Export readiness index : construction and analysis

The internationalisation process of firms has attracted much research interest since the 1970s. It is noted, however, that a significant research gap exists in studies with a primary focus on the pre-internationalisation behaviour of firms. This paper proposes the incorporation of a pre-internationalisation phase into the traditional Uppsala model of firm internationalisation to address the issue of export readiness. Through extensive literature review, the concepts fundamental to the ability of an Uppsala type firm to begin internationalisation through an export entry mode are identified: exposure to stimuli factors, attitudinal commitment of decision makers towards exporting, the firm’s resource capabilities, as well as the moderating effect of lateral rigidity. The concept of export readiness is operationalised in this study through the construction of an export readiness index (ERI) using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The index is then applied to some representative cases and tested using logistic regression to establish its validity as a diagnostic tool. The proposed ERI presents not only a more practical approach towards analysing firms’ export readiness but has also major public policy implications as a possible tool for government export promotion agencies.

Developing sustainable fish farming in the Western Pacific : a viewpoint on potential reasons for why many attempts failed

Capture fisheries and aquaculture have been a major source of food and providers of economic benefits to many communities around the world for a very long time. While the history of aquaculture or fish farming can be traced back for more than 2000 years in some corners of the globe, notably in China, Japan and the Mediterranean, this is not true everywhere, where in general, fish farming is a relatively new industry. Rapid human population growth and increasing urbanisation over the last 20 to 40 years has meant that while fish consumption has doubled globally, returns from capture fisheries have remained static or have declined due to overexploitation and rising pollution levels, with some fisheries either closing or becoming economically unviable. Data from studies suggest that this trend is unlikely to be reversed unless appropriate fisheries management allows depleted wild stocks to rebuild. This has occurred during a time when demand for fish products has grown, in part due to improved purchasing power in some developing countries and changing dietary habits where fish are now considered to have a positive impact on health. Based on the projected population growth over the next two decades, Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates that at least an additional 40 million tonnes of aquatic food will be required to maintain the current per capita consumption (FAO 2006).

Setting water quality objectives for the health of freshwater fish

An important responsibility of the Environment Protection Authority, Victoria, is to set objectives for levels of environmental contaminants. To support the development of environmental objectives for water quality, a need has been identified to understand the dual impacts of concentration and duration of a contaminant on biota in freshwater streams. For suspended solids contamination, information reported by Newcombe and Jensen [ North American Journal of Fisheries Management , 16(4):693--727, 1996] study of freshwater fish and the daily suspended solids data from the United States Geological Survey stream monitoring network is utilised. The study group was requested to examine both the utility of the Newcombe and Jensen and the USA data, as well as the formulation of a procedure for use by the Environment Protection Authority Victoria that takes concentration and duration of harmful episodes into account when assessing water quality. The extent to which the impact of a toxic event on fish health could be modelled deterministically was also considered. It was found that concentration and exposure duration were the main compounding factors on the severity of effects of suspended solids on freshwater fish. A protocol for assessing the cumulative effect on fish health and a simple deterministic model, based on the biology of gill harm and recovery, was proposed. References D. W. T. Au, C. A. Pollino, R. S. S Wu, P. K. S. Shin, S. T. F. Lau, and J. Y. M. Tang. Chronic effects of suspended solids on gill structure, osmoregulation, growth, and triiodothyronine in juvenile green grouper epinephelus coioides . Marine Ecology Press Series , 266:255--264, 2004. J.C. Bezdek, S.K. Chuah, and D. Leep. Generalized k-nearest neighbor rules. Fuzzy Sets and Systems , 18:237--26, 1986. E. T. Champagne, K. L. Bett-Garber, A. M. McClung, and C. Bergman. {Sensory characteristics of diverse rice cultivars as influenced by genetic and environmental factors}. Cereal Chem. , {81}:{237--243}, {2004}. S. G. Cheung and P. K. S. Shin. Size effects of suspended particles on gill damage in green-lipped mussel perna viridis. Marine Pollution Bulletin , 51(8--12):801--810, 2005. D. H. Evans. The fish gill: site of action and model for toxic effects of environmental pollutants. Environmental Health Perspectives , 71:44--58, 1987. G. C. Grigg. The failure of oxygen transport in a fish at low levels of ambient oxygen. Comp. Biochem. Physiol. , 29:1253--1257, 1969. G. Holmes, A. Donkin, and I.H. Witten. {Weka: A machine learning workbench}. In Proceedings of the Second Australia and New Zealand Conference on Intelligent Information Systems , volume {24}, pages {357--361}, {Brisbane, Australia}, {1994}. {IEEE Computer Society}. D. D. Macdonald and C. P. Newcombe. Utility of the stress index for predicting suspended sediment effects: response to comments. North American Journal of Fisheries Management , 13:873--876, 1993. C. P. Newcombe. Suspended sediment in aquatic ecosystems: ill effects as a function of concentration and duration of exposure. Technical report, British Columbia Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, Habitat Protection branch, Victoria, 1994. C. P. Newcombe and J. O. T. Jensen. Channel suspended sediment and fisheries: A synthesis for quantitative assessment of risk and impact. North American Journal of Fisheries Management , 16(4):693--727, 1996. C. P. Newcombe and D. D. Macdonald. Effects of suspended sediments on aquatic ecosystems. North American Journal of Fisheries Management , 11(1):72--82, 1991. K. Schmidt-Nielsen. Scaling. Why is animal size so important? Cambridge University Press, NY, 1984. J. S. Schwartz, A. Simon, and L. Klimetz. Use of fish functional traits to associate in-stream suspended sediment transport metrics with biological impairment. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment , 179(1--4):347--369, 2011. E. Al Shaw and J. S. Richardson. Direct and indirect effects of sediment pulse duration on stream invertebrate assemb ages and rainbow trout ( Oncorhynchus mykiss ) growth and survival. Canadian Journal of Fish and Aquatic Science , 58:2213--2221, 2001. P. Tiwari and H. Hasegawa. {Demand for housing in Tokyo: A discrete choice analysis}. Regional Studies , {38}:{27--42}, {2004}. Y. Tramblay, A. Saint-Hilaire, T. B. M. J. Ouarda, F. Moatar, and B Hecht. Estimation of local extreme suspended sediment concentrations in california rivers. Science of the Total Environment , 408:4221--

