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The SahulCHAR collection: a palaeofire database for Australia, New Guinea, and New Zealand
No full textRecent global fire activity has highlighted the importance of understanding fire dynamics across time and space, with records of past fire (palaeofire) providing valuable insights to inform us on current and future management challenges. New records from the recent increase in palaeofire studies from Australia and surrounds have not been captured in any database for broader comparisons, and Australasia is poorly represented in current international databases used for global modelling of palaeofire trends. These problems are addressed by SahulCHAR, a new collection of sedimentary charcoal and black carbon records from Sahul (Australia, New Guinea, and offshore islands) and Aotearoa / New Zealand. Data are stored in the OCTOPUS relational database platform, with a structure designed for compatibility with the existing Global Paleofire Database. Metadata are captured at the site level and observation level, with observations including age determinations and charcoal or black carbon data. SahulCHAR version 1 contains 687 records of charcoal or black carbon, including digitized data, unchanged and modified records from the Global Paleofire Database, and original author-submitted data. SahulCHAR is a much-needed update to past regional palaeofire compilations that will also provide greater representation of records from Sahul and Aotearoa / New Zealand in future global syntheses
Unleashing intrapreneurial capabilities of educators: transforming sustainability education in higher education
No full textPurpose – There is a lack of decision support models to assess sustainability education (SE) challenges in universities and educators’ intrapreneurial capabilities. The purpose of this study is to develop a decision support model using the dynamic capability view to assess and choose an appropriate configuration based on data collected from Australia, China and Mexico.
Design/methodology/approach – This research design first identifies SE challenges and educators’ intrapreneurial capabilities via a systematic literature review. Next, the most important SE challenges and intrapreneurial capabilities are determined by adopting the quality function deployment tool. Fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis is used to establish the best pattern of intrapreneurial capabilities to address the SE challenges and thus enhance the sustainability educational practices of universities.
Findings – The findings show SE challenges and educators’ intrapreneurial capabilities vary across universities and countries. These variations play a crucial role in determining the performance of universities. This performance is shaped by the unique interactions amongst resources, processes, people-related SE challenges and the intrapreneurial capabilities associated with new venture behaviour, innovativeness, self-renewal and the proactiveness of educators.
Originality/value – This study offers important theoretical and managerial implications of how educators’ intrapreneurial capabilities can address the challenges in resources, processes and people that influence SE, despite country-based heterogeneity
"Nature Was Breathing With Joy": The Ecological Writing of Louis Becke
No full textAlthough often typified as an Australian short story writer, Louis Becke’s literary oeuvre includes over sixty articles and stories concerning the natural environments and ecologies of the South Pacific region, his knowledge of which was so respected by his peers that he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. In The World in Which We Occur, Neil W. Browne uses the term “ecological writing” for that literary understanding of the participation between the human and natural worlds evident in this group of Becke’s works. Here, Becke observes and discusses not only animals (particularly fish and birds), as well as flora and fauna of various Pacific Islands and the Australian east coast littoral, but also human participation in those environments and ecologies that includes the Islanders’ sustainable management of their natural resources. At the turn of the nineteenth century, at a time when Americans, Europeans, and Australians alike knew little about the South Pacific, Becke articulated in his ecological writing, within his own literary ecosystem of the imagination in which writer, reader, text, landforms, creatures, and humans were vitally entwined, the complex interactions between the region’s human culture and natural world
Oxygen treatment and retrieval pathways of divers with diving-related conditions in Townsville, Australia: a 15-year retrospective review
No full textIntroduction: First aid for injured divers includes oxygen delivery prior to definitive care. Delay to specialist assessment and/or hyperbaric oxygen treatment (HBOT) may be due to dive site remoteness and limited access to facilities. Townsville has the only hyperbaric facility along the Great Barrier Reef. Analysis of oxygen therapy and retrieval pathways of divers treated in Townsville may assist with establishing future education strategies and resource allocation.
Methods: Data were retrospectively collected on divers assessed at the Townsville hyperbaric medicine unit from November 2003 through December 2018. Demographics, dive incident location, oxygen treatment, retrieval platform and pathway,
and initial disease grade were reviewed. Data are presented as frequencies and percentages.
