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Much research has focused on explaining the very high rate of radicalization among a small number of Caribbean island nations. This paper instead investigates the history and current status of countering violent extremism policies in Trinidad and Tobago, focusing on government, international partners, and local NGO programming in the field. Through an analysis of extended interviews with grassroots organizations, politicians, and members of the security administration alongside a desk review of existing literature and evaluations of CVE programming, we seek to illuminate gaps between official policies and actual, on the ground practices. While authorities in Trinidad and Tobago have recognized the power of non-state actor centered, bottom up policies, the majority of visible operations continue to rely on top down, state centric ones. This paper brings with it concrete recommendations for law enforcement, community builders, and local residents alike.

Book synopsis: This book is a definitive reference source for the growing, increasingly more important, and interdisciplinary field of computational cognitive modeling, that is, computational psychology. It combines breadth of coverage with definitive statements by leading scientists in this field. Research in computational cognitive modeling explores the essence of cognition through developing detailed, process-based understanding by specifying computational mechanisms, structures, and processes. Computational models provide both conceptual clarity and precision at the same time. This book substantiates this approach through overviews and many examples.

The Salience Network (SN), Ventral Attention Network (VAN), Dorsal Attention Network (DAN) and Default Mode Network (DMN) have shown significant interactions and overlapping functions in bottom-up and top-down mechanisms of attention. In the present study we tested if the SN, VAN, DAN and DMN connectivity can infer the gestational age (GA) at birth in a study group of 88 healthy neonates with GA at birth ranging from 28 to 40 weeks. We also ascertained whether the connectivity within each of the SN, VAN, DAN and DMN is able to infer the average functional connectivity of the others. The ability to infer GA at birth or another network's connectivity was evaluated using a multi-variate data-driven framework. A mediation analysis was performed in order to estimate the transmittance of change of a network’s functional connectivity (FC) over another mediated by the GA.The VAN, DAN and the DMN infer the GA at birth (p

Information granulation is an effective vehicle to explore data structure and has become a timely research topic. In this paper, a top-down granulation model adhering to the two fundamental requirements (coverage and specificity) in the principle of justifiable granularity is designed. Here, this principle is employed as a fundamental method for constructing information granules in each layer, and as an indicator to determine whether the obtained partitions need to be further divided in the next layer. For capturing the correlation among features and reflecting the data structure, an improved version of a top-down granulation model is offered by incorporating the principal component analysis. The proposed granulation models are evaluated on synthetic datasets, where the obtained experimental results offer some insights into the feasibility of the designed models and describe the effect of parameter values on the constructed information granules. The improved version of the top-down granulation model has the advantage of being transparent by generating information granules on several principal components, and thereby the description of information granules is simpler and descriptive. As application examples, two real-world datasets are analyzed to exhibit the advantage of the constructed information granules.

Background: Over the past decade, many hospitals have adopted hybrid operating rooms (ORs). As resources are limited, these ORs have to prove themselves in adding value. Current estimations on standard OR costs show great variety, while cost analyses of hybrid ORs are lacking. Therefore, this study aims to identify the cost drivers of a conventional and hybrid OR and take a first step in evaluating the added value of the hybrid OR. Methods: A comprehensive bottom-up cost analysis was conducted in five Dutch hospitals taking into account: construction, inventory, personnel and overhead costs by means of interviews and hospital specific data. The costs per minute for both ORs were calculated using the utilization rates of the ORs. Cost drivers were identified by sensitivity analyses. Results: The costs per minute for the conventional OR and the hybrid OR were €9.45 (€8.60-€10.23) and €19.88 (€16.10- €23.07), respectively. Total personnel and total inventory costs had most impact on the conventional OR costs. For the hybrid OR the costs were mostly driven by utilization rate, total inventory and construction costs. The results were incorporated in an open access calculation model to enable adjustment of the input parameters to a specific hospital or country setting. Conclusion: This study estimated a cost of €9.45 (€8.60-€10.23) and €19.88 (€16.10-€23.07) for the conventional and hybrid OR, respectively. The main factors influencing the OR costs are: total inventory costs, total construction costs, utilization rate, and total personnel costs. Our analysis can be used as a basis for future research focusing on evaluating value for money of this promising innovative OR. Furthermore, our results can inform surgeons, and decision and policy-makers in hospitals on the adoption and optimal utilization of new (hybrid) ORs.

Strategic roadmapping commonly zooms in from a landscape to a landmark phase, following a top-down logic and delivering results oriented to top management levels. Based on a six-month action research project in an automotive manufacturer, we present an integrated multilevel roadmapping approach that develops a single architecture and single scope roadmap, but that organizes its information according to three levels of analysis: macro, meso, and micro. These interconnected levels are designed to deliver the specific information granularity requested by top, middle, and low-level managers. A new bottom-up approach is followed for the interconnected roadmap development, zooming out from detailed (micro) layers to a strategic (macro) landscape. Results indicate superior internal consistency, sense of ownership, communication, and integration among all levels and functions involved, as well as rich strategic insights. We discuss how the specificities of this article contribute to the current knowledge and why it is especially valuable for established firms of traditional sectors, such as the automotive industry .

