Unelected oversight : the politics of government investigations and problem monitoring

How do elected officials and top decisionmakers receive information about the problems encountered in government agencies? Policymaking and agenda setting research primarily examines how elected officials directly gather information through mechanisms like oversight hearings or from outside interests. In this dissertation, I build on existing research by examining how agenda setting and problem identification take place in an oversight context with a specific focus on unelected means including bureaucrats themselves, Offices of Inspectors General, and the Government Accountability Office. In doing so, I extend and clarify existing theories of oversight, agenda setting, and problem identification to highlight three important but underappreciated and understudy sources of expert information. First, I consider oversight within public organizations performed by civil servants. Using survey data, I find that bureaucrats with greater knowledge of internal oversight processes and public service motivation are more likely to identify problems in their agency. Second, I consider the monitoring agendas of federal Offices of Inspectors General using an original dataset of reports. My findings suggest that OIGs monitor a greater variety of issues with larger budgets and when signals in the political environment become more diverse. Third, I use a new dataset of all Government Accountability Office reports from 1974-2018 to examine how Congress steers their auditing agenda, noting that it reflects a desire for information on technical agencies but still reflects members' political concerns in relation to individual agencies and the president. Taken together, these findings advance our understanding of oversight and accountability by demonstrating how unelected administrators and specialized organizations monitor and identify problems that undermine the effectiveness of government programs.Includes bibliographical reference

Relatives\u27 care for people with dementia in their home environment

V diplomskem delu obravnavam skrb sorodnikov za ljudi z demenco v domačem okolju. V teoretičnem delu sem najprej predstavila demenco, njeno zgodovino, vrste ter stopnje napredovanja. Nadaljevala sem z opredelitvijo modelov razumevanja demence, kamor uvrščam biomedicinski, psihološki, sociološki ter socialnodelovni model. Nato sem opisovala oskrbo človeka z demenco ter predstavila tudi potrebe neformalnih oskrbovalcev. V zadnjem poglavju teoretičnega dela sem opredelila še socialno delo z ljudmi z demenco ter omenila pravice ljudi z demenco. Predstavim kvalitativno raziskavo, katere glavni cilj je bil raziskati, s kakšnimi težavami se soočajo neformalni oskrbovalci v domačem okolju, torej raziskati težave, ki se pojavljajo na različnih ravneh socialnodelovnega modela razumevanja demence, tako na ravni medsebojnih odnosov, ekonomski in etični kot tudi izvedbeni ravni. Raziskovala sem, kako demenca vpliva na življenjski potek celotne družine in potek skrbi na splošno, pozornost sem namenila tudi čustvom, ki so ob skrbi prisotna. Zanimalo me je, pri katerih opravilih družinski oskrbovalci pomagajo človeku z demenco ter kdo jim pomaga in jih oskrbi s potrebnimi informacijami. Preverila sem tudi morebitno povezavo med stopnjo izobrazbe in stopnjo ozaveščenosti oziroma informiranostipri slednjem sem se osredotočila predvsem na vlogo socialnih delavcev. Ugotovitve raziskave so, da demenca močno vpliva na vsakdanjik celotne družine, zlasti pa na potrebe neformalnih oskrbovalcev, saj se soočajo s številnimi izzivi in obremenitvami. Oskrba človeka z demenco predstavlja veliko fizično in psihično obremenitev. Družine se soočajo z veliko spremembami tako v medsebojnih odnosih kot tudi pri poteku njihovega vsakdanjika, vsakodnevnih opravilih ter aktivnostih. Oskrba sproža veliko čustev, med njimi prevladujejo negativna. Formalno oskrbo opredeljujejo kot težko dostopno oziroma nedostopno, pri čemer so eden glavnih vzrokov finance, drugi pa nedostopnost teh oblik pomoči ob koncu tedna in praznikih. Ugotovila sem, da vsi v Občini Kamnik poznajo vsaj dve obliki formalne pomoči, vendar je vseeno informiranost o ostalih možnostih šibka, ravno tako pa se pojavlja nezadovoljstvo z informiranostjo nasploh. Odkrila sem tudi nepoznavanje vlog socialnih delavcev, kar bi bilo potrebno spremeniti z raznimi delavnicami in večjo mero ozaveščanja s strani centrov za socialno delo.Because of the fact that dementia is more and more common disease among the older people and because the awareness, that dementia affects life course of the whole family, needs to be risen, I have decided in my graduation thesis to discuss care for people with dementia in their home environment in my municipality. The theoretical part of my thesis consists of presentation of dementia, its history, types and stages, which are followed by description of models of understanding dementia, where biomedical, psychological, sociological and social work model have been placed. It is followed by the discussion about needs of caregivers and definition of social work with people with dementia, where are also mentioned rights of people with dementia. In the following chapter, methodology and my research are described, namely I have used qualitative research, which main aim was to explore the problems that caregivers face on different areas of social work model of understanding dementia, and furthermore I have also wanted to find out how dementia affects life course of whole family and the course of care in general. The attention has also been paid to the relationships between caregivers and people with dementia and to present emotions, besides the aim of my research has also been to get to know who provides caregivers with help and support, as well as who gives them necessary information. At the same time the aim of my research was to check on possible connection between education level and level of awareness, where I have focused mainly on role of social workers. The research showed that dementia strongly affects life of the whole family, furthermore it also presents several challenges and strains. Caregivers confront with loads of emotions, unfortunately usually prevail negative ones. The finding that formal care is considered as unavailable, mostly due to low income or occupancy is also significant. Informal caregivers are also often dissatisfied with amount of information that are available, in addition they are often not even familiar with social work roles when it comes to dementia, which should be changed with the help of different workshops and by rising awareness about our mission

