Service Performance Indicators for Infrastructure Investment

Infrastructure systems serving modern economies are highly complex, highly interconnected, and often highly interactive. The result is increased complexity in investment decision-making, and increased challenges in prioritising that investment. However, this prioritisation is vital to developing a long-term, sound, robust and achievable pipeline of national infrastructure. One key to effective, objective and prudent investment prioritisation is understanding the real performance of infrastructure. Many metrics are employed to this end, and many are imposed by governments or regulators, but often these metrics relate only to inputs or outputs in a production process. Whilst these metrics may be useful for delivery agencies, they largely fail to address the real expectations or requirements of infrastructure users — quality of service, safety, reliability, and resilience. What is required is a set of metrics which address not outputs but outcomes — that is, how well does the infrastructure network meet service needs? This paper reports on a study undertaken at a national level, to identify service needs across a range of infrastructure sectors, to assess service performance metrics in use, and to show how they or other suitable metrics can be used to prioritise investment decisions across sectors and jurisdictions

Distinguishing between similar tubular objects using pulse reflectometry:a study of trumpet and cornet leadpipes

This paper considers the measurement of the internal radius of a number of similar, short, tubular leadpipes using pulse reflectometry. Pulse reflectometry is an acoustical technique for measuring the internal bore of a tubular object by analysing the reflections which occur when an acoustical pulse is directed into the object. The leadpipes are designed to form the initial, or lead, part of a trumpet or cornet and their internal radii differ by less than 0.1 mm between similar pipes. The ability of the reflectometer to detect these small differences, which are considered by players to produce a noticeable difference in the sound of an instrument, are investigated. It is seen that the pulse reflectometer is able to distinguish between leadpipes with different nominal radii varying by as little as 0.03 mm, demonstrating its potential in the study of musical instruments and showing that it can be used as a diagnostic tool by the instrument manufacturer to detect defects which are significant enough to acoustically alter performance. The absolute accuracy of the radius measurements is also considered at the end of the leadpipe, where the uncertainty is ±0.05 mm

Economic benefits of Mt. Cook National Park

Market and non-market valued decisions are associated with New Zealand's system of national parks. The use benefits of Mount Cook National Park are not priced by the market mechanism, whereas many of the inputs necessary to operate and maintain the Park are priced. Estimates of the economic benefits are relevant information when deciding upon the allocation of resources to, and within, a system of national parks. In 1984, the consumers' surplus for adult New Zealand visitors was about $2.2 million. An estimate of the net national benefits is given by the consumers' surplus obtained by New Zealand visitors, plus the net benefits associated with foreign visitors, less the cost of Park management and land rental. The net benefit of Mount Cook National Park, as it was in 1984, is likely to be positive, indicating that the benefits associated with the current use pattern of resources exceeds their opportunity cost to the nation. However, this result cannot be used to establish the optimality of current expenditure and management. Approximately 170,000 adults visited Mount Cook National Park over 1984; 29$58. These expenditures give rise to secondary economic benefits and create opportunities for regional development. Visitor expenditures in the Mackenzie Basin area are associated with $13.4 million of additional regional output,$6.8 million of additional regional income, and 196 jobs. These effects derive their significance from regional objectives; they are not indicators of the national benefits associated with Mount Cook National Park

Is there a credibility crisis in strategic management research? Evidence on the reproducibility of study findings

Recent studies report an inability to replicate previously published research, leading some to suggest that scientific knowledge is facing a credibility crisis. In this essay, we provide evidence on whether strategic management research may itself be vulnerable to these concerns. We conducted a study whereby we attempted to reproduce the empirical findings of 88 articles appearing in the Strategic Management Journal using data reported in the articles themselves. About 70% of the studies did not disclose enough data to permit independent tests of reproducibility of their findings. Of those that could be retested, almost one-third reported hypotheses as statistically significant which were no longer so and far more significant results were found to be non-significant in the reproductions than in the opposite direction. Collectively, incomplete reporting practices, disclosure errors, and possible opportunism limit the reproducibility of most studies. Until disclosure standards and requirements change to include more complete reporting and facilitate tests of reproducibility, the strategic management field appears vulnerable to a credibility crisis

Looming struggles over technology for border control

New technologies under development, capable of inflicting pain on masses of people, could be used for border control against asylum seekers. Implementation might be rationalized by the threat of mass migration due to climate change, nuclear disaster or exaggerated fears of refugees created by governments. We focus on taser anti-personnel mines, suggesting both technological countermeasures and ways of making the use of such technology politically counterproductive. We also outline several other types of ‘non-lethal’ technology that could be used for border control and raise human rights concerns: high-powered microwaves, armed robots, wireless tasers, acoustic devices/vortex rings, ionizing and pulsed energy lasers, chemical calmatives, convulsants, bioregulators and malodurants. Whether all these possible border technologies will be implemented is a matter for speculation, but their serious human rights implications warrant advance scrutiny

Spacelab energetic ion mass spectrometer

Basic design criteria are given for an ion mass spectrometer for use in studying magnetospheric ion populations. The proposed instrument is composed of an electrostatic analyzer followed by a magnetic spectrometer and simultaneously measures the energy per unit and mass per unit charge of the ion species. An electromagnet is used for momentum analysis to extend the operational energy range over a much wider domain than is possible with the permanent magnets used in previous flights. The energetic ion source regions, ion energization mechanisms, field line tracing, coordinated investigations, and orbit considerations are discussed and operations of the momentum analyzer and of the electrostatic energy analyzer are examined

Generating-function method for tensor products

This is the first of two articles devoted to a exposition of the generating-function method for computing fusion rules in affine Lie algebras. The present paper is entirely devoted to the study of the tensor-product (infinite-level) limit of fusions rules. We start by reviewing Sharp's character method. An alternative approach to the construction of tensor-product generating functions is then presented which overcomes most of the technical difficulties associated with the character method. It is based on the reformulation of the problem of calculating tensor products in terms of the solution of a set of linear and homogeneous Diophantine equations whose elementary solutions represent ``elementary couplings''. Grobner bases provide a tool for generating the complete set of relations between elementary couplings and, most importantly, as an algorithm for specifying a complete, compatible set of ``forbidden couplings''.Comment: Harvmac (b mode : 39 p) and Pictex; this is a substantially reduced version of hep-th/9811113 (with new title); to appear in J. Math. Phy