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The article focuses on comments of some educators to the report "A Nation at Risk," issued by the National Commission Excellence in Education. The education system in the U.S. seems to be deteriorating. The report recommends to raise standards in educations by recruiting qualified teachers. It is felt by some educators that the report would be successful, if it generates public opinion against accepting mediocre education being provided in American schools.

This paper applies grey forecast model to predict the number of foreign students coming from Asia, America, Europe, Oceania and other regions to Taiwan for higher education in the future. It also uses a viewpoint of service marketing to analyze the students' development in the future. The research outcomes can provide references of planning international alternating of higher education to higher education organizations and executive bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper examines the drive for consensus from the perspective of the good government framework for federal advisory commissions in the United States. Specifically, the paper examines the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) – the statute, its regulations, and case law. It shows that the FACA was intended to be an antidote to abuses in consensus-making processes, including the failure to fully include competing views on commissions. The index of suspicion in the FACA scheme rises when a group work product – including a consensus report – is to be the basis of recommendations to federal officials. Once FACA's requirements regarding committee composition are satisfied, the index of suspicion drops and FACA is indifferent to consensus-making; but the conditions for informed, meaningful participation apply to members who dissent from, as well as those who participate in, consensus. In negotiated rulemaking, the push for consensus and closure creates unacceptable tension with the good government goals of openness and accountability. Proponents of consensus-only bioethics commissions can learn from FACA-related legislative, agency, and judicial insights that consensus-seeking is not always desired by government officials; is rarely cost free; and that diversity and dissent enhance openness, accountability, and fairness. The burden of proof is therefore on proponents of a consensus-only standard for bioethics commissions to demonstrate that a drive for consensus furthers sound decision-making by government officials more than it sets back openness and accountability to a diverse public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article advances an argument about two "imagined environments"--my term for the frameworks that human groups use to depict and dwell in more-than-human worlds. The first of these imagined environments arose around the US-Mexican Boundary Commission (1849-59): while failing to fulfill its official objective of building physical border monuments, this team of explorers and engineers still made media that helped two settler states conceptualize and control their borderlands. Against this increasingly efficient exploitation of both humans and nonhumans, a second imagined environment persisted in Mescalero Apache pictographs, Chihene Apache performances, and other Apache media. On our precarious planet, this imagined environment can teach us to stop defining ourselves around fixed places and to remain resilient while migrating through shifting spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the determinants of governmental corruption exploiting a unique dataset generated by “Operation Pretense”, an FBI investigation of county purchasing activities that ultimately led to the conviction of 55 of Mississippi’s 410 county supervisors, one county road foreman, two state highway commissioners and 13 vendors on bribery, extortion and other felony charges. Evidence is reported that corruption occurs more frequently in rural counties where voter-taxpayers have fewer years of schooling. Corruption is also more likely in counties where supervisors are paid more, ceteris paribus, casting doubt on the proposition that efficiency wages purchase honest public officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public bioethics advisory bodies have been a staple of US public policy for addressing public biotechnology- related controversies, in spite of the limited impact these bodies have had on policy-making. These advisory bodies serve an important tacit function as boundary organizations that stabilize the border between science and politics, preserving the autonomy of science from incursion by other societal stakeholders. In this paper the boundary work of the US National Bioethics Advisory Commission is examined at the border of science and ethics, in its deliberations on embryonic stem cell research. The coupling of scientific and ethical uncertainty, and that of research productivity and integrity assurance in the Commission's deliberations is described. It is argued that the Commission's boundary work reinforced the authority of science and marginalized conflicting civic-sector concerns [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many barriers to the development of Black political power remain. Drawing primarily from a case study of a Northern city, this paper examines the nonpartisan, at-large electoral system as a means of limiting and controlling Black representation on city commissions. This city adopted a modified at-large system (commissioners are nominated by district but elected at-large) designed to prevent the reelection of a militant Black commissioner. The primary election "keys" the white electorate to the "acceptable" Black candidate-in the general election, whites vote for the candidate with the poorest primary showing. Various strategies to either "beat" or "live with" the "Black Beater" are discussed. The paper also stresses the nature of ideological support for "good government" reforms which operate to the disadvantage of Black Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the decision of U.S. President George W. Bush to sign an executive order to set up his Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform on January 7, 2005. Objectives of the bipartisan panel; Overview of the paper "Principles for Tax Reform" of the Business Roundtable, an association of CEO of leading corporations; Commendation of the advisory group by Treasury Secretary John Snow. INSET: India releases VAT plan.

Examines the role of official public advisory bodies and private, voluntary associations in the mixed economy of public transportation in the United States. Reasons for the evolution and interaction of public and voluntary agencies; Advantages of both organizations; Patterns of interaction of both organizations.

This article presents information on government reports related to industries and commerce, labor and public finance in the U.S., as of September 1926. The Bureau of Statistics of the Interstate Commerce Commission has published the report "Freight Commodity Statistics, Class I, Steam Railways in the United States, Year Ended December 31, 1925." It has also published "Thirty-Eighth Annual Report on the Statistics of Railways in the United States for the Year Ended December 31, 1924." Bulletin number 13 published by the Bureau of Railway Economics, in the series "Commodity Prices in Their Relation to Transportation Costs," relates to cotton. This article also presents a list of bulletins issued by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. The preliminary report on "Statistics of Income From Returns of Net Income for 1924 Filed by Individuals," has been compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Internal Revenue. The U.S. Bureau of the Census has issued its annual report "Financial Statistics of States, 1924."

