Transaction costs of farmers’ participation in forest management: Policy implications of payments for environmental services schemes in Vietnam

Recent research on payments for environmental services (PES) has observed that high transaction costs (TCs) are incurred through the implementation of PES schemes and farmer participation. TCs incurred by households are considered to be an obstacle to the participation in and efficiency of PES policies. This study aims to understand transactions related to previous forest plantation programmes and to estimate the actual TCs incurred by farmers who participated in these programmes in a mountainous area of northwestern Vietnam. In addition, this study examines determinants of households’ TCs to test the hypothesis of whether the amount of TCs varies according to household characteristics. Results show that average TCs are not likely to be a constraint for participation since they are about 200,000 VND (USD 10) per household per contract, which is equivalent to one person’s average earnings for about two days of labour. However, TCs amount to more than one-third of the programmes’ benefits, which is relatively high compared to PES programmes in developed countries. This implies that rather than aiming to reduce TCs, an appropriate agenda for policy improvement is to balance the level of TCs with PES programme benefits to enhance the overall attractiveness of afforestation programmes for smallholder farmers. Regression analysis reveals that education, gender and perception towards PES programmes have significant effects on the magnitude of TCs. The analyses also points out the importance of local conditions on the level of TCs, with some unexpected results.

Fragmentation or creative diversity? Options in the provision of land management advisory services

Rural land managers need access to sound advice and information to respond to pressures from environmental regulations, declining farm incomes, changing patterns in international trade and new institutional arrangements within the domestic food chain. Governments have cut back their provision of advisory services but need more than ever to influence land managers' decisions to achieve a growing array of policy objectives: The paper develops a conceptual framework for analysing advisory services and concludes, through a review of sixteen case studies, that the needs of both governments and land managers can be met by a diverse mixture of private and public sector provision. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

e-learning services provision and management

With the rapid development of information technology, learners demand effective personalised learning support, which imposes a new learning paradigm in learning content management. Standards as well as best practice in industry and research community have taken place to address the paradigm shift. With respect to this trend, it is recognised that finding learning content which meet personal learning requirements remains challenging. This paper describes a model of e-learning services provision which integrates the best practice in e-learning and Web services technology so that learning content management is capable of supporting applications of learning services.

Local management and landscape drivers of pollination and biological control services in a Kenyan agro-ecosystem

Arthropods that have a direct impact on crop production (i.e. pests, natural enemies and pollinators) can be influenced by both local farm management and the context within which the fields occur in the wider landscape. However, the contributions and spatial scales at which these drivers operate and interact are not fully understood, particularly in the developing world. The impact of both local management and landscape context on insect pollinators and natural enemy communities and on their capacity to deliver related ecosystem services to an economically important tropical crop, pigeonpea was investigated. The study was conducted in nine paired farms across a gradient of increasing distance to semi-native vegetation in Kibwezi, Kenya. Results show that proximity of fields to semi-native habitats negatively affected pollinator and chewing insect abundance. Within fields, pesticide use was a key negative predictor of pollinator, pest and foliar active predator abundance. On the contrary, fertilizer application significantly enhanced pollinator and both chewing and sucking insect pest abundance. At a 1 km spatial scale of fields, there were significant negative effects of the number of semi-native habitat patches within fields dominated by mass flowering pigeonpea on pollinators abundance. For service provision, a significant decline in fruit set when insects were excluded from flowers was recorded. This study reveals the interconnections of pollinators, predators and pests with pigeonpea crop. For sustainable yields and to conserve high densities of both pollinators and predators of pests within pigeonpea landscapes, it is crucial to target the adoption of less disruptive farm management practices such as reducing pesticide and fertilizer inputs.

