Patterns of governance: The curious case of non-profit community services in Australia

Community has taken on a new significance in Australian social policy discourse. Seemingly sound and morally justifiable, in the context Of neo-liberalism the language of community positions non-profit delivery of services as superior to state-provided services. As a consequence, non-profit community services are being centrally positioned to mediate the relationship between the state and citizen subjects. In the first part of this paper we trace some of the key historical developments in Australia's welfare state and patterns of governance that are propelling the non-profit sector firm the margins to the centre. The second section examines the relationship between Australia's shifting political landscape and the emerging welfare regime. One key feature of this new regime is the attempt to relocate citizenship away from the domain of the state and into that of civil society. The article concludes by sketching out some research themes, focusing, for example, on the impact of devolution of governance in terms of client rights and public accountability.

Beyond participation, hierarchies, management and markets: 'New' governance and place policies

This paper argues that a 'new local governance' discourse offers some promise as a policy framework that can re-conceptualise the state-community (and market) relationship and deliver improved community outcomes, particularly in the context of place based or spatial policies and programs.

The work of fracture in uniaxial and biaxial oriented unplasticised polyvinylchloride pipes

In oriented unplasticised polyvinylchloride (uPVC) pipes, cracks propagate tangentially rather than through the wall as in conventional pipe. Notched impact, a modified peel test and the specific work of fracture approach have been used to measure fracture toughness of a conventionally extruded, a uniaxially oriented and a biaxially oriented uPVC pipe in different directions. The different failure mode for the oriented pipes was found to result from an order of magnitude increase in the fracture toughness for cracks propagating perpendicular to the orientation direction. Differences in the fracture toughness between the oriented pipes were also related to their molecular orientation. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Polarised infrared and differential scanning calorimetry studies on oriented vinyl pipe materials

The molecular orientation in a conventionally extruded PVC pipe, a uniaxially oriented PVC pipe and a biaxially oriented PVC pipe has been studied via Infrared dichroism. The degree of order or crystallinity has also been studied by Differential Scanning Calorimetry and also via Infrared Spectroscopy. The fundamental structural difference between the conventional and oriented pipes was that polymer chains were preferentially aligning in the hoop direction for oriented pipes whereas they were fairly isotropic in the conventional pipe with a slight preferential alignment in the axial direction. Analysis of the C-Cl stretching mode indicated that the uniaxially oriented pipe had much higher alignment of the C-Cl bond in the axial direction than the biaxial pipe, which correlates with higher fracture toughness for circumferential cracking in the biaxial pipe. Both DSC and Infrared spectroscopy detected little change in the crystallinity or order in the oriented pipes compared to the conventionally extruded pipes. (C) 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

A subset-oriented algorithm for minimizing the number of steps required for synthesis of cyclic-peptide libraries

Libraries of cyclic peptides are being synthesized using combinatorial chemistry for high throughput screening in the drug discovery process. This paper describes the min_syn_steps.cpp program (available at http://www.imb.uq.edu.au/groups/smythe/tran), which after inputting a list of cyclic peptides to be synthesized, removes cyclic redundant sequences and calculates synthetic strategies which minimize the synthetic steps as well as the reagent requirements. The synthetic steps and reagent requirements could be minimized by finding common subsets within the sequences for block synthesis. Since a brute-force approach to search for optimum synthetic strategies is impractically large, a subset-orientated approach is utilized here to limit the size of the search. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Archetype change in professional organizations: Survey evidence from large law firms

This paper examines the proposition that the traditional archetype of the professional partnership is said to have changed into a more 'business-like' entity, the managed professional business. It broadens the restricted case sample base on which much of the evidence has been adduced, by developing a survey questionnaire through which 197 large British law firms were sampled. Change, consistent with the notion of a more commercially oriented and consciously managed organization, is concentrated in the market-facing area of the firm but coexists with areas of continuity in the governance of the firm and its strategic management. The findings reveal a more managerial form of organization in which the core elements of the traditional form of professional organization have not been transformed. These results contest the assertion of either transformational or sedimented change found in other, case-based research and suggest that archetype change needs theoretically to be distinguished from the general phenomenon of greater managerialism within the professional service firm.

An evaluation of participatory planning at Mapoon Aboriginal community: Opportunities for inclusive local governance

The Queensland Government is increasingly using participatory planning as a means to improve infrastructure and service delivery to Indigenous settlements. In addition to technical and economic goals, participatory planning practice seeks also to achieve social development goals, including empowerment, capacity building, community control and ownership. This article presents the findings of an evaluation of one such planning project, conducted at Old Mapoon in 1995. Despite various efforts to follow participatory processes, the plan had mixed success in achieving social development goals. This suggests some misunderstandings between the practice of participatory planning and the workings of local governance. It also presents some opportunities for participatory planning methods to be integrated with more inclusive forms of governance.