Regional social infrastructure management in the system of tools used for improving the quality of life for regional population

This paper analyzes the processes in the social sphere and the performance of operating the social infrastructure to improve the population’s quality of life in the Russian regions. Particular attention has been paid to the role of organizational and administrative components, which include the regulation of social infrastructure institutions, planning, and programming that affect the performance of infrastructure facilities utilization. The goal of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of social infrastructure management through the congruence of immediate results (dynamics of indicators for social services) and final results (parameters of the population’s quality of life). The working hypothesis of the study was a breach of infrasystemic principle in the infrastructural support for improving the population’s quality of life in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation because of the insufficient effectiveness of public administration. The work on this paper involved using a set of methodological approaches, such as structured, factorial, systemic, and evolutionary approaches, to substantiate the conceptual framework, prepare the method-based approaches, and determine the impact made by the changes in the parameters of social infrastructure facilities on provided services and shifts in the indicators of the population’s quality of life. The paper proposes a method-based approach to quantifying the effectiveness of organizational and administrative components by using the diagnostics of sufficiency in the implementation of infrasystemic principle for the operation of social infrastructure based on elasticity coefficients. The proposed approach and analytical data obtained in the areas, such as health care, education, trade, housing & utilities, culture & sport, allowed ranking the regions of the Ural Federal District and identifying the areas of insufficient effectiveness in the organizational and administrative mechanism used for improving the population’s quality of life as the basis for developing practical recommendations for the executive branch of constituent entities of the Russian Federation and adjustment of socioeconomic policies

Our Constitution, Our Vision, Our SDGs

Uganda's development planning is guided by the long term vision-Vision 2040, by which the country aspires to see a transformed Society from a peasant to a modern and prosperous country within 30 years. Formulation of the vision involved nation-wide consultation of various stakeholders (government, parliament, civil society organisations, business, labour, professionals, academia, opinion leaders, etc), which coincided with the first round of global Post2015 consultations. Among many indicators, the country envisages per capita income of USD 9,500, real GDP growth rate of more than 8 percent. This will be achieved through strategic policy reforms and shifts, such as review and restructuring of the service delivery system, front-loading investments in infrastructures, and exploring innovative financing mechanisms, in partnership with development partners. The holistic nature of this vision and the wide consultative process along with it provided a key milestone and back bone for localization of agenda 2030

Private philanthropy or policy transfer? The transnational norms of the Open Society Institute

The Open Society Institute (OSI) is a private operating and grant-making foundation that serves as the hub of the Soros Foundations Network, a group of autonomous national foundations around the world. OSI is a mechanism for the international diffusion of expertise and ‘best practices’ to post-communist countries and other democratising nations. Focusing on the ‘soft’ ideational and normative policy transfer, the article highlights the engagement in governance that comes with OSI transnational policy partnerships

Development of Geographical Information Systems Applications for Local Government Organizations: the Case of the Rhodes Municipality, Greece

The present recommendation summons up matter from a project in progress, concerning the possibilities and conditions of founding a Social Geographical Information System (GIS) in the Municipality of Rhodes. It is argued that, on the level of local societies and their self-administration, the importance of GIS can prove decisive for the rational management of resources and mainly for a better service of the citizens. Local governments, being that very institution at the closest possible relationship and contact with the resident-citizen, are called to cope with a constantly expanding spectrum of functions and services, often with insufficient infrastructures and limited resources. Today’s stage of the applied development of the GIS technology permits an overall arrangement and regulation of a series of functions that are important elements of everyday life in a city. In this sense, the use of GIS, although in the beginning seems as an “unnecessary luxury†for Greek administrational matters, can contribute in a creative way to the realization of the institutional role of local government organizations, to the accomplishment of the declared goals of each municipal authority but also to the saving of time and expenses. However, beyond the applications of GIS related to the improvement of a city’s functions, and which are the most frequent, there is a whole constellation of additional uses that are often downgraded or ignored. It is about those dimensions and applications, during which the GIS are utilized as an implement of social studies and search, as a mechanism of tendency diagnosis, as a starting point for awareness on the problems of urban areas and of their residents. It is the perspective and necessity of such applications that we are trying not to downgrade in the present, initial stage of development of a “Social GIS for the Municipality of Rhodesâ€. Our fundamental point of view is that no modern “leading-edge†technology, no advanced implement is by itself a panacea. It can simply assist the development procedures, when it is in the right hands and with the appropriate staff, information and infrastructure. Procedures that have finally reference to the level of central or local political choices but also to the disposition, dynamic or not dynamic, of the body politic for interference and action.

Transnational Philanthropy, Policy Transfer Networks and the Open Society Institute

This paper avoids assumptions that civil society is an entirely separate and distinguishable domain from states and emergent forms of transnational authority. Focusing on the 'soft' ideational and normative policy transfer undermines notions of clear cut boundaries between an independent philanthropic body in civil society and highlights the intermeshing and mutual engagement that comes with networks, coalitions, joint funding, partnerships and common policy dialogues

Group-In: Group Inference from Wireless Traces of Mobile Devices

This paper proposes Group-In, a wireless scanning system to detect static or mobile people groups in indoor or outdoor environments. Group-In collects only wireless traces from the Bluetooth-enabled mobile devices for group inference. The key problem addressed in this work is to detect not only static groups but also moving groups with a multi-phased approach based only noisy wireless Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSIs) observed by multiple wireless scanners without localization support. We propose new centralized and decentralized schemes to process the sparse and noisy wireless data, and leverage graph-based clustering techniques for group detection from short-term and long-term aspects. Group-In provides two outcomes: 1) group detection in short time intervals such as two minutes and 2) long-term linkages such as a month. To verify the performance, we conduct two experimental studies. One consists of 27 controlled scenarios in the lab environments. The other is a real-world scenario where we place Bluetooth scanners in an office environment, and employees carry beacons for more than one month. Both the controlled and real-world experiments result in high accuracy group detection in short time intervals and sampling liberties in terms of the Jaccard index and pairwise similarity coefficient.Comment: This work has been funded by the EU Horizon 2020 Programme under Grant Agreements No. 731993 AUTOPILOT and No.871249 LOCUS projects. The content of this paper does not reflect the official opinion of the EU. Responsibility for the information and views expressed therein lies entirely with the authors. Proc. of ACM/IEEE IPSN'20, 202

Networking in the food sector of regional economy

Purpose: The article aims to study the features and the directions of development of network interaction of subjects of the food sector in different regions of the economy. Design/Methodology/Approach: The use of different methodological approaches allowed us to formulate a holistic management concept for the development of a network of competences in the food sector of the regional economy. Findings: The study identified the subjects of such interaction, as well as features that allow them to unite into groups that form networks of competencies. Considering the food sector of the region's economy as a socio-economic system, noted its extreme structural complexity, which necessitates the development of special approaches to its management, or rather the need for structural management is presented. The format of such interaction is a network of competencies, representing a spatially localized socio-economic structure formed on the initiative of active subjects of the regional economy. Practical Implications: The results obtained can be used as a basis for designing a network form of development of the food sector of the region's economy, taking into account the nature of placement and interaction of participants, as well as allowing for effective use of their resource capabilities, experience and knowledge. Originality/Value: In order to overcome the problems associated with the formation of network identity, network management competence is proposed to use a structured approach allowing them to make targeted decisions based on objective conditions and institutional nature.peer-reviewe