Search

Presents call for papers for the Second International Association for Chinese Management Research biennial Conference to be held in Nanjing, China, on June 15–18, 2006. Submission deadline on October 15, 2005; Conference's focus on ‘Knowledge Creation in a Transitional Economy’; Languages of presentations in the regular program; Research topics; Conference proceedings; Submission requirements of paper presentations; Submission requirements of professional development workshop proposals.

Information about the topics discussed at the annual conference of Catholic Theological Association (CTA) of Great Britain in September 2007 is presented. The conference talked about the association between Christianity and the other two major monotheistic religions. It also traced back the history of Christianity. Bible passages were also examined by attendees of the conference.

Following the initiative in 2010 taken by the Association for Logic Programming and Cambridge University Press, the full papers accepted for the International Conference on Logic Programming again appear as a special issue of Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP)—the 27th International Conference on Logic Programming Special Issue. Papers describing original, previously unpublished research and not simultaneously submitted for publication elsewhere were solicited in all areas of logic programming including but not restricted to: Theory: Semantic Foundations, Formalisms, Non- monotonic Reasoning, Knowledge Representation. Implementation: Compilation, Memory Management, Virtual Machines, Parallelism. Environments: Program Analysis, Transformation, Validation, Verification, Debugging, Profiling, Testing. Language Issues: Concurrency, Objects, Coordination, Mobility, Higher Order, Types, Modes, Assertions, Programming Techniques. Related Paradigms: Abductive Logic Programming, Inductive Logic Programming, Constraint Logic Programming, Answer-Set Programming. Applications: Databases, Data Integration and Federation, Software Engineering, Natural Language Processing, Web and Semantic Web, Agents, Artificial Intelligence, Bioinformatics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a call by the Association for the Study of Modern Italy (ASMI) for research papers on all aspects of consumption in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including those employing economic, social, cultural, theoretical, and political approaches. These papers will be used for the 2006 ASMI Conference. Selected revised conference papers will be published in a collected volume of essays or as a journal theme issue.

Often the most invigorating conferences are those which bring together many different specialties and integrate them within interdisciplinary panels. Such was the case with the Forty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS), which took place in March in Williamsburg, Virginia. The event was enormous, with over eight hundred presenters spread among 221 panels, in addition to seven plenary sessions and other special events such as the masquerade ball hosted by the Women's Caucus. Music and other performing arts were well represented throughout the weekend; both the Society for Eighteenth-Century Music and the Mozart Society of America sponsored panels, and many papers about the arts were included in other groupings. Given the large number of papers and other events, it was impossible to attend all or even most of the offerings. However, I will give an overview of my experiences in order to convey a sense of the conference's atmosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences' award for the best paper by a graduate student on a topic that relates the life sciences to the study of politics or public policy. Features of the award; Criteria for the selection of a winner; Prizes.

The article presents a memorandum of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association on the Second Green Paper on the future of the National Health Service in Great Britain. The association aims to coordinate the National Health Service and the Local Government services and welcome the participation of legal professionals and consumers. Policies concerning the management are given more importance rather than the daily administration activities. Furthermore, a single authorities should be recognized in each areas of the Health Service, including the social work and medical services.

The article focuses on the developments related to Economic History Association (EHA). An announcement is being made by Gary Libecap, 2005/06 EHA President, that the sixty-sixth annual meeting of the EHA will be held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, September 15-17, 2006, at the Omni William Penn Hotel. Nominations are being invited by the Committee on Education of the EHA for the Jonathan Hughes Prize for Excellence in Teaching Economic History. It also highlights the prizes that were awarded at the sixty-fifth annual meeting of the EHA, held in Toronto, Ontario, September 16-18, 2005.

