Privatization Research Articles

NASA’s Support for Commercial LEO Destinations

The International Space Station (ISS) is planned to be operated through 2030. To ensure a sustained US presence in low-Earth orbit (LEO) beyond the ISS end of life, NASA is enabling the development of safe, reliable, and cost-effective commercial LEO destinations that the private sector will own and operate. The goal is for NASA to meet its research and technology needs as a customer, not an operator, of these destinations and to be one of many customers. The primary purpose of NASA’s Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) project is to stimulate US private industry development of free-flying orbital destination capabilities and create a market environment in which CLD services are available to both Government and private-sector customers. NASA is using a two-phase strategy to achieve this purpose: • Phase 1 – A period of formulation and design by private industry, in coordination with NASA, of CLD capabilities determined to be most suitable for potential Government and private-sector customer needs. • Phase 2 – A competitive procurement by NASA of services in LEO which would include certification by NASA of the transportation and accommodations of NASA crew and payloads on CLDs. Four companies are developing CLDs, in partnership with NASA — one under contract and three under Funded Space Act Agreements. This paper will describe the role that NASA is playing to encourage development of CLD services in LEO and development of demand for those services.

Sentiment Analysis of Review Data: A Deep Learning Approach Using User-Generated Content

As information technology progresses rapidly, social media platforms are experiencing exponential growth, accompanied by a surge in online content. Sentiment analysis (SA) of online evaluations has piqued the interest of researchers from various organizations, including academia, government, and private industry. It has become an increasingly hot area of study in the fields of Machine Learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP). Deep Learning (DL) algorithms are currently being utilized in the same field to achieve remarkable results. Much SA research has been conducted in different languages such as English, Chinese, and Spanish, as well as various Indian languages like Hindi, Malayalam, and Bengali. However, languages like Assamese have received very little attention in this field of research. Hence, this research work provides a novel approach to sentiment analysis by demonstrating the effectiveness of deep neural network models for the less explored and scarce resource language, Assamese. This paper introduces a hybrid model, combining Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), termed LSTM-CNN, for Sentiment Analysis (SA). Keras word embeddings are employed for vectorization of the data. To achieve outcomes, our proposed models have employed dropout, max pooling, and batch normalization techniques. Experimental analysis is carried out on user-generated review content by translating the Bengali dataset into Assamese. Comparison and evaluation of the built models have been done with traditional machine learning models in predicting sentiment polarity. Comparative analysis shows that all the proposed models outperform with an accuracy of more than 98%.

U.S. Hydrodynamic Dredging Challenges and Opportunities

The issue of sedimentation in navigable waterways continually confronts maritime authorities. Regular maintenance dredging, a costly and arduous exercise, is necessary to ensure safe navigation is achievable throughout the year. Private industry and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) combined to remove roughly 230 million cubic yards of maintenance volume at an estimated cost of $1.7 billion in 2020. The handling and disposal of dredged material are practices affected by numerous regulatory constraints. Once a local or national organization has established the most efficient, lowest-cost dredging alternative with the most flexibility, the next step is identifying and addressing permitting concerns and seeking permits to use the technology. Innovative water injection dredging (WID) has been approved in various locations throughout the U.S.A., including providing a reliable means for the North Carolina State Ports Authority (NCSPA) to provide access to its berths, removing sediment over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel to minimize potential harm to the existing tunnel structure, and maintaining federal navigational depth in the Mississippi River. This paper aims to provide a summary overview of the current state of WID in U.S. waterways, including the discussion of a successful permitting and procurement effort by the NCSPA that secured a custom-built WID vessel for North Carolina. Recent literature has identified parameters correlated with WID performance, such as median grain size, hydrology of the waterway, Richardson number, and the liquidity index, which are explored.

