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The article presents information on European Control Conferences that took place during 1991-2001. First European Control Conference was held in Grenoble, France in July 1991. Noteworthy is a high percentage of screened papers, which seems to be due to the fact that this was the first conference and a substantial part of papers were preplanned to some extent because they were presented at the 28 so-called invited sessions. The Seventh European Control Conference took place in Cambridge, Great Britain on September 14, 2003. The European Union recently pays much attention to increasing the standing of the European researchers in the international science and engineering. This was the main goal of organizing in 1990 the European Union Control Association.

Comments on a paper about the relevant lessons from the U.S. Federal Convention of 1787 in the context of the role of institutions in political economy and the performance of economies. Reasons for studying institutions; Path of historical change in terms of the way in which institutions evolved through time; Similarity of the sequential pattern of institutional evolution with the way in which the evolution of common law is perceived.

Determines the topics covered in the 2002 Annual Meeting papers of the Royal Netherlands Economic Association. Correlation between housing prices and household savings; Accounts on the macroeconomic perspective of pension savings; Role of wealth in the economy.

This article focuses on careers in journalism. A staff position as a science journalist is as rare as it is coveted. In fact, many more opportunities exist for public information officers or freelance writers. Whatever the position, the ability to communicate is the common denominator. People who write about science for a living fall into two broad categories. There's science journalism and science writing, and those are two different things, says Deb Blum, president of the U.S. National Association of Science Writers (NASW), which promotes both roles. Blum says that journalism is undergoing a revival that reflects an upturn in U.S. advertising dollars.

Presents a call for papers for the 27th NATO/CCMS International Technical Meeting on Air Pollution Modelling and Its Application on October 25-29, 2004 in Canada.

The article reports on the study conducted by Curtis Marean, an archeologist at the Arizona State University, regarding modern man's earliest seafood diet in Tempe, Arizona. Result shows that modern individuals integrated shellfish into their diets and it is proven on the evidences gathered by Marean and his team. Marean conducted his research on the caves of early modern humans in South Africa and they found mollusc in sediments on the cave floor that was dated around 164,000 years ago. Such findings made him conclude that shellfish consumption already exist thousands of years ago.

This article is a report on the status of minorities and women in sociology. In 1971, at the request of the American Sociological Council, participation by women and blacks in sociology was first assessed. That report affords a base for adding more data to assess the changes, if any, in the degree of participation by minority and women sociologists in the opportunity structure of the discipline. The concern with minorities in enlarged this year to include data on Asian Americans, Chicanos, American Indians, and Puerto Ricans, as well as with black sociologists. Along with women, these groups represent the focus of attention of two active committees formed by the ASA Council: the Committee on the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession, and the Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession. The level of response, along with problems of definition, involving comparability of categories, indicates that this report may best serve as a working paper suggesting questions for more refined research. Hopefully, also, it will stimulate cooperation between the ASA and all departments of sociology to develop more reliable and valid accounting procedures so that better data on minorities and women may be routinely collected in the future. This hope is based on the assumption that facts about the number of minorities and women in sociology will promote their participation and enhance the quality of the entire sociological enterprise.

The present article is by way of a report of a grant by the Russel Sage Foundation-not exactly an evaluation report, since the authors involvement in the event would make them suspect as judges, but rather a personal report of what occurred and the meaning that can, or should, be attached thereto. The Public Relations Committee appealed for cooperation from paper-readers, asking them in advance whether they would want a press interview in Miami. The paper by Robert Parke, Jr. and Paul Click, discussing the "marriage squeeze" resulting from the post-war baby boom, led all others in amount of space given to it. The American Sociological Association (ASA) therefore, both in its administration and in its membership, should have little concern for improving the "image" of sociology in the public eye, but it should have great concern for increasing the level of sociological information among persons outside, as well as within, colleges and universities. The fact is, however, the ASA structure has no device for handling communication with the public in more than fortuitous ways. As long as "press coverage" at conventions begins only a few weeks before the event and ends promptly at the last session, it is doubtful that success in this realm can ever be more than smooth public relations.

