Alter ego, state of the art on user profiling: an overview of the most relevant organisational and behavioural aspects regarding User Profiling.

This report gives an overview of the most relevant organisational and\ud behavioural aspects regarding user profiling. It discusses not only the\ud most important aims of user profiling from both an organisation’s as\ud well as a user’s perspective, it will also discuss organisational motives\ud and barriers for user profiling and the most important conditions for\ud the success of user profiling. Finally recommendations are made and\ud suggestions for further research are given

Conservation of resources theory and research use in health systems

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Health systems face challenges in using research evidence to improve policy and practice. These challenges are particularly evident in small and poorly resourced health systems, which are often in locations (in Canada and globally) with poorer health status. Although organizational resources have been acknowledged as important in understanding research use resource theories have not been a focus of knowledge translation (KT) research. What resources, broadly defined, are required for KT and how does their presence or absence influence research use?</p> <p>In this paper, we consider conservation of resources (COR) theory as a theoretical basis for understanding the capacity to use research evidence in health systems. Three components of COR theory are examined in the context of KT. First, resources are required for research uptake. Second, threat of resource loss fosters resistance to research use. Third, resources can be optimized, even in resource-challenged environments, to build capacity for KT.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A scan of the KT literature examined organizational resources needed for research use. A multiple case study approach examined the three components of COR theory outlined above. The multiple case study consisted of a document review and key informant interviews with research team members, including government decision-makers and health practitioners through a retrospective analysis of four previously conducted applied health research studies in a resource-challenged region.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The literature scan identified organizational resources that influence research use. The multiple case study supported these findings, contributed to the development of a taxonomy of organizational resources, and revealed how fears concerning resource loss can affect research use. Some resources were found to compensate for other resource deficits. Resource needs differed at various stages in the research use process.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>COR theory contributes to understanding the role of resources in research use, resistance to research use, and potential strategies to enhance research use. Resources (and a lack of them) may account for the observed disparities in research uptake across health systems. This paper offers a theoretical foundation to guide further examination of the COR-KT ideas and necessary supports for research use in resource-challenged environments.</p

Cities versus agriculture: revisiting intersectoral water transfers, potential gains and conflicts

Water scarcity / Water demand / Water transfer / Water use / Water supply / Water allocation / Environmental effects / Water market

Digital Literacy Among Teachers: Identifying Digital Divide Among Interactive Whiteboard Users in Public High Schools

Since No Child Left Behind Act pressure has been placed on teachers for higher achievements and accountability. Teachers are required to balance learning and integrating new technology into their curriculum, but not all teachers are. In order for teachers’ to learn how to successfully integrate new technology, they must be motivated to use new technology. This study examines the roles of digital literacy in high schools in order to identify digital divides among Digital Immigrant and Digital Native teachers who teach grades 9th through 12th that adopt or choose not to adopt the use IWB. This study investigates why available technology is not being used when it’s available, and what causes this type of behavior to occur. This is a mixed method study. Ninety-four Mississippi high school teachers participated in phase I quantitative online survey, and eight Mississippi high school teachers were interviewed in phase II qualitative. All interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded. All survey responses were analyzed using SPSS software. Findings in the quantitative phase revealed a statistical significant relationship exist with behavior and motivation to use interactive whiteboards based on geographical area, education, age, gender, and level of experience using technology. No regression model was run for research question 2 because of multiple subscale questions. All responses to question 2 were based on phase II qualitative interview. Findings for phase II qualitative identified age was a strong determinant for behavior differences and motivational effects of using interactive whiteboards. This study identified problems teachers experienced were due to a lack of resources. Digital divides identified in this study were based on age, lack of resources, lack of training, and the lack of motivation

Wastewater irrigation and health: assessing and mitigating risk in low-income countries

Wastewater irrigation / Public health / Health hazards / Risk assessment / Epidemiology / Sewage sludge / Excreta / Diseases / Vegetables / Leaf vegetables / Economic impact / Wastewater treatment / Irrigation methods / Developing countries

Constitutional Impediments to Decentralization in the World\u27s Largest Federal Country

Decentralization is often advocated as a means of improving local democracy and enhancing what economists call allocative efficiency. In federal countries, where power is already divided between national and state governments, decentralization involves the devolution of power from state to local governments. The world’s largest federal country, India, took an unusual step to advance decentralization: it passed the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act to confer constitutional status on municipalities. However, India’s efforts to promote the devolution of power through a national urban renewal scheme have not succeeded for three reasons. The first is that India’s decentralization process is incomplete. Political decentralization has been stymied by the language of the constitutional amendment itself; administrative decentralization has been hampered by the comparative advantage of entrenched state-level institutions; and fiscal decentralization has not occurred because financial responsibility—but not significant revenue—has been devolved. The second reason is that decentralization has been undertaken in a top-down manner, which has exacerbated Center-state relations and mitigated the goal of allocative efficiency. Third is the relative weakness of local governance structures, which has created a Catch-22 situation: as long as the local governments lack significant capacity, the states are reluctant to devolve power to them. Additional effort needs to be directed towards an effective model of cooperative federalism. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi poised to create “smart cities” and promote urban renewal, it is critical to understand why India’s prior decentralization efforts have largely failed. The lessons learned over the past decade are an important guide to the future of cities in India as well as in other federal countrie

