The Two Futures of Governing: Decentering and Recentering Processes in Governing. IHS Political Science Series Paper No. 114, January 2008

Reforms of the public sector have helped create a more efficient and effective public sector, but also have created a number of problems. Both, the New Public Management and “governance” reforms have contributed to the contemporary problems in governing. These problems have been political to a great extent, reflecting the tendency to emphasize administrative rather than democratic values. Governments have begun to react to the real and perceived problems within the public sector by developing a number of “meta-governance” instruments that can help steer public organizations but which involve less direct command and control. This paper addresses the contemporary governance tasks of restoring political direction and policy coherence while at the same supporting the autonomy of public organizations, and the involvement of policy networks, in governing

Deeper model endgame analysis

A reference model of Fallible Endgame Play has been implemented and exercised with the chess-engine WILHELM. Past experiments have demonstrated the value of the model and the robustness of decisions based on it: experiments agree well with a Markov Model theory. Here, the reference model is exercised on the well-known endgame KBBKN

Immersed Boundary Smooth Extension: A high-order method for solving PDE on arbitrary smooth domains using Fourier spectral methods

The Immersed Boundary method is a simple, efficient, and robust numerical scheme for solving PDE in general domains, yet it only achieves first-order spatial accuracy near embedded boundaries. In this paper, we introduce a new high-order numerical method which we call the Immersed Boundary Smooth Extension (IBSE) method. The IBSE method achieves high-order accuracy by smoothly extending the unknown solution of the PDE from a given smooth domain to a larger computational domain, enabling the use of simple Cartesian-grid discretizations (e.g. Fourier spectral methods). The method preserves much of the flexibility and robustness of the original IB method. In particular, it requires minimal geometric information to describe the boundary and relies only on convolution with regularized delta-functions to communicate information between the computational grid and the boundary. We present a fast algorithm for solving elliptic equations, which forms the basis for simple, high-order implicit-time methods for parabolic PDE and implicit-explicit methods for related nonlinear PDE. We apply the IBSE method to solve the Poisson, heat, Burgers', and Fitzhugh-Nagumo equations, and demonstrate fourth-order pointwise convergence for Dirichlet problems and third-order pointwise convergence for Neumann problems

Equilibrium relationships for non-equilibrium chemical dependencies

In contrast to common opinion, it is shown that equilibrium constants determine the time-dependent behavior of particular ratios of concentrations for any system of reversible first-order reactions. Indeed, some special ratios actually coincide with the equilibrium constant at any moment in time. This is established for batch reactors, and similar relations hold for steady-state plug-flow reactors, replacing astronomic time by residence time. Such relationships can be termed time invariants of chemical kinetics

The effect of phosphorus on the iron redox ratio, viscosity, and density of an evolved ferro-basalt

Despite the abundant evidence for the enrichment of phosphorus during the petrogenesis of natural ferro-basalts, the effect of phosphorus on the physical properties of these melts is poorly understood. The effects of phosphorus on the viscosity, density and redox ratio of a ferro-basaltic melt have been determined experimentally. The viscosity measurements were obtained using the concentric cylinder method on a ferro-basaltic melt above its liquidus, at 1 atm, in equilibrium with air and with CO2. The density measurements were performed using the double Pt-bob Archimedean method at superliquidus conditions under 1 atm of air. The redox ratio was obtained by wet chemical analysis of samples collected during physical property measurements. Phosphorus pentoxide reduces ferric iron in ferro-basaltic melt. The reduction due to P2O5 is much larger than that for most other oxide components in basaltic melts. A coefficient for the reduction of ferric iron has been generated for inclusion in calculation schemes. The effect of P2O5 on the viscosity is shown to be complex. The initial reduction of ferric iron with the addition of P2O5 results in a relatively small change in viscosity, while further addition of P2O5 results in a strong increase. The addition of phosphorus to a ferro-basaltic melt also reduces the density. A partial molar volume of 64.5±0.7 cm3/mol for P2O5 in this melt has been obtained at 1300° C, yielding a volume of 12.9 cm3/mol per oxygen, consistent with a tetrahedral coordination for this high field strength cation. The effects of P2O5 on redox state, density and viscosity provide constraints on the structural role of phosphorus in these melts. The results suggest a complex interaction of phosphorus with the aluminosilicate network, and tetrahedral ferric iron. In light of the significant effects of phosphorus on the physical and chemical properties of ferro-basaltic liquids, and the extreme enrichments possible in these liquids in nature, the role of phosphorus in these melts should, in future, be considered more carefully

Environmental Volunteering: Motivations, Modes and Outcomes

Volunteers play a key role in natural resource management: their commitment, time and labour constitute a major contribution towards managing environments in Australia and throughout the world. From the point of view of environmental managers much interest has focussed on defining tasks suitable to volunteers. However, we argue that an improved understanding of what motivates volunteers is required to sustain volunteer commitments to environmental management in the long term. This is particularly important given that multiple government programs rely heavily on volunteers in Australia, a phenomenon also noted in the UK, Canada, and the USA. Whilst there is considerable research on volunteering in other sectors (e.g. health), there has been relatively little attention paid to understanding environmental volunteering. Drawing on the literature from other sectors and environmental volunteering where available, we present a set of six broad motivations underpinning environmental volunteers and five different modes that environmental volunteering is manifested. We developed and refined the sets of motivations and modes through a pilot study involving interviews with volunteers and their coordinators from environmental groups in Sydney and the Bass Coast. The pilot study data emphasise the importance of promoting community education as a major focus of environmental volunteer groups and demonstrate concerns over the fine line between supporting and abusing volunteers given their role in delivering environmental outcomes.environment, volunteering, motivation, Natural Resource Management (NRM)

Heart-Lung Interactions in Aerospace Medicine

Few of the heart-lung interactions that are discussed have been studied in any detail in the aerospace environment, but is seems that many such interactions must occur in the setting of altered accelerative loadings and pressure breathing. That few investigations are in progress suggests that clinical and academic laboratory investigators and aerospace organizations are further apart than during the pioneering work on pressure breathing and acceleration tolerance in the 1940s. The purpose is to reintroduce some of the perennial problems of aviation physiology as well as some newer aerospace concerns that may be of interest. Many possible heart-lung interactions are pondered, by necessity often drawing on data from within the aviation field, collected before the modern understanding of these interactions developed, or on recent laboratory data that may not be strictly applicable. In the field of zero-gravity effects, speculation inevitably outruns the sparse available data