The Go-Betweens

The Go-Betweens recorded six albums that are among the finest work of the 1980s, earning them a reputation as ""the ultimate cult band"" and the lasting esteem of their peers, from R.E.M. to Sleater-Kinney. In 2000 they returned to making records--and received the best reviews of their career. David Nichols relates their story with wit and verve, and since the Go-Betweens had personalities as well as talent, their biography is compelling reading, not just for committed fans but for anyone interested in the current music scene.

Corporate accounting in Australia

"The third edition of Corporate Accounting in Australia presents a comprehensive and contemporary explanation of Australian corporate accounting. Previous editions of the book, published in 1998 and 2001, established the book's reputation for excellence, with its user-friendly approach, keenly appreciated by both students and lecturers. This edition retains the accessible writing style and logical chapter format and sequence of its forerunners, and has been revised to reflect current developments, particularly with regards to the international harmonisation of accounting standards."

Modern auditing & assurance services

On 1 May 2006, the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (AUASB) introduced a series of new legally enforceable Australian Auditing Standards (ASAs), effective 1 July 2006.

Corporate collapses over the last five years, and subsequent criticisms of the audit role, have necessitated a review of the existing auditing standards to ensure audit quality, return stakeholder confidence in the reputation of the audit process, and reinstate to the profession the core audit qualities of reliability, transparency, trust and integrity.

'Modern Auditing and Assurance Services 3rd Edition' reflects the latest developments in the profession, detailing the audit procedures under the 35 legally enforceable ASAs.

Further, this edition has been thoroughly revised to present a current coverage of the auditing environment: the increased focus on professional ethics and ethical competence, governance and professional independence, changes in legal liability for the audit profession, local and international regulatory developments, whilst continuing to provide a thorough analysis of contemporary audit practice as well as significant consideration of assurance services beyond the traditional audit.

Trust in B2C e-commerce for the New Zealand Maori

This study was performed to allow an understanding of some of the elements of trust that are apparent to encourage the Mäori Internet shopper to feel comfortable to shop online. Mäori arrived in New Zealand from the Pacific over 1,000 years ago. Since then, New Zealand was colonised by Europeans in the 19th century. As a result, the Mäori have become a minority (Belich, 1996). That is, their culture, language and values have become secondary to those of the dominant European culture (Liu, Wilson, McClure & Higgins, 1999). Mäori have been defined as including “all those who identify themselves as belonging to the New Zealand Mäori ethnic group, either alone or in combination with any other ethnic group” (Statistics New Zealand, 1998, p. 94).

The pleasure and pain of donations

Deakin University is only 25 years old but already has a library collection of over 1 million volumes thanks, in part, to judicious seeking and acceptance of donations. This paper provides a case study of how the University has been able to quickly establish teaching and research level collections for new disciplines as well as build breadth and depth in areas already covered by the collection. Donations of formed collections, in particular, have enabled the University to build a research reputation in a number of specialist areas and to make important links with its local communities. The benefits of donations are highlighted, as are the problems that come with being offered gifts of information resources.

e-marketing positioning your law practice

Legal practices should measure aspects of their corporate reputation including image, reputation attributes and outcomes to be able to implement a successful marketing communication campaign - audience measurement allows information to be gathered about reach and frequency - building corporate websites which reach your target audience will increase revenue and earnings.

Annotated criminal legislation Victoria 2009

An indispensable resource for anyone who needs a sound understanding of the criminal law of Victoria. Butterworths Annotated Criminal Legislation Victoria is an indispensable resource for students, practitioners and others who need a sound understanding of the criminal law of Victoria. This book has an established reputation as an essential reference source. The Acts are annotated by Gerard Nash QC and Professor Mirko Bagaric of the School of Law, Deakin University. This book has been extracted from the four volume looseleaf service Bourke's Criminal Law Victoria. Important Features: mid Extensive new annotations discussing recent case law relating to various provisions of the Crimes Act 1958. mid A quick reference directory and grey shaded tabs provide ease of navigation. Related Titles: mid Arenson & Bagaric, Criminal Procedure: Victoria and Commonwealth, 2009. mid Clough & Mulhern, Butterworths Tutorial Series - Criminal Law, 2nd ed, 2004. mid Rush & Yeo, Criminal Law Sourcebook, 2nd ed, 2005. mid Spears & Hickie, Butterworths Questions & Answers - Criminal Law for Common Law States, 2009. mid Waller & Williams, Criminal Law: Text and Cases, 11th ed, 2009.