A 2D cluster-based coordination polymer of {Fe5}-2D was developed by hierarchical dimension augmentation from its 1D coordination polymer of {Fe5}-1D and discrete 0D cluster of {Fe5}-0D. And a possible bottom-up synthesis mechanism was proposed.

The Unintended Effects of Bottom-Up Accountability: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Peru

Translational ecology defines a collaborative effort among scientists and stakeholders to rapidly translate environmental problems into action. This approach can be applied in a fisheries management context when information needed to inform regulations is unavailable, yet conservation concerns exist. Our research uses a translational ecology framework to assess the stock status and develop research priorities for the crevalle jack (Caranx hippos) in the Florida Keys, USA, a currently unregulated species. Interview data that compiled expert fishing guide knowledge were used to develop hypotheses tested using existing fisheries-dependent datasets to check for agreement among sources and assess the consistency of observed patterns. Six hypotheses were developed concerning the status and trends of the crevalle jack population in the Florida Keys, and four of these hypotheses received clear support, with agreement between guide observations and one or more of the fisheries-dependent datasets. The results of our study outline an effective translational ecology approach for recreational fisheries management designed to rapidly recognize potential management needs as identified by fishing guides, which allows for actionable science and proactive management.

The term "innovation" is associated mainly with change in practice using educational technology. This paper explores the question of why innovations in online teaching and learning in higher education break down or deliver less than they promise: why they are so resource intensive, so prone to breakdown, and why they often fail to live up to their promises? Two cases of innovation were selected from a broad doctoral research project across three Australian universities, involving 24 interviewees. One case was a bottom up, wiki based learning space inspired by a constructivist commitment, the other a top down response to organisational change in a degree program. Despite literature on case studies which offer useful, evidence based approaches and models for online pedagogy, there is a lack of analytical perspectives with which to engage with breakdowns and "thwarted innovation" in online learning. The focus in this paper is online teaching, and breakdowns are scoped beyond the technologies involved and encompass social, material and discursive entities. An actor network perspective (Callon 1986; Latour 1987; Law 2000) is used to explore the relationality between social and technological entities, and the sociotechnical assemblage which constitutes online teaching. It argues that (i) crucial factors are hidden by the normative perspective inherent in the implementation of technology systems, and (ii) recognising the connections between the social, material and discursive entities in online learning offers a strong analytic basis for innovative teaching and learning practice.

Several alternatives have been proposed to shift the paradigms of water management under uncertainty from predictive to decision-centric. An often-mentioned tool is the stress-test response surface, mapping system performance to a large sample of future hydro-climatic conditions. Dividing this exposure space between acceptable and unacceptable states requires a criterion of acceptable performance defined by a threshold. In practice, however, stakeholders and decision-makers may be confronted with ambiguous objectives for which the the acceptability threshold is not clearly defined (crisp). To accommodate such situations, this paper integrates fuzzy thresholds to the response surface tool. Such integration is not straightforward when response surfaces also have their own irreducible uncertainty, from the limited number of descriptors and the stochasticity of hydro-climatic conditions. Incorporating fuzzy thresholds therefore requires articulating uncertainties that are different in nature: the irreducible uncertainty of the response itself relative to the variables that describe change, and the ambiguity of the acceptability threshold. We thus propose possibilistic surfaces to assess flood vulnerability with fuzzy acceptability thresholds. An adaptation of the logistic regression for fuzzy set theory combines the probability of acceptable outcome and the ambiguity of the acceptability criterion within a single possibility measure. We use the flood-prone reservoir system of the Upper Saint-François River Basin in Canada as a case study to illustrate the proposed approach. Results show how a fuzzy threshold can be quantitatively integrated when generating a response surface, and how ignoring it might lead to different decisions. This study suggests that further theoretical development should link the decision-making under deep uncertainty framework with the existing experience of fuzzy set theory, notably for hydro-climatic vulnerability analysis.

