scholarly journals Democratic Decentralization and Participatory Development: Focus on Bangladesh

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-91
Author(s):  
Pronita Dutta

In recent decades, developing Asian nations have witnessed the emergence of democratic decentralized governance structures, and with it a shift towards a more people-centric approach to development. Proponents claim the new approach can humanize bureaucracies and provide solutions to problems of poverty and social inequity. Despite their popularity, difficulties in implementation have been found, and questions are now being asked about the ‘real’ effectiveness of such frameworks. Discussing first the tenets of participatory development and its symbiotic relationship with democratic decentralized on this paper looks at the challenges faced in decentralizing a decentralized participatory framework and the critical components needed for success. It draws on examples from within developing Asia to highlight the many complexities of the issue, such as different cultural beliefs, political forces, administrative arrangements and varying perceptions. It argues that where incorrectly implemented, a decentralized participatory structure can prove ineffective for local people, in some cases leading to practical disillusions and further disadvantage.

Author(s):  
Rob Kitchin

How can we begin to grasp the scope and scale of our new data-rich world, and can we truly comprehend what is at stake? This book explores the intricacies of data creation and charts how data-driven technologies have become essential to how society, government and the economy work. Creatively blending scholarly analysis, biography and fiction, the book demonstrates how data are shaped by social and political forces, and the extent to which they influence our daily lives. The book begins with an overview of the sociality of data. Data-driven endeavours are as much a result of human values, desires, and social relations as they are scientific principles and technologies. The data revolution has been transforming work and the economy, the nature of consumption, the management and governance of society, how we communicate and interact with media and each other, and forms of play and leisure. Indeed, our lives are saturated with digital devices and services that generate, process, and share vast quantities of data. The book reveals the many, complex, contested ways in which data are produced and circulated, as well as the consequences of living in a data-driven world. The book concludes with an exploration as to what kind of data future we want to create and strategies for realizing our visions. It highlights the need to enact 'a digital ethics of care', and to claim and assert 'data sovereignty'. Ultimately, the book reveals our data world to be one of potential danger, but also of hope.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-242
Author(s):  
Isabelle Richet

This paper discusses the symbiotic relationship that developed between English-language periodicals published in Italy and major reading rooms in Rome and Florence. This relationship took various configurations – from Luigi Piale in Rome, who opened a reading room and published the weekly The Roman Advertiser, to the Gabinetto Vieusseux in Florence that provided access to the many English-language periodicals published in Italy – and created important spaces of transnational cultural interaction. The paper looks at the cultural practices and the forms of sociability represented by the reading of periodicals and the patronizing of reading rooms as ‘imported traditions’ brought to Italy by the many British cultured travellers and residents in the nineteenth century. It identifies the actors who promoted these cultural practices (editors, librarians, cosmopolitan intellectuals) and analyses their role as mediating figures who created in-between spaces where cross-cultural exchanges unfolded. The paper also discusses the broader transnational cultural dynamic at work as those cultural practices imported from England favoured a greater engagement of British visitors and expatriates with the Italian political and cultural environment.


Author(s):  
Robert Chee Choong Gan ◽  
Christina May May Chin

Due to alarmingly high failure rates attributed to either a lack of project implementation or if implemented, poor results in organizations, many PM consulting organizations have begun developing their own PM maturity models (PM3) to assess organization maturity level, to identify their clients' PM maturity gap, and to provide a pathway by which their clients could move up the maturity scale and performance. Despite the many claims of PM3 assessment capabilities, the lack of success in market adoption of PM3 models suggests the need for more studies to identify if these are due to the many definition of project success, the lack of consensus of what the components of PM3 should be, or the increasing expectations of the PM community. Thus, this chapter aims to identify the reasons behind differing organizations' views on the dimension of project success, components of PM3's direct impact on organizational performance, and how PM maturity can be measured and correlated to the various level of organizational success with a new approach known as DPM3.


