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Relations industrielles
Volume 58, numéro 4, automne 2003, p. 573-746
Contract Governance and the Canadian Public Sector
Contract Governance and the Canadian Public SectorLa gestion des contrats gouvernementaux et le secteur public canadienContrato gubernamental y el sector público canadiense
Suzan M. Ilcan,
Daniel M. O'Connor et
Marcia L. Oliver
Suzan M. Ilcan
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
University of Windsor
Windsor, Ontario
silcan@uwindsor.ca
Daniel M. O'Connor
doconnor@ uwindsor.ca
Diffusion numérique : 23 mars 2004
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Un article de la revue Relations industrielles
Volume 58, Numéro 4, automne 2003, p. 620–643
Tous droits réservés © Département des relations industrielles de l'Université Laval, 2003
Efficacité des pratiques de maintien en emploi des cadres de 50 ans et plus
Sexual Orientation Provisions in Canadian Collective Agreements
Liberalism: Interrelations Between the State and Civil Society
From Merit Governance to Contract Governance
Nonstandard Employment and Alternative Service Delivery
Governing at a Distance
Marketing Public Services
This essay examines the changing character of public sector work in the Canadian federal public service context. It is based on an empirical examination of various forms of contractual relations currently operative within the Canadian state and on a comparative approach of other western liberal state reform initiatives. We argue that contract governance is an ongoing process involving distinct interrelations between the public and private sectors. In this context, we identify various forms of contract governance and flexibility schemes that have been enfolded and refolded into the conventional structures of governance, and unfolded into a liminal space between the state and civil society through the establishment of nonstandard work and the creation of alternative service delivery programmes.
L'époque actuelle marquée par le libéralisme a vu beaucoup de pays occidentaux retirer leur offre d'aide sociale en recourant à la gestion d'une main-d'oeuvre stable et fondée sur le mérite, pour la remplacer par une offre de services publics faisant appel à diverses relations contractuelles favorisant la flexibilité. À la lumière de ces changements, cet essai aborde la régulation des contrats dans le secteur de la fonction publique du Canada en particulier et dans d'autres secteurs publics libéraux de l'Occident en général. Il examine comment le travail a été transformé par la gestion gouvernementale des contrats, c'est-à-dire par des aménagements contractuels qui visent à gérer les risques de l'incertitude du marché en optimisant la flexibilité organisationnelle. Nous illustrons la manière dont la gestion des contrats entretient une frontière commune avec la dé-standardisation du travail, le développement d'une main-d'oeuvre flexible, les aménagements de sous-traitance et la décentralisation des ministères au sein du secteur public canadien et à l'extérieur de ce dernier.
Notre analyse s'appuie sur trente entrevues sur le terrain effectuées avec les fonctionnaires du service public au niveau fédéral, ces derniers travaillant à l'intérieur du domaine formel ou quasi-gouvernemental du gouvernement fédéral. Dans notre étude, nous nous inspirons d'autres initiatives de réforme étatique du monde occidental et libéral, plus particulièrement de celles du Royaume-Uni, de l'Australie, de la Nouvelle-Zélande et des États-Unis, en les utilisant comme points de comparaison pour mettre en évidence les raisonnements et les pratiques influençant la restructuration du secteur public et les rapports avec la force de travail.
Au lieu de considérer le libéralisme simplement comme une philosophie normative ou une idéologie et en retenant les travaux de Rose et Miller (1992), nous le percevons avec la gouverne libérale comme un amalgame d'efforts programmés visant à encadrer la conduite sociale. Ces efforts programmés se présentent sous forme de rationalités, de technologies ou de théories et de pratiques qui ont force de règle. Ils ne sont pas entrepris simplement pour des raisons d'État, mais au nom de quelque chose qui est extérieur à l'État (Dean 2002). Des chercheurs insinuent que le libéralisme est souvent considéré comme une catégorie résiduelle et qu'il faut accorder plus d'attention aux différences dans la façon dont le libéralisme est intégré à la structure institutionnelle et à la politique sociale de divers pays. Dans la même foulée, nous envisageons le libéralisme non pas comme la représentation d'un type de société ou d'un appareil étatique, mais plutôt comme un mode de gouvernance qui façonne et informe les programmes et les stratégies des gouvernements, de façon qu'on puisse reconnaître les éléments clef de la gouvernance libérale contemporaine qui sous-tend les politiques et les programmes mis de l'avant par les états libéraux de l'Occident (Rose 1996). Bien qu'il soit possible d'identifier les théories et les pratiques déterminantes de la gouvernance libérale, les processus de réforme du secteur public retenu par les états libéraux occidentaux et leurs composantes demeurent complexes et hétérogènes. Le rythme de la réforme du secteur public et la direction du changement varient largement d'un pays à un autre selon des facteurs d'ordre politique, économique, légal et institutionnel.
Comme une conséquence de la compréhension libérale du gouvernement comme une sphère circonscrite, nous laissons entendre que l'État opère par des modes de régulation qui se trouvent à l'extérieur de sa sphère et par des modes de régulation qui ont cours au sein de la société civile. Dans ce contexte, nous reconnaissons différents modes d'administration des contrats et une présence de flexibilité accrue, qui ont été intégrés aux structures de la gouvernance publique et qui ont été redéployés dans un espace restreint entre la sphère gouvernementale formelle et la société civile par le biais de l'élaboration d'aménagements non habituels du travail et par des programmes alternatifs de fourniture de services. Nous soutenons que le glissement vers la consommation de masse, la réduction de la taille de l'État et la production allégée se traduisent par de plus en plus d'organisations, tant à l'intérieur qu'à l'extérieur de l'État libéral, qui font appel à des arrangements contractuels et à des types de main-d'oeuvre de plus en plus flexibles, cela afin d'accroître l'efficacité et la capacité concurrentielle jugées nécessaires dans un contexte de mondialisation des marchés.
Par le moyen d'une analyse des changements récents apportés aux secteurs publics canadien et à d'autres de l'hémisphère occidental libéral, nous montrons la façon dont la gouvernance des contrats fait partie d'une immense stratégie visant à réduire les incertitudes du marché et à maximiser la flexibilité des organisations. Cette stratégie de gestion des risques, inhérents aux marchés mondiaux volatiles et changeants, a amené le recours à une main-d'oeuvre atypique dans un effort d'atteindre la flexibilité (Zeytinoglu et Muteshi 2000) et elle a entraîné une montée des idéologies qui considèrent la flexibilité de la main-d'oeuvre comme un préalable à la réussite économique (Touraine 2001 : 94). La gestion du risque par le moyen d'une main-d'oeuvre atypique et contractuelle constitue avant tout un programme visant à déplacer les risques et les incertitudes vers une population active récemment constituée et insécure. En ce faisant, le programme cherche à externaliser les risques associés aux demandes changeantes du marché et aux niveaux de financement futurs et instables (Sahin 2000 ; Peck et Theodore 1998 ; Allen et Henry 1997 ; Hoggett 1996). La volonté générale d'expérimenter ces conditions d'emploi apparaît comme un effort en vue de réguler les risques et les incertitudes engendrés par des pratiques d'administration publique qui s'appuient sur le marché et des processus globaux. Les tentatives par divers gouvernements libéraux de mettre en oeuvre des indicateurs de performance dans les services publics traduisent un mode de gouvernance libérale s'inspirant de la logique du marché. La délégation de la gestion et le recours grandissant à des mesures de rendement, au test de marché et à l'offre concurrentielle dans la gouverne de la fourniture des services publics amènent de nouvelles techniques de contrôle politique, tels que celles du « monitoring », de la vérification et de la régulation. Dans l'ensemble, nous soutenons que l'administration de contrats – dans leurs diverses manifestations comme des chartes de projet, des mémoires d'entente, des accords de service avec des fournisseurs internes ou externes, des commissions spéciales – constitue une tendance alarmante dans la façon de fournir un service public, une tendance qui a été alimentée par le repliement de la gouvernance libérale.
Resúmen
Este ensayo examina el carácter cambiante del trabajo en el sector público en el contexto del Servicio Publico Federal. Basándonos en un examen empírico de varias formas de relaciones contractuales vigentes en el estado canadiense y en un enfoque comparativo de otras iniciativas de reforma liberales en otros estados del oeste, argumentamos que el contrato gobernamental es un proceso continuo que involucra distintas interrelaciones entre el sector público y el sector privado. En este contexto, nosotros identificamos varias formas de contrato de gobierno y esquemas de flexibilidad, que han sido incorporados y replegados en las estructuras convencionales de gobierno y desplegados en un espacio liminal entre el estado y la sociedad civil a través el establecimiento de formas no estandarizadas de trabajo y la creación de programas alternativos de servicio de reparto.
Corps de l'article
In the current era of liberalism, many western states have retreated from the provision of public welfare through the management of a stable, merit-based labour force, instead choosing to concentrate on the provision of public services through various contractual relations that promote flexibility. This pattern of workforce governance has been termed "contract government" (Dominelli and Hoogvelt 1996) or "control by contract" (Marshall, Richardson, and Hopkins 1999). The shift from merit governance to contract government, or contract governance as we prefer to call it, is a shift that reflects changes in the way business is done and work is managed beyond the state. Rather than analysing "government" in terms of the state apparatus or state activities that are legitimated by parliament or laws, governance centres on the many programmes or strategies that seek to direct or shape the actions of others. Governance includes but is not limited to programmes conducted by the liberal state, for it can also involve the many voluntaristic ways we act upon ourselves (see also Cruikshank 1999; Rose 1996, 1999; Larner and Walters 2000). The state apparatus and the programmes conducted by the liberal state are elements in a variety of complex assemblages of liberal governance.
