Location and labor: Critical crossroads in global film and television

I approached the editorial prompt as an opportunity to work through some of the concerns driving my current research on creative labor in emergent or ‘peripheral’ media hubs, centers of production activity outside established media capitals that are nevertheless increasingly integrated into a global production apparatus. It builds from my research on the role that film, television and digital media production have played in the economic and cultural strategies of Glasgow, Scotland, and extends the focus on media work to other locations, including Prague and Budapest. I am particularly drawn to the spatial dynamics at play in these locations and how local producers, writers, directors and crew negotiate a sense of place and creative identity against the flows and counter-flows of capital and culture. This means not only asking questions about the growing ensemble of people, places, firms and policies that make international productions possible, but also studying the more quotidian relationships between media workers and the locations (both near and far) where they now find work. I do not see these tasks as unrelated. On the one hand, such queries underscore how international production depends on a growing constellation of interchangeable parts and is facilitated by various actors whose agendas may or may not converge. On the other hand, these questions also betray an even more complicated dynamic, a process that is shifting the spatial orientation of both location and labor around uneven and contested scales. As local industries reimagine themselves as global players, media practitioners are caught up in a new geography of creative labor: not only are personnel finding it increasingly necessary to hop from place to place to follow the work, but also place itself is changing, as locations morph into nebulous amalgamations of tax rebates, subsidized facilities, production services and (when it still matters) natural beauty.

Perceived quality of e‐health services: A conceptual scale development of e‐health service quality based on the C‐OAR‐SE approach

Purpose Health service quality is an important determinant for health service satisfaction and behavioral intentions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate requirements of e‐health services and to develop a measurement model to analyze the construct of “perceived e‐health service quality.” Design/methodology/approach The paper adapts the C‐OAR‐SE procedure for scale development by Rossiter. The focal aspect is the “physician‐patient relationship” which forms the core dyad in the healthcare service provision. Several in‐depth interviews were conducted in Switzerland; first with six patients (as raters), followed by two experts of the healthcare system (as judges). Based on the results and an extensive literature research, the classification of object and attributes is developed for this model. Findings The construct e‐health service quality can be described as an abstract formative object and is operationalized with 13 items: accessibility, competence, information, usability/user friendliness, security, system integration, trust, individualization, empathy, ethical conduct, degree of performance, reliability, and ability to respond. Research limitations/implications Limitations include the number of interviews with patients and experts as well as critical issues associated with C‐OAR‐SE. More empirical research is needed to confirm the quality indicators of e‐health services. Practical implications Health care providers can utilize the results for the evaluation of their service quality. Practitioners can use the hierarchical structure to measure service quality at different levels. The model provides a diagnostic tool to identify poor and/or excellent performance with regard to the e‐service delivery. Originality/value The paper contributes to knowledge with regard to the measurement of e‐health quality and improves the understanding of how customers evaluate the quality of e‐health services.

Access to essential medicines: Public health and international law

Historically, there have been intense conflicts over the ownership and exploitation of pharmaceutical drugs and diagnostic tests dealing with infectious diseases. Throughout the 1980’s, there was much scientific, legal, and ethical debate about which scientific group should be credited with the discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus, and the invention of the blood test devised to detect antibodies to the virus. In May 1983, Luc Montagnier, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, and other French scientists from the Pasteur Institute in Paris, published a paper in Science, detailing the discovery of a virus called lymphadenopathy (LAV). A scientific rival, Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute, identified the AIDS virus and published his findings in the May 1984 issue of Science. In May 1985, the United States Patent and Trademark Office awarded the American patent for the AIDS blood test to Gallo and the Department of Health and Human Services. In December 1985, the Institut Pasteur sued the Department of Health and Human Services, contending that the French were the first to identify the AIDS virus and to invent the antibody test, and that the American test was dependent upon the French research. In March 1987, an agreement was brokered by President Ronald Reagan and French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, which resulted in the Department of Health and Human Services and the Institut Pasteur sharing the patent rights to the blood test for AIDS. In 1992, the Federal Office of Research Integrity found that Gallo had committed scientific misconduct, by falsely reporting facts in his 1984 scientific paper. A subsequent investigation by the National Institutes of Health, the United States Congress, and the US attorney-general cleared Gallo of any wrongdoing. In 1994, the United States government and French government renegotiated their agreement regarding the AIDS blood test patent, in order to make the distribution of royalties more equitable... The dispute between Luc Montagnier and Robert Gallo was not an isolated case of scientific rivalry and patent races. It foreshadowed further patent conflicts over research in respect of HIV/AIDS. Michael Kirby, former Justice of the High Court of Australia diagnosed a clash between two distinct schools of philosophy - ‘scientists of the old school... working by serendipity with free sharing of knowledge and research’, and ‘those of the new school who saw the hope of progress as lying in huge investments in scientific experimentation.’ Indeed, the patent race between Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier has been a precursor to broader trade disputes over access to essential medicines in the 1990s and 2000s. The dispute between Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier captures in microcosm a number of themes of this book: the fierce competition for intellectual property rights; the clash between sovereign states over access to medicines; the pressing need to defend human rights, particularly the right to health; and the need for new incentives for research and development to combat infectious diseases as both an international and domestic issue.

