An Assessment of the Impact of Federal Continuing Resolutions on the Pre-Approval Stage of Defense Acquisitions

Acquisition Management / Faculty ReportAcquisition Research Program Sponsored Report SeriesSponsored Acquisition Research & Technical ReportsThis study is an analysis of the impact of federal continuing resolutions on defense acquisitions. It focuses on the early stage of the acquisitions lifecycle when purchase requests are prepared and submitted to the acquisitions system. The research objective is to quantify the impacts of continuing resolutions on the number of purchase requests created, the processing period for acceptance of purchase requests into the acquisition system, and the total dollar amount of purchase requests. The analysis used data taken from the USMC Purchase Request Builder system, a database for purchase order creation prior to a requests acceptance into the acquisitions system. The sample obtained describes over 1,000 unique purchase requests generated between FY16 through FY19. The results of the analysis revealed strong impacts of CRs on the number of purchase requests initiated per week and on the total price of individual purchase requests. The results show that the weekly average number of requests generated is reduced by nearly half during a continuing resolution. The regressions using the count of purchase requests per week also revealed strong impacts purchase requests for both goods and services, though the impact may be greater on service requests. The estimates of the impact of Continuing Resolutions on the total price of individual requests revealed a significant impact on service requests. The results showed that the lack of budget authority is associated with a reduction in the size of individual requests and that this effect disproportionately effects service requests. All of the estimations described in this report made special care to separate the effects of CRs from the underlying seasonal trend in government purchasing that is often aligned with “use it or lose it” behaviors. Both the count of purchase request initiation and the Total Purchase Price effects persisted after including these seasonal controls. Our analysis of PRALT length, the time required for a request to advance from initial creation to acceptance in the procurement system, was initially significant, but ultimately could not be distinguished from the seasonal trends. Overall, this study is one of the few empirical exercises to date that measure the impact of continuing resolutions on defense procurement. The estimates generated from this analysis identify clear impacts on procurement activity that results from the uncertainty and increased administrative burden that is triggered by the lack of full budget authority.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Measuring the Effects of Federal Budget Dysfunction: Impacts of Continuing Resolutions on Public Procurement

Symposium PresentationApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Exploring the Sub-State Intergovernmental Game

Draft: Do not cite without author permissionThe (draft) article of record as published may be found at https://ssrn.com/abstract=3562735Cooperative budgeting arrangements between state and local governments jointly fund local programs. The mix of state and local revenues contributed to these arrangements can change as budget priorities shift over time. This study examines the strategic choices public officials make as they determine their contributions to jointly-funded programs. Using a game theory model known as the “Diner’s Dilemma”, the analysis explores how each level of government considers how much revenue to contribute and whether it can induce its partner to increase their level of support. This analysis applies primarily to local programs with regional externalities. The model illustrates how local efforts to aggressively try to shift costs to the state government can backfire, particularly during periods of state fiscal stress

Measuring the Effects of Federal Budget Dysfunction: Impacts of Continuing Resolutions on Public Procurement

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Acquisition Research SymposiumThis study measures the behavioral effects of continuing resolutions by examining their impact on federal procurement activities. The restrictions imposed by continuing resolutions are explored as an example of political control over a public organization. The analysis employs a dataset describing the timing of U.S. Marine Corps purchase orders for goods and services. Individual purchase orders were sampled over a four-year period (2016−2019) that endured continuing resolutions of different lengths. The analysis examines the impact of continuing resolutions on the number of purchase orders initiated, the duration of their review period, and the dollar amount per request. The results depict multiple impacts that appear to concentrate on requests for services rather than commodities. These findings help quantify the magnitude of the disruptions caused by federal budgetary dysfunction.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

The Timing of Managerial Responses to Fiscal Stress

17 USC 105 interim-entered record; under temporary embargo.Using 34 years of data from Florida counties, we examine the effect of multiple fiscal stressors on expenditures over time to test theoretical propositions in Charles Levine's seminal study on cutback management. We demonstrate support for Levine's stages model and his claims on linkages between the causes of fiscal stress and managerial responses. Specifically, unemployment levels produce differential effects by service area (e.g., human services bear the most significant share of the reductions), especially in relation to the persistence of the stressor. We cannot support the stages model with other stressor measures. We expand the literature to include county governments, enhancing the contemporary literature on local government fiscal stress.U.S. Government affiliation is unstated in article text

Nuclear Officer Bonus & Incentive Pay (NOBIP) and Retention

NPS NRP Executive SummaryRetaining top-quality nuclear officers is critical to mission readiness. To facilitate officer retention, the Navy offers a bonus, the Nuclear Officer Continuation Bonus (COBO), to officers who have fulfilled the minimum service requirement (MSR). The Navy recently raised the amount of the bonus in the hope of increasing retention. It is mission-critical to understand how responsive retention rates have been to COBO, particularly in light of the recent changes. This study examines the efficacy of the most recent bonus policy for nuclear officers, NAVPOL 20241 and its immediate predecessor. Specifically, we used sponsor-provided data on 2,058 nuclear officers across seven year groups to assess the impact of the latest NAVPOL on nuclear officer retention relative to the immediately prior policy. Statistical analyses using survivorship modeling revealed that individual characteristics, such as the overall unemployment rate, marital status, presence of dependents, length of military tenure, and membership in certain racial/ethnic ­­groups are all positively and statistically significantly associated with nuclear officer retention. We recommend the Navy commission additional studies to obtain a deeper understanding of the non-monetary factors influencing nuclear officer retention, rather than a simple increase in the dollar amount of the COBO.N1 - Manpower, Personnel, Training & EducationThis research is supported by funding from the Naval Postgraduate School, Naval Research Program (PE 0605853N/2098). https://nps.edu/nrpChief of Naval Operations (CNO)Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