Purpose Drawing on the concept of resource-based theory of the firm; the purpose of this study is to analyze the influence of firms’ strategic approaches on the firm performance via indirect effect using a multilevel, bottom-up approach. Design/methodology/approach Using the survey method, the present study obtains data from 104 diversified manufacturing firms and analyzes the bottom-up effect of firms’ strategic approach on efficient resource allocation using Mplus. Findings Given the prevailing conditions, the study found that the motive of most firms is growth rather than risk mitigation or collaboration in the manufacturing sector of Pakistan. Furthermore, the study found that the bottom-level employees’ information asymmetry has a significant impact on the strategic resource allocation decision, which can lead to resource allocation inefficiency. Research limitations/implications Despite making a unique contribution, the present study has few limitations requiring researchers’ attention to in the forthcoming. These include a low amount of data, self-reporting technique and failure to include all the possible reason that could cause resource allocation inefficiency. Practical implications The present research has potential applications for managers of the manufacturing industry. First, the study alerts managers about the challenges of resource allocation. At the same time, this study provides critical implication for managing bottom-level employees. Originality/value The current study has made a sizable impression in the literature of resource-based theory of the firm by recommending a model that augments the theoretical foundation of strategic management of the firm. So, closely considering these insights would be helping for the firms for allocating resources efficiently in the manufacturing industry.

Climate risk-informed decision analysis (CRIDA) is a guidebook that lays out an evaluation framework and decision procedures to deal with climate uncertainties that are consistent with traditional agency water resources planning frameworks. CRIDA guidelines complement existing institutional guidance on recognizing circumstances when more complex risk-based climate analysis may be needed, above those required by standard planning procedures. The procedures are based on the concept of ‘decision-scaling’ judgments to qualitatively assess levels of future risk and analytical uncertainty stemming from climate change-related uncertainties, and as a guide for choosing specific analytical approaches and appropriate levels of analysis. CRIDA addresses how much detail is appropriate for a given problem setting, depending on infrastructure type and function, whether it is new design or rehabilitation of existing infrastructure, modular design or long-life infrastructure. CRIDA was structured to resolve the contentious issue of deciding under what circumstances a ‘top-down’ climate scenario-driven analysis ought to be conducted versus a more traditional ‘bottom-up’ vulnerability assessment, based on conventional agency project feasibility procedures. The procedures for such vulnerability assessments and planning procedures are well-represented in classical approaches, such as those included in the 1983 U.S. Water Resources Council's ‘Principles and Guidelines’. These commonly used procedures promote normative evaluation protocols and decision rules that generate alternative solutions which minimize risk-cost outcomes.

Considering the impacts COVID-19 has had on travel and many economies, developing virtual experiences that are well-received by different publics has become even more prominent. This paper shows how a multimodal discourse analysis can be used to as a bottom-up approach to identifying narrative themes that can be used in virtual experiences for cultural heritage sites. A case study on 11 UNESCO World Heritage Australian Convict Sites shows how diverse sources of user-generated content, tourism marketing materials and historical information can be analysed and then remixed into a virtual tour of the sites in the form of an interactive web documentary (iDoc). Although this case study involved a total of seven narrative development phases, this paper focuses on two phases, namely how the user model and content model were determined. These models were later used to develop the resulting iDoc prototype. The user model focused on the prospective audience of cultural heritage tourists, and a content model of narrative themes for the iDoc was developed through a multimodal discourse analysis. This bottom-up approach of analysing existing cultural data allows for the discovery of the prospective audiences’ interests as well as narrative themes that can be included in virtual heritage experiences. It also provides a new creative methodology that can prevent issues that may arise with top-down narratives that focus too heavily on one institutional perspective or national narrative and lack direct engagement with or understanding of today’s publics.

There has been much research undertaken over the years to better identify the factors leading to both firm and economic growth. These range from building an understanding of innovation, particularly of non-rivalous goods to better examining the increasing returns present in increasingly networked economies. In Central Asia, studies of firm and accompanying economic growth have been more on the quantitative side in examining aggregate factors such as industry productivity and the resulting impact on GDP. The current research seeks to review the economic growth literature and its links with innovation and human capital in the context of a Central Asian economy. Top down and particularly bottom up policy implications are also examined. An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is also taken in interviewing Iranian researchers and experts from the areas of economics, entrepreneurship, science and technology, and public policy. They are interviewed to illustrate how innovative human capital can contribute to firm development and economic growth in a major Central Asian economy not normally associated with innovative human capital and new ventures. Potential implications for firm growth through innovation and enhanced human capital are identified and linked to the Central Asian context and its traditional, historical attention to individual development and the freedom to “have a go.”

The manipulation of molecular motions to construct highly ordered supramolecular architectures from chaos in the solid state is considered to be far more complex and challenging in comparison to that in solution. In this work, a bottom-up molecular assembly approach based on a newly designed skeleton-trimmed pillar[5]arene analogue, namely the permethylated leggero pillar[5]arene MeP[5]L, is developed in the solid state. An amorphous powder of MeP[5]L can take up certain guest vapors to form various ordered linker-containing solid-state molecular assemblies, which can be further used to construct a thermodynamically favored linker-free superstructure upon heating. These approaches are driven by vapor-induced solid-state molecular motions followed by a thermally triggered phase-to-phase transformation. The intermolecular interactions play a crucial role in controlling the molecular arrangements in the resulting assemblies. This research will open new insights into exploring controllable molecular motions and assemblies in the solid state, providing new perspectives in supramolecular chemistry and materials.

