Elaborating a decentralized market information system

A Decentralized Market Information System (DMIS) that aggregates and provides information about markets is an important component for achieving markets in Grid and Peer-to-Peer systems. The proposed work is the development of a framework for the DMIS, which fulfils the economic provision within the main technical requirements like scalability towards nodes and data attributes and robustness against failures. The proposed work also allows obtaining results concerning the trade-off between economic benefits and technical costs. Introducing dynamic adaptive processes promises improvements in efficiency with regards to distributed queries and routing structures. This research proposal presents and discusses the research questions and challenges, the current knowledge and the research methodology proposed for the development of the DMIS framework.Peer Reviewe

POSSIBILITIES FOR IMPROVING THE EFFICIENCY OF PUBLIC SPENDING IN ROMANIA

The economical efficiency of public expenditure is a current issue, especially in economic and financial Romanian context. At the State’s level in Romania, the reform of public spending that focuses primarily on supporting the economical convergence and improving the capacity to absorb EU funds, through restructuring budgetary expenditures, has started. I have identified in this paper four measures which may contribute to the improvement of the public spending efficiency. These measures regard decentralization, public acquisitions, the state control function, the budgeting procedure.efficiency, public sector, decentralization, program based budget, performance based budget

Austrian and Post-Marshallian EconomicsThe Bridging Work of George Richardson

Austrian and post-Marshallian economics share a number of concerns, such as a basic subjecticist stance and an emphasis on the importance of inquiry into the disequilibrium market process. This paper details similarities and differences between these two bodies of thought, and argue that a closer liaison is possible. George Richardson's work is presented as a possible bridge, since his work incorporates both Austrian and post-Marshallian elements. The paper ends by sketching a combined Austrian and post-Marshallian approach to the firm.Austrian economics, post-Marshallian economics, George Richardson, the theory of the firm

Institutional and policy analysis of river basin management : the Alto-Tiete river basin, Sao Paulo, Brazil

The authors describe and analyze river basin management in the most intensely urbanized and industrialized region of Brazil. The area covered by the Alto Tiete basin is almost coterminous with the Metropolitan Region of Sao Paulo. With a drainage area of 5,985 square kilometers (2.4 percent of the state's territory), the basin encompasses 35 of the 39 municipalities and 99.5 percent of the population of Greater Sao Paulo. Population growth and urban sprawl in Greater Sao Paulo have been rapid and uncontrolled in recent decades. In 2000, 17.8 million people lived in the basin and by 2010 the population is estimated to reach 20 million. This massive human occupation was accompanied by the large-scale construction of water infrastructure, including dams, pumping stations, canals, tunnels, and inter-basin transfers to and from neighboring basins. Today, the Alto-Tiete basin is served by a complex hydraulic and hydrological system. Despite this extensive water infrastructure, the water availability of the region is still very low (201 m3-hab-an) and even lower than the semiarid regions of the Brazilian Northeast. The two key management issues to be addressed in the Alto Tiete basin are water quantity to supply a burgeoning population, and water quality which is deteriorating to a point where water availability for a range of uses is severely affected. Urban flood control and mitigation represents another major challenge in the basin. Although important achievements have been made over the past 15 years, the decentralization process - characterized by the creation of the Alto-Tiete committee and its subcommittees and some financing from the State Water Resources Fund - has yet to reveal measurable physical results such as the improvement of water quality or the rationalization of water use. It is undeniable that the Alto-Tiete committee and its subcommittees have already played an important leadership role around several issues. An extraordinary mobilization around water issues, problems, and management has occurred, even though solving many water-related problems may be beyond the capacity of the committees or even of the water resources management system as a whole. Charging for water remains one of the key issues in making the Alto Tiete Committee more relevant and giving it more say in water investment and management decisions. As long as such decisions remain at the individual agency level (both state and municipal), decisionmaking will remain fragmented and it is unlikely that key policy instruments to curb water demand increases and pollution will be implemented.Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Town Water Supply and Sanitation,Water and Industry,Drought Management,Water Conservation

Drawing up Farm Management Plans for Agri-Environmental Schemes

The role of and the approach to the countryside and the environment has undergone dramatic changes in recent decades as relations between sustainable, multi-functional agriculture and the need for preserving natural resources were realised. On the other hand, to be successful in a commercial environment farmers need financial planning and control. However, at this stage of privatisation process and development of rationalised farm businesses within Hungary, there exists a large number of small family-managed holdings where business and production skills are at an elementary level. Moreover, application for agricultural state support and planned subsidy priorities of agro-environmental programs will be linked to the condition of having clear business and management plan. These facts represent a growing demand for establishing of rural extension services and an increased need for sound farm business planning. The objective of the research is to elaborate a computerised planning methodology that help farmers not only to exercise effective management controls over the financial aspects of their business through proper planning and record keeping based on calculations of up-to-date information but to encourage the introduction and use of farming practices compatible with the increasing demands of protection of the environment and natural resources (multifunctional agriculture) as well. The methodology is suitable for producing sustainability indices in order to characterise the environment. Well-known and widely applied methods, such as calculation of gross margin, internal rate of return and net present value liked to issues which were previously little focused on, such as manure production and use, or studying the N cycle within the farm. The methodology is tested in selected case study areas and it is investigated what sort of changes are required on farm level to achieve environmental and economic sustainability and how should farm-level based systems be designed to prevent increased negative externalities of agricultural production with respect to Hungarian circumstances.Farm Management, Agri-environmental Programme, Planning., Financial Economics,

Design Challenges for Innovation Management on Agro-Food Sector

Current status of research indicates that we assist to location-specific factor supremacy as determinants in regional attractiveness and sustainability being territorial driven, we offer strong arguments for policy makers in order to enable this long term strategy. We also address another issue heavily disputed between academics-that is the return to local and regional offerings as complementary to global assumption. Assisting today to a hybrid innovation process, relying upon territorial marketing-an umbrella for too many issues cvasi- exploited: eco-clusters, local and regional offerings; traditional products/services exploiting, regional clusters competing for funds; we are focusing on complex industrial -rural system reconfiguration relying upon dynamic evolution of territorial branding into competitive identity, as the disruptive behavior we need in sustainable development. Successful development strategies are based on the ability to build an institutional territorial coherence-social and environmental sustainability being inextricably interdependent, such a complex coordination structure relies on territorial knowledge sharing through expertise polls consultation- as key concept of good governance. This model of innovational resource allocation coordination on agro food chains, relying upon clusterisation through patterns of innovational management deficit, offers a relevant solution for synergic orientation of assistance and mentoring efforts on the sector, enable the capitalization of relevant capabilities and increase the addressability from innovation demand side. Based upon auditing 500 SME’s from agro food sector in Europe and 51 in SE region, the paper is fully documented on there years of data analyzing from Agro Food sector on 10 European countries in the framework on FP6 SPAS European Project.territorial knowledge sharing, innovation resource allocation, disruptive territorial solution, community supported agro food chains