Foundations of International Climate Law : Objectives, principles and methods

This chapter explores the objectives, principle and methods of climate law. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) lays the foundations of the international regime by setting out its ultimate objectives in Article 2, the key principles in Article 3, and the methods of the regime in Article 4. The ultimate objective of the regime – to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference – is examined and assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are considered when seeking to understand the definition of this concept. The international environmental principles of: state sovereignty and responsibility, preventative action, cooperation, sustainable development, precaution, polluter pays and common but differentiated responsibility are then examined and their incorporation within the international climate regime instruments evaluated. This is followed by an examination of the methods used by the mitigation and adaptation regimes in seeking to achieve the objective of the UNFCCC. Methods of the mitigation regime include: domestic implementation of policies, setting of standards and targets and allocation of rights, use of flexibility mechanisms, and reporting. While it is noted that methods of the adaptation regime are still evolving, the latter includes measures such as impact assessments, national adaptation plans and the provision of funding.

Importing Wikipedia principles into the cultural institution of a public service broadcaster : the case of ABC Pool

Web 2.0 technologies have mobilised collaborative peer production and participatory cultures for online content creation. However, not all online communities engaging in these activities are independently facilitated and often operate within the auspices of the cultural institutions that develop and resource them. Borrowing from the principles of Wikipedia that supports collaborative online content creation and online community, ABC Pool (abc.net.au/pool) is one such institutional online community operating with the support of the Australian Public Service Broadcaster (PSB), the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). This paper explores the collaborative, creative, and governance activities of an institutional online community and how the role of the community manager is an intermediary within these arrangements.

The exemplification of governance principles within state asset management laws and policies : the case of Indonesia

Efficient state asset management is crucial for governments as they facilitate the fulfillment of their public functions, which include the provision of essential services and other public administration support. In recent times economies internationally and particularly in South east Asia, have displayed increased recognition of the importance of efficiencies across state asset management law, policies and practice. This has been exemplified by a surge in notable instances of reform in state asset management. A prominent theme in this phenomenon is the consideration of governance principles within the re-conceptualization of state asset management law and related policy, with many countries recognizing variability in the quality of asset governance and opportunities for profit as being critical factors. This issue is very current in Indonesia where a major reform process in this area has been confirmed by the establishment of a new Directorate of State Asset Management. The incumbent Director-General of State Asset Management has confirmed a re-emphasis on adherence to governance principles within applicable state asset management law and policy reform. This paper reviews aspects of the challenge of reviewing and reforming Indonesian practice within state asset management law and policy specifically related to public housing, public buildings, parklands, and vacant land. A critical issue in beginning this review is how Indonesia currently conceptualizes the notion of asset governance and how this meaning is embodied in recent changes in law and policy and importantly in options for future change. This paper discusses the potential complexities uniquely Indonesian characteristics such as decentralisation and regional autonomy regime, political history, and bureaucratic culture.

A bound on the maximum strong order of stochastic Runge-Kutta methods for stochastic ordinary differential equations

In Burrage and Burrage [1] it was shown that by introducing a very general formulation for stochastic Runge-Kutta methods, the previous strong order barrier of order one could be broken without having to use higher derivative terms. In particular, methods of strong order 1.5 were developed in which a Stratonovich integral of order one and one of order two were present in the formulation. In this present paper, general order results are proven about the maximum attainable strong order of these stochastic Runge-Kutta methods (SRKs) in terms of the order of the Stratonovich integrals appearing in the Runge-Kutta formulation. In particular, it will be shown that if an s-stage SRK contains Stratonovich integrals up to order p then the strong order of the SRK cannot exceed min{(p + 1)/2, (s - 1)/2), p greater than or equal to 2, s greater than or equal to 3 or 1 if p = 1.

First-principles prediction of metal-free magnetism and intrinsic half-metallicity in graphitic carbon nitride

Transition metal-free magnetism and half-metallicity recently has been the subject of intense research activity due to its potential in spintronics application. Here we, for the first time, demonstrate via density functional theory that the most recently experimentally realized graphitic carbon nitride (g-C4N3) displays a ferromagnetic ground state. Furthermore, this novel material is predicted to possess an intrinsic half-metallicity never reported to date. Our results highlight a new promising material toward realistic metal-free spintronics application.

