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Abstract: The development of wind energy in France presents an exemplary case of contrast between the policy instrument and its effectiveness in terms of installed wind power capacity. After 7 years of one of the highest feed-in tariffs in the world, the installed capacity in France is still very low. This is notably due to a diffuse pattern of administrative landscape protection which impacts on the construction of wind power potential. In turn, the pace of wind power development can be understood only by looking in more detail at the way in which landscape is dealt with in local planning processes. This paper examines the question using the case of Aveyron in southern France. We follow the shifting ways in which landscape is enrolled in wind power planning, in a context where new planning instruments favor an incipient decentralization in wind power policy. The case points to a change in both the networks and the concepts involved in the design of landscape representations that underlie the construction of wind power potential. We show that this change has been forced by the far-reaching and decentralized visual impacts of wind power technology, suggesting that technology is recomposing the social as part of its development process and questioning the very meaning and perception that is given to landscape. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The paper examines how the "politics of belonging" that is expressed through claims of autochthony, relates to citizenship. Claims of autochthony, or claims to have settled a given place first, have become increasingly common in Africa, but they clash with efforts to introduce notions of national citizenship under the democratization and decentralization reforms that have been adopted across the continent in the last three decades. This paper analyses this tension through the empirical case of autochthony claims that emerged in the context of the creation of a "municipal forest" under the forest decentralization reform in Burkina Faso, which draws on community-based governance. It argues that in this case, autochthony is a claim for the rights to have rights, for citizenship, that takes shape within a wider politics of framing what "the community" is, and what it is good for on the ground. It draws on the work of Tania Li's work on indigeneity to illuminate the role of some of the contradictions underlying this framing – namely the lack of actual devolution and the reification of "the customary" – that help understand why autochthony becomes a powerful positioning to claim the right to have rights. So, while autochthony first appears as a breakdown of (national) community, because it clashes with the juridico-legal ideal of citizenship, if we look at the politics of decentralizing forest management in practice, it rather seems to be an integral part of claiming the rights to have rights within a globalised "community-based" form of rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Promoting firms' eco-innovation through environmental regulation is of great significance to the sustainable development of China's economy. Based on the Porter Hypothesis, this paper used the panel data of 1962 listed Chinese industrial companies from 2004 to 2015 to empirically test the impact of environmental regulation on firm eco-innovation and the moderating effects of fiscal decentralization and political competition. The results showed that (1) without the influences of China's fiscal system and political promotion system, environmental regulation would likely significantly promote firms' eco-innovation as well as firms' eco-investment and eco-planning innovation. (2) Under the influence of China's fiscal decentralization system, environmental regulation has exerted a significant inhibitory impact on firms' eco-innovation as well as on firms' eco-investment and eco-planning innovation. (3) Under the influence of China's 'championship' system of political promotion, environmental regulation has exerted a significant inhibitory effect on firms' eco-innovation and on firms' eco-investment and eco-planning innovation. Finally, this paper provided detailed policy recommendations on how to optimize China's environmental regulatory policy system and how to promote firm eco-innovation. Highlights • This paper designed a web crawler in a Java programming language to collect data on firm eco-innovation. • Eco-innovation was divided into eco-investment and eco-planning innovation. • Fiscal decentralization negatively moderates the effect of environmental regulation on firm eco-innovation. • Political competition negatively moderates the positive effect of environmental regulation on firm eco-innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of a large metropolitan infrastructure, like other megaprojects, requires advanced technical expertise, capacity to manage complex procedures and planning processes as well as capacity to deal with conflicting interests. For the case of megaprojects, overestimation of benefits and underestimation of costs and risks is a common problem all over the world, leading to the ‘survival of the unfittest’ (Flyvbjerg, 2009). The main causes were identified in the optimism bias, strategic misrepresentation, path dependency leading to lock-in and poor oversight; however, the ‘survival’ of these causes is still unclear. For this purpose, the survival of the unfittest megaprojects is re-conceptualised into a proper cognitive-evolutionary framework. By introducing an innovative taxonomy of policy knowledge, this paper aims to argue that a specific policy community can ‘survive’ by strategically using a ‘cognitive monopoly’ of some of the relevant policy knowledge for megaprojects. Based on the case of the new ‘Watermael – Schuman – Josaphat’ rail junction in Brussels, findings show the critical role played by the Federal Ministry for Communications thanks to a long-standing and context-specific know-how on underground works. While missing knowledge was outsourced and instrumentally used to overcome potential lock-in, the Ministry was able to build the only new large metropolitan infrastructure of Belgium during a period of high uncertainty due to decentralisation. The paper concludes discussing the effects of preserving this policy knowledge as well as negative issues related to this ‘cognitive monopoly’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to deepen our understanding of the impact of an oscillating policy environment on non-traditional schools in China since 2010. It does this through analysing policy documents and an analytic case study of one newly founded school in Shenzhen, China. The wavering policy environment framing the paper reflects a long-running internal government tussle between educational centralization and decentralization. The article first maps the trajectory of policy change associated with the "walking on two legs" tradition. It then examines how national policies are locally interpreted and enacted by depicting one school's historical episode and re-examines the case from a macro social change perspective to understand why the policy environment changed. The paper explores the issue by asking what significant policies describe China's "running schools on two legs" policy approach, how the oscillating policy environment influenced practices in one school and why the government changed its stance to re-centralize control of education. The paper discusses a number of implications arising from the case and shows the power of central policy ideology on the shape and purpose of schools. • 'Walking on two legs', or decentralization -recentralization tension, is a recurring theme in modern China. • The implementation of PPPs in education is contextually mediated and institutionally rendered. • It is a single school case that can reflect the oscillation of decentralization and privatization policies in