In large systems, such as health care, reforms are underway constantly. The article presents a definition of health care reform and factors that influence its success. The factors being discussed range from knowledgeable personnel, the role of involvement of international experts and all stakeholders in the country, the importance of electoral mandate and governmental support, leadership and cl...

Budget transparency is an instrumental factor for better understanding the concept of budget within a democratic context. International codes for best governance practices in public management have appointed the internet as a communication media with the potential to provide this information in a timely and transparent manner to the several players in the society, and open government data has a...

Spatially enabled government requires the development of effective SDIs that will support the vast majority of society, who are not spatially aware, in a transparent manner. This paper addresses three strategic challenges arising out of the need of creating this new environment. The first of these is the challenge for more inclusive models of governance given that SDI formulation and implementa...

Policy Conclusions Verification requirements vary according to the interests of their proponents, as well as their (often multiple) objectives. When applied in technically complex environments, with diverse and potentially conflicting constituencies, verification needs to be viewed as a complex process of investigation and validation, with wide participation, and not merely as an act of technic...

Introduction On his first day in office, President Barack Obama issued a memorandum urging that the ―[g]overnment should be transparent,‖ and that his administration would ―take appropriate action...to disclose information rapidly.‖ 1 This is just one of the many recent efforts to promote governmental transparency. Since around the 1990s, transparency— accessibility and availability of governme...

I analyze cash flow characteristics of listed infrastructure investment companies and funds and compare this unique infrastructure sample with a noninfrastructure reference group. I confirm that infrastructure investment provide more stable cash flows than non-infrastructure investments. However, I do not find that investors positively value this cash flow stability. Instead, more volatile cash...

Following their practical needs and legal constraints, recent application of the cloud paradigm among public administrations has been focused on the deployment of private clouds. Due to the increasing amount of data and processing requirements, many organizations are considering possibilities to additionally optimize their infrastructures and collaborative processes by employing private cloud f...

Indigenous and local knowledge systems as well as practitioners' knowledge can provide valid and useful knowledge to enhance our understanding of governance of biodiversity and ecosystems for human well-being. There is, therefore, a great need within emerging global assessment programs, such as the IPBES and other international efforts, to develop functioning mechanisms for legitimate, transpar...

Owing to the restrictive human embryonic stem cell (hESC) policies of the US government, the question of whether to pursue human embryonic stem cell experiments has dominated the ethical and political discourse concerning such research. Explicit attention must now turn to problems of implementing the research on a large scale: in the 2004 US elections, California voters approved a state initiat...

The reflectance factors of transparent fibers, free delustering agent, are predicted by geometric as well as Kubelka-Munk models. Transparent fibers are simulated by a net of glass capillary tubes containing different solutions of dyestuffs. Based on the results, prediction of the reflectance factor of capillary net by geometric model is relatively better than those obtained from Kubelka-Munk...