Selling Australia as "clean and green"

"Green and clean" has been used as a key marketing tool to promote Australian products overseas. The rationale is that consumers are generally concerned about personal health and the environment and will choose, and pay price premiums, for products that are perceived to be clean (good for them) and green (good for the environment) over alternative products. But is Australia seen as clean and green? Is it really why people buy Australian? This paper attempts to investigate such questionsexport marketing, clean green image, Marketing,

Optimal Contracting for Cattle Feeding: An Assessment of Climatic Conditions

A unique approach using a biophysical growth model from the animal science literature is used to examine optimal contract cattle feeding behavior under alternative climatic conditions. The examination of incentives and outcomes in an unusually comprehensive contract parameter and behavioral space is made possible by combining simulated feedlot and carcass performance of a large set of cattle with public price and weather data. The model uniquely fits typical risk aversion levels and rationalizes existing contract types. The results show that optimal cattle feeding contract varies with climatic condition, but there is a tendency to replace cost-of-gain contracts with yardage-feed contracts as grid pricing has emerged.Cattle, Feeding, Contracts, Climate, Industrial Organization, D80,

Assessing the wider benefits arising from university-based research

In November 2012, the Government announced its intention to assess the broader economic, social and environmental benefits arising from all elements of government research investment, including those benefits arising from university-based research. In support of this work, the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education, in consultation with the Australian Research Council, has prepared a discussion paper on Assessing the wider benefits arising from university-based research.The discussion paper is now available at www.innovation.gov.au/impactThe department invites responses to the issues raised in the paper.A preferred template for responses is also available online.Submissions are due by 16 August 2013. Scope of this paper: Research  is  undertaken  across  many  sectors  including  industry,  universities,  research  institutes  and   publicly  funded  research  agencies.  This  paper  relates  specifically  to  research  undertaken  in   universities  because  of  the  volume  of  data  that  is  already  collected  from  these  institutions  and  the   opportunity  to  build  on  the  assessment  of  research  quality  through  the  Excellence  in  Research  for   Australia  (ERA)  initiative.  The  research  and  engagement  activities  undertaken  within  publicly  funded   research  agencies,  independent  research  institutes  and  within  business  outside  of  universities  are   out  of  scope  for  this  consultation. &nbsp

Overview of Polkadot and its Design Considerations

In this paper we describe the design components of the heterogenous multi-chain protocol Polkadot and explain how these components help Polkadot address some of the existing shortcomings of blockchain technologies. At present, a vast number of blockchain projects have been introduced and employed with various features that are not necessarily designed to work with each other. This makes it difficult for users to utilise a large number of applications on different blockchain projects. Moreover, with the increase in number of projects the security that each one is providing individually becomes weaker. Polkadot aims to provide a scalable and interoperable framework for multiple chains with pooled security that is achieved by the collection of components described in this paper

A smart contract system for decentralized borda count voting

In this article, we propose the first self-tallying decentralized e-voting protocol for a ranked-choice voting system based on Borda count. Our protocol does not need any trusted setup or tallying authority to compute the tally. The voters interact through a publicly accessible bulletin board for executing the protocol in a way that is publicly verifiable. Our main protocol consists of two rounds. In the first round, the voters publish their public keys, and in the second round they publish their randomized ballots. All voters provide Non-interactive Zero-Knowledge (NIZK) proofs to show that they have been following the protocol specification honestly without revealing their secret votes. At the end of the election, anyone including a third-party observer will be able to compute the tally without needing any tallying authority. We provide security proofs to show that our protocol guarantees the maximum privacy for each voter. We have implemented our protocol using Ethereum's blockchain as a public bulletin board to record voting operations as publicly verifiable transactions. The experimental data obtained from our tests show the protocol's potential for the real-world deployment

Selling Australia as 'Clean and Green'

'Green and clean' has been used as a key marketing tool to promote Australian products overseas. The rationale is that consumers are generally concerned about personal health and the environment and will choose, and pay price premiums, for products that are, or perceived to be, clean (good for them) and green (good for the environment) over alternative products. But is Australia seen as clean and green? Is it really why people buy Australian products? And how effective is it as a marketing tool? This paper attempts to answer some of these questions. The study found that Australia may have a clean green image at present in some of her overseas markets, but to maintain such an image over time, concrete proof of environmental and quality credentials need to be provided to satisfy increasingly more educated and better-informed consumers. Wide adoption of integrated EMS and QA systems by Australian producers and food companies appears to be a means to establish such credentials and substantiate any 'clean and green' claim. Therefore, government policies should focus more on developing a range of tools to encourage good environmental and quality management practices, rather than on promoting the 'clean and green' image. Such campaigns may be counter-productive in the long run as it leads to complacency, rather than raising environmental and quality awareness.export marketing, clean and green, EMS, QA, Environmental Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade,