Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons^™

Stepping Up: Managing Diversity In Challenging Times, Carol Hardy-Fanta

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

Since its launch in 2008, Commonwealth Compact has grown steadily, employing several strategies to promote diversity statewide. The Benchmarks initiative has collected data, analyzed in this report, on a significant portion of the state workforce. Guided by Stephen Crosby, dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at UMass Boston, Commonwealth Compact has conducted newsmaking surveys of public opinion and of boards of directors statewide. In addition, it has convened ongoing coalitions with its higher education partners, and established a collaborative of local business schools aimed specifically at increasing faculty diversity. The Compact has sponsored or co-sponsored …

Presidential Staffing And Public Opinion: How Public Opinion Influences Politicization, José Villalobos, Justin Vaughn

Departmental Papers (PS)

Scholars traditionally frame presidential efforts to politicize the federal bureaucracy as the result of divergence between the president's preferences and an agency's output. The authors argue that presidential concern with agency output is dynamic and is in part conditioned by the president's relationship with the public. To assess the relationship between politicization and public opinion, the authors use a data set that combines information on presidential efforts to politicize the Council of Economic Advisers from 1989 to 2004 with that of public attitudes concerning the president's handling of the economy. Their results indicate that public opinion does indeed bear a …

Focal Point, Volume 23 Number 01, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

Stigmatization can result in exclusion of and discrimination against the stigmatized individual. This issue of Focal Point provides state-of-the-art information about stigmatization, its causes and consequences, and strategies and programs for alleviating it.

Capping Carbon, David M. Driesen

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

This article addresses the problem of how to set caps for a cap-and-trade program, a key problem in pending legislation addressing global climate disruption. Previous scholarship on emissions trading programs focuses overwhelmingly on trading’s advantages and sometimes wrongly portrays environmental improvement as an automatic byproduct of adopting a cap-and-trade approach. A trading program’s success, however, depends critically upon timely and effective cap setting.

This article shows that often regulators have employed a best available technology (BAT) approach to cap setting for trading programs, i.e., setting the cap at a level that regulated polluters can achieve with government-identified technology. This descriptive …

An Investigation Of The Factors Related To Direct Care Staffs' Knowledge Of Effectiveness Instructional Strategies For People With Developmental Disabilities, Craig Cook

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Medicaid Home and Community Based Services Waiver (HCBS) funds services for people with developmental disabilities in community based group homes. The purpose of the Medicaid HCBS Waiver is to: (1) support alternatives to institutions, (2) promote independence, (3) maximize functioning, and (4) support community integration. Direct care staff members have primary, day to day contact with people with developmental disabilities living in group home settings. Residential agencies for people with developmental disabilities have the responsibility to train direct care staff in the use of effective teaching strategies in order to realize the purpose of the Medicaid HCBS waiver. Direct …

Public Perceptions Of Registry Laws For Juvenile Sex Offenders, Carrie E. Reynolds, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Jessica M. Salerno, Margaret C. Stevenson, Tish R.A. Wiley, Bette L. Bottoms

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Understanding jurors’ perceptions of juvenile defendants has become increasingly important as more and more juvenile cases are being tried in adult criminal court rather than family or juvenile court. Intellectual disability and child maltreatment are overrepresented among juvenile delinquents, and juveniles (particularly disabled juveniles) are at heightened risk for falsely confessing to crimes. In two mock trial experiments, we examined the effects of disability, abuse history, and confession evidence on jurors’ perceptions of a juvenile defendant across several different crime scenarios. Abused juveniles were treated more leniently than nonabused juveniles only when the juvenile’s crime was motivated by self-defense against …

Democratic Institutions Create Civic Health: How Local Jurisdictions Can Enhance Their Problem-Solving Capacities Through Inclusive Governance, Including A Case Study Of Newark, Delaware, Ezra Temko

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Civic health is a community’s economic, civic, and social infrastructure – its capacity to solve its problems. This paper explores how contemporary local governments address the opportunities and challenges facing their communities and how local governments could utilize civic engagement to enhance civic health. It also evaluates the status of Newark, Delaware’s civic health and offers pragmatic steps Newark’s government can take to enhance the community’s civic health. Democratic governance is the 21st century engine for communities like Newark, Delaware to enhance their civic health. Collaborative and inclusive governance can improve a community’s abilities to solve problems. The Newark community …

Impacts Of Nebraska Legislative Policies On Selected Small Nebraska School Districts, Curtis Cogswell

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Water Treatment: Keeping It Pure, Petros Katsioloudis

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The article discusses the importance of water treatment in providing quality and safe drinking water. A historical background of the U.S. federal regulation of drinking water quality is presented. It was found by the Public Health Service in 1969 that only 60 percent of the systems surveyed delivered water that met all the Public Health Service standards. Filtration and chlorination are also cited as an effective treatment techniques for protecting U.S. water supplies from harmful microbes. An overview of the process of water treatment is presented.