The shift toward consumerism, downsizing, and lean production means that more and more organizations, both within and beyond the liberal state, rely on contractual arrangements and increasingly flexible workforces to promote the efficiency and competitiveness deemed necessary in a global marketplace. The growth in contract governance and the corresponding demand for flexible working arrangements are indicative of the qualitative shift in the regulation of workforce relations (O'Connor and Ilcan 2004). When these patterns of change find their way into domains of the state, governments also become consumers, rather than producers, of services and expert knowledge provided by private industry. While we acknowledge these trends in liberal governance, current patterns of service delivery and workforce transformation are not simply a reflex of external changes. Rather than advancing a perspective forecasting the wholesale transition of federal government services to the private sector, we examine the processes of unfolding, enfolding, and refolding, as outlined by Dean (2002), that take place between the liberal state and civil society. In this context, we identify various forms of contract governance and increased flexibilities that have been enfolded and refolded into the structures of governance, and unfolded into a liminal space between the formal governmental domain and civil society through the creation of special agencies and alternative service delivery programmes. While Dean's framework provides us with an understanding of the relations between the liberal state and civil society in terms of a series of "foldings," our analysis contextualizes and applies his framework to the reform initiatives of the Canadian public sector. This analysis is also based on thirty field interviews conducted with Canadian federal public service employees who work within the formal and quasi-governmental domains of the federal government[1] and on a comparative approach of other western liberal state reform initiatives, most notably the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S., to highlight the common rationalities and practices driving public sector restructuring in terms of liberal governance.
This paper examines liberalism and liberal governance, not simply as a normative philosophy or as an ideology but, as an assemblage of programmatic efforts aimed at managing social conduct (Rose and Miller 1992). These programmatic efforts consist of various rationalities and technologies, or theories and practices of rule. They are not undertaken merely for reasons of the state, but on behalf of something external to the state (Dean 2002: 40). Some researchers suggest that liberalism is often treated as a residual category and more attention needs to focus on the differences in the way liberalism is embodied in institutional design and social policy within various countries (O'Connor, Orloff, and Shaver 1999). In light of this concern, we understand liberalism not as representing a type of society or state apparatus but rather as a formula of rule that shapes and informs programmes and strategies of governance, making it possible to discern core elements of contemporary liberal governance that underpin the programmes and policies set out by western liberal states (Rose 1996). Although it is possible to identify defining theories and practices of liberal governance, the processes of public sector reform adopted by western liberal states and sub-sectors are heterogeneous and complex. The pace of public sector reform and the direction of change vary widely from country to country according to political, economic, legal, and institutional factors.
It is well documented that the programmes of public sector reforms launched in both the U.K. and New Zealand have been more comprehensive than in other western liberal states (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2000; Dell'Aringa 2001; Borins 2002). The dramatic restructuring of the public sector in each of these countries has been explained in terms of three interrelated factors: both countries experienced strong economic pressure to change, both had high-level political commitments to change, and both had a clear set of ideas implying radical solutions (Borins 2002). Although deeply held political and ideological commitments developed to a lesser degree in Canada (Aucoin 2002), intense economic pressure during the late 1980s and early 1990s significantly influenced the further development of liberal-based policies and programmes for public sector reform. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, the degree of decentralization in Canada's political and administrative systems is particularly unusual in comparison to other British Commonwealth nations. The political and administrative systems of Canada are governed constitutionally, dictating the separation of powers between the federal and provincial governments (Thompson 2001). Therefore, public sector reform in Canada is more incremental and anti-doctrinal than the reforms undertaken in both New Zealand and the U.K. The governments of the latter countries are characterized by centralized political systems and relatively unrestrained constitutional positions, thereby permitting the implementation of major reform initiatives despite parliamentary opposition or dissent from the populace (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2000).
As a theory and practice of rule, liberalism emphasizes a minimal state (Ericson, Barry, and Doyle 2000: 532–533) and yet constitutes forms of governance deemed to operate beyond the state (Rose and Miller 1992). In order to accomplish maximal governance with a minimal state, liberalism, rather than simply enacting state regulations and laws, "employs techniques and agencies located in civil society and thus must rely on knowledge of economic, social and other processes outside the formal sphere of the state" (Dean 2002: 42)—such as agencies of private governance that have grown in tandem with liberalism (Lippert and O'Connor 2003). For example, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) plays a prominent role in identifying ways to restructure the public service in industrial and "developing" countries. Its liberal-based reform plans include the transfer of public organizations into private hands, the introduction of market-like mechanisms of governance into the provision of public services, the enfolding of private sector management practices aimed at increasing efficiency and effectiveness, and the devolution of administrative responsibilities to lower levels of the government (Dell'Aringa 2001). These plans are promoted by the IMF and the World Bank to stipulate the terms of financial assistance packages for "developing" countries.[2] Financial assistance from such international lenders has been made contingent on adopting privatization initiatives to reduce the size and role of the state and to increase competitiveness in several countries, such as Jamaica, Trinidad, and Tobago (Rose, Chaison, and de la Garza 2000).
One of the central, and much researched, aspects of liberalism is its capacity to govern through freedom, that is, to create individuals who do not need to be governed by others, but will govern themselves (Rose 1996; Larner and Walters 2000). Another central, but under researched, aspect of liberalism is the way in which the state articulates with and implements programmes of liberal governance. Dean (2002) has developed an analysis which promises to bring about this articulation by examining the authoritarian dimensions of the limited sphere of the formal liberal state, brought about by different conceptions of what is exterior to it, i.e., civil society. Dean proposes a three-fold articulation (unfolding, enfolding, and refolding) of the relation between the liberal state and civil society. The first is the unfolding of the formal state into civil society and upon non-state agencies. State organizations establish linkages with the commercial, local, and voluntary bodies found in civil society. This involves making the agents and agencies of civil society more responsible and includes the downsizing/outsourcing of formal state activities and the creation of various semi- autonomous agencies to govern in civil society. The unfolding of the formal state domain into civil society helps to allay the liberal concern "that the state is doing too much governing" (Dean 2002: 42). To allay these concerns, the Canadian government first adopted a system of merit governance to separate the staffing of administrative, service delivery, policy and research functions from the already existing formal government, and later introduced equity measures to ensure the face of administrative governance resembled working populations within civil society. Recently, it has begun another phase of unfolding the administration of public life by engaging in various forms of internal and external contractual relations including the constitution of special agencies through processes of government devolution.
The second is the enfolding of the processes of civil society into the formal state domain. This involves the incorporation of values and modes of conduct found in civil society. Recent changes, such as the market-testing of government services, serve as a means of incorporating private sector best practices for governing public sector business and work, and have, in some venues, transformed the character or commitments of work relations through the adoption of post-panoptical (Bauman 2000: 11) models of contract governance. Under this regime, the market becomes the central disciplinary mechanism for governing the conduct of individuals within civil society by making, for example, their activities more responsive to both consumer demands and management needs. Many of the perceived rigidities associated with bureaucratic processes of the federal government have been sidestepped by the enfolding of contract governance. In many instances, bureaucratic processes are no longer conceived as the sole or primary mechanism for shaping disciplinary practices in the provision of public services. The introduction of incentive structures based on systems of competitive tendering and internal markets, the devolution of managerial authority to the level of individual departmental agencies, and the development of performance-related pay are contemporary modes of liberal governance that work through market-based disciplinary practices in the provision of public services. In this regard, contractual relations have produced new modes of governance that aim to promote the development of certain human capacities, such as the capacity to be "autonomous" and self-regulating (Yeatman 1996).
