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Kurt Laitner

Asia Times Online :: Nondominium - the Caspian solution - 0 views

  • A Caspian partnership The proposal is that the littoral states should form a Caspian Foundation legal entity, and commit to that entity all existing rights in respect of the use, and the fruits of use (usufruct), of the Caspian Sea, and everything on it, in it, or under it. The Caspian Foundation would act as custodian or steward and the nations would have agreed governance rights of veto. This negative or passive veto right of stewardship is very different from conventional property rights of absolute ownership and temporary use under condominium. Moreover, it does not have the active power of control held under common law by a trustee on behalf of beneficiaries, and the legal complexities and management conflicts which go with it. The Caspian Foundation would be a subscriber to a Caspian Partnership framework agreement between the nations, investors of money or money's worth, and a consortium of service providers. This Caspian Partnership would not be yet another international organization, with everything that goes with that. It would not own anything, employ anyone or contract with anyone: it would simply be an associative framework agreement within which Caspian nations self-organize to the common purpose of the sustainable development of the Caspian Sea.
  • Nondominium - the Caspian solution By Chris Cook Twenty-first century problems cannot be solved with 20th century solutions. Nowhere is that saying so true as in territorial disputes where oil and gas are involved. The riches of the Caspian Sea have been the subject of dispute for years, and relatively simple - but still intractable - binary issues between Iran and Russia are now multiplied by the conflicting claims of what are now five littoral Caspian nations: Azerbaijan, Iran; Kazakhstan; Russia and Turkmenistan. Their claims relate not just to rights on the Caspian Sea surface, but to rights in the sea, and above all to the rights to the treasures that lie under it. There are two 20th century legal approaches: international law //ad information var tf_adModel = "FEV"; var tf_adType = "InBannerVideo"; var tf_commonLocation = "http://cdnx.tribalfusion.com/media/common/expand/"; //leave this variable as it is var tf_cookieFlash = "http://cdnx.tribalfusion.com/media/common/TFSObj_v2s"; var tf_isExpansionHandle = true; var tf_floatAdScriptPath = "http://cdnx.tribalfusion.com/media/common/floating/TF_FloatAdLibrary.js"; var tf_zoomFlash = "http://cdnx.tribalfusion.com/media/common/floating/TFScale_v1"; var tf_banner = { "flag" : "inBanner", "width" : 300, "height" : 250, "widthExpanded" : 600, "heightExpanded" : 450, "widthFloating" : 950, "heightFloating" : 570, "iWin" : [ ], "flashFile" : "http://cdnx.tribalfusion.com/media/4523336/Glow_Banner_Square_Template_V201", extraFlashVars:"tf_showPanelonLoad=true&tf_phase2=false", "video_expand" : "http://cdnx.tribalfusion.com/media/4523336/video.flv", "imageFile" : 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  • A Caspian partnership The proposal is that the littoral states should form a Caspian Foundation legal entity, and commit to that entity all existing rights in respect of the use, and the fruits of use (usufruct), of the Caspian Sea, and everything on it, in it, or under it. The Caspian Foundation would act as custodian or steward and the nations would have agreed governance rights of veto. This negative or passive veto right of stewardship is very different from conventional property rights of absolute ownership and temporary use under condominium. Moreover, it does not have the active power of control held under common law by a trustee on behalf of beneficiaries, and the legal complexities and management conflicts which go with it. The Caspian Foundation would be a subscriber to a Caspian Partnership framework agreement between the nations, investors of money or money's worth, and a consortium of service providers. This Caspian Partnership would not be yet another international organization, with everything that goes with that. It would not own anything, employ anyone or contract with anyone: it would simply be an associative framework agreement within which Caspian nations self-organize to the common purpose of the sustainable development of the Caspian Sea.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • A Caspian partnership The proposal is that the littoral states should form a Caspian Foundation legal entity, and commit to that entity all existing rights in respect of the use, and the fruits of use (usufruct), of the Caspian Sea, and everything on it, in it, or under it. The Caspian Foundation would act as custodian or steward and the nations would have agreed governance rights of veto. This negative or passive veto right of stewardship is very different from conventional property rights of absolute ownership and temporary use under condominium. Moreover, it does not have the active power of control held under common law by a trustee on behalf of beneficiaries, and the legal complexities and management conflicts which go with it. The Caspian Foundation would be a subscriber to a Caspian Partnership framework agreement between the nations, investors of money or money's worth, and a consortium of service providers. This Caspian Partnership would not be yet another international organization, with everything that goes with that. It would not own anything, employ anyone or contract with anyone: it would simply be an associative framework agreement within which Caspian nations self-organize to the common purpose of the sustainable development of the Caspian Sea.
Francois Bergeron

