Developing synthetic mucosa-mimetic hydrogels to replace animal experimentation in characterisation of mucoadhesive drug delivery systems

Mucosa-mimetic polymeric hydrogels have been developed to replace the use of animal tissues as substrates for characterising mucoadhesive properties of drug delivery systems.

Developing children and young people’s participation in strategic processes: the experience of the Children’s Fund Initiative

The extent of children’s and young people’s participation activities has increased considerably among statutory, voluntary and community sector organisations across the UK in recent years. The Children’s Fund, a major government initiative launched in 2000, represents a systematic drive towards promoting children and young people’s participation in planning, implementing and evaluating preventative services within all 149 local authority areas in England. Based on research carried out by the National Evaluation of the Children’s Fund, this paper explores the experience of Children’s Fund partnerships of engaging children and young people in strategic processes.

Generic unified modelling process for developing semantically rich, dynamic and temporal models

Models play a vital role in supporting a range of activities in numerous domains. We rely on models to support the design, visualisation, analysis and representation of parts of the world around us, and as such significant research effort has been invested into numerous areas of modelling; including support for model semantics, dynamic states and behaviour, temporal data storage and visualisation. Whilst these efforts have increased our capabilities and allowed us to create increasingly powerful software-based models, the process of developing models, supporting tools and /or data structures remains difficult, expensive and error-prone. In this paper we define from literature the key factors in assessing a model’s quality and usefulness: semantic richness, support for dynamic states and object behaviour, temporal data storage and visualisation. We also identify a number of shortcomings in both existing modelling standards and model development processes and propose a unified generic process to guide users through the development of semantically rich, dynamic and temporal models.

Developing a brand performance measure for financial services brands

With no universal approach for measuring brand performance, we show how a consumer-based brand measure was developed for corporate financial services brands. Churchill's paradigm was adopted. A literature review and 20 depth interviews with experts suggested that brand loyalty, consumer satisfaction and reputation constitute the brand performance measure. Ten financial services organisations provided access to their consumers. Following a postal survey, 600 questionnaires were analysed through principal components analysis to identify the consumer-based measure. Further testing revealed this to be a valid and reliable brand performance measure.

Corporate social responsibility in the extractive industries: experiences from developing countries

This paper introduces a special issue on ‘Corporate Social Responsibility in the Extractive Industries: Experiences from Developing Countries’. Drawing upon case study analysis from Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, the papers in this issue broaden understanding of how multinational mining and oil and gas companies have embraced the CSR challenge and responded to criticisms of their performance in developing countries. This paper provides an introduction to the debate on CSR in the extractive industries in developing countries, reviewing the key issues examined on this subject to date.

Winners and losers from industry reforms in the developing world: experiences from the electricity and mining sectors

The reform of previously state-owned and operated industries in many Less Developed Countries (LDCs) provide contrary experiences to those in the developed world, which have generally had more equitable distributional impacts. The economic reform policies proposed by the so-called 'Washington Consensus' state that privatisation provides governments with opportunities to raise revenues through the sale of under-performing and indebted state industries, thereby reducing significant fiscal burdens, and, at the same time, facilitating influxes of foreign capital, skills and technology, with the aim of improving operations and a "trickle-down" of benefits. However, experiences in many LDCs over the last 15-20 years suggest that reform has not solved the problem of chronic public-sector debt, and that poverty and socio-economic inequalities have increased during this period of 'neo-liberal' economics. This paper does not seek to challenge the policies themselves, but rather argues that the context in which reform has often taken place is of fundamental significance. The industry-centric policy advice provided by the IFIs typically causes a 'lock-in' of inequitably distributed 'efficiency gains', providing minimal, if any, benefits to impoverished groups. These arguments are made using case study analysis from the electricity and mining sectors.

Understanding the barriers to real estate investment in developing economies

Baum (2008a) related the number of real estate funds investing in developing economies to simple economic and demographic variables, and showed that, while the popularity of markets was explained by population and GDP per capita, some countries receive more or less investment than the model predicted. Why is this? In this paper we undertake a literature review to identify the barriers which inhibit international real estate investment. We test our initial findings by questioning property investment professionals through semi-structured interviews. By doing this we were able to verify our list of barriers, identify those barriers which are most likely to affect real estate investors, and to indicate whether there are any real estate-specific variables that create barriers which have not received any academic attention. We show that distortions in international capital flows may be explained by a combination of these formal and informal barriers.

Developing “Best Practices” for bankers’ pay in line with Basel III

This paper proposes hybrid capital securities as a significant part of senior bank executive incentive compensation in light of Basel III, a new global regulatory standard on bank capital adequacy and liquidity agreed by the members of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. The committee developed Basel III in a response to the deficiencies in financial regulation brought about by the global financial crisis. Basel III strengthens bank capital requirements and introduces new regulatory requirements on bank liquidity and bank leverage. The hybrid bank capital securities we propose for bank executives’ compensation are preferred shares and subordinated debt that the June 2004 Basel II regulatory framework recognised as other admissible forms of capital. The past two decades have witnessed dramatic increase in performance-related pay in the banking industry. Stakeholders such as shareholders, debtholders and regulators criticise traditional cash and equity-based compensation for encouraging bank executives’ excessive risk taking and short-termism, which has resulted in the failure of risk management in high profile banks during the global financial crisis. Paying compensation in the form of hybrid bank capital securities may align the interests of executives with those of stakeholders and help banks regain their reputation for prudence after years of aggressive risk-taking. Additionally, banks are desperately seeking to raise capital in order to bolster balance sheets damaged by the ongoing credit crisis. Tapping their own senior employees with large incentive compensation packages may be a viable additional source of capital that is politically acceptable in times of large-scale bailouts of the financial sector and economically wise as it aligns the interests of the executives with the need for a stable financial system.

Protecting developing countries' forests: enforcement in theory and practice

This paper relates the key findings of the optimal economic enforcement literature to practical issues of enforcing forest and wildlife management access restrictions in developing countries. Our experiences, particularly from Tanzania and eastern India, provide detail of the key pragmatic issues facing those responsible for protecting natural resources. We identify large gaps in the theoretical literature that limit its ability to inform practical management, including issues of limited funding and cost recovery, multiple tiers of enforcement and the incentives facing enforcement officers, and conflict between protected area managers and rural people's needs.

Self, role and character: developing a professional identity as a drama teacher

The paper reports on research into what may have influenced trainees on four post-graduate teacher training courses in England to become specialist drama teachers rather than pursue careers in the world of professional entertainment. In doing so it raises questions regarding the value of considering teaching as a performing art. The paper goes on to explore how drama trainees regard an understanding of performance, and an ability to both use and demonstrate performance techniques, as integral to their role as subject specialists. The subsequent discussion examines how a drama teacher’s professional identity may be seen as being made up of the three inter-connected elements, self, role and character. Thus, while all teaching may be considered to involve some elements of performativity , this paper suggests that, for the drama specialist, an understanding of what constitutes ‘performance’ has a particular importance. One conclusion drawn from the research is that recognising the place of performance in their practice may result in experienced teachers of drama regarding themselves as artists whose art is teaching drama; another is that recognising the different ways in which adopting a role may involve performance could be of value to all teachers and teacher educators.