China. • At the heart of the policy oscillation and the subsequent crackdown on PPPs was an intention to strengthen ideological control and teach the market a lesson about who is ultimately in charge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the design and control of a sustainable standalone photovoltaic (PV)-battery hybrid power system (HPS). The research aims to develop an approach that contributes to increased level of reliability and scalability for an HPS. To achieve such objectives, a PV-battery HPS with a passively connected battery was studied. A quantitative hardware reliability analysis was performed to assess the effect of energy storage configuration to the overall system reliability. Instead of requiring the feedback control information of load power through a centralized supervisory controller, the power flow in the proposed HPS is managed by a decentralized control approach that takes advantage of the system architecture. Reliable system operation of an HPS is achieved through the proposed control approach by not requiring a separate supervisory controller. Furthermore, performance degradation of energy storage can be prevented by selecting the controller gains such that the charge rate does not exceed operational requirements. The performance of the proposed system architecture with the control strategy was verified by simulation results using realistic irradiance data and a battery model in which its temperature effect was considered. With an objective to support scalable operation, details on how the proposed design could be applied were also studied so that the HPS could satisfy potential system growth requirements. Such scalability was verified by simulating various cases that involve connection and disconnection of sources and loads. The quantitative reliability analysis and verification results show that the proposed architecture with power control strategy provides a straightforward approach for designing a reliable and scalable PV-Battery HPS. Although PVs and batteries have been used in this paper, the design and control approach can be applied to other hybrid power systems (HPSs) that involve the connection of various power sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the Internet of Things and blockchain technology can benefit shared economy applications. The focus of this research is understanding how blockchain can be exploited to create decentralised, shared economy applications that allow people to monetise, securely, their things to create more wealth. Shared economy applications such as Airbnb and Uber are well-known applications, but there are many other opportunities to share in the digital economy. With the recent interest in the Internet of Things and blockchain, the opportunity exists to create a myriad of sharing applications, e.g. peer-to-peer automatic payment mechanisms, foreign exchange platforms, digital rights management and cultural heritage to name but a few. While many types of shared economy scenarios are proliferating, few of them, so far, leverage the Internet of Things and blockchain as technologies to build distributed applications. This paper discusses how we might make use of the Internet of Things and blockchains to create secure shared economy distributed applications. Presented are examples of such distributed applications in the context of an Internet of Things architecture using blockchain technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In view of the current outstanding problem of “land finance”, this paper constructs a panel data model based on the provincial panel data from 1998 to 2012, followed by an empirical analysis of whether land remise income and the remise price during China’s transitional period are combinedly affected by fiscal decentralization and economic target assessment. The results show that land remises will influence local economic growth through fiscal relations and, in turn, the local governments’ fiscal behaviors and economic indicators will affect the land remise scale and price. This paper concludes that, under fiscal decentralization, local governments obtain the balance of payments through the sale of more land, resulting in a rapid increase in land remise scale and price; under the economic target assessment, the local government will use the agreement to sell industrial land at a low price and use the “bid invitation, auction and listing” method to sell commercial land at a high price. In addition, the scale, proportion and prices of the “bid invitation, auction and listing” remise mode are far higher than those of the agreement mode. This phenomenon appears more obviously in regions with a strong degree of financial dependence and a high economic development level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the problem of voltage control of islanded inverter-interfaced microgrids consisting of several distributed generation (DG) units with radial structure. The main objectives are to (i) design a decentralized/distributed voltage controller with minimum information exchange between DG units and their local controllers (ii) design a fixed-/low-order dynamic output feedback controller which ensures stability as well as desired performance of the microgrid system in spite of load parameter uncertainties. To this end, the problem is formulated as an optimization problem which is the minimization of the cardinality of a pattern matrix subject to an H ∞ performance constraint. Since the problem is intrinsically non-convex, a convex optimization-based design procedure for the controller synthesis is proposed in this paper. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is evaluated through simulation studies and Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) verifications. The simulation and experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Los Angeles (LA), food waste is at record levels. This has negative outcomes for food insecurity, land use, and methane production associated with climate change. To overcome these challenges, a range of government, private, and civil society organizations (CSOs) have developed programs to reduce food waste. With the decentralization, privatization, and devolution of food waste policies to local actors, CSOs have emerged as key institutions in the governance of food waste in many contexts. However, it is unclear whether CSOs have the capacity to reduce food waste and food insecurity, empower communities, or promote social change. To this end, this paper critically analyzes a local food rescue CSO as a case study in order to understand the challenges associated with food waste governance in LA and the roles that CSOs play in food waste reduction. Through an analysis of interview and participant observation data in LA’s food system, this paper examines the ways that food waste is produced, regulated, and reused by institutions in LA. Findings illustrate that although local CSOs have expanded their food waste reduction programs, the impact of their operations may be limited. In addition, while CSOs rescue some food, they operate in conjunction with food waste surpluses and the overabundance of food, and do little to reduce the root cause of food waste or food insecurity. Although the structural causes of food waste are arguably beyond the scope of some CSOs to change, data in this paper suggest that some CSOs may contribute indirectly to neoliberal governance when they romanticize the power of local communities, depoliticize food issues, and focus on individual personal responsibility. For these reasons, this research suggests that food waste may only be reduced significantly with more government regulation of the institutions which produce food waste, namely food businesses and households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper describes a project-based governance approach for public goods provision in the domain of land administration, which is a new decentralized