What is convergence and how will it affect my life?

Convergence is a revolutionary and evolutionary form of journalism that is emerging in many parts of the world. As a student graduating from a journalism program in the early 21 st century, you need to know about convergence because it is likely to influence the way your career evolves. Over the course of the next decade, you probably will work in several media platforms, perhaps with different companies, but also possibly with the same company but doing varied forms of journalism. All journalists need to know how to tell stories in all media, and how to write appropriately for those media, as preparation for this new era.

Biotechnology and governance in Australia and Sweden: path dependency or instutional convergence?

The development of new generic technologies occurs within traditional structures of industry-government interaction, but also unleashes a process of 'creative destruction' generating new institutional patterns. This article, focusing on biotechnology, describes and compares policy processes and institutional arrangements in Australia and Sweden. The Swedish biotechnology sector displays a pattern of fragmentation and relatively weak state steering. Australia, by contrast, has implemented a set of comparatively coordinated regulatory and other measures to foster the growth of biotechnology. This observation contradicts the characterisation of Sweden as a 'strong state' economy, and challenges the depiction of Australia as lacking in state steering capacity. The relative open-endedness of the search in these countries for a mode of regulation of biotechnology suggests that the role of the state in economic restructuring today is fundamentally distinct from that of earlier periods.

Convergence in the gender wage gap in Australia over the 1980s: identifying the role of counteracting forces via the Juhn, Murphy and Pierce Decomposition

The paper utilises the Juhn Murphy and Pierce (1991) decomposition to shed light on the pattern of slow male-female wage convergence in Australia over the 1980s. The analysis allows one to distinguish between the role of wage structure and genderspecific effects. The central question addressed is whether rising wage inequality counteracted the forces of increased female investment in labour market skills, i.e. education and experience. The conclusion is that in contrast to the US and the UK, Australian women do not appear to have been swimming against a tide of adverse wage structure changes.

The gender wage gap in Australia- the path of future convergence

The paper attempts to project the future trend of the gender wage gap in Australia up to 2031. The empirical analysis utilises the Income Distribution Survey (1996) together with Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) demographic projections. The methodology combines the ABS projections with assumptions relating to the evolution of educational attainment in order to project the future distribution of human capital skills and consequently the future size of the gender wage gap. The analysis suggests that female relative pay will continue to rise up to 2031. However, gender wage convergence will be relatively slow, with a substantial gap remaining in 2031.

Convergence analysis of multi-stage PIC detectors

This paper analyses the convergence behaviour of the parallel interference cancellation (PIC) detector in code division multiple access (CDMA) systems. Using the results from previous stability analysis of an iterated-map neural network, the paper derives a general condition from which the sufficient condition for convergence of the PIC detector with tentative decision functions that are monotonically increasing at a sublinear rate can be calculated. As examples, the paper derives the sufficient conditions for convergence of the PIC detector with the clip decision and the hyperbolic tangent decision functions. The paper also examines the convergence behaviour of the PIC detector with hyperbolic tangent decision function via computer simulation and compares it with the analytical results.

The world-wide spread of journalism convergence

Convergence is a likely destination for news media in many parts of the world, though the duration of the journey will vary from country to country. This paper defines convergence as well as it is possible to do so, traces its spread around the world, and describes some of the most common business models. It looks at the forces driving convergence, and factors common to the most successful converged operations. The paper also describes the uncertain scenario in Australia now the Howard government has announced plans to change media ownership laws. It ends with discussion about changes in curricula at journalism programs in the United States in the light of the spread of convergence.

Derivative actions as a mechanism for the protection of minority shareholders in China: a result of convergence or divergence

The protection of minority shareholders has become one of the key features of company law reform in many countries in recent years. Various mechanisms have been created to achieve this objective. Australia has introduced the statutory derivative action procedure mainly based on models drawn from Canada and New Zealand; this provision was inserted into the Corporations Act in March 2000. China has also adopted a similar mechanism – known as the shareholder representative action; this scheme was based upon China’s understanding of statutory derivative actions in Western countries. China’s derivative action mechanism is reflected in amendments to the 2005 PRC Company Law and 2005 Securities Law that both were passed on 27 October 2005 and came into effective on 1 January 2006. The development of statutory derivative actions in different countries demonstrates the interaction between forces of convergence and divergence in company law reforms. This article reviews different mechanisms adopted in the Chinese law for the protection of minority shareholders. It especially focuses on an analysis of the nature of the shareholder representative action and the procedures for its utilisation in China – the equivalent to Western countries’ derivative actions. In comparison with statutory derivative actions in Australia, this article argues that the concept of the shareholder representative action in China rests upon a misunderstanding of Western derivative actions; this has involved a compromise between the dire need to protect shareholders and the ambiguities of a weak court system. As a consequence, China’s reforms in this area are largely a tentative gesture and are therefore unlikely to be very effective.

Testing convergence of Fiji's tourism markets

The convergence hypothesis for tourism markets is based on the tenet that when tourism markets are converging the difference between total international visitor arrivals to a country and international visitor arrivals from a particular country will be stationary. We argue that if this is true, then convergence can also be tested through examining whether total visitor arrivals and visitor arrivals from a particular market are cointegrated. We test the convergence hypothesis by examining visitor arrivals to Fiji from eight tourist source markets, using both unit root and cointegration tests. We find strong statistical evidence that Fiji's tourism markets converge.

This story wants to be danced : creative writing, dance, convergence and confluence

I suggest ways the discipline of dance can enrich and challenge the discipline of creative writing. I focus particularly on improvisation in dance, relating this to creative writing pedagogy, classroom structure and activities. Much possibility exists in utilising moments when creative arts disciplines touch. How might creative writers and creative writing courses use such fusions? I draw on material theory and briefly upon transformative and collaborative education theories in my exploration of these ideas.

Differential convergence of life-cycle inventories toward upstream production layers

We present an input-output analysis of the life-cycle labor, land, and greenhouse gas (GHG) requirements of alternative options for three case studies: investing money in a new vehicle versus in repairs of an existing vehicle (labor), passenger transport modes for a trip between Sydney and Melbourne (land use), and renewable electricity generation (GHG emissions). These case studies were chosen to demonstrate the possibility of rank crossovers in life-cycle inventory (LCI) results as system boundaries are expanded and upstream production inputs are taken into account. They demonstrate that differential convergence can cause crossovers in the ranking of inventories for alternative functional units occurring at second-and higher-order upstream production layers.

Conversations on convergence : insiders' views on news production in the twenty-first century

Convergence is a major topic of discussion at professional and academic journalism conferences and seminars around the world. This book presents the insights of major players and academics in the field of convergence. Here is your chance to read what the experts think about one of the most significant changes that journalism faces. It should be on the desk of all managers keen to know where the future will take us, and on the reading list of every student of journalism and media.