This paper investigates the emerging regional governance of migration from the perspective of migrant rights activists and their strategies in advancing a rights-based framework in contrast to the ...

The decolonial theory understands that Western Modernity keeps imposing itself through a triple mutually reinforcing and shaping imprisonment: coloniality of power, coloniality of knowledge, and coloniality of being. Technical design has an essential role in either maintaining or overcoming coloniality. In this article, two main approaches to decolonizing the technical design are presented. First is Yuk Hui’s and Ahmed Ansari’s proposals that, revisiting or recovering the different histories and philosophies of technology produced by humankind, intend to decolonize the minds of philosophers and engineers/architects/designers as a pre-condition for such decolonial designs to take place. I call them top-down approaches. Second is some technical design initiatives that, being developed alongside marginalized/subalternate people, intend to co-construct decolonial sociotechnical solutions through a committed, decolonizing, and careful dialog of knowledge. I call them bottom-up approaches. Once that is done, the article’s second half derives ontological, epistemological, and political consequences from the conjugation of top-down and bottom-up approaches. Such consequences challenge some established or not yet entirely overcome understandings in the philosophy of technology (PT) and, in so doing, are meant to represent some steps in PT’s decolonization. Even though both top-down and bottom-up approaches are considered, the article’s main contributions are associated with (bottom-up) decolonial technical design practices, whose methodologies and outcomes are important study cases for PT and whose practitioners (i.e., decolonial designers) can be taken as inspiring examples for philosophers who want to decolonize/enlarge PT or make it decolonial (that is, a way of fostering decoloniality).

This review explores the potential for a conjunction between Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) and Unconditional Cash Transfers (UCT) to intensify development outcomes. ABCD is a community-d...

Humans create internal models of an environment (i.e. cognitive maps) through subjective sensorimotor experiences and can also understand spatial locations by looking at an external map as a symbol of an environment. We simulate the development of the cognitive map from sensorimotor experiences and grounding of the external map in a single deep neural network model. Our proposed network has a shared module that processes the features of multiple modalities (i.e. vision, hearing, and touch) and even external maps in the same manner. The multiple modalities are encoded into feature vectors by modality-specific encoders, and the encoded features are processed by the same shared module. The proposed network was trained to predict the sensory inputs of a simulated mobile robot. After the predictive learning, the spatial representation was developed in the internal states of the shared module, and the same spatial representation was used for predicting multiple modalities, including the external map. The network can also perform spatial navigation by associating the external map with the cognitive map. This implies that the external maps are grounded in subjective sensorimotor experiences, being bridged through the developed internal spatial representation in the shared module.

Atmospheric methane observations are used to test methane emission inventories as the sum of emissions should correspond to observed methane concentrations. Typically, concentrations are inversely projected to a net flux through an atmospheric chemistry-transport model. Current methods to partition net fluxes to underlying sector-based emissions often scale fluxes based on the relative weight of sectors in a prior inventory. However, this approach imposes correlation between emission sectors which may not exist. Here we present a Bayesian optimal estimation method that projects inverse methane fluxes directly to emission sectors while accounting uncertainty structure and spatial resolution of prior fluxes and emissions. We apply this method to satellite-derived fluxes over the U.S. and at higher resolution over the Permian Basin to demonstrate that we can characterize a sector-based emission budget. This approach provides more robust comparisons between different top-down estimates, critical for assessing the efficacy of policies intended to reduce emissions. Sector-based methane emissions can be backed out from observed methane fluxes, using a Bayesian optimal estimation method. This could help with monitoring gas leaks from industry.