Audience experience : measuring quality in the performing arts

Traditional measures of quality in the performing arts include critical reviews, awards, attendance data, the reputation of the director, company or lead performers, and attributions of success such as festival participation or sponsorship and grants. However, the recent literature on audience values, quest for authenticity and the personal experience suggests the need for empirical research into the capacity of the audience experience as an appropriate and important measure of quality in the performing arts. The authors use primary research with performing arts audiences to explore notions of quality, audience risk and audience experience to redefine the quality-measurement paradigm.

Corporate governance, board responsibilities and financial performance : the National Bank of Australia

This paper examines board responsibilities and accountability by management and Board of Directors in relation to the National Australia Bank's (NABs) performance. The NAB, an international financial service provider within the top thirty most profitable banks in the world, is compared with the Australian major banks. The evidence suggests that NABs poor performance was consistent with a lack of accountability, poor corporate governance and board dysfunction associated with fraudulent currency trading and the subsequent AUD360 million foreign currency losses. The NAB's performance is investigated by utilising accounting-based measures of profitability and cost efficiency as proxies for performance. Following the foreign currency trading losses in 2004 the NAB under-performed the other major Australian banks in terms of profits, cost to income ratio and growth in assets. In terms of profitability and cost efficiency NAB had the lowest ROE and ROA with a 19.7% fall in net profit and the highest cost to income ratio of 5 7.4% of any of the five largest banks. This case study provides an Australian example of poor corporate governance and suggests that financial institutions and regulators can learn from the NAB's experience. Failure to have top-down accountability can have significant impact on over-all performance, profitability and reputation. In particular, it suggests that management and Boards need to review their risk management procedures and regulators need to be more pro-active in their prudential oversight of financial institutions.

An improved trust model in agent-mediated E-commerce

Trust is a fundamental issue in multiagent systems, especially in agent-mediated e-commence. The trust model plays an important role in determining who and how to interact in open and dynamic environments. To this end, many trust models have been developed. Based on the confidence–reputation model proposed by other researchers, an improved trust model is discussed. The original model was enhanced in two aspects: (1) when evaluating the trustworthiness of target agents, the reliability of the witness itself is taken into account and further aggregated by Dempster-Shafer evidence theory and (2) the ontological property of trust is considered, which implies that trust can be calculated more precisely. A case study is provided to show the effectiveness of the improved model.

Ethical practice from the perspective of the forensic psychologist : commentary on the uses and value of the Australian Psychological Society (2007) code of ethics

Forensic practice in Australia and around the world attracts a high level of public and judicial scrutiny. The way in which the forensic psychologist conducts him or herself in ethically challenging situations is important not only to the reputation of the individual practitioner, but to the profession more widely. This paper outlines some of the ethical issues that commonly arise in forensic psychology practice and discusses these in relation to the recently published Australian Psychological Society (2007) Code of Ethics. Four ethically challenging scenarios are described and discussed in terms of how the Code might be used to offer guidance to psychologists about how they might best respond.

Consideration of corporate social orientation in managing sport organisations' internal stakeholders

Increasing pressure from the public has raised the expectations on corporations to be better citizens of their communities and society as a whole (Bennet 2002; Carroll 1999; Epstein 1989; Van Marrewijk 2003; Wood 1991). As a result, corporations have engaged in corporate social responsibility efforts with most of the subsequent research focused on its impact on consumer response (e.g., attitudes, behaviours, etc.) (Bhattacharya & Sen 2001, 2004; Porter & Kramer 2002). Similarly, research interest on corporate social responsibility in the sport industry has risen, yet no research studies have explored the influence and perceptions about corporate social responsibility of important internal constituents (employees and volunteers) of sport organisations. Particular interest would be in uncovering what employees and volunteers specifically believe are important among CSR elements (ethical, discretionary, legal, economic) and what impact a sense of 'shared CSR values' with the respective sport organisation would have on employee and volunteer response. Will understanding how shared social values influence organisational commitment provide insight on recruitment, retention and/or development strategies of employees and volunteers? Further, assessing any difference in sensemaking between these two groups would be of additional value to this line of enquiry, as the perceptions of the organisation are understood as "tantamount to reality, since organisations are social constructions made up of and acting in accordance with shared perceptions," (Brickson 2007, p. 865) particularly those of employees and volunteers of sport organisations. With increasing academic and industry interest of corporate social responsibility in sport and to address the obvious gap on CSR and employees and volunteers in the literature, the present study will explore how CSR impacts internal constituents (employees and volunteers) of sport organisations. Specifically, the main purpose of the present study is to assess the level of perceived shared values as they related to CSR (measured as corporate social orientation) between employees- organisation and volunteers- organisation. Further, the influence of the level of perceived shared corporate social orientation (CSO) on organisational identification will be evaluated in the context of a proposed model, which includes the relationship of perceived shared corporate social orientation>organisational identification> attitudinal and behavioural outcomes (i.e., commitment, satisfaction, and organisational behaviour). Using a sample of employees and volunteers of a sport organisation, the respondents will be asked to complete an online survey composed of demographic items, the corporate social orientation scale, and items that measure organisational identification, value commitment, job/ volunteer satisfaction, and organisational citizenship behaviours. Discussion of how other stakeholder (e.g., sponsors, consumers, etc.) perceptions on CSR potentially impacts the model and outcomes (e.g., corporate reputation, consumer behaviour) will be addressed. Analyses and results will support discussion and conclusions made to provide evidence for practitioner and researcher implications.

