bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Policy Networks and Advocacy Coalitions: Explaining Policy Change and Stability in UK Industrial Pollution Policy?
Authors: Smith Adrian
Published: March 2006

Policy network analysis (PNA) and the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) are relatively recent additions to the toolbox of policy analysis. The author explores the strengths and limitations of each through comparative application. The two frameworks are used to analyse policy change and stability in the UK industrial pollution sector over a period of more than twenty-five years. Innovations derived from policy-oriented learning generated in the 1970s were initially rejected before being implemented fourteen years later. The case study illustrates the limits of both theories. Change was not an open competition between advocates of different core policy beliefs. Nevertheless the ACF analysis of contrasting, broadly defined, beliefs can help explain some events beyond policy networks. Resource interdependencies in the policy network provide a good explanation for the stabilities exhibited in the case study. PNA can also explain why some actors were excluded from the policy process whereas others exercised decisionmaking and nondecisionmaking power. In combination, the more fundamental agency-oriented and structure-oriented emphases on beliefs and resources associated with the ACF and PNA, respectively, can enrich policy analysis.
The Regulator — Regulated Relationship and Environmental Protection: Perceptions in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
Authors: Petts Judith
Published: March 2006

An emerging point of agreement is that environmental policy efficacy and implementation efficiency are most likely to be achieved by an appropriate balance between command-and-control and self-regulation methods. The author uses data from a unique survey of individuals, both management and nonmanagement, in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in England and Wales to ascertain whether the corporate perspective is equally supportive of such an empathetic balance. Multiple research methods including interviews, a questionnaire, and focus groups with individuals were used to explore management and nonmanagement attitudes to the importance of compliance with, and the effectiveness of, regulation. Compliance with regulation is viewed as morally right both by management and by nonmanagement; however, the effectiveness of regulation is questioned. Nonmanagement in particular demand strong enforcement and penalties; management demand consistent regulation to ensure a ‘level playing field’. Both question whether all regulation is relevant to environmental protection. Although self-regulation is supported in theory, this is because of the perceived weakness of reactive regulation. Individuals suggest that the majority of SMEs are not taking any, or only minimal, steps to self-regulate. The potential for a balance between command-and-control and self-regulation approaches receives only cautious support from management and nonmanagement.
The Impact of Local Government Organization on Development and Disparities — A Comparative Perspective
Authors: Razin Eran
Published: March 2006

Results of the comparative study presented in this paper suggests that local government organization influences land-use planning, and local development strategies and disparities. Local government reforms can, therefore, serve to modify spatial patterns of development and disparities. Based on a review of studies made in the developed and the developing world, the author provides a comparative perspective on these influences. Five major dimensions of local government organization—territorial, functional, political autonomy, fiscal, and electoral—are used to define four extreme models of local government. The American self-government model leads to substantial inequalities and to considerable sprawl. The Western welfare-state model alleviates these problems somewhat, but at a cost to central government. Its positive impact is also dependent on norms of administration at the central level, whereas reduced competition over economic development has its negative sides. Developing-world-type centralism has no real advantages in terms of development or disparities. The developing-world decentralized model can be regarded as a transitional phase towards either the self-government or the welfare-state models. Its implementation has been partial; hence its impact has, so far, been rather small.
Local Government Systems: From Historic Divergence towards Convergence? Great Britain, France, and Germany as Comparative Cases in Point
Authors: Wollmann Hellmut
Published: March 2006

The author aims at a comparative analysis of the development of local government systems in Britain, France, and Germany. First, he makes the point that, during the historical evolution of the local government systems of the three countries over the last century, their institutional profiles have exhibited an almost classical divergence. Against this historical background the author pursues answers to the questions of whether, to what degree, and why the local government systems of the three countries have, in their more recent development, shown institutional convergence. Among the factors possibly fostering such convergence, the following are highlighted in the paper: the internationalisation (‘globalisation’) of socioeconomic and political challenges and institutional responses to them.
Developing Expertise in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: An Evaluation of Consultancy Support
Authors: Turok Ivan , Raco Mike
Published: March 2006

Enhancement of the management capabilities of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has attracted increasing policy attention in recent years. Many of the mechanisms used by government agencies involve the provision of external expertise in the form of advice, training, and subsidised consultancy. These schemes face various difficulties in addressing the diverse needs of SMEs effectively. Some of these difficulties are reflections of the different organisational cultures of the public and private sectors. The authors examine a major policy initiative in Scotland which constitutes an attempt to overcome some of them: the Expert Help Scheme. This scheme has achieved significant take-up through developing links with existing business support agencies and active promotion by consultants. The scheme's broad scope and flexibility have simplified this task. Client companies have generally been very satisfied with the quality of the service: it seems to have had a beneficial effect on some of their capabilities, and on the sales turnover and employment of several firms. There is scope for improvement through greater targeting and focusing of the scheme in order to enhance its additionality. There is also a case for closer integration with local business agencies in order to provide a more comprehensive package of support, enabling real developmental relationships to be created with companies.
The Concept of an ‘Enabling’ Local Authority
Authors: Smith Brian
Published: March 2006