Purpose The purpose of this study is as follows: update the 1983 survey to determine the strategic practices being used in 2020, draw conclusions on major organizational changes since the original 1984 study and recommend how leaders could use these findings to plan for strategic change. Design/methodology/approach This research updates an earlier study to learn how strategic planning and foresight are changing to cope with today’s high-tech world. The first author’s 1983 General Motors survey of “Strategic Planning in the Fortune 500” was updated by surveying 68 managers from 40 organizations to assess the current state-of-the-art. Results outline the leading edge of strategic practices today, illustrated by comments – from the respondents. Findings show a striking change from the earlier survey. Where strategic planning was formerly restricted to a top management function, respondents strongly think it should now include all units across the organization to form a bottom-up system. They also think it should extend to active participation from employees, customers, suppliers and other outside stakeholders. The main conclusion is that leaders should be developing the sophisticated systems that have been anticipated for many years but have rarely been practiced – strategic change from “the bottom up and the outside in.” Findings These results provide a rough assessment of the current state-of-the-art in strategic foresight. Research limitations/implications This study is limited because the sample was not randomly selected to provide a rigorous study that permits accurate statements for a well-defined population and the sample size is modest. Practical implications The first conclusion affirms that the strategic planning cycle remains the primary theoretical framework guiding strategy. However, the planning cycle is increasingly elaborated by new practices summarized in the second two conclusions described above. As noted, the need for strategic change now cuts across all organizational functions and levels. With massive change a constant, there is a move to decentralize strategy to agile units able to move quickly and hierarchical structures are being replaced with adaptive systems and innovative cultures. Managers are also broadening their methods to facilitate planning with stakeholders. Sound sources of information are considered a must and include direct communication with diverse and dissenting voices. Social implications While bottom-up systems and stakeholder management have been discussed endlessly, the time seems right to move these powerful concepts from the leading edge that remains marginalized and into the mainstream of strategic foresight and management practice. Scholars and researchers should evaluate the level of participation in these models, their effectiveness and possible improvements. Strategic managers should start implementing these changes carefully, rather than introducing emerging technologies, advanced products and other organizational changes. Originality/value This study replicates a landmark survey of Strategic Planning in the Fortune 500. Results show that organizations should now implement crucial changes to operate from the bottom up and the outside in.

In embryonic entrepreneurial ecosystems, support policy frameworks seek to revitalize rural communities, alleviate poverty, transform key sectors of the economy and develop local businesses by increasing access to finance among others. However, policy frameworks rarely foster vertical connections across ecosystems particularly from the bottom-up. In some cases, entrepreneurial ecosystem elements do not necessarily address the peculiar needs of entrepreneurial diversity within the ecosystem. Drawing insights from smallholders, this paper seeks to examine the outlook for entrepreneurial opportunities among them and the influence of entrepreneurial ecosystem support on entrepreneurship opportunities outlook. The paper identifies the key drivers of bottom-up entrepreneurship opportunities. The study concludes that fostering bottom-up entrepreneurship among smallholders with a discovery entrepreneurship outlook in embryonic entrepreneurial ecosystems can contribute in helping those in poverty go beyond subsistence entrepreneurship. The paper recommends that entrepreneurial ecosystem elements should be mobilised to offer financial resources and institutional support beyond the current information support available to smallholders.

The COVID-19 pandemic cast doubts on governments' traditional crisis responses and sparked a surge in citizen-led, participatory, bottom-up responses. Iran's experience is worth investigating because it relied significantly on citizen groups to manage the crisis despite long-term sanctions and extremely restricted resources. The authors undertook an exploratory case study using the grounded theory (GT) method and an online survey to explore Iran's confrontation. The central notion discovered was referred to as 'faith-driven civic engagement.’ The response was characterized by adaptability, promptness, and comprehensiveness. The causes and strategic orientations included intrinsic motives, capability building, and leadership.

This article discusses how a bottom-up approach to learning can be positioned within a top-down educational structure. For the first time, Iran’s educational system has witnessed a shift from a one-dimensional teacher-centered approach to the triangular student-facilitator-parent approach. While the majority of children’s participative activities in Iran have pedagogical functions, the participatory type of school was established to prioritize the voice of students. Through an analysis of interviews in a study of participatory schooling in Iran, this research identified several similarities and contradictions in terms of children’s inclusion between the theoretical framework and philosophy of democratic and child-centered school with the conventional Iranian one. The contribution of this article is to highlight how the socio-political features of the context can influence the structure and approach to education and effectiveness of inclusion. This approach to learning can be significant in societies where child integration has not yet found its meaningful position in schools.

Although bottom-up attention can improve visual performance with and without awareness to the exogenous cue, whether they are governed by a common neural computation remains unclear. Using a modified Posner paradigm with backward masking, we found that the cueing effect displayed a monotonic gradient profile (Gaussian-like), both with and without awareness, whose scope, however, was significantly wider with than without awareness. This awareness-dependent scope offered us a unique opportunity to change the relative size of the attention field to the stimulus, differentially modulating the gain of attentional selection, as proposed by the normalization model of attention. Therefore, for each human subject (male and female), the stimulus size was manipulated as their respective mean attention fields with and without awareness while stimulus contrast was varied in a spatial cueing task. By measuring the gain pattern of contrast-response functions on the spatial cueing effect derived by visible or invisible cues, we observed changes in the cueing effect consonant with changes in contrast gain for visible cues and response gain for invisible cues. Importantly, a complementary analysis confirmed that subjects' awareness-dependent attention fields can be simulated by using the normalization model of attention. Together, our findings indicate an awareness-dependent normalization framework of visual bottom-up attention, placing a necessary constraint, namely, awareness, on our understanding of the neural computations underlying visual attention.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTBottom-up attention is known to improve visual performance with and without awareness. We discovered that manipulating subjects' awareness can modulate their attention fields of visual bottom-up attention, which offers a unique opportunity to regulate its normalization processes. On the one hand, by measuring the gain pattern of contrast-response functions on the spatial cueing effect derived by visible or invisible cues, we observed changes in the cueing effect consonant with changes in contrast gain for visible cues and response gain for invisible cues. On the other hand, by using the normalization model of attention, subjects' awareness-dependent attention fields can be simulated successfully. Our study supports important predictions of the normalization model of visual bottom-up attention and further reveals its dependence on awareness.

