MEASURING THE PERFORMANCE OF FEDERAL AGENCIES AND PROGRAMS IN THE USA: AN OVERVIEW AND SOME REFLECTIONS

In this paper, I provide an overview of some of the issues surrounding the measurement of government performance, focusing on the case of the U.S. federal government. After defining government performance and introducing the challenge of measuring it, I examine how this challenge is being addressed at the federal level in the United States. I argue that performance measurement is particularly difficult in this context because under the American constitution, agencies respond to multiple principals, in particular the president and Congress, which often have diverging preferences. I introduce congressional and presidential performance measurement initiatives, especially the Government Performance and Results Act including its recent reform, the Obama administration’s high priority performance goals, and the George W. Bush administration’s Program Assessment Rating Tool. I conclude with a brief review of potential undesired agency response to targets (such as the high priority performance goals), drawing on Christopher Hood’s research on gaming. I thank the Academy of Economic Studies, Faculty of Administration and Public Management for inviting me to present this paper as keynote speaker at its conference held in Bucharest, Romania, on June 21-22, 2011, and I thank Rob Greer for helpful research assistance.performance target, measuring performance, federal government.

A low multiplicative complexity fast recursive DCT-2 algorithm

A fast Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) algorithm is introduced that can be of particular interest in image processing. The main features of the algorithm are regularity of the graph and very low arithmetic complexity. The 16-point version of the algorithm requires only 32 multiplications and 81 additions. The computational core of the algorithm consists of only 17 nontrivial multiplications, the rest 15 are scaling factors that can be compensated in the post-processing. The derivation of the algorithm is based on the algebraic signal processing theory (ASP).Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Systems Analysis of Some Bio-Medical Problems Related to Medical Treatment Management

A systems approach to the investigation of biomedical problems related to treatment of certain types of diseases is discussed in this article. Problems of determining admissible and optimal management with criteria designed for both rapidly and slowly developing diseases are described here. Examples are given of analyzing problems in the management of two typical diseases

Nova doutrina militar da Rússia

Este artigo visa esclarecer alguns pontos-chave constantes na nova doutrina militar da Federação da Rússia, aprovada por Decreto-Lei de 5 de Fevereiro de 2010, do Presidente da Rússia, Dmitriy Medvedev

Immunome Research

Immunology research has been transformed in the post-genomics era, with high throughput molecular biology and information technologies taking an increasingly central role. This has led to the development of a new area of science termed "Immunomics", that encompasses genomic, high throughput and bioinformatic approaches to immunology. In recognition of the increasing importance of this field, Immunome Research is a new Open Access, online journal, that will publish cutting edge research across the field of Immunomics. Immunome Research will publish a wide range of article types including specialty immunology databases, immunology database tools, immunome epitope research, epitope analysis tools, high-throughput technologies (gene sequencing, microarrays, proteomics), white papers, mathematical and theoretical models, and prediction tools. Immunome Research is the official journal of the International Immunomics Society (IIMMS)