The importance of stakeholder engagement in invasive species management: A cross-jurisdictional perspective in Ireland

The management of invasive non-native species is a frequent cause of conflict in the field of biodiversity conservation because perceptions of their costs and benefits differ among stakeholder groups. A lack of cohesion between scientific researchers, the commercial sector and policy makers lies at the root of a widespread failure to develop and implement sustainable management practices for invasive species. The crisis of this situation is intensified by drivers stemming from international conventions and directives to address invasive species issues. There are further direct conflicts between legislative instruments promoting biodiversity conservation on the one hand while liberalizing trade at the national, European and global level on the other. The island of Ireland provides graphic illustration of the importance of cross-jurisdictional approaches to biological invasions. Using primarily Irish examples in this review, we emphasize the importance of approaching risk assessment, risk reduction and control or eradication policies from a cost-efficient, highly flexible perspective, incorporating linkages between environmental, economic and social objectives. The need for consolidated policies between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is particularly acute, though few model cross-border mechanisms for such consolidation are available. The importance of engaging affected stakeholders through positive interactions is discussed with regard to reducing the currently fragmented nature of invasive species management between the two jurisdictions.

Culture and the Irish Border:Spaces for Conflict Transformation

The Irish border has been described as a ‘natural’ cultural divide between the island's two dominant indigenous ethno-national communities. However, an examination of key resources of ethno-national group culture - religion, sport and language - provides evidence to challenge this representation. Moreover, in the post-1994 period of conflict transformation, evidence is also presented to support the proposition that the Irish border region has developed into a cultural space in which Irish nationalist and Ulster unionist ethno-national communities can explore cultural differences and commonalities through cross-border, cross-community contact and communication in small group encounters. This space underpins the reconfiguration of the border from barrier to political bridge between North and South. European Union (EU) Peace programmes for Ireland, beginning in 1995, provided the support for a cross-border approach to escaping the cage of ethno-national conflict in Northern Ireland. However, post-2004 EU enlargement signalled the beginning of the end for EU Peace funding and severe economic recession has undermined the expectation of British-Irish intergovernmental intervention to support cross-border partnerships and their work. Therefore, the outlook for the sustainability of this cross-border cultural space is gloomy with potentially deleterious consequences for the continued reconfiguration of the border from barrier to bridge.

גבול (Border)

This paper is a reexamination of the concept of the geopolitical border through a critical analysis of prevalent conceptualizations of borders, as they are articulated in the fields of geopolitics, political theory and international relations. Suggesting that thinking of borders as the derivative of territorial definitions disregards the dependency of territoriality and sovereign space on the praxes of border making, this paper offers an analytic distinction between normative articulations of borders and the border as a political practice. This distinction enables the identification of partial and incoherent border making processes. Consequently, the creation of borders can be analyzed as an effect of a multiplicity of performative praxes, material, juridical and otherwise discursive, that operate in relation to the management of space and attribute it with geopolitical distinctions. Furthermore, the paper suggests that these praxes, which appear in dispersed sites and in a wide variety of loci, are intrinsically linked to different spatial practices of population management, of governmentality. Thus, I offer a reading of borders as a praxis which manages binary differentiations of matrixes of governmentality, which create schisms in the population as a totality, through the deployment of the evocation of sovereignty as the legitimizing source of this differentiation or for the means necessary for its sustainment.

Continuation and discontinuation of local institution in community based natural resource management

Currently the push toward frontier areas, which until twenty years ago were still largely untouched by commercial agriculture, is taking place on a massive scale. This push is being driven not the least by global economic developments, such as the price increase of agriculture commodities like coffee and cocoa. In most cases the indigenous communities become trapped between the state monopoly in natural resource management and the competition for resources by external actors. In this processes the indigenous communities start to lose their access to resources. Another victim in this process is the environment where the natural resources are imbedded. International and national organizations working to conserve environment have became conscious of the important role that indigenous people could fulfill as partners in this endeavour. This partnership in struggle has produced a new discourse on the relationship between indigenous people and their environment. As a further consequence, programs were set up to develop what became known as Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) with its numerous variations. Based on a case study in a village on the eastern border of the Lore Lindu National Park in Central Sulawesi, this study questioned the basic assumption behind the concept of Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM). Namely the assumption that communities living at the margin of forest are socially and culturally homogenous, still more or less egalitarian, and basically living in harmony with their natural environment. This study was inspired by the persistent critique – although still a minority – on the basic assumption the CBNRM from academicians and practitioners working through the Entitlement perspective. Another inspiration was the mounting critique toward the participatory approach. In its effort the study explore further the usefulness of certain approaches. One of the approach much relied on in this study was the local history of the community studied, through exerting oral and local written documents on local history, legends and local stories. These sources proofed quite capable in bringing the local history into the light. Another was the actor oriented approach, which later came to be supported by the concept of Social Pool Resources. The latter concept proofed to be useful as analytical instrument to integrate social institutions and the common pool resources, as a field of action for the different actors as human agencies.

