402,350 research outputs found
The role of the Water Framework Directive in the controversial transition of water policy paradigms in Spain and Portugal
The process of drafting, approving and implementing the Water Framework Directive (WFD) has played
a pivotal role in the water-related political agenda of the Iberian Peninsula. The WFD has provided an institutional
impetus for a shift from the dominant hydraulic paradigm towards a new water governance approach. The new
approach, known as the New Water Culture (NWC), predated the WFD. It was initiated in Spain and Portugal in the
1990s and has been promoted by a coalition of academics, social activists, and water managers. Given the long
tradition and relevance of water debates in Spain and Portugal, the sociopolitical and territorial conflicts
surrounding the implementation of the new regulatory framework are of particular significance. Legal debates
about the (in)correct transposition of the WFD into Spanish and Portuguese legislation are still unresolved. Legal
debates about the (in)correct transposition of the WFD into Spanish and Portuguese legislation are still unresolved.
Controversies focus on issues such as the use of economic instruments, for instance cost recovery and the use of
public subsidies (a key component of the hydraulic paradigm), as well as the role of public participation in decision
making processes. Significant resistance has been mounted by the traditional water policy community, which
continues to dominate power structures surrounding water. Throughout the long WFD implementation process,
conflicting views and interests have consistently emerged with regard to the diagnosis and identification of existing
pressures and the definition, evaluation and implementation of the proposed measures. Controversies have also
emerged around the extensive use of exceptions which has allowed the hydraulic paradigm to persist over time.
Progress towards the promised governance model, however, is taking place, with significant improvements in
transparency, more accurate knowledge regarding the aquatic ecosystems services and the inclusion in water
management agencies of more diverse experts including social scientists, biologists and geologists. This paper looks
at the role the WFD implementation process is playing in the struggle for the transformation of water policy in Spain
and Portugal. It examines this through the lens of the NWC movement
Providing Authentication & Authorization Mechanisms for Active Service Charging
Active network technology enables fast deployment of new network services tailored to the specific needs of end users, among others features. Nevertheless proper charging for these new added value services require suitable authentication and authorization mechanisms. In this article we describe a security architecture for SARA (Simple Active Router-Assistant) architecture, an active network platform deployed in the context of the IST-GCAP project. The proposed solution provides all the required security features, and it also grants proper scalability of the overall system, by using a distributed key-generation algorithm.Publicad
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Contending European agendas for agricultural innovation
Amid expectations for a European ‘transition to sustainable agriculture’, there are competing transitional processes. Given the widely acknowledged harm from agro-industrial systems, ‘unsustainable agriculture’ has divergent diagnoses and innovative solutions. This rivalry can be analysed as contending innovation agendas; the analysis here combines theoretical paradigms of agricultural innovation.
In an EU policy context of a Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy (KBBE), there are divergent accounts of its key terms: biological resources, economy, relevant knowledge and knowledge-producers. Likewise, divergent accounts are found of innovation, intensification, resource efficiency, resilience, bio-energy, horizontal integration, etc. These divergent agendas are promoted by distinct stakeholder networks. The dominant agenda favours laboratory-based techno-scientific innovation as a source of ‘efficient’ inputs, which can use renewable resources more efficiently for competitive advantage in global value chains. By contrast, other agendas promote farmers’ knowledge of natural resources, especially via agro-ecological methods which can reduce energy inputs, increase productivity and add value through quality.
With those contending agendas, rival stakeholder networks seek to influence R&D priorities. From the standpoint of multifunctional agriculture, such contending agendas can play complementary roles in different rural spaces. Some agro-food practices may combine aspects of different paradigms. As a concept, Agricultural Knowledge Systems may provide a common space for interchanges between divergent agendas and their research priorities. However, these innovation agendas promote conflicting visions of the future
Creation of public use files: lessons learned from the comparative effectiveness research public use files data pilot project
In this paper we describe lessons learned from the creation of Basic Stand Alone (BSA) Public Use Files (PUFs) for the Comparative Effectiveness Research Public Use Files Data Pilot Project (CER-PUF). CER-PUF is aimed at increasing access to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Medicare claims datasets through PUFs that: do not require user fees and data use agreements, have been de-identified to assure the confidentiality of the beneficiaries and providers, and still provide substantial analytic utility to researchers. For this paper we define PUFs as datasets characterized by free and unrestricted access to any user. We derive lessons learned from five major project activities: (i) a review of the statistical and computer science literature on best practices in PUF creation, (ii) interviews with comparative effectiveness researchers to assess their data needs, (iii) case studies of PUF initiatives in the United States, (iv) interviews with stakeholders to identify the most salient issues regarding making microdata publicly available, and (v) the actual process of creating the Medicare claims data BSA PUFs
Risk Management in the Arctic Offshore: Wicked Problems Require New Paradigms
Recent project-management literature and high-profile disasters—the financial crisis, the BP
Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the Fukushima nuclear accident—illustrate the flaws of
traditional risk models for complex projects. This research examines how various groups with
interests in the Arctic offshore define risks. The findings link the wicked problem framework and
the emerging paradigm of Project Management of the Second Order (PM-2). Wicked problems
are problems that are unstructured, complex, irregular, interactive, adaptive, and novel. The
authors synthesize literature on the topic to offer strategies for navigating wicked problems,
provide new variables to deconstruct traditional risk models, and integrate objective and
subjective schools of risk analysis
An Approach to Transform Public Administration into SOA-based Organizations
Nowadays, Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) is widely spread in private organizations. However, when transferring this knowledge to Public Administration, it is realized that it has not been transformed in terms
of its legal nature into organizations capable to operate under the SOA paradigm. This fact prevents public
administration bodies from offering the efficient services they have been provided by different boards of
governments. A high-level framework to perform this transformation is proposed. Taking it as starting
point, an instance of a SOA Target Meta-Model can be obtained by means of an iterative and incremental
process based on the analysis of imperatives and focused on the particular business context of each local public administration. This paper briefly presents a practical experience consisting in applying this process
to a Spanish regional public administration.Junta de Andalucía TIC-578
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