University-Industry Relations and Some Lessons from Biotech

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

Comparative Lessons on Corporate law and CSR: Hard Law as Solution? Do the French offer the way ahead?

This paper provides a comparative analysis of corporate law and CSR and asks whether there are lessons for Australia from corporate law and CSR developments in France. This presentation presents a summary of the provisions of the new French Act Number 2010-788 passed on 12 July 2010 – called “Grenelle 2” –. Firstly, article 225 of Law’s Grenelle 2 changes the Commercial Code to extend the reach of non-financial reporting and to ensure its pertinence. Secondly, article 227 Law’s Grenelle 2 amends certain provisions of the Commercial and Environmental Codes and incorporates into substantive law the liability of parent companies for their subsidiaries. In fine, article 224 of Law’s Grenelle 2 reinforces the pressure on the market to act in a responsible manner. It modifies article 214-12 of the Monetary and Financial Code in order to compel institutional investors (mutual funds and fund management companies) to take social, environmental and governance criteria into account in their investment policy.

Conflict of Interest Policies at Canadian Universities and Medical Schools: Some Lessons from the AMSA PharmFree Scorecard

Article

The Snail Darter, The Tellico Dam, and Sustainable Democracy — Lessons for the Next President From a Classic Environmental Law Controversy.

This presentation was the product of an invitation to speak at a symposium for students and faculty from a variety of different non-law departments at the University of Tennessee, where in 1973 I had started what became a six-year legal campaign to divert the Tennessee Valley Authority from impounding the last flowing 33 miles of the Little Tennessee River behind TVA’s Tellico Dam.

Economic Impact of Identity Theft in India: Lessons from Western Countries

In this computerized, globalised and internet world our computer collects various types of information’s about every human being and stores them in files secreted deep on its hard drive. Files like cache, browser history and other temporary Internet files can be used to store sensitive information like logins and passwords, names addresses, and even credit card numbers. Now, a hacker can get at this information by wrong means and share with someone else or can install some nasty software on your computer that will extract your sensitive and secret information. Identity Theft posses a very serious problem to everyone today. If you have a driver’s license, a bank account, a computer, ration card number, PAN card number, ATM card or simply a social security number you are more than at risk, you are a target. Whether you are new to the idea of ID Theft, or you have some unanswered questions, we’ve compiled a quick refresher list below that should bring you up to speed. Identity theft is a term used to refer to fraud that involves pretending to be someone else in order to steal money or get other benefits. Identity theft is a serious crime, which is increasing at tremendous rate all over the world after the Internet evolution. There is widespread agreement that identity theft causes financial damage to consumers, lending institutions, retail establishments, and the economy as a whole. Surprisingly, there is little good public information available about the scope of the crime and the actual damages it inflicts. Accounts of identity theft in recent mass media and in film or literature have centered on the exploits of 'hackers' - variously lauded or reviled - who are depicted as cleverly subverting corporate firewalls or other data protection defenses to gain unauthorized access to credit card details, personnel records and other information. Reality is more complicated, with electronic identity fraud taking a range of forms. The impact of those forms is not necessarily quantifiable as a financial loss; it can involve intangible damage to reputation, time spent dealing with disinformation and exclusion from particular services because a stolen name has been used improperly. Overall we can consider electronic networks as an enabler for identity theft, with the thief for example gaining information online for action offline and the basis for theft or other injury online. As Fisher pointed out "These new forms of hightech identity and securities fraud pose serious risks to investors and brokerage firms across the globe," I am a victim of identity theft. Being a victim of identity theft I felt the need for creating an awareness among the computer and internet users particularly youngsters in India. Nearly 70 per cent of Indian‘s population are living in villages. Government of India already started providing computer and internet facilities even to the remote villages through various rural development and rural upliftment programmes. Highly educated people, established companies, world famous financial institutions are becoming victim of identity theft. The question here is how vulnerable the illiterate and innocent rural people are if they suddenly exposed to a new device through which some one can extract and exploit their personal data without their knowledge? In this research work an attempt has been made to bring out the real problems associated with Identity theft in developed countries from an economist point of view.