The third is the refolding of values and conduct found in civil society, at least ideally, into the formal state domain. This involves replicating the values and expectations, such as conditions of obligation, characteristic of civil society and making these the basis for government programmes and interventions by the liberal state (Dean 2002: 39–40). In this regard, contract governance regimes seek to construct a new image for administering public life, one that complements the liberal image of civil society as relations of abstract individuals pursuing their own interest, coupled with various strategies of governance that operate at a distance and aim to make individuals and governmental agencies more responsible.
We suggest that these three folds are not necessarily sequential, nor do they imply an historical development of the relation between the liberal state and civil society. What is of concern is the specific articulations of these folds that can be said to occur at any historical juncture. For our purposes, these foldings of the liberal state and civil society provide a useful analytic to explain the changing character of work relations in the Canadian public sector.
Dating as far back as 1868, at a time when the Civil Service Act was passed in Canada, the liberal state implemented merit as a governing principle and practice in the provision of public services. Merit comprises a set of programmatic efforts, that is, theories and practices of rule, aimed at minimizing the role of nepotism in the administration of liberal welfare and at making systems of rights and entitlements more inclusive for marginalized populations. The Civil Service Act aimed to constitute a new civil service whose employment relations would mirror the values and conduct regulating civil societies' mass production enterprises, communications, transportation, and wholesale trade and service industries (Carnoy, Castells and Benner 1997). The employment relationship that prevailed in Canada and elsewhere was characterized by full-time employment, for an indefinite period, for a single employer who was primarily responsible for the conditions of employment. Normative stress on authority, order, predictability, and loyalty to the organization (Machado and Burns 1998: 365) formed part of the long-term commitments and strategies of engagement (Bauman 2000: 10) of new public sector management.
As part of this system of administering conduct, the Civil Service Act was designed to ensure the appropriate qualifications of candidates for positions in public departments by establishing classification schemes and criteria for promotion through the ranks without unduly expanding government (Adie and Thomas 1987). In effect, the Act instituted the first Civil Service Commission (CSC) that had the power of appointment and protection from undue influence. The majority of appointments were made through restriction of access protocols (Baumann 2002), that is, through open, competitive, job-related examinations. The principle of selection by merit as established by competitive examination allowed civil servant positions to be distributed by merit and not by favour. As such, market-based recruitment sought to minimize the political character of appointments in liberal states and to promote a careerist orientation to public service. This system established long-term commitments as the employment norm and absorbed the costs associated with ongoing training.
In light of "new management realities," several commissions were appointed to analyse the organization and operation of the civil service. The Glassco Royal Commission on Government Organization (1962), in particular, identified problems with the operation of the merit system, especially the excessive number of controls that resulted in long delays in filling positions. In the name of efficiency, the Commission recommended that government departments be given wide financial authority, be held responsible for the management of resources at their disposal, and be authorized to recruit and select their own staff for those positions with salaries above a specific minimum amount per year (PSC 1972). The idea here was to have merit vary according to one's position in the hierarchy and to "let managers manage," a sentiment of liberal governance still espoused by the Commission (PSC 1998: 10) and one that promotes the autonomy and flexibility of managers with regard to public service staffing and budgets (Chodos and Sulzner 1995: 98). In 1967, the Canadian Parliament passed legislation incorporating several of the Glassco Commission recommendations and implemented the Public Service Employment Act (PSEA).
Merit governance coordinated the administration of social welfare programmes by managing the distribution of skill-based public service work through recruitment and promotion. But the effect was to produce a culture of merit that precluded the mobility of many groups within civil society from moving into the security of public service work. Since the 1970s, and under the banner of "representative bureaucracy" and "employment equity representation," numerous equity policies have been put in place with the aim of increasing the representation of certain marginalized groups to better reflect their employment distribution in the external labour market. The ideal of making the public service bureaucracy mirror the external labour market is another example of refolding civil society into the formal state domain. That all federally regulated employers, such as financial institutions and universities as well as those who contract with the government, are required to do the same, exemplifies the unfolding of the state into civil society. This also highlights the increasing responsibility placed on individuals in civil society to govern their own conduct in ways that align with the programmatic efforts of the liberal state.
While the new hybrid system of merit/equity aimed to promote the representational profile of previously under-represented groups, it also made staffing actions more cumbersome because of the many checks undertaken to eliminate barriers. The response from public service managers was that management needs were not being met and that a new system should be put in place to move human resources to demand areas (according to management protocols). A new section of the PSEA, section 34, now gives deputy heads the exclusive authority to deploy employees from one group and level in the public service to any other group or level by mutual agreement of the employee and the recruiting manager (Chodos and Sulzner 1995). This amendment signals the incorporation of what is termed "functional flexibility" (Zeytinoglu and Muteshi 2000: 140), that is, the ability of organizations to distribute employee competencies across a range of tasks.
The move to increase the flexibilities of organizational structures can be seen as a derivative of the lean production system established by Toyota in the auto industry as characterized by Womack, Jones, and Roos (1991). One characteristic of the Toyota system is the reliance on multi-skilled and "dynamic work teams" and the ability to assemble and move teams to high activity or problem areas. In a rough approximation of this system, a service sector in one government department is experimenting with a form of flexible administration that involves assembling temporary project work teams based on a "grid of employee expertise and interest." The grid encompasses all employees in several directorates. When a project arises, a team is assembled by matching people with activities and interests. According to an area manager, the grid is utilized to manage major projects: "managers borrow some of my employees for a few months or for three days a week to work on a specific project that they need to finish or implement quickly." The degree of mobility promoted by these temporary work teams requires a mode of governance to coordinate the activities and responsibilities of individuals and managers. The use of "project charters" facilitates the coordination of employees from various functional areas of expertise within the organization. These charters are contracts that determine the project plan, the scope of the project, its members, deliverables, and the team leader responsible for the project. They enable functional flexibility by contracting experts from the department and assembling them into temporary groups on limited-term projects.
In another example of "contracting" for expertise within the federal government, we found several instances of permanent government employees who were temporarily contracted to work in other departments on limited-term projects through a Memorandum of Understanding. A Memorandum of Understanding is a contract for services between government departments. In these cases, the employee's home department acts like a temporary employment agency by supplying professional expertise to government departments under contract. In line with private sector practices, temporary agencies enable governmental organizations to remake themselves into consumers who purchase temporary services rather than employers who hire permanent workers (Gonos 1997). While the enfolding of temporary agency "practices" into the formal governmental domain may signal a reversal of the long-standing practice of "growing" rather than "buying" expertise, these "temporary" workers are also permanent government employees. This hybrid status is said to entail certain advantages, such as cost efficiency. According to one employee, "My department works on cost recovery, so our fees are significantly lower than industry. . . . For the [contracting] department, it is more cost efficient to go to [my department] to get [my expertise]." The work of this employee, and other employees whom we interviewed, involves moving from one project to another, working in various work teams, in various departments.
The instances noted above illustrate some of the ways in which contract governance works. In some administrative domains, it is possible, under certain conditions, to contract-out work by means of project charters or "temping" by means of Memorandums of Understanding without going as far as tendering bids on the external market. These processes convey the ways in which normative practices, typically associated with market-based relations, have been enfolded, transformed, and refolded into the formal governmental domain without directly involving private industry. In the following section, we examine other deployments of contract governance in both formal and quasi-governmental domains.
