Position Document on the UN Secretary General's Report In Larger Freedom

Aquest document ��s el resultat de contrastar el ���know-how��� dels nostres projectes relacionats amb els temes tractats pel Secretari General de l���ONU, Kofi Annan.

Position Document of the Secretariat on System-Wide Coherence in the context of UN Reform Processes

The present document should be seen as one more contribution to the debate to the reform processes and a small guide to these processes and their latest outcomes.

A civil society response on the report of the UN High-Level Panel on system-wide coherence

Abordamos el Informe del Grupo de Alto Nivel sobre la Coherencia en todo el Sistema de las Naciones Unidas (��Informe del Grupo��) y el proceso de reforma de las Naciones Unidas del que forma parte como grupos de la sociedad civil que tienen una larga experiencia por lo que se refiere a propugnar reformas del sistema de las Naciones Unidas.

2000-2002 The report. The first steps

Es descriuen les activitats realitzades per Ubuntu de 2000 a 2002

London Declaration

Peer reviewed

World Democratic Governance

The unsustainable politically speaking institutional bipolarisation and recent events in the world arena (11 September 2001, unilateralism and the illegal war brought against Iraq by the USA, failures and blockage of WTO negotiating rounds at Seattle and Cancun, merely rhetorical results from the latest UN summits in Monterrey and Johannesburg) only serves to show just how completely outdated the system of international institutions, born after the Second World War, has become.It is vital, then, for us to establish a new system of global democratic governance, and this entails, amongst other things, In-depth reform of the system of international institutions.

Estudi per a una interf��cie d'ajuda a dalt��nics en la interpretaci�� de mapes de metro

En aquest projecte fem un estudi de diferents m��todes per a la segmentaci�� i extracci�� de l��nies de mapes de metro com a suport per a dalt��nics. Hem aplicat dos m��todes amb intervenci�� de l���usuari i cinc m��todes autom��tics on fem servir K-means per a la segmentaci�� de color i Hough per a l���extracci�� de l��nies. Dels m��todes amb intervenci�� obtenim millors resultats amb un m��tode d���assignaci�� aproximada del color, i entre els auto��atics tenim com a millor una soluci�� ad-hoc sense par��metres aplicada sobre l���espai RGB. D���acord amb els resultats experimentals, aquests m��todes ens permeten fer una bona segmentaci�� i extracci�� de les l��nies de metro.

De la stratification sociale �� la mobilit�� : une analyse du positionnement professionnel per��u