Nuclear Officer Bonus & Incentive Pay (NOBIP) and Retention

NPS NRP Project PosterRetaining top-quality nuclear officers is critical to mission readiness. To facilitate officer retention, the Navy offers a bonus, the Nuclear Officer Continuation Bonus (COBO), to officers who have fulfilled the minimum service requirement (MSR). The Navy recently raised the amount of the bonus in the hope of increasing retention. It is mission-critical to understand how responsive retention rates have been to COBO, particularly in light of the recent changes. This study examines the efficacy of the most recent bonus policy for nuclear officers, NAVPOL 20241 and its immediate predecessor. Specifically, we used sponsor-provided data on 2,058 nuclear officers across seven year groups to assess the impact of the latest NAVPOL on nuclear officer retention relative to the immediately prior policy. Statistical analyses using survivorship modeling revealed that individual characteristics, such as the overall unemployment rate, marital status, presence of dependents, length of military tenure, and membership in certain racial/ethnic ­­groups are all positively and statistically significantly associated with nuclear officer retention. We recommend the Navy commission additional studies to obtain a deeper understanding of the non-monetary factors influencing nuclear officer retention, rather than a simple increase in the dollar amount of the COBO.N1 - Manpower, Personnel, Training & EducationThis research is supported by funding from the Naval Postgraduate School, Naval Research Program (PE 0605853N/2098). https://nps.edu/nrpChief of Naval Operations (CNO)Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

An inherited duplication at the gene p21 protein-activated Kinase 7 (PAK7) is a risk factor for psychosis

FUNDING Funding for this study was provided by the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium 2 project (085475/B/08/Z and 085475/Z/08/Z), the Wellcome Trust (072894/Z/03/Z, 090532/Z/09/Z and 075491/Z/04/B), NIMH grants (MH 41953 and MH083094) and Science Foundation Ireland (08/IN.1/B1916). We acknowledge use of the Trinity Biobank sample from the Irish Blood Transfusion Service; the Trinity Centre for High Performance Computing; British 1958 Birth Cohort DNA collection funded by the Medical Research Council (G0000934) and the Wellcome Trust (068545/Z/02) and of the UK National Blood Service controls funded by the Wellcome Trust. Chris Spencer is supported by a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellowship (097364/Z/11/Z). Funding to pay the Open Access publication charges for this article was provided by the Wellcome Trust. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors sincerely thank all patients who contributed to this study and all staff who facilitated their involvement. We thank W. Bodmer and B. Winney for use of the People of the British Isles DNA collection, which was funded by the Wellcome Trust. We thank Akira Sawa and Koko Ishzuki for advice on the PAK7–DISC1 interaction experiment and Jan Korbel for discussions on mechanism of structural variation.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Southern African Large Telescope Spectroscopy of BL Lacs for the CTA project

In the last two decades, very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy has reached maturity: over 200 sources have been detected, both Galactic and extragalactic, by ground-based experiments. At present, Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) make up about 40% of the more than 200 sources detected at very high energies with ground-based telescopes, the majority of which are blazars, i.e. their jets are closely aligned with the line of sight to Earth and three quarters of which are classified as high-frequency peaked BL Lac objects. One challenge to studies of the cosmological evolution of BL Lacs is the difficulty of obtaining redshifts from their nearly featureless, continuum-dominated spectra. It is expected that a significant fraction of the AGN to be detected with the future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) observatory will have no spectroscopic redshifts, compromising the reliability of BL Lac population studies, particularly of their cosmic evolution. We started an effort in 2019 to measure the redshifts of a large fraction of the AGN that are likely to be detected with CTA, using the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). In this contribution, we present two results from an on-going SALT program focused on the determination of BL Lac object redshifts that will be relevant for the CTA observatory

Contribution of copy number variants to schizophrenia from a genome-wide study of 41,321 subjects

Copy number variants (CNVs) have been strongly implicated in the genetic etiology of schizophrenia (SCZ). However, genome-wide investigation of the contribution of CNV to risk has been hampered by limited sample sizes. We sought to address this obstacle by applying a centralized analysis pipeline to a SCZ cohort of 21,094 cases and 20,227 controls. A global enrichment of CNV burden was observed in cases (OR=1.11, P=5.7×10−15), which persisted after excluding loci implicated in previous studies (OR=1.07, P=1.7 ×10−6). CNV burden was enriched for genes associated with synaptic function (OR = 1.68, P = 2.8 ×10−11) and neurobehavioral phenotypes in mouse (OR = 1.18, P= 7.3 ×10−5). Genome-wide significant evidence was obtained for eight loci, including 1q21.1, 2p16.3 (NRXN1), 3q29, 7q11.2, 15q13.3, distal 16p11.2, proximal 16p11.2 and 22q11.2. Suggestive support was found for eight additional candidate susceptibility and protective loci, which consisted predominantly of CNVs mediated by non-allelic homologous recombination