10,298 research outputs found
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Ensuring Access to Safe and Nutritious Food for All Through the Transformation of Food Systems
RAPID: Enabling Fast Online Policy Learning in Dynamic Public Cloud Environments
Resource sharing between multiple workloads has become a prominent practice
among cloud service providers, motivated by demand for improved resource
utilization and reduced cost of ownership. Effective resource sharing, however,
remains an open challenge due to the adverse effects that resource contention
can have on high-priority, user-facing workloads with strict Quality of Service
(QoS) requirements. Although recent approaches have demonstrated promising
results, those works remain largely impractical in public cloud environments
since workloads are not known in advance and may only run for a brief period,
thus prohibiting offline learning and significantly hindering online learning.
In this paper, we propose RAPID, a novel framework for fast, fully-online
resource allocation policy learning in highly dynamic operating environments.
RAPID leverages lightweight QoS predictions, enabled by
domain-knowledge-inspired techniques for sample efficiency and bias reduction,
to decouple control from conventional feedback sources and guide policy
learning at a rate orders of magnitude faster than prior work. Evaluation on a
real-world server platform with representative cloud workloads confirms that
RAPID can learn stable resource allocation policies in minutes, as compared
with hours in prior state-of-the-art, while improving QoS by 9.0x and
increasing best-effort workload performance by 19-43%
Central-provincial Politics and Industrial Policy-making in the Electric Power Sector in China
In addition to the studies that provide meaningful insights into the complexity of technical and economic issues, increasing studies have focused on the political process of market transition in network industries such as the electric power sector. This dissertation studies the centralâprovincial interactions in industrial policy-making and implementation, and attempts to evaluate the roles of Chinese provinces in the market reform process of the electric power sector. Market reforms of this sector are used as an illustrative case because the new round of market reforms had achieved some significant breakthroughs in areas such as pricing reform and wholesale market trading. Other policy measures, such as the liberalization of the distribution market and cross-regional market-building, are still at a nascent stage and have only scored moderate progress. It is important to investigate why some policy areas make greater progress in market reforms than others. It is also interesting to examine the impacts of Chinese central-provincial politics on producing the different market reform outcomes. Guangdong and Xinjiang are two provinces being analyzed in this dissertation. The progress of market reforms in these two provinces showed similarities although the provinces are very different in terms of local conditions such as the stages of their economic development and energy structures. The actual reform can be understood as the outcomes of certain modes of interactions between the central and provincial actors in the context of their particular capabilities and preferences in different policy areas. This dissertation argues that market reform is more successful in policy areas where the central and provincial authorities are able to engage mainly in integrative negotiations than in areas where they engage mainly in distributive negotiations
The development of the Kent coalfield 1896-1946
One of the unique features of the Kent Coalfield is that it is entirely concealed by newer rocks. The existence of a coalfield under southern England, being a direct link between those of South Wales, Somerset and Bristol in the west and the Ruhr, Belgium. and northern France in the east, was predicted by the geologist R. A. C. Godwin-Austen as early as 1856. It was, however, only the rapid increase in demand for Britain's coal in the last quarter of the nineteenth century that made it worth considering testing this hypothesis. The first boring was made in the years 1886-90, and although it discovered coal, this did not in itself prove the existence of a viable coalfield. This could be done only by incurring the heavy cost of boring systematically over a wide area. As the financial returns from such an undertaking were uncertain, it was not surprising that in the early years, around the turn of the century, a dominant role was played by speculators, who were able to induce numerous small investors to risk some of their savings in the expectation of high profits. As minerals in Britain were privately owned, the early pioneer companies not only had to meet the cost of the exploratory borines, but also, if they were not to see the benefit of their work accrue to others, lease beforehand the right to mine coal from local landowners in as much of the surrounding area as possible. This policy was pursued most vigorously by Arthur Burr, a Surrey land specula tor, who raised capital by creating the Kent Coal Conoessions Ltd. and then floating a series of companies allied to it. Burr's enterprise would probably have been. successful had it not been for the water problems encountered at depth in -v- the coalfield. As a result, the Concessions group found itself in control of most of the coalfield, but without the necessary capital to sink and adequately equip its 01ffi collieries. By 1910, however, the discovery of iron ore deposits in east Kent, coupled with the fact that Kent coal was excellent for coking purposes, began to attract the large steel firms of Bolckow, Vaughan Ltd. and Dorman, Long & Co. Ltd. in to the area. The First World War intervened, however, to delay their plans, and to