Second generation governance indicators

This paper summarizes progress made in a DfID-funded World Bank initiative to test and develop policy-relevant, politically acceptable, quantitative indicators of governance. There are two major components involved in the process of generating indicators that are practical means of reform. Political acceptability is key in developing neutral quantitative benchmarks of good governance that can be embraced by reformers. In addition to political acceptability, measuring governance must be comprehensive and institutionally specific so that reformers know which institutions to reform and how to do so. This paper explores some of the most promising second generation indicators of good governance and elaborates on how they are being used in World Bank operations

Second generation governance indicators

This paper summarizes progress made in a DfID-funded World Bank initiative to test and develop policy-relevant, politically acceptable, quantitative indicators of governance. There are two major components involved in the process of generating indicators that are practical means of reform. Political acceptability is key in developing neutral quantitative benchmarks of good governance that can be embraced by reformers. In addition to political acceptability, measuring governance must be comprehensive and institutionally specific so that reformers know which institutions to reform and how to do so. This paper explores some of the most promising second generation indicators of good governance and elaborates on how they are being used in World Bank operations.governance, institutions, development

Second generation governance indicators

This paper summarizes progress made in a DfID-funded World Bank initiative to test and develop policy-relevant, politically acceptable, quantitative indicators of governance. There are two major components involved in the process of generating indicators that are practical means of reform. Political acceptability is key in developing neutral quantitative benchmarks of good governance that can be embraced by reformers. In addition to political acceptability, measuring governance must be comprehensive and institutionally specific so that reformers know which institutions to reform and how to do so. This paper explores some of the most promising second generation indicators of good governance and elaborates on how they are being used in World Bank operations.governance, institutions, development

Biomass production and land use management in the Italian context: regulations, conflicts, and impacts

Renewable energy sources, such as biomass can make a positive impact on climate change phenomenon by decreasing our dependence on fossil fuels. The use of biomass energy is directly linked to the use of the land, from which biomass feedstock is obtained, such as farm land and forests, and its ecosystem services. The biomass production and the use of land and ecosystem services are usually associated with a wide range of environmental and social impacts, depending on what choices are made regarding what types of biomass are used, as well as where and how they are produced. Choosing management practices that minimize negative impacts and complement planning policies and energy production objectives is often associated with land-use conflicts among both different institutional levels, local, national and European, and different social actors. Yet, European Directive 2009/28/CE establishes that the energy production from renewable energy by 2020, as well as from biofuel, defined for each member state (Annex 1), must be achieved through a “sustainable†production. Such definition is assigned to national and local contexts, arising issues in policy making, conflicts analysis and methodologies. The present paper discusses on the recent acknowledgment of the above mentioned EU directive in several Italian Regions, such as Puglia and Marche, which have defined regulations/guidelines regarding their potential contribution to the national objectives of production and consumption of energy from renewable sources (EFR). Moreover, the present paper confronts such regulations with results found in literature. Several analyses have been done on the energy production from biomass based on technical and economic aspects of the problem. However, few studies have applied integrated approaches able to take into consideration crucial aspects such as biodiversity conservation and landscape fragmentation, as required by EU Directive 2009/28/CE, side by side with the economic and social dimensions. This paper aims at filling this gap proposing the application of an integrated framework of analysis, based on multi-criteria approaches able to take into consideration socio-economic, environmental and landscape criteria, as well as institutional and social conflicts linked to the biomass production.

Transaction Costs in Aid: Case Studies of Sector Wide Approaches in Zambia and Senegal

human development, aid, trade, security

Design Mechanism as Territorial Strategic Capability

The current exigencies that a territory must faced in order to its’ optimal positioning in future regional competition requires the ability to design the appropriate mechanism which better valorize the territory capability. Such a construct is vital for territorial sustainable development and supposes the creation of a specific body of knowledge from distinctive local resource exploitation and unique value creation and allocation. Territorial mechanism design is a typical management decision about identification, ownership and control of specific strategic capabilities and their combination in a distinctive territorial portfolio. The most difficult responsibility is to allocate the territorial value added which is a source of conflict among territorial components. Our current paper research covers the basics of two complementary territorial pillars-rural and tourism potential and proves the lack of specific design mechanisms which explain the current diminishing value of Galati Braila region. The proposed management system, relying upon territorial control mechanism, will ensure knowledge sharing process via collaborative learning, with the final role of appropriate territorial attractivity signals, reinforcing identity as key factor of territorial attractability. Our paper is fully documented on there years of data analyzing from territorial area of interest. This offers us the necessary empiric contrasting for our proposed solution.territorial disruptive typicity, coordination design mechanism, sustainable development, collaborative learning, territorial change