Japan has been promoting 3R (reduce, reuse, and recycle) policies for several decades, but the recycling rate of the whole country has leveled off, and more effective policies are needed. At the same time, municipalities have been implementing measures for municipal waste management considering their specific regional conditions, but the relationship between the municipalities’ policy inputs and national policy output is unclear, which causes difficulties in setting national targets and identifying effective policies. We, therefore, developed the Municipal Input and National Output Waste (MINOWA) model, which represents the municipal waste flows of all 1718 municipalities in Japan. The model enables users to establish various 3R measures at the municipal level and estimate their effects at the national level. Using the model, we estimated the flows under business-as-usual (BaU) and additional-measure scenarios that extended the use of conventional policies to 2030. The results revealed differences in the policy effects between areas with different populations. In addition, the results showed that the extension of conventional measures will be insufficient to achieve national goals. The developed model links municipal policies, regional characteristics, and national policy and goal-setting in an integrated framework, and supports ways to find more effective policies.

As acknowledged in the literature on Sustainable Human Development, the involvement of local levels of government in delivering the SDGs is an important issue and one that needs to be examined also...

Summary Biomaterials made by living systems, while very diverse, generally share similar organization: different lineages of cells are precisely patterned within a matrix to create a hierarchically defined structure. This meticulous organization allows for their multifunctional properties, which often exceed those of traditional materials. For these reasons, there is growing interest in creating engineered living materials (ELMs) that will have capabilities similar to those of natural living materials yet with tailored functions. This review aims to highlight technologies still missing from the field of ELMs, which currently prevents more impactful applications. We briefly review the existing literature and identify challenges in designing novel protein-based and non-ribosomally synthesized matrix elements, producing and incorporating biominerals, and improving critical material properties such as lifespan, spatial patterning, and cell-cell communication. We also discuss the interplay between these challenges and the need for the development of new chassis and corresponding genetic toolboxes. By overcoming these obstacles, we come ever closer to unlocking the potential and versatility of biomaterials to create designer ELMs.

A series of recent papers introduce the concept of Forecast Reconciliation, a process by which independently generated forecasts of a collection of linearly related time series are reconciled via the introduction of accounting aggregations that naturally apply to the data. Aside from its clear presentational and operational virtues, the reconciliation approach generally improves the accuracy of the combined forecasts. In this paper, we examine the mechanisms by which this improvement is generated by re-formulating the reconciliation problem as a combination of direct forecasts of each time series with additional indirect forecasts derived from the linear constraints. Our work establishes a direct link between the nascent Forecast Reconciliation literature and the extensive work on Forecast Combination. In the original hierarchical setting, our approach clarifies for the first time how unbiased forecasts for the entire collection can be generated from base forecasts made at any level of the hierarchy, and we illustrate more generally how simple robust combined forecasts can be generated in any multivariate setting subject to linear constraints. In an empirical example, we show that simple combinations of such forecasts generate significant improvements in forecast accuracy where it matters most: where noise levels are highest and the forecasting task is at its most challenging.

Organizational change literature has long described the ways change efforts are designed and executed, with particular attention to where the change effort initiated: whether from the top down or the bottom up. In this paper, we expand this focus and describe how communities external to organizations can also be initiators of change within organizations. Through two examples, the Black Lives Matter movement and Old Coke Drinkers of America, we demonstrate the power of communities outside of organizations for initiating meaningful and lasting change within organizations. We explain that the power of such communities for initiating organizational change is derived in part from their members’ psychological sense of community (PSOC). We propose that scholars and practitioners alike should pay attention to this phenomenon by offering an agenda for developing research on impacts of communities and their PSOC that may affect organizational change.

Natural and man-made disasters are vital issues that led to the increasing number of migrants, many of them stayed displaced for decades this requires more permanent dwellings. The main aim of the study is to investigate the impact of the bottom-up construction method on developing migrant’s shelters energy and thermal comfort performance. Dynamic simulation tool Indoor Climate and Energy (IDA ICE 4.8) has been used to assess nine different scenarios. The results quantified that the annually delivered energy and thermal comfort accepted hours of proposed scenario nine (S9) is better compared to base-case scenario one (S1) by 63% kWh and 4,215 h respectively. Methodologies and results of this paper can be adopted and applied for various places of the world affected by migration issue.

