bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Development administration in the context of world economic recession: Some ideas on service provision in southern Sudan
Authors: Curtis Donald 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis papers brings together several strains of thought around an outline suggestion for reform of education administration and finance in the Southern Sudan. Administration has to be seen in terms of incentives and disincentives to action. The administration of the Southern Sudan constitutes the largest part of the elite of that part of the country and consumes most public funds as salaries. In political interactions with sections of the public there is a more pressing need to respond to the demands of educated youth for salaries than to make adequate provision for non‐salary expenses of services to the public. But the system is not in a stable state and the full contradictions of the situation, for politicians, bureaucrats and public, are revealed by the financial restrictions enforced as a result of national debt and international recession. Politically leaders in government service and disaffected leaders in military opposition in the bush both continue to demand a fairer distribution of central resources. But the possibility of generating, at the grass‐roots, both the resources necessary for non‐salary costs and the necessary influence to demand services, is something which could be further explored in the interests of all parties. This is a potential new direction for reform in development administration.
Property tax administration in developing countries: Alternatives for land registration and cadastral mapping
Authors: Kent Robert B. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe property tax is a widely used fiscal tool in many developing countries. However, property tax evasion and underpayment are common. This fact underscores the need for governments to administer the property tax effectively if they are to maximize revenue for development. A workable system of land registration and cadastral mapping is one of the principal prerequisites for efficient administration of the property tax. This paper examines alternative methods of land registration and cadastral mapping appropriate for governments in developing countries. The registration of deeds and titles is discussed, as are the most appropriate means for their implementation. Similarly, the different types of cadastral systems, fiscal, legal and multi‐purpose, and the survey methods necessary for their implementation, are reviewed.
Decentralization within the United Nations system
Authors: Ghazarbekian Sahak 
Published: July 2007

AbstractSince 1977 there have been two major efforts by the General Assembly to restructure and improve the economic and social sectors of the United Nations (UN). The first was an attempt to restructure the UN system, and the second, currently in early stages of implementation, is the result of the work of a high‐level group of intergovernmental experts established in 1985 to review and recommend measures for improving the efficiency of the administration and financial functioning of the UN. The first effort gave an impetus to decentralization, which had already been the subject of earlier discussions. Decentralization has affected, in varying degrees, many organizations of the system. With respect to the UN and its regional commissions, it has been raised in connection with decentralizing operational and programme activities to the commissions and in giving them the means to exercise team leadership within the system at the regional level. Only in the first instance has there been some success, with the transfer to the commissions of management support functions for project implementation previously carried out by UN Headquarters. The structural difficulties and organizational complexities of the UN system are explained, to show why achievements in decentralization have been limited. In spite of expectations and possibilities for decentralization which exist in the framework of current reforms, action on decentralization will continue to remain rather contained.
Policy is what it does: State trading in rural south India
Authors: Harriss B. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper explores why the Indian central government's legal obligation to distribute grain is not matched in practice by a right to claim it on the part of those who need grain most. The public distribution of rice is examined at state and village levels using a framework for policy analysis developed by Schaffer. Laws enacted are compared with the political objectives lying behind such legislation. The process of administration of public resources for state trading betrays the unprogressive management of capital and labour and the subordination of state trading to private mercantile interests. The expansion and diffusion of grain allocation is examined via the experience of access of targeted groups in a time of severe drought. The perverse mobilization of grain in scarcity, and its allocation in times of plenty, are mirrored by the reduction of grain quotas in the months of greatest need, and by their restoration afterwards. The ration system is subordinated to a politically more conspicuous child nutrition scheme. But both are affected by the interests of private grain merchants, by the tactics of bureaucratic coercion, by short‐term financial policy and by the use of food as a currency in political transactions between state and central governments. Grain, a symbolically powerful medium of political appeasement, fails to have a socially progressive distributional impact.
