Assessing public sector organisations through performance measurement: A comparative study of New Zealand, Singapore and UK

From the late 1980's, the governments of New Zealand, Singapore and the UK embarked upon major public sector reforms. These reforms as they were applied to the core public sector and other organisations rersponsible for public services, were broadly shaped by the principles of 'managerialism' or 'new public management'.They entailed importing into these organisations business practices associated with the private sector. The 'managerialist' reforms in both countries to a certain extent followed a similar path although in some respects they were divergent. At the heart of both sets of reforms was performance measurement.It was recognised that reforming the civil service or public service along 'managerialist' lines required accurate, precise and relevant measurement of the quantity, quality, efficiency and effectiveness of public services and programmes. Much work has been undertaken in both countries on how best this can be done. Government departments and other public agencies in New Zealand, Singapore and the UK have developed a range of performance indicators for the key areas of performance measurement and have, in many cases, set yearly targets based on those indicators.As a measure of the commitment to performance measurement and typical of many other departments in New Zealand, Department of Corrections in New Zealand now employees about 1010 output quantity and quality indicators (DCNZ 2002).'It was also recognised that for performance measurement and target setting to be an effective spur to performance, it was necessary to concomitantly introduce incentives to achieve better performance. The first part of the paper considers, in light of the reforms in three countries, the main types of performance measurement used, the setting of targets and evaluation of performance results. The second part discusses the limitations and drawbacks of performance measurement as a means for evaluating the work of public sector organisations, which has become evident in the three countries

A Temperature-Dependent Positive Feedback on the Magnitude of Carbon Isotope Excursions

The decrease in the average magnitude of carbon isotope excursions in marine carbonates over Phanerozoic time is a longstanding unresolved problem. In addition, carbon isotope excursions commonly co-occur with oxygen isotope excursions of the same sign, implying the existence of a longstanding link between organic carbon burial fluxes and temperature. It was proposed that this connection was provided by the thermodynamic relationship between temperature and microbial respiration rates – changes in temperature drive changes in organic carbon remineralization rate and organic carbon burial efficiency. Such a mechanism provides the logic for a positive feedback affecting the magnitude of both climate changes and carbon isotope excursions. Here, we employ feedback analysis to quantify the strength of this mechanism with modifications to a simple carbon isotope mass balance framework. We demonstrate that the potential strength of this feedback is large (perhaps several permil) for plausible ranges of historical climate change. Furthermore, our results highlight the importance of the surface temperature boundary condition on the magnitude of the expected carbon isotope excursion. Comparisons of our model predictions with data from the terminal Eocene and Late Ordovician (Hirnantian) greenhouse–icehouse climate transitions suggest that these excursions might be substantially explained by such a thermodynamic microbial respiration feedback. Consequently, we hypothesize that the observed pattern of decreasing excursion magnitude toward the present might be explained at least, in part, by a decrease in the mean temperature of environments of organic carbon burial driven by long-term climate and paleogeographic trends. SOMMAIRELa diminution de l'amplitude moyenne des excursions des isotopes du carbone dans les carbonates marins au fil du Phanérozoïque est une énigme de longue date.  On note en outre que les excursions des isotopes du carbone coexistent couramment avec des excursions isotopiques de même signe de l'oxygène, ce qui implique l'existence d'un lien de longue date entre les flux d’enfouissement du carbone organique et la température.  On a suggéré que ce lien découlait de la relation thermodynamique entre la température et les taux de respiration microbienne - les changements de température déterminent le taux de reminéralisation du carbone organique et l’efficacité de l’enfouissement du carbone organique.  Un tel mécanisme peut expliquer la rétroaction positive affectant à la fois l'ampleur des changements climatiques et les excursions des isotopes du carbone.  Dans le cas présent, nous utilisons l'analyse de la rétroaction pour quantifier la robustesse de ce mécanisme avec des modifications d’un simple bilan de masse des isotopes du carbone.  Nous démontrons que la robustesse potentielle de cette rétroaction est forte (peut-être plusieurs pour mille) dans les gammes plausibles du changement climatique historique.  De plus, nos résultats mettent en évidence l'importance de la condition aux limites de la température de surface sur l'ampleur de l'excursion isotopique du carbone attendue.  Les comparaisons des prédictions de notre modèle avec les données de la fin de l'Éocène et de la fin de l’Ordovicien (Hirnantien) des transitions climatiques à effet de serre-effet/de glaciation permettent de penser que ces excursions pourraient être correctement expliquées par une telle rétroaction de la thermodynamique de la respiration microbienne.  Par conséquent, nous émettons l'hypothèse que la tendance observée de diminution de l'ampleur de l’amplitude des excursions du passé vers le présent peut s'expliquer, au moins en partie, par une diminution de la température moyenne du milieu d'enfouissement du carbone organique engendrée par des tendances climatiques et paléogéographiques à long terme

