title: Shareholders’ requirements for corporate environmental disclosures: A cross country comparison

authors: de Villiers, Charl

subjects: Shareholders’ opinions

abstract: e survey individual shareholders in Australia, the UK and the US regarding corporate environmental disclosures. In general, respondents in the three countries are interested in, and positively disposed towards, these disclosures. We observe country and gender differences with Australian and female respondents more in favour of environmental reporting than others. Specifically, respondents require disclosure of an overview of environmental risks and impacts, the environmental policy, performance against measurable environmental targets and information on a range of environmental costs. Most shareholders require environmental disclosures to be audited. Shareholders call for environmental information because they believe managers should be accountable to shareholders for their companies’ environmental impacts. Furthermore, shareholders have indicated the uses for specific types of environmental information. Our results imply that legislators, standard setters and companies have to consider the policy implications of these shareholder views.

text: Shareholders’ requirements for corporate environmental disclosures: A cross country comparison e survey individual shareholders in Australia, the UK and the US regarding corporate environmental disclosures. In general, respondents in the three countries are interested in, and positively disposed towards, these disclosures. We observe country and gender differences with Australian and female respondents more in favour of environmental reporting than others. Specifically, respondents require disclosure of an overview of environmental risks and impacts, the environmental policy, performance against measurable environmental targets and information on a range of environmental costs. Most shareholders require environmental disclosures to be audited. Shareholders call for environmental information because they believe managers should be accountable to shareholders for their companies’ environmental impacts. Furthermore, shareholders have indicated the uses for specific types of environmental information. Our results imply that legislators, standard setters and companies have to consider the policy implications of these shareholder views.

year: 2010

title: Evolving artificial datasets to improve interpretable classifiers

authors: Mayo, Michael

subjects: Machine learning

abstract: Differential Evolution can be used to construct effective and compact artificial training datasets for machine learning algorithms. In this paper, a series of comparative experiments are performed in which two simple interpretable supervised classifiers (specifically, Naive Bayes and linear Support Vector Machines) are trained (i) directly on “real” data, as would be the normal case, and (ii) indirectly, using special artificial datasets derived from real data via evolutionary optimization. The results across several challenging test problems show that supervised classifiers trained indirectly using our novel evolution-based approach produce models with superior predictive classification performance. Besides presenting the accuracy of the learned models, we also analyze the sensitivity of our artificial data optimization process to Differential Evolution's parameters, and then we examine the statistical characteristics of the artificial data that is evolved.

text: Evolving artificial datasets to improve interpretable classifiers Differential Evolution can be used to construct effective and compact artificial training datasets for machine learning algorithms. In this paper, a series of comparative experiments are performed in which two simple interpretable supervised classifiers (specifically, Naive Bayes and linear Support Vector Machines) are trained (i) directly on “real” data, as would be the normal case, and (ii) indirectly, using special artificial datasets derived from real data via evolutionary optimization. The results across several challenging test problems show that supervised classifiers trained indirectly using our novel evolution-based approach produce models with superior predictive classification performance. Besides presenting the accuracy of the learned models, we also analyze the sensitivity of our artificial data optimization process to Differential Evolution's parameters, and then we examine the statistical characteristics of the artificial data that is evolved.

year: 2014

title: Tauira Rangatahi Numeracy and Literacy Programme: Apps in Numeracy and Literacy Research

authors: Calder, Nigel Stuart

subjects: Youth Guarantee

abstract: A key aspect of tertiary education undertaken by Te Wananga o Aotearoa (TWoA) is re-establishing engagement and success in the rangatahi space through meeting the literacy and numeracy demands for programmes at levels 1–3. TWoA has Youth Guarantee programmes that deliver introductory Sport and Leisure and Contemporary Māori Arts programmes with embedded literacy and numeracy. The purpose of this research project was to investigate tauira rangatahi attitudes towards literacy and numeracy development through the application of appropriate cultural capital in conjunction with contemporary digital technologies. The research examined the influence of iPad apps on the beliefs and attitudes of Youth Guarantee tauira towards numeracy and literacy.

text: Tauira Rangatahi Numeracy and Literacy Programme: Apps in Numeracy and Literacy Research A key aspect of tertiary education undertaken by Te Wananga o Aotearoa (TWoA) is re-establishing engagement and success in the rangatahi space through meeting the literacy and numeracy demands for programmes at levels 1–3. TWoA has Youth Guarantee programmes that deliver introductory Sport and Leisure and Contemporary Māori Arts programmes with embedded literacy and numeracy. The purpose of this research project was to investigate tauira rangatahi attitudes towards literacy and numeracy development through the application of appropriate cultural capital in conjunction with contemporary digital technologies. The research examined the influence of iPad apps on the beliefs and attitudes of Youth Guarantee tauira towards numeracy and literacy.

year: 2014