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This thesis examines the relationship between media reporting and Sydney's construction as a global city over the period 1983-2008. Following Friedmann, Sassen and others it views globalisation as a process of consolidation in command and control functions in the global economy, financed through the massive creation of liquidity via expanding debt, and enabled by producer services located in a network of 'global cities'. Theoretically, it considers major debates in urban sociology and the sociology of journalism and seeks to reconcile approaches in the two fields to achieve a theoretically coherent framework for analysis that can encompass the changing political economy of Sydney and the ways in which media representation is related to this process. In globalisation studies it examines the meta-theoretical post-industrial/ network society arguments associated with Bell and Castells, and compares them with the neo-Marxist spatiality theses associated with Harvey and Arrighi, and Foster and Magdoff on financialisation. It then discusses the global cities literature in the context of Australian urban studies. In media sociology it starts with the debate about source-journalist power relations. Following Schlesinger and Benson, it offers a critical evaluation of Bourdieu's field theory. It then adopts a framework drawing on Bourdieu, together with Harvey and Lefebvre on spatiality and Gell on temporality, to consider the complexity of dynamic power relations between journalists and other sources of power. There follow two complementary empirical case studies of communication contests over (i) debt-induced growth in the Sydney residential real estate market and (ii) the demutualisation of the largest Australian general insurer, NRMA Insurance Group Ltd. The case studies examine the differing field relations of journalistic reporting and investigation of those activities in select newspapers. It argues that the journalism was deeply engaged with and/or influenced by the interests and activities of its sources in the ...

Enhancing the productivity of agriculture is vital for Sub-Saharan Africa's economic future and is one of the most important tools to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity in the region. How governments elect to spend public resources has significant development impact in this regard. Choosing to catalyze a shift toward more effective, efficient, and climate-resilient public spending in agriculture can accelerate change and unleash growth. Not only does agricultural public spending in Sub-Saharan Africa lag behind other developing regions but its impact is vitiated by subsidy programs and transfers that tend to benefit elites to the detriment of poor people and the agricultural sector itself. Shortcomings in the budgeting processes also reduce spending effectiveness. In light of this scenario, addressing the quality of public spending and the efficiency of resource use becomes even more important than addressing only the level of spending. Improvements in the policy environment, better institutions, and investments in rural public goods positively affect agricultural productivity. These, combined with smarter use of public funds, have helped lay the foundations for agricultural productivity growth around the world, resulting in a wealth of important lessons from which African policy makers and development practitioners can draw. 'Reaping Richer Returns: Public Spending Priorities for African Agriculture Productivity Growth' will be of particular interest to policy makers, development practitioners, and academics. The rigorous analysis presented in this book provides options for reform with a view to boosting the productivity of African agriculture and eventually increasing development impact.

This study is part of the African Regional Studies Program, an initiative of the Africa Region Vice-Presidency at the World Bank. These studies aim to combine high levels of analytical rigor and policy relevance, and to apply them to various topics important for the social and economic development of Sub-Saharan Africa. This book well demonstrates, agricultural spending in Sub-Saharan Africa not only significantly lags behind other developing regions, its impact is also vitiated by subsidy programs and transfers that tend to benefit elites to the detriment of poor people and the agricultural sector itself. Shortcomings of the budgeting processes also reduce spending effectiveness. In light of this scenario, addressing the quality of public spending and the efficiency of resource use becomes an even more important issue than simply addressing the level of spending. The rigorous analysis presented in this book provides options for reform with a view to enhancing investment in the sector and eventually development impact. The evidence show that the efficient use of public funds has been instrumental in laying the foundations f or agricultural productivity growth around the world, providing important lessons for African policymakers and development partners. Investments in rural public goods, combined with better policies and institutions drive agricultural productivity growth. The dividends from investments to strengthen markets, develop and disseminate improved technologies and expand irrigation can be enormous. Similarly, improvement of the policy environment through trade and regulatory policy complements spending by enhancing incentives for producers and innovators to take advantage of public goods, thereby crowding in private investment. Reforming the design and implementation of these subsidy programs while prioritizing government spending in favor of high-return core public goods and policies could produce significant gains. For this reason, this book argues for a rebalancing of the composition of public agricultural spending in order to reap robust development dividends. The authors hope that the findings presented here will resonate with policymakers concerned with agricultural policies, and more specifically with public spending programs that aim to improve the productivity of African agriculture.

