Assessing a Sport/Cultural Events Network: An Application of Social Network Analysis

The purpose of this study was to assess the complexity of a sport/cultural events network. To that intent, a social network analysis was conducted in a small community in the US. The study had three main objectives: (1) Examine relationships among organisations involved in planning and implementing sport and cultural events based on their communication, exchange of resources, and assistance; (2) Identify the most important actors within the events network and their relationships; (3) Investigate the structure of the events network and evaluate the community’s capacity to capitalise on their event portfolio via a collaborative events network

Proposed Guidelines for Establishing Baseline for Networking Infrastructure in Campus Environment : A Case Study of Faculty Information Technology (FTM)

Baseline plays a deterministic role in providing network managers with state-of-the-art information on their networks' current performance for future capacity planning. The lack of a simplified model and/or framework for creating baseline hampers the process of capacity planning thus cause many problems for network managers. Using multi-purpose multi-design research approach, this thesis objectively proposes systematic guidelines to create baseline for further capacity planning facilitation. Proper care has been taken in assessing the baseline requirements to capture all necessary information on networking infrastructure needed to create baseline. The authenticity and validity of the proposed guidelines has been tested using a short evaluation by experts, moreover, baseline for FTM's networking infrastructure has been established by implementing our proposed guidelines. It is hoped that our proposed guidelines, by all means, provide invaluable contribution to help FTM to develop the future capacity plan and gives a direction towards future research in capacity planning

Enhanced SSuN Cycle 3 (Version 8.2)

Enhanced SSuN Cycle 3 (Version 8.2)The STD Surveillance Network (SSuN) was established in 2005 (Cycle 1) to create an ongoing network of collaborating health departments with the capacity to implement a wide variety of surveillance activities, the flexibility to modify activities over time as trends dictated, and the ability to use surveillance data to guide programmatic action.SSuN Cycle 2 (2008 \ue2\u20ac\u201c 2013) expanded the network to include a greater number of collaborating health departments and further strengthened the human capacity and IT infrastructure. Activities in Cycle II included monitoring the prevalence of STDs, HIV, viral hepatitis, and risk behaviors in MSM, assessing trends in the burden of genital wart disease in patients attending STD clinics, monitoring HIV testing coverage in patients attending STD clinics, and implementing population-based enhanced gonorrhea surveillance.The current cycle (Cycle III, SSuN 2013 - 2018) continues to address these issues through enhanced and sentinel STD surveillance activities in specific populations (population component) and in expanded healthcare facilities (STD Clinics and Family Planning/Reproductive Health settings) serving populations at risk for STDs. These activities constitute Part A of SSuN and are the core activities of the network; this document outlines protocols and methods for implementing these enhanced and sentinel surveillance activities.ssun/protocol_v8.2_508.pd

Early Learning Innovation Fund Evaluation Final Report

This is a formative evaluation of the Hewlett Foundation's Early Learning Innovation Fund that began in 2011 as part of the Quality Education in Developing Countries (QEDC) initiative.  The Fund has four overarching objectives, which are to: promote promising approaches to improve children's learning; strengthen the capacity of organizations implementing those approaches; strengthen those organizations' networks and ownership; and grow 20 percent of implementing organizations into significant players in the education sector. The Fund's original design was to create a "pipeline" of innovative approaches to improve learning outcomes, with the assumption that donors and partners would adopt the most successful ones. A defining feature of the Fund was that it delivered assistance through two intermediary support organizations (ISOs), rather than providing funds directly to implementing organizations. Through an open solicitation process, the Hewlett Foundation selected Firelight Foundation and TrustAfrica to manage the Fund. Firelight Foundation, based in California, was founded in 1999 with a mission to channel resources to community-based organizations (CBOs) working to improve the lives of vulnerable children and families in Africa. It supports 12 implementing organizations in Tanzania for the Fund. TrustAfrica, based in Dakar, Senegal, is a convener that seeks to strengthen African-led initiatives addressing some of the continent's most difficult challenges. The Fund was its first experience working specifically with early learning and childhood development organizations. Under the Fund, it supported 16 such organizations: one in Mali and five each in Senegal, Uganda and Kenya. At the end of 2014, the Hewlett Foundation commissioned Management Systems International (MSI) to conduct a mid-term evaluation assessing the implementation of the Fund exploring the extent to which it achieved intended outcomes and any factors that had limited or enabled its achievements. It analyzed the support that the ISOs provided to their implementing organizations, with specific focus on monitoring and evaluation (M&E). The evaluation included an audit of the implementing organizations' M&E systems and a review of the feasibility of compiling data collected to support an impact evaluation. Finally, the Foundation and the ISOs hoped that this evaluation would reveal the most promising innovations and inform planning for Phase II of the Fund. The evaluation findings sought to inform the Hewlett Foundation and other donors interested in supporting intermediary grant-makers, early learning innovations and the expansion of innovations. TrustAfrica and Firelight Foundation provided input to the evaluation's scope of work. Mid-term evaluation reports for each ISO provided findings about their management of the Fund's Phase I and recommendations for Phase II. This final evaluation report will inform donors, ISOs and other implementing organizations about the best approaches to support promising early learning innovations and their expansion. The full report outlines findings common across both ISOs' experience and includes recommendations in four key areas: adequate time; appropriate capacity building; advocacy and scaling up; and evaluating and documenting innovations. Overall, both Firelight Foundation and TrustAfrica supported a number of effective innovations working through committed and largely competent implementing organizations. The program's open-ended nature avoided being prescriptive in its approach, but based on the lessons learned in this evaluation and the broader literature, the Hewlett Foundation and other donors could have offered more guidance to ISOs to avoid the need to continually relearn some lessons. For example, over the evaluation period, it became increasingly evident that the current context demands more focused advance planning to measure impact on beneficiaries and other stakeholders and a more concrete approach to promoting and resourcing potential scale-up. The main findings from the evaluation and recommendations are summarized here

Building institutional capacity for industrial symbiosis development : a case study of an industrial symbiosis coordination network in China

Recent research has examined how the concept of institutional capacity relates to the ability of organisations to deliver industrial symbiosis, and in particular how that ability itself can develop over time. One approach to developing industrial symbiosis has been to build a network of local bodies to work together to this end. Terming such a body an industrial symbiosis coordination network, this study innovatively applies institutional capacity building theory in the context of a Chinese eco-industrial park. It examines how the coordination network developed the expertise to encourage local companies to engage in industrial symbiosis. This research consisted of a qualitative study, including participant observation, semi-structured interviews and document analysis to analyse the development of an industrial symbiosis coordination network in Tianjin Binhai New Area. It is found that the network increased institutional capacity for local IS development by promoting relational links across organisational divisions and governance levels, and by increasing various types of knowledge for coordinating IS. The concept of institutional capacity building is shown to have cross-cultural applicability. Reflections on this study indicate that local government can play a vital role in building and maintaining an IS coordination network in the Chinese context, but that other bodies are also needed to mobilise institutional capacity for IS development

Hierarchical planning in BDI agent programming languages: A formal approach

This paper provides a general mechanism and a solid theoretical basis for performing planning within Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) agents. BDI agent systems have emerged as one of the most widely used approaches to implementing intelligent behaviour in complex dynamic domains, in addition to which they have a strong theoretical background. However, these systems either do not include any built-in capacity for "lookahead" type of planning or they do it only at the implementation level without any precise defined semantics. In some situations, the ability to plan ahead is clearly desirable or even mandatory for ensuring success. Also, a precise definition of how planning can be integrated into a BDI system is highly desirable. By building on the underlying similarities between BDI systems and Hierarchical Task Network (HTN) planners, we present a formal semantics for a BDI agent programming language which cleanly incorporates HTN-style planning as a built-in feature. We argue that the resulting integrated agent programming language combines the advantages of both BDI agent systems and hierarchical offline planners

Sustainable Development in Southern Africa: Progress in Addressing the Challenges

This paper reviews the progress made in establishing institutional framework for sustainable development in Southern Africa, identifies the major successes and challenges in implementing sustainable development policies and programs and suggests recommendations to enhance implementation of sustainable development policies and programs

Towards integrated island management: lessons from Lau, Malaita, for the implementation of a national approach to resource management in Solomon Islands: final report

Solomon Islands has recently developed substantial policy aiming to support inshore fisheries management, conservation, climate change adaptation and ecosystem approaches to resource management. A large body of experience in community based approaches to management has developed but “upscaling” and particularly the implementation of nation-wide approaches has received little attention so far. With the emerging challenges posed by climate change and the need for ecosystem wide and integrated approaches attracting serious donor attention, a national debate on the most effective approaches to implementation is urgently needed. This report discusses potential implementation of “a cost-effective and integrated approach to resource management that is consistent with national policy and needs” based on a review of current policy and institutional structures and examination of a recent case study from Lau, Malaita using stakeholder, transaction and financial cost analyses

Water Rights and Water Allocation: Issues and Challenges for Asia

The primary audience for this report is management and staff working in water resources agencies in Asia, particularly those in river basin organizations (RBOs) in their various forms. The roles and responsibilities of RBOs vary considerably and are evolving as pressureson water resources are becoming more severe. Although this report seeks to share knowledge about the fundamentals and application of waterrights and allocation, it attempts to do so with a practical focus