الصفحة 8
الصفحة 8
Development Policies and Policy Processes in Africa : Modeling and Evaluation
Examines the methodological challenges in analyzing the effectiveness of development policies. It presents a selection of tools and methodologies that can help tackle the complexities of which policies work best and why, and how they can be implemented effectively given the political and economic framework conditions of a country. The contributions in this book offer a continuation of the ongoing evidence-based debate on the role of agriculture and participatory policy processes in reducing poverty. They develop and apply quantitative political economy approaches by integrating quantitative models of political decision-making into existing economic modeling tools, allowing a more comprehensive growth-poverty analysis.
Designing Democracy : Ideas for Better Rules
While liberal democracies are the best systems of self-governance for societies, they rarely invoke great enthusiasm. On the one hand, democracies have been known to fail in achieving efficient or fair allocations. On the other hand, many citizens take the democratic system for granted as they have yet to experience an alternative. In this book the vision we propose is that the potential of democ racies has not yet been exhausted, and that optimal democracies are both the Utopia for societies and the aim that scientists should be committed to. We present a number of ideas for drawing up new rules to im prove the functioning of democracies. The book falls into two parts. The first part examines ways of combining incentive contracts with democratic elections. We suggest that a judicious combina tion of these two elements as a dual mechanism can alleviate a wide range of political failures, while at the same time adhering to the founding principles of democracies. The second part presents new rules for decision-making and agenda setting. Together with modern communication devices, these rules can sometimes transcend the limitations of liberal VI Preface democracies in achieving desirable outcomes. Examples of such rules include the flexible majority rule where the size of the ma jority required depends on the proposal, or the rule that only those belonging to the winning majority can be taxed.
Design of advanced manufacturing systems : Models for capacity planning in advanced manufacturing systems
The aim of this book is to provide a framework and speci?c methods and tools for the selection and con?guration of capacity of Advanced Manufacturing Systems (AMS). In particular this book de?nes an - chitecture where the multidisciplinary aspects of the designofAMSare properly organized and addressed. The tool will support the decisi- maker in the de?nition of the con?guration of the system which is best suited for the particular competitive context where the ?rm operates or wants tooperate. Thisbookisofinterest for academic researchers in the ?eldofind- trial engineering and particularly indicated in the areas of operations and manufacturing strategy.
Dental caries : The selection of restoration methods and restorative materials
Includes seven chapters that focus on various important aspects of dental caries, including etiology, diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and management.
Deep-water Coral Reefs : Unique Biodiversity Hot-Spots
Provides a useful overview of various aspects of deep-water coral reefs and carbonate mounds, providing insights into the physical processes, and inspire and stimulate further research into these fascinating natural systems. This book, presents and discusses only a selection of the world’s discovered deep-water coral reefs.
Deep structure, singularities, and computer vision ; 1st international workshop, DSSCV 2005, Maastricht, The Netherlands, June 9-10, 2005, revised selected papers
Constitutes the refereed post-proceedings of the First International Workshop on Deep Structure, Singularities, and Computer Vision, DSSCV 2005, held in Maastricht. This book represents in understanding the relation between structural, topological information represented by singularities and metric information of signals, shapes, and colors.
Declarative programming for knowledge management ; 16th International conference on applications of declarative programming and knowledge management, INAP 2005, Fukuoka, Japan, October 22-24, 2005. Revised Selected Papers
Presents a selection of papers presented at the 16th Inter- tional Conference on Applications of Declarative Programming and Knowledge Management, INAP 2005,held in October 2005 at Waseda University, Fukuoka, Japan. These papers re?ect a snapshot of ongoing research and current app- cations in knowledge management and declarative programming.
Decision Making with the Analytic Network Process: Economic, Political, Social and Technological Applications with Benefits, Opportunities, Costs and Risks
A selection of applications of ANP to economic, social and political decisions, and also to technological design. The chapters comprise contributions of scholars, consultants and people concerned about the outcome of certain important decisions who applied the Analytic Network Process to determine the best outcome for each decision from among several potential outcomes.
Decision Making in the Manufacturing Environment : Using Graph Theory and Fuzzy Multiple Attribute Decision Making Methods
Manufacturing is the backbone of any industrialized nation. Recent worldwide advances in manufacturing technologies have brought about a metamorphosis in industry. Fast-changing technologies on the product front have created a need for an equally fast response from manufacturing industries. To meet these challenges, manufacturing industries have to select appropriate manufacturing strategies, product designs, manufacturing processes, work piece and tool materials, and machinery and equipment. The selection decisions are complex, as decision making is more challenging today. Decision makers in the manufacturing sector frequently face the problem of assessing a wide range of options and selecting one based on a set of conflicting criteria.
Decision Making for Complex Socio-Technical Systems : Robustness from Lessons Learned in Long-Term Radioactive Waste Governance
The long-term governance of radioactive waste continues to be a major complex and contentious socio-technical issue worldwide. Traditionally, it has been considered as mainly a challenge to scientists and engineers to develop technical "solutions" to specific problems. But increasingly these narrow solutions have been enlarged by wider societal considerations such as ethics, public involvement, control and retrievability – needs that have in the meanwhile been recognised by the nuclear community, at least in a general way. In this book, we analyse motives for a broad discourse as well as suggest prerequisites to launch it. The author attempts to give a novel, empirically based and technically sound treatment of fundamental issues in long-term management and governance. Written to be accessible to a wide selection of the interested public, the study proposes a combination of technical design issues, analysis methods and institutional backup in a dynamic procedure, and with involvement at all levels of political, commercial and social life.