Considering recent developments related to government monitoring of the internet in Cambodia and a renewed push in civil society to improve access to information for Cambodian citizens, we wondered: what do Cambodian owners of smartphones do on the internet? This article reports how respondents use the Internet, smartphone use, perceive benefits of the Internet, and social media use. A survey was developed iteratively by the research team, with ongoing support from members of the in-country team located in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. A planned missing data design was utilized. The survey was disseminated to 35,000 Cambodia smart phone users. 429 responses were gathered on questions focusing on the personal, political, social media activities on the internet. This study adds to the growing body of knowledge on how various societies are getting access to the internet and what they do when they are on the internet.

Considering recent developments related to government monitoring of the internet in Cambodia and a renewed push in civil society to improve access to information for Cambodian citizens, we wondered: what do Cambodian owners of smartphones do on the internet? This article reports how respondents use the Internet, smartphone use, perceive benefits of the Internet, and social media use. A survey was developed iteratively by the research team, with ongoing support from members of the in-country team located in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. A planned missing data design was utilized. The survey was disseminated to 35,000 Cambodia smart phone users. 429 responses were gathered on questions focusing on the personal, political, social media activities on the internet. This study adds to the growing body of knowledge on how various societies are getting access to the internet and what they do when they are on the internet.

Many transition and developing economies have reduced direct public involvement in the production and trade of seed and other agricultural inputs. This trend creates opportunities for farmers to realize improved access to inputs, including technology from international private research. Unfortunately, input regulations often derail these opportunities by blocking private entry and the introduction of private technology. This study looks at the experience in Bangladesh, India, Turkey, and Zimbabwe to see whether regulations make a difference in agriculture and input industries in developing economies. In all countries, companies and farmers responded to regulatory reforms by introducing and adopting more new technology and by expanding the production, trade, and use of inputs. The increased use of private technology has brought higher yields and incomes, allowing farmers and consumers to reach higher levels of welfare. These results challenge governments to open their regulatory systems to allow market entry and the introduction of private technology through seeds and other inputs.

The purpose of this paper is to study toll and investment competition along a serial transport corridor competition allowing for partial cooperation between regional governments. Partial cooperation is modeled as a Nash bargaining problem with endogenous disagreement points. We show that the bargaining approach to partial cooperation implies lower tolls and higher quality and capacity investment than fully noncooperative behavior. Moreover, under bargaining, strategic behavior at the investment stage induces regions to offer lower quality and invest less in capacity as compared to full cooperation. Finally, Nash bargaining partially resolves the problem of welfare losses due to toll and capacity competition pointed out in the recent literature.

I had the good fortune to grow up in a wonderful area of Jerusalem, surrounded by a diverse range of people: Rabbi Meizel, the communist Sala Marcel, my widowed Aunt Hannah, and the intellectual Yaacovson. As far as I'm concerned, the opinion of such people is just as authoritative for making social and economic decisions as the opinion of an expert using a model. Part memoir, part crash-course in economic theory, this deeply engaging book by one of the world's foremost economists looks at economic ideas through a personal lens. Together with an introduction to some of the central concepts in modern economic thought, Ariel Rubinstein offers some powerful and entertaining reflections on his childhood, family and career. In doing so, he challenges many of the central tenets of game theory, and sheds light on the role economics can play in society at large. The book is as thought-provoking for seasoned economists as it is enlightening for newcomers to the field. Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind, describes Economics Fables as a "wonderfully inviting introduction to game theory, rich in personalities, history and sense of place. Ariel Rubinstein is not only a brilliant theorist with a knack for lucid exposition, but a gifted storyteller. Students will find the ideas surprisingly accessible. Aspiring scholars, wondering whether a life of the mind is worth pursuing, will find his personal journey of intellectual discovery thrilling".