structure within the traditional centralized system in China. Project-based governance represents a new relationship between the central and local governments that aims to cooperatively provide land-related services for public interest projects. The top–down project allocation from the central government and the bottom–up project packaging by local governments together successfully improve the incentives of the local governments and, therefore, achieve the central government’s aim of providing public goods and fostering economic development. We use Fujian Province of China as an example to show the operational process of the project-based governance approach, and we discuss in detail the features and potential effects of the new governance system. The paper may provide new evidence for governance innovation regarding decentralization in a traditionally centralized system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural wastes vary widely in composition. Presently, these are either of no use or remain under-utilized in absence of available technology. Many of these have useful calorific values and can be used more efficiently with the development of suitable technology. Availability of these also varies widely in places and over the year. Polygeneration is the delivery of multiple utility outputs efficiently from a single unit through proper system integration. Combining suitable utility outputs with local agricultural wastes as inputs to polygeneration can be efficient future sustainable solution for rural people. Preliminary feasibility and performance estimation using thermodynamic model in Aspen Plus ® for such polygeneration with electricity, refrigeration, utility heat and ethanol as outputs is reported in this paper. Also economic feasibility of the polygeneration plant is reported in this paper. Rice straw, sugarcane bagasse and coconut fiber dust are three typical different agricultural wastes and are considered as inputs. Results show that such polygeneration is highly promising as decentralized efficient option, specifically for rural people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the decentralization of European space technology research and development through the joint lenses of policy, systems architecture, and innovation contexts. It uses a detailed longitudinal case history of the development of a novel astrophysics instrument to explore the link between policy-imposed institutional decomposition and the architecture of the technical system. The analysis focuses on five instances of collaborative design decision-making and finds that matching between the technical and institutional architectures is a predictor of project success, consistent with the mirroring hypothesis in extant literature. Examined over time, the instances reveal stability in the loosely coupled nature of institutional arrangements and a trend towards more integral, or tightly coupled, technical systems. The stability of the institutional arrangements is explained as an artifact of the European Hultqvist policy and the trend towards integral technical systems is related to the increasing complexity of modern space systems. If these trends persist, the scale of the mismatch will continue to grow. As a first step towards mitigating this challenge, the paper develops a framework for balancing upfront decomposition and in-process coordination in collaborative development projects. The astrophysics instrument case history is used to illustrate how collaborations should be defined for a given inherent system complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of polycentric governance has become increasingly popular in recent years. Such development may be attributed to expectations that polycentric governance systems have a higher capacity to deal with complex challenges arising from global and climate change. Most often, employed interpretations of polycentricity emphasize the presence of several independent centers of authority in a governance domain. A commonly neglected feature of polycentric governance, as introduced by Elinor and Vincent Ostrom, is that this concept entails as well operation under one set of overall accepted rules. This paper analyzes the underlying feature of effective polycentric governance and makes a distinction between polycentric, fragmented, and centralized governance regimes. An empirical analysis of water governance systems in 27 national river basins using fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) shows that a set of factors associated with polycentricity has the highest explanatory power for high performance regarding climate change adaptation. Factors associated with fragmented and centralized regimes can be identified for paths leading to low performance. Furthermore, the analysis identifies the effectiveness of formal institutions as important condition, in particular for paths leading toward low performance. The paper elaborates on these findings and discusses as well the potential of fsQCA in such comparative analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The centralization process of the educational system has many dimensions. The aim of this paper is to discuss specifics of various dimensions of the centralization and decentralization in the rural educational landscape of post-socialist countries using the example of Czechia. Based on the concept of landscape structures, we recommend the categorization of educational landscape processes into three groups: 1) the centralization of educational function, 2) the centralization of curriculum development, and 3) the centralization of educational governance and organization. The research was based on the spatial analysis of main school characteristics and the research results were interpreted within the context of main principles of organization of the elementary education system as identified in educational sciences or as declared in policy and strategic documents. While school concentration and the closures of small schools in rural areas are still widely discussed issues in many countries, in Czechia this dimension of centralization was basically completed in the 1970s. Centralization, which affected primarily rural schools, stood for ideal power control over the organization of curriculum and over school governance in the period of state socialism. After 1989, reflecting the country's overall democratization, the previous method of educational organization was rejected and replaced with highly decentralized approaches to curriculum and the governance of schools. Not the state but municipality authorities became primarily responsible for operating schools. At the same time, schools entered an educational market competing for pupils, which was again disadvantageous for rural schools. • Centralization affects places for education, curriculum and school governance. • In Czechia, school concentration has been basically completed in the 1970s. • State socialism enforced centralization by a complex set of restrictive tools. • In post-socialist era, highly decentralized approaches to school governance emerged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain technology, an institutional innovation, has been a growing research area in recent years, especially within the information system literature. If it brings along opportunities for entrepreneurs, there is no such thing as a theory of blockchain ventures yet. Blockchain technology drives the emergence of unprecedented types of ventures, with varying degrees of decentralization, both from an infrastructural and organizational perspective. However, there is no consistency regarding the definitions and labels used to refer to blockchain ventures. This paper proposes a definition of blockchain ventures and provides a typology distinguishing four ideal types of blockchain ventures. Our findings reveal that blockchain ventures do not inherently entail either organizational or infrastructural