Disaster Risk Management by Communities and Local Governments

This study refers to disaster risk management at the local level. The topic was selected by the members of the Natural Disasters Network of the Regional Policy Dialogue, and was presented during its 3rd Meeting, on March 6 and 7, 2003. The goal of this document is to achieve a better knowledge of the best practices and benefits that disaster risk management represents for Latin America and the Caribbean. Included are comparative case studies of the Philippines, Colombia, Guatemala and Switzerland. Also discussed are strengths and weaknesses of local organizations in decentralized systems and financial services for disaster risk management.Disasters, Financial Risk, Decentralization, Civil Society, Environment, disaster risk management

Electronic government and corruption: Systematic literature review, framework, and agenda for future research

The notion of corruption has emerged as a prominent topic against the backdrop of e-government. However, there are diverse but disorganized viewpoints about the relationship between e-government and corruption, thus creating difficulties in obtaining a structured overview of the existing literature and identifying the avenues to take this research area forward. Despite this, prior studies have made limited attempts to gather these fragmented observations to guide future research holistically. To address this concern, we conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) of 63 articles discussing e-government and corruption and provide a comprehensive synthesis of the current knowledge in this domain. In particular, we offer a thematic classification of prior studies, uncover the key gaps in the literature, identify the potential research areas, and provide recommendations to broaden the avenues for future studies. Furthermore, we propose an integrated conceptual framework to caution policymakers about the incomplete understanding offered by the existing studies and to inspire further research in several ways.publishedVersio

Urban climate adaptation as a process of organisational decision making

In a world that is increasingly urbanised, cities are recognised as critical sites for tackling problems of climate change, both by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing the impacts of changing climate conditions. Unlike climate change mitigation, adaptation does not have one clear, commonly agreed collective goal. Governing and making decisions on climate adaptation in cities entails contestation over knowledge, values and preferences. Currently, the two dominant conceptualisations of adaptation are as cycles or pathways. Do these models adequately theorise what can be empirically observed in cities as to how climate adaptation is undertaken? Most research on urban climate adaptation emanates from the Global North, where political, scientific, economic and administrative systems are well established and well resourced. There is a dearth of empirical research from cities of the Global South contributing to the development of urban climate adaptation theory. This thesis contributes to addressing this gap in two ways. Firstly, by drawing on both conceptual and methodological resources from the field of organisational studies, notably the streams and rounds models of decision making, organisational ethnography and processual case research. Secondly, by conducting empirical case study research on three processes of city scale climate adaptation in Cape Town, South Africa, a growing city facing many development challenges where the local government began addressing climate adaptation over ten years ago. The three adaptation processes studied are: the preparation and adoption of city-wide sectoral climate adaptation plans; the creation of a City Development Strategy with climate resilience as a core goal; and the inclusion of climate change projections into stormwater masterplans. Data were gathered through interviews, participant observation, focus groups and document review, through embedded research within a formal knowledge co-production partnership between the University of Cape Town and the City of Cape Town government. Processual analysis and applied thematic analysis were used to test models of adaptation and decision making against data from the three case studies. The findings suggest that both the cycles and pathways models of climate adaptation inadequately represent the contested and contingent nature of decision making that prevail within the governance systems of cities such as Cape Town. Based on ethnographic knowledge of how Cape Town's local government undertakes climate adaptation, it is argued that the rounds model of decision making provides conceptual tools to better understand and represent how the process of climate adaptation in cities is undertaken; tools that can be used to enhance the pathways model. The study concludes that progress in adapting cities to a changing climate is currently constrained by both the problems and potential solutions or interventions being too technical for most politicians to deal with and prioritize and too political for most technical and administrative officials to design and implement. It calls for urban climate adaptation to be understood as distributed across a multitude of actors pursuing concurrent, discontinuous processes, and thereby focus needs to be on fostering collaboration and coordination, rather than fixating on single actors, policies, plans or projects

An assessment framework for walkability in Libyan city centres: public spaces in Tripoli

Libyan civic and urban centres are increasingly suffering from unwalkable places due to the lack of legislation for accessibility, multiplication of unregulated car traffic, and the absence of adequate urban and spatial planning. In the last few decades, there has been an increasing interest in the field of walkable public open space as a key driver of sustainable urban development and redistribution of land use, to ensure pedestrian and walkable routes between sites of living and workplaces, and to reduce dependence on automobiles. However, in most developing countries, including Libya, there is limited a comprehensive approach and framework to enable and facilitate walkable public open spaces in urban centres. This research analyses factors and identifies barriers related to walkability in public open spaces in Tripoli (Libya) in two phases: exploring the consistency and validity of effective walkability factors related to the context, using surveys with 25 Libyan specialists, experts, and decision makers; and developing a mixed methodological approach to assess and evaluate current perceptions, attitudes, and aspects involved in determining what makes an accessible and walkable urban space in Tripoli. The empirical study included analysis of a questionnaire survey (using SPSS version 20.0) of 427 users and 108 professionals, and observation of spatial practices and attitudes in four different public spaces in the city. Focus group discussions were used to validate the results, which showed that safety and security; lack of facilities, and physical barriers; institutional, legislative, management and financial barriers; social and cultural barriers; and transportation system barriers, with varying weights, hinder people's decisions to walk in public open spaces in Tripoli. A framework was developed to assess the significance and extent of these walkability problems that can be used as a basis for public open space making and management in developing countries' urban planning