IATEFL is the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (www.iatefl.org). This report outlines research papers which have appeared in recent IATEFL publications. Four publications are discussed in turn. Three of these were published by the IATEFL Research Special Interest Group (SIG), while the fourth was published by the Young Learners SIG. The range of research reported here reflects the international nature of IATEFL's activities and its commitment to supporting and promoting research within the association. The publications reviewed are available for purchase from IATEFL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lack of specificity around stakeholder identity remains a serious obstacle to the further development of stakeholder theory and its adoption in actual practice by business managers. Nowhere is this shortcoming more evident than in stakeholder theory's treatment of the constituency known as "community." In this paper we attempt to set forth what we call "the Problem of Community" as indicative of the definitional problems of stakeholder theory. We then begin the process of gaining greater specificity around our notions of community and the role of community in stakeholder theory and management. In doing so, we identify the emergence of two fairly new forms of community that we believe are particularly relevant to the stakeholder theorist and practicing manager. These two new variants of community-the virtual advocacy group and the community of practice-extend the notion of community in new directions, which have strikingly different implications for stakeholder theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Disaster management (DM) is becoming increasingly complex because of technological advancement and the multi-organization and international contexts. Effective interoperability and adequate collaboration in DM have the potential to spare the human life and to control the economic burden. For those reasons, it's becoming important to find a way for systems and organizations that exploit, at the same time, the technological interoperability and team's interoperability.This study aims to provide an overview of the multi-organizational problems and solutions reflecting on achieving interoperability in multi-organizational DM.Methods: The article is structured as a scoping review based on the Joanna Briggs Institute's (JBI) methodology for scoping reviews. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist was used to report the results. The selected papers were assessed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) checklists to screen their methodological quality.The scoping review was conducted systematically searching the databases PubMed, Google Scholar, and Web of Science. The search algorithm was developed using the three key concepts "interoperability; multi-organizational; disaster medicine" translated into different possible search and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms. Studies of all research design types were considered.Discussion: The included literature is reporting experiences on interoperability and how it has been applied to health care systems and organizations interacting during a disaster event. Twelve articles were included. Specific problems and solutions were identified regarding the technological and personnel interoperability, such as ineffective integration, technical problems, lack of an interoperability language, and data filtering network. The suggested approach might involve a focus on both the technological as well the human and personnel interoperability with the aim to create a culture of interoperability through compatible technological solutions and joint trainings.Conclusions: This study identified two main approaches during disasters: technology versus personnel interoperability. The suggested approach is to develop a hybrid culture of interoperability through compatible technological solutions combined to joint and multi-disciplinary trainings to achieve the development of a common language.Further research will need a solution-focused approach on the culture and language of interoperability as thematic gathering training, socio-technical networks, and policies/procedural guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contributions to the discussions following the papers presented at the Royal Musical Association conference 'Listening: Interdisciplinary Perspectives' held at King's College, Cambridge, on 24-25 November 2006 were particularly animated. This paper attempts to capture in outline the main exchanges of the question-and-answer sessions, while at the same time doing justice to the broad interdisciplinary spirit that characterized the event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper briefly outlines the production of electronic nautical charts (ENC) as a digital nautical chart, produced by the Croatian National Hydrographic Office (HO) to International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) specifications S-57 Edition 3.1. The production of ENCs is based on the theory of multiscale data management (usage bands). Multiple representations of ENC data are controlled by scale minimum (SCAMIN) attributes. A solution to the problem of multiscale data management as a part of ENC data production for archipelagic sea areas, using the East Adriatic Coast as an example is presented. This solution is based on a long-standing experience in the production of paper charts and recent ENC production for the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, which is believed to be the second largest archipelagic area in the Mediterranean. Finally, a new usage band scale range, compilation scale for all navigational purposes and method of using SCAMIN attributes for archipelagic seas are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the influence of the Troika on the retrenchment and reform of social security in Ireland during its bailout between 2010 and 2013. To do this, it draws on data from in-depth interviews with senior civil servants and civil society organisation staff who met with the Troika as part of their quarterly missions to Ireland during this period. The key themes which emerged from these interviews include the largely domestic origins of social security retrenchment and reform; the surprising, and distinctive, positions adopted by the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF); the extent of the Irish government's room for manoeuvre in this area, and the ways in which the Irish government defended social security against proposals for additional cuts put forward by the Troika. The paper concludes by arguing that the scope for domestic decision-making was heavily constrained, yet non-trivial, and that the Troika's influence comprised not only ‘powering’ but also ‘persuasion’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective: The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic resulted in the cessation of elective surgery. The continued provision of complex head and neck cancer surgery was extremely variable, with some UK centres not performing any cancer surgery. During the pandemic, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust received high numbers of coronavirus disease 2019 admissions. This paper presents our experience of elective complex major head and neck cancer surgery throughout the pandemic. Methods: A head and neck cancer surgery hub was set up that provided a co-ordinated managed care pathway for cancer patients during the pandemic; the Guy's Cancer Centre provided a separate, self-enclosed coronavirus-free environment within the hospital campus. Results: Sixty-nine head and neck cancer patients were operated on in two months, and 13 patients had a microvascular free tissue transfer. Nosocomial infection with coronavirus disease 2019 was detected in two cases (3 per cent), neither required critical care unit admission. Both patients made a complete recovery and were discharged home. There were no deaths. Conclusion: Performing major head and neck surgery, including free flap surgery, is possible during the pandemic; however, significant changes to conventional practice are required to achieve desirable patient outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Editor, Advisory Board, and Associate Editors of Macroeconomic Dynamics extend their heartiest congratulations to Finn Kydland and Ed Prescott as the co-recipients of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Economics. Finn has served on the MD advisory board since the journal's founding, and his advice during the journal's formative years has helped make MD the success it is today. Much of the work which the Nobel Committee cited as the basis for awarding the prize to Finn and Ed was done while Ed was a junior faculty member at the Graduate School of Industrial Administration (now the Tepper School of Business) at Carnegie Mellon University, and while Finn was earning his doctorate at GSIA. As a result, the Board thought it would be appropriate to include a brief explication of the significance of Finn and Ed's work written by one of Finn's current Ph.D. students at Carnegie Mellon, Espen Henriksen. Espen is currently working to complete his thesis under Finn's supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the paper by David Hendry and me, which is at the center of this discussion, was written by us separately, I think it is worth recording how this paper started. David was attending the Allied Social Sciences Association meeting in San Diego in January 2004 and stayed with my wife and me. In preparing a talk I realized that over my career I had been fortunate enough to have about eighty coauthors, but I found that the list did not include David. As he had just discussed the use of PcGets as a research tool, I proposed a paper exploring the limits of such a tool. The paper was soon born, and, after the almost obligatory journal rejection, it was picked up by Peter Phillips and this special issue resulted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its foundation in 1959, the Linguistics Association of Great Britain has established itself as one of the three associations for UK linguistics, alongside the much older Philological Society and its own child, the British Association for Applied Linguistics, though the relations among the associations are not always clear and can be somewhat problematic. The LAGB's main characteristic has always been its annual or twice-yearly conferences with a focus on language structure, but it also has its own journal and has taken a lead in promoting linguistics to funding and educational authorities. The paper outlines these events and how the LAGB's internal organisation has evolved to deal with them, and ends with three choices that face the association in its second half-century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about the 13th Biennial Conference of the IASPM on July 25-30, 2005 in Rome, Italy is presented. The Korean panel was attended by ten attendees who have been studying East Asia. Shelley Brunt and Jeroen de Kloet presented papers on Asian popular music. The conference was organized into five streams that merged into the common theme of making musical meaning.

