Financial resilience in local authorities: an exploration of Anglo-Italian experiences

For more than thirty years public management and accounting theories and practice have been strongly influenced by the search for efficiency, heralded by the New Public Management and similar public sector modernization movements. Public administrations have focused their attention on economy, efficiency and effectiveness, looking for cost containment, matching resources and goals, output maximization or input minimization. Even the wave of development of performance measurement and management tools have mainly emphasized the importance of short-term efficiency, often without worrying too much about their ability to ensure public administrations’ responsiveness in the face of unexpected events and crises

Detection of substrate binding motifs for morphine biosynthetic pathway intermediates in novel wound inducible (R,S)-reticuline 7-O-methyltransferase of Papaver somniferum

The benzylisoquinoline alkaloids (BIA) comprise a large and diverse group of nitrogen-containing secondary metabolites with about 2500 compounds identified in plants. BIA biosynthesis begins with the condensation of the tyrosine derived precursors dopamine and p-hydroxyphenylacetaldehyde to (S)-norcoclaurine. Subsequent regiospecific O- and N-methylations and aromatic ring hydroxylation lead to (S)-reticuline, which is the central intermediate for almost all BIAs. For morphinan alkaloid biosynthesis, (S)-reticuline undergoes an inversion of stereochemistry to (R)-reticuline, followed by C-C phenol coupling catalyzed by a unique cytochrome P450-dependent monooxygenase to yield salutaridine. The cDNA sequence of enzymes leading to (S)-reticuline, as well as those involved in the conversion of (R)-reticuline to salutaridine-7-O-acetate are already characterized. The inversion of (S)-reticuline to (R)-reticuline represent the important steps in morphine biosynthesis. Wound induced transcript accumulation in Papaver reveals a novel wound inducible EST (NCBI DbEST: GO238757) showing homology with (R,S)-reticuline 7-O-methyltransferase (ID: Q6WUC2) isolated from Papaver somniferum. We compare the substrate binding homology of this novel wound inducible (R,S)-reticuline 7-O-methyltransferase (7-OMT) using template of P. somniferum (Q6WUC2; gb|AAQ01668) as experimental control. Homology modeling with 70% identity & 85% similarity with catalytic site of template protein i.e., (Q6WUC2) short chain dehydrogenase/reductase (SDR), showed docking energy -69.9 and -75.8 kcal/mol with (S)-Reticuline (CID:439653) and (R)-Reticuline (CID:440586) respectively, which are comparable with experimental control binding site interaction energies. Docking of S- & R-reticuline into the active site revealed eight (F(5), E(18), W(24), C(47), F(44), P(45), C(46) and I(47) amino acids presumably responsible for the high substrate specificity of (R,S)-reticuline 7-O-methyltransferase

RANCH-LEVEL ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF GRAZING POLICY CHANGES: A CASE STUDY FROM OWYHEE COUNTY, IDAHO

Economic impacts often are cited as justification both for and against changes in grazing policy on public lands. A recent study conducted in Owyhee County, Idaho, illustrates a process to gather ranch-level economic information, develop economic models for different ranching systems, and use the models to estimate economic impacts of grazing policy changes. Ranch-level models were developed from producer panels and interviews within the county. Costs and returns, livestock production information, dependency on public lands, and other factors relative to ranch-level economics were gathered in four meetings with livestock producers and other interested parties. Results indicate that, as dependency on federal lands rise, both costs and returns fall. Ranch-level economic impacts of alternative grazing policy scenarios also are detailed.Land Economics/Use, Agricultural and Food Policy,

Ecuador: The Continuing Challenge of Democratic Consolidation and Civil-Military Relations; Strategic Insights, v. 5, issue 2 (February 2006)

This article appeared in Strategic Insights, v.5, issue 2 (February 2006)Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Ressenyes

Index de les obres ressenyades: Michel BRUNEAU ; Daniel Dory (dirs.), Géographies des colonisations. XV-XX siècles. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1994