Commons, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The commons is a theoretical formalism that is useful in understanding many diverse problems of civil society. A common (or commons) is an economic, political, social, and legal institution that enables joint, shared, mutual or collective natural or social action by agents using a “pool” of shared or jointly held or mutually controlled resources. A substantial body of work exists detailing natural common resource pools acted upon by physical or biological agents. Another large body of work on humanly-directed natural resource pools study the human-natural environment interface, interspecies conflict and population density. Studies of social commons have also looked at …

Pals For Pals: The U.S. And Pakistan, Anna Mcdermott

Global Tides

Of all the nuclear arsenals in the world, Pakistan’s faces the most risk. With over forty terrorist organizations active within the country, frequent power fluxes between the military, government and intelligence agencies, and a history of security breaches plaguing its nuclear program, Pakistan makes North Korea seem secure and stable. With all the challenges that face the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, it still lacks one basic security technology, Permissive Action Links (PALs), which are use control devices that make it virtually impossible for any unauthorized person to detonate a nuclear weapon. Over the years, there have been barriers that …

Fiscal Crisis In Federal Reserve Districts 9 And 10 “Plains States”, John R. Bartle

Public Administration Faculty Publications

The states in these two districts include all of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska and Oklahoma, and parts of Wisconsin, Michigan (Upper Peninsula), New Mexico and Missouri. The region is generally more rural and lower in population density than the nation. Economically, the area is more reliant on agriculture, and in some areas, energy and mining. It is less reliant than the nation on manufacturing, financial services and tourism. Cities in this region are generally smaller than national averages. In their fiscal structure, no personal income tax is imposed in Montana and South Dakota. All these …

Comparison Of Hispanic Poverty Rates And Rankings For States: 2000 Census Vs. 2009-13 American Community Survey, David Drozd, Jerry Deichert

Past Publications

Sources: Table P159H, 2000 Census (SF3); Table B17001I, 2009-13 ACS; U.S. Census Bureau

Nepa And The Dynamics Of Public Participation In The Environmental Review Process: An Analysis Of The Northmet (Polymet) Mining Project Near Hoyt Lakes Minnesota, Amber Neumann

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Hypothesis: That comments collected from agency “experts” during the scoping phase of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process would be disproportionately represented as changes in subsequent drafts of NorthMet’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

Methods: Tabular analysis of data collected from the Minnesota DNR publication of Response to the Public Scoping Projects PolyMet Mining Inc.; NorthMet Project. 2005

Results: There is an excellent cross section of comment sources represented in changes to subsequent drafts of NorthMet’s EIS. A lot of overlap exists between various types of participants and their concerns, resulting in many of the successful comments stemming from …

Environmental Factors That Affect Seventh Grade Readers': Motivations, Attitudes, Opinions, Experiences, And Gender, Donna Wylie

Public Affairs Theses - Archive

The author discusses factors that affect middle school students' motivations to engage in reading. First, reading research is reviewed to determine an outline of factors that are currently known to affect students' reading motivations: gender differences, influences on reading/academic successes, interests and experiences with reading, motivational factors, reading methodology and material preferences, use of cornerstone reading skills, and learning styles. Second, building upon current reading research, the author presents results garnered from administered student and teacher reading surveys. Survey participants included fifty-two seventh-grade reading students and their six reading teachers. Students and teachers constitute reading programs in three separate middle …

2009 Legislative Briefing Book, Nevada Institute For Children’S Research And Policy, Unlv, School Of Public Health, The Children’S Advocacy Alliance, Southern Nevada Area Health Education Center, Denise Tanata Ashby, Amanda Haboush, Tara Phebus, Jennifer Waddoups

Nevada Institute for Children's Research and Policy Reports

The purpose of the Nevada Institute for Children’s Research and Policy (NICRP) Legislative Briefing Book is to provide a quick snapshot of some of the most pressing issues facing Nevada’s children in order to provide advocates and policymakers with a stepping stone in creating positive changes to improve the lives of Nevada’s children. While this book will not cover every issue facing our children, it is intended to highlight those of greatest concern, covering issues in education, health, safety and security, and the juvenile justice system. Diligent efforts need to be made during the 2009 Legislative Session to improve policies, …

Urban Transportation Planning Decision Making: A Robustness Analysis Approach, Deogratias Eustace

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Faculty Publications

Travel demand modeling remains a cornerstone of the transportation planning process. Although current transportation planning procedures are mostly performed by an interdisciplinary team approach, there are still a number of institutional issues which may hinder the process from providing the best results. According to Marshment (2001), the most notable setback is a lack of coordination between land use and transportation planning. Most of the time, land use plans do not reflect the influence of the accessibility to the alternative transportation facilities.