Displacement | Microstrain - 0 views

  • MicroStrain offers a range of miniature displacement sensors.  These include contact sensors, non-contact sensors, and signal conditioners. Within our contact sensors, we offer gauging, non-gauging, sub-miniature (very small) and micro-miniature (smallest available on the market) displacement sensor designs.  MicroStrain displacement/position sensors are known as DVRTs (Differential Variable Reluctance Transducers) which are half-bridge LVDTs (Linear Variable Differential Transformers).  Our DVRTs deliver a very high linear stroke range to body length ratio, and can be used in environments where traditional LVDTs are too large.  MicroStrain’s miniature displacement transducers are extremely robust, capable of operating at temperatures up to 175°C in corrosive media such as saline, oil, and brake fluid.  The near frictionless design enables sensors to operate over millions of cycles without wear or degradation in signal quality.
  • croStrain offers a range of miniature displacement sensors.  These include contact sensors, non-contact sensors, and signal conditioners. Within our contact sensors, we offer gauging, non-gauging, sub-miniature (very small) and micro-miniature (smallest available on the market) displacement sensor designs.  MicroStrain displacement/position sensors are known as DVRTs (Differential Variable Reluctance Transducers) which are half-bridge LVDTs (Linear Variable Differential Transformers).  Our DVRTs deliver a very high linear stroke range to body length ratio, and can be used in environments where traditional LVDTs are too large.  MicroStrain’s miniature displacement transducers are extremely robust, capable of operating at temperatures up to 175°C in corrosive media such as saline, oil, and brake fluid.  The near frictionless design enables sensors to operate over millions of cycles without wear or degradation in signal quality. MicroStrain’s displacement sensing products including transducers, signal conditioners, and motherboards. These systems provide highly precise measurement solutions. MicroStrain’s contact displacement transducers deliver highly precise linear measurements with an extremely small, miniature design.  Both gauging and non-gauging displacement transducers are available. Our non-contact displacement transducers are designed to measure the displacement and proximity of a metal target without physical contact. MicroStrain offers wireless, analog, and digital output DVRT signal conditioners. Signal conditioners are required for use with MicroStrain DVRT displacement sensors.   .familyNav1, .familyNav2, .familyNav3, .familyNav4 { background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #CCCCCC; color: #FFFFFF; display: block; font-size: 14px; margin: 1px 0; padding: 6px 0 3px 6px; text-decoration: none; } .familyNav1:hover, .familyNav2:hover, .familyNav3:hover, .familyNav4:hover { opacity:1.0; filter:alpha(opacity=100); } .familyNav1:hover, .familyNav1.live { background:#0468AD; } .familyNav2:hover, .familyNav2.live{ background:#32641E; } .familyNav3:hover, .familyNav3.live{ background:#B55A11; } .familyNav4:hover, .familyNav4.live{ background:#76285D; } .familySub { margin: -1px 0 0; opacity:0.7; filter:alpha(opacity=80); font-size:12px; } .familySub img { width: 22px; } WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS
Tiberius Brastaviceanu

What is an ontology and why we need it - 1 views

  • an ontology designer makes these decisions based on the structural properties of a class.
  • an ontology is a formal explicit description of concepts in a domain of discourse (classes (sometimes called concepts)), properties of each concept describing various features and attributes of the concept (slots (sometimes called roles or properties)), and restrictions on slots (facets (sometimes called role restrictions)). An ontology together with a set of individual instances of classes constitutes a knowledge base. In reality, there is a fine line where the ontology ends and the knowledge base begins.
  • Classes describe concepts in the domain
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • A class can have subclasses that represent concepts that are more specific than the superclass.
  • Here we discuss general issues to consider and offer one possible process for developing an ontology. We describe an iterative approach to ontology development: we start with a rough first pass at the ontology. We then revise and refine the evolving ontology and fill in the details. Along the way, we discuss the modeling decisions that a designer needs to make, as well as the pros, cons, and implications of different solutions.
  • In practical terms, developing an ontology includes: �         defining classes in the ontology, �         arranging the classes in a taxonomic (subclass–superclass) hierarchy, �         defining slots and describing allowed values for these slots, �         filling in the values for slots for instances.
  • We can then create a knowledge base by defining individual instances of these classes filling in specific slot value information and additional slot restrictions.
  • Slots describe properties of classes and instances:
  • some fundamental rules in ontology design
  • There is no one correct way to model a domain— there are always viable alternatives. The best solution almost always depends on the application that you have in mind and the extensions that you anticipate. 2)      Ontology development is necessarily an iterative process. 3)      Concepts in the ontology should be close to objects (physical or logical) and relationships in your domain of interest. These are most likely to be nouns (objects) or verbs (relationships) in sentences that describe your domain.
  • how detailed or general the ontology is going to be
  • what we are going to use the ontology for
  • concepts in the ontology must reflect this reality
  • We suggest starting the development of an ontology by defining its domain and scope. That is, answer several basic questions: �         What is the domain that the ontology will cover? �         For what  we are going to use the ontology? �         For what types of questions the information in the ontology should provide answers? �         Who will use and maintain the ontology?
  • plan to use
  • domain
  • If the people who will maintain the ontology describe the domain in a language that is different from the language of the ontology users, we may need to provide the mapping between the languages.
  • One of the ways to determine the scope of the ontology is to sketch a list of questions that a knowledge base based on the ontology should be able to answer, competency questions
  • These competency questions are just a sketch and do not need to be exhaustive.
Tiberius Brastaviceanu