Four talks on Keynes in relation to the Bloomsbury Group: I. Maynard Keynes of Bloomsbury (Craufurd Goodwin); II. Keynes as Policy Advisor (E. Roy Weintraub); III. Keynes and Economics (Kevin D. Hoover); IV. Keynes and Hayek (Bruce Caldwell). The talks were delivered as part of roundtable discussion on John Maynard Keynes of Bloomsbury, the inaugural event of the Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University, and were held in conjunction with Vision and Design: A Year of Bloomsbury, a campus-wide interdisciplinary program surrounding an exhibition of Bloomsbury art at Duke University's Nasher Museum of Art.

Many public libraries provide patrons with free public-access Internet terminals, largely for accessing information available on the World Wide Web. However, public concern exists over the ability of children who browse the Web without adult supervision to view sexually explicit materials and other inappropriate items. This concern has led to the development of various Internet filtering software programs. Some filtering programs operate by blocking access to documents containing certain words or phrases or combinations thereof. However, more common programs permit access only to documents or sites that appear in a pre-selected, "safe" database or that block access to documents that appear in an "off-limits" database. Some programs that employ the blocking method allow the user to select which categories are to be blocked, while other programs lack this customization capability. If a state enacts a law requiring installation of Internet filtering software on public-access Internet terminals in public libraries in order to protect children from patently offensive material, the constitutionality of that law may be challenged. Such a law will withstand constitutional scrutiny only if it is the least restrictive means available to further a compelling government interest. While the stateþs interest in protecting children from objectionable materials is sufficiently compelling, the method chosen may not be the least restrictive means available, as filtering software using the blocking method filters out a great deal of expression protected by the First Amendment. Also, the installation of filtering software in libraries is similar to the removal of books from a library based on their content, which has also been held to violate the First Amendment. However, libraries make daily decisions as to which materials to purchase, based largely on the content of the materials. Such decisions bear no First Amendment consequences, and filtering materials accessible over the Internet on library-owned computers can be similarly classified as a selection decision rather than as an unconstitutional removal. Finally, if the filtering software employs the blocking method and involves the creation of a database of blocked sites in an "off-limits" list, the list may be subject to disclosure under a Freedom of Information Act request. However, if applicable, an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act may preclude disclosure. Under that exemption, if the list is classified as a trade secret or if the list contains commercial or financial information obtained from a person which is privileged or confidential, then the list is exempt from disclosure.

Many public libraries provide patrons with free public-access Internet terminals, largely for accessing information available on the World Wide Web. However, public concern exists over the ability of children who browse the Web without adult supervision to view sexually explicit materials and other inappropriate items. This concern has led to the development of various Internet filtering software programs. Some filtering programs operate by blocking access to documents containing certain words or phrases or combinations thereof. However, more common programs permit access only to documents or sites that appear in a pre-selected, "safe" database or that block access to documents that appear in an "off-limits" database. Some programs that employ the blocking method allow the user to select which categories are to be blocked, while other programs lack this customization capability. If a state enacts a law requiring installation of Internet filtering software on public-access Internet terminals in public libraries in order to protect children from patently offensive material, the constitutionality of that law may be challenged. Such a law will withstand constitutional scrutiny only if it is the least restrictive means available to further a compelling government interest. While the stateþs interest in protecting children from objectionable materials is sufficiently compelling, the method chosen may not be the least restrictive means available, as filtering software using the blocking method filters out a great deal of expression protected by the First Amendment. Also, the installation of filtering software in libraries is similar to the removal of books from a library based on their content, which has also been held to violate the First Amendment. However, libraries make daily decisions as to which materials to purchase, based largely on the content of the materials. Such decisions bear no First Amendment consequences, and filtering materials accessible over the Internet on library-owned computers can be similarly classified as a selection decision rather than as an unconstitutional removal. Finally, if the filtering software employs the blocking method and involves the creation of a database of blocked sites in an "off-limits" list, the list may be subject to disclosure under a Freedom of Information Act request. However, if applicable, an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act may preclude disclosure. Under that exemption, if the list is classified as a trade secret or if the list contains commercial or financial information obtained from a person which is privileged or confidential, then the list is exempt from disclosure.

