Lonely at the Top: An Examination of the Changing Dynamics for Chief Administrative Officers in Alberta Municipalities

This paper explores administrative viability in Alberta’s municipalities by investigating a critical ingredient in municipalities’ ability to deliver local public services: the chief administrative officer (CAO). Specifically, this paper aims to identify the patterns that are emerging with respect to the role and tenure of municipal CAOs in Alberta, and the implications for Alberta’s municipalities. Using a mixed-methods approach that blends qualitative and quantitative analysis, this paper presents several important findings: ● The average tenure of a CAO in Alberta is now well under the length of one term of council. CAO tenure is generally shorter in smaller municipalities. More concerningly, the average length of tenure has been in a steady state of decline for the past two decades. ● The number of CAO transitions, including acting and interim roles, has been increasing in all types of municipalities – in some types of municipalities, double or triple the rate of CAO transitions in earlier time periods. The days of long-serving CAOs outside of cities appear to be waning, as the length of one council term becomes a harder cap on CAO tenure in those communities. ● The role of CAO involves important on-the-job learning. No two municipalities are the same; even two terms of council within the same municipality can have quite different dynamics. Shorter CAO tenures and higher rates of turnover mean more costly transitions – not just in dollars and organizational disruption, but in the time to reach peak performance. ● Current and past CAOs clearly identify the increasingly tenuous political dynamics as a leading driver in role dissatisfaction and reasons for decisions to join or depart from a municipality. There seems to be consensus that the political dynamics are getting worse, not better. Among many other insights about the contemporary experiences of CAOs, this emerged as the central theme.   The chief argument of this paper is that the success and stability of CAOs is a leading indicator of administrative viability. Currently, measures of this indicator are ringing alarm bells. Efforts towards strengthening the foundations of municipal governance – particularly role clarity, improved relations between council and staff, and intentional efforts to building trust and respectful decorum between CAOs and councils – are all needed to improve administrative viability in Alberta’s municipalities

Oil exploration and production in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1990-present: Trends and developments

The exploration and production of oil and gas continue to be vigorously pursued by African states and international corporations—both large and small. However, with unpredictable fluctuations in oil prices it becomes more difficult to exploit these resources in ways which accrue net benefits to both the state and its citizens. The oil and gas industry in Africa continues to grow and attract new investment, especially from China and India. Despite the lower price of oil, exploration and production activities continue to be carried out. At the same time, the possibilities for oil and gas to be a blessing narrow. Natural resource-based development has always been a difficult objective for any state. The question now may be whether embracing oil and gas is socially responsible: as renewable energy becomes more cost-effective and societies transition into a post-carbon world, the prospects for African states to make good use of carbon resources are waning. In exploring the closing window for petro-development in Africa, this paper uses a comparative cross-regional analysis of trends and developments to highlight how weak legal frameworks and a lack of institutional capacity pose major challenges for the continent\u27s states in managing their natural resources

Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence

Across five experiments, we show that dehumanization—the act of perceiving victims as not completely human—increases instrumental, but not moral, violence. In attitude surveys, ascribing reduced capacities for cognitive, experiential, and emotional states to victims predicted support for practices where victims are harmed to achieve instrumental goals, including sweatshop labor, animal experimentation, and drone strikes that result in civilian casualties, but not practices where harm is perceived as morally righteous, including capital punishment, killing in war, and drone strikes that kill terrorists. In vignette experiments, using dehumanizing compared with humanizing language increased participants’ willingness to harm strangers for money, but not participants’ willingness to harm strangers for their immoral behavior. Participants also spontaneously dehumanized strangers when they imagined harming them for money, but not when they imagined harming them for their immoral behavior. Finally, participants humanized strangers who were low in humanity if they imagined harming them for immoral behavior, but not money, suggesting that morally motivated perpetrators may humanize victims to justify violence against them. Our findings indicate that dehumanization enables violence that perpetrators see as unethical, but instrumentally beneficial. In contrast, dehumanization does not contribute to moral violence because morally motivated perpetrators wish to harm complete human beings who are capable of deserving blame, experiencing suffering, and understanding its meaning. Keywords: moral; violence; dehumanization; instrumental; aggressionNational Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant 1520031

Equivalence of histogram equalization, histogram matching and the Nyul algorithm for intensity standardization in MRI

Intensity standardization is an important preprocessing step in automatedanalysis of MRI. A popular method by Nyul et al. uses apiece-wise linear approximation of histogram matching. We showthat this method is a non-uniform trapezoidal Riemann approximationof the ideal histogram matching operation, and suggest thathistogram matching is no better than histogram equalization for intensitystandardization in MRI. Experimental results are derived usingsynthetic data

Preaching Connection into Detachment: A Homiletical Model for Nurturing People Influenced by New Age Ideologies