Contract governance is part of a broad strategy to manage the risks of market uncertainty by maximizing organizational flexibilities. This strategy for managing the risks associated with volatile and changing global markets has led to the increasing employment of nonstandard labour in an effort to achieve flexibilities (Zeytinoglu and Muteshi 2000) and to the rise of ideologies that view labour flexibilities as the precondition of economic success (Touraine 2001: 94). The management of risk through contracted, nonstandard employment is primarily a programme for shifting risks and uncertainties to a newly constituted insecure working population and in so doing, to externalize the risks associated with changing market demands and unstable future funding levels (Sahin 2000; Peck and Theodore 1998; Allen and Henry 1997; Hoggett 1996). The general willingness to experiment with the terms and conditions of employment is an effort to regulate the risks and uncertainties inadvertently created by market-based governmental practices and global processes.
The shift to contract governance has led to a radical alteration in the "character" of work relations (Sennet 1998) and work commitments (Bauman 2000). The "strong-ties" (Granovetter 1973) or long-term standardized work "engagements" that characterized traditional relations of labour and capital have been disengaged (Bauman 2001) and replaced with weak ties and temporary work arrangements. What this means for work and employment relations is that standardized secure employment scenarios, premised on long term engagements between labour and management, are becoming increasingly tenuous as patterns increasingly deviate "from the tradition of lifelong full-time employment" (Ferrara, Hemerijck, and Rhodes 2001: 123).
Recent studies in the U.K. and Ireland found that the character of public sector employment has shifted away from a traditional, permanent, pensionable format (Morley, Gunnigle, and Haraty 1995: 49–56; Marshall, Richardson, and Hopkins 1999; Green, Krahn, and Sung 1993; Dominelli and Hoogvelt 1996). The U.K. public sector has tended to rely on non-standard workers in an effort to reduce the role of the state in service delivery, to improve the efficiency of service provision, to move to a less hierarchical form of organization that would allow greater private sector involvement in service delivery (Marshall, Richardson, and Hopkins 1999), and to promote flexibility in management. The use of temporary and contingent employment in the U.S. is less pervasive in the public sector than the private sector, most notably because of statutory prohibitions that forbid contracting-out services traditionally performed by government employees. Nevertheless, temporary appointments have been used by U.S. public sector authorities to keep individuals working for extended periods without the benefits and securities guaranteed to regular government employees (Brock 2001) through union agreements.
The trend toward contract governance developed during the late 1980s when private sector companies in North America and Europe followed a pattern of workforce adjustment designed to cut costs and produce lean and efficient corporate enterprises. These cost cutting measures included practices such as downsizing the workforce. However, downsizing alone is limited. To redress the limits of these restructuring efforts and to compensate for shortfalls in service delivery, many private and public sector organizations have experimented extensively with strategies to increase flexibilities buttressed by a range of contract governance options such as outsourcing. These options are embedded in alternative service delivery (ASD) programmes that aim to improve the delivery of government services "to clients by sharing governance functions with individuals, community groups and other entities" (Ford and Zussman 1997: 6).
The programmes of ASD encompass a broad range of implementation methods for governing the delivery of public services. Such methods include collaborative contract arrangements or partnerships both within the federal government itself (i.e., between departmental units via MOUs and project charters) and between the federal government and other levels of government or the private sector. ASD programmes also involve the creation of special operating agencies and service agencies, and the use of market-driven mechanisms (i.e., performance-pay incentives, competitive tendering) in the delivery of programmes and services. The increasing shift to alternative forms of service delivery not only preserves the core policy and regulatory functions of the formal governmental domain but also reallocates the implementation and delivery of public programmes to the most appropriate service providers. The key objectives of ASD initiatives include improving service efficiency, increasing management flexibility and autonomy, and developing partnership arrangements between the formal liberal state and civil society in the design and delivery of public goods and services. These goals are not to be understood as separate or distinct from one another, but rather as indicative of the core elements of liberal governance that shape the theories and processes of public sector restructuring in western liberal states.
Outsourcing or "structural flexibility" (Chun 2001: 129) is an ASD option and pattern of management that complements other strategies for improving labour flexibilities, such as numerical flexibility, which is the ability to expand and contract the workforce, and functional flexibility, which entails enhancing the mobility of workers across operational tasks and is oriented towards internal labour markets (Smith 1994). Outsourcing has transformed many private and public sector organizations from producers of goods and services to consumers where the "responsibility for commissioning and purchasing services is separated from the responsibility for providing them" (Ahmed 1996: 81). These programmatic efforts also found their way into public sector initiatives in Canada during the 1990s. The transfer of activities and assets from the public to the private sector can take several forms. For example, the government may transfer responsibility for programme or service delivery to a private or not-for profit organization and yet maintain policy, regulatory, and monitoring roles. One example of this initiative is Navigation Canada, a non-profit corporation owned by the users and employees of the air navigation system (Zussman 2002). Alternatively, the government may abandon and sell off a programme's assets, such as in the cases of Air Canada and Petro-Canada (Borins 2002; Thompson 2001). What is particularly striking is that between 1985 and 1995, the Canadian government privatized 24 corporations, including the "strategic repositioning" of Canada Post (White and Janzen 2000: 41), which resulted in transferring approximately 80 thousand employees to the private sector (Watters 1995: 51). Such liberal governance efforts characterize other public service sectors. A recent comparative study on public sector restructuring in western, industrialized countries found that the privatization of state-owned enterprises is most comprehensive in the U.K. and New Zealand (Borins 2002). For example, in 1990, Britain's Conservative government sold 47 state-owned enterprises, including British Petroleum, British Steel, and British Airways. These trends have led to the rapid unfolding of the responsibility for public security to private corporate entities that have spread into the spaces left in the wake of a receding state (Rigakos 1999: 383, 389).
While outsourcing service delivery to the private sector is inseparable from the trends of contract governance, this is only one form of governance structure in the repertoire of current liberal-state governments. The Canadian government is currently experimenting with other alternative, though related, governance structures. In addition to those previously mentioned (i.e., memoranda of understanding, project charters, and outsourcing), the current formal government has also "devolved" several special agencies to govern at a distance. Formed at the juncture of the liberal problematic of "too much governing," the necessity to respond to the demands for flexibility, and the need to manage the potential opportunism of contracted firms, the government has unfolded several key government services to special agencies.
The creation and establishment of semi-autonomous governmental agencies encompass two distinct types in the Canadian federal government: special operating agencies and service agencies. In Canada, eighteen special operating agencies (SOAs) exist (Zussman 2002) and employ almost five percent of the public service (Borins 2002: 12). These agencies fall along a continuum between a line department and an arm's length agency; they are situated within a particular department, and hence are subject to public policy and accountability standards of the ministerial department, and, at the same time, are granted negotiated flexibilities, such as management flexibilities in allocating and reallocating departmental resources. Unlike executive agencies in Britain and minister-chief executive relations in New Zealand, the administrative heads of SOAs do not report directly to the minister but rather function under the administrative authority of a host departmental deputy (Zussman 2002).
The creation of (SOAs) in Canada is based on theoretical models and reform initiatives adopted by governments in several other countries, most notably New Zealand and the U.K. (Zussman 2002). The reform of New Zealand's core public sector involved dividing large departments into smaller units with specialized functions. The State Owned Enterprises Act (1986) sought to establish government-owned trading organizations as successful businesses along private sector lines (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2000), with managers exercising a broad degree of autonomy and flexibility in managing resources that is comparable to the private sector (Walsh, Harbridge, and Crawford 2001). The separation of policy-making functions from operational functions was further formalized through the State Sector Act (1988). Operating agencies became formally separate from the responsibilities of ministries (e.g., to provide policy advice to ministers) and chief executives became the managers of their own departmental staff and were given greater autonomy and flexibility over appointments, promotions, and dismissals (Borins 2002). Likewise, in the U.K., under the Next Steps programme (1988), the government created service-oriented "executive agencies" operating at arm's-length from departments with substantial managerial autonomy. Within ten years of the programme's establishment, more than 140 executive agencies had been created and employed nearly three quarters of the public service in Britain (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2000; Aucoin 2002).
