Conflict resolution and policy making mediation in the Mekong River Basin

The Mekong River serves China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam covering an area of approximately 795, 000 square kilometres and the Mekong River basin is a delicate eco-system rich in natural resources and bio-diversity. Competing demands for increasingly scarce supplies of water, the reciprocal impacts of land and water uses and inadequate governance arrangements have given rise to conflicts that has to be resolved by policy making to facilitate a process, whereby the main principles adopted in the Mekong River Agreement can be implemented.

Strategic sport marketing

"Strategic Sport Marketing is a comprehensive text for sport management students as well as practising sport administrators. Integrating the unique product characteristics of sport with traditional marketing theory, it presents a strategic sport marketing model that recognises the diverse markets for sport: participants, sponsors, spectators at the event and lounge-room fans." "Case studies and sportviews selected from international sports and media illustrate the unique features of sport marketing. With detailed examples and step-by-step processes, Strategic Sport Marketing is a practical tool and theoretical guide to sport marketing internationally." "The second edition of this widely used text is fully revised and updated. It includes two new chapters: 'Customer satisfaction and service quality' by Linda van Leeuwen and 'Sport and the Internet' by Daniel Evans. There is also an increased focus on sponsorship and the role of services theory in the delivery of sport."

Clinical trials in Asia Pacific

The article provides information on biotechnology in Asia. According to research, Asian Pacific biotechnology is known for its competent staff, world class technologies, efficient utilities, and abundance of reasonably priced raw materials. Other attributes of the Asia Pacific region that makes it a sought-after location in conducting clinical studies are also discussed. Meanwhile, the role of Contract Research Organization (CRO) in clinical studies in the Asia Pacific region is also presented.

Fish oil replacement in finfish nutrition

Unsustainable fishing practices have placed a heavy emphasis on aquaculture to meet the global shortfalls in the supply of fish and seafood, which are commonly accepted as the primary source of health-promoting essential omega-3 (n-3 highly unsaturated fatty acids). However, dietary fish oil is required for the production of omega-3-rich farmed fish and this commodity, in a vicious circle, is at present derived solely from wild fisheries. Decreasing global availability coupled with the highly variable price of this resource has forced the aquaculture industry to investigate the possibilities of alternative dietary lipid sources. This review attempts to compile all principal information available regarding the effects of fish oil replacement for the diets of farmed finfish, analysing the findings using a comparative approach among different cultured fish species. The review initially focuses on the present situation with regard to the production, availability and main nutritional characteristics of fish oil and the principal alternative lipid sources (such as vegetable oils and animal fats). Following this, the effects of fish oil replacement in finfish nutrition on feed quality, fish performance, feed efficiency, fish lipid metabolism, final eating quality and related economic aspects are presented and discussed.

Internet and competitive advantage in Australian professional sport organisations

The electronic revolution has proven to be a powerful stimulus for change in business practice. As a business tool however, the Internet must endure the same scrutiny under which other business activities are placed. If the use of the Internet in business is a sound strategy, then it must contribute toward competitive advantage. The sport business industry has not been isolated from the vagaries of Internet applications. Moreover, as the industry has become more competitive, forcing sporting organisations towards unprecedented levels of accountability and business practice, the Internet has been increasingly seen as a potential 'holy grail' for sport organisations struggling for revenue (Stewart & Smith, 1999). This research is a response to these pressures. It seeks to identify Internet based opportunities for competitive advantage, and to provide strategies and recommendations for the successful use of the Internet in Australian professional sport organisations. In realising this objective, a newly developed and integrated Business Activity Model has been constructed. The model assists in the identification of specific Internet based competitive advantage strategies, and provides a theoretical framework for this research. The Business Activity Model conceptualises, for the first time, the relationships between the value chain, constituents of electronically enabled competitive advantage, and the Internet. With Australia's limited group of fully professional sports capable of sustaining the human resources and budgets necessary to implement comprehensive e-commerce strategies, the organisations selected to participate in this research represent the pinnacle of Australian professional sport clubs. Specifically, the 55 clubs competing in the Australian Football League (A.F.L.), National Basketball League (N.B.L.), National Rugby League (N.R.L.), and National Soccer League (N.S.L.) constituted the research sample and population. In concert with the 87% participation rate, sampling approached a census. A telephone-administered survey, based primarily on the rigorously tested instrument developed by Sethi and King (1994), was employed for data collection. This research employs a comprehensive set of descriptive statistics, and is bolstered by a confirmatory and an exploratory factor analysis, undertaken on one component of the data. The outcome of this research was the identification of seven practical recommendations for Australian professional sport organisations seeking to improve competitive advantage via the Internet. These recommendations were based on an inventory of the 'gaps' between the strategies proposed by the literature, and the practices of the sample, and relate to both overall Internet strategy, and specific web site applications. The development of the new Business Activity Model and the identification of key online strategy themes support and complement these recommendations. An examination of variations in the practices of participating organisations, and some comparisons against United States sporting organisations, also provides depth and context to the findings. This research provides a platform for sport managers to effectively harness the potential of the Internet, through their web sites in particular, and realise significant competitive advantages. The Business Activity Model provides managers in all industries with a tool for the detection and understanding of potential elements of competitive advantage, and incorporates all activities critical to business in the new digital economy. Seven practical recommendations for improved online performance based on identified competitive advantage and strategies fulfils the primary objective of this research. E-commerce continues to grow at astronomical rates, and with the Internet poised to become the life-blood of 21st century sporting organisations, these recommendations will assist managers in their ongoing search for competitive advantage.