Volunteering is an under-studied yet potentially beneficial avenue for immigrant integration. Whereas past research has provided important insights into the benefits of immigrant volunteering, it has been frequently based on convenience samples. This paper contributes to the literature on immigrant volunteering on two levels. First, we test less explored questions: the differences between immigrant and native-born volunteers on several volunteer indicators, and the contextual factors (cultural, social, and organisational) associated with immigrants’ proclivity to volunteer. Second, we rely on a representative sample of the German population, and use propensity score matching to strengthen the robustness of our analysis. Findings suggest that, although native-born individuals display higher rates of volunteering than immigrants, they do not significantly differ on most indicators once immigrants become volunteers. Furthermore, time since migration, social networks and organisational membership are significant drivers of immigrant volunteering. Our findings are a signal for policymakers because social policies could better address contextual and organisational barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the situation of the English voluntary sector in relation to austerity-driven social policies. Existing characterisations are outlined and it is argued that the quantitative evidence used to represent the situation of these organisations to date has been partial because it relies too narrowly on financial resource input measures. We argue that the situation of these organisations needs to be conceptualised in a more holistic way and, to initiate a move in this direction, we identify and explicate two relevant dimensions: the perceived capacity of organisations to rely on volunteers for support (a non-financial resource input); and their perception of the effect of the policy climate in shaping their capacity to flourish, including their ability to perform multiple roles beyond service provision alone. We draw on an original mixed methods empirical study undertaken in England in 2015 to operationalise these dimensions, combining qualitative interviews with national ‘policy community’ members with a large scale on-line survey of social policy charities. We find a complex and variegated situation that, while acknowledging the fundamental importance of financial resource pressures, also points to the salience of the volunteering situation, and to the relevance of the challenging policy climate that these organisations have to navigate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a call for papers from the Management and Organization Review related to establishing sustainable organizations in China to be published in the journal "Management and Organization Review.