Rehabilitating the disabled rural poor: A case of transfer of medical technology
Authors: Trivedi K. D. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe transfer of technology to the Third World is often accompanied by a mystique that inhibits the solution of problems faced by the rural poor. An important innovation in medical technology‐the so‐called ‘Jaipur foot’–illustrates what can be done in the way of rehabilitation work that uses culturally suitable technology and local craftsmen. The experiment required a special mix of organizational and technological inputs. Innovative design was combined with the mobilization of indigenous craftsmanship and the involvement of a voluntary organization. Community support has strengthened the acceptability of technology. Relations between medical personnel and craftsmen benefited the contribution made by both sides. The advantage of local craftsmen over trained limb‐makers became apparent. The voluntary body helped the project to avoid bureaucratic obstacles. The very success of the project, however, has produced its own problems, and crucial decisions have to be made about the future of this kind of strategy for a more appropriate technology.
Institutional innovation, development and environmental management: An ‘administrative trap’ revisited. Part I
Authors: Baker Randall 
Published: July 2007

AbstractIn the first section of this two‐part study the author considers the relationship between administrative structure and the persistence of broad ecological problems. This is set in the context of the issues leading to, and identified at, the Stockholm Conference on the Environment in 1972. It is evident that, despite all the interest and effort, the main parameters of environmental well‐being show that the situation remains at least as bad. The case is made that there is a considerable dysfunction between the nature of ecological problems and the ‘problem‐solving’ structures within the public arena. This dysfunction is here termed the ‘administrative trap’. This section concludes by reviewing three areas in which administrative innovation resulted very largely from the Stockholm initiative: Global Conferences and their attendant Global Institutions; Ministries of the Environment; and ‘reforms’ in the legislative apparatus.
Doubts and directions in Nigerian urban policy
Authors: Nwaka G. I. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe paper discusses urban policy and performance in Nigeria against the background of the development of ideas and institutions affecting the cities since the early colonial period. It critically examines the patterns of rural‐urban relations, the policies for urban land‐use control, town planning and municipal government, pointing out the inadequacies, especially the inefficiency of the machinery for implementing otherwise well‐intentioned policies and programmes. The paper is especially critical of the lack of coordination and imagination in urban management, as well as the elitist orientation in urban planning and housing. It explores the potential value, as well as the limitations, of community self‐help programmes for housing and sanitation in towns, in circumstances of worsening economic difficulties and drastic cutbacks in public funding and private investments. Finally, while endorsing the vigorous programmes now under way for rural development, the paper points out the futility of the current aggressive anti‐urban back‐to‐land crusade, even in the legitimate concern to meet the basic needs of the predominantly rural majority.
Strategic planning for state enterprise performance in Africa: Public versus private options
Authors: Collins Paul D. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis article presents methodologies to assist government officials in various African countries who have to deal with ill‐defined policy problems arising out of perceived performance shortcomings on the part of state enterprises. It reviews the historical role and record of state enterprise in African economies, the assumptions and major arguments of the ‘privatization option’ and the major forms in which the latter may be carried out. In a situation where debate has tended at times to generate more heat than light, the approach is a pragmatic one, involving careful review of all policy alternatives, including public enterprise rehabilitation and a step by step application of privatisation feasibility analysis in cases where public enterprise rehabilitation proves unviable.
Project identification, formulation and start‐up by voluntary organizations (NGOs) in Thailand's rural development
Authors: Narkwiboonwong Werachai , Tips Walter E. J. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper presents an overview of issues in NGO project identification, formulation and start‐up in the context of rural development in Thailand. It identifies the types of projects, the methods used to identify them, the initial activities in projects, the problems faced in project formulation and the influence of various factors on the process, e.g. government regulations and the NGO staff in the organization. There is limited pressure on NGOs from the government even though recent regulations may lead to more control of their activities. The importance of leadership training in the initial stages of a project is emphasized. In particular, when comparing small with larger NGOs, the technical inputs in project identification and formulation seem to be a constraint for small NGOs. Usually project identification methodology consists of following up on existing projects. In larger NGOs more bureaucratic or formalized methods are used and the ideology of the organization is more important.
Bureaucracy as an issue in Third World management: An African case study
Authors: Brown David 
Published: July 2007

AbstractOrganizational theory has been of surprisingly limited value in illuminating the problems of public sector management in the Third World. One reason for this is the ideal‐typical bias of most studies of Third World management. This has led to an emphasis on assumed optimal performance criteria to the detriment of an understanding of how Third World organizations actually perform. The case of public sector administration in Liberia is used to illustrate this theme. The major role of administrative incorporation in the stabilization of the Liberian State is established, and consideration given to the ways in which the span of administrative employment and the extent of its popular impact were maximized through the elaboration of an idiosyncratic bureaucratic ideology. Central features of the Liberian bureaucracy are discussedthe over‐definition of its external boundary; the weakness of its internal boundaries; the relative insignificance of specialized expert knowledge to bureaucratic roles; and the idiosyncratic nature of the bureaucratic career. While Weberian standards did not apply in the Liberian instance, it cannot be assumed that the latter was therefore a ‘failed bureaucracy’; for the Liberian administration was arguably effective in relation to certain goals, even if these were not ones which would have applied in the ideal‐typical case. These goals were essentially political and must be understood in relation to political constraints, rather thanas is often suggested in studies of Third World managementas ‘cultural’ phenomena. Attempts to improve public sector managerial performance in the Third World need to give as much attention to operational issues as to conventional targets.
PPBS in Nigeria: Its origin, progress and problems
Authors: Omolehinwa Eddy 
Published: July 2007

AbstractOne of the normative models of budgeting prescribed for the Third World countries is PPBS. This paper examines the attempts made by the Nigerian Federal Government to make PPBS part of its budgeting system. Although the idea of PPBS was first highlighted by the 1974 Udoji Public Service Review Commission, it was only in 1980 that a serious attempt was made to start experimenting with PPBS. It was hoped that, by the end of the 1983, PPBS would be fully utilized in all the government ministries and departments. It was the intention of the government to use PPBS to achieve a ‘coordinated and comprehensive’ budgetary system that relates cost with output in order to achieve ‘quick results’ in the implementation of its programme. However, as at the end of 1986, apart from documentary reform (that is improvement in classification of expenditure categories in the budget documents), not much was achieved in Nigeria. In addition to the general difficulties encountered with PPBS in other places where it was tried, the effectiveness of PPBS was circumscribed by a variety of institutional, economic and political factors. The paper concludes by asking whether the exercise was not a retreat from the reality facing the country.
Theory and practice of foreign assistance to regional development planning: The case of peripheral rural areas in Aceh, Indonesia
Authors: Veenstra Jan 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper deals with the pilot case of Dutch technical and financial assistance to the provincial planning board in Indonesia's most western Special Territory of Aceh. With specific reference to the two districts of Aceh Utara and Aceh Tengah, the picture of dependency relationships is sketched for rural peripheries in the Third World. Development planning efforts have not successfully addressed persistent problems, either because they were based upon urban‐biased policy prescriptions wrongly transferred from the northern hemisphere, or because rational‐comprehensive planning procedures were too arbitrarily blueprinted. Focusing upon the latter misapplication, the paper presents a practical working procedure for managing, through five stages, a multi‐annual and rationalizing exercise, such as Dutch assistance to improving regional planning methods employed by low‐level administrative units in peripheral rural regions. There follows a critical review of nine years of Dutch regional planning assistance by comparing theory and practice of three approaches applied to the two districts of Aceh Utara/Tengah. The Dutch lessons learned underline inter‐sectoral programme preparation, institutionalization and training components. A 6‐7 years working procedure for future foreign‐assisted district planning projects is proposed.
Housing and the working class in an Indian metropolis
Authors: Blore Ian 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe paper examines a part of the housing market in the Indian metropolitan city of Bangalore. Some problems of housing finance from the viewpoints of families and of public authorities are indicated. It is argued that it is these financial problems that make access difficult for the poorer half of the population of Bangalore to forms of housing other than inner city slums or urban fringe informal housing. Public housing with its unrealistic standards of service provision, but especially its high initial access costs is not well designed to meet the needs of the majority of families. The paper concludes that unless public housing authorities emulate the private housing market they will continue to play a marginal role in housing in a city such as Bangalore. There are signs that this is happening in India with experimentation in both housing finance and lower service standards.