provide an extended lease of life to the Concessions group, which, by the summer of 1914, was facing financial collapse. By the time Dorman, Lone & Co, in alliance with Weetman Pearson (Lord Cowdray), had acquired control over the greater part of the coalfield from the Concessions group, not only was the country's coal industry declining, but so was its steel industry, which suffered an even more severe rate of contraction during the inter-war years. As a result, Pearson and Dorman Long Ltd. was forced to concentrate just on coal production, and this in turn was hampered not only by the water problems, but also by labour shortages and the schemes introduced by the government in 1930 to restrict the country's coal output, in an attempt to maintain prices and revenue in the industry. Nevertheless, production did show a substantial increase between 1927 and 1935, after which it declined as miners left the coalfield to return to their former districts, where employment opportunities were improving in the late thirties. Supporting roles were played in the inter-war years by Richard Tilden Smith, a share underwriter turned industrialist with long standing interests in the coalfield, who acquired one of the Concessions group's two collieries, and by the Powell Duffryn Steam Coal Co. Ltd., which through subsidiary companies, took over the only colliery to be developed by a pioneer company outside the Concessions group. The impossibility of Kent coal, because of its nature, ever gaining more than token access to the more lucrative household market, and then the failure of the local steel industry to materialise meant that the -vi- companies had to develop alternative outlets for their growing outputs. Although nearness to industrial markets in the south-east of England did confer certain advantages were poor consolation for the hoped for developments of either the early pioneers or the later industrialists. Instead of the expected profits, the companies mostly incurred losses, and only the company acquired by Powell Duffryn ever paid a dividend to its shareholders in the years before nationalisation. From the point of view of the Kent miners, the shortage of labour in the coalfield, particularly in the years 1914-20 and 1927-35, was to an important extent responsible for their being amongst the highest paid in the industry. At the same time the more favourable employment opportunities prevailing in Kent compared with other mining districts enabled the Kent Nine Workers Association to develop into a well organised union, which on the whole was able to look after the interests of its members fairly successfully. Throughout the period 1896 to 1946 the Kent Coalfield existed very much at the margin of the British coal industry. Its failure to develop substantially along the lines envisaged by either the early pioneers or by the later industrialists meant that its importance in national terms always remained small
Transformation of the business model to establish sustainable value in the consumer durables super store industry of Sri Lanka
The business model of an organization, operates as the fundamental blue print of the planning process, which shapes the nature of the strategies executed during the course of operation. These strategies in turn are responsible for the value creation or value erosion that takes place during the operation of the organization determining its sustainability, and in a broader context the sustainability of the industry. The research is done for the Consumer Durables Super Store (CDSS) industry of Sri Lanka concerning the existing business model, the value erosion occurring as a result of it and the risk it carries to the sustainability of the industry. The theoretical aspect of the research to develop a relationship based business model was anchored on the understanding of existing frameworks relating to sustainable value and extracting relevant areas of each of these frameworks (alignment of value, transforming current strategies and service offerings to create sustainable value) to develop a suitable hybrid framework with modifications to the literature to suite the research context.Ten in-depth interviews with CDSS organizational representatives holding leadership, sales and marketing management positions, and two focus group sessions with fifty selected customers were conducted in a virtual environment due to the prevailing pandemic situation. The data collected were analyzed with NVIVO 12, with themes relevant to the research utilized as codes, giving a clear understanding over the buyer and seller purview on the themes of the research. The findings surfaced the value erosion caused due to the financially driven strategies originated from the transactional orientation of the existing business model. The theories adopted to construct the relationship oriented business model to rectify the value erosion taking place, based on sustainable value, value alignment and service offerings, were modified to incorporate âquality of tradeâ to bridge the gap, leading towards the creation and delivery of sustainable value to the buyer-seller eco system of the industry
The determinants of value addition: a crtitical analysis of global software engineering industry in Sri Lanka
It was evident through the literature that the perceived value delivery of the global software
engineering industry is low due to various facts. Therefore, this research concerns global
software product companies in Sri Lanka to explore the software engineering methods and
practices in increasing the value addition. The overall aim of the study is to identify the key
determinants for value addition in the global software engineering industry and critically
evaluate the impact of them for the software product companies to help maximise the value
addition to ultimately assure the sustainability of the industry.