Google Apps Script - introduction - 0 views

  • Google Apps Script provides you with the ability to build a user interface for displaying or capturing information.
  • Viewing the Available User Interface Elements
  • Your scripts can display the user interface in two ways:
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  • from a Spreadsheet
  • from a Site
  • As a stand-alone servlet
  • Deciding Whether to Run a Script from a Spreadsheet or as a Service
  • The built-in code autocomplete functionality in the editor requires you to type the trailing period that follows app.
  • Plan the script. What tasks should the script accomplish?
  • Write down the specific information you want to display to or collect from your users.
  • Draw the user interface
  • Determine what the script and interface should do in response to any user input.
  • Determine the conditions for exiting the script.
  • you need a UiApp application object to contain the user interface elements. After you create the UiApp application object, you can add buttons, dialog boxes, panels, and other elements to the UiApp application object.
  • The general syntax for these operations is as follows:
  • To create a UiApp application object, use the syntax var your_application_object_name = UiApp.createApplication();
  • To create a user interface element and associate it with your UiApp application object, use the syntax var your_ui_element_name= your_application_object_name.createElement_Name();.
  • To add one user interface element to another
  • use the syntax your_ui_element_name1.add(your_ui_element_name2);
  • a button with the text Press Me on it:
  • creates a vertical panel.
  • other kinds of panels
  • pop-up panels, stack panels, focus panels, form panels, and so on.
  • code for displaying your button on the panel:
  • add the panel to the application:
  • nstruct Google Apps Script to display the interface elements:
  • You can create the user interface elements in any order.
  • the display order
  • Creating the elements and adding them to your application are separate steps requiring separate instructions.
  • a short script that does nothing but display a panel with a button on it.
  • You can chain together setter methods
  • sets its title
  • set the size of the object:
  • how to use Grid objects and the setWidget method to create a more complex layout and also how to create text boxes and label them.
  • To make a user interface useful, you need the ability to update a Spreadsheet with information a user enters from the interface.
  • a short script that responds to an action in the interface by updating the Spreadsheet.
  • looping structure in the script to keep the panel displayed and active
  • Server-side means that the actions are performed by a server
  • same script, with functions added that enable the form to be used multiple times before a user chooses to exit.
  • script collects some information from text fields on a panel and writes that information into the Spreadsheet.
  • You can make a script's user interface available to users from inside a Spreadsheet or Site or by running it separately as a service.
  • how to make the user interface as a service.
  • A script that provides a stand-alone user interface must invoke the doGet(e) function or the doPost(e) function for an HTML form submit.
  • A script that provides the user interface from the Spreadsheet invokes doc.show(app).
  • The doGet(e) function takes the argument e, passing in the arguments for the user interface, including the user name of the person invoking the script.
  • After you write the script, you publish it as a service. During the publishing process, you define who has access to the script.
  • In a Google Apps domain, you can publish the script so that only you have access or so that everyone in the domain has access.
  • In a Google consumer account, you can publish the script so that only you have access or so that everyone in the world has access.
  • Updating a Spreadsheet from the User Interface, the user interface is displayed from the Spreadsheet where the script is stored. The following code defines how the user interface is displayed:
  • Here's the skeleton code for displaying a user interface as a stand-alone service:
  • some aspects of the two ways to display a user interface.
Kurt Laitner

Stanford scientists put free text-analysis tool on the web | Engineering - 1 views

  •  
    Perhaps useful tool
Tiberius Brastaviceanu

Innovation Canada: A Call to Action - Review of Federal Support to Research and Develop... - 1 views

  • Canada has a solid foundation on which to build success as a leader in the knowledge economy of tomorrow
  • innovation in Canada lags behind other highly developed countries
  • innovation is the ultimate source of the long-term competitiveness of businesses and the quality of life of Canadians
  • ...28 more annotations...
  • We heard that the government should be more focussed on helping innovative firms to grow and, particularly, on serving the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
  • greater cooperation with provincial programs
  • innovation support is too narrowly focussed on R&D – more support is needed for other activities along the continuum from ideas to commercially useful innovation
  • more productive and internationally competitive economy
  • whole-of-government program delivery vehicle – the Industrial Research and Innovation Council (IRIC)
  • SR&ED program should be simplified
  • includes non-labour costs, such as materials and capital equipment, the calculation of which can be highly complex
  • the base for the tax credit should be labour-related costs, and the tax credit rate should be adjusted upward
  • fund direct support measures for SMEs
  • promoting the growth of firms
  • facilitating access by such firms to an increased supply of risk capital at both the start-up and later stages of their growth.
  • building public–private research collaborations
  • National Research Council (NRC) should become independent collaborative research organizations
  • become affiliates of universities
  • create opportunity and demand for leading-edge goods
  • encouragement of innovation in the Canadian economy should become a stated objective of procurement policies and programs.
  • the government needs to establish business innovation as a whole-of-government priority
  • put innovation at the centre of the government's economic strategy
  • Innovation Advisory Committee (IAC) – a body with a whole-of-government focus that would oversee the realization of our proposed action plan, as well as serve as a permanent mechanism to promote the refinement and improvement of the government's business innovation programs going forward.
  • focus resources where market forces are unlikely to operate effectively or efficiently and, in that context, address the full range of business innovation activities, including research, development, commercialization and collaboration with other key actors in the innovation ecosystem
  • the closer the activity being supported is to market, and therefore the more likely it is that the recipient firm will capture most of the benefit for itself.
  • specific sectors
  • of strategic importance
  • concentrated in particular regions
  • succeed in the arena of global competition
    • Tiberius Brastaviceanu
       