decentralization. They contribute to a better understanding of the diverse nature of blockchain ventures and their implications. [Display omitted] • Blockchain technology facilitates organizational and infrastructural decentralization for entrepreneurs • Decentralization is not a must: entrepreneurs should better start somewhere than try to decentralize everything at first • There are four types of blockchain ventures with different governance and decentralization levels. • The most decentralized form of blockchain venture is the decentralized autonomous organization • Blockchain ventures may shift types and evolve into decentralized autonomous organizations over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wastewater and greywater have different scales of end-uses in irrigation in Portugal. Wastewater is treated in a central wastewater treatment plant and reused in public/private large areas of irrigation, like agriculture, public gardens and golf courses. On the contrary, greywater reuse is generally applied in in situ small scales, treated and used in the same place, generally in the production site. The main aim of this paper is to compare the two types of systems: a wastewater centralized reuse system (WWCRS) and a greywater decentralized reuse system (GWDRS) in terms of water quality, energy consumption and CO2 emissions. In this paper, the main characteristics of both streams are presented and the degree of treatment required in each stream is analyzed. The advantages and disadvantages of its reuse in different scales, in terms of water quality, energy consumption and CO2 emissions are discussed. A methodology to calculate the energy consumptions and CO2 emissions related to wastewater treatment that may be applied in different cases is presented. A hypothetical example of the two systems: one referring to a WWCRS and the other to a GWDRS is presented. The energy consumption and the CO2 emissions are analyzed and compared. The WWCRS needs a higher degree of treatment and so it spends more energy and leads to more CO2 emissions to the environment than the GWDRS that consumed between 11.8 and 37.5% of the energy consumed in the WWCRS considering the same number of inhabitants served. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the degrowth literature, relocalization is widely considered as a strategic approach to transition to a degrowth society, and eco-village/urban village is argued to be the spatial organization suitable for implementing localism. These debates on eco-village/urban village as a vision for long-term sustainability have profound implications for the spatial development of our society. This paper aims to challenge this proposition from an urban planner's perspective by dwelling on spatial implications and planning process. It is argued that spatial decentralization can lead to various social and environmental consequences contradicting the multi-goals of a degrowth society. Localizing and decentralizing decision making in the planning process does not necessarily lead to a just and sustainable society. Instead, it is of importance to have multi-scalar strategies in the planning context to pursue degrowth. The paper concludes by pointing out the complex relation between paradigmatic societal transformation and spatial development, and the significant role that urban planning can play in the transition to degrowth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The “bullwhip” effect is a major cause of supply chain deficiencies. This phenomenon refers to grow the amplification of demand or inventory variability as it moves up the supply chain. Supply chain managers experience this variance amplification in both inventory levels and orders. Other side, dampening variance in orders may have a negative impact on customer service due to the increase in the inventory variance. This paper with simulating a three stage supply chains consisting of a single retailer, single wholesaler and single manufacturer under both centralized and decentralized chains. In this paper, it is intended to analysis the causes of bullwhip effect from two dimensions of order and inventory variance using the response surface methodology. The results show that in both supply chains, rationing factor is considered as the least important cause of bullwhip effect. While the wholesaler’s order batching and the chain’s order batching are considered as the main causes for the bullwhip effect in the decentralized and centralized chains, respectively. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Although urbanization in smaller cities is arguably not imperative, the future of urban living is no longer expected to be principally in mega-cities. People increasingly live in intermediate and smaller cities, in line with the proportion of people residing in urban areas, which is also gradually rising. Smaller cities in Indonesia, like other smaller cities in the developing world, are relatively densely populated, and many of them are experiencing extended urbanization, thereby exceeding their administrative boundaries. This paper seeks to explore the factors triggering urban development in these smaller cities, for a case in Indonesia. Urban change in Cirebon Region has accelerated in recent years, very much in line with the decentralization policy in Indonesia. This paper shows how urban change is influenced by economic restructuring, which encourages people to live closer to the core of the region, representing a new link between the core and new emerging urban areas in the region. This paper reveals these attributes to identify the characteristics of smaller urban centres, thereby contributing a more nuanced image of small cities in general. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Labour geography has yet to pay full attention to the experiences of public sector workers and their employer (the state). This article addresses this lacuna and provides some insight into the labour geographies of public sector workers through an empirical analysis of the centralization of governance, employment relations, and collective bargaining in Ontario, Canada’s publicly-funded elementary and secondary schools. This case demonstrates how one particular group of public sector workers – teachers – and their unions located and exercised agency in the arenas of politics and collective bargaining through a rescaling of their activities from the local to the provincial level. The paper also argues that the rescaling of politics and collective bargaining is problematic. Questions remain regarding whether or not Ontario’s teachers were able to increase their aggregate bargaining power through centralization or merely transferred agency and authority from one scale to another. Moreover, the paper engages with the fast-developing geographies of education literature, and is consistent with an outward-looking approach that links education to wider political and economic processes. In so doing, it extends the scope of the geographies of education to the employees of publicly-funded schools and their administrative bodies, and suggests value a theoretically- and empirically-informed dialogue between geographers interested in education and those interested in labour. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Nigeria is often portrayed as a poster child for countries experiencing the resource curse phenomenon. The pertinent question that confronts policy makers in Nigeria today is no longer whether or not Nigeria is suffering from the resource curse; rather, it is what to do about it. Since the 1980s, various policy initiatives have been adopted by the Nigerian Government to address different aspects of the resource curse but with limited success. It is therefore not surprising that regional governments within the Niger Delta have in recent years turned to Oil Producing Area Development Commissions as a means of reducing the poverty and conflict that is endemic in the region. Drawing on empirical data, this paper argues that the Oil Producing Area Development Commissions have been unable to improve the lives of the people in oil producing communities. It is suggested that this is due largely to their inability to alter the opportunities and incentives for rent seekers and allow for active community and civil society participation. The paper concludes by considering the implications for the resource curse and the way forward for these commissions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: This paper attempts to quantify the impact of fiscal decentralization in India on its social infrastructure and on rural development. Overall, the results in this paper indicate that Government of India within a federal framework has been fostering development equitably across its states, particularly through health and education expenditures aimed at improving human capital development. In this context, the importance of the two tier centre-states decentralization should be noted. However, the third tier of local governance, particularly the state-rural local bodies decentralization has been dismal and has not achieved significant results across states, which warrant the attention of the central and state governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Propose an equivalent power injection circuit for the transformer branch. • Establish a decentralized RPO model based on Ward equivalence. • Propose an ADMM-Ward algorithm and apply to the decentralized RPO problem. • Results show the accuracy and the convergence performance of ADMM-Ward. Abstract This paper proposes a coordinated decentralized reactive power optimization (RPO) approach for multi-area power systems with discrete variables. A decentralized RPO model is established, in which the sub-RPO model for each area is built respectively, while other areas taken as external networks are represented by Ward equivalent circuits, and also the load tap changing transformer branch is modeled as an equivalent power injection circuit in order to avoid repetitive updates of the equivalent admittance matrix. We add coupling constraints between areas, given as consensus constraints on the bus voltages at boundaries, which are favor to remain the equivalence between the decentralized RPO model and the original centralized RPO model. The model is then solved using the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). The proposed approach requires very little exchange of boundary information among neighboring areas. Numerical results for IEEE test systems ranging in size from 9 to 118 buses with 2–4 areas and a real-world 739-bus system with 2–4 areas demonstrate that the proposed approach provides markedly improved convergence performance compared to the application of ADMM alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Increasing municipal-raised revenues improve access to public services and reduce poverty. • Revenue decentralization has a more robust effect on access to public service, than on poverty. • This effect works mainly through enhancing access to education than on access to health. • Local heterogeneity and urbanization play a key role in access to public services. • The conflict has compounded the existing problems of access to public services. Abstract Fiscal decentralization has been implemented in many countries with an explicit objective of improving public service delivery and reduce poverty. However, its effectiveness in achieving these goals are much debated and the empirical literature has mostly focused on poverty reduction using cross-country analysis. This paper analyses whether, and how, the devolution of revenue raising responsibilities to Côte d'Ivoire' municipalities enhances access to public services and contributes to reducing poverty. Local revenue sources that reflect municipalities' autonomy in decision-making are considered to measure revenue decentralization. An adjusted multidimensional poverty index for access to public services and a headcount poverty index are also calculated at the local level using the Household Living Standard Survey. The empirical analysis uses a grouped fixed effect approach, combined with a two-stage least squares methodology with panel corrected standard errors clustered by département to address both time-varying heterogeneity and local revenue endogeneity. Our study finds that increased local revenue positively affects access to public services and reduces poverty. However, there is evidence that revenue decentralization has a more robust effect on access to public service, than on poverty. This effect seems to work mainly through enhancing access to education more than access to health, water, and sanitation services. Interestingly, our results indicate that municipalities are more likely to improve access to public services in less ethnically diverse localities and in urban zones. The study shows that the conflict has compounded the existing problems of access to public services with no statistically significant effect on poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Environmental non-compliance is affected by the decentralized shaping of environmental policy by local governments and enforcement actions by public bodies. Illegal waste disposal is examined in a relevant national case, by means of an original regionally disaggregated panel dataset for Italy, a country which witnesses heterogeneous environmental performances across regions and a decentralized policy system. Our empirical analysis produces two main insights of strong policy interest. First, commitment to a more stringent waste policy tends to increase illegal disposal of waste. Second, a nonlinear bell shaped relationship exists between the number of inspections and the quantity of illegal disposal. The key message is that deterrence might only result after a relatively high level of controls is implemented. Highlights • The paper investigates how environmental and enforcement policies impact environmental non-compliance. • A province level panel dataset for Italy is adopted in the empirical analysis. • A commitment to a more stringent policy is shown to increase illegal disposal of waste. • No clear evidence of a deterrence effect is, instead, identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Centralization of production has allowed great increases to efficiency, and specialization has allowed advances that would otherwise be almost impossible. But centralized production leads to long supply lines, and specialization causes decreased accessibility of alternatives; together these increase the consumers’ vulnerability to disruption of access to essential goods and services. Assessing these vulnerabilities and making at least preliminary proposals for amelioration, is a topic of this paper. Initially, the functional needs of individuals are reviewed and classified. The paper then reviews and attempts to quantify the vulnerabilities associated with present approaches to meeting those needs. Having identified both specific vulnerabilities, and common factors associated with vulnerability, the paper then considers some general principles for increasing technological and social robustness. With vulnerabilities and indicative principles for improved robustness identified, some coarse but illustrative technology trajectories are proposed. The paper covers a broad scope in limited detail: it is presented in the hope that real advance towards a more robust and decentralized sophistication can be encouraged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Priority-setting has become one of the biggest challenges faced by health decision-makers worldwide. Fairness is a key goal of priority-setting and Accountability for Reasonableness has emerged as a guiding framework for fair priority-setting. This paper describes the processes of setting health care priorities in Mbarali district, Tanzania, and