In response to pressures to reduce expenditures and improve service efficiency, and in situations where the scope of service mandate is beyond the SOA model, service agencies have been created in the Canadian federal government. Examples of service agencies include the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, and Parks Canada. Unlike SOAs, service agencies are established under legislation and, in turn, are granted statutory flexibilities. These flexibilities permit greater staffing authority, the right to enter into partnering arrangements with other levels of government or the private or third sectors, and the ability to retain revenue (Zussman 2002). Enhanced flexibilities in the area of staffing enable service agencies to move away from the "old public service regime" based on the "order of merit" to a new flexible regime based on minimum standards within a candidate pool, and other criteria such as best fit with the organization, relocation costs, productiveness, and efficiency. In effect, service agencies are made responsible for the recruitment and marketing of the organization. From the new public management point of view, this allows the agency to separate itself from the cumbersome staffing regime of the PSEA and the brand of the public service:
Before we were linked with the public service. We had their application forms . . . you had to advertise through the Public Service Commission and had to make your advertising tied to public service work. They had to approve our ads and so on. . . . Now we have flexibility to go directly to [potential employees] and to advertise and recruit. . . . Now we can say we're [Agency X], we're not the public service. I think it's given us a distinct image . . . where people see us as a separate entity, moving away from that stodgy [public service] image.
Having the status of a service agency allows agencies to unfold their own brand in the labour market; it allows the agency to separate itself, at least symbolically, from the image of public service and to market itself like a private sector firm.
The governance structures of both SOAs and service agencies have changed under the framework of ASD as they have enfolded both practices and personnel from beyond the liberal state. The most senior officials of service agencies, that is, those who form their "boards of management," are recruited largely from the private sector and are comparable to the boards of directors in private corporations. Similarly, the creation of a Senior Executive Service in Australia, under the Public Service Reform Act (1984), aimed at making recruitment to senior public service appointments more open and competitive. Executive agencies in both the U.K. and New Zealand are headed by chief executives who are hired through a process of open competition and appointed on a fixed-term contract of up to five years. By 1997, approximately one third of executive agencies in the U.K. had chief executives hired from outside the civil service (Borins 2002). The appointment of private sector managers to high-profile positions in the public service reflects the enfolding of private sector best practices and personnel, through market-based mechanisms, into the provision of public services in many western liberal states. This is further exemplified by the increasing client-based and consumer-driven rationales that guide the activities and standards of management. In line with private sector best practice, boards of management are said to have a different management orientation, an orientation that is different from the public servant's "mind set," one that emphasizes efficiency in terms of clients and consumers, performance indicators, and business plans.
In several western, industrial countries, initiatives to raise the quality of public services have led to a wider scope of performance measurements, focussing more on results and outputs rather than on inputs and internal processes. In Canada, the 1994 Declaration of Service Quality and the 1995 Quality of Services Initiative specify particular accountability measures, such as the production of annual business plans, multi-year strategic plans, and yearly reports addressing predetermined performance standards (Zussman 2002). Under the U.K.'s Citizens's Charter (1991), departments and agencies are required to publish explicit service standards and results detailing whether those standards are being met. In the U.S., the Government Performance and Results Act (1993) effectively mandated performance indicators for every federal agency (Radin 1998). Over 4000 standards for 570 departments are now in place (Borins 2002). The attempts of various liberal-state governments to implement performance indicators in the delivery of public services reflect a mode of liberal governance steered by the logic of the market. The devolution of management and the increasing use of performance measures, market-testing, and competitive tendering in the governance of public service delivery introduce new techniques of political control, such as those of monitoring, audit, and regulation (Rose 1996; Isin 2000; Peck 2001).
Recent state policies in Britain and Australia require public service agencies to compete with private sector organizations for contracts in delivering government services and programmes. These policies and practices of compulsory competitive tendering, "best-value," and "market-testing" suggest that the "special agency" can be a transitional and short-lived organizational form. Once given the opportunity to act as independent agents, the activities of agencies can be "market-tested," that is, subject to the so-called "disciplining effects of competition" (Kleiman and Sahu 1999: 156). Under market-testing policies, quasi-government agencies, and even formal government departments, are forced to bid for the services they provide alongside private sector companies. The threat of substituting in-house production with that of outside agencies requires in-house providers to demonstrate strategies for increasing efficiency and disseminating "best practices" (Braddon and Foster 1996: 104–105).
In the Canadian context, market-testing of programmes and services is an option currently the subject of experimentation in conventional departmental structures. For example, one federal government department contracts out part of a government programme to a private sector partner firm, while the rest of the programme remains in-house, at least for the time being. One senior manager explains:
[Programme X] is done half internally by [departmental] employees and half externally by private agencies. We do that on purpose. Now our goal is to assess and evaluate who does what best and at the end of a couple years we're going to make a decision. We'll move all the business in-house, or we'll move it all out, or we'll go to a combination . . . there's a lot of options right now.
Turning liberal welfare agencies into "purchasers who can choose to buy services from a range of options available" (Rose 1993: 296) has the potential to transform agents of the formal government into powerful consumers. The implication of these decisions will be profound for the character of working relations within and outside the formal governmental domain. As this case illustrates, the business of providing government services could remain in-house, it could be contracted to a private firm, or be involved in some combination of in-house and outsourced delivery mechanism. Even if projects remain in-house, the form of governance that will manage them will be contractual. The option of delivering services through service agreements is an alternative form of contractual relations within the variety of contract governance mechanisms currently available within liberal governance.
The increasing reliance on contract governance and the use of market-like mechanisms in public service provision necessitates an assessment of accountability. It has been claimed that "good contracting arrangements stimulate beneficial changes including clarification of purpose, role clarification, task specification, reliable reporting of information, and freedom to manage" (Matheson 1997: 164). From this standpoint, the public service is considered to be more responsive to citizens and clients of governmental programmes, and much more cost efficient under conditions where accountability is increased through publicly available government business plans and by a management style that is market-based and results-driven. However, such a market-based management style is risky because of the potential for opportunism and reductions in the quality of public services offered. Following Tupper (2001), this explains why the public service can be viewed as understaffed, operating under questionable management principles, and, in turn, incompetent of developing and implementing effective public policy.
Although the provision of public services is undergoing profound changes in Canada, it would be misleading to assume that the formal governmental domain has abandoned direct responsibility for traditional activities, such as health care, social assistance, and public education. Apart from the traditional activities of the Canadian state, it would seem that it has become an option, even desirable, to have Canadian government departments act as oversight agencies whose primary task will be to mediate the relations between a receding formal governmental domain and short-term contract service providers. These contract service providers can even be gleaned from other government departments. There is a range of possible and documented alternatives to deliver government services, but most, if not all, fall under the rubric of contract governance. Although contract governance has been claimed to have the potential to ease fiscal strain and to increase organizational competitiveness and efficiency, it raises new problems for workforce governance. In particular, the functions of the formal government are transformed from implementing policies and services to managing and auditing multiple contracts of relatively autonomous entities. With the increasing emphasis on performance and flexibility, contract governance also challenges the integral characteristics of organizational networks, specifically innovation and new learning and interaction processes. Long-term contractual relationships between the formal governmental domain and semi-autonomous or private agencies are characterized not by trust, but rather by strict control and contract enforcement. By separating policy formation from policy implementation, a variety of formal governments gain considerable control over the content of the contract and are able to establish more rules and incentives for compliance.
