Making tax and social security decisions: lean and deskilling in the UK Civil Service

Lean working has had a significant impact on the work skills of civil servants. This study examines the impact of lean specifically focusing on ‘decision‐makers’, those civil servants engaged in deciding tax and social security claims. Using qualitative data from trade union members and stewards in two major government departments, this study found significant evidence of deskilling often in the face of dealing with potentially complex legal and factual issues. Using Mashaw's framework of administrative justice, the article argues that management's use of lean was evidence of an accelerated shift to a managerial model of administering tax and benefits where the administrative processes of decision‐making become paramount at the expense of the quality of the decisions made.     

Land tenure insecurity in post-certification Amhara,Ethiopia

It is generally believed that tenure security has improved due to the programme of land certification. In this paper I argue the opposite. Tenure security concerns three different rights: possession, renting and latent rights. Rights of possession are believed to have improved, but the evidence is weak and conflicting. Land rentals are expanding and farmers face high tenure insecurity. The main problem, though, is latent rights, with great insecurity and increased conflict levels. Despite rapid economic development there is considerable social malaise, an unfortunate agricultural structure, and considerable pressure for land redistribution due to unresolved land tenure issues. The paper is based on the certification literature and primary material from North Shäwa.     

A policy analysis to promote conservation and use of small millet underutilized species in India

Despite the important role of Neglected and Underutilized Species (NUS) in diversifying agriculture, supporting traditional farming systems and improving food and nutritional security particularly in marginal lands, very little attention is being paid to their mainstreaming in national policies and institutions. Based on a detailed review of the regulatory frameworks governing the conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of plant genetic resources and the circulation and registration of seeds and improved varieties, this paper discusses the extent to which the measures in place in India may favour or affect the conservation and use of NUS. In addition to these frameworks, in view of the major change realized by the 2013 National Food Security Act which has included coarse cereals in the country’s Public Distribution System (PDS), the paper also incorporates this latest policy in its analyses. A special focus is given to small millets, a group of species with unexploited economic and nutritional potential but extremely important for marginal communities’ food security and livelihoods. A set of policy recommendations and opportunities to explore are proposed to address the identified constraints with the purpose of creating a more supportive policy environment and enhancing the national capacity to promote NUS.     

城镇化进程中土地资源生态安全战略——以小产权房违法用地为例

在我国城镇化进程中,保障土地生态安全是其重中之重。就我国目前的社会阶段来看,人民自身素养和科学技术积累程度还没有达到土地私有化的水平,目前个体农民并没有这个能力,一旦土地私有,就会出现土地过分开发的情况,土壤养分会在短期内被榨干,土地修复复垦是一个需要大量人力物力科学技术的工程,个体农民及农民集体根本没有这个能力,就会造成土地荒废遗弃,甚至加重荒漠化、沙漠化。所以土地私有制并不适合我国现阶段的社会发展。以资源代际公平、土地生态安全的角度来看,土地国有是适应现阶段社会发展要求的。土地的利用与开发需要养护和维持,以达到后代子孙的持续发展。     

经济新常态下我国粮食安全问题及发展研究

粮食安全关系着一个国家的社会稳定与民族的长远发展,是世界各国普遍关注的热点问题。我国属发展中国家,人口多耕地少,人地矛盾较为突出,粮食安全问题是国家需要长期关注的永久课题。保障粮食安全,对于经济新常态下我国的发展具有十分重要的意义。文章首先简要介绍了经济新常态的含义,然后运用比较分析、系统研究等方法深入分析我国粮食安全的现状,探明我国粮食安全所面临的主要问题。结果表明:我国粮食安全尽管目前基本有保障,但前景不容乐观。主要问题有生产成本上升,进口关税下降等,为探索保障未来我国粮食安全的途径,彻底解决我国的粮食安全所面临的问题,促进社会和谐发展提出建立粮食生产保护区,国家制定粮食最低收购价,增加科技投入,以合作社为龙头形成规模化生产经营,兴办国营企业,国家提供高质量生产资料等建议,旨在为党和政府制定相关方针政策提供有益参考。     

