Emerging Policy and Practice Issues (2016)

This paper, presented at the West Government Contracts Year in Review Conference (covering 2015), attempts to identify the key trends and issues in U.S. federal procurement. Consistent with prior practice, this chapter offers extensive coverage of the federal procurement, grant, and defense spending trends and attempts to predict what lies ahead, particularly with regard to legislative and executive activity. The paper discusses, in addition to the macro-level data, initiatives from OFPP and DoD, including the Better Buying Power 3.0\u27s less-than-obvious focus on innovation, the need for investment in research and development, information technology and category management, acquisition performance measurement (or metrics), and cost drivers

The Contract Management Body of Knowledge: Understanding an Essential Tool for the Acquisition Profession

The collective knowledge of any profession is commonly referred to as its body of knowledge. In the acquisition, procurement, or government contracting profession, the collective wisdom of the National Contract Management Association (NCMA) organizes, and periodically updates, a broadly accepted conceptual inventory of the profession’s acquired knowledge. This article describes the NCMA Guide to the Body of Knowledge, how it was developed and is maintained, and its importance and relevance to people concerned with the contract management profession

The Contract Management Body of Knowledge: Understanding an Essential Tool for the Acquisition Profession

The collective knowledge of any profession is commonly referred to as its body of knowledge. In the acquisition, procurement, or government contracting profession, the collective wisdom of the National Contract Management Association (NCMA) organizes, and periodically updates, a broadly accepted conceptual inventory of the profession’s acquired knowledge. This article describes the NCMA Guide to the Body of Knowledge, how it was developed and is maintained, and its importance and relevance to people concerned with the contract management profession

Occurrence of the orange wheat blossom midge [Diptera :Cecidomyiidae] in Quebec and its incidence on wheat grain microflora

À l'été 1995, on a prélevé des échantillons de blé (Triticum aestivum) dans des champs de diverses régions agricoles du Québec. La présence de larves de la cécidomyie orangée du blé (Sitodiplosis mosellana) fut quantifiée et une évaluation qualitative et quantitative de la microflore des grains fut réalisée. Les pertes moyennes de rendement causées par les larves de la cécidomyie du blé furent estimée à 6,3%. Le pourcentage des épis infestés fut significativement corrélé avec la contamination bactérienne et fongique des grains (r = 0,79). La présence spécifique du Fusarium graminearum dans les grains de blé fut aussi significativement corrélée avec le nombre de larves par épi (r= 0,67) ou par épillet (r= 0,67). Il appert que la cécidomyie du blé pourrait jouer un rôle dans la dissémination du F. graminearum.Samples of wheat spikes (Triticum aestivum) were collected in the summer of 1995 from different crop districts in Quebec and the occurrence of orange wheat blossom midge (Sitodiplosis mosellana) and seed microflora were determined. Estimated yield loss caused by wheat midge larvae averaged 6.3%. The percentage of infested spikes was significantly correlated with total seed contamination by fungi and bacteria (r = 0.79). The specific occurrence of Fusarium graminearum in grains was also significantly correlated with number of larvae per spike (r = 0.67) or per spikelet (r = 0.67). Consequently, the wheat midge might play a role in dissemination of F. graminearum

Globular Clusters in the dE,N galaxy NGC 3115 DW1: New Insights from Spectroscopy and HST Photometry

