Business Grid Services

Grid services have come to represent the synthesis of web services and grid computing paradigms. Web services provide the means to modularize software, enabling loosely coupled and novel synthesis. Grid computing removes the binding between functional software components and specific hosting hardware, enabling software to be deployed dynamically over a network (e.g. intra-, extra- or inter-net). Applying the constructs of grid computing to the service orientation of enterprise software will allow business service networks to utilize more specialized services. An upper service ontology that enables business grid services to be described and then related to the grid hosting platform is presented. Explicit knowledge is required for enterprise software, hosting servers and the domain that can then be utilized by both SLA and reservation systems. The ontology presented is derived from and validated using a collection of web services taken from leading investment banks

Green Services and Emergence and Recovery from the Global Economic Slowdown in Developing Asian Economies

The global economic slowdown has again highlighted the vulnerability of export-led development models and economies to downturns in export markets. Economic deepening or “rebalancing” with an emphasis on service-sector development should be—and is becoming—one long-term response to the crisis by Asia's emerging economies. In the long run, sustainable economic development will depend in part on achieving a “green” trajectory of service sector development, in which services help green the “product economy.” In the short run, however, can services help address short- and medium-term challenges of emergence and recovery from the crisis—particularly those of at least resuming historic rates of poverty alleviation and inclusive growth? Meeting these challenges will require that export sectors deal successfully with challenging market conditions. There is a class of closely related business-to-business services which act to green the product economy, and which would improve the competitiveness of export sectors and husband scarce public resources by optimizing the efficiency of infrastructure utilization. These are functional procurement/efficiency services, which transform procurement of environmentally problematic goods and services—such as waste disposal, energy, chemicals, and transport—into performance-based services in which service providers profit by increasing the customer's eco-efficiency. Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) are the best-known of these service models. These services appear to have strong potential among the larger, more sophisticated institutions and commercial and industrial enterprises in developing Asian states, particularly in Asia's more advanced developing economies.green service sector; energy service companies asia

Measuring the Performance of Livability Programs, MTI Report 12-06

This report analyzes the performance measurement processes adopted by five large “livability” programs throughout the United States. It compares and contrasts these programs by examining existing research in performance measurement methods. The “best practices” of the examined performance measurement methods for each program are explored and analyzed with respect to their key characteristics. The report entails an appropriately comprehensive literature review of the current research on performance measurement methods from the perspective of various stakeholders including the public and government agencies. Additionally, the results of this literature review are used to examine the actual performance measures of the target programs from the perspective of different stakeholders. The goal of the report is to determine what did and did not work in these programs and their measurement methods, while making recommendations based on the results of the analysis for potential future programs

Green Services and Emergence and Recovery from the Global Economic Slowdown in Developing Asian Economies

The global economic slowdown has again highlighted the vulnerability of export-led development models and economies to downturns in export markets. Economic deepening or rebalancing with an emphasis on service-sector development should beand is becomingone long-term response to the crisis by Asias emerging economies. In the long run, sustainable economic development will depend in part on achieving a green trajectory of service sector development, in which services help green the product economy. In the short run, however, can services help address short- and medium-term challenges of emergence and recovery from the crisisparticularly those of at least resuming historic rates of poverty alleviation and inclusive growth? Meeting these challenges will require that export sectors deal successfully with challenging market conditions. There is a class of closely related business-to-business services which act to green the product economy, and which would improve the competitiveness of export sectors and husband scarce public resources by optimizing the efficiency of infrastructure utilization. These are functional procurement/efficiency services, which transform procurement of environmentally problematic goods and servicessuch as waste disposal, energy, chemicals, and transportinto performance-based services in which service providers profit by increasing the customers eco-efficiency. Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) are the best-known of these service models. These services appear to have strong potential among the larger, more sophisticated institutions and commercial and industrial enterprises in developing Asian states, particularly in Asias more advanced developing economies.global economic slowdown, export-led development models, sustainable economic development, Energy Service Companies, Asia

A Promising Place-Based Collaborative Impact Investing Fund Strengthens Community and Informs Philanthropic Practice

A recent evaluation of the Western New York Impact Investment Fund adds to the proof-of-concept literature regarding “doing good and doing well” while pointing to experience-based best practices in philanthropic impact investing. Born of a collaboration between regional and national philanthropies, the fund brings together corporate, individual, and philanthropic investors to deliver an inclusive impact investment mechanism. Founded in 2017, the fund evolved from concept to operating entity, focusing on mitigating capital gaps, longterm economic decline, and wealth divides. Evaluation at Year 5 describes how the professionally managed, collaboratively governed fund has attracted and deployed capital, contributing to ecosystem improvements and concrete results. Portfolio companies have created jobs with livable wages, reduced carbon footprints, reclaimed abandoned space, and committed to maintain operations in the region long term. Alongside these impacts, investors’ stakes have increased in value and realized returns. Performance bred opportunity and its second round of fundraising, 42% larger than the first, brought the total under management to over $20 million. With this evaluation, the Western New York Impact Investment Fund articulates lessons for the fund, foundation investors, and intermediaries seeking to nurture place-based impact investing