The scheme of estimation at fair value as well as model of fair value determination according to IFRS 13 «Fair Value Measurement» has been presented. Methods of measurement at fair value and the fair value hierarchy have been researched. Some disadvantages of provisions of IFRS 13 «Fair Value Measurement» on the basis of its analysis have been highlighted, uncertainty is essential among them in which fair value should be applied.

Decentralized Energy from Waste Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Blanca Antizar-Ladislao

2010-01-01

Full Text Available In the last five years or so, biofuels have been given notable consideration worldwide as an alternative to fossil fuels, due to their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by partial replacement of oil as a transport fuel. The production of biofuels using a sustainable approach, should consider local production of biofuels, obtained from local feedstocks and adapted to the socio-economical and environmental characteristics of the particular region where they are developed. Thus, decentralized energy from waste systems will exploit local biomass to optimize their production and consumption. Waste streams such as agricultural and wood residues, municipal solid waste, vegetable oils, and algae residues can all be integrated in energy from waste systems. An integral optimization of decentralized energy from waste systems should not be based on the optimization of each single process, but the overall optimization of the whole process. This is by obtaining optimal energy and environmental benefits, as well as collateral beneficial co-products such as soil fertilizers which will result in a higher food crop production and carbon dioxide fixation which will abate climate change.

Decentralized energy from waste systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Antizar-Ladislao, B.; Turrion-Gomez, J. L.

2010-01-01

In the last five years or so, biofuels have been given notable consideration worldwide as an alternative to fossil fuels, due to their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by partial replacement of oil as a transport fuel. The production of biofuels using a sustainable approach, should consider local production of biofuels, obtained from local feedstocks and adapted to the socio-economical and environmental characteristics of the particular region where they are developed. Thus, decentralized energy from waste systems will exploit local biomass to optimize their production and consumption. Waste streams such as agricultural and wood residues, municipal solid waste, vegetable oils, and algae residues can all be integrated in energy from waste systems. An integral optimization of decentralized energy from waste systems should not be based on the optimization of each single process, but the overall optimization of the whole process. This is by obtaining optimal energy and environmental benefits, as well as collateral beneficial co-products such as soil fertilizers which will result in a higher food crop production and carbon dioxide fixation which will abate climate change. (author)

Asynchronous decentralized method for interconnected electricity markets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huang, Anni; Joo, Sung-Kwan; Song, Kyung-Bin; Kim, Jin-Ho; Lee, Kisung

2008-01-01

This paper presents an asynchronous decentralized method to solve the optimization problem of interconnected electricity markets. The proposed method decomposes the optimization problem of combined electricity markets into individual optimization problems. The impact of neighboring markets' information is included in the objective function of the individual market optimization problem by the standard Lagrangian relaxation method. Most decentralized optimization methods use synchronous models of communication to exchange updated market information among markets during the iterative process. In this paper, however, the solutions of the individual optimization problems are coordinated through an asynchronous communication model until they converge to the global optimal solution of combined markets. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed asynchronous method over the existing synchronous methods. (author)

Staffing, qualification and organization for centralized and decentralized training

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Holyoak, R.H.

1985-01-01

This paper covers an extensive area. First a brief history of the training at Commonwealth Edison is presented so that the reader can get some idea of why some of the problems mentioned exist. Next is a discussion of the centralized and decentralized Commonwealth Edison production training organization. A brief review of the development of the Instructor Qualification Program and the training of instructors follows. Finally, a review of the problems and some solutions related to managing a centralized/decentralized training system is included

A set of decentralized PID controllers for an n–link robot manipulator

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

A class of stabilizing decentralized proportional integral derivative (PID) controllers for an -link robot manipulator system is proposed. The range of decentralized PID controller parameters for an -link robot manipulator is obtained using Kharitonov theorem and stability boundary equations. Basically, the proposed design ...

Decentralized Reinforcement Learning of robot behaviors

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Leottau, David L.; Ruiz-del-Solar, Javier; Babuska, R.

2018-01-01

A multi-agent methodology is proposed for Decentralized Reinforcement Learning (DRL) of individual behaviors in problems where multi-dimensional action spaces are involved. When using this methodology, sub-tasks are learned in parallel by individual agents working toward a common goal. In

Satellite Power System (SPS) centralization/decentralization

Science.gov (United States)

Naisbitt, J.

1978-01-01

The decentralization of government in the United States of America is described and its effect on the solution of energy problems is given. The human response to the introduction of new technologies is considered as well as the behavioral aspects of multiple options.

Decentralized substations for low-temperature district heating with no Legionella risk, and low return temperatures

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yang, Xiaochen; Li, Hongwei; Svendsen, Svend

2016-01-01

. From the results, realizing LTDH by the decentralized substation unit, 30% of the annual distribution heat loss inside the building can be saved compared to a conventional system with medium-temperature district heating. Replacing the bypass pipe with an in-line supply pipe and a heat pump...... with domestic hot water (DHW) circulation. In this study, a system with decentralized substations was analysed as a solution to this problem. Furthermore, a modification for the decentralized substation system were proposed in order to reduce the average return temperature. Models of conventional system...... with medium-temperature district heating, decentralized substation system with LTDH, and innovative decentralized substation system with LTDH were built based on the information of a case building. The annual distribution heat loss and the operating costs of the three scenarios were calculated and compared...

Fiscal Decentralization and Delivery of Public Services: Evidence from Education Sector in Pakistan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rauf Abdur

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Fiscal Decentralization is the devolution of fiscal assignments to lower governments for high growth and better delivery of public services. The current study covering the period from 1972 to 2009 is an attempt to find out the impacts of fiscal decentralization on public services deliveries in Pakistan. Public services are proxy by Gross enrollment at primary school level while fiscal decentralization by fiscal transfer and expenditure sides of devolution. Using time series data, it is found that the individual impacts of fiscal transfer are although insignificant but still support the theoretical proposition regarding fiscal decentralization and public services relationship while delegation of expenditure responsibilities helps in improving the gross enrollment at primary school level. Furthermore the study evident that complete delegation of fiscal responsibilities to lower governments enhance enrollment ratio in Pakistan.

Spectrum Allocation for Decentralized Transmission Strategies: Properties of Nash Equilibria

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peter von Wrycza

2009-01-01

Full Text Available The interaction of two transmit-receive pairs coexisting in the same area and communicating using the same portion of the spectrum is analyzed from a game theoretic perspective. Each pair utilizes a decentralized iterative water-filling scheme to greedily maximize the individual rate. We study the dynamics of such a game and find properties of the resulting Nash equilibria. The region of achievable operating points is characterized for both low- and high-interference systems, and the dependence on the various system parameters is explicitly shown. We derive the region of possible signal space partitioning for the iterative water-filling scheme and show how the individual utility functions can be modified to alter its range. Utilizing global system knowledge, we design a modified game encouraging better operating points in terms of sum rate compared to those obtained using the iterative water-filling algorithm and show how such a game can be imitated in a decentralized noncooperative setting. Although we restrict the analysis to a two player game, analogous concepts can be used to design decentralized algorithms for scenarios with more players. The performance of the modified decentralized game is evaluated and compared to the iterative water-filling algorithm by numerical simulations.

The recent process of decentralization and democratic management of education in Brazil

Science.gov (United States)

Santos Filho, José Camilo Dos

1993-09-01

Brazilian society is beginning a new historical period in which the principle of decentralization is beginning to predominate over centralization, which held sway during the last 25 years. In contrast to recent Brazilian history, there is now a search for political, democratic and participatory decentralization more consonant with grass-roots aspirations. The first section of this article presents a brief analysis of some decentralization policies implemented by the military regime of 1964, and discusses relevant facts related to the resistance of civil society to state authoritarianism, and to the struggle for the democratization and organization of civil society up to the end of the 1970s. The second section analyzes some new experiences of democratic public school administration initiated in the 1970s and 1980s. The final section discusses the move toward decentralization and democratization of public school administration in the new Federal and State Constitutions, and in the draft of the new Law of National Education.

Decentralized Networked Control of Building Structures

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Bakule, Lubomír; Rehák, Branislav; Papík, Martin

2016-01-01

Roč. 31, č. 11 (2016), s. 871-886 ISSN 1093-9687 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA13-02149S Institutional support: RVO:67985556 Keywords : decentralized control * networked control * building structures Subject RIV: BC - Control Systems Theory Impact factor: 5.786, year: 2016

Decentralized Development Planning and Fragmentation of ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Using the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) as a case study, this paper argues that the proliferation of autonomous local government areas within the context of urban sprawl and other challenges have inhibited metropolitan-wide development planning. Keywords: Decentralization; local government; urban growth; ...

A set of decentralized PID controllers for an n – link robot manipulator

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

The solution of decentralized tracking control problem for robot manipulator is slightly comp- lex since we .... Figure 1 shows decentralized control scheme for the ith joint of system (10). ...... Automatic Control 49(11): 2081–2084. Gahinet P ...

Optimal placement and decentralized robust vibration control for spacecraft smart solar panel structures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jiang, Jian-ping; Li, Dong-xu

2010-01-01

The decentralized robust vibration control with collocated piezoelectric actuator and strain sensor pairs is considered in this paper for spacecraft solar panel structures. Each actuator is driven individually by the output of the corresponding sensor so that only local feedback control is implemented, with each actuator, sensor and controller operating independently. Firstly, an optimal placement method for the location of the collocated piezoelectric actuator and strain gauge sensor pairs is developed based on the degree of observability and controllability indices for solar panel structures. Secondly, a decentralized robust H ∞ controller is designed to suppress the vibration induced by external disturbance. Finally, a numerical comparison between centralized and decentralized control systems is performed in order to investigate their effectiveness to suppress vibration of the smart solar panel. The simulation results show that the vibration can be significantly suppressed with permitted actuator voltages by the controllers. The decentralized control system almost has the same disturbance attenuation level as the centralized control system with a bit higher control voltages. More importantly, the decentralized controller composed of four three-order systems is a better practical implementation than a high-order centralized controller is

COOPERATION AND TRUST IN THE CONTEXT OF DECENTRALIZATION REFORMS IN RURAL TANZANIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zacharia S. Masanyiwa

2014-01-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates the impact of decentralization reforms on cooperation andtrust at the village level in Tanzania, using a gender perspective. The paper drawson survey and qualitative data from ten villages intwo rural districts. The findingsshow that the reforms have revitalized 'formal’ cooperative efforts and socialnetworks and groups aimed at improving public services and poverty reduction.Citizen’s participation in decision-making processes and users’ satisfaction withpublic services are significantly related to socialand political trust, in whichgender plays a role as well. There is a two-way interface between trust and decent-ralization reforms. ‘Good’ decentralization outcomes generate trust while ‘bad’outcomes decrease trust.

A note on resource allocation scheduling with group technology and learning effects on a single machine

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Yuan-Yuan; Wang, Ji-Bo; Ji, Ping; He, Hongyu

2017-09-01

In this article, single-machine group scheduling with learning effects and convex resource allocation is studied. The goal is to find the optimal job schedule, the optimal group schedule, and resource allocations of jobs and groups. For the problem of minimizing the makespan subject to limited resource availability, it is proved that the problem can be solved in polynomial time under the condition that the setup times of groups are independent. For the general setup times of groups, a heuristic algorithm and a branch-and-bound algorithm are proposed, respectively. Computational experiments show that the performance of the heuristic algorithm is fairly accurate in obtaining near-optimal solutions.

Book Review: Is Fair Value Fair? Financial Reporting from an International Perspective

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Thinggaard, Frank

2005-01-01

This is a review of Henk Langendijk, Dirk Swagerman and Willem Verhoog (Eds) "Is Fair Value Fair? Financial Reporting from an International Perspective," Chichester: John Wiley, 2003, ISBN 0 470 85028 0.......This is a review of Henk Langendijk, Dirk Swagerman and Willem Verhoog (Eds) "Is Fair Value Fair? Financial Reporting from an International Perspective," Chichester: John Wiley, 2003, ISBN 0 470 85028 0....

Centralized vs decentralized contests

OpenAIRE

Beviá, Carmen; Corchón, Luis C.

2015-01-01

We compare two contests, decentralized in which there are several independent contests with non overlapping contestants and centralized in which all contestants fight for a unique prize which is the sum of all prizes in the small contests. We study the relationship between payoffs and efforts between these two contests. The first author acknowledges financial support from ECO2008-04756 (Grupo Consolidado-C), SGR2014-515 and PROMETEO/2013/037. The second author acknowledges financial suppor...

Fairness and nanotechnology concern.

Science.gov (United States)

McComas, Katherine A; Besley, John C

2011-11-01

Research suggests that fairness perceptions matter to people who are asked to evaluate the acceptability of risks or risk management. Two separate national random surveys (n = 305 and n = 529) addressed Americans' concerns about and acceptance of nanotechnology risk management in the context of the degree to which they view scientists and risk managers as fair. The first survey investigated general views about scientists across four proposed dimensions of fairness (distributional, procedural, interpersonal, and informational). The results show that respondents who believe that the outcomes of scientific research tend to result in unequal benefits (distributional fairness) and that the procedures meant to protect the public from scientific research are biased (procedural fairness) were more concerned about nanotechnology. Believing scientists would treat them with respect (interpersonal fairness) and ensure access to information (informational fairness) were not significant predictors of concern. The second study also looked at these four dimensions of fairness but focused on perceptions of risk managers working for government, universities, and major companies. In addition to concern, it also examined acceptance of nanotechnology risk management. Study 2 results were similar to those of study 1 for concern; however, only perceived informational fairness consistently predicted acceptance of nanotechnology risk management. Overall, the study points to the value of considering fairness perceptions in the study of public perceptions of nanotechnology. © 2011 Society for Risk Analysis.

DQM: Decentralized Quadratically Approximated Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers

Science.gov (United States)

Mokhtari, Aryan; Shi, Wei; Ling, Qing; Ribeiro, Alejandro

2016-10-01

This paper considers decentralized consensus optimization problems where nodes of a network have access to different summands of a global objective function. Nodes cooperate to minimize the global objective by exchanging information with neighbors only. A decentralized version of the alternating directions method of multipliers (DADMM) is a common method for solving this category of problems. DADMM exhibits linear convergence rate to the optimal objective but its implementation requires solving a convex optimization problem at each iteration. This can be computationally costly and may result in large overall convergence times. The decentralized quadratically approximated ADMM algorithm (DQM), which minimizes a quadratic approximation of the objective function that DADMM minimizes at each iteration, is proposed here. The consequent reduction in computational time is shown to have minimal effect on convergence properties. Convergence still proceeds at a linear rate with a guaranteed constant that is asymptotically equivalent to the DADMM linear convergence rate constant. Numerical results demonstrate advantages of DQM relative to DADMM and other alternatives in a logistic regression problem.

Decentralization, healthcare access, and inequality in Mpumalanga, South Africa.

Science.gov (United States)

Winchester, Margaret S; King, Brian

2018-04-27

Healthcare access and utilization remain key challenges in the Global South. South Africa represents this given that more than twenty years after the advent of democratic elections, the national government continues to confront historical systems of spatial manipulation that generated inequities in healthcare access. While the country has made significant advancements, governmental agencies have mirrored international strategies of healthcare decentralization and focused on local provision of primary care to increase healthcare access. In this paper, we show the significance of place in shaping access and health experiences for rural populations. Using data from a structured household survey, focus group discussions, qualitative interviews, and clinic data conducted in northeast South Africa from 2013 to 2016, we argue that decentralization fails to resolve the uneven landscapes of healthcare in the contemporary period. This is evidenced by the continued variability across the study area in terms of government-sponsored healthcare, and constraints in the clinics in terms of staffing, privacy, and patient loads, all of which challenge the access-related assumptions of healthcare decentralization. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Design of a decentralized detection of interacting LTI systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shankar Shamanth

2002-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper, the problem of designing a decentralized detection filter for a large homogeneous collection of LTI systems is considered. The collection of systems considered here draws inspiration from platoons of vehicles, and the considered interactions amongst systems in the collection are banded and lower triangular, mimicking the typical “look-ahead” nature of interactions in a platoon of vehicles. A fault in a system propagates to other systems in the collection via such interactions. The decentralized detection filter for the collection is composed of interacting detection filters, one for each system. The feasibility of communicating the state estimates to other systems in the collection is assumed here. An important concern is the propagation of state estimation errors. In order that the state estimation errors not amplify as they propagate, a ℋ ∞ constraint on the state estimation error propagation dynamics is imposed. A sufficient condition for constructing a decentralized detection filter for the collection is presented. An example is provided to illustrate the design procedure.

Subsecond Tsunamis and Delays in Decentralized Electronic Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pedro D. Manrique

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Driven by technological advances and economic gain, society’s electronic systems are becoming larger, faster, more decentralized and autonomous, and yet with increasing global reach. A prime example are the networks of financial markets which—in contrast to popular perception—are largely all-electronic and decentralized with no top-down real-time controller. This prototypical system generates complex subsecond dynamics that emerge from a decentralized network comprising heterogeneous hardware and software components, communications links, and a diverse ecology of trading algorithms that operate and compete within this all-electronics environment. Indeed, these same technological and economic drivers are likely to generate a similarly competitive all-electronic ecology in a variety of future cyberphysical domains such as e-commerce, defense and the transportation system, including the likely appearance of large numbers of autonomous vehicles on the streets of many cities. Hence there is an urgent need to deepen our understanding of stability, safety and security across a wide range of ultrafast, large, decentralized all-electronic systems—in short, society will eventually need to understand what extreme behaviors can occur, why, and what might be the impact of both intentional and unintentional system perturbations. Here we set out a framework for addressing this issue, using a generic model of heterogeneous, adaptive, autonomous components where each has a realistic limit on the amount of information and processing power available to it. We focus on the specific impact of delayed information, possibly through an accidental shift in the latency of information transmission, or an intentional attack from the outside. While much remains to be done in terms of developing formal mathematical results for this system, our preliminary results indicate the type of impact that can occur and the structure of a mathematical theory which may

PREFACE: FAIRNESS 2014: FAIR Next Generation ScientistS 2014

Science.gov (United States)

2015-04-01

FAIRNESS 2014 was the third edition in a series of workshops designed to bring together excellent international young scientists with research interests focused on physics at FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) and was held on September 22-27 2014 in Vietri sul Mare, Italy. The topics of the workshops cover a wide range of aspects in both theoretical developments and current experimental status, concentrated around the four scientific pillars of FAIR. FAIR is a new accelerator complex with brand new experimental facilities, that is currently being built next to the existing GSI Helmholtzzentrum for Schwerionenforschung close to Darmstadt, Germany. The spirit of the conference is to bring together young scientists, e.g. advanced PhD students and postdocs and young researchers without permanent position to present their work, to foster active informal discussions and build up of networks. Every participant in the meeting with the exception of the organizers gives an oral presentation, and all sessions are followed by an hour long discussion period. During the talks, questions are anonymously collected in a box to stimulate discussions. The broad physics program at FAIR is reflected in the wide range of topics covered by the workshop: • Physics of hot and dense nuclear matter, QCD phase transitions and critical point • Nuclear structure, astrophysics and reactions • Hadron Spectroscopy, Hadrons in matter and Hypernuclei • New developments in atomic and plasma physics • Special emphasis is put on the experiments CBM, HADES, PANDA, NUSTAR, APPA and related experiments For each of these different areas one invited speaker was selected to give a longer introductory presentation. The write-ups of the talks presented at FAIRNESS 2014 are the content of this issue of Journal of Physics: Conference Series and have been refereed according to the IOP standard for peer review. This issue constitutes therefore a collection of the forefront of research that

COINSTAC: Decentralizing the future of brain imaging analysis [version 1; referees: 2 approved

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jing Ming

2017-08-01

Full Text Available In the era of Big Data, sharing neuroimaging data across multiple sites has become increasingly important. However, researchers who want to engage in centralized, large-scale data sharing and analysis must often contend with problems such as high database cost, long data transfer time, extensive manual effort, and privacy issues for sensitive data. To remove these barriers to enable easier data sharing and analysis, we introduced a new, decentralized, privacy-enabled infrastructure model for brain imaging data called COINSTAC in 2016. We have continued development of COINSTAC since this model was first introduced. One of the challenges with such a model is adapting the required algorithms to function within a decentralized framework. In this paper, we report on how we are solving this problem, along with our progress on several fronts, including additional decentralized algorithms implementation, user interface enhancement, decentralized regression statistic calculation, and complete pipeline specifications.

Factors influencing flap and INTACS decentration after femtosecond laser application in normal and keratoconic eyes.

Science.gov (United States)

Ertan, Aylin; Karacal, Humeyra

2008-10-01

To compare accuracy of LASIK flap and INTACS centration following femtosecond laser application in normal and keratoconic eyes. This is a retrospective case series comprising 133 eyes of 128 patients referred for refractive surgery. All eyes were divided into two groups according to preoperative diagnosis: group 1 (LASIK group) comprised 74 normal eyes of 72 patients undergoing LASIK with a femtosecond laser (IntraLase), and group 2 (INTACS group) consisted of 59 eyes of 39 patients with keratoconus for whom INTACS were implanted using a femtosecond laser (IntraLase). Decentration of the LASIK flap and INTACS was analyzed using Pentacam. Temporal decentration was 612.56 +/- 384.24 microm (range: 30 to 2120 microm) in the LASIK group and 788.33 +/- 500.34 microm (range: 30 to 2450 microm) in the INTACS group. A statistically significant difference was noted between the groups in terms of decentration (P decentration of the LASIK flap and INTACS correlated with the central corneal thickness in the LASIK group and preoperative sphere and cylinder in the INTACS group, respectively. Decentration with the IntraLase occurred in most cases, especially in keratoconic eyes. The applanation performed for centralization during IntraLase application may flatten and shift the pupil center, and thus cause decentralization of the LASIK flap and INTACS. Central corneal thickness in the LASIK group and preoperative sphere and cylinder in the INTACS group proved to be statistically significant parameters associated with decentration.

Governing decentralization in health care under tough budget constraint: what can we learn from the Italian experience?

Science.gov (United States)

Tediosi, Fabrizio; Gabriele, Stefania; Longo, Francesco

2009-05-01

In many European countries, since the World War II, there has been a trend towards decentralization of health policy to lower levels of governments, while more recently there have been re-centralization processes. Whether re-centralization will be the new paradigm of European health policy or not is difficult to say. In the Italian National Health Service (SSN) decentralization raised two related questions that might be interesting for the international debate on decentralization in health care: (a) what sort of regulatory framework and institutional balances are required to govern decentralization in health care in a heterogeneous country under tough budget constraints? (b) how can it be ensured that the most advanced parts of the country remain committed to solidarity, supporting the weakest ones? To address these questions this article describes the recent trends in SSN funding and expenditure, it reviews the strategy adopted by the Italian government for governing the decentralization process and discusses the findings to draw policy conclusions. The main lessons emerging from this experience are that: (1) when the differences in administrative and policy skills, in socio-economic standards and social capital are wide, decentralization may lead to undesirable divergent evolution paths; (2) even in decentralized systems, the role of the Central government can be very important to contain health expenditure; (3) a strong governance of the Central government may help and not hinder the enforcement of decentralization; and (4) supporting the weakest Regions and maintaining inter-regional solidarity is hard but possible. In Italy, despite an increasing role of the Central government in steering the SSN, the pattern of regional decentralization of health sector decision making does not seem at risk. Nevertheless, the Italian case confirms the complexity of decentralization and re-centralization processes that sometimes can be paradoxically reinforcing each other.

Decentralization and centralization in a federal system: the case of democratic Brazil

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria Hermínia Tavares de Almeida

2006-01-01

Full Text Available This paper discusses the contradictory impulses towards decentralization and centralization in Brazil during the 1990s and early 2000s. After discussing the analytical issues related to the specific nature of decentralization in federal systems, the paper examines two sets of policy issues: those regulating the fiscal relations between national and sub-national governments and those redefining responsibilities for social services provision (basic education, health care, social assistance. Against conventional academic wisdom, it sustains that although there has been some re-centralization of fiscal decisions and of targeted income transfer programs, a clear re-centralization tendency cannot be siad to exist. Decentralization and centralization trends coexist propelled by different forces, with different motives and different outcomes.

Decentralized Development Planning and Fragmentation of ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Using the GAMA as a case study, this paper examines the proliferation of .... These spatial definitions give territorial meaning to decentralization as dis- ... Formulated and implemented under a military regime, the Provisional ..... increased to four in 2004 following the creation of new districts in the country, and as part of.

A three-level atomicity model for decentralized workflow management systems

Science.gov (United States)

Ben-Shaul, Israel Z.; Heineman, George T.

1996-12-01

A workflow management system (WFMS) employs a workflow manager (WM) to execute and automate the various activities within a workflow. To protect the consistency of data, the WM encapsulates each activity with a transaction; a transaction manager (TM) then guarantees the atomicity of activities. Since workflows often group several activities together, the TM is responsible for guaranteeing the atomicity of these units. There are scalability issues, however, with centralized WFMSs. Decentralized WFMSs provide an architecture for multiple autonomous WFMSs to interoperate, thus accommodating multiple workflows and geographically-dispersed teams. When atomic units are composed of activities spread across multiple WFMSs, however, there is a conflict between global atomicity and local autonomy of each WFMS. This paper describes a decentralized atomicity model that enables workflow administrators to specify the scope of multi-site atomicity based upon the desired semantics of multi-site tasks in the decentralized WFMS. We describe an architecture that realizes our model and execution paradigm.

FISCAL DECENTRALIZATION DETERMINANTS AND LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN EU COUNTRIES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anca Florentina GAVRILUŢĂ (VATAMANU

2017-12-01

Full Text Available This work aims to assess the impact of fiscal decentralization on local (regional development in the EU Member States while controlling for macroeconomic and local autonomy specific factors. Using a panel data approach with dynamic effects, we examined the implications of fiscal decentralization on local development across European Union countries over the 1990-2004 period. The novelty of the study is emphasized by including in the analysis a variable which tests local fiscal discipline, more exactly, Fiscal Rule Strength Index for local level of government. Our findings suggest that prosperity of regions, measured in GDP growth depends on variables such as characteristics of decentralization undertaken by each country or local fiscal discipline, confirming our primary hypothesis. This supports the view that recently implemented reforms aiming to enforce fiscal discipline following-up the Fiscal Compact strengthened the local budgetary framework and restrained, therefore, the local discretionary power to act towards development.

Decentralized DC Microgrid Monitoring and Optimization via Primary Control Perturbations

Science.gov (United States)

Angjelichinoski, Marko; Scaglione, Anna; Popovski, Petar; Stefanovic, Cedomir

2018-06-01

We treat the emerging power systems with direct current (DC) MicroGrids, characterized with high penetration of power electronic converters. We rely on the power electronics to propose a decentralized solution for autonomous learning of and adaptation to the operating conditions of the DC Mirogrids; the goal is to eliminate the need to rely on an external communication system for such purpose. The solution works within the primary droop control loops and uses only local bus voltage measurements. Each controller is able to estimate (i) the generation capacities of power sources, (ii) the load demands, and (iii) the conductances of the distribution lines. To define a well-conditioned estimation problem, we employ decentralized strategy where the primary droop controllers temporarily switch between operating points in a coordinated manner, following amplitude-modulated training sequences. We study the use of the estimator in a decentralized solution of the Optimal Economic Dispatch problem. The evaluations confirm the usefulness of the proposed solution for autonomous MicroGrid operation.

Development of a completely decentralized control system for modular continuous conveyors

OpenAIRE

Mayer, Stephan H.

2009-01-01

To increase the flexibility of application of continuous conveyor systems, a completely decentralized control system for a modular conveyor system is introduced in the paper. This system is able to carry conveyor units without any centralized infrastructure. Based on existing methods of decentralized data transfer in IT networks, single modules operate autonomously and, after being positioned into the required topology, independently connect together to become a functioning conveyor system.

Integrating centralized and decentralized organization structures: an education and development model.

Science.gov (United States)

Sheriff, R; Banks, A

2001-01-01

Organization change efforts have led to critically examining the structure of education and development departments within hospitals. This qualitative study evaluated an education and development model in an academic health sciences center. The model combines centralization and decentralization. The study results can be used by staff development educators and administrators when organization structure is questioned. This particular model maximizes the benefits and minimizes the limitations of centralized and decentralized structures.

Decentralized stabilization of semi-active vibrating structures

Science.gov (United States)

Pisarski, Dominik

2018-02-01

A novel method of decentralized structural vibration control is presented. The control is assumed to be realized by a semi-active device. The objective is to stabilize a vibrating system with the optimal rates of decrease of the energy. The controller relies on an easily implemented decentralized switched state-feedback control law. It uses a set of communication channels to exchange the state information between the neighboring subcontrollers. The performance of the designed method is validated by means of numerical experiments performed for a double cantilever system equipped with a set of elastomers with controlled viscoelastic properties. In terms of the assumed objectives, the proposed control strategy significantly outperforms the passive damping cases and is competitive with a standard centralized control. The presented methodology can be applied to a class of bilinear control systems concerned with smart structural elements.

Financial management systems under decentralization and their effect on malaria control in Uganda.

Science.gov (United States)

Kivumbi, George W; Nangendo, Florence; Ndyabahika, Boniface Rutagira

2004-01-01

A descriptive case study with multiple sites and a single level of analysis was carried out in four purposefully selected administrative districts of Uganda to investigate the effect of financial management systems under decentralization on malaria control. Data were primarily collected from 36 interviews with district managers, staff at health units and local leaders. A review of records and documents related to decentralization at the central and district level was also used to generate data for the study. We found that a long, tedious, and bureaucratic process combined with lack of knowledge in working with new financial systems by several actors characterized financial flow under decentralization. This affected the timely use of financial resources for malaria control in that there were funds in the system that could not be accessed for use. We were also told that sometimes these funds were returned to the central government because of non-use due to difficulties in accessing them and/or stringent conditions not to divert them to other uses. Our data showed that a cocktail of bureaucratic control systems, corruption and incompetence make the financial management system under decentralization counter-productive for malaria control. The main conclusion is that good governance through appropriate and efficient financial management systems is very important for effective malaria control under decentralization.

Two-Step Fair Scheduling of Continuous Media Streams over Error-Prone Wireless Channels

Science.gov (United States)

Oh, Soohyun; Lee, Jin Wook; Park, Taejoon; Jo, Tae-Chang

In wireless cellular networks, streaming of continuous media (with strict QoS requirements) over wireless links is challenging due to their inherent unreliability characterized by location-dependent, bursty errors. To address this challenge, we present a two-step scheduling algorithm for a base station to provide streaming of continuous media to wireless clients over the error-prone wireless links. The proposed algorithm is capable of minimizing the packet loss rate of individual clients in the presence of error bursts, by transmitting packets in the round-robin manner and also adopting a mechanism for channel prediction and swapping.

The Paradox of Decentralizing Schools: Lessons from Business, Government, and the Catholic Church.

Science.gov (United States)

Murphy, Jerome T.

1989-01-01

By the year 2000, school decentralization could become another unfortunate, ineffectual pendulum swing. According to this article, a dynamic, ever-changing system of decentralization and centralization balances the benefits of local administrative autonomy with the pursuit of unified goals and helps each leadership level understand its…

Fair processes and fair outcomes: involving local stakeholders in RWM decisions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vari, A.

2004-01-01

There is a general agreement on the requirements to be met by radioactive waste management strategies. One of the requirements is that both the outcomes of any decisions and the decision-making processes must be seen to be fair. However, there exist multiple legitimate views on fairness and there is no meta-theory that could help decide which of the competing views should be considered valid in a concrete case. Referring to the plurality of views on fairness, Linnerooth-Bayer (forthcoming) argues that the impasse in facility siting processes can be attributed to the failure to take adequate account of the diverse views held by the various stakeholders on fair processes and outcomes. Three fundamental ethical principles have been derived from three basic ethical theories: well-being which is the central concept of utilitarian ethics, justice which is a key notion in egalitarian ethics, and dignity which is central to deontology (Bay and Oughton, 2003). According to utilitarian ethics fairness means that public welfare is maximized even at the cost of stakeholders' individual rights. Costs and benefits can be legitimately distributed in any way; only their overall balance has to be enhanced. In contrary, egalitarian ethics aims for a fair distribution of benefits and costs among stakeholders, while deontology acknowledges universal values of actions, e.g. the respect for individual rights, apart from their consequences. According to the latter ethics, fairness means that stakeholders themselves have the opportunity to learn about the benefits and costs of various options, and having considered them, decide on their position to accept them. How do diverse views on fair decisions materialize in RWM debates? (author)

Fair Package Assignment

Science.gov (United States)

Lahaie, Sébastien; Parkes, David C.

We consider the problem of fair allocation in the package assignment model, where a set of indivisible items, held by single seller, must be efficiently allocated to agents with quasi-linear utilities. A fair assignment is one that is efficient and envy-free. We consider a model where bidders have superadditive valuations, meaning that items are pure complements. Our central result is that core outcomes are fair and even coalition-fair over this domain, while fair distributions may not even exist for general valuations. Of relevance to auction design, we also establish that the core is equivalent to the set of anonymous-price competitive equilibria, and that superadditive valuations are a maximal domain that guarantees the existence of anonymous-price competitive equilibrium. Our results are analogs of core equivalence results for linear prices in the standard assignment model, and for nonlinear, non-anonymous prices in the package assignment model with general valuations.

Is Equality Fair?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arthur Tarasov

2015-11-01

Full Text Available This paper attempts to answer the question whether people consider decisions that lead to equal outcomes fair. I find that this is not always the case. In an experiment where subjects are given equal opportunities to choose how to divide money between each other in a two-player game, any strategy is perceived to be fair more than half the time, including the profit-maximizing strategy. The equal divisions that lead to equal outcomes are sometimes considered unfair by both players. Moreover, players frequently punished the others, whose decisions led to equal outcomes. I hypothesize that such punishments occur because people have different conceptions of what a fair outcome and fair punishment are

A Framework for Uplink Intercell Interference Modeling with Channel-Based Scheduling

KAUST Repository

Tabassum, Hina

2012-12-29

This paper presents a novel framework for modeling the uplink intercell interference(ICI) in a multiuser cellular network. The proposed framework assists in quantifying the impact of various fading channel models and state-of-the-art scheduling schemes on the uplink ICI. Firstly, we derive a semianalytical expression for the distribution of the location of the scheduled user in a given cell considering a wide range of scheduling schemes. Based on this, we derive the distribution and moment generating function (MGF) of the uplink ICI considering a single interfering cell. Consequently, we determine the MGF of the cumulative ICI observed from all interfering cells and derive explicit MGF expressions for three typical fading models. Finally, we utilize the obtained expressions to evaluate important network performance metrics such as the outage probability, ergodic capacity, and average fairness numerically. Monte-Carlo simulation results are provided to demonstrate the efficacy of the derived analytical expressions.

Decentralized central heating

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Savic, S.; Hudjera, A.

1994-08-04

The decentralized central heating is essentially based on new technical solutions for an independent heating unit, which allows up to 20% collectible energy savings and up to 15% savings in built-in-material. These savings are already made possible by the fact that the elements described under point A are thus eliminated from the classical heating. The thus superfluous made elements are replaced by new technical solutions described under point B - technical problem - and point E - patent claim. The technical solutions described in detail under point B and point E form together a technical unit and are essential parts of the invention protected by the patent. (author)

How fair are fair values? A comparison for cross-listed financial companies

OpenAIRE

Marian Berden; Franka Liedorp

2006-01-01

Fair value accounting and IAS 39 are at the core of a debate between regulators, institutions and supervisors. We add to this debate at a conceptual and empirical level. First we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of fair values for banks and insurance companies. Then we explore the differences between fair values and book values and the implications thereof based on a group of institutions with a listing on a stock exchange in both the home country (on book value) and the US (on fair v...

Organizational precedents for ownership and management of decentralized renewable-energy systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Meunier, R.; Silversmith, J.A.

1981-03-01

Three existing organizational types that meet the decentralization criteria of local consumer ownership and control - cooperatives, Rural Electric Cooperatives, and municipal utilities - are examined. These three organizational precedents are analyzed in terms of their histories, structures, legal powers, sources of capital, and social and political aspects. Examples of related experiments with renewable energy technologies are given, and inferences are drawn regarding the organizations' suitability as vehicles for future implementation of decentralized renewable energy systems.

To decentralize or to continue on the centralization track: The cases of authoritarian regimes in Russia and Kazakhstan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Irina Busygina

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Decisions on decentralization versus centralization come as a result of strategic choices made by politicians after weighing their costs and benefits. In authoritarian regimes, the highest-priority political task is that of restraining political competition and securing power in the hands of the incumbent. This task incentivizes politicians to restrict political decentralization (or at least block reforms promoting such decentralization. At the same time, external economic pressures (e.g. globalization place the task of national competitiveness in the global markets on the agenda, and increase incentives for fiscal and administrative decentralization. Thus, political and economic pressures create contradicting incentives, and in weighing costs and benefits, politicians in different authoritarian regimes make different choices that lead to variation in the form, degree and success of decentralization/centralization policies. In this article we compare authoritarian decentralization in Russia and Kazakhstan.

Decentralization and public expenditure: Does special local autonomy affect regional economic growth?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Martapina Anggai

2018-04-01

Full Text Available This study examines the relationship between public expenditure within regional autonomy policy and economic growth in West Papua and Papua provinces. We distinguish two kinds of expenditure’s decentralization – operational and capital – and also private expenditures. We use an unbalanced panel data over the period of 2007-2010 to investigate those expenditures, whether they enhance regional economic growth or not. We find that the government’s operating and private expenditures have a positive effect on local economic growth, but there is no relationship between capital expenditure’s decentralization on economic growth. The findings did not conform to a-priori efficiency expectations, which suggest needing to reform regional autonomy and fiscal decentralization policy in both provinces.

Madisonian Fair Use

OpenAIRE

Madison, Michael

2017-01-01

This short essay reflects on developments in the law, scholarship, and practice of fair use since the publication in 2004 of an earlier article on patterns in fair use practice and adjudication. It synthesizes many of those developments in the idea of “Madisonian” fair use, borrowing the separation of powers metaphor from James Madison’s work on the US Constitution and applying it, lightly and in a preliminary way, to copyright.

Centralized or decentralized electricity production

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boer, H.A. de.

1975-01-01

Because of low overall efficiency in electric power generation, it is argued that energy provision based on gas, combined with locally decentralized electricity production, saves for the Netherlands slightly more fossile fuel than nuclear technologies and makes the country independent of uranium resources. The reason the Netherlands persues this approach is that a big part of the energy is finally used for heating in the normal or moderate temperatures

Making decentralization work for women in Uganda

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lakwo, A.

2009-01-01

This book is about engendering local governance. It explores the euphoria with which Uganda's decentralization policy took centre stage as a sufficient driver to engender local development responsiveness and accountability. Using a case study of AFARD in Nebbi district, it shows first that

Decentralized data fusion with inverse covariance intersection

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Noack, B.; Sijs, J.; Reinhardt, M.; Hanebeck, U.D.

2017-01-01

In distributed and decentralized state estimation systems, fusion methods are employed to systematically combine multiple estimates of the state into a single, more accurate estimate. An often encountered problem in the fusion process relates to unknown common information that is shared by the

Comment on ‘Energy and air emission implications of a decentralized wastewater system’

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vedachalam, Sridhar; Riha, Susan J

2013-01-01

In the article ‘Energy and air emission implications of a decentralized wastewater system’ published in Environmental Research Letters (2012 Environ. Res. Lett. 7 024007), Shehabi et al compared a decentralized and a centralized system on the basis of energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants, and claimed that economies of scale lower the environmental impacts from a centralized system on a per-volume basis. In this comment, we present literature and data from New York State, USA to argue that the authors’ comparison between a small decentralized system (0.015 MGD) and a large centralized system (66.5 MGD) is unconventional and inappropriate. (comment)

Centralization vs. Decentralization in Medical School Libraries

Science.gov (United States)

Crawford, Helen

1966-01-01

Does the medical school library in the United States operate more commonly under the university library or the medical school administration? University-connected medical school libraries were asked to indicate (a) the source of their budgets, whether from the central library or the medical school, and (b) the responsibility for their acquisitions and cataloging. Returns received from sixtyeight of the seventy eligible institutions showed decentralization to be much the most common: 71 percent of the libraries are funded by their medical schools; 79 percent are responsible for their own acquisitions and processing. The factor most often associated with centralization of both budget and operation is public ownership. Decentralization is associated with service to one or two rather than three or more professional schools. Location of the medical school in a different city from the university is highly favorable to autonomy. Other factors associated with these trends are discussed. PMID:5945568

Centralization vs. decentralization in medical school libraries.

Science.gov (United States)

Crawford, H

1966-07-01

Does the medical school library in the United States operate more commonly under the university library or the medical school administration? University-connected medical school libraries were asked to indicate (a) the source of their budgets, whether from the central library or the medical school, and (b) the responsibility for their acquisitions and cataloging. Returns received from sixtyeight of the seventy eligible institutions showed decentralization to be much the most common: 71 percent of the libraries are funded by their medical schools; 79 percent are responsible for their own acquisitions and processing. The factor most often associated with centralization of both budget and operation is public ownership. Decentralization is associated with service to one or two rather than three or more professional schools. Location of the medical school in a different city from the university is highly favorable to autonomy. Other factors associated with these trends are discussed.

Papers by the Decentralized Wastewater Management MOU Partnership

Science.gov (United States)

Four position papers for state, local, and tribal government officials and interested stakeholders. These papers include information on the uses and benefits of decentralized wastewater treatment and examples of its effective use.

Analisis Performansi Algoritma Penjadwalan Log Rule dan Frame Level Schedule Skenario Multicell Pada Layer Mac LTE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ridwan

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Mobile telecommunications technology gradually evolved to support better services such as voice, data, and video to users of telecommunications services. LTE (Long Term Evolution is a network based on Internet Protocol (IP standardized by 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP. To support it, LTE requires a mechanism that can support. One of them by applying methods of scheduling packets in each service. Scheduling is a different treatment to packets that come in accordance with the priorities of the scheduling algorithm. In this research, to analyze the performance of LTE with paramater delay, packet loss ratio, throughput and fairness index uses a scheduling algorithms Frame Level Schedule (FLS and Log Rule on LTE-Simulator with scenarios using Voip traffic, Video and Best Effort (BE. The results is scheduling algorithms FLS is better than log rule in term of throughput values, while of scheduling algorithms log rule is better than FLS in terms of delay based on the number and speed of the users. This indicates that both scheduling algorithms suitable for use in LTE networks within conditions of traffic real time services, but not for non real time services such as BE.

Vehicle underbody fairing

Science.gov (United States)

Ortega, Jason M.; Salari, Kambiz; McCallen, Rose

2010-11-09

A vehicle underbody fairing apparatus for reducing aerodynamic drag caused by a vehicle wheel assembly, by reducing the size of a recirculation zone formed under the vehicle body immediately downstream of the vehicle wheel assembly. The fairing body has a tapered aerodynamic surface that extends from a front end to a rear end of the fairing body with a substantially U-shaped cross-section that tapers in both height and width. Fasteners or other mounting devices secure the fairing body to an underside surface of the vehicle body, so that the front end is immediately downstream of the vehicle wheel assembly and a bottom section of the tapered aerodynamic surface rises towards the underside surface as it extends in a downstream direction.

Fair market value

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Williams, J.