Avant-propos : De nombreuses ��tudes ont ��t�� r��alis��es sur les in��galit��s factuelles des structures sociales, comprenant aussi bien l'aspect statique de la stratification sociale que l'aspect dynamique de la mobilit�� sociale (voir par exemple Levy et Suter, 2002, Lemel, 1991, Erikson et Goldthorpe, 1992, Esping-Andersen, 1993). Par contre, les recherches portant sur la perception, par les acteurs, des in��galit��s des structures sociales sont en comparaison peu nombreuses en ce qui concerne les repr��sentations de la stratification sociale (Levy et al., 1997, Lorenzi-Cioldi et Joye, 1988, Coxon, Davies et Jones, 1986, Zwicky, 1989) et presque inexistantes dans le cas des repr��sentations de la mobilit�� sociale (Attias-Donfut et Wolff, 2001). La pr��sente recherche se propose d'��tudier simultan��ment la perception de la stratification sociale et de la mobilit�� sociale intrag��n��rationnelle par les acteurs en int��grant le caract��re multidimensionnel du syst��me d'in��galit��s. Elle d��fend la th��se fondamentale d'une double origine des in��galit��s per��ues, qui participeraient �� la fois d'aspects macrosociaux et m��sosociaux de la stratification sociale, les premiers portant sur la structure sociale dans son ensemble, les seconds sur une partie seulement de celle-ci (voir par exemple Kelley et Evans, 1995, Levy, 2002). Dans une perspective syst��mique, on se trouverait, �� c��t�� de la structure macrosociale, en pr��sence de sous-syst��mes m��sosociaux, de port��e restreinte. La perception de la stratification sociale d��pendrait alors du cadre de r��f��rence adopt�� par les acteurs, selon qu'il porte sur le syst��me dans son ensemble ou sur un sous-syst��me. Un des objectifs de cette recherche sera d'��tablir que la pertinence des cadres de r��f��rence macrosocial et m��sosocial est ��troitement li��e �� la lecture statique ou dynamique de la stratification sociale. Dans le cas statique, celui du positionnement, les repr��sentations sociales s'articuleraient autour des in��galit��s macrosociales, tenant compte du syst��me dans son ensemble, tandis que dans le cas dynamique, celui de la mobilit�� ou de l'��volution du positionnement, les in��galit��s m��sosociales, propres aux sous-syst��mes, l'emporteraient. D'une part, la perception du positionnement social d��pendrait de l'insertion de l'acteur dans la structure sociale, comprise dans son ensemble, et reproduirait les in��galit��s factuelles macrosociales, telles qu'elles apparaissent par exemple au travers des cat��gories socioprofessionnelles. D'autre part, la perception du parcours de mobilit�� ? conservation, am��lioration ou d��gradation de la position per��ue ? resterait ind��pendante des changements macrosociaux de l'insertion, mais rel��verait avant tout de d��terminants propres �� l'environnement social imm��diat de l'acteur. L'environnement de l'acteur, en tant qu'il s'inscrit dans une partie restreinte de la structure sociale, permettrait de saisir les in��galit��s m��sosociales. L'exp��rience, par les acteurs, de ces deux aspects de la structure sociale conduirait �� la mise en place de deux types d'in��galit��s per��ues irr��ductibles les unes aux autres dans la mesure o�� le syst��me macrosocial et les sous-syst��mes m��sosociaux pr��sentent une certaine autonomie. Cette autonomie peut ��tre vue d'une part en rapport avec l'importance propre des organisations de nature m��sosociale - en particulier les entreprises - dans les soci��t��s contemporaines (Sainsaulieu et Segrestin, 1986, Perrow, 1991), d'autre part en relation avec l'h��t��rog��n��it�� que ces derni��res induisent en termes de segmentation du march�� de l'emploi (Baron et Bielby, 1980). Dans une large mesure, les organisations interm��diaires se distinguent ainsi de la structure sociale prise dans son ensemble: plut��t que de reproduire les in��galit��s macrosociales, elles constitueraient des syst��mes d'in��galit��s ind��pendants, notamment quant �� la r��gulation des parcours professionnels (Bertaux, 1977). Ainsi, la perception de la structure sociale ne se r��duirait pas aux seuls facteurs macrosociaux, mais d��pendrait, en l'absence d'un mod��le d'organisation m��sosocial unique, de la diversit�� des structures interm��diaires. On peut d'ailleurs supposer que la prise en compte des organisations m��sosociales est susceptible de pallier la faiblesse des explications classiques en termes macrosociologiques, relev��es par les tenants des th��ses avan��ant le d��clin du pouvoir structurant de la stratification sociale ou du travail (voir Levy, 2002 et, sur les th��ses cit��es, par exemple Beck, 1983, Matthes, 1983, Berger et Hradil, 1990, Clark et Lipset, 1991). En effet, dans la mesure o�� l'acteur serait plus souvent confront�� aux structures de son environnement social imm��diat plut��t qu'�� la structure sociale dans son ensemble, la perception pourrait d��pendre en premier lieu de facteurs m��sosociaux, susceptibles de supplanter ou, �� tout le moins, d'att��nuer l'effet des facteurs macrosociaux. Une telle approche permet de conserver une lecture structurelle de la perception du positionnement en enrichissant la relation classique entre structure macrosociale et acteur d'une composante m��sosociologique, ��vitant ainsi le recours �� une explication culturelle ad hoc D��s lors, la principale question de recherche s'adresse au lien entre structure sociale factuelle et structure sociale per��ue. Dans la perspective statique du positionnement, l'effet des structures m��sosociales serait tel qu'il se superposerait �� la d��termination macrosociale de la perception, sans pour autant subvertir la hi��rarchie des positions induites par les cat��gories socioprofessionnelles. Dans la perspective dynamique, en revanche, les changements li��s �� l'insertion m��sosociale peuvent l'emporter sur l'immobilit�� ou la mobilit�� d��finies en termes macrosociologiques. D'une part, en supposant que les plans m��sosocial et macrosocial agissent de mani��re plus ou moins autonome sur la perception, l'am��lioration, la conservation ou la d��gradation de la position ne co��ncide pas n��cessairement selon ces deux plans. D'autre part, l'ampleur de la mobilit�� per��ue due �� l'��cart entre le positionnement m��sosocial pass�� et actuel peut d��passer celle qui est li��e �� la mobilit�� macrosociale, surtout si cette derni��re est de faible distance. Le passage de la perspective statique �� la perspective dynamique peut d��s lors ��tre vu comme un moyen de faire appara��tre le r��le fondamental jou�� par les structures m��sosociales au sein de la stratification sociale. L'orientation de la recherche consistera d'abord �� mettre en ��vidence, par-del�� les diff��rences macrosociales des repr��sentations des positions professionnelles, les variations de la perception au sein des cat��gories socioprofessionnelles. Ces ��tapes montreront, �� diff��rents ��gards, que les repr��sentations se singularisent en relation avec l'insertion m��sosociale de l'acteur. On verra ��galement que la perception de la mobilit�� ��chappe �� une d��termination macrosociale, mais qu'elle pr��sente une coh��rence m��sosociale certaine. Ces r��sultats, insistant sur la prise en compte des structures m��sosociales, nous am��neront enfin �� un examen syst��matique des d��terminants de la perception du positionnement et du parcours de mobilit��, mettant en oeuvre une vari��t�� de facteurs explicatifs d��passant un cadre d'analyse purement structurel. La recherche d��bute par une discussion de la place qui revient �� une ��tude des repr��sentations du parcours professionnel dans le champ des travaux sur la stratification et la mobilit�� sociale, en particulier sa justification th��orique et empirique, et la formulation des hypoth��ses de recherche (chapitre 1). Elle se poursuit par la pr��sentation de l'��chantillonnage et des variables utilis��es (chapitre 2). Le traitement des hypoth��ses de recherche fait l'objet de trois chapitres distincts. Chaque hypoth��se s'accompagne, en plus des d��veloppements li��s �� son examen, d'une introduction et d'une conclusion sp��cifiques. Le premier (chapitre 3) porte sur la perception de la stratification sociale des positions professionnelles, le second (chapitre 4) sur la perception du parcours de mobilit�� et le troisi��me (chapitre 5) sur les d��terminants sociologiques de la perception des in��galit��s li��es au positionnement et �� la mobilit�� professionnels. Enfin, au traitement des hypoth��ses fait suite la conclusion de la recherche (chapitre 6).