Six distinct though related strands of ‘enabling’ as applied to the ability of local governments to engage in innovative methods of service delivery are distinguished. The practice of ‘enabling’ is analysed to identify possible advantages, obstacles, and disadvantages. Contracting can secure economies and strengthen the local economy but can cause problems of accountability. Consumerism may extend service-user choice but can be tokenistic for dependent clients and claimants. Community planning forces elected representatives to consider the impact on the community of the actions of all local decisionmakers but can be negated by central controls. Leadership can mobilise community resources from the commercial and not-for-profit sectors but is incompatible with the proliferation of nonaccountable agencies. Self-help can improve service responsiveness but is not necessarily democratically organised or empowering. Participation can empower but its commonest forms are weak. Concepts of enabling show how conventional local government can create innovative local governance.
Law, Legal Services, and the Postcommunist Transition in Germany's New Bundesländer
Authors: Blacksell Mark , Born Karl Martin , Bohlander Michael
Published: March 2006

One of the key features that culminated in the collapse of Communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s was a growing demand from within the societies affected that the state and the people be seen as separate, and that there be explicit recognition of the role of civil society—distinct and separate from the state. A key element in this transformation has been the creation and establishment of independent legal systems; the authors analyse the evolution of legal services in Germany's New Bundesländer since 1989, assessing the extent to which access and social justice have been achieved. The analysis is based on data from a survey of lawyers in the former East Germany, which formed the major part of a three-year research project. The authors first look back to the former East Germany and show how independent lawyers ( Rechtsanwälte) were progressively eliminated and marginalised as the Communist state became established, with dire consequences for the creation of an indigenous legal service after unification. In the second section they examine the evolution of the service provided by lawyers in private practice since 1990, concentrating on the growth in numbers, the composition of the profession, and its geographical distribution within the New Bundesländer. Third, attention is directed at changing attitudes to the law and legal services through the eyes of the lawyers who chiefly provide them. The authors conclude that given the magnitude of the task, progress has been encouraging and that very few people in the New Bundesländer are completely denied a local legal service, even if it may not be as attuned to their needs as they would ideally wish.
Sublocal Decentralisation—The Case of Slovak Big Cities
Authors: Buček Ján
Published: March 2006

By means of case studies of Slovak cities, the author focuses on decentralisation processes at the local level, paying special attention to the role of local self-government during the transformation period in Central and Eastern Europe. Four main directions of sublocal decentralisation are considered: political decentralisation, managerial decentralisation, decentralisation to the so-called ‘third sector’, and decentralisation to the private or mixed sector. Cities have constituted ‘Councils in City Quarters’ as a tool for the improvement of local democracy and as an aid to more flexible local self-government. The previously state-controlled municipal sector has also been changed to a group of municipal, public – private, and private companies involved in delivery of local services, resulting in enhanced efficiency. A wide range of local functions took over the third sector—from delivery of particular services to the reconciling of many local interests. Sublocal decentralisation processes, although not yet complete, appear very promising and confirm the ability to cope with the transitional situation at the local level. An important feature is that the initial top-down control of the local level transformation has been replaced with an active and more autonomous role of local self-governments following the consolidation period. Slovak transition at the local level also documents the role of local self-government as hard to replace in the facilitation of local civil society building and highlights a need for a local democracy which is more complex in nature.
In Search of Ethnic Entrepreneurship Opportunities in the City: A Comparative Policy Study
Authors: van Delft Hadewijch , Gorter Cees , Nijkamp Peter
Published: March 2006

The rapidly rising inflow of foreign migrants confronts policymakers with many socio-economic problems. The negative externalities of uncontrolled immigration are well known and often hard to cope with. Recent years have seen the appearance of many policy initiatives based on self-reliance principles for ethnic groups. Against this background, ethnic entrepreneurship has become a popular strategy as it stimulates and encourages migrants to look after themselves with only limited support from the government: such policies are becoming increasingly important in many large cities. In addition to the conventional educational support and training programmes, such strategies need to implement policies aimed at self-employment. An emphasis on ethnic entrepreneurship is an attempt to exploit the economic potential and opportunities of foreign migrants, instead of focusing on the problems which minorities encounter when entering the labour market. In ethnic entrepreneurship this potential can be utilised in a creative way, especially if well-organised projects and initiatives are set up.

