Thriving in the 21st century: Learning Literacies for the Digital Age (LLiDA project): Executive Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations

LLiDA set out to: review the evidence of change in the contexts of learning, including the nature of work,nknowledge, social life and citizenship, communications media and other technologies review current responses to these challenges from the further and higher education sectors, in terms of: a) the kinds of capabilities valued, taught for and assessed (especially as revealed through competence frameworks); b) the ways in which capabilities are supported ('provision') c) the value placed on staff and student 'literacies of the digital' collect original data concerning current practice in literacies provision in UK FE and HE, including 15 institutional audits and over 40 examples of forward thinking practice offer conclusions and recommendations, in terms of the same issues reviewed in

An Integrated Framework for Competitive Multi-channel Marketing of Multi-featured Products

For any company, multiple channels are available for reaching a population in order to market its products. Some of the most well-known channels are (a) mass media advertisement, (b) recommendations using social advertisement, and (c) viral marketing using social networks. The company would want to maximize its reach while also accounting for simultaneous marketing of competing products, where the product marketings may not be independent. In this direction, we propose and analyze a multi-featured generalization of the classical linear threshold model. We hence develop a framework for integrating the considered marketing channels into the social network, and an approach for allocating budget among these channels

Making It Work: Linking Youth Reproductive Health and Livelihoods

Assesses the challenges and effectiveness of programs that integrate adolescent reproductive health with options that improve economic capabilities, assets, and activities. Highlights innovative approaches, and defines gaps in existing interventions

Report of the Global Strategy Task Force

The Global Strategy Task Force created a final report documenting its findings and recommendations. The intent of this report is to provide a framework through which the University can articulate and pursue an ambitious set of institutional goals that will increase its global connectivity and impact.To guide our work, the Task Force articulated a Global Vision for 2020:To establish Northwestern as one of the world's premier universities. To develop a culture and an infrastructure that link our intellectual communities to larger international idea and innovation networks and enable our faculty, students, and staff to lead and to learn from global advancements in research and teaching critical to human development and understanding.The Task Force identified three guiding principles for how we enact our vision.An ambitious intellectual agenda, not an economic one, must drive Northwestern's global investments. Northwestern should hire new faculty and staff, open new facilities, and initiate new dialogues and collaborations to the extent that it has a clear and compelling intellectual mission guiding each decision.Northwestern must focus on excellence to gain greater prominence in the world's leading innovation and idea networks, by identifying and investing deeply in select areas of strength and impact.Being global requires a bi-directional orientation. Northwestern must, with equal focus and vigor, expand its outward horizons while integrating global perspectives into the rich intellectual life of its US campuses and activities

Integrating Diplomacy and Social Media: A Report of the First Annual Aspen Institute Dialogue on Diplomacy and Technology

This report is a result of the first annual Aspen Institute Dialogue on Diplomacy and Technology, or what we call ADDTech. The concept for this Dialogue originated with longtime communications executive and Aspen Institute Trustee Marc Nathanson. Since his tenure as Chairman of the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), Nathanson has been concerned with how American diplomacy could more rapidly embrace the changing world of social media and other technologies. He is also a graduate of the University of Denver where former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's father, Josef Korbel, namesake of the Josef Korbel School of International Relations there, was his professor. Thus, Albright, another Institute Trustee, was a natural partner to create the first Dialogue on Diplomacy and Technology. The cast is ably supplemented with Korbel School Dean and former U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill and Aspen Institute President Walter Isaacson, who himself was also recently the chair of the BBG.The topic for this inaugural dialogue is how the diplomatic realm could better utilize new communications technologies. The group focused particularly on social media, but needed to differentiate among the various diplomacies in play in the current world, viz., formal state diplomacy, public diplomacy, citizen diplomacy and business diplomacy. Each presents its own array of opportunities as well as problems. In this first Dialogue, much of the time necessarily had to be used to define our terms and learn how technologies are currently being used in each case. To help us in that endeavor, we focused on the Middle East. While the resulting recommendations are therefore rather modest, they set up the series of dialogues to come in the years ahead

Strengthening America's Best Idea: An Independent Review of the National Park Service's Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate

NRSS requested that an independent panel of the National Academy conduct a review of its effectiveness in five core functions, its relationships with key internal stakeholders, and its performance measurement system. Among other things, the National Park Service's Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate (NRSS) is responsible for providing usable natural and social science information throughout the National Park Service (NPS). NRSS leadership requested this review of the directorate's performance on five core functions, its relationships with key internal NPS stakeholders, and its performance measurement system.Main FindingsThe panel determined that NRSS is a highly regarded organization that provides independent, credible scientific expertise and technical information. The panel also found that NRSS and NPS have additional opportunities to advance natural resource stewardship throughout the Service. If implemented, the panel's eight major recommendations will: (1) help the Service respond to the parks' environmental challenges while raising public awareness about the condition of these special places; (2) strengthen NRSS as an organization; (3) promote scientifically based decision-making at the national, regional, and park levels; and (4) improve the existing performance measurement system

Balancing and integrating basic values in the development of organic regulations and standards: proposal for a procedure using case studies of conflicting areas

The basic aim of the report is to develop a procedure for the integration of the ethical value base of organic farming into standards and regulations. For this it is necessary to identify the core ethical value of organic production, consider their coherence and relate them to existing practice of organic food and farming. Ethical values are per se in need of interpretation. It is therefore also necessary to consider the process of decision-making, when aiming to achieve a coherent integration of such values in the structure of a standard or regulation. In line with the European Action Plan for organic food and farming from 2004 the Project EEC 2092/91 (Organic) Revision supports the idea that delegating a larger role to values and basic principles will help to harmonise the rules, provide room for flexibility in implementation and to simplify the European Regulation for organic production. It is important to include basic values in standards and regulations, because organic farming is value based and all actors/stakeholders have value expectations, including consumers who the regulation wants to protect. Standards and regulations form the basis of a virtual contract between the consumer and the producers. By following the practices set out in the standards, producers give a promise to the consumer to deliver on additional ethical values, beyond the legal minimum standards for conventional agriculture and food. The growing and globalised organic market and the involvement of large companies have resulted in renewed interest in the values and principles of organic farming. There has been concern that the organic food and farming sector is becoming more conventionalised, and has lost touch with its basic values. Thus it will no longer function effectively as a real alternative to general agriculture for consumers, producers and also for policy makers. The report analyses what core ethical value are associated with organic agriculture and should therefore be considered for inclusion in a regulation. This value base is contrasted with the existing Regulation (EEC) 2092/91 and with examples of current practice of organic agriculture in Europe. The implications of including ethical values in the structure of a regulation for decisionmaking are considered. Following on from the European Action Plan a process of total revision of the EU regulation on organic production is underway. A new European Regulation for organic production was adopted by the European Council of Ministers in June 2006 and will come into force in Jan 2009. The text of the near final proposal from December 2006 has been considered in several sections of the report. The report finishes with some conclusions and recommendations for the EU Commission and other standard setting bodies regarding the choice and roles of values in organic standard, the rules for decision-making processes in relation to integrating values, and regarding the ongoing revision of the organic regulation in Europe

Scaling Success: Lessons from Adaptation Pilots in the Rainfed Regions of India

"Scaling Success" examines how agricultural communities are adapting to the challenges posed by climate change through the lens of India's rainfed agriculture regions. Rainfed agriculture currently occupies 58 percent of India's cultivated land and accounts for up to 40 percent of its total food production. However, these regions face potential production losses of more than $200 billion USD in rice, wheat, and maize by 2050 due to the effects of climate change. Unless action is taken soon at a large scale, farmers will see sharp decreases in revenue and yields.Rainfed regions across the globe have been an important focus for the first generation of adaptation projects, but to date, few have achieved a scale that can be truly transformational. Drawing on lessons learnt from 21 case studies of rainfed agriculture interventions, the report provides guidance on how to design, fund and support adaptation projects that can achieve scale

Knowledge integration in One Health policy formulation, implementation and evaluation

The One Health concept covers the interrelationship between human, animal and environmental health and requires multistakeholder collaboration across many cultural, disciplinary, institutional and sectoral boundaries. Yet, the implementation of the One Health approach appears hampered by shortcomings in the global framework for health governance. Knowledge integration approaches, at all stages of policy development, could help to address these shortcomings. The identification of key objectives, the resolving of trade-offs and the creation of a common vision and a common direction can be supported by multicriteria analyses. Evidence-based decision-making and transformation of observations into narratives detailing how situations emerge and might unfold in the future can be achieved by systems thinking. Finally, transdisciplinary approaches can be used both to improve the effectiveness of existing systems and to develop novel networks for collective action. To strengthen One Health governance, we propose that knowledge integration becomes a key feature of all stages in the development of related policies. We suggest several ways in which such integration could be promoted