Virtual enterprises and mobile computing are emerging as innovative responses to the challenges of doing business in an increasingly mobile and global marketplace. In this rapidly changing environment, it is critical to focus on the fundamental technological aspects that enable the concept of pervasive computing. Mobil Computing: Implementing Pervasive Information and Communication Technologies is designed to address some of the business and technical challenges of pervasive computing that encompass current and emerging technology standards, infrastructures and architectures, and innovative and high impact applications of mobile technologies in virtual enterprises. The various articles examine a host of issues including: the challenges and current solutions in mobile connectivity and coordination; management infrastructures; innovative architectures for fourth generation wireless and Ad-hoc networks; error-free frequency assignments for wireless communication; cost-effective wavelength assignments in optical communication networks; data and transaction modeling in a mobile environment, and bandwidth issues and data routing in mobile Ad-hoc networks. The book is organized around four categories of mobile and pervasive computing and technologies: (1) business and management, (2) architecture, (3) communication, and (4) computing. The first three chapters focus on the business aspects of mobile computing and virtual organization. The fourth chapter lays out an architecture for a fourth generation wireless network. Chapters 5 and 6 are geared towards communication technology, both wireless and wireline. Chapter 7 is a taxonomy of data management environments in mobile computing and Chapter 8 is a review article on data and transaction management and research directions in this area. Finally, Chapter 9 addresses various routing strategies for the seamless switching between mobile hosts in an Ad-hoc network. The primary audience for this book is industry practitioners, university faculty, independent researchers and graduate students. The articles have a mix of current and successful efforts, innovative ideas on providing the infrastructure support, and open problems-both conceptual and experimental. People in the academic as well as industry can benefit from this book. All the articles have gone through a peer review process. It is anticipated that the book will act as a single, consolidated source of information on the cutting edge of pervasive computing technologies.

A thoroughly updated and expanded guide to honing your public policy writing skills—and making a significant impact on the world. Winner of the George Orwell Award by the National Council of Teachers of English Professionals across a variety of disciplines need to write about public policy in a manner that inspires action and genuine change. You may have amazing ideas about how to improve the world, but if you aren't able to communicate these ideas well, they simply won't become a reality. In Public Policy Writing That Matters, communications expert David Chrisinger, who directs the Harris Writing Program at the University of Chicago and worked in the US Government Accountability Office for a decade, argues that public policy writing is most persuasive when it tells clear, concrete stories about people doing things. Combining helpful hints and cautionary tales with writing exercises and excerpts from sample policy analysis, Chrisinger teaches readers to craft concise, story-driven pieces that exceed the stylistic requirements and limitations of traditional policy writing. Aimed at helping students and professionals overcome their default impulses to merely "explain," this book reveals proven tips—tested in the real world and in the classroom—for writing sophisticated policy analysis that is also easy to understand. For anyone interested in planning, organizing, developing, writing, and revising accessible public policy, Chrisinger offers a step-by-step guide that covers everything from the most effective use of data visualization to the best ways to write a sentence, from the ideal moment for adding a compelling anecdote to advice on using facts to strengthen an argument. This second edition addresses the current political climate and touches on policy changes that have occurred since the book was originally published. A vital tool for any policy writer or analyst, Public Policy Writing That Matters is a book for everyone passionate about using writing to effect real and lasting change.

After preparing to lead a quiet life as a teacher and scholar of political theory, William Galston has spent the past quarter century crossing the boundaries between academia and public life, including a two-year stint as Deputy Assistant for Domestic Policy under President Clinton. Reflecting these boundary-crossings, Public Matters contains a selection of Galston's essays on politics, policy, and religion. Each is viewed through the prisms of history, theory, and ethical concerns. The essays on politics tell the story of Galston's efforts to help redirect the Democratic Party so that it speaks more clearly to the concerns of 21st century Americans. The essays in the policy section reflect the range of issues with which Galston has grappled as a political activist and public official. Finally, the essays on religion try to come to grips with the challenges that religion, taken seriously (as it should be) poses for the governance of constitutional democracies.

Analyzes the problematic trends facing America's cities and older suburbs and challenges us to put America's urban crisis back on the national agenda.

Why Public Service Matters conveys the importance, purpose, and nobility of a career as a civil servant in the United States. It does so, however, with an unflinching eye on the realpolitik that drives public administration in America's "compensatory state" and on the pitfalls of reformers' focus on bureaucratic, rather than democratic, administration. The book links the nation's ability to handle contemporary policy problems with the strategic, tactical, and normative quality of public management. In doing so, it offers newcomers a rare, concise, and accessible overview of the field. Readers will gain an appreciation for the challenges, choices, and opportunities facing public managers as they help advance a sense of common purpose informed by democratic constitutional values in twenty-first century America.

Higher education can be a vital public good, providing opportunities for students, informed citizens for democracy, and knowledge to improve the human condition. Yet public investment in universities is widely being cut, often because public purposes are neglected while private benefits dominate. In this collection, international scholars confront the realities of higher education and the future of its public and private agenda. Their perspectives illuminate the trajectory of education in the twenty-first century and the continuing importance of the university's public mission. Reporting from Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and North America, these scholars look at the different ways universities struggle to serve public and private agendas. Contributors examine the implications of changes in funding sources as well as amounts, different administrative and policy decisions, and the significance of various approaches to assessment and evaluation. They ask whether wider student access has in fact resulted in social mobility, whether more scientific research can be treated as an open-access resource, how changes in academic publishing change access to knowledge, and whether universities get full value from research sold to private corporations. At the same time, these chapters capture the confusion in the university sector over explaining academic work to a broader public and prioritizing its multiple purposes. Authors examine these practical challenges and the implications of different approaches in different contexts.

Contemporary American society, with its emphasis on mobility and economic progress, all too often loses sight of the importance of a sense of “place” and community. Appreciating place is essential for building the strong local communities that cultivate civic engagement, public leadership, and many of the other goods that contribute to a flourishing human life. Do we, in losing our places, lose the crucial basis for healthy and resilient individual identity, and for the cultivation of public virtues? For one can’t be a citizen without being a citizen of some place in particular; one isn’t a citizen of a motel. And if these dangers are real and present ones, are there ways that intelligent public policy can begin to address them constructively, by means of reasonable and democratic innovations that are likely to attract wide public support? Why Place Matters takes these concerns seriously, and its contributors seek to discover how, given the American people as they are, and American economic and social life as it now exists—and not as those things can be imagined to be in some utopian scheme—we can find means of fostering a richer and more sustaining way of life. The book is an anthology of essays exploring the contemporary problems of place and placelessness in American society. The book includes contributions from distinguished scholars and writers such as poet Dana Gioia (former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts), geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, urbanist Witold Rybczynski, architect Philip Bess, essayists Christine Rosen and Ari Schulman, philosopher Roger Scruton, transportation planner Gary Toth, and historians Russell Jacoby and Joseph Amato.