Soil management in relation to sustainable agriculture and ecosystem services

Requirements for research, practices and policies affecting soil management in relation to global food security are reviewed. Managing soil organic carbon (C) is central because soil organic matter influences numerous soil properties relevant to ecosystem functioning and crop growth. Even small changes in total C content can have disproportionately large impacts on key soil physical properties. Practices to encourage maintenance of soil C are important for ensuring sustainability of all soil functions. Soil is a major store of C within the biosphere – increases or decreases in this large stock can either mitigate or worsen climate change. Deforestation, conversion of grasslands to arable cropping and drainage of wetlands all cause emission of C; policies and international action to minimise these changes are urgently required. Sequestration of C in soil can contribute to climate change mitigation but the real impact of different options is often misunderstood. Some changes in management that are beneficial for soil C, increase emissions of nitrous oxide (a powerful greenhouse gas) thus cancelling the benefit. Research on soil physical processes and their interactions with roots can lead to improved and novel practices to improve crop access to water and nutrients. Increased understanding of root function has implications for selection and breeding of crops to maximise capture of water and nutrients. Roots are also a means of delivering natural plant-produced chemicals into soil with potentially beneficial impacts. These include biocontrol of soil-borne pests and diseases and inhibition of the nitrification process in soil (conversion of ammonium to nitrate) with possible benefits for improved nitrogen use efficiency and decreased nitrous oxide emission. The application of molecular methods to studies of soil organisms, and their interactions with roots, is providing new understanding of soil ecology and the basis for novel practical applications. Policy makers and those concerned with development of management approaches need to keep a watching brief on emerging possibilities from this fast-moving area of science. Nutrient management is a key challenge for global food production: there is an urgent need to increase nutrient availability to crops grown by smallholder farmers in developing countries. Many changes in practices including inter-cropping, inclusion of nitrogen-fixing crops, agroforestry and improved recycling have been clearly demonstrated to be beneficial: facilitating policies and practical strategies are needed to make these widely available, taking account of local economic and social conditions. In the longer term fertilizers will be essential for food security: policies and actions are needed to make these available and affordable to small farmers. In developed regions, and those developing rapidly such as China, strategies and policies to manage more precisely the necessarily large flows of nutrients in ways that minimise environmental damage are essential. A specific issue is to minimise emissions of nitrous oxide whilst ensuring sufficient nitrogen is available for adequate food production. Application of known strategies (through either regulation or education), technological developments, and continued research to improve understanding of basic processes will all play a part. Decreasing soil erosion is essential, both to maintain the soil resource and to minimise downstream damage such as sedimentation of rivers with adverse impacts on fisheries. Practical strategies are well known but often have financial implications for farmers. Examples of systems for paying one group of land users for ecosystem services affecting others exist in several parts of the world and serve as a model.

Introducing matrix management within a children's services setting - personal reflections

This article reflects on the introduction of ‘matrix management’ arrangements for an Educational Psychology Service (EPS) within a Children’s Service Directorate of a Local Authority (LA). It seeks to demonstrate critical self-awareness, consider relevant literature with a view to bringing insights to processes and outcomes, and offers recommendations regarding the use of matrix management. The report arises from an East Midland’s LA initiative: ALICSE − Advanced Leadership in an Integrated Children’s Service Environment. Through a literature review and personal reflection, the authors consider the following: possible tensions within the development of matrix management arrangements; whether matrix management is a prerequisite within complex organizational systems; and whether competing professional cultures may contribute barriers to creating complementary and collegiate working. The authors briefly consider some research paradigms, notably ethnographic approaches, soft systems methodology, activity theory and appreciative inquiry. These provide an analytic framework for the project and inform this iterative process of collaborative inquiry. Whilst these models help illuminate otherwise hidden processes, none have been implemented following full research methodologies, reflecting the messy reality of local authority working within dynamic organizational structures and shrinking budgets. Nevertheless, this article offers an honest reflection of organizational change within a children’s services environment.