The structure and methods to complete and derive a quality score from the European Network of Health Economic Evaluation Databases (EURONHEED) transferability information checklists for published economic evaluations were reported and discussed in a previous paper (Boulenger et al. in Eur J Health Econ 6, 334–346, 2005). Within the same paper, the use of the checklists was illustrated through their application to a sample of economic evaluations conducted in France and UK. The transferability information subchecklist, consisting of 16 items from the original 42-point checklist, and methods used to derive it, were validated among 16 health economists across Europe participating in the EURONHEED project. Recent correspondence with other researchers, however, indicates that the checklists are now being utilised in empirical work and the methodology of assessing transferability and generalisability. This supplementary paper provides full details of the guidelines that have been developed and recently updated by the authors, such that the overall and subchecklists can be more widely and consistently completed and utilised. We also briefly discuss associated issues such as weighting of items in the checklists and give further clarifications regarding what we consider the most appropriate applications of the checklists to be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's experiences as the editor-in-chief of the journal "Economic Botany" and provides brief information about the operational settings in the publication of this journal. During the last year's meetings of the Society for Economic Botany, the owner of this journal, held in Canterbury, Connecticut, the author was asked to head the journal's editorial board. He appraises the intellects of several of his colleagues, botanists and their contributions. During the conference, the journal's shape, size and scope were decided. Discussions were conducted to design the journal more analytic, more scientific and less descriptive. The author is planning to ask the Society's Council at the next annual meeting to mandate that all manuscripts must be submitted electronically and that manuscripts submitted in paper form will be automatically rejected. He guarantee that each submitted manuscripts will be react carefully. The author's future goal is to enhance the journal as a lively, compelling and quoted journal.

Until recently, most studies investigating the determinants of growth failed to incorporate the importance of institutions into the empirical analysis. This paper highlights the importance of institutions on growth and development and evaluates the empirical results on the effect of institutions on growth and investment. It provides ample evidence that the institutional environment in which an economic activity takes place is an important determinant of economic growth. This paper uses alternative measures of institutional quality to capture the role of institutions in explaining growth differences across countries. When these institutional variables are incorporated into the core regression equations as additional explanatory variables in two different sample periods, both samples yield similar results. The empirical results reveal that countries with high levels of economic growth are characterized by high levels of economic freedom and judicial efficiency, low levels of corruption, effective bureaucracy, and protected private property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper outlines the history of the European Fibres Group (EFG) and includes its aims and achievements from the time of its formation in 1993 to the present day. The main emphasis is on the subject of "the evidential value of fibres", how the EFG have provided the data and where to locate it. Additionally the paper provides a look into what the group has accomplished in the recognition of the "lack of data" and the research being conducted to correct this problem. Finally it outlines other projects that are underway to improve its members' knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the role of the International Gastric Cancer Association (IGCA) in providing opportunities for worldwide specialists to meet and discuss the disease. Potential of the "Gastric Cancer" journal to become a forum for global discussion as the only international journal specialized in this malignancy; International Agency for Research on Cancer's estimate of the worldwide incidence of gastric cancer in 2002.

Provides information on the 2003 Applied Voice Input/Output Society (AVIOS) Speech Developers Conference & SpeechTEK Spring EXPO, held in San Jose, California from March 31 to April 3, 2003. Background on AVIOS; Connection of the "International Journal of Speech Technology," with AVIOS conference; Awards given to research papers on speech technology.