2020 ◽  
pp. 12-31
Author(s):  
Nicholas J. Saunders

This chapter looks at how the timely development of an interdisciplinary archaeology (modern conflict archaeology) of the First World War from the late 1990s offered a comprehensive and nuanced way of investigating the many interlocking military and cultural aspects of the Arab Revolt and its aftermath. Ephemeral archaeological traces in the sands of southern Jordan, it was hoped, would speak to the origins of modern guerrilla warfare which itself contributed to the shaping of the Middle East after 1918. The new approach showed the power of objects to create and transmit impressions and evaluations of the Revolt and its personalities—not least by the catalysing effects of finding similar items during excavations of the original landscapes whence all such objects derived their historical significance. The desert, so apparently empty of information and insight, would prove to be full of both. The key to deciphering its archaeological message lay in understanding the landscape, its layers and its objects—a quest which began with the largest artefact of all, the Hejaz Railway.


Author(s):  
Stephen Widdicombe ◽  
John I. Spicer

The vast majority of the seafloor is covered not in rocky or biogenic reefs but in unconsolidated sediments and, consequently, the majority of marine biodiversity consists of invertebrates either residing in (infauna) or on (epifauna) sediments (Snelgrove 1999). The biodiversity within these sediments is a result of complex interactions between the underlying environmental conditions (e.g. depth, temperature, organic supply, and granulometry) and the biological interactions operating between organisms (e.g. predation and competition). Not only are sediments important depositories of biodiversity but they are also critical components in many key ecosystem functions. Nowhere is this more apparent than in shallow coastal seas and oceans which, despite covering less than 10% of the earth’s surface, deliver up to 30% of marine production and 90% of marine fisheries (Gattuso et al. 1998). These areas are also the site for 80% of organic matter burial and 90% of sedimentary mineralization and nutrient–sediment biogeochemical processes. They also act as the sink for up to 90% of the suspended load in the world’s rivers and the many associated contaminants this material contains (Gattuso et al. 1998). Human beings depend heavily on the goods and services provided, for free, by the marine realm (Hassan et al. 2005 ) and it is no coincidence that nearly 70% of all humans live within 60 km of the sea or that 75% of all cities with more than 10 million inhabitants are in the coastal zone (Small and Nicholls 2003; McGranahan et al. 2007) Given these facts, it is clear that any broad-scale environmental impact that affects the diversity, structure, and function of sediment ecosystems could have a considerable impact on human health and well-being. It is therefore essential that the impacts of ocean acidification on sediment fauna, and the ecosystem functions they support, are adequately considered. This chapter will first describe the geochemical environment within which sediment organisms live. It will then explore the role that sediment organisms play as ecosystem engineers and how they alter the environment in which they live and the overall biodiversity of sediment communities.


Author(s):  
Ahmed Cherifi ◽  
Patrick M'Bassègue ◽  
Mickaël Gardoni ◽  
Rémy Houssin ◽  
Jean Renaud

AbstractThe proposed methodology is based on a (global and multi-criteria) simplified environmental but thorough assessment. In this stage we do not directly give the solution to designers. It will therefore translate the results of evaluation design axes, but in general, the lines proposed are inconsistent or contradictory. Therefore, what we find is a compromise given to the solution. The challenge we are facing in an industrial reality is that one should not go for a compromise solution. TRIZ (Teorija Reshenija Izobretateliskih Zadatch) or the theory of solving inventive problems, in the field, will be reformulated and go through the contradiction matrix and then intervene with the principles of interpretation resolutions to give possible solutions. To assist small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in their product development, the objective of this paper is to propose a methodological approach named Ecatriz, that will allow us to achieve our eco-innovative goal. The applicability of this method is justified by the many contradictions in the choices in a study of the life cycle. As a starting point, a qualitative multi-criteria matrix will allow the prioritization of all impacts on the environment. A customized implementation of the inventive TRIZ (Teorija Reshenija Izobretateliskih Zadatch, Russian acronym for theory of solving inventive problems) principles will help us choose eco-innovative solutions. To that end, we have created a new approach named Ecatriz (ecological approach TRIZ), based on a new contradiction matrix. It was tested in various contexts, such as the “24 h of Innovation” competition and eco-innovative patents.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (20) ◽  
pp. 7475
Author(s):  
Salvador Harguindey ◽  
Khalid Alfarouk ◽  
Julián Polo Orozco ◽  
Stefano Fais ◽  
Jesús Devesa