1991-01-01

This paper presents an examination of fair market value concepts as they pertain to producing petroleum properties. conventional petroleum economic theories of fair market value are examined in light of recent work on the market value of long-life reserves. Their work is expanded to show that sellers rely on comparable sales data for estimating FMV. Both results are used to suggest that current practices over-emphasize the discounted cash flow approach to estimating fair market value

Decentralized Planning for Pre-Conflict and Post-Conflict ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Decentralized Planning for Pre-Conflict and Post-Conflict Management in the Bawku Municipal ... institutional arrangements for conflict monitoring and evaluation. Such processes are 'sine qua non' to pre-conflict and post-conflict prevention.

Decentralized Control of Unmanned Aerial Robots for Wireless Airborne Communication Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Deok-Jin Lee

2010-09-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a cooperative control strategy for a team of aerial robotic vehicles to establish wireless airborne communication networks between distributed heterogeneous vehicles. Each aerial robot serves as a flying mobile sensor performing a reconfigurable communication relay node which enabls communication networks with static or slow-moving nodes on gorund or ocean. For distributed optimal deployment of the aerial vehicles for communication networks, an adaptive hill-climbing type decentralized control algorithm is developed to seek out local extremum for optimal localization of the vehicles. The sensor networks estabilished by the decentralized cooperative control approach can adopt its configuraiton in response to signal strength as the function of the relative distance between the autonomous aerial robots and distributed sensor nodes in the sensed environment. Simulation studies are conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed decentralized cooperative control technique for robust communication networks.

PREFACE: FAIRNESS 2013: FAIR NExt generation of ScientistS 2013

Science.gov (United States)

Petersen, Hannah; Destefanis, Marco; Galatyuk, Tetyana; Montes, Fernando; Nicmorus, Diana; Ratti, Claudia; Tolos, Laura; Vogel, Sascha

2014-04-01

FAIRNESS 2013 was the second edition in a series of workshops designed to bring together excellent international young scientists with research interests focused on physics at FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) and was held on 16-21 September 2013 in Berlin, Germany. The topics of the workshop cover a wide range of aspects in both theoretical developments and current experimental status, concentrated around the four scientific pillars of FAIR. FAIR is a new accelerator complex with brand new experimental facilities, that is currently being built next to the existing GSI Helmholtzzentrum for Schwerionenforschung close to Darmstadt, Germany. The spirit of the conference is to bring together young scientists, e.g. advanced PhD students and postdocs and young researchers without permanent position to present their work, to foster active informal discussions and build up of networks. Every participant in the meeting with the exception of the organizers gives an oral presentation, and all sessions are followed by an hour long discussion period. During the talks, questions are anonymously collected in box to stimulate discussions. Since the physics program of FAIR is very broad, this is reflected in the wide range of topics covered at the Conference: Physics of hot and dense nuclear matter, QCD phase transitions and critical point Nuclear structure, astrophysics and reactions Hadron spectroscopy, Hadrons in matter and Hypernuclei Special emphasis is put on the experiments CBM, HADES, PANDA, NuSTAR, as well as NICA and the RHIC low beam energy scan New developments in atomic and plasma physics For all of these different areas one invited speaker was selected to give a longer introductory presentation. The write-ups of the talks presented at FAIRNESS 2013 are the content of this issue of Journal of Physics: Conference Series and have been refereed according to the IOP standard for peer review. This issue constitutes therefore a collection of the forefront of

Decentring the Creative Self

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Glaveanu, Vlad Petre; Lubart, Todd

2014-01-01

to themes depicting the interaction between these different others and the creator. Findings reveal both similarities and differences across the five domains in terms of the specific contribution of others to the creative process. Social interactions play a key formative, regulatory, motivational...... and informational role in relation to creative work. From ‘internalized’ to ‘distant’, other people are an integral part of the equation of creativity calling for a de-centring of the creative self and its re-centring in a social space of actions and interactions....

Decentralization and Living Conditions in the EU

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vries, M.S. de; Goymen, K.; Sazak, O.

2014-01-01

This paper investigates the effects of decentralization on living conditions in core cities in the European Union. It uses data from the Urban Audit to investigate whether the level of local expenditures relative to central government expenditures has an impact on the subjective appreciation of

Decentralization Fails Women in Sudan | IDRC - International ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

2010-11-05

Nov 5, 2010 ... In Sudan, decentralization is a process that has occurred over time and is ... In northern Sudan, some women travel three days to reach the nearest hospital. ... Accord stipulate that basic education is free, “in real life, it is not.”.

Centralized vs. De-centralized Multinationals and Taxes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Søren Bo; Raimondos-Møller, Pascalis; Schjelderup, Guttorm

2005-01-01

The paper examines how country tax differences affect a multinational enterprise's choice to centralize or de-centralize its decision structure. Within a simple model that emphasizes the multiple conflicting roles of transfer prices in MNEs - here, as a strategic pre-commitment device and a tax...

Scheduling the scheduling task : a time management perspective on scheduling

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Larco Martinelli, J.A.; Wiers, V.C.S.; Fransoo, J.C.

2013-01-01

Time is the most critical resource at the disposal of schedulers. Hence, an adequate management of time from the schedulers may impact positively on the scheduler’s productivity and responsiveness to uncertain scheduling environments. This paper presents a field study of how schedulers make use of

77 FR 3281 - High Pressure Steel Cylinders From China; Scheduling of the Final Phase of Countervailing Duty...

Science.gov (United States)

2012-01-23

...)] High Pressure Steel Cylinders From China; Scheduling of the Final Phase of Countervailing Duty and... retarded, by reason of subsidized and less-than-fair-value imports from China of high pressure steel... (``high pressure steel cylinders''). High pressure steel cylinders are fabricated of chrome alloy steel...

Remembering the Future of Centralized Control-Decentralized Execution

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Sheets, Patrick

2003-01-01

... concepts which should drive system development. To realize the significance of the USAF C2 tenet of "centralized control-decentralized execution," one must understand how C2 is executed, in contingency theaters of operation...

CERN Book Fair 2010 - Events and book presentations

CERN Multimedia

CERN Library

2010-01-01

A series of events and book presentations is scheduled for the 2010 CERN Book Fair.   -Springer will present its new products and services (eBooks, MyCopy Softcover Editions, SpringerBriefs, and a new physics journal: "Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Physics") and SpringerMaterials, the electronic version of the Landolt Boernstein book series. -Wiley will present two books: "A History of International Research Networking : The People who Made it Happen", edited by B. Bressan and H. Davies, and "Field computation for accelerator magnets : analytical and numerical methods for electromagnetic design and optimization" by S. Russenschuck. -Finally, World Scientific will present the series "Reviews of Accelerator Science and Technology (RAST)". The calendar is available here: http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=105651      

Decentralized control of units in smart grids for the support of renewable energy supply

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sonnenschein, Michael, E-mail: Michael.Sonnenschein@Uni-Oldenburg.DE [University of Oldenburg, Department of Computing Science, D-26111 Oldenburg (Germany); Lünsdorf, Ontje, E-mail: Ontje.Luensdorf@OFFIS.DE [OFFIS Institute for Information Technology, Escherweg 2, D-26121 Oldenburg (Germany); Bremer, Jörg, E-mail: Joerg.Bremer@Uni-Oldenburg.DE [University of Oldenburg, Department of Computing Science, D-26111 Oldenburg (Germany); Tröschel, Martin, E-mail: Martin.Troeschel@OFFIS.DE [OFFIS Institute for Information Technology, Escherweg 2, D-26121 Oldenburg (Germany)

2015-04-15

Due to the significant environmental impact of power production from fossil fuels and nuclear fission, future energy systems will increasingly rely on distributed and renewable energy sources (RES). The electrical feed-in from photovoltaic (PV) systems and wind energy converters (WEC) varies greatly both over short and long time periods (from minutes to seasons), and (not only) by this effect the supply of electrical power from RES and the demand for electrical power are not per se matching. In addition, with a growing share of generation capacity especially in distribution grids, the top-down paradigm of electricity distribution is gradually replaced by a bottom-up power supply. This altogether leads to new problems regarding the safe and reliable operation of power grids. In order to address these challenges, the notion of Smart Grids has been introduced. The inherent flexibilities, i.e. the set of feasible power schedules, of distributed power units have to be controlled in order to support demand–supply matching as well as stable grid operation. Controllable power units are e.g. combined heat and power plants, power storage systems such as batteries, and flexible power consumers such as heat pumps. By controlling the flexibilities of these units we are particularly able to optimize the local utilization of RES feed-in in a given power grid by integrating both supply and demand management measures with special respect to the electrical infrastructure. In this context, decentralized systems, autonomous agents and the concept of self-organizing systems will become key elements of the ICT based control of power units. In this contribution, we first show how a decentralized load management system for battery charging/discharging of electrical vehicles (EVs) can increase the locally used share of supply from PV systems in a low voltage grid. For a reliable demand side management of large sets of appliances, dynamic clustering of these appliances into uniformly

Decentralized control of units in smart grids for the support of renewable energy supply

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sonnenschein, Michael; Lünsdorf, Ontje; Bremer, Jörg; Tröschel, Martin

2015-01-01

Due to the significant environmental impact of power production from fossil fuels and nuclear fission, future energy systems will increasingly rely on distributed and renewable energy sources (RES). The electrical feed-in from photovoltaic (PV) systems and wind energy converters (WEC) varies greatly both over short and long time periods (from minutes to seasons), and (not only) by this effect the supply of electrical power from RES and the demand for electrical power are not per se matching. In addition, with a growing share of generation capacity especially in distribution grids, the top-down paradigm of electricity distribution is gradually replaced by a bottom-up power supply. This altogether leads to new problems regarding the safe and reliable operation of power grids. In order to address these challenges, the notion of Smart Grids has been introduced. The inherent flexibilities, i.e. the set of feasible power schedules, of distributed power units have to be controlled in order to support demand–supply matching as well as stable grid operation. Controllable power units are e.g. combined heat and power plants, power storage systems such as batteries, and flexible power consumers such as heat pumps. By controlling the flexibilities of these units we are particularly able to optimize the local utilization of RES feed-in in a given power grid by integrating both supply and demand management measures with special respect to the electrical infrastructure. In this context, decentralized systems, autonomous agents and the concept of self-organizing systems will become key elements of the ICT based control of power units. In this contribution, we first show how a decentralized load management system for battery charging/discharging of electrical vehicles (EVs) can increase the locally used share of supply from PV systems in a low voltage grid. For a reliable demand side management of large sets of appliances, dynamic clustering of these appliances into uniformly

What was fair in acturial fairness?

OpenAIRE

Heras Martínez , Antonio José; Teira , David; Pradier , Pierre-Charles

2016-01-01

URL des Documents de travail : http://centredeconomiesorbonne.univ-paris1.fr/documents-de-travail-du-ces/; Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 2016.73 - ISSN : 1955-611X; The concept of acturial fairness stems from an Aristotelian tradition in which fairness requires equality between the goods exchanged. When dealing with aleatory contracts, this principle evolved, among medieval scholars, into equality in risk: benefits and losses should be proportional to the risks unde...

Dynamical Orders of Decentralized H-infinity Controllers

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Stoustrup, Jakob; Niemann, Hans Henrik

1996-01-01

The problem of decentralized control is addressed, i.e. theproblem of designing a controller where each control input is allowedto use only some of the measurements. It is shown that such problemsthere does not always exist a sequence of controllers of bounded orderwhich obtains near optimal cont...

Women's Political Representation and Participation in Decentralized ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

Huairou Commission User

facilitate people's participation in national development through ensuring sound local level politics. • RC evolved into local councils which then led to the implementation of decentralization through the local government act (1997). • This policy has provided opportunities for women to participate in local leadership from.

Of decentralization of public power Ukrainian land that belonged to Lithuanian (XIII – the early XVII century

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C. V. Manuilova

2016-06-01

Full Text Available A comprehensive crisis in Ukraine and continued military confrontation in the Donbass demonstrated the urgent need to establish effective governance, which would imply decentralization of public power. Note that in implementing the decentralization of power in Ukraine insists the International Monetary Fund; United Nations Development Program; the transfer of authority to the field and decentralization of power in Ukraine is one of the points of the Minsk agreements and obligations of Ukraine to the EU. The article deals with the Ukrainian lands topical issue features the decentralization of public power in the XIII - the beginning of XVII century. The importance of the topic due to the need to study the historical experience of the implementation of decentralization. It was, emphasized that the success of the reforms depends largely because of the historical experience and features of the decentralization of public power in the past. Characterized by the development of local government in the Ukrainian lands was part of the Lithuanian state. The purpose of the article is to clarify the characteristics of decentralization of public authority on Ukrainian lands were part of the Lithuanian state during the XVII century XIII. To address this goal, outline decentralization of public power in the state; analyze, competence of local government in the Ukrainian lands that belonged to the Lith uanian State; determine how close to the power of the people. The level of decentralization of public power in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the XIII - the beginning of XVII century was high. It was, found that Lithuania had not established a centralized state. It is, noted that the Board of the nobility limited the princely power. The effect of delegated deputies from different parts of the Lithuanian statehood solutions nobility Council.Clarified the facts that confirm the existence of decentralization of public power in Lithuania: the functioning of local

Remote handling of decentralized power generation plants; Fernwirken von dezentralen Energieerzeugungsanlagen

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Conrad, Michael [IDS GmbH, Ettlingen (Germany). Geschaeftsbereich Entwicklung-Prozessautomatisierung; Thomas, Ralf [IDS GmbH, Ettlingen (Germany). Bereich Business Development und Marketing

2011-05-15

The incresing number of decentral power generation systems requires new grid solutions, i.e. the so-called smart grids. One important function is the monitoring and control, e.g. of decentral PV, wind power and cogeneration systems. The data interfaces used are highly diverse and as a rule are taken from measuring and automation technology, i.e. they must be adapted to the data models and transmission procedures of remote control and guidance systems. A compact protocol gateway enables standardized control and diagnosis.

Engaging Social Capital for Decentralized Urban Stormwater Management

Science.gov (United States)

Decentralized approaches to urban stormwater management, whereby installations of green infrastructure (e.g., rain gardens, bioswales, and constructed wetlands) are dispersed throughout a management area, are cost-effective solutions with co-benefits beyond water abatement. Inste...

Centralization and Decentralization: An International Viewpoint on an American Dilemma. A Special CASEA Report.

Science.gov (United States)

Walker, William G.

This report outlines the history of the centralization-decentralization dilemma in the goverance of organizations, discusses two types of centralization-decentralization continua, and suggests further research. The first type of continuum discussed -- the traditional American -- refers to decisionmaking in the areas of public debate and partisan…

Enforcement and Environmental Quality in a Decentralized Emission Trading System

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

D' Amato, Alessio (Univ. of Rome, ' Tor Vergata' , Rome (Italy)); Valentini, Edilio (Univ. G. D' Annunzio di Chieti-Pescara, DEST, Fac. di Economia, Pescara (Italy))

2008-07-01

This paper addresses the issue of whether the powers of monitoring compliance and allocating allowances under emissions trading within an economic union should be centralized or delegated to single states. To this end, we develop a two stage game played by two governments choosing allowances and monitoring effort to achieve full compliance, and their respective polluting industries. We show that cost advantage in favor of national states is not sufficient to justify decentralization. Nevertheless, cost differential in monitoring violations can imply lower emissions and greater welfare under a decentralized institutional setting than under a centralized one

Free riders play fair

OpenAIRE

Takikawa, Hirohide

2012-01-01

After the demise of the social contract theory, the argument from fair play, which employs the principle of fair play, has been widely acknowledged as one of the most promising ways of justifying political obligation. First, I articulate the most promising version of the principle of fair play. Then, I show that free riders play fair, that is, that their moral fault lies not in unfairness but in the violation of a rule by appealing to the example of three-in-a-boat. Finally, I conclude that e...

Fiscal Decentralization and Disparity of Access to Primary Education in Indonesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shinta Doriza

2013-12-01

Full Text Available In education, one crusial issue of development is the disparity of primary education access. Using 440 regions database from 2005-2009, this study is aim to analize the impact of fiscal decentralization in reducing the enrolement of primary education in Indonesia. Three factors were included, i.e fiscal decentralization, socioeconomic factors and regional characteristics. The result of panel data estimation using fixed-effect approach on this study is that DAK for Education, DAK Non Education, and PAD have significant impact in reducing education acess disparity along with poverty and regional characteristic such as Java-non Java regions. For education level, another variable was also found significant including education of the society and regional characteristic such as proliferated-non proliferated regions. In general there is a facts and proves that fiscal decentralization improve education access equality, but several effort need to done to optimalize the equalization of primary education access in Indonesia.

[Health care reform, decentralization, prevention and control of vector-borne diseases].

Science.gov (United States)

Schmunis, G A; Dias, J C

2000-01-01

Economic policies are changing Latin American health programs, particularly promoting decentralization. Numerous difficulties thus arise for the control of endemic diseases, since such activities traditionally depend on vertical, and centralized structures. Theoretical arguments in favor of decentralization notwithstanding, no such tradition exists at the county level. The lack of program expertise at peripheral levels, intensive staff turnover, and even corruption are additional difficulties. Hence, the simple bureaucratic transfer of activities from the Federal to county level is often irresponsible. The loss of priority for control of endemic diseases in Latin America may mean the inexorable extinction of traditional control services. Malaria, dengue fever, and Chagas disease programs are examples of the loss of expertise and effectiveness in Latin America. A better strategy for responsible decentralization is required. In particular, a shared transition involving all governmental levels is desirable to effectively modernize programs. Maintenance of regional reference centers to ensure supervision, surveillance, and training is suggested.

Decentralized Feedback Controllers for Exponential Stabilization of Hybrid Periodic Orbits: Application to Robotic Walking*

Science.gov (United States)

Hamed, Kaveh Akbari; Gregg, Robert D.

2016-01-01

This paper presents a systematic algorithm to design time-invariant decentralized feedback controllers to exponentially stabilize periodic orbits for a class of hybrid dynamical systems arising from bipedal walking. The algorithm assumes a class of parameterized and nonlinear decentralized feedback controllers which coordinate lower-dimensional hybrid subsystems based on a common phasing variable. The exponential stabilization problem is translated into an iterative sequence of optimization problems involving bilinear and linear matrix inequalities, which can be easily solved with available software packages. A set of sufficient conditions for the convergence of the iterative algorithm to a stabilizing decentralized feedback control solution is presented. The power of the algorithm is demonstrated by designing a set of local nonlinear controllers that cooperatively produce stable walking for a 3D autonomous biped with 9 degrees of freedom, 3 degrees of underactuation, and a decentralization scheme motivated by amputee locomotion with a transpelvic prosthetic leg. PMID:27990059

Fully decentralized control of a soft-bodied robot inspired by true slime mold.

Science.gov (United States)

Umedachi, Takuya; Takeda, Koichi; Nakagaki, Toshiyuki; Kobayashi, Ryo; Ishiguro, Akio

2010-03-01

Animals exhibit astoundingly adaptive and supple locomotion under real world constraints. In order to endow robots with similar capabilities, we must implement many degrees of freedom, equivalent to animals, into the robots' bodies. For taming many degrees of freedom, the concept of autonomous decentralized control plays a pivotal role. However a systematic way of designing such autonomous decentralized control system is still missing. Aiming at understanding the principles that underlie animals' locomotion, we have focused on a true slime mold, a primitive living organism, and extracted a design scheme for autonomous decentralized control system. In order to validate this design scheme, this article presents a soft-bodied amoeboid robot inspired by the true slime mold. Significant features of this robot are twofold: (1) the robot has a truly soft and deformable body stemming from real-time tunable springs and protoplasm, the former is used for an outer skin of the body and the latter is to satisfy the law of conservation of mass; and (2) fully decentralized control using coupled oscillators with completely local sensory feedback mechanism is realized by exploiting the long-distance physical interaction between the body parts stemming from the law of conservation of protoplasmic mass. Simulation results show that this robot exhibits highly supple and adaptive locomotion without relying on any hierarchical structure. The results obtained are expected to shed new light on design methodology for autonomous decentralized control system.

76 FR 72719 - Certain Stilbenic Optical Brightening Agents From China and Taiwan; Scheduling of the Final Phase...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-11-25

... Optical Brightening Agents From China and Taiwan; Scheduling of the Final Phase of Antidumping... whether an industry in the United States is materially injured or threatened with material injury, or the establishment of an industry in the United States is materially retarded, by reason of less-than-fair-value...

THE (UN? FAIRNESS OF FAIR VALUE: SFAS 157, IRVING FISHER AND GECON

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paulo Roberto Barbosa Lustosa

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Objective: The objective of this study is to assess the level of adherence of explicit and implicit measurement concepts present in SFAS 157 – Fair Value Measurements to traditional economic-accounting concepts. Background: The expansion of situations in which fair value measurement is required makes more difficult to ensure that the computed measure of value is actually fair. Out of the objectivity of current sales prices in an active market, all other measures of value are expectations about the future, inherently uncertain and inaccurate. Thus, the desired justice of the computed figures lies not in its accuracy, but in the using of the correct concepts for measuring accounting transactions and events. Method: To reach the objective, the characteristics of this standard are confronted with the secular concept of capital and income set by the laureate American neoclassical economist Irving Fisher, which were incorporated into Information System for Economic Management (Gecon. Results: The results indicate that SFAS 157 fair value concept and measurement structure are incorrect or incomplete, suggesting that the maintenance of the fair value expression in accounting seems inadequate. Contributions: This paper contributes to the literature on accounting measurement showing that as a measurement concept in accounting fair value seems inadequate. In abnormal situations or absence of a market, the measure found is always inexact and subjective, and therefore is not correct to call fair the quantity resulting from this arbitrary calculation.

Decentralized control of multi-agent aerial transportation system

KAUST Repository

Toumi, Noureddine

2017-01-01

and Landing aircraft (VTOL) transportation system. We develop a decentralized method. The advantage of such a solution is that it can provide better maneuverability and lifting capabilities compared to existing systems. First, we consider a cooperative group

Quotas and Decentralization (Indonesia) | CRDI - Centre de ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

Over the past decade, the Government of Indonesia has taken steps to enhance the participation of women in public office. One element of the strategy is decentralization, promoted under the slogan, "local autonomy for people empowerment and welfare." Support for gender mainstreaming was proclaimed and in 2003 an ...