This paper is aimed to assist people who have been influenced by New Age ideologies to become acquainted with the essential message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the primary theological medium of preaching. This thesis was implemented and tested at the Goleta Presbyterian Church in Goleta, California. This study uses the homiletical models of Karl Barth to explore a significant inroad for individuals who have been influenced by Buddhism. One of Buddhism’s primary paradigms is that all people who seek transcendence do so from the starting point of “no-self” (Anatman). Christianity teaches that the first step of salvation begins with confession. A parallel between the two concepts is examined. To test this hypothesis the Goleta Presbyterian congregation was offered a four-month preaching regimen. A baseline Christological survey was conducted which demonstrated the otherwise unconventional belief systems found in the church. Follow-up interviews and empirical evidence was collected and analyzed for signs of personal transformation. This study concludes that people who have been influenced by New Age Ideologies can experience significant spiritual transformation through the primary theological medium of preaching. Because of this study, members of Goleta Presbyterian Church showed a slightly higher appreciation of the essentials of the Christian gospel. While it is impossible to determine whether there was a definitive causal connection between preaching and these measurable outcomes, it does point to a strong correlative connection. Because around thirty-seven percent of the congregation did not take part in the survey, it cannot conclusively be said that preaching alone was singularly transformative in this church system. These results should only be viewed as a preliminary finding. The project is deeply appreciative of the contributions of the Goleta Presbyterian Church toward further understanding of this important subject matter

Morphological and functional variation between isolated populations of British red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris)

Isolation due to habitat fragmentation can lead to morphological and functional variation between populations, with the effect being well documented in rodents. Here, we investigated whether such morphological variation could be identified between British populations of the Eurasian red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris). This species was once widespread across Great Britain, but suffered a severe population decline across the 20th century, leaving a highly fragmented distribution. The aim was to test for morphological and biomechanical variation of the mandible between the remaining British red squirrel populations, and between British and continental European red squirrels. Linear and geometric morphometric methods were used to analyse shape in a sample of over 250 red squirrel hemi-mandibles from across Britain plus a sample from Germany representing the central European subspecies. Procrustes ANOVA identified significant shape variation between populations, with particularly distinct differences being noted between red squirrels from Germany and several British red squirrel populations, which may reflect their evolutionary history. Linear biomechanical measurements showed that the red squirrels from Formby and Jersey had a significantly lower mechanical advantage of the temporalis muscle than other British populations, suggesting they were less efficient at gnawing. This functional difference may be related to many factors, such as founder effect, potential inbreeding and/or past supplemental feeding with less mechanically resistant food items

Incorporation of prior knowledge and habits while solving anagrams

Games and puzzles provide a valuable context for examining human problem- solving behavior. We recorded and analyzed the sequence of letters viewed by the participants of our study while they were solving anagram puzzles. The goal was to examine and understand how people's linguistic habits and prior knowledge influenced their eye movements. The main findings of this study are: (1) People's stereotypical habit of scanning (e.g., adjacent or top viewing) strongly influences their solution-seeking behavior. (2) People tend to incorpo- rate their prior knowledge of letter statistics in a reasonable way, such as looking less frequently at letter combinations that are uncommon in the English lan- guage. Therefore, it was found that people’s prior

Brucellosis of cattle

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Lonely at the Top: An Examination of the Changing Dynamics for Chief Administrative Officers in Alberta Municipalities

This paper explores administrative viability in Alberta’s municipalities by investigating a critical ingredient in municipalities’ ability to deliver local public services: the chief administrative officer (CAO). Specifically, this paper aims to identify the patterns that are emerging with respect to the role and tenure of municipal CAOs in Alberta, and the implications for Alberta’s municipalities. Using a mixed-methods approach that blends qualitative and quantitative analysis, this paper presents several important findings: ● The average tenure of a CAO in Alberta is now well under the length of one term of council. CAO tenure is generally shorter in smaller municipalities. More concerningly, the average length of tenure has been in a steady state of decline for the past two decades. ● The number of CAO transitions, including acting and interim roles, has been increasing in all types of municipalities – in some types of municipalities, double or triple the rate of CAO transitions in earlier time periods. The days of long-serving CAOs outside of cities appear to be waning, as the length of one council term becomes a harder cap on CAO tenure in those communities. ● The role of CAO involves important on-the-job learning. No two municipalities are the same; even two terms of council within the same municipality can have quite different dynamics. Shorter CAO tenures and higher rates of turnover mean more costly transitions – not just in dollars and organizational disruption, but in the time to reach peak performance. ● Current and past CAOs clearly identify the increasingly tenuous political dynamics as a leading driver in role dissatisfaction and reasons for decisions to join or depart from a municipality. There seems to be consensus that the political dynamics are getting worse, not better. Among many other insights about the contemporary experiences of CAOs, this emerged as the central theme.   The chief argument of this paper is that the success and stability of CAOs is a leading indicator of administrative viability. Currently, measures of this indicator are ringing alarm bells. Efforts towards strengthening the foundations of municipal governance – particularly role clarity, improved relations between council and staff, and intentional efforts to building trust and respectful decorum between CAOs and councils – are all needed to improve administrative viability in Alberta’s municipalities