The lack of interaction between land use and transportation planning may play a major role in using unrealistic and …

Lack Of A Will Or Of A Way? Taking A Capability Approach For Analysing Disability Policy Shortcomings And Ensuring Programme Impact In Afghanistan, Jean-Francois Trani, Parul Bakhshi, Ayan A. Noor, Ashraf Mashkoor

Brown School Faculty Publications

The present paper attempts to analyse some of the shortcomings that have impeded efforts in the field of disability in Afghanistan. After an overview of recent disability initiatives, this article presents elements that have contributed to the limited impact. The context of a Conflict Affected Fragile State (CAFS) makes particularly intricate the development of state-capacity as well as the delivery of basic services for the population. To overcome identified gaps, it is argued that Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach (CA) constitutes a relevant framework for designing disability policy and implementation. While the definition of human development has evolved considerably over the …

Air Force Users' Perceptions Of The Value Of Information Technology-Enabled Enterprise Business Systems, Kathleen Thome-Diorio

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Based on the Government Performance and Results Act, the United States Air Force is transforming its business through e-government, the adoption of information technology enabled enterprise business systems. The problem this research addressed was the lack of theory on implementation success of enterprise business systems, especially when users perceive that organizational mission and the value of the systems differ from the enterprise vision and goals. The purpose of the study was to conceptualize the acceptance of enterprise business systems by internal users. The research was based on theories about the influence and interaction of drivers of technology adoption and user …

The Politic 2009 Winter, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

Feasibility Study: Consolidated Dispatch Center For Police, Fire And Ems Services, Daila Shimek, Ryan Foster, Holly Cooper, Kevin O'Brien, Claudette Robey, Caitlin Johnson

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

This report provides an assessment of the feasibility of consolidation of public safety dispatch for 14 communities in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The findings are that consolidation of dispatch services among the participating communities would reduce staffing costs by an estimated $1.7 million annually. Consolidation of services would reduce the duplication of services and redundant capital projects. Instead of the duplicate purchase of expensive equipment by several communities, the cost of large capital will be distributed over a larger base of beneficiaries. Centralization will reduce the physical blueprint of dispatch operations which in turn should reduce operating costs such as natural …

Gubernatorial Reputation And Vertical Tax Externalities: All Smoke, No Fire?, Per G. Fredriksson, Khawaja Mamun

WCBT Working Papers

This paper investigates whether reputation-building strategies guide U.S. governors’ responses to changes in federal cigarette taxes (i.e. vertical tax interactions). Using 1975-2000 state cigarette tax data, we find that reputation-building strategies affect the nature of vertical tax externalities. Lame duck governors exhibit a more negative response to changes in the federal cigarette tax. Thus, by reducing the state tax base and by causing a decline in the state tax, an increase in the federal tax rate reduces state tax revenues in states headed by lame ducks.

Tobacco Politics And Electoral Accountability In The United States, Per G. Fredriksson, Khawaja Mamun

WCBT Working Papers

This paper investigates whether reputation-building strategies guide U.S. governors’ state cigarette tax choices, and whether the federal cigarette tax influences such behavior. Using 1975-2000 data, we find evidence that governors in states with relatively important agricultural tobacco production and tobacco manufacturing, and which are densely populated by smokers, appear prone to reputation-building. Moreover, lame ducks are more prone to raise the state cigarette tax the lower the federal tax.