      They don't go beyond the firm
    • Tiberius Brastaviceanu
       
      they are still stuck in the competitive paradigm
    • Tiberius Brastaviceanu
       
      Still stack with the old paradigm of the "knowledge economy"  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_economy  My opinion is that we're moving into a know-how economy. 
Kurt Laitner

UK Indymedia - WOS4: The Creative Anti-Commons and the Poverty of Networks - 0 views

  • Something with no reproduction costs can have no exchange-value in a context of free exchange.
  • Further, unless it can be converted into exchange-value, how can the peer producers be able to acquire the material needs for their own subsistence?
  • For Social Production to have any effect on general material wealth it has to operate within the context of a total system of goods and services, where the physical means of production and the virtual means of production are both available in the commons for peer production.
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  • "All texts published in Situationist International may be freely reproduced, translated and edited, even without crediting the original source."
  • The website of the creative commons makes the following statement about it's purpose: "Creative Commons defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright -- all rights reserved -- and the public domain -- no rights reserved. Our licenses help you keep your copyright while inviting certain uses of your work -- a 'some rights reserved' copyright."
  • The website of the creative commons makes the following statement about it's purpose: "Creative Commons defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright -- all rights reserved -- and the public domain -- no rights reserved. Our licenses help you keep your copyright while inviting certain uses of your work -- a 'some rights reserved' copyright."
  • Or more specifically, who is a position to convert the use-value available in the "commons" into the exchange-value needed to acquire essential subsistence or accumulate wealth?
  • All texts published in Situationist International may be freely reproduced, translated and edited, even without crediting the original source
  • The point of the above is clear, the Creative Commons, is to help "you" (the "Producer") to keep control of "your" work. The right of the "consumer" is not mentioned, neither is the division of "producer" and "consumer" disputed.
  • Creative "Commons" is thus really an Anti-Commons, serving to legitimise, rather than deny, Producer-control and serving to enforce, rather than do away with, the distinction between producer and consumer
  • specifically providing a framework then, for "producers" to deny "consumers" the right to either create use-value or material exchange-value of the "common" stock of value in the Creative "Commons" in their own cultural production
  • Thus, the very problem presented by Lawrence Lessig, the problem of Producer-control, is not in anyway solved by the presented solution, the Creative Commons, so long as the producer has the exclusive right to chose the level of freedom to grant the consumer, a right which Lessig has always maintained support for
  • The Free Software foundation, publishers of the GPL, take a very different approach in their definition of "free," insisting on the "four freedoms:" The Freedom to use, the freedom to study, the freedom to share, and the freedom to modify.
  • The website of the creative commons makes the following statement about it's purpose: "Creative Commons defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright -- all rights reserved -- and the public domain -- no rights reserved. Our licenses help you keep your copyright while inviting certain uses of your work -- a 'some rights reserved' copyright
  • In all these cases what is evident is that the freedom being insisted upon is the freedom of the consumer to use and produce, not the "freedom" of the producer to control.
  • Moreover, proponents of free cultural must be firm in denying the right of Producer-control and denying the enforcement of distinction between producer and consumer
  • where a class-less community of workers ("peers") produce collaboratively within a property-less ("commons-based") society
  • Clearly, even Marx would agree that the ideal of Communism was commons-based peer production
  • the property in the commons is entirely non-rivalrous property
  • The use-value of this information commons is fantastic
  • However, if commons-based peer-production is limited exclusively to a commons made of digital property with virtual no reproduction costs then how can the use-value produced be translated into exchange-value?
  • Further, unless it can be converted into exchange-value, how can the peer producers be able to acquire the material needs for their own subsistence
  • The root of the problem of poverty does not lay in a lack of culture or information
  • but of direct exploitation of the producing class by the property owning classes
  • The source of poverty is not reproduction costs, but rather extracted economic rents, forcing the producers to accept less than the full product of their labour as their wage by denying them independent access to the means of production
  • So long as commons-based peer-production is applied narrowly to only an information commons, while the capitalist mode of production still dominates the production of material wealth, owners of material property, namely land and capital, will continue to capture the marginal wealth created as a result of the productivity of the information commons.
  • Whatever exchange value is derived from the information commons will always be captured by owners of real property, which lays outside the commons.
  • For Social Production to have any effect on general material wealth it has to operate within the context of a total system of goods and services, where the physical means of production and the virtual means of production are both available in the commons for peer production
  • For free cultural to create a valuable common stock it must destroy the privilege of the producer to control the common stock, and for this common stock to increase the real material wealth of peer producers, the commons must include real property, not just information
  •  
    Strong grasp of the issues, not entirely in agreement on the thesis that the solution is the removal of producer control as this does not support the initiation of an economy, only its ongoing function once established, and the economy is continuously intiating itself, so it is not a one time problem. I do support the notion that producers are in fact none other than consumers of prior art but also that effort is required to remix as much as the magical creation out of nothing. In order to incent this behavior then (or even merely to allow it) the basic scarce needs of the individual must be taken care of. This may be done by ensuring beneficial ownership, but even that suffers from the initiation problem, which the requires us to have a pool of wealth to kickstart the thing by supporting every last person on earth with a basic income - that wealth is in fact available...
Tiberius Brastaviceanu