The question of how best to design a new agency is of immense public importance. Congress creates new agencies and reforms agency structures with some regularity, while commentators frequently call for the creation of new or redesigned agencies. Scholars have, as a result, increasingly turned to studying the diversity of agency structures and questions of agency design. In this Essay, we tackle one of the decisions that must be made in designing any new agency—the choice between a single-director agency and a multimember commission—and we make a general case against multimember commissions. For the most part, scholarly discussion of these structures is interwoven with questions of agency independence. But these two questions—singularity and independence—can be pulled apart and assessed separately. Yet surprisingly little of the existing literature focuses systematically on this decision. The central benefits of single-director agencies are that they better ensure agency efficacy at accomplishing statutory mandates, and that they offer clearer lines of responsibility and thus accountability for agency failures. Proponents of multimember commissions concede the inefficiency of its design but hold that inefficiency is desirable because it serves as a defense against liberty-infringing actions. We term this the “safeguards of liberty fallacy” and show that it rests on faulty foundations. The most often discussed benefits of multimember commissions are that they enhance deliberation and accountability. Dissents also serve as a “fire alarm” signal to Congress and the courts of potential agency malfeasance and thus enable greater accountability. We do not disagree that these are potential benefits of a multimember commission, but we believe that these benefits are wildly overvalued, and their costs are widely undervalued. In addition to suffering from baseline problems, these arguments fail to take seriously the reality of asymmetric political polarization. Finally, we turn to the relationship between multimember commissions and regulated entities. We argue that the adjudicatory origins of multimember commissions cannot carry the weight of that design choice in an era of rulemaking, and we also suggest that multimember commissions might suffer from more acute industry capture than single-director agencies. In short, the general case against multimember commissions is extremely strong. Scholars and policymakers would be well-advised to recommend singledirector agencies as a default presumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the condensed edition of the 7th semiannual report submitted to the U.S. Congress by the Atomic Energy Commission. The report focuses on the research activities of the commission in the field of physical science in which a large percentage of it is done mostly in the commission's laboratories. Most of the research is focused on nuclear physics and chemistry to integrate with the commission's enterprise which is the production and improvement of nuclear weapons Moreover, it details on the accomplishment of the commission in other endeavors such as the fellowship and training program of the commission and special services in the form of radioisotopes, information services and irradiation of materials.

The author reflects on the optimism towards the prospects for nuclear power in the U.S. He said that the feasibility of using nuclear energy to provide the fuel for electric power was never in question. He mentions technical problems that contributed to high costs in nuclear power. He also discussed the market for plutonium and the study of energy requirements by the U.S. President's Material Policy Commission. A call in support for the Atomic Energy Commission is expressed by the author.

The HC report contains over a hundred numbered or lettered recommendations. The subjects include broad topics such as taxation, insurance, chartering, branching, and regulation of several types of financial institutions. At the other extreme it contains some rather detailed points about the operation of trust departments of commercial banks. The discussion ranges from a broad consideration of social goals to some rather interesting details about the recent history of credit unions, and the operation of life insurance companies. This review will start with a brief look at the financial history of 1969. It will then compare the HC accomplishments with those of earlier commissions. In doing so, this review will focus on those subjects the HC itself seemed to give highest priority: Regulation Q, broadening the operational scope of specialized financial intermediaries, steadying the flow of mortgage funds, and the organization of Federal financial regulation. Lesser topics must, unfortunately, be neglected. The review will end with a look at some issues dodged or treated quite inadequately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on the involvement of sociologists in the recent report of the National Commission on Population Growth and the American Future as of May 1972. The reports prescribe strong medicine rather than weak bromides. The report was two years in the making and involved a number of sociologists on the process, including Otis Dudley Duncan, Margaret Bright, and Bernard Berelson as members of the presidentially appointed commission itself; Charles Westoff as executive director of the commission staff; Robert E. Park Jr. as deputy director; Peter Morrison, Norman Ryder, and Irene Taeuber as special consultants; and a legion of other colleagues as authors of commissioned research papers and general consultants. The commission's basic proposal is that the nation shift toward a more stabilized population, citing evidence of slower population growth and setting an average of two children per couple as a desirable goal. Certainly the commission's most controversial recommendation concerns the desirability of a national policy of abortion-on-demand, modeled after the new statute in New York State now undergoing attempted repeal. Here the commission was not unanimous, and the report includes minority statements.

The article focuses on the report of the American Institute of Physics submitted to the Manpower Office of the National Security Resources Board proposing recommendations for mobilization. Henry L. Barton, director of the American Institute of Physics, suggested that appropriate regulations be mandated to expand the scope of Selective Service to include Scientific and Technological Service as well as Military Service. The report also includes a proposal to create a National Board of Scientific and Technological Personnel to insure proper utilization of resources.