At the 1918 general election, Sinn Féin overtook the Irish Parliamentary Party as the dominant political force within nationalist Ireland, a process that has its origins in the aftermath of the Easter Rising of 1916. This article argues that to understand better this shift in public opinion, from an initially hostile reaction to the Dublin rebellion to a more advanced nationalist position,1 it is important to recognize the decisive role played by a political welfare organization, the Irish National Aid Association and Volunteer Dependents' Fund. The activities of the INAAVDF significantly shaped the popular memory of the Rising, but also provided a focus around which the republican movement could re-organize itself. In foregrounding the contribution of the INAAVDF to the radicalization of political life in Ireland between 1916 and 1918, the article argues that this understudied but important organization offers a useful way of charting popular responses to the Rising and its aftermath, as well as laying the foundations for a reinvigorated political and military campaign after 1917. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper constructs a quantitative general equilibrium life-cycle model with uninsurable labor income to account for the differences in wealth accumulation and homeownership between Korea and the United States. The model incorporates different structures in the housing market in the two countries, namely, the mortgage market and the rental arrangements. The results from the calibrated model quantitatively explain some empirical findings in the aggregate and life-cycle profiles of wealth and homeownership. Quantitative policy experiments show that the mortgage market alone can account for more than 40% of the differences in the aggregate homeownership ratios. When coupled with the rental arrangements, both institutions can account for approximately 52% of the differences in the cross-country homeownership ratios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key role in the successful implementation of any learning approach is played by teachers, so how well blended learning works will depend largely on how well teachers make the transition from their traditional face-to-face classroom roles to the wider more complex role that blended learning requires. The additional skills and the forging of a new professional identity might not come easily to all practitioners.This paper evaluates the impact that the introduction of blended learning in a distance language learning course has had on teachers. It presents and discusses findings from a small-scale evaluation study which compared quantitative and qualitative data gathered through a survey and a small number of interviews with participant observations from the researcher and the institutional end-of-course debriefing report.The paper argues that whilst technological challenges and the sheer amount of change that teachers were faced with were largely responsible for some of the negative attitudes reflected in teachers’ opinions about the course, a less obvious, broader explanation for the difficulties that teachers encountered might be found in the way that learning, teaching and training are conceptualised by both teachers and the institution.It is proposed that a transmission of knowledge approach to training fails to acknowledge and properly support the transformation of teachers’ identity that results from moving from traditional classroom-based teaching to online teaching. The shift goes beyond the acquisition of ICT skills and requires a pedagogical understanding of the affordances of the new medium and an acceptance by the teacher of his or her new role and identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The origins of the cooperative movement can be traced to the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in 1844, from which similar institutions emerged in Central Europe, the North American continent and the rest of the world. Modern credit unions evolved from these small cooperative societies and have developed into mainstream providers of financial services in many jurisdictions. However, credit unions in the UK have not made a similar impact. There are several factors that have limited their growth – an inadequate legislative framework, an ineffective credit union regulatory system, inappropriate development models, an over-reliance on state subsidies and a disunited movement. The aim of this paper is to re-examine these factors in light of the level of political support provided by the government since 1997. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the history of the Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom, one of the most successful of the eccentric and idiosyncratic private ecumenical initiatives of the mid-nineteenth century. The principal motivation behind the venture was a Romantic medievalism inspired by the lay Roman Catholic Ambrose Phillipps de Lisle and the Anglican ritualist priest, Frederick George Lee. While initially attracting widespread support, the leaders failed to recognise the power of vested interests in both Churches. After a vigorous denunciation by Henry Manning, the hopes of reunion proved to be little more than a dream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article cites various awards given at the 2006 Economic History Association meetings. The Arthur H. Cole Prize for the outstanding article of Stanley L. Engerman and Kenneth L. Sokoloff was given in Pennsylvania. The Columbia University Prize in American Economic History in honor of Allan Nevins was given for the outstanding dissertation in U.S. or Canadian economic history during 2005/2006. The Alexander Gerschenkron Prize was given to Ran Abramitsky.