Designing the Void | Management Innovation eXchange - 0 views

    • Tiberius Brastaviceanu
       
      This is about self-organization, putting in place bounderies and internal mechanisms to make the the system self-organize into something desirable.  You can see this from a game theory perspective - how to set a game which will drive a specific human behavior. 
    • Tiberius Brastaviceanu
       
      This is about self-organization, putting in place bounderies and internal mechanisms to make the the system self-organize into something desirable.  You can see this from a game theory perspective - how to set a game which will drive a specific human behavior. 
    • Tiberius Brastaviceanu
       
      Very similar to SENSORICA, an environment of entrepreneurs. The argument against this is that not everyone is a risk taker or has initiative. The answer to it is that not every role in the organization requires that. 
    • Tiberius Brastaviceanu
       
      Very similar to SENSORICA, an environment of entrepreneurs. The argument against this is that not everyone is a risk taker or has initiative. The answer to it is that not every role in the organization requires that. 
  • The system is not made up of artifacts but rather an elegantly designed void. He says “I prefer to use the analogy of rescuing an endangered species from extinction, rather than engaging in an invasive breeding program the focus should be on the habitat that supports the species. Careful crafting of the habitat by identifying the influential factors; removing those that are detrimental, together with reinforcing those that are encouraging, the species will naturally re-establish itself. Crafting the habitat is what I mean by designing the void.”
  • ...75 more annotations...
  • It is essential that autonomy is combined with responsibility.
  • staff typically manage the whole work process from making sales, manufacture, accounts, to dispatch
  • they are also responsible for managing their own capitalization; a form of virtual ownership develops. Everything they need for their work, from office furniture to high-end machinery will appear on their individual balance sheet; or it will need to be bought in from somewhere else in the company on a pay-as-you go or lease basis. All aspects of the capital deployed in their activities must be accounted for and are therefore treated with the respect one accords one’s own property.
    • Tiberius Brastaviceanu
       
      So they have a value accounting system, like SENSORICA, where they log "uses" and "consumes". 
    • Tiberius Brastaviceanu
       
      ...
    • Tiberius Brastaviceanu
       
      So they have a value accounting system, like SENSORICA, where they log "uses" and "consumes".  
  • The result is not simply a disparate set of individuals doing their own thing under the same roof. Together they benefit from an economy of scale as well as their combined resources to tackle large projects; they are an interconnected whole. They have in common a brand, which they jointly represent, and also a business management system (the Say-Do-Prove system) - consisting not only of system-wide boundaries but also proprietary business management software which helps each take care of the back-end accounting and administrative processing. The effect is a balance between freedom and constraint, individualism and social process.
  • embodiment of meaning
  • But culture is a much more personal phenomenon
  • Culture is like climate- it does not exist in and of itself- it cannot exist in a vacuum, it must exist within a medium.
  • underlying culture
  • Incompatibility between the presenting culture and the underlying one provide a great source of tension
  • The truth of course is that when tension builds to a critical level it takes just a small perturbation to burst the bubble and the hidden culture reveals itself powered by the considerable pent-up energy.
    • Tiberius Brastaviceanu
       
      SENSORICA had this problem of different cultures, and it caused the 2 crisis in 2014. 
    • Tiberius Brastaviceanu
       
      SENSORICA had this problem of different cultures, and it caused the 2 crisis in 2014. 
  • Consider again the idea that for the health of an endangered species; the conditions in their habitat must be just right. In business, the work environment can be considered analogous to this idea of habitat.
  • A healthy environment is one that provides a blank canvas; it should be invisible in that it allows culture to be expressed without taint
  • The over-arching, high-level obligations are applied to the organization via contractual and legal terms.
  • But it is these obligations that the traditional corporate model separates out into functions and then parcels off to distinct groups. The effect is that a clear sight of these ‘higher’ obligations by the people at the front-end is obstructed. The overall sense of responsibility is not transmitted but gets lost in the distortions, discontinuities and contradictions inherent in the corporate systems of hierarchy and functionalization.
  • employees are individually rewarded for their contribution to each product. They are not “compensated” for the hours spent at work. If an employee wants to calculate their hourly rate, then they are free to do so however, they are only rewarded for the outcome not the duration of their endeavors.
  • Another simplification is the application of virtual accounts (Profit and Loss (P&L) account and Balance Sheet) on each person within the business.
  • The company systems simply provide a mechanism for cheaply measuring the success of each individual’s choices. For quality the measure is customer returns, for delivery it is an on-time-and-in-full metric and profit is expressed in terms of both pounds sterling and ROI (return on investment).
    • Tiberius Brastaviceanu
       