Project Success through Effective Decisions: Case Studies on Project Goal Setting, Success Evaluation and Managerial Decision Making

The objective of the thesis is to structure and model the factors that contribute to and can be used in evaluating project success. The purpose of this thesis is to enhance the understanding of three research topics. The goal setting process, success evaluation and decision-making process are studied in the context of a project, business unitand its business environment. To achieve the objective three research questionsare posed. These are 1) how to set measurable project goals, 2) how to evaluateproject success and 3) how to affect project success with managerial decisions.The main theoretical contribution comes from deriving a synthesis of these research topics which have mostly been discussed apart from each other in prior research. The research strategy of the study has features from at least the constructive, nomothetical, and decision-oriented research approaches. This strategy guides the theoretical and empirical part of the study. Relevant concepts and a framework are composed on the basis of the prior research contributions within the problem area. A literature review is used to derive constructs of factors withinthe framework. They are related to project goal setting, success evaluation, and decision making. On the basis of this, the case study method is applied to complement the framework. The empirical data includes one product development program, three construction projects, as well as one organization development, hardware/software, and marketing project in their contexts. In two of the case studiesthe analytic hierarchy process is used to formulate a hierarchical model that returns a numerical evaluation of the degree of project success. It has its origin in the solution idea which in turn has its foundation in the notion of projectsuccess. The achieved results are condensed in the form of a process model thatintegrates project goal setting, success evaluation and decision making. The process of project goal setting is analysed as a part of an open system that includes a project, the business unit and its competitive environment. Four main constructs of factors are suggested. First, the project characteristics and requirements are clarified. The second and the third construct comprise the components of client/market segment attractiveness and sources of competitive advantage. Together they determine the competitive position of a business unit. Fourth, the relevant goals and the situation of a business unit are clarified to stress their contribution to the project goals. Empirical evidence is gained on the exploitation of increased knowledge and on the reaction to changes in the business environment during a project to ensure project success. The relevance of a successful project to a company or a business unit tends to increase the higher the reference level of project goals is set. However, normal performance or sometimes performance below this normal level is intentionally accepted. Success measures make project success quantifiable. There are result-oriented, process-oriented and resource-oriented success measures. The study also links result measurements to enablers that portray the key processes. The success measures can be classified into success domains determining the areas on which success is assessed. Empiricalevidence is gained on six success domains: strategy, project implementation, product, stakeholder relationships, learning situation and company functions. However, some project goals, like safety, can be assessed using success measures that belong to two success domains. For example a safety index is used for assessing occupational safety during a project, which is related to project implementation. Product safety requirements, in turn, are connected to the product characteristics and thus to the product-related success domain. Strategic success measures can be used to weave the project phases together. Empirical evidence on their static nature is gained. In order-oriented projects the project phases are oftencontractually divided into different suppliers or contractors. A project from the supplier's perspective can represent only a part of the ��whole project�� viewed from the client's perspective. Therefore static success measures are mostly used within the contractually agreed project scope and duration. Proof is also acquired on the dynamic use of operational success measures. They help to focus on the key issues during each project phase. Furthermore, it is shown that the original success domains and success measures, their weights and target values can change dynamically. New success measures can replace the old ones to correspond better with the emphasis of the particular project phase. This adjustment concentrates on the key decision milestones. As a conclusion, the study suggests a combination of static and dynamic success measures. Their linkage to an incentive system can make the project management proactive, enable fast feedback and enhancethe motivation of the personnel. It is argued that the sequence of effective decisions is closely linked to the dynamic control of project success. According to the used definition, effective decisions aim at adequate decision quality and decision implementation. The findings support that project managers construct and use a chain of key decision milestones to evaluate and affect success during aproject. These milestones can be seen as a part of the business processes. Different managers prioritise the key decision milestones to a varying degree. Divergent managerial perspectives, power, responsibilities and involvement during a project offer some explanation for this. Finally, the study introduces the use ofHard Gate and Soft Gate decision milestones. The managers may use the former milestones to provide decision support on result measurements and ad hoc critical conditions. In the latter milestones they may make intermediate success evaluation also on the basis of other types of success measures, like process and resource measures.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model organism: a comparative study