Parental perceptions of the learner driver log book system in two Australian states

Objective While many jurisdictions internationally now require learner drivers to complete a specified number of hours of supervised driving practice before being able to drive unaccompanied, very few require learner drivers to complete a log book to record this practice and then present it to the licensing authority. Learner drivers in most Australian jurisdictions must complete a log book that records their practice thereby confirming to the licensing authority that they have met the mandated hours of practice requirement. These log books facilitate the management and enforcement of minimum supervised hours of driving requirements. Method Parents of learner drivers in two Australian states, Queensland and New South Wales, completed an online survey assessing a range of factors, including their perceptions of the accuracy of their child’s learner log book and the effectiveness of the log book system. Results The study indicates that the large majority of parents believe that their child’s learner log book is accurate. However, they generally report that the log book system is only moderately effective as a system to measure the number of hours of supervised practice a learner driver has completed. Conclusions The results of this study suggest the presence of a paradox with many parents possibly believing that others are not as diligent in the use of log books as they are or that the system is too open to misuse. Given that many parents report that their child’s log book is accurate, this study has important implications for the development and ongoing monitoring of hours of practice requirements in graduated driver licensing systems.

The lowest singlet and triplet states of the oxyallyl diradical

Small S-T splitting : The photoelectron spectrum of the oxyallyl radical anion (see picture) reveals that the electronic ground state of oxyallyl is singlet, and the lowest triplet state is separated from the singlet state by only (55 ± 2) meV in adiabatic energy.

'Look and feel' computer copyright in the United States and Australia (part 2)

Australian law similar to that of United States -- Australian law requires copyright must subsist in plaintiff's material and defendent's work must infringe plaintiff's copyright to find defendent liable for illegal copying -- subsistence -- infringement -- two cases that touch on 'look and feel' issue -- passing-off -- look and feel of computer program deserves protection

Dynamic changes in high and low mammographic density human breast tissues maintained in murine tissue engineering chambers during various murine peripartum states and over time

