'Ulster's policing goes global': The police reform process in Northern Ireland and the creation of a global brand

This paper engages with contemporary discussions in relation to the commodification of policing and security. It suggests that the existing literature regarding these trends has been geared primarily towards commercial security providers and has failed to address the processes by which public policing models are commodified and marketed both within, and through, the transnational policing community. Drawing upon evidence from the police change process in Northern Ireland, we argue that a Northern Irish Policing Model (NIPM) has emerged in the aftermath of the Independent Commission on Policing (ICP) reforms. This is increasingly branded and promoted on the global stage. Furthermore, we suggest that the NIPM is not monolithic, but segmented, and targeted towards a number of different 'consumers' both domestically and transnationally. Reflecting these diverse markets, the NIPM draws upon two seemingly incongruous constituent elements: the 'best practice' lessons of policing transition, as embodied in the ICP reforms; and, the legacy of counter-terrorism expertise drawn from the preceding decades of conflict. The discussion concludes by querying as to which of these components of the NIPM is in the ascendancy.

Sustainable Value Creation among Companies in the Manufacturing Sector

In this paper, we present empirical results of a study on the creation of Sustainable Value among European manufacturing companies. As sustainable development is a future oriented concept we assess the use of environmental resources in companies in the light of the EU15 performance targets for 2010. By using the Sustainable Value approach and based on publicly available company data we measure in monetary terms how individual companies perform vis-a-vis the 2010 performance targets already today. This shows the specific exposure and vulnerability of companies to more stringent policy regimes, and allows meaningful comparisons between both companies and sectors.

Work/Leisure Balances and the Creation of a Carnival Cosmopolitanism amongst Salsa Dancers

This article presents a Carnival cosmopolitanism borne from salsa social dance leisure practice. This indirectly fostered cosmopolitanism is facilitated by significant changes in work practice allowing for new work/leisure balances. The means by which this change is brought about is through a Carnival cosmopolitanism.

Valuing the recreational benefits from the creation of nature reserves in Irish forests

Data from a large-scale contingent valuation study are used to investigate the effects of forest attributes on willingness to pay for forest recreation in Ireland. In particular, the presence of a nature reserve in the forest is found to significantly increase the visitors' willingness to pay. A random utility model is used to estimate the welfare change associated with the creation of nature reserves in all the Irish forests currently without one. The yearly impact on visitors' economic welfare of new nature reserves approaches half a million pounds per annum, exclusive of non-recreational values. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Shock creation and particle acceleration driven by plasma expansion into a rarefied medium

The expansion of a dense plasma through a more rarefied ionized medium is a phenomenon of interest in various physics environments ranging from astrophysics to high energy density laser-matter laboratory experiments. Here this situation is modeled via a one-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation; a jump in the plasma density of a factor of 100 is introduced in the middle of an otherwise equally dense electron-proton plasma with an uniform proton and electron temperature of 10 eV and 1 keV, respectively. The diffusion of the dense plasma, through the rarefied one, triggers the onset of different nonlinear phenomena such as a strong ion-acoustic shock wave and a rarefaction wave. Secondary structures are detected, some of which are driven by a drift instability of the rarefaction wave. Efficient proton acceleration occurs ahead of the shock, bringing the maximum proton velocity up to 60 times the initial ion thermal speed. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3469762]