Debating European Citizenship
This book raises crucial questions about the citizenship of the European Union. Is it a new citizenship beyond the nation-state although it is derived from Member State nationality? Who should get it? What rights and duties does it entail? Should EU citizens living in other Member States be able to vote there in national elections? If there are tensions between free movement and social rights, which should take priority? And should the European Court of Justice determine what European citizenship is about or the legislative institutions of the EU or national parliaments? This book collects a wide range of answers to these questions from legal scholars, political scientists, and political practitioners. It is structured as a series of three conversations in which authors respond to each other. This exchange of arguments provides unique depth to the debate
Database Systems for Advanced Applications ; 13th International Conference, DASFAA 2008, New Delhi, India, March 19-21, 2008. Proceedings
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications, DASFAA 2008, held in New Delhi, India, in March 2008.
Data Mining for Biomedical Applications ; PAKDD 2006 Workshop, BioDM 2006, Singapore, April 9, 2006, Proceedings
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Workshop on Data Mining for Biomedical Applications, BioDM 2006, held in Singapore in conjunction with the 10th Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD 2006). The 14 revised full papers presented together with 1 keynote talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 35 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on protein-protein interactions, database and search, bio data clustering, and in-silico diagnosis.
Cyberspace security and defense : Research issues ; Proceedings of the NATO advanced research workshop on cyberspace security and defense : Research issues, Gdansk, Poland, from 6 to 9 September 2004.
The development of Internet, mobile communications, distributed computing, computer software and databases storing essential enterprise information has helped to conduct business and personal communication between individual people. and it has created many opportunities for abuse, fraud and expensive damage. This book is a selection of the best papers presented at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop dealing with the Subject of Cyberspace Security and Defense. The level of the individual contributions in the volume is advanced and suitable for senior and graduate students, researchers and technologists who wish to get some feeling of the state of the art in several sub-disciplines of Cyberspace security.
Cross Regional Trade Agreements : Understanding Permeated Regionalism in East Asia
An unacknowledged key feature of East Asian FTA diplomacy is the region's active cross-regional preferential trading relations. In sharp contrast to the Americas and Europe, where cross-regional initiatives gained strength after the consolidation of regional trade integration, East Asian governments negotiate trade deals with partners outside of their region at an early stage in their FTA policies. The book asks three main questions: Are there regional factors in East Asia encouraging countries to explore cross-regionalism early on? What are the most important criteria behind the cross-regional partner selection? How do cross-regional FTSs (CRTAs) influence their intra-regional trade initiatives? Through detailed country case studies from China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, we show the ways in which these governments seek to leverage their CRTAs in the pursuit of intra-regional trade integration objectives, a process that yields a much more permeated regionalism.
COTS-Based software systems ; 4th International Conference, ICCBSS 2005, Bilbao, Spain, February 7-11, 2005, Proceedings
The theme “Build and Conquer” : software development is an engineering discipline, and not an artistic expression. Once we are ready to “build” our software systems using pieces previously builtin (similar to any other technology manufacturer), we will be able to “conquer” the software engineering process. If we take a look at other engineering disciplines such as car manufacturing, house appliances or aeronautics, we see that the final products are built through the integration of multiprovider commercial components. These components are successfully integrated and constitute an important part of the final product. Most software-related organizations still build software from scratch, omitting thousands of ready-built commercially available software components that could be used very effectively during the development phase. This year ICCBSS moves to Europe for the first time since the first conference took place in Orlando, FL, USA in 2002. The conference scope has enlarged over the years to include the Open Source community and Web Services technologies. so many of the characteristics of COTS are also applied to Open Source and Web Services.
Continental Scientific Drilling : A Decade of Progress, and Challenges for the Future
Scientific drilling is an indispensable tool of modern Earth science - search, as it provides the only means of obtaining direct information on processes operating at depth. Drilling allows for the determination of - situ properties of solid materials and fluids and permits testing of hypot- ses and models derived from surface observations. In addition, drill holes may be used as a natural laboratory for experiments and as observatories for long-term monitoring of on-going active processes. Earth drilling, therefore, plays a critical role in scientific research directed towards - proved understanding of the workings of our planet and has a key role in solving urgent socio-economic problems. As a rule, drilling projects are an integral component of major geosci- tific research programs, comprising comprehensive pre-site investigations, accompanying laboratory studies, the drilling phase itself, and consecutive measurements and tests in the drill hole. Such drilling programs are costly and thus only realizable to a limited extent. International cost sharing, the optimal utilization of all available resources, the incorporation of inter- tional leading experts, and the application of the existing know-how, as well as the selection of an optimal drilling location (“World Geological Site”), are thus essential elements of an international scientific drilling p- gram.
Contemporary Reflections on Business Ethics
Ronald F. Duska, who began his career as a philosopher, has, over the last 30 years, established himself as one of the leading scholars in the field of business ethics. In the past decade, he has concentrated on ethics in the financial services industry because of his affiliation with The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, an institution that specializes in educating financial services professionals. This affiliation gives Duska regular interaction with producers, managers, and top executives in the financial services industry. This book includes a selection of the articles Duska has written throughout the years on ethics, business ethics, teaching ethics, agency theory, postmodernism, employee rights, and ethics in accounting and the financial services industry. The articles reflect Duska’s underlying philosophical concerns and their application to the real-world challenges of practitioners—an overarching method that might be called an Aristotelian common-sense approach to ethical decision making.
Connecting Mathematics and Mathematics Education : Collected Papers on Mathematics Education as a Design Science
This book features a selection of articles written by Erich Ch. Wittmann between 1984 to 2019, which shows how the “design science conception” has been continuously developed over a number of decades.
Condorcets Paradox
It begins with a historical overview of the discovery of Condorcet's Paradox in the 18th Century, reviews numerous studies conducted to find actual occurrences of the paradox, and compiles research that has been done to develop mathematical representations for the probability that the paradox will be observed.