Grand societal challenges as a policy target have received increasing attention in regional innovation policy. To date, concrete governance strategies to address such challenges with local solutions are underexplored. We propose a small wins approach as a new governance strategy to deal with wicked societal problems. A small wins strategy focuses on accelerating bottom-up initiatives guided by a shared mission. The aim is to activate propelling mechanisms to support and couple self-organizing change processes. We studied 17 regional initiatives for plastic pollution removal in the Netherlands, which show that i. institutional barriers are the hardest for small wins to overcome and achieve wider impact; ii. bottom-up propelling mechanisms reinforce each other, but are generally too weak to transform existing practices due to limited policy support; and iii. systemic propelling mechanisms are largely absent to achieve robust change processes across scales. We see a key task for regional policy to activate systemic mechanisms that help local solutions upscale. This requires policy to learn about the plurality of change processes ‘on the ground’, and to use multi-level governance arrangements to create coherent policies to scale up bottom-up solutions.

Combining insights from the new labour market segmentation approach and the labour process theory, this qualitative case study research critically examines how workplace dynamics shape the division...

Modern applications involving multispecies microbial communities rely on the ability to predict structures of such communities in defined environments. The structures depend on pairwise and high-order interactions between species. To unravel these interactions, classical bottom-up approaches examine all possible species subcommunities. Such approaches are not scalable as the number of subcommunities grows exponentially with the number of species, n. Here we present a top-down method wherein the number of subcommunities to be examined grows linearly with n, drastically reducing experimental effort. The method uses steady-state data from leave-one-out subcommunities and mathematical modeling to infer effective pairwise interactions and predict community structures. The accuracy of the method increases with n, making it suitable for large communities. We established the method in silico and validated it against a five-species community from literature and an eight-species community cultured in vitro. Our method offers an efficient and scalable tool for predicting microbial community structures. The authors propose EPICS, a method to predict microbial community structures by estimating effective pairwise interactions that subsume high-order interactions between species. EPICS is more efficient and applicable to larger communities than current approaches.

In the past, most managers considered total quality management (TQM) philosophy very different from human resource management (HRM) philosophy because TQM focused on incremental improvements from the bottom up, whereas the HRM functions were based on a top-down approach in the organization’s hierarchy. Their understanding of the word “TQM” not only depended on process management but also on managing the process itself as in statistical process control (SPC). Therefore, the very few managers who did pay attention to quality implemented it on the floor-level of HRM activities where the core functions of the organizations were performed. The emerging thinking of HRM, however, is that TQM complements HRM functions and provides long-term competitive advantages to organizations. Supporting these ideas, this paper reflects on the past, examines the present, and proposes an integrated framework for organizations’ overall success.

We further develop water computing as a variant of P systems. We propose an improved modular design, which duplicates the main water flows by associated control flows. We first solve the three open problems of the previous design by demonstrating: how functions can be stacked without a combinatorial explosion of valves; how termination of the system can be detected; and how to reset the system. We then prove that the system is Turing complete by modelling the construction of $$\mu$$ -recursive functions. The new system is based on directed acyclic graphs, where tanks are nodes and pipes are arcs; there are no loops anymore, waterfalls strictly in a ‘top down’ direction. Finally, we demonstrate how our water tank system can be viewed as a restricted version of cP systems. We conclude with a list of further challenging problems.

Enabling constraints are bottom up causes which create the possibility of the existence of a system. Disabling constraints reduce the degrees of freedom and narrow the choices of the system which are structural, functional, meaningful relations that assign executive roles to the component parts. In this paper, we discuss causality as enabling and disabling constraints in order to critique the absurdity of transitivity in causal relations. If downward causation is viewed as causation by constraints, we argue that it will not face the absurdity of self-causation which is incurred because of the transitivity principle. In the process of self-organization, organizationally new structures are created from the lower level subcomponents of the system. Such self-organizing systems can be broadly considered as sui-generis and transcend the transitivity principle by causally influencing its subcomponents. These higher level systemic constraints that causally influence the components in a self-organizing system without violating any physical laws via causal constraints are termed as Downward Causation.

There is a growing effort to quantify and track trends in human rights. The reliance on large, international indicators, including global indexes and national human rights report cards, is increasing as part of international development assistance and human rights monitoring. This article explores the limitations of mainstream human rights indicators, particularly in the developing world, arguing that many of these approaches overlook local realities. An alternative strategy for designing bottom-up human rights indicators is offered drawing on the experience of constructing the Uhakiki Human Rights Index in Tanzania. The challenges of developing an appropriate and feasible methodology in complex environments is discussed, particularly given that with bottom-up indicators, what works in one situation might not necessarily be transferrable to another context.