Work and economic security in the 21st century

In recent decades there has been a transformation of two central concepts of modernity – labour and the household. Ela Bhatt – the founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association of India (SEWA), has made an important contribution to this transformation. Through the emergence of unions such as SEWA, the notion of who represents labour is being broadened; the marginalised are finding an institutional voice. Increasingly, the household is being recognised as a site of both production and reproduction. SEWA is not a traditional trade union that aims, through collective bargaining with an employer, to improve its members’ wages and working conditions as sellers of their labour power. Instead, it aims to empower women economically in the informal economy by bringing them into the mainstream economy as owners of their labour. The union dimension of SEWA builds their collective power through struggle; the cooperative dimension translates their bargaining power into the economic and social development of its members and their community. Besides, Bhatt’s approach to the self-employed was a direct challenge to the ILO’s tripartism when it was established in the early seventies. The first part of the paper provides a short biography of Ela Bhatt, describes the origins of SEWA, analyses a ‘classification struggle’ over how and who is to define what a worker is. In the second part the author considers SEWAs innovative organizing strategy and is rethinking modernity in the labour context. In the conclusion the paper discusses the lessons that can be learnt from Ela Bhatt.

Small and Closed vs. Large and Open: Some Lessons from Comparing Cuban to Colombian Agricultural Development

Comparing the experiences of selected Latin America and the Caribbean countries and their trajectories over the past 15 years offers rich insights into the dynamics and causes for not meeting the 2015 MDGs. They also offer clues for post-MDG strategies. Central to achieving sustainable growth are government policies able to support small and medium-sized farms and peasants, as they are crucial for the achievement of several goals, centrally: to achieve food security; to provide a sound and stable rural environment able to resist external (financial) shocks; to secure healthy food; to secure local food; and to protect vibrant and culturally rich local communities. This paper analyses and compares the most successful government policies to the least successful policies carried out over the last 15 years in selected Latin American and Caribbean countries and based on this analysis, offers strategies for more promising post-MDG politics, able to reduce poverty, reduce inequality, fight back informality, and achieve more decent work in poor countries.

Applying the Lessons of “Lean Now” to Transform the US Aerospace Enterprise

Lean is common sense and good business sense. As organizations grow and become more successful, they begin to lose insight into the basic truths of what made them successful. Organizations have to deal with more and more issues that may not have anything to do with directly providing products or services to their customers. Lean is a holistic management approach that brings the focus of the organization back to providing value to the customer. In August 2002, Mrs. Darleen Druyun, the Principal Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition and government co-chairperson of the Lean Aerospace Initiative (LAI), decided it was time for Air Force acquisitions to embrace the concepts of lean. At her request, the LAI Executive Board developed a concept and methodology to employ lean into the Air Force’s acquisition culture and processes. This was the birth of the “Lean Now” initiative. An enterprise-wide approach was used, involving Air Force System Program Offices (SPOs), aerospace industry, and several Department of Defense agencies. The aim of Lean Now was to focus on the process interfaces between these “enterprise” stakeholders to eliminate barriers that impede progress. Any best practices developed would be institutionalized throughout the Air Force and the Department of Defense (DoD). The industry members of LAI agreed to help accelerate the government-industry transformation by donating lean Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to mentor, train, and facilitate the lean events of each enterprise. Currently, the industry SMEs and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working together to help the Air Force develop its own lean infrastructure of training courses and Air Force lean SMEs. The first Lean Now programs were the F/A-22, Global Hawk, and F-16. Each program focused on specific acquisition processes. The F/A-22 focused on the Test and Evaluation process; the Global Hawk focused on Evolutionary Acquisitions; and the F-16 focused on improving the Contract Closeout process. Through lean, each enterprise made many significant improvements. The F/A-22 was able to reduce its Operational Flight Plan (OFP) Preparation and Load process time of 2 to 3 months down to 7 hours. The Global Hawk developed a new production plan that increases the annual production of its Integrated Sensor Suite from 3 per year to 6 per year. The F-16 enterprise generated and is working 12 initiatives that could result in a contract closeout cycle time reduction of 3 to 7 years. Each enterprise continues to generate more lean initiatives that focus on other areas and processes within their respective enterprises.

Otras clases de Mates ... other Maths lessons.

Resumen basado en la publicación

The effects of custodial vs non-custodial sanctions on reoffending : Lessons from a systematic review. 'Los efectos de las penas privativas vs no privativas de libertad en la reincidencia : lecciones de una revisi??n sistem??tica'

Resumen tomado de la publicaci??n

Experience in introduction of English terminology in engineering lessons: methodology and evaluation