Anecdotal evidence indicates universities around the world fashion programs to permit or encourage university-linked start ups, in pursuit of improved regional wealth and job creation, often influenced by the iconic vision of Silicon Valley. This paper explores whether these programs are leading to a pattern of similar startups across the world, and gradually improving performance, or to ongoing variation in activities and outcomes, with potential for both harmful and serendipitous unintended outcomes. We use a theoretical lens of research on multiple organizations trying to learn from others-or repeated vicarious organizational learning. The paper first suggests that while startup programs share similar goals they do not generate similar startups across regions and time, with important variation in structure, links to home schools, and localization. It then posits that these programs appear to have varied outcomes in terms of their economic goals, and stresses the difficulty and importance of evaluating this issue. Finally, the paper details important potential unintended (collateral) outcomes, both harmful and valued. Dangers noted include not only traditional concerns with science norms or faculty time, but also the potential impact on humanities and the social sciences. Potential collateral benefits include facilitating the ability of students and citizens to create new forms of value more broadly. Theoretically, the paper speculates that ongoing vicarious learning by multiple organizations in this context may increase or at least sustain variation in outcomes, leading to some excellent but many indeterminate or harmful outcomes rather than homogenization among startups or outcomes. From a policy viewpoint, our review suggests that policymakers should abandon the search for a 'secret sauce' that will assure regional growth from startups. Instead, we suggest that they tailor programs to local skills and experience, actively monitor economic and non-economic impact, and expand the overall vision to include values and skills of autonomy and the creation of new forms of value more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the case where political advertising is targeted to a subset of uninformed voters and show how pressure groups, candidates, and uninformed voters interact to achieve an equilibrium outcome. The paper accomplishes the following: (1) It derives the optimal behavior of those uninformed voters who do not received targeted campaign advertising. (2) It suggests that previous results may have exaggerated the power of pressure groups and political advertising—even when there is directed advertising, any negative effect is mitigated by strategic behavior of the uninformed. (3) In the limit, pressure group donations move the outcome toward the median voter, contrary to what much of the literature on pressure groups claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on a paper by Serge-Christophe Kolm about the optimal production of social justice. The paper appeared in the Proceedings of a 1965 Round Table Conference that was hosted by the International Economic Association in Biarritz, France. Basically, Kolm's article focused on unjust inequalities and concepts like the equally distributed equivalent income and cost of inequality concepts.

This study adds to the collegiate substance use literature by measuring the magnitude of peer effects upon individual cigarette use. The study employs data from the 2001 Harvard School of Health College Alcohol Survey to construct this peer effect measure and to study the effect of other variables upon a university student’s decision to smoke. The main finding of this paper is that moving a student from a university where no students smoke to an institution where 25 percent of the population smokes increases that student’s probability of smoking by 10.71 percent. The results of this paper suggest the potential for universities to institute student-led, anti-smoking organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an alternative to deontological and utilitarian approaches to making ethical decisions and taking good actions by organisational leaders. It argues that the relational and context-dependent nature of leadership necessitates reference to an ethical approach which explicitly takes these aspects into account. Such an approach is offered in the re-conceptualisation of ethical action on the part of leaders as a process of "coming into right relation" vis-à-vis those affected by their decisions and actions. Heidegger's notion of "dwelling" is explored as a means of "coming into right relation". Three aspects of dwelling: "staying with", "comportment" and "active engagement" are described and ways in which they might be practically enacted by leaders are suggested. The paper concludes by reflecting on the ways adopting a "dwelling" approach to resolving ethical issues implies a re-conceptualisation of leadership itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Spine Tango registry is now accessible via the SSE webpage under www.eurospine.org – Spine Tango. Links to the Swiss/International, German and Austrian modules are provided as well as information about the philosophy, methodology and content. Following the links, the users are taken to the respective national modules for registration or log-in and data entry. The Swiss/International module, also accessible under www.spinetango.com, is used by all Swiss and international users, who do not have a separate national module. The physician administered forms for surgery, staged surgery and follow-up can be downloaded as PDFs.The officially recommended Spine Tango patient forms are also available. All forms were implemented in an online version and as scannable optical mark reader forms which can be ordered from the corresponding author. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Typologies of government–voluntary sector relations mostly categorize nation-level situations, and omit consideration of intra-national differences. They are also rarely subject to empirical testing and subsequent theoretical development. This paper reports on research to apply Kuhnle and Selle's (2002) relational typology, which characterizes the experience of “Britain,” to a study of Scottish and English voluntary organizations' relations with government. Contrary to Kuhnle and Selle, the paper demonstrates — through survey data — a divergence between Scotland and England, within the “British” context, and advances the case for further testing of such conceptual typologies. The methodological challenges in moving from a theoretical framework to a research design capable of field application, using survey methods, are illustrated and discussed. Further directions for theoretically led work are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents meetings and conferences sponsored by The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS) for 2005. 2005 TMS Annual Meeting; 2005 Electronic Materials Conference; Solid-Solid Phase Transformations in Inorganic Materials 2005.

