A classification algorithm, called the Linear Centralization Classifier (LCC), is introduced. The algorithm seeks to find a transformation that best maps instances from the feature space to a space where they concentrate towards the center of their own classes, while maximimizing the distance between class centers. We formulate the classifier as a quadratic program with quadratic constraints. W...

The questions of centralization and decentralization arise in every polity. The constitution or the practice or both have to settle how much of policy making is to be decided by the central government and by component bodies. By and large liberalism and decentralization tend to go together while authoritarianism tends to be associated with centralization. The constitutional model which is gener...

BACKGROUND Compliance with minimum volume standards for specific procedures serves as a criterion for high-quality patient care. International experiences report a centralization of the respective procedures. In Germany, minimum volume standards for hospitals were introduced in 2004 for 5 procedures (complex esophageal and pancreatic interventions; liver, kidney and stem cell transplantations),...

Are states with more centralized approaches to education governance more likely to have higher student achievement and lower achievement gaps between poor and nonpoor students? This article addresses that question by theorizing about the effects of political, administrative, and fiscal centralization on student outcomes. It tests competing hypotheses about the degree to which centralization acr...

People have long speculated about the relation between information technology (IT) and centralization in organizations. For example, previous research has reported various cases in which IT appears to have led to more centralization, more decentralization, or no change in centralization. In this paper we describe a simple new way to model the relationship between IT and the structure of organiz...

one of the main problems in the efficiency and efficacy of an organization is its structural issue. organizational culture is also considered as an effective factor in the performance of many organizations. the main goal of the present study was to determine the relationship of centralization and organizational culture and performance indexes in teaching hospitals affiliated to tehran universit...

This paper studies the choice between centralization and decentralization of fiscal policy in a political economy setting. With centralization, regional delegates vote over agendas comprising sets of regionspecific projects. The outcome is inefficient because the choice of projects is insufficiently sensitive to within-region benefits. The number of projects funded may be non-monotonic in the s...

This paper studies the causes and consequences of political centralization and fragmentation in China and Europe. We argue that the severe and unidirectional threat of external invasion fostered political centralization in China while Europe faced a wider variety of smaller external threats and remained politically fragmented. We test our hypothesis using data on the frequency of nomadic attack...