In several western liberal state reform initiatives, the deployment of contract governance as an option for delivering services is a function of the unfolding, enfolding, and refolding of normative practices between the formal apparatus of the state and civil society. In the Canadian context, merit governance promotes a professional, permanent workforce that mirrors the composition of specialist workforces beyond the state. It is bound to the mundane work of managing bureaucratic processes. Contract governance, on the other hand, emphasizes the development and deployment of flexible, short-term work teams and is closely associated with the management of fixed-duration projects. It lends itself to the unfolding of public service work through the formation of special agencies, market-testing, and perhaps the eventual outsourcing of public service work beyond the formal governmental domain. For now, it is clear that both governance regimes coexist within government departments, and even within specific programme areas. What is also clear is that a reliance on ASD options promotes the development of nonstandard, flexible working relations that are different in kind from the relations established under the merit model of governance. In its various guises—as project charters, memorandums of understanding, service agreements with internal or external service providers, or special agencies—contract governance is an alarming trend in the work of doing public sector work, a trend brought about through the folding of liberal governance.
As part of an ongoing research project, the first two authors interviewed knowledge-work professionals in the federal public service sector. Since this is a very difficult group to study, a chain-referral technique was used to trace various dimensions of knowledge work in this sector. This ascending methodology provided us with an expanding set of potential contacts and proved especially useful in identifying and studying the group dynamics of this transitory population. In accordance with ethical guidelines and to protect the confidence of our interviewees, we have made the transcribed interviews anonymous by removing all names and references to specific departments, agencies, programmes, and projects. In accordance with the national Tri-Council Statement on "Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans," this study received ethics clearance by the University of Windsor's research ethics board. The research herein has been supported by research funds from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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4 min readKey Events Early in the Process of Cellular Ageing Defined
Disease Processes
Seattle, WA – Scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have defined key events that take place early in the process of cellular ageing, according to a report from the Institute.
Together the discoveries, made through a series of experiments in yeast, bring unprecedented clarity to the complex cascade of events that comprise the ageing process and pave the way to understanding how genetics and environmental factors like diet interact to influence lifespan, aging and age-related diseases such as cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.
The findings, including unexpected results that link aspects of ageing and lifespan to a mechanism cells use to store nutrients, are described in the Nov. 21 issue of Nature by co-authors Dr. Daniel Gottschling, a member of the Hutchinson Center's Basic Sciences Division, and Dr. Adam Hughes, a postdoctoral fellow in the Gottschling Lab.
The researchers found the acidity of a structure in yeast cells known as the vacuole is critical to ageing and the functioning of mitochondria – the power plants of the cell. They also describe a novel mechanism, which may have parallels in human cells, by which calorie restriction extends lifespan.
The work began with Hughes and Gottschling searching for the source of age-related damage in mitochondria.
"Normally, mitochondria are beautiful, long tubes, but as cells get older, the mitochondria become fragmented and chunky," said Gottschling, also an affiliate professor in the Department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington. "The changes in shape seen in ageing yeast cells are also observed in certain human cells, such as neurons and pancreatic cells, and those changes have been associated with a number of age-related diseases in humans."
What causes mitochondria to become distorted and dysfunctional as cells age had long been a mystery, but Gottschling and Hughes have discovered that specific changes in the vacuole lead directly to their malfunctioning.
The vacuole – and its counterpart in humans and other organisms, the lysosome – has two main jobs: degrading proteins and storing molecular building blocks for the cell. To perform those jobs, the interior of the vacuole must be highly acidic.
Hughes and Gottschling found that the vacuole becomes less acidic relatively early in the yeast cell's lifespan and, critically, that the drop in acidity hinders the vacuole's ability to store certain nutrients. This, in turn, disrupts the mitochondria's energy source, causing them to break down. Conversely, when Hughes prevented the drop in vacuolar acidity, the mitochondria's function and shape were preserved and the yeast cells lived longer.
"Until now, the vacuole's role in breaking down proteins was thought to be of primary importance. We were surprised to learn it was the storage function, not protein degradation, that appears to cause mitochondrial dysfunction in ageing yeast cells," Hughes said.
The unexpected discovery prompted Hughes and Gottschling to investigate the effects of calorie restriction, which is known to extend the lifespan of yeast, worms, flies and mammals, on vacuolar acidity. They found that calorie restriction – that is, limiting the raw material cells need – delays ageing at least in part by boosting the acidity of the vacuole.
"Now that we have preliminary evidence in yeast of how calorie restriction extends lifespan, our hope is that it can be translated to higher organisms like humans," Hughes said. Given the similarities in the fundamental biology of yeast and human cells, the researchers' newly defined link between what cells "eat" and how they age could shed valuable light on the events that lead to age-related disorders in humans.
"There has been a lot in the scientific literature and the general media lately about how what you eat affects the ageing process, but it has been incredibly confusing. Now we have a new paradigm for understanding how genetics and environment interact to influence lifespan, ageing and age-related diseases. That's what I'm really excited about," Gottschling said.
Gottschling and Hughes speculate that if the vacuole's declining acidity limits its ability to store certain nutrients and metabolites, they may build up in the cell, flooding the mitochondria. Overwhelmed, the mitochondria use up all their energy – essentially burning out their motors – taking in the surplus. With no power left to import the proteins they need to maintain their elegant shape and execute their regular duties, the mitochondria literally break down. Gottschling and his colleagues are now investigating this hypothesis in detail. They are also exploring what triggers the initial drop in the vacuole's acidity.
The latter research question is of particular interest because the researchers found that even though vacuolar acidity drops as mother yeast cells age, the acidity in the vacuoles of their newborn daughter cells is normal. This corresponds to previous findings in the field that all daughter yeast cells have the same potential lifespan, regardless of the age of their mothers. The resetting of the daughter's vacuolar acidity is the earliest event yet observed in cellular rejuvenation, a phenomenon in which age-related defects are seemingly erased in an organism's offspring. This could help explain how the act of cell division itself contributes to ageing.
These results are just the newest chapter in a "decade-old interest," according to Gottschling. He and his colleagues have made several landmark discoveries in the past 10 years, including finding that ageing yeast cells exhibit the same genomic instability seen in human cancer cells and proving that mitochondrial dysfunction causes that instability. Gottschling's team also has developed innovative tools to leverage the power of yeast as a model organism, including a technique called the Mother Enrichment Program that makes experiments more efficient by enabling researchers to generate large populations of ageing yeast cells.
"It's worth using yeast to study complex things like ageing because a lot of person-years of research have gone into understanding the fundamentals. The genetic and cell-biology tools available for studying yeast are unparalleled," Gottschling said. "Having the proper tools is like having new glasses; you can see things you never could before, and once you start to see new things, you can dissect them to understand how they work."
In addition to the latest eye-popping technology, the researchers relied on sheer tenacity – with a little help from motion-sickness pills – in pursuit of their discoveries. Some of the painstaking experiments required Hughes to delicately manipulate individual yeast cells as they divided every two hours for days at a time. For another series of experiments that lasted several months, Hughes took Dramamine to ward off the queasiness that came with inspecting brightly coloured yeast cells as they streaked across his microscope's field of view.
"There were definitely tough points, but it was worth it when we knew the story as a whole. Showing that the change in vacuolar acidity was real and that it mattered – that it affected lifespan – made the gruelling experiments worthwhile," Hughes said.
Gottschling is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Washington State Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Microbiology.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
package etcd