Despite several attempts, the prolific writings of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz have not yet been brought together in a single edition. Efforts have been hampered by the sheer volume and diversity of the Leibniz estate, and also by changing political circumstances. This paper traces the history of the Leibniz edition as a long-term project of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie and its predecessors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The French nonprofit sector has been in existence since July 1, 1901 when the legal form of associations was created. Since then, as a consequence of legal, fiscal, and cultural restrictions, it has developed characteristics that are markedly different to those of other nonprofit sectors. This paper focuses on one such characteristic that makes the French nonprofit sector virtually unique, that is the restrictions imposed on social entrepreneurism. It was not until July 17, 2001 that a new organizational form called Sociétés Coopératives d'Intérêt Collectif (SCIC) was created specifically to address this anomaly. This paper discusses the context within which this organizational form was created, and the potential advantages that it offers in respect to facilitating the development of social enterprises. The paper also explains why a specific organizational form was required and why it was placed outside the nonprofit sector. It concludes by identifying potential problems concerning organizational effectiveness in delivering socially beneficial services and the difficulties that may arise as a consequence of SCIC's unique governance structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a list of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS)-sponsored meetings and calls for papers in the U.S. for the period of 2004 to 2005. 2004 Electronic Materials Conference in Indiana; TMS Annual Meeting in California in 2005; Device Research Conference in Indiana in 2004.