Despite the prevalence of state-level commissions convened to make policy recommendations, research to date has not systematically investigated the ways in which these bodies impact policy or degree to which state-level interest groups can use these institutions in that process. We argue that less powerful groups will favor these mechanisms and use them to get issues onto the institutional agenda and to increase the likelihood of legislative success. We also suggest that traditionally powerful groups will oppose the creation of reform-minded task forces, but will likely use them to hinder policy change once they are formed. We test this assertion in an analysis of the creation and recommendations of task forces convened to study autism insurance mandates, as well as the eventual adoption of such mandates, in the American states between 2001 and 2010. The results suggest that public and industry groups influence the formation and recommendations of task forces, but that the latter appears to have a relatively larger impact. They also suggest that a task force recommendation has a large impact on the likelihood of adopting an autism insurance mandate and that neither the insurance industry nor autism advocacy groups have a direct influence on adoption after controlling for the presence of a recommendation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the internal and external functions of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers. Precepts for behavior in the inside role of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers; Guidelines for the behavior of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers in their external function; Policy implications on industrial relations.

The article presents information on a report of the Wooldridge Committee. The Committee report praised the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) for its achievements uptil now. The Committee's two main recommendations were, the establishment of a new advisory group to assist the Director of the NIH, and to give more authority and responsibility to university executives in administering NIH funds. The Committee plans to set up a new advisory council to determine NIH's collaborative program effort and to decide how much and the kind of research to be conducted. The report states another recommendation of the Committee, that the NIH should modify its procedures to strengthen the authority and increase the responsibility of its grantee institution.

The article provides a historical overview of military staffing in the U.S., focusing on the rationale for the movement away from conscription to an all-volunteer military force, as well as information about "four promises" by then-President Richard Nixon's Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Forces (the Gates Commission) during the Vietnam War which have been broken over the years. The U.S. Constitution and promises related to liberty, fairness, and service-related costs are examined.

This article reviews the history of executive budgeting in the United States a century after President William Howard Taft's Economy and Efficiency Commission proposed an executive budget. This history, the authors argue, does not suggest that giving more budget power to the president will improve budget outcomes. Instead, what is needed is more cooperation between the branches of government and a better-educated public-goals that were shared by budget reformers when the Taft report was published. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the theme of 2011 American Academy of Forensic Science meeting in Chicago, Illinois and the National Research Council of the National Academies' report on February 19, 2009. The author says that the theme deals with the real context of forensic science. He adds that the 2009 report focuses on the strengthening of forensic sciences. Moreover, the academy urges both the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government to reach out to workers in forensic science.

The article offers information on the history and activities of the University Council for Workforce and Human Resource Education in the U.S. It states that the university council is a nonprofit organization that represents the leading universities in the country. It also offers emphasis on the mission of the University Council which were accordingly reworded to be inclusive to career and technical education (CTE) and human resource development (HRD). It further enumerates the purposes of the University Council which include the provision of forum related to the contemporary issues, examining and formulating positions in the emerging workforce, and assisting the improvement and capacity of its members.

This article examines the impact of the “neutral” or “honest” broker role in presidential decision making, particularly as applied to the job of National Security Council adviser. It provides further evidence of the positive and continuing contribution of the role to effective decision making, which has been expressed both in theory (Alexander George's formulation of the related concept of the “managerial custodian” in the 1970s) and in practice (the broker role of the Eisenhower-era NSC special assistants). At the same time, it considers the feasibility of additional tasks such as policy advocacy, public visibility, political watchdog, and operational assignments, which have been embraced, to varying degrees, by more recent NSC advisers but were largely absent in the Eisenhower era and rejected by George as appropriate to the custodian role. The article also examines the applicability of the broker role in light of differing presidential decision-making needs, different advisory structures, and the issue of bureaucratic leverage and personal influence. Attention to the broker role remains relevant not only in understanding classic decision failures (the expansion of troop commitments in Vietnam in 1965) and successes (Indochina in 1954) but in gaining perspective on more recent decisions, such as Iran-Contra during the Reagan years and the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and issues surrounding its postwar reconstruction in the George W. Bush presidency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whatever the legacy (or lack of it) of the Hutchins Commission in the United States, it resonates well around the world. Cases of national, regional and international media philosophies show that essentially the same social responsibility theory of the press has won wide global recognition, with or without direct reference to the Commission. Its current variant is a paradigm whereby the citizen rather than the media or the journalist occupies a central place. The conclusions of the conference suggest further reflection on themes such as: media as vehicles of public interest vs. media as commodities; media diversity and concentration; the idea about a truthful, comprehensive and intelligent account of the world under contemporary conditions; the nature of democracy being advocated. Lee Bollinger's proposal for a new Commission is endorsed--as a global exercise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though the Hutchins Commission report has not explicitly informed journalistic practices, it has achieved a profound effect in its critique of media access equity and its concerns about media ownership. This article revisits the commission report to interpret its relevance to current media problems. Despite its practical shortcomings of influence, the report continues to provoke a critical inquiry: How is it possible to reconcile a standard of' "professional ethic" with the demands of a workaday journalism concerned with the marketplace bottom-line? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]