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Higher education is broadly recognized as one of the most significant components of modern social and economic development. The quality of education at a university depends on factors such as how the university is managed, how effective the management decisions are, and what consequences they have for the advancement of society. While the consequences have numerous hardly equitable aspects, this article hypothesizes that it is possible to build a synthetic model for the assessment of university management, that takes into account a full range of existing quantitative and qualitative effects. The study aims to identify the relationship between the quality of management and the performance variables needed to build the model. The research methodology includes the application of econometric analysis for the formation, ranking, and determination of point values of a balanced scorecard (BSC). Finally, the findings of this research led to the creation of a workable model that allows both direct and reverse translation of a quantitative management assessment into a qualitative (verbal) one. Further, the verification using the available empirical data confirmed the model's validity. We would thus recommend this model for solving a whole range of university management issues, especially in areas with predominant ripple and indirect effects, i.e., in the interaction of higher education entities with regional and local communities.

In this contribution we study social network modelling by using human interaction as a basis. To do so, we propose a new set of functions, affinities, designed to capture the nature of the local interactions among each pair of actors in a network. By using these functions, we develop a new community detection algorithm, the Borgia Clustering, where communities naturally arise from the multi-agent interaction in the network. We also discuss the effects of size and scale for communities regarding this case, as well as how we cope with the additional complexity present when big communities arise. Finally, we compare our community detection solution with other representative algorithms, finding favourable results. ; Javier Fumanal Idocin's and Humberto Bustince's research has been supported by the project TIN2016-77356-P (AEI/FEDER,UE).Oscar Cordón's research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities under grant EX-ASOCO (PGC2018-101216-B-I00), including, European Regional Development Funds (ERDF). Amparo Alonso-Betanzos' research has been financially supported in part by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (research project TIN2015-65069-C2-1-R), by European Union FEDER funds and by the Consellería de Industria of the Xunta de Galicia, Spain (research project GRC2014 /035). M. Minárová's research has been funded by the project work was supported by the project APVV-17-0066.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the extent to which local public health departments in North Carolina collaborated with other groups and organizations, the health problems on which they worked together, and the effect of external collaboration on health departments' performance on core public health functions. METHODS: The author mailed a questionnaire asking about interactions with city and county government agencies, boards of health, schools, nonprofits, physicians/private clinics, community health centers/migrant clinics, community members, citizens' groups, state and federal agencies, and universities to all of the directors of local public health departments in North Carolina. Sixty-four directors returned the questionnaire, for a response rate of 74.4%. RESULTS: Local public health departments most frequently interacted with boards of health, state agencies, community members, schools, city and county government agencies, and nonprofit agencies. Large majorities reported productive relationships with boards of health, state agencies, city and county government agencies, schools, nonprofit agencies, and hospitals. Greater frequency of interaction with several types of partners was associated with better performance. CONCLUSIONS: While questions exist about whether performance on core functions improves the community's health status, the results suggest that it is important for local public health departments to continue to build relationships with other organizations in the community.

The Asymmetrical Half Bridge converter (AHBC) has proven to be a promising candidate for LED lighting applications. It provides high efficiency, galvanic isolation and, at the same time, its output filter can be very small and, therefore, easily implemented without electrolytic capacitor. On the other hand, its main drawback is its poor attainable bandwidth. In any ac-dc LED lighting application, the input voltage of the AHBC is provided by a Power Factor Corrector (PFC) converter which has to be also implemented without electrolytic capacitor in order to assure the long lifetime of the whole LED driver. As a consequence, its output voltage (input voltage of the AHBC) is affected by a low-frequency ripple. Due to the poor bandwidth of the AHBC, this voltage ripple will be transferred to the converter output voltage, leading to flickering. A possible solution is using a feedforward loop for cancelling the effect of this low-frequency ripple without affecting stability. Due to the complex and non-linear transfer function of the AHBC, any analog feedforward loop has to be tuned for a given operating point, leading to a poor performance (i.e., high flickering, high ripple) when the AHBC moves away from that point. Dimming, which is a very frequent requirement in many LED drivers, implies large variations of the output voltage and, consequently, moving away from the aforementioned operating point. In this paper, a digital feedforward loop is proposed in order to solve this problem. The digital implementation allows the feedforward loop to perfectly cancel the ripple under any condition (e.g., output voltage variation due to dimming). Besides, despite its complex transfer function, this digital feedforward loop has been designed and optimized for its implementation in small-size microcontrollers. Experimental results with a 40-W prototype prove the usefulness of the proposed feedforward loop and the validity of the equations used in the optimized design ; This work has been supported by Spanish Government under ...

