Public Involvement Tools in Environmental Decision-Making: A Primer for Practitioners

Practitioners are often asked to engage the public with limited resources at their disposal. While scholars encourage the use of more deliberate public participation mechanisms, resource constraints often require practitioners to utilize more limited public involvement tools. This article summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of three public involvement tools: citizen surveys, public hearings/meetings, and stakeholder interviews. This assessment should provide preliminary guidance in utilizing the appropriate public involvement tools when resource and time constraints do not allow for an extensive public deliberation process

Contracting Regimes and Third-Party Governance: A Theoretical Construct for Exploring the Importance of Public Service Motivation of Private Sector Contractors

To date the bulk of public service motivation (PSM) research has focused on demonstrating the differences in public service motivation between public sector and private sector employees, yet no research exist exploring the public service motivation (PSM) of private contractors performing public sector tasks. This article provides a detailed review of the privatization and PSM literature and suggests that PSM among private sector contractors can serve as a mitigating factor in protecting the public interest. This article establishes a set of propositions regarding the role of PSM as a mitigating factor in contracted public services, suggesting that PSM’s level of importance is related to the complexity of job task, number of contractors, and presence of a contracting regime. Lastly, the article recommends future directions in PSM research necessary for testing these propositions

Using Proprietary Databases to Overcome Data Suppression in Industry Cluster Analysis

Extension agents are frequently tasked with determining industry clusters that exist in a region to support economic development. However, data suppression issues recurrently prohibit a comprehensive understanding of heavily concentrated firms in a region, particularly in rural areas. This article discusses the use of North American Industry Classification System codes within the LexisNexis Academic database as a technique for locating data about specific firms and analyzing regional industry clusters. This approach provides a practical and cost-efficient method for Extension agents and other researchers and practitioners to identify clusters and gather firm information in small geographies throughout the United States

The Gap Analysis Program: A Proactive Approach to Biodiversity Conservation

This article introduces Extension professionals to the U.S. Geological Survey\u27s Gap Analysis Program (GAP). GAP seeks to inform the natural resource policy process by providing land cover, stewardship, and species distribution data to decision makers. GAP data may be used to make land use decisions at different geographic levels. GAP aims to address biodiversity conservation in a proactive manner, paying unique attention to the protection of common species and their habitats. Extension professionals may also find GAP data helpful in education and outreach programs designed to inform the public of the role individuals can play in biodiversity maintenance

Localization of type 1 diabetes susceptibility to the MHC class I genes HLA-B and HLA-A

The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) on chromosome 6 is associated with susceptibility to more common diseases than any other region of the human genome, including almost all disorders classified as autoimmune. In type 1 diabetes the major genetic susceptibility determinants have been mapped to the MHC class II genes HLA-DQB1 and HLA-DRB1 (refs 1-3), but these genes cannot completely explain the association between type 1 diabetes and the MHC region. Owing to the region's extreme gene density, the multiplicity of disease-associated alleles, strong associations between alleles, limited genotyping capability, and inadequate statistical approaches and sample sizes, which, and how many, loci within the MHC determine susceptibility remains unclear. Here, in several large type 1 diabetes data sets, we analyse a combined total of 1,729 polymorphisms, and apply statistical methods - recursive partitioning and regression - to pinpoint disease susceptibility to the MHC class I genes HLA-B and HLA-A (risk ratios >1.5; Pcombined = 2.01 × 10-19 and 2.35 × 10-13, respectively) in addition to the established associations of the MHC class II genes. Other loci with smaller and/or rarer effects might also be involved, but to find these, future searches must take into account both the HLA class II and class I genes and use even larger samples. Taken together with previous studies, we conclude that MHC-class-I-mediated events, principally involving HLA-B*39, contribute to the aetiology of type 1 diabetes. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

The Political Economy of Local Government Enterprise Zone Designation

This study utilizes Cox proportional hazards modeling to examine the political and economic factors influencing local government enterprise zone designation in Illinois. Extending congressional dominance model literature to state legislatures, the findings support the importance of state legislators in driving policy benefits to their districts. Counties represented by a bill sponsor were 6.67 times more likely to receive an enterprise zone designation compared to a county not represented by a bill sponsor. However, the enterprise zones were designated in counties with a higher-than-average unemployment rate suggesting those counties in economic need were more likely to receive the intended benefit. Each unit difference in a higher unemployment rate compared to the state average means a county would be two times more likely to receive an enterprise zone designation

The Political Economy of Local Government Enterprise Zone Designation

This study utilizes Cox proportional hazards modeling to examine the political and economic factors influencing local government enterprise zone designation in Illinois. Extending congressional dominance model literature to state legislatures, the findings support the importance of state legislators in driving policy benefits to their districts. Counties represented by a bill sponsor were 6.67 times more likely to receive an enterprise zone designation compared to a county not represented by a bill sponsor. However, the enterprise zones were designated in counties with a higher-than-average unemployment rate suggesting those counties in economic need were more likely to receive the intended benefit. Each unit difference in a higher unemployment rate compared to the state average means a county would be two times more likely to receive an enterprise zone designation