The rise and fall of Rentboy.com

Earlier this week, the New York Police Department in partnership with Homeland Security arrested seven people and seized a number of documents pertaining to the website Rentboy.com. Although the website purports to help men connect for companionship only, authorities allege that it has been used to “facilitate the promotion, management, establishment, and carrying on of an unlawful activity, namely an enterprise involving prostitution”. Unlike Australia, which started the decriminalisation of sex work as early as 1979, sex work is illegal across all of the USA, save a few counties in Nevada where it is subject to heavy regulation. The raid on Rentboy.com raises important questions about sex work, including its visibility, consumer demand for such services, and the ongoing marginalisation of those who buy and sell sexual services...

Key opportunities for the future of roads to contribute to Australia's climate change response

Road agencies face growing pressure to respond to a range of issues associated with climate change and the reliance on fossil fuels. A key part of this response will be to reduce the dependency on fossil fuel based energy (and the associated greenhouse gas emissions) of transport, both vehicles and infrastructure. This paper presents findings of investigations into three key areas of innovative technologies and processes, namely the inclusion of onsite renewable energy generation technologies as part of road and transport infrastructure, the potential for automated motorways to reduce traffic fuel consumption (referred to as 'Smart Roads'), and the reduction of energy demand from route and signal lighting. The paper then concludes with the recommendation for the engineering profession to embrace sustainability performance assessment and rating tools as the basis for enhancing and communicating the contribution to Australia's response to climate change. Such tools provide a rigorous structure that can standardise approaches to key issues across entire sectors and provide clarity on the evidence required to demonstrate leading performance. The paper has been developed with funding and support provided by Australia's Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre (SBEnrc), working with partners including Main Roads Western Australia, NSW Roads and Maritime Services, Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads, John Holland Group, the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia, Roads Australia, and the CRC for Low Carbon Living.

Submission to Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians

We welcome the opportunity to contribute to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians. We thank the Federal Government for the recognition that the Building the Education Revolution (BER) is not just about physical infrastructure. We are pleased that the Government has responded to calls from the library and information sector for a review focusing on school libraries and teacher librarians. The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) is the peak body representing the library and information services sector. It represents 6000 members, the library and information profession, Australian library and information services, and the interests of over 12 million library users. ALIA is committed to promoting the free flow of information and ideas in the interest of all Australians and a thriving culture, economy and democracy. We support the development of a 21st century information infrastructure with libraries as the conduit for a sustainable knowledge economy. This submission strongly supports the separate submission from the Australian School Library Association (ASLA) with whom ALIA works in partnership on issues concerning school libraries and teacher librarians. Other contributors to this submission include the ALIA Schools Group, the joint ALIA/ASLA Policy Advisory Group, and current practitioners. ALIA and ASLA are looking forward to working with the Federal Government on implementing the Inquiry recommendations.

