643 resultados para ecosystem change
Resumo:
Public private partnerships (PPPs) have been adopted widely to provide public facilities and services. According to the PPP agreement, PPP projects would be transferred to the public sector. However, problems related to the subsequent management of ongoing PPP projects have not been studied thoroughly. Residual value risk (RVR) can occur if the public sector cannot obtain the project in the desired conditions as required in the agreement when a project is being transferred. RVR has been identified as an important risk in PPPs and has greatly influenced the outputs of the projects. In order to further observe the change of residual value (RV) during the process of PPP projects and to reveal the internal mechanism for reducing the RVR, a comparative case study of two PPP projects in mainland China and Hong Kong was conducted. Based on the case study, different factors leading to RVR and a series of key risk indicators (KRIs) were identified. The comparison demonstrates that RVR is an important risk that could influence the success of PPP projects. The cumulative effects during the concession period can play significant roles in the occurrence of RVR. Additionally, the cumulative effects in different cases can make the RVR different because of different stakeholders’ efforts on the projects and ways to treat RVR. Finally, alternatives for the public sector to treat RVR were proposed. The findings of this research can reduce RVR and improve the performance of PPP projects.
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Our predecessors taught us, ‘waste not, want not’ – if we did not waste anything we would always have enough. Unfortunately, we did not heed their sage advice. Over the last three centuries, human kind’s wastefulness, or lack of respect for the finite resources of this planet, has contributed to climate change and negatively impacted on ‘ecosystem services’ with a significant, irreversible loss of biodiversity...
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Drawing on insights from feminist scholars and activists, this article examines the dialectical relationship between climate change and the social construction of gender. We examine in detail how gender inequalities associated with capitalism, particularly in its latest Neoliberal incarnation, help to produce global warming, as well as to produce gendered vulnerabilities and unequal impacts. After a brief review of past successes and failures to integrate gender concerns into climate change debates and policies, we suggest several criminological interventions that are compatible with a feminist perspective on climate change. We argue that a stronger criminological focus on the global political economy, particularly on the gendered inequalities it produces, is analytically essential for understanding both the etiology and harmful consequences of climate change. Simultaneously, we urge critical criminologists to employ the tools of our trade to take a more proactive role in the social construction of a just and sustainable society.
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The imperative for Indigenous education in Australia is influenced by national political, social and economic discourses as Australian education systems continue to grapple with an agreed aspiration of full participation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Innovations within and policies guiding our education systems are often driven by agendas of reconciliation, equity, equality in participation and social justice. In this paper, we discuss key themes that emerged from a recent Australian Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) research project which investigated ways in which preservice teachers from one Australian university embedded Indigenous knowledges (IK) on teaching practicum . Using a phenomenological approach, the case involved 25 preservice teacher and 23 practicum supervisor participants, over a 30 month investigation. Attention was directed to the nature of subjective (lived) experiences of participants in these pedagogical negotiations and thus preservice and supervising teacher voice was actively sought in naming and analysing these experiences. Findings revealed that change, knowledge, help and affirmation were key themes for shaping discourses around Indigenous knowledges and perspectives in the Australian curriculum and defined the nature of the pedagogical relationships between novice and experienced teachers. We focus particularly on the need for change and affirmation by preservice teachers and their teaching practicum supervisors as they developed their pedagogical relationships whilst embedding Indigenous knowledges in learning and teaching.
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Aims & Objectives - identify and diagnose the current problems associated with patient care with regard to the nursing management of patients with Sengstaken-Blakemore tubes insitu; - Identify current nursing practice currently in place within the ICU and the hospital; identify the method by which the assessment and provision of nursing care is delivered in the ICU
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We investigate whether Nobel laureates’ collaborative activities undergo a negative change following prize reception by using publication records of 198 Nobel laureates and analyzing their coauthorship patterns before and after the Nobel Prize. The results overall indicate less collaboration with new coauthors post award than pre award. Nobel laureates are more loyal to collaborations that started before the Prize: looking at coauthorship drop-out rates, we find that these differ significantly between coauthorships that started before the Prize and coauthorships after the Prize. We also find that the greater the intensity of pre-award cooperation and the longer the period of pre-award collaboration, the higher the probability of staying in the coauthor network after the award, implying a higher loyalty to the Nobel laureate.
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For many complex natural resources problems, planning and management efforts involve groups of organizations working collaboratively through networks (Agranoff, 2007; Booher & Innes, 2010). These networks sometimes involve formal roles and relationships, but often include informal elements (Edelenbos & Klijn, 2007). All of these roles and relationships undergo change in response to changes in personnel, priorities and policy. There has been considerable focus in the planning and public policy literature on describing and characterizing these networks (Mandell & Keast, 2008; Provan & Kenis, 2007). However, there has been far less research assessing how networks change and adjust in response to policy and political change. In the Australian state of Queensland, Natural Resource Management (NRM) organizations were created as lead organizations to address land and water management issues on a regional basis with Commonwealth funding and state support. In 2012, a change in state government signaled a dramatic change in policy that resulted in a significant reduction of state support and commitment. In response to this change, NRM organizations have had to adapt their networks and relationships. In this study, we examine the issues of network relationships, capacity and changing relationships over time using written surveys and focus groups with NRM CEOs, managers and planners (note: data collection events scheduled for March and April 2015). The research team will meet with each of these three groups separately, conduct an in-person survey followed by a facilitated focus group discussion. The NRM participant focus groups will also be subdivided by region, which correlates with capacity (inland/low capacity; coastal/high capacity). The findings focus on how changes in state government commitment have affected NRM networks and their relationships with state agencies. We also examine how these changes vary according to the level within the organization and the capacity of the organization. We hypothesize that: (1) NRM organizations have struggled to maintain capacity in the wake of state agency withdrawal of support; (2) NRM organizations with the lowest capacity have been most adversely affected, while some high capacity NRM organizations may have become more resilient as they have sought out other partners; (3) Network relationships at the highest levels of the organization have been affected the most by state policy change; (4) NRM relationships at the lowest levels of the organizations have changed the least, as formal relationships are replaced by informal networks and relationships.