The Center for Civil-Military Relations / Spanish Case Study

The Center for Civil-Military Relations at the Naval Post-Graduate School (CCMR, Monterey, CA) is an implementing organization of the U.S. Department of Defense's Expanded-International Military Education and Training Program and has amassed both scholarly and practical expertise educating civilian and military defense professionals from more than 40 countries. CCMR was established in 1994 and is sponsored by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA). CCMR conducts civil-military relations programs designed primarily for military officers, civilian officials, legislators, and non-government personnel. These programs include courses designed to be taught both in residence at NPS and in a Mobile Education Team (MET) format, depending upon requirements. Three programs offered by CCMR include the MET, the Masters Degree in International Security and Civil-Military Relations, and the Executive Program in Civil-Military Relations.The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) sponsored the research in this report under agreement AEP-A-00-98-00014-00, which established the Partnership for Democratic Governance and Society. The Partnership for Democratic Governance and Society (PDGS) conducts programs to strengthen the capacity of civilians to provide leadership in defense management, policymaking and analysis. The PDGS conducts its programs in cooperation with local legislatures, political parties, civic organizations, academic institutions, media and the civilian elements of the defense establishment.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Putting the Military Back into Civil-Military Relations

There is no region in the world that exceeds Latin America in the number of books and articles, by local and foreign scholars, on the topic of civil-military relations. It is indicative of the great interest in the topic that Red de Seguridad y Defensa de América Latina (RESDAL), based in Buenos Aires, periodically publishes the Defense Atlas of Latin America and the Caribbean, which appears in Spanish but has also appeared in English and at least once in French. Despite serious and sustained efforts and interest in other regions, particularly in the Middle East, there is nothing similar anywhere else in the world. Currently, much is happening in both the United States and Latin America involving civil-military relations, for better and for worse. The value of several of these books is to redirect our attention at least in part back to the military institutions from which the currently democratic regimes evolved. The authors deal with fundamental issues of militaries including the centrality of strategy, the importance of roles and missions, and the necessity of institutions in the absence of which civilians are incapable of controlling the military. It must be stated up front that two major factors influence most of the literature on civil-military relations in the region, both of which revolve around the military but normally do not enter into military issues per se. First is the very serious human rights abuses in virtually all of the countries ruled by military regimes, and second, the transition from military regimes to electoral democracies, again in virtually all of the countries. It is no surprise, then, that the overwhelming emphasis in the literature is on the conditions for, and institutions created to exercise democratic civilian control, with very little attention to the military itself. The question thus arises: What happened to the military in civil-military relations in Latin America? The great novelty, and in my view, contribution of at least five of the books reviewed here is that they focus on precisely the military as an institution, how it should be organized, how it should be led, and what it should be doing: Chirio’s in her focus on the internal dynamics of the military in Brazil, Pion-Berlin’s as he focuses on roles or missions, Alsina’s as he deals with national security and defense strategy, Pion-Berlin and Martínez as they analyze military effectiveness, and Franqui-Rivera as he focuses on the military’s role in the culture in Puerto Rico. Each of these books, by refocusing the debate on the military institutions and their missions, brings the military back into the study of civil-military relations. While the book by Klein and Vidal Luna focuses mainly on the military regime, 1964–1985, and Chirio’s on the military regime and democratic transition, the remaining six deal primarily with the military in democratic regimes

Portugal: Problems and Prospects in the Creation of a New Regime

If the overwhelming majority of foreign observers were surprised but encouraged by the coup of 25 April 1974 which signaled an end to the Salazar· Caetano regime, the responses to developments since that time have been mixed. In part this ambivalence can be attributed to the developments them• selves which are both difficult to comprehend and almost impossible to place in a fixed context. Indeed, there is no fixed context

COHESION, INTEGRATION, AND ATTACHMENT IN OWYHEE COUNTY COMMUNITIES

How social change occurs is an important consideration when analyzing the effects of public land management policies on rural communities. This paper utilizes data from a recent study in Owyhee County, Idaho, to explore the combination of social attributes that contribute to community attitudes of cohesion, integration, and attachment in a set of rural communities. Specifically, we examine the importance of social networks and where a particular public land activity, ranching, fits into those networks. We then evaluate the role such networks play in determining respondent attitudes about the cohesiveness of their community, how they are integrated with people in their community, and how attached they are to where they live. The results indicate that increasing density of acquaintenship and intimate social connections to ranching and other local businesses increase the strength of cohesion and integration attitudes. Density of acquaintenship and intimate social connections to local businesses increase community attachment, but a social connection to ranching does not.Community/Rural/Urban Development, Land Economics/Use,