Cybersecurity Students’ Interest in Government Careers: Impact of Demographic Characteristics and Job Dynamics

A critical shortage of cybersecurity talent exists in the United States. The lack of personnel has resulted in increased competition for the cybersecurity professionals. As the field of cybersecurity has evolved, a significant salary gap has surfaced between public and private employers. With private employers paying higher salaries, it has become harder for government agencies to hire cybersecurity professionals. Different policies and programs have been developed by government agencies to address this barrier. The current study examines the employment goals of a sample of cybersecurity students (n = 156). Specific attention is given to the types of employers students want to work for as well as how students rate the importance of different job dynamics. A sizeable number of the students (n = 90) expressed interest in working in public service. Job dynamics most important to students included being treated with respect, having job security, knowing expectation, safety, and opportunities for improvement. The results show significant demographic dissimilarities as well as differences in the ways that public service-oriented students (versus students seeking careers with private companies) rated job dynamics. Bivariate analyses showed that female and first-generation cybersecurity students were more likely to express interest in public service careers, as were juniors, seniors, and graduate students. In addition, students whose mother worked for the government were more likely than students whose mother worked for a private company to express interest in working in public service careers. Multivariate analyses confirmed these results. Female cybersecurity students also rated the importance of job security, mission attainment, personal empowerment, teamwork, commitment to representation, and personal empowerment higher than male cybersecurity students. Those who expressed interest in working in public service careers rated the importance of personal empowerment, collaboration, and physical conditions higher than those seeking careers in private industry.

Determining Factors in Developing Quality Management (Qm) Model in Public and Private Organizations in the Philippines: A Literature Review

In this paper 79 randomly selected research papers published in the refereed journals in quality management practices and models have been reviewed. The papers are classified based on the year in which they were published, based on specific countries, and finally public or private industry type. Based on the analysis of reviewed papers, 23 determining factors in developing a quality management model have been identified. Leadership and management were found to be highly talked about as the determining factors in developing the quality management model, therefore the papers further analyzed the importance of quality practices in the organization. This paper has also provided the discussion, conclusions, and future research directions.

PSIX-25 Impact of Performance Parameters on Sale Price of Bulls at the Southwest Virginia Bull Test Sale

Abstract Agriculture is the largest private industry in Virginia, generating around $82 billion annually and making up almost 10 percent of the Gross Domestic Product of the state. Within the agriculture sector, cattle and calves are the second most economically important commodity. The extension-supervised bull tests provide a partnership in the state that allows producers the opportunity to gather financially important management information while providing large amounts of production data for research and summary purposes. The Southwest Virginia Bull Test in Wytheville, VA has been in operation for 44 consecutive years. To qualify for entry, registered bulls must meet minimum EPD requirements (top 70%) for yearling weight or terminal indices of their breeds, have recorded EPDs within a breed association, and be certified healthy and free of genetic defects. The top 2/3 of each breed on test is sold at the end of the 112-d test period. To sell, all bulls must pass a breeding soundness exam (BSE) and have a minimum scrotal circumference of 32 cm for bulls less than 15 months and 33 cm for bulls 15 to 18 months of age. Genetic data including black coat color and polled/horned are also evaluated. Post-weaning data including age, weight, average daily gain, weight per day of age, hip height, frame score, BSE metrics, claw score, foot score, scrotal circumference, and others are collected while at the test station. A retrospective study was performed to establish what has a significant (P < 0.05) effect on sale price. Statistical analysis was performed on sale data from 2018-2022 using SAS. Over this time, 265 senior bulls (birth dates from September 1st-December 31st) were sold with an average sale price of $3,377. Variables significantly related to sale price included calving ease EPD percentile rank (P = 0.0077, r =-0.16), birth weight EPD percentile rank (P = 0.0049, r =-0.17), weaning weight EPD percentile rank (P = < 0.0043, r= -0.17), and yearling weight EPD percentile rank (P = 0.0060, r = -0.17) along with test average daily gain (P = 0.0013, r = 0.198), WDA (P < 0.0001, r = 0.50), and final scrotal circumference (P < 0.0001, r = 0.28). These results may be used to better understand selection priorities among bull buyers and to assist in the design and delivery of educational programs for beef producers.