Mammographic density (MD) is a strong heritable risk factor for breast cancer, and may decrease with increasing parity. However, the biomolecular basis for MD-associated breast cancer remains unclear, and systemic hormonal effects on MD-associated risk is poorly understood. This study assessed the effect of murine peripartum states on high and low MD tissue maintained in a xenograft model of human MD. Method High and low MD human breast tissues were precisely sampled under radiographic guidance from prophylactic mastectomy specimens of women. The high and low MD tissues were maintained in separate vascularised biochambers in nulliparous or pregnant SCID mice for 4 weeks, or mice undergoing postpartum involution or lactation for three additional weeks. High and low MD biochamber material was harvested for histologic and radiographic comparisons during various murine peripartum states. High and low MD biochamber tissues in nulliparous mice were harvested at different timepoints for histologic and radiographic comparisons. Results High MD biochamber tissues had decreased stromal (p = 0.0027), increased adipose (p = 0.0003) and a trend to increased glandular tissue areas (p = 0.076) after murine postpartum involution. Stromal areas decreased (p = 0.042), while glandular (p = 0.001) and adipose areas (p = 0.009) increased in high MD biochamber tissues during lactation. A difference in radiographic density was observed in high (p = 0.0021) or low MD biochamber tissues (p = 0.004) between nulliparous, pregnant and involution groups. No differences in tissue composition were observed in high or low MD biochamber tissues maintained for different durations, although radiographic density increased over time. Conclusion High MD biochamber tissues had measurable histologic changes after postpartum involution or lactation. Alterations in radiographic density occurred in biochamber tissues between different peripartum states and over time. These findings demonstrate the dynamic nature of the human MD xenograft model, providing a platform for studying the biomolecular basis of MD-associated cancer risk. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York.

'Look and feel' computer copyright in the United States and Australia (part 1)

United States copyright law -- two streams of computer copyright cases form basis for 'look and feel' litigation, literary work stream and audiovisual work stream -- literary work stream focuses on structure -- audiovisual work steam addresses appearance -- case studies

Treatment plan complexity metrics for predicting IMRT pre-treatment quality assurance results

The planning of IMRT treatments requires a compromise between dose conformity (complexity) and deliverability. This study investigates established and novel treatment complexity metrics for 122 IMRT beams from prostate treatment plans. The Treatment and Dose Assessor software was used to extract the necessary data from exported treatment plan files and calculate the metrics. For most of the metrics, there was strong overlap between the calculated values for plans that passed and failed their quality assurance (QA) tests. However, statistically significant variation between plans that passed and failed QA measurements was found for the established modulation index and for a novel metric describing the proportion of small apertures in each beam. The ‘small aperture score’ provided threshold values which successfully distinguished deliverable treatment plans from plans that did not pass QA, with a low false negative rate.

The application of luminance mapping to discomfort glare : a modified glare index for green buildings

Unfortunately, there is no reliable method to adequately quantify discomfort glare. One of the world's largest investigations on discomfort glare was conducted in five Green Star office buildings in Brisbane. Luminance mapping via high dynamic range images and Post Occupancy Evaluation surveys were used in the data collection. A new glare index, termed the Unified Glare Probability, was developed to predict discomfort glare within these types of office buildings.

Aspects of Keno modelling

In two earlier papers, an intricate Jackpot structure and analysis of pseudo-random numbers for Keno in the Australian state of Queensland circa 2000 were described. Aspects of the work were also reported at an international conference . Since that time, many aspects of the game in Australia have changed. The present paper presents more up-to-date details of Keno throughout the states of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. A much simpler jackpot structure is now in place and this is described. Two add-ons or side-bets to the game are detailed: the trivial Heads or Tails and the more interesting Keno Bonus, which leads to consideration of the subset sum problem. The most intricate structure is where Heads or Tails and Keno Bonus are combined, and here, the issue of independence arises. Closed expressions for expected return to player (ERTP) are presented in all cases.

Bike share's impact on car use : evidence from the United States, Great Britain, and Australia

There are currently more than 700 cities operating bike share programs. Purported benefits of bike share include flexible mobility, physical activity, reduced congestion, emissions and fuel use. Implicit or explicit in the calculation of program benefits are assumptions regarding the modes of travel replaced by bike share journeys. This paper examines the degree to which car trips are replaced by bike share, through an examination of survey and trip data from bike share programs in Melbourne, Brisbane, Washington, D.C., London, and Minneapolis/St. Paul. A secondary and unique component of this analysis examines motor vehicle support services required for bike share fleet rebalancing and maintenance. These two components are then combined to estimate bike share’s overall contribution to changes in vehicle kilometers traveled. The results indicate an estimated reduction in motor vehicle use due to bike share of approx. 90,000 km per annum in Melbourne and Minneapolis/St. Paul and 243,291 km for Washington, D.C. London’s bike share program however recorded an additional 766,341 km in motor vehicle use. This was largely due to a low car mode substitution rate and substantial truck use for rebalancing of bicycles. As bike share programs mature, evaluation of their effectiveness in reducing car use may become increasingly important. Researchers can adapt the analytical approach proposed in this paper to assist in the evaluation of current and future bike share programs.