Computer Program for determination of seismic loading according to Eurocode 8

The structural design standards Eurocodes will become obligatory in Slovenia from the beginning of 2008. The main focus of the diploma thesis is the Eurocode 8 standard for earthquake resistant design of structures. More specifically, the computer program is developed for determination of the behaviour factor, the design response spectrum, the fundamental period of the structure according to simplified procedure and for determination of the seismic design forces according to lateral force method of analysis. The program is made in Excel by emplying Visual Basic Editor. Firstly, the procedure for determination of behaviour factor and design response spectrum is explained for different types of structures, then, the algorithms for program are developed and implemented and at the end for examples are presented. In the first example we have tested the program by an example of multi-storey building. The second example was a comparison between different structural types. We have seen that the lowest seismic loading is foreseen for frame structural types. Third example was a comparison between low (DCL), medium (DCM) and high (DCH) ductility class. It is shown that for selected case the design seismic forces for DCH ductility class are for 50% lower in comparison with the design forces for DCM ductility class and 300% lower than DCL ductility class. DCM ductility class is for 167% lower than DCL ductility class. Based on our fourth example we found out that the most appropriate ground for earthquake resistant buildings are grounds type A

Decomposition of 3D model for 3D printing

Typical consumer level 3D printers have a limited build volume, so 3D models that are too big need to be divided into several smaller pieces that can be printed separately. The goal of this thesis is to develop a program for cutting 3D models into several smaller segments. The idea is to find a simple yet effective solution which is built with suitable algorithmic solutions. A 3D model is typically defined with a set of triangles that describe its surface. Cutting a 3D model is performed in several different steps. We begin by developing a procedure for cutting the existing triangles, and use them to construct polygons by connecting the edges. To support triangulation of polygons with holes we implemented an algorithm for sorting polygons into a hierarchical tree and an algorithm for merging polygons with its holes. Next we implemented an Ear clipping algorithm for polygon triangulation. The program was developed in the Python programming language with a command line interface. After presenting how our solution works we performed measurements and an analysis of time complexity for the separate steps. The anaylsis showed that the polygon triangulation is the most time consuming step in the program, and that the execution of triangulation using Ear clipping rises exponentialy wih the resolution of the 3D model. Nevertheless the solution performs well if the 3D model is of moderate complexity