The U.S. government shutdown could interrupt some of the country’s services such as disease detection and prevention, healthcare, food safety, emergency response and compliance activities, according to a report by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. Lisa Schnirring and Robert Roos write public health and food safety agencies have warnedRead… Read more »
NASA and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday demonstrated a portable radar device intended to detect heartbeats and breathing patterns of victims trapped in large piles of rubble after a disaster. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will also test the Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response system this year and next, NASARead… Read more »
NASA and the Department of Homeland Security are working to develop a new radar technology for helping locate victims during emergencies. The Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response device is intended to identifyheartbeats of human beings buried at several depths under rubbles of catastrophes, NASA said Tuesday. DHS’ science and technology directorate and NASA’sRead… Read more »
For government managers faced with restrained budgets, hiring freezes, and new mandates, the pressure to do more with existing resources has gained widespread traction. “Wrong” is a bit of an overstatement, but for one government leader, the notion of “doing more with less” misses a central point. Last week, Rafael Borras, Under Secretary for ManagementRead… Read more »
Are citizen CIOs a threat to local governments or a blessing in disguise? With government IT departments producing more open data and participation from community interest groups and citizens on the rise, we’re beginning to see the start of a new movement within open government: telling our government which technologies to deploy. Citizens are identifying—andRead… Read more »
Non-profits, foundations, and universities are enthused by government’s growing interest in the use of evidence and evaluation. They are chiming in with either support for government initiatives or undertaking their own initiatives. Some non-profits and foundations are advocates for the use of evidence-based decision-making in different policy arenas, while others advocate use of different toolsRead… Read more »
The Obama Administration has built on efforts from the Bush Administration to embed the use of evidence and evaluation in making funding decisions. There are now four different types of initiatives underway, or proposed, in a range of federal agencies. Within OMB, there is an active effort to catalyze agencies to develop and undertake aRead… Read more »
In an effort to improve small business contracting opportunities the Office of Budget and Management has issued a recommendation to all federal agencies to analyze their no-bid contracting process. No-bid contracting opportunities dropped 4% this past year while large prime vendor profits continued to rise. U.S. Congressman Sam Graves (R-Mo.), the chairman of the HouseRead… Read more »
What’s your take on what should be discussed? An online event on February 7, 2013 from 10:00am-12:00 EST NEWS: Adam Arthur, Virtual Platform Initiative Lead, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) just added to the speaker roster. The conduct of vitally important government conferences has come under increasing fire in the past couple ofRead… Read more »
The DOD caught with its Pants down – A Revolution in Risk Assessment needed? It seems to have passed commentators by, but the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently uncovered a major under-reporting of risk at the Department of Defense. (see Figure 1 below).1 The GAO’s recommendations read like a school report: the DOD shouldRead… Read more »