Public Accountability: Evaluating Technology-Based Institutions presents guidelines for evaluating the research performance of technology-based public institutions, and illustrates these guidelines through case studies conducted at one technology-based public institution, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The aim of this book is to demonstrate that a clear, more precise response to the question of performance accountability is possible through the systematic application of evaluation methods to document value. The authors begin with a review of the legislative history of fiscal accountability beginning with the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, and ending with the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993. A discussion of existing applicable economic models, methods, and associated metrics follows. The book concludes with evaluation case studies.

In Public Goods, Public Gains, Link and Scott discuss the systematic application of alternative evaluation methods to estimate the social benefits of publicly financed research and development (R&D). The authors argue that economic theory should be the guiding criterion for any method of program evaluation because it focuses attention on the value and the opportunity costs of the program. The evaluation methods discussed and illustrated are both economics and, for comparison, non-economics based.
The book is motivated by four foundation chapters that discuss government's role in innovation from the perspective of economic theory, review public accountability issues from both a constitutional and an historical perspective, overview systematic approaches to program evaluation, and describe the evaluation metrics typically used. Four case studies illustrate the four alternative evaluation approaches discussed. These case studies are for the U.S. Advanced Technology Program's intramural research awards program, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology's research on wavelength references for optical fiber communications, the U.S. Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, and the Advanced Technology Program's focused program on the integration of manufacturing applications.

Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince is one of the most influential works in the history of political thought and the adjective Machiavellian is well-known and perhaps even over-used. So why does the meaning of the text continue to be debated to the present day? And how does a contemporary reader get to grips with a book full of references to the politics of the early 16th Century? The Routledge Guidebook to Machiavelli's The Prince provides readers with the historical background, textual analysis, and other relevant information needed for a greater understanding and appreciation of this classic text. This guidebook introduces: the historical, political and intellectual context in which Machiavelli was working the key ideas developed by Machiavelli throughout the text and the examples he uses to illustrate them the relationship of The Prince to The Discourses and Machiavelli's other works Featuring a timeline, maps and suggestions for further reading throughout, this book is an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to be able to engage more fully with The Prince.

Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince is one of the most influential works in the history of political thought and the adjective Machiavellian is well-known and perhaps even over-used. So why does the meaning of the text continue to be debated to the present day? And how does a contemporary reader get to grips with a book full of references to the politics of the early 16th Century? The Routledge Guidebook to Machiavelli's The Prince provides readers with the historical background, textual analysis, and other relevant information needed for a greater understanding and appreciation of this classic text. This guidebook introduces: the historical, political and intellectual context in which Machiavelli was working the key ideas developed by Machiavelli throughout the text and the examples he uses to illustrate them the relationship of The Prince to The Discourses and Machiavelli's other works Featuring a timeline, maps and suggestions for further reading throughout, this book is an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to be able to engage more fully with The Prince.

Public Accountability: Evaluating Technology-Based Institutions presents guidelines for evaluating the research performance of technology-based public institutions, and illustrates these guidelines through case studies conducted at one technology-based public institution, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The aim of this book is to demonstrate that a clear, more precise response to the question of performance accountability is possible through the systematic application of evaluation methods to document value. The authors begin with a review of the legislative history of fiscal accountability beginning with the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, and ending with the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993. A discussion of existing applicable economic models, methods, and associated metrics follows. The book concludes with evaluation case studies.

This book examines product-line diversification of large manufacturing firms. It introduces and applies methodology that discerns groups of manufacturing industries related by complementarities in production, marketing, distribution, and research and development activities. Manufacturing firms intentionally vary production to exploit these complementarities, and Professor Scott uses evidence from U.S. manaufacturing to explore hypotheses about such purposive diversification and ensuing economic performance, including product diversification's effects on both static efficiency and the optimality of R&D investment. This study yields new perspectives on the policy debate about cooperation versus competition among firms: will industrial performance be better if leading firms cooperate on research, production, and marketing? Professor Scott shows that the answers depend on circumstances that vary with different industrial environments. His analysis offers insights about business strategy and public policy toward business combinations in conglomerate, vertical, and horizontal mergers and in cooperative R&D ventures.