The authors compare various assistance programmes and urban policies in several European cities, which are aimed at favouring ethnic entrepreneurship, with the aim of drawing lessons for effective labour-market policies. Their approach is to employ a systematic information base concerning self-employment strategies in the cities under investigation. A newly developed comparative statistical method for categorical information, namely, rough-set analysis, is used in order to identify critical success factors. The results suggest that utilisation of social networks is most helpful in enhancing self-employment among ethnic minorities. The authors offer some lessons for the establishment of sociocultural and ethnic networks, for strategies for improving training and education, and for improving access to facilities and financial resources.
Urban Grassroots Nongovernmental Organizations in Bombay: A Suggested Typology
Authors: Desai Vandana , Preston Ian
Published: March 2006

The authors make use of a data set, collected by one of them, on characteristics of nongovernment organizations (NGOs) in Bombay, to develop a data-based typology for urban NGOs. Application of statistical classification techniques points to three main dimensions of variation in the features of urban NGOs, which are interpreted as reflecting scale, scope, and stance towards local involvement and funding sources. These factors are used to interpret a clustering of Bombay NGOs into four relatively homogeneous groupings. In the arising typology the sector is divided into three types of service-delivery NGO, which are distinguished mainly by scale of operation and funding source, and a fourth group of NGOs which are involved more in policy advocacy.
Taxe Professionnelle as an Exportable Local Tax
Authors: Prud'homme Rémy
Published: March 2006

The French taxe professionnelle, a business tax assessed on business wages and capital, is by far the most important tax levied by local governments in France. Because owners of businesses located in a given commune are for the most part located outside that commune, just as are the purchasers of goods produced by these businesses, and even (in urban areas) wage earners working in these businesses, a large share of the tax paid to a given local government is exported out, and borne by capital owners, consumers, and wage earners located in other jurisdictions. The magnitude of these leakages is estimated from a study of 38 French communes. Some implications of tax exportability are discussed. It is concluded that, for a local tax, exportability may not be as great as is generally argued.
The State — Society Relation: The Case of an Antipoverty Policy
Authors: Das Raju J
Published: March 2006

The state possesses the relatively autonomous power to give concessions to the lower classes, the poor. But the extent to which the poor will actually benefit from the policies designed to help them is influenced by three factors. First, it depends on the level of the material support for the policy through which the concessions are sought to be given. This level of material support is, in turn, influenced by the state's financial dependence on the private economy and by competing demands from different classes and groups on the state's resources. Second, the extent to which the poor will benefit from the antipoverty intervention also depends on the balance of power between state actors and the poor ‘on the ground’, that is, at the local scale of state – society interaction where the policies are implemented. There are two aspects to this balance of power. On the one hand, state actors have some relative autonomy which they use to bend the rules of the state, often in alliance with ‘dominant’ actors in the civil society, in order to pocket a part of the legitimate share belonging to the poor (bribes). On the other hand, these actions of state actors are also subject to the struggle of the poor. Finally, the economic structure within which both the state and its poor clients work also affects the ways in which the antipoverty policies operate. In this paper I argue that these three factors produce constant interactions between state and society. The state is to be seen as both a process and a relationship. To illustrate this argument, I make use of primary and secondary information on the implementation of a major poverty-alleviation programme in India.
The Economic Impacts of LULUs
Authors: Rephann Terance J
Published: March 2006

The author examines some of the issues and controversies that arise when facilities with noxious environmental, social, or economic qualities (LULUs, or locally unwanted land uses) locate in communities. A taxonomy of LULUs, based on economic growth features, is developed and the effects of five specific kinds of LULUs: interstate highways; large dams; medium-security and maximum-security prisons; commercial nuclear power plants; and gambling casinos, are described. The author uses quasi-experimental control-group methods to assess the economic impacts of these facilities on US counties during the period 1972–94. It is shown that few real negative effects can in fact be attributed to LULUs. However, only interstate highways measurably stimulate aggregate employment.
Is the New Deal for Transport Really Better for Everyone? The Social Policy Implications of the UK 1998 White Paper on Transport
Authors: Huby Meg , Burkitt Nick
Published: March 2006

The authors examine, from a social policy perspective, the UK government's 1998 transport White Paper, which aims to reduce the environmental and social costs of growing traffic congestion and pollution. Data from the British Social Attitudes Survey are used to analyse the implications of the government's new transport policy for the relative welfare of different social and demographic groups. The results suggest that car dependency, which the government is hoping to tackle, is widespread and is particularly strong among men, people with higher incomes, those aged between 25 and 59 years, people with children, the nonmanual social classes, and those living in rural areas. These classes and groups share most of the responsibility for the negative impacts of motor transport, and are often the least concerned about them. They are also the people most opposed to the idea of government intervention to ameliorate the problems.
Discourse Coalitions and the Australian Climate Change Policy Network
Authors: Bulkeley Harriet
Published: March 2006