Background: Model organisms are used for research because they provide a framework on which to develop and optimize methods that facilitate and standardize analysis. Such organisms should be representative of the living beings for which they are to serve as proxy. However, in practice, a model organism is often selected ad hoc, and without considering its representativeness, because a systematic and rational method to include this consideration in the selection process is still lacking. Methodology/Principal Findings: In this work we propose such a method and apply it in a pilot study of strengths and limitations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model organism. The method relies on the functional classification of proteins into different biological pathways and processes and on full proteome comparisons between the putative model organism and other organisms for which we would like to extrapolate results. Here we compare S. cerevisiae to 704 other organisms from various phyla. For each organism, our results identify the pathways and processes for which S. cerevisiae is predicted to be a good model to extrapolate from. We find that animals in general and Homo sapiens in particular are some of the non-fungal organisms for which S. cerevisiae is likely to be a good model in which to study a significant fraction of common biological processes. We validate our approach by correctly predicting which organisms are phenotypically more distant from S. cerevisiae with respect to several different biological processes. Conclusions/Significance: The method we propose could be used to choose appropriate substitute model organisms for the study of biological processes in other species that are harder to study. For example, one could identify appropriate models to study either pathologies in humans or specific biological processes in species with a long development time, such as plants.

How hard is a commercial puzzle: the eternity II challenge

Recently, edge matching puzzles, an NP-complete problem, have received, thanks to money-prized contests, considerable attention from wide audiences. We consider these competitions not only a challenge for SAT/CSP solving techniques but also as an opportunity to showcase the advances in the SAT/CSP community to a general audience. This paper studies the NP-complete problem of edge matching puzzles focusing on providing generation models of problem instances of variable hardness and on its resolution through the application of SAT and CSP techniques. From the generation side, we also identify the phase transition phenomena for each model. As solving methods, we employ both; SAT solvers through the translation to a SAT formula, and two ad-hoc CSP solvers we have developed, with different levels of consistency, employing several generic and specialized heuristics. Finally, we conducted an extensive experimental investigation to identify the hardest generation models and the best performing solving techniques.

