Optimal management of agricultural systems

To remain competitive, many agricultural systems are now being run along business lines. Systems methodologies are being incorporated, and here evolutionary computation is a valuable tool for identifying more profitable or sustainable solutions. However, agricultural models typically pose some of the more challenging problems for optimisation. This chapter outlines these problems, and then presents a series of three case studies demonstrating how they can be overcome in practice. Firstly, increasingly complex models of Australian livestock enterprises show that evolutionary computation is the only viable optimisation method for these large and difficult problems. On-going research is taking a notably efficient and robust variant, differential evolution, out into real-world systems. Next, models of cropping systems in Australia demonstrate the challenge of dealing with competing objectives, namely maximising farm profit whilst minimising resource degradation. Pareto methods are used to illustrate this trade-off, and these results have proved to be most useful for farm managers in this industry. Finally, land-use planning in the Netherlands demonstrates the size and spatial complexity of real-world problems. Here, GIS-based optimisation techniques are integrated with Pareto methods, producing better solutions which were acceptable to the competing organizations. These three studies all show that evolutionary computation remains the only feasible method for the optimisation of large, complex agricultural problems. An extra benefit is that the resultant population of candidate solutions illustrates trade-offs, and this leads to more informed discussions and better education of the industry decision-makers.

Copyright law and mash-ups: A policy paper

This report provides an analysis of the cultural, policy and legal implications of ‘mash-ups’. This study provides a short history of mash-ups, explaining how the current ‘remix culture’ builds upon a range of creative antecedents and cultural traditions, which valorised appropriation, quotation, and transformation. It provides modern examples of mash-ups, such as sound recordings, musical works, film and artistic works, focusing on works seen on You Tube and other online applications. In particular, it considers - * Literary mash-ups of canonical texts, including Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, The Wind Done Gone, After the Rain, and 60 Years Later; * Artistic mash-ups, highlighting the Obama Hope poster, the ‘Column’ case, and the competition for extending famous album covers; * Geographical mash-ups, most notably, the Google Australia bushfires map; * Musical mash-ups, such as The Grey Album and the work of Girl Talk; * Cinematic mash-ups, including remixes of There Will Be Blood and The Downfall; and This survey provides an analysis of why mash-up culture is valuable. It highlights the range of aesthetic, political, comic, and commercial impulses behind the creation and the dissemination of mash-ups. This report highlights the tensions between copyright law and mash-ups in particular cultural sectors. Second, this report emphasizes the importance of civil society institutions in promoting and defending mash-ups in both copyright litigation and policy debates. It provides a study of key organisations – including: * The Fair Use Project; * The Organization for Transformative Works; * Public Knowledge; * The Electronic Frontier Foundation; and * The Chilling Effects Clearinghouse This report suggests that much can be learnt from this network of organisations in the United States. There is a dearth of comparable legal clinics, advocacy groups, and creative institutions in Australia. As a result, the public interest values of copyright law have only received weak, incidental support from defendant companies – such as Network Ten and IceTV – with other copyright agendas. Third, this report canvasses a succinct model for legislative reform in respect of copyright law and mash-ups. It highlights: * The extent to which mash-ups are ‘tolerated uses’; * The conflicting judicial precedents on substantiality in Australia and the United States; * The debate over copyright exceptions relating to mash-ups and remixes; * The use of the take-down and notice system under the safe harbours regime by copyright owners in respect of mash-ups; * The impact of technological protection measures on mash-ups and remixes; * The possibility of statutory licensing in respect of mash-ups; * The use of Creative Commons licences; * The impact of moral rights protection upon mash-ups; * The interaction between economic and moral rights under copyright law; and * Questions of copyright law, freedom of expression, and political mash-ups.

Policy and Practice Brief: Representative Payment

This brief provides an overview of the Representative Payee program administered by Social Security. Discussed are the many provisions of the programs as well as practice tips and implications for BPA&O and PABSS personnel.

U.S. Asylum Policy and the New World Order

"In the new world order, differences in political ideology have given way to differences in economic conditions between nation states as the prompting force for the outflow of would-be refugees and asylum seekers. In part, these pressures are associated with the political disintegration of the poorer republics of the former Soviet Union and its former satellite nations into ethnic enclaves. But the most endemic of the new contributory pressures are emanating from North-South economic differences between the "have" and "have-not" nations."

Adoption of environmental assurance in pastoral industry supply chains - Market failure and beyond

This paper describes adoption rates of environmental assurance within meat and wool supply chains, and discusses this in terms of market interest and demand for certified 'environmentally friendly' products, based on phone surveys and personal interviews with pastoral producers, meat and wool processors, wholesalers and retailers, and domestic consumers. Members of meat and wool supply chains, particularly pastoral producers, are both aware of and interested in implementing various forms of environmental assurance, but significant costs combined with few private benefits have resulted in low adoption rates. The main reason for the lack of benefits is that the end user (the consumer) does not value environmental assurance and is not willing to pay for it. For this reason, global food and fibre supply chains, which compete to supply consumers with safe and quality food at the lowest price, resist public pressure to implement environmental assurance. This market failure is further exacerbated by highly variable environmental and social production standards required of primary producers in different countries, and the disparate levels of government support provided to them. Given that it is the Australian general public and not markets that demand environmental benefits from agriculture, the Australian government has a mandate to use public funds to counter this market failure. A national farm environmental policy should utilise a range of financial incentives to reward farmers for delivering general public good environmental outcomes, with these specified and verified through a national environmental assurance scheme.