Principles of motor learning in ecological dynamics : a comment on functions of learning and the acquisition of motor skills (with reference to sport)

This paper provides a commentary on the contribution by Dr Chow who questioned whether the functions of learning are general across all categories of tasks or whether there are some task-particular aspects to the functions of learning in relation to task type. Specifically, they queried whether principles and practice for the acquisition of sport skills are different than what they are for musical, industrial, military and human factors skills. In this commentary we argue that ecological dynamics contains general principles of motor learning that can be instantiated in specific performance contexts to underpin learning design. In this proposal, we highlight the importance of conducting skill acquisition research in sport, rather than relying on empirical outcomes of research from a variety of different performance contexts. Here we discuss how task constraints of different performance contexts (sport, industry, military, music) provide different specific information sources that individuals use to couple their actions when performing and acquiring skills. We conclude by suggesting that his relationship between performance task constraints and learning processes might help explain the traditional emphasis on performance curves and performance outcomes to infer motor learning.

Electronic functionality in graphene-based nanoarchitectures : discovery and design via first-principles modeling

Graphene has promised many novel applications in nanoscale electronics and sustainable energy due to its novel electronic properties. Computational exploration of electronic functionality and how it varies with architecture and doping presently runs ahead of experimental synthesis yet provides insights into types of structures that may prove profitable for targeted experimental synthesis and characterization. We present here a summary of our understanding on the important aspects of dimension, band gap, defect, and interfacial engineering of graphene based on state-of-the-art ab initio approaches. Some most recent experimental achievements relevant for future theoretical exploration are also covered.

The application of a set of principles to safeguard student learning engagement

Student engagement is a key contributor to student achievement and retention. Increasingly, international and Australasian universities are introducing a range of specific initiatives aimed at monitoring and intervening with students who are at risk of disengaging, particularly in their first year of study. A multi-site case study formed the focus of a national learning and teaching project to develop a suite of resources to guide good practice for safeguarding student learning engagement that were consistent with the notions of equity and social justice. Pivotal to the suite of resources is the Social Justice Framework and a set of social justice principles that emerged through a synthesis of existing literature and were further refined through the examination of qualitative data collected across the participating institutions. These social justice principles reflect general notions of equity and social justice, embrace the philosophical position of recognitive social justice, and are presented in an interconnected and co-dependent way within the framework. Participants will be provided with the opportunity to identify and discuss the practical applications of the principles to student engagement activities in their own institutions.

Catalysing design principles through the dreaming of sustainable subtropical cityscapes : the collaborative construction of new place identities

This paper addresses the question of how to open up pathways and build capacity to facilitate the movement towards sustainable sub-tropical cities. The focus is on outlining a collaborative planning and co-design process that can help catalyse the emergence of sustainable place-habitats and so re-weave and colour anew the tapestry of our sub-tropical cities. Cities are portrayed as self-organising complex adaptive system phenomena, being constantly re-shaped by local and global social-political, environmental, cultural and economic forces as well as planning regimes. While constructing a sustainable city is at essence a design process incorporating new sustainable practices and legislation to reinforce their use, these steps are necessary but not sufficient. Sustainable sub-tropical city-making could be re-thought as a dreaming-re-storying process. This paper explores a new co-design process, which can channel collaborative efforts around re-inventing sustainable place-habitats across the cityscape. A further outcome of this co-design process is the alignment of the emergent design principles and planning actions that can trigger the re-storying of a new sustainable sub-tropical city. Besides a new co-design process, we also advocate the building of sub-tropical city learning networks to facilitate the cross-fertilization for Dreaming sustainable sub-tropical cities.