Kelp breeding in China: Challenges and opportunities for solutions

AbstractBreeding has played an important role in the mariculture and industrialization of kelp in China. However, the current kelp breeding systems in China have encountered some problems relating to germplasm diversity, management, technological innovations, and regional co‐operation. This review summarizes the main challenges, such as top‐down and fragmented management of germplasm libraries, as well as private industry breeding without government regulations, inter‐cultivar accidental admixing and genetic erosion, loss of heterozygosity due to repeated selection and self‐crossing. We outline multiple potential approaches to breed cultivars with improved qualitative/quantitative traits which can be subjected to changing environments, for example: (i) establishing a national germplasm repository to enhance integrative collection and preservation of kelp resources; (ii) planning and implementing kelp breeding programmes according to strategic priorities and goal‐orientations; (iii) optimizing a hybridization‐based breeding pipeline to produce robust cultivars through the introgression of novel alleles and thus the expression of hybrid vigour; (iv) enriching the high‐quality annotated reference genomes and functional analysis of trait‐associated markers/loci to develop DNA‐based breeding technologies; (v) developing new priming‐based (e.g., thermal and disease resistance) bio‐engineering breeding strategies to meet future unpredictable climate change; and (vi) breeding towards an ecological kelp‐microbiome interaction‐based technique to produce cultivars with enhanced performance and adaptability to environmental scenarios. Collectively, the lessons learned from kelp breeding in China and the solutions proposed here may not only potentially improve or re‐invigorate the Chinese kelp industry, but will also assist other developing countries in taking corrective actions to develop a sustainable future kelp farming industry.

Intelligence warning in the corporate sector: the 2013 In Amenas terrorist attack in retrospect

ABSTRACT The 2013 terrorist attack at the In Amenas, Algeria gas production facility killed 40 innocent people and shook the corporate security industry. Analyzing this event raises important questions about the nature and limitations of intelligence warning for private industry. Corporate security intelligence has been adopted by many companies that desire a ‘decision advantage’, but in this case, it failed to foresee the attack. A seminal report on the attack produced by Statoil (now Equinor) encouraged numerous changes in how companies should protect themselves against severe security threats. One conclusion was that in uncertain and dangerous environments, intelligence cannot be relied upon to reduce uncertainty and provide adequate warning. The Statoil report acknowledges that the joint venture likely would not have gotten the intelligence necessary to warn of an impending attack. The core business is not necessarily focused on the changing threat environment. In this case, even more accurate ‘tactical’ intelligence might not have led to a timely evacuation. Moreover, as the Algerian Army's failure to prevent the In Amenas attack reveals, corporations' risk assessments cannot ignore the severe limitations of their host country security institutions. This case study raises some concerns about overvaluing corporate intelligence’s effectiveness in high-risk security environments.

Regional and temporal patterns of Italian COVID-19 mortality

Abstract Background Italy responded to COVID-19 with stringent lockdowns and a mass vaccination campaign. We describe the temporal and regional impact of these measures on mortality, along with social-behavioral correlates. Methods The analysis uses National Ministry of Health data on COVID-19 mortality (CM), excess mortality (EM), and vaccine uptake, along with survey data. We calculate avoidable mortality (AM) as observed mortality minus the lowest regional EM rate in each period. Results In 2020-21 EM was 180,169, of which 76% were counted as COVID-19. This fraction varied from 13% in the South in Jun-Oct 2020 to 140% in the Northeast in Mar-Jul 2021. Impact varied across Italy, with EM and AM highest in the North during the first and second waves (Feb-Jun 2020 & Nov 2020-Feb 2021) and in the South afterwards (Mar-Dec 2021). After the first wave, there were 33,587 avoidable deaths, 41% of which were in the South. Higher rates in the North in Nov 2020-Feb 2021 were possibly due to less social distancing (e.g. avoiding social events and staying home from work/school), perhaps because residents of the North are more likely to be employed in private industry, which were more likely than public agencies to remain open. Higher rates in the South after Mar 2021 were possibly due to lower trust in hospitals and reduced vaccine uptake, particularly among those aged 80+. Conclusions Official CM was differentially under-reported, so EM estimates provide a more robust picture of regional and temporal patterns of COVID-19 deaths. Mortality was high in the North in the second as well as first wave. It was high in the South afterwards (Mar-Dec 2021), accounting for 41% of avoidable mortality. Key messages • Excess mortality estimates provide a more robust understanding of regional and temporal patterns of COVID-19 deaths than reported COVID-19 deaths. • Heterogeneous impact of COVID-19 was associated with differences in preventive habits, trust levels, and vaccine uptake.