Exploring the types of SMEs which could use blogs as a marketing tool : a proposed future research agenda

Blogs appear to be gaining momentum as a marketing tool which can be used by organisations for such strategies and processes as branding, managing reputation, developing customer trust and loyalty, niche marketing, gathering marketing intelligence and promoting their online presence. There has been limited academic research in this area, and most significantly concerning the types of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for which blogs might have potential as a marketing tool. In an attempt to address the knowledge gap, this paper presents a future research agenda (in the form of research questions) which can guide the eBusiness research community in conducting much needed studies in this area. This paper is particularly novel in that it aims to demonstrate how the heterogeneity of SMEs and their specific business uses of eBusiness technology such as blogs can form the central plank of a future research agenda. This is important because the existing eBusiness literature tends to treat eBusiness collectively rather than focusing on the specific business uses of different eBusiness technologies, and to treat SMEs as a homogeneous group. The paper concludes with a discussion of how this research agenda can form the basis of studies which use a range of different research methods, and how this "big picture" agenda approach might help the eBusiness research community build theory which better explains SME adoption and use of eBusiness.

An analysis of factors of importance to international postgraduate students from Asia studying in Victorian universities

Student satisfaction is a key strategic variable in maintaining a competitive position in the international education market by Australian universities. The universities are facing the challenge of rising student expectations of quality, service and value for money, and the need to increase the satisfaction level of their students to retain and improve international student numbers. This process requires universities to carefully analyse the key factors contributing to student satisfaction.

Using logistic regression analysis with factor scores and aggregated satisfaction scores, this study examines the relative importance of factors and their impact on the satisfaction levels of international postgraduate students from four Asian countries studying at Victorian universities. The study concludes that the dominant factors that impact on student satisfaction include the quality of education, student facilities, reputation of the institutions, the marketability of their degrees for better career prospects, and the overall customer value provided by the universities.

Amylase and glucosidase enzyme inhibitory activity of ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) an in vitro study

The prevalence of type 2 diabetes has reached to an epidemic proportion in Sri Lanka. The need for achieving better control of blood glucose level has been evident in diabetes management. However it is not easy to achieve this goal in a large proportion of patients. This is partly due to limitations of currently available pharmacological agents which stimulate research on novel anti-diabetic agents with different mechanisms. Digestive enzymes have been targeted as potential avenues for modulation of blood glucose concentration through inhibition of the enzymatic breakdown of complex carbohydrates to meal derived glucose absorption. Acarbose is a widely used oral anti-diabetic drug which inhibits the α-glucosidase, enzyme responsible for breaking down of disaccharides and polysaccharides into glucose. Many herbal extracts have been found to posses similar inhibitory effects. Ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) has developed a reputation in treatment of several diseases. In vitro enzymic inhibitory effect of ginger was investigated in this study. Enzymes α -amylase and α -glucosidase treated with either Acarbose or ginger extract were allowed to react with cooked rice and percentages of glucose content were measured. The glucosidase and amylase activities on the rice were inhibited by addition of ginger cause significant reduction in glucose percentages (36.86± 1.05 to 26.87± 2.17, P<0.05 and 49.04±0.65 to 35.35±2.22, P<0.05) which showed comparable results with Acarbose on glucosidase activity (36.86± 1.05 to, 27.8±1.32 P<0.05). Results of the study indicates ginger as a potential plant based amylase and glucosidase inhibitor in carbohydrate digestion but usage in glycaemic control in human has to be investigated further.