Contrasting perspectives on the evaluation of industrial modernization: Introduction to the symposium

This paper examines the experience of the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Alliance (GMEA) in implementing an evaluation of its industrial extension services. As part of the U.S. Manufacturing Extension partnership, GMEA provides assistance to manufacturers to resolve industrial and business problems and upgrade technology, training, and business performance, focusing primarily on firms within the state of Georgia. The program has established an evaluation component along with other assessment and review mechanisms. Several evaluation methods are employed, including customer surveys, economic analyses of benefits and costs, controlled studies, and logic-based case studies. The article examines the strengths and weaknesses of these different approaches, reviews the insights each method offers, and discusses how the resulting evaluative information is used. The views expressed in this paper are the authors' and not necessarily those of the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Alliance or its sponsoring organizations.     

Evaluation of industrial modernization programs: The field agent's perspective

This article provides a field agent's perspective on the factors that influence the success of industrial modernization services. We begin with an overview of the field agent's role in the industrial extension system and discuss the technical assistance services typically provided by a field agent. The field agent's role is differentiated from that of other stakeholders such as legislators, agency staff, and program managers. We then consider pre- and post-project perspectives of positive outcomes from industrial extension services. The article argues that the field agent's perspective is closely connected to that of the manufacturing customer. Implications for shared communication among stakeholders and improving program outcomes are discussed. The article draws on the experiences of the authors in the manufacturing extension program in Georgia-the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Alliance (GMEA).     

Tracking customer progress: A follow-up study of customers of the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Alliance

Time lags often exist before the economic impacts of technology promotion programs fully materialize. For one manufacturing technology deployment program, the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Alliance, this study gathered expected impact data soon after the point of service. Customers were then surveyed one year later and asked about impacts actually realized. A comparison showed that for the average project, actual benefits reported at the one-year survey mark were generally lower than benefits expected immediately after project completion, while actual costs were generally higher than expected costs. For high performing projects, however, the study found that actual benefits after one year were substantially higher than the benefits initially expected soon after assistance was completed. This study explores the implications of these findings for technology program evaluation and methods of performance measurement.     

Coordinating industrial modernization services: Impacts and insights from the U.S. Manufacturing Extension Partnership

This study examines how programs sponsored through the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) have influenced the organization and delivery of industrial modernization services to small and medium-sized manufacturers in regions in the United States. The study found that increased service coordination has occurred and that this, in turn, has mostly improved the quality and comprehensiveness of assistance delivered to firms. But there are also some costs and drawbacks associated with multi-partner service delivery approaches. The study identifies and examines best practices that can help MEP centers increase the effectiveness of service coordination. This paper draws upon research supported by the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology under award 50SBNBC8305. The views expressed are the authors' and do not necessarily reflect those of the research sponsor.     

Innovative economic development: The Georgia Environmental Technology Consortium

Case studies demonstrate how the Georgia Environmental Technology Consortium (GETC), a partnership between the research universities, the business community, and the state government, fosters economic development in Georgia. The technology managers, scientists, and engineers in the GETC provide environmentally sound, innovative solutions to complex industry problems improving economic development in the state. Gifts that people took for granted for centuries are clean air, water, and soil. These are now threatened. There are also dangers in the workplace. Employees are faced with workplaces which can be hazardous. In this paper we see the GETC dedicating substantial resources to natural and workplace environmental health issues. The cases cited demonstrate the technology transfer of university research into industry applications. The resulting environmentally responsible products and processes improve the general public health and the competitive position of Georgia firms, insuring more jobs and a better quality of life.     

Hackers Are After More than Just Data: Will Your Company's Property Policies Respond When Cyber Attacks Cause Physical Damage and Shut Down Operations?

Recent attention on high profile data breaches has overshadowed a potentially greater risk: cyber attacks on large industrial companies causing physical damage, potentially releasing contaminants, and shutting down operations. A handful of publicly reported cyber-attacks, including explosions at an oil pipeline and a steel mill, have highlighted the potential vulnerability of these companies' internet-facing industrial control systems to hackers. The insurance industry has reacted to the growing risk of privacy-related data breaches by marketing and selling so-called “cyber policies.” But these policies typically exclude coverage for property damage and are ill-suited to cover the magnitude of business interruption losses that could result from an extended shutdown of a large industrial operation. That leaves policyholders to look to their traditional property policies. This article examines the cyber-attack risk that large industrial companies face and how those companies' traditional property insurance policies may help mitigate that risk.     

