New global standards of governance are emerging. Citizens of developing countries are demanding better performance on the part of their governments, and they are increasingly aware of the costs of poor management and corruption. Attitudes are also changing in industrial countries where bribery is no longer viewed as a legitimate cost of doing business overseas. At the World Bank and other inter...

The VersantTM English Test is a fully automated assessment of spoken English used by leading government agencies, academic institutions, and corporations throughout the world. Many organizations and institutions have leveraged the Versant test as a measurement tool for assessing improvement over time. This document provides empirical evidence showing that the Versant test is sensitive to gains ...

Biofuels that are produced from biobased materials are a good alternative to petroleum based fuels. They offer several benefits to society and the environment. Producing second generation biofuels is even more challenging than producing first generation biofuels due the complexity of the biomass and issues related to producing, harvesting, and transporting less dense biomass to centralized bior...

This past year there were a total of 14 faculty members involved in 40 sponsored research projects. Sponsors included government agencies, navy labs and industry. In addition to the sponsored faculty research there were 15 midshipmen involved in independent research projects with faculty, four of which were Bowman Scholars. Many of these projects were also funded by outside sponsors. Overall, 2...

Karachi is one of the world's fastest growing large cities. This paper describes the complex processes by which land is (formally and informally) made available for housing (and for commercial development), as well as who benefits - and how the low-income majority of Karachi citizens lose out. It also describes what underpins this - especially the political complications in a city that has grow...

This study presents an overview of modern field experiments and their usage in economics. Our discussion focuses on three distinct periods of field experimentation that have influenced the economics literature. The first might well be thought of as the dawn of "field" experimentation: the work of Neyman and Fisher, who laid the experimental foundation in the 1920s and 1930s by conceptualizing r...

Your practice is vulnerable to business-related liabilities including billing errors and omissions, discrimination, and wrongful termination. ■ NORCAL’s Physicians Administrative Defense (PAD) coverage helps you defend against these claims whether filed by government agencies, regulatory boards or third-party payers. PAD also provides for practice interruption and legal consultation. ■ Focus on...

The recent proliferation of Internet worms has raised questions about defensive measures. To date most techniques proposed are passive, in-so-far as they attempt to block or slow a worm, or detect and filter it. Active defenses take the battle to the worm—trying to eliminate or isolate infected hosts, and/or automatically and actively patch susceptible but as-yet-uninfected hosts, without the k...

The Consortium on Automated Analytical Laboratory Systems (CAALS) has been formed with interested parties from the private sector and other government agencies at NIST to foster the creation of automated chemical analysis systems that will improve the quality of analytical data, facilitate the entire analytical process, and promote the standardization and transfer of analytical methods, while p...

Cancer control in Australia has become a major social priority because of the increasing impact of cancer on providers and users of health care. In recognition of this situation there is now an increased response by government agencies, nongovernment organisations, health planners, and the community at large to focus on cancer as part of a National Health Goals and Targets Strategy for better h...