197 research outputs found
Peri-urbanisation, Social Heterogeneity and Ecological Simplification
No full textPeri-urban development pressure on and near Australian coastlines is resulting in the conversion of agricultural land for rural-residential use. The impact of larger and more diverse human populations upon the ecological assets remaining in agricultural landscapes has consequently become a policy concern. This paper contributes to these policy debates by integrating the results of parallel social and ecological research projects commissioned to improve natural resource management in peri-urbanising regions. The research was undertaken in the case study region of South East Queensland, the region supporting Australia’s most rapid population growth. Our results indicate that both social and ecological communities cross a fragmentation threshold due to peri-urban development whereby they become ecologically simple and socially heterogeneous in a coupling that cedes a poor diagnosis for biodiversity retention.stored soil water, dryland grain cropping, extension, social systems, RD&E, differentiation
The code of society transformation in social work : modelling the construction of Lithuanian social work professionalization
No full textei tietoa saavutettavuudest
Reflexive governance of urban catchments: A case of deliberative truncation
No full textIntegrated, collaborative governance arrangements are viewed as answering the limitations of the liberal, democratic state in the face of 'wicked' policy dilemmas such as environmental degradation. The nature of institutional resistance to governance experiments, however, has received limited attention. This paper explores a case of such resistance by the New South Wales political system: the decision to disband the Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment Management Trust. This discontinuation of the administrative coordination and community engagement aimed at restoring the health of Sydney's major river system is herein characterised as a deliberative truncation. Discussion of what would constitute constructive ecological institutional and policy settings was cut short by intolerant notions of efficacy sustained by political/administrative routines. Analysis of this truncation is progressed through a nexus between three mutually informative theories of modernity dealing with the policy challenges facing liberal democratic societies today
Democracy, consultation and socio-environmental degradation : diagnostic insights from the Western Sydney/Hawkesbury-Nepean region
No full textThe use of community consultation to address socio-environmental degradation is entwined with contested democratic principles polarising views of its role. I frame this problem by examining three democratic paradigms faced with two contemporary problems. The deliberative argument that preferences require enrichment with debate mediates between the liberal-aggregative view that preferences are individual, private and amenable to aggregation and the view that participation in public life is foundational. Viewing consultation as deliberative reconciles the liberal-aggregative view of consultation as the illegitimate elevation of unrepresentative minority groups with the participationist view that consultation constitutes a step towards participatory democracy. Theorists of social reflexivity, however, point to an elided politics of knowledge challenging technoscience's exemption from politically garnered consent. Also neglected by much democratic theory is how functional differentiation renders self-referential legal, political, technoscientific and administrative domains increasingly unaccountable. I employ Habermas' procedural theory that public spheres allow social irritations into the political domain where they can be encoded into laws capable of systemic interjection in response, along with a dialogic extension accommodating the politics of knowledge. I then use this procedural-dialogic deliberative understanding of democracy to elucidate the context and outcomes of the NSW State's consultative strategy. The NSW state, institutionally compelled to underwrite economic growth, implicating itself in that growth's socio-environmental side effects provoking widespread contestation. The resulting Environmental Planning and Assessment Act (1979) and its adjunctive consultative provisions helped highlight the socio-environmental degradation of the Hawkesbury Nepean River Catchment via Western Sydney's urban sprawl, politicising the region. The convenement of a consultative forum to oversee a contaminated site audit within the region facilitated incisive lay critique of the technoscientific underpinnings of administrative underwriting of socio-environmental degradation. The discomforted NSW State tightened environmental policy, gutted the EP&A Act's consultative provisions and removed regional dialogic forums and institutions. I conclude that the socio-economic accord equating economic growth with social progress is both entrenched and besieged, destabilising the political/administrative/technoscientific regime built upon it. This withdrawal of avenues for critique risks deeper estrangement between reflexive society and the NSW State generative of electoral volatility
The influence of agronomic advice upon soil water thresholds used for planting decisions in Southern Queensland’s grains region