evaluates the descriptions against Accountability for Reasonableness. Key informant interviews were conducted with district health managers, local government officials and other stakeholders using a semi-structured interview guide. Relevant documents were also gathered and group priority-setting in the district was observed. The results indicate that, while Tanzania has a decentralized public health care system, the reality of the district level priority-setting process was that it was not nearly as participatory as the official guidelines suggest it should have been. Priority-setting usually occurred in the context of budget cycles and the process was driven by historical allocation. Stakeholders’ involvement in the process was minimal. Decisions (but not the reasoning behind them) were publicized through circulars and notice boards, but there were no formal mechanisms in place to ensure that this information reached the public. There were neither formal mechanisms for challenging decisions nor an adequate enforcement mechanism to ensure that decisions were made in a fair and equitable manner. Therefore, priority-setting in Mbarali district did not satisfy all four conditions of Accountability for Reasonableness; namely relevance, publicity, appeals and revision, and enforcement. This paper aims to make two important contributions to this problematic situation. First, it provides empirical analysis of priority-setting at the district level in the contexts of low-income countries. Second, it provides guidance to decision-makers on how to improve fairness, legitimacy, and sustainability of the priority-setting process. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The present position paper addresses contemporary waste management options, weaknesses and opportunities faced by Hellenic local authorities. It focuses on state-of-the-art, tested as well as innovative, environmental management tools on a municipal scale and identifies a range of different collaboration schemes between local authorities and related service providers. Currently, a policy implementation gap is still experienced among Hellenic local authorities; it appears that administration at the local level is inadequate to manage and implement many of the general policies proposed; identify, collect, monitor and assess relevant data; and safeguard efficient and effective implementation of MSWM practices in the framework of integrated environmental management as well. This shortfall is partly due to the decentralisation of waste management issues to local authorities without a parallel substantial budgetary and capacity support, thus resulting in local activity remaining often disoriented and isolated from national strategies, therefore yielding significant planning and implementation problems and delays against pressing issues at hand as well as loss or poor use of available funds. This paper develops a systemic approach for MSWM at both the household and the non-household level, summarizes state-of-the-art available tools and compiles a set of guidelines for developing waste management master plans at the municipal level. It aims to provide a framework in the MSWM field for municipalities in Greece as well as other countries facing similar problems under often comparable socioeconomic settings. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper discusses the theory of decentralized forest management, the associated narrative and the underlying hypotheses. That discussion informs the assessment of whether decentralization can lead to forest conservation. The paper argues that the ideal model of democratic decentralization described in the literature is unlikely to be implemented given the governance constraints present in many tropical forest countries. Even if that model could be implemented, it is shown that decentralization cannot be expected to necessarily lead to forest conservation. The policies required to complement the current decentralization model are discussed, including financial incentives and monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The White Paper Your Region, Your Choice: Revitalising the English Regions opened the way for reforms to regional government in England which, it asserted, will improve decision-making and deliver better quality services. In the field of rural policy, too, there are demands for decentralisation to improve service delivery and reflect the diversity of rural areas. Drawing upon a case study of rural policy making and implementation in the English West Midlands, this paper explores current institutional structures for rural policy making and how further administrative decentralisation or political devolution might enhance them. It reveals a complex set of fragmented structures and blurred accountabilities in which policy implementation is an outstanding concern. The Government''s administrative reforms, together with proposals to decentralise responsibility for rural service delivery, may assist in promoting greater differentiation and co-ordination at the regional tier. Nonetheless, in the absence of the transfer of significant resources and influence to an elected regional body, efforts to establish a more distinct and coherent approach to rural policy-making and delivery will continue to be hampered. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The paper analyses the process of decentralization of water management to catchment and subcatchment councils in the Save catchment area in general and Odzi subcatchment area in particular. The paper explores the different challenges encountered by these stakeholder institutions in water management. The empowerment approach is used to examine the extent to which the formation of these new water institutions is enhancing the empowerment of different stakeholders in the management of water resources. The paper concludes that effective stakeholder participation is being hampered by lack proper representation of stakeholders on catchment and subcatchment councils; lack of stakeholder involvement in catchment planning; inadequate financial resources for catchment and subcatchment councils for use in water management and the government’s unwillingness to stop land invasions by the ruling party supporters. The data presented in this paper was collected through unstructured interviews, attendance of catchment and subcatchment councils meetings and reviewing of recorded minutes of the Save Catchment and Odzi Subcatchment Councils meetings. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Examined women's involvement in prioritizing public goods investments to support climate adaptation at community level. • Findings reveal variations in women's participation ranging from nominal to active and substantial participation. • Conditions motivating active participation were social networks, and recognition of women's role in income generation. • Differential participation occurred across intersecting identities, and was influenced by intrahousehold power dynamics. • Future CBA initiatives should engage with and build capacity for women to ensure their voices and needs are being heard. Efforts to promote inclusive participation in community-based adaptation projects highlight the importance of giving those most vulnerable to climate change a voice. This paper explores the involvement and inclusion of women in participatory spaces in the Decentralized Climate Funds pilot project in Senegal to evaluate whether only the voices and demands of the powerful and vocal few were raised and heard. Using semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions, the paper explores and analyzes the factors motivating and constraining women's active and empowered meaningful participation. The findings reveal that women in the Kaffrine region of Senegal experienced different levels of participation in community decision-making, ranging from nominal and passive participation to active