Edge matching puzzles as hard SAT/CSP benchmarks

Recently, edge matching puzzles, an NP-complete problem, have rececived, thanks to money-prized contests, considerable attention from wide audiences. We consider these competitions not only a challenge for SAT/CSP solving techniques but also as an opportunity to showcase the advances in the SAT/CSP community to a general audience. This paper studies the NP-complete problem of edge matching puzzles focusing on providing generation models of problem instances of variable hardness and on its resolution through the application of SAT and CSP techniques. From the generation side, we also identify the phase transition phenomena for each model. As solving methods, we employ both; SAT solvers through the translation to a SAT formula, and two ad-hoc CSP solvers we have developed, with different levels of consistency, employing several generic and specialized heuristics. Finally, we conducted an extensive experimental investigation to identify the hardest generation models and the best performing solving techniques.

Diagnosis of the nutrient compositional space of fruit crops

Tissue analysis is a useful tool for the nutrient management of fruit orchards. The mineral composition of diagnostic tissues expressed as nutrient concentration on a dry weight basis has long been used to assess the status of 'pure' nutrients. When nutrients are mixed and interact in plant tissues, their proportions or concentrations change relatively to each other as a result of synergism, antagonism, or neutrality, hence producing resonance within the closed space of tissue composition. Ternary diagrams and nutrient ratios are early representations of interacting nutrients in the compositional space. Dual and multiple interactions were integrated by the Diagnosis and Recommendation Integrated System (DRIS) into nutrient indexes and by Compositional Nutrient Diagnosis into centered log ratios (CND-clr). DRIS has some computational flaws such as using a dry matter index that is not a part as well as nutrient products (e.g. NxCa) instead of ratios. DRIS and CND-clr integrate all possible nutrient interactions without defining an ad hoc interactive model. They diagnose D components while D-1 could be diagnosed in the D-compositional Hilbert space. The isometric log ratio (ilr) coordinates overcome these problems using orthonormal binary nutrient partitions instead of dual ratios. In this study, it is presented a nutrient interactive model as well as computation methods for DRIS and CND-clr and CND-ilr coordinates (CND-ilr) using leaf analytical data from an experimental apple orchard in Southwestern Quebec, Canada. It was computed the Aitchison and Mahalanobis distances across ilr coordinates as measures of nutrient imbalance. The effect of changing nutrient concentrations on ilr coordinates are simulated to identify the ones contributing the most to nutrient imbalance.

Innovative implementation by non-state actors in environment-related areas : towards a positive implementation gap ?

This contribution (presented in the first International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP) in Grenoble in June 2013) explores the phenomena of innovation in action ("innovative implementation"). To do so, we operationalize "innovative implementation" as a strategy by which (coalitions of) non-state actors seek to develop ad hoc solutions to address a given environmental issue, going beyond what is provided for in formal policy designs. Following an inductive research strategy, we elaborate a conceptual framework whose main advantage is to bring the actors and their coalition (in all their diversity) back in the analysis. More concretely, we state that perceiving implementation as broader 'social interaction processes' (De Boer & Bressers 2011) within which actors play strategic 'games' (Bardach 1977, Scharpf 1997) opens interesting lines of research to better account for their innovative and strategic behaviours. In a second step, we apply this framework to three strategies of innovative implementation in different contexts, and identify on this basis empirical regularities in the individual pathways related to the emergence and success (or failure) of these strategies.

Family Size Evolution in Drosophila Chemosensory Gene Families: A Comparative Analysis with a Critical Appraisal of Methods

Gene turnover rates and the evolution of gene family sizes are important aspects of genome evolution. Here, we use curated sequence data of the major chemosensory gene families from Drosophila-the gustatory receptor, odorant receptor, ionotropic receptor, and odorant-binding protein families-to conduct a comparative analysis among families, exploring different methods to estimate gene birth and death rates, including an ad hoc simulation study. Remarkably, we found that the state-of-the-art methods may produce very different rate estimates, which may lead to disparate conclusions regarding the evolution of chemosensory gene family sizes in Drosophila. Among biological factors, we found that a peculiarity of D. sechellia's gene turnover rates was a major source of bias in global estimates, whereas gene conversion had negligible effects for the families analyzed herein. Turnover rates vary considerably among families, subfamilies, and ortholog groups although all analyzed families were quite dynamic in terms of gene turnover. Computer simulations showed that the methods that use ortholog group information appear to be the most accurate for the Drosophila chemosensory families. Most importantly, these results reveal the potential of rate heterogeneity among lineages to severely bias some turnover rate estimation methods and the need of further evaluating the performance of these methods in a more diverse sampling of gene families and phylogenetic contexts. Using branch-specific codon substitution models, we find further evidence of positive selection in recently duplicated genes, which attests to a nonneutral aspect of the gene birth-and-death process.