Promoting Research for Policymaking under Decentralization in ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

Major reforms in governance carried out in Peru during the early 2000s saw the decentralization of functions and resources from the central government in Lima to elected regional governments. Today, regional governments account for the majority of public investment, but show limited capacity to cope with the ...

Critical Systems Thinking on Decentralization: the Corporate ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This article calls for the devolution of power by large organizations to their subsidiaries or subordinate units – mainly Strategic Business Units (SBUs). It proposes more decentralized models of management and outlines a new theory taking a critical systems thinking approach. Corporations are advised to attack and ...

RE-ENGINEERING GOVERNANCE; E-GOVERNMENT AS A TOOL FOR DECENTRALIZATION; GHANA AS A CASE STUDY

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gyaase, Patrick Ohemeng Kwadwo

This research was undertaken to study the diffusion of E-government as a tool for decentralization, using Ghana as a case study. E-governance has been credited with the potency of facilitating good governance in countries with appreciable level of E-government maturity. Much attention is being...... espoused by E-government. This research therefore assesses the diffusion of E-government as a tool for decentralization in Ghana. The research was carried out using mixed-methods and was approached from four theoretical perspectives namely Innovation Diffusion theory the TOE framework for technological....... Qualitative data was used to assess the factors affecting the diffusion of e-government as a tool for decentralization and the results pointed to vendor and donor led diffusion as affecting E-government implementation. There is also the absence of convergence between the E-government, the decentralization...

Centralized Control/Decentralized Execution: A Valid Tenet of Airpower

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Santicola, Henry J

2005-01-01

...) and Effects-Based Operations (EBO). This paper examines the history of the concept of centralized control/decentralized execution from the advent of modern warfare through Operation Enduring Freedom...

Decentralized control of the COFS-I Mast using linear dc motors

Science.gov (United States)

Lindner, Douglas K.; Celano, Tom; Ide, Eric

1989-01-01

Consideration is given to a decentralized control design for vibration suppression in the COFS-I Mast using linear dc motors for actuators. The decentralized control design is based results from power systems using root locus techniques that are not well known. The approach is effective because the loop gain is low due to low actuator authority. The frequency-dependent nonlinearities of the actuator are taken into account. Because of the tendency of the transients to saturate the the stroke length of the actuator, its effectiveness is limited.

Fair Value in the light of IFRS 13 «Fair Value Measurement»

OpenAIRE

V.V. Svitselska

2015-01-01

The main provisions of IFRS 13 «Fair Value Measurement» have been researched as well as its critical analysis has been conducted. Comparison of the previous and the new definition of the concept «fair value» has been done on the basis of what the shortcomings of the previous definition have been highlighted, the characteristic features and advantages of new definition from IFRS 13 «Fair Value Measurement» have been outlined. It has been proved that new interpretation of the concept of «fair v...

Fairness through Transparency: The Influence of Price Transparency on Consumer Perceptions of Price Fairness

OpenAIRE

Sandra Rothenberger

2015-01-01

This study proposes that price transparency is a significant factor affecting customer judgments of the fairness of sellers’ prices. Cognitive judgments of fairness require a certain amount of information processing; therefore, the level of transparency and the amount of price information affect fairness judgments. The more clear information consumers possess concerning seller prices, the more positive the judgment will be. Customer price fairness judgment is an effective measurement for the ...

Decentralized Urban Solid Waste Management in Indonesia | CRDI ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

Urban areas of Indonesia generate about 55 000 tonnes of solid waste per day, ... four models of decentralized solid waste management in low-income urban ... En partenariat avec l'Organization for Women in Science for the Developing ...

Study on autonomous decentralized-cooperative function monitoring system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Matsuoka, Takeshi; Numano, Masayoshi; Someya, Minoru; Fukuto, Junji; Mitomo, Nobuo; Miyazaki, Keiko; Matsukura, Hiroshi; Tanba, Yasuyuki

1999-01-01

In this study, a study further advanced on a base of results of study on artificial intelligence for nuclear power', one of nuclear basis crossover studies, conducted at five years planning from 1989 fiscal year was executed. Here was conducted on study on a system technology for supplying cooperation, judgement process, judgement results, and so forth between decentralized artificial intelligent elements (agents) to operation managers (supervisors) by focussing a system for monitoring if autonomous decentralized system containing plant operation and robot group action functioned appropriately. In 1997 fiscal year, by mainly conducting development for displaying working state of robot group, some investigations on integrated management of each function already development and maintained were executed. Furthermore, some periodical meetings on realization of its integration with operation control system and maintenance system with other research institutes were conducted. (G.K.)

Fusion-supported decentralized nuclear energy system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jassby, D.L.

1979-04-01

A decentralized nuclear energy system is proposed comprising mass-produced pressurized water reactors in the size range 10 to 300 MW (thermal), to be used for the production of process heat, space heat, and electricity in applications where petroleum and natural gas are presently used. Special attention is given to maximizing the refueling interval with no interim batch shuffling in order to minimize fuel transport, reactor downtime, and opportunity for fissile diversion. These objectives demand a substantial fissile enrichment (7 to 15%). The preferred fissile fuel is U-233, which offers an order of magnitude savings in ore requirements (compared with U-235 fuel), and whose higher conversion ratio in thermal reactors serves to extend the period of useful reactivity and relieve demand on the fissile breeding plants (compared with Pu-239 fuel). Application of the neutral-beam-driven tokamak fusion-neutron source to a U-233 breeding pilot plant is examined. This scheme can be extended in part to a decentralized fusion energy system, wherein remotely located large fusion reactors supply excess tritium to a distributed system of relatively small nonbreeding D-T reactors

Computational Fair Division

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Branzei, Simina

Fair division is a fundamental problem in economic theory and one of the oldest questions faced through the history of human society. The high level scenario is that of several participants having to divide a collection of resources such that everyone is satisfied with their allocation -- e.g. two...... heirs dividing a car, house, and piece of land inherited. The literature on fair division was developed in the 20th century in mathematics and economics, but computational work on fair division is still sparse. This thesis can be seen as an excursion in computational fair division divided in two parts....... The first part tackles the cake cutting problem, where the cake is a metaphor for a heterogeneous divisible resource such as land, time, mineral deposits, and computer memory. We study the equilibria of classical protocols and design an algorithmic framework for reasoning about their game theoretic...

Dynamical orders of decentralized H-infinity controllers

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Stoustrup, Jakob; Niemann, H.H.

1999-01-01

The problem of decentralized control is addressed, i.e. the problem of designing a controller where each control input is allowed to use only some of the measurements. It is shown that, for such problems, there does not always exist a sequence of controllers of bounded order which obtains near-op...

Local Government Systems and Decentralization: Evidence from Pakistan’s Devolution Plan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhammad Shakil Ahmad

2013-03-01

Full Text Available The discourse of governance and development practitioners continues to embrace community participation and community empowerment as an elementary means of building local capacity for poverty reduction, development and change at the local level. This article is a review of the decentralization initiatives of local government systems after the announcement of the devolution plan in Pakistan. It evaluates the initiatives’ participatory methods to ascertain the extent to which they have improved the process of community development at the local level. This article also measures the impact of community empowerment on the sustainability of community-driven projects implemented under the decentralization initiative through community-based organizations known as Citizen Community Boards (CCBs. Document analysis and literature review methodologies were employed to gain further insight into the decentralization phenomenon in Pakistan. The results describe human development, improvements in community empowerment and the sustainability of local projects; however, the sense of community has yet to be translated into shared benefits for rural communities. The fundamental goal of decentralization seems to be elusive because only power was transferred to the local level, whereas there is little support for community capacity building and community access to resources and the elites still control the electoral process. It is argued that community development initiatives in Pakistan require continuous support from local governments to boost local rural economies. Likewise, community-local government participatory development strategies can lead to strong local ownership and empowerment in rural communities.

A Novel Algorithm for Efficient Downlink Packet Scheduling for Multiple-Component-Carrier Cellular Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yao-Liang Chung

2016-11-01

Full Text Available The simultaneous aggregation of multiple component carriers (CCs for use by a base station constitutes one of the more promising strategies for providing substantially enhanced bandwidths for packet transmissions in 4th and 5th generation cellular systems. To the best of our knowledge, however, few previous studies have undertaken a thorough investigation of various performance aspects of the use of a simple yet effective packet scheduling algorithm in which multiple CCs are aggregated for transmission in such systems. Consequently, the present study presents an efficient packet scheduling algorithm designed on the basis of the proportional fair criterion for use in multiple-CC systems for downlink transmission. The proposed algorithm includes a focus on providing simultaneous transmission support for both real-time (RT and non-RT traffic. This algorithm can, when applied with sufficiently efficient designs, provide adequate utilization of spectrum resources for the purposes of transmissions, while also improving energy efficiency to some extent. According to simulation results, the performance of the proposed algorithm in terms of system throughput, mean delay, and fairness constitute substantial improvements over those of an algorithm in which the CCs are used independently instead of being aggregated.

75 FR 4100 - Affirmative Fair Housing, Marketing (AFHM) Plan-Multifamily Housing, Affirmative Fair Housing...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-26

... DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT [Docket No. FR-5376-N-01] Affirmative Fair Housing, Marketing (AFHM) Plan-Multifamily Housing, Affirmative Fair Housing Marketing (AFHM) Plan-Single Family Housing and Affirmative Fair Housing Marketing (AFHM) Plan- Cooperatives/Condominiums AGENCY: Office of...

1, 2, 3 ... FAIR !

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sturm, C.; Sharkov, B.; Stoecker, H.

2010-01-01

The Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research FAIR at Darmstadt/Germany will provide worldwide unique accelerator and experimental facilities allowing for a large variety of unprecedented forefront research in hadron, nuclear, atomic and plasma physics and applied sciences. The start version of FAIR, the so called Modularized Start Version includes a basic accelerator as well as three experimental modules - 1, 2, 3 FAIR!

Physics at FAIR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chattopadhyay, Subhasis

2014-01-01

The Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) is under construction at Darmstadt, Germany. It will deliver high intensity beams of ions and antiprotons for experiments in the fields of atomic physics, plasma physics, nuclear physics, hadron physics, nuclear matter physics, material physics and biophysics. One of the scientific pillars of FAIR is the Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment which is designed for the study of high density nuclear matter as it exists in the core of neutron stars. In this article the scientific program of FAIR will be reviewed with emphasis on the CBM experiment

8-8-08 International Conference on Decentralization, local power ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

hallas

2008-08-08

Aug 8, 2008 ... The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in collaboration ... To set an agenda on decentralization/ local governance that ... researchers, representatives of multilateral and bilateral agencies, media and others.

Decentralized robust control design using LMI

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dušan Krokavec

2008-03-01

Full Text Available The paper deals with application of decentralized controllers for large-scale systems with subsystems interaction and system matrices uncertainties. The desired stability of the whole system is guaranteed while at the same time the tolerable bounds in the uncertainties due to structural changes are maximized. The design approach is based on the linear matrix inequalities (LMI techniques adaptation for stabilizing controller design.

Decentralized Heat Supply – Alternative to Centralized One

OpenAIRE

V. I. Nazarov; L. A. Tarasevich; А. L. Burov

2012-01-01

The paper presents a concrete example that shows comparative characteristics of decentralized and centralized heat supply. It has been shown in the paper that selection of this or that variant of heat supply significantly depends on losses in heat supply networks.

Land use and environmental impacts of decentralized solar energy use

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Twiss, R.H.; Smith, P.L.; Gatzke, A.E.; McCreary, S.T.

1980-01-01

The physical, spatial and land-use impacts of decentralized solar technologies applied at the community level by the year 2000 are examined. The results of the study are intended to provide a basis for evaluating the way in which a shift toward reliance on decentralized energy technologies may eventually alter community form. Six land-use types representative of those found in most US cities are analyzed according to solar penetration levels identified in the maximum solar scenario for the year 2000. The scenario is translated into shares of end use demand in the residential, commercial and industrial sectors. These proportions become the scenario goals to be met by the use of decentralized solar energy systems. The percentage of total energy demand is assumed to be 36.5 percent, 18.8 percent and 22.6 percent in the residential, commercial and industrial sectors respectively. The community level scenario stipulated that a certain percentage of the total demand be met by on-site solar collection, i.e. photovoltaic and thermal collectors, and by passive design. This on-site solar goal is 31.9 percent (residential), 16.8 percent (commercial) and 13.1 percent (industrial).

Institutional arrangements for decentralized water and health services delivery in rural Tanzania: differences and constraints

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Masanyiwa, Z.S.; Niehof, A.; Termeer, C.J.A.M.

2013-01-01

In recent years, decentralization has been upheld by governments, donors and policy makers in many developing countries as a means of improving public services although opinion is divided on the link between decentralization and service delivery. This article reviews recent literature and research

Supplier’s Joint Investments in Cost Reduction and Quality Improvement in a Decentralized Supply Chain

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hengyun Zhang

2017-01-01

Full Text Available We consider a decentralized supply chain with a downstream manufacturer and an upstream supplier. The upstream supplier sells a product to the manufacturer, who faces a quality and price sensitive demand. The supplier has a chance to invest in both cost reduction and quality improvement of its product. We derive the optimal investment and pricing decisions for the supply chain members. We do so in both the centralized and the decentralized supply chains. We show that the optimal investment and pricing decisions in the decentralized supply chain may deviate from that in the centralized supply chain. We develop a mechanism to coordinate the decentralized supply chain. The developed mechanism contains four policies: wholesale price, sharing of revenue, sharing of cost reduction investment cost, and sharing of quality improvement investment cost. We also show that the developed coordination mechanism can lead to Pareto improvement.

Problems in decentralized data acquisition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eder, R.

1985-04-01

This paper describes INIS (International Nuclear Information System) which is operated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in collaboration with 73 Member States and 14 international organizations. INIS is a computerized system for collecting, processing and disseminating nuclear information. The collection and scanning of literature, input preparation and the dissemination of output are completely decentralized, the checking and merging of the information data are centralized. This paper shows the structure, management, processing and problem areas of this system. (Author)

Leadership and the Decentralized Control of Schools

Science.gov (United States)

Steinberg, Matthew P.

2013-01-01

This review examines the literature related to leadership and the decentralized control of schools. It first considers the distinctive goals of public and private agencies, the specific constraints that shape the autonomy of leaders in different sectors, and the ways in which new models of public management are infusing public agencies with…

A Decentralized Eigenvalue Computation Method for Spectrum Sensing Based on Average Consensus

Science.gov (United States)

Mohammadi, Jafar; Limmer, Steffen; Stańczak, Sławomir

2016-07-01

This paper considers eigenvalue estimation for the decentralized inference problem for spectrum sensing. We propose a decentralized eigenvalue computation algorithm based on the power method, which is referred to as generalized power method GPM; it is capable of estimating the eigenvalues of a given covariance matrix under certain conditions. Furthermore, we have developed a decentralized implementation of GPM by splitting the iterative operations into local and global computation tasks. The global tasks require data exchange to be performed among the nodes. For this task, we apply an average consensus algorithm to efficiently perform the global computations. As a special case, we consider a structured graph that is a tree with clusters of nodes at its leaves. For an accelerated distributed implementation, we propose to use computation over multiple access channel (CoMAC) as a building block of the algorithm. Numerical simulations are provided to illustrate the performance of the two algorithms.

SEARCHING FOR THE FAIR STORY BEHIND FAIR VALUE FOR FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bonaci Carmen Giorgiana

2009-05-01

Full Text Available Our paper aims at telling the whole story where fair value accounting is concerned. Harsh criticism has been brought to this concept under current circumstances that motivated out research. Without arguing for fair value as something it is not, we briefly

Fairness, fast and slow: A review of dual process models of fairness.

Science.gov (United States)

Hallsson, Bjørn G; Siebner, Hartwig R; Hulme, Oliver J

2018-06-01

Fairness, the notion that people deserve or have rights to certain resources or kinds of treatment, is a fundamental dimension of moral cognition. Drawing on recent evidence from economics, psychology, and neuroscience, we ask whether self-interest is always intuitive, requiring self-control to override with reasoning-based fairness concerns, or whether fairness itself can be intuitive. While we find strong support for rejecting the notion that self-interest is always intuitive, the literature has reached conflicting conclusions about the neurocognitive systems underpinning fairness. We propose that this disagreement can largely be resolved in light of an extended Social Heuristics Hypothesis. Divergent findings may be attributed to the interpretation of behavioral effects of ego depletion or neurostimulation, reverse inference from brain activity to the underlying psychological process, and insensitivity to social context and inter-individual differences. To better dissect the neurobiological basis of fairness, we outline how future research should embrace cross-disciplinary methods that combine psychological manipulations with neuroimaging, and that can probe inter-individual, and cultural heterogeneities. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Decentralization for National development in Nigeria from a ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

National development of a multicultural setting requires a decentralized appropriation of diverse contributions of various constituent subsets. Improvement of multicultural settings calls for social negotiation and economic merger, and compression of individual resources of the various units to enhance egalitarian level of ...

A linear program for assessing the assignment and scheduling of radioactive wastes for disposal to sea

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hutchinson, W.

1983-04-01

The report takes the form of a user guide to a computer program using linear programming techniques to aid the assignment and scheduling of radioactive wastes for disposal to sea. The program is aimed at the identification of 'optimum' amounts of each waste stream for disposal to sea without violating specific constraints values and/or fairness parameters. (author)

Reputation-based Joint Scheduling of Households Appliances and Storage in a Microgrid with a Shared Battery

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

AlSkaif, Tarek; Hernández, Adriana Carolina Luna; Guerrero Zapata, Manel

2017-01-01

. Deploying a shared storage unit in a residential microgrid is an alternative scenario that allows households to store their surplus renewable energy for a later use. However, this creates some challenges in managing the battery and the available energy resource in a fair way. In this paper, a reputation...... be achieved, in comparison with the classical scheduling scenario. The saving can reach up to 68% when dierent classes of households exist in the microgrid. The results also show that the fairness in energy allocation is guaranteed by the reputation-based policy, and that the total power absorbed from...... the main grid by the whole microgrid is significantly decreased....

Game-Based Virtual Worlds as Decentralized Virtual Activity Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Scacchi, Walt

There is widespread interest in the development and use of decentralized systems and virtual world environments as possible new places for engaging in collaborative work activities. Similarly, there is widespread interest in stimulating new technological innovations that enable people to come together through social networking, file/media sharing, and networked multi-player computer game play. A decentralized virtual activity system (DVAS) is a networked computer supported work/play system whose elements and social activities can be both virtual and decentralized (Scacchi et al. 2008b). Massively multi-player online games (MMOGs) such as World of Warcraft and online virtual worlds such as Second Life are each popular examples of a DVAS. Furthermore, these systems are beginning to be used for research, deve-lopment, and education activities in different science, technology, and engineering domains (Bainbridge 2007, Bohannon et al. 2009; Rieber 2005; Scacchi and Adams 2007; Shaffer 2006), which are also of interest here. This chapter explores two case studies of DVASs developed at the University of California at Irvine that employ game-based virtual worlds to support collaborative work/play activities in different settings. The settings include those that model and simulate practical or imaginative physical worlds in different domains of science, technology, or engineering through alternative virtual worlds where players/workers engage in different kinds of quests or quest-like workflows (Jakobsson 2006).

Incentivizing Decentralized Sanitation: The Role of Discount Rates.

Science.gov (United States)

Wood, Alison; Blackhurst, Michael; Garland, Jay L; Lawler, Desmond F

2016-06-21

In adoption decisions for decentralized sanitation technologies, two decision makers are involved: the public utility and the individual homeowner. Standard life cycle cost is calculated from the perspective of the utility, which uses a market-based discount rate in these calculations. However, both decision-makers must be considered, including their differing perceptions of the time trade-offs inherent in a stream of costs and benefits. This study uses the discount rate as a proxy for these perceptions and decision-maker preferences. The results in two case studies emphasize the dependence on location of such analyses. Falmouth, Massachusetts, appears to be a good candidate for incentivizing decentralized sanitation while the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority service area in Pennsylvania appears to have no need for similar incentives. This method can be applied to any two-party decision in which the parties are expected to have different discount rates.

Decentralized energy planning and consensus in energy policy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wilbanks, T. J.

1980-05-02

This paper explores the following three propositions and their relationships: (1) that, in our pluralistic policymaking environment, we cannot solve our nation's energy problems unless we can reach agreement among a diverse group of interested parties about specific actions; (2) that, short of a manifest emergency, such a consensus is difficult to reach unless the scale of the decision-making unit is relatively small; and therefore (3) that one of the keys to an effective energy policy in the United states is to rely heavily on local and regional energy planning and decision-making. First, the paper reviews our problem of irresolution and its roots, and it summaries the policy options for resolving it. Then it explores one of those options, decentralized planning, in a little more detail. Finally, it offers some speculations about the viability of a decentralized approach to energy planninng.

CONDITION OF DECENTRALIZATION AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEGAL FORMS OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF REGIONS OF UKRAINE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE GLOBAL EXPERIENCE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nadiia Kulchytska

2016-06-01

Full Text Available In the article the modern condition of decentralization and organizational legal forms of sustainable development of regions of Ukraine in the context of the global experience are analyzed, possible ways to overcome regional disparities are proved. A special place in scientific research article takes a significant number of modern researchers analyzed the theoretical and methodological foundations of a system of financial support of local authorities in the transition to decentralization of public administration. In this regard, particular relevance is the problem of defining the role of decentralization principles in forming the financial support of local government. The importance of decentralization in the process of local government reform is proved. The ways implementing decentralization in modern Ukraine are shown. The scientific approaches to determining the meaning and role of decentralization in a market economy are analyzed and summarized. Key words: decentralization, deconcentration of power, the territorial organization of government, local communities, dotatsiynist, sustainable development. JEL: H 70, R 58

Fairness is intuitive

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Cappelen, Alexander W.; Panton, Ulrik Haagen; Tungodden, Bertil

2016-01-01

In this paper we provide new evidence showing that fair behavior is intuitive to most people. We find a strong association between a short response time and fair behavior in the dictator game. This association is robust to controls that take account of the fact that response time might be affected...

