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3899 items in total found

Journal Articles | 2017

Technology non-affordances: The political interactions in the designer-user-technology trio in a developing country

George Kandathil and Erica Wagner

Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – Proceedings

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Journal Articles | 2017

Racial/ethnic differences in perceptions of school climate and its association with student engagement and peer aggression

Timothy Konold, Dewey Cornell, Kathan D. Shukla, and Francis Huang

Journal of Youth and Adolescence

Research indicates that a positive school climate is associated with higher levels of student engagement and lower rates of peer aggression. However, less attention has been given to whether such findings are consistent across racial/ethnic groups. The current study examined whether Black, Hispanic, and White high school students differed in their perceptions of school climate, student engagement, and peer aggression as measured by the Authoritative School Climate survey. In addition, the study tested whether the associations between school climate and both student engagement and peer aggression varied as a function of racial/ethnic group. The sample consisted of 48,027 students in grades 9–12 (51.4 % female; 17.9 % Black, 10.5 % Hispanic, 56.7 % White, and 14.9 % other) attending 323 high schools. Regression models that contrasted racial/ethnic groups controlled for the nesting of students within schools and used student covariates of parent education, student gender, and percentage of schoolmates sharing the same race/ethnicity, as well as school covariates of school size and school percentage of students eligible for free- or reduced-price meals. Perceptions of school climate differed between Black and White groups, but not between Hispanic and White groups. However, race/ethnicity did not moderate the associations between school climate and either engagement or peer aggression. Although correlational and cross-sectional in nature, these results are consistent with the conclusion that a positive school climate holds similar benefits of promoting student engagement and reducing victimization experiences across Black, Hispanic, and White groups.

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Journal Articles | 2017

Emergence of distributed coordination in Kolkata Paise Restaurant problem with finite information

Diptesh Ghosh and Anindya S. Chakrabarti

Physica: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

In this paper, we study a large-scale distributed coordination problem and propose efficient adaptive strategies to solve the problem. The basic problem is to allocate finite number of resources to individual agents in the absence of a central planner such that there is as little congestion as possible and the fraction of unutilized resources is reduced as far as possible. In the absence of a central planner and global information, agents can employ adaptive strategies that uses only a finite knowledge about the competitors. In this paper, we show that a combination of finite information sets and reinforcement learning can increase the utilization fraction of resources substantially.

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Journal Articles | 2017

Investigating a An evolutionary analysis of growth and fluctuations with negative externalities

Anindya S. Chakrabarti and Ratul Lakhar

Dynamic Games and Applications

We present an evolutionary game theoretic model of growth and fluctuations with negative externalities. Agents in a population choose the level of input. Total output is a function of aggregate input and a productivity parameter. The model, which is equivalent to a tragedy of the commons, constitutes an aggregative potential game with negative externalities. Aggregate input at the Nash equilibrium is inefficiently high causing aggregate payoff to be suboptimally low. Simulations with the logit dynamic reveal that while the aggregate input increases monotonically from an initial low level, aggregate payoff may decline from the corresponding high level. Hence, a positive technology shock causes a rapid initial increase in aggregate payoff, which is unsustainable as agents increase aggregate input to the inefficient equilibrium level. Aggregate payoff, therefore, declines subsequently. A sequence of exogenous shocks, therefore, generates a sustained pattern of growth and fluctuations in aggregate payoff.

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Journal Articles | 2017

Unsustainability of sustainability: Cognitive frames and tensions in Bottom of the Pyramid projects

Garima Sharma and Anand Kumar Jaiswal

Journal of Business Ethics

Existing research posits that decision makers use specific cognitive frames to manage tensions in sustainability. However, we know less about how the cognitive frames of individuals at different levels in organization interact and what these interactions imply for managing sustainability tensions, such as in Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) projects. To address this omission, we ask do organizational and project leaders differ in their understanding of tensions in a BOP project, and if so, how? We answer this question by drawing on a 5-year study of a BOP project of a global pharmaceutical company in India. In line with the existing research, we found three kinds of frames—paradoxical, business case, and business—held differently across organizational levels and over time. We also found that the shift in frames of both project and organizational leaders was mediated by the decision-making horizon. The initial divergence across organizational levels, seen in paradoxical and business frames, was mediated by long-term decision-making horizon. However, there was an eventual convergence toward business frames associated with the shift from long- to shorter-term decision-making horizons and one that led to the project’s closure. We contribute by proposing a dynamic model of cognitive frames in sustainability, where the research has either alluded to top-down or bottom-up understanding.