Will-making prevalence and patterns in Australia: Keeping it in the family

This article provides evidence of the prevalence of wills and the principles underpinning the intended distribution of estates in Australia. Intentions around wealth transfers and the social norms that underpin them occur in the context of predicted extensive intergenerational transfers from the ageing baby boomer generation, policies of self provision and user pays for care in old age, broader views on what constitutes ‘family’, the increased importance of the not-for-profit sector in the delivery of services, and the related need for philanthropy. A national telephone survey conducted in 2012 with 2,405 respondents aged 18 and over shows that wills are predominantly used to distribute assets to partners and/or equally to immediate descendants. There is little evidence that will makers are recognising a wider group of relationships, obligations and entitlements outside the traditional nuclear family, or that wills are being replaced by other mechanisms of wealth transfer. Only a minority consider bequests to charities as important. These findings reflect current social norms about entitlements to ‘family’ money, a narrow view of what and who constitutes ‘family’, limited obligation for testators to recompense individuals or organisations for care and support provided, and limited commitment to charitable organisations and civil society.

What is shared services?

Purpose This chapter discusses the constitution of Shared Services and the value of a consensual agreement of a definition for academe and practice. It explores the operating principles and services, the concepts of internal customer and internal service, and their importance for the practitioner and research communities. Methodology/approach This chapter employed a broad review of the literature to examine Shared Services. The research team used NVivo as a tool to create a database of key articles and books to analyze the key concepts and topics. Findings There is a lack of consensus on the definition of Shared Services in the research and practitioner community. Additionally, the concept of internal customer requires greater exploration and understanding within the context of Shared Services. How Shared Services provides competitive advantage to organizations is also not well understood. Research limitations/implications This discussion provides a challenge to the research community to focus on the contributions of shared services to business management theory. This requires a consensus that is currently nonexistent, to ensure the correct use of the terminology and model. Practical implications By establishing a clearer understanding of what is Shared Services, the academic and the practitioner community, in particular, will gain greater competencies on Shared Services to support change management programs during the implementation phases and minimize implementation costs by lowering organizational and people resistance. The variants in shared services terminology create confusion which is likely to result in ambiguity during implementation and have practical implications on governance, customers and service, benefits realization and performance. Originality/value of chapter This chapter addresses the lack of agreed definition of the term Shared Services and the role of the internal customer and consequent internal service delivery.

Neoliberal austerity and unemployment

Neoliberal fiscal austerity policies decrease public expenditure through cuts to central and local government budgets, welfare services and benefits and privatisation of public resources resulting in job losses. This article interrogates the empirical, theoretical, methodological and ideological relationships between neoliberalism, unemployment and the discipline of psychology, arguing that neoliberalism constitutes rather than causes unemployment...

Analysis of parameter uncertainty and sensitivity in PCPF-1 modeling for predicting concentrations of rice herbicides

This paper demonstrates the procedures for probabilistic assessment of a pesticide fate and transport model, PCPF-1, to elucidate the modeling uncertainty using the Monte Carlo technique. Sensitivity analyses are performed to investigate the influence of herbicide characteristics and related soil properties on model outputs using four popular rice herbicides: mefenacet, pretilachlor, bensulfuron-methyl and imazosulfuron. Uncertainty quantification showed that the simulated concentrations in paddy water varied more than those of paddy soil. This tendency decreased as the simulation proceeded to a later period but remained important for herbicides having either high solubility or a high 1st-order dissolution rate. The sensitivity analysis indicated that PCPF-1 parameters requiring careful determination are primarily those involve with herbicide adsorption (the organic carbon content, the bulk density and the volumetric saturated water content), secondary parameters related with herbicide mass distribution between paddy water and soil (1st-order desorption and dissolution rates) and lastly, those involving herbicide degradations. © Pesticide Science Society of Japan.

Probabilistic assessment of herbicide runoff from Japanese rice paddies: The effects of local meteorological conditions and site-specific water management

Uncertainty assessments of herbicide losses from rice paddies in Japan associated with local meteorological conditions and water management practices were performed using a pesticide fate and transport model, PCPF-1, under the Monte Carlo (MC) simulation scheme. First, MC simulations were conducted for five different cities with a prescribed water management scenario and a 10-year meteorological dataset of each city. The effectiveness of water management was observed regarding the reduction of pesticide runoff. However, a greater potential of pesticide runoff remained in Western Japan. Secondly, an extended analysis was attempted to evaluate the effects of local water management and meteorological conditions between the Chikugo River basin and the Sakura River basin using uncertainty inputs processed from observed water management data. The results showed that because of more severe rainfall events, significant pesticide runoff occurred in the Chikugo River basin even when appropriate irrigation practices were implemented. © Pesticide Science Society of Japan.