No full textAt least two decades of sustained research, development and extension (RD&E) effort was undertaken in Southern Queensland’s broad acre cropping zone regarding the role of stored soil water in crop performance. Grain industry concern that the resulting insights into stored soil water were not being integrated into the planting decisions of grain producers was raised when a series of dry years culminated in widespread wheat crop failure across Southern Queensland’s Darling Downs in the winter of 2007. This paper reports on a resulting qualitative investigation into the use of stored soil water research in planting decisions in this cropping region of Australia. A dual sample of grain producer and agronomic RD&E advisors were interviewed in-depth in order to establish what planting strategies were used by grain producers, explore the relationship between these strategies and agronomic advice, as well as the relationship between grain grower’s planting decisions and their short and long term economic objectives. We found that all of the interviewees understood the role of stored soil water in crop performance. However, this understanding supported three distinct planting decision strategies: plant only when a stored soil water threshold has been reached; take the opportunity to plant at least some crop each season; and plant at the appropriate time to maximise crop yield and consider stored soil water a bonus. These planting strategies were perceived by the interviewees to be aligned to agronomic advice differentiated by its commercial terms. Private agronomists, hired via an annual retainer, tended to be associated with the first planting strategy while retail agronomists, hired through the purchase of chemicals, were perceived as associated with the second strategy. These results indicate that an industry wide comparison of planting strategies in terms of yield outcomes and economic performance over multiple years is warranted in order to facilitate industry wide discussion of the trade-offs between long term enterprise profitability and short term economic pressures.
Research highlights
► This paper examines widespread dryland crop failure in 2007 in Southern Queensland Australia. ► The study found that grain producers used 3 PAW strategies for managing planting risk. ► Private and retail agronomists offer different PAW advice to clients
The influence of agronomic advice upon soil water thresholds used for planting decisions in Southern Queensland's grains region
No full textAt least two decades of sustained research, development and extension (RD&E) effort was undertaken in Southern Queensland's broad acre cropping zone regarding the role of stored soil water in crop performance. Grain industry concern that the resulting insights into stored soil water were not being integrated into the planting decisions of grain producers was raised when a series of dry years culminated in widespread wheat crop failure across Southern Queensland's Darling Downs in the winter of 2007. This paper reports on a resulting qualitative investigation into the use of stored soil water research in planting decisions in this cropping region of Australia. A dual sample of grain producer and agronomic RD&E advisors were interviewed in-depth in order to establish what planting strategies were used by grain producers, explore the relationship between these strategies and agronomic advice, as well as the relationship between grain grower's planting decisions and their short and long term economic objectives. We found that all of the interviewees understood the role of stored soil water in crop performance. However, this understanding supported three distinct planting decision strategies: plant only when a stored soil water threshold has been reached; take the opportunity to plant at least some crop each season; and plant at the appropriate time to maximise crop yield and consider stored soil water a bonus. These planting strategies were perceived by the interviewees to be aligned to agronomic advice differentiated by its commercial terms. Private agronomists, hired via an annual retainer, tended to be associated with the first planting strategy while retail agronomists, hired through the purchase of chemicals, were perceived as associated with the second strategy. These results indicate that an industry wide comparison of planting strategies in terms of yield outcomes and economic performance over multiple years is warranted in order to facilitate industry wide discussion of the trade-offs between long term enterprise profitability and short term economic pressures.Plant available water Dryland grain cropping Extension Social systems RD&E
Baigiamasis darbas – profesinio bakalauro studijų rezultatas
No full textThe article examines the procedure and issues of preparation, defence and assessment of graduation papers of students majoring in accounting at the Faculty of Economy of Vilnius College. A graduation paper – a generalization of all study results on which basis the author is awarded a professional bachelor’s degree – is the most important form of student’s independent work that discloses his/her preparedness for work. While preparing and defending a graduation paper, graduates have a possibility to demonstrate the knowledge acquired as well as practical skills. The graduation paper analyses theoretical and practical aspects of the formation and implementation of an accounting policy in a business company; provides conclusions and suggestions for future perspectives. After examining and analysing the preparation and assessment of graduate papers in the accounting study programme at the Faculty of Economics of Vilnius College, it may be claimed that the most popular topics of graduation papers in 2013 were as follows: preparation of a set of financial statements and analysis of indicators; accounting and analysis of fixed tangible assets; accounting and analysis of income.
