The substance of interaction: design and policy implications of NGO- government projects in India

Collaboration between government and non-government organizations has been a recurrent feature of many development interventions in India. This paper is based on case studies of 11 such programs.Non-governmental organizations India., Government., India Economic development.,

PROSIS: An isoarchic structure for HMS control

International audienceThis paper presents a holonic and isoarchic approach to the Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) control. This approach is based on a flat holonic form, where each holon is a model for each entity of the FMS, with a unifying level of communication between holons. After description of this model, called PROSIS, the interaction protocol and decision rules are presented. The objective is to increase the FMS productivity and flexibility, particularly on responsiveness aspects. This responsiveness is achieved through decentralized generation of the production tasks. The reactive behaviour of the FMS control is illustrated by the example of a flexible turning cell, upon occurrence of a failure or of an urgent batch order, and the resulting Gantt charts are shown

Engineering Pervasive Service Ecosystems: The SAPERE approach

Emerging pervasive computing services will typically involve a large number of devices and service components cooperating together in an open and dynamic environment. This calls for suitable models and infrastructures promoting spontaneous, situated, and self-adaptive interactions between components. SAPERE (Self-Aware Pervasive Service Ecosystems) is a general coordination framework aimed at facilitating the decentralized and situated execution of self-organizing and self-adaptive pervasive computing services. SAPERE adopts a nature-inspired approach, in which pervasive services are modeled and deployed as autonomous individuals in an ecosystem of other services and devices, all of which interact in accord to a limited set of coordination laws, or eco-laws. In this article, we present the overall rationale underlying SAPERE and its reference architecture. We introduce the eco-laws--based coordination model and show how it can be used to express and easily enforce general-purpose self-organizing coordination patterns. The middleware infrastructure supporting the SAPERE model is presented and evaluated, and the overall advantages of SAPERE are discussed in the context of exemplary use cases

Autonomous and/or institutionalized social movements? Conceptual clarification and illustrative cases

Case studies of urban squatting in the United States and the Netherlands, and the fight against sexual violence in Spain and in the Netherlands form the empirical basis of an analysis of the features and development of autonomous and institutionalized social movements, and the in-teraction between them. Autonomous and institutionalized social movements have different strengths that they derive from characteristics that are not compatible. Nevertheless, a dynam-ic is possible that combines the strengths of both models. It provides synergy between self-contained autonomous and institutionalized movements, without imposing trade-offs. Politi-cal opportunity theory suggests that such a ―dual-movement structure‖ is most relevant when the political system is selectively open. Interaction between the movements is conditioned by the mainstreaming potential of the issue or interest that is at stake. Even when relations are tense, movements can create opportunities for each other. Autono-mous movements are able to retain a repertoire of disruptive actions when lobbying is the more popular option. An autonomous movement can benefit from the legitimacy and support-ing network engendered by an institutionalized movement, pioneering work done by an au-tonomous movement can inspire an institutionalized counterpart. Autonomous movements can provide a critical voice when co-optation occurs

Fully-automated liberalism? Blockchain technology and international cooperation in an anarchic world

A recent wave of scholarship attests that the liberal world order is under threat. Although there is disagreement about the underlying reasons for this diagnosis, there are few attempts to further our understanding of how the liberal order can be reinvigorated. This paper probes the potential of blockchain technology to promote international cooperation. Blockchain technology is a data structure that enables global governance stakeholders to establish decentralized governance systems which provide high-powered incentives for enhanced cooperation. By outlining the contours of a blockchain-based global governance system for climate policy, the paper illustrates that blockchain technology holds theoretical promise to foster cooperation in three ways: leveraging new sources of information through blockchain-based prediction markets; allaying coordinating problems through reducing the cost of transactions for side payments; and allowing states and other global governance actors to make more credible commitments given guaranteed execution of blockchain-enabled smart contracts. By empowering local knowledge holders and non-state actors that traditionally lacked the means to coordinate efforts to influence global politics, blockchain technology also promises to advance an international order based on liberal values. In actuality, however, emerging blockchain-based global governance systems will fall short of the libertarian ideal of ‘fully-automated liberalism’ as their design and operation will remain under the shadow of power

Open Problems in DAOs

Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are a new, rapidly-growing class of organizations governed by smart contracts. Here we describe how researchers can contribute to the emerging science of DAOs and other digitally-constituted organizations. From granular privacy primitives to mechanism designs to model laws, we identify high-impact problems in the DAO ecosystem where existing gaps might be tackled through a new data set or by applying tools and ideas from existing research fields such as political science, computer science, economics, law, and organizational science. Our recommendations encompass exciting research questions as well as promising business opportunities. We call on the wider research community to join the global effort to invent the next generation of organizations

Successful organizational learning in the management of agricultural research and innovation: The Mexican produce foundations

"Since the 1980s, developing countries' agriculture has become more complex and diversified. In general, the public research and extension institutions in these countries were criticized for not participating in the emergence of the most dynamic agricultural markets. In recent years, many of these institutions have struggled to adapt to the new environment but they could not overcome the hurdles posed by organizational rigidities, strict public regulations, deteriorating human capital, shrinking budgets and a model of science that hampered their integration into dynamic innovation processes. In general, developing countries applied similar agricultural research policies: separation of financing and implementation of research, reductions in direct budgetary allocations to research and extension institutions, elimination or major reduction of public extension, and introduction of competitive grants programs to induce a transformation of research organizations. Strong anecdotal information suggests that these policies had limited impact on the quality and pertinence of research, and on the performance of the public research institutions. Using a different set of instruments, the Mexican Produce Foundations (PF) had major and diverse impacts on the agricultural innovation and research systems. These impacts resulted mostly from activities the PF introduced as they learned to manage funds for research and extension, and to a lesser extent from the activities they were created for, i.e., manage a competitive fund for agricultural research and extension. The PF were able to introduce these activities because they developed strong abilities to learn, including identifying knowledge gaps and defining strategies to fill them. The questions this report seeks to answer are how an organization that manages public funds for research and extension could sustain organizational innovations over extended periods, and how it could learn and adapt to maximize its impact on the agricultural innovation system. Previous studies found that human resources, organizational cultures and governance structures are three of the most important factors influencing institutional change and innovative capabilities. Despite their importance, these factors have been largely neglected in the literature on agricultural research and extension policies. This document analyzes what role these factors played in the Mexican experience." from textAgricultural research, Agricultural innovation, Developing countries,