This paper asks (a) why and how institutions change, (b) how an institution persists in a changing environment, and (c) how processes that it unleashes lead to its own demise. The paper shows that the game-theoretic notion of self-enforcing equilibrium and the historical institutionalist focus on process are both inadequate to answer these questions. Building on a game-theoretic foundation, but responding to the critique of it by historical institutionalists, the paper introduces the concepts of quasi-parameters and self reinforcement With these concepts, and building on repeated game theory, a dynamic approach to institutions is offered, one that can account for endogenous change (and stability) of institutions. Contextual accounts of formal governing institutions in early modern Europe and the informal institution of cleavage structure in the contemporary world provide illustrations of the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The core of this paper' is a case study of how a District Health Authority (Paddington and North Kensington, now Parkside DHA following a recent merger with Brent DHA) in Inner London responded to a major new health care issue of the 1980s-Aids, but the paper also seeks to locate this case study material within wider debates. What theories are there of organisational change which could be used to illuminate policy and service change in the health care sector? How, indeed, do we best study change in health care organisations? The paper is thus in three parts. In the first section we identify some streams of literature which act as a frame of reference defining our initial research question and discuss implications for methodology. The second section presents the case itself, while the last section discusses some emerging findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An institutional perspective has been increasingly adopted in recent studies to explain various aspects of internationalization activities of firms from emerging economies (Meyer & Peng, 2016; Peng, Wang, & Jiang, 2008), particularly China (Cui & Jiang, 2012; Morck, Yeung, & Zhao, 2008). Scholars often claim that the role of institutions in emerging economy firms’ internationalization is understated, hence more research is needed. In this commentary, which reflects on the intended contributions and theoretical and empirical issues of Buckley, Yu, Liu, Munjal, and Tao (2016), I aim to extend a discussion on whether and when such institutional explanations can be overstated. I focus on three issues: (1) conceptualization of institutions, (2) theorizing institutional effects, and (3) testing institutional effects. On each of these issues, I start by providing an overview of some common challenges in the literature. I then focus specifically on the paper as an illustration of how some of these challenges may be manifested. This is then followed by some recommendations for future research. Overall, I argue that pitfalls related to the conceptualization, theorizing and testing of institutional effects can lead researchers to overstate the institutional effects on firm strategic behaviors. These pitfalls can be avoided if researchers clarify the theoretical boundary of the institutional argument they adopt, properly model the institutional effects while taking into consideration other theoretically relevant constructs and mechanisms, and employ empirical design to overcome measurement errors and selection biases when testing not only the statistical significance, but also substantive (economic) significance of institutional effects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This is the official guideline endorsed by the surgical specialty associations involved in the care of head and neck cancer patients in the UK. This paper summarises the current state of play in the organisation and provision of head and neck cancer surgical services in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses some aspects of innovation in China. As China seeks to transition to a knowledge-based economy, it may become more important for China to develop innovative technologies to sustain economic growth. How do China's history, culture, institutions, and organizations aid or hinder innovation? How does China's national innovation system compare to the innovation culture in the US, as well as other developed and emerging economies? What are the prospects for the future of the Chinese national innovation system?Our starting point is the Needham Puzzle – the paradox that while China was once a world leader in technological development, it fell behind; the Industrial Revolution happened in Europe rather than in China. Potential explanations for the Needham Puzzle may shed light on the challenges facing innovation in modern China. We identify three factors that might help explain the Needham Puzzle; assess how the Needham Puzzle and Chinese culture and history have affected the modern innovation system; discuss comparative aspects of innovation ecosystems in the United States and elsewhere; and suggest that Chinese innovation emphasizes exploitation and refinement of existing knowledge to the exploration and development of new knowledge. We also discuss implications for the future of innovation in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information on the Economic History Association including the people who are responsible for the associations 2014 meetings, and papers for presentation at the 2015 meeting.