The effects of cross-border and cross-industry mergers and acquisitions on home-region and global multinational enterprises

We examine the effects of international and product diversification through mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on the firm's risk–return profile. We identify the rewards from different types of M&As and investigate whether becoming a global firm is a value-enhancing strategy. Drawing on the theoretical work of Vachani (Journal of International Business Studies, 22 (1991), pp. 307−222) and on Rugman and Verbeke's (Journal of International Business Studies, 35 (2004), pp. 3−18) metrics, we classify firms according to their degree of international and product diversification. To account for the endogeneity of M&As, we develop a panel vector autoregression. We find that global and host-region multinational enterprises benefit from cross-border M&As that reinforce their geographical footprint. Cross-industry M&As enhance the risk–return profile of home-region firms. This effect depends on the degree of product diversification. Hence there is no value-enhancing M&A strategy for home-region and bi-regional firms to become ‘truly global’.

The persistence of distance: a gravity model of European cross-border real estate development flows

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the scale and drivers of cross-border real estate development in Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe. Design/methodology/approach – Placing cross-border real estate development within the framework of foreign direct investment (FDI), conceptual complexities in characterizing the notional real estate developer are emphasized. Drawing upon a transaction database, this paper proxies cross-border real estate development flows with asset sales by developers. Findings – Much higher levels of market penetration by international real estate developers are found in the less mature markets of Central and Eastern Europe. Analysis suggests a complex range of determinants with physical distance remaining a consistent barrier to cross-border development flows. Originality/value – This analysis adds significant value in terms of understanding cross-border real estate development flows. In this study, a detailed examination of the issues based on a rigorous empirical analysis through gravity modelling is offered. The gravity framework is one of the most confirmed empirical regularities in international economics and commonly applied to trade, FDI, migration, foreign portfolio investment inter alia. This paper assesses the extent to which it provides useful insights into the pattern of cross-border real estate development flows.

Cross-border reverse takeover: o caso das multinacionais brasileiras

O Cross-border reverse takeover, conduzido pelas multinacionais brasileiras, gerou desempenho superior? Cross-border reverse takeover tem sido a expressão usada para designar a aquisição de empresas em países desenvolvidos por empresas de países em desenvolvimento. Essas aquisições, reversas porque invertem o fluxo tradicional dos investimentos internacionais, respondem atualmente por parcela significativa desses investimentos e colocam em cheque a forma tradicional de pensar os negócios internacionais. Meu argumento é que as empresas que fizeram aquisições em países desenvolvidos passam a ter acesso aos recursos não disponíveis no país de origem, tais como novas tecnologias, técnicas de gestão mais avançadas, mercado de capitais mais desenvolvidos, recursos financeiros de baixo custo, entre outros. Por outro lado, elas já desenvolveram competências para gerir esses recursos e passam a ter vantagem competitiva sobre os competidores locais, levando ao desempenho superior. No entanto, partindo dos dados da base de dados Thomson ONE, que registra todas as fusões e aquisições anunciadas, oncluídas ou não, e empregando as metodologias de estudos de evento e de regressões multivariadas, com base em dados contábeis sobre uma amostra de empresas brasileiras listadas em bolsa de valores, esta tese demonstra que estatisticamente não é possível afirmar que essas empresas obtiveram desempenho superior.