Land settlement in Jamaica: The implementation of socialist experience
Authors: Drori Israel 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis article reviews the development of Land Settlement in a Jamaican sugar belt area. It traces the evolution of the implementation process during the project's formative years (1980‐81) and the outcome in later years. The article argues that the project's operation and institutional framework was shaped through the inter‐relationship between its administrative‐managerial sub‐systems. Three major characteristics of the administrative‐managerial system were identified: symmetry, latency and adaptation. Symmetry expresses the need for simultaneous implementation of the project's production and infrastructural components; latency exposes the ‘politics’ behind the implementation process and the conflict over the project's resources and benefits; and adaptation reflects the settlers' response to the slow implementation pace. The weak vertical integration within the administrative‐managerial system and the change of government in Jamaica were the main constraints on the achievement of the project's objectives and the reason for its transformation from co‐operative to village.
Controllable growth of α‐ and β‐FeSi2 thin films on Si(100) by facing‐target sputtering
Authors: Pan S. S. , Ye C. , Teng X. M. , Fan H. T. , Li G. H. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractSingle‐phase β‐ and α‐FeSi2 thin films can be grown on Si(100) with and without a thin Fe buffer layer by adopting a facing target radio‐frequency magnetron sputtering method. The role of the buffer layer on the formation of β‐ and α‐FeSi2 thin film was discussed. The composition of β‐FeSi2 thin film can be tuned from Fe enrichment to Si enrichment by altering the radio‐frequency input power applied on the Si or/and Fe target, and the β‐FeSi2 thin film has a high (202)/(220) orientation. (© 2007 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
Quantitative demonstration and cost considerations of a software fault removal methodology
Authors: Lipow M. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper presents a demonstration of a methodology for fault removal during software development. The methodology encompasses the entire development history, from system and software requirements generation to system test. Thus it considers not only the faults during software testing after formal configuration controls have been invoked, but also the faults discovered prior to that phase: during system and software requirements generation, preliminary design, detailed design and code and unit testing.The agents for fault discovery used in verification and validation are called activities, techniques and tools (AT & Ts) in this paper, each having a certain maximum potential or capability for fault discovery. The AT & Ts considered include the usual specification review activities, and also certain tools not normally applied in ‘standard’ software development, such as automated requirements aids.Application of the methodology yields numbers of residual faults as of each phase of development, including those remaining to be discovered during operations and maintenance. Some previous experience and data on residual faults correspond to these results, indicating that the methodology and choice of parameters are reasonable.The methodology also allows one to calculate a relative loss due to delay in fault discovery, which, as is well known, rises rapidly when faults are not discovered during the phase in which they are generated.
Research into the use of statistical quality control in british manufacturing industry — part I
Authors: Followell Roy F. , Oakland John S. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe work described in this paper is part of a large, Government‐funded investigation into the usage of statistical methods of quality control (SQC) in British manufacturing industry. This paper reports the results of an investigation of fifteen firms which claimed in earlier work to be successful users of SQC. It is shown that six of the companies were in fact not regularly using recognized SQC techniques. Some general conclusions are drawn from the activities of these, and the remaining nine companies which were examined in detail.
A management view of software reliability
Authors: Wingrove Alan 
Published: July 2007

AbstractProjects with a high software content are frequently completed late, with overrun costs and inadequate performance. Much of this is due to inadequate management, mainly caused by a lack of availability or knowledge of the criteria, methods and tools on which effective management should be based. Examples are given of the most frequent problems met by project managers. A plea is made for a vigorous effort to be made in developing management strategies which will allow the tools and techniques now being researched and developed to be used effectively for producing the high quality software needed for systems.
Mechanical reliability, how do we advance?
Authors: Loll Valter 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe development of theory and practice for electronic and mechanical reliability is described, and mechanical reliability is seen to be lagging in practice. Theory and practice are described for a project from conception to market feedback for mechanical as well as for electronic reliability. It is noted that for each phase theoretical and practical methods exist for mechanical as well as for electronic reliability analysis. Activities are listed which can strengthen mechanical reliability theory and practice.
Random failures not allowed here—the u.s. roland case history
Authors: Currie Warren D. , Stauss Edwin G. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractWhen U.S. ROLAND production hardware was first assembled, the resulting reliability was far below the requirement. Rather than rationalizing the failures as ‘random’, each was pursued to correct the cause in design, manufacturing processes, or workmanship. A process and quality plan was implemented with improvements to such items as soldering techniques and circuit‐board fabrication. Many design improvements were also incorporated. The test programme was halted and replanned to benefit from an iterative test‐fix‐test process. The final result was an increase in the reliability to 3.6 times the contract MTBF.