The article reports on the 2008 conference of the Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA) that was held in Oxford, England. The event was entitled "The Politics of Making" and was focused on whether politics is still a vital part of the agenda of architectural research. It was observed that the concepts of "making" and "politics" have almost unlimited flexibility.

This article presents information on the meetings that would be held in future. The sixty-fourth annual meeting of the Economic History Association will be held at the Fairmont San Jose in San Jose, California on September, 10-12, 2004. The major theme of the program would be: "Long Run Economic Growth and Inequality," "Social Welfare in Victorian Britain," and "Industrialization and Urbanization." The 2005 annual conference of the Economic History Society will be hosted by the University of Leicester from 8 to 10 April. The committee welcomes proposals in all aspects of economic and social history covering a wide range of periods and countries.

There is a continuing need for an analytical approach to institutional change, especially as applied to incremental, agent-driven change. Important institutional change can be incremental and not necessarily linked to immediate crisis. Institutional adjustments initiated by actors in the course of meeting specific economic and political goals can unblock systemic bottlenecks leading to improved economic performance. Aggregate incremental change could also lead to system evolution that deviates significantly from the original system model. This paper presents an approach that engages agent impact on the institutional system, and the political or social motives for action; the two-tiered approach moves away from the categories described in Varieties of Capitalism, one of the more influential approaches to analyzing institutional impact in an economy. Instead of static national categories, the approach presented in this paper differentiates between defining institutions and instrumental institutions, the differences in ease and speed of change which characterize each institutional tier, and how the system's evolution is impacted by the combined effect of changes in each tier. Differentiating between institutions in this manner, the paper provides an approach that is more flexible in explaining the interactions between agents and institutions, and the changes which may result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June 2011, the IPA Council received a formal request from William Barry and Jürgen Trouvain to vote on the adoption of a standard IPA symbol for the central open (unrounded) vowel. This request followed publication in 2008, in JIPA 38(3), of their paper ‘Do we need a symbol for a central open vowel?’, along with response papers in JIPA 39(2) by Daniel Recasens and Martin Ball, and a further response from Barry and Trouvain, in JIPA 39(3). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the organizational objectives of the International Association of Chinese Management Research (IACMR). It states that IACMR is committed to excellence which extends from the work of the organization and its members to the approach of the organization to its constituencies. The goals of the organization include creation and dissemination of knowledge about management in Chinese contexts. The organization also focuses on development and promotion of research that is prudent in design, human subject use and confidentiality.

Present changes in scientific publishing, especially those summarised by the term ?Open Access? (OA), may ultimately lead to the complete replacement of a reader-paid to an author, or funding-paid, publication system. This transformation would shift the financial burden for scientific publishing from the Research Performing Organisations (RPOs), particularly from scientific libraries, universities, etc, to the Research Funding Organisations (RFOs). The transition phase is difficult; it leads to double funding of OA publications (by subscriptions and author-sponsored OA) and may thus increase the overall costs of scientific publishing. This may explain why ? with a few exceptions ? RFOs have not been at the forefront of the OA paradigm in the past. In 2008, the General Assembly of EUROHORCs, the European organisation of the heads of research councils, agreed to recommend to its member organisations at least a minimal standard of Open Access based on the Berlin Declaration of 2003 (green way of OA). In the long run, the publishing system needs some fundamental changes to reduce the present costs and to keep up its potential. In order to design a new system, all players have to cooperate and be ready to throw overboard some old traditions, lovable as they may be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about several papers discussed at a conference sponsored by the International Association for World Englishes (IAWE) held at the City University of Hongkong in China on December 1-5, 2009 on the English language is presented. Topics include linguistic variation, analysis of phonetic techniques and language teaching. The conference highlighted the conference banquet where Professor Edward Thumboo of the National University of Singapore was given the Lifetime Award by the IAWE.

The article focuses on the history of American Society of Theatre Research (ASTR) from 1981 to 2006. A history of ASTR is provided for the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary and focuses mainly on years 1981 to 2006. An overview of the origin and consolidation of the associations from 1956 to 1981 as well as changes and field disciplinary developments from 1981 to 2006 are also discussed.

