Comparing theories of the policy process and state tuition policy : critical theory, institutional rational choice, and advocacy coalitions

The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file.Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on June 17, 2009)Vita.Thesis (Ph. D.) University of Missouri-Columbia 2008.This dissertation triangulates four theories of the policy process to explain state-level tuition policy change. Very little policy research examines theories of the policy process in concert. Moreover, the field of higher education policy studies tends to be a theoretical in its approach to understanding policymaking. The project applies a Model III mixed methods design in which a primarily qualitative study uses quantitative analysis in a complementary fashion. The Dye, Sharkansky, Hofferbert framework is used to explain tuition policy change across all 50 states from 2000 to 2006, Institutional Rational Choice, Advocacy Coalition, and Critical Theory frameworks are used to analyze tuition policy change in Missouri and Florida. States with more centralized governance structures tend to enact fewer changes in tuition policy. By using the three frameworks in concert we can see that structural change is a means to an end in Florida. In Missouri, on the other hand, structure played a much less central role. Differing state contexts require a slightly different configuration of the frameworks to produce a rich explanation of the events and debates surrounding tuition policy change.Includes bibliographical reference

A Strategy for Partnering in the Public Sector

Partnering is a cooperative approach to contract management that reduces costs, litigation, and stress. The Portland District of the Corps of Engineers has successfully used partnering as a formal management strategy. This paper presents an overview of the partnering strategy

Tracking building operational energy and carbon emissions using S-curve trajectories—a prototype tool

New and refurbished non-domestic buildings are failing to live up to their anticipated performance. Shortfalls show in excess energy consumption, high carbon dioxide emissions and other failings in quantitative and qualitative performance metrics. This paper describes the component parts of the performance gap using evidence from building performance evaluations. It introduces a way of visualising the consequences of decisions and actions that are known to compromise performance outcomes using a performance curve methodology (the S-curve) which plots performance, and the root causes of underperformance, from project inception to initial operation and beyond. The paper tests the hypothesis with two case studies. It also covers the initial development of a prototype visualisation tool designed to enable live projects to track emerging operational energy and emissions against a high energy and emissions trajectory created from empirical evidence. The tool aims to help practitioners identify key risk factors that could compromise building performance and mitigate these risks at different stages of procurement. Practical application: The Operational Energy and Carbon (OpEC) visualisation tool is designed for wide industrial application, on all sizes of a non-domestic building project, large and small. It aims to visualise the likely outturn energy performance of a project by calculating the penalties for shortcomings in project delivery. The penalties are visualised as weighted trajectories of energy and carbon dioxide emissions. The prototype tool aims to fill a gap between the capabilities of powerful energy modelling tools used in design and the capacity of non-specialist stakeholders to understand the emerging energy characteristics of a project as it moves through procurement, design, construction, and delivery

Ordered groupoids and the holomorph of an inverse semigroup

We present a construction for the holomorph of an inverse semigroup, derived from the cartesian closed structure of the category of ordered groupoids. We compare the holomorph with the monoid of mappings that preserve the ternary heap operation on an inverse semigroup: for groups these two constructions coincide. We present detailed calculations for semilattices of groups and for the polycyclic monoids.Comment: 16 page

Irrigated greywater in an urban sub-division as a potential source of metals to soil, groundwater and surface water

Increased water demands in dry countries such as Australia, have led to increased adoption of various water reuse practices. Irrigation of greywater (all water discharged from the bathrooms, laundry and kitchen apart from toilet waste) is seen as a potential means of easing water demands; however, there is limited knowledge of how greywater irrigation impacts terrestrial and aquatic environments. This study compared four greywater irrigated residential lots to adjacent non-irrigated lots that acted as controls. Accumulation and potential impacts of metals in soil, groundwater and surface water, as a result of greywater irrigation, were assessed by comparing measured concentrations to national and international guidelines. Greywater increased concentrations of some metals in irrigated soil and resulted in As, B, Cr and Cu exceeding guidelines after only four years of irrigation. Movement of metals from the irrigation areas resulted in metal concentrations in groundwater (Al, As, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni and Zn) and surface water (Cu, Fe and Zn) exceeding environmental quality guidelines again within four years. These results are unlikely to be universally applicable but indicate the need to consider metals in greywater in order to minimize potential adverse environmental effects from greywater irrigation

Universal Statistics of the Scattering Coefficient of Chaotic Microwave Cavities

We consider the statistics of the scattering coefficient S of a chaotic microwave cavity coupled to a single port. We remove the non-universal effects of the coupling from the experimental S data using the radiation impedance obtained directly from the experiments. We thus obtain the normalized, complex scattering coefficient whose Probability Density Function (PDF) is predicted to be universal in that it depends only on the loss (quality factor) of the cavity. We compare experimental PDFs of the normalized scattering coefficients with those obtained from Random Matrix Theory (RMT), and find excellent agreement. The results apply to scattering measurements on any wave chaotic system.Comment: 10 pages, 8 Figures, Fig.7 in Color, Submitted to Phys. Rev.