Models for engaging public-private partnerships in civil infrastructure projects: A case of ‘having your cake and eating it too’?

Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) are established globally as an important mode of procurement and the features of PPP, not least of which the transfer of risk, appeal to governments and particularly in the current economic climate. There are many other advantages of PPP that are claimed as outweighing the costs of PPP and affording Value for Money (VfM) relative to traditionally financed projects or non-PPP. That said, it is the case that we lack comparative whole-life empirical studies of VfM in PPP and non-PPP. Whilst we await this kind of study, the pace and trajectory of PPP seem set to continue and so in the meantime, the virtues of seeking to improve PPP appear incontrovertible. The decision about which projects, or parts of projects, to offer to the market as a PPP and the decision concerning the allocation or sharing risks as part of engagement of the PPP consortium are among the most fundamental decisions that determine whether PPP deliver VfM. The focus in the paper is on latter decision concerning governments’ attitudes towards risk and more specifically, the effect of this decision on the nature of the emergent PPP consortium, or PPP model, including its economic behavior and outcomes. This paper presents an exploration into the extent to which the seemingly incompatible alternatives of risk allocation and risk sharing, represented by the orthodox/conventional PPP model and the heterodox/alliance PPP model respectively, can be reconciled along with suggestions for new research directions to inform this reconciliation. In so doing, an important step is taken towards charting a path by which governments can harness the relative strengths of both kinds of PPP model.

Economic analyses of options for weedy Sporobolus grass management

Weedy Sporobolus grasses have low palatability for livestock, with infestations reducing land condition and pastoral productivity. Control and containment options are available, but the cost of weed control is high relative to the extra return from livestock, thus, limiting private investment. This paper outlines a process for analysing the economic consequences of alternative management options for weedy Sporobolus grasses. This process is applicable to other weeds and other pastoral degradation or development issues. Using a case study property, three scenarios were developed. Each scenario compared two alternative management options and was analysed using discounted cash flow analysis. Two of the scenarios were based on infested properties and one scenario was based on a currently uninfested property but highly likely to become infested without active containment measures preventing weed seed transport and seedling establishment. The analysis highlighted why particular weedy Sporobolus grass management options may not be financially feasible for the landholder with the infestation. However, at the regional scale, the management options may be highly worthwhile due to a reduction in weed seed movement and new weed invasions. Therefore, to encourage investment by landholders in weedy Sporobolus grass management the investment of public money on behalf of landholders with non-infested properties should be considered.

Vääränikäisiä äitejä? : Ikä ja äitiyden yhteiskunnalliset ehdot

This dissertation reports on research on the contradictions between “right-aged” motherhood accordant with normative life-course and the motherhood of a woman who lives her life according to her own choices and options. The focus of this study is to analyse and interpret the motherhood of women who have become mothers for the first time both at a very young age (under 20) and at an older age (in their 40s), from the viewpoint of life-course, age and social class. The study discusses motherhood both as an experience and as a socially-constructed phenomenon. Research questions are the following: How do mothers at different ages talk about pregnancy and motherhood as a part of their life-course? What meanings do mothers at different ages give to age, growing up and adulthood? How is social class constructed in the speech of different-aged mothers? This dissertation includes five articles and a summary chapter. The theoretical starting points for the study are Finnish critical family studies, Finnish feminist social policy studies and Anglo-American feminist motherhood studies. Additionally, this study draws on sociological age studies and new sociological social class studies. The methodological approach is discursive-materialistic. This approach recognises issues related to language, cultural representation and subjectivity, but it also aims to locate them in their social and historical context. The data is drawn from twenty-four interviews of different-aged mothers and articles collected from popular magazines on babies and parenting. In the interview data, different issues related to motherhood are constructed due not only to the women’s age, but also their social background. Social class becomes visible in the relationship between the interviewed women and nuclear family, expert knowledge or money and livelihood. In this study, social class and age are intertwined. It is almost impossible to analytically distinguish which of the mothers’ experiences are related to class and which are related to age. In this study, young motherhood is shown as quite positive. Even though the interviewed young women did not usually plan to have a child, it was not a great shock either. In the young mothers’ speech, motherhood appears as a natural part of the life-course and growing up. The conditions young mothers suggested as necessary to good motherhood do not depend on standard of living, education or social background. A young age is seen as a resource, not as an obstacle to good motherhood. Postponing one’s motherhood is associated with materialism and a career-oriented lifestyle. The older mothers in this study rarely reported having postponed their motherhood on purpose. Some of them explained the delay with extended studies or financial insecurity caused by part-time unemployment. Others recounted they had been insecure about their abilities to cope with a child or lacked a suitable partner. Some of them may have wanted a child much earlier in life, given the right circumstances. In the older mothers’ speech, motherhood is strongly associated with adult life, permanent employment and a (heterosexual) nuclear family.