This book examines product-line diversification of large manufacturing firms. It introduces and applies methodology that discerns groups of manufacturing industries related by complementarities in production, marketing, distribution, and research and development activities. Manufacturing firms intentionally vary production to exploit these complementarities, and Professor Scott uses evidence from U.S. manaufacturing to explore hypotheses about such purposive diversification and ensuing economic performance, including product diversification's effects on both static efficiency and the optimality of R&D investment. This study yields new perspectives on the policy debate about cooperation versus competition among firms: will industrial performance be better if leading firms cooperate on research, production, and marketing? Professor Scott shows that the answers depend on circumstances that vary with different industrial environments. His analysis offers insights about business strategy and public policy toward business combinations in conglomerate, vertical, and horizontal mergers and in cooperative R&D ventures.

A landmark study of Rousseau's theological and religious thought. John T. Scott offers a comprehensive interpretation of Rousseau's theological and religious thought, both in its own right and in relation to Rousseau's broader oeuvre. In chapters focused on different key writings, Scott reveals recurrent themes in Rousseau's views on the subject and traces their evolution over time. He shows that two concepts-truth and utility-are integral to Rousseau's writings on religion. Doing so helps to explain some of Rousseau's disagreements with his contemporaries: their different views on religion and theology stem from different understandings of human nature and the proper role of science in human life. Rousseau emphasizes not just what is true, but also what is useful-psychologically, morally, and politically-for human beings. Comprehensive and nuanced, Rousseau's God is vital to understanding key categories of Rousseau's thought.

The dramatic collapse of the friendship between Rousseau and Hume, in the context of their grand intellectual quest to conquer the limits of human understanding. The rise and spectacular fall of the friendship between the two great philosophers of the eighteenth century, barely six months after they first met, reverberated on both sides of the Channel. As the relationship between Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume unraveled, a volley of rancorous letters was fired off, then quickly published and devoured by aristocrats, intellectuals, and common readers alike. Everyone took sides in this momentous dispute between the greatest of Enlightenment thinkers. In this lively and revealing book, Robert Zaretsky and John T. Scott explore the unfolding rift between Rousseau and Hume. The authors are particularly fascinated by the connection between the thinkers' lives and thought, especially the way that the failure of each to understand the other-and himself-illuminates the limits of human understanding. In addition, they situate the philosophers' quarrel in the social, political, and intellectual milieu that informed their actions, as well as the actions of the other participants in the dispute, such as James Boswell, Adam Smith, and Voltaire. By examining the conflict through the prism of each philosopher's contribution to Western thought, Zaretsky and Scott reveal the implications for the two men as individuals and philosophers as well as for the contemporary world.

"We are all confronted, at one time or another, with choices as to what sort of life we will lead". So Tzvetan Todorov begins Frail Happiness, a provocative meditation on the thought and writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Todorov turned to Rousseau, he tells us, because he no longer found the professional language of scholarship an effective means for addressing such issues and because he found in Rousseau a seemingly immediate language that could articulate what is difficult and problematic in human life.

Rousseau is often said to have "discovered and invented our modernity", and Todorov's interpretation of Rousseau centers on the question of what sort of life we can live in modern times. Like modernity itself, the answer is complex: there are several ways of life that Rousseau contemplates and that Todorov considers along with him. He finds in Rousseau three possibilities: the life of the citizen, the solitary individual, and the moral individual. Todorov explores these three ways and their relevance for us two centuries later. Although all have commendable features, it is the third way, that of the moral individual -- the path laid out in Rousseau's novel Emile -- that the philosopher recommends without reservation.

Frail Happiness is an important interpretation of Rousseau, one suffused with Todorov's own moral seriousness and intellectual depth. While ranging widely through Rousseau's corpus with skill and scholarly authority, he never loses sight of the questions that led him to Rousseau in the first place: he returns, again and again, to the frail yet persistent hope for human happiness.

A landmark study of Rousseau's theological and religious thought. John T. Scott offers a comprehensive interpretation of Rousseau's theological and religious thought, both in its own right and in relation to Rousseau's broader oeuvre. In chapters focused on different key writings, Scott reveals recurrent themes in Rousseau's views on the subject and traces their evolution over time. He shows that two concepts-truth and utility-are integral to Rousseau's writings on religion. Doing so helps to explain some of Rousseau's disagreements with his contemporaries: their different views on religion and theology stem from different understandings of human nature and the proper role of science in human life. Rousseau emphasizes not just what is true, but also what is useful-psychologically, morally, and politically-for human beings. Comprehensive and nuanced, Rousseau's God is vital to understanding key categories of Rousseau's thought.