Ever since the agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, climate change has become the most prominent global environmental issue on domestic political agendas. The author examines how a policy-network approach can contribute to the analysis of domestic climate change responses. Consideration is given to the role of advocacy coalitions and discourse coalitions within policy networks. It is argued that the discourse-coalition approach offers a useful explanation of the processes of coalition formation, interaction, and policy learning. Although it cannot alone explain the outcomes of the policy process, its emphasis on the dynamics of meaning, legitimacy, and knowledge as an essential part of policymaking can usefully be incorporated into an analysis of policy networks.
Different Paths to Success—The Growth of the Electronics Sector in Ireland and Israel
Authors: Roper Stephen , Frenkel Amnon
Published: March 2006

Both Ireland and Israel have, over the last three decades, established internationally competitive electronics industries. Israeli electronics has its origins in locally initiated R&D, is dominated by indigenously owned firms, and has its main export-market strengths in the research-intensive leading-edge markets for telecommunications and medical diagnostic equipment. In contrast, large-scale, US-owned plants producing computer equipment and components dominate the Irish electronics sector. The authors explore the factors that have contributed to these very different development paths. Social and political factors are examined, along with differences in technology and industrial policy, and the availability and cost of suitably skilled labour. The suggestion is that Ireland retains some cost advantages for large-scale manufacturing operations whereas Israel provides a more attractive location for research-intensive activities or niche manufacturing. The experience of the two nations suggests important policy lessons for Israel if it is to capture more of the value added generated by the products it develops and for Ireland if it is to move towards more research-intensive electronics activities.
Spatial Dimensions and Institutional Uncertainties of Planning and the ‘New Regionalism’
Authors: Allmendinger Philip , Tewdwr-Jones Mark
Published: March 2006

Over the last two decades, there have been numerous advancements in theorising the significance of subnational territories within both the global economy and nation-states. Within the United Kingdom over the last few years, academic study has tended to concentrate on the ‘new regionalism’ and the rescaling of political processes caused by the ‘hollowing out’ of the nation-state and governmental devolution and decentralisation to the subnational level. Part of the reason for this push towards a renewed interest in regional governance and policy processes has been the autonomous institutional capacities of regions to harness regional economic development with planning processes. The new regionalism (a contentious label) has occurred throughout the United Kingdom, but has been implemented separately in each country, through the creation of Regional Development Agencies in the English regions, and new politically accountable elected forums in Wales and Scotland. In this paper, we provide one of the first attempts empirically to analyse the new institutional structures through a survey of agencies across Britain—in England, Scotland, and Wales—in order to provide a comparative assessment of evolving forms of regional governance. We illustrate a mixed reaction from public-policy stakeholders with concern over the ability of these new forums to develop a capacity to harness both economic development and planning policy processes. On a more conceptual level, the research indicates uncertainty over both the future spatial dimension of planning processes and the scale links between the new regional level and the existing national and local levels of governance.
Rationality, Ethics, and Space: On Situated Universalism and the Self-Interested Acknowledgement of ‘Difference’
Authors: Bridge Gary
Published: March 2006

The author explores the relationship between rationality, ethics, and space. He argues that the contemporary ethical project involves a derationalisation of ethics through a recorporealisation of space. There is a move away from the abstract space of liberal-individualist notions of justice to more enclosed and local spaces of communitarian loyalties and intersubjective communication. Postmodern interventions into the ethical realm lead us to a corporealised, intimate space that recognises difference and is heavy with phenomenological presence. The author argues that the conception of agency which explains adherence to community norms and the acknowledgement of difference is strategically rational self-interest. Situated practices and understandings of the other rely on rational assumptions. The time-space conditions of late modernity bring unlike others into more regular contact and open up the possibilities for more universalist forms of strong (ethical) social coordination based on expanded strategic rationality.
Negotiating with the Future: The Culture of Modern Risk in Global Financial Markets
Authors: Green Stephen
Published: March 2006

In contemporary global financial markets, the production and investment of capital is dependent upon complex systems of risk management. In this paper I explore the ‘modern’ notion of risk within these markets. I argue that these systems are not only dependent upon institutional infrastructure and material resources but are also maintained by a specific ‘risk’ culture, an entrenched set of practices of market configuration, technological development, social-group construction, and notions of authority, expertise and creativity which combines modernity's ambition to know with the market's ambition to commodify. This form of ‘modern’ risk can be seen as deeply entrenched within and produced by broader social and economic developments, and runs counter to the critical version of risk developed by Beck. I show how risk itself is a contested concept, and how it defines different practices of dealing with the future.
Which Jerusalem? A Consideration of Concepts and Borders
Authors: Sharkansky Ira , Auerbach Gedalia
Published: March 2006