Economic Diversification in Kuwait Macroeconomic Implications

The extraction of oil remains the single dominant economic activity in Kuwait. While it has long been understood that economic diversification is needed to support a more stable economic base and a higher standard of living, this has been challenging in Kuwait and other GCC countries. The petroleum revenues of Kuwait cannot last forever, however public and private sector industry is nearly entirely dependent on this source of revenue. Various planning and projects have been undertaken as a means of achieving some measure of economic diversification. This paper undertakes an integrative review to synthesizing the measures undertaken in Kuwait towards the aim of economic diversification and evaluation of those projects, considering current evidence and frameworks. The study found that one area where the economic future needs of Kuwait and the cultural sensibility align is in small business ownership, and this in combination with the latent and undercapitalized, well-educated labor force presents many opportunities for growth, diversification, and innovation by providing for new opportunities for Kuwaiti citizens in Kuwait.

Workplace Deviance Investigations: A Case Study of the Application of Maturity Model to a University Investigation

ABSTRACT This article presents a case study from Norway that supplements previous research in other jurisdictions such as Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom regarding lack of justice when corporate investigators conduct internal examinations in client organizations. The case is concerned with a university researcher who was investigated after allegations of violating the national working environment act. Investigators applied likelihood of fifty percent rather than the criteria of incident beyond any reasonable doubt. There was no real contradiction offered, and many more deviance from a fair process occurred when compared to the public criminal justice system. The presented maturity model with four stages is applied to illustrate the low level of investigative performance in the case. This research does not in any way claim that the presented case is representative of work by corporate investigators conducting internal examinations in client organizations. Nevertheless, this research is important, as it illustrates the lack of justice that is caused by the absence of regulation of the private investigation industry as performed by law firms, audit firms, consulting firms, and others.

The information spillover role of corporate spin‐offs in financing activities: Evidence from equity sales by private firms through Regulation D

AbstractWe examine whether the increased quantity of public information has a spillover impact on equity sales by private industry peer firms. To capture an increase in the quantity of public peer information, we use corporate spin‐offs as these events cause an increase in the number of independent public entities that mandatorily disclose financial reports. Using a unique dataset on private firms’ equity sales extracted from the Securities and Exchange Commission filings pursuant to Regulation D, we find that private industry peers sell more equity following spin‐offs, but the increase is not statistically significant. When we divide our spin‐off sample based on the availability of segment information on subsidiaries before spin‐offs, however, we find a significant an increase in private firms’ equity sales after spin‐offs when parent firms did not previously disclose segment reports. Additional test results suggest that our inferences regarding private industry peers are not entirely explained by an industry‐wide demand shock. Overall, we contribute to the literature by establishing an information spillover channel, incremental to the effect of common industry shocks, flowing from the public to private markets.

Hybrid health regimes: Access to primary care physicians and COVID-19 vaccine uptake across municipalities in Romania

This study analyses COVID-19 vaccine uptake at the municipal level in Romania using the global health regimes and vaccine hesitancy perspectives. Our spatial regression (SARAR-het Durbin) shows that the number of primary care physicians is a significant predictor of vaccine uptake, and municipalities with higher access to the labour market have higher vaccination rates. We provide a historical perspective to demonstrate that the current health regime in Romania is a hybrid of internationalist and global health regimes, with socialist investments affecting labour participation, education, poverty, and vaccination rates. Our findings highlight the impact of regional disparities and partial privatization of the health system.

ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION, INDUSTRIAL AGGLOMERATION, AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE CHINESE TEXTILE INDUSTRY

Is it possible for the imposition of environmental regulation to develop the textile industry? Is it possible to balance quality and efficiency with energy conservation and emission reduction and achieve the sustainable development of the textile industry? The main objective of this study is to analyze the effects of the environmental regulation on industrial agglomeration and industrial efficiency within the textile sector. The findings reveal that, first, environmental regulation has significantly facilitated the agglomeration of the textile industry to regions with less stringent environmental standards. The restructuring and optimization of domestic value chains have also been promoted. Second, environmental policies in the process of the promotion of the industrial agglomeration are accompanied by a significant improvement in industrial efficiency. This improvement has contributed to the achievement of sustainability goals in the textile domain. Third, the influence of environmental regulations on industrial agglomeration and industrial efficiency improvement of the textile industry is strongly heterogeneous in terms of ownership. This impact is more significant in state-owned industries and private industries. This study holds substantial theoretical significance and practical relevance in promoting environmentally friendly and sustainable progress in the Chinese textile industry.

Penerapan Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Berbasis Self Assesment System Guna Mencapai Good Governance: Studi Kasus pada Kantor Dinas Badan Pendapatan Daerah Kabupaten Karawang

The purpose of this research is to provide insight on the ways in which the incorporation of a self-evaluation system into municipal tax collecting may have beneficial consequences on the environment of the surrounding area. Standards for the verification of carbon emissions, independent valuation systems, and management organizations that are managed efficiently are some of the items that will be investigated as part of this project. In the Indonesian province of Karawang, this particular field of study must be completed before working in private industry or for the government. The method that was used was a descriptive quantitative one, and the major data analysis was based on the outcomes of an online distribution of a Kuesioner questionnaire to 143 individuals who were involved in the research. According to research, self-evaluation programs have the potential to enhance the delivery of public services and have an effect on the environment, in particular via the reduction of carbon emissions. It is possible that possible improvements to the delivery of public services might lead to improvements in governance for the general populous

Funding Deficit Pension System: Structural Reforms that Necessarily Involve Partial Privatization of Pensions in Algeria

Purpose: The objective of this work is to highlight the various reform measures to be undertaken in order to ensure the sustainability of general pension schemes, in particular those aimed at promoting the partial capitalization of pensions in Algeria.
 
 Theoretical framework: Like most countries in the world, the Algerian pension system, which is managed on a PAYG basis, is currently facing major funding problems. Indeed, despite the measures taken to reduce its financial deficit, the latter has persisted since 2013 and has been estimated at almost 2.7 billion USD at the end of 2022. In fact, if measures to lay the foundations for sustained growth, which creates jobs (with improved inclusion in social security), are taken by the government, the system could regain its balance in the short and medium term. However, the problem of population ageing, which could occur in a few decades, reminds the urgent need for structural reforms.
 
 Design/Methodology/Approach: The design of the study is descriptive and analytical. Data for this study were collected from official Algerian sources, namely the NRF and the NOS, while content analysis was conducted by interpreting these data.
 
 Findings: The results of this study show that the Algerian public authorities have taken many measures in recent years to fill the deficit in the pension system, of which the repeal at the end of 2016 of the early and unconditional age pensions with possibility of maintaining the activity until the age of 65, the establishment of the NPRF in 2006, the introduction of additional revenue from customs duties applied to goods import operations from 2020, and the introduction of the NSSF in 2021. Nevertheless, this would in no way escape the insolvency of the pension scheme, hence the need for a structural reform that targets in addition to parametric changes, the introduction of a capitalization dose complementing the current pension system (supplementary pension) for its rebalancing in the short, medium and long term.
 
 Conclusion: the availability of substantial oil revenues may downplay the importance of the financial problems facing the Algerian pension system and their impact on budget stability (according to the NRF, the fund’s deficit stood at 376 billion DZD in 2022 and could reach 1.200 billion DZD in 2030), whereas this oil boom should be used to finance the transition by adopting a partially funded pension scheme. At the same time, this would require more efforts to boost the stock market in order to create an environment conducive to the establishment and development of this funded pillar.

