Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011 Special Report on Poverty

The sheer scale of needs associated with being poor or near poor dwarfs the resources of even the largest Jewish community in the United States. One is tempted to believe that the scale of need is so vast that the Jewish community should abandon this field to others.Yet since the earliest days of Jewish communal life in New York, the organized Jewish community has accepted its responsibilities to care for those in need. Even since the New Deal, when the federal government took on the primary role of providing a societal safety net, the Jewish community has been active in providing philanthropic support and services for poor and near-poor Jews.The numbers of poor and near-poor Jewish households, the enormous increase in the number of these households over the past 20 years, and the diverse groups affected by poverty create an imperative for an extraordinary response -- from government, the voluntary sector, the philanthropic sector, and all segments of society. These findings suggest that the organized Jewish community needs to take a hard look at current planning, advocacy, service delivery, and resource investment

Three-portal technique for anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction: Use of a central medial portal

Standard endoscopic reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is performed with the use of 2 arthroscopic portals. The surgical error most commonly associated with ACL reconstruction is improper positioning of the tunnel. Errors in femoral tunnel position may be related to poor visualization of the lateral wall. When anatomic double-bundle ACL reconstruction is performed, proper visualization of the lateral wall is essential to ensure correct placement of both tunnels. We propose the use of a central portal, in addition to more standard anterolateral and anteromedial portals, to enhance visualization of the lateral wall. In addition, the arthroscope can be moved interchangeably throughout the portals during the procedure for improved viewing during specific steps. An accessory anteromedial portal placed inferiorly and medially allows placement of the femoral tunnels while providing a high central anteromedial portal for best visualization of the lateral wall. As a result, no notchplasty is required, and a more anatomic reconstruction can be performed

Using Strategic Information Systems to Improve Contracted Services and Assess Privatization Options

Government officials are looking to contracting out and privatization as means to create a public sector that works better and costs less. This new approach to public service delivery is evident in the welfare to work reforms of the 1990s, low- and moderate-income housing construction and management, homeless services, economic development and job training, and the charter school movement. Contracted services require a whole new set of skills for government workers, including contract design, negotiation, monitoring, and evaluation. Sophisticated information systems are crucial to performance management and evaluation systems that are essential to effective contract management. This chapter explores the theory and practice of performance measurement and information technology (IT) in the context of outsourcing public service delivery. It discusses the use of government strategic planning and information-based performance management to plan and manage private contractors performing public tasks. While information systems are critical to the management of in-house organizational units, we believe they are even more important in managing the work of contractors

When Government Is Reinvented, Ethics and Entrepreneurship Can Peacefully Coexist

Article on necessity of public entrepreneurship in governmen

The Use of the Internet in Government Service Delivery

Governments have begun to use the World Wide Web to assist in service delivery. This includes, but goes far beyond, the dissemination of information to the general public and involves a variety of other governmental functions. In reviewing some government websites it is clear that the use of the web for service delivery is still in its infancy. The types of services that can be delivered through the web are still in the process of being imagined and organized by both government and the private sector. Over the next decade we can expect to see a great deal of experimentation and organizational learn- ing in this area. The purpose of this report is to accelerate this learning process by studying several noteworthy current government efforts to use the web for interactive functions. The methodology of this study is to select a number of illustrative case studies on the use of e-commerce and the Internet in government service delivery and communications. The study includes a content analysis of selected state, local, and federal government websites and, where available, an analysis of the costs and benefits of switching to web-based service delivery. We selected cases in Alaska, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, the city of Boston, Florida, Indiana, and Texas. We discuss the lessons learned from these cases and their broader implications for government service delivery. Then we provide a checklist of the steps that governments should take when using the Internet to deliver government service. Finally, we present background on the websites we reviewed, discuss the development and implementation of the site, and analyze its costs and benefits

Public Participation and Shaping Urban Development: The Case of the Atlantic Yard and Nets Arena Project in Brooklyn

This paper provides background on New York City's land use development process requirements and then presents a case study of sports facility development processes in New York City

Trends in 20th Century United States Government Ethics

This paper provides a broad overview of five perspectives on the public service ethics agenda, incorporating a current debate which may well emerge as the initial reform agenda of the new millennium. Perspectives explored include the politics/administration dichotomy, the New Public Administration's emphasis on individual responsibility in the context of strong organizational values and norms, the ethical risks of public entrepreneurship, and the recent emergence of spiritualism as a guide to public ethical decision-making. The authors conclude that we are entering a new era of public ethics where performance and morality will be accorded equal priority. They argue that public entrepreneurship is increasingly essential to meet the public's demands for government that works better and costs less. Most public officials will need on-the-job training and/or ethics courses in schools of public policy and administration to competently assess the ethical risks and dangers that a particular policy innovation may encompass

Trends in 20th Century United States Government Ethics

As the twentieth century comes to a close, ethics is returning to the public sector reform agenda. Just as it was at the turn of this century the current focus is on the administrative branch of government. Then, as now, scandals involving elected officials prompted the reform initiatives. However, today there is far less consensus on the most appropriate elements of the reform agenda, perhaps reflecting a century of less than successful ethically-driven reforms

Independent Contracting Policy and Management Analysis

This study provides an in-depth management and policy analysis of the independent contractor model in the modern U.S. economy. We pay extensive attention to the complex issue of misclassifying employees as contractors, a minor, but salient issue on the nation’s political and regulatory agenda. The report is divided into three sections: • Part I discusses the independent contracting model and relevant issues of organizational management. • Part II analyzes most common types of independent contractors, varied across industries and varied by size and discusses the complex policy and legal environment that independent contractors operate under in the United States. • Part III concludes with a discussion of independent contracting’s place in the current and future U.S. economy amid recently heightened national scrutiny and includes a discussion of best practices for companies who engage with independent contractors

Bombardier Enables Delivery of Short-Form Bomanins in the Drosophila Toll Response.

Toll mediates a robust and effective innate immune response across vertebrates and invertebrates. In Drosophila melanogaster, activation of Toll by systemic infection drives the accumulation of a rich repertoire of immune effectors in hemolymph, including the recently characterized Bomanins, as well as the classical antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). Here we report the functional characterization of a Toll-induced hemolymph protein encoded by the bombardier (CG18067) gene. Using the CRISPR/Cas9 system to generate a precise deletion of the bombardier transcriptional unit, we found that Bombardier is required for Toll-mediated defense against fungi and Gram-positive bacteria. Assaying cell-free hemolymph, we found that the Bomanin-dependent candidacidal activity is also dependent on Bombardier, but is independent of the antifungal AMPs Drosomycin and Metchnikowin. Using mass spectrometry, we demonstrated that deletion of bombardier results in the specific absence of short-form Bomanins from hemolymph. In addition, flies lacking Bombardier exhibited a defect in pathogen tolerance that we trace to an aberrant condition triggered by Toll activation. These results lead us to a model in which the presence of Bombardier in wild-type flies enables the proper folding, secretion, or intermolecular associations of short-form Bomanins, and the absence of Bombardier disrupts one or more of these steps, resulting in defects in both immune resistance and tolerance