Precise multi-scenario projections of future economic outputs based on localised interpretations of global scenarios and major growth drivers are important for understanding long-term economic changes. However, few studies have focussed on localised interpretations, and many assume regional uniformity or use key parameters that are recursive or extrapolated by mathematical methods. This study provides a more intuitive and robust economic framework for projecting regional economic growth based on a neoclassical economic model and shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) scenarios. A non-uniform version of SSP2 (the middle-of-the-road scenario) was developed, and more detailed population projections for China were adopted using municipal-level data for 340 districts and parameter settings based on China’s recent development. The results show that China’s GDP will vary substantially across SSPs by 2050. Per capita GDP ranges from 19,300 USD under SSP3 (fragmentation) to 41,100 USD under SSP5 (conventional development). Per capita GDP under SSP1 (sustainability) is slightly higher than under SSP2, but lower on average than under SSP5. However, SSP1 is a better choice overall because environmental quality and equity are higher. Per capita GDP growth will generally be higher in relatively low-income regions by 2050, and the upper-middle-income provinces will become China’s new engine for economic growth.

People tend to find natural environments more aesthetically appealing and restorative than human-made or built environments. It is widely assumed that this natural-built distinction in environmental preference and restoration stems to a large extent from bottom-up sensory processing of intrinsic characteristics of nature that may have signaled adaptive values during human evolution. This view of nature as a unique, irreplaceable source of health and well-being has motivated the greening of cities and other initiatives to reconnect people with nature. But how strong is the empirical support for a bottom-up account of positive responses to nature? This chapter critically reviews the empirical evidence in view of alternative explanations in terms of top-down influences of culturally transmitted views and personally learned positive experiences with nature. It is tentatively concluded that the available empirical evidence appears to be in favor of top-down, rather than bottom-up, accounts of the natural-built distinction in both environmental preferences and restorative effects. In accordance with recent insights relating to the immune system regulating functions of direct physical contact with nature, the chapter concludes with suggestions for future research focusing on top-down, resilience-building experiences with nature.

Purpose This paper aims to highlight a multidimensional model of sustainability practices that are considered meaningful and practical for implementation by higher education institutions (HEIs). Design/methodology/approach The Concept System® Global MAX© software facilitated the bottom-up approach of this study, where 32 staff and students of a private HEI were prompted with the question, “What design features or facilities should the university building have for you to consider the building sustainable?” Their opinions were collected as statements via online brainstorming and the process was followed through with the sorting and rating of reduced statements. The software was also used to perform multi-dimensional scaling and cluster analysis to generate the findings of this study. Findings An eight-cluster solution was proposed based on the themes within respective clusters. Respondents rated the importance of sustainability resource usage and sustainability and technology highly. Whilst sustainable campus facilities appeal to students, education for sustainable development were more important to staff. Originality/value The community-based participatory research recommends activities that enhance the adoption of sustainable development in making universities a “living lab” for sustainability.

Two paradigms were employed to disentangle information processing from executive motor inhibition in adults with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). Choice Reaction and Stop Signal Tasks were compared between 13 adults fulfilling DSM-5 DCD criteria and 42 typically developing adults. Additional analyses included 16 probable DCD (pDCD) participants, who had motor difficulties but did not fulfil DSM-5 criteria. Analyses employed frequentist and Bayesian modeling. While DCD+pDCD showed slower reaction times and difficulty initiating Go responses, no impairments in Stop actions were found. These findings indicated no executive deficit in DCD, suggesting that previous results may be explained by inefficient information processing.

Population growth, along with climate change, has exacerbaed the water crisis in local communities. The simplest and quickest response of governments to such problems is direct intervention in local governance. Such solutions are usually proposed without regarding the indigenous knowledge of the local people. These also include top-down policies on water issues, which disrupt local institutional arrangements and eliminate the possibility of collective action by stakeholders in reaching an agreement. A case study of one of the water basins in Chaharmahal Bakhtiari in Iran (the Gorgak River in Sureshjan city) using an institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework shows that in the past, people acted collectively to solve the asymmetric distribution and drought problem. But government intervention, which initially sought to improve water conditions, has disrupted the region's institutional arrangements and power asymmetries between exploiters. Our study used the IAD framework to examine changes in institutional arrangements due to the introduction of technology and government intervention by the game theory. It clarifies that government intervention in local institutional arrangements, even if designed with the intention of improving conditions, may lead to greater inequality due to disregarding physical and social conditions and local knowledge. This inequality can eventually worsen the situation. HIGHLIGHTS Government intervention in local institutional arrangements may lead to greater inequality due to disregarding local knowledge and local institutions.; Using the institutional analysis and development framework and game theory, we identified the effective institutional factors in our case study.; Our study shows the consequences of a wrong government intervention, which crowd out the self-governance of local communities.