      They have a value accounting system. 
    • Tiberius Brastaviceanu
       
      They have a value accounting system. 
  • The innumerable direct links back to an external reality -like the fragile ties that bound giant Gulliver, seem much more effective at aligning the presenting culture and the underlying embodied culture, and in doing so work to remove the existing tension.
  • With a culture that responds directly to reality, the rules in the environment can be “bounding” rather than “binding”- limiting rather than instructive; this way individual behavior need not be directed at all. The goal is to free the individual to express himself fully through his work, bounded only by the limits of the law. With clever feedback (self-referencing feedback loops) integrated into the design, the individuals can themselves grow to collectively take charge of the system boundaries, culture and even the environment itself, always minded of the inherent risks they are balancing, leaving the law of the land as the sole artificial boundary.
  • the conventional company, which, instead of rewarding enterprise, trains compliance by suppressing individual initiative under layer upon layer of translation tools.
  • apply accountability to the individual not command-and-control.
  • without the divisive and overbearing management cabal the natural reaction of humans is to combine their efforts
  • a new member of staff at Matt Black Systems
  • recruited by another staff member (sponsor) and they will help you learn the basics of the business management system- they will help you get to know the ropes.
  • jobs are passed to new staff members, a royalty payment can be established on the work passed over.
  • Along with that job you will be given a cash float (risk capital), P&L Account, a Balance Sheet and computer software to help plan and record your activities. Your operation is monitored by your sponsor to see if you increase the margin or volume, and so establish a sustainable operation. Training and mentoring is provided to support the steep learning curve - but without removing the responsibility of producing a return on the sponsor’s risk capital.
  • You will, in the meantime be looking to establish some of your own work for which you will not have to pay a commission or royalty to your sponsor and this will provide you with more profitable operations such that eventually you might pass back to the sponsor the original operation, as it has become your lowest margin activity. It will then find its way to a new employee (along with the associated Balance Sheet risk capital) where the process is repeated by the sponsor.[4]
  • Remuneration for staff is calibrated in a way that reflects the balance of different forces around ‘pay’
  • there is an obligation upon the company to pay a minimum wage even if the profitability of the operation does not support this
  • there are therefore two aspects of the basic pay structure: one is “absolute” and reflects the entrepreneurial skill level of the employee according to a sophisticated grading scale
  • A further 20% of the original profit will be paid into his risk capital account, which will be his responsibility to deploy in any way he sees fit as part of his Balance Sheet. Of the three remaining 20% slices of the original profit, one is paid out as corporation tax, another as a dividend to the shareholders and the last retained as collective risk capital on the company’s balance sheet- a war chest so to speak.
  • Julian Wilson and Andrew Holm sell products / services to their staff (such as office space and software) they have an identical customer/supplier relationship with the other employees.
  • Naturally there are some people that can’t generate a profit. The sponsor’s risk capital will eventually be consumed through pay. After a process of rescue and recovery- where their shortcomings are identified and they are given the opportunity to put them right, they either improve or leave, albeit with a sizeable increase in their skills.
  • there is a gradual process of accustomisation; the void of the new employee is surrounded by others dealing with their particular activities, offering both role models and operations they may wish to relinquish. One step at a time the new employee acquires the skills to become completely self-managing, to increase their margins, to make investments, to find new business, to become a creator of their own success. Ultimately, they learn to be an entrepreneur.
  • responsible autonomy as an alternative vision to traditional hierarchy
  • Matt Black Systems it is not simply commitment that they targeted in their employees, rather they aim for the specific human qualities they sum up as magic- those of curiosity, imagination, creativity, cooperation, self-discipline and realization (bringing ideas to reality).
  • a new form of association of individuals working together under the umbrella of a company structure: a kind of collective autonomy
  • The business is called Matt Black Systems, based in Poole in dorset
  • Turning an organisation on its head- removing all management, establishing a P&L account and Balance Sheet on everyone in the organisation and having customers payment go first into the respective persons P&L account has revolutionised this company. 
  • This innovative company’s approach views business success as wholly reliant upon human agency, and its wellspring at the individual level.
  • problem (of unnecessarily high overheads placed on production) that arguably is behind the decline in western manufacturing
  • over-managed business
  • Autonomy Enables Productivity
  • organizational design brings to light the unconscious socio-philosophical paradigm of the society in which it exists, organizational development points to how change occurs.
  • a mechanistic approach to organization
  • scientific management employs rationalism and determinism in pursuit of efficiency, but leaves no place for self-determination for most people within the system.
  • Command and Control
  • today, a really “modern” view of an organization is more likely to be depicted in terms that are akin to an organism.
  • When it comes to getting work done, the simple question is: are people the problem or the solution?
  • the Taylorist approach may be more real in theory than in practice: its instrumentalist view of the workforce is cursed by unintended consequences. When workers have no space for their own creative expression, when they are treated like automata not unique individuals, when they become demotivated and surly, when they treat their work as a necessary evil; this is no recipe for a functional organization.
  • The natural, human reaction to this is unionization, defiance and even outright rebellion; to counter this, management grows larger and more rigid in pursuit of compliance, organizations become top heavy with staff who do not contribute directly to the process of value creation but wield power over those who do.
  • voluntary slavery of ‘wagery’
  • Even when disgruntled employees strike free and start their own businesses they seem unable to resist the hegemony of the conventional command-and-control approach
  • Making the transition involves adherence to a whole new sociology of work with all the challenging social and psychological implications that brings.
  • first principal that people in the business have the ability to provide the solution
  • In the “theory of constraints” the goal is to align front-line staff into a neat, compact line for maximum efficiency. Surely the most considered approach is to have front-line staff self-align in pursuit of their individual goals?
  • The removal of hierarchy and specialization is key to a massive improvement in both profitability and productivity. In summary: there are no managers in the company, or foremen, or sales staff, or finance departments; the company is not functionally compartmentalized and there is no hierarchy of command. In fact every member of staff operates as a virtual micro-business with their own Profit & Loss account and Balance Sheet, they manage their own work and see processes through from end to end
  • Formal interaction between colleagues takes place via “customer and supplier” relationships.
  • autonomy enables productivity
  • if one creates a space in which staff pursue their own goals and are not paid by the hour, they will focus on their activities not the clock; if they are not told what to do, they will need to develop their own initiative; if they are free to develop their own processes, they will discover through their own creative faculties how to work more productively- in pursuit of their goals
  • The human qualities which are of greatest potential value to the business are: curiosity, imagination, creativity, cooperation, self-discipline and realization (bringing ideas to reality)
  • These qualities are the very ones most likely to be withheld by an individual when the environment is ‘wrong’.
  • Any elements in the business environment that undermine the autonomy and purpose of the individual will see the above qualities withheld
  • High on the list of undermining elements come power-hierarchy and over-specialization
  • the responsibility of the individual is formalized, specified and restricted. An improved system is not one where responsibility is distributed perfectly but rather one where there is simply no opportunity for responsibility to be lost (via the divisions between the chunks). Systems must be reorganized so responsibility -the most essential of qualities -is protected and wholly preserved.
  • Matt Black Systems believe this can only be done by containing the whole responsibility within an individual, holding them both responsible and giving them ‘response-ability’
  • The experience of Matt Black Systems demonstrates that radical change is possible
  • productivity is up 300%, the profit margin is up 10%[3], customer perception has shifted from poor to outstanding, product returns are at less than 1%, “on time and in full” delivery is greater than 96%, pay has increased 100%.
  • staff develop broader and deeper skills and feel greater job security; they get direct feedback from their customers which all go to fuel self-confidence and self-esteem.
  • the staff manage themselves
  • “only variety can absorb variety”.
  • What is particular about their story is that behind it is a very consciously crafted design that surrounds the individualism of each person with hard boundaries of the customer, the law and the business. It is these boundaries rather than the instructive persona of ‘the boss’ that gives rise to the discipline in which individuals can develop. Autonomy is not the same as freedom, at least not in the loose sense of ‘do as you please’. An autonomous person is a person who has become self-governing, who has developed a capacity for self-regulation, quite a different notion from the absence of boundaries. Indeed, it is with establishing the right boundaries that the business philosophy is most concerned. The company provides the crucible in which the individual can develop self-expression but the container itself is bounded. Wilson calls this “designing the void”. This crucible is carefully constructed from an all-encompassing, interconnecting set of boundaries that provide an ultimate limit to behaviours (where they would fall foul of the law or take risks with catastrophic potential). It is an illusion to think, as a director of a company, that you are not engaged in a process of social conditioning; the basis of the culture is both your responsibility and the result of your influence. The trick is to know what needs to be defined and what needs to be left open. The traditional authoritarian, controlling characters that often dominate business are the antithesis of this in their drive to fill this void with process, persona and instruction. Alternatively, creating an environment that fosters enterprise, individuals discover how to be enterprising.
Francois Bergeron

