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Background: Priority setting and resource allocation in healthcare organizations often involves the balancing of competing interests and values in the context of hierarchical and politically complex settings with multiple interacting actor relationships. Despite this, few studies have examined the influence of actor and power dynamics on priority setting practices in healthcare organizations. This paper examines the influence of power relations among different actors on the implementation of priority setting and resource allocation processes in public hospitals in Kenya. Methods: We used a qualitative case study approach to examine priority setting and resource allocation practices in two public hospitals in coastal Kenya. We collected data by a combination of in-depth interviews of national level policy makers, hospital managers, and frontline practitioners in the case study hospitals (n = 72), review of documents such as hospital plans and budgets, minutes of meetings and accounting records, and non-participant observations in case study hospitals over a period of 7 months. We applied a combination of two frameworks, Norman Long's actor interface analysis and VeneKlasen and Miller's expressions of power framework to examine and interpret our findings Results: The interactions of actors in the case study hospitals resulted in socially constructed interfaces between: 1) senior managers and middle level managers 2) non-clinical managers and clinicians, and 3) hospital managers and the community. Power imbalances resulted in the exclusion of middle level managers (in one of the hospitals) and clinicians and the community (in both hospitals) from decision making processes. This resulted in, amongst others, perceptions of unfairness, and reduced motivation in hospital staff. It also puts to question the legitimacy of priority setting processes in these hospitals. Conclusions: Designing hospital decision making structures to strengthen participation and inclusion of relevant stakeholders could improve priority setting practices. This should however, be accompanied by measures to empower stakeholders to contribute to decision making. Strengthening soft leadership skills of hospital managers could also contribute to managing the power dynamics among actors in hospital priority setting processes

International audience ; Since the 2000s, electronic identification of livestock (sheep and goats) has become one of the ways in which the hegemony of agribusiness has been reinforced in the European Union. The 'broad-brush' obligation requiring the entire livestock industry to use a technology that has already aroused much debate on its societal implications has led to a convergence of opposition groups with similar axiological referential systems and is likely to revive conditions in which new opportunities in farmers' practices could develop at the margin of the agribusiness system. Based on interviews with those involved in the farmer opposition and on texts posted by various actors of the anti-industry movement, the paper describes the emergence of a digital problem and of forms of resistance that question their ability to emancipate people from the use or non-use of Internet ; À partir des années 2000, l'identification électronique des ovins et des caprins devient un des moyens de parfaire l'hégémonie du système agro-industriel dans l'Union européenne. L'imposition indifférenciée dans le monde de l'élevage d'une technologie dont les implications sociétales faisaient déjà débat, conduit à une convergence d'oppositions mobilisant des référentiels axiologiques proches, et susceptible de renouveler les conditions de possibilité d'une marge paysanne. À partir d'entretiens menés auprès des acteurs de la contestation paysanne et de textes mis en ligne par divers acteurs de la mouvance anti-industrielle, ce travail montre l'émergence d'un problème numérique conjointement à des formes de résistance dont on interroge les capacités émancipatrices au regard des usages ou des non-usages de l'Internet.

International audience ; Since the 2000s, electronic identification of livestock (sheep and goats) has become one of the ways in which the hegemony of agribusiness has been reinforced in the European Union. The 'broad-brush' obligation requiring the entire livestock industry to use a technology that has already aroused much debate on its societal implications has led to a convergence of opposition groups with similar axiological referential systems and is likely to revive conditions in which new opportunities in farmers' practices could develop at the margin of the agribusiness system. Based on interviews with those involved in the farmer opposition and on texts posted by various actors of the anti-industry movement, the paper describes the emergence of a digital problem and of forms of resistance that question their ability to emancipate people from the use or non-use of Internet ; À partir des années 2000, l'identification électronique des ovins et des caprins devient un des moyens de parfaire l'hégémonie du système agro-industriel dans l'Union européenne. L'imposition indifférenciée dans le monde de l'élevage d'une technologie dont les implications sociétales faisaient déjà débat, conduit à une convergence d'oppositions mobilisant des référentiels axiologiques proches, et susceptible de renouveler les conditions de possibilité d'une marge paysanne. À partir d'entretiens menés auprès des acteurs de la contestation paysanne et de textes mis en ligne par divers acteurs de la mouvance anti-industrielle, ce travail montre l'émergence d'un problème numérique conjointement à des formes de résistance dont on interroge les capacités émancipatrices au regard des usages ou des non-usages de l'Internet.

The article examines the development of physics research in Ukraine on the example of the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology (UIPT). Founded on the initiative of the eminent physicist Abram Ioffe, the UIPT has gradually become one of the world's leading research institutions. During 1928–1938, many important events took place at the institute, which became markers for the development of physics in Ukraine and the USSR as well as in the world. An experiment on the fission of atomic nucleus using artificially accelerated protons confirmed the validity of the intentions to reorient research towards nuclear physics. The involvement of foreign specialists in the work of the UIPT contributed to the informal consolidation of scientific thinking in physics. Outstanding physicists of the world such as Boris Podolskyi, Oleksandr Weisberg, Konrad Weiselberg, Friedrich Houtermans, Laszlo Tisza, Fritz Lange, Victor Weisskopf, George Placzek, Paul Dirac, Georgii Gamov, Niels Bohr, Paul Ehrenfest, and others worked here for longer or shorter periods. Niels Bohr, Ivar Waller, Milton S. Plesset, Evan J. Williams, and Leon Rosenfeld made reports at the theoretical conferences of UIPT. As a result, in the late 1920s and during the 1930s, an informal society of physicists from around the world was formed in Kharkiv. The consolidation of talented scientists has accumulated traditions, centuries of experience, and practical knowledge in the field from many scientific schools around the world.