A decentralized receptance-based damage detection strategy for wireless smart sensors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jang, Shinae; Spencer Jr, Billie F; Sim, Sung-Han

2012-01-01

Various structural health monitoring strategies have been proposed recently that can be implemented in the decentralized computing environment intrinsic to wireless smart sensor networks (WSSN). Many are based on changes in the experimentally determined flexibility matrix for the structure under consideration. However, the flexibility matrix contains only static information; much richer information is available by considering the dynamic flexibility, or receptance, of the structure. Recently, the stochastic dynamic damage locating vector (SDDLV) method was proposed based on changes of dynamic flexibility matrices employing centrally collected output-only measurements. This paper investigates the potential of the SDDLV method for implementation on a network of wireless smart sensors, where a decentralized, hierarchical, in-network processing approach is used to address issues of scalability of the SDDLV algorithm. Two approaches to aggregate results are proposed that provide robust estimates of damage locations. The efficacy of the developed strategy is first verified using wired sensors emulating a wireless sensor network. Subsequently, the decentralized damage detection strategy is implemented on MEMSIC’s Imote2 smart sensor platform and validated experimentally on a laboratory scale truss bridge. (paper)

Metropolitan Schools: Administrative Decentralization vs. Community Control.

Science.gov (United States)

Ornstein, Allan C.

This book is divided into four chapters. The first examines the concepts and issues related to understanding social systems and how the schools can be viewed as a social system. The differences between centralization and decentralization, as well as systems-analysis and management-control approaches are also explored. In the next chapter, we are…

Strategies for organizing training: centralized or decentralized

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kanous, L.E.

1979-01-01

STudies were conducted in the Detroit Edison Company for the purpose of determining effectiveness of training. A systems approach from the corporate perspective was found to be needed and worthwhile. At the conclusion of these studies a decision was made to move in the direction of a centralized vs decentralized organizational strategy for training

Children develop a veil of fairness.

Science.gov (United States)

Shaw, Alex; Montinari, Natalia; Piovesan, Marco; Olson, Kristina R; Gino, Francesca; Norton, Michael I

2014-02-01

Previous research suggests that children develop an increasing concern with fairness over the course of development. Research with adults suggests that the concern with fairness has at least 2 distinct components: a desire to be fair and a desire to signal to others that they are fair. We explore whether children's developing concern with behaving fairly toward others may in part reflect a developing concern with appearing fair to others. In Experiments 1 and 2, most 6- to 8-year-old children behaved fairly toward others when an experimenter was aware of their choices; fewer children opted to behave fairly, however, when they could be unfair to others yet appear fair to the experimenter. In Experiment 3, we explored the development of this concern with appearing fair by using a wider age range (6- to 11-year-olds) and a different method. In this experiment, children chose how to assign a good or bad prize to themselves and another participant by either unilaterally deciding who would get each prize or using a fair procedure--flipping a coin in private. Older children were much more likely to flip the coin than younger children, yet were just as likely as younger children to assign themselves the good prize by reporting winning the coin flip more than chance would dictate. Overall, the results of these experiments suggest that as children grow older they become increasingly concerned with appearing fair to others, which may explain some of their increased tendency to behave fairly.

FAIR-share

CERN Multimedia

2009-01-01

Twenty-seven engineers involved in the FAIR project in Germany recently spent three days at CERN. The purpose of their visit: tour ALICE and meet with CERN engineers. This marks the start of a close cooperation. The FAIR project engineers and their CERN counterparts.If you want to build a new particle accelerator and wish to benefit from existing expertise, who do you go to see? Well… why not go straight to CERN? That’s what this group of 27 engineers did. They are working on a new accelerator project, the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR), to be built at the heavy-ion research centre GSI located near Darmstadt, Germany. Representing a variety of disciplines, from manufacturing to architecture, they will be responsible for making the project a reality. The visit was organised from 14-16 October, making it possible to include a tour of the ALICE experiment prior to the re-start of the LHC. However, the main goal was ...

Fairness, fast and slow: A review of dual process models of fairness

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hallsson, Bjørn Gunnar; Hulme, Oliver; Siebner, Hartwig Roman

2018-01-01

-control to override with reasoning-based fairness concerns, or whether fairness itself can be intuitive. While we find strong support for rejecting the notion that self-interest is always intuitive, the literature has reached conflicting conclusions about the neurocognitive systems underpinning fairness. We propose...... that this disagreement can largely be resolved in light of an extended Social Heuristics Hypothesis. Divergent findings may be attributed to the interpretation of behavioral effects of ego depletion or neurostimulation, reverse inference from brain activity to the underlying psychological process, and insensitivity...

Decentralized approaches to wastewater treatment and management: applicability in developing countries.

Science.gov (United States)

Massoud, May A; Tarhini, Akram; Nasr, Joumana A

2009-01-01

Providing reliable and affordable wastewater treatment in rural areas is a challenge in many parts of the world, particularly in developing countries. The problems and limitations of the centralized approaches for wastewater treatment are progressively surfacing. Centralized wastewater collection and treatment systems are costly to build and operate, especially in areas with low population densities and dispersed households. Developing countries lack both the funding to construct centralized facilities and the technical expertise to manage and operate them. Alternatively, the decentralized approach for wastewater treatment which employs a combination of onsite and/or cluster systems is gaining more attention. Such an approach allows for flexibility in management, and simple as well as complex technologies are available. The decentralized system is not only a long-term solution for small communities but is more reliable and cost effective. This paper presents a review of the various decentralized approaches to wastewater treatment and management. A discussion as to their applicability in developing countries, primarily in rural areas, and challenges faced is emphasized all through the paper. While there are many impediments and challenges towards wastewater management in developing countries, these can be overcome by suitable planning and policy implementation. Understanding the receiving environment is crucial for technology selection and should be accomplished by conducting a comprehensive site evaluation process. Centralized management of the decentralized wastewater treatment systems is essential to ensure they are inspected and maintained regularly. Management strategies should be site specific accounting for social, cultural, environmental and economic conditions in the target area.

Contesting sharia : state law, decentralization and Minangkabau custom

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Huda, Yasrul

2013-01-01

This book explains how Sharia, commonly called Perda Sharia (Sharia by-law) in Indonesia, was legislated on the provincial, regional and municipal level in West Sumatra. This process began after the government started a decentralization policy in 2000. Although the law of local autonomy prescribes

The influence of decentralization on effectiveness of extension ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Against the background of frequent organisational changes and restructuring, often based on impulsive decisions rather than structured feasibility studies or evaluations, this article examines the influence of decentralization on the performance of an extension organization. Based on a survey of 353 respondents from ...

Decentralized Heat Supply – Alternative to Centralized One

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. I. Nazarov

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The paper presents a concrete example that shows comparative characteristics of decentralized and centralized heat supply. It has been shown in the paper that selection of this or that variant of heat supply significantly depends on losses in heat supply networks.

Distributed and decentralized control architectures for converter-interfaced microgrids

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dragicevic, Tomislav; Wu, Dan; Shafiee, Qobad

2017-01-01

This paper gives a summary on recently available technologies for decentralized and distributed control of microgrids. They can be classified into two general categories: 1) power line communication based architectures and 2) multi-agent based architectures. The essential control methods and info......This paper gives a summary on recently available technologies for decentralized and distributed control of microgrids. They can be classified into two general categories: 1) power line communication based architectures and 2) multi-agent based architectures. The essential control methods...... and information sharing algorithms applied in these architectures are reviewed and examined in a hierarchical manner, in order to point out benefits they will bring to future microgrid applications. The paper is concluded with a summary on existing methods and a discussion on future development trends....

Analysis of Decentralized Control for Absorption Cycle Heat Pumps

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vinther, Kasper; Just Nielsen, Rene; Nielsen, Kirsten Mølgaard

2015-01-01

Email Print Request Permissions This paper investigates decentralized control structures for absorption cycle heat pumps and a dynamic nonlinear model of a single-effect LiBr-water absorption system is used as case study. The model has four controllable inputs, which can be used to stabilize...... the operation of the heat pump under different load conditions. Different feasible input-output pairings are analyzed by computation of relative gain array matrices and scaled condition numbers, which indicate the best pairing choice and the potential of each input-output set. Further, it is possible...... to minimize the effect of cross couplings and improve stability with the right pairing of input and output. Simulation of selected candidate input-output pairings demonstrate that decentralized control can provide stable operation of the heat pump....

Decentralized safety concept for closed-loop controlled intensive care.

Science.gov (United States)

Kühn, Jan; Brendle, Christian; Stollenwerk, André; Schweigler, Martin; Kowalewski, Stefan; Janisch, Thorsten; Rossaint, Rolf; Leonhardt, Steffen; Walter, Marian; Kopp, Rüdger

2017-04-01

This paper presents a decentralized safety concept for networked intensive care setups, for which a decentralized network of sensors and actuators is realized by embedded microcontroller nodes. It is evaluated for up to eleven medical devices in a setup for automated acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) therapy. In this contribution we highlight a blood pump supervision as exemplary safety measure, which allows a reliable bubble detection in an extracorporeal blood circulation. The approach is validated with data of animal experiments including 35 bubbles with a size between 0.05 and 0.3 ml. All 18 bubbles with a size down to 0.15 ml are successfully detected. By using hidden Markov models (HMMs) as statistical method the number of necessary sensors can be reduced by two pressure sensors.

Impact of Fiscal Decentralization on Motor Vehicle Taxation in the Slovak Republic

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Konečný Vladimír

2016-03-01

Full Text Available The article deals with the motor vehicle tax in relation with fiscal decentralization, particularly from 2005 with competence delegated to the self-governing regions in the area of motor vehicle tax. The result of this provision in the field of fiscal decentralization is increasing of differences in the motor vehicle tax burden in self-governing regions of Slovakia. The paper is the result of solving a series of impact studies solved by the authors in this field. Gradually over time from the transfer of competences in setting tax rates on motor vehicles to self-governing regions and usage of the incomes of this tax can realistically assess the development and impact of this element of fiscal decentralization in the Slovak Republic as well as propose a solution of resulting situation. The aim is to eliminate differences in motor vehicle tax burden at regional and interstate level while maintaining the current level of tax revenues of self-governing regions.

Optimal Resource Allocation for NOMA-TDMA Scheme with α-Fairness in Industrial Internet of Things.

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Yanjing; Guo, Yiyu; Li, Song; Wu, Dapeng; Wang, Bin

2018-05-15

In this paper, a joint non-orthogonal multiple access and time division multiple access (NOMA-TDMA) scheme is proposed in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), which allowed multiple sensors to transmit in the same time-frequency resource block using NOMA. The user scheduling, time slot allocation, and power control are jointly optimized in order to maximize the system α -fair utility under transmit power constraint and minimum rate constraint. The optimization problem is nonconvex because of the fractional objective function and the nonconvex constraints. To deal with the original problem, we firstly convert the objective function in the optimization problem into a difference of two convex functions (D.C.) form, and then propose a NOMA-TDMA-DC algorithm to exploit the global optimum. Numerical results show that the NOMA-TDMA scheme significantly outperforms the traditional orthogonal multiple access scheme in terms of both spectral efficiency and user fairness.

Decentralized cooperative spectrum sensing for ad-hoc disaster relief network clusters

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pratas, Nuno; Marchetti, Nicola; Prasad, Neeli R.

2010-01-01

cooperative schemes becomes essential. A cluster based decentralized orchestration cooperative sensing scheme is proposed, where each node in the cluster decides which spectrum it should monitor, according to the past sensing decisions of all the cluster nodes. The proposed scheme performance is evaluated...... through a framework, which allows gauging the accuracy of multi narrow-band spectrum sensing cooperative schemes as well as to gauge the error in the estimation of each of the channels un-occupancy. Through that evaluation it is shown that the proposed decentralized scheme performance reaches...... the performance of the correspondent centralized scheme while outperforming the Round Robin scheme....

Near Optimal Decentralized H-infinity Control: Bounded vs. Unbounded Controller Order

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Stoustrup, Jakob; Niemann, H.H.

1997-01-01

It is shown that for a class of decentralized control problems there does not exist a sequence of controllers of bounded order which obtains near optimal control. Neither does there exist an infinite dimensional optimal controller. Using the insight of the line of proof of these results, a heuris......It is shown that for a class of decentralized control problems there does not exist a sequence of controllers of bounded order which obtains near optimal control. Neither does there exist an infinite dimensional optimal controller. Using the insight of the line of proof of these results...

Implementation of the Decentralization Reform in Ukraine: Current Issues of Public Administration Modernization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yaroshenko Igor V.

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The need of all parts of the modern Ukrainian society for structural transformations determines the direction of development of the country and its territories. One of such priority vectors is the decentralization reform, efficiency of which is inextricably linked with the changes that occur in all vital for the development of society and every individual public areas: public administration, judicial system, law enforcement bodies, deregulation and development of business, banking and financial sectors, innovation and trade policies, education, medicine and other sectors of the economy and social sphere. The initiated in Ukraine transformations, including the decentralization of public power, require further legislative changes and desire of all public institutions to ensure their effective implementation through public initiative and public support. Monitoring the course of the decentralization reform in Ukraine has demonstrated little actual results of its implementation. Today an adequate legislation framework concerning the powers, resources and responsibilities has not been established yet. It is advisable to carry out a profound theoretical and practical study of the world and Ukrainian experience, develop and introduce an own science-based system of power decentralization with consideration for historical, ideological, cultural, social, economic, geographical and other features of the country, while taking into account the best practices, which can be effectively used.

Decentralized energy: technology assessment and systems description. [Potential for implementation for years 2000 and 2025

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Reckard, M K

1979-06-01

Decentralized energy systems and their characteristic features are examined in the report. These systems have been divided into six groups for the purpose of analysis: solar, wind, hydro, biomass, geothermal, and coproduction (total energy). The technical and economic potential for the implementation of these systems is discussed for the years 2000 and 2025. The results of a comparison of base-case and decentralized scenarios for the year 2000, using a computer systems model, are presented. Social and institutional factors are also addressed, both as motivations for and results of energy system decentralization. Appendices are included with more detailed technical information on each of the systems groups.

Electrical Load Survey and Forecast for a Decentralized Hybrid ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Electrical Load Survey and Forecast for a Decentralized Hybrid Power System at Elebu, Kwara State, Nigeria. ... Nigerian Journal of Technology ... The paper reports the results of electrical load demand and forecast for Elebu rural community ...

Blockchain technology and decentralized governance: Is the state still necessary?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marcella Atzori

2017-03-01

Full Text Available The core technology of Bitcoin, the blockchain, has recently emerged as a disruptive innovation with a wide range of applications, potentially able to redesign our interactions in business, politics and society at large. Although scholarly interest in this subject is growing, a comprehensive analysis of blockchain applications from a political perspective is severely lacking to date. This paper aims to fill this gap and it discusses the key points of blockchain-based decentralized governance, which challenges to varying degrees the traditional mechanisms of State authority, citizenship and democracy. In particular, the paper verifies to which extent blockchain and decentralized platforms can be considered as hyper-political tools, capable to manage social interactions on large scale and dismiss traditional central authorities. The analysis highlights risks related to a dominant position of private powers in distributed ecosystems, which may lead to a general disempowerment of citizens and to the emergence of a stateless global society. While technological utopians urge the demise of any centralized institution, this paper advocates the role of the State as a necessary central point of coordination in society, showing that decentralization through algorithm-based consensus is an organizational theory, not a stand-alone political theory.

Decentralized energy conversion of biomass from Amstelland. The feasibility of decentralized use of energy from green wastes in the municipality Amstelveen and its environs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brouwer, H.D.

1997-10-01

The aim of the study on the title subject is to determine the enviro-technical and economical feasibility of decentralized biomass conversion as part of the green area and energy infrastructure of the region Amstelland, Netherlands. The parts of the study concern a regional inventory of green wastes in Amstelland, an energy demand analysis of conversion sites in the region, a logistic analysis, an evaluation of technical options (cogeneration, combustion, gasification), business economical analysis of the investments, determining the support and willingness to contribute and cooperate, and drafting a final report. Based on the results of the report decisions can be made whether or not the design and installation of a decentralized biomass conversion system should be elaborated in detail. 16 refs

The FAIR proton linac

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kester, O.

2015-01-01

FAIR - the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research in Europe - constructed at GSI in Darmstadt comprises an international centre of heavy ion accelerators that will drive heavy ion and antimatter research. FAIR will provide worldwide unique accelerator and experimental facilities, allowing a large variety of fore-front research in physics and applied science. FAIR will deliver antiproton and ion beams of unprecedented intensities and qualities. The main part of the FAIR facility is a sophisticated accelerator system, which delivers beams to different experiments of the FAIR experimental collaborations - APPA, NuSTAR, CBM and PANDA - in parallel. Modern H-type cavities offer highest shunt impedances of resonant structures of heavy ion linacs at low beam energies < 20 MeV/u and enable the acceleration of intense proton and ion beams. One example is the interdigital H-type structure. The crossed-bar H-cavities extend these properties to high energies even beyond 100 MeV/u. Compared to conventional Alvarez cavities, these crossed-bar (CH) cavities feature much higher shunt impedance at low energies. The design of the proton linac is based on those cavities

Towards a (Decentralization-Based Typology of Peer Production

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Melanie Dulong de Rosnay

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Online peer-production platforms facilitate the coordination of creative work and services. Generally considered as empowering participatory tools and a source of common good, they can also be, however, alienating instruments of digital labour. This paper proposes a typology of peer-production platforms, based on the centralization/decentralization levels of several of their design features. Between commons-based peer-production and crowdsourced, user-generated content “enclosed” by corporations, a wide range of models combine different social, political, technical and economic arrangements. This combined analysis of the level of (decentralization of platform features provides information on emancipation capabilities in a more granular way than a market-based qualification of platforms, based on the nature of ownership or business models only. The five selected features of the proposed typology are: ownership of means of production, technical architecture/design, social organization/governance of work patterns, ownership of the peer-produced resource, and value of the output.

Centralized vs. Decentralized Nursing Stations: An Evaluation of the Implications of Communication Technologies in Healthcare.

Science.gov (United States)

Bayramzadeh, Sara; Alkazemi, Mariam F

2014-01-01

This study aims to explore the relationship between the nursing station design and use of communication technologies by comparing centralized and decentralized nursing stations. The rapid changes in communication technologies in healthcare are inevitable. Communication methods can change the way occupants use a space. In the meantime, decentralized nursing stations are emerging as a replacement for the traditional centralized nursing stations; however, not much research has been done on how the design of nursing stations can impact the use of communication technologies. A cross sectional study was conducted using an Internet-based survey among registered nurses in a Southeastern hospital in the United States. Two units with centralized nursing stations and two units with decentralized nursing stations were compared in terms of the application of communication technologies. A total of 70 registered nurses completed the survey in a 2-week period. The results revealed no significant differences between centralized and decentralized nursing stations in terms of frequency of communication technologies used. However, a difference was found between perception of nurses toward communication technologies and perceptions of the use of communication technologies in decentralized nursing stations. Although the study was limited to one hospital, the results indicate that nurses hold positive attitudes toward communication technologies. The results also reveal the strengths and weaknesses of each nursing station design with regard to communication technologies. Hospital, interdisciplinary, nursing, technology, work environment.

An empirical analysis of the green paradox in China: From the perspective of fiscal decentralization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Kun; Zhang, Zong-Yong; Liang, Qiao-Mei

2017-01-01

While it is generally recognized that the introduction of environmental policy can effectively control carbon emissions, the green paradox hypothesis puts forth a new warning about the validity of this policy's implementation. This study uses panel data on 29 Chinese provinces from 1995 to 2012 to investigate the impact of fiscal decentralization on the functional mechanisms of environmental policy while controlling for the spatial correlations of carbon emission. The empirical results indicate that environmental policy alone can achieve the objective of reducing carbon emissions. However, the Chinese style fiscal decentralization makes the environmental policy significantly promote carbon emissions, leading to a green paradox. Moreover, we find that the impact of fiscal decentralization on environmental policy varies greatly among different geographical regions and the direct-controlled municipalities. In addition, our study confirms the spatial correlations in China's carbon emissions by using a spatial integration term. Finally, we recommend that emission reduction efforts should be incorporated into the local government's performance evaluation system to improve the institutional environment. Further, differentiated environmental policies and measures should be considered for different provinces to maximize the emission reduction potential. - Highlights: • We consider the spatial correlations of carbon emissions in neighboring provinces. • The impacts of environmental regulation on carbon emissions are examined. • Fiscal decentralization is not beneficial to environmental policy implementation. • The effects of fiscal decentralization vary greatly among different regions.

The timing master for the FAIR accelerator facility

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baer, R.C.; Fleck, T.; Kreider, M.; Mauro, S.