A brand new approach to the understanding of breast cancer (BC) is urgently needed. In this contribution, the etiology, pathogenesis, and treatment of this disease is approached from the new pH-centric anticancer paradigm. Only this unitarian perspective, based upon the hydrogen ion (H+) dynamics of cancer, allows for the understanding and integration of the many dualisms, confusions, and paradoxes of the disease. The new H+-related, wide-ranging model can embrace, from a unique perspective, the many aspects of the disease and, at the same time, therapeutically interfere with most, if not all, of the hallmarks of cancer known to date. The pH-related armamentarium available for the treatment of BC reviewed here may be beneficial for all types and stages of the disease. In this vein, we have attempted a megasynthesis of traditional and new knowledge in the different areas of breast cancer research and treatment based upon the wide-ranging approach afforded by the hydrogen ion dynamics of cancer. The concerted utilization of the pH-related drugs that are available nowadays for the treatment of breast cancer is advanced.


Author(s):  
John A. Roebuck

Translation into English has recently been completed for excerpts on ear and craniofacial anthropometry from an innovative, unpublished Bulgarian-language doctoral thesis written in 1986 by a plastic surgeon, M. M. Madzharov, MD-PhD; MD-SC. Most remarkable among the many benefits of the translation was revelation of heretofore unavailable text descriptions for 49 dimensions. Of these, 43 explain the titles and abbreviations with summary statistical data on ear measurements for young adults that were published in 1989 in the English language. Especially valuable among these data were four new and unique, long-axial ear lengths, all measured from a common ear landmark. These could locate “station planes” for cross-section views of human ears, similar to those for 3-D coordinate systems in aircraft and spacecraft fuselage engineering. Examples explaining the concepts and values of such a new approach to ear anthropometry are herein introduced, described and illustrated, together with previously recommended improvements in ear anthropometry notation and illustration, a virtual Ear Primary View Plane, a section plane through the ear long axis, newly introduced “semi-width” measurements extending perpendicular to the aforementioned section plane, new concepts of “view depths,” which are measured perpendicularly from the Ear Primary View Plane toward ear surfaces and a previously described three-axis aircraft motion analogy for defining static ear orientation. These innovative approaches are advocated for adoption by future researchers, designers of related hardware, modelers and standards developers.


2002 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 193-195
Author(s):  
Sanjay Rambhia

One of the many important ideas that we teach in the mathematics and prealgebra curricula is the concept of order of operations. However, it is a concept that many students consistently forget from year to year. Students invariably solve problems from left to right, regardless of the hierarchy associated with the operations. This article outlines a new approach to teaching this important concept.


Hematology ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 2003 (1) ◽  
pp. 590-596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mortimer Poncz ◽  
Robert Iannone ◽  
Ellen M. Werner

Abstract Uppermost among the many concerns of young researchers is acquiring funding for beginning a career as a clinician-scientist. This chapter is targeted specifically at those individuals considering an academic physician-scientist career and those on the verge of becoming independent researchers. In Section I, Drs. Poncz and Iannone discuss the Mentored Career Development Award (K08). They summarize the application process, highlighting the critical components of a successful application and what the review process entails. In Section II, Dr. Werner discusses what applicants need to know about the NIH Institutes’ program, review, and grants management function; the different NIH staff whom applicants should contact during the various stages of the grants process; and the important sections and key phrases in NIH Program Announcements for career development awards.


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