Forward Commitment Procurement: a practical methodology that helps to manage risk in procuring innovative goods and services

The Forward Commitment Procurement (FCP) is a Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI) methodology. It was specifically designed to both provide a practical methodology for procurers to follow and to manage the perceived risk of the customer and supplier in innovation investments. The paper describes FCP and its rationale and explores the actions undertaken in FCP projects and their impact on the barriers typically encountered in PPI projects. It draws on the practical experience on implementing and supporting PPI projects in the health care sector and uses three case examples to illustrate key points.     

Soziometrie im Coaching

Analyzing the own team and the social network of the organization are main sources for success of management in an organization. Therefore they are common themes in coaching. Analyzing and optimizing social systems are the main subjects of sociometry. So it bears a substantial an effective repertoire of methods which can efficiently enrich coaching methods and approaches. This article analyzes the impact and properties of sociometry and points out practical applications for coaching.     

Influence of musical genres with Andean contents on the components of Peruvian national identity / Influencia de géneros musicales con contenidos andinos en los componentes de la identidad nacional peruana

The purpose of this study is to analyse the influence of different musical genres with Andean influences (Huayno, Chicha and Rock/Fusion) on the components of Peruvian national identity. To this end, we enlisted the participation of 92 upper-middle-class people (M = 19.91, SD = 1.95). The participants were randomly assigned each music genre in three experimental groups: Huayno (n = 30), Chicha (n = 31) and Rock/Fusion (n = 31). The results show that Rock/Fusion is the most highly rated musical genre with the most positive influence on some stereotypical components of national identity, attitude towards music and positive emotions. In contrast, the more ‘Andeanized’ genres, especially Chicha music, are perceived more negatively and have fewer positive effects on the stereotypical components of national identity, attitude towards music and positive emotions. The discussion suggests that the influence of the musical expressions evaluated depends on the ascribed status of the social group where these expressions were originally conceived and are currently consumed.     

Modelling of socio-ecological connectivity. The rural-urban network in the surroundings of Madrid (Central Spain)

As most of Europe’s metropolitan landscapes grow, a change is occurring in their surrounding rural environment. The consequences thereof mainly involve losses of traditional land uses and changes in the socioecomic structures of the local population. The lack of coupling ‘urban society-countryside’ can be considered to constitute a driving force of this process. The present paper focuses upon the rural-urban network around the metropolis of Madrid (Central Spain). We developed a quantitative model to explain the socio-ecological rural-urban linkages, taking into account the influence of the metropolis in the network of neighbouring municipalities. The results show a rural landscape gradient ranging from silvo-pastoral to agricultural land uses and maintaining different interactions with the local socioeconomy. Urban-rural polarisation of the territory and accessibility to the metropolis are the main factors influencing the landscape dynamics. Territorial cohesion among municipalities and connectivity with the metropolis are factors determining the socio-ecological structure. The agricultural area presents good social cohesion, but a weak connection with the City. The silvo-pastoral landscape, on the contrary, maintains prominent links with the metropolis, but a non-significant interconnection between the small towns. The model tested constitutes a useful tool for analysing socio-ecological connectivity and for quantifying, designing and promoting territorial cohesion policies.     

Beyond growth: new alliances for socio-ecological transformation in Austria

ABSTRACT

Trade unions and environmental movements are often seen as political opponents most prominently discussed in the form of the ‘jobs vs. environment dilemma’. Based on historical examples of the conflict relations between trade unions and environmental groups in the Austrian energy sector, this paper showcases how the relationship between the two groups has changed from enmity to first attempts at alliance building. Drawing from analysis of union documents and problem-centred interviews conducted with Austrian unionists, it shows that newly emerging alliances between unions and environmental movements contain the seeds for a broad societal movement that can help overcome the paradigm of growth and actively engage in the creation of policies that support a social–ecological transformation.     

Risk of Extreme Events in Multiobjective Decision Trees Part 2. Rare Events

Earlier work with decision trees identified nonseparability as an obstacle to minimizing the conditional expected value, a measure of the risk of extreme events, by the well-known method of averaging out and folding back. This second of two companion papers addresses the conditional expected value that is defined as the expected outcome assuming that a random variable is observed only in the upper 100 (1 −α) percent of potential outcomes, where α is a cumulative probability preselected by the decision maker. An approach is proposed to overcome the need to evaluate all policies in order to identify the optimal policy. The approach is based in part on approximating the conditional expected value by using statistics of extremes. An existing convenient approximation of the conditional expected value is shown to be separable into two constituent elements of risk and can thus be optimized, along with other objectives including the unconditional expected value of the outcome, in a multiobjective decision tree. An example of sequential decision making for remediation or environmental contamination is provided. The importance of the results for risk analyis beyond the minimization of conditional expected values is pointed out.     

How Influential Are Demography Journals?

This article examines, by means of citation analysis for the years 1991–95, the process of knowledge dissemination in demography journals and the intellectual exchange of demography journals with neighboring social sciences. In addition, it investigates the degree of uncitedness in demography journals. It turns out that a considerable percentage of articles are left uncited: 36 percent of the articles published in demography journals between 1990 and 1992 remained uncited in the five years following their publication. However, these overall uncitedness rates conceal large variations between journals. General-oriented demography journals from the US are well cited. Within the set of demography journals, knowledge flows from general to specialized journals and to a lesser extent the other way round. Specialized journals play a minor role in the construction and exchange of fundamental demographic knowledge. They do, however, influence specific audiences in neighboring social sciences.     

Multivariate τ-estimators for location and scatter

We discuss the robustness and asymptotic behaviour of τ-estimators for multivariate location and scatter. We show that τ-estimators correspond to multivariate M-estimators defined by a weighted average of redescending ψ-functions, where the weights are adaptive. We prove consistency and asymptotic normality under weak assumptions on the underlying distribution, show that τ-estimators have a high breakdown point, and obtain the influence function at general distributions. In the special case of a location-scatter family, τ-estimators are asymptotically equivalent to multivariate S-estimators defined by means of a weighted ψ-function. This enables us to combine a high breakdown point and bounded influence with good asymptotic efficiency for the location and covariance estimator.     

Minimax sequential tests of composite hypotheses on the drift of a Wiener process

A Wiener process with unknown drift parameter μ is, beginning at O, observed continuously and one has to decide between the hypotheses μ≤0 and μ>0. For loss functions of the form sμ^r and linear cost functions one wants to determine a minimax sequential test. Generalizing the results of DeGroot (1960) a minimax test in the class of all symmetrical SPRT’s is given in an explicit form. On the other hand it is shown that this SPRT is, in general, no longer minimax in the class of all sequential tests.     

Of rotten kids and Rawlsian parents: The optimal timing of intergenerational transfers

This paper shows that altruistic parents with utilitarian preferences may fare better if they transfer resources to their children early in life instead of delaying the bulk of transfers until after their death. Moreover, the outcome of the analysed “family transfer game” is not Pareto-efficient in the case of bequests. However, if altruistic parents hold Rawlsian preferences, they will be indifferent between gifts and bequests, and Pareto-efficiency is always obtained. In intermediate cases of Atkinson-type welfare functions, welfare losses of bequests compared to gifts disappear as the aversion to inequality converges to infinity. Received: 3 November 1998/Accepted: 4 May 1999