2012-01-01

One central design feature of the FAIR accelerator complex is a high level of parallel beam operation, imposing ambitious demands on the timing and management of accelerator cycles. Several linear accelerators, synchrotrons, storage rings and beam lines have to be controlled and reconfigured for each beam production chain on a pulse-to-pulse basis, with cycle lengths ranging from 20 ms to several hours. This implies initialization, synchronization of equipment on the time scale down to the ns level, inter-dependencies, multiple paths and contingency actions like emergency beam dump scenarios. The FAIR timing system will be based on White Rabbit (WR) network technology, implementing a central Timing Master (TM) unit to orchestrate all machines. The TM is subdivided into separate functional blocks: the Clock Master, which deals with time and clock sources and their distribution over WR, the Management Master, which administrates all WR timing receivers, and the Data Master, which schedules and coordinates machine instructions and broadcasts them over the WR network. The TM triggers equipment actions based on the transmitted execution time. Since latencies in the low μs range are required, this paper investigates the possibilities of parallelization in programmable hardware and discusses the benefits to either a distributed or monolithic timing master architecture. The proposed FPGA based TM will meet said timing requirements while providing fast reaction to interlocks and internal events and offers parallel processing of multiple signals and state machines. (authors)

FAIR VALUE ACCOUNTING AND EARNINGS MANAGEMENT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pei-Hui Hsu

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Many have argued that measuring financial instruments at fair value might not reflect firms’ financial condition. Prior study finds that managers manipulate the “disclosure” of fair value measurement (Song et al. 2010. In this study, we attempt to provide evidence regarding manager’s incentive to manipulate the disclosure of fair value measurements by examining whether the disclosure of less relevant fair value measurement is related to the odds of earnings management. We find that firms with more Level 3 assets and liabilities (i.e., less value relevant fair value measurement are more likely to recognize positive unrealized gains to meet or beat analyst forecast target. In addition, we find that only firms with weak corporate governance disclose more Level 3 fair value liabilities and recognize unrealized gains into reported earnings to meet or beat analyst forecast target. This evidence suggests that managers manipulate the disclosure of fair value measurement in order to manage reported earnings via the adoption of fair value option.

Decentralized Consistent Network Updates in SDN with ez-Segway

KAUST Repository

Nguyen, Thanh Dang; Chiesa, Marco; Canini, Marco

2017-01-01

We present ez-Segway, a decentralized mechanism to consistently and quickly update the network state while preventing forwarding anomalies (loops and black-holes) and avoiding link congestion. In our design, the centralized SDN controller only pre-computes

On fairness and randomness

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jaeger, Manfred

2009-01-01

We investigate the relation between the behavior of non-deterministic systems under fairness constraints, and the behavior of probabilistic systems. To this end, first a framework based on computable stopping strategies is developed that provides a common foundation for describing both fair...... this perspective the question is investigated what probabilistic properties are needed in such an implementation to guarantee (with probability one) certain required fairness properties in the behavior of the probabilistic system. Generalizing earlier concepts of ε -bounded transition probabilities, we introduce...

[Mechanisms for allocating financial resources after decentralization in the state of Jalisco].

Science.gov (United States)

Pérez-Núñez, Ricardo; Arredondo-López, Armando; Pelcastre, Blanca

2006-01-01

To analyze, from the decision maker's perspective, the financial resource allocation process of the health services of the state of Jalisco (SSJ, per its abbreviation in spanish), within the context of decentralization. Through a qualitative approximation using semi-structured individual interviews of key personnel in managerial positions as the method for compiling information, the experience of the SSJ in financial resource allocation was documented. From September to November 2003, the perception of managers and administrators regarding their level of autonomy in decision-making was explored as well as the process they follow for the allocation of financial resources, in order to identify the criteria they use and their justifications. From the point of view of decision-makers, autonomy of the SSJ has increased considerably since decentralization was implemented, although the degree of decision-making freedom remains limited due mainly to high adminstrative costs associated with salaries. In this sense, the implications attributable to labor situations that are still centralized are evident. Some innovative systems for financial resource allocation have been established in the SSJ for the sanitary regions and hospitals based upon administrative-managerial and productivity incentives. Adjustments were also made for degree of marginalization and population lag, under the equity criterion. General work conditions and decision-making autonomy of the sanitary regions constitute outstanding aspects pending decentralization. Although decentralization has granted more autonomy to the SSJ, the level of decision-making freedom for allocating financial resources has been held within the highest hierarchical levels.

Administrative Decentralization in School Systems and Its Effect on the Organization of Media Services. Atlanta Public Schools: A Case Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, R. David

This study reviews the literature on public school administration and on decentralization to establish the groundwork for an analysis of the administration of a decentralized school system and its media services, discusses some of the confusion in the centralization vs. decentralization debate, and presents a heuristic study of the administration…

A Logic for Auditing Accountability in Decentralized Systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Corin, R.J.; Etalle, Sandro; den Hartog, Jeremy; Lenzini, Gabriele; Staicu, I.

We propose a language that allows agents to distribute data with usage policies in a decentralized architecture. In our framework, the compliance with usage policies is not enforced. However, agents may be audited by an authority at an arbitrary moment in time. We design a logic that allows audited

Decentralized School vs. Centralized School. Investigation No. 3.

Science.gov (United States)

Paseur, C. Herbert

A report is presented of a comparative investigation of a decentralized and a centralized school facility. Comparative data are provided regarding costs of the facilities, amount of educational area provided by the facilities, and types of educational areas provided. Evaluative comments are included regarding cost savings versus educational…

Fair Trade - is it really fair?

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Konečný, Tomáš; Mysliveček, Jan

-, č. 367 (2008), s. 1-53 ISSN 1211-3298 R&D Projects: GA MŠk LC542 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z70850503 Keywords : Fair Trade * coffee * price setting Subject RIV: AH - Economics http://www.cerge-ei.cz/pdf/wp/Wp367.pdf

Performance of centralized versus decentralized tuberculosis treatment services in Southern Brazil, 2006-2015.

Science.gov (United States)

Scheffer, Mara Cristina; Prim, Rodrigo Ivan; Wildner, Leticia Muraro; Medeiros, Taiane Freitas; Maurici, Rosemeri; Kupek, Emil; Bazzo, Maria Luiza

2018-04-25

Tuberculosis (TB) control programs face the challenges of decreasing incidence, mortality rates, and drug resistance while increasing treatment adherence. The Brazilian TB control program recommended the decentralization of patient care as a strategy for combating the disease. This study evaluated the performance of this policy in an area with high default rates, comparing epidemiological and operational indicators between two similar municipalities. This study analyzed epidemiological and operational indicators on new cases of pulmonary tuberculosis reported in the Brazilian Notifiable Diseases Information System between 2006 and 2015. In addition, to characterize differences between the populations of the two studied municipalities, a prospective cohort study was conducted between 2014 and 2015, in which patients with new cases of culture-confirmed pulmonary tuberculosis were interviewed and monitored until the disease outcome. A descriptive analysis, the chi-square test, and a Poisson regression model were employed to compare TB treatment outcomes and health care indicators between the municipalities. Two thousand three hundred nine cases were evaluated, of which 207 patients were interviewed. Over the 2006-2015 period, TB incidence per 100,000 population in the municipality with decentralized care was significantly higher (39%, 95% CI 27-49%) in comparison to that of the municipality with centralized care. TB treatment default rate (45%, 95% CI 12-90%) was also higher in the municipality with decentralized care. During the two-year follow-up, significant differences were found between patients in centralized care and those in decentralized care regarding treatment success (84.5 vs. 66.1%), treatment default (10.7 vs. 25.8%), illicit drug use (27.7 vs. 45.9%), and homelessness (3.6 vs. 12.9%). The operational indicators revealed that the proportion of control smear tests, medical imaging, and HIV tests were all significantly higher in the centralized care

Decentralized Wastewater Management Solutions for Improved Public Health Protection and Reclamation: Optimization and Application

OpenAIRE

Naik, Kartiki Shirish

2014-01-01

Centralized wastewater treatment, widely practiced in developed areas, involves transporting wastewater from large urban or industrial areas to a large capacity plant using a single network of sewers. Alternatively, the concept of wastewater collection, treatment and reuse at or near its point of generation is called decentralized wastewater treatment. Smaller decentralized plants with energy-efficient reclaimed water pumping, modularization of expansion and minimum capital investment can mee...

Fears of Redistribution, Decentralization and Secession: Evidence from Bolivia’s Referendum for Departmental Autonomy

OpenAIRE

Werner L. Hernani-Limarino

2006-01-01

Recent years have witnessed strong movements toward decentralization and secession. The former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovaquia and Serbia and Montenegro have disintegrated. Movements for regional autonomy and even independence have gained larger support in Bolivia, Canada, Spain, France and Italy. What is the importance of redistributive politics in explaining decentralization and secession outcomes in a democratic polity? This paper attempts to answer this question building a simpl...

Cultural Values and Overall Fairness;

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohsen Golparvar

2010-04-01

Full Text Available This research conducted with the aim of investigating the relationships between overall fairness and cultural values with organizational justice, job satisfaction and turnover among the personnel of training and education administrations in Esfahan city. Statistical population were the personnel of education and training administrations regions, which 309 persons from them selected with using simple random sampling. Research instruments were overall fairness with 3 items, cultural values (in two fields including materialism and power distance with 8 items, distributive, procedural and interactional justice with 3,3,3 items respectively, job satisfaction with 3 items and turnover with 3 items. Data were analyzed with using Pearson’s correlation coefficient, structural equation modeling, moderated hierarchical regression and mediating regression analysis. Results showed that there are significant relations between overall fairness with distributive, procedural, interactional justice and turnover, job satisfaction and materialism (P0.05. The results of structural equation modeling and mediating regression analysis showed that overall fairness relatively mediate the relations between procedural justices with turnover. But there was not mediated role for overall fairness in relations between distributive and interactional fairness with turnover and job satisfaction. Moderated regression analysis showed that power distance likely have moderated role in relations between overall fairness with turnover likely.

Research on Calculation of the IOL Tilt and Decentration Based on Surface Fitting

OpenAIRE

Li, Lin; Wang, Ke; Yan, Yan; Song, Xudong; Liu, Zhicheng

2013-01-01

The tilt and decentration of intraocular lens (IOL) result in defocussing, astigmatism, and wavefront aberration after operation. The objective is to give a method to estimate the tilt and decentration of IOL more accurately. Based on AS-OCT images of twelve eyes from eight cases with subluxation lens after operation, we fitted spherical equation to the data obtained from the images of the anterior and posterior surfaces of the IOL. By the established relationship between IOL tilt (decentrati...

Investigating the interactions of decentralized and centralized wastewater heat recovery systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Sitzenfrei, Robert; Hillebrand, Sebastian; Rauch, Wolfgang

2017-03-01

In the urban water cycle there are different sources for extracting energy. In addition to potential and chemical energy in the wastewater, thermal energy can also be recovered. Heat can be recovered from the wastewater with heat exchangers that are located decentralized and/or centralized at several locations throughout the system. It can be recovered directly at the source (e.g. in the showers and bathrooms), at building block level (e.g. warm water tanks collecting all grey water), in sewers or at the wastewater treatment plant. However, an uncoordinated installation of systems on such different levels can lead to competing technologies. To investigate these interactions, a modelling environment is set up, tested and calibrated based on continuous sewer temperature and flow measurements. With that approach different heat recovery scenarios on a household level (decentralized) and of in-sewer heat recovery (centralized) are investigated. A maximum performance drop of 40% for a centralized energy recovery system was estimated when all bathrooms are equipped with decentralized recovery systems. Therefore, the proposed modelling approach is suitable for testing different future conditions and to identify robust strategies for heat recovery systems from wastewater.

Feedback-linearization and feedback-feedforward decentralized control for multimachine power system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

De Tuglie, Enrico [Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell' Ambiente, e per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile - DIASS, Politecnico di Bari, Viale del Turismo 8, 74100 Taranto (Italy); Iannone, Silvio Marcello; Torelli, Francesco [Dipartimento di Elettrotecnica, ed Elettronica - DEE, Politecnico di Bari, Via Re David 200, 70125 Bari (Italy)

2008-03-15

In this paper a decentralized nonlinear controller for large-scale power systems is investigated. The proposed controller design is based on the input-output feedback linearization methodology. In order to overcome computational difficulties in adopting such methodology, the overall interconnected nonlinear system, given as n-order, is analyzed as a cascade connection of an n{sub 1}-order nonlinear subsystem and an n{sub 2}-order linear subsystem. The controller design is obtained by applying input-output feedback linearization to the nonlinear subsystem and adopting a tracking control scheme, based on feedback-feedforward technique, for the linear subsystem. In the assumed system model, which is characterised by an interconnected structure between generating units, a decentralised adaptive controller is implemented by decentralizing these constraints. The use of a totally decentralised controller implies a system performance decay with respect to performance when the system is equipped with a centralised controller. Fortunately, the robustness of the proposed controller, based on input-output feedback procedure, guarantees good performance in terms of disturbance even when disturbances are caused by decentralization of interconnection constraints. Test results, provided on the IEEE 30 bus test system, demonstrate the effectiveness and practical applicability of proposed methodology. (author)

Financial decentralization and its impact on local finance system of Ukraine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

I. V. Mizina

2016-07-01

Full Text Available The article researches the influence of the process of financial decentralization system on local finance system in Ukraine. Author determined the basic transformations of local finances system as a result of reform measures and ways to adapt to new conditions. The basic characteristics of the changing role of public authorities and local governments, their relationships and relationships in the system, strengthening public participation in decision­making of local importance are revealed. The main requirements of local finances taking into account the impact of fiscal decentralization processes are formulated. They include the formation of an effective and sustainable framework for the mobilization of financial resources within each territorial community; providing sufficient resources for sustainable and dynamic development at the local level; improve management of local finances with the application process and project approaches. An action plan to change the system of local finance Ukraine in the context of fiscal decentralization on a 5­year period is proposed. The action plan envisages normalization of regulatory provisions in the area of local finance, training local government officials, development resources, monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the current system of local finance.

RIGHT TO ACCESS INFORMATION IN DECENTRALIZED INDONESIA: A SOCIO-LEGAL INQUIRY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Herlambang Perdana Wiratraman

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Indonesia is no longer an authoritarian country, and no longer centralized government. Decentralization processes since 1999 has changed local democratization in a wider participation. Nevertheless, the culture of openness and incorrupt have been far from the more ideal situation. Bribery, corruption and unresponsive public services have been continuously and more systematic taking place. In that context, the Government of Indonesia enacted Law No. 14 of 2008 concerning Public Information Openness (Keterbukaan Informasi Publik or called PIO Law, which is implemented since 30 April 2010. The PIO law is believed to contribute to the better decentralization processes and economic-political democratization at local level. Nevertheless, although right to access information was guaranteed by law, but it has been applied in limited process. Such situation actually gives clear evidence that decentralized Indonesia should be questioned, especially in terms of how the right to access information has been applied in a meaningful way after the enactment PIO Law in 2008 and, what the dominant problems in implementing right to access information are. This article will elaborate the norms and practices of PIO Law by using the rule of law point of view.

The Role of Delay and Connectivity in Throughput Reduction of Cooperative Decentralized Wireless Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ahmed Alkhayyat

2015-01-01

Full Text Available We proposed a multiple relay selection protocol for decentralized wireless networks. The proposed relays selection protocol aims to address three issues: (1 selecting relays within the coverage area of the source and destination to ensure that the relays are positioned one hop away from the destination, (2 ensuring that the best node (best relays with less distance and attenuation from the destination access the channel first, and (3 ensuring that the proposed relays selection is collision-free. Our analysis also considers three important characteristics of decentralized wireless networks that are directly affected by cooperation: delay, connectivity, and throughput. The main goal of this paper is to demonstrate that improving connectivity and increasing number of relays reduce the throughput of cooperative decentralized wireless networks; consequently, a trade-off equation has been derived.

Fair Optimization and Networks: A Survey

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wlodzimierz Ogryczak

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Optimization models related to designing and operating complex systems are mainly focused on some efficiency metrics such as response time, queue length, throughput, and cost. However, in systems which serve many entities there is also a need for respecting fairness: each system entity ought to be provided with an adequate share of the system’s services. Still, due to system operations-dependant constraints, fair treatment of the entities does not directly imply that each of them is assigned equal amount of the services. That leads to concepts of fair optimization expressed by the equitable models that represent inequality averse optimization rather than strict inequality minimization; a particular widely applied example of that concept is the so-called lexicographic maximin optimization (max-min fairness. The fair optimization methodology delivers a variety of techniques to generate fair and efficient solutions. This paper reviews fair optimization models and methods applied to systems that are based on some kind of network of connections and dependencies, especially, fair optimization methods for the location problems and for the resource allocation problems in communication networks.

Efficiency and fairness of the terms and conditions under which electricity is sold to British manufacturing establishments. [Optimality of Bulk Supply Tariff questioned

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cannon, C M

1977-06-01

This paper reports on an inquiry into three aspects of the terms and conditions under which electricity is sold to manufacturing establishments. These aspects are the adequacy of information services; the fairness of the pricing behavior of electricity boards; and the efficiency of one schedule of charges agreed with a large industrial consumer. Except the charge for night-time units, the schedule of charges agreed with the large consumer appears to be efficient. However, regional statistics on the percentage of high-voltage customers that pay agreed terms rather than published tariffs suggest that the pricing behavior by boards is often unfair.

Liquidity and Impact in Fair Markets

OpenAIRE

Jaisson, Thibault

2015-01-01

We develop a theory which applies to any market dynamics that satisfy a fair market assumption on the nullity of the average profit of simple market making strategies. We show that for any such fair market, there exists a martingale fair price which corresponds to the average liquidation value (at the ask or the bid) of an infinitesimal quantity of stock. We show that this fair price is a natural reference price to compute the ex post gain of limit orders. Using only the fair market assumptio...

Customizing Fair Use Transplants

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peter K. Yu

2018-02-01

Full Text Available In the past decade, policymakers and commentators across the world have called for the introduction of copyright reform based on the fair use model in the United States. Thus far, Israel, Liberia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Taiwan have adopted the fair use regime or its close variants. Other jurisdictions such as Australia, Hong Kong and Ireland have also advanced proposals to facilitate such adoption. This article examines the increasing efforts to transplant fair use into the copyright system based on the U.S. model. It begins by briefly recapturing the strengths and weaknesses of legal transplants. The article then scrutinizes the ongoing effort to transplant fair use from the United States. Specifically, it identifies eight modalities of transplantation. This article concludes with five lessons that can be drawn from studying the ongoing transplant efforts.

Fair weather atmospheric electricity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Harrison, R G

2011-01-01

Not long after Franklin's iconic studies, an atmospheric electric field was discovered in 'fair weather' regions, well away from thunderstorms. The origin of the fair weather field was sought by Lord Kelvin, through development of electrostatic instrumentation and early data logging techniques, but was ultimately explained through the global circuit model of C.T.R. Wilson. In Wilson's model, charge exchanged by disturbed weather electrifies the ionosphere, and returns via a small vertical current density in fair weather regions. New insights into the relevance of fair weather atmospheric electricity to terrestrial and planetary atmospheres are now emerging. For example, there is a possible role of the global circuit current density in atmospheric processes, such as cloud formation. Beyond natural atmospheric processes, a novel practical application is the use of early atmospheric electrostatic investigations to provide quantitative information on past urban air pollution.

Coalition or decentralization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mahdiraji, Hannan Amoozad; Govindan, Kannan; Zavadskas, Edmundas Kazimieras

2014-01-01

retailers. The Nash equilibrium and definition are used bearing in mind inventory and pricing and marketing cost as decision variables for this matter. This paper studies a three-echelon supply chain network and focuses on the value of integrating a pair of partners in the chain. In the decentralized case......, the supplier sets its own price, the manufacturer points out order quantity, wholesale price and backorder quantity, and the retailer charges the final retail price of the product and marketing product. Though there are multiple players at a single echelon level, each manufacturer supplies only a specific...... to enforce marketing effort any more. Supplier-manufacturer integration brings similar benefits. Under each scenario, all parties involved simultaneously set their strategies. Through a numerical experiment, 17 design cases (through designing experiments) have been developed and the total profit...

Centralized vs. decentralized nursing stations: effects on nurses' functional use of space and work environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Zborowsky, Terri; Bunker-Hellmich, Lou; Morelli, Agneta; O'Neill, Mike

2010-01-01

Evidence-based findings of the effects of nursing station design on nurses' work environment and work behavior are essential to improve conditions and increase retention among these fundamental members of the healthcare delivery team. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate how nursing station design (i.e., centralized and decentralized nursing station layouts) affected nurses' use of space, patient visibility, noise levels, and perceptions of the work environment. Advances in information technology have enabled nurses to move away from traditional centralized paper-charting stations to smaller decentralized work stations and charting substations located closer to, or inside of, patient rooms. Improved understanding of the trade-offs presented by centralized and decentralized nursing station design has the potential to provide useful information for future nursing station layouts. This information will be critical for understanding the nurse environment "fit." The study used an exploratory design with both qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitative data regarding the effects of nursing station design on nurses' health and work environment were gathered by means of focus group interviews. Quantitative data-gathering techniques included place- and person-centered space use observations, patient visibility assessments, sound level measurements, and an online questionnaire regarding perceptions of the work environment. Nurses on all units were observed most frequently performing telephone, computer, and administrative duties. Time spent using telephones, computers, and performing other administrative duties was significantly higher in the centralized nursing stations. Consultations with medical staff and social interactions were significantly less frequent in decentralized nursing stations. There were no indications that either centralized or decentralized nursing station designs resulted in superior visibility. Sound levels measured in all

Children develop a veil of fairness

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shaw, Alex; Montinari, Natalia; Piovesan, Marco

2014-01-01

Previous research suggests that children develop an increasing concern with fairness over the course of development. Research with adults suggests that the concern with fairness has at least 2 distinct components: a desire to be fair and a desire to signal to others that they are fair. We explore......INFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)....