This communication explains a experience for the introduction of English terminology in a technical degree of higher education. We present the methodology and assessment procedures used to evaluate the way the students perceived the introduction of terminology in English in two different subjects from 3rd and 5th year courses of a Computer Science degree in which English was not the vehicular language. We propose a strategy based on two main pillars, namely: 1) The design of materials, explanations, and exams, paying particular attention to the way in which the specific terminology was exposed to the students, and 2) The assessment of the impact in the students by means of the analysis of the feedback trough a set of enquiries. Our experience showed that the students responded very positively to the introduction of English terminology, and presented an affirmative feedback about the impact that an improvement of their linguistic abilities would have in their future work. Further, we present statistics regarding the use of English as the vehicular language for technical reports, which is envisaged as very useful by the students. Finally, we propose a set of questions for further debate which are centered in the role that English terminology should pay in technical degrees, and about the way in which universities should deploy resources in English languages within the different Syllabus

Análisis del Espacio Schengen en materia de seguridad como base para la implementación del Protocolo sobre la Facilitación del Movimiento de Personas de la Comunidad para el Desarrollo de África Austral (SADC)

El fin de la Guerra Fría supuso no sólo el triunfo del capitalismo y de la democracia liberal, sino un cambio significativo en el Sistema Internacional; siendo menos centralizado y más regionalizado, como consecuencia de la proximidad y relaciones de interdependencia entre sus actores (no sólo Estados) y permitiendo la formación de Complejos Regionales de Seguridad (CRS). Los CRS son una forma efectiva de relacionarse y aproximarse a la arena internacional pues a través de sus procesos de securitización y desecuritización consiguen lograr objetivos específicos. Partiendo de ello, tanto la Unión Europea (UE) como la Comunidad para el Desarrollo de África Austral (SADC) iniciaron varios procesos de securitización relacionados con la integración regional; siendo un ejemplo de ello la eliminación de los controles en sus fronteras interiores o libre circulación de personas; pues consideraron que de no hacerse realidad, ello generaría amenazas políticas (su influencia y capacidad de actuación estaban amenazadas), económicas (en cuanto a su competitividad y niveles básicos de bienestar) y societales (en cuanto a la identidad de la comunidad como indispensable para la integración) que pondrían en riesgo la existencia misma de sus CRS. En esta medida, la UE creó el Espacio Schengen, que fue producto de un proceso de securitización desde inicios de la década de los 80 hasta mediados de la década de los 90; y la SADC se encuentra inmersa en tal proceso de securitización desde 1992 hasta la actualidad y espera la ratificación del Protocolo para la Facilitación del Movimiento de personas como primer paso para lograr la eliminación de controles en sus fronteras interiores. Si bien tanto la UE como la SADC consideraron que de no permitir la libre circulación de personas, su integración y por lo tanto, sus CRS estaban en riesgo; la SADC no lo ha logrado. Ello hace indispensable hacer un análisis más profundo de sus procesos de securitización para así encontrar sus falencias con respecto al éxito de la UE. El análisis está basado en la Teoría de los Complejos de Seguridad de Barry Buzan, plasmada en la obra Security a New Framework for Analysis (1998) de Barry Buzan, Ole Waever y Jaap de Wilde y será dividido en cada una de las etapas del proceso de securitización: la identificación de una amenaza existencial a un objeto referente a través de un acto discursivo, la aceptación de una amenaza por parte de una audiencia relevante y las acciones de emergencia para hacer frente a las amenazas existenciales; reconociendo las diferencias y similitudes de un proceso de securitización exitoso frente a otro que aún no lo ha sido.

The Bureaucratic Impact of the mobilization for Land. Lessons from the Liberal Republic

The State-building process must be understood through the study of the agencies in charge of each of its regulatory functions. One such function is the regulation of property rights. During the Liberal Republic, as a reaction to the massive mobilization,new tools to better regulate property rights were promoted: colonization, parceling, the award of public lands and, at the end, a new legal framework. In spite of its purposes, they faced and failed to solve the challenges every organization experiences when growing: resource scarcity, controlling its agents, and keeping technical simplicity.

Lessons in psychology – Colombia Nineteenth Century

Manuel Ancízar published in 1851 his Lectures on Psychology. The text has been a representative of the interests of Colombian intellectuals of the time for discipline. The treatise of the history of psychology Colombia have considered the nineteenth century as a period characterized by a poorly conceived attempt to import some emerging professional practices of psychiatric and educational type. However, the work of Ancízar showed large exhibition on the subject matter of psychology: human consciousness and the theories that support the formation of the new science. The core of the work is oriented towards the secular drama, against which Ancízar defended the supernatural origin and nature of the human soul. The author introduced an eclectic psychology in which, the secular orientation of modern ideas are integrated with the conception of the soul as a divine gift. The reading of the work has been outstanding and indispensable work for understanding ancient and autochthonous forms of access to psychological issues.