The Pararectus approach for anterior intrapelvic management of acetabular fractures: an anatomical study and clinical evaluation

A new anterior intrapelvic approach for the surgical management of displaced acetabular fractures involving predominantly the anterior column and the quadrilateral plate is described. In order to establish five 'windows' for instrumentation, the extraperitoneal space is entered along the lateral border of the rectus abdominis muscle. This is the so-called 'Pararectus' approach. The feasibility of safe dissection and optimal instrumentation of the pelvis was assessed in five cadavers (ten hemipelves) before implementation in a series of 20 patients with a mean age of 59 years (17 to 90), of whom 17 were male. The clinical evaluation was undertaken between December 2009 and December 2010. The quality of reduction was assessed with post-operative CT scans and the occurrence of intra-operative complications was noted. In cadavers, sufficient extraperitoneal access and safe instrumentation of the pelvis were accomplished. In the patients, there was a statistically significant improvement in the reduction of the fracture (pre- versus post-operative: mean step-off 3.3 mm (sd 2.6) vs 0.1 mm (sd 0.3), p < 0.001; and mean gap 11.5 mm (sd 6.5) vs 0.8 mm (sd 1.3), p < 0.001). Lesions to the peritoneum were noted in two patients and minor vascular damage was noted in a further two patients. Multi-directional screw placement and various plate configurations were feasible in cadavers without significant retraction of soft tissues. In the treatment of acetabular fractures predominantly involving the anterior column and the quadrilateral plate, the Pararectus approach allowed anatomical restoration with minimal morbidity related to the surgical access.

The people, the river and the border

In the catchment basin of the Songwe River, the institutional order thwarts sustainable resource management. District borders obstruct coherent policy - and so does the national border between Malawi and Tanzania. Joint decision making will be necessary if matter are to improve.

Border intervention by Promotores for type 2 diabetes

Purpose of the study. This study had two components. The first component of the study was the development and implementation of an infrastructure that integrated Promotores who teach diabetes self-management into a community clinic. The second component was a six-month randomized clinical trial (RCT) designed to test the effectiveness of the Promotores in changing knowledge, beliefs, and HbA1c levels among Mexican American patients with type 2 diabetes. ^ Methods. Starfield's adaptation of the Donbedian structure, process, and outcome methodology was used to develop a clinic infrastructure that allowed the integration of Promotores as diabetes educators. The RCT of the culturally sensitive Promotores-led 10-week diabetes self-management program compared the outcomes of 63 patients in the intervention group with 68 patients in a wait-list, usual care control group. Participants were Mexican Americans, at least 18 years of age, with type 2 diabetes, who were patients at a Federally Qualified Health Center on the Texas-Mexico border. At baseline, three months, and six months, data were collected using the Diabetes Knowledge Questionnaire (DKQ, the Health Beliefs Questionnaire (HBQ, and HbA1c levels were drawn by the clinic laboratory. A mixed model methodology was used to analyze the data. ^ Results. The infrastructure to support a Promotores-led diabetes self-management course designed in concert with administration, the physicians, and the CDE, resulted in (1) employment of Promotores to teach diabetes self-management courses; (2) integration of provider and nurse oversight of course design and implementation; (3) management of Promotora training, and the development of teaching competencies and skills; (4) coordination of care through communication and documentation policies and procedures; (5) utilization of quality control mechanisms to maintain patient safety; and (6) promotion of a culturally competent approach to the educational process. The RCT resulted in a significant improvement in the intervention group's DKQ scores over time (F [1, 129] = 4.77, p = 0.0308), and in treatment by time (F [2, 168] = 5.85, p = 0.0035). Neither the HBQ scores nor the HbA1c changed over time. However, the baseline HbA1c was 7.49, almost at the therapeutic level. The DKQ, HBQ, and HbA1c results were significantly affected by age; the DKQ and HbA1c by years with diabetes. ^ Conclusions. The clinic model provides a systematic approach to safely address the educational needs of large numbers of patients with type 2 diabetes who live in communities that suffer from a lack of health care professionals. The Promotores-led diabetes self-management course improved the knowledge of patients with diabetes and may be a culturally sensitive strategy for meeting patient educational needs. The low baseline HbA1c levels in this border community suggested that patients in this Federally Qualified Health Center on the Texas-Mexico border were experiencing good medical management of their diabetes. ^

Performance of HbA1c for classifying diabetes and diagnostic threshold for diabetes among the Mexican American border community