Exploring tensions in organisational learning : international and postcolonial perspectives

For the past decade I have been engaged as a management consultant in the area of organisational change and development. This has been primarily within international development environments, and all the professional opportunities, challenges and learning they offer. This thesis therefore employs reflexivity to explore professional practices within this context. These practices are primarily considered within the context of an emerging economy dealing with the challenges of globalisation, against a backdrop of tradition and the old vestiges of colonialism and socialism. Of particular interest have been the tensions between humanist and corporate values that emerge when dealing with the people and learning side of organisations, and within a context of what can be broadly defined as 'where west meets east'. These tensions are explored within a values framework and through consideration of some the themes that feature in the area of postcolonial studies. The intention of the study has been to explore some of the meanings and representations that emerge from professional experience, how they are explained and represented, and what the meanings and representations derived might imply in considering the requirements of 'principled' professional practice. The study is built around the work place and the researcher's role within it and therefore draws heavily on personal reflection and reflexivity. The qualitative methodologies employed draw heavily from the literature dealing with critical social science, and in particular that relating to 'narrative inquiry'. Particular consideration is given to the location of self in the research context and the way in which professional knowledge is constructed.

Community-based environmental education : government and community, economics and environment

This thesis contends that government focus on policy implicitly defines community education as a means of overcoming barriers to government-initiated change, rather than as an input to governmental decision-making. The role of education is thus viewed as instrumentalist rather than as dialectical in nature. I argue that this role has been reinforced and driven by economic rationalism, as a mechanism related to scientific theory and practice. The thesis addresses the role of government in non-institutional community-based environmental education. Of interest is environmental education under the dominance of economic rationalism and as expressed in government-derived policy, in its own right, and as enacted in two government funded animal management projects. The main body of data, then, includes a review of some contemporary environmental policies and two case studies of 'policy in practice'. Chapter One provides an overview of environmentalism as it has emerged as part of the discourse of Western political systems. Recognised as part of this change is a move to environmentalism embued with the rhetoric of economic theory. The manifestation of this change can be seen in an emphasis on management for the natural environment's use as a resource for humans. Education under this arrangement is valued in terms of its ability to support initiatives that are perceived as economically viable and economically advantageous, maintaining centralised control of decision-making and serving the interests of those who profit from this arrangement. Government-derived environmental policies are presented in Chapter Two. They provide evidence of the conjoining of environment with economic rationalism and the adoption of a particular stance which is both utilitarian and instrumentalist. Emerging from this is an understanding of the limitations placed on environmental debates that do not respond to complex understandings of context and instead support and legitimate centralisation of decision-making and control. Chapter Three presents an argument for an historical approach to environmental education research to accommodate contextual dimensions, as well as scientific, economic and technical dimensions, of the subject under study. An historical approach to research, inclusive of biographical, intergenerational and geographical histories, goes some way to providing an understanding of current individual and collective responses to policy enactment within the two study sites. It also responds to the concealing of history which results from the reduction of environmental debates to economic terms. With this in mind, Chapters Four and Five provide two historical case studies of 'policy in practice'. Chapter Four traces the workings of a rabbit control project in the Sutton Grange district of Victoria and Chapter Five provides an account of a mouse plague project in the Wimmera and Mallee regions of Victoria. The Sutton Grange rabbit project is organised and controlled by district landholders while the Wimmera and Mallee mouse project is organised and controlled by representatives from a scientific organisation and a government agency. Considered in juxtaposition, the two case studies enable an analysis of two somewhat different expressions of the 'role of government'. Chapter Six investigates the competing processes of community participation in governmental decision-making and Australia's system of representative democracy, Despite a call