INDUSTRIAL SHIFT,POLARIZED LABOR MARKETS AND URBAN VIOLENCE: MODELING THE DYNAMICS BETWEEN THE ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION AND DISAGGREGATED HOMICIDE*

Industrial restructuring marks the removal of a manufacturing and production‐based economy in urban areas, which had served as a catalyst in concentrating disadvantage and polarizing labor markets since the 1970s. Although scholars have established a relationship between concentrated disadvantage — poverty, joblessness, racial residential segregation — and urban violence in cross‐sectional studies, this literature has yet to estimate whether economic restructuring contributed to the change in urban homicide over time. Modeling this relationship requires an analytical strategy that incorporates specific indicators of (race and gender) polarized labor markets, separate from indicators of urban disadvantage, on disaggregated homicides while taking into account the growing dependency of urban cities on formal social control (via police presence and rise in incarceration). In this study I provide a theoretical rationale for linking industrial restructuring to urban homicide. Using a multivariate strategy to capture the shift in labor market forces and disaggregated homicides from 1980 to 1990, I also estimate the impact of this relationship. The results provide evidence of the industrial ship and documents both the decline in Manufacturing jobs for black males and black females and a growth in the service sector opportunities for white males only. I also find that industrial restructuring had a unique impact on disaggregated homicide beyond what has previously been established in cross‐sectional studies.     

Planting families: Intent and outcome in the development of colonial Georgia

This article examines the evolution of a plantation society in the British American colony of Georgia. It explores the original intentions of founders and settlers, and how those intentions were discarded or adapted in the face of a volatile demographic environment. It uses information from land grant applications to describe the make-up of late colonial families, and locates the experiences of the Georgia population within the broader context of Atlantic population history. In particular, it argues that familial instability initially catalysed the emergence of a plantation system. The “family” was later accorded real significance in plantation Georgia only when it became serviceable to provincial elites, though it remained important as an organising unit beyond the plantation world, and as a source of shared aspirations.     

The Privatization of Public Safety in Urban Neighborhoods: Do Business Improvement Districts Reduce Violent Crime Among Adolescents?

The business improvement district (BID) is a popular economic development and urban revitalization model in which local property and business owners must pay an assessment tax that funds supplementary services, including private security. BIDs constitute a controversial form of urban revitalization to some because they privatize economic development and public safety efforts in public space. This study examines whether BIDs provide tangible benefits beyond their immediate boundaries to local residents in the form of reduced violence among adolescents. The empirical analysis advances an existing literature dominated by evaluation studies by introducing a theoretically driven dataset with rich information on individual and neighborhood level variables. The analysis compares violent victimization among youths living in BID neighborhoods with those in similarly situated non‐BID neighborhoods. We find no effect of BIDs on violence. However, we do find that youth violence is strongly correlated with neighborhood collective efficacy and family‐related attributes of social control. In conclusion, we argue that BIDs may be an agent of crime reduction, but this benefit is likely concentrated only in their immediate boundaries and does not extend to youths living in surrounding neighborhoods.     

对比分析美国应急反应指挥系统研究芯片厂应急反应组织架构与流程

芯片厂的应急反应组织属于一个非常设性组织,故在应急反应组织架构与应急反应计划的设计上容易与芯片厂实际的日常运作组织产生矛盾,不易产生有机结合,导致在意外事故处理过程中,无法达成应急反应的最佳预期效果。本文在研究分析美国的事故应急反应指挥系统组织与架构、应急反应逻辑与操作法则的基础上,参考芯片制造厂的日常工作组织与职能,为芯片制造厂规划设计符合芯片制造厂的应急反应组织与流程,分析其间的异同点,并为芯片制造厂建制应急反应体系过程提供参考资料,以有效降低意外事故对芯片制造厂的营运冲击。     

社会资本、工业集聚与经济增长——基于中国经验的实证研究

社会资本对经济增长的重要作用,已越来越受到人们的广泛关注。笔者在对社会资本、工业集聚与经济增长相互关系进行理论分析的基础上,采用中国2000年的截面数据,实证检验各地区信任指数对地区工业集聚水平的影响。结果发现,我国各地区的信任指数对地区工业集聚具有非常显著的促进作用。在我国,社会资本通过加速工业的集聚的方式,进而促进了经济的增长。这也进一步表明,我国地区间在社会资本水平上的差异是造成我国地区经济差异的一个十分重要的原因。     

The Georgia State Litigation: Literal Copying in Education

This case note examines the long‐standing litigation against Georgia State University in relation to the posting, by faculty and library staff, of unauthorised copies of book extracts on the University's electronic reserves and virtual learning environment. The central question in this litigation has been whether these acts of copying fall within the fair use doctrine in US copyright law. In answering this, a key question for the US courts – and one relevant to other jurisdictions with free exceptions for education, such as the UK – has been whether existing and potential licensing activity is relevant to the question of whether an exception applies. This case note discusses how market effect has been analysed in Georgia State, including the recent rejection by the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit of a strongly empirical approach to market harm.     