‘Jerusalem’ conveys intensely spiritual meanings seeming to preclude political accommodation. A total solution that is absolutely clear to all parties seems impossible. Yet the several names, conceptions, and geographical denotations associated with the city offer options that lend themselves to creative and flexible negotiations that emphasize coping based on exploitation of the ambiguity inherent in the city's nature. More precisely, the intention is to blunt the emotions, whose source is religious, that the name ‘Jerusalem’ awakens, in a way that will allow coping in the realms of political and adminstration with greater success.
Transitivities
Authors: Law John
Published: March 2006

In this paper I describe the explosion of an aeroengine, the Olympus 22R, and the consequences of that explosion. Empirically, I explore both the puzzle-solving of the engineers as they tried to ascertain what had gone wrong, and the way in which this led to substantial delay in a major aircraft project, and consequent large-scale political and economic repercussions. Theoretically, I use these events to reflect on and denaturalise notions of scale and size. Instead of social and technical phenomena being seen as intrinsically different in size (a Euclidean notion), scale and size are considered to be relational effects. The aeroengine explosion is thus treated as disrupting a mathematically transitive series which was producing scale and size—and the social and technical repair work is treated as an attempt to remake scale relations so that ‘small things’, such as pieces of metal in the interior of aeroengines, were again rendered smaller than ‘large things’, such as economic and political context.
Space, Materials, and the ‘Social’: In the Aftermath of a Disaster
Authors: Harada Takashi
Published: March 2006

How do spaces and materials relate and create the ‘social’ contexts? How are material ‘order’ or the ‘social’ meaning such as collectivity and individuality interrelated? In this essay I explore the relations of spaces, materials, and the ‘social’ using several episodes in a public shelter after the great earthquake happened in Japan in January 1995. Sudden collapse of continuous interrelations of the materials and spaces in a metropolitan area reveals the process of the (re)creation of both collectibility and individuality through the delegation through the delegation of the spaces and materials at large and small scales.
Social Order and the Blank Figure
Authors: Hetherington Kevin , Lee Nick
Published: March 2006

Our aim in this paper is to introduce the figure of the underdetermined ‘blank’ into issues of social and spatial order. We argue that forms of social order habitually make tacit use of blank figures. Beginning with examples of blank figures as they appear in games of cards and dominos, we show how the ‘joker’ and the ‘double-blank’ domino, respectively, allow for conditions of both stasis and change to develop within an order. Such blanks are underdetermined or ambiguous figures that are constitutionally indifferent to heterogeneity. Blanks have the capacity to figurally represent the presence of absence in a known social order. Through the indifference that absence has to order, blank figures are able to form links and coordinations within heterogeneity to produce what pass for homogeneous social orders. They are figures of topological complexity that allow for connections and spacings to be made that unsettle Euclidean geometric assumptions about order through its representation in terms of regions, scale, and boundedness. Furthermore, this same indifference ensures that any such coordination remains open to change. We describe blank figures' ability to provide the conditions of possibility of both stasis and change in terms of their motility. The blank figure allows us to build an account of social order as a switching between stasis and change which treats both as emergent effects of the same ordering practices.
Research Performances
Authors: Pratt Geraldine
Published: March 2006

I revisit a participatory research project, carried out with domestic workers at the Philippine Women Centre, to assess how persistent conventions dictated what did and did not count as evidence. I attempt to push against these conventions, to entertain a broader range of evidence. Beyond this, our writing can be thought of as a performance; I try to imagine writing performances that provoke productive tensions within the audience/reader, between identification and dis-identification. Finally, our research itself is a performance; framing it as such may enable us to imagine and experiment with a broader repertoire of research strategies, beyond the documentary and the confessional, and multiple research objectives: here, now, and then and there.
Taking Butler Elsewhere: Performativities, Spatialities and Subjectivities
Authors: Gregson Nicky , Rose Gillian
Published: March 2006

This paper is concerned with exploring the potential of performance and performativity as conceptual tools for a critical human geography. We begin by emphasising the importance of recognising the different ways in which performance can be theorised, and their very different critical effects. We then argue that, although the geographical literature is apparently characterised by two contrasting discussions of performance (those of Goffman and of Butler), these accounts form a consensus around Goffman. By contrast, and along with Butler, we maintain that performance is subsumed within and must always be connected to performativity—that is, to the citational practices which produce and subvert discourse and knowledge, and which at the same time enable and discipline subjects and their performances. But we also take Butler elsewhere, arguing that spaces too need to be thought of as performative, and that more needs to be made of the complexity and instability of performances and performed spaces. To illustrate our general arguments, but also to show how they work out rather differently in the specificities of particular social practices, we draw on two very different pieces of research which we have separately been involved in: a study of community arts workers and projects in Edinburgh and another on car-boot sales as alternative spaces of consumption. We conclude the paper by arguing for the necessity of extending our arguments to encompass academic performances and performativity, reflecting on our own production, both through particular academic performances of our respective research projects and this paper.
Difference and the Negotiation of ‘Old Age’
Authors: Pain Rachel , Mowl Graham , Talbot Carol
Published: March 2006