import (
	kapi "github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/kubernetes/pkg/api"
	"github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/kubernetes/pkg/fields"
	"github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/kubernetes/pkg/labels"
	"github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/kubernetes/pkg/registry/generic"
	etcdgeneric "github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/kubernetes/pkg/registry/generic/etcd"
	"github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/kubernetes/pkg/runtime"
	"github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/kubernetes/pkg/storage"

	"github.com/openshift/origin/pkg/build/api"
	"github.com/openshift/origin/pkg/build/registry/buildconfig"
)

const BuildConfigPath = "/buildconfigs"

type REST struct {
	*etcdgeneric.Etcd
}

// NewStorage returns a RESTStorage object that will work against nodes.
func NewStorage(s storage.Interface) *REST {
	store := &etcdgeneric.Etcd{
		NewFunc:      func() runtime.Object { return &api.BuildConfig{} },
		NewListFunc:  func() runtime.Object { return &api.BuildConfigList{} },
		EndpointName: "buildconfig",
		KeyRootFunc: func(ctx kapi.Context) string {
			return etcdgeneric.NamespaceKeyRootFunc(ctx, BuildConfigPath)
		},
		KeyFunc: func(ctx kapi.Context, id string) (string, error) {
			return etcdgeneric.NamespaceKeyFunc(ctx, BuildConfigPath, id)
		},
		ObjectNameFunc: func(obj runtime.Object) (string, error) {
			return obj.(*api.BuildConfig).Name, nil
		},
		PredicateFunc: func(label labels.Selector, field fields.Selector) generic.Matcher {
			return buildconfig.Matcher(label, field)
		},

		CreateStrategy:      buildconfig.Strategy,
		UpdateStrategy:      buildconfig.Strategy,
		DeleteStrategy:      buildconfig.Strategy,
		ReturnDeletedObject: false,
		Storage:             s,
	}

	return &REST{store}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Safari Living Room Decor Ideas – To give your Safari decorating theme that finished look, you need to have some great decorative accessories. This decorating style works well with jungle themed accessories which help enhance the exotic and fun feeling of the jungle. Your safari decor will really shine when you add a few decorative knick-knacks, artwork and pillows.
Wall art adds depth to your safari living room decor. But you will need to know how to hang it appropriately for the most perfect effect. You wish for the center of the print to be at eye level. Try laying a grouping of artwork out on the floor initially to discern the exact configuration. To pull together your Safari decorating theme, try adding Jungle prints in large sizes. When searching for knick knacks for your home be sure to stick to ones that suit your interior design and also reflect your unique style. To pull together your Safari theme decorating, stick with accessories that have an exotic and fun style. Try putting animal figurines in a display or adding lamps with animal motifs on your tables. Using decorative pieces which mirror your personality will inject a bit of your own individuality to the interior design.
If you want to bring a charming appeal to your decor, look at getting decorative pillows for your safari living room decor. Pillows add a nice touch and look pleasing in any room not the least of which are the bedroom, den and kitchen. Piling them up in rows at your headboard will give a professional appeal to your bedroom. Pillows on the couch or chairs in your living room can help inject a bit of the Safari theme decorating look. In the kitchen or bathroom, a decorative pillow put strategically on a hamper or chair will add an inviting touch. Pillows which use animal print fabrics will help beautify your room style. You might also decorate with monkeys, elephants, and zebras to provide the atmosphere of the jungle. You would be smart to go with pieces that match with your overall design theme.
Safari living room decor – As happens with parents who are planning the decoration of the room of their baby girls , little boys prospective parents to take into account the of the baby when they must choose the decor of the room the same If you are expecting a boy and is excited thinking about how to decorate the baby's room, our guide full of ideas on different themes to decorate nurseries will provide everything you need to know. From tips on decorating up ideas about what should I buy bedding and issues on how to decorate the room of a baby; so you can be fully confident that created a highly original room for her baby if you follow our simple ideas?
The colors: blue, tan and ivory they help create a safari living room decor style. Look for fabrics with leopard print to make rugs and quilts. In addition, you can hang on the wall a room full of butterfly's network; but first make sure that it is safe and it is not located near the crib or bassinet for your baby, to make sure that your baby's room is as safe as possible.
Outer space: Create this fun theme for decorating safari living room decor the baby's room using borders with shapes of objects from outer space; painting stars on the ceiling, placing objects hanging from the ceiling of the room, and also including drawings or objects with reflective forms planets. Complete this style with a rocking chair with star filled with soft cushions filled with stars. Remember that regardless of the decorating theme you choose safari living room decor for your baby's room newborn baby's safety should always be the number one priority for you. Just give your baby a safe and fun Fourth achieve your baby feel happy, and you can rest easy knowing that your little darling is sheltered and safe from harm.
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Giving consumers the confidence to invest in the latest and the best television technology will now be easier, thanks to a new logo scheme that delivers High Dynamic Range (HDR), Ultra-High Definition (UHD) and Wide Colour Gamut (WCG) simultaneously. With manufacturers already expressing considerable interest in the unique logo scheme, it is expected to gain significant traction in the coming weeks, following its launch at CES 2017.
The scheme will ensure that the latest generation of UHD HDR screens (which deliver the highest picture quality currently available), will be easily recognised in the marketplace. The new 4K HDR Ultra HD logo will identify equipment that has been fully tested and proven to meet the highest standards of picture quality. The logo scheme certifies that all qualifying equipment will successfully deliver the extended contrast range and colours essential for HDR and WCG, as well as ensuring that the full potential of UHD is met (which offers up to four times the clarity of existing HD services). HDR brings a whole new dimension to content with vivid, true to life colours, darker blacks and brighter whites and the combined result of these three factors is simply breathtaking.
Broadcasters and content providers have been saying for some time that this combination of technologies must be adopted concurrently to justify the investment in UHD content production – and the logo is designed to target that sweet spot of UHD combined with HDR and WCG. Most importantly, the logo will ensure that devices are compatible with HDR content delivered over broadcast and IP (OTT), not just via HDMI.
The scheme is initially being promoted by well-regarded testing and quality assurance company, Eurofins Digital Testing, who are expecting for the scheme to be adopted, and ultimately owned by the TV manufacturers.