A multi-agent decentralized energy management system based on distributed intelligence for the design and control of autonomous polygeneration microgrids

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Karavas, Christos-Spyridon; Kyriakarakos, George; Arvanitis, Konstantinos G.; Papadakis, George

2015-01-01

Highlights: • A decentralized energy management system based on multi agent systems theory. • A decentralized energy management system is technically feasible. • A decentralized approach utilizes the devices better than a centralized one. • A decentralized energy management system is economically competitive. - Abstract: The autonomous polygeneration microgrid topology has been developed in order to cover holistically needs in a remote area such as electrical energy, space heating and cooling, potable water through desalination and hydrogen as fuel for transportation. The existence of an advanced energy management system is essential for the operation of an autonomous polygeneration microgrid. So far, energy management systems based on a centralized management and control have been developed for the autonomous polygeneration microgrid topology based on computational intelligence approaches. A decentralized management and control energy management system can have important benefits, when taking into consideration the autonomous character of these microgrids. This paper presents the design and investigation of a decentralized energy management system for the autonomous polygeneration microgrid topology. The decentralized energy management system gives the possibility to control each unit of the microgrid independently. The most important advantage of using a decentralized architecture is that the managed microgrid has much higher chances of partial operation in cases when malfunctions occur at different parts of it, instead of a complete system breakdown. The designed system was based on a multi-agent system and employed Fuzzy Cognitive Maps for its implementation. It was then compared through a case study with an existing centralized energy management system. The technical performance of the decentralized solution performance is on par with the existing centralized one, presenting improvements in financial and operational terms for the implementation and

Environmental aspects of decentralized electricity production

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Henry, J.P.

1991-01-01

Renewable energy sources are the focus of considerable interest because they do not place future generations at risk; the development of cogeneration has been favorably received on the whole because it uses energy that would otherwise be lost. Difficulties are sometimes encountered in the development of small-scale hydroelectric facilities (older facilities negative aspects, over production impression in France, etc.). Environmental protection regulations do not distinguish between centralized and decentralized electricity production, but between large and small production facilities

Witnet: A Decentralized Oracle Network Protocol

OpenAIRE

de Pedro, Adán Sánchez; Levi, Daniele; Cuende, Luis Iván

2017-01-01

Witnet is a decentralized oracle network (DON) that connects smart contracts to the outer world. Generally speaking, it allows any piece of software to retrieve the contents published at any web address at a certain point in time, with complete and verifiable proof of its integrity and without blindly trusting any third party. Witnet runs on a blockchain with a native protocol token (called Wit), which miners-called witnesses-earn by retrieving, attesting and delivering web contents for clien...

Challenges to fair decision-making processes in the context of health care services: a qualitative assessment from Tanzania.

Science.gov (United States)

Shayo, Elizabeth H; Norheim, Ole F; Mboera, Leonard E G; Byskov, Jens; Maluka, Stephen; Kamuzora, Peter; Blystad, Astrid

2012-06-07

Fair processes in decision making need the involvement of stakeholders who can discuss issues and reach an agreement based on reasons that are justifiable and appropriate in meeting people's needs. In Tanzania, the policy of decentralization and the health sector reform place an emphasis on community participation in making decisions in health care. However, aspects that can influence an individual's opportunity to be listened to and to contribute to discussion have been researched to a very limited extent in low-income settings. The objective of this study was to explore challenges to fair decision-making processes in health care services with a special focus on the potential influence of gender, wealth, ethnicity and education. We draw on the principle of fairness as outlined in the deliberative democratic theory. The study was carried out in the Mbarali District of Tanzania. A qualitative study design was used. In-depth interviews and focus group discussion were conducted among members of the district health team, local government officials, health care providers and community members. Informal discussion on the topics was also of substantial value. The study findings indicate a substantial influence of gender, wealth, ethnicity and education on health care decision-making processes. Men, wealthy individuals, members of strong ethnic groups and highly educated individuals had greater influence. Opinions varied among the study informants as to whether such differences should be considered fair. The differences in levels of influence emerged most clearly at the community level, and were largely perceived as legitimate. Existing challenges related to individuals' influence of decision making processes in health care need to be addressed if greater participation is desired. There is a need for increased advocacy and a strengthening of responsive practices with an emphasis on the right of all individuals to participate in decision-making processes. This

Challenges to fair decision-making processes in the context of health care services: a qualitative assessment from Tanzania

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shayo Elizabeth H

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Fair processes in decision making need the involvement of stakeholders who can discuss issues and reach an agreement based on reasons that are justifiable and appropriate in meeting people’s needs. In Tanzania, the policy of decentralization and the health sector reform place an emphasis on community participation in making decisions in health care. However, aspects that can influence an individual’s opportunity to be listened to and to contribute to discussion have been researched to a very limited extent in low-income settings. The objective of this study was to explore challenges to fair decision-making processes in health care services with a special focus on the potential influence of gender, wealth, ethnicity and education. We draw on the principle of fairness as outlined in the deliberative democratic theory. Methods The study was carried out in the Mbarali District of Tanzania. A qualitative study design was used. In-depth interviews and focus group discussion were conducted among members of the district health team, local government officials, health care providers and community members. Informal discussion on the topics was also of substantial value. Results The study findings indicate a substantial influence of gender, wealth, ethnicity and education on health care decision-making processes. Men, wealthy individuals, members of strong ethnic groups and highly educated individuals had greater influence. Opinions varied among the study informants as to whether such differences should be considered fair. The differences in levels of influence emerged most clearly at the community level, and were largely perceived as legitimate. Conclusions Existing challenges related to individuals’ influence of decision making processes in health care need to be addressed if greater participation is desired. There is a need for increased advocacy and a strengthening of responsive practices with an emphasis on the right of all

Towards a Fair Global Economic Regime?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Staricco, Juan Ignacio

. The further exploration of Fair Trade’s political and ideological dimensions sheds light on the reasons behind the system’s current limitations. The analysis shows that Fair Trade offers very limited improvements compared to the conventional economy. Additionally, for the Argentinean wine industry, Fair Trade......This dissertation offers an assessment of Fair Trade’s transformative potential through an empirical examination of the case of Fair Trade wine produced in Argentina and consumed in the United Kingdom. Guided by a dialectical understanding of the research process, the analysis is done at various...

Influence of the Budgetary Decentralization on the Economic Growth of Regions of Ukraine: Statistical Estimation

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Voznyak Halyna V.

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The aim of the article is to define, determine and analyze the interrelationships between the budgetary decentralization and the economic growth of regions of Ukraine under conditions of reforming the power and financial resources. A statistical estimation of the influence of the budgetary decentralization on the economic growth of regions of Ukraine for 2015-2016 is carried out. The application of the panel data modeling allowed to build econometric models that made it possible to determine the ambiguous nature of the budgetary decentralization and identify key factors of its influence. It is shown that in terms of the income and expenditures the budgetary decentralization is positively associated with the economic growth of regions of Ukraine during the chosen time range of the study. The dynamic growth of the own revenues of local budgets is not a catalyst for the economic development of the regions. A strong negative effect of transfers on the dependent variable is confirmed. Among the variables included in the model and additionally characterizing the budgetary decentralization, the single tax and subsidies for the socio-economic development of individual territories attract attention. As a result of the study, the author justifies the need to minimize the transfer dependence of the regions at a simultaneous increasing of their own revenue base with local taxes and fees serving as a reliable basis for a long-term planning and development.

Quantifying risk for decentralized offensive cyber operations

OpenAIRE

Klipstein, Michael S.

2017-01-01

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited Includes supplementary material. Reissued 7 Sep 2017 with corrections to committee titles. Computer networks and the amount of information stored within government computer networks have become ubiquitous. With the possible decentralization of authorities to conduct offensive cyber operations, leaders and their respective staffs of organizations below the national level cannot adequately assess risks and consequences of these ope...

Decentralized Local Services for Improvement of Quality of Life in the Republic of Macedonia, Case Study Tetovo Municipality

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Memet Memeti

2012-05-01

Full Text Available The process of decentralization in Macedonia began in July 2005, after the adaption of theconstitutional amendments made which triggered the process of the decentralization in the Republic ofMacedonia. Having in mind that the decentralization implied structural changes in the Macedonian politicalsystem and in relations between the central and the local government, the implementation of the process ofthe decentralization was designed with a phased approach in order to accommodate the local governmentinstitutions with the new competencies. Among others the process of decentralization had an objective tobring the local authorities closer to the citizens through provision of quality local services. In addition it aimsto provide an opportunity for broader participation and representation of the citizens in their communities.This paper attempts to answer three main questions related to quality public services: - The process ofdecentralization has helped to improve the quality of public services? - What areas of public services undermunicipal jurisdiction are satisfied with it? - How much would you like to be informed about communityactivities? In this paper we are going to analyze the findings from the field research about the quality ofpublic service that provide the municipality of Tetovo of R. Macedonia. The paper focuses on the satisfactionon the public services and provides recommendations for future improvement of the decentralized publicservices in the Republic of Macedonia.

Centralization versus decentralization as a risk-return trade-off

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Arcuri, A.; Dari-Mattiacci, G.

2010-01-01

This paper characterizes the choice between centralization and decentralization as a risk‐return trade‐off and examines it in a model that integrates ideas from committee decision‐making and portfolio theories. Centralization, by pooling expertise, rarely yields erroneous decisions; however, when it

Cross-Layer Scheduling and Resource Allocation for Heterogeneous Traffic in 3G LTE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Richard Musabe

2014-01-01

Full Text Available 3G long term evolution (LTE introduces stringent needs in order to provide different kinds of traffic with Quality of Service (QoS characteristics. The major problem with this nature of LTE is that it does not have any paradigm scheduling algorithm that will ideally control the assignment of resources which in turn will improve the user satisfaction. This has become an open subject and different scheduling algorithms have been proposed which are quite challenging and complex. To address this issue, in this paper, we investigate how our proposed algorithm improves the user satisfaction for heterogeneous traffic, that is, best-effort traffic such as file transfer protocol (FTP and real-time traffic such as voice over internet protocol (VoIP. Our proposed algorithm is formulated using the cross-layer technique. The goal of our proposed algorithm is to maximize the expected total user satisfaction (total-utility under different constraints. We compared our proposed algorithm with proportional fair (PF, exponential proportional fair (EXP-PF, and U-delay. Using simulations, our proposed algorithm improved the performance of real-time traffic based on throughput, VoIP delay, and VoIP packet loss ratio metrics while PF improved the performance of best-effort traffic based on FTP traffic received, FTP packet loss ratio, and FTP throughput metrics.

Model-Based Design of Tree WSNs for Decentralized Detection

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ashraf Tantawy

2015-08-01

Full Text Available The classical decentralized detection problem of finding the optimal decision rules at the sensor and fusion center, as well as variants that introduce physical channel impairments have been studied extensively in the literature. The deployment of WSNs in decentralized detection applications brings new challenges to the field. Protocols for different communication layers have to be co-designed to optimize the detection performance. In this paper, we consider the communication network design problem for a tree WSN. We pursue a system-level approach where a complete model for the system is developed that captures the interactions between different layers, as well as different sensor quality measures. For network optimization, we propose a hierarchical optimization algorithm that lends itself to the tree structure, requiring only local network information. The proposed design approach shows superior performance over several contentionless and contention-based network design approaches.

Iterative learning-based decentralized adaptive tracker for large-scale systems: a digital redesign approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Tsai, Jason Sheng-Hong; Du, Yan-Yi; Huang, Pei-Hsiang; Guo, Shu-Mei; Shieh, Leang-San; Chen, Yuhua

2011-07-01

In this paper, a digital redesign methodology of the iterative learning-based decentralized adaptive tracker is proposed to improve the dynamic performance of sampled-data linear large-scale control systems consisting of N interconnected multi-input multi-output subsystems, so that the system output will follow any trajectory which may not be presented by the analytic reference model initially. To overcome the interference of each sub-system and simplify the controller design, the proposed model reference decentralized adaptive control scheme constructs a decoupled well-designed reference model first. Then, according to the well-designed model, this paper develops a digital decentralized adaptive tracker based on the optimal analog control and prediction-based digital redesign technique for the sampled-data large-scale coupling system. In order to enhance the tracking performance of the digital tracker at specified sampling instants, we apply the iterative learning control (ILC) to train the control input via continual learning. As a result, the proposed iterative learning-based decentralized adaptive tracker not only has robust closed-loop decoupled property but also possesses good tracking performance at both transient and steady state. Besides, evolutionary programming is applied to search for a good learning gain to speed up the learning process of ILC. Copyright © 2011 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The contribution of fiscal/financial decentralization to the debt expansion of the local financing platform

Science.gov (United States)

Huayang, Yin; Di, Zhou; Bing, Cui

2018-02-01

Using soft budget theory to explore the formation mechanism and the deep institutional incentive of the local financing platform debt expansion from the perspective of fiscal / financial decentralization, construct theoretical framework which explain the expansion of local debt financing platform and conduct an empirical test, the results showed that the higher the degree of fiscal decentralization, fiscal autonomy as a soft constraint body of local government the stronger, local financing platform debt scale is greater; the higher the degree of financial decentralization, local government and financial institutions have the higher autonomy with respect to the central, local financing platform debt scale is bigger; financial synergy degree is stronger, local government financial mutual supervision prompted the local government debt more transparency, local debt financing platform size is smaller.

[Territory and decentralization in the agenda for productive transformation with equity].

Science.gov (United States)

Sojo, A

1991-08-01

The regional perspective and the decentralization in Latin American and Caribbean countries was examined in light of technological changes and transformation of economic production to boost productivity. National population policies were not the major cause of redistribution of the population, rather such transformation significantly changed the comparative regional and urban advantages in the use of territory affecting the spatial distribution of the population. Hypotheses were advanced using the transformation of production, regional development, and decentralization on the retention, attraction, and migration of population in different areas with varying economic conditions. Spurious competitiveness means global strategies of enterprises that establish foreign operations by means of factor sourcing. Flexible specialization is a company strategy of permanent innovation based on flexible equipment and a qualified work force. The increasing transnationalization of capital is the source of skills and technology that sustain competitive advantages. Decentralization can resolve local demand, facilitate access to information, mobilize resources, and exercise control over local operations. In Japan, Germany, and Italy vs. the US and France there is a social contract among companies, trade unions, universities, and regional administrations in the interest of capital and the work force. There is no direct relationship between technology and region, the industrial cluster exhibits systemic competitiveness in developed countries (the Emilian model in Italy affirms the ability of small enterprises to develop new products), the regional impact is diverse relative to new technologies (some deprived rural economic areas have potential as in central and northern Italy), and population and region are linked (regional and rural-urban differences in the growth of population and migratory flows account for spatial distribution of the population). Decentralization and systemic

What is a fair CO2 tax increase? On fair emission reductions in the transport sector

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hammar, Henrik; Jagers, Sverker C.

2007-01-01

We examine how individual preferences for fair reductions of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions affect the support for increases in the CO 2 tax on gasoline and diesel. We assume that people not only care about their own material welfare, but also have preferences for fairness in policy design, and we explore the implications using original data from a mail questionnaire sent to a representative sample of the Swedish population. The main result is that fairness in policy design does matter. Those respondents who adhere to a fairness principle tend to be relatively more positive to increases in the CO 2 tax. One possible explanation for this result is that there is a relatively high degree of reciprocity regarding the origin of emissions and the fairness regarding who should bear the burden of CO 2 reductions. Via a split sample analysis, we also find that the relative importance of fairness principles is dependent upon whether one uses a car often or not. This sheds light on the potential goal conflict between the importance of fairness principles and self-interest in the form of a need for private car transportation. (author)

From centralization to decentralization in Chinese higher education

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiaohong Qian

2004-12-01

Full Text Available Since the late 1970’s, the Chinese government has been gradually changing its traditional policy for providing higher education and has begun to emphasize the comprehensiveness of the universities. Interdisciplinary cooperation and the synergization of resources are being promoted, and institutional autonomy is gradually increasing. Schools and faculties have been restored in universities, and new research institutions, research schools, research centers and the like have been established. From a unitary three-level model— university/department/ teaching and research group—before the reform, the organizational structures of the universities have developed a new organizational structure that is more flexible and more open. This more adaptable structure is intended to meet the developmental demands of modern universities with close links being created between their work and regional economic and social development. China has moved from a very centralized educational system in which the main decisions were taken by the central government to a decentralized educational system. This reform is also taking place within the institutions of higher education, and their internal organizational structure has also become more decentralized.

U-Form vs. M-Form: How to Understand Decision Autonomy Under Healthcare Decentralization? Comment on "Decentralisation of Health Services in Fiji: A Decision Space Analysis".

Science.gov (United States)

Bustamante, Arturo Vargas

2016-06-07

For more than three decades healthcare decentralization has been promoted in developing countries as a way of improving the financing and delivery of public healthcare. Decision autonomy under healthcare decentralization would determine the role and scope of responsibility of local authorities. Jalal Mohammed, Nicola North, and Toni Ashton analyze decision autonomy within decentralized services in Fiji. They conclude that the narrow decision space allowed to local entities might have limited the benefits of decentralization on users and providers. To discuss the costs and benefits of healthcare decentralization this paper uses the U-form and M-form typology to further illustrate the role of decision autonomy under healthcare decentralization. This paper argues that when evaluating healthcare decentralization, it is important to determine whether the benefits from decentralization are greater than its costs. The U-form and M-form framework is proposed as a useful typology to evaluate different types of institutional arrangements under healthcare decentralization. Under this model, the more decentralized organizational form (M-form) is superior if the benefits from flexibility exceed the costs of duplication and the more centralized organizational form (U-form) is superior if the savings from economies of scale outweigh the costly decision-making process from the center to the regions. Budgetary and financial autonomy and effective mechanisms to maintain local governments accountable for their spending behavior are key decision autonomy variables that could sway the cost-benefit analysis of healthcare decentralization. © 2016 by Kerman University of Medical Sciences.

On the efficiency of decentralized exchange with resale possibilities

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Groes, Ebbe; Tranæs, Torben

1999-01-01

. If resale is possible and transaction costs are negligible, we would nevertheless expect an efficient allocation to result from decentralized exchange. This paper suggests that this depends on the nature of the commodity; while the allocation of a durable good will be efficient, the allocation...

Strategic Alignment: Recruiting Students in a Highly Decentralized Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Levin, Richard

2016-01-01

All enrollment managers face some level of challenge related to decentralized decision making and operations. Policies and practices can vary considerably by academic area, creating administrative complexity, restricting the scope and speed of institutional initiatives, and limiting potential efficiencies. Central attempts to standardize or…

Measuring and Controlling Fairness of Triangulations

KAUST Repository

Jiang, Caigui; Gü nther, Felix; Wallner, Johannes; Pottmann, Helmut

2016-01-01

of fairness must take new aspects into account. We use concepts from discrete differential geometry (star-shaped Gauss images) to express fairness, and we also demonstrate how fairness can be incorporated into interactive geometric design of triangulated

The role of various actors in achieving the administrative decentralization process

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tatiana CASTRAŞAN

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Under the current conditions, when all attention is paid to primary tasks of rule of law, cultural and economic development, strengthening of rule of law in society, role of public administration prevail as the main task of the state. The public administrations system it is inseparably linked to the implementation of state policy through the activities they perform. In particular, it emphasizes the role of local authorities as a basic factor of the localities development and achieving a set of objectives, which implies a special responsibility submitted to elected officials and civil servants. As an activity, local administration have the aim to obtain some certain political values expressed by law. And the most important is to satisfy the general interest of a local community. Thereby, the phenomenon of administrative decentralization reaches the maximum attention , because the essence of a local government is that it is closer to the citizen and it serves him. The need of local authorities appear when exist a local community with common interests. That’s why, it is an analyze why this problem of decentralization it is permanently a current topic. Local autonomy and decentralization are the corner stones of organization and functioning of local public administration authorities.

Fair Value Bewertung von zedierten Reserven

OpenAIRE

Heep-Altiner, Maria; Hoos, Sebastian; Krahforst, Christoph

2014-01-01

Für Schadenreserven existieren keine hinreichend fungiblen Märkte und somit auch keine Marktpreise im klassischen Sinn. Für eine Fair Value Bewertung bedarf es also eines geeigneten Modellansatzes. In der Schadenversicherung wird üblicher- weise der Transaktionswert modelliert, wobei hier die korrekte Modellierung der Kapitalkosten einer der zentralen Punkte ist. Der Fair Value der zedierten Reserven kann als Differenz zwischen dem Fair Value der Bruttoreserven und dem Fair Value der Nettores...

Constraint-based job shop scheduling with ILOG SCHEDULER

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nuijten, W.P.M.; Le Pape, C.

1998-01-01

We introduce constraint-based scheduling and discuss its main principles. An approximation algorithm based on tree search is developed for the job shop scheduling problem using ILOG SCHEDULER. A new way of calculating lower bounds on the makespan of the job shop scheduling problem is presented and

Integrating Collaborative and Decentralized Models to Support Ubiquitous Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Barbosa, Jorge Luis Victória; Barbosa, Débora Nice Ferrari; Rigo, Sandro José; de Oliveira, Jezer Machado; Rabello, Solon Andrade, Jr.

2014-01-01

The application of ubiquitous technologies in the improvement of education strategies is called Ubiquitous Learning. This article proposes the integration between two models dedicated to support ubiquitous learning environments, called Global and CoolEdu. CoolEdu is a generic collaboration model for decentralized environments. Global is an…

Users' perspectives on decentralized rural water services in Tanzania

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Masanyiwa, Z.S.; Niehof, A.; Termeer, C.J.A.M.

2015-01-01

This article examines the impact of decentralization reforms on improving access to domestic water supply in the rural districts of Kondoa and Kongwa, Tanzania, using a users' and a gender perspective. The article addresses the question whether and to what extent the delivery of gender-sensitive

The stimulative effect of an unconditional block grant on the decentralized provision of care

OpenAIRE

Mark Kattenberg; Wouter Vermeulen

2015-01-01

Understanding the impact of central government grants on decentralized health care provision is of crucial importance for the design of grant systems, yet empirical evidence on the prevalence of flypaper effects in this domain is rare. We study the decentralization of home care in the Netherlands and exploit the gradual introduction of formula-based equalization to identify the effect of exogenous changes in an unconditional block grant on local expenditure and utilization. A one euro increas...