Nuorten kokema yksinäisyys ja sen yhteys tulevaisuusorientaatioon

The aim of this study was to examine 1) how much and how adolescents experience loneliness, 2) how they orientate to the future, 3) are loneliness experiences and future attitudes associated with self-esteem and 4) are loneliness experiences associated with future orientation. The data (n=172) was collected in September 2003 and it consisted of 9th grade students living in countryside and city. The research was quantitative questionnaire study and it was statistically analysed. So far the problem of loneliness has not been noticed enough. People experience loneliness when there is discrepancy between actual and desired levels of interpersonal contact. In adolescence loneliness is quite common because young people go through the crises of human relationships and identity. In adolescence the meaning of friends and fellows increases and the relationship with parents changes. Future orientation becomes meaningful in adolescence because young people have to make realistic choices concerning their future life. In this study almost every adolescent had someone to be with and talk to. However 19% of adolescents experienced loneliness. Lonely adolescents experienced lack of friendships and fellowships. Lonely adolescents also felt that they left outside of others and that they were alone. Boys experienced more often lack of friendships and fellowships than girls. Girls experienced that they left more often outside and that they were more often alone than boys. Adolescents living in city experienced a little more loneliness experiences than adolescents living in countryside. Lonely adolescents had also difficulties to make social relationships and they experienced loneliness also related with parents. Lonely adolescents had also weak self-esteem. Adolescents orientated to the future mainly positively. The most important future target was health and the least important target was the universal peace and problems solving of the world. Adolescents believed that they affect to their future mainly by themselves and they planed their future about 5-10 years ahead. For adolescents it was important to have education and work to the future. In the future it was also important to have a lifelong companion and own family. For most of the young people it was also important to keep up social relationships and realize him/herself. Adolescents thought high standard of living and money also quite important things in the future. Girls preferred different future targets more important than boys. For the boys only money and high standard of living were more important than for girls. 18% of adolescents had pessimistic attitude to the future. For pessimistic adolescents many future targets were less important than for the adolescents having affirmative or optimistic attitude for the future. Adolescents who had pessimistic attitude to the future had also weak self-esteem. For the lonely adolescents it was not so important 1) to keep up social relationships and realize themselves in the future. Lonely adolescents did not prefer 2) lifelong companion and own family as important as other young people. Also 3) others acceptance and appreciation were not so important for lonely adolescents. 4) Travelling was also more insignificant for lonely than for others. Lonely adolescents future attitudes were quite pessimistic. Parent related loneliness explained future targets insignificance and pessimistic attitude for the future the most. The experience of loneliness seems to be associated with future orientation in many cases. That s why it is important to pay attention to adolescents loneliness experiences. Loneliness is real and serious problem which threats health. Thus we need to examine further loneliness in adolescence and as a result of that it is possible to develop and use interventions to help lonely adolescents to orientate positively to their future.

