Leadership and capability development and deployment in the New Zealand State Service

This article describes the design during 2013 of a model and implementation principles of a leadership and capability development and deployment (LCDD) model for the state services system. In this process, an initial prototype model was developed to describe a desired future state. It was informed by the best traditions of state services leadership development, together with models used by the world’s best companies, such as Procter & Gamble, for leadership development (Filipkowski and Donlon, 2013). The model was then enhanced based on our research in other jurisdictions, including Australia, Singapore and the United Kingdom, and co-creation with stakeholders. This is further discussed in the article. Dr Mike Pratt is Professor of Leadership and Sustainability at the University of Waikato, and a professional director and business adviser. Dr Murray Horn is a former Secretary to the Treasury of New Zealand and bank chief executive, and a professional director and business adviser

A critical perspective on heterodox production modeling

Production and distribution needs a proper place in heterodox economics. It has recently been suggested that the construction of production models needs to be empirically grounded. Also it has been stated that empirically grounded production models must be circular production models. This argument then marginalizes the contributions of important economists in heterodox thought. The paper will argue that heterodox production models need not be perfectly circular to make important contributions for heterodox production theory. Furthermore, it will be argued that models which consist of elements of hierarchial structures of production put emphasis on out of equilibrium traverse processes and historical time.Heterodox Economic Theory; Heterodox Price and Production Modeling

The Regional Benefits of the Employer of Last Resort Program

The Employer of Last Resort (ELR) program is a New Deal type of program to provide a government position for anyone seeking work. Unlike private industries who compete over prices and wages, the ELR “industry” is not meant to compete with the private sector; rather it provides public services that are not offered by the private sector. The task here is to estimate the private sector effects of the implementation of the ELR program for the State of Missouri.Employer of Last Resort; Input-output Modeling; Heterodox Microfoundations of Macroeconomics

The Making of a Good Society: Economic Freedom, Instrumentalism, and Government Control

The article discusses the incompatibility of promoting individual interests of capitalists and workers with the promotion of macroeconomic goals of society. The article implements the ``instrumental method'' developed by Adolph Lowe, and articulates the separation of microeconomic goals with macroeconomic objectives. Using full employment as a case study, the article articulates the proper role for government in achieving and maintaining full employment in a capitalist society. Further it is seen that such an approach also promotes the self interests of capitalists. The approach taken in this article offers an alternative to the failed policies of neoliberalism.Instrumentalism, instrumental inference, neoliberalism, F.A. Hayek, Adolph Lowe, full employment, unemployment, employer of last resort

A comparative evaluation of dynamic visualisation tools

Despite their potential applications in software comprehension, it appears that dynamic visualisation tools are seldom used outside the research laboratory. This paper presents an empirical evaluation of five dynamic visualisation tools - AVID, Jinsight, jRMTool, Together ControlCenter diagrams and Together ControlCenter debugger. The tools were evaluated on a number of general software comprehension and specific reverse engineering tasks using the HotDraw objectoriented framework. The tasks considered typical comprehension issues, including identification of software structure and behaviour, design pattern extraction, extensibility potential, maintenance issues, functionality location, and runtime load. The results revealed that the level of abstraction employed by a tool affects its success in different tasks, and that tools were more successful in addressing specific reverse engineering tasks than general software comprehension activities. It was found that no one tool performs well in all tasks, and some tasks were beyond the capabilities of all five tools. This paper concludes with suggestions for improving the efficacy of such tools

What Are Kinship Terminologies, and Why Do We Care? A Computational Approach to Analyzing Symbolic Domains

Kinship is a fundamental feature and basis of human societies. We describe a set of computational tools and services, the Kinship Algebra Modeler, and the logic that underlies these. These were developed to improve how we understand both the fundamental facts of kinship, and how people use kinship as a resource in their lives. Mathematical formalism applied to cultural concepts is more than an exercise in model building, as it provides a way to represent and explore logical consistency and implications. The logic underlying kinship is explored here through the kin term computations made by users of a terminology when computing the kinship relation one person has to another by referring to a third person for whom each has a kin term relationship. Kinship Algebra Modeler provides a set of tools, services and an architecture to explore kinship terminologies and their properties in an accessible manner

Differential regulation of innate and adaptive immune responses in viral encephalitis.

Viral encephalitis is a global health concern. The ability of a virus to modulate the immune response can have a pivotal effect on the course of disease and the fate of the infected host. In this study, we sought to understand the immunological basis for the fatal encephalitis following infection with the murine coronavirus, mouse hepatitis virus (MHV)-JHM, in contrast with the more attenuated MHV-A59. Distinct glial cell cytokine and chemokine response patterns were observed within 3 days after infection, became progressively more polarized during the course of infection and with the infiltration of leukocytes. In the brain, MHV-JHM infection induced strong accumulation of IFNbeta mRNA relative to IFNgamma mRNA. This trend was reversed in MHV-A59 infection and was accompanied by increased CD8 T cell infiltration into brain compared to MHV-JHM infection. Increased apoptosis appeared to contribute to the diminished presence of CD8 T cells in MHV-JHM-infected brain with the consequence of a lower potential for IFNgamma production and antiviral activity. MHV-JHM infection also induced sustained mRNA accumulation of the innate immune response products interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-1. Furthermore, high levels of macrophage-inflammatory protein (MIP)-1alpha, MIP-1beta, and MIP-2 mRNA were observed at the onset of MHV-JHM infection and correlated with a marked elevation in the number of macrophages in the brain on day 7 compared to MHV-A59 infection. These observations indicate that differences in the severity of viral encephalitis may reflect the differential ability of viruses to stimulate innate immune responses within the CNS and subsequently the character of infiltrating leukocyte populations