and substantive participation. Results highlight that women's social capital and networks, community-level recognition of women's role in income generation, and favorable intrahousehold power dynamics were instrumental in encouraging active and empowered participation. The paper finds that the community-based adaptation approach of devolving decision-making to the community level is by itself not sufficient to ensure that women can meaningfully access the participatory process. Future community-based adaptation initiatives can improve their approach and ensure that women are able to voice their needs by understanding the local gender dynamics and designing projects to acknowledge and work within those dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Aviation is a key component of the economy of Queensland, Australia, but the State currently lacks an overarching aviation network strategy to enable improved consistency between state, regional and local policies for economic growth. The objective of this paper is to learn lessons from three international aviation networks to assist the development of an aviation strategy. The Resource-Based View has been mobilised accordingly as a lens for identifying and explaining the benefits and shortfalls of different governance models for aviation networks around the world, with the aviation networks of Florida, California, and Brazil reviewed. Lessons from each network are discussed for the context of the Queensland aviation network, which is framed as a multi-hub network split between the North and South East regions of the State. The three vignettes demonstrate that a more formal network-level approach to generate whole-of-state objectives for aviation is a plausible option for Queensland to pursue, enabling the state to define an overarching strategy that appreciates the reality of a resource-constrained future while pursuing the State's objectives for overarching social, economic and strategic needs. Highlights • A more formal aviation approach is plausible for Queensland. • US State vignettes have a defined aviation policy network. • Further centralisation is possible in dense South East Queensland region. • North Queensland routes could feed more into the South East sub-region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Centralized organizations can internalize transaction costs and externalities, addressing possible inefficiencies of decentralized management. In practice, however, centralized organizations can have its own inefficiencies and decentralized management can do relatively well. Empirically testing relative efficiency is difficult because distinct organizations emerge endogenously in various contexts. This paper, in contrast, draws upon the unique history of New Mexico, leveraging a natural experiment to assess how the partial transition in the early 20th century from the original small decentralized communal Spanish irrigation systems ( acequias ) to centralized quasi-public irrigation districts altered agricultural development and production. Surface water irrigators in arid regions confront public good issues for building and maintaining shared infrastructure as well as common-pool resource issues to appropriate the surface water. My results confirm that irrigation districts can significantly improve outcomes when investing in costly infrastructure to expand irrigated acreage, increasing farmland values up to 33%. However, I find no broader evidence that the centralized control of water distribution provides any gains to acreage previously under irrigation by the decentralized acequias . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore coordination of a sustainable risk-neutral supply chain that faces greening effort dependent demand. We propose a framework for exclusive distribution of sustainability responsibilities in a decentralised setting. We classify decentralised supply chain according to distribution of responsibilities for greening and social efforts. Our study demonstrates that greening and social responsiveness indices simultaneously influence all optimal parameters of a supply chain. We analyse generalised wholesale price and linear two-part tariff contracts for dyadic supply chains with triple bottom line objective. We demonstrate that a decentralised supply chain can be coordinated when the supplier is socially responsible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on an intensive literature review, this paper investigates and presents generalized answers to the two basic questions of port governance, namely who governs and what is governed. There are totally 77 studies selected as the core literature sample according to a five-step approach. The results from literature review show evidences in favor of the important roles played by governmental organizations and port organizations as the main governing bodies of port governance. Furthermore, our analysis shows first, that multilevel governance has become a notable feature of port governance. Second, there are increasing involvements by national or regional levels of government in some countries such as the USA, Brazil, China. Third, port authorities at local level are generally holding the centre-stage position with further autonomy in managing port operations. Fourth, not-for-profit organizations related to port activities play the role of coordinators in port governance. Finally, different governance regimes with different specific governing actors for different port classifications can be identified for many nations. This study shows that fundamentally institutional arrangements and specific port activities are the two basic categories of what is governed. The institutional arrangements determine the port governance configuration and allocation of responsibilities of port activities. There are 12 groups of specific port activities within five categories identified in port governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capacity for a suburban or a rural community to maintain retail activities in its town centre have often been considered as an indicator of its viability. But, since the 1970s, the expansion of new forms of retail, such as hypermarkets, shopping malls or retail parks has created a highly competitive environment for the small town centre retail units. Consequently, several central and local governments have developed rules in order to prevent an excessive development of large decentralized stores. In this paper, our goal is to assess the efficiency of land use regulation aiming at protecting existing retail units and its broader impacts on the size and localization of the retail stores in the Île-de-France region, the most populated area in France. The data we use over the 1975–2013 period include the evolution of small retail units, large retail stores and total retail floor space built at a local level. Using spatial statistics and econometric models we study the effects of land use regulation on retail patterns and local restrictiveness towards new large stores in the municipalities of the region over the last 40 years. We conclude that land use policies have impacted retail patterns in the region and that suburban and rural authorities, where town centre activities are crucial to their quality of life, are more restrictive towards large retail stores than urban ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decentralized rainwater harvesting (RWH) from roof runoff can complement the centralized supply of mains (drinking) water for a range of contexts, to assist in alleviating issues of water security. However, treatment to potable standard of harvested rainwater is not widespread. Consequently a comparative life cycle analysis (LCA) of decentralized and centralized potable water supply has not previously been undertaken. In this paper we describe a novel point-of-use (POU) treatment device, which was used to treat harvested rainwater to potable standard. We