Nitrogen removal from natural gas using solid boron : A first-principles computational study

Selective separation of nitrogen (N2) from methane (CH4) is highly significant in natural gas purification, and it is very challenging to achieve this because of their nearly identical size (the molecular diameters of N2 and CH4 are 3.64 Å and 3.80 Å, respectively). Here we theoretically study the adsorption of N2 and CH4 on B12 cluster and solid boron surfaces a-B12 and c-B28. Our results show that these electron-deficiency boron materials have higher selectivity in adsorbing and capturing N2 than CH4, which provides very useful information for experimentally exploiting boron materials for natural gas purification.

Core principles of CSR approaches

CSR is increasingly an essential issue for business enterprises. It is a company and multidimensional organizational ...

How to achieve maximum charge carrier loading on heteroatom-substituted graphene nanoribbon edges: density functional theory study

The practical number of charge carriers loaded is crucial to the evaluation of the capacity performance of carbon-based electrodes in service, and cannot be easily addressed experimentally. In this paper, we report a density functional theory study of charge carrier adsorption onto zigzag edge-shaped graphene nanoribbons (ZGNRs), both pristine and incorporating edge substitution with boron, nitrogen or oxygen atoms. All edge substitutions are found to be energetically favorable, especially in oxidized environments. The maximal loading of protons onto the substituted ZGNR edges obeys a rule of [8-n-1], where n is the number of valence electrons of the edge-site atom constituting the adsorption site. Hence, a maximum charge loading is achieved with boron substitution. This result correlates in a transparent manner with the electronic structure characteristics of the edge atom. The boron edge atom, characterized by the most empty p band, facilitates more than the other substitutional cases the accommodation of valence electrons transferred from the ribbon, induced by adsorption of protons. This result not only further confirms the possibility of enhancing charge storage performance of carbon-based electrochemical devices through chemical functionalization but also, more importantly, provides the physical rationale for further design strategies.

A quasi-maximum likelihood method for estimating the parameters of multivariate diffusions

A quasi-maximum likelihood procedure for estimating the parameters of multi-dimensional diffusions is developed in which the transitional density is a multivariate Gaussian density with first and second moments approximating the true moments of the unknown density. For affine drift and diffusion functions, the moments are exactly those of the true transitional density and for nonlinear drift and diffusion functions the approximation is extremely good and is as effective as alternative methods based on likelihood approximations. The estimation procedure generalises to models with latent factors. A conditioning procedure is developed that allows parameter estimation in the absence of proxies.

Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) application auditing

Background WSUD implementation in the Gold Coast City Council area commenced more than a decade ago. As a result, Council is expected to be in possession of WSUD assets valued at over tens of million dollars. The Gold Coast City Council is responsible for the maintenance and long-term management of these WSUD assets. Any shortcoming in implementation of best WSUD practices can potentially result in substantial liabilities and ineffective expenditure for the Council in addition to reduced efficiencies and outcomes. This highlights the importance of periodic auditing of WSUD implementation. Project scope The overall study entailed the following tasks: * A state-of-the-art literature review of the conceptual hydraulic and water quality treatment principles, current state of knowledge in relation to industry standards, best practice and identification of knowledge gaps in relation to maintenance and management practices and potential barriers to the implementation of WSUD. * Council stakeholder interviews to understand current practical issues in relation to the implementation of WSUD and the process of WSUD application from development application approval to asset management. * Field auditing of selected WSUD systems for condition assessment and identification of possible strengths and weaknesses in implementation. * Review of the Land Development Guidelines in order to identify any gaps and to propose recommendations for improvement. Conclusions Given below is a consolidated summary of the findings of the study undertaken. State-of-the-art literature review Though the conceptual framework for WSUD implementation is well established, the underlying theoretical knowledge underpinning the treatment processes and maintenance regimes and life cycle costing are still not well understood. Essentially, these are the recurring themes in the literature, namely, the inadequate understanding of treatment processes and lack of guidance to ensure specificity of maintenance regimes and life cycle costing of WSUDs. The fundamental barriers to successful WSUD implementation are: * Lack of knowledge transfer – This essentially relates to the lack of appropriate dissemination of research outcomes and the common absence of protocols for knowledge transfer within the same organisation. * Cultural barriers – These relate to social and institutional factors, including institutional inertia and the lack of clear understanding of the benefits. * Fragmented responsibilities – This results from poor administrative integration within local councils in relation to WSUDs. * Technical barriers – These relate to lack of knowledge on operational and maintenance practices which is compounded by model limitations and the lack of long-term quantitative performance evaluation data. * Lack of engineering standards – Despite the availability of numerous guidelines which are non-enforceable and can sometimes be confusing, there is a need for stringent engineering standards. The knowledge gaps in relation to WSUDs are only closing very slowly. Some of the common knowledge gaps identified in recent publications have been recognised almost a decade ago. The key knowledge gaps identified in the published literature are: * lack of knowledge on operational and maintenance practices; * lack of reliable methodology for identifying life cycle issues including costs; * lack of technical knowledge on system performance; * lack of guidance on retrofitting in existing developments. Based on the review of barriers to WSUD implementation and current knowledge gaps, the following were identified as core areas for further investigation: * performance evaluation of WSUD devices to enhance model development and to assess their viability in the context of environmental, economic and social drivers; establishing realistic life cycle costs to strengthen maintenance and asset management practices; * development of guidelines specific to retrofitting in view of the unique challenges posed by existing urban precincts together with guidance to ensure site specificity; establishment of a process for knowledge translation for enhancing currently available best practice guidelines; * identification of drivers and overcoming of barriers in the areas of institutional fragmentation, knowledge gaps and awareness of WSUD practices. GCCC stakeholder interviews Fourteen staff members involved in WSUD systems management in the Gold Coast City Council, representing four Directorates were interviewed using a standard questionnaire. The primary issues identified by the stakeholders were: * standardisation of WSUD terminology; * clear protocols for safeguarding devices during the construction phase; * engagement of all council stakeholders in the WSUD process from the initial phase; * limitations in the Land Development Guidelines; * ensuring public safety through design; * system siting to avoid conflicts with environmental and public use of open space; * provision of adequate access for maintenance; * integration of social and ecosystem issues to ensure long-term viability of systems in relation to both, vandalism and visual recreation; * lack of performance monitoring and inadequacy of the maintenance budget; * lack of technical training for staff involved in WSUD design approvals and maintenance; incentives for developers for acting responsibly in stormwater management. Field auditing of WSUD systems A representative cross section of WSUD systems in the Gold Coast were audited in the field. The following strengths and weaknesses in WSUD implementation were noted: * The implementation of WSUD systems in the field is not consistent. * The concerns raised by the stakeholders during the interviews in relation to WSUD implementation was validated from the observations from the field auditing, particularly in relation to the following: * safeguarding of devices during the construction phase * public safety * accessibility for maintenance * lack of performance monitoring by Council to assess system performance * inadequate maintenance of existing systems to suit site specific requirements. * A treatment train approach is not being consistently adopted. * Most of the systems audited have satisfactorily catered for public safety. Accessibility for maintenance has been satisfactorily catered for in most of the systems that were audited. * Systems are being commissioned prior to construction activities being substantially completed. * The hydraulic design of most systems appears to be satisfactory. * The design intent of