Why an institution's rules and regulations are obeyed or disobeyed is an important question for regulatory agencies. This paper discusses the findings of an empirical study that shows that the use of threat and legal coercion as a regulatory tool--in addition to being more expensive to implement--can sometimes be ineffective in gaining compliance. Using survey data collected from 2,292 taxpayers accused of tax avoidance, it will be demonstrated that variables such as trust need to be considered when managing noncompliance. If regulators are seen to be acting fairly, people will trust the motives of that authority, and will defer to their decisions voluntarily. This paper therefore argues that to shape desired behavior, regulators will need to move beyond motivation linked purely to deterrence. Strategies directed at reducing levels of distrust between the two sides may prove particularly effective in gaining voluntary compliance with an organization's rules and regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses upon ways in which National Lottery funding impacts upon aspects of identity for small- to medium-sized organizations in the United Kingdom, and highlights some of the less-anticipated difficulties that groups may experience after receipt of a grant. A large Lottery grant can facilitate rapid expansion and may necessitate a degree of organizational learning for which groups are often unprepared. The paper suggests that a Lottery grant may lead to changes in the ways in which an organization identifies itself, or is identified by stakeholders. However, these changes may not be accompanied by a corresponding change in the organization's capacity or underlying cultural ethos. On the basis of the primary research carried out in 2003, the paper examines the implications of these changes for individual organizations and for the sector more widely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an experienced-based methodology it is possible to 'forecast' high impact trends in technology transfer. The results presented in this paper are based upon historical data, the author's professional experience, R&D trend information and the aggregation of responses from experts drawn from a wide range of organizational sectors. The technology transfer trend forecasts may be useful to professionals and organizations in technology transfer as they examine future opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1919 to 1951, Alan Gregg and his mentor, Richard Pearce, directed the Medical Education and Medical Sciences Divisions of the Rockefeller Foundation. Although they oversaw the expenditure of millions of dollars, today they are forgotten. Yet, the system that Gregg administered became the model for the funding of biomedical research after the Second World War. This paper draws on the records of the Rockefeller Foundation to assess Gregg and his impact on biomedicine and philanthropy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a synopsis of current interpretations of the term “nongovernmental organization” (NGO). Although NGOs have become recognized actors in international affairs, particularly over the last decade, it has not yet been clearly defined what the term NGO encompasses. It is argued that two major tracks of NGO interpretations can be distinguished: the juridical approach, and the sociological perspective. In juridical studies, the emphasis is placed on the legal status of NGOs in the national context and their implications for international law. Sociological works, instead, are based on studies of societal actors, and try to capture the term while examining more specifically the composition and functions of NGOs in the transnational arena. Acknowledging both tracks, the paper concludes with a comprehensive definition of the term NGO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most Asian countries have a strong third sector and a rich tradition of philanthropy. The varied array of social, economic, political, and third sector variables across the many countries of the region make Asia an ideal site for testing and developing third sector theory. The research infrastructure needed to sustain such a venture is beginning to form. The five papers published in this issue of Voluntas indicate some of the product, and the variety, of this growing body of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Last year marked the 20th anniversary of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977. The FCPA is the first and only statute prohibiting bribery and other corrupt business practices by U.S. citizens and companies conducting business overseas. This paper provides an overview of the FCPA during the two decades of its existence. More specifically, the objectives of this paper are four-fold. First, the paper provides background information about the FCPA of 1977 and subsequent amendments in 1988. Second, the paper discusses the enforcement of the FCPA since its passage by examining the number of cases prosecuted under the FCPA and the respective penalties imposed. Third, the paper discusses the economic impact of the FCPA by addressing whether the FCPA places U.S. firms at a competitive disadvantage. Fourth, the paper provides public policy recommendations to expand the reach and scope of the FCPA. It covers efforts to criminalize bribery through multilateral organizations, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Organization of American States (OAS). It also covers bilateral arrangements and efforts by nongovernmental organizations such as Transparency International. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information about the 1971 annual meeting program, organized by American Sociological Association (ASA). ASA is 65 years old this year, but hardly ready for retirement and very much in the pink of condition at least as far as its internal affairs go. As of June, 1970 it had nearly 13,000 members distributed as follows in the various membership categories. The growth of ASA membership over the past decade has been spectacular: in 1960, it had less than 7,000 members: in 1965 there were approximately 9,000; today, the number is 13,000. It has almost doubled in the past decade and added two thirds of that growth in the past five years.

The article announces the requirement, rules and other information necessary for the competition of the biennial International Greppi-Sicuteri Award 2006 launched by the Italian Society for the Study of Headaches. The article also provides the suggested topics of the original paper to be submitted by researchers as well as the criteria for selecting the winner article. The award is under the auspice of the European Headache Federation.

In this paper, we present a novel business network construction approach, where the nodes of the network correspond to the names of the companies in a particular stock market index, and its links show the co-occurrence of two company names in daily news. Our approach consists of two phases, in which search for the company names in the news articles and network construction operations are performed, respectively. To increase the quality of results, each article is classified as business news or not business news before these operations, and only the articles that are classified as business news are considered for network construction. The resulting network presents a visualization of the business events and company relationships during the corresponding time period. We study both co-occurrences as well as single occurrences of company names in the articles scanned in our analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an overview of `Promises & Challenges. Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Multimedia in Education and Industry (2nd).' Papers included in the proceedings of the Association for Applied Interactive Multimedia.