Assortiment-kanaalmatch voor biologische fair tradeproducten

NARCIS (Netherlands)

LEI,

2008-01-01

Stichting FairBites ontwikkelt middels een innovatief organisatiemodel biologische en fair trade voedingsproducten voor de out-of-home (OOH) markt. Deze producten zijn zeer beperkt beschikbaar in dit marktsegment dat ± 35% van de voedingsmarkt vertegenwoordigd. FairBites richt zich op jong

Macroeconomic aspects of decentralized electricity production

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Percebois, J.

1991-01-01

The development of decentralized electricity production should be viewed first and foremost as a means of adapting production resources to meet the needs of the users between 1995 and 1997. Consumer production and cogeneration are not, however, simply stopgap solutions operating on the fringe of electricity production. These methods serve to highlight a problem that has already been raised in the past: the real advantages and disadvantages of centralized systems managed by companies that exercise a virtual monopoly in either the public or private sector

Low-Feedback Opportunistic Scheduling Schemes for Wireless Networks with Heterogenous Users

KAUST Repository

Rashid, Faraan

2012-07-01

Efficient implementation of resource sharing strategies in a multi-user wireless environment can improve the performance of a network significantly. In this thesis we study various scheduling strategies for wireless networks and handle the problem of opportunistically scheduling transmissions using channel aware schemes. First we propose a scheme that can handle users with asymmetric channel conditions and is opportunistic in the sense that it exploits the multi-user diversity of the network. The scheme requires the users to have a priori knowledge of their channel distributions. The associated overhead is limited meaning it offers reduced feedback load, that does not scale with the increasing number of users. The main technique used to shrink the feedback load is the contention based distributed implementation of a splitting algorithm that does not require explicit feedback to the scheduler from every user. The users find the best among themselves, in a distributed manner, while requiring just a ternary broadcast feedback from the scheduler at the end of each mini-slot. In addition, it can also handle fairness constraints in time and throughput to various degrees. Next we propose another opportunistic scheduler that offers most of the benefits of the previously proposed scheme but is more practical because it can also handle heterogenous users whose channel distributions are unknown. This new scheme actually reduces the complexity and is also more robust for changing traffic patterns. Finally we extend both these schemes to the scenario where there are fixed thresholds, this enables us to handle opportunistic scheduling in practical systems that can only transmit over finite number of discrete rates with the additional benefit that full feedback session, even from the selected user, is never required.

Decentralized supply of electricity is a favorable development. Analysis of system options and effects

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Faber, A.; Ros, J.; De Boer-Meulman, P.; In 't Groen, B.

2010-01-01

Decentralised electricity systems can provide a significant contribution to the development of environment-friendly techniques such as solar power and electric vehicles. However, there are also some obstacles and uncertainties. Not only does the balancing of supply and demand constitute an important challenge; the development of smart grids is also crucial to the improvement of reliability and system efficiency of the decentralized grids. Especially the distribution of investment costs is a decisive factor for the success rate of decentralized electricity systems. What is more, it is still uncertain whether an extensive decentralized system would have a higher score in cleanliness, affordability and reliability than a future central system. The system variants can be distinguished based on the deployment of six possible energy technologies for the future: PV (solar power), micro-CHP, small-scale wind energy in the built environment (urban wind), heat pumps, electric vehicles and air-conditioning. [nl

FAIR VALUE ACCOUNTING AND EARNINGS MANAGEMENT

OpenAIRE

Pei-Hui Hsu; Youan (Robert) Lin

2016-01-01

Many have argued that measuring financial instruments at fair value might not reflect firms’ financial condition. Prior study finds that managers manipulate the “disclosure” of fair value measurement (Song et al. 2010). In this study, we attempt to provide evidence regarding manager’s incentive to manipulate the disclosure of fair value measurements by examining whether the disclosure of less relevant fair value measurement is related to the odds of earnings management. We find that firms ...

Constitutional framework of the process of decentralization and public administration reform in Serbia and Croatia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Čiplić Svetozar M.

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The work is devoted to the comparative analyze of the processes of the decentralization reorganization and reform of the public administration at the level of the horizontal governance organization in Serbia and Croatia. At the first part of the work the authors analyze the decentralization and devolution as well as their demarcation in the sense of their related but not similar meanings. The second part is devoted to the historical experiences and genesis foundations of the common state where Serbia and Croatia were joined. The particular historical developments of Serbia and Croatia influenced the present attitude of their political elites toward decentralization. The third, final part/conclusion, is dedicated to a comparative analyses of the constitutional solutions in Serbia and Croatia which are related to the vertical organization. .

Indian participation in FAIR accelerator facility

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sur, Amitava

2015-01-01

India is a founder member of the FAIR-GmbH, the upcoming International Accelerator Facility at Darmstadt, Germany. Indian participation at FAIR is being funded jointly by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). Indo- FAIR Coordination Centre at Bose Institute (BI-IFCC) is coordinating the Indian efforts of both in-kind contribution as well as experimental programmes at FAIR. FAIR aims for beams of stable and unstable nuclei as well as antiprotons in a wide range of intensities and energies. A superconducting double-synchrotron SIS100/300 with a circumference of 1,100 meters and with magnetic rigidities of 100 and 300 Tm, respectively, is at the heart of the FAIR accelerator facility. The existing GSI accelerators UNILAC and SIS18 will serve as an injector. Adjacent to the large double- synchrotron is a complex system of storage- cooler rings and experiment stations, including a superconducting nuclear fragment separator (Super-FRS) and an antiproton production target. FAIR will supply rare isotope beams (RIBs) and antiproton beams. In FAIR accelerator facility up to four research programs can be run in a parallel mode. The multidisciplinary research program covers the fields of QCD studies with cooled beams of antiprotons, nucleus nucleus collisions at highest baryon density, nuclear structure and nuclear astrophysics investigations with nuclei far off stability, high density plasma physics, atomic and material science studies, radio-biological and other application-oriented studies will contribute in providing in-kind items both for the accelerator and the experiments. As per current plans Indian in kind contributions include: Power Converters, Superconducting Magnets, Beam Stopper, Vacuum Chamber. A short sample from an Indian Industry has been tested successfully at FAIR. Indian participation in building the accelerator components for FAIR is presented

Human resources for health and decentralization policy in the Brazilian health system

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pierantoni Celia

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The Brazilian health reform process, following the establishment of the Unified Health System (SUS, has had a strong emphasis on decentralization, with a special focus on financing, management and inter-managerial agreements. Brazil is a federal country and the Ministry of Health (MoH, through the Secretary of Labour Management and Health Education, is responsible for establishing national policy guidelines for health labour management, and also for implementing strategies for the decentralization of management of labour and education in the federal states. This paper assesses whether the process of decentralizing human resources for health (HRH management and organization to the level of the state and municipal health departments has involved investments in technical, political and financial resources at the national level. Methods The research methods used comprise a survey of HRH managers of states and major municipalities (including capitals and focus groups with these HRH managers - all by geographic region. The results were obtained by combining survey and focus group data, and also through triangulation with the results of previous research. Results The results of this evaluation showed the evolution policy, previously restricted to the field of 'personnel administration', now expanded to a conceptual model for health labour management and education-- identifying progress, setbacks, critical issues and challenges for the consolidation of the decentralized model for HRH management. The results showed that 76.3% of the health departments have an HRH unit. It was observed that 63.2% have an HRH information system. However, in most health departments, the HRH unit uses only the payroll and administrative records as data sources. Concerning education in health, 67.6% of the HRH managers mentioned existing cooperation with educational and teaching institutions for training and/or specialization of health workers. Among them

Human resources for health and decentralization policy in the Brazilian health system.

Science.gov (United States)

Pierantoni, Celia Regina; Garcia, Ana Claudia P

2011-05-17

The Brazilian health reform process, following the establishment of the Unified Health System (SUS), has had a strong emphasis on decentralization, with a special focus on financing, management and inter-managerial agreements. Brazil is a federal country and the Ministry of Health (MoH), through the Secretary of Labour Management and Health Education, is responsible for establishing national policy guidelines for health labour management, and also for implementing strategies for the decentralization of management of labour and education in the federal states. This paper assesses whether the process of decentralizing human resources for health (HRH) management and organization to the level of the state and municipal health departments has involved investments in technical, political and financial resources at the national level. The research methods used comprise a survey of HRH managers of states and major municipalities (including capitals) and focus groups with these HRH managers - all by geographic region. The results were obtained by combining survey and focus group data, and also through triangulation with the results of previous research. The results of this evaluation showed the evolution policy, previously restricted to the field of 'personnel administration', now expanded to a conceptual model for health labour management and education-- identifying progress, setbacks, critical issues and challenges for the consolidation of the decentralized model for HRH management. The results showed that 76.3% of the health departments have an HRH unit. It was observed that 63.2% have an HRH information system. However, in most health departments, the HRH unit uses only the payroll and administrative records as data sources. Concerning education in health, 67.6% of the HRH managers mentioned existing cooperation with educational and teaching institutions for training and/or specialization of health workers. Among them, specialization courses account for 61.4% and short

Measuring and Controlling Fairness of Triangulations

KAUST Repository

Jiang, Caigui

2016-09-30

The fairness of meshes that represent geometric shapes is a topic that has been studied extensively and thoroughly. However, the focus in such considerations often is not on the mesh itself, but rather on the smooth surface approximated by it, and fairness essentially expresses a mesh’s suitability for purposes such as visualization or simulation. This paper focusses on meshes in the architectural context, where vertices, edges, and faces of meshes are often highly visible, and any notion of fairness must take new aspects into account. We use concepts from discrete differential geometry (star-shaped Gauss images) to express fairness, and we also demonstrate how fairness can be incorporated into interactive geometric design of triangulated freeform skins.

Fair innings.

Science.gov (United States)

Bognar, Greg

2015-05-01

In many societies, the aging of the population is becoming a major problem. This raises difficult issues for ethics and public policy. On what is known as the fair innings view, it is not impermissible to give lower priority to policies that primarily benefit the elderly. Philosophers have tried to justify this view on various grounds. In this article, I look at a consequentialist, a fairness-based, and a contractarian justification. I argue that all of them have implausible implications and fail to correspond to our moral intuitions. I end by outlining a different kind of consequentialist justification that avoids those implications and corresponds better to our considered moral judgments. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Decentralized manufacturing of cell and gene therapies: Overcoming challenges and identifying opportunities.

Science.gov (United States)

Harrison, Richard P; Ruck, Steven; Medcalf, Nicholas; Rafiq, Qasim A

2017-10-01

Decentralized or "redistributed" manufacturing has the potential to revolutionize the manufacturing approach for cell and gene therapies (CGTs), moving away from the "Fordist" paradigm, delivering health care locally, customized to the end user and, by its very nature, overcoming many of the challenges associated with manufacturing and distribution of high volume goods. In departing from the traditional centralized model of manufacturing, decentralized manufacturing divides production across sites or geographic regions. This paradigm shift imposes significant structural and organisational changes on a business presenting both hidden challenges that must be addressed and opportunities to be embraced. By profoundly adapting business practices, significant advantages can be realized through a democratized value chain, creation of professional-level jobs without geographic restriction to the central hub and a flexibility in response to external pressures and demands. To realize these potential opportunities, however, advances in manufacturing technology and support systems are required, as well as significant changes in the way CGTs are regulated to facilitate multi-site manufacturing. Decentralized manufacturing is likely to be the manufacturing platform of choice for advanced health care therapies-in particular, those with a high degree of personalization. The future success of these promising products will be enhanced by adopting sound business strategies early in development. To realize the benefits that decentralized manufacturing of CGTs has to offer, it is important to examine both the risks and the substantial opportunities present. In this research, we examine both the challenges and the opportunities this shift in business strategy represents in an effort to maximize the success of adoption. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Development of an automated system for the decentral fractioning of municipal wastes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Heiko Vesper

2012-03-01

Full Text Available Background: There is a growing problem of the increasing amount of unsorted municipal wastes with the resulting consequences for the environment. The aim of this study was to present a new solutions of the system for the decentral fractioning of municipal wastes, which enable simplification and improvement of the process together with the reduction of total costs. Methods: The description of  the problem of the increasing amount of unsorted municipal wastes with the resulting consequences for the environment as well as an alternative solution for the decentral fractioning of such wastes was presented. The influence onto the environment as well as the efficiency of the costly mechanical sorting of wastes was queried. The nowadays used principles of sorted and unsorted waste disposal were elucidated and their advantages and disadvantages evaluated. Results and conclusions: Based on this evaluation an innovative and future oriented development of an automated system for the decentral fractioning of municipal wastes was presented. The new developed systems aim at the achievement of an easier, less costly and environment-friendlier process for the disposal of municipal wastes from apartment buildings.

Strategy intervention for the evolution of fairness.

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Yanling Zhang

Full Text Available The 'irrational' preference for fairness has attracted increasing attention. Although previous studies have focused on the effects of spitefulness on the evolution of fairness, they did not consider non-monotonic rejections shown in behavioral experiments. In this paper, we introduce a non-monotonic rejection in an evolutionary model of the Ultimatum Game. We propose strategy intervention to study the evolution of fairness in general structured populations. By sequentially adding five strategies into the competition between a fair strategy and a selfish strategy, we arrive at the following conclusions. First, the evolution of fairness is inhibited by altruism, but it is promoted by spitefulness. Second, the non-monotonic rejection helps fairness overcome selfishness. Particularly for group-structured populations, we analytically investigate how fairness, selfishness, altruism, and spitefulness are affected by population size, mutation, and migration in the competition among seven strategies. Our results may provide important insights into understanding the evolutionary origin of fairness.

Decentralizing the Team Station: Simulation before Reality as a Best-Practice Approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Charko, Jackie; Geertsen, Alice; O'Brien, Patrick; Rouse, Wendy; Shahid, Ammarah; Hardenne, Denise

2016-01-01

The purpose of this article is to share the logistical planning requirements and simulation experience of one Canadian hospital as it prepared its staff for the change from a centralized inpatient unit model to the decentralized design planned for its new community hospital. With the commitment and support of senior leadership, project management resources and clinical leads worked collaboratively to design a decentralized prototype in the form of a pod-style environment in the hospital's current setting. Critical success factors included engaging the right stakeholders, providing an opportunity to test new workflows and technology, creating a strong communication plan and building on lessons learned as subsequent pod prototypes are launched.

7 CFR 51.1831 - Fairly firm.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Fairly firm. 51.1831 Section 51.1831 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Standards, Inspections, Marketing... Standards for Grades of Florida Tangerines Definitions § 51.1831 Fairly firm. Fairly firm means that the...

7 CFR 51.774 - Fairly firm.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Fairly firm. 51.774 Section 51.774 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Standards, Inspections, Marketing... Standards for Grades of Florida Grapefruit Definitions § 51.774 Fairly firm. Fairly firm means that the...

7 CFR 51.2843 - Fairly firm.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Fairly firm. 51.2843 Section 51.2843 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Standards, Inspections, Marketing... Fairly firm. Fairly firm means that the onion may yield slightly to moderate pressure but is not...

7 CFR 51.3204 - Fairly firm.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Fairly firm. 51.3204 Section 51.3204 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Standards, Inspections, Marketing... Standards for Grades of Bermuda-Granex-Grano Type Onions Definitions § 51.3204 Fairly firm. Fairly firm...

7 CFR 51.1167 - Fairly firm.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Fairly firm. 51.1167 Section 51.1167 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Standards, Inspections, Marketing... Standards for Grades of Florida Oranges and Tangelos Definitions § 51.1167 Fairly firm. Fairly firm as...

Coordination in the Decentralized Assembly System with Dual Supply Modes

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Xu Guan

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates a decentralized assembly system that consists of one assembler and two independent suppliers; wherein one supplier is perfectly reliable for the production, while the other generates yield uncertainty. Facing the random market demand, the assembler has to order the components from one supplier in advance and meanwhile requires the other supplier to deliver the components under VMI mode. We construct a Nash game between the supplier and the assembler so as to derive their equilibrium procurement/production strategies. The results show that the channel’s performance is highly undermined by the decentralization between players and also the combination of two supply modes. Compared to the centralized system, we propose an advance payment contract to perfectly coordinate the supply chain performance. The numerical examples indicate some management implications on the supply mode comparison and sensitivity analysis.

Decentralized control of transmission rates in energy-critical wireless networks

KAUST Repository

Xia, Li

2013-06-01

In this paper, we discuss the decentralized optimization of delay and energy consumption in a multi-hop wireless network. The goal is to minimize the energy consumption of energy-critical nodes and the overall packet transmission delay of the network. The transmission rates of energy-critical nodes are adjustable according to the local information of nodes, i.e., the length of packets queued. The multi-hop network is modeled as a queueing network.We prove that the system performance is monotone w.r.t. (with respect to) the transmission rate, thus the “bang-bang” control is an optimal control. We also prove that there exists a threshold type control policy which is optimal. We propose a decentralized algorithm to control transmission rates of these energy-critical nodes. Some simulation experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.

Decentralized control of transmission rates in energy-critical wireless networks

KAUST Repository

Xia, Li; Shihada, Basem

2013-01-01

In this paper, we discuss the decentralized optimization of delay and energy consumption in a multi-hop wireless network. The goal is to minimize the energy consumption of energy-critical nodes and the overall packet transmission delay of the network. The transmission rates of energy-critical nodes are adjustable according to the local information of nodes, i.e., the length of packets queued. The multi-hop network is modeled as a queueing network.We prove that the system performance is monotone w.r.t. (with respect to) the transmission rate, thus the “bang-bang” control is an optimal control. We also prove that there exists a threshold type control policy which is optimal. We propose a decentralized algorithm to control transmission rates of these energy-critical nodes. Some simulation experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.

Influence of cardiac decentralization on cardioprotection.

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John G Kingma

Full Text Available The role of cardiac nerves on development of myocardial tissue injury after acute coronary occlusion remains controversial. We investigated whether acute cardiac decentralization (surgical modulates coronary flow reserve and myocardial protection in preconditioned dogs subject to ischemia-reperfusion. Experiments were conducted on four groups of anesthetised, open-chest dogs (n = 32: 1- controls (CTR, intact cardiac nerves, 2- ischemic preconditioning (PC; 4 cycles of 5-min IR, 3- cardiac decentralization (CD and 4- CD+PC; all dogs underwent 60-min coronary occlusion and 180-min reperfusion. Coronary blood flow and reactive hyperemic responses were assessed using a blood volume flow probe. Infarct size (tetrazolium staining was related to anatomic area at risk and coronary collateral blood flow (microspheres in the anatomic area at risk. Post-ischemic reactive hyperemia and repayment-to-debt ratio responses were significantly reduced for all experimental groups; however, arterial perfusion pressure was not affected. Infarct size was reduced in CD dogs (18.6 ± 4.3; p = 0.001, data are mean ± 1 SD compared to 25.2 ± 5.5% in CTR dogs and was less in PC dogs as expected (13.5 ± 3.2 vs. 25.2 ± 5.5%; p = 0.001; after acute CD, PC protection was conserved (11.6 ± 3.4 vs. 18.6 ± 4.3%; p = 0.02. In conclusion, our findings provide strong evidence that myocardial protection against ischemic injury can be preserved independent of extrinsic cardiac nerve inputs.

U-Form vs. M-Form: How to Understand Decision Autonomy Under Healthcare Decentralization?; Comment on “Decentralisation of Health Services in Fiji: A Decision Space Analysis”

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arturo Vargas Bustamante

2016-09-01

Full Text Available For more than three decades healthcare decentralization has been promoted in developing countries as a way of improving the financing and delivery of public healthcare. Decision autonomy under healthcare decentralization would determine the role and scope of responsibility of local authorities. Jalal Mohammed, Nicola North, and Toni Ashton analyze decision autonomy within decentralized services in Fiji. They conclude that the narrow decision space allowed to local entities might have limited the benefits of decentralization on users and providers. To discuss the costs and benefits of healthcare decentralization this paper uses the U-form and M-form typology to further illustrate the role of decision autonomy under healthcare decentralization. This paper argues that when evaluating healthcare decentralization, it is important to determine whether the benefits from decentralization are greater than its costs. The U-form and M-form framework is proposed as a useful typology to evaluate different types of institutional arrangements under healthcare decentralization. Under this model, the more decentralized organizational form (M-form is superior if the benefits from flexibility exceed the costs of duplication and the more centralized organizational form (U-form is superior if the savings from economies of scale outweigh the costly decision-making process from the center to the regions. Budgetary and financial autonomy and effective mechanisms to maintain local governments accountable for their spending behavior are key decision autonomy variables that could sway the cost-benefit analysis of healthcare decentralization.

Marketingová komunikace fair trade

OpenAIRE

Nídlová, Michaela

2013-01-01

This thesis focuses on how fair trade and its brand are communicated on the market. The theoretical part describes the basic concepts of marketing, marketing communication and marketing research. The practical part describes the general meaning of fair trade and its main principles and goals. The following section is devoted to the analysis of recent marketing activities. The main research investigates the level of knowledge of fair trade among Czech consumers. The conclusion summarizes the r...

Grey water reclamation by decentralized MBR prototype

OpenAIRE

Santasmasas Rubiralta, Carme; Rovira Boixaderas, Miquel; Clarens Blanco, Frederic; Valderrama Angel, César Alberto

2013-01-01

Grey water treatment and reuse for non-drinking water requirements has become of great interest in arid and semi-arid zones where water resources are becoming both quantitatively and qualitatively scarce. In this study a decentralized and automatic MBR prototype has been designed and installed in the REMOSA facilities for treatment of low-load grey water to be recycled in flushing-toilet application. The recycling treatment of grey water comprises four stages: screening, biological oxidation,...

Analyzing Von Neumann machines using decentralized symmetries

Science.gov (United States)

Fang, Jie

2013-10-01

The artificial intelligence method to e-business is defined not only by the study of fiber-optic cables, but also by the unproven need for vacuum tubes. Given the current status of virtual archetypes, theorists clearly desire the exploration of semaphores, which embodies the compelling principles of cryptoanalysis. We present an algorithm for probabilistic theory (Buck), which we use to disprove that write-back caches can be made decentralized, lossless, and reliable.