the systems is not always clear. Review of Land Development Guidelines The Land Development Guidelines (TDG) was extensively reviewed and the following primary issues were noted in relation to WSUD implementation: * the LDG appears to have been prepared primarily to provide guidance to developers. It is not clear to what extent the guidelines are applicable to Council staff involved in WSUD maintenance and management; * Section 13 is very voluminous and appears to be a compilation of a series of individual documents resulting in difficulties in locating specific information, a lack of integration and duplication of information; * the LDG has been developed with a primary focus on new urban precinct development and the retrofitting of systems in existing developments has not been specifically discussed; * WSUDs are discussed in two different sections in the LDG and it is not clear which section takes precedence as there are inconsistencies between the two sections; there is inconsistent terminology being used; * there is a need for consolidation of information provided in different sections in the LDG; * there are inconsistencies in the design criteria provided; * there is a need for regular updating of the LDG to ensure that the information provided encompasses the state-of-the-art; * there is limited guidance provided for the preparation of maintenance plans and life cycle costing to assist developers in asset handover and to assist Council staff in assessment. * Based on these observations, eleven recommendations have been provided which are discussed below. Additionally, the stakeholder provided the following specific comments during the interviews in relation to the LDG: * lack of flexibility to cover the different stages of the life cycle of the systems; * no differentiation in projects undertaken by developers and Council; * inadequate information with regards to safety issues such as maximum standing water depth, fencing and safety barriers and public access; * lack of detailed design criteria in relation to Crime Prevention through Environmental Design, safety, amenity, environment, surrounding uses and impacts on surroundings; * inadequate information regarding maintenance requirements specific to the assessment and compliance phases; * recommendations for plantings are based primarily on landscape requirements rather than pollutant uptake capability. Recommendations With regards to the Land Development Guidelines, the following specific recommendations are provided: 1. the relevant sections and their extent of applicability to Council should be clearly identified; 2. integration of the different subsections within Section 13 and re-formatting the document for easy reference; 3. the maintenance guidelines provided in Section 13 should be translated to a maintenance manual for guidance of Council staff; 4. should consider extending the Guidelines to specifically encompass retrofitting of WSUD systems to existing urban precincts; 5. Section 3 needs to be revised to be made consistent with Section 13, to ensure priority for WSUD practices in urban precincts and to move away from conventional stormwater drainage design such as kerb and channelling; 6. it would also be good to specify as to which Section takes predominance in relation to stormwater drainage. It is expected that Section 13 would take predominance over the other sections in the LDG; 7. terminology needs to be made consistent to avoid confusion among developers and Council staff. Water Sensitive Urban Design is the term commonly used in Australia for stormwater quality treatment, rather than Stormwater Quality Improvement Devices. This once again underlines the need for ensuring consistency between Section 3 and Section 13; 8. it would also be good if there is a glossary of commonly used terms in relation to WSUD for use by all stakeholders and which should also be reflected in the LDG; 9. consolidation of all WSUD information into one section should be considered together with appropriate indicators in other LDG Sections regarding the availability of WSUD information. Ensuring consistency in the information provided is implied; 10. Section 13 should be updated at regular intervals to ensure the incorporation of the latest in research outcomes and incorporating criteria and guidance based on the state-of-the-art knowledge. The updating could be undertaken, say, in five year cycles. This would help to overcome the current lack of knowledge transfer; 11. the Council should consider commissioning specialised studies to extend the current knowledge base in relation to WSUD maintenance and life cycle costing. Additionally, Recommendation 10 is also applicable in this instance. The following additional recommendations are made based on the state-of-the-art literature review, stakeholder interviews and field auditing of WSUD systems: 1. Performance monitoring of existing systems to assess improvements to water quality, identify modifications and enhancements to improve performance; 2. Appropriate and monitored maintenance during different phases of development of built assets over time is needed to investigate the most appropriate time/phase of development to commission the final WSUD asset. 3. Undertake focussed investigations in the areas of WSUD maintenance and asset management in order to establish more realistic life cycle costs of systems and maintenance schedules; 4. the engagement of all relevant Council stakeholders from the initial stage of concept planning through to asset handover, and ongoing monitoring. This close engagement of internal stakeholders will assist in building a greater understanding of responsibilities and contribute to overcoming constraints imposed by fragmented responsibilities; 5. the undertaking of a public education program to inform the community of the benefits and ecosystem functions of WSUD systems; 6. technical training to impart state-of-the-art knowledge to staff involved in the approval of designs and maintenance and management of WSUD projects; 7. during the construction phase, it is important to ensure that appropriate measures to safeguard WSUD devices are implemented; 8. risks associated with potential public access to open water zones should be minimised with the application of appropriate safety measures; 9. system siting should ensure that potential conflicts are avoided with respect to public and ecosystem needs; 10. integration of social and ecosystem issues to ensure long-term viability of systems; provide incentives to developers who are proactive and responsible in the area of stormwater management.