Scalable model-based configuration management of security services in complex enterprise networks

Security administrators face the challenge of designing, deploying and maintaining a variety of configuration files related to security systems, especially in large-scale networks. These files have heterogeneous syntaxes and follow differing semantic concepts. Nevertheless, they are interdependent due to security services having to cooperate and their configuration to be consistent with each other, so that global security policies are completely and correctly enforced. To tackle this problem, our approach supports a comfortable definition of an abstract high-level security policy and provides an automated derivation of the desired configuration files. It is an extension of policy-based management and policy hierarchies, combining model-based management (MBM) with system modularization. MBM employs an object-oriented model of the managed system to obtain the details needed for automated policy refinement. The modularization into abstract subsystems (ASs) segment the system-and the model-into units which more closely encapsulate related system components and provide focused abstract views. As a result, scalability is achieved and even comprehensive IT systems can be modelled in a unified manner. The associated tool MoBaSeC (Model-Based-Service-Configuration) supports interactive graphical modelling, automated model analysis and policy refinement with the derivation of configuration files. We describe the MBM and AS approaches, outline the tool functions and exemplify their applications and results obtained. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

GHIRS: integration of hotel management systems by web services

Nowadays web services technology is widely used to integrate heterogeneous systems and develop new applications. In this paper, an application of integration of hotel management systems by web services technology is presented. The Group Hotel Integration Reservation System (GHIRS) integrates lots of systems of hotel industry such as Front Office system, Property Management system, Enterprise Information System (EIS), Enterprise Information Portal system (EIP), Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) and Supply Chain Management system (SCM) together. This integration solution can add or expand hotel software system in any size of hotel chains environment.

What about the men? Gender differences in utilisation of arthritis self-management services

As self-management programs for chronic illness increasingly become the domain of primary health care providers, it is important to consider gender inequities in access to these services and gender differences in patterns of use to inform the development and delivery of services. This study explores gender differences in levels and patterns of access to arthritis elf-management services by analyzing data collected from the Telephone Information Service of Arthritis Victoria, Contingency tables were analyzed and odds-ratios calculated to confirm gender differences in levels and patterns of service utilisation. Men were found to be significantly under-represented as users of the service, even after taking into account gender differences in prevalence of arthritis in the population. Women were more likely than men to contact the service on their own behalf. Men were more likely to have a family member or friend contact the services for them. Women showed more interest in learning about their condition while men focused more on symptom management. These gender differences in rates and patterns of services use indicate that services providers of self-management services for conditions such as arthritis need to take into account the interaction between gender and service utilisation.

Design management methodology to strengthen firm and industry competitiveness in the construction design services export sector

The aim of this research was to investigate strategies deployed by successful construction design-related firms towards achieving high levels of firm competitiveness in international markets. A reflexive capability model, developed through a critical analysis of related internationalisation literature, is composed of three key areas; internationalisation process, market knowledge and design management. Firm reflexive capability is explored through the management of social, cultural and intellectual capital. The concept of reflexivity is borrowed from sociology. Reflexivity is reinterpreted as the ‘firm’s’ ability to be aware, responsive and adaptable to self, market and project needs assessment. A cross case analysis explored the barriers and success factors through three constructs; internationalisation process, design management and market knowledge of three firms. This paper demonstrates that international firm competitiveness is dependent upon the strategic inter-relational management of social, cultural and intellectual capital for maximum advantage of the utilisation and leverage of one form of capital to gain another. This leads to the development of increasing reflexive capability to support internationalisation. An outcome of this research is the identification of the central relation between a level of reflexive capability within the firm and the firm’s level of success in international markets. This research is part of an ongoing program of research on international collaborative practice. A Reflexive Capability Matrix was developed from the findings of one research project and then validated through a second research project (only the capability matrix is presented in this paper though). The reflexive capability approach is appropriate to all firms but what is speculated upon is that the reflexive capability is particularly intrinsic to small to medium sized construction design firms who work globally. A reflexive capability is a characteristic of successful and innovative firms internationalising and working within global models of practice.

Money laundering and terror financing risk management of low risk financial products and services in South Africa

When the South African anti-money laundering regulations were drafted in 2002, the Minister of Finance made an exemption to protect so-called mass market banking services products for the poor against negative compliance impact by the new system. This exemption, known as Exemption 17, relaxes the requirement to identify and verify a client’s residential address. Exemption 17 was amended in 2004 to facilitate the launch of a basic bank account, the Mzansi account. This account has proved to be hugely popular. According to the FinScope 2007 survey 10% of South African adults claimed to hold a Mzansi account.