This paper analyses the 'ripple' effect of house prices in large-, medium- and small-sized houses of five major metropolitan areas of South Africa—namely, Cape Town, Durban Unicity, Greater Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth/Uitenhage and Pretoria—based on available quarterly data covering the period of 1966:Q1 to 2010:Q1. Following the extant literature, the issue is contextualised as a unit root problem, with one expecting the ratios of metropolitan house price to national house price to exhibit stationarity to an underlying trend value, if there is diffusion in house prices. Using Bayesian and non-linear unit root tests, besides the standard linear tests of stationarity with and without structural break, overwhelming support is found for the existence of robust ripple effects. Also factor analysis conducted suggested that ripple effects originate in Cape Town for the large housing segment and in Durban for the medium- and small-sized houses.

OBJECTIVES: Louisiana ranks 4th among US states for adult obesity, and 5th highest for physical inactivity. The Healthy Communities Initiative is a novel effort led by Cooperative Extension (CE) and SNAP-Ed staff in Louisiana to change the policy, systems, and environment (PSE) in target communities to encourage increased physical activity and healthier eating behaviors. The objective of this qualitative study was to identify community members' perceived impacts of the Healthy Communities Initiative on their community according to the Community Capitals Framework using ripple effect mapping. METHODS: Local CE staff hold community forums where residents identify and prioritize strategies for PSE changes, then recruit community coalition members to collectively address needs identified at the forum. PSE strategies are different for each community targeted, with short-term impacts most effectively evaluated using qualitative methods. Ripple effect mapping is a community participatory qualitative evaluation method which allows evaluators to capture the effects of innovative interventions. Evaluators facilitate a focus group session in which community members create a map of the multiple impacts of an intervention according to the constructs of the Community Capitals Framework. We held a ripple effect mapping session with 15 participants in one Healthy Communities coalition to evaluate their progress after one year of PSE change work. RESULTS: Community members identified program impacts in each of the constructs of the community capitals framework. Participants most often identified program impacts that were improvements to the community's political capital, such as an improved ability to advocate for change. Participants identified the most impactful outcomes of the program, which included an increased awareness of inequity in the community, increased access to fresh produce for community members, and making connections with agencies and organizations which stretched across organizations' "silos." CONCLUSIONS: The ...

Distinguishing between status spillovers and status ripples, we argue that sudden positive status shifts create status ripples when the social actors experiencing the status shifts are more constrained from exploiting their higher status than the social actors to whom they are affiliated. Specifically, we examine the status ripple paradox that the status effects experienced by the affiliated actors sometimes are as strong, or even stronger, as the direct status effects experienced by the ascending actors themselves. Focusing empirically on prestigious CEO awards from U.S. news magazines, we examine the consequences of positive status shifts for the awarded CEOs and the CEOs who are on the boards of directors of the awarded CEOs' firms. We find evidence of status ripples in CEO compensation by showing that awarded CEOs have relatively greater immediate but smaller subsequent increases in compensation, which results in lower overall compensation effects for the awarded CEOs. Moreover, we provide empirical evidence of the theoretical mechanisms behind the status ripple paradox by showing that external constraints in the form of increased media and analyst attention and increased expectations affect the status ripple effect.

Prototype Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) in FISIP Online Community Forum is a program that was developed to achieve efficiency in answering the questions that often arise in the Community Forum Online FISIP related to academic administration problems faced by students of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences UT. Efficiency will be obtained when the manager did not take long for the manager to answer the questions that often arise; not often involve other units to answer the questions that often arise in the forum. Prototype is a prototype developed FAQ that can be uploaded to the Online FISIP community forum. This research is the development of a research carried out in order to develop a program, in this study is a prototype program developed at the forum FAQ Online Community FISIP. The stages of the research conducted as follows: first identify the questions that often arise in the student community forum FISIP Online. Second, develop a prototype FAQ common questions based on the identification of students at the forum posting community FISIP Online in 2010, as well as answers to the questions, obtained from the FGD unit associated with the UT catalog or the book as a reference. Third, the experimental test program that was developed to 6 research respondents, namely the manager FISIP Online community forums. The results showed: first, a question that often arises in a community forum FISIP Online is a question related to problems with the registration (registration schedule, registration fees, transfer of credit), the process of learning (tutorials, teaching materials), test (test schedules, test centers, exam, online exam/SUO, TAP, Test Participant Identification Card/KTPU, test scores). Second, develop a prototype FAQ that contains a list of frequently asked questions of students in the UT FISIP community forum and the answer obtained from a competent source that is Pusjian, Karunika, Student FISIP, UT catalogs and books. Third, the prototype has been developed FAQ efficient function. ...