Overkill? An Examination of Comparatively Excessive Death Sentences in North Carolina, 1990–2010

This study examines death/life capital sentences in one southern state, North Carolina, during the period 1990 to 2010 to determine the extent to which they are comparatively excessive/lenient. The study employs data derived from a variety of official sources on the population of capital trials in the state during this timeframe and follows the analytic techniques developed by David Baldus and his colleagues and by Paternoster and Kazyaka in their studies of comparative excessiveness in capital sentencing in California, Georgia, and South Carolina, respectively. The results show a substantial number of death sentences that meet the standard for excessiveness, but the data also show a nearly equal number of life sentences that may be deemed too lenient. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Local politics, national policy, and the taxpayer-payback of manufacturing extension

Expansion of the manufacturing extension system, and consequent diversification of center models and services, suggest the evaluation system may need to expand its focus to take into account diverse program features and outcomes and the need to use evaluation data in different state political economy contexts. In the Wisconsin environment detailed here, demonstrating hard “taxpayer-payback” and shaping the politician's view of manufacturing extension as an “investment,” rather than as an “expenditure” item, may be important requirements for future in-state manufacturing extension funding. This article attempts to demonstrate empirically the taxpayer-payback outcomes to manufacturing extension activities, using representative corporation financial balance sheet data, along with field-credible scenarios about simulated extension service impacts on the balance sheets, and actual program service costs and fee levels. The implications of the analysis are explored both for program evaluation and the broader economic and political justification of manufacturing extension at state and national levels. the views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect official policy of the National Institute for Standards and Technology. The author would like to thank Philip Shapira, Jan Youtie, Betsy Bury, Dan Luria, and participants at the 1996 NIST/Georgia Tech workshop on manufacturing modernization, for their comments and assistance.     

An empirical assessment of the effects of prison crowding upon recidivism utilizing aggregate level data

The problem of prison overcrowding has become one of the central issues in corrections during the last decade. Most studies addressing this topic have dealt with the consequences of the overcrowding upon physiological and behavioral problems associated with the inmate while incarcerated. The present study examines the effect of prison overcrowding upon post-release behavior, for example, recidivism. Drawing from official prison data from the state of Georgia for the years 1971 through 1978, it shows that prison density is a poor predictor of recidivism. The article further argues that any research utilizing aggregate data is susceptible to overestimating relationships. Moreover, it suggests that any research attempting to address the issue of overcrowding and recidivism should develop models that are sensitive to the problems associated with aggregation. Finally, the present study demonstrates that age is the critical variable that must be included in any study that addresses the issue of recidivism.     

Petition to request an exemption from 100 percent identity testing of dietary ingredients: Current Good Manufacturing Practice in Manufacturing, Packaging, Labeling, or Holding Operations for Dietary Supplements. Interim final rule

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is issuing an interim final rule (IFR) that sets forth a procedure for requesting an exemption from the requirement in the final rule "Current Good Manufacturing Practice in Manufacturing, Packaging, Labeling, or Holding Operations for Dietary Supplements," published elsewhere in this issue of the Federal Register, that the manufacturer conduct at least one appropriate test or examination to verify the identity of any component that is a dietary ingredient. This IFR allows for submission to, and review by, FDA of an alternative to the required 100 percent identity testing of components that are dietary ingredients, provided certain conditions are met and establishes a requirement for retention of records relating to the FDA's response to an exemption request.     

试论小企业的存在原因与产业分布规律

规模报酬递增与竞争性市场结构之间的矛盾激发着经济学家们对企业规模决定因素的持续探索。在长期的研究过程中，经济学家们相继揭示了诸如生产要素的不可分性、沉没成本、外部经济、企业内部交易成本、运输成本、关税与行政壁垒、产品差别等决定因素，这些因素最终可以归入规模经济和市场容量两个范畴。因此，规模经济程度低和市场容量小共同决定看小企业的存在与发展，而不同产业的特性则通过规模经济和市场容量两个方面决定看小企业的产业分布规律。     

URBAN JUSTICE,RURAL INJUSTICE? URBANIZATION AND ITS EFFECT ON SENTENCING*

Using a sample of felons convicted in Georgia between 1976 and June 1982, this study examines rural-urban diyerences in sentencing. Consistent with previous research, it is found that ostensibly similar oflenders are punished diflerently, depending on whether they were convicted in urban rather than rural counties. Diyerences in outcomes are based both on social background and on factors of explicit legal relevance. They occur for decisions about the type and duration of punishment. Finally, they persist even when selected correlates and consequences of urbanization are controlled. Unlike earlier research, however, this study finds that urbanization usually intensijes rather than reduces differential treatment. The paper concludes with possible explanations for the particularism that appears to characterize urban rather than rural courts. Also considered are the theoretical and empirical implications of the findings.     

The fight against terrorism and crime in the context of National, Regional, and Global security

The large quantity of illegal drugs remaining in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime presents an opportunity for both drug dealers and terrorists. The potential for generating vast sums of money could lead to“ narcoterrorism,” sustaining and financing terrorism over the long term. Narcoterrorism is not specifically recognized as a crime in many countries, nor is“ state sponsored terrorism.” The Republic of Georgia is currently drafting legislation to do this. That project, described here, is managed by the National Security Council of Georgia and includes several tasks to determine the causes and nature of the threats as well as the development of tools to combat them.