The properties of globular clusters in dwarf galaxies are key to understanding the formation of globular cluster systems, and in particular in verifying scenarios in which globular cluster systems of larger galaxies formed (at least partly) from the accretion of dwarf galaxies. Here, we revisit the globular cluster system of the dE,N galaxy NGC 3115 DW1 - a companion of the nearby S0 galaxy NGC 3115 - adding Keck/LRIS spectroscopy and HST/WFPC2 imaging to previous ground-based photometry. Spectra for seven globular clusters reveal normal abundance ratios with respect to the Milky Way and M31 clusters, as well as a relatively high mean metallicity ([Fe/H] = -1.0+/-0.1 dex). Crude kinematics indicate a high velocity dispersion within 10 kpc which could either be caused by dark matter dominated outer regions, or by the stripping of outer globular clusters by the nearby giant galaxy NGC 3115. The total galaxy mass out to 3 and 10 kpc lies between 10^10 and 10^11 solar masses and 2*10^10 and 4*10^11 solar masses, respectively, depending on the mass estimator used and the assumptions on cluster orbits and systemic velocity. The HST imaging allows measurement of sizes for two clusters, returning core radii around 2.0 pc, similar to the sizes observed in other galaxies. Spectroscopy allows an estimate of the degree of contamination by foreground stars or background galaxies for the previous ground-based photometry, but does not require a revision of previous results: NGC 3115 DW1 hosts around 60+/-20 clusters which corresponds to a specific frequency of 4.9+/-1.9, on the high end for massive dEs. Given its absolute magnitude (M_V=-17.7 mag) and the properties of its cluster system, NGC 3115 DW1 appears to be a transition between a luminous dE and low-luminosity E galaxy.Comment: 25 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal, August 2000 issu

Supersymmetric QCD flavor changing top quark decay

We present a detailed and complete calculation of the gluino and scalar quarks contribution to the flavour-changing top quark decay into a charm quark and a photon, gluon, or a Z boson within the minimal supersymmetric standard model including flavour changing gluino-quarks-scalar quarks couplings in the right-handed sector. We compare the results with the ones presented in an earlier paper where we considered flavour changing couplings only in the left-handed sector. We show that these new couplings have important consequences leading to a large enhancement when the mixing of the scalar partners of the left- and right-handed top quark is included. Furthermore CP violation in the flavour changing top quark decay will occur when a SUSY phase is taken into account.Comment: 14 pages, latex, 3 figure

Detection of phloem restricted bacteria responsible for strawberry marginal chlorosis (SMC) by real-time PCR in a single assay

Two uncultured phloem restricted plant pathogens, the γ3 proteobacterium «Candidatus Phlomobacter fragariae » and the stolbur phytoplasma (group 16SrXII-A) are associated with strawberry marginal chlorosis (SMC) in France. As “Ca. P. fragariae” and stolbur phytoplasma induce identical symptoms, the only way to identify the pathogen infecting a given diseased plant is to perform conventional PCR assays. Because using two PCR techniques for detecting separately each of the two bacteria is time consuming and because specificity and sensitivity of the detection test needed to be improved, a new approach using triplex real time PCR was developed for the routine detection of “Ca. P. fragariae “ and stolbur phytoplasma. The real time PCR has the advantage of being faster reduces the risks of producing false positives. Furthermore, real-time PCR techniques provide the possibility of multiplexing by using probes with different compatible fluorescent dyes. Here, we present a new sensitive Taqman® method which permits the simultaneous amplification of three DNA targets in one test: the map gene of stolbur phytoplasma, the spoT gene of “Ca. P. fragariae” and the cox gene of strawberry chloroplast taken as an internal control. The specificity and the efficiency of this method were determined.Keywords: Strawberry Marginal Chlorosis, Triplex taqman® PCR ,Candidatus Phlomobacter fragariae, stolbur phytoplasma

[Colored solutions of Yang-Baxter equation from representations of U_{q}gl(2)]

We study the Hopf algebra structure and the highest weight representation of a multiparameter version of $U_{q}gl(2)$. The commutation relations as well as other Hopf algebra maps are explicitly given. We show that the multiparameter universal ${\cal R}$ matrix can be constructed directly as a quantum double intertwiner, without using Reshetikhin's transformation. An interesting feature automatically appears in the representation theory: it can be divided into two types, one for generic $q$, the other for $q$ being a root of unity. When applying the representation theory to the multiparameter universal ${\cal R}$ matrix, the so called standard and nonstandard colored solutions $R(\mu,\nu; {\mu}', {\nu}')$ of the Yang-Baxter equation is obtained.Comment: [14]pages, latex, no figure