then provide a performance assessment for this system and an LCA with a comparison to centralized supply. Results of the performance assessment indicate a water saving efficiency (E T ) of between 0.6 and 100%, depending on rainfall (0.6 from April when rainfall was significantly below average). This highlights that the POU device was able to deal with the scale of roof runoff supply originating from a RWH system at a commercial building scale. The LCA results suggest that potable water produced from this decentralized RWH POU system currently performs more poorly than centralized water from an environmental perspective. Its impacts in most categories would be significantly reduced if the electricity consumed by the system were supplied from a renewable source such as solar PV or wind turbines instead of the UK grid. Priority should be given to optimizing the energy efficiency and exploring opportunities for combined use with renewable energy technologies in order to improve the environmental performance of POU treatment devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the complex problem of controlling and coordinating Autonomous Guided Vehicles (AGV) by a decentralized approach. Each AGV selects its route by a consensus algorithm based on some Integer Linear Programming problem solutions. Moreover, the AGVs move inside a zone-controlled guidepath network and coordinate their movements by a decentralized protocol based on a zone-controlled approach, which guarantees the avoidance of deadlocks and collisions. The proposed decentralized strategy is applied to a guidepath network by means of a simulation software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries have implemented laws and planning instruments to preserve farmland on the urban fringe. This paper aims at a better understanding of the governance changes in peri-urban farmland protection following decentralisation processes in France and Italy. We compare the implementation of farmland protection instruments in the two city regions of Montpellier and Rome. From a governance perspective, we highlight the practical issues of effectiveness and social acceptability arising from power devolution, different forms of governance, and the potential conflicts when planning control shifts to lower-than-regional bodies. Our analysis is based on qualitative methods. Primary data were collected through document analysis, participant observation and in-depth interviews aimed at understanding local stakeholders’ practices and points of view on access to farmland, housing and building rights. We find that around Rome and Montpellier, decentralisation has produced multiple decision-making authorities and increased the complexity of procedures. Despite more regulatory constraints in agricultural areas, farmland conversion has persisted. However, decentralisation processes have also changed ways of governing and favoured local alternative initiatives for farmland protection and farming development on the urban fringe. New modes of governance involve public local authorities, farmers’ representative bodies (Montpellier) and civil society organisations (Rome). In both cities, they have a positive but limited impact on the effectiveness of farmland protection instruments. Their social acceptability varies, depending on who is really included in the participation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we firstly prove that the absorption law for one-sided inverses along an element holds, and derive the absorption law for the inverse along an element. We then obtain the absorption law for the inverse along different elements. Also, we prove that a left inverse of a along d coincides with a right inverse of a along d , provided that they both exist. Then, the reverse order law and the existence criterion for the inverse along an element are given by centralizers in a ring. Finally, we characterize the Moore–Penrose inverse of a regular element by one-sided invertibilities in a ring with involution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Blockchain enables traceability, tracking, transparency and trust. • Blockchain encourages decentralization, automation and improvement of processes. • Performance analysis and network analysis are used to examine blockchain evolution. • Motor, basic, emerging and specialised themes are identified. Blockchain is a promising technology whose four TRs (TRaceability, TRacking, TRansparency, TRrust) features are bound to revolutionize material, information, financial flows and transactions inside and outside organisations. Many studies have been published showing the potential of this disruptive technology in many fields and this number is growing exponentially in recent years. This enormous amount of papers calls for a more systematic approach to analyse the overall trend in this research field. A bibliometric approach based on performance analysis and network analysis techniques is used to examine the evolution of blockchain technology research. Firstly, this paper contributes to the body of literature by discussing the most influential countries, authors, subject areas and journals of the current blockchain research. Secondly, this paper identifies six main clusters of blockchain-related research contributions and, based on the analysis on centrality and density measures, it classifies research themes in motor themes, basic themes, emerging or disappearing themes, and specialised themes. Despite the majority of contributions belong to the computer science subject area, many papers belonging to the technology management subject area provide pivotal insights for practitioners and policy makers. Specifically, they may exploit the results of this research to rethink many traditional processes in the light of blockchain technology implementation, exploit the benefits of the four TRs to manage processes, automate common tasks, generate actionable results, and improve daily operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to compare the efficiency of vehicle routing algorithms used in transport networks. We consider a centralized approach, in which the calculation of the routes of all vehicles is performed in a centralized traffic management system. We investigate routing algorithms based on the shortest path algorithm in a static time-dependent network, as well as the effect of the rerouting procedure on the total travel time. Comparison of the algorithms efficiency is carried out in microscopic simulation of a real-world traffic environment in the network of Samara, Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers firms making collaborative production-distribution planning with shipment consolidation to reduce costs. However, the firms have private cost information which they are not willing to disclosure. We develop a computable mechanism based on a decentralized local search heuristic combined with simulated annealing, which allows for not only system optimization but also cost allocation. The mechanism is especially applicable to the firms with private cost information, due to its good incentive properties and budget balance in almost all the cases. Computational experiments indicate that the cost savings are significant for both the system and the individual firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the impacts of political decentralization and women reservation in local governance on institutional births and child mortality in the state of Bihar, India. Using the difference-in-differences methodology, we find a significant positive association between political decentralization and institutional births. We also find that the increased participation of women at local governance led to an increased survival rate of children belonging to richer households. We argue that our results are consistent with female leaders having policy preference for women and child well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]