Purchase of Service Contracting Versus Government Service Delivery: The Views of State Human Service Administrators

Purchase of service contracting (POSC) as a mode of human service delivery is based largely on untested normative grounds. This article presents the results of a national study comparing the views of state human service administrators on the relative merits of POSC versus government service delivery in four issue areas: (1) service costs, (2) service quality, (3) bureaucracy and red tape, and (4) effect on government employees. The study results provide some support for POSC in three of the four issues areas. The study finds that geography plays no role in the views of state human service administrators, but that program/service type does

Purchase of Service Contracting In the 1990s: Have Expectations Been Met?

Privatization and purchase of service contracting (POSC) are generally considered to be two of the most important factors that have helped shape the human service system during the 1970s and 1980s (Gilbert, 1983, 1986; Kammerman, 1983; Demone and Gibelman, 1984, 1989; Weddell, 1986; Kettner and Martin, 1985; Termell, 1987; Rein, 1989). Therefore, as we enter the decade of the 1990s, it would seem both appropriate and worthwhile to reflect on the original expectations for privatization and POSC and to assess the extent to which these expectations have been realized

Factors Affecting Competition in State Contracting for Human Services

Competition has long been recognized as a necessary ingredient of our economic system. Competition, it is argued, is needed to combat the negative effects of monopoly

Economic Hardship and Stress among Farm Operators in North Dakota: The Suffering Effect of Social Support

The changing economic character of American agriculture is producing more than just surplus crops, it is also producing measurable increases in stress. This stress is a consequence of the faltering economic conditions in rural America (Cogner et. al,, 1986; Farmer, 1986), which has significant implications for the well-being of our rural population. Long term depression, increased suicide rates, family strain and violence are all results of this economic change (Farmer, 1986). Faraer (1986), characterized the rural sector as financially, emotionally, and socially troubled. These troubles are directly linked to the economic crisis rural America is experiencing. Social scientists and mental health professionals have expressed concern about the effects of the rural crisis on the farm population. Excessive and widespread financial difficulties have promoted increased concern which has led to psychological stress. The concept of stress is a generic term usually associated with mental tension or strain. For all its popularity, the term has only recently found its way into the medical vocabulary. One of the primary reasons for this omission has been the lack of an adequate or standardized definition of the concept (Wallis,1983). Empirical indicators of stress have ranged from migraine headaches and stomach cramps, to insomnia, lethargy, and confusion. Consequently, few studies operationalize stress the same way

Non-innocent role of fluorine as an electron donor in oxides

Engineering of reducible oxides is generally focused on the cation sites. As such, anion doping remains an underutilized tool despite its unique potential in altering the defect chemistry and steering redox processes. In this contribution, we explore the possibilities offered by substitution on the anion site on the case of a prototypical reducible oxide, namely cerium oxide, doped with fluorine. The choice of fluorine is motivated by the general stability of fluorine in oxide lattices and the fact that it can be readily incorporated in these up to very high concentration with minimal structural distortion [1]. Utilizing photoemission spectroscopy in combination with density functional theory [2], we show that the general notion of fluorine acting as a straightforward ionic donor fails to capture the intricacies of electronic interactions at play. Specifically, we provide evidence for covalent hybridization in the nominally ionic fluorine-cerium interaction that allows for altering the anion derived electron density in cerium oxide beyond the oxygen 2p band (see Figure 1), contrary to the simplified picture of solely introducing a deeper-laying fluorine 2p band [3]. The emergent electronic configuration can be further coupled to standard valence band engineering methods, such as strain manipulation, to provide an unprecedented playground for designing the oxide properties. Our results also demonstrate the practicality of interatomic resonant photoemission spectroscopy as a gauge of non-trivial electronic effects of ligand origin, allowing to efficiently probe the above-mentioned effects. We note that fluorine doping represents a complement to oxygen vacancy engineering and highlight the fact that, unlike oxygen vacancies, the electronic effects generated by fluorine can persist in an oxidizing environment. The latter represents an important contribution the electronic modification of mixed-anion oxides can provide to a breadth of fields, ranging from superoxide stabilization to resistive switching. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Simultaneous Projectile-Target Excitation in Heavy Ion Collisions

We calculate the lowest-order contribution to the cross section for simultaneous excitation of projectile and target nuclei in relativistic heavy ion collisions. This process is, to leading order, non-classical and adds incoherently to the well-studied semi-classical Weizs\"acker-Williams cross section. While the leading contribution to the cross section is down by only $1/Z_P$ from the semiclassical process, and consequently of potential importance for understanding data from light projectiles, we find that phase space considerations render the cross section utterly negligible.Comment: 9 pages, LA-UR-94-247

On the absence of appreciable half-life changes in alpha emitters cooled in metals to 1 Kelvin and below

The recent suggestion that dramatic changes may occur in the lifetime of alpha and beta decay when the activity, in a pure metal host, is cooled to a few Kelvin, is examined in the light of published low temperature nuclear orientation (LTNO) experiments, with emphasis here on alpha decay. In LTNO observations are made of the anisotropy of radioactive emissions with respect to an axis of orientation. Correction of data for decay of metallic samples held at temperatures at and below 1 Kelvin for periods of days and longer has been a routine element of LTNO experiments for many years. No evidence for any change of half life on cooling, with an upper level of less than 1%, has been found, in striking contrast to the predicted changes, for alpha decay, of several orders of magnitude. The proposal that such dramatic changes might alleviate problems of disposal of long-lived radioactive waste is shown to be unrealistic.Comment: 27 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Nucl.Phys.A. Revised version, including quantitative analysis of the sensitivity of nuclear orientation experiments, discussed in this work, to changes of alpha-decay lifetimes in metals at low temperatures. Conclusions remain unchange

Flip Graphs of Degree-Bounded (Pseudo-)Triangulations

We study flip graphs of triangulations whose maximum vertex degree is bounded by a constant $k$. In particular, we consider triangulations of sets of $n$ points in convex position in the plane and prove that their flip graph is connected if and only if $k > 6$; the diameter of the flip graph is $O(n^2)$. We also show that, for general point sets, flip graphs of pointed pseudo-triangulations can be disconnected for $k \leq 9$, and flip graphs of triangulations can be disconnected for any $k$. Additionally, we consider a relaxed version of the original problem. We allow the violation of the degree bound $k$ by a small constant. Any two triangulations with maximum degree at most $k$ of a convex point set are connected in the flip graph by a path of length $O(n \log n)$, where every intermediate triangulation has maximum degree at most $k+4$.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, acknowledgments update