Strategic Interests in Australian Defence Policy: Some Historical and Methodological Reflections

The first, and often the hardest, step in any defence policy is to define strategic objectives—what we want our armed forces to be able to do. This is especially hard for a country like Australia, because most of the circumstances in which we would rely on the Australian Defence Force most heavily are only credible if the international order in Asia were to have changed significantly. How can we decide what we would want our armed forces to do in a region very different from the one we know today? This problem has become more acute since the early 1990s, because the end of the Cold War and the rise of China have increased the probability of major systemic change in Asia. This essay explores an approach to identifying long-term strategic objectives in these circumstances. The approach it is based on a specific conception of strategic interests, defined as those factors in the international order that significantly affect the likelihood or seriousness of armed attack on Australia. This essay also describes how this approach was developed in the 1990s and applied in the 2000 White Paper, and considers its applicability in future defence policy

Urban sustainable development and the challenge of French metropolitan strategies. GSPE Working Paper 11/04/2008

This article focuses on some salient issues of urban sustainable development in France, specifically with regard to six urban agglomerations: Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Montpellier, Nantes and Toulouse. The reticular dimension of these issues is analysed with reference to the ways a plurality of actors imagine, project and realise the construction of cities, rather than through sectoral points of view. This relational approach is divided according to a triple focus in which we successively address: firstly, the state of SD policies in the listed major French cities, in terms of contents and conception; secondly, their implementation from the perspective of instruments; and finally, the circuits of their realisation. Thus, urban SD appears within a (locally variable) set of linkages that place these issues firmly in areas of interrelations and intersections

La modularité produit et chaîne logistique dans un contexte collaboratif et durable : revue de littérature et cadre conceptuel

International audienceAujourd'hui, l'entreprise se trouve face à de nouveaux enjeux socioéconomiques, de nouvelles contraintes réglementaires et des aspirations louables de ses collaborateurs et de l'opinion publique. Elle doit être profitable et seule l'innovation qui crée les richesses peut assurer sa pérennité. Néanmoins, elle se doit d'intégrer les préoccupations sociales et environnementales dans ses activités et ses interactions avec l'ensemble des parties prenantes. Notre approche résulte d'un équilibre entre les différents aspects (2ES) : Economique, Environnemental et Social pris en compte lors de la conception conjointe d'un produit et de la chaîne logistique associée. Cet article vise l'établissement d'une approche concourante, facilitant l'optimisation de la conception conjointe dans un contexte durable avec une forte considération de la collaboration et de la modularité de produit et de la chaîne logistique. Pour mieux positionner notre contribution nous dressons une revue de littérature avec un focus sur l'ingénierie concourante et le développement durable et nous définissons un cadre conceptuel de nos travaux de recherche

Programme D'appui Aux Réformes du Secteur de L'énergie et à la Gouvernance Financière

The report presents the aid give by BAD to reform industrial sector in Comoros

A Conditional Defense of Shame and Shame Punishment

This paper makes two essential claims about the nature of shame and shame punishment. I argue that, if we properly understand the nature of shame, that it is sometimes justifiable to shame others in the context of a pluralistic multicultural society. I begin by assessing the accounts of shame provided by Cheshire Calhoun (2004) and Julien Deonna, Raffaele Rodogno, & Fabrice Teroni (2012). I argue that both views have problems. I defend a theory of shame and embarrassment that connects both emotions to “whole-self” properties. Shame and embarrassment, I claim, are products of the same underlying emotion. I distinguish between moralized and nonmoralized shame in order to show when, and how, moral and non-moral shame may be justly deployed. Shame is appropriate, I argue, if and only if it targets malleable moral or non-moral normative imperfections of a person’s ‘whole-self.’ Shame is unjustifiable when it targets durable aspects of a person’s “whole-self.” I conclude by distinguishing shame punishments from guilt punishments and show that my account can explain why it is wrong to shame individuals on account of their race, sex, gender, or body while permitting us to sometimes levy shame and shame punishment against others, even those otherwise immune to moral reasons

Commerce équitable comme vecteur de développement durable ?

Issu des initiatives de commerce alternatif, le commerce équitable d’aujourd’hui propose une nouvelle façon de faire du commerce. Le commerce équitable prétend même favoriser le développement durable. L’objectif de cet article était de voir les limites et les contributions du commerce équitable au développement durable à partir du cas d’une organisation de producteurs de café équitable au Mexique. Partant d’une conception tripolaire hiérarchisée du développement durable, nous démontrons que le commerce équitable tel qu’il est vécu s’éloigne de cette conception. Si le commerce équitable permet l’amélioration des conditions de vie des producteurs, à long terme, le virage commercial dans lequel il s’engage risque de compromettre la portée du commerce équitable à réellement instituer le développement durable.Originating from the initiatives of alternative trade, the fair trade movement proposes a new way of making trade. Fair trade claims to fulfill the requirements of sustainable development. The purpose of this article was to evaluate the limits and the contributions of fair trade to sustainable development starting from the case of an organization of fair trade coffee producers of Mexico. On the basis of a tripolar hierarchy definition of sustainable development, we show that fair trade moves away from this design. If fair trade is responsible for the improvement of living conditions of producers, in the long run, its mainstream tendancy risks to compromise its capacity to really institute sustainable development

Community Economic Development: A Reflection on Community, Power and the Law

In this Article, Professor Diamond explores the nature of community. He specifically examines the potential for economic development as a means for achieving the growth of political power and institutions in economically depressed neighborhood communities and the proper role of the neighborhood attorney in facilitating this expansion

Recent Advances in Design of Low Cost Film Concentrator and Low Pressure Free Piston Stirling Engines for Solar Power

The free piston Stirling-linear alternator was shown to be scalable to power levels of tens of kilowatts in a form which is simple, efficient, long lived and relatively inexpensive. It avoids entirely the vexing problem of high pressure shaft, and its control requirements are not severe nor do they represent a significant threat to durability. Linear alternators have demonstrated high efficiency and moderate weight, and are capable of delivering 3 phase power from single machines without great increases of cost or complexity. There remains no apparent impediments to the commercial exploitation of the free piston engine for solar electric power generation

Rasch Model and Multidimensional Poverty Measurement

The topic of the multidimensionality of poverty is currently at the heart of many theoretical, empirical and institutional debates in the European Union. Despite this increasing interest, there seems to be no consensus on how to define and measure multidimensional poverty. Two aspects may be considered in measuring poverty: the number of dimensions and the nature of the underlying continuum. The question of the dimensionality of poverty, one versus many dimensions, has to be resolved in applying specific multidimensional methods, like factor analysis, where the one-dimensional solution is a special case of the multidimensional procedure. The question of the nature of the continuum concerns the relationship between the items in each dimension. Two kinds of relationship are considered here: homogeneous and hierarchical. In this paper, the interest of the Rasch model for verifying the hierarchical and cumulative nature of the relationship between the items is underlined. After presenting the main characteristics of the model, and its adjustment for testing poverty, an application confirming the multidimensional nature of poverty is performed on a Luxemburgish dataset (PSELL-3).multidimensional poverty ; Rasch model ; accumulation of disadvantages