100 Years of U.S. Consumer Spending: Data for the Nation, New York City, and Boston

[From Preface] The Consumer Expenditure Survey is among the oldest publications of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. With information on the expenditures, incomes, and demographic characteristics of households, the survey documents the spending patterns and economic status of American families. This report offers a new approach to the use of Consumer Expenditure Survey data. Normally, the survey presents an indepth look at American households at a specific point in time, the reference period being a calendar year. Here, the authors use consumer expenditure data longitudinally and draw on information from decennial census reports to present a 100-year history of significant changes in consumer spending, economic status, and family demographics in the country as a whole, as well as in New York City and Boston.

The value of having no wild rabbits in south-east Queensland

Rabbits released in Australia in 1859 spread to most areas of suitable habitat by 1910 causing great damage to the environment and primary industries. Measurement of damage is essential to justify spending money and utilising resources to remove rabbits. Damage to pasture and biodiversity may be irreversible and therefore difficult to measure without comparison with an area that has never suffered such damage. A rabbit proof fence completed in 1906 protected a large part of south east Queensland from rabbits. The Darling Downs Moreton Rabbit Board (DDMRB) continues to maintain the fence and keep the area relatively free of rabbits. This area is unique because it is highly suitable for rabbits and yet it has never ‘experienced’ the damage caused by plagues of uncontrolled rabbits. A study site was established where the DDMRB fence separates an area heavily used by rabbits (‘dirty side’) from an area that has never been infested by rabbits (‘clean side’). The number and location of all rabbit warrens and log piles were recorded. The absence of warrens from the ‘clean side’ shows clearly that the rabbit proof fence has prevented rabbits from establishing warren systems. The ‘dirty side’ is characterised by a high number of warrens, a high density of rabbits, fewer pasture species and low macropod activity. Future work will determine whether the rabbit populations are viable in the absence of rabbit warrens. We plan to radio collar rabbits on both sides of the fence to measure their survival rate. In selected warrens and log piles of varying degrees of complexity and size, rabbits will be trapped and information on reproduction and age structure will be collected. This will allow better targeting of the source of rabbits during control operations. Once the initial comparative analysis of the site has been completed, all rabbit warrens will be destroyed on the dirty side of the fence. After rabbits are removed from this area, monitoring will continue to determine if pasture and biodiversity on opposite sides of the fence begin to mirror each other.

Global banana disease management - getting serious with sustainability and food security

Much research in understanding plant diseases has been undertaken, but there has been insufficient attention given to dealing with coordinated approaches to preventing and managing diseases. A global management approach is essential to the long-term sustainability of banana production. This approach would involve coordinated surveys, capacity building in developing countries, development of disease outbreak contingency plans and coordinated quarantine awareness, including on-line training in impact risk assessment and web-based diagnostic software. Free movement of banana plants and products between some banana-producing countries is causing significant pressure on the ability to manage diseases in banana. The rapid spread of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense 'tropical race 4' in Asia, bacterial wilts in Africa and Asia and black leaf streak [Mycosphaerella fijiensis] in Brazil and elsewhere are cases in point. The impact of these diseases is devastating, severely cutting family incomes and jeopardising food security around the globe. Agreements urgently need to be reached between governments to halt the movement of banana plants and products between banana-producing countries before it is too late and global food security is irreparably harmed. Black leaf streak, arguably the most serious banana disease, has become extremely difficult to control in commercial plantations in various parts of the world. Sometimes in excess of 50 fungicide sprays have to be applied each year. Disease eradication and effective disease control is not possible because there is no control of disease inoculum in non-commercial plantings in these locations. Additionally, there have been enormous sums of money invested in international banana breeding programmes over many years only to see the value of hybrid products lost too soon. 'Goldfinger' (AAAB, syn. 'FHIA-01'), for example, has recently been observed severely affected by black leaf streak in Samoa. Resistant cultivars alone cannot be relied upon in the fight against this disease. Real progress in control may only come when the local communities are engaged and become actively involved in regional programmes. Global recommendations are long overdue and urgently needed to help ensure the long-term sustainable utilisation of the products of the breeding programmes.