Similarities can certainly be found between systems research and computational sciences, and architecture and design. The first pair deals with information, complex dynamics and organizations; the second pair is often understood as synthetic and systemic. Postwar history recalls a sequence of exchanges between these fields; the aim of this paper is to highlight the relevance of some exchanges and their contemporary legacy. In this connection, the first part briefly outlines the meaning and history of the former disciplines, highlighting the strict circular models and how first-order cybernetics evolved towards a second order. The second part points to some exchanges between systems research, computational sciences and art forms, as well as to its architectural legacy. To a large extent, the current architectural interest in new sciences of emergence and complexity is rooted in the early systems research approach. Both areas are possible root sources of a future, effective built environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vendor-managed inventory (VMI) is the latest supply chain management technology adopted by organizations to improve their business performance. In the recent years, many Indian organizations have also started adopting VMI in its supply chain. This paper identifies the variables that are important for VMI adoption. The variables are grouped as objectives, drivers, obstacles, and affected operations. The contextual relationship between the variables is established. This study employs an interpretive structural modeling approach to investigate the mutual relationship between the variables. These variables are then classified into four categories, namely, autonomous, driver, dependent, and linkage, to understand their relative impact. With the help of ISM, variables those which support other variables (driving variable) and those variables which are most influenced by other variables (dependent variables) are identified. The aim of this paper is to understand these mutual influences and develop a framework. Such an integrated framework would enable a better understanding of important issues while implementing VMI strategies in the Indian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the African Science Academy Development Initiative (ASADI) of the U.S. National Academies to foster informed public discourse on science-related issues and to provide policy makers with sound advice on these issues. It concentrates on providing intensive support for academies in South Africa, Nigeria and Uganda. It is considered that the establishment of such institution is needed to underpin broader economic and social development. ASADI has been providing long-term support to establish staff and premises for its target academies.

This paper surveys the field of Judaism and health. The authors trace the history of discourse on health and healing within Judaism, from the biblical and rabbinic eras to contemporary research and writing on Jewish bioethics, pastoral care, communal services, and aging, including congregational and community programming related to health and illness and the emergence of the Jewish healing movement. The work of the Kalsman Institute on Judaism and Health is described, focusing on efforts to unite these various threads into a scholarly field emphasizing basic and applied research on the instrumental functions of Jewish religious life for health and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a developing project to describe and quantify concepts of information alignment between computerized information systems and other aspects of information sharing in a production facility. Major elements of this project were components of the first author's experience in an operational production organization, including the work to transform industrial practice into opportunities for new research. A critical aspect of information alignment, as developed in this framework, is the recognition that computer-based information systems must be implemented with an eye to effective integration with other forms of information exchange and production knowledge in the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching and research lie at the heart of higher education. The interaction between teaching and research has therefore attracted the attention of both researchers and policymakers. Much has been written about this relationship, looking in particular at the perceived mutual benefits between teaching and research. This paper presents some findings from a research project which, using a comparative approach, aimed to examine the nature of the teaching:research nexus and, in particular, to consider the response of institutional management. Based on the observations collected through the project, a new model is proposed for institutional management of the teaching:research nexus. This model is based on a range of contextual factors, classified as ideological or environmental, and two contrasting approaches to institutional management of the relationship between teaching and research, active and passive. This model offers a new approach to understanding the operation of the teaching:research nexus within institutions of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managers in both for-profit and not-for-profit organisations continually face the task of allocating resources by balancing costs, benefits and risks and gaining commitment by a wide constituency of stakeholders to those decisions. This task is complex and difficult because many options are present, benefits and risks are rarely expressed as single objectives, multiple stakeholders with different agendas compete for limited resources, individually optimal resource allocations to organisational units are rarely collectively optimal, and those dissatisfied with the decisions taken may resist implementation. We first explain three current approaches to resource allocation taken from corporate finance, operational research and decision analysis, and we identify a common mistake organisations make in allocating resources. The paper then presents a technical process, multi-criteria portfolio analysis, for balancing the conflicting elements of the problem, and a social process, decision conferencing, which engages all the key players during the modelling process, ensuring their ownership of the model and the subsequent implementation. This socio-technical process improves communication within the organisation, develops shared understanding of the portfolio and generates a sense of common purpose about those projects that will best realise the organisation’s objectives. The paper concludes with lessons we have learned from actual practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fostering climate research in economically developing nations (EDNs) is especially important because the welfare and economies of these nations are particularly dependent on climate and its variability. A critical factor that undermines the advancement of research in EDNs is that many EDN scientists are confronted with scientific isolation and lack of exposure to state-of-the-art research methodologies. One of the means to ameliorate this problem is to build “south–south” (i.e. EDN–EDN) and “north–south” (i.e. EDN–EAN, or economically advanced nations) research partnerships, which become more effective when they are based on collaborative projects where the participants share their respective expertise. This is the central paradigm underlying the formation of the REGional Climate research NETwork, or RegCNET. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adapts Salamon, Sokolowski, and Anheier’s social origins theory to argue that the nonprofit regime in Hong Kong can be characterized as statist-corporatist. This statist-corporatist regime displays the hybrid character of both a statist and a corporatist regime: its statist character can be seen in the high degree of autonomy of the state, its tendency to limit freedom of association, and the low commitment to social provision. Its corporatist character is evident in the high level of participation by designated nonprofit organizations in selected areas of social provision under state funding. It is shown how the development of this nonprofit regime was historically shaped by four factors; namely, the interest of the colonial state in maintaining domination, economic and public financial policy, the historical formation of the welfare system, and political regime change. The findings illustrate the distinct historical forces and the path of development in an Asian state that might affect nonprofit development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the extent of structural similarity or isomorphism among nonprofit organizations in Australia. Based on neo-institutional theory, the paper explains such isomorphism in terms of these organizations’ subordination and dependency, the uncertainties they face, and the networks of experts of which they are a part. The analysis uses the nonprofit component of a 2001-2002 random sample of Australian employment organizations. It finds surprisingly little isomorphism in this subsample and few differences in isomorphism according to the level of the factors thought to produce similarity. The discussion of the findings focuses on the suitability of the nonprofit sector as the appropriate organizational field within which isomorphism involving these organizations is likely to be produced. Industries, which include all organizations that produce the same product or service, be they nonprofit, for-profit, or government, may be more appropriate interactional fields for the development of isomorphism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the minutes of the 34th Annual Business Meeting of the Members of the Behavior Genetics Association. Composition of the secretary's report; Selection of officers and nomination of members for the association; Submission of the treasurer's records.