An integrated system for information security management with the unified framework

Information security management plays an essential role for drawing the roadmap of information security; thus, many theoretical methodologies and practical standards are brought into this domain. However, many standards and methodologies are too cumbersome to be adopted by an organization. Additionally, there is no unified framework to systematically handle the tedious tasks of information security management. This study’s primary goal is to design an integrated system for information security management (ISISM) that aims to use current methodologies and standards to solve the above-mentioned issues. Because business impact analysis and risk analysis are the most important areas within this domain, we carefully select the related methods and then integrate them into a unified framework, upon which the proposed ISISM depends. To achieve this outcome for this study, security requirement engineering is adopted, which enables the designed system to support system users in generating risk assessment reports with related information security policies.     

Work and social well-being: the impact of employment conditions on quality of life

This paper aims to extend our understanding of the impact of management practises and employment conditions in the contemporary workplace on the broader social realm. The study provides an analytic account of how these employment conditions impact on the social well-being of a representative sample of individuals and households. We assess the propensity of working arrangements that are manifested in various high performance work systems either to enhance or to diminish quality of life. The paper indicates that certain management practises and employment conditions have impacts that extend beyond the workplace and influence the broader well-being of individuals and families.     

Managing security risks for inter-organisational information systems: a multiagent collaborative model

Information sharing across organisations is critical to effectively managing the security risks of inter-organisational information systems. Nevertheless, few previous studies on information systems security have focused on inter-organisational information sharing, and none have studied the sharing of inferred beliefs versus factual observations. In this article, a multiagent collaborative model (MACM) is proposed as a practical solution to assess the risk level of each allied organisation’s information system and support proactive security treatment by sharing beliefs on event probabilities as well as factual observations. In MACM, for each allied organisation’s information system, we design four types of agents: inspection agent, analysis agent, control agent, and communication agent. By sharing soft findings (beliefs) in addition to hard findings (factual observations) among the organisations, each organisation’s analysis agent is capable of dynamically predicting its security risk level using a Bayesian network. A real-world implementation illustrates how our model can be used to manage security risks in distributed information systems and that sharing soft findings leads to lower expected loss from security risks.     

基于PSR模型的佳木斯市土地生态安全综合评价

研究基于PSR模型框架,从压力、状态、响应等3个准则层入手构建佳木斯土地生态安全的评价指标体系,结合熵权与变异系数的综合确权法测算各指标权重,对佳木斯市2000~2012年土地资源生态安全进行综合评价,划定其安全等级。研究表明:2000~2012年,佳木斯市的土地生态安全系统的压力指数整体低于状态指数与响应指数,呈先上升后下降再上升的波动形变化趋势,压力指数从0.084上升到0.129,下降到0.041,再上升到0.157;土地生态安全状态指数呈现先增长又下降的变化趋势,从0.158增长到0.251,再下降到0.208;土地安全状态响应指数呈现平缓的增长变化趋势,从0.140增长到0.308;压力指数、状态指数和响应指数共同决定佳木斯市土地生态安全评价的综合指数,土地生态安全指数呈现先增长后下降再增长的变化趋势,从0.381增长到0.494,下降到0.464,再增长到0.673。考察期内佳木斯土地生态安全整体处于临界安全状态,2012年上升至较安全等级。该结论为佳木斯市制定改善土地生态安全的措施提供理论依据。     

能源安全测度的新维度:能源多样性

作为经济发展的源动力,能源及其安全测度问题一直是政府和学者研究的热门话题。将多样性引入到能源系统和能源安全研究中,探讨了能源安全和多样性之间的关系;界定了能源多样性的内容,包括国内能源供应的多样性和能源进口的多样性;利用香农-威纳多样性指数和Pielou均衡度指数,计算和分析了美国和中国近5年来的能源供应及进口情况,进而对其能源安全进行了对比研究。在2009—2013年,美国的能源多样性水平比中国高。结果表明能源多样性在一定程度上可以作为衡量能源安全的维度,中国能源多样性水平表明应致力于改变煤炭的主导局面,改善能源供应结构,拓宽和均衡能源进口渠道。