Quantum Process Tomography of the Quantum Fourier Transform

The results of quantum process tomography on a three-qubit nuclear magnetic resonance quantum information processor are presented, and shown to be consistent with a detailed model of the system-plus-apparatus used for the experiments. The quantum operation studied was the quantum Fourier transform, which is important in several quantum algorithms and poses a rigorous test for the precision of our recently-developed strongly modulating control fields. The results were analyzed in an attempt to decompose the implementation errors into coherent (overall systematic), incoherent (microscopically deterministic), and decoherent (microscopically random) components. This analysis yielded a superoperator consisting of a unitary part that was strongly correlated with the theoretically expected unitary superoperator of the quantum Fourier transform, an overall attenuation consistent with decoherence, and a residual portion that was not completely positive - although complete positivity is required for any quantum operation. By comparison with the results of computer simulations, the lack of complete positivity was shown to be largely a consequence of the incoherent errors during the quantum process tomography procedure. These simulations further showed that coherent, incoherent, and decoherent errors can often be identified by their distinctive effects on the spectrum of the overall superoperator. The gate fidelity of the experimentally determined superoperator was 0.64, while the correlation coefficient between experimentally determined superoperator and the simulated superoperator was 0.79; most of the discrepancies with the simulations could be explained by the cummulative effect of small errors in the single qubit gates.Comment: 26 pages, 17 figures, four tables; in press, Journal of Chemical Physic

Experimental Implementation of Optical Clockwork without Carrier-Envelope Phase Control

We demonstrate an optical clockwork without camer-envelope phase control using sum-frequency generation between a CW optical parametric oscillator at 3.39 μm and a modelocked Tisapphire laser with dominant spectral peaks at 834 and 670 nm

Optical Clockwork without Carrier-Envelope Phase Control

We demonstrate optical clockwork without carrier-envelope phase control using sum-frequency generation between a cw optical parametric oscillator at 3.39 μm and a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser with dominant spectral peaks at 834 nm and 670 nm

CAR T manufacturing: process modifications for a transformational autologous product on a rapid path to licensure

The transformational impact of CAR T cell therapies on serious diseases demands a rapid path to licensure in order to establish widespread availability to desperate patients. In addition, the complex, labor intensive, and costly patient-specific manufacturing processes for CAR T cell therapies demand process modifications that enable scalability and affordability to maximize availability to patients. There are many options to improve CAR T processes ranging from automation to improved medium composition to simplified closed-system tubing sets. However, the dramatic dose-dependent safety and efficacy activities of these therapies amplifies the need for maintaining product comparability across process changes. This assessment of comparability is challenged by limited knowledge of product Critical Quality Attributes as well as limited availability of patient cells for process development studies. We have developed a comprehensive analytical toolbox that enables the assessment of product impact of process changes along with a risk-based approach to applying a matrix of appropriate tools for each change. This risk-based approach involves the most extensive product analysis for high-risk changes and a relatively restricted product analysis for low-risk changes. In all cases, the product analysis includes assessments of product characteristics that can hypothetically be impacted by the process change. We describe our approach to identifying, prioritizing, and assessing feasibility of process changes along with generating a suitable product comparability dataset to implement the most impactful process changes on an expedited timeline to licensure. We share examples of comparability data and its application to decision making

