Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization those regarding planning and decision making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group. Concepts of decentralization have been applied to group dynamics and management science in private businesses and organizations, political science and public administration, economics and technology; the word "centralization" came into use in France in 1794 as the post-French Revolution French Directory leadership created a new government structure. The word "decentralization" came into usage in the 1820s. "Centralization" entered written English in the first third of the 1800s. In the mid-1800s Tocqueville would write that the French Revolution began with "a push towards decentralization... in the end, an extension of centralization." In 1863, retired French bureaucrat Maurice Block wrote an article called "Decentralization" for a French journal that reviewed the dynamics of government and bureaucratic centralization and recent French efforts at decentralization of government functions.

Ideas of liberty and decentralization were carried to their logical conclusions during the 19th and 20th centuries by anti-state political activists calling themselves "anarchists", "libertarians", decentralists. Tocqueville was an advocate, writing: "Decentralization has, not only an administrative value but a civic dimension since it increases the opportunities for citizens to take interest in public affairs, and from the accumulation of these local, persnickety freedoms, is born the most efficient counterweight against the claims of the central government if it were supported by an impersonal, collective will." Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, influential anarchist theorist wrote: "All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words: agricultural-industrial federation. All my political ideas boil down to a similar formula: political federation or decentralization."In the early 20th century, America's response to the centralization of economic wealth and political power was a decentralist movement.

It blamed large-scale industrial production for destroying middle-class shop keepers and small manufacturers and promoted increased property ownership and a return to small scale living. The decentralist movement attracted Southern Agrarians like Robert Penn Warren, as well as journalist Herbert Agar. New Left and libertarian individuals who identified with social and political decentralism through the ensuing years included Ralph Borsodi, Wendell Berry, Paul Goodman, Carl Oglesby, Karl Hess, Donald Livingston, Kirkpatrick Sale, Murray Bookchin, Dorothy Day, Senator Mark O. Hatfield, Mildred J. Loomis and Bill Kauffman. Leopold Kohr, author of the 1957 book The Breakdown of Nations – known for its statement "Whenever something is wrong, something is too big" – was a major influence on E. F. Schumacher, author of the 1973 bestseller Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered. In the next few years a number of best-selling books promoted decentralization. Daniel Bell's The Coming of Post-Industrial Society discussed the need for decentralization and a "comprehensive overhaul of government structure to find the appropriate size and scope of units", as well as the need to detach functions from current state boundaries, creating regions based on functions like water, transport and economics which might have "different'overlays' on the map."

Alvin Toffler published The Third Wave. Discussing the books in a interview, Toffler said that industrial-style, top-down bureaucratic planning would be replaced by a more open, decentralized style which he called "anticipatory democracy". Futurist John Naisbitt's 1982 book "Megatrends" was on The New York Times Best Seller list for more than two years and sold 14 million copies. Naisbitt's book outlines 10 "megatrends", the fifth of, from centralization to decentralization. In 1996 David Osborne and Ted Gaebler had a best selling book Reinventing Government proposing decentralist public administration theories which became labeled the "New Public Management". Stephen Cummings wrote. In 1983 Diana Conyers asked if decentralization was the "latest fashion" in development administration. Cornell University's project on Restructuring Local Government states that decentralization refers to the "global trend" of devolving responsibilities to regional or local governments. Robert J. Bennett's Decentralization, Intergovernmental Relations and Markets: Towards a Post-Welfare Agenda describes how after World War II governments pursued a centralized "welfarist" policy of entitlements which now has become a "post-welfare" policy of intergovernmental and market-based decentralization.

In 1983, "Decentralization" was identified as one of the "Ten Key Values" of the Green Movement in the United States. According to a 1999 United Nations Development Programme report: "large number of developing and transitional countries have embarked on some form of decentralization programmes; this trend is coupled with a growing interest in the role of civil society and the private sector as partners to governments in seeking new ways of service delivery... Decentralization of governance and the strengthening of local governing capacity is in part a function of broader societal trends; these include, for example, the growing distrust of government the spectacular demise of some of the most centralized regimes in the world

The goldstripe sardinella is a species of fish of the family Clupeidae. It is native to shallow tropical waters of the western Indo-Pacific, living at depths down to 70 m, being associated with coral reefs, it forms large schools. It is an important commercial fish, is eaten dried, boiled, or made into fish balls. S. gibbosa have unique eggs. Some scientists do not consider this species a true member of the Sardinella genus for this reason; the spawning season for these fish ranges from April to October. In this species there is a trend of smaller fish spawning earlier in the spawning season. Peak spawning occurs in June and July and this is followed by the older larger specimens which tend to move into the spawning areas in the season The determination of age in this species has proved difficult because there are small rings present on the scales called annuli. However, it is difficult to determine their true cause; these annuli are interrupted or indented in the patterns on the scales are interrupted or indented.

