Delivering 3D advertising to mobile phones.

Directing advertising to mobile phones currently is limited to commercial text messages, short-code text-back messages, two dimensional (2D) images, or wireless access protocol (WAP) clickable push links. All of these traditional methods do not facilitate advertising approach were consumers can interact with prospective purchases. In this paper we introduce a novel and highly interactive location- and permission-based advertising system that allows 3D product adverts to be displayed on users' mobile phones. The paper provides a thorough discussion of the system covering its performance, implementation structure, platform-dependent optimizations and suggestions for future work. With mobile phones and 3D interactive tools, advertising becomes more engaging, rewarding and entertaining and provides marketing executives with new means of directing their campaigns to a more specific target audience

Trade Technology and Employment: A case Study of South Africa

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact of trade on employment in South Africa. Firstly, it considers the correlation between trade liberalisation and factor demand in South African manufacturing during the 1990s. Secondly, it investigates the impact of trade on labour using a Chenery (1979) style decomposition technique, following Edwards (2001a, 2001b, 2005b) and Jenkins (2002). It develops the earlier work by exploring both the indirect and the indirect effects and investigating variations in the regional impact of trade on factor demand during the 1990s. This suggests that technological change accounts for the bulk of jobs lost in manufacturing during the 1990s. To investigate, whether this reflects exogenous technological change or trade-induced technological change requires undertaking an econometric analysis and this explores the impact of trade on technological change through an induced labour demand model. This finds a strong effect of exogenous technological progress but only limited evidence that increased trade flows and trade liberalisation induced improvements in labour productivity.Trade; technology; employment; industrial panel

Mobslinger: The Fastest Mobile in the West.

Whilst there is a number of location sensing games emerging for mobile phones, from both commercial and academic sectors, there are few examples of social proximity based games that are effectively position independent. Bluetooth would seem an obvious choice for proximity based games, although the majority of games produced to-date simply uses it to provide a quasi peer to peer connection between users of multiplayer games. This is no-doubt due to the fact that proximity can often be implied from other location sensing technologies and that Bluetooth is often perceived as difficult to employ. In this paper we will show that Bluetooth can provide exciting game scenarios that can enable spontaneous stimulated social interaction using only proximity information. We illustrate this through the design rationale and subsequent implementation of ‘mobslinger’ which is a wild west, quick draw, ‘shoot-em-up’ game using mobile phones

Can Carbon Labeling Be Development Friendly? Recommendations on How to Improve Emerging Schemes

Can Carbon Labeling Be Development Friendly? Recommendations on How to Improve Emerging SchemesCarbon accounting and labeling for products are new instruments of supply chain management that may affect developing country export opportunities. Most instruments in use today are private business management tools, although the underlying science and methodologies may spread to issues subject to public regulation. This note seeks to inform stakeholders involved in the design of carbon labeling schemes and in the making of carbon emission measurement methodologies about an overlooked issue: How can carbon labeling be made to be both development friendly and scientifically correct in its representation of developing-country agricultural sectors?trade, carbon, development, carbon accounting, carbon labeling, exports, imports, supply chain, regulations, trade barriers

Carbon Labelling and Low Income Country Exports: An Issues Paper

In response to growing concerns over climate change, consumers and firms in developed countries are considering their carbon footprint. Carbon labelling is being explored as a mechanism for greenhouse gas emission reduction primarily by private actors. This paper discusses the carbon accounting activities and carbon labelling schemes that are being developed to address these concerns with a view to their impact on small stakeholders, especially low income countries. This discussion centres on transportation, and the common presumption that products produced locally in the country of consumption will have an advantage in terms of carbon emissions, and on size. Exports from low income countries typically depend on long distance transportation and are produced by relatively small firms and tiny farms who will find it difficult to participate in complex carbon labelling schemes. However, the popular belief that trade by definition is problematic since it necessitates transportation, which is a major source of emissions, is generally not true. The scientific evidence shows that carbon efficiencies elsewhere in the supply chain may more than offset the emissions associated with transportation. Indeed, the effective inclusion of low income countries in labelling schemes may offer important opportunities for carbon emission reductions due to their favourable climactic conditions and their current use of low energy intensive production techniques. The disadvantages of small size can be reduced by carbon labelling schemes that use innovative solutions to low cost data collection and certification.carbon labelling; exports; low income countries;

Were the 40 years of "radical pluralism" a waste of time? A response to Peter Ackers and Patrick McGovern

This paper defends a materialist analysis of employment relations against two recent critiques, by Peter Ackers and Patrick McGovern. 'Radical pluralism' is Ackers's preferred term. The critiques are useful in exposing some ritualistic uses of terms such as conflict, contradiction, and antagonism. Yet they do not damage the core of a materialist view, as opposed to some ways in which it has been deployed. Their central problem is a confusion of levels of analysis. Materialism does not say that concrete experience in the workplace can be read off from fundamental features of the employment relationship, and it does not assert or assume that conflict is the norm at the concrete level. Instead, it offers different levels of analysis. There remain, however, issues of its application to contemporary capitalism, and these are indicated

Working for Ford Forty Years On

Huw Beynon’s Working for Ford achieved celebrity when published in 1973. An assessment 40 years later identifies the lasting value of the book. Though written from a clearly stated point of view, it did not present a biased account, and it included much information permitting alternative assessments. It is also possible to construct an explanation of why the situation was as it was; this explanation turns on the technology of car plants, distinctive strategies adopted by Ford management, and the active role of workers. Though the particular events analysed in the book were of their time, the book is of more than historical interest. Its lasting value is four-fold: it explains how and why workers engage in immediate battles for control of the workplace; it indicates that workers do not choose such battles willingly and are often aware of wider concerns while lacking the means to pursue them; it points to substantial areas of continuity with the contemporary organization of labour and struggles for workers’ dignity; and it permits reflection on the possibilities of organized alternatives to current forms of work organization

High resolution cathodoluminescence hyperspectral imaging of surface features in InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well structures

InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) have been studied by using cathodoluminescence hyperspectral imaging with high spatial resolution. Variations in peak emission energies and intensities across trench-like features and V-pits on the surface of the MQWs are investigated. The MQW emission from the region inside trench-like features is red-shifted by approximately 45 meV and more intense than the surrounding planar regions of the sample, whereas emission from the V-pits is blue-shifted by about 20 meV and relatively weaker. By employing this technique to the studied nanostructures it is possible to investigate energy and intensity shifts on a 10 nm length scale.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure