Budgeting during the Clinton Presidency

This article assesses the Clinton administration record of budgeting. During President Clinton's two terms, the federal government moved from an era of large deficits to one of equally large surpluses. This turnaround was caused by both the strong economy and the deficit reduction deals of 1990, 1993, and 1997. Defense spending and interest declined as a percentage of the budget, whereas mandatory spending and nondefense discretionary spending increased. Acrimonious interbranch budgetary relationships dominated, with Clinton ultimately winning far more fights than he lost. Executive branch budgetary and financial management capacity improved during the Clinton administration.     

The Obama Administration and PBB: Building on the Legacy of Federal Performance‐Informed Budgeting?

The administration of President Barack Obama, like those of his immediate predecessors, is focused on trying to improve the quality of, and use of, performance data. The federal government has been pursuing performance‐informed budget reforms for more than 50 years. Most recently, the Bush administration reforms included the President’s Management Agenda and the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART). The Obama administration reforms include: measuring the effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; reducing or eliminating poorly‐performing programs; setting a limited number of short‐term, high‐priority performance goals; and funding detailed program evaluations. The administration is taking a more agency‐driven approach than the Bush administration, but continues to find it challenging to move beyond production of performance data to its use. There should be opportunities to show how performance information can be used for decision making, given the change in the political climate and the needs to reduce spending and the deficit. Historically, there has been little appetite in the Congress for evidence‐based decision making. The administration, however, can continue to demonstrate how federal agencies can use performance information to more effectively manage programs.     

A Prototype of Mathematical Treatment of Pen Pressure Data for Signature Verification

A prototype using simple mathematical treatment of the pen pressure data recorded by a digital pen movement recording device was derived. In this study, a total of 48 sets of signature and initial specimens were collected. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to compare the data of the pen pressure patterns. From the 820 pair comparisons of the 48 sets of genuine signatures, a high degree of matching was found in which 95.4% (782 pairs) and 80% (656 pairs) had rPA > 0.7 and rPA > 0.8, respectively. In the comparison of the 23 forged signatures with their corresponding control signatures, 20 of them (89.2% of pairs) had rPA values < 0.6, showing a lower degree of matching when compared with the results of the genuine signatures. The prototype could be used as a complementary technique to improve the objectivity of signature examination and also has a good potential to be developed as a tool for automated signature identification.     

Turning and twisting histories of women’s education: matters of strategy

ABSTRACT

This article discusses established and more recent methodological and theoretical strategies in histories of women’s education. The established approaches to histories of women’s education with which the article begins include networks, sites, technologies of the self and Bourdieusian notions of reproduction. To explore recent approaches that foreground processes and practices, the article then focuses on accounts that trace how gender has been made visible and audible in and through education, and how affect may become durable and thread across a scene, a site or an institution. This is followed by discussion of posthumanist strategies that orient the researcher to how human beings come into relation with one another and with non-human life with consequences for notions of temporality and context. The article ends by calling for dialogue to open up pathways framing the geopolitics of histories of women’s education.     

Federal Infrastructure Grants-In-Aid: An Ad Hoc Infrastructure Strategy

This article analyzes the trends and implications of recent federal aid to state and local government for infrastructure purposes. The first section describes general trends for federal infrastructure and the second section examines identified characteristics in the context of fiscal federalism theory. The authors identify an ad hoc trend in the federal infrastructure grant policy and a trend focusing on maximizing the efficiency of infrastructure grants