The spaces between striae are lighter in color in comparison to the rest of the striated region of the scale. In comparison and trout form much more distinct annuli according to rings forming closer to one another during different seasons of the year. In essence, the debate is whether these annuli are spawning rings or whether they develop as a result of some unknown cause and unknown time frame; this information is ineffective as a measure of the age of the fish until these issues are cleared and definitive. Dried Sardinella gibbosa is a favorite in Korean markets; these fish are advertised as dried herring in Korea, England and Canada. The process by which Vietnamese Gold Stripe Sardinella are made available includes being washed, sun dried and preserved; these fish are important throughout Southeast Asia. Sardinella gibbosa have a slender body, a below average number of gill rakers, they have unique, small perforations on the hind part of their scales along with a dark spot on the dorsal fin.

The distribution of S. gibbosa includes the Indo-West Pacific, East African coast, a range from Madagascar to Indonesia. S. gibbosa are one of the most abundant Sardinella in Indo West Pacific, off the coast of Taiwan and Australia. Fisheries are most prominent in southern parts of India, with markets throughout Southeast Asia It has been found in the eastern Mediterranean off the coast of Israel having invaded through the Suez Canal as a lessepsian migrant from the Red Sea

Michael Pakenham Edgeworth was an Irish botanist who specialized in seed plants and ferns, spent most of his life working in India. He was a pioneer of photography. Edgeworth was born in Edgesworthstown, County Longford, Ireland on 24 May 1812, one of twenty-four children of Richard Lovell Edgeworth and his four wives, his mother, Frances Beaufort, was the fourth wife. His older half-sister Maria Edgeworth, born to his father's first wife Anna Maria Edgeworth, became a novelist. Among his other siblings were Honora, Fanny and Francis. With his wife Christina, whom he married in 1842, Michael had a daughter named Harriet and a second, who died in infancy, he attended Charterhouse School in England from September 1823 where his schoolmates included William Makepeace Thackeray and H. G. Liddell, he studied oriental languages and botany at University of Edinburgh, from 1827. A relative, Lord Carrington offered his mother a cadetship for one of her sons. From 1829 - 30 he was at the East India College, ending with appointment to the East India Company on 30 April 1831 as a writer.

Although he is known to have had an estate of 1,659 acres in County Longford, Ireland, he joined the Bengal Civil Service of the British Colonial regime in India. He was based at Ambala, Muzaffarnagar Saharanpur and Banda until 1850 in a series of judicial and administrative posts covering an area from Lahore to Madras. Being possessed of a curious spirit, Edgeworth travelled especially in northern India where he collected plants and made notes. In June 1849 he was appointed as one of the Commissioners in The Punjab. In addition to his interest in botany, he wrote about Indian languages, culture and antiquities, but he was not always in India. On a return voyage to India in 1846 he took advantage of a short stop at Aden to collect plants. Of the 40 specimens, eleven turned out to be undescribed species that he reported in a scientific journal. In correspondence from Charles Darwin to J. D. Hooker mentions a conversation held between himself and biologists John Lubbock and George Charles Wallich, at a meeting of the Linnean Society of London less than two years after the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

Little of the content of this conversation is revealed in the letter. Edgeworth experimented with the use of photographic techniques in botany from 1839, making daguerreotypes and photogenic drawings, some of which survive, he retired in 1859. Edgeworth died on 30 July 1881 on the island of Eigg, in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. Edgeworth was married to Christina daughter of Dr Macpherson of King's College, Aberdeen in 1846, he published thirteen papers on botany and his travels. In the field of botany, Edgeworth wrote: Descriptions of Some Unpublished Species of Plants from North-Western India Catalogue of Plants found in the Banda district, 1847–49, pp.60.8 Pollen His meticulous diaries from the years 1828 to 1867, was compiled in the weighty, 8,000-page publication entitled India in the Age of Empire - The Journals of Michael Pakenham Edgeworth. It chronicles the broadening of British imperial influence in the Indian territories and is principally of cultural and political interest; the plant genus Edgeworthia was dedicated to him, to his half-sister, the writer Maria Edgeworth.

Numerous other plants including Primula edgeworthii, Rhododendron edgeworthii, Impatiens edgeworthii and Platanthera edgeworthii were named after him. Pictures of Edgeworth National Portrait Gallery Pictures of Edgeworthia from:The Potomac Valley Chapter North American Rock Garden Society The Harvard University HerbariumPollen