Assessing Governance: The Importance of Evaluating Policy Outcomes in National Mission Areas

This commentary responds to Fukuyama's (2013) rejection of “final outputs” as measures of government quality. It argues that public administration research should address policy outcomes in “national mission areas.” But public administration scholars should not simply become policy analysts. Rather, they should become policy analysts for policy areas that can benefit from expertise in organizations and management.     

Dire and Sequestered Meetings: The Work of Game Wardens

Game wardens are law enforcement agents responsible for enforcing fish and wildlife laws. Based on data from extensive interviews with game wardens the authors describe dangerous situations faced by wardens in their work. Comparisons with the dangers experienced by other types of police officers are made. Temporal, spatial, and situational factors shape the uniqueness of the law enforcement experiences of the game warden. Specific factors found which increase dangerousness were: isolation of area, being outnumbered, being alone, mistakes like not wearing hunter’s orange, and not being aware an offender is under the influence. In addition, most if not all individuals encountered are armed and skilled in the use of deadly weapons.     

Gambling on compliance with the new 2005 Act: Do organisations fulfil new regulations?

Gambling is not a new phenomenon. Indeed gambling has been seen to be omnipresent throughout history and culture. However gambling has taken a new path. Online gambling is fast becoming a major pastime for many of society. The ease of access and convenience of play has led to an increase in the numbers of people gambling, and not just online. Within the increase of online gambling there has also been an increase in the regulation surrounding this industry. This paper explores the regulatory approach to online gambling within the UK. The researchers explore the Gambling Act 2005 (UK) and provide an empirical analysis of the UK major gambling organisation to determine what regulatory aspects they adopt and what safety measures they have in place to protect minors and to protect against financial crime. The researchers finally looks at policy implications for UK governments when regulating future online gambling.     

Classification and individualization of black ballpoint pen inks using principal component analysis of UV-vis absorption spectra

The technique of principal component analysis has been applied to the UV-vis spectra of inks obtained from a wide range of black ballpoint pens available in the UK market. Both the pen ink and material extracted from the ink line on paper have been examined. Here, principal component analysis characterised each spectrum within a group through the numerical loadings attached to the first few principal components. Analysis of the spectra from multiple measurements on the same brand of pen showed excellent reproducibility and clear discrimination between inks that was supported by statistical analysis. Indeed it was possible to discriminate between the pen ink and the ink line from all brands examined in this way, suggesting that the solvent extraction process may have an influence on these results. For the complete set of 25 pens, interpretation of the loadings for the first few principal components showed that both the pen inks and the extracted ink lines may be classified in an objective manner and in agreement with the results of parallel thin layer chromatography studies. Within each class almost all inks could be individualised. Further work has shown that principal component analysis may be used to identify a particular ink from a database of reference UV-vis spectra and a strategy for developing this approach is suggested.     

Electronic Funds and Benefits Transfers,E‐Government,and the Winter Commission

This article examines how electronic funds transfers and electronic benefit transfers have become integral components of digital government. These technologies have forwarded many of the principles of the Winter Commission, including the development of lean, responsive government. The greater efficiency and cost savings for the federal and most state governments have not been achieved without encountering and dealing with serious matters related to customer service, contracting, collaboration, management, and implementation. These issues arise in the normal daily use of electronic payment technologies, but they are magnified in crisis situations, as demonstrated by disaster relief operations during Hurricane Katrina.