Moves toward increased professionalism are now an almost taken-for-granted aspect of change across the nonprofit sector both in the United States and in the United Kingdom. This paper uses the case of UK charity retail to explore the impacts of this move to professionalism, on managers at the local level. In doing so it seeks to develop appropriate techniques for managing change both in charity retail and more broadly, in nonprofit organizations per se. The professionalization of charities' trading activities has resulted in a series of changes at the local level; these include the introduction of new forms of staff, changes to policies regarding the sourcing, pricing, and presentation of stock, and an increased emphasis on sales targets, league tables, and incentive schemes designed to motivate managers to increase sales. These policies set at head office level have had significant impact on the day-to-day working experiences of branch managers. This paper explores managers' reactions to these changes and examines the extent to which such policies could be said to be successful. To conclude, recommendations are made as to the most appropriate approaches to professionalizing charity retail operations. These conclusions are broadened to offer insights into appropriate techniques for managing change in nonprofit organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports how a new model of social enterprise—the social cooperative (SCs)—has become instrumental, in the Italian context, in the expansion of the social economy. It underlines the contribution these associations have made toward broadening the concept and standard parameters of volunteer organizations, providing basic social welfare services, and integrating the disadvantaged into the mainstream of society. The paper focuses on some SCs organizational aspects, highlighting the many traditional and advantageous business features, the ease with which they have access to financial instruments, and their ability to activate wider social projects. Given their recent spreading in Italy, where the Third Sector is less developed than in other Western countries, SCs incorporate working modalities that could also be of interest and relevance to other countries. To adopt this type of organization, however, calls for adequate competencies and protection under specific laws because they are, on the whole, still small-sized and somewhat fragile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]