Economic Development Barriers, Opportunities and Pathways

The Indigenous Economic Forum was held in Alice Springs on 6 & 7 March 2003. In Professor Jon Altman's introductory remarks to the conference, he addresses Indigenous engagement with the marketplace. In the Summary Comments, he draws together the themes espoused by conference speakers.Introductory Remarks to the Indigenous Forum -- Seizing our Future Summar

Progress in the synthesis of sustainable polymers from terpenes and terpenoids

The imminent depletion of resources derived from fossil fuels is a major concern for today’s society. 300 Mt of polymers are used every year in the form of plastics, most commonly derived from fossil fuels, hence the necessity to find new materials based on renewable resources. This review explores the utilisation of monoterpenes and terpenoids – a family of abundant and inexpensive natural products – as promising renewable monomers. Terpenes can be directly used in polymerisations or converted into bespoke monomers through organic transformations. The use of terpenes for the production of renewable plastics has been a prevalent topic of research for the past few decades. Early research focused on cationic polymerisation of terpenes by way of their alkene moieties; however, more recently terpenes are being functionalised to incorporate handles for a larger range of polymerisation techniques. Herein an assessment of the future prospects for the use of these small functional molecules to synthesise novel and valuable renewable materials is presented

Ratings and rankings: Voodoo or Science?

Composite indicators aggregate a set of variables using weights which are understood to reflect the variables' importance in the index. In this paper we propose to measure the importance of a given variable within existing composite indicators via Karl Pearson's `correlation ratio'; we call this measure `main effect'. Because socio-economic variables are heteroskedastic and correlated, (relative) nominal weights are hardly ever found to match (relative) main effects; we propose to summarize their discrepancy with a divergence measure. We further discuss to what extent the mapping from nominal weights to main effects can be inverted. This analysis is applied to five composite indicators, including the Human Development Index and two popular league tables of university performance. It is found that in many cases the declared importance of single indicators and their main effect are very different, and that the data correlation structure often prevents developers from obtaining the stated importance, even when modifying the nominal weights in the set of nonnegative numbers with unit sum.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figure

Record of economic research on the Middle East and North Africa since 1990

Tema ovog završnog rada je analiza naprezanja i deformacija u toplinski opterećenoj konstrukciji. Prije same analize, koja se temelji na principima metode konačnih elemenata kratko je opisana zadana konstrukcija, te mehanička i toplinska svojstva materijala deformabilnih ploča korištenih u sklopu. Numerička analiza izvodi se u programskom paketu ABAQUS, te je stoga u ovome radu dan kratak osvrt na teorijsku podlogu navedenog programskog paketa. Također, opisani su korišteni trodimenzionalni elementi koji su korišteni u numeričkoj analizi. U analizi se koriste osnovni heksaedarski „brick“ elementi za toplinska i mehanička opterećenja, te superponirani elementi za termomehaničke primjene. Prije početka numeričke analize zadane konstrukcije, odabrani elementi su verificirani na poznatim problemima koje je uz određena pojednostavljenja moguće riješiti analitičkim putem. Numerička analiza rađena je za tri različita tipa toplinskog opterećenja, te su za svaki tip opterećenja opisani rubni uvjeti, stacionarnost ili tranzijentnost problema, te proces dobivanja konačne diskretizacije proračunskog modela analizom konvergencije. Nakon provođenja analize detaljnije su opisani dobiveni rezultati, te prikazane karakteristične raspodjele pomaka, naprezanja i temperatura.The subject of this final paper is analysis of stresses and strains in construction subjected to thermal load. Before the analysis, which is based on the principles of finite element method, a short description of given structure is provided, and mechanical and thermal properties of deformable plates used in assembly is given. Numerical analysis is carried out in software package called ABAQUS, so in this paper it is given a short overview of theoretical basis of specified software package. Finite elements used in numerical analyisis are also described. The analysis used basic three-dimensional hexahedron „brick“ elements for thermal and mechanical loads, and superimposed elements for thermomechanical applications. Before the numerical analysis of given construction, chosen elements are verified on known problems, which can be analytically solved with certain simplifications. Numerical analysis is done fore three different types of thermal load, and thus, for every type, are described boundary conditions, stationarity or transitivity, and the process of detirmining the final discretization of numerical model with convergence analysis. After the analysis is carried out, results are described in a more detailed manner, and also specific distributions of discplacements, stresses and temperatures are shown

Demystifying the Arctic. Authored by the Members of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Arctic, Davos-Klosters, Switzerland 22-25 January 2014

To this day, the general public thinks of the Arctic in visions of unspoiled ocean and landscapes, expansive ice, clean water, unique species and aboriginal cultures – essentially, it reminds everyone that a true wilderness still exists. In addition to important natural resources, the Arctic provides inspiration by maintaining its irreplaceable cultures, a pristine environment, healthy ecosystem and ground-breaking collaborative governance models. As such, it is a global asset that should be maintained

Foreign Aid Transaction Costs: What are they and when are they minimised?

'Transaction costs' are commonly referred to in the recent literature on aid effectiveness. Aid transaction costs, however, have been neither consistently defined nor measured. This article defines aid transaction costs as all the economic costs associated with aid management that add no value to aid delivery. This enables the 'net' transaction costs that should be minimised to be identified. An analytical framework is then developed for assessing these costs. This allows the effectiveness of different aid modalities to be compared, according to the characteristics of the aid transaction. The article shows that the choice of aid modality should depend on these characteristics and, therefore, that the minimisation of transaction costs should not be an end in itself.Peer reviewe

The competitiveness of nations and implications for human development

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Socio-Economic Planning Sciences. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2010 Elsevier B.V.Human development should be the ultimate objective of human activity, its aim being healthier, longer, and fuller lives. Thus, if the competitiveness of a nation is properly managed, enhanced human welfare should be the key expected consequence. The research described here explores the relationship between the competitiveness of a nation and its implications for human development. For this purpose, 45 countries were evaluated initially using data envelopment analysis. In this stage, global competitiveness indicators were taken as input variables with human development index indicators as output variables. Subsequently, an artificial neural network analysis was conducted to identify those factors having the greatest impact on efficiency scores