Objective. In 2009, the International Expert Committee recommended the use of HbA1c test for diagnosis of diabetes. Although it has been recommended for the diagnosis of diabetes, its precise test performance among Mexican Americans is uncertain. A strong “gold standard” would rely on repeated blood glucose measurement on different days, which is the recommended method for diagnosing diabetes in clinical practice. Our objective was to assess test performance of HbA1c in detecting diabetes and pre-diabetes against repeated fasting blood glucose measurement for the Mexican American population living in United States-Mexico border. Moreover, we wanted to find out a specific and precise threshold value of HbA1c for Diabetes Mellitus (DM) and pre-diabetes for this high-risk population which might assist in better diagnosis and better management of patient diabetes. ^ Research design and methods. We used CCHC dataset for our study. In 2004, the Cameron County Hispanic Cohort (CCHC), now numbering 2,574, was established drawn from randomly selected households on the basis of 2000 Census tract data. The CCHC study randomly selected a subset of people (aged 18-64 years) in CCHC cohort households to determine the influence of SES on diabetes and obesity. Among the participants in Cohort-2000, 67.15% are female; all are Hispanic. ^ Individuals were defined as having diabetes mellitus (Fasting plasma glucose [FPG] ≥ 126 mg/dL or pre-diabetes (100 ≤ FPG < 126 mg/dL). HbA1c test performance was evaluated using receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves. Moreover, change-point models were used to determine HbA1c thresholds compatible with FPG thresholds for diabetes and pre-diabetes. ^ Results. When assessing Fasting Plasma Glucose (FPG) is used to detect diabetes, the sensitivity and specificity of HbA1c≥ 6.5% was 75% and 87% respectively (area under the curve 0.895). Additionally, when assessing FPG to detect pre-diabetes, the sensitivity and specificity of HbA1c≥ 6.0% (ADA recommended threshold) was 18% and 90% respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of HbA1c≥ 5.7% (International Expert Committee recommended threshold) for detecting pre-diabetes was 31% and 78% respectively. ROC analyses suggest HbA1c as a sound predictor of diabetes mellitus (area under the curve 0.895) but a poorer predictor for pre-diabetes (area under the curve 0.632). ^ Conclusions. Our data support the current recommendations for use of HbA1c in the diagnosis of diabetes for the Mexican American population as it has shown reasonable sensitivity, specificity and accuracy against repeated FPG measures. However, use of HbA1c may be premature for detecting pre-diabetes in this specific population because of the poor sensitivity with FPG. It might be the case that HbA1c is differentiating the cases more effectively who are at risk of developing diabetes. Following these pre-diabetic individuals for a longer-term for the detection of incident diabetes may lead to more confirmatory result.^

A Human Resource Training Program for Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions

Cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have increased in the twenty-first century; however, the majority of cross-border mergers fail to achieve their financial objectives. Nonetheless, the number of merger failures has not stopped organizations from undertaking mergers. There are multiple sources and types of conflict associated with merger failure, which can all be traced back to the facts that human resource departments have not been utilized effectively and that there has been a lack of planning during the M&A process. Thus, this capstone proposes a training program as a reference for human resource departments to apply best practices for planning, training, and evaluating during the process of M&As, which will help potentially alleviate conflicts during the merger period.

A border-based approach for hiding sensitive frequent itemsets

Sharing data among organizations often leads to mutual benefit. Recent technology in data mining has enabled efficient extraction of knowledge from large databases. This, however, increases risks of disclosing the sensitive knowledge when the database is released to other parties. To address this privacy issue, one may sanitize the original database so that the sensitive knowledge is hidden. The challenge is to minimize the side effect on the quality of the sanitized database so that nonsensitive knowledge can still be mined. In this paper, we study such a problem in the context of hiding sensitive frequent itemsets by judiciously modifying the transactions in the database. To preserve the non-sensitive frequent itemsets, we propose a border-based approach to efficiently evaluate the impact of any modification to the database during the hiding process. The quality of database can be well maintained by greedily selecting the modifications with minimal side effect. Experiments results are also reported to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. © 2005 IEEE

International human resource management

Over the last two decades, international human resource management (IHRM) has evolved into an important field of research, teaching and practice. Until recently the focus of IHRM was on how to best manage human resources (HRs) in the multinational enterprise; however, IHRM has now evolved to incorporate two more perspectives, cross-cultural HRM and comparative HRM. Significant developments are taking place in the corporate world which have serious implications for IHRM. These include globalization, increasing foreign direct investments into emerging markets, growing intensity of cross-border alliances, growth of multinationals from emerging markets (such as China and India), increasing movement of people around the globe and an increasing trend in business process outsourcing to new economies. This emerging global economic scenario is creating immense opportunities for IHRM students and researchers. International Human Resource Management brings together articles which highlight the historical evolution of IHRM, discuss the contemporary issues and make projections for further developments in the field. The articles have been selected and arranged into sections in a way to help the reader better understand the developments in the field from different perspectives.