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Mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change will require innovation and the development of new technologies. Intellectual property laws have a key part to play in the global transfer of climate technologies. However, failures to properly utilize flexibilities in intellectual property regimes or comply with technology transfer obligations under international climate change agreements calls for a human rights based analysis of climate technology transfer. Climate change is an unprecedented challenge and requires unprecedented strategies. Given the substantial impact of climate change on all of humanity and the ethical imperative to act, a complete rethink of traditional intellectual property approaches is warranted. This report proposes a series of intellectual property law policy options, through a human rights framework, aimed at promoting access to technologies to reduce the human suffering caused by climate change.
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The role of the creative industries – arts and artists – in helping to drive the changes in laws and behaviours that are necessary to tackle climate change, while not superficially obvious, is a deep one. Arts and artists of all kinds, as cultural practitioners, have been closely entwined with social change and social control since time immemorial, in large part because they help shape our understanding of the world, framing ideas, prefiguring change, and opening hearts and minds to new ways of thinking. They have played a major role in campaigns for law reform on many issues, and climate change should be no exception. Indeed, with climate change increasingly being seen as a deeply cultural issue, and its solutions as cultural ones to do with changing the way we understand our world and our place in it, the role of cultural practitioners in helping to address it should also increasingly be seen as central. It is curious, then, how comparatively little artistic engagement with climate change has taken place, how little engagement with the arts the climate movement has attempted, and how little theoretical and critical analysis has been undertaken on the role of the creative arts in climate change action. Through a literature review and a series of interviews with individuals working in relevant fields in Australia, this study examines and evaluates the role of the creative industries in climate change action and places it in a historical and theoretical context. It covers examples of the kind of artistic and activist collaborations that have been undertaken, the different roles in communication, campaigning for law reform, and deep culture change that arts and artists can play, and the risks and dangers inherent in the involvement of artists, both to climate change action and to the artist. It concludes that, despite the risks, a deeper and more thoughtful engagement of and by the creative industries in climate action would not only be useful but is perhaps vital to the success of the endeavours.
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This presentation discusses and critiques a current case study of a project in which Early Childhood preservice teachers are working in partnership with Design students to develop principles and concepts for the design and construction of an early childhood centre. This centre, to be built on the grounds of the iconic Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane , focuses on Education for Sustainability (EfS), sustainable design and sustainable business. Interdisciplinary initiatives between QUT staff and students from two Faculties (Education and Creative Industries) have been situated in the real –world context of this project. This practical, authentic project has seen stakeholders take an interdisciplinary approach to sustainability, opening up new ways of thinking about early childhood centre design, particularly with respect to operation and function. Interdisciplinarity and a commitment to genuine partnerships have created intellectual spaces to re-think the potential of the disciplines to be interwoven so that future professionals from different fields might come together to learn from each other and to address the sustainability imperative. The case study documents and explores the possibilities that the Lone Pine project offers for academics and students from Early Childhood and Design to collaboratively inform the Sanctuary’s vision for the Centre. The research examines how students benefit from practical, real world, community-integrated learning; how academic staff across two disciplines are able to work collaboratively within a real-world context; and how external stakeholders experience and benefit from the partnership with university staff and students. Data were collected via a series of focus group and individual interviews designed to explore how the various stakeholders (staff, students, business partners) experienced their involvement in the interdisciplinary project. Inductive and deductive thematic analysis of these data suggest many benefits for participants as well as a number of challenges. Findings suggest that the project has provided students with ‘real world’ partnerships that reposition early childhood students’ identities from ‘novice’ to ‘professional’, where their knowledge, expertise and perspectives are simultaneously validated and challenged in their work with designers. These partnerships are enabling preservice teachers to practice a new model of early childhood leadership in sustainability, one that is vital for leading for change in an increasingly complex world. This presentation celebrates, critiques and problematises this project, exploring wider implications for other contexts in which university staff and students may seek to work across traditional boundaries, thus building partnerships for change.
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Public apathy on the issue of Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC) is widespread, with more than half of surveyed Australians and Britons in denial of the phenomenon. While much is known about media influences and strategies such as message framing, there is little in the way of research on the impact of designed visual communication. This study builds knowledge and challenges assumptions by employing a relational approach between ACC visual communications, the professionals producing them, and the members of society that these communications are attempting to influence, contributing knowledge to the fields of graphic design, science communication and social science.
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Innovation is understood as the combination of existing ideas or the generation of new ideas into new processes, products and services, and widely viewed as the main driver of growth in contemporary economies. In the age of the knowledge economy, successful economic development is intimately linked to a country’s capacity to generate, acquire, absorb, disseminate, and apply innovation towards advanced technology products and services. This development approach is labelled as knowledge-based economic development and highly associated with a capacity embodied in a country’s national innovation ecosystem. The research reported in this paper aims to critically review the Australian innovation ecosystem in order to provide a better understanding on the potential impacts of policy and support mechanisms on the innovation and knowledge generation capacity. The investigation places Australia’s innovation system and national-level innovation support mechanisms under the microscope. The methodology of the study is twofold. Firstly, it undertakes a critical review of the literature and government policy documents to better understand the innovation policy and support mechanisms in the country. It, then, conducts a survey to capture Australian innovation companies’ perceptions on the role and effectiveness of the existing innovation incentive programs. The paper concludes with a discussion on the key insights and findings and potential policy and support directions of the country to achieve a flourishing knowledge economy.