Barcelona en Comú, an emerging grassroots movement-party, won the 2015 Barcelona City Council election. This candidacy was devised by activists involved in the 15M movement in order to turn citizen outrage into political change. On the one hand, the 15M movement is based on a decentralized structure. On the other hand, political science literature postulates that parties historically develop ol...

A class of problems known as Distributed Constraint Optimization Problems (DCOP) has become a growing research interest in computer science because of its difficulty (NP-Complete) and many real-world applications (meeting scheduling, sensor networks, military planning). In this thesis we identify two types of centralization relevant to DCOPs: algorithmic centralization, in which a DCOP algorith...

Strategic sourcing, defined as a firm’s key business process to identify, evaluate, configure, and negotiate purchases in important spend categories while 142 DAI, NARASIMHAN, AND WU managing long-term supplier relationships, is playing a significant role in sourcing strategies. The adoption of e-sourcing, defined as the use of business software (for example, using application service providers...

This paper, proposes a control system for use with microgrid consist of multiple small scale embedded generation networks (SSEG networks) connected to the 33kV distribution network. The proposed controller controls power flow in the gridconnected mode of operation, enables voltage and frequency control when the SSEG networks are islanded, and resynchronizes the SSEG networks with the utility be...

In recent years, there has been a growing fascination with decentralized systems and self-organizing phenomena. Increasingly, people are choosing decentralized models for the organizations and technologies that they construct in the world, and for the theories that they construct about the world. But even as decentralized ideas spread through the culture, there is a deep-seated resistance to su...

This thesis examines two different approaches to active buckling control of a compressively-loaded structural element. The phenomenon of buckling is the single most important factor limiting the load-bearing strength of a structure. Active control of buckling allows us to increase the load-bearing capabilities of compressive members, leading to structures that are both stronger and lighter than...

Distributed computing systems can provide benefits not available with centralized computing systems. However, it can be difficult to maintain the security and integrity of data on distributed systems. In fact, some characteristics of distributed data bases give rise to additional security concerns. This article provides a detailed analysis of information security issues in the distributed data ...

In this paper, the common centralized DEA models are extended to the bi-level centralized resource allocation (CRA) models based on revenue efficiency. Based on the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) conditions, the bi-level CRA model is reduced to a one-level mathematical program subject to complementarity constraints (MPCC). A recurrent neural network is developed for solving this one-level mathematica...

This research explores how market competition influences a firm’s optimal organizational structure. For this purpose, a computational model of competing multiunit firms is developed in which unit managers and corporate staff continually search for better practices, while consumers search among units to find a better match. Organizational structure impacts both the practices at the unit level an...