Unified Behavior Framework for Reactive Robot Control in Real-Time Systems

Endeavors in mobile robotics focus on developing autonomous vehicles that operate in dynamic and uncertain environments. By reducing the need for human-in- the-loop control, unmanned vehicles are utilized to achieve tasks considered dull or dangerous by humans. Because unexpected latency can adversely affect the quality of an autonomous system\u27s operations, which in turn can affect lives and property in the real-world, their ability to detect and handle external events is paramount to providing safe and dependable operation. Behavior-based systems form the basis of autonomous control for many robots. This thesis presents the unified behavior framework, a new and novel approach which incorporates the critical ideas and concepts of the existing reactive controllers in an effort to simplify development without locking the system developer into using any single behavior system. The modular design of the framework is based on modern software engineering principles and only specifies a functional interface for components, leaving the implementation details to the developers. In addition to its use of industry standard techniques in the design of reactive controllers, the unified behavior framework guarantees the responsiveness of routines that are critical to the vehicle\u27s safe operation by allowing individual behaviors to be scheduled by a real-time process controller. The experiments in this thesis demonstrate the ability of the framework to: 1) interchange behavioral components during execution to generate various global behavior attributes; 2) apply genetic programming techniques to automate the discovery of effective structures for a domain that are up to 122 percent better than those crafted by an expert; and 3) leverage real-time scheduling technologies to guarantee the responsiveness of time critical routines regardless of the system\u27s computational load

Explaining adherence to self-care behaviours amongst adolescents with food allergy: a comparison of the health belief model and the common sense self-regulation model

OBJECTIVES: To identify explanations for adherence to self-care behaviours amongst adolescents with food allergy-induced anaphylaxis using two social cognition models: the health belief model (HBM) and the common sense self-regulation model (CS-SRM). DESIGN: Cross-sectional self-completion questionnaire study to gain initial evidence of the two models' feasibility/effectiveness in explaining adherence in an adolescent food-allergic population. METHODS: Participants aged 13-19 years with a diagnosis of severe food allergy and a prescription of an adrenaline auto-injector were recruited from hospital outpatients. Adherence to self-care behaviours was measured in addition to constructs from the HBM and CS-SRM. RESULTS: One hundred and eighty-eight food-allergic adolescents completed the questionnaire. The HBM, specifically the constructs perceived severity and barriers, accounted for 21% of the explained variance in adherence behaviours. CS-SRM constructs, illness identity, timeline cyclical beliefs and emotional representations explained 25% of the variance. CONCLUSIONS: Both models performed similarly in explaining adherence to self-care behaviours in adolescents with food allergy. Interventions designed to elicit personal barriers to adherence and to address perceptions of severity and the unpredictable nature of symptoms may be more effective in improving adherence to self-care behaviours than current interventions. STATEMENT OF CONTRIBUTION: What is already known on this subject? Patients' poor management of food allergy induced anaphylaxis is commonly attributed to lack of knowledge and ability in using the adrenaline auto-injector. Adherence to recommended preventive self-care behaviours, like allergen avoidance and carrying emergency medication, are rarely assessed. Social Cognition Models (SCMs) have been successfully applied to a number of adherence-related studies in disease conditions such as asthma and diabetes, but have not yet been applied to food allergy induced anaphylaxis. What does this study add? This is the first large-scale quantitative study of adherence behaviours in adolescents with food allergy. This is the first study to apply theoretical models to explain adherence in the adolescent food allergic population. This is the first application of both models to food allergy, and the first to compare the two models' measurement instruments

The role of fisheries data in the development evaluation and impact assessment in support of European fisheries plans

The European Commission has two formal requirements for developing multi-annual management plan policies: evaluation of the past performance of existing plans and impact assessments (IAs) of the potential benefits of new proposals. The new policies require the evaluation of fishery management in terms of three specific criteria: (i) effectiveness, i. e. the best method to achieve the objectives; (ii) efficiency, the cost-effectiveness, and proportionality; and (iii) consistency, i. e. limiting trade-offs across economic, social, and environmental domains. To develop policy, there is a need to collect relevant information, then to conduct appropriate analyses that provide documentation to support the policy objectives. This paper discusses the data requirements for good environmental, economic, and social understanding of fishery dynamics and management, describing how fishery data are currently linked to the analytical and management evaluation process using examples from 2009 and 2010. The type of information currently used is considered, along with the timetable of data availability, and its effect on historical evaluation and IAs, which are now formally required when any changes to legislation are proposed in the European Union, including following stakeholder consultation. The possibilities and future needs for such data are discussed