The defence of graduation papers is a public procedure and takes place in a sitting-meeting of a Qualifying Commission appointed by order of the Director of Vilnius College and is assessed in conformity with the procedure laid down in the methodological instructions for study works. Reviewers and the Qualifying Commission evaluated the majority of graduation papers as “excellent” and “good”. In terms of the competences achieved it may be claimed that 92 percent of all the graduation papers were evaluated at the highest (9-10 points) and average (7-8 points) level.Buhalterinės apskaitos studijų programa baigiama absolvento kompetencijos įvertinimu – baigiamojo darbo rengimu ir gynimu. Baigiamasis darbas visų studijų rezultatų apibendrinimas, kurio pagrindu autoriui suteikiamas profesinis bakalauras. Diplomantai rengdami bei gindami baigiamąjį darbą turi galimybę pademonstruoti praktinius gebėjimus ir įgūdžius. Darbe analizuojami verslo įmonės apskaitos politikos formavimo ir įgyvendinimo teoriniai bei praktiniai aspektai, pateikiamos išvados ir siūlymai veiklos perspektyvoms. Straipsnyje nagrinėjama Vilniaus kolegijos Ekonomikos fakulteto buhalterinės apskaitos absolventų baigiamųjų darbų rengimo, gynimo, vertinimo tvarka, problemos
What is metropolitan planning?
No full textBrendan Gleeson, Toni Darbas, Laurel Johnson and Suzanne Lawson develop an operational framework for describing and analysing metropolitan plans. The framework aims to provide a basis for describing and analysing current metropolitan plans with reference to key Australian and overseas debates about urban strategic planning, and provide an operational structure for the formulation of a metropolitan plan. This is the first of four reports for Planning NSW. Brendan Gleeson, Toni Darbas, Laurel Johnson and Suzanne Lawson develop an operational framework for describing and analysing metropolitan plans. The framework aims to provide a basis for describing and analysing current metropolitan plans with reference to key Australian and overseas debates about urban strategic planning, and provide an operational structure for the formulation of a metropolitan plan. This is the first of four reports for Planning NSW. Direct access to all four PDF files are: What is metropolitan planning? Making a difference with metropolitan strategy: overseas evidence Making a difference with metropolitan strategy: Australian evidence The difference metropolitan strategies make: lessons to be learne
Governance, sustainability and recent Australian metropolitan strategies: a socio-theoretic analysis
No full textThis article examines the response of planning to the challenges highlighted by current governance and sustainability discourses. To this end, an archaeology of the contested and shifting aims and objects of planning is employed to inform the analytic interrogation of five Australian metropolitan planning strategies. Analysis of the conceptual heritage of planning along with the emergent preoccupations with the planning governance and urban sustainability yields five key themes: policy, space, planning governance, finance and democracy. We deploy these in a critical review of contemporary Australian metropolitan strategies. The resulting empirical analysis suggests that an integrated planning paradigm, centrally concerned with urban sustainability, is coalescing within contemporary strategic planning systems. We argue that this strategic reorientation of growth management around broad sustainability and democratic concerns has the potential to reanimate planning and resecure its socio-political footings.Griffith Sciences, Griffith School of EnvironmentNo Full Tex
Grupių geometrija ir topologija
No full textThis short note is a slightly expanded version of the talk given by the author at the 54th LMD Conference, devoted to present a very informal and brief introduction to the main ideas of the asymptotic geometry of groups.Šis darbas yra trumpas įvadas į asimptotinę geometrinę grupių teoriją
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