In this paper we contribute to recent discussions of ageing and ageism in human geography. Findings are presented from a qualitative study of older people which explored the association of old-age identities with different spaces. By focusing in particular on leisure spaces, some of the ways in which the identities and spaces available to older people are constructed by class, ability, and gender are highlighted. These sites have different meanings and associations, reflecting positive as well as negative discourses of ‘old age’, allowing some individuals to negotiate ‘old age’ through maintaining distinct and separate leisure activities and spaces.
Homelessness and Rurality: ‘Out-of-Place’ in Purified Space?
Authors: Cloke Paul , Milbourne Paul , Widdowfield Rebekah
Published: March 2006

In this paper we discuss the apparent failure to couple together the constructs of ‘rurality’ and ‘homelessness’, and propose a critical deconstruction of this noncoupling. Three principal lines of arguments are employed. First, there are a range of physical and material reasons why rural and urban spaces have varying qualities for hiding or revealing homeless people, and why the embodied experiences of homelessness have varying geographies. Second, there are a series of obstacles that exist within the practices, thoughts, and discourses of rural dwellers themselves, which lead them to deny that homelessness exists in their place. Third, normalised conceptualisations about rurality and homelessness often serve to separate the two concepts, and contribute to the assumption that homelessness is an urban phenomenon, which is rendered invisible in rural space. In short, homelessness may be conceptualised as being ‘out-of-place’ in the purified spaces of rurality, and the imaginary geographies of rurality and homelessness become transformed into everyday practices and actions relating to what people actually do in and about rural places. This critical deconstruction will be important for any attempts to recouple homelessness and rurality in the understandings and actions of policymakers.
Utilising Space in Sheltered Housing or ‘Fitting a Quart into a Pint Pot’: Perspectives of Architects and Older People
Authors: Fairhurst Eileen
Published: March 2006

The author, using textual analysis of architects' professional discourse and interviews with older people, examines their different perspectives on space utilisation in sheltered housing. Both designers and older people approach this matter by way of commonsense usages of home as a physical location and as a location in space. The differences between these individuals are explicated in terms of Schutz's notion of anonymous typifications. It is shown that architectural design briefs involve making predictions about the future lives of residents of sheltered housing. This results in a range of anonymous typifications informing architects' views on space utilisation. By contrast, when older people talk about their future lives in sheltered housing and space utilisation they rely upon features of their individual biographies: matters from which architects are inevitably excluded.
After Globalisation
Authors: Low Murray , Barnett Clive
Published: March 2006

Globalisation has become an almost ubiquitous term in academic debates, policy circles, and popular culture. In this paper we critically consider geography's characteristic form of engagement with the multifaceted features of globalisation discourses and realities. Globalisation provides an entry point for assertions of the conceptual and empirical importance of space, place, context, and locality. However, we argue that this form of engagement subordinates the central, and conceptually problematic, historicism of globalisation to a set of more manageable disciplinary concerns. We provide a critical discussion of the historicist dimensions of globalisation discourses, and indicate some of the ways in which critical accounts can reproduce this historicism. By raising this problem, we suggest that space and spatiality are not always or automatically the most significant entry point for conceptual critique and engagement. The case of globalisation therefore indicates some of the limits of established forms of interdisciplinary dialogue between critical human geography and related fields.
Impact of animal health and welfare research within the CRC for Cattle and Beef Quality on Australian beef production
Authors: Colditz I. G. , Watson D. L. , Kilgour R. , Ferguson D. M. , Prideaux C. , Ruby J. , Kirkland P. D. , Sullivan K.
Published: March 2006

Research within the health and welfare program of the Cooperative Research Centre for Cattle and Beef Quality has delivered important improvements to the Australian cattle industry. Vaccines to assist with the control of bovine respiratory disease were developed and commercialised from Australian isolates of Mannheimia haemolytica and pestivirus (mucosal disease). Our understanding of the benefits of weaning cattle by confinement and hand feeding in yards (yard weaning) has been consolidated, and yard weaning has been adopted as ‘best practice’ for cattle production in the temperate zones of Australia. The importance of good temperament for improved growth rates and reduced morbidity during feedlot finishing, and for adaptation to stressors such as road transport, has been demonstrated. In response to this knowledge, industry is increasingly measuring flight time for use in breeding programs and feedlot management. The risk to meat quality of stressors such as mixing unfamiliar cattle in the weeks preceding slaughter or acute stress in the last 15 min before slaughter has been described. Adoption of these findings through Quality Assurance schemes will assist in assurance for the community and for export markets of the welfare standards of the Australian cattle and beef industry. This review provides details of the experiments that led to these achievements and to some improved understandings of temperament and behaviour of beef cattle.
Bernard Michael Bindon — reproductive physiologist, animal scientist, research leader
Authors: Entwistle K. W. , Cummins L. J. , Hillard M. A. , Kinder J. E. , O'Shea T. , Piper L. R. , Thimonier J. , Wilkins J. F.
Published: March 2006

