862 research outputs found
An empirical look at citizen co-production in Australia
Co-production – the contribution of time and effort to the delivery of public services by service-users and citizens, prompted by or in concert with public sector organisations – is attracting increasing attention from governments and communities. The literature identifies numerous initiatives in the United States, Britain, Germany, Indonesia, Sweden and Latin America, with co-production reported in disaster management, social protection, economic affairs and education – among others.
Yet despite this interest in more than a few services, its ‘big society’ appeal, and the substantial scholarly endeavours devoted to it, there is still much to uncover about co-production. Large groups of co-producing clients have not yet been asked about what they actually do.
This paper is a contribution to developing some answers. Drawing from a large-sample (1,000) survey of co-production in Australia, it looks at what co-producers do (in what kinds of services, and how often) and what motivates them to co-produce.
It is part of a co-published Occasional Paper series from ANZSOG and the Victorian Public Sector Commission.
 
Quantum Field Theory of Nonabelian Strings and Vortices
We develop an operator formalism for investigating the properties of
nonabelian cosmic strings (and vortices) in quantum field theory. Operators are
constructed that introduce classical string sources and that create dynamical
string loops. The operator construction in lattice gauge theory is explicitly
described, and correlation functions are computed in the strong--coupling and
weak--coupling limits. These correlation functions are used to study the
long--range interactions of nonabelian strings, taking account of
charge--screening effects due to virtual particles. Among the phenomena
investigated are the Aharonov--Bohm interactions of strings with charged
particles, holonomy interactions between string loops, string entanglement, the
transfer of ``Cheshire charge'' to a string loop, and domain wall decay via
spontaneous string nucleation. We also analyze the Aharonov--Bohm interactions
of magnetic monopoles with electric flux tubes in a confining gauge theory. We
propose that the Aharonov--Bohm effect can be invoked to distinguish among
various phases of a nonabelian gauge theory coupled to matter.Comment: (82 pp
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Leading with political astuteness - a white paper. A study of public managers in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom
Recommended from our members
Leading with political astuteness: A study of public managers in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom
Combining quantitative survey data from over 1000 middle and senior public managers, as well as qualitative data from 42 in-depth interviews, the study sheds light on how managers understand politics in their work; how they rate their own and their colleagues’ political skills; how they use their political skills; and how these skills were developed. The report also sets forth recommendations to improve the development of managers’ political astuteness at the level of the individual, the organisation, and the professional body/training provider
Translation of Bernstein Coefficients Under an Affine Mapping of the Unit Interval
We derive an expression connecting the coefficients of a polynomial expanded in the Bernstein basis to the coefficients of an equivalent expansion of the polynomial under an affine mapping of the domain. The expression may be useful in the calculation of bounds for multi-variate polynomials
Internal Frame Dragging and a Global Analog of the Aharonov-Bohm Effect
It is shown that the breakdown of a {\it global} symmetry group to a discrete
subgroup can lead to analogues of the Aharonov-Bohm effect. At sufficiently low
momentum, the cross-section for scattering of a particle with nontrivial
charge off a global vortex is almost equal to (but definitely different from)
maximal Aharonov-Bohm scattering; the effect goes away at large momentum. The
scattering of a spin-1/2 particle off a magnetic vortex provides an amusing
experimentally realizable example.Comment: (14 pp
Planck-Scale Physics and the Peccei-Quinn Mechanism
Global-symmetry violating higher-dimension operators, expected to be induced
by Planck-scale physics, in general drastically alter the properties of the
axion field associated with the Peccei-Quinn solution to the strong-CP problem,
and render this solution unnatural. The particle physics and cosmology
associated with other global symmetries can also be significantly changed.Comment: 10p
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