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Journal Articles | 2017

Competition and Intellectual Property Policies in the Indian pharmaceutical sector

Shamim S. Mondal and Viswanath Pingali

Vikalpa

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Journal Articles | 2017

Urban common service generation, delivery and management: A Conceptual Framework

Arpit Shah and Amit Garg

Ecological Economics

Urban commons are currently not studied holistically under the rationale used by the ecosystem cascade framework. In this paper, we build on the ecosystem cascade framework to present a conceptual model that provides a comprehensive view of urban common resources and allows decision-makers to develop suitable interventions to meet objectives of sustainability and equity. The model looks at the role of and explains the linkages between urban commons' biophysical structures, user population characteristics, power dynamics, use behavior, benefits generated, and management strategies. The model adds to existing literature by focusing on direct benefits and equity and by elaborating on the role of transaction costs and management strategies in governing urban commons. Considering direct benefits allows for a complete picture of overall benefits while making governance decisions, as opposed to considering benefits received only through human effort. Focusing on power asymmetries between stakeholders highlights the inequities created in accessing benefits from urban commons. Elaborating on management strategies provides greater insight into the complexities of managing urban commons and the impacts that governance decisions can have. Finally, including transaction costs highlights the factors that influence costs of managing resources. We illustrate the use of the model with literature from urban India.

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Journal Articles | 2017

Let the people speak: Improving regional adaptation policy by combining adaptive capacity assessments with vulnerability perceptions of farmers in Gujarat, India

Ryan Stock, Trevor Birkenholtz, and Amit Garg

Climate and Development

Farmers throughout the Global South are vulnerable to extreme heat events and shifting precipitation patterns associated with climate change. This is particularly the case in Gujarat, India, which is experiencing fluctuating monsoon rains and seasons. Local institutions there are ill-equipped to assist farmers in adapting to these changes. However, farmers are adapting to climate change, largely through livelihood diversification, in the absence of formal state intervention. Using qualitative methods, we conducted adaptive capacity assessments and assessed vulnerability perceptions in 3 villages, involving 120 farmers from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Combining vulnerability perceptions with adaptive capacity assessments, we better observed the mismatch between rural development policy with the potential to aid in adaptation processes that address local needs, identifying why policy fails to increase the adaptive capacity of the agriculturalists most vulnerable to climate impacts. Decentralizing adaptation programmes to community-level institutions can increase the efficacy of climate interventions by emboldening latent institutions, while not widening the socioeconomic gap of a rapidly modernizing India.

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Journal Articles | 2017

The1.5°C target and coal sector transition: at the limits of societal feasibility

Thomas Spencer, Michel Colombier, Oliver Sartor, and Amit Garg

Climate Policy

National and global mitigation scenarios consistent with 1.5°C require an early phase-out of coal in major coal-dependent countries, compared to standard technical and economic lifetimes. This appears particularly apparent in the light of recent massive investments in coal power capacity, the significant pipeline of coal power capacity coming online, as well as upstream supporting infrastructure. This article analyses the existing and planned capital stock in the coal power sector in the light of scenarios consistent with 1.5°C. The article analyses the political economy and labour aspects of this abrupt and significant transition, in the light of domestic equity and development objectives. Firstly, the article examines employment issues and reviews the existing literature and practice with support schemes for regional and sectoral structural adjustment for the reduction of coal sector activity. Secondly, the paper surveys the domestic political economy of coal sector transition in major coal using countries, namely Australia, South Africa, China and India. A final section provides conclusions and policy recommendations.

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Journal Articles | 2017

Relevance of clean coal technology for India’s energy security: A policy perspective

Amit Garg, Vineet Tiwari, and Saritha Vishwanathan

IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science

Climate change mitigation regimes are expected to impose constraints on the future use of fossil fuels in order to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In 2015, 41% of total final energy consumption and 64% of power generation in India came from coal. Although almost a sixth of the total coal based thermal power generation is now super critical pulverized coal technology, the average CO2 emissions from the Indian power sector are 0.82 kg-CO2/kWh, mainly driven by coal. India has large domestic coal reserves which give it adequate energy security. There is a need to find options that allow the continued use of coal while considering the need for GHG mitigation. This paper explores options of linking GHG emission mitigation and energy security from 2000 to 2050 using the AIM/Enduse model under Business-as-Usual scenario. Our simulation analysis suggests that advanced clean coal technologies options could provide promising solutions for reducing CO2 emissions by improving energy efficiencies. This paper concludes that integrating climate change security and energy security for India is possible with a large scale deployment of advanced coal combustion technologies in Indian energy systems along with other measures.

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