15 p. ; Reproduction of original in the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign Campus). Library.

Attendance at the Australian War Memorial Dawn Service has increased dramatically over the last 20 years and with little explanation. In order to understand the reasons for the recent and sudden increase in attendance numbers, it is necessary to look back on the last hundred years of Anzac history and the social and political shifts that have altered the demographic of the Dawn Service crowd in order to explain the current numbers The desire of the World War generations to move past and forget the terror of those years segregated the Australian population between those who had served overseas and those who had remained behind in Australia. Furthermore the general trend to avoid talking about the war excluded the post-war generations from learning about either conflict or forming an emotional bond to the Anzac Tradition. These two factors suppressed the attendance to the Dawn Service further than it should have otherwise been and created a generational gap that would prevent the reconciliation of the Anzac legend with the reality of war in the 1950s and 1960s, aiding the growth of the peace movement and other organisations opposed to Anzac Day. The Vietnam War, though it radicalised a generation against the military, also helped end the segregation between the civilian and military populations. Universal conscription, placed everyone in the position where they might be called up, and the transmission of the conflict through television, allowed people who were still in Australia to witness for themselves, the horrors soldiers go through. This was an experience particularly shocking for a generation that was not as desensitised to images of violence as the current generation and it created, to an extent, sympathy for those soldiers who participated in the conflict and the emerging narrative of soldiers as victims of war. The lack of military action during the 1980s meant that the peace groups that had developed during the Vietnam War diminished in strength, while the peace keeping actions of the Australian Defence Force during the 1990s maintained, and increased, the popularity of the Australian military. Various government programs such as Australia Remembers 1945-1995, the aggressive promotion of Anzac Day and an education syllabus focused on Australian military history, along with the policies of the Prime Minister, John Howard, cemented Anzacs position in the Australian National consciousness, a position strong enough even, to resist the unpopular wars of the last decade such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Since Anzac Day has been cemented in the consciousness of the Australian public, so too has the idea of the Dawn Service. Each year more people have attended the Dawn Service for the first time and each year more people have returned. This has built up the numbers attending the Australian War Memorial Dawn Service quite rapidly and it is unlikely that the numbers attending the Dawn service will diminish any time soon.

Journal Article ; We have investigated the spatial and spectral characteristics of mid-infrared thermal emission from large area Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) graphene, transferred onto SiO 2 /Si, and show that the emission is broadly that of a grey-body emitter, with emissivity values of approximately 2% and 6% for mono- and multilayer graphene. For the currents used, which could be sustained for over one hundred hours, the emission peaked at a wavelength of around 4 μm and covered the characteristic absorption of many important gases. A measurable modulation of thermal emission was obtained even when the drive current was modulated at frequencies up to 100 kHz. © 2014 Author(s). ; EPSRC ; European Union (GOSFEL)

This paper addresses an old and recurring theme in development economics: the slow adoption of new technologies by farmers in many developing countries. The paper explores a somewhat novel link to explain this puzzle -- the link between market access and the incentives to adopt a new technology when there are non-convexities. The paper develops a theoretical model to guide the empirical analysis, which uses spatially disaggregated agricultural production data from Spatial Production Allocation Model and Living Standards Measurement Study survey data for Nigeria. The model is used to estimate the impact of transport costs on crop production, the adoption of modern technologies, and the differential impact on returns of modern versus traditional farmers. To overcome the limitation of data availability on travel costs for much of Africa, road survey data are combined with geographic information road network data to generate the most thorough and accurate road network available. With these data and the Highway Development Management Model, minimum travel costs from each location to the market are computed. Consistent with the theory, analysis finds that transportation costs are critical in determining technology choices, with a greater responsiveness among farmers who adopt modern technologies, and at times a perverse (negative) response to lower transport costs among those who employ more traditional techniques. In sum, the paper presents compelling evidence that the constraints to the adoption of modern technologies and access to markets are interconnected, and so should be targeted jointly.