This paper is a foreword to a series of papers commissioned on ‘the impact of science on the beef industry’, where the Beef CRC-related collaborative scientific work of Professor Bernard Michael Bindon will be reviewed. These papers will be presented in March 2006, as part of a ‘festschrift’ to recognise his wider contributions to the Australian livestock industries for over 40 years. Bindon’s career involved basic and applied research in many areas of reproductive physiology, genetics, immunology, nutrition, meat science and more recently genomics, in both sheep and cattle. Together with his collaborators, he made large contributions to animal science by improving the knowledge of mechanisms regulating reproductive functions and in elucidating the physiology and genetics of high fecundity livestock. His collaborative studies with many colleagues of the reproductive biology and genetics of the Booroola Merino were amongst the most extensive ever conducted on domestic livestock. He was instrumental in the development of immunological techniques to control ovulation rate and in examining the application of these and other techniques to increase beef cattle reproductive output. This paper tracks his investigations and achievements both within Australia and internationally. In the later stages of his career he was the major influence in attracting a large investment in Cooperative Research Centres for the Australian cattle industry, in which he directed a multi-disciplinary approach to investigate, develop and disseminate science and technology to improve commercial cattle productivity.
Evaluation of Bonsmara and Belmont Red cattle breeds in South Africa. 2. Genetic parameters for growth and fertility
Authors: Corbet N. J. , Shepherd R. K. , Burrow H. M. , Prayaga K. C. , van der Westhuizen J. , Bosman D. J.
Published: March 2006

Genetic parameters were estimated for growth and fertility indicator traits in a South African beef cattle population. Measurements on 5601 pedigreed progeny of 96 Bonsmara sires, 18 Belmont Red sires and 20 Bonsmara × Belmont Red cross sires were recorded over 19 years in 4 diverse climatic regions of South Africa. Growth traits were measured on growing stock from birth to 18 months at pasture. Cow weights were measured at calving and weaning. Age at first calving, and repeated measurements of calving day and calving interval were recorded on 1993 breeding females as indicators of reproductive performance. The traits were analysed using univariate and bivariate animal models with maternal effects fitted.
Direct heritability of growth traits (0.11–0.42) and female fertility traits (0.02–0.13) suggested that genetic progress could be made by selection for some traits. Genetic correlations between growth and fertility traits were variable (–0.47–0.85) and indicated that multi-trait selection would be the best method of dealing with multidirectional forces on productivity traits. Genetic correlations between direct and maternal effects on liveweight traits were mostly negative indicating that genetic improvement of traits with strong maternal influence, such as weaning weight, would be complicated and supported the use of post-weaning weights with less maternal influence as selection criteria to improve the direct additive component of growth. The genetic parameter estimates provide useful reference values for estimation of breeding values in a proposed combined-breed genetic evaluation program.
Pathophysiological processes underlying emotional triggering of acute cardiac events
Authors: Strike Philip C. , Magid Kesson , Whitehead Daisy L. , Brydon Lena , Bhattacharyya Mimi R. , Steptoe Andrew
Published: March 2006

Acute negative emotional states may act as triggers of acute coronary syndrome (ACS), but the biological mechanisms involved are not known. Heightened platelet activation and hemodynamic shear stress provoked by acute stress may contribute. Here we investigated whether patients whose ACS had been preceded by acute anger, stress, or depression would show heightened hemodynamic and platelet activation in response to psychophysiological stress testing. We studied 34 male patients an average of 15 months after they had survived a documented ACS. According to an interview conducted within 5 days of hospital admission, 14 men had experienced acute negative emotion in the 2 h before symptom onset, and 20 men had not experienced any negative emotion. Hemodynamic variables and platelet activation were monitored during performance of challenging color-word interference and public speaking tasks and over a 2-h poststress recovery period. The emotion trigger group showed significantly greater increases in monocyte-platelet, leukocyte-platelet, and neutrophil-platelet aggregate responses to stress than the nontrigger group, after adjusting for age, body mass, smoking status, and medication. Monocyte-platelet aggregates remained elevated for 30 min after stress in the emotion trigger group. The emotion trigger group also showed poststress delayed recovery of systolic pressure and cardiac output compared with the nontrigger group. These results suggest that some patients with coronary artery disease may be particularly susceptible to emotional triggering of ACS because of heightened platelet activation in response to psychological stress, coupled with impaired hemodynamic poststress recovery.
Abnormal development of the olfactory bulb and reproductive system in mice lacking prokineticin receptor PKR2
Authors: Matsumoto Shun-ichiro , Yamazaki Chihiro , Masumoto Koh-hei , Nagano Mamoru , Naito Masanori , Soga Takatoshi , Hiyama Hideki , Matsumoto Mitsuyuki , Takasaki Jun , Kamohara Masazumi , Matsuo Ayako , Ishii Hiroyuki , Kobori Masato , Katoh Masao , Matsushime Hitoshi , Furuichi Kiyoshi , Shigeyoshi Yasufumi
Published: March 2006