Extension professionals must demonstrate organizational value to garner public awareness and support. Measuring and communicating outcomes that have public value can be challenging. In this study, Ripple Effects Mapping incorporating the Community Capitals Framework was used to evaluate a childhood obesity prevention study, iCook 4-H, of youth-adult pairs in Maine. The objective was to describe the process of generating impact statements through story threads about program benefits to the participants and the potential benefits to nonparticipants, such as family members, friends, and other community members. Extension professionals can use storylines, or story threads, as a qualitative research technique to generate stories about private and public value from participants' actions, experiences, and emotions following community programs. The story threads process can be used across disciplines to leverage community program data into public value messaging.

In Cuba, universities have a great commitment to society, consisting in the generation and communication of scientific and technological results that contribute to their sustainable development. However, in the Municipal University Centers the divulgation of scientific-technological results is still insufficient in function of the promotion of local development. The present work has the objective of presenting a strategy of management of scientific divulgation for local development aimed at professors of Cuban Municipal University Centers, which is based on important theoretical and methodological references of this theme. The implementation of the strategy, in the Municipal University Centers of Oriente University, plans ahead to channel the aforementioned management towards qualitatively higher levels, increasing the effectiveness of the actions of scientific disclosure in favor of local development.

Today all countries are adopting development strategies based on the knowledge economy. Cities become promoters of innovations by offering an innovative ecosystem following the connections that arise between all actors, thus adopting the concept of Smart City. This article argues the importance of the research component generated by universities and research institutes for the community development. The cluster approach is an effective tool to take into account the interests of the scientific and educational environment and the business community needs, creating conditions for knowledge and innovations transfer into the real economy. Particular attention was paid to the role of government policies to stimulate clusters development and to stimulate the participation of science component within partnerships of universities and research centers with business sector.

Freedom of information legislation came into effect in the UK in 2005. All universities that receive block grants from the Higher Education Funding Councils in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are subject to the legislation. Recent cases where universities have received requests for data and other information generated by researchers, working in areas such as climate, have given rise to controversy and widespread concern in the research community. This paper examines some of those concerns, relating to responsibilities for the ownership and holding of information, for data and records management, and for the handling of requests under the legislation. It also considers the implications relating to personal data, and to information that may affect the commercial interests of universities operating in a competitive environment, or the interests of the many other organisations which may be involved in research partnerships with universities; and it outlines concerns about the possible impact on quality assurance, peer review, and scholarly discourse. Finally, the paper emphasises the need for support and training for researchers so that they become more aware of the legislation and its implications, and how to deal with requests when they arise.

When we hear about the word marketing, few concepts will trigger our mind. We generally will relate to 'Marketing Mix Principle' which consist of fundamental such as place, price, product and people. As every organization claim, people are their most important assets, similarly, the universities have these assets/people where they are the building block in the success of the overall university beside the just financial sustainability. The significant question to be asked, do universities leverage the scholar's expertise as a marketing tool for the community engagements. When we dive in the word "Engagement in the context of community" it is defined as a meaningful and mutually beneficial collaboration with various stakeholders such as partners in education, business, government and public.

This study theorizes and tests an institutional-logics framework to explain why some universities produce more practice-oriented peer-reviewed journal articles than others, using nonprofit studies as an example. Empirically, knowledge production for practice can be increased by (1) graduate degree programs with an emphasis on nonprofit management, (2) research centers on nonprofit studies, and (3) location in disadvantaged communities; however, (4) status as an R1 or R2 research university substantially decreases the production of practical knowledge. Furthermore, (5) research centers can mediate the influence of community needs on knowledge production, so that universities with nonprofit research centers are more responsive to solving community issues. Theoretically, knowledge production follows the institutional logics of both closed and open systems, and institutions such as research centers that can repackage the culture of open systems to make it acceptable to closed systems are essential mediators.