An exploratory research approach was used initially since findings would emerge while the
study unfolds. Mixed method was employed as the literature itself was inadequate to
investigate the problem effectively to formulate the research framework. Twenty-three face-to-face online interviews were conducted with the subject matter experts covering all the
disciplines from the targeted organisations which was combined with the literature findings as
well as the outcomes of the market research outcomes conducted by both government and nongovernment institutes. Data from the interviews were analysed using NVivo 12. The findings
of the existing literature were verified through the exploratory study and the outcomes were
used to formulate the questionnaire for the public survey. 371 responses were considered after
cleansing the total responses received for the data analysis through SPSS 21 with alpha level
0.05. Internal consistency test was done before the descriptive analysis. After assuring the
reliability of the dataset, the correlation test, multiple regression test and analysis of variance
(ANOVA) test were carried out to fulfil the requirements of meeting the research objectives.
Five determinants for value addition were identified along with the key themes for each area.
They are staffing, delivery process, use of tools, governance, and technology infrastructure.
The cross-functional and self-organised teams built around the value streams, employing a
properly interconnected software delivery process with the right governance in the delivery
pipelines, selection of tools and providing the right infrastructure increases the value delivery.
Moreover, the constraints for value addition are poor interconnection in the internal processes,
rigid functional hierarchies, inaccurate selections and uses of tools, inflexible team
arrangements and inadequate focus for the technology infrastructure. The findings add to the
existing body of knowledge on increasing the value addition by employing effective processes,
practices and tools and the impacts of inaccurate applications the same in the global software
engineering industry
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After Creation: Intergovernmental Organizations and Member State Governments as Co-Participants in an Authority Relationship
This is a re-amalgamation of what started as one manuscript and became two when the length proved to be more than any publisher wanted to consider. The splitting consisted of removing what are now Parts 3, 4, and 5 so that the manuscript focused on the outcome-related shared beliefs holding an authority relationship together. Those parts were last worked on in 2018. The rest were last worked on in late 2021 but also remain incomplete.
The relational approach adopted in this study treats intergovernmental organizations and the governments of member states as co-participants in an authority relationship with the governments of their member states. Authority relationships link two types of actor, defined by their authority-holder or addressee role in the relationship, through a set of shared beliefs about why the relationship exists and how the participants should fulfill their respective roles. The IGO as authority holder has a role that includes a right to instruct other actors about what they should or should not do; the governments of member states as addressees are expected to comply with the instructions. Three sets of shared beliefs provide the conceptual âglueâ holding the relationship together. The first defines the goal of the collective effort, providing both the rationale for having the authority relationship and providing a lode star for assessments of the collective effortâs success or lack of success. The second set defines the shared understanding about allocation of roles and the process of interaction by establishing shared expectations about a) the selection process by which particular actors acquire authority holder roles, b) the definitions identifying one or more categories of addressees expected to follow instructions, and c) the procedures through which the authority holder issues instructions. The third set focus on the outcomes of cooperation through the relationship by defining a) the substantive areas in which the authority holder may issue instructions, b) the bases for assessing the relevance actions mandated in instructions for reaching the goal, and c) the relative efficacy of action paths chosen for reaching the goal as compared to other possible action paths.
Using an authority relationship framework for analyzing cooperation through IGOs highlights the inherently bi-directional nature of IGO-member government activity by viewing their interaction as involving a three-step process in which the IGO as authority holder decides when to issue what instruction, the member state governments as followers react to the instruction with anything from prompt and full compliance through various forms of pushback to outright rejection, and the IGO as authority holder responds to how the followers react with efforts to increase individual compliance with instructions and reinforce continuing acceptance of the authority relationship. Foregrounding the dynamics produced by the interaction of these two streams of perception and action reveals more clearly how far intergovernmental organizations acquire capacity to operate as independent actors, the dynamic ways they maintain that capacity, and how much they influence member governmentsâ beliefs and actions at different times. The approach fosters better understanding of why, when, and for how long governments choose cooperation through an IGO even in periods of rising unilateralism
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