The Public Value Scorecard: A Rejoinder and an Alternative to "Strategic Performance Measurement and Management in Non-Profit Organizations"

Robert Kaplan's Balanced Scorecard has played an important and welcome role in the nonprofit world as nonprofit organizations have struggled to measure their performance. Many nonprofit organizations have taken both general inspiration and specific operational guidance from the ideas advanced in this important work. Their pioneering efforts to apply these concepts to their own particular settings have added a layer of richness to the important concepts. Given the great contribution of this work to helping nonprofits meet the challenge of measuring their performance, it seems both ungracious and unhelpful to criticize it. Yet, as I review the concepts of the Balanced Scorecard, and look closely at the cases of organizations that have tried to use these concepts to measure their performance, I believe that some systematic confusions arise. Further, I think the source of these confusions lies in the fact the basic concepts of the Balanced Scorecard have not been sufficiently adapted from the private, for-profit world where they were born to the world of the nonprofit manager where they are now being applied. Finally, I think a different way of thinking about nonprofit strategy and linking that to performance measurement exists that is simpler that and more reliable for nonprofit organizations to rely upon. The purpose of this paper is to set out these contrarian ideas. This publication is Hauser Center Working Paper No. 18. The Hauser Center Working Paper Series was launched during the summer of 2000. The Series enables the Hauser Center to share with a broad audience important works-in-progress written by Hauser Center scholars and researchers

Human capital values and returns: bounds implied by earnings and asset returns data

We provide theory for calculating bounds on both the value of an individual’s human capital and the return on an individual’s human capital, given knowledge of the process governing earnings and financial asset returns. We calculate bounds using U.S. data on male earnings and financial asset returns. The large idiosyncratic component of earnings risk implies that bounds on values and returns are quite loose. However, when aggregate shocks are the only source of earnings risk, both bounds are tight.

Revenue-Resource Enhancement Guide for Nonprofit Employment and Training Agencies: A Business Model

Outlines a business model that utilizes existing revenue streams for low-wage workers and their employers to invest in workforce development. Provides an overview of eight resources and how to maximize their benefits for job placement and retention

Human Capital Values and Returns:Bounds Implied By Earnings and Asset Returns Data

We provide theory for calculating bounds on both the value of an individualÂ’s human capital and the return on an individualÂ’s human capital, given knowledge of the process governing earnings and financial asset returns. We calculate bounds using U.S. data on male earnings and financial asset returns. The large idiosyncratic component of earnings risk implies that bounds on values and returns are quite loose. However, when aggregate shocks are the only source of earnings risk, both bounds are tight.Value of Human Capital, Return on Human Capital, Asset Pricing

A 100-year record of North Pacific volcanism in an ice core from Eclipse icefield, Yukon Territory, Canada

A record of regionally significant volcanic eruptions in the North Pacific over the last century has been developed using a glaciochemical record from Eclipse Icefield, Yukon Territory, Canada. Tephrochronology of the Eclipse ice core provides positive identification of the 1907 Ksudach, Kamchatka, the 1912 Katmai, Alaska, the 1947 Hekla, Iceland, and the 1989 Redoubt, Alaska, eruptions. Non-sea-salt SO42− residuals above a robust spline and empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis were used to identify volcanic SO42− signatures. Volcanic sulfate values are more conservatively identified by the EOF analysis as sulfate deposition from other sources is more robustly accounted for. Some eruptions are also recorded as peaks in non-sea-salt chloride. The volcanic signals in the Eclipse ice core are mostly attributable to Alaskan, Aleutian, or Kamchatkan eruptions. Conversely, the Eclipse ice core provides a poor record of globally significant tropical eruptions. These results are promising for the development of longer ice core based records of paleovolcanism in the North Pacific rim

A New Expansion for Nucleon-Nucleon Interactions

We introduce a new and well defined power counting for the effective field theory describing nucleon-nucleon interactions. Because of the large NN scattering lengths it differs from other applications of chiral perturbation theory and is facilitated by introducing an unusual subtraction scheme and renormalization group analysis. Calculation to subleading order in the expansion can be done analytically, and we present the results for both the 1S0 and 3S1-3D1 channels.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, latex. Corrected typo, small change to tex

Specification and verification of context conditions for programming languages

Bibliography: p. 204-211.Context conditions - also called static semantics - are the constraints on computer programs that cannot be reasonably expressed by a context-free grammar, but that can be statically checked without considering the execution properties - semantics - of the program. Such conditions tend to be arbitrary and complex. This thesis presents a new specification formalism called CFF/AML. This formalism is · designed to be both useful for the specification of programming languages to an environment generator and also simple to use. The driving insight behind CFF/AML is that a language specifier conceives of the context condition checks associated with a programming language syntax description in procedural terms. CFF/AML supports this view of context condition specification, thus simplifying the task of the language specifier. CFF/AML has been formally by constructing a temporal proof system for the metalanguage. This proof system can also be used to verify CFF/AML specifications. The construction of the temporal proof system for CFF/AML uncovered a deficiency in the existing theory, namely that there was no way to prove subprograms, especially recursive subprograms, correct. The theory was extended to handle recursive subprograms. The approach developed in this thesis allows recursive subprograms to be proven correct using the same approach as was used previously for iterative constructs. This thesis makes a number of contributions to Computer Science. An approach to language specification - CFF/AML - is developed that greatly reduces the problems associated with building a language specification for input to a programming language environment generator. The theory of temporal proof systems is extended to include a methodology for handling proofs of recursive subprograms. A formal description of the CFF/AML metalanguage has been developed using temporal logic as the framework for the description. This is the first attempt to use temporal logic for such a task. As CFF/AML constructs can be dynamically scoped, this development differs from that required for statically scoped languages. We have also used this temporal proof system formally to prove that context condition specifications are correct. These proofs are an advancement on earlier work in the field of formal reasoning about context condition specification as they allow formal proof of the correctness of evaluations, as well as proving termination

The transcription factor network in Th9 cells

The development of T helper cell subsets requires activated T cells that respond to a polarizing cytokine environment resulting in the activation and expression of transcription factors. The subset-specific transcription factors bind and induce the production of specific effector cytokines. Th9 cells express IL-9 and develop in the presence of TGFβ, IL-4, and IL-2. Each of these cytokines activates signaling pathways that are required for Th9 differentiation and IL-9 production. In this review, I summarize what is currently understood about the signaling pathways and transcription factors that promote the Th9 genetic program, providing some perspective for the integration of the signals in regulating the Il9 gene and dictating the expression of other Th9-associated genes. I highlight how experiments in mouse cells have established a transcriptional network that is conserved in human T cells and set the stage toward defining the next important questions for a more detailed understanding of Th9 cell development and function