About Acreo - Acreo - 0 views

  • Finance Acreo is an independent non-profit research institute. A research institute works to facilitate the commercialization of research and to strengthen collaboration between industry and academic research.
Tiberius Brastaviceanu

Google Apps Script - introduction - 0 views

  • control over Google products
  • can access and control Google Spreadsheets and other products
  • scripts
  • ...44 more annotations...
  • run directly on Google servers in order to provide direct access to the products they control.
  • can also use Google Apps Script from Google Sites
  • Google Apps Script Template Gallery
  • Google Apps Script Blog
  • guide contains the information you need to use Google Apps Script, a server-side scripting language, based on JavaScript, that runs on Google's servers alongside Google Apps
  • enable varying degrees of interactivity among the applications
  • easy enough to use that you don't have to be a programmer to create scripts.
  • use it to automate complex tasks within Google Apps
  • You don't have to be a programmer to use Google Apps Script
  • A script is a series of instructions you write in a computer language to accomplish a particular task. You type in the instructions and save them as a script. The script runs only under circumstances you define.
  • The Google Apps Script API provides a set of objects. You can use these objects and their associates methods to access Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Gmail, Google Finance, and other Google applications.
  • To run a script, you must first add the script to a Google Spreadsheet or Google Site using the Script Editor.
  • You can retrieve information from a wide selection of Google Apps and Services and from external sources, including web pages and XML sources. You can use Google Apps Script to create email, spreadsheets, pages on Google Sites, and files in the Google Docs Document List.
  • The instructions in a script are grouped into functions.
  • objects
  • methods
  • for such tasks
  • Create pages on a Google Site
  • Customize a Spreadsheet
  • Send email based on information in a Spreadsheet
  • You can manipulate
  • numeric
  • financial
  • string
  • an XML document
  • controlling data in the following applications
  • Spreadsheets
  • Google Document List
  • Contacts
  • Calendar
  • Sites
  • Google Maps
  • create and display interactive user interface elements
  • interact with relational database management systems
  • create folders, subfolders, and files in the Google Docs document list
  • access to user, session, and browser information
  • access to web services
  • extract data from XML documents and then manipulate that data
  • obtain translations of text from one language to another
  • send email
  • UrlFetch services
  • encode and decode strings and format dates
  • store properties on a per-script and per-user basis
  • create, delete and update contact information for individuals and for groups in Google Contacts
Tiberius Brastaviceanu