Of old and new. Messages conveyed by Australian Universities

On arriving at the University of Queensland, I walked from where the taxi dropped me off towards the Great Court. As I walked I could see the carvings in the sandstone on the façade of the building in front of me. The carvings depict images of land, flora, fauna, settlers, and us. In the corner of my right sight of vision, I could see Mayne Hall. My mind flicked back in what was an instant to a time 30 plus years ago. I remember putting on some of my best clothes when my family would travel form the suburb of Inala to the Alumni book fair held in the Hall. We needed to act ‘discrete’ and like we were ‘meant to be there’. Members of my family would work hard to save money to buy the books that had far more substance than the books at our local community or school library. This was my first interaction with the University of Queensland. On the first day of Courting Blakness, I walked towards and then into the Great Court. I began to explore and engage with the artworks and allow them to engage with me. I was conscious of being in the University of Queensland as I had been on all my past visits. I was conscious of the public and the private aspects of the artworks along with the public observance and surveillance of the viewers of the artworks. The contradictions and struggles that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience are everywhere when moving in spaces and places, including universities. They contain prevailing social, political and economic values in the same way that other places do. The symbols of place and space within universities are never neutral, and they can work to either marginalise and oppress Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, or demonstrate that they are included and engaged. The artworks in the Great Court were involved in this matrix of mixed messages and the weaves of time contained the borders of the Court and within the minds of those present.

Lilly Baum seated at a table outdoors reading a newspaper Portraits Women

Digital Image

Dasatinib, nilotinib and standard-dose imatinib for the first line treatment of chronic myeloid leukaemia: Systematic reviews and economic analyses

- Background Nilotinib and dasatinib are now being considered as alternative treatments to imatinib as a first-line treatment of chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML). - Objective This technology assessment reviews the available evidence for the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of dasatinib, nilotinib and standard-dose imatinib for the first-line treatment of Philadelphia chromosome-positive CML. - Data sources Databases [including MEDLINE (Ovid), EMBASE, Current Controlled Trials, ClinicalTrials.gov, the US Food and Drug Administration website and the European Medicines Agency website] were searched from search end date of the last technology appraisal report on this topic in October 2002 to September 2011. - Review methods A systematic review of clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness studies; a review of surrogate relationships with survival; a review and critique of manufacturer submissions; and a model-based economic analysis. - Results Two clinical trials (dasatinib vs imatinib and nilotinib vs imatinib) were included in the effectiveness review. Survival was not significantly different for dasatinib or nilotinib compared with imatinib with the 24-month follow-up data available. The rates of complete cytogenetic response (CCyR) and major molecular response (MMR) were higher for patients receiving dasatinib than for those with imatinib for 12 months' follow-up (CCyR 83% vs 72%, p < 0.001; MMR 46% vs 28%, p < 0.0001). The rates of CCyR and MMR were higher for patients receiving nilotinib than for those receiving imatinib for 12 months' follow-up (CCyR 80% vs 65%, p < 0.001; MMR 44% vs 22%, p < 0.0001). An indirect comparison analysis showed no difference between dasatinib and nilotinib for CCyR or MMR rates for 12 months' follow-up (CCyR, odds ratio 1.09, 95% CI 0.61 to 1.92; MMR, odds ratio 1.28, 95% CI 0.77 to 2.16). There is observational association evidence from imatinib studies supporting the use of CCyR and MMR at 12 months as surrogates for overall all-cause survival and progression-free survival in patients with CML in chronic phase. In the cost-effectiveness modelling scenario, analyses were provided to reflect the extensive structural uncertainty and different approaches to estimating OS. First-line dasatinib is predicted to provide very poor value for money compared with first-line imatinib, with deterministic incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) of between £256,000 and £450,000 per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY). Conversely, first-line nilotinib provided favourable ICERs at the willingness-to-pay threshold of £20,000-30,000 per QALY. - Limitations Immaturity of empirical trial data relative to life expectancy, forcing either reliance on surrogate relationships or cumulative survival/treatment duration assumptions. - Conclusions From the two trials available, dasatinib and nilotinib have a statistically significant advantage compared with imatinib as measured by MMR or CCyR. Taking into account the treatment pathways for patients with CML, i.e. assuming the use of second-line nilotinib, first-line nilotinib appears to be more cost-effective than first-line imatinib. Dasatinib was not cost-effective if decision thresholds of £20,000 per QALY or £30,000 per QALY were used, compared with imatinib and nilotinib. Uncertainty in the cost-effectiveness analysis would be substantially reduced with better and more UK-specific data on the incidence and cost of stem cell transplantation in patients with chronic CML. - Funding The Health Technology Assessment Programme of the National Institute for Health Research.