The National Theatre of Scotland was constituted in 2003, following a debate in the newly devolved Scottish Parliament. Its first artistic director was appointed in 2004, and its inaugural production was presented in February 2006. Within another year, some twenty productions had been seen in over forty urban and rural locations — a rate of development in marked contrast to the slow crawl over more than half a century towards a National Theatre in London. Personal and political drive apart, a major reason for the speed with which the National Theatre of Scotland has not only established itself but gained respect far beyond national boundaries is the simple fact that it does not possess a theatre building, so that all its work must of necessity tour nationwide — or involve co-productions with building-based companies. Home, the opening event, was in fact a multiplicity of different shows tailored to ten different locations; later work has ranged from the classic Mary Stuartto Anthony Neilson's surrealist Wonderful World of Dissocia, from a reinvention of Macbeth to Gregory Burke's astonishing Black Watch, which interweaves the history of the famous but doomed Scottish regiment with the raw actuality of young soldiers serving in Iraq. In this article, based on a paper presented to the fourth Forum for Arabic Theatre in Sharjah in January 2007, Robert Leach surveys both the brief history of the company and the highlights of its prolific first year's work. Robert Leach lives in Scotland but teaches in England, at Cumbria Institute of the Arts in Carlisle. His latest book is Theatre Workshop: Joan Littlewood and the Making of Modern British Theatre, published by Exeter University Press in 2006. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the International Association for Chinese Management Research's commitment to excellence. This commitment to excellence extends from the work of the association and its members to the approach of the organization to its constituencies. The Code of Ethics of the organization is presented.

This paper reviews the main temporal and spatial characteristics of cattle movements in Britain, based on an analysis of records in the British Cattle Movement Service's Cattle Tracing System (CTS) database, focusing on the period 2001 to 2003, during which notification of cattle movements was mandatory. Movements vary weekly and seasonally according to the production cycle, with peaks in late spring (April) and early autumn (October), and an average 1·63 million farm-to-farm movements per month, equivalent to 19·6 million per annum. The geographical distribution of these movements appears to be relatively stable from year to year, with the great majority of animals moving less than 100 km per journey, although many tens of thousands move over far greater distances of up to 1000 km. The procedures developed to extract, match, geo-reference, analyse and display movement records have greatly enhanced the utility of the CTS database, in that it is now feasible to assess, monitor and map the spatial dynamics and geographical distribution of cattle movements, and provide this information in standardized format on a regular basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new group of Western development donors has emerged as increasingly influential actors in global social policy. Big philanthropies have begun implementing social protection projects on a vast scale across the Global South and have become integrated within global governance structures. It is essential to examine whether their approach to social policy in the South is effective, legitimate and desirable for the substantive agendas and programmes in these countries and for analysis of social policy in a development context. This study investigates contemporary big philanthropies through a qualitative case-study of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and its role in the health sector in Tanzania. It examines the ways in which big philanthropies engage and seek to influence policy on the ground, directly exploring the views and experiences of local stakeholders. The study finds that big philanthropies have distinctive features and mechanisms as global social policy entrepreneurs. In contrast to the vertical and linear processes associated with traditional policy transfer, a more messy and complex set of mechanisms are observed. The study also indicates that despite considerable resources and authority, philanthropic donors may not be effective in securing policy reform within aid-receiving countries due to a lack of transparency and embeddedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The biennial meeting of the American Bach Society inspired the participation of around fifty scholars, performers and other Bach enthusiasts from the United States, Canada and Germany. Organizers included Ellen Exner (University of South Carolina), Markus Rathey (Yale University), Don O. Franklin (Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh), Steven Crist (Emory University) and Reginald Sanders (Kenyon College), who deserves particular thanks for serving as local arrangements chair, a task he dispatched with characteristic aplomb. Kenyon College offered a beautiful and stimulating setting for the conference, and the American Bach Society owes a great debt of thanks to Kenyon President Sean M. Decatur and Provost Joseph L. Klesner, as well as to their Executive Assistant, Pamela J. Faust, for their warm welcome and help with logistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proceedings of the Western Finance Association Annual Meeting, held on June 22, 1978 in Honolulu, Hawaii are presented. Details are provided regarding the topics discussed, including the regular announcements of committee reports, motions for registration fee management practices, and awards issued by the Association.