Team MIT Urban Challenge Technical Report

This technical report describes Team MITs approach to theDARPA Urban Challenge. We have developed a novel strategy forusing many inexpensive sensors, mounted on the vehicle periphery,and calibrated with a new cross-­modal calibrationtechnique. Lidar, camera, and radar data streams are processedusing an innovative, locally smooth state representation thatprovides robust perception for real­ time autonomous control. Aresilient planning and control architecture has been developedfor driving in traffic, comprised of an innovative combination ofwell­proven algorithms for mission planning, situationalplanning, situational interpretation, and trajectory control. These innovations are being incorporated in two new roboticvehicles equipped for autonomous driving in urban environments,with extensive testing on a DARPA site visit course. Experimentalresults demonstrate all basic navigation and some basic trafficbehaviors, including unoccupied autonomous driving, lanefollowing using pure-­pursuit control and our local frameperception strategy, obstacle avoidance using kino-­dynamic RRTpath planning, U-­turns, and precedence evaluation amongst othercars at intersections using our situational interpreter. We areworking to extend these approaches to advanced navigation andtraffic scenarios

The Magnitude and Duration of Late Ordovician–Early Silurian Glaciation

Understanding ancient climate changes is hampered by the inability to disentangle trends in ocean temperature from trends in continental ice volume. We used carbonate “clumped” isotope paleothermometry to constrain ocean temperatures, and thereby estimate ice volumes, through the Late Ordovician–Early Silurian glaciation. We find tropical ocean temperatures of 32° to 37°C except for short-lived cooling by ~5°C during the final Ordovician stage. Evidence for ice sheets spans much of the study interval, but the cooling pulse coincided with a glacial maximum during which ice volumes likely equaled or exceeded those of the last (Pleistocene) glacial maximum. This cooling also coincided with a large perturbation of the carbon cycle and the Late Ordovician mass extinction

The Faint Satellite System of NGC 253: Insights into Low-Density Environments and No Satellite Plane

We have conducted a systematic search around the Milky Way (MW) analog NGC 253 (D=3.5 Mpc), as a part of the Panoramic Imaging Survey of Centaurus and Sculptor (PISCeS) - a Magellan+Megacam survey to identify dwarfs and other substructures in resolved stellar light around MW-mass galaxies outside of the Local Group. In total, NGC 253 has five satellites identified by PISCeS within 100 kpc with an absolute V-band magnitude $M_V<-7$. We have additionally obtained deep Hubble Space Telescope imaging of four reported candidates beyond the survey footprint: Do III, Do IV, and dw0036m2828 are confirmed to be satellites of NGC 253, while SculptorSR is found to be a background galaxy. We find no convincing evidence for the presence of a plane of satellites surrounding NGC 253. We construct its satellite luminosity function, which is complete down to $M_V$$\lesssim$$-8$ out to 100 kpc and $M_V$$\lesssim$$-9$ out to 300 kpc, and compare it to those calculated for other Local Volume galaxies. Exploring trends in satellite counts and star-forming fractions among satellite systems, we find relationships with host stellar mass, environment, and morphology, pointing to a complex picture of satellite formation, and a successful model has to reproduce all of these trends.Comment: Submitted to AAS Journal. Comments are welcom

Phase-Coherent Synthesis of Optical Frequencies and Waveforms

Precision phase control of an ultrawide-bandwidth optical-frequency comb has produced remarkable and unexpected progress in both areas of optical-frequency metrology and ultrafast optics. A frequency comb (with 100 MHz spacing) spanning an entire optical octave (\u3e300 THz) has been produced, corresponding to millions of marks on a frequency “ruler” that are stable at the Hz level. The precision comb has been used to establish a simple optical clock based on an optical transition of iodine molecules, providing an rf clock signal with a frequency stability comparable to that of an optical standard, and which is superior to almost all conventional rf sources. To realize a high-power cw optical frequency synthesizer, a separate, widely tunable single-frequency cw laser has been employed to randomly access the stabilized optical comb and lock to any desired comb component. Carrier-envelope phase stabilization of few-cycle optical pulses has recently been realized. This advance in femtosecond technology is important for both extreme non-linear optics and optical-frequency metrology. With two independent femtosecond lasers, we have not only synchronized their relative pulse timing at the femtosecond level, but have also phase-locked their carrier frequencies, thus establishing phase coherence between the two lasers. By coherently stitching the optical bandwidth together, a “synthesized” pulse has been generated with its 2nd-order autocorrelation signal displaying a shorter width than those of the two “parent” lasers