for increased community participation, the majority of policies remain dominated by governmental rhetoric and ideology underpinned by a belief in impartiality. The primacy of economics is considered in terms of government and community interaction, with specific reference to the emergence of particular conceptual constructions, such as cost-benefit analysis, that support this dominance. Of specific importance to this thesis is the argument that economic theory is essentially anthropocentric and individualist and, thus, necessarily marginalises particular conceptions of environment that are non-anthropocentric and non-individualistic. Finally, Chapter Six examines two major interrelated tensions; those of central interests and community interests, and economic rationalism and environmentalist. Chapter Seven looks at examples of theories and practices that fall outside the rationality determined by scientistic knowledge. It is clear from the examination of environmental policy within this thesis that the role ascribed to environmental education is instrumentalist. The function of education is often to support, promote and implement policy and its advocated practices. It is also clear from the examination of policy and advocated processes that policy defines community education as a means of manifesting change as determined by policy, rather than as an input to governmental decision-making. The domination of scientific, economic and technocratic processes (and legitimation of processes) allows only for an instrumentalist approach to education from government. What is encouraged by government through the process of change is continuity rather than reform. It promotes change that will not disrupt the governing hegemony. Particular perspectives and practices, such as a critical approach to education, are omitted or considered only within the unquestioned rationale of the dominant worldview. Chapter Seven focuses on the consequence of government attention to policy which implicitly defines community education as a means of overcoming barriers to change, rather than as an input to governmental decision-making. Finally a list of recommendations is put forward as a starting point to reconstruct community-based environmental education. The role considered is one that responds to, and encourages engagement in, debates which expose disparate views, assumptions and positions. Community ideology must be challenged through the public practices of communication and understanding, decision-making, and action. Intervention is not on a level that encourages a preordinate outcome but, rather, what is encouraged is elaborate consideration of disparate views and rational opinions, and the exposure of assumptions and interests behind ideological positions.

Internationalisation of Singapore television : Singaporean regional and global perspectives and contexts

In this study l investigate the Singaporean characteristics of broadcast media internationalisation. I ask the question "e; Does Internationalisation lead to homogenisation and commercialisation of the television culture in Singapore or does it give way to more diversity, thus stimulating cultural differentiation?"e; . I articulate the constraints and/or tensions of supranational regulation, foreign policy, regional and intraregional alliances upon communication and the cultural and social effects as they impact on and respond to production, programming, scheduling and output in Singapore. I explain how Singaporean Television media culture takes part in the processes of globalisation, and how it challenges existing cultures and creates new and alternative symbolic and cultural communities, within the context of regional communication. In this thesis 1 conclude that whilst Singapore definitely does not have equity in information, wealth or resource flows it is attempting to liberalise. To do so, the government recognises that serious inadequacies and imbalances must be addressed and that the path to greater political and economic growth is through an actively informed public. Despite regulatory restrictions on data flow and technical and service ownership, Singapore is encouraging regional alliances, depoliticising cultural differences and concentrating on economic imperatives to build mutual knowledge and understanding, multilateral agreements, collective ownership, mutual exchange and cooperative dissemination.

Optimal redistribution when educational background matters

Higher education plays an important role in determining individuals lifetime
earnings. In turn, the decision to become educated depends to a large extent on innate ability and on family characteristics, including both family
wealth and educational background. In this paper, we abstract from family
income differences to concentrate on the effects of fiscal policies on the
decision to undertake higher education when the educational background
matters. In a dynamic framework, where successive generations are linked by educational background, we consider a government that uses both linear income taxation and a lump-sum subsidy to education. Conditions for
optimality of each policy are derived. The factors that determine the sign
and magnitude of the tax rate and the subsidy are identified and include
concerns for redistribution, efficiency and the educational externality on
future generations