Fiscal Conditions, Political Interests, and Service Outsourcing Decisions: The Case of Georgia Counties

The question why a government chooses a specific service delivery tool to provide public service to its citizenry is a central intellectual inquiry in public administration. This paper develops a framework to explain the production and sector choices of public services by political-economic environment, organizational capacity, service market condition, and nature of service. Using operation and financial data of Georgia county governments during 2000-2006, we apply the framework to analyze Georgia counties’ public service outsourcing decisions, focusing on the effects of fiscal condition and political interests. The logistic regression results show that the choice of external production is negatively associated with government’s revenue raising capacity, managerial capacity, and citizens’ political demand for local control yet positively associated with conservative ideology. The choice of private sector is positively correlated with conservative political interest, increase in discretionary financial resources, and the centrality of government’s position in local service provision market

Dynamic Response of Pile-cap Structure Under Random Sea Wave Action

AbstractBased on Pierson-Moscowitz (P–M) sea wave spectrum and linear wave theory, this paper presents the techniques for simulating random wave action on slender piles of pile-cap structure in coastal engineering, and discusses the dynamic response of pile-cap structure under random wave action using Finite Element (FE) method. In this study, a full FE model of a realistic pile-cap structure of a sea platform is established. The dynamic time-history analysis of the structure under the random sea wave action is carried out in consideration of two different structural damping types. As contrast, the static and dynamic analyses of the structure under the characteristic wave are also conducted. By comparing the displacement and internal force induced in the structure based on the different approaches considered, it is found that the dynamic response under the random sea wave is largest, which could have serious implications for design of structures of this type

catena-Poly[[[tetra­aqua­nickel(II)]-μ-4,4′-bipyridyl-κ2 N:N′] 3,3′-(p-phenyl­ene)diacrylate]

In the title compound, {[Ni(C10H8N2)(H2O)4](C12H8O4)}n, the NiII, 4,4′-bipyridyl (bipy) and 3,3′-(p-phenyl­ene)diacrylate (L 2−) moieties are situated on inversion centres. The bipy ligands bridge NiII ions into positively charged polymeric chains along [101]. The NiII atom is coordinated by two N atoms from two bipy ligands and four water mol­ecules in a distorted octa­hedral geometry. L 2− anions inter­act with the polymeric chains via O–H⋯O hydrogen bonds, forming a three-dimensional supra­molecular network