Prokineticins, multifunctional secreted proteins, activate two endogenous G protein-coupled receptors PKR1 and PKR2. From
in situ
analysis of the mouse brain, we discovered that PKR2 is predominantly expressed in the olfactory bulb (OB). To examine the role of PKR2 in the OB, we created PKR1- and PKR2-gene-disrupted mice (
Pkr1
−/−
and
Pkr2
−/−
, respectively). Phenotypic analysis indicated that not
Pkr1
−/−
but
Pkr2
−/−
mice exhibited hypoplasia of the OB. This abnormality was observed in the early developmental stages of fetal OB in the
Pkr2
−/−
mice. In addition, the
Pkr2
−/−
mice showed severe atrophy of the reproductive system, including the testis, ovary, uterus, vagina, and mammary gland. In the
Pkr2
−/−
mice, the plasma levels of testosterone and follicle-stimulating hormone were decreased, and the mRNA transcription levels of gonadotropin-releasing hormone in the hypothalamus and luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone in the pituitary were also significantly reduced. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that gonadotropin-releasing hormone neurons were absent in the hypothalamus in the
Pkr2
−/−
mice. The phenotype of the
Pkr2
−/−
mice showed similarity to the clinical features of Kallmann syndrome, a human disease characterized by association of hypogonadotropic hypogonadism and anosmia. Our current findings demonstrated that physiological activation of PKR2 is essential for normal development of the OB and sexual maturation.
Strict rules determine arrangements of strands in sandwich proteins
Authors: Kister A. E. , Fokas A. S. , Papatheodorou T. S. , Gelfand I. M.
Published: March 2006

From a computer analysis of the spatial organization of the secondary structures of β-sandwich proteins, we find certain sets of consecutive strands that are connected by hydrogen bonds, which we call “strandons.” The analysis of the arrangements of strandons in 491 protein structures that come from 69 different superfamilies reveals strict regularities in the arrangements of strandons and the formation of what we call “canonical supermotifs.” Six such supermotifs account for ≈90% of all observed structures. Simple geometric rules are described that dictate the formation of these supermotifs.
Synthesis and spectroscopic studies of new organotin(IV) complexes with dithiocarbamate derivative of L-proline
Authors: Sedaghat Tahereh , Goodarzi Karam
Published: March 2006

New organotin complexes, [SnMe2(dtc-pro)] (1) and [Sn2Bu4Cl2(dtc-pro)] (2), have been synthesized from reaction between SnR2Cl2 (R = Me or Bu) and dithiocarbamate derivative of L-proline (dtc-pro). These complexes have been characterized by elemental analysis, IR, 1H NMR and 119Sn NMR spectroscopies. Spectroscopic data suggest a polymeric structure for 1 and a dimeric structure for 2, in which the ligand has been coordinated through both carboxylate and dithiocarbamate groups between two tin atoms. On the basis of 119Sn NMR data coordination number of tin atom in solution is five.
Reaction of olefins with aluminium chloride stabilized arene-mercury complexes
Authors: Borovik Alexander S. , Barron Andrew R.
Published: March 2006

Mercury-arene complexes, [Hg(arene)2(AlCl4)2], are found to be active catalysts for the alkylation of arenes with olefins. Ethylene, propylene, and cyclohexylene react with benzene, toluene or ethylbenzene to form mono- or polyalkylated products, the distribution being dependent on the nature of the alkene. Deuterium labeling experiments using C6D6 show that deuterium is exclusively attached to the primary carbon atom of the resulting alkyl substituent leading to the proposal that the alkylation reaction occurs via the insertion of an olefin into a Hg–Car σ bond formed from the reaction of [Hg(arene)2(AlCl4)2] with arene solvent. The limiting factor in controlling the yield of the alkylation reaction is the preferential binding of the polyalkyl-arene products to the mercury. The lack of equivalent reaction for either AlCl3 or HgCl2 alone suggests that the ‘indirect activation’ of a weak Lewis acid (HgCl2) by the coordination of a strong Lewis acid (AlCl3).