Results: A total of 306 cases were included (184 males). Divers typically received oxygen therapy (87%, 267/305 known) prior to specialist review. The non-rebreather mask was the most frequently used (44%, 28/63) followed by in-water recompression (24%, 15/63). While 34% of the divers were retrieved from the scene (n = 104), only 11 (11%, 11/104) were retrieved directly to Townsville. Most divers initially classified as severe were retrieved from the scene (82%, 27/33), only two directly to Townsville. Fifteen cases had three retrieval legs (5%, 15/306).
Conclusions: Most injured divers received oxygen first aid and were transported to Townsville for definitive care with a variable number of retrieval stages. Continuing education of retrieval physicians should address knowledge of diving related injuries and highlight cases that may benefit from expedited transfer
The Influence of Ownership and Control on Corporate Social Responsibility in East Asia
No full textResearch Question/Issue
Underpinned by an eclectic theoretical framework of agency theory and stakeholder theory, this study examines whether control by family, institutional investors, or governments affects a firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR) in East Asian firms.
Research Findings/Insights
By examining 1236 firms in nine East Asian countries from 2010 to 2019, our findings show that family-controlled firms reduce their CSR engagement since family controller strengthens the agency problem. Additionally, agency conflicts between controlling shareholders and managers may be shifted onto the controller and other stakeholders. However, if institutional investors or the government have control power, they have a positive impact on firms' CSR since they act in the interests of stakeholders.
Theoretical/Academic Implications
This paper addresses a lacuna in the corporate governance and CSR literature by exploring the influence of ultimate control type in East Asia, a fast-developing but under-researched context. We contribute to the understanding of agency conflicts among institutional shareholders, government, family controllers, and stakeholders within East Asian firms, particularly highlighting how controllers' behavior influences CSR outcomes. We extend the discussions on the complementarity of agency and stakeholder theories to explain why different types of ultimate controllers affect CSR.
Practitioner/Policy Implications
This paper provides recommendations for embedding CSR through corporate governance, particularly in East Asia. First, for family-controlled firms, agency problems and shareholder primacy may become obstacles to achieving CSR. Corporate governance supervision policy should pay attention to when firms are controlled by a family. Second, external investors seeking a socially responsible firm may consider whether firms have higher institutional ownership or government control
The Benefits of Being Greener: Unravelling the Association Between Carbon Performance and Market Value
No full textThis study examines the interrelations among pay incentives, board sustainability committee initiative, carbon performance, and market value. Using data from listed firms in emerging economies, we find that pay incentives and board sustainability committee initiative increase the firms’ process-based carbon performance but have no similar effect on outcome-based carbon performance. We detect that board sustainability committee initiative has a positive moderating effect on the association between pay incentives and outcome-based carbon performance. We also find that higher level of process-based carbon performance is associated with low market value, but outcome-based carbon performance does not seem to impact on market value. Accordingly, two factors – namely, enhanced board sustainability committee initiatives and increased process-based carbon performance – are found to be channels through which carbon performance affects market value. Our findings call for firms, practitioners and policymakers to design and implement effective board sustainability committee initiative and pay incentive mechanisms to improve actual carbon performance
Exploring the Rise of Eco/Green Psychology Concepts in Understanding Sustainable Action
No full textPsychology is a core discipline in understanding why and howindividuals choose to engage in sustainable action. This paper uses social representations theory to explore the rising use of eco/green prefixes for psychology concepts through a critical analysis of the concept of eco/green fatigue. It argues that this term, which originated in the world of popular online news media, has typically been treated in academic psychology discussions using existing psychology concepts in the same way as eco-anxiety and eco-grief, which hides important features of the phenomenon that need to be better understood. The paper presents an analysis of eco-fatigue based on a critical review of the existing psychology literature, qualitative online archival analyses, and an exploratory quantitative survey study. The survey study was conducted with a sample of 182 students and non-students and analysed using principal components and cluster analysis. The paper provides evidence that simply adding an eco/green prefix to an existing psychology concept without a systematic empirical investigation into the phenomenon can result in overly simplistic conceptual frameworks that do not lead to sound practical conclusions. A preliminary empirical examination of the social representation of eco-fatigue in the public arena suggested that inappropriate sustainability messaging and bad business behaviour may be more of a barrier to sustainability action than the beliefs or attitudes held by individuals
