A Modest Proposal to Enhance Civil/Military Integration: Rethinking the Renegotiation Regime as a Regulatory Mechanism to Decriminalize Cost, Pricing, and Profit Policy

Neither Congress, the procuring agencies, the media, nor the public will condone government contractors reaping what are perceived as excessive profits. Accordingly, the procurement process employs an unduly complex, burdensome, risk-laden, and ineffective mechanism that erects significant barriers to civil/military integration. This paper (presented at the 1999 Defense Systems Management College (DSMC) Acquisition Research Symposium) examines certain policy implications associated with the Truth In Negotiations Act (TINA), the existing audit regime, and the use of criminal and civil anti-fraud measures to scrutinize deviations from these complex cost, pricing, and profit policies and controls. It re-visits the long-extinct Renegotiation Act and finds it less troubling than the existing quagmire. It analogizes to recent experience in the public utilities industry, which employs a sharing mechanism as an explicit, transparent means for addressing excessive profits. The paper proposes to simplify and decriminalize Federal procurement pricing and profit policy by drawing from the historical renegotiation experience. A transparent renegotiation regime (1) could be one less burdensome or complex element of a regulatory scheme that presents suppliers with a menu of regulatory options; (2) would allow contractors to select the approach that best corresponds to their own assessment of which contractual rules will minimize their costs; and (3) could permit the Government to share, directly or indirectly, in these increased efficiencies and savings

A Modest Proposal to Enhance Civil/Military Integration: Rethinking the Renegotiation Regime as a Regulatory Mechanism to Decriminalize Cost, Pricing, and Profit Policy

Neither Congress, the procuring agencies, the media, nor the public will condone government contractors reaping what are perceived as excessive profits. Accordingly, the procurement process employs an unduly complex, burdensome, risk-laden, and ineffective mechanism that erects significant barriers to civil/military integration. This paper (presented at the 1999 Defense Systems Management College (DSMC) Acquisition Research Symposium) examines certain policy implications associated with the Truth In Negotiations Act (TINA), the existing audit regime, and the use of criminal and civil anti-fraud measures to scrutinize deviations from these complex cost, pricing, and profit policies and controls. It re-visits the long-extinct Renegotiation Act and finds it less troubling than the existing quagmire. It analogizes to recent experience in the public utilities industry, which employs a sharing mechanism as an explicit, transparent means for addressing excessive profits. The paper proposes to simplify and decriminalize Federal procurement pricing and profit policy by drawing from the historical renegotiation experience. A transparent renegotiation regime (1) could be one less burdensome or complex element of a regulatory scheme that presents suppliers with a menu of regulatory options; (2) would allow contractors to select the approach that best corresponds to their own assessment of which contractual rules will minimize their costs; and (3) could permit the Government to share, directly or indirectly, in these increased efficiencies and savings

BIM in teaching — lessons learned from exploratory study

Building Information Technology bears promise to bring integration into fragmented AEC industry, as well as large potentials for optimization and management of building performance along life cycle. However, the adoption in Central Europe is much slower than in the USA or Scandinavia; the designers and planners are sceptical about BIM benefits. In order to build up capabilities and thus support BIM adoption in the practice, BIM skills have be built up already in university teaching. This endeavour is the central aim of the BIM_sustain project accomplished at the Vienna University of Technology. In winter term 2012/13 and winter term 2013/14 we accomplished interdisciplinary BIM-supported design labs with student participants from architecture, civil engineering and building science. The teams used different modelling and simulation software constellations for building design and analysis. The software-constellations were evaluated in terms of BIMinteroperability, and the design process was documented by means of time and activity assessment, surveys on team performance, process satisfaction and technology acceptance and focus group interviews. In this paper we will present the results of the evaluation of both courses and analyse the differences resulting from the different course design in the two consequent terms. The first course was dominated by the issue of interfaces, whereas the second course, where better functioning software combinations in terms of data transfer were used, was dominated by the issues related to the collaboration and teamwork. Our results are not only informative for the configuration of interdisciplinary BIM-supported university teaching, but can be derived for the practice as well, especially in the areas of project management, software usage, modelling conventions or incentive systems

Single-strand DNA Binding by the Helix-Hairpin-Helix Domain of XPF Contributes to Substrate Specificity of ERCC1-XPF