The Banknotes of Israel

3 banknotes of Israel. 50, 100, and 500 Sheqalim. 50 Sheqalim: Obverse: Portrait of David Ben-Gurion. Reverse: Golden Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem. This bill is predominantly creme, grey and brown coloured. 100 Sheqalim: Obverse: Portrait of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, background- "Shuni" inn near Binyamina. Reverse: Herod's Gate in Jerusalem. The main colouring of the bill is orange-brown. 500 Sheqalim: Obverse: Portrait of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, background-vineyard workers. Reverse: Wine shrub, and in Hebrew alphabetical order, the names of the 44 settlements the Baron founded or helped to found. The colouring is red.

Board of Delegates of American Israelites records 1859-1881, 1887, 1932

Contains printed copies of the 1860 constitution and by-laws, copies of proceedings and annual reports, 1859-1877, of the Board of Delegates; report on Jews in Roumania, an 1874 annual report of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society, manuscript minute books and minutes of meetings, 1859-1876, resolutions, executive, financial, ritual slaughtering and other special committee reports, newspaper clippings and correspondence with synagogues and organizations in the U.S. who constitute the membership of the Board of Delegates, with the Union of American Hebrew Congregations with whom they later merged, the Union's Board of Delegates of Civil and Religious Rights, and with individuals and organizations in foreign countries including the Alliance Israelite Universelle, the Anglo-Jewish Association, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Committee for the Roumanian Jews (Berlin), the Koenigsberg Committee, and the London Roumanian Committee.

North American Jewish Students Appeal records, undated, 1962, 1964-1996 (bulk 1971-1995)

The records of the North American Jewish Students Appeal (NAJSA or APPEAL) contains documents on two levels of concern: those documents dealing with the NAJSA as a student-run organization promoting Jewish identity among college-aged youth; and those documents dealing with the APPEAL as a fundraising organization for several well-known student constituent organizations. The Constituents were: the Jewish Student Press Service, Lights in Action, the North American Jewish Students Network, the Progressive Zionist Caucus, Response: A Contemporary Jewish Review, Yavneh Religious Students Organization, and Yugntruf Youth for Yiddish. Documents include correspondence, financial records, minutes, press releases, information on grants awarded to student organizations for programming and publishing, student journals, and newspapers, photographs, and ephemera.

Judah P. Benjamin collection, undated, 1838-1942.

The collection consists of 25 letters written by Benjamin between 1838 and 1881 on a variety of subjects, four Confederate notes and two bonds bearing his picture, miscellaneous items about Benjamin (1893-1942), nine issues of the Congressional globe with speeches by Benjamin, as well as separate copies of his printed speeches, and a photostatic copy of the "Diary of Events" (400 pp.) kept by Benjamin, the original of which is in the Library of Congress (1862-1864).

Franks family papers, 1711-1821, [1965-1968].

Contains business correspondence, accounts and documents relating to Jacob Franks of New York, his two sons, Moses and David, a nephew, Isaac, and a John Franks of Halifax, possibly a member of the family.