text:
Influence of decreased solvent permittivity on the structure and magnesium(II)-binding properties of the catalytic domain 5 of a group II intron ribozyme
Furler, M; Knobloch, B; Sigel, Roland K O (2009). Influence of decreased solvent permittivity on the structure and magnesium(II)-binding properties of the catalytic domain 5 of a group II intron ribozyme. Inorganica Chimica Acta, 362(3):771-776.
Although it is well known that the so-called "equivalent solution" or "effective" solvent permittivity (dielectric constant) in proteins and nucleic acids is lower than in bulk water, this fact is commonly neglected in (bioinorganic) studies of such compounds. Using domain 5 of the group II intron ribozyme Sc.ai5γ, we describe here the influence of 1,4-dioxane-d8 on the structure and magnesium(II)-binding properties of this catalytic domain. Applying one- and two-dimensional NMR, we observe distinct structural changes in the functionally important bulge region following a decrease in solvent permittivity. Concomitantly, an increase by a factor of 1.5 in the affinity of Mg2+ towards the individual-binding sites in the catalytic core domain is observed upon addition of 1,4-dioxane-d8. This has led to the detection of a new metal ion coordination site near the GU wobble pair in the catalytic triad. Our results show that solvent permittivity is an important factor in the formation of intrinsic RNA structures and affects their metal ion-binding properties. Hence, solvent permittivity should be taken into account in future studies.
7 citations in Microsoft Academic
106 downloads since deposited on 22 Jan 2010
07 Faculty of Science > Department of Chemistry
540 Chemistry
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ica.2008.03.095
Content: Accepted Version
Furler, M Knobloch, B Sigel, Roland K O


text:
British Cycling Racing Calendars and Handbooks
The British Cycling Racing Calendar books contain editorial features, news and the racing calendar of events across all British Cycling's racing disciplines.
Newhall Publishing works alongside British Cycling to produce their Racing Calendar and Annual Handbook
British Cycling is a membership organisation with over 138,000 paying members growing at a rate of 1,800 new members every month. With headquarters at the velodrome in Manchester, this world-leading organisation oversees the six disciplines of the sport (BMX, mountain bike, cyclo-cross, road, track and cycle speedway), from providing the support and encouragement to get people riding their bikes for the first time, right through to being the home of the hugely successful Great Britain Cycling Team.
The Racing Calendar books are produced both digitally and in print three times a year (January, June and September) and are the ultimate reference guide for the committed cyclist to source information about national and regional cycling events. Each edition is available to Gold members and contains the racing calendar of events subdivided into British Cycling's racing disciplines, along with extensive and valuable information for the readership covering the length and breadth of the UK.
The Annual Handbook is printed and distributed to 10,000 members and contains rules and technical regulations for BMX, cycle speedway, cyclo-cross, mountain bike, road and track, including details of anti-doping regulations. It also contains the organisation's constitution and contact details for clubs, coaches and regional volunteers.
To find out more about our work with British Cycling, please contact Commercial Director Richard Woolliams either via email at richard.woolliams@newhallpublishing.com or give him a call on 07903 700485.


text:
The ripple effect component adds the [Material Design ink ripple interaction effect](https://material.io/develop/web/components/ripples/). This component can be used without a button and can be added to any component.

<!-- Auto Generated Below -->

## Properties

#### tapClick

boolean

If true, the ripple effect will listen to any click events and animate

## Attributes

#### tap-click

boolean

If true, the ripple effect will listen to any click events and animate

## Methods

#### addRipple()

Adds the ripple effect to the parent elment

----------------------------------------------

*Built with [StencilJS](https://stenciljs.com/)*


Is your Tree and Weed Poisoning Causing Widespread Damage?
When faced with a yard full of weeds or weed poisoning, a stubbornly solid tree stump, a knee-jerk reaction is to tip poison over the lot! Although this can certainly give the short-term result required (fast death!), it can also have a number of unexpected and unwanted longer-term consequences. If you were about to get busy with the glyphosate, pause a moment to find out why it may not be the best choice and also what effective alternatives there may be.
Glyphosate can kill your neighbouring' trees!
– Stump grinding: this involves cutting the trunk into very small chips, using specialist stump grinding equipment.
– Steam: Specialist steam machines can finish off unwanted herbage and trees, without any harmful residue.
– Mulching: an excellent form of weed prevention. If mulch covers the soil is not going to receive sufficient light for germination to develop. Weeds covered with mulch will die due to lack of light.
Need any assistance with tree stump removal or the removal of an unwanted tree? We are here to help. As skilled and seasoned arborists, we are able to safely and successfully cut down and remove trees of all shapes and sizes. We can also advise on a weed and tree management strategy. This will keep your herbage under control without the need to resort to harsh weedkillers or glyphosate. Our tree removal and management services are available to homes and businesses across Logan, Brisbane, Ipswich and the surrounding area.


Jon Richardson is a leading British comedian known for his self-deprecating humour and role as team leader on the ever-popular 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown . Available through the Champions Music and Entertainment agency, Jon Richardson is the perfect choice for events with experience from university student union tours to primetime television. Jon's style has been described as: 'the mouse-that-roared'.
comedy with his characteristic nit-picking providing the setting for matters of worldly importance. Jon's eye for the minutiae of life and their effects is refreshing and allows audiences a place to vent and bond over life's little foibles. Fastidious to the bitter end Jon's self-aware humour is niche, original, and not to be missed.
Jon first rose to prominence on the BBC New Talent Comedy Search in 2003. Winning his heat, he would later go on to reach the semi-finals at the Laughing Horse New Act of the Year in 2004. With a popular act and a rising talent he quickly developed his act reaching the final of the J20 Last Laugh Comedy Search . Following this, he wowed audiences selling out a gig in Bristol and performing at the famous Criterion Theatre in the West End.
Jon went from strength to strength appearing in The Comedy Zone at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe . A testing ground for comics across the UK Jon had audiences in stitches. He went on to tour the UK and Ireland with Alan Carr on a 60-date tour. Spurred on by his success, Jon released his debut solo show Spatula Pad . This was a hit earning him a Best Newcomer nomination at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards . He followed it up the next year winning the Chortle Award for Best Breakthrough Act performing his second solo offering Dogmatic .
Jon expanded into broadcast, hosting BBC 6 Music with fellow comedian and former roommate Russell Howard. He was also the curator for the third season of The Museum of Curiosity and appeared on Fighting Talk .
Jon found a regular slot on television taking over from Jason Manford as team captain on 8 Out of 10 Cats . The established actor, panellist, and comedian also appeared as a guest on Never Mind the Buzzcocks , Have I Got News for You , 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown , and Stand Up for the Week .
With over a decade of experience, Jon has worked closely with other leading British comics including Matt Forde, Sean Lock, and Russell Howard.
Jon also has more literary work to his name releasing a book, It's Not Me, It's You! In 2011 and presenting the 2012 documentary, A Little Bit of OCD , which examined the effects of living with OCD.
To book comedian Jon Richardson as the host, compére, or entertainment for your corporate event, public appearance, or television broadcast event contact the Champions Music and Entertainment agency via email at agents@championsukplc.com. Alternatively, call a member of the management team directly on 0207 078 78 76.


(H) 09/11/18 4:00 PM vs Moravian Academy Community Field Postponed .
2 boys games Community Field .
2 boys games Postponed .
1 boys game Community Field .
2 coed games w/girls, at same time start time Postponed .
1 boys game vs. Quakertown Blue Community Field .
1 boys game vs. Quakertown Blue Community Field Postponed .
2 coed games w/girls, at same time start time vs Quakertown White .
(A) 10/09/18 4:00 PM vs Moravian Academy .
2 coed games w/girls, at same time start time .
1 or 2 boys games (TBD) Community Field Postponed .
1 or 2 boys games (TBD) The Pit Cancelled .
2 boys games Cancelled .


Platinum Cabinetry is a family owned cabinet company, serving the Centennial Hills area, that specializes in custom cabinets. No other cabinet company in the Las Vegas area can compare with the same quality, experience, customer service and workmanship.
At Platinum Cabinetry, we truly do care and provide the highest quality products using real wood, soft close euro hinges on all of our doors and we provide an array of stains and finishes to complement your home. Our craftsmanship will stand up to the test of time which is why most of our business results from return customers and referrals.
At Platinum Cabinetry we provide beautiful custom cabinets for every room in your home. As many people immediately think of buying cabinets for their kitchen, your entire home offers the potential of upgrading with additional storage and customization.
A popular option is built in cabinets for a media niche. A built in entertainment center or even a custom designed free standing cabinet is a good option for your TV. Custom cabinets are a must for home offices and closets, libraries and display cabinets. For Las Vegas of course home bars are extremely popular.
To learn more about all the cabinets for homeowners in Centennial Hills and get a free consultation with a cabinet designer, call us at today 702-233-8558.