Geothermal feasibility analysis inside Yangmingshan National Park, Taiwan

Geothermal power generation has gradually attracted attention due to the rise of green energy approaches in recent years. The Tatun Volcanic Group (TVG) in northern Taiwan has abundant hot springs and fumaroles, which have the potential for geothermal development. However, due to overlapping territory with Yangmingshan National Park (YNP) and the issue of high acidity in thermal water, research-oriented geothermal projects were mostly carried out in the metamorphic rock area of eastern Taiwan or outside YNP. After years of renewable energy policy from the government largely focusing on solar and wind power developments, geothermal is now being revisited in the revised direction of net-zero carbon emissions. The government is pursuing new initiatives to attract private industry players for collaboration, and advocates for special geothermal regulations and amendments to the current national park rules that facilitate resource exploration.Assuming favourable rulings for geothermal exploration are established, our study assesses the feasibility of geothermal potentials in the Tatun volcanic area by analysing multiple factors to determine the best targets for the geothermal development projects inside YNP. We select the geothermal potential map of TVG in northern Taiwan and the land use classification map of YNP as two major elements for the geological characteristics and the social limitations. Play fairway methodology is used to integrate the geological and social constraints, determining three viable targets as the geothermal development sites in Matsao, Leng-shui-keng, and Long-feng-ku areas. Maps of geologically susceptible and landslide-sensitive areas are digitized and superimposed for use in further analysis to factor in the stability of the land for protecting natural environment. According to this method, the most feasible prospect accommodating the most geothermal potential and the least damage to the landscape of the national park—once the national park regulations are moderately loosened—is the Matsao area, where great geothermal potential has been corroborated by many researches over the years.

A Review of Recent and Emerging Machine Learning Applications for Climate Variability and Weather Phenomena

Abstract Climate variability and weather phenomena can cause extremes and pose significant risk to society and ecosystems, making continued advances in our physical understanding of such events of utmost importance for regional and global security. Advances in machine learning (ML) have been leveraged for applications in climate variability and weather, empowering scientists to approach questions using big data in new ways. Growing interest across the scientific community in these areas has motivated coordination between the physical and computer science disciplines to further advance the state of the science and tackle pressing challenges. During a recently held workshop that had participants across academia, private industry, and research laboratories, it became clear that a comprehensive review of recent and emerging ML applications for climate variability and weather phenomena that can cause extremes was needed. This article aims to fulfill this need by discussing recent advances, challenges, and research priorities in the following topics: sources of predictability for modes of climate variability, feature detection, extreme weather and climate prediction and precursors, observation–model integration, downscaling, and bias correction. This article provides a review for domain scientists seeking to incorporate ML into their research. It also provides a review for those with some ML experience seeking to broaden their knowledge of ML applications for climate variability and weather.

Heterogeneous Blockholders and Enterprise Innovation: Evidence From the Mixed-Ownership Reform in China

The mixed ownership reform of China is a kind of further partial privatization for the listed state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and an opportunity for non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) to expand their commerce boundaries. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of heterogeneous blockholders on corporate innovation. Spanning the analysis with listed companies in China from 2007 to 2017, we find that heterogeneous blockholders have a significant positive effect on enterprise innovation. Lowering agency costs and improving corporate innovation efficiency are the two plausible mechanisms. From further research, we find that compared with non-SOEs, the positive effect of heterogeneous blockholders on enterprise innovation is more pronounced for SOEs, and the effect is more positive with the improvement of relative power balance between heterogeneous blockholders. The paper sheds light on the innovation effects of mixed-ownership reform in emerging and transitioning countries. JEL Classification: G32, M13, D23, G34

The Co-Evolution of India’s Policy on Science, Technology, and Innovation with University Education: The Need for Innovation in Higher Educational Institutions

Innovation-focused education and research have been identified as critical contributors to enhancing the innovative behaviour of individuals, organisations, and economies. Therefore, Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) embrace innovations to transform teaching, research, and knowledge transfer that impact economic and social objectives. The research objective of this study is to shed light on India’s needs for its higher education and innovation policies to develop faster growth and provide lessons on what it is doing right. For this, we study the gaps in the two policies: Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy (STIP) and National Educational Policies (NEP) applicable to HEIs. This study uses content analysis of the policies, with two experts’ opinions on the evolution of the policies. It finds that the Indian government has consciously striven to adopt new developments, urgently needing to improve infrastructural facilities for knowledge-driven innovation. Yet, fostering private industry’s role in innovation has not been adequate. The study concluded that policymakers need to collaborate with all the players for focused education and research, resulting in responsible innovation.