The nucleotide excision repair protein complex ERCC1-XPF is required for incision of DNA upstream of DNA damage. Functional studies have provided insights into the binding of ERCC1-XPF to various DNA substrates. However, because no structure for the ERCC1-XPF-DNA complex has been determined, the mechanism of substrate recognition remains elusive. Here we biochemically characterize the substrate preferences of the helix-hairpin-helix (HhH) domains of XPF and ERCC-XPF and show that the binding to single-stranded DNA (ssDNA)/dsDNA junctions is dependent on joint binding to the DNA binding domain of ERCC1 and XPF. We reveal that the homodimeric XPF is able to bind various ssDNA sequences but with a clear preference for guanine-containing substrates. NMR titration experiments and in vitro DNA binding assays also show that, within the heterodimeric ERCC1-XPF complex, XPF specifically recognizes ssDNA. On the other hand, the HhH domain of ERCC1 preferentially binds dsDNA through the hairpin region. The two separate non-overlapping DNA binding domains in the ERCC1-XPF heterodimer jointly bind to an ssDNA/dsDNA substrate and, thereby, at least partially dictate the incision position during damage removal. Based on structural models, NMR titrations, DNA-binding studies, site-directed mutagenesis, charge distribution, and sequence conservation, we propose that the HhH domain of ERCC1 binds to dsDNA upstream of the damage, and XPF binds to the non-damaged strand within a repair bubble

Plus Factors and Agreement in Antitrust Law

Plus factors are economic actions and outcomes, above and beyond parallel conduct by oligopolistic firms, that are largely inconsistent with unilateral conduct but largely consistent with explicitly coordinated action. Possible plus factors are typically enumerated without any attempt to distinguish them in terms of a meaningful economic categorization or in terms of their probative strength for inferring collusion. In this Article, we provide a taxonomy for plus factors as well as a methodology for ranking plus factors in terms of their strength for inferring explicit collusion, the strongest of which are referred to as super plus factors

Plus Factors and Agreement in Antitrust Law

Plus factors are economic actions and outcomes, above and beyond parallel conduct by oligopolistic firms, that are largely inconsistent with unilateral conduct but largely consistent with explicitly coordinated action. Possible plus factors are typically enumerated without any attempt to distinguish them in terms of a meaningful economic categorization or in terms of their probative strength for inferring collusion. In this Article, we provide a taxonomy for plus factors as well as a methodology for ranking plus factors in terms of their strength for inferring explicit collusion, the strongest of which are referred to as super plus factors

Irinotecan: Electron transfer mechanism in CNS disorders: Electron affinity, ROS, and SAR

A recent article deals with promising use of irinotecan in treatment of Angelman Syndrome, a neurological disorder. The present report provides mechanistic evidence for involvement of electron transfer based on preliminary data from computational studies on electron affinity. The drug and the topotecan analog are related to camptothecin, a well­known anticancer drug. The protonated forms are better at electron affinity. Lactone hydrolysis may provide carboxyl for intramolecular protonation. The active phenol metabolits may also play a role. Structure­activity relationship (SAR) in addressed. These results buttress the prior hypothesis dealing with irinotecan mechanism in central nervous system toxicit

Parabolic resonances and instabilities in near-integrable two degrees of freedom Hamiltonian flows

When an integrable two-degrees-of-freedom Hamiltonian system possessing a circle of parabolic fixed points is perturbed, a parabolic resonance occurs. It is proved that its occurrence is generic for one parameter families (co-dimension one phenomenon) of near-integrable, t.d.o. systems. Numerical experiments indicate that the motion near a parabolic resonance exhibits new type of chaotic behavior which includes instabilities in some directions and long trapping times in others. Moreover, in a degenerate case, near a {\it flat parabolic resonance}, large scale instabilities appear. A model arising from an atmospherical study is shown to exhibit flat parabolic resonance. This supplies a simple mechanism for the transport of particles with {\it small} (i.e. atmospherically relevant) initial velocities from the vicinity of the equator to high latitudes. A modification of the model which allows the development of atmospherical jets unfolds the degeneracy, yet traces of the flat instabilities are clearly observed

Solutions for the General, Confluent and Biconfluent Heun equations and their connection with Abel equations

In a recent paper, the canonical forms of a new multi-parameter class of Abel differential equations, so-called AIR, all of whose members can be mapped into Riccati equations, were shown to be related to the differential equations for the hypergeometric 2F1, 1F1 and 0F1 functions. In this paper, a connection between the AIR canonical forms and the Heun General (GHE), Confluent (CHE) and Biconfluent (BHE) equations is presented. This connection fixes the value of one of the Heun parameters, expresses another one in terms of those remaining, and provides closed form solutions in terms of pFq functions for the resulting GHE, CHE and BHE, respectively depending on four, three and two irreducible parameters. This connection also turns evident what is the relation between the Heun parameters such that the solutions admit Liouvillian form, and suggests a mechanism for relating linear equations with N and N-1 singularities through the canonical forms of a non-linear equation of one order less.Comment: Original version submitted to Journal of Physics A: 16 pages, related to math.GM/0002059 and math-ph/0402040. Revised version according to referee's comments: 23 pages. Sign corrected (June/17) in formula (79). Second revised version (July/25): 25 pages. See also http://lie.uwaterloo.ca/odetools.ht