Global Trends In Aids Mortality, John Bongaarts, Francois Pelletier, Patrick Gerland

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This working paper reviews the evolution of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and provides estimates of past trends and future projections of AIDS mortality indicators, including numbers of AIDS deaths, the proportion of all deaths that are due to AIDS, and life expectancy. A cumulative total of 24 million people have died from AIDS between 1980 and 2007, and by 2030 this total is projected to reach 75 million. Despite the rapid spread of this new disease during the 1980s and 1990s, the epidemic has reached a major turning point in recent years as the rate of new infections peaked and began …

Reference Guides For Health Care Organizations Seeking Accreditation For High-Quality, Gender-Sensitive Reproductive Health Services, Patricia Riveros, Erica Palenque, Ricardo Vernon, Ignacio Carreno, John H. Bratt

Reproductive Health

Bolivia’s Integral Health Coordination Program (PROCOSI), a network of 33 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) providing reproductive health care, has long promoted gender sensitivity as a necessary component of high-quality health care. PROCOSI encourages member NGOs to address gender-based differences in roles, relationships, access to services, and service needs in their reproductive health programs. The Reference Guides in this publication provide guidance to help health-care organizations and NGOs implement high-quality, gender-sensitive standards to achieve certification for their member clinics and administrative centers. The procedures and standards included here are based on the process developed by PROCOSI, but the approach and standards can …

Reference Guides For Health Care Organizations Seeking Accreditation For High-Quality, Gender-Sensitive Reproductive Health Services—Appendixes, Patricia Riveros, Erica Palenque, Ricardo Vernon, Ignacio Carreno, John H. Bratt

Reproductive Health

Bolivia’s Integral Health Coordination Program (PROCOSI), a network of 33 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) providing reproductive health care, has long promoted gender sensitivity as a necessary component of high-quality health care. PROCOSI encourages member NGOs to address gender-based differences in roles, relationships, access to services, and service needs in their reproductive health programs. Included in this document are the Appendixes to “The Reference Guides for Health Care Organizations Seeking Accreditation for High-Quality, Gender-Sensitive Reproductive Health Services,” which provide guidance to help health-care organizations and NGOs implement high-quality, gender-sensitive standards to achieve certification for their member clinics and administrative centers. The procedures …

The Refentse Model For Post-Rape Care: Strengthening Sexual Assault Care And Hiv Post-Exposure Prophylaxis In A District Hospital In Rural South Africa, Julia C. Kim, Ian Askew, Lufuno Muvhango, Ntabozuko Dwane, Tanya Abramsky, Stephen Jan, Ennica Ntlemo, Jane Chege, Charlotte Watts

Reproductive Health

The Refentse study aimed to develop a nurse-driven, post-rape care model that could be integrated into existing reproductive health/HIV services within a rural South African hospital, and to evaluate the impact of this model on the quality of care delivered. Following the intervention, there were significant improvements in the quality of clinical history and examination, and the provision of pregnancy testing, emergency contraception, STI treatment, HIV counseling and testing, post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), trauma counseling, and referrals. The report concludes that it is possible to improve sexual assault services including PEP within a rural South African hospital at modest cost, using …

Mine Action Strategy (2009-2013) - Azerbaijan, Gichd

Global CWD Repository

The mine/UXO problem in Azerbaijan is mainly resulted from the military aggression of Armenia over the territory

of Azerbaijan. Although the hostilities had ceased in May 1994, a permanent peace is yet to be achieved

(negotiations are underway with the assistance of OSCE Minsk Group, chaired by the USA, France and Russia).

Despite this, the rehabilitation of accessible war-torn areas are continuing since 1996.

The Scope of the Problem in this publication refers to problems in the accessible war torn territories. This is where

the presence of mine/UXOs are impacting livelihoods of population and impeding development and rehabilitation

efforts of …

Unmas 2008 Annual Report, Unmas

Global CWD Repository

In 2008, mine action operations supported by UNMAS enabled hundreds of thousands of people and local communities to resume normal lives and reclaim their livelihoods by regaining access to previously contaminated lands. The clearance of thousands of kilometres of mined roads and essential infrastructure has contributed to the protection and empowerment of men, women, girls and boys in the nine countries or territories where UNMAS operates and in other countries and territories supported by UNMAS. One of the more remarkable achievements of the year was the clearance of 84,000 anti-personnel mines in Afghanistan, which is more than double the average …

Apopo Annual Report 2009, Apopo

Global CWD Repository

In 2009, APOPO has made tremendous progress in reaching its mission to become the Centre of Excellence in detection rats technology and achieving social impact for underprivileged communities and people in Africa.

Implementation of the strategic plan and transformation process, which was started in 2008, has improved both APOPO’s internal structure and operational outputs. These changes have strengthened the management team and fostered the formation of strategic partnerships that will provide the basis to further enhance the impact of APOPO’s life-saving technology and facilitate the sustainable growth of the organization.

However, the most tangible results of this year can be …