GM Crops Controversy： Stakeholder Analysis of the Case of Bt Brinjal （Eggplant） in India

Bt cotton a genetically modified （GM） crop has provided higher yields and profits for the farmers in India since its introduction in 2002. The environmentalists across the globe have however expressed the concern on the use of GM crops as they feel that they would cause environmental damage and they are not safe for human consumption. In the meantime, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee （the regulatory body for GM crops in India） evaluated the development process of Bt brinjal （eggplant） and has given its approval for commercial cultivation. This further aggravated the GM controversy; while the farmers are interested in cultivating Bt brinjal, the activists against GM crops have been protesting against the introduction of these hybrids stating that adequate tests have not been done to check on the safety of Bt brinjal. This controversy prompted the Minister of Environment of India Government to hold public consultations across India to access the views of the stakeholders. Based on the public consultations, the minister ＂put on hold the commercial introduction of Bt brinjal＂ on February 9, 2010. This paper analyses the view points of stakeholders collected at the public consultation held at Hyderabad on January 31, 2010. The analysis shows that the stakeholders develop different orientation based on the ＂stage of need hierarchy they are in＂ and the attributes they use to evaluate the outcome. The paper concludes that the views of the activist groups based on their limited understanding could get the introduction of Bt brinjal stalled as the companies failed in public communication and education. Policy implications are drawn for government consideration.

Stakeholder analysis of the governance framework of a national SDI dataset-whose needs are met in the buildings and address register of the Netherlands?

National spatial data infrastructures are key to achieving the Digital Earth vision.In many cases,national datasets are integrated from local datasets created and maintained by municipalities.Examples are address,building and topographic information.Integration of local datasets may result in a dataset satisfying the needs of users of national datasets,but is it productive for those who create and maintain the data?This article presents a stakeholder analysis of the Basisregistratie Adressen en Gebouwen(BAG),a collection of base information about addresses and buildings in the Netherlands.The information is captured and maintained by municipalities and integrated into a national base register by Kadaster,the Cadastre,Land Registry and Mapping Agency of the Netherlands.The stakeholder analysis identifies organisations involved in the BAG governance framework,describes their interests,rights,ownerships and responsibilities in the BAG,and maps the relationships between them.Analysis results indicate that Kadaster and the municipalities have the highest relative importance in the governance framework of the BAG.The study reveals challenges of setting up a governance framework that maintains the delicate balance between the interests of all stakeholders.The results provide guidance for SDI role players setting up governance frameworks for national or global datasets.

Analysis of the Stakeholder Engagement in the Deployment of Renewables and Smart Grid Technologies

The implementation of higher shares of renewables in a global energy mix has to be accompanied by simultaneous deployment of enabling smart grid technologies （SGTs）. This combination will inevitably lead to a revolutionary change in a conventional energy system, particularly, the shifting role of consumers to prosnmers. But resistance may arise from such a dramatic shift, since it is associated with high uncertainty in conjunction with increasing responsibilities of all stakeholders, the urgent need of effective control, and the development of a process. To ensure the positive influence, coherent actions of all players, and appropriate treatment of the spots of resistance, the analysis of the interplay between key stakeholders has been done. The paper introduces the framework for stakeholders＇ analysis, applies it on the European Union （EU） example, and provides recommendations to reduce the resistance of SGTs deployment.

Stakeholder analysis of clinical trials in China： a structural equation model

Stakeholder analysis was conducted to define stakeholders and their role in clinical trials; a conceptual model and hypotheses regarding the relationship of each stakeholder were then constructed based on pharmaceutical regulations in China and interviews with experts; Amos 17.0 was utilized to test the model and path analysis. We found that government and hospital are the most powerful stakeholders, while the public and sponsor have little impact on clinical trials. Further measures should be taken by sponsors to promote the development of clinical trials, and the public should be more involved in clinical research.

A Novel Hybrid Ensemble Learning Approach for Enhancing Accuracy and Sustainability in Wind Power Forecasting

Accurate wind power forecasting is critical for system integration and stability as renewable energy reliance grows.Traditional approaches frequently struggle with complex data and non-linear connections. This article presentsa novel approach for hybrid ensemble learning that is based on rigorous requirements engineering concepts.The approach finds significant parameters influencing forecasting accuracy by evaluating real-time Modern-EraRetrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA2) data from several European Wind farms usingin-depth stakeholder research and requirements elicitation. Ensemble learning is used to develop a robust model,while a temporal convolutional network handles time-series complexities and data gaps. The ensemble-temporalneural network is enhanced by providing different input parameters including training layers, hidden and dropoutlayers along with activation and loss functions. The proposed framework is further analyzed by comparing stateof-the-art forecasting models in terms of Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE),respectively. The energy efficiency performance indicators showed that the proposed model demonstrates errorreduction percentages of approximately 16.67%, 28.57%, and 81.92% for MAE, and 38.46%, 17.65%, and 90.78%for RMSE for MERRAWind farms 1, 2, and 3, respectively, compared to other existingmethods. These quantitativeresults show the effectiveness of our proposed model with MAE values ranging from 0.0010 to 0.0156 and RMSEvalues ranging from 0.0014 to 0.0174. This work highlights the effectiveness of requirements engineering in windpower forecasting, leading to enhanced forecast accuracy and grid stability, ultimately paving the way for moresustainable energy solutions.

Transport Policy——The Perspective of Swedish Stakeholders

Differences between countries’ internalization degrees and between transport modes both tend to risk distorting competition and creating socioeconomic inefficiency. This review examines regulations and charges for freight transports for different transport modes in Sweden and compares the situation with other key European countries. The aim was to identify best practices and benchmarking for Swedish conditions. The project involved both a literature study and interviews with different stakeholders. It was found that today’s fee structure for goods transports often deviated from the views of different stakeholders and market segments. The problem is that it is difficult to estimate and plan well in advance due to a lack of relevant data. Economic transport data are often extracted from heavily aggregated data where resource consumption and production costs for transport are unclear, preventing reliable estimates and obstructing the calculation of marginal costs and internalization of externalities through charges imposed on the respective transport modes and transport units. Furthermore, there is little research on how railroad and shipping are affected by changes and introduction of truck fees. The latter implies that truck fees must be seen from a European perspective to assess their effect on the overall transport system. Other aspects that are important to highlight are the extent and point in time for railroad deregulation. Further, it became clear from the stakeholder analysis that all fees and policies need to be both comprehensible and transparent through good communication of rules and by explaining the fee structures to all those concerned.

Trade Friction,Upgrading Path and Development of Chinese Textile and Apparel Industry

China is the largest producer and exporter in textiles in the world now, but most Chinese textile and apparel enterprises operate in the low stream of global value chain- processing and assembling. A combination of domestic supply side constrains of high wages and external pressures of appreciation of RMB and trade friction make it difficult for Chinese textile and apparel industry to maintain the low-wage manufacturing. The paper analyzes by stakeholder map for trade friction. It may be more effective that China deals with the trade issues based on the analysis of different stakeholders. The political agreement is only a temporary resolution; the more important way is try to upgrade the operations in developed regions. According to industrial organization theory and global value chain theory, it is suggested product development and marketing are upgrading paths for Chinese enterprises.

Effectiveness of Communications of“Airbnb”

This report analyzes the effective and ineffective communication of Airbnb.First,it presents the mission statement and explains what the mission coveys to the insiders and outsiders of Airbnb.Second,it illustrates corporate culture in the order of the development of Airbnb.Then,using the BCG matrix and customer profile,it outlines how the market is divided and who target populations are.It also describes how to identify and approach stakeholders and considers the use of quantitative data collection methods to position key stakeholders.Besides,it provides different ways of communication to different stakeholders.Nevertheless,some ineffective communications still exist.For them,some recommendations are discussed and concluded.

Institutional performance and participatory paradigms: Comparing two groups of watersheds in semi-arid region of India

Watershed development programmes carried out in different agroclimatic conditions in India resulted in beneficial impact in terms of productivity enhancement and natural resources conservation, but less attention paid to institutional and participatory aspects. This paper explored the performance of various institutions regarding execution of watershed development programmes in semi-arid region of India. Recorded observations from documents maintained at watershed level and information collected through primary survey as well as focus group discussion with different types of stakeholders were used for analysis. The results indicated lacunae in participatory aspects during programme implementation process like monitoring activities, management of common property resources and equity. Gap in linkages and differential level of performance of various watershed level functionaries indicates the necessity for corrections in the structures and linkages pattern for sustainability of the infrastructure and institutions. The study also showed unequal priorities by the implementing agencies towards in-stitutions, land and water resources development, production enhancement activities and fodder re-sources development as well as rationalities of technical, economic, financial, political and social aspects among the watersheds.