Google Apps Script - introduction - 0 views

  • Use the Script Editor to write and run scripts, to set triggers, and to perform other actions such as sharing scripts.
  • start the Script Editor from a Google Site
  • declares a function called myFunction()
  • ...69 more annotations...
  • You can perform the following tasks from the Script Editor.
  • pening, deleting, renaming, and saving scripts
  • Cutting, copying, and pasting text
  • Find and replace
  • Setting a time zone
  • scripts with time-based triggers
  • Running functions
  • Viewing log messages
  • revision history
  • write pseudocode first
  • When you're planning a script
  • narrative version of what the script needs to do.
  • A particular script is associated with one and only one Google Spreadsheet.
  • If you make a copy of the Spreadsheet, the script is also copied.
  • A particular Spreadsheet can have multiple scripts associated with it.
  • use the onOpen event handler in more than one script associated with a particular Spreadsheet, all scripts begin to execute when you open the Spreadsheet and the order in which the scripts are executed is indeterminate.
  • event handler is a function executed when a particular event takes place.
  • see Running Scripts in Response to an Event.
  • A script cannot currently call or create another script and cannot call functions in another script.
  • If you want to store the results of a function, you must copy them into a spreadsheet cell.
  • You can trigger Apps Script events from links that are embedded in a Google Site. For information about how to do this, see Using Apps Scrip in Your Ssite.
  • You can insert a script into a Site as a gadget.
  • you must grant permission for the script to run as a service.
  • You also designate whether only you can invoke the service or whether all members of your domain can invoke the service.
  • you can assign functions within the script any arbitrary name.
  • The instructions in a function must be enclosed within curly braces.
  • event handler
  • when a spreadsheet is opened,
  • when a script is installed
  • when a spreadsheet is edited
  • at times you choose
  • menu item
  • Using a drawing or button embedded in a Spreadsheet
  • Using a custom function that is referenced as a Spreadsheet function
  • Clicking the Run button
  • object-oriented programming languages
  • Google Apps Script uses the JavaScript language.
  • Operations
  • are performed using the objects and methods described in the API documentation.
  • An API provides pre-packaged code for standard tasks you need to accomplish in scripts or programs.
  • API includes objects that you use to accomplish tasks such as sending email, creating calendar entries
  • A method describes the behavior of an object and is a function attached to an object.
  • MailApp
  • use to create and send email
  • To send email, you invoke the sendEmail method and provide values for the method arguments.
  • Google Apps Script can access or retrieve data in different formats in different ways.
  • A custom function
  • is called directly from a cell in a Spreadsheet using the syntax =myFunctionName()
  • they cannot set values outside the cells
  • have some restrictions not shared by other functions
  • cannot send email
  • cannot operate on a Google Site
  • cannot perform any operations that require user authorization
  • cannot perform any operations that require knowledge of who the user
  • onInstall function
  • onOpen function
  • Other functions run when you run them manually or when they are triggered by clicking
  • Custom functions and formulas in the spreadsheet execute any time the entire Spreadsheet is evaluated or when the data changes in the function or formula's cell.
  • share the Spreadsheet
  • publish the script to the Script Gallery
  • spreadsheet template
  • the color coding for that line will not be correct
  • A script with incorrect syntax or other errors does not run.
  • The Script Editor includes a debugger.
  • view the current state of variables and objects created by a script while that script runs.
  • step through the code line by line as it executes or set breakpoints
  • The debugger does not work with custom functions, onEdit functions, event triggers, or scripts running as a service.
  • use the debugger to find errors in scripts that are syntactically correct but still do not function correctly.
  • Functions ending in an underscore (_), for example, internalStuff_(), are treated differently from other functions. You do not see these function in the Run field in the Script Editor and they do not appear in the Script Manager in the Spreadsheet. You can use the underscore to indicate that users should not attempt to run the function and the function is available only to other functions.
Kurt Laitner

Battery-free wireless could send text messages after your phone dies | The Verge - 1 views

  •  
    radio powered by ambient backscatter - potential for sensor applications
sebastianklemm

Aga Khan Foundation | Aga Khan Development Network - 0 views

  •  
    Established in 1967, the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) brings together human, financial and technical resources to address the challenges faced by the poorest and most marginalised communities in the world. Special emphasis is placed on investing in human potential, expanding opportunity and improving the overall quality of life.
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