Current and future trends in public sector reform: The views of trade unions and consultants in ten European countries.

__Abstract__ While public sector reform has been a constant process, sometimes evolutionary and sometimes revolutionary, the financial crisis that started in 2008, along with the streamlining and efficiency aims of New Public Management paradigms that began to emerge in the 1980s, have increased the focus on current trends in reform in Europe and what this means for the future of the public sector. This report draws on a total of 59 interviews conducted in 10 countries with top public sector consultants and public sector trade unions to determine perceptions of current trends in the public sector in each of the countries, as well as the future of public sector reform. The interviews were conducted according to a standardised set of questions, although they were conducted in each country’s native language. Interviewees were asked background questions about their role in regard to the public sector, along with questions about the state of public administration in their country, specific public sector reform factors that had improved or deteriorated over the past five years, the effects of these reforms on their work and what trends they saw shaping the future of the public sector

Partnerships as a potential means of increasing the production of hardwood timber on NIPF lands in North Mississippi

North Mississippi has significant hardwood timber resources. Hardwood timber in the region has traditionally been an important source of raw material for furniture and other wood-based industries. In recent years, however, demand has greatly increased for hardwood timber for use in the pulp and paper industry, resulting in increased harvest levels of pole-sized and small sawtimber-sized hardwoods in the region. Increased harvests of hardwood timber have given rise to concerns about the longerterm availability of hardwoods that are large enough in size to be efficiently converted into lumber and other solid wood products. Futures options, futures contracts, leases, and limited partnerships were initially considered for potential application to increase the longer-term production of hardwood sawtimber on nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) lands in North Mississippi. Considering the resource, the NIPF ownership, and the timber markets involved, limited partnerships were chosen for further evaluation. Results of informal discussions involving hardwood sawmill operators, private landowners, and timberland investment firm representatives are presented. A discussion follows, assessing the acceptability and attributes of partnerships in contrast to other possible options such as long-term leases as a positive influence for investment in the long-term production of hardwood sawtimber in North Mississippi

The impact of cockpit automation on crew coordination and communication. Volume 1: Overview, LOFT evaluations, error severity, and questionnaire data

The purpose was to examine, jointly, cockpit automation and social processes. Automation was varied by the choice of two radically different versions of the DC-9 series aircraft, the traditional DC-9-30, and the glass cockpit derivative, the MD-88. Airline pilot volunteers flew a mission in the simulator for these aircraft. Results show that the performance differences between the crews of the two aircraft were generally small, but where there were differences, they favored the DC-9. There were no criteria on which the MD-88 crews performed better than the DC-9 crews. Furthermore, DC-9 crews rated their own workload as lower than did the MD-88 pilots. There were no significant differences between the two aircraft types with respect to the severity of errors committed during the Line-Oriented Flight Training (LOFT) flight. The attitude questionnaires provided some interesting insights, but failed to distinguish between DC-9 and MD-88 crews