Real-World Effectiveness of Sotrovimab in Patients Infected With SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Subvariant BA.2 in Western Sydney, Australia
No full textLaboratory-based findings suggest that Sotrovimab is significantly less effective against emerging CARS-CoV-2 variants, however, clinical data is lacking. Here we examined the effectiveness of sotrovimab, in preventing emergency department (ED) presentation and subsequent hospitalization in high-risk subgroups of patients during the SARS-CoV-2 Delta and Omicron waves in Western Sydney, Australia (n = 515). Risk for ED attendance was comparable in Omicron patients, whether BA.1 or BA.2, compared to Delta patients (hazard ratio of 0.97 [0.36–2.64]). These findings highlight the need for caution when using in vitro findings to drive clinical practice, especially when the consequence is to withhold potentially lifesaving treatment
Collaborative planning of virtual power plants with diversified and flexible resources that balances fairness and efficiency
No full textUnder the the goal of carbon emission peak and carbon neutrality, the function of virtual power plant (VPP) in aggregating massive and diverse distributed flexible resources is becoming increasingly prominent. Clarifying the business model, key issues, and target demands of VPP is conducive to the potential exploration of flexible resources and VPP and the low-carbon and zero-carbon construction of the new power system. Meanwhile, concerns about fairness at the social level are also strengthening. Energy fairness is related to basic production and life. Moreover, as the operation of flexible resources may involve different participants, the demand for fairness in VPP planning and scheduling is even more intense compared with traditional scenarios. Therefore, this paper introduces fairness measurement standards in the VPP planning and proposes aggregation, invocation, and benefit distribution schemes considering fairness and efficiency. Firstly, considering the VPP market interaction and the contracted scheduling of distributed energy resources (DERs) comprehensively, a medium and long-term scheduling revenue model for DER and VPP is established. Next, the VPP combinatorial optimization under uncertain risks and the collaborative optimization of DER decisions with fairness concerns are carried out, and they are solved with the help of a two-stage optimization model based on the idea of signing first and then scheduling. Then, the optimization of the DER renewal rate and the influence of the regional capacity load limit are explored. Finally, from the analysis of specific calculation cases and data results, it is concluded that the compression of the revenue space of VPP by fairness concerns is actually rather limited. However, it is necessary to establish reasonable market-based pricing for flexible resources such as battery energy storage system and interruptible loads to avoid vicious competition and investment waste
BackFillMe: An Energy and Performance Efficient Virtual Machine Scheduler for IaaS Datacenters
No full textBackfilling refers to the practice of allowing small jobs to be completed ahead of schedule as long as they do not cause the first job in the line to wait. Users are expected to offer estimates of how long jobs will take to complete in order to make these decisions possible, and these projections are often based on historical data. However, predictions are very hard and may not be accurate, particularly in cloud computing scenarios where jobs or applications run on Virtual Machines (VMs). In addition, scheduling and consolidation techniques can improve the energy efficiency and performance of applications. Consolidation involves VM migrations that can have a negative impact on workload performance and users’ costs. Backfilling can be used as an alternative technique for consolidation (short-term) and/or can be used along with consolidation (long-term). Backfilling methods are well-utilised in single computing systems, but are relatively unexplored in cloud resource allocation. A backfilling-based resource allocation and consolidation technique is proposed. Using real workloads from the Google cluster traces, we investigate the impact of backfilling on infrastructure energy efficiency and performance. For 12583 heterogeneous servers and approximately three million jobs that belong to three different applications, we observed that approximately 19% energy savings and 6% workload performance improvements are achievable using the backfilling approach. Furthermore, our evaluation suggests that using VM runtime as a criterion for the backfilling approach is approximately 3.56%–7.78% more energy and 1.91%–3.38% more performance efficient than using priority as a backfilling criterion